What Does the Gender Pay Gap Have to Do With Sex?

On the surface, it might seem like two completely separate conversations — one about economics, the other about intimacy. But look more closely, and you’ll see they are closely connected. The dynamics of sex are a reflection of the power balance in society and in personal relationships. Whether you realize it or not, what’s happening in the boardroom is happening in the bedroom.

Recognizing that we have all been shaped by societal norms and conditioned by systems that often don’t serve our best interests can help us better appreciate each other’s contributions—both paid and unpaid—and create opportunities for deeper connection and harmony.

The Gender Pay Gap Is About Power

The pay gap isn’t just about dollars — it’s about how we value people’s time, labor, and contributions. Because women are paid less on average than men, they are often the ones expected to step back from paid work to manage household and children. Over time, this dynamic becomes self-reinforcing: women earn less because they are expected to be more flexible, and they are expected to be more flexible because they earn less. In most societies, men’s labor is still valued more highly, and men’s time is treated as more precious. That inequality doesn’t disappear when we go home at night. It enters our relationships. It shows up in who does the bulk of unpaid domestic labor and childcare, who holds more influence over financial decisions, and who feels most entitled to rest, care, and pleasure. 

Power shapes every aspect of our lives—our safety, autonomy, status, and influence. It grants control over decisions, access to resources, and freedom from exploitation. In both relationships and society, power determines whose needs get prioritized and whose voices are heard.

This imbalance is especially visible in gender dynamics. Women who feel disempowered often adapt to the limits placed on them by aligning with expectations—seeking safety or social approval through compliance, rather than challenging existing hierarchies. While this may offer a sense of control or acceptance, it reinforces the very systems that limit their power in the first place.

Whether it’s about income or intimacy, the same question applies: Who holds the power—and how does it shape time, pleasure, and opportunity?

Sex and Power

Sex—especially in heterosexual relationships—often reflects broader societal power imbalances. Among all demographics, women in heterosexual relationships report the lowest rates of orgasm consistency. 

This isn’t due to a biological limitation—a common myth—but rather the result of social conditioning, inadequate sex education, medical misinformation, and cultural narratives, including media, that consistently center male pleasure. Put simply, most heterosexual couples haven’t been taught about female arousal and pleasure. The dominant sexual script centers on penetration—an act far more likely to lead to orgasm for men—while clitoral stimulation, which is most effective for women, is often overlooked, minimized, and viewed as mere foreplay.

Meanwhile, men are often socialized to feel entitled to sexual access and satisfaction—particularly within the context of marriage, where male pleasure is frequently framed as a biological need. Cultural messages regularly reinforce the idea that meeting a man’s sexual needs is part of a woman’s duty, while women’s pleasure is treated as optional, extra, or elusive. This dynamic is rarely driven by intentional harm; more often, it’s the result of deeply embedded cultural narratives. But the outcome is clear: the “orgasm gap” is real—and it mirrors other gender gaps, including the pay gap.

When women are conditioned to prioritize others, to see their worth through male validation, or to measure their satisfaction by their partner’s, it is no surprise that sexual equity is elusive. When men are taught that performance and dominance are what count, their sexual expectations often mirror workplace hierarchies: they lead, succeed, and receive.

Emotional Labor, Sexual Labor, Unpaid Labor — They’re All Connected

Women are expected to do more unpaid labor—including in the workplace, where they’re often assigned invisible tasks like taking notes, planning office events and lunches, and handling other responsibilities that keep things running, but rarely lead to recognition, raises, or career advancement. Women typically perform a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic labor and childcare—work that is often minimized or undervalued. In addition, they very often carry the burden of invisible labor in the emotional and sexual dimensions of relationships. Researchers Fahs & Swank identified distinct forms of emotion work women often perform in their sexual relationships: faking orgasms, tolerating sexual pain, defining sexual satisfaction based on their partner’s pleasure, and reframing “bad sex” as acceptable if it satisfies their partner. 

Women reported faking orgasms for a variety of reasons: to end the sexual encounter, protect their partner’s ego, validate their partner’s efforts, or avoid hurting their partner’s feelings. Additionally, women in the study often saw attention to their orgasm not as care, but as a way for men to validate their own sexual skill—centering male ego over female pleasure.

It is common for women to feel responsible for managing their partner’s emotions, ego, and experience in sexual encounters, even at the expense of their own pleasure or comfort. This is a direct extension of the same social conditioning that results in women earning less and carrying the invisible load, caregiving and housework.

