Woman's Hour - Kitty Ruskin's year of casual sex, The Girls of Slender Means, ARFID

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Ten Men, A Year of Casual Sex is a new book from the author Kitty Ruskin. It follows a year of her life when she attempts to embody Samantha from Sex and the City and enjoy all the advantages of being young, free and single. As she details 10 men in 10 chapters, the stories range from sexy and funny to at times deeply confronting and violent, including rape. Kitty joins Krupa Padhy to discuss.Today, the government has accepted an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill they say could be a big step forward for rape victims. The amendment will help ensure extra protection for victims’ counselling notes, by raising the threshold that needs to be met for the police to ask for them. It’s something that charities like Rape Crisis and the End Violence Against Women Coalition have been campaigning for. Joining Krupa is Baroness Gabby Bertin, the Conservative peer who tabled the amendment.According to new research, people who are 65 think that old age begins just before you turn 75. However, 74-year-olds think old age starts at 77. Women think old age starts later than men do. So when are you 'old' and what does 'old' mean? Krupa speaks to Steph Daniels who re-joined her local hockey team at 75, after a 40-year gap, and has just started managing a band again.ARFID stands for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. Commonly underdiagnosed as picky eating, we’ll hear how the eating disorder manifests in children and what it’s like for parents. Krupa speaks to a mother, Lisa Hale, whose son has the condition and Professor Sandeep Ranote, Clinical Spokesperson for the eating disorders charity BEAT.An adaption of Muriel Spark’s novel The Girls of Slender Means is currently on at The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. Set in the summer of 1945, it follows the adventures of a group of young women who are caught between hope and unhappiness. As each girl grapples with what happened in the war, they begin to imagine what lies ahead of them in peacetime. Actress and writer Gabriel Quigley tells Krupa how she felt adapting the words of one of the greatest British novelists.

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, this is Krupal Bharti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. If you are a parent or carer to a young person who refuses their greens or squirms at the sight of new foods, you may be used to phrases like they're just a picky eater or they'll grow out of it. This is what Lisa from Northern Ireland had heard so often, only to learn that her son was suffering from ARFID, that is avoided restrictive food intake disorder. Nine-year-old Killian currently eats only popcorn and boiled pasta and he's not had a hot meal in around five years. We will hear an honest account from Lisa about what life is like for them as a family. Also, when does old age begin? A new study has found that our perception

of when old age starts has increased over time. So the older you get, the later old age starts. At the age of 64, for example, the average person thought old age starts around 75 years old. But then by the time they're 74, they said old age started at almost 77. And this is what we want to hear from you about. Are you of the belief that you are as old as you feel? Or do you accept that you are old? When will you accept you are old? And are you looking forward to it and if you're younger when did you or will you start regarding your parents neighbors or even friends as old you can text the program the number is 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media we are at bbc woman's hour on instagram and x And you can email us through our website. And if you'd like to send us a WhatsApp message,

that number is 03700 100 444. All of our terms and conditions can be found on our website. Also on the programme, we step into the world of post-war London with a new production of The Girls of Slender Means based on Muriel Spark's hit novel. It's the summer of 1945 at a time when, as the play puts it, all the nice people in England were poor. Five young women navigate love, aspiration and trauma.

How relatable is the story today? The actor and writer Gabriel Quigley, who adapted the book for theatre, joins us. And we talk to Kitty Ruskin, the author of a new book, Ten Men, A Year of Casual Sex, a frank and at times difficult read about the state and perils of modern dating. But first, today the government has accepted an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill. They say it could be a big step forward for rape victims.

The amendment will help ensure extra protection for victims' counselling notes by raising the threshold that needs to be met for the police to ask for them. It is something that charities like Rape Crisis and the End Violence Against Women Coalition have been campaigning for for a while now. Joining me is Baroness Gabby Burton,

the Conservative peer who tabled the amendment. Welcome to Women's Hour. Hello, Krupa. Thank you very much for having me on. Sorry, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say how delighted I am that the news has come in that the government will accept this amendment. I think this is, if enforced properly, could make a really material difference to the well-being of victims of rape. And it is, as you say, it's been a very long fought campaign by brilliant organisations, like Rape Crisis and Ending the Violence Against Women Coalition. I'd like to get down to the specifics. What exactly does the amendment say?

Yeah, so for too long, the threshold has essentially been set at a far too low level. So police have been able to really access victims' notes very easily and have done. I mean, over a third of rape victims have had their notes accessed, counselling notes accessed. And so what this amendment does, it does several things. But I suppose the most important thing in my mind is that it raises that threshold. So there has to be, the police have to prove that there is a substantive probative value in the reason for why they are accessing those notes. In addition to that, it will be stated on the face of the bill that there should be a presumption

that those notes, therapy and counselling notes specifically, are not necessary to be accessed. So the police have to sort of overturn two higher thresholds, if you like. And, you know, campaigners like myself and others really feel that over time, this hopefully would also add or diminish the attrition rate. Because at the moment, you've had a situation where quite often and for understandable reasons, if you are wanting to take the criminal justice route, you are being advised not to have counselling and not to talk about the rate because it could well be used against you in court. And I do want to better understand that in a moment, but it's also helpful for us to understand the role that the notes currently play in the current setup. So help us better understand the rules at the moment.

