Free choice — Kitty Drake
Transcript for episode 032 of Free Sex podcast
Listen to this episode on your podcast player of choice.
*This episode discusses sexual assault and an alleged case of rape*
Adam
Everyone should be free to have the sex that they want.
I think this is true but... we make it way too difficult and complicated.
If we want to create a FREE SEX world, what do we have to change?
From Aunt Nell, this is... Free Sex... with me, Adam Zmith.
Every episode of this podcast, a different guest gives me a fresh idea. Together we’re building a world where everyone can have the sex they want... one podcast episode at a time.
Hi I’m Adam, a writer, podcast producer, walker, talker, thinker, wanker. I started having sex at 29, TWENTY-NINE, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. What stopped me? That’s the question that motivates me in all my work! How do we, as a society, hold each other back in sex?
This podcast is fully pansexual and gender fluid: from mild to wild, everyone is welcome.
Let’s go!
Why do we desire what we desire?
My guest in this episode is Kitty Drake, a journalist who interviews a lot of people about the sex they have. Kitty helped me to see that we could approach a free-sex world if we’re able to give ourselves over to sex while at the same time hold space for reflecting on why we fancy it. How are our desires shaped by the politics and societies that we live in?
Kitty writes a regular column in The Guardian and recently published a fun and fascinating global sweep of peoples’ sex lives. Her work is influenced by feminist politics and deep thinkers, such as Susan Sontag and Amia Srinivasan. Let’s get thinking!
Adam
Kitty Drake, welcome to Free Sex.
Kitty Drake
Hello. I'm really pleased to be here.
Adam
What does free sex mean to you?
Kitty Drake
Well, I think that there's no such thing as free sex, because I feel like all of our desires and our sexual proclivities are actually shaped by forces beyond our control, like our environment and our upbringing and there are certain reasons why you want what you want. So in some ways, you're never really free. But I think me, the task of feminism is always to ask yourself, and also the task of just being a human being, ask yourself, why do you desire what you desire? What would you desire if you really had a free choice,
Adam
right? So if I'm thinking of trying to get us closer to that world of free sex, which I think you're right, it doesn't exist and will never exist, and that's okay. It's all about the journey. If we're trying to move closer to there, then your contribution there, your provocation there is to get us off basically thinking and talking a lot more about it and why, why we desire what we desire. Because that's in a political and social context, isn't it,
Kitty Drake
exactly. I guess I kind of have this kind of very, I'm quite split in my own mind about this as well, okay, and in my personal life, because I feel like it's amazing that fantasy is this place where you can say anything, you can imagine anything. I don't think that we should self censor. You know, I think if you want to imagine being kind of, you know, forcibly, you know, have have sex. If you want to imagine someone forcing sex on you, and that turns you on, yeah, then go for it. Like, you know, so many limits on ourselves in life. Like, I think a lot of sex is about trying to let that go, and then, however, I also think the completely opposite thing as well. I think that, but I think maybe the two things can be true, and that's what's difficult about being human, and maybe you need to grapple with that. It's like, I don't believe that authoritarian. In moralism has any place in feminism or even good sex to say, Oh God, I shouldn't be thinking that. I need to think about something else. But I do also think that we should gently hold in our minds. Why is it that I like that for example, like for me, a more clear cut example, and I'm gonna sound really old fashioned here, but like, girls posting semi clad pictures of themselves online, which I have done. Like, I don't have an Instagram account, but I'm probably a bit too old to like, actually do that now, but friends of mine do it. You know, I see the appeal of doing it. You feel hot, you feel sexy. You're coming into your power. Yeah. But I also just find it like actually quite degrading that, yeah, we as women need to take scantily clad photos of ourselves to feel empowered. So I think, right, rather than lazily, just stopping the sentence at I want to take my clothes off and take a photo of myself and post it online, and that makes me feel empowered. We need to say, like, why does it make me feel empowered? And would it make me feel empowered if I was really free?
Adam
And that's what you're up to, presumably, what you what you're trying to do in your work as a writer and journalist, right? So tell me a bit about why you chose that particular medium to explore this mission that you've got, and how did that start?
