The science of orgasm sex and your psyche

Sex sells. It makes everything--from cars to paper towels--more appealing. This quest for orgasm seems to be a major motivating force, but recent studies suggest that not everyone is oohing and ahhing like actors in shampoo commercials. In fact, studies show that a high rate of sexual dysfunction is wreaking havoc on relationships, and that women suffer from it more than men. To help you achieve a healthier, happier sex life, we offer SEX TODAY, Psychology Today's overview of the latest research on sexuality. In our first installment we talk to Laura and Jennifer Berman, The Sex Scientists, about why so many women can't enjoy sex. We also take an in-depth look at the where, how and why of one of the major goals--orgasm. Future components of SEX TODAY will explore other key factors such as arousal, aging, desire, diet, drugs and exercise.

YOU KNOW THE CLICHE: A WOMAN IS SO uninterested in sex that she makes a shopping list while making love. Jennifer and Laura Berman see such women all the time, and it's frustration--not boredom--that brings them to the Bermans' new clinic at UCLA.

"I was talking to a woman earlier today about her low libido, which was a result of the fact that she can't reach orgasm," says psychologist Laura Berman, Ph.D., who with her sister, urologist Jennifer Berman, M.D., is a founder and codirector of the Center for Women's Urology and Sexual Medicine clinic. "Because she can't reach orgasm, sex is frustrating. She feels a hopeless, fatalistic complacency about her sex life. When she's having sex, her partner picks up on that and feels rejected and angry, or notices she's withdrawing. Then intimacy starts to break down. Her partner feels less intimate because there's less sex, and she feels less sexual because there's less intimacy. The whole thing starts to break down."

Acknowledgement of sexual dysfunction in America is booming. But with all the attention on Viagra and prostate problems in men, most people would probably never guess that more women than men suffer from sexual dysfunction. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, as many as 43 percent of women have some form of difficulty in their sexual function, as opposed to 31 percent of men.