r/psychologyofsex

Actual sex therapist here. While doing some research on female sexual preferences, I found some interesting studies that come up in my related articles. Thought it would be interesting to share.

Many women show a real subconscious pull toward sexual submission, especially with a matching strong, authoritative male. When it is fully consensual and fits what she wants, the data links it to higher arousal, better orgasms through alignment, stronger emotional bonds, and more satisfying longterm relationships for those women…Here is what the papers say, with quotes and full citations plus links. This is nuanced - it works best when it matches her desires, not as a default.

Women often have a stronger interest in submissive fantasies. “In two studies we found that women expressed a stronger affinity for fantasies about sexual submission than men did.”

Conley et al., 2024, Archives of Sexual Behavior)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-02909-2

There is that subconscious link too. Women tend to automatically connect sex with submission more than men. When it does not match her preferences, it can lower arousal and make orgasms harder. But when it does match wanting a dominant partner, those problems go away. (Sanchez, D. T., Kiefer, A. K., & Ybarra, O. (2006). Sexual submissiveness in women: Costs for sexual autonomy and arousal. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(4), 512-524.)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7263764\_Sexual\_Submissiveness\_in\_Women\_Costs\_for\_Sexual\_Autonomy\_and\_Arousal

A solid study with 181 couples nailed the key point. “Women’s submissive behavior had negative links to personal sexual satisfaction and their partner’s sexual satisfaction but only when their submission was inconsistent with their sexual preferences.” When it lined up with liking partner dominance, the bad effects disappeared. It then helped boost closeness and overall relationship satisfaction for both. (Sanchez, D. T., Phelan, J. E., Moss-Racusin, C. A., & Good, J. J. (2012). The gender role motivation model of women’s sexually submissive behavior and satisfaction in heterosexual couples. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(4), 528-539.)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51971247\_The\_Gender\_Role\_Motivation\_Model\_of\_Women’s\_Sexually\_Submissive\_Behavior\_and\_Satisfaction\_in\_Heterosexual\_Couples

In real BDSM scenes where women choose submission, things often look good. Submissive women in dynamics that match their romantic relationships (like full ownership setups) report solid sexual function, less stress, and strong connection with a trusted dominant partner. Many say the power exchange ramps up their pleasure. Dominants sometimes score highest on satisfaction, but aligned submissives do well too. (Botta, D., Nimbi, F. M., Tripodi, F., Silvaggi, M., & Simonelli, C. (2019). Are role and gender related to sexual function and satisfaction in men and women practicing BDSM? The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 16(3), 463-473.)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30773495/

Evolutionary studies fits here. Women who feel submissive in sex and romance invest more in longterm bonds and skip casual relationships more. They pair well with dominant partners who bring protection and stability. This setup supports lasting, committed relationships. (Jozifkova et al. on submissive women in BDSM groups

https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2023.2300683

also mate preference research on women favoring dominant males for resources and security in ancestral settings.)

On the authoritative figure side,research is more from kink surveys and attachment work. These protective, guiding patriarchal roles tap into needs for nurturance, safety, and surrender. Practitioners often report deeper trust, emotional healing, bonding, and stress relief when it is consensual. It can feel like a secure base that lets women relax fully. Evolutionary angles link attraction to strong, authoritative male traits with preferences for security and pair stability. (See caregiver dynamics in BDSM literature and attachment theory links; Aella’s Big Kink Survey data shows solid interest with reported fulfillment.)

And this was something I personally found really intriguing…

Strong, assertive women in regular life often have more forceful submission fantasies. It can be a way to let go safely. (Hawley, P. H., & Hensley, W. A. (2009). Social dominance and forceful submission fantasies: Feminine pathology or power? Journal of Sex Research, 46(6), 568-585.)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24263803\_Social\_Dominance\_and\_Forceful\_Submission\_Fantasies\_Feminine\_Pathology\_or\_Power

Bottom line from all this research…Plenty have that deep pull toward submission, especially to a fitting strong, authoritative man. When it is consensual, preference-matched, and done with good communication, it dodges the arousal and satisfaction drops from mismatches. It can instead boost personal pleasure, orgasm ease via better fit, closeness, and investment in a more loving, satisfying relationship. Not every woman wants this, and autonomy plus consent always matter most. Mismatched dynamics hurt things. So yes there is nuance to this and I found this interesting and hope you do too. Cheers and have a lovely weekend folk.

