Love Lives - Raven Smith on masculinity, fake orgasms, and #MeToo

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

This week, we've invited back Vogue columnist and author Raven Smith for his latest searing hot takes on life and love. Raven chats about his latest book, Raven Smith’s Men, and some of the issues it examines, like toxic masculinity, keeping the spark alive in long-term relationships, why men fake orgasms, and consent.https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/lifestyle/orgasm-toxic-masculinity-raven-smith-men-b2072905.htmlCheck out the Millennial Love podcast on all major platforms and Independent TV, and keep up to date @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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sexuality, identity and more. This week I am very excited to welcome for the second time author and rogue columnist Raven Smith whose first book Trivial Pursuits was a Sunday Times bestseller. Today he is here to talk to me about his second book Raven Smith's Men and we're going to talk about all things masculinity and long-term love and consent and I can't wait. Hi, thanks for having me for a second bite of the cherry. Yeah, you are the only person to come back second time. Honoured, vaguely apprehensive. Just when you said consent and I was like, yeah, we're going in aren't we we're going in we'll ease in we'll ease in slowly slowly um to start with why don't you tell me

what drew you to this book and writing about masculinity in general yeah okay where do we start we start as many sad things start in the pandemic so week three of the pandemic, my first book came out. I was doing lots of this, maybe having a good time online on my own and sitting in my house really still with my thoughts and feelings. And I had this realisation how much of my past is connected to men and masculinity. And this idea of just recording those intersectional moments with men and me, was the idea for the book. And I said to my husband, I want to write something that's funny and light, but I can't stop thinking about boys.

And he was like, cool. And so Raven-Smith Men was born as a kind of a recording of noticings, that is so pretentious, a recording of noticings of my life so far and it has developed into a memoir of sorts but it's not chronological and it's not trying to cover every, there's loads of gaps in my history that aren't there but I and lots of men that aren't there but I just wanted to split the men up, I think I say in the book, like curds in a sauce, and just try and taste each one separately. So that's what I tried to do. But within that, obviously there was a bigger conversation about masculinity to be had at certain points. I think my fear was to be formulaic and be like,

here's a man I know and this is what it says about masculinity. Here's another man I know and here's what it says about masculinity. So I tried to be, I tried not to be a pop psychologist. I tried to be like, this is just what happened to me with this man. So how did you go about choosing what stories to include in the book? Was it kind of a process of going back through memories and thinking, OK, this taught me something or this illuminated something interesting

about masculinity? There were certain men that had to be in there, father figures, actual fathers, my dad, my stepdad, my husband, myself right now. I think it was just like, oh, I remember this so vividly and how this felt. Those were the main ones that I was trying to record um I'm just thinking about the guy that I is really important that I don't like and I just cut him out completely

but that's another story it's the kind of thing where if he still follows your career he'll see that you've written a book called Raven Smith's Men. He'll say, oh, I can't wait to see what he said about me. Nearly all of the men who have asked me if they're in it aren't. And it's not, yeah, because not every man has taught me a lesson or made me feel something different from another man. So I think I've tried to pick men that typify a certain something. Yeah, that says a lot about men though, doesn't it? They're like, oh, am I in it? Am I in it?

But nearly all of the ones that ask aren't. That's amazing. I think it's such an interesting time to be looking at kind of masculinity in general, because we've kind of got to this place where, well, we did a few years ago where toxic masculinity became like a buzzword, and there was that massive Gillette advert

that caused a huge furore online and it became a real conversation. Now I think the phrase is kind of meaningless. So where do you think we're at with that now? What do you think the phrase toxic masculinity even means? Do we even still need it? We're in a very strange time because basically words have been weaponized you know opinion has been weaponized we've gamified our feelings online and i think we are all scoring points you know who has the hottest take and the most searing slap back snap back and then we are just playing that game online. That doesn't mean that masculinity is no longer toxic, but we are living in quite a toxic world. I think the thing is, you know, the reason I write about men is because I love them. I can see how layered and problematic

