Ep 127: Sex Misinformation Crisis with Sophia Smith Galer
Art by @reesabobeesa
What is sex misinformation and what kind of sex misinformation is out there? Why is it so prevalent? Why is it important to talk about the false sex narritives and what can we do about stopping the spread of this information?
Effy and Jacqueline chat with multi-award-winning reporter and the author of Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century, Sophia Smith Galer about prevailing sex myths; how to bust those myths through educating ourselves, and what can we do about changing the culture so the information out there is scientifically accurate and focuses as much on pleasure as sexual health, pregnancy and rape reduction.
More about Sophia
Sophia Smith Galer is a multi-award-winning reporter, author and TikTok creator based in London – making content for over 400,000 followers around the world.
Her videos have been viewed over 100 million times and she has been named on the Forbes under 30 list this year as well as a 2022 'Face to Watch' in books by the Evening Standard.
Vogue has also recently named her in their list of 2022's 25 most influential women in the UK - alongside Emma Raducanu, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
Sophia began her career at the BBC where she reported on the complexities of contemporary faith across the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and BBC World News as the network's first Visual Journalist in Faith and Ethics. She now works as a Senior News Reporter at VICE World News where she covers everything from gender violence and technology to the climate crisis and Europe's Christian hard right.
In 2021 she won 'Innovation of the Year' for her TikTok journalism at the British Journalism Awards, when she was also named a Voice of Change by TikTok – she was listed as one of their top 100 UK creators for the second year running.
Her first book, Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century, is out now, addressing the sex misinformation crisis and debunking sex myths.
To learn more about Sophia follow her on social media: @sophiasgaler on Twitter and IG, @sophiasmithgaler on TikTok
You can find her book on the Curious Fox reading list.
To find more about Effy Blue and Jacqueline Misla, follow them at @wearecuriousfoxes, @coacheffyblue, and @jacquelinemisla on Instagram.
If you have a question that you would like to explore on the show, reach out to us and we may answer your question on one of our upcoming episodes. Leave us a voicemail at 646-450-9079 or email us at listening@wearecuriousfoxes.com
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TRANSCRIPT:
Effy
Hey friends. A quick note before we start. This episode was recorded four days before her royal highness Queen Elizabeth the Second passed completely out of chance. We mentioned her in this episode as a part of a benign joke. We thought about cutting it out of respect. But as a Brit, I thought the joke was actually on point, speaking to her incredible 70 year reign, making her one of the most influential, if not the most influential woman of our time. To put this in perspective for our American friends. She spent time with 13 out of the last 14 sitting US presidents. As the new Prime Minister of the UK, Liz trust described her. She was the rock upon which modern Britain was built. Queen Elizabeth was known for her genuine curiosity, especially in people and her appreciation of humor. So we wanted to honor her by actually keeping the line. We are sorry for our collective loss. Long live the king.
Effy
Welcome to the curious Fox podcast for those challenging the status quo in love, sex, and relationships. My name is Effy Blue.
Jacqueline
And I'm Jacqueline Misla. And today, we're talking about the misinformation that we receive around sex and the global impact that this Miss and disinformation has. So I'm gonna start with the obvious question, Effy, which is, what misinformation Did you receive? What did you maybe believe to be true? And then realized it was not?
Effy
I have a very clear memory of the first time I got information about sex that I knew I was wrong. And it came from my mom. When I heard it,
Unknown Speaker
I was like,
Effy
I just know, the thing that I don't remember why I knew it was it was categorically wrong, I just knew was skeptical. And how old were you young? So I want to put myself around like, 10.
Jacqueline
Mm hmm.
Effy
Right. And I was a naughty child. I want to rephrase that I was a curious child, which love to the untrained eye looks
Jacqueline
naughty, right, those trying to maintain the status quo.
Effy
I was really curious. And I just wanted to find things out. And one of the ways that I would do this, I would sneak these comic books, adult comic books from the newspaper stand, there was one right underneath our apartment building, and my mom had like an account with them. And we'd buy papers and everything throughout the month, and she would pay she would pay them at the end of the month. And then it was my job to go down and get it every morning. And I would sneak which is very naughty. And this stealing. I know, it's bad. But that was the only way that I could get them because no one would allow me to have them. I would slip one of those comics into one of the newspapers. And then like sneak them out. And then as I went upstairs, before I went into the, into the house, I would roll it and put it down my clothes or my clothes. And then I would just like bring the newspaper home. That was my access. And these were like naughty adult comics cartoons. And one of the cartoons ahead would keep making reference to condoms. And there was like the little picture of them. And this is these comments, right? So they were using them as a metaphor for something. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't like on the nose. But there was these capital phones, these ideal condoms. And then I asked her work on the months and she gave me this vague answer that she said something like it would go my dad, so there wouldn't be any disease is kind of what she said, which was really vague. And that was the only comment and then we moved on from that. And I was like, okay, so I think from that I just went into a spiral around like, what does that even mean? And I'm sure has pre pre internet I'm sure I did some sleuthing. There was like, insecurity of Britannica in the house. No doubt I got the nice look in there for everything. And that was my first sort of contact my mom about sex and it was over condoms. And then the next time I spoke to her, is what I knew where the misinformation was. She came into my room I was older at this point. Now I'm putting myself around like 1817 76 This person was set to having six to 17 and then she came in and I was having sex at the time and I had condoms under my pillow. And she just came into my room, sat down on my bed and I was that she didn't knock it's just boundaries issues. When this then this isn't my my boundaries you stem from. And I was like, Oh, wow, okay, I know they're condoms in the bed. And then she just talking to me and she took my pillow from the head side. And she took it away from that to put her head on actually wanted to talk to me and lie on my bed same time. No, she did she reveal the box of condoms. That I was like, Whoa, all good. And I originally condoms and I grabbed them. I threw them under the bed. And I was like, Okay. And then at that point, she said, Oh, wow, I saw those. And I was like, Okay, well, you should be proud of me. And then she said, You know what, you need to wear them two at a time to make sure that you don't get a disease. And at that point, I was like, did you just say I should wear condoms, two condoms at the same time. And that was one of them. And the first time I heard my mom be like, That's not I know for a fact that you're not supposed to put two condoms on top of each other. That is a wrong. That's a myth. That is wrong. You at that point, she was you know, in her 40s 15 had a child to that point, she thought wearing T condoms was the safest thing to do. And that was my first Sexsmith.