At what point in a rape case would the counselling notes be brought into it? Well, at the moment, if there is, if it meets a threshold where there could be some kind of reason or the exact wording is necessary and proportionate, and that has been misinterpreted quite a bit across our 43 police forces across the country. And in a sense, it means that in order to perhaps potentially discredit a victim or seek whether or not there's been some kind of issue around her version of events,

those notes are accessed. And as I've said, in over 30% of cases, they've been accessed, which is far too high. And the reality around this kind of evidence is that very often judges actually, if it is taken into a courtroom, it's actually dismissed as not particularly good evidence. You know, counselling notes, counsellors are not recording a victim's thoughts for the purpose of taking evidence. They're taking down notes in order to inform their next session. So quite often they're not even very valuable.

So the damage that's done by potentially seizing those notes and the sort of fear and the issue that that has for so many victims is hugely disproportionate to even the value that those notes even bring into a courtroom. So essentially, women are not coming forward because they're too scared. They're not coming forward to seek counselling because they're too scared that those notes will be used against them. Yeah. And it's also a very real issue whereby it's not necessarily just the notes around that crime. Sometimes the police have gone even further back into notes proceeding in order to sort of, I suppose, in a sense, have a look at the character credibility of the victim. And I think it's important to note that the government is trying very hard to change the approach to rape investigations. There is something called Operation Soteria, which has been put in place

and is showing green roots, whereby the whole operational system, whereby the victim is, in a sense, investigated before the perpetrator. They're trying very hard to change that around. And this is a very important step in that direction as well. In terms of the formalities,

the amendment is, of of course subject to agreement by both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Is that just a formality at this point? I think now that we've heard that the government is going to accept the amendment, it will be accepted. There's been a lot of cross-party agreement on this amendment. It's been signed also by the Liberal Democrats. I know that the Labour Party are for it. And I also have Nicky Morgan's name against the amendment. So I'm fairly

certain that it will be accepted this evening. And that is a good day, I hope, for victims of rape. The average time from offence to conclusion of a rape trial in England is now five and a half years. That is remarkable and unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. And I think the sort of, again, going back to the context of this amendment is if you are saying to yourself, right, I am going to seek justice and I'm going to stick with this you know many victims have therefore had five years of not seeking counselling because of the fear of that it could be used against them and that is well I mean a it's unacceptable that it should ever be five years in that process but but certainly you you have to be able to seek justice and also have the ability to repair your life through healing therapies. Whilst I have got you

here I assume you were in the House of Lords until the early hours of this morning. Yes, that's probably why I can't string a sentence together. Voting with the government on that Rwanda bill, which has made the headlines, which has now, of course, been passed. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is hailing it as a victory, an expensive one, £340 million and counting. Well, look, Cooper, I haven't come on this programme to defend the Rwanda bill by any stretch.

I voted for it last night. I think that there comes a point where you have to... We're a rising chamber and it's very clear what the will of the House of Commons was. So it's done, it's through and I hope it's very clear what the will of the House of Commons was. So it's done. It's through. And, you know, I hope it's successful. There will be implications and it doesn't necessarily take away the problem. Just this morning, just half an hour ago, we've had the news that the French Coast Guard has now confirmed that five people have died attempting to cross the Channel. These five included three men, a woman and a child.

This isn't a quick fix. No, no. And that news is just sort of terrible. The human cost, you know, whichever way you look at this is just so tragic. So it's not a quick fix, but I sincerely hope it does start to get better. Can I ask you, though, do you believe it will stop the boats? I don't think it will stop the boats very quickly, no. But, you know, the government, Rishi Sunak has to do all that he can to try and stop, you know, frankly, criminal gangs sending many, many innocent and vulnerable people to their deaths. So I don't agree with every element of the bill, but I do agree with the Prime Minister's desire to try and fix it. Baroness Gabby Burton, thank you so much for joining us here on Woman's Hour. Thank you very much for having me. Now, so many of you are getting in touch with me to talk

about old age and perception of old age. And I'm going to bring a few of them in in a moment. In fact, I'm going to put them to our next guest but let me tell you a bit more about why we are talking about this people who are 65 think that old age begins just before you turn 75 however 74 year olds think old age starts at 77 a study published in psychology and aging journal in the psychologying Journal, found that the perception of when old age starts gets higher the older people become. And women think old age starts later than men do. So when are you old and what does old mean? What is the magic number?

Back in January, Women's Hour spoke to Steph Daniels, who rejoined her local hockey team at 75 after a 40-year gap. And we thought she'd be the perfect guest to reflect on this latest research. Steph, welcome back to Women's Hour. Hello, Grupa. Thank you for having me back again. Great to have you with us. Steph, you are 76. It's a number that features in this research quite a bit. Do you think you're old? I don't use the word old. I mean, older, I think, is a better adjective to use.

Why use old? Why use old? I do want to ask you specifically the question that was asked to 14,000 people who were born between 1911 and 1974 in this study. And that was, at what age would you describe someone as old? What is your answer to that? I don't think I would ever describe anybody as old. What is what is your answer to that? I don't think I would ever describe anybody as old. I've seen a hundred year old woman walk across the stage and get a get a degree that she that she should have had when she was when she was 21 in a degree ceremony.

