Young Women Don't Enjoy Sex

Logical Fallacy

Or, so the news story goes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/young-women-dont-enjoy-sex-1070005.html

We actually had a really good thread on sex and the enjoyment thereof in the Gentleman's Club a while back, and i figured folk here might make an interesting discussion of this.

In the thread that we had in Boysville I made a post about how sex is like anything else, it takes practice and patience and communication to figure out exactly what you like and what you are doing. Great sex, in my experience, tends to happen when communication is high in a relationship and i tend to get impression that a lot of people are embarrassed to properly discuss sex, even with a partner but that these walls can break down over time, and often as people move from relationship to relationship they become more confident and grounded, emotionally and sexually.

I'm not say the study backs up my point, just kind of starting the ball rolling I suppose.

MORE THAN a quarter of young women in America do not enjoy sex, sometimes because intercourse brings them more pain than pleasure, according to a new study of sexual behaviour published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Older women by contrast reported fewer problems in bed. Billed as the most comprehensive investigation into adult sex habits since the famed Kinsey report of 1948, the survey painted an unexpectedly bleak picture of sexual satisfaction. It suggested that two in every five women and about one-third of men in all age groups experience some form of sexual dysfunction, ranging from lack of desire to attaining an erection and reaching orgasm.
Most striking are the findings for younger women, aged 18 to 29. According to the survey - conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago and based on interviews with 3,400 adults - 27 per cent get no pleasure from having sex and, if anything, consider it an ordeal. The same view was expressed by 17 per cent of women aged 50- 59.
The findings appear to explode the popular notion that young people, or at least young women, enjoy the hottest sex. "For women, age is not the big deal everyone assumes it is," Edward Laumann, one of the study's author, said yesterday.
In their conclusion, the authors said the results "indicate that sexual problems are widespread in society and are influenced by health-related and psychosocial factors".
The report suggests a reality that is at odds with the images of satisfying sex that saturate books, magazines, film and television. "This problem warrants recognition as a significant public health concern," the study asserts.
Mr Laumann added that the various difficulties suffered by men, including performance anxiety and premature ejaculation, explains the extraordinary success of the Viagra potency pill. "I think it gives us a base for explaining why we had this enormous response," he said.
Experts yesterday offered an array of possible explanations for the study's gloomy findings, ranging from the modern pressures of work to emotional and health problems as well as fear about sexual diseases, including Aids.

um7y1h83ge06nx

I think sex is incredibly important for me (28yr old male here).

Communication is very key. This might seem a little harsh, but if people are having sex but can't communicate to their partner about sex, contraception etc. then I don't think they're mature enough to have a sexual relationship.

I'm pretty open about sex and have told my girlfriend that she should feel completely free to discuss our sex lives with me (what she likes/dislikes etc.).

It's important too to explore what sex means to you individually. In my current situation, being in a great relationship, sex is much more than just a physical things. It allows me to connect fully (no pun intended messers ) with my girlfriend in an emotional way. Nothing better and more natural than having sex with someone you love.

It suggested that two in every five women and about one-third of men in all age groups experience some form of sexual dysfunction, ranging from lack of desire to attaining an erection and reaching orgasm.

I was one of those one third of guys. Thankfully I took positive steps as soon as I realised I had an issue and went to a GP. Took a while but it got sorted. I would implore anyone that is suffering with a type of sexual dysfunction to seek medical help, GPs are great (mostly).

Faith

I've seen loads of people talking about this on Facebook. Has nobody twigged that it was published 12 years ago, or does that not matter?

While the date of publication doesn't change the content, people are discussing it as if it was a brand-new article, and I'm genuinely curious if it's because nobody noticed the date.

Logical Fallacy

Faith wrote: »

I've seen loads of people talking about this on Facebook. Has nobody twigged that it was published 12 years ago, or does that not matter?

While the date of publication doesn't change the content, people are discussing it as if it was a brand-new article, and I'm genuinely curious if it's because nobody noticed the date.

Don't really care about the date, it's the first time i saw anything about the study. So i guess if people feel there is nothing to discuss they can either not discuss or the mods can just close it up.:)

Kooli

It doesn't surprise me at all that a lot of young women don't enjoy sex.

