Love Lives - #32 Body positivity in dating and relationships with Megan Crabbe

Episode Date: May 4, 2018

Feeling good about your body - whether you're single or in a relationship - has a huge impact on how you relate to other people. So this week we're thrilled to be joined by body positivity advocate Megan Crabbe, who is perhaps better known as her Instagram handle, @bodyposipanda.Rachel and Livi share their own struggles with learning to love their bodies and how this has affected their dating escapades, and Megan shares her top tips for feeling happy in the skin you're in and embracing whatever shape or size you may be.If you'd like to fill your Instagram feed with wonderfully empowering body positive accounts, here are some of our faves:https://www.instagram.com/bodyposipanda/https://www.instagram.com/aliceandpeanutbutter/https://www.instagram.com/allisonkimmey/https://www.instagram.com/mynameisjessamyn/https://www.instagram.com/selfloveclubb/https://www.instagram.com/laikenrichelle/Don't forget to join our Facebook group to stay up to date! https://www.facebook.com/groups/millennial.love/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, the Independent Lifestyle Desk's weekly podcast on love, dating and relationships. Hosted by me, Olivia Petter, lifestyle writer.

And me, Rachel Hosey, assistant lifestyle editor. There are quite a few podcasts out there about dating, but we don't feel like any of them really reflect the harsh realities of being two single ladies in your 20s battling through the joys and struggles of single life, as Rachel and I very much are every single day. And that's why we decided to launch Millennial Love. This week we are super excited, I am literally so excited,

to welcome body positivity advocate, social media influencer and author Megan Crabb, whom you may know better as Body Posse Panda. Megan, hi! Hi, thanks for having me. We are thrilled to have you here. I think I first discovered you. Well, not discovered you, but you know what I mean. I came across you for the first time probably about a year ago. And you have genuinely changed my world because it was really my first steps into body positivity and the whole community. And now I follow like various people on Instagram. But it was sort of finding your account was the first time.

but it it was sort of finding your account was the first time it sort of the message got through to me that oh wait a minute your body can still be beautiful and worthy of love if it's not really skinny and having fat on your belly doesn't mean there's something bad about you and it just blew my mind it was a message that no one I'd never really seen before. So I love what you do. Do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about where Body Posse Panda came from? Sure. First of all, thank you. That was really sweet. So Body Posse Panda is basically something that happened completely by accident.

So I've spent the majority of my life hating my body. I had an eating disorder when I was a teenager. And I was just always dieting. You know how it goes. You lose weight, you gain weight, you lose weight, you gain weight. My life. Yeah, basically. So that's when I was a teenager and I was just always dieting you know how it goes like you lose weight you gain weight you lose weight you gain weight my life yeah basically so that's what I was doing and then four years ago I stumbled on this little community on Instagram it was very small and it was just a bunch of people talking about loving their body as it was and calling themselves fat like gasp that shocked me but embracing it saying in a good way and just saying you know everyone is deserving of acceptance and respect so I was like mind blown can I swear yeah yeah okay I was

like shit um this is a whole new world and it really it changed everything for me and it really healed like so much of my stuff so I thought you know what I want to pass this on I want to tell more people about this I wasn't expecting it to become a thing I think I had like maybe like 97 followers when I first like started posting about it just like really casually uh and it turned into a thing and now you have over a million right yeah it's weird I can't imagine what that feels like knowing that the things you post go out to a million people every time it's bizarre it is no but you you do it so well so well and I mean we know what the internet's like I'm sure there are horrible trolls and everyone as well but you know to be to be reaching that many people with such a positive message yeah it's brilliant is amazing so hats

off to you thanks i think it goes to show like like you were saying nobody hears the message that they are worthy and they are good enough and i think that's why it's turned into such a big thing because we are craving it like especially i think women of our generation yeah we've had enough of the bullshit and we we want totally more positivity this is it it's been drilled into all of us. Like society is so ingrained that like you must be thin. If you're not thin, you're not good. You're not good enough. You're not attractive. You are flawed if you're not thin.

