Sex Educator Alix Fox: What You’re Doing Wrong In Bed!

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2:16Abbey Clancy: So Alex, welcome to The Therapy Crouch. We've been so excited to have you on. It's the therapy crotch this week, therapy crotch.

2:23Alix Fox: So I'm not a pervert. But I am going to sound like one today.

2:29Abbey Clancy: Like your T-f***ed as a cactus. Before we go any further, we need to address the tentacles in the room. We've got a whole table full of... Would you say goodies?

2:37Peter Crouch: Oh, there's a few baddies in there. There's a few baddies!

2:44Alix Fox: Remember, guys, if you're really enjoying this top quality content that we're producing, hit subscribe. It helps.

2:50Abbey Clancy: hello and welcome to the therapy crouch with me abby clancy me peter crouch meet peter peter

2:56Alix Fox: crouch very nice very nice something a bit horsey there mate um yeah you woke up like that i need to address the fact that i'm gonna be whispering on this podcast my voice is completely gone and uh

3:09Abbey Clancy: and this has got nothing to do with the alcohol poisoning from from the golf trip by the way no at all no i'm back in the game i've not had a drink for two weeks i've just had a slow throat

3:18Alix Fox: last night but my dedication to this podcast and my craft means that I will be here for the listeners but the audio experience is going to be slightly different today it's a little bit more of

3:29Abbey Clancy: a whisper I'm actually enjoying that I'm getting shouted no no I can tell I'm pissing you off it's not it's not that you're pissing me off I just want you back do I want your normal voice

3:40Alix Fox: back yeah it's a bit goony my normal voice but it's better than this weird this one so we've

3:46Abbey Clancy: got an exciting guest on today which is slightly out of my comfort zone ross yeah i'm aware so i can't even say the word sex out loud and i'm sitting with me cousin and my bloody husband well it's i think it's it's a topic that a lot of our listeners write into us about their intimate woes intimacy woes and problems and how to address certain things in the bedroom and basically just an education a sex education if you like i'm quite excited because you know i think we're quite

4:19Alix Fox: old-fashioned do you think i sound a little bit perverted with my new voice no i don't know why

4:26Abbey Clancy: you're getting this i was hoping to drop it off dave yeah i just didn't live i was like

4:32Alix Fox: you know dirty phone calls yeah like i'm whispering to like dirty phone call your lap do you remember

4:39Abbey Clancy: when your mum's friend auditioned to be a sex line. She was good at it though. She was so good at it, but she got rejected. Why? I don't know. And it was just a voice. It was just a voice and she had great sex chat. She did sex chat. She got rejected.

4:56Alix Fox: That's interesting that. Yeah, so it's a bit of a taboo subject, but I think, you know, we cover all bases on this pod.

5:03Abbey Clancy: And we have to throw a disclaimer out there. Any questions we're going to be asking, Alex, as not a reflection of our relationship, our fantasies or our...

5:14Alix Fox: Sexual proclivities.

5:19Abbey Clancy: Well, I'm speaking for me. When I ask, I don't know about you.

5:22Alix Fox: I'm going to ask all the stuff I want to ask. All right, shall we go? All right, darling.

5:28Abbey Clancy: Well, should we go straight into it then? Should we get her on?

5:31Alix Fox: Let's go.

5:33Abbey Clancy: so alex welcome to the therapy crouch we've been so excited to have you on suitably enough it's a pleasure to be here it's the therapy crotch this week yeah good one now when we put it out to our listeners they were ecstatic they were like we need to get air on we've got loads of questions for her but first for anyone who doesn't know who you are can you just give us a little intro into

5:54Peter Crouch: your background yeah absolutely my real name is alex fox it sounds like a nom de plume i know I have been working in the ins and outs, the ups and downs and the sides to sides of people's sex life and intimacy for about, I think, over two decades now, which makes me sound ancient, doesn't it? You know, that meme of the woman from Titanic going, it's been 84 years. That's how I feel when I talk about my career. I'm actually not a medic. I got a degree in linguistics, so I'm an original cunning linguist. I was interested in science and communication. and that kind of fused the two and then I moved into journalism and my first job my first big job was on a magazine that sadly has now gone to the big publishing house in the sky it's defunct but it was called bizarre oh yeah and it was like an old lad's mag although it had like a 40 percent female readership and it covered everything weird wild and wonderful so lots of body modification people like tattooing their eyeballs and piercing their cervixes lots of subcultures and interesting tribes so uh i interviewed people who were the who are furries who like to dress up in kind of animal personas uh i tried underwater bondage for example where i yeah i got dressed up as a mermaid i put on scuba gear went to the bottom the deep end of a very deep end of a swimming pool got tied up by a bondage specialist a japanese shibari rope bondage specialist and then when i was immobilized on the bottom of this pool they took my air supply away like the ultimate in submission um how did that feel very very dangerous god knows how we cleared that with the insurance companies that mag i don't know is that a real thing but it was so

7:43Abbey Clancy: afterwards is that a real thing for people then that kind of i don't find any pleasure in fear or it's a fantasy for a lot of people because um it's scary enough getting into bed with bloody

8:02Peter Crouch: pieces a lot of bdsm is about power dynamics isn't it okay one person feeling completely in control and powerful and like the master or the mistress of the situation and it's about the other one relinquishing that control and being very vulnerable and being told what to do and I think the ultimate expression of that in many people's minds is putting your life in somebody else's hands is that that seems the ultimate in submission so I was submerged and submissive I must underline that I've absolutely trusted the people that I was working with I knew them well I had a photographer there as well who was a good friend we'd done lots and lots of safety checks we had ascertained a system of head signals because of course when I was tied up I couldn't move my hands I couldn't speak because we were underwater so I had to know my body well enough when I was going to need air and trust the people I was playing with and working with enough to know that when I nodded, when I gave the signal, they would swim over with the scuba tank and give me the oxygen I needed.

