“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

Around three years ago, Hagen realised if she was ever going to have sex again, she needed to work out why there was such a disconnect between her brain and body.

“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?'”

Will I ever have sex again?

So she did.

Will I Ever Have Sex Again? was released last year. Source: Instagram / Sofie Hagen

In Will I Ever Have Sex Again?, her second non-fiction book, Hagen takes readers on a journey through her past and present as she tries to understand what makes sex so difficult for her and “how to go from, ‘Oh, that person is kind of cute’ to the naked bit'”.

But she almost didn’t even finish the book.

Trauma plays ‘a big part’

“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

It was around that time that Hagen sent a questionnaire out to her newsletter subscribers and social media followers, asking: “If you are not having sex, but you wish you were, why do you think that is?”

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.

“I wrote a whole book [Happy Fat] about how to love your body, and I really felt like I nailed that.”

“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’

“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

While Hagen didn’t achieve her initial goal, which was to “have a lot of sex”, what she learnt instead was “much better” than what she thought she needed.

“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.”

“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

“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.

“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

As for whether she’ll have sex again anytime soon, Hagen says she’s trying not to pressure herself.