Australian psychosexologist, scientist, author, and relationship expert Chantelle Otten has spent years exploring the complexities of human connection. From dating fatigue and mismatched desire to sexual confidence and emotional vulnerability, her work challenges the expectations shaping modern relationships. In an exclusive conversation with MUNDANE, the author of The Sex Ed You Never Had and host of Audible’s Sex Therapy: Sessions with Chantelle Otten explains why meaningful intimacy has less to do with finding the right person than learning how to truly understand another human being.
We live in a world seemingly obsessed with intimacy, yet increasingly uncertain about how to achieve it.
Dating apps offer endless possibilities. Social media provides constant advice about attraction, compatibility, and emotional availability. Conversations about sexuality have become more visible than ever.
And yet, many people remain convinced they’re doing something wrong.
For Australian psychosexologist Chantelle Otten, that contradiction is central to understanding modern relationships.
After years working with individuals and couples, she’s discovered that what people say they want from a partner often conceals something more fundamental.
“Someone might say they want more sex, more romance or for their partner to initiate affection. But when we dig a little deeper, what they’re really saying is that they want to feel wanted, appreciated or important to someone.”
It’s a distinction that challenges our assumptions about love.
Because being loved and feeling loved aren’t necessarily the same thing.
The Problem With Searching for Perfection
Modern dating culture encourages us to believe that the ideal partner is always one swipe away.
But according to Otten, endless choice can make us less tolerant of the imperfections that meaningful relationships inevitably involve.
“We’ve essentially turned dating into online shopping, except the products have feelings, complicated childhoods and occasionally terrible texting habits.”
The result is a generation of daters who may have more opportunities for connection but feel increasingly exhausted by the process.
And the same unrealistic expectations can follow us into long-term relationships.
We assume passion should remain spontaneous, compatibility should be effortless, and the right person should instinctively understand our needs.
Otten challenges all three assumptions.
Sexual desire naturally evolves. Emotional needs change. And compatibility depends less on identical preferences than on the ability to communicate through differences.
“Sometimes couples become so focused on getting their old sex life back that they forget they could actually create a new one, and potentially enjoy it even more.”
The Sexual Education We Never Received
Otten’s book, The Sex Ed You Never Had, addresses another fundamental problem: the enormous gap between what we’re taught about sex and what we actually need to understand.
Traditional sexual education often prioritizes pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted infections while neglecting pleasure, communication, boundaries, and self-awareness.
Those gaps are subsequently filled by pornography, social media, and cultural expectations that can create unrealistic standards.
Ironically, Otten believes that even sexual liberation has become something people feel pressured to perform.
“You can be sexually confident and still be shy. You can love your body and occasionally feel insecure about it.”
Her work encourages people to abandon the idea that there’s one correct way to experience sexuality.
Instead, she advocates for a more individual understanding of pleasure, confidence, and connection.
Intimacy Is a Skill, Not a Personality Trait
Perhaps Otten’s most compelling observation is that society spends considerably more time teaching people how to attract partners than how to maintain relationships.
We learn how to flirt, dress, and communicate interest.
But rarely how to navigate disappointment, repair conflict, or express vulnerability without abandoning our own boundaries.
“Being good at intimacy has very little to do with being naturally romantic. It’s about how you behave when things aren’t particularly romantic.”
Through her Audible series, Sex Therapy: Sessions with Chantelle Otten, she also hopes to normalize the experiences people often believe are uniquely embarrassing.
The series brings listeners inside real, anonymous therapeutic conversations, revealing how frequently our most private insecurities overlap.
Ultimately, her philosophy is simple: meaningful connection doesn’t require perfection.
It requires curiosity, emotional awareness, and the courage to be known.
In Conversation With Chantelle Otten
MUNDANE: What has your clinical experience taught you about what people actually want from intimate relationships?
Chantelle Otten: Something I’ve noticed after years of sitting with individuals and couples is that people often come into therapy talking about what they want their partner to do, but underneath that is usually something much more emotional.
Someone might say they want more sex, more romance or for their partner to initiate affection. But when we dig a little deeper, what they’re really saying is that they want to feel wanted, appreciated or important to someone.
For me, there’s a huge difference between being loved and actually feeling loved. Most people want to feel chosen, understood and desirable, even after years together.
MUNDANE: What are the most common misconceptions people have about sexual compatibility?
Chantelle Otten: People often assume sexual compatibility is something you either have or you don’t, almost like you’re born with matching libidos and identical preferences.
In reality, our sexual needs change throughout life, and being compatible has much more to do with how you navigate those changes than whether you started out wanting exactly the same things.
I often encourage couples to look at what’s happening during the other 23 hours of the day. Are you kind to each other? Do you laugh together? Can you have a disagreement without it turning into a full-blown disaster?
Sometimes the bedroom is simply where problems from the rest of the relationship become impossible to ignore.
MUNDANE: Has the abundance of potential partners on dating apps made meaningful connection more difficult?
Chantelle Otten: I don’t think dating apps have made us incapable of forming meaningful connections, but I do think they’ve made us a little too comfortable with the idea that there’s always someone better waiting around the corner.
I think the abundance of choice can also make us less tolerant of the ordinary awkwardness that comes with getting to know someone.
