Brown Girls Do It Too - Shame, Shame, Shame with Deborah Frances-White

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Poppy and Rubina are joined by podcasting royalty, Deborah Frances White, to discuss female shame (and eyelashes).Deborah co-created The Guilty Feminist in 2015 and paved the way for podcasts like Brown Girls Do It Too. In this episode, they bond over the collective female experience of shame. What are their most secret shames? Can shame be a force for good? What's the difference between shame and guilt?It's something Poppy and Rubina have wanted to get into since the Brown Boys Do It Too episode in Series 4 - in which said brown boys, Eshaan Akbar and Jernade Miah, revealed they didn't feel any shame about sex.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] you're in the UK, for more BBC podcasts listen on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3UjecF5

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This podcast is like a juicy red apple. And we are the seductive serpents who will entice you to take a bite. You'll try not to give in to temptation, but you know it's inevitable. The thing is, you think by having a bite your eyes will be opened and you will know good and evil. That is, until you give in. What's the worst that could happen? Thousands and thousands of years of female shame. Who cares? For clarity, the apple represents themes of an adult nature.

And the serpent, like us, uses very strong language. That's themes of an adult nature. And very strong language. This is a podcast about sex. At least it did start off like that. Now we talk about everything. Everything is sex. And sex is everything. And that includes our mistakes, our heartbreaks, and our hot, hot, hot, hot, hot takes. I'm Rubina and my secret shame is enjoying it when someone falls over in public. Preferably if they're like slipping on a banana or something hilarious.

I've got the humour of a fucking five-year-old. I laugh all the time when someone falls. Love it. I'm Poppy and my secret shame is eating me on the regular. Are you aiming for a plant-based life? No. But you feel like you should have one.

You're not even aiming for it. You're meant to say, that's where the shame is. The shame is in not failing. The shame is in going, I just don't intend to. That's like basically cancelling your gym membership on January 1st. Let me do it again. I'm Poppy and I have no intention of going for a plant-based diet anytime soon. Wow.

Even though you know it's the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah. My inside, I know. Okay, can I just say, black coffee, could you please witness that? And I had coconut milk and the porridge you just saw me eat. Wow. Like some kind of vegan Goldilocks for the 21st century. You inspire me.

I mean. So obviously, I mean, do we need to introduce? We should introduce this person that's been speaking that is like

an established figure in the podcast world. Queen of podcasting. We love you. Queen of podcasting. I mean. We came on your podcast. We had a great time.

I would say we're all queens. I would say mutual queenage. You're just being polite. I would say we're mutually queens of the podcasting world's hearts. Hearts. But you are, you are incredible. You are, you have of the podcasting world's hearts. Hearts. But you are incredible. You pave the way for people like us, honestly, and other female podcasters.

But my secret shame, I'm Deborah Francis-White, and my secret shame is, okay, I once read that they'd done this huge study of what makes women more attractive to men and men apparently can't tell any different like if you show a man a picture of uh the same woman dressed up you know or makeup blah blah they're just like yes she's pretty she's pretty they can't really see the only thing and they can't tell what it is but that they say oh she's more attractive in that one false eyelashes and so my secret shame my secret shame is oh my god and I'm bisexual why do I care why do I care anything I'm married I'm bisexual why do I care why do I care anytime I need to like feel extra good about myself I I think to myself, the secret eyelash trick.

And I put my eyelashes on and I stick my tits out and I'm like, yeah. Really? Yeah, I think eyelashes too. Whenever we get our makeup done, whenever we're doing a shoot, the makeup artist is like, eyelashes? I'm like, bitch, yeah.

