Translator: Josephine O'Donnell
Reviewer: Robert Tucker Good afternoon. I'm Ronan Moal, I'm a sexologist
in Brest, France, and the co-founder
of a company called "Heal2Sy" which provides applications
to improve sexuality. In my work, I noticed that the people I was seeing
shared a number of similarities such as, generally, willingness, and also, some difficulty to understand
what was happening to them. They were experiencing
difficulties with their sexuality without really grasping the reason why
and without really finding the way out. And often, they were feeling alone
even though they had a partner. They thought they were
the only one who was trying, not knowing what was
going on with the other. Even when I have a couple in front of me,
both respond that way. And that's what I find very interesting. The majority of these people have goodwill
but don't necessarily manage to get along. So, I'm very happy to have been
invited to take part in this TEDx because the theme of this year's talks
is "Understanding the world". And I think that, given the place
sexuality has in our lives, understanding sexuality is, to some
extent, understanding the world. So, what is sexuality? I'll need to keep it simple since we could spend
all evening on it, or even longer. Fundamentally, sexuality is an instinct. If we're all here
this evening, if we exist, it's because all our ancestors
have had this instinct within them. And for thousands of years,
it was only a matter of instinct. It's only some hundreds of years ago, that we decided to start
giving it rules and norms. And to do that, we called in
the authority of the time: the Church. It means that to determine
the behaviour of sexually active couples, we asked abstinent singles. So you can see that, right from the start,
we didn't create the best conditions! It was a bit like asking people on a diet
to write the New Year's menu. So to impart these norms, we immediately created
the notion of good and evil, a norm that was a heterosexual sexuality within the framework of marriage,
affection, and having children. So anything beside that became necessarily
outside the norm or even abnormal. And this is the first
difficulty in sexuality: In fact, the norm, when it comes to sex,
is to be outside the norm. If we could invent a machine
that could read our thoughts and write down everything we ever thought, I believe many of us would be
willing to pay a lot of money to get rid of some lines in that text. The only limits that need be placed
on sexuality are respect for the law, and, above all, respect
for your partner and yourself. Beyond that, there are no rules. Yet, whenever we step outside this norm,
we always have the feeling of being weird, shameful,
or even perverted. And "perverted" can be understood
as "straying from the path." So, the simple act of making love
using contraception, given "the path" that was
a determined initially, actually makes you a pervert. To impart this norm,
we've set up an educational system. We all have been educated,
and this education starts very early. It is twofold. It's a vertical education, delivered
by our parents and grandparents. But it's also a horizontal education,
delivered by society and people around us. And we've been influenced
from the very beginning. Let me give you the example
of a little one-year-old child whose parent has taken off
his nappy to give him or her a bath. This child takes
the opportunity to explore the part of his body
he couldn't explore during the day. Imagine that the parent
turns back and sees him. Depending on his own reaction, the parent is going to start guiding the
child to the path he or she will follow. If the reaction is harsh - "Don't touch there, it's dirty" - due to the tone, the surprise, the use of the imperative
usually reserved for important things, those words are going to be
thoroughly imprinted: "Don't touch - it's dirty, okay!" If, on the other hand,
the approach is softer, it may be useful to convey
certain messages about social behaviour. If the child continues
to play with his genitals in public, this could cause problems
for him later on. But if the parent
conveys it calmly saying, "That's yours, but you shouldn't do that
when there are others around. In your room, you do what you want,
but not when people can see," you can see that the two babies
I've just spoken about are already taking two different paths. And this will go on like that. Society will take care of it too. Next time you go to the supermarket, take advantage and pass
by the children's clothes aisle, and you will see what is reserved
for 3-4-year-old boys and girls. Little boys have boxers,
briefs in navy, black, or brown colour, with a superhero on them right there. Right now, the current trend is Star Wars. Little boys walk around
with a Jedi or sometimes a villain equipped with a light sabre. I think Freud would have
appreciated the symbolism. Little girls have panties in white,
soft pink, or pale blue colour, with asexual princesses,
little hearts, or unicorns. You can already see that
the message is not quite the same. And even in the underwear's colour, is it surprising
that children of three or four have dirty underwear in the evening? They learn about cleanliness. Even for adults, it's a living zone. Except that the little boy in the evening,
goes to put his boxers in the wash, and nothing can be seen on them. But any soiling will immediately
be seen on the little girl's underwear. A kind of hygienist pressure
is exercised on her right from the start. It may seem a little far-fetched, but it can be found all the way up
to marriage, in the white dress, a symbol of purity, that is, of virginity. And it's going to continue like that. In slang, little boys are "wankers". Boys wank themselves. Girls are? "Little madams." Even well-meaning parents
will pass on messages involuntarily. They will show their children porno films. I'm sure you've done that. Generally, the first ones are Snow White,
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty. Why do I call them "pornographic films"? Well, because they're as close to reality as classic pornography that is
mainly intended for a male audience. In Walt Disney films, we show to easily influenced
children, especially girls, that if they are beautiful,
if they wear a pretty dress, they will cross path
with a prince charming, they will fall in love with each other
and have lots of children - by the way, we don't know how - and they will live happily ever after,
meaning no effort is required. If it's the right guy, it's bound to work. If things get complicated,
it means he is not the one. Unfortunately, pretty soon after that,
real pornographic films will follow. I say "unfortunately" because the average
age at which people see their first porn, today in France, is now only 11 years old. This means that the majority of children see their first porn
before they even hit puberty. And we are virtually subject to
all these influences, all these elements, from the first day of our lives
up to adulthood. We try to shape our personality
in the midst of all that, and when we reach an age
of sexual maturity, adulthood, we already have a pretty poor record. If you'd like an analogy,
it's a bit as if we were computers equipped with an instinctive
operating system on which we had installed
a lot of software that was more or less good
or even frankly obsolete, if not malware. Yet people who have done that
