It was thirty years of having difficulty orgasming. After seeing fourth best sex therapist over thirty years, found out about cannabis, and I wanted to try it. Oh my gosh. It was shocking. It changed my life. People will tell me, like, she goes, oh yeah, like as soon as I take that gummy, like I can feel arousal. That has been in the research since the seventies. This is not new new information. What's new is actually turning it into policy, making it law.
There's research that shows that the THC in cannabis reduces the activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that stores trauma. Women, for example, who have had trauma, sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, which by the way, the number one sexual complaint of women who have had childhood sexual abuse is orgasm difficulty. So so tell us about, like, the research itself. 387 validated surveys of women who were using cannabis. They were using it, before sex or not.
They but they were using it. Fifty three percent or two hundred and two of them had reported that they had orgasm difficulty before partnered sex. One of the most interesting things in the study, the frequency of use is Hey, everybody. Doctor Diane here. Welcome back to the lounge. I'm so thrilled about the conversation we're gonna have today. I have the best guest, a new friend of mine.
We're gonna talk about the research she's been doing, and these studies are blowing my mind, which she sent over to me to take a look at around orgasm and female orgasm difficulty, which is a real legitimate problem. Right? I've seen and I'll be interested as I bring on this next guest to ask her about what she's seeing with the stats because I've personally seen anything as as aggressive as only fifteen percent of women can orgasm by, you know, by penetration alone.
And then we have other stats around twenty percent or so of women that have never orgasm. And I've seen stats all over the board, so I'm gonna ask our next guest about what she's seen. But the point here is this is a real big, big issue, and it's a common thing that nobody is talking about. And people are suffering and thinking there's something wrong with them where it's nothing wrong. We just don't have all the tools together.
And the research that this guest is going to share with us around cannabis and around the use of cannabis for solving this problem and really helping women have better orgasms or their first orgasm finally after, you know, a lifetime of struggle here, it's just absolutely phenomenal. So doctor Suzanne, thank you so much for coming with me coming here today with me. We're gonna have a great time today. Thank you, doctor Diane. I'm thank you for inviting me on. It's it's really a pleasure.
And I would love because we're gonna go into the research and, you know, give people supportive ideas and tools and really hoping help open up people's minds around this, but it's such a unique place. Right? It's such a unique way of solving this problem, meaning, you know, so much talk in the world is around testosterone and HRT and all these things.
So I'm really curious, like, what initially, like, inspired you really to go down very, very strongly in this world of research and exploration around cannabis and fee female orgasm disorder? Well, it was thirty years of having difficulty orgasming and, dealing with the shame of that and the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of isolation, the the having no place to really at that time, I mean, in the eighties, there was we didn't have the Internet. You know?
We didn't have Reddit where there's a thread with becoming orgasmic with 30,000, you know, people talking about their orgasm. So, after seeing fourth sex sex therapists over thirty years, I stumbled on or somewhere I found out about cannabis, and I wanted to try it. And, it wasn't even a part of a plan. Like, okay. Let's try it and see if I can, you know, orgasm. It just kind of I had had a I had to learn how to use it, first of all, but we can get into all that. Like, I'm Yes. Pretty much.
I'm not want to to surrender, you know, or go into, like, a different state of consciousness. But, anyway, I ended up, you know, orgasming, with a partner to my own surprise. And, I was like, could that have been that? The cannabis? It was it was, like, two and a half hours previous. So we ended up trying and, you know, over time, I could orgasm with or without the cannabis in different ways, and, it changed my life. I mean, I sold my company in 2020.
I went back for my PhD. I in 2020, I graduated, last year, did a dissertation. And, anyway, I'll stop there, but that it it definitely, it was life changing, and I know I wanted to see if other women had were suffering from this orgasm difficulty and also finding cannabis beneficial. It's so important. And what I love about your story is is what you said around, hey.
Even using this and actually starting down the road of bringing cannabis in, it sounds like you actually found then that sometimes you could after the the induction of Canada cannabis into your play, then afterwards, you're saying that you could sometimes use cannabis or not use cannabis. And either way, you would have an orgasm. So it just kinda opened that world up. And that and that that has been in the research since the seventies. This is this is not new information.
What's new is actually turning it into policy, you know, making it law that, for example, the states of Colorado and the states of Illinois have added or female orgasm difficulty as a condition of treatment for medical cannabis. So we've taken the research and actually put it into society, into policy. Yeah. So it it and and why does it you know, why can a woman what they said even in the seventies. You know?
It was a book called The Sexual Power of Marijuana by Barbara Lewis who talked about women who once they learned how to orgasm with cannabis, they didn't always need it. Yeah. So I love it. And we have neuroplasticity theory. Yeah. You know, to we have now we know that the human brain, the the adult brain continues to grow and change. We didn't used to think that years ago, but I know that to be true. So it's this new learned behavior.
And women in my study, when I, you know, I interviewed them, they they say said similar things, but we can go into that more detail and more in in a little bit as well. Yeah. I definitely want to. And and I'm as you are talking about, you know, kind of the high level of the mechanism of what's happening, I know, like, some of what you found in research is this almost resetting of the amygdala. Right?