Yes, I just did. Nothing makes a difference like that. That's why all the girls get all the fakies because they don't wear that much eye makeup. I had a bit of a psychotic moment on the train this morning where there was a really

annoying woman in front of me with like long hair and fake eyelashes talking to her sister really loudly on like FaceTime and I was like oh it's just so annoying

it's so annoying and in my head I was like I would just if I had the guts I would just like cut your hair and cut your eyelashes off

isn't that a really psychotic thing for me to say but you know when you're like angry with someone I was like because those are the things that matter to you

I feel that I feel that should have been your secret shame I was going to say but you know when you're like angry with someone I was like because those are the things that matter to you I feel that I feel that should have been your secret shame I was going to say like someone accidentally falls over and you're like as opposed to I want to cut your eyelashes

I was just going to say I think it's a significant you know what I love about Deborah the power that she's literally making us redo our shame I read on mine

you need to redo yours do it again I've seen her and I've cut off my lashes I do know that feeling but I don't have it for random strangers Redo our shame. I read on mine. You need to redo yours. Do it again. I've seen her and I've cut off my lashes. I do know that feeling, but I don't have it for random strangers. When I was younger,

somebody I knew like betrayed me so badly and she'd grown her hair back having cut it off and not liked it. And I did used to sometimes have like a little flash fantasy of cutting it off in her sleep.

I think that's something that people fantasize about is cutting people's hair. You always, every time she wants to get me, and she never says this as an accusation, she's like, what if you cut your hair? And I'm like, I know that would be the thing that destroys her. I feel like we need to hide you. If you wake up in the morning one day and it's gone, you know where it is. I know what you did last summer.

I've taken your hair and attached it to my eyelashes. Do a podcast series seven. Yeah. And it's not that to my eyelashes. Do a podcast series seven. It's not that I wear eyelashes. Obviously that's not the shame part. The shame part is... Knowing the fact. I read it in a study, obviously some kind of bogus study that Cosmopolitan did or something, and I've held onto it

and I think I'm more sexually attractive. I'm like, why do I want to be it? So patriarchal. I want to be a devil's advocate here. They did this study. I don't know how many thousand men or a hundred men. Men did point out eyelashes. And you look now. It used to be an up north thing, by the way.

Like five, six years ago, seven years ago, I'd take jobs up north and I'd be like, the lashes were just, everyone had it. Also, I wonder if that study was maybe just done on white women. Because we just don't know. I mean, very likely. I love the fact that you think it was hundreds or thousands of men. If it was in Cosmopolitan, they would have shown it around the office.

What's our story? The thousands of men that Cosmopolitan double blind studies. You know, the way you said it, I thought it was peer-reviewed, actually. It was like a scientific journal. I was like, yeah, probably around the office. It was like a scientific journal. Overly doubted. And then he said, Cosmo. I was like, yeah, probably ran the office. It was someone going,

showed a boyfriend and went, which one of these? And he's like, oh, you look really hot in that one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. Eyelashes. Well, I was going to, obviously this episode is not about eyelashes, but very quickly,

I was going to get the singles, but a lot of my friends are like, you could get addicted to them. They're really expensive. They ruined my real eyelashes. Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. Are they fake ones or to them they're really expensive they ruin my real eyelashes oh did you oh do you are they fake or are they real

no these are my real ones I've tried to grow them back a bit with that serum but honestly my eyelashes were fine I got those like you know hot ones that you glue on

semi-perm yeah as they came out or as I pulled them out because I couldn't stand it my real eyelashes came out and so I've had to grow mine back anyway

secret shames for that. That is my secret shame. I've got obviously worse ones, but my real shame is I'm not telling you my real shame. I knew you wouldn't tell us our real shame. I knew. We came on your podcast, we had a hoot. And the topic of discussion on this podcast, on this episode particularly, is about shame. So we broke boundaries. You are our second white guest. Our first white guest was a labiaplasty doctor.

But we won't mention her too much. I feel so low on expertise right now. No, no, no. To qualify. I was like, oh, they've already had a white woman on. No, no, technically you are a labiaplasty surgeon. And then me. No, no, but she was mostly talking about the colour of my hymen.

So, and it wasn't very about her. That's what's going to happen later in this episode is you're going to see the colour. I'm going to have to judge the colour of Pommie's hymen. No, because I feel like my expertise is limited. Hymen? You don't have a hymen. What are you talking about? You don't have a hymen, my clit. Your vulva, yeah. Apparently it's too dark.

