Another year, a new Gwyneth PaltrowGoop docuseries to leave us equal parts perplexed and intrigued. Last year, the actress and lifestyle-brand businesswoman partnered with Netflix to give audiences a look inside Goop’s labs in California. What we saw were some unconventional (and honestly, a bit out-there) approaches to wellness that were nonetheless fascinating.
Now, Paltrow and her team are back with Sex, Love & Goop, a six-part docuseries also on the streaming platform as of Oct 21. The series follows five couples through their sexual and intimacy journeys, as they work with sex- and relationship experts selected by Goop. Each episode focuses on a different aspect of sexual relationships and sexuality. And, of course, it’s all done in the Goop fashion with unorthodox methodologies and practices that we’re still trying to wrap our heads around.
But these unconventional practices aren’t the only things we learned about in the docuseries. We also gleaned a bit more about the Goop founder herself, as Paltrow got vulnerable about her own self-image and her famous parents’ marriage. Suffice it to say there’s a lot going on in this series, but we’ve rounded up five things we learned from the show that are worth repeating. Like the show itself, however, we also want to note that the series is ‘designed to entertain and inform — not provide medical advice.’
Check out five of the wildest revelations and things that we learned from Sex, Love & Goop.
Gwyneth Paltrow Shared a Surprising Anecdote About Her Famous Parents’ Marriage
In the second episode of the series, Paltrow broke the ice with an anecdote about her famous parents’ marriage. Paltrow is the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and the late director and producer Bruce Paltrow. The Goop founder described how her father “was the funniest person in the world, and he and my mother had a long marriage before he unfortunately died,” recalling her father’s October 2002 passing.
“They were married, I think, 33 years. And they were being interviewed, I think for a morning show, one time, and the interviewer said to them, ‘So what’s the secret? You guys have been married all this time — in Hollywood especially.’ And my dad said, ‘You know we never wanted to get divorced at the same time.'” The anecdote brought the group of couples to laughter, but it also gave fans of the actress and Goop founder a bit more insight into her parents’ marriage.
Apparently, We All Have an Erotic Blueprint
In the first episode of the six-part docuseries, audiences meet Jaiya, a Somatic Sexologist who created the Erotic Blueprints after decades of working with clients. The Erotic Blueprint quiz basically identifies what one’s sexual personality is with questionnaire. There are energetics, who are “turned on by anticipation,” according to Jaiya. The sensual, in contrast, is “turned on by all of their senses being ignited.”
Sexuals are into “what we think of as sex in our culture.” Basically intercourse, orgasms, penetration, and so on, as Jaiya explains. The kinky is “turned on by whatever’s taboo.” Finally, there’s the shapeshifter, who likes just a bit of everything. According to Jaiya, couples usually have the opposite blueprint, which means one person’s highest rated characteristic in their blueprint is often their partner’s lowest.
Gwyneth Paltrow Got Very Real About Her Own Body Image
Throughout her decades-long career, Paltrow’s looks have always been a topic of conversation among fans and scrutiny by the media. During the docuseries’ third epsiode, Paltrow broke down the insecurities that still persist as she gets older. “I drive myself really hard to not age and to not be disappointed in the way I look — and I’m still disappointed in the way I look,” she shares in the episode.
After watching one of the series’ experts, Amina Peterson, do mirror work (in which she stood naked in front of a mirror and described her own body image insecurities projected onto her by society), Paltrow got very candid about how she, too, is still hard on herself when it comes to her looks. “It was actually very interesting to watch that and then observe my reaction and kind of come to these conclusions about how hard I am on myself still, and how hard we are, as women, on our bodies and what happens to us naturally as we go through life.”
Energy Orgasms Don’t Look Like Anything We’ve Seen Before
In the latter half of the second episode, Jaiya (photographed with subjects Damon and Erika) brings in her partner, Ian, to show the couple the possibility of what an ‘energetic orgasm‘ can look like. What we end up seeing is Jaiya, blindfolded, and laying on a table, and Ian moving his hands over her body — effectively moving energy throughout her body to create an orgasmic experience. Watching it is pretty intense, and includes a lot of heavy exhaling, shaking, moaning, and back arching — you know, your basic energy orgasm.
The Terms for Women’s Body Parts Are Rooted in ‘Shame’
The fourth episode of the docuseries focuses on the female anatomy and arousal, namely how a lot of those body parts were eventually omitted from text books in the Victorian Era to focus on the reproductive organs of women, per Jaiya. “And then the way things were named also denotes shame,” she says while speaking to Erika and Damon.
“Even the nerve that innervates all the external genitalia was called the pudendal nerve. ‘Pudendal’ means shame. So, studying sex and studying the anatomy was shameful.”
That sense of shame also extends to how some of the female participants see themsevles. Camille and Shandra, pictured here, go through an experience in the fourth episode where they explore their vulvas, identifying what it is that is beautiful about this part of their body.
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