Woman's Hour - Britain's secret war babies, Naomi Stadlen, Health impacts of anal sex

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Mary Phillips was born to a white British mother and an African American GI father – who she never met. She was one of around two thousand mixed-race children born into white, rural communities after the second world war. She joins Emma Barnett to tell the story of how she found her four half siblings in America, decades later, and what she found out about her father.Who do Conversative-voting young women want to be their next Prime Minister? Woman's Hour can reveal new data from Ella Robertson McKay, National Chair of the Conservative Young Women group.New research shows increasing numbers of young women in the UK are suffering injuries and other health problems because of the growing popularity of anal sex among straight couples. Emma Barnett talks to one of the authors of the report, Lesley Hunt who is a Consultant Colorectal Surgeon at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and also to Claudia Estcourt, from the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV.In her three books about mothering, the psychotherapist Naomi Stadlen has made visible the work, loving and teaching that mothers do. She joins Emma who herself has a much-thumbed copy of Naomi's first book 'What Mothers Do - especially when it looks like nothing'.The dating app Tinder is celebrating its tenth birthday. The launch of the app in 2012 and other digital platforms has changed how many people meet their long or short term partners. But not everyone thinks online dating has improved romance for the better. Aurora Townsend is the founder of Planet Theta and George Rawlings is co-founder of Thursday.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today we have some exclusive data for you from the young female wing of the Conservative Party, those with a vote and who they hope to return to number 10 to make our next prime minister. We will also be hearing from a so-called secret wartime baby about how her lifelong quest to find her family, if she had any, in America has only recently yielded positive results and she's now in her late 70s. And the author of a new report in the British Medical Journal will be joining me to

talk about the increasing numbers of straight women engaging in anal sex and the health risks associated with it. But what I wanted to ask you about today was a book that made you stop, think and perhaps see the world or something on your mind completely differently. Today we have the author of one of those books which may have done that for you. It certainly did for me, Naomi Stadlin. She's turning 80 later this year. She spent 30 years listening to women when they become mothers, talk to her about their experiences and then as they carry on with that particular journey. Her different style of book was something that certainly spoke to me and has spoken to thousands of others. The first of her books was called What Mothers Do, Especially When It Looks Like Nothing.

And it cuts through in a slightly different way because it isn't advice, it's more reporting what women are saying as they become mothers and how they're finding it. There are, of course, many other books that will have done things for you that are nothing to do with that at all. There are also other books in other genres

that have really made me have a particular moment. And I wanted to give you the space this morning, 18th of August, you may have been reading more because it's holiday season. Maybe you're a big reader anyway. Maybe you've only read a few books, but the ones that you've read have stayed with you. I wanted to create the space this morning to hear from you about those books, which have really had an impact on your life. So do get in touch with me here at the program you can text you've got a few options now the number is 84844 text will be charged your standard message rate on social media we're at bbcwomans.com or email us through the womans our website you can now send me a whatsapp message or a voice note i'd love to hear a few of those

voice notes if i'm honest on 03700 100 444. I should say, I'm sure you know this, but data charges may apply depending on your provider. So you might want to use Wi-Fi. Terms and conditions can be found on our website. But what about the terms and conditions of our next prime minister? The contest to become the next PM of the United Kingdom is in its final weeks. The two candidates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, were in Belfast yesterday, Scotland the day before, and visited Cardiff earlier this month. Whoever gets the keys to number 10 has a tough job ahead of them. Inflation in double digits, strikes on the rail network, heatwaves followed by flash flooding in certain areas, and today, thousands of A-level students worrying about missing out on university places.

Well, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak's economic plans are coming under further scrutiny today from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Tory Grandees. Not all of the reviews are flattering. It's down to the 200,000 or so Conservative members to choose who the next Prime Minister will be, and a lot of them, we should also say, have already voted. While the Conservatives do not publicise the make-up of its membership, my next guest knows an awful lot about one cohort, in particular, young women. Ella Robertson-McKay is National Chair of the Conservative Young Women Group, which is made up of women under the age of 35.

And today on Women's Hour, Ella can exclusively reveal who her members would like to be the next prime minister. Ella, welcome back to the programme. Who's it going to be? Are you going for Liz? Morning, Emma. Well, we asked voters who they wanted and also who they thought would win. And interestingly, who they thought would win tracks a lot of the national polling that was released this morning. About 60% thought Liz Truss would win. only 35% thought it would be Rishi. However, when it comes to who people want, who they think would be more likely to win the general election and who young women thought would be the better leader on the world stage,

Rishi had the edge in all of those three. So I think an interesting story of younger women voters more likely to vote for Rishi, but also obviously being involved with the party and knowing other members, thinking that Liz is probably going to land it. It's going to take it. I mean, there has been, as I said, criticism of both in terms of their plans, specifically around the economy. It would be too simple to say a group of young women would go for the female candidate. However, some may expect that there would be perhaps more excitement just around the fact that we still have had so few female leaders.