Clit. We find the clit. Clit is a bit brown. I still don't know where clit is. My secret shame is I'm embarrassed by this I'm supposed to be a feminist well you know look so we had two brown guys on the podcast

which was you know Breaking Boundaries for us and they said something profound that stuck with all of us me and Rubina the producers and we asked them are you embarrassed by sex and they responded so flippantly. They were like, no. Don't feel any shame at all was actually the phrase that they used

that really stuck with us. And we were like, no shame at all. We did this entire podcast because women, not just brown women, white women, black women, all of us feel a sense of shame. And when you came on your podcast, you felt, you know, in your own words, a bit ashamed, a bit embarrassed to talk about sex. You had sent your husband, producer Tom, out of the auditorium, the packed auditorium. How do you feel about shame in sex now?

I feel like that was a very liberating experience. And because of that and after that, I did do a stand up hour where I talked more about sexual experiences. And it's been very, very helpful because our brains are very plastic. And so the more we allow them to go to a certain place, the more they feel permission to go there and the more we can release shame. I'm all about releasing. Basically, I'm about exfoliating guilt. That's why my podcast starts with I'm a Feminist But where we confess something because if to me, if guilt is carried on the body, it turns into shame. Yeah. So you feel guilty about something. You don't deal with it. You don't say, I'm sorry about that. You don't fix it. You don't change it. You don't tell anyone. You just sit there with it. And then you

feel ashamed that you haven't changed the guilty thing or made right the guilty thing and shame is luggage you carry it it's heavy you walk around with it it tends to poison if it's inside you I think so yeah

what do you feel most ashamed about that would be telling because she's not telling us yeah well I think so you know

when you said you know it was a joke really but you know you said like you had this little pop of no she really wanted to cut those eyelashes I love how you're like oh was a joke really, but you said you had this little pop of... No, she really wanted to cut those eyelashes.

I love how you're like, oh, I know you really didn't mean it. She wanted to cut her eyelashes. But there is, there's like an inside me that's a bit more angry and a bit more aggressive. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the success of Fleabag, apart from, you know, the brilliant talent and performance and everything about Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I think it's always more than that. If something takes off at that level,

it's not just a funny sitcom with a brilliant performer. It's speaking. It's deepening. And it's speaking to loads of people. Like some people said, oh, well, she's posh or whatever. And it's like, that's interesting because it spoke to people around the world because it wasn't about that. What I think it was about and the reason I think it was so brilliant is that it was one of the first representations of seeing the human being, the frightened, fucking, lazy, feckless, libidinous, selfish human being deep down inside the woman yeah and she

was unapologetically femme but her concerns were not those of the feminine her concerns were those the deep deep concerns of the human which are not always noble yeah our noble part of humanity is usually the bit where the rational part of the brain says, despite all my feelings, I'm going to go and do the right thing. Or I'm going to put myself into a situation where the structure allows me to do lots of good things for other people. And that makes me feel good. And that's a lovely loop. But inside every single one of us, there are thoughts, there are urges, there are impulses, there are libidinous, greedy, selfish, primal, animal urges. And those urges we have been taught to be ashamed of, especially if we are a woman.

Because what are women meant to be like? They're meant to be, you know, in the big archaic scheme of things. It's not like our mothers have said, necessarily you're meant to be submissive or you're meant to be this or you're meant to be, wait for a boy to ask you.

It's insidious, it's in society. You see it everywhere around you. I have to suppress those urges and I have to be despite what I actually think and want to scream inside in that moment I obviously don't because yeah yeah don't you think when it comes to when it comes to sex and like having good sex a lot of that is like being able to be primal and to be like yeah fuck it I'm not thinking about anything I'm just really going I'm following my body and I'm just gonna enjoy this like moment

with you which is quite disgusting it's yeah like unhygienic it's you're like kind of you're not you're not uncivilizing your mind this is like this is the truth it's an uncivilized act though it's an uncivilized act but it's it's you at your core yeah is just going at it hard and like try like the best sex that you have is when you're not in your head right yeah you're like letting your body do all the stuff but if i let my body cut that woman's hair we'd all be in well there would be no series six of brown and we do need to stop those edges because i don't want anyone cutting my eyelashes off on But if I let my body cut that woman's hair, we'd all be in trouble. Well, there would be no Series 6 of Brown Girls. And we do need to stop those urges because I don't want anyone cutting my eyelashes off on the tube because I've spoken too loud. And I don't want to get arrested.

