(Sarah Feldbloom)

Transcription by Vidhya Elango

Sex can be great! But it can also be scary. This episode of the podcast explores how sexual education should be set up, and what it might offer if it were to adequately support us in developing a healthy and grounded orientation toward physical intimacy. You'll hear from four people about how they've learned about sex throughout their lives, and what sex means to them - all the good, bad, and in-between things about it

Take a listen here:

For a transcription of 'Sex Ed' read on:

Sarah Feldbloom: Hi there! Welcome to the podcast! I'm Shameless Magazine's Web Producer Sarah Feldbloom. As you may already know the issue of our print mag that's on stands right now is about education. Learning is part of everything we do. On today's podcast, we're going to talk about how its part of sex. Sex can be great. In our better moments it can feel empowering and satisfying to learn about it, and take part in it. But those processes can also be confusing, scary, full of grey areas, and lot's of other things. In this episode you're going to hear from four people about how they've learned about sex throughout their lives, and what sex means to them - all the good, bad and in-between things about it.

[Sound up on interview]

Toni: My name is Toni, I'm from Toronto, but originally from South Africa. I am 27 years old, I identify as a woman and I am straight.

Sarah Feldbloom: What does sex mean to you?

T: Sex is a pleasurable physical experience between two or multiple individuals. For myself, it is a pleasurable experience of a sexual nature with one individual.

SF: What do you wish that you had been told before you’d had sex?

T: Definitely for myself, sex is so much in my head. Like, the experience of sex, it’s all about my thoughts. So, if I’m having sex with someone, and I’m so distracted because I have a deadline the next day or an assignment the next day, that is very distracting for me. So mentally I have to shut down in order to really get into it, because a big part of enjoying and being in that moment is about the thoughts that I’m having. So, I don’t know if that’s, sort of, an experience for many women, that sex is so much part of our minds, and I wish that, that sort of thing was talked about more.

I wish I had been told not to expect, like, doves flying around me, and rainbows. I think I also had read too much Mills and Boons when I was a child. It’s a romance series, kind of like the Harlequin series. So, somehow in my mind, all of these ideas around the first time included violins playing softly in the background and this, like, transcending, transcendental - is that what it is? - moment [laughs]. So, anyways, I expected some of that, I think. So, I just - I wish someone had given me a dose of realism and said, listen, it’s probably not going to be that good that first time.