Virginity, Penetration and Other Sex Myths with Sophia Smith Galer | Transcript
CW: discussion of consent nuances, consent withdrawal, and non-consensual sex. A brief mention of self-harm.
Find the episode shownotes here!
Hannah Witton
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Doing It, the sex and relationships podcast where sex has never been so nerdy, with me, your host, Hannah Witton. This week I'm joined by the magnificent Sophia Smith Galer. Sophia is a multi award winning journalist, author and Tiktok creator, who was credited with having pioneered TikTok journalism in the UK. She has been named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list this year, as well as in Vogue's list of 2022's 25 most influential women in the UK. As a senior news reporter at VICE world news, she has covered everything from gender violence and technology to the climate crisis and Europe's Christian hard right. This year she published her first book, Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century, tackling what she calls a worldwide sex misinformation crisis, debunking sex myths surrounding virginity penetration, sexlessness, and consent.
I wanted to get Sophia on the podcast to talk all about her book and unpack these sex myths for us. Sophia told me about her journey into becoming a TikTok journalist, and how she identified the gap in social sex education, which she wanted to focus on in her book. She unpacked the main myths she tackles in her book: the virginity myth, the sexlessness myth, the tightness myth, the virility myth, the hymen myth, the penetration myth, and the consent myth: what these all are and how they harm us. Sophia also shared how these myths influenced her early sexual experiences, as well as her own journey with vaginismus. We talked about the need for better sexual health care, the semen retention and no fap movements, why Sophia thinks sex education should never come from just one person, and how the biggest myth of virginity is that it matters. Sophia discussed the censorship of sex education on social media, and how she hopes SexTok can continue to help us and the next generation in our sexual, mental, and physical health. This conversation was so interesting, and I loved hearing about all the fascinating studies and research Sophia talked about to understand the impact of the sex myths.
As usual, you can find more info and links to everything that we talked about in this episode in the shownotes over at doingitpodcast.co.uk. And please let us know what you think over on our Instagram, which is @doingitpodcast. If you liked this episode, please give us a rating and review over on iTunes and Spotify. It is really appreciated. And without further ado, here is my chat with Sophia.
Sophia, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. How are you doing?
Sophia Smith Galer
I'm doing really well. Even better for seeing you today.
Hannah Witton
I'm so glad that we're kind of meeting in this way. I guess I just want to dive into a lot of your work. You've kind of taken the like sex ed online journalism world by storm recently, at least in my feed. In the internet that I'm on. Yeah, so like, you're kind of a big name in the world of TikTok journalism. So kind of like, how did that come about? And also why sex and sex education? Why is that a thing that you've been focusing on?
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, so, okay, so I'll answer the first question first, and hopefully it leads on to the second. But I, yeah, in all of the jobs that I have had in journalism, so far, there's always been an element of it that has been based in social media, and in which a big part of my remit is to serve younger audiences, and to make sure that the news reaches younger audiences, and what is - the sort of journalism jargon they use in the business - underserved audiences of which young people, almost always part of, but lots of other groups in society would would be underserved, especially marginalised groups, and simply people who do not see their voices and lives represented in news media. So it was very natural for me as a social media journalist and a trained video journalist to sort of look at TikTok when it first started making waves. Obviously, it was called Musical.ly first and then it was TikTok. And then the Washington Post were famously one of the first news outlets, sort of traditional news outlets, to get on there and do something really funny and interesting and different. And I thought, "Ooh, I need to figure I need to figure this out."
And I made my first video simply as an experiment because I thought one day I might be asked by my employer to make videos for this platform, so I need to know how it works. So I just made one and it was sort of a funny one that I made in the office. It went viral, and that was my first hit of viral dopamine. And I thought, "Ah!" And you just keep coming back for more. And it was from that that I started developing what I'd always tried to kind of do on Twitter and Instagram, but had just never gotten as big on those platforms. But using a social media platform as both a news gathering and publishing tools. So many journalists just see TikTok as a place to put work they've done - designed for elsewhere, and TikTok is just another place that they try and put it out on. Whereas for me, it's very much - it's a place where I listen to my followers, and I try and reach people, you know, who aren't following me. Just try and reach as many people as possible with my stories, ideas for stories, news gathering, as well as - as well as the end of the story, you know, the publishing and the disseminating of it.
Hannah Witton
And making it like TikTok native as well, because there's like a whole culture on different apps that you kind of do have to make specific content for them.
Sophia Smith Galer
Exactly. And so all this time that I'm doing that, my job I was in before was as a religion reporter at the BBC.