In order to form a society, we have to curb the urges of the lizard brain. Amygdala should not rule us. It's the least evolved part of our brain. Sometimes there were a day where we could just do whatever the fuck we wanted. Or just little moments you know little flashes occasionally like I'm really

this is so domestic but I really hate it when I see someone with an idle engine so sitting with their car on when they're outside of school their child's inside

anywhere they're sitting and they've just got the engine on and you know that's bad for the planet it's illegal in Scotland England just needs to catch up

and it gets me so much and I'd see it all the time all the time and one day I just snapped and I knocked on the window oh did you actually do this? she turned it

she turned her window down and I was like excuse me if you're waiting for someone could you turn your engine off because it's just polluting the street for walkers

and she was like oh my god I'm so sorry of course of course wow interesting and it came from nowhere I just did it I do that

but I'm much more passive aggressive if anybody litters in Camden I live in Camden town that to me is like an extension I do that but I'm much more passive-aggressive um I if anybody lishes in Camden I live in Camden town that to me it's like an extension of my living room I'm like if someone came into my house you know and took out some chewing gum and threw the wrapper on the ground on the floor of my lovely living room I would be like sorry oh sorry you have to did you drop that and so I do that in the street that is how I say it excuse me I think you dropped that is quite effective

I don't do that I always go oh did I drop it and it's because I've given them the excuse and then they put it in or they just put it back in their bag

so maybe there's something about projecting shame on somebody else can help actually shaming but it depends on the it's like how you do it and what you're shaming them on yeah

if it's a rightful cause like damaging the environment, polluting the environment, bad, littering, bad, then I feel you're okay to shame someone in a way that is effective because you've both got the people to A, apologise, and B, clean up their act. And also watch their backs for the next time. And Rabin is back.

Back with the scissors. The online shaming that goes on, which is you've said the wrong thing and now we are going to harass you until you cry. Yeah, that's... It's absolutely pointless. It does not make people change. Yes, no. And if they do change, they change cosmetically and inside they become resentful

or frightened or hardened or whatever. But mostly they just go over to the other side. And so for me, I think shame is to be, if you are going to use it as a tool to make society a better place, you better know what you're doing and you better be a master at it. And I think most people are not. When was the first time you felt shame? How old were you?

Oh, God. When did you first realise that shame was shame? I have memories of being a small child and realising I'd done the wrong thing and feeling guilt. That you'd done the wrong thing because you were a girl or just done the wrong thing in general? What was the wrong thing? Did you wet yourself? No, no, no. I don't think my mother was very, I can't remember that happening but I I don't think my mother would have shamed me for that um but you know just small things that children do that you know you've been told to do something you do something else or you jumping I'm jumping on the sofa or you know and you've been told not to or that kind of thing or one time I remember my

father had painted the garage floor and we were all told not to go in. And I forgot and went to go in and left like a footprint. And it was obviously my size foot. So they said, have you walked into the garage? And I went, no, no, no. And they said, okay, well, if you say you haven't, then you haven't. Even though they knew I had. And then I kept defending myself and saying I hadn't.

And my mother said, me thinks lady doth protest too much, which was from Macbeth, which is a classic Elizabethan shaming technique. That old chestnut. And she was like, if you keep going about it, everyone's going to think you have a reason to. So she knew, she knew I knew, she knew I knew she knew. And that made me feel shamed in a way that I think if I'd been punished and denied, I would have felt sort of like, oh, it's so unfair. Or like all I did was, or I didn't mean to or whatever. But because, or I might have felt guilt, but I felt shame because I lied and she didn't really call me on it.

She just went, if you say... Do you sometimes think that shame could be a good thing in our society? Yes. Yeah, I think so. A certain amount of shame. Yeah, a certain amount of shame. A certain amount of shame. Otherwise I'd be Gaddafi in Peorgian right now.

