Do Women Have A Higher Sex Drive? (2018) - full transcript
The film explores the the scientific, historical, biological and social aspects behind the female sex drive and female gaze.
I mean, for years,
men have thought that they
were smarter than women.
Women in universities
in the U.K.
do better than men in nearly
every area of performance.
That's according
to new research.
For years, men have thought
that women should not work.
And that was 2009,
when women became
more than 50% of the workforce.
And for years,
men have thought that
women couldn't lead.
And last year, for
the first time,
women became 54% of all
American managers.
For years, men have thought
that women could not fight.
The Senate just voted on a
bill that would have women
be eligible to be drafted
into the US military
for the first time
in American history.
And Kinsey mentioned
that for years,
men have thought that women
had a lower sex drive.
Women in the past were sexually
very different than
women of today.
But now there's a cable channel
that just shows porn for women.
The female orgasm can be
10 times more powerful
than the male orgasm.
Women have a wider range
of arousal than men.
I think sexuality is more
part of a woman's identity.
If women were raised
to think of themselves
as sexual creatures,
you would probably see a
very different world.
Growing up, I never realized
that I had a high sex drive.
Not until I discovered
that sex seemed to feel
more special to me.
It's not that the guys I dated
didn't think it was special.
It's just that, for me,
it felt richer, deeper.
It was more satisfying.
It's like we were
doing the same thing,
but I had a totally
different experience.
Am I the only woman
who feels this way?
Or are there more women
who feel like me?
It depends. If-If-If the man
is in love with his woman,
he will feel love with emotions.
But if he, you know, it's
like one-night stand,
he just... he just, uh,
fulfills his pleasure.
That's it.
And I think for a woman,
there's always such
amount of emotions.
I think for a woman,
it's more important.
I think for the man, because of his...
it bolsters his ego.
Yes, for a woman, because
we have more sexual energy.
I think it's about the same.
Oh, there are
differences, but...
Yes, I definitely think that
women have a higher sex drive,
because, for us it's more sensual,
and it just feels deeper.
I have to say women
because they crave affection,
and guys, they just...
For men, it's more important
to have lots of sex
with different people.
They both like it, but
men want it more often.
For women, it's
important to make this
one act of sex they do
an important thing.
There's apparently a shortage
of possible romantic partners.
Complaints of a man drought...
The search for love is
in a state of emergency.
What's keeping them from
finding their Prince Charming?
People don't want to admit
what the reality is.
Professional black women
are not making it up.
Australia is caught
up in a man drought.
Finding the right man
is proving elusive.
It's not easy out there. There's
definitely a man drought.
I'm feeling it. It's hard
to find a date, even.
Look, if you're a woman,
and you've been wondering
where all the men have gone,
the good news is that
it's not in your head,
but the bad news is that
you're actually right.
There is a massive
shortage of men.
Millions of women know
just what it feels like
to look around at
the men on offer
and think, "No, thanks."
Okay, delay, delay, delay,
as much as you possibly can,
until you know that
you've met someone
that you can be happy with
for the rest of your life.
Growing up with
romantic comedies,
you do tend to think that life should
be like a Reese Witherspoon movie,
that you should be
swept off your feet.
Some successful women
have had good men
and didn't know it.
Men and women have always had
different opinions about sex,
but according to dating
experts, there has never been
such a major shift in relationships
than in the last 15 years.
Today I am meeting one
of those dating experts,
Marcia Chong.
In her work, she talks about
how modern gender roles have
completely changed the dating game,
and how years of
experience have led her
to an interesting conclusion.
She believes that sex is
more important for women,
and today I want
to find out why.
When it comes to sex
and attraction,
every woman has a secret that
we never share with men,
because if we did, things
might get a little awkward.
You see, every woman has a list,
a list of all the things
we want in a man.
Now, the problem
is not the list.
The problem is the
size of the list
and the fact that it
is that detailed.
For example, he has
to be tall, handsome,
strong, educated and ambitious,
have a good job, have
a nice house, a car,
and he has to be social and
fit in with our family.
And of course, he has
to be a good kisser,
a good lover, and a great
father for our children.
But, unfortunately,
only a few men can meet
those high expectations,
and that's why many men think that
women aren't interested in sex.
But we are. It's just that
most men don't make the list.
And we call this the
80/20 principle.
- The 80/20 principle?
- Yes.
It's a marketing principle that's
also used in the dating world,
and it means that
80% of the women
are only interested
in 20% of the men.
For example, dating profiles.
While men like roughly half
of the women on the site,
most women only like
20% of the men.
And this is why women are so
competitive in the dating world,
and I think even more than men.
Because most women are interested
in a very small group of men.
But it's getting worse.
Dating for women is
becoming harder and harder.
- What do you mean?
- For the first time in history,
women are out-performing men
in nearly every category.
More women are graduating,
becoming doctors,
lawyers, bankers,
and all these changes are dramatically
transforming the dating culture.
Because these days, women are
not dependent on men anymore.
We have our own careers, our
own houses, social lives,
and we can provide
for ourselves.
So now women only
settle with the best.
A man has to have added value.
And if a man has lower
education or earns less,
he might be less
interesting to women.
So as our status increases,
so do our expectations,
and our lists become
longer and longer.
Yes, that's right. And
this also impacts men.
It makes men frustrated
and confused,
because less and less women
find them interesting.
You see, in the past, almost
everyone got married,
because it was seen
as a necessity.
And a good provider had a good
chance of getting married.
But now, that guarantee is gone.
And another thing is
that women these days
want a soul mate to talk
about feelings with a man.
