What Your Orgasms Say About Your Relationship

Orgasms are pretty damn awesome, but they might also affect how happy you are in your relationship, according to new research in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

In a recent study, researchers gathered 85 Czech couples between the ages of 20 and 40. All couples lived together and were in a long-term relationship for an average of 5.4 years. Both partners took separate surveys to analyze their relationship happiness and satisfaction with their sex lives, with questions about how well their partner understands them sexually and what they typically do between the sheets. They also offered up details of the recent happenings in their sex lives and how often they’d been reaching the big O.

MORE: 13 Types of Sex Everyone Should Have At Least Once

It turns out, having more sex—and more orgasms—was crucial in a happy, satisfying bond. They found that female relationship happiness was associated with more frequent vaginal orgasms and less frequent masturbation. Plus, sexual compatibility for both members of the couple was predicted by a higher frequency of intercourse and increased vaginal orgasms. Even male sexual satisfaction was higher when their partners had more orgasms.

Basically, a woman's orgasm is pretty important when it comes to your relationship happiness and your bedroom compatibility—and that’s true for women and men in the bond. 

MORE: 8 Reasons Guys Love it When You Orgasm

But here's the big caveat to this research: These findings are correlational, so all of the associations could really go either way. That is, more orgasms could make you happier with the relationship, or a happy relationship could lead to more orgasms. Similarly, men may be more sexually satisfied when their partners orgasm, or they could be more likely to focus on their partner's pleasure when they're already sexually satisfied.

While it's important not to draw any cause-and-effect conclusions from this research, one thing is pretty clear: Sexual satisfaction and relationship happiness often go hand-in-hand. So consider this one more reason to focus on intimacy in your bond, and add it to the long list of fantastic reasons to have sex tonight.