Latest / Libido Lounge / How Cannabis Can Help Women Finally Reach Orgasms with Dr. Suzanne Mulvehill, PhD

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How Cannabis Can Help Women Finally Reach Orgasms with Dr. Suzanne Mulvehill, PhD · Libido Lounge

• 0:00
  It was thirty years of having difficulty orgasming.
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  After seeing fourth best sex therapist over thirty years, found out about cannabis, and I
• 0:09
  wanted to try it.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  It was shocking.
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  It changed my life.
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  People will tell me, like, she goes, oh yeah, like as soon as I take that gummy, like I can
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  feel arousal.
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  That has been in the research since the seventies.
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  This is not new new information.
• 0:30
  What's new is actually turning it into policy, making it law.
• 0:35
  There's research that shows that the THC in cannabis reduces the activity in the amygdala,
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  the part of the brain that stores trauma.
• 0:45
  Women, for example, who have had trauma, sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, which by the
• 0:51
  way, the number one sexual complaint of women who have had childhood sexual abuse is orgasm
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  difficulty.
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  So so tell
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  us about, like, the research itself.
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  387 validated surveys of women who were using cannabis.
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  They were using it, before sex or not.
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  They but they were using it.
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  Fifty three percent or two hundred and two of them had reported that they had orgasm
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  difficulty before partnered sex.
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  One of the most interesting things in the study, the frequency of use is
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  Hey, everybody.
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  Doctor Diane here.
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  Welcome back to the lounge.
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  I'm so thrilled about the conversation we're gonna have today.
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  I have the best guest, a new friend of mine.
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  We're gonna talk about the research she's been doing, and these studies are blowing my mind,
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  which she sent over to me to take a look at around orgasm and female orgasm difficulty,
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  which is a real legitimate problem.
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  Right?
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  I've seen and I'll be interested as I bring on this next guest to ask her about what she's
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  seeing with the stats because I've personally seen anything as as aggressive as only fifteen
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  percent of women can orgasm by, you know, by penetration alone.
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  And then we have other stats around twenty percent or so of women that have never orgasm.
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  And I've seen stats all over the board, so I'm gonna ask our next guest about what she's seen.
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  But the point here is this is a real big, big issue, and it's a common thing that nobody is
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  talking about.
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  And people are suffering and thinking there's something wrong with them where it's nothing
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  wrong.
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  We just don't have all the tools together.
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  And the research that this guest is going to share with us around cannabis and around the
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  use of cannabis for solving this problem and really helping women have better orgasms or
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  their first orgasm finally after, you know, a lifetime of struggle here, it's just absolutely
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  phenomenal.
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  So doctor Suzanne, thank you so much for coming with me coming here today with me.
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  We're gonna have a great time today.
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  Thank you, doctor Diane.
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  I'm thank you for inviting me on.
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  It's it's really a pleasure.
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  And I would love because we're gonna go into the research and, you know, give people
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  supportive ideas and tools and really hoping help open up people's minds around this, but
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  it's such a unique place.
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  Right?
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  It's such a unique way of solving this problem, meaning, you know, so much talk in the world is
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  around testosterone and HRT and all these things.
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  So I'm really curious, like, what initially, like, inspired you really to go down very, very
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  strongly in this world of research and exploration around cannabis and fee female
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  orgasm disorder?
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  Well, it was thirty years of having difficulty orgasming and, dealing with the shame of that
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  and the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of isolation, the the having no place to really at
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  that time, I mean, in the eighties, there was we didn't have the Internet.
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  You know?
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  We didn't have Reddit where there's a thread with becoming orgasmic with 30,000, you know,
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  people talking about their orgasm.
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  So, after seeing fourth sex sex therapists over thirty years, I stumbled on or somewhere I
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  found out about cannabis, and I wanted to try it.
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  And, it wasn't even a part of a plan.
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  Like, okay.
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  Let's try it and see if I can, you know, orgasm.
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  It just kind of I had had a I had to learn how to use it, first of all, but we can get into
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  all that.
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  Like, I'm Yes.
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  Pretty much.
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  I'm not want to to surrender, you know, or go into, like, a different state of consciousness.
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  But, anyway, I ended up, you know, orgasming, with a partner to my own surprise.
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  And, I was like, could that have been that?
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  The cannabis?
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  It was it was, like, two and a half hours previous.
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  So we ended up trying and, you know, over time, I could orgasm with or without the cannabis in
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  different ways, and, it changed my life.
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  I mean, I sold my company in 2020.
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  I went back for my PhD.
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  I in 2020, I graduated, last year, did a dissertation.
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  And, anyway, I'll stop there, but that it it definitely, it was life changing, and I know I
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  wanted to see if other women had were suffering from this orgasm difficulty and also finding
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  cannabis beneficial.
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  It's so important.
