Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - *LIVE* What Women around the world think about when they're having sex

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

*This episode is a live recording of a previous Sex Talks event.* This International Women's Day Sex Talks explored what women around the world really think about when they're having sex, what this tells us about the enduring taboos that still surround sex and female pleasure, and why respect for female pleasure equates to respect for gender equality. Joining Sex Talks host and creator, Emma-Louise Boynton were three brilliant panelists, including: Lucy-Anne Holmes, the author and activist who recently published "Women on top of the world" - a collection of searingly honest testimonies of women around the world on what sex means and feels like to them. She also happens to be a sexual priestess, and if you don't know what that is... well, you'll have to join us to find out. Sangeeta Pillai, founder of Soul Sutras, a ‘feminist platform for all bad betis & besharam bibis’, is creating a safe space for South Asian womxn to tell their stories and tackle taboos surrounding sex, sexuality, periods, menopause, sexual harassment and more. Sangeeta hosts the award-winning Masala podcast.  & Raga D'Silva - LGBTQ activist, the author of Untold Lies (a book about a little girl’s journey to the truth that not only saves her but gives the reader hope) and the host of a series of online shows including Coming out stories from India. She has over 25 years of experience in the creative field, working in senior positions in advertising in India and New Zealand and is co-founder of India's largest international speaker agency, Speaking Minds.  Raga is currently writing three books, scripts for OTT content, and working on her first short film. A story that Raga wrote during lockdown is being made into a feature film by Onir, an award-winning filmmaker.

Hello and welcome to the live podcast recording of sex talks. New event series held at the London edition, focused on engendering more frank, open and vulnerable discussions around sex. I'm your host, Emma Louise Boynton, co-founder of the Female Focus Production Agency Her Hustle. And throughout this series, I'll be exploring a range of topics surrounding sex, desire and the female pleasure taboo. I wanted to start this series because while sex is everywhere, sex cells remember, What we're most often confronted with is a heavily sanitise, and often idealised version of sex. Depictions which only really serve to reinforce reductive stereotypes around the kind of sex we should be having, how we ought to feel about sex, what a sexy body is meant to look like.

So while sex may be everywhere, it's still a topic shrouded in social taboo and the source of so much shame for so many. After doing sex therapy myself for a year, I realised how the issues that show up in the context of sex, like me, not being able to orgasm, for example, are often reflective of so many broader personal as well as social and political issues. It fast became an area I really wanted to explore, and thus, sex talks was born. If you want to join me at the next live sex talks event, headen over to the event bright link in the show notes, or else to my Instagram page where I post all the juicy event details. Okay, I hope you enjoyed today's show. So, short intros so we can get right in to the juicy conversation for this evening. So, oh, completely.

elite right to my left is Sangita Pillai. He's a podcaster, activist, and speaker, and the founder of the South Asian Feminist Network, Sol Sutras. Founded to tackle taboos within South Asian culture, I mean, woman after my own heart, so thank you. Soul Suchers is a platform for bad betties. Am I saying that right? Yeah, bad betties. He's like bad daughters. Bad bettys, I love that. He want to engage in open discussions around everything, from sex to periods to female pleasure right the way through to nipple hair. Hope we'll talk about that later.

Great, love the nipple hair. She's the creator of the award-winning Masala podcast and creator of the Misanam Monologues. Oh, that is a tongue twister. A series of writing workshops and theatre shows in the UK and the US. Ragged Silver, right? Oh, this is great, you guys have sat in the order of my script.

I mean, as if this was planned, it wasn't. is an LGBTQ activist, the author of Untold Lies, about a little girl's journey to the truth that not only saves her, but gives the reader hope, for don't we all have a little girl in us, confined by the labels given to us by others? Yes, I'd answer from me. And the host of a series of online shows,

including coming out stories from India. She has over 25 years of experience in the creative field, working in senior positions in advertising in India and New Zealand, and is co-founder of Indians' largest international speaker agency speaking minds. I actually have tons more, but I think I'm going to... We could actually spend the whole time going through everyone's fires and accolades. Lucy, I'm not going to go through all the books you've written, because we'll be here all night. Right, and last but not least, Lucian Holmes.

Many moons ago, Lucy started writing about her disastrous love life in a blog, which was hailed as a Bridget Jones with a rocket up her ass. I adored that description. which caught the attention of some publishers. She went on to write four romantic comedy novels before turning her pension for online oversharing. There's no such thing as oversharing this evening, FYI, so please do overshare.

Into a blog about her disastrous sex life. Her words, not mine. I'm sure it wasn't disastrous. Mine was. Which rather unexpectedly led to a two and a half year campaign against page three in the sun newspaper, which is actually how I first came across you. Many years ago, I was a super fan in the audience.

It's like, ooh, in my No More Page 3 t-shirt at the Feminist London Network Conference. Yes, yes, yes. She has since written an explicit memoir about sex and feminism called Don't Hold My Head Down and most recently published Women on Top of the World, a collection of 51 first-person testimonies from women around the globe, all ages, all walks of life, revealing their innermost thoughts and feelings during sex. So a huge round of applause for my incredible panel. And I have to say, Lucy, it was actually coming across your book,

which was really prompted the idea of the topic for tonight's conversation. Because I think this idea of what women think about while they're having sex is, was to me, as your book explores, a great vehicle with which, therefore, to explore the range of taboos around. around sex and how they impact women at a very real, kind of visceral level. So I wondered before we began, whether each my wonderful panellists would be happy to share with the room what you think about while you're having sex. And if you don't feel comfortable, that's fine, but I will share too.

So Lucy, given that you wrote the book, and I know you've answered this question on a few podcasts, so I know you're comfortable answering it because you have answered it before. So what do you think about drinking? I love this question. Thank you. Yeah, so I wrote this book and I interviewed these amazing people about what they thought about. And then for ages, nobody asked me. And I was like, I really went. And there was COVID. And I kept thinking at least at some point I'll go out for lunch with the editor and we'll ask each other. And that never happened. So yeah. So what do I think about? My thoughts around sex fall into about, I think it's about three categories. And one is, so I have a, so I try not to go into fantasy. Because if I go into fantasy when I'm having sex, I can come too quickly. And so I'd much rather kind of bring up my orgasm a bit slower and then have a bigger kind of bigger, more sort of grand finale and sort of a few more after that,

whereas if I can kind of peek too early. So I try not to go into fantasy, but I do quite often have a fantasy that pops in. And that is about my partner with another woman, or women even, which is quite, I suppose some people might think that's quite weird. You're looking to be like, that's really weird. I think, because my partner is, I think, a really great lover.

And I just, yeah, I thought of him being generous of others. Yeah, I really do. And when we've had experiences where we've been out kind of at sex parties and I've seen in pleasure with other women, it's really like, wow, I find it really arousing. But there's also, it's also kind of if you've read, what's the book where you go, where you, where they look at your kind of sexual fetuses and your sexual desires and you can follow that and see where it stems from. And actually quite often, you can follow it back to something

not problematic, but something kind of quite interesting within your sexual history. And open relationships is something that we've tried, but also has been problematic. Like I've had, you know I I've it's been too much for me and I've not been able to um share him so it's it's it's yeah it's it's it's it's an edgy area so I find that quite interesting that it does arouse me anyways that's one and then another time sometimes I go into like feelings like oh a bit maybe a bit annoyed like I don't know you're going to that that's a bit quick I don't I want a bit more of that or I have those thoughts before I and so then I'd be like thinking or do I say, can you go back,

go back to my nipples, that would be nice, or, oh, can we do about this? So I'll have, I'll have thoughts around what to do. So if something shifts that he's done, because I'm in a heterosexual relationship at the moment, so I, yeah, so I would start thinking that. And if sometimes I am coming to, like, annoyed thoughts about it, I'm sounding terrible,

I just think about I'm making out with someone else and get annoyed about him. But then what I try to think about is opening from my heart to him. and that's really lovely and it's just like I just kind of think about opening and opening not just to him but to everything and that's really lovely

and then I get into a really nice sense of surrender because generally I don't think during sex and that's really lovely I can just follow my sensations and that's where the sort of magic happens so that's why those thoughts they're the kind of thoughts that do come in when they do come in

gosh I love that also just a lot I thought about it quite a lot sorry. She says, I did actually, have you, really? I did actually put us out on Instagram the other day and the responses were so varied from shopping lists to like extreme fantasies to and when you said at the beginning there, you know, that probably sounds really weird actually it doesn't and actually nothing should sound weird because sex is not, we don't have a cookie cutter mold or we shouldn't do for sex. So all welcome here. And Raga, what about you?

Can I start with something about International Women's Day first so I can kind of relax? Of course you can. Little interlude. There's a pressing pause. This morning, I received a package from India to celebrate International Women's Day. I said, and I opened the packet, and I was excited about what was inside the package. But when I looked at the package itself, it said, Mr. Raga de Silva. That said it all for me.

I had to say. I don't know who thinks I'm going to be a Mr. I don't intend to be. I'm 50, and I don't think I'm going to change. Please don't change. Now, I have to say this about what I think. I actually try not to think, but I cannot help but think during sex. And I have twins.

They're now 24, thank God, because most of the time, when I would be intimate, I would think about them because I swear, for some reason, children have an alarm in their, some clock in their system. as soon as you even start knock knock knock knock they suddenly feel hungry they suddenly remember their friends

they have a birthday party they have they forgotten you know that they invite for you know it's I went you know that went on for at least 14 years for me I nearly thought that this was it I was never going to have sex or never going to have pleasure seriously

and for different phases in my life I've now been more serious when I was 25 the way I thought about sex was different it was an act quick it had to be over it was a physical need and I did not think it was I was very fast

but it's changed for me over the last 25 years and I think now it is more about you know being together about expressing how you feel with in. So it is not an act anymore. It's a beautiful if I don't want to do it, I would not do it. I don't have headaches anymore. Not tonight darling. I have a headache used to be very often said in my house. I don't do it anymore because if I don't want to

consent is important. If you don't want it and you don't give consent, my partner accepts that. And when we have it, it's beautiful and it's long and I don't think anymore. I really feel. children knocking on the door. I turn my phone off, my social media is off. So if you know, if I'm away for an hour, what I'm doing? That's me. Van Sanjita, what about you? So sex is the one time where I think about one person, and that's me. So I have learned, so growing up in India, so I'm from India, I've kind of lived in the UK for about 16 years, sex was something that women did for other people.

