The Politics of Desire: The Sex Education I Got from Philosophers (That I Wish I Got in High School)

Our desires, our turn-ons, our ideas of sex… where do they come from? And who benefits from them?

 

Because sex isn’t just an act. It’s an archive of cultural conditioning.

 

This episode is a crash course in feminist philosophy, critical theory, and the tangled relationship between sex, power, and culture. From shitty sex ed classes to porn culture, internalized scripts to embodied autonomy, we’re asking the uncomfortable questions we’re usually too afraid to voice.

 

We’ll talk consent beyond the yes/no binary, porn as both a mirror and a script for the world, self-objectification, BDSM, beauty standards, and what it means to actually be empowered, not just perform it.

 

I weave in insights from thinkers like Amia Srinivasan, Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Bauer, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, and try to offer a new language for those of us who’ve felt confused, ashamed, or alone in our questions around desire.

 

This is for the curious. The conflicted. The ones unlearning in real time. If that’s you, then you’re in the right place.

 

📚 Mentioned in this episode:

• The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan
• The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
• Works by bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Nancy Bauer, and more

 

💭 Three questions I leave you with:

1. What shaped the way you see sex, power, beauty, and desire?
2. What does empowerment feel like in your body and how do you know it’s yours?
3. What cultural scripts have you internalized and which are you ready to rewrite?

 

If philosophy teaches us anything, it’s this: We have a responsibility to ask the hard questions, especially the ones without neat answers.

 

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