Love Lives - Jordan Stephens discusses how #MeToo has changed the way we date

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

Jordan joins Olivia to discuss how the #MeToo movement changed the dating landscape. The actor and musician opens up about how wider conversations about sexual harassment and manipulation made him reconsider some of his own experiences with women.They also talk about coercive behaviour, emotional neglect and how the term "toxic masculinity" has been monopolized by the media and acquired new meaning.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent focusing on everything to do with sexuality, relationships, identity and more. We touch on a wide variety of topics, ranging from how to have feminist sex to how dating has changed in the post-MeToo era. I'm your host Olivia Petter and today on the program I'm joined by writer and performer Jordan Stephens to discuss dating in a post-MeToo world. Enjoy the show. So two years on from MeToo now which is so weird that it's been two years. Feels like longer. Yeah, it's mad.

So we're going to discuss how the movement has basically changed the way that we date. Jordan's done a lot more than performing. He's also campaigned for mental health awareness. And in 2017, he wrote a brilliant op-ed for The Guardian titled Toxic Masculinity Is Everywhere. It's up to us men to fix this. So when Me Too happened, I think the initial reaction was just the shock and horror at the allegations that emerged against people like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey. It was kind of at the extreme end of the scale. So I wonder, Jordan, from your point of view, how did Me Too

make you look back on experiences you've had with women well the reason I I suppose the reason I had written the article originally was because I felt as though I was stuck in a um cycle uh that was negatively impacting on my life and and my intimate life but actually almost exclusively my intimate life. I also felt it was my position to say something because already before that point I had considered myself feminist. But I wasn't, I don't think I was actually living, I wasn't necessarily living in a way that reflected that. I think I was very good at pointing fingers at other people.

I hadn't necessarily looked at my own patterns. I think accountability is basically really important. And for me personally, I needed to face some really harsh truths in order to move past them, which is painful and uncomfortable. So I think for me, it was, i think around the time the me too movement began i felt like a um a parallel with what was being spoken about but just on a mic a smaller scale um i i really don't believe i've i've ever physically abused well i haven't physically abused anyone I've been in a relationship with or anyone.

I don't know if I need to word that. But do you know what I mean? I haven't gone to the extreme, I haven't been in a more extreme end of the spectrum in terms of your wine scenes or whatever else. I have, I do feel as though the energy behind that or let's say like the suppressed pain or the wounds that I think

manifest this kind of behavior I definitely have my own version of that and that my actions as a result of that wound have I think been something I've wanted to change and that can be around I say some forms of kind of emotional neglect, coercive behavior, I'd say. I just have I just had really deep intimacy issues and commitment issues. And it was my responsibility to be able to have a look at them. And sometimes instead of instead of being responsible in that respect, I would I would show my issues through behaviour that didn't benefit me or the person I was with. And have you, since coming to those realisations,

have you been in touch with any of the people that you felt like you could have behaved better with, I suppose? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I think the article did that. And I don't think the people... I actually don't think... At the time and I don't think the people I actually don't think um at the time I wasn't with anyone and my exes I wouldn't say were that happy about it just because I was saying all this publicly after having already put them through some shit um which i totally understand and i think we all have our own ways of healing and

really my whole standpoint was in terms of my behavior um it was for my own peace of mind that i wanted to change my cycles and i've regret loads of stuff i've said and done um but really um guilt and shame are really low vibrations vibrations is a bit of a buzzword but I mean it just energetically it really does drag you down um so it's kind of my responsibility to forgive myself for stuff and and um just just do my best to put out love um to myself and others. I think the first step of that really is accountability. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely.

