Western society has a very troubled relationship with sex. We vilify it even as we glorify it. We’re fascinated, yet repulsed by it. It is one of the most natural things in the world, and yet the versions we’re exposed to by the media are both pornified and sanitised beyond recognition. (And don’t even get me started on sex as a political act, or religious control, or a woman’s right to control what happens to her body, because that’s a-whole-nother article). This is because we, as a culture, have commodified and monetised sex. Rather than being an intimate act between consenting adults of whichever races, orientations, and aesthetic types you please, the media sell us sex as a primarily white, heterosexual activity involving impossibly beautiful people who barely even sweat, let alone stain the sheets with their bodily fluids.*

Now, I recognise that mediasex is designed to titillate, so it’s hardly surprising that we’re being presented with squeaky-clean beautiful people who are, after all, nice to look at. But we shouldn’t forget that this kind of sex is also designed to make us feel inferior so that we’ll want to buy stuff – like fabulous lingerie, or good sex guides, or gym memberships. We, the viewer, are meant to watch these beautiful bodies engaged in sexual activity and become aroused, even as we compare ourselves and find ourselves wanting. And this is harmful. Women, especially (but not exclusively), are putting their sex lives on hold because of anxieties over their own appearance. Can we process, just for a minute, how messed up that is? We are denying ourselves pleasure and intimacy because we have internalised what the media tells us is beautiful and sexy. We are telling ourselves that we don’t deserve sex because we don’t look like Emily-flippin’-Ratajkowski!