The Rich Have It All, Including Better Sex

Researchers found that 86 percent of men were satisfied after their first experience of sexual intercourse compared to only 61 percent of women.

People with higher incomes, better jobs and more education appear to be happier in bed, according to a study from the Barcelona Public Health Agency.

Investigators in Spain used a sampling of subjects from a broader survey in 2009 to explore how the socioeconomic status of about 5,000 people between 16 and 44 years old impacted their sexual satisfaction. They said that individuals with a higher socioeconomic status had better sex lives than their less privileged counterparts – a finding that applied particularly to women.

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“People of a lower socioeconomic status claim to be less satisfied sexually, which especially applies to women, who seem to be more influenced by these factors,” Dolores Ruiz Muñoz, the main author of the study, said in a release.

Researchers have found that nine in 10 men and women in Spain said they were very satisfied or quite satisfied with their sexual lives. Ninety-seven percent of men and 96 percent of women were happier with the quality of their sexual lives when they had a stable partner. Eighty-eight percent of men and 80 percent of women were sexually satisfied with casual partners.

There also was a noted difference between men’s and women’s satisfaction after their first experience of sexual intercourse. Eighty-six percent of men were satisfied, compared to only 61 percent of women.

About 6.1 percent of women and 1.6 percent of men reported being raped or sexually abused in their lifetimes. Women from lower socioeconomic classes were the most likely to be sexually abused, Ruiz Munoz said. These less privileged women also had more difficulty accessing help.

Conversely, individuals with a higher socioeconomic status appeared to be more confident developing their sexuality in a way that best fit their needs. They also used contraception more than those in lower socioeconomic classes.

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“People that have a more disadvantaged socioeconomic status tend to have less satisfying and less safe sexual relations, as well as suffering more experiences of sexual abuse,” Ruiz Muñoz said.

The report used the World Health Organization’s definition of sexual health, which views the term in a holistic sense as a mental, physical and emotional state of well-being.

“Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination, and violence,” the WHO says.

Categories: higher socioeconomic, ruiz mu, safe sexual, sexual health, sexual intercourse, sexual lives, sexually abused, socioeconomic classes, socioeconomic status

The Scars of Abuse: Study Shows Impact on Brain Patterns

There’s no denying that childhood sexual and emotional abuse leave their scars on your wellbeing, but a new study has shown that it leaves a distinct pattern on your brain, which feeds into other areas of emotional health. The research, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, finds that emotional abuse affects the regions of your brain involved in self-awareness, while sexual abuse affecting areas involved in genital sensation.

 

The study, which connects specific types of abuse to symptoms experienced by many survivors later in life, is based on brain imaging from 51 women in Atlanta, aged 18 to 45 who took part in a larger project on the impact that early trauma has on your wellness. Of these participants, 23 experienced either no maltreatment or next to nothing, while the other 28 had been seriously maltreated as children, suffering from various combinations of neglect and emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The women were given a standard questionnaire on childhood trauma to assess their early-childhood experiences, and then the researchers scanned their brains to measure the thickness of various regions of the cortex.

 

There’s a correlation between healthy brain development and thicker cortical regions. Much in the same way that using your muscles enables them to grow and develop, “exercising” regions in the brain means that they will tend to be bigger. However, abuse can get in the way of these regions being used, as your brain can alter patterns of signalling from the pathways involved in order cope with the overwhelming experiences of distress. This reduced input eventually means that those regions will be underdeveloped.

 

Jens Pruessner, associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal, explains, ‘If abuse was of a sexual type, we saw changes in the somatosensory cortex, the area that processes input from the body to create sensations and perceptions.’ In this area, a map of your body is created on your brain, each region of which processes sensation from specific body parts. According to Pruessner, compared to women who had not been sexually abused, ‘women who were sexually abused had thinning in the area where the genitalia were located.’

 

This seems to tie in with anecdotal evidence that many sexual-abuse survivors give, albeit varying depending on the severity and the amount of abuse. Still, sexual-abuse survivors generally report sexual problems in adulthood, such as reductions in desire and sensation and even chronic genital pain. Pruessner notes, ‘There are some studies suggesting that thinning of the cortex [in these regions] would be associated with a lowered pain threshold, so you would more easily perceive pain instead of touch from that area.’

 

Emotional abuse left a different type of scar. ‘We [saw thinning] in areas that have to do with self-awareness and emotional regulation, areas in the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe, which typically show activation when people are asked to think about themselves or reflect on their emotions,’ says Pruessner. Depending on who you are and the particular circumstances of the abuse, such experiences can leave you prone to depression, moodiness and extreme or dulled emotional responsiveness. ‘As adults,’ Pruessner adds. ‘[Victims have difficulty] reflecting on themselves and finding the right way to deal with emotions.’

 

In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Maria Oquendo, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, and her colleagues wrote, ‘If replicated, these data provide compelling evidence about the enduring structural effects on the brain as a function of early life experience.’ Current research is increasingly suggesting that the brain can change dramatically when provided with the right type of support and emotional nourishment, and so this study can shed light on goes wrong during and after abuse, which will help them figure out how to make it right. ‘That is our long-term hope,’ Pruessner says.

Categories: abuse, abuse survivors, Brain, Cortex, emotional, emotional abuse, regions, Research, sexual, Sexual Abuse, sexually abused