Woman's Hour - Cush Jumbo, Predatory marriage, Equality in 2021, Tall women and dating, Sexual assault, consent and 'grey areas'

Episode Date: October 16, 2021

Cush Jumbo, star of The Good Wife and The Good Fight on her latest role playing Hamlet. Predatory marriage involves a vulnerable adult being led into a marriage, which financially benefits their new spouse. We hear from Daphne Franks, who believes that her mother was a victim of a predatory marriage.Your responses to our poll on equality in 2021.What's it like for tall women when it comes to dating? Comedian Andrea Hubert, and Sarah Ivens, author of Get Real discuss. In her new book Rough, Rachel Thompson looks at how violence has found its way into the bedroom. A study released this summer set out to gauge the extent of violence against women. One shocking finding revealed that half of respondents had "woken up to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them whilst they are asleep." Rachel Thompson and Dr Jessica Taylor, co author: Understanding the Scale of Violence Committed Against Women in the UK Since Birth.Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Dianne McGregor

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. I'm Jessica Crichton. A selection of some of the highlights from the week just gone in case you missed anything. In a moment, we'll hear from the woman campaigning against what she describes as predatory marriage. Plus, your views on just how equal you feel in 2021. And what's it like for tall women when it comes to dating? I've had more than one man ask to climb me like a tree. And it's like, well, if you want to climb

me like a tree, guess what? There's a wooded area right there. You go climb a tree and I'm going to date someone who doesn't obsess over things like that. I get a lot of anger from men, like, how dare you? I want to say I didn't steal it from you. Don't a lot of anger from men, like, how dare you? I want to say I didn't steal it from you. Don't blame it on me. By the way, you should try it up here. And Kush Jumbo, star of The Good Wife and The Good Fight, on her latest role playing Hamlet. And we discussed the findings of a report that said over half of women respondents had woken up to their male partner having sex with them whilst they are asleep. But first, Daphne Franks is leading a campaign for greater awareness around something called predatory marriage, a union where someone marries a vulnerable, often elderly person

for financial gain. Daphne believes that her mother was a victim of predatory marriage. She was Joan Blass, who was 87 years old, a widow living with vascular dementia when she was befriended by a man 24 years her junior in 2011. Daphne learnt after Joan's death in 2016 that they had been married without her knowledge and she believes that her mother lacked the capacity to consent to do so. Under English law, marriage automatically revokes an existing will meaning that a new husband inherited an entire estate. Emma spoke to Daphne and asked her how her mother met this man. She said, and she already had a diagnosis

of vascular dementia, so I'm not sure it's totally accurate, but it sounds likely. She said she was trimming some trees and he walked by. And she seems to have invited him in for a cup of tea or something. And again, that's not very characteristic of her. I think she'd have been a lot more cautious before she had dementia. And how was she at that time? How was her condition? At the time, she was beginning to show personality changes, which is what got me to ask her to be diagnosed in the first place. She had been a ferociously intelligent woman and incredibly athletic, but suddenly she was becoming more forgetful. But that's not just it.

She would be alternately more compliant and then sometimes very hysterical. And that just wasn't like her. And they meet over in the garden with the hedge and the work that she was doing, as you understand it, and then what happens in terms of them and their relationship and your awareness of it? The first thing I saw of him were some strange things in mum's house, and I didn't know who they belonged to. And then after a little while, we met him, but his things were all over her house and some quite valuable things like an iPad. And I just thought that was very strange. And I asked mum who they belonged to and she didn't seem to know.

And she was just very confused about the whole thing. And were you talking to him at this point? Had you met him properly? No, this was before I met him. and then I did meet him and he was very over friendly he always was in the early days the kind who uses your name twice in every sentence and puts his hand on your shoulder that kind of thing okay and were you aware of them being friends or what what was your understanding of the relationship no mum always said who is he where did he come from did you get him for me And that one broke my heart later on. I think she thought, if anything, he was some sort of carer. But then he starts living there?