9:13Peter Crouch: Strangely enough, when I was under the water, I actually felt very, very calm and almost euphoric. That's not an unusual sensation to be reported by people who are submissive and indulging in BDSM play they call it subspace where you kind of get into this very floaty um dream dream like kind of mood gosh but yeah needless to say I threw myself in at the deep end very literally with my work at Bizarre and I was particularly interested in um fetishes and sexual expression and what were then considered quite non-standard relationship structures so people um experimenting with non-monogamy ethical non-monogamy or um we worked with a lot of trans people and trans trans situations just weren't discussed as much the discourse wasn't as vibrant then as it is now um and i realized that it was that sexual aspect of my journalism that i was intrigued by then 50 shades of grey arrived like a bomb on the on the uk literary scene i mean i

10:26Abbey Clancy: don't know have you read the books have you seen the books i've seen the film but i watched it in my friend's house and it was like a censored version so all the sex scenes were cut out which was really disappointing about 30 seconds left then exactly so apologize apologies for my voice you're just gonna have to whisper pete because we need you involved you need to learn a lot today so you need to get involved so just whisper okay um so i'm not a pervert but i'm gonna sound like one today i think of all of the episodes where you could sound like

11:00Peter Crouch: more husky than a dog pulling a sled and like like your deep throat at a cactus it's very

11:05Alix Fox: appropriate apologies do you know when you're at the bottom of the of the pool there yeah is is it

11:12Peter Crouch: sexy for you that i have to say for me it wasn't sexy it was more calming and it was um i was very aware of my own existence so it was i was very very present and immediate in the situation you can't really think about anything else when you're tied up at the bottom of a pool for lots of people who are into that kind of thing it would have been extremely sexy but it was something that I was doing experimentally as a journalist rather than just as someone with

11:45Abbey Clancy: in their private life so with that kind of submissive stuff yeah so are you to get out of the water and then have sex straight away afterwards for some no not necessarily I mean

11:57Peter Crouch: I wouldn't because this is a very extreme example it would be it's not accessible for most people to be able to find a pool, find scuba equipment and arrange that kind of thing.

12:11Alix Fox: It wasn't no heavy petting.

12:13Abbey Clancy: No, I don't even like it. It'd be gone, wouldn't it? So this isn't one for me, but I was just intrigued. Someone once said a saying, it was a doctor actually. Yeah. Who said to me, a soldier going into war is not going in with a hard-on. You know, because their minds on other things. What, so nice! No, I don't think you said hard-on. Cheers, doctor. do you have questions about the scenario that led to that conversation

12:39Peter Crouch: we are talking about shooting blanks I was talking about

12:44Abbey Clancy: I was talking about low sex drive with anxiety right and it's kind of if you're an anxious person and you're worrying it's kind of hard to get in that mind space of feeling relaxed and yes absolutely aroused and wanting to do that because your mind is completely on other things and he said you don't see a soldier going into battle horny basically so what you're saying is for you well not for me for a friend of mine

13:15Peter Crouch: that kind of situation the pool would be so anxiety inducing and frightening that you can't imagine it to be sexual i can understand that i think for most people that would be the case if you're someone who's majorly into bdsm and being submissive though it can be sexual um this whole article came about because i asked the shibari expert the the bondage uh the bondage guru yeah who trained in japan what his ultimate sexy scenario would be and he said i've always wanted to rope somebody up underwater so we we were kind of fulfilling his fantasy wow um it's it's not something that people would do you know on an average weekend really down down the leisure let's go down to walk and back get that mermaid tail on even for those people who are if that does float their boat or i don't know sink fishing yeah exactly um they might not necessarily have sex as people commonly understand it like penetrative intercourse afterwards or something involving genitals for them that experience of extreme arousal extreme excitement extreme emotional um full-on-ness um is enough for them and in fact they might need when they get out of the pool some aftercare so they might need making sure that they feel safe they might need some some very gentle handling they you know they'll need some assistance to come back down to earth after such a a full-on a full-on experience um yeah that was the kind of thing i was doing at bizarre then Fifty Shades happened, suddenly everyone and their gran was talking about S &M.

15:03Peter Crouch: And I had folks like the BBC and The Guardian approaching me going, oh, when we talk to people who are professional slaves or dominatrixes, they say, you're the last that they trust to talk about these things because you've actually been there trying it out and actually getting involved in the community. They feel that they can trust you to represent them honestly rather than making a mockery of them and just pointing a finger and laughing and taking the piss so I started to write much more broadly for many more publications and people started to come to me for advice and bear in mind at this point I was still in my 20s I was greener than your average field in a lot of areas and I was quite conscious that sometimes people were coming to me with problems I just didn't feel adequately trained to answer so I did a little bit of training with a young people's sexual advisory charity called Brooke I went on a lot of courses I read a lot of scientific papers I educated myself yeah and also I was really honest that if someone came to me with a question that I didn't know the answer to I was not bluffing about their muffin I would say hands up after i've washed them thoroughly hands up i don't know that but why don't we find out together let's work out what's true what's real let's go to good sources because the whole

16:26Abbey Clancy: sex stuff is a taboo subject like i didn't usually talking about it i would never go to my parents to talk about it and you know even as a young girl you wouldn't really you wouldn't openly speak to friends i don't know if it was different to boys but you and also the kind of stigma of you know you couldn't say you enjoyed certain things or dislike certain things and a fear of being judged

