(hell, yeah) Scarleteen

That’s the takeaway from a nationwide online sex survey of men and women ages 18-59, just out in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. When asked to quantify their pleasure quotient, both men and women rated their most recent sexual experience as quite high, in general, with few differences based on condom and lubricant use.

Notably, the new study, which included 1,645 respondents, didn’t ask whether people preferred sex with or without a condom. It simply asked for a detailed accounting of a recent sexual encounter. So, among those who chose to use condoms (27.5% of men and 22.3% of women in the survey) the self-reported arousal rating and other key pleasure indicators appeared to be essentially comparable to non-condom users.

“Not everyone wants to or has to use a condom, or lubricant, when they have sex,” the study’s lead author, Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., MPH, with the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University told me via email. “But if they want to use a condom or lubricant – to make sex safer or more comfortable – it’s unlikely to have a significant impact on overall pleasure for many (but not all) people.”

No surprise for us, but if it’s one for you, you can read the rest here!