yesex can often be a disappointment – particularly for women. TO recent study from the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research shows that while gay and straight men climax about during about 85% of their sexual encounters, women having sex with women orgasm about 75% of the time, while women having sex with men come last (literally) at 63%. On a first-time hookup, the gap widens further, with 80% of men reaching orgasm compared with only 40% of women.
This issue, known as the “orgasm gap” or “pleasure gap” (because orgasms aren’t always the goal) is the jumping-off point for Netflix’s new docuseries The Principles of Pleasure. In this three-parter, narrator and comedian Michelle Buteau takes viewers on an educational journey of what the pleasure gap is, why it happens, and how on earth we get past it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers sex to be part of our overall quality of life – as the show outlines – so women having less pleasure than men means they also have a lesser quality of life. Fundamentally, this means coupled men and women – regardless of how loving they may be – are not equal in their relationships. Researchers have connected equality – pleasure and otherwise – to sexual consent and say that not having this equality means women are more likely to be coerced into unwanted sex. This feels like the first time this connection has been explained on mainstream TV, making The Principles of Pleasure feel almost revolutionary.
Part of the show’s importance is in highlighting how far behind even the science on the subject is. One of the most eye-opening lessons unfolds in the first six minutes, when Dr Emily Nagoski – author of the sex-science book Come As You Are – tells us that modern sexual sciences still lack an understanding of how pleasure even works. “We do not have a basic understanding of the system we want to partake in,” she states bluntly.
We are given the disappointing truth by scientists working in the field. Psychologist Dr Lori Brotto and sexual psychophysiologist Dr Nicole Prause explain how many research proposals – including Prause’s own – which could uncover a lot of missing information about female orgasms, ejaculation, arousal and dysfunction have been rejected due to male discomfort in the science community. The series peels back the curtain on a mostly hidden industry, revealing that even the scientific teams behind human discovery do not act without bias.
Decades on from Sigmund Freud dismissing the clitoris and telling every woman with a sexual problem that she was “hysteric” (which, as the show tells us, comes from the Greek word for uterus), our understanding of female pleasure is still being defined by men. So while science has become much less grisly in its methods (scientists aren’t running around removing people’s clitorises any more) little has changed in terms of the sidelining of women’s pleasure. “Imagine if you could go back in time and learn about your body, about sex and how to embrace your desires without fear. How would the rest of your life be different?” the narrator asks.
The other part of Principles of Pleasure’s importance is its attempt to put power in women’s hands. While appreciating that it shouldn’t be our responsibility to trial-and-error our way to good sex, the show offers genuine take-home sex education lessons we can use to teach ourselves to give, receive, invoke and enjoy pleasure, while science slowly catches up.
It is refreshing to see these topics discussed so openly on screen. It’s almost liberating to see sex toy expert Dirty Lola teach us how to masturbate in ways that work for us, including what toys to try to use them. Nagoski’s teachings also feel hugely welcome, as she shows us how to increase our body confidence so that we can see ourselves as a more sexual person – recommending we stand in front of the mirror and compliment the things we love daily.
The show also nails something critical: consent. The experts and interviewees take us through how to properly ask for and give it, without any surface-level analogies. Instead, they jump into the nitty-gritty of how early experiences of trauma warp our perceptions of sex, which can lead us to struggle with giving, turning down or receiving consent.
This element of the show is especially important, as 97% of women surveyed in the UK have experienced some form of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, and 96% do not speak up.
“We live in a world where women feel like they need to say ‘yes’ to everything or ‘no’ to everything and that’s not where great sex happens. Great sex requires that clarity of communication that grants everyone permission to [ask for what they need specifically],” says Nagoski, further explaining how this missing piece often results in women “consenting” to sex they don’t want.
The main takeaway from Principles of Pleasure is that the biggest, most complex sexual organ is not our genitals, but our minds. That’s why oppressive structures, beliefs and policies have been able to wriggle into our psyches and directly affect our sex lives even if we don’t believe in them. It is also, however, why we’re turned on by people’s personalities and ideas. It’s why talking to our sexual partners inarguably stretches sexual potential, and why we can undo those problems with our own connectivity and creativity.
From complimenting ourselves in front of a mirror to turning consent into foreplay by asking “would you like it if I did this?”, we can use our minds to make sex better, rather than treating sex as a hopeful game of button-pushing. As the narrator says in the show’s conclusion: “Next time pleasure feels too far away or too complicated to get to, pause. Try to get really quiet, because the answers are within you.”
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism