Clinical and sexual outcomes following women's use of lubricants during sexual activity

Background: Personal lubricants have long been recommended to women to improve the comfort of sexual intercourse and to reduce the risk of vaginal tearing. However, strikingly little available data is available on women's use of lubricants or associated vaginal symptoms.

Methods: A total of 2,453 women enrolled in a prospective daily diary study provided event-level reports of their use of one of six water-based or silicone-based lubricants during vaginal intercourse. Analyses included descriptive statistics and repeated measures ANOVA.

Results: Women reported significantly higher levels of pleasure (p < .05) and sexual satisfaction (p < .05) when a lubricant was used during vaginal intercourse as compared to when no lubricant was used. Side effects were rarely associated with lubricant use. Vaginal tearing occurred during less than 1% of vaginal intercourse events during which lubricants were used and during less than 5% of events with lubricant did women report vaginal pain at or after penetration. Sex without lubricant was associated with vaginal tearing in 1% of events, pain at penetration for 7% of events, and pain after penetration for 5% of events.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that the use of lubricants during vaginal intercourse is associated with pleasurable subjective ratings and rare occurrences of genital irritation and other side effects. Lubricant may play a protective role for women, particularly regarding painful intercourse. Public health professionals can play an important role in helping women to understand the benefits of lubricant use and to select from the increasingly available range of lubricants in the marketplace.