If I Speak - 105: How can I connect during sex?

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Ash has a big theory about why so many aspects of modern life feel like masturbation: private, self-centred, disconnected. They discuss the objects and subjects of sex, and Moya makes a confession. Plus: advice for a special one who’s dating her first communist. Got a dilemma? Email [e-mail] Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield […]

This is If I Speak, the podcast for the neurotic, the overthinking and also the potentially just a bit bored on public transport. I am Ash Sarker, who are you? Moira Lothian McLean, I enjoy that you've worked this as our new tagline. You've unilaterally put that in several shows now as our new tagline. I didn't sign that off, but it does work. We don't have a sign of process. We have a try some shit process. So she throws some stuff at the wall.

Does it stick? Let's see. Let's find out. How are you? What are your headlines at the minute? Well, the listeners can't see, but I'm trying a bold new look, which... Moyer showed up this morning with a shirt and a tie. And then I started singing the Men in Black song.

And then you disappeared off camera so quickly. I was like, get me out of here. Yeah, I'm wearing a tie. Sorry. I was going for like cool chic. Should have put a cap on, but the way of style of my hair means I can't put a cap on. And I do just look like I'm trying out for School of Rock. But it's fine.

I think you are very, very chic. But also, don't listen to me. Like, I went the same jumper every day. I will listen to you because we're on mic together for. Because I have no other. because I've got my headphones in and we're ready to record. How are you? Oh my God. So I'm going to tell you just a tiny, tiny anecdote. So last week, I went on the first leg of my book tour and it also just so happened that my husband was away. He was up in Gorton and Denton for the by-election

and like seeing family, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my cat, the beloved Musa did the thing that he always does when said partner is away, which is injure himself, right? So he hurt his poor. It was like, you know, a raggy claw and it was getting all infected. So right before going on book tour, I had to like take him to the vet and he fucking hates going to the vet. And then they had to do a little operation and they put him in the cone of shame. And there's something about putting a cat into a cat carrier solo, which really makes he feel like, you know, a single mom who works to jobs and like there was one point where I was on the phone

to my husband like just telling him how stressed I was about this cat thing and how guilty I felt about going away and he was like yeah yeah this beer I've got is really warm and I was like the gender what in the gender is happening now and so I've got problems too Ash I've got problems too And so then I went away, leaving the cat in the very good care of my housemate and then another friend of mine really helped out taking him to the vet to get his bandage off.

And because cats have actually a really quite sophisticated sense of vengeance, he was really unhappy that I left him in the cone of shame. So he just kept pissing in my bed. So that's what I came home to. Ash. I know. It is funny that you have a cat that mirrors your ideas of getting a good revenge. I think that is very funny. 100%.

Musa, what it... You're tired, you come home and your bed's been pissed in. Did your housemate realize that he was pissing in the bed? Yeah, housemate realized and so, like, washed all the sheets and then we got this sort of, like, insane cat enzyme thing, which, like, completely gets rid of, like, any cat piss smell. But it was really...

It was one of those moments where, like, sometimes, like, generally, I feel that me and my partner live in the same world, right? We live in the same world. and even if we're apart, we live in the same world. But our preoccupations during this time were just so radically different, like really, like, disconcertingly different. So yeah, and it annoys me that whenever it's the other way around

where I'm away and husband's at home, Moussa does not injure himself. Why do you think he does it when your husband is why? I think it's just been, that's how the chips fell. But that doesn't mean that I can't impute fault on someone's part, whether it's the cat or the husband, I don't know who I'm angry are at, but pissed off at somebody. You need to piss in some beds. I'm going to stop pissing in Bess.

You need to piss in Mousa's bed. Mouser doesn't have a bed. Mouser's bed is the entire house. Well, you know what you have to do, Ash. I have some questions for you. All right. Are they pissed related? Because that's really what's top of the...

They could be now, but no. No, we talked about piss last week, so, or the week that's just the week that has just gone out to us actually it'll be the week after and we talked about piss recently we went to toilet so I'm going to steer away from toilet

There's going to be at least one listener who's like, for our 73 questions minus 70 there is going to be less toilet than previous 73 questions minus 70 okay number one what is the most recent addiction

you have acquired oh I mean most recent probably I've gotten back into thinking about Formula One. I'm very excited about the new season. There's lots of changes made to the specs for the car. The front wing is very, very different. The car's smaller. It's going to be more nimble.

So probably, I mean, it's a re-up of an addiction. Like, I wasn't that engaged last season, although I did like Kimmy Antonelli. But this season, I feel like Friends Fear, she's getting excited about like the Amazon Web Services tire chart again. It's the Formula One, First of all, when does it start? It starts next week in Melbourne. Are you back into it because you're like, I have brain space knowing that you have a holiday coming? Are you going to go see it when you're in Australia?

No, the timing doesn't work out. The other thing which is like kind of jokes about Formula One is that like as part of the Gulf state's sports washing, soft power mission, is that, you know, abby-dabby, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all have fixed Grand Prix on the calendar. Uh-oh. Yeah, we're... What's going to happen now?

Do you politically? The Iranian Revolutionary Guards were like, I think the fuck not, Shal LaClerc. Well, I don't think they're going to keep going with the, I don't think there's going to be a regional war. I actually think it's going to be chill. Let's see. By the time this goes out, let's see.

Yeah, let's see. My prediction is this, right? I actually don't think that Iran has, is internally stable enough, all the Revolutionary Guards have the internal stability and power they once had to enact regional war and I also just don't think they have the firepower. I don't know man. Those like shah heads cost like fucking but five dollars. I am to do to do an entire golf like what like what? I don't know. That's a lot of region. That's a lot of F1 tracks you've got to.

