Woman's Hour - Nazanin's sentence and women's rights in Iran, The Barbizon Hotel, Orgasms

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

We now know that Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has been sentenced to another year in an Iranian prison, plus she's banned from travelling abroad. This time she's charged with spreading propaganda. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has not seen his wife since her initial imprisonment in 2016 and is living in London with their six year old daughter Gabriella. He maintains that his wife was imprisoned as leverage for a debt owed by the UK over its failure to deliver tanks to Iran in the seventies that had been paid for. Meanwhile, it's been announced that Iran will sit on a UN committee on women's rights, yet it has a poor track record when it comes to rights for women. Rana Rahimpour is from the BBC's Persian Service. Built in 1927 The Barbizon hotel was home for the ‘modern woman’ seeking a career in the arts. It offered young women a safe and respectable place to stay while they launched their careers and looked for a husband. Students from the Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School lived on two floors of the Barbizon while they learned typing and shorthand. Powers’ models and guest editors for Mademoiselle magazine also stayed there. Many went on to writing careers, including Joan Didion, Sylvia Plath, Gael Greene, and Meg Wolitzer. In her novel “The Bell Jar,” Plath fictionalized the Barbizon as the Amazon, including details from her fateful last night at the hotel, when she threw every article of clothing she had brought to the city. Its 688 tiny pink feminine boudoirs also housed actresses including Grace Kelly and Liza Minelli and Phylicia Rashad. Some residents became known as “the women” – those who checked in and never checked out. Emma talks to Paulina Bren, writer and historian and Professor at Vassar College in New York, and author of The Barbizon- The New York Hotel That Set Women Free.It’s reported that during sex only 20% of women orgasm from penetration alone. Results from a nationally representative study of 4,000 adult women in the United States, and published in the science journal Plos One, identified Angling, Rocking, Shallowing and Pairing – four previously unnamed techniques women use to make vaginal penetration more pleasurable. To discuss these terms and other ways women can achieve orgasm, Emma is joined by Dr. Devon Hensel Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Indiana, and Tracey Cox, sex and relationships expert and author.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning. A question for you. If I was to say angling, rocking, shallowing and pairing to you, what would come to mind? Perhaps fishing, but that's not the right answer. You can't ask for what you can't describe, and those terms have been designed to help women.

All will be revealed. Stay with us for that. Also on today's programme, the incredible story of the Barbizon Hotel in New York, a women's-only hotel that Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion once called home. But first, we now know that Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe has been sentenced to another year in an Iranian prison, plus she's been banned from travelling abroad. This time she's charged with spreading propaganda. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, to whom I'll talk to in just a moment,

hasn't seen his wife, a British-Iranian charity worker, since her initial imprisonment in 2016, and he's living in London with their six-year-old daughter, Gabriella. He maintains that his wife was imprisoned as leverage for a debt owed by the UK over its failure to deliver tanks to Iran in the 70s that the Shah of Iran had paid for. First, let me talk to Rana Rahimpour, who's from the BBC's Persian service. Rana, just to remind our listeners and all of us the background to this case as we hear of Nazanin's sentencing 24 hours ago. Hi, Emma. So we all remember that Nazanin already served a five-year prison sentence and she was

only recently released. But while she was in prison, we heard about a second case that was opened against her. And we now found out that she has been, as you said, sentenced to one year imprisonment and one year travel ban. This time, she has been accused of taking part in protests in front of the Iranian embassy in London in 2009. Those protests were against the election results. There was a presidential election in Iran and the results of which were disputed. And there were hundreds of thousands of people protesting all over the country. And at the same time, there were protests in London and several other cities around the world in front of the Iranian embassy. And Nazanin was one of those protesters. And like many other people, she gave an interview

to BBC Persian, and it has now turned into this new case against her. In terms of what you just said, that is important around the one year imprisonment, although not being sent back to prison, we'll get to that in just a moment, and the one year travel ban, because that's effectively two more years on top of this, isn't it? Exactly. For a woman who's separated from her husband and her child, not being able to see her family for another year is technically a two-year sentence. And how much of this do you read into the wider background of what's going on with Iran, its negotiations around a nuclear deal, and also with what I mentioned there, that unpaid debt? Yes, the unpaid debt is a 400 million pound

debt, which the UK has acknowledged that they owe to Iran. The story goes back to before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and the Shah of Iran had ordered 1,500 chieftain tanks, and he had already paid for the tanks, and he only received about 150 of them. And then the Islamic Revolution happened, and the money or the tanks have never been delivered. So Iran has won a case, and the UK has acknowledged that they have to repay the debt, but they're now discussing the interest that Iran is demanding to be paid. And unfortunately, it seems that Nazanin's case is entangled in this large dispute over the debt that the UK has to pay.

