Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - *LIVE* How to bridge the 0rgasm gap with Dr Karen Gurney

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

*This episode is a live recording of a previous Sex Talks event.* Clinical Psychologist, Psychosexologist and Couples Therapist, Dr. Karen Gurney, aka The S3x Doctor, joins host Emma-Louise Boynton to discuss the myriad myths and misconceptions that surround the way we think about desire, why she never uses the word f0replay and how we can begin to bridge the 0rgasm gap.

Hello and welcome to Sex Talks, the new monthly live event and podcast series hosted by me, M. Louise Boynton, in partnership with the London Edition, aka the dreamiest hotel in the city. The purpose of this series is to open up frank and honest conversations around sex, a bit like group sex therapy, if you will. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Clinical psychologist, psychosexologist and couples therapist, Dr Karen Gernie. Welcome. Thank you. We read off your achievements. So Karen has been, successfully helping individuals and couples overcome sexual problems since 2003, and she set up

the Havelock Clinic, an independent sexual problem service in 2017. Karen enjoys working with couples of all sexualities and all relationship setups to help them get where they want to be. She particularly enjoys working with couples with mismatches in desire, clients struggling with getting and keeping erections, individuals concerned about their sexual choices or preferences, and LGBT clients wanting to work towards the ideal sex life for them. She published her first book, Mind the Gap, The Truth About Desire, and How to Future Prove Your Sex Life in 2020. The same year in which she did a TED talk,

the surprising truth about desire everyone needs to know, which I've now watched three times, and I absolutely love. That's more than me. It's brilliant. Obviously, I've watched it numerous times, made copious amounts of notes, and I cannot wait to actually get to talk to you about it today. So thank you so much again for joining us.

Thank you for having me. And just my kind of way of introduction to myself, my name is Emma Louise, and I run the women's media platform called Her Hustle. I said this at the last event, but if anyone who wasn't here, if you'd said to me before lockdown, you'll be focusing your work and journalism and everything on sex. I would have been like, huh? Really? Even though, I did write my dissertation on sex and power, so there is a kind of circularity to this focus. But I started sex therapy at the beginning of this year. primarily because I couldn't orgasm in partner sex, didn't really enjoy sex, and didn't really care. I was like, I just didn't really think it was a thing. And I was having a conversation

with some friends. And I was like, yeah, I just, yeah, I can't orgasm, partner sex. And sex is, I'm just not a sexual person, just not really for me. And a really bad eating disorder growing up. I've always seen my body as a source of kind of pain rather than pleasure or something that I'd always punished, over-exized, been bulimic, starved myself, everything under the book. And so sex was just, it doesn't, it felt. counterintuitive that my body could be an amazing source of pleasure. My friend was like, you know you can fix that? And I was like, what?

She's like, you can get sex therapy. Oh my God. So one of orgasm loads. But it's not just about orgasm. It's really about rebuilding my relationship to my body. And I've now become an evangelical of sex therapy. And hence, I've been writing a sex column about it, started sex talks. And now anyone and everyone who'll listen, I'm like, let me tell you about sex therapy.

therapy. So beware. That's going to be the theme for this evening. But so that's why I want to start sex talks. It's a bit of context as to why I want to do this. So I'm really looking forward to delving into really the inner workings of the sex therapy room beyond what I know is I've just been sitting on Zoom with my sex therapist in Australia. But it's been fantastic. There's a time zone issue. It's a huge time zone issue actually. It's really we either do it first thing in the morning or late at night. So I'll kind of wake up and be like, I'm just like, So what do you want to talk about? Boundaries coming and I want to be fingered and I don't know how to ask for it or something like that.

And she's like, okay, cool. So let's get started. If you had your coffee and I'm like, yep. So yeah, the time zone has been a bit of an issue. But whatever, she's my sabre. And as I said, I've orgasm loads now and that's great. If the person is listening, he made it happen, he'll be like, oh yeah. So to get us started, firstly, before we delve into desire, the misconception around desire, sex, everything in between, I want to know a little bit more about you and how you got into sex therapy.

Because I know you weren't actually going to be a sex therapist. No, no, it was all a big accident, actually. The best things in life. Yeah, so I, to be a clinical psychologist, you do like an undergraduate degree in psychology. I know you work for a few years and you do a PhD in psychology. It's a bit like doctors do on rotation. So you do different specialties. And in my final year, I was due to choose a specialist placement for a year that I was interested in.

And I picked eating disorders in adolescence because I thought, I've never really done that and, you know, it'd be good to do that. And my supervisor got pregnant and couldn't take me on placement. And at the 11th hour, the course were like, oh, what do you think about sex? Because we've got this placement and it's sex. And it was actually broader than that, sexual health, sexual problems, HIV. I was like, yeah. Like that sounds great. Let's give it a go.

it's close to home less of a commute i'll do it and then um i started and i loved it i thought this is everything that i love about therapy because you get to see young people you know some people are like 13 and 14 up to you know 100 you get to see individuals and couples you get to see people with physical health stuff going on um you get the politics of sex which is one of the things i love about therapy is that it's political and i was sold I was like, this is the job for me and moved down to London, convinced them to give me a job

in the NHS in London in a sexual problem service, said, if I don't get it, I'm just going to work in McDonald's, so you might as well give me the job. They were like, okay, we'll take you. Who is this strange northern creature? Threatening us.

We'll do it. And yeah, I've been working in this field for the NHS managing sexual problem services and latterly doing my own thing privately for a long time, an amount of time that makes me feel really old. and I still love it and I go to work every day

and feel privileged that I get to have these conversations all day so that's it that's a lovely note to begin on I'm already like something you just said there what I really wanted to pick up on because I've heard you speak about this in a podcast previously about the political nature of sex

and you just perfectly put into words everything I've been thinking and feeling about why I care about talking about sex and why I'm so galvan and evangelical about sex therapy because it is so inherently political. I think it's easy to write, well, yeah, I think it's quite easy to write it off.

And sex is a kind of, it's a side note, it's a thing you maybe fit in. Your sex life is kind of, you know, a little bit. If you've got time, you can care about this thing. But it's so fundamentally political. Tell me why. Well, I think because people often think about sex as something you do with your bodies,

and of course it is, but it is more than that. something that you do that connects with your well-being, something that connects you with gender, connects you with relationships, connects you with society and culture. And everything that's brought all of us here to the sexual being we are now, regardless of how that shows itself, is a manifestation of politics around media, culture, inequality, gender, all of the intersectionalities that you can think of, race, ability, everything, sexuality, it all comes into it. And we can't really separate what happens in our sex lives from all of those systems. And I won't bore you with therapy speak, but as a therapist, the particular way that I work

is a therapy that looks at the relationship we have between things and is very much seeing the systems as the problem, not the person as the problem. So it fits really well with sex because you can't really do sex therapy without considering what are the forces of power and oppression, expectations, rules, social scripts, stigmas that are playing in to what's happening for this particular person. And what's great about that is that you can start to help people see that actually they're not the problem. The problem are those things that have impacted on how they see sex or how their sex life is happening. And that brings two great things. It brings change quickly, and that's another thing I love about sex therapy. It works,

and it works really fast. So that's great. Yep, but it does. And that's quite rewarding as a therapist. But also, you get to take something which has, in somebody's head, been a great source of shame for them, that they internalised as something wrong with them, something strange about them, something that isn't so great about them, and you get to remove that and say, actually, this isn't something about you. And that's a really wonderful change to see. Oh, that's so everything. Yes. I think, I often say when I'm describing why I think in my, I've never been able to articulate it in the way that I heard you articulate it. So as soon as I heard that, when you describe why sex political, I was like, oh, gosh, yes, yes, yes. But I've always said to friends,

so much kind of broader political, social, as well as personal issues show up in the context of sex, where you're most vulnerable, you're literally, oftentimes, if it's in partner sex, obviously you can have sex solo, but if it's in partner sex, you're literally lying naked

with someone, and you're in this very vulnerable state, and yet you're bringing just so much baggage inherently, and it shows up in that space. And I think, as you said, you've just mentioned to like shame as an example, such a powerful social mechanism

for kind of controlling at a covert level how we think about ourselves and how we relate to someone else and we described in the last sex talks this idea which I won't go into too deeply because I really went on about last time but this idea of having like a backpack of anxieties which you bring into sex and we all have them and but we often think I think the person that we're having sex with is backpack free

they come in like oh I know what I'm doing I'm so cool. I've slept with so many people. I know what I'm doing. And you're like, I've got nothing. I've got no idea. I'm just a little shame and I'm scared. And actually it's unpacking all those things and that's such a beautiful process. Yeah. And everyone's backpack's different. And I think sometimes what fascinates me about sex is that I see gender inequality, particularly in sex more than anywhere else. So I think that we've made such great strides there generally. I mean, there's still a long way to go, obviously, in society, but really in sex is where it starts to show itself. And what fascinates me is that usually, but not always, women having sex with men, bear the brunt

of that gender inequality, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later on. But often those women have internalised that as not being about inequality, but being about something which they shouldn't ask for, can't do, their body doesn't work like it should do, etc., etc. And that's really fascinating, because I don't think there's any other realm where we see such stark inequality as sex, but yet nobody feels confident to call it out.

