Should I Delete That? - Men Who Hate Women with Laura Bates

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

This week has been a tough one for Em and Al since hearing that their friend, Dame Deborah James, is now receiving end-of-life care for her battle with cancer. Em pops in to say a few words about Deb, and we encourage you to donate the cost of a drink (the girls reckon a rosé, as you will hear!) to the Bowelbabe Fund to raise money for Cancer Research UK.The girls have the honour of being graced by feminist royalty, Laura Bates. Laura is the author of now six books including her latest, Fix The System Not The Women. Although troubling and shocking, Laura's message is filled with hope and optimism for future generations to work and fight towards equality.You can follow Laura on Instagram @laura_bates__Show timestamps:Good, Bad & Awkward - 00:02:15Interview with Laura - 00:25:38Is It Just Me? - 01:22:55Follow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Butternut Box - visit www.butternutbox.com/alexandem for 50% off your first two boxesProduced & edited by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are so happy and proud that this episode is sponsored by Butternut Box, a brand that we love for many reasons. As you'll probably already know, if you follow us both on Instagram, buttonut box is a fresh dog food delivery service that delivers straight to your door and takes into consideration all of your dog's dietary needs. The brand started with a rescue dog, which we obviously love, and Betty and Bua have absolutely thrived on it. Butternut Box genuinely care about their dogs and their ethos is that good enough for the dog is not good enough. Dogs deserve better. The meals are comprised of quality meat, veg, lentils, vitamins and minerals

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com forward slash Alex and M. Oh my God, why did I post that? Ah, I don't know what to do. Should I delete that? Yeah, you should definitely delete that. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. Oh gosh, I hate starting this podcast.

You know what? I'm going to start. I'm going to break the ice. I hate starting every week because I get embarrassed. I'm going to break the ice because something really embarrassing just happens to me. Go on. We're in the studio today.

Yes. As you know. I did, about five minutes ago, went for a wee, didn't I? Yeah. And I went to the loo. I pushed way too hard on the door. Yeah. But as I put my hand out, the door disappeared because somebody on the other side was opening it.

And I literally, slow motion, stopped my hand about an inch away from this lad's head. He was like, whoa, he looked up. Obviously, he was just like pulling the door open in my hand and was just like right in front of his face. I was like, oh, nearly hit you in the face. He was like, yep. Hello. Goodbye. He was in a suit and everything.

Love it. Yeah. So then you just smacked a man in the head. That could have been your awkward. I like it. Yeah, if I had made contact, that would have been the awkward. That would have been extremely awkward. As it stands, it's just a fun little icebreaker to kick us off.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for coming back. The good. The bad. And the awkward. Tell me something good from the week, please, or bad, or bad.

Oh, I don't really care. You choose. I'll start. Oh, my good. So, you know, last week I was talking about me reading the audio book and, like, losing my breath. On the last day, So the day after we recorded the podcast, the producer obviously noticed that I was losing my breath because, like, I had to keep stopping to be like, I'd gone blue.

And she was like, oh, I just like to suggest something to you. She called Anne Larson, a really, really lovely producer. She was like, I just want to suggest. Have you heard of Yoga Nidra? My initial reaction was no, because I don't like yoga because I'm too impatient and I can't. Like, if I'm going to do exercise, it's got to be like strenuous and violent, otherwise I don't really like it. So I was like, no, I don't want to sound of that. She was like, oh, you just kind of just lie there.

So I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I have discovered Yoga Nidra, probably not saying it right, but it is absolutely magical. It's basically a meditation that takes you through your body. It's similar to a compassionate body scan, which is what I used to do when I was recovering from eating stuff that really helped me. And I often recommend compassionate body scans to people as well because it kind of grounds you with your body and gets you back in touch with your body and like noticing it in a way. that isn't to do with how it looks but more like how it feels and it's similar to that

but oh my God it was amazing like I felt so horrendous on Thursday I was just so wound up I just wound myself up and I was in a it was just not in a great place and I did Yoga Nidra and I just feel like I feel like I've changed my life I mean I do this a lot and I'm like I've discovered something I've changed my life

and I'll do it like five times a day every day and then never do it again so bear with because this week it's all the rage but this week it's changed my life January's drum kit. This is January's drum kit. This is January's drum kit. Yeah.

So I'm literally like, at various moments of the day, I'm like, I'm just going to go and do some of the Eager. So that's my good. What's your good? Oh, my stomach just stank. Stank. Something just stank. I was like, oh, that's grim.

No, my stomach was just stank because I couldn't think of anything specific. Like, I'm okay. Okay. Well, Alex ran Barcelona Marathon. That's cool. Really good. Didn't die. That's good.

Which was a concern, a random concern. I've just a random anxious thought. came out of nowhere. I was like, what if he dies? Which would be terrible. So I sort of wasn't as chill as I could have been about it. Well, yay, that he's home. Yeah, yeah, he did really, really well, loved it, got a good tan.

Yep. Yeah, it's very brown. Yeah, it does a very brown, isn't it? I know. You're saying something because you're very fucking brown. I know. And then he came home and I was like, hmm, there's something wrong. We did this shoot together last week, and you are so brown in the images.

Like, compared to me, I look extremely pale. I literally look at that holiday in mind. I was like, I think I'm going to have a shoot when I get back with Alex. And I think I want to look, I think I want to look glowing next to her. Yeah, so Al did his marathon, which is great. But I'm just, shall this be, I'm just going to be momentarily negative, I guess. Like, yeah, it's been, it's not been a very good week. No.

And that's okay. To be honest, yeah, it's not been a good week, particularly. Like, by the time this episode's out, everyone will have seen on Instagram that our gorgeous friend, my gorgeous friend, Debs, James, has stopped her cancer treatment. and has gone home for hospice care and end-of-life care, really, which has just been, like, horrible. For as long as I've known, Deb, she has been fighting really, really hard. And she has taught me, continues to teach me more about living than anybody I've ever known.

I've never known somebody inspire me so much or teach me how to live in the way that she has. And so this just doesn't feel like a... fair ending at all and that's it's been hard to be perfectly honest it's been sad but uh the darkest of times you can find light and typical dev she has created so much light she on the day of recording she announced yesterday as her last post on social media that um she was uh starting the bowel babe fund um raising money for three cancer charities that she is um that she that have supported her and overnight she raised 1.3 million pounds

which is the most extraordinary thing you know her target was just cry her target was a quarter of a million and it's just even even when she's so tired she's still capable of just creating such magic and I just that's been so that has been good like among something really bad

and if anybody she's asked basically if everyone would please just buy her a drink so if anybody could donate the cost of an alcoholic beverage Rosee probably is fine for her then that would be amazing because it's life-saving work and as she said in her own words

it's to give more Deborah's more time so that's been bad that's been sad and that's like earth-shattering these shit news for everybody that's ever come into contact with Deborah James because she is a force of nature so that's been sad

it's awful news but just unbelievable that the impact that woman has had it's unreal and I saw when I saw her post last night and went to comment on it and I saw your comment that said what what you just said that she's taught you more about living than anyone ever has and I was like God that's so true and so special because she has lived I only know I only know Deb's through social media you know her as a friend so you know obviously social media doesn't tell the whole story but wow she like the

memories that she's making with her kids and the things that she's done and it's just yeah she's just amazing how you guys it is future m here i just had to pop in and give you an update because the fund that i mentioned in this episode that debbs had started that had already reached a million pounds at the time of recording has now just tipped over six million pounds and will no doubt be higher by the time this podcast comes out in the morning not only has debbs raised six million pounds in a week. She has also been awarded by Prince William himself, no less, a damehood. He went to her house and they drank champagne and she was made a dame and there is nothing more fitting and nothing more beautiful. And I had to just swoop in with the

goodest good that's ever been to give you an update on Dame Deborah James and to remind you that the link is in our show notes. So if you can donate, if you've not yet done it, Please, please do. It's been so special to watch the world show Debs how much we love her and how much she means to us all. Okay, so in the interest of keeping things light, my bad is nice and light. So I don't even know how this happened, but like I shared a picture of my fridge on Instagram. And now I am not just the shit hair girl because I have shit hair that won't curl and it's just generally quite shit.

and now I'm the shit fridge girl because my fridge is bleak and people are horrified by it more horrified than I expected actually I don't think I've ever received so many DMs being like, is this a joke? Yeah, you don't have a lot in the fridge I'll tell you who's the opposite of you

is like our friend Georgie Swallow who always has to leave a social she's like oh I've got loads of veg in the fridge it's always going off I'm like I need to see this fridge how much veg have you got to go home I've got to eat all my veg I'm like yeah that is grown-uping that is so grown up isn't it

I can't come out for dinner. I can't come to the pub because I've got loads of veg at home. I want to reach that level of adulting where I say no to going out for dinner because I've got vegling. I never want to reach that level of adulting. Even if I did have veg in the fridge

that was going to go off, I'd rather go out. What do you eat? So for lunch, I like all plants for lunch. I eat a lot of those, although they are very garlicky, so I try and not eat. I love garlic. I know, but I love garlic too, but I hate smelling like it's so garlicky.

I feel like everybody loves garlic, so I don't really care. Because Dave's always like, Whof, that is so much garlic. Fuck off, Dave. Anyway, so... Bad energy, Dave. Don't like that.

Jesus. Basically, we hash together horrendous dinners, basically. And, like, I love beans on toast. With cheese on toast. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's judging me here, I feel. Well, where does the cheese go?

Because it's not in the fucking fridge. You haven't got anything in your fridge. If you haven't seen Alex's fridge, there's nothing in the fridge. It was a bit... It was a bit... And some marx and some honey. Oh, you didn't even get helmonds. You chose an M&S.

Own brand. Mayanase. Eminet, who are you? Got the queen at the podcast. Unbelievable. I didn't even know, I didn't even know Eminet did. Always Heinz beans. I don't like it when people try and, you know.

Okay, but an omelet. Your integrity is dashed. An omelet. An omelet. Okay. Ooh, do you keep your eggs in the fridge or in the cupboard? Dave keeps him in the fridge. I just would normally keep them in the cupboard, but I don't care enough.

You live with Dave so theoretically. So fridge. Except not in the fridge on the photo that you shared. You didn't have any eggs. No, okay. God, what else do I eat? I don't know. I get stuff on the fly a lot.

I suppose, on the fly. It's 1992. We're in high school. I get some on the fly, babes. Oh my God, that's hilarious. Yeah, no, I need to become more of an adult because things are bad. Things are bad. Yeah.

I also, I do like ready feels. Like. M&S. You fucking love M&S. M&S, if you are. Sorry, just slacking off your bayonets. Please sponsor. Alex really loves you.