16:49Alix Fox: do you think i think i also think in relationships if you're say you wanted to go to the bottom of a pool and tie someone up if i've if i said that's what i'd be it's gonna get blown out literally out of the water but like it's because i hate going to say is if for instance you said i want to wear leather or do something different how do you navigate that i'm asking for a friend

17:18Alix Fox: that was my mate that didn't come from me

17:23Peter Crouch: so you're asking now

17:24Alix Fox: I'm just asking now do you yeah like if you're in a relationship yeah you're happy you know it's quite you haven't tried anything maybe too different but you want to try something really different how do you approach that

17:35Peter Crouch: firstly I wouldn't pop that kind of question actually in the bedroom when it comes to game time that is not something you want to string upon somebody in the middle of the action. I'll tell you now.

17:49Peter Crouch: Are you saying I'm born in bed?

17:52Alix Fox: Not told. I'm genuinely just asking questions. It's not bad being you. Before we kick off, what do you think of this ball guy? She happens to have this gimbal.

18:04Peter Crouch: So you lightly used.

18:06Alix Fox: Well, careful over there. There are two different people in relationships and I think one might be, you know, more like you say into things than the other or or vice versa you know i mean like once maybe more

18:18Peter Crouch: vanilla once more raspberry ripple yeah how do you navigate that raspberry nipple first of all as i say i'd pick when to have your conversation i think if you can as a couple or as whoever you're in an intimate relationship with get into the habit of regularly talking about sex and intimacy so it doesn't feel like something really nerve-wracking and like that conversation necessarily precedes a problem when you bring it up I think it's really healthy to to chat about your sex life even when like when it's going well as well um a friend of mine Kate Moyle who's a brilliant sex therapist she always says she wishes people treated um therapy when it comes to sex and conversations when it comes to sex a bit like going to the dentist you should be regularly going for a checkup before you develop a massive pain or a horrible hole so to speak a gaping hole that needs attention so just having a chat in the daytime maybe over a cuppa keeping it relaxed people often ask me well how do I broach the subject of a kink or a fetish because it can be really nerve-wracking can't it arguably i'd say maybe the stakes feel higher if you're talking to somebody that you are in a an established long-term relationship with or if you're living with somebody because if they look at you like you've just you know lost your mind yeah yeah you've just suggested that you'd like to fart in a funnel directly into their nostrils or whatever you know they're pulling a face like that then you said go to us

20:00Peter Crouch: then then you've still got to live with that person and so you know it can feel it's it's it's nerve-wracking um sometimes saying i heard this on a podcast what do you think about it like using media as a way in can be a genuinely useful uh a useful strategy so you're performing a public service right here folks or saying i read this in a magazine or even i had a dream i had a weird dream about this anything that kicks it off worst case scenario what do you do if they go that is disgusting i've never heard anything so foul or that's really that's really upset me you knock

20:44Abbey Clancy: me sick yeah that's what i'm saying I'm just joking babe

20:50Alix Fox: I'm going to be this podcast again can I just put can I just put

20:54Abbey Clancy: another disclaimer all these questions are not related to you and I no absolutely not absolutely not because people will start thinking that you want to put a bloody ball in my mouth every time you put a lead around my neck or something you want to fart on her in a swimming pool yeah exactly fart on my head it's a no go so you're saying that you're jumps

21:17Peter Crouch: if somebody says no that really is not my bag there's still a lot that you can uh learn about them and it will help your understanding as a couple by exploring what they are up for yeah what is it about this that turns you off because sometimes it might be that there's what just one specific element that they don't like like you might say oh i'd really like to um you mentioned leather peter i'd love to like dress you in leather and tie you up or whatnot it when you get down to it might be that they say oh just like leather really turns me off i don't like the smell or i'm vegan that offends my sensibility so it might be something very specific and you might be able to find a workaround it might be triggering from them leather pants we'd have to use a lot of cows wouldn't we

22:12Peter Crouch: a whole lot of free jeans I don't know I don't know

22:16Alix Fox: that like it

22:16Abbey Clancy: leather on me no absolutely not you'd look ridiculous it's definitely something that wouldn't turn me on in the slightest and I'm not I'm not afraid to tell you then is that offensive do you think

22:30Peter Crouch: to have your own taste no not at all not at all a little bit harsh

22:34Alix Fox: that might disencourage him from approaching the future

22:38Peter Crouch: good i think it's important if somebody does say no i'm not into that they're not saying no i'm not into you yes so bear in mind that it's not about you as a person it's just about a particular activity um sometimes having these conversations walking outside somewhere in the fresh air i know that sounds really strange no it doesn't but taking a conversation that might be awkward outside of your home so that then when you go home you don't feel like your space your house where you should feel safe and relaxed doesn't have this awkwardness hanging in the air i think

23:14Abbey Clancy: that i think that applies for a lot of a lot of discussions like couples have yes like a dog walk is a great way to do it yeah well it depends if your fetish is dogs but yeah

23:29Abbey Clancy: so this seems like a great place to pause and hear from our sponsors And if you're enjoying the pod, please hit that subscribe button now because it really, really helps us.

24:02Alix Fox: you know someone who is struggling with one, or maybe you're struggling yourself. If you're concerned about an eating disorder in yourself or a loved one, I want to introduce you to Equip. Equip is a fully virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home. Every Equip patient is matched with a multidisciplinary care team that includes a therapist, dietician, medical provider, and mentors. And you get a personalized treatment plan that's tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Equip treats patients of all ages and all eating disorder diagnoses.

