National Sex Day Was June 9th: Are You Getting Any?

June 9th was National Sex Day.

Did you miss it?

While it certainly seems there’s more discussion and research about sex and sexuality now than ever before, there remains an alarming information gap between what science and researchers know, and what lay people know (first of a few unintended puns herein that seem to work). There are numerous good reasons to enjoy sexual intercourse, not the least of which is for what is contributes to one’s emotional well-being, and physical health.

Cindy M. Meston, Ph.D., Director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory noted that the hormone prolactin is released during orgasm, and is at naturally higher levels during sleep, suggesting that orgasms may help sleep. Psychology Professor Stuart Brody, Ph.D., and other researchers at the University of the West of Scotland found that people who had intercourse at least once over a period of two weeks managed stressful situations better. Researchers at Southern Illinois University‘s Headache Clinic found that half of female migraine sufferers reported relief after climaxing, because endorphins (so-called “feel good” hormones) released during orgasm closely resemble morphine in chemical structure. And with females, uterine contractions which occur naturally during orgasm also (to some extent) eliminate cramp-causing compounds during menstruation. And yes, it’s perfectly fine to have sexual intercourse during menstruation… despite what any religious texts may say otherwise.

Edith Lees & Havelock Ellis

“Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.—So, at least, it seems to me.”

– Dr. Havelock Ellis, MD, July 1897,
general preface to “Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1“

According to an unscientific survey performed in conjunction with Bath College, and Ragdoll, an independent research company based in the South West of England, which was commissioned by Lovehoney Group Ltd. – the UK’s largest online sex toy retailer headquartered at 100 Locksbrook Road, Bath, BA1 3EN, UK – respondents thought 30 minutes was the optimal length of time couples desired to couple between the sheets.

The survey, in which 4,400 people participated, found that 52% of coupled respondents are satisfied with a 30-minute duration of sexual interaction, including intercourse. However, 23% of men, and 15% of women thought that sex was over too soon. What was equally interesting was the finding that many couples settle for “quickies” and that 21% of the time, all couples fail to set aside proper time for intimacy and lovemaking.

The unscientific survey also indicated that most couples’ sexual encounters are of 19 minutes duration – short 11 minutes of the perceived ideal – and consisted of 10 minutes of foreplay, followed by 9 minutes of intercourse.

That very nearly half of all respondents (48%) of the unscientific Lovehoney survey did not express satisfaction with a 30-minute time frame for lovemaking and sexual intimacy is similarly telling. For example, did those respondents desire more time, or less time? Other factors not mentioned included respondents’ age ranges, and their educational attainment levels – both which could quite possibly suggest factors which influence their behavior.

While it was probably no “A-HAH!” moment (at least not now, anyway), groundbreaking longtime sex researchers Masters and Johnson (William H. Masters 1915-2001, Virginia E. Johnson 1925-2013, a renown husband wife team of psychological researchers who studied human sexual behavior) found in their 1966 research that men orgasm much more quickly than do women. Their findings were that women take 10–20 minutes to climax, while men take 7-14 minutes, and typically ejaculate 2-3 minutes after penetrating the vagina. One wonders if 2-3 minutes constitutes “premature ejaculation,” which is defined as an ejaculation that occurs sooner than he, or his partner wishes. As with any physiological or emotional health condition, premature ejaculation may cause a man to experience secondary effects such as decreased confidence in the relationship, interpersonal difficulty, mental distress, anxiety, embarrassment, and even depression. And while by no means is concern about premature ejaculation much ado about nothing, men seem to be more concerned about it than do women. A 2003 study published by the National Institutes of Health found that “the women saw RE (rapid ejaculation) as less of a problem for the men than their male partners reported for themselves.” There is good news, however, and it is that men – along with their partners – can train themselves to delay climaxing.

When it comes to masturbating however (another unintended pun, but hey… it works!), women take about 4 minutes to climax, while men typically climax in roughly the same time as they do with vaginal intercourse – about 2 minutes. And with males, there is also a “refractory” period in which orgasm is physically impossible, and depending upon the man’s age, and health condition, can endure from 1 to 60 minutes, or more.

While women’s response to sexual stimulation following orgasm is uniquely different than men’s, such as with “multiple orgasms” for example, there is some semblance of a “refractory” type period in which many women report not being able to orgasm, due in part perhaps to fatigue, or frequently due to increased clitoral sensitivity, so much so that in some cases, further clitoral or vaginal stimulation may be perceived as painful.

Disconcerting, however, is the more recent finding by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, Bloomington, that only 64% of women reached orgasm during their last sexual experience, while 85% of men believed that their partner has climaxed. That is statistically significant, yet even more emotionally and psychologically telling.

Seminal sexuality researcher (another bad pun… I know) Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), an English physician, noted in his 1897 7-volume book “Studies in the Psychology of Sex” that “the cases are numerous in which, on special occasions, it is possible for people who are passionately attached to each other to repeat the act of coitus, or at all events the orgasm, an inordinate number of times within a few hours.” And it seems as if masturbation may be an important factor in the continuation and exercise of sexuality, insofar as he also wrote that a contemporary researcher “had known some men who had masturbated in early boyhood, and began to consort with women at fifteen, yet remained sexually vigorous in old age, while he knew others who began intercourse late and were losing force at forty.” The adage “if you don’t use it, you lose it” certainly seems apropos in regard to that context.