Jacqueline
Yeah, I mean, my mom would have had a very different reaction. But I do think that at the end of the day, I don't I don't know, actually, if any information would have come out of it. You know, it's, I was thinking about what misinformation has existed for me. And of course, the very obvious, you know, Jesus will leave me behind if I ever do anything. So in the, you know, in the midst of, of adolescent masturbation, a huge fear that whilst that was happening would be the second coming, and I would be left behind that. And I would watch late at night, I was also kind of a curious child and would be watching Cinemax or HBO movies late into the into the night, which would often show Sex. And my vulva did not look like the robot of the people on screen. And so those two things I've talked, I've talked about both on the show, I think one thing that I may not have talked about that I think was a myth, for me was that the only thing that was considered sex and losing my virginity was penetrative sex. And so you know, hard penis, wet vagina. And so I was highly protective of that. But in its stead, would engage in things like oral sex, which felt much more intimate. Oh, then I was prepared for right I was I was protecting my vagina, but not my mouth. And so that, did it make sense
Effy
at all? Yeah, I heard. I mean, I that that makes me to meet you, a friend of mine was telling me how she was having anal sex to make sure that she was still a virgin when she got married. I was shocked to my core I, at the time I was, again, curious child I was ahead of my head on my urine is the kind of information knowing what I knew and knowing that's what she was doing. I was gobsmacked. absolutely shocked into her. And that's and then and then she, she told me that what people did, and at the time, I was away from my home culture and you know, going to a school in another country. And that to learn that there was like, a group of people. And that was the thing to be to do to have no sex before your regular, you know, penis vagina, segues. To save your virginity was shocking to me. Shocking.
Jacqueline
Yeah, that. So all sorts of other things happening. But as long as that penis did not enter into a vagina, we were all okay. Everything was gonna be okay. Wow. I think what was also challenging is, which is very true. I think for women in general, is the standing on the line between I am a virgin, I am a virgin, I am to be respected. I'm a good girl. And I am not a virgin. And I'm not a dork, and I'm not a loser. And all the things that were associated with with that. And so there's this weird line where you're like, supposed to be a virgin, but also not. And so I think that all of those things in the in between was the gray area, we're like, okay, so if technically, according to the definition I have, have not been I remember having conversations with friends about just the tip. And talking about that and saying, Well, if we can use the tip, so it didn't count. Is it
Effy
tight rule like that what you're describing is such a tight rope that you have to work on that on one side, your version and you pull and you're good and you know, well behaved and compliant and
Jacqueline
sloth, right promiscuous. Not even as as a high schooler. Yes. Right.
Effy
Right. And on the other side, you're you know, if you if you're, you know, you're you're bad, you're cool. You're you're doing all the things but then you're sloth and all that kind of stuff. Just such a fine line that that society puts us on to figure this stuff out. And that in itself is a stupid math. Yeah. Funnily enough, the place that I busted most maths and reading got to learn real sex. Of course, I've mentioned it before, have been sex parties for me. See real people having real sex with people who understand their pleasure seeking their pleasure navigating their pleasure, tell them people, new friends, strangers, how to navigate there pleasure developing language around that, all that kind of stuff. I actually learned going to six parties, and which I, you know, always recommend to people go to six parties find good ones go. But if you can't go there also other places where we can bust some of these myths and we're going to actually talking to somebody who's doing that right there to get a lot of time energy effort into busting some of these myths.
Jacqueline
That's right. And we have a special guide to help us with this conversation today.
Sophia Smith-Galer
Hello, I'm Sofia Smith Gala. I'm a journalist, author and Tik Tok creator based in London.
Jacqueline
We were introduced to Sofia on Tik Tok alongside her 400,000 followers. Her videos have been viewed over 100 million times. She was named on Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2022. In 2021, she won Innovation of the Year for her tick tock journalism at the British journalism awards. And we'll recently named her on your list of 25 most influential women in the UK.
Effy
Alongside her royal highness Queen Elizabeth the Second no less.
Good list. Yeah. I want to I never want to be on the on the list. But I want to be on that this nice little queen. Yes, please.
