Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Winner of an apple and pear jockstrap

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

It's a Monday and Fi reckons Jane isn't in the best mood but they're persevering! They chat Annie Nightingale, Jane's cooking and jockstraps. Plus, all this week on their Times Radio show, Jane and Fi will focus on pornography and the impact it has. Kicking things off, they speak to the Children's Commissioner Rachel De Souza and Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, the deputy director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. If you want to follow along with this conversation, make sure you're tuning into Times Radio every day this week at 4:20pm. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve Salusbury Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. So, look, it's a Monday. Happy Monday.

That's kind of how we feel, isn't it? I feel quite chubby. No, you don't. I'm not going to let you get away with that. You've been absolutely miserable today I haven't been miserable. You've been glass quarter full to everything

Even our producer Rosie has said you've been Mary quite contrary. No she's been a contrary Mary that's perfectly alright So I was intrigued did you watch actually because we were going to talk about Denmark, and I've decided I rather like the Danish

after their rather lovely change of power at the head of their royal family. So you're not going to pick on Denmark? No, I'm not going to pick on Denmark. Don't you think that's a great photograph of the... It's in the Times today, and no doubt elsewhere, of the abdicated monarch walking away across a room and her son, who looks a little bit not

certain he's up to the task sitting at his new desk yes he's got he really reminds me somebody and I can't quite put my finger on it Denmark's monarchy traces its origins to 10th century Viking King Gorm the Old it's Gorm the Old. Is it Gorm? It's Gorm. Did either of us go out with him? Did I marry him? It was in the 10th century, so it's possible. Gorm the Old. Gorm.

It will come to me. I'll text you in the middle of the night. It does. No, it's definitely somebody in a drama. And I can't quite think who. But yes, it is a great picture. Yeah, it's a really good picture. And the people of Denmark seem to be very excited about the whole thing. They were thronging through the streets, weren't they?

Yes, I think there is an underbelly. There's not a lot to do in Denmark. Of anti-royal feeling. Is there? In Denmark, yes. Because the old queen, she took away the royal titles, didn't she? Oh, her younger son's children. Yes, because there was quite a sentiment building.

They were too big. But I suppose it's the same as this country. If you were just going to look at the crowds gathering in the mall, you'd think that everybody was wearing some kind of a... That's very true. You'd think all was well. And it's not. There are mutterings, Jane. There are mutterings. Speaking of which, we've got

Robert Hardman on our programme later in the week. Is that confirmed? I think so, yes. It's not confirmed. I can't talk about it. Forget it. Forget I mentioned it. But maybe if he's listening or his publisher's listening. I always like a chat with Robert Hardman. I think he genuinely...

Oh, well, all right then. So he's coming on. Thank you, Ian. I always like a chat with Robert Hardman. I think he genuinely... It's not later this week, and it's a week and a half. Oh, well, all right then. So he's coming on. Thank you, Ian. But he does really know his onions, doesn't he? I mean, he's like properly... Oh, he knows his regal onions. Yeah, that's for sure.

He probably knows them. Yes. That's Robert Hardman, who's written a new book about the king, which is being serialised in some publication this week. But I think it will be very interesting to talk to him because he's definitely got some nuggets in the book from The Sound of Things. Now, can I just have a tiny little whinge before we get going on all the fun stuff? Have you come across the app Soundprint?

No. Oh, it's fantastic, Jane. So if you download it and accept the thingamajiggywhatsit cookies... Soundprint. Yeah, in your phone. It will flash up and activate when you go it and accept the thingamajiggy whatsit cookies sound print yeah in your phone it will flash up and activate when you go out and about and find yourself in a loud place and it's a really really brilliant app where you can log the decibels of the place that you're in you know restaurant gig bar or whatever and it will send it back to that venue to let them know if lots of people felt that it was a little bit too loud.

And we went out twice at the weekend. Hey, get me, what a party animal. You didn't leave me an opportunity to say that, but congratulations. We went out for just a really nice normal supper in a neighbourhood restaurant. And? 92 decibels. But what was that? Music or other people talking? So that was music and then people trying to talk over the music.

And it was kind of banging house music. In a restaurant? In a restaurant. Just a normal restaurant, you know, not kind of fancy schmancy. And then we just went to the pub in our local environment. And still noisy. And still, I think that peaked at about 89 or 90. And I know it's just such a kind of whinge for the older person,

but actually they were two evenings that should have been really nice and they were just so uncomfortable because everyone was shouting and couldn't hear. But I just wanted to give the app a bit of a plug because it's one of those things that if enough people use it, then it will alert the owners of these establishments to the fact that maybe quite a few people in there just don't need the music to be that loud,

to be shouting over. And, you know, obviously there's a joke coming at you that it's so bloody loud. Just ask them to turn the music down. They haven't got the phone started, don't be trying to say so. You just storm out. It is one of the things you notice about getting older

is just how one of the reasons you're very tired at the end of a social occasion is that it's quite a struggle. Unless I'm wearing my glasses, I can't lip read. And so, because you need to be able to see somebody really quite well in order to be able to read their lips. Obviously, I'm not a trained lip reader. I know some people are.