I mean, you get that a lot more on Instagram these days. There's a real culture of that. generally speaking, people feel too much shame that it's them to speak about it openly. This idea of feeling broken. Yeah. And I think that's particularly, I think, amongst women feeling like you have to like internalize something going wrong. It's something, as you said, it's something to do with you.

You're somehow deficient in some way. You're the problem when, as you've just said, obviously you are not. Which, for anyone who is sitting here and who doesn't really know what sex therapy is and what it entails, can you just brief. tell me what happens in the sex therapy room, IRL or like for me on Zoom at 7 a.m. So sex therapy, like many of the types of therapy, is about getting you from somewhere that you currently are

to somewhere that you want to be. And the person that you're meeting should know enough about those things to know the evidence that's crucial about what works to get you from those places. So I often describe it to people as though really I am essentially a black cabbara, driver and you get in the cab and I say where do you want to go and typically people in sex therapy

they do a lot of well I don't want to go to St Paul's and I hate London Bridge and I'm like sat there going okay great to know that but where do you want to go and I think that without knowing that you can't really do good therapy you can do a lot of talking about why St. Paul's is bad why London Bridge is bad but you're still going to be sat in the cab at the end of it so my job is to help people be really clear about where they want to be. And if I'm working with two people, sometimes it's more than two. Not everyone kind of in dyad, sometimes there's three people in the relationship. It's about working out where everyone wants to go and then everyone agreeing a destination that suits them. And only when you've done that bit well, can you make sure the work goes well.

The work essentially is about a lot of understanding things differently. That's partly how the book came about because I get so frustrated why as a society we don't know enough about sex to be able to fix our own problems when they're actually really easy to fix. And so a lot of the work is about sharing knowledge, understanding, sex science, research about how things work. And so people can go, oh, really? That is not what we were thinking. And we've been doing this all this time, not knowing that that was the solution. And then it's about sometimes getting people to try things differently. And it's not all, you know, why don't you go and buy some nipple tassels, although it's cool if that's your thing. It's sometimes about, why don't we try and change

this dynamic? Why don't we try this on the basis of our new understanding and getting people to see what difference it makes? Essentially, you want people at the end of it, not just to have got to where they want to be, whether it's, you know, St. Paul's. No, they didn't want to go there, remember. Oh, they didn't want to go there down. Paris. It is. Get out of London. I want to go to Paris. Good choice.

You want them to be there, but you also want to have equipped them with the tools to travel wherever they want after that without you needing to be there. And so much of the work is about that. How can we get better at knowing, understanding ourselves better if it's one person or if it's two or more people, be able to have these conversations and go, you know what? I'm not really into that. Like, is that all right? or I'm feeling X and this is the consequence of it and those conversations when it's about sex can be really hard but once people have got good at that it kind of is a skill for life

and you just mentioned there if you're working with someone who is just doing them on their own not in a couple and that's an important point to raise because a lot of people and I said I was doing sex there but they're like but you're single you're not in a part you're not like having sex with anyone right now maybe a couple one it stands and I was like hold up you can have sex therapy when you're not, you know, you're not in a couple. You don't need to have an issue between a couple.

And I think it's been interesting for me because I've been then since having sex therapy and post-lockdown, you know, trying out all these new things I've been learning and testing my boundaries that I didn't know I had previously. And you don't need to be in a relationship to do that. I would say half of the people I see a single and half of the relationships, yeah. It's a 50-50 split. So it's still, so it's still, it's working with someone, and helping them understand their body, their relationship to sex.

Yeah, and sometimes even when people are in a relationship, they choose to come alone because, don't, pardon the pun, they choose to come alone because they, so many puns in this field, they want to do some work on themselves and they think it will benefit the relationship they're in, but they also think it will benefit them in future relationships. So it's not always as straightforward as if you're with someone, you should bring them. saying that there are some challenges that people come to see me for desire is one of them where you

pretty much always need to bring the person that you are struggling with desire with it doesn't really work without it and maybe we'll talk about why later on desire mismatch that is one of my points on where she is. And just to say you mentioned before that part of the problem

is that we don't really learn that much about sex we don't really get taught much and I just want to know who here felt that they had a good or adequate sex education. I can't wait to see this. So that is... Oh, great. One hand up. It came from my mum now.

We need a round of applause for your mum. I know. Round of applause. Not... Hats off. Not to shame my mum, but I remember distinctly making a ring binder of pictures of Draco Malfoy

because I was in love with him. And I made this binder and I was like, so here's the love of my life. I presented, my mom was putting me to bed one night and I think I was at primary school, so I must have been at 10-11 and I was just presented her as a folder being like, so this is the man I'm in love with. This is him in uniform.

This is him in sports kit. And she just, I'll never forget. She turned off the light and just said, you mustn't have sex until you're 18. And then left and I was like, oh my God. And I honestly, it like struck me like a whip. And it just, it shut down the conversation. We did not speak about sex.

because that was it. It died with Draco Malfoy. I never showed her that ringbinder again. That was it was so sweet. You took that to that was a real invitation, wasn't it? That she didn't know how to handle it. We have to give her credit. She probably felt her own shame and...

100%. Lack of education about how to talk about it. I mean, I feel super passionate about this because one of the things I talk about in the book, actually, is I think it's true. It's all about how we kind of enter into sexual. experiences when we make our sexual debut when we start having sex with whoever we enter into it in a kind of sex negative state from the outset so we're not even sex neutral we haven't even had

well sex is you know it's all right it's not amazing but it won't cause you any harm go and enjoy it we'd not even have that we're already going into it with a massive backpack of sex is going to result in something bad happening especially if you've been socialized and as a woman, the idea that there's a risk of pregnancy that's like really overinflated, a risk of STIs, etc. And no real talk about the positive consequences that can come from sex. It could be pleasurable. You could enjoy it.

That you could feel really connected to someone, that it might strengthen relationships, that it might make you feel great about yourself, etc. So I feel really passionately about this because I think it's one of the things that we kind of need to understand about ourselves. is that our journey to that, when we first started being sexual with ourselves or with someone else,

what ideas had we already learned and often they were seriously negative? Which then means when you have sex and it's not great, and by not great, I mean unpleasant, like, kind of consent is maybe not quite there. I don't know a single woman who hasn't had something happen to them, whether it's harassment, whether it's sexual assault or something.

when that happens to you especially when you're young when you've grown up with the narrative that it is a negative experience that it is something to be feared and isn't a source of pleasure I think it's very easy then to think well I guess it is just something that's kind of done

to me and you kind of just put up with it so I think from a kind of perspective of making particularly young women feel able to say no feel able to kind of take them away stop a situation if they don't feel good about it what we need to have

a conversation first about sex being something that should be good, should be pleasurable, should be a positive space. And not just sex, about kind of autonomy generally around our bodies. And, you know, it's something that's quite interesting. For me, I have two boys, nine and five, and we have lots of conversations about sex in our house. My partner works in a similar field to me. I would love to be a fly on the wall in that house.

Draco Malfoy folders would go down so brilliantly. I know, I know. And sometimes we joke that our eldest is going to be Otis from sex education, and he's going to just roll his eyes at me every time. I'm like, I'm running a vagina workshop. He's going to go, for God's sake, Mom, stop it. But, you know, we've really quite consciously tried to do lots of teaching for them about bodily autonomy. So, no, you must go and kiss that relative.

No, you must finish the food on your plate. They are the boss of their bodies, and we want them to know that so that they can respect that in other people so we do quite a lot of talking about pleasure consent autonomy and sex will naturally fit into that i mean we already talk about sex but the later conversations we feel like the fundamentals are those things and i don't know if you want to do another show of hands here but i wonder how many people in the room were forced to kiss or hug relatives or forced to finish things on their plate that's every hand in the room up so no hands went up bar one for good sex education.

