Brown Girls Do It Too - Paint Me Like One of Your Indian Girls

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

Poppy and Rubina quiz art critic Zarina Muhammad on the cultural merits of sex. Can it be artistic? And is most art about sex?They discuss Anthea Hamilton's the Squash, Alberto Giacometti, kitsch Islamic art, the art of texting, and the performative elements of sex. Zarina is one half of the team behind everyone's favourite art criticism platform - the White Pube.Have a message for Poppy and Rubina? If you’re over 16, you can message the BGDIT team via WhatsApp for free on 07968100822. Or email us at [e-mail]

BBC Sounds Music, Radio, Podcasts If this podcast was part of an art exhibition they'd probably display us down the back behind a red rope barrier that would beep if you got too close watched over by two burly security guards who'd say

Oi there, I'll let you in but only if you're cultured enough to handle very strong language and themes of an adult nature. Think Georgia O'Keeffe flowers, but no subtext. Just vulvas. Straight up vulvas. And look, art is supposed to provoke thought.

But we understand if you're not ready. This is Brown Girls Do It Too. A podcast about the sex lives of British Asian women. The fantasies, the failures. And every F word in between. I'm Poppy, and my muse is all the white girls I could never be. Kate, Sienna, Alexa, Etel, which is why I have years of internalised body dysmorphia

that I'm happy to say I'm unlearning now. I am my own muse. Of course you are. I'm Rubina, and my muse is Timothee Chalamet. I'm basically a teenage girl and I think he looks like a border collier. You think he looks like a border collier? He's got that wispy hair, you know. He's so willowy, you know.

He's going out with a Kardashian. That's ridiculous. He's going against type. Yeah. He looks like a doll i would have had as a child that you then defaced oh like from that you angry at him no i'm not angry i'm just bengali i definitely defaced my doll do you remember that kid like a pen like a pen and i messed up a doll once what was that about she was white i think i was just trying to brown her up

sharpie her up no i think i went a bit further than that. I was like, just want to see what would happen if I killed you. Yeah, I just had this self-destructive kind of nature. Yeah, like a voodoo doll. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm going to make a Timothee Chalamet voodoo doll. So this episode is all about the beauty and art in sex

and love. Do you see beauty in art? Well, you know, a lot of art is inspired by great love do you see a beauty in art there is a beauty yeah a lot of art is inspired by great love you know affairs like art is done with like the body the physical body a lot of you know a lot of people do self-portraits where they're kind of looking at themselves and that kind of gazey tom peeping tom style way so i think there's so much and the obsession with women women's bodies in the female

form all forms shapes yeah yeah but you make you bring it to the 21st century like tracy emmons famous bed right like is there an art to having a one night stand and then leave and then them leaving you and then you look around and you're like yeah this is art right two glasses a condom cigarettes everywhere when i was at university i used to smoke cigarettes in my bed because i was like this is what an artist would do wow cigarettes in bed like i'd guess that's fucking hardcore man that's pretty pretty cool you get to your 30s and you're like you don't even have an orange in your bed in your 20s anything goes my housemates were like it's so gross that you smoke in your room and i was like whatever man

i'm a fucking artist i'm so tortured but like there is there is a there is there is a beauty to it even when it goes horribly wrong like you know when you oh yeah you crush on someone you love well you're kind of lusting over them really really hard and they don't like you i probably could do if i was gonna do an art exhibition of like relationships it would be all the guys that ghosted me on dating apps and just the last message I sent them which was like you up?

sup? you wanted me up? sup? what's up? they were ending up you give me great idea like I want to do an now I'm never going to get laid

if any boy hears this but like a live art installation of all the boys I'm fucking now do you know what you should do you should set up a GoPro well this is illegal

but you should do it anyway you should set up a GoPro on the top of your bed like a bird's eye view right and all the guys that you shag and just do like a time time time lapse oh my god you know i'm i think it was usher i read in a tv hits magazine ages ago that he has a mirror on his ceiling how fucking sick it feels has anyone ever has anyone one night stand ever left something in your room and you've been like so one this one time i slept with this guy it was a one night stand ever left something in your room and you've been like so one this one time i slept with this guy it was a one night stand he was he was like a junior doctor that's the only thing i remember about him you know my mom would be happy would she i don't know did he leave his death you know he couldn't find his pants in the morning oh wow because my room

was an absolute state because i was a student and he'd obviously i would just take enough clothes at night and he got up and he was like i'm going i was like yeah if i can leave i don't care and then as he was leaving he was like i can't find my pants and then i found his pants like later later oh yeah what was that like what bit me was like should i keep these is this something i should hold on to is this like a moment is this art are you a serial killer why are you holding on to objects in my memoir in the exhibition of my life you know is it going to be on a mantle piece one day and be like this is like can i find him again through his underwear i probably have his dna somewhere wow i actually did throw them in the bin straight away because i was like it's a bit weird you didn't

text him to be like i found your underwear i did not have this guy's number okay of course when i stand yeah what was i gonna text him be like dude do you want your underwear back well if you had his number lingerie is very expensive if I'd left some pants at some guy's house I'd want him to text me back and be like hey wow

