Multiple Orgasm in the Human Male

<< Female Orgasm in Marital Intercourse >>

The married female reaches orgasm in only a portion of her coitus, and some 10 per cent of all the females in the available sample had never reached orgasm at any time, in any of their marital coitus. Some 75 per cent had responded to orgasm at least once in their coitus within the first year of marriage. The accumulative incidence curve had ultimately risen to 90 per cent by the time the females had been married some twenty years.

Table 113f. Accumulative Incidence: Orgasm in Marital Coitus

Time after marriage	Accum. incid. %	Cases	Time after marriage	Accum. incid. %	Cases
Within first year of marriage:			Year
Month			Year
1	49	*	1	75	2354
2	55	*	2	78	2029
3	59	*	3	81	1827
4	61	*	4	82	1681
5	62	*	5	83	1548
6	67	*	6	84	1420
7	68	*	7	85	1291
8	68	*	8	86	1190
9	69	*	9	87	1076
10 .	69	*	10	87	980
11	69	*	11	88	883
			12	88	798
			13	89	715
			14	89	649
			15	90	584

* There were 1010 females who experienced their first marital orgasm within the first year of marriage and who reported the exact month of that experience. Percentages shown for the months of the first year are based on these 1010 cases. There were 764 additional females who reported orgasm within the first year without specifying the exact month, and the total of 1774 accounts for the 75 per cent incidence shown for the first year.
Between the fifteenth and twenty-eighth years of marriage, 11 of the females in our sample of 2354 experienced their first orgasm. The accumulative incidence figures, however, never rose above 90 per cent, even in the thirtieth year of marriage.

Similarly, the number of females who had ever reached orgasm within any particular age period had been distinctly lower than the number who were having coitus. For instance, only 71 per cent (the active incidence) of the married females in the sample had ever reached orgasm in marital coitus while they were between sixteen and twenty years of age, when nearly one hundred per cent were having coitus. After that, the percentages responding to orgasm had gradually increased. The highest active incidences lay between thirty-one and forty years of age, when 90 per cent of the married females in the sample were reaching orgasm, at least on occasion, in their coitus. This means that there were still 10 per cent who were not reaching orgasm in their coitus even during the period when the largest number of females were responding. From age forty-one the number of females who were reaching orgasm had begun to drop. Only 78 per cent were reaching orgasm in their early fifties, and only 65 per cent by the late fifties.

While orgasm is not the final test of the effectiveness of a sexual relationship, and while there may be considerable significance and satisfaction in coital relationships which do not lead to orgasm, the female’s failure to respond to orgasm in her sexual relationships is, nonetheless, one of the most frequent sources of dissatisfaction in marriage, and it is not infrequently the source of other types of conflict which may lead to the dissolution of a marriage.

To have frigidity so reduced in the course of four decades is, therefore, a considerable achievement which may be credited, in part, to the franker attitudes and the freer discussion of sex which we have had in the United States during the past twenty years, and to the increasing scientific and clinical understanding of the basic biology and psychology of sex. There were wives and husbands in the older generation who did not even know that orgasm was possible for a female; or if they knew it was possible, they did not comprehend that it could be pleasurable, or believe it proper for a well-bred female to respond even in her marital relationships. The average female and male today are more often aware of the significance of mutual relationships in marriage and increasingly desirous of making such relationships satisfactory.

The reduction in female frigidity may also be a product of the increase in the amount of pre-marital socio-sexual experience which younger generations of American females have had. We have already pointed this out in connection with pre-marital petting and pre-marital coitus. The specific correlations demonstrate the relationships between pre-marital experience in orgasm and the frequency with which the marital coitus had led to orgasm.

About two-thirds (64 per cent) of the married females in our sample had experienced sexual orgasm prior to their marriage. Some of them had had limited experience, some of them had had frequent and regular experience in orgasm. Masturbation, nocturnal dreams, heterosexual petting, heterosexual coitus, and homosexual contacts were the five sources of essentially all of this pre-marital outlet.

Coitus had provided only a sixth (17 per cent) of the orgasms which these females had had before marriage. Although many persons think of “intercourse” and ‘‘sexual relations” as synonymous terms, true vaginal intercourse had accounted for only a part, albeit a significant part, of the sexual activity before marriage. The social significance of the coitus was, of course, more important than its function in providing a physiologic outlet for the female. In our culture, its significance has been enhanced by the moral and legal condemnation of such activity before marriage, and this has made it difficult to secure any objective evaluation of the relation of pre-marital coitus to the individual’s sexual needs and to society’s intrinsic interests.

There have been few scientific data to show what effect pre-marital coitus may have on a female’s subsequent sexual adjustments in marriage. It is to be hoped that the data which we now have on the premarital and marital histories of the females in the present sample may contribute to our understanding of the meaning of coitus before marriage.

It cannot be emphasized too often that orgasm cannot be taken as the sole criterion for determining the degree of satisfaction which a female may derive from sexual activity. Considerable pleasure may be found in sexual arousal which does not proceed to the point of orgasm, and in the social aspects of a sexual relationship. Whether or not she herself reaches orgasm, many a female finds satisfaction in knowing that her husband or other sexual partner has enjoyed the contact, and in realizing that she has contributed to the male’s pleasure. We have histories of persons who have been married for a great many years, in the course of which the wife never responded to the point of orgasm, but the marriage had been maintained because of the high quality of the other adjustments in the home.

Although we may use orgasm as a measure of the frequency of female activity, and may emphasize the significance of orgasm as a source of physiologic outlet and of social interchange for the female, it must always be understood that we are well aware that this is not the only significant part of a satisfactory sexual relationship. This is much more true for the female than it would be for the male. It is inconceivable that males who were not reaching orgasm would continue their marital coitus for any length of time.

