Hannah’s new book Doing It: Let’s Talk About Sex is the manual your sexually inexperienced teenage self was crying out for.
In Doing It, Hannah covers everything from masturbation (“It’s truly magical!”), to sex shaming (“If I had 10p for every time I’ve been called a slut I could buy myself a luxury sex toy”), to the big, serious issues like consent and what a healthy relationship looks like.
Who is Hannah Witton?
Hannah Witton is a British YouTuber, broadcaster, and author. Witton creates video blogs and informational content, mostly based around relationships, sex and sexual health, liberation and welfare issues, literature, and travel. Witton’s debut book, Doing It, concentrating on sex and relationships, was released on 6 April 2017.
Hannah has nearly 350,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel and collectively, her videos have been watched nearly 29 million times. That’s a lot of eyes on one 25-year-old from Manchester.
What makes Hannah worth checking out, though, is her dogged determination to educate younger generations about all the sex stuff we had to muddle our way through as teenagers. Things like period sex. Which, tbh, is something we could all do with a bit of education on, even now.
Hannah’s Determination
Like the period sex video, there’s also plenty in it for those of us that have been having sex for years. Do you know, for instance, the stories of how your best friends first discovered masturbation? How about how deaf people give sexual consent? There are even anatomical diagrams of the female reproductive system for you to peruse because, frankly, I’m not entirely sure many of us could label all the different parts and what they do correctly, now, could we?
“The most common question is always ‘Am I normal?'” Hannah says she was asked what her viewers ask her the most. “Whatever it is… their sexual desires, their bodies… whatever they believe isn’t normal and are ashamed of talking about.”
The answer, she says reassuringly, is nearly always “Yes, you’re normal.”
As previously mentioned, masturbation is a key factor in her book. In fact she refers to it, rather wonderfully, as “self-care” – meaning you can now add it to your list of wellness requirements, directly under “yoga”, “gym” and “eat lots of grains and whole foods”.
“It has loads of health benefits!” she says. “Cleaner, healthier genitals” and, she reminds us, it can help with stress.
So why are some women still more reluctant to talk about masturbation as openly as they talk about their sex lives? “We’re not taught about our bodies when we’re younger,” she explains. “We’re not taught about the clitoris!” She continues: “What we are taught through society and culture, though, is that girls just aren’t that sexual.”
What she does think is super-important is schools providing the right kind of sexual education. “It ensures that everyone is getting the same information and no one is left behind in terms of their understanding of really important topics.”
Really important topics like consent, for instance – to which Hannah dedicates an entire section of her book, on top of the chapter on porn and porn addiction, healthy relationships, and sex shaming. One misconception she still hears when it comes to consent is the idea that you can just “assume someone is into it”.
“Never assume. Always ask” she reiterates firmly.
Overall, the main takeaway from her book is that, when it comes to sex, as long as you and your partner are both consenting and happy, there is no such thing as “normal”.
“I will sing this until the day I die!” she says. “Everyone is different. The amount or type of sex you’re having and who with is entirely your business.”
She continues, “There is no right or wrong way to enjoy a healthy sex life, it’s whatever works for you and the consenting partner or partners.”