If I Speak - 82: Help! I can’t stop hating men

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

*Join the Baggu believers: it’s a huge foldable bag just for Special Ones, available from shop.novaramedia.com* Moya wants to stop hating men and start building trust, which means a dialogue about all the things that make that difficult: objectification, racist over-sexualisation, degrading comments, and rape (TW: 27m; 40m). Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt […]

Hello Ash. And hello, Moya. We're both back from various vacations. The audience probably have noticed anything, but we are. And I want to hear about the long-awaited Naples. sojourn. Okay, all right, so here are the top lines. Napoli, very, very chaotic.

It is not a city that you can wander around and daydream in because you will be squished flat by a car or a moped. Wait, hang on, you're not making the noise and this is an audio product, so go on, Moire. I'm doing motion that I would ascribe to Crazy Frog riding his little moped I mean I'm also making a noise as if this Vespa

was powered by cats I can't do a Vespa noise I'm not a meow meow, we're so like if you're expecting a place

where you can go and feel really relaxed Naples isn't it but there is so much to love about it it has I don't know like a sort of

toughness and authenticity that has kind of been gentrified out of most other Italian cities, like, you know, especially the big ones. The food, of course, is glorious. They have a fried pizza base. So it's a normal pizza base, then they fry it, and then they put the toppings on.

And let me tell you, I saw the face of God. Well, you can have pizza crunch in Glasgow. So what's the difference? What's the difference? Went to Pompeii, which was... Sorry, I got so excited. It was so exciting. It was so, so exciting.

it was a hot day and there was no shade but it was it was extraordinary and also like really humbling and it it makes you think about the power of nature which is people settled there because of the fertile soils right like you could grow incredible food but why was it fertile because it's on the banks of a big fucking volcano which will destroy you um so that was amazing what humanized pompey the most That's why I'm interested in So there was A Mosaic at the front of someone's house Which was a crazed-looking dog

Is the beware of the dog? It's the beware of the dog And it's beware of the dog. And then you know These little like red tiles for the eyes And like the gums of the teeth And you just sort of think that like You know that was commissioned Someone's like right I want you to make a dog look really

Really scary The other one was the brothel where there are these sort of frescoes around because obviously Pompeii at the time would have been a port town so you've got lots of people coming through who are sailors

don't speak the language of course they'd be looking for a brothel so it's like you know when you go to a cabab shop and you point at the picture so it's like I want a number one blah blah blah blah so that was really amazing and what else

I mean just Pompey it's like this can sound so stupid it is not an archaeological site where you go and then you know it's a little bit of space it's a whole city that you're walking around it is a whole city so that was incredible

and then had a little bit of beach time in a place called ploshida and loved it so I had a great time what about you tell me about Malaga well I just want to sound Pompeii the thing that brought it home to me was the graffiti

when you're like walking through different places and there's like a child's drawing and then a few bits over there's like a dick and balls and being like, someone was here kind of vibes in Latin. And the fast food joints. When you go past the little fast food stores,

you're like, God, this is, this was a place where people lived and, like, breathed and shat and loved. Like, it's so alive in a way, like you say, a lot of archaeological sites are not because they're very preserved. Whereas this is like, life was just here. Malaga, love Malaga.

Again, Magalore, not Magaloof. Magaluth is in the north. Malaga is in the south. It was lovely. We did an itinerary that I created because I am a double Virgo. So we did like the classic stuff. We couldn't go to the Alhambra,

which is annoying because the tickets had been sold out. But we went instead to a small Andaluton village that usually is overrun, apparently. But because we went in September, there was barely any tourists there. And we stumbled onto this, like,

amazing little family restaurant. We had, it was one of those holidays. you know when you're like just get lucky we got so lucky so we'd go to all these different places and they'd be like oh sorry we've no tables and then just as we were leaving someone go actually we've got a table in the back nice yeah that happened like so many times we went to like a state joint and we were that we had been recommended on the Spanish Reddit I didn't bother with the English Reddit I went with the Spanish Reddit and it was amazing and but they were like oh oh sorry we haven't got no table we haven't got no tables and then they were like oh wait there's some

people who haven't turned up, you can have their table. Happened again. Happened again when we went to the little family restaurant. They were like, we haven't got any tables. And then the waiter happened to speak English. I think where we've gone wrong is I'd been really tired by navigating to there. So I hadn't used my meager Spanish and I sent one of my friends in to ask for the table. And they've just been like, can we have a table?

Whereas if you go in and you go, Miss a barados, por favor, then they're much more like to be like, yeah, you got a table. So the initial waiter, the initial ways who greeted them had been like, oh, we're totally full. in Spanish but then the waiter turned up to be like English bilingual Spanish and so another one came down was like oh there's three people just leaving he was like the kindest guy and that meal was amazing because it we were right on the hill of this like tiny little white washed village and looking out onto all the valleys with the vineyards and down like right down it was a panoramic 360 degree view I didn't realize the view was that good I knew it was good but I didn't realize from this restaurant it was and I just kept thinking the whole meal about how

kindness is a trait that I probably value above all others. Like, kindness is so important to me. And that will lead me on to my first question, Ash. Ooh, but I thought I have questions for you for this one. That's next. That's my next. Sorry, I'm getting heads. That's next episode. I could have forgot that we're doing my own. Okay. You can ask me questions.

All right. These are all kind of autumnal themed because... My fave. Right. Number one. Forest Trail or Riverside Wall. Oh, so hard. It's really hard that, Ash, because I love both of those children equally. Oh, it's so difficult.

I think ultimately, Riverside Trail, because Riverside Trail will probably take you through a bit of forest, but there's no guarantee that you'll get forest, that you'll get river in forest, whereas you're usually going through some trees by river, or at least the side of them. That's my take.

And I love running water. Question two. And this can be answered in a culinary sense or an aesthetic sense. Favorite mushroom. Oh, I don't know any mushrooms. So the most bargain basement chestnut mushrooms that cost 50p less than the other ones next to them. I really don't know mushrooms. I'm afraid to say.