Yes, but again, he didn't tell us he started living there. And mum would constantly say, so where does he live? And I was, mum, I think he's living with you is he okay but I suppose what I'm trying to drive out she could she could have been saying that to you is is there any understanding of you at this point of their relationship because obviously no relationships come in in different forms could they have formed some kind of kind of loving bond would you say no I wouldn't say so my mum was a very loving woman If she met you for the first time today and you bent down and kissed her, she would kiss you back. That's what she was like. And a lot of people who have dementia are like that. But no, she never knew his name. She absolutely never knew it. She didn't know what his relationship was to her. She certainly never thought of him as any kind of

partner. Why did you accept his stuff all over the house? I'm just trying to think if it was to her. She certainly never thought of him as any kind of partner. Why did you accept his stuff all over the house? I'm just trying to think if it was my mother and I was living next door and some strange man, as I said I didn't know, and your mother didn't know the name of, had his stuff all over the place. Well, I'd do something about it. Or is it not as easy as that? It's not as easy as that. First of all, my dad had died a few years before. My mum had been very lonely. Now there is this man showing her a lot of attention. It would have felt cruel to say, well, you've got a new friend, but we're suspicious of

his motives, so we're going to make him go away. She was enjoying his attention. And I was a bit naive then, probably. And then after a while, we did start asking people what can we do what can we do and we were constantly told he's there at your mother's invitation because you did contact various people didn't you the GP social services finally we went to a solicitor and she said oh no no he won't be able to she won't be able to make a new will because of her dementia. She would need her capacity assessed by a solicitor.

Finally, I said, will she be able to marry? But the solicitor said, oh, no, no, because of her dementia. Unfortunately, what I didn't know was we needed a specialist solicitor. That solicitor didn't know what she didn't know, which is that there's so little safeguarding in place at marriage. So what she told us was technically correct, but actually not practically correct. I totally understand that you were going elsewhere asking what you can do, but when you actually saw him and spoke to him, Did he say anything to you to explain their relationship or his feelings towards your mother? No. And in fact, in all the hospital records, he was described as her carer

because that's how he called himself to them. Even after they were married, he described himself as her carer. We have it in the hospital notes. When did you find out they'd got married? Two days after my mum died, the phone rang and it was my mum's GP and he sounded really worried and he said, Daphne, did you know your mother was married? And the shock of it was just horrendous because we had relaxed. We didn't know that there were other things that we could have done because the solicitor had given us so much reassurance, no, you won't be able to do anything.

And what happened because she'd got married? The man inherited everything. I left mum's house on the night mum died, expecting to go back in, and I left her dead body in the living room, expecting to see it again. And in fact, I never went back in the house and I never had any more time with her.

I never saw her again. She's buried in an unmarked grave because he now had total control. It's just something I think our family will never get over, which is why I started campaigning for change. Because once I saw this was relatively easy to do, and once I realised we hadn't been able to protect her, even though we lived 30 yards away, I thought if I couldn't protect my mum,

nobody can protect their elderly parent. And then I started hearing from lots and lots of other cases. And the reasons that you weren't able to go back in and the reason that he was able to have control is obviously because he was married and then everything was his. Yes. And the police said, don't go in the house because there's going to be a criminal investigation here for forced marriage. So keep away. So, again, we did what we were told. And then the police spent a long time building the case. But the CPS said they couldn't prosecute because no evidence is kept at marriage.

There's no video recordings, no audio recordings. So even though we know we have it in writing from one of the registrars, one of the registrars actually queried whether mum was fit to marry because she couldn't answer some of the questions on the day. She couldn't remember her address or her date of birth, but the man had kind of primed them by saying she's very old, she's had a stroke, she's very deaf, she's forgetful, all of which were true, but he never mentioned dementia. And the registrars who are untrained in assessing capacity, which is why I've never blamed them, they took his word for it. It actually says in the letter that because the man had said she was forgetful, we accepted the answer she could give.

So they don't have really robust procedures, and they don't tend to always follow the ones that they do have. The General Register Office will say, oh, yes, there are procedures, they've got to report it if they have any doubts, and that is true. But they don't always, and if they don't, there's no accountability, there's no consequences to the registrars, not that I think there should be, or to the General Register Office.

Yes, you say that the police did send the file to the CPS to consider that forced marriage change, but they decided against a prosecution. We've got this statement from the CPS which says, we reviewed this case carefully and concluded there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. We explained our decision to Mrs Bass's family and our thoughts and sympathies remain with them. The prosecution of forced marriage is of the utmost importance to the CPS,

and where there is sufficient evidence and our legal tests met, we won't hesitate to charge. The problem is there won't be any prosecutions for forced marriage with dementia. There never have been, and there won't be until they change the procedures at marriage. And what are you asking for there specifically? What changes? Just what we want, a robust procedures for registrars. It's not their fault. They are low paid clerical officials. They shouldn't be having to assess mental capacity. But what they need are some robust procedures, a robust set of questions. If you can't answer this question, have a set of

words that they are trained in. Unfortunately, because you have failed to answer this question, have a set of words that they are trained in. Unfortunately, because you have failed to answer this question, we have to refer this marriage for a mental capacity assessment, something like that. A Home Office spokesperson said the General Register Office has provided detailed guidance to registrars, registration offices to help them determine whether a person is being forced to marry someone against their will. If there are concerns, proceedings will be stopped or deferred until the registration office is satisfied that the individual is able to make an informed decision.