Hannah Witton
Oh wow.
Sophia Smith Galer
And then I became a senior news reporter at VICE World News. And then this sort of smorgasbord of different experiences, where I've spent a lot of time interviewing people of different religious backgrounds, and of backgrounds of no religion at all. Sex and relationships comes up all the time in both. It's really one of those issues, that remains something that people attribute a lot of their decision making to whatever moral background they come from, or cultural background that they come from, that's often really implicitly intertwined with cultural background, faith background, and where they collide, and maybe where they marry well together, and where they really don't go well together. And then as a senior news reporter at Vice, very much had become a generalist news reporter, holding power to account and exposing wrongdoing. And it's between all of this, that I just identified this gap in which so many of us talk about the flaws in the system, when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to sex education, so many different parts of society. But power can and should be held to account in these areas.
And I thought that a way of doing it was a book that was a bit journalistic and disseminated a lot of evidence based research that is out there to the layperson, because there's still a lot of that still needs help, you know, we can't completely just expect medical practitioners and science communicators to do all the work for us, like newsrooms, and commissioners and editors need to step in to to tell the public about things like the sex misinformation crisis, as I call it, but also new research in sex and new things we find out that can change lives for the better. That was the ethos behind the work I do really.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And you mentioned your book, which we will get onto. But first, what is this sex misinformation crisis?
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, so it's supposed to sound a little bit, you know, spicy, and maybe you haven't heard it as a phrase before, and it's super deliberate, because as a journalist, and if you're in the news media, you hear about misinformation crises all the time. And as a phrase that's normally applied to the COVID 19 pandemic, or it's applied to the climate crisis, and people with interest in fossil fuels trying to disseminate misinformation around the climate crisis, or even, especially during political elections, talking about mis- and disinformation from people trying to sway how people vote. We don't so much talk about gender misinformation, sex misinformation, but any one of us who spends much time online, never mind offline, we encounter it all the time. We encounter little bits of information that might be a half truth, might be a complete lie. It might be said innocently, or said by someone who believes it is completely accurate. Or it could be a piece of information that actually they know it's not right. But they know that if you believe it, they'll make money off you.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
What is going on?
Hannah Witton
So I was gonna say, there's also then they're trying to sell you something angle.
Sophia Smith Galer
Exactly. And obviously, in a space like sex, where so much of it is connected to our health, that is enormous and significant - and the reason misinformation crises are labelled that is because of the harm that they cause. People take this inaccurate information and make informed decisions about their lives, but it's bad information. And the whole book - it's very solutions focused, Losing It. So every chapter tells you, this is the true story we should be telling about this element of our sex lives or our bodies. This is the evidence-based -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, 'cause there are seven - seven different myths in your book. D'you want to take us through what these are?
Sophia Smith Galer
I'll try it, yeah. I'm always trying to do this without rambling. So let me give it another go. So each chapter debunks a sex myth and tells you the truth or evidence-based story that would be far better - far better tale for us to tell about this area of our sex lives. So I begin with the virginity because I identify virginity as the sort of villain origin story of the sex misinformation crisis. It's where we're introduced to a lot of ideas about sex, that, if we completely endorse them, we end up endorsing further sex myths down the line. So for example, if you really do believe that your value as a person can change in one in one fell swoop from one action, and in this respect, I'm talking about - we could be talking about - you could be living somewhere where it is societally important for you to 'preserve' your virginity, which of course is a social construct with no biological reality, till marriage, and perhaps your value will alter as a person if you do not subscribe to that set of behaviours. But also you can live in a society where if you are still a 'virgin', you know, big big quote, quote fingers I'm doing here for listeners, if you're still a virgin by a certain age, and you start thinking you're a loser, or people start calling you a loser, it'ss exactly the same thing. Whichever society you're in, you're ascribing value to something that is pretty much only going to cause harm because we know that entering into sexual maturity is not about concepts like virginity. It's about concepts that are way, way, way more important to the people who care about public health and individual health and wellbeing.
And then, so if you believe that this one moment changes you, it's very likely that you believe it's this singular moment probably involving penetrative sex, you know, it quickly shows how heteronormative some of your sexual beliefs may be. And you may also believe some of the myths that people - overwhelmingly people with vaginas and uteruses - are told, which is that we do have a biological reality of virginity on our body in the hymen, which is completely inaccurate. And what blew my mind writing that chapter was how much research there actually is. The hymen wasn't - I grew up at school with girls saying all these different things about the hype about the hymen. Not once was the hymen, named or labelled or addressed in my sex education.
