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Females Without Orgasm >>
As we have previously indicated, specifically erotic responses and sometimes
orgasm may be observed in very young infants, both female and male. Among infant
females, the incidences of response and completed orgasm were about as high as
they were among infant males; but the number of males who had responded sexually
had gradually and steadily increased through the early pre-adolescent years, and
then had risen abruptly in the later pre-adolescent years. On the other hand,
the number of females who had been aroused erotically appears to have increased
somewhat more gradually through the pre-adolescent and adolescent years (Figure 98f).
First Erotic Response in the Female
The average female in the available sample
had begun to turn adolescent by twelve years and four months of age. By that age
about 30 per cent had been aroused erotically by some sort of psychologic
stimulation or physical contact, and under conditions which they subsequently
recalled as definitely sexual. First menstruation for the average female in the
sample had come just as she was turning thirteen; and by that age about a third
(34 per cent) of the sample had recognized some sort of erotic arousal. By
fifteen years of age, half (53 per cent) of the females had been aroused
erotically in some form or fashion. By twenty years of age, 89 per cent had been
so aroused, but there were some who had not recognized their first arousal until
some later age.
Ultimately 98 per cent of the females in the sample had had at least one
experience in which they recognized arousal, but even in the late forties there
were still some 2 per cent who had never recognized any sexual arousal, under
any sort of condition. These females reported that they had never been aroused
by self-stimulation of their own genitalia or of any other part of their bodies,
they had not been aroused by thinking of sexual situations or by dreaming of
them at night, and they had not been aroused by any other sort of psychologic
stimulation. Neither had they been aroused by physical contacts with other
persons, and in most instances they had never had any contacts which could be
identified as sexual. It is, of course, not impossible that some of them had
reacted erotically without being aware of the nature of their emotional
responses; and it is possible that some other method of gathering data, or
specific physiologic measurements, might have shown that some of these females
had, on occasion, responded to erotic stimuli. On the other hand, their
responses must have been so mild, infrequent, or non-specific that it would have
been difficult to have identified them as sexual.
Discussions of females who had never been erotically aroused are
also in: Dickinson and Beam 1931:128 ( found no such cases among 100 frigid
wives). Landis and Bolles 1942:96 (cases among physically handicapped females).
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Figure 99f. Accumulative incidence: female orgasm from any source,
by marital status and age at first marriage. Vs. first orgasm in males |
Age at First Orgasm in the Female
The percentages of females who had experienced orgasm (the accumulative incidences) had risen steadily during pre-adolescence, but they were still relatively low (about 14 per cent) at the onset of adolescence. There was some increase after the onset of adolescence, but less than a quarter (23 per cent) of the sample had had such experience by fifteen years of age. A little more than a half (53 per cent) had had orgasm by twenty, three-quarters (77 per cent) by twenty-five, and about 90 per cent by thirty-five years of age. The accumulative incidence curves had leveled off at that point, and there appear to be some 9 per cent who would probably not reach orgasm in the course of their lives. Some 64 per cent of the females in the sample had experienced their first orgasm prior to marriage. About 33 per cent of the females who had married had experienced their first orgasm after they were married.
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Figures 148f-150f. Comparisons of Female and Male Experience and Orgasm |
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Accumulative incidences.
For most outlets, male experience and orgasm curves are nearly identical.
Female curves showing experience in heterosexual activities are closer to male curves,
because the male determines the pattern.
Female curves showing orgasm,
rise more slowly and do not reach their peak until the mid-twenties or still later. |
The females who had never reached orgasm had, in many instances, been aroused erotically, but none of them had recognized the high levels of tension which ordinarily precede orgasm, the sudden release which is orgasm, and the physical relaxation which follows orgasm. Most of them had had socio-sexual contacts, and some of them were married and had had coitus regularly for some period of years—but none of them seem ever to have experienced orgasm.