That's it. That's it. Sorry. Just a chestnut. A chestnut mushroom is a noble choice. I would say. It's literally the only choice. I could have just gone, closed cup.

Closed cup. That's all I know. Sorry. And final question. What's your advice for staving off depression as the nights get longer? Don't do what I do, which is deny that you get affected by sad. And then by the time you realize that you're so affected by sad, it's too late to do anything about it. I do that every year.

every single year I go, I don't get depressed in the winter. And then it gets to December and I'm like, I've never felt so bad. Life is so terrible. Staving off depression. Pre-planning a lot of like homely shit with your friends, I would say. You need company in the winter. You need warmth. Obviously if you have money, go on holiday.

Get out of, get out of here now. get yourself a holiday booked in right shall we move on because you've got an intrusive thought yes right guys do you want to look behind the scenes I had a different intrusive thought today and I was going to bring it to the table and then we got down to a recording I was like do you know what let's actually just do what's always in my mind let's do what's always in my head I hate men I hate them okay

and sometimes I'm like is that too strong to say and maybe it is slightly but there is definitely a deep undercurrent of distrust and disdain for the gender that is men

and it bubbles up out of me at the most inopportune times it's misandry I think you'd call it probably it's misandry and it's very easy to do I think we live in a culture where when you're stripped of access to consistent power as a gender you turn instead to resentment and hatred and that makes it very easy for my sort of disdain and hatred to be furnished by constant reinforcement via jokes, via just casual asides. If I was saying all the time about a specific person, I hate this person, huh, ha, just a joke. You'd probably be like, is it a joke?

Is that a joke? It sounds like a joke. It sounds like you're reinforcing some really toxic beliefs. And I've done quite a lot of work to humanized men. I think I see them as more human now. But there, I've read, you know, I've read the will to change. have friends who are men. I date men, but I think it is a pretty big obstacle to forming healthy relationships with men, particularly straight men, because the gays kind of,

they kind of made like an amalgamated gender, I would say. They fit in a different category, but they're still definitely mistrust there, I think. Um, and it's, yeah, so it's particularly obstacle to forming relationships with straight men, platonic or romantic. And I just don't want to carry it anymore. I just don't want to hate men because I don't think it's politically useful. And that's something that's pressing on me more and more at this point in time. The idea of like, which of my beliefs do I need to jettison in order to actually get up off my ass and try and do something about the rising tide of fascism? What is politically useful and what isn't? And this week, watching, I say this week, by the time this comes out, it'll be a bit of an old hat,

but this last few weeks watching the dissolution of your party, which I never got behind, by the way. I just want to get it on record. I never got behind that shit. I was like, this is going to be a car crash. We need new ideas. We need to stop rehashing the old and expecting like individual to save us. But like watching that dissolution and watching the delusional hopes of like this top-down

movement coming to save us, it's become more and more obvious that we're going to have to work together. from the ground up and I think one of those blocks for me is probably you know I need to get rid of not liking or trust I need to trust people more and I don't trust men and that's that that is a political thing that needs to go but just in romantic relationships as well

like I'm dating and I met some really nice people and I don't want and like things going very well with certain people and I don't want it to be down the line that this comes up because I'm doing quite well at sort of like working through it you know date by date with different people

but it's going to be a thing if I then laser in on one person and form a relationship so I think you are someone who not just does not hate men double negative but you know what I mean I think you're actively like men and I would love to

to know how you did that. I think they're all right. Okay, well, I've actually got some questions for you first. Okay. So, question one, how many straight male friends do you have and how many of them would you consider your best friends, your friends of the soul, your friends of the bone marrow? Zero.

Seattle. Zero. I have probably one straight male friend in my wider friend groups. Okay. All right. And that's it. Second question. How many political relationships do you have with straight men where you go, all right, we're building something together?

I would say none because I don't feel like I'm building anything with anyone. on. I have straight male colleagues that I really rate. But that's the closest I have to build it. I, in my work, we're not building politically. I have straight male colleagues that we're building professionally. And those are good relationships, I would say. And those were people that actually probably do trust quite a bit, some of them. That's it. Is that because also they're not close to your heart? So you can trust them because you're in this professional setting where by the nature of being in a professional setting there are boundaries on how close someone can get to you yeah maybe some of them I'm very fond of

some of them are very fond of but I'd say probably not not not not like besties outside of work yet you're right to observe that I don't hate men that's not to say that I'm casual about male violence or male aggression or all the ways in which men can hurt you because, like, the flip side of me having these really, really close and loving relationships with men. So, you know, my husband, obviously, but also our housemate, who's sort of like our best friend, and then a wider circle of really close male friends, some of whom I've been best mates with since I was a teenager. As well as all those things where it's really nourishing, the other side of it is that I am a target for the most.

violent and degrading fantasies that men have and it's targeted at me you know like when you've when you've read like racist gangbang fantasies about yourself you're like it's not a good it's not a good feeling um but I don't I don't really think well this is what men are like I for me what do I think about men um i think that my friends and obviously now my my partner my life partner but my friends first were able to teach me something so so i like you didn't have my biological dad of my life and i don't know if this went down the same way for you but he like i mean i remember being a kid and reaching out to him and being like i'll do whatever it takes to have a a relationship with you and him literally being like, I don't want to see you again.

Like experiencing that rejection really, really explicitly. It was just like, I don't want you in my life at all. And, you know, my relationship with my stepdad became really, really close after I first moved out for uni. And I think, I think that there are all sorts of complicated reasons for that, blah, blah, blah. But up until the age of 18, I really just experienced. love from men is being so scarce. And Bell Hooks writes about this, that, you know, the love of the mother is too much. The love of the father is never, ever enough.