Sophia Smith Galer
Or science class. And I talk about this in the book like if the sex ed curriculum doesn't cover it, what are you just going to pretend no one's going to hear about it? We're going to be left to learn these bad ideas, and never given an opportunity to unlearn them. So I explore the harms that this belief causes. The book is full of stats about pretty much absolutely everything I could find, but even how, how many people will avoid sex or avoid masturbation because they are so terrified that they're going to damage their hymen, and that this may lead to ostracization or worse when they're older and wish to get married. I then explore the tightness myth. Kind of again, it's another anatomical piece of baloney idea that a lot of us are introduced to about sexual activity and it permanently having an effect on the structure of our anatomy, which is just not true. And I interview - really funny - a pelvic floor therapist in that chapter. So yeah, that was a lot of fun to write, that chapter.
Hannah Witton
Or science class!
Sophia Smith Galer
Oh, I recently went to see a pelvic floor physiotherapist for the first time Fascinating.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah. And I learned so much even about the French system - after people give birth, the French health care system, they have la rééducation périnéale, the perineal reeducation and learning -
Sophia Smith Galer
It really is.
Hannah Witton
Learned so much.
Hannah Witton
Oh my god! yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
And they get so much free from their -
Hannah Witton
I had to go private for this, yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
Right. And they get it for free. And it's mind blowing. It would be so good if we could all do a bit more of learning how things happen in other countries that are alternative to what happens here that we perhaps could implement with a bit of you know, bit of persuading.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I remember like seeing some comments and some of my videos from I think German viewers or other insert other European country here, but maybe in France as well, where they were like, "Wait, do you not just automatically get appointments with a gynaecologist like once a year every year from the age of 15?" And I was like, "Nope, I wish." Like you know, when you turn - what is it here 25 - you got to go in for your first like smear test, but. And that's every three years but that's it. It's not like a have a full check and conversation with a healthcare professional that you've been going to since you're a teenager, like, imagine that. That would instil such good, I would hope, kind of like - or at least kind of eliminate a lot of fears, if that becomes something that's quite normalised from a young age.
Sophia Smith Galer
100%. And then the following chapters I debunk the penetration myth. The idea, we are introduced to again, from a really young age that sex is by its very nature and definition, penetrative, especially if - first base, second base, third base, intercourse, outercourse. Get - you're set up to think of penetrative sex as the Holy Grail. And that is really, really rubbish for so many different groups in society, from anyone with a clitoris to people with disabilities, who could talk a lot about very fulfilling non penetrative sex that would educate so many people who don't have disabilities, and, of course, the LGBTQ plus community. So I talked about that. And that is the only chapter really that has a lot of personal experience from me. I'm very deliberate in my book, and my work is always about my journalism, and what I uncover and talking to other people. But it is the one area where I have an interesting personal story. So that's the one bit where I talk about that.
And then I break down the virility myth and the pressures that are placed very commonly upon heterosexual men to perform sexually and what that means, and performance anxiety and talking about erectile dysfunction in a way that - I've never been, as a sort of heterosexual cis woman, having never been spoken to about erectile dysfunction and how that's that's really rubbish. Because I want to be set up to be a sensitive partner. We should all be set up to understand what people different bodies to us experience, especially if we're going to be in bed with them.
And then I look at the sexlessness myth: the idea that people who don't have sex or don't want to have sex are weird. I completely debunk that and how not only should we be able to really harness periods of sexlessness if we wish, because we feel we need it, especially to recover from things like trauma, for example, or when our mental health isn't up to it.
Hannah Witton
Or birth.
Sophia Smith Galer
Or birth! Exactly. But also, how it is mindboggling how ostracise people in the asexuality spectrum can be and how misunderstood they are. So that chapter looks at that. And then the last one is super spicy, and it's the consent chapter and the consent myth. And I sort of - I posit the consent myth as the idea that we're taught. it's all about saying yes, and saying no. And being presented with consent in educational settings as a binary that we have to slot into, and how that completely lacks nuance. And it doesn't prepare us for power dynamics and gender and all this nuanced conversation we have to have around consent to understand how normalised behaviours happen in which we feel we don't have control over our bodies.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and you have to know what you want to be able to say yes or no. And so what happens if you don't know what you want? And you're maybe curious about the thing, but also a bit scared of it? Like, what does that mean?
