SARAH OAKES: Good afternoon.
My name is Sarah Oakes.
I'm the Editor of 'Daily Life'
and it's my enormous pleasure to welcome you here today.
Some housekeeping before we begin:
our special guest speaker
will talk for around 40 minutes.
At the end of that time, you might like to take the
opportunity to move to 1 of the microphones beside the
seating and, ah, and take the opportunity to
ask a question.
Today's speaker is Brooke Magnanti, whose beautiful
Italian surname I fear I may have just butchered.
She is a truly fascinating woman.
As Belle de Jour, the creator of
'Secret Diary of a Call Girl', the blog that became
the book, that became the TV series, Brooke gave us a
tantalising account of work in the sex industry.
Today, as a scientific researcher, she now takes on
the private and public myths surrounding sex and why we
believe them.
Brooke's book 'The Sex Myth'
unpicks the hysteria around media reporting, the
research, the assumptions, rumours and wives'
tales that we have around sex.
Sex isn't and easy subject to debate; personal history,
politics, fear, years of oppression get in the way.
But, Brooke's funny, fearless and fact-based way of
writing, finds a way to cut through all of that noise, as
you are about to find out.
Please give a very warm welcome to Brooke Magnanti.
(APPLAUSE)
BROOKE MAGNANTI: My God, there's a metric
fuck-load of you
(LAUGHING)
It was only a couple of ago, I actually thought to
ask someone.
I was like:
"Sydney Opera House is pretty big isn't it?"
"And, you know:"
"How many people are going to be there?"
"Mm, don't know, hundreds?"
"And I thought: "Well, the audience participation of
the bit of the talk might not go as well because I can
just about see people if I shade my eyes. But, hi
(LAUGHING)
Oh, sorry, that's not me.
Um, obviously I'm Brooke Magnanti and I'm going to be
talking about just a couple of the sex myths that I wrote
about in my book.
Um, first off, I should make clear:
this is this is Billy Piper.
Um, she is a really lovely lady; a fantastic actress.
Last year, I was giving a talk at'Sceptics on the Fringe'
ah, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and, little did I
know there was actually a reviewer in the audience who
wasn't familiar with my secret double life as a, ah,
child health scientist.
(LAUGHING)
And so, when I read the review he said:
"I went going- I went to this talk expecting Belle de Jour
and I got statistics lecture."
"So, I just want to make clear, I'm not actually Billy
Piper, as you've probably guessed by now."
But, ah, what I can claim to be trying to do
(LAUGHING)
is 'making statistics standards sexy, one standard
deviation at a time.'
And, I look forward to the next series of
'Secret Diary of a Call Girl' which, ah, for some reason,
I've heard nothing about, so far, in which she is revealed
to be, ah, an incredible nerd who spends her days hanging
around by the computer, incessantly tweeting about
little mistakes that she finds in other people's
scientific papers.
So, what are some common sex myths overall?
Things that we tend to hear in the media and tend to just
take without any particular evidence for whether or not
they're true?
I'm just going to go a few through a few of them: ah,
'Women don't want sex they want companionship?'
The, the myth that if, ah, women are sexually active,
they're only using it to get something from men.
The idea that 'All men are potential rapists'
and they just have to see a naked woman and then that's
it; they go crazy, they go mad and they attack anybody
they see.
That there are 'Many women who are
forcibly trafficked for sex' and I'm sure that one will be
coming up on Q & A on Monday.
The 'Drug-addicted streetwalkers are more common
than call girls?'
This is one that I actually get a lot.
There's a lot of people who say:
"Well, there aren't many people in the sex industry
like you."
"And, while it's probably true that there aren't too
many people in that sex industry who specifically
work in child health epidemiology" go figure.
(LAUGHTER)
Um, there are, actually, obviously a lot of people who
are in a similar situation to I was, which was, ah, being a
migrant student who ran out of money.
And, realising that I was on a visa that severely limited,
not only the kind of work that I could do, but the
number of hours I could work.
So, there're actually quite a lot of us. Ah,
'Porn is the biggest entertainment industry'
is another myth we get quite a lot of, and that sex
addiction is a growing disease.
And, I'm going to be talking about 2 these today.
Mainly, sex addiction and the idea that women don't want
sex, they just want companionship and that as
soon as they're married, sex is just off the table.
Now I've been married for 3 years now, so you
do the maths.
Obviously I haven't had sex since 2010.
(LAUGHTER)
This is the wonderful poet Philip Larkin, chewing on his
pen, rather fetchingly, ah, famously he never married,
but kept about 5 Mistresses, secret from each other.
And in one of his poems he says:
"Where do these innate assumptions come from?"
"And that was the thinking that I went into writing"
'The Sex Myth' with.
