If I Speak - 86: Why do we lap up other people’s horror stories?

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

We’re coming to Manchester! On 25th November we’ll be at Contact Theatre for a live show with special guest Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There. Tickets are available now from the Contact website! This week, Moya and Ash offer a thought for spooky season: why do love hearing other people’s horror stories? Plus: Moya […]

We have very exciting news. Special ones, you know how much me and Ash love the great city of Manchester and have definitely not slagged it off before. you'll be pleased to hear that we are going to Manchester for our first ever if I speak live show outside of London. Woo!

In fact, me and Ash have come around on Manchester and had a conversation in the day about how great it is. So you see, as soon as we say something, we do the opposite. But we will be in Manchester at Contact Theatre on the 25th of November.

That is the 25th of November. And it'll be me, Moyer. It'll be Ash, Ash. And we have have a very special guest joining us. Lanre Bakere, the author of We Were There, How Black Culture, Resistance and Community shaped Modern Britain, which is a book in part about existing outside of London. We think it's going to be a fantastic evening and we can't wait for you

to join us all. You can find the ticket link in the episode description. See you there. Hello and welcome to a very halloweenie, if I speak. Joining me as the pagan, the witchy, the mystical, Moyen Lothian McLean. How you doing? Have you sacrificed any goats? Do you think I'm witchy? I feel like I'm in this headband. I wouldn't say you're super witchy, but you have, I would say you have like a little facet of witchiness that you turn on sometimes.

So like mostly you're sort of like, yeah, city girl, pop culture, blah, blah, blah. And then every self and you pop up and you're like, I was born in a little bit. Like I was born in a hedgerow and I have a culture and there are energy lines. Oh, there are energy lines. Actually, yeah, witchery was a large part of my childhood because when you're in the countryside, you just can't escape from the old, this land contains more knowledge than you'll ever know vibes. And to the degree that when my stepdad made me and my sister brooms, like made brooms,

beautiful brooms with proper spindly twigs at the end and like a I and she told me she managed to fly I did believe her did you'd like jump out of a window no but she told me that we would just we'd jump off like a little thing at the end of the garden and she was like I hovered I actually was in the air for like a minute and I was like oh my god sleigh yes you were believe women you so were but no we couldn't fly but we did make potions all all the time. Did you make potions? Are you a potiony person in Tottenham? I mean, no, just super malt. No, I mean, I think it was like bath time potions, you know, so sort of like, but that's kind of like when you're like three or four. I think I had like a little goth phase in my, like, you know,

when I was like in my tweens and I thought being a goth would make boys like me. That didn't work. Then became a communist thinking that would make boys like me. And it did just many, many years later it did it did make boys like you with a mixed bag some like amazing boys and some like neck bids and but that is true of any anything really that's just true in life anything in this life um you've got questions for me oh my god do i yes okay sure i have questions for you definitely questions for you and the first question is this you have been cursed by which oh no Which curse would you rather live your life with? You can read people's minds,

but you can't ever use the knowledge that you gain from it. You just have all the people's thoughts and know what they're saying. Or you can teleport, but you have no control over where you end up. I think teleporting, but no control over where you end up, I need some more details. Would it potentially kill me? Like, could I?

I think for the fun of it, let's say you're not going to end up in deadly peril, but you could get injured. How badly injured? Not life-threatening. Okay, yeah, then the one I would want is the teleportation. Because it might be good, whereas the thought of knowing what people really think and having no means to use that information to either mine or society's benefit, but mostly my benefit, would drive me insane. What are you? If you think about that, that's actually just anxious and being anxious. Being hypervigilant and anxious.

Because you think, you know, I was thinking, and you can't use it for any benefit because it's actually probably not true. Look, this is the thing that I say to my partner all the time because, like, a really frequent argument we have is that we'll be talking about a situation, right, usually involving other people. And I might not know them very well or know much about them, but I'll be like, okay, like here's my take on what's going on, blah, blah, blah. And it's like this and this is their dynamic.

And he'll say, you have no evidential basis on which to say any of this. And I'm like, but I bet it's true. Like, and he's like, no, it's going to jumping to conclusions and that's bad. And I was like, it's only bad if I'm wrong. Like, I think hypervigilance is a superpower. And he thinks it's insane. We all, I think everyone who does hypervigilance thinks it's a superpower because, as my very good therapist says, it's a coping mechanism and it has helped you cope.

she's like well it has that's why it's so hard to let go of because it has helped you cope it has helps you get through here but she's like it becomes outdated and if it's only a little bit broke don't fix it she doesn't say that my therapist does not say that okay next question okay you can't say musa for this question oh no you're which what's your familiar i don't think musa would actually be a good familiar can i just say can i just say He's my son. He is not my helper. All right.

You know, he's got his little, little walnut brain. You know, I wouldn't say that he's my familiar. I do often think about what would it be like if he could talk. But like, he'd probably just say fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, chicken. I saw someone on Hitch do a really funny one where they were like, it's because it says, what would my pet say if they could talk? And the person was like, shut the fuck up, human talking all the time. time.

It just was like, I just cracked, it cracked my shit up, seeing that. Because a dog probably would be like, a dog would be like, shut the back up. I would say, for a familiar, you want them to be resourceful, and you want them to be able to go to places

where you can't go. So, probably a crow. Yeah, that's a really, that's a really solid choice. And in fact, in the Witches of Yore, obviously was quite associated with them. So I think that's good traditional. On that basis, it's like, it probably would have to be a rat, wouldn't it?

I hate rats. What about Ratatooie? I was thinking about Ratatoui this morning. Never seen it. Propaganda. Propaganda. Propaganda. Rodent propaganda.

The malign pore of big rodent was on that one. So I've not watched it. It's a lovely film. I'm sure. Like, part of it is about the rat. Have you seen that like Jordan Peters in Supercut by the way which is like give a man a fish heat for a day you give a man a rat you satisfy his rat desire

I don't even know if it's real but it's like been put together in a way which is deeply Oh I got fooled by AI the other day We'll talk about that later that was bad That was bad But Rastatoo is actually about The emotions attached to food It's a beautiful film about food

That's I want to say you're selling it to me But it's still got a rat and so you're not But you are exposing the beautiful depth of the movie. Okay, I have a third question. Shag Marry Kill. Ooh. Queer edition.

Oh. Ursula. Hermione or the witch that Sandra Bullock played in practical magic. Okay. Kill Hermione. Easy. Killing our inner childs. Yeah.