And for men, frequent ejaculations have been found to be helpful in reduced prostate cancer rates. Harvard’s Health Professionals Follow-up Study of 29,342 men between the ages of 46 and 81 found that men who ejaculated 21 or more times a month enjoyed a 33% lower risk of prostate cancer compared with men who reported four to seven ejaculations a month throughout their lifetimes. An Australian study of 2,338 men came to a similar conclusion (another bad pun). There was no connection between prostate cancer and the number of sex partners.

Working toward what some sexually active couples perceive to be the “ultimate” sexual experience – simultaneous mutual orgasm – the Lovehoney survey found that 90% of respondents reported that they had experienced simultaneous orgasm at least once during their sexual relationships. However, mutual simultaneous orgasm is by no means typical.

While Masters & Johnson’s ground-breaking work identified Four Phases of Sexual Response, it’s important to remember that just as male and female physiology is different, so are male and female responses to sexual arousal. University of California researchers noted that emotions are an important part of human sexual response – that sexual response is not merely a mechanical function – and wrote that “Everyone is different, and while the responses are biologically somewhat predictable, there is extreme variation in each person’s subjective experiences. The simplification of the sexual response into a small number of stages does not do justice to the richness and beauty of the individual variability in sexual responses.” The term “wedding night jitters” succinctly summarizes the feelings that one, or both partners may have with their first sexual experience with each other, with new environs, or other emotionally stressful events.

One’s inability to achieve orgasm is termed “anorgasmia” and applies to female and males, while the term “erectile dysfunction” is the term applied exclusively to males whom are unable to achieve, obtain, or maintain an erection of sufficient duration to achieve orgasm/ejaculation. Sometimes, anorgasmia is caused by a mechanical or physiological problem that causes dissatisfaction with sexual experiences, and which may be treated or cured with medicine or surgical intervention; while yet other times anorgamia may involve emotions, or bad experiences… and sometimes, it may be a combination of the two – physiological and psychological.

The understanding of human sexuality is a complex subject precisely because it involves emotions (the way we feel), our thoughts (psychology), and our bodies (physiology), and it is precisely for that reason which makes the understanding of human sexual behavior so complex. That certain sexual practices between mutually consenting adults – such as masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, use of sex toys, or any other sexual practice – may often be viewed as taboo doesn’t help things. Frequently, discussion of sexuality is avoided in many circles, yet discussion of one’s cardiac or pulmonary (lung) function is not. Why is that? Could the reason be perhaps because sexuality innately involves our emotions? We also often don’t talk about mental health, and avoid discussion of how we feel and what we think precisely because we fear others may or will slap a label upon us as “mentally defective,” or worse. Such an “ostrich-head-in-the-sand” approach has never helped anyone. As it’s been colloquially said, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

Finally, sex also has a mystical component. Writing in Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6, Havelock Ellis noted that “In speaking of the art of love, however, it is impossible to disentangle completely the spiritual from the physical. The very attempt to do so is, indeed, a fatal mistake. The man who can only perceive the physical side of the sexual relationship is, as Hinton was accustomed to say, on a level with the man who, in listening to a sonata of Beethoven on the violin, is only conscious of the physical fact that a horse’s tail is being scraped against a sheep’s entrails.”

Mutually satisfying and healthy sexual relationships and experiences should be a goal for every sexually active individual and couple. One way to achieve that is by communicating. Sharing how one feels, and what one thinks – without judgment, or condemnation – and what one desires, is one of the best ways to move toward mutually satisfying sexuality. Shame – a sense of self-condemnation – has no place in any intimate relationship, and is counter productive to healthy emotions.

Concluding, Ellis observed that our natural state of nakedness, nudity, au naturel, etc., is one in which we are mystically and intrinsically unified with our emotions, and that one’s perceptions of nudity are directly correlated to another feeling… love. In so identifying that character, he also wrote that “…nakedness has a significance beyond what it appeared to possess at the outset. The hygienic value, physically and mentally, of familiarity with nakedness during the early years of life, however considerable it may be, is not the only value which such familiarity possesses. Beyond its æsthetic value, also, there lies in it a moral value, a source of dynamic energy. And now, taking a still further step, we may say that it has a spiritual value in relation to our whole conception of the sexual impulse. Our attitude towards the naked human body is the test of our attitude towards the instinct of sex. If our own and our fellows’ bodies seem to us intrinsically shameful or disgusting, nothing will ever really ennoble or purify our conceptions of sexual love. Love craves the flesh, and if the flesh is shameful the lover must be shameful. “Se la cosa amata è vile,” as Leonardo da Vinci profoundly said, “l’amante se fa vile.” However illogical it may have been, there really was a justification for the old Christian identification of the flesh with the sexual instinct. They stand or fall together; we cannot degrade the one and exalt the other. As our feelings towards nakedness are, so will be our feelings towards love.”

A santé!