Single Females Without Orgasm
A considerable portion of the unmarried females in the sample, in each and every age group, was not experiencing orgasm from any source. Thus, between adolescence and fifteen years of age there were 78 per cent, and among the older teenage girls there were 53 per cent who were not reaching orgasm in any type of sexual activity. Although the incidences of unresponding individuals had dropped steadily from that point, there were 29 per cent of the still unmarried females who were not reaching orgasm from any source between the ages of thirty-six and forty, and there were higher percentages again in the still older groups. Some 39 per cent of the unmarried females were without such experience between the ages of forty-six and fifty. There were more than a quarter (28 per cent) of the older unmarried females who had never experienced orgasm at any time in their lives.
This existence of such a large group of females who are not having any sexual outlet poses a problem of some social importance. Some of these females in the sample had been frustrated in their attempts to make social adjustments, and resented the fact that they had not been able to marry. Many of them were sexually responsive enough, but they were inhibited, chiefly by their moral training, and had not allowed themselves to respond to the point of orgasm. Many of them had been psychologically disturbed as a result of this blockage of their sexual responses.
Discussions of the sexual problems of the mature single female may be found in: Hellmann ace. Weissenberg 1924b:213 (notes diverse types of cases). Parsh-ley 1933:300. Van der Hoog 1934:47-58. Hutton 1935:168. Smith 1951:48 (continence and health not workable for majority). Sylvanus Duvall 1952:186-188.
But others, including many of the 28 per cent who had never reached orgasm, were sexually unresponsive individuals who had not felt the lack of a sexual outlet. All of these females, however, were limited in their understanding of the nature of sexual responses and orgasm, and many of them seemed unable to comprehend what sexual activity could mean to other persons. They disapproved of the sexual activities of females who had high rates of outlet, and they were particularly incapable of understanding the rates of response for the males in the population.
An attitude found among some females was expressed by one woman who indignantly wrote, after the publication of our volume on the male, that the study was a waste of effort for it merely confirmed her previous opinion “that the male population is a herd of prancing, leering goats.”
When such frustrated or sexually unresponsive, unmarried females attempt to direct the behavior of other persons, they may do considerable damage. There were grade school, high school, and college teachers among these unresponsive or unresponding females. Some of them had been directors of organizations for youth, some of them had been directors of institutions for girls or older women, many of them had been active in women’s clubs and service organizations, and not a few of them had had a part in establishing public policies. Some of them had been responsible for some of the more extreme sex laws which state legislatures had passed. Not a few of them were active in religious work, directing the sexual education and trying to direct the sexual behavior of other persons. Some of them were medically trained, but as physicians they were still shocked to learn of the sexual activities of even their average patients. If it were realized that something between a third and a half of the unmarried females over twenty years of age have never had a completed sexual experience, parents and particularly the males in the population might debate the wisdom of making such women responsible for the guidance of youth. There were, however, another half to two-thirds of the unmarried females who did understand the significance of sex, and were not living the blank or sexually frustrated lives which our culture, paradoxically, had expected them to live.
The sources from which the single females in the sample had derived their total
outlet had varied considerably in the different age groups. As examples, the
following tabulation will show the three most important outlets in four of the
age groups:
|
Age |
Masturbation |
Petting to orgasm |
Pre-marital coitus |
Homosexual contacts |
|
% |
% |
% |
% |
|
Adol.-15 |
84
| — |
6 |
4 |
|
16-20 |
60 |
18 | — |
— |
|
21-25 |
46 |
18 |
26 | — |
|
31-35 |
42 | — |
33 | — |
| Table 148f. Percentage of Sources of First Female
Erotic Arousal and Orgasm |
| Sources |
Total
Sample |
Total
Married
Sample |
Age at
Marriage |
Decade of
Birth |
|
16-20 |
21-25 |
26-30 |
31-35 |
Bf.