I don't think I'd ever want my Marks and Spencers knickers bag I'd be like fine keep them Marks and Spencers they're quite expensive you wouldn't want them

somebody today thought I was wearing lingerie because I've got this like red lacy oh my god I literally thought somebody at work was like wow look at your sexy bra

and I was like dude I lost my house key and it's like so glad, I lost my house key. And it's like, you're landing out with a key on it. Because I'm such a dweeb now and I lose everything. So I was like, oh my God, you literally have to have it around. I'm going to keep my key safe. Wow.

You know what? That couldn't be further... My son fucking loves it because he's like, oh, he's waiting for the like... And it's probably the colour red as well. Yeah, the colour red. Yeah, because the lingerie is always red. Anyway, this is ridiculous. Shall we move on? Yeah, why not?

This is an episode all about the art of sex and sex in art. Our guest today is an art critic and co-founder of The White Pube. Lol. An online art criticism platform adored by anyone who is anyone. She's basically the perfect guest for this topic. Zarina Mohammed,

welcome to Brown Girls Do It Too! A bit game showy. Yeah, we want to be Ant and Dex, so that's what we're going for. This is literally her reference

every fucking time. Zarina, tell us your name and what you're into. That's how they do it at game shows. Hi, where are you from? Zarina, tell us your name. Hi, I'm Zarina. I'm a nail technician from Essex. I nearly always do that. I mean, you're not a's how they do it at game shows hi where are you from hi i'm serena

i'm a nail technician from essex yeah they always do that i mean you're not a nail tech i wish i was my mom is bingley lovely bingo lovely is very very questionable she's a bingley lady and she thinks art is a waste of time oh interesting okay oh yeah absolutely so i'd be right no no she's not right there's nothing wrong with a waste of time. No, no, no, no. But a waste of time doesn't make any money, right? It doesn't. It doesn't for some people, and it does a lot for others, right?

So what would you, if you wanted to get her on your side, and Rubina's mother, how would you, to this age-old question that is scribbled in every fucking toilet cubicle ever, what is art? What would you, how would you respond to that um i'd say that art is anything everything that you can get away with at least at the moment is it thoughtful it's that like tension between looking and being looked at looking at yourself looking at others looking at others looking at you um and yeah holding that

tension dealing with the idea of depiction and non-depiction. Wow, I sound really pretentious, but I think this is more accurate, so let's go with it. But, yeah, trying to hold onto a way of depicting yourself or others that feels energetic, interesting. You're saying it's got to have thought. It's got to have thought and effort into it. I mean, I'm saying that and I'm like, even then i don't really know basically no okay ignore that definition i will um it's i mean it's good but it's not right i think it's not what makes it accessible so what happens with with art in my family so my mum would feel like it would be really intimidating

like to talk about art and to access art and to feel confident saying you know when you look at a painting right and when i was younger i'd look at painting and feel nothing and have nothing to say and be like oh shit like i've gone dead inside or i just didn't know how to critique art right i didn't know the process of what was within yourself yeah i thought i would just be like well that's nice that's a nice painting i would never be like oh i wonder what the artist was thinking when they painted that or where they were what their perspective was i think about that now because i'm a bit older but I think my mum's

art criticism is still in 12 year old Robina where she's like I don't feel like I'm going to say anything intelligent so I don't want to say anything. Aww. Do you know what my mum would say?

It's not Islamic get rid of it it's Shaitan. My house in my little flat like we'd have like like 10 fucking frames of like Bangladesh

and Islamic art. We've got a lot of Islamic bangladesh and islamic art we've got like interchangeably yeah but we didn't know islamic art is quite pretty there's a lot of geometry you just had like you just had like mosques and this is love that's an artful that is an art form in itself and i do not want a fatwa on my head because i love that stuff but all i'm saying is the art that my mum and dad viewed was very one-dimensional and through Islamic art and literature. But I mean, even like those stock... The way that I think...

Because my dad's family are Bengali. And I think often about my grandma's house, my daddy's house, and the way that she kind of presents images. She feels like a real alienation towards what? She still thinks I'm a photographer for no reason. I have no idea. My mum doesn't even know what I do anyways.