Kitty Drake
I mean, I wouldn't say that I chose journalism in all this. I kind of chose journalism because what I like is how weird and strange people are and how unexpected they are and how and I always find that when I talk to people, they say completely not what I expect, you know, and I just find that endless weirdness of people really interesting, and that's kind of what has always excited me about doing journalism, but I think that the reason why I've fallen into writing a lot about sex is because, I think the really interesting space because it's, it's, you know, we're thinking about that idea of free sex. Again, it's both where we are most free, where most ourselves were most like idiosyncratically us, like most personal space, but it's also the most political space. It's like completely riven with politics and that that is fascinating to me, that there can be this very intimate thing that is both intimate and like, the most public Yeah, the most Riven with the public Yeah. And that's what always kind of fascinated me about that that work, and I think like talking to people about sex, as I do every week for the column that I do in The Guardian i When you talk about sex, you immediately get to the heart of some other things, like, so much like, I think a lot of like, sex is embarrassing. You're putting yourself out there. Like, often you feel like, deeply ashamed and deeply needy while you're having sex. Like and, and to talk to people about sex, you get to that thing, which I think is what makes us human, you know, like the really deep things, like the need, the embarrassment about how much we need, the kind of fear of experimentation, the want to experiment, the want to be free, the need want to also be contained and looked after. You know, I just feel like it's a kind of main line into so many of the things that I find very emotionally interesting.
Adam
Can you share some of the insights that you found through that main line? And I'm thinking specifically of that recent piece that you did, which was, like really expansive, telling the stories of how people have sex in different countries and different places that was published in The Guardian. What are some, what's the breadth of insights that you found there?
Kitty Drake
Hmm, I mean, that's a tricky one. I do feel like I had a lot of insights from doing that about, I mean, I'm gonna have a couple of goes at this. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah. I one thing that I find endlessly interesting about doing this column is that I interview people separately. So if I was gonna interview you, I would interview you, and then I would interview your partner the next day. Yeah. And I'm always very fascinated by how differently people see the same relationship number one. So the fact that, you know, I can be speaking to a woman, as I did last week, who tells me, uh. Uh, our issue in our relationship is my boyfriend's always wanted to have sex more than I do, yeah, and, and then I speak to the man the next day, and he just, like, totally doesn't see that as the issue in their relationship. Like, he denies that he wants to have sex more than her. Like, I'm always fascinated by the fact that we can see things so differently are in our relationships. But I'm also always really fascinated by the fact that sometimes your partner knows something about you that you don't even know yourself, like for example, I'll share one story, and it has to be anonymous, obviously, which it would be, but I spoke to a couple, and the man had been had cheated on the woman, and the woman who I'll call Sue, right, and I'll call the man John, so one had cheated on sue, sue had also cheated on John, and then the woman who John had cheated with had then accused him of raping her, right? And he denies that accusation, and, you know, ruined his life. It ruined his whole career. He says that it's because he, you know, had sex with this woman and then kind of cooled it off, and then she sought to ruin his life out of revenge. You know, personally, I believe him, because I spoken to him at length about it, and I spoke to his partner about it, but it was very moving to me the woman Sue she said this thing to me that's always kind of stayed with me. It might not even work for this context of how I'm telling story, but I might not even but she he is convinced that he didn't rape someone, right? Yeah, she said to me, privately, the thing is, is that he's so inhibited about sex, and he's so he shuts down when he's in the middle of sex. And sometimes you're trying to get through to him and you can't, and it's not for anything, but it's just like he's got a lot of hang ups about sex, and he's almost kind of like mechanical in the way through sex. And so she said to me privately, I can understand why that woman thought that their relationship like that, that something had gone wrong.
