'All Women Want' — how to have great sex, with Alyx Gorman
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ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music and more. I mean, I learned a lot about the smell of 600 people having sex. Oh no! Did you? Yeah. Tell me more about that. I would call it musky and primal and intense. The smell will stay with me forever. This is writer Alex Gorman. She's the Lifestyle Editor of The Guardian Australia.

And what she's describing is the very human smell of a sex party with a population the size of a small outback town. She was there not to breathe in the heady stench of sex for fun, but as research for her new book. MUSIC

It's not an unpleasant smell, but it is a very strong smell. Because you know I'm very smell-focused. I have a really good sense of smell. Was it balls? Was it the smell of balls? No, it was the smell of... I mean, the sex party I went to is kind of... It's like the bumble of sex parties. Women have to ask first and women have to approach men. So it wasn't balls? It wasn't so many balls? I would say the smell was more...

Female arousal? It was like more vulva than balls. I'm so glad that we really dived in there. I can taste it all in my sinuses now. While I clear my sinuses, let's talk.

There are some problems in the world that we know about but haven't solved. Climate crisis, President Elon Musk, people wearing terrible perfume in confined spaces, moustaches on men except Pedro Pascal and the orgasm gap. It's not news that heterosexual women have fewer orgasms than men. But knowing about the problem and fixing the problem are two very different things.

This orgasm imbalance was the impetus for Alex deciding to write her new book, All Women Want. In the book, she looks at the roadblocks keeping women from reaching the destination known as great sex. MUSIC

Like any very thorough journalist, Alex threw herself into the project. And as we just heard and smelled, she visited sex parties, interviewed porn actors and sex workers, and most importantly, she spoke to people just like us, everyday women, about the potholes in their sex lives. No, not hot holes, potholes. I'm Yumi Steins. Ladies...

We need to talk about the pleasure gap with Alex Gorman.

In researching her book, Alex spoke to 50 women between the ages of 22 and 72 about their sex lives. I really wish I'd been able to interview someone in their 90s, but unfortunately no one put their hand up. Alex grilled them about desire, pleasure, what turns them on, the hottest sexual moments of their lives, and also how they spend money on sex.

There's this kind of funny idea that people don't want to talk about sex. But let me tell you, when you put your hand up and say, hey, I'll interview you anonymously about your love life, people really want to talk about sex. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. It's so true. And we experience that here at Ladies We Need To Talk all the time. So, Alex Gorman, what kind of things did the women share that you were like, oh, there's definitely a pattern here?

about, say for instance, the best sex of their lives? Every woman had an incredibly different answer.

However, when I ask them, what did your partner do to enable that incredibly hot sex? That's when three themes emerged. The first is basically what I call the poetics of circumstance, where everything comes together. Let's say you're on holiday and you have a dazzling night out and you meet someone who seems like Prince Charming and everything is

kind of comes together. It turns out he's staying in a five-star hotel and you go back to his bedroom and it's incredible. That is very difficult to reproduce. The next theme, also really hard to reproduce, and that was chemistry. I don't know what made it so good, but we just clicked. Now, the third theme, very, very easy to reproduce. Everyone can hopefully do it, and that is...

He asked me what I wanted and what I liked. Shocking, shocking how few women had stories about that, but for many of them, he just asked resulted in the hottest sex of their lives. Wow, I love that because we can do that. And because people are by and large not psychic, the only way to know what your current partner likes is to ask them.

Any men listening, just rewind one minute and re-listen to what you just heard. It'll break things wide open for you, trust me.