And she was like, I'm a terrible photographer. And it's like, I have no idea where she got this. My parents in my house growing up had one piece of art, right? One piece of art right above the TV. And it was a velvet, black velvet thing. And on it was painted white swans. Fabulous. I think I had something quite similar.

And I asked my parents, like, where did you buy this? Like, where has this come from? And my dad said it was outside, you know, outside Regent's Park, there's these people that sell paintings. Oh, amazing. So him and my mum were walking and they were having a good day and that art represents like a day that they had that was good. And it's like white swans on black velvet.

It's so trashy you've seen it I've definitely seen it the people that sell the things the tourist guys that sell paintings of the tourist attraction that you're looking at

in front of the tourist attraction I love it and I've really been on like a journey with these guys because at art school I kind of I held on to this

real snobbery of like it's not real art it's not proper it's the best kind of art because they're making so much money they've got it made they are selling work in a way that most artists of like it's not real art it's not proper it's the best kind of art because they're making so much money yeah they've got it made they are selling work in a way that most artists would dream about so i have this thing about calling yourself an artist because what constitutes as

becoming an artist so we do we do this podcast i i don't consider ourselves artists we're podcasters and then we did this live show at soho and then we became performers and in my head i'm like wait i feel like sometimes we make art i feel like we're doing something artistic we have an artistic practice that we do but I would never have the confidence to say to anyone yeah I'm an artist but I met somebody recently who I was like oh my god what are you doing I haven't seen you what are you up to they're like oh I'm an artist and I was like and I was like oh my god and that's ridiculous how judgmental is that because I was was like, what does that mean? What do you mean? They're so incredibly ludicrous. I think artist is kind of like a ludicrous kind of category

to go out into society and say, I'm an artist. You might as well just say, I'm like a fucking croissant. My mum is an artist. She makes amazing food. Oh, yeah. There's art in her food.

Your mum's an artist. The food that they make. Artisanal making stuff. We should talk about sex, shouldn't we? I'm just going to say, away from our mums and daddies and really, I think, quite dodgy looking art

that we would hang in the middle. Can I ask you one question? What's the sexiest bit of art you've ever witnessed? Have you ever seen a piece of art and kind of got a bit hot under the cover? Fuck, you should have. Oh, God.

On the whole, contemporary art is very sanitised at the moment. It's like, yeah, holding things up that are of cultural interest and looking at them with objective academic distance. So, like, sexiness is kind of, like, completely at the other end of the spectrum to that, right? It's like the brain doesn't engage, really, when we're talking about sex.

So you don't think you could get, like, aroused by seeing a piece of art that's never happened to you? I mean... Well, I didn't say that. Like, I mean, it depends. I mean, if we're talking about formal contemporary art, I'd say it's rare. I'd have to be looking for it. I'd have to really be...

I mean, there are slight, subtle gestures where an artist really hits the nail on the head. And the first thing that popped to mind when you asked that question was um a couple years back there was um a commission in the tate britain's enormous like hyundai room they've got like a room that's sponsored by hyundai um and it was anthea hamilton it was called the squash and like the girlies on twitter lost their mind and it was this creature called the squash and it would these performers would have these enormous squash heads and these like beautiful like loewe costumes that were like

silky and flowy and like i think it became a bit sexier and i i spent a lot of time in that room thinking about not particularly anything but just like feeling the movement of another body that was dressed as a squash yeah like i think that was quite a sexy oh my god i think like shapes like when you can see like sculpture for me is always kind of turns me on a little bit like in some way because you you look at the curve of like i'm gonna be basic and just talk about barbara hepworth but if you look at a barbara hepworth sculpture and you see the shapes on that you know my instinct is i want to touch it i want to kind of feel what it's like in my mouth it's like you want to hump it i kind of want to hump it okay this is very visceral like oh i want to touch you like one of the first lectures i had at art school

was um like a critical studies lecturer who like came up and was like all sculpture is phallic like think about it all sculpture is phallic it's always think about it. All sculpture is phallic. It's always a vertical. It's a phallus. It's like sculpture is quite this like, again, broad strokes, quite a male domain. But like you're constructing upright objects. All of them, dicks. They're all dicks. Who's that guy who does the really skinny people? Is it Giacometti?

Giacometti. Giacometti. Giacometti does these really thin sculptures. These like, you don't want to be putting thatometti does these really thin sculptures, these, like, you don't want to be putting that up anywhere, let me tell you, that's not fanatic in any way.

