Our TikTok on anal sex went viral – and the comments were concerning

Eliza Bell is Brook’s Senior Communications and Policy Coordinator. In this blog she discusses the reasons behind a recent viral TikTok and considers why stigma around how we talk about sex can have links to misogyny and unhealthy relationships.

In less than 24 hours of posting, our TikTok on how to have anal sex safely had over half a million views. This wasn’t entirely surprising to the team – we often find our straightforward content and how-to guides gain a lot of traction. Take our condom demonstration carousel, for example, which was our first TikTok to reach over 100k views. We’ve also seen our period product pros and cons content garner upwards of 200k views. 

The reason for this seems obvious to those of us who work in the sexual health and education sector – young people are craving no-nonsense, reliable information. With only 15% of young people saying their Relationships and Sex Education was very good, and in our survey of 2000 young people, the internet and social media was highlighted as the first place they look for sexual health information. 

But what was alarming about the virality of this post was the insidious nature of a lot of the comments. When looking at the analytics, the most frequent comment was from men or people operating accounts that present as men saying “you lost me at the first step” or that they would skip the first step entirely. What was the first step? Consent. 

Some people might think, well, they’re young, it’s just a joke.

Certainly ‘jokes’ around rape were prevalent even when I was at primary school in the 2000s. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the nature of these comments very seriously, even if their intent was to be light-hearted. 

Rape culture enables an environment where threats to women and girls’ safety are minimised and dismissed. In recent years we’ve seen a marked increase in misogynistic content online, with “manosphere influencers” like Andrew Tate gaining huge popularity, and in some areas we seem to be taking steps backward in the fight for women’s rights and gender equality. 

That’s why it’s a positive step to see the new Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance make specific mention of including this topic in RSHE lessons at school. But while lessons about misogyny, gender norms and equality in school are vital, RSHE can’t be a one-stop shop to fix all the issues we’re seeing.  

This year’s season of Love Island UK has drawn even more criticism than usual for the openly misogynistic and harmful behaviour of the male contestants in particular. Women’s Aid commented that “Misogyny and sexism lay the foundation for the tolerance of abuse and violence – it reinforces a culture that excuses and trivialises violence against women and girls.” 

The current Labour government has committed to halving Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) within a decade and we’re also awaiting publication of a refreshed VAWG strategy. But this is part of a broader societal problem that pervades our everyday lives, and it needs to be tackled accordingly. We need to be working collaboratively and having conversations in all aspects of our lives – from work to home to school – about what needs to change. 

The next most popular type of comment was something along the lines of ‘I haven’t even had my breakfast’ or ‘It’s not even 8am yet’. This highlights the stigma and shame that’s associated with talking about sex, even when it’s from a purely informative angle. This is particularly true for anal sex which, despite being a common feature of many healthy relationships between a variety of genders, still suffers additional stigma for being considered more extreme or taboo. 

This stigma and prudishness around sex can seem at odds with the increase in misogyny and sexual violence we’re currently seeing, but to me they’re two sides of the same coin. Societally, we’re so embarrassed to talk about sex that we avoid it entirely.

There’s a lot of anxiety that talking to young people about sex will encourage them to have it earlier, when in fact there’s evidence to the contrary.  

By avoiding talking about sex altogether, we’re not equipping young people to navigate consent, sex and pleasure in a safe and healthy way. We’re not telling them they have the right to enjoy sex, the right to change their mind at any point, or the right to discuss the type of sex they’re having and find (consensually) what feels comfortable for them. Not talking about sex means we’re leaving young people exposed to unrealistic, male-pleasure-focused and sometimes violent depictions of sex. We’re not giving them an alternative narrative to choose over the misogynistic content that is increasingly popular online.  

It’s not all bad though. The post has had over 11k likes and nearly 3k saves. There have been comments from people saying thank you for explaining, that this information is really helpful, and asking us to expand on certain aspects of how to stay safe. There’s still a long way to go, but despite the negativity and prudishness we’ll keep having these conversations and challenging stigma to make sure everyone can access the support and information they need.