We'll pick those up in just a moment, those points. Rana, you're going to stay with us because there's another development around Iran and women in particular that I want to come back to you on, Rana Rahimpour from BBC's Persian service. But as I mentioned, Richard Ratcliffe, who's joined me in the studio this morning, I must turn to you. Good morning. And first of all, how are you? Good morning, Emma. Yeah, no, I'm glad to be here. It was a tough day yesterday. So I think, you know, obviously Nazanin had a court case a few weeks back and there was always the potential of getting a sentence. But it was a surprise when it came. And probably as the day's gone on, it sunk in more yesterday. And certainly Nazanin by the end of the day was very angry that, you know, I mean, she's done five years and here we are about to start a whole new prison sentence. And it's not just the sentence, as you say, it's another year on that where she

can't come home. So that takes us to 2023, by which time, I mean, I won't have seen her for seven years and Gabriella won't have seen her for three and a half years. That's a very long time to be wrapped up in someone else's fights. When you say she was angry what sort of things is she saying at the moment about this how can she process this? Well I think probably she still is processing and I still am and and certainly even this morning she hadn't slept last night and and you know kind of just you know going over your head on the unfairness of it and and and why does this have to be me why you, you know, I did five years. Why can't they find someone else to pick on almost?

And, yeah, angry with the government that this hasn't been solved. She wanted to speak to Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary. I think that should happen in the next couple of days. Probably just to rant at him and just to say, listen, you promised me. Because they spoke maybe six weeks ago where he said, listen, we're doing all we can. I think we're close. I promise you that lots of people are doing lots of things and we all really care about it. And that's probably true, but it hasn't worked.

And sympathy is not only at Nazni's home. It needs more than that. So she did speak to the Foreign Secretary six weeks or so ago, promised there that they're doing all they can. And also an assertion, as you were, you know, I remember images of you and your daughter with a countdown calendar when it was coming up to the end of her sentence. You were expecting to be able to see her.

Yeah, I mean, I think you never know what's going to happen in this, but that's right. We were counting down the end of her sentence and Nazanin had a calendar that she was counting down Gabriella saw it and and then you know wanted to compete with mummy so she did a better calendar lots of nice pictures and and then was crossing the days or much like an advent calendar um and and had great fun doing it until we got close to the end and then started asking questions about is mummy really going to come home um and obviously mummy didn't um and it was hard to explain to her when

she didn't because of course it's not the first time her mum and dad have made promises that they've not kept. And now, I mean I was talking to Nazanin yesterday about how we explain this to Gabriella and her strong view was that well let's wait to see if it really happens. Like at the moment

Nazanin is still our mums and dads and the threat is still there but she hasn't been sent back to us. And so this morning we just had a normal phone call where she watched Gabriela brush her hair and get ready for school and wished her luck and Gabriela was showing her reading and the normal things that she can't do in person, but even on Skype is still important to try and maintain.

So at the moment you're not going to tell Gabriela about this latest? No, I mean, she'll pick up up stuff so obviously at the school gate lots of the mums were really distraught and were saying you know lovely messages so you know we'll see at what point she asks questions and I'm not going to hide it from her but but we didn't volunteer it. And in terms of your understanding as to what has gone on here. What is your reading of it? So I think there's two things. I think, you know, as you said in the introduction, Nazanin has been linked to this debt for a long time.

This debt has a court case. That court case was supposed to be last Tuesday and it got postponed. And last week I had a meeting with the government where I was, you know, across from them and said, listen, we're going to get some bad stuff now. Every time it gets postponed, something bad happens to us. And indeed, it did happen. And then more broadly, there are lots of international negotiations going on with Iran at the moment. So they're all in Vienna talking through the nuclear deal and everything else.

And I think probably this debt is in and all the hostages are all wrapped up in a big grand push to try and solve things. That was partly what the government was signaling a few months back they were trying to do. And the risk of it, of course, is we then get embroiled in lots of complicated disputes that could take a very long time to solve. The phrase that kept going around yesterday, one of them certainly when this news broke, was that she's a pawn. And I wonder what you make of that, because you are living this. I think that's right. Without doubt, it's true.

You know, she was arrested on holiday for no reason. Took more than a year before a story was made to justify it. Now she's being accused of having been at a demonstration 12 years ago. You know, what's clear is they're holding her, and what's clear is they're signalling politically to do stuff. And yeah, there's something very hard for her to be, you know, held powerless in other people's battles. It is one of the reasons why I always come on the media and talk about it, because at least then we have a voice and that voice protects her. But fundamentally, you know, we're waiting for other people to solve their

problems before we can come home. Do you want the government to pay that debt? Is it as simple as that for you? So I think it is as simple as that. And I think that's what the Iranian authorities are trying to signal. And I think it's for the government's conscience to look at what their choices are meaning. And one of the conversations I had with the government last week was to say, listen, what risk assessment did you do? What checks did you do? What was going to happen when you postponed this? This isn't just a banning dispute.

It's not just Nazanin. There is another British citizen in court tomorrow. They will get another sentence. And there's a legacy of innocent people's lives being really, really taken apart due to this. Do you still have any trust or faith left in our government to do this for you? I've got faith that Dominic Raab and actually Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, care and that personally it matters to them. I'm not sure I, well, in fact, at this this point I'm very sceptical of the government's approach and I said that on this show and others, that I don't think the way the government

is handling hostage taking is discouraging hostage taking. They're essentially waiting the other side out, which means that more people are taken and the bad guys, you know, take more people. Can I ask just as a family, what I always notice about you, Richard, when we talk is I ask how you are and you often tell me how Nazanin is and how Gabriella are, but, you know, how are you, if I can? Yeah, no, I mean, I found last week really hard and that was the foreboding sense of something bad's going to happen.

Oddly, yesterday, the bad thing happened and it was worse than we were expecting, but at least it happened. And there's, you know, you kind of know now the worst is another two years. Those goalposts might move again, of course. You know, so just if you invent two new, two fake cases, you can do a third one. But yeah, I do find that, you know, this has been a long haul. And it is hard to think, what can we do next to get her home? Would you ever go to Iran? Yeah, so I think certainly if they put her back inside, then yes.

We tried quite hard when Gabriella was there for the last two years of her being there and they wouldn't ever give a visa. So it may well be that they don't issue a visa again. But yeah, to go back 24 hours, we thought we were close to the end. We now think we've got a long way to go. If that really comes true and they really do put her back in prison, yeah, no, I will have to go and see her

because all sorts of fallout will follow. The one thing I can do is to try and be there and hold her hand again. And see your wife. Yeah, yeah, because, I mean, it's a long time to be apart. I mean, it is, it's more than five years now. A message from Christine, he says, what can we do to possibly help? My heart bleeds for the whole family,

but especially Richard and their little daughter. Yeah, I mean, I think the fact that people care, that people follow our story, that people just look at it and think this shouldn't be happening and raise it with their MPs, raise it with, you know, all the different ways we can just show that this shouldn't be, is really important for keeping Nazni in the light, for keeping her spirits up. And, you know, when she was in prison, keeping up the spirits of all the others who were being held with her unfairly. You talked about her anger. Do you ever get anger? Oh, I was angry on Friday. So, you know, having that conversation with the government and them not accepting the inevitability of what was going to come. I mean, on yesterday and today, it's still absorbing it really yeah as the days go on I'll get angry again

Richard Ratcliffe thank you for talking to us thank you I hope we can talk again in perhaps circumstances where things have moved on although every time they seem to move on it seems to be a year is added or something else is added to this but as you say you'll wait to see because she's not actually been put back in prison yet. We should say Boris Johnson says it's wrong where she is in the first place,

pledged to work hard to secure the release. And the government will not stop. We will redouble our efforts. Your local MP, Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP, this is a terrible blow. And she says the government's efforts to secure Nazanin's release have clearly failed. And she's calling for an urgent explanation from ministers. Rana, just to come back to you on what I mentioned around Iran, member countries of the UN have voted to put Iran on a UN commission called the Status of Women.