Please come back. Um, interesting. So I'll buy like M&S, like they do these like vegan, um, like chicken and gluten-free spring rolls. They do they, okay, nice. They do like vegan chicken escalops or whatever. And then I'll put like, I just buy some veg to go with it. Do you know what I mean? I just, basically, I need to do a weekly shop.

Anyway, we talk to. You know what? I've absolutely, I've slagged you to death there and that was actually unkind of me because if you look in my fridge now, there will be so much food. Yeah. that will probably be off. Because I'm not one of these people. I tell you what I'm really bad at.

It's like looking in the fridge and being like, there's this and this and this and this and I know what I can make with that. Do you know what I mean? Because I always just think like... Oh, you're good at that? No, no, I'm really bad at it. I haven't got the creative culinary flair.

Do you know? There's a website, okay, and you can type in the ingredients you have and it comes up with a meal for you. That's what I need. How cool is that? But I will very regularly throw a dinner. Like my favorite thing,

as you well know is my air fryer. That's the most middle class sense I've ever said, sticking with it. I stand by it. It's so good. And I'll tell you what you've got to do. Don't pull that face out because it's so good. You put in a tiny bit of oil, tiny, tiny bit. Nutritional yeast, which is high in B12, which is actually very good for a vegan person,

and it tastes hella cheesy. A bit of garlic. A lot of garlic. A little bit of salt. Cale. Broccoli, Brussels, corchette, peas. Literally, any vegetable you can think of. And I actually, right, you've got me on to something.

We eat salads. Well, I don't eat salad. I just think it's stupid. I honestly think it's a waste of space. I don't know why I'm going to bother chewing. Yeah, what the fuck is lettuce? It's literally just like crunchy water. No, can't see the point.

If I want water, I'll drink water. If I want food, I'll eat food. I'm not a rabbit. I'm not eating it. Anyway, not a massive vegan energy there, but here we go. Why don't we have hot salads? Because I very regularly eat, like a bowl. We don't really.

We don't call it a salad. You just call it a side plate of vegetables. you wouldn't go to a restaurant and have like a hot salad which is basically what I would like like Brussels sprouts broccoli kale bit of spinach oh just warm vegetables stunning but why isn't that a salad

that's like a bowl isn't it like a pokey bowl but they didn't really make I'm going to start if I open a restaurant I just do that as an option because you could put that you know if you want a bit of protein you could put a bit tofu if you were a fish you could a bit of tuna so good I think what you're literally describing is a pokey bowl no I think pokey balls are cold and they have quinoa in them and sometimes avocado which

which often has no place with the cooked vegetable I just think it's food for thought because I make sometimes I make these dinner and I'm just like and I look at it and I'm like

why is this weird this shouldn't be weird this is a delicious nutritional I love that yeah but if I put it on Instagram I say is this all you're having

I'm like I mean there's literally enough vegetable here to feed an army but yeah I mean I would need some carbs of protein I think

quinoa is an absolute shout in there and you make this like fancy like chemo I can see I'm making a pokey ball okay but I'm glad we did that Do you know what? I got an air fryer ages ago

and I look at it every time I'm in the kitchen but for some reason there's like a mental block to actually getting it out and working out how to do it It's so easy one button It's too many steps

It says air crisp You just press the button that says air crisp and it just crisps up your thing with the air It's honestly I'll FaceTime you I'll do it

I'll come around your house kale crisps in the air friar I love Brussels sprouts Oh Brussels sprouts In the air friar It's so good because vegetables

steam a vegetable take it or leave it air fry that shit oh it's garlicy it's cheesy with the nutritional yeast oh it's so good it's yeah oh game changing

I'm on it seasonal herbs anything you want absolutely stunning sensational oh fuck I'm making myself starving brilliant and with all that said

we are so proud to announce that this week's episode is sponsored by if ninja don't call me air fryer dot com honestly like yeah I'm starting a fan club um

awkward Anything awkward? My awkward. I was at my sister's house and two of my sisters live there, their twins and their partners. So we were all in the living room together and Dave was there

and I was wearing like pale green pyjama bottoms and I had my period, right? And I stood up to go to the toilet and Dave went, pointed at my crotch and went, ew, what's that? And I think he thought it was like, I don't know, chocolate or something.

And it was my period. I'd leaked. I'd leaked. And I was like... I was like, are you kidding me, Dave? And then he was like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I was like, you fucking twat. You could have... And he did it, so it was like, ew, what's that? I was like, are you joking? What's a little cretion?

I know, I know. Were you embarrassed? Do we embarrassed or did you play it like... I actually wasn't embarrassed. I actually thought I might have been, but I really wasn't. I was just like, oh, it's my period and I've leaked. It's my uterus lining, Dave, you asshole. What do you think?

I think it is. Yeah, good for you. A pyjama salvageable? Yeah, they're fine. It wasn't even much. Like, he really didn't have to make such a big deal of it. But hey, here we are. Right.

Two other boys were like, dead. Like, I'm dying. This is so awful. And I was like, no, no. Good for you. This is my period. Have you watched Gladiator? Because you didn't have a problem with the blood in that.

Then all of a sudden, when you got a tiny little bit on my gorgeous green pajamas, you got beef with it. Exactly. It's because it's because it come out of my vagina. But there you go. I'm really proud of you. I feel like we've turned a strong and unexpected feminist turn, corner. I've enjoyed it.

You're awkward. Hit me. Right. I told this story on Instagram, but actually had an issue with the subtitles. So I think a lot of people misunderstood. Anyway, embarrassing. So I wasn't having a happy weekend, okay? Like, everything was sad.

I was just feeling a bit sorry for myself. Alex was in Barcelona, not dead, doing his marathon, which was good. But, you know, I'd have the anxieties. And I was just on my own. And normally I'm actually really happy on my own. But, you know, sometimes when you get bad news and something's hard happens and you just kind of want a hug. Yeah.

Yeah. And you just feel a bit fragile. You just don't feel, you know, like normally I'm just like, woo, like love my life. But I just wasn't loving my life that weekend, right? Anyway, I wasn't having my life. I thought, you know what I'll help? Pop chips. Always.

Why am I supposed to food center today? Hummus. And I tell you what you need, a little bit of crunch, a cucumber. So, I mean, that's just me in three items. Like, literally love that as a snack. Anyway, went to the co-op and I was like, this is not a nutritional Sunday dinner, but fucking bite me, you know what I mean? That's the best bit about grip being a grown-up is you can choose your own food.

So I went to cut up, picked up a couple of bits of bobs. It happens. A broccoli randomly. and some grapes. And yeah, I was going to put it in the air fryer, not the grapes, the broccoli. Anyway, I've got me back and I was tired. Now, important detail,

I was wearing my brother's jumper, which was lower than my shorts, and I have my hair up on the top of my head, and I know I look like a mess. I know it. Like, there's no, like, oh, no, I'm, you look quite cute. No, no, no, no, no.

I just, I look like a fucking disaster, okay? So I'm in the car, but I look like a mess. And I never take my bag. Yeah, never take my bag for life because I'm a shit human being. But I'm not taking a plastic bag either

because I'm better than that. and I care about the turtles. So here I am, carrying all of my shit home. Yeah. And somewhere along the way, I must have dropped the cucumber, but I didn't notice, so I kept going. And I was walking back to my house, and I heard someone yelling behind me.

Now, I like where I live, but people yell a lot. It's London. Shit kicks off. You know, shit kicks off. So I was like, I'm not going to think anything of someone yelling. Maybe someone's knocked over a moped or something. I'll keep going. And then this yelling's getting louder,

and I was like, that fuck is happening. And eventually, I'm like, well, I'll turn around. And there was this man. running at me, and he literally looked like he was jousting cucumber up front, sprinting towards me, like, oh my God, it was like, you dropped your cucumber? And I don't know why, because more embarrassing stuff like than this happens all the time for me. But I think it was how loud he was, the fact that the cucumber, the phallic object was outstretched in front of him, it didn't look like I was wearing any trousers, and he was wearing sliders, which if

you've ever heard anybody running sliders, it's like, look, look, look, look. like so loud and we were on like a narrow street so there was echo but there were a lot of people around and you forgot your cucumber and I was like thanks and for some reason I just went so red like which I don't really it's quite hard Alex like Alex gets annoyed with how hard it is to embarrass me but for some reason I think I was just feeling fragile I felt that like hot up my cheeks and I was like oh my god and I didn't have a spare hand because a cucumber had fallen down the sides I like took it and I was like thanks and for some reason he didn't say anything. He just gave it to me. And then he turned

about turned and just ran away again. I was like, what the fuck? So click, click, click, click. And obviously he'd been like at the counter or whatever and he'd good Samaritan, lovely good Samaritan, but also, what a nice guy. But good God, like. All for a cucumber. All for cucumber. I know,

really nice. But I did show it on Instagram and someone sent me a message saying that a girlfriend of theirs had been at the cash point once and they'd left, they had the headphones in, they'd left the cash point. And they were walking down the street and it was dark and they heard footsteps behind them so they started speeding up and then the footsteps started speeding up then they started running and then the footsteps started running and they were like

oh my god and then there was a hand on their shoulder and they turned round and she instinctively just kicked this person in between the legs and just got them in the bollocks and it was just a really nice guy returning her cob that she'd left in the cob she oh no so at least i didn't you know do anything like obscene the cucumber i just took it and like shuffled home but i don't know why it just embarrassed me so much, like, maybe it was, maybe it was the shape of, maybe it was something as childish as the shape of the cucumber. I don't know. I feel like that's got something to do with it, the phallic nature of the cucumber. Yeah. I do feel your embarrassment, actually. Yeah, I just, I was just like, this just sucks. This just absolutely sucks. You've reminded me

of a really embarrassing moment from like two years ago. And this felt like, actually, and I've forgotten about this, this felt like one of the most embarrassing moments I've ever had in my life. I went into Sainsbury's and did a shop. and I got I had like two bags worth of food I did a big shop um yeah I lived in a different place at the time and that's I was walking home a different mental space where you actually filled your fridge with food yeah exactly the good back in the day the good old days and so I paid I put on my shopping in my bags and I left the supermarket and I left both bags I left both bags and I walks. Daisy's looking and be like what the fuck

no jokes swear to God and I remembered and then I think I got to the corner of the street and I was like because I remember thinking as I was packing the bags this is going to be really hard to carry this home because they're really big bags and I got and I could see my flat and I was like this feels a lot better

than I thought it was going to fear and then I was like that's because I don't have the bags so I had to turn around go back into Sainsbury's and be like I just bought my shopping but I left without it can I please have my bags of shopping and it felt horrible like truly truly horrible yeah yeah they'll tell that story too but you remember that time that goal was in there she just like forgot surely someone else done

someone else has done yeah I mean like probably like me a cucumber like that's the bad thing that's what got me the most embarrassing the fact that do you normally have someone to carry it home for you yeah I wish in lieu of the butler um had to make her own way back reader it was not a happy ending um I actually need to end this bit because I'm wearing a lipstick that's for, this should have been my bad, that's for at least four years old, I remember getting it like, oh, I remember when I was getting into this business and I think I was gifted it and it was like one of the first things ever gifted and I was like, Jesus, it used to be in the bin by then, by now then. Can you not see what's happening? Like, not only has it been

all over my teeth all day, but it's coming off and like, it's time to move on. It's time to move on. I don't know why I've done this to myself, but it's coming off in like balls. I can't feed it everywhere. Like, it's absolutely rank. I didn't know makeup. expired and I didn't think it mattered until today. It matters greatly. So don't, okay, it's an inspirational takeaway. Don't wait. How many times have you done that with perfume where you wait to use it because it's special and you've got it as a present? Yes, don't do that. And then it expires and then it just smells a bit rank. Yeah. Oh my God, my mom does that. She has such nice perfumes and then she just won't use them. Yeah, because they're too nice. Yeah.

