For Women, Love Makes Sex Better: Commitment is More Satisfying

What makes sex more satisfying? The key is apparently love--at least for women. Scientists have found that love and commitment can make sex physically more satisfying for many women.

"Women said that they connected love with sex and that love actually enhanced the physical experience of sex," said Beth Montemurro of Penn State, one of the researchers, in a news release. "When women feel love, they may feel greater sexual agency because they not only trust their partners but because they feel that it is okay to have sex when love is present."

Montemurro conducted a series of interviews with heterosexual women between the ages of 20 and 68 from a range of backgrounds. The majority of these women stated that they believed love was necessary for maximum satisfaction in both sexual relationships and marriage. In addition, most of the women in the study said that love made sex physically more pleasurable.

About 50 out of 95 women stated that love was not necessary for sex. However, only 18 of the women unequivocally believed that love was unnecessary in a sexual relationship. Older women who were interviewed stated that this connection between love, sex and marriage remained important throughout their lifetimes, not just in certain eras of their lives.

"For the women I interviewed, they seemed to say you need love in sex and you need sex in marriage," said Montemurro.

The findings reveal that for women, love is key for sexual satisfaction. Not only that, but the connection between love and sex may show how women are socialized to see sex as an expression of love. The media continues to send a strong cultural message for women to connect sex and love and to look down on girls and women who have sex outside of committed relationships. This, in turn, could explain the current findings.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.