Jacqueline Misla
I love the idea that the Queen and her folks are looking at the list and seeing who else is on the list. And then reading about Sofia's work. I think that that's man loved. And I love that
Effy
her book losing it sex education for the 21st century is a reminder that even in 2022, we are still living the shadow of these myths that have been around for centuries. It is surprising to me, but it is where we are. And I really appreciate her effort in trying to continue to fight this misinformation disinformation out there. So we started first asking the question, what exactly is misinformation and disinformation?
Sophia Smith-Galer
Yeah, so misinformation is a word that maybe in the past we didn't hear that much about. And we hear it increasingly because we're all getting a bit more literate about spotting and debunking misinformation in different parts of society. So you might have used it as a word being used when there are political elections, and you hear about one party or one candidate trying to miss inform the public. In this case, that would be disinformation. You know, misinformation, people don't always know that they're passing on information that isn't entirely accurate. We're also used to hearing misinformation being used around the COVID 19 pandemic, for example, and people saying, Oh, actually, this piece of information you've heard, talking about some cures actually not remotely evidence based. For example, we have not heard sex misinformation really, as a phrase not heard things like gender misinformation as a phrase. But any journalist and anyone in our field, right would straightaway tell you that there is so much misinformation, on and offline about sex. And in some cases, as my book charts disinformation, which is the active, mindful attempt to give someone information that is not based on fact, and that is inaccurate, and it's usually done so to support their aims, or their agenda, rather than support the one true agenda, which is one of evidence based truth. So I'm a journalist, I combat misinformation every day as part of my job, to the point that I don't call it that, you know, my job is just to kind of hold power to account or it's to cover stories, which are underreported issues which deserve more attention and indeed action often from people with power. So it was quite natural for me to start looking into this and identify a six misinformation crisis. And then once you identify that the second thing you find is hang on no one is no one really talking about it about this no one's really doing anything on a proper institutional level to fight it. And and so this book is a kind of call to arms to say that this is what happens when you under prioritize and under fund and under Support sex education around the world, you end up with a vacuum of knowledge that leaves all of us vulnerable to misinformation and what does this misinformation do? So each chapter chart is a different piece of sex misinformation, the different Sexsmith the harms that are caused by it, the people who suffer the people who profit and what what the true story is Is No,
Jacqueline
of I imagine that there are certain things that particular Pete bits of misinformation that led you to want to do this exploration do this deep dive right, this book interested in what sparked that? And also, as you were doing the research, were there pieces of information that emerged for you even? And you realize, oh, I've either been misinformed, or have been been told information intentionally. That is not true.
Sophia Smith-Galer
Of course. So the main thing I learned from writing the book was that my assumption beforehand was, wow, yeah, loads of people. I know from past experience, those people get things wrong, right. I know from friend stories. And I know from things in the news, that there's a lot of misinformation. It must be because no one's done any research, you must be because we simply don't know enough about this particular issue. And then I talked to all these experts, I spent all these hours on like Google Scholar and trying to get to grips with all of the research on each topic I tackle. And there's so much of course, there are some areas that are under research, there's no denying that, especially when it comes to the health of people with vaginas evolvers that, you know, that's enormously under research. But time and time again, actually found a plethora of information. So the problem is not so much always that there has not been any research, but more that the right accurate information has not trickled down to the layperson. And that is a huge problem that can only be solved by science communicators, it can't only be solved by the researchers themselves, who already have so much already don't have enough resources or time to kind of think about how can I Instagram story or tick tock my latest paper that's taken up so much energy and time. It really demands response from lots of different areas of society and mass media. The reason I wrote this book, and the reason I first started thinking of Well, there are loads of segments, and many debunking is a mixture of being a journalist, but also just being me like growing up, and the kind of difficulties I faced, and kind of stories that I heard from my friends. So growing up, I went to like an all girls school, you can imagine the kind of stories that travel around an all girls school, where not only were there were there any boys to perhaps counter some of the things we believed in. But my sex education program was really quite poor. In the United Kingdom, like in many other countries around the world, our national curriculum focuses on risk mitigation. And we had a Prime Minister who really introduced an emphasize like a teenage pregnancy strategy to lower teenage pregnancy rates in the UK. And it's left us with this obsession with condoms. And this obsession with don't get pregnant and don't get an STI. And gradually for lots of schools in the United Kingdom, what's been added to that is kind of don't get raped, don't rape someone like really moralistic kind of language, and like scare mongering language that focuses on assaults, and you know, Grievous sexual violence. So lots of us don't eight we don't get any information on. Okay, what does it look like when it's good? But what does it what does success look like when it's a healthy sexual scenario? Or a healthy relationship? What does any of that look like? I didn't really get any information on that. What I got information on was yeah, you know, use a condom. And here under the conversation, I had one external speaker come in. And it wasn't even a particularly religious school. In fact, it was an Anglican school. But for whatever reason, we had a Catholic to a Catholic speaker come in. And she said to us, every time you have sex, you will lose your special blue. And if you lose all your special blue, like no husband will love you. That messaging, but I would have heard I can't quite remember how old I would have been, I was old and intelligent enough to think that's not right. That doesn't sound legit. But I was young and impressionable enough to let it have an effect on me to let it have an impact on what I thought my future sex life was going to look like. And what I may have beforehand, seen as a neutral sex life, looked at now as Oh, is this like promiscuity? Is this is this going to have our people and am I going to make gonna make a moral judgment over how many people I have sex with, you know, those ideas get introduced to us. So early on, and an educational setting should be where that's kind of ripped apart, where social and gender scripts are examined and, and the cracks are shown in them for how damaging they can be for all of us. And instead it was reinforced. I would go on as a young woman to have messaging like this really affected my early sexual maturity, to the point that I was completely underprepared for the realities of of sexual relations. Two shapes and scenarios, the realities of interactions and kind of how to deal with them. I obviously wanted to have