Women's health app launches massive survey on female orgasms

Not only is the orgasm gap between men and women real — so is the research gap. Women's health lacks research funding, according to science journal Nature, and there are many more studies about "male ejaculation" than "female orgasm" on the PubMed database (1,980 pages of results for the former, and 438 pages for the latter). 

Flo Health, a women's health app with over 60 million global users, is hoping to bridge that gap. Today, Flo launches a worldwide study of female orgasms. In partnership with adjunct professor of clinical psychology and health psychology at the University of Utah, Jordan Rullo, Flo will assess anonymized insights from tens of thousands of women, according to the app's press release. Rullo is also Flo's medical expert and cerified sex therapist.

Flo's study is open to most app users who are 18 and over and use the app in English, according to Flo Health's director of science, Dr. Liudmila Zhaunova. Users can self-report on their sexual behaviors, experiences, lifestyle factors, and their demographic.

"Flo's science team will meticulously analyze the results over a three-month timeframe to better understand women's sexual practices and how these, and their personal circumstances, relate to sexual pleasure, orgasms, and sexual satisfaction," Zhaunova told Mashable.

The current largest orgasm study survey — about the differences in orgasm frequency among different populations, published in 2017 — had around 25,000 female participants, Zhaunova said. Because Flo has over 60 million users, Zhaunova and the Flo team are aiming to recruit a globally representative audience of over 25,000 respondents. If they succeed, this would be the largest global study of female orgasms to date.

This study, and more education about women's pleasure, is sorely needed. Sex education in the U.S. and elsewhere is lacking: As of 2023, only 18 states require sex ed to be medically accurate, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In the UK, LGBTQ sex education is under threat by conservatives.

Previous surveys from Flo indicate the need for more education on the topic. Nearly one-third, 30 percent, of women aged 18 to 55 falsely believe that the more sex one has, the "looser" their vagina becomes (according to a survey of 2,000 women in the U.S.). Fifteen percent wrongly think masturbation can make their period come faster — while 18 percent overall and 30 percent who identify as conservative consider masturbation itself to be shameful or wrong. 

Twelve percent simply assume new information they learn about sex and reproduction is accurate, and don't take extra steps to confirm it's true; 43 percent go to Google or another search engine to confirm if this info is accurate.

We're uneducated and yet we want our sex lives to improve. In another survey, this one of 2,100 U.S. women aged 18 to 45, 30 percent want to improve their sex life. Among those, 60 percent want to improve how they communicate their desires. But, 66 percent don't think their male partner has a good understanding of their reproductive health.

Flo has surveyed men as well. Just above half, 51 percent, think they have a good understanding of the female body — but they haven't heard of the orgasm gap. Nineteen percent go to porn to learn about the female body, while 18 percent learn from YouTube or Reddit. Over half don't think the sex ed they received as teens was sufficient, in a survey of 1,800 U.S. men aged 18 to 50 conducted in August 2023.

Results from this new survey are expected this summer, said Flo Health senior research scientist and medical writer, Dr. Yella Hewings-Martin. 

Flo isn't the first app to study women's orgasms. Lioness, a smart vibrator that gathers opt-in data, released Pleasure Wrapped at the end of 2023. Lioness found that orgasms lasted 24.01 seconds on average, and the typical masturbation session was around five minutes. 

Lioness, however, focused on data obtained by usage of its smart sex toy. Flo will rely on self-reported survey data from thousands of women.

"We hope that the results of our study will enhance women's understanding of navigating their sexual experiences and pleasure, supported by real-life data from peers worldwide," said Zhaunova in Flo's press release. "This year, we look forward to helping close this glaring research gap and aim to contribute toward improving the sexual experiences of millions of women around the world."