But at the same time, he
has to be firm and rugged.
And this is also confusing men.
But why are our
expectations so high?
I think this has to
do with biology.
A man can produce millions
of sperm cells every day,
but a woman can only get pregnant
a few times in her life.
So she wants the best husband,
father and provider
for her child,
or else she could end up
raising her child alone.
It's like a handgun
versus a machine gun.
If you had a handgun
with only six bullets,
wouldn't you be very
selective in how you use it?
Yeah, I guess I would
be very selective.
But I recently read a study
that showed that women
cheat as much as men.
Do you think this is true?
Yes. Most people think
that men cheat more.
But in reality, that's not true.
Because all these men don't
just cheat with single women.
But I think there's one
major difference...
Women are better at
keeping it a secret.
Are you saying we're
better at cheating?
In my experience, men
are more obvious
and women are more subtle.
But for a woman, it's
more important to know
if their partner is cheating.
Woman worry about it more,
and that's why a lot of
women need more validation.
When she asks, "Do you love me?"
or "How much do you love me?"
these aren't random questions, they
actually go back to evolution.
Because when a woman
becomes pregnant,
she's very dependent
and vulnerable.
So if her partner leaves her while
she's pregnant, she has a big problem.
Men, on the other hand,
do not experience
that level of vulnerability.
So who do you think has
a higher sex drive?
- Men or women?
- I think women do
because we check out
men all the time.
So women think about
sex more than men,
but in a different way,
a more critical way.
Because we have to make sure
we choose the right man,
we're constantly comparing
and analyzing men.
Is he attractive, intelligent,
and does he have potential?
I even have to admit that
I still catch myself
doing it all the time,
and I'm happily married.
Two birth-control pills
have suspected links
to the deaths of at
least 23 Canadians.
More than 1,000 Canadian women
have had gall bladders
removed, strokes,
or are on blood thinners for
the rest of their lives.
They are. They really are.
They are totally messing up
women's natural hormone rhythm.
It's a very, very potent drug, and
it has life-ending properties to it.
Makers of the two pills
have already paid
more than a billion dollars,
settling thousands of lawsuits.
A possible link between birth
control and depression.
Those who use birth-control pills were
twenty three to two times more likely
to be prescribed an
antidepressant medication
compared to those who
didn't used them.
And you have these mood swings. Some
women can have suicidal thoughts,
some women can just go from being
extremely happy to extremely sad.
And so at first it
was assumed that,
okay, well, you're putting
synthetic hormones into your body
and you're body's just
trying to get used to it,
so those mood swings are normal,
and they'll normalize
as you continue usage.
But it's actually having an impact
on certain regions of your brain.
Taking birth control
may be affecting
how women perceive men's
level of attractiveness.
When you expose males
to excess estrogen,
that feminizes males.
When you expose females
to excess estrogen,
it masculinizes females.
The increased risk of breast
cancer and heart disease,
and those are very
concerning, but...
I think for me, the thing that was
most personally concerning was,
I lost my sex drive.
Since I was 15, I've
been on the pill.
It always made me feel
safe and protected.
But recently, more people have
started to reject the pill,
and this made me ask myself,
"Am I still making
the right decision?"
To answer these questions,
I've decided to arrange
a meeting with a
specialist in chemistry
and ask her what they're
putting in our pill.
I've heard many stories
about the Pill,
but does it really
decrease our sex drive?
Yes. Studies show that a lot
of birth-control pills
actually lower the sex drive.
In fact, the pill works
by tricking the body
into thinking it's pregnant.
But the problem is that when
the body thinks it's pregnant,
it stops producing the
hormone testosterone.
You mean the hormone that
affects the sex drive?
Yes. Testosterone makes a
woman take more risks,
become wilder, put
herself out there.
So, the less testosterone
a woman has,
the lower her sex drive.
But sometimes the pill also
increases the sex drive.
Not all birth control
contain the same hormones.
But unfortunately, most
women who are on the pill
report a decrease in sex drive.
- So do you take the pill?
- No, I don't.
You see, the pill not only
affects the sex drive,
but it also changes the
structure of your brain.
It impacts our sense of smell.
It even impacts especially
how attractive we find men.
For example, women who meet their
partner while they're on the pill
may find them less attractive
once they stop taking the pill.
- How is that possible?
- Remember,
when you're on the
pill, your body thinks
that it's pregnant,
and it's thinking,
"How can I get a
good male provider
to take care of my baby?"
Physical appearance
is less important.
But once you're off the pill,
your brain is thinking,
"How can I get a handsome man
to fertilize me and give
me an attractive baby?"
And this problem might be
even bigger than we think.
Since the 1960s, the average
British breast size
has increased by
three cup sizes.
At first, experts thought
it was only due to weight gain.
But many British women
have maintained their
body proportions,
leading experts to believe
a more disturbing theory...
the increased British
breast size was due
to the unnaturally
high estrogen levels
that are mainly
found in the pill.
Aside from the pill,
do you think women
naturally have a higher
sex drive than men?
In my professional opinion, no.
Here's the problem...
The female sex drive
is more in the mind,
and the male sex drive
is more in the body.
So it's easy to
measure the body,
but it's very difficult
to measure what's
going on in the mind,
to measure what women
are really thinking.
So women can have a
higher sex drive.
Personally speaking,
I think yes, woman have
a higher sex drive.
But the problem is, we
don't get to show it.
- What do you mean exactly?
- I think it has to do
with the way in which
women are raised.
Most guys have been taught
to go out there and "macho"
and have as much
fun as possible.