The UK has safeguarded almost 3,000 people through forced marriage protection orders and the forced marriage unit continues to give advice and support to those who need it. Do you still live next door to this individual? No, we couldn't bear to live next door to him so we sold the old family house where we lived and moved away to North Yorkshire for a new start.

I should say that we did attempt to contact the man who married your mother but didn't receive a response and in a previous statement he'd said, Mrs Blass wanted to marry me and I believed at the time and still do that she has capacity to make that decision for herself. Of course, you're completely at odds with that position, as you've explained to us. As a family, what has been the impact? Quite honestly, it nearly broke us. It's the loss of everything. Because that was our old family home from 1959 that we had to leave. It swept away all those memories.

I can't go back. I dream about it almost every night. And in my dreams, there's always something horribly wrong. And I can't see that changing, really. Daphne Frank's there, who wants greater awareness of predatory marriage. Now, to mark our 75th anniversary last week, we commissioned a poll to explore how you feel about equality in 2021. It was found that the place where women feel most unequal is in the home, followed by the workplace in terms of pay. 70% of women say they feel pay and benefits are still not equal, closely followed

by how women feel violence curbs their chance at full equality. Almost 70% of women feel they don't have full equality due to experiences of sexual exploitation and abuse. What's your reality? Well, on Monday, we heard from you. First, Heidi. I used to think that we had come a long way, and actually the things that have happened to me in the last few years have highlighted the fact that there's a long way to go. I am a fairly recently single parent to four children. I made big economic sacrifices because four children required a lot of care. And my husband, my ex-husband, traveled a lot with work,

so there needed to be a parent at home. And what I wanted to raise was what then happens when that marriage ends and the lack of protection that there is for the women and children that that happens with, happens to, sorry, the lack of power. In my situation, my ex-husband has moved so far away that he can't play a 50-50 co-parenting role. I wasn't consulted on that. That just happened without me agreeing to raise the children on my own. So he now sees them twice a month and that's not consistent either. But it's also the financial side of it because he was the main breadwinner and he has been able to largely walk away from that responsibility and so so many women in my

situation are left you know you've had children with a partner you're now raising them alone and you're having to step into a financial void that is a bit impossible to plug and there's very little support out there are you able to to work at? I worked a little bit when we were still married but it wasn't a full-time income and it's hard to make it that. Yes and now as a single parent. I love it it's wonderful but it's hard to make it be what it needs to be to support five people. So I will say to my children the day you commit to having a child with somebody you have 50-50 responsibility for that child from that day and I don't understand the lack of messaging that seems to have happened where some men

and I don't want to I don't want to paint a bush of facts I know plenty of men who have chosen the exact opposite of this but where they think that's optional and there's a chance to step you know they have the option to step away from that and then the women are left I just thought we'd moved on from that and I think it's been very, very disappointing to realise that we, in some cases, we haven't. Sue, in Cambridge, what would you want to say on this? Well, I wanted to say something about possibly

things aren't always what they seem in houses. My sons, I have two sons and I have three children and I was a traditional wife because that's what my mother did although I've had a fantastic husband and he'll do anything if you ask but my eldest son works in a very high-powered job he doesn't get home till seven o'clock and he rings me most nights after his day shift and he is saying I said oh He said, yes, I'm just going to the shop to get some food now because his wife's at home with the baby. It's not what he expects.

He doesn't expect anything. And he washes, cooks, cleans, irons. But I find it quite shocking that he is coming home after working all day. She's at home with the baby who's eight months old. And there's no food on the table. And he has to then stop and go out and get ingredients and stand there and make food. I just found that quite shocking. But I must say, it isn't what he said.

He said, I don't expect anything. But having worked in a high-pride job myself and had three children and had to juggle everything I know which I find harder and I know it won't go down very well with a feminist but actually I find it easy to be at home it's boring looking after three children all day but you can set your own agenda if you're at at work, you can't. And I mean, things will be pulling into my pigeonhole every day, which I couldn't ignore. When you're at home, at least you can set your own agenda and it's not easy.

