Courtney Kocak on Writing Openly About Sex

Lots of writers want to write about sex and all the ways it shows up in their lives—and yet, it’s incredibly challenging to do. It’s exposing and uncomfortable. It means sharing the most intimate moments of our own lives, but also the lives of others. It can involve sharing mistakes, shame, and also some of the worst things that have ever happened to us when it comes to the negative side of the sexual spectrum: assault and abuse. That’s why this week’s show and conversation with Courtney Kocak is extra impactful. She talks about her own journey and evolution, and what she learned about herself and her own journey from writing her “accidental” feminist coming-of-age story, as she calls it. An encouraging message this week that you can do it, too. We’re all learning to live out loud a little better through our writing, one word at a time. Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian based in Los Angeles. She originally hails from a rural farming community in Minnesota, home to more cows than people.  As a writer, Kocak wrote for Amazon’s Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs and Netflix’s Know It All. Her bylines include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, HuffPost, The Sun, Catapult, BUST, Bustle, and others. She hosts three podcasts, The Bleeders, Private Parts Unknown, and Podcast Bestie, and her new memoir is Girl Gone Wild. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.