Simone Paget
LATEST STORIES BY SIMONE PAGET
SEX FILES: Holiday hook-up or horror story. How to safeguard your summer fling
In the second season of the HBO series, ‘The White Lotus’, Portia, a 20-something personal assistant (played by Hayley Lu Richardson) on vacation in Italy with her boss, gets romantically entangled with Leo Woodall’s character Jack, a British bad boy whose “Cowabunga” neck tattoo is just as questionable as his motives.

SEX FILES: For those exploring their sexuality, dating apps are still a life-line
Online dating apps are having a moment – and not in a good way. Between The Great Bumble Fumble of 2024 (in which the once-popular app launched a series of tone-deaf advertisements) and heterosexual women going viral on TikTok for sharing their negative experiences with dating apps , there’s no shortage of criticism around the current state of digital courtship.

SEX FILES: Spotting stalker behaviour -- From Baby Reindeer to real life
At university, I briefly had a stalker. I met this guy on the set of a student film my friend was making. He seemed nice enough, so when he asked for my phone number – under the guise that he could help me get more work in film – I didn’t think twice. Almost immediately I regretted it. After turning him down for a date, he’d call my landline 40-50 times a night; sometimes leaving breathless, desperate pleas for my affection. More often than not, he’d simply hang up and call again.

SEX FILES: Dating lessons from my year-long gym hunt
I spent years searching for a gym that felt like home. Eventually, I found a fitness studio that offered women-focused strength training, yoga, and barre classes, nestled right in my neighbourhood, a five-minute walk from home. I loved that I could go to my gym, work up a sweat, and engage with a great community of people. Last spring, when my gym closed its doors for good, I mourned the loss like a breakup.
