Reproduction of Gender Order in Intimate Sphere: Factors Determining Subjective Pleasure in (Hetero)Sexual Relationship

This research is aimed at studying subjective sexual satisfaction not as a need conditioned solely by biological reasons, but as a socially constructed phenomenon. The relevance of studying sexuality from a gender perspective is due to the contradictory cultural trends: liberalization, on the one hand, and the conservative turn, on the other. The aim of the study was to investigate relevant social factors determining subjective sexual satisfaction in (hetero-)sexual relationships by conducting an online vignette experiment. The vignettes varied four factors identified by analyzing contemporary social research on the topic: the format of the relationship between sexual partners, the power dynamics in the couple, the feeling of comfort during sexual contact, and the party who achieved orgasm. Texts describing the conditions of sexual interaction were modeled in the first person, and respondents were asked to rate the potential level of subjective satisfaction in a hypothetical situation. Data were analyzed using a univariate linear model (R2 = .424). The results of the study suggest that comfort is the most important factor in assessing sexual pleasure, with comfort and achieving orgasm during sex being more important to women than to men.