Older couples who live in Western countries and who enjoy more equality between men and women are most likely to report being satisfied with their sex lives, according to a study on sexual well-being, aging and health that was conducted in 29 countries by a University of Chicago research team. In contrast, older people reported less satisfaction with the physical and emotional quality of their sex lives in countries where men have a dominant status over women.

Could there be a better reason to demand equality in our lives? It makes complete sense. When a couple is focused on pleasuring each other, both benefit.

In relationships based on equality, couples tend to develop sexual habits that are more in keeping with both partners’ interests, said lead author, Edward Laumann, the George Herbert Meade Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology at the University of Chicago. “Male-centered cultures where sexual behavior is more oriented toward procreation tend to discount the importance of sexual pleasure for women,” he said.

Countries with the greatest sexual satisfaction: Austria, United States, Spain and Canada. At the low end of satisfaction: Japan and Taiwan.

That low ranking is a surprise. Our perceptions of the dominate male tend to focus on Middle Eastern nations. Should we be taking a second look at the Far East’s treatment of women, or is there another cultural factor at work?

In East Asian countries, only about one quarter of men and women reported physical and emotional pleasure with sex. Among men, 28 percent said sex was important to them, while only 12 percent of the women did.

Contrast those exceptionally low rates with the Middle East:

In Middle Eastern nations, 50 percent of men and 38 percent of women found their sex lives satisfying. Sixty percent of men and 37 percent of women said sex is an important part of their overall lives.

That’s better and, surprisingly, relatively similar as we’re experiencing:

In Western nations, two-thirds of men and women reported their sexual relationships were satisfying. About half of the men and one third of the women said sex was extremely or very important in their lives.

So what’s going on in the Far East? Men aren’t enjoying it much either. Could it be that culture plays a larger role than was revealed in the study? Some cultures find it insulting to talk about sex. That would play a role too, wouldn’t it? As would sexual awareness.

We can’t know how much we don’t know about any given subject. We can only guess. This readily applies to sex. How do we know about sexual pleasure if we’ve never heard of it? Victorian England comes to mind, when women were told to lie still and endure it for their country and queen. Both men and women were fully covered in night clothes with only a small slit to accomplish the dirty deed. Who can imagine any pleasure under those circumstances?

Sexual repression tends to accompany patriarchal suppression of women, so the findings of this study are not truly surprising. Feelings of sexual well-being strongly correlating with overall happiness and men reporting greater satisfaction than women shouldn’t surprise us either.

The best part of the study is the message we’re on the right track toward becoming the sexual beings we are born to be when we move toward equality in our everyday lives. Now that’s something to celebrate.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Health, Men, Research, Sexual politics, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.