Could you explain the reaction to this and actually the background as to why there's been such reaction to that being the wrong thing to have done. Emma, many women find this outrageous. To give you context, according to World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap Report, Iran ranked 140 out of 144 countries for gender parity. Iran has ranked 116 out of 153 countries in terms of legal discrimination against women. So to many women, this is a joke for Iran to be on that body. But don't forget that Saudi Arabia is already on that body. Saudi Arabia was elected and it will be a member until 2022. So to many of us, it looks very political. There's a lot of lobbying going on. There's a lot of give and take.

Like Saudi Arabia, Iran has close relations with some of the countries who voted for Iran. So it seems that those countries who voted for Iran to be a member of the body care more about politics than women's rights. Well, because of course, to talk about life for women in Iran, only last month, the UN was told about very young girls being forced to marry in Iran, the legal age for a girl to marry in the Islamic Republic of Iran is 13 years. Also, women can be sent to jail for not wearing a headscarf. The actual day-to-day reality for women in Iran would mean that you wouldn't think that perhaps they could get on a board, a commission called the status of women, although you point out other countries are already there. Exactly. So as a woman, I lived in Iran for 25 years, and I know

very few women who haven't been punished for not wearing the hijab properly and not observing the dress code. And the discrimination is intertwined in the legal term. So when it comes to divorce rights, custody rights, you are treated as a second class citizen if you're a woman in Iran. So that's why there has been an outcry by many activists who said that it's unbelievable that 43 out of 54 nations in the UN Economic and Social Council have voted for Iran. And don't forget, some of those countries are well-known democracies. Rana, thank you for your time. Rana Rahimpour from the BBC's Persian service. They're painting an image of what life is like for women in Iran. Many messages coming in for you.

Richard's still with me in the studio. Richard Ratcliffe, I just wanted to read a couple. Kath says, our support and love goes out to you all. This is like hostage taking. And Georgie says, I cannot believe that the family is still fighting to get Nazanin home and that it's been going on for five years now. It's inhumane. It's utterly heartbreaking. And more of those messages coming in. Richard, thank you for coming to talk to us.

Thank you, Jo. Richard Ratcliffe there. Now, last week here on Woman's Hour, we heard two episodes from a special Woman's Hour series called Second Chances by our reporter Millie Chowles. She became a mother while in long-term recovery from addiction has been explaining how that experience opened her eyes to the challenges faced by other women at risk of having their children removed. Millie was given lots of chances to change, but as the number of children in care rises

and drug and alcohol issues become a factor in many of those cases, are these women getting the help they need? Millie tells her story, talks to professionals trying to help and finds out about the impact on children and asks mothers themselves for their experiences. Here's an insight. I was shocked when I found out that I was pregnant, I was scared because I was still using and I didn't want my child to be put through being on drugs and being born addicted. But I went to the services, the drug services, to seek help. What sort of options were presented to you? There wasn't any.

I remember one day I turned up there, there was no answer. So I just looked through the letterbox, I could see my daughter sobbing on the stairs. And she was probably about five years old at that time. Luckily the door was open, so I went in, I grabbed her and gave her a hug and stuff. And I opened the living room door, and it was just this array of passed out people,

you know, residues of a party just all around them and I remember just thinking oh my god but I also felt powerless towards the mother because you know I don't want the mother to be in this mess. I just feel so so grateful that I have had the chances and that I've had a baby in recovery and that I didn't have a baby in the midst of the addiction and and then have that added kind of trauma to recover from because I don't know how you recover from that I don't think you can and I don't think that just because you have an addiction I don't think that would take away the pain maybe it would blot it out at times but it's every parent's worst nightmare, isn't it? Whatever reason, losing their child.

And there would be such a level of responsibility. It was because of something that you did. I think that's the bit that would be so hard. You'll be able to hear the rest of the series over the next couple of weeks, but if you fancy catching up on those first two episodes, then do search for Women's Hour Second Chances on BBC Sounds or anything else that you've missed from the programme.