It's a lot of, there's a lot of tracks. Final offense. Anyway, next question right. Shagmary Kill. Mad men, sopranos the wire. Oh, they're all so good. See, I knew it was worth asking you this question because I haven't seen any of them. But I knew you'd have seen all of them. All right. I think I would have to marry the wire.

Also because it's got like so many incredible acting talents in it. And the writing was amazing and like really. quite funny. The wire doesn't have a reputation for being a funny show, but there is actually like a real sense of humour, like going through it. Like there are some things which I always say when I'm like, yeah, like a 40 degree day. Like that's always, that's always in there.

Or when Stringer Bowers explaining the difference between an elastic and an elastic product, like just constantly, constantly playing in my head. So I think I'd have to marry the wire because it's sort of like my first big TV love. but then I'm so torn between Sopranos and Madman. Like it's like James Gandalfini. What an actor. What an actor. RIP to a real one.

And again, has some of the funniest moments in TV I can think of, right? Like when Tony Soprano is at his kid's soccer game and like inarticular Italian noises, it's one of my favorites. one of my favorite bits of TV but madmen's so good I think that madman's probably been more impactful on all the telly that I love now

so shag madmen but I'm not happy about it goodbye to the Sopranos everyone listening Ash killed the Sopranos that was a Sophie's choice it was a real Sophie's choice the ways of why I just said

some kid and I thought it wasn't a Sophie's choice at all not it felt like one Colt, it's what the Sophie's choice has been diluted to me now. Yeah. Okay. That's not a hate crime. Well, I hated it.

Third question is quite, it's just a reaction. What was your reaction to the Gorson and Denton result? So I really, really, really couldn't sleep that night for other reasons. I was worried about my cat. So I couldn't sleep. And then it got to like 4 a.m. of me just like tossing and turning and like the cat like bonking his cone of shame against the bedroom door because he couldn't

he couldn't measure distances because his whiskers were inside the cone so he was just like donk don't get to four and I was like okay I'm going to like crack and look at my phone and I was like oh that's good but I was probably neither as happy as I should have been or as excited as I should have been because I was distracted by cat

but I was I mean I was surprised by how not close it was it was something which a partner had been saying he was like I don't think it's even going to be close, but he has a real optimism bias. So I was like, okay, well, if he's saying that, it means, you know, we all know what that means.

But, yeah, turns out she smashed it. What about you? How did you feel? I felt absolutely nothing, except that's good in like a really detached way. And how do you say the word, Shardin Fraud. Shardt. Shardin Freud. Shardin for Labor.

Yeah. I think I've lost the... I actually worried me more, actually, because I think I've lost the ability to invest hopefully in electoral politics. Yep, but maybe that's fine. Maybe that's fine, but I thought that's good. Maybe seeing electoral politics as a means to an end

and the end of Shaddenfreude, it's fine. But I did really delight in Labour's drubbing. And the pictures of Keer Stammer in the car, like this. I thought those were fake. Maybe they were, but I don't care. Ethical AI usage, there was that tweet which was like... Ethical AI is, if it tickles me. It tickled me a lot.

There was a tweet which was like, not now, kitten daddy's walls are closing in. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Okay, now we're on to non-clean fun. Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of clean fun, now is time for its opposite. This week, Moya, I have a big theory and the big theory is this. I'm going to get my pen out. Sometimes when we're on the, when our clips are posted, people are like, what are you doing? And it's like, I'm scribbling notes.

Like, I'm scribbling notes as we're writing. So I just want people to know, I take notes so I can. I sometimes write things down. I very often don't. Today is a day where I'm not writing things down. Okay. Let's go. Big theory is this.

everything is masturbation. That's my big theory. Maybe I'm being a little bit facetious, but also not by much. I've been spending a lot of time on the internet, Moja, and it's made me increasingly worried that if we don't all die in a nuclear war first, the human race will basically render itself extinct

because we have forgotten how to breed the shiny, easy, difficulty-free option of various forms of masturbation, by which I'm defining as a self-centered and self-orienting sex act. It's too convenient to choose that and people increasingly are. It's fascinating to me that with all the forms of digital technology that have been developed in the last 30 years, so much of it is dedicated to facilitating the ability to have a masturbatory experience. And obviously, masturbation has been a part of human history. for as long as we've had the dexterity to do so. It's been a part of our image making and storytelling.

So it's unsurprising that that's what the internet would also do. But I think there is also something about the frictionlessness of the screen, the privacy of our interactions with the screen, is that it sort of creates a masturbatory world for us. And I think there are all sorts of ways in which we can see that play out. The really obvious stuff is porn. But then there's also OnlyFans, which is

different from a tube-style porn site, like Porn Hub, because OnlyFans is a way to have the fulfillment of sexual fantasy on subscription. So it can become hyper-individualized and tailor-made.

AI is taking that hyper-individualization of porn even further, right? You can have something that you've view, which is the result of the commands that you put in. And even forms of AI, which at least on the surface, are not meant to be for porn, like GROC, like the fact that that was being used to sexually degrade women and sexualized children sort of tells us something about the use of these tools. You've got women falling in love with their AI boyfriends because it's easier and more fulfilling

and more tailored to their idea of romance than real men. There was also a recent Zandanddland documentary about, you know, the girlfriend experience and the kind of men who draw for the girlfriend experience, whether it's from escorting and sex work or whether it's from, like, only fans. And I just think that, like, we are faced with a choice, and I think as humans, we're not actually that adept at making it, between the messy reality of other people, which is, you know, the work of finding out

or make someone tick, and that goes from like socially, psychologically, emotionally to like the physical act of sex, and then a frictionless screen-mediated experience. And so I think that there is also a way in which we can think about dating apps to a greater or lesser extent also being part of this

masturbatory system where just because it's connecting you with another person what has funneled you there is something which is kind of always mirroring yourself and then you find another person

and it's scary and it's frightening and you don't you know the sex you have I think people have to work really hard to feel a sense of sexual connection with someone that they meet on an app. Like it doesn't necessarily just like come super duper naturally. So when I'm talking about masturbation, I'm also talking about sexual experiences with other people, which are entirely designed around your pleasure, the thing that you want to get out of it,

rather than curiosity, connection and mutuality. I've definitely had experiences with men which are basically oninism, like, you know, sure, we were having sex with each other, but each of us has something going on in our head, which is not accessible to the other person. And maybe that's fine if that's what you want. But there have been occasions where that has felt really cheapening and hurtful to me. Like you used to date a guy who would have sex with me and then go and sleep in another room. And it felt horrible. Never again.