and intricate being a man is, and all of that impacts on how I try and be a man, intricate being a man is and all of that impacts on how I try and be a man or just a person who is also a man in the world today and I think there are you have to just in you have to just look at your own toxicity you know there's a lot to be said about the first into the foreword is basically I can feel myself nearly wanting to apologise all the time for writing about men because women are the best thing in my life. All the best people I know are women, they look after me not because they nurture me but like the people that I trust, I'm close to, have supported me, have helped me in my career, have helped me in my life, who look after me are women, but I'm just another gay man obsessed with men. And I think I come from a time where whatever it took for me to come out

and accept my sexuality, I have a very, at the time, had a very clear understanding of what a man is and my desire for what I understand a man is. And I think, I don't think the shape of the world is going to stay like that for much longer you know I'm very happy to be a fossil a relic of my own time despite being fairly woke and modern to understand that younger people are not thinking along the same kind of like I'm a man who likes men I'm gay that makes sense to me that's whatever shame comes with that I will process I don't think that that that starting point is different for them now I'm interested by what

you said about the hot takes thing as well because obviously as you know you are a columnist it's kind of your job to come up with these jokes all the time and on Instagram as well and you know your memes and your things are often shared widely on social media but do you feel this pressure then to like constantly make social commentary about things that are happening in the world that are related to you in some way that people will come to you expecting some sort of commentary some sort of comment from you my husband i'll be like i've got this thing due tomorrow and he's like how far into it are you and i'm like it doesn't that's not we don't start at the beginning and go to the end we that's not how I write you know and I think before my last book which I love like a a very uh badly behaved child was much more stand-upy much more pick a subject and give me and boom boom boom

let's get let's have 21 liners on that subject. And I loved writing like that, but I did the thing that you're not meant to do when you write a book, which was I read my Amazon commentary. I read the reviews and people found it dizzying. And I think the world before COVID was dizzying. It was 20, 20 thoughts a minute. And I think it typified that time. And I'm proud of it. I am proud of that book. But this was a chance to be like, let me just talk about my dad for 3000 words and see where we go. Yeah. And it felt stronger to not hide behind R&B lyrics and little witticisms and to just be like, this is how it felt when he he left my life.

Yeah, well, this is this is what I said to you when you came in. Like, it feels like a much more personal journey for you and I think that the way that you're talking about writing that makes sense and it's kind of the way that I approach it as well because I think you know you can't work out how you really feel about something until you really explore it through writing and sometimes it's just about getting those thoughts down and then you kind of realize what it is you're actually trying to say yeah you know and I think with this really personal stuff that you write about, that's the best approach, because maybe it's stuff that you haven't even really explored.

It's one of those things you're driving and you're like writing and suddenly you can just see something coming in the rearview mirror. You're like, oh, that's very close. Yeah. Okay, I feel it. Okay, I feel it. Like something is with you rather than just like this nebulous thing that's happening. One of the things you write about that I really love is the way you write about your marriage with your husband, Richard.

Yes. And long term love, because I think it's something that, you know, it does get talked about more and more about how, you know, it's not about it's not about staying in that honeymoon period. And it's about kind of adapting to this new way of life with someone who is you know not necessarily the most passionate human being in your life but more of a companion and it's about friendship and all of that stuff and I think what you say you have one line in the book where you say it's often about feeling tolerated rather than adored oh my god um I love I love that tell me tell me a bit more about what you mean by that I just have a very big personality. I can't help it. No kidding. It's very, I just, you know, my husband's incredibly patient and yeah, I do.

There's just something about, I think in that chapter I'd written about Richard and marathon love and this idea that you're not sprinting in a relationship after a long time, after a certain amount, whenever that time is, you stop sprinting and be like duh we're crazy we're dizzy we're doing all this silly stuff and there's much more a calm settles and it's it's not boring but it's boring and it's also very comforting and i think i was scared about approaching the richard chapter in this book because i felt like marathon love had really typified something bigger than our relationship that lots of people feel and I was like I don't know what I'm gonna what can I add and I think it's just the idea of comfort um I don't know I've had a lot of a lot of my therapy sessions as I've become better known and I know that that is

