Faking orgasms is much more common than it seems. Most of the time it's them, but they aren't exempt either. And often it has less to do with sex than with the expectations we generate. It's as if we feel we have to validate, reassure the other's ego, or prove that "it went well." This is where the orgasmic imperative comes into play: the idea that a sexual relationship is only complete if it ends in orgasm.

Sexual fantasies arouse much curiosity, but also much guilt. There are people who are frightened by what they imagine or wonder what that says about them. But perhaps the first thing to understand is that fantasizing is not the same as desiring. We can fantasize about a specific situation and have no real interest in putting it into practice. Fantasy is not a contract with reality, nor does it necessarily mask an unconscious desire for a philia or a trauma. I'm sorry for psychoanalysis.

Infidelity is one of the most painful experiences a couple can go through. Not only because a pact is broken, but because insecurities and feelings of betrayal arise, and all the trust built up to that point is questioned. It is common to feel anger, sadness, humiliation, or confusion.

Orgasm has become, for many people, a kind of final exam for sex. If it doesn't happen, the encounter seems incomplete, mediocre, or a complete failure. This is called the orgasmic imperative: the idea that every sexual encounter must end in orgasm and that this is the definitive proof that the sex went well.

For years, the hymen has been presented to us as a kind of "seal" that covers the vagina and breaks with the first penetration. An image that has fueled myths, fears, and even forms of control over the sexuality of many women. But the anatomical reality is quite different.

When a relationship ends, we often look for quick fixes to stop suffering: zero contact, staying busy, going out more, deleting photos. And all of this can help. But the reality is that there is no magic key to getting over a breakup.

Talking about sexuality at home tends to be uncomfortable, even today. Without going any further, I invite you to remember how this topic was treated in your families of origin. Often, the answer is: “There was no sex education at home.” But not talking about it also educates. Transmitting to children that it makes us uncomfortable is, in essence, teaching them that sexuality is a taboo. And thus, it will be difficult for us to become role models.

If you've asked yourself this question before, there's probably an underlying idea worth reviewing: sex isn't about pleasing. Or, at least, not only about that. Because when we understand sexual relations as the other person's responsibility – as if they should know exactly what we need or how to make us enjoy ourselves – it's easy to end up experiencing sex with frustration, pressure, or disappointment.

Recovering desire is a common concern for many couples at some point in the relationship. And it's completely natural: no one has explained to us that sexual desire is not constant, but rather something that also needs to be cared for and worked on.

In sexuality, normality does not exist. And, moreover, people lie quite a bit about what they do and don't do in bed: we come from a historically taboo subject that, at the same time, gives a certain status. Saying you have a lot of sex continues to be on the rise. Many times this creates what "is expected" to be a kind of "collective mirage" created from lies and exaltations.

In Catalonia and Europe, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a public health problem. Since 2010, detected cases have increased by an average of 32.4% annually. Furthermore, in the last decade, at least 405 sexually transmitted infections have been detected in minors under 14 years of age in the country, which is why Catalonia has advanced the surveillance of sexual infections to 12 years of age. However, one of the obstacles to detection is the shame of going to a center to get tested or, in case of being positive for a sexual infection, communicating it to one's partner or partners so that they also get tested.

“My children started bringing their partners home when they were seventeen. It was logical for our way of educating. For me, sexuality is as normal as a kiss; no one should hide it”, says Elena Sánchez, mother of a daughter, Mar, who is 22 years old, and a son, Javi, who is 20 years old. The reality is that Elena is a statistical exception: 40% of Spanish families have never or almost never talked about sex education with their children, according to data from the FAD Juventud Foundation (2025). According to the report, sexual practices and pornography are still pending subjects: families prefer to talk about “more comfortable” topics like love or respect, but they avoid delving into the “how” and the “where”.

We talk a lot about the violence that occurs in the intimacy of relationships, but very little about desire, about what happens to us women in the murky waters of sexuality. Like any other human experience, sex, love, and eroticism are also learned; they don't arise instinctively, detached from culture. From the available representations in literature, in the audiovisual world, in the stories told about us, we know very well what men's desire is like, what it consists of, how it is expressed, and how far it can go. Or rather, we know the desire of men who feel entitled to display their size, to put on a show of strength not only to impress their potential romantic conquests but also to compete with other men like themselves, to demonstrate that they are bigger, more potent, and more powerful. The sexuality that dominates the collective imagination is, therefore, the sexuality of predators who experience conquest as a hunt. To avoid appearing weak and helpless before their male counterparts, they pursue, harass, dominate, and sometimes even domesticate women to the point of annihilation, turning them into trophies.