Nevertheless our data confirm what many clinicians have regularly seen, that the persistent failure of the female to reach orgasm in her marital coitus, or even to respond with fair frequency, may do considerable damage to a marriage. If the coitus fails to bring the satisfaction and physiologic release which the female might obtain from completed activity, and if the female is disappointed because of her inability to accomplish what she thinks she should, she may develop a sense of inferiority which further reduces the possibilities of her ever having satisfactory relationships.

The failure of the female to reach orgasm may also be a source of considerable disappointment to the male. Today most males, especially among better educated groups, feel under some obligation to see that the female secures gratification comparable to their own in coitus. To such a male, the failure of the wife may seem an indication of some incapacity on his part and he, in consequence, may develop a sense of inferiority which, again, may compound the difficulties. Far from contributing to the solidarity of the marriage, the coitus may then become a source of disappointment, friction, and more serious discord.

Mutual responses in a socio-sexual relationship are also significant because the one partner may respond sympathetically to the reactions of the other partner. The male may become emotionally aroused when he observes that his wife is aroused, and he is particularly liable to be aroused when he is in physical contact with her and can feel her responding. It is this interplay of physical, psychologic, and emotional responses which makes coitus one of the most completely mutual activities in which two individuals may engage.

Simultaneous orgasm for the two partners in a coital relationship derives its significance chiefly from the fact that the intense responses which the one partner makes at the moment of orgasm may stimulate the other partner to similarly intense response. Consequently simultaneous orgasm represents, for many persons, the maximum achievement which is possible in a sexual relationship.

The failure of an unresponding sexual partner to provide these physical or emotional stimuli may, on the other hand, do considerable damage to the effectiveness of the relationship. The responding male, especially if he has had previous experience and understands what effective coitus may be, will sense the lack of cooperation, and his responses may be inhibited or stopped. Such failures lead not only to disappointment, frustration, and a sense of defeat, but sometimes to contrary emotional responses which become anger and rage.

A good many females, more particularly of the older generation, contribute little or nothing to the pre-coital petting activities with which the males are inclined to preface their coitus. The female’s abstinence may be based on a trained modesty; it may be based, in part, on the theory that the male is normally so aroused that he does not need additional physical stimulation; and it may be based in part on the theory that in a culture which considers that sex should always be associated with romanticism and gallantry, it becomes the duty of the male to provide for the pleasure of the female. This, of course, is something very different from the sort of cooperation which may make a sexual relationship a mutual undertaking.

Similarly, there are many females who remain relatively immobile during their coitus. As the old phrase puts it, instead of enthusiastic cooperation there is nothing but condescending acquiescence on the part of such a female. In the younger generations, on the other hand, there is an increasing proportion of the females who have become aware of the fact that active participation in coitus may contribute not only to the satisfaction which the husbands receive, but to their own satisfaction in coital activity.
The post-Victorian development of the idea that respectable women should enjoy marital coitus is well set forth in Sylvanus Duvall 1952:70-71. But Slater and Woodside 1951:167 still found evidence in the British working class that responsiveness in the wife was hardly expected, and if too marked was disapproved.

Incidence of Female Orgasm
About 36 per cent of the married females in the sample had never experienced orgasm from any source prior to marriage. In their early adolescent years, when 95 per cent of the boys of corresponding age were experiencing orgasm with average frequencies of 2.3 per week, only 22 per cent of the girls in the sample were reaching orgasm in any sort of activity, either solitary, heterosexual, or homosexual. In the later teens, when over 99 per cent of the males were responding sexually to orgasm with average (median) frequencies of over 2.2 per week if they were single, and 3.2 per week if they were married—at a period when the average male was at the peak of his sexual capacity and activity—, there was still nearly a half (47 per cent) of the females who had not had their first orgasm. With this relatively limited background of experience and limited understanding of the nature and significance and desirability of orgasm, it is not surprising to find that a goodly number of the married females never or rarely reach orgasm in their marital coitus.

Table 112f. Length of Marriage vs.
Percentage of Marital Coitus Leading to Orgasm

% of Marital Coitus With Orgasm	Year of Marriage
	First	Fifth	Tenth	Fifteenth	Twentieth
	Percent of females
None	25	17	14	12	11
1-29	11	13	14	16	13
30-59	13	15	13	11	12
60-89	12	15	17	16	17
90-100	39	40	42	45	47
Number of cases	2244	1448	858	505	261
Based on females who had been married for at least six months and continuously (without separation or divorce) for the indicated number of years.

The failure of a female to be aroused or to reach orgasm during coitus is commonly identified in the popular and technical literature as "sexual frigidity.” We dislike the term, for it has come to connote either an unwillingness or an incapacity to function sexually. In most circumstances neither of these implications is correct. It is doubtful whether there is ever a complete lack of capacity, although individuals do appear to differ in their levels of response. In general, females and males appear to be equally responsive to the whole range of physical stimuli which may initiate erotic reactions, and the specific data show that the average female is no slower in response than the average male when she is sufficiently stimulated and when she is not inhibited in her activity. Females may not be so often aroused by psychologic stimuli; but if there is any sufficient physical stimulation, it is probable that all females are physiologically capable of responding and of responding to the point of orgasm.
As examples of authors who seem to suggest that there are some females who may be incapable of response, see: Terman 1938:407-408. Hutton 1942:94. Sylvanus Duvall 1952:71-72. Authors who doubt, as we do, any total incapability on the part of the female, include, for instance: Stekel Î926(I) :117. Weiss and English 1949:585. Brown and Kempton 1950:118.