like a tiny violin to have to be playing, getting, oh, I get recognised when I go out. But I think something about people knowing you, living, experience your life vicariously through your feed, means that the way that you're understood changes. People think they know you in a different way, and it's really fucking weird all the time and that's not again not about not the worst thing that can happen to a human and i think a lot of my therapy has been like i feel misunderstood so often in so many different situations and i think what i realized as writing this thing about richard and being like sometimes

i feel tolerated rather than adored and why isn't he able to what like understand what I'm where I'm at it's like I don't know where I'm at most of the time but I think it was this realization that my expectation of him to like constantly be giving me a bespoke new angle at how I'm feeling was it's kind of unreasonable you sort of have to look after yourself yeah yeah well we do we kind of have that expectation from our partners to to fix us and to do everything for us because it's the easier option isn't it than having to look inward and be like oh actually what is this problem in me that is causing that yeah and I think you know we might be talking about my dad a bit more in this conversation that might be connected to my relationship with the other major man in my life but I also think the more that I think um there's just something so brilliant

about writing about when I met my husband and just being like this is this like tall guy with a big nose on the night bus that's it on the night bus I love it it's so good like this guy with a big nose on the night bus and flash forward and it's like you are responsible for my emotional ebb and flow my financial security my sense of self my sense of feeling safe and secure and able to express myself my desires my sexual needs like it's crazy to just think some guy on the bus is now like, we're both like this trying to keep the equilibrium of being in a relationship. How long have you guys been together for?

How long ago? It was like 13 years ago that we got on the night bus. I mean, I'm sure people do get the night bus, but it's like pre Uber. There was no other way to get back to Dalston from the Bali Mo or wherever. And how long have you guys been married six years like next week um it's nice I mean it is nice it's awful and it's nice there's something about being in a long-term relationship where you are so in love with someone but you also hate them like I can't explain how I can find find him so annoying and be so completely head over heels in love and also

like I talk about in the book when you've been with someone that long they have all that stupid shitty nasty stuff you've ever said at your worst self they have that in them sometimes it's right behind their eyes and you're like I remember when I said that it's horrible yeah it's right behind their eyes and you're like, I remember when I said that. It's horrible. Yeah, it's so horrible. You're more exposed than anything. And I think it taps back into what you were saying earlier about Instagram and having a profile that, you know, it's so easy to project a different version of your life. Yeah. And I think we don't just do that on social media.

We do that with people that we don't know that well. And you get into a big old, who am I, all the time. But I guess that's... That's why we have therapy. That's existentialism isn't it like that's the crisis of existing. Yeah. Hey and we're in. Okay I want to talk to you about daddy issues. Okay so I don't know her. So I use the phrase daddy issues only because it's something that has been levelled at me many many times as someone who has divorced parents whose dad left her when she was four. I'm still in touch with him but he lives in America, other side of the world, very much like abandonment issues kind of situation so I get it. Get what? The phrase daddy issues is really only ever

applied to women, I think. So I'm interested to hear you talking about it in the book. And I wonder what it was like for you to explore that. And can you share with us what your relationship is like with your dad? I know you talk about your stepdad as well. Yeah. Let's start with my dad. He doesn't live far away.

He lives 10 minutes walk from my house. I probably, well, his birthday is Christmas Day. So I text him once a year, and Father's Day maybe. He is a great guy. He is not a good dad. That feels like just the easiest thing to say now. But I don't know. I think in writing about my dad, so when I first wrote my book, my first book there we go i wrote a piece

for the for the observer as press about my dad and race and this kind of interlocking of like he said i wasn't black enough when i was like five or six and it really fucked with my head obviously um so we had this so so that interlocking of like my identity as a young mixed race guy and a young gay and all this stuff mixed up with that relationship with him. And in this book I felt I wanted to further explore that relationship. Daddy issues is what you asked me. I think what I noticed more was it was quite easy to write a chapter and talk about just give color on my dad's life I found that interesting and I think there must have been a point where he was my hero but I don't I don't really remember and he must have been my hero

uh I remember thinking I mean I still think he's really cool. I remember thinking he was very cool when I was a kid. And I remember once I broke a frame and he said to my mum that it wasn't me. And I was like, my dad is cool. It's very easy. But I think in writing about... Actually, it was more from writing about my... I had this realisation's right at the end of the book the revelations of Raven Smith and I had just had this realization about how much of what I do is intended for the male gaze I just couldn't once I realized it I was like I am I women us women are all these brilliant things for me, but I am searching for male attention constantly.

