Free Sex

How would housing justice help our sex lives? My guest in this episode is Alva Gotby, a writer and housing organiser. She is also the author of the new book Feeling at Home , which is all about housing politics. Alva’s idea is we can’t talk about free sex without talking about housing — the spaces where we live have a huge impact on the kind of sex we’re able to have. I talked with Alva about...

How can we prioritise pleasure? My guest in this episode is Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin , a writer and queer community organiser. Having just written a book about the politics of pleasure, called Roses for Hedone , Prishita has a lot of deep thoughts about how we could structure our societies so we can pursue pleasure. You can see why I wanted to speak to them! It might be self-evident that a world...

What’s stopping us from flirting? My guest in this episode is Alice McKee , a playwright and documentary maker. Alice thinks we can build a world where people can have the sex they want if only we were all better at flirting. Are we too full of nerves and anxieties that we can’t even make a goofy joke? In our conversation Alice drew on her work as the writer of a play called Perverts. It’s set in...

Can men use AI to learn how to seduce women? My guest in this episode is Georgi Dimitrov, founder of an AI platform that helps men to generate a fake woman, and then chat to her. Georgi knows that a lot of straight men struggle with texting, chatting, dating, and sex, and building relationships... But having spoken to Georgi I’m not sure he’s got the right answer. As you’ll hear in the interview,...

To mark the milestone of hitting 50 episodes of Free Sex, I want to add my own idea for how we can build a world where people are free to have the sex they want. My proposal is delightfully simple and appropriately bonkers: let’s put a sex space on every high street in Britain. Yes, I’m serious. No, your granny probably won’t approve. Your neighbour will ask you to sign the petition against it. Th...

How can we educate people so they can enjoy their shameful desires? My guest in this episode is Dug Gaines, who is a living legend. For 50 years Dug has been running the Foot Fraternity , a network for people who love feet. More specifically, Dug himself is into asthenolagnia, which is arousal from perceived weakness, vulnerability, and humiliation — often wrapped up in shame. Having spent half a...

What if we all quit watching influencers and met to discuss sex instead? My guest in this episode is Ruby Rare, who has a bone to pick with the internet. She’s built a huge online audience for her work as a sex educator, author, broadcaster, and public speaker. Ruby’s voice on sex and relationships is essential for our times, and it’s great that people can hear and see her ideas about sex online....

Is group sex the way to a better world? My guest in this episode is Leanne Yau, who runs the @polyphiliablog viral accounts across social media. Leanne is a polyamory educator who, among many other things, wants people to know more about group sex. Leanne told me how group sex and polyamory are different; and then we went on to discuss the social politics of it all. From the question of whether mo...

Are sex events and fetish gear too expensive? My guest in this episode is Matt Skully, who’s a performer, curator, events producer and occasional sex worker. His heart is as big as his desires as dark—and he’s got a long list of ideas that could make sex more financially accessible to people.  Fetish gear costs money, event tickets aren’t getting cheaper, and sometimes you have to travel big,...

Can we find a way to take sex seriously? My guest in this episode is Anastasiia Fedorova , a latex lover and author of a book called Second Skin: Inside the Worlds of Fetish, Kink and Deviant Desire . Anastasiia takes her subject so seriously that she’s built it into her life—and written a whole book about it.  I was fascinated to hear more about the research she’s done for the book, from fet...

What if sexuality wasn’t a spectrum? My guest in this episode is Sari Van Anders , who is a very multi-faceted scientist and thinker. Drawing on her experience in behavioural science and neuroscience, plus gender and queer thinking, Sari and her team have built an incredibly refreshing concept for how we can think of ourselves as sexual beings. We tend to think of our gender and sex as one thing,...

How should we regulate sex clubs? My guest in this episode is Karl Verboten, one of the masterminds behind one of London’s greatest kink club nights, Klub Verboten. Karl told me the story of how Klub Verboten had to fight an archaic licensing system in order to hold parties that are sex-positive and safe at the same time. It’s a really fascinating story to do with local politics, legal regulations...

