Our masculinity miniseries has been a little negative up until now (we’re aware of it at least!). But this week that all changes because we’re joined by Ben Hurst – activist, educator, and Head of Facilitation and Training at Beyond Equality – to discuss how we can rethink masculinity. As someone who regularly works with young boys in schools, we talk to Ben about what representation boys see of masculinity. In his Ted Talk, notes that boys will be what we teach them to be, so we talk about what characteristics boys currently associate with masculinity and being a man.  Because toxic re ..read more

Christmas could not have come sooner with this episode as Lovehoney has sent us their 24-Day Advent Calendar to try and we’re opening it with their resident sexual wellness advisor, Sarah Tomchesson!  We start the episode telling Sarah what we’re experimenting with in our sex lives, before diving into the calendar to find different sex toys, from vibrators, to butt plugs, cock rings and restraints.  Sarah talks us through how to use different sex toys in versatile ways, whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned user. We learn a lot about how adaptable different sex toys can be, as we ..read more

In the second episode of our Masculinity miniseries, we unpack everything to do with male friendships. While it comes as no surprise to some of us, the fact that men don’t have supportive friendships has been in the news a lot of late, with claims that there’s a male friendship recession and that men are lonelier than ever. After years of wondering what men talk to their friends about, we thought we’d find out for ourselves. In the process, we’ve probably lost all of our (admittedly, very few) male friends by asking them endless questions about their friendships. We start by talking about me ..read more

Welcome to the first episode of our Masculinity miniseries!  Masculinity has been under scrutiny the last few years: on one side, there are claims that masculinity is “toxic”, “fragile” or “in crisis”, and on the other there are those who claim “not all men” are responsible for this poor perception of masculinity.  While we fully support bad behaviour being held to account here at Sextras, we wanted to discuss what masculinity really means to gen z in 2023. Is masculinity good or bad? Is it always related to men? What are the characteristics of masculinity? And is masculinity reall ..read more

In even the most accepting of households, children pick up on their parents’ beliefs about sex. If that includes restricting sex or teaching that it is inherently bad, that can lead to sexual shame that persists throughout our lives and shows up not just in our sex lives, but also in our entire emotional wellbeing.  This week, we’re joined by spiritual and sexual psychologist Kaamna Bhojwani to talk about healing sexual shame through spirituality. Kaamna starts by telling us what sexual shame is, where it comes from and how it shows up in our lives. For women, and older women particularl ..read more

There are so many stereotypes about Gen Z it’s hard to keep track of where they’re really at: they’re a sexless generation, they’re the most sensitive because they have a victim mentality. They want to be parents, they don’t want to have babies because they’re worried about the planet; they’ll be the best parents… oh no, wait, they’ll be the worst.  But parenting has changed a lot over the years and what went for one generation can completely change for another. With all the unpacking of toxic masculinity, changing attitudes towards work and greater acceptance of LGBTQIA+ identities, we ..read more

Raising kids is hard in a bunch of different ways, but one of the main things parents dread is having the inevitable “talk” with their children. How do you have the talk, when should you have it, what is appropriate to say: these are all questions that nobody really gives parents the answers to. But what if that one, all-important moment never needed to happen, because kids got the information they needed as they needed it growing up? Author of the incredible resource Shameless Parenting: Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident Kids and Heal, Dr Tina Schermer Sellers, joins us this ..read more

After having a literal human come out of you, getting little to no sleep and suddenly being entirely responsible for another human being is not exactly conducive to new parents’ sex life. But when you are at a point where you want to start having sex again, what do you do? Cecile Gasnault, brand director of Smile Makers Collection, joins us this week to tell us all about the research the company has done into having sex after birth.  Mothers - being the ones who have actually given birth - are often worried about having sex after birth and the research shows that they aren’t given nearl ..read more

TW: substance abuse, anticipatory grief We’ve all been sold the idea that you’re meant to experiment in your 20s, something that our guest this week missed out on. Author and professor Jessica Hendry Nelson joins us to talk about being in a relationship for the whole of her 20s and eventually ending that relationship because of differing interests. Jessica starts the episode telling us about her unconventional experience of her 20s, living with her ex-husband and the fact that they didn’t talk about having kids until it was too late. Having had a baby with her new partner just 10 weeks ago ..read more

In the 100th (!) episode of the podcast, we reflect on why we always talk about sex, consent and relationships.  We started the podcast three years ago and what we thought as 20 year olds about how we should talk about sex was very different to now, so we unpack how helpful it’s been to have close friend who talk about sex and why it can be hard to talk about sex but that it’s vital we do it anyway.  Just as it’s normal to have sex - everyone does, shocker - but it’s also normal to talk about having sex and we need to keep doing it so that everyone feels validated to express when t ..read more