That's nuts. Again. Yeah, well, he was nuts for letting me go. But like it was one, what was so hurtful about it is that I was wanting to have sex to connect with him. Which was my first mistake. should have just let that man go. And he was having like an essentially master, master pituitary experience.

Like it was really, really hurtful. So we talk a lot about how convenience and consumerism is killing us. It's atomizing, it's infantilizing. It weakens our social and psychological muscles, makes us less resilient or tolerant of delay, frustration, hard work and practice. And I'm really interested to talk about how that plays out.

in the sphere of sexuality. So, Moia, what do you think? Are we facing the goon apocalypse? I'm trying to decide where to start, because the problem is I do agree with you, and that makes the most boring types of discussions. I do agree with you on several fronts. And I guess this isn't just sexual, though.

There's also, like, an element of romantic masturbation, if I can use that, when we're thinking about the experiences people, and we're using people in a very general term. If this doesn't apply to you, it don't apply to you. If it does apply to you, you're probably feeling a bit defensive right now. When I think about romantic about masturbation and sexual masturbation, there's still these experiences which are very prescriptive.

One person has a very distinct script of how they think something has to go in order for them to enjoy it. It's very structured. There's no room for, as you say, connection with another person or input from another person that might make it more of a mutual thing. It's like, well, if say romantic masturbation, It's like this is my fantasy. I want to go on this day at this time. They have to do this thing and this and pay it in this way, etc. And then with masturbation with another person that is just sexual.

You said pleasure. I don't know how much pleasure anyone's getting out of that because I have had sex with men where it feels masturbatory but there's another element there which is more that they actually don't want to be having sex

with another person really. They do just want to be masturbating but they feel the need to be able to have sex to perform the virility like that proves so they can prove something and you can feel

when you're having sex with someone and they're not there in the room. And I think you can also discern when that's from their habits on their own. Like I know when I'm having sex with someone who has a porn addiction. I can tell. What are the telltale signs? They're not there. They fuck really hard. Really hard because with men in particular, desensitization from wanking too much.

Yeah. And they jackhammer. That's a big one. They'll put you in like 60 different positions. and none of them and none of them will really be like they'll not slow down enough to really enjoy it

there's no eye contact there's no talking to you in a way that makes them feel like in the room there might be like utterances but they're not connected to what's actually happening it's like robot sex I also think a dead giveaway

is if you're going down on a man and he starts bouncing your head like a basketball. You're like, ah. Sometimes I like that. No, no, the bouncing, the bouncing, no. But I'm saying, I'm saying like, I know what you mean. No, I actually, there's only a couple of people.

If I'm really, really comfortable with a partner, I will let, I ask them to do that sometimes, so I'm getting very graphic, because I think it's the ultimate sign of trust from me. And I do enjoy that, but I would never do that with someone that I'm not, that I'm not having deeply connected and personalised sex with.

It's when it's move one. Yeah. When they're straight down and you just, yeah, that's smart. And so we're not talking about, and I suppose this is the thing is that like, any one of these, like, physical gestures that we're describing

can be a part of something which is like really mutual and exciting, right? It's like, you build it up and it becomes part of this, this co-created, like, to sort of use a very esterile word, a dance. like a dance it is a dance like and it's something that you're building together but it's when it's move one

it's like whoa whoa whoa I just got here I just got here I'm still learning the layer of the land we don't have the trust necessary for you to do that and the dynamic is not now one of like mutuals who are getting mutual pleasure is power it is domination so I can totally tell when I'm having sex with a man who's not there for porn reasons

I can also tell when I'm having sex with a man who's not there for other reasons if you've been having regular sex with them particularly there's people I've had sex with who I can tell I can sense when it's different and I'll sometimes stop it and just be like we don't have to have sex right now and it'll turn out they're stressed or something's going on when you know someone and you know the type of sex you can have

and you know what it feels like when they're in the room you can tell when they're out of the room and I wonder if they can pick that up in me because when you were talking I was thinking about the times I've had sex when I'm not there and how it correlates usually to when I'm using my vibrator too much and I'm in

I've disconnected from the mess of other human beings so there's so much I want to start off on where do I start on my little list that was writing down I think let's pick up on the mess of other humans and why people might be moving

into masturbation romantic or sexual as an escape. And I think it is there's a huge fear of getting things wrong. We've talked a bit about this before. It's showing up in so much of our lives,

whether it's wanting to go to the best restaurants all the time and the best just means the best value for money, like the best experience, the best food, or it's, you know, writing the best essay possible in university, so you use chat GPT because you're scared of messing up.

The same thing I think is true in sex. I think because there is this awareness, if you're a big digital user, there is an awareness that there is a myth, an illusion that there is an idea that you can really put on like the best performance. You can have the best pussy. You can have the best. You should be getting your back blown out. You know, like everything should be the best. It should be mind blowing. It should be this.