Not only just that, there are some of these ideas, and, and
to what extent are they right or are they wrong, but where
do they actually come from?
And, I have to say, um, I blame myself.
And, I blame myself as someone who is now kind of,
by circumstance, ah,a columnist; a member of the media;
somebody who has to produce 500 to 900 words 3
times a week on topics that I sometimes only know a little
bit about but I've got really strong opinions, damn it.
(LAUGHTER)
So, I came up with this thing called
'The Feedback Model' and The Feedback Model sounds
really, you know, portentous.
Um, it's just 'a' feedback model.
It's how some of these things could happen.
The way it starts off at the top is that somebody spots a
shock statistic of some kind, maybe in a medical journal
or, more likely, in the press release for a medical
journal, ah, often without any context.
Often it'll be somebody who does not specifically have
the background in the topic that's being written about
from an academic perspective.
You can often take a statistic like that and just
sort of fit it into a predetermined message.
So, if you're a writer and you have an editor who comes
to you and says: "We really need something on
sex addiction because there's a famous person who's
admitted to being a sex addict and we need some great
sounding number."
"And you go, and you Google it and you find that number
and you whack it in there," just as, just as a throwaway
almost, which means that little or no critical thought
is applied to: who were the people that were
actually involved in making this statistic?
But, also who are the people that are the statistics
themselves?
If you hear about some percentage of women, ah, who
give up on sex after marriage or, some percentage of men
who are sex addicts and, and just not really
thinking about:
"Well, who actually were the people that they pulled to
get these numbers?"
"But, very often, you know, where there is smoke
there is fire."
Ah, they are people who experience huge losses
in libido.
There are people who experience problems with, ah,
restraining their sexual activity within
a relationship.
And, crucially, there's not a lot of support out there for
those people that is coherent, or that is
non-profit, or that is not in some way taking advantage of
them still further.
Now, where you've got a group of people who are concerned
and who are getting support, of course they're going to
talk about this.
And, especially in the age of the Internet, everybody's got
a blog, everybody can get together and they can tweet
about it, or they can post to Facebook.
And so, talking about the problems and why aren't they
finding support.
Then, someone like me comes along with 500 to 900 words
to write 3 times a week and decides to write about this
phenomenon, at which point the cycle continues again,
because I need a shock statistic to kind of head off
my piece.
We get so used to seeing these things that they often
just kind of enter into the day to day mythology without
anyone really knowing where they originated.
And that's where it's often really handy to try and break
the cycle, this feedback loop, and ask:
"Where did the original numbers come from?"
(LAUGHTER)
You can probably guess I'm going to talk about sex
addiction now and the wonderful saying that
'Three men make a tiger.' You know, if somebody runs up
to you, if- I, I live in a tiny little village in the
north-west of Scotland and if somebody came running up the
one street in our village and said:
"You wouldn't believe it. Oh my God, there is a tiger
in the village."
"It'd be like:" "You are clearly on something."
"And then a 2nd person runs along and says:
"No really, it's true." I saw it.
It's there.
"You kind of go: "Oh well, well, you know, maybe
Can they both be on something?"
"By the time a 3rd person is running up, telling you that
this thing exists," you absolutely believe it because
why would three people, independently, be making
it up?
So, let's put Tiger Woods in to The Feedback
(LAUGHING)
Loop.
The statistic that we get a lot of is this one
that claims: "In 1991, an estimated 3-6%
of adults had sex addiction." Sometimes, this is
qualified by saying "adults in the US
"or sometime it, it's just inserted whatever country
you're in.
It'll say 'in UK' or 'in Australia'
or even 'worldwide.' Well, we know that, you know,
there's porn, there's cheaters'
dating sites for married people and, of course, people
get divorces because people are cheating.
So, this is kind of, the lay of the land.
So, we kind of figure that maybe these must be related,
you know?
That, maybe these things are happening because somebody
has a sex addiction?
Now, obviously, there's some truth to the fact that there
are people with intimacy issues in their relationships
who are seeking relationships outside or, for whatever
reason, have very, ah, I don't know how we'd say it,
non-monogamous arrangements?
And, and everything on the spectrum in between.
There's not a great deal of support for people either who
are experiencing intimacy issues that they personally
or their partners are having problems with, or who just
have some kind of alternative lifestyle that doesn't fit
the whole 'man and woman who get
married and they settled down in the suburbs and they have
their 2.3 children.' I've always wondered what '.3'
children looks like. Is it like to here, or, is it
just kind of that bit there?
So, you know, the pressure builds and somebody's got to
write about celebrity cheating, ah, whoever it is
this week.
You know, it could be Tiger Woods, or it could be David
Duchovny, or it could be any of the rest of the people who
are rumoured to be sex addicts but I can't really
say their names now because we'll get sued.
