A survey of nearly 28,000 adults finds solo and partnered orgasms play different roles in how satisfied women feel with their sex lives.
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Sex News) – Women in a very large online survey reached orgasm more often during solo sex than during partnered sex, yet it was the orgasms they had with a partner that tracked most closely with how satisfied they felt about their sex lives overall. The findings come from a study in Archives of Sexual Behavior that involved sex therapist Jordan Rullo of the University of Utah and psychologist Karen L. Blair of Trent University in Canada.
Who took part and what was asked
The paper, titled “Sexual Satisfaction and Orgasm Experiences During Partnered and Solo Sex Among 27,931 Users of the Flo App,” is listed in the journal’s record with lead author Yella Hewings-Martin and co-authors including Adam C. Cunningham, Rullo, Blair, Carley Prentice, Anna Klepchukova and Liudmila Zhaunova, according to PsyPost’s account of the research. The authors surveyed 27,931 English-speaking adult users of a period-tracking app. Participants averaged 28 years old, and nearly all (98.9 percent) were biologically female. About 71 percent were heterosexual and 81 percent had a male partner. Roughly 38 percent were aged 18 to 25.
The questionnaire asked about sexual activities, orgasms and satisfaction over the previous six months, as the journal’s abstract page describes. Data were gathered in spring 2024.
Solo orgasms were more frequent, partnered ones mattered more for satisfaction
When asked to compare, 47 percent of respondents said they reached orgasm more often during solo sex, 21 percent said more often with a partner, and 27 percent saw no difference. That pattern fits a long-running theme in sexuality research: orgasm is often easier to reach alone, where a person controls the pace and type of stimulation, than in a situation shaped by communication and a partner’s skills and attention.
Satisfaction told a different story. In the statistical model, how often a woman reached orgasm during partnered sex was the strongest positive predictor of how satisfied she was with her sex life. How often she reached orgasm alone was not a significant predictor once other factors were included. The journal’s abstract goes slightly further and describes solo orgasms as having a weak negative association with satisfaction, though a weak association of that kind should not be over-read.
Variety and relationship status
Women who reported a wider range of partnered activities also reported higher satisfaction and more orgasms overall. A greater variety of solo activities, by contrast, was weakly linked to lower satisfaction and was not a meaningful predictor of orgasm frequency. Being in a relationship also predicted more orgasms overall. All of these factors combined explained only about 16 percent of the differences in satisfaction, which means most of what shapes sexual satisfaction was not captured by the survey.
What the researchers say it means
In the company’s own release about the study, Rullo distinguished solo and partnered sex as serving different purposes, describing the first as being about “physiological release” and the second about “relational fulfillment,” and suggested that solo sex can work as a kind of maintenance activity. The authors suggest partnered experiences, particularly emotional and relational ones, may matter more to satisfaction than the physical event of orgasm alone.
The release also reports that clitoral stimulation by a partner was the most common partnered activity, at 90.2 percent, and that combining vaginal penetration with clitoral stimulation was more than twice as likely to lead to orgasm as penetration alone. The release also says 56.2 percent of participants were moderately or very satisfied with their overall sex life, while 19.5 percent were moderately or very dissatisfied.
Limits readers should weigh
This was a cross-sectional survey, so it cannot show cause and effect. Happier couples may explore more together, or people dissatisfied with partnered sex may turn to solo sex more often; the data cannot separate those possibilities. Satisfaction was measured with a single question about overall sex life, and respondents may have answered mainly with partnered experiences in mind, which could help explain why partnered orgasms appeared more important.
Several further cautions apply, as noted in the PsyPost report:
- Participants volunteered for a study about female orgasm, so they may be more sexually active or more comfortable discussing sex than women in general.
- The sample was mostly young, White, heterosexual and well educated, so the results may not hold for older women, women in other groups, or lesbian and bisexual women.
- With such a large sample, even very small differences can reach statistical significance without mattering much in daily life.
- Four of the authors are employees of the company that makes the app and hold equity in it, and the other three are its consultants, which is a potential conflict of interest.
How it connects to the orgasm gap
The new survey sits alongside a growing body of work on what is often called the orgasm gap. A 21-day diary study of 127 heterosexual adults in monogamous relationships, covered by PsyPost under the heading of an orgasm pursuit gap, was led by Carly Wolfer and Cheryl L. Carmichael and published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. In that study men reported orgasms in 90 percent of encounters and women in 54 percent. Men also reported pursuing their own orgasm more and feeling more supported by their partner in doing so, while women reported pursuing their partner’s orgasm more.
Wolfer described the aim of that work as promoting sexual pleasure equity rather than orgasm equality, a distinction that fits the new findings: the point is not that every encounter must end in orgasm, but that both partners’ pleasure gets attention. In that diary study, a partner’s perceived support was the stronger predictor of both orgasms and satisfaction.
Takeaways for couples
The study does not say that solo sex is bad for satisfaction or that every woman should aim for orgasm in every encounter. What it adds is another data point suggesting that satisfaction is bound up with the quality of connection and the range of experiences shared with a partner, not simply with how often orgasm occurs. People who feel persistently dissatisfied, or who find orgasm difficult, can raise it with a qualified clinician or sex therapist, who can look at the full picture.
Readers who prefer their relationship coverage with a comedic edge can find it at Bohiney Magazine, which looks at dating and modern love from the humor side.
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