Adam
I see because she might have been trying to get through to him, but yeah,
Kitty Drake
but all that felt that like a lack of care during your sexual encounter. And it kind of amazed me that this woman Sue could see something in John. Could see this massive failing and this massive difficulty. Still love him, and he might never even really know that about himself. I don't know it just like I just, I find, I found that very moving. I'm very sad, actually, but also, like, hopeful that we can, that you can be known that intimately, and your partner can know something really, like not flattering about you or not good, yeah, not evil, but not good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, to me, is moving,
Adam
yeah, and it, it's a it's such a complicated story that it proves your bigger point and your answer to my question about free sex in a way that we have to be able to hold multiple, I don't know, truths or realities at the same Time, or like, competing ideas and the conflict between, like, social politics and interpersonal relationships and things that sorts of things, exactly, yeah,
Kitty Drake
absolutely, yeah. And it like, yeah. It's a difficult story to tell, because, of course, I'm not trying to apologise for anyone who's, you know, has has sexually assaulted somebody. But I do also think that that the reason why sex is such a difficult thing to legislate on as well is because there's so many gradations of consent, yeah, and there's so many moments like, I know from my personal life, when I've been having sex with people where I'm a bit like, you know, I wouldn't say that this was rape. I wouldn't say that this was sexual assault, but I'm definitely not enjoying myself, and I maybe don't have words to say it, and I can't get through to the other person, and that person isn't deliberately trying to do anything. They just haven't been educated properly, and they don't even know their own body and their own self, like there's so much at stake. But
Adam
anyway, yeah, and I'm curious about the fact that you said you don't have a personal Instagram account, and that you do this really important work of interviewing people. You write the column, you write all the features. That's about sex and and that's and that's writing. That's your medium. And I'm curious of. About what you think in 2024 is the role of writing and journalism, and those are two slightly distinct things compared to like all the other media through which this topic can be explored. I
Kitty Drake
mean, well, I feel like writing. You know, I've always just loved reading and books and words. I feel like writing can take you on a journey in a way that film and no other media can. And I've always felt that way, because I, what I, what I quite like about writing is it's divorced from the cool or the trendy in a sense, you know, like a really nice Instagram image or a really nice film can look aesthetically like, yeah, sexy or cool in a way that I think that if you tell somebody story through writing, there's something Like almost slightly purer about it like, it's not image obsessed. You make the image in your head. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with images. I love images, but I just, yeah, I find it to be like, it's something like, wonderfully, like, disembodied, isn't there? About writing? Yeah, you have it. I think it's, I think, you know what? I actually think it's that you have this incredibly private experience when you're reading something and you you bring it into being in the act of reading it, like everyone who reads something is going to see it slightly differently in their head and experience it slightly differently and and I'm sure that's true with film and other media, but like, to a lesser extent, I think,
Adam
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And do you think that? Well, well, how, how do you think the role of writing and journalism will will change in terms of how we talk and think and, you know, engage with these ideas around sex? Yeah.
Kitty Drake
Well, I think, you know, when I started out in journalism, you know people, people didn't tell stories about sex that were as explicit as what we're doing right now in The Guardian, in a mainstream paper, at all? Yeah, yeah. And still, you know, I get so many complaints every week, people disgusted by the fact that we're running a column really explicit about sex in in The Guardian. What do they say? I mean, just like, this is unnecessary. This is disgusting. You know, once we had people having sex in a cinema, like, like, once they'd had sex in cinema, and so people were just absolutely outraged by that. They said it was like violating other people's consent because they weren't able to consent to being in the same cinema that somebody was having sex. And I was, like, everyone like, it's pretty well known that people are fumbling about in the cinema, like we've all seen Greece, you know. But, you know, but then loads of people also write in and say, I really like this. And, you know, people always applying to be part of it and tell their own story. So it's kind of a balance. But I suppose in terms of, like journalism, I feel like we kind of, we've gone to this point now where you're able to talk about anything in a mainstream paper. You're even able to talk about threesomes, you're even able to talk about and I wonder how much further you can push the envelope, you know, yeah, yeah, whether it's even necessary to push the envelope even further, you know, I just wonder. I think, I think the thing you always have to grapple with in journalism, and particularly like mainstream journalism, is sex sells, and that's why there are so many pieces on it, you know, want to click on things with sex so I feel like the column has really good intentions and is about telling kind of stories about people, even more than it is about telling stories about sex. And I almost see the medium into talking about the people, yeah. But I think there is a certain sort of like cynicism in journalism, that if you put sex in the title of something, people
Adam
can read it well. I mean, that's why I called this podcast free sex, because, you know, it's relevant. But I also thought it'd be great to have the word sex in the title. And, you know, and also free is like, deliberately, yeah, simplistic and ambiguous and playful, in a way. But I was consciously thinking of that as well. When I was yeah, when I was naming the podcast, I wondered,
Kitty Drake
I wonder, I mean, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, because I wonder whether we dilute I wonder whether we'll get to a point where everyone's absolutely sick of sex and nobody something because it says sex. I wonder whether we will get to that point people are putting a different word into the title because it's. Not interesting anymore. Yeah.