You'll find it there under Woman's Hour on the Woman's Hour banner. Now, right at the beginning of the programme, I did promise you answers. I asked you around angling, rocking, shallowing and pairing. What did you conclude that I could be talking about they are in fact terms to describe sex positions which make vaginal penetration more pleasurable for women according to a new study but until now these positions had no official names a problem in itself the other problem it's reported that during only 20% of women orgasm from penetration alone. Hoping to help, I'm joined by one of the authors of this new study, Dr. Devon Hensel,

Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Indiana School of Medicine, and the author and sex and relationships expert, Tracy Cox. Devon, if I could come to you, we're going to have to start with some definitions I think you knew this was going to happen absolutely um thank you for having me it's delightful to be to hear and talking about some of the stuff that we're excited about um I was going to say on radio you know you do often have to work hard to to describe things but I think it's important that you you do this I mean I try to think about how to explain it but let's go through them what is that and go on yeah no I think you know and one of the reasons we did this study is because there's such a lack of accessible language for women to be able to talk about what they want and and articulate that

to to their partners and and if you can imagine not having language to describe what you want in other parts of life right like if if you go to a restaurant and you're ordering something and not having the language to be able to say, I want more cilantro with my guacamole, or to be able to say, I want more whipped cream on my hot chocolate, right? That's somewhat unfathomable to most of us. And so our goal with this was to be able to make that sexual language more accessible for women to help empower women talk about what they want and and articulate that wherever they are on the life spectrum and i think i think that's the whole point isn't it if you you can't describe what you want or what you need it's about it's about giving a vocabulary but let's go through what you actually mean by

these terms and then come back to that that thought because that will i'm sure appeal to a lot of our listeners what is angling because we did get some listeners telling us that they thought it was to do with fishing and we could understand why. Yes. So angling is the idea of a woman moving her pelvis. So rotating, raising, lowering her pelvis or hips to adjust the angle that either the penis, a sex toy or a finger is penetrating her vagina. And again, these are very women-centered positions. So this empowers women and puts it, the onus or the emphasis back on what she can do and how she can communicate. Rocking is?

Rocking is the idea of rocking the base of a penis or sex toy. So it rubs against the woman's clitoris consistently rather than sort of in in an out motion so it's a it's an idea of consistent pressure shallowing shallowing is i love shallowing it's probably my favorite of the four i mean i love all of them but shallowing is the idea of of penetrative touch so a lips tongue penis finger sex toy just inside the entrance of the vagina so sort of of a shallow entrance, if you will. And pairing? Pairing is the idea a woman herself, so solo pairing or with a partner,

which we call partnered pairing, reaches down to stimulate her clitoris with a finger or a sex toy at the same time that her vagina is being penetrated. So as you say, a lot of people listening may have experienced these things, but they haven't known to call them what you've called them. Why did you think it was important to give them names? You know, and it's amazing, the sex research as a field has been around for, you know, well over 100 years. And it was sort of, you know, really incomprehensible to us as researchers that there were not names for these things. Right. And when something is unnamed, it almost becomes

unspeakable. Right. And because sex is such a universally important human experience, our goal was to be able to give easy, usable, accessible names for women and their partners to use together. Right. Instead of being able to say, I'd really prefer that we get a pillow to raise my pelvis so that that's more pleasurable, you can say, I'd like to angle my pelvis higher, right? It's easier to say, it's less intimidating, and it becomes an easier way for language around what you want and what you prefer. Let's bring in Tracy Cox at this point. What did you make of this research? I'm absolutely thrilled with this research.

Honestly, Devon, you deserve a big prize for this because it is one of the first studies that actually tackles this whole penetration and the fact that most women don't orgasm through penetration and gives really reassuring, helpful advice. I mean, I've been talking about this for years and years, and, but I've never, when I was reading this, it was like, oh my God, somebody's actually put it into terms that everybody can understand. I knew exactly what was meant by every single

name that you put on that. It's all consistent with trying to stimulate the inner clitoris, because this is the problem. People think of the clitoris as the little tip that you can see, but in fact, there's a hole underneath the clitoris is the body of the clitoris as the little tip that you can see but in fact there's a whole underneath the clitoris is the body of the clitoris which is about one to two inches then it wishbones into two legs that are about three to four inches so the clitoris is a big area and if you try and just stimulate the tip you're not going to get very far but if you try and stimulate the inner clitoris which is what this is all doing, all the techniques you're talking about, it can then lead to an orgasm perhaps for women or at least make penetration a hell of a lot more interesting and pleasurable. But Tracey, it's got to also, you know, it's all

very well coming up with the terms and, you know, we're trying to talk about them here and have people's views. And I should say, if you want to get in touch and say what you make of this and talk about language and also some of your experiences, please do 84844 is the number to do that or get in touch through our website. But you have to have it in women's minds that they should be asking for this and thinking that sex in itself, certainly penetrative sex, vaginal penetrative sex, it's something for them to get the most amount of pleasure from as well. I mean, I know this study looked at, spoke to 4,000 women asking open-ended questions, but Tracey, how much of an issue do you think it is that women are still not saying, this is what I want, this is what I need? I don't think it's even women saying, this is what I want and need. I think women still continue to believe that there's something wrong with them if they don't orgasm just through normal intercourse. And by that,