And it's different, but I wouldn't say it's fantastically hard. It's stressful, but not as stressful as being at work. Well, Sue, thanks very much for saying to us what perhaps you haven't said to your daughter at all. Maybe you have said it. Did you say it to her? Have you said to her? No. No, mother-in-laws mustn't say anything to their daughter-in-law ever. And she's very nice. Some of them do. Some of them do, but I feel happy you feel you could say it here on Woman's Hour. Thank you very much for getting in touch, Sue. Sarah?

I've been listening with real interest in everything that everyone said and the one topic that hasn't really come up for me is the topic of the mental load i'm married i'm a full-time working mother my husband also works full-time there's a lot of balancing a lot of juggling to be done in our lives and i'm really grateful that i have been able to work full-time i have lots of wonderful support um but i think the thing for me is that my husband doesn't do anything unless I ask him to do it. And that's actually fine. We get by in that way.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if we lived in a world whereby it wasn't an expectation that the woman had to do all the thinking? I listened to a wonderful speech given by Nick Clegg's wife a few years ago and she referred to knowing how much cheese was in the fridge and I just think that really described it for me there's never a moment in time where in my brain I am fully at work or fully at home I'm just laughing I thought it was there's never a moment in time when you don't know how much cheese there is in the fridge and I'm thinking about I can tell you exactly how big that little block of cheddar now is in the Tupperware I'm just imagining. Absolutely and it was so brilliant because that's my life and if I ask my husband to do something he wonderfully

does it if I say would you mind cooking dinner tonight but there's still something that's innate and that's it's not just me it's's my female friends will say exactly the same thing. We regularly talk about it. Well, lots of you got in touch and thank you to everyone that did. And of course, if there's anything else you want to get in touch about, as always, you can email us via the website or we're on social media at BBC Woman's Hour. The average height of a female in the UK is five foot three inches. But what is life like for women at the other end of the spectrum especially when it comes to dating I spoke to Andrea Hubert whose creative comebacks on being six foot one paved the way to her becoming a comedian and Sarah Ivins author of

Get Real who's six foot Sarah was tall from a young age so what impact did that have? I was a really shy quiet child so being taller than all of your peers from the age of what from when I can remember wasn't great to be honest because it meant I always had my head sort of stuck above the parapet and always stood out when all I wanted to do was this gangly ungainly child was to hide away and when you are a giant you can't hide so um it didn't do me any good and I became an instant flusher so I was always bright red and embarrassed and trying to sort of duck and shrink and hide it wasn't good okay so that's not a positive experience what about yourself Andrea I definitely felt like I stood out a lot I didn't mind standing out I guess you know I'm a comedian so I like attention I didn't want to stand out for a physical attribute because that always struck me as very

basic you know like it's just that's not an attribute that's just a thing that happened to you you know and whenever people would point it out it's like well done you have eyes but that's not a conversation that's interesting to me I didn't understand why people were doing it it just didn't make any sense okay so I'm really interested to hear Andrea about these examples of your comebacks so I approach you and I make a comment about your height and how tall you are and what would you say in response no bad language by the way no no because my mother made me practice in front of the mirror she's like if people are making fun of you you need to be prepared for any situation so I would actually do that as like a quite a young child um a lot of

times it was what's the weather like up there I'm sure you've had that so what's the weather and I was like well it's England so the weather's exactly the same as it is down there also you're stupid just stuff like that and I mean one of my favorites is I mean I don't know about you Sarah but I always got asked to go back to back to see who's taller yeah and I was like yeah I'll go back to back but I'll do it Requiem for a dream start or I'm not doing it you know but that's about as dirty as you can get on a we'll leave it we'll leave it there then um sarah how about yourself do those examples kind of relate to you as well so true it's really strange how people find it so fascinating because i i don't know i mean obviously i've never been a short woman but

i'm not sure that women short shorter women get the same constant fascination and so it's almost like you're free it's freaky to be so tall as a woman and people comment on it all the time and I see it now I have an eight-year-old daughter who's already off the chart tall and I see it every time she goes anywhere the comments about her so it's really interesting watching her go through it and how I'm going to prepare her so that she's not the one that's like always ducking and hiding and sloping around like the hunchback of Notre Dame which is what I did and my posture is not great because of it. We've had some some texts that come in from people who can really relate to this subject matter someone has texted in to say I'm five foot ten inches and my husband is five foot four and a

half inches tall we've been married 37 years he says people must look at him and think he's very rich, quite possibly. What has been your experience, Andrea, with dating men that are shorter than you? Have you had any experiences of that? You must have. Yes, all men are shorter than me. I find that there's a really big difference between someone who likes you for yourself and someone who fetishizes you as a physical thing thing I've had more than one man ask to climb me like a tree and I'll be honest with you I don't find that awesome well he was a very charming wasn't he is that what you say like what I don't and so do you say to a short woman I'd like to sit on you like a stool I don't understand these people they make no sense to me and it's like well if you want to climb me like a tree guess

