Sex With Emily - Best of: Women, Lust & Infidelity w/ Wednesday Martin

Episode Date: December 18, 2021

“Women cheat for emotional connection, men cheat for sex.” “Men are horn dogs, women are frigid.” Heard any of this before? Did you know these are factually untrue? In this fan favorite episode, cultural anthropologist and bestselling author Wednesday Martin joins me to talk about female sexuality research findings, now that more females are entering the field of sex research. Believe me when I say: her revelations will change your life.Wednesday’s book Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free was a major conversation starter. Today, we’re more open to alternative relationship models, and a huge part of that is because of Wednesday. In this conversation, she debunks the lies we’ve been told for decades about female sexuality, including: men just want to spread their seed, while women want to protect their precious eggs. Wrong! Turns out, monogamy is pretty rough on female desire. How about this one: women cheat because they crave emotional care. Nope! Sometimes, women just want sex with someone new. Finally, how did these lies get started in the first place? Wednesday walks us through the faulty science that got us here, and how accurate measures of female desire are radically changing the way we understand sex – for all genders. For More Information About Wednesday Martin:Website | Instagram | TwitterUntrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust and Infidelity is Wrong Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in don't ask, don't tell relationships. Oh, yes. Or monogamous relationships. In one study reported the highest levels of jealousy. Whereas people in polyamorous relationships and swingers, I love swingers. Reported really low levels of jealousy and very high levels of sexual satisfaction.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Women cheat for emotional connection and men cheat for sex. Men are horn dogs, women are frigid. Have you heard of this before? Did you know these are factually untrue? In this fan favorite episode, cultural anthropologists and best-selling author, Wenzay Martin, joins me to talk about female

sexuality research findings, now that more females are entering the field of sex research, and believe me when I say, her revelations will change your life. Wenzay's book, Untrue, why nearly everything we believe about women, lust, and infidelity is wrong, and how the new science can set us free was a major conversation starter. And it's probably one of the books that I quote most often. Today, we're more open to alternative relationship models,

and a huge part of that is because of Wednesday. In this conversation, she debunks the lies we've been told for decades about female sexuality, including, men just want to spread their seed while women want to protect their precious eggs. Wrong, turns out, monotomy is pretty rough on female desire. Or how about this one? Women cheat because they crave emotional care. Nope, sometimes women just want sex with someone new. Finally, how did these lies get started in the first place? Wednesday walks us through the faulty science that God is here, and how accurate measures of female desire are radically changing the way we understand

sex for all genders. All right, intentions with Emily for each episode join me in setting an intention for the show. I do it, I encourage you to do it. My intention is to clarify the truths of female sexuality so that no matter what your gender is, you can have more empathy for yourself and the women in your life. Please rate and review sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. My new article, The Top Sex Myths, You Need to Stop Believing, and Holiday Gift Guide is up at sexwithemily.com. Also, check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex or 559 8255739.

Just leave me your questions or message me at sexwithamily.com slash ask Emily. Alright everyone, enjoy this episode. When Z Martin is the best-selling author of Untrue, why nearly everything we believe about women, loss and infidelity is wrong, and how the new science can set us free. She's a cultural anthropologist, writer, and social researcher, and the author of several books including the number one New York Times bestseller, Primates of Park Avenue, Step Monster, and Marlene Detrich.

She received her doctorate from Yale University, where she went on to teach cultural studies and literature and is the co-host of the True Sex and Wild Love podcast with Whitney Miller. Find more Wednesday at WednesdayMartin.com on Instagram at WednesdayMartin PhD and Twitter at WednesdayMartin. You've debunked so many myths that my head is spinning. I wish when I'm in my 20s, I was like you in the sense of I was going in relation to go in relationships and I monogamy didn't suit me. Monogamy does not suit so many women and there is some new thinking in anthropology and evolutionary biology that if one of the sexes evolved for promiscuity, there's a very good case to be made that it was women. But yes, here we were in our 20s, right?

And we would, I know what we did. We would get into a relationship. The sex would be great. The relationship part would be great. Everything would be fun. And then, usually, within one to three years, all the sudden, bam, our libido went down, down, down, down the mountain. And we thought there's something wrong with me because this guy or this woman is so great.