I think young people at the moment are going through some real difficulties with sex that, say, people over 35 or 40 never really had to deal with.

Young men are mostly introduced to sex through porn, which I think is a really confusing way to be introduced to it. They will see all sorts of things online, from the ordinary to the extreme, they will see things they don't like or don't understand, but will possibly feel aroused at the same time, and they may be feeling guilt and shame at the same time as arousal - how confusing is that? They are being fed ideas about what sex is before they've had a chance to think about it themselves (and let's be honest, most porn is about dominance and submission, and it pretty demeaning to the women involved).

For young girls, I think watching porn is pretty rare but they are still in a kind of 'pornified' culture where a brazilian wax has become the norm, every music video involved women half naked basically simulating sexual arousal, and the focus when it comes to sex is still really on the guy. Sex is something a guy wants and they can provide.

For both girls and guys the focus when it comes to sex can be about being 'good at it', so it becomes a performance for both involved. I don't know how you get from that back to a point of intimacy and vulnerability, but it probably doesn't happen until they get much older.

I think it's pretty sad.

LeeHoffmann

they are still in a kind of 'pornified' culture where a brazilian wax has become the norm, every music video involved women half naked basically simulating sexual arousal, and the focus when it comes to sex is still really on the guy. Sex is something a guy wants and they can provide.

For both girls and guys the focus when it comes to sex can be about being 'good at it', so it becomes a performance for both involved

^ this, particularly the underlined bit. Sex I had when I was younger (before my current relationship) was generally not enjoyable. I can remember honestly a couple of times only that I enjoyed. The rest was just...meh? I was young and I guess felt like I was supposed to arouse the guy and that was it. The emphasis in TV, magazines, discussion always seemed to be on what the woman did and the guy's enjoyment, like as if it was her 'job' to arouse the guy and make him come. It was incredibly one-sided. However, some guys (and one guy in particular who was older than I am now - so age is no excuse) were grand with this, mostly took advantage of this mindset/expectation...so, crazy as it is, this one guy and I both treated it as if it was my job to provide a sexual service. :eek: Eventually I started to demand a bit of equality, which meant that I could enjoy it physically but having sex with somebody you don't really care about is, IMO, just not as enjoyable as with somebody you love (I don't know - it just adds another element/dimension to it). My OH, thankfully, has a much more egalitarian and mature viewpoint and I find it no surprise that the best sex of my life is with him.

I think teenagers have more troubling attitudes/expectations towards sex now than when I was a teenager. The access to porn is greater now, the pressure on guys to have the biggest dick and perform like a Trojan is ridiculous (it's not a sport ffs!), girls are starting to get labiaplasty (which takes things to a level far beyond what I would have considered at that age)... I guess most of them will have fuked up attitudes to sex for a while until eventually they find somebody who teaches them what it's really all about, just like the rest of us. Hasn't every generation of young people inherited a negative attitude to sex?

parker kent

Surely before internet porn people's early sexual experiences were still poor a lot of the time? Perhaps even worse as they may have known even less about the opposite sex. The issue is that people are inexperienced and need to learn what they are doing. Whether I watch a lot of F1 races on TV growing up doesn't really mean that I will necessarily be better or worse when I first drive a car. Ditto sex and porn.

Obviously there are issues relating to young people being exposed to porn, but I think it is being blamed for far too much here. Inexperienced people will likely be bad/average at sex regardless of any other outside issue. Of course not being as good as you may eventually become, does not equal "not enjoying sex" either.

iguana

Faith wrote: »

I'm genuinely curious if it's because nobody noticed the date.

I suspect so, tbh. I'm also curious as to how 27% of young women say they don't enjoy sex became Young Women Don't Enjoy Sex. What about the other 73%?

Giselle

The age group who don't apparently enjoy it, are also the most likely to be having higher rates of casual sex, or maybe sex for other reasons - for attention, validation, peer pressure etc.etc.

All the things younger women generally are more likely to be affected by and that are unlikely to make it a positive experience.

Its probably the case that the older some people get, the more they come into their own and know how to get what they want out of life, sex, relationships et al.

