NEW ORLEANS — A new study presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association revealed that use of vibrators and other sex toys could have a variety of health benefits.
The study was led by Dr. Alexandra Dubinskaya from Cedar-Sinai Medical Center, with the researchers reviewing the current literature on the subject, Newsweek reported today.
"As a urogynecologist, I spend my time discussing with women their genital and sexual health," Dubinskaya told Newsweek. "It is often shared that no medical professional ever spoke to them about their sex life, nor their solo sexual experiences."
Dubinskaya explained that while there is “a stigma associated with masturbation and vibrators, at the same time the concept of 'if you don't use it you lose it' is well-understood and applied to other parts of the body. This concept has not been applied to the pelvic floor, genitourinary or sexual health. I wanted to learn more information on this topic, thus created the literature review."
The researchers probed the effect of vibrator use on sexual function, pelvic floor dysfunction and vulvar pain, Newsweek noted, and “identified 558 articles containing relevant keywords and then whittled this number down to 21 papers that met all of their criteria for the issues they wanted to study.”
The relevant studies showed an “overall positive attitude towards vibrator use among women and an acceptance of receiving vibrators from medical providers,” the researcher told Newsweek.
The studies also “showed that vibrator use had a positive effect in several areas of women's health, including improvements in urinary incontinence and pelvic floor muscle strength, as well as easing vulvar pain,” the article added.
"I am not surprised by the findings,” Dubinskaya told Newsweek. “It is my belief that there are many other benefits of vibrator use which we are probably unfamiliar with yet."