Well, exactly. That would be off. I think we have to feel a little bit of shame because if we do something that is hurtful to others um guilt is a better tool than shame honestly yes guilt if you listen to brené brown they're in bed together now they are having a little orgy those two they are they are i mean brené brown i think says that guilt is is when we know we've done something wrong and shame is when we think I'm a bad person. So say you're late for a friend and you go,

a certain amount of guilt is healthy, actually. Yeah, guilt is healthy. Because you go, I'm really sorry. I should have left earlier. That might make you next time leave earlier, right? Not if you're brown, but sure. Not if you've got ADHD, but sure. But the idea is there, right? The principles of guilt are there.

Yeah, exactly. But if you- The principles of guilt and passion. Yeah, exactly. But if you then go, I'm useless. Yeah. I'm rubbish. I can never get anything right. That's shame. And you internalize that in the body. So I would say guilt is a much better tool

for changing our behaviors. And do you know why? If I'm rubbish and I just can't help it and I'm never going to be any better, then I'm never going to be any better, then I'm never going to change. So telling people, this is why I do not like the men are trash narrative. You know, people online go, oh, men are trash, men are this, men are this. I'm like, you're literally telling men you can't do any better. That's what you are. As opposed to, we don't like it when you

do. If you're a man that does this, we would love you to change that. And we believe you are better than your actions. And saying to a child, you're a very naughty girl is less useful in terms of this guilt and shame dichotomy than saying, that thing that you did, this is the consequence of it. That was a bad thing that you did this is the consequence of it that was a that was a bad thing to do exactly because of this it's like no bad people people just do bad things yeah you're a you're you you are i you i believe in the good in you and yet i see you doing this bad thing i think as somebody with as much smarts and kindness in you as you have should be doing better things and then it's sort of live up to rather than live down to.

And how I think we bring that around to sex is that, honestly, there have been hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, of the most clear dichotomy. So the most clear dichotomies to us are things like, are you straight or are you gay or are you bi? That was not the way it was until very recently, like late 1800s, early 1900s. Before then it was procreative sex, non-procreative sex.

Procreative sex good, non-procreative sex bad. And this is very, very Western. It's very, very part of the industrialization and biblical control and religious control, all of that sort of stuff. It's a way to control your population, really. So without having the time to get into the whys and wherefores, if the sex is not procreative, why are you enjoying enjoying it and how often can women have procreative sex now if you're a woman before contraception was widely available women often had lots of children often it took a great toll on their body often they died in childbirth, et cetera, et cetera. But say you were a woman who, for whatever reason, wasn't taken by a plague or a TB, and you had a very hardy childbearing hips, and for whatever reason, you could pump out a lot of babies, as some women did. Some women had

10 to 12 babies and died at 110 or whatever. How often, in the best case scenario, can you have procreative sex? Well, once every nine months to a year, right? Even if you have a baby every year. If you had a baby and then when you're ready to have sex again, you are allowed to have sex if you're only having procreative sex enough times until you get pregnant again. So these are small windows where you're allowed to have sex. Once you are with child, why are you having sex? Not procreative, right? There's always a period after where it's probably very difficult to have sex, especially without, you know, the medical interventions that we have now. So if, now this is not how indigenous populations

thought about sex, but we're talking about, you know, the industrialized Western world. Procreative, non-procreative. How often can men have procreative sex if they want to? Like, if they're going to be monogamous, no, but a lot of men were not monogamous. So there was an absolute setup in society where it was understood that men needed to have sex. So they would go off to sex workers or have mistresses. And even under quite, you know, even within the confines of quite strict religious power structures, there was a sort of understanding that maybe men, for some people, that men were going to go and do that. And that was the sort of thing that they did. We think of the past as very coy. And I'm sure you've done stuff historically on this show. It wasn't. We didn't invent sex. Our generation didn't invent sex. They didn't invent sex in the

1960s. Sex has always been something that people had plenty of. So it's not that women were never having sex when they were pregnant or never having affairs with other people. But the shame is generally likely to be in the direction of a woman having sex because women can only have procreative sex and therefore procreative sex is only okay. And so therefore, unless a baby's going to come out of that affair, which it shouldn't, you shouldn't be having that kind of sex. Should you be having sex when you're pregnant? No, it might hurt the baby. You know, again, people didn't necessarily know.

