RIP To Sue Johanson: Queen Of Sex Education And A Gem Who Crushed On Conan As Well As Flustered All The Greats Of Late Night TV
This blog might only hit a niche age range, but Sex With Sue was mandatory watching for us back in the early 2000s college dorms and I LOVED host Sue Johanson. She was talking Gluck Gluck 9000s before Gluck Gluck 9000s even existed.
As someone who grew up amongst stricter Irish-Catholic vibes where sex was shameful, education was limited to "abstinence and nothing else EVER" and where the gist of Sunday school was "impure thoughts are bad and make you a bad person", Sue's show was KEY... Especially being out on my own for the first time & learning things about sex the hard (no pun intended) way because I was so wildly clueless.
Sue Johanson was the daughter of a decorated British war hero, a wife & mother of three, a nurse with degrees & certs in family planning, counseling & human sexuality and paved the way for sex education in Canada & the US.
Her media career began on radio in the 80s with The Sunday Night Sex Show on an Ontario rock radio station. It was so popular that it transferred to community TV and then landed on the Women's TV Network. By the early 2000s Oxygen Network picked up those re-runs for US audiences and viewers loved it & reached out wanting to ask their own sex questions, so Oxygen revamped it and created the call-in show Sex With Sue which ran from '02 - '08.
My friends & I would gather 'round the TV & listen to this sweet, kind, cotton-candy haired old lady reviewing the latest sex toys, answering a wild array of questions from callers, dispelling myths & misconceptions we'd all heard in a frank, straightforward way, & normalizing bein' straight up HORNY. Her whole persona was so chill, funny & disarming that it was the first time I learned about sex in a normal, healthy, basic-human way & without feeling uncomfortable.
Sue was also so confident, unapologetically enthusiastic about her area of expertise, and game to joke around that she made for a perfect guest on other shows, especially on the late night circuit. Throughout the 2000s she made multiple appearances on Letterman, Leno, etc., and my favorite, Late Night With Conan O'Brien.
All three of these clips are well worth watching, especially if you're not familiar with Sue & are in need of guaranteed laughs. The first with pro wrester The Big Show & Tom Selleck sitting next to her as she shares a vibrating rubber ducky, a tin can of cat food turned into a pocket pussy ("you're like a perverted MacGuyver") & info about the clitoris had my legitimately wheezing this morning. She won these guys over & had them squirming at the same time within 10 seconds of sitting down:
Here's some 'best of' on her own show (where the caller questions remind you how dismal sex education in America is). Sue Johanson was out there doing the Lord's work defending ALL penis sizes, shouting out the importance of knowing where the clitoris is (THANK YOU QUEEN) and speaking out about issues of the day in a sane manner when others were too repressed or scared to (nothing wrong with being gay, folks, and by the way here's how to lube up a condom for anal while we're at it).
A pretty amazing run over 93 years. Hope she's walking through the pearly gates with her fiery Hot Stuff Bag in hand as we speak.
Rest In Peace, Sue.
