This TED Talk features journalist Sarah Barmak, recorded live at TEDx Toronto, 2016.

This talk contains mature language.

In our culture, we tend to see sex as something that's more important to men than it is to women.

But that's not true.

What is true is that women often feel more shame in talking about it.

Over half of women quietly suffer from some kind of sexual dysfunction.

We've been hearing more about the orgasm gap.

It's kind of like the wage gap, but stickier.

Straight women tend to reach climax less than 60% of the time they have sex.

Men reach climax 90% of the time they have sex.

To address these issues, women have been sold flawed medication,

testosterone creams, even untested genital injections.

The thing is, female sexuality can't be fixed with a pill.

That's because it's not broken.

It's misunderstood.

Our culture has had a skewed and medically incorrect picture

of female sexuality going back centuries.

If over half of women have some kind of sexual problem,

maybe our idea of sexuality doesn't work for women.

We need a clear understanding of how women actually work.

I'm a journalist, and I recently wrote a book

about how our understanding of female sexuality is evolving.

...