Cliteracy

Dr. Laurie Mintz, author of Becoming Cliterate, joins Cindy for a discussion about female pleasure, cliteracy and the orgasm gap. Why are women having fewer orgasms than men? What do women really need to experience more pleasure? This conversation provides the education and tools to get you started on the journey to orgasm equality.

Dr. Mintz is a feminist professor, author, speaker and therapist. You can learn more about her at www.drlauriemintz.com, or watch her TEDx talk, Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How to Get It.

More on this topic
The clitoris - it's a network!
Clitoris demo video
The clitoral hood and how to pleasure it
Anatomy 101
Pleasure techniques with penetration

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:05

Permission for pleasure. And I'm your host, Cindy Sharkey. As a registered nurse and educator for over 30 years, I've seen the real need to break the silence surrounding sex, especially for women. This podcast is about opening the doors to healthy conversations about sex. What I've found is that when women have comprehensive education about sex, their self-confidence soars. And when that happens, women can truly express, experience, and enjoy their sexuality. They give themselves permission for pleasure. Welcome to the show. Today I'm going to share my conversation with you that I had with Dr. Lori Mintz. Dr. Mintz is a psychologist, a professor, certified sex therapist, popular speaker, and author of two books. One, A Tired Woman's Guide to Passionate Sex, Reclaim Your Desire and Reignite Your Relationship. And the second book, which we're going to deep dive into today, is Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How to Get It. This is a great conversation with Lori. You're not going to want to miss a minute of it. So let's get on to becoming clitoris. Welcome, Dr. Mince. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to have you here. I've told the community a little bit about you, about the many professional hats you wear, your books. I would love it if you would just spend a minute or two telling us why you became so passionate about helping people become clitorate.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Sure. So as you probably told your audience, I am a professor at the University of Florida where I teach the psychology of human sexuality to hundreds of students a year. And it was really through my students, their successes, their experiences, their failures, that I got passionate about closing the orgasm gap, about helping people become clitorate. Because as I taught about the orgasm gap to my students, which is the consistent finding in the research that when heterosexual women and heterosexual men get it on, the women are having way, way, way fewer orgasms than the men are. But that wasn't just a research finding to my students, right? It was their life we were talking about. And there was a lot of pain that they shared associated with that orgasm gap. And so I start, you know, students said things like, I thought my vagina was broken, what's wrong with me? And so I started teaching my class really to close the orgasm gap and about women's pleasure. And I would get notes from students like, thanks to your class, I'm orgasmic, or thanks to your class, my girlfriend's orgasmic. And I thought, you know what? I want to get this information out there much broader than just the students at the University of Florida. And that's what inspired me to write Becoming Cliterate.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Okay. Yeah. So you have talked to tons and tons of students. Can you just define the orgasm gap? I heard you say it's it's just the real gap between how many times women orgasm versus how many times men orgasm in a heterosexual relationship. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Okay, so when cisgender, we don't have a lot of research on anyone who doesn't fall in the gender binary. So when cisgender women, people born with vaginas, get it on with cisgender men, people with penises who identify as men, we know women are having fewer orgasms. So let me just break this down with some pretty startling statistics. For example, one study found that when they asked young women and men, um, do you always orgasm during a sexual encounter? They didn't ask the type of sex, hookup, relationship, but without that, 39% of women versus 91% of men said they always or usually always orgasm during a sexual encounter. So that's like one striking finding. But what we know, it's even worse in hookup sex. When I talk to my students and do some anonymous polls, which are in my book, only 4% of women, 4% of women versus over 50% of men orgasm during first-time hookup sex. So it's really big in hookup sex, it gets smaller with friends and benefits, smaller in relationships, but even in relationship sex, studies show that women are still having about one orgasm to every man's three. So no matter what type of sex, women are having fewer orgasms than men are, and that's the orgasm gap.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yes, and thank you for the stats. That brings it home, doesn't it? Sure does. I read a study that even in a with a thousand women asked, simply being comfortable saying the word clitoris out loud led to better sex.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yes, exactly. Yes, I saw that same study.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