And it's a great skill, by the way. I just feel completely spent at the end of an evening shouting and straining to hear. We felt exactly the same way. And actually, when we'd been to the pub, it was to see some friends I hadn't seen for ages. And we had to make another arrangement to catch up, to actually do all of the talking that we expected to be able to do. It was just a pointless evening, actually.

Could they just push a bit of paper across the table and you could read out? Well, I mean, it might have come to that. So I just wanted to spread the word about Soundprint. And I think quite a lot of people might already have come across it. But if you haven't, I think it's a very good thing. That's it. Very good. And we both wanted to talk about Annie Nightingale, who died very sadly.

Actually, I think died on Thursday. It was announced on Friday. And, you know, she was just a very significant woman for any of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s and 80s and listened to the radio. I don't think it is unfair to say there was only Annie Nightingale. Lots of great female presenters and broadcasters have come along since. But for a long, long time, there was only Annie. Yep. And her longevity in the industry, I think,

was actually down to lots of things. She really, really, really knew her music. So she just had a knowledge base that you couldn't argue with. I think her enthusiasm, because she kind of changed tact, didn't she, on dance music, because she kind of changed tack, didn't she, on dance music, having first kind of gone, oh, I'm not sure about this. It's just all sounds the same. She actually then went, oh, no, this is brilliant. So she just embraced a whole new genre of music in her 60s, which I don't think you could, you couldn't criticise

her enthusiasm. It was just absolutely bloody wonderful. But also one of the lovely things that has come out since her death, and actually I do think she did know it when she was alive, was the gratitude that so many other women and younger men had for her kindness and her mentoring. And I didn't know her at all in a professional context because, you know, I had to work with her and music DJ and thing. But I did come to know her because we asked her to become the first patron of a lobby group that a very remarkable woman, Maria Williams, deputy editor of Woman's Hour, editor of Saturday Live, set up to try and celebrate the achievements of women in the

industry and to fight for equality. And we asked Annie to be the first patron and she just didn't even blink. She said yes. And her weight meant that people took Sound Women seriously right from the get go. She couldn't have been lovelier. She turned up to all of the events. I've been contacted by so many people over the weekend who just said she spoke to me, she listened to me, she gave me all this advice with no airs and graces. And she didn't need to do that. Some women who have really had to fight to be in the industry, I think, put up the drawbridge a bit.

You can say that again. In later years. Let's name... No, we won't. No, but also if that's how they feel because they're exhausted by the whole thing then fair enough but annie just didn't she did exactly the opposite and i thought she was just remarkable and lovely and when somebody like that dies there is something truly magical that happens where people actually pick up the phone don't they because they want to talk about her so the conversations that i had over the weekend

were just so heartwarming jane and i'm that i had over the weekend were just so heartwarming jane and i'm sure you had exactly the same thing what a testament to a great life that people want to do that yeah so um yes rest in peace annie nightingale because you were special and i think uh you were significant and you wore it all so lightly and i think that's very significant wasn't she cool as well she was. So cool. Yeah, still cool in her 80s, which it's not all, I mean, it's not, we can't really, no, I'm just not going to be. So I'm not cool now and I won't be cool in 20 years time. But she was without question. So that's good.

Right. What a shoe you've got on. What's that? Yes. Thank you for noticing. These are my new, I got these from the kids at Christmas, my new Adidas campers, campus trainers.

Wow, look I didn't notice those. They are the last word in comfort. Have they got that raised bump so it keeps your arch up? My arch is well up and I've thoroughly enjoyed bouncing through the streets of London ever since I got them on Christmas Day. Well we're going to have to photograph those, even put them on the Insta.

There they are. I was trying to explain to one of the offspring about raised arches. Only the other night. Oh, mother, do tell us more about raised arches. Well, no, there was a bit of a thing when I was young where it was a little bit common if your arches had fallen. What? Fallen arches were common? Was that people who couldn't do national service because they had flat feet? Yes. I think a fallen arch was really the sign that something terrible had

gone wrong with your upbringing. Right. Okay. That I didn't know. Okay. Well, as far as I'm aware, I haven't suffered from a fallen arch. Well, you're certainly raising them again, because that's the kind of USP of that brand, isn't it? Getting these was easily the best thing that happened over Christmas. Actually, I've had really another weekend of challenging meal making. I mean, I'm not the best cook, and I freely admit it. Occasionally I hit the jackpot, but it's usually fluky.

I made some soup on Friday, which I overheard the eldest child saying to the younger one, oh, you get used to it. It's not really. Delia Smith never has to put up with that. No, that's a kind of line out of a prison drama. I was doing my best. It was, I just, perhaps I didn't put it through.

What flavour was it? Well, it was roast cauliflower. And it was, I don't perhaps I didn't put it through. What flavour was it? Well, it was roast cauliflower and it was, I don't think I'd put it through the food processor in quite the way it should have gone through. Anyway, they were right. It wasn't right. It was just when you hear someone saying, oh, you get used to it.

Oh, dearie me. Fiona said, I love the book. An elderly lady is up to no good. In brackets, I hated the book An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good in brackets I hated the French cemetery book So An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Thurston is our book club book number four, we'll be discussing it

in about five weeks time it's 184 pages long lots of people are really loving it I think it's just one of those titles like My Sister sister, The Serial Killer. It's a great title. Which just draws you in, doesn't it? And I can't wait to get started myself.