They're very thin and skinny, like, little statues of people. They're kind of incredible because they're, like, deformed and you're like, oh, that's a bit weird. But I love, like,

visual experimentations with bodies in art. I feel like that's the stuff that I'm into. Okay. But I think that's because I like sex and I like the body and I've done a lot

of life drawing classes. Oh, have you? And I'm sorry, but when I that's because I like sex and I like the body. And I've done a lot of life drawing classes. Oh, have you? And I'm sorry, but when I'm at a life drawing class, I think about sex. Is it a sexy moment? I can't disassociate it. I'm not just being like, oh, wow, this is an amazing body. I'm like, I see his penis. So what is the most artistic thing about sex?

Is there art in sex? Can there be art in sex? I guess, yeah. I mean, it depends. I think with all art, just like with all art it is just how you're looking at it and how you're thinking about it and how you're reasoning up against this thing um because yeah anything can be art like this table probably like someone's designed this someone who had like a rigorous you know education rigorous design education

they spent ages for listeners it's a uh leaf shaped table with three legs i forgot that podcast is an audio first me yeah indeed then what was that turn of prize that won an award for you just scrumped up a bit of paper do you remember it was like quite famous back in the day oh i don't know are you thinking of um are you thinking of tracy emmons bed no i'm not thinking of the bed i'm thinking of an artist quite sexy though yeah that was really sexy that was the first time i was like cool sleeping around looks fun yeah it's also seeing that was like oh i'm just gonna smoke and bed like not give a shit that to me was art but i thought about sex right and you think about like the way you have sex with people like your relationships the way you text them the art of texting the art of ghosting like there is an art

to that right one time i sent a nude to somebody and i wanted to really work with the light and like capture it in like the best way possible and i remember taking way too long to be like which part of my body could i keep in shadow and which part could i keep lit wow that's deep there's something that you can see and then the things that you can't see because maybe you're gonna get it all later lighting is everything as we know because i look orange most of the time doing this podcast so that is a big deal yeah that was like the one artistic thing that i really remember doing when i started seeing someone and i was like i'm gonna send a really shady nude engaging with the nude is like a photographic format right like artistic photographic format good more artsy nudes in my

opinion yeah and i like do video for work so a bit of me thinks i need to be doing some more like video you could like nude video or something like sexy like i once went to an exhibition where in one of the rooms was just a close-up of a woman giving a blowjob but it was shot amazingly and like she was so defiant in her eyes it wasn't like porn it was like but it was a massive screen and i was just like really engaged in a way that when i watch blowjob porn on my laptop i'm always very different experience i agree but that really captivated me because i felt like did it turn you on she was the artist but did you turn it on the artist she was making a film about her giving herself a

blowjob it didn't turn me on but I was like I was captivated I couldn't move away yeah I don't know it's something about her eyes like also because I was then starting to think

when I give a blowjob do I open my eyes I don't know if I do it's like when you put mascara on do you open your mouth I do actually hang on a second are my eyes open

I think I'm looking no I think I'm closing what are you looking at no I think i'm closing my eyes i think i'm closing hang on let me just think this is an audio only medium so for the listeners i'm gonna just visually describe what's going on my eyes are bobbing your head there's i keep my eyes open i'm an eye open gal how do you close my eyes close i'm not here to talk about my sexual proclivity i'm a critic she definitely keeps her eyes open look at this one eyes open or eyes closed i'm not here to talk about my sexual proclivity i'm a critic um she definitely keeps her eyes open look at this one eyes open or eyes closed i think i'm

eyes closed i'm eyes open i don't want any pubes in my eyes what do you how do you kiss eyes closed eyes closed eyes closed yeah yeah for sure people who kiss with their eyes are serial killers you never take a peek? No. I mean, it's too close up. I would be like eyelashes coming in together. Wouldn't it be too... We'd be too close if we were kissing. No, your nose.

Our noses set that apart. You wouldn't be like this. People look really cute from that angle. I struggle with like being very close to someone's face because I'm short-sighted and I think my contact lenses are like, what's going on? Too defined.

You're definitely fucking eyes closed if the pubes are all up in your face here do you know what I mean next time let me know I'm definitely eyes open because I don't enjoy

blowjobs so I have to see what I'm doing and I have to like you know make an effort I have to look up and see if they like it oh right you're bothered by that

no no no I'm just I think I'm in the zone I'm like you know we have one partner I've got to please so many men you've got so many dicks so many fucking dicks to my way you need to remember who it is each time I'm like you know we have one partner I've got to please so many men you've got so many dicks

I've got so many fucking dicks to my way you need to remember who it is each time I'm like who is this it's raining dicks I need to be like who the fuck is this guy

do I want to see him again does he want to see me again do I have to fucking like work have you had it yet just because Poppy's in like a really fun phase of sleeping right

have you had it yet where you've like said somebody else's name and sex like the wrong person no I barely remember the name of the person that I'm fucking with.