That brings us to what is needed to close the orgasm gap.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Yes. So it depends if we're talking in individual bedrooms or culturally, although they're related, but your referencing that study about the clitoris is really important because the cause of the orgasm gap is an undervaluing of women's most reliable route to orgasm, which is clitoral stimulation. And, you know, we have movies, mainstream and porn, they show women having like fast and fabulous orgasms from penetration alone. And that's not the truth. Only four to 15% of women orgasm from penetration alone without clitoral stimulation, but we don't value that in our culture. Like even the words we use, right? We use the word sex and intercourse as if they're one and the same. We use the word foreplay for everything that comes before, like it's just a lead up to the main event. And we even call our entire genitals a vagina, which is incorrect. It's a the external part is called the vulva, and it has our most reactive parts, yet we name it the vagina, the part that's more sexually useful to men than to ourselves. So the main cause of the orgasm gap is an undervaluing of the clitoris. And then the solution, both culturally and in individual bedrooms, is elevating the clitoris. Thinking about getting clitoral stimulation is just as important as penetration in heterosexual relationships.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

I heard your TEDx um talk. It's awesome. I hope everyone listens to it. But you said, let's call foreplay sex and intercourse postplay.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Well, I said that. Yes, I said that, and I said that in the book. I say if we overvalued women's pleasure the way we overvalue men's pleasure, we would call foreplay sex and intercourse post-play, but I'm not really suggesting we do that. I'm suggesting that we equally value penetration and clitoral stimulation and consider both equally sex.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, I agree. I I it just really resonates with me, just widening our whole definition of sex in general. I think that plays a huge role for women, especially, to experience more pleasure. My first episode before you and I are talking, I did the whole anatomy of the clitoris. Our discussion today is kind of a follow-up on just the anatomy basics. So, talking as a nurse, of course, I go through the whole anatomy because I feel what I've seen from working with women all these years is that a lot of women don't know about their clitoris. They've not looked at their body nor touched their body. Many women go into sexual relationships. They aren't the first person that's that's touching their clitoris or their vulva. And that to me is it's a source of a concern for me for women. I think I think that it's really important for them to understand and know their own body before they're in a sexual relationship with anybody else.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

I could not agree more. I could not agree more. And as a therapist, when I help, and and this is all in becoming clitorate too, when I help women orgasm, the first thing I do is teach them anatomy and then tell them go get a mirror. Here's a picture, go look at your vulva and identify the parts that are chock full of touch-sensitive nerve endings, your clitoral hood, your inner lips. Like know what you have and where you have it and touch it, play with it.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Yeah, well, and and I think that for women listening, it's not, it's I don't want you to hear that there's shame there. It's more we what I want women to do is give themselves permission to feel like that's a nourishing exercise for yourself. This is it's important to have a sexual relationship with yourself first before anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