I know. You've said something to me that my therapist has never said to me and now I'm like, shit, you too. I couldn't, I was like, oh my God, it's so obvious. I want them to notice me, even if it's that I'm well dressed or tall. They don't need to want to have sex with me. I just want them to notice me. And I, and yeah, and so that realisation was, and I could just hear this voice going, daddy issues. As I was writing it, I was like, how can I, I have to just, I think my dad's, I think my dad's aura is approaching in the rear view mirror.

And I could hear it in the typing of like when I was a kid my mum raised me you know single parent only child uh and it was like she had to take the brunt of all the shit of raising a kid and I go to my dad and just really want him to notice me yeah and I guess that is where we got to as a conclusion I read it I read um like an agony aunt column and uh the the reader was like I'm a lesbian but I can't stop trying to get validation from men and I was like that's my whole book wait that's my book I'm a lesbian who can't stop getting attention from men it's just so funny I'm not trying to seduce straight men yeah i am just like under the gaze is part of my yeah how i operate but i also think no there's no there's

no uptick i just realized it has um has he read the book is he going to read the book who knows the end no i mean uh my i might like of his kids, one of his other kids follows my Instagram for sure. Okay. And I posted a picture of me as a tiny baby with my parents and her and he sent it to me in a WhatsApp, like within like 20 minutes. So I know that he's following. Okay. So he might. The marvellous life of Raven Smith. It is marvellous. It is, isn't it? It is very marvellous. No complaints really. Who knows what he will say? I didn't invite him to my wedding. It's one of those things that's

just like, is this man instrumental in how I feel anymore? Not really. Am I angry or bitter? Not really. It's kind of like, he's a nice guy. He's a nice guy. And you have a wonderful relationship with your mom and your stepdad. Yeah. I mean, my stepdad is kind of magical in that he's a very traditional man who doesn't act very magical, but like, yeah, he's brilliant. And he's great to my mom. And there was, you know, I think the revelation at 14, when they met, the realization that my relationship with him wasn't dependent on him being with her was quite a big one. But it's been several thousand years since then.

So yeah, we're good. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna ask you now, this is a completely different subject. Yes. Men faking orgasms. Yeah.

You write about this in one of the essays. Tell me why you wanted to write about this and explain to the listeners what you say. I don't know why I wanted to write about it. I just think of it so, so often. And I was like, I've got to... I had this thing in the book. Well, I have this thing.

So in your life, kind of, you know, from like when you start drinking well into your 20s you kind of are collecting drink drinking tales lots of people do it I reference some of them in the book and there's this one tale when I was 16 I met a guy in a disgusting sailor-y fake sailor-y club in Newquay. We went out on the beach and I just I was ahead of my own curve in terms of my development. Not that I'd never come but like I was so worried about... I talk about what I say in the book is this porthole was opening to adult

life and I was like I'm this is too soon for me so i just pretended to come in my pants i don't think men do that i bottled it even now i'm like raven it would have been fun even bad sex is better than what you did raven no i love it because again it's i'm sure i'm sure that that that happens like it's funny because obviously i'm like oh oh, well, yes, women fake orgasms all the time. We need to talk about that because fuck the patriarchy and men can't make us cum and all that stuff. But if men are also faking orgasms, we should also be talking about that too. I had actually a segment talking about fake orgasms after mine. And then I was like, I have no authority on this.

Like, I have nothing to add apart from that sounds bad for everyone involved. If women are doing that, that sounds really bad for everyone. But I was like, I think I just changed it to like, I can't be an authority on whether or not you should be faking orgasms just to have a quiet life. No, but you should be an authority on straight dating because you have some very good analysis of that in the book. Okay good. That I want to ask you to read this passage. Yes. I read it and I thought my

