[female narrator] Getting off, coming,
climaxing.
About as soon as we learn what sex is, we understand orgasm to be the goal.
But depending on the body you're born into,
chances are you get very different messages.
TV and movies tell us the male orgasm is easy.
Sometimes too easy.
[moaning]
[grunts[
[narrator] But the female orgasm...
it's complicated.
Everybody knows the basic erogenous zones.
You got one, two, three...
-four... -Spontaneous orgasms.
-[woman] Female ejaculation. -Was that good or bad?
[narrator] Even though women have all of these possibilities for pleasure,
one U.S. study found that half have said they faked it.
And in a 2017 study of over 50,000 Americans,
95% of straight men said they regularly orgasm during sex,
compared to 65% of straight women.
Yet for gay women,
that number was 86%.
Why is the female orgasm somehow more difficult when a man is involved?
And why are many of us still so confused?
This week is international clitoris awareness week.
Though, I looked at my calendar and I couldn't find it.
Masturbation is a part of human sexuality.
Women have to take the responsibility for their own sexual satisfaction.
[woman] It's called the finger and thumb.
That was great. I didn't know it would be as terrific as it really was.
It goes so quickly sometimes
that people don't realize that touching each other feels good.
[narrator] This is your brain.
And this is your brain at orgasm.
The only thing that comes close...
is seizure.
There's an increase in delivery of oxygen and nutrients throughout the brain,
so orgasm, in that sense, has to be good for the neurons.
It's cardio for the brain.
It can't be bad.
[narrator] During orgasm, the male and female brain are pretty much the same.
[Komisaruk] The biggest difference that we see is after orgasm.
[narrator] The male brain experiences what's called a refractory period...
where it's no longer responsive to genital stimulation.
But that is not the case with women.
The brain is equally responsive, even possibly more responsive,
after the first orgasm.
[narrator] Which is why women can have multiple orgasms in a row.
Another thing we've learned from brain scans...
is that two parts of the brain activated by orgasm
are also associated with pain.
There's some fundamental connection between pain and pleasure
we do not understand.
We don't have a concept for that.
[narrator] So what does it actually feel like?
My first orgasm, I remember very clearly tasting sugar.
It was as if I was eating candy.
It filled my mouth, even though nothing was happening with my mouth.
[woman] It starts at my fingertips and the top of my head,
and, like, the surface of my skin, and then goes inward.
Like a drum beat.
[woman] You know when you close your eyes and it's black but also all the colors?
In the actual moment, they get way brighter.
[woman 2] Deep dark blue...
green.
Right before a roller coaster goes down, that feeling when you're lifting.
It's definitely an orange roller coaster.
Instead of, like plunging down,
you just sort of slide off into, like, warm water.
Sometimes, like, the image of a waterfall.
I think I am the waterfall.
Water is flowing into me and out of me.
Trickle, trickle, trickle, you find a stream.
And then my larger orgasms, I become an ocean.
And I'm riding on the waves.
My eyes are closed and I saw the Virgin Mary.
She was standing with her arms open.
She was, like, very happy for me.
Right before a plane takes off, you're on the runway.
You feel weightless for a second.
And it's just this breathlessness in my chest
that feels like I'm about to leave my body.
[woman] Weightless and then freedom.
[narrator] But women often experience sexual pleasure without orgasm.
And according to studies of both French and American women,
around 16 to 21% have only very rarely or never experienced orgasm at all.
I initially thought that female orgasms weren't a thing.
I thought that it was either a myth
or women had to be really lucky to do it.
There was nothing in health class about women having orgasms.
It was just like, "Yeah, men come, and then you have a baby."
So when I found out that my younger sister was doing it,
I was like... "Okay."
[narrator] So Remy started a podcast.
-♪ How cum ♪ -♪ How cum ♪
♪ How cum I can't acheive? ♪
[Kassimir] This is my new podcast
about the fact that I've never had an orgasm,
and I am pissed.
[narrator] Remy used the podcast as a platform,
not only to figure out how to have an orgasm,
but to feel less alone.
Once I started the podcast, so many people start talking to me.
"Me too," friends of mine, like best friends, people in my family.
That really was the point of podcast
was I was like, "Hi. I'm out here. Is anybody else out here?"
The worst that could happen is that we all have orgasms.
Let's go.
[narrator] One possible reason so many women haven't had orgasms
is that women aren't taught how to have orgasms.
Sex education, if you've had it,
was probably more focused on things like this...
[woman] Girls start to menstruate.
[man] It happens every time an unfertilized egg dissolves away.
Syphilis, gonorrhea, venereal disease...
[narrator] And if you saw women orgasm in movies,
it probably looked more like this.
[moaning]
[narrator] But that's not how it works for most women.
Only around 18% can orgasm from just vaginal penetration alone.
The rest require clitoral stimulation.
