A couple of years back, when the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) launching an investigation into accounting irregularities at SSL International (the parent company of Durex condoms), I thought that might just be the Accountants massaging the figures.

The Scientists that work at Durex would surely be more interested in seeking truths and advancing knowledge than making money. After all, Durex is generally considered one of the world’s leading prophylactic brands, and the company is responsible for helping its customers prevent unwanted pregnancies and avoid a multitude of nasty and potentially fatal sexually transmitted infections.

So, we were quite surprised to receive a missive from PR company McCann Erickson, tipping us off to a new product from Durex – a female masturbation gel – which allegedly encourages blood flow to a woman’s clitoris, and supposedly makes it more sensitive.

I suspect that the product is simply a small amount of Capsaicin in a solution of liquid Paraffin, but McCann Erickson didn’t go into too much detail, and were more keen to link to the ‘Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey’, also pointing out that using their clients product, 79% of British women achieved orgasm.

Impressive stuff you might say. But, looking at the above survey, Quality Control has obviously slipped up at the condom company, because Poland is quite clearly listed twice. A schoolboy error; and not something that one should expect to find in a piece of purportedly serious research.

This leads to a second query – 79% of British women achieved an orgasm using the product, but unfortunately, Durex and McCann Erickson omitted to give any measure of reliability (such as probable error or standard error), which devalues the statistic somewhat. However, what would be very much more useful would be a comparison telling us how many British women achieved an orgasm without using the product.

This got me wondering; whilst men are pretty much guaranteed an orgasm from masturbation, I know that orgasm can be more difficult for women, but exactly how likely are women to achieve orgasm? If the answer was in the region of 79%, then Durex/McCann Erickson’s claims would be rather less impressive.

It seems the figure is actually quite elusive, and the best I could find through Google was Clitical.com, where a list of orgasm ‘facts’ claimed that “One study found that only 7.7 percent of women whose lovers spent 21 minutes or longer on foreplay failed to reach orgasm” thus implying that 92.3% succeeded to reach orgasm, although Clitical failed to mention which study they refer to. The same webpage also asserts that (for females) 95% of masturbation sessions result in orgasm, but again, the author doesn’t mention any study this time, so that figure might just be just his girlfriend’s experience, for all we know.

Whilst there might not be a lot of data available for orgasm through female masturbation, scientific researchers have certainly been pretty busy over the years collecting information about female orgasms through intercourse. And, it seems that from a sample of 800 married couples, Terman (1938) reported that 8.3% never achieved orgasm through intercourse, whilst Chesser (1956), using a sample of 2,000 married English women, reported that 5% never achieved orgasm through intercourse. Fisher (1973) studied 300 married American women, of whom 5% reported never achieved orgasm through sex; then using a sample of about 700 white American women, Hunt (1974) reported that 7% rarely or never achieve orgasm. Finally, and most impressively, Tarvis and Sadd (1977) reported that from a sample of 100,000 American women, who responded to a Redbook magazine questionnaire, 7% reported never achieving orgasm through coitus.

McCann Erickson’s original message asked what we thought; and despite contacting them, pointing out the errors and requesting clarification some while back, neither McCann Erickson nor Durex were prepared to respond again.

You might also enjoy reading:-

• Foreplay is overrated, claim Boffins
• Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey
• Sexually repressed Britons may be a myth
• Emotional intelligence leads to better sex
• Frequent sex helps prevent erectile dysfunction

Posted by Jonathan in Miscellaneous

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