Why aren't we talking about this: Sex and pleasure

Do you think then judgment is that core cornerstone that we are in 2026, but yet so many of us can't actually openly talk about sex or pleasure to even the people we love most in our lives? Do you think that's the problem?

I think, yes, fundamentally fear of judgment.

I'm going to be to something or not enough something.

Or I'm weird, I'm strange, there's something wrong with me, the problem's all with me.

And if we talk about it, it will become clear that the problem is all with me.

and do you think that then manifests as like shame you I sat down with my husband lastly and we watched your how to please a woman in bed episode and it was absolutely fantastic and you said something in there that I went oh my gosh that's me and it was when you're in an intimate relationship you're thinking about do I smell how do I look does he think I'm this does he think I'm not do you think it's all based on I suppose that script that we've got in our head that everyone else is doing it better or is different or is more perfect, that we're just internalising that?

Yeah, I think it's a struggle for any of us to live up to what we've been conditioned to think is normal sex.

So what we see in Hollywood films, what we see on TV, let alone what we see in mainstream porn.

So I think there's more and more of a realisation that porn is not real sex.

Something that I've been saying for years and now I've heard other people saying as well, maybe I borrowed it from somewhere originally, was that trying to learn sex from watching porn is like trying to learn to drive from watching The Fast and the Furious.

You know, it's just not real.

But even so, I speak to men and women who consider that real.

And something I like to ask clients who watch porn, I'll say, what are you actually watching? What are you seeing? And they'll say people having sex or even people giving each other pleasure.

And I'll say, no, in mainstream porn, you're watching 20 minutes of choreographed, edited performance that took six hours of actual action, but then 10 hours to edit.

So the average 20 minute mainstream porn film, six hours in front of the camera, 10 hours in the editing suite.

So this took a team of professionals 16 hours And we're watching it thinking that's how we should be in bed.

So I think the fact that we're not like that in bed or maybe we're putting on a performance so that we are, but we're not actually experiencing pleasure.

Maybe we're faking orgasms, et cetera, et cetera.

And we're thinking, well, what's wrong with me? So, yeah, that then creates shame.

for everyone involved.

And as you just said, it's that shame that's then at the core of all of the insecurities.