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  And what I love about your story is is what you said around, hey.
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  Even using this and actually starting down the road of bringing cannabis in, it sounds like
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  you actually found then that sometimes you could after the the induction of Canada
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  cannabis into your play, then afterwards, you're saying that you could sometimes use
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  cannabis or not use cannabis.
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  And either way, you would have an orgasm.
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  So it just kinda opened that world up.
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  And that and that that has been in the research since the seventies.
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  This is this is not new information.
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  What's new is actually turning it into policy, you know, making it law that, for example, the
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  states of Colorado and the states of Illinois have added or female orgasm difficulty as a
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  condition of treatment for medical cannabis.
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  So we've taken the research and actually put it into society, into policy.
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  Yeah.
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  So it it and and why does it you know, why can a woman what they said even in the seventies.
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  You know?
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  It was a book called The Sexual Power of Marijuana by Barbara Lewis who talked about
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  women who once they learned how to orgasm with cannabis, they didn't always need it.
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  Yeah.
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  So I love it.
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  And we have neuroplasticity theory.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, to we have now we know that the human brain, the the adult brain continues to grow
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  and change.
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  We didn't used to think that years ago, but I know that to be true.
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  So it's this new learned behavior.
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  And women in my study, when I, you know, I interviewed them, they they say said similar
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  things, but we can go into that more detail and more in in a little bit as well.
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  Yeah.
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  I definitely want to.
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  And and I'm as you are talking about, you know, kind of the high level of the mechanism of
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  what's happening, I know, like, some of what you found in research is this almost resetting
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  of the amygdala.
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  Right?
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  And you mentioned in your own, you know, in your own story that you felt shame around this
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  not being able to orgasm, which I think is a really common experience.
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  Like, that was my experience before I figured out how to orgasm around, like, what's wrong
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  with me, you know, my broken, you know, that thing of wanting to show up as a woman and feel
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  into your sexual body, but also knowing that it helps partners feel like they're they're able
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  to provide pleasure, and partners wanna do that.
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  And so then there's the shame of letting somebody down and all of that messiness.
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  Yeah.
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  It's a big package.
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  It's a big package.
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  It really is.
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  It's a complicated thing for sure.
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  So so what have you then found?
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  Like like, it's helping the amygdala, like, process trauma better, or it's just kinda
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  settling down those neurological waves?
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  Or what do you think is happening there from, like, the that brain standpoint on them?
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  Great question, Diane.
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  Doctor Diane.
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  That's a great question.
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  So there is, there's research that shows that the THC in cannabis reduces the activity in the
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  amygdala, the part of the brain that stores trauma.
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  And, that research has led to what I call the amygdala reduction theory that was published
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  that basically says that women, for example, who have had trauma, sexual trauma, childhood
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  sexual abuse, which, by the way, the number one sexual complaint of women who have had
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  childhood sexual abuse is orgasm difficulty.
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  So, you know, if we can quiet that part of the mind that is hypervigilant, and it's trying to
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  help us.
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  I mean, it's definitely trying to help us to say, we're not gonna let that ever happen to
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  you again.
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  The the challenge with that in learning how to surrender into orgasm is that as one woman who
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  I interviewed shared, she says, you know, her brain would tell her, you know, you're getting
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  ready to orgasm.
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  I'm noticing that you're going to be orgasming soon.
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  And she would be telling her brain, thank you, but I I I'm really would prefer you know, thank
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  you for that information.
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  And if we could put that aside for now, because that's like spectatoring.
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  You know, that's not being in the body.
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  That's stepping out and saying, okay.
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  Warning.
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  That's not gonna help.
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  And she.
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  So long story short is the the the cannabis, the THC reduces the activity, and that science
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  has shown that in the part of the brain that stores the trauma, which can allow women to to
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  relax the hypervigilance and be in their body.
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  Yeah.
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  And what a great thing for the rest of our day to day life, right, to relax that
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  hypervigilance and all that.
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  It's such a gift in so many ways.
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  It's really, Go ahead.
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  I mean, who you know, it's like I could sigh, you know, just like for the women, for example,
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  in my study, we found who had women with or without orgasm difficulty who had a sexual
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  abuse history, had a more positive statistically significant, more positive orgasm
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  response using cannabis before sex.
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  So it's it's been it's scientifically and this is there's consistency in the research over
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  fifty years, including anecdotal research.
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  So it's exciting to finally, like, be talking about this and
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  Yeah.
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  It really is.
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  Ready for it.
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  And like you said, this this stuff is like it's not new from a standpoint of there's, you know,
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  there's information that is decades old, but being able to have more research and and newer
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  research and being able to get it into policy, it just brings this awareness.
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  And I think for for me as, like, a fundamental scientist, which is what I feel like I am as a
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  doctor, Like, what I've seen in in working with patients is if I can show them the study and
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  the research, then the belief and the ability to to say take that step to try it is so much
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  easier.
