Single Ladies In Your Area - Going to sex therapy whilst single, reconnecting with pleasure and never dating for the plot with Emma-Louise Boynton

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

This week our Single Ladies are joined by author and founder of Sex Talks, Emma-Louise Boynton! She helps Amy and Harriet navigate the tricky subject of ✨pleasure✨ and answers questions like: How useful is sex therapy when you’re not in a relationship? What are things you can do to get out of your head and into your body? And is “just do it for the plot” the worst piece of dating advice ever? CW: Discussion of eating disorders and sexual assault.Emma-Louise's debut book, 'Pleasure: The Reclamation of My Body' is currently out in hardback. To purchase your copy head to emmalouiseboynton.substack.com or listen to her podcast on spotify.com.Amy's taking her brand new show Thanks For Having Me on tour around the UK from Feb 2027. Tickets are on sale now just head to plosive.co.uk.And Harriet is going on tour with her brand new stand-up show Floozy this autumn. For tickets and dates head over harrietkemsley.com.We want to hear your dating stories! Email in at [e-mail] Single Ladies In Your Area on Instagram @singleladiespodProduced, recorded and edited by Aniya Das for Plosive.Photo by Paul Gilbey.Artwork by Welcome Studio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, hello, it's Harriet, and I've just come on to let you know that I'm on tour. Later in the year, I'm bringing my show Flusi to you. I'm flusying about the UK. Lots of new shows have been added. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London. New date there. And we've added Winchester, Frum. Got in trouble for pronouncing that wrong.

Frum, Taunton, Leeds, Milton, Keuns, Leeds, Leicester, Margate, Farnham. And let's not forget, Colchester. You can get tickets at Harriet Kemsley.com And I'd love to see you there. Hello, I'm Amy Gledhill. And I'm Harriet Kemsley. We're both single and in our 30s. And we've found ourselves back on the dating scene.

And the landscape has changed. Everyone has settled down. But we're back out there. We're desperately trying to figure out what the hell we should be doing. So we're going to speak to experts. Chat about dates we've been on. If we managed to get any. And share your tips and horror stories.

So we all feel less alone. We might even get our exes on. Yeah, we'll see about that. This is Single Ladies in Your Area. Hello. Hello. Well, well, well, well. We meet again.

We meet again, old friend. That was a cheeky laugh. Cheeky episodes. We've got a cheeky episode coming up. I can feel it. We've got Emma Louise Boynton. Oh, no, my phone. We have a problem on this.

Should I tell them about what happens? Poor Amy, almost every single record at some point, twice. My phone will fall out of my pocket or off my chair and onto the floor. And she has stopped hiding her to stay. I think it is safe to say. We'll never learn. We never learn. And that's just us.

That's just us. That's just us. But we are going to learn from Emma Louise Boynton. Yeah. Author, journalist, presenter, Yeah, sex researcher. Sex researcher. She hasn't called herself that.

That's important that we say that. I'm going to call myself that. On the frontiers. Yes. I'm a frontier sex researcher. Sounds like a... Yeah. That's how you want to describe yourself?

Thank you for putting the statement out there for everybody to know. Yeah, Emma's great. And I think some of the stuff she says is going to be really helpful for a lot of people out there that are looking to kind of connect with their bodies and feel. Pleasure, which is also the name of her book. I'd love that. Imagine that. Just a bit of pleasure.

Yeah. Well, we're going to find out how to get some. You've read half of her book, right? Yeah, I don't want to brag, but... Hey, that's really genuinely impressive. That's really good. It's great. It's really interesting and she's really, you know,

doing the good work. Doing the good fight. Yeah. I'm really excited to meet her. I'm excited to get stuck in. Find out how we get some pleasure in our bloody body. for a change. Sorry, I'm on my period and I'm thinking,

when's the last time my body did anything for me that wasn't just cramps? Yes. Still do the way. Yeah. Why don't you try to do, why don't we have orgasms on our periods? Oh, that would be amazing.

Yeah, why is it always pain? Why is it always cramps? Yeah. It's always pain. There's no gain all the time. That's the problem with his bodies. Yeah, we need more gain. Yeah.

Let's pay more gain. Can somebody up there who's in charge of this? Yeah. Sort this out. Yeah. Maybe Emma can saw it out. I really feel like we could trust Emma with this. Should we get her on? Oh, let's get her on.

Let's get her on. Let's get some pleasure. It's a match. Oh, hello. Well, we're very happy to be joined by Emma Louise Boynton. Thank you for joining us. Oh, my absolute pleasure. This is already just like the best energy to begin a podcast on.

So I feel a bit giddy. So if I just like talk at super speed and like overshare, then, yeah, it's your fault. You have the right place. Listen to it at half speed. Yes. We'll go to it. Yes. They can listen to half speed.

It's okay. You know what? I have to say, I actually do usually listen to podcasts on double speed. But then whenever I used to edit my own podcast episodes, I was listening to them on like half speed. I speak so fast. You cannot listen to you on double speed. You literally can't catch a single word. Amazing.

So, you know, lots of word per minute. This is good stuff. There we go. We like that. We're business ladies. I've met you before. Yes. A couple of times.

Yes, we were just saying. So the first time we met, I think, was more than four years ago. It was before you had Mabel. And I interviewed, I think, at Soho House. I can't remember what the interview series was. I don't know why. It was some, it was a, no, me neither. But I think it was you and I interviewed a few other people.

And I just obviously adored you. then you came on sex talks and you were just utterly fabulous. Can you explain the listeners if they don't know what sex talks is? Yes, of course. It's an exciting name. It's a very exciting name. It's a good name, isn't it? The only thing is you can't say it on social media because sex is obviously a totally banned word.

So from a kind of business strategy perspective, if I had a bit of foresight, maybe having sex in the title of my business was like not. I had exactly said. I did a show a few years ago called Slutty Joan and they do not like. it when you write slutty. They don't like slutty. They do not like slutty. And so yeah, all my, like, I tried to do like adverts for it and they'd get rejected.