what there's a wooded area right there you go climb a tree and I'm going to date someone who doesn't obsess over things like that I know I mean what you said earlier Sarah was interesting because I've got very short friends and they get a very different type of thing they get this kind of patronizing cuteness whereas I get oh you're so scary I'm like I'm really not I'm just tall and I get a lot of anger from men like how dare how dare you? I want to say to them, I don't because, you know, it's hard enough for them. But I want to say I didn't steal it from you. And I didn't make the world into a place where men have to be dull to be manly. Like, we're all fighting the same nonsense. Don't blame it on me. By the way, you should try it up here. Sarah sounds like you can relate to that well very much it's funny how

people do find it intimidating in general and I have never ever once in my life been described as cute and I'm always quite envious of women that are sort of looked after and protected and told they're cute and I'm like what would that be like but I think the minute you walk into a room as a six-foot woman um preconceived ideas are set about you that you can handle yourself and put up with stuff and you could cope with more ridicule or whatever it is. But I feel that there's definitely preconceived ideas about being tall. And and the key really is to just embrace it. You know, I've spent long enough. I spent 30 years, as I said, sort of like shrinking from it. And now I'm just like, you know what? This is me. As me as you said earlier Andrew it's the one thing that you don't choose you can't change your height it's literally one of the only things about your appearance you can't

change do you really have to embrace it don't you you do have to embrace it I think it's wonderful and I started wearing heels a few years ago because I'm like you know what I can do that if I want to it's not my job to make everyone who's got their own issues feel better. It's my job to make myself feel good. And, you know, I think it's great. I can reach everything. But dating is odd. You know, men do find it intimidating. They want the smaller women because society says so. And as far as I'm concerned, if you're buying into that kind of narrative you're probably not the one for me anyway. Yes very true and Sarah you married in Diamante Hills didn't you Sarah? I did yes so after many many years of dating shorter men and holding the umbrella for them and you know when it was raining and pushing them out of the way of like cyclists to protect them

and making them stand in bathtub so that we were the same height so we could have a good snog at the same level after many many years of doing that I finally met someone who was six foot four to my six foot and so I thought brilliant I'm gonna wear three inch heels on my wedding day I mean I'm not used to heels being six foot so I literally wore them to walk up the aisle then I switched them for flip-flops but for half an hour I was six foot, so I literally wore them to walk up the aisle and I switched them for flip-flops. But for half an hour, I was six foot three and loving it. So that has more to do with just growing into your height and accepting it than a rom-com moment, I have to be honest. Really enjoyed that chat there with Sarah Ivins and Andrea Hubert. And lots of you enjoyed the chat, too, because many people got in touch about this topic.

Claire wrote in to say, at six foot, the worst time was in my teens when you were at a disco and sitting down. A really cool chap asked you to dance and you stand up and tower over him. Never been out with anyone taller than myself. Elizabeth told us, I get it all the time, even now in my 60s. Men hate tall women, most men, particularly at work. Rog tweeted in to say, I'm six foot two, was introduced to a woman who was six foot at a party with an introduction. You are the same height. You should get on with each other.

She looks so embarrassed by the remark. And Penny said, never comment on people's heights or their surnames. They've heard it all before. And now, a new book called Rough by Rachel Thompson looks at how violence has found its way into the bedroom in some surprising and rarely discussed ways. What some believe to have become normal and perhaps acceptable shouldn't be, Rachel argues. And in a recent study of 22,000 women set out to gauge the extent of violence against women, one finding revealed that just over half of respondents had woken up to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them while they're asleep. The co-author of that study is Dr Jessica Taylor. I've worked for 12 years with women and girls in rape centres and in domestic abuse services and in the criminal justice system. And actually, it'd come up a lot in counselling,

it would come up a lot in therapy, it would come up a lot on the helpline. You know, anonymous women sort of ringing and saying, this keeps happening, is that normal? And so I think I was surprised that it came out at 51%. And you got the response from some of the men involved, didn't you? That was actually a different study that I did in 2017. It was the first time that I'd ever seen the question asked and I'd mixed it in with something else.

