Tuesday 6th November 12

Up early and I did the 'bread run', cycling round to Thomas The Baker and getting loaves and rolls from the Yesterbake shelves. Then I sorted out a quite large volume of compostables from the kitchen and conservatory, and did a bit of HotBin management, scraping out the bottom layers and putting them into the dalek next to it. I did a bit of lime-stick stacking and at midday, Shirley arrived with her car full of mixed willow twigs, most of them very small and in fact, probably better for composting rather than fuel.  It will take me AGES to process that lot!

After lunch I got ready to go to Sheffield, and I got the 3.44 train.  I met River in Sheffield station, and we went for a meal together; I had pumpkin ravioli.  At 6 we went to the event we'd both come to attend, Sense about Sex.  This was part of the Economic and Social Research Council Science Festival and they marketed the event as Sex myths and sex research.

However, I think it was wider than this. The facebook event page promoted it with this:

Join us in Sheffield on 6th November for an evening of discussion and debate about sex, sexuality and sexualisation. We will be exploring common myths, assumptions and attitudes about sex and drawing on cutting edge scientific and social research to consider how we might look at things differently.

* What is normal sex? And who is having it?
* Is society becoming too sexualised?
* Are young people becoming sexual too early?

* What impact does pornography have on people?
* How can we find out what we'll enjoy sexually? And how do we tell our partners about it?
* What secrets do sex therapists learn about what people get up to in the bedroom?
* Why was 50 Shades of Grey so popular?
* How common are sexual problems and what can be done about them?
* Where do our sexual desires come from?
* How do orgasms work?
* Can you get addicted to sex? Has the internet made this more of a risk?
* Sexually speaking, are men from mars and women from venus?
* What new rules are there for sexual relationships?
* Is the media sexualising our children?
* When it comes to sex, what are the vital statistics?

The evening will take the format of a question-time discussion where you can put your queries and comments to a panel of experts including Feona Attwood (porn researcher and author of Mainstreaming Sex and porn.com), Clarissa Smith (author of One for the Girls and regular expert witness in sex-related legal cases), Clare Bale (expert on sex in young people), and Meg Barker (sex therapist and author of Rewriting the Rules).

Well, as you can imagine, it was fascinating stuff. 

I'd not really heard of 'society becoming too sexualised' and didn't really know what that was about. However, it's a fascinating subject.  Not all of these questions were discussed, and there was quite a bit of 'debunking'.

Afterwards, there was an hour before the train I wanted to get so a group of us retired to the bar next door, and chatted.  Clarissa was on the same train as me so we chatted all the way back. 

I got in at about 11pm, feeling intellectually refreshed.