1900 |
1900-
1909 |
1910-
1919 |
1920-
1929 |
|
FIRST EROTIC AROUSAL (%) |
| Masturbation |
27 |
30 | 26 |
31 |
31 | 33 |
26 |
33 | 31 |
26 |
| Dreams |
1 |
1 | 1 |
1 |
1 | 3 |
1 |
1 | 1 |
1 |
| Petting |
34 |
30 | 37 |
30 |
29 | 28 |
31 |
31 | 30 |
33 |
| Coitus |
2 |
3 | 3 |
2 |
3 | 0 |
5 |
4 | 2 |
1 |
| Homosexual |
3 |
4 | 3 |
4 |
4 | 3 |
5 |
3 | 3 |
5 |
| Animal contacts |
1 |
2 | 2 |
1 |
2 | 2 |
2 |
1 | 2 |
2 |
| Psych. stim. |
32 |
30 | 28 |
31 |
30 | 31 |
30 |
27 | 31 |
32 |
| Number of cases |
4444 |
1972 |
515 |
976 | 351 |
93 |
284 | 476 |
720 |
490 |
|
FIRST ORGASM (%) |
| Masturbation |
40 |
37 | 32 |
37 |
41 | 41 |
38 |
40 | 38 |
33 |
| Dreams |
5 |
4 | 5 |
4 |
4 | 6 |
7 |
4 | 4 |
3 |
| Petting |
24 |
18 | 18 |
18 |
17 | 20 |
10 |
15 | 18 |
25 |
| Pre-mar. coitus |
10 |
8 | 9 |
8 |
8 | 8 |
3 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
| Mar. coitus |
17 |
30 | 33 |
30 |
25 | 21 |
37 |
30 | 28 |
26 |
| Homosexual |
3 |
3 | 2 |
3 |
4 | 3 |
4 |
3 | 2 |
2 |
| Animal contacts |
— |
— | 1 |
— |
0 | 1 |
1 |
— | — |
1 |
| Psych. stim. |
1 |
— | — |
— |
1 | 0 |
0 |
0 | 1 |
— |
| Number of cases |
3826 |
2181 |
568 |
1077 | 387 |
101 |
316 | 544 |
789 |
530 |
|
The first column is based on the total sample, single and married.
All of the other calculations are based on married females,
because they had had a maximum opportunity to have been aroused erotically or to have experienced orgasm. |
At all ages, masturbation had been the most important source of total outlet for
the unmarried females in the sample. Coitus had been the second chief source of
the pre-marital outlet in all of the groups after age twenty, and for those
females who were still unmarried in their late thirties and forties, it was
nearly as important a source of outlet as masturbation. Homosexual contacts had
provided a rather important portion of the total outlet for the unmarried
females in the sample between the ages of twenty-six and forty. Petting to
orgasm had been an important source of pre-marital outlet for the females
between the ages of sixteen and thirty, but it had become much less important
after that age. Nocturnal dreams to orgasm had never accounted for more than 2
to 4 per cent of the total outlet of the unmarried females in any of the age
groups.
Among the unmarried females in the sample, the accumulative incidence curve for those who had ever responded to orgasm had included 14 per cent by twelve years and four months of age, which was the average age at the onset of adolescence. It had risen to 23 per cent by age fifteen, and to 49 per cent by age twenty. It had approached its ultimate level of about 75 per cent among the still unmarried females near thirty-five years of age.
Among the single females in the sample, the active incidences had rather definitely risen during pre-adolescence and through adolescence into the mid-twenties. Some 22 per cent were responding to the point of orgasm between the ages of adolescence and fifteen. Some 47 per cent were responding in the later teens, and 60 per cent between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five. Between the ages of twenty-one and fifty, the active incidences among the single females had stood between 60 and 71 per cent. The peak had come between the ages of thirty-one and forty, where 70 to 71 per cent of the still unmarried females were reaching orgasm.
There was some decline in the active incidences after the age of forty, and a steady decline through the fifties, but no marked decline until after the age of sixty. In the white, non-prison sample which has been used in the making of the present volume, we have no instance of a female experiencing orgasm after the age of seventy-five; but among our prison and non-white histories we have cases of females responding in their seventies and eighties and, in one instance, responding to the point of orgasm with frequencies which averaged between once a month and once a week at the age of ninety.
The frequencies of orgasm among the single females in the sample who were having any experience at all, had stayed more or less on a level from the youngest to the oldest age group. The median females in the active samples had averaged one orgasm in two weeks (0.5 per week) between adolescence and fifteen years of age. The average frequencies then lay between 0.3 and 0.5 per week in every subsequent group up to the age of sixty. We have previously found that the frequencies of female masturbatory activities, nocturnal dreams, petting to the point of orgasm, and still other activities similarly remain near a level throughout this same period of years. This is in marked contrast to the steady decline in the frequencies of total outlet among the males, from their late teens into old age. Hormonal factors probably contribute to these differences between the sexes.