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  And so that's a huge part of, I think, what the offering is here too.
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  I'm curious about then so so tell us about, like, the research itself.
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  Like, what I'm curious about is, you know, who is all coming into your study?
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  Because it sounds like some people with trauma.
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  Like, are you working with people that have never had orgasms, that have had orgasms just
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  sometimes or they're not very strong or they can only have orgasm through masturbation and
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  not a partner?
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  Like, what have you seen kind of in all these different areas?
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  Have you worked with these different types of Well,
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  I'll focus on the the research I did for my dissertation that got published in sexual
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  medicine online last year.
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  It's called the assessment.
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  I can send you a link.
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  I have a assessment of the use of cannabis, before partnered sex on women with and without
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  orgasm difficulty.
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  So over a thousand women, replied to the survey, and, we ended up using 387 validated
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  surveys of women who were using cannabis.
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  They were using it, before sex or not.
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  They they were using it.
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  And fifty three percent or two hundred and two of them had orgas had reported that they had
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  orgasm difficulty before partnered sex.
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  So one of the most interesting things in the study were there were there were a number of
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  things, but, you know, realizing that there were some women who thought they had an orgasm
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  problem.
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  But when we looked objectivity objectively at their responses, we've found out that they
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  really didn't.
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  We they got moved to the category where they didn't.
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  Because if they were able to orgasm sometimes or most times without cannabis, they aligned
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  with the women who didn't have an orgasm problem.
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  The women who had an orgasm problem, almost all the largest group of them almost never orgasmed
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  without cannabis.
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  And to my surprise, that same group of women almost always orgasmed with it.
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  So it was it was shocking in to see it.
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  Like, when I had organized the data and realized, like, oh my gosh.
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  Like, this is really, really helping women.
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  And they learned it on their own.
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  Like, there there hasn't really been, a training.
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  Like so, anyway, that's, those were it improved orgasm frequency, orgasm ease, and orgasm
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  satisfaction for women with and without orgasm difficulty.
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  Like, by seventy seven percent of the women for orgasm frequency for women with orgasm
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  difficulty.
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  I think it was seven over seventy percent for improving orgasm satisfaction and sixty seven
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  so over like, somewhere in there.
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  I'm getting my numbers mixed up.
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  But Yeah.
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  It's phenomenal results.
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  It's it's the majority.
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  You know?
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  We're able to, yeah, improve orgasm frequency, ease, and satisfaction.
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  Which is phenomenal.
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  I mean, that just is, like, life changing to so many people.
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  Did you, by any chance
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  I'm curious.
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  Like, did you, by any chance, do anything, like, compare that with, like, masturbation
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  versus partnered sex?
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  Was that, like, a criteria in there that you looked at all?
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  So we only evaluated we we specifically looked at the line of just before partnered sex,
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  because if it was overlapped with masturbation, we'd put number first of all, it was just the
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  number of questions.
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  You know, how many questions were women willing to answer?
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  And, we look specifically at the orgasm subscale questions, frequency ease and
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  satisfaction with and without cannabis before partnered sex.
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  Okay.
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  That was the Because that's the largest group of women.
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  It's called situational.
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  They call it by the diagnostic is just, you know, the the DSM five.
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  It's called situational FOD, situational female orgasm difficulty.
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  Yeah.
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  Which means they can have it in I call it partnered sex difficulty.
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  You know?
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  But it's a difficult situation.
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  More accurate
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  in, like, the reality of what it actually is.
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  And you know what I learned too is is that women who don't have an orgasm problem, they
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  don't orgasm in all ways.
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  Yeah.
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  It's not like, you know, I and that because I think we're we're misled into thinking that,
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  oh, well, she has to orgasm through partner you know, through oral sex, through vaginal
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  intercourse, through clitoral stimulation.
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  You know, like, across the board, she has to orgasm all these different ways in order to
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  count as not having an orgasm.
• 15:45
  No.
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  Yeah.
• 15:46
  Yeah.
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  It's really silly.
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  It's really silly, especially when we look at studies that are showing that women and their
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  neurological systems are, you know, are wired differently.
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  And some woman I women I've seen in studies where it's like even the g spot, which we're
• 16:00
  now calling more the g zone, is almost, like, hardened where there's not as much nervous
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  tissue that goes there.
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  So there's, like, idea of, like, oh, you know, every woman needs to have this g spot orgasm.
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  Well, if their body is anatomically not wired that way, that might be part of part of the
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  issue there.
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  You know?
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  And, I mean, I interviewed a woman, and, actually, she's gone public.
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  She with her with her story, she is the, her name is Rebecca Anderson, and she is the the
• 16:28
  petitioner for the state of Oregon for adding female orgasm difficulty as a condition of
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  treatment with medical cannabis in that state.
