Sex.Life: The podcast that refused to put a name to it

It's been a couple of weeks since the final episode of this season's (!!) Sex.Life podcast aired with a less than revealing Q&A. The poor folks at the Culty Conversations facebook page have had to endure my stream of consciousness written but you, lucky skeptics, get to benefit from the cliff notes.

I've written a bit about the podcast before; it's produced by ZM and co-hosted by somatic sexologist Morgan Penn and NZ Comedienne Hayley Sproull. Penn describes the podcast as a reflection of her belief system that the way we do life is the way we do sex.

This season, Penn goes undercover at a rural New Zealand sex school that, like, has the highest probability of being Highden Temple. You know, having a sign that reads “You Chose This” is a dead giveaway but I AM willing to be proven otherwise.

The YOU CHOSE THIS sign inside the entrance to Highden Manor

Whether Penn attended an ISTA course or an offering of Highden's own making is unclear. The ISTA experts on Culty Convos indicate that the activities Penn describes are oh so very ISTA with a couple of new ones thrown in. So, there is just enough mystery here to keep the identity of the sex school obscure from the normies and anyone who doesn't follow the newscycle of the weird and not so wonderful in NZ.

In early promos, she goes on to describe the sex school that she went to as a sex cult. While she does touch on a couple of questionable practices that she witnesses, the word cult is never uttered in the entirety of the podcast. Nor does Penn go so far as to deconstruct that concept, in relation to the sex school.

Penn placed her time at Highden as “last summer”, and implies that it was after the media hubbub about sacred sexuality courses at Highden. She argues that she had a duty of care and a responsibility to uphold a level of safety by knowing what is happening in the sexual landscape in NZ. As I wrote in my last ISTA/Highden update, given the “Issues with Highden and ISTA'' backlash, I'm slightly dismayed that Penn never provided a concurrent conversation on best practices in the intimacy, sex, and sexuality spaces or profiling safe and ethical experts who offer/facilitate one or more of the Highden activities outside of the Q&A finale episode.

In fact, Penn never reveals the name of the school because, as she claims, she wants to protect them and the podcast. I don't begrudge her that completely as in her final assessment Penn states that she would not recommend the school in its current form to anyone. But her conclusions seem tepid and only partially inline with the vibe through most of the podcast, which made the school seem like a place where she did have some fun and positive growth. While she makes an important point that informed consent is not really possible in the context of a mystery school, she still doubles down that she's okay with what she went through because she has a strong sense of her boundaries, her sexuality, and a sense of self-responsibility. That's dicey ground to walk on and a refrain that is associated with a particular enclave of sacred sexuality in New Zealand is if no one is a victim, then there can be no abusers. Several times in the podcast we listen to Penn recall times when she pushed on with an activity despite it pushing up against her boundaries and we are left to wonder what would have happened if she or someone else sat out of the activity? Penn considered this question in episode 10 and her response seems to indicate that it was not socially safe to sit out while the activities were in session.

I also question whether Penn's expertise clouded some of her decisions. Episode 7 is a doozy of an episode involving the sacred spot exercise and Penn providing an impromptu therapy session for a participant who has experienced childhood sexual assault. In Penn's mind, the facilitators were aware that she was some sort of body worker and while it was obvious that she was not following instructions, she and her partner were left to their own devices. Luckily it was a situation that Penn could handle but it easily might not have been. I have been told that this activity can be done without clothes being removed so why this wasn't pursued or presented to participants as an option by facilitators needs to be addressed. The absence of intervention by staff betrays a lack of experience or education on dealing with trauma on behalf of facilitators and their helpers. There's a red flag for me that Penn proceeded with anything at all and it's a significant flaw of the ‘container' model of these spaces and proved that the container is not safe. The illusion of the container does shatter for Penn in episode 8, when she talks about the final Temple Night. Despite being an adult wonderland, reality comes crashing in when in the middle of a couple of intimate moments, Penn is made acutely aware that the school's staff and helpers are watching and commenting on proceedings from a couch.

There is an odd implication in episode 9 when Sproull comments that Morgan thought she was just going to learn a couple of kama sutra poses and go home, which Penn confirms. However, she claims that she was aware of the controversy around the rural sex school due to last year's kerfuffle, and had someone who gave her enough of a pointer to bring coffee or give a tip-off about the Sacred Spot exercise; I dunno, maybe her goggle-fu isn't flash but information about root chakras have been out in the wild for a bit. When Penn has been asked about giving consent during the exercise, she questions whether it is possible to give full-bodied consent when you are made to feel that you would be unsafe if you don't.

Personally, I don't think receiving a complete prospectus prior to the course will ever make a container in sex school an effortlessly safe space. Triggers can pop up at unexpected times no matter the amount of information and inner work you've done.

Episode 10 skimps on the conversations about the sex school. I won't bore you more than I already have but just highlighting the more interesting questions in the Q&A.

• Morgan studied at the Institute of Somatic Sexology, completing much of the course remotely while traveling over to Australia for intensives. How to find this school is bloody hard though, because this website isn't quite upfront with location details.
• Sorry Hayley, you are only partially right about the mythical Morman practice of soaking. Jumping on the bed while soaking is in progress is called Jump Humping. I get that Mormon are a highly secretive religious group but jump humping strikes me as an act that will get everyone involved busted by BYU campus narcs.

• Obviously, the biggest question the podcast got was “Where is the sex school?” and how to contact them. Morgan hasn't named the place; she isn't here to expose them but to share her journey. Nevertheless, she would not recommend the school to anyone given its current structure; but it's the sort of place you will find if you are looking.

  For me, this waffling is emblematic of how the sex school has been portrayed in this podcast. It's certainly not a hard hitting investigation, but sex school still came off as a place that was mostly fun and should be seen and experienced for itself. At no point did we get any indication of the sex school being a ‘cult', as Penn has described it in earlier promotional material or that she would whole-heartedly not recommend it to anyone.

• Around the topic of protection, while the school provided tools for attendees to have conversations about condoms and dental dams, it was up to attendees to negotiate.

According to Hayley and Morgan, there will be a second season of the Sex.Life podcast. Despite my disappointment, I don't know how you can top going undercover at a controversial New Zealand sex school that you won't name. Plus, they may have some (friendly) competition. Care of Stuff.com is the Good Sex Project hosted by Melody Thomas. On the surface, it appears to bring in the good, bad, and uncomfortable topics of sex with a variety of experts and celebrities, including at least one somatic sexologist. I'm looking forward to giving it a listen over the next couple of weeks to see if my skeptical radar pings or, for once, is left to lie dormant for a bit.