100%. And and there is no shame. And in fact, every vulva is unique and beautiful. We've been sold a false bill of goods about it being dirty or whatever. But no, the first step is know what you have and then develop a sexual relationship with yourself. That I mean, the first step is looking and identifying the parts, then the next step is masturbation. Masturbate, masturbate, masturbate with a vibrator, with lubricant, with your fingers. Know how to bring yourself to orgasm because you need to know that to tell a partner how to do it. And I the most essential step to orgasming with a partner is getting the same type of stimulation you do alone. And many women don't do that. I mean, this orgasm gap thing, a lot of times people will say, oh, it's because women's orgasms are difficult or elusive. And they're not. When women pleasure themselves, 95% reach orgasm easily within minutes. When women get it on with other women, they're having orgasms. There's nothing wrong with or shameful or broken about women's bodies. What's broken is the institution of heterosexual sex and the way we do it.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Is that do you hear I hear that phrase often from women that I counsel uh that that that mantra of something's wrong with me or I'm broken, either related to their vagina or to the related to the way they function sexually. And I think that's you know, that's evidence of number one, lack of education, right? And number two, a lot of things you just mentioned. And then in your book, I just like can I read this part of your book? Of course. I'm honored. You're talking about in this section, I get all excited. You're talking in the section about media and images of women. And you say researchers have found that these images lead girls and women to constantly assess how they appear to others. This puts women's main focus on being sexually desirable to others rather than on their own sexual desires. It places women's emphasis on how they look rather than how they feel.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Yes, this is true. I believe every word I wrote.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Well, and you mentioned the diversity of uh vulvas too. I think that's another big issue that kind of I come up against as a nurse is that women are not, they don't have a good framework and they tend to compare to what they see in the media and movies and pictures that are not reality. And um, so I'm with you on just every single vulva is unique and different. We don't need to do anything to them or you know, fix them up or or make them something they're not. Uh, and I think most women don't have that messaging, especially growing up.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Absolutely. And I talk to a lot of people who are so ashamed of the way their vulvas look. And, you know, men are often chosen in porn for having extra large penises, right? But women, they have surgery to have even in petite inner lips. And most women don't know that it is completely normal to have one inner lip bigger than another, to have one inner lip or both protrude outside of your outer lips, and that they think they're supposed to look and like a Barbie doll, you know, like a little clamshell. And that's not how vulvas look. And in fact, in becoming clitorate, I say I have an inner lip that sticks way out from my outer lip, but it never concerned me because being of an older generation, I grew up not comparing what my vulva looked to other women. I didn't see these false images, and I think it's really important for women to know like our vulvas, and that's why I have a picture of many different vulvas in the book. And I'm sure as a nurse, you see this all the time. People thinking their vulva is deformed when it's completely normal. And how can you enjoy sex or oral sex, for example? How can you let someone go down on you and really just relax and enjoy it if you're like, oh my gosh, it's ugly down there or something's wrong down there. So it's really what you're talking about really resonates with me. Very important.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, I think it is. And I I think I'm wondering if you hear that same kind of thing with your students. I'm curious, like, what the two, maybe one or two most common things you hear over and over and over from students in that college age age range.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Um, the biggest one is the reason I wrote Becoming Cliterate. They don't know about their own sexual anatomy and functioning, and they think they're broken if they don't orgasm from intercourse. And I think the other one is just so related to all these other myths. You know, they're do they are they doing it right? Again, the focus on him versus themselves, you know, how does it feel versus how does it look? It's terrible. Like I hear young women say, like, they don't want to have sex too soon, but they can't wait too long because they don't want to be called a slut or a prude. I mean, there's just, or body image issues. Oh my gosh, I see that so much. Not just vulva, but that women who cannot relax during sex because they think they don't look good. They're trying to hold their stomach in or be in a certain position so their thighs don't look fat. So, like all of these factors make it so difficult for women to enjoy sex.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yes, I agree that I hear a lot of those same themes. And so many women have been, so to speak, trained or raised up in a way to not feel a lot of ownership over their own body. And I find that to be a real issue, wanting to really help them feel like their body is their own and that sex is for them, and um and just providing, you know, steps towards towards that end. But we do a lot of us do grow up with a lot of that mantra of, you know, like I read from your book, it's about looking good and being desired rather than desiring.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Right. We put our focus outside versus internal. How does this feel to me? It's more how does it feel to him and how do I look to him? So the the antidote to that is mindfulness, which is a complete and total immersion in the present moment and being able to stop your mind when it does invariably wander away during sex and to bring it back, bring it back to the sensations of the moment. I call mindfulness sex's best friend because it's the antidote to turning off that really busy brain that we have.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I'm sure in all your work as a therapist, have you, as you teach that to people and then they execute it and come back and have more sessions with you, you know what are you, are you seeing good results with that? I mean, do they do they kind of go ding ding ding like, wow, this actually works?

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Yes, it really does. And in fact, after I teach about the relationship between mindfulness and sex in my class, including the fact that our brain, when we're deeply in a mindful meditation, is the same brain state state that we have right before orgasm. That orgasm requires you to turn off your thinking brain. So after I teach that, I actually, and this is in a class of like 150 to 200 students, we do a mindfulness meditation. I teach it's a three-hour class. I teach for an hour and a half, and then after break, I do like a three to five minute mindfulness meditation with the whole class. And of course, that's not the ideal situation to be mindful in, but students have told me that that is one of the most powerful parts of the class, that in the focus on the orgasm gap. And they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think that uh what I find with women, women, especially, because I mostly counsel and coach women, is that our minds are really busy. And I think that uh learning to just recognize that the thoughts come and not judging ourselves and then letting it go and and staying present in the moment is is huge. And it also goes with being able to be present in our bodies, and that is what I like. You were saying, instead of judging our body or being afraid of what we look like or worrying about that, all of those things deter us from recognizing and experiencing pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Yes. And you know, so it's really body acceptance, our whole bodies are the other thing that reminds me of, I'm sure you hear this even more than I do as a nurse. People think that they smell bad. Oh, this just breaks my heart. And they use all kinds of douches or perfumes or scents, and those things are really bad for us, and you smell just fine. Get to know your own smell, I tell people. And then if it smells funky, you know, know your own discharge. If that gets funky, then see a doctor. But we're supposed to have a smell, we're supposed to have discharges, and that's the other thing people feel a lot of like shame around.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yes, yes, exactly. I keep saying the same thing that your vagina is a self-cleaning oven, it does not need anything else. It's made to clean itself, and it's I I hear the same things. I just think some of that is so much the media and just the negativity around female sexuality and and girls growing up with you know, shame and silence around things that are normal and their bodies being normal, and that translates into their sex life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

