SEXUAL HEALING

Taking part in academic research usually involves a familiar and predictable roll call of procedures. There will likely be samples to deposit into tiny pots, comprehensive online questionnaires and diary entries recorded with all the diligence of your teenage chronicles (though hopefully less of the angst). You might see more of your GP or become such a regular in your hospital’s waiting room that you have ‘your chair’, nestled beside the yucca plant and some well-thumbed back issues of Golf Australia. It’s only in exceptional cases that taking part in research that could re-evaluate society’s understanding of health involves taking a four-speed stimulator to your clitoris.

Such was the case for the 486 women who took part in the buzziest research of 2021. For three months, whenever participants felt uncomfortable menstrual symptoms, such as cramps, backache or sore breasts, they had to skip their usual pain medication and masturbate instead. The aim was to explore if self-pleasure could relieve pain; a process that the study’s creators – sex tech brand Womanizer and menstrual cup brand Lunette – called ‘menstrubation’. Participants were left to their own devices