But most girls have been
taught to be modest.
That's why their sex
drive is more internal.
And sometimes women don't even
know when they are aroused.
If a man is aroused,
he immediately
feels an erection down there.
But when a woman is aroused,
she doesn't have any
way of knowing it.
She uses her intuition.
It's much more often
emotional feeling.
- So our sex drives are more tricky then.
- Yes.
Have a look at this.
This is a Maasai couple.
Can you tell me,
who is the woman
in this picture?
- I think it's the one on the left.
- No.
The one with the long hair
and the jewelry is the man.
Many people think that
women are less visual than men.
But it's absolutely not true.
In fact, it's the
exact opposite.
Women are more visual than men.
In the West, we actually have
the beauty standard backwards.
Originally, it's men who are
supposed to be beautiful.
Think about the peacock
and its feathers,
or the lion and its mane,
or even ducks.
It's the males who
are beautiful,
not the females.
In fact, when researchers
began to study female desire,
they were shocked.
Not only did they
discover that women
were just as aroused as
men when watching porn,
they also discovered
that women had
a wider range of
arousal than men.
Even non-human sex
aroused women.
Like millions of people
across the globe,
my husband and I are
outraged and heartbroken
over the kidnapping of more
than 200 Nigerian girls
from their school dormitory
in the middle of the night.
From the beginning,
the Pakistan Taliban
took credit for shooting
Malala Yousafzai
because she spoke out
against the Taliban
and their restrictions
on education for girls.
Fourteen Pakistani village council
members have been arrested
for allegedly ordering a
teenage girl to be raped.
Crimes against women in India
have doubled in the last decade,
sparking worldwide
condemnations.
In India, a rape case is
reported every 20 minutes.
A 23-year-old student gang-raped
inside a moving bus in
the nation's capital.
Sexually assaulted
with an iron rod,
her internal organs pulled out.
The injuries so brutal,
she later died.
The very term "honor killing"
has a sinister but
misleading ring to it.
The murder of a woman or child
by a father, brother or uncle
for bringing perceived
shame on the family.
In Egypt, official
reports have shown
that sexual violence against
women has increased.
99.3% of Egyptian woman
have experienced some
form of sexual violence.
Saudi Arabia is the most
conservative country in the world,
where women are still
banned from driving
and need permission from
their male guardian,
being a father, a husband or
a son, to simply get a job.
Just a few weeks ago, she quietly
married the love of her life
against the wishes
of her family.
The day after the marriage,
Sabbah's father and uncle
took her from her new home
and tried to kill her.
From a young age, I have
been told that women
have always had little
rights in history
and that we're now living
in the golden age of women.
But what if that isn't true?
Today we're meeting
with Dr. Annine van der Meer.
Annine is a historian,
theologian, and gender expert.
She has written several books
and articles that contradict
many things that we are
told about women today
and reveal the hidden
role of women in history.
What was the role of
women in history,
and was it very
different from today?
Yes. It was very different.
Because before "his story,"
we had "her story."
And that was a very
different cultural period.
There was a lot
of sexual freedom
in that period of history.
There was peace and harmony.
So the idea that man is
primitive and aggressive
in his essence is wrong.
But that changed.
That changed by an
enormous climate crisis
around 3000 BC.
Many ice ages dried up the earth
and made the word very cold
so that people couldn't
work and live on
the land anymore.
And because the men had
to leave their land,
they took the horses
and the herds,
and they became nomads.
Thus they had to conquer land
of other people to live on,
and they brought a
male-dominated society
which was very
suppressive for women.
So how were women sexually?
Women in the past were sexually
very different than
women of today.
First of all, they were free
to choose their partners,
and they loved sex
and eroticism.
And having a baby
was something very precious
because there were few people.
And afterwards, when people settled
down in settlements and cities,
the women also stayed very free
and could choose their partners,
so sexuality was
really something
which was bigger than a
biological, medical thing.
It was an emotional,
psychological
and spiritual thing.
Let me ask you a question.
Which is the oldest
profession in the world,
do you think?
I guess prostitution, maybe.
In history, it's prostitution.
But in "her story,"
it's midwifery.
The midwife helping
the pregnant woman
to deliver the baby,
using herbs to
relax the muscles.
She has a lot of
herbal knowledge.
She knows a lot about
birth control.
That's why they had so
much sexual freedom.
They could choose
their male partners.
They were not afraid
to have babies.
They could experiment with them
before they choose a final
partner to have babies with.
Wow! When I think of midwives,
I only think about giving
birth, not preventing it.
Women in the past
knew much more about
anti-conception
than women today.
- Seriously?
- Yes.
Many people think that
sexual revolution started
with introducing the
pill in the '60s,
but this anti-conception
knowledge
was much older, millennia older.
It gave the women
a lot of freedom.
But then this
knowledge was lost.
At the end of the
Middle Ages in Europe,
there became a serious
illness, a plague,
and the population
was decimated.
Many villages and
lands were empty,
and then Church and
State thought,
"We have to repopulate."
And then they thought,
"Well, who do we know"
who manages fertility
"and who controls fertility?"
That was the midwife.
And they thought,
"Well, let's remove them.
Let's call them witches."
The literal meaning of the word
"witch" is wiccan, is "to know."
I always thought that "witch"
was a negative word,
-but it's actually about knowledge.
- Yes.
Midwives had this
ancient knowledge
about managing fertility,
about reducing fertility,
and enhancing fertility.
So these wise women
were accused of witchery.
And a witch hunt started,
and it spread itself
all over Europe.