And you mentioned in your own, you know, in your own story that you felt shame around this not being able to orgasm, which I think is a really common experience. Like, that was my experience before I figured out how to orgasm around, like, what's wrong with me, you know, my broken, you know, that thing of wanting to show up as a woman and feel into your sexual body, but also knowing that it helps partners feel like they're they're able to provide pleasure, and partners wanna do that.
And so then there's the shame of letting somebody down and all of that messiness. Yeah. It's a big package. It's a big package. It really is. It's a complicated thing for sure. So so what have you then found? Like like, it's helping the amygdala, like, process trauma better, or it's just kinda settling down those neurological waves? Or what do you think is happening there from, like, the that brain standpoint on them? Great question, Diane. Doctor Diane. That's a great question.
So there is, there's research that shows that the THC in cannabis reduces the activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that stores trauma. And, that research has led to what I call the amygdala reduction theory that was published that basically says that women, for example, who have had trauma, sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, which, by the way, the number one sexual complaint of women who have had childhood sexual abuse is orgasm difficulty.
So, you know, if we can quiet that part of the mind that is hypervigilant, and it's trying to help us. I mean, it's definitely trying to help us to say, we're not gonna let that ever happen to you again. The the challenge with that in learning how to surrender into orgasm is that as one woman who I interviewed shared, she says, you know, her brain would tell her, you know, you're getting ready to orgasm. I'm noticing that you're going to be orgasming soon.
And she would be telling her brain, thank you, but I I I'm really would prefer you know, thank you for that information. And if we could put that aside for now, because that's like spectatoring. You know, that's not being in the body. That's stepping out and saying, okay. Warning. That's not gonna help. And she.
So long story short is the the the cannabis, the THC reduces the activity, and that science has shown that in the part of the brain that stores the trauma, which can allow women to to relax the hypervigilance and be in their body. Yeah. And what a great thing for the rest of our day to day life, right, to relax that hypervigilance and all that. It's such a gift in so many ways. It's really, Go ahead.
I mean, who you know, it's like I could sigh, you know, just like for the women, for example, in my study, we found who had women with or without orgasm difficulty who had a sexual abuse history, had a more positive statistically significant, more positive orgasm response using cannabis before sex. So it's it's been it's scientifically and this is there's consistency in the research over fifty years, including anecdotal research. So it's exciting to finally, like, be talking about this and Yeah.
It really is. Ready for it. And like you said, this this stuff is like it's not new from a standpoint of there's, you know, there's information that is decades old, but being able to have more research and and newer research and being able to get it into policy, it just brings this awareness.
And I think for for me as, like, a fundamental scientist, which is what I feel like I am as a doctor, Like, what I've seen in in working with patients is if I can show them the study and the research, then the belief and the ability to to say take that step to try it is so much easier. And so that's a huge part of, I think, what the offering is here too. I'm curious about then so so tell us about, like, the research itself.
Like, what I'm curious about is, you know, who is all coming into your study? Because it sounds like some people with trauma. Like, are you working with people that have never had orgasms, that have had orgasms just sometimes or they're not very strong or they can only have orgasm through masturbation and not a partner? Like, what have you seen kind of in all these different areas?
Have you worked with these different types of Well, I'll focus on the the research I did for my dissertation that got published in sexual medicine online last year. It's called the assessment. I can send you a link. I have a assessment of the use of cannabis, before partnered sex on women with and without orgasm difficulty. So over a thousand women, replied to the survey, and, we ended up using 387 validated surveys of women who were using cannabis. They were using it, before sex or not.
They they were using it. And fifty three percent or two hundred and two of them had orgas had reported that they had orgasm difficulty before partnered sex. So one of the most interesting things in the study were there were there were a number of things, but, you know, realizing that there were some women who thought they had an orgasm problem. But when we looked objectivity objectively at their responses, we've found out that they really didn't.
We they got moved to the category where they didn't. Because if they were able to orgasm sometimes or most times without cannabis, they aligned with the women who didn't have an orgasm problem. The women who had an orgasm problem, almost all the largest group of them almost never orgasmed without cannabis. And to my surprise, that same group of women almost always orgasmed with it. So it was it was shocking in to see it. Like, when I had organized the data and realized, like, oh my gosh.
Like, this is really, really helping women. And they learned it on their own. Like, there there hasn't really been, a training. Like so, anyway, that's, those were it improved orgasm frequency, orgasm ease, and orgasm satisfaction for women with and without orgasm difficulty. Like, by seventy seven percent of the women for orgasm frequency for women with orgasm difficulty.
I think it was seven over seventy percent for improving orgasm satisfaction and sixty seven so over like, somewhere in there. I'm getting my numbers mixed up. But Yeah. It's phenomenal results. It's it's the majority. You know? We're able to, yeah, improve orgasm frequency, ease, and satisfaction. Which is phenomenal. I mean, that just is, like, life changing to so many people. Did you, by any chance I'm curious.
Like, did you, by any chance, do anything, like, compare that with, like, masturbation versus partnered sex? Was that, like, a criteria in there that you looked at all? So we only evaluated we we specifically looked at the line of just before partnered sex, because if it was overlapped with masturbation, we'd put number first of all, it was just the number of questions. You know, how many questions were women willing to answer?
