London – A woman’s ability to have an orgasm is at least partly determined by her genes and can’t be blamed entirely on cultural influences, new research suggests.
Experts say that’s likely to be interpreted as both good and bad news.
“It’ll be upsetting because some women will think, ‘Oh my God, maybe I just can’t.’ On the other hand, it takes away a kind of guilt or pressure,” said Dr. Virginia Sadock, director of the human sexuality program at New York University Medical Center.
Either way, specialists say the findings don’t mean women who inherit an unfortunate gene package are doomed. They just mean that more work, or patience, is required.
The main benefit of discovering the genetic elements of sexual function, experts say, is to help scientists find better treatments for sexual problems.
The study was reported this week in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society, Britain’s independent academy of science.
In the study, scientists from St. Thomas’ Hospital in London sent questionnaires to 4,037 women who are part of the British twin registry.
The similarity in orgasm experience was greater in identical twins than it was in non-identical twins, said lead researcher Tim Spector, a genetic epidemiologist at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Because the only difference between the two groups was genetic, the researchers concluded that the gap between the groups was the genetic component.
The idea that orgasm ability has a genetic component makes sense, said female orgasm expert Laura Berman, a professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
“A lot of the women that I treat will tell me that when they talk to their siblings or mothers, they very often have similar challenges,” said Berman, who was not involved with the study.
