NSFW It's official: graduate women are more likely to experience an orgasm when making the beast with two backs, according to a revealing survey of 19,307 Australians.

According to "Sexual Practices at Last Heterosexual Encounter and Occurrence of Orgasm in a National Survey", carried out by researchers from the UK's Sussex University and the universities of Sydney and Melbourne, it also helps if you speak English at home, have a "higher household income" and "a managerial/professional occupation".

The likelihood of female orgasm was not, however, affected by "whether [women] had become sexually active before age 16, the length of time they had been sexually active, the number of sexual partners over the lifetime, whether they had masturbated in the last month, had deliberately visited an internet sex site in the last year, had watched an X-rated video or film in the last year, or their attitudes toward sex".

As for the blokes, well, the researchers found there "was no significant association between whether men reached orgasm during their most recent sexual encounters and language spoken at home, education, household income, occupational classification, or religious belief".

Clearly demonstrating their ability to shoot their loads without regard for their mother tongue or how fat their paypacket is, 94.8 per cent of men had an orgasm during their last sexual encounter, compared to just 68.9 per cent of the opposite sex who finished the session totally satisifed as women.

The principal reason for female frustration is, however, not due to socio-economic factors. Yup, you guessed it: lack of proper attention considerably reduced a woman's likelihood to orgasm. Specifically, "orgasm was least likely (50 per cent) among the group whose only reported practice was vaginal intercourse. Rates were higher (around 70 per cent) among those who had intercourse plus manual stimulation, or intercourse plus cunnilingus".

And, finally, the survey unsurprisingly found that "women having sex with women were more likely to reach orgasm at their last encounter (76 per cent)" - a fact which provoked UK tabloid The Sun to condense the entire report down to the delicious headline "Lesbians have more orgasms". ®

Related stories

• Geeks make least selfish lovers: Official (21 May 2009)
• Oz parliament enjoys multiple orgasms (3 June 2008)
• Australian court rings to the sound of satisfaction (4 October 2007)
• Women prefer well-built blokes: official (10 July 2007)
• Blokes talk about sport and sex: official (2 April 2007)
• Keele Uni celebrates record-breaking vice chancellor (27 February 2007)
• NSFW Peaceniks work up to Global Orgasm (17 November 2006)
• Sex-allergic women offered lifeline (14 November 2006)
• Florida politician resigns as sexually charged texts to teens appear (30 September 2006)
• Scientists see women's brains switch off during sex (20 June 2005)
• Big-O problems may be down to genes (9 June 2005)
• SF hosts 'Masturbate-a-thon' (1 June 2005)