About BISH

About BISH

BISH is a guide to sex, love and you for everyone over 14. It’s for people who are (or are thinking about) having sex and relationships. Hopefully it’s for all genders and sexualities (including asexual folk), people with disabilities, backgrounds, beliefs and values. It’s got a UK vibe so we say ‘snog’, ‘fancy’ and ‘shag’ a lot.

Origin Story

I started this website in 2009 but only really added lots of good content from 2011 ish. I was working in a sexual health clinic in Battersea, London, giving information, advice, and condoms to young people (mostly young men). To help get conversations going I’d designed some leaflets about sex and relationships, which they really liked. As the years went on I noticed that they had smartphones and thought I’d better make a website to put this information on. So BISH was born. As it got more popular I got more into it, and it became a job for a while. Durex sponsored the website for a few years, which was great.

You might be wondering why do I bother? It’s not like this is going to make me rich. Well I still think that young people and adults deserve to have much better sex and relationships advice. A lot of the school based sex ed is pretty shit in my view, as you can see in my Bad Sex Ed Bingo resource. 

What I want for BISH

Also a lot of the websites that I compete with don’t offer very good advice either, particularly the ones aimed at young men. Here’s an academic article comparing the advice I have about sexting to the other ones (tl;dr mine’s better). BISH is a lefty liberal website, because I’m a lefty liberal I guess, but I also think that it means the resources are better. They are materialist, actionable, based in the real world, and on a social view of what it is to be human. I’m pretty gentle with the politics though and I’d like to think that if you’re a conservative, you’d get a lot out of BISH.

I want everyone visiting the website to feel supported, informed, reassured. Every visitor should feel included, and feel a bit better about themselves. I’m constantly working on getting this right, answering questions, responding to feedback, editing old resources and creating new ones. This is to make sure that the resource is as good as it can be, (but also to keep the gods of the search engine algo happy, so you see BISH in search results). So all I want is more and more visitors. If you like it here, please tell someone.

Why BISH?

BISH doesn’t really mean anything (it used to stand for ‘Best in Sexual Health). Sex and relationships as a topic is complicated and I don’t want to over simplify it but I do want to try and be short, snappy and to tell it like it is – that’s what Bish ‘means’ I guess. It’s not the Bish you see at Urban Dictionary (bish is like a softer more friendly version of the word bi**h and it also features in a really great Kendrick Lamar song, we like Kendrick, but this website came first).

Who visits the website

People find us by googling their questions. 93% of people. The website has helped way over 10 million people and it gets thousands of visits a day. It’s mostly people from the US, the UK, and India who visit the website. It’s mostly young people, young men actually, asking about sex related things. The relationships pages (the best resources in my view) aren’t as popular for some reason but I’m trying to figure that out. 

I do get a few older folk visiting the website too, occasionally because they are angry at something the right-wing press have written about it. But often they really like what they see and tell me that they wish they had these kinds of resources when they were younger. So it’s not just for young people, and I deliberately don’t try to use ‘youth speak’. Although there are some dad jokes which people like.

I do do social media but it’s really hard to promote any kind of sex education on there (or seggs education). The censorship (also known as deplatforming) is real! So I mostly leave that to other people. I think people trust the website because it’s written by an actual expert (more on me below) and because the content is well written. If you want to give me a follow you can find BISH at TikTok,  Instagram and Twitter / X (though I’ve stopped posting there)

What people like about BISH

Academics, practitioners, and at least one celebrity doctor think this website is really great. This is from a recent academic article about sexual health and young people is pretty good at summing up the website.

“The BISH website appeared to have the most comprehensive content and engaging format, though it was recognised as potentially more frank in tone than might be acceptable to schools.” https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15541-x

More importantly the readers love it. 65% of visitors to the survey said it was very helpful. Thousands of young people read Bish every day and they like the: 1. Vibe 2. Depth and breadth of content. 3. That it’s inclusive (feminist, LGBTQIA and straight cis lads like it too it “doesn’t point the finger”) 4. The helpful tools to take away. Read lots more about what readers do with BISH. I report on this to my funders on a regular basis.

The other really great website that people talk about (for the English speaking world) is Scarleteen. Check them out! In the UK, if you want some more in depth support from youth workers online I suggest going to The Mix. They’re a great charity, who I’ve worked with, who can support you.