While there are many cases of quite unresponsive females reported in the literature, and while we have found such cases in the present study, we do not find evidence in any of them that the individual, rid of her inhibitions, would not be capable of response. We have histories of women who had been married to a single husband for many years, in some instances for as long as twenty-eight years, before they ever reached their first orgasm. We have histories of females who had been married and divorced two or three or four times before they finally effected a marriage in which they were able to reach orgasm in their coitus. Anyone examining the histories of such women before they had ever responded would have pronounced them frigid and probably incapable of response; but their subsequent performance proved that they were not basically incapable. In fact, in some of these cases, the formerly unresponsive females developed patterns of response which included orgasm and even multiple orgasm whenever they engaged in coitus. It should be added, however, that many unresponsive individuals need clinical help to overcome the psychologic blockages and considerable inhibitions which are the sources of their difficulties.

There has, of course, been widespread interest in discovering what proportion of the coitus of the average female does lead to orgasm, and in discovering some of the factors which account for such success or failure in coitus. Unfortunately, it is not a statistically simple matter to calculate what percentage of the copulations in any particular sample leads to orgasm. Before adding together the data on any series of females, one must take into account the age of each individual, the age at which she married, the number of years that she has been married, the frequencies of her coital relationships, the techniques that have been employed in the coitus, and changes in the incidences of orgasm at various periods in the history. No significant correlations can be demonstrated unless the data are considered from all of these angles.

Taking these several factors into account, we find that the average (median) female in the sample had reached orgasm in something between 70 and 77 per cent of her marital coitus. The percentages had varied considerably in different periods of the marriage. In the earliest years of marriage, not more than 63 per cent of the coitus of the average (median) female had resulted in orgasm, but the percentages had increased as the marriages became more extended. The data are as follows:

In the first year -- 63% of coitus resulted in orgasm
By the fifth year -- 71% of coitus resulted in orgasm
By the tenth year -- 77% of coitus resulted in orgasm
By the fifteenth year -- 81% of coitus resulted in orgasm
By the twentieth year -- 85% of coitus resulted in orgasm

This means that something between 36 and 44 per cent of the females in the sample had responded to orgasm in a part but not in all of their coitus in marriage. About one-third of those females had responded only a small part of the time, another third had responded more or less half of the time, and the other third had responded a major portion of the time, even though it was not a hundred per cent of the time.
Other studies which report specific data on the percent of females responding in marital coitus, include: Heyn 1921:406 (among 512 females, 52 per cent always responding, 31 per cent part of the time, 17 per cent never). Hamilton 1929:171 (38 per cent of 100 wives usually or always, 21 per cent sometimes). Dickinson and Beam 1931:221 (61 per cent of 164 wives usually reached orgasm). Kopp 1933:101 (34 per cent usually, 46 per cent occasionally, 20 per cent never, among 8500 women). Yarros 1933:213 (51 per cent of 174 females had satisfactory orgasm). Terman 1938:300-301 (among 760 wives, 22 per cent always, 45 per cent usually, 25 per cent sometimes, 8 per cent never). Landis et al. 1940:302 (of 44 cases, 38 per cent usually, 32 per cent sometimes). Woodside 1950:135 (75 per cent of small sample reached orgasm always or often). England acc. Rosenthal 1951:55 (65 per cent usually or always, in British survey). Terman 1951:117 (among 556 wives, 70 per cent always or usually, 30 per cent sometimes or never). Slater and Woodside 1951:168 (over 50 per cent adequate among 200 working class wives in Britain). Stone and Stone 1952:208 (41 per cent regularly, 43 per cent occasionally or rarely, 16 per cent never, among 3000 women).
Unsubstantiated and exaggerated estimates of 50 per cent or higher failure in marital orgasm may be found in: Hammond 1887:300 (90 per cent no pleasurable sensation). Stekel 1926(1):97. Squier in Folsom 1938:120. Sylvanus Duvall 1952:71. Knight 1943:25 (“Gynecologists and psychiatrists . . . are aware that perhaps 75 per cent of all married women derive little or no pleasure from the sexual act”). Kroger and Freed 1951:294 ('‘majority of women derive little or no pleasure from the sex act”).

Multiple Orgasm
There were some 14 per cent of the females in the sample who had regularly responded with multiple orgasm. This, interestingly enough, was true not only of the females who responded every time they had coitus, but also of some of the females who had responded to orgasm only part of the time. In either event the female may have had two or three or even as many as a dozen or more orgasms in a relationship in which her husband had ejaculated only once.
For other references to multiple orgasm in the female, see: Dickinson and Beam 1931:64. Ellis 1936(11,3):536-537. Popenoe 1938:13. Stokes 1948:38. Stekel 1950:103. Hamilton 1929:154, 385 (considered multiple orgasm related to clitoral orgasm, and labeled it non-terminative minor climaxes, and in actuality an orgasmic incapacity). Kelly 1930:104-105 and Clark 1937:146-148 follow Hamilton's interpretation.

Among the younger males, some 8 to 15 per cent in the sample had been capable of multiple orgasm, but the capacity had decreased among the older males. The accidents of mating in human marriages had rarely brought together two individuals who were equally capable of multiple orgasm; and whether it was the female or the male who had been most capable, it had often been difficult for a couple to work out satisfactory coital techniques when one but only one of them was accustomed to having several orgasms in each contact. Many males are incapable of maintaining an erection and continuing coitus after they have reached orgasm, and many males become so hypersensitive that it is painful and sometimes excruciatingly painful for them to continue movement after orgasm. If the female has not yet reached orgasm, or if she is capable of multiple orgasm and is not yet satisfied sexually, the male who is incapable of proceeding may leave his wife much disturbed. Some males, therefore, regularly carry their wives to orgasm by manually or orally manipulating their genitalia. More expert males have learned to bring their wives to a number of orgasms in their coitus, before they allow themselves to ejaculate for the first time.

