Emma-Louise Boynton

What drove you to start Sex Talks?

When I was 28 I started sex therapy because I had a terrible relationship to sex which, after session number 1, I realised was rooted in the bad relationship I had with my body. This process changed everything. One of the first things my sex therapist said to me was ‘how can you expect to feel pleasure during sex when you’re constantly waging war against your body?’ In her therapy room I was handed a new lens with which to see my body as we spoke about pleasure rather than pain, sexual exploration rather than the bodily punishment I was used to.

I never thought I would run a media business focused on sex and I could never have imagined that I’d become so open in discussing such intimate details about my private life. But learning how to get curious about my relationship to sex, to explore my sensuality and sexuality and the different ways in which my body can experience pleasure – it profoundly changed how I see my body, and myself, and released me from what felt like the permanent mental prison I erected at just 12 when my eating disorder began.

I set up Sex Talks because I wanted more people to have access to the sort of conversations and insights I had in the sex therapy room since I felt certain they could prove as transformative for others as they were for me.

I now speak to experts working across the sex and wellness industry, and beyond, as I seek to deepen my own understanding of the power of sex and sensuality, as well as the broader role and significance the taboos around this topic play in our wider society.

What is your mission with Sex Talks?

My mission is to spark more open and honest conversations around these typically taboo topics – sex, gender, intimacy – and remove the shame that so many of us feel about our relationship to our bodies. So, out of the pain and shame that surrounded my relationship to my body, has come my proudest achievement to date: Sex Talks.

Building a brand around taboo topics like sex can be challenging. What are your tips for starting safe, open conversations?

I think the notion of emotional safety, which is what I think we’re talking about here, is a tricky one because feeling emotionally safe is a subjective experience – it means something different to everyone. Nonetheless, the important thing for me is approaching every conversation from a position of curiosity and never judgement, being mindful to always use inclusive language and ensuring that a diverse range of voices are continually being included in discussions.

To state the obvious, I’m a posh, white woman, which gives me a specific and somewhat limited perspective and body of experiences when it comes to the broad range of conversations we have at Sex Talks. It also means I have blind spots. And that’s inevitable, we all have blindspots. But what I hope is then obvious in the way I curate and run Sex Talks is that I am always looking to reflect a range of voices and experiences in discussions by way of my interviewees. That, I think, is the key thing when it comes to starting conversations around topics we don’t typically discuss openly.

I also recognise that I’m going to make mistakes and there are going to be shortcomings, not least because you can never represent every single position and viewpoint in one conversation. But I am always prepared to throw my hands up and admit when I get something wrong, and that is also key. In starting or facilitating conversations around taboo topics you have to be willing to get things wrong and then own that and learn from your mistakes. So, stay curious, stay respectful and seek to constantly be learning from people outside of your bubble world.

Are there any storytellers you admire for the way they’re engaging with sex?

This is such a great question, I’ve never been asked this before. Over the summer I, like seemingly everyone else I know, became enthralled by Miranda July’s latest novel, All Fours. I found it refreshing for many reasons, chief amongst them that we seldom read, or watch or hear about the sexual desires and passions of women in that pre-menopausal stage of life. Ours is a society that puts such a premium on youth that we tend unconsciously, sometimes consciously, to desexualise people as soon as they’re above about 40, women in particular, which is ludacris.

Our relationship to sex changes and evolves as we get older – often I think in quite beautiful ways, as we get more comfortable in our bodies and shrug off some of those pesky layers of shame that get stuck to us from a young age – and this is something to celebrate rather than shy away from.

July’s protagonist, from whose perspective the book is written, is consumed by her sexual desires and relatable in how delusionally she projects these desires onto the object of her fancy (Davey). Despite the fact her chaotic nature grows grating at times, I felt genuinely thrilled reading about a woman so alive in her sexuality, and so selfish in her pursuit of carnal lust. As author, Elise Loehnan, writes in On Our Best Behaviour, while women are trained for goodness, men are trained for power, but in All Fours our protagonist isn’t even pretending to be good. She is prioritising her pleasure, her needs, her wants above everything and everyone else. However problematic you may find this (and I did, often) I think we need more flawed female protagonists who are sexual and desirous entirely for themselves, rather than for the gaze of others.

