In the fifth season of the British cringe comedy series Peep Show about two dysfunctional flatmates, Mark tells Jeremy that, for the first time in his life, he thinks he\u2019s getting sex right. This is thanks to new partner\u2019s very explicit instructions. \u201cThat\u2019s cheating,\u201d Jeremy complains. \u201cAnyone can please a woman if she tells you what to do. You\u2019re not allowed to ask. That\u2019s the whole point.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve spent a year trying to figure out why straight women are statistically last on the list<\/a> when it comes to having pleasurable sex, but that one minute of television pretty much sums it up.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve asked 55 women about the hottest moments of their lives and have never heard the same answer twice. When it comes to sex, the things that light us up are so specific and individual, I suspect that if I asked 1,000 women I would get 1,000 different answers.<\/p>\n When I asked women what they think their partner did to enable that one overwhelming moment, however, there was far less variety. Instead, I heard three answers over and over. The first two \u2013 great circumstances and great chemistry \u2013 happen by chance.<\/p>\n But the third answer is astonishingly simple \u2013 and obvious. It takes no luck, no money and can be learned. It is: \u201cHe just asked.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone responds to physical touch in different ways. Every woman\u2019s fantasy life is different. Given the infinite diversity of taste, the best way to understand the person you are with is by asking them what they want.<\/p>\n \u201cAsk your lover\u201d is the only universal sex tip. Yet few men are taught it. Instead, through Hollywood films, pornography and locker-room talk, they learn that they should already know the answer (impossible). As Jeremy says to Mark, they are taught success is about the right guess.<\/p>\n Maya*, who is in her mid-50s, once assumed her sex life was over. With her husband of 30 years, it certainly had been. But when she started dating post-divorce, she met a man who changed her mind.<\/p>\n With him she went from \u201ca fairly vanilla experience of sex\u201d to a \u201cwhole multitude of experiences\u201d. This partner was adventurous and knowledgable, and together they went on a \u201cdeeply physical\u201d journey. Through this relationship she learned what she really likes and what her body is capable of.<\/p>\n In the early stages of this discovery period, she felt self-conscious about her inexperience and her appearance. She \u201chadn\u2019t really ever experienced really great sex\u201d, she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n But her partner kept asking about her fantasies, her desires and what felt good for her. He would bring her toys to try, to see what she might like. Slowly she opened up.<\/p>\n So many women have never had an experience of being touched exactly the way they want. They just don\u2019t know it\u2019s possibleBetty Martin, School of Consent<\/p>\n She learned that with the right setting and partner, she is multi-orgasmic and can experience orgasms from varied stimulation. Although that partner is out of the picture now, Maya still hums with sexual energy. It\u2019s an energy she has brought into new relationships. Now she knows what she wants and is confident asking her partners what they want too.<\/p>\n Like Maya, some women I\u2019ve spoken with did not know how to answer the first time someone asked them what they wanted. Others felt liberated, or relieved. And some women, upon realising that asking is the only trick, grew incandescent with rage. Not at the man who asked but at all the men who did not.<\/p>\n Talking may be the only key to a fulfilling sex life \u2013 especially in long-term relationships \u2013 but for many people, sex is easier done than said. So how does one get good at discussing sex when our genitals are synonymous with the word \u201cunmentionables\u201d?<\/p>\n