Every hand goes up when it comes. Sorry, but you know, what are we teaching young people there? We're saying your bodily discomfort needs to be put to one side for this other person's needs or gratification and that is the foundation of struggles with

autonomy and consent later on on both sides, on the people overstepping boundaries and the people who are in a position of then not feeling able to report it because that's a really early message is that I know you're uncomfortable, but Uncle John has brought you that present, and you must show your appreciation, even though it makes you squirm.

So I feel really passionately about this. I think that's the only way we're going to change sex negativity is by that really early sex ed. And I'm so thankful it's happening more in schools, and it's LGBT inclusive now. Those strides are brilliant, but I firmly believe good sex ed happens by parents and happens at different stages and happens repeatedly and is wider than sex.

And that summarises so perfectly because I think sex is kind of like the last line. There's just so much that so many kind of cultural messages that get inculcated around how we relate to our body, how we relate to one another, how we relate to our self as a woman and a man, whatever gender we are, that inform how we go into sex that happen years before. before we're getting into bed with someone. Yes. So when we think about these kind of cultural sexual scripts that we have to revisit and often rewire

in order to have better sex, we're going back very far and very deep. And even if you think about, I mean, you know, thinking about where we are at the moment in London, even if you think of this, the kind of British culture of politeness, that is a real barrier to good sex. And we're all kind of socialized.

Oh my gosh, when you don't want to tell someone, that feels awful. Like, stop it. And the number of people who say, you know, I kind of was done but didn't want to say or I kind of had enough but or I didn't really want that and I didn't agree to it. Oh my mouth ate so I want to stop. Yeah. Anything. There's this really strong cultural script of it's more important to be polite than to assert what you actually want and that really gets in the way for people of all genders. Let's talk about desire.

So desire is the topic of your brilliant book. And for anyone who is going to go and buy it as yours should immediately after, it is the truth about desire and how to future-proof your sex life. So that's on everyone's reading list. First of all, what actually is desire? Is it sexual libido, lust, love, being turned on? What are we actually talking about here? Okay, so just to disclaimer, desire is like my favourite subject.

Excellent. Everyone get cozy. We're going to be here for a while. I'm going to talk so much. So it was interesting because when I first got approached to write a book, they were like, what will you write this book on? It was partly on the grounds of my Instagram content. They were like, we want something like this. What will it be on?

I was like, easily desire, because desire is the most political and the most fascinating and the most complicated but easy to fix of the sexual problems. And that's one of the reasons I love it so much. So desire, we used to think of desire as sex drive. And there was this idea that desire was something that we all had within us that was innate. So humans are driven to have sex, that kind of idea, in the same way that humans are driven to eat and drink water. And sex drive, as a phrase, really does point to that, doesn't it? And that in itself is a problem, because we know that not to be true. We know that if humans go without food and water, they tend to get more and more driven to seek those things out because it's a drive because you need it, whereas that doesn't happen with sex. Actually, when people don't have sex for a while, they get less driven. It kind of falls off their agenda of it. I can go without it for like a year, a year and a half. And everyone's like, what? But yeah. So it's not a drive. That's the first thing. So if it's not a drive, then what is it? And there's been quite a lot of sex research on this. And we now know that.

we should think of desire, which is something that happens kind of in our brains. So if think about arousal is something that happens in your body, so your body getting turned on. And desire is more the want to have sex. Does that make sense? Or thinking about sex. Desire is more of a motivation or an emotion than it is a drive. So that's quite interesting because already we're able to start to see how desire can ebb and flow and how it can be contextual and i think going back to what we're saying before about the how easy it is to feel broken when we think of desire as a kind of natural drive or instinct you can when you lose your sexual appetite for whatever reason you can feel broken i know i had the implant for year for a year and a half and i honestly didn't want to be

touched. I recoiled for my boyfriend and I felt shame. I felt like I'm broken, I'm unsexual, I'm not a sexual being, I'm supposed to be this young woman in a relationship with a hot man like what's wrong with me and you internalize that but I think noting that it's contextual and that it's something that you takes like preparation and lots of kind of different things contribute to you feeling desire is such a kind of empowering and galvanizing thought. Yes and it's also something I think that people struggle to get their heads around a little bit. And you hear, and this is where language is so fascinating because you hear people talk about people they know

and they'll say, he's got a high sex drive or she's got a high sex drive, kind of making out that that person is kind of always thinking and feeling sexual and wanting to have sex. And it doesn't really work like that. And it's true that we all have different relationships with sex and some people are more interested in it than others. And some people have a more positive relationship with it,

others, with it than others. But it's also true that if we think about desire as a motivation, something that we seek out, something we're inclined to do, it also has to be rewarding whatever that thing is. And so there are various aspects of that that become really interesting to contextualize when we think of gender inequality, when we think of the orgasm gap. But one of the most fascinating things about desire is that it changes. depending on the length of time we've been having sex with the same person

and so we don't really see problems with desire for people who are having casual sexual partners or people who are not in a sexual relationship we only really see problems with desire people reporting problems

whether they've got a problem is another question we only really see it when people are having sex with the same person over time and this is fascinating because we know that in the early stages of the relationship, we tend to have quite a lot of lust, and we have high levels of spontaneous desire. Spontaneous just means you're thinking about it out of the blue. It's on your mind a lot. And we see equal levels of that across all genders. What happens a year and a half,

two years in, is that we see a big drop in spontaneous desire for women, regardless of how happy they are in the relationship, regardless of how attracted they are to their partner, we see a drop in spontaneous desire. Quite a lot of men too, about 15% actually. But generally speaking, most men say that they are able to maintain spontaneous desire for the same person for 10 years plus without any effort at all.

So we see this difference. Also, I must say, just for the record, sex science is really binary and gender isn't binary, but a lot of the research is in binary categories. Is that men also just saying that they maintain desire just because there's a kind of social pressure as a man to? Well, some element of it, desire, as we've said, isn't something biological,

but it is underpinned by hormones. Some element of it is about differences in sex hormones, and we know that testosterone is a big one for desire. But much of desire, although it's underpinned by hormones, is psychological. So you've got to look at the other factors for men, which are men more often get their needs met sexually, both in casual sex and in regular sex with partners, particularly heterosexual men.

And socially, men are conditioned to kind of enjoy sex more. You know, teenage boys get different messages. So you wrote, oh, look at him, he's after the women. You know, there's lots of social messages for men that it's okay to have lots of sex. It's something you can be assertive about. That shame component doesn't really play in, I imagine, I'm sure it does, but not as much. And I also imagine a relationship with your body.

I know that, I mean, eating disorders are so prevalent amongst young women. So already that, I know, actually, I was reading something the other day that was saying one of the biggest issues that women have in the context of sex is being self-conscious about their body. Yes, the number one issue. The number one issue. It's the number one distraction for women. So women are coming in with all these kind of issues already kind of overlaying their experience

that I think men aren't necessarily presenting in the same way. Is that right? Well, what's interesting is straight men aren't as much, but we know that men who have sex with men do feel that same concern about body image. And there's been a lot of speculation as to why you see that gender difference, and it's about the male gaze. And so gay men are just as affected by the male gaze as straight women are, for example. But you don't see the same pattern with women have sex with women.

You see a bit of it, but not as much. much or straight men, but just contextualise, there are still lots of pressures and insecurities that straight men have to experience with sex as well. I don't want to paint out like they're having the easiest time in the world. No, I was actually just the other day watching this vice documentary that someone sent me and it was about the use of Viagra and how it's becoming more and more prevalent amongst young men who are recreationally using Viagra and it had this really poignant like talking circle amongst these guys who

were all saying kind of all very vulnerably putting forward how they felt in sex and they said each one of them had turned to Viagra because they felt performativity issues ranging from oh you know I stuck with a girl and she was really sexy once and I couldn't get it up and that shame just stuck with me

in every sexual experience and I always worried that it would have happened again someone else I think they'd kind of worried I think a friend had maybe said something that was it they'd had bad feedback from which broke my heart Someone had texted them to tell them they were shit in bed after having sex with them, which I'm all for communication and feedback. But like, come on. Like, there's a way of doing it. And here's another societal myth that you can be good in bed. And we see that replicated in like men's health, in Cosmo. It's all like 10 top tips to blow her mind. It's really subtle language, but it's cultivating an idea that sex is a skill. And men suffer. or God or not? Yes. In the same way that we know women suffer more from the idea that they need to look good during sex. Men suffer from the idea that they need to perform well during sex.

