Image: Arjun Kharpal
A group of social entrepreneurs looked on as the author of a sex book pitched her masterpiece.
How can I be sexier? What is normal in sex? These are just a few of the questions that Rachel Hills threw out to her eight-person audience at the Hub in Angel as she explained the ideas behind her upcoming book The Sex Myth.
Ms Hills gave the talk in preparation for a TEDx event, where she will be pitching her book at Loughborough University for 18 minutes this Saturday.
TEDx is the local version of TED conferences, which have the motto “ideas worth spreading”.
The speeches are videoed and uploaded onto YouTube. These videos often attract thousands of views which can help an entrepreneur starting out.
“Even if only a couple thousand people watch it, that’s still a couple thousand people who talk about it to their friends and get the idea to travel,” Ms Hills said.
The Sex Myth is an “intellectual book” aimed at teens and “twenty-somethings” alike.
Ms Hills explains that her idea of the “sex myth” has three layers.
Firstly, it is the idea pushed by the media that “everybody is going at it all the time in increasingly crazy and creative ways and that doesn’t actually measure up to many people’s experiences”.
The second is that “we consider what people do with themselves sexually to be very important not only to them as individuals but to where we are at as a culture”.
The final part of the myth relates to “sexual freedom” which is “characterised by the ability to do whatever you want…but also characterised by the ability to not need to do things that you don’t want to do.”
The author admits that the book will take advantage of the idea that “sex sells”.
She said: “If you’re writing a book about sex and you’re relatively young, those are things that attract people’s interest. Most people have sex, everybody thinks about sex, so it’s something that’s deeply relevant to people’s personal lives.”
Ms Hills expects the book to be published in 2014, firstly in the United States and then in the UK.
The Hub, Islington and Pitch and Pizza
The Hub is a co-working space for social entrepreneurs to come together to share ideas.
Members come to use the space to work and develop their ideas for start up businesses.
There are over 30 Hubs across five continents, but the site in Islington is where it all began.
Every Tuesday, the Hub, Islington, hold a ‘Pitch and Pizza’ event where one entrepreneur can pitch their idea and receive feedback on their performance. This is where Rachel Hills pitched her idea for The Sex Myth in preparation for her TEDx talk.
For Ms Hills, the experience is very important. She said: “When you’re a writer life can be quite lonely and at the hub I can connect with other people working on other ideas. Pitch and pizza gives me a space to meet with people, listen to their ideas and hear how other people work.”
Kristy Petkova, a member at the Hub Islington, said: “Events like Pitch and Pizza, let people test their ideas and get constructive criticism and helpful feedback.”