I want it to be like it was before though. I want the sex to be so hot. Guess I better find somebody else. Exactly. Do you know why that happened to us? Tell me why. Because nobody told us the truth. Right.

We were fed a steady diet of lies about female sexuality, including that women are from monogamy and men are from promiscuity. Nothing could be further from the truth. We now have longitudinal study. After longitudinal study, showing us longitudinal studies from Germany, Finland, England, the United States showing us that in the aggregate women get bored faster than men do in a long term relationship. Thank you.

And that monogamy is a tighter shoe for women in the aggregate. So tight. It is for men. So tight shoe. Are there exceptions? There are exceptions. Of course, but in general, monogamy is harder for women than it is for men. And like I said, we have the longitudinal studies to show it.

The study showed it to the where did it go wrong. Like, why do we believe this to be true? I think that a lot of it got started in the latter half of the 19th century with Charles Darwin, who wrote in his book about sexual selection and in his other book about natural selection, that based on his observations, he asserted that females of most species were sexually coy and reticent and retiring, whereas males of most feces were pugnacious and aggressive and more sexual, right? And then in 1948, this English geneticist named Angus Vaateman did these studies of fruit flies, and he said, oh, guess what? I found out, the males really benefit from mating multiple. They made all over the place. oh, the reproductive success goes up and up.

But the females really only benefit from mating wants. If they mate multiple, it doesn't really increase the reproductive success. Okay, Darwin laid the groundwork so that when Angus mate flies, okay, this with these fucking fruit flies, people were ready to generalize it to every other species including humans.

And they said, yeah, said yeah look men of course They want to just spread their seed and shoot all of that and women just want to be all Chewsy and coy with their costly little egg guess what there are all kinds of benefits we found out after Women became field scientists and studied what females of different species were doing actually and they said um these females of all these different species are really promiscuous many of them more promiscuous than the males especially non-human female primates so why are we still holding on to this narrative right so basically I'm blaming a lot on Darwin who is also a great hero, but we're here.

He's not here. So we needed all these amazing female scientists to come in and to bring their own forms of empathy and curiosity to the sciences to improve them. And what they all discovered is hold on. F on females also benefit from mating multiple let's deal with female promiscuity in many species including humans and I'm not using the term promiscuity in a negative way if it's even possible to take the net out of that right that word has a lot of Sting does it or women who want to have multiple partners let's just say multiple consortium exactly that's great Whatever make you feel good ring We don't want to offend anybody here

But is that kind of what drove you when you're saying women scientists I mean you and you're you are a doctor anthropologist. What do you do? You've done so many things Everything I have a background in anthropology and primatology I got my doctorate and cultural studies I wrote about the history of anthropology and psychoanalysis And I've been obsessed with female sexuality Not for to 25 years. I don't know. I guess it works a really big time. Yeah, it is but I live in LA And I was in San Francisco that but now it's it even better But I feel like we just I was like listening to your stuff like screaming run her. Oh, yes

Yes, because you're like why don't why were we fed this notion? So what do we do now because we believe all the stuff that we've heard that women learn libidos, we just no longer want sex. Here's what I like to say about that when people say, how can it be that monogamy's harder for women? And a lot of times men or women will say to me, you know, my girlfriend is the one who's just not interested in sex.

And it's really hard not to say, oh, she's interested in sex. She's not interested in sex with you again and again and again and again without mixing it up a little bit because women need variety and novelty and sexual adventure study after study and on true show us at least as much as men do. Exactly. And keep it interesting. And keep it hot.

It's one of those things where the science, when you tell people the science, so many women say, oh my god, wait, are you saying that I'm normal? Now imagine. Yeah, imagine if we shared it with people. We're not telling couples you have to break up. We're not telling women you have to step out or open up your relationship or do it. We're just saying let's get these facts to couples so that when women have the typical drop-off in years one to three if they're having sex with the same person over and over,

everybody's aware of it and instead of the woman and the man or the woman and the woman saying to each other or the people saying to each other, there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with our relationship, there's something wrong with my partner. They could instead say, oh no, Emily's just a normal woman, being a normal woman. We know this from the sex research, let's not flip out.

