Original subtitles

I mean, for years,

men have thought that they were smarter than women.

Women in universities in the U.K.

do better than men in nearly every area of performance.

That's according to new research.

For years, men have thought

that women should not work.

And that was 2009, when women became

more than 50% of the workforce.

And for years,

men have thought that women couldn't lead.

[woman] And last year, for the first time,

women became 54% of all American managers.

For years, men have thought

that women could not fight.

The Senate just voted on a bill that would have women

be eligible to be drafted into the US military

for the first time in American history.

And Kinsey mentioned that for years,

men have thought that women had a lower sex drive.

Women in the past were sexually

very different than women of today.

But now there's a cable channel

that just shows porn for women.

The female orgasm can be

10 times more powerful than the male orgasm.

Women have a wider range of arousal than men.

I think sexuality is more part of a woman's identity.

If women were raised

to think of themselves as sexual creatures,

you would probably see a very different world.

[female narrator] Growing up, I never realized

that I had a high sex drive.

Not until I discovered that sex seemed to feel

more special to me.

It's not that the guys I dated didn't think it was special.

It's just that, for me, it felt richer, deeper.

It was more satisfying.

It's like we were doing the same thing,

but I had a totally different experience.

Am I the only woman who feels this way?

Or are there more women who feel like me?

It depends. If-If-If the man

is in love with his woman,

he will feel love with emotions.

But if he, you know, it's like one-night stand,

he just-- he just, uh,

fulfills his pleasure.

That's it.

And I think for a woman,

there's always such amount of emotions.

I think for a woman, it's more important.

I think for the man, because of his... it bolsters his ego.

Yes, for a woman, because we have more sexual energy.

I think it's about the same.

Oh, there are differences, but...

Yes, I definitely think that women have a higher sex drive,

because, for us it's more sensual, and it just feels deeper.

I have to say women

because they crave affection,

and guys, they just...

For men, it's more important

to have lots of sex with different people.

They both like it, but men want it more often.

For women, it's important to make this

one act of sex they do

an important thing.

There's apparently a shortage of possible romantic partners.

Complaints of a man drought...

The search for love is in a state of emergency.

What's keeping them from finding their Prince Charming?

People don't want to admit what the reality is.

Professional black women are not making it up.

Australia is caught up in a man drought.

Finding the right man is proving elusive.

It's not easy out there. There's definitely a man drought.

I'm feeling it. It's hard to find a date, even.

Look, if you're a woman, and you've been wondering

where all the men have gone,

the good news is that it's not in your head,

but the bad news is that you're actually right.

There is a massive shortage of men.

Millions of women know just what it feels like

to look around at the men on offer

and think, "No, thanks."

Okay, delay, delay, delay, as much as you possibly can,

until you know that you've met someone

that you can be happy with for the rest of your life.

Growing up with romantic comedies,

you do tend to think that life should be like a Reese Witherspoon movie,

that you should be swept off your feet.

Some successful women

have had good men and didn't know it.

[narrator] Men and women have always had different opinions about sex,

but according to dating experts, there has never been

such a major shift in relationships than in the last 15 years.

Today I am meeting one of those dating experts,

Marcia Chong.

In her work, she talks about

how modern gender roles have completely changed the dating game,

and how years of experience have led her

to an interesting conclusion.

She believes that sex is more important for women,

and today I want to find out why.

When it comes to sex and attraction,

every woman has a secret that we never share with men,

because if we did, things might get a little awkward.

You see, every woman has a list,

a list of all the things we want in a man.

Now, the problem is not the list.

The problem is the size of the list

and the fact that it is that detailed.

For example, he has to be tall, handsome,

strong, educated and ambitious,

have a good job, have a nice house, a car,

and he has to be social and fit in with our family.

And of course, he has to be a good kisser,

a good lover, and a great father for our children.

But, unfortunately,

only a few men can meet those high expectations,

and that's why many men think that women aren't interested in sex.

But we are. It's just that

most men don't make the list.

And we call this the 80/20 principle.

-The 80/20 principle? -Yes.

It's a marketing principle that's also used in the dating world,

and it means that 80% of the women

are only interested in 20% of the men.

For example, dating profiles.

While men like roughly half of the women on the site,

most women only like 20% of the men.

And this is why women are so competitive in the dating world,

and I think even more than men.

Because most women are interested in a very small group of men.

But it's getting worse.

Dating for women is becoming harder and harder.

-What do you mean? -For the first time in history,

women are out-performing men in nearly every category.

More women are graduating,

becoming doctors, lawyers, bankers,

and all these changes are dramatically transforming the dating culture.

Because these days, women are not dependent on men anymore.

We have our own careers, our own houses, social lives,

and we can provide for ourselves.

So now women only settle with the best.

A man has to have added value.

And if a man has lower education or earns less,

he might be less interesting to women.

So as our status increases,

so do our expectations,

and our lists become longer and longer.

[Chong] Yes, that's right. And this also impacts men.

It makes men frustrated and confused,

because less and less women find them interesting.

You see, in the past, almost everyone got married,

because it was seen as a necessity.

And a good provider had a good chance of getting married.

But now, that guarantee is gone.

And another thing is that women these days

want a soul mate to talk about feelings with a man.

But at the same time, he has to be firm and rugged.

And this is also confusing men.

[interviewer] But why are our expectations so high?

