Sex Question Friday: Multiple Orgasms, Sex on the Beach, and the Link Between Sex and Happiness
Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller Posted on Friday, February 24, 2012 at 8:00AM 
Every Friday on the blog, I answer a few burning sex questions submitted to me by actual college students. This week, we’re going to talk about whether people really can have back-to-back orgasms, whether it’s a good idea to have sex on the beach (actual sex, not the cocktail), and the association between sex and personal happiness.
Are multiple orgasms a myth?
This one is actually not a myth. Multiple orgasms are real and were first documented by scientists several decades ago. However, experiencing several orgasms within a single sexual encounter is a much more common experience for women than it is for men. For instance, in one study of over 800 female college graduates, nearly 43% of them reported having had multiple orgasms.1 In contrast, studies of men have found few, if any guys with this ability. The reason for this likely has something to do with the fact that men typically experience a refractory period after orgasm, where no amount of additional stimulation will lead to climax until a certain amount of time has passed. Depending upon the guy, this could be minutes or hours. Some studies have suggested that the refractory period is related to neurological and hormonal changes that occur after the male orgasm. However, we do not fully understand it. All we know is that a refractory period is common in men, but uncommon in women, which helps to explain the observed sex difference in ability to have multiple orgasms.
Is it safe to have sex on the beach?
Are you asking whether it’s safe to have sexual intercourse on a sandy beach or whether it’s safe to consume a fruity, alcoholic beverage? I’m going to assume you’re the adventurous type and literally want to have sex on a beach. So, let’s address the potential legal implications first. Because most people don’t own their own beach, the only beaches available for sexual purposes would probably be public property, in which case you would be legally prohibited from having sex. This is likely to be the case even if it’s technically a “nude” beach. Thus, you would need to ask yourself whether it’s worth fulfilling this fantasy at the potential cost of being arrested for lewd behavior. As for the safety issue, well, keep in mind that beaches are full of sand, salt water, broken sea shells, and (in some cases) sharks. I suppose safety would depend upon the nature of the beach and how well you manage those hazards.
How is sexual activity related to happiness?
Several studies have found that people who have more sex tend to report greater happiness.2 However, virtually all of this research is correlational in nature, meaning that we cannot say whether sex truly causes people to be happier. It could just as plausibly be the case that happy people tend to engage in sex more often (and this also makes a lot of sense). Thus, although there is indeed an association between sex and happiness, we don’t know for sure which one comes first.
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1Darling, C. A., Davidson, J. K., & Jennings, D. A. (1991). The female sexual response revisited: Understanding the multiorgasmic experience in women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20, 527-540. doi: 10.1007/BF01550952
2Blanchflower, D. G., & Oswald, A. J. (2004). Money, sex and happiness: An empirical study. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 106, 393-415. doi: 10.1111/j.0347-0520.2004.00369.x
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Reader Comments (4)
For someone who wrote so cogently about the pseudo and voodoo science of \\\\\\\"Women are from Venus etc.\\\\\\\", and of some of the mechanisms of junk-science in general in the world of the quasi-science of psychology, I'm surprised you wrote such an empty-headed, throw-away, and mostly FALSE piece about sex on the beach.
A child of the 60's, who's had sex on public beaches innumerable times with countless partners, and friend of many others who do, I have yet to hear of anyone getting in trouble with the law over it. It's pretty trivial to avoid that, if you pay even cursory attention to privacy. Sharks ARE NOT a problem for those having sex ON the beach... they are a problem for those having sex in the water (which is also fun, but technically trickier to manage, in my extensive experience). And you left out the main problem relating to sex on the beatch: SAND. Gets all over your wet and sticky parts.
Also, in another article, you wrote:
\\\\\\\"We need to work with college and university administrators to modify the system of rewards to favor scientific quality over quantity. \\\\\\\" True, but incredibly naieve. Isn't it obivious that a measure of the number of papers one has published is OBJECTIVE, accessible to even an academic administrator with no more than two working brain cells, where the QUALITY of one's articles is at least somewhat subjective? And that this, in part, is the basis of the existing farce ... I mean system... of academic ranking and evaluation?
Best regards! And THANKS for your thoughtful articles exposing the junk-science CRAP of the sort dished out by Psychology Today.
---marty
Martin H Goodman MD, director of the Riaznov Library revolutionary digital archive project.
Dear Marty,
What I said about sex on the beach is not false—having sex in public is illegal and you CAN be arrested for it. While you may not personally know anyone who has been arrested for consensual sex in public, I can assure you that it has happened and it’s not unheard of (e.g., there are many high profile cases of gay and bisexual men who have been arrested for lewd conduct in bathrooms, parks, and other public settings—just do a quick Google search and you’ll undoubtedly come up with many other examples that include sex on the beach, not to mention heterosexuals).
Of course, people are free to make their own choices and you’re right that most people who have sex on the beach probably do take enough precautions to avoid being caught (although here’s one couple who didn’t: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_south_pinellas/treasure_island/couple-arrested-for-having-sex-on-treasure-island-beach-in-front-of-patrons-&-children). However, it wouldn’t be professionally responsible for me to endorse or suggest that people engage in any form of illegal activity, sexual or otherwise.
With respect to your latter point about modifying the system of rewards in academics, you are right that number of papers published is technically an objective measure, but, in my opinion, it’s a pretty worthless one. It’s easy to rack up large numbers of publications if you submit to low quality or pay-to-publish journal. Having a large number of publications is thus not necessarily a good indicator of scientific impact.
By taking into account quality, it does mean introducing more subjectivity into the system, but I don’t see any other way around that (the tenure process is already incredibly subjective anyway). It would be nice if there were some objective metric we could use across different scientific fields to compare quality, but no such thing exists. Even the concept of journal impact factors is flawed because it’s so field-specific and everyone has their own definition as to what constitutes a good impact factor.
My point was simply that an emphasis on counting number of journal articles is a poor metric that actually undermines scientific integrity by encouraging scientists to focus on publishing a large amount of lower quality things rather than small amount of good quality, meaningful work. I think it would be to the benefit of science if we pursued the latter.
Best,
Justin
You are wrong about a female refractory period. I have it. I am a woman. Therefore it exists. And please dont try to tell me I must be mistaking it for something else.
I did not say it was impossible for women to have a refractory period--just that it is much more common among men than women. Not all women seem to be capable of multiple orgasms, and it may be because some women have a refractory period. However, what causes the refractory period and why it varies across women is not well understood by scientists at this time.