And I've seen youngsters going to school looking very old. So I don't know, what is it? What is it being? What does it mean being old? Let's just use the word getting older. I wonder though Steph, when you were say in your 20s, when did you think old age began or what was your perception of old age then? Well I guess I looked at older people then my grandparents and older women particularly who didn't do very much I mean they all looked very similar they had very similar haircuts and and their clothes I think their clothes defined them and lots of them didn't do anything they they may be um crocheted or knitted not there's anything wrong with crocheting

and knitting or they they watch tv they didn't really engage in in life outside their homes as much as we do today I mean I mean women today do do so many more things I mean and me for example I've just recreated my career as a as a manager of a band of the 80s fantastic we need to get you one having an interest having an interest in in in in life I think I mentioned before my my Bedford hockey team yeah I'm I'm I'm I'm a new captain in the summer. We're having a summer league. I think having an interest in life and having an interest in people

makes people not get older so quickly. I want to put the many messages that we are getting to you on the subject of your hockey. We've had this message from Fiona who says, I am 70, but not intentional of being old. I'm very active. I'm about to start yoga training and determined to remain fit for as long as possible.

If you don't use it, you lose it. But then here's Kathleen. She is 77 and says, I am just beginning to realise that I am not young anymore, at least not in my body. The last 12 months have slowed me down and I don't like it. I wonder, Steph, in your opinion, does there come a point where, like Kathleen, your body is changing? Even if your mind says I'm young, your body is changing and there comes a point where you have to accept you are ageing? I think you have to accept your age, the age that you are, but I don't think you need to make yourself old. I mean, I don't know what next week, I don't even know what tomorrow will bring me. You just have to take every moment,

every day as it comes. I mean, yes, I mean, what will I be like when I'm 80? Well, on the subject of being 80, let me put this message to you that's just come in, who says, I reckon that when I started boasting about how old I was, would be when I was old. I'm 84, you know, and I'm still writing. So someone who was proud of being 80. And this one from Sally, who says, I am a 61-year-old fit, healthy, active individual who works at the NHS. I see many colleagues half my age who are physically and mentally older than me. I think a lot depends on how you keep yourself, what you eat and your lifestyle. And here's a message from Pat, which I love. I've told my grandchildren, no matter how

old you are, old is 15 years older than you. I wonder when you reach, I don't know, 100, a grand old age of 100, will that be a point where you think, okay, I am old? Is that point ever going to come for you, Steph? I think looking at it today, my age today, and thinking about 100, yes, I probably have to admit that I would probably say I'm old, certainly older than most people in England. But what does old mean? Yeah, well, that's a question that we can keep debating. I want to put this to you. This is from Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, and a really interesting point. She said that there's a bad image of old in Western cultures. Is there anything wrong with being old? In some cultures, for example, the old are hugely respected. You become this symbol of wisdom. I wonder whether we fetishise youth. Sorry, I didn't hear the last question i wonder whether we put youth in this category

which is you know the place to be and whether we don't say enough positive things talk about the positives of being old i i think what i what is lovely is to be in a community where you're together with young people because i think young people feed older people and hopefully older people give younger people something to weigh more. They see that older people don't have to sit at home and do nothing so I think mixed age groups are absolutely fantastic. Yes, I love the energy of the young but also I love the stories of people much older than me too. This is a really interesting message from Sue on Twitter. How do I know when I'm old?

The NHS tells me that over 70, I am now in a different category for their tick box culture. Likewise, banks, I'm too old for loans or mortgage extensions. Age is embedded in the algorithm and I'm officially past it. Really interesting. What do you make of that? Well, yes, it's an issue. I mean, I think if I was to say where I do feel older is obviously the technology. The technology does make it more difficult for older people having to book appointments online and and and and i think i think we all miss the the human contact with and that's that's the challenge i think that's the most important challenge for old people

they have to keep up with technology to to live um as you know know, in the current world. And that's the most challenging issue of all, I think. Thank you so much. Steph Daniels there joining us here on Women's Hour has rejoined her local hockey team, has now started a band. Like I said, we need to get you on. We need to hear a bit of that at some point, Steph. Good luck with it.

What's it called? The manager of the band. The band is called... Oh, manager of the band. Sorry, I missed that. Say that again. A manager of the band called Zenana. Zenana.

Three women. Three women. And it's a word that means it's a part of the household. It's an Indian word meaning where only the women go. So that's the word. Oh, I like it. The title we chose for the band. Good luck with it.

And thank you to the many of you who have been getting in touch on this. I just do want to end this segment with Steve's message. He says, I just turned on the radio. I'm 64 and I feel old a lot of the time. I feel growing old is a privilege and I'm lucky to have retired early

near the sea in North Wales. Good to hear some positives about ageing. And if you want to talk more about this on Monday, the 6th of May, we'll be exploring the whole concept of ageing in a special programme. How do you feel about the term and getting older? Are you excited? Are you dreading it? And we're going to look at some of the narratives around ageing, people who are trying to change them, and what we should really know about our bodies as we get older to help us live better for longer. And Anita will be speaking to some fantastic guests about all of this.

