Exclusive: Megan Barton Hanson On Embracing Her Sexuality, Sex Work And Never Faking An Orgasm

‘When I came out [of Love Island] everyone was like "are you embarrassed by the fact you've slept with two people on TV?”, “aren’t you ashamed?”, “do you think your family are going to be embarrassed? All of this stuff,’ Megan Barton-Hanson explains. ‘I was like “well Wes slept with Laura and then me, Adam slept with Rosie and then Zara, so why is that just because I’m female I’m getting slut-shamed?”’

Entering Love Island, Megan’s life was forever changed. Not just because she was launched into the public eye, or because her relationships were now front-page news, but because her narrative was no longer in her hands. The self-confessed ‘awkward and goofy’ 25-year old, then 24, was immediately cast as the shows token sex symbol, her Margot Robbie-esque looks all that seemed to matter.

Megan's no-holds-barred attitude to sex became a public talking point. Some applauded her confidence, but mostly, in a world where a woman’s sexuality is either used against her or seen as purely for men’s pleasure, she quickly became subject to intense scrutiny. But now, she’s turning that attention to good use as campaign director of Ann Summer’s new project to close to orgasm gap.

‘Sex has never been off-limits or a taboo subject for me to talk about, even with my mum,’ she tells Grazia, ‘It was such a shock for me that on the show I got so much stick and abuse for sleeping with two different boys. After that I just really want girls to feel empowered about their sexuality and bridge the gap between men and women.’

The gap she’s referring to is the 1,734 orgasms women miss out on across their lifetime compared to men. According to research conducted by Ann Summers as part of the Pleasure Positivity Project (PPP), only 65% of heterosexual women orgasm every time they have sex compared to 95% of straight men.

Now, their Orgasm Gap Manifesto promises to educate women and men about female sexual pleasure, invest in sex toy innovation – that includes giving out 1734 sex toys every year until the orgasm gap is closed – and provide opportunities for women to own their sexual desires by creating ‘online and real-world dialogue’ around women’s sexuality in order to stimulate conversation.

Naturally, the campaign is a perfect partnership for Megan, having been subject to the very same stigmas that perpetuates the orgasm gap her entire life, and even more so when she was thrust into the public eye.

After just days in the Love Island villa, Megan's previous work in the sex industry became public knowledge with pictures and videos of her work circulating on porn websites. Unsurprisingly, discussions about her character became hugely sexist. And unbeknownst to us all, Megan knew exactly what would be going on in the outside world.

‘I know they're not supposed to tell you about the outside, but one of the Casa Amor girls came in and said “there’s a video of you on Pornhub”’, Megan says, ‘so immediately I thought “oh god, what is this going to be?”. I'd been open that I’d done webcam before and stripping, but I was so scared.’

Her time on the show show was plagued by a constantly worry about how she was being cast - knowing her past was now public knowledge. ‘When I had sex in the villa I was really cautious of what they would show, would it be me dominating Wes?’ she continued, ‘because I know they've got a TV show to make, I was just worried because of my past as well. It's annoying because I feel like I do hold myself back because I don’t want people to just see me as this sex symbol, or this object for the male gaze.’

It’s a battle she has faced not just on the show, but throughout her entire life. Megan started stripping aged 20 after three years as a legal PA in London, her new career meant that while she was gaining confidence in her sexuality, she was also being forced to face the fact that everyone in her hometown knew where she was working.

‘I went through so much shit with my dancing, it was all posted on Facebook because it was in my local area,’ she says, ‘I was so naïve, I thought it’d be all old men in there because I’d never been in a strip club before, but the next week everyone that I used to go school with knew. All boys were coming in deliberately just to see me, and it was just embarrassing.’

But despite the attempts to humiliate and criticize her, Megan was able to embrace her sexuality through sex work and found something she was truly passionate about. ‘It was really empowering doing that,’ she says, ‘I think that's where I got a lot of my confidence from. I was really unhappy before that and had just followed what my parents wanted for me when I went to work up in the city.

‘I tried so hard but I just wasn't really academically smart so it was a real struggle,’ she continues, ‘[Dancing] was the best decision I’ve ever made because it's given me so much confidence, made me feel empowered and I’ve learnt to love my body.’

The biggest misconception about stripping? That is all about sex. ‘You're a bit like a therapist,’ Megan explains, ‘I know it sounds really weird but lots of people don't have anyone, or their wives have passed away. Some of my best paying customers would just come in for a half-hour chat, and it was really nice, I would feel really good about myself after.’

And Megan continued to feel good about her career, until Love Island and a bombardment of public scrutiny made her all the more aware that her decisions to embrace her sexuality were being seen solely through the male gaze. In fact, it’s the reason she was so cautious about coming out as bisexual to the public earlier this year, not because she was ashamed, but because she didn’t want to fuel her sex-symbol image in a world where female bisexuality is immediately fetishized by men.

Unsurprisingly, her fears came true almost immediately after coming out. Opening up about bisexuality in a candid interview with The Sun, their headline ultimately focused on one throwaway comment about sex. ‘Megan Barton-Hanson says sex with women is better than men’, it read, with many other papers picking it up in the same way.

‘I'm not going for women solely because I have better sex with them,’ she tells Grazia, ‘it's about a connection but they don't even talk about that, and the headline is all 'Megan has better sex with women', that’s 1% of why I like women.’

So why continue to pursue fame when the message she wants send is constantly being misconstrued? Meghan explains that it's actually the positive messages she's received from people who feel like receiving she's helped them that gives her renewed strength to be unapologetically herself every day.

‘It really does drive me to carry on in the limelight,’ she says, ‘because for me it's not about how long this career will last or the paycheck. I was earning good money from the stripping and I’ve had a lot of followers before, it’s not about that. To me what really drives me are these messages, whether it’s me talking openly about sex or mental health or bullying, I just love that people can relate to me, even I only help one person.’

And with this campaign, she’s bound to help many more. Because, not only is she opening up about her own journey in finding confidence in her sexuality, but encouraging women to do the same. In trying to embody the role models she cites as inspiring her confidence – from Amy Schumer to Amber Rose – she’s about to be more open about sex than ever before.

‘We need to just take matters into our own hands and be like "you know what it’s not all about the men", women have just as much right to enjoy sex as men so we need to be more vocal about it,’ she says, ‘and hopefully me doing this campaign girls will see that it's not a shameful thing, it doesn’t have to be sleazy or for the male gaze.’

‘I just want women not to be embarrassed,’ she continues, ‘Even if men aren't satisfying us, just be like “right get the rabbit out”. I've pulled people on it before, like “yeah you've come but I haven't”, so I’ll get my little toy out and say “there you go, if you're too lazy to do it you can do this for me”.

It’s with this candid honesty that the campaign is sure to be a success, because clearly with such a large orgasm gap there’s still a lot to be said, and shouted about, to end the taboo around female sexuality.

Megan’s final rallying cry? Stop faking orgasms. ‘I've never once in my life faked an orgasm and I never would,’ she says, ‘Number one because I’m too selfish and number two because I want to enjoy it, why should the person I’m sleeping with get pleasure and not me?’

A question we should all be asking ourselves, and hopefully, with Megan behind this campaign, we all will.

Megan Barton-Hanson leads Ann Summers’ Pleasure Positivity Project, a campaign breaking down the stigma surrounding women’s enjoyment of sex. For more information visit -__www.annsummers.com/pleasure

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