The Orgasm Expert: Women Don’t Like Penetrative Sex As Much As Men! This Is How Often You Should Be Having Sex! Stop Inviting Pets Into The Bedroom! - Doctor Karen Gurney

Karen Gurney (0:00)

Everyone wants more sex, better sex, and there is a huge amount that we can do that can guarantee great sex for the rest of your life. So the best place to start is Dr. Karen Gurney.

SPEAKER_2 (0:11)

She is a clinical psychologist and psychosexologist that has been helping individuals and couples overcome sexual problems for 20 years.

SPEAKER_3 (0:19)

She's the lead psychologist in an award-winning NHS sex clinic.

Karen Gurney (0:23)

This might be surprising to some people. Fifty-two percent of women and forty-two percent of men are unhappy with the sex lives that they have, and that's because as a society we've got sex all wrong. For example, the way desire is represented to us is lust, passion, spontaneity, but it's not the norm. The problem is a lot of people are waiting to feel like that, and they're waiting a really long time. What we need to do instead is be aware that our desire can be triggered using what I call sexual currency. I'll go into that. We also know that penis and vagina sex is women's least favorite sexual act, but that's how we see how sex should be. So we see less pleasure and less reward for women, but also if you ask most people how often they should be having sex, everyone says three times a week. It's actually drastically different than that, three times a month, and that shows the way we understand sex is all wrong.

Steven Bartlett (1:14)

So I have questions. Do you think you should schedule sex?

Karen Gurney (1:18)

No. What you should do though is...

Steven Bartlett (1:20)

Fantasies, fetishes. What if your partner says I don't like it?

Karen Gurney (1:23)

Well, I can talk you through that if you like.

Steven Bartlett (1:25)

Parents who are struggling with sex, what should they do?

Karen Gurney (1:28)

We know that people start having sex again from when their kid is about 6 and that's because...

Steven Bartlett (1:33)

What if you're in a relationship right now and you no longer found them attractive? What do I say?

Karen Gurney (1:37)

I would say...

Steven Bartlett (1:48)

Dr. Karen Gurney.

Karen Gurney (1:50)

Hi.

Steven Bartlett (1:51)

What do you do and why do you do it?

Karen Gurney (1:54)

I spend my working week trying to change people's relationships with sex. And the reason I do that is because, although we might think that sex is a kind of frivolous recreational pursuit, it actually isn't. It's super important for our psychological well-being, for our relationship well-being. We know that when people have great sex, their relationships last longer.

We know that when people have great sex, they're even more productive in work the next day. There are so many reasons why sex is important. But unfortunately, as a society, we've kind of got it all wrong about how sex works, about what we should be doing. And because of that, we have hugely high rates of dissatisfaction with people's sex lives in the UK, but also worldwide.

Steven Bartlett (2:40)

Why did sex take your fancy?

Karen Gurney (2:42)

There's so much about sex that's fascinating, I think. There's loads we don't know. There's loads we do know, but no one talks about. People find it so hard to talk about sex, and it's so stigmatized that when people come into the room, you can really see the weight of it on their shoulders. It's hard for them to speak about. It's embarrassing for them. And to be the person that makes that feel comfortable, and to be the person that can create change in a part of their life that matters so much, but is perhaps something they've never told their closest friend about, is hugely rewarding. You also get to work with people across all ages. So, you know, from their teens to their nineties, you get to work with couples, individuals. You get everything with sex therapy. I love it.

Steven Bartlett (3:30)

Since you started your work, what was it, almost 20 years ago, did you say?

What have you seen in terms of changes in the problem set that you're dealing with now? I.e. What are the new problems that you're confronted with in your clinical practice when couples or people come to you?

Karen Gurney (3:48)

Yeah, that's a good one because lots of things have stayed the same, right? So we know that, for example, problems with desire remain the most common reason why people end up in my clinical room. But lots of things have also shifted. Data actually shows those shifts over the last few decades. So we have long-term data into the lives of people in the UK in terms of their sex lives. And we know that we're having less sex this decade than we were the decade before, and the decade before that. So the amount of sex we're having, for example, is going down. From my clinical hunches, but also from what's been written about in the research, we have a good idea that that's about our pace of life, our work-life balance, our distractibility, our use of devices.