I caught mum making alien sex eggs in the kitchen… and other tales from sexperts' kids

And new British comedy Sex Education explores every cringey moment of just such a relationship.


The eight-part Netflix show stars Gillian Anderson, 50, as Dr Jean Milburn and Asa Butterfield, 21, as her teenage virgin son Otis.

It has been a massive hit, with Netflix saying it is on track to have been watched in more than 40million homes around the world just one month after its release.

Sun sexpert Alix Fox was a consultant on the series and revealed: “We discussed the eyebrow-raising list of everyday items that young folks have told me they’ve used to pleasure themselves — tomatoes, fridge doors, jars of raw liver, vibrating video game controllers; even marker pens.

“There’s a scene in the show where a guy describes cutting a hole in a watermelon — you can imagine the rest — and I can confirm more than one lad has tried that for real.”


Set in the Wye Valley, the British production has been slightly Americanised for the global audience — with Otis’s school featuring US-style school lockers, kids driving to classes and absolutely no uniform.

But the humour is definitely pure British — as is the level of embarrassment that can engulf us when we try to talk about sex.

So what is life really like for the children of real-life sexperts?

Here, the kids of two sex therapists and a sex writer tell us about some toe-curling moments.

  • Find out more about sexual and relationship therapy at cosrt.org.uk.

'Men who dress up in latex puppy suits was a memorable fetish'

SEX writer and adult toy reviewer Violet Fenn, 49, is writing a book called Sex And Sexuality in Victorian Britain.

She lives in Shrewsbury, Shrops, with sons, Jaime, 22, a barman, and Oscar, 14.

Jaime says: "As someone who writes about sex, Mum often gets mysterious packages through the post. It’s always 'work stuff'. If I wanted details, I could ask but I don’t tend to.

"And thankfully she never leaves any of the objects she reviews lying around the house.

"She’s written about all kinds of fetishes. The men who dress up in latex puppy suits was a memorable one.

"I don’t feel embarrassed at all, I want to read her articles. I’m ­interested in her work.

"I do remember the day, about seven or eight years ago, when Mum announced that she was a sex writer.

"It might sound odd, but I didn’t really think ­anything of it. To me, it was no different to saying she works at a nail salon.

"We have always had a very open relationship, and even as a teenager I had quite a mature attitude towards sex.

"Although I enjoyed watching Sex Education, I did find it odd that the boy, Otis, was so ­embarrassed about his mum’s job at the beginning.

"If you grow up in that ­environment, you normalise it. When I was younger, I was quite camp and other children told me I must be gay. So, I kissed a boy, discovered I wasn’t gay, and I told my mum about it.

"She just said, 'Oh, fair enough,' but my friends were bewildered that I would tell her that kind of stuff."

VIOLET SAYS: “My work often throws up funny situations.

“There was the day Jaime caught me making gelatin eggs in the kitchen to use in an ‘alien ovipositor’, which is basically a silicone sex toy that lays goopy gelatin eggs inside you.

“It’s for people who have alien fantasies. What they don’t tell you is that you have to make your own eggs, by setting the gelatin in egg moulds. Then there was the time I was sent a vibrating sex machine, which are used a lot in porn films and you sit on top of it.

“It’s plugged into the mains and when I turned it on, the whole house shook. We live in a terrace and I had to tell the old lady next door that the Vax had a motor problem.

“I’m open with Jaime about sex and my own ­relationships but I don’t demand to know everything about his private life, like Dr Milburn does of her son.

“I’m fairly confident he would come to me if he did have any worries.

“When I tell people what I do for a living, they sometimes confuse sex writing with sex work or they think that if I’m writing about swingers then I must be one myself.

“Then there are the people who start ­telling me everything about their sex life. Which can be a bit awkward when I next see them at school events!”

  • Follow Violet on Twitter at @violetfenn, or Jaime on Instagram at @trickylogger.

'She was happy when I lost my virginity'

MUM-of-two Rima Hawkins, 53, is an accredited sex and relationship therapist and lives with husband David in Fulham, West London.

Daughter Devika Chowdhury, 30, who works for a ­hospice, lives in Chelmsford, Essex, and is training to ­follow in her mother’s ­footsteps.

Devika says: "I remember one day, a friend and I decided to tidy my messy teenage ­bedroom. Among all the debris, we found 52 condoms, all shapes and sizes and colours and flavours. And all given to me by my mother at various times. I was a virgin at the time!

"It wasn’t until I got to ­university that I realised I’d had a much more extensive sex education at home than many of my friends.

"I became someone that people turned to for advice about sex.


"It felt like I had a superpower, and it was a privilege that friends would open up to me about intimate issues.

"Being open is something I’ve always valued at home. When I lost my virginity, I told my mum and grandma.

"Mum was really happy for me and wanted to know more.

"There are times, though, when she’ll ask one question too many and I’ll laugh and tell her, ‘No way, you’ve gone too far now!’"

RIMA SAYS: “I never sat Devika and her younger sister, Dipika, down for ‘the talk’ – sex just cropped up in ­conversations naturally.

“We might discuss the pros and cons of a new ­contraceptive method over dinner. The information just dripped into their lives.

“When Devika told me she had lost her virginity, I wanted to know if it was a good experience for her.

“It was a great moment, like welcoming her to the womanhood.

“After the girls left home, they would call with friends’ problems, whether someone needed to see a doctor about a rash or whatever.

“Sex Education is brilliant. The only thing that made me cringe is Dr Milburn flaunting her sex life.

“For a therapist, she should see how uncomfortable it makes her son.”

'She tried to give me a strawberry condom'

MOTHER-of-two Lorraine Bacon, 51, from Colchester, Essex, is an accredited psychosexual relationship therapist and lives with son, Harry, 21, who works in data programming.

Harry says: "As a teenager, mum would thrust condoms into my hands all the time.

"'Go on, you might get lucky,' she would say. 'Try a strawberry-flavoured one.'

"The result was that I bought my own condoms rather than go through the embarrassment of using ones Mum had given me.

"When she told me she was a sex therapist, I did have visions of being at school sports day and her asking my friends about their penises.


"She does ask them about their relationships, but in the privacy of our home.

"Friends would deliberately ask her stupid questions, like 'What’s a hymen?' The joke was on them when Mum would get the diagrams out.

"Once, when I brought a girl home and Mum came back unexpectedly, I rushed out of my room and it was pretty obvious what I’d been doing.

"Unlike most mums, mine then wanted to know how it had gone. Now I quite enjoy telling people what she does for a living, and the stunned silence that follows.

"Mum’s job isn’t just about sex, but about relationships. She’s taught me about what’s important in a relationship. But there is a boundary – there are just some things a mum and son don’t want to know about each other."

LORRAINE SAYS: “Harry jokes that I’m just like Dr Milburn in the way I talk to him in ‘therapist-speak’. And like Jean, I’m single and enjoy the occasional fling.

“One day, when Harry was a teenager, I was quizzing him about whether he had ever tried drugs. He then asked, ‘Are you having sex with so-and-so?’ I said , ‘Yes.’ Then we ­carried on eating.

“If I’m going to be curious about his life and expect him to be open with me, then I need to be the same.

“I have worked as a ­therapist since 2009, then seven years ago, I did a postgraduate diploma in psychosexual relationships.

“I’m very aware of how expectations and anxieties around intimacy can affect self-esteem, and I want my son to be comfortable when he’s talking about sex.”


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