Quote of the Day

Beyond the links to sexual satisfaction and positive emotional reactions, research indicates more complicated findings surrounding women’s feelings about orgasm. When women are asked directly about the role orgasm plays in their lives, women often explicitly state that they do not care whether or not they orgasm. However, indirectly, another story emerges. Women who orgasm are much more satisfied with encounters than those who do not. Indeed, women are five times more likely to enjoy a sexual encounter if they orgasmed during the experience. In sum, orgasm is strongly related to sexual satisfaction, even though women indicate it is not important for them.

A great deal of this incoherence may be explained when considering expectations and the importance women attribute to their own orgasms. Regarding orgasms as relevant for one’s sexual well-being was found to be one of the strongest predictors of orgasm frequency. So, in turn, the relationship may be simple: if I experience orgasm then I expect orgasm, and if I expect orgasm, it becomes more relevant for my sexual satisfaction, desire and pleasure. This implies that orgasms are not irrelevant for female sexual well-being, but rather the lower frequency of their occurrence may lead women to alter their expectations, and say that they are fully satisfied even if they orgasm “only” 60% of the time.

Marie-Feline Dienberg, Tanja Oschatz, Jennifer L. Piemonte & Verena Klein
August 17, 2023
Women’s Orgasm and Its Relationship with Sexual Satisfaction and Well-being | Current Sexual Health Reports | Springer Nature Link

Via Peri-orgasmic phenomena: Why some laugh, cry during climaxing (side note from my own related survey: one woman told me her nose itches uncontrollably after she has an orgasm another said the “Oh god!” cries were because “It feels so good I think I’m going to die.”).

For me, most of the paper was “blah, blah, blah <nothing really new, did you need to write a paper on this?>.” But the information above was new and interesting to me. But it does make sense from a broader psychological perspective.

People rationalize their situation. People without much money will tell themselves and others, “Money can’t buy happiness/love/etc.” Or, the old adage, “I felt sorry for myself when I did not have shoes until I met a man with no feet.” Or the ancient Aesop’s tale of the fox and the grapes.

And closer to my usual topics, people deprived of their inalienable right to keep and bear arms will claim they are safer without guns in the hands of private citizens, discounting or oblivious to the many genocides of unarmed citizens.