Female killer whales lead playful sex lives as they age – and are also celebrated for their matriarchal wisdom

• How much do you spend on health and wellness a month?

Four years ago, I was thrown for a loop by a wave of strange new symptoms including night sweats, an expanding midsection, dry skin, and a strong and sudden intolerance for noise. I suspected they had something to do with the neurological and physiological changes of perimenopause but was frustrated by the absence of clear answers about what was happening to my middle-aged body. Lacking few nuanced representations of this period of life, I began looking at what midlife looks like elsewhere in nature.

It was inspiring. Trees, for instance, illustrate the capaciousness of midlife: as they mature, they add rings to their ever-expanding trunks. Mature trees in urban areas – those 20 years and up – remove higher levels of air pollution, sequester more carbon from the atmosphere and provide much more leaf area and shade than their younger counterparts.

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There is no ‘ideal’ aim for sexual compatibility. If you feel there is something amiss, talk about it

As a sex educator and author, my job – my purpose in life – is teaching women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. My latest book, Come Together , is all about the science (and art!) of sex in long term relationships.

Since I published the book, one of the biggest topics I’m asked about in email and at events is sexual incompatibility. Here’s what I think people should know.

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The confusing and vague executive order underscores how complex sex is and why it’s hard to reduce it into a neat binary

Has the moment we’ve all been waiting for arrived? After both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris failed to break the biggest glass ceiling, has a woman finally ascended to the highest office in America? Legally speaking, is Donald J Trump the first female president?

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Josué and Sebastián agree that seeing other people doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. In fact, it’s brought them closer
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

It’s not cheating or replacing one another, it’s accepting that we both have urges

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Ben and Jack bonded while watching Lord of the Rings and admiring Aragorn. Now, their sexually-charged friendship has turned to a hot relationship

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I first spotted Jack across the room, at a queer event, and was completely transfixed

Before I met Ben, I had been having a lot of casual sex – but often I wouldn’t feel entirely present

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Strictly Come Dancing is no longer just a dance show – it’s a battlefield for culture wars, says Marina Hyde. The extraordinary story of Robbie Parker facing down right-wing provocateurs after losing his child. Philippa Perry offers advice to a reader whose partner wants more sex and more enthusiasm

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Sean Baker’s acclaimed and Oscar-tipped new drama focuses on a sex worker, a story that led him to consult with those who live and work in that world

In Anora , a wilful young woman engaged in sex work is swept up in a Cinderella story. Anora, or Ani as everyone calls the titular character, who is played with mercurial force by Mikey Madison, cozies up with a rich young brat (Mark Eidelstein), the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch with mob ties. Their whirlwind romance quickly unleashes clock-strikes-midnight chaos across Manhattan, Brighton Beach and Coney Island.

The movie, written and directed by Tangerine and The Florida Project’s Sean Baker, is a deliriously entertaining and moving screwball comedy that takes notes from Preston Sturges and Federico Fellini. Those film-makers, like Baker, have always been hyperaware of class and economics, accepting wholeheartedly that love and romance, with all its joys and tragedy, is transactional. But to make such stories ring true and authentic like few have before, Baker has also been taking notes from sex workers.

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Preeti Panigrahi is excellent as Mira, a prefect dealing with first love and, unusually, sex, as she navigates the patriarchy in 90s north India

‘Some teachers thought a girl wasn’t up to it,” says a veteran female teacher with a weary roll of the eye. It’s some time in the 1990s, and a posh boarding school in northern India has just appointed a girl as head prefect, its first ever. Her name is Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), and she’s a sensible, academically gifted 16-year-old, known as a bit of a stickler. But Mira’s term as head prefect happens to coincide with first love; she falls for Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), a new boy with heavenly tousled hair and what looks like a well-practised sensitive smile.

So, this is the story of Mira’s teenage sexual awakening – a tale as old as the Himalayas, which poke into view whenever she leaves the school grounds. But there’s something new here: Mira is a teenage girl who feels plausible and behaves in ways that don’t play out like earlier coming-of-age movies. Take the way she approaches losing her virginity – like it’s science homework. Methodical Mira does her research, looking up the anatomy in the library, performing experiments at home: French kissing her arm and masturbating to work out what’s what and where. It’s a quiet film, and Panigrahi plays Mira with such poise and intelligence, conveying her innermost thoughts with a slight lift of the chin here or lingering look there.

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Friction in the fields is wreaking havoc in the bedroom for farmers and parents Rosie and Brian

How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

There is something hot about being a farmer, but working together is tricky – Brian can nitpick to a degree that doesn’t make a difference for the sheep

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