Funding

I used to get sponsorship from Durex. They gave me around £15,000 a year to work on the website, so I could spend around 2 days a week working on it. In return they put their logo on here and I gave them advice on the sex ed projects they were trialling. I don’t know why they stopped funding me, but they did get a lot of hassle from transphobes on Mumsnet and from the right wing press attacks on me. Maybe they got fed up with that, who knows?

Nowadays my wonderful Patreon subscribers help pay me to run this website. So we get between £4000 and £5000 per year. It’s not enough sadly and doesn’t pay for my time. As you can see, there are no ads and no pay walls. Everything here is free and ad free (which is pretty unusual for any website nowadays).

I’m also doing a PhD (about the website, more on this below) which gives me a bursary (which doesn’t cover my rent). So this, the Patreon, and my freelance RSE work (see below) keeps me going, but only just.

If you can afford just £1 a month please consider signing up to support. This is one of the leading sexuality education websites online in the world and I need to be paid to work on it. So if you can help I’d be really grateful. Find out how else you can support BISH here.

About me Justin Hancock

Almost everything here is written (and illustrated, and recorded) by me, Justin Hancock. I’m a qualified youth worker (since 1999) and sexual health trainer (since 2003). I’ve worked with young people since 1994 and I’ve been doing sex and relationships education since 1999. I’ve worked for local authorities, charities, and Durex and now I’m a freelance independent trainer and consultant. You can see my linkedin profile here if you want to see the kinds of work I’ve done. As you can see I’m one of the leading experts in the field of sex and relationships education. I’m also now a member of the World Association for Sexual Health.

I’m also now a PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. My research is going to focus on online sexuality education resources, ie this website. 

I’ve written two books. Can We Talk About Consent? Published by Quarto Books and ‘Enjoy Sex How When and IF You Want To’ by Icon Books (more on that below).

As well as doing this online I’ve been working with actual people in real life. I’ve mostly worked with young people in sexual health services, running confidential drop ins for people wanting condoms, advice, and information. First in Derby for Derby City Council from 1999 – 2002 on a project I set up called ‘Spaceman’ and then in London where I set up a project called BAM (for the sexual health charity Brook) from 2002 – 2013. It was a really successful project and you can read about that some more here if you like.

I’ve also worked in youth clubs (when they were a thing) in schools, colleges, and unis. I now sometimes facilitate relationships and sexuality education in schools, colleges, and unis, running workshops and answering questions. More on that below.

Media appearances

I’ve done quite a lot of work in the media. Recently I made a video about viagra for the BBC and I was interviewed for Radio 4 (our very highbrow radio station in the UK) for One to One. When my Consent book came out I did an interview for Times Radio with Phil Williams. I’ve written articles for Mashable, Guardian, Telegraph, and Novara Media. You can see more about my media work at my other website. The Economist like BISH and I was also featured in the Financial Times recently.

Work for adults

I’ve written a book, zines, and created many podcasts with Dr Meg-John Barker. It’s aimed at a slightly older crowd than this website, so it’s probably a bit more advanced. If you’re interested you can check it out at megjohnandjustin.com or you can buy our book ‘Enjoy Sex (how, when and IF you want to)‘.

I also offer a solution focused coaching service and I also run the popular Culture Sex Relationships podcast. Find out about all my work at justinhancock.co.uk

Teaching and Training

This website is not meant to be used in the classroom. By all means direct young people if they have unanswered questions, but don’t use it as a teaching resource. It really shouldn’t replace really good relationships and sex education which is about creating a safe enough environment so people can talk to each other. If you are a teacher and would like some really great resources please head over to my website for practitioners bishtraining.com. You can buy all of my RSE resources in one download, the Big Bish Download. All of these resources are also available at the BISH Patreon Shop.

In person I teach a broad range of subjects: the usual condoms and STIs stuff, gender norms, sexual bullying, porn, love, relationships, consent, good first time sex, sexual readiness, self-esteem and even lessons on dealing with failure. I’ve run sessions in PRUs, colleges, secondary schools (state schools and also some of the leading independent schools in the country (not Eton, the other ones)) and youth clubs. There was that one time I ran a session in a music studio and I also taught in a medieval castle once, that was fun. I also run training courses for practitioners who would like to teach young people about this stuff. Again, more details at bishtraining.com

© Justin Hancock, 2025