Alex Hooper-Hodson is a British author, advice columnist, and sex expert. He has written three books The Boy Files, 52 Teen Boy Problems & How To Solve Them and 52 Teen Girl Problems & How To Solve Them for Wayland Books, a division of Hachette Children's Books. He also has appeared on the MTV shows Sex Pod and Celebrity Sex Pod.
Personal life
Hooper-Hodson's mother is Anne Hooper, an author on sex, who has written over 30 books in over 40 languages. His father, Phillip Hodson, is a counselor who was head of media relations for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He was also a television personality in the 1980s as the 'agony uncle' for BBC's Going Live! programme where he dispensed advice. Phillip was the first TV counsellor to openly address issues such as child abuse and safe sex in the British media in a programme aimed at younger adults.
Magazines & Newspapers
Hooper-Hodson has been published in newspapers since the age of nineteen when he was interviewed in The Independent. Alex has worked in the media extensively, having worked at an early age for the BBC, Reuters, Talk Sport radio, publishing and independent TV production and as a regular long standing columnist for national publications. He was an advice columnist for Sugar magazine for six years starting in September 2004 and ending in February 2010. His column went through various iterations but always focused on giving a boys viewpoint to teenage girl's relationship problems. Hooper-Hodson then wrote for the Scottish newspaper Daily Record for eight years starting in October 2007 and ending in July 2015. He began by writing a regular weekly sex and relationships column "Sex Talk With Alex". After three years of producing Sex Talk on a weekly basis Hooper-Hodson then switched roles to take over the "Teen Talk" column. Hooper-Hodson changed the format by introducing sections on social media. Hooper-Hodson has also worked as a freelance journalist and has contributed articles to The Independent, Daily Record, and others. Whilst working on Sugar magazine Hooper-Hodson was featured in an article entitled "69 Guy Secrets Revealed" with Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys and Lee Ryan from Blue. That same year Hooper-Hodson was also selected to represent the youth of Britain at the Westminster Diet and Health Forum where he gave a speech to MPs, Cabinet Members, Members of the House of Lords and senior doctors on the subject of teenage drug use and safe sex in the media. He was questioned extensively by the audience and the panel.
Books
Hooper-Hodson is the author of teen guide to life The Boy Files which was published by Wayland Books in April 2013. The book is a complete guide to puberty and growing up for boys aged 10–13 years old. The Boy Files has been translated into Danish and its Danish edition is sold as 'Drenge Sager'. He has also written 52 Teen Boy Problems & How To Solve Them and 52 Teen Girl Problems & How To Solve Them, which are puberty guides aimed at 13- to 16-year-olds. The premise for the books is that over the ten years of his career as an advice columnist the many thousands of letter Hooper-Hodson received could be boiled down to 52 key problems.
Television
Sex Pod: Season One Alex is a Sex Expert on the TV show 'Sex Pod' which is broadcast on 5STAR. The first half of the show's first season was broadcast in May 2016 and the second half began showing in August of the same year. Sex Pod has had the highest viewing figures to date for an original show in the 10pm timeslot on 5STAR and the entire season was repeated 3 times consecutively, with individual episodes airing three times a week due to its ever-increasing popularity. Sex Pod: Season Two Sex Pod was renewed for a second season and 10 episodes were broadcast throughout 2017 on both Channel 5, 5STAR and MTV. Celebrity Sex Pod: Season One Channel 5 initially commissioned three episodes of a celebrity version of the show. This was at first broadcast on Channel 5 in March but upon the very favourable reception it received the remaining episodes were postponed to be broadcast in the summer after Celebrity Big Brother which featured some of the same celebrities. Due to its overwhelming popularity additional episodes were created by Crackit Productions from the footage filmed and the show was extended to an ongoing series. There are high hopes this series will return in future. MTV On 4 April 2017 it was announced that Sex Pod was taking up residence on MTV where it would be shown every Friday at 11pm.
Exhibition
Alex's work was exhibited at the Ply Gallery in Hornsey, North London between the 5th and 11 October 2016 for an exhibition called Adolescence Then and Now. This was in support of World Mental Health Day and organised by Open Door, the young peoples' drop in charity. The theme was counselling through the ages. A specially recorded interview with Alex about his work as an agony uncle between 2004 and 2016 was available to listen to through wireless headphones. This was exhibited alongside headphones that played a similar interview with his father Phillip Hodson about his agony uncle career in the 1970s. Both Alex and Phillip also had a selection of letters from their problem pages on display showing the differences but also similarities between the respective eras from which they came. Local MP David Lammy gave a speech at the opening evening of the exhibition and it was featured in a write up in The Guardian.
