How do Men and Women Describe Their Orgasms Within the Heterosexual Relationship?

What is it about?

The subjective orgasm experience refers to the evaluation of the intensity of the orgasm at a psychological level. In the context of the sexual relationship within a heterosexual partner, different studies have reported how this experience is associated to sociodemographic variables, as well as with sexual functioning and sexual health dimensions. However, no previous study had provided detailed information about the descriptions of the orgasm neither the descriptions have been ordered according to the frequency of the qualifiers most used to describe the orgasm in men and women. In this line, this study have examined how over 1,600 heterosexual adults from the general Spanish population describe the intensity of their orgasms creating rankings of the qualifiers most frequently used to describe the orgasm experience. To do so, voluntary participants have been evaluated using the Orgasm Rating Scale (ORS), a measuring scale composed of 25 adjective items that describe the orgasm experience across four dimensions (affective, sensory, intimacy, and rewards). The results of the study show differences across sex in the global orgasm experience, showing women a higher perception of the orgasmic intensity. About the dimensionality, men show higher intensity in the rewards from the orgasm and women in the affectivity and sensory aspects, while in terms of intimacy there are no differences across sex. Regarding the rankings, in the results obtained it was highlighted that the first five adjectives of the ranking for men and those for women were exactly the same (pleasurable, elated, satisfying, exciting, and fulfilling), all of them belonged to the affective dimension. In both sexes, the least chosen adjectives belonged to the sensory dimension (i.e., trembling, flushing shooting, and wild).

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Photo by Claudia Love on Unsplash

Photo by Claudia Love on Unsplash

Why is it important?

the research concluded that the description of the intensity of the orgasm in the context of sexual relationship differ between heterosexual men and women, describing women more intensely the psychological characteristics of the orgasm. However, the first and last adjectives of the ranking that describe the orgasm experience are similar in both sexes.

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