Why Study This Way

For generations, the science of human experience focused almost entirely on what goes wrong. Medicine named every dysfunction. Psychology catalogued every disorder. Pleasure, delight, and flourishing barely made the index - treated as too individual, too subjective, too frivolous for serious study.

The common refrain was 'everyone's different' - as if that settled it. But everyone's cardiovascular system is different too, and we still mapped the heart. Difference doesn't preclude pattern. It just requires better research.

There are clear, consistent patterns in what feels good, what builds connection, and what makes life genuinely worth living. Those patterns can be found, named, and shared - making discoveries visible and usable for the first time.

Intimacy is where we started. But the methodology applies anywhere humans are thriving - or could be.

Our Methodologies

We use a multi-stage approach to uncover, organize, and share discoveries about intimacy and pleasure:
Qualitative Discovery – Large-scale interviews with thousands of people about the ways they create closeness and pleasure.
Pattern Recognition – Identifying common strategies and giving them clear, usable names.
Quantitative Validation – Nationally representative surveys in collaboration with academic partners.
Translation Into Resources – Relatable stories, statistics that normalize, animations and activities that make each nuance easy to see and apply.
Efficacy Research – Follow-up studies measuring outcomes like confidence, communication, and pleasure.

Selected Publications
• Herbenick, D., Fu, T. J., Arter, J., Sanders, S. A., & Dodge, B. (2018). Women’s Experiences With Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.
• Hensel, D., von Hippel, C., Lapage, C., & Perkins, R. (2021). Women’s Techniques For Making Vaginal Penetration More Pleasurable. PLOS ONE.
• Hensel, D. J., von Hippel, C., Sandidge, R., Lapage, C., Zelin, N., & Perkins, R. (2021). “OMG, Yes!”: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Preliminary Efficacy of an Online Intervention for Female Sexual Pleasure. Journal of Sex Research.