I'm, I'm... Doop, do, do, do, do. Not even a question. man. I'd leg my own inner child, not even Hermione. It doesn't even have to be coded, right? Baby Sarker can get it. Oh, it's unsigned. Oof, I'm not co-signing that one. Okay. Who are we shagging and who are we marrying? Shagging Ursula, come on. Come on. Voluptuous. She's got all those tentacles. And all them tentacles. And then I think I would

marry Sandra Bullock and Practical Magic. I love that film, by the way. I love it so, so much. of course you do it's about it's about the daughters who had to like stay hard for the sake of the family and then they slowly get opened up by the power of love why wouldn't we love it Nicole Kidman gets to be this scatty younger sister who does whatever she wants oh Nicole Kimman's so good in it and what's the what's the like kind of what's the song which like keeps recurring as a motif is it like you're always on my mind is it oh isn't that I thought it was a Johnny Mitchell song like let me check I thought was you were always on my mind you Probably no better than me.

Practical magic. I haven't seen it for years and years and years, though. Ooh, it's got loads of songs. Because it's the guy that they kill and comes back and haunts them. Oh, yeah, it's Elvis Presley, always in mind. But they do have a case of you in it by Joanie Mitchell, which is what I remember.

Oh, yeah, that is great. But you are right, it's Elvis Presley, you always on my mind. Creepy, creepy. So creepy. Great, great instruction manual. There's a, not to be like, eldest daughter discourse, but it's definitely like hyper-independent people

are very drawn to practical magic as a film, I'd say. Just good films. Okay. Interesting. Well, let's move from creepy to creepy-er because I have an intrusive thought. Thank God, because I've got no thoughts in my head. None.

That's fine. That's fine. I mean, look, this was a thought that came to me courtesy of the lady who does my eyebrows. So that's really where we are in terms of the barrel. Ash, don't say that. The barrel's got so much more to go. We're not even, we don't even near the bottom.

There's a whole new barrel. It's fine. Yeah, there's a cake outside. It's all good. But I wanted to do something in the spirit of Halloween, but not actually about like mysticism and stuff because I'm a child of God. I'm giving up astrology anyway, so it's fine. Are you?

I have to. I've realized it's, it's, there's a lot of reasons why. But I think the main one is, is that as a even quasi-faith system, it doesn't bring you into community with other people. It doesn't. And that is like such a key thing about choosing a faith or political belief system.

I really think it needs to be in this day and age to bring you into community with other people. Astrology, as we've talked about at length, totally individualistic. And it's also bollocks. Western astrology anyway. Sorry people, don't get it me. All right.

So in the spirit of Halloween, you know that, sorry, maybe I've got ADHD, maybe it's rubbed off on me. No, I've just been drinking a lot of coffee today. But you know that line in Hay Now where Kendrick is like, shit, get spooky every day in October. No, because I'm not like a hardcore Kendrick fan. I don't know this on Hay Now, unfortunately. But there'll be a lot of listeners who've just, ears have gone.

Can't believe Ash is mentioning this song, like cross over the year. That's what I was thinking. I was thinking about October is a spooky month. Should get spooky every day in October. and we have to sit with the things that make us feel a sense of trepidation and fear and horror. So I want to talk about horror stories and specifically I want to start by thinking about modern horror stories and then we can get into the history of it and gothic horror and all of that stuff. But we begin, if you may join me in some scene setting.

I am in the beautician's chair. And I'm getting my eyebrows done. And I love the lady who does my eyebrows. I always go to the same place. And we always sort of pick up in a gossipy register whenever I go in. And she'd just come off the phone with her sister, who's a police officer in Nigeria. And her sister was telling her about a woman whose husband basically swindled her out of all her money to build some houses that he said was going to be for both of them.

And then he was being really weird and evasive and saying, things like, oh, don't tell people, you know, I don't want them in our business, you know, this is just for me and you. It turns out he registered all the houses in his name, so not their joint name, and two, he turned out to have, dun dun, done, done, another wife and family. And then we just ended up swapping stories about all the times that we'd heard about men having secret wives, secret second families, all of that. And it happens more than you'd think. Oh, Ash. It's my dad. Oh, don't worry. I think about this quite a lot. We were the secret. We were like the secret third family. No, oh my God. Yeah. Not a repeat offender.

Oh, no, he repeated like, he had an original, then he had another, then he had another, then he had us. we were like down the peckin order. Anyway, so it happens just about the amount that I think it happens. It happens quite a lot. And then, you know, just the other day, I heard a different kind of modern horror story. So someone who'd gone to a wedding recently told me that they'd overheard the guy who was getting married

saying the most hideous, derogatory, mean-spirited, horrible things about his wife on their wedding day. And to these same stories about, like, saying horrible things about wife on wedding day and you know secret wife secret family i reacted in the exact same way which is i went back to my partner and i regaled him with the tail ill and i also was like imagine if you did that to me i would kill you i would kill you with my hands i would practical magic you and you would have to come back from the dead singing a creepy ass song um I couldn't just hear the story.

I had to tell someone else. I had to pass along the fear. And in particular, I had to sort of, you know, say it to my partner who, if we were in that situation, he'd be the one with a secret wife. I don't think he would. He'd be very, he is organized, though. But he spends a lot of time either with me or our housemate. So if he's got a secret wife, it's the guy who we live with.

I, is it secret? Maybe. Or are we all just wives? We're all wives in a household, being lovely wives together. Yeah, let's break down the construct of what wifery is. Look, that is a different episode. But I wanted to think about this, and I want to think about the way in which women, in particular,

trade stories, which are about the depths of men's betrayal, the way in which men can wound you. And I also think that there's something specific about the age of social media, where we can trade these horror stories and vicariously experience the suffering of others. in a way which is more immediate and more frequent and more frictionless than ever before.

And it's not just to do with gender either. So something that struck me recently because of this escalation in far-right violence and all of these really distressing horrible stories that you'd hear about, you know, this little kid got shot with an air gun or, you know, there was a racially motivated sexual assault. and things of that nature.

I've seen the way in which the stories are circulated amongst people of colour and they're terrified by it. And so even though they live in London like I do and aren't particularly likely to experience it, there is something about that terror and that compulsion to share the horror story where I am a bit worried about the way in which, even though the story in these cases it's true, I do worry about the extent to which it makes us think of the world

as a more frightening place than it is. And when you say things like that, people are compelled to be like, no, let me tell you 10 more. No, the world it really, really is like this. So I've got a ton of questions for you about the theme of horror story because I know that you've also thought a lot about urban legends

and urban legends in dating in particular. I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that. And I suppose I want to throw that to you, which is why years, it we don't want to think about what can go right what is this compulsion to think about the worst possible thing that can go wrong well i think you kind of you touched upon like two slightly different things but they're connected by the same thread there which is the stories

about uh you know being betrayed by a partner which i think men share too and people of all sexual orientation share it's just like the idea of being betrayed by partner um or being humiliated by a friend or being swindled. There are a slightly different tenor to the stories about, I heard someone was shot by an air gun, I heard this. And I would put those into, so you have the, well, there's gossip, there's urban legends, and then there's panics. It's the broad categories that have just come into my mind.

