Sitems can often be a disappointment – especially for women. A recent study from the official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research shows that while gay and straight men climax around during about 85% of their sexual encounters, women have sex with women orgasm about 75% of the time, while women have sex with men comes last (literally) with 63%. With a first-time relationship, the difference is further extended, with 80% of men achieving orgasm compared to only 40% of women.
This problem, known as the “orgasm gap” or “pleasure gap” (because orgasms are not always the goal) is the starting point for Netflix’s new documentaries The Principles of Pleasure. In this trilogy, narrator and comedian Michelle Buteau takes viewers on an educational journey about what the pleasure gap is, why it happens, and how on earth we get past it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers sex to be part of our overall quality of life – as the show outlines – so women who have less pleasure than men mean they also have a lower quality of life. Basically, it means that engaged men and women – no matter how loving they may be – are not equal in their relationship. Researchers have linked equality – pleasure and more – to sexual consent and say that not having this equality means women are more likely to be forced into unwanted sex. This feels like the first time this connection has been explained on mainstream television, making The Principles of Pleasure feel almost revolutionary.
Part of the show’s significance is to highlight how far behind even the science of the subject is. One of the most eye-opening lessons unfolds in the first six minutes as Dr. Emily Nagoski – author of the sex science book Come As You Are – tells us that modern sexual science still lacks an understanding of how pleasure works at all. “We do not have a basic understanding of the system we want to participate in,” she states bluntly.
We are given the disappointing truth by scientists working in the field. Psychologist Dr. Lori Brotto and sexual psychophysiologist Dr. Nicole Prause explains how many research proposals – including Prause’s own – that could reveal a lot of lack of information about female orgasms, ejaculation, arousal and dysfunction have been rejected due to male discomfort in the scientific community. The series draws back the curtain for a mostly hidden industry and reveals that even the scientific teams behind human discovery do not act without bias.
Decades after Sigmund Freud rejected clitoris and told any woman with a sexual problem that she was “hysterical” (which, as the series tells us, comes from the Greek word for uterus), our understanding of female pleasure is still defined by Men . So even though science has become much less sinister in its methods (scientists do not run around and remove people’s clitoris anymore), little has changed in terms of the sideline of women’s pleasure. “Imagine if you could go back in time and learn about your body, about sex and how to embrace your desires without fear. How would the rest of your life be different?” asks the narrator.
The second part of the significance of the Principles of Pleasures is its attempt to place power in the hands of women. While we understand that it should not be our responsibility to try and fail our path to good sex, the show offers genuine sex education lessons that we can use to teach ourselves to give, receive, invoke, and enjoy pleasure while science catches up slowly.
It is refreshing to see these topics discussed so openly on screen. It’s almost liberating to see sex toy expert Dirty Lola teach us how to masturbate in ways that work for us, including which toy to try and how to use it. Nagoski’s teachings also feel hugely welcome as she shows us how we can increase our body security so we can see ourselves as a more sexual person – and recommend that we stand in front of the mirror and compliment the things we love on a daily basis.
The show also nails something critical: consent. The experts and interviewees take us through how to properly ask for and give it without any analogies at the surface level. Instead, they jump into the pure how early trauma experiences distort our perception of sex, which can lead us to struggle with giving, refusing, or receiving consent.
This element of the show is particularly important as 97% of women surveyed in the UK have experienced some form of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, and 96% do not say their opinion.
“We live in a world where women feel they need to say ‘yes’ to everything or ‘no’ to everything, and that’s not where great sex happens. Fantastic sex requires the clarity of communication that gives everyone permission to [ask for what they need specifically]”says Nagoski, further explaining how this missing piece often results in women” accepting “sex they do not want.
The most important takeaway from the Principles of Pleasure is that the largest, most complex sexual organ is not our genitals, but our minds. This is why oppressive structures, beliefs, and policies have been able to twist into our psyche and directly affect our sex lives, even if we do not believe in them. However, that is also why we are turned on by people’s personalities and ideas. This is why talking to our sexual partners undoubtedly stretches the sexual potential and why we can undo these problems with our own attachment and creativity.
From complimenting ourselves in front of a mirror to turning consent into a foreplay by asking “would you like it if I did this?”, We can use our minds to make sex better, instead of treating sex as a hopeful game with the push of a button. As the narrator says in the show’s conclusion: “Next time, pleasure feels too far away or too complicated to get to, take a break. Try to be really quiet, because the answers are inside you. ”