It’s time to end the Gender Health Gap! For a long time, male medical conditions are considered the benchmark, while conditions found more predominately in women often go unnoticed and underresearched. Womanizer wants to change that and invest in female sexual health research. It’s time to meet the Pleasure Fund, which aims to boost awareness and standards for women’s sexual health.
Women’s Sexual Health to Get 250,00 Euros
Womanizer is committed to investing 250,000 euros over the next five years in research into female sexuality, pleasure, and health. The reason? Up to now, new treatments have been tested primarily on male experimental groups, and the same applies to diseases and studies – even those that mainly affect women. What remains are misdiagnoses, wrong medications, and unexplored treatment approaches. Womanizer’s ‘Pleasure Fund’ now aims to change that.
First Study: How Breast Cancer-related Illness Can Affect Sexual Health
Womanizer is conducting its first study in collaboration with the Charité University Hospital and Research Institute in Berlin. The aim is to investigate sexual health and how it can be affected in the context of breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. Around 70,000 people in Germany are diagnosed with it every year.
Funded by Womanizer, Dr. Laura Hatzler, Head of the Female Desire Research Group at the Institute for Sexuality and Sexual Medicine at Charité, will investigate whether and to what extent masturbation can help re-learn sexual arousal, improve blood flow, and achieve a positive body image.
The Menstrubation Study and the Pleasure Fund
Womanizer launched the Menstrubation Initiative at the beginning of the year. This investigated the extent to which solo sex can help against menstrual cramps. The response was huge and has encouraged Womanizer to support further women-focused studies. And this is urgently needed because for a long time clinical studies were conducted exclusively on male bodies, as the female body was considered too complex for clinical research due to its increased hormone production.
Case in point? For example, erectile dysfunction, which affects 19 percent of all men, has been researched five times more than premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which affects 90 percent of all women. The solution? The Pleasure Fund.
Pleasure Fund: Womanizer as a Pioneer in Sexual Wellness
In 2014, Womanizer revolutionized an entire industry with the invention of Pleasure Air Technology. Since then, the brand has worked tirelessly to remove the taboos surrounding female sexuality and masturbation. With the help of the Pleasure Fund, Womanizer will invest a total of 250,000 euros for research into female health and sexuality over the next five years. This money will be awarded to researchers and physicians around the world that are conducting studies in these areas.
Leading Industry Experts on the International Advisory Board
Dr. med. Jessica Shepard (USA)
Dr. Jessica A. Shepherd is a gynecologist and women’s health expert and founder of Her Viewpoint. The online women’s health forum focuses on addressing taboo topics and providing a comfortable setting for doing so.
As an OB/GYN, Jessica practices at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is also the Chief of the Division of Minimally Invasive Gynecology. She serves on the board of the American Heart Association’s Multicultural Leadership Committee and the Women’s Health Foundation and uses her expertise to help women understand their health issues and treat them appropriately.
Andrea Tan (Singapore)
Andrea Tan is trained as a certified coach (600 hours) in the areas of sex, love, and relationships, including the VITATM Method (The Vital and Integrated Tantric Approach Method). She uses various in-depth coaching methods, for example, visualization, meditation, mind-body psychology, jade egg practices, and ancient traditions – to help both individuals and couples develop a self-determined, embodied relationship with themselves.
Dr. phil. Zelaika Hepworth Clarke (USA)
Zelaika specializes in human sexualities, gender and relationship diversity, clinical and cultural sexology, Africa-centered social work, sex education, autoethnography, and Ọ̀ṣunality (an Africa-centered, sex-positive, postcolonial paradigm that affirms the diversity of sensuality, sexual pleasure, and eroticism).
In her work, she applies anti-erotophobic, anti-oppressive, and healing-centered, pleasure-focused approaches. She also provides decolonial counseling services, love education, consultation, and mentoring through Pluriversity LLC, which works to promote sexual multi-epistemic competence, erotic sovereignty, and sensual justice.
Joslyn Nerdahl (Canada)
Joslyn Nerdahl is a passionate advocate for sex education, decriminalization of sex work, and surrogate partner therapy. She first discovered her talent for sexual healing as an erotic massage therapist, helping people feel safe and accept their sexual idiosyncrasies without shame. Eventually, she opened her own sex coaching practice. Around the same time, she started working with the agency “Sensual Solutions” as a sex assistant for people with physical disabilities, helping them to experience sexual pleasure in their own bodies or those of partners*.
Johanna Rief, MBA (Germany)
Johanna Rief is Director of Public Relations and Head of Sexual Empowerment at WOW Tech Group, which develops innovative, high-quality sex toys for brands such as Womanizer, We-Vibe, and Arcwave. Her tagline, “I masturbate for science,” describes three facts: Sex tech development involves a lot of research and development, women’s masturbation should no longer be taboo. And, it is possible to find a job that is truly satisfying.
For the past eight years, Johanna has worked at the forefront of this industry and is responsible for global communications for all WOW Tech brands. Prior to that, Johanna built the communications department of a Berlin-based sex store that is now one of the largest retailers of sexual health and wellness products in Europe.
Dr. Andrea Burri (Switzerland)
Founder & CEO of the Private Institute for Sex Counselling and Sexual Sciences (ISCSS). Dr. Andrea Burri is an EFS-ESSM certified psycho-sexologist with over 15 years of clinical experience in sex and couples therapy. She holds a doctorate in sexology and is the founder of the Institute for Sex Counselling and Sexual Sciences in Zurich. In addition to her work as an advisor and counselor for pharmaceutical companies, Andrea is involved as a lecturer at various international universities and gives talks and workshops on diverse sexuality-related topics around the world. According to herself, it is her calling to accompany people on their way to a happy partnership and sexuality.
“The consequences of the Gender Health Gap increase the risk of mistreatment and misdiagnosis, as female bodies have different symptoms for certain ailments. 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.
Want to join in? Here’s how to apply!
Researchers and clinicians 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. To apply, please provide all required information and send it to pleasurefund@womanizer.com.
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