Sex: A Horizon Guide

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This programme contains scenes which

some viewers may find upsetting.

Sex.

A simple word for the most intimate,

sensitive and complex of subjects.

Sex is at the core of our deepest

relationships.

It's part of what makes us human -

it drives our passions,

our frustrations and our moments

of greatest ecstasy.

One way or another it defines us.

But unravelling the secrets of sex

has been a contentious

and risky business for science...

..and an equally big challenge

for television.

For more than 45 years,

Horizon and the BBC

have reported on how science has

improved our understanding of sex,

strived to solve our problems

with it,

and even tried to help us

do it better.

In this programme we'll also

look at how science helped us

understand gender and fertility.

But can science really save the day

when sex goes wrong?

Biologically, of course,

sex is about reproduction,

but that falls rather short of

what it means to us as a species.

Arousal, desire, sexuality,

fertility

are all incredibly personal

to each of us.

And because of that,

science got involved in our

sex lives rather late in the day.

Until recently, we knew very little

about the most basic aspects

of human sexuality.

So how did scientists

uncover our sexual secrets

and what did they learn?

To truly understand a subject

so complex, delicate

and sometimes plain embarrassing,

someone needed to ask difficult

and intimate questions

about what we got up to

behind closed doors.

Perhaps the first person

to approach sex

in a systematic and scientific way

was Dr Alfred Kinsey.

Kinsey's lifelong passion

was collecting insects.

But in the 1930s

he switched his attention

to collecting the sexual habits

of humans.

When asked by the bright young

students of Indiana University

to teach a course that covered

human sexual behaviour,

Kinsey discovered that very little

research had been carried out

on the sexual habits of people.

We knew far more about copulation in

other animals than we did in humans.

I discovered that there is

practically nothing known

about human sexual behaviour

in comparison with what we knew about

the sexual behaviour of other animals

and in comparison in what we knew

about the activities

of other parts of the human body.

In order to get meaningful data

about the sex lives of humans,

he asked his own students

about their intimate experiences.

And, for the sake of science,

he pulled no punches.

He asked me questions about the...

..dimensions of my sex organs

which I couldn't answer.

"Well, take this envelope

and this piece of paper,

"go home and measure yourself

and send it to me."

Kinsey's curiosity became obsession.

In less than ten years

he personally collected

sexual information

on more than 7,000 people.

Kinsey's results were published

in two books

that both became best sellers.

Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male

appeared in 1948,

followed by Sexual Behaviour

in the Human Female in 1953.

For the first time,

science was attempting to obtain

objective data on what ordinary

people did behind closed doors.

Don't forget, this was in early days,

when there were a lot of suspicions

about such things, and in addition

it was the McCarthy era,

so Kinsey had to be absolutely

circumspect in everything.

This related to things like dirty

jokes, we were never permitted

to do such things,

tell such things, on the staff.

Kinsey's work revealed that

affairs in marriage

were extremely common

for both men and women.

But that was the least of it.

His findings showed that even before

the sexual revolution of the 1960s,

nearly 50% of women

had premarital sex.

Amongst 10,000 interviewees,

92% of men and 65% of women

said that they masturbated.

Just under half of the women

interviewed

reported an erotic experience

with another woman.

And 8% of men and 3% of women

admitted to some kind of

sexual activity with animals.

It was clear that the laws governing

sexual activity in America -

particularly in the more

conservative states -

were far more restrictive

than the reality

of many Americans' sex lives.

He told me,

with an absolutely straight face,

perhaps just the trace of a smile,

that what he knew about the laws

of Indiana,

and what he had learned about

the males of Indiana,

indicated to him that 85% of us

should be in jail.

Kinsey's findings were added to

through the decades

until we had a vivid picture

of the spectacular variety

of human sexual behaviour.

But scientists didn't just deal with

behaviour during sex.

They were interested

in the rules of attraction.

Males are almost always prepared

for sexual behaviour,

but females usually run away

from males,

and that, after all,

creates male interest.

But when females are receptive

they ensure that, whatever happens,

they're caught.

At certain times in her cycle,

the female will allow herself

to be caught even more readily.

The male may appear as a mere toy

in the hands of

a manipulative female,

but it's probable that each

is influenced by hormones.

More than 30 years on,

the role of female hormones in

influencing sexual desirability

is still being investigated.

A group of scientists

recently decided

to conduct a most unusual experiment

in a most unusual place.

They recruited 18 lap dancers

and asked them to keep detailed

records over two months

of how much they earned every night

in tips.

They also asked the dancers

to record data

about their menstrual cycles.

Looking at how earnings

varied over their monthly cycle,

they discovered something

remarkable.

During six days around the middle of

their monthly cycle,

when the dancers would have been

at their most fertile,

they were earning an average

of around 70 an hour.

In the rest of the month

they earned just 45 an hour.

If money talks, this suggests

that male clients found the dancers

far more attractive

when they were

at their most fertile.

The men may have been responding to

chemical or physical signals

that the women were

unconsciously producing.

Understanding what turns us on

is one thing,

but scientists wanted to find out

about the physiology of sex.

In the 1950s, two researchers

opened the bedroom door

in an attempt to quantify exactly

what happened to the human body

before, during and after sex.

The films they made

as part of their research

still make for uncomfortable

viewing.

In a physiology laboratory,

you have to have means...

create means and measures of

evaluating response.

We needed to know heart rate,

body temperatures,

skin changes...so on.

And we're the first to say

that our work was primitive.

In 1958, William Masters and

Virginia Johnson made this film

of volunteers in their laboratory

having sex

and becoming sexually aroused

through masturbation.

The areolae begin to swell,

the entire breast shows

increase in size.

Unsurprisingly,

their work was controversial,

but they made an effort to be

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