Logical Fallacy

iguana wrote: »

I suspect so, tbh. I'm also curious as to how 27% of young women say they don't enjoy sex became Young Women Don't Enjoy Sex. What about the other 73%?

No idea, I imagine the editor was going for an attention grabbing headline.

MissFlitworth

I read something a couple of years back on Savage Love (nsfw, nsfw, nsfw) which, although much more anecdotal a source than a proper study, talked about guys in their first couple of years of having sex & how disappointed and 'that was it?!' many of them were. I will have to dig it up again but the gist of it was something along the lines of after 4 or 5 years of masturbating orgasms from sex actually weren't all that & it it took a bit of practice before sex outranked masturbating for lots of them. So I don't think that it's just young women who don't find sex all that great at first. Although that's based entirely on one article on an agony aunt column and could be v. wrong

Ickle Magoo

It seems to be more exaggerated journalism than cause for concern, tbh.

Perhaps I'm the eternal optimist but I wouldn't consider nearly 3 out of 4 women enjoying sex as a "bleak picture of sexual satisfaction" - quite the opposite in fact.

There are always going to be women who prefer other methods of stimulation to penetration. Inexperienced and uncommunicative lovers are not going to enjoy the same standard of sex as those who know what they want, a range of things their partner may like and those who can openly discuss what turns each other on - and more importantly, what turns each other off without fears of tears, tantrums and bruised egos.

So I'd have said it would be fairly safe to assume, if not basic common sense that older women - who are more likely to have or have had long-term relationships and a range of partners - would have less complaints in the bedroom department than younger women and that a proportion of women wouldn't find penetrative sex - whether ever or just in their current experience - enjoyable...

the_syco

The article is from 1999. I wonder if they still don't enjoy it?

I'd also wonder who funded the study mentioned in the article, and why Viagra was mentioned?

saa

the_syco wrote: »

The article is from 1999. I wonder if they still don't enjoy it?

I'd also wonder who funded the study mentioned in the article, and why Viagra was mentioned?

I'm sure for most it has resolved itself I see a mixture of the lame attitude we broadcast to women about sex being a mans thing and that you have to be "sexy"

Then muscle tension from not being comfortable and everything to do with being self conscious and not knowing how to warm up

things we learn or get over I suppose

strobe

God I hate when papers discuss a study and don't even tell you the title of it. But due to my much lauded internet detective skills I can tell you it is Sexual dysfunction in the United States: Prevalence, predictors, and outcomes.. The information used is taken from National Health and Social Life Survey, 1992: [United States] Laumann, Edward O.; Gagnon, John H.; Michael, Robert T.; Michaels, Stuart

One thing to note is that the initial study was conducted in 1992. So just in relation to the effects of internet porn in relation to this studies findings, while I'm sure it was around in the early 90's, I certainly don't think 'most young men were being introduced to sex through it' especially considering the minimum age of people responding to the study were 18 and the WWW wasn't even up and running till '91. Even then, internet porn tended to consist of scanned images from magazines like playboy posted over usenet groups and accessed by relatively few hardcore computer geeks from what I understand. Certainly wasn't any of the streaming videos of 'extreme' stuff readily available since broadband and what have you.

Also just in relation to the study, while they seem to have been quite good in how they went about conducting it and selecting people in order to try and keep it representative, it is based entirely on questionnaires/interviews with only 3432 (American) people in total. Only 1749(?) of whom were women. Only 583(?) of whom are in the 18-29 bracket (presuming they divided the age brackets reasonably evenly, numbers wise). So only roughly 150-160(?) women have reported that they, as the Independent quote, "don't enjoy sex".
(Those are approx. numbers only btw but should be very close to the actual figures. The PDF is a bit of a nightmare to navigate.)


Should also be noted that the study doesn't have a straight up 'Do you enjoy sex?' question with 27% of 18-29 year old women answering 'No, I consider it an ordeal' or anything like that. But rather several questions such as 'Has R not found sex pleasurable', 'Has R experienced pain during sex', 'Has R felt anxious about performance' etc and the 27% quoted seems to be extrapolated from this. Which I suggest could be misleading. Someone saying they have had sexual experiences they didn't find pleasurable is not the same as someone saying they "don't enjoy sex".


I love surveys and studies like this (any social science type stuff), always find them really interesting. But it's always best to keep them in perspective.

