buttonjockey308 makes a good point that should be hammered home. The worst sex is no sex. I can’t recall any sex session that I’ve ever had where I thought after the fact that I would have been better off not having sex. That’s not to say I’ve never had regrets. Like many other guys, I’ve woken up to find that the girl I thought looked decent after the bottle of tequila really looks like Ernest Borgnine.
Except for the hair-brushing… sounds good! I’m a man who dislikes make-up, plucked eyebrows, and heeled shoes, and is indifferent towards women shaving (seems a bit silly, though.)
(One time an ex-girlfriend met me at the airport after a long absence. Well, she dressed-up and I noticed she was wearing heeled shoes. I felt uncomfortable that someone would hobble themselves for me.)
(But I have long hair (I’m white), and I brush it because it is more comfortable, so to speak. Isn’t that why you brush your hair?)
As to the OP:
I think good sex, like good friendships/relationships, is a lot about communication. Now, I don’t mean asking, “do you like that?” every 2 minutes, but there are some people with whom I naturally communicate well, and some who I don’t. Though not the same, I think sex is similar. It’s kind of like there are some partners with whom I’ve had better sex-communication than others. Does anyone else know what I’m talking about, or am I just babbling?
I know what you’re talking about, yes. “The most important sex organ is the ears…” a partner who doesn’t respond to what you do/say/want or whose responses are constantly negative is going to be a total turnoff in no time.
Being a male of about a 5.5 on the Kinsey scale (i.e., very strongly gay but has had a number of straight encounters), I find the woman’s attractiveness (using my own criteria to judge that) to be 99% of whether I can even get it up at all. Therefore, not having experienced any orgasms whatsoever with less-attractive female partners, I have no basis for comparison.
When it comes to other males, physical/sexual attractiveness is likewise by far the most important factor in choosing a partner, but sexual attractiveness is somewhat variable for me, as I imagine it is for all males of all orientations. For me, the face is always the most critical component of the picture, and in some cases a cute, sexy face – provided the body it’s attached to is either invisible (as in a photograph) or rather trim – can send me right to the edge of orgasm alone. (I am most definitely not in the George Michael category, who – like a reportedly large contingent among gay men, apparently – will happily have sex with a fat, ugly truck driver in the bushes. Ugh.) But, again as I’m sure it is with other men, one or another non-traditional-beauty aspects of a potential partner’s body or clothing can help trump an otherwise slightly less-attractive appearance.
Without going too far into TMI land, after choosing a fresh partner based 100% on appearance, I’d give my orgasm-hotness formula as:
Thrill of orgasm = facial beauty (30%) + sexiness of body (20%) + unmistakable signs of partner’s enthusiasm, such as erection status (40%) + the general “naughtiness” factor (10%).
That last factor rated at about 80% in my suburban, white-bread, thoroughly debauched early youth. Good times! 
And I’ve got to say that in the unmistakable signs of enthusiasm department, we gay men have a real edge over straight men.
But to answer the OP’s suitably modified question: “Is the quality of your orgasm enhanced by a [man’s] looks if there are no other factors?”, I’d have to say, you bet your ass! Hell, yes.
But when that partner transitions from early encounters toward long-term relationships, the formula changes to include profound emotional considerations (as well as memory flashes of earlier sexual encounters).
Well I’m 65 years young so you’ll have to remind me, “Orgasm?”
Yes, attractiveness is a factor in the proceedings up to the bedroom/backseat/park bench/lab table. But when you are in the middle of doing it, do you really think, “Wow! She is so much more beautiful than Bertha.” The physical appearance might make the level of arousal more intense but will not influence the final intensity of the release, AFAICT.
In my own experience, having gone out with women who ranged from drop dead gorgeous to ones where I wanted to pour bleach in my eyes (those were some rough mornings), I know it was easier to prime the pump, so to speak, if there was a higher degree of physical attractiveness. But some of the escapees from the kennel knew tricks that curled my toes. Yet, when all was said and done, I found that the orgasms were always more intense when I was in love.
IME, it’s generally more enjoyable to boink a hot woman. The hot woman gets my engine revving at higher rpm’s than plain jane during the pre-boinking phases. The, through boinking synergy, my excitement heightens her excitement leading to pulling-the-sheets-out-of-your-ass orgasms for both. Plain jane may do a perfectly respectable and enjoyable job of draining my nuts, but it just won’t be as good.
Yes. If there are no other factors.
But the quality of orgasm? That’s a pretty elusive characteristic. All orgasms are pretty damn good. Yes, there are a few that are really good, but there isn’t much of a scale of relative quality of orgasms. It’s more a scale of relative quality of the sexual experience as a whole and in that context, yes, the relative higher attractiveness of a partner can case a relative higher better experience.
The idea of having sex with an attractive woman does increase the psychological pleasure. I don’t know how finely this can be calibrated though. Again, though, the relative quality of an orgasm is not really a major way of judging a sexual experience.
