Why so many sexual taboos?
We live in an age that believes itself liberated, and yet it remains shot through with a host of sexual taboos. We talk about everything â or nearly â on our screens, but at the dinner table, within families, in the doctor’s office, silence quickly reasserts itself. This paradox is no accident: it is the legacy of centuries of morality, religion and control over bodies. Because sexuality touches what is most intimate, it has always been terrain on which society seeks to dictate what is “normal” and what is not.
One of the most stubborn legacies is what we call the “Madonna–Whore” complex: the demand placed on women to be at once pure and desirable, respectable mothers and lovers, without ever being able to embody both without judgment. This dichotomy still shapes our collective imagination, and partly explains why female desire remains one of the greatest sexual taboos in our culture. Understanding these roots is already the beginning of deconstructing the taboos that weigh on our intimate lives â and that is exactly what I explore every day.
The invisible norms that govern us
The most powerful of sexual taboos is not the one we name, but the one we no longer even see: the norm. Sexual norms work like the air we breathe â invisible, and yet everywhere. The first of them is heteronormativity: the implicit idea that heterosexuality is the “natural” path, the starting point against which everything else is a variation, or even a deviation.
Deconstructing heteronormativity
What if heterosexuality, too, were a construct worth questioning? That is the dizzying, fascinating question I put to Juliet Drouar in a dedicated series (episodes #185, #186 and #187). Thinking of heterosexuality not as self-evident but as a system â with its roles, its expectations, its scripts â allows each of us to better understand what stems from genuine desire and what stems from conditioning. This work connects with what I do around LGBTQ+ identities and orientations: widening the lens means making room for every way of loving.
The tyranny of performance
Another invisible norm is the demand to perform: to last a long time, to climax at the right moment, to have “enough” sex. These scripts turn intimacy into a permanent exam and feed anxiety rather than pleasure. Learning to break free of them often runs through better communication within the couple: naming your real expectations, rather than chasing the ones that society has whispered to you.
Our society’s blind spots
Some sexualities are so thoroughly made invisible that they form genuine blind spots. Who talks about the sexuality of incarcerated people? It’s a subject I take up with Tiphaine Audibert-Enouf (episode #174): in prison, intimacy becomes a luxury, a suspended right, revealing how our society decides who has “the right” to a sexual and emotional life. These particular sexual taboos say a great deal about our invisible hierarchies.
Another blind spot: fatphobia. We presuppose, without even thinking about it, that fat bodies are somehow less desiring or less desirable. With Juline BourĂ© (episode #73), we deconstruct that idea and restore the full place of pleasure for fat people. Here again, sexual norms trace out, in negative, a bodily norm â thin, young, able-bodied â that excludes the vast majority of people. Putting these lived experiences back at the center is the heart of a truly inclusive approach to sexuality and society.
To this we can add the sexualities shaped by culture and religion, too often reduced to clichés. With Jamal Lothmani (episode #15), I explore the sexualities of Muslim people: a rich, nuanced subject, a reminder that there is not one but many ways to weave together faith, heritage and desire. All these blind spots have one thing in common: they have never benefited from a genuine sex education that names and legitimizes them.
Behind the scenes: intimacy coordinator
There is a profession still largely unknown, born of the need to reconcile the desire for fiction with respect for real bodies: intimacy coordination. On set, I’m the person who makes sure intimate scenes â kisses, nudity, sex scenes â unfold within a clear, safe and consensual framework. Far from “breaking” the magic, this work makes it possible: when everyone knows what is going to happen and has set their limits, that trust lets the performance be freer and truer.
This role is the concrete application, set after set, of everything I stand for: consent is not a brake on desire, it is its foundation. In episode #149, I recount a week spent on the set of a pornographic film as an intimacy coordinator: a rare glimpse behind the scenes, where desire is choreographed the way a stunt would be, with professionalism and care. This hands-on expertise feeds every one of my reflections on sexual taboos, because it confronts me daily with the shifting, precious border between representation and reality.
Sex recession and the sex strike
Sexual norms are evolving, sometimes in unexpected directions. Today we hear about a “sex recession”: younger generations are said to be having less sex than before. I devote episode #196 to untangling the numbers from the media fantasies â and to asking what this decline says about our relationship to time, to mental load, to screens and to desire itself.
In the same vein, some women theorize a “heterosexual sex strike,” a gesture as political as it is intimate. That’s what I discuss with Elie Mitcho (episode #80): refusing, for a time, a sexuality experienced as unequal is also a way of making visible the power dynamics long left unspoken. These debates show that sexuality and society are inseparable: our beds are political places too, run through by the norms of their era. To think about the autonomy of one’s own desire â what Gwen Ecalle calls “sexual autonormity” in episode #6 â becomes, then, an act of freedom.
Why talking about it sets us free
Why devote an entire podcast to deconstructing taboos? Because silence protects no one: it isolates, it shames, it lets us believe we are alone in living what we live. Putting words to sexual taboos means giving everyone the chance to recognize themselves, to let go of guilt and, often, to breathe.
Naming things does not trivialize them: on the contrary, it lets us think, choose and consent with full awareness. A society that dares to talk about sexuality â about every sexuality â is a more equal, safer and freer society. That conviction drives every one of my episodes, and every one of my interventions in the field. And it’s also an invitation: to keep learning, questioning and widening the space of what can be said.
Frequently asked questions
Why is sexuality taboo?
Sexuality touches what is most intimate, which has always made it terrain for social, moral and religious control. Our sexual taboos are the legacy of centuries of injunctions about bodies, like the “Madonna–Whore” complex. Paradoxically, our hypersexualized era talks about it everywhere on screen, yet stays silent in the intimacy of everyday life.
What is an intimacy coordinator?
It’s the person who, on set, makes sure intimate scenes (kisses, nudity, sex scenes) unfold within a clear, safe and consensual framework. Far from breaking the magic, this work makes it possible: when everyone knows how the scene will go and has set their limits, the performance becomes freer. It’s consent applied, concretely, to fiction.
What is heteronormativity?
It’s the invisible norm that frames heterosexuality as the “natural” or default path, against which all other orientations are treated as variations. Deconstructing heteronormativity means questioning heterosexuality itself as a system, with its roles and expectations, in order to better distinguish genuine desire from social conditioning.
What is the sex recession?
It’s the much-debated idea that younger generations are having less sex than before. Beyond the numbers, the phenomenon raises questions about our relationship to time, to mental load, to screens and to desire. It isn’t necessarily a decline, but perhaps a transformation in the ways we experience intimacy.
How can we deconstruct taboos around sex?
By naming them, first of all. Putting words to what brings shame allows us to recognize ourselves, to let go of guilt and to think about our sexuality with full awareness. Informing yourself, listening to varied testimonies, making room for sexualities rendered invisible (prison, fatphobia, religions, disability) and cultivating genuine sex education: these are concrete paths toward freeing up speech.
Why talk about sexualities rendered invisible?
Because sexual norms quietly decide who has “the right” to an intimate life: fat, incarcerated or disabled people, and those marked by certain cultures, are often erased from the story. Giving them their place back is no minor detail: it makes sexuality and society fairer, more inclusive and freer for everyone.