What does that sound like with your members? I've got to say in the Conservative Party, when you bring up identity politics related to candidates, it's probably the worst reaction of any subject matter you're going to get. They don't want to feel that they are voting for anybody because of their gender, because of their race, anything except on merit. Now, whether or not that's entirely true, separate matter, but very, very few Conservative Party members would say that they were voting on any other basis other than merit. I think that we've had two female prime ministers, and we don't have any all women shortlist, significant affirmative action initiatives, anything like that. And I think potentially that really meritocratic ethos is what gives women an edge because there's no one saying, oh, she doesn't really deserve the job or she's only here because of a quota. Whereas I speak to

my colleagues in the Labour Party, there's a lot of that background conversation going on, even though they do have so many more women MPs. So what is it about Rishi that is particularly appealing to the members? Yeah, really good question. So you remember when we came on last time that our members voted for the economy overwhelmingly as their top issue, and we dug into that a little bit. And fiscal policy was the top policy. So particularly on taxes, you might have thought that the tax cuts, immediate tax cuts Liz Truss is promising would appeal. But I do think that a lot of people hear what Rashida Enoch is saying when it comes to saying, you know, I don't want our kids and our grandkids to be paying for this. Because,

you know, some of my members are only 18, 19 years old. And they really fall into that brackets of, gosh, we're going to be the ones who are potentially paying for decisions made now for a very long time. I think it's a really interesting time where every single policy links back to the economy. So whether it's housing, the NHS, climate, everyone can feel that we can't do any of those things unless we get inflation under control and the economy is taken seriously. So his role as the Chancellor and also his policies are playing a role there, obviously, because the other area we talked about, if my memory serves correctly, but it also shows in your polling. And we should say, just for our listeners, how big is the group of young female Conservatives that we're talking about? We weigh between 1,000 and 2,000 members. You know, these things are in flux. Yes. Okay. So it's a small proportion of

the overall membership. That's not all young women in the Conservative Party. Those are the ones who are on my mailing list and come to my events. Okay. And then that's where you've drawn the data from. I mean, in terms of a regular poll, that's actually how we can often take the temperature from 1000 or so. So it's small in terms of the overall membership. But of course, it's an insight into where people are, and it's especially where younger women are the ones who do respond, as you say. But you and I talked last time about how honesty and trust was incredibly important, especially as you talked about it, with the change of view within the party by some of Boris Johnson, who of course had been

so popular within the party for a long time. Rishi Sunak received a fixed penalty notice for breaking Covid laws during lockdown. Liz Trust didn't. I wonder, does that have any impact at this point about trust and, you know, do as I say, not do as I do? Yeah, I think that possibly does play into it for some voters. I think Liz has got a reputation, and certainly if you meet or work with her, she's an incredibly straight shooter. And I think in terms of trust people,

there's something about that that resonates with people. She speaks very directly. Rishi, as Liz has admitted, is potentially the sort of slicker, more polished politician who certainly over the age in America would be more what people expect. But I do think voters around the country are really resonating to what they see is a very authentic presentation from Liz.

And at the same time, you also believe that something around Liz's trust and childcare could be a bit, and tax breaks could be a bit regressive. Tell me about that. Well, so I'm interviewing both candidates next week. We asked our members what they wanted to ask us. And one of the questions was around helping mums who choose to return return to work because 75 percent of mums choose to return to work but we know that for for working women by the time their first child is 12 they're likely to be paid a third less than a man uh so we wanted to know what the candidates are planning to do to level

the playing field for particularly for working mothers because Liz has put forward a really interesting plan for tax cuts or tax breaks for where one of the couple chooses to stay at home so essentially what the other would be able to transfer their personal tax allowance to the working partner and therefore they're not penalized where one parent chooses to stay and care for the child but that's only 25% of mums. And we want to understand what the candidates are planning to do for working mums, given that our childcare is the second highest in Europe after Switzerland. So the way of couching that and casting that is something you want to get some clarity on.

You've got the interview with both of them next week. Is that right? I do. Yeah. Have you got any tips? A lot. I've got many questions. Quite a lot to come on. Women's that. Could you actually ask them as your final question? Put in a word. Be quite helpful. I don't know. I'll have to see. I mean, there's a lot of questions that our members do want answering,

particularly on housing. As you can imagine, young women are very concerned about that. And a very interesting question about racial disparity in the NHS. You know, we know that Asian women are twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women, black women four times more likely to die and I think people want answers for what the next Prime Minister is going to do for women of colour to change those disparities because whilst the economy is incredibly important there's a lot of policy initiatives that aren't just about the economy, they're about policy. They're about tone.

They're about cultural change. And I think that there are some really interesting things that we can dive into that really speak to women up and down the country. Good luck for your interview. Meanwhile, of course, some very concerned within your party about how toxic this whole thing has become. Only two more weeks of your party tearing itself apart

while the rest of the country, I suppose, watches and don't have a vote at this point unless they're a member. It's part of the process, isn't it? I mean, everyone said the same about Labour during the last leadership race and certainly the one before that. No, it's just the Conservatives obviously tend to be in power and keep changing leader quite regularly with or without elections. So it seems to be a new trend for you of late. Well, I think it's also it's a particularly interesting race because the last one was very was not close. Everyone was very clear Boris Johnson was going to win very early on that race. This one does feel closer. So perhaps there's kind of more intensive scrutiny than there might have been last time.