And it's just not true. It is just not true. But today, so we're going to take this whole idea and focus in on relationships and dating. Because obviously this is millennial love after all and we have got so many interesting topics to discuss and so many things I cannot wait to get Megan's views on. But first, Livvy, what's been going on? I haven't really got any updates in the old dating life to report on unfortunately. However, I was writing about a new dating trend today that's been doing the rounds

this week in the media called orbiting so it's sort of the new form of ghosting whereby a person who has ghosted you so they've just cut a full communication with you out of the blue and have just stopped replying to every message then you notice that they start engaging with you on social media so that could be either they're watching your Instagram stories or they're liking your tweets or liking your Facebook posts they're not replying to your texts or answering your calls but they're still just lingering around in like the social media sphere which I think is really creepy and quite passive aggressive very relatable and I spoke to a few relationship experts to ask them which I think is really creepy and quite passive-aggressive. So relatable, though.

Very relatable. And I spoke to a few relationship experts to ask them, you know, why do you think someone would behave in this way? And they said, well, mostly it's probably because they like to keep their options open. Yeah, like punching someone. Yeah, exactly. And some people are just nosy, to be honest.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I did notice the other day that a guy I went on one date with a few weeks ago viewed my Instagram story. We don't even follow each other. And I was like, huh. Yeah, that I did notice the other day that a guy I went on one date with a few weeks ago viewed my Instagram story we don't even follow each other and I was like huh yeah that happened to me the other day I went on a date with one guy and I went on a date with one guy and I noticed that he had watched one of my Instagram stories but neither of us followed each other and it's just quite weird I think because they know you'll see it I know but it's just so strange that that's now a world that we operate in like if you want to see my Instagram stories like just follow me or at least have like a separate account well yeah or get your friends to do it that's what we do yeah we

have done that before guilty how have you been oh not my finest actually I've been a bit ill which is just annoying honestly I thought I wasn't someone who got ill very often but I feel like this is the third time I've been ill since we started this podcast I know I asked you that question but I very much know that Rachel has been quite unwell because the last three days she's been coming in hi Rach how are you doing hi every single day I know I'm such a bore to be around but it's also just incredibly boring so I can't cancel my plans every night. And it's like, ugh, I'm not good at doing nothing. I like doing stuff, but apparently I have to rest.

But this arguably has come at a good time in that I finished my dating app detox for April. I gave up dating apps for a month. And so I'm back on the apps. We know it's only been a couple of days. But I'm also like, why? Why am I doing this? Because I went on a dating app last night.

And I decided to count how many swipes I swiped before I swiped right. And it was 74. Wow. 74 swipes. Wow. I don't know if that says more about me or about, I don't know what. But I'm a bit like, why am I doing this? You know what, though?

I think with those apps, the algorithm works in a way that the more active you are, the more you come up on other people's. But that's irrelevant to who I'm swiping right on. But maybe they haven't seen you yet, is what I'm saying. I'm not talking about matches. Oh. I'm talking about who I'm swiping right on. Oh, sorry.

Misunderstood. Yeah, I'm like, I can't meet someone in real life and I I'm like I'm not gonna sweat right on someone who's a bit oh I don't know anyway anyway before is a lot I know this probably says a lot about my issues I mean do you find yourself like getting more judgmental as it goes on or are you hopeful at the start yes yeah yeah I am but I don't know I don't know it's just I've I've I often I've decided being picky is not a bad thing because I feel like often I would just invest too much time in conversations and then the guy would ask me out and then I'd be like I don't actually want to go out with you why have I wasted my time with this yeah but hey ho that's where I'm at it's really great not my cheeriest intro ever sorry guys

Megan what have you been doing uh well I'm uh kind of devastated because I don't know if you know this but they took RuPaul's Drag Race off Netflix this week they did it there's like there's only three seasons left and my friend has been like begging me to watch it for like years and I finally get into it I've been watching like five episodes a day no shame and now it's gone and it's just gone and it's like they do that i don't know it's like the rug has been swept out from underneath me so i am ankylos i am just netflixing just i really feel i hate it when that happens you know what i got an email the other day from amazon prime being like dear olivia just to let you know grey's anatomy will soon be removed from amazon prime we know you're a fan so we're just giving you some warning.

I was like, are you fucking kidding me? It's so cruel. So cruel. So cool. 13 seasons. Gone. Just like that. Did Netflix warn you?

