Oliver James, founder of Friend of Dorothy, on why sexual wellness needs a dose of friendship.
Think about the best conversation you’ve ever had about your sex life. I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t with a doctor, a sexual health advisor, or a wellness brand. It was with a friend.
A friend who asked the right questions. Who didn’t flinch. Who laughed with you, not at you. Who gave you honest advice because they actually wanted things to go well for you not because they were managing your risk or selling you something.
That quality the warmth, the honesty, the genuine investment in your happiness — is almost entirely absent from how gay men are talked to about sex. And at Friend of Dorothy, that’s exactly what we’re trying to change.
The phrase ‘Friend of Dorothy’ is one of the oldest and most affectionate ways of saying someone is gay. It’s rooted in community, in recognition, in a kind of wink between people who understand each other. Friendship is literally built into our name and it shapes everything we do.
Because here’s what I’ve noticed: gay men have incredible friendships. We talk openly, honestly, and without much embarrassment about almost everything our relationships, our feelings, our insecurities, our ambitions. And yet when it comes to sex itself, something shifts. The conversation either goes underground swapped in whispers or on apps or it becomes formal and clinical, filtered through the language of public health.
What’s missing is the middle ground. The space where you can talk about sex the same way you’d talk to a trusted mate over a drink honestly, warmly, and with the shared understanding that a good sex life is something worth caring about.
Sexual wellness content aimed at straight people has this in abundance. Read any women’s magazine or mainstream wellness platform and the tone is intimate, supportive, and joyful. It reads like advice from a friend who happens to know a lot. There’s no shame in it. No clinical distance. Just the assumption that you deserve a great sex life and here’s how to have one.
Gay men rarely get that. What we get instead is important but cold: testing reminders, risk reduction messaging, PrEP information. All necessary. But not a friend. Not someone talking to us like they actually know us and want good things for us.
This matters more than it might seem. Research consistently shows that the quality of conversations we have around sex shapes how we feel about our sex lives and ourselves. When the only voices speaking to you about your sexuality are cautionary ones, it’s hard not to internalise some of that caution as shame. When nobody is talking to you with warmth and enthusiasm about your pleasure, you can start to feel like your pleasure isn’t worth that warmth and enthusiasm.
Friend of Dorothy exists to be that other voice.
We want to be the brand that talks to gay men the way their best friend would directly, warmly, without judgment, and with genuine excitement about the idea that their sex life could be really, really good. Not just safe. Good.
What does that look like? It looks like conversations about intimacy that go beyond the mechanics. It looks like advice about connection and pleasure and confidence that’s designed for gay men, not adapted from someone else’s template. It looks like a community where the question ‘how do I have a better sex life?’ is treated with the same warmth and seriousness as any other question about wellbeing.
Because ultimately, that’s what a friend does. A friend doesn’t just tell you to be careful. A friend wants you to thrive.
At Friend of Dorothy, so do we.
Oliver James is the founder of Friend of Dorothy.