Yeah. No. I gave up ads. I was like, there's no chance. I tried once in times. You couldn't even get like a really boring post that had like just, yeah, Sex Talks logo. But yeah, so Sex Talks is a live event series, which I've been running for, God, like four years now, which is kind of mad.

But I set it up really. I went to Sex Therap a few years ago, which I'm sure we can get into and little bit. And I was just amazed at the conversations I had in the sex therapy room were conversations I just never had around sex, my body intimacy. And it was having this conversation. I thought, God, this is wild that we don't have better conversations around something that we are all doing. And we all have some sort of relationship with. And the sessions proved to be just like just so transformative for me for how not just my relationship to sex, although it was transformative for that, but just how I related to my body, how I showed up in the world, my confidence of myself.

And I just thought more women need to have access to these insights and these conversations. And my backgrounds in journalism, so I worked in news and current affairs for many years in the newsroom. And I worked at like Sky, BBC, worked for Tina Brown in New York. And I'd always worked in journalism, but across different medium. So I worked on radio, podcasting, live TV, and then ended up in live journalism events with Tina Brown. So I knew, what I knew how to do was to tell stories and to kind of, I loved bringing people together. So I thought, okay, what do I know how to do and how do I get people talking about sex? So I thought, okay, I'm going to just do one off event around the orgasm gap, which again we can go into momentarily.

And I thought, you know, maybe it could just be me. Maybe no one else was talking about this. Lo and behold, the event sold out. And so I was like, I'm going to do another one. It turns out people have orgasm. People, or they don't. And they want them. Well, some of them.

Exactly. So a lot of them did. So it ended up, so I just kind of fell backwards into running this live event series and podcast called sex talks, which was really the intention was to get more women to have access the conversations and insights I'd had in the sex therapy room. And also to have a sitting shoulder, shoulder. I loved that it was a live event because, you know, it's, I want people in a room together talking about sex intimacy or stuff. Coming. Listen, if you want to be. They're in a room.

And come. Okay, that wasn't quite the intent of the series. But listen, if there's a spin-off opportunity, a co-lap, should we do a co-lap? Well, just that look into the legalities of things. But yes, and I've run it for many years. And I took a bit of a pause whilst I was writing the book. But I've now kind of restarted it. That's so cool.

Yeah, when I did it, the people that you got on were it is so inspiring. And it was a really, it feels like especially, in the UK, you know, there's not many, there's not many events like that where people are talking so openly and honestly, it felt really exciting in the room. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. And I do, the energy, so I kind of really missed it when I was tucked away in the library writing. I really miss just the like community that I built and was, I, I've still like I built, that kind of we built that everyone who came was so much a part of the series because there was just this, like, frenetic energy in the room. People were so excited to get an opportunity to talk about

sex and to have these conversations that it's just, as I said before, it's wild that we don't grow up having better conversations about the thing that we all do and that we all have, you know, experience of and often many of us have like issues around. And so there's, yeah, there was always just this amazing energy in the room. And I always wanted it to be very, I wanted it to be a space that people could, who've had no prior experience of talking very openly about sex to come to. Because I think the sex positivity movement is wonderful.

There's some, so many. incredible sex educators and people online who are, I just think, so phenomenal in what they're doing. But I think if you haven't, like me, if you've never really spoke about sex opening before, some of the stuff can feel quite intimidating. And it can be a bit like, I'm not, I'm not at the sex parties yet. I'm not on field or any other dating yet. You know, I'm not quite there yet, but I definitely am interested in this. And so I wanted sex talks to be this kind of that first place you come to where you can feel

totally comfortable. It almost felt like kind of magazine journalism. vibes where it wasn't just, you know, I interviewed some amazing sex therapists, but I had lots of different, you know, we did a, when we did a panel, was a panel of comedians talking about sex and intimacy. So I had lots of different people working across different fields to talk about sex and dating. So it always felt, I think, really accessible to everyone, which is important to me. That has answered a question I was going to ask, and I'm in this with love. I was going to say, why did you have Harriet? Get an expert. They wanted an expert. I wanted an expert. I wanted an expert on sex.

and dating and the first person I thought of was Harriet. Of course it is. Listen, and I wasn't wrong. It was a fabulous panel. I'm trying to remember that the tenor of our conversation, but I remember thinking I am sitting across from an expert. Wow. Well, we don't know what feels.

We don't know what feels just yet. It's my eyes. Broad expertise. You know what? This is actually going to, this is the joy of sex talks. Yes, so I have lots of people who are very much in the sex and wellness space. I'm, you know, sex therapist, people who are, you know, hats on experts. And then people who aren't, you know, doesn't feel necessarily, but have, like, lived experience of, you know, they're dating.

They put the years into dating. But also just people who talk openly about sex intimacy because I think that's what was so, I think that's what's been, has made it so accessible. Because people come, they're like, oh, I have that happened to me too. Oh, that I really resonate with that. So I think that has always, yeah. I think, and that's one of the things, I'm halfway through your book. and I'm loving it. And I think that's one of the things that's very interesting about you speaking about because I think that's kind of what your book is about about how you're living a personal

journey and it can become a shameful thing or a thing that's hidden and actually sharing and speaking about things is the answer a lot of the times to our problems. Totally. I think shame thrives in darkness, but it is diminished in light. And I think that when we are able to speak more, more openly about things that historically we felt we need to hide and we need to kind of keep to ourselves. It's such a release. I say that with, you know, years of having done that. I, for so long, I thought I was broken in my relationship to sex intimacy. I, once I came out of my one, now my second long-time relationship, my first long-time relationship, I was about 23

and I just stopped being able to orgasm. And after that, it was just like years and years, I just felt so disconnected from sex. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't know how to. I felt like I didn't know how to do it. And I thought I was totally alone in that. As far as I was concerned, everyone around me was having mind-blowing, orgasmic, wonderful sex. And I was just not.