So do get in touch. Do share your thoughts with us. Our text number 84844. Catch us on social media at BBC Woman's Hour. And of course, you can email us through our website. Next, Lisa is a mum of two boys and they live in Belfast Her younger son, Killian, has something called ARFID The acronym stands for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder and it's when someone avoids certain foods, limits how much they eat or does both

It is commonly underdiagnosed as picky eating and according to the NHS, beliefs about weight or body shape are not reasons why people develop it. For children in this situation and of course their parents and family members, it can be a real struggle to find solutions for these eating habits and to source the right kind of support. I spoke to Lisa about her experience and also to Professor Sandeep Ranaut, a clinical spokesperson for the eating disorders charity BEAT and a consultant paediatric psychiatrist for eating disorders in the NHS. I started by asking Sandeep what the difference is between picky eating and ARFID. Those of us who are parents, teachers,

professionals, we know that it's quite normal for many, if not all all children to go through phases of picky eating or fussy eating or fatty eating as it was known. This is different because it's a disorder. It's a neurobiological disorder. It's a real illness. This is not young people or adults making it up. It impacts on their life. It can be incredibly distressing and it impacts of course on the lives of the family the parents the carers we don't fully understand or know where this comes from we know that it's probably a mixture of genetic so biological psychological and social reasons we need a lot more funding into research with picky eating quite often young people will grow out of it with ARFID that's not going to

happen unless you have the right treatment care and support and what what you will often see is it's different to other eating disorders people will be familiar with like anorexia bulimia and binge eating it's not driven by a pursuit for thinness or issues around body image or body dysmorphia. But what's happening is they find eating and mealtimes very distressing. They often have a much narrower repertoire of foods. The reason that's really important is often, therefore, there are nutritional consequences in terms of a healthy, balanced diet. They're not necessarily getting all the nutrition that they need when you're young. And it's very much associated with sensory issues with food.

And there's a fear often of the consequences of eating. Let's speak to Lisa, who's got first-hand experience of this. Lisa, tell us about your son, C and his arford so killian currently eats two foods which would be uh boiled plain pasta and popcorn he's always been i suppose from very early on he's kind of always been restricted in his food intake but over time it got less and less to where we are now today with just two foods. The problem we always kind of encountered was that with the link with autism, Killian's autistic, with the link with autism and selective eating, as they would have called it back when we first started this journey,

Killian would have eaten enough of the foods to appear that he was of a good height, of a good weight. So you kind of always felt we weren't taken seriously by the dieticians. It was only really when he reached maybe seven, he's nine now, maybe seven, that he started to come down the centiles. So he wasn't growing as he should have grown, but he still appears as a healthy child. So we were at that time referred then to a child psychiatrist. And that's when the ball started rolling with regards to the diagnosis of Arford. We are one of the lucky ones that Killian tolerates meal replacement juices.

So for the moment now, that kind of keeps him going. And he has managed to put on a little bit of weight this year but it impacts so much of our lives and so many things are revolved around food meal time celebrations everything you think of in our lives revolves around food and for us as a family so many of those things are just out. I live kind of on a cliff edge waiting for him to stop eating completely, which is a reality for a lot of families who care for children or young adults or even adults with ARFID. I was going to ask one thing, if that's OK, Lisa, because thank you for sharing what you're sharing.

Often people will say to you, what's the matter with you or what's the matter with your son? Actually, I want to ask something slightly different. Right now, given your experience and you are an expert in your child, what matters to you? What matters to you? Not what's the matter with you or him. What matters to you? His health and his growth and that he's yeah that he he he doesn't

end up with lifelong problems or you know consequences I suppose from his lack of nutrition and lack of eating you know the fact that he is autistic he's non-verbal we've had to encounter a lot of things that that you know we we do differently i suppose than than your standard family um but no it is by far his health that you know that any number of things can come from this without you know with him not receiving the correct nutrition for his age lisa you've mentioned the autism link there and that that's something that Sandeep, I know you want to come in on. What do we know about the link between autism and having ARFID? Not enough, first of all, is the short answer. What we do know is that at least a quarter, and I think it probably is much more, much higher, that number, but at least 25% of those, certainly young people presenting

with ARFID also have autism or are on the autistic spectrum or have an autistic spectrum condition and or ADHD. So there is something very closely in terms of brain chemistry, neurodevelopment, genetics that links with that neurodevelopmental aspect we don't fully understand we think that that figure is probably higher lisa you mentioned that it wasn't until a bit later on but actually this has been going on since probably early infant kind of yeah he was maybe about he was maybe about two so he weaned normally as a as my other child did with no issues and I'd say it was yeah about two we started to notice that foods were being dropped off and then um I felt it was a very abrupt process I felt it happened

very very quickly I don't feel that it was kind of over a long period that the foods were dropped, that we got to the point that we're at where it was, you know, three or four foods or whatever, as I say And we're seeing the same in ARFID. We've also seen a steep rise, although we have a better understanding of ARFID, but since COVID, we did see a steep rise in ARFID presentations. And that's not a coincidence. Lisa, considering what Sandeep has said there about the fact that we are still better understanding this condition, was it difficult to get a diagnosis? What was that process like for you?

Incredibly difficult. I live in Northern Ireland and there is no pathway here that I'm aware of anyway for a diagnosis. I feel, again, if I'd like to say say touch lucky I don't know if you can call it lucky um I got the right psychiatrist I got the right dietician and then I got the right pediatrician so it was the three of them um who kind of came together and said yes that he meets the criteria for Alfred but even in saying that I had a review with a different paediatrician last week for Killian. And she even said to me, you know, oh, I'm just going to put down here severely restrictive eating, she said, because there is no pathway here for Arford. I mean, my GP had never heard of it when I first raised it a couple of years ago. So it's very mixed. And I think that's where a lot of parents are struggling.