Let's figure out how to get us in variety and novelty and adventure. Maybe we remain monogamous, maybe we don't. But there's so much new science now, and we just need to get it into people's hands, for example. I was just at STAR, the Society for Sex Therapy and Research Annual Conference in Toronto. Meredith Chivers, the amazing badass sex researcher

from Canada, has recently been working on a way to measure female desire, which tends to be triggered or responsive desire rather than spontaneous desire. So we knew thanks to Rosemary Basson that female desire sometimes works a little differently for male desire. People talk about spontaneous and responsive. Yeah, spontaneous desire I hope you're listening to this because this is gonna change your goddamn life Well, we're gonna try to make it not boring either, but that's what I love about you

You're so you're these boring person on the planet and you're brilliant. Let's love it fun and like candy, right? Like like the cover my book on truth. So on the true is the book you guys So when male sex researchers were in charge of sex research like the cover of my book on truth. So, on the true is the book, you guys. So when male sex researchers were in charge of sex research, they measured sexual desire one way. You know that feeling when you're just sitting there and suddenly you want to have sex, like you want to have a hamburger?

Oh wow, look what's happening. That's called spontaneous desire. When we only measure spontaneous desire, men seem to have much stronger libidos than women. Along comes Rosemary Basson, a Canadian sex researcher. I like to say there's something in the water up there. And she goes, wait, I think there might be different kinds of desire, different desire styles.

And she discovers that often women are experiencing what we might call trigger to responsive desire. They're not interested in sex. And then suddenly somebody touches their arm and they say, that's a good idea, or maybe they start fooling around. Then suddenly they're interested. So this is called the circular model

versus a linear model. Meredith Chiffers is working on developing a way to measure triggered or responsive desire. So that we're gonna have a really good sense. We do know that when we consider triggered and responsive desire, not just spontaneous desire. And when we measure women's levitas at certain times, the difference between the male and female levitas is negligible. This is interesting. We need to tell women that they have sex. They have sexual desire, and they

think they're freaks. Right. So we just did. We just, let's break it down. What I always say to them, I say, I say, okay, so you know, like when your, your husband comes home and he sees you in the kid, or let's easy do the kitchen, you're doing the dishes and he comes up behind you because you look so sexy there, whatever you're doing, you're doing something. And then you're like, ask, ask, ask. And he's like, oh, and that was so like the 50s house wife. I'm sorry. I can't fucking out. I'm not going to correct it. It's not you can't be. You could be kinky. She was wearing like the 50s housewife, I'm sorry. I can't fucking out, but I just did that as a whole. I'm not gonna correct it. It's not gonna be a good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good, But he saw her ass and got a boner and she said what I'm just saying you're doing the dishes and I was still my phone

I wasn't ready to roleplay yet Bob right most men are more typically they have more the spontaneous They might they might we're thinking that it's like when women became primatologists and they observed the behaviors of female Vanobas and female chips and female in the cacks and they said you guys the males aren't just Mouting these past females the females females are orchestrating the whole thing. They're like, hey, come on over here. They're tapping the ground in a way that says, let's do it right now. It took female researchers bringing those new forms of curiosity and even identification to go, wait, we need to look at the picture in a different way.

They changed up primatology in the same way female sex researchers are changing up sex research by just, you know, bringing different forms of curiosity. Right, because it was all men studying other men. Yeah, even with medications were realizing, I mean, there's so many things that we just men were just being researched or being studied. That's right.

So we need to find out we're so, we're our own men and women the same. No, we're not the same. Right. And, you know, and the really fascinating thing for me has been how many lies we've been told about, I mean, I just took out more of the, because your book is called Untrue

with the whole thing is on lies. What's some of your favorite lies? Oh, one of my favorite lies is that the female levito is a shrinking violet compared to the male levito. Untrue, we just talked about that, measure it the right way people, and you will see that the difference is that. So there's nothing wrong with that.