I think this has to do with biology.

A man can produce millions of sperm cells every day,

but a woman can only get pregnant a few times in her life.

So she wants the best husband,

father and provider for her child,

or else she could end up raising her child alone.

It's like a handgun versus a machine gun.

If you had a handgun with only six bullets,

wouldn't you be very selective in how you use it?

Yeah, I guess I would be very selective.

But I recently read a study

that showed that women cheat as much as men.

Do you think this is true?

Yes. Most people think that men cheat more.

But in reality, that's not true.

Because all these men don't just cheat with single women.

But I think there's one major difference--

women are better at keeping it a secret.

Are you saying we're better at cheating?

In my experience, men are more obvious

and women are more subtle.

But for a woman, it's more important to know

if their partner is cheating.

Woman worry about it more,

and that's why a lot of women need more validation.

When she asks, "Do you love me?"

or "How much do you love me?"

these aren't random questions, they actually go back to evolution.

Because when a woman becomes pregnant,

she's very dependent and vulnerable.

So if her partner leaves her while she's pregnant, she has a big problem.

Men, on the other hand, do not experience

that level of vulnerability.

So who do you think has a higher sex drive?

-Men or women? -I think women do

because we check out men all the time.

So women think about sex more than men,

but in a different way, a more critical way.

Because we have to make sure we choose the right man,

we're constantly comparing and analyzing men.

Is he attractive, intelligent, and does he have potential?

I even have to admit that

I still catch myself doing it all the time,

and I'm happily married.

Two birth-control pills have suspected links

to the deaths of at least 23 Canadians.

[female broadcaster] More than 1,000 Canadian women

have had gall bladders removed, strokes,

or are on blood thinners for the rest of their lives.

They are. They really are. They are totally messing up

women's natural hormone rhythm.

It's a very, very potent drug, and it has life-ending properties to it.

[female broadcaster] Makers of the two pills have already paid

more than a billion dollars, settling thousands of lawsuits.

[female broadcaster 2] A possible link between birth control and depression.

Those who use birth-control pills were twenty three to two times more likely

to be prescribed an antidepressant medication

compared to those who didn't used them.

And you have these mood swings. Some women can have suicidal thoughts,

some women can just go from being extremely happy to extremely sad.

And so at first it was assumed that,

okay, well, you're putting synthetic hormones into your body

and you're body's just trying to get used to it,

so those mood swings are normal,

and they'll normalize as you continue usage.

But it's actually having an impact on certain regions of your brain.

[woman] Taking birth control may be affecting

how women perceive men's level of attractiveness.

When you expose males

to excess estrogen,

that feminizes males.

When you expose females

to excess estrogen,

it masculinizes females.

The increased risk of breast cancer and heart disease,

and those are very concerning, but...

I think for me, the thing that was most personally concerning was,

I lost my sex drive.

[narrator] Since I was 15, I've been on the pill.

It always made me feel safe and protected.

But recently, more people have started to reject the pill,

and this made me ask myself,

"Am I still making the right decision?"

To answer these questions, I've decided to arrange

a meeting with a specialist in chemistry

and ask her what they're putting in our pill.

I've heard many stories about the Pill,

but does it really decrease our sex drive?

[woman] Yes. Studies show that a lot

of birth-control pills actually lower the sex drive.

In fact, the pill works by tricking the body

into thinking it's pregnant.

But the problem is that when the body thinks it's pregnant,

it stops producing the hormone testosterone.

[interviewer] You mean the hormone that affects the sex drive?

Yes. Testosterone makes a woman take more risks,

become wilder, put herself out there.

So, the less testosterone a woman has,

the lower her sex drive.

But sometimes the pill also increases the sex drive.

Not all birth control contain the same hormones.

But unfortunately, most women who are on the pill

report a decrease in sex drive.

-So do you take the pill? -No, I don't.

You see, the pill not only affects the sex drive,

but it also changes the structure of your brain.

It impacts our sense of smell.

It even impacts especially

how attractive we find men.

For example, women who meet their partner while they're on the pill

may find them less attractive once they stop taking the pill.

-How is that possible? -Remember,

when you're on the pill, your body thinks

that it's pregnant, and it's thinking,

"How can I get a good male provider

to take care of my baby?"

Physical appearance is less important.

But once you're off the pill, your brain is thinking,

"How can I get a handsome man

to fertilize me and give me an attractive baby?"

And this problem might be

even bigger than we think.

Since the 1960s, the average British breast size

has increased by three cup sizes.

At first, experts thought

it was only due to weight gain.

But many British women

have maintained their body proportions,

leading experts to believe

a more disturbing theory...

the increased British breast size was due

to the unnaturally high estrogen levels

that are mainly found in the pill.

[interviewer] Aside from the pill, do you think women

naturally have a higher sex drive than men?

In my professional opinion, no.

Here's the problem--

The female sex drive is more in the mind,

and the male sex drive is more in the body.

So it's easy to measure the body,

but it's very difficult

to measure what's going on in the mind,

to measure what women are really thinking.

So women can have a higher sex drive.

Personally speaking,

I think yes, woman have a higher sex drive.

But the problem is, we don't get to show it.

-What do you mean exactly? -I think it has to do

with the way in which women are raised.

Most guys have been taught

to go out there and "macho"

and have as much fun as possible.