god he's so right being straight sucks. Okay. Thank you. Straight dating seems to involve infinite exhausting calibrations of gender that lead you into the bedroom. It is a courtship dance, a copping off tango, a trek to naked joy. It includes, but is not exclusive to, going out tops. I sound like I hate straight people. It includes, but it's not exclusive to, going out tops, jeans and proper shoes, shaved legs, Brazilian waxes, painting your mouth red and your eyelids blue, knowing which reds and blues go with your unpainted face, clubs that serve drinks in plastic neon shot glasses, groups of men who've been sheep dipped in cologne, dancing, chat up lines, fish bowls of punch, actual punch ups, the taste of lipstick, dry humping, bra clasps, the general horny humiliation of inter-human connection, performative blow jobs, asking if she's on the pill, facing each other when you fuck. It's so good but also if your teenage early 20s aren't like that you you're missing out they should be that like i just have

this you know there's this thing i don't know how long i've been coming of age like it feels like a really like since i was i was a child and i've been coming, I'm still coming of age. I keep trying to work out when I was finally circling the plug hole of youth and moved into being an adult. But I think these experiences feel so like, oh, you're trying on normal stuff to see if it fits. That's it. You're just like when I was going out clubbing in baggy jeans, I was just trying to see what it fits. That's it. You're just like, when I was going out clubbing in baggy jeans, I was just trying to see what fit me. Hmm. Breaking news happens

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Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Yes. Which I think is also a really interesting trope that I guess, do you think that that is kind of inextricably linked to heterosexuality because of the gender dynamics that it kind of plays on with men and women? And what do you think a soft boy, I guess let's start off by saying what do you think a soft boy actually is? And how can you spot one? Oh, soft boys in the wild. A soft boy is a man who has realised that traditional masculinity is not going to get him laid.

That's really good. Bingo! That's really good. Okay, so how does that manifest? That manifests in a very kind of gent... more traditionally... less traditionally male, gentle way of sealing the deal. Yeah. The Smith lyrics, I would assume, are integral to that. Just giving more feeling.

feeling but it is again um i would say i i just i when when i think about like dating went from when i was young it was one it was like chat up lines right using like throwing the ice on the floor stamping on it now i've broken the ice can i buy you a drink get your coat you've pulled whatever i can't remember what else i can't think of any other dating chat up lines um but i just think nowadays it's all it's we have these apps that have gamified so much of our how we feel right um and i think dating apps have a similar in in the same way that um when you're in instagram for a bit you start to want new stuff dating apps make you want to couple up right and so you start to learn what works in terms of interaction and getting more interaction and whatever further down the line but you start to you gamify how you talk to people

it's really fucked up yeah it's so fun People have gamified their bodies because of you know Grindr and you know it's all part of this like you will get further up the pyramid of this app if you play by the rules of it or if you fudge the rules in a way that gets makes it work even better for you. Yeah well that's what it is isn't it I think the whole software thing is all about it's a performance but ultimately it's all about manipulation yeah because it's all about thinking hey look i'm really sensitive and i'm really in you know it's like it's timothy chalamet and lady bird yeah that's that that's the character i always think of but i have dated so many soft boys they're not just like that yeah and they kind of have this guise of being the guy that's not going to screw you over yeah which i think

is different to a fuck boy because i think a fuck boy is just kind of out there being like yeah i'm gonna do this whatever like you just know that this guy is gonna screw you over but a soft boy is like the one who's like oh sweet and gentle and actually he's the one that hurts you the most because you weren't expecting it yeah who's that's that Caleb guy? Is he called Caleb? Oh yes, yeah, West Elm Caleb. Honest to God, every gay man is doing that on an app. It's just literally how people operate. He just got...

Someone just joined the dots. Like several people he did it to were like, oh he's just... It's like people just use the same shit all over the place. So going back to what I said before, you don't think it's limited that people just use the same shit all over the place so going back to what i said before you don't think it's limited to straight men i don't well no it's different for gay men on apps it's a very different game i think because uh i do you know what i i just know so many uh gay young gay men who are just jaded they just seem so jaded from it like it's not actually i don't want to make judgments on people having free easy

sexual relationships and not having to put their whole heart into it i'll say it with their whole chest i totally get that but i also think we are doomed as a society let's go big let's go macro we're doing this as a society if people don't care how each other feel essentially but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have sex you have to be in love to have sex i'm not a pse teacher like you could you would be a great pse teacher i'm like you're all very jaded kids good luck human connection has died since i was a boy i want to ask you about rom-coms yes you also write about this in the book and you say that you hate rom-coms you don't like love stories yeah and i get i kind of get what you mean by that but can you explain where that comes from and I guess why the contemporary rom-com?