And that was my experience until I was 18. And also, what's happening in those teenage years is that I'm being placed in a sense of competition or I'm experiencing myself as being, and competition or rivalry with other, you know, women, girls for the love and the affections of men. And because of how things were, you know, the sort of like racialized standards of beauty, blah, blah, blah, blah, is that I just felt like it was never going to happen for me. Like I just felt like a sort of little stumpy bore that was just too unlovable to. ever, ever get that. And the thing which really just turned all this stuff around, I mean, it took time for it to bed in, was in my first year of uni, in the first couple of months, we

occupied our university. It was a protest against tuition fees. And the friends that I made then are still my best friends to this day. And some of those people are my Navarra media colleagues. And it was a place in which I experienced a kind of relationship with men that I'd never experienced before, which was comradeship. So we're comrades, we're trying to make this thing happen. It's more than colleagues and it has a political dimension which makes it more than friends. And it was the first time I'd ever really experienced that. And I think that it imparted a sort of solidness to those friendships that's kept us together 15 years later. And I think that, you know, I'm not saying, oh yeah, and I hit 18 and then I was having really healthy

relationships with men, particularly when it came to romantic and sexual relationships, that took a lot more learning, a lot more mistakes, and still learning, like still learning through my relationship with my partner um but it allowed me to experience that the regard of men wasn't this scarce finite resource um and that i didn't have to either reject it before it could hurt me or chase after it because you know it's a rare diamond it was it was a really i've never understood it in this way before so sorry if i'm a bit halting it's because because it's the first time I'm making these connections. But that political experience, I think, was quite, you know, I don't think,

I think that that could have been the difference between me being able to have some healthy relationships with men versus me permanently looking for daddy. I think that's, what you're bringing in there is about how the political backbone gave structure to these relationships and how it gave you something where you on a, if not, systematically a mutual footing. There was a space to have like mutual respect to meet each other's peers beyond either just a friendship,

even though friendship is obviously so important, or a romantic connection. Because one you was talking about that, I was trying to work out about, I was trying to go back through my history about straight male friends particularly or male friends just in general. And I was looking at it.

And I used to always have a guy best friend. That was something I had throughout childhood and then my teen years and then my 20s, there was always some guy that I was particularly close to and who I would really trust. And when I looked at how those friendships ended or disappeared or started, yeah, they were all the straight ones, dissolved poorly because one of them was a guy

who'd professed his love for me, so I never saw as on a mutual footing. Another one that I was very close to and saw and really did trust he got a girlfriend and just disappeared and that was proper like abandonment lives another one I fucked and that ruined everything

so but there was in all these all the only ones who stuck around who I have today are the gay or queer friends and those ones I do have like you know really I was so beautiful relationships with and there is trust there and love there but the straight male ones i don't i mistrust so deeply because i'm forming relationships with people and a lot of this will be on me as well like why am i picking these people to be friends with the same way why

am i picking certain people to date who oh no was that me making a noise i think my phone just made noise that's so weird uh sorry anyway why am i picking people to be friends with who reinforced my about the only thing, like, from straight men, the only thing that straight men value about me is they're all either trying to get in my pants or they're waiting for someone else to come along to get in their pants and I'm a stopgap.

And that, I think, has really, really underpinned a lot of my interactions with men. So when I meet men romantically, then there's a huge mistrust there that they don't see me. A lot of them, also I was having a conversation with friends the other day about something that, men say to me quite a lot and I thought it was just a normal thing that men say and my girls in the

group what is it I don't want to get into it but it's like a sexualized no come on come on no no it's like I'm sure it happens to lots of people but it's like quite a sexualized comment that I get when men kiss me for the first time um they have to let me know something about themselves and I thought this was just a normal thing that men say when they kiss them but all the girls in my group chat are like no this they don't really say that to us when we when we're like kissing for the first time whatever we haven't got like a sexual relationship yet but then I talked to the other friends who fit into categories where we're often over sexualized and they're like oh yeah they do this to me all the time too and I was like oh I've been being over sexualized and then we were in when we're in

Spain actually there was an incident that really drove at home to me because sometimes I forget that I'm brown and um get over sexualized because I am because in the hierarchy of brownness I get so much I guess I hate the word privilege but like I benefit from colorism and like I'm allowed to move in what are lots of spaces that are white spaces even if I don't perceive the ways that I might be differentiated in them. And I was with my two friends walking in Malaga and we passed this big group of middle-aged men in cycling gear. And I didn't, for some reason, I just didn't expect them to do what they did because maybe because they're in cycling gear and they looked like respectable middle-aged men. But they started leering at me, like openly leering at me, just me. And my

friend behind was like fuck off that's disgusting the way they were talking to you um i obviously i'm not speaking i was just i didn't realize i went to this response where i just shut down like i wouldn't make eye contact with any of them i wouldn't pretend it's happening and it was only because my friend forced me to acknowledge it by by responding and being like what the fuck are you doing to these guys they were like probably like it was so like i was an animal in the zoo and they weren't doing it to my white friends and it wasn't because my white friends looked any different to me that they're wearing anything anything different like you know one of my white friends was particularly curvy as well like she was wearing a low lowish cut top like it wasn't that they are not being as able to be sexualized

it was that I was the only one they felt entitled to sexualize openly in that way and my friend who told them to fuck off was afterwards telling me about how she'd had experiences where she's walked down the street with a partner who's white a white woman and the partner who's a brown woman and she's noticed immediately the difference in the way that they're sexualized And she's like, everything's the same. The only difference is ethnicity. And it kind of, I was like, God, I'm also laboring under, and I know you'll understand this because of being a brown woman

who literally just talked about the fantasies people put onto her or the entitlement they have to sexualize you. But I don't think I acknowledge sometimes how much that underpins my distrust as well, the way that men respond to my body. When I know that everything I prize about myself, but not everything, but like so much of what I prize about myself is my brain and my ability to think.

So then I'm left like confronted with this, what feels like this like gender who just sees me as like an object to possess or not even possess. They don't even want to do that. They just want to sort of like touch and then run away. It's gross. And I'm like, I'm so much smarter than you. Like I've got all this stuff that you will never have.