It was like a duty. You know, it was like something you did with your partner or your husband. Sex was never for ourselves. It was never, women never were the kind of active instigators of sex, if you will. They were the kind of passive participants, lie back and think of India, where someone else does something to you, like literally that. So for me, it's the one time where I can be, fully myself, I can be completely present in my body.

Often I don't know what's going on around me. It's that one time where my brain completely switches off. And I have very loud orgasms. So my neighbours know when I'm at it, usually. I'm just like when Harry met Sally seen. Yes. I want what she's having. I want what she's having.

Exactly. So I think for me, coming from the culture that I come from, learning that sex was for me and not for anybody else. And it was that one time, whether it was an hour, whatever it was. It was me time. It's like having a bubble bath, having an orgasm. To me, it's like exactly the same. And over the years as I've grown older, again, in my 20s, it was about quite performative, I think, looking back now. It's like, oh, this is how it's done.

There's foreplay, then there's this, then there's penetration. To now, kind of I'm about to be 50, it's very much what I feel like at that particular point. And I've also learned that that's really sexy for partners. If you're, like, really into it and you almost don't care what is happening around you, that's incredibly sexy. So often, like, what I'm getting off is on myself. I get off on myself. Like, that's where my head's at. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but that's...

that's how it feels in my mind. No, I love that. And I think when you said that point about performativity, I think it's interesting because that was really how I felt about sex for actually, always. I felt there was something that I had to do. It was kind of performative. It was always for the other person.

It was always kind of in service to a man. And I think that I did sex therapy about six months ago, which really prompted this. and it was really doing sex therapy that kind of made me realize how for so long I'd sought so constantly to escape my body, eating disorders, feeling fat. There was a study done in 2018 that the majority, I think, looking at what women kind of, what trips women up in sex is most often issues around their body image, so when they're feeling self-conscious about their body. And that was certainly true for me.

And I think doing sex therapy for me was a way of realizing how disembodied I'd become and how sex was kind of like the last, the kind of the most vulnerable visceral way in which that disembodiment was being reflected. And I said earlier, I feel like a bit of a fraud because I haven't got over that.

That hasn't, like, I'm not having these loud orgasms in which they're fully for me. What sex therapy allowed me to do was step back into my body. I don't hate my body anymore. I don't viscerally try and escape it. And that's like the first step. And then I see the first

for the future steps, trying to be more communicative than sex. Not always really working. Sometimes literally saying, I'm trying to be more communicative than sex. Could you bite me? Which the person was like, sorry, what? And I was like, sorry, I'm trying this new thing, communication, bite me. And he was like, no. And I was like, okay, totally fine, totally fine.

Anyway, but so I feel like I'm on the very beginning of that journey, but I do think it's that, it's remove yourself from that, that all the kind of cultural, the layers, the cultural scripts that we get kind of taught from such young age that sex is for someone else. So if I'm at interrupt, isn't it weird how, as women were told, that we have to earn the right to pleasure? Like, we are not enough the way we are in our bodies, the way we are in our bodies, in our minds, that we can lie there and we can be amazing without doing anything, looking a certain way. I don't know. Are you thin? Are you fat? Are you, are your pub shaved? Whatever these questions are and all of these things are attached to our orgasms. That really pisses me off. Like, why should that be? At the last sex talks, Fran Bush spoke and she's a comedian who's written a book called My Broken

Vagina about her experience going to sex camp. And she had a great word for it's spectatoring where you kind of stand outside yourself and as though you're watching yourself have sex, which I think is so commonplace for women. So you just said, I mean, any conversation around sex, I think, with women and so often, you know, have you shaved? Do you feel fat that day? Are they having a good time? Are they having a good time? Am I good? Who cares if I'm having a good time? Are they having a good time? And I think it does lead to that kind of performative, performative nature. We are now going to get start with the questions because we're still only in the very, that was intro question just to get us warmed up. God, can you imagine how long we could go on for? You should be so excited. Right. So, to Lucy, going back to, to, really kind of the, what for me was the nugget of the idea for this event, what women around the world think about when they're having sex. As I mentioned in your introduction, you spoke to women all around the world from all different cultures, different ages, which has resulted in a book that is at times really shocking, at times really relatable and at times quite depressing.

And at other times, really lovely. Obviously, you should all go and read it. What prompted you to write this particular book, I know your kind of own sexual exploration and kind of spiritual awakening kind of was a huge prompt. But can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so this wasn't my idea actually. And I always think I'm quite an ideasy person. So I'm always kind of developing ideas and writing stuff. And I'd written this memoir, don't hold my head down. And that was out. And then I got approached by this editor, Katie Foley, at Quirkus, who had the idea. She's this wonderful woman. She's got three daughters and really had this idea about, I think originally there was a hundred women she was thinking about and she wanted from around the world and she wanted

yeah me to interview them or she thought that I'd be familiar with the subject matter and would be able to have these conversations so asked me to do it and I'd never done anything like this I hadn't done interviews I didn't know whether I could so I went away and did a few sample interviews to see how it would be you know ask some friends if I could have these interviews with them and very quickly it became like oh my gosh I really want to do this something I don't think we talk about sex not nearly enough and not nearly deeply enough and when you do have these deep conversations about sex something really quite remarkable happens it's like you release the tension that you didn't even know you were carrying and so I just feel so privileged to have had these conversations I mean so many

times you know I laughed with these women I we cried together actually women at the end were like oh my gosh I didn't know I needed that and that was they were like I feel like I should have spent spent money for that that was therapeutic or oh my gosh I've never even thought this let alone said it to anybody because I think because like you said we're so disembodied and also we so don't I think we're so socialised to think that sex is a guy thing you know it's it's for men and like you said we're passive we're not really directors or you know directors of the show so actually to sit back and to you know to have that time to say you know how does it start who instigates it how do you feel how do you feel when this is happening and actually

what was emerging was people you know, yeah, telling me things that they'd never thought or hadn't told their partners and actually what was amazing when the book came out to re- reconnect with the women and go and they would like, oh that changed my life and changed my relationship and changed this. So there's

something I just think, you know, I think female sexuality has been presented to us via via men, you know, through porn and various things, page three being one. We've been shown female sexuality but it's been presented by men so and there's loads of it available so actually to really go to women and say but how do you feel in this act

and obviously there's just so many layers to it like you said there's religious conditioning cultural societal conditioning um you know that lens of what it is to be a sexual woman's there I'm supposed to be doing this I'm supposed to be doing that do I smell do I look weird you know do I am I doing this right you know and just say on that's such an interesting point um you just made that in terms of we don't talk about sex enough, but then we're also bombarded by sex. So it's this kind of weird duality whereby we don't have particularly in-depth conversations about sex.

Like, when I saw sex therapy, the first thing I said was, I'm broken. So I was like, I'm alone and not being able to orgasm and feeling disconnected from sex. The more I began to talk about it, every sex talks. Literally everyone is like, actually, I've got this anxiety, I've got this worry. We're so alone together in feeling worried, anxious, hung up

about different aspects of sex. But meanwhile, we live in a society in which sex is the linchpin of advertising. We see sex everywhere, but it's a very sanitised, quite reductive idea of sex. And I think it's actually really, the fact that you worked on No More Page 3 campaign,

that literally is the pitting of that. Topless models on page 3 of the sun were being told, this is sex, this is hot, this is sexy. Again, it's about objectification, about the commodification of women and women's sexuality. again being men kind of telling women this is what sex is and this is what sex he is of course going to feel disconnected from that yeah and it you see and it was really weird for me

because I'd always I've been writing about sex and then I started doing no more page three and everyone you know I was getting these like I mean I was getting death threats and all sorts of stuff from men but I was getting a lot of them oh you're frigid oh you're a prude and it was like my last my last I've just written a book called 50 ways to find a love I've never been called this but this is very weird and also it was like childish bullying that sort of weird the weird expression. But yeah, because for me, I found that growing up with page three, I basically had an epiphany in my mid-30s while I was masturbating to porn one night, and it just sent me off on this whole kind of sexual exploration, as you do. But yeah, I just felt that, what I couldn't

understand is I wanted to go into sexual honesty. I wanted to have great sex. I felt that I felt like sex was something that I'd, it's like I knew it was great, but I felt like I've been driving around the M-25, never getting to London. I felt that it says this. Do you know what I mean? And I was like, I just felt I haven't skimmed the top of how amazing sex can be and I'm going to go on a sex odyssey, yeah, and write a blog about it. So I was like this sexual pioneer, but then I was like, I couldn't get, I hated my body to such an extent, I used to just, when I listen to my thoughts, I would say things

repeatedly like, oh my God, you're revolting, you're disgusting, I can't believe anyone's ever had sex with you. So that was what was going on in my mind, which I don't think, you're talking to other women, this is quite normal. I couldn't ask for what I wanted at all, because I'd never seen, you don't hear that in porn. It's very hard to become what you don't see. And, you know, my parents are brilliant and still together,

but it's like a 1950s relationship, and my dad calls all the shots. And so my mum's, I've never heard my mum express a need, like literally. So then how can I, so then I find it quite surprising that I'd be in bed, being like moved around like an IKEA sofa, in absolute agony, not being able to say, can you stop or I'm not ready for that.

It was just, I was just, so I'd go for that, you know, I'd do that, you know, old traditional valiant thing to get me more confident. I drink a bottle of wine and that would really help. So it was just awful. So, but what I couldn't, so I went on this sex journey and I had to keep going, why am I like this? Why am I like this? I'm actually able to do shit in my normal life.

But when I'm with men and in these relationships, I'm like, yeah, whatever you want, you know, and having this terrible sex that I'm not enjoying. And I kept coming back to page. three, it was like, oh, okay, here's this image. This is like, you're supposed to be pretty and passive. You're supposed to be up for it. And it's, for me, growing up with page three in the house, it just taught me that the most important thing for me about as being a woman was that I was desirable. But I'd never stop to ask myself what I desired. So then suddenly in my mid-thirties, I'm like, oh, fuck, what do I want? And that just blew my mind because it was like,

oh, I want to slow sex. I want to have sex with a woman. I want to do this. I want to go to a sex party and suddenly there was all these things. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking now. No, please don't. Please don't. I love that. And I think you said something that. You said, you know, you hated your body so much.

And when you hate your body, and I think we do, again, live in a culture that does really encourage women to hate their bodies. I think things are beginning to change. I do feel really galvanized by there being a bit more of a variety of body shape being presented to us. But we do live in a society that for so many years has told women to look and be a certain way. and that has been thin.