There were so many countries, and
many, many, many women were murdered.
To accuse midwives
of magical acts
and copulating with the devil
was all about fertility
and sexual acts.
So we had a high sex drive, but
then the Church took it away?
Yes. We in Western cultures
have a long, long and
very tragic history
of sexual repression...
Repression of the libido,
repression of body awareness.
Sex was perverse.
Sex was vulgar.
And we have this split
between sexuality and religion.
Where is that freedom we had?
We once had? It's gone.
For example, look at Egypt now.
So many women totally covered up
from top to toe.
Even the hands,
in 40 degrees of warmth...
It's terrible.
But how different it once was.
They could own land,
they could travel,
they could go to the
market and exchange goods.
Everything was possible. They
could choose their own husbands.
They could marry
whoever they liked.
So our sex drive was
more respected.
- Very much respected.
- Okay.
So the last question...
Do you think women have
a higher sex drive than men?
Historically speaking, yes.
Because in these ancient
groups of people,
it was so important
that people got babies
and that the group was enlarged.
Women were eager to have sex.
They were honored
for that quality.
When there was this
physical attraction
and psychological attraction,
to really feel love and affection
for their male partners,
she really could reach ecstasy,
and she could take him
with her in that ecstasy.
And I'm convinced we
had that ability,
and we still have that today.
There is an element of
hatred and rejection
in men's relationships to women
which women are unfortunately
unaware of at their peril.
So I don't know what sex is for.
I do know how sex is
used against women.
The act of fucking
being to the advantage
of the one who fucks and to the
disadvantage of the one who is fucked
is always characterized
as female and inferior.
- What do you think men are doing wrong?
- They oppress us as women.
They won't let us be.
Pornography, essentially, is
the trafficking in women.
It's the sale of women.
It is a system of
sexual exploitation
in which women are devalued,
women are turned
into commodities,
women are sold as meat, women
are, in fact, tortured.
Five years ago, we
said to rape victims,
"Oh, you enjoyed it, you
wanted it, you asked for it."
And now we are saying the
same things to women
who are forced into prostitution
or into pornography.
Most people in the States
or probably even here
don't really know
what does go on
in pornography,
and I felt it very important
to take a stand and, uh,
let people know that pornography
is not a victimless crime
and to speak up and set
the record straight
as to what happened to me.
Before the height of
the feminist movement,
mainstream porn was
seen as something that
men and women watched together.
Both men and women flocked
to the screenings
to see films like Deep Throat,
Behind the Green Door,
and The Devil Inside Miss Jones.
But during the
feminist movement,
porn became divided.
Porn was now seen as
masculine, aggressive.
So a new type of porn
had to be created,
a type of porn that
suited the modern woman.
But instead of becoming
less explicit,
the porn that women had in
mind was even more explicit
and would go beyond Playboy
and show everything.
This was the rise of a new era,
and it was called Playgirl.
As the former editor-in-chief,
what was it like
working at Playgirl?
It's definitely strange
and a little surreal.
I did not grow up
feeling like I was doing
a lot of the looking.
Certainly I'd always
found men attractive,
but I had literally never
been standing around
just looking at
naked men before.
So it was certainly strange,
but after a while, it all
just becomes very normalized.
And, of course,
dealing with, um,
"mimbos" makes it get
old really fast.
- "Mimbos"?
- I think of mimbos
as basically just the
male version of bimbos.
Guys who are just solely focused
on what they look like and
how they're appearing.
How fake their spray tan
does or doesn't look.
How white their teeth are.
Whether they shaved their chest
hair and if there's stubble.
Really just un-sexy details
that, um...
you know, just kind of
take away all of, like,
the sex appeal when you're the
person behind the camera.
So there was a double standard.
Yeah, there's a pretty
big double standard.
If a woman poses for Playboy, it
can help to launch her career.
If a guy poses for Playgirl, he can end
up getting fired or he's seen as cheap
or there's a stigma against
it in some other way.
Wow. How did you end up
working for Playgirl?
Um... funny story.
I had just finished grad school,
and Craigslist had an ad for
managing editor at Playgirl.
And I applied really as a joke,
and when they called me in for
an interview, I was shocked.
But I went in. I had never
seen a Playgirl before.
You had never seen
a Playgirl before,
-but you wanted to work at Playgirl.
- Yeah.
And was it hard
working at Playgirl?
It was challenging, for sure.
The magazine was run by women,
owned by heterosexual men,
and also was trying to
cater to a gay audience.
It was very much an
impossible triangle.
- So you had to compromise.
- Yes.
There was a lot of compromise.
Asking questions like,
"What is porn?" "What is
erotica?" "Where is the line?"
What women wanted and what
men thought women wanted...
It was not always
easy to define.
Well, I know what I want.
Yes, but do you know what
most other women want?
Um, a naked, attractive man.
Sure, but do you want
him lying in bed,
or do you want him
doing something?
Do you want him flaccid or hard?
Do you want him with another guy?
Do you want him with another guy?
Do you want him with another woman?
Do you want him by himself?
In the shower? Outside?
It becomes very
difficult very quickly
to pick out something that's
going to please everybody.
Okay. I get what you're saying.
Woman need a little
more than just
a man standing in
front of her naked.
Um, guys have a little
bit of an easier time
flipping through a Playboy or Penthouse
and seeing a woman just standing there.
But a woman is more likely to
notice if there's no story line.
She's more likely to
notice if his makeup sucks
or if his spray tan is off
or if his hair is bad.
She's looking for all
of these details,
and so our responsibility
with Playgirl
was to think in those
terms and deliver.
