Male Qualities and Likelihood of Orgasm in Women: Consistent findings regarding males who elicit orgasm more frequently pertain to their sexual behavior (being attentive, patient, & receptive to instruction) rather than their traits

Male Qualities and Likelihood of Orgasm. James M. Sherlock and Morgan J. Sidari. In T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Springer Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_278-1

Definition
Male traits and sexual behaviors that predict the likelihood of female orgasm.

Introduction
In contrast to male orgasm, the female orgasm is enormously variable in frequency during penetrative sex. While men almost always ejaculate during penile-vaginal intercourse, women orgasm far less frequently from penetrative sex alone and experience significant variation in orgasm frequency with different partners (Lloyd 2005).  While variation in women.s orgasm frequency is poorly understood, evolutionary psychology tends to view variation in behavior as adaptive and responsive to environmental conditions.  Current evolutionary theories regarding the female orgasm can be broadly divided into two positions: those that focus on selection on male sexual function and those that focus on selection on female sexual function. The by-product hypothesis concerns the former and posits that the capacity of women to experience orgasm is a consequence of strong selection pressure on males' capacity to reach orgasm. This position is based on similarities between male and female orgasm as well as the observation that the male glans penis and female clitoris arise from homologous tissue during development. In contrast, the mate choice hypothesis argues that variation in female orgasm frequency during sexual intercourse is reflective of varying quality of their male partners. [...]

Mate-Choice Hypotheses of Female Orgasm
Given the high gestational cost of rearing human offspring women should be driven to select mates of high quality. Under the sire-choice hypothesis, quality tends to be defined as the ability to pass favorable genetic traits onto offspring (i.e., heritable traits) that will contribute to offspring fitness.  In contrast, the pair-bonding hypothesis postulates that male traits that are likely to benefit the woman through increased care and investment in offspring ought to promote orgasm. Traits that have been identified as theoretically important to each theory can be seen in Table 1 below.

Male Qualities and Likelihood of Orgasm, Table 1
Partner traits distinguishing mate-choice hypotheses (For review see Sherlock et al. 2016)

> Sire choice
Physical attractiveness - Height - Athleticism - Muscularity - Voice depth - Physical fitness - Humor - Creativity - Dominance - Body odor pleasantness

> Pair-bonding
Faithfulness - Warmth - Earning potential - Kindness


Mate-Choice Traits that Predict Orgasm Likelihood

Sire-Choice
The sire-choice hypothesis has been more extensively tested than the pair-bonding hypothesis and some evidence does suggest that women may be more likely to orgasm when their partner possesses traits putatively associated with genetic quality. [...]

Pair-Bonding
Few studies to date have thoroughly investigated pair-bonding traits in the context of female orgasm frequency. However, Costa and Brody (2007) have observed that greater orgasm frequency is associated with overall relationship quality. [...]

Alternative Considerations
While some male traits have been reported to covary with orgasm frequency, this may not represent a causal relationship. Firstly, it is possible that women who orgasm more frequently may be more likely to select particular types of partners than women who orgasm infrequently. For example, women who report a higher orgasm frequency may choose to have sex with more physically attractive men. These men are likely to have more experience in short-term sexual relationships and therefore may be more effective at eliciting orgasm in their partners. [...]

Only one study to date has investigated how women.s orgasm frequencies have varied with different sexual partners. Sherlock et al. (2016) had single women with more than two male sexual partners report on a range of characteristics of the man with whom orgasm was the easiest and the man with whom orgasm was the most difficult (or did not occur at all). By comparing high- and low-orgasm men, several traits emerged as important in predicting ease of orgasm. High-orgasm men tended to be higher in humor, attractiveness, creativity, emotional warmth, faithfulness, and body odor pleasantness, consistent with both sire-choice and pair-bonding hypotheses.

Male Sexual Behavior
Importantly, Sherlock et al. (2016) also observed that a number of sexual behaviors differed between high- and low-orgasm males. Specifically, high-orgasm males were more likely to be focused on their partner.s pleasure, engage in oral sex, use sex toys, spend more time on foreplay, and stimulate their partner's clitoris during sex.  Women were also more likely to communicate their sexual position preferences and stimulate their clitoris when having sex with high-orgasm partners. [...] [...] Across all three studies, orgasm was more likely to occur with manual stimulation of the clitoris during intercourse (Frederick et al. 2017; Richters et al. 2006; Sherlock et al. 2016). Consequently, any contribution of male traits (e.g., attractiveness) to female orgasm needs to be considered in the context of variation in male sexual behavior. Further complicating these results is the likely association between male traits and sexual behaviors. [...]

Conclusion
Despite some consistency in male traits associated with orgasm across several studies, there is reason to be cautious interpreting these results without first accounting for male sexual behavior. The most prominent trait associated with increases in the likelihood of female orgasm is attractiveness (Andersson 1994; Gallup et al. 2014; Grammer et al. 2003; Shackelford et al. 2000; Sherlock et al.  2016), yet the causal pathway between attractiveness and female orgasm could be inverse to the current theorizing. That is, women could come to view their partners as more attractive if they are more frequent benefactors of orgasms. In sum, the most consistent findings regarding males who elicit orgasm more frequently pertain to their sexual behavior rather than their traits. Women are more likely to achieve orgasm with a partner who is attentive, patient, and receptive to instruction.

Female Mate Choice; Mate selection; Orgasm; Pair-bonding; The Evolution of Genitalia