Women, Sex and Orgasm
Psychoanalytic TheoryMost of the major theories concerning the psychological factors in sexual behavior are directly or indirectly of psychoanalytic origin. The core aspects of these theories were reviewed earlier, and so the pertinent details are not repeated at this point. Psychoanalysts such as Freud have attributed women's problems in sexual responsiveness primarily to variables such as Oedipal conflict, guilt, fear of body damage (resulting, for example, from penetration or pregnancy), and fixation at immature psychosexual levels. How have such concepts fared in the light of the empirical information that has become available? Although the empirical findings support psychoanalytic theory in its general emphasis on the importance of early socialization influences, they rarely fit with more specific psychoanalytic formulations. One of the first major disparities that should be mentioned involved the analytic notion that sexual responsiveness is a fundamental indicator of psychological maturity and "mental health." The analytic view is that psychosexual maturity is reflected in knowing how to achieve orgasm during intercourse and even more specifically in the ability to have a so-called vaginal orgasm (read more at http://www.women-come-first.com/orgasms0.html). The vaginal orgasm has been treated in the analytic literature as one of the prime signs of whether a woman is truly mature and possessed of a sound ego structure. It has already been pointed out in several contexts that the real facts are otherwise. A woman's orgasm consistency is not linked with how psychologically immature or disturbed she is. As for the vaginal orgasm, not only is there now considerable skepticism that such a species really exists in pure form but there is also evidence that preference for vaginal as compared to clitoral stimulation is linked with variables (for example, depersonalized body attitudes and elevated anxiety) that would hardly be classified as indicative of superior ego strength. Another major analytic proposition asserts that a woman's difficulties in reaching orgasm stem from her inability to resolve her Oedipal conflicts. Presumably, the non-orgasmic woman experiences her current sexual relationship in distorted, anxiety-provoking, guilt-evocative terms that derive from the fact that she equates it with her original Oedipal involvement with her father (and the jealous, competitive mother). It is difficult to judge in a straightforward way whether the empirical findings support such a formulation. One of the problems in rendering a judgment is the simple fact that there are many combinations of Oedipal elements and even more complex permutations as to how they may be potentially expressed. For example, Oedipal difficulties with the father may theoretically be expressed in both over-attachment and unusual hostility toward him. Things are similarly complicated with respect to how Oedipal difficulties with the mother are supposedly manifested. Since orgasm consistency with the current sex partner is related to attitudes toward the father, one could argue that the Oedipal formulation has gained some support, insofar as a tie between feelings toward the father and behavior with respect to a contemporary sex object was affirmed. However, since feelings about the mother are also a basic component of the Oedipal dilemma, and since no correlations seem to exist between orgasm consistency and attitudes toward the mother, one could argue that the findings, at this level, do not support the overall model about how Oedipal factors inhibit sexual responsiveness. The truth is that one will have difficulty in arriving at any clear-cut decisions with respect to this matter until more precise hypotheses can be extracted concerning the relationship of sexual behavior to the manner in which the father and mother are perceived. Another factor often mentioned in the psychoanalytic literature as important in inhibiting a woman's orgasm potential is fear of being penetrated. It is said that anxiety about the consequences of the penis entering her body not infrequently prevent a woman from becoming sexually aroused during intercourse. Presumably the penetrating penis stirs up fantasies about internal injury, potential body damage consequent to becoming pregnant, and so forth. Relatedly, it has often been said in the analytic literature that most women envy the penis, and that this envy may evoke competitive fantasies that, when intensified by sexual interactions, interfere with loving and being loved, and thus prevent orgasmic levels of excitement. No support has been found in the empirical data for either of these two formulations. Several measures of body anxiety and concern about body vulnerability proved to have only chance correlations with orgasm consistency. Also, a number of indices (for example, ratio of male to female figures in inkblot images, degree of femininity of interests, and feelings about male versus female superiority) do not indicate relationships of consequence between orgasm consistency and attitudes with regard to male-female competition. In general, one would have to declare that psychoanalytic concepts about sexual responsiveness in women have been largely unsupported by the available empirical evidence. The existing literature concerned with male-female differences does not support the psychoanalytic proposition that a woman experiences her body as inferior to that of the man. In fact, the woman was found to have less body anxiety than the man and probably a greater sense that her body is meaningfully tied to her identity and life goals. The Feminine ImageCertain psychological qualities accompany being a woman in Western culture. These qualities, which were previously described, cohere around several themes: interest in close interpersonal involvement with others, nurturant orientation, relative lack of investment in hostile and aggressive modes, delay in final role structuring until marriage, close identification of one's body with prime life goals, and relative feelings of inhibition about motility in space. Orgasm