If you're a regular listener to Ladies We Need To Talk, the orgasm gap is a term you've probably heard before. But just in case you missed it, we are not talking about the time between your multiple climaxes. So the orgasm gap, which is sometimes kind of presented as it's a men and women problem, it's actually a straight people problem. Lesbians are great at kind of turn-taking and listening to each other, much less of an orgasm gap in men.

queer relationships. But typically, straight men tend to climax when they have sex nine out of ten times or even more than that. And for straight women, it's around six out of ten times. So that three out of ten difference, that is the orgasm gap. And the reason why the orgasm gap is such an issue is for not all women, but for most women, most of the time,

having an orgasm is just not that hard. So for around 10, 12% of women, achieving climax is really difficult. And I've spoken to four or five women who say basically they have never had an orgasm or they almost never orgasm. But for everyone else,

with the right care and attention, you should be getting there. And that kind of 20% in between are not, and that's because the sex that they're having isn't working for them. I mean, obviously we know that not all sex has to lead to an orgasm.

That's a given. But why is there an orgasm gap? What is the cause of the gap? I think the number one culprit is an ultra focus on penetrative sex. So we all have kind of sexual scripts in our head, like this happens, then this happens. And for straight people, that script is

is very much about the P and the V. And the reality is, for most women, you need clitoral stimulation that you don't necessarily get from vaginal intercourse in order to climax. Having orgasmic sex takes much longer than people would necessarily expect.

This has become a recurring theme when talking about sex with experts and laypeople on this podcast. So once more, for the people at the back, really good sex will probably take a long time.

It means really warming up that engine slowly before you start going vroom, vroom. And overemphasis on P and V sex undercuts the likelihood of orgasm. While writing All Women Want, Alex met lots of ladies still wedded to the myths about pleasure. I had lots of women kind of repeat to me as gospel or fact that,

things that just aren't true like so many women saying well there are five kinds of orgasm well there are 12 kinds of orgasm no the kinds of orgasm are there's orgasm it can be one or it can be infinite I like to think that the kind is infinite yeah every orgasm you have is a precious and unique snowflake what's the most pressing thing that women need to be taught about sex I

I think the most pressing thing that women need to be taught about sex is actually most of the time, you're fine, you're normal. If you don't feel like having sex, that's fine and normal. If you feel like having a lot of sex, that's fine and normal. Your vulva is fine and normal.

you're normal, you're okay. I think that there is a lot of anxiety around our sexuality. So many women I spoke to basically expressed this fear that they're not having cool enough sex. Oh, really? Even if they were happy with the sex that they were having, they're like, oh, well, I'm not that kinky or I don't want to do anal. So maybe there's something wrong with me.

Now, in sex positive circles, there is a phrase that's become really popular, which is don't yuck someone's yum. That means don't judge someone for what they enjoy. Now, I think that it's probably equally valuable keeping in mind don't yuck someone's yum. Don't yum your own yucks. Yeah.

I guess to translate, that means don't be non-consensual with your own desires. Yeah, exactly. Like there are things that you can be willing to do that you don't necessarily enjoy, but your partner's enormous enjoyment of them gives you a lot of enjoyment. Like if your partner loves sucking your toes, great. If you're happy to have your toes sucked, that's awesome. But I think if there's something that you're not interested in or that really kind of squicks you out...

You don't have to do that. Yeah. But, there's always a but though, right? There's a certain pressure. And this is something I'm curious about what evidence you saw around. Pressure on young women in particular, younger women, to not be vanilla and to be very, I'm using quotation marks, open to doing things that do yum their yuck. Yeah, and I think like that pressure exists not just for young women. I would actually say like...

Many of the women in their 40s that I spoke to, especially kind of women going through separations or women who are kind of about to get back into dating, had a real fear around what am I going to be expected to do now?

everyone's watching so much porn. Am I going to be expected to act like a porn star? So it's not just young women experiencing this pressure. This pressure seems to be translating to dissatisfaction. To confirm, Alex asked the women she spoke to to nominate a man or men who were amazing lovers. She then followed up and asked those men what they were doing that made them so good at sex.

For those men who were considered to be great in bed, super-pornified sex was absolutely not what they were doing and not what they wanted either. You mentioned, Alex, pornified sex. Let's talk about that because this is such a big issue in modern pleasure, I think, is people having these templates that have been laid down by pornography and then applying them in real life for want of any other information or any other templates.