Which is so stupid. Yeah, you just, you don't know, I mean, you don't know what's coming around the corner. Use a special perfume and live your life. Yolo. And on that note, and on that note, we have The best interview ever, sorry for the roller coaster that was that introduction. Yeah, sorry. The fabulous Laura Bates is here today. Her new book, Fix the System, Not for Women, is out now. And you're going to learn so much. Get a notepad, buckle up.

Epic interview. And you might cry as well. Yeah. Very inspiring. Look at me trying to be all like, wait until that moment. Like, keep listening for the exciting moment that we'll make you cry. Click big light over there. Click beat.

Listen, ear bait. No, but it was, yeah, some airbait, but it was, oh my God, it was so good. And after she left, we talked about it for like an hour afterwards, and we kept saying, oh, but what about when she said this or when she said that? And we couldn't, we struggled to pick out clips from it because it was so good. So anyway. This is my big fan girl moment. I talk about an interview, but you love her.

Yeah, I absolutely love her. She is feminist royalty. Like, she's an absolute legend. If I ever come out with a fucking spectacular debate point or statistic, I learned it from Laura Bates. So 100%. 100%. Every time I like shoot a man silent, it's because of Laura Bates. Love it.

Yeah. Okay. She's just the absolute, she's the balls. So enjoy this. Enjoy this. I go off as you. Sorry. Can we do that again?

I can't be able to. Enjoy. Enjoy. I'm going to introduce this because I'm so excited. Go on then. We've got Laura Bates here. who is feminist royalty. I already fangar a tiny bit outside,

but I'm going to just do it again. Laura Bates, if you don't know, well, I suspect most of us as well know. Laura is an author and an activist. And, I mean, a hero, to be honest with you, she started the everyday sexism campaign 10 years ago. And since then, has literally fought tirelessly written so many books and so much in the way of educating

people around feminism. And actually, I was going to say particularly, I was going to pick a favorite. I'm not going to pick a favorite. They're like my children. I love them all. But you've written so many amazing books and taught me so much over the years

and I'm so excited that you could do this episode. And it's just coinciding with the release of your new book, which is called Fix the System. And we're really excited to talk to you about basically feminism and this fucked up society. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, sorry. It was like, we said outside and we're like, it might not be that much fun stuff. But can I ask you like a super broad and random question, like kick off with? And you might be like, but can you tell me like what feminism, like what's the definition for you of feminism? Because obviously there is a lot of debate around it still and there's kind of a lot of back and forth about it. So I'm wondering like what's your stance? So for me, it's really simple.

It means believing that everyone should be treated equally regardless of sex. And that's pretty much what it says if you look it up in the dictionary, which I always say to kids want to. go in schools. Because as soon as you say that, you know, it's about everybody. It's about equality. They say, well, why isn't it called equalism then? Or why isn't it called humanism? And I always say that the answer to that is because partly humanism is already a different thing. But the answer is that you have to name a problem to solve a problem. So it's not a trick. It's not about women taking over the world or doing men down. But if we want to reach that level playing field, we need to recognize that where we're coming from is a really unlevel

one. This is a gendered problem. It disproportionately affects women and girls. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a massive negative impact on individual men and boys as well. So it's not about men against women. It's really about something that will help and improve life for people of all genders. I used to be a equalism school of thought. I was one of those. I was awful. I was like a proper, I guess, misogynist, but I was also just really ignorant to it. And I think, and one of the reasons I'm so excited to be talking to you is that I think in the last couple of years there's been a real shift. And I think that what you did with everyday sexism, right? So that started as a forum. Do you describe everyday sexism just for? Yeah. Because that was kind of ahead of its

time, really, and like what it was. It was really simple. It was a website launched in April 2012 and it was just somewhere where anybody could share a story of any experience of gender inequality. So it might be street harassment, workplace discrimination, sexual violence and it really deliberately put them all together in one place, partly because I wanted people to recognize, to be forced to recognize how bad the problem still was. People were saying sexism doesn't exist, women are equal now, but also because I felt really passionately about setting the different things alongside each other. We try to separate them out and we don't recognize that they're connected, that the street harassment and sexual violence and domestic abuse and workplace

discrimination are all part of a interconnected spectrum. So it was really simple. At first, it was just trying to raise awareness. And I thought that maybe 50,000. or 60 people might share their stories and instead 200,000 testimonies have been collected. So it's the largest data set of its kind that exists in that sense. Did any of the responses shock you? Oh, so many of them. Yeah. And so many of them.

It shocked me how many stories we got from little girls. Shocked me how many stories we had from like seven, eight, nine-year-olds. How many came from girls who were still at school who were being abused, who were experiencing daily harassment and worse at school. It shocked me how many stories came from women in the workplace. I thought that the biggest category we would get would be street harassment because it's so common, but actually the single biggest category was from women in the workplace,

and that made me realize how hidden workplace sexual harassment was. And it shocked me how many women had been blamed and shamed themselves. It wouldn't shock me today, but it did then, like just how many women, even by their own families, by teachers, by people close to them, had been told, this is your fault. What were you wearing? What were you doing? Did you bring it on yourself? I actually I remember finding everyday sexism

and I must have still been like you know pretty young like maybe 20 when I found everyday sexism and I was just like yeah that wouldn't happen to me if I was a dude and like it's just it's wild to me how unquestioned it goes or at least has gone you know in the past and unchallenged even within ourselves like you said like suddenly like a light bulb goes on you go hang on that was but we're so like entrenched in this stuff, aren't we, that we, it just felt normal.

Yeah, and we're conditioned into that, right? Like, we don't, we don't think that ourselves. We think that because we're constantly told you're overreacting. You're making a fuss about nothing. That didn't happen because you were a woman. You're being uptight. You need to learn to take a compliment. I'd love it if someone said something like that to me.

So many older women say that. There are so many of those brush off. Can I ask, what is your, like, repost to that? To anyone who says that, like, you're making a big deal out of it. It's, it's no big deal. Like, it's fine. He's really older. doesn't know any different, you know, all those kind of brush-offs, what's your

repost to that? Like, if you could, because I imagine a lot of people listening will be like, yeah, I'm scared of saying something because I know that that's a response I'll get, and I won't really know how to come back to that. So what would you kind of, sorry, put you on the spot. No, that's okay. I mean, the real answer to it is that that's why we need men to be on board with this and to be part of the change, because it's when someone makes one of those little comments that's really hard to challenge and you know that you'll be seen as uptight and you'll be called a feminazi. If a guy who's bystanding who sees it says something, it takes all of that kind of pressure and skategoating off you and it's much less likely to be challenged if another man

says something and kind of says actually that's not cool. So partly like the answer is that we shouldn't be having to challenge it all the time. We need to see men kind of stepping up and helping in those situations. But also I think for me that's kind of what the point of the project was. It was to put those tiny things that people brush off and say banter and it's no big deal and it was just a joke in context because actually just a joke isn't so funny anymore when you've had it 10 times a day or you know when your whole week has looked like a mosaic of harassment and discrimination and abuse and I think that's the thing that you need to try and get those people to understand when they kind of brush it off and say it's so tiny like it might seem small to you in isolation

but look at the context it's also not funny in the context of fear like it's it's you know it's a difference between bullying and teasing, isn't it? And it's just like, well, teasing is when someone's on board of you and bullying is when they're not. And, you know, how many women have to stand up and be like, no, I'm not on board with it. I'm not on board with it. And it, and it's still persists. But like, that's kind of, it almost feels full circle that you've come like 10 years and you did everyday sexism, which was kind of like, this is everybody's problems. And in that time, you've done so much amazing work. But now's the call to action and it's like, the new book is like fixed the system. And it's like, you've been on so, you've, you've been immersed.

in this we were saying before we started recording like you've you've thrown yourself into this and into and i really want to talk to you about what you've learned along the way about particularly like the in-cell culture and that sort of thing because that terrifies me but you've been so immersed in sexism i suppose so it feels really powerful now that it's like a call to action on particularly on the back of like the last 18 months which have particularly felt like a horrible time to be a woman And we've, it's come up a lot for us in recent episodes, like, but like, you know, 20, 2021 specifically was just horrific news-wise. And was that the catalyst for doing this book? Yeah, partly.

I mean, it was just absolutely horrendous. Even while I was writing the book, I was writing about Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman and Sarah Everard. And between the second draft and the third draft, Sabina Nessa died. And I had to put that in. And then after between the third draft and the copy edit, Bobby Ann McLeod died, after the copy edit before the proofs, Ashling Murphy died. It just felt like I couldn't even write fast enough to keep up with the tragedies that were happening. And it just felt devastating. And I felt devastated knowing that by the time the book came out, it would be another woman's name.

And the thing that really got me so angry was knowing it would be another woman's name and another man blaming them. Because after Sarah Everard, police told women, in Clapham not to go out on their own and we had a police commissioner saying she shouldn't have submitted to the arrest as if it was her fault to the false arrest. After Sabina Nessa they handed out attack alarms to women in local areas. After Bobby Ann McLeod, the mayor leader of her council said everyone has a responsibility not to put themselves in compromising or dangerous situations. It just felt like every time these things happened, it seemed like such an obvious tipping point that this was a huge public health emergency that needed a public health

systemic response. The answer was, what could women do a little bit more? As if women aren't already doing enough walking with our keys between our fingers and wearing our flat shoes and not wearing the wrong kind of skirt and taking the well-lit route and don't get the wrong kind of minicab and keep your hand over your drink and text each other when you get home and all of these things that we all know that we never talk about, we just do them. And then the police after the time they had to think about it came out and said flagged down a bus and I just thought it's it can't be about women anymore because it is so clearly about this system that's failing them about institutional misogyny and policing and in criminal justice and like how can you look at

what's going on and say women just need to try a bit harder it's completely mad do you think that's that's sort of them turning a blind eye to the like you were saying kind of similar to what you're saying about the mosaic I like that and like, you know, all the mosaic of misogyny that occurs, and then they're taking this one incident in isolation and going, well, it was just a nutter. Absolutely. You know, they're not actually, I don't know if they're turning a blind eye or they must be. Yeah, and I think really deliberately because that was actually the wording they used was a badden.

