Doing Sex
Vespucci · Video Podcast Series
Podcast Host
Doing Sex is a video podcast series exploring intimacy, identity and what the way we have sex — or don’t — can reveal about the world around us; from culture, religion and politics to trauma, technology, relationships and desire.
A deep dive into the quiet corners of the sex world, the series is honest, funny, sensitive and at times tender — part personal, part investigative. Sahar Zand combines candid conversations with a curious, journalistic approach, meeting researchers, therapists, activists, campaigners and people whose experiences challenge conventional ideas about sexuality, relationships and power — asking what the way we “do sex” reveals about who we are.
Watch/Listen — YouTube · Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Global Player · iHeartRadio
Also Available — Amazon Music · Audible
Doing Sex — Series Trailer
What does the way we have sex reveal about who we are? Sahar Zand introduces a video podcast exploring sex through culture, politics, religion, trauma, technology and desire — combining candid personal storytelling with bold, curious conversations from around the world.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Sex Education in Iran — with Dr Sara Nasserzadeh
Both born in Iran, Sahar and social psychologist and psychosexual therapist Dr Sara Nasserzadeh compare the very different ways they learned about sex under the Islamic Republic. Sara recalls running underground sex-education workshops in Iran, as they explore how religion, politics and culture shape the way we understand intimacy and relationships.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
From Forced Marriage to Sexual Freedom — with Payzee Mahmod
How do you reclaim your sexual freedom in a world that’s tried to take it from you through trauma, culture, or even motherhood? In this episode of Doing Sex, Sahar speaks with activist and campaigner Payzee Mahmod, whose life is a powerful story of survival and reclamation. Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, Payzee is a survivor of FGM, child marriage, and devastating loss. Her sister, Banaz Mahmod, was murdered in an honour killing — a tragedy that shaped Payzee’s fight to change the law on child marriage in England and Wales. Now an activist at the Obama Foundation, Payzee opens up about the intersections of trauma, identity, and desire — and how she rebuilt her relationship with her own body and sexuality. From confronting shame to rediscovering pleasure, this is a conversation about healing, agency, and what sexual freedom really means.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Power, Kink & Desire — with Eva Oh
Before becoming a professional dominatrix, Eva Oh worked with the UN and refugees in countries including Syria and Afghanistan. She talks to Sahar about her unlikely path into kink, the psychology of BDSM, the carefully negotiated boundaries around power and consent, and what her clients’ fantasies reveal about intimacy and desire. For Eva, dominatrix work is also about reclaiming power and agency as a woman.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Rethinking Monogamy — with Feeld CEO Ana Kirova
Feeld CEO Ana Kirova talks about the personal story behind the dating app, which has helped bring ethical non-monogamy and alternative relationship structures into the mainstream. She shares what opening her own relationship with her partner, Dimo, taught her about freedom, honesty, choice and communication — an experience that ultimately inspired the creation of Feeld. She and Sahar explore jealousy, boundaries and emotional safety, and question some of the relationship scripts many of us inherit without ever examining.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Inside One of Europe’s Largest Legal Brothels — with Catherine De Noire
Catherine De Noire is both a PhD researcher and the manager of one of Europe’s largest legal brothels. She takes Sahar inside the realities of the sex industry, from the day-to-day lives of sex workers to safety, stigma, regulation and who should get to shape the laws governing their work.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Sex & Marriage in a Country Without Divorce — with Dr Margie Holmes
Sahar meets pioneering Filipino clinical psychologist, sex therapist, author and broadcaster Dr Margie Holmes at her home in Manila. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Margie has become one of the Philippines’ most influential voices on sex, relationships and mental health — from her early newspaper advice columns to bestselling books, television and a public platform that has challenged taboos around intimacy and sexuality. Against the backdrop of a country where divorce remains unavailable to most married couples, they explore love, desire, marriage and what feeling trapped in an unhappy relationship can do to intimacy and wellbeing.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Reclaiming Pleasure After FGM — with Fatou Badjie · Two parts
Gambian activist and FGM survivor Fatou Badjie speaks candidly about undergoing FGM as a child, the beliefs that sustain the practice, and its lasting effects on pregnancy, childbirth, intimacy and pleasure. In this honest, brave and powerful conversation, Fatou describes the process of reclaiming her body and sexuality on her own terms.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Data-Driven Orgasms — with Anna Lee
Engineer Anna Lee is the co-founder of Lioness, a sex-tech company using data to better understand when, why and how people orgasm. She and Sahar explore what engineering and technology can reveal about arousal, pleasure, and a part of human behaviour traditionally studied through what people say rather than what their bodies actually do.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Sex, Culture & Social Media — with Mahmoud Baydoun
Queer Lebanese-Brazilian sexologist Mahmoud Baydoun has built an online following in the millions by talking openly, and provocatively, about sex. He and Sahar explore culture, sexuality, the business of online sex advice and what lies behind the deliberately outrageous social-media persona.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
The Science of Masturbation — with Danielle Bezalel
Public-health researcher and Sex Ed with DB host Danielle Bezalel turned a personal experiment with masturbation into a larger scientific study. She and Sahar look at what the evidence says about self-pleasure, stress, sleep, desire and relationships and why masturbation remains surrounded by so much shame and misinformation.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
ADHD, Sex & Intimacy — with Dr Ari Tuckman
Psychologist and sex therapist Dr Ari Tuckman explores how ADHD can shape desire, arousal and long-term relationships. Drawing on his research with hundreds of couples, he and Sahar discuss hyperfocus, novelty, distraction, rejection sensitivity and what happens when a brain that struggles to switch off enters the bedroom.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Love, Lust & an Open Marriage — with Gus
Gus has been married for seven years and hasn’t had sex with his husband in six. For them, that isn’t a sign that the relationship has failed. He talks candidly with Sahar about separating sex from love, navigating jealousy and maintaining intimacy inside an open marriage built around unusually frank rules.
Listen: Spotify · Apple Podcasts
Selected Press & Recognition
Charts — #1 Apple Podcasts UK · Top 50 Health & Fitness
Featured — Apple Podcasts: Recommended New Shows · Amazon Music: Best Podcasts of the Week
Critics’ Choice — Radio Times · Heat: Top of the Pods · Great British Podcasts by Podcast Rex
Industry coverage — Podcasting Today
“What impresses is how diverse her approach is… a welcome, demystifying look at sex.”
— James Mottram, Radio Times“The show blends investigative journalism, global storytelling and personal narrative to create something entirely original.”
— Podcasting Today
Credits
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Sahar Zand
Presenter
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Hattie Moir
Producer
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Natalia Rodriguez Ford
Series Producer
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Vespucci Group
Productions