I hope this is the right group to gather answers to this question.

I’m wondering how many hetero men get curious about having sex with another man, how many are curious of forced feminisation, are natural sissies, and how many are interested in a sexual FLR.

I imagine statistics for USA are the easiest to find and then Europe.

Specifically, 45% of individuals who reported cheating on their partner in the first relationship also reported doing so in the second. By comparison, among those who had not cheated in the first, far fewer (18%) cheated in the second.

Hi,

I am curious what you find to be "the thing" that drives you to have sex. It may be called sex drive or libido but I am thinking of how do you experience it? Kinda trying to understand it on a deeper level than just the term 'sex drive'. So what and how it drives you to have sex?

I am aware there are studies but I find that experience/testimony is different, which is the direction of my question.

Thank you for any responses.

I think we’ve romanticized the idea of “finding yourself” to a dangerous extent.

Human beings are not pure or wise enough to blindly trust every desire, impulse, or feeling they have. We are deeply flawed creatures, full of contradictions, weaknesses, and instincts. We are not that far removed from the first primitive human driven by survival, pleasure, fear, and desire. Just because we became more self-aware does not mean every path we emotionally crave is the right one.

Today, people are constantly told:
explore more,
experience more,
discover yourself more,
never settle too early,
never commit before trying every possible option.

But what if too many options are part of the problem?

Especially in relationships, I don’t think people were meant to go through twenty partners just to find “the perfect match.” Sometimes stability, adaptation, patience, and emotional maturity matter more than perfect compatibility. Not every flaw is a disaster, and not every moment of boredom means love is dead.

But modern people became addicted to beginnings.

Addicted to first conversations,
first attraction,
new chemistry,
new validation,
new desire,
the excitement of someone unfamiliar.

And eventually it turns into an addiction:
addiction to relationships,
addiction to emotional highs,
addiction to intense romance,
addiction to sexual novelty,
addiction to constant stimulation.

To the point where peaceful monogamy almost feels insufficient now. Routine which once represented comfort, safety, and emotional security became the enemy of modern love. Any calmness is interpreted as boredom. Any stability is mistaken for emotional death.

We now live in a culture where everything must be:
exciting,
fast,
stimulating,
dramatic,
emotionally intense.

Relationships are expected to stay forever in the “beginning stage” endless excitement, endless butterflies, endless emotional highs. And the moment things become calm, people panic and assume the relationship is fading.

At some point, partners become emotional performers for each other, constantly trying to entertain, excite, and stimulate the relationship just to keep it alive.

I genuinely think our brains no longer understand stability.
Or rest.
Or routine.
Or peace.

We only understand:
more stimulation,
more excitement,
more intensity,
more novelty,
more beginnings.

And honestly, it’s exhausting.

I thought this was interesting, maybe you all already knew. It's a new concept to me.

Women diagnosed with complete spinal cord injury (SCI) at T10 or higher report sensations generated by vaginal-cervical mechanical self-stimulation (CSS). In this paper we review brain responses to sexual arousal and orgasm in such women, and further hypothesize that the afferent pathway for this unexpected perception is provided by the Vagus nerves, which bypass the spinal cord. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we ascertained that the region of the medulla oblongata to which the Vagus nerves project (the Nucleus of the Solitary Tract or NTS) is activated by CSS. We also used an objective measure, CSS-induced analgesia response to experimentally induced finger pain, to ascertain the functionality of this pathway. During CSS, several women experienced orgasms. Brain regions activated during orgasm included the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, amygdala, accumbens-bed nucleus of the stria terminalis-preoptic area, hippocampus, basal ganglia (especially putamen), cerebellum, and anterior cingulate, insular, parietal and frontal cortices, and lower brainstem (central gray, mesencephalic reticular formation, and NTS). We conclude that the Vagus nerves provide a spinal cord-bypass pathway for vaginal-cervical sensibility and that activation of this pathway can produce analgesia and orgasm.