And I'm sure there are sociologists listening being, shut the fuck up, just like that little bit. It's my show. Barking at Spotify, going, shut the fuck up. But I will not. I will continue to make up things on the spot. No, I'm broadly categorizing into gossip. What's my middle one?

Urban Legends? Panics. And I think panics take the, how would I define them? They take, I know what's in them. It's things like saying there's lots of people being spiked by needles. It's things saying like there's been a rash of people from a specific ethnic minority demographic going missing and the police aren't investigating and that they're the victims of a serial killer

all over England. That I would put in panics and they're like social panics. They're not moral panics, they're social panics and they're spread word of mouth through social media and they become, they have very little evidence evidentiary basis but there is enough there to like create a narrative and a story

and enough people saying it's true so it feels true and it becomes true to them. And then you have in the middle, you have the urban legends, which I think people know are kind of bollocks, but they love spreading them. They love talking about them, which is, I think I mentioned the annoying story that I heard about the laxative shitter. Yeah, the, um, what was the name? So this was like an urban legend. You can correct me if I'm wrong about a guy who would spike his dates with laxatives just to hear their noisy, noisy poops. Yeah, well, it used to be a tinder, the Tinder shitter

and then it evolved recently into the hinge shit eater so he wasn't just listening in 2025 the story had to escalate now he's eating the poo on all fours which I'm sure happens

but just not in this story and that was one I recently re-heard and I wrote a whole substack about how this sort of misinformation pisses me off and I can't take any joy in the urban legend

because it's so ridiculous it's so ridiculous I just can't get involved but then you have stuff like the Croydon cat killer where there were a lot of cats being killed but the cat spate of cat killing stopped long before the urban legend stopped

and it spiraled into this whole other thing and then you have gossip which is what you experienced which is this gossip but it comes with a it sounds like a social warning I'm using social warning totally wrong it's meant to be for disasters but this is a disaster it's a personal disaster it's almost like a social warning system

where it's like oh this happened to my sister and it's really bad or you know you'll be talking about a friend who has just broken up the most atrocious way with somebody and, you know, they'd screwed them over in the most egregious of ways and you tell it to someone else, you're like, I can't believe this happened. You're sort of shocked and you're titillated, like you say. There's a titillation there.

And I guess all of them, obviously there's the need to be in the no is part of it. There's the sort of entertainment value. And there's the smugness of it not happening to you. at that precise moment and the feeling of like if I know about this maybe I'd warn it, it could never happen to me, it could never do, this thing would never, you know, occur. But I'm like, why do we, why do we get off on telling stories to other people or like telling them about ourselves so much?

Because I think human beings like drama. That sounds really boring, but we love, like, it's much easy to be like, oh yeah, this thing happened and here's all these different turns, so you'll never guess what, and see the shocks to look on people's faces more than, like, it's more satisfying to do that than it is to succumb to someone and say, hey, this person got a promotion. Okay, great, end the story.

Like, where do we go from here? What do we, what do we keep, how do we analyze that? We don't, we can't apply, like, analysis and pick it apart and dissect it. It's not fodder, it's not entertainment in the same way. Whereas when you're talking about this story, it's like, it's got building blocks of, like, narrative.

There's, like, myth there, there's a start, beginning. Like, the beginning, the beginning and start, beginning, middle end, like, it's got an arc, it's got a climate, It's got all of this. Like, it's a classic, it's, we're fucking bards. We're doing bard storytelling. We're round the fire, telling the old tales of how we got swindled. But I think that the emotional shades are really fascinating.

Because no one likes this when I said this. But do you remember there was like a bit of a phase of like there being loads of documentaries and like documentary podcasts about like the Tinder swindler? Do I remember? I rewatched it the other day. But it was like a real phase of basically like romantic scams. Like romantic scams being like a really, really big source of interest. And I think that that was reflecting a cultural moment about the anxiety from like dating apps and like, do you really know someone? And when you're meeting in this sort of contextless way, you know, how do you know that someone really is who they say they are?

It's some very primal fear. But there was another thing about it, which wasn't just about, I feel. fear and sort of tapping into anxieties that we all had, there was another part which was superiority, which was about holding up these women who believed some very outlandish things and getting to have your cake and eat it. So people would talk in these like faux understanding ways of like, oh well, you know, until you've been there, you know, don't say that could never be me whilst at the same time entertaining in their secret heart that would never be me and that's the thing is that there is there is a certain dishonesty about the way in which we talk about things

and the fact that when we talk about like you know we're just trying to spread awareness of this thing that there is a prurient and titillated interest in this you know we we want to look at the car crash and we can't take our eyes away from it and sometimes there's an element of feeling superior to other people because of their misfortune. I think it's, yeah, it's definitely superior, but there's something else there as well, which is, is it just superiority? There's, I don't know how to describe it.

I'm definitely more. Yeah, I'm trying to think of are we dating the same guy where people claim to share the stories for awareness, which is a, I'm sure most people who listen have heard of our events. Also, half the shit's made up, man. No, it's, some of it's not. But that's also a sight of loneliness. It's like people go because they're lonely

and they don't have anyone to talk about. But I think one of the worst things, because I'm specifically talking about dating horror stories here, I think one of the things we fear most in the dating sphere at this juncture is being humiliated, being taken from mug, being made a fool of. Because in our minds, it's not just that person that we're being made a fool of who's taken.

It's this imaginary audience we see, watching our dating lives. We're the main characters and they were watching our dating lives and it's like, oh, I've been taken a fool I've been taken for a fool and not just like swindled out of money it's like oh they ghost me, they led me on

they did all of this, I've been mugged off again, to be mugged off is one of the most damaging things for like your social status even though actually does nothing to your social status because no one needs to know but it's funny how many people have to come as well to the internet

to tell unprovoked their own personal dating horror stories and in the comments you'll see people say stuff like, oh, you couldn't waterboard that out of me. You know, like, you can, you can pay me a million pounds. They'd never get this story out of me. But they didn't pay this person a million pounds. They've told it for free.

Like, they'll know they get traction, but there's something else there where they just need that. They know that it will come with, like, judgment and superiority, but they also, there's the need to get, not redemption, but get, like, judgment for the other person. They need to take to the court of public opinion. And they, there's just, like, And when you don't have an outlet for the anger because that person's disappeared, the focus of your anger has gone.