Well, and also the camps themselves, official spokespersons, people, I should say, being incredibly direct and not complimentary, shall we say, about the other in a way that usually is sourced to unnamed sources. So some of the political journalists also commenting on that as a difference, because, as you say, it's very close. I look forward to hearing how your interviews go. And as ever, thank you for the insights. Ella Robertson-McKay, national chair of the conservative young women group well while we've been talking you've been kind enough to get in touch some of you about books which have changed your life um we've got a couple that have come in i just wanted to mention before i speak to my next guest the golden notebook uh doris lessing of course totally life-changing for me gave me the insight and courage to speak up and become an equal in my

marriage which survived and became better now Now 76 years strong, reads this message. Congratulations. Gavandra Hodges' book, The Consequences of Love, an autobiography, made me stop and think. It's frighteningly honest, refreshingly introspective without being indulgent. It made me ask my long-divorced parents some difficult questions and inspired me to have some therapy during a difficult time. Thank you, Gav mean that's the thing you have a connection you want to thank the people the authors behind those words i mean if you did have a child did you reach for the wisdom if you do have a child of others through a book perhaps you still own those books lots of people do they keep them with them throughout their lives uh by those so-called parenting

gurus you could have been an acolyte, for instance, of Gina Ford or the baby whisperer, as she was known, Tracy Hogg, or going further back, Dr. Spock or Sheila Kitzinger. For me, it was actually Naomi Stadlin, as I was just saying at the beginning of the show. Contrary to many, she doesn't give advice. There are no rules. She factually records women's experiences of motherhood

in a very journalistic way, I would say, and encourages them that they know what they are doing. Her books, three books, are called What Mothers Do, first published in 2004, How Mothers Love, 2011, and What Mothers Learn, 2020. She's a psychotherapist and has been running weekly discussion groups for mothers for more than 30 years. Turning 80 in November, she's currently working on an audio book for a new generation. Naomi Stadlin, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you.

Your title of the first book, What Mothers Do, especially when it looks like nothing, I think that sums up your approach. I found it incredibly reassuring and good to hear some other voices, many other voices in there, which is what you do. You share what women have said anonymously with your readers. Why do you think we struggle to see and name what mothers do? Well, I think there isn't a proper language for what mothers do. And I found this when I started writing my book in 1993.

I sat down with a writing pad and a pen in front of a nice cold, well, wood fire, and nothing came. And I thought, maybe I've got nothing to say. I was always going to write about motherhood because I felt very idle doing it. I felt a bit ashamed because my own mother was a working mother. I don't like the term working mother because I think that mothers who are mothers are working very hard indeed and it's a giveaway that people are doing something that's not mothering that calls working mothers. This is a whole attitude towards mothering. Anyway I decided that I would think my way through that and in the end I realized that there were lots of things that mothers do, and they were telling me that they do, but there are no words for them. I ran a mothers' talking group last night, and one mother gave me a really good example of it.

She said, I'm not just doing what I'm doing, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about what it means, what it's going to, how it's going to affect my child, how it's going to affect my child, how it's going to affect the future. I'm having a whole lot of thoughts just doing something and thinking. And I think mothering is extremely intelligent, requires a lot of thought, and is hugely underestimated. I think people trivialise what it is.

They say, oh, I'm just at home wiping runny noses. I just make play to have fun. It's not just fun when you're a mother to me. Well, you also talk in one of your books about you think maternity leave is very poorly named. Yes. Yes, because it sounds as though you're just on leave and you're going to go back to work. Well, Ella said there's a definite pressure on women to go back to work. Yes. And would you say, I mean, just to develop that for a moment, if I can, you have this unique vantage point. You run these talking groups of women.

I know you think it's very important for mothers to talk to each other. So not just in the run up to having the baby, but actually once they've had their babies, to share those experiences. And also not just when they're babies, when the children are older as well, to keep having those conversations. You've got this unique vantage point of 30 years of listening to women in this role. How has it changed, would you say?

Well, there's three areas I'd like to say where it's changed. One is that there wasn't maternity leave when I started. So mothers were stuck at home. I think some got very depressed. We're all different. We come to mothering with different aspirations, a different history behind us. And as your guest on Tuesday, I think it was,

Manoush Shafiq. Yeah, Manoush Shafiq. Yeah, Manoush Shafiq, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England. Yes. Yes. We need to be flexible and with choice. And surely there are enough mother economists to work out something so that mothers can choose either to be at home or to be at work. Now the pressure's gone the other way. And women are extremely apologetic if they say that they like being at home with their children. They feel that they are letting the side down, they want to be at work. But then children are really

missing out and if mothers are willing to be mothers to their children and women have shelved that responsibility right through history, as we know, white nurses and the rest, then they should be encouraged. So that's a change. You talked about three of them. And of course, there'll be some sort of shouting at the radio that's saying you're still obviously a mother

if you want to go back to work, even if you do feel the pressure is actually better for you. There'll be others who, as you say, just just don't have the choice which is what Manoush was talking about financially to stay if they would like to a bit more within the home for longer especially when the children are younger. Absolutely right. What are the other changes? The second change is that men seem to be discovering fatherhood in a way that they haven't before that is the sort of intimacy that you get with your family. And I think men have missed out on that for generations.

And they've been this sort of store figure that goes out and earns and comes back and rests. And they've missed a lot, I think. I'm very glad to see I've got two sons. One's a father and one's an uncle. And they're really taking full part in their families. And the third change is that mothers are much more active than they used to be. And I think life has spread up a bit. And they put their babies in their slings and they're up and about and doing things.

So I wrote what mothers do, especially when it looks like nothing. For mothers to sit breastfeeding or not, formula feeding and reading. And I asked for the book to be in very lightweight paper so that it could be held in one hand with the baby in the other hand. And that was my great plan. But now I think there's a need for an audio book as well as a clip on their headphones um do emails and whatever hurry around and the baby um has access to the breast which I think has been done in much more um traditional societies that's what women always used to do. People didn't used to sit down and give their full attention to the baby.