I think that was what was so positive about the Me Too campaign. It was opening up a space for men to actually move past some of this because I think a lot of these behavioral patterns, like I said in the article, are very damaging to men and don't they don't want we don't want to be in them but it's it's a space created by societal expectations and also i'd say um improper parenting you know i think a lot of these behaviors you can attribute that to this toxic masculinity which is something that obviously you speak about in the article how do you think those toxic masculinity attitudes can be damaging to the way that men treat women that they date

i so the word the phrase toxic masculinity when i when i used it in the article i feel like i had a different energy to what it does yeah i think i agree i think since then it's become much more of like a media term and it's sort of lost the meaning so do you want to explain what you meant originally i think just the term toxic in itself is quite corrosive which is quite funny it's not funny but um in my head it was quite clear the fact that it was toxic masculinity made it very clear that masculinity in its true essence is not toxic that's that's why i used that term otherwise i'd say masculinity um i think masculinity is like you know it's like essential that energy the fact i believe i look at masculinity and femininity as energies that

exist within any human being um and it's our responsibility to balance them and i believe in our society femininity is sometimes punished it's actively uh you know there's not even a word for someone being it's not even there's a word like you can be emasculated but you can't there isn't a female equivalent yeah so so that's you know that's kind of my main issue anyway um so the term toxic masculinity i think now when you think of the word masculinity the argument is you also think of the word toxic which which I don't believe in um so hyper masculinity um or toxic traits I don't know um but anyway my my what I was speaking of were um I'd say actions attributed to men in a general sense that were just misogynistic i'd say unconsciously or even consciously misogynistic which is i think is disdangering to the self as maybe i'll just

keep it at that i think i could babble on about it and how do you think those attitudes affect the way that men treat women it's so like when they're dating them right well so um i suppose that's yeah the toxic masculinity thing has supposedly had a light shone on it i suppose in the context of yeah of sexual sexual interactions and interpersonal relationships in my in my mind it's it's a sense of entitlement and an abuse of power in that the male sex the male you know like the physically we're more physically um dominant just biologically and i don't believe that we're raised to look at that as an as a gift to honor our physical dominance short-term physical dominance actually not not necessarily long-term that's another conversation but it's a power you know and one of the biggest moments for me in terms of my discovery of of of

or in terms of me looking at my actions um was when an ex-girlfriend of mine said to me that i'd never been she had jordan you've never been physically threatened during sex you've never felt that and I just hadn't ever it never ever crossed my mind and this was after even me considering myself a feminist that never crossed my mind I'd never thought of that yeah it's a really good point I just never in at no point ever ever ever ever in my life have I ever been in a sexual scenario and think if this went if this went I would say tits up then but if this went tits up i wouldn't be able to get out of it um yeah and so it's but it's that we're not taught that you know why would you make another feel uncomfortable um and also for me recently i've i've i've yeah well i can get to i can it's probably next part of your one of your questions is where I'm at now. But yeah, basically it's a sense of entitlement

and it's just like an over, it lacks in compassion. Why would we want to put someone in a scenario where they felt vulnerable and pressurized? And what does that say about the person doing it? and pressurized um and what does that say about the person doing it that that that's that was that's why i feel felt emboldened to say something because i'm not trying to point a finger i'm not going like yeah men are bad you know i'm listening i'm all here for for women being angry and upset and saying all types of whatever that's why i was making us directing it at guys i'm like i really believe that if we just look after ourselves all this stuff will go because i personally would never

want to be in a situation where someone wants to interact with me sexually through fear or through um like a lack of choice do you think because obviously all of these revelations are so brilliant and so necessary but do you think it's a bit these revelations are so brilliant and so necessary but do you think it's a bit bleak that it took something as major as those weinstein allegations which you know had been buried for years um it took something as major as that to actually prompt this global discussion do you think if if it wasn't for that we would be even having this conversation right now i mean it was always gonna be it was needing to be something like that someone brave enough or a group of people brave enough you know the changing the course of of history is is it starts with one you know and and the more that can that

can push through i mean i don't know look there's so many things there are so many cases that i have not i haven't gone unspoken. It's horrible for me to think about. I would like to believe that there would have been another way. I don't know, but here we are. I guess one of the tropes that we see time and time again in terms of dating is this idea of fuckboys and womanizers. And I think, you actually spoke about this in your piece.