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  Oh, great.
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  And she talked about having had a radical hysterectomy following cervical cancer, whereas
• 16:43
  her cervix was removed and the upper part of her vagina and other additional reproductive
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  organs.
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  But that you know, from from an orgasm perspective, she lost that's how she orgasmed.
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  And so she then had what they called acquired FOD, which means that she used to be able to
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  orgasm, but she can't any longer.
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  Like, she lost.
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  So we always think of women using having orgasm with clitoral stimulation.
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  Yeah.
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  That's not always the case for every woman.
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  Exactly right.
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  But the but the point was that she started dabbling in cannabis using making cannabis
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  suppositories, and trying different ways to use cannabis and found new ways to orgasm through
• 17:24
  the use of cannabis.
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  And, so anyway, I found that to be, not just a fascinating story, but a a study had just come
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  out last month out of The UK on women with gynecological cancers who were using cannabis
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  suppositories, just coincidentally.
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  I mean, here was the research.
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  And if they used it with mindfulness, there was a more positive orgasm response.
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  That makes sense to us today.
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  Right?
• 17:50
  You know, using it with mindfulness.
• 17:52
  Exactly.
• 17:52
  Because using it by itself, they said it didn't really work, but using it with, like, they
• 17:56
  called it mindful compassion.
• 17:57
  But having mindfulness, intention, I would say.
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  You know?
• 18:03
  So Well,
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  I think that's what cannabis can do.
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  Right?
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  It can help drop into the body and being more present and stopping those stories, which is
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  part of, like, a large part of mindfulness.
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  And and, you know, the crux of mindfulness is just being present.
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  And and so I see that with cannabis.
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  It's like that's what it's like.
• 18:19
  You do have to be present.
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  You can't be, like, running around and cleaning your house and think that, you know, you're
• 18:23
  gonna orgasm most likely.
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  But, you know, from a standpoint of just being in your body, that that makes a lot of sense.
• 18:30
  Now what about because I know some of the studies are are linking pelvic pain to you
• 18:35
  know, and helping with pelvic pain.
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  So can we talk about some of those studies?
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  Because I know that's a huge problem for
• 18:40
  a lot of women.
• 18:41
  Research now that women who have pelvic pain, chronic pelvic pain, there was a study
• 18:48
  published in the last few years.
• 18:49
  I can send you I think we I might have sent you the link to that one in particular.
• 18:54
  Yeah.
• 18:54
  Whereas the the the ability to relax the pain and that also goes for vaginismus.
• 19:00
  I mean, I don't know.
• 19:00
  I haven't seen a actual study on vaginismus in cannabis use, but just from talking to women
• 19:07
  that it is it it it's the general real it's the ability to relax.
• 19:13
  Yeah.
• 19:14
  But one must also be able in the right in the right mindset, have the right dosage, be with a
• 19:21
  partner who they feel safe with.
• 19:24
  Mhmm.
• 19:25
  You know, and they're in a in an environment that's also safe, meaning their kids aren't
• 19:29
  gonna get up or come in the room, that they can they can they can relax.
• 19:34
  So creating the environment, for relaxation so that the pain can dissipate.
• 19:42
  Let the letting the the medicine do its magic.
• 19:46
  You know?
• 19:47
  Like, creating an environment for the medicine to work.
• 19:51
  So then have you seen in those studies, have you seen that when it comes to pelvic pain,
• 19:55
  it's really all about, say, that that acute use that people use use the cannabis acutely, and
• 20:01
  then in that moment, they're less, you know, less in pain and they can enjoy intimacy?
• 20:07
  Or have you seen that, hey.
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  Like, using regularly over time, we can actually lead to a more, like, permanent
• 20:15
  reduction in pelvic pain.
• 20:16
  Have you noted the difference?
• 20:18
  Great great point.
• 20:19
  So I'm I can I can share from the sexual dysfunction side versus the pelvic pain side?
• 20:25
  Sure.
• 20:26
  But on the CASM, there was a study done in 2020 evaluating the female sexual function index,
• 20:32
  which is, the five domains of sexual function.
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  You know, arousal, desire, orgasm, pain, and lubrication.
• 20:39
  And what they found was that women who were using cannabis more frequently were twice as
• 20:48
  likely to report, like, a reduction in, sexual dysfunction, like, twenty one percent reduction
• 20:57
  in sexual dysfunction.
• 20:59
  So the frequency of use is definitely correlated for women to improved sexual
• 21:06
  functioning.
• 21:08
  And doctor Becky Lin, she did a study also.
• 21:10
  She's out of St.
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  Louis.
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  She's one of the few doctors in the entire country, OBGYN, who recommends cannabis, and I
• 21:18
  think she prescribes it as well for various female sexual issues.