Sophia Smith Galer
Exactly. And the last chapter, there's one that's not debunking a myth. It's the future story of sex. So it's looking at where sex education/sex tech could go to help us, particularly when it comes to physical and mental health. And looking at, yeah, how the next generation of sex educators are going to be created. And I look at that from a British perspective in that chapter. But it's pretty depressing whatever country you look at it. I mean, even for us - you did. I did the ACET UK training, because you did it. Because when I was searching for it, I found a video that you did about how you got it. So I did it. And I was very impressed with it. I was really happy with the qualification I ended up with to accredit you to be able to deliver the relationships and sex education curriculum. However, there's no standardised training in the UK. I subsidised it myself, you know, I paid for me to get that training. So you're relying on people to train out of their own pockets. And the systems that used to train new educations - of sex education - have disappeared. So funding has disappeared from sexual health clinics, for example. And there is no - there are very, very few universities in the UK that offer a kind of graduate/postgraduate programme to become someone who in a school would be a super well trained sex educator.
Hannah Witton
I have such complicated feelings about that as well because like on the one hand, I feel ike we shouldn't be gatekeeping sex education, because there'll be so many people who come from like more marginalised or less privileged backgrounds who would make excellent sex educators. And having like, those barriers in place of like, you need this qualification, it's going to cost you this much. But then on the other hand, being in this world, I'm like, being a sex educator, especially if you're going to be going into schools and talking to young people - it is such a important job. And it's such a highly skilled job. And we can't be expecting regular teachers who haven't been trained in sex and relationships to do that. And so, yeah, it does it - I'm like, maybe it does require some standardisation of training.
Sophia Smith Galer
But it doesn't exist!
Hannah Witton
You're right, it doesn't exist. And so kids are left with their geography teacher, once again.
Sophia Smith Galer
Who may not have been empowered to feel really confident about delivering a sex education programme that's now become compulsory, for example, if we look at England, and the change in law there, and that's not fair on the class, but it's also really not fair on the teacher, because I'm sure all the teacher would like is to feel as confident as possible in delivering a very important curriculum.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, exactly. Would you mind sharing the personal story in the penetration chapter?
Sophia Smith Galer
Sure. So in that chapter I talk about - if we think about some of the myths that are associated with this idea that sex must be penetrative, and often that sex - again, all of these myths are shrouded in heteronormativity. Most of the time. But certainly the penetration myth, the idea that a man gives a woman receives, and I talk about growing up with that kind of idea. And growing up thinking I wasn't an agent in my own sexual activity, or even discovery. And that sex was going to be something that happened to me, rather than - and it was something I wanted to do, you know, when I was old enough and everything, but I didn't really feel like - I didn't feel like I knew what I was going to be doing. And it felt quite scary. And scary and thrilling at the same time, and obviously loads of fun experiences, you're probably a bit ambivalent before you get involved with them. But little did I know, I - when I would have been a bit younger would have tried a tampon for the first time and it didn't work, it was extremely painful. And I, at the time, just thought, "Oh, they're just not for me. Maybe when I'm a bit older, I'll figure them out."
And then I had my first sexual experience, of which I very much wanted to have it. But it was with someone significantly older than me. Something that now I think is - was bad. Bad power dynamics there. But at the time, I wasn't literate in any of this kind of stuff. And something else I wasn't literate in was consent withdrawal. So I was in a situation with someone who, because I had all these ideas about how the man was kind of in charge and especially him being a lot older, I found myself in this scenario where I assume everything's gonna be fine. And then he says, "Oh, I don't have a condom. It's fine. I'll pull out." And I'm there thinking. "No, no, no, no, no." At school, a school that's only ever banged on about 'don't get pregnant and don't get an STI', very risk mitigation sex ed. And all I knew was, "Oh, no, no, no, I can't do this. I'm gonna - I'm gonna get pregnant, I could get - I could get all these things. Ah!" And - and the experience was extremely painful. But I would only find out a lot later that we didn't, in fact, have sex. And I would a few months later, I guess, start having sex - trying to have sex - with a partner of mine. Again, nothing's working. Again, everything is extremely painful. It feels like not - for my partner, it would feel like there was a wall, and for me, it would feel like I was being stabbed. And I'm not exaggerating, it felt like I was being stabbed.
Hannah Witton
So is that vaginismus?
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, he told me, "You need to go to the doctor." Which is not what you ever want to be told by a sexual partner.
Hannah Witton
No!
Sophia Smith Galer
And I had a really miserable experience trying to get a diagnosis. My GP did not know what vaginismus was. And so did not diagnose me with it and gave me completely opposite medical advice to what I should have been given.