(LAUGHTER)
And, ah, and then, of course, you've got to head off your,
your little piece, quickly Google
'In 1991, an estimated 3-6% of adults had sex addiction.
And, we're not really asking the question:
"How did somebody come up with this number?"
"What was the study in 1991?"
It's a zombie statistic.
(LAUGHTER)
It's just out there wandering the land and it wants
your brains.
(LAUGHTER)
This is the International Institute for Trauma &
Addiction Professionals website which has a big,
handy quiz: 'Am I Sex Addict?' button.
So, we're going to figure out how many of you are sex
addicts now?
Some of the questions are a little bit odd.
So, if there are certain things you would rather not
specifically be seen to be putting your hand up for,
just put your hand up at the end if any of these might
apply to you.
So, first off, we've got:
"Are you preoccupied with sexual thoughts? "
Or, "Do you ever feel your desire is stronger than you?'
"Now, now note this doesn't specify:
'Are you feeling this right now?' Soů
(LAUGHTER)
ů if you've ever been 15ů
(LAUGHTER)
ůand preoccupied with sexual thoughts that you felt were
maybe taking up more of your mental energy than your maths
homework was, feel free to put your hand up.
(LAUGHING)
Just assume that my hand's going to stay up throughout
this by the way.
These kind of sound like a reasonable place to
start though. You kind of think:
"Well, yeah, that does sort of sound like it fits with
our kind of, you know, our public, received knowledge of
the definitions of addiction." "Then, it goes on to include
some, some pretty exciting other things.
So, have we got hands up anyway, by now?
No one will admit to having been 15?
That's cool.
(LAUGHTER)
"Were you ever sexually abused?" "Now, this is a really
problematic question to throw in there."
But, I like the next one: "Did your parents have
sex problems?ö
(LAUGHTER)
How is that a diagnosis of addiction?
You know, did your mum drink a bit much, because you might
be an alcoholic?
It doesn't- well, I don't really see they go together.
Also, as well, who the hell's gonna ask?
"Have you been in an abusive relationship?"
"You might be a sex addict if you've been in an
abusive relationship? " "Has anyone been hurt because
of your sex life?" "Aka, "Have you ever had a
sex life?ö
(LAUGHTER)
If there's anybody here who claims that nobody has ever
been hurt by anything they've done in their sex life, I'm
just going to say it now:
"Y'all are liars.ö
(LAUGHTER)
"Do you hide sexual activities from others?ö
(LAUGHTER)
As opposed to just going down to Woollies and justů
(LAUGHTER)
ůon the floor. This one is great.
"Have you purchased sexual material online?"
"So, porn "ůincluding online dating?"
(LAUGHTER)
This is the point where I have to fess up.
I met my husband on Gumtree in the casual
encounters section.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm beginning to think he might be a sex addict
(LAUGHTER)
And, finally, "Have you been a sex worker?"
"Well, that's my hand way up."
I find that an interesting question.
'Have you been a sex worker' could indicate whether you're
a sex addict. That's like saying Gordon
Ramsay might have an eating disorder.
(LAUGHTER)
So, who here's a sex addict?
Just get those hands up if any of that applied to you.
Yeah, it's Lord Kitchener here to let you know
(LAUGHING)
all of you. What did we call sex
addiction before we called it sex addiction?
Because sex addiction, as a term, is something we've only
really begun to hear kind of in the last decade or so.
Anyone want to yell one out?
(VOICE FROM AUDIENCE YELLS: "Promiscuityö)
Promiscuity, that's good.
(VOICE FROM AUDIENCE YELLS: "Nymphomaniaö)
Nymphomania, yeahů
(VOICE FROM AUDIENCE YELLS: (Speaker Unclear)
Healthy (LAUGHING)
(LAUGHTER)
I like that. I mean, there's all kinds
of things: Poor impulse control;'Male'
sex drive. Again, going back to this
myth that there is a'Male' sex drive that is wanting sex
all the time and there's a 'Female' sex drive that is
neverwanting sex, unless they want to get something from
people. Compulsive behaviour?
Peter Pan syndrome? I thought that was like when
35-year-old men went around wearing shorts and growing
their hair long but, who knows?
And then: 'Priapism', if men and
'nymphomania', if women. It's this kind of fear of
unbounded, uncontrolled sexuality that has been
around basically as long as there have been people
writing about sex. There's always somebody who's
having too much, whether they're doing it for free or,
what I like to call, a talented amateurů
(LAUGHTER)
ůor whether they're getting paid for it.
This wonderful mock-up of what women's magazines tell
us all the time about sex.
"Sex: You're doing it WRONG, dammit!"
(LAUGHTER)
"SEX AGAIN? " "What are you, an alley cat?ö
(LAUGHTER)
And, don't get me wrong. I LOVE women's magazines.