It should be that. And people now think there is somehow a checklist to achieving this idea of best, whether it is glowing up, learning to be charismatic. or being able to give good head. There is, they're like, if I follow these steps, it will result in best. That is the outcome. Whereas, as we've mentioned before, it is actually the mess itself that will result in something really magical. It is the act of trying to connect with another person that will be a little bit awkward

at times and takes vulnerability and trust. Intimacy is really hard. Intimacy is really hard. I was talking about this just a few days ago because I was discussing a person that I want to support in my life. And to do that, I would need to be intimate. And that's not, I don't mean sexually intimate. I don't mean, I'm actually intimate.

I mean I need to do things that are quite intimate. And I described the, even thinking about having to do that for me is like that scene in friends where Ross has the spoons and is massaging. the old guy because it's so scary to me

to be intimate with someone in that way it feels very difficult because you know various attachment stuff but I have to try because otherwise I can just retreat into myself and that retreat can either look like staying in a certain place all the time or just like not talking backing away getting my shell

becomes more harm's and that is a masturbatory experience just staying totally in a comfort zone and what it does is the same thing that masturbating by yourself all the time and not actually going out to the mess of having sex does, it disconnects you. It doesn't make you better at this thing. It doesn't make you necessarily more aware of what turns you on. It just trains your responses to associate pleasure or comfort with certain stimuli. You can train them in different ways. You can change that. So if we

talk specifically about masturbation, if you have trained your little brain and your sexual responses, to click on when they see a certain type of porn, they're not gonna click on when you're confronted with a real person because it doesn't fit the script. I mean, I think there are two really interesting connections that you've made. One is thinking about this sort of like

masturbatory self-centered approach to sex as being connected with avoidance, which I think is super interesting. And then the other, and I think this is a really important word is scripting. So this is one of the things about fantasy is that fantasy is about, like, what is a script that exists for you?

And that's not a bad thing, right? Like, I'm not saying that fantasy is bad, and that is a part of how we get to know ourselves. And, you know, that is a really important part of how we experience sexual desire and sexual pleasure. But it's when those scripts become a frame, that you are experiencing other people with, that, like, that is, like, kind of a problem.

And I'm not talking about, like, shared fantasies, which is obviously, like, big part of people's, like, sexual connection, right? It was when you're like, ah, do you match my freak? Like, that's obviously a really wonderful thing that people can experience. What I'm talking about is that you need someone to play a role that you've written in your head. Unilateral.

Unilateral. Unilateral. And I suppose there are going to be some special ones who are like screaming at me for this. This is one of the reasons why like the whole BDSM thing has never appealed to me. Like reason one is I don't like things that require me to make purchases, right? I have to shop. You're like, numero uno. I'm going to get my ball gag from Vinted. I'm joking. I already have one.

like using Moose's old code of shame like does this work does this work um is that there is a sort of like there is a like um an attached consumerism which doesn't appeal to me

fine if that appeals to others but doesn't appeal to me and then the other is the sort of what I perceive as a um rigidness of script like for me it's always sort of seemed a bit like people bring their pre-existing ideas to each other,

which maybe is me getting it wrong, and I'm speaking at very much as an outsider, but like that is kind of how it seems. And I think that there is a romantic element to this as well. Like we're talking about this in relation to sex, but I think that with romance, particularly in an age of social media and like competitive femininity where to be a woman who is loved, it has to resemble certain things, right?

And so again, it's a way in which consumerism sneaks in. Like he has to buy certain things. He has to take you certain places. Like, and if he doesn't, it means that he doesn't love you. And there is a real abuse of like ladies, if he wanted to, he would. Right.

If he wanted to, he would would be, if he wanted to bring you comfort when you're down or listen to you or maybe. make time for you, right? If you wanted to, he would. That then becomes ladies if you wanted to, he would, like, takes you to, like, the fanciest, most Instagrammable place for dinner. It's like, that's such an abuse of the concept, right?

Yeah, I think, I mean, consumers, and I can talk about consumerism and the commodification of sex for days because I have literally just written a thing about thought shots based on Eva Ilaw's... What's a thought shot? You know a thought shot. Ash stop. What are you about?

Stop teasing me. Is it a thirst trap? Yeah. Okay, all right. I don't know. It was like me being like, what is the CD play? Is it like your grammar for it? Don't tease me.

I thought short. Talking about how all like the act of sex, everything from sex toys to the economic value now attached to like imagery has commodified like every level of the sexual experience down to, you know, your body count. Body count. I've said this before. Some feminists get this wrong

when they're anal-like, they're still stuck in the Madonna-Haure dichotomy and that like does still apply but there's a big gray area in there which is like, if you can't put the pussy game down, if you can't lay it down, if you haven't got the gorilla grip, you're also seen as a failure now.

And this idea of consumerism, I think it has snuck in and replaced the bonding elements that would usually come from trust and like being able to actually trust people. So what I mean by that is the other day, for example, I was having lunch with a friend and she was grilling me in a very sweet way, but she was grilling me about how I achieved.

I'm putting that in quote marks, a relationship. Like how did I suddenly get in this place? She was like, what time frame? So, and she was trying to apply it to a situation she had. Because she wanted a roadmap, right? And there's a lack of trust there. and like security that I think plays into, you know, instead of being able to just trust, like, I'm going to talk about this to my part.

I'm just going to have this organic feeling and, you know, there doesn't need to be a timeline. People like, okay, well, if he takes me here or if they take me here to this restaurant, that means this. That means this. It's into the gap where communication would go instead of there was consumerism. If they buy me this thing, if they do this thing, it means this. And that's not like a huge shift per se because we always use rituals to mark relationships, relationship progression.

The rituals just... Yeah, like going on holiday together is like a... I'm going further back. I mean like engagement room. I'm talking about ritual of like the courting ritual that used to exist. But now they have been walked by consumerism. So instead it looks like this display of wealth, this display of gift giving signifies this.