That we've been feeling broken, I felt broken, why can't I do monogamy and why can't I? You can't do monogamy because you're a normal woman being a normal woman. If you can't do monogamy, you're also a normal woman being a normal woman. But stop with the lie that monogamy is easier for women and harder for

men. The data blows it out of the water. Then we have the thing about the libido. Let's go to another one. I like to look at infidelity because I think it's like the sort of radical test case of how we feel about gender parity, right? We can say, oh, I believe women should get equal pay. I believe in gender equality. And then you show people a woman who is stepping out or who is openly refusing monogamy and people say, oh, no, not that. So, infidelity sort of shows us how do people really feel when women sees a privilege that has historically in our culture belong to men? So that's the reason that I'm so obsessed with infidelity. It tells us so much about our feelings about gender.

One of the big lies has always been that women cheat for emotional reasons and men cheat for sexual reasons. Now, one of my favorite things that I learned at Star was I met one of my heroes, Sarah Hunter Murray. Okay. She did a study, one of the longitudinal, Sarah Hunter Murray. Okay. She did a study, one of the longitudinal studies I referenced about how monogamy is harder for women. But now she's working on this research about what she calls the ever, the myth of the ever

ready male. This myth that men always want sex and that when they're cheating or stepping out, it's only for sex and they're always ready and they always wanna go and she's saying, wow, when we profile men this way, we're damaging men. Yeah, same expectation for men, but like, well, I didn't wanna go now, I feel less like a man.

That's right. So bad science about female sexuality is also bad for men. It's bad for all people. So this idea that women cheat for emotional reasons, when I wrote on true, I got to interview this great sex researcher. Everybody should know about her doctor Alicia Walker. And she did a big study on women using Ashley Madison. And guess how they felt about their marriages? How? They liked their marriages a

lot. They just wanted some variety. They just wanted some variety and novelty. They liked everything about their marriages, except they weren't getting the sex they wanted. So they used infidelity Dr. Walker says, it was like a work around strategy. They wanted to not blow up their marriages. They went on Ashley Madison, oh, they auditioned these guys. We can't get into it, but they were pretty cool-hearted. And anybody who reads about this study will see female sexuality is not what I thought it was.

It's not the way it's been represented. And also, women certainly don't just cheat for emotional reasons. We do want to have time. Yeah, and plenty of men are cheating for emotional connections. So it's like Alicia Walker and Tammy Nelson tell us, Dr. Tammy Nelson tells us, our motivations for refusing monogamy, men and women are very, very similar. So those are some of my favorite words.

Those are our eyes. To just blow up. I love blowing up. Because why I hear two from friends, we're like, well, like friends who are just going through divorce or they're breaking up with something, they're like, well, every time I have sex with someone, I just fall in love.

Emily, I can't just date randomly. And I feel like that's something that they've told them so far, they've been told over time. I'm like, no, you could learn to not, if you go out there, it's for your pleasure and you learn to other things. If the whole world were telling women all the time, you are such a dog, you just like to go out there

and hit on it. Like you would hit that, you hit anything because your female eventually, that social script would get into your head and it would give you permission if you wanted to do that to do it. So, the sort of gendered social script that monogamy is easier for women is affecting us on a very deep level. I also want to say, for some of us monogamy is easier for women is affecting us on a very deep level.

I also want to say like for some of us monogamy is absolutely great, but as you know, as a sex researcher, monogamy for an entire lifetime, true actual sexual monogamy, does not conform to any model we have for how we habituate to a stimulus over time to how we're desensitized. Yeah, like why would it work if we get bored with everything is what we're saying for her bit to it right? Like literally in such an hour while that diet coke is just boring everything. It is though. If you had one every day or your house you want to change your furniture after what like you get bored of everything. Why can't you can't swap out

your maid after maybe use maybe let's not fetishize monogamy and presume that women are the guardians of monogamy and it's our fault. And we're more invested in it. But hey, if monogamy works for you, that's awesome. It does, right. Here's the lesson of anthropology, which is the way I look at the world. We evolved as very flexible social and sexual strategists. We can thrive in polygamous relationships. We can thrive in

polyandrous relationships, right, which is where women have more than one husband, which happens in Tibet and China, in some places in India. We can, some of us are asexual. Some of us are, we identify as pansexual. Some of us, especially women, might be straight for a long time, and then all of a sudden we say, I'm in love with my best friend, and in a long-term, serious, committed, sexual, emotional relationship with her, and then we might change back again.