How does that affect pleasure? Well, I think that we're really quick to blame just porn for these things, but it's not actually just porn. It's also, think about Hollywood movies where they get straight to penetration and she's immediately having an orgasm. Think about how rarely you see cunnilingus in a sex scene in a film versus just straight up penetration. So we blame porn, but

Porn is not the only cause of our faulty sexual scripts. And I don't want to say that porn isn't real sex because there are real people who are really having that sex to create porn. But what porn is, is entertainment and it's also often feats of enormous physical athleticism. Porn sex is like a stunt double in a movie. Mm-hmm.

What I see is degrading acts and sex between a man and a woman often having some element of humiliation. Yeah.

And I can't help but feel that that's going to influence the way people do it in real life. Yeah, I think it definitely is, particularly for younger people who haven't necessarily done the self-exploration to figure out their boundaries and their own tastes. It's sort of a monkey see, monkey do situation. And yes, the majority of mainstream porn is hyper-focused on penetration, just like all of our faulty sexual scripts, and is...

harder, faster, more intense than the kind of sex that most people want to have. And a lot of it is really misogynistic. Not all porn is misogynistic, but what gets a lot of attention? The most extreme, most shocking, most intense things. Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about how choking has become something that people dating have to contend with whether they choose to or not. Yeah, so this is something that was a real theme that emerged in my conversations with

younger women, the older women I spoke to would kind of fall off their chairs if they heard that choking might be a standard sexual menu item. Okay, well, that in itself is interesting. So there's an age cutoff where strangulation, let's call it what it is, is not so present in the dating pool. Yeah, there definitely is. What age is that? I'd say it was around 40-ish that

Women would still talk about choking, but they'd talk about it as, I fear for my younger sisters, not this is something that I'm actively experiencing. Okay. And then for younger people, what is their on-ground experience with this? So the on-ground experience is some of the younger women I spoke to actually enjoyed being choked. And there have been big surveys conducted in Australia and the US that sort of suggest that it's something that

many young women will say they like. Now, is that a risk-aware thing to be getting into? Probably not. And then suddenly when you explain the risks associated with choking, which are considerable, the number of women who say, oh yeah, I'm into that, really drops. Some women like being choked. Most women don't.

do not want to be choked and will be very distressed when they are choked. But if you don't ask and say, hey, do you like this? And then you just try that move and

The chance of really upsetting and freaking someone out is very high, but also you're not necessarily going to get feedback saying, hey, I don't like that in the moment, because what sane woman would, in the middle of someone having their hand on your throat, give negative feedback?

It's not good. It's really bad, isn't it? Oh, it's so full on. It's so full on to talk about it. I mean, this is the whole point of this particular podcast, Alex, is that we need to talk. But we need to talk. Everybody needs to talk, including heterosexual men. Yeah. Maybe especially heterosexual men. Well, I'd say, yeah, like,

All of the men who are good at sex that I spoke to and some of the men that I spoke to about their porn consumption habits, they all said that they rarely, if ever, talk to their male friends about sex. There's a huge level of discomfort and shame for heterosexual men around talking about sex. And actually, heterosexual men experience sexual shame at really, really high rates, higher than women.

Men, we need to talk. Note to self, forward this podcast to every straight man I know. In her book, Alex drills down on the dynamics of a heterosexual relationship and what gets in the way of enjoyable sex. She discovered some interesting research with a really sexy name.

It's called the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men. Okay. But what it essentially identifies is four different factors that can lead to straight women, particularly in long-term relationships, having much lower sexual desire, having worse sex lives. And one of the key factors is the mental load. So if your husband feels like

another child that you take care of, that frustration and that resentment just means you're not attracted to that man anymore. And when you think of your partner as another child, it actually causes a lowering of certain hormones that result in sexual desire.

which is fascinating. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? When you think about your partner in a certain way. If you think about your partner as another child, the hormone levels that are associated with having sexual desire actually really dip because parenting suppresses sexual desire, which is good. We want that. And then when you apply that framework to someone who would otherwise be

a sexual partner, it's not just a mental thing. Your mental state affects your physical state too. The other factors are our own kind of body critical, objectified

kind of self-chatter in our heads, like that sort of floating above the bed feeling where you're worrying about, oh, do I look fat while we're having sex? Like you can't have good sex if you're in your head or above the bed but not in your body. Nice, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

The last factor that makes average heterosex quite crappy is the sexual scripts that we talked about before, you know, where there's this expectation that penetrative sex is king sex, orgasms are the outcome of some uninspired thrusting, turn your nipple like it's a volume knob and treat the clitoris like the thumb button on your PlayStation kind of sex. Oh, and expectations about what you're supposed to do because you're a man or a woman.

