Sarah Wilson: ‘I don’t get courtship, I’ve never wanted gifts’

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Sarah Wilson. The writer, activist and former TV presenter, 49, is the founder of I Quit Sugar. She’s the author of a dozen cookbooks sold in 52 countries as well as the bestselling memoir First, We Make the Beast Beautiful.

Sarah Wilson: “Nobody in my family has had a wedding and I’ve never thought about getting married.”

SEX

What is it like to navigate the world of romance, sex and dating when you’re a recognisable figure? I’m on a lot of dating apps – here and internationally. People are always surprised that I would do that. I honestly don’t care. I turn up to dates quite oblivious to the idea that the guy might know who I am.

What kind of dates have you been on? I’ve been on so many; I’ve been single for 15 years. Men get alarmed by the fact that I’m quite like a man: I’m pretty bold, I don’t get courtship, I’ve never wanted gifts. Nobody in my family has had a wedding and I’ve never thought about getting married.

What are you looking for in someone? What are the criteria? Big, big, big spirit.

I thought you were about to say something else … [Laughs] Pretty much “big everything”. Big masculinity. Bold humans. I love intimacy and I’m quite okay about sex. I enjoy it. My friends go, “How do you go from meeting up with the guy to having sex with him that night?” And I’m like, “It just feels right.” In Australia, men give so little of themselves. They’re so frightened of being vulnerable. Sex takes you straight to that vulnerability. I love that. I’m like, “Oh good, now I get you.” But there are very few men who are okay with that. They talk about how they love a woman who knows what she wants, but it’s actually not true. They don’t know what to do with a woman like me. So I date men who are a lot younger.

Is that a conscious decision? They’re the men who come forward and are interested.

I’ve gotta ask: is sex better with a younger man? It makes it a lot less self-conscious. My father told me once that men, when they’re younger, still have their mojo. Once you’ve suffered knockbacks – from a woman, from life – you lose that confidence. I think there’s something to be said for that.

Is there anything better than sex? Food. And hiking.

DEATH

I feel a lot of your work – especially the more personal aspects – is informed by the inevitability of death. Where does that come from? It’s no big secret: I’ve had close brushes with suicide, and that takes you to that place. But all of it makes me aware of the preciousness of life. It forces you to get off the conveyor belt of life and go, “Holy shit. This is gonna come to an end, so let’s max this.” Let’s live.

In those suicidal periods, what helped? How do you emerge from a darkness that feels overwhelming? I see the purpose in it. That was a big part of First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: to realise that the beast is a beautiful thing. It exists for a reason. When you’re in the darkness, you’re on a threshold. Something is happening. One of the main things I do is what I call soul-nerding. I go and read the creative works of incredible people who have felt the same way; who have felt that existential pain and created something beautiful. Writers such as Virginia Woolf, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus. Lots of poets. I spend time in nature – camping or hiking – just to settle. Nature sorts it out for me.

You’re known for I Quit Sugar. Now you’re part of a campaign called “I Quit Gas” – a partnership with the Climate Council. How much of that work is informed by an anxiety about the death of nature, and our capacity to live in it? Ultimately, the planet will survive. It’s people that are up for question. What motivates me doing these campaigns is that I don’t want anyone to wake up and go, “I didn’t do enough when I could have.” That’s going to be the ultimate pain-point for humans: regret, when it’s too late. Big financial institutions, superannuation companies, they’re all divesting, getting out of coal and gas. There is no future in them. Renewable energy prices are coming down. It’s about communicating these things so that nobody gets left behind.

What’s left to do before you die? What’s on the list? More love.

RELIGION

When you started I Quit Sugar, a lot of people were like, “Is this a cult?” Do you feel vindicated by the mainstream health directive to limit sugar intake? Oh, I could do a bit of a “I told you so”. But as [German philosopher Arthur] Schopenhauer said: First, [the truth] is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

What’s your relationship to sugar nowadays? Pretty much the same as it was when I was running the business and writing the books. I eat a bit of it. If there’s dessert and I’m out with friends, I’ll eat it. I don’t really love it; I often have to recalibrate just like everybody else. But I’ll never drink fruit juice. I’ll never drink liquid sugar. I choose my poison in the right formats.

You write about “spiritual PTSD” with everything that’s happening: COVID, climate collapse, economic collapse, political collapse. What’s the fix? Richard Tedeschi, an expert on PTSD and trauma, points out some estimates say 70 per cent of trauma results in growth, so I do think there’s an opportunity. More broadly, I’d say turning any kind of anxiety and trauma into activism has psychologically proven to be the ultimate fix. Going into the foetal position is the worst thing you can do: we’ve gotta keep processing the anxiety. Turns out activism is great for that.

Lifeline: 13 11 14; Beyond Blue.

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