Diana Peragine

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.

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 when and whether sex is worth desiring.

I would say that's definitely a part of it.

But I think a common misconception as well is that pleasure is missing from the curriculum entirely.

It's actually something that is included in even the most conservative curricula, but only for a privileged few.

Lessons on puberty, those touch on wet dreams, erections, ejaculations for boys.

But

For girls, they center on menstruation.

Likewise, lessons on procreation.

Those necessarily include the role of the male sexual pleasure organ in orgasm, but instead of the female one, they spotlight the birth canal, right?

So it shouldn't really be all that surprising that young people, you know, prioritize vaginas versus vulvas during sex when sex educators do the same during lessons, right?

How might young people ask about pleasure, you know, maybe learn a question in its absence if they

you know, never learn about its importance for female people or that, you know, its lack precludes healthy sex, right?

I think so, definitely.

I mean, we have to consider, too, when it comes to education about sex, you know, certainly there's formal education, but there's also sort of the lived sexual experiences that young people are having, which teach them a lot about whether sex is going to be enjoyable, whether it's going to be equitable and whether it's worth desiring.

Right.