Pleasure has never been more political, here's what our data is telling us...
By Lucy Wark, co-founder of Normal
Partner content: This piece has been penned by Normal, the sexual wellness brand that Cheek Media has partnered with to develop the Cheek and Plum vibrators. This content has not been paid for, but the sale of these vibes does help fund our business! We wanted to collaborate on this piece, because it deep dives the research and pleasure data Normal has been collecting that we need to understand in 2025: because pleasure is political.
If you’ve been on the internet, or god forbid, even picked up a paper in recent times, you’d know there’s little pleasure to be had in today’s political discourse. And if you turn back to the popular culture many of us grew up viewing, you’d be forgiven for believing that everyone’s sexual experience looks something like this:
There’s only ever a penis and vagina involved
People go from zero to furiously tossing off their clothes in seconds
Sex immediately moves to penetration and lasts for about two minutes, before both partners have an intense orgasm, at the same time
It’s a narrow picture of pleasure that often leaves us feeling disappointed, confused or broken when our own experiences didn’t match it. But at Normal, we’re working to shift the narrative.
Our mission is creating the tools for a lifetime of fulfilling sex - including designing modern vibes like Cheek and Plum with one of our favourite humans (Hannah!), which helps to fund research, advocacy and free expert-led sex education resources now used in over 40 countries.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that one of the biggest and most enduring challenges in the world of sex is the gender orgasm gap. Survey after survey shows that men orgasm nearly twice as often as women during partnered sex.
With that gap in mind, we designed our latest toy Plum to focus on the erogenous zones that are most important for people with vulvas to orgasm - according to science, not the pop culture we grew up with.
And to continue that work, we’ve been conducting a groundbreaking piece of research called The Orgasm Survey . We’ve spoken with over 1,700 people and counting about what helps them to orgasm, what gets in the way, and what their favourite techniques are. Effectively, we’re building a huge crowdsourced guide to pleasure to help everyone have better sex.
Of course, orgasms aren’t everything - sex isn’t a binary of ‘good if you came, bad if you didn’t’, and putting pressure on orgasm can actually have the opposite effect. But orgasms can be a helpful way of measuring pleasure equality, and as the data shows, we’re still a long way from parity.
In this Cheek article, we’re sharing the top findings of The Orgasm Survey so far - paired with expert commentary from my co-founder and trained sexual wellness practitioner Georgia Grace.
We hope you find it interesting - and if you haven’t had a chance, we’d love you to add your voice to the research here (it takes five minutes, is completely anonymous, and you’ll get $50 off your next order over $100 with Normal as a thank you).
1. The gender orgasm gap is going strong
Only 43% of female and non-binary people reported orgasming regularly or always during partnered sex (47% for those who said their current partner had a vulva), compared with 80% of male respondents.
Georgia says:
"The orgasm gap isn’t about bodies, and it's not because the 'female orgasm' or the clit or vulva is more complicated. This gap is reinforced by hardwired sexual scripts, and that the majority of people are still having sex in a way that is not directly stimulating the clit. Many people with vulvas enjoy penetrative sex, some may even climax from penetration alone. However, the majority need external stimulation and aren’t getting enough of it.
It’s also important to note that orgasm isn’t essential, many people enjoy sex without an orgasm. Though if there is a significant imbalance, or sex is reliably pleasurable for one person, and not pleasurable for the other, this can impact sexual satisfaction and desire. Reimagining sexual scripts, and moving away from the idea that sex is just about penetration, can be a process - because these are the images we see in movies, pop-culture and porn. But redefining and having sex that includes outercourse, sensory play, toys, self touch and infinite other things, will help bridge this gap."
2. It’s not about being able to orgasm in general - it’s a really big gap between solo sex and partnered sex
Our survey found that 83% of female and non binary respondents were able to orgasm on their own, compared with 90% of male respondents - meaning that while there is a small gap in solo sex, the main issue for most people is not ‘can I have an orgasm’ but ‘I can do it solo, but struggle with a partner’.