You know, they said you get the occasional badden. But they said that knowing that 2,000 Met officers have been accused of sexual misconduct, including rapes in the last four years alone. And half of met officers who have found guilty of sexual misconduct kept their jobs. So like this idea that Wayne Cousins is an isolated incident is nonsense. His own colleagues called him a rapist. He'd been reported for indecent exposure multiple times. You know, all the officer who shared images of the dead bodies of Bieber Henry and Nicole Smallman.

He shared them in a WhatsApp group with 41 colleagues. So this idea that no one knows that the stats are just completely terrifying. Only one in 18 met officers who's accused of sexual assault is ever subjected to formal action. So yeah, I definitely think it's so clear that this is a system problem, an institution problem, and it's being treated again and again as if it's just isolated incidents that have got nothing to do with the whole. Beyond the police thing, like, it's not even a question. It's just a, like, I've had so many men that I respect, say, oh he's just a nutter like I've literally heard the words like yeah he's just a nutter

and I just think on the back of that I'm like if that's the case why would you never let me walk to dinner on my own if that's the case why are you scared of other men why is the rhetoric around fathers and daughters and how protective you know you've got to be so protected my little girl if she ever brings a man home I'm going to kill him why are you going to kill him just a nutter it's probably just you know it's probably not a nutter because most men won't hurt you and you know what I mean like it's and it feels I want do you think it's like an ego thing do you think, you know, because this isn't all men, but for the most part, men are,

I don't know if it's willingly in denial or accidentally in denial, but there is denial about it, and there is defensiveness about it. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on, like, the psyche behind that. Like, do you know why they behave like that? I think it taps into a lot of kind of myths and misconceptions about feminism, particularly online that are really directed at men. So men are kind of then primed to see conversations that are really,

needed about sexual violence and about male violence as an individual attack on them, when the reality is that, of course, we're not talking about the majority of men. And we know that. We're talking about a small but significant minority of men, but we do need to talk about them. And I think that that diversion and that kind of deflection of not all men, which trended, I think, 64,000 times after Sarah Everard died. People tweeted, not all men. And it just shows you how extreme that sentiment is that even in the face of devastating stories and tragedies like that, still that's the kind of go-to that people are having that new jerked offensive reaction. And I think it's because they've seen so much online and in the mainstream media of this idea that feminism is a witch

hunt, that women want to take men down, that, you know, false allegations are rife. And it's all complete nonsense. A man in the UK is 230 times more likely to be raped himself than to be the victim of a false allegation of rape. That is one of the most important statistics. I whip that out. Can you repeat that? Sorry. Yeah, so a man in the UK is 230 times more likely to be raped himself than to be falsely accused of rape.

Wow. But if you look at how much we talk about false allegations of rape versus how much we talk about male survivors, most people would think it was totally the other way around. And I have that conversation with women sometimes and they'll be like, oh, but it is hard for men these days. Because, you know, it could be, oh, and their career's over. And it's like, yes, that would be fucking terrible.

But much more likely it's that it's actually actively going to be horrendous for all these women. Meanwhile, you mentioned the mainstream media. And like, we were talking about this before we started recording and I feel really, really strongly that the right wing media in this country have a huge part to play in this. And fuck it. Well, they've been shamed, particularly the daily male. I think that, like, unashamed misogyny. relentlessly dangerous and I wonder like if you have I mean I'm sure you do have thoughts on that but like if you could explain why that is so dangerous like why the rhetoric that they create and the

narrative that they're perpetuating is actually damaging so there's a concept called the overton window which is about the kind of window of like acceptable discourse and what we consider kind of okay to say in in society and basically if that window is sort of widened then the stuff that's on the fringes or outside of it becomes more normal more. So in my work, I see teenage boys who are being radicalized and groomed online into really extremist misogyny. And I think one of the big impacts of the mainstream media is making that possible by making it seem so much less extreme to those young people. So if you see one of our biggest newspapers suggesting in a big story that Angela Raina is distracting the prime minister by

crossing and uncrossing her legs because a girl from her working class background couldn't possibly have the same debating skills as him, like just absolutely rank misogyny and classism, but it's in our biggest newspaper, then when someone online comes to you in a gaming chat or a bodybuilding forum and says, actually, do you know what, women have too many rights and we should strip them back and really like we should go back to when men were in charge and like really what women are good for is sex, that doesn't sound so extreme because how far is it off what you've been seeing in the mainstream media? Or if you've got the today program saying that women were hysterical and overreacting after Sarah Everard or again the Today program asking is

me to a witch hunt. It feeds into these complete misconceptions. And I think it makes it so much harder for women to speak out because the press repeatedly drags them through the mud when they do. We treat them like their harlots, like they're coming out like, you know, however many years later because they're gold diggers. It's horrendous the way that women are treated when they come forward. And I think that that silences other women as well. I think it's the biggest news website in the world in terms of hits, the mail online. I think it's like the number one. And at least when I worked in journalism, it was miles above anyone else. So that is beyond mainstream. It's like ubiquitous. And that is the, it's just crazy. Like when you

frame it like that, when you said like one of our biggest newspapers, I was like so big. Yeah. But it's not just them, you know, like the Daily Mail published a piece that was entitled a couple of exes could now end my glorious career, which was literally about the idea that because of Me Too, if a man accidentally put a kiss on a text message or an email to a female colleague, like she could bring his entire career toppling down with a false allegation of sexual harassment.

You've got, you know, as I said, you've got the Today program saying, is Me Too a witch hunt? This stuff is, it's completely rife. Yeah, and I mean, it's a good morning, Britain. It's all of it, isn't it? Yeah. The debates in inverted commas that people have are so often,

But it's not a debate, it's a way of pushing your agenda. Yeah. And people fall for it time and time again. Totally. And I mean, on the one hand, I thank you for my education over the last decade, Laura. But on the other hand, knowing all this stuff and then having to coexist in a world where this is the media, it's so annoying. Yeah. Because it's like, oh, God, like, you can see.

It's everywhere. It's been so many problems. And I just, I feel really powerless. And do you feel, like, it's a really heavy question, but do you feel powerless or do you feel hope? I feel hope because I know I can see the difference that those things that we're doing make. And that makes you feel, you know, you're not powerless because this change is happening. We've taken stories that women share, which I think could make you feel quite powerless to hear these hundreds of thousands of stories. But what I do is I take them and I take them to people who have the power to change things.

So we took all the stories that were from girls under the age of 16 about being sexually assaulted at school into Parliament, repeatedly, like, presented these stories of girls in their own words to different MPs, to different ministers, to different education secretaries, just again and again and again, saying you have to put consent on the curriculum. We have to talk about healthy relationships at school. And finally, finally, it worked in the curriculum change last year. We took the stories that were from, and obviously loads of other brilliant organisations campaigning on these issues as well.

It wasn't us in isolation. But, you know, I can see that change happening because of this work. and we took the stories that were from women on buses and tubes on public transport to the British transport police. And about 2,000 officers were retrained, specifically using those women's stories in their own words to change how they tackle sexual offences from a really victim-centred approach. And it raised the reporting of sexual offences by about a third on the transport network and, crucially, the number of people that they caught. So you can see how this sharing of stories does have such power and how things are changing.

And that gives me hope. It must be difficult, it must be hard on your mental health, though, because I'm imagining that you, I'm not putting words into your mouth, but for me, I'm imagining that you almost see-saw between, like, hope and then hopelessness. When you, you know, you've got hope because you're taking something and, you know, actions are going to be taken and, you know, people in power are listening. And then it's almost like you've got another fire to put out or, you know, it must be, it must be really challenging on your. mental health and your resolve must be tested. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I think anybody's is doing this kind of work. But then you look around you at the other women who are doing it.

You know, you look at the frontline service providers. You look at the women who are working as ISVA's, you know, independent sexual violence advisors who are accompanying survivors to court. You look at the women who are working on the front line who are working in rape crisis centres and refuges. And you think, you know, they've been doing. this for decades and if they can carry on and grit their teeth in the face of it all, you know, and what's the alternative? The alternative is to throw in the towel and then I just

I think about all of those girls I work with in schools and I just want them to know that they're not alone and we're not going to stop fighting for them and, you know, it is going to get better and we're just not going to give up until it does. Yeah, that's because I was going to ask you, do you ever just feel like I'm sick of fighting, you know? But then I suppose, I'm, suppose that's a huge, huge reason to just push forward. Yeah, and those girls are amazing. They're so inspiring and that keeps me going for sure. That's a real kind of boost. I went to a school where there was, like it was an all-girls school, but they had an all-boys school nearby that they did a lot of stuff with. And my talk was one of those things that they were doing together. And the girls had

heard that morning before I arrived, they'd seen on social media that the boys were kind of smack talking about the lecture that was coming up and they were kind of saying like why we've got to go and listen to this bitch talk about how she hates men and they were basically talking about disrupting it they were talking about coming in and being like really unruly and like really disruptive

and not listening and that kind of thing so these girls like who I might have thought would have like gone to a teacher or something they didn't tell anyone about it but they asked to leave their last lesson a few minutes early to get to the theatre on time and when they got there they separated themselves out and they sat in every other chair throughout the entire auditorium

So when these boys arrived Like every single one of them Was forced to sit in between two girls And it totally took the like fight out of them And it totally took away that sense of being like this like Lad's army dissenting And they ended up having to listen And we had a great conversation

And of course like when they actually listened They realised that it wasn't about hating men Or attacking men And it went really well Because those girls had that like incredible idea Of how they were going to deal with the issue themselves It's so clever Yeah girls are amazing

There was another school where these girls asked me to come in because the boys in their class were rating them out of 10. So they'd go into the classroom and the boys were shouting out like 7, 4, 6 and they didn't really understand what was going on with these three numbers. And then they realized the guys were giving them like rating, not even just for their whole selves, but they were separating out their heads, their breasts and their bums.

And these girls got so angry and they'd found everyday sexism on Tumblr. And they asked me to come in and talk. And I thought they won't want anyone to know who I am because quite often it's like the one girl in the school who asks you to come in and then really doesn't want anyone to know because she gets such backlash for being a feminist. But these girls, there were like seven of them and they were sitting in the front row with her arms linked

and they'd made T-shirts and they gave one to me. And the T-shirts said, I want to live in a world where I'm judged by the content of my character and not the pieces of my body. And it was amazing and I did the talk and at the end when I left, they had this like pledge against sexual harassment. They were getting all the boys to sign it as they left.

