A new survey designed by researchers from Southern Cross University (SCU) is aiming to more accurately measure sexual satisfaction — a topic that is notoriously hard to pin down statistically but has far-reaching health implications.
Psychology honours student Doug Williams has designed a comprehensive online survey with Dr Desirée Kozlowski from the School of Health and Human Sciences at SCU that aims to understand sexual behaviours, attitudes and satisfaction.
Kozlowski believes that developing a nuanced portrait of people's sexual experiences and assessment of those experiences is an important component of understanding personal health.
"Although people can be perfectly happy and healthy and live perfectly fulfilling lives without a sexual side to their lives, for most people it's quite intimately intwined with their own wellbeing, with their psychological wellbeing and, in the broader sense, with health.
"We know that sexual activity can reduce stress, it can make us feel more confident, it can reduce blood pressure, it can increase immunity, there's a whole array of benefits."
The researchers state that accurate measures of sexual satisfaction should be developed and used in clinical settings to understand the risk factor for issues like heart attacks and stroke (for example, the risk of heart attack has been shown to increase in men who are engaging less in sexual activity).
The questionnaire includes assessment of feelings of safety, emotional connection, and values associated with things such as performance (asking questions related to how important it is that a person's partner is sexually satisfied).
Kozlowski states that sexual satisfaction can be an "ineffable" concept to measure in mathematical terms, but that this survey improves on confounding issues with previous questionnaires, where the concept of "expectation" could skew the results.
She notes that most sexual satisfaction questionnaires rely on expectation to give a measure of satisfaction — so somebody who has very low expectations could potentially score higher than "somebody who expects fireworks beyond imagining four times a day and is only getting that three times".
The SCU survey also takes into account factors such as pain and humiliation that are "quite common for females and other gender minority groups" said Kozlowski.
So, why is sexual satisfaction so important?
Dr Miriam Forbes, a researcher from Macquarie University's Centre for Emotional Health, told BuzzFeed News that sex is significantly associated with quality of life.
"My research has often looked at how difficulties with sexual function are often related to depression and anxiety," said Forbes.
"So if we know that those things are related then we can treat them all together because otherwise it's hard to treat the whole person, if we're not looking at this important domain in our lives."
One study from Monash University found that sexual dissatisfaction in women is linked to lower general psychological wellbeing and recommended that sexual function and satisfaction considerations should be addressed as an essential component of healthcare.
Amongst men and women, satisfying sexual activity has been found to be associated with more positive general health in middle age and later in life.
A study released by the National Heart Foundation earlier this year found that more than eight in 10 health professionals believe that it's important to discuss resuming sexual activity with heart attack survivors to ensure continued quality of life and health.
However, the same study found that fewer than one in four healthcare providers felt there were adequate resources or frameworks to have those discussions.
Kozlowski believes that sexual satisfaction assessments such as the SCU survey can provide people with the vocabulary to discuss their sex lives and its health implications with their healthcare providers.
She notes that this holistic approach to medical care can be valuable for longterm wellbeing.
"I think things are shifting to non-medical or non-pharmacological interventions that have potential to increase quality of life."
Forbes believes that this aspect of personal health should enter more routine check-ups in the future.
"I think that in the context of my own research, something that really struck me was yes, it's really important that sex is talked about in a GP model, with primary health care providers."
Kozlowski agrees that having discussions about sexual activity and satisfaction enter the health sphere is a fundamental to thinking about life quality and wellbeing.
"We'd really like to encourage people to think about what's important to them and kind of give them a bit more of a vocabulary for articulating that — whether that's with their partners if they're in a relationship or with their healthcare providers."