Can You Thrive Without Ever Being Taught?
Rom-coms, porn, and the bullsh!t we call sex ed*
Can you thrive at something you’ve never been taught?
(This is the question popped into my head at brunch recently.)
Seriously. Let it simmer a bit.
We don’t expect people to drive without lessons.
We don’t hand someone a scalpel and say, “Go. Be a surgeon.”
We don’t assume you’ll magically ace cooking, personal finances, or taxes without some kind of guidance.
But sex? Relationships?
We throw people into the deep end and say, “Good luck.”
No lessons. No skill-building. Just vibes and viral TikToks. 🤷♀️
And when things feel off, when sex gets awkward, when connection dries up, when desire dips, nobody questions the sex education.
We blame porn.
We blame ourselves. We assume we are the problem.
We assume we’re broken. Or our partner is. Or the relationship is doomed.
Noooo. It’s not you. It’s the system..
No wonder so many folks feel stuck, disconnected, or unsure what real intimacy even feels like.
“Nobody sees maintenance sex in a movie. You only see passionate sex. And while maintenance sex is very important in erotic couples, not everything is a big production.”
Exactly.
The pressure to perform intimacy, instead of learning how to build it, has left so many people feeling like they’re doing it wrong.
I know some folks like to blame porn for “unrealistic expectations,” but here’s the truth:
It’s not just porn. It’s the entire cultural script.
RomComs feed the same myths: that great sex is spontaneous, passionate, cinematic, and constant. They just stop there and don’t go into the graphic detail like porn does.
But for every couple I work with, there’s one TV or movie scene lodged in their head that sets that as the standard: “If it’s not like that… something’s wrong.”
🤯 That’s the damage.
Remember Don Jon? That 2013 film where Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a guy who’s addicted to porn—and real intimacy confuses the hell out of him? Ahead of its time. It called out the gap between fantasy and connection long before most people were ready to talk about it.
It’s not just porn that skews our expectations. It’s the entire media machine—from rom-coms to TikToks—that sells a version of connection that’s sexy and cinematic.
Porn exaggerates sex. Rom-coms exaggerate love. And both get more screen time than actual sex ed.
We don’t teach people the difference between fantasy and reality—we just let them absorb both and hope they figure it out. Spoiler alert: most don’t.
I’m not saying porn and romcoms should be banned. I’m saying they both deserve a place in a real curriculum. Not because they’re accurate, but because they’re influential.
And if we don’t talk about what they teach, we leave people to fill in the gaps - and they will - with shame, assumptions, and silence.
The problem? There’s never “enough time in the school day” to teach this stuff. So where does it go?
We need to normalize sex, love, and relationships in the day-to-day. Not just in health class. But in how we talk at dinner tables, in community spaces, in media, in what we model—not just what we avoid.
That’s where it gets tricky. This is where the “boots-on-the-ground” plan gets fuzzy.
But just because we don’t have the perfect system yet doesn’t mean we should stay silent. It means we start somewhere.
And this is me starting somewhere.
We don’t teach people the difference between fantasy and reality—we just let them soak it all in and hope they figure it out. Most don’t.
This is exactly why Fantasy is one of the core elements in my Five Building Blocks to a Healthy Sexuality (which I wrote about in my book). Not because fantasy is bad—but because we need to know what it is, how it works, and how to keep it in conversation with reality.
When we ignore it, we don’t get rid of it—we just let it run the show in silence.
Let’s break it down. Here are 3 (okay, plus one) myths that fantasy sells us—and the reality we’re rarely taught:
Myth #1: Great sex is spontaneous, passionate, and constant
Reality: Great sex is co-created, communicated, and sometimes planned.
Movies show the sex scene as the pinnacle of connection. Clothes fly off. Nobody pees first. No one talks about what they like. And yet somehow, both partners finish at the same time, in perfect harmony, usually against a wall.
But in real life? Most people need time, context, and actual communication to feel ready for sex. Spontaneous desire is a real thing—but so is responsive desire, especially in long-term relationships or for people with caregiving fatigue, trauma histories, or hormonal shifts.
Anecdote: I had a client once tell me, “I thought if I didn’t want it on my own, there was something wrong with me.” Nope. They just weren’t taught about responsive desire. Once we reframed that? Total game-changer.
Myth #2: Chemistry = Compatibility
Reality: Chemistry is a spark. Compatibility is the fuel.
We’ve been trained to prioritize “the spark”—but the spark fades. That’s what it does. The question is: what’s left after that?
Hot sex does not mean you’ll agree on how to communicate, raise kids, spend money, or handle stress.
Anecdote: One commenter on a Facebook Reel said the reason relationships fall apart is because of porn. I get it—porn does shape expectations. My response? Rom-coms exaggerate the romance just like porn exaggerates the sex. And yet neither makes it into our actual education.
We need a whole new framework for teaching what intimacy really looks like. Because fantasy isn’t the problem. Mistaking it for a manual is.
Myth #3: If your partner really loves you, they’ll just know what you want
Reality: Nobody is a mind-reader. We have to teach each other how to love us.
Rom-coms love a good montage: the grand gesture, the “you complete me” moment, the perfect first kiss. But they skip over the real work: asking for what you need, revisiting boundaries, and checking in before resentment builds.
Anecdote: One couple I worked with hadn’t had sex in over a year. The partner with lower desire felt broken; the one with higher desire felt rejected. But when they finally had the space to talk it out, what came up was parenting exhaustion, grief, and the fact that they’d both internalized this myth that if they really loved each other, it shouldn’t be this hard.
Newsflash: It’s not a failure of love. It’s time to learn (or unlearn) some things.
BONUS Myth: Porn teaches sex and rom-coms teach love
Reality: Both teach fantasy—and that’s okay, if you know it’s fiction.
Porn is stylized, exaggerated, and often produced with male pleasure at the center. Rom-coms are emotionally driven, idealized, and often skip over messy parts that might derail the plot/fantasy.
Here’s the kicker: neither is inherently bad. But neither is a substitute for real sex ed or relationship tools.
That’s why I created resources like my Confidence in Bed Starter Kit—because I want you to have a real-world map for navigating sex and connection that actually works. No shame. No myths. No scripts that set you up to fail.
Want to rewrite your story around sex and connection? Check out the Confidence in Bed Starter Kit
It’s packed with some cool tools, tips I use with my clients, and no pressure. Just clarity, a bit of confidence, and the kind of education we all should’ve gotten in the first place.
Because real connection isn’t magic—it’s a skill.
And you deserve to be supported in learning it.
xxoo,
Lanae
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