Money might not buy you love, but according to new research, the pleasure that women get from making love is directly linked to the amount of money their partner earns.

The link between sex and money, and the apparent sexual attraction of fabulously wealthy men, has been debated for years, with radical feminists arguing that beautiful women involved rich men were just doing it for the lifestyle – and enduring the sex as a by-product. Whilst the female orgasm has also been the focus of much research because it appears to have no reproductive purpose, and women can become pregnant whatever the level of pleasure they experience during sex.

Now, however, it seems that through an Evolutionary biological explanation, there is mounting evidence that for many women, money has aphrodisiac qualities, as well as purchasing power. Thus, Dr Thomas Pollet and Professor Daniel Nettle, of Newcastle University, used one of the world’s largest studies into lifestyles, to examine the link between wealth and enjoyment of sex – and to determine whether the female orgasm is an evolutionary adaptation that drives women to choose and retain high-quality partners.

The study they used, the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey targeted 5,000 people across China to conduct in-depth interviews about their personal lives, including detailed questions about their sex lives, income, education and other personal details – although only 1,534 respondents had complete answers in each section of the questionnaire. So, only those fully complete responses formed the basis of the study.

The researchers found that 121 of the women reported always orgasming during sex, whilst 408 had orgasms ‘often’. Another 762 ‘sometimes’, and 243 orgasmed rarely or never. These figures being broadly similar to those found in western countries.

The study found that various factors influenced the women’s enjoyment of sex. However, the link between enjoyment of sex and partner’s wealth was statistically significant even when they took into account other factors such as age, education, happiness, the length of relationship and health.

Dr Pollet said:

We found that increasing partner income had a highly positive effect on women’s self-reported frequency of orgasm. More desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms.

While we cannot rule out reporting bias, we note that the interviews took place away from the respondent’s home, without their partner present and with the respondents able to input their responses directly into the computer if they so wished.

This is not an effect limited to Chinese women. Since, previous research in Germany and America has already examined attributes such as body symmetry and attractiveness, finding that these are also linked with orgasm frequency. Money, however, seems to be the main factor.

The Scientists do note that the findings might also be explained by any of three types of bias in the study:

1. Women who have frequent orgasms may tend to overestimate their partner’s income.
2. Women with ‘high powered’ partners could exaggerate how much they enjoy sex.
3. Women who are highly susceptible to orgasms select partners who are wealthy.

This third suggestion could also be interpreted as more desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms, so if this is true, a woman’s “capacity for orgasm” could have evolved to help her discriminate between males on the basis of their quality.

Thus, the researchers conclude that a wealthy mate equals a more desirable mate and women demonstrate this by being more responsive in bed.

The original paper, which can be seen here, was published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

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Posted by Jonathan in Psychology, Sociobiology

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