I mean, it did, but I like to believe that it wasn't true. And then it went. So other than that, I've just been, you know, crying and hugging my dogs. And that's basically been my week. At least you have dogs to hug, though. Oh, babe, do you not? Well, they're crying and hugging my dogs. And that's basically been my week. At least you have dogs to hug, though. Oh, babe, do not. Well, they're at home with my parents and I miss them so much.

Oh, sorry. Let's be more cheery. Hey! Should we do bio of the week? Yes, let's do bio of the week. This is a great one that actually we got sent by a listener. So thank you for that. And actually, if you do, listeners, see any great bios on your dating app travels, please send them in.

Yes. Okay, so this is joey 33 trump is the president of the united states of america brexit is actually happening david bowie is dead all of this is to say that there are far worse things in the world than going for a drink with me i think it's good i think it's good i'd type right on that i mean obviously it potentially depends on your political views whether you think that's good or not. But of course. But I like his message. I think it's funny.

Points for originality. Thank you for sending it in. And I hope you got a match with Joey. All right, guys, let's get into it. Body positivity in dating. I just think this is a topic that we don't talk about enough. I love that body positivity movement as a whole is growing, but there's still very much this idea that I'd be more attractive if I was thinner.

And that's an issue. That's definitely an issue. Like, why do we think that we can't be sexy if we have... Also, it's kind of changing because I think people are like, oh, yeah, no, it's so sexy to have, like, boobs and a bum and hips. But, you know, for a lot of women, we don't look like plus-size models. We have belly rolls and cellulite on our thighs. Yeah, and the idea of having body confidence

feeds into the dating world so much and the way that we behave in relationships because obviously if you aren't happy with the way you look you're not going to feel worthy of and i'm talking from experience here you're not going to feel worthy of someone someone's love and attention because you just don't think that's possible because we're so much harsher on ourselves than other people are yeah and there was a study that refinery 29 did in 2016 with 12,000 people aged between 18 and 65 on how body confidence affected their dating lives and they found that the those who did say they had body confidence was so much more successful in their romantic relationships than those who didn't and

of those people who were interviewed I think it was only 20% who said that they were totally happy with their bodies I think I think we need to spend more time like questioning where the idea comes from yeah that for example thinness will make you more lovable or more worthy or more deserving and I think hugely it comes from diet culture and if you look at the diet industry if you look at you know diet plans one of the big promises is when you are thin when you've lost weight your whole life will fall into place it will be perfect and you'll find the person of your dreams you'll have a fairy tale wedding you know it's right there and we're kind of fed that every day like if you just look at a magazine article it's like I lost 50 pounds and married my soul mate and you know I'm so

in love and that message is literally everywhere so it's no wonder we feel like we are not worthy of like finding someone good for us until we're thin absolutely and it's even more nuanced than that like you look at romantic comedies some of the most famous ones, every Richard Curtis film, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, all those ones that we watched when we were younger. The leading lady is always stick thin. I know.

Always stick thin. The one that's at the center of the romantic story. They might have a fat friend. Yeah. But she's just for comedy value. If there is a fat character, they're always the funny friend. Oh, she's either funny or she's getting a makeover. Yeah, exactly.

Classic. To be acceptable to society. It's just absurd. And it's everything from that to then the mannequins that you see in shop windows who are smaller than even the tiniest of humans, by the way. I was walking down a high street the other day and I was just looking in these shop windows

and it's just mad. You look at the mannequins' arms. They're just smaller than a child's arms. And when you can think that the average dress size in the UK is a 16, I just don't understand why this is the view that every single shop is presenting to the world. Yeah, I know. It's so messed up. And another thing, which I think is a huge problem, when it comes to heterosexual relationships, is that this other

image we're sold all the time is that the woman has to be smaller than the man. And this drives me nuts. But it it's it's also something that you know has been really instilled into me i'll tell you a brief story i was dating a guy no i wasn't even dating him i was on one date with this guy not that long ago and um he was like six foot one ish i'm five foot nine so he's quite a few inches taller than me but um you know not a particularly massive guy and he dropped into conversation because he'd been talking about this I don't know athletic thing he did and how you know he lost loads of weight through it and he dropped in how much he weighed and then I I realized I

weigh more than him and that made me feel like oh oh God, that's awful. That's not right. I can't weigh more than this man who is like A, a man and B, taller than me. And that's not how it's meant to be. Like I'm too big. I'm too big. And that's not right. And why?