I LOVE them. It's, it's, it's chick crack,
you know? I mean, I, I like to consider
myself better than this, and bigger than this, and above
this, but screw it.
If I'm on a 4 hour train ride, I'm not picking up
'The Financial Times' to read on the way.
We get such mixed from these things.
And, and so much of it, again, comes back to this
idea of: "Women, are you having sex the
'right' way? " Are you having the'good'sex?
Are you having enough of it? Is your man happy?
What can you do to his nipples to make him happier?ö
(LAUGHTER)
That maybe went a bit far that one?
(LAUGHTER)
So, again, going back to our little'Feedback Loop', we're
going to talk about 'Female Sexual Dysfunction.'
Ah, this is something that comes up under loads of
different names: 'Female Sexual Dysfunction',
'Lack of Libido' or if you happen to be gay
and a woman,
'Lesbian Bed Death;' all of these really quite
horrible stereotypes.
Oh, there's a statistic.
Another 1999 paper claiming that '43% of women had Female
Sexual Dysfunction.' So, that goes WAY beyond, I
mean, if we're all sex addicts, I'm, I'm going to
guess we're going to start putting up our hands up, and
the men in here are going to turn out to have Female
Sexual Dysfunction.
(FAINT LAUGHTER)
Naturally, we've got our stereotypeůof women- oops,
alright, oh I didn't highlight that one. Soz.
Imagine the second one's highlighted:
'Stereotype of women not being into sex.'
'Stereotype played for laughs?'
as I am doing right now; it's usually a punch line that you
see on sitcoms. You know?
Or, a comedic movie with Meryl Streep about how
hilarious it is that she and her husband aren't
intimate anymore.
But, of course, there's the truth, the kernel of truth.
Many people do notice that desire does change over time.
It doesn't disappear altogether forever for
anyone, but it does change.
Again, I've been married 3 years, you do the maths.
It goes up, it goes down, it comes, it goes; you're out of
sync with someone, you're in sync.
You feel like you're never gonna get back that wonderful
'let's rip-off the clothes and do it in the
stationery closet' part of your relationship
again because that, obviously, is desirable in
the long term.
(FAINT LAUGHTER)
Another key thing though is that these issues really tend
only to be talked about in media that is specifically
aimed at women.
Again, going back to the women's magazines: 'You',
'you women' must do something about this.
'You' must go out and buy the lingerie.
'You' must go out and get your stripping pole.
'You' must greet your man at the door with a ball
tickler andů
(LAUGHTER)
ůa steak.
And, again, it's not, it's not really handled in a way
that is in anyway sensitive of the fact that some people
are experiencing anxiety about the changes in their
sex lives.
And, what do you know, here comes someone like me again
who's got to write a column for the women's page of
'The Telegraph.'
Surprise, surprise; here comes our shock
statistic again. So, you're seeing how this
works and this is where they are generally kind of arising
and they're percolating through.
They get repeated to the point that we take it for
granted that this is true.
And it's reinforced by almost all the other
media that we see.
Everything from stand-up comedians to romantic films
and now, don't even get me started on chic flicks.
Again, I love a chic flick. I really do.
On the flight over here, it was just back-to-back
chick flicks. Okay? If I could have watched
'Silver Linings Playbook' 6 times in a row, I totally
would have done. Because, I mean, you know,
Bradley Cooperů
(LAUGHTER)
But, the thing is, is that that constant diet, no matter
how cynical you are about it, no matter how much of a
sceptic you think yourself to be, you can't help but absorb
a little bit of it.
You can't help but get swept along and you're having, you
know, a day, or you're having drinks with friends and these
kinds of assumptions come up over and over and over again.
And, nobody's stopping you there going: "Hold on a minute."
Have you gone to 'PubMed' and actually found that paper?
"That's just not something you say on a Friday night,
out having a white wine with the ladies."
Maybe you don't.
(LAUGHTER)
So, instead of a grown-up conversation
(LAUGHING)
about women, and desire, and asking, you know, the famous
Sigmund Freud question: "What is it a woman
really wants?"
"we get 'Fifty Shades of Grey' in
'Tesco', and the presumed outcome ofů
(LAUGHTER)
'Fifty Shades of Grey.' We get sold something that
is, you know, to give her credit where it's due, if I
had sold 100th as many books as she did, I, yeah, I'd be
pretty happy with that
(LAUGHING)
It's an incredible success story for a writer.
It's also an incredible success story because, when
you're reading the books and, as many people kind of said,
they are appallingly written. And, I say this as somebody
who wrote, you know, Chick Lit, ah, they are
appallingly written. But, it's a very accurate
portrayal of the fantasies of the writer.
And, this is why it works as erotica.
Because it is impossible to write erotica and be
successful with it if you do not also believe in what's
happening while you're writing it.