Also, like you know the diamond engagement room? Yeah. The diamond engagement ring is basically an invention of the 20th century by De Beers. Yeah, so smart. Because they had a glut of diamonds and they had to create a market for it. So smart. Before, engagement rings could look like anything. So one would be pearls to symbolise purity.

Then there would also be a mixture of gems because the first letter would spell out certain words. Engagement rings could look like anything. Like obviously a ring of any kind as a token like is connected to. displays of wealth, like I'm not saying that. And before, when it was the humble garnet, it was separate from consumerism and displays of wealth. It's just so interesting that even the advertising slogan, Diamonds Are Forever, is a relatively recent invention. So it conveys a sense of it's always been like this and it's always symbolized this. No, no, it fucking hasn't. And there's a laundry list of sort of like tools you're meant to have in your sexual kit now.

whether that is tools of things that you can do tricks or whether that is literal sex toys and I don't think this is not just a heterosexual thing like you think about lesbians for example the strap like who's got the best strap game who can who can lay that down the best you know you think about gay men and I've there's these new things being events all the time which is like this is the douche pre-douching cleaning tool I sent this to someone and they were like but that's she's just like, it's this ball that you put up your ass and then it dissolves. And I was like, what a great invention. Just cleans you out. It plugs your ass while you're having

anal sex basically and stops anything coming down your rectum. Sorry if I'm getting the biological terms of wrong because I don't know exactly where shit comes from. Sorry. Anyway, it stops that. My brain, mostly. Yeah. And then, then it will dissolve after X amount of hours. And I sent to someone there like, but that's exactly what we're not meant to do, which is shove like a blockage up your ass to prevent it cleaning itself. And there was someone who had anal sex. So I thought I was like, oh, maybe this isn't such a good invention. But this idea that there's all these tools to make the act of sex ever more seamless,

frictionless, et cetera. Stereal. Stereal is the work. The exact word I was trying to look for. Thank you, Ash. But there's less than ever on actually connecting with your partner. Instead, it's meant to make the sex act itself, totally frictionless, as the word you mentioned before.

It's like, nothing will go wrong. You'll perform perfectly like porn stars. There'll be no mess, emotional or fluid. You know, and that's just not, the best sex I've had is not like that. It comes from me being totally in the room. I could probably be shitting myself, so long as I'm in the room. So long as I'm in the room. There's sex where I've, probably from the outside,

it looks like I'm performing in a beautiful way. like the ass is up, I look great. But I'm not in the room. And so afterwards I'm like, oh, that was, not even though it wasn't good sex, just I wasn't there. I don't even remember what that was like. You come away with a hollow feeling. I think this is the thing, which is obviously I don't want to do big, big gender essentialism.

All I can do is think about some of my own experiences and think about to what extent might that mirror something that's wider. But I have genuinely found it harder for me to have that kind of like, master pitory experience with another person, like I'm just here to like get my rocks off because for me, if I'm not like fully embodied, like it will hurt.

Like it will like physically hurt for me. And so the tendency for me like historically has been to sort of facilitate the masturbatory experience of the other person because I want to connect with them. Right. So it's maybe a little bit more of like an anxious avoidant dynamic that's playing out through.

through these different kind of orientations towards the sex act. But like, yeah, for me, like, it just, like, it won't work. Like, you know, the sort of, like, physical relaxation that I need for it to not hurt, like, just won't happen for me, which I think then was useful, right? Because I realized that this wasn't me failing to do sex, which is what I sometimes felt. and I would be really callous towards myself and really callous towards my own discomfort

because I felt that it was a failure of me to do the thing that I had to do which was sex and I realised like no this is actually like kind of a compass like as an internal compass that I have like should I be doing this thing or not but I kind of want to focus like a tiny bit more on technology I'm

fascinated by how many men on Instagram will message me asking for me to perform a kind of sexual service which is usually in the form of pictures right or them giving me money because they want to be fin-dummed

which I consider to be like if it's sexual for you it means it's a sex act if anyone wants to do that for me I'm happy to engage in the sex act with you just so you know I'm not I'm fucking not and the reason why is because like it's not my job like it is not my job and I resent

and I feel really angry about the idea that OnlyFans, coupled with pre-existing patriarchy and misogyny, has made it seem more normal that you can instruct a woman for whatever sexual fantasy you have and she'll do it for money. Like, you know, and I think that this is one of the things, and I think I've mentioned this before on the pod, which is, you know, I know that there are some people who feel frustrated that we talk about sex work.

And we've yet to speak to a sex worker about it, which, by the way, I'm really, really interested in doing. But I don't think that we need that as permission to talk about this stuff because the status of sex work and how sex workers are treated, it impacts every woman. Like it does. It does. And that also means that the ability for sex workers to work in safety and dignity is really important for all women and not just sex workers.

because they don't exist as a separate category. But the normalisation of that particular form of sex work and the sort of ubiquity of it online does change how women are treated more generally. Like it does. Like there is no fucking reason why any man should think that he should be able to buy a thought shot from me or pictures of my feet or whether.

Like I've not given that impression once in my fucking life that that is part of the Navarra media suite of services that we offer. But it's just because that they've, like women have been so effectively incorporated into consumerism that any woman is seen as a facilitator of their masturbatory experience to which I say, I will get a gun. I will get a fucking gun and I will do hard time in prison

before you get feetpicks. It's, I mean, I agree. So what do I say now? I'm interested in how you may have experienced some of this stuff as well. Because like our jobs aren't dissimilar. Yes, but the difference is, Ash, I have veered into opening myself up to those sort of requests, I would say. I have blurred the lines between, how do I put this?