You are so not alone in that. That is literally something that, certainly for me, like I've believed since I was in primary school, I remember being on the playground and being like, oh, you need to get a boy who can pick you up and spin you around. Right. And you were like a feather-like princess. Like, that is such an ingrained thing.

Yeah. And it's a load of nonsense, absolutely. And I think that also plays into kind of roles of masculinity. I I mean it's not just we don't have to just be small it's you know the man has to be big and pick us up and that's just as damaging for them as well I was gonna say I actually encountered this the other day I was showing a friend of mine it wasn't even a friend I think it was my grandma showing my grandma I talked to my grandma about dating quite a lot she's really funny we should actually get her on the podcast she was talking about Bumble she was like so you met him on bumblebee and then you spoke on twitter is that the bird i was like it's just one big animal kingdom anyway um i was showing her

pictures of this guy and she was like oh livy he's very he's very thin i was like that isn't even something that crossed my mind but as you said it goes into that whole like ideal idealized vision of masculinity it's like this big bulky guy well yes I have another story on this actually a few years ago um I was dating a guy and he was you know pretty lean and for me that was never I never thought that was a bad thing I I found him attractive in his body shape and I remember I dropped into conversation at some point going oh but you know plenty of us girls like lanky guys because I didn't I never thought that would offend him but he that really offended him and it turned out it was something he was really insecure about and

at the time I was like I don't get it but then I thought about if he'd said to me plenty of guys like chubby girls I would have been like why would you say that even though I know that I shouldn't feel like yeah like I'm a bit chubby like that shouldn't be an insult but it's the equivalent I think yeah I get what you mean I think there is first of all I love the word chubby I mean I I'm a chubby queen I love it love it uh But I think there's also a problem with, I don't know, like validating another person based on you being attracted to them. Like I see this a lot. So most of the stuff I post online is like based on the female perspective.

That's where I'm coming from. Whenever I post about male body positivity, I kind of get this influx of comments that's like, oh, but I love chubby guys or I love skinny guys or I love this and it's like if if it was the other way around if we had posted if we were posting you know pictures of women embracing their bodies and just floods of men were coming in being like oh yeah I love this kind of woman yeah this is great for me right we'd be like piss off we're not like it's not about what you like you're so right you are literally so right and it

is the same thing and another thing about the whole size thing is i'm kind of rewinding back to what we were saying a few minutes ago but the size issue is like you know rom-coms where after a woman spends a night with the man she puts his shirt on and the shirt always drowns her very true like i would be like me I don't fit in your shirt stop my boyfriend literally gave me his t-shirt to wear two nights ago I kid you not and it was like it looked outrageous on me it was so so tight um I am without a doubt bigger than my boyfriend and it it used to bother me massively but now it doesn't at all I posted a picture just a couple of weeks ago it was when we were on holiday and there was this kind of like romantic photo setting where you know the people

in front of us the the couples in front of us the guy was picking up the girl it was so cute we got up there and I picked up Ben in in my arms I love that you did that yeah it doesn't bother me at all but that's so brilliant and how I suppose is that just something that you've got to that point with time? I think with time, and to be honest, I think it has to come from me. Because I think we kind of all know this on some level. You know, you could be with someone who thinks the world of you, who thinks you're perfect and pretty much worships your body. And it still won't be enough if you don't like yourself. So yeah, it's definitely come from me doing my own work

and not necessarily from my relationship in any way. Sorry, Ben. And it is work to learn to love yourself against all odds, against all of the, you know, ridiculous pressures that we see online, on social media, on, you know, with people editing their photos, like social media influencers, bikini models. And now there's this whole trend where people are showing the realities of the extent of how much these images are edited. But you know, that's only a handful of people. It just

makes you question like, God, how many of the other images that we see online of, you know, I don't know, Emily Ratajkowski and all those kind of girls are actually really edited. Yeah, completely. It's just a false reality. That's why I think it is so important to fill your social media feed with people with all different body shapes, people who look like you, people in bigger bodies than yours,

people in smaller bodies, and just to get that balance, I think. Totally, because that's something we can control. We can control the people that we follow. I mean, I used to follow all of those Victoria's Secret models and all of those actresses that I thought were gorgeous. And then one day I just thought, why am I doing this to myself?