All that through the lens of anthropology, through the lens of us being very flexible, sexual strategist, all that is completely normal. So I'd just like to say to women struggling with monogamy you're just a normal woman being a normal woman I don't ever want to hear a woman say to me again You don't want to talk to me about sex because I'm really unusual because I have a really strong libido That's what all the women in your book said you said all that all came to you so you you interviewed tons of women

I did. I interviewed 31 experts from all kinds of fields from anthropology to primatology to psychology, sociology, medicine. And then I interviewed 30 women between the ages of, I believe, 21 and 93 about infidelity. They all talked to me about it. And one of my favorite interviews was the 93-year-old woman who was one of the original

Kinsey interviews. I know. I just found her. She was like, oh, I did this through the great find. So yeah, so she participated in Kinsey's original. What did you find? I mean,? I mean, I found them out. You interviewed 39 Monogamous women, a very stage as two. So what? There's one thing that you found in Monogamy? Yes, well, first of all, the other thing I did

is I reviewed over 200 studies about women and infidelity or infidelity and different species, females of different species. So that's how I write all my books. I do some fieldwork. So I also went to like sex parties and I went to polyamory cocktail parties that my friend Michelin from Open Love New York. I love you, Open Love New York. That's so fun.

We open up New York. What's that? It's an open. So that's a support group for and an educational resource for people who are interested in being polyamorous and It was co-founded by Michelin and a wonderful woman named Chrissy Is the president of open love New Yorker if you are thinking about polyamory If you're having a hard time with monogamy and you want support if you want to play board games with some polyamorous people Yeah, if you want to go to a cocktail party with some polyamorous people if you want or go to

Yeah, I just got some group there a wonderful I love open love New York They're a wonderful resource for people because people still I think it's getting better I do feel like people are more open to the open relationships like Like people, like I've been doing this for 14 years, talking people and research again. I feel like it's a bit in there. People are like, no way, it could never work. And I've noticed now, in the last few years, there's just a little bit more information.

And people are like, well, we're thinking about it. Even tonight, we got a call. We're thinking about opening up. And it's definitely changed in the last three to five years. See about how people are flexible, sexual strategies. Yes, we are. We are. And like we evolved to be like, get a little bored.

What can I do with it? So when you change the cultural container, right? When you have shows like wanderlust or insecure, when you have people like Emily Moore's talking about non-monogamy, suddenly the brush fire starts. That's a bad analogy. No, but if they get it. But suddenly you're changing the language that people have access to and the thinking

they have access to. And then that flexible, sexual, and social strategizing kicks in. And people say, huh, that's kind of interesting. Maybe, of course, there's some people who are like, absolutely not. But can I say something? Yeah. Amy Moore's did this fabulous study. Okay. I love for sure. I want all these women. I Moore's did this fabulous study. Okay.

I love research. I want all these women. I want to, this is our girl army of these women. Yeah, you need to add Amy Moore's to your girl army. She is a sex researcher who's very interested in consensual nonmenogamy, just like Terry Conley is. Okay. And has done great research.

So Amy Moore's did this study and she discovered that over a 10-year period, people's internet searches for terms like open relationship and consensual non-monogamy over basically the last 10 years increased exponentially. So I like to say that Americans are married to monogamy, but when it comes to our internet habits and our television viewing habits, our porn habits and our listening to Emily habits, we are curious about our options. We are curious.

We're gonna take a quick break, but stick around. When we get back Wednesday, it's gonna share how practicing nomin' on me can actually bring you closer to your partner. So what would you say is the thing that he will misunderstand the most about nominatamy? How can it work? People just think, nope, you can never do it. Shut down.

I'm like, well, you asked me what the people that I interviewed told me. And one thing that those who were consensually non-monogamous said was that very counterintuitively an expert said this as well, that the consensual non-monogamy improved their couple bond like hugely. So many women said to me, I love my girlfriend so much more because we agreed to have adventures and I never thought I could have sex with somebody in front of my girlfriend, a woman would say, but we went there and we had to communicate so much better about it. And then it sort of made us like hot and new to each other. And I saw her in a new way and she saw me in a new way. Okay, really before I wrote this book, it never would have occurred to me that having

sex with someone other than your partner could improve your bond with your partner. I have to say that was very counterintuitive for me. But I started in jail. Okay. But I heard it again and again from the people I interviewed. And I heard it from experts like David Lay. He writes about how I was. And the right about Cuckold in a lot.

