Carlota Gurt: "When a woman is in a relationship with a heterosexual man, her orgasms plummet."

BarcelonaCarlota Gurt (Barcelona, ​​​​1976) has carved out a prolific career as a writer – with titles such as We'll ride all night (Proa, 2020) and Sole (Proa, 2021)–, translator and columnist. Now she is setting foot in uncharted territory for the first time: the theater. Drawing on her experiences and extensive research into classical texts, Gurt has crafted the monologue A failed annihilation, in which she unfolds her discoveries and reflections on female desire and libido throughout history. She does so with humor and forcefulness, highlighting the influence of the male gaze on women and the impact it still has today. The monologue can be seen on October 23 at El Siglo Mercantic as part of the National Poetry Festival in Sant Cugat, on November 7 at La Planeta in Girona as part of the Temporada Alta festival, and on November 26 at the CCCB as part of the Clásicos Festival. The text will be published in mid-November by Ara Llibres.

This is your first monologue. Why did you need to stage a text?

— The initial idea was to do something about the things that obsess me. I spoke with Sira Abenoza [Director of the Classics Festival] and told me that the 2025 edition would be dedicated to desire. One of the themes that obsesses me is the female libido and the incongruity between what we've been told and what I've experienced. They brought two things to the monologue. On the one hand, when I go to give presentations and talks, I realize that I communicate well. This is now misunderstood; you can never think anything good about yourself, much less say it, but I have the feeling that I communicate better than I write. On the other hand, it seemed to me that it would be more profitable financially; I'd have fun, and I could do it quite well.

What has happened to female sexual desire throughout history?

— When you start reading, you realize that there's a kind of tilt. At certain moments in history, women were sexually insatiable beings. After a few centuries, suddenly, we find ourselves diagnosed with frigidity, and biology says that women don't have a sexual drive. How did we go from one thing to another? What's the truth? Since I was little, I've seen on TV that when it comes time to catch, women talk about migraineI thought it was a specific headache when you got into the subject. But then I found out that they are often the ones who have migraineWhat's going on here? There's one expectation for women and another for men that distorts everything.

Despite this biased view, some texts from centuries ago already warned men about the importance of female pleasure and taking women into account.

— HeSpeculum in the foder (he Mirror of fucking) is a kind of Kama Sutra In Catalan, a 14th-century text that ruthlessly copies all the ideas from Arabic erotica manuals, but then adds things. Some of them don't quite convince us, such as the fact that no one should desire women over 50. However, it has several points. It relates the menstrual cycle to female libido and says that both men and women experience the same pleasure in sexual intercourse. It also gives advice so that women don't become dissatisfied. One of the big problems is dissatisfaction. It's not that there isn't a female libido, it's that there is a great deal of female dissatisfaction. You desire something to derive pleasure from it. If women haven't derived pleasure from sex over the centuries, why should they desire it?

Some classics, however, say that women enjoy sex nine times more than men. Where does this come from?

— There's a myth that Zeus and Hera argued over who of the two had more sexual pleasure. Since they couldn't agree, they asked Tiresias, who had been a woman for a few years of his life. He told them: "If you were to divide pleasure into ten parts, nine would be for the woman and one would be for the man." This appears in various texts. In some documentaries that have studied it scientifically, it seems to be true. It's a matter of nerve endings: the clitoris is at least twice the size of the glans, and the surface area is much smaller. Therefore, the intensity is much more brutal. Women's orgasms last longer, and we can have them more frequently.

In the monologue, you attack great universal references like Rousseau and Freud. Why?

— My initial idea was to use fragments of texts written by women, but there are very few, and even fewer that address the topic. Female life must be observed through the lens of those who have had a voice, who are the men. And wherever you scratch, you find things. There are people we have mythologized and who did wonderful things, but they also have a dark side, and I think it's interesting to show it. Rousseau has a terrifying conception of women. He says that "with sex, it's enough that one can and will," the man, "and that the woman resists little." And he has that wonderful phrase: "A man pleases by the mere fact of being strong." It's such a biased view! He was a great thinker and knew how to see problems of inequality, but when it came to women, he was absolutely blind.

All this generates what you call "a false consciousness."

— If you're told all day long that you're something, you'll eventually believe it. What the female libido must do is rise up against the great gods: God, Freud and psychology, and Darwin and biology. We must rebel against all those biased messages that have been created around the libido.

What do the statistics you have consulted say?

— I found several, and they all point to this: there's a great deal of sexual dissatisfaction. Most women have a friend who doesn't have orgasms. Does this happen to men? To what extent has it been normalized? It may occasionally happen that a woman doesn't have orgasms, but it can't happen the way it's happening. There are studies that report 30% of women who don't have them. Some say it's okay, that they're fine, but wouldn't it be better if they had them? This doesn't mean they should feel pressured to have them. The pressure is different: to do the job well.

Heterosexual men are the ones who come out the worst from the data you mention on stage.

— Lesbians seem to have roughly the same orgasm rates as heterosexual and gay men. Now, when a woman is involved with a heterosexual man, her orgasms plummet. A few years ago, I was at the meat market for a few months. Three guys dumped me halfway. Not all at once, one after the other. And they were so calm. How do they have the balls to finish and not ask questions or continue? They were nice, intelligent, handsome, normal men. In the 21st century, are we still like this?