24:36Alix Fox: It's covered by insurance and there's no wait list. If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder, don't wait to get help. Visit Equip.Health to learn more. That's Equip.Health. Pro athletes don't spend their time meal prepping. They eat smart, train hard, and recover fast. Factor makes it easy with dietician-designed, chef-prepared meals built to fuel your performance. Choose from high-protein, calorie-smart, GLP-1 support, and vegetarian options designed by nutrition experts to support strength and recovery. Train like a pro. Eat like a pro. Right now, go to Factormeals.com slash Healthy50Off and use code Healthy50Off for 50 % off and free breakfast for a year.

25:21Alix Fox: That's Factormeals.com slash Healthy50Off. Code Healthy50Off.

25:31Abbey Clancy: Sorry, I know we keep going off on a lot of tangents there. It's natural. It's quite difficult to not to, you know, it's so interesting this topic to not go off. But just please tell me more about what you're doing now.

25:43Peter Crouch: Okay, so I've spent a very long time writing about sex, learning about sex. I did a bunch of podcasts, one for The Guardian called Close Encounters, where I actually visited people in their bedrooms and spoke to them about their love lives. that explored all kinds of topics like asexuality, people who don't feel inclined to have sex at all. Is that a real thing or is that they just don't, they're not into the partners anymore? Some people can mistake themselves for being asexual when really it's a relationship that's run its course. But absolutely, it's very much an identity to just be somebody who doesn't want to have sex or doesn't want to have particular types of physical intimacy.

26:26Peter Crouch: see it's yeah they've got their own flag they have their own march it's a thing um yeah there is a we've gone off another it's intriguing though right isn't it human beings come in so many varieties and flavors and i want to taste them all so yeah for the guardian i spoke about asexuality i spoke to people who were um experimenting with ethical non-monogamy where they had more than one partner. I spoke to a woman with vaginismus, which is a condition where the muscles in your vagina clamp up so tightly, totally involuntarily, that any type of penetration with a tampon, with a finger, with a penis, it's virtually impossible without extreme pain.

27:15Peter Crouch: But these things are really important to talk about. So we spoke about them. I did a show for a while for the BBC called Unexpected Fluids. which was it was a youth focused comedy show uh all about people's real life tales of sexual fails okay so listeners would phone in tell us all the stuff that had gone deathly wrong for them in the bedroom and then we'd use that as a like we'd laugh about it together it was very warm and inclusive and then we'd use that as a jumping off point to educate about sexual health and safety yeah um i worked for netflix for a while as well most embarrassing one of those oh what of somebody else or for me the best i think the best one i heard i've dined out on this story for so long there was a woman who wrote in to say that when she was younger she was really intrigued about what intercourse would feel like but um she didn't have access to a body safe sex toy she She couldn't get her hands on a vibrator or a dildo.

28:21Peter Crouch: So she thought, well, what's round the house that's kind of vaguely penis-esque? And she settled upon a sausage. Oh, no. She actually, the sausage was not defrosted, though. It was frozen. And she inserted this rock hard, that frozen... Richmond sausage. Hot dog, yeah, Richmond. I love that. She put this porker right up her... You know what happens if you lick a cold lamppost? Stop, stop. Yeah, or, yeah. Like, um...

28:58Alix Fox: Dumb and dumb ass.

28:59Peter Crouch: Dumb and dumb ass. Exactly. She put this frozen sausage inside her vagina. Oh, and it... And the walls of her vagina stuck to the sausage. Oh, God. She panicked, but she actually thought very clearly... Cover warm water. Well, she thought, I'll phone a medical professional. Not a bad idea. Her dad was a doctor. her father ended up putting her in a hot bath and melting the meat out of his teenage daughter oh my god I've got a great line I've got a great sex disaster story

29:38Abbey Clancy: go on of a friend of a teenage story of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend so they were in a nightclub how pete lost his virginity no i'm joking is it ross no it's not ross he's still a virgin very good um virgin on his millionth relationship um so two teenagers hooked up in a club uh-huh so they went into the loo uh-huh

30:07Peter Crouch: for a little bit the sexiest of all locations yeah a bit of knob on the gop yeah yeah so then um

30:15Abbey Clancy: the girl was they were so drunk one of them started to be sick oh dear and because one of them

30:22Peter Crouch: I must be professional here and say if you're that drunk having sex with someone is a really bad idea

30:28Abbey Clancy: one of them started to be sick so then the other one saw the vomit and started to be sick as well so they were both locked at a cubicle vomiting on each other whilst the knickers around their ankles and undies around their ankles well

30:44Peter Crouch: Well, wanted a hunk, got some chunks.

30:49Alix Fox: Unfortunate.

30:51Peter Crouch: She's on Netflix now, you're on Netflix. Oh, I worked on a show on Netflix called Sex Education. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's starring Gillian Anderson and Asa Butterfield. I saw that, I've seen that. Yeah, have you seen it? I haven't seen it, but I've seen it. You know about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For people who don't, the show spanned four seasons. it told the story of a young lad who's at high school whose mum is a sex therapist he overhears some of her um her therapeutic sessions he learns about sex just from her chatting around the house and he starts to give advice to his peers at school amazing yeah but of course he's also young and dumb and figuring things out himself so i was a script consultant on that fantastic And nowadays I'm doing a PhD, which is still very new.