Nature of Factors Affecting Orgasm
As we have already pointed out, and ought to emphasize again, the nature of an animal’s sexual response must depend on the nature of the stimulus which it meets, the nature of the living stuff of which it is made, and the nature and extent of its previous experience. Considerable attention has been given in marriage manuals and in other medical literature to the possibility that the female’s response may depend very largely upon the effectiveness of the techniques of the coitus; and since the male so often controls the pattern of the petting and coital activity, it has been too easily assumed that the success or failure of the female to reach orgasm must depend primarily upon the male’s knowledge and utilization of effective coital techniques. But such an interpretation emphasizes the nature of the stimulus and ignores the nature of the responding matter.
As typical examples of the emphasis placed on coital techniques, see: Van de Velde 1930:144-252. Dickinson and Beam 1931:56-70. Dickinson 1933:84-109, Figs. 145-157. Clinton 1935:125-134. Thornton and Thornton 1939:106-130. Himes 1940:328. Evans 1941:99-106. Hutton 1942:86-117. Griffith 1947:139-162. Chesser 1947:125-162. Dickinson 1949:84-100, Figs. 145-159d. Stone and Stone 1952:188-192.

Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, on the other hand, have centered their attention on the background of the responding female, her subconscious motivations, and the sources of her inhibitions. They minimize the significance of the stimuli in the immediate situation and sometimes imply that all individuals would be equally capable of sexual response if their early experience had been uniform. Many of them ignore possible variations in the intrinsic capacities of different individuals to respond to the same sort of sexual stimuli. In any attempt to analyze the factors which account for the considerable variation which exists in female responses to orgasm, it is imperative that we consider these three groups of factors: the stimuli, the capacity of the responding individual, and the nature and extent of the individuals previous experience.
For psychoanalytic interpretations of the factors, such as penis envy, castration fear, defense against incestuous wishes, fixations at the clitoral level of development, aversions to menstruation, coitus, and childbearing, which may account for female frigidity see, for instance: Stekel 1920; 1926(1,2). Rado 1933:440-442. Bonaparte 1935:327-330. Hitschmann and Bergler 1936:21ff. Karl A. Menninger 1938:341-350. Knight 1943:26-29. Bergler 1944:374-390. Fenichel 1945:113,173ff. Weiss and English 1949:566-572. Freud (1931)1950(5):257-269. Kroger and Freed 1951:294-312.

1. Intrinsic Capacity of the Female
Our understanding of individual variation in morphologic and physiologic characters, among all plant and animal species, makes it probable that differences in the physical and physiologic capacities of the structures which are concerned in sexual response may account for some of the individual variation which we observe in human sexual behavior. Portions of the central nervous system, of the autonomic nervous system, of other parts of the nervous system, and of the musculatory and other systems are involved. Variations in these structures may be responsible for some of the more striking variations, as well as a multitude of the lesser variations which are to be observed in the sexual responses of different individuals.
Terman 1938:376 suggests that biologic factors may determine orgasmic capacity; and in Terman 1951:168 is the statement: “The relative influence of biological and cultural or experiential factors on a woman's orgasm adequacy remains unknown; conceivably both the adequacy and the personality traits associated with adequacy could be largely determined by either of the two factors operating singly, or the outcome could be the result of their joint influence.”

For instance, the exceedingly rapid responses of certain females who are able to reach orgasm within a matter of seconds from the time they are first stimulated, and the remarkable ability of some females to reach orgasm repeatedly within a short period of time, are capacities which most other individuals could not conceivably acquire through training, childhood experience, or any sort of psychiatric therapy. Similarly, it seems reasonable to believe that at least some of the females who are slower in their responses are not equipped anatomically or physiologically in the same way as those who respond more rapidly. Unfortunately, however, we do not yet know enough about the anatomy and physiology of sexual response to understand the exact origins of such individual variation.

2. Orgasm in Relation to Age of Female
While incidences and frequencies of marital coitus and of the female’s orgasm in that coitus had reached their peak in the earlier years and dropped steadily in the later years of marriage, the percentage of the marital contacts which had led to orgasm was lowest in the youngest groups. It had then steadily risen in the older age groups. The sample available for these analyses had extended into groups that were in their forties and fifties in age, but it is inadequate for analyses of the still older females.

3. Orgasm In Relation to Educational Level
We have already indicated that the accumulative incidences and the frequencies of marital coitus had been essentially the same among females of the several educational levels represented in the sample. On the other hand, we found that the number of females reaching orgasm within any five-year period was rather distinctly higher among those with upper educational backgrounds. There were still more marked differences in the percentages of the copulations which had led to orgasm in the different educational levels. In every period of marriage, from the first until at least the fifteenth year, a larger number of the females in the sample who had more limited educational backgrounds had completely failed to respond to orgasm in their marital coitus, and a smaller number of the better educated females had so completely failed. For instance, in the first year of marriage, 34 per cent of the grade school sample and 28 per cent of the high school sample, but only 22 per cent of the graduate school sample had completely failed to reach orgasm. Fifteen years later the differences had been reduced but still lay in the same direction. The average ages at marriage had differed in these several educational groups, and this may have accounted for some of the differences in the responses of these educational groups.