But most girls have been taught to be modest.

That's why their sex drive is more internal.

And sometimes women don't even know when they are aroused.

If a man is aroused, he immediately

feels an erection down there.

But when a woman is aroused,

she doesn't have any way of knowing it.

She uses her intuition.

It's much more often emotional feeling.

-So our sex drives are more tricky then. -Yes.

Have a look at this.

This is a Maasai couple. Can you tell me,

who is the woman in this picture?

-I think it's the one on the left. -No.

The one with the long hair and the jewelry is the man.

Many people think that

women are less visual than men.

But it's absolutely not true.

In fact, it's the exact opposite.

Women are more visual than men.

In the West, we actually have

the beauty standard backwards.

Originally, it's men who are supposed to be beautiful.

Think about the peacock and its feathers,

or the lion and its mane,

or even ducks.

It's the males who are beautiful,

not the females.

In fact, when researchers

began to study female desire,

they were shocked.

Not only did they discover that women

were just as aroused as men when watching porn,

they also discovered that women had

a wider range of arousal than men.

Even non-human sex

aroused women.

Like millions of people across the globe,

my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken

over the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls

from their school dormitory in the middle of the night.

[woman] From the beginning, the Pakistan Taliban

took credit for shooting Malala Yousafzai

because she spoke out against the Taliban

and their restrictions on education for girls.

Fourteen Pakistani village council members have been arrested

for allegedly ordering a teenage girl to be raped.

[man] Crimes against women in India have doubled in the last decade,

sparking worldwide condemnations.

In India, a rape case is reported every 20 minutes.

[woman] A 23-year-old student gang-raped

inside a moving bus in the nation's capital.

Sexually assaulted with an iron rod,

her internal organs pulled out.

The injuries so brutal, she later died.

The very term "honor killing"

has a sinister but misleading ring to it.

The murder of a woman or child by a father, brother or uncle

for bringing perceived shame on the family.

[woman] In Egypt, official reports have shown

that sexual violence against women has increased.

99.3% of Egyptian woman

have experienced some form of sexual violence.

Saudi Arabia is the most conservative country in the world,

where women are still banned from driving

and need permission from their male guardian,

being a father, a husband or a son, to simply get a job.

[woman] Just a few weeks ago, she quietly married the love of her life

against the wishes of her family.

The day after the marriage, Sabbah's father and uncle

took her from her new home and tried to kill her.

[narrator] From a young age, I have been told that women

have always had little rights in history

and that we're now living in the golden age of women.

But what if that isn't true? Today we're meeting

with Dr. Annine van der Meer.

Annine is a historian, theologian, and gender expert.

She has written several books and articles that contradict

many things that we are told about women today

and reveal the hidden role of women in history.

What was the role of women in history,

and was it very different from today?

Yes. It was very different.

Because before "his story,"

we had "her story."

And that was a very different cultural period.

There was a lot of sexual freedom

in that period of history.

There was peace and harmony.

So the idea that man is primitive and aggressive

in his essence is wrong.

But that changed.

That changed by an enormous climate crisis

around 3000 BC.

Many ice ages dried up the earth

and made the word very cold so that people couldn't

work and live on the land anymore.

And because the men had to leave their land,

they took the horses and the herds,

and they became nomads.

Thus they had to conquer land

of other people to live on,

and they brought a male-dominated society

which was very suppressive for women.

So how were women sexually?

Women in the past were sexually

very different than women of today.

First of all, they were free

to choose their partners,

and they loved sex and eroticism.

And having a baby

was something very precious because there were few people.

And afterwards, when people settled down in settlements and cities,

the women also stayed very free

and could choose their partners,

so sexuality was really something

which was bigger than a biological, medical thing.

It was an emotional, psychological

and spiritual thing.

Let me ask you a question.

Which is the oldest profession in the world,

do you think?

I guess prostitution, maybe.

In history, it's prostitution.

but in "her story," it's midwifery.

The midwife helping the pregnant woman

to deliver the baby,

using herbs to relax the muscles.

She has a lot of herbal knowledge.

She knows a lot about birth control.

That's why they had so much sexual freedom.

They could choose their male partners.

They were not afraid to have babies.

They could experiment with them

before they choose a final partner to have babies with.

Wow! When I think of midwives,

I only think about giving birth, not preventing it.

Women in the past knew much more about

anti-conception than women today.

-Seriously? -Yes.

Many people think that sexual revolution started

with introducing the pill in the '60s,

but this anti-conception knowledge

was much older, millennia older.

It gave the women a lot of freedom.

But then this knowledge was lost.

At the end of the Middle Ages in Europe,

there became a serious illness, a plague,

and the population was decimated.

Many villages and lands were empty,

and then Church and State thought,

"We have to repopulate."

And then they thought, "Well, who do we know

who manages fertility

and who controls fertility?"

That was the midwife. And they thought,

"Well, let's remove them.

Let's call them witches."

The literal meaning of the word "witch" is wiccan, is "to know."

[interviewer] I always thought that "witch" was a negative word,

-but it's actually about knowledge. -Yes.

Midwives had this ancient knowledge

about managing fertility,

about reducing fertility,

and enhancing fertility.

So these wise women

were accused of witchery.

And a witch hunt started,

and it spread itself all over Europe.

There were so many countries, and many, many, many women were murdered.