And so I wasn't talking about it. And I didn't really open up to everyone, anyone about the fact that I wasn't enjoying sex. I felt like I didn't know how to. And as soon as I started speaking, as soon as I wrote this kind of column whilst doing sex therapy, that I started sex talks. As soon as I began telling people, I'm actually doing sex therapy. I'm actually going,

so many people, it transpired, had that own issues they were going through with sex. And they were like, oh, you know what? That's actually something that's I've been experiencing too. And the shame just kind of begins to shed a bit. And I think there's something, I was talking to a friend about this other day, there was something confronting

and probably quite generally positive, but also like mad about doing that quite publicly with sex talks because I felt like I was still in the process. I'd finished sex therapy. I'd had an orgasm, which was my first, like, many, many years, which was on a one-night stand,

you know? Wow. I know. I then, like, ghosted him. I was so overwhelmed by the experience. I felt so bad. And he's so nice. He's like,

I think he's got, he's so, I then, we follow each other online. And I, he's like a really nice guy. I think he's engaged now. Just like,

gorgeous girlfriend. So, like, he's good. He's fine. But I was just kind of, overwhelmed and he was really open and he was really like looking back he was wonderful he you know we had very open conversations about sex we then I had an orgasm and then you know he called me out he was like are you ghosting me like this is what and I was like no no I'm super busy and I didn't mean to but I think I was just I did not have the emotional maturity nor the language to like meet

the situation as an adult because I hadn't got there yet I was still like fumbling around like okay What does it mean to be this sexually liberated woman who now is okay talking about sex and being, you know, going on dates with the feeling of empowerment rather than like perennial anxiety? So I really did not meet him at a great time. But anyway, we weren't meant to be. He's fab. He does get mentioned in the book. Good for him. Totally anonymously.

And, you know, I wonder if he'll ever reach out. So you went to sex therapy as a single person. Yes. That's interesting. So you just one day decided Because that's quite a big decision to make And that's really inspiring to go Do you know what?

I'm not having a good time with this. Yes. I love the way he framed that As if I'm this like incredibly organised Like you know what? There's a problem. You know what I'm going to do? Address it.

That is not me. I'm not a like massive like future planner. I think I'm just I'm a real doer in the sense I'm always doing things and I'm just like Millie miles per person. hour. And I think by virtue of being someone just always, just, I don't know,

I don't know how I describe that. I hate to say, like, things just happen because they don't. You put yourself in situations and then you make it happen. But there was not foresight or planning to this. I was at a dinner party. I never talked about sex openly, at least of all with strangers. But there was something about the dinner party. We were kind of, you know, in that period of lockdown

where we were coming in and out of lockdowns. Yes. And we were all just kind of glitching. And I was like, do know who I am. I don't know what I talk about. Like, not even sure I know my. No name. Yeah.

I was at a sleepover in the countryside with someone I'd met once, didn't know anyone there, but I was like, sure. It was like when we were in one of those out moments and I knew we'd be thrown back into lockdown soon enough. For whatever reason, we started talking about sex. And I said these two women sitting on either side of me, I was like, yeah, I'm just like not a sexual person. I don't really like sex.

I just don't really, I'm not able to orgasm. It's just not for me. And they had both gone to see this sex therapist, Alex Traculia, who's based in Australia. and they'd become just absolutely evangelicals for the power of sex therapy. Little did I know, I would soon become the number one proselytiser. Honestly, in another life,

I would have been a Mormon knocking on doors. Telling everyone about God, but in this life, I'm telling everyone about sex. But I, you know, they both said to me, they were like, you know, this is something you can address, you can fix this. And they gave me Alex's number

and they were like, just please, please get in touch to that. Like, I promise she's changed. She'd changed both of their lives. I really helped them. As I said, not my name. much of a planet, but you know what I love? A business incentive. And I said, I was doing some writing at the time for the stack world run by a wonderful friend of mine, Sharmine Reed. And I was on

the phone turn and I was like, you know, I met these girls, I think I might do sex therapy. Written it down somewhere on a post-it note. Maybe it was going to happen. And she said, you should write a column about this because it would be really interesting and you should do have the stack business incentive. So I was like, say no more. That's like us. I don't know what's the podcast? Honestly, and needed it just to like, because there's a like, you know, The bejillion and one idea is floating around. Just, I need a reason to do it.

And like, you know, self... I wish it was, you know, just for the benefit of my own, like, connection to my body. No, it wasn't that. It was exactly. But it actually ended up being really... That was kind of the best way I could have done it because I wrote this article, I wrote the first column, about kind of the conversations we'd had in the first one to two sessions,

which I thought would be very much orientated around. So, you need to go masturbate. This is the vibrator. like just straight down to business. And of course it wasn't. It was like, what is your relationship like to your body? You know, how have you connected to your sensuality of the years? And I was like, hmm, well, actually I grew up with, you know, a really bad eating disorder.

And I'm actually still kind of like struggling with it. And I hadn't told anyone that time. And I wrote this article about the connection between body image issues, eating disorders, and sexual dysfunction. So inability in my case to orgasm. Again, having thought I was totally alone in this, not knowing. knowing that there was a connection even in the first place. And my sex therapist, who'd actually done a lot of research into this specific topic,

so it was so serendipitous that we were put together. And I wrote this article, and I was inundated with responses from women who were like, I also have had an eating disorder, I also struggle with sex. And so we think about shame and how important it is to recognize you're not alone and whatever it is that you're going through

that is the cause of this shame. That was just, to me, I was like, wait, what? This is, it just blew my mind and that was really the catalyst that kind of eventually sparks. I mean, that's a huge thing that will impact every area of your life,

just discovering that connection. I think that's, it's discovering the connection because it now seems so mad to me that I didn't make that connection between my relationship to my body and my relationship to sex, but we're so good at compartmentalising or I just didn't address it

The eaten, I could have often referred to them, I think I referred to this in the book, as my twin pillars of shame. So it's the eating disorder that was manifested in my, I was really anorexic when I was teenager, all girls' school. It was kind of like, you know, in the water. And then as I got older, it just kind of manifested in lots of different problematic eating habits and different ways. But it was just this kind of thing in the background that I just thought, like, it is what it is. Like, lots of women have these struggles. But I was pretty bulimic at the time still. and that was my kind of coping mechanism for anxiety,

but I just didn't connect that like pattern of body self-abuse with my complete inability to feel like pleasure. Do you think the link is to do with control? Partly like you're trying to control your body in different ways and orgasm is letting go. Totally. I think it's a number of different things. I think one if you are not used to being in your body in a pleasurable way,

then it's really hard to just suddenly expect to be able to shift into that. Like get naked, shift into like, oh, okay, I'm so in my body now and then you put clothes back on your back into like, I was just in this pattern of constantly watching when I was eating and then eating them, being sick if I ate too much and too much.

