Lorena Berdún, Valérie Tasso and Loola Pérez: "The biggest change is that women talk about their masturbation"

• REBECCA YANKE

  @RebecaYanke

  Madrid

Updated Tuesday, 5July2022-01:32

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• 'The Time of Women'.

  A space on the female role in social change

Between the three they shape 30 years of sexology in

.

Even more, of sexology in feminine.

was one of the first women - along with

and

- who talked about sex on Spanish television.

And

turned her sexual board upside down with her novel

few years later.

Lorena Berdún, Valérie Tasso and Loola Pérez address women's sexuality

Loola Pérez

, the youngest of the three,

.

They have their own cabinet and practice as therapists.

Loola and Lorena do workshops with teenagers and Valérie is an ambassador for the Lelo erotic products brand in Spain.

They celebrate that the sexual issues of women -that she masturbate and say so, for example- are on the table but they warn:

EL MUNDO invites you to a three-way meeting to find out, through their dialogue, how Spanish women have changed in relation to sex and, incidentally, how sexology has also evolved.

They assure that, despite the presumed sexual revolution of these times,

And they also warn of the need to be careful with social networks and the tendency to expose oneself, especially when there is sex involved.

What do these three specialists think of how we practice sex?

Let's listen to them.

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Loola.

When she was little and she saw Lorena or Valerie on television she was fascinated.

She was used to the discourse on sexuality being made mostly by men.

They knew everything, they were the source of information.

And suddenly, I have the memory of you two, very confident women who appeared on television, in front of many people, and seeing them was such an inspiration.

They talked about sex very freshly and with knowledge, and in a way that was sometimes a bit shameless as well.

With a speech that broke down many stereotypes and many preconceived ideas that she could have about sexuality.

Lorraine.

I had a program on Los 40 principals, a station for very young people who listened to me secretly, when they were 13 or 14 years old.

They got into bed with headphones, from what I'm told.

I was 25 years old, it was in 1998. I ran into Valerie later on Canal Plus, when did they interview us on

, Valerie?

Valerie.

It was probably in 2003 or 2004 because my first book,

, came out in March of that year.

I did a promo and was very shocked by the title, which was obviously very ironic.

It was a way of saying that nymphomania does not exist, that it is a man's invention to control female desire.

There are people who understood this and others who keep telling me: 'Are you better than yours?

You were a sexologist, Lorena.

I didn't at that time.

But I was interested in the human sexual fact.

And it was thanks to this book that I began to study.

I told myself 'I want to continue because sexology goes far beyond the

.

I sensed that there were great philosophical questions behind it.

I talked about my sexual life without any hesitation on television to break the stigmas, to show that you can talk about sexuality and be elegant, have knowledge, have studied and in the process tear down the image of an absolutely frivolous and superficial sexual woman.

Then I became a sexologist.

Loola

: You were provocative, but not vulgar.

In the 2000s, many people spoke of sexuality in a very frivolous way, almost vulgar, as something dirty or forbidden.

Having you there was groundbreaking.

Lorraine.

What I see most in the consultation now are not sexual dysfunctions but couples that have a dysfunctional functioning.

If they come for a specific sexual problem, this is usually the tip of the iceberg.

And you have to go to the foundations of your relationship and your personal stories to, perhaps in the end, deal with that problem and sometimes it even happens that it is no longer necessary to do so.

The least I see now are pure sexual dysfunctions.

The fan has been widened.

I don't know if it happens to you.

Valerie.

I totally agree.

When there is a sexual difficulty it is usually the result of much deeper problems.

After my sessions with clients, because I don't like the word patients, sometimes I think that we have talked more about ontology and 'who am I'.

Many people also come to talk about desire, which is the big topic, but a concept that does not necessarily concern sexology.

Desire has been touched by a lot of disciplines.

What makes you angry is receiving messages to do therapy in which they ask you for little phrases, tips, advice...

Loola PérezTRESSOTOMAYOR

Loola.

I totally agree, because it is difficult to address a psychological or erotic problem or difficulty if the sexual biography of the subject is not known.

After all, the therapeutic action exercised by sexology always goes hand in hand with how we pose the problem and how we look at that problem.

In general, when people come for consultation, they do so with the diagnosis made.

'This happens to me,' they say.

And then, when you start scratching, as Lorena said, reality appears behind the tip of the iceberg.

Well, let's see everything below.

And you find that it is something totally different from what was often thought.

Lorraine.

In recent years, a path has been opened in which the protagonist of sexuality is the woman, until reaching the culmination of the Satisfyer phenomenon.

This is when female masturbation really begins to be talked about, possibly the biggest change in this time.

Another change is that people come to ask for help.

Before it was much more difficult for someone to talk about their sexual problems.

With the pandemic, doing therapy has become normal.

Now there are women capable of coming up and saying that they haven't had an orgasm for 17 years.

It seems to me a great advance.

Valerie.

There is not as much shame as before.

And the sex toy industry has helped, in the absence of a regulated sex education subject.