Adam
But I also think that what people like you and I are trying to do is broaden out how to talk and think about sex, so that the word itself is not so you know, it's not about sex so much, actually, it's about all these other things. It's about care, it's about politics, it's about intimacy, it's about pleasure, and all of these things come under the headline of sex, right? But the word, you know, the word sex, which often, which is kind of an umbrella term, but also in most people's mind, I think, has quite like a narrow idea of what that is. I think that that is that sort of like, gets us in it, it gets us into that conversation, but actually, what we're doing is broadening it all out. Yeah, well, at least I hope so. No,
Kitty Drake
absolutely, I totally agree with you, but I just, I just sometimes think about that when I'm looking at like,
Adam
are we gonna need be desensitized? Yeah, I actually want to ask you a bit more about the, I guess, the ideas and the thinkers, be they writers or otherwise, who have influenced you as you've gone through this journey of building a career about writing about sex, you know and you know, Where are you grounding your ideas in and I'm not like your academic supervisor or something. It's not accountability. It's just I'm curious, like, where your family know your feminist thinkers and your sex positive thinkers that
Kitty Drake
you're drawing on? Well, when I was back doing the feminist magazine that I used to make called Ladybeard, we interviewed a lot of people who were really foundational for me, Betty Dodson, who kind of spearheaded a masturbation movement for women. I'm going to get my dates wrong, think like from the 70s onwards in New York, Annie Sprinkle, who's this amazing sex educator and porn star, and her wonderful partner, whose name I've forgotten. So can I just Google it so we can put it in
Kitty Drake
Beth Stevens, yeah, so Annie Sprinkle, the amazing feminist porn star and sex educator and then her partner, her wife, Beth Stevens, they're amazing. Maggie Nelson, Jacqueline Rose. Susan Sontag, I love the essay and the I about when she she says this great thing where she's like, I mean, I don't agree with her, but she says this thing where she says that sex is actually like we're trying to make sex moral, but it's not like we're trying to make sex into this beautiful thing. But it's not right, yeah, what it most resembles in is an epileptic fit, and it's actually this kind of dark force within us, right? Yeah, yeah, which I found really fascinating. I can see
Speaker 1
that idea being a foundational one for you in your work, in a way, like it's because it's about that complexity of it and the, yeah, the like, the thing that you were saying about how you can, like, mainline into who a person is via sex.
Kitty Drake
Yeah, exactly. And I also suppose, like with Susan Sontag, she's kind of saying that fact, fantasies are dark and evil, and we should just free ourselves and allow ourselves to think like the most dark and dreadful and evil thing that we can think of. Yeah, yeah. But then again, I would kind of come back from it like, okay, have the dark and evil fantasy, but never stop thinking, why am I having this dark and evil fantasy? Yes, kind of interesting, you know, I and then obviously Amia Srinivasan is, like, right, amazing on exactly this. And, yeah,
Adam
I what it's I find it really interesting that those are, I mean, I've, I'm familiar with some of the work of about maybe half or a little bit more of that list that you just said, and they're all women, as far as I know. And there's another book that I just read recently that's coming to mind by Manon Garcia, called The Joy of Consent, which is about, which is kind of new, and it's about, she's a philosopher, and it's about consent, but within this complicated framework that you're sort of talking about, which is that we've publicly and even legally, we've got into this realm of like. Consent is this black and white thing, either it's there or it's not there, and therefore either the sex that happens around that is either right or wrong, you know, and then she's like, she's like, Well, I'm gonna write 300 pages about why it's so much more complicated than that. And these are, like, really, really big thinkers. And I've also noticed in making free sex that the people that I seem to bump up against in the internet sort of world and the thinking world around sex, it tends, there tends to be more women than men that are doing the thinking along all of these kinds of lines, right? And I, and, you know, it's great, you know. And, and and I'm just, I'm curious what you think of that, because it makes me think, like, Well, God, if the men who who are kind of trying to have conversations about sex, are they just Andrew Tate types of people, and it's that sort of angle. So I'm, you know, I'm curious, like, what you make of that, or is it just that we're kind of influenced by our own bubbles that we're all in these days about this. I don't know, what do you think?