And Fiona has very much enjoyed it. So thank you for that. And we're continuing the theme of compliments that weren't really compliments, but might have been intended to be compliments. A listener says, I don't mention my name, don't worry, we won't. I'm really enjoying this worst comments thread. Here's one of the worst I've ever had. Anyone else with your genes would have been beautiful.

I'll never forget that. But actually, I didn't find it insulting because it was so comically awful. Do you think people learn these lines in advance or think them up on the spot? Another line that was said to me during a breakup when I was quite young was, I think you're probably a Hufflepuff after all. This was obviously intended to be a real insult, but I couldn't take it seriously. All this useful feedback and here I am not taking any of it on board. By the way, the answer to getting through Christmas alone is not to do Christmas, except for some baking if you like that kind of thing and go on a solar holiday in the new year all the better if you stay in the grounds of a castle I've never felt so refreshed for January oh well that's um that's a top tip

you don't tell us which castle uh but we can probably all just imagine well I'm glad you had such a lovely time what's a Hufflepuff a Hufflepuff is a character in a children's, oh gosh, a children's book. Hang on, let's consult Eve. It's one of the schools in Harry Potter. Oh, okay. It's a Harry Potter thing. It's a Harry Potter thing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. You can get back to your twenties now. Yes. That's lovely. You should listen to us all more. Thank you. Just sit there quietly. Beccacca says keep up the good work uh in response to your correspondent who was informed that she was attractive but not pretty i'm still somewhat perturbed by the strange cat call i received as a student in cambridge over 15 years ago cycling down from my college towards town a

young man made the effort to shout across a busy street just two words. I love this. Mildly attractive. Isn't that extraordinary? Bloody shit. I'm still in two minds about whether it was a compliment or an insult, but given that I was just popping to Sainsbury's for a pint of milk, it was probably a fair assessment, if an unwarranted one. And Becca goes on to say, I've been on the wrong end of so many catcalls.

It feels like it's almost par for the course, especially as a female runner, but this is the only one that's really stuck. If anything, I think I'd rather mildly attractive than some of the other more aggressively sexual compliments that I've received whilst pounding the streets of South East West London. Well, Becca, I know what you mean.

I'm sure that you've had all kinds of things sent in your direction. But isn't that extraordinary that a man just thought to shout out, you know, a kind of passive-aggressive comment on you? That's just bizarre. It's just extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah, but have you ever, when walking past a man, said anything about their appearance?

No, of course not. No. I mean, if you were to ask me have I thought it, the answer would be probably almost every time. Because that's just human nature, isn't it? But you don't... No, of course not. I mean, if anybody wants to know what male privilege is...

That's it. That's it, yeah. Well, maybe that's something that you and I could do in our dotage as well as some really heavy trolling. Yes. We could just wander around going, ugh, oof, and see where we land. Yes.

Right. Gosh, I was going to say, my dad has been to the cinema again and he did want to do a review, but I've left it. In fact, he's done one. What did he say, Anatomy of a Fool? No, One Life. One Life? The film about Nicholas Winton.

Okay. And actually, I can remember the review because it's one of his shorter efforts. Highly recommended, very good ending, a real tearjerker. So if you're, for whatever reason, thinking of going along to that film, you've now got the endorsement of my dad, who says, well worth your time.

He's cropped up in correspondence as well. Oh, right. He'll be pleased about this. Yeah, well worth your time. He's cropped up in correspondence as well. Oh, right. He'll be pleased about this. Yes. So this is anonymous. Hearing you mention this is about my dad being a fan of the sarong. I was surprised by that, can I say. Brought to mind many happy memories of my sadly now dead,

very beloved father sporting them too. Like yours, it was a habit he formed whilst living in the Far East, but it stayed with him for life. And it was quite the look on an OAP when worn in darkest Sussex. It's quite bold, isn't it? I mean, down Brighton Way, I've seen it all, haven't I? Happily, the slightly eccentric practice continues as my brother has inherited his father's penchant for breezy summer wear

and regularly slips into one. Our family favours the tubular style rather than the plain sheet towel format. And there's a fine art to tying them correctly to avoid startling anyone. I highly recommend Jane's father gives it a go with the addendum. Maybe wait for a heat wave rather than pitching it to him right now. OK, well, I will certainly mention it to him. And if it heats up on Merseyside, which it probably won't for the next couple of months,

he'll slip into a sarong. I think because we were searching for some merchandising ideas, weren't we? And I think an off-air sarong would be fantastic. Because you could use it. Our listeners would find 27,000 different things to do with a sarong. It would be a baby papoose. It'd be a shopping bag.

It'd be a mop. It'd be a towel. I think we're on to an absolute winner. It'd be some sort of headgear. There's any number of things. You're right. Okay. I once did have a jockstrap.