31:39Peter Crouch: The words feel fresh in my mouth at UCL's Institute for Global Health. I'm doing a project about HIV prevention. So I've spanned the whole gamut from the mild to the wild, the sizzling to the serious. But that's sex, isn't it? You know, it can be magic or tragic. It can be serious or silly. it can be challenging or it can be absolutely life-affirming yes and i want to talk about all

32:06Abbey Clancy: those things yeah amazing before we go any further we need to address the tentacles in the room and if you're watching this on youtube um you can see we've got a whole table full of goodies which is it goodies there's a few baddies in there

32:24Abbey Clancy: you need to educate us on what you've got on this table okay and our listeners a lot of the work i

32:30Peter Crouch: do these days involves sex toys. I've been a consultant for all sorts of sex toy companies, Durex, Tenga, who are very famous in Japan, but lesser known over here, Ann Summers, Womanizer, if you've heard of them. And I also get sent a lot of toys to test. I have a whole loft, the whole upstairs of my house is pretty much dedicated for things to titillate and stimulate your downstairs area oh my god i brought along a few of the things i think are illustrative of the most modern trends in sex toys so okay tentacle all right this is an example it vibrates like do you want do you want to have a go with it pete there bend over pedra

33:16Alix Fox: the monster from the deep is ready to go deep inside your feet i can't get that to where

33:23Peter Crouch: How do you do it? If you hold down the button, that's usually the way to turn on most toys these days. Just do what you do with your one. Oh, shit. It might have the trap on top.

33:31Alix Fox: Don't let me pretend. How do you turn this one on?

33:35Abbey Clancy: Can I just say, I actually don't know how to turn them on, and that's a good sign of truth. You know how to turn them on, sweetheart. I mean, that's actually really good feedback. That's too much of my hand to hold.

33:47Peter Crouch: It's sending like a thing down my arm. you are such a perfect person you'd be brilliant i'm a complete novice well you'd be absolutely brilliant then in feedback uh scenarios but like this is the kind of thing i think manufacturers need to know at the moment a lot of people are making toys more and more powerful like they go faster they go stronger they juddy you to the point where you feel like your teeth are gonna come out and they're so loud they sound like jason voorhees like revving his chainsaw whilst mowing the law on you yeah but not everybody wants more power some people want delicacy and softness and subtleness so does this go inside it's designed to be insertable yes only on the front that one not ideally on the back though isn't it yeah well uh some people like a challenge

34:34Alix Fox: why does it why does it do you think that's too long

34:38Peter Crouch: i love that neither of you so far have said well why is it an octopus

34:43Alix Fox: why why is it a tentacle well i've got another example here i'm gonna i'm just censoring this

34:53Peter Crouch: nose for the camera this is from the same range of fantasy monster toys and would you believe like i think let's have a little hold of him i'm gonna pass this to you very carefully for uh keeping the internet happy reasons. So, yeah. What's this? That's a suction cup so that you can attach that to... Yeah, you can attach it to a chair or a wall. What would I pick? It's a suction thing, isn't it? Yeah. Or if you're wearing... I bet you knew that.

35:22Abbey Clancy: Well, I don't know a suction thing, Max. I would not... It's the same with a TomTom.

35:26Peter Crouch: Just put it on the windshield. There are some people who need GPS to find where they're going in sexual terms. Pete knows what a suction plug is, but not an else video. I used to work at Halford, so I've not heard Tom Tom for a long, long time. You're really taking me back. How do you even know that? A suction bag goes on the wall. I feel like it would stick to a capacious forehead. That is also designed so that... Can you stick that to your stomach? If you're wearing a particular strap-on harness, then it'll stick to a harness. Both of these fantasy toys... In the past, you would only find something like that, quite a niche fetish site.

36:04Peter Crouch: Yes. Yeah, you wouldn't expect to find that in Anne Summers, for example. Those are both from Love Honey. Like, the UK's biggest sex shop, right? And they tell me that sales of these kinds of fantasy toys have gone up 244 % this year.

36:24Abbey Clancy: Is that since, like, Lord of the Rings and all that? You're right on it. What's the other thing?

36:29Alix Fox: The other book we mentioned.

36:30Abbey Clancy: Game of Thrones and... Court of Thorn and Roses. Yeah, I think people...

36:33Peter Crouch: Is that the erotic fantasy literature thing? You're bang on. Exactly that. People are...

36:38Abbey Clancy: That's a shit, isn't it? Because Ross will be talking about it with our erotic literature.

36:43Alix Fox: Throw me into this.

36:45Abbey Clancy: You're already featuring that whole song.

36:49Alix Fox: It's about Hobbit porn.

36:51Peter Crouch: Hobbit porn. I think more people, because of certain TV shows and books and erotica, are into the idea of fantasy and monsters and minotaurs they're a bit scary then well for some people the frightening aspect of the monster will be the thing that appeals to them because it's exciting you know to imagine that you're being uh ravished and taken over by something so much bigger than you and stronger i want the prince on the horse more i i love that you're so in touch with what you like and what you don't but you're still remaining curious that's a great attitude

37:30Abbey Clancy: i have a look i'm not approved i'm open to all discussions i think there are lots there's lots

37:36Peter Crouch: of talk about sex positivity these days which means being um non-judgmental and curious about sex and leaning into the idea that it should be for pleasure and play but i think some people misunderstand that as in order to be sex positive you have to be positively up for anything yes don't you're allowed to have your own tech tastes your own boundaries and what what is the type of

38:02Abbey Clancy: person doing all of this stuff because is it like into fantasy yeah but is it like is it someone in a new relationship or is it is it like um people in a new relationship or is like betty and dave who have been together for 60 years starting to be minotaur and bloody mermaids that's a really