Georgia says:
"This is something I see often in sessions. Someone will say they've never had an orgasm, but later we discover they actually orgasm easily on their own - they just struggle to orgasm with someone else. The challenge isn’t necessarily their body, it’s the context of partnered sex. So we explore: what’s different between solo and partnered sex? What elements of solo pleasure (like pace, pressure, privacy, or fantasy) could be brought into shared experiences? We might also look at sexual shame and how they feel receiving touch, and how deserving they feel of pleasure.
We will also look at how their partner can support them - is there anything they can do more or less to ease stress and pressure during sex? This is such an important reframe, because so many people internalise this as a personal failure, when really, it’s about dynamics, communication, and the environments we create around sex. You're not broken, often, you just need space to reconnect with or to explore what actually works for you."
3. It’s (mostly) about clit stimulation - and not penetration alone
We grew up in a penetration-focussed culture, filled with sexual scripts where foreplay or outercourse (a.k.a. stimulation on the outside of the body) is seen as secondary, optional or a quick warmup for the main event of penis-in-vagina sex.
But when we asked people what actually helps them orgasm, penetration isn’t very important - in fact, it’s one of the least important forms of stimulation for most people with vulvas to have an orgasm (less important than nipple stimulation, fantasies and erotica).
By far the most important ingredients for orgasm were clitoral stimulation (over 90%), using a vibrator or toy (around ⅔), and g-spot stimulation (coming in at 38%) - all of which are combined in our Plum toy!
Taking your time is also important - and The Orgasm Survey results suggest slowing down is vital, with 47% saying ‘a partner who takes their time’ is essential for their orgasm. For people with penises, they may be able to get aroused and fully erect within a few seconds or minutes. But for those with vulvas, it may take longer to feel fully physiologically aroused, because the internal network of the clitoris is mostly inside the body - which is why many people with vulvas don’t like the sensation of touching the clit if they’re not already aroused. But after taking time to build arousal, that same touch can feel really good!
Georgia says:
"This data reinforces what many people with vulvas have known intuitively, that external stimulation, taking time to build arousal and a safe / sex positive environment is essential for pleasure and orgasm. For too long, we've centred sex around penetration, ignoring the complex, nuanced, diverse ways bodies experience arousal and orgasm. When we shift away from these sexual scripts and start valuing outercourse, clitoral stimulation, and slowing down, more people will feel sexually fulfilled. And perhaps, this might help us bridge the orgasm gap.”
4. Most people feel blocked by stress, the mental load and struggling to switch off their mind (and beyond)
Survey respondents reported a wide range of factors that might “block” or impede their ability to have an orgasm, with stress (66%) and trouble focusing (63%) coming out on top.
Georgia says:
“This is one of the most common things I hear: ‘my busy mind gets in the way of my pleasure’. Stress, mental load, body image pressures, and performance anxiety can create a constant state of vigilance in the body and it’s really hard to experience pleasure when your nervous system is stuck in survival mode. Especially if you're spending most of your day in an up-regulated or stressed state - it can feel impossible to turn that off. This can feel hard enough on your own, though when it comes to partnered sex we’re also adding the impact of communication challenges, societal pressure to orgasm, and physiological factors like medication or hormonal shifts.
Many can feel really stuck when they hear this. But it’s not all bleak. The fascinating thing about the brain and the nervous system, is that you can unlearn or rewire these patterns, and we can build presence over time, through slowing down, tuning in, and creating safe, connected experiences with ourselves and others. We start practicing this outside of sex in low stakes environments, and then practice it during solo sex, and then in partnered sex.”
5. Using toys like clit, bullet, wand, rabbit & g-spot vibrators is extremely popular
68% of people said using a vibrator or toy helps them to have an orgasm - and in addition to lots of mentions for our beginner toy Cheek, here are the top 5:
41% - a bullet vibrator (like Frankie)
31% - a wand vibrator (like our versatile internal and external wand Darcy)
24% - a classic rabbit vibrator (like our Piper)
Georgia says:
“Toys are a sex essential! They’re not a ‘last resort’ or something to be embarrassed about, they are there to make you feel good. This idea that toys are bad or inferior is sexist and heteronormative. It suggests that sex is only ever good if it's between two people who don't 'need' toys. But these stats show that the vast majority of people with vulvas benefit from using toys. They ease the pressure on you or your partner to be the sole source of arousal, help teach us about pleasure, and create more equal opportunities for climax.”