Like they just look incredible the whole time. They just fill me with self hatred, make me think that I'm not going to be socially acceptable in any way. And I just unfollowed them all. And oh my God, my Instagram is a much happier place. Yeah. That's like the first

tip i told people it's like it's the easiest thing in the world and it makes such a difference yeah i think people don't realize how like learned our idea of beauty is and you can actually change your perception of what is beautiful and and what bodies are worthy and lovable and i mean that's definitely changed for me as well because i used to follow well i used to follow all the kardashians and i was obsessed with them. And at some point I just had to be like, Kim, you're making me miserable. Bye. Unfollow. Block. Yeah. And that's so important, I think, making the conscious decision to think about how following these certain people, how it's making you feel.

Yeah. And if it's not making you feel good, then just unfollow. You really don't have to. Because it's almost so entrenched that you don't recognize that it's making you feel so rubbish until you stop yeah and then you're like actually why would I do this I was gonna save this um sort of bit till the end of the discussion but seeing as we're sort of touching on it now I thought maybe we could go into each of us like obviously Megan you're more the expert than us but of things that we've done or our tips for for body confidence generally but also when it comes to dating relationships so for me a it's been following more body positive instagram accounts um and we'll put some in the show notes as well as yours megan all and you know because there's there's a lot out there and um i they've really helped me a lot actually i

think it's brilliant um also and this might sound counterintuitive but actually exercising a bit more because it makes me see sort of what my body can do and it makes me actually think less about what it looks like and I'm more like oh I cycled really fast today or I lifted some really heavy things or that's cool. My body can do that. And then the other thing which has happened by accident and also might sound a bit odd. I moved bedrooms in my flat maybe less than six months ago, actually. And I moved into this room which has sort of it's got a long wardrobe and the front of the wardrobe is mirror.

And this might sound like I'm really vain or egotistical but actually it's forced me to look at my body more like when I'm just naked getting dressed just got out the shower or whatever and actually sort of just looking at my body more has made me feel better about it and I don't know why but just sort of I think it's made me a bit more comfortable with my body and being naked so those are my tips look at yourself naked focus on what your body can do and follow body positive people I think that's very good advice Rach those are great well done thank you I'm getting there you know I'm still I'm still got a long way to go but I'm getting there. You know, I'm still, I'm still got a long way to go, but I am getting there.

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Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Libby, got any tips? I think one of my tips would be just be careful with who you surround yourself with. Because myself included and my friends, you know, we've gone through periods of time where we've lost weight gained weight for

whatever reason and I think one thing that can be really damaging is when you have people around you close friends in your life that will say things to you like oh my god you look so great like you know when you like when you've lost when maybe you've lost a bit of weight maybe you've just gone through a breakup or something and you just have so you know you have certain people that really focus on image and focus on aesthetic and they will just say comments like god you look great you look like quite slim I don't know if people really say it in that way but you know when you sort of get the impression that that's what they mean I think it's really damaging to keep people like that close to you and if you do have people like that close to you just take what they

say with a pinch of salt and don't and recognize it and recognize it for what it is um and again try not to surround yourself with people that are are a little bit self-obsessed I think what you said about looking in the mirror yourself naked is great but and I think that's very different to what I mean I think what I mean here is like you know on Instagram and on all of our social media platforms there is this sort of rich selfie culture that makes you hypersensitive to your body your angles you know the way you look in photos I know I personally hate having my photograph taken because I always feel like oh that's a bad angle and that makes me look like this and whatever and I just think trying to avoid kind of succumbing to that culture and