It's been white and thin, and that has been the archetype of what sexy and beautiful is. And I think, unless you understand that, you don't know how much that impacts and your ability, like, sex is about being embodied and about being in the moment and about allowing someone to give you pleasure

and then to give pleasure back, if you hate your body so much that you don't think you deserve goodness, you don't think you deserve pleasure, it's very difficult then to actually, as you say, to ask for what you want, because your body doesn't deserve that. You don't deserve that.

You hate your body. your body deserves to be punished. I think I've talked about this a lot with regards to eating disorders. And I think when you grow up with an eating disorder, which just so many women do, you just get used to punishing your body. And so when you go into a sexual encounter in which it doesn't feel good, it's just kind of par of the course. You're like, yeah, this is what I deserve.

Sengita, when we spoke a few days ago, a long pre-interview, which I loved, you mentioned how within South East Asian community, it's the taboos around sex and sexuality are so deeply entrenched that the layers you have to get through to even be having this conversation around pleasure and orgasm are so much greater can you talk to us a little bit about that so one of the first things in indian or an Asian child hears

is the word chichi chichi is dirty so imagine like a kid runs out naked in the bathroom the parent will go and cover up and say chichi That means your body is dirty. So imagine if you grew up with that and then you add to that women, right? So our place within traditional society is very much where the kind of followers, we're the ones who are quiet,

where the ones who give in, where the ones who are told to kind of adjust in relationships. So if you take somebody who's never had ownership of her body, who's never ever been even told that her body belonged to, her. She's been told that her body belongs to whoever she's going to marry, right? So from there, then pleasure becomes another planet. It's so far away. You've kind of taken away

somebody's power from the time they're five years old, to the time they're dating, to the time they're grown-ups. I run a lot of workshops with South Asian women. I do workshops around sexes, South Asian women and pleasure. And the thing that comes up in every single kind of conversation I have is shame. It's dirty. It's taboo. We've been told, you know, parents will get kids to turn off the TV. There's like a scene, there's like a kissing scene.

Forget about nudity, right? Off goes to TV. So if you grow up with that, how are you then going to go and say, you know what, I want an orgasm today? How is that meant to happen? So it's very, very complicated. So even to get women in my sessions to open up and talk to me about the possibility of pleasure is that far, you know? The other thing that happens as well is women will say within these workshops that, you know, say I was raped or sexually harassed, but even talking about it isn't okay.

So then you can't even tell anybody that you were raped. Can you imagine how horrific that is? So, to me, it makes me really, really sad. You know, we've come from a culture that pretty much invented sex. I mean, we created the Kama Sutra in 4th century BC when the Europeans were running around killing each other. Okay? So it makes me really sad that that's the culture we come from.

And yet, we haven't got the ability to talk about sex, to ask for pleasure, Do you know, I don't know the words for things like orgasms in my own language. I use English when I'm talking about sex or pleasure. I don't know what orgasm is in Hindi or Malayalam, which is where I come from. So that's how disconnected we are to pleasure, to female pleasure in my culture. That's such an interesting point. I'm really blown away by that because language is like the first point of connection with reality. and, you know, a big discussion happening now, I think here is the need for us to have a better understanding from a linguistic perspective of our own bodies.

So, you know, you're seeing a lot of kind of in sex education spaces of, you know, learning to distinguish the vagina from the vulva, from the labia. But if you're not even presented at all with the language, to even begin to, how do you then have the thought and the process? That is just, yeah, that blows my mind. You just don't. I mean, you're taught how to make rotis, right? But not how to ask for an orgasm. You don't know the words. And that point you made earlier about not really,

your body doesn't belong to you, belong to somebody else. It's just so interesting, the parallels, when we're just talking about page three, the different ways across different cultures in which the female body is seen through an other's lens. it's the male gaze. It's the objectification that continually, subtly reminds women that your body is not your own. It's for somebody else's. So if you go into the context of sex,

how do you say, oh, stop that hurts? Or I really don't like that. If you don't think that you, if you don't deep down, it might not even be an overt level, an unconscious level, you don't really believe that your body is yours and you're kind of the owner of it. That has such profound consequences. And so I'm curious then having grown up in a culture in which sex and sexuality really isn't discussed, you didn't even have the like basic language with which to even think about it. How on earth did you come up with soul sutras for the bad metis to be talking about nipple hair? It's been a long journey and most of my family don't talk to me. But I think for me it's a very personal journey. Like I grew up in India.

I think the first time I had sex I was 23, which is like really old by Western standards. But that was pretty standard, you know, kind of the life I came from. I moved to the UK and I got divorced and I was suddenly dating. And I kid you not, those kind of five years,

I had more sex than I could ever imagine having and it kind of blew my mind. And I was like, this exists, like this pleasure, this kind of opportunity for me to take my pleasure when I can and I want to.

exists. So I think it was a huge revolution in my own mind, if that makes sense, for me to go from saying, I need to be with somebody or married or whatever to have sex, to saying, you know what, tonight this is what I feel like and this is what I'm going to do. Maybe with a partner, maybe with a sex child, whatever it might be, to take that ownership of my own pleasure was this huge revolution in my head. And then I started thinking about my culture and how it had kind of stopped me from ever experiencing what I was experiencing in my body. I'd kind of walk around, I'll kid you not, those kind of dating years. I'd walk around, it was like the swing in my step and like, I'm fucking sexy, you know.

And it was this whole revolution, and I think that's what started me on the journey of like talking about sex, thinking about how disenfranchised we are as South Asian women, from our own cultural heritage around sex. and then getting women to talk about sex in the panels, on the podcast, in the workshops. Because sex is more than sex. Sex is political. I think we were talking about it. Sex is personal.

Sex is social. Sex is power. Sex is so many, many, many things. It's not just an act that happens between two people. It's this whole universe that as South Asian women, I don't think we've been allowed access to. Oh, God. so political, because we all go into sex with so many culturally imbued lenses that then dictate how we show up in that most vulnerable, intimate of spaces.

And so it's why it's such a fascinating topic area, which is why we do sex talks. Now, Raga, we're talking about the range of cultural taboos and issues that really inhibit women from exploring sex and pleasure. But there's a whole new layer to that when you then think about homosexuality. And that's something that you discuss really beautifully and really openly. And I've heard you say on previous, on podcast before, how, you know, if there's a taboo around sex, sexuality just is not spoken about. So can you tell me a little bit about your journey, the way in which the kind of the taboos around sexuality that affected you, personally and ultimately meant you didn't come out until you were 50, although I know you actually

have come out twice, so there was a time when you were thinking in the 30s and then now 50s. Well, you know, these conversations are just taking me back in time. I remember, sorry, just to give you a context and context, okay? I run a celebrity management agency, mostly from India, and so I manage a lot of people, speakers, and some of them talk about sex and then to these conversations. I remember receiving messages on behalf of someone where this person actually asked me, what is a vagina? Where is a vagina? So it reminds me that what we are having these conversations, we are very privileged to even know what sex is, what an orgasm is. Most people don't even know what an orgasm is. And Sangita rightly said we don't have it in our dictionary,

in our languages. I have no idea. Similarly, I don't know what homosexuality is called in any of my Indian languages. Like Singita, I grew up in India. I grew up in Bombay. I grew up in a very liberal family, but not liberal enough to understand. I won't even say except, understand, because when I grew up in the 80s, the word gay meant, if I told somebody I was gay, I mean, I didn't even know the word, to be honest. But if I said to someone I was gay, they would clap and say, I'm feeling gay too today. Like they were happy for you, right?

Until they realized what you meant was that wasn't what they thought. And so growing up in a country like India, under the, you know, culture, Singita keeps talking about cultures, but we have various cultures in India. We are South Indians, but there are North Indians. So the lens that the cultures were across India quite different, to win sex and sexuality. So where I come from, I come from, although I come from the south of India,

I grew up in a metropolitan city like Bombay, and Bombay has a completely diverse and different view to sex. And again, it depends upon which class you come from. I come from the Indian middle class, which is basically not the middle class here, which is the upper class. The middle class has a very strong value system.

The word sexual orientation, if you speak to them about sexual orientation, they think about sex. So I first time I came out, I was married to a man. We have two children from that marriage. I was in my 30s, early 30s, when I decided that that marriage was failing.

And we were separating. I had written a letter to a friend of mine, which I had not posted. I had kept it in the closet in my house in New Zealand. I was living in New Zealand those days. My dear mother, as mothers do, found that letter. I don't know how.

It's still a mystery But she did find the letter And unfortunately one night She attempted to kill me She came to with a knife in her hand And she decided that I was causing shame To the family And she said it was better

That you're not alive Because we would not be able to live With this shame and scandal And rightly so Because it was very difficult for the family It wasn't an easy thing For a married woman with two children Deciding one day I'm going to start dating women

I'm not going to be married anymore So it was difficult. The first thing she said to me, am I going to call you an uncle now? It took me many, many years to understand what she meant. Basically what she thought is, if you decide, choose to be with another woman, if you're a lesbian,

in India you have something called a third sex. I don't know whether you're aware of it, which is trans people. I call the third sex. They call eunuchs, hijeras. He thought, overnight, I was going to be a man. So that is why her first reaction was, let me kill you, let me not have the scandal in the family, you're going to cause shame to us. And that is what it was for people like us.

So I went into hiding. I led a very private life. It took me 20 years. That's only last year. When I wrote my book, thanks to my partner who is here and my twins, we said, let me come out because I think if it made a difference to one person. But what it also helped me understand is the whole stigma around sexual orientation. And that is why I talk about this so much because people don't understand the difference between sex and gender. They think that every lesbian, I get asked, I was telling, sharing today, I get asked, I got asked today on a panel discussion, do you need a separate toilet?

And like I said to Lucy, I said, I love separate toilet, why not? I can even, I mean, I can even give you specifications that kind of toilet I want. Why not? I would even have a butler standing out for me. But, you know, jokes apart, you know, we don't understand these basic things. That is shocking, right? I get asked such questions. They say to me, are they your children?

And I say, what do you mean? Are they adopted? Are they your partners? I said, they're my children, biological children. So people even don't understand that they think the term lesbian. If you're a lesbian, you cannot be a mother. So I don't know where those things come from. So the sexual orientation part, I have men come to me and say,

you haven't met the right man. I have had this very often. Actually, Vissary just choked there on that statement. We share in the shock. And my girlfriends or women friends have asked me, do you find me attractive? I have to think about it a lot because, you know, if I say no. And I have said no, and I have had some girlfriends who don't talk to me anymore,

Because I think, oh, am I not attractive enough? I'm not intelligent enough for you? But see, the point is that in our culture, we haven't been educated enough. We are not, we don't understand what it is. Do I understand? I don't even know whether I understand. Because I haven't been educated.