sex. But there were instances for example in which I didn't know I could withdraw consent. So now if you're in a good school, hopefully you get taught about consent withdrawal. And that consent is based on a series of interactions. And at any point that you feel like the scenario changes, you can withdraw it. No one told me that I thought it was a one time thing that you cashed in. And my first sexual experience was that I would have withdrawn myself from it had I known I was able to, I was told myths like such should be painful. I believed in all the myths around virginity and the hymen, and that sex was penetrative. I knew absolutely nothing about clitoral stimulation or what pleasure looked like when people with clitoris is. And it was a combination of kind of all of this that led to me developing a psychosexual disorder called vaginismus. And in the book, I talk about the really long winded miserable attempts to get a diagnosis and treatment for that. Luckily, it is now 10 years later, I was able to almost self treat and I now more or less don't have it anymore. But these personal experiences shaped how I feel like a victim of sex misinformation, I feel like a victim of under prioritized sex education. And the minute you start interviewing people about it, so many of us feel the same. And then if you look at the data, let's take for example, nationally representative studies that have been done in the United Kingdom 40% of young women and 26% of young men don't feel that their first time happened at the right time. And one in five young women were not as equally willing as their partners their first time. Statistics like that should horrify us statistics like that suggest really negative sexual health outcomes for lots of people right at the beginning of their sexual maturity, which we know again from research is likely to lead to lower sexual function down the line if your sort of early experiences are negative rather than positive. So yeah, it was a mix of understanding, I wasn't the only one that loads of us kind of have our own stories or interactions. And we all however, have the same refrain, which is, why didn't you teach us better? Why aren't you teaching us better? Now, as adults? Now I'd like to I'm going to be a lifelong learner. Now, hopefully, I'll have sex the rest of my life, there's plenty still to learn. And there's plenty of misinformation many of us still carry, when are we going to get a chance to unlearn that, and when on future generations, hopefully never going to have to unlearn a thing, because we teach them correctly in the first place.
Effy
We talk about sex as a hobby on the show, because of exactly what you're saying, which there's just so much to learn. And there's so much to explore. And there's so much fun to be had, there is a way of looking at sex as this like endless exploration and discovery and adventure. And hopefully with the right information out there that that is it is a fun, fun adventure that you get to learn about yourself, your partner, the experience itself, that it is a beautiful, rich experience for everyone. But I do agree with you. I think there are so many myths out there. I'm curious to just why you think there's so much misinformation and disinformation out there. What purpose do you think is serving?
Sophia Smith-Galer
This is such a good question. I think that from the myths that I address in the book, in many cases, belief in these myths supports the status quo that often supports patriarchy. And despite calls for gender equality across the world, some places are doing frankly, doing better than others in seeing sex myths and where they live. So a great example of that would be how virginity testing may be banned in some countries. And in other places. They're not only not banned, but they might be supported by state systems also engaging in them. Today, while I'm covering a news story of femicides in the Middle East, for example, a story I covered of a woman who had been killed by someone who had harassed her for a really really long time and proposed to her she'd rejected it. She's gone to the police to try and get support for it. And no one really helped her. This is a young woman in Egypt. Her autopsy involved a virginity test. And subsequent media reports about her murder mentioned focus on the virginity test. Actually, they should probably be focusing on increasing femicide rates in the Middle East, which this summer is suggesting because they've simply been so many that that is a state and judicial system. You know, still using virginity testing. So of course, you're still going to have members of the population believing that this completely pseudo scientific evidence lacking practice isn't pseudo scientific, you're going to believe it has medical scientific validity. So that's an example of how loads of them are upheld. I think we also know from in the book when I explored the consent myth, and I address I mean, I wrote the book in 2021. We knew about kind of masculine like bro podcasts already at that point. But I think they've really reached a higher level in conversation at the minute because of Andrew Tate and figures like that. But I listened to this podcast that obviously didn't care that much about consenting, female partners, and was really focused on on just how can you convince women to sleep with you. And I think in that instance, persuading and coercing, because for those individuals involved is conceived as a way where they're going to get what they want, they wouldn't have time for the sort of reading the chapter I've written, because it doesn't suit what they want. And so this comes down to quite a hyper individualized level as well of if you really, really want something and you really, really feel pressure to do something. Are you going to care that actually, it's not the most ethical thing to do? Are you going to care that you think you're being like persuasive or romantic? And actually, it's coercive? Like do you really care? And and how do we help you to understand how serious something is, when you've been socialized by the world around you to think it's not serious? Or to think that? What's the big deal? So the running theme, I guess, for why there is so much of it is because in so many of the scenarios, it's sanctioned by different places, even in the sexes chapter, where I talk about asexuality and how as an orientation is not considered as an orientation by loads of loads of spaces. You have, in this instance, lots of people who are medically trained pathologizing people who identify as asexual, saying that instead they have a libido problem, or that they could be a hormone or a kind of chemical imbalance. And actually, no, that's just the way that they own it. And it's great that they're the way that they are like, it's great that I'm the way that I kind of thing. In all these instances, it's often sanctioned by a place that hasn't really done the work to remove the idea
Effy
that it makes so much sense. One of the components, I'm curious that, you know, Sex sells, right, we use sex to sell everything. So having sex a little out of reach, makes it a powerful force to feed capitalism on some level. And I think informed individuals that are in charge of their pleasure, aware of the the sort of physicality around sexuality and have have the power to say yes or no, because of the consent practices, kind of takes power away from sex is something that can be used as well. And I think that that might have something to do as well. That's definitely something that I that I think about, like if we're all informed about sex, well informed about sex, we know our bodies, we understand our pleasure, we feel we are empowered to say yes or no and explore in a beta we want to explore, that puts us in in charge. So the visuals of sex or the sex that is used to sell us things aren't that exciting, because we can tell the difference between that. And I guess the access that we have our own sexuality. And the difference from that kind of takes the power away from sex is used as something that that sells us things.