You said, if you're one of these guys who takes pride in jumping from girl to girl or brags about breaking hearts, you have no idea what it feels like to truly love and trust yourself. Yeah. How did you come to that realisation? I think to brag about breaking hearts, which I've felt like I've been in this... Whenever I talk about that stuff stuff it's from a place of

experience um although I will I will back myself here and say I've never been I've definitely hooked up with a lot of women but I've definitely not um I don't think I've ever been quite the notches on a bedpost guy I don't think I've ever quite been like I mean but but then again I've been I don't know maybe I'm trying to excuse myself i don't know i know i was a pop star like 19 years old you know like god that's mad you were 19 yeah yeah so it's like i was i was everything you'd expect from like a young little famous boy um which would not have helped me in terms of my own balance and peace of mind, really, in the long term. But I just think of it in terms of just myself

and the guys I see around me. It's from a place of fear. I've always understood that. A fear of being loved, a fear of loving, a fear of rejection, really. You hear odd snippets of it, even in hyper-masculine situations. There'll be a moment, you hear it snippets of it even in like hyper masculine situations there'll be a moment you hear it a lot in there's some music i hear a lot and even in like the most braggy ego form of music

you'll hear the odd thing about trust and you'll be like oh it's actually not really about domination it's actually equally out of a fear of being let down. So instead of just looking at love as like, I don't quite want to settle down because I'm deeply terrified of being abandoned. People go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I broke a heart. It's a fear. It goes back to toxic masculinity, doesn't it? Because it's a fear of exposing vulnerability and emotion.

Well, there's no set, we haven't currently set up a safe place to be able to have that kind of conversation. How are you navigating relationships now? Are you behaving differently to how you did two years ago? Yeah, well, I've been in a, I've been in a relationship now

for a year and a half with the girl who I actually really hurt, or the woman I really hurt, that led to me writing the article. We bumped into each other and you know went through quite a difficult healing process um and I betrayed her and myself in in doing so and it was a very it's like a big I don't know it you know throws a lot of a lot of up into the air but I was in a lot of therapy and she's done she's we both just believe in working on ourselves and and and really trying to discover what motivates us and i i think wonderfully now we're kind of getting into a space within us

each other where where we're kind of starting to find some kind of harmony and just in ourselves because we're realizing how many of our actions are as a response to stuff that we maybe buried or don't want to admit. So how long were you together for before then? Like five months.

Okay. It's all, everything was a whirlwind to me up until last year really. Everything was like wasabi. You know the way wasabi like

That's a brilliant metaphor. explodes and disappears. that was just my life but me personally yeah so it's first time i've been in a committed relationship really solidly a monogamous relationship for this long and it's taught me a lot about love um and what happens you know when you are um when you prioritize someone and are more emotionally attentive and i've listened to books and i just the way i figured it in my head was i love learning things i love learning through experience and i've got a lot of ideas but um it's very clear to me that one issue I've had in my life is commitment and intimacy. So why not try harder than I've ever tried before

with someone who I get to learn more about, who's wonderful and who has pushed this change in a way? Knowing myself and my history now and what I've come to realise, I think it's always going to be fucking hard for me. And I think it's going to be hard for a lot of guys to fall out of these cycles because we've inherited, I believe, some very difficult behavioural patterns. We've grown up in situations that don't really give you as as much of a head start in

terms of trust intimacy and commitment and i don't think that's to be taken lightly um and i still think we've got some way to go in terms of our society in in terms of like finding safe places actually for the perpetrators of this fear of love to actually understand what it means because it's so easy to be a bad guy and I think a lot of people just slip into that role because there's actually sometimes applause for us in male circles and because there's no interest outside of it. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

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invite describes one lesson they have learned through their love and relationship experiences so jordan would you like to introduce what your lesson is yes i've got two okay that's fine hit me okay first one is listen to your intuition to your gut there are points where your body will tell you how you feel about a situation and you have like a 20 second window to listen to it otherwise you fall into a space where you're just sitting on it which is totally human but i really do believe in gut instinct and i think that's something again within the world of of the male gender or men or the male body, where we're told that, you know, you have a phrase of women's intuition.