Logically, if there is a risk of a serious illness, you’d think people would be more cautious. However, hookup culture is more prevalent than ever. What are the psychological or social factors that drive people to prioritize variety over the "safety" of fewer partners? Is it a "it won't happen to me" mindset, or something else?

After talking to my friend who has this certain kind of want while getting a bj, I wonder what it means to the other side.

I have this friend of mine and recently when we were drunk talking about desires and preferences in bed, he mentioned that he always maintain an eye contact with partner while she gives him head.
It made me wonder what actually it looks like for the other side(women). Apart from all this buzz around the bj, I wanted to know what women really feels about bj. Since i haven’t explored it with my partner i would really like to know genuine women side of it. Do you girls really like it? Or its just a starter of the whole package?

Is it true that GLPs can cause you to fall out of love

Full Text (since paywalled):

Farrah was fed up with her vagina.

For the past two years, the 29-year-old dancer from Ohio had been dealing with severe pelvic pain and vaginal odor. “It was like 8/10, horrible core pain,” she says. “I couldn’t lie down. I couldn’t even work an office job. It was bad.”

When she visited doctors, she told them what she thought the culprit was: an allergic reaction to soy oil in a vat of water she’d swam in during a pirate-themed dinner theater performance. But they didn’t believe her. “They attempted to fix it with antibiotics,” she says. “And they just did nothing.”

So Farrah (who requested we withhold her full name to speak freely about health matters) started Googling her symptoms. That’s how she stumbled on NeuEve, a vaginal health company that provides supplements, suppositories, and at-home vaginal microbiome testing kits.

She ordered a test from the company for $150, and it came back with a diagnosis: aerobic vaginitis (AV), a bacterial infection caused by an overgrowth of E. coli or streptococcus. She ordered supplements the company recommended, and she says the pain abated almost immediately. “I was just so glad to actually know what was wrong,” she says.

Farrah is one of a growing number of women who have used at-home tests to self-diagnose issues with the vaginal microbiome—an ecosystem of bacteria growing inside the vagina; the presence of “good” bacteria correlates with lower risk of STIs and other types of infections, according to numerous studies. The industry got a shoutout when the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Bryan Johnson recently posted on X that he had just given oral sex to his girlfriend, Kate Tolo, then followed up with a screengrab of her Tiny Health vaginal microbiome report. He proclaimed that she scored “100/100” and that hers was in the “top 1% of all vaginas” due to the dominance of Lactobacillus crispatus, a type of “good” bacteria found in the vagina.

Johnson’s thread garnered widespread mockery, with many questioning why Johnson would publicly quantify his partner’s vaginal health in such a fashion. But it also received replies from women online who are tracking their own vaginal microbiomes to treat their bacterial infections, to boost fertility, or just out of interest. Some even posted their results.

The market for at-home vaginal microbiome tests is growing—Tiny Health, the startup Tolo used, claims vaginal health testing sales spiked 2,000 percent within the first 48 hours of Johnson’s post—and similar companies include Juno Bio, which partners with Neueve; the UK-based Daye, and Evvy. But some experts believe there’s not yet enough research to support the long-term validity of such tests. None of the at-home kits on the market are approved by the FDA. There are also questions as to whether they empower women to take their health care into their own hands or simply create more anxiety for them.

Twenty-eight-year-old Samantha (she also requested a pseudonym given the sensitive nature of this topic) developed an interest in vaginal microbiome testing after experiencing a bout of bacterial vaginosis, or BV. She ordered a testing kit from Evvy upon the recommendation of the Facebook group Beyond BV, which offers support for women with recurring vaginal infections, and where they often post their own results.

Samantha found her test results useful, but she also noticed a distinct strain of paranoia within the group. For instance, when many women receive their results, they tend to focus on whether they have enough Lactobacillus crispatus, or “good” bacteria, in the vagina. “I'll read posts where women are freaking out if they have like 97 percent crispatus and then they'll retest and they'll have like 60 percent and be really disappointed and scared,” she says. The opposite also holds true. “Women will post about having 100 percent crispatus and other women in the comments will just be like, ‘Oh, I'm so jealous, I'm having so many issues, I hope to be you one day.’”