I know, look, with diagnosis, it doesn't necessarily mean it opens the door and all of a sudden you get all of this support and help because I think the professionals are struggling with this too to kind of understand it and understand how you can help a child who is so rigid in their eating that they would rather starve than eat

something that they're not comfortable eating um but i just think more support needs to be out there more parents and carers need to be acknowledged you know that that this is a real problem and a life-changing problem and you know the age-old thing oh leave them and they'll eat when they're hungry you know that isn't the case in this. Sandeep is this lack of understanding from a medical perspective is that to any extent due to I mean in part a lack of funding I assume but also this picky eater label this this lack of willingness almost to accept that there might be something deeper going on? So I think like with many things, probably a mixture of, you know, multiple factors of which there's a mixture of both of those. In order for us to understand better, we need better research, we need better training. And the only way we're going to do that is to continue to work as we are

in lobbying government. But also, it is about that research, that research then translates into practice, then then translates into practice. Then it translates into, as you're saying, Lisa, the NICE guidance so that pathways start to develop. So what I would say, because I think it's important to also provide hope for people. And I think, Lisa, what you're doing here is incredible. What I want to say is please work with the Royal College of Psychiatrists because we absolutely the key is integrated care. You mentioned it's with the three people but actually I would say four you included we have to co-develop this with parents and carers

they have to be the experts by experience have to be a really important part of prioritizing why we do need pathways and we do Anita we need pathways. Lisa can I ask what helps Killian you know when it comes to introducing new foods if that's even possible or do you just wait for him to approach you is there a way to improve his situation and what do you find helps? Killian has always always offered food so all meal times he doesn't sit at the table with us so he prefers to eat alone um we don't in school he would eat on a table alone um we don't we try to to encourage him to eat but we never force it ever um it's it's just not something he wouldn't tolerate it anyway um i find all i can do is keep offering and keep offering in the hope that he picks up something one day you know know. But for us, I don't think with him we'll ever get to the stage where he'll have a full, you know, even 10 foods.

You know, I think we'll always be stuck in this kind of two to three foods. They do tend to be foods that he can eat himself. He doesn't he hasn't had a hot meal in about five years. years um but you know all we can do as as as a family is keep keep offering him things in the hope that he does as mature a bit or or what comes next that he might just try something but i suppose it's it's all about not forcing and not making him in an uncomfortable situation or making the situation worse lisa, you must be exhausted. Obviously, he has a lot of issues. He's a high care needs child,

but this one would probably be up there with one of the most difficult to manage and also the most worrying. That was Lisa, whose son has ARFID. And we also heard from Sandeep Ranaut, a consultant paediatric psychiatrist for eating disorders and a spokesperson for the eating disorders charity BEAT. We will put some links on our website for further support. And on the subject of accessing treatment, the Department for Health in Northern Ireland says that the regional care pathway for the treatment of eating

disorders published in 2016 uses a stepped model of care to deal with severe, enduring and treatment-resistant cases of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and associated eating disorders. All the HSE trusts work to this care pathway, providing targeted prevention, early intervention and supported self-helps, specialist physical and mental health services, specialist eating disorder services and highly intensive mental health services. But of course, Lisa's specific experience highlighted her concern that not enough is known about ARFID. And this in turn, she says, impacts Killian's treatment options. Like I said, more on our website if you would like more.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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. Information. Ten Men, A Year of Casual Sex is a new book from the author Kitty Ruskin. It follows a year of her life when she attempts to embody the character of Samantha from Sex and the City and enjoy all the advantages of being young, free and single. What she

experienced taught her an awful lot about herself, men and the state of modern dating. And she details 10 men in 10 chapters. The stories range from sexy and funny to at times deeply confronting, sad and violent. And I should warn you that there will be discussions of rape during this interview. Welcome to the program, Kitty. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. This is a very frank and extremely honest book.

I can't imagine it was easy to put this together. Personal details are there in the open your sex life your mental health intimate conversations that you've had with friends yeah how and why did you feel you needed to write this book well it started as quite a light-hearted endeavor um writing about some of the funniest like weirdest encounters I had had with guys um but as I wrote it I kind of processed it as I wrote it um and it was really cathartic. But as you say, like really difficult to write. And I kind of found as I was writing it, that there was something much deeper that the book had to say. It wasn't just kind of funny anecdotes. It

was in this year, I was sexually assaulted, I was raped. and it was all in the pursuit of wanting to feel like this liberated modern woman who could have casual sex without the fear of you know stigma or sexual assault or anything like that and um yeah the fact that it happened so much and that it had such a deep impact on my mental health I thought this is just actually so unacceptable how apathetic we are as a society to you know the prevalence of this and yeah it felt important after I made that realisation to be as honest and candid as I could with it. It's interesting you call it a journey because as a reader I felt like I was on that journey with you the book takes turns that I didn't expect it to take and I'm sure that was the

same for you in your mind as you were processing this. Early on in the book, however, you do share an incident which is central to your thinking about sex as a young woman in your 20s, which is very different to that of your peers. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, I was sexually assaulted by another child when I was a child. I didn't tell anybody about it. I didn't really understand, like, you know, the kind of gravity of it. And I just buried it, didn't tell a soul, tried to tell myself. Like, I'd made it up, I had imagined it. And I carried that for many, many years.