Did you? Which I gave away on my radio show, yeah. Okay. Why did you have a jockstrap? It was a very long... I can't remember how it started, but it was when I was working for the bbc in herefordshire and worcestershire and the station logo was an apple for herefordshire cider and a pear for worcestershire perry and we had the

design put onto a jock strap effective right big apple and a big pear right i find get it jock straps i mean having you know basically grown up in an all-female household and been to an all-girls school, I think the first time that I saw a gentleman wearing a jockstrap, I just couldn't quite believe it. And I did, you know, because obviously we never went into a male sports changing room. Didn't you? No. And other shocking things about my life. What a revelation. But I do remember the first time I saw somebody sporting one,

just thinking, is that some kind of, you know, sexual thing going on? I had no idea it was like a proper sporting. It's a sport garment. Yes, yeah. I didn't know that. Oh, I thought... Yeah, I just think I've never thought rude things about jockstraps. I mean, I must have mentioned it before, but when I...

How often have you thought about a jockstrap? Well, I've had to think about it, because when I left that radio station, I had a leaving due, and at different times they hired a stripper who stripped down to his jockstrap, which was the one that we'd given away on the program okay that's quite something isn't it anyway like i say it's all a long time ago well it's not that long ago because actually when i left saturday live second mention haven't mentioned

it for years the team gave me a saturday live for jazzle what you had to go for the appointment it was like a set you could buy when when when the vajazzle was a thing, you could buy a little set of lots of different stones and things like that. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I've never used it.

It's still there on the shelf. We have no idea whether that's true. Okay, prove it by bringing in the vajazzle set tomorrow. Please. Happily do that.

Meg says, feel free to use my first name. I just have. I love listening. Oh, she's got a five-month-old and is off on maternity leave at the moment. Hope it's going all right. I would say the first five months are the most challenging, aren't they? I think they're so bewildering.

You're just on a different planet. And then fast forward 20 years or so, and honestly, you hardly lose sleep about them at all. Much. On the topic of feedback you can do nothing about, I was reminded of my recent experience when having my caesarean section. I had a postpartum haemorrhage immediately after my daughter was born and while still cut open on the table, the operating table, I was informed by the surgeon that my uterus was failing to contract and that I was losing too much blood. my uterus was failing to contract and that I was losing too much blood. In that moment,

illogically, I felt somehow as if I should be able to do something to help if I hadn't been immobilised with the epidural, with people rummaging around in my insides. Luckily, they did stop the bleeding and all was well in the end, but I can certainly say I've never experienced anything quite so alarming as mid-operation feedback on how badly my body was performing. And Meg, I'm so sorry that happened. I'm delighted that you and your daughter are doing well now. But I can completely see what she means. You know, some surgeon tells you, your uterus is failing to contract. It's like there's a lot of language around women's bodies, and particularly maternity and obstetrics. You know, expressions like incompetent cervix. It's a really weird thing to say, isn't it?

Yes, it is. And it's quite judgmental. So, Meg, I'm glad things are OK now, but what a shame. How embarrassing to have a uterus that didn't contract in quite the right way. I think there's something so judgmental about an awful lot of women's experiences of birth, where there's such a fine line between being the patient and the victim, actually. And I think an awful lot of women, as we're now learning,

have felt that they were the victim of childbirth, not really the patient. I think you're right. I think there are going to be... Well, I really hope that there are more explicit conversations over, I fear there will be, over the next decade or so about maternity services in this country because that's what we're focusing on, obviously.

But, I mean, we've got daughters. It's in our interest to make them better and safer. And I hope we do. But that isn't a great experience, Meg. Thank you very much for the email. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Thank you very much for the email. 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Now, we've got lots and lots of emails about pornography, and I would suggest that we dive into our recorded interviews with our experts and maybe kind of round everything up as the week progresses

because we're having a special week talking about all the issues to do with pornography on the show, aren't we? Yeah, we are. And tomorrow we should say we're going to talk to Sean Russell, who is going to talk about his experience of porn addiction. But today we've got two interviews, haven't we? We have. Our first interview is quite an important one because I think it goes to the place where most people are most worried about pornography, which is how children are viewing it and what then happens once children have viewed it.

But there are some really, really striking statistics that you might like to furnish all of these conversations with. One in five of the nearly 14 million people who watch porn online in the UK do so during the working day. Is that you? The UK is second in the world for the number of searches for porn, only beaten by the US. And it doesn't really matter if you're a consenting adult watching consenting adults,

but there has been this huge shift in the last two decades and just the prevalence of pornography and the type of pornography you can now find is just a click away for loads of users. One charity recently found that one in five teenagers thought that they had a porn habit. One in ten felt that they were addicted. And then we heard this horrible, horrible news last week

that half of all child sexual offences are committed by other youngsters. And violent pornography and the fact that so many kids see it is blamed for that rise. It's the dark underbelly of the phrase, if you can't see it, you can't be it. So we thought we'd start this week with Rachel D'Souza, who is the fantastic Children's Commissioner. And pornography is a subject really troubling her too. Most children have seen pornography now by the age of 13. I think that's really a shocking stat. And just to illustrate that, I had a group of children in here with a past secretary of state

and we were chatting about issues for children. And one eight-year-old boy, a little boy from primary school, started to get extremely upset. And when I talked to him about what his concern was, it was just clear that he'd seen porn. He didn't understand that he'd seen porn. But when he explained to me what he'd seen, I realised, and obviously I did the safeguarding bit and talked to his teacher, but what I was able to say to him was, that's what you saw was not real. It was people acting and, you know, don't worry. And I think the most insidious thing