Sophia Smith-Galer
Definitely, I think you're really onto something there. I also think that keeping sex a taboo subject is very useful for people who do not want this power structure to change. If you tell people it's taboo, you're going to keep people like me quiet, you're not going to have me say, blah, blah, blah, there are loads of Smith's, I was actually once told by a colleague that writing a book like this would have implications for my career. And I don't believe that was an attempt to stop me writing it. But it was one to kind of what implications can this have? When I'm talking about our health, our happiness and our human rights, what implications other than good ones are going to come out of this? I really couldn't believe I was being told that by someone who in every other regards, very smart and very, very kind. And I also think that when you debunk sex myths, the people who have most to benefit because the sex myths do the most harm to these groups, or generally, the marginalized. Women are generally way more perniciously affected by sex myths, man, then that's not to say there aren't any that affect men. I'm talking about numbers here. You know, if you are from the LGBT plus community, you are far more likely to be a victim of sets myths, and not have had your sexual rights as fully respected as those who are heterosexual if you debunk sex myths that people who have historically been disenfranchised from their sexual rights from the Human Rights suddenly get them and hold and are empowered to keep hold of them in the face of residual offense from those who have historically had power. So that is possibly another reason why certain power holders do not wish to relinquish what they have.
Jacqueline
You shared a little bit about some of the myths that you learned about and written about in terms of of myths around virginity and reality and consent and sex lessness. And I'm wondering if you can tell us more about those. Can you talk a little bit more about the misinformation that exists and the consequences that that misinformation has?
Sophia Smith-Galer
So I've already alluded a little to the first method of debunking the book, which is virginity, because the first time we have sex becomes mythologized when we're young people, and we're learning about sex. I still have a Google Alert up from when I was writing the book for virginity. So whenever a news article is written, including that word, I read it in the English language. And we think we live in a liberal world, but it is it remains so fetishized, it remains something that still really fascinates people, it remains something that in other parts of the world literally kills people, because they told by their culture, that they need to remain a virgin until they marry and for whatever reason, they're deemed no longer that. And so that's face social consequences. In the book, I look at how, in some places around the world, virginity is still something that is considered an ideal quality in a wife, you know, in a bride, and how this is reflected in bride prices. In the book, I speak to somebody who sold her virginity using a website at online auction, and the mistreatment that she went through this whole process where she thought originally felt empowered in what she was doing. And then, as the process kind of went through, I realized, Oh, hang on a minute, you can argue how can one consent to having sex when they have never had it kind of raised all these thoughts for me that I've never really considered prior to writing the book, having that conversation with her. I immediately explored the hymen myth and the tightness myth which both kind of come out of the virginity myth. Because if you start associating this value, with virginity, whether it's the value that you need to keep it and guarded, and like, save yourself, whether your society believes in the value of, oh my god, it's so lame that you're a virgin, you need to you need to get rid of that. That's still a value. So lots of places are like, Oh, we don't care about Jinty animal, and then you do, you just care about it a little bit differently. I then take that to look at how for lots of women's first times, were given this idea around the hymen that can really terrify us into thinking that sex is going to be painful, terrify us into expecting blood, or into accepting blood or accepting painful sex when that is not remotely what first time sex nor any times that should be like tightness, how the language, the language of tightness, and how many of us are socialized to understand that people's anatomy, looks and feels different depending on their sexual history and activity, which is just again, none of this is evidence based. None of this is backed up by science. And yet these myths proliferate. Many of these myths were reinforced to me by the people closest to me, like people I respected and trust. I once heard a man who in every other aspect I respected and fancied, say, talking about a former sexual partner saying that it felt like they were throwing a sausage down a corridor. I remember being at high school and a girl being called a bucket, because she was deemed to be have insects essentially have had sex with too many boys that was deemed socially acceptable. And you hear this kind of stuff at school, or you hear it during pillow talk. And you just think, oh, wow, I didn't know that. That must be the way it is. Because I trust the person who's saying it to me, or they know more than I do. With sex. It's a common thing with lots of us, especially early on in our sexual maturity. We often assume other people actually know way more than they do. Their expertise is nothing more than Yeah, maybe they've had sex a couple more times than we have. Especially when we're teenagers. We really think like, oh my god, they're like, their gurus. They're experts. They know everything. And it's like, Nope, they're not a doctor, are they? Oh, or they're not they're not a psychotherapist.
