Virginity, Penetration and Other Sex Myths with Sophia Smith Galer

Doing It! with Hannah Witton

Hannah Witton

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.8 • 653 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Sophia Smith Galer, who is an award-winning journalist, author of Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century, and Tiktok creator. Sophia unpacks the main sex myths she tackles in her book from virginity to the hymen, and also shares how she identified the gap in social sex education to start with. She and Hannah talk about Sophia’s journey into becoming a TikTok journalist as well as social media’s censorship of sex education and how Sophia hopes SexTok can continue to help us and the next generation with sexual, mental, and physical health. Finally, Sophia shares a personal story of vaginismus, and Sophia and Hannah discuss why sex education should never come from just one person.

CW: discussion of consent nuances, consent withdrawal, and non-consensual sex. (roughly between 22 - 24 minutes). A brief mention of self-harm.

✨MORE ABOUT SOPHIA SMITH GALER ✨
Sophia Smith Galer is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and TikTok content creator with over 100 million views on the app. Credited with pioneering TikTok journalism in the UK, she has been named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list this year for her work as well as in Vogue's list of 2022's 25 most influential women in the UK alongside Emma Raducanu, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and HRH Queen Elizabeth II. As a Senior News Reporter at VICE World News she has covered everything from gender violence and technology to the climate crisis and Europe's Christian hard right, and this year published her first book debunking what she has branded a worldwide sex misinformation crisis. Losing It: Sex Education for the 21st Century is out now, debunking sex myths surrounding virginity, penetration, virility, sexlessness and consent. The Evening Standard, who called Sophia a 'Face to Watch' in Books this year, said: ‘It’s the kind of book that makes you wonder, ‘why wasn’t this written before?’ It could change lives.’

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the summer of loving long days, warm nights and all things that sizzle.
0:05.4	Like M&S, best ever cherry wood smoked pork shoulder poshawks.
0:10.2	100% British beef smashed burgers.
0:13.4	And hot and smoky and doya king prawn skewers.
0:17.3	Stop it, Eminess.
0:18.8	You'll have to pry me away from the barbecue with a spatula.
0:22.7	This is not just food.
0:24.2	This is summer loving M&S food.
0:26.8	Subject to availability, Tis and C's Apply.
0:36.1	Hi everyone.
0:37.1	Welcome back to doing it. The Sex and Relationships podcast where sex has never
0:40.8	been so nerdy with me, your host, Hannah Whitten. This week I'm joined by the magnificent
0:45.7	Sophia Smith Gaylor. Sophia is a multi-award winning journalist, author and TikTok creator
0:51.8	who is credited with having pioneered TikTok journalism in the UK.
0:56.7	She has been named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list this year, as well as in Vogue's list of
1:02.9	2025 most influential women in the UK.
1:07.9	As a senior news reporter at Vice World News, she has covered everything from gender violence
1:12.4	and technology to the climate crisis and Europe's Christian hard right. This year, she published
1:18.4	her first book, Losing It, Sex Education for the 21st Century, tackling what she calls a worldwide
1:25.4	sex misinformation crisis, debunking sex myths surrounding virginity,
1:30.1	penetration, sexlessness and consent. I wanted to get Sophia on the podcast to talk all about
1:36.0	her book and unpack these sex myths for us. Sophia told me about her journey into becoming
	...

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