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[female narrator] Getting off, coming,
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00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:11,971
climaxing.
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00:00:12,638 --> 00:00:16,893
About as soon as we learn what sex is,
we understand orgasm to be the goal.
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00:00:17,810 --> 00:00:19,771
But depending
on the body you're born into,
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chances are
you get very different messages.
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TV and movies tell us
the male orgasm is easy.
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Sometimes too easy.
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[moaning]
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[grunts[
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[narrator] But the female orgasm...
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it's complicated.
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Everybody knows the basic erogenous zones.
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You got one, two, three...
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-four...
-Spontaneous orgasms.
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-[woman] Female ejaculation.
-Was that good or bad?
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[narrator] Even though women have
all of these possibilities for pleasure,
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one U.S. study found
that half have said they faked it.
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00:00:56,682 --> 00:01:00,520
And in a 2017 study
of over 50,000 Americans,
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95% of straight men said
they regularly orgasm during sex,
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compared to 65% of straight women.
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Yet for gay women,
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that number was 86%.
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Why is the female orgasm somehow
more difficult when a man is involved?
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And why are many of us still so confused?
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This week is
international clitoris awareness week.
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Though, I looked at my calendar
and I couldn't find it.
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Masturbation is a part of human sexuality.
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Women have to take the responsibility
for their own sexual satisfaction.
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[woman] It's called the finger and thumb.
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That was great. I didn't know
it would be as terrific as it really was.
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It goes so quickly sometimes
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that people don't realize
that touching each other feels good.
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[narrator] This is your brain.
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And this is your brain at orgasm.
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The only thing that comes close...
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is seizure.
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There's an increase in delivery of oxygen
and nutrients throughout the brain,
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so orgasm, in that sense,
has to be good for the neurons.
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It's cardio for the brain.
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It can't be bad.
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[narrator] During orgasm, the male
and female brain are pretty much the same.
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[Komisaruk] The biggest difference
that we see is after orgasm.
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[narrator] The male brain experiences
what's called a refractory period...
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where it's no longer responsive
to genital stimulation.
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But that is not the case with women.
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The brain is equally responsive,
even possibly more responsive,
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after the first orgasm.
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[narrator] Which is why women
can have multiple orgasms in a row.
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Another thing we've learned
from brain scans...
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is that two parts of the brain
activated by orgasm
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are also associated with pain.
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There's some fundamental connection
between pain and pleasure
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we do not understand.
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We don't have a concept for that.
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[narrator] So what does it
actually feel like?
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My first orgasm,
I remember very clearly tasting sugar.
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It was as if I was eating candy.
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It filled my mouth, even though
nothing was happening with my mouth.
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[woman] It starts at my fingertips
and the top of my head,
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and, like, the surface of my skin,
and then goes inward.
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Like a drum beat.
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[woman] You know when you close your eyes
and it's black but also all the colors?
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In the actual moment,
they get way brighter.
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[woman 2] Deep dark blue...
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green.
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Right before a roller coaster goes down,
that feeling when you're lifting.
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It's definitely an orange roller coaster.
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Instead of, like plunging down,
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you just sort of slide off
into, like, warm water.
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Sometimes, like, the image of a waterfall.
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I think I am the waterfall.
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Water is flowing into me and out of me.
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Trickle, trickle, trickle,
you find a stream.
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And then my larger orgasms,
I become an ocean.
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And I'm riding on the waves.
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My eyes are closed
and I saw the Virgin Mary.
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She was standing with her arms open.
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She was, like, very happy for me.
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Right before a plane takes off,
you're on the runway.
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You feel weightless for a second.
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And it's just this breathlessness
in my chest
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that feels
like I'm about to leave my body.
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[woman] Weightless and then freedom.
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[narrator] But women often experience
sexual pleasure without orgasm.
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And according to studies
of both French and American women,
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around 16 to 21% have only very rarely
or never experienced orgasm at all.
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I initially thought that female orgasms
weren't a thing.
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I thought that it was either a myth
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or women had to be really lucky to do it.
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There was nothing in health class
about women having orgasms.
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It was just like, "Yeah, men come,
and then you have a baby."
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So when I found out
that my younger sister was doing it,
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I was like... "Okay."
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[narrator] So Remy started a podcast.
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-♪ How cum ♪
-♪ How cum ♪
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♪ How cum I can't acheive? ♪
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[Kassimir] This is my new podcast
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about the fact
that I've never had an orgasm,
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and I am pissed.