38:25Peter Crouch: interesting question i don't know whether any research has been done the statistics on what type of of people what demographics are using toys like this we just know that more people are buying them now a lot of this this these kind of toys because they are imaginary they're about escapism like these aren't these are obviously not really like real life are they and i have a theory that sometimes but neither is a rampant rabbit it's not real life either is it no but some rampant rabbits do have like veins and a glands and they're a lot more they look a lot more like a human penis than this does okay so i want to see i'm totally clueless no not you're not clueless no i think i have a theory that i think people are more into toys that aren't like real life when they want to escape they want they want their sex life to take them somewhere somewhere else and be a way for them to relax and get a break from day to day drudgery and i think when things are hard in the real world you want your sex life to be as unrealistic and as fantastical as possible um you make an interesting point about rabbits though they were they were japanese invention they originally had a few cousins there was a tortoise there was a beaver i think there was a dolphin as well but it was the rabbit that won out as the most popular model for that it's called a dual stimulator because it has the rabbit ears on the outside that are stimulating the clitoris and then it has the shaft that stimulates internally so it's two prongs dual stimulation because you're getting that inside and outside internal external stimulation works really well for a lot of people with vaginas.

40:11Peter Crouch: But I think also the cuteness of the rabbit appealed to a lot of people because it didn't look like an imposing scary dick. Because I don't think Willys are particularly nice

40:20Abbey Clancy: to look at anyway. Congratulations, Pete. No, no. Do women think that? Because I don't think they do. Some women do. Do women go, oh my God, that is a gorgeous penis?

40:31Peter Crouch: Some human beings absolutely do. There's been more of a movement towards sex toys not looking like genitals and most there's been a like a big conversation about how that's great because it means that um they're less intimidating for people more people aren't put off they're more likely to enjoy and experiment with toys if they don't feel like they look gross to them gross but the thing is that i think that has made some people who actually do like phallic toys or who do like the look of they love the look of a cock they feel like that what they're into is kind of being um because if you think about genitalia on a whole both things genitalia can be a whole they're not they're not good looking things they are to some people and there

41:22Abbey Clancy: are companies is there something wrong with me no not at all no and i also don't like looking their vaginas either don't ask difficult questions during their lives you know it's not like looking at a beautiful face or yeah a nice body yeah as an organism or it's an organism organ yeah it's it's not particularly it's no pen it sits is it no you know they're not like a beautiful i well i

41:52Peter Crouch: there are some people who would say that they are but isn't that just in the spectrum of human

41:58Alix Fox: sexuality we don't all like the same things but you know what for me right um there's so many kind of like ladies things yeah so i think if a lady came out of ann summers with a box a dildo yeah you wouldn't look her and think oh pervert because if a man came out you think

42:19Peter Crouch: empowered right girl doing it for herself especially if i had an anorak on

42:24Alix Fox: went in and came out with a, I don't know what there even is. But, you know, with a vagina, everyone would go, that's perverted. So what my question is, You are absolutely correct. There's a stigma for men and not for women.

42:38Peter Crouch: There is. There certainly is in the UK. Straight men. Yes, absolutely. Straight men. You're so correct. This isn't true all around the world. Oh, really? In Japan, for example, um it's much more acceptable for a straight man single or coupled to use a stimulating device himself and are they using the are they using the tentacle and the froggy thing they're they're mostly using uh there's a company called tenga so it's more tenga than tentacle there has been a big push by companies recently to try and open people's minds and challenge that stigma and say men should be straight men included should be allowed to explore their bodies and experiment with different types of sensations just as much as women should um it's gradually i think becoming less verboten less forbidden and less considered that a man who has a toy is either a massive pervert who's got a basement full of whips and chains and god knows what or is a sad loner who can't get a real girlfriend so who needs a fake vagina we're starting to appreciate that it can just be a man who's interested in enjoying his body in different ways or who is familiarizing himself with toys because he wants to be in a relationship where toys are part of the playtime um there are also some toys that can bring health benefits for men or benefits that arguably make them a better coupled lover so what's that there are some um masturbation sleeves so it's you know not there's an interesting reaction um it's a like a soft silicone textured um how yeah like like a sleeve that you insert yourself into i'm trying i'm demonstrating this with my hands do you know sometimes when i do take because i talk about sex toys on daytime telly i'm told that i can't make certain hand signals yeah because they're they're doing what you want yeah when i'm doing my uh my s my s and m x-rated qbc i have to be very careful about what i do with my digits but yeah um so they are they're basically they're they're it's like a tube they're fuckable tubes yeah with textures inside some of them vibrate there's a company called hot octopus who actually trademarked the term guy brater they do an amazing um a real i think it's called the pulse a brilliant bit of kit that men can actually use even if they're not hard so if you're someone who's struggling with erectile difficulties if you're a disabled person who can't physically get hard on you can still achieve orgasmic feelings with this toy but some of these toys some of these devices help train men to be able to last longer to enjoy these sensations for longer so that they don't come as quickly i don't want all that they can practice it it's called edging it trains men to like edge themselves right to the edge to the edge of orgasm and then down and then edge back up again not only is it it's a ton of fun it feels really good when you finally climax but it also means that you are able to last longer in partnered sex which is something that a lot of people want so toys are good for the boys and for the gals and for everyone in between there's actually a big boon in um eco toys these days so if you're somebody who cares about the planet you want you want to rock your world in bed but you don't want to like be part of global warming at the same time then you can get environmentally friendly sex toys some of them are compostable they're made of plastic that's made out of cornstarch so once you're done diddling yourself you can you can just you can just throw them in the bin and they'll decompose over time in landfill others i actually did bring one with me um this one have a guess what guess what that's made of guess what that used to be which way around does this go that's a little wand so it's for external stimulation you just use it on the outside of your body this side other side uh the the gray silicone part the softer part is designed to use looks like a microbeard it does it does that bottom bit though this yeah it's not plastic no no so that toy the bottom of it was made is made of recycled aluminium cans so it used to be a pot can i can't even hold it have you ever been into like a a thing no like the arcade not

