Sex, Love And Goop Trailer: 10 Things I Hate About Goop

As the modern day prophets Lit once said, "I am my own worst enemy." And with the news that Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle magazine/website/luxury cult has (another) brand new Netflix show, I am ready to disappoint myself once again.

With this blink-and-you'll-miss-it teaser trailer, Netflix has announced their newest hot Goop collab, "Sex, Love and Goop." The show description promises a lusty and sex positive romp through the modern world of sex, where couples team up with "experts" to take their sex lives to the next level. Of course, the teaser only features Paltrow excitedly talking about the idea of talking about sex in a room that looks like it ripped from the blandest section of the West Elm catalogue, but what did you expect?

It's not just that I'm going to watch this show, it's that I'm going to let the show live rent-free in my mind. If I could just breeze through a couple of episodes and then slowly forget it all as I move onto the next season of "The Sopranos," I would feel slightly less bad about my decisions ... but I would still feel pretty bad. I know that Goop has peddled questionable medical advice and influenced folks to spend their well earned money on sex toys, beauty treatments, and medical treatments that can legitimately harm you. I know all of this, and yet, I'm going to watch it.

I'm going to watch every episode and hate some of them and probably, despite myself, enjoy some of the episodes, because I am a consumer through and through. My brain lights up when I see pretty people talking about luxurious things in a soothing environment. That is the insidious magic of Goop, they know exactly how to reel you in. And when I feel like I'm becoming hypnotized by the soft pastels and the icy blond dye jobs, I try to remind myself of that harm.

Let's start with "The Goop Lab," the first Goop series which debuted on Netflix in January 2020. The same series that was thoroughly criticized by the U.K.'s National Health Service chief for endorsing "dubious wellness products and dodgy procedures." Besides serving as a commercial for those dubious products, the show highlighted the strange way their company uses their employees as wellness guinea pigs. I'm sure all of the employees signed piles of releases, but I really hope they all got a cut of that Netflix money as well.

Of course, this goes beyond what the Goop brand has managed to accomplish with Netflix's help. There are the $5,000-plus In Goop Help wellness summits that some guests felt were a rip-off due to a lack of Paltrow herself. It's definitely not a Fyre Festival level of corruption and lack of planning, but it's certainly not a great look. However, being disappointed that you don't get to hang out with Paltrow in a nice hotel doesn't sound too bad when compared to the claims made on the Goop website.

Let's kick things off with Goop's many claims that certain essential oils, perfumes, and candles can treat "negative energy, anxiety, neurosis, and OCD." I don't think I need to tell you that's obviously not true, but just in case you've gotten into the essential oils game, it's definitely not true and could be incredibly harmful to people seeking help who have those diagnoses. That serves as an excellent appetizer to some of the website's even wilder claims. Like the time they sold a sticker that can "rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies." They even lied about the material of the stickers, stating they were made out of the same material NASA uses to line their space suits (which, surprise, wasn't true).

Buckle up, because we haven't even gotten to the truly harmful things Goop has supported and actively sold. Despite the brand's sex positive attitude, Goop has a history of promoting treatments, toys, and ideas that run the risk of damaging the sexual health of people with vaginas and breasts. Everyone has heard about the "yoni" eggs, which are porous, could become filled with bacteria, and absolutely shouldn't be inside of you no matter how much you love crystals. And then there are the slightly less bad, but still tiring, vaginal steaming. One product in a long line of products that upholds the stereotype that vaginas are dirty and need extra special super cleaning.

Somehow, we're not done. There's still so much more! This one is less physically harmful, but it feels so emotionally terrible that I think it's worse than the "yoni" eggs and the steaming combined. Remember the time when a doctor wrote a Goop article about how underwire bras could cause breast cancer? No? Well, it's a real thing that happened, and while it's obviously false, it's difficult for me to think of something more casually cruel. Of course, it doesn't quite hold a candle to the time a woman died after undergoing a bee-sting therapy that Paltrow had positively written about for Goop. In our long list of reasons not to trust, or really even support, Goop, that is definitely the worst thing.

To finish off with something light, there was also the time where Paltrow applied sunscreen so poorly that it made a ton of dermatologists mad, but that's really just a drop in the bucket. "Sex, Love and Goop" is bound to stream even more untested and unverified advice straight into our brains. And while it may look aesthetically pleasing and sound almost good enough to be true, it never is and it probably never will be.