On May 26, 2026, Adam & Eve released its "Solo Satisfaction Index," a survey of more than 2,000 American adults timed to International Masturbation Month that quantifies how self-pleasure stacks up against partnered sex. The retailer's core finding cuts against a stubborn cultural assumption that masturbation is a consolation prize: a meaningful slice of respondents rated their solo orgasms as good as, or better than, the partnered variety.

Why It Matters

Self-pleasure data is the demand signal underneath the entire pleasure-products category, and the gender gap here is a roadmap for who buys what and why. A 25%-to-12% female-to-male edge in solo-orgasm intensity helps explain why women remain the dominant buyers of personal vibrators and why brands keep positioning solo play as wellness rather than substitute. By attaching its name to a destigmatizing data point during Masturbation Month, Adam & Eve is also doing what mainstream sexual-wellness marketing increasingly does: converting taboo into a content and SEO asset that doubles as market research the rest of the industry reads.

Nearly 19% of those surveyed said their solo orgasms were more intense than partnered ones — but the gender split is the real headline. Among women, 25% reported more intense solo orgasms, versus just 12% of men. Another 27% overall (29% of men, 26% of women) said masturbation and partnered orgasms were about the same. Men were far more likely to report a drop-off going solo: 51% said masturbation produced a less intense orgasm, compared with only 27% of women.

The web-based poll was fielded by an independent third-party survey firm among U.S. adults 18 and older and sponsored by Adam & Eve, which bills itself as the country's number-one sexual wellness retailer. Dr. Jenni Skyler, the company's resident sex therapist, framed the data around motivation rather than deficiency, noting that people pursue solo satisfaction "for many different reasons" — to relax, de-stress, fall asleep, explore their own bodies, or bridge mismatched libidos between relationships.

The numbers land squarely in a broader 2026 data narrative. Magic Wand's trends report earlier this year found Gen Z leaning harder into solo sex and placing less emphasis on partnered encounters, and Adam & Eve's gender gap echoes long-running clinical findings that women more reliably reach orgasm alone than with a partner. For a brand-sponsored release, the figures are internally consistent with the academic literature, which lends them more weight than the average masturbation-month publicity survey.

Sources

Update — 2026-06-08

Initial entry — story first created.