47:16Alix Fox: the ball and you hold it yeah the lucky chair feels like that or you know those power plates

47:22Peter Crouch: at the gym that were like a big thing about 20 odd years sell you like that yeah but yeah toys are good for the planet back in the day they used to be a real they were very they had very valid intentions you know they came from a good place but god they were awful there was one called the earth angel that was a wind-up vibrator but you had to crank it for eight minutes in order for it to vibrate it was like a mini air raid siren like a jack-of-the-box exactly yeah cranking it for eight minutes is beyond a lot of men i know yeah oh and there was another one that was a solar powered vibrator had like a little solar panel that you popped on your windowsill in the sunshine but you couldn't disconnect it so everyone would see it yeah and also when it was inside you you had this like wire yeah it looked like you were trying to photosynthesize your own puss it wasn't a good look that's a step so alex there's just so much

48:21Abbey Clancy: to talk about like i am flabbergasted i am a complete novice in this area i'm not a prude

48:27Peter Crouch: though no and i don't think you're doing sex wrong if you're not doing yourself with everything on the market either you know it's about personal preference it's about you know making your own choices and of course you're not supposed to know everything that's available in the world back to front the only reason i know about this stuff is because it's my job so it's i'm not here to make anyone feel like an idiot or an imbecile because they don't know everything that's out

48:54Abbey Clancy: there that's why we have these chats exactly and we're gonna have to get you on again because we've we've gone down so many tangents and we've literally gone down rabbit holes but our our listeners have been writing in. Oh, bring it on. And they've got a few questions for you. If you can help us with our agony abs. All right, bring on a few. Sorry, I'm doing all the talking. Pedro's obviously speechless. Why don't you try that saliva generator? I'm going to try them all later. There you are.

49:20Alix Fox: Saliva generator is all later.

49:21Peter Crouch: It's a sachet. It's a new product called Twinkle Tongue. It's got an active ingredient that is an extract of a flower. The slang term for it is buzz buttons or electric daisies. They're quite popular in cocktails at the moment because they kind of make your mouth sort of feel numb and tingly. Have you ever had Szechuan pepper?

49:45Abbey Clancy: No, but I've had pop and candies or anything like that.

49:47Peter Crouch: Not quite, but along similar lines. It makes you salivate a lot more. Basically, if you want to go on. Will it out my throat? It would help you produce more spit. There are activities that you may, where extra spit can be entertaining and enjoyable basically if you want to um swallow a sausage better than competitive eater joey chestnut then that is your thing

50:24Peter Crouch: there's also an issue where women in perium and menopause can experience oral dryness and it can

50:31Abbey Clancy: make kissing and and even vaginal dryness is a big thing for perry we have a lot of right um listeners write in about problems with the sex life due to the menopause and being you know not as thingy down there yeah it's because of all hormonal changes it does mean

50:48Peter Crouch: that bits of you can become a bit drier which can be uncomfy and also can just make you feel quite self-conscious yes i think it's more that designed to help you know you wouldn't this is more for your mouth rather than for your your genitals but yeah there's lubes there's uh estrogen pessaries there's all sorts of things that are available to help i hope we do get the chance to talk yeah there's so much there's a lot to explore we need to set out that we'll get our

51:14Abbey Clancy: listeners to write in we'll go on specific topics without going off on tangents yeah yeah okay can you help our listeners here bring it on okay hi agony and shaggy ab shaggy ab yeah i love it i told my partner valent this valentine's day sex was incredible when it wasn't i didn't want to hurt his feelings or ruin the night now he keeps referencing referencing like it was a huge success and i don't know how to reset expectations without making him feel awful do you ever tell the truth

51:45Peter Crouch: or is kindness more important here anonymous i think you need to kindly tell the truth and i think there are ways to do that this is really common yes um durex did a piece of research a little while ago that showed of women who uh fib and say they've orgasmed when they haven't over 50 of them do so because they want to protect their partner's feelings and they feel like if they say unless they say oh yeah it was amazing i came 27 000 times that their partner's ego will be crushed the problem that pretending something was absolutely fantastic when it was an absolute it's never going to be good is unfortunately you yeah

52:33Peter Crouch: how do you tell them then well because you've just set up this vicious circle haven't you where you're not getting a no you're just getting this this feedback loop of you telling them it was so they do it some more and then you don't feel like you can say anything.

52:46Abbey Clancy: But what if the woman doesn't know how to do it? I think, do you know what I mean? Because that's another common thing.

52:53Alix Fox: What do you mean? She doesn't know herself how to achieve. Yeah, how to achieve. Like if they're doing something

53:00Abbey Clancy: and it's not doing anything.

53:01Alix Fox: You are asking for a friend, aren't you, babe? I'm asking for our listeners.

53:05Abbey Clancy: This is what people have asked me to ask.

