Editorial and Sourcing Policy

Last updated 10 August 2026.

Men's sexual health is the worst-sourced category on the internet. The incentives are obvious: the reader is embarrassed, unlikely to check, and unlikely to complain. So the category runs on invented statistics, citations nobody follows up, and mechanisms that sound plausible.

This page is a description of how OptimizedMale content is actually produced. It is written so you can hold us to it.

1. We read the paper, not the abstract, and not a summary of it

A claim is not sourced because a blog said a study found something. Before a number goes into anything we publish, someone retrieves the paper itself and reads the methods section.

That step is not decorative. It is where the problems are:

• A trial we cite for a 12-week timeframe turned out to be a clinic protocol. Participants attended three supervised 60-minute sessions a week, using an anal probe and a biofeedback unit. It supports the timeframe and the outcome. It cannot support "you can do this at home", and our copy no longer implies that it does.
• A trial we cite for erectile-function improvement ran for six months, not twelve weeks, and its headline figure is measured at six months. Three places in our material had compressed it to twelve weeks because a sibling trial ran that long. All three were corrected.
• One citation in a draft did not exist. The named authors and journal produced no such paper. The real study was a different group, a different year, a different dose. It was replaced with the real one, and the dose discussion was corrected to match what that study actually tested.

2. Every citation names the authors, the journal and the year

Not "studies show". Not "research suggests". If we cannot name it, we do not assert it.

Where a finding rests on a single trial, we say so. Where a trial was open-label, uncontrolled, or in a small number of people, we say that too — because "an open-label trial found" and "multiple randomised controlled trials found" are different claims, and one of them was in an early draft of our material describing the other kind of study.

3. We state the conditions alongside the result

A percentage without its conditions is a marketing number. The same figure means something different depending on whether the participants were supervised, what equipment they used, how long they trained, and whether the people who dropped out are in the denominator.

So we publish the conditions in the same sentence as the result. When one of our own pages described a trial's figure as applying to the men "who completed" the programme — when the trial's own denominator includes those who withdrew — that was corrected, because it made the result sound stronger than the paper does.

4. Guidelines are named and dated

Where we reference a clinical guideline, a reference range, or an upper intake limit, we name the body that set it and the year. Ranges move, upper limits get revised, and a threshold quoted with no date is a threshold nobody can check.

5. A number we cannot verify does not get published

This is the rule that costs us the most, so it is worth being specific.

An early draft of the sales page carried an efficacy figure for our own protocol, expressed as a percentage range, sitting two sections after the carefully cited trial figures. No such measurement exists — nobody has run a trial on this product. It borrowed credibility from the cited numbers above it. It was removed and replaced with a plain, non-numeric statement made in our own voice.

A price comparison was cut for the same reason. The draft claimed a category of apps costs a certain amount a year. Checking the actual store listings showed that nobody pays that, because every one of them sells an annual plan for a fraction of twelve monthly payments. A reader could have falsified it in ten seconds. The argument now rests on recurrence and ownership, which is true regardless of what anyone charges.

If a claim needs a figure and the figure cannot be verified, the claim does not run with a placeholder. It runs without the number, or it does not run.

6. Round numbers about people are treated as suspect

"Most men" is an honest generalisation. A specific percentage is a measurement, and a measurement needs someone who took it. Several invented-sounding round percentages were removed from our email copy on exactly this basis — the same figure appearing three times, once as a subject line, with no study behind it.

Our build refuses to ship a percentage asserted about people unless that figure is either a seeded trial result or has been registered against the source it came from. That is a check that fails the build, and it has no style-preference escape.

7. Corrections

When something is wrong, we change it and we say so.

• Documents carry a version. A correction to a claim produces a new file, and buyers get it at no cost.
• This site shows a last-updated date on every article, and material corrections are noted at the foot of the article. Nothing is edited away silently.
• Guidance changes. Reference ranges are revised, devices are superseded, and a supplement's evidence base moves. When it moves against something we have published, the published thing changes.

If you think something here is wrong, tell us: [email protected]. If you are right, we will fix it and credit the correction.

8. What we do not do

• We do not write medical advice. See Medical Disclaimer.
• We do not publish content that exists to carry a link. Where we recommend a product, the recommendation exists because the product is the answer to a question the article was already asking.
• We do not accept payment for editorial coverage or for a favourable recommendation. Where we earn a commission, we say so on the page and in Affiliate Disclosure.
• We do not use AI-generated citations. Every reference is checked against the paper.

9. Who writes this

OptimizedMale publishes under the brand name rather than under a personal byline. We think a fabricated author with fabricated credentials is worse than no byline at all, and inventing a clinician to sign health content is exactly the practice this page exists to reject.

Everything published here is produced and reviewed by the operator of this business against the process above, and every clinical claim is traceable to a named paper you can read yourself.