But like, so it was kind of in this very, and it would happen in phases. It wasn't like my whole life. I wasn't, you know, I don't define that period of my 20s as like incredibly ill, but it was just this thing in the background that when my coping mechanism

that I kind of had normalized because I guess because I'd gotten eaten sort of so young and so it'd always kind of been this like thing bubbling. Yeah. But so I think day to day I just, I didn't see my body as something to like look after or careful or give joy or pleasure to.

It was something to punish. It was something to over exercise, to starve, to like lambast. When I looked at the mirror, I would just be so cruel. And I think that meant that like the framework through which I saw and connected to my body was so negative.

and so mean and so like self-abusive that looking back like of course I wasn't unable to like turn up in sex and be like, oh, I am this absolute central sex goddess, like lick me out. I just wasn't. Yeah, of course, how could you? No, and it was doing sex therapy that really began to build that, I guess a connection to my body that really first and foremost began with care of like, okay, you need to first, like, work out how you look after.

to yourself, like how you just take care of yourself, how you let yourself feel some pleasure day to day outside of the context of sex. So it was, but I do think the control thing is also really, if you're, but that kind of feeds into that. If you're like, you're very rigid, you're like, okay, that, you know, has an impact and then your ability to just like let go and be orgasmic. You've got to get in there and sniff them. Oh, hello, it's just us sneaking into the podcast, just popping in, just dropping by to say, have you thought about joining? our Patreon. Yes, there's lots of nice things on our Patreon. Isn't there? You get it ad-free, which is great. Yeah, lovely. Actually, not any of those

adverts. Actually, I love adverts. Yeah, me too. Sorry, we shouldn't be slacking off the adverts. Absolutely love adverts. Also, you get to watch the episodes on video. Yeah. Is that how you describe that? Yeah, that is kind of how you describe it. That's how a sort of elderly person would describe it. We've got full video Epps online. now. Yeah. It's a fun time. It's a fun time.

And you get little, little tip bits of secrets. And most importantly, you're supporting the podcast. And you're supporting the podcast. I mean, not most importantly to you, really. Most importantly to us.

Please let us keep doing this. Please support us. Be our sugar daddies. We're fed up of supporting ourselves. You can find the link to sign up in our single ladies' Instagram bio. Or go to patreon.com forward slash single ladies in your area.

So what were the first steps to finding pleasure in your body in day-to-day life, like you just said. What's the first sort of, what's the first step on the journey? So one of the things that stood out for me so much in sex therapy is my sex therapist, Alex, shout to Alex, because she is just one badass. She is fabulous. And I actually interviewed her for the audio book, so she's got a little piece on that and she talks about this. But one of the things she got me to do early on was to keep a pleasure journal. So contrary to what I thought that it would just be about, like, you know, wank. Yeah. There you go.

That's it. Actually, what she asked me to do was every day, write down three to five things that bring you pleasure in your body outside of the context of anything sexual. The idea was to begin building up that relationship to my body that was premised on pleasure

and that was judgment-free. So she'd get me to write it down and she'd be very specific, like use neutral language. So, you know, you're so used to criticizing your body. So when you look in the mirror, you're like, oh, you know, this is fat, this is... I had to describe the experience

in a sensation in a neutral way. So, you know, it could be something like having the first, like, hot cup of coffee in the morning. I see, I'm holding it at my hands, rather than saying, I've got chip nail, I'm chipped nail on a shawl, you know, my hand looks at, it's just, I'm holding it in my hand. It's in this mug, the mug is brown.

I'm sipping it. It is so delicious and it's warm. And it was just about building up that awareness of pleasurable body sensations. And it was just such a, like, just mental shift for me, because I just hadn't, stopped and like felt like what could it like what does pleasure my body feel like I've never the first sip of coffee has never felt the same honestly I'm like oh um and although I like I don't keep a pleasure

journal like you know every day now I feel so much more mindful of those little day to day sensations like just clock in oh exactly getting in the bath oh exactly oh yeah should we hit her in pleasure right now just need a minute just have a little bit just have a Quick part of mid-podcast. Putting socks on that, I've been on the radiator. Oh, yes. She's already. She doesn't need a journal.

But I think that's what it is. It's mindfulness. It's being, when you're present and you're in the moment and you're not thinking about the anxiety, you're not thinking of those bad thoughts. You're present in the moment. But it's retraining your brain to think like that. Totally.

And mindfulness ended up being such a big part of the whole kind of healing process. And actually I write quite a bit about it in the book because I've never really been a very mindful person. I'm not really a meditation person. My boyfriend keeps on trying to get us to meditate together. And I keep saying like 1,000 percent, I'm so ready to commit to this. And he's like, now. And I'm like, not now. Not now.