I think babies have had quite a hard deal right through history. Sorry, and so to that particular point, I mean, you seem to be saying a couple of things around the way our lives have changed, and yet at the same time, you sound like you want women to be able to, and for others to be valuing what women are doing when they are doing this job, as it were. Yes, I do.

I think until women talk to one another and instead of competing, there's no need to compete over motherhood, can respect one another and see what other mothers are doing that the mothers themselves probably aren't seeing. Until there's a sort of exchange of what mothers are actually doing, going on, you'll be stuck in this position of not knowing what mothers do. I thought of the title, What Mothers Do, especially when it looks like nothing, on Waterloo Station.

I saw everybody rushing around and I thought mothers aren't like that. It looks as though they're not rushing, as if they're not doing anything. But things don't always show and when I was holding her baby her arms are receiving all kinds of messages of hot clothes, whatever the baby's sort of sensing. And this goes on. I mean, I've got three adult children. I can't lie to them. They know me from inside birth. And they say things to me like, what's the matter? I didn't know anything was, but they have read the signs of me.

Yes. As well as us trying to understand our babies babies are extremely intelligent i mean i think what i found striking when i found your book the first book was that you were not offering advice everything else i was reading seemed to be telling me what to do, when to do it, you know, even with schedules. You were telling me the experiences of others very factually. And why was that a key decision for you not to write bullet points at the end of each chapter, for instance? Yeah, well, it took me nine years to get published because I wouldn't write bullet points. I was told that I could write the book if I wanted to, but I must include bullet points because that's what mothers expected. And it was a real challenge.

When I said I had a blank piece of paper in front of me, it's because everything I thought of was telling mothers what to do. And in the end, I identified things that mothers really did do, and they weren't in any of the books. So I wrote things down. It was very hard to formulate what was going on. I mean, one thing mothers do is to comfort their babies, and people don't talk a lot about that. It's not in the literature.

Comfort means make strong again. Fort is Latin for strength, and come is a sort of prefix for coming together. Comfort is helping a child to feel strong again. And I think that's why adult people cry for their mothers. Long life, comforting face. Well, I also found it a very striking style, apart from enjoying the kind of journalistic reporting of what women had been saying to you,

because I felt like it was also trying to explain what had just happened to me. You know, every other book was about the baby and what time this might need to happen. But this, you know, there's a whole word, matricence, about the process of becoming a mother, a bit like adolescence of when you're becoming an adult. But you also have talked about

and and i just thought it'd be good to ask you at this point around we're sort of the least prepared now in some ways for the change that's about to happen you know you talk about comfort or the things that women are doing that when they are mothers uh if they want to be if they're able to be uh that you can't see or can't easily describe. And you found the words for that. But often, you know, I did this exactly the same. I think I worked till two days before. And then you stop. And it's like I recognised that I was still in the same life,

but it was like a completely alternative universe. You put it really well. I think it's a huge change of identity. And many people are very shaken by it. But if you can survive and hold on, your identity hasn't gone. It's just got an additional aspect to it, a new dimension which brings you on. I think babies are very loving and very intelligent and they compel us to use our intelligence and open up our hearts

in a way that we might not have ever done before. Does that make sense? It does. It does. Well, as I say, the style is very unique. You're reading it aloud now. Are you enjoying that? Well, it's wonderful.

It's lovely to read aloud. I meant every single word of it. It was far too long, so I had to cut it. And so every word that's in there is meant. Well, there's good bits about maternal rage and dark feelings too, if I can describe it as good bits. But, you know, it's honest. So I think, you know, that's also a part of it.

It's not all about the comfort and what's being done that you can't easily see. Naomi Studlin, it's very good to talk to you. Thank you for taking the time. We're getting a lot of messages in off the back of what you've said, but also other books that have cut through to people, perhaps written in a different way or come to people at a different point in their life. All the best to you. Thank you, Emma.

Messages here. Let me just give you a flavour. Bury Me in My Boots by Sally Trench, says Caroline. Her work with drug addicts and alcoholics in East London. That's what it's on. I'd left school with the idea of being a typist. This book inspired me to study to become a social worker. Hello all at Woman's Hour. The book that was fundamental for me was Woman and Mother and the person that gives me, that gives, excuse me, is Deborah Levy. And then it's talked about the cost of living as well. It's held me during the split from my son's father and was so poignant and poetic about our lives as

mothers and givers and home builders. Overstory, says Atlanta by Richard Powers, the most astonishing life-changing book. I was so overwhelmed and delighted by his book. I wrote to Richard and he replied, I'll keep that email forever. It's always wonderful if you get that reply. Awesome and prescient. American Psycho. Oddly enough, gave me a helpful change in perspective. I used to struggle to understand people emotionally and others didn't understand me.

The book says something along the lines of, if you can't find anyone who will empathise with you, at least you can empathise with yourself. That perspective helped me to stop feeling depressed about my struggles to empathise and embrace the fact that I am always there for me. Our Body, Their Battlefield, What War Does to Women by Christina Lam, a war correspondent of course for the Sunday Times, writes about rape being used as a weapon of war. It's victims' stories and the people and organisations trying to help these women. It's hard-hitting and honest, but it inspired me to change career direction into women's issues where I'm currently retraining. I think of the women around the world affected by this every day and it keeps me focused.