I just post thought shots. I post thought shots. And, okay, if you want a confession, I have done that work for people. Really? Yes. Very lightly, very remote. I haven't sent them pictures of myself,

but I have engaged in what you would class as sex work. How, I mean, firstly, how does it make you feel to hear me talking about it in the way that I am, which, by the way, I need people to understand this in relation to myself. It doesn't make me feel, it doesn't make me feel a way because it's not a concerted thing that I have done. It is something that I tried. it wouldn't I don't want to go into the details of it but I'll tell you like no it it wasn't something that people who were professional sex workers would be like wow you really went to the trenches you know you were you were there selling those videos it wasn't

like that I was engaging in a fantasy for someone where I was telling them what to do and they would pay me to do that you know so it was a sort of like domination humiliation thing and I would there was like sexually explicit materials but none from my end so and I was paid to do that I was paid to do that

how did it I mean did it did you feel anything doing yeah I felt slightly powerful I felt powerful I felt powerful I felt grubby

I felt all of the mix of emotions that happens when you commodify a sexual experience I feel all of the things that that's so again this is Eva Iloin in The End of Love

she's talking about how there's a really good passage which I wish I could quote which she's she says um she's talking about the simultaneous feeling of the we're told that this is empowerment like women are told this is empowerment like financial being being being economically boosted in some way is meant to be empowerment but then because it is done through essentially like our degradation and through not forcing but I guess coercing isn't even the right word but through this messy dynamic where you're technically in charge and they want to think from you but that thing is sexual yeah then that makes you that that involves a lot of like confusing feelings around it let me

see if I can find those quite which is okay here we go she says the age sexual agent is are we a object or a subject like you can be a free subject if, you know, you choose to post a sexy picture or enter into an entanglement, which is all bodily related. But that freedom is peculiar because it renders emotional demands legitimate. And as a subject, I then have a confused status. And that's exactly what it is, you know. It's confusing.

It feels there is an empowerment that comes from, there's an empowerment that comes from asserting my economic value through this. But there's also like a dead-eyed devaluation. both of those things exist at the same time. And it's like, is that too high a price to pay? There's a really interesting, downstream consequence of that, which is within the context of my marriage,

if my husband turned around tomorrow and was like, I really want to have anal sex, right? Which is not for me. It's not for me, babes. That would create a kind of emotional tension or crisis, right? There's something that, he really wants me to do and I love him and we would have to embark on this negotiation of working out how important to me is not doing it, how important to him is doing it and where do we

land in terms of a compromise zone because as a free subject there are emotional demands which are legitimate. Obviously if he was like, I'll divorce you unless you do but stuff that would not be a legitimate thing. But like, do you know what I mean? Like him saying I really want to do something and me starting from the point of like, that isn't something I really want to do is something which like creates a necessity for some kind of like messy negotiation. Whereas in a dynamic where it is as part of a transactional sexual service, I get to say, no, that's not a service that I offer. There is a certain cleanness about that as well. And so when we're thinking about consent and especially the heightened salience of

consent, right? And consent. being not just more important than it used to be, but, you know, we talk about it as if it's simple, right? Yes means yes and no means no. And even when we try and then talk about like, you know, enthusiastic consent or something, it really flattens what is quite a complicated process sometimes of working out what you want and then articulating it someone else and being like, oh, well, maybe not now or not quite like that. Or like your feelings changing about particular act like consent isn't actually super straightforward within a you know it's simple when you say no but working out what your yes is is actually not simple and there is a sense in which

this sort of like super transactional commodified sexual experience makes consent simple because it's the consent to enter into um the exchange yeah yeah well that is another thing that that's another reason I think a lot of sex has had the emotional ass ripped out of it because oh wow that's a horrible image that you just thank you um because again it comes back to the idea of avoiding mess which is if it becomes this performance as sean fey puts at the pantomime which is a very good chapter in her book love and exile on disassociating from sex and becoming a performer rather than someone you're having a connection with. If it becomes like a performance of pantomime, a transactional thing of I will do X, Y, Z and they will enjoy X, Y, Z, or in return,

you know, they'll give me X, Y, Z, then there is no room for that potential hurt, the fear, the pain that could happen. And as you say, when you were having sex that you actually don't really want to have and your body is telling you that, then you feel like you're failing. And comes back around to what we said at the very start, which is this idea of failing and not performing properly, not doing it right, not being the best at something. People have really internalised that, whereas, you know, I've been having, so a lot of the sex, I've had a lot of good sex, very good sex, and it only gets better as I get older. I've talked about this a lot.

I think before I could really access parts of myself that were willing to be intimate and vulnerable, my body also was doing what I imagine you're saying your body is doing, which is telling me sometimes, it wouldn't always be pain, but I'd have to use a lot of, like, lubricant. you know I haven't touched lubricate a month in months I didn't know my body could do that you're like god damn I was like no something's wrong with me so I've got there's an illness down there now um you're experiencing sexual pleasure and you're like am i ill because like a victorian woman I could experience sexual pleasure before but I was dissociated so as you say it wasn't embodied so it becomes like the masturbator it is the masturbation in that I can come

but I'm not coming mentally there's no mental coming going on or I can like feel flashes of real pleasure, but it's not really connecting. And my body would be telling me that from the get-go, and I'd not relax enough. And now, you know, you ain't got to put lip gloss on it. You ain't got to put lip-closs on it. I suppose maybe there's, like, one final thing that I want to, like, introduce to, like, bring this to a close, is how can we get away from the scripts that we have in our head, which tells us this is what sex ought to look like and this is what romance ought to look like how can we get away from the sort of

like masturbatory self-centered element and embrace curiosity mutuality and connection do the opposite of what your script is telling you you can only bust through this this is something i've had to do like if my script is telling me one thing i have to push through obviously sometimes it's getting dangerous situations use your fucking common sense guys common sense but i would ask some questions like are you or are you performing? That's a big one. And if you're connecting, you will just know because you'll put down the script.

