'A few years ago I went to this event and sexpert Oloni came up to me and asked, "So, have you had an orgasm yet?" and I was mortified,' Yewande screeches over Zoom. After former Love Island star, trained biochemist and now documentary maker, Yewande Biala revealed on the Reality Check podcast that she had never experienced an orgasm at 24-years-old, the nation took note. 'Everyone was so shocked when I said that,' she reveals. 'I just thought it was so normal not to have experienced one. I didn't think it was a big deal - but everyone made it a huge deal.'
Shortly after the episode aired, Yewande was approached by Channel 4 to make a documentary, Secrets of the Female Orgasm, but she was hesitant at first. 'I said no initially because at the time, I just could not imagine myself talking about sex on TV. I was just too embarrassed,' she says. However, as time passed, Biala became more open to the idea and two years later she began her journey into discovering female pleasure and her own sexuality.
Today, 28-year-old, Yewande is among the estimated one in eight women who have never been able to climax, and in this one-off programme (her first foray into TV presenting) she embarks on 'a very personal journey' in an 'attempt to enjoy my first ever orgasm.' The documentary also explores the 'orgasm gap' - the disparity in sexual satisfaction between men and women in heterosexual relationships.
According to the documentary, during heterosexual sex, 95% of men achieve orgasm, but this only applies to 65% of women (86% of women come during sex with other women). It’s a topic that has long been neglected by scientists, with evolutionary biologists claiming that the lack of link to an effect on female fertility has meant that 'for a long time it wasn’t interesting to the medical community.'
As she got older and had partners, Biala would focus on the idea that you could have good sex without climaxing. She says, 'I hope women watch this and realise "oh, maybe I haven't been putting my pleasure first and that needs to change."' Throughout the documentary, we also meet other women who are in the same position as Biala and have never experienced an orgasm either.
It’s clear that Biala is engulfed with embarrassment by the subject. She’s a self-confessed 'nervous laugher,' which actually makes her an endearing presenter, even if you can feel her awkwardness in some of the most intimate scenes - like when she attends a pussy-gazing class (where women study their vulvas using a mirror) or an all-female sex club. It helped having a small female crew – they got to know each other very well over three months of filming – but it was still a huge challenge. 'Even going to the gynaecologist for the first time and having someone film you, with your legs wide open is... wow,' Yewande says. As an audience, it feels like we are learning and experiencing things for the first time alongside her.
Through filming the documentary she discovers that stigma surrounding women enjoying sex is very much still alive. Yewande says candidly, 'That's not just not going to go away because I did some growing or I've done a documentary, this is something that has been ingrained in society for centuries - we're talking about decades of misogyny.' She adds: 'I think it's important to have the conversations, because at the end of the day, that's how things change.'
'I grew up in a household where I didn't hug my dad until I was 24-years-old. So, when I say I'm not an affectionate person - it's because I've never seen it.
The film is an emotional watch too, unpacking some of Biala’s negative feelings surrounding sex - which stem from childhood. She was born in Nigeria but her family moved to Ireland when she was three and she grew up near Dublin with three younger siblings. She explains that she grew up in a 'strict' religious family in a Catholic country. She says,' I went to a school that used to be run by nuns and across the road we had the Christian Brothers school and the priests came in every day. When I went to secondary school, we prayed three times a day.' Adding: 'And then obviously being Nigerian, my mum and dad are also very religious. So, I went to church every single Sunday - and it was not a choice.'
Yewande admits, 'I was taught that masturbationis the worst thing a woman could do and that it's a sin. I was warned off having sex before marriage and was told if I did, I was going to go to hell because it was fornication.' At the same time, she recalls, it was seen as 'fine' and 'natural' for men; the double standard created 'a really horrible narrative.'
Biala says, 'At that age I was a sponge and absorbed everything that I was told. So, being raised in that environment I was holding on to those teachings and then internalising all the information. When I got older, I started deconstructing my faith a little bit and really tried to unlearn some of the toxic things that was instilled in me - but I still couldn't shake it off, because it's not something that is so easy to do.'