On the other hand, a distinctly smaller number of the females of the lower educational levels and a distinctly larger number of the better educated females had responded nearly 100 per cent of the time in their marital coitus, and these differences were in excess of those which could be accounted for on the basis of the age at which marriage had occurred in the several groups. For instance, in the first year of marriage, only 31 per cent of the grade school sample and 35 per cent of the high school sample had responded in all or nearly all of their coitus, but 43 per cent of the females who had gone on into graduate work after college had so responded. The differential had also been maintained throughout the later years, even into the fifteenth year of marriage.
Terman 1938:390, 394, and 1951:131, reported, however, that he found no relationship between orgasmic adequacy and educational level.

These data are not in accord with a preliminary, unpublished calculation which we made some years ago. On the basis of a smaller sample, and on the basis of a less adequate method of calculation, we seemed to find a larger number of the females of the lower educational levels responding to orgasm in their marital coitus. Those data now need correction in the light of our more extensive sample and more adequate method of analysis.

4. Orgasm in Relation to Parental Occupational Class
In the available sample, a smaller percentage of the females who had come from lower level homes had reached orgasm in all or nearly all of their coitus during the first year of marriage, and a larger percentage of those who had come from upper white collar or professional homes. The differences were not great—34 per cent among the females who had come from laborers’ homes, and 40 per cent among the females who had come from upper white collar homes. But the differences had persisted for at least fifteen years in the married sample; and they accord with our finding that females from the upper educational levels respond in more of their coitus than females from the lower educational levels.

5. Orgasm in Relation to Decade of Birth
We have shown that the number of females in the sample who had responded to orgasm in their coitus within any five-year period (the active incidences) had increased in the last four decades. It is, socially, even more significant to find that the percentages of the copulations which had led to orgasm had steadily increased in that same period of time. The number of females who had never responded to the point of orgasm in the first year of marriage was 33 per cent among those born before 1900, but only 22 or 23 per cent among those born after 1909. Differences of this same general order had held for at least fifteen years in the marriages in the sample.

Conversely, the number of females who had responded in all or nearly all of their marital contacts during the first years of marriage had risen from 37 per cent in the older generation to 43 per cent in the younger generation. Again, differences of this order had been maintained for ten years or more. This is evidence that the attitudes and publicly accepted mores of the group to which a female belongs may influence her attitudes and sexual performance. Often an individual's difficulties in making sexual adjustments originate in the thinking of the whole generation and of the whole cultural group in which she is reared. Any true resolution of her problems may involve the acceptance of attitudes and patterns of behavior which differ from those of the social organization to which she belongs, and this may introduce new difficulties. But millions of women appear to have made such an adjustment, without serious disturbance, because the sexual attitudes of large segments of the population had materially changed in these United States in the course of the forty years covered by the sample. As a result, many of the women had functioned more effectively in their marital coitus.
Mead 1949:217-222 cites two contrasting primitive civilizations, the Mundugumor and Arapesh, with high and negative evaluations of orgasm for the female, and suggests that capacity for orgasm is a “potentiality that may or may not be developed by a given culture.”

6. Orgasm in Relation to Age at Onset of Adolescence
We have already found that the age at which a female turns adolescent seems to have little to do with the active incidences or the frequencies of her marital coitus. In regard to the proportion of the copulations which had led to orgasm, the data also indicated that there are practically no correlations with the ages at which the females in the sample had turned adolescent. 29 A possible exception was in the group which did not turn adolescent until fifteen or later. There the number of females who had never reached orgasm seemed to be a bit higher, and the number who had reached orgasm in all or nearly all of their coitus seemed to have been a bit lower than in any of the other groups.
Hamilton 1929:155, 195, reported that late menarche (first menstruation) increased orgasmic capacity in his sample of 100 wives, and suggested that late puberty may lessen negative conditioning on sex attitudes; but his rating of multiple orgasm as an “inadequate capacity” makes the interpretation of his data on orgasm uncertain. Terman 1938:254, 393; 1951:140, in a much larger sample, found no relationship between age at onset of adolescence and orgasmic capacity.

7. Orgasm in Relation to Religious Background
We found little evidence that the active incidences or frequencies of marital coitus among the females in the sample had depended on their religious background. Similarly the data indicate that the proportion of tile copulations which had led to orgasm in marriage did not seem to have differed significantly between most of the religiously devout, moderate, and inactive groups of females. Only the more devout Catholic groups seem to have been more restrained in their first year of marriage, with a distinctly higher percentage completely failing to reach orgasm, and a distinctly lower percentage reaching orgasm in most of their coitus.
Terman 1938:395, and 1951:139, also failed to find any correlation between the wife’s religious training and her capacity in orgasm, but he did find a negative correlation with the husband’s religious training, i.e., the wives of strictly trained husbands tended to have lower orgasm rates.

8. Orgasm In Relation to Age at Marriage
Responses to orgasm in coitus among the females in the sample show some correlation with the ages at which the females in the sample had married. Those who had least frequently responded to orgasm were the females who had married by twenty years of age. In that group some 34 per cent had never reached orgasm in the first year of marriage. This had been true of only 22 per cent of those who had married between twenty-one and thirty, and of only 17 per cent of those who had not married until after thirty years of age. The differences were still apparent ten and fifteen years after marriage.

In the first year of marriage, the females who had responded to orgasm in all or nearly all of their coitus represented 35 per cent of those who had married by twenty years of age, but 41 per cent of those who were married between ages twenty-one and twenty-five. The percentages had not increased, however, and they had apparently decreased among those who had married when they were past twenty-five years of age; but there is some evidence of the original trend continuing some five or ten years (but not later) after marriage.

