Lux Alptraum

When Public Apologies Go Wrong

These days, it feels like everyone who’s anyone is offering up a public apology. Justin Timberlake did it, Joe Biden did it (and did it again) — even big brands like McDonald’s aren’t above hoping on to Twitter and dashing off a Notes app mea culpa. Sometimes, these apologies go great. But most of the time… not so much. Are public apologies just fundamentally flawed — or is there a way that we can fix them? In this talk, Say You’re Sorry host Lux Alptraum unpacks the biggest mistakes that people and organizations make when they publicly apologize, and offers tricks and tools for avoiding making those very same mistakes.

How to Be Less Shitty On the Internet

A decade ago, Lux was working at Gawker Media, the snarky blog network known for its cutting commentary and willingness to push the boundaries of journalistic standards. In her time there, she learned to embrace Gawker’s no holds barred attitude towards blogging — particularly when it came to leaking nude photos of celebrities. But years after leaving her blogging career behind, she was forced to reckon with some of the horrific outcomes of her work, and to try and figure out how to make amends.

In this talk, Lux walks the audience through the mistakes she’s made and the work she’s done to set things right, offering a road map for being more responsible, and more kind, when we’re posting online. Whether you’re a professional journalist or a TikTok teen, this talk provides thought provoking tips on how to make the internet a slightly more pleasant place for all of us.

“I’ve Never Done That Before” and Other Lies Women Tell the People We Love

Honesty is supposed to be the best policy. Yet when it comes to our sex lives, many women have a hard time telling our partners the truth about our sexual histories. Whether we’re afraid we’ll be rejected for having too many sex partners or mocked for having too few, many of us would rather lie than fail to live up to our partners’ expectations — even when those expectations are impossible to meet. This talk takes a look at how a mix of purity culture and porn has created an unrealistic idea of what a “normal” woman’s sexual history looks like.

Why Tech Needs to Be Less Afraid of Sex

A few decades ago, the tech and sex communities were deeply intertwined. CES had its very own section devoted to the adult industry, and people who were in the business of selling sex were often assumed to be leaders in technological innovation. But these days, that’s far from the case. Tech giants like Apple and Facebook treat sex-related topics with disdain, censoring the slightest hint of nipple and banning sex-related content, and even Tumblr — which built its audience through a willingness to celebrate sex — has declared adult content to be totally taboo. Much of this disdain for sex is justified as a way to make our technology and online lives safer and more family friendly, but in the process, tech companies are engaging in censorship that puts our health, happiness, and emotional wellbeing at risk. In this talk, Lux will discuss why tech companies need to start saying yes to sex, and how a little less censorship could help create a society that’s a lot smarter and more thoughtful when it comes to our sexual and reproductive health.

Faking It: A Defense of the Inauthentic Orgasm

Fake orgasms get a bad rap. If you believe what you read in lady mags, women who fake it are sad and sexually deprived, more concerned with their partner’s ego than their own sexual pleasure. But what if we have it all wrong? What if faking it isn’t a passive cry for help, but a way of claiming power? This talk discusses the surprising reasons women (and some men!) fake orgasm, taking a look at how our obsession with orgasms might actually be making sex worse.

The Two Hardest Words

The phrase “I’m sorry” tends to get a bad rap — in part because most of us hear it from people who don’t actually feel bad about what they did in the first place. But even though they’re frequently misused, apologies are still an incredibly important tool for social change. Lux Alptraum, host of the Audible Original podcast Say You’re Sorry, walks audiences through the basic structure of a successful apology, highlighting why those two simple words are one of the best strategies we have for making the world a better place.