Goop's Annual Sex Guide

I know you've been waiting in anticipation for this one - it's Goop's annual sex guide! First up, Goop the newsletter, not Gwyneth Paltrow the person, wants to tell you how to do anal. Here are some highlights from a Q&A with Paul Joannides, Psy.D.:

When did heterosexual anal start to become a thing?
Paul Joannides: "In the ’80s, I remember hearing from a friend that he had a videotape of anal porn. This seemed shocking at the time. (This was pre-Netflix: Everything was on videotape, from porn to Disney movies to highlights from the Olympics. Video rental stores were everywhere.) I’m not sure there are too many middle schoolers today who would be shocked or even surprised to watch anal sex on Pornhub or Xhamster.


Since porn became as easy to access as YouTube, porn producers have had to fight for clicks, and so porn has become more extreme. I’d say that by 2005, porn had totally blurred the distinction between a woman’s anus and vagina. This wasn’t because women were begging their lovers for anal, it’s because porn producers were afraid you’d click on someone else’s porn if they weren’t upping the ante in terms of shock value."

Does the popularity of anal in porn reflect reality in both homosexual and heterosexual couples?
PJ "No. There are some couples who enjoy anal sex a lot, maybe 10% to 15% of all straight couples. But if you ask them how often they have anal vs. vaginal intercourse, they’ll say maybe they have anal one time for every five or ten times they have vaginal intercourse. We occasionally, as in once a year, hear from women who say they have anal as often as vaginal, but that’s unusual.

As for gay men, maybe 50% of them have anal sex and 50% don’t. I don’t have exact figures for hetero or homosexual couples, but a lot of gay men would far rather give and receive blowjobs than have anal sex."

Probably more people try anal today than in the past—are there ways to make a first experience a good one?

PJ "Both of you should read all you can about it first. Spend a few weeks helping the receiving partner train her anal sphincters to relax. Make sure you and your partner have great sexual communication, trust, and that you both want to do it, as opposed to one trying to pressure the other, or not wanting to do it but doing it because you are afraid your partner will find someone else who will. Do not do it drunk or stoned, and do not use lube that numbs your anus. If it doesn’t feel good when it’s happening, stop."

Next up, Peggy Orenstein talks Orgasm Equality. Here are some highlights from her Q&A:

You report that many girls get plenty of messages from their families and the culture at large about strong female role models—except in areas that apply to sex and romance. How do we create spaces to talk about and depict affirmative sexual models for women?
Peggy Orenstein "We are getting better at standing up against sexual victimization of women and girls. We need to get better at standing up for our right to joy as well. There’s so much shame around sex in our country, whether it’s discussing it with our kids or among ourselves—even as we are bombarded with sexualized imagery. It’s ridiculous. Honestly, it felt like we were making more progress when I was young—back before the AIDS crisis, before parental consent laws around abortion, before guys were assumed to be watching porn on the regular, back when every girl got a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves and we learned it was sort of our political duty to go out there and have orgasms (ah, those were the days!). I tried to get some of what it was like to be a young woman then into my book, but somehow I could never make it work. When I was in college, it was a thing for women to gather in a room in the school’s student union and sit in a circle with mirrors, speculums and flashlights and examine our vulvas and look at our cervixes. I never worked those stories into the book, though, because it sounded so weird. It does sound weird, doesn’t it? Yet it did release a lot of shame and open a lot of conversation (and a lot of laughter—we were told a cervix felt kind of like a nose, so forever after my friends and I would periodically look at each other, particularly in a boring class or a silent room, and touch our noses and crack up). But yeah. Weird. It was the early 80s."

Is there as wide an orgasm gap between the genders in older (meaning not teenage) populations? What about a masturbation gap?
PO "According to the National Survey of Sexual Behavior, which was completed in 2009 and is the largest survey ever done on American sexual behavior, the orgasm gap continues across the lifespan. 91% of adult men and 64% of adult women said they climaxed in their last sexual encounter—though 85% of the men believed their female partner did as well, so there’s also a perception gap going on. Maybe women fake, or maybe men can’t tell, or they just want to believe they’re that good.


A masturbation gap remains as well: about two-thirds of men 18-59 and about forty percent of women report masturbating at least once in the last year. But when you pay attention to the popular culture, references to male masturbation are everywhere. I mean, even discounting Seth Rogan or Jonah Hill. I was watching Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and there’s this whole ongoing joke about the guy masturbating and coming on a pillow. He keeps saying “sploosh.” It’s not that I have a problem with that, but I can’t even imagine dialogue that would have a girl talking so casually and naturally about getting herself off. So would more women masturbate if it was less taboo? If we were taught to be less grossed out by our own genitals? I don’t know. I think maybe. I mean, orgasm feels really good and it’s a great stress reliever, so why not?"