And actually, I do this horrible thing where I just call everyone a babe. A babe. Oh, that's such a catch-all, isn't it? Sure, babe. Sure.

As a man, I wouldn't be able to get away with it, but as a woman, I mean, maybe I don't get away with it, but I certainly say it and they're not saying it back.

But I think now that I'm back in dating, there is this, I feel like this beautiful art. I'm not there yet because I'm just dating. I'm not falling in love with anyone. But I suppose that feeling of like you text someone, you like them, the butterflies, that feeling, those sensations that you get, like your synapses just firing fucking like, ah. And then the text messages and then the fucking and like all of that shit that

whole process i'm bottling it for someone i love and i can't wait to get there right now i'm just having really average sex and loving it and there's an art in that yeah there is a word for that um fleeting crush feeling. Limerence. Oh, I've heard that. It's so weird that you said that because I have that. Limerence, it can be very bad, though, because you can get really super stalky on someone. You can get really, like, intense with it.

The feelings could just take over. Like, it could go so badly the other way. Oh, really? But there's also, like, a real power in being the main character and being like, all of yous exist for my pleasure. Now, like, just off you go, fleeting image, like, I am the ringmaster. You're in control in that position, right? And I love it. I always talk about it, like, doing it in my 30s.

I think if I was doing it in my 20s, I'd have a very different perspective on dating, actually, if I was dating in my 20s out of a very different perspective on dating actually if I was dating in my 20s yeah yeah when you meet someone online can you trust they are who they say they are I keep thinking so much about you she's so stunning it's all well planned love Janessa is the true crime podcast from the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts, investigating the murky world of online romance scams. She was trying to get me to send her money. And it's available now.

You win their hearts, you win their wallets. Listen on BBC Sounds. Can sex be artistic? Is there a way to fuck? Like, you know, it's so performative, right? Like porn, you think about porn, you watch porn, you're like, oh, I'm going to... She's more guttural with her sounds, but I'm more like, I think I perform, definitely.

But now it's become me, so I'm not performing anymore. It's what I do. That's interesting that you say that. So you perform? Well, I used to, but now it's just me. But what came first? Don't know. Yes, but... OK, so then it's just me. But what came first? Don't know. Yes, but okay.

So then it's like a cerebral experience. Okay. Right. So I'm going to, bear with me. Right. I'm going to do a little thought process. So can sex be art? I'm literally thinking live and direct on the spot.

This is exactly what we're doing. Okay. It's just brain to make. Sex is a kind of art because art is kind of at odds with the corporeal but i would say that in my mind really really good art is about having an aesthetic experience that you feel in the body yeah right okay yeah and i think that is basically fucking that those two definitions function the same but it's interesting what you said about how you feel that you perform because the performative aspect that you're identifying is like a part of like i don't know at the beginning of like sexual exploration when you're like first figuring out how to put things inside yourself and other people yeah um that

performative aspect really makes it more cut and dry art right because you're playing around with the performative and it's yeah you art right because you're playing around with the performative and it's yeah you're adopting personas you're figuring out what feels good yeah yeah like for yourself and part of that involves play which is a kind of performance oh my god i'm so clever this is brand new soft thoughts this is right yes it's play it's performance it's like that is a kind of art and it's like it's the very like basics of art in its most like do you think the women are sort of trapped in that idea of performing because of porn or because of what they this duality that you were talking about like

the watcher being watched seeing that she's you know do you think that we bow into that a bit too much in a way that men don't i I'm not saying men don't perform, but it certainly feels like in the confines of fucking, they can do whatever the fuck they want, right? But also if you watch porn, the man is somebody who is a bit more static and the woman's the one who's making all the noises and having the enjoyment.

When you talk about porn in that particular way, the type of porn that you're talking about, it's created for the male gaze, right? So it's the male participant in that sexual act is kind of not really there. That's what I mean. Like porn has its own like artistic conventions where... Foreplay, blowjob for seven minutes,

then he comes on a tip. And no one fucks with that status quo because it's still going. It works. It works. It works for men it performs a function right

and it's like the man is like a stand in for the viewer and the man it should kind of disappear he's basically he's never understood

that because I've watched porn where it's like the woman's going it's all blowjob porn there's so much blowjob porn on Pornhub that's like all there is

really that's it it's just people giving blowjobs I watched something so disgusting the other day which you might decide you could call art she um someone sent it to me and I never watch things like this but she um the guy was filming her giving giving so the POV was the guy she was giving him a blowjob just really like like super hot, objectively to me, woman. And... It can be. I only... I preface it because she's hot to me, but she might not be hot to other people.

