Why, What, How? 

Have you ever thought there’s more to sex than you’ve experienced? Welcome to The Sex Lectures. You’ve arrived at the right place. The Sex Lectures are a gathering for people who want to learn together, feel freer, have brave conversations, and realise possibilities and choices. The Sex Lectures are the sex education we’ve always needed where connection, choice and creativity matter. Promoting personal and erotic freedom of information, to develop skills and knowledge for creating honest, self-aware & intimate connections. 

To inspire your curiosity and appeal to your courage, in the 12-minute talks, speakers share lived experiences and professional knowledge. From sexuality professionals and creatives, we learn there’s no right way to do this mysterious and sometimes bewildering thing called ‘sex’, pleasure, relationships or intimacy.

They started in Manchester in 2018 when sex geek Alison heard three little words in meditation and asked artist Roger Bygott to bring The Sex Lectures into being. Held at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, there’s an intimate speakeasy vibe. You’re invited across a threshold into new realms of kindness, fun, risk and pioneering sex ed.


Contributors & Creators

Alison Pilling

Founder of The Sex Lectures

Tantric heretic, Sexological Bodyworker and all-round sex geek Ali hosts the Sex Lectures with warmth, insight & welcome. Ali has roved around the erotic realms in a soul journey through sexuality. For a previously repressed catholic, identifying and overturning old beliefs opened up a new sense of what was possible. Connecting with eroticism and sensuality allowed new ways of understanding to emerge, leading to growing embodied awareness, personal freedom and empowerment. 

Carla Crivaro

Co-Creator of The Sex Lectures

Carla first appeared at The Sex Lectures in January 2023 with her debut talk The Search for our Inner Power. Carla’s enthusiasm and vision in the development of The Sex Lectures quickly meant that she became a co-creator. As a co-host she shares humorous insights into her own life and learnings as well as the fascinating journeys of her clients. Carla’s full-time gig is a certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach. As well as supporting individuals and couples, she is now taking this important work into the corporate world as part of staff enrichment and wellbeing.


 

Co-hosts

Though the format has always remained the same since the original The Sex Lectures, its been evolving as more people support and contribute. We have changing co-hosts who drop in frequently & you’ll often find them supporting the event in many ways.

 

Lex Ryder

Lex is an embodiment-focused sex and kink educator supporting individuals and groups to explore the topics of sexuality, pleasure, intimacy, identity, relating, and power.

Professionally trained as a Certified Sexological Bodyworker, Embodied Facilitator, and Certified Dominatrix (among other things), a big focus of their work is around how kink - done consciously - can be used as a route to empowerment and us becoming whole, integrated humans.

https://www.pleasurerebels.com

 

Sian Johnson

With nearly a decade of exploring and training in the fields of Tantra, Consent, Sexological Bodywork, Coaching, Kink and Psychotherapy, Sian is a holistic Sex Coach for Men and their partners. Sian is a strong advocate for supporting men to move through the restrictions and myths of modern masculinity and what men ‘should be’, to explore the possibilities of what they ‘can be’; to access a deeper connection with their innate and healthy masculine power. 

Sian offers programmes to support men to turn bedroom stalemate into deeper, authentic connection, delight and renewal.

 

Verity Harrison

Lipstick lesbian, feminist and graduate psychologist, Verity cohosts with style, irreverence and intelligence. Following a seven-year exploration of Tantra, she combined body and mind in a unique study exploring women's experiences of Tantra, providing fascinating insight into the transformational potential of Tantra, as well as the thorny challenges of consent within the complex power dynamics at play. When she's not flirting with Freud she can often be found running over the West Pennine Moors and in fell races across the North. 

 

Heidi Hinda Chadwick

Heidi Hinda Chadwick is a creative life coach and storyteller, who specialises in the following areas: sexuality & creativity; creativity & mental health and embracing the Fierce Queen. The foundations of her work are about understanding what is vital to us, what makes us feel alive, what we value, and why.

It’s all about how to live a juicy and full life, living from a deep sense of well-being, alignment and freedom whilst allowing ourselves to be vividly and wildly imperfect. Heidi has been writing for over 15 years, about life, love, sex, relationships, soul, creativity, and arts & culture.