And, we look specifically at the orgasm subscale questions, frequency ease and satisfaction with and without cannabis before partnered sex. Okay. That was the Because that's the largest group of women. It's called situational. They call it by the diagnostic is just, you know, the the DSM five. It's called situational FOD, situational female orgasm difficulty. Yeah. Which means they can have it in I call it partnered sex difficulty. You know? But it's a difficult situation.
More accurate in, like, the reality of what it actually is. And you know what I learned too is is that women who don't have an orgasm problem, they don't orgasm in all ways. Yeah. It's not like, you know, I and that because I think we're we're misled into thinking that, oh, well, she has to orgasm through partner you know, through oral sex, through vaginal intercourse, through clitoral stimulation.
You know, like, across the board, she has to orgasm all these different ways in order to count as not having an orgasm. No. Yeah. Yeah. It's really silly. It's really silly, especially when we look at studies that are showing that women and their neurological systems are, you know, are wired differently.
And some woman I women I've seen in studies where it's like even the g spot, which we're now calling more the g zone, is almost, like, hardened where there's not as much nervous tissue that goes there. So there's, like, idea of, like, oh, you know, every woman needs to have this g spot orgasm. Well, if their body is anatomically not wired that way, that might be part of part of the issue there. You know? And, I mean, I interviewed a woman, and, actually, she's gone public.
She with her with her story, she is the, her name is Rebecca Anderson, and she is the the petitioner for the state of Oregon for adding female orgasm difficulty as a condition of treatment with medical cannabis in that state. Oh, great. And she talked about having had a radical hysterectomy following cervical cancer, whereas her cervix was removed and the upper part of her vagina and other additional reproductive organs.
But that you know, from from an orgasm perspective, she lost that's how she orgasmed. And so she then had what they called acquired FOD, which means that she used to be able to orgasm, but she can't any longer. Like, she lost. So we always think of women using having orgasm with clitoral stimulation. Yeah. That's not always the case for every woman. Exactly right.
But the but the point was that she started dabbling in cannabis using making cannabis suppositories, and trying different ways to use cannabis and found new ways to orgasm through the use of cannabis. And, so anyway, I found that to be, not just a fascinating story, but a a study had just come out last month out of The UK on women with gynecological cancers who were using cannabis suppositories, just coincidentally. I mean, here was the research.
And if they used it with mindfulness, there was a more positive orgasm response. That makes sense to us today. Right? You know, using it with mindfulness. Exactly. Because using it by itself, they said it didn't really work, but using it with, like, they called it mindful compassion. But having mindfulness, intention, I would say. You know? So Well, I think that's what cannabis can do. Right?
It can help drop into the body and being more present and stopping those stories, which is part of, like, a large part of mindfulness. And and, you know, the crux of mindfulness is just being present. And and so I see that with cannabis. It's like that's what it's like. You do have to be present. You can't be, like, running around and cleaning your house and think that, you know, you're gonna orgasm most likely.
But, you know, from a standpoint of just being in your body, that that makes a lot of sense. Now what about because I know some of the studies are are linking pelvic pain to you know, and helping with pelvic pain. So can we talk about some of those studies? Because I know that's a huge problem for a lot of women. Research now that women who have pelvic pain, chronic pelvic pain, there was a study published in the last few years.
I can send you I think we I might have sent you the link to that one in particular. Yeah. Whereas the the the ability to relax the pain and that also goes for vaginismus. I mean, I don't know. I haven't seen a actual study on vaginismus in cannabis use, but just from talking to women that it is it it it's the general real it's the ability to relax. Yeah. But one must also be able in the right in the right mindset, have the right dosage, be with a partner who they feel safe with.
Mhmm. You know, and they're in a in an environment that's also safe, meaning their kids aren't gonna get up or come in the room, that they can they can they can relax. So creating the environment, for relaxation so that the pain can dissipate. Let the letting the the medicine do its magic. You know? Like, creating an environment for the medicine to work.
So then have you seen in those studies, have you seen that when it comes to pelvic pain, it's really all about, say, that that acute use that people use use the cannabis acutely, and then in that moment, they're less, you know, less in pain and they can enjoy intimacy? Or have you seen that, hey. Like, using regularly over time, we can actually lead to a more, like, permanent reduction in pelvic pain. Have you noted the difference?
Great great point. So I'm I can I can share from the sexual dysfunction side versus the pelvic pain side? Sure. But on the CASM, there was a study done in 2020 evaluating the female sexual function index, which is, the five domains of sexual function. You know, arousal, desire, orgasm, pain, and lubrication.
And what they found was that women who were using cannabis more frequently were twice as likely to report, like, a reduction in, sexual dysfunction, like, twenty one percent reduction in sexual dysfunction. So the frequency of use is definitely correlated for women to improved sexual functioning. And doctor Becky Lin, she did a study also. She's out of St. Louis.
She's one of the few doctors in the entire country, OBGYN, who recommends cannabis, and I think she prescribes it as well for various female sexual issues.