is not those very, very extreme examples of which I will give you some, but it's the fact that pretty much every child that you meet will have seen the kind of porn you cannot believe that they would have seen. That is violent, that's anti-women, that's degrading, that's showing non-consensual sex showing unrealistic images and they're seeing that in the playground one of the things I did was call for I wanted to see whether pornography was impacting peer-on-peer sexual abuse I was very privileged to be able to get all of the transcripts of a sexual abuse referral clinic in a couple of areas and read them and analyze them and read what the perpetrators

of sexual abuse were saying and those children who had been sexually abused by their peers. And both sides, you could see in their testimonies, showed that they absolutely had been watching porn, were enacting it, and that the child victims of child perpetrators were having these things that had been seen online acted out on them. And I think that's just horrendous. How does a government and how do the authorities prevent that from happening in the future? What is the role of state in stopping a child being able to see that? I mean, we have just passed as a nation, the online safety bill. And this really is, I think, the state's response. It's got cross party

support, some wanted it to be stronger, some wanted various elements in that weren't in, but it is groundbreaking legislation. And I think most importantly, it's the online safety bill is a really strong message to these global tech companies. Because don't forget where children are seeing porn is first off on Twitter. They see it more there than they see it on pornography sites, you know, the sort of private sites. And then they see it on Insta, they see it on Snapchat. So the online safety bills for the first time, we've got legislation in this nation saying to these global tech companies enough is enough we are not going to allow this anymore you are going to make sure these images are taken down you are going to make sure that the children on sites are the

right ages and the material that they're seeing is not illegal it's for the right age so in terms of the state's response i think that online safety legislation and i know it there's still consultations going i'm still waiting to see the Children's Code, I'm holding the government to account to make sure it's strong enough, the job is not yet done. But that legislation has gone through. And I think that's massively important. It is, of course, not going to be enough, because we need parents, schools and everyone to be part of this. But I am pleased it's there. And I think it's a step forward. Given that we live in a globally connected world, does it really make a difference what individual countries do? Isn't that one of the huge problems that we might have firm legislation in this country, but other countries don't?

And you don't have to be particularly technologically aware in order to make that leap and just be in somebody else's jurisdiction in the same way that the tech companies are not based in this country, but they can be in our eyeline. I think what I'm really concerned about is practically where are children seeing this stuff? It's on social media sites. You're absolutely right that social media companies are global, this stuff is ubiquitous, but we have to start somewhere. And I think empowering Ofcom to fine, and I would want to go as far as imprison tech bosses, you know, to really hold them to account, perhaps put some stinging fines in place, that's a good start. We need to make sure that the kind of children's code that is going to come in

with the online safety bill is strong enough. But as I say, it will never be enough. I want children to have digital access. I'm not a banner. I'm not going to ban children from all... I don't think that's fair at all. I think what we need is the social media companies. We need them to change, not our children. I think a first step is holding companies to account. I've tried. I've had them in to see me every six months. Snap, Twitter, Google, Apple, all of them in and try to hold them to account on the things that I've seen online that children are seeing, on what age children are, on how they're getting access, on taking down things that children complain about and their abject failure to deal with all of those.

I've had them in and basically realised in the months I was working with them that we needed legislation because they were not going to step up and do it themselves. Allowing them to self-regulate wasn't working. When you had those executives in front of you and you're actually showing the images that are available on their platforms, did you get the sense that they were actually quite shocked at what they could see or were they just very kind shocked at what they could see? Or were they just very kind of like, yeah, sure. They were used to being challenged in this way.

They often sent some of the companies sent QCs as their representatives to try to give me a, you know, and had very well prepared presentations. In the end, what I did was say, I'm going to give you 10 minutes each to speak on this, age verification, how many underage were on site. I asked them a series of questions. I allowed them to do their prepared spiel. And then I showed them the reality. I'd say, look at this. This is what we've seen. They had very well prepared answers. Occasionally off the record, I had very good conversations that showed that a number of them were aware and were concerned. But there was definitely a line on this. Well, the thing is, quite a lot of those people would have been parents themselves, wouldn't they? And we do need to talk about parenting, because I think there's just such a massive difficulty for any good, decent parents to actually know the language to use when we're

trying to talk to our children about porn and actually an unwillingness to go and view the stuff ourselves so we can understand what the impact might be how do we get around that do we really need to have a I think much more honest conversation about the kind of sexual acts our children are seeing and how we can talk about them. And you can hear in my voice that I can't really bring myself to use all of the terms that we, you and I, in this conversation probably need to be using. I think that's an incredibly good point. And I mean, I'm a mom too. I'm a mom of a 20 something. we would giggle around sitting having some of these conversations even now let alone so I do understand this I'm also a teacher who's taught for 30 odd years I've

been a head teacher for 30 odd years and taught relationships and sex education so I've also seen it seen it and had to do it and try and do it well as well so I think there's parents in this schools with parents one of the first things I did was get 100 or so 16 to 21 year olds into the Department for Education when I started here. What I thought was that is the generation that's really grown up with tech. And I asked them, what do you wish your parents had known? And it was really, really interesting. One of the things that came across very strongly with one of our parents to talk to us about it. You know, when we come home from school and mom says, how was your day? Did anything happen? We just go, uh, you know, it really matters