(I was considering throwing up a poll on here to see how results would compare, but on further reflection I don't envisage that being well received by the mods).

Ickle Magoo

strobe wrote: »

(I was considering throwing up a poll on here to see how results would compare, but on further reflection I don't envisage that being well received by the mods).

Given your concerns about how the previous study was conducted and how valid the results, I wouldn't think a public forum where the gender of the participants cannot be assumed nor can you even assume those answering will be at all genuine, is going to a poll worth throwing up, tbh...

Ostrom

strobe wrote: »

Also just in relation to the study, while they seem to have been quite good in how they went about conducting it and selecting people in order to try and keep it representative, it is based entirely on questionnaires/interviews with only 3432 (American) people in total. Only 1749(?) of whom were women. Only 583(?) of whom are in the 18-29 bracket (presuming they divided the age brackets reasonably evenly, numbers wise). So only roughly 150-160(?) women have reported that they, as the Independent quote, "don't enjoy sex".
(Those are approx. numbers only btw but should be very close to the actual figures. The PDF is a bit of a nightmare to navigate.)

A sample of that size is more than sufficient for representation (the general social survey usually works with smaller sample sizes of around 1500). The sample fraction is not as important as the absolute size.

strobe wrote: »

Should also be noted that the study doesn't have a straight up 'Do you enjoy sex?' question with 27% of 18-29 year old women answering 'No, I consider it an ordeal' or anything like that. But rather several questions such as 'Has R not found sex pleasurable', 'Has R experienced pain during sex', 'Has R felt anxious about performance' etc and the 27% quoted seems to be extrapolated from this. Which I suggest could be misleading. Someone saying they have had sexual experiences they didn't find pleasurable is not the same as someone saying they "don't enjoy sex".

Sounds like a reliability decision - they may have discovered the specific wording of 'enjoy' produced bias. Also enjoyment may be quite subjective, compared to 'pleasure' which is (maybe) a more specific aspect of the experience? The usual thing to do with questions like this is to break down 'enjoyment' into subcomponents. The 27% may be a summed scale?

edit - just had a look at the paper on my tea break

It seems as if the press release mistakenly reported the precentage of individuals occupying a particular group in the regression table (apologies if I'm insulting anyone with this). Two sets of results are reported, one for males and females, with odds ratios for each sexual experience outcome reported within categories such as age, marital status, education etc. The womens table read as follows;

Outcome: sex not pleasurable

age % OR

18-29 27 referent
30-39 24 0.80
40-49 17 0.52
50-59 17 0.53

This doesn't mean 27% of women report 'sex not pleasurable', it means (removing the influence of education, marital status and race), the probability of reporting 'sex not pleasurable' diminishes with age (OR being [probability yes/probability no]). Also, the women in this category are the referent group, which means the analyst standardises the OR to 1, so the effects of age can be more easily interpreted - it is not a count of how many may have reported y/n to 'sex not pleasurable'

Not sure if this is the figure they were referring to, but I didn't see anything to indicate otherwise - its not a huge mistake (i.e. still means significantly higher reporting for younger women, as the effect diminishes quite sharply with age) - its just not really appropriate, and the other models in the paper show there is much more going on.

Brain Stroking

I find that as i get older the girls i have sex with are obviously getting older and i find that they enjoy sex a lot more. That could be me getting better at it but i think girls arent as exposed to sex like us guys are from an early age so dont know until later exactly what they want. Could be wrong but that's how i've found it

Ickle Magoo

Brain Stroking wrote: »

...girls arent as exposed to sex like us guys are from an early age

Not sure what that means, could you expand?

Dudess

I know it's not black and white - but sometimes I find it hard to have patience with people who do sexual stuff they don't want to do when there isn't any major coercion other than feeling the need to fit in with their peers.

I do find myself becoming more libidinous as I get older though.

Brain Stroking

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Not sure what that means, could you expand?