To accuse midwives of magical acts

and copulating with the devil

was all about fertility and sexual acts.

So we had a high sex drive, but then the Church took it away?

[Annine] Yes. We in Western cultures

have a long, long and very tragic history

of sexual repression--

repression of the libido,

repression of body awareness.

Sex was perverse.

Sex was vulgar.

And we have this split

between sexuality and religion.

Where is that freedom we had?

We once had? It's gone.

For example, look at Egypt now.

So many women totally covered up

from top to toe.

Even the hands,

in 40 degrees of warmth-- it's terrible.

But how different it once was.

They could own land,

they could travel,

they could go to the market and exchange goods.

Everything was possible. They could choose their own husbands.

They could marry whoever they liked.

[interviewer] So our sex drive was more respected.

-Very much respected. -Okay.

So the last question--

Do you think women have

a higher sex drive than men?

Historically speaking, yes.

Because in these ancient groups of people,

it was so important that people got babies

and that the group was enlarged.

Women were eager to have sex.

They were honored for that quality.

When there was this physical attraction

and psychological attraction,

to really feel love and affection for their male partners,

she really could reach ecstasy,

and she could take him with her in that ecstasy.

And I'm convinced we had that ability,

and we still have that today.

There is an element of hatred and rejection

in men's relationships to women

which women are unfortunately unaware of at their peril.

So I don't know what sex is for.

I do know how sex is used against women.

The act of fucking being to the advantage

of the one who fucks and to the disadvantage of the one who is fucked

is always characterized as female and inferior.

-[man] What do you think men are doing wrong? -They oppress us as women.

They won't let us be.

Pornography, essentially, is the trafficking in women.

It's the sale of women.

It is a system of sexual exploitation

in which women are devalued,

women are turned into commodities,

women are sold as meat, women are, in fact, tortured.

Five years ago, we said to rape victims,

"Oh, you enjoyed it, you wanted it, you asked for it."

And now we are saying the same things to women

who are forced into prostitution or into pornography.

Most people in the States or probably even here

don't really know what does go on

in pornography,

and I felt it very important

to take a stand and, uh,

let people know that pornography is not a victimless crime

and to speak up and set the record straight

as to what happened to me.

[narrator] Before the height of the feminist movement,

mainstream porn was seen as something that

men and women watched together.

Both men and women flocked to the screenings

to see films like Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door,

and The Devil Inside Miss Jones.

But during the feminist movement,

porn became divided.

Porn was now seen as masculine, aggressive.

So a new type of porn had to be created,

a type of porn that suited the modern woman.

But instead of becoming less explicit,

the porn that women had in mind was even more explicit

and would go beyond Playboy and show everything.

This was the rise of a new era,

and it was called Playgirl.

[interviewer] As the former editor-in-chief,

what was it like working at Playgirl?

It's definitely strange and a little surreal.

I did not grow up

feeling like I was doing a lot of the looking.

Certainly I'd always found men attractive,

but I had literally never been standing around

just looking at naked men before.

So it was certainly strange,

but after a while, it all just becomes very normalized.

And, of course, dealing with, um,

"mimbos" makes it get old really fast.

-"Mimbos"? -I think of mimbos

as basically just the male version of bimbos.

Guys who are just solely focused

on what they look like and how they're appearing.

How fake their spray tan does or doesn't look.

How white their teeth are.

Whether they shaved their chest hair and if there's stubble.

Really just un-sexy details

that, um...

you know, just kind of take away all of, like,

the sex appeal when you're the person behind the camera.

[interviewer] So there was a double standard.

Yeah, there's a pretty big double standard.

If a woman poses for Playboy, it can help to launch her career.

If a guy poses for Playgirl, he can end up getting fired or he's seen as cheap

or there's a stigma against it in some other way.

Wow. How did you end up working for Playgirl?

Um... funny story.

I had just finished grad school,

and Craigslist had an ad for managing editor at Playgirl.

And I applied really as a joke,

and when they called me in for an interview, I was shocked.

But I went in. I had never seen a Playgirl before.

You had never seen a Playgirl before,

-but you wanted to work at Playgirl. -Yeah.

And was it hard working at Playgirl?

It was challenging, for sure.

The magazine was run by women,

owned by heterosexual men,

and also was trying to cater to a gay audience.

It was very much an impossible triangle.

-So you had to compromise. -Yes.

There was a lot of compromise. asking questions like,

"What is porn?" "What is erotica?" "Where is the line?"

What women wanted and what men thought women wanted--

it was not always easy to define.

Well, I know what I want.

Yes, but do you know what most other women want?

Um, a naked, attractive man.

Sure, but do you want him lying in bed,

or do you want him doing something?

Do you want him flaccid or hard? Do you want him with another guy?

Do you want him with another guy? Do you want him with another woman?

Do you want him by himself? In the shower? Outside?

It becomes very difficult very quickly

to pick out something that's going to please everybody.

Okay. I get what you're saying.

Woman need a little more than just

a man standing in front of her naked.

Um, guys have a little bit of an easier time

flipping through a Playboy or Penthouse and seeing a woman just standing there.

But a woman is more likely to notice if there's no story line.

She's more likely to notice if his makeup sucks

or if his spray tan is off or if his hair is bad.

She's looking for all of these details,

and so our responsibility with Playgirl

was to think in those terms and deliver.