The educational backgrounds of the unmarried high school and college-bred females in the sample seem to have had no consistent effect upon the active incidences or active median frequencies of their total outlet, even though they had had some definite effect upon the incidences of masturbation and homosexual contacts. The grade school sample is too small for certain interpretation.
The occupational classes of the parents in whose homes the females were raised had not been particularly correlated with the active incidences or active median frequencies of their total outlet before marriage. At younger ages, the incidences had been a bit higher among those females who were raised in homes of laboring groups (Parental Classes 2 and 3). Apparently, girls from these lower level homes get started earlier in their sexual activity, but by the twenties their total outlets were not particularly different from the total outlets of the females in the other groups.
The active incidences of total outlet were correlated with the ages at which the females in the sample had turned adolescent, only for the group which had turned adolescent by eleven—where the active incidences were higher—, and for the group which turned adolescent at fifteen or later—where the active incidences were lower. The age at onset of adolescence did not seem to have any effect on the frequencies of total outlet among the unmarried females in the sample.
Because of the small size of the rural sample we cannot be certain of our comparisons of the total outlets of the single females of the rural and urban groups. What data we do have, however, indicate that the active incidences were somewhat higher among the unmarried urban females after age fifteen, and the active frequencies of orgasm were a bit higher among the unmarried urban groups after age twenty.
We have seen that the age of the female had affected her total outlet only in the youngest and the very oldest groups; we have seen that the total outlet of the unmarried females in the sample had not been particularly affected by their educational level, the occupational level of the home in which they had been raised, the decade in which they had been born, the age at which they had turned adolescent, or their rural-urban background. Among all of the cultural and biologic factors which might affect their sexual activity, and which in actuality had considerably affected the sexual activities of the males in the sample, only the religious backgrounds of the unmarried females had had any material relation to their acceptance of either solitary or socio-sexual contacts.
Female vs. Male Frequency Prior to Marriage
Differences in frequencies of
orgasm between unmarried females and unmarried males are of considerable social
significance. To summarize again: at the age of marriage there were some 86 per
cent of the females in the sample who had not yet responded to orgasm, while all
of the males (essentially 100 per cent) at marriage had not only long since had
their first experience in orgasm, but had already passed the peak of their
sexual capacity. Among those born after 1910, the average male had experienced
orgasm over 1500 times (the mean frequencies) before marriage; the average
female appears not to have experienced orgasm more than about 223 times before
her marriage. Practically all of the males born since 1910 had had a regular
sexual outlet before marriage, with mean frequencies of about 2.9 orgasms per
week for ten and a half years. There were not more than 10 to 20 per cent of the
females who were having any outlet from any source which averaged as much as
once per week for as long as five years before marriage. Between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, the average (median) male was having experience with more
than three (3.4) different types of sexual activity, while the average female in
that age period was having experience with less than half as many (1.4) types of
activity. At the time of marriage, the mean number of orgasms which the average
female and male (born after 1910) had ever had, amounted to the following:
Activity
to orgasm |
Accumulative incidence
% to orgasm |
Mean number
of orgasms |
| |
FEMALE | MALE |
FEMALE | MALE |
|
Total outlet |
64 |
100 | 223 |
1523 |
|
Masturbation |
41 | 94 |
130 | 872 |
|
Nocturnal dreams |
12 |
82 | 6 |
175 |
|
Petting |
37 | 26 |
37 | 64 |
|
Coitus | 27 |
80 | 39 |
330 |
|
Homosexual |
5 | 30 |
11 | 75 |
|
Animal contacts |
— |
8 | — |
7 |
Although there is, of course, considerable individual variation in these
matters, and although there are factors which often lead the more responsive
females to marry earlier, many marriages involve even greater differences than
those which we have just shown between the average female and male. Many males
are disappointed after marriage to find that their wives are not responding
regularly and are not as interested in having as frequent sexual contact as
they, the males, would like to have; and a great many of the married females may
be disappointed and seriously disturbed when they find that they are not
responding in their coitus, and not enjoying sexual relations as they had
anticipated they would. Not a few of the divorces which occur within the first
year or two of marriage are the product of these discrepancies between the
sexual backgrounds of the average female and the average male. However, in view
of the diverse pre-marital backgrounds of the spouses in the average marriage,
it is not surprising that they sometimes find it difficult to adjust sexually.
