The History of the O: 4,000 Years of Getting It Wrong

Two people had sex in an MRI machine in 1999. The paper became one of the most-viewed articles the British Medical Journal has ever published, out of everything, in a journal that goes back to 1840.

That's where this starts. It goes back 4,000 years from there.

Egyptian creation myths. A 2,300-year-old comedy sketch about where to buy a good sex toy. Two Renaissance anatomists in a screaming match over who "discovered" something women had known about the whole time. The most famous fun fact in this entire field, which turns out to be completely fabricated and fooled academia for nineteen years.

And the number at the end that explains why the orgasm gap exists, and why it isn't what you think.

Every claim in this episode was fact-checked, and the ones that didn't survive checking are named as such. Especially the fun ones.

Episode one of A Filthy History of Being Normal.

SOURCES

Lieberman & Schatzberg, "A Failure of Academic Quality Control" (2018)

Frederick et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior (2018), n=52,588

Komisaruk et al., Brain Research (2004)

Herbenick & Fortenberry, Sexual and Relationship Therapy (2012)

O'Connell et al. (1998, 2005)

The book is The Awkward Couple's Guide to Getting Weird. Same idea pointed at your actual relationship instead of at history. awkwardxxx.com

Next episode: virginity. There is no test, there has never been a test, and the thing everyone pictures is a rare birth defect.