You can't let out on them. You've got to unload the clip somewhere. So people just are like online telling these horror stories. And they're so popular as well. So there's a real like economy around them that makes them just there's traction in that. But going back to the thing that you said about humiliation and being mugged off, I think that that's why the thing about secret wives and, you know, this guy said this horrible thing on their wedding day. like wedding day horror stories of like and then it turned out he cheated like the reason why that's so horrifying is because the nature of a wedding is that is a public declaration of commitment so this thing which is between you and you know is private is turned into this public thing that's the point of a wedding that's what's so nice about it and the flip side of the joy and the excitement and the appeal of it is the fear the fear that now if you are mugged off there is no way for

it to just slink away and be a private humiliation you know if a marriage ends yeah if a marriage ends it's a spectacle i think there's also like the enjoyment of other people's misfortune because we have it we we also exist i say we exist too much because there is such a scarcity mindset at the moment that goes beyond the material it goes also to like there's a finite amount of happiness there's a finite because people always link that to like the resources anyway so when you're like oh there's there's only so many people who can who will find their partner that they want there'll only so many people who'll find the job that they're really good or get this amount of wealth or whatever it goes into sort of like emotive stuff as well so when there's

misfortune in the world it's like good they're not doing better than me I there's superiority but it's like, that's another person who's not taking away from what I could get. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's another person who's not mining for the resources of like luck and happiness and blessings. They've fallen and that means. There's more for me. And I do have people around me who've admitted like that's something that sometimes

they play into or feel when someone else is like with someone, if that might say. I'm trying to think about like the worst things that I really think. And I'm really trying to be with the worst. part of myself right now. I think that the worst part of myself is superiority, feelings of superiority. I think that I can have a tendency, again, in my secret heart, to blame people for their misfortune and to see things that before them as a product of their choices. And that is a bias in how I understand things that I really have to cut against.

whereas, you know, lots of other people in my life. I'm thinking about, like, my partner, but also, like, our housemate is that they tend to be people who are like, yeah, you know, people are just unlucky. You know, they're sort of like, chances happen and they're random, whereas I'm like, no, there is a grand story and everything is a reflection of what you're like and blah, blah, blah, flip that round. Why do you think that? Because that's the other side of you needing to have control of things, because if

that, you know, people's misfortunes a result of their own actions and what they've done, that means that your blessings are something you're in control of and you can control things and it's not going to get out out of it. I'm so unarticulatory to take

because I'm on, but there's also self-blame. There's also self-blame. I think about my misfortunes as a product of my personality and choices. Yeah. So it's, when you look at, so when you're talking about fear, right, because what we're talking about here is fear,

the things that I think you delight in or take or feel superior about when they happen to other people, it always comes back to your worst fear. Like, I don't have a superiority complex about. What do I not care about? I don't think I care about divorce at all because I'm not scared of getting divorced

because I don't give a fuck about getting married. So that's nothing, but I don't feel a certain way about that. What I really, I'm trying to think about what stories I delight in hearing. There's loads. Particularly dating or in general. I think Tinder Swindler, that's something that I love those stories. I love those stories and I feel really superior when I hear them

because it's like I would not be taken by a fool for a man. Whereas a divorce story, I'm a lot like, I've got nothing really wrapped up in that. A divorce story, I don't feel superiority because, I mean, it's, you know, obviously there's an element of fear. But because of the increasing statistical likelihood of divorce, I'm like, there but for the grace of God. And I don't want to be made a fool of in 10 years' time

if I'm getting a divorce or something. people are throwing my words back in my face. So that's not one where I really feel superior because I actually sort of feel a sense of fragility where I'm a bit like, well, if it's not, if these other people can't make it work, there's, you know, what's to say that I can? So that's not one. I think it's much more like Tinder Swindler and maybe this is because you and I tend towards avoidance if we're going to lean into Cod's psychology a bit, is that, you know, when we

hear these stories where it's like, yeah, no, he told me. me he was a spy and I believed him. I'd be like, what? What do you mean you texted him back? Like, I was like, well, the sin came like, you know, three steps earlier. Oh, another one actually when I'm thinking of it is people publicly humiliating themselves when they get you drunk. That's one, that's a very, very particular fucking story that I dine out on. I fucking love it. And I feel a real sense of like, wasn't me. Because A, I've done it. And B, I fear it so much. losing control when you're intoxicated and inebrated under, you know, the influence of substances, whatever, like that is a very deep fear and it's linked to stuff, you know, that

I've talked about before. And so I really do, I really get a kick and like a real, um, I really feed off hearing all the details of like what happens rabidly in those situations. Again, also someone being, um, condemned as sort of like bad mind or, uh, what's, not, no, not even the nasty because you know how much nasty spirals me but like those stories where it's like oh they were like she's she's bad vibes i'm like interesting i said she as well i mean i do a he's bad vibes there is a he's bad vibes but i'm a bit like wasn't me thank god because sometimes it's me sometimes it's fucking me and i live in fear of that so my fear there before it's a relief and it's a superiority that i've got it right and i haven't fucked up this time you know what i was talking to a

friend of mine last night who is a barrister and he was on a case which involved just like a really horrific violent murder and it was really not very nice and after the case was done the prosecutor turned to him and asked

what did you think of those young men then who did this horrible thing and bragged about it and it was just it was it was horrific right the nature of this murder and my friend said and I can totally believe his sincerity because you know whatever his sins are in sincerity is not one of them he was

like oh i just really wanted to give those those guys a hug um and i think that there are lots of reasons for this he's had his own life journey and you know he's had to um you know he's experienced that people have a need for redemption and that you kind of have to allow people to um improve their lives and how you do that is through like empathy and acceptance rather than condemnation and judgment but when he said that I was like oh I that is so not in me and like I felt ashamed of myself I felt ashamed of myself that if someone asked me that question never in a million years would that be my answer yeah but that's because as you as you've talked in previous episodes about your own experiences and particular attitude as well to the penal system

Because you've been like, I do believe in people getting locked up now. Like there's some things I think you can't. And that is specifically due to stuff that you've experienced and seen the impact of. I think so. I think so. I mean, coming back to the horror element. Yeah. Because, you know, sh-p-go horror.

Yeah, put me on track. What are the things which for you, you experience as horror? Like, for me, I can't deal with body horror. Like, I can't, like, I still can't watch the substance, won't watch the substance, we'll not do it. um any scenes to do with surgery or like it you know body modification i cannot watch it and one of my most recurring dreams and it's an anxiety dream is my teeth not just like falling out um but like shattering in some way and they're splinters and they're cutting up my mouth from the inside like and i was thinking about why is it that for so many of so many people have the same recurring dream

about their teeth falling out. And I think it's because all of us have the memory of being children and a milk tooth coming loose and you wobbling it with your tongue and feeling that sort of horrible little suction from it. And I think it stays with us for some reason. It's like, ugh, that's not right. That shouldn't be a feeling.

It's so funny to say that because all my dreams that I have with my teeth falling out is specifically that feeling of like wobbling my teeth and suddenly it wobbles. And I'm like, this is an adult tooth. It should not be doing that. and then it falls out and I'm like

or it cracks and then falls out in two pieces and like oh no my beautiful smile is ruined forever that is the thing

that's body horror for me definitely as well and I think that's also why pregnancy scares me so much I'm so scared of the idea of my body being

altered to a degree that I can't control in the service of some other being some other entity and that I you know

never get it back to what it was just functionally. I might have to use fucking incontinence pads for the rest of my life if I gave birth. You never know. Your organs literally shift.