Wow. How did Playgirl begin?
Well, you had Playboy
coming of age in the '50s,
and then the sexual revolution
happened in the '60s.
And Playgirl was started in 1973
as a feminist
response to Playboy.
- I heard Jenny
Lambert convinced her
husband to start Playgirl.
- Yes.
And over the years,
Playgirl had huge numbers.
And in its heyday, it had
something like 10
million subscribers.
By the '80s, Playgirl was getting
published in more than 32 countries.
It had its own TV channel,
male revue shows.
It was literally everywhere.
Even Russia had its own
Playgirl magazine.
But then why did
Playgirl magazine stop?
I think ultimately
we couldn't get the
equation right.
I remember one day
in a conference room
one of my bosses turning
to me and saying,
completely seriously,
"Women do not like to
look at naked men."
And... I was shocked,
and I responded to him and
said, "But I'm a woman,"
and I do like to
look at naked men.
"I'm attracted to that."
And he completely dismissed me.
- Wow.
- Yes.
I think if they had let
us do what we wanted to,
what the female managers
at this company
were trying to do,
I think you would've seen a very
different future for Playgirl.
But Playgirl started
something very important.
There wasn't a name for
it back in the '70s.
People were just
calling it "foreplay."
But Playgirl was not
about naked men.
Playgirl was about women
looking at naked men.
It was about the female gaze.
- You mean CFNM.
- Yes.
You can look at
covers like this as an example,
but there was so much
more interaction
between men and women
in the magazine
when it was truly
entertainment for women.
You have interaction, you
have real connection,
you have the female gaze.
If you study art history at
all, the gaze and the voyeur
is always the man looking
in on the woman.
And Playgirl essentially flipped that
on its head and said, "Fuck you."
That's what made it so
successful, was this idea that
we were empowering women
to take their sexuality
into their own hands
and their own eyes.
And that was what
was so exciting.
One of the most popular
requests that we would get
with Playgirl for
photo shoots was
a man doing things like
chores around the house
or fixing something.
Even wearing an apron while
the woman relaxed on a couch.
Essentially, porn for women was
the men being in
positions of servitude.
But eventually we
lost that connection,
and things started
to disintegrate.
As we were pushed more and more
to appeal to a gay male audience
and to have less of a direct
connection to our female readers,
a lot of things just started
to get lost in translation.
- Why?
- Because
the people at the top
were very firmly rooted
in their ideas that
women didn't want to look
at this kind of stuff.
And even though you saw more
porn being made for women,
and you saw things like Fifty
Shades of Grey coming out,
there was still this
overwhelming belief in-house
that women were not the ones who
would be buying these magazines.
- Really?
- Yes.
They thought that only gay
men looked at Playgirl.
And... that was silly
because the gay men
who enjoyed Playgirl
had always enjoyed it because it
was from a female perspective.
So as soon as we started
erring more on the side of
what's considered gay
poses or gay content,
we alienated those gay readers
who had enjoyed the magazine
from when it started,
but also in the process, we
alienated our female readers.
But unknowingly,
Playgirl planted a seed.
Even without the magazine in
print, CFNM is everywhere.
It's in every hot photo shoot,
it's all over the Internet,
it's in television,
it's in movies.
It has become sort
of the gold standard
in what women generally
see as erotic.
By the way, who invented the word?
You?
- No, it was Brad.
- Brad? A guy?
- Yes.
- Okay.
So who do you think has
a higher sex drive?
I would say it's equal,
but I can say that
if women were raised
to think of themselves
as sexual creatures,
you would probably see a
very different world.
In 1916,
Universal Studios'
highest-paid director
was not a man,
but a woman.
Half of all films before 1925
were written by women.
But today, only seven percent
of Hollywood films are
directed by woman,
and in 2017, not a
single female director
was nominated for an Oscar.
In the Hollywood film industry,
woman are declining.
But in another industry,
women are rising.
In the adult industry, this year
36% of AVN-nominated
directors are women.
On the surface, you'd think that
the porn industry
is male-dominated.
But since the beginning of porn,
women have stood
behind the camera,
and their numbers are
rapidly increasing.
Today I'm meeting one of
those female directors,
the nominated and multi
award-winning director,
Jennifer Lyon Bell.
How did you get the idea to
make porn as your future?
Um, well, it's been something
that I was thinking
about for a long time.
When I was in high school, I
had seen a little bit of porn,
and I thought it was really
disappointing because
my friends and I were
somewhat sexually active,
and everything that we
did was much more fun
than this porn film that we
had managed to get a hold of.
And over time, I thought, okay,
well, eventually somebody will
start making films
that appeal more to me
or feel more like they're coming
from a woman's perspective.
So that was always a private
fantasy of mine, and then
I went to Harvard for my
undergraduate degree,
and nobody ever
graduates from Harvard
saying, "I'm going to do porn."
So the boredom in the films
actually triggered you
- to make better films?
- Yeah.
When I watched porn, I
thought, "This looks"
really, um, boring."
The stories are boring,
but also the sex itself doesn't
have a lot of spark to it.
And that's the thing that I cared most
about, was the spark between people.
So I would look for, like,
the 10 seconds or 20
seconds in a whole movie
that was really exciting, and I
would just watch that 10 seconds.
And after a time, I thought,
"That's kind of a low bar.
There should be more of the
movie that we want to watch."
But what is it that makes
your films different?
Well, I watch a lot of porn
that's made for men and by men,
but what I see in
those films often is
things that I as a woman
can't really relate to.
