<< Speed of Response >>

There is a longstanding and widespread opinion that the female is slower than the male in her sexual responses and needs more extended stimulation in order to reach orgasm. This opinion is accepted and is the basis of much clinical practice today.
The idea that the female is inherently slower than the male in sexual response occurs repeatedly in the literature, as in; Rohleder 1907(1):312. Moll 1912; 26. Talmey 1912:63; 1915:94. Urbach 1921:124 ff. Malchow 1923:164, 231. Hirschfeld 1928(2):230. Stopes 1931:74. Rutgers 1934:135-136. Havelock Ellis 1936(1,2):236. Wright 1937:85. Clark 1937:46-49. Kahn 1939:fig.31. Butterfield 1940:94. Podolsky 1942:52. Magoun 1948:216-220. Hirsch 1949:134. Faller in Hornstein and Faller 1950:238-239. Stone and Stone 1952:180.

Certain it is that many males reach orgasm before their wives do in their marital coitus, and many females experience orgasm in only a portion of their coitus. On the other hand, a high proportion of the males could ejaculate soon after coitus begins. These facts seem to substantiate the general opinion that the female is slower than the male, but our analyses now make it appear that this opinion is based on a misinterpretation of the facts.

This becomes apparent when we examine the time which the average female needs to reach orgasm in masturbation. Apparently many females, even though they may be slow to respond in coitus, may masturbate to orgasm in a matter of a minute or two. Masturbation thus appears to be a better test than coitus of the female’s actual capacities; and there seems to be something in the coital technique which is responsible for her slower responses there.

The crux of the matter seems to lie in the fact that the female in masturbation usually proceeds directly to orgasm and is not interrupted or distracted as she often is in coitus. The record indicates that the average (median) female ordinarily takes a bit less than four minutes to reach orgasm in masturbation, although she may need ten or twenty minutes or more to reach that point in coitus. Similar records show that the average male needs something between two and four minutes to reach orgasm in masturbation although, in order to increase his pleasure, he often delays his performance. The record indicates, therefore, that the female is not appreciably slower than the male in her capacity to reach orgasm.

Actually there are some females who regularly reach orgasm within a matter of fifteen to thirty seconds in their petting or coital activities. Some regularly have multiple orgasms which may come in rapid succession, with lapses of only a minute or two, or in some instances of only a few seconds between orgasms. Such speed is found in only a small percentage of the females, but it is found, similarly, in only a small percentage of the males. Of the 2114 females in our sample who supplied data on the time usually taken to reach orgasm in masturbation, some 45 per cent had regularly done so in something between one and three minutes, and another 24 per cent had averaged four to five minutes. About 19 per cent had averaged something between six and ten minutes, and only 12 per cent regularly took longer than that to reach orgasm. In all of these groups there were, of course, females who had deliberately taken longer than necessary to reach orgasm, in order to prolong the pleasure of the experience.

The slower responses of the female in coitus appear to depend in part upon the fact that she frequently does not begin to respond as promptly as the male, because psychologic stimuli usually play a more important role in the arousal of the average male, and a less important role in the sexual arousal of the average female. The average male is aroused in anticipation of a sexual relationship, and he usually comes to erection and is ready to proceed directly to orgasm as soon as or even before he makes any actual contact. The average female, on the contrary, is less often aroused by such anticipation, and sometimes she does not begin to respond until there has been a considerable amount of physical stimulation.

Moreover, because she is less aroused by psychologic stimuli, the female is more easily distracted than the male in the course of her coital relationships. The male may be continuously stimulated by seeing the female, by engaging in erotic conversation with her, by thinking of the sexual techniques he may use, by remembering some previous sexual experience, by planning later contacts with the same female or some other sexual partner, and by any number of other psychologic stimuli which keep him aroused even though he may interrupt his coital contacts. Perhaps two-thirds of the females find little if any arousal in such psychologic stimuli. Consequently, when the steady build-up of the female’s response is interrupted by the male’s cessation of movement, changes of position, conversation, or temporary withdrawal from the genital union, she drops back to or toward a normal physiologic state from which she has to start again when the physical contacts are renewed. It is this, rather than any innate incapacity, which may account for the female’s slower responses in coitus.
We have had access to a considerable body of data on the continuous nature of male response and the discontinuous nature of female response. Although this situation has rarely been recognized in the literature, it is noted in Urbach 1921:132.

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