The somewhat lower capacity of the teen-age female to reach orgasm in marriage may depend in part upon the fact that there are many females who are never aroused sexually or reach orgasm until they are past twenty years of age. This slow appearance of sexual responsiveness may depend on basic biologic factors, or it may be the product of the individual’s failure to make socio-sexual adjustments at an earlier age. The capacity of the twenty-year-old and older females to respond to orgasm more immediately when they marry may depend upon the fact that they have then had, in the average instance, more pre-marital experience in orgasm from masturbation, petting, or actual coitus; and the data presented below indicate that such pre-marital experience is definitely correlated with responses in marriage.

9. Orgasm in Relation to Length of Marriage
Nearly half (49 per cent) of the females in the sample had experienced orgasm in their coitus within the first month of marriage. The number who had so responded then steadily rose, and 67 per cent had made at least some response to orgasm within the first six months of marriage. By the end of the first year, 75 per cent had experienced orgasm in at least some of their coitus. For three-quarters of the females in the sample, the ability to respond to the point of orgasm— which meant learning through experience, and freeing themselves of some of the inhibitions that had prevented their earlier participation in sexual activity and response—had been acquired in the first year of marriage. After the first year, however, the reconditioning process had slowed up, but had continued steadily for some women into the fifteenth and even later years of marriage. By the fifteenth year of marriage there were still some 10 per cent of the females who had never reached orgasm in their marital coitus, but there were cases of females who had not reached their first orgasm in marital coitus until twenty-eight years after marriage.
Additional data as to timing of first orgasm in marital coitus are found in: Heyn 1921:406. Schbankov acc. Weissenberg 1924a: 12. Hamilton 1929:149, 194 (49 per cent of 86 wives by end of first year, 13 per cent later; 10 out of 18 wives who reached climax only after first year of marriage, had orgasm rates of 90 to 100 per cent later). Terman 1938:306 (shows 77 per cent reaching orgasm by first year of marriage, 16 per cent after a year or more, and 7 per cent never). Slater and Woodside 1951:174 (chances of satisfactory adjustment improve with length of marriage). But Terman 1938:376, and 1951:133, concludes that ability to experience orgasm does not improve after the first years of marriage.

In the sample, the maximum failure to respond to orgasm had come in the first year of marriage, irrespective of the age at which the marriage had occurred. While it was 25 per cent of the females who had never reached orgasm by the end of the first year of marriage, it was 17 per cent who were not reaching orgasm in the fifth year, and 11 per cent who were not reaching orgasm in the twentieth year of marriage.

On the other hand, 39 per cent of the females were reaching orgasm in all or nearly all of their marital coitus during the first year of marriage. This percentage had gradually increased over the years. By the end of twenty years of continuous marriage, the number so responding had risen to 47 per cent—nearly half!—of all the females in the sample. These data provide impressive evidence that experience and psychologic reconditioning may, in the course of time, improve the ability of the female to respond to the point of orgasm in her marital coitus.

10. Orgasm In Relation to Techniques of Marital Coitus
From the days of the most ancient love literature, down to present-day marriage manuals, there has been a considerable interest in the anatomy and mechanics of sexual stimulation and response. Throughout these several thousand years the idea has been widely accepted that the effectiveness of a sexual relationship must depend primarily upon the skill and the art of the male partner in physically stimulating the female.
As typical examples of the emphasis placed on coital techniques, see: Van de Velde 1930:144-252. Dickinson and Beam 1931:56-70. Dickinson 1933:84-109, Figs. 145-157. Clinton 1935:125-134. Thornton and Thornton 1939:106-130. Himes 1940:328. Evans 1941:99-106. Hutton 1942:86-117. Griffith 1947:139-162. Chesser 1947:125-162. Dickinson 1949:84-100, Figs. 145-159d. Stone and Stone 1952:188-192.

On the other hand, it now appears that we have misunderstood the way in which these techniques operate. Attention has been concentrated on the end organs (the sensory organs) which are directly involved in such techniques, and on those parts of the body in which the end organs are located; but our present understanding indicates that sexual response always involves a group of physiologic reactions, of which the development of muscular tensions throughout the animal's body may be among the most important. Response in the female, and for that matter in many a male, may not depend on elaborated, varied, and prolonged petting techniques as often as upon brief but uninterrupted pressures and/or continuous rhythmic stimulation which leads directly toward orgasm.
The value of continuous activity in effecting orgasm for the female is also noted in: Anon. 1707:2, The Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-head, in which the female says: “But bid him boldly march, not grant me leisure/Of Parley, for 'tis Speed augments the pleasure.” Hamilton 1929:168, 205-206, interestingly enough found 63 per cent of the husbands believing that their climax came too quickly for the partner’s pleasure, but only 48 per cent of the wives so believe; he also presents data showing no relationship between the extent of the sex play and variations used in marital coitus, and the orgasmic capacity of the wives; but he points out that those who find orgasm difficult to reach may for that reason practice such techniques more extensively. Terman 1951:125, 128-129, reporting on 556 married females, concluded that the prolongation of coitus is “a less important factor in orgasm adequacy than commonly supposed.”

Our data even suggest that the use of extended and varied techniques may, in not a few cases, interfere with the female’s attainment of orgasm. Most females are able to masturbate to orgasm in much less time than it takes them to reach orgasm in coitus which is preceded with extended foreplay, because masturbation is usually continuous and uninterrupted in its build-up to orgasm.

11. Orgasm in Marital Coitus vs. Pre-Marital Orgasm
In the available sample, there was no factor which showed a higher correlation with the frequency of orgasm in marital coitus than the presence or absence of pre-marital experience in orgasm. Some 36 per cent of the females in the sample had married without having had such previous experience in orgasm. They had not found such pre-marital experience in masturbation, in nocturnal dreams, in petting, in pre-marital coitus, or in pre-marital homosexual relationships. Among those who had had no previous experience, 44 per cent had failed to respond to the point of orgasm in the first year of marriage. But among the females who had had even limited pre-marital experience in orgasm, only 19 per cent had failed to reach orgasm in the first year of marriage; and among those who had experienced orgasm at least twenty-five times before marriage, only 13 per cent had failed to reach orgasm in the first year of marriage.