So one thing that's super
important to me is that
women's pleasure and orgasms
be real in the movie.
Because, for me, if that's not there,
it's a real deal-breaker for me.
- I can't enjoy it. - Yeah, it
definitely needs
to look natural.
Yeah. Yeah. And so to do that,
what I've learned
as a filmmaker is,
I have to create a
very safe space on set
and create an environment where
the performers have time
to kind of come to orgasm
in their own rhythm.
And that's really different
than most film sets of any kind
where things are, uh, a
little bit on a pace.
I totally agree.
Real orgasms are so
much better to watch.
And why do women fake
all of their orgasms?
I mean, don't men like watching
women have real orgasms?
Well, in porn, men
who watch porn,
I don't think they always can
tell the difference between
real orgasms and fake orgasms.
I think men would like watching
woman have real orgasms,
but as a woman, my orgasm-dar...
Like radar, but for orgasms...
Is particularly good,
'cause I'm a woman,
and that's my body.
So we need a real thing.
Just natural.
Definitely. More natural.
I mean, the positions
that I like to see in porn
don't have, like,
legs spread wide
with no, like,
clitoral stimulation,
And then the woman is screaming,
but the screams don't even sound
like she's having that much fun.
These are things that I wouldn't
put in any of my movies,
and I don't think anybody
who is making porn
for a female audience would
put it in their movies,
because it just
doesn't feel natural.
But the most important thing is,
no matter who you're working with,
you have to make people
feel very comfortable.
And in fact, once I decided
that I wanted the actors
to become more comfortable
with each other,
so I had arranged that they
should go to the sauna.
And then I thought, you know what?
I don't want them to think, like,
"Oh, you two are the performers,
and I'm up here, the director."
And then I thought, maybe we should
all go to the sauna together
and just kind of get it over
with, and we'll all be naked.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Like, naked, naked
or bikini naked?
Uh, we were naked, naked.
Wow, that's pretty cool.
So, do people
-have assumptions about your life?
- Yeah.
Yeah, like, for example, people
probably assume that I'm single,
when in fact actually
I have a family
and a daughter.
So does being a mom have
any effect on your work?
Not really. I, uh...
I'm proud of what I do,
and my daughter doesn't
understand it yet
because all she knows is that
Mama makes movies for grownups,
and she's, uh, not allowed
- anywhere near it, so, uh...
- Okay.
So how big is porn
for women, actually?
When I started, it
was very small.
But now it's grown a lot.
And in fact, now there's
a cable channel
that just shows porn for women.
That's really cool. - Yeah.
And is porn for women romantic?
No. Porn for women is
not always romantic.
And you're right that a
lot of people assume
that women are only interested in
sex if there's romance involved.
But, no, porn for women
is really varied.
A lot of women really like porn
that's not at all
romantic, which is like.
BDSM porn, for example,
which doesn't have
all of those traditional
hallmarks of romance.
It's about chemistry
and connection
and being super into each other,
but that might have nothing
at all to do with romance.
The people might not
end up together.
And I really like that because
there are so many messages
in popular culture
about how women should
love romance, and,
you know, I think it's nice to get
something else from your porn as well.
Yeah.
I also like to experiment.
But apart from BDSM,
what do women like more?
A lot of women watch gay porn,
and a lot of women
watch lesbian porn.
Lesbian porn?
I think if you're looking
at real lesbian porn,
like, not fake lesbian porn
made for dudes to watch,
but where women are really
actually enjoying each other
and getting each other off,
the technique in there
for going down on each
other, for cunnilingus,
is so much better than
what you might see
in a mainstream porn film
that's made for guys,
and I think there are a lot
of women who have fantasized
about having a
same-sex experience.
I get what you're saying.
I'm kind of into women
too, sometimes.
Maybe even more
than I think I do.
Well, you know what
I mean, right?
- Right?
- Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Um...
But why is gay porn so popular?
Have you seen gay porn?
Well, like, there's so
much to like about it,
you know, from a
woman's perspective.
One is that, um,
the men are very good looking.
You get to see everything.
You get to see their bodies,
but you also get to
see their faces,
and in some mainstream porn,
you don't get to see
either of those things.
And in gay porn,
that's all there is.
It's... It's really nice to see.
Are there disadvantages
in making porn for women?
Well, mostly regular people
are super supportive,
but companies are
another problem.
Nobody wants to deal with porn,
even if it's really
ethical and fun porn.
What I'm making is
something that I think
a lot of people really like, and they're
just having trouble finding it.
The final question...
Do women have a
higher sex drive?
I don't know if women
have a higher sex drive,
but I think women have a sex drive
that's at least as high as guys'.
I know that I personally
felt, like, weird
because I had a high sex
drive, and now that I have met
so many women who are just
like me, I know that,
yeah, this is the way women are.
The erotic novel
Fifty Shades of Grey
has become the fastest-selling
paperback since records began
and is on course to sell one
million copies by the end of 2012,
beating J.K. Rowling's
Harry Potter series
and Dan Brown's Da Vinci
Code to the U.K. record.
114 million views in the
first 24 hours, right?
More than Star Wars
did in its trailer.
And it's selling at the unheard-of
rate of one book a second.
And it's essentially
an adult erotic book.
Malaysia banned
it from theaters,
calling it "More
pornography than movie."
- There's a lot of sex.
- Yes.
- Graphic sex.
- Yes.
But I would say that this movie
is a lot more candid about sex
and a lot more articulate
about sex than most are.
Unbelievable. This book has
taken the world by storm.