Hannah Witton
Oh, no, not like, "Just keep going, have a bottle of wine beforehand."?
Sophia Smith Galer
To keep trying, yeah. I was told to keep trying. And in the process of interviewing for my book, I was told by someone speaking - I hadn't I don't think in this interview, I'd said I'd had personal experience of it, I was just interviewing someone about it. And they said, "Yeah, it's equivalent to self harm." And I was like, "Wow." So for months and months, I was basically self harming. No wonder I hadn't been getting any better. And I'm very lucky that I basically reeducated myself about sex, and really got into non penetrative sex, which I had as little idea about as I did of penetrative sex. And I was basically able to sort of treat myself. But that is - I should never have had to really go through that. I shouldn't have left school - so all this time, I'm 18 years old when all of this happened. And I just - I looked at my body as a failure. It was failing now and would go on to fail me in the future. So I was there thinking, "Oh, my goodness, I'm never gonna get a boyfriend, because no one's gonna want to be with me if they can't have sex with me. And then when I'm older, if I can never have sex, how am I gonna have children? Am I - am I now never going to have children?" And I just looked at my body as a failure. And then now from writing Losing It, I look back at everything. And I just see things so differently.
Sophia Smith Galer
I look at that first partner that I was with and think I hadn't really been safeguarded or treated particularly ethically in that scenario. I look back at a healthcare system, that - it's not the GP's fault that he didn't have the training to deal with psychosexual disorders, right? So I was failed there. I looked back at the education system that allowed me to leave school without being able to correctly identify where the clitoris is on a diagram of a vagina and vulva, for example. And then I look back even more recently, and both my school and my university would go on to be named on the Everyone's Invited list. So I've really gone on this journey from where I saw my body as a failure to now years later, after a decade, really, of sex, but also five years of journalism and holding power to account and realising I wasn't a failure, I was failed, and people are being failed across where we live, but across the world every day.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. 100%. And, as well of like the things that you were saying about the things that you thought that you wouldn't be able to do or experience because of your vaginismus. And how, like, intrinsically the story that we're told, as well is that they're really tied to like your womanhood. And like being a - being a good woman as well.
Sophia Smith Galer
I didn't feel like a woman. Well, I felt like I was being trapped in this liminal state of which I was a girl, and wasn't being given access to womanhood and maturity.
Hannah Witton
Wow. Yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
And I - it's also the main time in my life, where - I don't think up until that point, I knew what taboo was, and then when I'm there in sort of the uni GP surgery, and I remember thinking, "I hope no one comes in that I know. What am I going to tell them?" Like? What's that - none of their business! I look back now. I think it's not that their business what I was there for, and it could have been anything! I could have had - could have been a knee problem, or - people aren't going to be there being like, "Oh, yeah, you've got a sex problem."
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
But that's - I was so scared. Every time I went to the GP on top of everything else, on top of the, just, you know, general unpleasantness of physical examinations and stuff. I was scared because I was like, "People are going to know what's happening to me. And I'm going to be..." I don't know what I thought. But I shouldn't have felt like that. And people - you don't have to spend too long on any kind of forum online, or private Facebook group, or any private online space dedicated to sexual problems - and this is across the, across the spectrum of different gender experiences as well, everything from vaginismus to things like erectile issues - and people are feeling this level of taboo every - not every day, every moment of every day.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and you're right, people are turning online to find a lot of answers for these things. Kind of like, double question, I guess. Like do you think that formalised sex education can ever be enough? Like will it ever be enough? Like, maybe speaking specifically about England? And then also, with, like, TikTok sex education, how much of that is a force for good or do you have any concerns there about and obviously, like the censorship and stuff on TikTok as well, like everyone having to spell sex incorrectly? There's so much.
Sophia Smith Galer
I am a big believer in sex education should never come from one resource alone. And that is backed up by anyone who works in public health or education. We're all expected as - while we're in an educational setting, as young people, we all we all deserve access from parents, teachers and healthcare professionals to get - because the hope is that, between those three, you can get what you need. You may go to your parents or your caregiver with a question you're not prepared to go to your teacher about. And similarly, there may be a sexual health nurse you're far more confident telling something to than you would a teacher or a parent, right? So it's really good to have that group. And then when we get older, what we deserve access to suddenly becomes way less clear.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
We deserve access not only to healthcare professionals, but healthcare professionals who are really, really well trained to deal with all matter of issues across sexual health, which, as I learned firsthand, is not always the case.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. I went to my GP recently with a sexual health thing. And she was like, "It's this but go to the sexual health clinic." And then I went there and they were like, "It's not that. GPs are bad at diagnosing sexual health things." And this sexual health nurse was just absolutely bashing GPs at me. I was like, "Okay."