And part of that's because of my, the fact that as a woman you'll socialize to have like a modicum of emotional intelligence and men are not. But I don't want to feel like that. I don't want to feel automatically apply that to all men because then there's no space for that surprise and that openness. And I've recently met people where they do surprise me. And it's not that they don't have flaws or they're flawed people. It's like, but there's so much that they surprise me with like their intelligence

and their emotional intelligence and all these other things. And I don't want to ruin that or hurt them. I think, is what I'm trying to say. I just don't want, yeah, I don't want to just blank it, write everyone off. I mean, there's so much in there. Yeah, it's in there. So the first thing, all right, I'm going to start with like a big old trigger warning. So, awuga, a huga, a trigger warning.

That sounds like, yeah. That sounds like what the, the noise in men's heads when they're being like, tits. Awuga. Okay. Me. Oh, what's so bad. Is that the thing I'm going to talk about now? It's so fucking dark and I started by saying a hookah.

Yes, right, that's your trigger warning. There you go. Get this girl into therapy. Start. So when I was 17, I was, well, when I was raped, it was no good, very bad, sucked. And it took me a really long time to get my head. around it still takes me a long time. And one of the things that it left me with, and I still have to contend with, is that this person, this man, made me feel so rotten. Like, I felt that

what happened was him seeing something in me that was inherently degraded and treating me that way because he could see that in me. And it has left me with like, you know, obviously not the easiest relationship to sex in the world. And then when that's reinforced by the kinds of abuse that I get, I really have to, um, it, you know, for a long time, my response was shut down, block out, be frozen. Don't look at it. Don't talk about. it, which I think is sort of the same place you're coming from, which is these men are leering at you. They are sending you a message that you deserve to be treated as this degraded object, you know, without any dignity, without any humanity, that they're taking this disgusting

thing they feel and it's like they're smearing it on you. And your, you're, you're, you're your response of like I'm not I'm not I'm not even going to notice like I'm not even going to let this in is that that's a trauma response to violation like I can understand it because I had to deal with that for like years and years and years it's a trauma response to violation and it's a way in which you know your nervous system your body and your brain is trying to work to protect you from this horrible thing which is happening because the alternative when this stuff gets too close, is that it can completely destroy your sense of self. Like it, like it can, it, it, it, it really, really can. And the thing which is difficult is that these things exist on a spectrum. So, you know, there's rape, but then there are all these other kinds of violations that women and, you know, women of colour experience this in a particular way that you have to contend with in your day to day life and and you're talking about a violation that you experienced um and and i i think that you know you've gone down a path of going this makes me mistrust men for me it made me

really mistrust myself and it took me a really long time to i don't know why i'm talking about this like it's a project which is finished because it hasn't um the story i told myself was that i put myself in that situation and it was my desire to be desired that got me there and then it meant that if I ever felt that feeling of wanting to be wanted that I was like you fucking idiot what are you doing um and the idea that I could want to be wanted and it wouldn't be abject that I wasn't then opening myself up in some disgusting way for someone to treat me like I'm disgusting like it's it's taken such a long time to even think that such a thing is possible. And I just think that this very intense mistrust of either one's own judgment,

which is what I experienced, or, you know, in your case, thinking about this as being, you know, all men, is that that is a response to violation and experiences of violation, I think. And it's really hard. There's not a one crazy trick to deal with experiences of being sexually degraded on the grounds of your gender and your race. You know, I wish I wish that there was this one thing that you could do. But the things which really helped, one was, you know, I've always had these friends who happened to be, you know, straight guys who I would trust with my life. I would literally trust these guys with my life. And the second thing is, I think, a romantic relationship where all of these different

dimensions that I've described of friendship, of desire, of comradeship, they're all there. And because that foundation, like, I have no. doubt. I've never doubt. And like even when we've been like at log ahead sometimes or dealing with something really, really difficult, I've never felt disrespected by him. I've never felt that he's lost sight of my humanity. I've never felt that what he wants to do is degrade me or treat me as an object of disgust. And that's not to say that these these feelings, of trauma or the desire to shut down or, you know, these sort of like maladapted responses

don't kick in. I mean, of course they do. But I think because our romantic relationship also has its foundations and these other kinds of connection, it means that I can go, this person respects me. They really, really want to keep me safe and they fundamentally see me like a human being um and i think that that's why i've been able to kind of open up the box of trauma a bit and go all right i can understand how this impacts me but yeah i saw that you seemed quite i don't know moved or impacted when you were what ash was trying to say is she saw me cry when she was just when she was uh talking um i think it was what you what was it that you said particularly that made me it was about being degraded

I was thinking about you getting degraded and all the women getting degraded and it's just really upset and I just kept thinking why why do they do it like why? And then I was like I don't want to think why about a whole gender anymore because the other thing that I'm grappling with

and I wanted to ask you about is first of all how do you I guess take the things so for you it's the case of like if I'm not disrespected then I won't disrespect them in turn I think is it's kind of what's going on here it's like you've never felt disrespected by your partner how do you take that from just like one individual and be like okay if another man is disrespecting you don't what's the word you don't impose what he is doing in a whole gender because if that was happening to women so fucking pissed off.