So that happened when I was 10, So teenage years, early 20s. I think I knew deep down, very, very deep down that it had happened. But at the time, I just couldn't understand why I kind of had this fear of men and real fear of intimacy. You know, I was just equating it with fear and with being made to do things that I didn't want to do. So I had a real fear of intimacy of any kind of like sexual or romantic relationship. And then I came to terms with it in my early 20s, which was the reason why I wanted to have this year of kind of sexual discovery, because I hadn't really had any experience before I was, I don't know, like 22, 23, 24.

So when I did come to terms with it, I just felt, and I started to tell people and telling people. I was going to ask, who did you tell? Told like, you know, family, friends, people close to me. And I just found that really liberating because I think the shame that I had been carrying, I realised like, oh, I didn't need to carry the shame. You know, it wasn't really mine to carry.

Like I hadn't I didn't need to carry this shame you know it wasn't really mine to carry um like I hadn't you know done anything wrong and I think when you do get sexually assaulted at any age you you do walk away with this feeling of like oh I've done something wrong like I contributed to that somehow even though you didn't um but telling people about it I don't know it just got rid of this massive burden on me and I just yeah I didn't see sex the same way after that. I just felt like, OK, it could be really empowering and really fun. And I don't have to equate it with this kind of lack of power or loss of power. A year of no strings attached sex. Some will understand your kind of craving for liberation, for claiming back that power. Others will say it's a dangerous way to find yourself, to heal. What do you say to them? Well, I think they're right, but I think

it's not good that they're right. I think that, I mean, because men do have this capability, they do have the capability to go and discover themselves and discover like themselves sexually without the fear of being in danger. And I think that can be really great for your personal development and for finding who you are as a person and who you are in relationships with other people. And I think that women really deserve that as well. They deserve to have the opportunity to have casual sex with people and um to learn more about themselves without this fear of being assaulted but the current way that things are yeah it i mean it was dangerous um but it shouldn't be we don't just learn about the sex we learn about

modern dating as a whole really um one of the things that comes out as well as the benefits the ease of meeting people but the nasty side of it one thing that comes out is ghosting something that you had done to you something that you did as well I wonder what your thoughts are on it oh yeah I mean I feel bad for the times that I ghosted people it seems like such an ingrained part of dating now and I should say ghosting is when someone that you've been in touch with just disappears out of the blue and stops responding. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a really ingrained part of dating. I think people do it really casually. And I did it sometimes quite casually as well. But you know, when I've experienced ghosting, it is so gut wrenching. And it's so painful, because you're getting to know somebody or becoming like, you know,

really intimate with them. And there's no closure, there's no reason as to why this didn't work out. It's just silence. So you're left to fill in the blanks and potentially like catastrophizing much more than you need to. Wondering, okay, why did this not work out? Why didn't they want to, you know, continue seeing me? And it feels quite humiliating to just be left in silence, you know? So yeah, I don't think it's good. There are obviously cases

where ghosting is completely reasonable and acceptable. If somebody is not taking note for an answer, if they're making you uncomfortable, if you're afraid, of course, ghosting is completely fine. But yeah, I think it's become way too common now. And I have friends who date and all the rest of it. And it just seems to be happening more and and more and I think there needs to be a lot more kindness in the world of dating I think we've got to the point where people feel quite disposable and you can just you know love them and leave them interesting yeah um it wasn't all negative your experience and I would like to hear um from from you about some of the more encouraging moments yeah I mean there were there were a few actually I mean times where I had sex where I felt very powerful and I felt very empowered

um that definitely happened and I think that's important to say because I think I I heard somebody once say like oh well women can't enjoy casual sex but of course they can and it can it can be really powerful if it's consensual and respectful like there were definitely moments where I felt like yeah very in control and very powerful and that was great um but yeah I had like lots of you know a lot of fun like a lot of really fun days had a laugh with people it was really lovely getting to know a lot of a lot of the people um and there was one guy in particular in the book Harry who I had a few dates uh a fair few dates with. And yeah, it was actually like a really lovely vibe between us. We had a really nice intimate time.

And kind of dating him, I realized even more that intimacy could be this thing that was really positive and really wonderful. So yeah, he was one of the few guys who kind of, I don't know, it was just pure and intimate and yeah, he was one of the few guys who kind of, I don't know, it was just pure and intimate and, yeah, quite sweet. That's encouraging. But I did mention that there were darker stories and these are difficult to read at times. You were raped twice by men that you were hoping to have a fun, positive sexual experience with. And you take the reader on that journey when it dawns on you that this is what has happened to you. Yeah.