Because I think you're talking about the kind of like how to lose a guy in ten days stories. Yeah, see I hate them. So I can only name like a few that I have watched, willingly watched. I've watched the one My Best Friend's Wedding. That's a rom-com, but she doesn't get the guy. So it's actually quite an interesting one. What are the other rom-coms I like? I love Friends With Benefits.

Yeah, that's a good one. I don't know if it actually is. No, I think it is. My friend was like, this is rubbish. And I was like, no. And then When Harry Met Sally. Obviously, forever. Well, that's a great film. Yeah.

That's a great film. See, but it's more than a rom-com. Yeah. And my friend was like, but you love you love you love there's rom-coms that you love pretty woman and I was like yeah I do fuck I do uh what do I not like about rom-coms though is there's something I don't like about romance and not because it's so distinctly straight which it does feel very like roses and chocolates and flowers just kind of kind of give me the it just feels so performative yeah me too but then yesterday my husband bought me like a little chocolate I'm gonna say chocolate cock

but it's a hen from Ladderay and I was like this is so cute like this is so I feel so like he thought of me while he was on his trip so I'm now bit like, maybe I'd like some flowers. I'll leave him a note. Maybe I'd like some flowers. But rom-coms, it's like this, it's so formulaic. It's like they meet, they have some weird, silly little cute moments where they nearly get together but don't, then they get together. And I just, and every gay man in these films is a side character. He is just there being like, go girl, wear that dress girl. I'll be your sassy friend for one moment. Goodbye.

Right. Finally, I want to talk to you about one of the more difficult essays in the book. You too, with a question mark. I guess before we get into it, I want to touch on one of the things that you say at the start of the chapter where you write that being gay has its own sexual rules. Once you're out the closet there's a feeling you're making up for lost time unshackled by expectations of straightness the vanilla essence of heterosexuality there's an assumption you should be up for anything how have you felt that pressure I guess and how has that kind of manifested in your life I feel regret that I didn't like harvest as many dicks as I could in my twink years like I feel like I should have come fucking ass first out the closet but I didn't I

was still quite like I'm cool and that's kind of about I'm gay and that's cool and everything but I'm like a cool I'm like a cool straight person who happens to sleep with men. So for me I feel some residual, I wish I had, maybe this is projection right, maybe lots of people come out of the closet and don't sleep with loads of guys and have the time of their lives but I feel like there's an idea that when you're gay and once you've come to terms with that in some situations it's seen as you you are approved if you say no to to to any of those experiences that you're being offered and that is really i don't know maybe like i said this coming of age thing trying stuff on you know i feel like we're going to get on to consent i'm sure that's the thing about it isn't it because it's about it's about blurring those lines of feeling like okay well I should be out there trying all of

these new experiences but then because of that what might then be the consequences you go on to have all of these sort of not necessarily non-consensual experiences but I think there's a difference between that and unwanted sexual experiences isn't there and it reminds me of like in um Cat Person I guess like that is a story of like it's not just bad and it reminds me of like in um cat person i guess like that is a story of like it's not just bad sex it's kind of it's unwanted sex yeah and i think you know that's definitely happened to me several times and it's very clear in my mind that that's not not consensual yeah but i didn't want it and i didn't feel comfortable but i didn't say i didn't voice that because i felt i didn't feel like i but I didn't say, I didn't voice that because I felt,