Yeah sure. Us men are visual creatures and lads will watch pornography as they are growing up. Most girls would not be into pornography at the ages of 12-15 when boys are all watching it. So thats why i feel that boys are exposed at a younger age to sex than girls. Obviously there will be girls that watch porn but i believe that if large samples were taken then boys would be the clear winners in the "watching porn" stakes

Ickle Magoo

Brain Stroking wrote: »

Yeah sure. Us men are visual creatures and lads will watch pornography as they are growing up. Most girls would not be into pornography at the ages of 12-15 when boys are all watching it. So thats why i feel that boys are exposed at a younger age to sex than girls. Obviously there will be girls that watch porn but i believe that if large samples were taken then boys would be the clear winners in the "watching porn" stakes

Girls are visual creatures too - I think it's a complete fallacy that boys are somehow hard-wired to have an interest in sex post puberty when girls aren't...I also don't think you can assume "most" girls anything - unless you happen to know most girls; they may have different tastes and have different ways of getting turned on than internet pornography but that doesn't mean their interest in sex starts any later or with any less enthusiasm. :cool:

Wibbs

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Girls are visual creatures too

+1. Any research into this showed that women were on average more responsive to sexual imagery and to a wider range of said imagery than men. They just self reported/noticed this less.

parker kent

Wibbs wrote: »

+1. Any research into this showed that women were on average more responsive to sexual imagery and to a wider range of said imagery than men. They just self reported/noticed this less.

There seems to be biological reasons for that too. Research into it shows that women have more orgasms with men they consider very attractive (common sense and I am not going to go searching for the research paper...it exists :pac:) and orgasms are said to improve the chances of fertilisation. So it makes sense that women would be visual.

luvnit!

I can honestly say that the older I get the more I enjoy sex.

when your younger your more worried about what the other person thinks of how your doing than actually enjoying it yourself!

The majority of my sexual experiences when i was younger were awkward and just plain awful!

guitarzero

That amount of young women dont like sex?? Meh, surprisingly, that makes sense. When you really, truly think about it, it makes perfect sense that they wouldnt like sex. Life, again, shows its twisted, surly face.

ardinn

Older women rock! younger girls are getting kind of annoying now - i would much rather a confident 30 something than a shy confused 23/24 yr old. Sex should be FUN and more FUN - and enjoyed, not spent worrying about what the other person might think if you do/say anything - please lighten up and enjoy it ladies.

I think the key is communication - talk - chat, explain, give direction - enjoy

wonderfulname

Brain Stroking wrote: »

Yeah sure. Us men are visual creatures and lads will watch pornography as they are growing up. Most girls would not be into pornography at the ages of 12-15 when boys are all watching it. So thats why i feel that boys are exposed at a younger age to sex than girls. Obviously there will be girls that watch porn but i believe that if large samples were taken then boys would be the clear winners in the "watching porn" stakes

Does watching porn really count as getting "exposed" to anything? Does it really educate?

TBH if we were to assume the premise of the OP still holds true, judging from any conversations I've had on the subject young men "learning" from porn would be part of the problem, not because it gives unrealistic aspirations or anything, just because it's something designed to be visually appealing rather than an actual portrayal of how to have good sex, but some take it as just that.

pippam

I'm 22, female. Enjoy sex a lot. Statistics don't apply to an individual.

jaja321

Brain Stroking wrote: »

I find that as i get older the girls i have sex with are obviously getting older and i find that they enjoy sex a lot more. That could be me getting better at it but i think girls arent as exposed to sex like us guys are from an early age so dont know until later exactly what they want. Could be wrong but that's how i've found it

While I tend to agree with your statement that older women enjoy sex more (generally speaking - obviously this is not true in all cases), which I think just comes from being more comfortable with your body as you get older and generally just knowing what you like, I cannot agree that girls aren't as exposed to sex in the same way guys are from an early age. And don't be fooled into thinking women aren't visual either. Women are just as visual as men!

pippam

To be exposed to pornography you need to have a computer and internet. Even if many people have that these days, i would imagine that most children would be monitored by their parents when it comes to the online activity. When I was growing up we didn't have any internet until I was almost 18 so I didn't had access to pornography before then. But if I did I probably would have tried to access adult content to satisfy my curiosity. I had to rely on my imagination and then eventually, my real life experiences. I would imagine that pornography damages teenagers. It doesn't teach about sexuality but rather sends a wrong message about the expectations of sex and possibly leads to an unhealthy self image.