Or running off, having sex with other men while you're pregnant with your husband's baby doesn't feel that great. You know, and so on and so on. Not really great options for us women, is it? No, but a man can go off and have, well, he doesn't know if it's procreative sex or not he's a sex worker he did have lots of procreative sex with lovers and mistresses and often would abandon them or have second, third, fourth, fifth families and bastard children

that kind of thing so when you look at it in that light that we just think our models are the only models we think nuclear family very new the nuclear family the idea that a mum and a dad live in a house with the kids and there's no grannies and aunties I've been saying that for days monogamy is old the nuclear family, the idea that a mum and a dad live in a house with the kids and there's no grannies and aunties. I've been saying that for days.

Monogamy is old. The nuclear family is dead, I mean, according to me, and field. But they're also pretty new ideas. Yeah. But they came in and went out pretty quickly. You know everything and you're really established and you're really confident. Do you still feel any level of shame talking Yes. Talking about sex, having sex. Our rational selves and our emotional selves.

You can deprogram the rational and go, why would I feel shame? But we are so complex. Human beings don't even understand themselves and all the time we're on the internet

trying to get other people to, all the time, honestly, I think nearly all of, nearly all of the fights that are going on and the sectarianism and the polarization comes down to this one question. It's somebody saying, reaching out into the darkness and saying, is my experience of human anything like your experience of human? The reason we put ourselves into groups, if we go, well, if we all were raised in the same area, that helps me understand it.

You understand my experience of being human. If we are from the same sort of cultural background, if we speak some language, if we're the same gender, same age group. Yeah, maybe then my experience of being human. Is it like this? Is it like this? Is it like this? Is it like this? And sometimes it's not. Sometimes someone that was raised in your street and is your race

and is your gender doesn't have your experience of being human. You don't get on with them. But you get angry with them because you go, but you should. And that's where you see a lot of infighting amongst groups online of going, but how can you say that? Me and my sister, we were raised exactly the same way, exactly the same way. And she has such a different view on sex and relationships than I do.

I mean, like same household, same parents, same circumstances, same everything. So what I would suggest in terms of the human experience is we can rationalize all we like. But deep down inside of us, that 90 of not more than 90 percent of us is obviously in our subconscious because there's lots of things that you know there's lots of things you've experienced i think if all of those things were at the forefront of your brain you couldn't function chaos what's functioning now is the sentence i've got coming up next the idea that i've got to run to go to my next appointment that i'm talking to a microphone that you know i've got you know this here there's the porridge there your hats are, you know, I've got, you know, this here, there's the porridge there. Your hats are nice. Pink sparkly curtain. That's all I've got. That's a Gucci hat. Come on. That's

all I've got. That's all I've got. I've had to hide. I've had to hide. So everything else is submerged. So shame, all of the deprogramming of the shame of my sexual urges, which were in my case, very much exacerbated, not just because sex is something we do in private, and therefore, there's probably a shame response there for every human being. But more than that, because I lived in an extremely unprogressive state in Australia, I mean, married people, I was a Jehovah's Witness, married people were not allowed to have oral sex whoa

and you'd think well how would anyone know because Jehovah's Ease and if you have you have got to go and tell the elders so we were not allowed to masturbate

we were not allowed to and again I've spoken to some people who've left and go did you did you and they go yeah I did

of course but I didn't right well yes some people if you don't get started you know you've got urges and you've got things you don't really understand I didn't understand them so you know I didn't right well yes some people you don't get started you know you've got urges

and you've got things but you don't really I didn't understand so you know I haven't wow I did not know that I've got a lot of unpacking and unpicking to do

yeah to be honest I don't think I will ever I've done a lot of work on myself yeah a lot of work on myself and yet

I think I will probably be on my deathbed with unknown depths around sexual shaming and other parts of myself that I have no way of accessing or understanding or unpicking. We think our rational brain is so what it's all about. It's a tiny part of it. It can see the sparkly curtain. It can think of the next sentence.

