Science Uncovers a Fascinating Link Between Anal Sex and the Orgasm Gap
Hold up, what? You read that right, anal sex would like a word when it comes to the orgasm gap…
The orgasm gap is the difference in how often women have orgasms during sexual intercourse compared to men. Some studies show that roughly 75% of men are capable of climaxing every time they have sex, only 30–40% of women can reach orgasm every time.
On a whole, men are significantly more likely to reach orgasm during sex than women, leaving many women feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and overall dissatisfied with their sex lives — if not the whole relationship.
Fortunately, science has a lot to say about the orgasm gap, and it can teach us how we can all be better lovers and embrace a healthier, more wholesome sex life for everyone involved.
The Orgasm Gap
First, a bit about the orgasm gap itself. I’ll summarize a few articles I’ve written on the subject, and then we’ll move along to the juicy stuff you came for.
A study called Differences in Orgasm Frequency Among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men and Women in a U.S. National Sample found that the rates of usually always reaching climax during sex were as follows:
Heterosexual men: 95%
Homosexual men: 89%
Bisexual men: 88%
Lesbian women: 86%
Bisexual women: 66%
Heterosexual women: 65%
This study included 52,588 total participants. Judging by these averages, it seems that part of the problem is the magic, tragic combination of heterosexual men and women having sex together.
As sexuality becomes more fluid, other groups approach the aggregate mean, the total average of all groups combined, which is 81.5% — and the differences between groups begin to balance out, thus closing the gap.
So, it’s safe to say that sexual fluidity and sexual rigidity of all sorts may play a role in the orgasm gap. Take a mental note of this, as it’ll come in handy later.
What Causes the Orgasm Gap?
While specific causes that we can broadly apply to everyone in the world are tough to nail down, after digging through piles of research on the subject, one thing we can safely say is that the orgasm gap is not caused by purely mechanical differences between the sexes.
Anatomical differences aren’t enough to explain the orgasm gap away.
For decades now, scientists have sought to explain the orgasm gap as being the result of a woman’s need for direct clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm. The theory goes, whether through sexual ignorance or lazy male partners who are disinterested in seeing their lovers climax, women don’t get touched in the right places, so they don’t orgasm as much.
The problem?
This isn’t what’s actually happening.
It turns out, the orgasm gap has a lot less to do with the sheer mechanics of sex and much more to do with the emotional, sexual, and romantic connection between the partners.
Did You Finnish?
A study in Finland peered into the minds of tens of thousands of study participants to see what things worked and didn’t work in the bedroom, and what ramps or barriers may be helping or hurting along the path to closing the orgasm gap.
The type of stimulation didn’t have much of an impact on orgasm rates:
But what they did find was quite interesting.
The orgasm gap closed the more partners prioritized orgasms with one another. That’s right, the simple act of prioritizing orgasm made all the difference in the world, as you can see from the chart below:
But it’s not just prioritization, it’s the whole package. The hypothesis goes something like this…
Couples who prioritized her orgasms were also much more likely to prioritize other things, like open and honest communication about sex, a willingness to try new things together and explore their sexuality as a couple, as well as a non-judgmental atmosphere that allowed them to improve their game and work together to explore more satisfactory sex.
Anal Sex & the Orgasm Gap
Another intriguing survey conducted by Indiana University, Bloomington, called the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, queried more than 20,000 people between 2009 and 2018, and this survey gave us some rather unusual insight into the orgasm gap.
In the study, 91% of men achieved orgasm during sex, while only 64% of women achieved orgasm during sex in their last sexual encounter. This is consistent with the above findings.
And that’s when things got weird…
The survey also asked about different types of sexual activities couples engaged in when they had sex and discovered the rate of orgasm during sex with and without those activities.
Over 90% of the men reported climaxing, regardless of the kind of sex involved. The only outlier was men giving anal sex to a partner, and even then, 89% of the men reported climaxing.
Women, on the other hand, responded discordantly depending on the type of sex involved:
Partner masturbation: 64% of women climaxed (defined as masturbating with a partner, rubbing genitals together, dry sex, or humping).
Giving oral sex: 72% of women climaxed when giving oral sex to their partner was involved in the mix.
Receiving oral sex: No surprise, here, 81% of women climaxed when they reported receiving oral sex.
Penetrative sex (penile-vaginal): 66% of women reported.
Receiving anal sex: 94% of the women reported climaxing when having sex that included receiving anal sex, by far the largest gap between the haves and have-nots of orgasm.
To quote FiveThirtyEight:
Anal sex appears to be the hands-down winner for both sexes — 100 percent of men and 94 percent of women say they orgasmed during encounters in which they received anal sex. However, these numbers are less reliable than the others cited in the chart because only 25 men and 31 women interviewed said they received anal sex during their last sexual encounter.
What’s going on? What in the world could possibly explain these findings?
The first thing we can assume is the fact that the sheer mechanics of anal sex itself aren’t that good to create such a difference. Anal sex might be wonderful for a lot of people out there, but it defies logic that the anus would contribute to orgasm more than the vagina for most people.
Second, the fact that both men and women reported higher rates of orgasm when anal play was involved alludes to the fact that perhaps it’s less about mechanics and more about the style of sex that takes place between two lovers who are willing to embark on a little anal adventure.
Stop and think about every porn movie you’ve ever watched in your life. There’s usually a formula that goes a little something like this:
The couple starts out kissing, then she goes down on him.
He might return the favor and go down on her.
Then they switch to penetrative sex (penile-vaginal).
Then they do anal sex.
He finishes.
This “porn formula” was established for a reason — it covers all the bases that most viewers might want out of a sex session. But in real life, a lot of people skip some of these steps.
Some people jump straight into penetrative sex and don’t engage in anything else. Others will have her go down on him and will jump straight to penetrative sex from there, without giving so much as a thought to going down on her.
In real bedrooms, and not in the world of niche porn, anal sex usually comes after all the rest of the bases are covered. Few, if any, people skip straight to anal sex or have anal sex without oral sex. This means by the time people get around to anal sex, they’ve already performed a series of sexual activities.
And wouldn’t you know it, the number of sexual activities people engaged in was highly correlative of the number of orgasms women had.
It’s probable that it’s not anal sex itself that causes more orgasms in women. But this does tell us a lot about the kinds of people who are having an equitable number of orgasms and the kinds of people who aren’t.
What Makes a Great Lover?
It seems that beneath it all, there’s something intangible that makes a great lover. And regardless of your sex, it seems like a robust desire to engage in sexual activities with your partner(s) is a reliable indicator of whether you would climax. I know, I know, this seems so basic — people who want sex more are more likely to enjoy it more…but we have the data to prove it.
We know that the orgasm gap is closed when people prioritize orgasm, when they engage in more sex acts, and when they engage in a variety of different sex acts, everything ranging from “vanilla” stuff like sending sweet & sexy emails to one another to giving back massages and even anal sex, they tend to come up on top, having much better sex in the process.
Their sex lives are practically never straight-to-penetration sex without side excursions of various sorts, be they back massages, sweet emails, open and non-judgmental conversations about sex, or various activities like oral and anal sex.
The best lovers are willing to not embrace one or two of these things, but all of them, dedicating themselves to being wonderful partners in the bedroom.
All of these things solidify connections, and it’s those connections that are the roots upon which the sweet and fruitful trees of human sexuality grow.
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Three books I recommend checking out:
Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships
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