Pleasure, recovery and the right to talk about sex

Pleasure, recovery and the right to talk about sex

After spending the evening at Hello Nancy’s Women Come First event, celebrating the sale of their millionth Lem, I was reminded that pleasure is not frivolous. For many women, it is part of recovery, rehabilitation and finding themselves again.

The Lem is a small clitoral suction toy that I often introduce in intimacy workshops for women after cancer. After surgery, cancer treatment and cancer-induced menopause, reconnecting with your body can feel impossible. Supporting that reconnection matters.

What sits beneath the laughter

On the face of it, the evening was fun — meeting brilliant people whose work I admire and watching important conversations move closer to places where they can influence change. Underneath the laughter, though, was evidence of something more serious.

The event team reportedly lost two venues because of concerns about its content. We heard about the abuse received for speaking publicly about solo sex, relationships and sex education, and about the career backlash that can follow when women reclaim their bodies for themselves. Society is often comfortable with women’s bodies existing for others, but uneasy when women assert sexual autonomy.

The language of autonomy

Again and again, the same questions emerged: who gets to talk about pleasure, who is allowed to experience it, and why is women’s sexual autonomy still so often confused with promiscuity or moral failure? One line has stayed with me: “The universe is only in balance when women are in pleasure.”

Whether or not you agree with that sentiment, we would all be healthier if we were better at talking about sex: if we had the language to consent, to ask, to instruct, to decline, to change our minds and to seek pleasure without shame. Those conversations belong in clinics, classrooms, homes — and absolutely in Parliament too.