They literally move. There's an alien in my body. That's terrifying. Sometimes it can steal the calcium from your teeth and they fall out. Well, another thing to add, my child would steal my beautiful smile.

Not only would they steal my youth, they'd steal my money, they'd steal my smile. Are you fucking kidding? I'm kidding. I think body horror is a big one. What else? Like, do you mean when you say, like, what's horror? Because I have things in the real world that cause me great horror. But there's stuff that I can't, like, look away from the stuff. I just can't, I don't want to see. There's images as well that have stuck in my mind. JFK. Images from Gaza are really lodged in there that I can't get rid of. And that's all bodily stuff. I think anything where a body is mashed up. moved beyond the degree or like just a violent violence done to the flesh

really gets it's why decapitation as well when um when the Islamic state were at their height one of the reasons not just like not you know it wasn't just because they were killing western journalists at the west go fuck it's because they were doing in a medieval fashion and it feels so visceral for someone to be decapitated and such a it's like such a desecration of the flesh

and that's why we used to do it all the time in this country to people. Oh, something which I cannot. I mean, so I guess we're talking about two different kinds of horror, right? There's a horror which is, I can't look away. And there's a horror which is, I can't look at it. Well, I can't look away. And then I can't, like, when Charlie Kirk got killed, the video came up on my Twitter feed, like my secret burner account,

which thankfully I don't really use that much email. But I went on to see what was happening because I was like, oh, Charlie Kirk's been shot. How bad is it? The moderation was not moderating. I'll tell you that. The moderation was not moderating that day. I've got age restrictions, like,

because I can't be bothered to verify for my age on my fucking burner account. I refuse just to be Charlie. These are the hats they were selling at the Battle of Ideas the other week. My friend went to report on it. And they were selling just sweet Charlie, but also I am Charlie, because they had to translate it for the dumdums.

Anyway, so... If I ever get assassinated, please make sure that the... Like, sound merch, right? Like, I want money for Navarra, but, like, please make sure... It's not just sweet, Ash, I would be, I would come back to a lot of people. What would you want on your merch?

You're dead merch, your death merch. Your dirt. I'm a dirch. For my death merch, um, probably I'll be seeing you. Cool. Cool stuff. Great. Death is actually another one that I think about in an increasingly horrified way.

And not the after, not. after or anything because I think that probably just stops and I'm done, but I'm just like, God, it would be such a shame if I died now when I'm so young and hot and I still haven't done half of things I need to do, you know? I thought that and then and then Spurs won a trophy and I was like, I'm ready to go. I think, I think you want to stick around till Spurs win another one. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I'm not saying I want to go. I was just saying that like, okay. Like, can you imagine how embarrassing it would be turning up to the pearly gates of heaven and saying to Peter, like being clowned by St. Peter

about Spurs having no silverware for 17 years. Do you think St. Peter is fixated on English football? Well, how do you visit St. Peter? I'm quite interested in this. I think St. Peter's got a bit of banter. Yeah. Do you think that in like, this heaven that we're envisaging where St. Peter is

guarding these gates? Does he just have a thing where he can like switch into the register of banter? Is that part of heaven that you can get bantered with? Oh, he's got it. I mean, come on. It's a long job. It's a long job. You think he doesn't crack jokes sometimes. He cracks jokes, but I'm like, I don't know. Like, is it's, you know, like, Google Translate he can speak any language. Is St. Peter she's able to switch into the register. That's part of heaven. Your heaven. And in hell, the experiences that no one gets your banter ever. Oh, my God. Yeah. That would be such hell. Hell. What does how? Actually, yeah, what's hell like for you? Like, what is your hell? I know what my hell would be.

All right, go on. I think my hell would be a specific job I had where I had to just like rewrite viral news with the specific manager I had when I was rewriting the viral news. And that's just my life forever. Like I have to get up at 5am and take a train to from East London to West London.

And I come in with a bleak breakfast and I have this particular manager and they want me to rewrite viral news for a very prestigious organization that shouldn't be rewriting viral news and that's how, and I'm in like a very 80s style office and the toilet smell horrible.

Just like, not even stinky, just like that smell of despair. And I'm in there. Hell is a stinky toilet. Hell is a stinky toilet. It's a despairing toilet. And I'm in there. And some, yeah, I think that would,

and that's all I do all day. And then I'm, don't remember even going to sleep and then I'm back there again. But I remember it's like severance basically. Yeah, my hell is severance. My hell is severance. My hell is fucking severance, which is oh wow. I experienced a little glimpse of hell at the weekend because I was at a child's birthday party where nobody found me funny at all. Like not a single joke I made landed. Not one. Oh, gosh. Like it was a two-year-old and a one-year-old's birthday party. Did they not laugh? Were they not laughing?

No, and after they blew out the candles, I yelled speech, and nobody laughed at all. I've gone silent with horror. This is horror. Oh, wait, actually. Oh, my God. Nobody. How did you feel in that moment? I was like, I've never felt more childless in my entire life.

I was just like my childlessness is a state of separation between me and all the adults here because they all have a shared language which is having kids and you know baby free McGee sort of like rocks up and I'm like I'm just trying to crack joke and have a nice time and everyone else is like we're not here for that

we're just here to like get the party back and go yeah they were like serious they're like this is a serious occasion with no time for jokes was that the vibe? I thought yelling speech at a one year old was kind of funny but no Oh, that's a great, that's a great story. Oh, wait, I can tell my story of my awkward date.

Yeah, go on there. Which I'm dying to tell. Because, ever, is this a horror story? Yes, it's a horror story. This is a fucking horror story. Can you tell it with some gothic conventions? Yes, it's in a Victorian library. Okay.

Ooh, this is a dating horror story. This is a dating horror story. story um okay guys i asked permission to share this story before i shared it by the way the person involved told me i could share it this story is not a reflection on that spooky but it is a reflection on um awkward situations do so this is another situation where no one was laughing at my jokes this was a hell okay so i was on a fourth date with someone right this was quite recent four dates in. And the thing about dating in London is because so rarely do you get to full dates, at least in my experience, and my friend's experience, that sometimes you get a lot

complacent. And you can think like, oh, it's all going to, my friends told me after this date, they were like, we've basically written you off as booed up. We were like, oh, she's gone. And I was like, no. A fourth date is actually when you get to realize if you're compatible with someone or not, or, you know, the beginnings of the actual realization. First day is when you instantly like do I want to see them again second and third are like okay touching the water fourth you're like right are we actually compatible are we having a good time we've got the novelty out the way so this fourth date um I the person I was going on the date with likes history as much as me a bit of the incapacity was like we actually did not

gel and the periods we liked but I was like what was his what was his period I don't want to say too much it's very similar to your stuff actually Okay. Yeah, very similar to your stuff. But, you know, you have an interest in different ones. So I was like, great. Anyway, I happened to be going to, or I wanted to go to a talk at the very renowned Bishop's Gate Institute.