The idea that he always has to ask and you always have to say yes, that you can't ask, you can't be assertive. Well, maybe you want to be assertive. And if you were allowed to take charge in the bedroom, maybe you'd want to have sex more often. Yeah. And maybe have the sort of sex that you want. Exactly. It's one of those basics, isn't it? That if the sex is really good, of course, you'll want more of it.

If sex is kind of garbage, then why do you think that that woman doesn't want to have more sex with you? Sex is kind of like a snowball. The more great sex you have, the more you're thinking about sex, the more you want it, the more you're thinking about it, the more you want it, the more you're thinking about it, the more you want it. And bad sex is kind of like that snowball melting. The more bad sex you have, the less you want it. Yep. And what is really interesting to me is the number of women I spoke to who sort of said,

I thought that I was not a sexual being, that sex was off the cards for me forever. And then I got divorced. And guess what? It turns out it wasn't me. And now they're having the best, most exciting, most amazing sex of their lives. Wow. On a personal note, Alex, what have you learned that you've taken into your life, into your sex life from writing this book?

Well, the level of comfort that I've had to develop in writing this book has certainly done wonders for my own sexual communication. But more than that, I think the knowledge that sometimes it's normal to

not to want to have sex and sometimes it's normal to want to have a lot of sex and that our sexuality is fluid and changes over time has really alleviated a lot of the anxieties I've had about myself as a sexual being. So understanding that actually either way is okay is...

A source of great peace for me. Oh, how good is peace? Peace is great. We are caught in this paradox, and I think this is somewhere where I exist. The message is to be sexy and sexual, but not too much, like America Ferreira did say in Barbie. And to remember that it's not for our benefit, it's for the male gaze. Yep. There's a lot of that.

But the choice not to have sex or to only have sex on our terms, specifically the way we want it, it just doesn't seem as valid a choice.

Yeah, I think that there is this kind of, and I call that the marketing message when it comes to sex, which is that more is never enough. That in a partnership where you've got a desire differential, the person who wants it less has a problem and the person who wants it more is fine. And I think we apply this mindset to a lot of different things in our lives, but

especially when it comes to sex. We've got this kind of hyper-consumption perspective on it where you should be, especially if you're in a relationship, you should be wanting it all the time. And it's just not true. What did you learn in your research about the ways sex is marketed to women and how is that different to how it's marketed to men? Well, the way that sex is marketed to men is kind of all about like

ease and gratification, like very sort of quick fix, like here's some porn. For women, the marketing around sexual wellness is very much focused on empowerment and knowing yourself and knowing your body. And that can be fantastic. Like for instance, vibrators for many women work an absolute treat, like absolutely.

You might get RSI before you reach a climax if you're using your own hand, and then a vibrator can take you there in two minutes flat. Great. But...

Not every woman likes vibrators and not every vibrator works on every woman. And so this message of empowerment, when it's interpreted by the women that I spoke to, quite often feels like a sense of mandatoriness. Like, oh, I'm a prude if I don't like vibrators. Well, no, your body just might not work that way.

Alex, we're sold this idea that women are sexually empowered these days. You know, that if we choose, there's nothing standing in the way of our pleasure. But that's not the case, is it? No, it's not the case at all. Because sex is, as the academic experts like to say, a biopsychosocial phenomenon, which means that...