And when I got home that night and I took the t-shirt on the back of the t-shirt when I took it off that night, it said, anyway, I am 10 out of 10. And it's just like the best thing ever. They're amazing. So that, you know, that keeps you going and that gives you hope.

There's this generation of girls. And we know that hundreds of feminist societies have been set up across the UK in the last few years. They are so brave. Ironically, this generation that is pillory dislike, woke, snowflake, wilting victims so you can't take a joke. They're amazing.

They're so brave, and they're dealing with it 10 times worse than we ever did because they're on social media from the age of 12 or 13, and they're fighting back, and that gives you so much hope, I think. You said, you know, like, and this is a constant rebuttal that you have to deal with feminism. It's like, we don't hate men, we don't hate men, we don't hate men. Some women do hate men. To be fair, I'm at this point, I'm like, fair enough, no, joking about it. But, you know, on the whole, feminism does not, it's not synonymous,

with men hating, but there are a lot of men or an increasing number of men who actively do hate women. And this, you wrote a book a couple of years ago called men who hate women, and I listened to it on an audio. And I have never been so shocked by the contents of a book in my life. And this is me who's in a feminist place, who's loved you forever anyway. And I I need you to talk to us about insults and about this forum because we were saying before about the media in like the sense of hypothesis but it was announced today we're a bit pre-recording this a bit or it was announced yesterday or did before whatever that Elon Musk has just bought Twitter and this is the same Elon Musk who has done a tweet in the past in support of the

red pill movement which is part of the men's rights activism right and that like that does scare me like I can't pretend that that doesn't scare me and and I would really love first of all, your take on that and actually an explanation of what the red pill movement is, what these men's rights things are, and really what in-cell culture is, because I think there's a lot of, like, oh, well, it's a few nutters, but actually it's kind of really prevalent now, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of a group of different communities and ideologies

that tend to be lumped together under this sort of vague title of the Manusphere, and it's lots of different groups within that, but in cells are probably the most extreme end of it. And incels call themselves involuntary celibates. So they're men who aren't having sex and want to be having sex. And they very explicitly blame women for that. And they have this kind of pseudo-scientific kind of world view that they've built for themselves where they believe in the sexual marketplace,

where they believe that there's this very small number of desirable women who are having sex with only the most desirable men who are starving these other men of sex. They believe kind of their ideology sort of falls apart if you look too closely because at the same time they call women sluts and haws and they hate them for having sex and at the same time they're furious that those women aren't having sex with them. so it's a really bizarre but a very extreme ideology and it's basically kind of carried out across a sprawling network of blogs, forums, members groups, websites, social media platforms and we're talking about numbers in the tens of thousands

even for a single one of those forums. So of course we're talking about a tiny percentage of men but it's still a very large number in terms of how many guys are on there and then we're talking about the number of teenagers who are coming across this kind of ideology sort of downstream. You don't have to be like a paid up member of a forum to be seeing a viral YouTube video that's recommended to you by the algorithm so you get these ideas anyway. And their idea basically is that women should be massacred. I mean, it's as extreme as that.

They think that women should be either forcibly kept as sex slaves, should be raped, or that they should rise up in what they call the Day of Retribution when they should massacre as many women as possible to punish them, which I know sounds so extreme that I think people all may switch off at that point and go, okay, so you're talking about a handful of losers. But the men who are involved in these communities have repeatedly been unmasked as politicians, as kind of high-profile members of the community, as football coaches. And what's more worrying is that they have repeatedly gone offline and done exactly what they threatened to do.

So you've got Elliot Roger in Santa Barbara, California, who went on a shooting spree and murdered a huge number of people, most of them women. You've got Alec Manassian, the Toronto van attacker who deliberately drove a speeding rental van into pedestrians, killing, again, 80% of his victims were women. These men actively, explicitly acting in the name of in-cell culture, saying they wanted to massacre women because they hated women because they were in-cells. And those are just two examples. There's been so many more. There was a boy in Toronto who walked into a massage parlour and killed a woman with a machete, again explicitly because he was an in-cell saying that was why he acted. And if you look at all the cases together, there's been about 100 people who've been murdered or seriously injured explicitly in the name of these ideologies in the last 10 years.

But although it fits every definition of terrorism, right, so carrying out an attack like that because of hatred of a specific demographic group that you've been radicalized to hate online, textbook terrorism, we don't call it terrorism. And we don't call the grooming of boys into this ideology online radicalisation. because we just are so, we have such a blind spot about white men being terrorists and because we're so used to misogyny being normal that we won't even consider making it a hate crime because violence against women is just part of the wallpaper because one woman's murdered every three days by a man and half a million women are sexually assaulted every year

and 85,000 women are raped every year in England and Wales alone and 1.4 million experienced domestic violence. It's so hard for us to look at that and think this is something extreme. and out of the ordinary, so it's just at the moment going under the radar, and that's really scary. And it's not all insult, like there is, there's, it's like a ladder up, right? So there's the incels at the very top, but it's described as a pyramid, isn't it? Like, at the bottom, you've got, like, sort of street harassment or catcalling or whatever, and then at the very top you've got insult, and in between you've got all the stages.

But I think something that I'm really interested in or, like, really curious about is the manosphere in general, like the kind of this red pill thing and like the kind of the not not the like tens of thousands of it or like I don't know the numbers but not the small amount of very terrifying in cells but like the sort of the next layer down that's what feels like it really scares me yeah so I would say that that level kind of includes men's rights activists and pick up artists and so called men going their own way who think that women are so awful and terrifying that the only way to be safe is to avoid them in your life and every way. And yeah, so they believe in what they call taking the red pill, which is an analogy that they've borrowed from the Matrix, where essentially they describe taking the red pill as recognizing and awakening to the fact that feminism is a hoax, that men are the real oppressed gender, and white men in particular. So this is very closely aligned with white supremacy as well. And that feminism has kind of taken over the world. They describe our society as a gynocracy, which is hopelessly stacked in favor of women, and that men are really,

oppressed, that women everywhere are lying about rape, that they're stealing men's jobs, that kind of PC gone mad, sort of on steroids, essentially. And it sounds again so extreme that you think, oh, come on, you know, how far is that spread? But recently they did a poll in America where they found that 27% of men now will refuse to have a one-to-one meeting with a woman in the workplace because of the fear that she might accuse him of something. That's over a quarter of men. And, you know, when Mike Pence was the vice president, he refused to have dinner alone with any woman other than his wife. That's the vice president. This stuff is in the White House. So it's actually so much more mainstream and kind of normalized than we might

think. Yeah, so he'll go out for dinner with his male, whatever. And that's where, that's where favours get done. That's where, like, yeah, so promotions get given. Yeah, exactly. Do you feel threatened by what you do? Well, increasingly recently, I mean, since I started, within like maybe three weeks of starting the everyday sexism project I was getting about 200 rape and death threats a day and it's just varied over time in terms of how it's felt I think there was a phase where I started to get used to it and then something will come that's a real curveball like it's not always just you know I'm going to rape you it might be this is a 10 page email about exactly what weapons I'll disembowl you with and what order I'll use them in after men who hate women came out there was a definite spike in

kind of credible threats and so the police installed a panic button in my house because there were people who were really kind of collaborating on talking about how they could find me and how they could kill me but even at a kind of more basic level

on the day to day you'll get men sending you pictures of you that they've printed off and ejaculated on and then like sending you a photograph of that or you know I've just seen you on Sky News and I'd like to use your hair as handlebars and rape you until you die that just becomes like the daily wallpaper of the work that you do and it's really it's really difficult to explain I think

because you know and the response that you get a lot from men mostly is but they're just trying to scare you like why would you let it bother you and there's a real lack of understanding I think about the psychological impact alone of reading thousands of strangers fantasies about raping and disemboweling you but beyond that you think about the odd person who does follow through, you know, so people have turned up at book events I've done and handed out flyers calling me a lying bitch. Just before many women came out, there was a woman

in the United States, a judge who kind of found herself in the crosshairs of a particular men's rights activist who believed that she was kind of delaying a case that was a typical men's rights case that had been brought in the courts. And he disguised himself as a FedEx delivery driver and turned up at her house. And when the door was open, he opened fire. And he opened fire. murdered her son and seriously injured her husband. So you do think about those cases and it's really hard to know. You see hundreds and hundreds of people saying this is how I'll hank her, like this is what I'll do. And it's really hard to know how, you know, how scared to be. You try really, really hard to keep going and not to be. But these are the people that are so angry

with women for hating men and this is how we treat you. Yeah, the irony. I know. I know. The irony. It's just horrific. Yeah, I mean, it's that ironic. Do you think it's mostly people who identifies incels? No. No, I don't think so. There's just a lot of men on the internet who fall into that category that M's just described that kind of like next level of the pyramid.

It's just kind of a mess of different ideologies. I think you painted like a really good picture of how people are indoctrinated into that way of thinking and how they're radicalized, especially like young, you know, teenagers at a point where they're particularly vulnerable and you know you're reading stuff in the mainstream and you know we are what we consume really yeah um but what is the this is a yeah a very big question but what is the answer to it you know for like I was thinking specifically in cells but I guess you know anyone who has you know or who yeah who has these sort of thoughts and beliefs about women what is

What is the answer to all of it? Sorry, it's a huge question. I think the good news is that there are lots of answers. Like, because we're doing nothing about it at all at the moment, there's a lot of obvious progress to make, which is, you know, positive. So I think the first step is recognising it for what it is. It would help if we labelled it terrorism and radicalisation because then the resources would be allocated to tackling it.

So that's one thing. Education is so important because anyone will tell you that preventing radicalisation is a million times easier and more effective than trying to deradicalise someone. So we have to be talking about this stuff in schools from a really young age to give them that kind of line of defence against it when they're then sort of targeted for radicalisation. As you say, they're so vulnerable. But also the boys I see who this stuff appeals to them and who've been sucked into it is because it gives them this feeling of belonging and a sense of being part of something and a cause and a community and a sense of identity. And all of those are things that those boys might have found in offline spaces. are no longer available to them. So youth centres, funding for youth centres, has been absolutely slashed over the last 10 years or so. So actually finding those positive spaces for boys,

exploring and supporting boys' mental health offline, would be such a positive way to stop them from being more vulnerable to fall into the grip of these people online. Well, that's it, isn't it? It's like we talk about toxic masculinity, and again, a lot of men will take that as like a, you know, they'll instinctively get defensive, Whereas toxic masculinity, we've talked about this before, is as much, if not more dangerous for many men, you know, because by the same stroke saying women have to be small and dainty and perfect and pretty, men have to be big and mach and strong.