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[narrator] Remy used the podcast
as a platform,
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not only to figure out
how to have an orgasm,
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but to feel less alone.
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Once I started the podcast,
so many people start talking to me.
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"Me too," friends of mine,
like best friends, people in my family.
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That really was the point of podcast
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was I was like, "Hi. I'm out here.
Is anybody else out here?"
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The worst that could happen
is that we all have orgasms.
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Let's go.
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[narrator] One possible reason
so many women haven't had orgasms
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is that women aren't taught
how to have orgasms.
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Sex education, if you've had it,
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was probably more focused
on things like this...
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[woman] Girls start to menstruate.
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[man] It happens every time
an unfertilized egg dissolves away.
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Syphilis, gonorrhea, venereal disease...
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[narrator] And if you saw women orgasm
in movies,
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it probably looked more like this.
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[moaning]
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[narrator] But that's not how it works
for most women.
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Only around 18% can orgasm
from just vaginal penetration alone.
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The rest require clitoral stimulation.
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But for most of history,
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the official science about the clitoris
and women's health in general
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was written primarily by men.
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Which helps explain
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why one of the greatest myths
about the female orgasm in recent times
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has persisted for so long.
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That there are two kinds:
vaginal and clitoral.
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And it all began...
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with this guy.
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In his three essays
on the theory of sexuality,
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Freud wrote that during puberty,
the center for female arousal
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was supposed to transfer
from the clitoris to the vagina.
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Women could have clitoral orgasms,
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but the more mature orgasm
was a vaginal orgasm.
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[narrator] Freud also believed
that certain psychological disorders
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associated with women,
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like neurosis and hysteria,
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were rooted in a preference
for clitoral stimulation in adulthood.
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We saw that men controlled this discourse
of female hysteria in the 19th century.
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So, women were diagnosed with a disease
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when they were seen
as being overly desirous.
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Women were abused by doctors
who gave them clitorectomies.
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[narrator] That's the surgical removal
of the clitoris,
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and it's still practiced today.
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For religious and cultural reasons
aimed controlling female sexuality,
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at least 200 million girls
and women worldwide
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have undergone some form
of female genital mutilation.
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Pleasure is about privilege.
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Not everybody has the right
to pleasure historically.
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[narrator] And while there have been
moments throughout history
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when female sexual pleasure was embraced,
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in texts like the Kama Sutra
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and Ming Dynasty erotic novels
like The Golden Lotus...
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even queer Blues lyrics of the 1920s
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were bold about women getting pleasure
on their own terms...
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like Ma Rainey's "Prove It On Me Blues."
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♪ Went out last night
With a crowd of my friends ♪
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♪ They must have been women
'Cause I don't like no men ♪
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[narrator] Those tend to be the exception,
not the rule.
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But, the connection
between the clitoris and orgasm
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has been known for some time.
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When Alfred Kinsey, Masters and Johnson,
and Shere Hite
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published their pioneering research
on female sexuality,
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the data was clear.
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But it wasn't until 1998,
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simply by dissecting ten female cadavers,
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that the Australian urologist
Helen O'Connell and her team
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discovered the clitoris was
way more powerful than we'd known.
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This wasn't the clitoris.
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This was the clitoris.
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The clitoris you see on the outside
is the tip of the iceberg.
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The whole clitoris extends back
up to several inches around the vagina
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and is packed with nerve endings.
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We now know that there is no such thing
as a vaginal orgasm.
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All orgasms are clitoral orgasms.
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All orgasms are clitoral orgasms.
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[narrator] But some women
have also reported having orgasms
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from just their breasts being touched
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or having erotic thoughts.
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Some women have them
while they're sleeping.
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The clitoris didn't solve these mysteries.
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However, it did help us better understand
a pretty famous one.
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But it almost had another name.
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Some colleagues said, "You know, Beverly,
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you should call that the Whipple tickle."
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And I was like, "No way are we
having a Whipple tickle."
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So we named it
after Doctor Ernst Gräfenberg.
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[narrator] Gräfenberg was
a German-Jewish physician
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who's mostly remembered
for inventing the first modern IUD.
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And in 1982, his legacy expanded
up the interior wall of the vagina.
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That's towards the belly.
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There are women who came to me
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because they had this expulsion of fluid
from the urethra.
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[narrator] By going on popular
daytime talk shows like Donahue...