Wow. How did Playgirl begin?

Well, you had Playboy coming of age in the '50s,

and then the sexual revolution happened in the '60s.

And Playgirl was started in 1973

as a feminist response to Playboy.

-I heard Jenny Lambert convinced her husband to start Playgirl. -Yes.

And over the years, Playgirl had huge numbers.

And in its heyday, it had

something like 10 million subscribers.

By the '80s, Playgirl was getting published in more than 32 countries.

It had its own TV channel, male revue shows.

It was literally everywhere.

Even Russia had its own Playgirl magazine.

[interviewer] But then why did Playgirl magazine stop?

I think ultimately

we couldn't get the equation right.

I remember one day in a conference room

one of my bosses turning to me and saying,

completely seriously,

"Women do not like to look at naked men."

And... I was shocked,

and I responded to him and said, "But I'm a woman,

and I do like to look at naked men.

I'm attracted to that."

And he completely dismissed me.

-Wow. -Yes.

I think if they had let us do what we wanted to,

what the female managers

at this company were trying to do,

I think you would've seen a very different future for Playgirl.

But Playgirl started something very important.

There wasn't a name for it back in the '70s.

People were just calling it "foreplay."

But Playgirl was not about naked men.

Playgirl was about women looking at naked men.

It was about the female gaze.

-You mean CFNM. -Yes.

You can look at

covers like this as an example,

but there was so much more interaction

between men and women in the magazine

when it was truly entertainment for women.

You have interaction, you have real connection,

you have the female gaze.

If you study art history at all, the gaze and the voyeur

is always the man looking in on the woman.

And Playgirl essentially flipped that on its head and said, "Fuck you."

That's what made it so successful, was this idea that

we were empowering women to take their sexuality

into their own hands and their own eyes.

And that was what was so exciting.

One of the most popular requests that we would get

with Playgirl for photo shoots was

a man doing things like chores around the house

or fixing something.

Even wearing an apron while

the woman relaxed on a couch.

Essentially, porn for women was

the men being in positions of servitude.

But eventually we lost that connection,

and things started to disintegrate.

As we were pushed more and more to appeal to a gay male audience

and to have less of a direct connection to our female readers,

a lot of things just started to get lost in translation.

-Why? -Because

the people at the top were very firmly rooted

in their ideas that

women didn't want to look at this kind of stuff.

And even though you saw more porn being made for women,

and you saw things like Fifty Shades of Grey coming out,

there was still this overwhelming belief in-house

that women were not the ones who would be buying these magazines.

-Really? -Yes.

They thought that only gay men looked at Playgirl.

And... that was silly

because the gay men who enjoyed Playgirl

had always enjoyed it because it was from a female perspective.

So as soon as we started

erring more on the side of

what's considered gay poses or gay content,

we alienated those gay readers

who had enjoyed the magazine from when it started,

but also in the process, we alienated our female readers.

But unknowingly, Playgirl planted a seed.

Even without the magazine in print, CFNM is everywhere.

It's in every hot photo shoot, it's all over the Internet,

it's in television, it's in movies.

It has become sort of the gold standard

in what women generally see as erotic.

By the way, who invented the word? You?

-No, it was Brad. -Brad? A guy?

-Yes. -Okay.

So who do you think has a higher sex drive?

I would say it's equal,

but I can say that if women were raised

to think of themselves as sexual creatures,

you would probably see a very different world.

[narrator] In 1916,

Universal Studios' highest-paid director

was not a man,

but a woman.

Half of all films before 1925

were written by women.

But today, only seven percent

of Hollywood films are directed by woman,

and in 2017, not a single female director

was nominated for an Oscar.

In the Hollywood film industry, woman are declining.

But in another industry, women are rising.

In the adult industry, this year

36% of AVN-nominated directors are women.

On the surface, you'd think that

the porn industry is male-dominated.

But since the beginning of porn,

women have stood behind the camera,

and their numbers are rapidly increasing.

Today I'm meeting one of those female directors,

the nominated and multi award-winning director,

Jennifer Lyon Bell.

[interviewer] How did you get the idea to make porn as your future?

Um, well, it's been something

that I was thinking about for a long time.

When I was in high school, I had seen a little bit of porn,

and I thought it was really disappointing because

my friends and I were somewhat sexually active,

and everything that we did was much more fun

than this porn film that we had managed to get a hold of.

And over time, I thought, okay, well, eventually somebody will

start making films that appeal more to me

or feel more like they're coming from a woman's perspective.

So that was always a private fantasy of mine, and then

I went to Harvard for my undergraduate degree,

and nobody ever graduates from Harvard

saying, "I'm going to do porn."

So the boredom in the films actually triggered you

-to make better films? -Yeah.

When I watched porn, I thought, "This looks

really, um, boring."

The stories are boring,

but also the sex itself doesn't have a lot of spark to it.

And that's the thing that I cared most about, was the spark between people.

So I would look for, like,

the 10 seconds or 20 seconds in a whole movie

that was really exciting, and I would just watch that 10 seconds.

And after a time, I thought, "That's kind of a low bar.

There should be more of the movie that we want to watch."

But what is it that makes your films different?

Well, I watch a lot of porn that's made for men and by men,

but what I see in those films often is

things that I as a woman can't really relate to.

So one thing that's super important to me is that

women's pleasure and orgasms be real in the movie.