And like being a teenage boy, like, you know, and you're not as popular with the girls or you're not as good looking as everybody else, right? And you've got nobody to talk to about your mental health. And it's horrendous. Like, you know, it's very, it's so. that you can't sit that there's this disconnect between like feminism and support for young boys because you know they probably don't want to be supported by feminism because it's got the word feminine in or whatever but it's like they do need the support so much and unfortunately because they're not getting the support that's when they become susceptible to to to the conditioning but it would be really if you could it'd be really helpful to explain kind of like why their vulnerability or like how their vulnerability causes yeah it'd be interesting. interesting to hear kind of like how the radicalisation process works in terms of a vulnerable young boy because they they are it's a horrible time like you could give me enough money to be a teenage boy so essentially social media is really deliberately used as a kind of means of reaching these boys in a really cynical way by the people who want to radicalise them they talk about using cultural memes and touch points and kind of you know so movie memes and jokes as adding

cherry flavour to children's medicine, so they know exactly what they're doing when they use those ways of reaching boys. So it's not that a young boy kind of logs online and goes looking for an in-self forum to hate women. Of course it's not. What happens is that you get a kid who perhaps is already vulnerable, already feeling pressure and worry about having big enough muscles, let's say, goes to a bodybuilding forum. And it turns out that if you look on bodybuilding forums, then there's a huge amount of this kind of recruitment and radicalisation going on there because they know that that's a vulnerable, susceptible group. So you've got bodybuilding forums where, for example, one conversation I looked at, a kid on there had said, there's

this girl I really like in my class. Like, does anyone have any advice about, like, you know, how to, what I should do? And the first answer was rape it. So you've got these boys who are really vulnerable, who are looking for conversations about relationships and sex. And that's what's finding them online. And it doesn't happen all at once. So, it starts out with like let's see a big jokes on an Instagram meme account and then maybe you get a video on YouTube and then maybe the YouTube algorithm serves up a few more videos and and it's all funny and jokey and banter and it's okay to say these awful things because obviously you're joking and obviously women are equal so it's okay to make these jokes and at a certain

point down the line it stops being ironic but they couldn't necessarily put their finger on when it stopped being a joke and by that time they're almost too far in. It's so easy to see how it happens. It really is. And how do parents like help? Like how do you, if you've got a teenage boy or a young boy, like how do you do to stop this happening? There's a lot that parents can do. I think that part of it is that we're in this unique moment in history that no one ever talks about, which I find really odd. It's never happened before. It will never happen again. And yet we never really discuss it that a generation of digital natives is being parented and educated by a generation of non-digital natives. And that's like a

huge culture gap. The world that they're living in is one that's almost completely unknown to their parents in terms of the kind of social media that they're on and that kind of thing. So, you know, a good example of this is that I think adults think of YouTube for like movie trailers and grumpy cat videos. Young people is the biggest single place that they say they get their news. So it's a totally different function. It's a totally different world that they're living in. So I think one thing that parents can do is try and dip their toe into that world. Like, sign up for some of the big comedy accounts on Instagram and type red pill into Facebook or into YouTube and see where the algorithm takes you, have a look on some of the

kind of men's rights, Reddit pages, and just start to get a sense of the kind of atmosphere that young people are in on a day-to-day basis because that's a really great first step. And I think the other thing is that when you talk to parents, they think it has to be one big, huge thing that they tackle and it's like this terrifying conversation. and it's, but actually I think the smaller and the more often that you talk about this stuff, the easier it becomes. So it doesn't have to be like, sit down

with me and talk about in-self now. It might be, hey, look at that billboard that we just drove past for that breakfast show. How come the man's in a suit and the woman's in a bikini? That seems weird. You know, it's like the tiny little things that you pick up on and you talk about and just opening up the lines of communication

so that they know they can come to you and chat about this stuff and it won't be big and scary and you won't be judgmental. I talk to Ben Hurst, who's one of the facilitators for the, it used to be called the Good Lad Initiative. Now it's called Beyond Equality. They work with boys in schools around this stuff.

And he said, when he hears stuff like women are lying about rape and girls are asking for it because they're wearing short skirts, he tries to listen for what the fear is underneath it because really it's about teenage boys who are scared. And he said, when they say women lie about rape, what he hears is, I'm scared someone will accuse me of rape. And he tries to engage with them from there and to look at the facts and to look at the reality.

rather than coming in from this judgmental, you know, you're a woman hating bastard kind of that's going to trigger that new jerk defensive reaction. So trying to talk to your sons from a place of compassion and support, but also trying to help them see that what they see online isn't necessarily real life and that it might be misleading. That totally makes sense. And it sounds like that education and support is like so vital because the online space isn't going anywhere.

If anything, it's going to get bigger and bigger and there's no getting away from that, like all of our kids everywhere will just be online constantly. But I guess what you can do is put in place that education and that support so that when they're confronted with something like that, rather than choosing to go down that path, they're at least acquainted with the idea of what this might be. And I'm not going to go for this, you know. I'm not going to take that road.

Totally. I think so, yeah. Do you think like, I find me a family. like with victim blaming because it isn't like relentlessly prevalent this is a really like deep question but is it just like generations and years and centuries of just hating women or scapegoating women like sometimes I think is it like is it Adam and Eve like you know like she Eve doomed us forever and so like women are destined to doom us forever and I don't know do you think like is it that complicated I don't know or is it just I wonder where it all stems from? I think it comes from two places. I think that part of it is about maintaining the status quo.

So if we put all the blame on women, then nothing else needs to change. It's just the women who need to keep trying harder and getting better and fixing the problem themselves. If we accept that women aren't the problem, then we have to confront the need for system change for institutional reform in policing and criminal justice. And that's a big job. And it's also a recognition that would impact on the white men who run that world and who benefit from that world. It means really interrogating patriarchy itself. And systems like that will always defend themselves and try to maintain themselves without interrogation and without question.

So blaming the women is a really neat way of sidestepping all of that, you know, system change that seems like hard work. We talk about, like, you know, we need systemic change. I say all the time. But I wouldn't know. If I was in charge of the system and I had. I'd change it. I wouldn't know where to start. Do you know where you start? Yeah, I think there are lots of really, really good examples of things that we could do.

So like overnight tomorrow, if you're looking at, for example, policy stuff, you could ratify the Istanbul Convention, which is a brilliant piece of legislation that brings together sort of ring fencing funding for frontline women's services, looking at media regulation around misogyny and the reporting of sexual violence. education is a brilliant thing that the UK government basically signed over 10 years ago and has never ratified, partly I think perhaps because they'd have to do all of that good stuff. But also there's really simple things. Like there isn't a dedicated rape and sexual assault unit in every police force in the UK. Could that have something to do with the fact that only 1.4% of rapes that are reported to the police result in a charge or summons, maybe?

You know, there's just such obvious things that would make such a huge difference. reforming the child care sector would make a massive difference to women in employment. Looking at the use of NDAs to gag women who experience maternity discrimination would have a massive impact. There are so many things that could be done. And the thing is that the women's sector and women's frontline charities have been shouting about this for years. These aren't kind of mysterious sort of esoteric ideas that are in the ether and no one can possibly find them. They're literally sitting there in the reports of rape crisis and Imkan and women, refugee women and the step-up migrant women coalition and women's aid you know these are experts

who've been working in this field for decades and they consistently produce these recommendations with really clear things we could do and then the government when something like this happens goes away and comes back with tell women to flag down buses but that's what I'm thinking like I'm thinking while these men are in power and unwilling to relinquish the power the money and the status that true systemic change would require do you think it's going to happen? Or do you think they're eventually going to be under enough pressure that it has to happen?

They have to do something. That's why I hope. And that's why I've written this book because I think there's so much righteous anger, rightly so at the moment. But I don't think that everybody knows about these institutional issues. And I think if we could focus enough anger

on demanding that kind of reform, on, for example, demanding an investigation, a statutory investigation into institutions, misogyny and policing, if we could focus on those kinds of demands rather than focusing on women and what women should be doing differently, then I have hope that we will force them not to be able to get away with just fobbing us off and brushing it under the carpet. But it is difficult. It's difficult to stay hopeful because women have been raising their voices and shouting about this stuff for such a long time and it does often feel like nobody's

listening and that's really hard. So we need men. We need men. How, on a practical level because we've actually we've we've answered like people we've spoken about this kind of on the podcast before like from listeners and stuff we've kind of had this conversation but never with an expert so expert law of those if if you you have a part like I'm just going to use like a typical blokey partner and actually Alex and I both lucky in that our partners are kind of probably exposed to what we do more so you know they're kind of different breed but if we're just like looking at like two standard men who play football and make jokes about women making sandwiches or whatever and always ask for an

international men's day as an international day you know the type if we're dealing with men like that how how is it practical like conceivable that we could get them on board and get them understanding like what are the things that we can say how what are in your opinion what are the best talking points and resources and ways to genuinely make them interested in learning and helping. I think there's lots of different ways to do it. I think one way to do it is role models. So we need high profile men talking about it who those men respect and look up to, men in sport in particular, I think, men who are not afraid to speak out about this in a kind of genuine way. Andy Murray's a really good example. He does this all the time. Yeah, I love his little

clapbacks in the sense of Venus and Serena. Yeah. I think we need other men. So in those conversations when they come up and when they happen, other men who are prepared to put their head above the parapet and challenge it are likely to have the most impact on men like that, I think. But if it's your partner and it's about like how do I talk to them, I feel conflicted about giving this advice because I feel really strongly that women shouldn't have to kind of relive their trauma in order to force men to care about this stuff.

But what I have seen again and again is that men are often really, really shocked and it hits home to them when they hear about the experiences of someone that they love. So when their partner or their sister or their mum sits them down and says, Let me tell you about my list. Let me tell you about all the things that have happened to me over the years because I'm a woman. It can completely flaw them. And that can very often be the thing that galvanizes them into starting to think about this and recognize it and realize it. So that's another kind of way to do it.

And I think it's also about telling them what we're asking for because I think sometimes when we talk about this stuff, men think, oh God, I've got to become like an activist and like I've got to be waving a banner. Yeah, like I've got to be going on a march and I've got to be signing. petitions and I've got to become this person. But the men that I hear from who are finding ways of doing this stuff is much more low key than that. And in a way that makes it so much more meaningful and it has such an impact. Like there was this one guy who he wrote to the Everyday Sex and Project and he said, I came across this website of yours and I was reading all these women stories and it really made me think about how street harassment makes women feel. I just never thought about it and they were so scared and it was having such an effect. So I was like,

right, next time I see it happening going to say something. And he had this big speech and this idea of what he was going to do. And then a few days later, he was walking down the street and he saw a guy on a building site, cat calling a woman in front of him on the pavement, shouting, get your tits out. And he said, I completely panicked. Like, all of my ideas went out of my head.

