Hello and welcome back to The Overthinker’s Guide To Sex, a sex and relationships newsletter by journalist Franki Cookney.
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Welcome to October’s Big Think, a long-form piece, in which I examine an aspect of sexual activity, culture, or behaviour in more depth. Got a suggestion for something you think I should cover? Let me know!
Lovemaking used to be an art, now sex is a science
The most interesting thing about sex, to me, is not so much the activity itself but what it means to us.
Writer and academic Katherine Angel said something similar to me when we spoke for my podcast series, BAD SEX. “Sexuality is not about reproduction. It's not about anatomy,” she said. “It's about the meaning we invest in the people around us, the objects around us, and our past.”
What sex means to us as individuals is endlessly fascinating to me, because it varies so much. It can, I think, offer a window onto who we are in a much bigger way. When we interrogate what sex means to us, what we stand to learn extends far beyond the bedroom.
But I’ve also always been interested in what sex means to us as a society, how we frame it culturally, and what that says about us. I’ve talked and written a lot in the past about social and cultural “scripts” and how they shift over time. Often this is a good thing. Shifting brings destigmatisation, reduces marginalisation and effects political and legal change. But it can bring other things too and I have always felt uneasy about embracing all social change as a universal positive. Sometimes these shifts are more of a… reframing. We can certainly celebrate the shedding of light on areas that may have been overlooked, but I think it’s also worth asking ourselves what gets occluded. What has been lost to make room for this change? What is no longer in the frame?
A shift I’ve noticed over the last few years is the way that science has increasingly found its way into our conversations about sex. Psychosexual and relationship therapist Kate Moyle’s new book is literally called The Science of Sex. It’s a rich and informative book and I was excited to talk to her about it. You can read our interview below. But it’s hard to hear that title and not juxtapose it with the 1972 classic, The Joy of Sex. Now, that’s not to say there was no science in Alex Comfort’s book, or that there’s no joy in Kate’s book (there definitely is) but it’s interesting to reflect on this shift. Not least because it’s something I’ve noticed myself when I talk to my mum about my work. She obviously understands that sex education and sexual health is important but we glitch when it comes to the extent of my interest; the way I want to delve into sexual behaviour, to talk and write critically about specific parts of sexuality and the sexual experience. There’s something about my approach that feels inherently unsexy to her, I think. It does not feel free, it does not feel joyful.
This has always grated on me… until now. While I’ve been planning this newsletter, I’ve realised that, while I’m comfortable with my own attitude to sex, this cultural shift towards sex as scientific is intriguing. My mum came of age in a time when passion and spirituality were at the forefront of the sexual revolution. Sex guides were called things like The Art Of Loving. Jolan Chang’s 1977 book, The Tao of Love and Sex, was a bestseller. By contrast, the books on my shelves are called things like The Sex Myth, The Pleasure Gap, and The Equality Illusion. Sex in the 21st century is something we need to reveal, to bust, to expose, to debunk.
And I’m not saying that’s not true. There’s plenty that’s wrong with The Joy of Sex, and later editions have indeed been edited to reflect social and scientific developments. And God knows my own sexual journey has involved a lot of extremely necessary dispelling and re-learning. But it’s also involved opening up to the things that can’t quite be explained, to the intangible, to the awe-inspiring; the stuff of poetry.
Anaïs Nin wrote, in response to a client’s letter telling her to leave the poetry out her erotic writing and concentrate on the sex, “Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore [...] Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements.”
So why this cultural shift towards science? The study of sex isn’t new, and there have certainly been bursts of interest in the “science of sex” over the centuries, as our understanding of both anatomy and human behaviour has developed.
The 19th century saw a burgeoning interest in scientific research, not just from scientists themselves, but also from the general public. Historian Fern Riddell paints a vibrant picture of this in her book Sex: Lessons From History. And certainly the middle of the 20th century was a time when sexology flourished, with the publication of the Kinsey reports and groundbreaking research conducted by people like Masters and Johnson. Understanding how our bodies work and what that means for sex has also always been crucial to the fight for gender equality. The 1971 women’s health and sexuality handbook, Our Bodies, Ourselves, made the case loud and clear that self-knowledge and sexual liberation went hand in hand.
But I only have to pick up a women’s magazine from the time to see that the kind of language that was being used in the mainstream was very far from being scientific. That’s not to say it was ill-informed, necessarily, just that that’s not the way sex was being framed in popular culture. Take this paragraph from Cosmopolitan in October 1982, for example:
“Take some responsibility for making sex more rewarding or exciting instead of expecting a partner to do it single-handedly. ‘I know there are times when I need extra stimulation,” one woman said, “so I might wear something especially provocative. Perhaps I’ll encourage my erotic feelings by fantasising a sexual scene or reading an arousing novel.”