Because, for me, if that's not there, it's a real deal-breaker for me.

-I can't enjoy it. -Yeah, it definitely needs to look natural.

Yeah. Yeah. And so to do that,

what I've learned as a filmmaker is,

I have to create a very safe space on set

and create an environment where the performers have time

to kind of come to orgasm

in their own rhythm.

And that's really different than most film sets of any kind

where things are, uh, a little bit on a pace.

I totally agree.

Real orgasms are so much better to watch.

And why do women fake all of their orgasms?

I mean, don't men like watching women have real orgasms?

Well, in porn, men who watch porn,

I don't think they always can tell the difference between

real orgasms and fake orgasms.

I think men would like watching woman have real orgasms,

but as a woman, my orgasm-dar--

like radar, but for orgasms-- is particularly good,

'cause I'm a woman, and that's my body.

So we need a real thing. Just natural.

Definitely. More natural. I mean, the positions

that I like to see in porn

don't have, like, legs spread wide

with no, like, clitoral stimulation,

And then the woman is screaming, but the screams don't even sound

like she's having that much fun.

These are things that I wouldn't put in any of my movies,

and I don't think anybody who is making porn

for a female audience would put it in their movies,

because it just doesn't feel natural.

But the most important thing is, no matter who you're working with,

you have to make people feel very comfortable.

And in fact, once I decided that I wanted the actors

to become more comfortable with each other,

so I had arranged that they should go to the sauna.

And then I thought, you know what? I don't want them to think, like,

"Oh, you two are the performers, and I'm up here, the director."

And then I thought, maybe we should all go to the sauna together

and just kind of get it over with, and we'll all be naked.

-Really? -Yeah.

Like, naked, naked or bikini naked?

[laughs] Uh, we were naked, naked.

Wow, that's pretty cool. So, do people

-have assumptions about your life? -Yeah.

Yeah, like, for example, people probably assume that I'm single,

when in fact actually I have a family

and a daughter.

So does being a mom have any effect on your work?

Not really. I, uh...

I'm proud of what I do,

and my daughter doesn't understand it yet

because all she knows is that Mama makes movies for grownups,

and she's, uh, not allowed

-anywhere near it, so, uh... -Okay.

So how big is porn for women, actually?

When I started, it was very small.

But now it's grown a lot.

And in fact, now there's a cable channel

that just shows porn for women.

-[interviewer] That's really cool. -Yeah.

[interviewer] And is porn for women romantic?

No. Porn for women is not always romantic.

And you're right that a lot of people assume

that women are only interested in sex if there's romance involved.

But, no, porn for women is really varied.

A lot of women really like porn

that's not at all romantic, which is like

BDSM porn, for example, which doesn't have

all of those traditional hallmarks of romance.

It's about chemistry and connection

and being super into each other,

but that might have nothing at all to do with romance.

The people might not end up together.

And I really like that because

there are so many messages in popular culture

about how women should love romance, and,

you know, I think it's nice to get something else from your porn as well.

[laughs] Yeah.

I also like to experiment.

But apart from BDSM, what do women like more?

A lot of women watch gay porn,

and a lot of women watch lesbian porn.

-[interviewer] Lesbian porn? -I think if you're looking at real lesbian porn,

like, not fake lesbian porn made for dudes to watch,

but where women are really actually enjoying each other

and getting each other off, the technique in there

for going down on each other, for cunnilingus,

is so much better than what you might see

in a mainstream porn film that's made for guys,

and I think there are a lot of women who have fantasized

about having a same-sex experience.

[interviewer] I get what you're saying.

I'm kind of into women too, sometimes.

Maybe even more than I think I do.

Well, you know what I mean, right?

-Right? -Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Um...

But why is gay porn so popular?

Have you seen gay porn?

Well, like, there's so much to like about it,

you know, from a woman's perspective.

One is that, um,

the men are very good looking.

You get to see everything. You get to see their bodies,

but you also get to see their faces,

and in some mainstream porn,

you don't get to see either of those things.

And in gay porn, that's all there is.

It's... It's really nice to see.

Are there disadvantages in making porn for women?

Well, mostly regular people are super supportive,

but companies are another problem.

Nobody wants to deal with porn,

even if it's really ethical and fun porn.

What I'm making is something that I think

a lot of people really like, and they're just having trouble finding it.

The final question--

Do women have a higher sex drive?

I don't know if women have a higher sex drive,

but I think women have a sex drive that's at least as high as guys'.

I know that I personally felt, like, weird

because I had a high sex drive, and now that I have met

so many women who are just like me, I know that,

yeah, this is the way women are.

The erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey

has become the fastest-selling paperback since records began

and is on course to sell one million copies by the end of 2012,

beating J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series

and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code to the U.K. record.

[woman] 114 million views in the first 24 hours, right?

More than Star Wars did in its trailer.

And it's selling at the unheard-of rate of one book a second.

And it's essentially an adult erotic book.

Malaysia banned it from theaters,

calling it "More pornography than movie."

-[woman] There's a lot of sex. -Yes.

-Graphic sex. -Yes.

But I would say that this movie is a lot more candid about sex

and a lot more articulate about sex than most are.

Unbelievable. This book has taken the world by storm.

It's on the cover of Newsweek. It's been featured in Time magazine,

it's number one on the best-seller list

in both the New York Times and on Amazon.com.