But for most of history,
the official science about the clitoris and women's health in general
was written primarily by men.
Which helps explain
why one of the greatest myths about the female orgasm in recent times
has persisted for so long.
That there are two kinds: vaginal and clitoral.
And it all began...
with this guy.
In his three essays on the theory of sexuality,
Freud wrote that during puberty, the center for female arousal
was supposed to transfer from the clitoris to the vagina.
Women could have clitoral orgasms,
but the more mature orgasm was a vaginal orgasm.
[narrator] Freud also believed that certain psychological disorders
associated with women,
like neurosis and hysteria,
were rooted in a preference for clitoral stimulation in adulthood.
We saw that men controlled this discourse of female hysteria in the 19th century.
So, women were diagnosed with a disease
when they were seen as being overly desirous.
Women were abused by doctors who gave them clitorectomies.
[narrator] That's the surgical removal of the clitoris,
and it's still practiced today.
For religious and cultural reasons aimed controlling female sexuality,
at least 200 million girls and women worldwide
have undergone some form of female genital mutilation.
Pleasure is about privilege.
Not everybody has the right to pleasure historically.
[narrator] And while there have been moments throughout history
when female sexual pleasure was embraced,
in texts like the Kama Sutra
and Ming Dynasty erotic novels like The Golden Lotus...
even queer Blues lyrics of the 1920s
were bold about women getting pleasure on their own terms...
like Ma Rainey's "Prove It On Me Blues."
♪ Went out last night With a crowd of my friends ♪
♪ They must have been women 'Cause I don't like no men ♪
[narrator] Those tend to be the exception, not the rule.
But, the connection between the clitoris and orgasm
has been known for some time.
When Alfred Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, and Shere Hite
published their pioneering research on female sexuality,
the data was clear.
But it wasn't until 1998,
simply by dissecting ten female cadavers,
that the Australian urologist Helen O'Connell and her team
discovered the clitoris was way more powerful than we'd known.
This wasn't the clitoris.
This was the clitoris.
The clitoris you see on the outside is the tip of the iceberg.
The whole clitoris extends back up to several inches around the vagina
and is packed with nerve endings.
We now know that there is no such thing as a vaginal orgasm.
All orgasms are clitoral orgasms.
[narrator] But some women have also reported having orgasms
from just their breasts being touched
or having erotic thoughts.
Some women have them while they're sleeping.
The clitoris didn't solve these mysteries.
However, it did help us better understand a pretty famous one.
But it almost had another name.
Some colleagues said, "You know, Beverly,
you should call that the Whipple tickle."
And I was like, "No way are we having a Whipple tickle."
So we named it after Doctor Ernst Gräfenberg.
[narrator] Gräfenberg was a German-Jewish physician
who's mostly remembered for inventing the first modern IUD.
And in 1982, his legacy expanded up the interior wall of the vagina.
That's towards the belly.
There are women who came to me
because they had this expulsion of fluid from the urethra.
[narrator] By going on popular daytime talk shows like Donahue...
The Gräfenberg spot is a sensitive area
that we have found in the anterior wall of the vagina.
It's located right about in this area.
...Dr. Whipple also educated people about female ejaculation.
I think that's important to point out. The fluid comes out the urethra.
[narrator] The fluid released was said to be chemically different from urine.
And...
Looked like about a teaspoonful of watered-down fat-free milk.
[narrator] The contents of female ejaculate are still debated...
as is whether the G-spot exists at all.
Because when other researchers went looking for it,
some couldn't find it and others weren't sure.
Today, many scientists
think of the anatomy of female genital pleasure as a complex
involving the clitoris, urethra, and the vagina.
And the exact shape and wiring of that complex varies woman to woman.
There's no magic button that works for everyone.
But a lot of women still get the message,
from women's magazines and even the news,
that they should find their G-spot...
-G-spot. -G-spot.
[narrator] ...or any of the new spots that get discovered again and again.
U-spot?
The U-spot and the A-spot.
[narrator] A message that even Dr. Whipple dislikes.
When you're searching for something as a goal,
you're gonna miss a lot of pleasure on the way.
[narrator] But unlike men,
where the evidence for orgasm is pretty clear,
it's not clear for a lot of women.
Back in 1976, The Hite Report analyzed
the sexual experiences of more than 3,000 women.
Some describe the sensations they felt and wondered, "Is this an orgasm?"
It's not a dumb question.
Scientists don't even agree
on whether all female orgasms are expressed the same way.
We know they often resolve as involuntary contractions,
and there's an understanding that the pelvic floor muscles are involved.
But what exactly is contracting?
We don't really know.
It's very difficult
to measure exactly what muscles are contracting during orgasm.
The most cynical response...
is because there isn't a lot of interest
by the National Institutes of Health...
in determining just what super fabulous muscles
are involved in an orgasm.
