We consider whether Orgasmic Meditation (OM), a structured, partnered, largely non-verbal practice that includes genital touch, also increases relationship closeness with both romantic & non-romantic partners

Prause N, Siegle GJ, Coan J (2021) Partner intimate touch is associated with increased interpersonal closeness, especially in non-romantic partners. PLoS ONE 16(3): e0246065, Mar 10 2021. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0246065

Abstract: Relationship closeness promotes desirable health outcomes. Most interventions to increase relationship closeness are verbal, which may not suit all couples. We consider whether Orgasmic Meditation (OM), a structured, partnered, largely non-verbal practice that includes genital touch, also increases relationship closeness. We hypothesized that OM would increase feelings of closeness for both romantic and non-romantic partners. This is important, because intimate touch with non-romantic partners is commonly considered deleterious by clinicians, which may inadvertently increase feelings of shame. Dyads (n = 125) reported their feelings of closeness before and after OM. Approximately half of the participants were romantic partners, while the other half only engaged in OM together (non-romantic). Closeness after OM increased on average across participants. Non-romantic dyads increased self-other overlap more than romantic dyads. These data support that a partnered, largely non-verbal practice is associated with increased feelings of closeness in the moment, including for individuals who are not in a romantic relationship.

Discussion

In this study, 125 dyads completed one session of Orgasmic Meditation (OM). They reported feeling higher closeness after OM as compared to before OM. An interaction demonstrated that the increase in closeness was most pronounced for dyads who were not romantic partners. This pattern of results is consistent with the use of OM for causing increases in closeness that appear useful in a variety of immediate tasks. Sexual arousal did not vary as a function of partner type. The relationship between relationship type and closeness are not likely due simply to having greater sexual arousal with a novel sexual partner (non-romantic) or a regular, trusted sexual partner (romantic). The pattern of results also is consistent with the functional, self-expansion, or hedonic touch, hypotheses, that shared, intensely positive experiences like genital touch will increase interpersonal closeness. The larger improvement in closeness for non-romantic partners was not necessarily predicted by the self-expansion hypothesis, but appears consistent with it.

Exploratory analysis was consistent with the idea that practicing OM more frequently might offer some more sustained increase in relationship closeness beyond after the OM session alone. Effects of increased closeness from non-OM sex partners appears to extend for days [85]. Depending on the mechanism, OM effects also might extend beyond the immediate time-frame of the laboratory.

The interaction of time and relationship status on closeness appears to reflect more than a ceiling effect. The range of the closeness rating scale is 1 to 7. Romantic partners after OM still averaged around 4.3 after OM, which is 2.7 units from the maximum ratings. Also, these ratings indicate higher closeness than the average closeness reported for friends (M = 2.8), family members (M = 2.7) [86], and comparable ratings to dating partners (M = 4.8) and spouses (M = 4.9) [87] in trait-based studies.

Our primary question regarded the extent to which partner status affects how sexual touch impacts relationship closeness. That said, we observed a strong main effect of relationship closeness for OM. While such increases in closeness may not be specific to OM (e.g., may occur for non-sexual touch), they do appear fairly strong compared to other interventions constructed to improve relationship closeness in the literature. For example, meta-analyses of marital and family interventions have notoriously weak effects in general (d < .5) [88]. Those which specifically examine closeness and intimacy regularly fare worse. For example, in a study of Emotion Focused Couples Therapy [89] there was non-significant change in the primary intimacy measure, with significant changes only in exploratory analyses of the intellectual and recreational subscales. In a study of couples psychotherapy relationship intimacy in the patient increased d = .23 and for the partner d = .49, but this required “5 weekly 1-hour sessions with the individual couple and a therapist…manualized with in-session practice, handouts, and home assignments” [90]. Potentially, the current study could suggest that with techniques more similar to OM, that it is possible to increase relationship closeness in a single explicitly intimate session that focuses on an activity rather than talking about the relationship (unlike most psychotherapeutic interventions), at least in the short term. Indeed, a one-session, self-disclosure exercise between two strangers strongly increased a composite measure of relationship closeness [91], suggesting other manipulations can also increase closeness within a single session between non-romantic partners.

The clinical utility of the effect size relative to couple’s therapy appears reasonable. Specifically, an 8-week, couples mindfulness intervention was described as successful [92] with smaller increases in closeness immediately post-intervention (from 4.77 to 5.14 for men, from 4.5 to 4.91 for women) than was observed immediately after OM. Such increases would be particularly useful if they translate to lasting change, but, even if they do not, they could set couples up for positive outcomes that follow increased relationship closeness.

A specific difference between OM and other approaches in the literature is that most of these interventions are highly dependent on linguistic interactions. For couples for whom verbal communication is not strong or has not worked to increase closeness, a non-linguistic interaction may be preferable. Sexual interaction is often non-linguistic and may function to increase interpersonal closeness [93] creating potential advantages over traditional interventions for some couples. “Intimacy” has been described as a special case of closeness that includes a sexual component [94]. Self-expansion activities with a partner increased relationship satisfaction with that partner as mediated by sexual desire [71]. Some have pinpointed changes in couple’s intimacy as predictors of changes in sexual satisfaction and feelings of love [95]. Explicit motivations for sexual behaviors include increasing feelings of closeness and intimacy with the partner [96, 97]. Others report having sex to express closeness and intimacy with a partner [98]. A daily diary study suggested that sexual activity with a romantic partner increased relationship closeness and positive emotions for several days [85]. Notably, the reverse was not true: simply being in a positive mood did not increase the later likelihood of sexual activity in that study. Thus, some aspect of the hedonic, intense, interaction in partnered sexual activity may cause later increases in relationship closeness.