It's on the cover of Newsweek. It's
been featured in Time magazine,
it's number one on
the best-seller list
I cannot get on the subway,
nobody can go to a vacation
resort without seeing women
holding this book
in their hands.
And I wonder if we've turned a
page with this book culturally,
that so many people
are reading it,
that it has become okay
to really talk about sex.
So what is it about
bondage, discipline,
submission and masochism
that strikes a chord
with so many women?
This book is tapping into
longings that women have
that I would say
particularly the Church
hasn't really acknowledged
or addressed,
and women are just flocking to it because
they feel like it's going to meet a need.
Spending money on sex
was traditionally
associated with men.
But with the economic rise of
women, more and more women
have started spending money
on their sexual desires...
So much so that economists
are beginning to re-think
women's sexual behavior.
One of these economists
is Dian Biemans.
According to Ms. Biemans,
women may look innocent,
but if we start looking
at the numbers,
we will begin to see a
very different story.
If you really want
to understand women,
you need to understand
Fifty Shades of Grey.
The reality is that women
have bought this erotic novel
in such a volume,
that it has surpassed
150 million sales
and was translated into
52 different languages,
elevating it to become one of the
most successful pieces of literature
ever written in human history.
That should tell us something
about the real desires of women.
And it's certainly
not sugar and spice.
I urge people to stop
putting women on pedestals
and start looking
at the numbers,
because when it comes to sex,
the numbers tell a
really different story.
Why is Fifty Shades of
Grey so successful?
I think, in order
to truly understand
the success of Fifty
Shades of Grey,
you need to stop looking at the book
and start looking at the author,
a British woman named Mrs.
E.L. James.
Mrs. James, in all honesty,
is an average-looking,
chubby, middle-aged white woman.
There's absolutely nothing
unique about her.
She could almost be described
as being 100% average.
And that is where her
real success lies,
because she asked herself
one important question...
"In what way can I,
as an average woman,"
have sex with an alpha male
"and still retain my innocence?"
Fifty Shades of Grey
addresses the duality
that almost every woman faces.
I believe that deep
inside every woman
is a crazy sex drive
waiting to be unleashed.
But at the same time,
society teaches women to be
well behaved and proper.
But Fifty Shades of Grey
managed to unlock this secret
by allowing a woman's sex
drive to be unleashed
while still maintaining some
kind of sexual innocence.
So Fifty Shades of Grey allows a woman
to have the best of both worlds.
Yes, exactly. But it's not
just middle-aged women
who are spending money
on their sexual desires.
There's another group of women
that is far more lucrative.
Ask any music executive.
There is no market
as lucrative as teenage girls.
They are more devoted, and they spend
more money than any other group.
They even have words to describe
the sexual obsession...
"Bieber fever" or "One
Direction affection."
Just think about it.
It's girls who hyperventilate
just thinking about boys.
It's girls who take off their
underwear and throw it at boys.
I don't see boys taking off their boxers.
Only girls do that.
Let me just read
you some numbers.
"1,500 security personnel,"
including 500 policemen,
private security guards,
"and 25 emergency
response officers."
I'm not talking about the
security of the president.
I'm just listing the security
at a Justin Bieber concert.
And this security is
seriously necessary.
And the past several shows
had to be canceled because
the police could not control
the screaming fans.
- That is incredible.
- Yes.
Some might even argue
that women end up spending
more money on sex than men.
But unlike men, women are
spending more money indirectly.
For example, some
studies show that
women who buy
three-inch-high heels
are almost twice as likely to
receive sexual attention from men
than women who buy flat shoes.
And makeup functions
the same way.
Women want to look
sexy and attractive,
so much so that they
end up spending
incredible amounts
on beauty products.
And just to bring a
statistic for comparison,
American men are
spending approximately
13 billion dollars a year
on porn-related products,
while women end up spending
approximately 13 billion on makeup,
and that doesn't even include skin
care, perfumes and hair products.
I think one of the most interesting
statistics are vibrator sales.
Right now the market for
vibrators is $2.9 billion,
while the market for Internet
porn is just $2.8 billion.
That's right. Women spend
more money on vibrators
than men spend on
watching Internet porn.
- So, do you think women have
a higher sex drive? - Yes.
I think sexuality is more a
part of a woman's identity,
in the clothes we wear,
the makeup we put on.
I think we are much more
aware of our own sexuality.
But I don't think men
display their
sexuality that much.
Sometimes I can walk around
all day feeling sexy,
but I don't think most men
will ever feel that way.
Why more and more men
are ditching marriage,
fatherhood, even the
American dream.
The reason will surprise you
and perhaps make you nauseous.
So many women staying single,
more than ever before.
'Cause we won't settle
for a lesser love.
We now have the
financial security
and all of the education
and the independence
as modern women to wait
for the right love,
and we won't settle for less.
And when they marry somebody
who's less successful,
their marriages are less satisfying
and more likely to end in divorce.
Recent genetic research
has shown that
before the modern
era, almost all women
managed to reproduce, while
most of the men did not.
The conclusion from this
is that a few top men
had access to multiple women,
while most men had no
mating prospects at all.
Anywhere from 73% to 93%
of the world's societies
have been polygamists.
And the Greeks are the first
really clearly attested
well-known society that
turns towards monogamy.
The question is, why?
The good answer that's
been given is democracy.
Monogamy is democratic.
This is saying nothing of women.
The losers in a polygamist
society are poor men.
They don't have mates. They become violent
and an unstable element in society.
So they've given up
reading, writing,
communicating, exercising,
playing sports.