6. Every body is unique - but we can all learn from crowd-sourced tips & techniques!
Here’s just a tiny selection of tips and techniques from the survey - feel free to take the survey to share yours (and sign up to be first to get the full crowdsourced guide!):
“Reading more spicy romances definitely opened up my eyes”
“relaxing my pelvic floor and abdomen muscles”
“Anal play honestly. Like just a finger. Also vibrators helped a lot because my hand would cramp up or my partners.”
“Technique yes, knowing that I can nearly cum from my nipples changed the game and really made me realize it isn’t all in the g spot or the clit”
“Affirmation followed by nipple play followed by my partner hitting the right buttons and maybe some vibrator foreplay. So at the end of the day my best trick is trust me it’s never too many things at once”
“Visual stimuli. Mirror sex, smutty book, porn etc. even being given visual cues by my partner that I may not be able to see “you look so good with me inside you” I can picture what it looks like.”
“Close my eyes and think of having rough sex”
“The cheek vibrator because I can hold it with my arthritis”
“My girlfriend and I record ourselves sometimes just for us”
“Pay attention to your menstrual cycle. You might find that orgasming is easier at certain times during your cycle.”
“Charging the bloody thing!!!”
“Blindfold if you find you can’t focus on the feeling.”
“Early Morning time, great way to start the day or best way to go back to sleep”
“self stimulation better than partner because I can feel exactly what I need to orgasm”
“Clitoral vibrator with elevated pelvis.”
“Edging makes it better”
“think about the area that’s being stimulated and focus on the movements and feeling”
“If you have kinks, go with it and share with your partners without shame”
“I’m really trying to separate fear and shame from the experience”
“Read a book on clitoris, practiced using a mirror, using a vibrator”
“Multiple erogenous zones”
“Being on top with a vibrator as well”
“Pulling back on the clit to expose the clitoral hood during stimulation”
“Being on top so I am in control of speed, depth, height, etc”
“Ensuring i have wound down and had time to de-stress/unload work”
Georgia says:
“These responses reflect just how diverse and personal pleasure is. Which is really, really important to remember, because so often we all just want to be normal when it comes to sex. But actually there is no one way to have sex. There is no one way to be sexual. These insights show that orgasm isn’t about one magic technique, it’s about practice, experimentation, and tuning into what your body responds to. A few key themes emerged: People spoke about the power of tools like vibrators and positioning aids, techniques like edging, nipple stimulation, clitoral hood exposure, and relaxing the pelvic floor. The importance of context, like being in control, unwinding from stress, or syncing with the menstrual cycle. Mental stimulation also played a key role, through erotica and smut, using mirrors, affirmations, or exploring fantasy. But a key theme often comes back to a feeling that is created during sex: feeling safe, present, connected to self or other.
Hearing from a diverse group of people like this is a really important reminder that pleasure isn’t linear or one-size-fits-all, and actually it's really normal for it to be a lifelong, evolving practice of listening to your body, connecting or reconnecting with sensation and valuing or prioritising a sexual relationship with your body. You’ll always be learning.”
Want to share your experience? Add your voice to the research here, and enjoy $50 off your next order over $100 with Normal as a thank you!
About Normal
Normal is an Australian-owned sexual wellness brand that exists to give everyone the information, confidence & tools for a lifetime of fulfilling sex. From making the sex-ed you missed in school, to making beautiful modern toys you won't want to hide - Normal is here to help.
Lucy Wark (she/her)
The co-founder of Normal, Lucy is the ever-curious nerd and business brain who makes the vibes run on time. She studied social sciences at university, and always wanted to use her knowledge to make a positive difference in the world. Back in 2020 she left her career in the corporate world to follow her passion for giving everyone access to great sex education (and vibes!) with Normal.
Georgia Grace (she/her)
Normal co-founder Georgia is a queer cis woman and an expert in somatic sexology, embodied counselling and trauma informed approaches. She supports not only individuals but couples and groups to become more aware of their bodies, sex and sexuality. You might know her for her popular @gspot._ account on Instagram, and for leading the creation of Normal's free sex education resources.