I haven't been taught this. I'm learning every day. Somebody asked me the other day, what's your pronouns? And I have to figure out. Because some people say, you should be she, they. What does that even mean? I don't understand it. I am learning.

and I'm happy to learn every day. You know, that's what it is for me. Oh, I love that. And I'm just kind of capturing a bit of what you just said there. I was really struck watching your TED talk when you discussed the internalized homophobia that you had grown up with. And you said, you discussed having essentially been

kind of homophobic towards yourself because you, again, it's this kind of not having the language with which to understand and process and live in your own sexuality and your own kind of identity, as it were. And I think that just really emphasised for me watching that kind of how profound an impact these cultural taboos really have on us. And we, they said before, you know, it might not even be happening at a conscious level, an unconscious level, these ideas embedding us.

And so we end up kind of acting out what society has said we should be, who we should be, how he should be, and then sometimes perpetuating the very issues that we're then kind of seeking to combat in what becomes a very confusing matrix. You know, when you grow up watching Bollywood films, and Bollywood films is not only just about, like, like, Singita, you know, like, of course, there are birds. You know, whenever two people kiss in Bollywood, those days, the birds would start chirping. I swear by God, every time I used to see birds later, after, even when I was, you know, was like 20, 25. I got married at 25 until 25. I didn't have sex either. That's too long.

Such a waste of time. Such a waste of life, I say. So I would see birds chirping or the birds always go in flocks. I would think, oh my God, somebody's kissing somewhere. I was, seriously, it was an auto reaction that I had to shut my eyes because at that time, into my house, either the TVs used to get turned off or suddenly the entire family would feel thirsty and we would all run to the kitchen to get water. So that's what you grew up. And Bollywood also taught us many other things

that you got pregnant by kissing. The first time I kissed, I thought I was pregnant. I had all the symptoms of being pregnant. You know, self-perputuating. So when you grew up in an environment like this where the information is shared, misinformation is shared and then there is racial

abuse and then there is homophobic slurs, judgments you're abused constantly or you're listening to other people being abused watching movies where the gay folks were caricaturish that's when you start believing in it yourself and why would I come out

and face the same things that I had been a part of and participated in myself that's fascinating and we're thinking about the variety of taboos that exist across different cultures and and really at the root of it Lucy you pick up on this in your book you spoke to over 51 I think it's 51 women I said across lots of different cultures ages everything about their

experiences of sex and you said that the thing that really unites everyone that you spoke to was a lack of sex education and I think everything that has been said thus far on this panel really speaks that a lot lack of proper thorough sex education that isn't via page three, isn't via porn, isn't via, you know, whatever you find the internet or kind of hearsay. And I was wondering if you could maybe reflect a bit on some of the ways in which the people you spoke to had kind of, ooh, jazzier, jazzier ring to, how the people you'd spoken to had ended up kind of putting together their piecemeal understanding of what

sex was and how it should feel. Yeah, yeah, that was really, really, I found that really striking that it didn't matter where you were in the world or actually how old you were, but nobody had had any, any really or even if they had had some, it was very inadequate sex education, even that I spoke to a 19-year-old from the UK and you would have thought there was some relatively good sex ed there and she actually said that she got all her sex ed from a BDSM website. She Googled BDSM one day because she wanted to find out what it was. And actually that's when she first heard about consent

and that's how she learned, you know, a lot of stuff that actually felt very relevant and useful to her. And yeah, so yeah, nobody had had any real sex education. So, yeah, so what you get, and it's like you say, they're missing information proliferates. So yes, all sorts of taboos about, you know, the woman I spoke to her in Iran, she said there was a rumor that went around at school

that if anyone touched your privates or if you touched your privates, there'd be a mark and then no one would marry you. so things like that um but then what so what happens the ridiculous thing is you know you become you go through puberty and your body is feeling things yeah so there's this massive biological thing going on so of course you're going to explore this because it's wildly exciting and it's powerful um so yeah so people i mean i spoke to a woman in the philippines and she went to porn she just typed in sex i think and got something and was like oh this is what it is

This has just saw people in a porn film doing it and was shocked. But that was how she realized, oh, that's what you do. There was a woman in Russia who she had, she thought, she thought something was wrong with her for ages, actually. She said her mom didn't speak to her at all about it. And like you said, you know, this again and again was reiterated that there was something, people feeling there's something wrong with them. And that sort of is, I recognize from having spoken to, you know, so many people about sex. The thing that I kept hearing was, I don't know what's wrong.

I don't know what's wrong with me. So, but the woman in Russia had actually, she felt that there was something biologically wrong with her until at the age of 25 when she, I think she heard, she ended up, I think she heard Samantha from Sex in the City had written a book and she got this book and she was like, oh my God, and realized that she wasn't the only one who had these sort of feelings. Yeah, so a lot of, oh, she also first heard about sex from the sex scene in Titanic. So it's funny how these things become, yeah. I would say my reference for sex, when when I first lost my virginity, I just thought about Ryan and Marissa in the O.C. having sex. And I was trying desperately to recall the movements that Marissa made, because that was my only reference point.

And I was like, kind of just like, didn't work and didn't go down so well. But I just wanted to pick up on that point there because I recently, a conversation with a brilliant sex therapist, Kate Moyle. And we were both reflected in thinking about what the impact is when you don't have a base level of sex education societally. And as she described it so perfectly, and I wanted to bring it up now, it's like not really having a critical lens with which to view and interpret all this information around sex we get.

So we said earlier, we're getting constantly bombarded with quite kind of reductive ideas. around sex, a very idealised versions of what sexy looks like and around what pleasure is. And when you don't have this kind of foundation of sex education, it means you don't really have, yeah, that kind of filtering system that allows you to distinguish between what is helpful information, what is practical for you, what is unhelpful, what is downright damaging and wrong. Instead, you kind of take it all in. And I think by the time you then get to, well, you know, in my case, kind of your late 20s, suddenly at that point, it's like you kind of get whiplash,

you're like, whoa, I didn't realize I had all these embedded ideas around sex and sexuality and myself as sexual being that I don't remember forming. They've just kind of built up, like, residue over the years. But now they have this really profound impact on how I go into sex. And so you then have to begin to unpack all those. annoying, isn't it? Oh, well then you're, the unlearning, you're like, seriously? And Rugg, you said it earlier. I mean, the wasted time when there could have been so much more sex, you think, for God's

sake, the unlearning that has to happen, this is going to be quite, you know, a tiny process. Now, so, Gita, when we spoke the day, you mentioned something, I really, I found interesting about how, because there are such different ways in which these different cultural taboos affect how we each go into sex and kind of what we carry into that space, that sex education really needs to reflect that. It's not just about this kind of learning the language, kind of having this base level of sex education, which, let's be real, we also need that.

What are the things, what is the kind of the solution to some of the problems you're seeing amongst community you're speaking to when they're thinking about how to counter some of these more deleterious taboos around sex? So when you were talking earlier about not really having a foundation and then not knowing how to, the way I talk about it sometimes in my workshop,

is like, so you're never taught to drive a car, right? And then suddenly you're given like this formula one, whatever, to sit behind it. And you have no clue how to drive the thing. Like, how does any of this work? So you're supposed to go from traditional South Asian society says, no knowledge of sex for women to being very good at it and producing babies, right? So there's a huge disconnect there. And I think the solution is going for South Asian women,

particularly, going back to our own culture. So people will say to me, do you know the stuff you do isn't in your culture? And I will say, you know what? You don't know a thing about this culture. Because this culture created the Kamasutra, like we said, which is a toome about how to conduct yourself as an evolved sexual being.

It's not about sexual positions. That's Chapter 7, if you haven't read your Kama Sutra. Everything else is about how to receive a lover. How do you play a musical instrument when you're entertaining your lover? You feed her fruit or whatever. You know, you talk about the moon, you recite poetry. So it's that kind of evolved thinking around sex. That's what South Asian culture is.

And Kamasutra is just one such book. There is another one that I know of called the Anangaranga, which was written a couple of centuries later, which was meant for married couples. And it's, I quote, how to enjoy your lover as if she were a thousand different lovers right isn't that beautiful

I got into that that is South Asian culture so I think within schools within colleges within any kind of educational institutions we've got to start introducing people to these ideas

that we've had as human beings from fourth fifth century BC we've got to start telling people particularly within my culture that at the front of any Indian temple is a goddess who's usually naked, right? There are couples having sex in the front of the pillars around the temples. There are temples full of sexual carvings, like that's all they are. There's Kajurahu in the north of India.

There's so much history and culture that we are really not referring to that we've already got. right and I just know about South Asian culture I'm sure that there are other similar things in other cultures I recently discovered and this is what I do for a living and I'm just discovering that my community that I come from in Kerala they are called Nair women

and Nair women traditionally would take lovers, they wouldn't get married so they'd have like a relationship with multiple men the kids would take the mother's name property would be passed on from mother to kid When she got sick of a lover, all she had to do was put his shoes outside the door. Like, that was it. It was like a sign to like, you know, bugger off.

