Adaia Teruel: "At a fetish party, there are many people you would never have expected to meet."

Barcelona"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.

For a year you collected the sexual experiences of Barcelona residents with very diverse backgrounds. Did you have to leave any testimonies out?

— I would have liked to talk to asexual people. I think they're underrepresented and should be included. But when it came to planning the book, I had to find a common thread somewhere, and I decided to investigate the parameters of a sexual ranking published by a magazine that compared the number of swingers' clubs in various cities, the sex parties held, hourly hotels, and other activities.

Which of all the experiences did you find most surprising?

— I had a great time at the fetish party, because it wasn't a sex party. It's an event designed to provide fetishists in the city, regardless of their sex, gender, or orientation, with a safe space to connect. I spoke with many diverse people, from very different professions, whom I never would have expected to meet at a party like this. Most people in Barcelona are unaware of the rich and diverse sexuality that surrounds us. Since there's so little information on the subject, I think we fill in the gaps by speculating that these are dark, curtained spaces... We've all seen it. Eyes Wide ShutBut the reality is very different.

One of the pieces of information you provide is that love hotels, or hotels that rent rooms by the hour, are fashionable in Barcelona. In the book, you explain that when you were young, you had an experience at the now-closed one. furnished The White House of Vallcarca.

— I got involved with a married man and we ended up there. I remember wandering through many corridors and not seeing a soul. I love the history of this place! It's gone now, but they should have preserved it and turned it into a museum, shouldn't they? Like the history of where we're doing this interview, here in the Raval, as the nerve center of prostitution. A neighborhood that perfectly encapsulates the history of our city.

In fact, several of the witnesses you have interviewed are sex workers.

— I wasn't aware that so many mothers were working on the streets. Many of these women financially support their families back home, paying for their surgeries... They told me that working like this isn't easy, but it allows them not only to earn money but also to have a schedule that lets them pick up their children from school and care for them when they're sick. It's a reality in Barcelona, and many of them are asking to be able to contribute to social security so they can go to the doctor or take sick leave.

Did you find it difficult to get strangers to open up and talk to you about their experiences?

— When I went to do interviews or to certain places, I also talked about my own experiences and doubts. I didn't want to be the center of attention, but I did want to be visible, to be on equal footing with all those people who were opening up so completely. If we all spoke more honestly about our relationships and what we're going through, there wouldn't be so many taboos. It seems like we're a hypersexualized society, but we still have so many secrets, so many unpleasant things, and so many prejudices. Not long ago, a girl told me that when she told someone she practiced BDSM [consensual erotic practices involving control, domination, and pain], they wanted to burn her at the stake. Or others who say they have an open relationship and are judged when they talk about it. There are still married couples who have sex because it's expected, even if they don't want to... In the 21st century! There's so much hypocrisy around us.

It seems we find it difficult to talk openly about sex, but at the same time we're very interested in other people's sex lives, aren't we?

— Absolutely! We all have sex, but we experience it differently. It depends on how your parents raised you, what you saw at home, what your first experience was like, whether you enjoyed it or not, your relationship with your body... You bring all of this into the bedroom. We experience it a lot in isolation, and we're interested in knowing a little about how others experience it. We need to overcome our fear of talking about it, of putting words to our fears and anxieties!

The data shows that each generation has less sex than the previous one. What's happening to us?

— It's a combination of many factors. The rise of feminism, for example. More women who don't feel like having sex are able to say so. No without feeling pressured. There's also the issue of dating apps, which have led to self-esteem problems. Or exhaustion. Someone who's working themselves to the bone from seven in the morning until seven at night, when they get home all they want to do is collapse on the sofa, eat whatever's handy, lie down, and start the same thing over and over again. This world also generates a lot of anxiety because you don't know if your job will last until next year or if your relationship will last... We live with so much uncertainty, and in the end, sex suffers.

You have two teenage children. Why do we still find it so difficult to educate them about sex?

— I explain everything to them in language they can understand. I tell them that sex isn't porn, but it's not the romantic scenes in regular movies either. Sex is sometimes being very or very shaved, and sometimes having your period.

Of the nine X-rated theaters that existed in the Catalan capital, none remain, but Barcelona has established itself as the European capital in terms of pornographic film shoots.

— Half of Spain's film productions are made in Barcelona because there is plenty of light, the regulations are more lenient, and more and more foreign production companies are coming to film here.

One of the witnesses in the book, a doctor, claims that Catalonia is an oasis in Spain when it comes to sexual health. Why?

— She explained that the central government transfers healthcare responsibilities to each autonomous community. And depending on the political party in power and its ideology, they do or don't do things, as is happening with abortion in Madrid. Or the issue of healthcare for transgender people. It's already problematic enough to live in a situation like this, not being comfortable in your own skin, without also being able to see a healthcare professional who will treat you with respect. We all have the same rights, but of course, if you live in Barcelona, you're lucky.

Puppy games, quizzes, shibari, sexting... Most sexual vocabulary is in English. Isn't Catalan fascinating?

— [laughs]. You know, I hadn't really thought about it. Many friends tell me that in the book I talk about things they've had to look up, and it's true that practically everything is an Anglicism.

What is sex to you?

— It's a very important part of life and my relationship. Sex recharges my batteries. I don't have as much sex as I used to, like when I was 25, but the kind of sex I have is different too. And I've gone through different stages as well. I think everyone experiences sexuality in later life or during menopause differently, depending on their past experiences with sex. It's a journey, an evolution... I like sex and I enjoy it; I don't understand why there are so many taboos about something that is, ultimately, part of nature.