I'd be like, we're all like this. How dare you? So it's the shame as well. I don't want men to feel shame because I think so many men will be listening to this and they'll be like, from the get-go, we teach, rather than teach men to see women as equals, we teach them, well, not us specifically,

but like society teaches them that they are monsters who will probably hurt women one day and that they have to learn to regulate the desire to hurt. And I think that's the worst possible way of creating an equal society because you are teaching an entire gender that they are seeped in original sin, that they are destined to hurt other people, and that they are somehow almost biologically differentiated. Like it's biological essentialism, essentially, if you're born male, that you're taught these things. And that's just not true. It's just, it's not something that's baked into you through your DNA. and I don't want to also perpetuate this idea of like you should be ashamed to be a man

because there was lots of men in my life who've just taught me so much that I've like loved I just find it very difficult and I want to move past that but stop degrading me stop degrading me so I think I think there's lots of lots of things about this I mean like the first thing is that like I don't have a dynamic with my partner where his job is to reassure me and that's really important because if we had that dynamic where I was like tell me that I'm safe he could never ever make me feel safe enough ever so I don't have that expectation he makes me feel safe he makes me feel respected but I'm not treating him like a vending machine for something which will never ever be enough so I think that's the first thing second thing is that

this isn't just with my partner this is also with you know my closest straight male friends is that I also know some of the more fucked up things about them either their experiences or times where they haven't treated women with respect or times where they have grappled with their ability to hurt someone. You know, we've talked about the fears that they have

of, you know, if I get really drunk and I hook up with a girl in the next morning, she says that I violated her. Like, you know, I'm really aware, that my lapse in judgment could really hurt someone else and permanently fuck my own life as well. And we've had these conversations where I think because of all those years of love and trust, it means that they can offer up these fears and these doubts. And maybe, you know, I'm sure that there'll be some people listening to this being like Ash has Stockholm syndrome or

something. But like it, the most frightening thing to me is, is the sort of bifurcation of self where a man can degrade women and at the same time never ever incorporate that into a sense of self whatsoever. Whereas to know men who are thinking about this and grappling with it and are scared by it and are frightened by it and can express fear and doubt and pain about some of these things I mean how can I see them as anything other than human

right as anything other than human and that's really helped I mean you know it's not that I don't complain about men or if you know I'm cat called or something bad happens

or you know one of the things I really hate that I really really hate is that you know get people DMing me on Instagram asking me for feet picks which I know it's not the most, like, you know, it's not like they're asking for like whole picks or whatever, but it's still like, you know, I want a sexualized photo of you.

And I'm just like, fuck you, that's not my, this is literally not my job. And you know it's not my job. At no point have I ever said this is part of the Navarra media experience. You can buy a bagu from us. Ash, that's the most deranged. And in fact, in fact, you should. Charles's going to be viewing. Where can we buy a bagu, Ash?

I've completely forgotten. It's Navarra.com slash shop, I think. Navarra Media was horrendous. Horrendous promo ever heard. But you know what? You can't get in the bagu. There's going to be no little piggyies in the bagu. There's no feet picks.

There will be no feet picks. And I feel this real rage. And I feel this rage over the entitlement. I feel rage because it is a form of violation. And when I'm talking to my partner about it, I go, hey, you know the opening shot of kill Bill, or the bride's face is all mushed up. I want to do that to the guy who's sent me this. And we talk about it and we talk about, you know,

what are the cultural machines which make, you know, when I'm saying men, I'm not saying all men, but I'm saying like the people who are doing this are men. You know, what the cultural machines that make men like this? Like, I do just think, like, the sort of saturation of porn through our society, makes men like this you know I don't want to get into it

so again trigger warning trigger warning trigger warning but like during the rape itself I was being treated in this pornified way like I remember it really really well I was being treated in this pornified way so like you've got this machine which is training

men's sexuality training them for how to treat women and you know I think that men are victims of that machine too you know I think that it's something which robs them of their humanity and it robs them of their ability to experience desire and explore desire in a sort of authentic way but because I've seen men wrestle with that and that is a part of the friendships that I have with them like that makes me love my friends more Makes me love my partner more, makes me connect with their humanity more rather than less.

I think obviously if I had straight male friends who stuck around, I'd find it easier to not slip into this sort of like, because I feel, I think it's so, it's such a lazy misandry that I have because I know better. And honestly, when I'm interacting with random men, like I can humanise them so much, it's when they get close to me. And I think, again, writing it down and hearing what you're saying about the men you have around you, I think I feel a real sense of betrayal for the men I've let get close to me. And I do think that I have agency there. Like, I've clearly chosen these men. I've chosen them.

I've let them in. What did I recognize in them? And when I look at it, it's really the friends as well that I feel betrayed the most by because romantic partners, like, there's two things that, you know, there's two people in that relationship. You create that relationship. I played a part in the dynamic. They played a part in dynamic.

There's like one ex who I think is so lovely and really nice. And he's the one that I was never like fully in love with. So make what you all of that. And then another one who probably was the biggest one who like fucking hates me and thinks I'm this devil woman who ruined his life. But that's, that's its own, that's got his own stuff. Whereas I look at the male friends and the thing that jumps out, if I went into my id, if I said, what does the inner child say right now?

the inner child would be like I thought you really wanted me for me and that boils down to what you're talking about of respect as you as a human being a whole human being rather than what it actually was with these specific male friends I'm thinking of where

most of them it turned out had sexualized or desired me and then one of them was using me as an emotional stopgap almost until they could get a relationship and that's what really hurts in that like there wasn't this mutual response

there but maybe I never respected them fully so how can you build a relationship built mutual respect if deep down you're holding something back I don't know but one of them I really think that I did there was mutual respect and it turned out there wasn't I feel particularly betrayed by the like the last one who I do think like lightly sexually harassed me and kind of until until I succumbed and that was really difficult kind of to grapple with and I don't think I fully processed like that relationship because it was a friendship for a long time and then suddenly I was being sexualized in such an aggressive way and it was either like go along with it or don't and I'm not saying that it wasn't that it didn't excite me in someone's

way but excited me in all the ways that felt like really wrong in my body have you ever had a consensual sort of like sexual experience that everything feels wrong about yeah it was like that the whole time there was this weird off canny all the way in the building of it was it was kind of like do I want to do this or do I just feel like I should do this because it's so it feels so wrong and yeah but I think on some level there is something in you which at the time was feeling well I don't deserve better than this yeah no I absolutely like I was in a low low place I think when that happened but it was it really did come at sort of like a worse the worst time and that's not coincidence that but it was yeah the idea of like this person I had been friends for

a long time and I thought we really had like a mutual trust and then suddenly it's It's like, you're squeezing my ass and touching me in places that I haven't ever let you touch me before without me saying so. And that just sort of like kept happening. And it's like, oh, you did just see me as a piece of me the whole time. You didn't respect me. And you were just sort of like biding your time until you could see that I was in a low enough place to accept it on some level.