I didn't feel like I could. Yes and learning to say no is like, oh that, and once you realise how you can do it, you're like there are 20 times I should have said it before today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I wanted to write about one of those times, I wanted to write about... I think we all have this bit in our past and I don't know how we, as a society, move to the bit where we all completely don't fuck up. So tell us about the essay for those who haven't read the book. Yeah. What made you want to write it and just briefly can you explain what it's about? I think when approaching when

approaching this book I wanted to talk about the men I remembered and I think I would it would have been remiss of me to have written a book that is like I love having nice sex with people that's hot and going out dancing and I'm happily married and I've got some great shirts. I wanted to be able to talk about the things that I wish had never happened, essentially, or the things I'm like, what the fuck happened there? And U2 is this moment. It's really hard to put it into something succinct, is why it's a 3 000 word essay basically because there is no hot take and i'm the i'm the king of hot takes and i was like i don't i can't i can't tell you something easy about what happened that night with that man but i guess

the thing that really struck out for me about it was that it was about you looking back and really questioning your own behavior and his experience of that night which I think is something that we don't do very much when we think about these kind of complicated stories yeah about where consent isn't necessarily completely clarified because very often it isn't, you know? Very often it isn't. Very often it isn't. Very often that's the fun of it. That's why you're like, this is fun.

Well, that's why- I wasn't expecting that and I loved it. Exactly, and that's why it's difficult. Because, you know, as easy as it is to turn around and say to someone, okay, yes, I want to have sex with you, or no, I don't want to have sex with you, in the moment yeah if you're drunk it's late at night it's worse if you're drunk yeah of course it is and very often it is

drunk the first time you sleep with someone and so it's all of these factors come into play and I think the idea of actually going back through your own sexual history and wondering was that not only was that consensual for me but was was what I did. Did they consent to that? And I think that is such an interesting, important conversation that hasn't really been included in the Me Too kind of conversations, particularly when it comes to outside of men and women. Yeah. Two things about Me Too, right? The first one is it was very straight. That's not a bad thing.

And then also, it was only people that had been me too'd they weren't we didn't really hear from any men and there was a man in every single one of the fucking stories so and i felt like is is this experience that i had i thought to myself how can i make this about me no but is the experience i had a me too a me too moment for that other person and really trying to interrogate the the the grey of it and just chew it over and then the very clear black and white bit when I'm like but this is very clear this was very this was very clear to me at the time but this other bit wasn't I think it's funny because obviously we need to hear from survivors, we need to hear from victims, but I think if we're actually going to make progress as a society and move forward and stop these kind of things happening, we need to hear from the people who are being accused and not just

I'm sorry, I don't remember this person and like as it usually happens in a response like I'm thinking Chris Knoth, you know, for example with that big story you then hear the statement afterwards it's more about them having the realization and then hearing those stories because then I guarantee if we hear more of those stories so many people would then think back to their own experiences and realize things I think I you know I write a lot about non-consensual things that have happened to me in my book. I guarantee you if I ever spoke to the men about them, it would be the first time they ever thought about it that way. Yeah. Or maybe not. Maybe our lives are full of like my, it's really difficult because there are times when I am nothing more than my testosterone.

I mean it's really fucking shit, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that about my experience of being a man, but I also hate that about my experience of being a man. And I think there are times when it's like you're drinking i was listening to a podcast the other day uh and they were talking about this man was saying when you meet someone and you you're and you like you want to have sex with them and you're like going through this like dance it's not until after you come that you know if you really like that person or if really like that person or if you had to have sex you don't actually know yeah well because your body is it's about your body it's not about your mind you know and you kind of you something you lose yourself and then maybe it's only

afterwards when the reality sinks in your life and you have centuries of genetics telling you procreate yeah procreate yeah yeah it's fucking biology man i am a sentient being i am not my balls come on so i don't want to boil it but it's real right that biological stuff is real and it's can it's not scary but it's real and then there's this like you are not you're not an ape i'm not an ape I'm a man I I care about things and I care about people and I can have sex with people in a consensual way yeah it's like they're not they shouldn't be different things yeah so it's it's kind of scary it is scary to be like that night my whatever it was got the better of my mind that should be making better decisions for me

how do you feel about the book coming out because like i said in the introduction it is so much more personal and so much more kind of exploratory on a kind of inward point of view from from you yeah are you nervous about that are you excited are you intrigued to see what your followers make of it and the conversations you might have with them yes yes yes to all of the above I think for me what what what happens when you write a second book is that you have a different experience of like what will it be like when other people there's this i read this great thing which was like when you write a book you you're building a house um and you have the you have a plan of what the house is going to be like but as you're writing it floors appear sunlight appears