you know fill your Instagram feed with pictures of beautiful landscapes that's what I do very good that is good I think that's a good point as well about um setting boundaries isn't it you know some people are kind of toxic for your your well-being and your self-image and you know it doesn't make you a bad person to to recognize that and set a few boundaries and not spend as much time with those people yeah i think that's good um i would say i mean you've kind of done a good job already like you really kind of following you for like a year so i'm like give me your wisdom i think if we're talking about dating and relationships and sex and getting naked yeah i think one of the easiest things to do with getting comfortable with the body parts you don't like the

most is spending time naked and also touching your own body uh for me it was always my stomach was my most hated place I think that is a lot of people yeah yeah it definitely is that definitely is um and I just I couldn't stand my belly rolls I you know was terrified of of being on top and my body moving yeah and one of the big things for me was to stop being so physically rough with myself because I used to like tug on my skin and like oh if I could just get rid of this or just like and it was horrible and actually just touching myself with kindness you know spending a little bit of time before I go to sleep or whatever stroking my stomach you know being grateful being thankful thinking actually like softness is lovely

my stomach feels like a roll of velvet and it's and that's lovely um and just getting used to being kinder to myself in that way I think that's a good practical thing that everyone can do um and in terms of in general just keep questioning keep questioning why do I think that everything in my life would be better if I was thinner where has that idea come from why am I hurting myself to fit this image that maybe I'm not supposed to be maybe it's okay if I'm just supposed to be like this and maybe I'm lovable as I am so yeah question everything touch yourself be naked set boundaries I think that's great I have one more to add walk around the house naked if you have the house to yourself and this is actually one of my favorite things to do at the moment after you I don't really have any neighbors i live in the suburbs when you when you've had a

bath which i do almost every day because i love bathing um great i'm living i live in the suburbs and i have a bath okay sorry or a shower just once you've washed yourself okay i do that go into your room and just strip yourself well you, you're already naked, and then just moisturize your entire body. Doesn't matter what you're doing that evening. You feel like a silky dolphin. You smell like a bed of roses. It's the best thing in the world. Okay, noted.

Got a lot of things to do this evening. Okay, I want to go back into that whole sex thing, though. This is definitely a fear that I have in that if I'm about to get intimate with a guy I am so nervous about showing my naked body you know you know it's kind of like everyone feels like oh I'm wearing clothes that I like and I've chosen these because I feel good in these clothes and then you strip all that away. And God, God, you feel so vulnerable, don't you?

And like, I think this is sort of has a couple of levels. And A, I'm a bit like, oh, what if it's disappointment? What if they didn't realize I was like squidgy and wobbly and had tummy rolls? And, you know, thought under my clothes I would look different. And that is obviously scary and then it's like also what if you know because on my dating if my dating app profile if we've met on a dating app like I've put all my best pictures on there and I've put pictures that I think make me look good in and then but when you're actually just naked in front of someone you know you can't just like put forward a certain angle you you it's the whole of you, and that's terrifying.

I've definitely done that with guys where they have like abs and seem to be like rock solid everywhere, and I felt insecure then about being like wibbly. Wibbly? Wibbly and scoogey and a bit wibbly and wobbly. You know what though, I think there's a real difference between being naked with someone and being naked in front of someone, because I don't know about you, but You know what though? I think there's a real difference between being naked with someone

and being naked in front of someone because I don't know about you, but you know what I mean? Like if you're in bed with someone, you're not standing naked in front of them. And I've often have this fear of like being in bed with someone and then getting up to go to the toilet

and then they're going to see you full frontal. You know what I mean? That's different. And that's where the fear is for me. And it's like, oh God, I just can't, I can't do that. At what point do you think that goes away? There are so many sides to this. And I think for the most part,

our ideas of ourselves and our own bodies are wildly different to like anyone else's and the person that you're with. And really, they have a pretty good idea of what you look like if you've gotten to the point where you are naked and you are having sex they generally know what size you are whether you're a wibbly wobbly or not they have a good idea and they wanted to get naked with you they still did so that's definitely something to do with it and I think I don't know I think we should all get

used to pictures of us in particular that aren't necessarily what we consider the most flattering angle like you said you don't want to be seen at an angle that isn't necessarily your best but if you're more used to seeing pictures of yourself like that you'll be like yeah that that is what I look like yeah then maybe put them on your dating profile as well yeah completely actually and I think it's I guess it's sort of like rejigging that idea of what is considered best or a good angle I'm doing that in quote marks for the people who can't see me which is everyone okay apart from you two um yeah and so I I do think that that's a really good piece of advice and not not I think yeah I guess you have to remember that like you say

if someone wants to have sex with you they you know will have they will be attracted to you because otherwise they wouldn't be doing that but you know it's quite interesting as well I think we're all way more way more insecure about our own bodies and think they're so much, most people think their bodies are horrible, not horrible, no, I'm not saying most people think they're horrible, but most people think more negatively towards their bodies than anyone else does. And it's quite interesting.