It is more surprising that so many married couples are ever able to work out a
satisfactory sexual arrangement.
Factors Affecting Age at First Orgasm
The age of the female at marriage had been the prime factor affecting the age at which she first experienced orgasm, primarily because marital coitus had provided the first orgasmic experience for most of those who had not had such experience prior to marriage. Before marriage, and until the age of fifteen, there were few differences in the several groups. At fifteen, only 31 per cent of the females who were to marry in the next five years had experienced orgasm, but by the age of twenty, 82 per cent of that group had responded to orgasm, chiefly after marriage. Similarly, among those who married at later ages, there were rather definite rises in the curves just before or after the age of marriage.
There seem to have been no significant differences in the accumulative incidence curves for the first experience in orgasm, between the females of the high school, college, and graduate school groups; but the curve for the females who had never gone beyond grade school was definitely lower at nearly every point. In the younger age groups, more of the females who were raised in parental homes of the lower occupational classes had experienced orgasm, fewer of the girls who were raised in upper white collar homes.
Before the age of twenty, there were no significant differences in the percentages reaching orgasm among the females who were born in the several decades covered by the sample. After the age of twenty, the generation which was born before 1900 seems to have included a larger number of females who were slower in reaching their first orgasm and a larger number who had never responded to orgasm, even by the age of forty-five. Some 5 to 10 per cent more of the females who were born after 1900 had ultimately experienced orgasm, and at an earlier age. The females of the generation born after 1920 seem to have been somewhat slower in having experience prior to the age of eighteen, but after that a larger proportion of the group had experienced orgasm, and experienced it at an earlier age than the females born in the previous decades. The present generation will probably complete its history with a much smaller percentage of females who remain totally inexperienced in orgasm throughout their lives.
The accumulative incidence data do not indicate that there was any correlation
between the ages of the females when they first responded to orgasm, and the
ages at which they had turned adolescent.
The accumulative incidence curves for first orgasm were generally lower for the rural sample and higher for the urban females; but the differences were not great, and the rural sample is not large enough to allow any final conclusions.
The religious factors were of considerable importance in determining the ages at which the females in the sample had first responded to orgasm. For instance, the females who were devoutly Catholic had, on an average, not reached their first orgasm until some six or seven years after the females who were only nominally Catholic. There were 21 per cent of the devoutly Catholic females who had not reached orgasm by thirty-five years of age, even though most of them were then married and regularly having coitus in their marriages. It was not more than 2 per cent of the nominal, non-religious Catholics who had not reached orgasm by that age.
The differences were not so extreme between the religiously active and inactive Protestants, but they lay in the same direction. For instance, at forty-five years of age there were still 15 per cent of the devout Protestant females who had never experienced orgasm in their lives, but only 5 per cent of the inactive Protestants who belonged in that category. As far as the more limited record goes, the differences between the religiously devout and inactive Jewish groups appear to have been of about the same order. There seems no doubt that the moral restraints which lead a female to avoid sexual contacts before marriage, and to inhibit her responses when she does make contacts, may also affect her capacity to respond erotically later in her life. We shall not solve the problem of female "frigidity” until we realize that it is a man-made situation, and not the product of innate physiologic incapacities in those females.
Sources of First Arousal & First Orgasm
A third of the females (30 to 34 per cent) had first been aroused erotically in heterosexual petting. Nearly as many (27 to 30 per cent) had first become aware of the meaning of erotic arousal as a result of their own self-masturbation. Another third (30 to 32 per cent) had first been aroused through psychologic stimulation, chiefly in connection with their social contacts with male friends. Nocturnal dreams, pre-marital coitus, marital coitus, and homosexual and animal contacts had been only minor sources of first arousal.