that you're asking. And I think that's actually quite heartwarming. They wanted to be able to turn to their parents with their concerns and they wish they had been able to. And some of them wish they had done sooner when they were little. They worry about doing it. They were worried about getting into trouble. One of the big bits of advice for the adults from that group was talk early, talk often and do it in an age appropriate way. Don't worry about it. So they were like, don't put us in the room and have the conversation because everybody wants to run screaming from conversation, you know, that kind of one-off and I think it's a bit like when I started and talked about that eight-year-old boy saying he'd seen something and mum talking to him about that would be would be that oh that's people acting it's not real at eight that's that's

probably the right kind of language as you get older and as a teen both school and parents need to be able to have the language to be able to have conversations about what they're seeing that really the teenagers were living in a parallel universe in terms of what they're experiencing and seeing and what their parents thought they did talk practically as well about boundaries they were like keep us off social media as long as possible when we're eight or nine we should be out playing when we're teenagers no phones to bed don't worry about putting time boundaries on it, even if we push back. So very sensible and very practical. And can we also talk about the way that

women are often portrayed in pornography? Because do you think that there will ever be a time where you would be able to separate what you see and how you then treat women in the real world? Or have we kind of got to a point where we just, I don't know, are we too accepting of the fact that pornography often degrades women? This is a huge issue. And it was one that I wanted my office to look at and see whether we could actually see any causal link between what boys and girls were seeing and their sexual behaviour. So we did a nationally representative piece of work where we talked to a thousand young people over 16, and it was quite shocking. So we could really see how sexual behaviours in young adults were being impacted. So with, you know, half of the girls we talked to saying they'd experienced a

sexually violent act, and with a large proportion of the young people we talked to, and these were older, 18 ups, but saying that they had thought that girls would enjoy violent sexual acts, and girls thought that too. Now, I just look at that and think, what a massive change in behaviours at such an early age compared to 20, 30 years ago, we just wouldn't have seen or thought of sexuality in that way. So clearly, young people's sexual behaviours are being affected by what they're seeing. Do you think that you can resensitise a desensitised teenager? I do. I do. And I say that not as a, you know, a research scientist. I say that as someone who has been a teacher and a head teacher and a mother and spends a lot of time with children. Certainly in

that teenage period, as the brain is developing, as you're finding yourself in the world, you're open to developing your understanding. I not only think you can do it, I think I, as a teacher and as a head teacher, I've seen it done and done it. So I think we have, the adults have the power in their hands here. Some really good conversations from the adults and really good teaching, good support from home can make the difference. I really do believe that. But I do think we need the legislation in as well. We need to try to plug this stream of heinous material and anti-female material and aggressive porn that boys are seeing. We need to stop as much of it as we can because it's not good for them. It's not good for their developing brains and it's not good for their relationships.

That is Dame Rachel D'Souza, who is the Children's Commissioner for England. So let's get another view. This from Dr. Fiona Vera Gray, who is deputy director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. She's also written a book I really do recommend, actually. It's out in February and it's called Women on Porn. Now, I asked Dr. Vera Gray about a point that Rachel D'Souza made there just at the end of that interview about the impact of seeing some acts of sexual violence. What has that done to the way people actually have sex in the real world? So the way that I think about these things a lot of the time is through a concept called sexual scripts, which is about the ways that it shapes our sexual practices, it shapes our sexual desires, but moves away from this causal monkey see, monkey do kind of idea that we watch violent pornography and then we go out and want to have

violent sex. For so long, our thinking has been really tied up on that and it's limited us, it's limited and narrowed the way that we think about harm because it's very difficult to prove that one particular input to a human person, very complicated, results in one particular output, right? We're just not that simple. We take in lots and lots of messages all of the time and we're all situated in different ways. That means that we make sense of those messages differently. So it's meant that a lot of research, which has tried to focus on cause and effect hasn't found a really definitive cause and effect and if that's the only way we think about harm I think that's limits us okay so the

way that I think about it instead is the way that it shapes our sexual practices the way that it sits there as a script that's a dominant voice about what sex is what it encompasses what we should enjoy about it and really particularly I think it was mentioned by the children's commissioner and yourselves as well earlier, about gender. You know, porn tells a story not just about sex, but it also tells a story about gender and a story about race. And we need to be thinking more about what that story is

and whether or not we think that that story fits with, as a society, the stories that we want circulated. So what do you do about young boys, and they are in some cases very young boys, having actual sex for the very first time and imagining that the way they should behave is what they have seen in, let's be honest, completely mainstream pornography? Yeah, yeah. It's very difficult. So my research has been with women right it's been with women and girls i've interviewed 100 women um and girls in a book that's coming out in in february and talking to so the impact that that has on boys i think that that's something that we need to do some

more work on but what i was really interested in is what impact does that have on girls because we're no longer in a position where it's only boys watching pornography or where it's only men watching pornography so statistics are showing it's about a third of women are watching porn that goes up to about two-thirds when you're looking at younger women and girls and so very much what I'm interested in as a feminist is what are those messages that are being sent to girls and again you mentioned earlier this idea that young boys are thinking that what girls want are to be choked, to be spat on, to have their hair pulled. But also what I've learned from talking to young women is that young women are thinking that that's what they should like.