Now compare that to a paragraph from the same magazine in October 2020 (and yes, I did pick one of my own features to use as an example):
“Multiple studies have debunked this—we now know that over three quarters of people with vulvas don’t orgasm through penetration alone. Less than 5% of women masturbate using only penetration. Yet for many women in relationships with men, penetration is considered the main event.”
These are just small snippets but it’s nevertheless clear that the 1982 piece is largely driven by personal experiences. Whereas mine literally begins with the words “multiple studies”. Obviously, as a features writer (and also as a human in the world) I place huge value on personal experience, but I confess I would not dream of filing copy that didn’t contain any research, any data, to back up or contextualise my story.
Our collective relationship with data is, I think, intrinsically tied to our relationship with the internet and that in itself has evolved massively over the last 20-30 years. But certainly, the way information is disseminated, the extensive means of communicating scientific findings to mass audiences, is part of the picture.
When it comes to sex, some of the most influential research findings of the last 20 years, to my mind, are the discovery of the “orgasm gap,” and Helen O’Connell’s publication of the full anatomy of the clitoris. In the UK we also have the NATSAL report, the first of which was conducted between 1990-1991, which has given us access to huge amounts of information about the way people have sex and their attitudes to it.
We’ve also seen a shift in the way that sexual health has become a much more significant part of public health, partly driven by the HIV/AIDS epidemic but also by policies such as the then-Labour government’s 1999 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy which threw money into sex education programmes. And I’ve talked to you before about former US Surgeon General Dr Jocelyn Elders, who pioneered free condom distribution in public schools, and who very much stood by the idea that sexual self-knowledge and pleasure were integral to health.
Knowledge is power. Understanding fosters inclusion. Science has the ability to reduce stigma and misconceptions. And it is vitally important for sexual health provision to be evidence-based. But lately I’ve noticed it’s not just our macro-level understanding of sex that’s shifted, it’s also the way we talk about in our own lives. Suddenly the fact that 80% of people with vulvas don’t achieve orgasm through penetration alone is not just useful to know on a social level, it’s relevant to us as individuals.
As Kate says in our interview, there is great value in having your personal experience affirmed by science. But it’s not as though people weren’t aware, prior to 2005 when The Case of The Female Orgasm was published, that a lot of people with vulvas need clitoral stimulation to come. More pertinently, does being able to quote this statistic actually make a difference to your sex life?
I think it’s also important to question what other forces might be at play when a cultural narrative changes, including—predictably—capitalism. I’ve written about this before when I looked at the way adult companies foreground “health” and “wellness” in their marketing, and the increased focus on selling sextech products and services as “backed by science” with “proven health benefits.”
The scientification of sex is also a way of making sex “acceptable” as a subject for enquiry, conversation, thought. It cannot be unrelated that logic, reason, observable evidence have been traditionally coded as masculine, while things like emotion, sensuality, spirituality have been coded as feminine. In order to get sex taken seriously, we’ve had to make it tangible, observable, quantifiable and, again, I wonder what we might have lost in doing so.
Some of its power, perhaps? Some of its magic. Some of its meaning. Science gives us a crucial foundation of understanding but let us not neglect the poetry.
What happens when we zone in on the science?
I always love talking to Kate Moyle and I knew she’d have a thoughtful opinion on this so I’m really pleased to be able to share our conversation with you below.
Your book is called The Science of Sex. I think most people, when they hear "science" in the context of sex, think of biology. Which areas or disciplines of science are we talking about when we talk about sex?
Like my approach in therapy, it's partly about explaining the anatomy, hormones, neuroscience and sexual functioning of the body and the brain, and partly about the emotional and psychological; the mind-body connection means that the mind impacts how our body works and vice-versa. The final piece of it is that all of this sits in the context of our social and cultural worlds. The biopsychosocial approach takes into account all these features of our sex lives, and, importantly, how they relate to and can influence each other.
The title is obviously a deliberate choice and I'm interested to know, why did you (and/or the publishers) want to focus on the science angle, rather than, say, the therapeutic angle? Because, rightly or wrongly, I think a lot of people would see them as distinct.
