A BBC docu­mentary ‘The Human Body’ presented by Dr Robert Winston films a sex educa­tion class. First the teacher writes the word ‘SEX’ in large letters on the black­board and then asks the teen­agers to suggest other words asso­ci­ated with sex.

After the standard contri­bu­tions the teacher adds the word missing from the list: ‘LOVE’.

Despite contra­cep­tion, sex still involves a risk of preg­nancy, sexual disease and much emotional turmoil(!). So we promote the link between sex and love to ensure that young people under­stand the respons­ib­il­ities asso­ci­ated with a sexual relationship.

An English girl of sixteen came out to the South of France one summer. On her first night she met an Australian whose self-confessed ambi­tion was to lay every woman in the resort. She fell for his chat and his blond good looks and lost her virginity. The next day he moved on (mission accom­plished so to speak) and natur­ally she was devastated.

“Male promis­cuity often depends upon the satis­fac­tions that may be secured from the pursuit and successful attain­ment of a new partner. … Once having demon­strated their capa­cities to effect sexual rela­tions with the partic­ular indi­vidual, they prefer to turn to the pursuit of the next partner.” (p683 Sexual beha­vior in the human female 1953)

Court­ship involves a man showing his will­ing­ness to engage on the loving aspects of rela­tion­ships in return for sex. So any woman hoping for more than a ‘one night stand’ should make a man wait (at least a date or two) for sex. It won’t do him any lasting harm.

Since a woman does not get the same easy pleasure from sex, she offers a man short-term pleasure in the hope of longer-term compan­ion­ship and support (including family).

This high­lights another diffi­culty in assessing women’s sexual desire (and their ability to enjoy sexual arousal). Young women often make the mistake of assuming that a man will love them if they offer him sex. You can follow their logic but it doesn’t work like that.

A man is more likely to marry a woman who is sexu­ally choosy than one who is sexu­ally easy. Not only can he be more certain that a child is his but also her will­ing­ness to have sex only with him is a compli­ment because it singles him out as a mate.

Sex and love are different

In the long run, most of us find that having sex with someone we know and love adds some­thing special to the exper­i­ence. But that does not mean that sex and love are the same thing. SEX is raunchy, exhil­ar­ating, orgasmic and fun. LOVE is caring and nurturing. The two can go together or side-by-side but they are different.

Sex educa­tion for teen­agers (espe­cially girls) should cover not only the repro­ductive facts but also how they can enjoy a sexual rela­tion­ship. Most women who exper­i­ence orgasm do so through masturb­a­tion or oral sex. Telling teen­agers to limit their sexual exper­i­ences to inter­course makes it less likely that a woman might learn how to enjoy her own orgasm. Vaginal inter­course may lead to family but it was never intended to facil­itate female orgasm, either phys­ic­ally or psychologically.

Not every woman is attracted to erot­i­cism and so many women miss out on the sexual fantasies that lead to female sexual arousal and orgasm. Many women never learn to explore their sexu­ality, either through masturb­a­tion or through activ­ities other than vaginal inter­course, and so they miss out on enjoying sexual pleasure and their own sexual arousal and orgasm.

It’s not just women who are unwilling to acknow­ledge diffi­culties with female orgasm during sex. It’s much easier to assume female sexual arousal or over­look it than to face it because there are no easy solu­tions. Why admit a problem you can’t solve?

Very few couples are truly honest with each other. Most men never admit to their part­ners that they masturbate. Some men also prefer to pay a stranger for sex than to have to face asking their wives or girl­friends to parti­cipate in an expli­citly sexual act.