53:07Peter Crouch: It's not about us. Two questions here, really, aren't there? Yeah. how do you if you have told a white lie to flatter somebody um and about how good the sex was how do you come back from that how do you course correct and also if you're somebody who doesn't actually know what brings you pleasure then how can you find out and then communicate that so let's take the first question to begin with um i think there are really kind inviting ways that you can suggest changing sex without necessarily pointing making it a criticism or pointing out that you didn't like something last time you can say do you know what our sex life really matters to me or i'm i'm really looking forward to the next time we get together or i really trust you which is why i

53:57Abbey Clancy: think that we'd be great to explore this together to people say like you're confident saying that but to people if I said that to Pete he'd be like

54:05Alix Fox: if I said to her I really trust you in the best shoes I'd be like

54:11Peter Crouch: what are you talking about you should be thinking what on earth are you about to drop on me yes yeah yeah well you have to find your own language yeah but my point is you saying statements like you did this last time and I didn't like it it doesn't have to be that blunt you could suggest you could say do you know what would really turn me on I think if we tried this together like make it an opportunity yeah make it like keep it something that's exciting and curious rather than oh well you fucked up the fucking last time so you better pull better pull your

54:43Abbey Clancy: socks up before you take them off again yeah exactly i think yeah there's ways of framing

54:50Peter Crouch: things i definitely think just carrying on pretending everything's great it's not good i get this question a lot from people who've been in long-term relationships and some of them have been fibbing for a long time and lots of them they've only now realized that they haven't been honest because they've not been being honest with themselves either or um especially for slightly older people when they were younger they were taught particularly as women that sex was all about pleasing their partner and it was about performing sexuality and sensuality and like it The pretense was kind of more important than the real thing.

55:28Peter Crouch: Yes. You know, whereas now they are coming to realise that their pleasure does matter too. And just pretending that everything's great is not the best way to have genuinely great sex.

55:40Abbey Clancy: Yeah.

55:40Peter Crouch: But they're worried about telling their partner that because they'll realise that, they're worried that their partner will think, well, you've been fooling me for years. What else have you lied about? What else is broken in our relationship? It's true. And to those people, I sometimes think, as I say, I sometimes think that like, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. And something that is good to do is maybe what I call scapegoating, which is where you use a little white light and a little excuse to put things right. So we know there are lots of legitimate reasons why something that worked in the past for you in bed might not work now.

56:17Peter Crouch: yeah yeah if your hormones are changed pregnancy menopause if you're on if you change your contraception if you're stressed if you're tired if you're taking medication if you've had kids like there's a million things external to your partner being a bad shag that might mean that uh that thing that the way your body responds to something or what the way your mind responds isn't the same as it used to yes so you can say to your partner do you know what i've noticed that this thing that we've been doing for years I used to love I think maybe this I think maybe my body's changed and it's not responding in the same way so maybe we could try this together yeah and then you're not making the problem then you're making the problem external to you and your relationship yeah that's a good lot of people that's a very it's not entirely honest but it might get you

57:07Abbey Clancy: where you need to be and it avoids hurting the feelings exactly exactly that's a good one we've

57:12Peter Crouch: not spoken about how to explore yourself I think throughout your life no matter what your relationship status or your age constant like I think solo pleasure masturbation self-exploration is always important partly because your body does change and your situation does change so staying literally in touch with yourself is really important knowing what you what turns you on on your own terms in your own time is a really good basis for being able to communicate that to somebody else okay although I would caution I think some women the way they make themselves come or the way they experience pleasure when they're on their own actually doesn't work when they're with somebody else because when there's a second person there there's different input isn't there you're like you're hearing them say things you're looking into their eyes you're taking in their smell and their and their body like all of that stimulation can actually be a bit overwhelming for some people yeah they almost need to concentrate on their orgasm so you're not broken there's nothing wrong with you if the way you fiddle and diddle yourself in private when you're on your own doesn't translate to partner sex it's just again different flavors of having a good time so so long as you're enjoying yourself and so long as you're uh staying open-minded about how to enjoy yourself and how your partner can experience enjoyment you're doing it right

58:35Abbey Clancy: we'll let that

58:36Alix Fox: yeah interesting

58:38Abbey Clancy: it's very interesting but we've run out of time and we need so we're going to need you on again I've got millions of questions here from our listeners

58:45Peter Crouch: that would be brilliant if you go too long it can start to chafe maybe we have another session yeah amazing

58:54Abbey Clancy: well I've really enjoyed that so Alex sadly we've run out of time

58:57Peter Crouch: we've got to wrap up as somebody who is very pro condom I'm always into wrapping it up sure

59:04Abbey Clancy: and as you said before if it goes on too long it starts to chafe so exactly we're gonna have to leave it there but we will we would love you to come back on again because um i know we've got

59:14Peter Crouch: a few goodies to give away for our listeners we do i've hopefully if you feel this conversation has been something that's opened up lots of questions and possibilities for your audience i'll come back on i'll lube myself up for another conversation uh and we can be with these initial chats it always goes all over the houses there's so much to chat to talk about um but we can be a bit more focused yes settle down class yeah exactly but in the meantime i feel like i have given people a lot of tantalizing tastes about what is out there to buy and try if they want to but i appreciate not everybody has got the pennies and the pounds that it takes to pound yourself with some toys that are several hundred quid 700 quid several hundred quids oh my god so I've got some goodies to give away okay amazing I will what shall I do I'll I tell you what we'll put the details in the show notes yes but I'll run a little competition over on my socials okay and then maybe next time I see you we can be every time you tune in we can have the chance to win a little boom bang bangaranga for your bedside draw

1:00:24Abbey Clancy: amazing

1:00:24Peter Crouch: fantastic

1:00:26Abbey Clancy: Alex Fox everybody

1:00:52Alix Fox: We'll see you next week.

1:00:57Alix Fox: Right now, go to Factormeals.com slash Healthy50Off and use code Healthy50Off for 50 % off and free breakfast for a year. That's Factormeals.com slash Healthy50Off, code Healthy50Off.