Gwyneth Paltrow publicly ranking her sexual partners wasn't okay, but not for the reason you think.

"Brad [Pitt] was like the sort of major chemistry, love of your life kind of – at the time. But Ben [Affleck] was like, technically excellent."

That's how Gwyneth Paltrow chose to answer host Alex Cooper's question, "Who is better in bed?" on last week's episode of the Call her Daddy podcast.

It was a candid moment in the midst of a wildly candid interrogation of Paltrow's previous relationships, which Cooper referred to as a "stacked roster" before launching into a game that she titled "Brad or Ben?", referring to two of Paltrow's famous former partners.

Watch: On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow reveals "This Smells Like My Orgasm" candle. Post continues after video.

Before her particularly invasive question, Cooper asked a host of fairly innocuous relationship questions: 

Who had a better wardrobe? 

Who was more romantic? 

Who was more likely to make you laugh? 

Who were you more likely to get into an argument with? 

But the sex question was quite a lot. And the choice of a very famous person to divulge personal information about two other very famous people has been the focus of a wild amount of headlines in the past week.

There are obvious questions that follow a viral moment like this, besides wondering what 'technically excellent' really means.

The question that will likely occur to most of us is: 'Is this okay?' 

As in, is it acceptable for Paltrow to speak publicly about sexual partners on a public platform (particularly one with such enormous reach – Call Her Daddy apparently attracted five million listeners per episode in 2021) in such a blasé fashion, seemingly without the direct consent of the people that she's talking about?

Immediately, we might be inclined to draw the comparison to say, a man discussing his own sexual exploits with a woman in a public space without her consent, and how deeply inappropriate that would be to most of us. And it's entirely fair to equate Paltrow's decision-making to this scenario – after all, what should be unacceptable for a man to do should, logically, also be unacceptable for a woman to do, too.

If we're asserting that men and women should be considered social equals, it follows that the standards to which we hold ourselves should be identical. And any man who spreads the details of a woman's sexual life without her permission would widely be considered, well, really gross.

Of course, this direct comparison misses the nuances of women being historically oppressed by men, women being far more likely to be the victim-survivors of sexual assault and violence than men, and the traditional repression of female sexuality. All of this probably suggests that no, it's not exactly the same and that maybe women are entitled to a little bit more liberty in this department.

On this week's episode of Mamamia's podcast The Spill, host Laura Brodnik also pushed back against comparing this to a man sharing details about his sex life, saying that this particular situation is not problematic, "just because of who the players are; because the world's always been set up for these Hollywood men to always be the most successful". Both Pitt and Affleck fall into a specific top echelon of the film industry where they have accumulated a huge amount of wealth and power.

Brodnik also pointed out that Paltrow actually called both actors 'great' in bed, so she didn't have a huge amount of sympathy for them in this scenario.

Want to hear more of Laura Brodnik's take on Gwyneth Paltrow's Call Her Daddy interview? Listen to The Spill below. Post continues after podcast.

These considerations should, arguably, make us feel at ease about Paltrow's conversation with Cooper – maybe we should think that, actually, it doesn't really matter at all and it was just a fun girls' conversation, end of story. 

But I'm still left with a general feeling of unease about the whole situation – and I believe a lot of that comes from my history as a columnist who, at one point, loved writing about taboo topics and inspecting every private corner of my own life for the sake of garnering a little attention and reaching article counts.

I used to write about sex a lot and I was always more than happy to recount the most sordid, confusing, or grotesque parts of sexual encounters. And while I still think that writing about sex lives and dispelling taboos is hugely important for validating the experiences of the people reading, I've now dramatically reassessed the value of writing these articles in relation to the privacy of the people mentioned.

I remember a relationship almost breaking apart completely when I was around 20 years old, purely because I had divulged (anonymously) stories from our sexual life without permission. The selfish demons embedded in your personality will try to make you believe that because a person is part of your life, they're part of your story, and you are entitled to tell your own story. But I don't really believe that on any meaningful level.

What I believe in now, overall, is that privacy is wildly underrated and we should all be entitled to it. My current partner is a private person and I happily respect that – because I respect him deeply.

And this conversation extends far beyond sex, too. It extends to every facet of life. Storytellers, no matter how famous or celebrated or wealthy, should still abide by an ethical code that understands the impact of anything being made public.

So, maybe the Paltrow story is silly and frivolous to focus on ,and maybe it doesn't matter what she said about Pitt or Affleck's sex in particular – but it should force us to reflect on the importance of other people's privacy and maybe reserve some scepticism for people who don't care about compromising it and crossing that line, even just a little.

Elfy Scott is Mamamia's editor.

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.

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