It can think, oh, God, I'm late. That's all it can do, sparkly curtain and think of the next sentence it can think oh god i'm late that's all it can do really there's a lot it's very limited most of us is seething and humming and vibrating and crying and laughing deep deep deep down inside of us that's where the shame lives wow yeah and the truth is like shame can be sexy shame can be sexy i've had some very very shameful, naughty sex kinks. Yeah, a bit of stuff that you're, like, probably shouldn't have done that. Yeah, but then I think that's where you can experiment is in bed. We talk about this in our show all the time.

Like, all the stuff that you're shamed, shameful to talk about with your mates, with your girlfriends, with your boymates. You try it out in the boudoir. You know what I mean? Do you know what? I've got one friend, met him on fire island i've got more than one friend gang i just got one friend with whom i talk about this stuff um i met him on fire island he took me to an underwear party do you know fire island like fire festival no no no it's an island actually i should always clarify not five first it's an island near man near Manhattan where the glamorous gay men of New York go in the summer for weekends or weeks at a time to frolic and play.

And it's really, really good fun. And there's lots of ridiculous. He took me to an underwear party on Fire Island after I'd met him at an Alan Cumming cabaret concert. And I had nowhere to stay because my friend and I missed the last ferry back. Cut to we live with these gay guys now on Fire Island for the rest of our lives and it was very much like going uh somewhere over the rainbow and just meeting some random strangers on the yellow brick road and going yeah let's let's team up um and he and I he's an actor and a writer and we just clicked. And we've spoken to each other most days since then.

That was the end of 2019. Wow. We speak to each other. Is he your go-to friend for all of that? That deep, that shame you're saying, deeply is deep down here. He opened me up so much because, firstly, he gave me a copy of The Ethical Slut. Oh, yes. I'm sure you've talked to about this on the podcast before. And if not, you should have a whole book club of The Ethical Slut. Oh, yes. Which I'm sure you've talked to about this on the podcast before.

And if not, you should have a whole book club on The Ethical Slut. It is so wonderful to spend time with someone who relishes their kinks, who tells you how thrilling it is and how wonderful it is and how exciting it is and how much they enjoy being kinky. And if some of their kinks match your kinks, then your kinks are allowed out of the box and you're allowed to celebrate your kinks. There's nothing better than being with someone

who is not ashamed of their kinks. So he's become a very important person in my life. Thank God for gay men. Thank God for gay men. And do you know why I think, I mean, I never, never meet straight people like this. And do you know where I think it comes from? I mean, this particular man was raised in the south of America

in a very religious Bible Belt family. To be gay, you have to unpack and cast off so much shame just to be who you are. So once you're there, what is the point of holding on to a female embarrassment about liking feet? It's once you pop, you can't stop kind of thing.

Once you put your foot through the door, we're like, we're not trying to just put our foot through the door being Asian women talking about sex. We're blowing off the doors and talking about fucking everything. Yeah, because you might as well.

You may as well, and that's what we're doing. You may as well. The closer you are to pleasing the patriarchy by just being who you are. So say you're a femme, middle-class white woman who is attracted to men. You are promised, if you're very obedient

and you keep hidden your shame and you are very outwardly obedient, we're going to reward you. You're so close to the power. But do you know what I've learned in life? You know, as somebody who, I am bisexual, but I'm femme and I'm, you know, fancy men and relationship with men. Do you know what I've learned? Being obedient does win you stuff if you're obedient to the patriarchy,

but it only ever wins you more opportunities to be obedient. So if you look at something like The Handmaid's Tale, it lets you be a wife in The Handmaid's Tale, but then you look at what that life is, it's more opportunities for obedience. So yes, you have a bit of power over the women under you and you might end up wielding that in a very ugly fashion but ultimately you are still trapped by the same system yeah the further you are away from pleasing the patriarchy based on your identity because it's like well you're brown

or well you're queer or well you can't please them really no matter what you do yeah absolutely you might as well put some stekans on go go the whole ho Hulk dance in the street and in doing that it's very possible you will release just a little bit of shame that's a great

way I have you Deborah Francis White as always we have some urgent dilemmas we need to answer. We're your Shagany Aunties! Please remember to ask the bill payers permission before calling. Our Shagany Aunties are not medical professionals and bear no responsibility for the consequences of your own actions.

