Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
A new study investigating the female orgasm has found that women have more frequent and satisfying climaxes when they have high levels of “interoception” – the ability to focus on and sense body sensations such as heartbeat and touch.
“Our study empirically demonstrates that women need to get out of their heads and into their bodies to have more frequent and satisfying orgasms,” says Megan Klabunde from the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex in the UK.
Klabunde is senior author of a research paper, published in the journal Brain Sciences, which analysed questionnaire responses from 360 people on their subjective sexual experiences and interoception levels.
The majority of respondents were cisgender women (94.7%), 2 were trans men (0.6%), and 17 (4.7%) identified as non-binary with female sex assigned at birth.
“Interestingly, we found that women rated their orgasm frequency and satisfaction significantly higher for solitary as compared to partnered sexual interactions,” the authors write in the study.
“When examining how … interoceptive awareness relates to orgasm in women, we found that, as predicted, increased awareness was associated with both higher orgasm frequency and satisfaction.
“However, findings were more nuanced when considering the different facets of interoceptive awareness.”
The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness Scale (MAIA-2) was used to measure the different dimensions of interoceptive awareness using 8 subscales: noticing; not-distracting; not-worrying; attention regulation; emotional awareness; self-regulation; body listening; and trusting.
The study found that the noticing subscale, which assesses the ability to distinguish between different internal states and to notice specific sensations, was a positive predictor of orgasm frequency for both solitary and partnered orgasms.
The attention regulation subscale, in which high scores reflect an ability to sustain and control attention towards internal sensations, was also a significant predictor of solitary orgasm frequency and satisfaction.
“This study is important because most research looking at orgasms in women have focused on their dysfunction,” says Klabunde.
“Focusing only on orgasmic dysfunction in women is a problem because there is very little research demonstrating the normal process of orgasm for women, let alone demonstrating ways for women to enrich their orgasms.
“Better understanding the process to orgasm for women could lead to their increased well-being in addition to boosting relationship satisfaction for women and their partners.”