Really irritating timing. But like later. And he's like, it's already late. I'm like, later. So I need to definitely get back. But there's a brilliant book by Dr. Laurie Brotto called Better Sex Through Mindfulness, where she lays out her. extensive research into the positive impact that really simple mindfulness practices can have on your connection to sex and sexuality. And so one of the, I mean, there's a whole array of

practices that she outlines, all of which I've tried like quite a few, which I talk about in the book and they're amazing. But it's just so simple because so much about like in order to be able to really enjoy sex, you need to be able to be present in the moment. You need to be able to step away from the busyness and the chaos and everything of the day. And, you know, and to just get to kind of lock in to your body's sensations. And we live so much of our lives now in our heads, not in our bodies. You know, we're chronically online. We're on our phones.

We're working all the time. Like, I'm constantly scrolling, like, consuming so much information. So to be able to get in a more kind of sensation-orientated mindset can be really hard. But there are small exercises that can really help make that shift. And, like, I started doing more like erotic breathing recently to help me do that. Which is just, like, deep breathing, but you go down. you just take deep breaths, you go into your chest and then your tummy and then to your pelvis

and then you really think about your genitals and you just keep on breathing. And honestly, when you do that before having sex, it is so great. It just shifts something. This is why your boyfriend wants you to meditate. This is honestly, honestly. But I can sometimes do that while you're getting out of sex.

I just take my deep breaths. And like, again, really like calls you into the like present moment. So yeah, a lot of it is just, So much of modern life is so antithetical to the kind of things that are so essential to our body's capacity for pleasure. So it's just being able to be present, to be able to be still long enough to feel pleasurable sensations, super simple stuff. Like so basic, but our lives are so busy and built around productivity. And I think often productivity is just the antithesis of pleasure. when we are obsessed with output

and everything being quantified by metrics of productivity we're not just like being still and slow enough in the moment to be able to really feel what our body is feeling. I'm not saying that we should just abandon being productive and just be orgasmic every day.

That sounds great. It does sound good. To disagree. Yeah. Listen, maybe that is actually the spill of a book should actually just be that. Be like, quit your job.

Get rid of all life stresses and just commit. Breathe into your genitals. Breathe into your job. Put your job and breathe into your genitals. That is all I'm here to say, actually. And that's... Thank you so much.

And that's... Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I think one of the things that really stood out to me from the book was you kind of exploring sexual experiences that weren't positive in your life. And that is something that I had to do in my late 20s, early 30s. and it really changed my view of sex. Things that had happened had had a real impact on my life.

And I think it can often feel like you need to push those things down. I think many, many people that are listening will have had experiences that are not good related to sex. And it feels like you need to push them down and just not think about them. But they creep up and they creep up. And I think addressing them and kind of exploring them is kind of the only way to move through them. How did you feel writing about them? Growing up, I didn't really feel like I had the language to even acknowledge bad things that had happened to me sexually. So things had happened growing, like, you know, in my teenage years.

And I speak about an incident of sexual assault in the book very early on. I was like 17. And at the time, like, I, I didn't know how to think about it or talk about it or process it. Because this was pre-Me2 movement when we did not have the language of consent and the, I felt like the, without language, it's really hard to put experiences to make sense of certain experiences. And I just remember, like, the experience of detail in the book is, I was 17, I'd been at a party, it's a class thing drunk quite a lot. And then someone had sex with me when I was, you know, passed out. That's not sex. That's rape. But at the time, I could not use that word.

And I was like, I just remember feeling so, like, my body felt like it was like spliced. Like there was a bit of me here, a bit of me there. And I just remember going home, you know, eventually went home the next day and just sitting in the shower and like just scrubbing my skin being like, I can just this didn't, did it? I don't know. Like, I had no memory of what happened. or just someone else had told me. And just scrubbing and being like, maybe I can just scrub this experience off. But what is the experience?

I don't know. And I made all these like bets in my head like, okay, well, if this happens and I didn't happen if that, and just trying to kind of, I don't know, just to make sense of something that didn't make sense to me because I didn't have the language with which to describe it or understand it. And I think growing up, the first time I was able to name that for what it was, was in the midst of the Me Too movement. when I sat with my friend at dinner.

And it was like as Me Too was, I know Me Too movement obviously started with Tarana Burke, but really kind of blew up and became kind of part of our popular culture, vernacular in 2017. And I remember sitting at the dinner table. And we kind of just started talking about the broader movement and what was being said online. And then our personal experiences.

I was like, yeah, this thing happened to me. And I have no idea. Like, I don't feel traumatized by it. I don't feel it doesn't hauntized. me, but I've never forgotten it. And I've never been able to make sense of it. And I feel it's just this weird thing that like lives in my head and I guess lives in my body. And that was just the first time beginning to recognize like, okay, this this thing is real and it happened. And I think when you get older and you get more comfortable being like talking about

these things and acknowledging that yes, as you said, right, like it has an impact on your perception of safety in intimacy when you have been violated. When your body has been violated, it is obviously much harder to feel very trusting and open in intimacy, even years on, because you have your body remembers. Like you've had, I don't know, that was one, that was the more extreme experience that happened. But, you know, so much of our early sexual experience, my look back with them and I was like, God, you were a child, like, you know, with no sex education, no sense of, like, bodily autonomy, no confidence in your own skin. And yet you were like, you know, I say in the book, like I felt like I gave my body to guys in the hopes that they would one tell me what to do with it.

But also, I just wanted to please other people. And sex was just this kind of negotiation in that. It was never about my own pleasure. And so I think going back to your question in terms of how I felt about it writing in the book, I think that because I've been revisiting these experiences so much over the years through sex talks and they've become such a kind of formative part of my understanding of my relationship to sex and my body. By the time it came to writing the book,

I felt just more, it's so important that women tell these stories and tell them without shame. And, you know, it doesn't have to be like a neat and wrapped up narrative. Like, it's, I still don't know how to make sense of that experience totally, but I know that it wasn't right

and I know that it was, I don't feel like heavily traumatized, but I also do carry that. And as a lot of women do. And so I just think the more, and I do think the meeting movement obviously gave us a language to talk about these things in a way that has allowed for a much bigger, broader conversation about the, you know, just the frequency with which this happens. But I think I just felt very intentional with the book. I didn't want to kind of, I never wanted to feel like trauma porn. I never

wanted to, every story I included in the book was very intentional and I felt was I always wanted to include those personal experiences, one, to show, like, I have no shame around this. And I think every woman should be able to talk openly about the experiences that they don't necessarily need to understand yet. I don't need to understand this to be able to just say this happened. And it's not right. And I'm still grappling with it. And, you know, very helpful to be able to acknowledge those things in sex therapy room. But also to them to map it on to a wider social context in which this has become so normalized.