We're done with you. So this is culture. This is very old traditional culture. And I think we've got to start educating. And sex education isn't necessarily about parts fitting into other parts, right? Sex education is about changing ideas about what we know, how we understand. stands sex, the connection between spirituality and sex, because it's one body and it's, everything's connected. It isn't this kind of buffet of like, here's a, you know, there's a first course where you kiss and then there's penetration and then orgasm and everybody goes home and

it's a sandwich, you know, that's not what sex should be about, but that's what we're taught. So I think it's re-educating ourselves. And it's so interesting because I feel like society now is set up to make us so disembodied, we do live in such disembodied times. I mean, you just feel like you could just live in your laptop. You just, everything is so virtual. And I always, I was saying to a friend the other day, and this is no shade on the meal deal, but the meal deal is the epitome of the disembodied, I want to say disenfranchised, but maybe that's going a bit far, but the disembodiment of our contemporary culture. It's all about just kind of speed and efficiency and like, what's the thing can just like grab and get back to a desk and just eat and it's horrid and actually's not such a

good deal anyway. And I look and now it's become such a pain point. Every time I go and see the meal deal, I'm like, and there's not that many other options that are good. And I just think, so we're kind of continually like taking ourselves, we're not sitting in our bodies in a really present and kind of mindful way. And God, I'm so addicted to my phone. Let's not even go into that. But all these like devices that are just distractions that kind of pull us out of ourselves it's the antithesis to being embodied and it's kind of this idea of going back to i mean and you just mentioned there become the power of spirituality and whether you believe in god or whatever you believe in just even in kind of mindfulness practices or meditation yoga anything they are ways of just being a bit more rooted

in yourself which is inseparable from how we need to be and feel if we are to be able to enjoy sex and to be present in sex. And Lucy, I know this is something that you have really explored recently in that you've become a sexual priestess, which is really about going back to the kind of spiritual, the kind of fundamental spirituality of sex. Can you tell us a little bit about that and begin with what on earth is sexual prestess? Yeah, but I just, it's just something I wanted to say because I just loved that point and I think it's so true about how we're so in our heads and not in our bodies. And I think one thing,

I know I always felt so sad in a way, I'd start to feel like those kind of feelings of arousal and I'd go and get my laptop. So rather than go, oh, okay, this is a sensation, let's follow it. Like, what happens if I touch here? What happens if I lean back? What happens if I move a bit and my pelvis? What happens if I make some sound? What happens if I like put different like, you know, fabrics on me, like playing with sensation, playing with my body, I would go to a laptop and it would be about what I, what I would look at to get me to a place of orgasm, rather that, and that would just totally bypass me and my connection to my body. And that was such a massive thing that I did in, and it's so powerful. And I think

it's actually one of the most radical things we can do. It's wonderful. It's the best way to fuck the patriarchy. So actually on International Women's Day, we should all go home and have some self-pleasure because I think for me that self-pleasure and communication with the things that just completely transformed my sexuality. But yeah, so I had this random thing happen to me. I was at a festival and I was heavily pregnant and I ended up, lost my partner, I ended up in a workshop and this amazing woman with this long hair was playing this music and speaking. So it was like a movement meditation and everyone was dancing around and doing this stuff and I'm dancing around and doing this stuff. And at the end of the hour, I don't know what had happened,

but we were in a group of four. There was a man on his knees in front of me in tears. And I was just like, I don't know what the fuck just happened. But I had this voice in my head that went, this is what I want to do and this is who I want to work with. Anyway, I took her pamphlet and she did these priestess trainings. And I'd seen these women in Glastonbury wearing all red because my father-in-law lives in Glastonbury,

and I was like, oh, they're a bit out there. So anyway, I kept this pamphlet for ages. And anyway, then one year I found myself checking this woman's website three times a day. And I was like, oh, God. I feel I should do something, shouldn't I? So I ended up doing this priestess training and it was the most out there thing I'd done but actually it makes so much sense

like these things do when you follow the whispers they end up being what you should do. Yeah, so I've always had quite a strong sense of spirituality I went to a Catholic convent for 13 years when I was at school so I was aware that I had this big faith that just kept getting knocked because I kept being like hmm, I don't know, just so much didn't marry up for me I was like, there's a lot of blood on your hands, Catholic Church, that you're not talking about and

what's with the no-sex thing? And I remember saying at 14, and I'd already had sex at 14, but I remember saying to a friend, I want to be a nun. And she was just like, you can't be a nun. You've had sex. And I was like, oh, oh, it's just. So, yeah, so then I ended up doing this training. And for me, it's, you know, you're connecting to God as goddess. And that, for me, just blew my mind. So if God is a woman, your body is sacred. Your monthly bleed is sacred. The fact you can have a baby is remarkable. You are this just vehicle. of pleasure and you are fucking beautiful and fucking amazing. And so that just sort of blew my mind having come from a Catholic lens that gives you a Bible that tells you a body is shameful and that

women can't be holy. You know, the version of female empowered sexuality I have was the Virgin Mary who has a baby without even having sex because sex is so unholy. So there was this sense that you grew up feeling that you couldn't be spiritual and be sexual. So to open this door that allowed me to be it has just just and it continues to just blow my mind really um so yeah and i found from exploring my sexuality which i'd been told was sinful and awful but actually i found the more and more i connected particularly in self-pleasure and then with partners that rather than take me further away from a god who thought i was terrible actually i found i was connecting with a spirit or a something that was saying what took you so long and i was having these deeply mystical experiences i once had an

orgasm that lasted three days and i hang on a second let's can you break that down for me what is an orgasm that lasts for three days well it's quite weird when you go down to breakfast on the third day and you're still like this yeah so how i know what yeah that's the manual i sign me up so this was self pleasure but wait you could like you know three days yeah i mean i was in it was in an apex for a and then it was easing off, but it was still there. It was still ricocheting through my body three days later. I've called it the orgasm that could create world peace. And I think it could, you know.

And I had this, as I was spinning, and I did feel like I was spinning through space and time. I was in the stars for quite a while. And I just got this message. This is the secret that's been lost. And that sounds so out there that I got a message whilst having an orgasm that lasted three days. But actually, this is the fucking secret that's been lost.

We've been denied our pleasure. You know that we're terrified of female pleasure of the fact that there's 200 million women alive right now who've had their genitals cut. because this is where the power is and everyone's been so afraid of it. So, yeah, so I have gone on this journey and I'm still trying to work out what I do with it,

but so sacred sexual priestess is about, yeah, exploring that for myself and also creating kind of sexual, spiritual experiences for other people. Thank you. I just wanted to add that within Indian mythology and Indian kind of traditions,

the goddess or the female is the center of the universe. It's where the universe comes to birth is through the womb of a woman. So if there is no womb, there is no world. You know, that's the center of it. And so there's a lot of focus on women and goddesses and female energy

and everything else exists when female energy and female sexual pleasure exists. I mean, it's just it's kind of what has spawned my fascination with taboos generally, because I'm really interested in how so many taboos seem to exist around things that are specifically connected to women, and then specifically connected to the aspects of womanhood that are so powerful, menstruation, reproductions, the taboos around blood, to ruse around sex, female pleasure, all these things. And as you say, it's such a disempowering thing to feel disembodied.

these sexual scripts that we're all referencing, and I think that so many of us have grown up in, have grown up with, are so specifically disembodying for women. I mean, we know the orgasm gap is at 30% in favour of men, in heterosexual sex. And what is coming up in this conversation, and it does every single sex,

is the power of shame and guilt, and how, again, shame and guilt are really effective social mechanisms through which taboos, particularly around sex and sexual pleasure can be reinforced. And Raga, I've heard you discuss kind of multiple times the power that guilt around sex held for you for a very long time. And I wondered whether you did still have that residue of guilt as it was associated with sex,

or if not, how you'd managed to shake that. I think over time I have made peace with a whole lot of things, right? I just want to just reference to certain things about goddesses and stuff and it is connected to this response. You know, in India, as Singita said, in ancient India, we were surrounded. It was a very inclusive society. Everybody was included, including the third sex. So there was homosexuality, there was openness, there were open relationships,

there were multiple relationships, there was polygamy. It was all celebrated. Relationships were celebrated. love was celebrated. So therefore, if you go to India, certain parts of India where there are temples, you can see beautiful sculptures, you can see the reality of those times, including homosexual acts, and they're beautiful. So the information has always been around for us. Over time, we have either been misinterpreting that information, or we have been deliberately moved away from that, including, and, you know, colonization happened in India a long time ago,

and at that time they brought in something called Section 377, which is, you know, they criminalized same-sex between two men. The decriminalization of that section 377 was only three years ago. Only three years ago, the decriminalization happened, okay? But it was the only thing that you will hear is same sex between two men. even now women are not even considered we are not even in the picture

even in the law there's nothing to show that two women can be together or cannot be together of course we are together and nobody can stop us from being together we are women after all however that's interesting so when I would talk about my relationship with my partner Nicola in India

if I ever had the courage to talk about it for people would listen and then they would show me oh that man he's really cool man you should go and hang out date him or that other person really cool go and hang out so people never never take our relationships seriously it's almost like and i found that happening a lot so information is available knowledge is available it is how we interpret it and what we do with it so in my case i used to feel very guilty i still at times maybe i do because i think

life is a journey and we are constantly work in progress there are times when things surface. But the kind of relationship I have with myself now is so different to the kind of relationship that I had earlier. So today, I have a different experience. So I embrace everything, good and bad. If I am around good things, I absolutely accept it. If I'm around things which are negative, I try and see how that can be turned into a positive for them and for me the experience. So guilt, I think, doesn't go away, shame doesn't go away, the fear doesn't go away, but what stays and I think what it empowers me, and I'm going to use the word that a lot of media has used for me, is courage. I think courage is the only thing that you own, and with that you let go of fear, guilt, shame, because it is other people's shame. Me being an homosexual, and I don't like that word to use that word, to be honest, because it's another label, doesn't take anybody else's head.

heterosexuality away. I always say that. Your shame towards me is your shame. I am not ashamed of that. If you have a problem with me, it's your problem. It isn't my problem anymore. So go and grow up. That's all I have to say. Very appropriate round of applause. Now I am conscious of time. As you know, I like, or maybe some you don't know. It could be your first sex talks. I love. love to go on. So there you go. But I do want to make sure we have time for a Q&A because essentially what I always do is do an anonymous Q&A at the very end. So we'll have, I've got one final question to go through, and then we'll have a little break so everyone can walk around,

go to the bathroom if you need it, and then come back. And in that time, I'll circulate some paper and pens for people to write their question anonymously. So be as vulnerable, as open as you like. Obviously, hashtag safe space. Just so you'll kind of know what's happening next. So I just want to finish then on, well, we could go on for a while. It's got lots more questions, but I won't. I will refrain. We're talking this evening about essentially how we challenge a myriad of taboos around sex and sexuality so that we can all kind of think more positive things going to sex and shake some of these reductive, frustrating

cultural sexual scripts around how we should perform sexually. But San Gita, on your podcast, you speak about the price that you pay

invariably when you do challenge cultural taboos and when you do put your head above the parapet and their consequences that I know you have faced and you said at the beginning some of your family don't speak to you,

what price have you had to pay for the work that you do? Loneliness, I suppose, is the most honest answer because South Asian society largely is fairly binary. So you either follow the rules. You do X, Y, and Z, you know, you study, you become an engineer or a doctor, you get married, and you have a certain script. And somebody like me who's chosen not to follow that narrative,

I come from a very traditional family. I was the first woman in my family to ever have a job so it tells you kind of where I've come from. So the price has been to forge my own life, which is pretty much a solitary life without the kind of attachments that South Asian families normally have. You have extended families, you have support systems and networks, and I unfortunately don't have those.

