Human female sexuality
Human female sexuality encompasses a broad range of behaviors and processes, including female sexual identity and sexual behavior, the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious aspects of sexual activity. Various aspects and dimensions of female sexuality, as a part of human sexuality, have also been addressed by principles of ethics, morality, and theology. In almost any historical era and culture, the arts, including literary and visual arts, as well as popular culture, present a substantial portion of a given society's views on human sexuality, which includes both implicit and explicit aspects and manifestations of feminine sexuality and behavior.
In most societies and legal jurisdictions, there are legal bounds on what sexual behavior is permitted. Sexuality varies across the cultures and regions of the world, and has continually changed throughout history, and this also applies to female sexuality. Aspects of female sexuality include issues pertaining to body image, self-esteem, personality, sexual orientation, values and attitudes, gender roles, relationships, activity options, and communication.
While most women are heterosexual, and attracted only to men, significant minorities are homosexual or varying degrees of bisexual. Bisexual females are more common than bisexual males.
Physiological
General
Sexual activity can encompass various sexually stimulating factors, including sexual fantasies and different sex positions, or the use of sex toys. Foreplay may precede some sexual activities, often leading to sexual arousal of the partners. It is also common for people to be sexually satisfied by being kissed, touched erotically, or held.Orgasm
, or sexual climax, is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual tension during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic muscular contractions in the pelvic region characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure. Women commonly find it difficult to experience orgasms during vaginal intercourse. Mayo Clinic states: "Orgasms vary in intensity, and women vary in the frequency of their orgasms and the amount of stimulation necessary to trigger an orgasm." Additionally, some women may require more than one type of sexual stimulation in order to achieve orgasm. Clitoral stimulation in normal copulation happens when the thrusting of the penis moves the clitoral hood and labia minora, extending from the clitoris.Orgasm in women has typically been divided into two categories: clitoral and vaginal orgasms. 70–80% of women require direct clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm, though indirect clitoral stimulation may also be sufficient. Clitoral orgasms are easier to achieve because the glans of the clitoris, or clitoris as a whole, has more than 8,000 sensory nerve endings, which is as many nerve endings as are present in the human penis or glans penis. As the clitoris is homologous to the penis, it is the equivalent in its capacity to receive sexual stimulation.
Although orgasms by vaginal stimulation are more difficult to achieve, the G-spot area may produce an orgasm if properly stimulated. The G-spot's existence, and existence as a distinct structure, is still under dispute, as its reported location can vary from woman to woman, appears to be nonexistent in some women, and it is hypothesized to be an extension of the clitoris and therefore the reason for orgasms experienced vaginally.
Women are able to achieve multiple orgasms due to the fact that they generally do not require a refractory period like men do after the first orgasm. Although it is reported that women do not experience a refractory period and thus can experience an additional orgasm, or multiple orgasms, soon after the first orgasm, some sources state that both men and women experience a refractory period because, due to clitoral hypersensitivity or sexual satisfaction, women may experience a very small period after orgasm in which further sexual stimulation does not produce excitement.
Nipples can be sensitive to touch, and nipple stimulation can incite sexual arousal. Few women report experiencing orgasm from nipple stimulation. Before Komisaruk et al.'s functional magnetic resonance research on nipple stimulation in 2011, reports of women achieving orgasm from nipple stimulation relied solely on anecdotal evidence. Komisaruk's study was the first to map the female genitals onto the sensory portion of the brain; it indicates that sensation from the nipples travels to the same part of the brain as sensations from the vagina, clitoris and cervix, and that these reported orgasms are genital orgasms caused by nipple stimulation, and may be directly linked to the genital sensory cortex.
Sexual attraction
Women, on average, tend to be more attracted to men who have a relatively narrow waist, a V-shaped torso, and broad shoulders. Women also tend to be more attracted to men who are taller than they are, and display a high degree of facial symmetry, as well as relatively masculine facial dimorphism. Based on contemporary research and surveys, women, regardless of sexual orientation, are just as interested in a partner's physical attractiveness as men are.Control of female sexuality
Historically, many cultures have viewed female sexuality as being subordinate to male sexuality, and as something to be controlled through restrictions on female behavior. Traditional cultural practices, such as enforced modesty and chastity, have tended to place restrictions principally on women, without imposing similar restrictions on men.According to psychoanalytic literature, the "Madonna–whore complex" is said to occur when a male desires sexual encounters only with women whom he sees as degraded while he cannot desire sexually a respectable woman. This was first described by Sigmund Freud.
The interpretation of female sexuality is significantly different according to C.G. Jung's psychological research. He explained the female libido as a precursor of cultural expression and personal creativity. He identified Freud's theories as the source of this significant misunderstanding, and theorized that the "rhythmic factor" is not merely a principle in the "nutritive phase" and later in sexuality, but that it is at the base of all emotional processes.
Some controversial traditional cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation, have been described as attempts at nullifying women's sexuality altogether. FGM continues to be practised in some parts of Africa and the Middle East, as well as in some immigrant communities in Western countries, though it is widely outlawed. The procedure is typically carried out on young girls, before the age of 15.
Methods employed to control female sexuality and behavior include the threat of death, such as honor killings. The reason for such a killing may include refusing to enter an arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their relatives, having sex outside marriage, becoming the victim of rape, or dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate.
Another historical device used to control female sexual behavior was the chastity belt, which is a locking item of clothing designed to prevent sexual intercourse. The belts were worn by women to protect their chastity, which included preventing masturbation or sexual access by unauthorized males.
Prior to the European colonization of North America, Native American attitudes regarding female sexuality were generally open-minded, particularly for younger, un-married women. However, when Europeans arrived, more rigid views were enforced. These rigid views were especially restrictive for women, predominantly in Puritan colonies.
Following the European colonization of North America, there was the creation of the African American archetypes of the Jezebel and mammy. The Jezebel was characterized as a woman who was lewd, tempting and seductive. Mammies, also called Aunt Jemima, were maternal figures who were portrayed as content within the institution of slavery – always with a smile on her face as the white family took up her life and her entire world. These stereotyping frameworks not only justified slavery but also justified the rape and abuse of African American women as being sexually driven, sexual beings in the case of the Jezebel, or a being where sex and sexuality are the last things on a woman's mind because her world is taken up by the lives of her white masters in the case of the mammy.
Modern studies
In the modern age, psychologists and physiologists explored female sexuality. Sigmund Freud propounded the theory of two kinds of female orgasms, "the vaginal kind, and the clitoral orgasm." However, Masters and Johnson and Helen O'Connell reject this distinction.Ernst Gräfenberg was famous for his studies of female genitalia and human female sexual physiology. He published, among other studies, the pioneering The Role of Urethra in Female Orgasm, which describes female ejaculation, as well as an erogenous zone where the urethra is closest to the vaginal wall. In 1981, sexologists John D. Perry and Beverly Whipple named that area the Gräfenberg spot, or G-spot, in his honor. The medical community generally has not embraced the complete concept of the G-spot.
Several studies establish that women are generally aroused by sexual stimuli of both sexes, while men are substantially aroused by stimuli of their preferred sex, and not of their non-preferred sex. This difference is consistent across different measures of arousal, such as genital response, pupil dilation, and viewing time. Significant sexual arousal in response to both male and female sexual cues can be characterized as typical for females, while significant sexual arousal exclusively to one's preferred gender can be considered typical for males. But lesbians are likelier to exhibit stronger sexual arousal in response to female stimuli than to male stimuli, and thus a more "male-typical" response.