"We're too embarrassed to talk about these things": what Anniki Somerville learnt from a 'personal pleasure' course

Anniki Sommerville.

A woman is talking direct to camera. There are high production values, she’s stylishly lit and has shiny, beautiful hair. She could be sharing her favourite recipe for apple crumble. I click on the next video and the same woman is naked from the waist down, and is caressing her vulva with the palm of her right hand. She’s talking about why she loves this technique, and next to the video is a straightforward animation that shows why ‘palming’ is pleasurable.

The first time I see the naked vulva, I flinch – mainly because it’s so surprising to see one in this context. But by the time I watch four or five of these technique-led videos, I’ve become immune to the vulva content. Welcome to OMGYES, a platform where women share the intimate and revealing ways in which they pleasure themselves. It’s not the type of thing I’d usually watch on a grey weekday afternoon, but I’m hooked, and once I get used to the naked vulvas, it’s rather good. Liberating. Refreshing and informative.

Created in 2015, OMGYES is a platform that shares a multitude of pleasure-inducing techniques aimed at women and their partners. There are dozens, in fact (with names such as layering, hinting, staging and accenting), all explained by first-person female interviewees who demonstrate the techniques on their own bodies. Some of these techniques you might have heard of, such as ‘edging’ (which is when you bring yourself close to orgasm and stop touching yourself just before you orgasm, so you experience a more intense sensation). Others have been given a name for the very first time. All were gleaned from extensive, large-scale, peer-reviewed and published research of women. What emerged from this research was a host of different ways in which women create their own pleasure.

“There’s no better way to make something unspeakable than not to name it,” says Rob Perkins, co-founder of OMGYES. “Peggy Orenstein, the celebrated author, said this and she was right. Historically, research has focused on dysfunctional symptoms, rather than the types of things that are flourishing, sex-wise. We asked women what were the things they wished they’d known. Many believed they were weird because they were the only ones doing these things in the bedroom, but there are always patterns to these behaviours.”

I nod, but can also feel myself blush. I’m a total prude sometimes, when it comes to sex. Perkins, in contrast, talks about sex and intimacy in the same way as the women in the videos – pragmatically and passionately. It’s something that feels very alien to me, as a British Gen X woman who’s used to a lot of giggling and nervous laughter when it comes to anything remotely sexual. I come from a generation of women who buy bags of penis pasta and penis straws when their best friend gets married. We don’t share masturbation techniques with one another.

Flash back to my all-girls secondary school and the main objective of Sex Ed seemed to be around birth control and how to put a condom on a banana. We had it drilled into us that we could get pregnant at the drop of a hat (this seemed ironic when I struggled to get pregnant years later). There was zero discussion of female pleasure or masturbation, or how to give yourself an orgasm. In fact, I had my first orgasm by accident – listening to INXS on my giant boombox and writhing around on top of my duvet. This was possibly a technique called grinding (that’s featured on OMGYES), but I didn’t know it at the time because nobody talked about these things.

Most of my friends left secondary school with only a basic understanding of sex and intimacy. We were terrified of pregnancy, but didn’t know what our clitoris was actually for. We thought you could pick up STDs from toilet seats. We did discuss blow jobs and traded tips on what we thought boys liked, but that was the thing – the emphasis was always on ‘what boys like’ versus ‘what girls want’. There was a lot of fear and a lot of shame. I’d say that for most of us the emphasis was also on penetrative sex – this was how ‘sex’ was defined, in fact. Heterosexual and penis in vagina. Shagging. Bonking. Rumpy-pumpy. There was no mention of the fact that only 18% of women achieve an orgasm with this type of sex. I certainly never discussed masturbation with my friends, and even now, it’s not a topic that comes up regularly, even when we’ve had a few drinks.

After watching 20 minutes of footage on OMGYES, I realise I haven’t lived. This makes me feel a bit sad. I’d never realised how many techniques there could be, or that I could experiment more and perhaps talk to my partner about it. I ask Jenkins how people tend to use the platform.

“Half the users are men, which is great,” he says. “There is a shift in culture now. Men used to have incredible fragility around expertise and would say things like ‘I know everything; I don’t need that’. In this domain, especially with men, there is that feeling that if you don’t know something, you have a problem. Now, however, there is more awareness that there is knowledge out there – and that knowledge is no bad thing.”

I say that sometimes it’s embarrassing for couples to talk about intimacy in this way, and he nods. “It’s easier perhaps to refer to a video and watch it together, rather than say something like ‘I don’t like the way you do X’. So it definitely starts useful conversations.”

So far, I’ve only been on the platform on my own, but I plan to watch with my other half. We have two relatively young kids and sex has been on the back burner for far too long. What I love most about the videos is that they aren’t in themselves titillating or erotic. They’re really instructional and easy to follow. Also, the women featured represent a wide age range and include diverse body types, too. This is in sharp contrast to the world of porn, where women tend to look very similar – large boobs, tiny bums, very much seen through the male gaze. All the women on the site seem to be the kinds of women you’d want to be friends with. Confident. Funny. Unafraid of being judged. Jenkins says that they wanted to include a wide range of ages on the platform.

“We did that intentionally. There’s a myth that sex declines with age whereas younger people have more performative sex. Sex gets better as we get older. Older folks are therefore holders of all this wisdom, but it’s not passed down. The older generation has so much to say! Our study was with women up to the age of 95. This isn’t a generational thing – it’s a human thing. It’s just the way human bodies work.”

This is another taboo that OMGYES tackles head-on: that sex is just something that young people do (we still rarely see older people having sex or masturbating on TV or in films). It feels genuinely refreshing to think that sex is one of the things that might improve with age when so much of society is obsessed with youth.

So, did OMGYES improve my sex life? Well, it’s definitely made me rethink the way I think about sex. It’s made me want to try new things and talk to my partner more. It’s felt reassuring, as I’ve realised there’s a whole host of things you can do alone or with your partner. It’s also taught me that I can be bolder in terms of articulating what I want.

On a morning walk with a good friend, I tell her how one of the women on the platform shows the camera her knuckle and talks about how it’s an effective tool to demonstrate the physiognomy of her clitoris and to help her talk about the type of movement and touch she enjoys the most.

“Jeez, it’s only 10 in the morning and you’re talking about masturbation,” my friend says, trying to wrestle her dog over a piece of uneven pavement. “Actually, it’s a good analogy,” she adds massaging her own knuckle for a moment. “I’ve never thought of that before.” We laugh and I realise, despite knowing one another well, we rarely talk about these things because we’re too embarrassed. We also don’t seem to have realised it’s our birthright to experience pleasure on our own terms.

I’ve gone full circle – feeling like I haven’t lived, but also glad that I’m learning more. Despite having written a book about sex, it turns out there’s still a lot for me to learn. “Have you heard of palming?” I say to my friend, as we cross the street and go into the park. “No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me,” she replies.