Vaginal orgasm is associated with indices of women's better psychological, intimate relationship, and psychophysiological function

Abstract

A recent study by Therrien and Brotto (2016) examined the associations of orgasm during intercourse, concordance of laboratory genital and subjective arousal, and demographic variables in a group of sexually dysfunctional women. The authors claimed that their results cast doubt on the large body of multi-method multi-national research demonstrating that women's orgasm from penile-vaginal intercourse, and specifically vaginal orgasm are associated with a broad range of indices of women's better psychological, intimate relationship, and psychophysiological health. The problems with Therrien and Brotto's (2016) conclusions are discussed, and include that they did not even measure vaginal orgasm (they measured orgasm during intercourse, which can in some cases consist of orgasm elicited by clitoral masturbation during intercourse), and the non-generalisability of their findings from a sexually dysfunctional sample to the general population of women. Evidence is also presented against their claims that findings regarding orgasm during intercourse have not been investigated by other researchers, and their denial of differences between vaginal orgasm and clitoral orgasm. Denial of the myriad benefits of vaginal orgasm undermines women's sexual and general health potential, and serves only the demands of political correctness.