If we base our calculations on the females in the sample who had been married, and who therefore had had a maximum opportunity to experience orgasm, the sources of such experience were as follows: Some 37 per cent had reached their first orgasm in masturbation. Some 18 per cent had reached their first orgasm in pre-marital petting, and 30 per cent in coitus after marriage. Only smaller percentages had reached their first orgasm in nocturnal dreams, pre-marital coitus, homosexual relations, animal contacts, or psychologic stimulation.
The sources of first arousal had remained remarkably constant through the four decades represented in the sample. They had, however, been more affected by the age at which the female had married: 37 per cent of the females who married between the ages of sixteen and twenty had been aroused first in petting, in contrast to 28 per cent of those who married after age thirty. Those who married at later ages had more often found their first arousal in masturbation or psychologic stimulation. There may have been some causal relationship between the occurrence of the first arousal in heterosexual contacts and the earlier age of marriage among those females.
The source of first orgasm had depended somewhat on the age of the female at the time she married
too. Masturbation had been the source of first orgasm for some 32 per cent of the females who married between the ages of sixteen and twenty, but for 41 per cent of those who had married after the age of twenty-five. The first orgasm had been reached in marital coitus among 33 per cent of those who were married between the ages of sixteen and twenty, but among only 21 per cent of those who had been married between thirty-one and thirty-five. There were essentially no differences between the educational levels when the comparisons were made for females who had married at the same age.
These figures are an interesting reflection of changes in the patterns of female behavior during the four decades. In the younger generations, there had been a rise in the importance of pre-marital petting and pre-marital coitus as sources of first orgasm, and some drop in the importance of masturbation. There had been a marked decrease in the number of females who had waited until after marriage to secure their first experience in orgasm.
Married Females Without Orgasm
There had been an appreciable percentage of the married females who were not reaching orgasm either in their marital coitus or in any other type of sexual activity while they were married. The percentage had been highest in the younger age groups where 22 per cent of the married females between the ages of sixteen and twenty, and 12 per cent of the married females between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five, had never experienced any orgasm from any source. The number of unresponsive individuals had dropped steadily in the successive age groups, reaching 5 per cent in the late thirties; but it had risen again to 6 and 7 per cent in the forties.
The median female in our white, non-prison sample had married at the age of twenty-three. The median age given by the U. S. Census for the total female population (white and non-white) for the last forty years was about twenty-one. In this respect our sample may, therefore, be taken as fairly typical of white American females in general.
Among the females in the sample, about 97 per cent had experienced erotic arousal before marriage, but 3 per cent had never been so aroused before marriage. Some 64 per cent had experienced orgasm at least once before marriage, but 36 per cent married without understanding, through actual experience, the meaning of sexual orgasm.
After marriage the frequencies of total outlet for the females in the sample had increased considerably over the frequencies which single females of the same age would have had. This depended, of course, primarily upon the fact that marital coitus had begun to provide such a regular and frequent source of sexual activity and outlet as few females had found in any type of activity before marriage.
The number of females reaching orgasm from any source after marriage (the active incidences) had begun at 78 per cent between the ages of sixteen and twenty. They had then increased steadily to 95 per cent at ages thirty-six to forty, after which they had begun to drop, reaching 89 per cent by age fifty-five and, to judge by our small sample, 82 per cent by age sixty.
The median frequencies of total outlet for the married females who were ever reaching orgasm show marked “aging effects.” The active median frequencies between sixteen and twenty had amounted to 2.2 orgasms per week, from which point they had steadily declined, reaching 1.0 per week between the ages of forty-one and forty-five, and 0.5 per week by age sixty.
The mean frequencies were much higher than the corresponding median frequencies because they included the activities of a few highly responsive and unusually active females. This had been true in all of the age groups, from the youngest to the oldest. These “aging effects,” however, must be largely dependent, as we have noted elsewhere, upon the aging processes which occur in the male, and not upon any physiologic or psychologic aging in the female between the ages of twenty and fifty-five.
The incidences of total outlet for the married females in the sample had generally been a bit higher for the better educated groups, and lower for the grade school and high school groups. There seem to have been no consistent correlations between the active median frequencies of the total outlet among the married females in the sample and their educational backgrounds, except that the graduate school group had slightly higher frequencies up to the age of thirty-five.