I love the show and that's why who's listening. Thank you very much for those. Keep them coming in, those books that stopped you or gave you a different perspective. Do get in touch. Now, as it is the school holidays, I just want to say about our next discussion, we will be talking about sex in a very candid way. So if there are a few children around or young people and you don't want to listen or don't want them to listen to this item live, remember you can catch up later on BBC Sounds. New research suggests increasing numbers of young women in the UK are at risk of injury because of the growing popularity of anal sex among straight couples. Increased rates of faec of the growing popularity of anal sex among straight

couples. Increased rates of faecal incontinence and anal sphincter injury have been reported by women who have anal intercourse. This is according to a report recently published in the British Medical Journal. I'm joined now by one of the authors of that report, Leslie Hunt, consultant colorectal surgeon at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and also by Claudia Estcourt from the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV. Good morning to both of you. Leslie, if I may start with you, how do we know more people, in particular, more women in heterosexual relationships are having anal sex?

Well, from the various reports that we quoted in our editorial we've got that data we can see that there's been an increase in this over the last few decades. And in terms of looking at the impact of this and I mentioned some of the injuries that you've put this report together because there are some concerns. Yeah so in our surgical practice we see people coming to clinic with various injuries. A very common one is fissure which is a tear of the anal lining. Now that's not a particularly serious condition but sometimes it can be very persistent. It's often very painful and requires surgery so it's a severe nuisance problem for people. But more importantly,

there are two rings of muscle around the anus and anal sex can damage the inner ring of muscle, the internal sphincter. Now that muscle is very important because that is the muscle that keeps your anus closed. And if that is damaged, it can lead to faecal incontinence of a sort of slow low level sort of leakage type where people are soiling onto their underwear and we see this sometimes in young women who have had anal sex. Is that repairable? No the the internal sphincter the inner ring of muscle is a very thin layer so it's not sort of amenable to surgical repair and furthermore the type of injury is quite diffuse so it's not sort of amenable to surgical repair. And furthermore, the type of injury you see is quite diffuse, so it can be sort of torn here and there.

So you can't fix it surgically. There are things that we can do that can improve the situation for women, you know, sort of make this more manageable, but there's certainly no easy fix for it. And you're putting this report together, apart from I imagine to raise awareness, you're talking about it here on the radio today as well, of course, but for what?

Why do you want to put this out there? Are you trying to change behaviours? Yeah, I think my co-author, Tabitha Garner, she did a lot of work collecting the research that's there and then we collated it and presented it in this editorial and we want to get this conversation out there into the mainstream because there's a big taboo about anal sex and potentially as clinicians we're not asking the right questions of patients we're maybe not recognizing it when people come to clinic that this is the cause of their problems um and we are aware that we don't know enough about

it so it may be that there's a lot of girls and women they're having anal sex and having no particular problem with it but equally there could be a lot of women out there who have problems and because of the taboo they're either not presenting to health care or even when they get through to health care we're not asking the right questions and identifying what the cause of their problem is and just briefly there is a difference with the female anatomy that means that women are at greater risk of injury during anal sex yeah absolutely so we've got these two cylinders of muscle one inside the other and that comprises the anal sphincter complex and that complex in men is roughly twice as long as it is in women which means if it gets torn a woman is more likely to have symptoms of incontinence

simply because she didn't have as much muscle there in the first place. So that's that's the difference because of course I talked about straight women doing this more we also I should just say it's not only going to be penises for anal sex. There will be women in same-sex relationships or even in straight relationships using sex toys or other implements. Is that the same risk? Yeah, potentially. I mean, I think the size of whatever you put up there will dictate how much damage or not is done. Well, at 10.33 on the 18th of August I'll remember that

response let me tell you. Claudia good morning to you. Good morning. We're talking about this as a trend but are you seeing this as an increase in women reporting that they're having anal sex with partners? I mean a lot of women and men don't talk about this. No absolutely so I'm speaking as a clinician so a consultant in sexual health and HIV who sees women in clinic and certainly within our services we we are used to asking people in a very matter-of-fact non-judgmental way about the type of sex they have and who they have it with so for us it's very much bread and butter and we were delighted to see Leslie and Tabitha's article because really it's about getting this out into the open anal Anal sex is a fact of life for many people.

And what's important is that they're having sex that they enjoy and that when they have sex, they do it consensually and that they do it in a way that's safer. So clinically within the sexual health clinics, we would routinely do checkups for women with very simple and non-particularly invasive tests to look for STIs in whichever orifices they use for sex. And that would include tests for gonorrhoea and chlamydia, which can be there without any symptoms.

And I think following on from Leslie's point, certainly these very robust national surveys tell us that sexual behaviour is changing. And we will get more information next year because there's another wave of the survey happening. But certainly from feet on the ground, we've been asking women for years. And it does feel as if the numbers are definitely borne out. A lot more are reporting anal sex. And do you know the reason? Sexual behaviour changes over time and reported sexual behaviour changes over time. People may have been having lots of anal sex in Victorian times,

but they would never have reported it and they would never have been asked. And we've certainly seen as well with oral sex. Maybe 40 years ago, oral sex wasn't such a thing within heterosexual couples or heterosexual partnerships, whereas now almost everybody reports oral sex as part of the sexual behaviours that they enjoy as part of a normal sex life. I recognise the differences in reporting and what people have felt comfortable saying but there will also be those who wonder if there's the influence of online porn also potentially women trying to avoid being pregnant.

