By Niki Bezzant
What we learn from our early experiences sets the sexual 'scripts' for our lives to come. Photo: Unsplash
How did you learn about sex?
For a lot of adults, there may have been an awkward, less-than-comprehensive lesson at some stage of our school careers, mainly focused on reproduction and avoiding pregnancy and STDs. The rest we got from magazines, TV, movies and - that least reliable source - our peers.
While young people now are getting much of their sex education from porn, which has its own seriously problematic consequences, previous generations went out into the world of relationships with very little understanding of how their bodies worked and what good, satisfying sex was meant to be like.
Unfortunately, what we learn from our early experiences sets the sexual 'scripts' for our lives to come; scripts which might not work so well for us as we get older. Tauranga-based sexologist Meg Cowan, says her generation - Gen X - grew up in a pre-internet era with messages about sex that were largely not helpful.
"If you go back and look at Dolly and Cosmo magazine and things like that, a lot of them were focussed on how to 'please him', you know... There wasn't a lot that centred female pleasure. It was a lot about the nuts and bolts of how to please somebody else in a sexual experience."
Boys, she thinks, were probably exposed to the male equivalent - magazines like Playboy - and may have talked more to each other about sex in a jokey way, contributing to the idea of sex as something hidden and sometimes shameful.
This might be why, sex experts agree, we could all do with a bit of a sex education update.
'Most people were not taught how to have sex'
"Most people were not taught how to have sex. I think we need sex education because we still exist in a world where there is fear and shame and taboo and stigma around sex and pleasure and bodies", Australian somatic sex therapist Georgia Grace says.
"I think adults need to learn about sex because we're always learning. And hopefully we'll always be learning because our bodies and our desires and our needs will also always be changing."
"Adults need to learn about sex because we're always learning," says Australian somatic sex therapist Georgia Grace. Photo: Getty Images / Unsplash
Grace has written a book - The Modern Guide to Sex - to help. She says it is for anyone who is curious to learn, and might appeal especially to those whose experiences of sex have changed.
"It can be quite conflicting for people... they may have seen themself as someone who was really connected to their sex life and their relationship, but maybe they've gone through something - trauma or grief or loss or a big life change like getting married or having kids or ageing. And sex has changed for them, so their identity and their understanding of sex has changed. So they need to learn again."
Photo: Harper Collins
Grace says she wanted to show how our sexual scripts influence us, and give tools to help update patterns of thoughts and beliefs that are no longer useful.
An example of that is the definition that we all have of sex.
"That definition [often] is that a penis goes in a vagina, or penetration happens."
This, she emphasises, is just one small part of what we should consider sex to be; there are many other things we might do with a partner that can be considered sex, too.
Our expectations of desire are also often flawed.
"There's this idea that when you are attracted to someone, you should just want to have sex with them at the exact same moment as them. And that's because we see these images of people in the movies bursting through an apartment door and rolling around the walls and ripping each other's clothes off… And that looks fun. It looks entertaining, but it doesn't really happen like that."
Real-life sex doesn't necessarily look like the stuff portrayed in the movies, Georgia Grace says. Photo: Unsplash
Instead, she writes, we experience different types of desire: spontaneous and - more likely, especially in long-term relationships - responsive. Both are normal.
Our 'sex values' are another area Grace explores. She draws a pie chart to represent what people value in sex. Orgasm is just one piece of the pie.
"When I ask: 'Why else do you have sex?', all of these words will come up, like exploration and connection and fun and transformation; to feel good; to feel pleasure. And then they forget about the fact that orgasm was this essential, pressure-filled thing for them. It helps them reframe it, and instead approach these central moments of sensual or sexual intimacy with less pressure around it."
Working on our own pleasure - in all forms - and tuning into our bodies is essential to accessing pleasure during sex, Grace stresses. If we do not know what makes us feel good, it is impossible to tune into that in a sexual context.
It's hard to talk about sex
Sexual communication - which starts with talking about sex - is another challenging area for many people.
"We have this assumption that sex should be natural - when you like someone, it should just 'work'," Grace says.
"But I think that's such an impossible standard to hold ourselves to. We have to learn to talk about sex like we would learn to talk any new language. And when we're learning this new language, we are clunky. We mess it up. We may not say the right thing. We may not say it at the right time. And that's okay. We kind of need to allow ourselves not to be experts."
It's best to talk about sex in a non-sexual context. Photo: Levi Meir Clancy for Unsplash
Starting the conversation, she recommends, is best done in a non-sexual context.
"Bringing it up right before or during or after sex is not going to be useful or supportive."
It seems we might be warming up to the idea of talking - or at least reading - about sex. There is an emergence of midlife sex-focussed literature; books such as Miranda July's All Fours and Glynnis Macnicol's I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself celebrate pleasure and sexual rediscovery. And Gillian Anderson's Want is a collection of real-life sexual fantasies, contributed by anonymous women and showcasing a diverse and raunchy window into women's sexual inner lives. (We're yet to see a male equivalent).
Grace thinks these books are one indication that we're in "a sexual revolution". She mentions also the rise of late-in-life lesbians; women re-structuring their old lives to try new sexual experiences.
"I think it speaks to the nuance of desire," she says. "I think it's really exciting. I know it's incredibly validating for a lot of people. I had a client the other day and she's just turned 50, and she was like, the whole world is expecting me to stop being sexual, but I feel more alive and more sexual than I've ever felt."
Cowan, too, thinks the book trend is exciting. She notes there is also a lot of quality sex-focussed romantic fantasy, reflecting a range of demand.
"We want relatability and connection. And then sometimes we want a bit of escapism as well. So tell me the real stories ... the honest stuff. And give me the complete fantasy you know - the absolutely ripped fairy god."
Niki Bezzant is a freelance writer, speaker, journalist and author focusing on health, wellbeing and science.
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