Sex Education: How Irish women are focusing on their own pleasure in the bedroom

In Ireland and across the globe women are re-writing the sexual scripts they were given and are seeking out the sex education they never had

The pleasure principle: women are putting their own sexual satisfaction front and centre. 

The terms ‘pleasure’ and ‘pandemic’ don’t naturally go together.

But while a deadly virus was beginning to spread across the world this time two years ago - a new and particularly virulent strain of an erotic awakening also took hold.

In the past two years, we’ve collectively binge-watched Normal People, Sex Education and Bridgerton — shows that put female pleasure front and centre.

Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand Goop launched its first-ever vibrator (which sold out almost immediately), as did Lilly Allen, while model Cara Delevingne co-founded Lora DiCarlo — a company selling vibrators, g spot massagers and lube.

On TikTok and Instagram, a whole new breed of influencers are recommending sex toys and talking openly about issues like vaginismus (a painful condition that can prevent women from having penetrative sex), while former Love Island stars Faye Winter and Teddy Soares fronted sexual wellness and lingerie brand’ Lovehoney’s latest campaign. When shopping online, you’re as likely to come across a vibrator on sites like Asos and LookFantastic as you are a coat.

Jenny Keane, holistic sex educator and Tantra yoga teacher. Photograph Moya Nolan

Jenny Keane, a holistic sex educator and Tantra yoga teacher, has noticed the shift too.

“There’s been a huge shift,” she says, chatting from her home in Dublin. “We’re in the midst of a sexual revolution.” Keane has been lauded by celebrities such as Roz Purcell and Daniella Moyles while building an online army of devoted followers in search of sexual freedom and progression.

She had been delivering small workshops on the female orgasm and “the energetics of sex” before the pandemic hit in 2020. At that point, she had garnered around 2,500 followers on her Instagram page @hellojennykeane, and her biggest workshop had 22 attendees. Now she has more than 56,000 followers and her workshops sell out.

Keane says “something changed” when the pandemic hit, and she took her work online.

The pleasure principle

"I was not prepared for what happened,” Keane says, reflecting on the past two years.

“It's just grown, and it hasn't stopped.” In the past two years, Keane’s live workshops — like ‘Orgasm Online,’ ‘Women On Top’ and ‘All About That Base’ (yes that’s what you think it is) — regularly see anywhere from 350 to 1000 women attendees.

“I had 3,000 women in my Women On Top workshop, close to 8,000 attended a self-pleasure workshop.” The 35-year-old, who is now coaching thousands of women a year on how to give and receive pleasure, tells me she never set out to become a sex educator — it was her own curiosity and lack of education that led her down a path of discovery.

That journey included sexological bodywork (supporting women in exploring their bodies, sensations and sexuality) in Koh Phangan and attending workshops in San Francisco where a woman demonstrated how to find her g spot.

“I know it sounds strange, but it wasn’t weird. It was just women exploring their curiosity,” she says. Keane says she’s always been open about her sexual curiosity, but her work began when she realised that other women were curious too — they were just afraid to show it.

“When I came home to Ireland in 2016 and told my friends [at a dinner party] about the work I had been getting into and studying, every one of them looked at me blankly — they thought I'd lost my mind or joined a sex cult.

Sexual exploration

“But after the dinner, every single one of them messaged me individually and said ‘I was really interested in what you were talking about, I'd love to know more.” Keane didn’t realise it at the time, but that experience revealed the secret to why her move to an online forum has been so successful — women are hungry for this information, but there’s still a stigma attached to that curiosity.

“Exploring your sexuality is a very vulnerable thing,” Keane says, “there's still so much shame and secrecy around it.” But she believes her workshops are helping women overcome that — not just because of what she’s teaching, but because of the sense of solidarity.

“Women are nervous about coming to these workshops, even online, but as soon as you see that there are hundreds of others in this workshop with you, you realise, you’re not alone.

“You’re not alone in your curiosity, you’re not alone in the questions you have, the struggles you have.

Shawna Scott of sexsiopa.ie. Picture: Vanessa Ifediora.

“There is something really unifying and fortifying and reassuring for people about that. It makes them feel a sense of comfort, of safety.” Shawna Scott, founder of Irish sex boutique sexsiopa.ie, noticed a similar phenomenon when she hosted live Q&A’s.

“At first, I would have to bribe people to ask questions by saying the first person to ask a question will get a prize. But what would end up happening is once one person raised their hand, another would raise their hand and another…” When Scott founded Sex Siopa almost a decade ago, there was an appetite for it but there was also a hesitance and reluctance to talk about sex and sex toys.

Sexual play

“When the pandemic hit, I was getting lots of emails from people who had never owned a sex toy before, had never even considered owning a sex toy before, asking what would be the best toy for a beginner?