And I do think that people get that when they read the
books but, you know, on top of the success of 'Fifty shades'
we've now got 'The Fifty Shades Sex Toy' set.
(FAINT LAUGHTER AND MALE VOICE IN AUDIENCE SAYS
SOMETHING INAUDIBLE)
Yes, it really exists
(LAUGHING)
Available on 'lovehoney.co.uk'
That bit'll probably be edited out as it sounds like
an advert.
It's not. Um, we've got hotels
that are making 'Fifty Shades Red Rooms
of Pain' because
(LAUGHING)
nothing says 'romance' like booking yourself into the
'Red Room of Pain
(LAUGHING)
You're gonna hot things up, you know, things have been
going a bit cold at home. Get some cable ties.
(LAUGHTER)
Go down to the Travelodge.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, it's usually at that point in the story that
somebody from my former profession probably gets
murdered but we'll leave that behind.
What did the data actually say about Female
Sexual Dysfunction?
Well, we did have a UK study. This is, ah, "Nazareth,
Boynton et al." "This was conducted, ah,
using data that was obtained from National Health Service,
ah, questionnaires that were administered through the NHS.
And 38% of women did report symptoms that were consistent
with Female Sexual Dysfunction, at any point in
their sexual history."
So, it's still pretty high but, again, the sort of
diagnostic criteria that are being used are not making any
distinction between:
'Did you feel that way two weeks ago, two years ago, two
decades ago?'
So, it isn't really making the distinction of:
"Is this an ongoing problem for you?"
Or, was it something fleeting?
"because, obviously, those are two hugely
different things."
(LAUGHTER)
Ah, of that, "18% called it a problem
"which "6% rated (ů) moderate or severe."
"So, again, if you can be diagnosed with something, but
it's not bothering you like, say, you're a man diagnosed
with testicular cancer, does that mean you're to go in
there and operate today?
Probably not, probably not until the point where it
actually starts to affect your thinking and your life,
though some people who could be diagnosed with all kinds
of diseases- I actually was diagnosed with arthritis a
couple of months ago.
Ah, you'll notice this hasn't stopped me wearing high heels
because, frankly, it doesn't really bother me.
When I get to the point that I'm hobbling around like my
Granny, then I'll probably do something about it,
but not before.
One of the things in this paper, which I though was
just a brilliant quote: "Reduced sexual interest or
response 'may be' a normal adaptation to stress."
"Do you think, that maybe if you're worried about other
stuff in your life you might not feel like living
out the full 'Fifty Shades' fantasy?
(LAUGHTER)
I, you know, I come from a proud academic tradition and,
ah, and I have to say this represents some of the best
stuff that we do.
(LAUGHTER)
It is actually a really good study and a friend of mine a
co-author on it but, pointing out the bleeding obvious,
doing that with statistics since, since there were
universities, basically.
And then, of course, we can go back to the famous,
classic, ah, study of human sexuality by
Masters and Johnson: "nothing could be further
from the truth than the concept that aging women do
not maintain a high level of sexual orientation."
"In other words, you don't need to fear that the
menopause, or being married for a long time, or just
being older is going to turn it all off for you."
And, it's funny to think that we live in an ever-more
interconnected society where people, seemingly, have more
and more of a voice and able to share their life
experiences, I mean, that some hooker wrote a
blog, anywayů.
(LAUGHTER)
Um, but that this doesn't really seem to be percolating
through; we don't seem to be paying attention to the
voices of people who've been married for a very long time,
or people who are older, people who are passed the
menopause who are saying: "Well, yeah, things come and
go, just like it does for everybody else."
I'm guessing, some of you may know what this is?
The little blue pill.
Now, Viagra fixed male sex drives for men.
Let's face it, since Viagra men's sex has- it's been
perfect for them.
Is, is that right men?
(FAINT LAUGHTER)
To leave, you know, any problems y'all had, any kind
of emotional, relationship problemsůthis worked right?
(FAINT LAUGHTER)
It certainly worked for the pharmaceutical companies.
It was a runaway success. I mean, Pfizer is very much
the house Viagra built and I don't just mean that in the
crude imagery kind of way. Sorry, I'm seeing like cranes
in my head and stuff
(LAUGHING)
Now, the big question has been:
'Why isn't there a Viagra for women?'
Why can't women just pop this pill?
Why hasn't there been any success when testosterone
patches were trialled in women?
Or Sildenafil or, any of a number of other
pharmaceutical solutions that should be flying off the
shelves because of the huge percentage of women who
supposedly have Female Sexual Dysfunction and want to do
something about it?
Maybe it's because the problems both for men and
women are a bit more complicated than
'do the relevant bits work?'
It could be.
There's, ah, there's a reason why you're looking at Joseph
Stalin right now, and not just because it amuses me.
