This article contains references to sexual aggression and suicide.
“Involuntary Celibate” is the term that Sofie Hagen says that she describes her sexual life better, despite her “horrible connotations.”
After all, it has been almost a decade since the 36 -year -old lay with someone.
But his non -existent sex life is not due to “lack of options”; Rather, every time he approaches intimacy in the last 10 years, his body has betrayed her.
“My brain said: ‘Yes, let’s do this, we will have sex now’, and my body said: ‘No, you are not'”, says the award -winning, author and Danish Podcast.
Danish comedian, Podcast and author Sofie Hagen had sex in 2015. Fountain: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
About three years ago, Hagen realized that if he would ever have sex again, he needed to find out why there was a disconnection between his brain and his body.
“The crucial moment was when I was doing a show and I saw someone at the audience and I thought:” Wow, she is incredible. This is the most popular person in the world “, and on stage I was imagining:” Well, we are going to marry, this will be incredible, it is so pretty, “he recalls.
“When I left the stage, she hit me and I thought: ‘My God! Okay, I’m inside, I’m inside. “
I felt that my blood cools and began to sweat and thought: ‘Oh, I am having a panic attack’, and I blocked it.
Will I ever have sex?
That extreme reaction caused a self -discovery trip for Hagen. He read all the books about sex he could have in his hands, but instead of giving him the solutions he was looking for, “everyone was only on how to transform his sexual life.”
“I thought, ‘Well, I don’t have a sex life to transform. I need to form one. How do you do that?” She says.
“Then I thought, ‘Oh, well, maybe I have to write the book'”.
Then she did it.
Will I ever have sex? It was released last year. Fountain: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
In Will I will ever have sex again?, His second non -fiction book, Hagen takes readers to a trip through their past and present while trying to understand what makes sex so difficult for her and “how to pass, ‘Oh, that person is a pretty’ for the naked bit ‘”.
Using A Blend of Painfully Funny, RAW and Relatable Personnel Anecdote, queer), Body Image, mental Health, Neurodivel, Misogyny and The Patriarchy Can Shape Our Understanding and Experiences of Sex – or Act as a barrier to her.
But she hardly ended the book.
Trauma plays ‘an important role’
In the middle of the writing, Hagen was beaten by a paralyzing thought: that the only reason he was struggling to have sex was due to the complex post -traumatic stress disorder that he has, and that he was “very specifically broken” in a way that would prove to be “unleashed and inexplicable for any other person.”
“I have a therapist, but I began to see a sexual therapist during this thing to be, ‘correct, we are just going to talk about the sexual’, and she continued to ask me the same questions as my normal therapist, and I thought, ‘No, no, no, no, we must focus on sex'”, he says.
“Eventually, she said: ‘Sofie, you can’t separate it. When I ask you about your trauma that is also relevant to your sex life,’ I thought, ‘Oh, FK, you are right. They are not two different things; of course, everything is connected'”.
Sofie Hagen has been making stand-up for about 15 years and co-founded the guilty feminist podcast. Fountain: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
It was for that time that Hagen sent a questionnaire to his newsletter subscribers and followers on social networks, asking: “If you don’t have sex, but you would like to be, why do you think that is?”
He received 1,800 answers within 48 hours, which He reaffirmed that he was not alone in his struggles. The answers that people gave were “all very individual, nuanced and complicated,” but Hagen says that trauma still played “an important role.”
A large part of that arose from sexual violence, only 30 of the answers received that Hagen received did not include the sexual aggression of some kind, but other factors such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia and training also had an impact.
Another community among the answers was low self -esteem.
“It’s such a normal thing to be, ‘Oh, yes, I’m not good enough. I don’t see myself well enough. I need to look better’ … create a disconnection between us,” she says.
“I wrote a complete book [Happy Fat] On how to love your body, and I really felt it stuck it. ”
I really love my body, I love how I see myself, but I had not considered that there is a big difference between loving your own body and then believing that other people will also.