“There wasn't one particular demographic. It was every age group, every relationship status, people who were locked down with their partners or locked down away from each other. Everyone was looking for sex toys.” Scott also noticed customers were spending more on toys. Where two mini bullet vibrators priced at €27 and €32 used to be her most-commonly purchased item, Lily Allen’s €110 rechargeable vibrator was now outselling them both.

The Sligo-based sex shop owner, who attests to spending 12hrs a day frantically shipping out dildos and vibrators to customers in the early days of the pandemic, says a lot of people really “don’t have a clue” what they want or need when they reach out to her for advice.

A learning process

"People know enough to know that they want to explore their sexuality and explore their pleasure, but they just don't know how to go about it.

“They don’t even have the vocabulary.” Reservations Dublin-based psychosexual and relationship therapist Aoife Drury believes there has been a “huge shift” in the past decade when it comes to the discourse around sex, sexuality, sexual health, sexual wellness, and sexual rights.

But despite the progress that has been made, Drury says there are still a lot of women in Ireland who “recoil” at the thought of their own sexual pleasure.

Aoife Drury, Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist

“In my clinic room, there is still a lot of reservation from women in talking about and engaging with masturbation.” Drury believes sex-positive educators such as Jenny Keane are helping ignite a “really powerful” movement that is giving people the sexual education they never had — and deserve.

“In order to feel more empowered, you need basic sex education,” Drury says, “And that sex ed can come as basic as what a vulva is.

“I think it speaks volumes that women haven't been given the basic sex education and knowledge around their own genitalia.

“People know the difference between the throat and the neck from a very early age, but we don't teach people the difference between the vulva and the vagina.” Science-based sex education, which is being delivered on Instagram by the likes of Sarah Sproule and Grace Alice O’Shea of Sexual Health West, is also giving people the language to better communicate with their partners. But while this is a positive step, it’s “nowhere near far enough”.

Education of self

Psychosexual therapist, Natalya Price agrees — and adds that as part of this change, the concept of pleasure must become part of our basic sex ed.

“In order to give proper consent, you need to know yourself. You need to know where your boundaries are, you need to know what is pleasurable for you.

“And that’s the bit that is still left out — we still don’t talk about pleasure.” The pleasure mindset For Keane, demystifying sex for women — whether that’s giving her students the correct vocabulary for their body parts or demonstrating sexual positions — is all about giving women the tools to embrace pleasure, something many of us can struggle with in a world that seems to prioritise productivity and achievement above all else.

“We find it hard to give ourselves permission to do things that prioritise our pleasure,” Keane says, but it’s necessary for us to “regulate our nervous system, to reduce pain, to complete stress cycles, for our immune system, our relationships.” “Embracing pleasure is about turning your attention from accomplishment and achievement towards presence and experience,” she says. And for Keane, that means “good sex” doesn’t always mean an orgasm. And sexual empowerment doesn’t mean attending sex parties either.

Jenny Keane, holistic sex educator and Tantra yoga teacher. Photograph Moya Nolan

“A lot of people think to be sexually empowered, to be sexually free, means you're having threesomes or you're sellotaped to the roof and asking someone to f**k you sideways or something. I've had that myself, especially with men — ‘Oh you're a sex educator, you must be mad [in bed].

“But the true meaning of sexual empowerment is simply owning your desires, owning your wants and needs. That can mean you want to experience a threesome, but it can also mean you want to be in a committed monogamous relationship having missionary sex because that is what you like and desire.

“Sexual empowerment could also look like you making a conscious decision that for whatever reason, you don't want to be sexual with anybody right now. That doesn't mean that you are not sexual, it doesn't mean that you aren't sexually empowered — it's quite the opposite.

True sexual empowerment

“To be able to know what it is that you want and then be able to express that, that’s true sexual empowerment.” Embracing desire Tracy Clark Flory, a journalist who has covered the sex beat for numerous publications in the United States, has recently released her memoir which explores her own relationship with sex.

Clark Flory has spoken about how many women have become “disconnected from their own bodily experience, their own desires, their own wants.” “It's a very socially acceptable thing to reroute those desires through men,” she said, writing that for years she focused not on what she desired, but on how to be desirable to men.

In a society that has resisted providing decent, honest sex education, many women have learned about sex through media and porn that, for many years, placed male pleasure and penetration on a pedestal. It’s no surprise then that women have learned to desire what men desire, rather than connect with their own pleasure and desires.

The landing page on jennykeane.com posits that self-pleasure is a meditation on self-love.

“When so many of us are afflicted with shame about our bodies, remain mystified about our sexual functions and have confusion about sex and pleasure, taking pleasure as a practice is the beginning of an intense love affair with yourself.” If the growing numbers in Keane’s workshops are anything to go by, it looks like there’s a wave of Irish women ready to start that love affair now.