Couldn't remember any of the statistics. Like, the moment was passing. I was completely failing. So I lifted up my T-shirt and I showed them mine instead. Brilliant. Like, actually, did the job, right? It got the message across. Like, you wouldn't do it to me, so why are you doing it to them?

And, like, that's enough. That was enough in that moment. what he did. Although there's another guy who said he had a female colleague at work and she was always being asked to make the coffee and take the notes and meetings and he knew that it was one of those really small things.

She didn't want to say anything because she thought she'd be seen as making a fuss but she felt like she was being kind of overlooked for projects and promotions and he knew it was really getting to her but he was like I'm not big in the company I don't have any power here I feel like my hands are tied

I don't want to complain because she doesn't want to like what do I do? And then he started going in five minutes early into the meetings and it was a really, really tiny thing that cost him nothing, but it made a really big difference to her. So I think letting them know that this isn't some big, scary, terrifying, like threatening thing that we're asking them to do.

It might just look like a quiet word with a mate or making a cup of coffee at work or, you know, lifting up your t-shirt. And that's okay. If every man did one of those things, it would be massive. Small gestures. Yeah. Because you hear it more now, like, and this is sometimes when, you know, like there's a lot of terrifying things about social media,

and I'm probably in the right algorithm. Like, I'm in the right bit. Like, basically it's just like, it's just like dancers, Louis through and drag race. Like, it's stunning. But, like, you do see more and more, like, you'll see videos from men or, like, younger guys who are, like, appreciating that, you know, when you're walking behind a woman on the street, they're, like, cross the road. Like, and it's such a small thing, but it's like, that wouldn't have been part of our conversation,

10 years ago even. And to have that awareness, even, Although it does feel really, really scary and probably in your line of work is just like, you see the worst of the worst. I think sometimes there are like little glimmers of things that you'll see online and you're like, fucking A, like give work.

Definitely. Definitely. And that's really like, I just, thank God. Otherwise, it would be so depressing. Maybe we should ask like everyone, every woman who's listening to this who is straight and has a partner to make them listen to it too.

But I think they're best men need the resources because they aren't, you said, you know, we need high profile men to speak out. But they're not really doing it. And actually, I was thinking about this, how was I talking about him? I'm watching Drive to Survive. I'm really into my Formula One at the minute. But I noticed, like, the rhetoric around Lewis Hamilton's gone, like, bad recently. Like, everybody's pissed off of Lewis Hamilton in the UK. And I'm like, I don't understand this because he's like a national treasure, right?

He's like a seven, eight-time world champion, right? He's like the best of the best. and I think there's two things in play. First of all, British people hate other British people doing well. We're like crabs, aren't they? We like to like it's a crab mentality that if one of you gets out, we'll pull the other one down. But I also think

a lot of the reason people dislike him is because he is so vocal on issues that he cares about. Like he's vegan and people are so quick to call him a hypocrite then for then driving a petrol car or whatever. And then, and this is actually conversations I've had with like men in real life. And then, you know, he did a lot around

like the shooting of Brianna Taylor and Black Lives Matter. And I think the more it's really, I think it is really hard for men, like you say, you know, it would be really important in sports. They are kind of, you know, even to take the knee, you know, it's horrible for players who put themselves out there in terms of activism. Like the response is really hard. And I wonder if that is, I'm sure it is one of the main factors. It's like because men are so shitty to other men and they let they go woke or like snowflakes or whatever or I don't know.

Yeah, well it doesn't fit into that kind of toxic masculinity, that macho kind of idea of how to be a man. And the boys that we see at school actually who's tried to stand up to this stuff generally tend to get a huge amount of homophobic abuse as a result. So it's not easy for them. But the more of them that do it, the easier it gets. And yeah, it's just about more and more people, I think, being prepared to try and disrupt. that normalisation, that idea that it's just okay and that you will just kind of turn a blind eye because that's how we fix it. That's how we change it. Yeah. Well, you're doing incredible stuff. Absolutely amazing. I just think you're really brave. Do you ever get just tired?

Yeah. You really like put your heart onto, and we're grateful for it and you are making amazing changes, but like it's a lot. I remember reading men who hate women and you made an alias, didn't you? And you went on the forums as someone called Alex. Yeah. And so many Alexes. And that alone must just have been, I just, yeah, it's just be exhausting. That was, yeah, that was really hard having to wade through that stuff every day. And there was one day, especially when I was researching it and I stumbled by coincidence across the site that was just about me and it was just about men. Basically, it was kind of competing fantasies of like how they could use pieces of furniture to give me internal ruptures.

And it was just a shock because I wasn't looking for it. I didn't know it was coming. And there was, I think there was one day with that book where I just let myself, like, just sit down and lock the door and just cry. And then I just tried to get on with it. Because otherwise, it's letting them win, isn't it? And also, literally, if not you, who? Because I don't know anyone else who is throwing themselves so hard at this cause.

Oh, there are so many women who are. and there are so many women who are doing it and dealing with so much worse than I am. I've got colleagues who are working in their sector who are also experiencing horrendous racist abuse and, you know, they're experiencing Islamophobia and transphobia. And I think we're all just muddling through it and holding on to each other as best we can. And those are the women who give me the very best possible support, you know, are the women who've been through it. And they don't necessarily get the same public support that I do.

I'm so lucky in so many ways. And we've just got to hang on. Could you give us a list of their names that we can. put in the show notes of like some people that you think it would be valuable for our listeners to follow. Yeah, definitely. Totally. Brilliant. Thank you so much. You're amazing and thank you so much for all the work you do. It's just, it's, yeah, it's mind-blowing what you do and how much you put yourself out there with it. And yeah, thank you so, so much. Thank you for having me. I'm just going to remind you again, Laura's new book. Fix the system came out last Thursday and it's

available everywhere presumably. And the link will be in the show. And I absolutely recommend with my whole soul reading or getting the audiobook for men that hate women. Yes, it blew my mind. Hello. Okay, fine, I'll kick us off. Do you something awkward? Do you want something awkward? Do you want an embarrassing story?

Obviously, it mentioned shit because that's a passion project of ours, accidentally. Hi, Alex, M, Daisy and Amy. Love you all so much. I think my friends think I'm on some kind of commission because I don't stop banging on about your podcasts. But they're so good. Oh, thank you. she said I want to join the gang and I'm applying to the gang with of course nothing other than an embarrassing poop story this gang is mortifying I actually who was I talking to I think I spoke to georgia about you the other day and I said what would our gang do as we tried to work out last week what would the gang do if we were in a gang and she said we'd be vigilantes and I was like good yeah armed with shit oh okay I like that so so a couple of years ago think the Christmas before COVID I had myself a little Christmas friends with benefits situ one night he was over mine

and we were having sex on the couch. And it led him, hold on to your hats, ladies. Okay, okay. It led him to having my legs and bum above my head. Whoa, whoa, wait. In some kind of acrobatic number who knew I was so flexible. Okay. Knees.

I tell you what. Should shoulders, knees and toes. Heads, no, no, knees and bum over your head. It's happening. Come on. There we go, here we go. She says she was on a sofa, I think. No.

No. For me, you've gone. Right. You need to get right on your, yeah. Right. There you go. There you go. Where was he?

Where was he? I can go further. Oh my God. No, I need a face in it there. Come further away. Oh my God, that's so weird. Look at you're going on. I don't know.

If that was my face, I don't think I don't think I'd find, like, if I were mating that, if I were fucking that, I don't think I'd be, like, I don't think that's, like, how a woman looks her best. Like, I feel like they don't do that in the pornoes. Quite shocking. Are you, like, weirdly flexible? Me, yeah, God, massively. That's very good. Yeah, I'm very... I spoke about last week. Yeah, I don't remember. I'm really high for mobile. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Honestly, what we did this last week at your socks, like, woo. Yeah, I'm really flexible. You're like, mobile, so it's, like, built in, so it's actually not ideal.

It doesn't matter. So too. I'm having a male. Oh, my God. I'm just a bendy. I mean, my knees go all the way back, which is like so not ideal. Anyway, so this girl is also super bendy. So she started, oh, I see now, I see now how this sex happened.

We started having anal sex, which is, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, if only you just read a little bit. Cheeks to the wind, yeah. And we started having anal sex, which is all good and enjoyable and all that jazz. Anyway, skip a little. bit, so this doesn't turn into some kind of erotic novel, way too late for that, he finished and went to the bathroom to clean himself up. And whilst he was there, I was horrified to find poop both on the arm of my sweatshirt. We never got around to removing it. And on my sofa,

whilst he was in the bathroom, I quickly threw my sweatshirt in the washing machine and claimed I was hot when he returned, ha ha, and also quickly scrubbed the sofa. We also, we never spoke about this, but I don't know if that's better or worse. Did he just not notice? And I like, got away with it. Did he notice and was just a gent and didn't tell me? Did he notice, but had he had so much regular anal sex with girls that he'd experienced enough for it not to be weird to him? Did he notice and have to clean poop off his dick? The questions

are endless and haunting. To top it off, poop, the poopstay never fully came off the couch and I donated the couch last year to a charity shop, so there's a very real possibility that someone out there is sitting on my poopy couch and I'm sorry. He definitely noticed. A hundred percent, but also I really feel like

if you're going to do anal, you've got to expect shit. Honestly, it's like going on a water slide and being surprised that you've got wet. It's just... Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, surely, it's the bum. Yeah, it's the bum. Like, that's where who lives. Literally. 100%. It's going into a restaurant being surprised you've got dinner. It's just, it's inevitable. Supposed you've got to. It's inevitable. Like, shit on your dick. You, like, you want to go up there. You're going to get shit on your dick and that's okay. Um, I, I, I lived with somebody once. who left a shit stain on my sofa.

Oh my God, why, how? Presumably in a capacity similar to this. Got, I'm horrified by that story. I feel like, I feel slightly harrowed. I think, look, if you're going to play with the ass, shit's going to get places and I think you just have to... Put a towel down. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it kills the romance, but I'm going to be honest, in my opinion, there's nothing romantic about anal sex. It's not quite the, like, intimate lovemaking that you think of, when you think of like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying it's not dissing it. It's not for me personally. But I'm not slagging it.

I'm just saying it's not like peak romance. You don't think like, oh, like a chocolate heart, a candle. Yeah. And a good like anal fuck, you know. Good anal fuck. It's not romantic. So I think if you're going to lean into the fact that it's already not romantic, you might as well put a towel down.

I feel there's quite a few steps though from not romantic to poo. Do you know what I mean? Okay. Well. It's not just like, oh, it's not romantic, so poo. Yeah, but I feel like it's quite a stretch. Yeah. Yeah. But it is what it is.