But it's a price I'm very willing to pay because I can sit here and talk to you about my orgasms. But, you know, on a more serious note, because it allows me to create a space for other women like me because I wish I had this when I was growing up. I wouldn't feel so alone. I wouldn't feel the sense of shame. I wouldn't feel a lot of the things that I carried.

So I think with the work that I'm doing, I'm trying to build a legacy so that younger South Asian women growing up can now come to people like me and normalize conversations around sex, around masturbation, around pleasure, about, so we can talk about, I don't know, simosas and orgasms in the same sentence,

which I often do. But yeah, in all honesty, it's a little bit lonely, but I'm okay with that. I love that. And Raka, what about for you? What is the price that you've had to pay? Or have you had to pay a price?

I've had to pay a huge price. Of course, I lost a lot. I lost people. My family ostracized me for a long time. Friends, the word that we use these days, ghosting. So I've been ghosted a lot. And so what I did, I actually converted that into something different. I created a family, my family of twins, my partner, my ex-husband, who's a wonderful ally.

So I created a family that I would have loved to have. And my family provides, I will use the word unconditional love. I understand it's a safe place. Anybody can come to us and talk to us and be with us and share whatever they want, non-judgment, and we really live that life. So sometimes you have to be, like as Mahatma Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. And I actually have changed that too. You have to be the love you want to see in this world. And that is what I actually promote when people ask me, what do you talk about?

I talk about love. It's not sexual orientation. I want you all to remember it's love orientation. Then it doesn't matter. Oh, I can always take that home. Love orientation, remember that. And Lucy, finally, what about you? Do you feel that there's a price you've had to pay for engaging the conversations that you have? So, I mean, I definitely, you know, I feel really humble to hear, you know, particularly your story, Rago, about when your mum read the letter and how she came to you. And I definitely haven't experienced anything like that. I had, when I did know more page three, I did get quite a lot of shit. and I'm from quite a patriarchal family so and my family just didn't get it I remember just before I started No More Page 3

I'd got a T-shirt and we'd gone on holiday in Wales and I'd wore on the T-shirt and everyone was just it was awful actually because all the guys actually I won't say who they were in my family all the women were silent and all the men just laid into me and they were like what right have you got to deny working class women a way to make a living and you know what's the problem with it And, you know, and I was so shocked, really.

So, and then, you know, I didn't speak to one member of my family for six months, and it was, it was a big thing. And then when actually page three kind of went and I had a couple of text messages saying, well done. But that was it. And then it was almost like this sort of shameful thing that the family doesn't, didn't talk about. But yeah, I've got these nieces who've been to university. We were just so proud and like, yeah. So I think what I did after that is then I put my head back down because I've got a really amazing family and we're really close. and I think I just then put my head back down

because I wanted that place at the table with my family and I kind of kept small and shut up for a bit and I feel I'm only really now coming out again talking about sex and spirituality and stuff and finding my voice again because I think I, yeah, I think I shut up a bit because of it. When we spoke the day, you mentioned that actually you were worried about being shamed

to speak too vocally about the sexual preceptive work that you're doing. Yeah. I probably feel, you know, I've written a book now, so about my masturbation. You know, I feel quite free to talk about sex, but where I, where my edge is, is the spiritual stuff. And I think that's because, and I find it so interesting that patriarchy really squashed women with their, they squashed our sexuality and our bodies and our relationship to our

bodies, but they also squashed our devotion and how we worship. So, you know, in patriarchal Christianity, we, you know, we, what, was our, you know, Mary Magdalene, who was the first apostle to Jesus and his, you know, his most trusted apostle, you know, we didn't hear, we, I grew up, it was like Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Prostitute who cleaned Jesus's feet with her hair or something. That's but actually she's written her, a whole gospel, the Pope, you know, actually sort of denounce the fact that, you know, that she was a prostitute, but I went to a Catholic convent. They never told us that. You know, so I just think we've been denied these versions of, you know, spiritual, sexual,

women but I think that I think that's also the fact that you know we haven't been free as women to worship maybe as we would like and I think our my sense of devotion I think for a lot of women our sense of devotion is quite different to you know going to a church and putting your head down and mumbling it's more like that and it's more like you know dancing or kind of feeling the wind on your face or a fire in front of you and it's a lot more kind of earthy and natural and so yeah but it's still my edge, really, is to talk about that. Because I think, you know, 500 years ago, women were getting burned in squares for this, you know, so it's still really edgy.

And I think that's still, like, ancestrally, that's still some conditioning around that. God, there's so much to challenge and so many taboos to break and so many cultural scripts to rewrite. And I feel so grateful that you three are so active in working to rewrite those scripts. So thank you so much for speaking so beautifully and vulnerably on tonight's. panel and thank you so much for the work that you do in essentially creating the chains that we all need and want to see so huge round of applause to my panel so let's begin with let's begin with this one so sure so someone has asked if i don't enjoy having sex with my partner does that mean that i do not love them i find the connection between sex and love and love

a really interesting one because it's so burdened in cultural ideas, but I'm not here to answer it. So, Lucy, you're nodding quite. Oh, yeah, no. Thank you. I mean, I don't know that's for that person. That's for you to really feel into you and whether you love that person. And to maybe think of, I mean, I don't know what, whether you,

you've um where your sexual relationship is and if there's any way that you two could go on a bit of a sexual journey together um i think i do a couple so i don't know what you've done i don't know who i'm looking at but i mean something like i'm just going everywhere so um something like um an online or an in-person or online tantra course would be really good um or some sort of intimacy something that you could do together because that can really over open things up. And I quite like a bit of structure sometimes in the bedroom. A timer.

I do like the three-minute game. So ways to, because I think what can happen when you're in a relationship, you can quite quickly embed some habits. And because it's like a new thing and it's all exciting, before you know it's like, oh shit, this is the way we do it now. And how can I say, I don't want to do it that way? Because we've been doing that way for six months, six years, or however long it is.

So freshening things up and saying, oh, I went to this talk and this mad woman was talking about the three-minute game. Should we have a go? So to bring in some things or to read a book and maybe be reading it out and saying, oh, she's trying this. Should we try this?

To bring in things can be really good. But the three-minute game, if you look it up, is really, really brilliant. I think there's another question which I think this might be good to answer. But it's a Betty Martin, and she created this thing called the Wheel of Consent and she's elaborated this thing called the three minute game

and all it is is you're with a partner and for three minutes you say so how is it there's basically two questions and you each say them both and one is how would you like to touch me so I could lie there and say to my partner how would you like to touch me for three minutes and he can say well I want to do all this stuff with you

and I go oh yes please and then I go oh but I don't like that bit so don't do that bit so then you just have a timer and you do it and it just sort of frees you up And then the other one is, how would you like to be touched? So then I get to say, oh, I want you to do this and I want you to do that. So it's just a nice way of kind of bringing something different in and also a really structured way for you to actually have permission to ask for what you want. And also just let that animal out.

Oh, I just want to touch you like this. I just want to tickle you. Or I just want to, you know, to let all these things out that's quite often a normal sexual script we don't have time to do. So maybe, maybe I'm just thinking about maybe if you tried that, you might enjoy the sex more and then you might be able to kind of see how that question lands then. But I'd really recommend tantra because it's got kind of some edgy, lots of edgy stuff like just looking in another's eyes or speaking kind of from the heart together and these

sort of things that can really build intimacy and feelings of love. So maybe have a go on that, but I'm sorry I can't. I don't know who you are and I can't answer more detailed. One thing I would say is I think that from personal experience, I think that sometimes the body can be very telling. So when you begin to fall out of love with someone, your body can almost be like the sense check. It's like the first thing to pull away. And so it can be really helpful to listen in to what your body is saying. But I'd also say on the flip side of that, so I'm going to be super confusing here. Because, you know, we've talked about all the layers of cultural scripts and pressures that we all experience around sex, I think that sometimes I always talk about

whenever I write articles about sex and Zara, I'd always talk about the gulf of silence that sits between you and a partner when you're supposed to be at the most intimate of situations because we don't know how to express what we want or how we feel. We feel ashamed or we feel embarrassed. We've talked about this all tonight. And I think sometimes it can be really, you can feel really alone in that anxiety and that pressure and not being able to then express like how, yeah, how you feel in that moment. And sometimes I look back to my like first form relationship and in some ways I think neither of us knew how to communicate to one another and so when I eventually said like I just I'm not sure I'm enjoying sex it wasn't a conversation it was a shutdown

it was well you just don't love me anymore and that's it and I don't think it actually was that I think it was just we weren't able to communicate with one another with how we're feeling and so I think to Lucy's point it's going on that journey together and seeing if there is scope to be able to explore and question and you don't know your partner might also be feeling anxious and might be feeling a bit worried or feeling like maybe they aren't performing in the way they think they need to be. So there's so many things that could be at play that I think are worth exploring before you then begin to think about maybe that is kind of the end of, you know, of the loving relationship potentially.

I've got another question in, which is a beautiful one. I've just started having sex with a woman, age 30, and it has changed everything, capital letters underlined. I feel a sexual equal for the first time. What differences have you found in sex with the same sex? And what was your first sexual, is that awakening or opening this person's handwriting is unclear? Well, there we go. Maybe Raga, that might be.

I think she might be looking at you as inspiration now. Oh, God. My first sexual experience with a woman was when I was about 22. So did I say I was my first experience, I'm contradicting myself. Because, see, somehow I equated sex, proper sex, with a man. So at 25, see, I have to change my own biases. But my first relationship, short term, was with a woman in India, a beautiful woman. And at that time, both of us didn't know that we could be together.

I mean, that was even a thought that we had. We had a great time, and that was it, three months. Now, what was the question? That's such a long time ago, see that I kind of mean. Well, I think you just answered it. What differences have you found in the same sex? Does I say it all? Wow.

It's a completely different experience. And I'm not, this is like when I said about homosexuality doesn't take away heterosexuality. The same way I mean, just because I say nice things about being with a woman, doesn't mean that my experience with a man wasn't good enough. It was fine. just, all right. But with a woman, I think it is different, and I think that person is experiencing,

you know, I think that it's more spiritual. At least for me, it is more spiritual with every woman that I've been, other than my partner as well. It has been a very spiritual experience because I think women get very emotional with each other. We, for us, I think physical intimacy is an extension of our own expression of ourselves,

our own identities and our own emotional need to connect. And therefore, I think for me, every, and I, sorry, when I was, I will compare, because I think there is a point to compare you. When I was with a man, it used to be an act. It was enjoyable. It gave me pleasure. And yes, I did have a good time. But when I'm with a woman, it is a, it's longer.