I remember one time I had slept with a guy and my friends afterwards were like, what was his body like? And I was like, I don't know, do we see it? This was going to be my next question. I was going to say, do you ever? Didn? And I was like, I don't know. During, during my next question, I was going to say, do you, didn't even,

didn't even really see it. To be honest with you, too much other stuff going on. No one cares. It's so funny. Like my friends and I don't have those conversations. Like whenever a friend of mine has just slept with someone, the last thing we say is,

Oh, what was his body like? And my friends did ask me this one time, but I don't really know why. It's just, but it's not, you know what I mean? It's not like the first thing that comes to mind oh god no even though it would

be the first thing that comes to our mind about our own bodies but that goes to show doesn't it that no matter who you're with and whatever gender they are they're probably having just as many insecurities in that moment as you are they're too busy thinking about themselves to be thinking about your bodies yeah exactly right exactly i don't know I think I think it's a it's it's all gonna come it's all gonna improve the more you work on it as a whole isn't it yeah and I do think you know the older I get the more confident I get even though probably arguably if you were to subscribe to this image that or this idea that thin equals better body,

like, I definitely used to be thinner, but that doesn't mean I'm feeling worse about my body than I used to. If anything, I'm feeling better. And that's really nice. I think that's a lovely note to end on, Rachel. Oh, okay. That was nice. Right. shall we do a dating disaster yeah slight change of tone with this dating disaster

I pre-warn you but yes I agree let's do it this is a funny one okay I'm excited hi girls I have a highly embarrassing dating story that I wish to tell it's so mortifying that I haven't been able to tell any of my friends, and I doubt I ever will. I had been seeing a guy for a couple of months and things were going really well,

to the extent that my flatmates and I were convinced that he would soon ask me to be his girlfriend, or to be exclusive at least. Last weekend we got really drunk and ended up having anal sex for the first time. I had done this once in the past with an ex-boyfriend and it was fine. Not my fave, but fine. With this new guy, first of all, the sex was in like a missionary position, as in staring at each other. Is this normal?

I would like to know your thoughts. Second, midway through, it became apparent that there was poo on his penis. He casually went to wash it off without mentioning it. I was very drunk and therefore somehow was not that embarrassed at the time. We then carried on and it happened again, at which point he washed it off again and we went to sleep. In the morning he behaved normally but I have now heard nothing since, which naturally I believe to be down to the poo. I feel too scared to message him in case he brings it up. Please advise. Maybe I should delete his number and never think of him again i feel that this is worse than the story of the girl who got stuck in her date's window in an attempt to throw her

poo out the window it's definitely not worse than that story first of all no i think i mean thank you so much for sending this in and being honest and i think the fact that you haven't even been able to speak to your friends about it um is understandable but also says a lot because I personally don't have experience of this but I know a lot of people do same same and I so I did some research as to why this happens and it is very common is it not quite obvious what well yes yes obviously yes but it's very common is my point in that I think you know often this is how it happens when you decide to have anal and it's just a case of how comfortable you are with your partner at the time as to how big of a deal it is when accidents arise yeah Olivia's written on our

sheet of paper for this episode some notes on anal yes which I just really like so anyway would you like to hear my notes on anal what i really struggled to google this earlier went into stealth mode but you shouldn't no i know we should just feel but i'm at work anyway i'm talking about notes on anal right anyway apparently the propensity to actually poo depends on how deep the penetration is right so the shallower the less likely you will poo the deeper the more likely also the quite obvious one is it depends if you actually need to poo beforehand probably best not to have anal because you will probably then excrete feces i have to say i did not understand that it was she had pooed a bit during I thought it was just

