Recent research published in the journal Sexual Medicine suggests that cannabis use before sex may help women who experience difficulties achieving orgasm. Among women who reported difficulties achieving orgasm, a significant majority reported improvements in orgasm frequency, ease, and satisfaction when using cannabis before partnered sex.
Female orgasmic dysfunction is a sexual disorder characterized by a persistent or recurrent difficulty in achieving orgasm, despite adequate sexual stimulation and arousal. This condition can cause significant distress and affect a woman’s quality of life and relationships. Despite its prevalence, affecting up to 41% of women worldwide, effective treatments are limited.
Anecdotal evidence and previous studies have hinted at cannabis’s potential to enhance sexual experiences for women, but a systematic investigation was necessary to validate these claims. In this new study, researchers aimed to provide more substantial evidence that cannabis could be an effective treatment for women with orgasmic difficulties.
“I was interested in this topic because it was cannabis that helped me overcome my own orgasm difficulty, something I tried to overcome for more than 30 years, seeing four sex therapists in this time frame and trying other treatment modalities. I wanted to research if other women who had orgasm difficulty were also benefiting from cannabis,” said study author Suzanne Mulvehill, a clinical sexologist, executive director of the Female Orgasm Research Institute, and founder of the Women’s Cannabis Project
The study involved an anonymous survey of sexually active women who used cannabis. Conducted between March 24 and November 18, 2022, the survey collected data from participants who had engaged in sex with a partner within the last 30 days. To be eligible, participants had to be at least 18 years old and have used cannabis before sex. Pregnant women, those breastfeeding, and those who had used other recreational substances in the past month were excluded.
The survey, distributed via social media and postcards, gathered responses from 1,037 women. After excluding incomplete responses and those not meeting the criteria, data from 387 surveys were analyzed.
Participants answered questions about their orgasm frequency, ease, and satisfaction both with and without cannabis use before sex. The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) was used to evaluate these aspects, with a slider scale ranging from “almost never” to “almost always” for frequency, “extremely difficult” to “not difficult” for ease, and “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied” for satisfaction.
The researchers found that women with orgasm difficulties experienced a 39.8% increase in orgasm frequency with cannabis use. Specifically, 88.8% reported reaching orgasm more frequently when using cannabis, compared to 63.3% without it. Those who almost never or never reached orgasm decreased from 36.6% without cannabis to 11.4% with cannabis.
“The largest group of women with orgasmic dysfunction ‘Almost Always or Always’ orgasm with cannabis before sex and ‘Almost Never or Never’ orgasm without it,” Mulvehill noted. “Whereas women without orgasmic dysfunction tend to orgasm with or without cannabis before sex.”
Likewise, the difficulty of achieving orgasm decreased by 35.4% among women with orgasm difficulties when using cannabis. Only 7.4% found it extremely difficult or impossible to orgasm with cannabis, compared to 22.8% without it.
Satisfaction with orgasms nearly doubled, with 86.1% of women reporting higher satisfaction with cannabis use, compared to 43.6% without it. Dissatisfaction rates dropped significantly, from 56.4% without cannabis to 20.8% with it.
“My research, which was the first to dichotomize women with and without orgasm difficulty, supported 50 years of cannabis and sex research revealing statistically significant results that cannabis helps women who have orgasm difficulty and improves orgasm frequency, ease, and satisfaction,” Mulvehill told PsyPost.
Women who used cannabis more frequently before sex reported higher orgasm frequency, suggesting a dose-response relationship. However, the researchers were surprised to find that the duration of cannabis use before sex — how long they had been using cannabis in this context — did not significantly affect the results, indicating that both new and long-term users could benefit.
While the study showed promising results for a significant majority of participants, it was not universally effective. “About 4% of the women with female orgasmic dysfunction in the study used cannabis before sex and did not yet experience an orgasm, revealing that cannabis did not help all women orgasm,” Mulvehill noted. “That said, studies show that the typical range of women who have anorgasmia, have not yet experienced an orgasm, is 10-15%.”
“My long term goals are to get female orgasmic dysfunction approved as a condition of treatment for medical cannabis in the United States and countries worldwide (Connecticut already approved it, several other states are in the pipeline) and ultimately to develop a cannabis-based prescription medication to treat it.”
The study, “Assessment of the effect of cannabis use before partnered sex on women with and without orgasm difficulty,” was authored by Suzanne Mulvehill and Jordan Tishler.