Kitty Drake
God, that's a tricky question. I think. I mean, there's one answer, and I'm not even sure if I'd buy it. The answer would start with, are you straight or gay?
Adam
Aren't now as a man me Adam, I'm gay and queer, yeah, yeah,
Kitty Drake
I thought so, and not because of anything other than the fact that you're making this podcast, right? I think that if you are, and honestly, as I say this, I'm not even believing my answer, so I'll give you the other answer as well. Yeah, I think if you're a woman, right? And or if you're not, if you're not straight. You have to think quite a lot about why you want, what you want, definitely, like, know, you a bit like,
Adam
I thought about it for 29 years, yeah.
Kitty Drake
Who am I like? What right do I have to desire what I desire? I'm, I'm, you know, I would define myself as, like, straight, mostly straight, yeah, but I do still think that as a woman, you have such a kind of complicated relationship to your own sexuality and like, yeah, you know how you should be sexually, that maybe you just interrogate it a little bit more from an early age, and you're thinking about it, and then in a way that a straight man might not interrogate their desire. But then, having said that, like, I don't even buy my own answer, because I think the straight men have like, huge hang ups and huge difficulties about sex, and I feel like my heart honestly goes out to sound so patronising, but it really does like isn't the couples, it's always the straight man who's having the most difficulty with his sexuality, his desire. But
Adam
isn't your point? Actually, that that they they are the ones with those difficulties, but they are not equipped to interrogate why they have those problems and they haven't had to go through the kind of like automatic thinking, like the kind of enforced thinking that that women and queer men and other minoritized People have had to go through.
Kitty Drake
Yeah, I think so. I think so, I think so. But then it's hard, isn't it?
Adam
Yeah, because I don't want to be, we don't want to be essentialist about this, that like, Well, women can do this and men can't do it, you know, because it's not as simple
Kitty Drake
as that. They're the ones who are on porn sites the most, I'm sure, right? And surely that does make you question what you like, because you're taking in these dreadful search terms or whatever you know. Like, I do it myself. I watch porn myself. But and it does make you think, like, Oh, why do I want to see that? Yeah, no. And I think a lot of men are questioning, but maybe they're maybe the straight men are like, so like, maybe trapped within embarrassment and shame cycles, and don't have a community like, you know, as a woman, I think you have a community to say, Yeah, I'm feeling confused about my desire. Yeah, maybe as a gay person as well, or weird person like, you also have a community to turn to and be like, Hey, what's up with what I'm feeling? And I sometimes think maybe straight men don't have that community, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's why they're not making the work about sex and desire, because they're not like asking those questions from the time they can breathe and talk and right.
Adam
So then, I mean, I think that you're onto something there. So then my next question then, is like, how do we as people that make work about sex, and that are all about encouraging people to think about these things and to think about sex so that we can all together collectively have the sex that we want, or the better sex and the Freer sex and so on again, journey, not the destination. Like, what. Our duty and responsibility towards those people who may be predominantly straight men, but maybe other people in general who are just not able to do that. That reflection, do you think about that?