And sex isn't a learned skill. Like everyone wants something different. It's actually more about communication than it is about anything else. So yes, lots of insecurities for men as well, around penis size, around how long it takes them to come, whether that's too fast or too slow, around staying hard and lots of comparison with unrealistic ideas there and an idea that it's up to them to do things and like take the lead yeah as I said these backpacks of anxiety which we're all wearing for real they're pretty heavy but even on that I think I wrote a piece about this the other day it's not even just porn which I think is having such a damaging impact on how we think about communication during sex. It's also just

what we, the type of sex we've seen for so long on TV and film. Like you so often in a like sexy sex scene on like a great film, I'm thinking of my favourite sex scenes, which is in Factory Girl with Sienna Miller and who plays. Is it Jude Law? Hayden. No, it's Hayden Christensen.

Oh, best sex scene ever. It's not Draco Malfoy. But it's not, it's not quite Draco Malfoy. It's a shame. It's close in sexiness. I definitely would have put there's a little clip of that in my binder, and my mum would have been like, she's going to have sex before 18, I did. But you look at a sex scene like that, and these two people who have never even kissed

before are passionately kissing, then they're entwined, they fall into bed, they don't say a word, they just start having sex, they simultaneously orgasm, and then they fall apart, and it's just been totally blissful, not a word has been said, and it's as if they have this, like, lifelong familiarity with a stranger's body, which is just impossible. And so I think, so as I said, it's films and TV that have continually

reiterated, I think, a narrative that sex is just this kind of chemical thing, which just, like, if you have the right chemistry with someone, it is just going to be mind-blowing. And communication just doesn't come into it. So then when we come into a sexual situation, we're not necessarily primed to be like, ouch, out, wait, put your finger that,

put to that, you know what I mean? Yeah. yeah it's it's all of that and also the fact that the how we see sex in TV and film is usually a penis in the vagina that's usually what you're watching and we see women orgasming at the same way as men from that sexual act without any clitoral simulation which is really unrealistic only 20% of women can orgasm that way so there's there's loads of stuff there to unpack and I'm just going to return to desire for a second because we've got we're going to do a whole section we still have loads more questions so let's let's Let's go back. I always feel really nervous when I talk about the drop in spontaneous desire if I don't finish the conversation because it sounds like depressing news. And it isn't. I promise you it isn't.

So we know that spontaneous desire is just one type of desire and you see it more at the start of a relationship. There is an inevitable decline even when you're attracted to that person and very happy in the relationship and we see that more for women than men, but plenty of men as well. and we notice that what happens is that we start to see that as a marker of desire that we should listen to so people kind of sit and wait until they feel the desire in actual fact we know that when it comes to women's experience of that many women in long-term relationships if you ask them how often they feel like sex out of the blue will say never or about once a month so people are

kind of sitting, waiting for their spontaneous desire, which isn't coming. Or it's coming very rarely, and maybe it's coming when you're like, at work, and can't really do anything about it. When you move on the chair in a special kind of when you're like, oh, oh. So that's one of the first

problems, really, is that we feel at the mercy of our spontaneous desire which has dropped, and that can, of course, cause lots of conflict if a partner's desire, if they're experiencing more desire, if it feels like it's an issue between the two of you, there can be loads of reasons why that causes conflict. In actual fact, we know that the type of desire

we should be interested in, that we should be measuring, is what we call responsive desire, which means if the context is right and if you're faced with what we call a very unsexy word, sexual stimuli, which basically means someone's naked body, a passionate kiss, touch to your body, a flirtation, watching porn, listening to audio erotica, whatever it might be, if we're faced with sexual stimuli and the other contexts are right so we're not ill we're not tired we're not thinking we've got to be up in two hours we're not super stressed about a presentation whatever it might be does our desire usually follow and the answer to that is that in most people it does but that's not the type of desire that people are thinking about or even know about

or are looking to nurture and this is why people often say to me I know never feel like sex. But when we do have sex, when I think about starting it, I notice my desire builds once we're there. And then I get really into it. And afterwards I say, we should do that more often. And that's the number one thing people say. And that's their responsive desire kicking in. But the problem with our society and how we view desire is that we're waiting for this spontaneous desire. We're waiting for the urge to rip our partner's clothes off. And unfortunately, the more we see our partner over and over again, our brain codes them as less sexual every time. And that, my friends, is the problem with monogamy. It's the problem of monogamy, I'm afraid. And it's fine. Like,

if monogamy is for us, then it's fine. But you have to be aware if you're going to do monogamy that there is a little bit of intentional effort that's going to need to be put in. And I know we're going to talk in a bit about sexual currency, but that's very much where that comes in, because what tends to happen, and I don't know what the split is in the room of people in relationships and not in relationships, people that have been with people a period of time. But what tends to happen is that our relationships get diluted into other ways. So at the start, we just see them as a sexual object. And that's a really exciting thing. Lots of spontaneous desire. But the more we might become friends, the more we might live together, the more we might even be work friends,

we might be co-parents. All of those relationships dilute that original. one and it means it's harder than harder to see them as a sexual being without some reminder which is where the sexual currency comes in it's a bit like training like training your body for the gym I think and it goes back to we have to get rid of this idea that sex is just as this drive and this instinct that just like kicks in magically because it might I actually might even be quoting you back at you because I think you are but I love it I think I am I think I've listened to I bet you'll do it better I listened to so many podcasts of you recently that I am actually going to quote you at you but it's um and almost i'm going to brand it as my own thought it's a bit like if

you were to sign up to a marathon and you wouldn't just go on said marathon having not trained you'd be putting in your your miles you'd be doing your 5k your 10k your 15k i think i'm right and it's just like with sex naturally you have to train you have to put in the effort you have to actually be constantly working towards cultivating and nurturing your sex life. Am I right? I mean it isn't my analogy but I'm loving it. Is it not? I think you should own that one. I'm going to own that one. It must be someone else you're talking to. So I do talk a lot about the similarities between sex and exercise in that sometimes exercise is something that you're motivated to do not always because it feels good in the moment although once you get started it often does feel really good. Parallels.

But because you've got a longer-term motivation that is about staying healthy, feeling good in your body, whatever it might be. And often we find ourselves thinking, I'm going to make sure I exercise because I know it's good for me. And I'm going to get my gym clothes on and get myself to the gym and I don't really feel like it. But then when I get there, I really get into it. And afterwards, I feel really pleased that I've gone. and I start to see those positive effects. Nurturing sex in your sex life is just like that. Without any intentional effort,

it can often drift really far from where we want it to be. But if we have a lot of motivation that actually, I think sex is important for relationships, we feel more connected when we do it. We all really enjoy it when we do it. But I know that if I don't make time to create sexual currency or make time to think about my partner in that way, actually, I probably won't do it.

So it's similar in that way. And sexual currency, you mentioned it a few times now. What is sexual currency? So sexual currency is a term that I use to describe the charge between you and a person that you're having sex with when you're not physically in the act of having sex. So if you think about anything you would do with a partner that isn't sex, so it isn't oral sex, it isn't penitative sex, it isn't sexual touch. but is something you wouldn't do with your grandma than that's sexual currency.

So, for example, if everyone does this now for a second, if you just think about either somebody that you're dating or the last person you're in a relationship with, if you think about the number of minutes in a day or in a week that you are engaging with them as a sexual partner. So that might be a passionate kiss. It might be flirting. I love a passionate kiss. Yeah. I mean, if I could do one thing for the nation's sex life, it would be for everyone to like not drop passionate kissing. And people do drop it. Honestly, I am such an exhibitionist. I'm middle of the road. I'm like, come closer. I mean, it's great sexual currency. It's great for triggering desire. But another feature of long-term relationships,

it often slips off the list. And it becomes something people only do. as part of sex, which is a problem, because how do you get to sex? So sexual currency is like the scaffolding that can take you from washing the dishes to something else smoothly. And it's also a way of continuing to see and relate to each other as sexual beings when you're not having sex. So it's really useful for people who can't have sex because one of them's unwell or they've just had a new baby. And actually, sex itself is off the agenda, but they still want to feel connected sexually. So, for example, it might be passionate kissing, it might be flirting, it might be sending a text to say, I'm really, I'm thinking about this, or do you remember when we did

this, or something like that, it could be a bum grab, it could be a look across a room. Out of interest, what is everyone's sexual currency here? Not everyone, actually, there's a lot of people here. We'll be here the rest of the evening going like, I love kissing too, but does they want to shout out what their sexual currency is? Go on. Come on. There's someone here who has something. I'll pick you out. I know some people here. I know names. Right. Elsie. There we go. Thanks. What's your sexual currency? Oh. That's exactly it. Just kiss on the neck. Love that. Natalia? I think that's good long, there's not something very mild, but good long puck. I love that close touch. Bodily touch is always good.