Are they actually giving me accurate information. And then after that the book peels into a little more esotericism or rather how we think or perceive of sex as opposed to sort of direct anatomical issues. So I look at penetration, how I was led to believe sex was just penetration and it took way too long to figure out that actually, there's all this other stuff that not only can make you both happy, but can definitely make you happy as like a cisgender woman with a with a clitoris. Because hey, have you heard of clitoral stimulation and what it can do kind of thing. And how not leaving much room or not having much conversation around penetrative sex hurt so many groups, hurts people like me, but it also hurts members of the LGBT plus community who have always had non penetrative sex. It's just people haven't necessarily given them the space to talk about it or learn much about it. And people with disabilities again, who have always had non penetrative sex, and some of whom will be limited to only having non penetrative sex, but have a very fulfilling sex life. As a society, we can be pretty mean about demeaning, that kind of sex, when it can be, it can be good, if not better. And then I look at myths around sex lessness and how people get really deeply misunderstood for not wanting to have sex for choosing periods of celibacy. And in the book, I say how much I hate hate that word. Celibacy has like a history and in religious vocation, that makes it especially like in the English language, like it really doesn't feel fitting for the modern era. It doesn't feel fitting for me as a kind of, yeah, a young woman, leading a pretty liberal life in London, if I wanted to not have sex for three months. I don't think I'm celibate. Like I don't identify as celibate. I want to I want a better word. But that kind of just isn't really one. But I look at that, and that includes people who are asexual, and how go that is not celibacy, do not misunderstand it, celibacy. This is what it is. And this is how it's historically been not only misunderstood, but marginalized, and how how asexual often are, they often can be one of the most misunderstood and mistreated actually orientations often in LGBT plus groups. And lastly, I look at consent because it's kind of the most zeitgeist, it's the word that you hear talked about a lot. Sex education programs are like, rapidly trying to pivot to covering consent better, because in a British context, we've had lots of reviews into schools about how they're harboring cultures of sexual harassment and assault and aren't doing enough about it. So they're kind of going, Oh, my goodness, we need to consent workshops. And it's like, yeah, like they might be useful. But what else are you doing about the culture of the school? And in this consent workshop? Are you literally just scaring young people about rape and assault? Or are you educating them on what power looks like? On what healthy sector relationships looks like? If you're only teaching them what is bad? And you're not teaching them? What is good? How on earth? Are they going to know what's good? How on earth are they going to know what to look out for? And I'll just end this little mini rant on a really cool piece of research that came out this year. So I don't know if I get to write a foreword or things like my paperback publication of the book. So in April, but a piece of research came out that found definitively that pleasure when it's incorporated into sexual health interventions, improve said sexual health interventions. So like I said, right at the beginning about how schools obsess about kind of condoms, don't get pregnant, don't spread STIs sexually transmitted infections. Let's also talk about what does good sex wearing a condom looks like? If we talk about that, you might end up with better uptake of people wearing condoms, for example. So we need to incorporate that into conversations as well. But yeah, that's the kind of scattergun look at the myth. So dress.
Effy
I'm curious, your report and both sides of the pond, UK in the US. Do you notice any major differences? Because I grew up in the EU in the UK, and I went to an all girls boarding school in the UK. So I'm kind of interested and I've been in the US for the last 11 years. So I'm curious what your experience of what you notice between UK and US.
Sophia Smith-Galer
So the biggest thing that particularly relates to my book, is that you in the US you have had a more directed conversation around purity culture, and abstinence education, because you've literally had $2 billion of federal funding into abstinence education, and the fact that different states are capable Live introducing incredibly variant sex education to the point where plenty of them either only teach abstinence, or they are allowed to live out consent, or they are allowed to actually be really mean about the LGBT plus community as suppose, as opposed to educate young people healthily about the wide variety of genders and sexualities they may have or indeed encounter in the big wide world. In the UK, the picture is not like that we have our devolved nations have national curriculums that schools have to stick to. We have had people spread ideas akin to purity culture, but because it's not been federally funded state funders. It's kind of happened under the surface to the point that we've never had the national conversation decrying it. We never had the Britney Spears Miley Cyrus Jonas Brothers purity ring. And then like Disney fallout of all these stars having to you know, they had to be these virginal stars, and then they become grownups and they realize, hang on, I just want to be me, why are you trying to make me do this? We didn't have any of that in in the UK. Whereas both countries do historically come from very Christian ideologies, but it's manifested very differently over the course of British and American history.
Effy
There's more information available available in the US, but less conversation. And I find that in the UK, there is less information available, but there's more conversation. I don't know if that's something that that resonates with you. I feel like in the UK, we talk about sex more freely about who you've had sex with, and whether you know, you shagged someone is kind of more available for conversation. But there isn't as much of this information education, pleasure, education, all that kind of stuff isn't isn't so readily available in the US is kind of vice versa. There's a, you know, if you find them, there are plenty of sex educators a lot of information all that, of course, is misinformation disinformation. But it is not as easily it's not something that you sort of loudly and openly talk about in the pub in the US. I think there are also more books in the I mean, before the content creation, tsunami, I think they're also just more books in the US about sex education.
Jacqueline Misla
I'm wondering if, if you can talk a little bit about the consequence of the both explicit and insidious narratives that exist around sex at some point you you referenced it as being at kind of the level of crises, and something that we really need to take seriously and then have some call to actions around? What are the indicators that help you think we are at a level now where something now needs to be done?