[narrator] Science has also long neglected the fact
that eight to 20% of women find sexual intercourse painful.
For more than a century,
female sexual pain was diagnosed as vaginismus and dyspareunia,
and often treated a psychological,
until 2013, when it was reclassified as a pain disorder.
Given how much science still doesn't know
about women's experiences of sex and orgasm,
many women and men learn about it from how it's portrayed
in things like TV, and movies, and porn.
I started watching, like, when I was, like, in sixth grade,
um, and not 'cause I was, like, seeking it out or anything.
It was one of our guy friends, if we were at his house, would be like,
"Hey, you guys want to watch some porn?"
And all the girls are like, "I'm taking note.''
Okay, that's what they want.
That's what they expect.
[narrator] Learning what's expected during sex
and what's taboo
is what sociologists call a sociosexual script
In Western culture, the popular sociosexual scripts include...
It's like three pumps and then the woman's in ecstasy.
The man's not touching anything.
He's just pumping away,
and the woman's screaming.
When men don't come, sex is a failure.
When women don't come, it's normal and it's her fault.
[narrator] A lot of these scripts... aren't great for female orgasm.
Research for decades has shown that
women have orgasms less than men in heterosexual sex.
And that's true in marriages, and it's true in dating.
[narrator] And when Dr. Paula England surveyed over 4,000 college students,
she found the same thing.
Women reported significantly fewer orgasms than men during casual sex.
But a lot of these men may have not realized it.
Many reported their female partners' orgasmed
around twice as much as the women surveyed said they did.
Women would say things like, "I feel like I don't even have the right
to ask for that, or say what I want, or it would be too embarrassing."
We weren't taught women were the ones who knew what we wanted.
We were taught that guys are the sexy ones,
and, like, they're just gonna do stuff to you,
instead of having, like, enthusiastic consent
that's like, "Yeah, let's do this stuff."
[narrator] Women asking for what they want in order to orgasm,
that isn't part of the script,
because it is ultimately the person behind the camera
who decides how female orgasm is depicted.
And in the West,
directors have long tended to skew white and male.
Women of color expected to be over the top with their orgasms in porn,
and that's because of this really long-standing view
that women of color are hyper-sexual.
So they're expected to kind of squirt across the room or have theatrics.
[narrator] And while lesbian porn is the top category on PornHub,
the world's most popular porn site,
the audience for that is largely men.
But actual lesbian sex...
They were more likely to have an orgasm than women who had sex with men.
There's a lot more communication.
There is more turn-taking.
[narrator] Gay people grow up with fewer scripts
about how sex is supposed to be.
I think for many heterosexual couples, that would already be an achievement,
to say, "Hey, what is normal or what seems to be normal,
let's just put that aside
and just figure out what works for us as a couple.
But same-sex couples have to start there.
They have to reject what is normal,
because what is normal according to society
is being heterosexual.
[narrator] For straight people, that kind of communication
tends to be easier in a relationship.
Which might be one reason why, in Dr. England's study,
women with a boyfriend, compared to a first hookup...
orgasmed six times as often.
And last but not least,
there's one other thing studies show increases a woman's frequency of orgasm
regardless of age, race, and sexual orientation:
masturbation.
In the beginning of the podcast, they were like, "Okay, have you done the checklist
of, like, things like, okay, you're not coming? Here.
Can you do it alone? Do you masturbate?"
Orgasm is a developmental advantage.
One of the obstacles that a lot of women face
is that they've not been encouraged
to really explore what makes them feel good,
individually in masturbation.
And so then they also don't know what makes them feel good
in a partnered sexual interaction.
[narrator] In a 2010 survey,
girls were nearly twice as likely as boys to say they'd never masturbated.
And during the era of Freud and hysteria...
attitudes towards masturbation were particularly bad.
[Miller-Young] Masturbation in children was punished and seen as evil.
[narrator] One theory, while contested among historians,
is that some women received pelvic massage
to induce hysterical paroxysm or orgasm as part of a cure.
But when they masturbated these women, it was incredibly labor intensive.
So, with the development of electricity,
they helped create the vibrator,
uh, which made their job a lot easier.
[narrator] Since the '70s, when feminist retailers sold them
in just a few small shops,
the sex toy industry has exploded.
In 2017, its estimated value was over 15 billion dollars.
A lot of the products don't even look like body parts anymore.
They're designed with numerous routes to female pleasure in mind.
So February 22, 2/22, was a very special day.
I put down a towel on this here bed.
I got lube. I got my toy.
And then I went to work,
and I shit you not,
in 30 seconds, I was like, "I feel something."
And then I squirted.
I think it was six orgasms.
I've always sought sexual fulfillment in other people.
That's not-- You masturbate to make yourself feel good.
And now I understand that, so I can masturbate,
have a great few orgasms, move on with my day, get work done.