Yeah, the Cuckold lifestyle. People are more into Cuckolding now that's side-no. Side-no. We can get back to that. Yeah. So I get in the Cuckold. Experts like David Lay and Justin Lemiller and other sex researchers like Tammy Nelson

all told me that their patients report that can central and not what they see among these couples. Yeah, what do they see? They see that the couples become great communicators and they see that their couple bond is really strong and that they report higher levels of sexual satisfaction. Then people in monogamous relationships and guess what? Guess who reports the lowest levels of jealousy? Paulie Nominog, people in people in consensually non-monogamous relationships.

So people in don't ask, don't tell relationships. Or monogamous relationships. In one study reported the highest levels of jealousy, whereas people in polyamorous relationships and swingers, I love swingers, reported really low levels of jealousy and very high levels of sexual satisfaction. But okay, so that makes sense to me, but could it also be because of the way they were raised that there's certain things that could have happened that people were drawn towards that lifestyle. You know, I just heard a paper at Star about personality attachment style and how you will do with consensual non-renogamy based on your attachment style.

And it makes total sense, right? Attachment is just the way you felt about your first primary caregiver, the person who looked at you, and you either saw from the look in their eye that you were enough as you were, or you saw the person saying, I might leave the room, I never come back. That's like the age of four, before they age of four, right? Yeah, it's when you're really little. So parents can do this at a young age. So people might want to dig into some of the research about attachment style and consensual

nonmenogamy. We know that people who have an anxious attachment style, it makes sense that consensual non-monogamy might make them pretty anxious. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh. Okay, sorry, I was going to get excited. I'm avoidant. Oh, you're avoidant.

I do believe that one of, there are several different avoidant attachment styles and one of them did okay with consensual non-monogamy. Yeah. It's pretty weird. Anyway, I think it's very interesting to look at that. different avoidant attachment styles and one of them did okay with consensual non-negamy. Anyway, I think it's very interesting to look at that but also so what about the people listening are going yeah Emily would ever but I'm in this I that's crazy talk I'm a no-go-miss but I just I want to have sex like partner again and I don't want to it's been 20 years and are you do that for 20 years and my partner does it's usually man woman woman woman whatever someone doesn't want it

okay first of all you're a normal person being a normal person. It doesn't mean that you don't love your partner. It doesn't mean that you're not in a great partnership. It means you're sexually bored and that's not a referendum on you or your relationship or your partner. Yes, it's just not. So knowing that and then finding another way maybe you don't want to have sex with other people. Okay, so watch porn and pretend your partners and other person. Yeah. Go watch some people. You don't want to have sex with other people. Okay. So watch porn and pretend your partners and other person. Go watch some people. You don't have to do it. Go watch people in real life having sex together.

You can pay people for stuff though. Okay. No, right? You can also just go to a sex party and enjoy it for free. You don't have to do anything. I know this sounds boring, but lingerie can be super fun. Oh. Um, you know what?

Do you remember Marta Mianna, the sex researcher? Familiar. OK, she wrote a great dynamite paper. She's at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which I'm always like, that must be really fun. Yeah, it must be. Oh, we both went to the same school. Oh, we were fun Michigan.

Both of us, I went to Michigan. Not the cut you off. No, that's OK. But I believe I got to be more as I mean, more is was or isn't Michigan and so was Sarah Van Anders, who recently left that the University of Michigan has some great sex researchers. But so, Mar-to-Me, yes. Biggest Las Vegas.

Okay, so Mar-to-Me, yeah. Wrote this really funny paper called, it's not you, it's me, because here's what she did. She did a study. She said, wow, women are getting sexually bored. What turns them on? She did a great study called, why did passion wane? Okay, this other study called, it's not you, it's me.

She's been talking to all these women about how monogamy is killing them, they love their husbands, but they're just not turned on. And then she's noticing that female sexuality has this kind of autonomous quality to it that she hadn't really thought about before. She said, wait a second, let me follow up on this. She says to the women, listen, she says to the women, if you were having sex with your partner in front of a mirror, how much of the time would you be looking at yourself?