You'll put down that I'm going to say this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And you'll just be like, what if I just let my body relax and don't try and engineer the situation at this point? Put down the porn. Put down the vibrator for a bit

if you're someone like me, unfortunately, because it's just too easy. Cut out the shortcuts for a little bit. Yeah, no shortcuts. You've got to take a break from the shortcuts is my first thing. But my main one is try and think more with the gut than with the head. As someone who's having to do a lot of work at getting these two linked up, the head is always working, analyzing.

But that is a distraction. It's like, what if I just didn't act on what I'm thinking? And instead focused on like the feeling in my stomach and lower and let that play out. And that stood me quite well. I think that sounds like very good advice. Should we move on? Let's go to give more advice. Let's move on and start giving more advice.

More advice, advice, advice, advice. Please, sir, can I have some more advice? And yeah, you can. She remember the Davina McCall cut where she's like, want some more? Do you want some more? Do you want some more? She wants some more? And you will have some more.

This is, I'm in big trouble. And if you are in big trouble and you want to send us a dilemma to answer, please send it to if I speak at navaramedia.com. I just want to shout out a recent... You can also send other stuff. We get lots of nice messages. I want to shout the recent special one who sent in a dilemma

and then as instructed, retracted it within 24 hours. Well done special when you used... You used the system correctly. Gold Star. Gold Star. Ash, do you want to read this out? I think you should read out.

Okay, I'll read out because I want you to answer this first because it's very interesting. Ready. Dear Ash and Moyer, I'm dating my first communist. Help. I'm in my late 20s and moved to the UK last year. New to the pod. Thanks for having me.

You're welcome. Come on in. Over the past five years, I've been refining my politics after being brackets, embarrassingly fairly disengaged before that. I want a comment so bad, but I really can't. We need to read this on it. What I will say is, it's not embarrassing to fucking evolve your politics. It's actually normal and good.

I was born a Marxist. Yes. Some were born. Some of us were made, you know. I'm not big into labels in general, but I would put myself in the democratic socialist camp. I tend to practice my politics quietly. I never instapost about politics and don't usually shout very publicly about my political engagement slash beliefs, both due to a fear of seeming righteous and a deep-seated disdain of empty performative activism.

Politics and being politically active are important to me, but I'm a far cry from covering all the bases. As such, I feel like I often get typecast by my appearance. Fairly basic, went to private schools, assumed to be a politically unengaged or a liberal perhaps. Since being in London, I've done a little bit of dating. I've definitely been seeking out people that seem politically engaged and may have aligned political beliefs. Along comes Mr. Communist. Criminal defence lawyer, vegan, wars lined with Lenin, Marx and Manga.

A charming balance of dorky sexy, very strong. self-confident. It was clear very quickly that he had typecasts me. He called me a liberal on date too as I was talking about coming to a Navarra event. Those two things aren't exclusive. When I collected him softly,

while I collected him softly, I mostly laughed it off. There have been comments of a similar ilk that I've laughed off too. Initially, I thought it was a nervous attempt at banter, but over time it's felt like there's more to it. I find myself accidentally fitting into the box

he's created for me, feeling meek and or trying to prove otherwise, which I think can come off as insincere or combative. Arguably, the dynamic is not great. He rarely asks me about myself, and he's a roll over after he's come type. The first couple of dates, he put in some effort.

Since then, there's been a few times he's ordered delivery dinner, which he seemed indignant about, but apart from that, I go to his house once every week. It's an hour away and a 10-pound trip. He outright refuses to come to mine. After he comes, I've had to ask every time for him to put in an iota effort into repaying the favour, which I do, but I record we're at least three to one. That's a ratio, guys. An orgasm ratio.

I get a few cups of tea and an occasional headstroke. Sometimes it feels like he's almost making some kind of subversive political statement against co-opted feminism or something. Evidently it's casual, but which is usually my bread and butter, but I have indeed been out of voidanted. I like his politics, what he does, and his passion for both. We got off on the bat and he's hot, but his pigeonholing and fairly poor treatment has left me an uncomfortable mixture of resentful, wanting to fix him and desperate to win him over, all of which are making me insufferable as well, I fear.

I'm aware I should cut and run, and that I've let this dynamic unfold, but in the name of learning slash a good challenge, how do I unpigeon-hole myself and avoid this in future? As such a committed champion of equality, why does the patriarchy persist, and how do I convince him that it shouldn't play the feminisms for everybody all do book as he sleeps? See, is this type of man common on the left here? I feel like it's killing the cause and my vibe.

D. While I'm here, any top tips on navigating the balance between coming off as righteous and articulating one's moral political beliefs. Yours truly a special one. Ash, a resident communist. Special one, I'm going to say this with love, but it is tough love. Bad cop in the house. Bad cop in the house. Your problem isn't communism.

Your problem is you're behaving like a pick-me. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but it's true. This whole thing, and we cut some stuff out because we need to make it fit for time. But this is laden with self-justification. Like you were even telling us about how you cut your own hair and like linking it to your politics. And I'm like, who told you that you need to justify yourself in order to be chosen and told that you're good and that you're valid?

Like, where did you learn that? Because that is the problem. It's not that you're being pigeonholed because of your politics or because of your background. It's because you have chosen a dynamic where someone is treating you with disdain and contempt and you think if you can turn that around that that's going to be somehow transformative that's going to fix something that's going to open up the next chapter of your life

and I feel like you know that meme it's like stand up girl stand up like stand up like if a man is rolling off of you after he comes and doesn't come to your house and you're still seeing him every week you know you're rewarding him for treating you terribly.

Like men aren't that much more complicated than dogs. They operate on a Pavlovian basis. And you keep rewarding this really shitty behavior. So, you know, are these men really common on the left? Like men like this exist everywhere, right? Like people who've worked out that they don't even have to do the bare minimum. and the sex will keep coming, all right? Like, they, men understand this very, very well.