But anyway, she's like objectively hot. She's fucking giving him a blowjob. He deep throats her. Oh, yeah. And then she's like... No, no. She deep throats her and she vomits all over his dick.

Oh, my God. And then goes back in for more, licks off her vomit and I'm obviously gagging at this stage. Some people are into that though. Absolutely. There's a tab for it.

And I'm like, it is, I mean, this sounds awful, but this is one of the reasons why I don't watch porn, right? Because it's just too,

my imagination runs wild anyway. I don't need to see that image to then sear it in my head anymore. Yeah, because then you can never unsee that image. I can never unsee it. And now,

and I never watched porn. I don't usually watch porn because I don't need to because I've got my own Yeah, because then you can never unsee that image. And now, and I never watched porn. I don't usually watch porn because I don't need to because I've got my own imagination. But now I can't unsee that. And it was just some bullshit thing on a WhatsApp that someone sent me. And I was like, who's sending you these? And I was like, interestingly.

That sounds like one of those forwarded many times WhatsApps. Yeah, it is. It is the banter of a boy I was seeing in his boy group. So I'm like, and I knew, I mean, he didn't deny him. I was like, if this is the kind of hardcore content or art or however the fuck you want to describe it that you're sharing amongst your friends, you're sharing way more hardcore stuff than this.

Have you ever done art with somebody? Like, so I, when I used to see guys back in the day when I was dating, I'm now in a relationship, I'd always think it was fun to like draw each other naked it is right and it's not just because i stole it from titanic it's like legit fun yeah also like i i've like done many portraits of my current partner like i've just i do like a little painting i do a bit of dabbling and drawing i'm not like an artist but i like to draw him because he's really fucking hot and i fucking love him so the combination of those two things i'm like it's all an artist but i like to draw him because he's really fucking hot and i fucking love him so the combination of those two things i'm like it's all just love that i get to do

especially in lockdown man we were stuck with each other there was nothing going on and i was like just sit for me and i'll draw you and you have to find hobbies i'm here to defend your identity as an artist you're an artist because no because right artist feels like yeah this rarefied category we can't slot ourselves into but fundamentally it's just a person who enjoys making things and does making things for a job but you don't have to get money to do it as your job like so many people have jobs that are poorly paid or not paid at all and it's just you're an artist because if you enjoy making things it is just that pleasure you know i do i've talked about how i love a body already on this podcast but i do love a face i love a face i love going to the portrait gallery.

Faces freaking me out. I fucking hate the portrait gallery. You've got such a good face. I'm going to draw your face. You should draw each other naked. That is a really good idea. We did a cast of our vulvas. Yeah, we got our vulvas cast for a thing that we were doing

like two years ago. And we went down to this little studio this artist studio and she sat on it she put a little curtain behind us we both put our legs up i mean not in the same room actually we were like you should have held hands i know i was actually filming poppy's legs underneath the curtain i was filming me i was filming myself so badly i want my you want your vulva cast no i don't want no we've only got a number of somebody i tell you why i just thought they would look the same like well either like mine or porn pussies right and then it was fascinating we'll come back to it it's fascinating she had these vulvas and boobs i

mean she had plaster casts of a lot of things on this wall and it was just it blew my mind but it's also it's amazing how they do it because they they put um a plaster cast on you so they fill you up so you get an imprint you get an inverse imprint okay do you know i take that no i mean they take that and then they fill it up so that's how they get they like it's like a reverse you see your vagina in reverse pussy print you said it's a pussy print. It's a pussy print. But there are so many different types of pussies. We saw big flaps, medium flaps, and labia flaps. Big flaps actually are so much sexier.

Lopsided left flap. It was so riveting. One looked bigger than the other. One looked bigger than the other. But we loved it because we had our pussies next to each other. And I was like, there's no world that that's ever going to happen

in real life. The first we got. We're never going to have our pussies that close together. Never say never. I mean, I said never. world that that's ever going to happen in real life we're never going to have our pussies that close together i mean i said basically this entire series i'm like babina come and sleep with me to do a series finale where basically we shag and i'm like i don't know why consensually this is i've got a question obviously consensually i'm trying to move her like sharaukh Khan. But it's never going to happen. We joke about it in our live show all the time.