It wasn't specific about this topic. And so the question was about victim blaming, actually. So I'd given a scenario where a woman was fast asleep and a man had touched her sexually while she was asleep and she'd woken up to find him doing it and the question was simply asking men and women in the British public how much do you think the woman is to blame for this how much do you think the man is to blame for doing this um and the victim blaming of the woman was really high. It was 46% of 1,000 UK adults thought that the woman was to blame, despite the fact she was asleep. And then there was a free text bit at the end where anybody who took part could ask questions or leave comments. And that was where men and women left these incredible comments I wasn't expecting. So men left comments saying, I do this to my wife or girlfriend all the time. Are you calling me a sex offender? Are you saying that, you know, this is an assault?

This is disgusting. You know, I've done this. You know, we've been married 25 years. I've always done this. And then on the other side, there was these women in the comments saying like, hi, I've just filled in the study there was this item about you know being woken up to like having been you know someone sexually touching you or having sex with me that you know my boyfriend or my husband's done this to me for years are you suggesting that that's illegal are you suggesting that that's an offence because if so that's happened to me hundreds of times and that was the first time that know, I'd ever really seen anybody talk about it. But just on this then, there'll be some also listening, thinking, how can you sleep through sex?

My understanding from all of the women I've ever spoken to about this is that you do actually wake up during it. So it'll be that, you know, you wake up and, you know, your partner is touching you or doing something to you or trying to have sex with you or trying to penetrate you or something like that. And then you're in this situation like you're kind of asleep and you're kind of awake and you're thinking, what on earth is happening? Is this a dream? Is this real? At that point, again, another question.

Surely, if this is your husband or your partner or someone that you're already in bed with, do you not then, you know, awake and say, well, what's going on here? And obviously at that point, in some way, either consent or not. From the women that I've spoken to, there is a real mixture of how they respond. So for some of them, you've got to remember that you don't suddenly wake up a lot of the time. You're just sort of in REM sleep or you're kind of awake in a sleep at the same time and you're sort of a little bit confused about what's going on. So some women told me that their partners would say to them, you came on to me and like confuse them, deliberately gaslight them or sort of say you wanted it. Could that be true though?

I mean, of course, women also in the middle of the night may get urges. I guess so. I mean, there are other academics that would completely disagree with me and suggest that there are so-called, you know, psychosexual sleep problems where people come on to each other while they're fast asleep. I don't think that explains why statistically

it's much more common for men to do it to sleep in women and girls than it is for women to do it, you know, to men. Just to pause on that thought, sorry, for one moment, you say that could be a problem. Is it a problem? Is it seen as a problem to get aroused during one's sleep whether it's men or women

and begin taking action on that with the person that you're either married to or in bed with? In my opinion it's rape and sexual assault every single time I've never in my entire life looked at a sleeping person and thought I think I'll touch them.

I think I want sex with them right now while they're asleep. That would turn me on. But that's never gone through my head. I don't know why anybody would want that. It doesn't mean if it's not gone through your head. I'm just going with this now. It doesn't mean if it's not gone through your head. So you're saying if a man or a woman starts touching their partner while they're asleep, as in they're also been asleep, they've woken up, and they start to kiss them or whatever, obviously in the hope of waking them up to have sex.

You believe that's rape or sexual assault? Yeah, yeah, I do. And I know that's a strong view and there's going to be loads of people that disagree with that. But consent in the law has to be specific to the event. It has to be at the time and it has to be informed consent. You can't consent to anything if you're not fully conscious but if you wake up if you wake up and consent is it still sexual

assault that they initiated it but if they started touching you whilst you were asleep the initial part of it is the assault isn't it why do you have that view in that way if some people as i imagine they will be now getting in touch would say I just don't feel like that they love me they're my partner that they're expressing their way of coming on to me and I wake up and I want to do it as well I just think it's a line that shouldn't ever be crossed I think if the person is asleep I mean it so that my questions would be first of all what if you're not up for it what if you're ill what if you're tired what if you're on your period what if you just don't want sex what about all the things so you'll just say you because we are talking about in relationships here and i know there's very i know there's very specific other circumstances but i am just keeping it to that

for one moment you'll just say no at that point but is your view then that you've been sexually assaulted by even somebody making the beginnings yeah absolutely i don't think that anybody has the right to touch somebody else whilst they're asleep. I think that should be really clear. Message that's just come in from David. He's listening. My experience is most women love to be caressed and made love to while half asleep. I don't think that that's the case. I think that in a lot of cases, women who have had that done to them have normalized it or their partner have told them that they wanted it or that it's completely normal. And even women that I've spoken to who have said to me, and I agree with you, women will say it's a sexual fantasy of mine.

