For this week’s Spotlight On feature, we spoke to Private Education podcast host Aisling Keenan.
In her exclusive interview with Goss.ie, Aisling spoke about why she decided to start a sex and relationships podcast, the most common dating dilemmas, and her plan to take the podcast on tour.
Take a look:
Tell us a bit about your podcast Private Education. What inspired you to start it? What topics do you delve into on it?
Private Education is basically sex and relationships education for adults. No one really ever ‘learns’ how to be in a successful, healthy relationship, how to have enjoyable and safe sex or how to communicate successfully in friendships or with colleagues. We’re kind of just sent on our way as teens and we hope for the best.
I was inspired to start it after years writing a sex column for a magazine. I became the go-to sex advice person for my friends, and I realised that there’s so much misinformation out there about sex and relationships. I wanted a place that was friendly, approachable and entertaining but also that could give people some guidance as they navigate dating, single life, marriage, one night stands, STDs, consent, friendship dilemmas, workplace dramas and more.
We have covered everything from IVF struggles to being ‘the other woman’ to going through divorce to coercive relationships and more. We’ve also had Selling Sunset stars Jason Oppenheim and Amanza Smith on as guests!
What are the most common dating/sex dilemmas that people have come to you for advice about?
I get a lot of DMs and emails about infidelity. Trust being broken by an affair is something so many people need advice on, and I find many people are too ashamed to talk to friends about it because they don’t want to be judged if they decide to take their partner back after they’ve cheated. It breaks my heart to read some of the situations people are in.
In an upcoming episode, we give advice to a woman who’s been married for over a decade but has been having an affair on her husband for almost four years. She messaged in to say the affair is ruining her life but that the person she’s seeing threatens her when she tries to end it. She’s trapped. I was glad she came to Private Education for advice because I hate the thought that she feels alone in it.
There’s never any judgement from me – everyone makes mistakes and we’re all human just trying to do our best and be happy.
I can’t really comment on how it currently is, because I’m not at school still and I know it has come a long way since then. I also know there are so many amazing teachers out there trying to give as rounded and inclusive an education as they can to their students. But I do feel we still have a long way to go in terms of including every gender, every orientation and every choice that a person might make regarding who they are and which sex life they choose.
There are 62 episodes up, and we’ve had over 550,000 downloads since the start. Our newest season is currently running, after we took a long pandemic-related break from recording. Since it’s been back the response has been amazing. It’s so heartening to see the DMs from fans of the podcast saying that they’re delighted it’s back and they’re sharing it on their Whatsapp groups (I find that people don’t share publicly on Instagram sometimes if the topic is a bit saucy, which I understand!).
Would you like to take your podcast on tour?
We had two live shows sold out for March 28th and 29th in 2020 – two weeks before they were due to go ahead, the country got locked down. I had to cancel them and I was so raging, because I was really excited to meet listeners and do the lives. I would absolutely love to get live shows going again, possibly later in the year. Watch this space!
Private Education is presented by Aisling Keenan and new episodes are released weekly on Tuesdays at 3pm.Â
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