Even though I don't think that was a conscious decision on their part, I think it's an unconscious instinct and that really I think has fucked me up a little bit more I mean I think I think it's also something which fucks men up and I'm just I'm thinking through conversations that I've had with my male friends and have had with my partner is that like you know when I talk about situations like this right and I'll be like oh you know this happened to my friend or like blah blah blah and I'm I'm really like everybody load up we ride at dawn one of the things that they say is that like well one of the things which is really really difficult as a man is that, you know, you've got this culture of extremes where on the one hand there is an extreme

social cost. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'm just saying like it looms large for men, an extreme social cost to being the guy who crosses a sexual boundary, right? So that's on the one hand. And then on the other hand is we haven't got, it's still very much expected for men to make the first move and to initiate romance and sexual contact whilst also having no fucking like healthy socialisation for how to do it. And also there can't be a healthy socialisation where all the pressure is on, you know, one side to initiate and make the move and not the other. So I'm not, I'm not saying like, oh, you know, it wasn't this guy's fault really. I mean also like the beauty of being an adult is to identify your weaknesses and

really work on them but like I think that that's where that comes from right so this sort of like social cost to um you know being uh perceived as sexual predator in the one hand and then the other is like but then nothing will happen if you don't make it happen why not just say because that's the thing you didn't like they didn't like me like that it's because they had I can't I don't want to get into it because that's their story but they didn't like me like that and I knew it and I think they must have known it on some level. Like, they didn't like me as enough to want to form, like, a relationship with me. And I definitely didn't want to form a relationship with them.

Totally unsuitable. But it was just, they have compulsive sexual stuff. And I was just there. And that's what feels so disrespectful as well. And I think it was. I think it was. I guess the thing I'm saying is that I think there's this more generalized problem. Yeah.

Of, like, you know, are any of us? socialised to because also if we were socialised in a healthy way to initiate sexual contact and romantic contact it would also include being able to wear rejection quite lightly yeah and i don't know anybody regardless of gender you know regardless of sexual orientation who can wear rejection lightly yeah i think that's really true like i don't think anyone can do that so It's, oh, it's, it's super rough stuff. I mean, I think there's like one more thing that I'd add to sort of like, you know, hatred of men, loving men, feeling loved.

Hate and love such a thin eye between them. At least I'm not apathetic. At least I'm not apathetic about men. Then I really would be, as Chow says, probably batting for the other team. Um, I just think that one of, like, because I love and I treasure my female friends. And so I'm not a, I'm not a one or the other. Like, you know, right now I'm talking about my straight male friends.

But like in terms of the people who are close to me, I'd say I'm a, you know, it's 50-50. But I do get something different from my straight male friends. They are quite good at pulling me out of my interiority, which is something which I really need sometimes. I'm, you know, signed up citizen of rumination. nation and it's very helpful that I have this other dimension. You know, the second thing is that, you know, with my female friends, it's a lot of one-on-one, right? It's a lot of like one-on-one. And I do have that one-on-one time with my male friends as well, but it sort of has more of a

tendency to like pull me into these bigger groups. It's like a really lovely thing. It's like it's made my social world, you know, bigger and kept it alive. And I think there's a third thing that, you know, my straight male friends can do is that my female friends are very, very empathetic people. And if they see something which might be hurtful for you, they really put the kid gloves on. And that's their way of expressing love. The way my straight male friends express love and that stuff is like they'll make the worst joke ever about it, which is so useful, so so useful, because, you know, you've got this

thing which you've been like turning over and really, really struggling with my straight male friends will say, particularly my housemate, he will say something fucking dreadful, but in a way which like really pulls me out of myself. And so I don't think it's about, because, you know, there are some people who would be like, oh, well, I just find that the rivalry amongst my female friendships or, you know, the jealousy or whatever. I don't feel that. I'm like, no, I love my you're my friends but there is there is this like um i can only describe it as like benign dunderheadedness about my friendships with straight men which i find actually very nourishing yeah i think that's true i'm just like where do i go from here because i also often i end

up therapists the straight men that i meet whether it's like on dates or with you know at a party and I think there's this weird impulse if I can't trust them at least I can be of service I don't think it's just service I think it's also a way of you trying to feel powerful yeah it is as well there was recently a situation where

I sort of like accidentally therapy someone when I was not meant to and I therapies them too well and it turned a nice casual situation into something that had to end because they realized some stuff about themselves. But I think this is, this is, this is your way of trying to establish a dynamic where you go, well, I'm going to demonstrate my, you know, 360 degree understanding of who you are. Yeah. It's terrible, isn't it? And the thing is, the thing is, is that like, I know my partner

in so many ways better than I know myself. And it actually really annoys both of us because, like you can turn around you can be like you're thinking this exact thing right now and you'd be like shut the fuck up like I reserve the right to my own mind and you don't you don't actually anymore and yet at the same time they have the ability to constantly surprise you not always for the better I think that's the important thing whoever I end up with and when I have friends male friends they're going to be people that one I force myself not to therapy is automatic and support them but I'm not their therapist and also that they'll surprise me and I've always weirdly said that about the men that I date That's another key trait, the ones I end up dating for a long time.

Even if it's ended badly, they've all surprised me. I just think that therapyizing someone is not the same as emotional intimacy. And actually, I think, can be a block to emotional intimacy. Yeah, because then it's not a mutual thing. It's you. No, the relationship between therapist and patient is not a relationship of equals. No, it's not. And let me tell you, the men that I therapy is, they're not my equal.