Was grab the bum. Physical proximity. Bum grabs. So, bum squeeze. Anyone else for sexual currency? Don't forget I know. Yes. Cura.

Oh, but I love that. Whenever I see people like Kisses go, I'm like, oh, I wish that was me. I love that. Everyone should start doing that, ASAP. Yeah, I think that, if there's one takeaway from today, I think do that, 100%. If you're in a partnership, maybe the friend just, like, reach out. You don't need to passionately kiss them.

Honestly, my housemate will be like, Emma, no. We're not doing that. That does cross a boundary that we're not going to cross. So I love that. So it's a small thing. So it's that reminded, like differentiating that relationship. Yeah, it's putting a boundary around it and saying, we are a sexual couple, no matter how much we're having sex or when we're having sex. So sometimes

I think we fall into the trap of thinking that sex is just something we're doing in those couple of minutes. And actually, our sexuality and our sexual relationship is always there. And what I notice when couples start to increase sexual currency is that it starts to matter much less to them how much sex they have because they feel sexually connected. And this connects to, I guess another fascinating thing about desire, which is that it's often not how much sex people are having or wanting that causes a problem of desire in a relationship. It's the meaning behind it that they're making of it. So the partner who might desire sex more is thinking they don't find me as attractive

anymore or I don't feel desired and I want to be or this means the end of the relationship or something. the person who might be experiencing desire less is thinking, I'm broken, there's a problem with me, maybe there's a problem with us, there's all kinds of meanings around it, but what's fascinating about when people increase sexual currency is that actually grabbing someone,

throwing them up against a wall and passionately kissing them three seconds before they have to leave the house can often feel more validating if your attraction to them than having sex. And so once people start to increase sexual currency, they often stop caring about how much sex they're having because the meaning, the need they had originally is being met. I'm blushing at the thought of that and me leaving my house on such a high,

having been pushed against the wall and kissed passionately. I'd be like skipping my step the rest of the day. You mentioned the beginning desire mismatch. And it's something I wanted to talk about now because I think, can you fix a desire mix match? mismatch in a relationship because I think that can probably I'm just thinking back to

a previous sexual relationship I had with someone who was so they were addicted to sex and their idea of a sexual relationship was going to sex clubs at one point suggested

before we even had a date suggested meeting up with another cup I was like whoa I'm in sex therapy just to try and like my body a bit more I am not ready for this and I just wonder in those kind of situations I mean we didn't work out but whether there's something that you can resolve

that kind of mismatch where what people want is just so vastly different and what people feel comfortable with is so vastly different so there's two things there one is a difference in the amount of sex that people would like to have so for example typically speaking one person feels that there's not enough sex happening and another person feels like they're quite happy not having sex.

So that kind of mismatch. We should consider that to be the norm, not the exception. So it's kind of impossible to want the same amount of sex as someone else. It's a little bit easier at the start because everyone's spontaneous desire is high. But people's desire ebbs and flows. People are in different head spaces. You know, people get home from work and one person's raring to go and the other person can't shake off the day.

And they've got, you know, the fact they've got jobs to do. on their mind. So a mismatch in amount of sex is the norm. And actually the challenge is how you navigate that, not trying to have the same amount. So thinking about sexual currency, thinking about communicating what need you've got that you want to be met by sex, thinking about responsive desire and how you might increase the desire in your relationship by doing things to trigger desire, all of those things can help resolve that. So that's... the issue there. When it comes to different ideas about what constitutes good sex, that's a bit more challenging. And you can, and we do this a lot in sex therapy, help people move from two opposite

ends of a scale to somewhere in the middle because they're both willing to sacrifice their thing because the relationship is so good. But it depends how important sex is to people. And for some people, sex is life-affirming, recreational, a space where they relax, play and de-stress. And for other people, it's really not. And if you fundamentally see sex very differently, then you, you could make it work, but you might find it's always a little bit of a challenge. You're pushing your boundaries perhaps more than is kind of comfortable. Yeah, or people aren't feeling like they're getting quite what they need and sexual satisfaction starts to dwindle a bit. So it's possible. But I always like to say to people, we can get to this middle ground, but it's going to require you

both to compromise on things that really matter to you. So you have to be, the rest of the relationship has to be something that makes that worth it. Does that make sense? Completely. Now, you wrote an article a little while ago in which you noted the... You've been stalking me. I have, honestly, it is, I know, it's now going across as creepy. I'm going to quote you at you again. Sorry, forgive me, but it was a great quote. So you wrote an article a while ago, which I found in my stalking of you, in which you noted the danger of assumptions, which is music to my ears. My big thing is we should always be aware and questioning of any kind of baked in assumptions, particularly around sex and gender and desire, because they are generally perpetuating patriarchal norms as well, I think. So you were focusing particularly in this piece on foreplay.

And you wrote, it represents the way we discuss foreplay and even the term. the terminology around it represents a hierarchy that elevates some types of sex as better or more like proper sex. You wrote, pay attention to dangers of such assumptions and always ordering the set menu, especially if you're planning to eat in the same restaurant every night for the rest of your life. That's pretty good, isn't it? Let's be honest. I had to quote you on that because it was so good. I was at that restaurant. I'm impressed with myself there. Glad I brought it off on you. Thanks, yeah. So, yeah, I never use the word foreplay ever, totally ban it. And, you know, this is a good example of how cultural norms are perpetuated through the use of language. So words like foreplay, words like virginity, are privileging one type of sex over all else, which is not only not good for anyone, but it's also really cis-heteranormative. And it doesn't, it privileges heterosexual sex above other types of sex.

who don't necessarily have like a main act in the same way. But we know that it's perpetuated in language by the way people talk about, we'll use the word foreplay, full stop. And also, that gives us an idea that there is a set menu and there's an A, then B, then C. We call this in sex signs sexual script, and we know that if you ask people to say, what does sex look like?

Everyone gives the same script. So it's like first you kiss, then you touch a bit then maybe oral sex and that's interesting we'll come on to that later if you're lucky yeah and then after that it's penis and vagina sex and then um both people come or maybe one person does and that marks the end and then it's all over and it's a really narrow view of what sex could look like is why i call it the set menu and instead we should be thinking of the buffet love me a buffet yeah everyone loves a buffet don't they and with a buffet you don't they and with a buffet you don't have a start, a middle, and an end, you can do things in different orders,

and think of the value that that brings to novelty when you're having sex with the same person over and over again. So the danger of the set menu, when you've got a set partner, is that it just becomes a bit predictable and a bit boring. Whereas with a buffet, you can pick the dessert first if you want, one night. You could. You could. You could. You could. Go for dessert, cake for starters. Yeah. For the meat for the main. No one knows what's coming. Exactly. Surprise. It's cheese time. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's one element of why I don't like the word foreplay. It just, it's really restrictive. You know, sex is sex. And actually, if everyone thinks about this as well for a second, you can have a night with somebody where all you do all night is kiss and it can be the hottest night of your life. And that is sex because what have you done? you've done something with your body that's given you pleasure that's turned you on that's made you feel connected

and once we start kind of putting one type of sex higher than another it becomes something that people feel like they're on a train and they're going to that station whether they want to or not because that's what's expected of them it actually's kind of rooted i think in virginity a lot the notion of your virginity that's where this idea of what sex what constitutes sex really begins and my sex therapist has brought that up numerous occasions, how she's just like throughout what you thought of as losing your virginity, chuck it out the window. What was the first kind of sexual experience you had? Let's go back to that. And I found that a really interesting point. I hadn't really considered that before. Yeah. And I think it's also helpful. We talked about kind of children and sex education

earlier on. I think it's a really big misconception that that young people and children are not sexual. And then all of a sudden when they have sex with somebody else that's penitiv, they become sexual. Actually, we're all sexual from being really little. We all know about pleasure and bodies, and that that just becomes something that people explore as they get older. And the idea that you're, you becoming a sexual person is rooted in one sexual act

is obviously kind of deeply patriarchal and problematic. But it also means that people gloss over all of the wonderful sexual lending. landmarks in their sexual debut because if they really think about it perhaps they would like to name it differently that when was the first time that they that they orgasmed on their own

when was the first time that they felt truly relaxed sexually with another person when was the first time they let somebody touch their body like those things were often more meaningful than a penis in a vagina puts a lot of pressure on sexual exploration essentially and it kind of says

sexual exploration is one thing it's kind of like losing your virginity and it's therefore it's in partner sex it's you know all the things you've just mentioned whereas actually it's quite a beautiful thing to explore your body and your own pleasure often by yourself for a first time or like you know I remember the first time lying in a bath I don't know how I remember this but I was like very very young and the shower head obviously I know everyone's gone for that and I was like oh my god this feels amazing and then I was like stop this is terrible this is sinful what are you doing and I just I look back and I'm this hilarious The shame was, even at every, I mean, I must have been like, I don't know, eight, nine, whatever it was.