And that's the problem, isn't it? So we aren't watching what we want to watch. We're watching what is made available to us. So I did some research with a colleague, Professor Claire McGlynn, from Durham University in 2021 when it was published, and we analysed the content on the top three mainstream sites that was on the first page. And we worked with computer people to be able to do it so that the sites didn't know that we were the same user coming to the page. We had the permission of the sites to do it. And it meant

that we were able to see what is the content that the sites themselves are choosing to show, because I think it's a really important point. We often think about supply and demand, you know, that supply responds to demand, but in pornography, it's different, right? First time users are being shown material that they may not have even imagined would exist on those sites. And we wanted to be able to find out what that was and also to push back on the arguments that always come out of the mouths of these porn companies that it's very much about individual users, individual choices, and any discussion about regulation is an impact on individual sexual freedom.

And we want to say, no, this is also about corporate responsibility. What are you showing someone when they come to your site? The sites could be like Google. It could just be a blank page with a search bar. Type in what you want. when they come to your site? The sites could be like Google. It could just be a blank page with a search bar. Type in what you want. But they're not. They're designed specifically to evoke. I've got a colleague at work, Maria Garner, talks about panicked arousal.

It evokes a sense of panicked arousal, an overwhelming arousal that works to overwhelm any internal sense of conflict, any internal sense that what you're seeing might be... One of the women in my book talked about it as a conflict between her pleasure and her principles, that what's arousing her, it's conflicting with her principles, but it's still arousing her. Right. But there is a limit to just how explicit we can be live on radio

at half past four in the afternoon, but that lies at the heart of most people's approach to pornography and attitude to their own use of pornography, because it's hard for many of us to come to terms with the sort of material that we actually do find arousing. It may be something that we could never discuss even with our very, very closest friends. Absolutely. Absolutely. And what that's meaning is that we're not talking about it. So we're not talking about it. This is something that is in everybody's homes. Your colleagues are watching it. Your friends are watching it. People on the train are watching it. Sometimes actually on the train opposite you. Your kids are watching it. Their teachers are watching it. Judges are watching it. Jury members are watching it. But we're not talking about it. We're not talking about the content of it ever. Everyone's too scared to talk about what are they actually looking for how does it make them feel and it means that we're not talking about the fact that it is evoking the sense of conflict I think that the debate so far around pornography have been very split around this binary you either watch it and you love it or you don't watch it at all and

you hate it and what I found for women and I think it probably rings true for men, but I can't prove that, is that actually it's much more blurry. It's much more in between. It's much more that people are watching this, but feeling really conflicted about it. You know, like you said, that they've been aroused to things that actually they don't want to tell anybody that that's what they're watching. And so then when you think about that in terms of adults, and then as the Children's Commissioner was saying, how then are adults going to talk to children about it if we can't even talk to each other about it? It's just been silent. Where do you think we might be, though, in 10 or 15 years' time when the children who we are referring to at the moment are adults themselves? it's really hard so i want to be an optimist and and part of what i have seen actually is that with younger people and in my research with younger women so 18 to 22 23 they're very critical

of pornography and they're very critical in a different way maybe than women who are slightly older are because they have grown up with it because they have seen its impact personally they've experienced it themselves they've experienced it through their male friends and intimate partners. So the optimistic part of me wants to think that actually these young people are going to become very critical of pornography, you know, and very able to actually talk about some of the harms in ways that perhaps, you know, people who are slightly older who want to think about it in terms of a sex positive, you know, this is really helpful and exploratory, but don't actually understand the impact that's having when you're accessing this material before

you've had sex yourself, and what that's doing, setting up your templates going forward, and what that means for your ability to access sexual freedom. So I want to think that actually, they're going to be very critical, on one hand. But on another hand, I also feel devastated that we have missed a generation. I think, again, as a feminist, I've let down a generation, the generation below me, because we didn't get anybody to act quickly enough. And now we've had 10 years, you know, since 2014 really is this internet 2.0, free streaming, everyone has an iPhone, very easy to access. And the porn sites were behind pushing that movement of technology.

You know, they're always behind these technological advances. The next one coming up is AI. And we really need to keep an eye on that and how that's being funded by the porn industries and what they're doing and where that might go. And we need to start future-proofing our law because i do feel that we've had 10 years there where we haven't acted we've been so caught up and manipulated into thinking about this all about individual users and sexual freedoms and we haven't thought about the responsibility of the companies platforming this material you know we have advertising standards,

but we don't have standards for pornography material. I do wish we'd had more time, actually, to discuss everything that Dr Fiona Vera-Gray said there. But if it's something that does interest you, then I can recommend that book, Women on Porn, out in a couple of weeks in February in the UK. And she isn't at all judgmental about porn. In fact, she's, In fact, she's extremely fair

and talks about all sorts of elements of the industry and of people's use. She's talked to lots of women about the way they use porn. In some cases, there are plenty of women who will speak very positively about what porn has done for them and for their relationships. Some really raw stuff in there as well. And she does talk too about what's likely to happen in the future in the metaverse.