But to get to the root of her current anxieties around sex, Biala knew she would need to have a difficult conversation on-camera with her mother, Biliki. It took three months for the former reality star to even tell her mum about the documentary, holding off until she 'absolutely needed to'; the resulting discussion between the two women is undeniably difficult to watch. Looking back, Biala says she found it difficult to reconcile the extreme differences between the beliefs her mum shared on camera and the strict attitudes ingrained in her as a teenager (when she was 15, she reveals in the documentary, she was grounded for a whole year because her parents mistakenly believed she was sexually active).
She recalls, 'It was so overwhelming. I remember when she was giving her answers I was in two minds - as a presenter I was thinking, this is great for representation - a traditional Nigerian woman openly speaking about sex, amazing.' She continues, 'But then at the same time, I was really angry because it was like well, here we are 20 years later and you've never expressed these views with me before. And you're speaking so casually like it's not a big deal.' It's been a year since Yewande filmed the documentary, but when she thinks back to the filming process the emotional moment with her mum still won't escape her mind: 'I just always wonder what type of person would I be today if my mum sat me down and had these open and honest conversations about sex when I was younger?'
Yewande also hopes that this documentary will help to change things in the education sector. Better sex education, Biala says, would have helped to remove some of that discomfort: instead, from an early age, her teachers sent out a signal that the subject was a deeply uncomfortable one. For one thing, female orgasm was never mentioned in sex education classes at school – just male orgasm, and then only in the context of reproduction – so she didn’t know it even existed. It was only though doing her own research later in life that she started to understand. She says, 'I hope someone from the educational system is watching and thinks, "Maybe we have an issue with the curriculum or the language we use in society".'
Some may see Biala presenting this documentary and initially feel a slight disconnect because she was on a stereotypically 'sexual' dating show, Love Island, in 2019. However, Yewande explains that there is more than meets the eye to each contestant on the ITV dating show. 'People forget, that though there's like a class of like 20 people on the show each year, everyone's completely different - we're talking about people from all different walks of life,' she says.
I was told that masturbation is the worst thing a woman could do and that it's a sin
Yewande continues, 'I think people see an Islander as someone who's super confident and knows what they want or a very attractive person that has no issue when it comes to being vivacious and sexy. I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think every single person is like that, and everyone has their own insecurities.' She adds, I suppose because of that stereotype of what a love Islander is or their experiences in life, I guess maybe yes, some people might be shocked by me doing this.'
On the show, she was coupled up with Danny Williams for a short period of time but their relationship issues initially stemmed from Yewande's apparent 'lack of affection.' Now watching this documentary, we are able to peel back those layers and understand why. 'I know, I'm not an affectionate person,' Yewande admits. 'I've tried to tell people but I think people take it the wrong way and think I don't like them.' She continues: 'I grew up in a household where I didn't hug my dad until I was 24-years-old. So, when I say I'm not an affectionate person, it's because I've never seen it. It's not something that I grew up with.' She adds: 'Maybe it will make sense now people are seeing this other side to me. During my journey of filming, I realised that I had so many mental blocks.'
Yewande is a self-confessed people-pleaser and admits that she used to live her life for others - whether it was to meet her parents' standards or her friends'. But in talking to her, this truly feels like Yewande's era of reclaiming her power and her freedom. 'I really wanted to do without like any outside noise and just kind of figure out who I was as a person because I felt like I didn't know who I was before,' she admits.
These days Biala has a much healthier attitude towards sex, and has a lot less anxiety. 'Do I have a lot of work to do? Yes. Do I need a lot of therapy? Absolutely,' she admits. However, she wants audiences to know that there is never a right time to start discovering your sexuality. 'Look at me - I was 26 and I did it in front of the world. There’s no shame in starting your journey, no matter how old you are,' she says. Making the film has changed her and she hopes it does the same for anyone who watches. 'I hope that people see the documentary and are like, "Okay, I relate to this and maybe I should take control of my own situation," I hope they understand that it's never too late.'
Secrets of the Female Orgasm airs on Channel 4 on 31 August at 10pm.