Sexual desire and orgasmic disorders in female medical students: preliminary results

Female sexual problems are age related, progressive and highly prevalent affecting up to 43% of women [1, 2]. Reduced sexual desire disorder and orgasmic disorders are amongst the most frequent female sexual disorders [1, 3].

The study population included 129 female medical students of the University of Athens, during the academic year 2008-2009. The participants were asked to complete voluntarily and anonymously a self - administered questionnaire which included demographic data and a short questionnaire regarding reduced sexual desire and orgasmic difficulties.

Mean women's age was 24 years. More than half of them (58.1%) were in a stable relationship, while the majority of them (84.4%) had sexual activity during the last year. Regarding sexual interest, 66.7% didn't have any difficulties during the last three months, while nearly one third of the women (27%) seem to face some orgasmic difficulties. 39% of the participants believe that women should reach an orgasm in every sexual intercourse and 30.3% admit to sometimes pretend reaching an orgasm. Finally, the majority of women are very or quite satisfied with their sexual life (74.8%), their emotional closeness with their partner (78%) and more than half of them (78.2%) consider sex an important dimension of their total life satisfaction.

Low sexual desire doesn't seem to be a problem for this group of young women. Orgasmic disorders in this sample are similar to the percentages found by previous studies. Interestingly enough, one third of the participants admit to occasionally faking orgasm to their partner. This group of women presents high levels of sexual satisfaction and emotional bonding, which are important parameters of womens sexuality. Any interpretations of the present study should be made with caution, because our results were based on a small, non-randomized, specific sample.