In internet communities like the subreddit r/Healthyhooha , which has more than 100,000 members, women regularly discuss their ratios of “protective” to “destructive” vaginal bacteria, often trying to optimize the former. Some take vaginal microbiome tests multiple times, as a preemptive measure to avoid future infections. Research indicates that 50 to 80 percent of women who get BV once will get it again.

Longevity researcher Kayla Barnes-Lentz tests her vaginal microbiome about twice a year and publicly posts her results. (She also uses Evvy and acts as a paid adviser for the brand.) She started testing it not because she has any underlying health issues, but because she wants to do everything in her power to try to boost her numbers—for instance, she says she got her 97 percent protective bacteria score up to a 100 percent by taking vaginal probiotics.

“We know that decline occurs as we age, and I want to be as protected against that as possible,” she says. “I’m always striving, and I’m always in competition with myself.”

Evvy founder and CEO Priyanka Jain says the company has served more than 100,000 patients since its launch in 2020. She says that while the vast majority of her customers struggle with preexisting vaginal health issues, 10 percent take the test out of “curiosity,” and more than 50 percent are regular subscribers, taking the test every three months, either to track their fertility or prevent recurrence.

There’s a paucity of research surrounding the vaginal microbiome in comparison to the much better-known gut microbiome. This is in part due to gender bias within the scientific research community, says Hana Janebdar, the founder and CEO of the vaginal microbiome testing startup Juno Bio. Historically, “there has been this huge amount of research and commercialization into every aspect of microbiomes except how it pertained to women's health,” she says.

But even though recurring BV infections among women are a legitimate issue, some researchers say the utility of taking an at-home vaginal microbiome test is debatable—especially when one is asymptomatic, as Barnes-Lentz and Tolo were.

The vaginal microbiome is ever-fluctuating and can vary depending on factors like diet, sexual activity, and whether someone is pregnant or menstruating, says Jacques Ravel, a vaginal microbiome researcher at the University of Maryland. (Ravel is also listed as a scientific adviser to probiotics company Seed.) “It’s a very dynamic system,” he says. “Knowing what happened at one point in your life won’t really tell you much about what’s going to happen even two weeks from now.”

Vaginal microbiome diversity also varies by race and ethnicity: Black women, for instance, are statistically more likely to have less Lactobacillus crispatus, the protective bacteria, than white women of European descent, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem with their vaginal health. And some women can have little to no lactobacillus and be perfectly healthy.

The tests also typically suggest treatment protocols like antibiotics or probiotics, some of which can disrupt the bacteria ecosystem in the vagina if introduced unnecessarily. “You're going to maybe end up with something that might not be optimal for you, and all of a sudden you're going to start having problems,” such as worsening irritation or discomfort, Ravel says. “I think that’s dangerous.”

When asked about such critiques, the CEOs I spoke with take issue with the idea that the tests provide zero insight into long-term vaginal health, arguing that results fluctuate far less than Ravel suggests. While Kimberley Sukhum, the chief science officer at Tiny Health, agrees that unnecessary treatment such as antibiotic intervention “can be harmful,” she says biomarkers such as lactobacillus dominance are “not fleeting signals. They reflect the underlying character of a woman’s vaginal community at a given point in time and are associated with real health outcomes.”

Regardless of the long-term utility of the tests—or, at the very least, the ludicrous idea of a woman having a “top 1%” vagina—their popularity undoubtedly points to a larger issue within the women’s health space. Until 1993, researchers were not legally required to include women in clinical trials, contributing to a massive gender gap in data. The women who regularly test their vaginal microbiomes are trying to find their own answers within a medical system that has largely failed them.

“We have not done extensive research or funded enough for extensive research to come up with new medicine to solve this problem,” says Ravel. “For almost 50 years, we have not come up with a solution to help women. And I think that’s very, very sad.”