Did you ever consider reporting these men to the police? No, I didn't. And that was for a few reasons. I mean, the first guy, met him at a bar. Don't remember what he looked because I mean, I'm not sure if I was drugged or not or just incredibly, you know, drunk. But I only had a few drinks so I don't really know what happened there but um I was completely out of it on the night and um so I I don't remember him I don't remember his name any details about him so there is that but yeah

with the other guy I don't know I just it's so psychologically painful and difficult to deal with being raped that I felt like I couldn't withstand the kind of scrutiny that I'd get if I did go to the police and being doubted and being kind of questioned on it. I just or seeing the guy again in court or something like that, if it was to happen, I just felt like, oh, you know, I don't think I can deal with that. But also there was a bit of resignation as well, because, I mean, the stats are, you know, reporting rape, it results in so few actual prosecutions. Yeah, as we were hearing from at the start of the programme. I do wonder also related to that, what your experience has taught you about men and how porn is shaping their sex lives I think porn is a really big issue and I'm not saying that porn in general is this bad thing I'm not saying that as a sort of sweeping statement I think ethical porn like you know that's that's totally fine I think the issue is that people are not generally going to ethical porn, they're going to the big porn sites. And I mean, I had a look at one the other day, just to like, kind of see some

of the video titles and stuff. And there's a lot of kind of fetishizing of crossing boundaries or, you know, sexually assaulting people. And that's just kind of on the homepage or as you flick through these categories. So I think the majority of the porn that people are consuming it's not feminist and it's not ethical and it does glamorize violence against women or kind of pushing women down and you know crossing their boundaries and making them uncomfortable and I think that's a like a huge problem because I know that like you know really young young men teenagers or even younger boys will be watching porn. And that's how they'll see sex. And I think that must be really damaging.

What do you want people to take away from this? And related to that, the reaction you've had to this book, because you are in a relationship now. I am. Yeah. How have people reacted? Really, really well, for the most part. Yeah, I've had some hear yeah how have people reacted really really well for the most part yeah I've had some really lovely messages from people being like this book means so much to me um I've experienced the same things and a lot of sentiment of like this needs to change and this needs to be talked about more because this has happened to me this has happened to so many other women I know and it's just so unacceptable how apathetic we are to the fact that this happens so prolifically. So yeah, a lot of really heartfelt,

lovely messages from people. I mean, I've had some of them more like a couple slut-shaming comments and stuff like that. And oh, why didn't she just, you know, go and leave? Like, what was she doing? You know, but I kind of, I anticipated that as well. Well, thank you for sharing this with us. Ten Men, A Year of Casual Sex by Kitty Ruskin is out now. We appreciate you coming on to share

your story with us. Next, a new adaption of Muriel Spark's novel, The Girls of Slender Means, is currently running at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. The show follows the lives and love affairs of five young women who live together in a London boarding house set mostly in the summer of 1945. The girls grapple with what happened in the war and imagine what lies ahead for them in peacetime. And a key part of the plot is a dress. One of the girls owns a gorgeous designer dress which the others barter their rations to wear.

Here is a clip from the show. We join the young women getting ready for dinner, discussing who gets to wear the dress next. I think I could get through this window, you know. Why would you want to get through the lavatory window? To get on the roof, sunbathing. It's so hot and sunny outside. I'm getting on that roof to bathe.

It's been sunny since VE Day. We're being blessed. Think how fabulous a tan will look with scappers. Paws off! Nancy's got it tonight. Oh, Anne? Special occasion. She's wearing it to Quaggalino's.

Thinks Normandy hero is going to propose. But what about her boy that died of dysentery in Burma? Well, she met Normandy Hero Friday night and now she's madly

in love with him. She can't be in love with him. She's got a lot in common, she says. A lot in common. So is Sunday. Well, joining me now is the actress and writer

Gabriel Quigley who adapted the play. Good to have you with us, Gabriel. Thank you. Delighted to be here. Well, let's start with that dress, the Schiaparelli dress. Why is it so important to the girls? The Schiaparelli dress? Well, it's a symbol for them of what they can aspire to, what they can what life could give them and the sharing of it results in a lot of comedy

and also who can fit the dress because the tyranny of skinniness is very prevalent with these five young women interestingly they mention the lavatory window there as well, that's a very big part of the denouement of the novel.

That body shape and size are extremely prevalent at that time as they are now. And so the scaffolding is just this incredible... It's a thing of comfort for them.

Because life is so drab, they're in rationing, they've just come through the most traumatic experience of, you know, there's the trauma of the war, but then there's the baby blitz, which happened right at the end of the war, so these are 23-year-old girls who are working as temporary ministry secretaries, and they've just been bombed relentlessly in this kind of last gasp from the Nazis of ballistic missiles across the channel. And so when you think it's all over, suddenly it's back.

So they're having this... Yeah, so every girl's got PTSD. Put it that way. Well, let's stick with the clip because it also shows the bond that these women can have. Equally, the type of conversations that you're likely to hear in women's dressing rooms or toilets up and down the country they banter there are moments of dance there are tears what is

it about these spaces that allow for women to have such intimate conversations the girls get ready a lot and the play they do and because Saturday night is really important if you're working really hard, they worked intensely hard these secretaries at the ministries during the war and you need that release and on top of all the sort of trauma and the bombing

Saturday night becomes a big thing I think Saturday night is still a big thing or maybe it's a Thursday now I don't know and so whoever gets the dress gets the dress but they're all getting dressed up thing or maybe it's a Thursday now I don't know and so whoever gets the dress gets the dress but they're all getting dressed up and I think it's interesting that Muriel Spark picked Schiaparelli particularly

because she was a designer, Elsa Schiaparelli who had relationships with the surrealist movement so Dali did some of the designs Cocteau and Muriel Spark is a surrealist writer in some ways. You know, she's a poet.

So there's a sort of nebulous, you're never quite sure where you are with her. There's no kind of comfort of realism. So she picks, and I do think there's nothing not picked for a reason with Muriel. And I think she's picked Schiaparelli for that reason and also that Chanel said of Schiaparelli, oh, that artist who makes clothes.