And for those of you who think that's
not that big of a deal, it actually is,
because the birthrate in the
country is declining rapidly.
Recent studies in psychology
have dramatically changed the
way we look at men and women.
For years, psychologists
thought that
society controlled
women's sexuality.
But modern psychologists are
beginning to challenge this theory
and are finding new evidence that
is suggesting the exact opposite.
Today I'm very excited to meet
one of these psychologists,
the published author
and TED Talks speaker
Katarina Gabrova.
She believes that women are
driven by deep sexual urges,
and that once we begin to look at
sex through the lens of psychology,
things will begin to
look quite different.
There is a saying that
everything in the
word is about sex
except sex itself,
because sex is about power.
And when you ask me, "Do women
have a higher sex drive?"
you are not really asking me
who has a higher sex drive,
but your real question is,
"Who has more power?"
And I think that is
a very dangerous question.
But I'll try to answer
it with three theories
linked to female
power and sexuality.
The first may be the
most interesting one.
Have you ever heard of a
man called Edward Bernays?
You mean the psychologist?
Well, not a
psychologist himself,
although he did
become quite famous
for using reverse
psychology on women.
You see, in the 1920s,
an American tobacco
company hired Bernays
to encourage women
to start smoking.
That was a period when most
men used to smoke cigarettes,
but women were not allowed
to smoke in public
as it was seen as something
indecent or un-ladylike.
But Bernays had an unusual plan.
He actually hired
a psychoanalyst
to help him research the
psychology of women
and discovered that women
were driven by deep, primitive
sexual and competitive urges.
And since it was a very
male-driven society,
he believed that women
subconsciously had penis envy
and viewed cigarettes as
a symbol of the penis.
He realized that if he
could connect cigarettes
with the idea of
challenging male power,
then women would begin smoking,
because then women
would feel like
they had their own penises
and therefore male power.
But in order to
achieve his goal,
Edward Bernays did a
very unusual thing.
He secretly started
working with feminists,
linking smoking to the
equality movement,
convincing women that smoking
is the same as
having equal rights.
And his plan was very
successful because, soon after,
the sales of cigarettes
to women skyrocketed.
So women began smoking
- because they wanted male power?
- Exactly.
Now, the second theory has to
do with natural selection.
Throughout most
of human history,
almost all societies
have been polygamous.
And I know this may
be hard to believe,
but according to the social
psychologist Roy Baumeister,
polygamy actually
benefits most women
and is actually a
female-driven decision.
Because most women would
rather be the second
or the third wife of a
handsome and rich man
than the only wife of
an average or poor one.
So for example, most women
wouldn't mind to be one
of the many wives of, let's
say, Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling.
They would rather
do that than being
the only wife of a
construction worker.
So it's similar to
the 80/20% rule.
Yes. The so-called law
of the vital few.
And in fact contrary
to popular belief,
recent studies suggest
that humanity is not led
by the choices of men
but by the choices of women.
You see, genetic research shows
that for most of human history,
80% of women managed
to reproduce,
while only 40% of men did.
This actually means that
most men who ever lived
did not even get a
chance to reproduce.
And I think that this difference
is the single most unappreciated
fact about gender.
What this actually means is
that women decide whose
genes carry on, not men.
And that brings me
to the third theory.
I think that sex in
its ultimate form
is the transfer of power.
Men need power in order
to gain access to sex,
but once they are having
it, they lose power.
But a woman's power increases.
- Are you talking about orgasms?
- Yes.
While the average orgasms of
both genders are similar,
if we are comparing
the best of the best,
I think it's fair to say
that men simply cannot
match the power of the most
intense female orgasm.
In fact, according to Drs.
Kaneko and Kitamura,
the female orgasm can be
10 times more powerful
than the male orgasm.
And according to these authors,
should we run the intensity
of a female orgasm
through a male's brain,
there is a danger that such
a shock to their system
could actually kill them.
- Are you serious?
- Yes.
According to these doctors
it may be possible.
If we are looking at the
anatomical differences,
the female clitoris contains
15,000 nerve endings,
while the head of the penis
only has 4,000 nerve endings.
And can you imagine what
it's like when these 15,000
sexual nerve endings
fire all at once?
Well, it creates force...
A force so strong
that it almost shuts
down a woman's brain.
And at that point,
all memory, emotions
and reasoning functions stop.
And this event is so powerful
that some may even
call it spiritual.
- Spiritual?
- Yes.
Most people only know
about two dimensions
when they are talking
about sexual activity...
The physical and emotional.
But some women can reach
a third dimension
when they climax: the spiritual.
They describe it as a place
where they can finally let go
of all the physical and
emotional baggage.
So you don't actually
leave your body,
but you have the feel that you
have left everything behind.
Yes. Exactly.
Katarina was right.
When I have sex, all of
my troubles float away.
I don't have to think
about any obligations.
I can just let go
and enjoy intimacy.
Now for the big question...
Who has a higher sex drive?
Everyone has a
different opinion,
but in my journey, I found out
that we can experience
sex as spiritual,
we have multiple ways to orgasm,
and that almost every woman
has a bisexual side.
That's why I think that women
have a higher sex drive.
But the world might
have a different view.
I was taught to think about
sex in a certain way...
That a woman is prude
when she doesn't have sex
and that she's a
slut when she does;
that men shouldn't show
their submissive side;
and that genders can't
be sexually fluid.
But sex is more. It's more
than just reproduction.
It's more than your
sexual orientation.
It's more than an action.
The world has become
adjusted to only
one idea of sex.
But as humans, we are
capable of so much more.