SEX ED FOR GROWN-UPS

Why is it that most of us would pick up a book on cookery, but not sex? NATHALIE MARQUEZ COURTNEY explores the myths and taboos that have made us

shy away from learning about pleasure, and says it’s time we demand “orgasm equality”.

Idon’t think the word ‘clitoris’ ever came up in class,” my husband muses wryly. We’re talking about the sex education we got in school and have come to the quick realisation that it had more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese.

Yet for many of us, the bulk of our sex education stopped there, when we were gawky, blushing teens. Sure, there were movies, magazine articles about sex positions, some curious Googling, the odd tipsy chat with friends, and, of course, a fair bit of learning on the job, so to speak, but few of us continue updating our knowledge into adulthood and beyond. And given how dodgy the information we were provided with was to begin with, that can spell disaster for your sex life.

THE DANGER ZONE What was the biggest thing we were meant to learn in sex ed, but probably didn’t? That sex is supposed to be fun. In particular, that it should be as much fun for women as for men. “I used to think the word ‘clitoris’ was slang, because I’d never heard it in any sort of official capacity,” laughs journalist and author Lynn Enright, whose new book, Vagina: A Re-education (Allen & Unwin, €21, approx €18, out March 7), aims to dispel a lot of the misinformation we were given – and in many cases still believe – about our bodies.

Where there is a lack of knowledge, myths can flourish. Enright specifically calls out misconceptions about hymens (“it’s just a random bit of membrane that may or may not be in our vaginas – not this measurable test of our virginity”) and

the clitoris (“it extends inside the body and is much larger than we think; this has been a known fact for hundreds of years, but it hasn’t made its way into mainstream thinking”), but also stresses that so much of what we learned as young women was loaded with ulterior motives, which had a big impact on the quality of sex we went on to expect and have. “There is a squeamishness around vaginas. It starts very young, continues into adulthood, and has huge ramifications for how women enjoy sex,” says Enright.

For most of us, learning about sex was very “dangeroriented”, focused on preventing pregnancy and STIs. “There was so little focus on explaining that sex should be pleasurable,” says Enright. “The standard for your first sexual experience was that it was going to be bad. If we had taught girls about masturbating before they had sex, or about pleasure or even about lubrication, it would have been so much more helpful than saying, ‘It will be really painful and horrible.’”

THE ORGASM GAP Sadly, things aren’t much better for today’s teens. While there has thankfully been a significant increase in discussions around consent, it’s sad to realise that even though the current crop of adolescents has easy access to more information than any generation before them, many still emerge with a very narrow definition for what sexual pleasure looks like. “It contributes to our high degree of sexual assault because if you don’t expect sex to be pleasurable, how are you going to identify a negative sexual experience?” asks Dr Laurie Mintz, a tenured professor at the University of Florida and author of Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality

Matters – And How to Get It (Harper One, €15.39). Part feminist manifesto, part self-help book, it calls out a culture that overvalues men’s sexuality and devalues women’s sexuality, while also arming women with the information and tools to “bridge the orgasm gap”.

In her book, Mintz explains that mainstream media, movies and porn have made the word sex synonymous with intercourse. But sex isn’t just sex. “When we’re repeatedly told that sex equals penis plus vagina, everything else becomes just secondary,” she says, adding that most depictions of sex fail to acknowledge that the vast majority of women don’t orgasm this way.

In the US, a whopping 50 per cent of 18-to-35-year-old women say they have trouble reaching orgasm with a partner.

“The best sex position for her to orgasm might just not be intercourse at all.”

In heterosexual relationships, why do so few women expect to orgasm as much as men do? “This orgasm gap, it doesn’t happen in lesbian sex,” says Mintz. “And when women are alone, they know how to orgasm, so it’s something in our culture – a lack of knowledge and a devaluing of women’s sexuality. We need women’s orgasms, and women’s way of orgasming, to be considered just as legitimate as men’s way of orgasming.”

THE F WORD Viewing sex through a feminist lens is nothing new. “When I was researching my book, I realised a lot of this work had been done in the late 1970s, especially in the US,” says Enright. “There was a huge drive by American feminists to educate women about their own anatomy, and that was seen as a very vital part of the feminism that was happening at the time.”

Mintz agrees. “I’m almost 60, so I grew up in an era where we all knew about women’s orgasms, and the clitoris. It was the heyday of feminism and sex positivity.” However, it seems some of this information got lost along the way. By re-educating ourselves, and being more aware of how culture shapes our expectations, we can become more comfortable exploring and discussing our sexuality and – crucially – asking for what we deserve.

SEX ED: THE NEXT GENERATION In recent years, technology and social media have become powerful tools for flipping the cultural script. “I’m doing a lot of my sex education through social media, especially Instagram, these days,” says Mintz (follow her @drlauriemintz). There are informative, sex-positive Instagram accounts, TED Talks on sexuality, and even apps.

Dr Lyndsey Harper is a certified obstetrician, gynaecologist and founder of Rosy, a new app for women with decreased sexual desire (meetrosy.com). In the US alone, about one in three women between the ages of 18 to 65 say they’ve lost interest in sex. A key part of helping women with low libido involves bringing women’s pleasure back to the forefront. “We should really be thinking more about orgasm equality, where for every orgasm your partner is having, you should be having one too,” says Harper. For a large percentage of women who suffer from low libido, simple behavioural changes – from improving communication to exploring new methods and even reading erotic fiction – can prove to be a huge help.

And while re-examining all the myths and falsehoods we were fed as teenagers is crucial, it’s also important to continue our sex education as we grow and change. “As we encounter new things – like pregnancy and postpartum, menopause or even stress – we have to re-learn things about our bodies and figure out how to communicate that to our partners,” says Harper. “Sex education goes along with us for life.”