Sophia Smith Galer
And this also happens to specialists like eg gynaecologists and people working in psychosexual therapy, in psychosexual services. They get someone who has been referred for one reason by the GP, and very quickly upon consultation and examination, it's not that reason, it's another reason. And so I've been told by a gynaecologist, when I look at data, I need to basically take it with a pinch of salt, because referral data may actually be quite misleading compared to what the reality is. But -
Hannah Witton
Interesting.
Sophia Smith Galer
I love - I love the information I can access online. I love the variety of information I can access online. But I am a journalist. I did have a privileged education. I have been set up with pretty good media literacy, and pretty fairly good literacy across the board when it comes to, yeah, like I can search something on Google Scholar and understand what I'm handling. Not everyone has that. And how - what's gonna happen when you have a bunch of adults who had rubbish sex ed, still don't have great access to information now, encounter things online that they've never heard about before. And because it seems right, it sounds right, it feels right. Maybe it plays into something else that they believe. Maybe it plays, maybe - they're watching a TikTok video of two guys on a podcast, and they completely agree with what these two guys are saying because it completely plays into their own views of women, for example, and they take it at face value. And that's a huge problem, because that's where a lot of sex misinformation will proliferate. A really good example is that, in the months after my book was published, there was a study that came out that I wish - I wish had come out before, while I was still writing my book.
Hannah Witton
It's always the case.
Sophia Smith Galer
It's always the case. But someone had been looking at men's health content on TikTok, and one of the - and they were looking at content where physicians were making a lot of material, and content about men's health where non physicians were making a lot of material. And one of the biggest areas where non physicians were making men's health content was semen retention.
Hannah Witton
Oh. So like lasting longer, or?
Sophia Smith Galer
Semen retention is this...
Hannah Witton
I've never heard that phrase.
Sophia Smith Galer
Ooh. Oh, my goodness, I've set you up with like you're gonna go on Reddit now and you're gonna be mindblown.
Hannah Witton
Oh no!
Sophia Smith Galer
Semen retention, it's the idea. It's the idea that there are health benefits or even sexual health and health benefits if you -
Hannah Witton
Don't ejaculate.
Sophia Smith Galer
Do not ejaculate.
Hannah Witton
This is like the no fap - is it related to no fap?
Sophia Smith Galer
Very connected to no fap.
Hannah Witton
Right. Got it.
Sophia Smith Galer
And similarly, no fap is another area in which, oh, non physicians are making content about it. It's people with no medical background. So in the book, I interview a really wonderful doctor. And in the - when I interview him, and I tell him about this, he hears about - in the psychosexual therapy sessions that he holds, my raising no fap and semen retention is not the first time he's heard about it, because he often gets people coming in saying they have an issue and they've already tried semen retention or they've already tried no fap and he has to sort of rewind a bit, because actually the true story - the evidence base is if you don't ejaculate and you don't masturbate, you know, nothing bad is going to happen to you. However, masturbation when done in a non problematic way offers health benefits. And he says it's not necessarily great for you to to withhold yourself from doing it, because obviously you're then withholding those possible health benefits. And you're possibly pathologizing a behaviour that doesn't need to be pathologized.
We see this a lot as well in 'porn addiction'. Again, I'm doing - for listeners, I'm doing big air quotes, because yeah, it's not porn addiction has not been classified in the big ICD, the big International Classification of Diseases. So it's not been confirmed. The evidence base has not been convincing enough to establish it as an actual addiction or disorder. And some behaviours associated with it may be connected to another disorder that does exist. But research has found that you're more likely to believe you are addicted to pornography, if you morally disapprove of it. So -
Hannah Witton
Oh, wow.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, in a lot of these cases, people who come in with - they believe they have a sexual problem. Of course, it needs treating and unpicking. But the the cause of the problem, or the many causes, could be really quite different to what the individual believes. And that's why you need to see a medical professional. That is why you cannot rely on what you find online. And why is it that people are essentially - are not - they're not seasoning their sexual health information with variety. If you think of a balanced meal, you think of a balanced meal, if you've got a sexual health problem, I completely get why you want to go online, and find out what other people with your problem have done. Completely get that because I did it with vaginismus. And it was helpful. I didn't - I didn't only find sort of uninformed stuff. I found things that were really informative and helped me.