It is unclear whether the increased relationship closeness associated with OM will apply to other types of partnered interactions (i.e., external validity). For example, we believe that OM probably has different mechanisms than typical partnered sexual activity as it is explicitly structured and predictable. OM’s high level of structure helps set expectations for interactions. Thus practitioners might feel especially free to enjoy the shared experience when risks feel lower. It is unclear whether this will extend to partnered sex where interactions tend to be less structured. For example, avoidance motivation may exist to promote “prevention” and “safety” [99], which may be less important for OM than sexual activity. Sexual scripts theory, however, suggests that patterns of sexual interaction (e.g., first hugging, next male receives oral sex, etc.) might be similarly rigid and predictable [100] to OM. The generalizability to sexual contexts, including novel sexual partners, would need to be established independently. Finally, it is unclear how long such a change in closeness may last from a single OM. This is a direction for future research.

Perhaps reflecting the mixed and negative outcomes for sex with non-romantic partners, some therapies explicitly work to reduce the occurrence of non-romantic sexuality. For example, some literature on emotion-focused therapy describes sexual partners without secure romantic attachments as reflecting “promiscuity” [101], sex addiction therapists have been known to refer to non-romantic sexual relationships as “acting out” [102], and some trauma therapists have been observed to describe low commitment sexual partners as symptoms of trauma, comparing it to suicidality [e.g., 103]. While OM is clearly not sex, our data suggest pathologizing non-romantic sexuality might cause harm by reducing opportunities to connect. The external validity of this pattern of results requires exploration.

The current study has limitations. Dyads differed not only by their relationship status, but also by their individual level of relationship avoidance and anxiety (see Table 1). These baseline differences were relevant to the theories tested, such that creating non-romantic dyads with matched avoidance/anxiety would have been a poor test of the theories. An alternative would have been experimentally manipulating feelings of avoidance or anxiety prior to OM. Relatedly, dyads were required to have completed OM together. This decision was made to avoid a number of potential confounds (see Introduction). Given that no participants withdrew or reported emotional discomfort from the procedures, a next study might advance to stranger-dyads to test the generalizability of the pattern observed here. Additionally, only women received the stimulation, although the stroker could be male or female. Therefore, the generalizability of this result to male strokees remains unknown.

It remains unclear how important genital touch is for increasing relationship closeness as a part of the OM protocol. For example, stroking is experienced as erotic when it is very pleasant and low intensity, even when it occurs on the forearm or thigh [104]. A comparison condition contrasting non-genital stroking and genital stroking could determine the extent to which intimacy and self-other overlap might be promoted by non-genital stroking. Although the risk of disease transmission from OM (gloved genital touch) is negligible, some may find OM uncomfortable emotionally. Given that other areas of the body also can be experienced as erotic by varying stroking speed (see above), a slow-stroking control on non-glaborous skin will be important. The interaction with relationship type, not simply the main effect of OM, was the primary test in this study. Thus, we view this primarily as an issue of generalizability. It is unclear if the same relationship closeness would occur with non-genital touch, but genital touch appears to be one approach within which relationship differences exist.

These limitations notwithstanding, the current study has implications for how relationship closeness is approached in clinical settings. Minimally, therapists might consider the context of non-romantic sexual partners as positive, at least in the short term, with the potential that such effects could last rather than being damaging; this attitude would counter common narratives of “promiscuity” and “acting out”. Such a change could have important effects at a societal level. Non-romantic intimate partnering is common. 77.7% of women and 84.2% of men in one college campus survey reported having had a consensual, one-time sexual partner [105]. About 20% of single men and women report engaging in some form of consensually non-monogamous behaviors in their lifetimes [106]. OM itself is unlikely to be labelled “sex”, because 86.1% of college students do not consider consensually touching another’s genitals to constitute “sex” [107].

A main implication of this work is that there may be ways to improve relationship closeness which do not involve commonly appealed-to techniques such as talking, particularly about the relationship itself. Talk therapy remains the dominant method used to effect relationship change. In addition to treatment failures, talk methods also carry risks for harm [108]. Identifying other methods for improving relationships, such as touch, partnered meditation, or sexual stimulation, may yield ways to improve relationships, affect, and health that are outside the “usual candidates” of psychological research. In particular, specific behaviors within sexual interactions are more strongly associated with increased intimacy, such as kissing and cuddling [109]. Since individuals’ experiences of self-expansion varies as a function of their traits (e.g., openness to experience, agreeableness, and neuroticism), it would be useful to identify traits of those most likely to improve their closeness with OM [110]. Future studies also could identify the aspect(s) of OM most likely to promote interpersonal closeness, so experiences could be optimized to promote these gains, either as stand-alone interventions if the effects are shown to last, or as preludes to other couples-based techniques that could benefit from increased relationship closeness.