I need a lot of time. There's a lot of connection, a lot of conversation, a lot of different kinds of conversation. and really after it is over I never get up and have to make coffee and never have to go out for a smoke I never have to think about other things it just continues it doesn't end with an orgasm

I think that is what it is maybe it doesn't last for three days I think it lasts she is my guru everyone's guru here we do have a question about three-day orgasms so don't you worry So it's kind of, I think, I really like what you just said there.

It's expanding your view of what sex is in a way that then has such a huge ripple effect on how you experience sex. Now, there are two questions that I want to kind of put together, which really speak to some people, I guess, yeah, so numerous people here, feeling unsure of how to express a kind of so-called dirtier side of themselves. So feeling, kind of, I'm thought of, kind of publicly, I guess, is kind of putting them together in one certain way as this type of person. But actually, I think I might want to explore kind of different sexual desires, but I'm essentially scared of being judged or feeling embarrassed. What does my excellent panel advise for these different people to do here? May I just ask, ask that person, are you going to, once you act on it, are you going to go and talk about it to everybody so that people would then start labelling you? I mean, is there a fear that people, because people only label when you come out, when we talk about it, right, explicitly? So one is, I think we should not be ashamed.

That is the whole conversation point today that we should not be ashamed. We should not limit ourselves by other people's expectations of us. You want to be with one partner, 10 partners, 20 people at the same time. How does it matter? When I got into advertising and filmmaking when I was in my 20s, people actually called me a slut to my face. Because in India at that time, getting into advertising was something that only slutty women did. Okay, it was too glamorous for people like middle class people.

People will label people no matter what at any point in time. Do not let other people label you. Enjoy it. Oh, here, here. Did you want to add to that? Yeah, and it kind of touches upon your first question as well. So, sex and security are, if you think of them as two opposite ends of the spectrum. I think the question is about being in a relationship and maybe not fancying that person. So the thing that turns us on is diametrically opposite to the thing that makes us feel secure.

And to me, a good relationship with somebody is an interplay of the two, where you can go between those two points and explore. and feel safe in that exploration, I think. And in answer to your second question, I think this is your time, this is your body, this is your fantasy, this is your head, this is your life. You have to be able to allow yourself to explore that, whatever that might be.

And if that doesn't fit in with what an idea of you is, that's an idea. Which one's a reality? They're both unreal and they're both real. So I think we, the way I look at it, it's maybe as a slightly spiritual lens, we're on this planet for a very limited time. And we've been given this body, and this body feels all of these things. It feels pleasure, it feels pain, it feels all of these things.

And I think of it as my duty to explore those feelings and to really give in to them, whatever that might be. And if that feels transgressive, that's a turn on in itself. I think, don't you think? So, go for it. I do. And I think that, actually, I mentioned earlier that I was speaking to sex therapist Kate Moore the other day. And she said that one of the really big benefits of sex therapy is that it gives you an opportunity and creates a space in which you can, sometimes for the first time, it certainly was for me, begin to have those really big benefits of sex therapy is that it gives you an opportunity and creates a space in which you can, sometimes for the first time, it certainly was for me, begin to have those.

really open conversations about sex and to articulate to put into words, you know, actually I really don't think I like that. And actually that makes me feel really uncomfortable or I think I really want that. And sometimes I said it can be the first time that you actually feel like you have permission to do that. And she's like it almost is like a muscle memory. Your ability to be able to be that open and to put into language some of those thoughts. It's like a muscle memory. So in doing sex therapy, you kind of get to exercise that muscle memory. And so it becomes a little bit easier outside of the therapy room to be able to say to a partner, hey, I'm trying to communicate. Can you bite me? Didn't work. But, you know, sex therapy isn't, you know, accessible to

everybody and we might not all need sex therapy. But I think what I took from that is, are there spaces that you can go to or that you can create in which you can begin to create that muscle memory? So you begin to verbalise what you think you might like because you're kind of getting used to the sound of yourself saying I think I would want this because for me personally I found it so discombobulating hearing myself I think of myself in one way

and then in sex trying to say something that I wanted or sounded sexy it just felt really disconnected and incongruent and so I think it's just finding those spaces and there's loads of workshops there's loads of places online there's loads places you could go to you mean sex talks great first step

but where you can begin to kind of practice and I do think it's a practice thing so that then you build up that confidence so next time you're having sex you're like I don't give a fuck if you judge me because like this is muscle I know what I want to say here so that would be my two cents on that

oh that's a good one we're ending on this one hang on right I would like to know more about the fetish world what do people sorry what do people in What does people in that party's rules?

Okay, not sure what that means. Huh? Sex party. Oh, what does people... This is about sex parties. I think I would like to try, but I'm afraid to go, thanks, smiley face. So basically, does the panel have any insight

to share on sex parties? You're looking at me. Lucy Ann. Yeah, so when I did my bucket list, or fuck it list, as I call it, going to a sex party was one of them. Although, weirdly, it was going to a sex party in nature because I'm such a hippie

but I couldn't find a sex party in nature it was sort of a sex party in a stately home that had a lot of fields around it but yeah so that was the first one I went to and I it was real what I find really really weird is that there was that thing that previously and I think a lot of this and I think it goes back to what

the one of the previous question was it's like you think like I think that there was a previous me that was like oh my god a second oh my god I don't know what I do and just freaked out at the thought but actually when I did go I loved it and I felt kind of queenly and sensual and it felt like the most natural thing in the world and I loved it and it was all about female pleasure and the consent in order to go you've got a buddy system you know there's a whole kind of language of consent that's right at the heart of everything and it's so you feel safe and you're you're communicating and the consent thing's quite hot because somebody has to say can I watch you know or Would you mind if I touched you, how would you mind if I touch your breast?

Well, this is going on, and I'm amazing. Thanks so much. Oh, he's nice, isn't he? You know, I'm really get hysterically excited when I think about it. But, yeah, there's these things. And I think sometimes like that's with, like, you know, with kink and with things like, oh gosh, you know, I think I might really like to have my bum spanked or I might like to be kind of like restrained or I might like to do that. It can feel so edgy.

But actually, this is the, this is the sad thing. patriarchal Christianity and all this control and shame and has given us around sexes, it's made it, it's made us feel so ashamed and small about it. And the word I want to give everybody is playful. Let's be playful with it. And even just saying that we're playful, we can relax. And that's what actually I got from interviewing women. The women who were most playful were actually the women who were in relationships with other women. Because when it came to like how things were instigated, they would say things like, oh, I just think about, I wonder what would happen if I just touched her there, whereas with heterosexual women, it was so much

more loaded. And the word I want to give everybody is playful. Let's be playful with this. And actually, a sex party itself is quite a playful environment. And you just have to, all I would say is just go and really tune in to really be connected with you, you know, and do whatever you need to find you before, whether that's, don't have a really, really stressful day and be like, you know, running around. Don't be out of your centre. Be in your centre and in your body and think, I might just like to watch a bit or I might just like to go with a friend and just kiss them or I might like to just see what it's about or kind of think, think it through a little bit and be in your centre and then just go and it might not be your thing. It's not the end of the world. You might

love it. Great. You know, but let's let's let's let's I just want to give everybody this gift of playfulness and like we've tried to bring that in. I just adore this notion of playfulness. Esther Perel talks about it in mating captivity about how like being playful it's so erotic but in order to be able to be playful in context of sex you have to feel safe and safety is like the first thing that almost opens up your mind and body to then being able to indulge in the playfulness of it and I think a lot about this notion of emotional safety and what the boundaries that you have to set for yourself in order to be able to enjoy that playfulness and I think for a long time I didn't really know or I didn't yeah I didn't I wasn't really connected to what my boundaries were because again

sex was something performative that was kind of done to me and so I hadn't really explored what my boundaries might be and in becoming a little bit more attuned to what does not make me feel good and what does make me feel good I know my boundaries a bit more and then it opens up the capacity to then be able to be playful within that safe space so I think understanding yourself and your boundaries as a first port of call then allows you to be yeah playful and I never thought of sex as playful I thought of it's scary and intimidating and a space in which I'd be judged and scrutinized and looked at like am I fat or thin or whatever and then started sleeping someone who was like who would laugh could throw me sometimes but who would kind of like laugh and smile and I'd be like why are you laughing

why you smiling and he'd be like because this is fun we're playing and I was like oh this is quite fun we are playing and it really opened yeah it was such a kind of mind opening body opening experience and then I orgasmed so it worked um there's two questions that I think are so perfect to sit side by side I'm assuming one is by man one was I'm women but you know I'll see they're basically around sex positions and the male gaze so one person has asked about essentially how do I disassociate playing with different sex positions from the male gaze? Essentially, how do I know what I actually really want and like versus what I've kind of inculcated from what society has shown me and told me, i.e. through porn. And then someone else has written, a high number of my sexual partners often request or seem to hugely enjoy being choked slash degraded during sex.

where does that come from? I'll often be told things like spit on me, call me a slut, etc. Does that come from real desire for a sense of release, giving up power, or is it something more or lesser than that? So really interesting two questions. Thank you. What do you think? So I think so much of what we think of sex is things we've seen on porn or things we've been told.

So if somebody is getting off and being choked or spattered or whatever I think the question is to go back to what does it feel like for you and I think this is something you've just touched upon and I think we've lived in a society for so long that's told us what we must feel at various points you know we must feel like this when X is being done to us but we must feel like this when we're wearing something

so I think the biggest revolution I think is to go back to yourself and to start to really feel how things feel within you and I think what Lucian touched upon as well whether it's going to a sex party whether it's doing something that feels a little bit like oh what is this

start by recognizing how does it feel in your body it's a little bit like meditation like when you breathe and when you slow down you feel things that you're like I didn't even know I felt like that it's the same for sex so it doesn't matter

I think whether it's choking or something that is out of your comfort zone, if it gives somebody pleasure, yeah, go for it. If it makes you feel deeply uncomfortable, walk out of the room. And I think that's what I would say. What was the first question about the sexual positions? Essentially someone saying, how do I explore sexual positions without kind of feeling like it was the male gaze that made me want it in the first place? Again, the same thing.