It is the erotic toy industry that is somehow doing sex education.

And the woman has realized that her pleasure is no longer subsidiary to male pleasure.

What I perceive are two types of women: those who do not know their anatomy, despite the phenomenon of clitoral stimulators, those who say they do not even know where it is or that they have never looked at their vulva, and those who come to see precisely the opposite, to have better orgasms.

She has increased a lot the one that comes and tells you that she wants a bigger orgasm.

Lorraine.

How many times have I said on TV: 'Come on, take a little mirror and look at yourself'.

There is still reluctance.

I tell them: 'Let's see, you have an erotic toy and you use it'.

Valerie.

It was not until 2016 that we were able to see a real image of the clitoris made by French doctors.

Earlier, an Australian gynecologist had done it with an MRI of the clitoris.

what was it called...

Loola.

Helen O'Connell.

Valerie.

Exact.

As a result of that, the sex toy industry has also helped a lot because it has exploited this niche.

Lorraine.

It has also helped to openly talk about masturbation.

I take my clitoris everywhere and show it off.

My son in his science class doesn't see any in the textbook.

Lorraine Berdun.

Loola.

She is absent.

When I bring the clitoral figurines to my students they are always surprised because they don't know what it is.

'It looks like a hanger,' they say, 'like a coat hanger.'

They have never seen it in the biology book.

What I detect in my students is a lack of general knowledge about sexuality.

They don't always choose the best representations of sex, they go to the culture of entertainment, which can be pornography, but also a humorous television series.

They assume a vision of sex, I'm not saying pathological, but it is frivolous, often exaggerated, very detached from affectivity, from limits and above all from the big question: what do I like?

Lorraine.

They have a lot of doubts related to execution, I think they are learning in the wrong way and they see sexuality as a consumer good.

I tell them to approach with more respect something that is much more interesting.

Love never comes out in brainstorming.

At least in my case.

And I always tell them: 'Boys, what about love?'

Valerie.

In the last generations I perceive an absolute lack of commitment.

That's why love doesn't come out in brainstorming, because love is commitment.

It is the fetishism of merchandise, as Marx said.

That is, sex as a consumer good.

I work very much wish in consultation.

And what I see is not desire, they are impulses.

Desire has a concrete object.

The drive is childish.

What many people are looking for are the euphoria generated by this drive.

And the euphoria is terrible.

It is not a feeling of satisfaction, of well-being, of illusion, but, on the contrary, the next day it goes away and you move on to something else and something else and something else.

It is the imperative of joy that Lacan spoke of.

I have to enjoy at all costs.

And about what Loola says: of course, how are they going to meet if they don't have a commitment to themselves either?

Loola.

It's true, they don't know each other.

And they find it hard to realize that knowing the other is important.

And that to meet the other.

it takes time and communication.

You need to express things that can make you feel vulnerable.

Yes, it is true what Lorena said that love is totally outside, but I still perceive that girls tend more to the romantic and boys more to experimentation detached from that romantic feeling.

In adolescence, that stereotype remains.

After 20 or 25 it is different, but in adolescence they still dream of being loved, of being reciprocated, of feeling special, and men, on the other hand, usually dream of or yearn for quantity and variety.

Lorraine.

To experience.

Valerie.

We are living troubled times.

That in sexualities is very noticeable.

If you don't have a commitment to yourself, you don't want a commitment to another person.

The process of falling in love is also confused with love.

Love requires effort.

That is, falling in love does not disappear and suddenly love appears.

You have to work at it and today we want easy things.

We don't make an effort at the first opportunity... There is this showcase of bodies of exacerbated consumption, of misunderstood sexuality...

Loola.

Everything you say makes me think about the importance of our vocation.

It is social, scientific and informative.

Social, due to the commitment it entails in terms of guiding the development of human sexuality;

scientific, because it is based on science, that is, on evidence, not on a personal claim.

This is important to say because sometimes sex is ideologized, both from conservative or religious fronts and from progressive groups that believe that sexuality is reduced to social constructivism.

And on the informative issue, there is sex advertising with very striking messages, but that is based on marketing and that does not always respect the scientific and, above all, ethical vision.

Lorraine.

'Get an orgasm doing a handstand'.

'

is the ultimate squirt'.

'I don't know how many

to be the best lover'... There is a certain tendency to want to try everything and that is accumulating experiences.

But the important thing is how we look at the other person, if we say what we want and how we treat each other.

I usually tell people if they feel like trying something great, but if they don't feel like it too.

Be at ease and less search for mind-blowing ejaculations.

Loola.

Discovery is fine but competition is not, because when it becomes competition, satisfaction disappears or gets poorer.

Valerie.

Surely you have heard me talk about

... Many women come to my office saying that they want me to teach them how to

, they ask you for recipes to achieve it as if it were almost a claim.

is the paradox and that what always existed reappears.

Women are already more empowered in terms of sexuality, but they want to know how to do everything, as if women were homogeneous, and simply enjoy more and more and more.

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