Kitty Drake
Oh, God, I don't know. I mean, I guess you know, men read newspapers, men listen to media. Maybe just like, you know, by by having these conversations, either in kind of non mainstream places or in mainstream places. Maybe we'll just make people read something and then think about it, for example, that film how to have sex, right? Oh, yeah. Film, yeah. So, like, I know a couple of, I heard kind of anecdotes about a couple of male friends who saw it, and it was just like, they wanted their sister to see it, or they want, you know, like, where it really made an impression on them, and to have, like, that kind of nuanced question. And exploration of consent and the weird Blurred Lines of it. Sorry, not to quote Rob and Vic there, but yeah, I think to have that as a mainstream film that loads of people see, I do think that does change things. Yes,
Adam
yeah, yeah. So basically, we keep making films, we keep writing columns, we keep doing podcasts. I do think that there's some kind of and I don't honestly have an answer for this. If anyone listening and got ideas, then let me know. But like, I do think that there's something specific that needs to be done about how maybe I'm just speaking for myself, like, how to reach those harder to reach people with this type of conversation, because they might look at free sex and be like, Oh, that's for, like, women and queer people, even though it's really not. And I try really hard to have a range of guests and a range of topics, you know, and, but, yeah, I'm just thinking about that. And that was why I was, yeah,
Kitty Drake
I guess, like, I mean, what I think is quite interesting when I do the column is because I often speak to men and straight, yeah, what the column and part of the couple, they always the most reluctant to speak. Usually, it's like the girlfriend who gets in touch with me, and it's like, oh, I want to tell the story. You know, interesting, yeah. And then the men are more more difficult. They don't want to speak, you know, they don't want to they don't want to talk about something, yeah, but, but I also think that they often say the most interesting things, because then,
Adam
usually reluctant contributors are the most interesting when you actually get them on the record,
Kitty Drake
and they are very insightful about why they want, what they want, yeah, and you know what they think is going on in a relationship. Actually, they are sometimes more insightful than the woman, because they're not speaking in this very like therapized language, having constantly access their emotions, you know. And it's not always true. Often the women are more insightful because they are used to talking about it. But sometimes I think, you know, I often think of this thing like, I've always been interested in the way women communicate versus the way men communicate. Like, you know, we have this thing. Women, they have this thing. It's, it's noted in female friendship groups. It's called co rumination, where problem, and the first time you talk about it, it's helpful, but then you start to co ruminate, where you bring it up and bring it up and bring it up, and it actually makes the person unable to get past their problem, because they're kind of almost bringing up for the juiciness of it amongst their friendship groups. So then women find it much more difficult, apparently statistically, to like, get over hurt or setbacks, whereas men, for all the talk of bottling things up, they do more side along communication where they kind of don't talk about the emotion or talk about it briefly, and then, like, go and do an activity together. And actually, that's better, like, psychological wounds, apparently.
Adam
Okay, wow. Well, just let it. Just let it be known for the record that it's July 12, and I've learned something from a straight man. Finally, 12th of July, 2024 here we are. That wasn't on my bingo card. That's really interesting about how we process. Yeah,
Kitty Drake
I think it is really interesting. And then I think, I suppose it almost relates to sex as well. I don't know, maybe it doesn't quite relate, but I often, sometimes think like, I do believe in questioning our choices, right, and thinking deeply about the sex that we have and the desires that we want, right? But then I also sometimes I'm like, would you have better, more satisfying sex if, like, everything's kind of bottled up and you didn't think too much about that realm in a weird sort of way. Like, would it be dirtier? Would it be sexy? Yeah, like, Would it be, well, I think there be something, as Susan would say, forbidden about sex and nasty, and you just leave it that way.