When I met my husband, we'd been seeing each other for a
few weeks, and by 'seeing each other'
I meant he came 'round for sex.
And then I told him to get the bus home.
(LAUGHTER)
And we had 'the talk.'
And, you might be thinking 'the talk'
means like: 'Where is this
relationship going?'
Well, what I really mean is in the 'Cosmo'
sense where you actually tell somebody how many people
you've slept with.
And, kind of stupidly, I went first.
(LAUGHTER)
I really didn't know where to begin because I didn't, I
didn't write them down, you know?
If you can imagine, if I'd started keeping notches on
the headboard, I would have had no headboard, like,
years ago.
I was like, oh, do you know, it's probably- it's
more than 100.
It's got to be more than 100. I'd say it's probably more
than 300; 500 sounds like too many.
I'm getting a feeling that 500's too many but, ah, it's
definitely not more than 400.
(LAUGHTER)
And then I turned to him and was like:
"Well, how many people have you slept with?"
"And, he goes like thisů.I thought:
"Fuck me, it's less than five." "That's the kind of people
you meet on the internet."
(LAUGHTER)
And, he said to me, probably, one of the most wonderfully
straight from Cosmo lines ever:
"I went for quality over quantity."
"And, that was when I whipped out my favourite
Uncle Joe quote: "Quantity has a quality all
its own.ö
(LAUGHTER and APPLAUSE)
But, sort of turning the whole thing on the
heads of, like: women's desire is not
something that should really be ruled by how often you're
having sex, or how supposedly good some checklist in Cosmo
tells you it is.
Or, how it's measuring up against what they're doing in
'Fifty Shades'; if it's athletic enough to
be good sex.
Is it intimate enough or, my own personal bugbear:
Are you orgasming simultaneously?
Now, I can't speak for everyone else, obviously.
I'm assuming your orgasms are like mine.
It's the most self-absorbed thing that can ever
happen to you.
Bombs could be falling
(LAUGHING)
I don't want that to be happening at the same time as
the orgasm of my partner 'cause they're just gonna
get ignored.
(LAUGHTER)
Don't even get me started about it, if you're at an orgy.
(LAUGHTER)
Here's the sort of thing that we very often see in
men's magazines: the wonderful stock photo.
There he is, he's run out of blue pillsů
(LAUGHTER)
ůthere she is, she's never heard of masturbationů
(LAUGHTER)
There's no intimacy here. They're not connecting.
These are the adverts that men get, which look
reassuringly pharmaceutical.
There's white, there's loads of print at the bottom.
This actually isn't for a pharmaceutical product at
all; it's for some nasal spray.
(LAUGHTER)
And the advertising standards agency, ah, after about six
months of this running in all of the men's magazines in the
UK made them get rid of this because it was implying
things about their product which, blatantly,
weren't true.
Which was that: if you have a hard-on for 8
hours, and you're sawing away at your woman, this is going
to be the outcome.
(LAUGHTER)
All you need is this never-ending erection to make
women happy. Nowů
(LAUGHTER)
Again, going back to this, this idea that's like:
'if women are only using sex, supposedly, to get things
from other people, then, well, what we don't
need is Viagra.
We need something faster.'
(LAUGHTER)
We need, like, 15-year-old boy ejaculation hormonesů
(LAUGHTER)
So, that we can get on with the really important business
of taking all his money away in the divorce. 'Obvs.'
Why do all these sort of things matter?
Well, as you've probably picked up, ah, it's a very
stereotyped and reductive view both of women's and
men's sexuality that comes out of all of these messages.
It doesn't really help anyone for us to think that men are
one way, women are another way, and never the twain
shall meet.
And that, whatever it is you're doing, it's wrong, and
that you need to change, and that you need to buy
something in order to change.
And, here's some really crap statistic, that came out of
some article that I read, that probably resulted from a
press release from some university you never heard
of, in order to 'prove' it.
It also matters, because the 'Diagnostic criteria, are
inconsistent with distress.' If ALL of us are sex addicts,
what about the people who really are?
If ALL of us have some kind of sexual dysfunction, what
about the people whose lives really are effected by this?
It's very much generating an enormous population of the
'worried well.' The people who 'think'
that they have problems with sex, but don't.
And, there are people who genuinely are having problems
who are just getting lost in the crowd.
They're the needle in the haystack, but everyone's
been told: "The haystack?
It's made out of needles. We're all needles.ö
It deflects 'attention from real causes.'
Now, there are some, there's, there's a whole- you can go
broad and you can go deep with underlying causes of why
people's libidos might change at particular times.
So, obviously, there's the emotional aspect.
Ah, if you're experiencing stress, you might be unhappy
in your relationship, uncomfortable with your
partner, for all kinds of reasons.