Among those females who had never experienced pre-marital orgasm from any source prior to marriage, 25 per cent did respond in all or nearly all of their contacts during the first year of marriage; but 45 to 47 per cent of the females who had had pre-marital experience responded to orgasm in all or nearly all of their coitus during the first year of marriage. Similar trends had been evident throughout the later years of marriage, and even for fifteen years in the continuous marriages in the sample. It is doubtful if any type of therapy has ever been as effective as early experience in orgasm, in reducing the incidences of unresponsiveness in marital coitus, and in increasing the frequencies of response to orgasm in that coitus.

These correlations may depend upon selective factors, or upon causal relationships through which the pre-marital experiences contribute to the marital experience. Both types of factors are probably involved. The more responsive females may have been the ones who discovered orgasm in their pre-marital years, either in solitary or socio-sexual activities, and they were the ones who had most often responded in marriage. On the other hand, we have already presented data which show that the female can learn through experience to respond in orgasm, and we have also emphasized the fact that such learning is most effective in the early years, when inhibitions have not yet developed or have not yet become too firmly fixed. Early orgasmic experience may, therefore, contribute directly to the sexual effectiveness of a marriage.

12. Orgasm in Marital Coitus vs. Pre-Marital Coital Experience
The type of pre-marital experience which correlates most specifically with the responses of the female in marital coitus is pre-marital coitus —provided that that coitus leads to orgasm. For instance, among the females in the sample who had had premarital coitus but who had not reached orgasm in the coitus, 38 to 56 per cent failed to reach orgasm in the first year of marriage. While the percentages had decreased in the later years, there were still 11 to 30 per cent of the pre-maritally unresponsive females who had remained unresponsive in their coitus ten years after marriage. On the other hand, among the females who had had pre-marital coitus in which they had reached orgasm at least twenty-five times, only 3 per cent were totally unresponsive in the first year of marriage, and only 1 per cent in the later years of marriage. For more than half of the females in the sample, coitus without orgasm had been correlated with orgasmic failure in marriage. They had been unresponsive in marriage ten to twenty times as often as the females who had had fairly frequent pre-marital coitus in which they had reached orgasm.

Furthermore, the record indicates that two or three times as many of the females in the sample had reached orgasm in all or nearly all of their marital contacts if their pre-marital coitus had led to orgasm. In the first year of marriage, 17 to 29 per cent of those whose pre-marital coitus had not led to orgasm did respond with regularity in their marital relations; but 50 to 57 per cent of those who had had pre-marital experience which had led to orgasm were regularly responsive in all or nearly all of their coitus in marriage. Similar correlations had extended through the first five years of marriage; and although the disparity was narrowed in later years, the pre-maritally experienced females were still more responsive ten years after marriage.

It should be emphasized that pre-marital coital experience which had not led to orgasm had not correlated with successful sexual relations in marriage. On the contrary, it showed a high correlation with failure in the marital coitus. A basic error has been involved in some of the previous studies which have attempted to assay the relation of pre-marital coitus with successful coitus in marriage, because the distinction has not been made between premarital coitus that had led to orgasm, and pre-marital coitus that had not led to orgasm.
See the following attempts to analyze the possible relationship between premarital coital experience and orgasm or happiness in marriage: Davis 1929:59 (of 71 females who had had pre-marital coitus, an undue number was in die unhappily married group). Hamilton 1929:388 (pre-marital coitus showed no relationship to orgasm in marriage, unless with future spouse, where it was favorable). Terman 1938:383, 387 (a positive relationship between premarital experience and orgasm in marriage). Landis et al. 1940:97, 315 (a higher incidence of pre-marital coitus among females with “good general sexual adjustment” in marriage).

Whether these correlations are the product of some selection which leads the innately more responsive females to engage in pre-marital coitus in which they reach orgasm, or whether the correlations between the pre-marital and marital records represent causal relationships, are matters which we cannot now determine. In general, it seems probable that selective factors are more often responsible. On the other hand, a girl who becomes involved in pre-marital coitus in which she does not respond may be traumatically affected by such experience, and thus be handicapped in her later adjustments in marriage.

But whether selective factors or causal relationships are responsible for these correlations, it is clear that the possibility that any particular female will respond with regularity in her marital coitus can, other things being equal, be predicted with considerable confidence by examining her orgasm record in pre-marital coitus. For such predictions the pre-marital coitus seems more significant than any other single sexual item, or any social factor in the background of the female.
Examples of writers who, on the other hand, have stressed the unfavorable effects which pre-marital coitus might have on later marital adjustments, include: Banning 1937:4-8. Popenoe 1938:15-16. Bowman 1942:232-236. Duvall and Hill 1945:141. Kirkendall 1947:29. Dickerson 1947:68-69^ Stokes 1948:19. Landis and Landis 1948:124-131. Foster 1950:69. Christensen 1950:156.

13. Orgasm in Marital Coitus vs. Pre-Marital Petting to Orgasm
In the available sample, pre-marital petting which led to orgasm also showed a high correlation with sexual performance after marriage. Among the females who had never done petting to the point of orgasm before marriage, 35 per cent had never reached orgasm in the first year of marriage; but only 10 per cent of those who had reached orgasm in at least some of their pre-marital petting were unresponsive in marriage. The same sorts of differences held for at least fifteen years after marriage.