That's also been raised in connection to this issue before. What do you make of those? I think we, as many are, are very concerned about the influences on young people, not just women, by what's shown in the media and what may be portrayed as normal. And people can feel a pressure to engage in types of sex or indeed engage in sex at all when they're not feeling ready for it. And the widely available pornography online we know is a huge issue. It's very difficult to establish causality. We can say that there's been a huge rise in the types of images that people see and we also see a rise in reported anal sex. I think everyone can make their own conclusions as to whether one causes the other, but we can't prove it. I think what's terribly important is the word

consensual. And I don't think anybody would argue with the fact that women should have the autonomy and the agency to say what they want and say what they don't want. So I think that's tremendously important. And I'm not sure that pornography, particularly violent pornography, is helping that. Lesley, to come back to you, if women do want to have anal sex, what is the safest way to do so? Oh, that's the question I was hoping you wouldn't ask me, really. So I think potentially introducing anything into the anus has got a risk of causing damage there. Right. So can I come in on that one? Go on. I was going to say, do you have anything to add on that?

Absolutely. Make sure that you want to have anal sex. Talk about it with the person you're having sex with beforehand so you know what to expect. You know when you can say stop. Please use a water based lubricant. Condoms. brilliant idea. You won't get pregnant through your rectum, but you could acquire an STI. And if you're using condoms and you're having vaginal sex as well,

please use a different condom for anal sex and stop if it's uncomfortable. If you experience symptoms after sex, please contact your local sexual health clinic. And we have excellent relationships with the colorectal surgeons and other services if referral is needed for the sorts of problems that Leslie and her team are so expert in dealing with. Do you think the guidelines, Claudia, are clear enough, the NHS guidelines on this? Let's say you were to think about looking this up. I know you've just given some advice from your position. They need a bit of a revamp, don't they? I think they need to acknowledge that this is increasingly a part of someone's sexual sex life or normal sex

life, normal for them or sexual repertoire. And I think it's just important that the information's out there. Never has there been a time in medicine where withholding information leads to more modest behaviours. We have to help people be informed so they can make choices and that they do what they want to do as safely as possible. Well, thank you to both of you for coming on the radio

and having such a candid conversation. Claudia Escort, Lesley Hunt, thank you very much to both of you. Your message is also still coming in while we're having that conversation. We may get some on that, of course, I shall await, but you're probably listening intently. You do listen intently. You do reply. You tell us what you think all the time. Let me just see if I could get you to get in touch about something else for our bank holiday programme. A question for you. Why do some people love to gossip?

What do you do when you have a juicy piece of information that perhaps you don't think others have? Do you then go and share it straight away or are you the one that can be trusted with it? Who do you share it with if you are a bit more of a sharer? I'm asking because we are looking at the psychology and history of gossip for our August Bank Holiday Programme. And I would welcome your best gossip stories, the style of it, what it means to you, what that word brings to mind. Maybe gossiping has brought you closer with people or family at all. You may have lost friends because you didn't do what you were meant to do or they certainly were talking about you in a way that you didn't deem fit. You can email, voice note, text, all these different ways

of getting in touch. Please look up how to get in touch on the Woman's Hour website and actually do so. It would be all the better for hearing from you. So please do. Now, during the 1940s, around 2,000 babies were born to white British mothers and black American soldiers. And a new Channel 4 documentary, which first went out last night but now available online, has called these babies Britain's secret war babies, mixed race children born into a racially intolerant society or far more than it is now and often never meeting their fathers. The documentary focuses on two of these individuals as they find out more about their dads and discover their black heritage and for Mary Phillips it was a journey that culminated in her discovering that she has four half-siblings in America.

Here's the moment she met two of her half-sisters. Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Hi Mary! Hello, I'm Mary. Felicia! Felicia! Yes!

How are you? I'm glad you came all this way to meet us. Yes. You're shorty. No, not that. Oh, you're pleased to see me. Yes. Yes.

Pleased to see me. Yes. I've been trying for 20 years. Really? Yeah. Well, we're glad you found us. We were never an only child. Yeah, what's the name? My mother never Well, we're glad you found us. You know, when I was an only child. Yeah, what's it like?

My mother never had, oh, thank you. My mother never had no more children. Okay. Oh, dear God. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if they told you. Dad's mother, our grandmother, her name was Mary. Our grandmother's name is Mary Eskew.

That was right. I was named after his mother, so say. Mary joins me now. It's amazing to hear that clip. Mary, good morning. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. It must have been so emotional.

Everything about the programme and everything is emotional. That's the right word for it. It's all up and down. When you've been searching for 20 years and then you get to that point, emotions, yes. What was it like to actually see these half-siblings and start that relationship? Fantastic.

When you've grown up, like I said on the program an only child and then you come to that point and you can see flesh and blood that belongs to you is the same as you it was fantastic and because when you grew up what what did you know about your dad and what did you know about your dad? And what did you know about, you know, your heritage? Hardly anything. I knew his name. I knew he worked for the medical corps. I knew he was from St. Louis, Missouri.

And like I said there, I was named after his mother, Mary. And that's about it. I only knew four or five things because I wasn't sat down and told anything. It was just little snippets from here and there. Yes. And did your mother bring you up? My grandparents brought me up. Okay. And I suppose...

Yeah, I lived with my grandparents. And had your mother or was your mother able to stay in touch with your father or did she not have any information? No, my mother had no information. When he went back to America, that's the last my mother heard. But I was told that my dad had sent a letter to my mother asking my mother and myself to go to America. But my grandmother intercepted that letter and my mother never knew about it. Wow.

