Introducing The Sex Ed You Never Had (But Always Needed)

Let’s face it, sex education in Australia and many other parts of the world has been and still is in terms of openness and positivity around sex. Chantelle Otten - award-winning psycho-sexologist, Lovehoney ambassador and our friend - saw this and decided to write a book to change the game.

The Sex Ed You Never Had is an inclusive, judgement-free and fun guide to learning about sex, relationships, your body and pleasure. To celebrate the release, we sat down with the legend herself to ask a few questions about the in’s and out’s of her book and what to expect when reading. Here’s what we found:

1. What was your main motivation behind writing The Sex Ed You Never Had?

Honestly, so many of my followers, friends and patients just lacked sex ed or were taught ‘fear based’ sexual education! That wasn’t their fault, they were just never given the information they needed. I really wanted to write this book as a foundation for teens and adults to refer to, so they didn’t have to scroll down doctor google and get misinformed.

2. What do you hope readers will gain from your book?

I want them to feel like the book is a safe space. Kind of like talking to a friend about sex, a friend who knows a whole lot about sex. I really wanted them to know facts about sexuality and the fact that it isn’t black and white. Sexuality is colourful and should be pleasure-based rather than performance-based.

feel comfortable communicating with doctors about their exact symptoms.

I also believe that we were taught that sex should be performance based and goal-oriented. We need to change this and look at sex as pleasure based. Sex is about pleasure and is much more fun when we frame it in that way.

4. What was your favourite part about writing the book?

Re-familiarising myself with so many topics! There was so much that I hadn’t touched on for a while, simply because of the kinds of patients I was seeing. So it was fun to be able to revisit a lot of topics and make them fun.

5. Were there any challenges?

Yes! I have attention difficulties so staying on track proved a little hard sometimes. Also making it easy to read… obviously I come from a science background and can be very clinical in my explanations… I had my best friend tell me to make it sound a bit more ‘fun’.

6. What are your hopes for the future of sex education in Australia and the world?

I hope for a more sex positive future, and for well informed sex ed. I think we are on the way and there are many amazing sex educators out there doing great work in championing sexuality. I hope that sex toys become less taboo. I hope that sexuality is taught in medical degrees. And I just hope we can all embrace pleasure based sexuality rather than performance based.

7. Who is your book written for?

Anyone and everyone! I would say age 15 and up to start, plus adult readers. However, there are definitely a lot of topics in the book that can be directed towards younger age ranges. Especially around puberty and menstrual cycles. But I think there are heaps of topics in there that people will be surprised about and will enjoy.