I cannot get on the subway,

nobody can go to a vacation resort without seeing women

holding this book in their hands.

And I wonder if we've turned a page with this book culturally,

that so many people are reading it,

that it has become okay to really talk about sex.

So what is it about bondage, discipline,

submission and masochism

that strikes a chord with so many women?

This book is tapping into longings that women have

that I would say particularly the Church

hasn't really acknowledged or addressed,

and women are just flocking to it because they feel like it's going to meet a need.

[narrator] Spending money on sex

was traditionally associated with men.

But with the economic rise of women, more and more women

have started spending money on their sexual desires--

so much so that economists

are beginning to re-think women's sexual behavior.

One of these economists is Dian Biemans.

According to Ms. Biemans, women may look innocent,

but if we start looking at the numbers,

we will begin to see a very different story.

If you really want to understand women,

you need to understand Fifty Shades of Grey.

The reality is that women have bought this erotic novel

in such a volume, that it has surpassed

150 million sales

and was translated into 52 different languages,

elevating it to become one of the most successful pieces of literature

ever written in human history.

That should tell us something about the real desires of women.

And it's certainly not sugar and spice.

I urge people to stop putting women on pedestals

and start looking at the numbers,

because when it comes to sex,

the numbers tell a really different story.

[interviewer] Why is Fifty Shades of Grey so successful?

[Biemans] I think, in order to truly understand

the success of Fifty Shades of Grey,

you need to stop looking at the book and start looking at the author,

a British woman named Mrs. E.L. James

Mrs. James, in all honesty, is an average-looking,

chubby, middle-aged white woman.

There's absolutely nothing unique about her.

She could almost be described as being 100% average.

And that is where her real success lies,

because she asked herself one important question--

"In what way can I, as an average woman,

have sex with an alpha male

and still retain my innocence?"

Fifty Shades of Grey addresses the duality

that almost every woman faces.

I believe that deep inside every woman

is a crazy sex drive waiting to be unleashed.

But at the same time, society teaches women to be

well behaved and proper.

But Fifty Shades of Grey managed to unlock this secret

by allowing a woman's sex drive to be unleashed

while still maintaining some kind of sexual innocence.

So Fifty Shades of Grey allows a woman to have the best of both worlds.

Yes, exactly. But it's not just middle-aged women

who are spending money on their sexual desires.

There's another group of women that is far more lucrative.

Ask any music executive. There is no market

as lucrative as teenage girls.

They are more devoted, and they spend more money than any other group.

They even have words to describe the sexual obsession--

"Bieber fever" or "One Direction affection."

Just think about it.

It's girls who hyperventilate

just thinking about boys.

It's girls who take off their underwear and throw it at boys.

I don't see boys taking off their boxers. Only girls do that.

Let me just read you some numbers.

"1,500 security personnel,

including 500 policemen, private security guards,

and 25 emergency response officers."

I'm not talking about the security of the president.

I'm just listing the security at a Justin Bieber concert.

And this security is seriously necessary.

And the past several shows had to be canceled because

the police could not control the screaming fans.

-That is incredible. -Yes.

Some might even argue

that women end up spending more money on sex than men.

But unlike men, women are spending more money indirectly.

For example, some studies show that

women who buy three-inch-high heels

are almost twice as likely to receive sexual attention from men

than women who buy flat shoes.

And makeup functions the same way.

Women want to look sexy and attractive,

so much so that they end up spending

incredible amounts on beauty products.

And just to bring a statistic for comparison,

American men are spending approximately

13 billion dollars a year on porn-related products,

while women end up spending approximately 13 billion on makeup,

and that doesn't even include skin care, perfumes and hair products.

I think one of the most interesting statistics are vibrator sales.

Right now the market for vibrators is $2.9 billion,

while the market for Internet porn is just $2.8 billion.

That's right. Women spend more money on vibrators

than men spend on watching Internet porn.

-So, do you think women have a higher sex drive? -Yes.

I think sexuality is more a part of a woman's identity,

in the clothes we wear, the makeup we put on.

I think we are much more aware of our own sexuality.

But I don't think men

display their sexuality that much.

Sometimes I can walk around all day feeling sexy,

but I don't think most men will ever feel that way.

[male TV announcer] Why more and more men are ditching marriage,

fatherhood, even the American dream.

The reason will surprise you and perhaps make you nauseous.

So many women staying single, more than ever before.

'Cause we won't settle for a lesser love.

We now have the financial security

and all of the education and the independence

as modern women to wait for the right love,

and we won't settle for less.

And when they marry somebody who's less successful,

their marriages are less satisfying and more likely to end in divorce.

[man] Recent genetic research has shown that

before the modern era, almost all women

managed to reproduce, while most of the men did not.

The conclusion from this is that a few top men

had access to multiple women,

while most men had no mating prospects at all.

Anywhere from 73% to 93%

of the world's societies have been polygamists.

And the Greeks are the first really clearly attested

well-known society that turns towards monogamy.

The question is, why?

The good answer that's been given is democracy.

Monogamy is democratic.

This is saying nothing of women.

The losers in a polygamist society are poor men.

They don't have mates. They become violent and an unstable element in society.

So they've given up reading, writing,

communicating, exercising, playing sports.

And for those of you who think that's not that big of a deal, it actually is,

because the birthrate in the country is declining rapidly.

