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Emotional Intelligence and Its Association with OrgasmicFrequency in Women
Andrea V. Burri, MSc, Lynn M. Cherkas, PhD, and Tim D. Spector, MD
King’s College London St. Thomas’ Hospital, Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology Department, London, UKDOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01297.x
A B S T R A C T
Introduction.
Up to 30% of women suffer from female orgasmic disorder (FOD)—the second most common typeof female sexual dysfunction. FOD has been acknowledged to be multifactorial and recent research has implicatedthe importance of psychosocial risk factors.
Aim.
The aim of this study is to investigate whether normal variations in emotional intelligence—the ability toidentify and manage emotions of one’s self and others—are associated with orgasmic frequency during intercourseand masturbation. To our knowledge, this is the first such study in a large unselected population.
Methods.
A total of 2035 women from the TwinsUK registry completed questionnaires relating to emotionalintelligence and sexual behavior. Global emotional intelligence was measured using the Trait Emotional IntelligenceQuestionnaire—Short Form (TEIQue-SF). Orgasmic frequency was assessed using two self-constructed questions.
Main Outcome Measures.
Using Spearman’s rank correlation and quartile logistic regression, we investigated whether variations in emotional intelligence are associated with female orgasmic frequency during intercourse andmasturbation.
Results.
Emotional intelligence was not associated with the potential confounders of age and years of education, nordidwefindasignificantassociationbetweenemotionalintelligenceandpotentialriskfactorsforFODsuchasage,body mass index, physical or sexual abuse, or menopause. We found emotional intelligence to be positively correlated withboth frequency of orgasm during intercourse (
r
=
0.13,
P
<
0.001) and masturbation (
r
=
0.23,
P
<
0.001). Women inthe lowest quartile of emotional intelligence had an approximate twofold increased risk of infrequent orgasm(Intercourse
=
odds ratio [OR] 2.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4–3.9; Masturbation
=
[OR] 1.8, [CI] 1.3–2.5).
Conclusion.
Low emotional intelligence seems to be a significant risk factor for low orgasmic frequency. Consid-eration of this behavioral risk factor may need to be incorporated into research into FOD and possible treatmentapproaches.
Burri AV, Cherkas LM, and Spector TD. Emotional intelligence and its association with orgasmic frequency in women. J Sex Med **;**:**–**.
Key Words.
Female Sexual Dysfunction; Emotional Intelligence; Female Orgasm Disorder; Aetiology; OrgasmicFrequency
Introduction
F
emale sexual dysfunction (FSD) is an oftenunderestimated but common problem in thegeneral community with serious effects on women’s quality of life. The term FSD comprisesdisorders related to sexual desire, arousal, orgasm,and sexual pain. In 2000, a consensus conference was held, aiming at developing consistent guide-lines for clinical evaluation and treatment of FSD[1]. Further revisions were presented at the 2ndInternational Consultation on Sexual Medicine: Men and Women’s Sexual Dysfunction and arecurrently being tested for clinical validity [2,3]. According to this classification system, femaleorgasmic disorder (FOD), the second most fre-quently reported women’s sexual problem afterlow desire, is defined as: “Recurrent or persistentdifficulty, delay in or absence of attaining orgasmafter sufficient sexual stimulation and followingnormal sexual arousal, which causes personaldistress.”1
© 2009 International Society for Sexual Medicine J Sex Med **;**:**–**
Based on a number of studies, up to two infive women (39%) never or infrequently achieveorgasm through intercourse [4–6]. Unfortunately,the absence of dependable population-based data,combined with a lack of standard uniformly applied study designs, assessment methods, anddefinitions of FSD, has made it difficult to giveaccurate prevalence estimates of FOD [7]. Thesame is true for research on the pathoetiology underlying FOD, which has resulted in contradic-tory results [8]. Today, FOD is regarded as a multifactorialphenomenon, rarely caused by a single factor,although one may predominate [9,10]. Knowledgeabout the pathoetiology combines anatomical,physiological, biological, medical, and psychoso-cial factors and, lately, several genetic epidemio-logical studies have started to successfully explorethe pathogenesis of FOD and possible geneticinvolvement [11–13]. However, according toseveral population-based studies, FOD appears tobe more commonly associated with psychological,emotional, and social problems (e.g., depression,sexual abuse, relationship factors, psychosexualimmaturity) than with physiological factors[14–16]. The construct of emotional intelligence wasfirst introduced by Salovey and Mayer, whoderived emotional intelligence from the broaderconstruct of social intelligence, and defined it as“the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feel-ings and emotions, to discriminate among themand to use this information to guide one’s think-ing and actions” (p. 189) [17]. In today’s litera-ture, we find several different but generally convergent conceptualizations of the emotionalintelligence construct. Bar-On, an expert andpioneer in the field of emotional intelligence, usesa much broader definition of the construct, whichincludes adaptive capacities and abilities to con-trol impulses and cope with stress, as well as intra-personal and interpersonal intelligence (e.g.,emotion-related self-perceptions, emotion man-agement, empathy) [18]. Research on emotionalintelligence suggests that people differ in howthey experience emotions, how able they are todifferentiate between them, and how much emo-tional information they can utilize and process,intrapersonally and also interpersonally [19]. These capacities—which have been proven todiffer between people—may have a direct impacton women’s sexual functioning, and on her ability to communicate her expectations and desires toher partner.Despite awareness of the importance of psy-chogenic factors on the development of FOD, toour knowledge, no studies have yet investigated whether sexual dysfunction might be associated with normal variations in emotional intelligence.