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The Gräfenberg spot is a sensitive area
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that we have found
in the anterior wall of the vagina.
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It's located right about in this area.
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...Dr. Whipple also educated people
about female ejaculation.
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I think that's important to point out.
The fluid comes out the urethra.
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[narrator] The fluid released was said
to be chemically different from urine.
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And...
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Looked like about a teaspoonful
of watered-down fat-free milk.
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[narrator] The contents
of female ejaculate are still debated...
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as is whether the G-spot exists at all.
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Because when other researchers
went looking for it,
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some couldn't find it
and others weren't sure.
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Today, many scientists
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think of the anatomy
of female genital pleasure as a complex
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involving the clitoris, urethra,
and the vagina.
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00:10:37,388 --> 00:10:41,141
And the exact shape and wiring
of that complex varies woman to woman.
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There's no magic button
that works for everyone.
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But a lot of women still get the message,
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00:10:47,147 --> 00:10:49,483
from women's magazines
and even the news,
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00:10:49,566 --> 00:10:51,443
that they should find their G-spot...
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00:10:51,527 --> 00:10:52,528
-G-spot.
-G-spot.
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00:10:52,611 --> 00:10:53,737
-G-spot.
-G-spot.
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00:10:53,821 --> 00:10:57,741
[narrator] ...or any of the new spots
that get discovered again and again.
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U-spot?
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00:10:58,742 --> 00:10:59,993
The U-spot and the A-spot.
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[narrator] A message
that even Dr. Whipple dislikes.
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00:11:02,788 --> 00:11:05,249
When you're searching
for something as a goal,
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00:11:05,332 --> 00:11:07,543
you're gonna miss a lot of pleasure
on the way.
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[narrator] But unlike men,
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where the evidence for orgasm
is pretty clear,
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it's not clear for a lot of women.
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Back in 1976, The Hite Report analyzed
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00:11:17,010 --> 00:11:19,638
the sexual experiences
of more than 3,000 women.
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Some describe the sensations they felt
and wondered, "Is this an orgasm?"
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It's not a dumb question.
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Scientists don't even agree
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on whether all female orgasms
are expressed the same way.
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We know they often resolve
as involuntary contractions,
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00:11:36,613 --> 00:11:39,742
and there's an understanding that
the pelvic floor muscles are involved.
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But what exactly is contracting?
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We don't really know.
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It's very difficult
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00:11:45,581 --> 00:11:50,335
to measure exactly what muscles
are contracting during orgasm.
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The most cynical response...
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00:11:52,713 --> 00:11:56,258
is because there isn't a lot of interest
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00:11:56,341 --> 00:11:58,802
by the National Institutes of Health...
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00:11:59,261 --> 00:12:03,640
in determining
just what super fabulous muscles
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are involved in an orgasm.
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[narrator] Science has also
long neglected the fact
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that eight to 20% of women
find sexual intercourse painful.
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For more than a century,
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female sexual pain was diagnosed
as vaginismus and dyspareunia,
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and often treated a psychological,
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until 2013, when it was reclassified
as a pain disorder.
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Given how much science still doesn't know
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about women's experiences
of sex and orgasm,
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many women and men learn about it
from how it's portrayed
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in things like TV, and movies, and porn.
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I started watching, like,
when I was, like, in sixth grade,
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um, and not 'cause I was, like,
seeking it out or anything.
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It was one of our guy friends,
if we were at his house, would be like,
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"Hey, you guys want to watch some porn?"
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And all the girls are like,
"I'm taking note.''
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Okay, that's what they want.
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That's what they expect.
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[narrator] Learning what's expected
during sex
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and what's taboo
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is what sociologists call
a sociosexual script
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In Western culture,
the popular sociosexual scripts include...
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It's like three pumps
and then the woman's in ecstasy.
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The man's not touching anything.
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He's just pumping away,
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and the woman's screaming.
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When men don't come, sex is a failure.
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When women don't come,
it's normal and it's her fault.
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[narrator] A lot of these scripts...
aren't great for female orgasm.
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Research for decades has shown that
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women have orgasms less than men
in heterosexual sex.
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And that's true in marriages,
and it's true in dating.
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[narrator] And when Dr. Paula England
surveyed over 4,000 college students,
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she found the same thing.
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Women reported significantly fewer orgasms
than men during casual sex.
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But a lot of these men
may have not realized it.
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Many reported
their female partners' orgasmed
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around twice as much
as the women surveyed said they did.
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Women would say things like,
"I feel like I don't even have the right
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to ask for that, or say what I want,
or it would be too embarrassing."
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We weren't taught women were the ones
who knew what we wanted.
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We were taught
that guys are the sexy ones,
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and, like,
they're just gonna do stuff to you,
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instead of having,
like, enthusiastic consent
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that's like, "Yeah, let's do this stuff."
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[narrator] Women asking for what they want
in order to orgasm,
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that isn't part of the script,
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because it is ultimately
the person behind the camera
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who decides how female orgasm
is depicted.
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And in the West,
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directors have long tended
to skew white and male.
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Women of color expected to be
over the top with their orgasms in porn,
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and that's because
of this really long-standing view
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that women of color are hyper-sexual.
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So they're expected to kind of squirt
across the room or have theatrics.
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[narrator] And while lesbian porn
is the top category on PornHub,
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the world's most popular porn site,
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the audience for that is largely men.
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But actual lesbian sex...
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They were more likely to have an orgasm
than women who had sex with men.
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There's a lot more communication.
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There is more turn-taking.
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[narrator] Gay people grow up
with fewer scripts
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about how sex is supposed to be.
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I think for many heterosexual couples,
that would already be an achievement,
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to say, "Hey, what is normal
or what seems to be normal,
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let's just put that aside
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and just figure out
what works for us as a couple.
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But same-sex couples have to start there.
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They have to reject what is normal,
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because what is normal
according to society
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is being heterosexual.
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[narrator] For straight people,
that kind of communication
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tends to be easier in a relationship.
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Which might be one reason why,
in Dr. England's study,
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women with a boyfriend,
compared to a first hookup...
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orgasmed six times as often.
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And last but not least,
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there's one other thing studies show
increases a woman's frequency of orgasm
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regardless of age, race,
and sexual orientation:
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masturbation.
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In the beginning of the podcast, they were
like, "Okay, have you done the checklist
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of, like, things like,
okay, you're not coming? Here.
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Can you do it alone? Do you masturbate?"
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Orgasm is a developmental advantage.
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One of the obstacles
that a lot of women face
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is that they've not been encouraged
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to really explore
what makes them feel good,
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individually in masturbation.
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And so then they also don't know
what makes them feel good
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in a partnered sexual interaction.
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[narrator] In a 2010 survey,
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00:16:28,405 --> 00:16:32,701
girls were nearly twice as likely as boys
to say they'd never masturbated.
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00:16:34,036 --> 00:16:36,163
And during the era
of Freud and hysteria...
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00:16:37,414 --> 00:16:40,333
attitudes towards masturbation
were particularly bad.
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00:16:40,792 --> 00:16:45,547
[Miller-Young] Masturbation in children
was punished and seen as evil.
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[narrator] One theory,
while contested among historians,
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00:16:48,508 --> 00:16:50,635
is that some women
received pelvic massage
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00:16:50,719 --> 00:16:55,265
to induce hysterical paroxysm or orgasm
as part of a cure.
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00:16:55,348 --> 00:16:59,519
But when they masturbated these women,
it was incredibly labor intensive.
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So, with the development of electricity,
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00:17:02,314 --> 00:17:05,609
they helped create the vibrator,
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00:17:05,901 --> 00:17:08,528
uh, which made their job a lot easier.
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[narrator] Since the '70s,
when feminist retailers sold them
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in just a few small shops,
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00:17:13,533 --> 00:17:16,244
the sex toy industry has exploded.
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00:17:16,703 --> 00:17:21,333
In 2017, its estimated value
was over 15 billion dollars.
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00:17:22,501 --> 00:17:25,420
A lot of the products
don't even look like body parts anymore.
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They're designed with numerous routes
to female pleasure in mind.
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So February 22, 2/22,
was a very special day.
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I put down a towel on this here bed.
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I got lube. I got my toy.
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00:17:40,477 --> 00:17:41,686
And then I went to work,
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00:17:41,770 --> 00:17:43,230
and I shit you not,
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00:17:43,313 --> 00:17:48,110
in 30 seconds,
I was like, "I feel something."
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And then I squirted.
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I think it was six orgasms.
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00:17:52,405 --> 00:17:57,369
I've always sought sexual fulfillment
in other people.
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That's not-- You masturbate
to make yourself feel good.
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00:18:00,831 --> 00:18:04,251
And now I understand that,
so I can masturbate,
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have a great few orgasms,
move on with my day, get work done.