Keep the state out of sex

The nine most terrifying words in the English language, claimed Ronald Reagan, are, “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” What are the thirteen most unerotic words in the English language? “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help … with your sex life.”

Labour MP Samantha Niblett has launched a campaign to turn 2026 into a “summer of sex”. She wants to speak more openly about sex in order to help others feel more comfortable doing the same, and is therefore advocating for lifelong sex education.

She is working alongside Cindy Gallop, a “sex-tech” entrepreneur and founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, an adult video platform positioned as an alternative to mainstream porn. Niblett has framed the initiative in broad cultural terms, saying it is about “taking control of our patriotism… our Britishness, and not feeling ashamed.” The campaign’s slogan is: “Yes Sex Please, We’re British!”

As part of the push, Niblett has secured a Parliamentary debate, and hopes to host an event in Parliament where she plans to bring in sex toys to encourage more open discussion of sexual pleasure.

So far, most of the criticism has either been pointing fun at the fact a sexual campaign has been launched by someone with the name Niblett. I don’t understand why this is funny.

More pertinent criticism of the campaign is that it is “deeply cringe”, simply bizarre or that it’s beneath the business of a professional politicians. This is all fair, but barely even begins to touch the problems presented by the potential lifelong involvement of the government in people’s sex lives.

The biggest effect of this would be the massive and immediate suppression of the national libido. It comes a close second to mandatory population-wide sterilisation as the best method of suppressing birth rates possible I can possibly imagine.

A vision of the future: you enter the meeting room of your local community hub for your appointment with your social worker. After a few awkward hellos you sit down, and she begins by asking you how often you’re having sex. The conversation is difficult: they barely speak English, so you find yourself having to repeat every answer more slowly, and louder. Eventually you come on to preferences: you explain that your “consenting partner”, as you are forced to call them, quite likes being spanked. Your social worker frowns and explains this isn’t best practice. They hand you a leaflet explaining how spanking can lead to undesirable, un-British behaviour. The leaflet is in Corporate Memphis.

Most people would take the perfectly reasonable decision to opt out of ever having sex again rather than suffer such indignity. I would.

Part of this arises from the fact that the “liberal sexual culture” that was supposed to enable unrestricted sexual appetites has made us more like pandas than rabbits. Studies have consistently found that Britons are having less and less sex in the 21st century and with every generation, the problem seems to be getting worse. Yet instead of making any attempt to understand why people are no longer having sex, people having simply sought to therapise the problem.

Wrenching sex out of the private realm will reduce it to just another matter a matter of public policy, as something to be guided and improved by official bodies. The language of consent and wellbeing may be necessary in certain contexts, but when generalised across an entire adult population it begins to resemble a system of low-grade medical supervision. The more explicitly we are willing to talk about sex in institutional terms, the less space there will be for the irrational, private, and unarticulated elements that actually sustain it. You can encourage people to think about their desires, you can equip them with the correct language, you can even reassure them that everything is permissible. But in doing so, you will give the whole process a kind of ambient officialdom, and the participants a vague sense that they are being observed.

This is why the prospect of a “summer of sex” led from Westminster is dangerous: the tone and texture of bureaucratic life are fundamentally at odds with the thing itself.

Of course, were further government involvement in people’s sex lives to lead to a reduction in people’s sexual activity, this would mirror the effect most state interventions have when they relieve individuals of personal responsibility. This decline in outcomes would, as it does with other matters of public policy, be cited as evidence for the need for greater government involvement. Feeling turned off yet?