Sex Talks: Where To Start With Sexual Self-healing

Sex Talks is the new monthly event series focused on fostering more open and honest conversations around sex and the female pleasure taboo. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/should-sex-shame-and-stis-where-to-start-with-sexual-self-healing-tickets-328264005477 **The event** - Have you ever felt 'broken' because you don't enjoy sex like your friends seem to? - Did you grow up associating sex with shame, particularly when it came to masturbating? - Do you ever find yourself unable to say what you really want during sex? To give voice to what would really feel good, resigning instead to let your sexual partner carry on doing that really quite underwhelming thing you don't like? - Are you curious to explore something new with a partner - a new sex position, a threesome, polyamory, perhaps - but don't know how to bring it up? - Do you find it hard to be vulnerable in intimate situations because you've been hurt in the past? - Have you ever had a positive STI result and felt too embarrassed to tell anybody, but unsure what to do next? ... If the answer is 'yes' to any of the above, you are not alone. Sex Talks has been running for a few months now and at the end of every event the same sort of questions always come up - questions around shame, communication, sexual insecurity, what is 'normal' in sex... They bear testimony to the universality of so many of the worries and anxieties many of us feel so alone in holding with regard to sex - not least because so few of us have had proper sex education, but were forced instead to fill in the gaps ourselves with porn, TV, and whatever our friends told us. Then, well, we were left to learn on the job, for better or for worse. So, for this Sex Talks session, I wanted to focus on sexual self-healing and delve into all the things that seem so regularly to f*ck with our f*cking and inhibit sexual pleasure... before getting down to how we actually move past them. **The speakers** *Florence Bark - sex and relationships expert, co-creator of Come Curious, and co-host of the 'F**ks Given' podcast.* Florence is the queen of who speaks to millennials and young people with honesty and humour. Using her own experiences as (often painful) gold, Florence focuses her work of digging right to the heart of what it means to live in pursuit of a genuinely fulfilling and growth-inspiring love and sex life. She is the co-creator of Come Curious, a leading British sex and relationships YouTube channel, which has over 212k subscribers and co-hosts their award-winning podcast, ‘F**ks Given.’ The show has over 2.5 million listens on episodes exploring everything from polyamory and fetishes to STIs and having difficult conversations with your partner. Suffice it to say, she knows a think or two about sexual self-healing. Find her on insta @florencebark and @comecurious & *Rukiat Ashawe - award-winning sex educator, published writer and sociologist-in-the-making.* Following a herpes diagnosis, Rukiat had to confront her own shame around STIs and in so doing, realised we need to provide better sex education for young people. As a sex educator, she is determined to de-stigmatize sex and sexual health, and encourage others to be more sex-positive. Her approach is research-based, pleasure-focused, inclusive and misogynist free. Find her on insta @__rukiat **The rundown** 6:30pm: Arrival and drinks 7pm: Discussion starts 8:15pm: Anonymous q&a when I invite you to put all your sex qs and sex woes to my brilliant panel 9pm: Event finishes Tickets include a complimentary drink on arrival. Can't wait to see you there! Emma-Louise