I mean, you know, just traditional thrusting, which is quite frankly, pathetically ineffective at stimulating the clitoris. So, I mean, the amount of women that I speak to and you explain to them, look, only 20% of women can orgasm through penetration without extra clitoral stimulation. And they'll look at me and I can see intellectually that they accept that. But then they just still turn around. You can see them thinking, yeah, but there's something wrong with me. Because whenever I watch anything on TV, on movies, in porn, women have intercourse orgasms, no problem at all. If I say this to my partner he says well Susie before

you didn't have a problem and that person before you didn't have a problem so it's not even that we've got to the point of saying okay what I need and want is this some people just don't accept that this is actually the case that in fact it is difficult for women to orgasm through penetration Devon we did get a message in saying I thought thought if it's not fishing, these terms, then maybe it's eyebrow shapes. Women have gone straight from angling to that. But the idea that you, when you were doing this study, speaking to these women, asking very open-ended questions, were you surprised by some of what they were saying? Were you seeing some of what Tracy's just described?

Yeah, and I think exactly what Tracy just said, that the idea that there's women across their spectrum of life, wherever they are, whether they are in their twenties, their forties, they're newly partnered, unpartnered, multi-partnered, that every woman's on a sexual pleasure journey and those journey experiences change over time. So the idea that women have a variety of experiences and that our study acknowledged that it documents some of the things that women do that didn't have names, but also acknowledges for women that there are, what you're doing is normal, right? And that you have preferences and other women have these preferences too. And that's an important piece of helping to empower women

is acknowledging that you have, you know, your own individual needs, but here are some tools to help you move your pleasure forward if that's what you would like. Or here are some ways that you can talk about extra things that you would like to do with a partner or by yourself. Have you had, I've got to ask you this, Devin, and, you know, no squeamishness here on Women's Air. It's what we pride ourselves on. Fabulous. But we have just had a text saying thank you so much for talking about this. But did you, this has gone into a scientific journal. Have you had a few nervous giggles?

Have you had some laughter about you trying to get this out there? I mean, of course, sex is fun. You can talk about it in a fun way. But actually, there is still a lot of shame and nervousness for talking about this. I think so. And that's, you know, one of the motivations I've had my entire career as a sexual health researcher is breaking down some of that stigma. And the more that you open conversation, the more that I, you know, have experiences like this and

put, you know, these findings in ways that make it accessible to people, right? Because in a scientific journal is certainly a good place to start, but it's through conversations like these that we start to normalise sex and make it okay for women to ask what they want. So, yes. Well, let's talk about how you ask. Tracy, if you are, you know, got your notebook out this morning or your phone and you're writing down these terms and you've, you know, you can relate to the one that you think perhaps is the one you may like to do more of or you actually already like but want to do more of with maybe a new partner or someone you've been with a long time.

Either way, how could you go about it? Have you got any advice for those women listening who want to verbalise it and want to ask? Well, I think you just make it a part, like an everyday conversation. Like if we were talking about anything else today, we'd say I was listening to Women's Hour and they were talking about this, what do you just make it a part, like an everyday conversation. Like if we were talking about anything else today, you'd say, I was listening to Women's Hour and they were talking about this. What do you think of this?

So I would just have that conversation, just say, I was listening to Women's Hour. They did a really interesting study about, you know, how to make penetration more, you know, pleasurable for women. And this particular technique really spoke to me. And I think I kind of do that already. But, you know, and then lead into the conversation from there. And people are so funny talking about sex because they think, you know, oh God, I can't possibly say that. But in fact, once you get past those first few minutes of

talking about sex, it actually, you know, people are like, oh, actually it was quite easy after that. So I think we do need to be clear and maybe it might be a bit uncomfortable with your partner who says, but hang on a minute, you've always been fine just with penetration without any extra stimulation and a good way if you don't want to say well actually I haven't been the whole of the time I've been with you if you you know is to just say well I think my body's changing I you know I seem to need different things now um so just you recommend this conversation not when you're actually having sex in advance I always think that you should talk about sex when you're actually having sex, in advance. I always think that you should talk about sex before you're actually having sex, because I think that's when people are listening properly then for a start.