For everyone who has read All Fours, I have to also admit that I found the tampon scene probably the most erotic literary scene I’ve read in so long. And they didn’t even fuck!

When you think about hypey brands, you think about queues for Peachyden or Supreme. How do you convince brands that putting those people to good use – planting trees, painting a school, cooking for the elderly – won’t lose them their hype status?

Another great question and an interesting thought experiment. If I imagine Sex Talks as a person my mind jumps instantly to Esther Perell who, naturally, I love. She embodies an array of characteristics I imagine Sex Talks The Person would embody too, like an infinite, calm curiosity; a considered and thoughtful approach to conversation; a constant desire to understand rather than judge others; a keen interest in the complexity and intrigue of the human experience and a longstanding commitment to use her skillset to make that experience better for others. Sex Talks The Person would certainly want Esther Perell at her dinner table, alongside the likes of Alain De Botton, Oprah, Paul C. Brunson, Sara Pascoe, Cindy Gallop, Erika Lust and bel hooks (if we could tempt her back to this world), to name a few. As a host they would be warm and open and welcoming and kind. There would be an open-door policy because I am a firm believer in the more-the-merrier and cannot stand the idea of anyone feeling left out of the party, or worse, eating alone when there is always room at the table for one more.

In your experience, what are some of the biggest taboos we face as a society?

Death, sex and ageing. All inevitable parts of the human experience yet all things we flinch at the mention of and typically shy away from discussing openly.

Are there any other brands you admire for de-stigmatising taboo topics?

Gosh yes so many! I love Maude, a sexual wellness brand run by the absolute powerhouse Éva Goicochea. I love how they’ve built a really (gender)  inclusive brand that is all about highlighting how our sexual wellness is a key part of our overall health and wellness, which is a message we need to reinforce more often.

I also love SheSpot, which creates curated packages of sexual wellness products; Make Love Not Porn which is championing better sex education and more inclusive representations of sex online; Erika Lust who makes porn through a female lens and showcases how erotic, sensual and female-pleasure-focused porn can be (in opposition to the often fetishising and misogynistic content that is so readily available on the major, free porn sites online); and Knude which is another female-led sex toy brand that creates really fab products.

Do the brands ever have concerns? What are they and how do you respond?

Yes, of course. We help steer them to make sure it works for them, their community and cause. They worry people can game the system (they can’t but will try as we get bigger), whether the impact is measurable (it is) and sometimes worry about the perceptions of asking their consumers to think about negative things. But as we saw with River Cafe, luxury brands can and do engage with us, and people love and respect them for it.

You’ve done some collaborations with brands. What questions should brands be asking themselves before hosting community events?

Firstly, why am I hosting this event? What do I want the outcome to be and is this the best way of achieving that? Events take so much work and planning so you always want to make sure that you’re super clear on what you’re looking to get out of it and what you want your attendees to get out of the experience too.

Next, if they’re hosting an interview then really think about the narrative arc of the conversation. One of the reasons I set up my previous company, Her Hustle, as a live event series was because I was so sick of going to events with poorly thought out panels that seemingly had no real, overarching point. Panels should never just be big-name-bums-on-seats. What’s the point in that?

I think it’s important to approach a panel like an article and really think about the why behind the discussion, and map out the beginning, middle and end.  How do you want your audience to feel after the talk? What do you want them to walk away talking about? This is where a really great moderator comes in because they’ll plan and structure the conversation in a way that  creates a conversational flow, allowing for interesting tangents while always bringing the conversation back to the main point. It’s hard to keep people’s attention for 45 mins to an hour which is why you need to stay clear on where the conversation is going. I’d like to think that’s my primary skill-set and the reason why Sex Talks has continued to draw in a wonderful, engaged audience.