However, you shouldn't only do that. You should also be reaching out in your personal life to your GP surgery or you know, private, NHS, whatever, you should be doing that. You should be trying to read up what doctors have written online about this, you should be trying to read up about, like, I think it's been really helpful for the friends of mine who have - who still have vaginismus, you know, they still cannot have painless sex - and it's still impeding their access to healthcare, because it impedes access to cervical smear and other other things as well. It's been helpful for them to understand the backdrop of care around this in the UK. It's been helpful for them to understand that waiting lists are making this really difficult for anyone like them to get treatment. Right? It's really helpful to understand that barely any research has been done into vaginismus, because this all helps you feel less alone. This all helps you feel like, "No wonder there's this hiccup here. And this lack of information here. Because now I understand the world in which I'm in."
Hannah Witton
Also it makes you feel like it's not your fault.
Sophia Smith Galer
Exactly. And we just need to get better at understanding that whenever, whenever there's anything in our lives that we're searching for information on, we need a balanced meal. We need a balanced meal of info.
Hannah Witton
I'm picturing - what was it, it was like a pyramid or a triangle in school that showed you like the different foods that you're supposed to have in a balanced meal. But now, I'm picturing it as like sex information.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, I should make one. I should make a sex plate.
Hannah Witton
You should! I love that. We've got a bunch of questions from folks on Instagram.
Sophia Smith Galer
That's cool. I love this.
Hannah Witton
So get your like sex educator hat on. Somebody asks: how do I stop questioning my virginity? As a queer woman, I find it very confusing.
Sophia Smith Galer
This is fascinating. Obviously like being queer as a complete spectrum, so I've got no idea necessarily what sexual experience you may or may not have had from listening. Virginity is so annoying as a concept, because it tricks us into thinking that the wrong things are important. So it tricks us into thinking that yeah, like, it matters. That is basically the biggest myth of it all, that it matters whether you've had sex or not. I would - whenever I have a question about my own identity and a fear, I really try and get to the bottom of it. So perhaps you're wondering - what I identified a lot in the research that has been done about virginity and there's never been anything for the layperson before. There's one history book that's quite academic, and everything else is psychologists writing about it. And if you - I'm looking now to remind me on my magic sex bookcase I have in the corner of my bedroom - there is a, you know, there's a lot of anxiety that people feel if they haven't yet had sex and their peer group has. And this great fear that "x will happen if I sort of don't perform in the bedroom, or if I get something wrong." And it's so dispiriting that we're taught to sort of think of first time sex as a place to get everything perfect or right. That's not the reality.
And there was an American psychologist who did some very interesting research trying to look at how different people conceive of virginity loss. And throughout the book, she does use the phrase "virginity loss." And I, you know, this is where I say, I don't like the phrase, and I never use it without caveat. So let's think more about approaching sexual maturity. Sexual initiation. Debut. It's very likely, actually, that your - the beginning of anyone's entrance into sexual maturity is a litany of different experiences. It's a stolen glance from across the room.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, we think of it as this binary of like, you are sexually immature. And then now you are sexually mature, rather than it being like, this years' long process.
Sophia Smith Galer
Exactly. A little snog here. A little, a little bit of touching here. And it's very often that quite a lot will happen before a first sort of big time, I don't know, I don't like to look at it as penetrative experience. I like to look at it as maybe like -
Hannah Witton
Genitals being involved.
Sophia Smith Galer
- big time naked experience. Yeah. Because that's also about - it's not only about sort of interaction, but it's also about vulnerability with another person. And that's, I think, what can often be most seismic about those moments. But when she looked at how people conceive of virginity loss differently, there are outcomes. So she divides the group into three. Either you believe virginity is a gift to be given? Either you think it's a stigma to be lost. Or you're in this third group who just thinks first time sex is a rite of passage. It's just something that at some point, you have to do.
Hannah Witton
Like something you have to tick off the list. It's kind of - that's the American Pie like, mindset.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yes. A little bit. I would argue American Pie is very stigma, actually, like, have to do it.
Hannah Witton
I guess it depends on the character.
Sophia Smith Galer
Depends on the character.
Hannah Witton
No, you're right, because they want to lose it before they go to college.
Sophia Smith Galer
Lost the stigma. That group were the least likely to use a barrier methods, for example.
Hannah Witton
Which ones?