And it's not just like a left-wing thing. The problem is, is that you are in a way sort of validating his contemptuous behaviour of you. By connecting it to politics, this has got nothing to do with politics. It's got everything to do with why are you pursuing a man who's showing you nothing but contempt? That's the question.

You didn't actually mention any of your, both of you political beliefs in that like what actually makes it up you said you know I'm a democratic socialist and he's a communist there's no mention of like actual ideological pillars

because as Ash says this doesn't have anything to do with the politics this has everything to do with the dynamic and attachment which you even mentioned I think it's so simple here unfortunately which is this dynamic feels safe to you and his contempt for you

feels like something that you deserve. It's something that feels familiar and safe. And you keep going back to it because you're like, at the end of the day, I deserve to be recognized as this person and treated like shit. And I, you know, you said I've been out avoidanthood. Avoidant people love to date other avoidance because it's safe. And then we're constantly working for, we feel like we can then pour ourselves into working for their approval. And it ain't coming because this man is a dick. Why do you, I think you should really ask yourself. You said, how do I'm pitching myself? why do you care what this man thinks?

That's what you should be trying to train yourself into doing. Why in earth would you want the respect of somebody who you don't respect? This letter is also dripping with contempt for him and his hypocrisies. Oh yeah, once I saw the manga on the wall, you know? He's obviously very physically attractive. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing all this.

There's something about that as well that I can't get into, but there's something about physical attractiveness which you're using to offset a lot of his ills. But you don't need to unpigeonhole yourself. You need to start trying to respect yourself and love yourself. And that is a work that takes honestly years. But if you started now, at least you've started it now.

And then in a couple of years, you will be having great sex with people that you can actually have political discussions with that you enjoy. And who might disagree with you. But guess what? It will never feel like you're being belittled. And you might learn things. And you'll never feel like you're being patronised.

You'll just feel like you're mutually having a great chat. A man will never respect you more than you respect yourself. No. Like they always, and this is one of the things where like how women fantasize about men and like the reality is just like wildly different is that because we've had our like head filled with like fucking patriarchal slop, we sort of think that like we can exist in this like really flawed state and then the right man will come along and he'll see us and he'll scoop us up and he'll make us feel like really accepted. And I'm not saying that you have to be perfect or like a fully optimized person.

But the thing that that really misses out is that if a man doesn't see you taking yourself seriously, he's going to treat you the same way. And that shit is true as gold. And like, a thing happened like really early on in my relationship with my now husband, which is he tried to cancel our second date for actually like kind of a legitimate reason, right? been awake all night, staying up for the local elections, because that was what his job involves. So he was like, look, I'm really tired. Can we do this another time? And I was like, no, I'm a busy woman and I made time for this. So you see me now or not at all. And he references that

as like, that was the moment where I knew that this relationship with you was going to be really different from the ones that I had before. Because before, like, a woman would have moved to accommodate that and tell me it's fine. And you didn't. And I was like, God damn. And I really meant that shit. Like it wasn't it wasn't a tactic. I was just like no I'm treating myself this way and I'm valuing my own time because of all the mistakes that I've made previously. And you just a man will never rescue you from yourself ever ever ever ever ever ever. Like you know being chosen will never happen in the way that like deep down your fantasy is telling you that it will. Like you have to fucking respect yourself because otherwise you're just going to keep getting dugs.

Yeah and just last note on that one is that even if a man tries to to rescue you. What'll happen is this. He will end up resenting the work and it won't be an equal relationship. I know lots of rescuing men and they'll do their very best. They can't save you. They can't make you love yourself. You will become so emotionally dependent on them to like soothe you and regulate you. They all become overwhelmed. The relationship ends. You're not in a better place. They're not in a better place. It sucks. The alternative to this is learning to like love yourself or like yourself. And everyone says, oh, it's a crook of shit. You don't have to be fully healed do you meet someone. No, you don't have to be fully healed, but you have to be trying.

You have to be fucking trying, bro. I never fully healed. So toxic. Yeah, go on. A man should be a little bit scared of you. I don't know. I don't 100% agree with that. I don't think they should be scared of you.

I think that they should be... It's difficult. I don't have a prescription for that, but there should definitely be a level of respect. And when a man respects, you can feel it. You can fucking feel it. I've had men in my romantic and non-romantic lives. just be just like not respect me oh you can feel that and if you hold on to that and take that somehow as as reflective of your actual value in this world it will lead to a very dark place and it

will not make anyone like him all also respect is not a pedestal I think this one I'm saying is that like women can often mistake yes oh he really you know like obsessed with me no you don't want to obsess with me no no no no that's not respect but this might mean by a little bit fear is that like he should know that you've got your own muscles and your own teeth. Like, he should know. Let them know. Yeah, let them know. Okay, right, we have to wrap this up.

Love you special one. Don't see this guy again. He's a loser. All right. Bye. In the shadow of power and one of the richest cities on earth. A man dies, homeless and unseen. Julia Remesh died in an underpass in Westminster.

just metres away from the building that governed Britain. Around him were empty homes, dark, locked, untouched. How can someone lose everything in the heart of so much wealth? Follow that question and it leads to a hidden world of money, secrecy and power. A system that decides who gets at home and who doesn't. This is the kind of place for that relationship between dirty money in the city and the kind of dark money that goes into political machines. kind of mish.

Where could this lead? Where does it end? What else can we become desensitized to? I'm Kojo-Karam, writer and researcher. Since 2018, this story has haunted me. Death and Westminster is a four-part series from Navarra Media, produced by Planner B productions. Listen to Death in Westminster now in the Navarra Media podcast feed.