somewhere like a skylight you an entire wing can open up that you didn't know was there while you're writing it when you publish it loads of people go into the house and they will tell you things that they can see in the house and you can't quite remember what it's like to live there anymore and I'm looking forward to like not being the me and my editor walking around the house being like well I guess that bean's staying up that bean stayed up um so I'm looking forward to that i think also i i was in crisis the whole of my first book how can anyone write a book it is an impossible thing to do how have people ever written books this is insane and this new one i was like i've done it before we're going there

and the only way i could do it properly was to tell the fucking truth as honest like this is what happened this is what i remember this is how it felt again and again and again and that felt good and then about in that crisis in the middle it's like the filth the the reservoir to the bottom of the condom of my life of the book but it was like wait i'm i am telling people stuff i haven't told anybody else right you know that U2 chapter I wrote in the dead of night 3,000 words poured out of me and I didn't go back even close to it until legal were involved and they were like you're gonna have to do these line edits because the book's coming out in two months and I was like I don't it's it it was a it I was the instigator but but it was trauma, right? But I was heavily involved in my own trauma within that night. And I'm probably just as involved in reliving it, reliving it, rehashing it.

Did he consent? Did he consent? Anyway, so in this crisis in the middle, I was like, oh, to a few people, would you mind having a little look at my book and telling me if it's balanced have I given too much or not enough is it funny is it too glib because I'm talking about very serious bits of like yeah can you give me some feedback and then I was like what I'm trying to do is get people to review my book before it comes out so that I can be prepared for the reviews and I was like the only way this book works is if it is completely what I want it to be and what I wanted to say and then fuck the rest

like I couldn't keep being like if I had changed it based on what those what people garnering stuff if it had then gone on whatever had gone on to do after that it would have not it can tank if it's me i'm okay with that i could i couldn't soften it or pleasant tree it whatever in order to make it feel more accessible i had to just like it has to just be me yeah and then if it sink or swim but i couldn't keep trying to make it for other people it just was becoming like it was just halfway through when I was like there's going to be other people in this pool with me I'm just swimming in this like placid pool myself and I was like there's everyone's getting in and that last chapter is like I can't believe you're you're all coming in here

I can't believe you're walking around my house. But I think that's why it's so brilliant because you really sense that when you read it and I think that vulnerability ultimately is that's what makes you connect to people isn't it and that's what readers will connect with and that's what will make it a very successful book. Yeah and I think it's a success for me because it is true. Yeah exactly. These things happened, this is what i remember this is how i felt like that that for me is is like the the the takeaway the only takeaway i need i'd love

it to you know be taught at harvard but i mean doesn't everyone want that from their book i'm speaking of lessons this is where i ask every guest to share something that they have learned from their previous relationship experiences yeah you've done this before but I know you have many lessons to share so please tell me another one that's so interesting because the conclusion of my book called everything I know about men is fuck all I'm like what have I learned but that is a lesson in and of itself I guess isn't it that you're constantly learning right yeah I mean when we pitched the book my agent was like the last chapter should be to like your future son and what and telling him every you you've learned and I was like I haven't learned anything I like a nicer way to say that is I'm always learning and growing but it's like I can't

tell you a better way to be a man I can just tell you the different jigsaw pieces that have created the masterpiece that is Raven Smith. But I also think it would be remiss of me to try and tell people how to be. It would be crazy. But the truth is what I really learned from my book and rehashing old relationships and versions of myself from the past is that I have been a very happy, happy gay man for quite a long time.

And that is something to just be like, OK, that's a good thing. elitism it's still a you know i have no shame or residual anything about coming out and being a gay man i've lived a life of extremely pleasant faggotry and i think that's something that definitely i hope for people to see and be like i can you can be a happy game i mean it sounds so 1940s you could be a happy gay man sir son one of these days in the future but it's like you can be a happy gay man. I mean, it sounds so 1940s, you can be a happy gay man, sir, son, one of these days in the future. But it's like, you can just be happy and proud of who you are. And that was what I'm revelling in the experiences that I've had. That's a great note to end on. That is sadly all we've got time for. But thank you so much, Raven. And thank you so much, everyone, for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode of Millennial Love,

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