She arrived “in a hurry”, phone in hand and smile on her face. And she spoke for two hours, stopping just to laugh out loud. In 2019, Charline Vermont quit her job as “manager in a very, very serious company” to launch
the Orgasm and me account on Instagram. Since that which has a diploma of statistician and economist spends more than 100 hours per week to “educate in sexuality” her “community” of more than 500,000 subscribers. This month, Charline Vermont released a book [Corps, amour et sexualité, Ed. Albin Michel] and collaborated with Netflix on the occasion of the release of season 3 of Sex Education. Interview with a work monster who sees herself as a “geekette who allows speech to be released in a frame safe and above all funny ”.
It’s awesome. For part of the generation of 30, 35 and over, this is not the priority. They still think that asking for consent breaks the mood. But we can clearly see today that there is a new generation that is taking the time to educate itself. There is a real mental load of sex education. We educate ourselves well in zero waste, so we can educate ourselves in consent and for that we get our fingers out of the c ** and take the time to read educational content.
Like your book …
Absolutely (laughs). I wrote this book because there was no transgenerational book on sexuality. There were, in my opinion, only books aimed at parents and all were anxiety-provoking. A bit like during evening readings with my three children, I wanted this book to create a “safe” space to start healthy discussions around sexuality. I wanted the children to know that they could ask their questions freely, without fear of judgment. They had to be able to come and ask them to us, reference adults, rather than going to ask them elsewhere.
At Google, for example?
Today, when children ask themselves a question and they do not have the answer or feel that the adult is not comfortable, they will seek answers from their classmates. which sometimes have flowery or erroneous representations. They will also type “sex” in the search bars. And there, it is cata. They fall on porn platforms far from conveying the idea of benevolent sexuality. In France, the median age at which children have seen porn is 12 years old. So you can decide that the first time your child will be confronted with some form of sexuality it will be through porn or you can decide to give them a framework and the words so that the day they are exposed to this kind of sex. ‘images, he’ll know it’s not real sexuality.
I have people around me who are actors, directors or pornographers and I have a look at this industry which is a little more subtle than “porn is bad”. Pornographic support is a support for excitement, a masturbatory support. At no time can mainstream free access porn serve as educational support. The problem is that the youngest use it this way in the absence of credible alternatives to answer their questions. The question of the dangers of porn is actually a real invitation to us adults to rethink sexuality education as it has been implemented in school classes for thirty years. The risk-based approach is certainly necessary, but by no means sufficient.
So how can sexuality education evolve? Should we create new standards?
Sexuality is a living matter. We must not impose or normalize anything again, but we must deconstruct, reinvent. We are living in an era where it is possible to easily and freely offer a credible alternative to porn sites to avoid the generations trained in Youporn and, therefore, heterocentric on the pleasure of penis owners. For example, you might think that the percentage of women who reach orgasm is higher than it was fifteen years ago, well no. Finnish studies show that the practices are more homogenized, modeled on the pounding modeled by porn whereas only 6% of people with clitoris reach orgasm through penetration or vaginal stimulation. We absolutely have to get out of this pattern and get creative again. Fortunately, you never stop learning.
The question of the dangers of porn is actually a real invitation to us adults to rethink sexuality education as it has been implemented in school classes for thirty years. “
You seem optimistic on the matter.
Totally. Since 2010, there have been as many medical studies on sexual health as in the previous fifty years. So far the pleasure of women and people with vulva has completely passed after that of men. Viagra even hit the market before the anatomy of the clitoris! There are a lot of things happening now and especially since the #Metoo movement. Finally, we are free to talk about systemic sexual violence and work to prevent it. And we are not ready for the coming generation. For example, children’s awareness of the difference between sex and gender is exceptional.
Maybe because they grew up with #Metoo, Orgasme and me and Euphoria …
It is much more difficult to deconstruct a diagram when you are 30 or 40 years old than to grow up already having representations that are finally diverse and inclusive. This generation has access to Euphoria Where Sense 8. It is magic.
And to “Sex Education” …
There are a few dozen people in France to keep sex education accounts. Poor buggers who volunteer a monster job in public health, because educating about sexuality means fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer STIs or STDs and less sexual assault. I receive almost 800 messages a day to which I answer 90%. Basically, I spend 100 hours a week there. And there, I see a kind of American and capitalist bulldozer arriving called Netflix and which provides content that talks about vaginismus, transidentity, coming-out. I am delighted to be working with a company that does the work that we would expect from our institutions.
Sexuality is political because it upsets the established order: sexist and patriarchal. “
Has your speech changed since 2019 and the creation of your account?
I mainly trained. I am now a sex therapy practitioner and I also have a sexual health educator cap. For my book, I surrounded myself with a college of experts (doctor, gynecologist, gender therapist, etc.) to include and represent all parents and children. Today, without lying, I think I am one of the people who has read, and still reads, the most studies on sexual health in France. I can train professionals and explain to them how to talk about dyspareunia Where
anorgasmia. Today, I feel like a science broker.
Concretely, you have changed the meaning of the hashtag under which your community gathers. #MMM went from “wonderful guys and guys” to “Mixed marvelous minds”…
If there is one subject on which I have evolved a lot, it is inclusion. This #MMM was not at all inclusive. I changed the meaning after deconstructing my world which was very cisnormed. You see, we are constantly educating ourselves.
But when we’re not #MMM and we’re not following your account, what are we? Are we not benevolent?
Ah, good question… I want to believe that we are all a bit of the #MMM in the making.
On dating sites some people say #MMM. Who gave them the “Orgasm and Me” certification?
It revolted me so much when I found out about this. A lot of things created by deconstruction movements are picked up by “cis het” guys. This hashtag which means “I am subscribed to an account and I am learning” is picked up by guys who proclaim themselves #MMM in “the ass without the fuss” mode. They are not ashamed of anything when this hashtag is supposed to bring together utopian “ass care bears” (laughs) who have nevertheless spent eighteen months without going out. My account, our lives, our content were a real way to keep subscribers going, to support them during confinement. We created our “private jokes”, our Sunday evening meetings and we are still educating ourselves in sharing and benevolence.
So there are people in your “community” who are far from being “ass-loving bears”?
Yes, almost every day I receive messages, mostly sent by men, who understand that they have done wrong. They explain to me that thanks to Orgasme and I they understood that they had been, at best, selfish in the stake or, in the worst case, that they had had violent reactions and destroyed the consent. At first, I wondered if I didn’t want my “community” to be pure of all the people who made mistakes in their life. Then, I said to myself “you’re completely stupid, the most important thing is this educational bet”. In this case, all these people must have access to my content. Today, I acknowledge receipt and we move forward.
California wants to make condom withdrawal without consent illegal (stealthing) while Texas legislates on abortion. Is sexuality politics?
The intimate is political and it is very embarrassing for me because I stay away from the power that I associate with unethical things. I recently received a message denouncing a stealthing… And concerning these acts, in France, there is everything to do. If only because the notion of consent does not come into play in the definition of rape, nor in that of sexual assault. Sexuality is political because it upsets the established order: sexist and patriarchal. And then, we must also see who legislates on abortion, assisted reproduction, on women’s bodies… I would be curious to see the reactions if several hundred women legislate on chemical castration or male contraception.