It’s not all dildos and lube and orgasms,” author, artist and sex educator Ruby Rare tells me. “As much as I’d like it to be.”
Taken in isolation, this statement might be considered salacious. Trifling. Hilarious, even. But we’re discussing Rishi Sunak’s recent decision to use section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to block Scottish transgender legislation. It’s a major setback for transgender people attempting to gain gender recognition, so it’s not a great moment for comedy. “The way that these topics are used for political gain is so insidious and so depressing,” Rare sighs. “I think mainstream culture will look back at the way that transness and trans people have been vilified in, like, 15-20 years, and be ashamed. So, as much as it’s important that more people are learning about the anatomy of the clitoris and getting STI tests, I find it quite hard to stay hopeful doing what I do. [But it] makes me realise it’s even more important to do it.”
Gender. Sexuality. Relationship types. These topics are everywhere, and Rare is the expert. Non-monogamous, queer and gender fluid – plus an educationalist revolutionising national discourse on all three – she’s best placed to capture the non-binary zeitgeist of today. But from a whistle-stop tour of Rare’s gregarious, vibrator-littered, candy-pink Instagram (and her 84,000 followers), one might make assumptions. Is she an influencer? Someone who capitalised on the sex toy revolution of 2020, when lockdown meant touching other people became suddenly illegal? Not quite.
First and foremost, Rare is a qualified relationship and sex educator (or RSE). She explains that her work is “a lot of hard graft”, adding that “a lot of sexual health is deeply unsexy”. Her book Sex Ed: A Guide for Adults, and her podcast In Touch, both straddle the line between academic and playful, erring always on the side of comprehension when discussing marginalised identities. Even in Body Love Sketch Club, the pro-nudity, body-positive space she co-founded with artist Rosy Pendlebaby, she always reminds participants of the importance of boundaries, consent and personal safety. She is, after all, an expert at what she does, drawing on years of training and experience.
Rare is cosied into a deep armchair in her Margate living room, which she shares with her non-monogamous partner; queer, Insta-famous web-comic artist Alex Norris. There are Polly Pocket lodgings and ceramic dildos along the mantelpiece. Patchwork curtains embroidered with non-binary quips. An endless rainbow of trinkets, slogans and papier-mache nicknacks celebrating queerness. It could feel kitsch, or tacky. It doesn’t. Rare’s eccentric furnishings encapsulate two essential aspects of her personality: deeply playful, and intrinsically devoted to her work. She grins from beneath her shock of trademark pink-neon hair. “I really love the idea of treating silliness seriously and treating serious stuff with a bit of silliness,” she beams. “That just feels like it sums up a lot of this really well.”
This year she will appear in Sex Rated, a new Channel 4 series hosted by Rylan Clark. It sees single Brits receive honest feedback about their sexual practices – and where they might be going wrong – from their past sexual partners. Ouch. This will be Rare’s highest-profile job to date. But despite her intimidating erudition, she wonders whether her queerness – partly manifested in her vivacious style and flamboyant dress – will flummox more traditional viewers. “I’ve got hairy armpits, a monobrow and weird scribbly tattoos,” she says. “I’m a little bit curious about whether there will be a pocket of people [watching Sex Rated] who associate that with some form of inadequacy. But I’m willing to prove them wrong.”
I’m a big fan of porn, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s missed out in mainstream porn
We travel through Rare’s timeline, which is peppered with seminal moments. Woefully deficient sex education from an RS teacher. Childhood queer experiences she didn’t have the language to unpack. Her obsession with Mulan, her “queer icon.” University (“a really crap time”). Years of “feeling directionless”. Then Brook, the UK-based sexual health charity. She spent five years with them, going into schools, teaching young people RSE, and training other sex educators and teachers about pregnancy decision-making, porn and inclusive queerness. Working with adults, she realised that the content of her practice didn’t change as much as she’d expected it to. “I did a big workshop about porn for adults at this festival, and the questions that I was getting were so similar to the ones that I was getting from young people,” she remembers. “It was just that moment of going, ‘Oh, okay, I’m part of a generation, and under generations above me, who are all playing catch up.’ None of us got half-decent sex education at a younger age.”
In 2020, RSE became mandatory in England and Wales, despite opposition from some faith-led protestors. In December 2022, a High Court ruling defeated a campaign organisation known as Public Child Protection Wales, which described LGBTQ sex and gender identity lessons as “woke” and “dangerous”. They also claimed the lessons “[promoted] sexual lifestyles, gender theory and new sexualities”. Addressing resistance to RSE, Rare says that a lot of parents’ fears are rooted in wanting to protect young people, and that it’s something she empathises with. But many don’t understand what is actually being taught. Rather they imagine the “worst case scenario”, she says – “the more you can meet parents and explain what you’re going to talk about, where you're coming from and why you think it's important, the better. More times than not, there’s common ground.”
I ask Rare if there’s ever an age that is too young for someone to be learning RSE. “I don’t think it’s ever too young for someone to learn about their body,” she says. “[But] the way that information is communicated, and how much of that information is communicated, is very age dependent. That’s not just about what’s appropriate, it’s also about competency.”
There have been several studies indicating that comprehensive RSE results in young people having sex later. Equally, having absolutely no RSE can result in pornography becoming the primary source of sex education. “I’m a big fan of porn,” Rare clarifies, “[but] there’s a lot of stuff that’s missed out in mainstream porn.”
Today, much of Rare’s work is done online. Despite this, she doesn’t trust social media, or the “wild west” of the internet – especially after her Instagram account was removed without warning in 2018. “I find it really hard to forget that the people who design and are behind these massive social media platforms do not have the sex-positive community’s interests at heart.”
Rare adds that RSE content shared on TikTok by clinically trained people, or users with expert professional experience, also seems to go through much more censorship than clickbait, or videos that potentially spread misinformation. “I don’t think they want sex education on their platforms,” she says. “People are still uncomfortable talking about sex. Then you throw young people being on the app into the mix, you throw misogyny and homophobia and transphobia and racism into the mix… It’s a scary time to be talking about sex and bodily autonomy.”
Before I go, I ask Rare the question I’ve been burning to ask – the one everyone wonders when they meet non-monogamous folk. Does Rare ever get jealous? Specifically, when her partner(s) date or sleep with other people? She laughs. This is one she’s heard before.
“I experience jealousy,” she says. “But I don’t experience jealousy in a way that is that different from when I was monogamous.” She proceeds to decant dynamite advice for the non-monogamous and monogamous among us. “Jealousy is an experience that we’re so scared of, and I think the fear of jealousy is much more damaging than actually experiencing jealousy itself. Because, really, jealousy is insecurity. If you can locate where that’s coming from and why that might be, and you can figure out what to do [with it], or what to communicate to other people… it isn’t that scary.”
I scrawl this down frantically (for professional purposes, of course.) Here endeth the lesson. One of them, at least.
‘Sex Rated’ arrives on Channel 4 this spring