But sex isn't massively romantic anyway. No, no, it's not. By virtue of the fact it's just like bump bum bumping, isn't it? Like it's just like, it's actually pretty awkward. Julie Cooper has a lot to art. Mind you, she wasn't very romantic. It was all quite erotic. Yeah, it was quite like.

titillating. Yeah. I fucking love Julie Cooper. Yeah, I did. I did. I did. I did.

I saw it once. Did you? And I was like, you, you're Randy Little Mayor. You're Randy Little Mayor. Bless her she's like a granny now. Oh my God, I'd love to do a,

sorry, I'm still thinking about the, about the paper. I'd love to do a poll and like how many people actually do anal. I'm intrigued by this. Yeah. Are you?

Yeah, there's actually a really funny photo of you at my head too, listening to somebody talking about anal and your little faces. Oh my God, I was so fascinated. So in Amid with the conversation you and george you both at the end it was breakfast for fuck's sake um but we did get onto the anal beads conversation again and actually long-term listeners you might remember i got a bit

confused about anal beads because i thought if they go up there do they get stuck like you know headphones in the pocket and they don't because they're silicon beads yeah so we've learned a lot and they're not on a hard are they not on a hard string they're on a sloppy string on a floppy string on a floppy string sorry I don't know what do you want to call it I don't know I just everyone's grimacing at me yeah I'm not like a I don't know I just I have never been tempted by anal and I don't think I'll ever do it. I like having a poo and just keeping that separate.

Yeah, I have no desire. No, not show me anyone who does, but it's... Oh no, 100%. 100%. I think, like, I also think it's another level of confidence because I think you do have to accept that you're going to do anal, you're going to get shit on. So, like, and if you're like cool with that

and it's still like sexy to you, I'm like, get it, girl, get it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, if you can... Also, if you've been pegging, I want to hear about that. Can you send in your stories? Peggings where the gal wears the, like a strap on and then like Aynley does a partner. Oh my God, yeah, send us those stories. Yeah, I actually, I think there's a whole world out there and I think it's very interesting. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, see, we look at sex in this very like romantic way of like, well, a man and a woman love each other. They'll come together in a coupling of mutual enjoyment. And if they're lucky, a fruitful baby will be birthed from her loins. And actually, mostly, it's awkward, fumbly, fun, fun, shitty. Shitty. You know, towel down, dirty sex. Yeah, yeah. Things up the arms.

Everybody, like, so many people put stuff up their arms. They do. Yeah, did you read, this is going to hurt by Adam Kay? Yes. Yeah, all sorts. So many people, yes. And this person that we know was telling me, oh my gosh, she was telling me all sorts about anal beads, butt plugs.

Yeah, more people have tried vibrators on a string What? Vibrators on string Cool So the control is on a string I feel like the Bluetooth is available It's like those like stupid phones That we used to make when we were kids

We're like one person had a can And then the other person had a can And then you join them with a piece of string And you could convince each other That you could hear each other I feel like just connected with Bluetooth Okay fine well I think about this all the time

You know what I'm like we got someone to space Like 60 years ago And still it's like people People have brilliant vibrations on strings something, it's got to be a better way. It's got to be a better way. Yeah, it knows, actually. But have you ever, have you heard about those ones where someone puts an egg up?

Yes. And then somebody else can control it. So if you're like, out for dinner. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because I'm imagining when Harry met Sally, but actually, truthfully, I think I'd just be like, I don't want to sit in a restaurant with a fucking egg up. I'm not a chicken. Bybrating up me every, every so often.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think it would bring me joy. No. I think it would just make me, I'm comfortable. It's like, you know, you put a tampon in wrong. And then you sit down, you're like, ooh. Yeah, it would be like, ooh How big is the egg?

Like egg size, I suppose. Oh, okay. I don't know, I'm going to say more like chicken than quail, but not ostrich. Okay, a quail's big. No, quails are tiny. Oh, quail eggs. Oh, and ostrich is big, yeah.

Yeah, ostrich is a huge. I'd say like a chicken egg. Okay. I don't know, we need to look into it. If you ever, ooh, has anyone ever used, like an egg, like a love egg thing, and then have their partner control it?

And was it nice? We need to do an episode, I want a voice note. I want a voice note. I want a voice note. I'm involved and very knowledgeable about all this this different kind of stuff. It's fun shit, yeah.

Because we just sound like idiots being like, oh, how do you know, a couple of prudes, a couple of virgins over here, what are we like? We don't know anything, pathetic. We need someone to come in, a real woman. We need someone to come in and talk to us about this stuff because I'm, I'm intrigued. Yeah, well, it's all right now. I need to know more. 100%.

Yeah. 100%. But, yeah, I mean. Yeah. I don't want shit on my sweatshirt, but there's got to be somewhere between here and there, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in that space, there's probably there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's tons of, yeah, there's yeah, there's vibrators on strings. Okay, yeah, we're, so off air, we just decided on a very good guest to come and talk to us about, about sex. She doesn't know it, yeah, but we're going to be

hitting her up. Yeah, cool, fun, so stunning. Let's move on. Sorry that you've got shit on your sofa, and I'm really sorry to the person that bought the shit sofa. the charity shop I know I felt that sounds quite traumatic that whole experience but we love you

put a towel down thank you for telling everyone about the podcast yeah and welcome to the gang yeah welcome to the gang that was a very good entry yeah 100% like yeah yeah

if that was your admit it to say I say we loved it A star you're in okay while we're talking about sex and is it just me hi guys goes about saying

but I have the podcast thank you I've been listening to the Natalie Lee episode a bit later I know, but Easter holidays of the kids, you go, go. And it got me wondering, is it just me who started masturbating at a young age? As long as I can remember,

from the age of two or three, I've been masturbating. Obviously, I didn't know that's what it was at the time. I actually didn't realise what I was doing until I was in my teens. All I knew is that it felt good. I was always made to feel shame for doing it as when I was young,

I didn't understand it was a private thing and would do it wherever, so my mum would snap at me to stop or go to my room. I understand now that she was probably embarrassed by and for me, but it made me feel shame around the acts for such a long time. Obviously, I know it's not just me who started young. It's my oldest does it too. And I've tried not to impose the shame I felt about it on her.

But I was just curious to know how many others experienced this from a young age. Again, love the podcast. That is such a lovely email. Look at your great parenting. Yeah, amazing parenting. Amazing parenting. This is so open. Congratulations.

Pardon the pun. I don't really have anything to say other than this is what fabulous parenting you're doing. But I think, like, boys play with their willies from a really young age, don't they? And, like, when this lady says that she was masturbating at, like, two or three, I don't think she's, like, doing it, like, to completion. I think she's just, like, touching herself. So, and I think boys do that from such a young age, like, little boys always told off for playing with their willies,

or not told her they laughed at for playing with their witties. Like, it's no biggie. Like, no, it's a flame with his willie. Like, he-h-h-h-h-h-h-what-he-like, you know what I mean? So I actually, like, so much shame and stigma attached to, like, women doing it and girls doing it because it's dirty and all this shit. But actually, I think little boys do it, early doors. They do, they do.

And actually, due to just lack of knowledge around this, I've Googled it. And masturbation in childhood, rest assured that masturbation is a healthy part of growing up, the practice can start in infancy and continue right through adulthood. Some baby boys are born with an erection and some baby girls are born lubricating. Yeah, some little boys. I learned this about a friend of mine who's a step-parent, and she said, that when he was really little, if he was asleep, she'd have to, like, lie him over the loo?

Because little boys get erections. Lie him over the loo? Yeah, like, why? I don't understand. So he really was facing down. Oh, I see. No, they do. Yeah, yeah.

Babies literally get erections, aren't they? So I'm like, if that's, like, nature for boys and why is it weird for girls? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And this article says, like with adults, children touch themselves they've said they've put down there because doing so feels good,

even though they can't yet derive the full, pleasure of masturbation by having an orgasm so yeah they're just like touching themselves because it feels good yeah yeah and I don't know when you can start enjoying it to like orgasm level but I actually feel so passionately that it's really important that women like make themselves orgasm basically because if they can't do it then who the fuck will yeah you know what I mean like and and I've said it once I said it a million times if you don't teach women to enjoy sex what are you teaching them not to enjoy it and that's very distressing so good for you great parenting yeah on not instilling that shame that you experienced in your kids that's really cool i think there is like an

element of decency and i use that word lucy to consider because like you say like doing it in public is like not ideal yeah like i mean like nat said you know teach them to do it in private yeah but yeah don't instill any shame around them yeah it's good on you not just you we'll do a poll on the instagram yeah um and see how old everybody was but like and and if you've got anything to add on this again please email us at the should i delete that pod at e-mail.com we love emails yeah we love an email um but this is it's actually such an interesting thing and again like nat's episode was so informative for that because there's just and we could literally we did talk about it with her but i could still talk for like 40 years about the amount of shame that surrounds this

yeah when it's not shame it's not dirty it's not weird it's only like no offense but like the bible make people think that so right should we end this and just to send the fiery pits like the stairs into hell now sorry guys the podcast has gone there's just a trap door that's appeared. Deffo where I'm going. There's a lad with a big, like, pitchfork down there for us. Okay, well, there we go.

We've covered a lot in that episode. Well, we've covered a lot of sex. We have a lot of sex, a lot of poo. Always, always. Like, sake, this is supposed to be the week without poo. You bring the poo. You bring the poo. I'm just realising this.

Oh my God, I forgot to tell you. I nearly shat myself yesterday. Well done. Really, really close. Really close. Really close. But you managed not to. I shuffled home.

Like my life depended on it. And I tell you for why, I was wearing shorts. I was like, I've heard the horror stories. I've done this podcast long enough. I know that the amount of people shitting in their leggings and sending up in their boots. I haven't got that luxury. I don't have ankle length.

This is going to be coming out all over my thighs. Yeah, so I didn't shit myself. That would have been my awkward. It was close, man. I honestly, I hustled home. Closest I've ever been, I think. That would have been a good awkward though. Just for the podcast, say.

That would have been a good awkward. Yeah, fine. And next time for you shoot yourself, fine. Yeah. All right, producer, it is. for you, anything. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you.

Sorry, I thought you were continuing to talk and so I wasn't prepared and then I just didn't know what to say so I just said thank you in a really high pitch voice. Anyway, thank you. You're just looking at me. Oh, you're making me do this. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for being here.

Please, any emails, any, any, is it just me's, any embarrassing stories? We want them all to, you can either send them to the email account, which is should I delete that pod at gmail.com, or you can DM the Instagram account, which is should I delete that and also follow it because it's really funny, actually. It is. Also, we'll see next week, and I've just realized what next week will be a really exciting episode. Next week is very, very exciting.

We'll leave it with that. We'll see you next week. We're going to be one of these people, these tarts that just think, oh, we've got something very exciting to share it, but. Arguably, this is the most exciting. Yeah, it really is. yeah so join us then yeah um please join all right love you bye bye