Sex Education season 4: Yasmin Benoit on creating ‘as badass as possible’ asexual character
Exclusive: The asexual campaigner worked with Netflix to create the brand-new character (Warning: Contains spoilers)
By Dale Fox
Asexuality campaigner and model Yasmin Benoit has shared how she helped create a new asexual character in Sex Education season 4, which dropped on Netflix today (21 September).
Speaking to Attitude, Yasmin told us how she worked closely with Netflix as a consultant for the character Sarah “O” Owen, the college sex therapist.
“O is an asexual woman of colour who’s sex positive and educates people about sexuality. So she’s pretty much me,” Yasmin told us. “When we started, O had a different name – O was meant to stand for Oracle,” she added.
“She was pretty different when we started to how she ended up, once I got more involved. Initially she was meant to be more otherworldly. But I was like, ‘You can be asexual and knowledgeable without it coming from some mystical higher force’.”
On whether a sex therapist being asexual would confuse viewers, Yasmin explained: “Being asexual doesn’t mean that you are anti-sex or sex-repulsed, or that you have to be really meek about [being asexual].
“I just want people to be able to see the confidence that you can have in it and how you can still navigate the world in a different way.”
As a vocal member of the asexual (ace) community, Yasmin said it was important that O wasn’t created to be a “wallflower that doesn’t really understand sex, like other ace characters have been.”
“I wanted her to be as badass as possible,” she explains, laughing.
“I told Netflix I wasn’t impressed with Florence”
O is Sex Education‘s second asexual character, following Florence Simmons, who appeared in three episodes of season 2.
Asked for her views of Florence, Yasmin said: “I told Netflix I wasn’t impressed [with Florence] – I didn’t celebrate her. Her story was short and people weren’t happy with her disappearing.”
With O’s “fleshed out” appearance in the show, Yasmin is positive about more people learning about this often-overlooked segment of the LGBTQ+ community.
“I hope people can just see that there are different ways of being asexual. People reach out to me saying, ‘I like it that you’re showing something different because I didn’t know whether I was asexual or if I could be because you don’t mind speaking about sex’.
“I hope that the asexual people that are like that can see some of themselves [in O].”
Sex Education season 4 is streaming now on Netflix.