I don't know. What a terrible way to end it. She's learned nothing. No, I hope, I wanted to do the segment because I wanted, I know a lot of men will be quite like, I know men at the moment are feeling, you know, the male loneliness, blah, blah, blah, we're all lonely. But I think a lot of men are feeling alienated and scared

and ashamed of themselves. And I think shame is a really terrible thing. And I didn't want to pretend that I'm not part of the problem. But I also know a lot of women are out there being like, fucking hate men. I don't know how to reconcile myself. Whether you date men or not, like Bell Hook says

they are like 50% of the world if we are going to build politically we have to learn to live and work alongside each other and that takes will and the will to change it on both sides the world to changes on both sides

I mean I also think a little bit I mean this is the most fucked up bit in my brain I think I had plain girl privilege a little bit a little bit I just I didn't I didn't I haven't I haven't had all my male friends fall in love with me.

But you've got lots of male friends. What I'm saying is I would select like one man to trust and probably I was selecting someone that I felt like there was a deep, you know, they wouldn't leave me. And then they end up leaving anyway because you can't have a relationship equals if it's based on like an undercurrent of something. Do you know what I mean?

So that I don't think I was saying our privilege. I think it's, we're talking about my maladapted selection. thank girl privilege let's move on though let us move on what do you do when you're in big trouble first of all you buy a bagu which which doesn't come with feet picks but does come with feet picks but does come with capacious amounts of space um because they're very big and you can buy capacious someone said to me on they were like I didn't realize the baggie was so capacious and I was like I'm going to steal that immediately. And you can get the bagu

if you go to Navar... I think it's actually shop.navara Media. Basically just go to Navar Media and shop. Shop.com. And we have our own special If I Speak section where you can buy books, including ashes,

and you can buy your bagu's for £19. They are absolutely massive. I took mine on holiday and I will, despite the fact you can see my unlayered hair is getting cut

very imminently. I will post that pick it's so good I took it to the beach it was amazing it's really great the baggies are great and when you buy more bagu's we're going to start dropping some more merch too some more much and some details about we might be also doing some in-person stuff this winter just to try that too and if you have a problem and you don't want to buy a bagu to solve it then you go to if no yeah if i speak at nabaradradi.com send an email to if If I speak and Navaramedia.com.

Ash, do you want to read out today's issue, which I think is interesting because we're on different sides of this and we've both got experience with different sides. Oh, we're totally on different sides of this. Okay. Firstly, the obligatory but no less true intro. I'm a huge fan of the pod since way back in the beginning. I was never really into chatty podcasts before,

but I love listening to the open way you disagree with each other on complex topics while having a laugh and clearly having huge respect for. each other. Big assumption. No, we have huge respect for each other. We have huge respect for each other. Don't assume makes an ass out of you and me. I feel it's really influenced the way I communicate and engage in debates with friends. So, thank you. And now my dilemma. My girlfriend and I moved in together a bit under a year ago after three years together. It's overall going really well. We are very happy and in love,

communicate well and don't have any of the common living together issues couples often face around cleaning routines and so on. The one issue is that my girlfriend had a pre-existing cat when we moved in to whom I have now become co-parent by default. And I do not care for him. It's fully giving, I don't care for Job. It's so good. I find having a house cat quite gross in many ways. The amount of hair, semi-regular vomiting, and the very concept of a litter tray all bother me. There are annoying things,

like being unable to leave a jacket in the living room lest he scratch it, or have nice plants and trinkets as he would knock them over. There are also bigger, but less daily present issues, like that we could rent a smaller, i.e. cheaper flat, if not for the cat, and that longer-term trips are moving abroad are made more complicated. I, of course, know that none of these things are the end of the world, but their sacrifices I wouldn't have chosen to make.

I often feel irritated and less comfortable at home than I would like to, and I want to be able to get over this. My girlfriend and I discussed my concerns before moving in together, and she has definitely been as accommodating as is reasonable. He isn't allowed in our bedroom or the kitchen, which he was in her previous living situation. She does the bulk of the cleaning that's related to him, like scraping hair out. of the carpet, and I only deal with the litter when she's away for a longer period.

She also pays a bit more rent than me, though this is because she earns more. So I don't really think there's any more I can ask of her, and I'm reluctant to bring it up. I'm reluctant to bring it up at all because I don't want to make her feel guilty towards either me or the cat. The cat is undeniably cute and not as much of an asshole as some other cats I've known, although he still is a bit. But I feel no warmth towards him. That also makes me feel like a bit of a sociopath which adds to my woes. I actually really like animals. I sort of know that the only solution is a mindset shift on my part. I want to continue living with my girlfriend and I don't want her to give up her pet because of me. The hurt and resentment

that would cause would be far beyond whatever inconvenience I'm feeling now. But how do I do that? How can you make yourself like someone else's pet? I do you feel there might be some kind of deeper psychological issues at play around my own ability to compromise or change my lifestyle this is my first time living with a partner and I'm used to my own space I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder to resolve thank you in advance for any wise advice you may offer non-cat loving special I kind of want you to start because you have the cat and I wouldn't no I want you to start because you've had to live with a cat that you don't care for before and I just want to say like I did care for the cat in that in a practical sense I just as

this writer says, felt no warmth towards the cat. And I thought I liked cats. Honestly, you just got wait for it to die. You have to wait for it to die or you hope that the roads where you live do its thing. No, that's a glib answer. I don't think there's psychological issues at play with the cat. I think it's interesting that you've brought up psychological issues at the end, which suggests there's something else going on elsewhere that you fear around your ability to compromise and live with another person and have your own space

I think it is perfectly normal if somebody foists a small living sorry watching ashes if it's fall out if somebody foist Yeah the steam came out of my ears and then the ear pods just popped out I think it's perfectly normal if someone foist a small living creature on you

that you have had no part in choosing that you might not like it You, a cat is a real responsibility. A cat, I would say from reading this letter, don't have kids yet. You don't, you don't want the responsibility at all. And maybe that's something that's hanging over this and that you and your girlfriend need to discuss. Because a cat is a child, essentially, just one that will live a modern, only about 18 years and then it's gone, 18 to 22. But if someone comes into, came into my house and said, here's a baby and it's living with you now, would I enjoy that experience?