And now we're in 2026, where many years on. from the Me Too movement going viral. And we're having the same conversations. Like they never end. I just, yeah, I just really appreciate you talking about it. Been up to much this weekend. I guess my next question was kind of about what happened afterwards. Like if you've been on like a sexual journey like since finding this freedom.

Oh, a lot's happened. It was really. wild because I did sex therapy. I had this orgasm, there's one night stand, which was... How long was the sex therapy? I did it across probably like four to six months. Okay, wow. I wasn't doing it like every single week at all. I was doing it like every couple of weeks and it felt like it was the kind of first I didn't realize at the time. I mean, you know, you never do, but it was like felt the first chapter in this I guess like journey, if I want of the better word, sexual liberation. Wow. But it was a very But exactly.

Like, I want to tell you about my journey of, like, becoming sexually liberated, which was amazing. But it was strange. Like, I don't think you have, like, complete therapy. But I had this orgasm. I felt like after a couple months doing sex therapy, I was like, okay, you know, I'm, I started sex talks. And, you know, we agreed that, okay, we've covered a lot of territory. We can take a pause. Like, I'm still in touch with Alex.

Like, we still, she's come on sex talks a lot. And we're just, you know, I've had some emergency sessions after some terrible dates. But I then had to grapple with. I was like, so now I feel more comfortable talking about sex. I'd really like reconnected to my body in a way that I think sex therapy gave me this like new lens to which to see my body that was no longer through the prism of the eating disorder and through punishment and everything. It was through pleasure.

Like your body has this infinite capacity for pleasure. And in order to be able to tap into that, you need to learn to look after your body and take better care and to like begin to build this. relationship to your body on your own terms. You said at the beginning, like I did it when I was single. And in the end, it was like the best thing because I began to build a sexual connection to myself and my body alone without it being mediated by anyone else's expectations or ideas or any kind of pressure to perform.

It was just, it was about, okay, what is my sexual relationship to my body? What do I like? But then I was like, cool. So what does it mean to be a sexually liberated woman? Now I feel a bit more confident. And now I don't feel like super anxious when I think about sex and like going on a date. The idea that we might have sex doesn't like terrify me now. So what does that mean?

So naturally I was like, okay, well, obviously I need to be able to have like totally, you know, casual disconnected sex. And then I just managed to somehow meet a sex addict. We very quickly just started having like very, very emotionless, casual. sex that, you know, I was working at home, he'd come over at lunchtime. And at the time, I was like, this is what it means. I'm, you know, I'm in Sex and the City. And I felt terrible about it. I just not like, like, guilty, but I'm just like, I don't feel good. Like, this is, I, but it was important. Like, those, I had to kind of try and figure out what does my relationship to sex mean to me? And I think it's so important to like define your expectations and relationship

to sex on your own terms. And I don't think there is any, like, so there's no one right way to do it. Casual sex, I've got friends who just adore having super casual, you know, one, like, you know, one night's sex, anything. They just like, like, fantastic. They get so much pleasure and joy out of it. And I'm like, that wonderful, like that. And then also love, you know, having, you know, relationship sex as well.

But great, that just wasn't me. But I didn't know that yet. I was like, so I had to, like, try all these hats on to be like, what kind of works. And in that process, obviously got like really hurt. It was like, this is just, wow, this doesn't feel good. This feels good. But yeah, that was a, it was a kind of, a lot of kind of like reaching around for, okay. And I think with that, a lot of like, okay, there are so many societal expectations

around how we should think and feel about sex. And I think because I was running sex talks as well at the time, and I started doing another column for the Evening Standard magazine, like a sex column, I did feel this tremendous pressure to be this sex person, to be this like, wanton sex goddess. Very like Bridget Jones energy. And I just listened to a podcast Lena Dunham this morning.

I've just reading her new memoir, which is just wonderful. And she says that she was like, you know, people expected me because girls was very, particularly in that time. Yeah. Was really overt about sex. It was really on those about sex. And it was really unashamed and exploring sex. People assumed that she was as absolutely like they would tell her

like their deepest stock of sex stories would be like very brash with her about sex. And she was like, actually, like I was a bit of a prude. I don't think I was like, prude, I love hearing people's sex stories, but I did feel like I needed to be like queen of like sex parties, kink, everything. And I just like, that isn't me. I love talking to other people about their, you know, sexual exploration. But I think, yeah, that wasn't going to be me. But I need to just figure it out.

I think it's so interesting because we were talking about this, we were just talking about this about the idea of wanting to have sex, but with the love of your life. I just like, just like casual sex. And then if it happens to be the love of my eye, fine, it's like, okay, well, I need to think about what I actually want then. But do you feel that? Because talking about dating, do you feel pressure? It's really hard to, like, distinguish between the, like, performance for the sake of, you know, what you talk about.

And that versus, like, what is actually true to how you're feeling. Do you guys get, like, with... I think we're very lucky that with this podcast, nobody expects anything from us. We've sent the buzz so... The idea that we could even get a date is kind of mind blowing to the listeners. It's like the slowest drama you've ever seen in your life.

They're like, they're really dragging this one out. So yeah, we've not put ourselves in any kind of expert capacity and nobody's like, oh my God, they're dating all the time. They're like, oh, bless them.

They're still trying. So, you know, It's good to, I guess it's good to not have the pressure. It's good to not have the pressure. I think one thing is like I do, I do feel like I am, I mean, it's so weird. Probably not compared to many people, but I do still feel quite private about certain things about my life. But also, I do love doing the podcast and talking about things. And I don't know if you've had this of how dates kind of feel about you having this as your job.