There seem to have been no correlations at all between the occupational classes of the parental homes in which the females in the sample had been raised and the incidences and frequencies of their total outlet.
On the other hand, the religious backgrounds of the females in the sample had definitely and consistently affected their total outlet after marriage. In nearly every age group, and in nearly all the samples that we have from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish females, smaller percentages of the more devout and larger percentages of the inactive groups had responded to orgasm after marriage. Similarly, the median frequencies of orgasm for those who were responding at all were, in most instances, lower for those who were devout and higher for those who were religiously inactive. In many groups the differences had not been great; but in some instances, as among the Catholic females who were married between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five, the differences were of some magnitude: an active median frequency of 1.1 orgasms per week for the devoutly Catholic females, and 2.4 for the inactive Catholic females.
Coitus in marriage had accounted for something between 84 and 89 per cent of the total outlet of the married females in the sample who were between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five. After the middle thirties, the importance of marital coitus had decreased. In the age group forty-six to fifty, only 73 per cent of the total number of orgasms were coming from that source.
Masturbation was the second most important source of sexual outlet for the married females in the sample, providing something between 7 and 10 per cent of the total number of orgasms for each of the age groups between sixteen and forty. Although 11 per cent of the total outlet had come from this source in the next ten years, the increase in importance of extra-marital coitus had reduced masturbation to a third place in the list.
Extra-marital coitus and orgasms derived in extra-marital petting had accounted, in various age groups, for something between 3 and 13 per cent of the total outlet of the married females in the sample. This had become the second most important source of outlet after age forty, providing 12 to 13 per cent of the total orgasms in that period.
Nocturnal dreams had provided between 1 and 3 per cent of the total outlet of the married females in each of the age groups in the sample. Homosexual contacts had never provided more than a fraction of 1 per cent of the orgasms experienced by the married females in the sample.
Previously Married Females Without Orgasm
In the teen-age group in the sample, some 30 per cent of the previously married females had found no outlet in any type of sexual activity. This was not markedly higher than the percentage among the married females of that age, but it was only half as high as the percentage of unresponsive individuals among the single females in the teen-aged sample. In the older age groups, however, the number of previously married females who had lived without orgasm had decreased, reaching 20 per cent by age thirty and 16 per cent by age fifty. Some of these previously married females seemed almost as unresponsive, and as incapable of understanding responsive females, as though they had never been married. This, however, had been less often true than it had been for the single females in the sample. Consequently, some of these previously married women had shown a considerable understanding of the problems involved when they had become responsible as teachers, counselors, or institutional administrators for directing the behavior of other persons.
According to the 1950 census, there are some 15 per cent of the females in the United States who have been previously married and who are no longer living with their husbands because they are widowed, separated, or divorced. Many persons, both clinicians and the public at large, have realized that women who have previously had coitus with some frequency in marriage may be faced with a problem of readjustment when they are left without any legalized or socially approved source of sexual outlet. It is generally presumed that the problem is more extreme for a female who has been previously married than for one who has never been married. Our sample of previously married females is not large, but it may be sufficient to warrant some generalizations concerning the group.
That previously married females, whether widowed or divorced, often face distinctive sexual problems, is also recognized in: Bienville 1771:13. Tissot 1773(1):52. Forel 1922:96. Dickinson and Beam 1931:270-287. Baber 1939: 487. Goode 1949:396 (450 divorced mothers, no consistent trauma). Shultz 1949:243-265. Waller 1951:553-559 (trauma following divorce or death of spouse).
Among the females who were still in their teens or early twenties when they were widowed, separated, or divorced, 70 to 76 per cent had still found some source of sexual outlet. Just as in the single and married females, the highest incidences had not developed until after age twenty-five, by which time they leveled off at something between 80 and 86 per cent between ages twenty-six and fifty.
There seem to have been no important correlations between the educational levels of the previously married females in the sample and the incidences and median frequencies of their total outlet. During the twenties the active median frequencies of orgasm had been higher for the previously married females of the high school sample, and lower for those of the college and graduate samples; but the differences had not been maintained in all of the age groups.
