14/01/2022
The Pleasure Project has been working closely with WHO to showcase how Pleasure is an important component of what we do in SRHR.
New research shows that sexual health programs that include sexual desire and sexual pleasure can improve knowledge and attitudes around sex, as well as condom use compared to those that do not. The data which was published in advance of Valentine’s Day, by the World Health Organisation [WHO] and The Pleasure Project, the leading global advocate for pleasure based sexual health, was published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
The extensive global analysis of evidence spans 2005-2020 and is dominated by studies from the USA, but also finds evidence from Brazil, Spain, South Africa, the UK, Nigeria, Mexico and Singapore. Overall, it finds that incorporating pleasure in health programs can have positive effects on attitudes and safer sex behaviour. This has long been an avoided topic in sexual health and sex education. The research recommends redesigning sexual education and health intervention approaches to focus on how to achieve pleasurable safer sex, or learn condom use skills that focus on people’s ability to feel pleasure and desire, and overall acknowledge that sexual experiences can and should be pleasurable.