Now, for those who don't know, the Bishop's Gate Institute does a lot of stuff on, like, queer histories, uh, sexuality. Like, it's, it's, I think it was initially established for like church shit, but now it's like, an archive for LGBT history. So if you wanted to find, say, a piece that had been published in the Sun in the 1980s to find an example of like virulent homophobia during the Abes epitome,

you would go to their archives and you'd find it there. And there was a talk on at the Bishop's Gate Institute that looked interesting to me. And it was on the 1960s backroom pornographic trade in Soho. and I was like cool and it was meant to be about the economics of this porn trade

it was meant to be about the shady geeseers involved the corrupt cops who are getting paid off and how they made these amateur films right and I was like damn that looks interesting and it's a little spicy

and a key part of the story is I had not yet been intimate with this person I had not yet been intimate do we understand what we mean here I understand So, I was like, let's go to this. It'll be interesting.

A little bit spicy. And they were like, yeah, I'm so down. I'm down to clown. That sounds great. Right. So on the site for this talk, it was given by a, I think a professor or doctor, whatever, very well-established academic who is at a Midlands University, preeminent in their field. Okay?

Legit person. And on the site it said, you know, some of the material here will be. 18 plus and I was like yes fine okay we were all adults expected some clips expected a couple of photos so get to the bishop's gate institute this talk was at seven fucking p m seven p m and I did think it was going on quite a long time it said 120 minutes runtime and I was like okay but you get in and it's this beautiful Victorian library done in like gothicy style there was a back room they'd created which I didn't get to go into which would like mimic the dark rooms of 19 Soho.

But there was like drinks. It was really lovely, lovely screening. Like it was a really good vibe. Get in. So the guy's introducing the talk. He's like, this is what we're going to talk. He was like, I've got the biggest collection of these amateur films in the whole of the world.

The Kinsey Institute, Institute doesn't even have these. Like, and I've given them all to this archive and I've been studying the economics. He's like, my interest in the economics of the trade. And I was like, okay, cool. And then he says, so I'm like, you're, And trust is not in the economics of the trade. Then he says, we'll be watching four films tonight. And I went, excuse me?

So I just turned to the person next to me and I was like, I'm so sorry. I think we're about to watch a porn film. Maybe even four of them. And I had no idea. I'm really sorry. I was like, this is totally non-consensual if it happens. But I was still sort of like, okay, so I've seen Victorian porn. and it's very like jerky it's very funny it's like it comes in on his penny farther yeah yeah it's that kind of vibe it's like and it's the camera work and the technical uh progress at that stage was such that it's just like you can't watch that really and be titillated which is why they had those massive photo books because that's where they got all their article from so i was like okay maybe it's gonna be like that maybe it's gonna be like victorian and it'll be like five minutes and it's fine but estelle's like i'm really sorry we can leave if you want and the person's like no no it's fine it's chill

And in real time, I'm realizing that this is sort of like a, do I, am I, do I want to be into it with this person? Because this is really going to clarify it. And then the academic says, now for our first film. And all I will say, Ash, is, yes, it was clarifying to watch a silent, 20-minute, hardcore pornographic film in black and white. in black and white where the camera work

had greatly improved oh they'd really come leaps and bounds they were close there were close ups this was horror there was real horror going on because the way this woman was getting

it was penis in vaj and it was hardcore penis in mouth penis in every orifice at one point they stopped the couple in the film they stopped and they went to the bathroom

and I was like great fucking how finally it's finished this is over because I was sick there being, at first I was just, I was very, no, I wasn't composed at all. I was giggling. And I was like, he-he, I'm so sorry. And I started crack at me, like, I can't believe I'm watching a porn film with a man that I don't think we have sexual attraction. I don't think we're sexually attracted each other because we're not responding to this in a way that would suggest we are, we're both like, what the fuck's going on?

So at one point, this is one I really was like, I needed to get out of it. The, like, they stop, the couple who are copulating stop, and they go to the bathroom and they lather up. They lather up big time. They're soaping up. And then they put it on their genitals. And I'm like, great. Look at the hygiene involved in this. And then they start fucking again. And then they started fucking again. And the girls behind me went, she's going to get a UTI. And I was like, I can't watch this anymore. I can't see. And I did sit through to the end of that porn film. And then I told the person I was with, I was like, I'm going to not watch another of these because I actually can't. Also, I'd been reading and a dork in

pornography at the time so I was very harrowed anyway by the violence of it but it's even more violent when there's no music and you can't hear what they're doing like you can't hear even the sounds of them fucking you can't even hear her going her fake bones you're just watching someone getting railed it was it was really harrowing anyway it reminds me of something that happened to not one but two of my friends really did they go on a date with which was um no no no it wasn't pornographic but um two of my friends separate from one another, either were taken or took someone on a date to see a film called It's Hard to Be a God, which is like a really gross, like, you know, time travel movie

where someone's taken back to medieval times and it's all like infected wounds and like body horror to really sort of hammer home how gross it was to be alive at that time. Not one but two of my friends made that mistake. Did what happened to their burgeoning dates? Oh, that, it, that got killed. I mean, like, yeah, ours, I will say the connection that I ended the next day. I won't say who ended it. But my silence says you ended it.

Right, shall we move on to a dilemma? A dilemma. If you were to send us a dilemma, a problem, or simply a funny story about a date that you've accidentally been to see a porn film on, then send it to If I Speak at Navaramedia.com, that is, if I speak at Navarra Media.com. Right, am I reading this out or are you? I just saw a very long story. I did a light edit for brevity, but it's still very long. So, Moja, I give you full permission to

skip around details that you think don't add to the story, but I wanted to keep the voice of the special one in text. It's special and I love you so much, but this is long. was fuck. Please. Okay. Special one, have mercy. All right, let's start.