And how much of the time would you be looking at your partner? And the men are like, what are you talking about? I'd be looking at my partner. And she said to the women, same question. How much of the time would you be looking at the mirror? And how much of the time would you be looking at your partner? And the to the women, same question. How much of the time would you be looking in the mirror? And how much of the time would you be looking at your partner? And the women were like, I would be looking in the mirror like a lot.

Yeah, like a lot, a lot, a lot. And myself. And myself. So she said, let me dig into this a little further. Like a good sex researcher. And so then she asked them, you guys to the men, would you have sex with yourself? And the men said, I'm sorry, what?

They just really didn't understand what she was saying. And she asked the women, would you have sex with yourself? And a lot of them said, oh, hell yes. And Marta Mianna said, as if they already had. So there's this quality of female sexuality that we need to dig into a little bit more that women are really getting off and watching themselves have sex. Who knows why, but buy a mirror if you're bored. It's so true.

It could be awesome. We always talk to put a mirror in the bedroom. Take a look. And now we have the research back in the... Look at your vote, too. As long as you're doing it, put a mirror up to that. People, women, don't often look at themselves. Yeah, not often enough.

No, but put a mirror in your having sex. It is so hot. Okay, so I went to star the Society for Sex Therapy and Research on Friends. I'm having such a photo. You're coming next year. We're gonna be roommates. Okay, yeah.

All right, so Lori Mints, who I love, who wrote me coming, Clitoret, she's wonderful. She wrote a book called Becoming Clidrit about the orgasm gap. And then after she spoke Debbie Herbeneck, who is a Kinsey Fellow and a sexist or a researcher, reported some findings from a 10-year representative sample study of thousands of Americans. And Debbie Herbeneck said, it's really important that we deal with the orgasm gap. I want to talk to you guys about something called the everything gap and everybody went,

what is this going to be about. So the everything gap basically shows that when it comes to sexuality, there is a very wide difference between male and female experience. Let me tell you some of the facts from the everything gap. Women were twice as likely to have sex when they wanted it only a little bit or not at all with the guy. Okay, listen to this one. Women were more than three times as likely as men to have had sex that was not at all pleasurable. That's really upset. Yeah. Okay, what about this?

Who was more likely to have sex that was not at all arousing? Women were like 15 times more likely to do that. 15. Yeah, and then how about this one? Painful sex. Okay, women were like 20 times more likely to have had painful sex. I'm sorry, don't have my glasses on.

If I don't, it's exactly right. It's on my Twitter feed. And what about this? Have had scary sex. 12% of men, 21% of women, that sounds close, right? Yeah. How did men describe, how did women describe scary sex? That somebody choked me, that somebody threatened to kill me, that somebody raped me. That's how women

described that they had had a scary sexual experience, 21% of them, or an assault. Men, 12% said they had a scary experience. How did they describe a scary experience? For men, a scary experience was, a woman was going down on me and suddenly I thought that maybe she had had sex with a friend of mine the day before, right? Or I was afraid that I broke the condom. So there was a big gap between how men and women describe scary experiences in life. So we have this everything. The orgasm gap is the tip of the iceberg. We have an everything gap in our culture when it comes to sex between men and women. And we have to close the everything gap

as well as the orgasm gap. And you know, one of the reasons we have an everything gap is we fetishize for heterosexuals. We fetishize intercourse. Why do we fetishize intercourse? I don't know. Because it's what gets men off. Look how men masturbate.

They go like this. Up and down, up and down. I'm doing this with my finger for the viewers on the bed. She's like, I'm fucking my- She's right, right. She's doing that thing when you look at your exact- Okay, for men, intercourse is exactly

like how they jerk off. How do women get off from literal stimulation, right? So, we're fed, when we fetishize intercourse as sex, and most of us think of sex as intercourse, except the people that you've educated. We're fetishizing male pleasure. Until we become obsessed with female pleasure, until we care about it and value about it as much as we value male pleasure, women are going to be having value about it as much as we value male pleasure, women are going to be having painful sex, women are going to be having scary sex, women are going to be having sex that they're not as interested in having.

