Surveillance Culture Is Impacting Your Dating Life

You can run (in circles) but you can’t hide from the panopticon, so of course we had to make our first episode of season four all about how surveillance culture plays out in relationships and sex.

If you’ve not heard of the extremely esoteric (joking!) philosopher Foucault, don’t worry – we start the episode explaining exactly what panopticon theory is and why you should care, before diving into how we’re policing each other in every aspect of our relationships.

You’ll be thankful to hear it’s not all theory, because we look at examples of panopticism in pop culture, like boyfriends being embarrassing and the Coldplay kiss cam (RIP that CEO) and discuss how this behaviour is slipping into our real lives. From telling our friends their boyfriends suck in group chats, to waiting for them to slip up on social media or IRL so we can cut them off, we’re all becoming cops in our relationships.

While some kind of accountability is always needed, especially when it comes to casual dating, we talk about why this rise in surveillance is making us change our own behaviour and how it’s only making things worse for minorities in particular (classic!).

We hope you enjoy the episode. We’ll be back with two free episodes each month, but if you want to hear more you can subscribe to us over on Substack @sextras for exclusive advice episodes and access to exclusive features and personal essays all about sex and dating.

You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok @sextrasworld, or get in touch with your own experiences or what you want to hear at sextraspodcast@gmail.com. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks with the first guest episode of the season and we can’t wait… dare we say we’ve missed you?!

Hosted by Honey Jane Wyatt and guest hosted by Daniella Parete Clarke.

Music by Sacha Puttnam.

Skip to:

2m10: Intro

8m22: The panopticon of dating

24m37: Gen Z is afraid of being cringe

30:20: Helicopter parenting and friend-policing

45m: West Elm Caleb and the Coldplay Kiss

59m24: How surveillance culture impacts queer relationships

1h10m: West End Girl, and how the panopticon upholds systems of power

1m19: What to look out for this season (and subscribe to the Substack pretty please!)

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