So when I was running sex talks like full time. So before doing the book, I was doing sex talks like once a month, the main one, and then pop-ups everywhere. So I was doing like once a week, minimum, like constantly, constantly, constantly talk about sex and interviewing. And so many people would ask me, do you think it puts people off wanting to date you? I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know because those people don't date me. So I never met them.

So like, probably. But like, it's a really good filtering system. Yeah. So I definitely think, yes, I don't know to the extent to which it's. like shaped my date stuff. I think early on, I was talking so much about set. I felt like I kind of like, this is like a very me thing to do. Have an idea.

Go hell for leather. Like get like the app, put that idea on adrenaline. Just like go, go get 100 miles per out. Well, like the rest of me still catching up. Yes. And so I was running sex stores, talking, interviewing experts, writing about sex. But just in this feel like reading every book just so in it. and still trying to like catch up to like where my body was at having like just freshly come from sex therapy.

So newish to ought to my orgasmic life. Like it was a there. I definitely think it made me. And I think it was probably more also like the times. I was, you know, in my late 20s, late 20s, early 30s. And I think there was more of the narrative like, you know, date for the plot. Like just do it for the plot. So I was dating for that motherfucking plot.

I was out there being like, oh my gosh. You know what it? Oh, the elusive. We don't have a plot, which is... I have said, my dating advice is kill the plot. Like, you don't know where that plot goes. It is the worst piece of dating advice.

It could be a bad plot. It could be... I mean, I was like, you know what? Dating for the plot looks like. It means going to a cabin in the woods on your second date. It means going to stay in a foreign country with a guy you've met for five minutes in a bar five months ago and just talked to on WhatsApp.

Like, it drove me to do things that looking back, I want to be like, oh, my gosh, that is so absurd. And it's just so ludicrous. You don't know someone just because you've chatted on WhatsApp. Like, you're crazy. My family, like, find my friends on. I'm like, what are you going to do if you see me and, like, you know, where is she? A ditch in, like, you know, the middle of, like, you know, the Italian countryside. You're not, what are you going to do?

Like, so I think I definitely, but I felt this, I don't think it was conscious. there was an unconscious pressure I felt to like just push myself to do all the things, to have all the experiences. I guess in a way, then we talked about it at sex talks and it kind of gave me good dating anecdotes. I was also, it really authentically wanted to explore. Because I was like, what does, you know, I'm dating with this new hat on. Like, you know, there was kind of a lot of excitement around that. But I also, yeah, it did put myself in so many situations. I think I'm mental, like just not, like not safe. Yeah. And also I think like even things like going away with people early on.

And, you know, generally I really don't regret any of it. And also met some, like, wonderful humans in that process. And just because it didn't work out doesn't mean, like, it was, you know, bad. Although there was a lot of time wasted on anxiety. But things like, when you're doing it for the plot, you so put aside your emotions and your nervous system regulation. And so, like, going away with someone on a second day when you don't know them, you are in such, like, high alert.

You're on a high light the whole time. you're kind of acting this, you're acting out this intimacy that isn't there because you just don't know each other. And that's okay, like, it's okay. You're early on. Like, you don't know one another's like little quirks. You haven't, you don't,

your nervous system is not relaxed around this person yet. But by virtue of being away with someone for like four days, you don't know, you know, I was like, oh, it's a great way to really quickly get to know someone. Like, it was a really great way to get so anxious that you literally can't breathe when you eventually go home.

So I think I felt like I had a lot of dating experiences where in the aftermath, I felt like I was on a come down because I'd push myself to these like dating highs. And then I would just crash afterwards. And I felt so insecure about it. So I'd be like, you know, does this person like? And I put so much like, there was so much like body anxiety around these high intensity situations with no certainty, with no communication, with no like, so what do you want from this? Like, so I was just always in that. I just, you know, I do think months of my life were spent like on edge. She's on edge.

And so I think that typified that period. And I do think it's interesting. I now been with my boyfriend for a year, over a year and a half. I met him, like, maybe two months and a half after I got my book deal when I was then going to, I knew I would eventually, I kind of would slow, select sex talk down for a bit and really go into, like, research mode. I did a lot, like, field research for the book and did it. and I just think we met at quite an interesting point where I was like, okay, I'm not going to date.

Like, I just need to focus on this book. And, you know, I wasn't bent upon getting, you know, collecting any more while dating stories. I kind of had my narrative of the book. And that's when we met. I think it's so universal like this, like, as women, I feel like we have to like force things and make things happen and just like go for it

and not listen to our bodies because we just have to get through things. And actually the pleasure comes from listening to yourself. slowing down, being aware, blah, blah, blah. All the boring stuff that's involved. Totally. You want, like, quick fixes.

I don't want to, like, slow down to get a, I don't want to, like, slow down to, that's where I am right now. I'm looking for a quick fix. Are we all? I'm always... I love a quick fix transformation. Like, don't go wrong.

I love... I have bought, ever... Back in the day, you know, those PDF, like, exercise guides that we used to have, like, we're talking, like, over a decade ago, I bought every single one of them. And I would do, like, a few easement, but it was so boring.

And then, but it was transformations, but I'd be like, I'm just to buy a new transformation. The purchase of a PDF felt like the transformation. Absolutely. I'm like, why am I not fitter? I just had microneedling. I'm glowing up. I can see it.

Not right now, obviously I look like. You do look glowing. How was the microneagling? Oh, it's horrible. Is it all done? I've never had it done. Should I get it done? I want to get my neck done.

I don't know. Micronedododeled. Well, what is it? This is a called Morpheus 8. I've heard about Morpheus 8. Yeah. What is it? I don't know, but what I will say is, before the doctor did it, he said, I said, is it going to hurt?

And he went, yes, it will feel like you're being stapled. Staple? Yeah, I don't want it done. And he went, no, it's okay, glunk, glunk, glunk. And then they do these like, dof, dof, dof. It's like some sort of radio free. I don't really know what it is. But I'm on 105 and it's going down.

