Hannah Witton On What A "Normal" Sex Life Looks Like

For those not in the know, Hannah Witton is a YouTuber. A big one.

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.

In 2016, Hannah was nominated as one of eight Girls Champions for the BBC's 100 Women list, thanks to her work on sexual education. She's been honest and open about contraception, given lessons on anatomy, and been frank about toxic relationships.

Want more proof? Hannah's new book Doing It: Let's Talk About Sex is the manual your sexually inexperienced teenage self was crying out for. Those of you old enough to remember magazines will recall desperately flipping the pages of Sugar, hoping to find a nugget of honest advice about "what to do if you had awkward sex with Liam from Maths in his big sister's bed after too many WKDs" in among the "wait for the right guys" and "check with your doctor firsts".

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.

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 when we ask 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."

In short? "You do you, boo."