We could put our pussies next to each other with the plaster cast. Well, the first thing we did was we looked at our pussies because people usually, from the articles that I've read, because in that same series, when we got our vulvas done, we went to see a labiaplasty doctor. And she turns away 50% of her patients because they don't need a labiaplasty doctor and she turns away 50 of her patients because they don't need a labiaplasty and if she was going to perform labiaplasty it would be a form of fgm right she's mutilating their vagina so she's like no but what is interesting is everyone is still i say everyone

some people are after that perfect pussy you know whatever that perfect the version of a perfect no lips basically no lips like tight lips tiny tiny thin lips so when we saw our pussies the first thought we had was your pussy's bigger than my pussy because pop pop pussy poppy pussy couldn't even say your name there poppy the first thing poppy said was i think yours is skinnier than mine no you verbalized it before we did the cast you were like i bet yours is going to be skinnier than mine I was like that's such a annoying thing to say no you verbalised it before we did the cast you were like I bet yours is going to be skinnier

and then I looked at it and I was like yours was actually skinnier than mine you fucking said it first bitch because I was like no your pussy's

going to be pretty but afterwards after we got over the initial shock of our ridiculousness and our body dysmorphia we were like these are such

pretty pussies and also the artist was like they were really similar she said you both have very similar pussies how do you feel was like they were really similar she said you both have very similar pussies yeah

how do you feel about that I loved it me too it made me like you more Poppy it was like a bonding moment and that is the age it was a bonding moment

because it was like we were terrified and we were so exposing we were a bit embarrassed and ashamed and we were scared and we were like

why are we even doing this and we went on this journey where we like challenged ourselves where the fuck are our pussies I want my pussy they never sent them back they never sent them to us

they're holding your pussies hostage yeah your pussy I want my pussy why don't I take your pussy and you take my pussy in fact and also

I'd have to hide that shit if my mum and dad came no you could sign it for each other we'd sign it but then I'd have to hide it when my mum came I'd put mine in the bathroom

but then every time anyone went to pee they'd be like looking at my pussy thank you so much Serena it's been enlightening it has you are a divine brain

oh my god it's exciting to me and listen to you speak follow the white pube and check to see if you have any white pubes like me they can sneak up on you

that's all I'm saying they can don't tweeze them out what do you do with them? I leave them yeah yeah yeah apparently you're meant I'm saying. You don't have to actually tease them out. What do you do with them? I leave them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently you're meant to snip them.

So they don't come out fucking angry and wild. Oh, yeah. Actually, you know what? Wild, my black pubes or brown pubes, my pubes that aren't white, are curly.

White pube. Strays fucking out. Yeah. My ones on my head. White. Curly. They're curly. They're so angry. They're like fucking thick. Yeah. Down there, my white ones are. Curly. They're curly. They're so angry.

They're like fucking thick. Down there, my white ones are bitches, man. They're like not strong. Oh yeah. Yeah, God. I was going with them. Anyway,

if you ever want to take pictures of my white pubes for the white pubes, it's a cold. Show them to your daddy. I'm now a photographer. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Zemina.

Great to have you thank you you've reached the Shaggy aunties call centre want advice you can't ask your real aunties

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What dilemma do we have this week? Pray tell us. Dear Rubina and Poppy, I'm happy to have had my 16th birthday a couple of months ago. Happy birthday. I feel incredibly lucky to live in the same time as the two of you.

So it would be just too sad if I couldn't write this to you. I often joke that I'm actually 200 years old because firstly i'm obsessed with history and secondly by my late teens i'm already too old for romance my perspective on sex is pretty bleak it's either the romance i know to be fake the vulgar the as a girl you have to be careful, talk, or dead silence. And as a woman, I feel our sexuality is horribly commercialised. If it wasn't for your work, I might have lost faith in sex being in any way worth the trouble, let alone something to be happy about.

So thank you. My question for you is, with the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly, should I be optimistic or pessimistic? Firstly, sweet 16, honey. firstly sweet 16 honey love you i love your whole message and your energy is great i don't know what you're talking about you're too old for romance no one's too old no one's too old for romance romance happens at any moment me and poppy have romantic times all the time yeah romance is for us it's for you and i love that she's obsessed

with history and you're not 200 years i i feel like i do feel like she's an older soul she's a 16 year old i mean i was an older soul i feel do feel like she's an older soul. She's a 16-year-old. I mean, I was an older soul. I feel like you could have been an older soul. Were you? I think I'm a two-year-old, really. Okay, fine. But I mean, I think your whole vibe is great

and I think you're going to do really well in life just anyway. Should you be optimistic or pessimistic? Babe, definitely optimistic. A hundred thousand percent. Life is rich and the whole thing is ahead of you and you have so many exciting adventures to look forward to with men with women with sex the amount of orgasms you're about to have like oh my god i only really started enjoying orgasms properly like getting to know them at 16 but you're gonna have thousands you have to remember the angst in

her like we would have been 16 like i totally get where she's coming from yeah and i understand why she's asking that question because when i was 16 sex was scary i didn't like it it was loaded and she says it in her email it's like as a girl you have to be careful but like and it's something that we talk about in one of our in one of our episodes you know 35 year old rubina and pop Poppy would tell 16-year-old Poppy, it's going to be okay. Have fun. Like, it's not scary.