You know, I wrote a blog at one point before I wrote Becoming Cliterate, and I called this generation of young women the most misinformed generation sexually ever. And it went kind of viral, and it wasn't viral negative, it was young women agreeing with me. And the point I made in the blog was in my generation, um, my mother's generation, because I even was able to talk to her about all this before she passed away. Um, like there weren't, there wasn't sex ed, but there also weren't so many false images. So we would talk to each other, we'd figure it out, you know, or read, you know, books like Our Bodies Ourselves or those kind of things. Whereas this generation has so many false images and nothing to correct them.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

That's wow. What I what I hear you saying too, it's just that comparing to what's not reality. And we all tend to want to compare as as as fruitless as it is.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Absolutely. And there's so much more out there to compare to, bombarding messages and images of female beauty and these, you know, highly sexualized female bodies. And, you know, we sexualize women in our culture, but we don't respect their sexuality. You want to say That again. We sexualize women in our culture, but we don't respect their sexuality.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Thanks for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Sad, but I think it's true, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think that because we have such crummy sex education, it's even more of an issue with all our young people getting their sex ed from pornography and the internet, which is not reality and certainly doesn't demonstrate true female pleasure and how that is accessed. That comes back to the clitoris and the beginning of our conversation, right? And the orgasm gap. So absolutely. Yes. Hopefully that will change little by little with your work.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

I hope so. You know, when I published Becoming Clitter, it was really interesting. Like women of my generation, several said, Why do we need this book? Isn't this common knowledge? But women of the younger generation actually use words like radical.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

This is radical.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

I I really hope some a book like this never needs to be written again because it isn't that radical. It's our biology. It's attending to our biology, our most reliable route to pleasure, feeling entitled to that sexual pleasure. So, yes, I do hope that the whole world can become clitorate and it benefits men as well to be clitorate.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

No, absolutely. And and just on that same theme, that women would come to really see sex is for them and not just for males, but it is for them. And I think the more they that we understand our bodies and how we can access pleasure, the more we feel sex is for us. Yes? 100%.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Instead, like even remember that old and the some of the metaphors we use for sex, like you know, baseball metaphor, what base we used to say, what base did you get to? It's like everything. If once you see this, you can't unsee it. All of the language, the the way we talk about sex, losing one's virginity, for example, it's all very heteronormative, penetration focused, and it sets up sex as something that is done to to women rather than that women enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yes. Wow. Well, this has been a great conversation. And I actually named this podcast permission for pleasure. Oh, I love that. I think a lot of women do need permission. So I think a tool for learning how to do that sexually is to recognize what delights us day to day. You know, what what actually makes us pause, notice, enjoy, and delight. I love that. Recognizing those small things helps us do that also sexually. So what I'd love to ask you as we wrap up is just share a simple thing that you delight in in your life.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

What a nice question. Besides sex, I would say um walking in nature. I do that, I try to do that every day. Um and yoga, you know, moving my body, being in the moment, being mindful. And I also love spending time with family and friends and just being connected um to nature and to other people.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

I love that. I'm with you on that. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for your time and the book you've written. How can people find you and connect with you?

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Oh, thanks for asking that. You can find me at my website, www.drlori mince.com, L-A-D-R-L-A-U-R-I-E-M-I-N-T-Z. And that's the same handle that I have on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest is Dr. Laurie Mintz. And my website has links to all those social media as well as to my books, which you can find on Amazon, indie bookstores, Barnes and Noble, anywhere that books, e-books, and audiobooks are sold.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Thank you again for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Thank you for having me. I love your title and I love your work as well. So thank you.

unknown 26:24

Dr.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Menz and I covered a lot of topics in that discussion. And because I know there is so much silence around sexuality, it could be that these topics bring up some feelings for you. My hope with this podcast is that you will hear information, hear conversations, and that you will learn more and then open discussions and dialogue in your own life with your people and in your home. As we wrap up this episode, let's revisit our pleasure practice from episode one. I'm hoping that you are starting to experience and enjoy what delights you and to really stop, notice, pause, and take delight in the small things.