Ah, there could be background things going on in your own
history that have put you off sex, or have made you feel
uncomfortable with certain kinds of sex.
There are also, obviously, medical reasons.
People experience loss of sensation.
People experience hormonal changes.
This could be due to changes in hormonal birth control,
and so on, and so forth, and it goes on and on and on.
And, if we're reducing these things to a little:
'click here and find out if you're a sex addict'
'click here and find out if you have sexual dysfunction.'
It's really deflecting the attention from where it needs
to be, from a research point of view, and also, from a
public understanding point of view.
'If everyone can be diagnosed with a problem, what about
the people who really do' have that problem?
Now, I only really covered two sex myths in this.
So, you're probably wondering about the other ones because,
frankly, that's what you've come here for.
'Do streetwalkers outnumber call girls?'
Indoor sex workers out-number streetwalkers 10:1.
That one seems to surprise people, even though,
obviously, in various parts of Australia, you do have
decriminalised brothels. Nevertheless.
'Women don't want sex, they want companionship?'
Women, it turns out, are not only interested in sex,
they're also interested in porn.
But, that's a whole other talk that more or less starts
with that 'Fifty Shades' wet floor slide and goes on-
it just gets better from there.
'Many women are trafficked for sex?'
The sex trafficking statistics are exaggerated
and used for political ends. 'Lap dance causes rape?'
Rape and sexual assault, certainly in the UK, and
especially in London, are actually higher in areas that
do not have lap dancing clubs.
Now, that is in no way to suggest that lap dancing
prevents rapeů
(MURMURING IN AUDIENCE)
ůbecause that would be very irresponsible- some people do
try to claim that- but rather, that these two things
are not necessarily related. And, another thing that I
really wanted to do when I wrote 'The Sex Myth'
was just to put it all out there because there are so
many academic studies that never see the light of day
because their authors weren't interested in writing press
releases and sending it on to the editors of 'Women's Day.'
And, to put all these things in one place, because I fully
accept that, because of my background, because of the
way I'm wired, because of particulars of my history and
my education, where I was brought up, and how I was
brought up, you might read the same things as me and
come to completely different conclusions.
But, we need to start having these conversations where
we're all on the same page. We're all looking at and
discussing the same data, and similar issues.
Otherwise, it's just talking at cross purposes.
Here's 'Some Sex Truths', since you've heard a lot
of sex myths.
"US and UK teen pregnancies "are" at their lowest rate
since the 1970s.
The "Average age of losing virginity
"both for boys and girls, it's going "up.
"Sexually Transmitted Infections rates among young
people continue to fall."
"In the over 50s, however, it's going up."
"Personal and sexual violence are at historic lows
"in the developed world."
"Now, this is not to say that that makes those crimes
less serious because, obviously, any personal,
violent crime against a person is serious."
But, again, it goes back to the problem of:
if we think something is happening more widely than it
actually is happening, it causes problems for areas
where it is.
It deflects attention away from real causes if we think:
"We'll just shut down the lap dancing club and
rape will end." That, clearly, has worked
out so well.
Why all of this? "Why now?" "Why the sex myths?"
Well, the "War on Terror" has been a bit of a bust.
"So, why not resurrect, that old perennial, the
war on sex?"
It's worked for millennia.
"Welcome to the New Victorian Age"
"And that's it."
(APPLAUSE)
SARAH OAKES: Thank you.
That was surprising and fascinating and, I think,
really impressive that there's so many sex addicts
here today.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: (LAUGHING)
I think I put something out on, sort of, saying:
"All the sex addicts, come down to my talk."
SARAH OAKES: I'm glad they could make it.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Meet me afterwards.
SARAH OAKES: Yeah.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: You know where.
SARAH OAKES: Brooke, what I got from your
talk and from reading all of the sex myths in your book,
ah, is that the sex myths are created and perpetuated
because we simply don't talk about sex enough.
And, I'm not talking about the kind of sex that we talk
about in Cosmo, 'cause, obviously, that's,
that's done every month.
I'm talking about the kind of rigorous, sophisticated
debate that ends myths.
And, if you can't do that in columns three times a week,
where can we expect to find that from?
How we diminish sex myths? Whose responsibility is it?
And, where are those voices?
BROOKE MAGNANTI: I do think that, largely, it
is the responsibility of the media to realise that we're
doing this.
To realise that, on some level, there's a lot of being
lazy when it comes to writing these stories.
And, ah, and it's, it's been a funny experience, actually,
going from somebody who reads the newspapers and magazines,
to somebody who writes for the newspapers and magazines
and seeing what the other side of it is like.
And, how much pressure there is; how much editorial
pressure, to make things fit in with a certain kind of
flavour of the magazine that you're writing for,
for instance.