I’m certainly not anti-dating apps. They can be fantastic, and plenty of great relationships begin online. But I do worry that we’ve become so focused on finding the perfect person that we forget meaningful connection usually involves getting to know a very imperfect one.
MUNDANE: Why does desire change in long-term relationships, and how can couples rediscover intimacy?
Chantelle Otten: We’ve really romanticised the idea that passion should always happen spontaneously.
One of the things I explain to couples is the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. Some people experience desire out of nowhere, while others find that it develops once affection, touch or erotic stimulation has already begun.
My advice is to make intimacy enjoyable again without obsessing over how often you’re having sex. Flirt with each other. Kiss for longer than three seconds. Go somewhere new. Touch each other without assuming it has to lead to anything.
MUNDANE: What inspired you to write The Sex Ed You Never Had?
Chantelle Otten: I think one of the most damaging things about traditional sex education is everything it doesn’t teach us.
We learn about pregnancy, STIs and all the terrible things that might happen if we have sex, but hardly anything about pleasure, communication or how our bodies actually work.
That’s a big part of why I wrote The Sex Ed You Never Had. I wanted to give people access to the information they should have received much earlier, without shame or unnecessary embarrassment.
Sex education should prepare us to have positive, pleasurable and consensual experiences, not just teach us how to avoid the bad ones.
MUNDANE: Has society become more sexually liberated while simultaneously becoming more anxious about sex?
Chantelle Otten: It’s quite a funny contradiction, isn’t it? We’re supposedly living in this wonderfully sexually liberated era, where everyone can talk openly about pleasure, desire and their latest bedroom adventures. Yet behind closed doors, so many people are still worried they’re doing it all wrong.
What I find particularly interesting is that even sexual empowerment has become something people feel they need to be good at.
Being sexually liberated doesn’t mean you have to be sexually adventurous, constantly horny or comfortable discussing every intimate detail of your life.
MUNDANE: What motivated you to bring real therapy sessions to listeners through your Audible series?
Chantelle Otten: One of the things that struck me quite early in my career was how many people would sit opposite me in therapy, share something deeply personal and then tell me they were convinced nobody else in the world had ever experienced it.
That’s really where the inspiration for the Audible series came from. We wanted people to experience what sex therapy actually sounds like, rather than imagining it’s this terrifying experience where someone sits across from you with a clipboard judging your sex life.
There’s something incredibly reassuring about discovering that even our most private struggles aren’t always as unique as we imagine.
MUNDANE: What actually makes someone good at intimacy?
Chantelle Otten: For me, being good at intimacy has very little to do with being naturally romantic. It’s about how you behave when things aren’t particularly romantic.
Can you disagree without trying to win? Can you apologise without immediately explaining why it wasn’t really your fault? Can you listen to your partner’s feelings without treating them as a personal attack?
A successful relationship isn’t one where nobody ever gets upset. It’s one where two people know how to handle those moments and learn how to adequately repair afterwards.
MUNDANE: What cultural assumptions about sexuality most urgently need to change?
Chantelle Otten: I still find it extraordinary how comfortable society is talking about women’s bodies in terms of reproduction, beauty and appearance, but the moment we start discussing female pleasure for its own sake, people suddenly become a little uncomfortable.
Ageing is another enormous area of resistance. There’s this strange cultural assumption that sexuality belongs to young people.
I’d love us to move away from the idea that there’s one correct way to experience sexuality or sensuality, or that our desires and identities should remain exactly the same throughout our lives.
Bodies change. Relationships change. We change.
MUNDANE: After everything you’ve witnessed in your clinical practice, what’s the most important truth about love and human connection that people overlook?
Chantelle Otten: I wish people understood that there isn’t a perfect formula for love or a universally correct way to experience sexuality.
But I also think we underestimate how brave it can be to let someone really know us. Not the polished, charming version we present on a first date, but the person who gets insecure, makes mistakes, has complicated feelings and occasionally needs a little extra reassurance.
For future generations, I’d love us to spend less time teaching people how to be attractive, desirable or impressive, and more time helping them understand who they are, what they want and how to treat others well.
Most importantly, I’d like them to know that love and sex aren’t exams they need to pass.
Learning to Be Imperfect Together
Ultimately, Otten’s work challenges one of the most persistent myths surrounding modern relationships: that intimacy should become effortless once we find the right person.
Instead, she suggests that meaningful connection is something we continuously learn to create.
It requires communication, patience, emotional responsibility, and a willingness to accept that neither we nor our partners will always know exactly what to do.
In a culture increasingly obsessed with optimization, romantic perfection, and sexual performance, her perspective offers a necessary alternative.
Relationships aren’t examinations.
Desire isn’t a competition.
And vulnerability isn’t evidence of inadequacy.
Perhaps real intimacy doesn’t begin when we finally find someone who meets every expectation. Perhaps it begins when we stop expecting perfection and allow ourselves to be genuinely known.
About Chantelle Otten
Chantelle Otten is an Australian psychosexologist, scientist, author, and relationship expert specializing in sexual health, intimacy, and communication. She is the author of The Sex Ed You Never Had and host of Audible’s Sex Therapy: Sessions with Chantelle Otten.
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