Gillian Anderson isn’t a sex therapist, but for four years, she played one on television. From 2019 to 2023, she starred as Sex Education’s Dr. Jean Milburn, a lusty, complicated, sometimes manipulative (see: human) woman, bumbling and grasping through midlife while single-parenting her teenage son, Otis. But even though the role was pure fiction, something about Milburn’s funny, loving energy made people want to talk to Anderson about sex. For years, her literary agent received inquiries from publishers and editors about interviews she might do, confessions she might write. For a long time, she put them off. But then her editor suggested something more communal: other people, submitting anonymously. Anderson was finally convinced by the idea of a large and varied group. “We had many different versions,” she says. “And then I realized what would be most beautiful and affecting was to hear from as many different women as we could.”
Read Full Article »