You don't think about the fact that men, of course, have that power to just listen to their gut. Do you want to say this? How do you actually feel about what you've just said? You know, how many times are you going to go into the situation and feel this way before you do something about it? And then it's our responsibility to communicate our intuition in a loving way, which I think is something that doesn't happen either. How do you think you can communicate those ideas most effectively? If you have something in your gut that you really want to say to someone

you're dating or have been with for a long time, if you have a gut instinct to say something, maybe it could be quite easy to for it to come out in the wrong way yeah how do you think you control that i know that's really hard i don't know i mean like i think i think you you're you are to prioritize you know one thing i've i've been told or heard or read is that whether we like it or not we're representative of parents in relationships so when you become someone's primary attachment you are their parent and you in the worst moments you're representing their parent that's why they all overreact in your world

but in their world it's like the worst thing um so you just think about how you'd speak to a child and then it's a lot easier and then it feels weird because you're like in the context of love you're like we're two adults we do what we want but it's like when two people think that in the worst case scenario that's when you end up distanced yeah but if it's like if you felt intuitively like your child was doing something erratically it would be your responsibility as the person to to communicate that in a way they'll understand you know rather than being like don't do that so that's tough and the second one i've got is i really want men to care about their sexual energy what do you mean by that

i've i feel as though one thing i've learned from my experience of like hookup culture or whatever is that sometimes it's easy to think that like it's just an achievement to have sex with someone else when I just see a lot of guys like I feel like they don't rate themselves you know like in this it's just like you have a gift to give you know and like you want to give it to someone who you respect at least. Just respect. And that shows respect to yourself. And then I think when you just let go of that, it leads into these negative conversations and these like kind of corrosive patterns of like, oh yeah, well, you know, I just wanted to like have sex.

Or I want to, you know, did that kind of mentality. It's like, no, why? Like respect yourself. I'm not even saying, I'm not even getting as far as saying respect women because that'll just come if you just sit there and go like, you know,

that's what I feel. I'm not even saying people should just be in relationships. I really don't. But I really think that if you, even if you want to be having casual sex, just do it with someone who you can trust. Yeah. And do it as an intention

as opposed to just an incidental thing yeah like i don't know i i get it like listen people want to go out and get drunk and you know make a mistake like consciously make a mistake sure but i think one you run such a risk of of it being yeah i don't know i just think it's i don't think it's worth it i think it's a lot more fun to go out drunk meet someone but then actually meet him again and also like who wants to have sex once with someone really no but i really don't i really don't think it's any case for one night stands anymore yeah unless maybe you're like you have like a super super super busy like job in the city or something and you've only got time and your entire life is transactional

so like you literally don't be can't you don't have a time to build up a relationship it's the transactional she's like bordering on yeah some people are in the office really late at night during the week and they're working a weekend but those people need to meet each other they often do in orgies but i'm saying but i'm saying more like i don't parties yeah but it's just like i just don't I can't understand it. I'm all for freedom of, I'm all for free sex and free love. But I don't understand

why people would put themselves in a situation where they just regret. I've always been anti-slut shaming, man. You can actually, even when I was in the source, even when I was like

all up in my male privilege and that, oh, I still probably am. But even when I've totally unaware of my actions and what I've, I've always been against that because one thing i felt inherently in me is that someone's sexual experience is entirely there like i just don't think anyone's got entitlement to that i actually would i have some more extreme views on that i don't even believe

in the context of i actually part of me doesn't even believe in the context of love that a partner even at that point has ownership over the other person's sexuality i think they should but yeah that's it i agree yeah i think i think everyone's body and everyone's decisions around that body is theirs and theirs alone i will always i've always stood up against that because firstly of course is double standard and also because you learn this through error and I'm sure someone will understand how they feel you don't need to remind them of it if someone like I say if someone wants to have a bunch of one night stands or whatever else then do your thing from my experience I don't know why because I don't think the sex is that good

and also because sex seems to in my experience be better when you trust someone or respect them. That's all we have time for this week on Millennial Love. Follow Independent Lifestyle on social media to keep up to date with what's coming up on the show. And if you're a new listener, remember to subscribe to this series on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or wherever you listen. Also, leave us a rating and comment with your thoughts

on our conversation today Until next time, thanks a lot for listening Goodbye house. Not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash.