1 00:00:00,792 --> 00:00:03,018 In our culture we tend to see sex 2 00:00:03,042 --> 00:00:07,393 as something that's more important to men than it is to women. 3 00:00:07,417 --> 00:00:09,018 But that's not true. 4 00:00:09,042 --> 00:00:13,208 What is true is that women often feel more shame in talking about it. 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,625 Over half of women quietly suffer from some kind of sexual dysfunction. 6 00:00:19,500 --> 00:00:22,417 We've been hearing more about the orgasm gap. 7 00:00:23,375 --> 00:00:26,476 It's kind of like the wage gap but stickier ... 8 00:00:26,500 --> 00:00:28,667 (Laughter) 9 00:00:30,083 --> 00:00:32,643 Straight women tend to reach climax 10 00:00:32,667 --> 00:00:36,167 less than 60 percent of the time they have sex. 11 00:00:36,833 --> 00:00:40,917 Men reach climax 90 percent of the time they have sex. 12 00:00:41,833 --> 00:00:45,184 To address these issues women have been sold flawed medication, 13 00:00:45,208 --> 00:00:47,809 testosterone creams ... 14 00:00:47,833 --> 00:00:51,208 even untested genital injections. 15 00:00:52,625 --> 00:00:57,042 The thing is, female sexuality can't be fixed with a pill. 16 00:00:57,958 --> 00:01:00,309 That's because it's not broken: 17 00:01:00,333 --> 00:01:02,042 it's misunderstood. 18 00:01:02,667 --> 00:01:07,143 Our culture has had a skewed and medically incorrect picture 19 00:01:07,167 --> 00:01:09,143 of female sexuality 20 00:01:09,167 --> 00:01:11,684 going back centuries. 21 00:01:11,708 --> 00:01:16,434 If over half of women have some kind of sexual problem, 22 00:01:16,458 --> 00:01:20,292 maybe our idea of sexuality doesn't work for women. 23 00:01:21,083 --> 00:01:25,083 We need a clearer understanding of how women actually work. 24 00:01:26,917 --> 00:01:28,184 I'm a journalist, 25 00:01:28,208 --> 00:01:29,643 and I recently wrote a book 26 00:01:29,667 --> 00:01:34,000 about how our understanding of female sexuality is evolving. 27 00:01:34,750 --> 00:01:40,250 So sexuality itself was defined back when men dominated science. 28 00:01:41,208 --> 00:01:43,434 Male scientists tended to see the female body 29 00:01:43,458 --> 00:01:45,601 through their own skewed lens. 30 00:01:45,625 --> 00:01:49,809 They could've just asked women about their experience. 31 00:01:49,833 --> 00:01:55,393 Instead they probed the female body like it was a foreign landscape. 32 00:01:55,417 --> 00:02:01,226 Even today we debate the existence of female ejaculation and the G-spot 33 00:02:01,250 --> 00:02:04,292 like we're talking about aliens or UFOs. 34 00:02:05,167 --> 00:02:07,559 "Are they really out there?" 35 00:02:07,583 --> 00:02:10,018 (Laughter) 36 00:02:10,042 --> 00:02:13,684 All this goes double for LGBTQI women's sexuality, 37 00:02:13,708 --> 00:02:16,917 which has been hated and erased in specific ways. 38 00:02:18,333 --> 00:02:22,809 Ignorance about the female body goes back centuries. 39 00:02:22,833 --> 00:02:25,518 It goes back to the beginning of modern medicine. 40 00:02:25,542 --> 00:02:28,434 Cast your mind back to the 16th century, 41 00:02:28,458 --> 00:02:32,768 a time of scientific revolution in Europe. 42 00:02:32,792 --> 00:02:35,917 Men of ideas were challenging old dogmas. 43 00:02:36,750 --> 00:02:40,726 They were building telescopes to gaze up at the stars. 44 00:02:40,750 --> 00:02:43,143 We were making progress ... 45 00:02:43,167 --> 00:02:44,684 sometimes. 46 00:02:44,708 --> 00:02:47,268 You see, the fathers of anatomy -- 47 00:02:47,292 --> 00:02:51,518 and I say "fathers" because, let's face it, they were all dudes -- 48 00:02:51,542 --> 00:02:54,018 were poking about between women's legs 49 00:02:54,042 --> 00:02:56,917 and trying to classify what they saw. 50 00:02:57,833 --> 00:03:01,708 They weren't quite sure what to do with the clitoris. 51 00:03:02,500 --> 00:03:05,792 It didn't appear to have anything to do with making babies. 52 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,601 The leading anatomist at the time declared 53 00:03:09,625 --> 00:03:13,434 that it was probably some kind of abnormal growth -- 54 00:03:13,458 --> 00:03:14,476 (Laughter) 55 00:03:14,500 --> 00:03:18,708 and that any woman who had one was probably a hermaphrodite. 56 00:03:19,875 --> 00:03:25,018 It got so bad that parents would sometimes have their daughter's clitoris cut off 57 00:03:25,042 --> 00:03:27,309 if it was deemed too large. 58 00:03:27,333 --> 00:03:28,601 That's right. 59 00:03:28,625 --> 00:03:32,643 Something we think of today as female genital mutilation 60 00:03:32,667 --> 00:03:36,833 was practiced in the West as late as the 20th century. 61 00:03:37,958 --> 00:03:39,226 You have to wonder: 62 00:03:39,250 --> 00:03:42,434 if they were that confused about women's bodies, 63 00:03:42,458 --> 00:03:44,958 why didn't they just ask women for a little help? 64 00:03:46,667 --> 00:03:49,750 But you must be thinking, "All that was history." 65 00:03:50,375 --> 00:03:52,684 It's a different world now. 66 00:03:52,708 --> 00:03:53,976 Women have everything. 67 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:56,143 They have the birth control pill, 68 00:03:56,167 --> 00:04:00,434 they have sexting and Tinder and vajazzling. 69 00:04:00,458 --> 00:04:02,292 (Laughter) 70 00:04:03,542 --> 00:04:06,125 Things must be better now. 71 00:04:06,875 --> 00:04:10,750 But medical ignorance of the female body continues. 72 00:04:13,833 --> 00:04:15,875 How many of you recognize this? 73 00:04:16,875 --> 00:04:20,017 It's the full structure of the clitoris. 74 00:04:20,041 --> 00:04:23,476 We think of the clitoris as this little pea-sized nub, 75 00:04:23,500 --> 00:04:26,559 but actually it extends deep into the body. 76 00:04:26,583 --> 00:04:28,893 Most of it lies under the skin. 77 00:04:28,917 --> 00:04:32,875 It contains almost as much erectile tissue as the penis. 78 00:04:34,375 --> 00:04:35,667 It's beautiful, isn't it? 79 00:04:36,333 --> 00:04:37,934 It looks a little like a swan. 80 00:04:37,958 --> 00:04:39,893 (Laughter) 81 00:04:39,917 --> 00:04:43,309 This sculpture is by an artist named Sophia Wallace 82 00:04:43,333 --> 00:04:46,434 as part of her "Cliteracy" project. 83 00:04:46,458 --> 00:04:47,768 (Laughter) 84 00:04:47,792 --> 00:04:49,893 She believes we need more "cliteracy," 85 00:04:49,917 --> 00:04:52,309 and it's true, considering that this structure 86 00:04:52,333 --> 00:04:57,708 was only fully 3-D mapped by researchers in 2009. 87 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:03,268 That was after we finished mapping the entire human genome. 88 00:05:03,292 --> 00:05:06,292 (Laughter) 89 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,643 This ignorance has real-life consequences. 90 00:05:11,667 --> 00:05:14,101 In a medical journal in 2005, 91 00:05:14,125 --> 00:05:16,726 Dr. Helen O'Connell, a urologist, 92 00:05:16,750 --> 00:05:21,601 warned her colleagues that this structure was still nowhere to be found 93 00:05:21,625 --> 00:05:23,851 in basic medical journals -- 94 00:05:23,875 --> 00:05:25,750 textbooks like "Gray's Anatomy." 95 00:05:27,042 --> 00:05:30,792 This could have serious consequences for surgery. 96 00:05:31,667 --> 00:05:33,476 Take this in. 97 00:05:33,500 --> 00:05:34,893 Gentlemen: 98 00:05:34,917 --> 00:05:38,684 imagine if you were at risk of losing your penis 99 00:05:38,708 --> 00:05:42,559 because doctors weren't totally sure where it was 100 00:05:42,583 --> 00:05:44,375 or what it looked like. 101 00:05:45,958 --> 00:05:47,393 Unsurprisingly, 102 00:05:47,417 --> 00:05:51,476 many women aren't too clear on their own genital anatomy either. 103 00:05:51,500 --> 00:05:52,893 You can't really blame them. 104 00:05:52,917 --> 00:05:57,417 The clitoris is often missing from many sex-ed diagrams, too. 105 00:05:58,667 --> 00:06:04,059 Women can sense that their culture views their bodies with confusion at best, 106 00:06:04,083 --> 00:06:06,625 outright disdain and disgust at worst. 107 00:06:07,458 --> 00:06:11,917 Many women still view their own genitals as dirty or inadequate. 108 00:06:12,875 --> 00:06:15,559 They're increasingly comparing their vulvas 109 00:06:15,583 --> 00:06:19,583 with the neat and tiny ones they see in pornography. 110 00:06:20,750 --> 00:06:25,018 It's one reason why labiaplasty is becoming a skyrocketing business 111 00:06:25,042 --> 00:06:27,625 among women and teen girls. 112 00:06:29,750 --> 00:06:34,393 Some people feel that all this is a trivial issue. 113 00:06:34,417 --> 00:06:36,934 I was writing my book when I was at a dinner party 114 00:06:36,958 --> 00:06:41,208 and someone said, "Isn't sexuality a first-world problem? 115 00:06:42,542 --> 00:06:46,542 Aren't women dealing with more important issues all over the world?" 116 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:49,226 Of course they are. 117 00:06:49,250 --> 00:06:54,476 But I think the impulse to trivialize sex is part of our problem. 118 00:06:54,500 --> 00:06:58,309 We live in a culture that seems obsessed with sex. 119 00:06:58,333 --> 00:07:00,750 We use it to sell everything. 120 00:07:01,417 --> 00:07:02,976 We tell women that looking sexy 121 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:05,542 is one of the most important things you can do. 122 00:07:06,708 --> 00:07:09,809 But what we really do is we belittle sex. 123 00:07:09,833 --> 00:07:14,309 We reduce it to a sad shadow of what it truly is. 124 00:07:14,333 --> 00:07:17,000 Sex is more than just an act. 125 00:07:17,958 --> 00:07:19,726 I spoke with Dr. Lori Brotto, 126 00:07:19,750 --> 00:07:23,226 a psychologist who treats sexual issues in women, 127 00:07:23,250 --> 00:07:25,042 including survivors of trauma. 128 00:07:25,833 --> 00:07:31,042 She says the hundreds of women she sees all tend to repeat the same thing. 129 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,208 They say, "I don't feel whole." 130 00:07:35,292 --> 00:07:39,417 They feel they've lost a connection with their partners and themselves. 131 00:07:40,417 --> 00:07:43,226 So what is sex? 132 00:07:43,250 --> 00:07:46,184 We've traditionally defined the act of sex 133 00:07:46,208 --> 00:07:50,434 as a linear, goal-oriented process. 134 00:07:50,458 --> 00:07:53,143 It's something that starts with lust, 135 00:07:53,167 --> 00:07:56,101 continues to heavy petting 136 00:07:56,125 --> 00:07:58,500 and finishes with a happy ending. 137 00:07:59,542 --> 00:08:02,583 Except many women don't experience it this way. 138 00:08:06,042 --> 00:08:10,042 It's less linear for them and more circular. 139 00:08:10,875 --> 00:08:14,268 This is a new model of women's arousal and desire 140 00:08:14,292 --> 00:08:17,434 developed by Dr. Rosemary Basson. 141 00:08:17,458 --> 00:08:18,726 It says many things, 142 00:08:18,750 --> 00:08:23,559 including that women can begin an encounter for many different reasons 143 00:08:23,583 --> 00:08:25,184 that aren't desire, 144 00:08:25,208 --> 00:08:27,083 like curiosity. 145 00:08:27,583 --> 00:08:32,933 They can finish with a climax or multiple climaxes, 146 00:08:32,957 --> 00:08:36,582 or satisfaction without a climax at all. 147 00:08:37,500 --> 00:08:39,000 All options are normal. 148 00:08:40,957 --> 00:08:46,976 Some people are starting to champion a richer definition of sexuality. 149 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,268 Whether you identify as male, female or neither gender, 150 00:08:51,292 --> 00:08:55,351 sex is about our relationship to the senses. 151 00:08:55,375 --> 00:08:57,125 It's about slowing down, 152 00:08:57,917 --> 00:08:59,684 listening to the body, 153 00:08:59,708 --> 00:09:01,875 coming into the present moment. 154 00:09:02,667 --> 00:09:05,000 It's about our whole health and well-being. 155 00:09:06,667 --> 00:09:07,934 In other words, 156 00:09:07,958 --> 00:09:12,934 sex at its true breadth isn't profane, 157 00:09:12,958 --> 00:09:14,208 it's sacred. 158 00:09:16,500 --> 00:09:21,434 That's one reason why women are redefining their sexuality today. 159 00:09:21,458 --> 00:09:24,458 They're asking: What is sex for me? 160 00:09:25,792 --> 00:09:30,809 So they're experimenting with practices that are less about the happy ending -- 161 00:09:30,833 --> 00:09:32,875 more about feeling whole. 162 00:09:33,708 --> 00:09:36,893 So they're trying out spiritual sex classes, 163 00:09:36,917 --> 00:09:39,101 masturbation workshops -- 164 00:09:39,125 --> 00:09:41,643 even shooting their own porn 165 00:09:41,667 --> 00:09:44,875 that celebrates the diversity of real bodies. 166 00:09:46,167 --> 00:09:50,559 For anyone who still feels this is a trivial issue, consider this: 167 00:09:50,583 --> 00:09:54,143 understanding your body is crucial to the huge issue 168 00:09:54,167 --> 00:09:56,833 of sex education and consent. 169 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:02,976 By deeply, intimately knowing what kind of touch feels right, 170 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,768 what pressure, what speed, what context, 171 00:10:06,792 --> 00:10:10,101 you can better know what kind of touch feels wrong 172 00:10:10,125 --> 00:10:12,167 and have the confidence to say so. 173 00:10:13,292 --> 00:10:17,476 This isn't ultimately about women having more or better sex. 174 00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:21,917 It's not about making sure women have as many orgasms as men. 175 00:10:22,875 --> 00:10:28,726 It's about accepting yourself and your own unique experience. 176 00:10:28,750 --> 00:10:31,958 It's about you being the expert on your body. 177 00:10:32,708 --> 00:10:38,518 It's about defining pleasure and satisfaction on your terms. 178 00:10:38,542 --> 00:10:42,351 And if that means you're happiest having no sex at all, 179 00:10:42,375 --> 00:10:43,667 that's perfect, too. 180 00:10:45,125 --> 00:10:49,309 If we define sex as part of our whole health and well-being, 181 00:10:49,333 --> 00:10:53,434 then empowering women and girls to fully own it 182 00:10:53,458 --> 00:10:55,917 is a crucial next step toward equality. 183 00:10:56,958 --> 00:11:01,018 And I think it would be a better world not just for women 184 00:11:01,042 --> 00:11:02,684 but for everyone. 185 00:11:02,708 --> 00:11:03,976 Thank you. 186 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,833 (Applause)