More than 1,000 international doctors gathered Tuesday in Cairo to attend the 12th World Congress of the International Society for Sexual Medicine. The results of the Global Better Sex Survey (GBSS) revealed that more than half the world’s men and women are not fully satisfied with their sex lives.
One of the largest global surveys of its type, the GBSS included interviews with 12,563 men and women in 27 countries, including five Arab countries (Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Kuwait and the UAE.) The survey was commissioned to quantify sexual satisfaction while gaining insight into the unmet sexual needs and aspirations of participants.
“The GBSS shows that sexual satisfaction is important to couples throughout the world; however, the study also shows that there is room for improvement - that one in two men are not fully sexually satisfied; one in four are very interested in improving their sex lives and that men and their partners globally rate hardness of erection as important to enjoying a good sexual experience,” said Dr. Khaled Dabees, Chairman, of the 12th Congress of the International Society for Sexual Medicine.
He also added: "Based on the GBSS and other studies, there is a clear correlation between hardness of erection and better sex. There are some men having sex who would not be traditionally classified as having ED but who experience sub-optimal erections that prevent them from having a fully satisfied sex life.”
In its decision to have the event in Cairo, the organizers said "Egypt, with its thousands of years of civilization, warmly welcomes you to the country where the 1st sexual surgery operation on earth (male circumcision) has been recorded thousands of years ago.
"The choice to hold the meeting in Cairo emphasizes the educational role of ISSM in promoting and upgrading Sexual Medicine in Africa as it is the first time for ISSM to hold its meeting on the African continent."
Lack of Satisfaction
A keynote finding of the GBSS reveals one in two men and women globally are not fully satisfied with their sex lives. When questioned, 62 percent men also said they are interested in improving their sexual experience.
According to the GBSS, there is also no clear link between sexual satisfaction and frequency of sex. As an example, while men in both the US and UK have a similar frequency of sex, around six sexual episodes a month, men in the US are 53 percent satisfied while this figure falls to 38 percent in the UK.
Furthermore 33 percent of people surveyed reported not having enough sex. According to the GBSS, Mexicans take the number one spot as the most sexually satisfied country (75 percent are fully satisfied).
"The GBSS is hugely important because, for the first time, it reveals the extent of sexual dissatisfaction experienced by couples around the globe," said Dr Rosie King, an eminent Australian sex therapist, and expert consultant to the GBSS project.
Dr King believes that there is a clear link between the GBSS findings and new clinical studies that suggest a lack of complete sexual satisfaction in some men may be driven by physical rather than psychological factors. By addressing these ‘physical' attributes, Dr King believes couples can be helped to achieve greater sexual satisfaction.
According to the GBSS, hardness of erection is as important as the ability to achieve and maintain an erection - all of which are important to an enhanced sexual experience.
However, the GBSS also revealed that only 38 percent of men were fully satisfied with the hardness of their erection, while another 36 percent of men reported they could not always get and maintain an erection during intercourse.
Science Behind Satisfaction
GBSS results are reinforced by a new Quality of Erection Questionnaire (QEQ) study, which suggests that improvements in erection quality may be directly linked to increased sexual satisfaction.
In one study, Viagra increased the QEQ score threefold in men with erectile dysfunction over baseline.
New evidence also suggests that setting treatment goals to improve erection hardness can deliver real emotional and physical benefits to the man and his partner.
Viagra is known to produce hard erections, in turn enhancing patients’ sexual intercourse satisfaction, confidence, self esteem and sexual relationship satisfaction.
“GBSS suggests a strong correlation between erection hardness and sexual satisfaction, and these results appear to be consistent with what our science has been suggesting – harder erections equate to greater sexual satisfaction,” said Dr. John Mulhall, Associate Professor in the Departments of Urology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center where he directs the Sexual Medicine Programs.