There was, of course, considerable individual variation in the problems which these previously married females had faced. Some of them who were not particularly responsive seem not to have missed the regular outlet which coitus had provided, and they had been quite satisfied with the outlet which masturbation or homosexual contacts had afforded. Some of them had even been satisfied to live without any sort of sexual outlet. Many of them had, however, faced difficult problems of adjustment. Even when they had not been physiologically disturbed, they had felt a lack of socio-sexual contacts. On the other hand, a fair number of these previously married females had had socio-sexual contacts as frequently, in some instances, as they had had them in their marriages. Some of the females had welcomed the opportunity that divorce had provided to secure a wider variety of sexual experience than was possible while they were married.
The most notable aspect of the histories of these previously married females was the fact that their frequencies of activity had not dropped to the levels which they had known as single females, before they had ever married. It will be recalled that the median frequencies of orgasm for the single females in the sample lay between 0.3 and 0.5 per week in every age group between adolescence and age fifty-five . The median frequencies of total outlet for the females who had been previously married had ranged between 0.4 and 0.9 per week. In every age group, however, they were well below those of the married females in the sample.
Among these previously married females, the active median frequencies of the
post-marital coital contacts had ranged from once in two and a half weeks to
nearly twice in three weeks (0.4 to 0.6 per week) in most of the age groups.
Consequently heterosexual coitus and/or petting to orgasm had, in many of the
groups, provided three-quarters as much of the total outlet as it had for the
females who were married. For the previously married females between the ages of
sixteen and twenty, about 85 per cent of the outlet had been derived from the
heterosexual contacts. The percentage of the outlet which had come from those
sources had, however, then dropped, reaching 54 per cent by fifty years of age.
The active median frequencies of orgasm among these previously married females had declined gradually from the youngest to the oldest age groups in the sample. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, the median frequencies had been 0.8 or 0.9 per week. They had dropped in the middle age groups, reaching 0.4 by fifty, and 0.3 by sixty years of age. In all of these groups, however, there were some females who were engaging in sexual activities which had brought orgasm with much higher frequencies, and the active mean frequencies and the total mean frequencies were in consequence definitely higher than the corresponding median frequencies.
We have previously found that the post-marital patterns for the male had approached those of the married males, just as the post-marital patterns for the females are rather close to those of the married females. The patterns clearly reflect the marital experience of the previously married females and males, and they suggest that some of the females had been more interested in coitus than one would have concluded from an examination of their histories prior to divorce. In some instances, however, these females may have been more interested in the social aspects of the post-marital coital contacts than in the sexual experience itself.
In every age group, masturbation had been the second most important source of outlet and in actuality a material source of outlet for most of the previously married females. For those who were still in their teens, 13 per cent of the outlet had come from masturbation, but the importance of this source of orgasm had increased in later age groups until it had accounted for 29 per cent of the total outlet of the previously married females between the ages of forty-six and fifty.
The third most important source of outlet for the previously married females had been either nocturnal dreams to orgasm or homosexual contacts. In some of the older groups, nocturnal dreams had accounted for two to three times as much of the outlet as such dreams had provided for the single or married females. This had been due to the slightly higher active median frequencies and the much higher incidences of dreams to orgasm in the previously married group. The previously married females may have dreamt of sex more often because of their desire, conscious or unconscious, for a more active sex life.
The homosexual activities of the previously married females seem to have been most important between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-five, at which time they had provided between 9 and 10 per cent of the
total outlet for each of the age groups. The importance of the homosexual contacts had then declined, but the samples for the older age groups are so small that we cannot be sure that this conclusion is generally applicable.
In the earlier age groups, as much as 87 per cent of the outlet of these previously married females had been derived from socio-sexual contacts, either heterosexual or homosexual; but by age fifty only 57 per cent of the contacts were socio-sexual. This provides a measure of the considerable problem which many an older individual has in making a sexual adjustment after the termination of a marriage. Although sexual relationships may be significant because they satisfy a physiologic need, they are more significant as factors in the development and the maintenance of an individual’s personality and, consequently, may contribute to her value in the total social organization.
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