[Some factors which modify the ability of the female to achieve orgasm]

Between 1952 and 1984 a sexological study was conducted among 2,159 gynecologic patients who had been referred to Franzensbad for treatment. All the women had been married for at least one year. Their ages ranged from 21 to 40. The number of women those born between 1911 and 1960 who frequently achieved orgasm has increased. Women with late menarch (from age 16 onward) generally were less able to achieve orgasm than those with menarche at age 11. The average age at menarch among women born between 1911 and 1920 was 13.92 years. Among women born after 1950 it was 13.06 years. Within the same period of time the age at which the first coitus took place dropped from 20.75 to 17.92 years. The average age at which the first coitus occurred increases commensurately with age at menarche. Statistically, women who experienced orgasm began their full sex-life significantly earlier than those with low orgasm ability or anorgasmy. On average, women with only elementary school education first had sexual intercourse earlier than those who had attended a higher school and sat a school-leaving examination. Only 7% of the women born after 1950 had grown up in families with 6 or more children, while this was the case for a quarter of the women surveyed who were born between 1911 and 1920. The findings described support the view that the positive changes in women's sex-lives are influenced by the simultaneous effect of biological and psychosocial factors.