I remember sneaking a peek at the sex scenes in movies in my early childhood. Someone in my family would be watching a movie and my eyes would widen as I watched two naked hairless primates mid-coitus.
The shaking, sweating, the fury!
All of it just seemed so alien.
Why would people willingly do this to themselves? It didn’t look fun, but I was dying to find out what the hype was all about. Even as a toddler, I remember being able to pick up on the subtle cues my culture was constantly throwing at me: sex is good — sex is really, really good.
I was perplexed.
To make matters worse, I didn’t understand sex differences at all. Women were these fascinating creatures that were like me in most ways. They talked, they walked, they played games just like I did. But in some key ways, they were my opposite.
Before I was ten, when I had no idea what the vagina was, I thought it was where Jell-O cups were made. My mind was on food more than sex and, considering how pudgy I was as a little ginger kid, it showed.
I’m being 100% serious. Feel free to laugh at my expense.
One thing I couldn’t help but notice in the sex scenes of 90s movies was the fact that women were always significantly noisier than men whenever sex happened.
It’s a question that’s puzzled me ever since I was a young boy.
Why are women so loud during sex? — so vociferous? — so boisterous?!
It wouldn’t be until decades later that I’d finally dig through the science and find some answers to my questions.
The Basics of Moaning
First, let’s get some facts straight about moaning and sex. Men and women tend to have more similarities than we do differences. While the differences make for fascinating research, overall, we’re more alike than different. This means that no one explanation covers all bases.
Some men are very vocal (and many women love this, by the way). Some women aren’t vocal at all.
It all depends on the individual person and their sexuality.
But if I asked you to close your eyes and imagine couples having sex, which party do you automatically assume is going to be the loudest?
Right.
More often than not, women are the ones making the noise, while men are the ones pretending to do the short few minutes of work before rolling over and going to bed.
But how much of this is cultural? Could it be that it’s just in America, or in Western culture, that women are the loud ones?
Nature Vs. Nurture
On a whole, in every culture, whether you’re on the far eastern reaches of Asia, up north in Finland, or even down south in the rainforests of the Amazon, all over the globe, women are the louder sex when it comes to sex.
Because of this universality, cultures and individuals sometimes place a premium on emphasizing female sexual vocalizations.
Cue Meg Ryan’s epic performance from When Harry Met Sally where she had an orgasm in the restaurant sitting across from actor Billy Crystal, a moment that went down in cinematic history.
As such, if we scan history, we’ll find that there have even been instruction manuals on how to properly moan during sex. The Kama Sutra instructs women on how to moan. In related news, sexual vocalizations have also been performative for a very long time.
Some people embellish their moans, just like some women embellish their lips with lipstick, and some men exaggerate their wealth with rented sports cars.
Fun Facts and Vociferous Fornications
Other interesting facts about women’s moans from science include:
Some scientists consider women’s moans to be a form of singing.
Studies show that vocalizations were most prominent during penetration, rather than any other sexual activity. This means it’s a signal to mates, rather than a raw expression of pleasure.
Further backing up this idea, another study found that moans aren’t correlated to orgasm.
The same study found that while moans didn’t peak when women climaxed, they peaked when men climaxed. Moans really are a form of communication, both to the lover(s) present and anyone else who might be in earshot.
Another study showed that about 38% of women “faked it” and pretended to moan when they weren’t naturally compelled to. These women were exclusively associated with the women who were more likely to fake orgasms. Before you get all judgy, it’s safe to say these women may have felt really uncomfortable, and thus they felt the need to perform for the sake of their partners.
So, if moans are both a form of communication and a choice, certainly they must be more biological than cultural, right? Well, not quite. Let’s turn to the animal world for clues.