Aims
The aim of this study is to investigate whethernormal variations in emotional intelligence areassociated with orgasmic frequency during inter-course and masturbation in a nonclinical, un-selected population of females. This may be animportant further step in identifying behavioralrisk factors that may be associated with orgasmicdisorder, which in turn should improve the diag-nosis, identification of possible subgroups, andtreatment of FOD.
Methods
Subjects
All subjects were volunteer female twins drawnfrom the TwinsUK London registry, whichincludes twin pairs from all over the country [20]. All twins in the registry were recruited throughnational media campaigns and from other twinregisters. Questionnaire data were available on atotal of 2,035 female twin individuals. The study was approved by the St. Thomas’ Hospital re-search ethics committee and all twins providedinformed consent. The twins have been shown tobe representative of an age-matched general popu-lation in terms of disease and prevalence of lif-estyle characteristics. The only difference found was for weight, where identical twins were slightly lighter and had a smaller variance than non-identical twins and singletons [21].
Questionnaires
An anonymous self-completion questionnaireassessing sexual behavior, health, lifestyle, anddemographic information was sent to 8,418 femaletwins in the registry (aged between 18 and 83 years, with a mean age of 50 years). Subjects wereasked questions about general sexual behavior andfunctioning (e.g., age at first intercourse; numberof partners; physical, emotional, and sexual abuse,)and, more specifically, on frequency of achievingorgasm during intercourse and masturbation. Fora detailed description of the sample characteristics,see Table 1. Subjects who were no longer sexually active were asked to recall frequency of orgasm2
Burri et al.
J Sex Med **;**:**–**
during the time that they were sexually active. The women responded to two questions about the fre-quency with which they reached orgasm duringsexual intercourse and during masturbation, givingtheir responses on a 7-point Likert scale from“never” to “always” (7) (see Table 2 and Figure 1).In a follow-up survey, the twins were sent ageneral behavior questionnaire consisting of several validated questionnaires, including the
Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire—Short Form
(TEIQue-SF) [22]. The 30-item question-naire was designed to efficiently measure globaltrait emotional intelligence and is based on thelong form of the TEIQue, which has been used innumerous studies trying to assess the emotion-related aspects of personality [23]. Extensive factoranalysis performed on the 15 subscales of the TEIQue has resulted in four interrelated factors:
Emotionality
(“Expressing my emotions with wordsis not a problem for me”),
Self-Control
(“I usually find it difficult to regulate my emotions”),
Sociabil-ity
(“I’m normally able to get into someone’s shoesand experience their emotions”), and
Well-Being
(“On the whole, I’m pleased with my life”). Toensure adequate internal consistencies and broadcoverage of the sampling domain of the constructin the TEIQue-SF, two items from each of the 15subscales of the TEIQue were selected for inclu-sion, based primarily on their correlations with thecorresponding total subscale scores [22]. The TEIQue-SF was shown to have high levels of
Table 1
Demographic characteristics of women in theanalyzed sample
N
=
2,035 Mean SDAge (in years) 53 13.9Education (in years) 10.5 3.2BMI 24.8 4.2N %Marital statusSingle 119 6Married 1,236 67In a relationship, living with partner 131 7Divorced 148 8Widowed 105 6In a relationship, not living with partner 105 6Pregnancy 327 16Cesarian 120 6Hysterectomy 368 18Menopausal stagePremenopausal 525 27Menopausal 243 12Postmenopausal 958 47Unsure 285 14Physical abuse 143 7Sexual abuse 139 7
BMI
=
body mass index; SD
=
standard deviation.
Table 2
Self-reported orgasm frequency and emotional intelligence mean scores by category during intercourse andmasturbation
“Overall, how frequently do you experiencean orgasm during intercourse?” (N
=
2,035)“Overall, how frequently do you experience anorgasm during masturbation?” (N
=
2,035)Response scale—ordinal rating N %EI scoreN %EI scoreMean SE Mean SENever 1 268 13.17 148.8 1.5 491 24.13 151.4 1.1
<
25% 2 350 17.20 152.4 1.2 140 6.88 149.0 1.825–49% 3 171 8.40 151.8 1.8 86 4.23 151.2 2.2About 50% 4 275 13.51 152.8 1.3 125 6.14 150.5 2.051–75% 5 283 13.91 152.7 1.5 140 6.88 153.1 2.0
>
75% 6 497 24.42 156.8 1.1 437 21.47 153.1 1.2Always 7 191 9.39 157.1 1.8 616 30.27 157.4 0.9Total 2,035 100.00 153.4 0.5 2,035 100.00 153.4 0.5
EI
=
emotional intelligence; SE
=
standard deviation.
Figure 1
Self-reported orgasm frequency by categoryduring intercourse and masturbation.
Emotional Intelligence and Orgasmic Frequency in Women
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J Sex Med **;**:**–**
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