The book is part of a collection of books called The Science Of… There's also sleep, nutrition, and living. Each book is a standalone publication but there is continuity in the style. The science part comes from the fact that throughout the book I reference statistics, research and studies to illustrate the points being made. Whilst it is about the body and a scientific angle, it's approaching sex from a biopsychosocial perspective which takes into account the different parts of sex and how they all relate to one another. It's not enough of an explanation of sex to view it solely through one lens or in one of those terms. Sex is always in context.
Why does it matter to frame conversations about sex as "scientific"?
Not all conversations about sex are scientific. Much of sex is subjective, some of which can't be accounted for by science or measured in an objective way. But our sex lives are also social and learnt. The science part can be useful in explaining, for example, how touch is experienced in the body and the brain, what happens when we orgasm, and how our anatomy is organised, and this can really help people to understand their sexuality and their bodies. But some research, for example into “The Orgasm Gap,” shows that differences in orgasm rates between the sexes are not based on science or biology but are social differences.
Why does it matter that people understand how their bodies and brains work in the context of sex? I’m thinking of the stuff in your book on “pleasure pathways” in the brain. How might this kind of knowledge help people have more fulfilling sex lives and relationships?
Because when we understand ourselves better then we are more empowered to make informed sexual choices. It means that we can lean into what we know and start to take charge of our sexual wellness. It can also help us to get to know our bodies and how they work which means that when things change, perhaps due to anxiety, injury, illness or medication that we can have a better understanding of why we might be feeling a certain way, and this in itself can help in our emotional response to those changes.
There are some things that I can immediately see are helpful for people to know so they feel "normal". For example, you cite some of the stats on sexual problems and I think knowing you're not alone is really important here. But are there any times when stats about sex are not very useful or actually could get in the way of people figuring out what works for them?
Stats are useful as an illustration but we shouldn't accept them as something that we can't change on an individual basis. They are showing you a trend for a population and can give an idea of how common or uncommon something is, which, for many people, is normalising and makes them feel less isolated. [Relying on stats] is also a challenge when we consider the taboo nature of sex, and that it’s likely some figures are underreported due to shame or embarrassment around the subject. On an individual level, we don't just have to accept a statistic and translate it as our reality, we can make changes and find ways to help ourselves. We should never let a statistic get in the way of us accessing the help we need or want or changing our sexual wellbeing for the better.
I think you do a really good job of laying out the facts while reiterating that sex is a subjective experience. I particularly like what you write about "sex can hold a unique meaning for each partner.” How can people strike the balance between knowing when to look outwards to the research or inwards towards our own experience.
I talk about self-sex education, and for me this comes in both formal and informal ways such as books, Ted Talks, podcasts and conversations with friends. We can learn in so many ways and from so many sources. The balance is being informed about the scientific and more objective parts of sex whilst acknowledging it's a personal and subjective experience, which can't be measured in a consistent way. But this is also the part of sex that makes it so interesting, personal and meaningful. It also highlights the importance of communication and the fact that we shouldn't assume what someone wants or likes sexually.
A more general question about the "scientification of sex.” Is there any danger, do you think, of making it too, sort of, fact-led and not leaving enough room for the less quantifiable aspects of sex, the feelings of transcendence, connectedness, vitality? The "stuff of poetry" as I put it.
Sex is full of nuance, so yes, I agree, facts can only take us so far. They can't account for the individuality of preferences, desires, or just how someone likes to be touched. We can't science our kinks, and it can't explain why some people prefer the feeling of latex to silk, or why they enjoy one sexual position more than another. When it comes to other parts of our lives, for example, food preferences, we don't seek an answer for why some of us are how we are, we just accept human diversity, and we need to adopt that attitude more when it comes to sex.
To put it another way, do we lose something when we reduce sexual pleasure to its neurochemistry?
Well, yes. It can explain some parts of sex but it will never explain the whole picture. Human sexuality and sex lives are so much about the 'why' not just the what and there is so much that goes on in our lives, genetics, personality, experiences, relationships, context. All these moving parts that are always there. Neuroscience can inform and help us to shape ideas and theories but sex is a fundamentally human experience and we place so much stock in both how we feel about sex and how it makes us feel.
You can buy Kate Moyle’s book, The Science of Sex, here, and listen to her podcast The Sexual Wellness Sessions here.
One last thought…
I feel bad that it’s Halloween and I haven’t brought you anything spooky so please allow me to refer you to my friend Livvy’s breakdown of the sexiness of Addams Family Values in her newsletter
this week.In what ways has science had an impact on your sex life? Do you think where you’re at in your sexual journey right now is more fact-led or experience-based?