Um, but also as well, the resources have been so
reduced in print media to the point where, there aren't
really in-house fact checkers any more, in the way there
used to be.
Ah, fewer editors, fewer people are seeing the copy
before it goes out.
Um, and, and like you were saying earlier when we
were backstage: "if something's wrong, it's
not wrong for long." This idea that:
"Oh, well, just go and change it if it's wrong."
"Or, it'll just get buried very, very quickly."
It's like we're living this endless 'Twitter'
stream where, a couple of days later, something's just
down low enough that nobody really pays attention to what
the reality is.
SARAH OAKES: So, we're doomed.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Yeah. But, luckily,
we're still having sex so we're not that doomed.
SARAH OAKES: Okay, that's, that's
the up side?
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Yeah. But there, but there is
the whole, you know, I mean, as you say, in, in talking about
sex and having these grown-up conversations, I really wish
that we could start to talk about good sexual health, in
this, sort of, personal sexual health and
relationships education- 'Sex Ed', not just for
teens but for grown-ups as well- that we could talk
about those issues the way we talk about good sex.
SARAH OAKES: Mm.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Because it's become
completely acceptable to talk about nipple clamps.
I can say: "double anal fisting"
in front of my grandmother.
(LAUGHTER)
I cannot talk to her very easily about something like:
"Well, you were married for a very long time and, ah,
what's it like in the bedroom? You know?"
We can't have these much more serious and, actually, much
more intimate conversations.
SARAH OAKES: Mm. This book, like your
previous works, it shocks people, it surprises people, it
makes some people angry. And, like all of your other
books, even though they were a very different style to
this one, obviously, there's a lot of 'you' in it.
There's a lot of personal.
And, is it harder to read that criticism when so much
of your private life is public and you share so much
of yourself personally?
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Sometimes it is.
And, I think I've gone through ups and
downs with this.
Ah, I think lots of writers do though.
You kind of have this feeling of, of passing, ah, a certain
threshold where the audience starts talking back to you.
And, sometimes the things they're saying
aren't very nice.
And, you're thinking: "Well, I'm just thinking
about my experience of the world, and not claiming to
talk for anyone else."
"But then, at the same time, we all turn around and do
that to other people as well."
I mean, Monday night, I- you know I'm going to be doing
that to Germaine Greer.
SARAH OAKES: This is the
'Q & A.' Brooke will be on
'Q & A' on Monday night.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: And it's, it's this sense in
which we take people who write about their own lives.
We almost see them as objects rather than people.
We objectify them. But, to be fair, writers do
put themselves out there for this.
And, yeah, I think there did come a point, sort of, back
in 2009, when my real identity came out, where I
could have just, sort of, shut the door.
Let people say whatever they want to say for a few weeks
and for a few months and to go away.
And then, I thought to myself:
"No, actually."
I'm a bit of a gobby, opinionated bitch.
"Ah, this is: "This is my opportunity to
have a soapbox and a bang on about this shit forever."
Soů
(LAUGHTER)
SARAH OAKES: You seized it.
Now, I might take this opportunity to remind people
to go to the microphones.
Um, I'll just ask one last question, then we'll go to
the audience.
Now, the public find it really hard to
pigeon-hole you.
But, they do find you very shocking, as we've just
discussed from some of that feedback.
What do you think that it is that shocks people most about
you, if I gave you some options?
Is itů
BROOKE MAGNANTI: Do I have to pick from
those options?
SARAH OAKES: You don't have to.
You can go anywhere you like.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: We can go right back to
double anal fisting.
SARAH OAKES: Yeah, okay- I don't know if I
can go there again.
BROOKE MAGNANTI: (INAUDIBLE)
SARAH OAKES: Ah, is it because you're a
woman who talks about enjoying sex?
Is it because you're a well-educated women who
worked as a sex worker?
Or, is it because you're a person who 'says'
they enjoy sex work?
Or, is it none of those things?
What do you think people find most confronting?
BROOKE MAGNANTI: I think all of those things
are, actually, permissible. Because, obviously, before
me, there was Tracy Quan; before Tracy Quan, there was
Xaviera Hollander. You know, you've always had
your outspoken, gobby, sex-worker type.
Um, I think it's the fact that I don't apologise for
any of it.
That makes people really uncomfortable.
And, I can't really speak about how the television
media are here- but also, as well the print media- in the
UK there was a lot of pressure to have a moment to
go on a breakfast show and to tell the country how sorry I
was about what I did, how much I regretted it, and how
I am, you know, I've been made an honest woman of now.
I'm completely safe and I'm not coming for your husbands
and/or children.
(LAUGHTER)
And, it's the refusal to apologise for my past that I
think really puts people off.
But my thinking on that is: "I can't actually change any
of it."
And I wouldn't have apologised for it
at the time.
So, it would seem really disingenuous to do that now.