that there was some like poo dregs up there from the last time she pooed oh she didn't clarify I don't think I don't know well it could it my my suspicion is that the anal actually prompted the poo to come out perhaps i can imagine that i feel like though if this guy has gone there and they haven't been they hadn't been dating very long had they was this the first time they'd had any i think it was yeah the yeah okay no no no they had anal sex for the first time no they're close to she thought they were close to being boyfriend and girlfriend okay so they must have been seeing each other for a while okay but i would say that this is probably something that this person's done before yeah like if you go there when you're not in an established

relationship he's most likely gone there before this has most likely happened before so i think i would like to reassure this person that it's probably not about that i don't think they have to feel bad about that or like shameful about that it must be it must be very it's very strange that she hasn't heard from him since well i would be very surprised if the reason he hadn't messaged her is because of this yeah so would i because you know i imagine it was probably his idea to do it the first time i could be wrong i could be wrong but either way he you know presumably consented to it so he knows what he's getting into he would have known that know, there was the chance this would happen. Yeah. And it sounded like on the night he was quite chill about it.

Went to wash it off. Fine. Yeah. So I know it's so easy to overanalyze what you did or didn't do. You know, recently I slept with a guy and then he didn't message me for days and I was like oh my god it's because I did this wrong or I was shit at this or that was really awkward and you you think that oh I did something wrong and that's why but I think often it's not it's there's there's another reason and you know she did absolutely nothing

wrong I agree definitely not also can I just point out that when you guys read the stories both of you get like five times more well-spoken it's fantastic you're so right actually you're so right like I put on like my reading presenting voice yeah you have a telephone voice I've noticed as well I know but didn't I say something in the day and I was like that was my podcast voice yes you did my sister also messaged me in response to last week's episode and went what's happened to your laugh and I was like what do you mean what's happened to my laugh and she was like it got weird okay so lots to work on um anyway please let us know what happened and if he messaged back and if he didn't well clearly he's not the one but it's absolutely nothing if if i'm like just

don't think it will be if it's anything to do with the fact that some poo went on his penis then he's a loser yeah don't have anything to do with him, to be honest. Keep him down the toilet. Yeah. Flush him away. There you go. Flush him away. Oh, guys, this has been good.

Does anyone have any other thoughts they want to just put out there before we finish? Anything on poo? Anything on anal? Anything on body positivity? I feel like I don't want to combine those things i actually think that's a very broad question not sure yeah no actually funnily enough i can't find a link there okay fine fine fine just just wanted to check um i don't know i'm feeling very very good about this whole chat about body positivity and poo sorry i need to stop bringing them together um but no it's been great it's been great guys we're about out of time which is so sad as always

but i've loved this week's chat i hope everyone else has really enjoyed it and i know i hope that for some people who perhaps weren't aware of the body positivity movement at all. I hope that this opens a door for you like it did for me because I know it's had a big effect on my life and how I feel about my body. And I really, really want more people to experience that too. I agree. Yay.

Yay. All right. That's it, guys. Please subscribe. Give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts because we would love that. And please keep sending in your dating disasters

and dilemmas and your Bumble bios or other dating apps are acceptable because we love those. If you want to send us anything via email, it's millennial.love at independent.co.uk. That is with two L's and two N's. Actually, three L's in millennial if you count the last one

okay thank you Rachel or you can tweet us at Rachel underscore Hosey and Olivia Petter one we are also on Instagram which is now a thing that we are adding

and Rachel is I think you're the same are you Rachel underscore Hosey yeah I am I'm Olivia Petter eight just to you know stir things up a bit

yeah love it and we have a Facebook group as you probably know if you haven't already turned off by this point every week this is where we're discussing dating news the podcast all sorts and we love to hear from you so all you have to do is join facebook.join you're probably already on facebook facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash millennial.love megan thank you so much for joining us oh thanks for having me i've had a great time. Oh, it's been brilliant. You've educated us all

and I hope that everyone goes to follow you at Body Posse Panda. That's the one. Great. Go and join Megan's Instagram and you'll feel awesome

about yourself afterwards. I just, I just know it. Have a lovely week, everyone. See you guys next time. Bye.