Photography SAM DAMESHEK Model CAMILLE ROTH Graphic Design SARAH SMITH At DUST STUDIOS, LOS ANGELES

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"The Painter with the Biggest Balls" VAHID SHARIFIAN interviewed by KIMBERLY HUNT January 2026 WANT TO SEE MORE? I asked him directly the question that often hovers unspoken around artists who provoke discomfort. Do you care what people think of you? It’s a question that usually invites hedging. A moment to calibrate. A chance to soften the answer just enough to sound reasonable. When I asked Vahid Sharifian, none of that happened. “No,” he said. “I don’t care what they think.” There was no heat in it. No defensiveness. Just certainty. The kind that comes from someone who has already spent years testing the alternative and found it unnecessary.

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Written by KENDALL CORNISH For SOAP MAGAZINE Graphic Design SARAH SMITH I used to fuck like a method actress. I played the triple threat: director, lead actress, and critic. My one-woman show featured moans, back arches, and hair flips executed with the precision of a Rolex. I was about as spontaneous as a space launch. The irony, of course, was that in my quest to appear effortlessly sensual, I'd become a walking, talking baby-making infographic. Each encounter was less about human connection and more about impressing an imaginary jury of sexual sophisticates who existed entirely in my imagination. The real casualties of impossible standards weren't just my authenticity — they were the genuine connections I was desperately trying to manufacture. I'd become so terrified of not measuring up that I shape-shifted to fit whatever ideal my current partner seemed to desire. But this obsession with relational perfection isn't just my personal neurosis — it's a collective delusion. Hollywood and porn culture have tag-teamed to convince us that every sexual encounter should involve mind-reading, synchronized orgasms, and clear skin. But, we're living in an era where the average person's sexual knowledge comes from a combination of poorly executed high school sex ed and a bukkake of unrealistic porn scenarios. Research shows that media exposure significantly influences our sexual attitudes, which basically means we're all walking around with sexual expectations crafted by people who've probably never had good sex themselves. Romantic comedies are especially ridiculous — spoiler alert: real relationships involve more queefs than sweeping declarations of love. That’s not to say no one will ever declare their love to you in the pouring rain, but that expecting it is hurting your sex life. The most tragic casualty in this performance-obsessed landscape? Genuine arousal. A comprehensive study revealed that media consumption creates a sexual performance anxiety so intense it could make a NASA stress test feel like a yoga retreat. Some of us are still so busy worrying about whether we look sexy that we've forgotten sex is supposed to be a good time. We’re starring in our own personal pornos, but the only audience members are our own crippling self-doubts. The irony is that in our quest for sexual perfection, we've made sex monumentally less enjoyable. Porn has become our collective sexual education, which is like learning quantum mechanics from a children's picture book. One study found that male porn viewers are more likely to become distracted by body and performance issues during actual sex. So, many of our performative efforts are not for nothing. But here's the abject truth: Our sexual expectations are a reflection of something much deeper than physical performance. They're a manifestation of our collective anxiety about vulnerability and the terrifying prospect of being seen. Those of us who do construct these elaborate sexual personas as emotional armor believe that if we can just perform perfectly, we'll be safe from rejection, judgment, and the messy complexity of genuine human connection. TikTok, IG, and the like only exacerbate this problem. We're bombarded with carefully curated images of couple goals that make the average relationship look like a dumpster fire in comparison. But for every perfect beach sunset selfie, there's an argument about who forgot the sunscreen. These picture-perfect posts create a dangerous illusion that real companionship is always photogenic and exciting. It's a highlight reel masquerading as real life, and it's making us all feel like we're failing at relationships when we're doing just fine. Hollywood, though, could arguably be the OG source of many a great sexpectation. They've convinced us that love at first sight is not only possible but probable, that grand gestures solve all err, and that there's always a perfectly timed rainstorm when “the one” goes in for the kiss. What's the solution to this mess we've created? It's time to lower the bar. And I don't mean settling for less than you deserve. I mean redefining what you deserve in the first place. It's time to embrace the glorious chaos of real human connection, warts (yep) and all. What about if your particular brand of sexual satisfaction evades the mainstream? A queer friend of mine recently put it perfectly over drinks: “Straight people think they have it bad with performance pressure? Try navigating intimacy when there's no societal script to follow. Though honestly, maybe that's our superpower — we've always had to write our own rules anyway.” I repeat: lowering our expectations doesn't mean accepting poor treatment or settling for unsatisfying relationships. It means letting go of the idea that every moment needs to be as idyllic as many of us have been raised to believe. It means prioritizing pleasure over performance. It means communicating openly about fantasies and boundaries without fear of judgment. It means laughing when things go wrong, because they will. Whether you had the perfect relationship role models or have never known love, unrealistic expectations of sex develop in the unlikeliest of places. When we stop treating our sexual encounters like performance reviews and start approaching them with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered there’s nothing wrong with missionary, that's when the real magic happens. It's time to lower our standards for physical perfection (which, yes, means giving dad bods and mosquito bites a moment in the sun) and raise our standards for genuine connection. Because at the end of the day, trying too hard is a sure-fire way to wind up unsatisfied. We're all just trying our best to navigate the chaos of human desire. And maybe experience an orgasm that doesn't require pretending we're someone else to achieve it.

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Written by KENDALL CORNISH For SOAP MAGAZINE Graphic Design SARAH SMITH WANT TO SEE MORE?