I don't think I would at all And so having a cat that you haven't chosen in your flat That is now restricting your ability to do life I don't think that's about compromise I think that's the simple thing of like You've had something imposed on you You have to accept it because you accepted it when she moved in You already discussed it

The discussion is closed Once you said yeah I'm going to live with the cat And I'm going to lump it You kind of have to put up with that Or break up that's sort of it. Like, but you don't have to like the cat. You have to come to a place of apathy and acceptance until it dies.

That's what I think about the cat situation. And I think when it dies, which might be in 20 years, sorry, and you might not even have to live with it by that point, think very carefully before she gets another one. You don't like cats and you don't like caring for small things. And I don't think you should have children in the next five years, at least. Think of this as a blessing. It's a trial run for a kid. Okay. First thing is that I actually don't like house cats very much. I think that cats need to be able to roam outdoors because house cats tend to be a lot more neurotic. So because they're not out and they're not, you know, wreaking havoc on the local wildlife and they're not climbing trees and they're not getting into fights with other cats, like they're bringing all of that.

indoors and it means that they are just more hectic in my experience. I've always had outdoor cats. I've always had outdoor cats like for this very reason. So Musa, particularly in the summer, it's like, you know, he struts out, he comes back in, he wants his cuddle and then he's like, I need to go murder a butterfly now, goodbye. And it's great, you know, he's got a life of his own. And also I don't like dealing with litter boxes, which obviously like times and Moose has been like injured or unwell or when he was a kitten and couldn't go out, I had to do. I don't,

I don't like those stuff. And house cats introduce a catty smell. Yeah. Like, you know, and it's not, I would just describe it as like, caty.

I just want to say I would get a cat if it's lived outside because we've always had outdoor cats. I just would never get a cat in London now to live inside. Anyway, please continue. Yeah, yeah. So I can totally see from a practical and non-psychological perspective that

that because this is not a cat of your own choosing, all of these sort of like practical material elements can be really, really frustrating. However, this is a classic step-parent scenario, right? The kid is not yours, but you know in order to be with the woman, you've got to, you know, accept the kid. The thing I would say as, you know, the child of a step-parent is that I think it's really difficult

to go this is your cat I'll do these little things but ultimately it's yours I think you actually do need to view this step cat as a shared parenting project because otherwise there's only going to be resentment

there's only going to be resentment and it's always every time the cat does something like vomiting or whatever or does a big shit somewhere where it shouldn't be that's going to be something which you sort of put on the chalkboard of your girlfriend's sins, right? It's just psychologically. And I'm 100% applying dynamics that I've seen with a step family to a situation with a cat,

but I do think that that's going to work the same thing. The second thing, and I wonder, like you've said, oh, you know, we don't have any of the usual problems or conflicts about cleaning or whatever. Clearly you do. It's just cat-shaped. And I sort of think that like, just because you're finding something a bit difficult about living together, which in this case is a cat, but it could be anything, right? It could be anything. It could be, you know, annoying habits or cleaning or work schedules or whatever. Moving in with someone is hard. I mean, it's so different from not living with them. It's so different from essentially being, you know, a guest in their house. And you might, you know, you might even stay over for a few days at a time or even a week. But living with them all the time is so, so, it's like, you know when you go on holiday with your partner and you expect, like, oh, it's going to be so great because we're going to be so relaxed. And it's like, no, it's actually really difficult because everything is a negotiation between us. And suddenly that feels really fraught.

And I don't always feel like I've got the emotional capacity or skills to handle that negotiation well. That's what you're experiencing now with moving in together. But I wouldn't freak out that it speaks to like your inherent inability to compromise. You're having to build up muscles that you haven't used before. And it is about sort of like the negotiation of space and the compromises that are involved in it. I do, however, wonder whether you might be jealous of the cat. And hear me out, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out. But when we first got Musa, special ones who haven't been long-term listeners,

Musa is, I'd say my cat, he's my son. My baby, my beautiful baby. Me and my partner knew we wanted to get a cat. There was a particular, you know, a cat that I wanted you. He was just from a lady in Nunhead, but when I met him, I fell in love with him, and I was like, it has to be this one. And the weekend that I could get him, it was a week. that my partner happened to be away on a holiday with one of his maize. And so I got like a few

days bonding time with Musa before he got back. And when he got back, he was a bit jealous. Wait, is Musa a shared cat? What, between me and my partner? Yeah. Yeah, he's our cat. He's your cat. I never knew that. I never knew that. I never knew that. I never knew that. I know he's our, he's our cat, but he's, you know, the ferocity of a mother's. love is spiritually um you know i'd i'd go to jail for this cat like i'm not sure that my partner would take it that far um but like when when he got back he was a bit jealous because you know at that time moose was a little little kitten like you need to feed them really regularly they're tiny and he's in a new place and he just need a lot of love and he you know my partner

felt a bit displaced in my affections he shouldn't have gone away when moose arrived why wasn't he Why wasn't he in the labour? No, while I was that pushing, screaming for the epidural. But he was, he was a little bit, he was a little bit jealous, and it was temporary. Like, it was fine. And now, now he is, he is the pater-familias. He is, you know, Musa's father. Is Musa carrying on his name?

Although, although not really. Really, at the vet, Moussa has my son. Sorry, everything you find out of this cat is your cat. It's because if we ever had an acrimonious breakup, no court in the land. There you go. That says everything about who's the true parent of this cat. Oh, yeah, 100%. But, like, he had to sort of admit that, like, oh, I actually have to, like, share your time and your love with this.

this thing and then as soon as he could admit it he got over him um so yeah i wonder if you might be feeling a bit jealous of the cat that could be in that i'm just thinking about your husband surname or moose and your surname works so much better with mooster snake so much better okay on that note on that little cat note on that note um we'll wrap it up see you cat lovers next week also yeah the litter box you can't you can't be doing with the little box I don't like little boxes I'm really um really having had to change them I just why why do it yourself anyway right bye guys clean out your litter boxes bye wow

Thank you. Thank you.