consistency and other measures of sexual responsiveness are only slightly related to whether a woman fits the feminine image as defined by such themes. Aggressive women are just as sexually responsive as non-aggressive women. Similarly there are no apparent differences in ability to attain sexual arousal in those low versus high in nurturance, sociability, body security, and sheer femininity of interests. Sexual responsiveness is not generally a function of how well a woman conforms to the usual definition of the feminine life style. A number of techniques to find out the degree to which the women in the samples studied reject conventional femininity and are actually interested in emulating masculine values showed that amount of satisfaction with the feminine role, acceptance of established definitions of the woman's place in the family, political-economic conservatism, and so forth had no consistent or generalized relationships with the repertory of sex responsiveness indices. A woman can be in revolt against the societal definition of femininity and still be highly responsive sexually. The woman who fits the feminine model perfectly may be seriously lacking in her ability to become sexually aroused. Those qualities that figure most perceptibly in a woman's ability to enjoy sexual stimulation seem not so much to be linked to definitions of femininity as anchored in broader attitudes that cut across sex classification. Factors such as concern about loss of objects, feelings of body depersonalization, religiosity, and amount of faith in the father are important in the psychological make-up of any human being, regardless of sex. it is difficult to think of a single measure specifically tapping an aspect of femininity that was consistently correlated with measures of sexual responsiveness. This point is pertinent to other formulations that have indirectly tied sexual responsiveness to femininity through the functioning of the reproductive system. It has been popular to theorize that the woman who is adequate sexually will experience a minimum of difficulties in those physiological systems that concern reproduction and define her structurally as a woman. Presumably, the sexually adequate woman would have relatively few menstrual symptoms, would easily conceive, would have a minimum of pregnancy complications, and so forth. Such theorizing proceeds explicitly or implicitly on the premise that sexual responsiveness and the functioning of the reproductive system should be related either because they both involve pelvic organ systems or because they are both important aspects of a larger phenomenon called femininity. It is a plausible line of thought but when one looks at the available scientific information dealing with this issue, one finds little that is convincing. There is no solid support for the view that amount of menstrual pain and discomfort and degree of menstrual irregularity are related to sexual responsiveness. There may be some evidence of a positive relation between menstrual irregularity and psychological tension, but at best it is of a borderline character. In studying a sample of pregnant women a few borderline trends suggest that a woman's adaptation to pregnancy depends upon the same factors that influence sexual responsiveness. Although there were some significant correlations between sexual response indices and measures of adjustment to the demands of pregnancy, they were scattered and await more convincing support. Claims that a woman who has difficulties in being sexually responsive will be particularly susceptible to menstrual, pregnancy, and other pelvic malfunctions seem to be misplaced. A function such as menstruation takes on important femininity-defining significance and, in addition, may, because of its regular cyclic nature, introduce a stabilizing rhythm into the life of the average woman. It is true that clinicians not infrequently encounter women who complain about discomfort associated with various aspects of their reproductive systems, but they also encounter many who have discomfort in their non-reproductive systems. A person is capable of adapting well to profound alterations in his body, especially if the adaptation occurs over a relatively long period of time. It is too easily overlooked that even those who have gross body deformities and serious physiological difficulties usually learn to cope with them without persistent serious disturbance. The stress arising from menstruation and pregnancy is almost certainly considerably less than that derived from such gross kinds of body difficulties. The major adaptation problem associated with pregnancy may actually be the abrupt change in state that occurs when the child is delivered. Suddenly, the average woman experiences a gross alteration in her appearance, she is no longer the container for her child, she no longer has the special status and privileges of the pregnant, and she is confronted with new arduous duties involved in the care of the newborn. All of this happens in just a matter of minutes and hours. Few life changes of equal magnitude are condensed into such a tiny time interval. Even if some of the alterations are perceived favorably, they are radically abrupt. Although some instances were observed in which amount of sexual imagery and fantasy or sensitivity to stimuli with sexual connotations were correlated with measures of sexual satisfaction and orgasm consistency, these were few and irregular. There do not seem to be direct or compensatory relationships between habitual modes of sexual satisfaction and preoccupation with sexual fantasies or themes. Although this is surprising, it may simply be another example of the fact that the individual learns to adapt to and accept long prevailing conditions. It should be added, though, that all of the women studied were married and were receiving at least some amount of regular sexual experience. It is possible that if women were studied who were extremely deprived of sexual interaction, evidence would be found for the presence of compensatory sexual imagery.
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