Sex Study Finds Men, Women Read Sexual Satisfaction Equally: Researcher Says Orgasms Aren't the Only Important Sign

A new study by Canadian psychologists found that both men and women in committed relationships are equally good at picking up on their partner's sexual satisfaction, the Washington Post reports.

Essentially, the study, which was published Thurday in the jounal Archives of Sexual Behavior, showed that if you're in a sexually active relationship, it's much harder to get away with "faking it" in bed, as they say, as partners can't necessarily hide their sexual dissatisfaction from the other person.

Eighty-four heterosexual married or cohabitating couples living in Canada were surveyed for the study and were asked about their levels of sexual satisfaction and what they perceived their partners' to be. The study also looked at the couples' relationship happiness, sexual communication and general emotion-recognition ability, according to the Post.

Psychology graduate student and author of the study Erin Fallis of the University of Waterloo in Ontario told the Post that the men and women were able to respond to the survey accurately and without bias.

"On average, both men and women did well," Fallis said. "They had, overall, accurate and unbiased perceptions of their partners' sexual satisfaction."

One of the tests on the couples' emotional recognition was based on the subjects viewing photos of people's eyes and guessing what sort of emotion the look was giving. According to the study, the people who ranked themselves as having good sexual communication showed better judgment of their lover's pleasure levels. However, some of the people who put themselves at a lower level of sexual communication still showed they were naturally adept to reading human emotion.

The study also found, because accuracy was independent of how long a couple had been together, correctly judging a partner's pleasure level may stem from natural compatibility instead of the length of the relationship.

Previous studies would argue the contrary to Fallis' findings, but she noted that those studies only looked at the individual and did not focus on studying couples. She also argued that there's more to sexual satisfaction than reaching climax, which is what many of the studies gauged.

"I would discourage against looking at orgasms as a comprehensive measure of sexual satisfaction," Fallis said.