[narrator] Recent studies in psychology

have dramatically changed the way we look at men and women.

For years, psychologists thought that

society controlled women's sexuality.

But modern psychologists are beginning to challenge this theory

and are finding new evidence that is suggesting the exact opposite.

Today I'm very excited to meet one of these psychologists,

the published author and TED Talks speaker

Katarina Gabrova.

She believes that women are driven by deep sexual urges,

and that once we begin to look at sex through the lens of psychology,

things will begin to look quite different.

There is a saying that

everything in the word is about sex

except sex itself,

because sex is about power.

And when you ask me, "Do women have a higher sex drive?"

you are not really asking me who has a higher sex drive,

but your real question is,

"Who has more power?"

And I think that is

a very dangerous question.

But I'll try to answer it with three theories

linked to female power and sexuality.

The first may be the most interesting one.

Have you ever heard of a man called Edward Bernays?

[interviewer] You mean the psychologist?

Well, not a psychologist himself,

although he did become quite famous

for using reverse psychology on women.

You see, in the 1920s,

an American tobacco company hired Bernays

to encourage women to start smoking.

That was a period when most men used to smoke cigarettes,

but women were not allowed to smoke in public

as it was seen as something indecent or un-ladylike.

But Bernays had an unusual plan.

He actually hired a psychoanalyst

to help him research the psychology of women

and discovered that women

were driven by deep, primitive

sexual and competitive urges.

And since it was a very male-driven society,

he believed that women

subconsciously had penis envy

and viewed cigarettes as a symbol of the penis.

He realized that if he could connect cigarettes

with the idea of challenging male power,

then women would begin smoking,

because then women would feel like

they had their own penises

and therefore male power.

But in order to achieve his goal,

Edward Bernays did a very unusual thing.

He secretly started working with feminists,

linking smoking to the equality movement,

convincing women that smoking

is the same as having equal rights.

And his plan was very successful because, soon after,

the sales of cigarettes to women skyrocketed.

[interviewer] So women began smoking

-because they wanted male power? -Exactly.

Now, the second theory has to do with natural selection.

Throughout most of human history,

almost all societies have been polygamous.

And I know this may be hard to believe,

but according to the social psychologist Roy Baumeister,

polygamy actually benefits most women

and is actually a female-driven decision.

Because most women would rather be the second

or the third wife of a handsome and rich man

than the only wife of an average or poor one.

So for example, most women wouldn't mind to be one

of the many wives of, let's say, Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling.

They would rather do that than being

the only wife of a construction worker.

So it's similar to the 80/20% rule.

Yes. The so-called law of the vital few.

And in fact contrary to popular belief,

recent studies suggest

that humanity is not led by the choices of men

but by the choices of women.

You see, genetic research shows that for most of human history,

80% of women managed to reproduce,

while only 40% of men did.

This actually means that most men who ever lived

did not even get a chance to reproduce.

And I think that this difference

is the single most unappreciated fact about gender.

What this actually means is

that women decide whose genes carry on, not men.

And that brings me to the third theory.

I think that sex in its ultimate form

is the transfer of power.

Men need power in order to gain access to sex,

but once they are having it, they lose power.

But a woman's power increases.

-[interviewer] Are you talking about orgasms? -Yes.

While the average orgasms of both genders are similar,

if we are comparing the best of the best,

I think it's fair to say that men simply cannot

match the power of the most intense female orgasm.

In fact, according to Drs. Kaneko and Kitamura,

the female orgasm can be 10 times more powerful

than the male orgasm.

And according to these authors, should we run the intensity

of a female orgasm through a male's brain,

there is a danger that such a shock to their system

could actually kill them.

-Are you serious? -Yes.

According to these doctors it may be possible.

If we are looking at the anatomical differences,

the female clitoris contains 15,000 nerve endings,

while the head of the penis only has 4,000 nerve endings.

And can you imagine what it's like when these 15,000

sexual nerve endings fire all at once?

Well, it creates force-- a force so strong

that it almost shuts down a woman's brain.

And at that point, all memory, emotions

and reasoning functions stop.

And this event is so powerful

that some may even call it spiritual.

-Spiritual? -Yes.

Most people only know about two dimensions

when they are talking about sexual activity--

the physical and emotional.

But some women can reach a third dimension

when they climax: the spiritual.

They describe it as a place where they can finally let go

of all the physical and emotional baggage.

So you don't actually leave your body,

but you have the feel that you have left everything behind.

Yes. Exactly.

[narrator] Katarina was right.

When I have sex, all of my troubles float away.

I don't have to think about any obligations.

I can just let go

and enjoy intimacy.

Now for the big question--

Who has a higher sex drive?

Everyone has a different opinion,

but in my journey, I found out

that we can experience sex as spiritual,

we have multiple ways to orgasm, and that almost every woman

has a bisexual side.

That's why I think that women have a higher sex drive.

But the world might have a different view.

I was taught to think about sex in a certain way--

that a woman is prude when she doesn't have sex

and that she's a slut when she does;

that men shouldn't show their submissive side;

and that genders can't be sexually fluid.

But sex is more. It's more than just reproduction.

It's more than your sexual orientation.

It's more than an action.

The world has become adjusted to only

one idea of sex.

But as humans, we are capable of so much more.

[end music]

[upbeat music]