Dear Moy and Ash, thank you for both being the best podcast host and for never failing to brighten up my Tuesdays with each new episode. I'd also like to highlight to the listeners that the act of drafting your thoughts about a problem in an email format is a really great way to begin processing them,

even if you don't send it. Edit this note. As we have pointed out in the past, sometimes I think special ones send this act of drafting when they actually don't want to and then they send us an email saying please don't read this out and sometimes we have already read it out so please do the 24 hour test of drafting and then thinking do I want to send this right back to the problem earlier this year I found myself in a networking scenario which led to me being put in touch with a much more established

senior white man in my industry he's based abroad so we were put in touch via email and had a Zoom meeting he gave me some really useful advice a few months went by and I emailed him again as he had expressed that he really believed in my work and I was welcome to email him with questions at any time. He mentioned he'd be in the UK the following week, to which I suggested meeting in person over coffee if he had the time. I didn't think much of this. It's a standard way for freelance creatives to meet in a professional capacity. And it's doubtless what we'd have done in the first instance had he not been based abroad. We met for coffee, which was pleasant and professional, and it established what I felt was a clear mental, mentee dynamic. We talked

strategy, but also spoke more broadly about things like art, spirituality and how these affect us as creatives. I'd mentioned wanting to visit an exhibition in the air, which he was keen to see, so we ended up going together. After the exhibition, he asked if I had to head off or if I was hungry, and I was honest, saying I could eat. In retrospect, I can hear what you're thinking, as we're talking about this, and the words date form are in my head. In Ray. Ash is doing it. You got it. Motion. I probably should have taken the opportunity to head home, but he was having a nice time. He took me to an expensive restaurant. He'd been a regular app when he lived in the area.

It was fancy and candlelit, which I noted but didn't take to be suggestive. We ordered the meal, but my ears perked up when he began introducing more personal topics of conversation, signposting he was single, and at one point speaking specifically about age gap relationships, to which I offered neutral and diplomatic responses. He then pivoted and began to speak very concretely about professional matters. We parted ways. I thanked him for the meal. He thanked for my company and suggested wanting to see me again before flying home, which I sidestepped as there wasn't any explicit need for us to meet in person. He then said he would email me the documents and resources discussed. A week went by. He emailed to say that he'd be in the city again the following day before flying back home, and if I was free to meet in the late afternoon, or evening we could go through the documents he had mentioned, which he hadn't sent me and discussed the details. yes to meeting after work and I realised now I was responding to a feeling of urgency under time pressure. We met and he immediately complimented my appearance. There was little room for

ambiguity. He said we could discuss work over coffee first and then we could move to a restaurant for dinner. It felt like a bait and switch. The work we discussed over coffee felt like a meeting that could have been an email. It seemed he was exploiting the polite agreeableness I tend towards in professional scenarios to push its own agenda. I found myself. I found myself, on a date with a man 30 years my senior who I wasn't romantically attracted to under false pretences. When he mentioned moving to the restaurant

I didn't feel able to say no. I'm just seeing how long this is, okay, really there. He took me to a lavish seafood restaurant and encouraged me to order whatever I wanted. Parts of the conversation felt laden with innuendo which I responded to with neutral attempts to redirect. It felt like he was boundary testing with enough plausible deniability

that would have felt disproportionate to have called him out on anything. For instance, he encouraged me to order martini. I said no. He then offered champagne, which I declined. He then suggested a glass of wine, which I accepted. Perhaps I should have just committed to not drinking. Notably, he's tea total. He asked me if I liked oysters. He tried to insist on dessert, but I declined. Instead, I had to get home. But again, I enjoyed the meal. I enjoyed the parts of the conversation that remained appropriate. When he parted ways, he left on a professional note, saying he'd email me a useful contact. I felt left feeling more amused than creepy. out and I suppose somewhat flattered that he wanted to impress me so much. I called my friend on the way home and we laughed about it. I also had to laugh at the irony of him offering to help me with seeking investment while spending hundreds of pounds taking out to fancy restaurants. I don't need dinner. Give me the money. A few days later I started to feel weird about it. I noticed myself

not wanting to wear the outfit from that evening which he had complimented. I reflected on the experience and felt ashamed, even though I know rationally I have nothing to be ashamed of. I don't know if I should just completely shut it down and cut contact, or if there's a way for me to firmly re-assert my boundaries and maintain the professional connection. I also hate the fact that my initial reaction was to make adjustments to myself, choosing not to wear an outfit I fear might invite the wrong attention, or wondering if my creative curiosity could be misread as attraction or sexual openness. How should I navigate this going forward? Thank you for you. so much for taking the time to read this.

I love your special one, but I did really take the time to read that. Fucking out. I think the fact that special one put in so much detail, and just so you know, I did take out like whole paragraphs. So this is shorter. This is shorter. I think the fact that there's so much detail in there and special one feels the need to go over everything,

like beat by beat by beat by beat by beat, is because they're trying to make sense of something that feels like kind of a bit violating and a bit weird and they're trying to work out for themselves like, oh, you know, where did I go wrong? And then also there's a certain, I would perhaps suggest defensiveness, which is like, but I didn't do anything wrong

and like, you know, why should I feel this way and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think that that's a completely normal way to feel when something like this happens where you think you're in one scenario and then the ambiguity just keeps building. So it's not that there is a decisive break from professionalism or, you know, an initiation of physical contact or something like that,

but it's just this, like, building of ambiguity. And then suddenly, you know, like a current, you know, in the sea, it's taken you a lot further away from where you wanted to be. And I think this happens to lots of people. I mean, it's happened to me loads of times. And there were some details that I took out, but special one says that they're from, you know, a more working class background, the 25 person of colour, in an industry, which is very, very nepotism heavy. And I think that that place you're coming from, which is not really feeling like you belong, right?

You know, your place in the world that you're operating and is more precarious than other people. And I also think that you are special one, if I may suggest a bit of a people pleaser. That's part of why you ended up in these waters, which were so far away from where you wanted to be. because what's really notable all the way through is that at no point when you felt uncomfortable

did you assertively redirect to what it is you wanted. You know, when he said, all right, let's do coffee and then dinner. You could have said, no, just coffee. I've got dinner plans. You know, when he said, you know, when he was making the conversation more personal, you know, you could say,

I want to stick to what we're here to talk about. Like, you can say these things. And I say this with gentleness and with love because I think this is something that all women have to learn in particular, but also like everyone. And it's hard because it feels unfair when you already feel that you're at a disadvantage because of your age or your class or your gender or your race. But no one can say no for you.

So you say, well, I didn't feel able to say no. But the thing is, is that no one can say no for you. No one else is going to say no for you. It has to come from you. And the shit thing is, is that, and I've been in this situation, sometimes you have to be willing to leave money on the table to abide by the integrity of your no. And it sucks, but that's something that all of us have to learn, I think.

What do you reckon? Yeah, I mean, I think this is something that you do. It's hell. It's hell that you rub up against these situations. but they often occur at this point in your 20s. I definitely remember them coming around then. And it's not, like, we live in a patriarchal system. I always say shit like that, but we do.