“You cannot control that, and you should not try to change people’s minds. That is a more vulnerable part where you are going, ‘well, now it is about trusting that people are not lying when they say it’, and that suddenly feels much more difficult.”
‘You have to be Feely’
Hagen’s perspectives on sex have changed a lot since he wrote his second book. He used to consider sex as “a performance” where “other people had the scripts and were really good at that, and I didn’t know where to get scripts or audition or access to theater.”
But that has now been “turned in the head.”
“What I realized was: ‘Oh, it is not a performance, it is a connection between two people, and there is no script and there is no solution, and we are all extremely human, and nobody has the answers,’ which is really annoying,” she says.
“I just want to be in my head where everything thinks, but you have to be Feely.”
Writing his second book changed Sofie Hagen’s prospects about sex. Fountain: SBS news
While Hagen did not reach his initial goal, which was “having a lot of sex”, which he learned instead was “much better” than he thought he needed.
“It’s not about how much sex you have; it’s about making sure you feel safe in your body and that you feel safe with people with the people you are, and that the sex you have is good, comfortable, safe and consensual and fun,” he says.
“And I learned much more about limits and self -esteem, intimacy and community and all these other things that I, in my head, had completely divorced myself from sex.”
For your delight, the altering effect of the life of will I ever have sex? It has also extended to readers.
“People have left their partners or realize that they are homosexual, and I have had frantic friends, not even friends, but the acquaintances or colleagues me and say: ‘I do not think it is a man’ or ‘I do not think it is a woman’, and I am like ‘well, welcome to the panic of what the FK is me?” He says.
“I am constant to ask me all these questions all the time … it is sure to be in whatever it is normal, but it is very fun to be challenged for that and realize:” Oh, things can be different, “sometimes they have to be really difficult before improving, but I like that, I find it very exciting.”
“My favorite comment is when people are really angry with me and leave: ‘Now I have had to think about things that I had never had to think,” says Sofie Hagen. Fountain: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
Bringing ‘Banglord’ to Australia
In recent months, Hagen’s life has been “completely the other way around” in other ways.
After 12 years in London, he decided to return home in Denmark after a period of the worst depression and the suicidal ideation he has never experienced.
While some may feel returning with their mother in the mid -30 years it is a backward step, Hagen sees him as an opportunity for a restart of life.
“I couldn’t concentrate again, discover where I want to live, who I want to be, what I want to talk about, how much of myself I want to share and how do I want my career to look?” She says.
I think it’s really healthy, scary and exciting.
Hagen is currently in Australia for Melbourne and Sydney comedy festivals, where he is playing his last standing show, the ironically entitled Banglord.
Having his “so drastically” change life means that the Australian public will see a slightly different version of the program that premiered at the Fringe Edinburgh Festival in 2023 while he was still writing his book.
“It will cover gender, feminism, fatness, it will be my first strange date and how I did it … and being a socially uncomfortable person,” she says.
“You will be part of a group of really great and pleasant people; girls and gays and many of the non -binary and monsters, rare and people who feel they are not part of something, and then I make jokes and we are part of something.”
Sofie Hagen is playing her last Stand-Up show, Banglord, at the Melbourne and Sydney comedy festivals this month. Fountain: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
As for whether he will have sex in the short term again, Hagen says he is trying not to press.
“I feel that the fact that I wrote a book called Will Will have sex.
“Now it is a big problem in my head, and there is a good possibility that the person knows that there is a King book about it.
“But what I learned by writing the book is communication, and how I would be having a long conversation with the person in advance anyway, so if they do not make me feel comfortable about it, then I will not have it.”
Banglord is in the Greek gallery, Melbourne, until April 20. It runs at the Factory Theater, Sydney, from April 25 to 27.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual aggression, call 1800 respect to 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, or visit . In an emergency, call 000.
Readers seeking crisis support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, suicide returns the service to 1300 659 467 and the children’s aid line in 1800 55 1800 (for young people up to 25 years). More information and support with mental health is available in and in 1300 22 4636.
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