The truth about why straight women aren't satisfied in the bedroom – and what to do about it

Longlisted for the 2025 Walkley Award

Pleasure should be a simple thing, but straight women are at the statistical bottom of the pile when it comes to finding a happy ending. There's a name for this phenomenon: it's called the pleasure gap. And when tracked against other gains in women's freedom, like pay or education, it is still alarmingly wide.

All Women Want is about that gap, the methods women use to try to bridge it (spoiler: they don't always want to do it solo), and why physical pleasure might be a final frontier for gender equality.

Written with candour, wit, and insights from over 130 interviews and 'field reports', Alyx Gorman's probing investigation shows sex as it really is, not as we think it should be. Free from the moralising, marketing and misinformation women are fed, it's a groundbreaking book that will educate, illuminate and, above all, satisfy.

PRAISE

'Alyx Gorman's state of the union on female pleasure is also an impassioned and galvanising rally-cry against mediocre sex. Riveting, compassionate, brilliantly researched and honkingly funny, reading this will feel like the best late-night conversation you can have with a smart and sex-positive friend. I suspect women will feel empowered and consoled; men will feel cared-for and educated. In other words, a win-win, as every sexual exchange should be' Benjamin Law, award-winning writer and broadcaster

'All Women Want is a pleasurable guide to navigating pleasure industries: this book tells you how' Dr Hilary Caldwell, sexologist, scholar, sex worker and author of Slutdom: Reclaiming Shame-free Sexuality

'Gorman's unflinching examination of the "orgasm gap" – the fact that women are missing out in the pleasure stakes – is the sex education you didn't know you needed. Essential reading for women who want more; even more essential for the men between the sheets with them. A fabulous and ultimately hopeful lesson in the principles of pleasure' Stephanie Wood, award-winning journalist and author of Fake

'Hot. A libidinous read on coming out a winner in the sexual wellness revolution' Brigid Delaney, author of Wellmania and Reasons Not to Worry