And it's far less threatening. I mean, if suddenly you're having sex and you say to your partner, actually, I don't like you doing it this way. I prefer you do it another way. They're instantly I mean, people get really funny. They're very sensitive. They get offended very easily. It's like, oh, oh, okay. Well, you don't like what I'm doing then. And suddenly you're in the middle of a row rather than having sex. So I always think wait until you're getting on well, bring up something like this. I was reading something, you know, I found out something today. I read a study. And then just the more we talk about sex in everyday life and talk about a little bite- conversations rather than, honey, we need to sit down and talk about sex, the easier it is. So it's not making a big deal about it, just talking about it in thought at the beginning of lockdown that there would be

perhaps a baby boom, a spike in our sexual activity. You know, of course, for those who hadn't met their other half yet or someone they wanted to do that with, that's been pretty tricky as well, or not if they've just been flouting the rules. But what's your insight on how that's affected our sex lives? It's been disastrous, quite frankly, for people in relationships, because at the beginning they were all like, oh, great, we can have sex at two o'clock in the afternoon. And then after about a week, it was like, oh, we can have sex at two o'clock in the afternoon.

It becomes too available. You don't want it anymore. And also there was no separateness. So you're with your partner all the time. And, you know, great for cosy relationships and, you know, sitting down and watching Netflix and stuff, but you need a certain amount of separateness from your partner in order to build that attraction, in order to build lust. So yeah, too available. Sex was far too available. I'm hoping that when, you know, now we're opening up with the lockdown that,

you know, once you're apart from each other, all that should come back. But yes, it was a disaster for most couples. Well, Rachel's just said, my partner's put on women's air. He's wonderful and very communicative. So somebody else is taking notes. We're happy to hear. And I hope those conversations will be happening across the land. Thank you very much, Tracy Cox there. And Dr. Devin Hensel, who's put out these phrases,

angling, rocking, shallowing and pairing. Of course, if you want to listen back to those definitions you can do on pbc sounds and thank you for your your insights and messages still coming in another one here saying thank you for doing this we need to talk about women's pleasure this is all what we need to talk about totally agree with the subject being discussed about sexual language says laura and from the female perspective i'm struggling to even know what term to use with my two daughters to describe their, quote, private parts without resorting to slang or overly scientific terms.

And more messages to that effect coming in. But let's transport ourselves for a moment back to 1927, shall we? The Barbizon Hotel in New York. It was home for the modern woman seeking a career in the arts. It offered young women a safe and respectable place to stay while they launched their careers and looked for a husband. Amongst the residents, Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion. The aim was to check in, make it and check out. But some of the women never left and are still in residence today. And now the stories of this special building have been put together by Paulina Bren,

writer and historian and professor of Vassar College in New York and now author of The Barbizon, The New York Hotel That Set Women Free. Paulina, this sounds an amazing place. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me here. Yes, it was a really interesting place and it was part of this phenomenon, actually, after World War One, when lots of women's residential hotels went up. There had already been hotels like this for men. And now women were demanding the same. And the Barbizon became really the most famous in many ways, also one of the few that survived the crash in the Great Depression.

So it was a fascinating place. And it was also a place that provided independence and freedom because it was respectable. And if you were going to be a single woman coming to New York in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, respectability was key. When you say real estate developers spotted an opportunity, who actually put it together? And why is it named what it's named? Well, so William Silk was one of the developers that put together the Barbizon and he had already had experience building these buildings, as I said, for men. The Barbizon was unique in that when it was being built, it was already being built with a particular kind of resident in mind. And that would be a young woman who wanted to pursue a career in the arts. So from the very beginning, it sort of had this same sort of model as a lot of these hotels,

in that the rooms themselves were rather small and pokey, but the public areas were beautiful. It's sort of a multi-tiered lobby. And in the case of the Barbizon, in addition, there were music studios and art studios, a performance area. And so it was really set up to be this way. But then just a year later, there was the crash. And so quickly, the Barbizon had to pivot, and it continued to have the sheen of glamour. But then in the 1930s, you had women suddenly staying at the hotel who weren't just there to have fun and to pursue these artistic careers, but they now needed to work. They needed to make money for themselves and often for their families as well. And, you know, the likes of Sylvia Plath, to talk about one of the most famous residents,

