How a survey of over 2,000 women in the 1920s changed Americans' attitudes toward female sexuality

American women still have fewer orgasms than men, according to a new study, suggesting that the “orgasm gap” is still pronounced decades after the sexual revolution.

One of the study's lead authors at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction told the New York Times that the gap persists because many Americans continue to “prioritize men's pleasure and underestimate women's sexual pleasure.”

As my research shows, these attitudes toward sexual pleasure have a long history.

However, this also applies to efforts to defend against them.

Almost a century ago, pioneering American sex researcher Katharine Bement Davis challenged the prevailing view that decent women did not experience sexual desire and should not have sex – except to please men or to have children.

Davis' 1929 book, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women, turned this thinking completely on its head.

By surveying ordinary American women, she was able to show that it is completely normal for them to have sex for pleasure.

An unusual advocate of sexual liberation

Davis spent the first half of her career policing women's sexuality rather than promoting it.

In 1901, after earning her doctorate from the University of Chicago, Davis became director of the New York State Reformatory for Women in Bedford Hills. While there, she studied the women in her care. Most of the female convicts, she concluded, were “immoral women.”

Davis' efforts to promote better sexual morals caught the attention of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. In 1917, he asked her to head his private agency, the Bureau of Social Hygiene, which had been established to research and combat prostitution and venereal disease.

During World War I, Davis advocated for sex education to reduce sexually transmitted diseases among soldiers and civilians. Through this work, she became convinced that sexual ignorance—not sexual immorality—posed the greatest threat to women's well-being.

Davis had long criticized the sexual double standard that tolerated men's sexual experimentation but condemned women's sexual experience.

She now also recognized that this double standard promoted women's chastity at the expense of knowledge. She complained that discussions about women's sexuality were “taboo,” leading to “distorted views, confused speculations, and unhappy experiences.”

Tackling a taboo subject

Insisting that Americans needed accurate information to develop “a reasonable view of all matters relating to sex,” Davis made it his mission to educate women about sex.

But first she needed to learn more about women's actual sexual experiences. Davis decided to conduct a large-scale study of what she called “the sex lives of ordinary women.”

Davis' approach was a dramatic departure from existing studies of “abnormal” sexuality, which focused on institutionalized populations. “Apart from the pathological side,” she noted, “sex is scientifically unexplored land.”

In contrast, Davis explained, she wanted to “understand the woman who was neither mentally nor physically ill.”

To this end, from 1921 to 1923, Davis distributed a detailed questionnaire to what she called “women of good standing in society.” The resulting sample of 1,000 married and 1,200 unmarried women was not representative—it consisted predominantly of white, well-educated, and wealthy women. But their responses allowed Davis to redefine female sexuality.

America's first sexual revolution

Davis began her study of women's sexuality during what historians now call America's first sexual revolution. The second – and more famous – occurred in the 1960s.

In the 1920s, one commentator noted, a “mores and morals revolution” was underway. Sex permeated popular culture. Beauty pageant contestants flaunted their charms in skimpy bathing suits and short skirts. Actresses flaunted their sex appeal on stage and screen.

New attitudes toward sex also affected the daily lives of average Americans. Young women across the country adopted the sexy look of the “flapper,” the term for women who wore short skirts, rolled-up stockings, and bobbed hair.

Before the 1920s, courtship often took place in the home, allowing parents to closely supervise the couple. But the ubiquitous automobile—which one juvenile court judge once described as a “brothel on wheels”—eliminated adult supervision and granted young people unprecedented sexual freedom.

Meanwhile, birth control activists such as Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett distributed contraceptives and disseminated sexual information in violation of the Comstock Act of 1873, which defined birth control and sex education as “obscene” and made the distribution of such materials a federal crime.

Sex, secrecy and shame

Even during the country's first sexual revolution, the facts of life remained in short supply.

According to surveys Davis administered to married women, only about half of those surveyed believed they were “adequately prepared for the sexual side of marriage.”

After Davis expanded her study to include unmarried women, she found that less than a third of all participants had received sex education from their parents.

Many women did not know how pregnancy occurs. Some were not even prepared for menstruation. One recalled that when she got her first period, “of course I thought I was going to bleed to death.”

Instead of receiving information, many women fed on shame. “Because they felt as a small child that any sexual desire was shameful and a great sin,” as one respondent put it, some were never able to overcome their discomfort with sex. Another woman viewed all sexual thoughts as “something to be avoided like the devil.”

One response summed up the problem succinctly: “Most of our sexual problems are based on our current secrecy, fear and repression.”

Questioning the conspiracy of silence

Many women wanted to counter what was called the “conspiracy of silence” surrounding female sexuality.

The study participants ultimately provided Davis with over 10,000 pages of handwritten responses. She used this information to write the first major study of female sexuality in the United States, a 400-page book filled with statistical data and personal stories.

Factors in the Sex Lives of 2,200 Women covered a wide range of topics, from sex education to sex games, but one central idea ran through the entire work: women liked sex.

Davis included data on contraception, same-sex relationships, and masturbation. At the time, these practices were widely stigmatized and often criminalized. Yet significant proportions of study participants engaged in all of these activities.

Nearly three-quarters of married respondents reported using contraception. Many likely took advantage of state laws that allow doctors to prescribe diaphragms to protect patients' health. Surprisingly, nearly one in ten women admitted to having had an abortion, even though the procedure was illegal in all states.

More than half of unmarried women and nearly a third of married women reported having had “intense emotional relationships” with other women. In each group, about half described these relationships as sexual. This is a remarkably high number considering that homosexuality is predominantly viewed as a sexual deviance and homosexual acts are criminalized by state laws.

Nearly 65 percent of unmarried women and more than 40 percent of married women reported masturbating. Since almost all doctors and clergy condemned the practice, Davis assumed the actual numbers were even higher.

Davis' data showed that “normal” women experienced what are called “natural sexual feelings.” In short, her study showed that many women enjoyed sex for its own sake.

Davis believed that reliable data would lead to “more satisfactory adjustments to the sexual relationship.” In other words, better information would lead to better sex.

Davis paved the way for future studies confirming women's sexual desire. While researching female sexuality, she founded the National Research Council Committee on Research on Sexual Problems. The Rockefeller-funded committee later subsidized Alfred Kinsey's studies of human sexuality.

Davis' legacy lives on. The results of the Kinsey Institute's recent study show that discussing sexual pleasure is still important, especially for women. They also suggest that Americans' understanding of sex has improved over the past century.

When Davis conducted her study in the 1920s, she thought it “advisable” to define the term “orgasm” for participants who were unclear about the concept. Today, a generation of better-informed Americans is considering how to close the persistent “orgasm gap.”

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.