You know, she was more avant-garde. And Muriel herself in her writing style is a much more experimental writer than any. You've clearly studied the ins and outs of Muriel Spark's thinking when it comes to putting together this novel and the context. Was it hard to translate the book and keep the essence of the characters when putting together this play? It is hard because Muriel never,

this is the poetic element, she never pins anything down. So we learn that the main character she has throughout it, Jane Wright, throughout the book, she mentions that in 1963 she's a successful, UK's most successful editor and a successful columnist. You never actually know exactly what. So for me, I had to sort of pin her down a bit, which I felt guilty about. So the editor, she becomes the editor of what is basically a substitute for Bourne. She's Bold Magazine.

So in 1963, because the dress, fashion, how important that's been to the girls to get them through what they went through and that they need, you know, a fashion magazine and chocolate and, you know, things like that and a good Saturday night out dancing. Yeah, but, you know, it's set in the summer of 1945, a crucial time. What do we learn about the women's lives at that time? Well, the temporary ministry secretaries, I went to the Imperial War Museums because Muriel says in her own autobiography, I worked as a scrambler.

Now, that's pretty much all you get. So she'd signed the Official Secrets Act and she was actually in MI6 and was working in a very special department there. She was in the propaganda. She was writing fake news for German broadcasts and talking to SS POWs as a young woman of 23. So the young women at that time were doing extraordinary things for no credit. Not really. And I was just a secretary. I was just a secretary.

That's the constant refrain. And when you find out what these secretaries were doing, you think, oh, my goodness, that's that's quite incredible. And obviously not allowed to talk about it because nobody talked about trauma then or nobody talked about, you know, and obviously the secret sacks were involved as well so just that I just found the sort of underestimation of young women that's interesting yeah really fascinating and also that this I found really intriguing I need to learn more about it but the young women can hear higher frequencies seemingly so when they needed to tune in to, you know, the disguise information that was put through the thing, the scrambler, so the Germans couldn't hear it, basically. They found that young women were experts at this. Also, young women were the fastest translators

at the Nuremberg trials. There's something about a young woman's brain, it's like 19 to 23, the speed of thought and synapses, which I think you hear, you know, if you're on the tube or I'm on the train in Glasgow, when you hear young women talking to each other on the way home after a day out, the speed of speech is quite something. You've connected the dots now, haven't you? Gabriel, many people will know you as um an actress you are currently in all creatures

great and small what's led you to writing and adapting well I I've always written but um I went to university so I didn't actually go to drama school so I feel like I'm finally using my degree a lot of us feel that way I did French yeah I've had 30 years of acting but I've all we have always written um I did a radio sitcom pilot so there's been bits and bobs through the years but just with a co-writer a wonderful actress called Victoria Liddell but just these past few years I don't know, it just it was David Gregg actually and we'd done a Muriel Spark night

and it was a gala night at the Usher Hall and it was the International Book Festival in David and we performed excerpts of her work and a bit of her play and the reaction from and Edinburgh are very polite they're a very polite

audience, but you could feel this sort of, oh gosh they really want Muriel, they want their daughter, their daughter, daughter of the city. So over those years since then, about five years, we've talked about what we could do and actually it was just over a year ago David re-read Girls of Slender Means and said what would you do and I said magazines, I think fashion magazines are the way and highlight the dress because budgets being budgets right now for theatres, it's a tough time

so you have to use what the theatre already has and the Lyceum is renowned for its wardrobe department, Christine Dove and the ladies there who make the incredible costumes and got a great store as well. So it was like, let's use what we've got, slender means.

Clever, yeah. And try and build a show. And so the men are mannequins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we can't have a cast the size that, you know, casts have got very small now in theatre. So that kind of thing. So it was, yeah.

It's come together beautifully, clearly vibrant. We heard in that clip there a very small now in theatre. So that kind of thing. So it was, yeah. It's come together beautifully, clearly vibrant. We heard in that clip there a very small snippet of it. What is next for you, Gabriel? Oh, another play actually that I actually wrote before this one, which is on at Perth Rep Theatre. And it's called There's a Place. And it's about four young Beatle maniacs in 1964. Very different then. Very different. Four young Beatle maniacs in 1964 Very different then. Very different

four young Beatle maniacs from Perth and this is actually very true, the Beatles actually stayed in a very obscure loch called Loch Herne at the height of Beatle Maniac and had a slight break I mean they still had to do a gig but they had two nights in a chalet on a loch and were not discovered

Well we will keep an eye out for it. Thank you so much for joining us, Gabriel Quigley, there. And The Girl of Stendermans is at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh until the 4th of May. That is it from today's edition of Woman's Hour. Tomorrow, the broadcaster Zaina Badawi will be talking to me about her new book, An African History of Africa. Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. To the uninitiated, I would describe my family by saying we are very passionate people. I'm Cardiff born, Cardiff bred and when I die I'll be Cardiff dead. We're musical. There's a lot of big personalities.

All of our family perform in some way, whether entertainment or just emotionally performing. We are hilarious to be fair. Extraordinary. I really do enjoy life. I don't worry about dying tomorrow because tomorrow's never going to come. That's how I would describe my family. I'm Charlotte Church and I'm inviting you to listen in on a series of intimate and special conversations about belonging, working class identity and the unbreakable bonds of family. So come and kick back with the Cardiffians, babes. Listen 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.

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