Pleasure brand Womanizer launches the “Pleasure Fund” and commits to invest 250,000 euros (SGD $385,000) over the next five years in research in the field of health, sexual well-being and sexual pleasure of exclusively female subjects. The first study will be implemented in collaboration with Berlin’s Charité hospital.
By now, most people are familiar with the so-called ‘gender health gap’: While male persons are considered the benchmark in medicine, many diseases and symptoms of female-read persons remain unexplored to this day. New drugs are primarily tested on male experimental groups, and the same applies to diseases and studies – even those that mainly affect females. What remains are misdiagnoses, wrong medications and unexplored treatment approaches. Womanizer wants to change this and invests in research in the field of female sexuality, pleasure and health.
Who is behind the initiative?
This isn’t the first clinical trial Womanizer has initiated. Earlier this year, the brand released the results of the Menstrubation Study. This investigated whether and to what extent masturbation has a pain-relieving effect on period pain. The positive response has encouraged Womanizer to support further women-focused studies. For a long time, clinical studies were conducted exclusively on male bodies because the female body was considered too complex for clinical research due to its increased hormone production. For example, erectile dysfunction, which affects 19 percent of all men, has been studied five times more than premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which affects 90 percent of all females[1]. To date, studies that focus on female or reproductive health are underfunded – because it is usually males who decide which projects to implement.
Pleasure Fund: International Advisory Board
Womanizer is considered a pioneer in the sexual wellness industry. With its patented Pleasure Air technology, the brand revolutionized an entire industry in 2014 and has since been committed to normalizing and de-tabooizing female sexuality and masturbation. With the help of the Pleasure Fund, Womanizer will invest a total of 250,000 euros (SGD $385,000) in research into female health and sexuality over the next five years. This money will be awarded to researchers and physicians around the world who are conducting studies in these areas. Projects will be selected with the help of an international advisory board consisting of six leading industry experts:
Dr. Jessica A. Shepherd, M.D., MBA (USA)
OBGYN, Women’s Health Expert, Founder & CEO of Sanctum Med + Wellness
Andrea Tan (Singapore)
Certified sex, love and relationship coach, sexual wellness educator
Dr. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke, PhD, MSW, MEd (USA)
Anti-colonial sex educator, decolonial eroticologist, clinical sexologist.
Joslyn Nerdahl (Canada)
Sex educator & intimacy coach
Johanna Rief (Germany)
Head of Sexual Empowerment at Womanizer
“The consequences of the Gender Health Gap increase the risk of mistreatment and misdiagnosis, as female bodies have different symptoms for certain conditions. At Womanizer, we want to help expand knowledge about female sexual health and wellness in the years to come. This is what we are working towards with the Pleasure Fund and we are very pleased to be working with Charité to directly address a topic that affects many women and has been little researched,” says Johanna Rief, Head of Sexual Empowerment at Womanizer.
From Andrea Tan, “I’m excited and honoured to be part of the Advisory Board for Womanizer’s Pleasure Fund. This is putting real concrete first steps to effectively bridge the gap in women and pleasure-centred research. As the Asian representation on the Advisory Board, I am glad to lend an Asian lens to the research and projects that will come through the Pleasure Fund. The quality of a woman’s sexual and reproductive health, and even capacity for pleasure, directly impacts her overall wellbeing, relationships and family. This isn’t just a bold move to close the female sexual health gap, it is an international movement.”
How can you apply?
Researchers and physicians from around the world who conduct research on sexual health, sexual well-being, and sexual pleasure and meet all eligibility criteria are eligible to apply. An application is possible by providing all required information and sending it to [email protected].
Images: Womanizer and Envato
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