I really, I want to wake up to my partner having sex with me. There is still the legal issue there of consent. I understand that. Whether you're in a relationship or not is completely irrelevant because consent isn't based on relationships. A message here saying this is about consent. Not always do girls, women wake up. It's incumbent upon a man to secure verbal or sexual consent. I fully support you in this, reads that

message. I gave permission to my partner, reads this other message, to touch and penetrate me while I was asleep. Another one, it is rape. I woke up to find my partner having full penetrative sex with me. I was asleep. I couldn't give my consent. It was a domestic abuse relationship. He did not care whether I wanted to have sex or not. It's hugely common in domestic abuse relationships. Come on, women's hour, this is sexual assault. I just want to clarify there, which I believe I've made abundantly clear,

but I will do so again. Jessica, when asking those questions, you were obviously talking to a whole range of people and we were not only talking about those in a domestic abuse relationship, as has just been described. No, in both. Yeah, in both studies, anybody could answer who were. Well, in the first study, anyone meant a man or a woman over the age of 18 that lived in the UK could respond. That's the study in 2017 where men said that they were doing it frequently and women also said that they were waking up to it frequently. And then in the second study, it was just women only over 18 residing in the UK.

So I just, to make that clear, who you were talking to as well in this. Let's bring in Rachel Thompson at this point, because Rachel, your book is called Rough and you have been looking at things like this in the sense of not only this, but you've been looking at where people perhaps, exactly to Jessica's point, have thought about something afterwards and realised it wasn't quite what they thought. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, the book for me started, I started thinking about it in 2018 when we started during the Me Too movement, we started talking about grey areas and people, you know, I heard a lot of conversations with friends and colleagues that was like, you know, I don't feel that this counts.

You know, it wasn't as bad as rape or sexual assault, but this thing happened. And then they would describe something that was degrading, violating, that they felt scared in and they would call it a grey area or they'd use, you know, kind of woolly language to describe it. And that also, that category kind of fit a lot of my own experiences as well. And I started to really reflect on, you know, okay, well, what exactly do I mean by a grey area? And so I started to really dig into this and explore the kind of violations that we kind of, as a society, don't consider bad enough to almost give that kind of airtime to. And what I found was a lot of the experiences that fell into the grey area did actually count as rape or sexual assault. And there were also, you know, kind of more

nebulous experiences that legally, you know, you wouldn't class them as rape or sexual assault. And that's because, you know, often the law doesn't actually cover like the full scope of the violations. So but I wanted to kind of hold space basically for, you know, the grey areas and to kind of properly explore these lived experiences. Let me come back to you, Rachel, in just a moment. Dr. Jessica Taylor, we are getting a lot of messages, as you talked about there, asking for what people think. Can I share a few of those with everyone and with you? A message here, I agree it's about consent. I don't like it.

And I feel your interview gives me that voice to challenge this behavior. That's from Claire, who's listening, Jessica. Another one saying you can't consent if you're unconscious. This has happened twice to me. Both times I felt very confused and it was not OK. But Jessica, this message here, this is bonkers. If you're sleeping with someone you really love, I don't see how it's sexual assault.

If I didn't trust and love them, I wouldn't be in a long-term relationship with them. And another one, I actually love sleepy sex quotes with my husband and I have an agreement he can wake me doing that. Is that different if she's got an agreement? Not necessarily. I mean, obviously within people's relationships, they might have their own dynamics,

but it still doesn't change the point in law. And I think considering how common sexual assault and sexual violence is towards women and girls, I'm really strong on this. Even if my partner, you know, if my wife said to me, I'm all right with this, I would quite like you to wake me up having sex with me. I'd be like, absolutely not. It's not happening. Not doing it. No.

And so the person who says if you're sleeping with someone you really love, I cannot see how it's sexual assault. This is bonkers. I would feel like I was sexually assaulting her. She's fast asleep and she doesn't know I'm about to do it. There's no consent there. She's got no prior knowledge of it. It's not happening. That was Dr. Jessica Taylor and Rachel Thompson there. And if you need support on any of the issues raised to you, there are links on our website. And finally, probably best known around the world for her television role as lawyer Luca Quinn in The Good Wife and then the follow-up series The Good Fight, Kush Jumbo is currently playing Hamlet

at the Young Vic in London. Delayed for a year by the pandemic, the play sold out months before opening. She's the first woman of colour to play the part in a major production on a British stage. So what attracted her to the role? I had had experience playing Mark Antony in Phyllida Lloyd's Julius Caesar, which I really enjoyed. Not so much because the part was male, but because of the additional spectrum I was allowed to explore while playing a male part,