Even at that young age, shame was so, like, deep rooted in my association with bodily pleasure and, yeah, and me just being there on my own. Yeah, and what's fascinating here, if we talk about those gendered stories and if we talk about politics of sex, we see how parents respond differently to boys and girls when they do that. So parents typically worry quite a lot when they see, even though it's just to say it's really normal, like for young children to masturbate from any age. It's super normal. But when boys do it, it's like, oh, look at him, always grabbing his thingy, because no one can say the word penis, obviously. You know, oh, he's going to be a right charmer. You know, it's all of that. Oh, you know, it's all of that. Oh, you know, it's all of that. I wonder all so fucked up. It's just so ridiculous. But with girls, people really worry. what does this mean about the woman she's going to become and she's going to be a slut she's going to be a whore she's going to be all these things which are associated with female sexuality it's inherently sinful because it you know it's yeah that's right oh so much unpacking to do but we have to talk briefly before we close about the orgasm gap yes we must which we alluded

to earlier on which uh so it's 30 percent um there's a third to an orgasm gap in heterosexual couples I believe that's right. That's right. And can we delve into this a bit? Because in your research, you discuss the fact that while there is no disparity in orgasming between men and women when they're masturbating. That's right.

So when you masturbate, I've said before, I have had no trouble, even in my long stint of not being able to orgasm in partner sex with making myself come. Honestly, I was like 20 seconds and I could do it. And then put me in the context of partner sex and it just didn't happen. So what's happening here?

Okay. Break it down. I love where you got really comfortable on your seat there and you're like, here we go. We're going in. We're going in. Strap yourself in.

So for anyone who's not heard of the orgasm gap, so this research, which has been replicated several times, tells us that when people of all genders masturbate, most people can orgasm about 95% of the time in a couple of minutes. So we don't see any difference across genders with masturbation. There's not a biological difference. there is a historical idea that women's orgasms are trickier to come by and that is partly why often they get sidelined as part of partnered sex oh it's a bit trickier it's so we just we just

won't go there I have found myself saying that in sex oh it's just it's really difficult to make me come it's really hard and then actually then someone who I was having sex with was like it's actually really not that hard you just you haven't known what to ask for and I was like ah yeah yeah communication communication so we know that um physiologically there is no difference in an ability to orgasm with different bodies. So that's important to say. What happens when you put specifically men and women together is that men's orgasm rate stays at 95%.

So there's no difference between masturbation and partnered sex for men in terms of how often they come. They come at the same rate. If you put them in regular sex with a female partner, so someone they've met before, then the orgasm rate for the woman drops to, to 65%. So she can orgasm 95% at the time alone, 65% with a male partner. When you look at casual sex, so like proper hookup sex stuff between men and women, men's orgasm rate stays at 95%.

Women's drops to 16%. 16%. Yes. Now we don't see this trend happening with men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women. There is no orgasm gap. So the orgasm gap is very much something which is a feature of when men and women have sex together. The reason for that of the several, but some of the reasons we've touched on already. So an idea that sex is penis and vagina penetration, which suits men's anatomy more than women's. So most women can't orgasm that way and need additional clitoral stimulation or just want clitoral stimulation through oral sex or through fingers. So how we see sex in terms of heterosexual sex is part of the problem. And you don't really get that same view of sex when you have women together or when you have men together.

There's much more diversity, much more of a buffet. Once again, we love the buffet. We love the food analogies. So that's one of the reasons. The other reasons are more subtle than that, and are around gender inequality, assertiveness, whose needs feel like they should be prioritised, politeness, difficulties with communication, finding it difficult to say because you think you're not normal. I actually don't want penitative sex. I actually just want you to go down on me and

that's it. But that, saying that can be really difficult if you exist in a culture where you think that's not the norm. And once again, shame so often kicks in there. I found myself on numerous occasions, despite being in sex therapy, did I mention, and proselytizing now the benefits of communication. I have found myself in numerous sexual situations a few months ago particularly. where I just felt like I couldn't I was like what if I say that and they actually find me gross they think my body's dirty

they think I'm disgusting they find me really unattractive they're fucking me out of pity all these things came into my mind that then made me feel totally silenced I didn't dare ask for it's like can you just go down to me or actually just finger me

I fucking love being fingered and I felt like I couldn't ask that because I'm asking for too much and that's such and I'm actively having the conversations around communication, sexual empowerment, all these things. And then in the bedroom was just kind of shrinking. And again, it's that shame mechanism.

It's kind of what you grow up, I think, oftentimes, particularly as a woman, learning about your body and it's often couch these quite negative ideas. Yeah, absolutely. So knowing what you want, first of all, is the challenge. So what actually do I enjoy it? Where do you want to go? St. Paul's. Or not.

But then being able to ask for that takes, it takes an element. of practice in talking about sex, which is why events like this are so great, right? Because the more we talk about sex, the more comfortable we are talking about sex. And, you know, I can promise you when I thought I was going to that adolescent eating disorders unit and I had my first day in sex and they were like, right, you need to talk about this. I was like, fuck. I have to say the word penis out loud. Look at me now. I'm like penis, penis, penis. Sexual buffets and everything in between. Even my kids are more comfortable now than I was at that age. They're like, Mommy, look at that vulva. I'm like, yay, great. Oh my gosh, I love that. So like, it shows, right? Practice

talking about sex makes good. So we get out of practice. So finding, if people are feeling really nervous about it, coming to events like this, talking to friends, practicing, saying the words out loud, those things can be really helpful. But you also have to know that you're normal, right, to be able to say that's what I want. And that's why the orgasm gap is so interesting, because it really shines a light on the fact that often when we think about that set menu women lose out and when women know that I think sometimes that helps to give a little bit more motivation to be able to say actually that's not what I want I think ultimately it can be quite helpful to talk about the consequences of that as well so we sometimes worry a lot about what partners will think

but actually what do we all want when we have sex with someone we just want them to enjoy it and we want to enjoy it. And one of the things, and we're talking specifically about men and women together here, which is why I'm saying this, one of the things that heterosexual men are often lumbered with is this idea that they need to perform and know what someone wants. And so having someone say, I want this, can you do this, will you do it more like that, is a joy to someone's ears. And yes, there's a lot of shame around certain things for us. We worry about oral sex we worry about what do our body smell like or taste like or look like up close but we know that actually men really enjoy giving oral sex and really enjoy seeing a partner

experience pleasure this I found fascinating listening to another podcast you're on the other day in which you're discussing just another one by the way there's quite a few I'm going to get a restraining order you should block me on Instagram but you mentioned a piece of research that actually found that men prefer, in research she's conducted, it suggests that men preferred giving oral sex to women, and yet women typically give more oral sex than men. Yes. I was like, what?

Here's gender inequality right here. I mean, seriously. Women give oral sex to men at twice the rate that men give it to women, which is not necessarily the fault of men not wanting to give it, because we know that men enjoy giving oral sex more than women do. women say they tolerate it but they feel it should be expected not everyone obviously you know there's lots of variation but on the whole men say i really enjoy it um so gender inequality right there and that is not one person's fault that's a societal expectation that structures and which were it

existing absolutely that is that i mean anyone who's going home to have sex might or maybe you'll have sex in remember that fact remember that the person you're with probably likes going down on you more than you like going down on them. So actually, when you ask them to go down you, you're doing them a favour. A favour. I really like that framing. I think that is fantastic. Now, I really want us to have an opportunity for people to ask their own questions.