You have so much fun and so many orgasms ahead of you. And so many fun interactions with people, whether they're like a one-night stand, whether they're someone giving you eyes on the bus, whether it's like a five-year relationship, a ten-year relationship,

whether it's someone you have a child with. A two-hour relationship. Exactly. You get to have all of this wealth of experience that's about to hit you. You, a ten-year relationship, whether it's someone you have a child with. A two-hour relationship. Exactly. You get to have all of this wealth of experience that's about to hit you. You have life in front of you, girl. And look, don't lose faith in sex. And you know what? You're right.

In every single way, our sexuality as women is horribly commercialised. And the internet and social media and there's loads of bad shit out there that contribute to that. But find the things that you love and hold on to them. Like, there's so much good shit out there too. Yeah, there is so much good shit out there. Like there is so much good shit out there like i really have been watching um beef i love beef and finished beef oh my god now i'm on the last episode tell me anything do not tell me anything insane but also there's so much good like content to consume out there you just got to go find it like just stop following the people that make you feel terrible or that or that like contribute to

the idea that our sexuality is commercialized yeah and i also want to say to you that um it's taken you might listen to us and you might realize it might help you but also these things take time it's only in my 30s where i'm like well i'd say probably late 20s that i'm like fucking hell sex is amazing and it's not this horrible thing and i haven't lost faith in it so i mean we're just trying to get you there quicker honey and it's not this horrible thing and I haven't lost faith in it. So, I mean, we're just trying to get you there quicker, honey. Like, it's fucking amazing. You're going to have so much fun. And I think it's fine to be pessimistic sometimes. I'm pessimistic sometimes.

And we should be. But today I'm in a really good mood. I feel like I'm just really loving life. And I hope that some of that energy rubs right onto you. Yeah, I feel like my biggest moments of learning about myself are always when I've had really terrible things happen to me heartbreak or some sort of family issues or like friends letting me down it's the moments that I feel like I actually grow yeah so don't worry about all the bad things that might happen or

pessimism is good it's good for growth and you need it right because you you approach the next thing learning something about a previous experience and hopefully not making those same mistakes again so but you know like if you really think about how unlikely your birth is on this planet and like how we are just this weird globe running around the sun everything is going to be over and like if you look at the stars in the sky we are nothing it's pretty bleak me we better be fucking going somewhere happy somewhere good because i think you don't realize how unlikely your situation the chance of you being born to your parents the probabilities of that of where you are where you exist right now it's so tiny yeah your little moment on this planet might be short but you better fucking take the time to enjoy it absolutely have fun amen to that do with

this have fun have fun and be optimistic optimistic. And yeah, happy birthday. Happy birthday, I know. I was a total douche when I was 16. I've never written something as good as this. Yeah, she's really cool. I'd be like, where can I find Nick Carter? I'd be like, I watch Matrix and Connor is really cool. You're way ahead of us. Yeah, you're going to be teaching us soon.

We'll be writing to you yeah anyway so that was our episode on art is art is art is love is love is art

is sex is art and art does as you all guessed rhyme with fart thank you for listening we were so happy to have you here

if you have any thoughts questions or dilemmas for the Shagney Aunties you can email us at browngirlsdoit2 at b for the Shagney Aunties you can email us at browngirlsdoit2 at bbc.co.uk or you can send us

a whatsapp or voice note to 07968 108 22 ciao for now the press girls are back how you feeling today

let me not get into that the relationship dilemm Girls are back. How are you feeling today? Oh, let me not get into that. The relationship dilemmas are back. If you've got a bad self, we're going to see it. And there's going to be consequences. There's going to be consequences. Your voice notes are back. I just wanted to tell you guys how that made me feel. And don't forget, they've got your back.

Trust me, guys. When I have a man, you lot will be sick and tired. Mariam Musa. Oh, yeah. Adeola Patron. I am that girl. One Extra Presents Press. Listen on BBC Sounds.