And you won't be surprised to hear, Fi, that the big tech companies are pouring trillions into how they can have sex in the metaverse and what's going to happen there and what it will be like. of us and what's going to happen there and what it will be like. So I really struggle with so much of this conversation, Jane, and in our lifetime our landscape of pornography has changed and as journalists do you maybe share in feeling that we've just, I don't know, we've shied away from it at our peril. Well, Fiona says that, doesn't she, in the interview, that she

feels that she's let down a generation of young women and girls. We are now coming to it with this terrible kind of sense of shock and awe. But it's been two clicks away from us. That's where we could have gone. We could all have looked at the type of things that we're now being so shocked that our children have looked at. But we chose not to. For whatever

reason, we simply felt that it couldn't possibly be as bad as we might imagine it to be. Or we just didn't want to address the issue at all. And because it wasn't in our childhood, somehow it wasn't in theirs. But I think we've just been asleep on the deck. Well, Rachel did. Well, I'm not sure whether she did reassure you, but she said that she believes that you can change people. They can learn to unsee the things they've seen. So that, yes, and I think that point about being able to resensitise

a desensitised teenager or young adult or just person is so key. But we can only do that if we understand just how desensitised they've become. And that's the bit that we don't quite understand now. I mean, I think that's an interesting point we could perhaps put to Sean Russell tomorrow when we're talking to him about his experience of porn addiction desensitisation and the number of men who struggle to quote perform in the real world

because they are so desensitised having watched hours and hours of all sorts of pornography, it's not just men who watch it, we need to make very clear and that's why Fiona's book is so interesting because she does, and the women she speaks to are incredibly honest about their own porn use and about the stuff that does turn them on, even though they'd really struggle to discuss it in a close friendship or even to acknowledge it to themselves that there's some stuff they look at,

because frankly, they do find it arousing. And this goes for all of us that we would never dream of admitting to in our real world conversations and experiences. It's a really difficult area, this. Hugely difficult. Just one other thing that I was so struck by in our conversation with Rachel D'Souza was just her experience of the people at the top of the tech companies. It's bloody terrifying. So they're people who I would suggest,

if they don't have children of their own, they know lots of people who do have children who are experiencing all of this. And they've chosen to kind of leave that experience, which is the most valuable experience, outside the door of Rachel D'Souza's office and go in with their QCs and their legal counsels. Unbelievable. Which is about mitigating the effects on their company's profits of what a children's commissioner might then do or say in a report. And I just

find that mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling and indefensible, really. So I thought what she said about wanting to see you know in in the tenure of her job people in jail that's that's what we need to see it's a crime it is a crime I mean to let children watch really really bad shit it's a crime and it's going to impact the rest of their lives and I know Fiona mentioned in the conversation about the post office, but I mean, it seems ludicrous to link the two. But when people say, oh, why was no one doing anything about that issue? Well, people were, but nobody took much notice. And now we've got this pornography nightmare, frankly, in lots of ways. The impact of it on young lives is colossal, clearly. And I think people do need to acknowledge that some

people are trying to do something and are trying to start these conversations, but it's just really, really difficult to get anything achieved, it would seem. And I do wonder what people are going to make of all this in 30 years time, when they look back to the 2020s and about our crisis that we just chose to, oh, it's all a bit awkward i'd rather not go there well hopefully you know if you if you're listening to this in 30 years time what we're saying makes no sense because there's something will have been done yeah i don't think so do you really no i don't i'm hoping no i don't think they can put the genie back in the bottle here no but i do think that our i think that our children's generation when they're parents themselves will just have such a better

understanding of what is around that can be harmful to children, that they will just police their households better and maybe hold the companies to account better because knowledge is power and I just don't think an awful lot of us you know had that knowledge when we were young adults ourselves so anything to add it's Jane and fee at times dot radio and we will talk about light-hearted things as the week progresses and actually tomorrow we've got a fantastic interview I know because I've already done it, with Alan Cumming.

And he's so funny and interesting. He talks about plastic surgery and not wanting to get... Has he had any? Oh, no. So he doesn't want to kind of go down that road, but he's really interesting about it. And he's got some thoughts about the SNP. He's got some thoughts about John Bercow

because he's the host of US Traitors as well. And what's Alan Cumming got to do with US Traitors? He hosts it. Oh, he hosts it? well. And what's Alan Cumming got to do with US Traitors? He hosts it. Oh, he hosts it? Yes. And John Bercow is in it? Yes. So Alan Cumming is Claudia Winkleman

and John Bercow is Paul. Are you watching Traitors? No. Paul. Who's Paul? Well, I think he might be the winner. He's a... I don't know what he is, actually.

He's a very clever slimeball. That's what he is. Well played. I don't know what he is actually he's a very clever slime ball that's what he is I don't think that's libelous well I hope not for your sake good evening to you Paul he'll know of course whether he's one or not because it's probably recorded months and months in advance isn't it

I did watch one episode and then I'm afraid I just couldn't feel, I just didn't feel I had another 11 hours to give to it really gripping, though I'm afraid I just couldn't feel, I just didn't feel I had another 11 hours to give to it really. Gripping. No, I did, I quite enjoyed the first episode. Stick that on the posters. Right. Have a good evening everybody. We'll reconvene tomorrow.

We will reconvene. Goodbye. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run.

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