Change Requires Seeing the Whole System

Researchers Sanchez, Fetterolf, and Rudman found that traditional sexual scripts—especially those casting women in submissive roles—not only undermine women’s sexual agency but also restrict men’s ability to engage in authentic and mutually satisfying sexual experiences. These gendered expectations, shaped by socialization, mirror the same patterns of inequality that drive the gender pay gap.

To close the pay gap, we can’t only focus on salaries. We have to change how we value people’s time, bodies, voices, and contributions — everywhere. That includes the bedroom.

Creating equity in sex requires mutual respect, open communication, enthusiastic consent, and a spirit of reciprocity. It means questioning the scripts we’ve inherited — about gender, power, pleasure, and privilege.

If we want to close the pleasure gap, we must also close the pay gap, the power gap, and the voice gap — in society, in our homes, in our relationships and in our bedrooms.

References

On the Gender Pay Gap & Time Valuation

Bianchi, S. M., Sayer, L. C., Milkie, M. A., & Robinson, J. P. (2012). Housework: Who did, does or will do it, and how much does it matter? Social Forces, 91(1), 55–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sos120

Hochschild, A. R., & Machung, A. (2012). The second shift: Working families and the revolution at home (Rev. ed.). Penguin Books. (Original work published 1989)

On the Orgasm Gap & Sexual Inequity

Fahs, B., & Swank, E. (2016). The other third shift?: Women’s emotion work in their sexual relationships. Feminist Formations, 28(3), 46-69.

Garcia, J. R., Lloyd, E. A., Wallen, K., & Fisher, H. E. (2014). Variation in orgasm occurrence by sexual orientation in a sample of U.S. singles. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 11(11), 2645–2652. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsm.12649

Rowland, K. (2020). The pleasure gap: American women and the unfinished sexual revolution. Seal Press.

Sanchez, D. T., Fetterolf, J. C., & Rudman, L. A. (2012). Eroticizing Inequality in the United States: The Consequences and Determinants of Traditional Gender Role Adherence in Intimate Relationships. The Journal of Sex Research, 49(2–3), 168–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2011.653699

Wehrli, F. S., Landolt, S. A., Weitkamp, K., & Bodenmann, G. (2025). The role of equity in partner contributions to sexual self-esteem for sexual health in romantic couples. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 02654075251351172.

Wetzel, G. M. (2023). Challenging biological justifications for the orgasm gap: Implications for immutability beliefs and orgasm pursuit (Master’s thesis, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, School of Graduate Studies).

Wetzel, G. M., Wolfer, C., Carmichael, C. L., & Sanchez, D. T. (2025). An Experimental Investigation of Sexual Scripts by Partner Gender: Anticipated Clitoral Stimulation and Partner Orgasm Pursuit Shape Women’s Orgasm Expectations. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1-18.

Wolfer, C., & Carmichael, C. L. (2025). Personal and perceived partner orgasm pursuit: A daily diary study about the gendered orgasm gap. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 02654075251316579.

On Sexual Scripts, Gender Conditioning & Emotional Labor

Bartky, S. L. (2015). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. Routledge.

Carlson, D. L., & Lynch, J. L. (2017). Purchases, penalties, and power: The relationship between earnings and housework. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79(1), 199-224.

Carlson, D. L., Miller, A. J., & Rudd, S. (2020). Division of housework, communication, and couples’ relationship satisfaction. Socius, 6, 2378023120924805.

Carlson, D. L., Miller, A. J., Sassler, S., & Hanson, S. (2016). The gendered division of housework and couples’ sexual relationships: A reexamination. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(4), 975-995.

Carlson, D. L., Petts, R. J., & Pepin, J. R. (2021). Flexplace work and partnered fathers’ time in housework and childcare. Men and Masculinities, 24(4), 547-570.

Neysmith, S. M., REITSMA‐STREET, M. A. R. G. E., BAKER‐COLLINS, S. T. E. P. H. A. N. I. E., Porter, E., & Tam, S. (2010). Provisioning responsibilities: how relationships shape the work that women do. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 47(2), 149-170.

Tolman, D. L. (2005). Dilemmas of desire: Teenage girls talk about sexuality. Harvard University Press.

Other Relevant Works

Katz, J. (2019). The macho paradox: Why some men hurt women and how all men can help. Sourcebooks, Inc..

Jaffe, S. (2021). Work won’t love you back: How devotion to our jobs keeps us exploited, exhausted, and alone. Bold Type Books.