From euphoria to boredom, making sounds in bed is a standard communication tool between sexual partners.
Some use the signature noises to show that they are having a good time, while others use them as a gentle nudge to try a different approach.
Few studies have investigated sexual sounds and why people make them, focusing mainly on animals such as apes.
But a recent study used vocal recordings of real people engaged in sexual activity to explore the different types of sexual noises between men and women.
The results indicated that women spoke louder than men, especially at the moment of orgasm. Men, on the other hand, were more likely to make non-vocal sounds, such as labored breathing.
Male vocalizations, usually grunts, were often expressions of effort and peaked during orgasm. Female noises were scattered far and wide and increased in pitch during orgasm.
In a study that looked in detail at different sounds during sex, researcher Andrey Anikin found that in both men and women, the pitch increased as the duration of the sound changed. Women spoke very little overall; men were most verbal about 15 seconds before orgasm.
As for the reasons behind these differences, scientists believe that women may feel pressured to vocalize more in order to strengthen their partner and want to guide his actions. Men, on the other hand, make noises, often at the moment of peak orgasm, to express pleasure, power and the wear and tear of physical effort.
Dr Jess O’Reilly, human sexuality expert and relationship coach, said: Bustle‘Women make noises to stroke their partners’ egos, increase their pleasure, and for convenience (i.e., to get the affair over with).’
Using a voluntary database where people could upload their noises, Dr. Andrey Anikin, who specializes in nonverbal human communication at Cognitive Science at Lund University in Sweden, sought to understand why men and women make certain noises in the bedroom.
The results of their research appear in the journal Evolution and human behavior.
Dr. Anikin recruited more than 100 people to analyze sexual sounds downloaded from an online database and judge how authentic they sounded and whether the noise came from a man or a woman.
Of the 109 listeners, 43 were women and 65 were men. They listened to some of the 200 recordings of sexual sounds, each lasting between 30 and 90 seconds.
Listeners were asked, “How aroused does this person sound?” and used a slider on a computer program that ranged from “relaxed” to “orgasm.”
They moved the slider in real time based on what they heard and the slider position was recorded continuously throughout the recording.
After each trial, listeners were asked whether the person making the sound was a man or a woman and whether they thought the pleasure was genuine.
Dr Anikin said: ‘Putting all these observations together, what emerges is a picture of two distinct vocal behaviours: effortful grunting or moaning that is controlled and strategically deployed in a state of low arousal… and spontaneous vocal outbursts once arousal exceeds a certain threshold.
‘Men generally sigh and grunt until the level of arousal becomes too high; women have a lower threshold for vocalizing (producing moans) or perhaps are accustomed to exaggerating their expressive behaviors.’
The sounds and participants’ responses to them were analyzed and shown That pitch, that syllable length, and that rhythm all peaked simultaneously.
On average, women’s voices were higher in pitch than men’s by about 6.6 semitones, or the difference in pitch between two adjacent keys on a piano. This difference increased to about 9.9 semitones at orgasm.
Women also had more harmonious voices, meaning their sounds were more musical. Men had a higher, more descending tone.
While both men and women had a similar overall ratio of sounds and vocalizations, men tended to make more noise just before and during orgasm, while women made sounds consistently throughout the process.
Dr. Anikin said: “SSexual vocalizations may be produced intentionally to please, vocally guide, or speed up the partner.
But making noise during sex is also known to enhance the pleasure of some women.
Patty Brisben, sexual health researcher and educator saying:I think there are many women who need to express themselves in order to achieve orgasm. This helps them and their orgasm.
“There are definitely phases. As a woman gets more into the subject, she can become very vocal and then go into a period of silence, when she’s on the edge.”
While making noises during sex — whether it’s saying words or emitting a low moan — are powerful tools for conveying information between partners, sex experts say that conveying accurate information is crucial to mutual enjoyment.
In a survey of more than 1,000 American women, researchers found that more than 58 percent of women faked orgasms for a variety of reasons, including wanting their partner “to feel successful, (wanting) sex to end because they were tired, and (because) they liked the person and didn’t want them to feel bad.”
Ms Brisben, who was not involved in the study, said: “If you’re faking an orgasm, you’re signalling to your partner that they’re doing everything right, when in fact they’re not.”
‘Use moaning as a way to signal that you’re excited and that things really do feel good, not as a way to hide the fact that they don’t.’