This article contains references to sexual assault and suicide.
"Involuntary celibate" is the term that Sofie Hagen says best describes her sex life, despite its "horrible connotations".
It has, after all, been almost a decade since the 36-year-old last slept with someone.
But her non-existent sex life isn't due to "a lack of options"; rather, every time she's gotten close to intimacy in the last 10 years, her body has betrayed her.
"My brain was like, 'Yeah, let's do this, we're going to be having sex now', and my body was like, 'No, you're not'," the award-winning Danish comedian, author, and podcaster says.
Danish comedian, podcaster, and author Sofie Hagen last had sex in 2015. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
"The pivotal moment was when I was doing a show and I saw someone in the audience and I thought, 'Wow, she's incredible. This is the hottest person in the world', and on stage I was imagining, 'Right, we're going to get married, this is going to be amazing, she's so cute'," she recalls.
"When I walked offstage, she fist-bumped me, and I was like, 'Oh my god! Okay, I'm in, I'm in.' And then she DM'd me, and was like, 'Hey, I was at the show, would you like to go for a coffee?'"
I felt my blood run cold and I started sweating and I was like, 'Oh, I'm having a panic attack', and I blocked her.
Will I ever have sex again?
That extreme reaction prompted a journey of self-discovery for Hagen. She read every book about sex she could get her hands on — but instead of giving her the solutions she was seeking, "they were all just about how to transform your sex life".
"I was like, 'Well, I don't have a sex life to transform. I need to form one. How do you do that?" she says.
"Then I was like, 'Oh, well maybe I have to write the book.'"
So she did.
Will I Ever Have Sex Again? was released last year. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
Using a blend of painfully funny, raw and relatable personal anecdotes, self-reflections, and conversations with experts, therapists, sex workers, pornstars and other comedians, she interrogates how factors such as education (or a lack thereof), gender, sexuality (Hagen is non-binary and queer), body image, mental health, neurodiversity, misogyny and the patriarchy can shape our understanding and experiences of sex — or act as a barrier to it.
But she almost didn't even finish the book.
Trauma plays 'a big part'
Halfway through writing it, Hagen was struck by a paralysing thought — that the only reason she was struggling to have sex was due to the complex post-traumatic stress disorder she has, and that she was "very specifically broken" in a way that would prove to be "both unfixable and unrelatable to anyone else".
"I have a therapist, but I started seeing a sex therapist during this thing to be like, 'Right, we're only going to talk about the sex thing', and she kept asking me the same questions as my normal therapist, and I was like, 'No, no, no, we need to just focus on the sex'," she says.
"Eventually, she was like, 'Sofie, you can't separate it. When I ask you about your trauma that's also relevant to your sex life', and I was like, 'Oh, f--k, you're right. It's not two different things; of course, it's all connected.'"
Sofie Hagen has been doing stand-up for around 15 years and co-founded The Guilty Feminist podcast. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
She received 1,800 responses within 48 hours, which reaffirmed she wasn't alone in her struggles. The answers people gave were "all very individual and nuanced and complicated", but Hagen says trauma still played "a big part".
Much of that stemmed from sexual violence — just 30 of the replies Hagen received did not include sexual assault of some kind — but other factors such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia and ableism also had an impact.
Another commonality among the responses was low self-esteem.
"It is just such a normal thing to be like, 'Oh, yeah, I am not good enough. I don't look good enough. I need to look better' … It creates such a disconnect between us," she says.
"I wrote a whole book [Happy Fat] about how to love your body, and I really felt like I nailed that."
I really love my body, I love how I look, but I hadn't considered that there's a huge difference between loving your own body and then believing other people will as well.
"You can't control that, and you shouldn't try and change people's minds. That's a more vulnerable part of it where you go, 'Well, now it's about trusting that people are not lying when they're saying it' — and that suddenly that feels a lot more difficult."
'You have to be feely'
Hagen's perspectives on sex have shifted a lot since writing her second book. She used to consider sex as "a performance" where "other people had the scripts and they were really good at it, and I didn't know where to get the scripts or the audition or the access to the theatre".
But that's now been "turned on its head".
"What I realised was, 'Oh, it's not a performance, it's a connection between two people, and there's no script and there's no solution, and we're all extremely human, and no one has the answers', which is really annoying," she says.
"I just want to be in my head where it's all thinky — but you have to be feely."
Writing her second book shifted Sofie Hagen's perspectives on sex. Source: SBS News
"It's not about how much sex you have; it's about making sure that you feel safe in your body and that you feel safe with the people you're with, and that the sex you have is good and comfortable and safe and consensual and fun," she says.
"And I learned a lot more about boundaries and self-respect and intimacy and community and all these other things that I, in my head, had completely divorced from sex."
Much to her delight, the life-altering effect of Will I Ever Have Sex Again? has extended to readers, too.
"People have left their partners or realised they're gay, and I've had frantic, not even friends, but acquaintances or colleagues DM me and be like, 'I don't think I'm a man' or 'I don't think I'm a woman', and I'm like 'Okay, welcome to the panic of what the f--k am I?'" she says.
"I'm in a constant state of asking myself all these questions all the time … It's safe to just be in whatever's normal, but it's f--king fun to be challenged on that and realise, 'Oh, things can be different', and sometimes they have to get really difficult before they get better — but I like that, I find that very exciting."
"My favorite comment is when people are really mad at me and go, 'I've now had to think about things that I've never had to think about before,'" Sofie Hagen says. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
Bringing 'Banglord' to Australia
In the last few months, Hagen's life has been "completely turned upside down" in other ways.
After 12 years in London, she decided to return home to Denmark following a period of the worst depression and suicidal ideation she's ever experienced.
While some may feel moving back in with their mother in their mid-30s is a backward step, Hagen views it as an opportunity for a life reset.
"I could not be more back to basics, figuring out where do I want to live, who do I want to be, what do I want to talk about, how much of myself do I want to share, and how do I want my career to look?" she says.
I think it's really healthy and scary and exciting.
Hagen is currently in Australia for the Melbourne and Sydney comedy festivals, where she is performing her latest stand-up show, the ironically titled Banglord.
Having her life change "so drastically" means Australian audiences will see a slightly different version of the show that premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023 while she was still writing her book.
"It's going to cover gender, feminism, fatness, it's going to be about my first queer date and how I f---ed it up … and about just being a socially awkward person," she says.
"You'll be part of a group of really cool, nice people; the girls and the gays and a lot of the non-binaries and freaks and weirdos and people who feel like they're not a part of something, and then I do jokes and we're a part of something."
Sofie Hagen is performing her latest stand-up show, Banglord, at the Melbourne and Sydney comedy festivals this month. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen
"I feel like the fact that I wrote a book called Will I Ever Have Sex Again? is more of a barrier than time, because if no-one knew and it was just in my head, it probably would've been fine.
"Now it's a big deal in my head, and there's a good chance the person will know that there's a f--king book about it.
"But what I've learned writing the book is communication, and how I would be having a long conversation with the person beforehand anyway, so if they don't make me feel comfortable about it, then I'm not going to have it."
Banglord is at The Greek Gallery, Melbourne, until 20 April. It runs at the Factory Theatre, Sydney, from 25-27 April.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, or visit . In an emergency, call 000.
Readers seeking crisis support can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 and Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged up to 25). More information and support with mental health is available at and on 1300 22 4636.
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