Our biology might stand in the way of great sex. Our psychology might stand in the way of great sex. And probably the least attuned to element of this is our social context might stand in the way of great sex. So let's say your long-term partner never does the dishes, never helps with childcare. You are not going to want to have sex with that man. I already hate him.

Well, a lot of the women I've spoken to who were in long-term relationships that weren't happy were sort of expressing this feeling of frustration, not just about their sexuality, but about the feeling that they had. No time, no space, that their mental load was so high. Now, for some people, being really stressed is a turn-on, but for most people...

If you're really stressed out, you just aren't up for it. Yeah. And especially at the moment, like we're in a cost of living crisis, we're in a housing crisis, people's stress levels are very, very high. And if your mortgage is doubled, you're not going to be able to put that

kind of stressful burden aside in the name of great sex necessarily. Yeah, sure, yep. That along with relational issues, partner issues are things that mean that great sex just isn't possible for a lot of people and my solution to that is to just kind of take stock of your situation, acknowledge where you're at in your life and sometimes say, you know what, sex doesn't need to be a priority right now because I've got...

two kids under five and I'm not sleeping and I'm working full time. And even if your relationship is great under those circumstances, if you're exhausted and frazzled, why would you want to have sex? Well, it's a good endorphin rush, but I like the way that you're answering this in that

We can't just choose to be present for hot sex because we're empowered women. That's not how it works. There's a whole bunch of factors standing behind us, kind of prodding us and affecting how we feel towards doing it at all, ever. I think the most empowering thing you can do is acknowledge where you're at in your life and say, hey, my personal circumstances right now mean...

I just don't necessarily feel like it. Maybe you're single and there's no one you actually want to have sex with. Well, you can still have a great sex life with yourself, but certainly you don't have to go out and seek it with someone that you do not care for just in the name of feeling like you're some hot sexual goddess. Okay, so Alex, given everything you've just said, is sexual empowerment bullshit? No.

I don't think sexual empowerment is all bullshit, but I think that our idea of what sexual empowerment is, which is, oh, you have to be incredibly adventurous and have an insatiable appetite and be easily and highly orgasmic immediately. You're not sexually empowered if you can't squirt. That is bullshit.

Sexual empowerment is knowing your mind, knowing your body, understanding what you need and also having the wherewithal and the sense of safety to be able to ask for those things. So the reason why my book is called All Women Want is because all women do want something and it's not necessarily something

penetrative sex three times a week, it might actually just be help with the dishes. What can a woman do today after listening to this to improve her sex life?

Well, first of all, let go of any pressures and expectations you're putting on yourself about your own sex life. So the way I like to think about this is know that your sexuality is fluid and hold your desires lightly. Hold your desires lightly because there's every chance that they're going to change. But

Figure out your sexual values and hold your values firmly. If you value adventurousness, well, that might look like being adventurous just with yourself or it might look like being adventurous at a 600-person orgy. But know that your desires, your sexuality is going to change throughout your life and that's good and normal. Mm-hmm.

The other thing that you could do today to improve your sex life is, and only if you feel like it, have a wank. We could do that today. Yeah, you could do that today. Maybe later tonight, maybe when I go home. Yeah, only if you feel like it. But if you feel like having a wank and you've got the time and the space to do it, self-knowledge, a great sexual relationship with yourself is important.

always a kind of foundation and cornerstone of anyone's sexuality. Alex Gorman, thank you for joining us today here on Ladies, We Need to Wank. Yay! That was so great. I can't believe how much you can retain in your mind. You're amazing.

This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need To Talk is mixed by Anne-Marie de Bettencourt. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising producer is Tamar Kranswick and our executive producer is Alex Lolbach. This series was created by Claudine Ryan. Hey, Belinda Smith here, host of Lab Notes. Now, have you ever had bacterial vaginosis? You know, the condition that can make you smell a bit fishy? No?

One in three women will get it, and many will keep getting it. Why BV returns for some people was a real puzzle. Until now. Researchers have found that BV-related bugs can be sexually transmitted, and treating male partners drastically cuts reinfection rates. For the full story, search for Lab Notes on the ABC Listen app.