Now, I'm in two minds about this because we're in a very safe space, but this is being recorded for a podcast, FYI. But we are in a very safe space and the whole point of sex talks is to get us all feeling more comfortable talking about sex, as you've just said, Karen. So I want this to be people to feel able to put up their hands, but I'm also aware that someone might not feel super comfortable. So I have got paper and pens over there, where you can write down a question anonymously and then give it to me.

And I want this to kind of be a bit like sex therapy, a group sex therapy almost. So whatever question you might want to bring to this faux sex therapy room, you feel comfortable with asking. So what we'll do, if this is okay by you, we'll do a five-minute break when we have a little bit of a chance to soak up

all the pearls of wisdom they've heard in this past hour and then write down I'll go around with paper and pens if you want to just write down the question you have and then in about five minutes time we'll come back

and then I will anonymously read some of those questions out so ask your deepest, darkest secretive question excellent thank you so much you're welcome right so we've had so many brilliant questions submitted so obviously everyone is keen for a little bit of sex therapy which is great which is why we're doing sex talks um so we've got a couple rapid fire questions which we'll do and a few longer ones and then Karen you said you're going to take a couple and do some stories about them on your Instagram yeah I'll try and get through the rest of them that we can't do on my stories maybe tomorrow tomorrow evening something like that

fantastic although my mum and dad are staying so I might need to just hide the phone sex negative and all. But no, some of that, they're all really good. Some of them, like, aren't quick questions and John might take us a bit longer, so we'll pick the ones we can do. Perfect. So let's start with a quickfire question to get us going. What is your top tip for long-term couples who want to evolve together and be sexual together for as long as their relationship lasts? Quickfire. Three top tips. Learn about desire and how it works. Read my book. No commission there. The second one is see sex as something which you need. need to intentionally work on, not something which will just stay good without effort.

The third one is increase your sexual currency. That was great quick fire. While we're on a roll, I'm going to do another quick fire, just going to get through them. Is it wholly unethical, not disclose that I carry herpes? No, you don't need to disclose that you have herpes. Everyone goes into sex knowing that sex carries risk of things like STIs and pregnancy. Everyone needs to take responsibility for their own sexual health. if it makes you feel less anxious to let the person know

because it's something that's on your mind and interrupting your sex life, then do it. If it's someone who you're going to be in a more regular relationship with, you might want to, the likelihood is that they've already either got the virus and not got any symptoms or they've already been exposed to it and have got antibodies and even if they haven't, herpes is no big deal. Excellent. You're killing it on the Rapid Fire.

He said you're bad at Rapid Fire. You're great. what do you do if kissing does nothing for you don't do it find something else but it may be that it does for the other person and that's where there may be a little bit of talking and compromise needed because it might be something that really does it for them so maybe there's a way of finding a compromise could bargain you'd be like I will kiss you but you've got to finger me win win I like both so I'd be in heaven me and my partner are both open and interested in exploring new sexual things slash kinks but neither of us have a strong idea of what we want and it feels hard to explore without someone pushing something or thing do you have any tips yeah so explore it on your own first

watch some films listen to some more audio erotica watch some porn that's like ethical porn that doesn't make you feel there after you've watched it um and look out for things that you're interested in, come up with a bit of a list, find some time to meet together, share what's on your list knowing that you don't necessarily need to do the things that you're on your list. You can do something which in sex therapy we call yes no maybe, which is where you organise things on your list into two, three columns, things that are definite noes, things that are definite yeses and things which you're not sure and might need a bit of negotiation. What it comes down to, communication, communication. You spoke about

the importance of asking for what we want during sex but what if you aren't sure what it is that you want because you've always previously struggled with pleasure slash orgasm no matter what is tried whoever wrote that that is me until now so this is a bit similar

to the previous one so you can use all of those different types of media to try and explore what you would like you can think back to past sexual experiences ones that were good and ones that weren't so good why were they good why were they not so good and you could also use masturbation to explore that as well. I have a free resource which is in which I can repost

tomorrow as part of it which is called it's from the book it's the conditions for good sex triangle so you can work on that on your own and understand all the different aspects of what makes sex good for you and start to expand all the different sections to know more about what you want. Excellent got so many wonderful resources which by the way I will post about tomorrow as well so we'll have them everyone will be inundated with the resources so many of them is so many It'll get boring. It won't. It won't.

Honestly. I've listened to all the podcast. It never gets boring. You've got your kitchen wallpapered with the resources. Not yet, but I'm doing some redecorating at the moment. I still sometimes fake an orgasm with my boyfriend, who I've been with for almost three years. Is that bad and how do I fix it? All right.

So we know that women fake orgasms, like 65% of women say they're faked an orgasm recently, so don't feel bad about it. See it as a symptom of everything we've talked about gender inequality and the difficulty in communicating what you might want and need. Is it bad, is the question? The question is, what are the consequences of faking it for you? You know, it's up to you what you choose to do. Sometimes people fake an orgasm because they want sex to end, and actually a better thing would be to communicate that you want sex to end, but it's not the end of the world, apart from your partner might feel a bit cheated sometimes if they knew. But actually, think about what the consequences are. So is it leading your partner to a false

sense of what works for you sexually? Or is it making you feel frustrated because you need to go to the bathroom and do it yourself afterwards? Or is it making you feel disconnected? You don't necessarily need to talk about all the times you faked it, but you could make a commitment to starting to let them know when you don't come and saying, I actually would like to do this. Or you could just bite the bullet and say, I read something recently about the fact that most women fake orgasms, I've actually done that myself sometimes,

and it's not about you, it's about not knowing what... Everybody else, my friend. My best friend does it all the time. And I sometimes do that because I don't know how to tell you what I actually want, or I've actually had enough and it's been. great and it's hard to communicate that or something like that. The problem is I imagine you end up then building up a sexual pattern based potentially on your faking the orgasm until one day you're so far in this web of fake orgasm lies that your

partner thinks they've hit the spot and they're like, I am a sex god and I have nailed sex and then I imagine it then it gets much harder to communicate by the way you're not a sex god you actually can't make me come. Yes, and that's difficult. And I have to say, I've seen couples who've been together decades and someone has faked it for decades. And it's actually really hurtful for the person because it feels like a bit of a betrayal.

Now that's very different to doing it occasionally. I want to know. Everyone does it. I think that's important to say, don't feel bad about it. And it's not you. It's the patriarchy. But it is a good thing to try and think about communication.

And what is it? you're trying to communicate? Are you trying to protect their feelings? Are you not able to say, I actually need this instead? Are you actually just tired and sex has been great, but you've had enough? Like, what is it that you should be communicating instead? I remember once having sex the man, it was when I honestly had no idea how someone else could ever make me come. And he came, he's like, you know, I want to make you come. And I was like, I panicked and I felt all the blood rush to my head. I was like, I've got no idea how you'd even begin to try that. And I was like, you did. It happened a while ago.

It was so glaringly obvious that it hadn't. I get kidding, and then he was like, uh, okay. And I was like, mm-hmm. Anyways, so night night. Rolled over. We never saw each other again. Good example. How do you ask for what you want without hurting their feelings,

slash being bossy slash making them feel unworthy? I love this one because there is an implicit assumption in this question that their feelings and experiences are more valuable than yours. Primacy of male pleasure at work. We don't know the gender of the partner. But, oh. Okay. Right, so we can say privacy of male pleasure.

This is the challenge for him. This is the challenge of being told that you should be good at sex without being told what to do. And being, the communication is a threat to that for him. But also there is an assumption that it's upsetting him is worse than not. not having your own needs met, which is a kind of basis of the gender inequality stuff around sex. I think it might be worth doing some, I don't want to look at you too much, I want to put you

on the spot, it might be worth having some conversation with him about what makes sex good for both of you. You could do the conditions for good sex triangle, which is a resource I talked about and compare it, but he might need to do a little bit of unlearning of some of those social scripts because that's creating quite a lot of pressure for him, isn't it? He's not psychic, no one is, but he has the assumption that he should be. So, yeah, I mean, he could probably do with reading my book as well, to be honest. Christmas is round the corner, perfect time.

Seriously, such things are a subtle hint. I am a sexual person, aren't we all? Yes, we are, you just have to uncover it. I have a lot of sex with different partners, but cannot orgasm unless I've been with someone for a long time, six plus months. How can I reach orgasm without the long-term relationship? Side note. Orgasms solo, but still this can be difficult these days.