So it was one of my aunties that related to me about this letter. And I don't know what happened to the letter and I should say well I was just going to say also which is covered in the documentary you know it wasn't easy as a child for you and others in your position and in your case growing up in a white rural community? Yeah, it was a mining community. Coal mine down the bottom of the garden,

coal mine two miles down the road. So, yeah, that sort of area. Because, of course, what this programme also speaks to is how our attitudes have changed towards race, because of course this you know what this this program also speaks to is you know you know how how our attitudes have changed towards race towards those who are mixed race and and to knowing a lot more about ourselves and our heritage yeah it's nice to know isn't it do i mean growing up i was called names that hopefully you don't hear now. Personally, I don't hear those names being called anywhere now.

The N word. No. Halfcaste, I was called. Don't ever hear that now and hopefully not to hear it again. Yes. At the time when I was growing up, I had very good friends. And then there was people that was not so nice, if I put it that way. What have you learned about your dad?

I've learned that he was a bit of an entrepreneur. He was a go-getter. He was a hard worker. Yes. Yeah. And actually very nice things to learn, I'm sure. You know, you talk about some of the parts of your childhood being difficult. I should say some will find those words, again,

as you even just refer to them, very offensive and difficult to hear. But it's the reality of your life of growing up. But it must have been lovely to have, you know, at the heart of this, this is actually a happy ending in some ways. Although it's been a long time coming to have this family and to make these connections for you. I believe you're in your late 70s now. Yeah, I'll be 78 incember and i've searched for 20 years so to all of us to get to this point now to find those four siblings well christmas has arrived and of course they they could be even be listening this programme, but the documentary that you've been a part of

shares that there are around 2,000 people born in similar circumstances to you. What would you say to any one of those people who still don't know about their heritage? I would say to those that are interested in finding their siblings or relatives to keep asking families, neighbors that would have been around at the time,

because usually there is tittle-tattle, but in all honesty, there was no tittle-tattle or whispers about my heritage when I was growing up, to keep on persevering. And DNA's come on a lot since then, because DNA wasn't available when I started searching. And the letters that I had back, I don't know if you noticed on the program last night,

all the letters I sent out and the replies I got was the same, not enough information, no army number, can't do do anything try a year so I tried you and I tried there and I had a reply back from two Herman Ascos and um one was listed as signing up in 1945 which he was the year after I was born so it couldn't be him and the other one was Herman Askew right year but listed as white that listing was a misprint and that was my dad so that was in 2012 so that was 10 years ago and I didn't I didn't match it up because he was listed as it's very emotional very emotional yeah yeah so I could have had another 10 years with the family. Do I mean what I'm trying to say?

I understand. But that was like a data. Mary. Incorrect. Mary, it's so lovely to talk to you. Thank you for coming on. I knew. Thanks for having me on the programme.

It's been fantastic. Thank you. Mary Phillips. For the others out there, keep trying. Keep trying. There's the message and if you didn't see that it's available that program britain's secret war babies on all four which is channel four's digital catch-up service and you can find out more about mary and the whole context of that story talking of stories many messages coming in about books that have stopped you

in your tracks and changed your life leslie says the woman who walked into doors by Roddy Doyle helped me realise and have the strength to get out of a destructive marriage. Deficit myth by Stephanie Kelton completely changed my understanding of the economy of this and other countries. Probably also changed my political views and who I'll vote for. Another one I read, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, in secret in a local library. It helped me break free from the high control religion I was born into. I was a 38 year old married parent and gave me a completely different perspective. Well, let's talk about different perspectives because the dating app Tinder is celebrating its 10th birthday. And of course, it alongside other digital dating platforms have completely given a different complexion and perspective

as to how many of us now meet our long or short-term partners. Not everyone thinks online dating has improved romance for the better. Thursday is a new dating app that encourages its users to meet in person. And on the other side of things, we've got Planet Theta, which takes online dating to a whole other level, virtual reality, because through this platform, you have Rawlings is the co-founder of Thursday. Aurora, I'll start with you if I may. Good morning. Welcome to the program. How does your service work? I've tried to describe it. Well, good morning to you. Thank you for having me.

One of the biggest things with VR is a misconception. You do need a headset, a virtual reality headset to access our product, specifically the Oculus Quest 2. It's the most available headset out there on the market and the cheapest currently. Once you get that and you get that all on, it's kind of like ski goggles in a way, you can download our app. It's going to take you immediately into your own private apartment that every single user gets. It's a place that you immediately into your own private apartment that every single user gets. It's a place that you can customize, invite your date or your friends over for just some private chat time. You know, maybe play a board game in your dining room table.

Beyond that, you can access our public areas, which include a bar, comedy club, as you said, the movie theater. If you like to meet people the more organic way, public areas are going to be your way to go. You can just go up to people and start a conversation. Aurora, if I may, you talk about meeting, if you want to meet people a more organic way. Of course, you're not actually meeting in person. So for some people, they can't perhaps,

even if they are conceiving of how this would work and they're very fluent with what you're saying, they would still think, is this just going to be a waste of time? I've still got to meet you in person. You know, to fall in love, I need to actually see you, look at you, talk to you and look at you in the eye. Well, similar virtual reality is another form of, you know, information that you get. You are seeing the other person's avatar. You're seeing their gestures.

You're hearing them. You're looking them in the eye. It's almost as if you were in the same room together in a lot of ways. You get phantom touches. So if they like brush your shoulder, your body perceives that and you'll kind of feel something in the real world. I mean, you can form connections on the internet now. That's how most people do it.

