Diana Peragine

Happy to be here.

Thanks so much for having me.

Right.

I mean, well, we're really talking about when it comes to this gap in particular, I think the myth is really centered on, again, where it comes from than really the size of the gap, right?

You know, this libido gap between genders, it's been a staple of punchlines, headlines, party conversations for decades, right?

We're talking about a gender gap that's pretty large, about as large as the gender difference in weight, and one that's pretty reliable.

It's been replicated across 500 or more studies in the past 25 years alone.

And across that, you know, long and sort of girthy body of research, three or four women do report less interest in sex than men.

The question is, or I think the controversy is more about where that gap is coming from.

Right.

Is it a natural one or is it something that, you know, we acquire over time?

Exactly.

Right.

I mean, it is a good question.

I mean, the traditional or the sort of classical view, right, has kind of been that, you know, this is something that we can chalk up to biological differences that are kind of programmed before birth, like hormonal ones, for example, right?

Or, you know, some have actually more recently kind of chalked it up to experiential differences or learned differences that we acquire as adults, right?

You know, I mean, gender differences and sexual enjoyment are among the largest documented in psychology, right?

And the orgasm gap is actually increasingly discussed as, you know, one of the possible explanations for women's lower interest in sex.

But, you know, what we don't discuss quite as much or even acknowledge, really, is the largest orgasm gap or the largest sexual enjoyment gap on record, which is the one between adolescence, actually, the one that lands the very start of sexual life and actually may land during a critical period for learning about sex and whether sex is worth desiring.

Yeah.