Okay. So, orgasms happen when our conditions for good sex are met, and those conditions need to be psychological arousal. So what do we need to feel about ourselves, the situation, the other person, the environment to be able to fully relax. So for some people, that is about eroticism. For other people, it's about power. For other people, it's about attraction and lust. For other people, it's about trust and safety. So again, this is going back to those conditions for good sex triangle, working out what those conditions are. This person has a good idea that there is something in the

length of relationship that is one of their psychological conditions to allow orgasm to happen. What is it, though? Is it familiarity? Is it trust? Is it comfort? Is it love? What is the thing? That's worth understanding. The other factor, which helps us orgasm, is physical stimulation. So it happens with solo sex because there's physical stimulation that's just right, because we get lots of biofeedback and we're doing it for ourselves. So the physical stimulation is pretty good. But also it can happen easier in solo sex because we don't have pressure. pressure. And so I'm interested in the relationship between the length of relationship that they're in and pressure. So do they feel less pressure when they're with someone a long time? Or is there another aspect of the length of relationship that matters like connection or love? The last aspect, which is linked to the other two, is how in the moment we're able to be. And one of the things frustratingly for women or people with vulvers is that orgasms, can stop even once it's started. So you don't see that with people with penises. So you see that once they've started, once I get close to orgasm, it actually can't stop. It will continue even if the postman walks in,

it will come. A great story about that, actually, a friend of mine, but it wasn't a postman. It was his flatmate's elderly father that walked in to fix the radiator, and he came, like, oh, away the place. I wonder if you'll mind me telling that story. I don't think he will, I don't think he will.

He tells it a lot. Anyway, yeah, he couldn't stop it. It's already started. So you don't really get that with vulva owners. The orgasm can start and then go away with a thought that's distracting. So we know this is one of the biggest discoveries in sex science in the last 20 years is that attention is crucial to orgasm. And it's crucial for sex, full stop, but here we're doing about orgasm.

So where your mind is at has a direct correlation with how easy it is to orgasm. orgasm. So if you're completely in the moment and just experiencing sensation, then you're much more likely to be able to orgasm. If your mind is thinking, what do they think of my body? I hope I don't get pregnant or I hope I do get pregnant or what are they thinking about what I'm doing or are they enjoying this? Those thoughts are normal. We all have them. But the more of those you have, the less likely it is that you'll orgasm. So sometimes that's why in a longer term relationship, it's easier because the physical simulation might be better because you're more able to say,

I actually don't want that, I want that. But also your ability to let go becomes a bit easier. So there's some things for this person to look at. If they're interested in thinking about how to work on their attention, then I have one of my online workshops. It's called Train Your Brain for Better Sex. It's all about how you can increase your sexual response

by using the science around attention. I will definitely be checking that out. I'm sure many people in this room will be. One thing I have been thinking recently is I feel like sometimes I need to almost meditate before I have sex, but I almost want to like suggest it as a partner meditation. You can get those on apps. Really? Yeah, so I know you had Billy last time.

Yeah. So the Furley app has a, has versions of this and there are other apps that have like partnered mindfulness exercises for sex. That I need that. I think it's a great, and also quite a kind of great connector. I just imagine like before entering me, it's like just sit next to me. and close your eyes we'll build up this sexual tension

see if they'll sign up for that yeah exactly god poor guy finally how can women help men with performance anxiety in sex oh I love this question in my experience they are so ashamed

they shut the entire relationship down even when you're trying to understand and be patient with them the fragility of the male ego sometimes I totally empathise with that this actually connects. I'm going to connect it to another question that we haven't answered that was about what if you know that it would suit you to delay the first sex you have with someone,

but you don't feel confident to say that, because actually there's some similarities with these two questions. So this is a perfect example of the detrimental effect of the sexual script, the set menu of penis and vagina sex as being real sex. because the expectation that you have to stay hard or the expectation that you have to last a certain amount of time once a penis is in a vagina is what causes difficulties with erections and difficulties with coming too soon.

And so one of the things we need to do is deconstruct those sexual scripts for everyone and we can help our partners do that by say, let's actually vary the types of sex that we have and let's have different types of sex on different times of the, you know, week or month or year. Start the buffet at different sections, you might say. What generally tends to happen is that once you take that pressure away, because it's really challenging for men because there's that feeling of you have to be hard

and you have to stay hard, and that causes anxiety which shuts down sexual response, which affects erections. And once that's happened a couple of times, people start worrying about it. once you start worrying about it you're not in the moment instead you're activating all of your flight or flight and that makes it happen and then you get this vicious circle we have to take away the pressure so one of the things we do often in sex therapy with people when this is happening is that we get them to have loads and loads of sex that doesn't require an erection what happens then is the erection happens and stays and that that is a kind of experiment for people to see what needs to

happen differently that fits in with the other one shut the entire relationship down even when they're trying to understand and be patient with them. It's almost like preservation of self just like I can't... Shame. Yeah, of shame. My ex-partner was like that.

If I mentioned that I just wasn't and I did like I just wasn't feeling into sex at the moment and I didn't know what it was and I wanted to explore that and his reaction was, well, you obviously just don't fancy me and you don't love me and we should probably just break up.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, how did we get to that point? But for him it was an attack on his sexual being, his capabilities as a man. and it was everything he represented and he felt that was a personal attack on him, which of course it wasn't. Yes.

And it also connects with that other question about what if I want to wait to have sex for someone until I really know them better or feel confident in the relationship. There is a slight change, I think. I don't know if everyone would kind of recognize this, people that have been actively dating recently.

There is a bit of a societal shift in an idea about when you should be having sex for someone and sex is something that people often feel pressure to have before they feel ready to have it. And I don't know the gender of the person that wrote that question, but this is something I see across all genders for people. And I think sometimes men are also acting into that myth, and they're actually not ready for it either. But they feel that it's a slight on their masculinity if they don't make an advance towards it. So I think. sometimes you find that both people actually would like to wait

and I've worked with people in sex therapy where this has been one of the things they've realised that part of their conditions for good sex is about needing to know someone and trust them and that actually that's quite a valuable thing to know about yourself because maybe then hook up sex just isn't really for you and I've had a few people that I've worked with that have experimented with saying that to people they're dating

and they've generally been met with relief from the person that they've been dating who's like actually yeah me too but that's so that's great so heartwarming let's say we're all vulnerable individuals that we just yeah again as we said the beginning of these backpacks of anxiety it's just communicating and I think too also we have such an onus on goal-orientated sex that both parties need to come and that's the kind of and that puts such a huge pressure and as soon as you said before as soon as you start thinking muscle orgasm, must orgasm, muscle orgasm. It doesn't happen.

I'll tell you what's not going to happen. Orgasm. Yeah. And so I think it's perhaps like moving away from that kind of goal-orientated version of sex. Maybe like actually quite nice, as you said at the beginning, just kissing or just fingering or doing whatever it is. And that is actually something we know is harder during hookup sex, that when you ask

people to say what sexual scripts are, like A then B, then C, the set menu, people say that in hookup sex, that's much more rigid and that once you know someone, you can can vary from that a bit. But the first time you have sex with someone, if you try and vary that and go, you know what, let's just have anal. Or you know what, let's just, why don't you just give me oral sex and then that'll be it? Like, in casual sex, that's much harder. So, you know, something to think about. Dr. Karen Gany, this has been fascinating. And thank you too, everyone, for your amazing questions. These have been brilliant, really, really fantastic questions. But this has been such a riveting conversation. I feel like we've only scratched a surface on the wealth of

information that I know you have at your fingertips. I'm a walking sex encyclopedia. Exactly. And conveniently, we can find a lot of your resources online. Where can we find you on Instagram? Where can we find these courses and various things that you've mentioned just now? So at the sex doctor is my Instagram handle and most of my free resources you can access through the link in my bio as well as my TED Talk, my book and online workshops. So much to get stuck into. Thank you so much for joining me today at Sex Talks No. 2. And thank you everyone for joining tonight.

And don't forget to come to the next one, which is going to be in December, and I will be releasing information about it probably on Monday, as soon as all the details are confirmed. But this will be, this is going to be a month. series at the London Edition Hotel. Just busting moves, I wish. I might do. Busting myths around sex and female pleasure and everything we've discussed this evening and just creating a space in which we can ask the sort of questions that maybe we felt unable to ask growing up and to try and rid ourselves at some of the shame I think often surrounds sex particularly as women.

But as I said, incredibly open to men too. I think it's a conversation that we both be having and together. So once again, thank you for attending and see you all very soon. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening today and I hope to see you at the next Sex Talks event at the London Edition. Keep an eye on my personal Instagram page, which is at Emm Louise Boynton for all updates.