Go back to what does it feel like? Does it feel performative when you're, I don't know, if you're sitting on top of someone and you're kind of controlling it, are you playing something out? Is it, does it feel like, oh, I've seen this in X or Y and I'm doing that thing? Or are you able to really be in your body and feel that pleasure? If you're in a certain position and you forget what you're doing and you're kind of within that, then you know you're doing it for yourself rather than being performative. And I think that's the way to judge for me anyway. I don't know if anyone else has anything else to say Yeah

I liked loads of what you said And there was I really liked God I kind of felt I feel like I've been like in loads of places I don't know where to start Um Um Um Yeah where to start

Um Again I think that The What was the first question again? I'm so sorry About so two male gays And sex positions Oh yeah yeah

Yeah I definitely felt this And this is sort of when I started, after I had my epiphany watching porn and I went on my sexual odyssey, I realised that basically sex, I called it normal slightly porny sex, sex just always fell into the same routine. And it was a bit of blowjob of him on top, me on top, maybe on my knees, he'd come done. And that was sort of it. And then, and it was very, it was quite uncomfortable. And I'd probably wake up the next day, really, in quite a bit of pain. And it, you didn't admit, and I wouldn't, and it was definitely performative. And that's what I thought was sex. And that was just sort of

seen the script and it wasn't and I couldn't it was quite hard to break it um and even when I bought a guy asked a guy if you wanted to learn tantra with me and bought him the idiot's guide to tantric sex and gave him this like dreadful blowjob whilst holding a book um it um we still ended up going back to the same old script so it's really hard to break but I think what you said is about slow it down like for me my like big thing would be slow the fuck let's just all slow the fuck down I mean you mentioned it we're so fast we're like grab a meal grab a this grab a this. I don't know about you, but most of my time, so much of the thought is, oh, I've got 17 minutes to do that, and then I'm going to do that, and then I'm going to set the

alarm, what time are we doing this? Fuck, we're moving so quick. So actually, to connect with your body, we have to kind of, yeah, slow the fuck down and listen to it. And in that stillness and the silence, you'll start to feel. I mean, now I can feel my vulva and my yoni, and it's all starting to, you know, And then it's so it's like really being in your sensations and following it and seeing what you like. And I think quite often when sex is performative, it's so fast. We don't actually have time to think, to know whether we're enjoying it. And that often can be quite dangerous.

I know, like for me, I've had not dangerous, but I've had situations. They've all been in consent, but they've been so quick. And it's only been afterwards that actually the impact of what's gone on has hit me. I've been there. I've been willing. But afterwards, I've been like, oh, God, I don't really know kind of what happened there. And actually, that's not feeling really in alignment for me. And I sort of wish that hadn't happened.

But things are moving so quick. So I think if we can, slowing down and tuning in is where the magic happened. And I know that one of the questions was about my three-day-long orgasm. And that was from self-pleasure really slowing down. And the amazing thing about, I think, female sexuality is it starts from nothing. yeah and then it but it builds to something kind of mind blowing and um but but not rushing it let's not rush it and i don't think you can rush really you can't rush if you're going to have a great orgasm you can't really rush it so building pleasure following sexual energy building it up as

much as possible teasing yourself or teasing a lover you know that is kind of where the excitement is and the big crescendos come from, not this quick, performative stuff I find. That being said, sometimes it's great to perform. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes there's a part of us that wants to perform and can get off on that. But I think when it all becomes performative,

then you miss out that slow, what really is your personal sexual song. And that's the exciting bit to find. Yeah, sorry. And it's interesting as you say that, because I think in slowing down, it also is rejecting the idea of the kind of very goal orientated um style of sex that I think that really does is what kind of what a lot of us

have been brought up on I mean all the kind of films and TV I watch growing up is all about like fucking for the man to then be able to come and when you have that kind of goal oriented sex if you combine that with having like certain anxieties or worries or anything and it's you can find yourself thinking I think okay how do we get to the end and you're so you're not being present so it is that kind of getting to the end mentality whereas that slowing it down and actually enjoying the process, whether or not someone orgasms or not, but actually trying to be present in that moment. And something I don't want to bring up, the last sex talks, as amazing sex educator Ruby Rare made a point that really stuck with me, that the kind of sex you want

is also going to change continually. What you want to eat one day is different to what you want to eat the next day. And the same with sex. So what you might want to experiment with, you might one day really want to be smacked and choked and that could feel so good that day it could feel transgressive and fun and hot and the next day you might be feeling a bit more vulnerable and actually want someone just to hold you and that's okay so i think again it all goes back like listening to yourself and if you're too and i think with the menstrual cycle as well we're quite different our body's changed they go through this massive kind of amazing journey every month and then if you have a baby that's like my sexuality completely changed after i had a baby things that i were turning me on before really weren't

afterwards and there's almost like a constant tuning in and getting to know ourselves again, which is amazing really that we get to do that. And I think what you said about the script, I think we have all subconsciously internalized this script of what sex looks like. It starts with a kiss. Then you take your clothes off. Then there's penetration. Then there's an orgasm. And which means we're just stuck to this one particular way to do it and there isn't a particular way to do it. Tantra, they talk a lot about maybe you just kiss for an evening. I mean, how wonderful, how liberating is that?

So I think being stuck to this script that has been fed to us by porn and films and romance novels or whatever is so restrictive. It's like if sex is this like banquet feast, we're just stuck to the salad, right? That's what we're doing. So I think it's about kind of letting go of these ideas or these scripts. and just sort of going with what feels right and as little or as lot as we want on that particular day, I think. Can I add a trivia?

Just my general knowledge. There are 432 ways to kiss apparently. 432. I love snogging, so I'm fascinated by this. I'm going to go home and look up because I reckon I've got... I know seven. I've got... I'm like, I think I've got three.

I don't know. I'm going home to look. That I have four. Oh my God. That is blowing me over. Right. It's penultimate question as we do have to wrap up. How should someone explore their sexuality when currently they feel quite unsure?

Sexual exploration. How do you begin it? One thing I would say on this, just to kick us off, is that I think the themes that are coming up in the answers. There's a lot of unanimity to this. It's like exploring what feels right and setting your boundaries and doing things in a way that doesn't feel pressurized or feel like you're responding to external ideas of what you should be doing. But actually like, you know, Lucy said going to a sex party doesn't mean going and take up your clothes and having sex in the middle of a room when you don't feel comfortable doing it, but maybe going to a sex party that allows you

to be in a sexual context that's still safe. but around different people and that could give you the opportunity to kind of see how that sexually child situation could feel might be one suggestion panel anyone else i'm just sorry i'm just wondering also whether this question but i'm very single dimensional of course uh is to do with your own sexual orientation as well or that kind of sexuality i'm not sure all i can say this if it is that it is about that if you're confused there are lots of ways to be these days, which were in our times, it was just binary relationships. Now you can be non-binary, you can be polyamorous, you can have multiple relationships,

you can explore more. And whether I believe in it or not, it doesn't matter. I think that there are, my children, I tell them, explore. If there is an opportunity for you to explore, if you're unsure, explore, but this is a time to explore. I mean, who is there to stop us? Who are we answerable to? So the confusion only remains until we do not explore.

So that's all I could say, keep exploring. I wish I was 25. Stay curious, stay curious. Right, this is going to be our final question before we wrap up for the evening. Thank you so much for sharing such vulnerable moments. Yeah, thank you. What would you say to your younger self about love slash sex slash womanhood if you could? That's a lot.

but maybe answer one of those. Okay, you know, I'm going to introduce. What would you say about love and what would you say about sex? One thing, we'll keep them really brief. Rapid fire closing question. Sanjita, going to begin with you. Sex is like having the most exciting, like powerful bomb of this, like this power that we've got within ourselves.

And we have no idea we've got it as women, particularly. and if we learned how to use it and I would say this to my younger self you have no idea what you've got and kind of just start to learn to use it and own it and revel in it and be proud of it I think is what I would say don't be afraid

don't be afraid and Raqa what would you say to your young self about the love or sex I don't know I think I wear it the love sex you know someone said to me my daughter said to me actually when I wore these glasses and she said Gosh, Mom, you're wearing toys on your face now.

I love. He liked toys the face. See, at least, I wear only this toy on my face. So this is it. I think love is self-expression. I keep saying that, just show it. You can't keep it inside you. You have to share it.

Sex, share it. Not with the world. With some. And everything else. I think that's there to live for. just share it wear it express it and Lisa what about you God I don't know so I'm talking to my younger self so I would say to my younger self and it actually relates to both love and sex I would say learn about yourself because like like learn think about think about everything you

believe and where you got that belief because you're not your mum and you don't need to be with a guy who's like your dad and you know you're so quite like that I'm not see I'm really an articulate so my younger self would be going what the fuck are you talking about because I feel I had to unpick a load of I just automatically assumed my mum and then got into relationships with my dad going I don't want I can be my mum but it doesn't feel like me so I was just and I think somehow that it's about saying that actually Actually, and I guess my parents were in quite a patriarchal relationship. So there's a sense that actually I don't think we realize because we,

maybe because we're in the West and we think, you know, we're equal now, so they tell us. But actually, you forget that the world that we live in has been created by men for men. And it actually feels often very uncomfortable and unfair and unfathomable for women. So actually, you kind of have to question everything and you have to tune into what you want. And you have to dare to vision a new way that might not look how you're being told. and I would say, yeah, keep bravely going towards that vision that in your heart you think is possible. I always think anything that's assumed, like, it's just that's like the way it's done. I'm always like, but why?

And Elspeth, my best friend sitting here, so it's like your whole thing is, why, why, why, why, but why, why? And I do carry on, but I am, I'm just like, why. Because they're baked in assumptions, the thing that I find so frustrating, any sort of baked in assumptions, they perpetuate in a really insidious way, typically patriarchal norms. And I think it's only in asking that why that you get to the root of how essentially, I don't want to say like systems of oppression because that sounds too grandiose, but how we end up perpetuating patriarchal power structures in quite a damaging way. Take, for example, women change their last name during marriage.

If that's what you want to do, that's fine. But I think it's always just asked that question. Like, why is it always assumed that a woman is going to be the person who changes their last name? Why does that continue to be the tradition? It's just because it's been like that previously. Just ask why. And shake the norm. One thing I would say to my former self, my younger self about sex and love, I guess,

my own self-love, is just please stop hating your body so much. You get one life, you get one body, and you are so unspeakably lucky to get to inhabit the body you do, to get to move, to breathe, to have sex. And honestly, you make me want to have sex so much the way explosive and fantastic. My work here is done. I mean, seriously. And I'm off.

This is a mocha. Huge round of applause to my panel. Thank you so much for listening today. And I hope to see you at the next Sex Talks event at the London edition. Keep an eye on my personal Instagram page, which is at M. Louise Boynton for all updates.