I have absolutely no desire to be twenty again. When I was twenty, I looked in the mirror and didn't see myself. I only focused on everything about my body and personality that I wanted to change. And although I already had the determination that has saved my ass so many times, it wasn't as honed or as well-focused. I wasn't as brave as I am now either. And I experienced far more fears and insecurities. Fewer than at fifteen, but a whole lot more than now. I wasn't really sure what I could do with my life, and I still had to fully believe that what I sensed was possible (working as a screenwriter and trying to write a children's book someday) could actually be real.

"Barcelona is the twelfth most hot “Of the planet.” This was the headline that journalist Adaia Teruel (Barcelona, ​​1978) read one night in 2022 while lying in bed, looking at her phone. This statement prompted her to begin fieldwork in the Catalan capital, visiting swingers' clubs, fetish gatherings, sex worker demonstrations, and other experiences of people who live sex very differently from the majority. This research is compiled in the book Sex in my city (KO Books), a collection of chronicles and testimonies about a Barcelona often unknown to many of its own residents.

In early July, the French courts acquitted two women who had claimed on social media that Brigitte Macron, the wife of the President of the French Republic, is transgender. In their comments, they listed the multiple surgeries she had allegedly undergone and claimed that she was not the biological mother of their children. A court ordered them to pay eight thousand euros to the first lady in September 2024, but they were acquitted ten months later, a decision that the Macrons appealed to the French Court of Cassation. Furthermore, her lawyer recently explained that Brigitte is determined to provide scientific and photographic evidence in court to "prove" that she is a woman, after the influencer ultra Candace Owens has dedicated several podcasts and a book to denying it.

The first place adolescents begin to express their identity is in their room. Sometimes they do this by wanting to rearrange furniture. These changes are related to the process of identity construction. The gesture of closing the door signals that the young person begins to seek privacy, to explore and find their innermost being. "It's the beginning of the process of more active identity construction. It usually happens between the ages of 12 and 15, although some young people never need to do it," says Sara Desirée Ruiz, a social educator and psychotherapist specializing in adolescence. What she suggests to families is to observe, and when adolescents begin to close the door, the family should knock before entering.

Mireia Grossman appears with a vulva-shaped pillow and an anatomical model of the kind she uses in her workshops to teach thousands of women what they have between their legs. "I am like The stranger "in a crotch version," she jokes. She discovered it in her forties, when she was studying physiotherapy and signed up by chance for the elective course on women's health. "Elective!" she exclaims. What she discovered was so surprising that she has since dedicated herself to spreading the word as a pelvic floor physiotherapist. And not just to help prevent it. common problems such as prolapse or urine loss, but to guarantee and prolong the fun.

What do children know about sexuality? And how do they experience it? This is the starting point of SexAFIN, the action-research project on affective-sexual and reproductive education in educational communities. The research is promoted by the AFIN Research Group of the Anthropology Department at the UAB, which is dedicated to research on families, reproduction, childhood, and sexuality. SexAFIN was established in 2017 in two schools in Gelida with children in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades. Since 2019, it has expanded to include children and young people from 13th to 4th grades of Compulsory Secondary Education from around forty public and private schools throughout Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa).

More than 25% of girls – one in four – of Generation Z [born between 1997 and 2012] identify as non-heterosexual. This percentage is double the way their older sisters, the millennials, identify, and also distances themselves from their male peers, who show a more normative sexual orientation. This data is extracted from research by Maria Rodó-Zárate, a researcher at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona (UPF), and Joel Cantó Roche, a doctoral student at the Canadian University of Toronto. Based on two official surveys of 4,000 young Catalan women of both generations, they analyzed how between 2017 and 2018, "more and more young people are opting for less rigid identifications, and moving away from fixed labels such as... gay either lesbian", the authors of the study point out, while adopting "more open positions, such as bisexuality or other forms of sexual diversity".