I wonder if this is a significant male/female difference. Do women’s orgasm’s vary, in intensity and duration, more than men’s do? Are men more likely to care about whether they came, while women are more likely to care about how hard or how long or how often they came?
Way too many variables to completely nail it down, but I’d have to say that attractiveness does have an effect on the orgasm, all other things being equal. Thing is, in reality all other things are rarely equal. I’ve had some mindblowing sex with a few women of various levels of attractiveness, shit sex with various women too. While some relatively hot women weren’t all that great in bed, I can’t remember having anything better than halfway decent sex with the few relatively unattractive women I ended up with for whatever reason. I got it up and had some fun, but there was no strong desire for a repeat performance, and the quality of the orgasm was nothing memorable enough to stay with me.
On the other hand, I can still get excited by memories of some of the really attractive women, and in one case I swear that I felt like I was going to blow her head off with the force of my orgasm. Nothing like that with any of the “mo-ped” girls. The holy grail (no pun intended) for most men is a hot uninhibited woman with enthusiasm, skill, and a strong sex drive.
From a more clinical point of view, there’s probably an effect on sperm release. I can’t find a study online about it, but I remember reading that the type and number of sperm released was affected by the relative attractiveness of the partner. Women’s orgasms are definitely affected by their male partner’s attractiveness, and I can’t imagine that men and women are that completely different in that respect.
There are studies (PDF) that document a definite difference in the sperm released when a bonded couple has been separated for some time. The longer the separation, the more sperm he’ll release the next time he has sex with the woman, but there’s basically no fluctuation in the number or type of sperm if his next orgasm is through masturbation. Attractiveness ratings of a partner are higher after a separation too. Those are pretty strong indicators that subconscious evaluations have physical and behavioral effects, and that attractiveness does matter for at least some aspects of how your body reacts to a partner.
This is rather fascinating! So, using your own criteria, would a beautiful woman, to you, be extremely masculine? Or would she need to be super-duper feminine? (I’m easily distracted by interesting psychological stuff :D)
Hmmm, another interesting hijack. I don’t know how it is for men (obviously :D), but for me (how 'bout all of you other women??) mine can range from a teensy little blip on the radar “okay” to losing-touch-with-reality-bring-me-to-tears birth of the universe good.
Reading no other post than the OP, I have to say “Absolutely not!” Even a run-of-the-mill orgasm is awesome, and I can do that by myself. But if I can lose myself in the moment, which is easier with a true love as opposed to some beautiful stranger, the orgasm can be earth-shattering…
Joe
Whichever one has larger breasts, obviously. 
Otherwise, I’m not sure if there’s a difference. What looks good might not feel good, and vice versa.
Do you have a cite on that?
From the footnotes in my first cite:
Baker, R. R., & Bellis, M. A. (1993b). Human sperm competition: Ejaculate manipulation by females and a function for the female orgasm. Animal Behaviour, 46, 887–909.
A. L., Euler, H. A., & Hoier, S. (2000). Female coital orgasm and male attractiveness. Human Nature, 11, 299 –306.
Thornhill, R., Gangestad, S. W., & Comer, R. (1995). Human female orgasm and mate fluctuating asymmetry. Animal Behaviour, 50, 1601–1615.
Online:
Female coital orgasm and male attractiveness Abstract of a journal article.
The Orgasm Wars, pop science write-up. Relevant part starts on the page I linked to.
Imperfect Match in Science News (PDF).
If I remember right, this came up on the board a year or two ago because of a book that was published about then. And if it’s the same book mentioned here (PDF) then there has already been a rebuttal to her rebuttal of the adaptiveness of women’s orgasms. From what I’ve read, there may be some question as to whether or not the orgasm response is adaptive — as in that it retains prime sperm, increases fertility, or has some other selective purpose — but the positive correlation between male symmetry/attractiveness, and the frequency and possibly intensity of female orgasms is pretty clear.
On the other hand, I’m not a scientist and haven’t done extensive reading on the subject, so it’s always possible I’m overlooking something.
Thank you for the cite. It looks like I have plenty of reading ahead of me.
What criteria are these papers basing attractiveness on? Because most women I know go for Uglyhot way more than men do (see: Mick Jagger, Willem Dafoe), or base their perception of a man’s hotness on aspects other than his physical looks (whereas I hear ‘She’s an idiot and a criminal, but man she’s hot’-type comemnts more from men).
Well, you could read, or you could have sex. Hmmm. Is it really that difficult a choice? 
To answer the OP, I think the attractiveness of the woman makes a lot more difference in the prelude to hopping in the sack. Once you’ve gotten down to business, having someone who’s smokin’ hawt in bed with you is certainly preferable to the alternative, but I can’t see that it’s going to make any difference in how the delightful interlude comes to an, er, climax.
Those are reasonable surmises, but I’d have to summarize my taste in females, in a word, as “boyish”. Small (but not too small) breasts, slim hips, shorter hair, pretty face.
Not that all my female partners matched that description, however.