On the positive side, 32 per cent of those who had not experienced orgasm in petting (or in coital experience) before marriage did respond regularly to orgasm in the first year of marriage; but some 46 to 52 per cent of those who had reached orgasm in pre-marital petting had responded in all or nearly all of their coitus during the first year of marriage. A similar correlation is apparent for at least fifteen years after marriage, although the comparisons are not as extreme as in the earlier years of marriage.
Other data showing the relationship of petting, to orgasm in marriage, or to other marital adjustments, are found in: Davis 1929:59 (a negative relationship between “spooning” and happiness in marriage). Hamilton 1929:389 (lack of guilt feelings in early petting positively related to orgasm capacity). Terman 1938:393, 397, and 1951:136 (a slight positive relationship between adolescent petting and adequacy in marital orgasm).

Again, these correlations may be the product of selective factors or of some causal relationship between pre-marital and marital experience. The most responsive females may be the ones who most often pet to orgasm before marriage, and who similarly respond best in their marital coitus. Or petting to orgasm may have provided the experience which helped the female respond to orgasm after marriage. But whatever the explanation, there are three, five, or more chances to one that a girl who has not done pre-marital petting in which she reaches orgasm will not respond to orgasm after she marries. If she has reached orgasm in her pre-marital petting, there is a much better chance that she will respond in all or nearly all of her marital intercourse during the early years of her marriage and also in the later years of her marriage.

We have already noted that pre-marital petting is significant because it provides the first experience in orgasm for some 18 to 24 per cent of the females, particularly among the younger generations. We have also pointed out that petting is even more significant because it introduces the female to the meaning of physical contacts with individuals of the opposite sex. The unresponsiveness of many of the married females who had little or next to no experience in pre-marital petting is sometimes due to nothing more than their refusal to allow physical contacts which would be sufficient to effect erotic arousal. Experience in pre-marital petting may help educate the girl in the significance of such contacts.

14. Orgasm in Marital Coitus vs. Pre-Marital Experience in Masturbation. Although the correlations between pre-marital masturbatory experience that had led to orgasm and the female’s subsequent responses in coitus in marriage were not as marked as the correlations with coital or petting experience, the masturbatory experience did show a definite correlation with the marital performance. Among the females who had never masturbated before marriage, or whose masturbation had never led to orgasm, about a third (31 to 37 per cent) had failed to reach orgasm in the first year, and nearly as many had failed in the first five years of their marital coitus. Among those who had previously masturbated to the point of orgasm, only 13 to 16 per cent were totally unresponsive in the first year of marriage.

Table 111f. Pre-Marital Female Masturbation vs.
Percentage of Marital Coitus Leading to Orgasm

% of Marital Coitus With Orgasm	Experience in Masturbation
	None	Exper. without orgasm	With orgasm 1-24 times	With orgasm 25 + times
	Percent of females
	In 1st Year of Marriage
None	31	37	13	16
1-29	11	5	13	12
30-59	12	8	12	15
60-89	11	11	13	15
90-100	35	39	49	42
Number of cases	1159	128	186	722
	In 5st Year of Marriage
None	21	29	3	7
1-29	14	9	15	14
30-59	15	11	10	17
60-89	13	10	17	19
90-100	37	41	55	43
Number of cases	770	79	114	459
	In 10st Year of Marriage
None	19		3	6
1-29	14		13	14
30-59	14		6	12
60-89	13		14	24
90-100	40		64	44
Number of cases	473		70	261
	In 15st Year of Marriage
None	16			6
1-29	16			16
30-59	13			9
60-89	13			20
90-100	42			49
Number of cases	294			151

Although more than a third (35 per cent) of the females who had had no pre-marital experience in masturbation did respond in all or nearly all of their marital coitus in the first year of marriage, a larger number—42 to 49 per cent—of those with pre-marital masturbatory experience which had led to orgasm had responded regularly in the early years of their marriage. The differences became less, but were still apparent some fifteen or twenty years after marriage.
The contrary opinion, that much of the lack of response by the female in marital coitus can be blamed on previous masturbation, is found, for instance, in: Rohleder 1907(1):220, 222. Zikel 1909:46, 47. Back 1910(1):144.

Once again, the correlations may have depended upon the fact that those who had masturbated were the more responsive females, and therefore the ones who had responded most frequently in marriage. The correlations may also have been the result of causal relationships; but since the techniques of masturbation in the female are so different from the techniques of coitus, it is probable that the significance of the pre-marital masturbatory experience lay primarily in the fact that it had acquainted the girl with the nature of an orgasmic response. Even after marriage, and even among females who are in their thirties and forties, difficulties in coital responses are sometimes cleared up if they learn how to masturbate to the point of orgasm. The techniques of masturbation and of petting are more specifically calculated to effect orgasm than the techniques of coitus itself, and for that reason it is sometimes possible for a female to learn to masturbate to orgasm even though she has difficulty in effecting the same end in coitus. Having learned what it means to suppress inhibitions, and to abandon herself to the spontaneous physical reactions which represent orgasm in masturbation, she may become more capable of responding in the same way in coitus. There are very few instances, among our several thousand histories, of females who were able to masturbate to orgasm without becoming capable of similar responses in coitus.

There are legal and social responsibilities in any marriage; there are economic problems to be solved; above all, there are psychologic adjustments to be made between the wedded partners. Sexual adjustments represent only one aspect and not necessarily the most important aspect of marriage. No balanced program for American youth can be confined to preparing them for sexual relationships in marriage. But it is inconceivable that anyone who is objectively and scientifically interested in successful marriages should fail to appreciate the significance of coitus in marriage, or wholly ignore the correlations which exist between pre-marital activities and the sexual adjustments which are made in marriage.

>>