Thanks to support from Vespucci
What happens when you enter a brothel? What makes people willing to pay tens of thousands to be humiliated? And what makes sex so politically controversial and culturally taboo?
These are some of the questions considered by journalist Sahar Zand in her new series Doing Sex. Released today by Vespucci, the series considers the issue of sex around the world to find out how it’s handed across borders and cultures.
Zand was born in Iran, where sex was steeped in silence and shame, before growing up in a refugee camp and eventually settling in the UK. It’s an experience that’s given her, in her own words, a “weird” relationship with sex. The result is a series that feels like it’s not just for us, it’s also for Zand; a series of conversations to help her unpack the subject of sex and learn how a whole range of experts in its many niches feel about it.
And it’s a real range of experts. As you might expect, we hear from those on the front lines of the sex industry, including a dominatrix who considers the psychology of kink and a brothel manager who discusses the implications of criminalising sex work. But the first episode sees Zand speak to Dr Sara Nasserzadeh, an academic with a PhD in sexuality and relationships who, crucially, is also Iranian. Their shared experiences of learning about sex for the first time, at a similar age and in an environment where such knowledge felt particularly forbidden, make for a revealing conversation about how each developed such an interest in the topic. Future guests are set to include a queer sexologist, an FGM survivor and a sex therapist, underlining that this is a show aiming to understand sex from every angle, not just the salacious highlights.
It’s also the first video podcast distributed by the renowned production company Vespucci. The company has made over 25 podcast series, including well-reviewed shows, such as Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack for Audible, The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace for Wondery and Operation Morning Light for CBC. Doing Sex, however, marks a notable move into original productions, and the company says there’s more on the way.
The first two episodes are available now on all major platforms, including YouTube, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