because Shakespeare writes differently for men and women. And I'd also played Rosalind in Ganymede and As You Like It. And I'd had a similar experience because he kind of writes for Ganymede as he would write for a young man. And, you know, once you get exposed to that kind of stake, as I would call it, which is very juicy in the mouth and full of incredible words and phrases, but also the ability to show emotion on stage that actually as an actress and as a woman, you don't often get to do without appearing to be a nutter. You know, you get to show rage, get to declare war. You get to deal with mental to declare war you get to

deal with mental health but people still take you seriously whereas usually you're either kind of a huge um whore or a crazy woman if you display those those emotions so Hamlet has always been one that I've been fascinated by because being the nerd that I am I knew a lot about when he'd written it and how soon after his young son dying that he'd written it. He had a six or seven year old son called Hamnet that died. And I had been really interested in the idea that what he'd written was actually an imagining of a son that might have been. Had he come of age, but also knowing that the world wasn't quite ready for his child, that the child was born ahead of its time. And that's why it was always going to

be a tragedy and he was always going to die. And that fascinated me because I have nieces and nephews who are in their teens. I've had siblings in their teens. I've been in my teens. And there's something about being a young person and feeling like you don't quite fit or that you're in the wrong time and I think that that has become even more important and it exacerbated at the moment with discussion of self and gender and identification so I thought it was a good time to explore Hamlet through my body but playing him as a him and because you do yeah i should say that you are you are doing that you are playing him as him and i know that for you also you're interested in the analysis of of masculinity you know and what and what that means

and you were drawn to that have you have you come to a new place or a new conclusion yourself obviously you've talked about your your son and I know you have a male partner. Yes, I've worked it all out. Come on, I need to know. I've sorted it. No, I mean, I had an interesting upbringing with my father because he was a house husband. He stayed at home for 16 years, but he was a kind of big, strong, alpha male Nigerian guy.

So he cooked and he cleaned, and he knew how to do everything, and he was very emotional. And my son is a little boy. And I've had a variety of partners in my life and my husband and all different kinds of men. And I wanted to explore the fact that I feel like masculinity is boxed in a different way to femininity, but in one that's as restrictive in terms of what it's unable to explore so yeah I'm still kind of going through it but what I'm discovering from the feedback I'm getting from

audiences and from the messages I'm getting the people I'm talking to is that they are feeling like I'm seem to be able to access something about men that isn't usually accessed through a man's body when a man plays Hamlet. That's interesting. I love the idea that it was Christine Baranski from The Good Wife, Good Fight and many other things who saw you on stage and recommended you for the TV show. Yeah, I'd written a show about Josephine Baker

that was at the Bush Theatre in London and it transferred to the Public Theatre in New York. And it was a one-woman show where I played all these 30 characters or something. It sounded amazing I wish I'd seen that. Yeah yeah I hope we'll do it again one day um but yeah so she in New York everybody goes to theatre film people TV people like movie stars like everyone goes and they always come backstage you know in the UK someone famous comes to see your show unless unless they know you they're not going to come and like back and knock on your door but in New York they just kind of queue up outside your dressing room like coming to give you their their five minutes kind of thing which is obviously amazing she came in she kind of drifted like kind of you know on roller skates it's like she didn't even walk she just drifted, like kind of, you know, on roller skates. It's like she didn't even walk, she just drifted on a cloud of glittery magic in my room. And I was a huge Good Wife fan, so I was absolutely

awestruck that she was there and she told me she really loved it. And she said she was going to get the producers to come and watch it, which they did at the weekend. And then on the Monday, they offered me a job. Like you do. It's totally normal that, yeah. It's totally normal, that? I mean, obviously, it's totally not normal. I mean, it never happened to me before. My whole time in New York, I kept waiting for someone to kind of bust the studio door open and go, there she is, the imposter, get her out, she's from Lewisham, and, like, remove me.

And you can watch Hamlet, that's at the Young Vic in London until the 13th of November. It is sold out, but there are some on the day returns and it will be live streamed on the 28th to the 30th of October. Well, that's all we've got time for. Thank you for joining us on Weekend Woman's Hour. Enjoy your weekend. That's the moment it hit me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I'm in a cult. I used to think to myself, these people are mad, but until I realized that I'm mad as well. I'm Paris Lees, and this is The Flipside. In each episode, I tell two stories from opposite sides of the coin, and use science to ask questions about elements of the human experience

that we sometimes take for granted. I know that we're genetically related, but in my mind, I don't have the feeling that we are necessarily kin. My dad said, you know that we love you, and I am your father, but... Subscribe to The Flipside with me, Paris Lees, on 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's 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.