Adam
I can you, can we encourage a world where it's two things, where there is a realm where you're talking and thinking and processing and and reading and kind of being a political, social citizen, in a way that you're encouraging people to do through your work, and then at the same time, assuming that you have good practices around care and consent, that when it comes to the sex moment and the arena that you fully let yourself go into that. And I think that that having those two modes, it feels weird to sort of talk about people as if we can divide all of those things, because when you're in the second mode, you are still carrying in all of the things from the first mode, aren't you? That's kind of the point. But then I think, I think the best sex, and I think a lot of I've heard a lot of people say this is the freest sex that I feel that I have, and the best sex that I feel that I have is when I'm so present in that moment of sex, and I'm not thinking about any thing else, and it's so engulfing and intimate and gorgeous. And that might be like the world's darkest BDSM fantasy, or it might be the most sort of, you know, Hallmark, beautiful, soft focus, lovemaking. But the point is that you're extremely present in this particular moment, and the rest of the world has fallen away. And so that's what I'm thinking about, those two modes having listened to you, yeah,
Kitty Drake
yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I would like to believe comes from that. But I also wonder whether maybe, like, we repress things in life and sex is an arena where we can work through them. And maybe if you over analyze it too much outside the bedroom, it won't work inside the bedroom, which would make me completely out of a job, right? But, but I almost think, but maybe it's just between the couples I would maybe, maybe, maybe the thing is, is that you can process everything and ask these questions, which are really intellectual questions. And I like asking them, because it's like fun. Think about the way human beings work. Maybe you have to do that with someone who's not your partner. Going, why did you, you know? Yeah, interesting that you you went to kind of grab my arm. There is that because your father used to grab your arm. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, it may very well be true, yeah, but maybe you can't talk about some things with your partner if you want the erotic stuff to still flourish,
Adam
right? So there is a, there is an answer to my question of, how do we get to a world of free sex, which is, and this would be for a different episode, and it'd be interesting to think who the speaker could be, the guest could be. But the the answer is, well, the way that we can start to move towards a world of free sex is that everyone has access to free therapy and counseling where they can talk about their sex life. I mean, in the in England, at least, if not the UK, but certainly in England, I know that you're entitled to six free sessions with a therapist on the NHS to talk about sex. The waiting list is no idea about that. Yeah, the waiting list is very long. But if you go to a sexual health clinic regularly, like I do, then, then it's just a standard question that they say, Is this anything that you'd want to talk to somebody about? Because we can put you on the list for six free sessions. You know, I don't know how long it'll be different in different places.
Kitty Drake
Still on the waiting list for therapy, for just general therapy, general a year and a half, right?
Adam
Yeah. So this is not so that, yeah. So that's the NHS is currently not providing that, but, um, but that makes me think that there is an answer to the question of, how do we get to free sex world, which is, yeah, free like, immediate access to therapy for everyone to talk about sex and bodies and all of these things, so that it's then it's just a part of everyone's life. Yeah, and the next series of free sex will be sponsored by the UK association of psychotherapists or whatever. No, it's not, I just made that up. I'm just saying like, I mean, it's like, because I'm like, sort of promoting their work. But yeah,
Kitty Drake
yeah, um, yeah. I mean, I think so. I think so, I Yeah. Again, another person who really is so influential in this field. I mean, I'm sure she is to absolutely everyone. Esther Perel,
Adam
oh, yeah, okay. I thought you were gonna say Madonna for a second, but yeah. Esther Perel, oh, Madonna as well.
Kitty Drake
But Esther Perel, I think she's quite interesting in the sense that she thinks there are things that you should keep back from your partner, like full honesty and full disclosure, like bearing your full self and. Every thought that's ever gone through your brain, yeah? Is an aphrodisiac. Is not an aphrodisiac, yeah, yeah. And I think that for me as a woman, is quite difficult to get my head around. I'm like, what? Yeah, everything about me, and every single thought and feeling I've ever had, oh and you now you don't want to fuck me, like, oh, okay, it's confusing. But I think, yeah, I think she's quite good about that. Well,
Adam
let's leave it there, kitty with that recommendation of another podcast, actually, so listeners can, like, spring forward and go listen to some of Esther Perel's work. I really appreciate you taking the time. It's been really kind of Yeah, brain pulsy And getting me thinking about all these things. So thank
Kitty Drake
you. Oh, it's been really lovely. It's lovely to speak to you.
Adam
Thanks for listening to this episode!
Let me know what you think of FREE SEX - the idea or this podcast!
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On social media I’m @adamzmith, yes that’s Smith but with a Z, yeah Zmith, mmm it feels good in the mouth hahah. You can find more Aunt Nell productions on our website auntnell.com and on social we’re @auntnell_.
The theme music is TransLife by Othon
Hosted, produced and edited by Adam Zmith
The Executive Producer for Aunt Nell is Tash Walker
To all you loves and lovers, good night x