ArticleSocioaffective neuroscience & psychology2016
The whole versus the sum of some of the parts: toward resolving the apparent controversy of clitoral versus vaginal orgasms.
Article in Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Endocrine disrupting chemicals and female sexual health: An emerging research priority.Environmental research · 2025Article
- Perception of orgasmic intensity changes between clitorally and vaginally activated orgasm: a psychometric analysis using the Orgasmometer scale.International journal of impotence research · 2025Article
- Pain with orgasm in endometriosis: potential etiologic factors and clinical correlates.The journal of sexual medicine · 2024Article
- Do Sex and Gender Have Separate Identities?Archives of sexual behavior · 2024Review
- Women's Experiences of Different Types of Orgasms-A Call for Pleasure Literacy?International journal of sexual health : official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health · 2023Article
- Behavioral, Neural, and Molecular Mechanisms of Conditioned Mate Preference: The Role of Opioids and First Experiences of Sexual Reward.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Behavioral Therapies for Treating Female Sexual Dysfunctions: A State-of-the-Art Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- A Case of Female Orgasm Without Genital Stimulation.Sexual medicine · 2022Article
- Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2022Review
- G-spot: Fact or Fiction?: A Systematic Review.Sexual medicine · 2021Review
- Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is associated with the longer length from clitoris to urethra.BMC women's health · 2021Article
- Reply to Quintana et al.: Behavior is an unlikely mediator of fluoxetine effects on ovulation in rabbits.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Introductory editorial to 'Orgasm: Neurophysiological, Psychological, and Evolutionary Perspectives'.Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology · 2016Article
- Dysorgasmia in women: Case report and preliminary assessment guide.Women's health (London, England)Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe nature of a woman's orgasm has been a source of scientific, political, and cultural debate for over a century. Since the Victorian era, the pendulum has swung from the vagina to the clitoris, and to some extent back again, with the current debate stuck over whether internal sensory structures exist in the vagina that could account for orgasms based largely on their stimulation, or whether stimulation of the external glans clitoris is always necessary for orgasm.
methodWe review the history of the clitoral versus vaginal orgasm debate as it has evolved with conflicting ideas and data from psychiatry and psychoanalysis, epidemiology, evolutionary theory, feminist political theory, physiology, and finally neuroscience.
resultsA new synthesis is presented that acknowledges the enormous potential women have to experience orgasms from one or more sources of sensory input, including the external clitoral glans, internal region around the "G-spot" that corresponds to the internal clitoral bulbs, the cervix, as well as sensory stimulation of non-genital areas such as the nipples.
conclusionsWith experience, stimulation of one or all of these triggering zones are integrated into a "whole" set of sensory inputs, movements, body positions, autonomic arousal, and partner- and contextual-related cues, that reliably induces pleasure and orgasm during masturbation and copulation. The process of integration is iterative and can change across the lifespan with new experiences of orgasm.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.