Sophia Smith-Galer
Again, I refer to these phenomenal pieces of data that we have in the UK, which is from a study called nat sound. And it's like this national survey that's done every couple of years to take the temperature of our Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles. And it found that we just think for a moment and get this right, I believe it found that 51% of women and 42% of men, in the last year have had a sexual problem lasting three months or more. So that's over half of women and nearly half of men, anyone who's had a sexual problem, big or small, or even a relationship problem, right? Separate the sex, and we're just talking about relationships big or small. How much of our lives does it take over? How much of our well being in that day or week or month, does it take over? How does it affect our jobs? How does it affect our mental health or physical health? When you start loading all of that on you start realizing, Oh, hang on a minute. This is a massive health issue. That's strange. Why are for example, sexual health services being cut, where they could be made better? That's the context we're dealing with in the United Kingdom. We start thinking, hang on, this is so important. And not only is it not being treated as a massive problem, resources are actually being slowly taken away from it. It's when you start thinking of all those layers that you quickly realize, oh, okay, this is how this is how we got here. And we're going to stay here, unless we figure out a way to make everyone happier and healthier.
Jacqueline Misla
That makes sense to me. I think we did a series at some point around sexual self esteem and talked actually did it too many episodes specifically about the views and the impact of, you know, thinking that the color shape size of your labia is wrong, and the impact of that. And to your point, I think it has effects outside of your physical body certainly had effects around your partner choices, but it starts to then seep into power dynamics, what you allow to happen to your body, what you think about in terms of consent and what you're willing to except because of the way that you think that you look. And so there's so many ways in which we are disembodied and disempowered by thinking that we are wrong. And then to have these points, certainly that's how capitalism works, right? That our lives will be better if our hair is shinier. And so that shampoo in that commercial is my pathway to happiness. And so I think that they're tear you earlier note, there's so much that is for those who benefit from it, there's so much to lose, which is clear why they continue to maintain the status quo, and why it's important for all of us to undermine that. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what can folks do? What is the call to action? What happens next?
Effy
Rather than buying your
Sophia Smith-Galer
book? Of course? Yeah, exactly. So to start with reading books like mine, you know, mine is not the only one. I in fact, there's a suggested reading less at the back of my book, but reading books like mine, especially my one that in each chapter, at the end, I tell you what the truth is, like, I tell you what the evidence based story of version of this myth we can tell ourselves is, so for example, in the first chapter, yeah, you as a young person, and young people now may have been set up to think of first time sex as their singular one time moment, where you change overnight. And you go from having value as one person to having a different value after that act. And that's where the conversation starts and ends. And if you start saying to young people are actually like, when researchers want to look at how healthy and happy you are, they don't look at like, how old were you when you lost it? Or who did you lose it with? Or have you lost it? They don't use the vocabulary of virginity of virginity loss to start with, because it's rubbish. And we shouldn't be saying those words anymore. But they ask you things like, did you use contraception? Did it happen at the right time for you? Were you equally willing? Did you make this decision autonomously? And when we start looking at it as this kind of decision we make as we start picturing how it looks, and how much pleasure when deriving from it and the power that we have? That's a far different story that we could be telling young people and ourselves. If we look at penetrative sex, a really brilliant piece of research that didn't come out all that long ago, I believe it came out in 2021. But in the chapter about penetrative sex, and how it sex does not need to be penetrative or only penetrative. A study was done, where basically a bunch of researchers were like, huh, there are loads of heterosexual women who are working out how to orgasm from penetrative sex, by ensuring clitoral stimulation is involved. And this is one of my tech talks that you might have seen in my series Sex linguistics, but they realized these these things that women are doing don't have a name. So if we figure out what they're doing, take the most popular ones, and name them, women will not only kind of be able to learn how to do them, but partners will know how to do it with women, for women, you can communicate, and you can help fix this kind of heterosexual orgasm gap that exists. So everything about my book is solutions focused. And that's really important. Because otherwise it would be doom and gloom. You know, if you're just sort of talking about this is going wrong, you know, this is also going wrong. And people think this is happening. And it's not. Yeah, it has to be solutions focused as well. And the second thing is, when you encounter misinformation, what's going to be your digital footprint after it, I'm talking digitally, but this is the same for in person too. If someone says, you know, the next time, someone says to me, it felt like throwing a sausage down a corridor, I'm not gonna let that pass. I'm gonna say something. I'm gonna ask them a question. And I'm going to try and work out how it was they got that thought, and take it back and be like, oh, did you know that actually, blah, blah, blah, blah. And obviously, you can only do that from a paste place of being reasonably well informed. So this you start doing these things after you've read books like mine, digital footprint, you see a tick tock that is saying something completely ridiculous about a sector example behind and go in those comments and say, You need to read No, say you can say stuff like read losing it, you can you can link them to one of the studies mentioned in using it so Oh, you know, this isn't actually a thing. This is just a widely believed myth. Like that's why you believe it. It's my I used to believe it. It's not the case. This is actually the reality. What is your digital footprint gonna be? Do you want history to remember you? Do you want your web history to remember you as someone who does nothing about misinformation or do you want it to remember you as taking a little bit of action? That could, I'm not over exaggerating, change someone's life. That is what this information can do. That's all information is it's bits of material that helps us make informed choices about our lives. So when we're given misinformation instead, we aren't empowered to make healthy choices about our lives, we are more likely to make choices that are going to lead to things like negative sexual health outcomes for ourselves and the people that we love around us. We have to do better, we have to make sure that we are making the right decisions and helping other people make the right decisions to Yes,
Jacqueline Misla
I'm just FBI are silently just like nodding over and over it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. All those things, all those things. I think what I heard from you is individual self education, unlearning, and intentional decision making that may be contrary to what we have learned, and social and political pressure for support and funding. And certainly, it sounds like within friendship groups and partnerships and family shifts and language and conversations. And starting early, starting with the with the children in our lives and creating space for dialogue that is not just fear based. We appreciate your time, we are grateful for this conversation grateful for the work that you do a huge part of why this podcast exists is in order to change the noise. And so you are doing a great deal to help that happen. And wondering, before we leave you, you've shared so much about what we should know about the world of sex positivity and our bodies and wondering things spent a few minutes getting to know you a little bit better. And so we have four questions that we'd like to ask. And the first is, what is one piece of advice that you would give to your younger self about love, sex or relationships,
Sophia Smith-Galer
you are in control. And if you don't feel like you're in control, it's because you're not been given enough information. You need to watch a few things and read a few things. And please, please, please just do all of that from like evidence based sources and educators who are widely respected, but you need to self educate in a way that no one's ever told you to. Beautiful.