Oh, of course. I'm not just saying that there's no connection there. I'm not denying that. But it's difficult for some to perhaps feel that that could be as good as the in-person experience but of course things are changing and that's what we're trying to track here and that's why you've come on the program george let me bring you in at this point the thinking behind thursday in a nutshell is what your brand hi there emma thank you for having me yes the thinking behind thursday um it's a dating app that it's not like your traditional dating app because we actually switch it off six days a week so the app just comes to life on a thursday um i was an avid dating app user before got really fed up with the matches weren't resulting in dates I think this whole abundance of choice on dating apps

is really hindering our ability to meet because people are sort of swiping for the sake of it obviously tinder a 10 10 year anniversary they've had over 30 billion matches and I think we're quite numb to it now the novelty of a match is kind of worn off so I was like I want my meet cute moment exactly how my parents met why don't we just switch the app off six days of the week and focus on one day and our idea is we take over venues be it bars fitness classes comedy clubs movie theaters everything but it's all about in real life connections so of course we we it's not like a crazy speed dating event where you sort of put in front of someone for 60 seconds to say impress me it's more about that nap trying to engineer that natural environment so we can say i just met someone in a bar on thursday so

it's a slightly different spin on dating apps um and yeah been live for about a year about 5 000 people a week now attend the venues so in a venue you're essentially assuring as much as you can ensuring that those who are there are single and are looking to meet for for those purposes so it's uh get you there through the online and then switch off the rest of the digital stuff and be together just just from your perspective when you hear about the metaverse and the idea of people meeting in that way are you in any way drawn to that no not not at all I'm actually not really interested in and this is not to undermine or always concept or anything for me it's all about in-person connections I know you've got that sort of 60 second window but you've got to be face to face with someone I believe in order to have that connection when you want to pursue a potential relationship with someone. I think dating should

always be in person. And I think, you know, dating apps have always been the only way to really meet new people. And of course, we've kind of overdosed a bit on it for the last 10 years. And I'm trying to bring it back full circle to make it more in real life of what people really want, I think. Aurora, how soon do you see your users take it offline if they do take it offline? I think once we launch, once we get a normal basis of users here, it's not going to take long for them to forge a basis of a relationship, maybe like a week even of a few interactions. The issue with online dating apps now is the fact that there's

no safety to women here. Planet Theta gives a level of filtering for women. So no longer do I have to go to a bar and meet up with a random stranger that I have no idea who they really are and if I need a fear for my life and my safety. I mean, of course, many would say that's not how they had felt in the main for many years, although that's, of course, an important point. But the other side of it, I suppose, is there's concerns around the metaverse being safe. Recently, we've had Carol Vorderman on the show's campaign about online safety fears. She's a British TV presenter and mathematician here,

and she's talked about child grooming in the metaverse and concerns about it being the wild, wild west. What would you say to those concerns? As VR has been developing, you know, I'd say like two years ago, it was more so the wild, wild west. I felt harassment in a lot of social VR apps, which actually helped me create Planet Theta here. One thing that's really specific about our app is

that we are taking every single precaution that we can to avoid that issue, to avoid children on our platform to even be in a dangerous situation for both parties here, because right now there's not a space in virtual reality that's protected for adults and that needs to happen and we're here to provide that. George I feel like you want to say something at this point. No I'm just saying about sort of safety and I think for us that's a core priority for us as well nearly 60% of our users are actually women I think going to a venue you know when someone signs up to our app we verify them with a facial recognition check to make sure that the profile picture they upload is saying that they're actually that person and also when they get to the venue we ask for a physical id and match that with their profile and they've given us but we go a bit further to ensure

safety in a safe environment we provided these people to create natural connections we have reps who kind of act almost like guardian angels in the venue just to make sure that everything is going going to plan are you are you in a relationship at the moment george if i'm allowed to ask that yeah i am yeah i met on thursday not last week but you know a few months ago yeah i met my my other half at a thursday venue okay you didn't just set up this whole app to meet someone though that's me being cynical now i need to close it down like i've succeeded aurora how's it going for you if you don't mind me asking? It's going pretty well.

I luckily have found my amazing partner. It took a lot of trial and error and, honestly, a lot of sketchy situations to get there. And I'm glad I found someone, but I'm looking here to kind of change the dating culture for women in general. And was it through the metaverse, your match? It was not. It was actually through Tinder. There you go.

And this is where we began. Tinder is celebrating its 10th birthday. I'm sure many of you will have some of your own stories about online dating. And if I had a bit more time, I'd take a few more of them. But thank you very much to Aurora Townsend, who's the founder of Planet Theta, and George Rawlings, co-founder of Thursday,

and also for being so honest about their own situations. And thank you to you for your contributions this morning, as always, reading around what you've been reading. And a lot of you also getting in touch to say it was lovely to hear Naomi Stadlin on the radio this morning for those who had discovered her work and many other books in between. Thank you for your company. We're back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Jade Adams and in Welcome to the Neighbourhood, I take a peek at the nation's community apps and

message boards for some comedy eavesdropping. Does anyone know who's parked in our drive? I got hit by a potato on the high street earlier. Could you please have some decency and close the curtains if you're having sex? Each episode, I'll be joined in my online curtain twitching by a different guest, including James Acaster. You don't need to put out a thing to the local community. You can just go straight to the police. Sarah Keyworth. I highly doubt she's read The Highway Code. And Helen Bower.

They're inc sight in a riot in three sentences. Welcome to The Neighbourhood with me, Jade Adams, on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.