We live in a patriarchal system. So it's not just going to be young women. It's young people in general. And it's often young women because of the structures that surround us. But you will get young people of all types, when people in positions of power and older you will find yourself at some point usually and this is not everyone

but it's a lot of people that I know forced into a sort of weird quasi-date and you're like what am I doing here and why am I talking to you when I just wanted to have a coffee to discuss something professional like why has this turned into this thing why has it been subliminated into the date form and I don't really have very useful advice

because Ash has really said what you need to do it's like the learning that you can say no and it's also learning that what this person will do for you I would say 99% of the time 97% of cases will never match up to the feeling of being able to say no it's never worth the profession advantage that this man would give you

would never be worth the price of the integrity or the price of like the feeling of the shame etc and some people would argue, no, you know, there's, I'd rather, I'm glad I flirted with this person or I'm glad that I went to dinner with this person and yeah, okay, they slews all over me, but now I'm a VP at this company and fine, whatever, you're subliminating to the patriarchal system, I get it, some people feel like they don't have a choice and they want to get ahead in that way, whatever. But most of the time, the level of shame that you will feel and the level of like, ickiness and the level of also being undermined and not valued for your professional

worth and instead being valued as this person that they have power over and can literally because they're exercising their power by forcing you into going on a date. I mean, they didn't, it's the implication. It is the implication. The implication. They did use the implication to get you to go along. And it's like they pushed and they kept pushing and they found that you would, you know, eventually seed.

And it's very hard when someone's something three times to say no. because that's when you get into the territory of, oh, we're in a bad situation here. I've said no three times to you putting, like asking me if I want an alcoholic drink. If I say no, a fourth time, what does that mean for the dynamic we've got here? Will you get angry?

Will you, you know, do something revenge-wise against my, me and my career, etc.? Well, they won't usually because you actually have power here too. You just don't know that you do. I remember once a man invited me out to dinner I had a boyfriend and he had invited me to dinner

he said he wanted to discuss business I didn't work in his industry I had nothing to do with it but I was like well why would he lie why would you lie and I got to dinner

and he spent the whole of dinner talking about like his personal life and all these different things and I was like what did you want to discuss me and he made it this really bullshit excuse it was so tenuous and I was like I always had no like it was nothing in my remit nothing at all it was such bollocks and I got home and I said to my boyfriend at the time you were right because

he said um where this guy just wants to go on a date with you like why are you going why you go on a date with this guy and I was like he doesn't want to go on a day he wants to talk business and I had to learn he did not want to talk business he wanted to trick me into going on a date with him and try and impress me by offering me all this free food at a place, a restaurant he owned, and he had the plausible liability of it. And to this day, I have not gone back to the particular businesses he owns because I feel so icky and ashamed about it. I can give you some practical advice, special one. And this is actually what I do myself. So one thing is that this does happen a lot less often to me now I'm not in my 20s. And also, like, I'm bigger and I'm

badder and people are a little bit scared of me. Like, it's really good when you get to a position in your career where people are a little bit scared of you, where men are a little bit scared of you. Fantastic. And you will get there. I have confidence in you that you will get there. But here are certain rules that I abide by, which really help in terms of avoiding getting into these kinds of ambiguous situations. And these are rules which have been generated because, like you, special one, I found myself being sort of, you know, herded into a date that I didn't want to be on. You know, it's happened. So the first thing is that unless I'm with my agent or my publisher or someone I know very, very well, I never go to a meeting that's at a place where I can't

afford to pay the bill and walk out. Because that's the other part. You're being taken to these expensive places and you're 25 and, you know, you've said that you're not like super duper established in your career, you know, probably don't have a lot of money. And so that's part of it, which is this feeling of, well, I owe you my time and my attention. and I owe you not to be rude because this is so much more expensive than anything that I could pay for and I can't pay for this myself. And if I, you know, there is a level of threat there, which is if I piss you off too much, you're going to stiff me with the whole bill. So never go to a meeting at a place where you can't afford to pay the bill and walk out at any point, right? That changes

is you get to know people and you develop a good working relationship with them, but certainly for initial things. Thing number two is if someone is holding something over your head or sort of withholding something that they promised to give you like a document or something like that and says, oh, we can we can do that in person, be like, no, email it to me and then we can talk about it. Like it's, it's, it's, the conditionality has to change. Right. Again, that changes once you get to know someone and, you know, people are disorganized and whatever. But certainly with things like that, it's like, nope, send it to me. And then if we need to, and I've got questions, we can discuss it. And then if he filters away and he can't be asked with you, great. It means that a sleaze isn't in your life. If actually he remains engaged professionally with you, fantastic. Got a good professional relationship there.

The last thing I'd say is that I don't think you have any reason to feel ashamed. this is a learning experience and it's a shit one and there are things that you can take from it and apply to you know situations as they arise further in your life but unfortunately basically every woman I know has had some version of this happen to them basically every single one yeah I also don't want to like I said before I think I know a lot of young people just in general of all genders it happens to I think it is a power thing and it does disproportionately happen to young women, but, like, there's just a lot of people out there

who, we all know about the SPAD who worked in that particular politician's office who kept essentially being groomed. We can't talk about that on here. We can't talk about it. Shall we wrap it up before Moyer gets a sued? Yeah, let's wrap up if we get soon, but just know that where people,

these people rely on your impressions of their power in order to try and get you to do things that you don't want to do or put you in situations you might not want to be in and you have to realize that it being in the dark and it being secret

and being hidden that's where their power lies and as soon as you say something like no and you'd force them to make explicit what they're trying to do so if you said no I'm just going to have coffee

what are they going to do then are they going to say no I want to take you to dinner because I want to like maybe fuck you what happens then right? Like if you say no I don't want an alcoholic drink

why you're so insist on offering me an alcoholic drink what do you think they're going to say then Their choice is to either drop it or say, but I want you to get drunk. And you say, well, why is that? I remember when someone who's, like, kind of powerful in labor circles, um, like, sort of try to, like, offer me money. And he was like, let's go for dinner and I just want to, like, give you money to be you.

And I was like, there's, I might be in my 20s and I might be a bit drunk, but I know there's no such thing as no strings money. And then the next time I saw him, which happened to be the following year, he made one of the creepiest comments to me, any living man has ever uttered. And I was like, I was really fucking vindicated in that. There was no such thing as no strings money. You just wanted to create a situation of dependency, which would raise the likelihood of me having sex with you. But guess what? There is no sum of money in the world that could make that happen. In fact, even if I were dead, I would explode into atoms before you.

could even lay a finger on me. But I also want to remember that there will be people listening for who they have done that or they have felt like they couldn't say no and they'll be reflecting on how those situations went. And I always think if you have been in that situation, you don't want to be in again.

You don't have to do it the next time. There are ways out. You do have more power than you think. This whole thing is set up to make us think that we are powerless and we're not. And no is so powerful as a word. no and saying won't rather than can't oof people don't

people don't fuck with the won't yeah they won't but to the people out there who have fucked these people in a position power just because it really turns them on I see you girls one day one day I hope to be you girlies and gileys and gailies and gailies

and they lose you're valid right right this has been if I see goodbye bye Thank you.