Effy
What is one romantic or sexual adventure on your bucket list?
Sophia Smith-Galer
Try to find this. This question hard. Because I don't I don't look at my romantic or sexual life as as like not not boxes to tick off. But I I don't look at it as a list of things I must do by the time I die kind of thing. I don't look at it like that.
Effy
Sure. That's okay. And that's a good enough answer. I
Sophia Smith-Galer
don't want that to come across as like as though I am unambitious about it because I am.
Effy
I don't think anybody listening is like
you've taken on one of the toughest subjects. And so I think you're ambitious, in the most positive way. And I totally understand you saying like, I don't think I don't have a list of things I'm going to take off. I just want to like go out there and explore and what and follow whatever it feels good. And then making make a list at the end and saying here are the awesome things I did in my life. So that's 25 Yeah.
Jacqueline Misla
I love it. This feels self evident, but worth asking, how is it that you challenge the status quo.
Sophia Smith-Galer
I don't only do it with writing about sex, and indeed tick talking about sex. I have challenged the status quo lot in the UK by trying to challenge news media into carrying a lot more about like younger audiences. So I've been recognized here for using tick tock and tick tock refining journalism to better reach young people. Because the status quo in the UK, possibly in the US as well and in other countries is that we kind of just assumed the news is so important, and you should watch it and everyone will come and watch it. And I think that news, no that that is really not the case anymore. We need to challenge ourselves as newsmakers and storytellers to do a lot better for young people in busy content feeds. So that's a way to challenge the status quo alongside my work on sex misinformation.
Effy
Beautiful. And last but not least, what are you curious about lately?
Sophia Smith-Galer
Oh, I am curious about linguistic change. So I am a linguist. That's how I began, began life, aged 18 as a language student, but I am getting super interested in language and linguistic change after writing losing it because there's an example in the book that looks at Sweden and how Sweden changed its word for Haman. Because its first word was literally virginity membrane in Swedish. And obviously, you're likely to believe in myths around the hymen. If it's literally called magenta. Remember, they changed the word and not only did they change the word to be more neutral and simply mean vaginal crown Ah, no vaginal Corona. But now fewer people, fewer young people in Sweden believe in the myth. So it's had its effected change. And turns out there are other examples like this. So this is my new research area. So keep your eyes peeled if you like languages stuff about sex and about other things because I keep making content about it. I run my tick tock
Effy
beautiful, and just speaks to me. Arabic language, not
words, words matter. Friends,
Words
matter.
Jacqueline
Agreed. We'll have to have you come back and talk about that. Because yes, yes to all of the things really appreciate your time really appreciate the work that you are doing. authentically, I think I have an 11 year old daughter. And so not only is this important for me, but certainly I think about it as a mom and so I'm grateful. Thank you. Thank you, Sophia. Thank you. If you want to learn more about Sophia Smith galer. You can find her on Tik Tok at Sophia Smith Gala, and on Twitter at Sophia s scaler. Her book losing it sex education in the 21st century is available via our reading list on our website, or at your local or online bookstore. If you've enjoyed this episode, if you have questions, if you have strategies to share if you just want to connect with other foxy listeners that Head to facebook and join our Facebook group at we are curious foxes. We would love for you to save, follow and share the curious Fox podcast share this episode with folks who would enjoy it so that we all can be a part of changing the noise. And if you're still curious, you should become a patreon member for early release of episodes, mini episodes and content that we could not fit into the show. We have done a refresh to our website. You should go on take a look. We are curious Fox is you're gonna find blog post reading list past episodes and so much more. We are curious foxes.com and let us know that you're listening by sharing a comment story question or an episode idea by emailing us or sending us a voice memo to listening and we are curious boxes.com Or you can record a question for the show by calling 646-450-9079
Effy
This episode is produced and edited by Nina Pollack who makes sure the information we distribute is crystal clear. Our intro music is composed by epsa we are so grateful for that work, and we're grateful to you for listening. As always stay curious friends 321 Go
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