How Can Epidemiologists Help Us Be More Sex-Positive?

Public health has long acknowledged that sexual health includes the right to pleasurable experiences, yet epidemiology—the very field tasked with understanding population health—remains overwhelmingly focused on risk, disease, and negative outcomes. Despite growing evidence linking sexual pleasure to longevity, cardiovascular health, mental well-being, and overall quality of life, research rarely treats pleasure as a meaningful health indicator. Cultural taboos, academic stigma, and discomfort with studying subjective experiences have discouraged researchers from measuring pleasure or asking detailed questions about people’s sexual lives, narrowing our understanding of sexual health. By embracing subjective measures, challenging risk-only frameworks, and expanding inquiry to include desire, intimacy, masturbation, and the full spectrum of sexual expression, epidemiologists could help build a more accurate, equitable, and sex-positive science—one that reflects why people actually have sex and ultimately strengthens population health.