Are sex-positive people too self-righteous? My guest in this episode is Zachary Zane, a writer whose work focuses on sex and, well, his own experiences as a bisexual slut. Zach literally wrote the book on being a Boyslut . Zach came on Free Sex to talk about how writers like him (and me), and anyone else talking about sex politics, can improve how we talk about sex. If we are hoping to build a wor...

What a dominatrix taught me about universal basic income This is an audio version of an essay from the Free Sex Substack - subscribe now to receive my writing into your inbox, and to support my work. Would you join me in a thought experiment? We all have basic needs, such as food and shelter. And most of us have to cover these ourselves. Even though governments promise to provide our basic needs,...

What if we didn’t need to work to earn money? My guest in this episode is Eva Oh , a dominatrix who wants everyone to have their basic needs financially covered. This was such a philosophical conversation, and I loved it! Eva argues that we can build a world of free sex if we adopt a universal basic income — people would have more time to investigate their own sexuality, instead of having to work...

How can we flip the script on what sex and relationships can be? My guest in this episode is Silva Neves , who is a psychosexual and relationships psychotherapist. Silva sees all sorts of clients with different challenges to do with sex and relationships, so he’s a fascinating person to talk to about free sex. His big idea is that we need to know ourselves without the influences of society. ...

Should we change our sexuality labels? My guest in this episode is Richard Sprott , a psychologist and sexuality researcher. Richard’s been exploring human sexuality for 20 years but says he’s still “at the beginning” of understanding it. His principle, developing, idea is about ‘kink identity’—which could help us to get to a world of free sex. The idea is that our kink identities can be just as s...

Do we all share a communal sexual energy that’s just waiting to be activated? My guest in this episode is Kalah Hill , and she thinks the answer is definitely yes! Kalah works with individuals and groups of people to help them to discover and channel their sexual energies. She’s all about rooting our sexual pleasures in our bodies, our spirits, our ecosystems and our histories. So she was a fascin...

How can we create non-judgemental sex clubs and dancefloors? My guest in this episode is Diana Isi , who is part of the underground queer scene in London. As a DJ, Diana helps to create precious spaces where people come together to feel good, feel sexy, to dance, to commune, to kiss and maybe more. Diana’s vision for free sex is spaces like this, which operate without judgement or labels or catego...

What if... we could suck toes without shame? In this episode, my producer Tash turns the mic on ME to ask me about my foot kink. I’ve just published a new book called Solemates: A History of Our Fetish for Feet, so Tash has a million questions for me about how it can help us to get to a world where we can suck toes without stressing out about it.  Tash and I discuss shame, freedom, what is ac...

This episode is an excerpt from my new book, Solemates: A History of Our Fetish for Feet, published by 404 Ink. You can buy the book from the usual places and direct from the publisher here . If you sign up to my newsletter I’ll send you a PDF of the text of the first chapter as a taster, too. The excerpt is read by me, and it’s the introduction chapter for the book. It introduces my fetish, and m...

What if... we could see everyone’s intimate sexual desires? My guest in this episode is Liam Wignall , a researcher, lecturer and writer specialising in the role of the internet in our sex lives, especially for kinky people. Liam’s got a fun idea: imagine if we all wore some X-ray specs that revealed everyone else’s sexual tastes. Liam thinks we could get to a world of free sex if only our desires...

Why do we desire what we desire? *This episode discusses sexual assault and an alleged case of rape* 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...

How are people with learning disabilities held back from sex? My guest in this episode is Claire Bates who runs a network for people with learning disabilities, supporting them in sex and relationships. Through her work with Supported Loving Claire has tracked all the ways that people with disabilities are held back from the sex they want to have — whether it’s discriminatory laws or unhelpful sta...

What if you could have anal sex without the shit? My guest in this episode is Henry Blest, “the most ambitious bottom in London”. It says that on his LinkedIn profile, honestly! Henry and I talked about the realities of anal sex, from the slipperiness of the term ‘clean’ to ‘taboo tech’, which is technology that faces stigma when trying to solve our problems. Henry is one half of a duo who have in...