Sophia Smith Galer
The stigma. Because it tended to be more opportunistic with experiences, and so were a little less prepared, and they were also often not honest about their virginity status with their partners. And if you just think about generally about okay, I can see how communication wise and health wise, that's possibly not the best way to conceive of first time sex. Then we look at the gift givers. The gift givers expected reciprocation for their gift. And if that reciprocation was not delivered, they were devastated. So -
Hannah Witton
In what form like love, affection, relationship status?
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah. Love, affection, a committed relationship. Also expected sex to be perfect, you know, rose petals, candles stuff.
Hannah Witton
I'm guessing these two categories are also super gendered.
Sophia Smith Galer
Yeah, of course. So. Great that you spotted that. They were, they were. And then the rite of passage group, something that was really remarkable about them was that a characteristic was that they didn't think the first time would be perfect.
Hannah Witton
Just something to get out of the way.
Sophia Smith Galer
They kind of in terms of behaviours that lead to positive sexual health outcomes as opposed to negative ones, they have the most. They essentially had the healthiest outlook on on first time sex. So they weren't worrying about it as this sort of seismic moment. A gift to give someone special. I hate that. "Save yourself. for someone special" is a phrase I heard growing up. A phrase people are still told. We're not taught that the special person's us. We're the special person. It's not someone else. And then, in the virginity myth chapter, this last thing I'll say on it, but sexual competence is what public health people look out for when young people have sex for the first time. It's got nothing to do with whether they've had sex before or not. It's all to do with "The first time, you know, you had sex, did you use contraception? Did you feel like it happened at the perceived right time? Were you and your partner equally willing as each other?" Those are the questions that they ask and that is what is important. It's got to be the right time for you. Part of that will be that it's the right person. But don't sort of - don't let society dictate to you who the right person is.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Oh, wow, that was super interesting. So we had an another question. Someone asked: where do you think TikTok sex ed is lacking that you believe could be improved upon?
Sophia Smith Galer
TikTok could stop suppressing videos with the hashtag sex education. That would be a start. Because guess who in the subtitle of her book has literally "sex education for the 21st century"? I think - I will never know for sure, but I'm sure that led to some kind of suppressing on the algorithm of content connected to my book. Censorship is a big problem when it's coming from people who have - have a - you know, there there are doctors who also face - you know, Dr. Jen Gunter, for example, who I absolutely love the content of, when she first started posting TikToks, she had a really excellent hyman debunk video taken down very quickly. This humanless moderation that doesn't take into account the fact that we aren't - we're not the kind of people to make content when we don't know what we're talking about. They're highly researched pieces, and it's deeply infuriating when content gets taken down. Happened to me when I did a video about condoms, and how there was a small study done in the UK that found that men were less likely to use a condom - heterosexual men were less likely to use a condom - if they thought their partner was particularly attractive. And I wanted to make - I wanted to make a video about that.
Hannah Witton
Ooh!
Sophia Smith Galer
Because at the time, TikTock was promoting an audio, which was "have you seen the state of her body? If I beat it, I ain't wearing a Johnny." Which was a - I can't remember the name of the rap, but it was in the charts. TikTok were promoting that as an audio. Yeah, everyone was lip syncing that including young people, I'm sure were under 16.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, yeah.
Sophia Smith Galer
That's fine. But the girl using some - talking about some research connected to it, and why it's funny, 'you might think it's a funny line, not so funny', for sexual health, positive sexual health outcomes. And that got taken down and had to be reinstated, in which I've lost engagement. You know, I've lost an opportunity. I've lost educational opportunities for people on the algorithm to - for the video to find the people who need to see it. So that's a main - and I talk about that kind of censorship in the book. So that's, that's, I think, the first area that needs to be improved on the app.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, no, 100%. Sophia, this has been absolutely wonderful. Absolute joy talking to you and learning all of this stuff from you. Please plug away at your book, plug away at all of your social media, where they can find you?
Sophia Smith Galer
They can find me everywhere! They can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Tiktok. Twitter and Instagram I'm @sophiasgaler and Tiktok I'm sophiasmithgaler. My book is available, hopefully, wherever you need it from, you know, I'm a big believer in please buy it where suits you and support independent book shops when you can. But it's called Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century. Came out in April. I'm very, very fortunate that the books journey has been lovely in that the interactions I've been able to have with people since it came out. I know it's changed lives. And that's all I wanted. And teachers are now using it in schools. So if you read it, let me know what you think. And please be an advocate for healthy, good sex information and education in your lives.
Hannah Witton
I love that method. And yeah, thank you all so much for listening. Bye.
Sophia Smith Galer
Bye!