The Role of Gendered Entitlement in Understanding Inequality in the Bedroom

Abstract

Five studies (using U.S. samples) examined whether men’s higher entitlement contributes to a sexual pleasure gap that disadvantages women. Participants indicated that men receive more sexual pleasure from their partners, whereas women provide more pleasure (Study 1a). Participants believed that men have more of a right to experience orgasm in both hook-up and relationship encounters and attributed higher negative affect to the male target than to the female target when the target did not experience an orgasm in a sexual scenario (Study 1b). In concert with the idea that pleasure is a privilege that men are perceived as being more entitled to, participants preferred men’s orgasm when forced to choose between the male and the female partner in an orgasm allocation task (Study 1c) and in an experiment (Study 2). Study 3 examined why people believe that men are more entitled to pleasure than women. Men’s higher sense of entitlement as an obstacle to gender equality in sexuality is discussed.

Der Gender Orgasm Gap. Ein kritischer Forschungsüberblick zu Geschlechterdifferenzen in der Orgasmus-Häufigkeit beim Heterosex

“…Ungerechte und unnötige Orgasmus-Lücken beim Heterosex zugunsten der sexuellen Lust von Frauen zu schließen, würde nicht nur dem Wohlbefinden und der Beziehungsqualität zugutekommen, sondern könnte -wie neuerdings diskutiert wird -möglicherweise auch einen positiven Einfluss auf das sexuelle Verlangen von Frauen haben (Klein and Conley 2021;Peragine et al 2022).…”

Heterosexual Young Adults’ Experience With and Perceptions of the Orgasm Gap: A Mixed Methods Approach

“…Participants argued that many men do not care about their partners' orgasm (21.6%) or are unaware of how to bring their partners to orgasm (12.1%). Research has found that young men and women both report men's disregard for women's pleasure during casual sex (Armstrong et al, 2012) and report that men have greater entitlement to orgasm (Klein & Conley, 2021). As such, the "men don't care" code appears to capture a real-life experience, particularly for undergraduate students in a hookup context.…”

“…There are several theories as to why this orgasm disparity exists, including a cultural overvaluing of vaginal intercourse (i.e., the "coital imperative"), insufficient clitoral stimulation, prioritization of men's pleasure and orgasm over women's (i.e., the "male orgasmic imperative"), a general lack of knowledge and education on how women reliably achieve orgasm, and sexual objectification (Armstrong et al, 2012;Conley et al, 2011;Gusakova et al, 2020;Klein & Conley, 2021;Mahar et al, 2020;Mintz, 2017;Wade, 2015;Wade et al, 2005;Willis et al, 2018). Yet, no research up to this point has examined how women and men themselves understand the mechanisms underlying these gender differences in orgasm frequency.…”

The Role of Mutual Masturbation within Relationships: Associations with Sexual Satisfaction and Sexual Self-Esteem

“…Sexual norms such as “men’s orgasm signals the end of sex” (Braun et al., 2003 ; Muehlenhard & Shippee, 2010 ; Opperman et al., 2014 ) and “men are the source of (or responsible for) female orgasm” (Fahs, 2011 ; Muehlenhard & Shippee, 2010 ; Salisbury & Fisher, 2014 ) are some of the sexual beliefs that might influence ideas about what are “acceptable” sexual behaviors in mixed-sex relationships. However, established sociocultural sexual scripts often overvalue penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) and male pleasure (over women’s pleasure) (Klein & Conley, 2022 ; Laan et al., 2021 ; Mahar et al., 2020 ; Mintz, 2017 ), and only include these sexual behaviors: kissing, partner touching, oral genital contact, PVI, women’s orgasm (real or “faked”), and men’s orgasm (real) which indicates sex is over (Braun et al., 2003 ; Gagnon & Simon, 1987 ; Muehlenhard & Shippee, 2010 ).…”