So the everything gap just speaks to this enormous chasm and experience and how we are just valuing male pleasure so much more than we're evolving. That's it, because every night I'm teaching someone, no, no, it's okay that you can orgasm during intercourse. Most women can't. Yeah, every night there's someone who's like, Oh, I didn't know that we'd all ages all a lot of women think that we know that it's a minority of women, right?

Who can come from intercourse alone. And if you're coming from intercourse, probably it's because you're one of those women who doesn't have a distal clitoris, right? We just happen to be, oh, listen to this, here's a rule of thumb literally. If the distance, if the distance is less than the width of your thumb, you are likely to come. If the distance of the glance of your clitoris to your vagina is less than the width of

your thumb, then you're likely to come from intercourse. Most women, that's Marie Bonaparte. Okay, so that's studying it. And then later a primatologist, just an enemy, we did the study. So if the distance is less than the width of your thumb, you are one of those very, very lucky women who can have an orgasm from intercourse, but it's just because your clitoris is close to your vagina. By the way, it tends to be petite, small breasted women, I'm just saying.

Most of us, though, cannot have an orgasm. Is it really petite, small breasted women because that's me and that's not where my clitoris is. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. You're going to go back and measure. Well, I've never, I should, your boyfriend or husband or girlfriend might be like, why is there a tape measure here? They wouldn't be surprised. They go into my bedroom

whoever comes in. I don't know what the hell they're going to find. That's what happened to the author of Bunk. I can't remember. Oh, Mary, Mary from Mary's coach, one of the funniest things is exciting. I love Mary Rose. It's amazing. She writes about how she learned about Kim Whalein and Elizabeth Lloyd's research about the distal clitoris. The distal clitoris decided to measure the distance and her husband came in and saw the tape measure and said, what are we doing? What's going on here, but we're doing on here.

Well, which is so amazing. No, most women cannot have an orgasm from intercourse, but we keep telling them that, and it's not like we tell them explicitly, intercourse is the shit No, it's always see it's always see we why who's making porn? men So if we had more women making porn I love Erica lust is there any other site that I don't I don't know about because I love Cindy gallops

I love Cindy Gallop make love not porn. She Gallup. She really loves porn. She's amazing. She wants to do that too, and Erica lust, but look, we used to have Candida Royale, right? Yes, I know. I love Candida Royale. We need a female porn revolution. I get so inspired. That'll fuel the female pleasure revolution. Well, that's what we need, because we're saying,

how do we get back to female pleasure? I know you have two sons. I do. And so I just want to say, are you starting the revolution with them? Are get back to female pleasure? I know you have two sons. I do. And so I just want to say, are you starting the revolution with them? Are you talking about female pleasure? Oh, I have. They've seen the three D model of the internal female clitoris. They know exactly what it is.

They can tell their friends. They say, you know what? Yes, mom. It's the internal clitoris. It's the, I love that. So I'm just trying to do it in schools. Yeah. And then sometimes they'll say, is there anything you want to talk about?

And they say, no, no, not at all. But I just keep the key to keep the conversation going. I offer to my 17 year old all the time, like, honey, maybe I could come to your boarding school and give a talk about female sexuality. And wow, then he just behaves so well. He does that. Do you want mom to show up with a 3D Clitorist? Do you?

Don't make me bring my clip to your school. I got a vulgar puppet in my hand. I got that 3D Clitorist and I'm coming in. And as you do the dishes, you are a teenager sniper. Parenting with Emily. You can't even imagine. Oh my God, when say Martin, you are are a teenager, and I'm a parenting with Emily. We can't even imagine. Oh my God, Wednesday, Martin, you are such a dream, you're a delight.

You are brilliant. All the work you're doing untrue. Check out our book, Wednesday, Martin. We're gonna put all this in the show notes. And it's a, WednesdayMartin.com, anything else you want them to find you. No, I just want women to find their clitoris and show everybody where it is.

We are doing a good fight. So, we're you, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Emily, for everything you're doing. It's our house. Thank you. Thank you. That's it for today's episode, see you on Tuesday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily.

Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review where every you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at sexwithemley.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationship, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex.

That's 559 825 5739. Go to sexwithemily.com slash askemily. Special thanks to A-CAST for powering the Sex with Emily podcast. Was it good for you? Email me feedback at sexwithemily.com