What advice is needed this week? Dearest, wonderful Shagany Aunties, around a year ago my best friend from uni went through a really nasty breakup. His ex broke up with him rather suddenly, and then it quickly transpired that she had been cheating on him. He found pics of her giving someone else a blowjob, and I saw them too. Since then, his ex has made multiple posts on Instagram in which she references her abusive ex-boyfriend and escaping a toxic and abusive relationship. I don't want to dismiss her claims.

She continues to lie about the cheating, but I know that doesn't mean she's necessarily lying about this other stuff. You see, my friend told me that during the relationship, he made comments about her weight and warned her that she should lose weight in order to remain healthy in later life. I thought this was pretty shitty. And I think it had a big impact on her self-esteem. Something tells me that there was abuse in the relationship,

likely on both sides. If this is the case, how do I address it with my friend? Whoa. That's deep. Really deep. I mean, if you sense there has been some sort of, yeah, abuse in the relationship both ways, you should totally bring it up. And you have the perfect thing to bring it up because you'll be like,

mate, have you seen this Instagram post? It's about you. If I was his friend and she wanted to confront her male friend about whether or not, God, that's really interesting, whether or not he was abusive. Like if it was one of my male friends, I'd be like, look, I really love you.

I look out for you. I have your back. You're really important. You're such a good friend to me, I really love you. I look out for you. I have your back. You're really important. You're such a good friend to me. I'm a woman and you take care of me and you respect me. But I've been hearing some things about the way you've treated women. And it's something that I can no longer ignore. Yeah.

And, you know, I'm not saying they're true. And that's why I'm speaking to you, but I don't want people to trash talk you and defame you if it's not true. So, you know, and then they'd be like, what did you hear? Yeah. And then I'd give maybe some light examples

or situations or scenarios that I've listened to and then open up the conversation Pandora's box that way. I think it kind of totally depends on what, how deep your friendship is with him and how quick you can talk to him. Cause I had a really good friend who cheated on his girlfriend, who I was also friends with. And we went out drinking once and I told him this fake story of this thing that happened to me.

And he was like, Oh my God, that's awful that that happened to you. And I was like, mate, that's, I literally just told you the story of what you did to her. You just told me that's awful cause it's me. You were obviously a good friend. I was like, I was like Jedi oh my God, that's awful that that happened to you. And I was like, mate, that's, I literally just told you the story of what you did to her. You just told me that's awful because it's me.

You were obviously a good friend. I was like, I was like Jedi mind tricking him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're obviously good enough. Yeah, we've got a good enough relationship to go out drinking. And for me, and for me to lie to him, to show him, to like show him a point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like being really gentle and asking questions and trying to get out their behavior.

So when you said that she was big, how did you say it? Did you say it after you'd had a nice meal? You know, did you say it more than once? Did you repeat yourself? How did she feel afterwards? Did you ever talk to her about it? Was she deflated? Did she stop eating that day? Did she, you know, there's just, it's a lot. But I do think my advice to you, friend, is to not be harsh, is to not be accusatory, is to not, you know, go in strong. If you want to talk to someone about something, and actually it's not really confrontation, it's like getting them to open up. You kind of want to let them know that whatever happens, I'm going to try and forgive you,

but I need you to be honest with me. That's what that person needs to feel like if I was saying something deeply uncomfortable about myself to you and I would consider you a very good friend I would sort of need to I'd be aware that you'd probably be giving me a telling off I'm sure or like you'd be like that's wrong

what you did that's fucked up but I'd want to know that you weren't leaving me or deserting me unless it was like murder or something, that would be terrible, right? What if I cut someone's hair on the train? And eyelashes. I'd probably join you if they were really fucking annoying. Terrible.

If you have any thoughts, dilemmas, problems, you can email us day and or night at browngirlsdoit2 at bbc.co.uk. Or you can send us a WhatsApp or voice note to 079681008. I've hyped it up, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was going to say you do it, you do it, you do it. Or you can send us a WhatsApp or voice note to 07968100822. Bye. Bye. 07968 100 822 Bye Bye