Women, Sex and OrgasmThe concept of fear of loss of love object, the concept of fear of loss of love, and the idea of separation from the love object is a kind of anxiety particularly characteristic of women. Women have been observed in several studies to be especially sensitive to potential separation from those with whom they have close relationships. This sensitivity has been detected in their responses to questionnaires about the kinds of things they fear. It has also evidenced itself in the themes of stories they create and in brief samples of their stream of thought. It might be argued that from infancy on, females are encouraged to be people and home oriented; that parents tend to use withdrawal of love rather than physical punishment in disciplining girls and thus their extreme sensitivity to this threat. One cannot but be impressed with the fact that a species of anxiety that has been identified in the literature as typifying women should turn out to be a significant element in making them unable to orgasm during intercourse. If threatened withdrawal of love is one of the common ways of disciplining girls, it would follow that an "anti-orgasm" vector is built right into the current modal style of rearing girls. Perhaps this accounts for the high frequency with which orgasm difficulties are encountered in women. It is a paradox that the very socialization experiences that give rise to certain aspects of what we call a feminine orientation may simultaneously be generating an incapacity to cope with the conditions associated with orgasmic levels of excitement. If there are any cultures in the world in which the socialization of the girl does not involve focusing her anxieties upon potential separation from love objects, they would provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the role of fear of loss of love objects upon orgasm consistency. Obviously, one would expect orgasm consistency rates to be unusually high in such cultures. Relevant to this same issue, the thought presents itself that even within our culture it might be possible on the basis of an analysis of child-rearing practices to demonstrate changes over the last several generations in the degree to which girls are instilled with anxiety about separation from love objects. If so, one would conjecture that it would be found that there has been a gradual decline in the practice, and so there should be a perceptible parallel increase in orgasmic consistency. One is reminded, in this respect, that Kinsey reported that orgasm consistency rates for married women were higher in women born after 1900 than before that date, and in fact show a trend to increase in succeeding generations after 1900. Regrettably, there has been no corresponding increase in men's' ability to control premature ejaculation! If concern about loss of love objects does actually contribute to a woman's orgasmic difficulties, does this not raise the possibility that the behavior of her sex partner, who is, after all, one of the most important in the class of current "love objects," may also be significantly involved? This question is asked in the face of the fact that previous intensive studies have not been able to demonstrate that a woman's orgasmic capacity is correlated in any noteworthy way with the attributes or behavior of her partner. These studies have not only examined reports of the sex behavior of the partner but have also examined measures of his personality, social status, and the like. Even so, one must question whether they concerned themselves sufficiently with patterns of partner behavior that might particularly affect a woman's feelings about loss of sex object. For example, since men probably also vary in their anxiety about potential loss of love object, is it possible that a partner with high concern of this kind might reinforce an analogous concern in his woman - and in so doing decrease her orgasm consistency? But if his anxiety about object loss were unusually low he might also communicate this feeling to his woman and in the process give her reassurance that would counter her own uncertainties about loss. Perhaps a partner can intensify or decrease his woman's concern about object loss in terms of how much his work keeps him away from home or how often he communicates in an empathic fashion with her or the degree to which he expresses anger by sulking and going off by himself rather than openly ventilating it. Such behavior patterns and others of a related order are difficult to measure and one can definitely say that they have not been adequately evaluated in previous studies of how partner attitudes and woman orgasm consistency are correlated. Apropos of this matter, one is reminded that Masters and Johnson stated that successful treatment of a woman with orgasmic problems requires that she be seen conjointly with her partner (as a "unit"). They saw the man as playing a significant part in helping his woman to overcome orgasm inhibitions. More successful than the psychologically-oriented studies have been several concerned with the relationship of orgasm consistency to broad sociological variables such as education and social class. An earlier review of the literature indicated that with increasing education or increasing social class women show greater orgasm consistency. Kinsey detected such positive correlations between orgasm consistency and both social class and education. One can reason that the more limited a woman's education or the lower her social class the more likely she is to have come from an economically deprived background in which uncertainty about loss would be magnified. This uncertainty might stem from the greater probability of occurrence of such events as sudden loss of family income, desertion by father, and serious illness among family members. The lower socioeconomic family context is one in which there is less assurance that one's parents will be able to provide necessary resources and that they will remain consistently available for relationships. Chronic exposure during childhood to unpredictability might instill the sort of concern about loss of objects that has been found to be correlated with low-orgasm consistency. It must be reiterated that no data has been uncovered that would indicate that the likelihood of how to have an orgasm is a function of rate of physiological maturation or gross physical attributes. Orgasm consistency is, for example, not correlated with age of menarche and age of development of axillary or pubic hair. It is also not related to indices of body size (for example, height, weight, breast size), menstrual characteristics (namely, irregularity, duration of flow), and a variety of measures of autonomic response at multiple sites on the body. Quite surprising is the fact that it is not correlated with indicators of amount of arousal or activation of the genital and breast regions (for example, as ascertained by vaginal and breast temperatures) under various conditions. Generally, it can, with justification, be said that no convincing relationships have yet been established between orgasm consistency in women and specific physiological or physical factors. This does not, of course, rule out the possibility that there really are such factors or that genetic influences may be of some importance.
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