The faking orgasm scale for women: psychometric properties.

The Faking Orgasm Scale for Women (FOS) was designed to assess women's self-reported motives for faking orgasm during oral sex and sexual intercourse. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the responses of 481 heterosexual undergraduate females (M age = 20.33 years, SD = 2.48). Results of the EFA revealed that the FOS-Sexual Intercourse Subscale was composed of four factors: (1) Altruistic Deceit, faking orgasm out of concern for a partner's feelings; (2) Fear and Insecurity, faking orgasm to avoid negative emotions associated with the sexual experience; (3) Elevated Arousal, a woman's attempt to increase her own arousal through faking orgasm; and (4) Sexual Adjournment, faking orgasm to end sex. The analysis of the FOS-Oral Sex Subscale yielded four factors: (1) Altruistic Deceit; (2) Insecure Avoidance, faking orgasm to avoid feelings of insecurity; (3) Elevated Arousal; and (4) Fear of Dysfunction, faking orgasm to cope with concerns of being abnormal. Each factor of the two subscales was found to have excellent internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis on a separate sample of 398 heterosexual female undergraduates (M age = 20.52 years, SD = 2.55) confirmed the factor structure of each subscale with excellent fit statistics. The FOS should allow researchers and clinicians to better understand why women fake orgasm. Deepening this understanding may serve future research examining sexual desire, satisfaction, and dysfunction as well as have applications in sex and couples' therapy.

The desired number of sexual partners as a function of gender, sexual risks, and the meaning of "ideal".

The present research investigated gender differences in the ideally desired number of sex partners, examining several different kinds of "ideals." In two separate samples, participants were a) first asked to report their ideal number of desired sex partners - identified as a Nonspecific Ideal; b) next, they responded after considering some of the health and social risks, and the opportunity limitations, associated with sexual activity--a Pragmatic Ideal; and c) finally, participants reported their ideal number of sex partners after imagining the removal of these risks and limitations--a Hedonic Ideal. For both samples, there were significant mean, but no median, gender differences for the Nonspecific Ideal, replicating what has been found in some previous research. However, when risks were explicitly identified (in the present Pragmatic and Hedonic Ideal conditions), significant mean and median gender differences emerged: typically, men desired multiple sex partners, whereas women were consistently interested in a single sex partner, regardless of the risks or opportunities involved.

Ethnic differences in subclinical paranoia: an expansion of norms of the paranoia scale.

The Paranoia Scale (PS) was designed to assess subclinical paranoid ideation (A. Fenigstein & P. A. Vanable, 1992). Despite its established validity, the PS has several problems that need to be addressed. There are no normative data on ethnic minority groups such as African Americans, making it difficult to interpret this group's performance on the PS. Data from the present research revealed that African Americans scored higher on the PS than non-Hispanic Whites. However, interpretation of these findings should be tempered as they may reflect other contextual factors such as discrimination and the impact of racism. Implications for using the PS with African Americans and possible explanations for the observed results were discussed.