The Sex Moves Women Want: Clitoral Stimulation Helps Female Orgasm, Study Finds
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Here's a new big bang theory: The vast majority of women want more clitoral stimulation during intercourse, a new study has found.
Seventy-three percent of women said they either need direct stimulation during intercourse to achieve orgasm or preferred it because it made their orgasms feel better, according to a Indiana University School of Public Health study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
Only 18 percent of women said intercourse was enough to orgasm, while 9 percent said they did not orgasm during intercourse.
Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 women, ages 18 to 94, for the study on the importance of genital touching—which also revealed that there's no single "right" way to please a woman.
When asked to rank their favorite ways to receive stimulation, nearly 64 percent of women said they preferred an up-and-down touching motion and 50 percent preferred circular motions, with some women liking multiple methods. Clearly, as other studies have shown, the most important thing is talking to one's partner about her preferences.
"The study results challenge the mistaken, but common, notion that there are universal 'sex moves that work' for everyone," said Brian Dodge, the IU public health researcher who conducted the study, cheekily called "OMGYES Sexual Pleasure Report: Women and Touch."
Because the clitoris is outside the vagina, women do not always receive adequate sensation to achieve full arousal. Previous research has found women reached orgasm during intercourse by either rubbing the clitoris on her partner's body or by creating a couple of inches of space around the clitoris so they or their partner could manually arouse the genitals.
Women's widely varying sexual preferences may surprise men, considering that a study earlier this year found that 95 percent of heterosexual men usually or always orgasmed during sexually intimate moments, while just 65 percent of women did.