she spent time there when she was trying to make it. Absolutely. So she, there were different sort of gateways, you could say, into the Barbizon. And one of those, starting in the early 1940s, was to be a Mademoiselle magazine contest winner, which might sound banal, but it was certainly in my day when I remember Seventeen magazine, it was a sort of a very silly teenage oriented magazine. What I discovered was Mademoiselle

magazine from the mid 1930s when it was started until sort of into the late 60s, it was a remarkable magazine that was about fashion, but it was also publishing the most cutting edge fiction. So every young, talented woman wanted to win this contest because it meant you were brought to New York for the month of June. You stayed at the Barbizon and you shadowed the editors at Mademoiselle magazine and you whined and dined. And so Sylvia Plath, like Joan did in, like Ali McGraw, the actress, Betsy Johnson, the designer,

Sylvia Plath in 1953 was one of the chosen ones. And she came to New York and she was incredibly excited. She'd been there a couple of months earlier on sort of a weekend double date, and New York had been everything she imagined. She went to a French restaurant and she had her first oysters. She went to a Broadway play. She went to Delmonico's and sort of discussing race and politics until late into the night, and she felt she was coming back

and it would be a repeat of that. And it was quite the opposite um she sort of had a mental breakdown there um but in many ways my my book really tries to show how even these famous women they were very much a part of the milieu a product of their times and sylvia plath she really in many ways experienced the kind of reckoning a lot of these young women experienced, these ambitious, I mean, this is in many ways a history of New York, of this hotel, but it's a history of women's ambition too. And when you talk about that, you said about it needed to be respectable. Why was that? Because I know that men were also clamoring to get in, weren't they? Yes, exactly. So the men were not allowed beyond the lobby.

So there was certainly a lot of men. They would get very tired crossing the 63rd and Lexington Avenue, feel the need to go and rest up at the lobby. The coffee shop also was a huge pickup point, I should say. J.D. Salinger liked to go there and scout for women. And he would pretend in one case a woman came back to the Barbizon thinking she'd been on a date with a Canadian goalie who turned out to be J.D. Salinger. So he would take on these different personas. So absolutely, I mean, part of that enticement, of course, of the Barbizon was the fact that men couldn't go there. And they would brag, of course, about actually having made it to the bedroom floors. That, in fact, did not happen, at least officially, until 1981. Because as much as this hotel was such an iconic place, as I say, of glamour.

It also followed the history of New York. And as New York was declining, so was the Barbizon. And so as the writer Meg Walzer, who was there in 1979, she said, you know, New York looked like an episode of Kojak at that point. And so it was in decline and occupancy rates were going down. So by 1981, there was a hole in the ceiling in the lobby. I mean, it was just very run down, but they had to bring in men. So Valentine's Day, 1981, they had a huge party and a raffle for the first man to ever enter the hotel. I mean, what is remarkable fast forwarding to the present day is there are still some women who didn't leave. Well, this is the thing. I mean, what is remarkable, fast forwarding to the present day, is there are

still some women who didn't leave. Well, this is the thing. I mean, in many ways, I think they are the victors of the story, even though they were considered everything you don't want to be for much of the history of the Barbizon. They were known as the women by the younger residents. And they were really a sort of a forewarning of what you should not become. The Barbizon was a launching pad for ambitious young women. If you were still there past a certain age, it meant you hadn't launched. But they've had the last laugh, just to say why, because it got developed, right? I have the last laugh because now it's a luxury condo building.

Ricky Gervais lives there um but these five remaining women they live there too in beautifully renovated apartments and they still have it was discovered that their rooms would actually they would consider rent control apartments in new york so they're paying minimal prices and they get a daily cleaning service as well so they they went from being laughed at to having the last laugh. Incredible. Thank you for taking us through some of that history, which I know was hard for you to put together. There wasn't as much as there should have been, but what a trawl that must have been. Paulina Brenn, it's all in the book, The Barbizon, The New York Hotel That Set Women Free.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Climate change is real. It's happening, but it's not the end of the world. I'm Tom Heap and in a new podcast from BBC Radio 4, I'll reveal 39 ways to save the planet. We've got a new material and a new way of putting solar cells together that produces much more power than traditional or existing photovoltaics. Our brightest brains are developing potent carbon-cutting ideas, and I'll be meeting them from the paddy fields of the Punjab. The whole plant can flower in here, set seed,

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