The Philosophy of Sex

Today’s guest is Dr Avgi Skatepolou, author of “Sexuality Beyond Consent; Risk, Race and Traumatophilia”. 

Avgi maintains that society has become overly focused on healing trauma and needs to reroute its attention to what subjects do with their trauma. She calls attention to a series of challenging questions: Why is sexuality beyond consent worth risking, and how does risk become a way of engaging with the opaque parts of o...

Back in March, we hosted our first live event with Australia's leading architecture commission, MPavilion. This week, we're releasing the recording with you all.

This conversation explores how design impacts our most intimate moments and how technology can be designed as a catalyst for connection. To help investigate, Caroline invited three panellists; RMIT professor and sex toy designer Judith Glover, founder of sexual wellness...

The Philosophy of Sex, season two is here! In this episode, we’re exploring the complex relationship between sexuality and religion. You’ll hear from three religious leaders who’ve worked hard to reconcile their beliefs and their sexualities; Rabbi Denise Eger, Imam Mushin Hendricks, and Minister Josephine Ipkin. 

These three religious leaders defy expectations of what it means to exist within their respective faiths and sh...

Has anyone ever called you ‘anal’, or maybe suggested you have ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ issues? Perhaps you’ve been the one to dish out these titles. 

For all these terms, we have Sigmund Freud to thank. Freud is widely regarded as the founder of psychoanalysis, a field of theory and therapy that grapples with the unconscious mind. In modern times, Freud is also often regarded as a woman-hating cokehead. 

His work has bee...

Hey, hello. Caroline here. After a brief hiatus, we’re back with another episode of The Philosophy of Sex! In this episode, I discuss sex and law with author, journalist, and activist, Bri Lee. 

A lot has changed within Australian consent law in the last 12 months. In June, NSW enacted affirmative consent laws that require people to give and obtain consent before sex. Victoria followed suit a few months later. After a dishe...

The contraceptive pill has an interesting and, at times, ethically dubious history. Biologists John Rock and Gregory Pincus team up to develop the birth control pill, funded by two million dollars from philanthropist Katharine Dexter McCormick and spurred on by contraceptive crusader Margaret Sanger. 

For years Pincus had been searching for a project that might establish his greatness. While there were many possible risks i...

In September 2021, the International Organisation for Standardisation (or ISO) published its first design and safety requirements for sex toys after a two-year project.

The ISO project was kicked off by, today’s guest, Swedish surgeon Dr Martin Dahlberg, who realised he was increasingly performing operations to remove sex toys lodged in people’s rectums.

Martin is a surgeon at the Södersjukhuset Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden....

Today we’re talking about sex and technology. The world’s relationship with technology is complex and ever-changing. Dating apps, the pill, and digital mass porn, to name only a few, are technological innovations that have radically impacted our sexual lives and how we relate to each other. 

Technological innovations often inspire fear. Socrates worried about writing replacing oral culture. The hunter-gatherers probably moa...

According to Pornhub data, Australia ranks 7th in the world for porn consumption. With data from other sources suggesting the average age of first consumption of porn is nine, it’s easy to see why porn use has become a contentious issue. So what gives porn its allure? What makes watching specific videos enticing? In light of what porn has the potential to reveal about human nature, can porn ever be merely entertainment? 

To...

Welcome to The Philosophy of Sex. Today we’re talking about consent. The idea of affirmative consent first attracted attention in the early 1990s. Since then, consent laws have been passed in a number of countries. Alongside legislation, women are often told to know what they want and know how to communicate this to their partners. While women asserting their pleasure sounds positive, it assumes communication guarantees safety and ...

On the face of it, the sex industry appears to be a sex-positive haven. Growing rapidly, it's become a highly competitive industry and an attractive investment opportunity for those with a buck or many to spare. However, with this comes the expected; individuals willing to put profit over honesty and integrity. Despite appearances, the sex toy industry in Australia and elsewhere is hugely male-dominated. Greenwashing is quickly bec...

Have you ever thought about the relationship between time and pleasure? Sex and pleasure are temporal experiences, meaning how we relate to time can impact how frequently we experience pleasure both while we’re having sex, and when we’re not. 

As Philosopher Willam James suggested, time is something we can sense. “A day full of excitement will pass ‘ere we know it.’ On the contrary, a day full of waiting, of unsatisfied des...

It’s likely that at some point, you’ve found your morals have felt incongruent with a sexual scenario you’ve found yourself in. While this can feel pretty blindsiding, what would it mean to stop and think about it? Damon Young is an award-winning philosopher and author of “On Getting Off”, a book about sex and philosophy. In the book, Damon urges us to grapple with the complexity of sex in an honest and self-deprecating way.&n...

Gloryholes have long been associated with gay culture. As a great way to maintain anonymity in contexts where gay sex is illegal or socially unacceptable, they come from a history of persecution. 

However, they're certainly not a new thing. There is evidence Gloryholes existed in ancient Greece, Egypt, and Japan, before being exported to Europe in the 1700s. Given their history of concealment, it shouldn't come as any surp...

Welcome to The Philosophy of Sex, long-play. This week, we’re speaking with Janet Hardy from the sixth episode of season 1 ‘Hardcore tenderness. Reinterpreting what we think about kink and BDSM.’ 

Janet W. Hardy is the author or co-author of thirteen books about alternative sexuality, including the groundbreaking bestseller The Ethical Slut. She is also the Founder of the Greenery Press, a publishing house based in California, speci...

Welcome to The Philosophy of Sex, long-play, I’m your host Caroline Moreau-Hammond. You might remember the name Lisa Wade from our first episode of season 1 ‘Are we doing it right?Putting sex into perspective’. 

Professor and Sociologist, Lisa Wade is an associate professor at  Tulane University in New Orleans where she teaches gender and sexuality studies. Before receiving her PHD in sociology at The University of Wisconsin-Madison...

Welcome to The Philosophy of Sex, long-play, I’m your host Caroline Moreau-Hammond. You might remember the name Jeanne Proust from our third episode of season 1 ‘Why is sex still taboo?’. 

Professor and Philosopher, Jeanne Proust (no relation to Marcel Proust) is a post-doctoral teaching fellow at Fordham University and an adjunct professor at New York University and Pace University in the United States. She has studied Philosophy a...

You might remember Euphemia Russell from our first episode ‘Are we doing it right? Putting sex into perspective’.  This is the full-length uncut version of our interview with Euphemia.

Euphemia Russell is a pleasure coach, facilitator and author.  In this conversation we examine wants and desires, social conditioning, inherited gender binaries, slow pleasure, and the unsexy reality of sex.

Visit Euphemia’s website...

Would you consider yourself kinky or maybe more vanilla? Have you ever wanted to explore the world of BDSM, but felt a bit lost and intimidated?

In this episode, we explore the softer side of kink. By deconstructing some of the many misunderstandings surrounding kink and BDSM, we begin to see kink in a whole new light. 

Along with Professional Dominatrix and Gestalt Therapist Emma Steel, and author Janet Hardy, we traverse the nuance...