Wow, okay. The things that we do. The things that we do. Because I want a little glow-off. Yes. Do you have to have your neck stapled for that? Yes, I think I do. Yes, I think that's true.

Listen. Can we bring back the PDFs? They were such a nice. Man, I love a PDF right now. As a perception of transformation was such a soft way. I know. Now we have to get, I know, pain. Oh, gosh.

But it was all over my face. My face is, it's just my neck is. Your face looks phenomenal. Thank you, sure. The glow is obviously every staple is worth. I can't give the doctor too much credit for that. A lot of the face is your own. Do you have a lot of this face before this day?

Yeah, it's a good face before as well. Yeah. But I think a glow up makes you, so I, me and Harriet always talk about frisson. So I like a frisson. That's like my energy. That's what gets me through the day. Like the idea of having a fris on

or thinking about a frisson or maybe seeing someone who I might have a frisson with. Maybe just saying frisson. Just saying frisson. Just say a bit of frisson. I love a bit of flirting. And when I do something that's like, makes me feel, I mean, no guy is going to be like,

oh, I would have dated you, but I kind of like girls if had the next day at all. Like, no one, the difference in this is going to be imperceptible to literally everyone, probably including myself. But it's giving you that little, like, little bit of an edge,

a little bit of confidence, a little bit of like, God, My neck probably looks great today. Listen, I used to laminate the PDFs and just laminating them made me feel. Absolutely. I had a skip in my step. Absolutely.

Just from the lamination process. Who is she? Who is she? She's a laminator. So listen, you're a woman who staples her neck. You know, that is, that's, of course. That just gives you a little bit of, you know, that confidence in the day to day. Emma, thank you so much for coming on.

God, it's so fun. Everyone can get your book. Emma, your book is out. My book is out. Oh my gosh. Thanks. It came out yesterday. It came out yesterday. So wild.

Oh my God. It's a very weird process because you spend so long alone writing it and living it. And then suddenly it is out in the world and everyone knows about your sex life. Oh. People can find it in bookshops. They can. That's where you get book. Yes.

Audio book. I've recorded an audio book. That's cool. My sexiest, sultriest voice. That's great. Yeah, a little bit of sexy. Oh, I should try and do that. Genital breathing.

Oh, my God, I did a gentle mindfulness as an added extra. Sorry, a mindfulness breathing exercise. But I got so into it when I was doing it that I cannot remember what I recorded. It was supposed to be five minutes and it was 18 minutes. And I was just like, so we just breathe into our clitoris. It comes with a free organ. And the end, the producer was like, oh, it was 18 minutes. And I was like, I'm so sorry.

I was like, did you like that? You can't rush it though. You can't rush it. You can't rush it. So if anyone, if anyone listen to the full 18 minutes like props to you, but you can just dip in and, yeah. Dip in. But yeah. I love that.

I love it. We love you. Buy pleasure now. Get some pleasure in your life. Who doesn't want more pleasure in their lives. Yeah. Don't get your next day pulled. Get some pleasure.

Have an orgasm. Have an orgasm. Have an orgasm. instead. Get a vibrator. Oh, that's what I should have done. Work that clip. Work that clip. Staple that clit. Sweet, wait. Oh, wait. On too far.

Rewind. Rewind. And how do you kiss someone? Amy, you just got a lunge. And the book's out now. Pleasure. Why don't you get your hands on some pleasure? And also thank you to Emma. I'm a business lady. I'm straight to selling. We've got to sell.

Also, thank you so much. Oh, it was good, wasn't it? Yeah. Really, really interesting. Yeah. Sex therapy. Yeah, I never even thought of it. I'd never even thought of it.

As a woman on her own, it's a sort of thing where I'd be like, well, if me and my partner aren't having great sex or something, maybe we'd go together as a couple. Didn't even think about it on my own. Yeah, because you feel like you're turning up and there would be like, oh, so what's the problem? You're like, I can't get any. Right, well, I can't really solve that.

Right, well, I want me money back. I'm going to go on Virgin Island. Did you see that? A TV show where you lose your virginity. Born again at Virgin Island. Yeah, I'm ready. Send me back. Yeah, it's only been two months.

I don't know if you can go on Virgin Island. It was about six weeks, but before that it was a long time as well. I do know if you qualify for Virgin Island, no offense. There's going to be some really disappointed that people are waiting for a Virgin. Hello! Okay, well, I'm not going on Virgin Island. But I might go to sex therapy. I think you should.

I'd love to go to sex therapy. Yeah, because my word would be like, yeah, so you get there and they're like, oh, so yeah, just work on this for next time. You're like, can't do the homework. Can't do that, unfortunately. But the homework is inside. Well, literally, it's inside. It's inside of yourself.

It's your own journey. Oh, God, I don't know what I'm saying. I feel sick. We can't go to sex therapy. We're not mature enough. We're laughing at saying inside ourselves. Yeah. We're not welcome at sex therapy.

That's why we need Emma to go on the journey herself. Yeah, and then you finish the book. Then I'll read the book. Well, actually, I'm going to wait for the voice note. Just tell you what's going to be. I'm waiting for the audio book because I want to do that deep breathing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds heady.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you for listening and breathe right out into your clitoris. Hello, single ladies. If you're a single lady and you're interested in me, other single people who are really furious about the direction of the Labour Party and a contemplating voting green for the first time, then you might meet them in the audience at one of my tour shows. I'm Nish Kumar and my stand-up comedy show is called Angry Humour from a really nice guy.

We're going to the UK and Ireland between September and November of 2006 and the tickets are available right now. I will, if requested, organise a dating service during the show. I would say if you're interested in meeting some very angry people, they will be at the show and they will be mad as hell. Tickets are available at nishcamore.coma.coma.com.com.com. None of this is legally binding. You may not meet your life partner at one of Nishkamars tour shows.