Original Article
Partner wealth predicts self-reported orgasm frequency in a sample of Chinese women

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.11.002Get rights and content

Abstract

There has been considerable speculation about the adaptive significance of the human female orgasm, with one hypothesis being that it promotes differential affiliation or conception with high-quality males. We investigated the relationship between women's self-reported orgasm frequency and the characteristics of their partners in a large representative sample from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey. We found that women report more frequent orgasms the higher their partner's income is. This result cannot be explained by possible confounds such as women's age, health, happiness, educational attainment, relationship duration, wealth difference between the partners, difference between the partners in educational attainment, and regional location. It appears consistent with the view that female orgasm has an evolved adaptive function.

Introduction

Female orgasm in humans is a topic of continued debate and speculation but has relatively little solid empirical evidence (Dunn et al., 2005, Meston et al., 2004). Although there have been a multitude of definitions and physiologists, sexologists, doctors, and sociologists continue to debate the exact nature of the experience (Levin, 2004), there is general agreement that female orgasm is “a variable, transient peak sensation of intense pleasure, creating an altered state of consciousness, usually with an initiation accompanied by involuntary, rhythmic contractions of the pelvic striated circumvaginal musculature, often with concomitant uterine and anal contractions and myotonia that resolves the sexually induced vasocongestion (sometimes only partially), generally with an induction of well-being and contentment.” (Meston et al., 2004, p. 174).

The frequency of orgasm has been found to be an important component of sexual satisfaction, which in turn is a predictor of relationship satisfaction, for Chinese women (Parish et al., 2007). In American women, age and religiosity are negative predictors of orgasm frequency (Laumann et al., 1994, Meston et al., 2004), and the frequency of masturbatory orgasms but not orgasms with a partner increases with increasing education (Laumann et al., 1994). Twin evidence also suggests a moderate heritable component (Dunn et al., 2005). Beyond these, however, there is a relative paucity of evidence on the psychological and social factors influencing orgasmic function (Meston et al., 2004) since research has mainly focused on the physiological mechanisms involved (Levin and Wagner, 1985, Masters and Johnson, 1966).

Evolutionists have taken opposing positions on the function of female orgasm. On one hand, it has been seen as a functionless by-product of the ejaculatory response in males (Gould, 1987, Symons, 1979). An alternative view is that women's capacity for orgasm is an adaptation that serves to discriminate between males on the basis of their quality (Alcock, 1987, Smith, 1984, Thornhill et al., 1995), leading to either enhanced conception probability (Baker & Bellis, 1993) or selective emotional bonding with high-quality sires (Alexander, 1979, Fisher, 1992, Hrdy, 1996). While there has been considerable debate surrounding these hypotheses, there are only a few studies that set out to test the predictions of adaptive versus by-product hypotheses.

If female orgasm is adaptively designed for discriminating male quality, then it should be more frequent in females paired with high-quality males. There is evidence consistent with such an effect in Japanese macaques, where females display the orgasm-like clutching reaction more often when mating with high-ranking males (Troisi & Carosi, 1998). Two studies on humans have also found comparable effects. Thornhill et al. (1995) found that young women reported copulatory orgasm more frequently if their partners were more symmetrical. Shackelford et al. (2000) found that women paired with more attractive males were more likely to report orgasm at their last intercourse than women paired with less attractive males. These studies are interesting but rely on modest samples (n=86 and 388) of student volunteers, which means that the ranges of ages and male qualities may be quite limited. They also found effects only of symmetry and physical attractiveness as proxies of male quality. In a larger population cross-section, other qualities such as income and height may prove to be important.

In this study, we investigated for the first time in a large population cross-section the relationship between women's self-reported orgasm frequency and the characteristics of their partners. The data are from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey, which was a large-scale investigation of sexual attitudes, behavior, and sexually transmitted diseases in a nationally representative sample of the Chinese population, carried out in 1999–2000 (Parish et al., 2003, Parish et al., 2007). For male quality, we investigated two parameters not only because they were available but also because previous population-level surveys have found them to be important determinants of male reproductive success. The first is income: Wealth is seen as desirable in potential partners by women all over the world (Buss, 1989), and studies in diverse populations have found that increasing wealth increases male marriage success (Borgerhoff Mulder, 1990, Fieder and Huber, 2007, Hopcroft, 2006, Nettle and Pollet, Pollet and Nettle, 2008). Thus, other things being equal, richer men are preferred to poorer ones as mates.

Our second independent variable is height: Several studies have found either a preference expressed by women for taller men or an actual increase in marriage success in taller-than-average men (Hensley, 1994, Mueller and Mazur, 2001, Nettle, 2002, Pawlowski et al., 2000) in Western populations. Little is known about male height and reproductive success in China. A recent study suggested that male height is not significantly positively related to offspring count, after controlling for potential confounds (Fielding et al., in press), yet height is generally positively related to health and socioeconomic status in China as it is elsewhere (Chen et al., 1990, Chen and Zhou, 2007, Samaras et al., 2003). Therefore, it is possible that height is a sought-after characteristic in a man for Chinese women as it is for women in Western populations.

If the adaptive view of female orgasm is correct, then we predict that women will report more frequent orgasms the richer their partners are and the taller their partners are. However, there is the danger that associations between partner characteristics and orgasm frequency might be due to confounding third variables. For example, the partners of richer men might be younger, be more educated, be physically healthier, or have higher levels of psychological well-being, or be more westernized, than partners of poorer men. In our analysis, therefore, we needed to control for a large number of potential confounding variables of this type.

Section snippets

Methods

The Chinese Health and Family Life Survey sampled 60 villages and urban neighborhoods chosen in such a way as to represent the full geographical and socioeconomic range of contemporary China excluding Hong Kong and Tibet. Eighty-three individuals were chosen at random for each location from official registers of adults aged between 20 and 64 years to target a sample of 5000 individuals in total. The response rate was around 75%. We only included in our analysis women with current male partners

Results

The descriptive statistics for the variables in the models are summarized in Table 1, while the results of the ordinal regression models are summarized in Table 2. Model 1 tested whether partner income and partner height predicted orgasm frequency. Partner income proved to be a highly significant predictor of female orgasm frequency, while the estimate for partner height was not significant (although there was a trend, .5<p<.1). The odds ratio for partner income [exp(λ)] was 1.28. This means

Discussion

In a large representative sample of the Chinese population, we found evidence that women's self-reported orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner. The effect of partner income is not an artifact of female age, educational attainment, happiness, health, relationship duration, regional differences, and differences between partners in educational attainment and wealth. Thus, the predictions of the functional hypothesis of human female orgasm were met with respect to partner

Acknowledgments

We thank the Population Center at NORC and the University of Chicago for providing public access to these data. Information about the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey, as well as due acknowledgement of its original funding, can be found at http://www.spc.uchicago.edu/prc/chfls.php. We also thank the editor and two anonymous referees who provided feedback that greatly improved a previous version of the manuscript.

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