have often done so with good intention. It's been downloaded into us, and you
probably have in you, as much as I do, all kinds of inappropriate programs. I expect your parents has taught you to put your hand over
your mouth when you cough. Haven't they? It's actually a very bad idea. When we put our hands over our mouths,
we scatter all our microbes over them. And then we spread them onto armrests,
door handles, almost everywhere. In that way, everyone gets to share them. The majority of illnesses
are transmitted by the hands. It's not a good idea at all. So it might be well
not to cough in people's face, but ideally, we should use
our elbow instead of our hand. Except that back then,
when we first learn that habit, we probably didn't have the same
knowledge in microbiology. And now, since you are aware
of an inappropriate program, you're also starting to become
aware of what conditioning is. You will probably think of me
next time you cough. That's why it's complicated
to understand each other, because we are all computers with a different operating system
and different software. And two people who try
to understand each other's sexuality, it is a bit like a PC and a Mac
trying to communicate. And if that was not enough,
Nature also interferes. I'll save you some time,
there are 11 of them. (Laughter) Counting is the first reflex
we usually have! Yes, because Nature's interest
is not the individual's interest either. Nature's interest is
in the continuation of a species. And everything done is to that end. We are conditioned for that,
so when we make love, in the eyes of Nature,
we're making a child. Homo sapiens has existed
for 200,000 years, the pill for only 40 years. Needless to say that our brains
hadn't had time to process this data. And all it takes is one contraceptive
accident for us to hit that reality. So, this is also going
to influence us in spite of ourselves in the choice of our partners for example, which has actually little
to do with their skills in playing guitar or reciting poems. It's mostly biological, even if psychological and sociological
factors intervene as well. There's very little chance, for example, that your partner has
the same blood group as you, although there are not
that many blood groups. And if their blood group is the same,
their Rh factor usually won't be because, simply put, immunity groups
correspond to blood groups. So making a child with someone
of the same immunity group means giving the child
the same copy twice; but having a baby with someone
of a different group means giving the child a much
wider range of immunity and increasing his or her
chances of surviving disease. Yet when we meet someone, we don't necessarily think
about having a child. But all that has already been
decided despite ourselves, by our instinct. And Nature will continue
to work like that. When we fall in love, here again, I'm sorry to say it,
but it's not quite like in Disney films. It's rather because your body decided that you found a compatible
partner for breeding, so it secretes substances in your brain
that basically drug you. Well, it's a pretty nice kind of drug; we are irresistibly
attracted to the other person; and it's been like this
since the dawn of time. When marriage wasn't arranged directly -
so that questions could be avoided - people fell in love. They were hurried into marriage
out of knowledge of what would follow. And when after one or two years, their passion faded away
as the chemical secretions diminished, there were already
one, two or three children. Women didn't earn a living. Men were not autonomous
at the household level. Society didn't allow divorce. So people used to continue
like that as assisting spouses. Today, we can live for many years
with someone without having children. Women are independent, and men are too, usually. Being with someone is therefore a choice. And if we do it, it's because
we want to gain from it. We want it to be something pleasant
that helps us develop our personality. And we find this in desire too,
that's why desire is important. Even with the expression
"to desire someone", it's not clear whether it means sexuality
or the person in general. So when people don't feel
any sexual desire from the other, they have doubts. They sense that their integrity
is being attacked. They start worrying,
losing confidence in themselves. That is why today, we should see sexuality
as something completely different because everything plays
against a fulfilling sexuality. It is always about Nature. When a child is born,
in the eyes of Nature, the parents are no longer of interest. One could potentially
look after the child, but the second is incidental. All the time parents spend playing around is not time spent
looking after the little one, and this is a very bad investment
in Nature's view. By the way, there are species
where males go away after mating, if they've not been eaten by the females. We're not doing so badly! But for example, in the human species,
when a child is born, if the mother is breast feeding, she experiences every time
a surge of oxytocin, which we call the "attachment hormone". We also get this surge when
we have an orgasm with a partner. Except that here, it's going to be
six, seven, eight times a day. Add to that fatigue, waking up at night,
and the shock of pregnancy, really, it's going to be pretty easy
to create a rift between the parents, or tensions and things like that. So, the most important thing
to understand regarding sexuality is that everything is playing against you, and if you rely on love,
spontaneity, and Nature, you will go lovingly, spontaneously
and naturally, straight into the wall. We are the first generations
to live what we are living today: 60 years of sex life, the possibility to choose,
to find pleasure in it. So it's entirely feasible,
but it's the result of a construction. You can experience
something nice sexually, and it's possible that it lasts, but you need to learn to communicate since, as I said,
it's like a Mac confronting a PC. Don't even try to understand
what the other thinks. If you try to read a file for one
with the other, it won't work. It's therefore necessary
and very important, that you delete the education
you've received, and replace it with a sexual ethic, a collection of moral rules and values that are yours and chosen by you because they were meaningful
and relevant for you, not because others do it. Others put their hands
over their mouths when they cough. You also need to learn how to communicate,
dare to talk about what you like, and dare to listen to the other
even if you don't understand. If it's important to her or to him, we must listen,
and, if necessary, seek help because it's not all that simple. But it's possible. Above all, you must not regard
each other as enemies, not wait for the other
to make the first move because if you both wait for the same,
this could go on for a long time. We must dare to turn to the other
and say what we feel, express our desires, and not necessarily try to understand
everything, it's too complicated. And you need especially to realise
that, as a sexual partner, you should, above all else,
be partners, friends, and allies against everything else,
that is, the enemies: Nature, society, fatigue and habit. And in that way, we can succeed and do something very enjoyable
and very constructive. There you go! (Applause)
