Woman's Hour - Porn, Breed-Ready Women, Poetry

Episode Date: March 20, 2019

A recent study connected to a current BBC 3 series, Porn Laid Bare, spoke to a thousand 18 to 25-year-olds across the UK. They were asked about porn. 47% of women said they'd watched porn in the last month and 14% said they felt that, at some point, they might have been addicted to it. Whilst a lot has been written on the subject of men and excessive porn use, very little work has been done on women. Woman’s Hour investigates why.A list of what's been called “Breed Ready" women has been discovered on an open database in China. It's raised alarm among women’s rights activists who are concerned that this is a covert way the Chinese government is dealing with the country's declining birth rates. The list is made up of the names of nearly two million women who are between 15 and 39 years of age along with their contact details. It was discovered by a researcher called Victor Gevers who works at the Global Disinformation Foundation which is a Dutch non-profit organisation. The BBC’s Celia Hatton explains what we know. Lichen sclerosus is a rare auto immune condition which happens when there's an over production of collagen. Following on from yesterday's item about vaginal health we discuss the condition with Fatima Sulaiman from SRUK.As part of Radio 4’s Four Seasons poetry to celebrate the Spring Equinox, Jenni talks to Christine De Luca. She was Edinburgh’s Makar until 2017. She was raised in Shetland and writes in Shetlandic dialect.

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you with the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday 20th March. Now today is the first day of spring and to celebrate the equinox, Christine De Luca will read some of her poetry. She writes in English and in the dialect of Shetland where she grew up. Pornography laid bare and a survey on women's addiction to it. Why has most of the research on excessive use of pornography tended to focus on men?

And a gynaecological condition we didn't cover in yesterday's discussion. A number of you asked us to talk about lichen sclerosis described as pure torture. Now it's hard to imagine a more harsh or calculating term to apply to a woman than the one that appears to have been revealed as policy in China. It's breed ready and was discovered on an open database by a Dutch researcher, and it has unsurprisingly raised alarm among women's rights activists. The database lists the breed-ready status of 1.8 million women between 18 and 39, along with their phone numbers, addresses and Facebook profiles. Well, is there any substance to concerns that the Chinese government may have radical plans to halt the country's declining birth rate? Celia Hatton is the BBC's

Asia-Pacific regional editor. What do we know about who produced this database? Well, we know very little. This database was found by a man who describes himself as an ethical hacker. He searches for databases all over the world that are unprotected, and he does what he thinks is a good turn. He alerts their administrators to tell them to seal up the database again so that individual information can be protected. He stumbled upon this database in China, but was unable to uncover who was the administrator. It's a bit of a mystery. And so there are two competing theories out there. One is that this is a government database. The women on this database who are listed, as you said, as being breed ready, are between the ages of 18 and 39, although the women on the database as a

whole fall between the ages of 15 and 95. And so it's possible that the government database could be looking as to whether these women are indeed able to have children, are breed ready. But it's also possible because the database that this man uncovered was listed in English. It could be a very crude translation to show that these women are able to have children, are willing to have children, or indeed have already had children. It could, of course, be an online translation, couldn't it? So it didn't really work very well. Yes. But I mean, there are suspicions of a bit of a handmaid's tale going on here.

How justified is that? It's difficult to know. Some people have said, look, this could be a dating website database. That's what it could be for. Because all of the women listed on the database are unmarried. And the Chinese government actively discourages single women from having children. Despite its efforts to grow the population, it doesn't encourage single women to have children. Therefore, there are theories that this might not be a government database at all.

But China is experiencing declining birth rates. The one child policy we know has officially ended. So how much is anxiety about that just playing into the narrative here? Oh, indeed, it's playing to a huge degree. The database didn't get a lot of reaction inside China, but that's because the Dutch researcher released his information on Twitter and Twitter is not allowed in China. However, yes, Chinese women are used to their fertility levels being monitored for the 35 years in which the one child policy was put in place. China held a complex state network that was set up to limit population growth and individual Chinese women, their fertility levels were monitored. It was monitored by the state what kind of birth control they were using.

After a woman was allowed to have one child, she was then encouraged, almost forced, to have an IUD device installed. And if she broke the law and had two, she would then be sterilized. So what family planning measures might the Chinese government be considering to deal with its problem of a falling birth rate? Well, so far, it has started a policy to reverse its IUD policy it held for 35 years. It's now encouraging women to remove their IUD devices, and it's offering to have surgical operations to remove those devices, much to the fury of many women who didn't want

the devices in the first place. It's also unleashed a propaganda campaign. There's a national campaign now called the Beautiful Families Campaign, which praises women who become the primary caretakers of elderly parents and also several children in the home. There are also many campaigns aimed at university age women. After decades of telling women they should put off marriage, put off childbirth, they're now being encouraged to marry while in university. They're being warned of birth defects if they put off having children for too long. And so there are also many propaganda campaigns.

But I've already mentioned campaigns involving forced sterilization. There were also campaigns of forced abortion during the one child policy years. that as the government grows more desperate to grow the population, that it will now turn to more coercive policies to force women to have more children. How worried is the government about its missing women problem? That means an awful lot of men will never find a partner because men were preferred when only one child was allowed. That's right. I mean, at the heart of the one child policy campaign, we had 120 boys being born for every 100 girls. So I would say they're not as worried about the missing women. They're more worried about the unmarried men. We can see that trafficking is becoming a massive problem in China. Women who are being trafficked from one part of China to another and sold as brides,

but also many women in Southeast Asia being trafficked into China to make up for the lack, the missing women, the missing brides in China. So what's been the response? I mean, if there's an anxiety about women concentrating on their education and their careers, what are women saying about that? Well, women are very upset because for decades, they were limited to only having one child. Now, almost overnight, really, it seems that the government is changing its tune and it wants to encourage married women. We should specify only married women are being encouraged to have two children. And women are upset because they're saying, look, I can't afford to have more than one child. I, like many other families, are pouring

all of my resources into the one child I have to pay for very expensive education, to pay for health care, but also to look after my aging parents. I simply can't afford to have a second child. Women are also increasingly reporting discrimination by their employers. So employers who once thought, OK, if I hire a woman, she will only go on a maternity leave once. Now employers are increasingly suspicious of women and telling them that, you know, asking openly in interviews, are you going to have more than one child and what are your plans? And that's not illegal in China. How healthy is the Chinese feminist movement in this climate? It is surprisingly healthy. Many women are very frustrated with the government's family planning policies, but there is a very active young network of young feminists, very well-educated, university-educated women across China

who are connected over social media and who are unafraid of speaking out on social media. It's a surprisingly vibrant movement. Well, Celia Hatton, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. We'll keep in touch and see how this one progresses. Thank you. Now, we've heard a lot in recent years about men and addiction to pornography. We've also learned about girls and the impact of porn on their perception of sex as they've been persuaded to use it by boyfriends what we haven't heard is about women's choice

to use pornography of their own volition and in some cases become addicted well a survey done in conjunction with the bbc3 series porn laid bare spoke to 1,018 to 25-year-olds across the UK. 47% of women said they had watched porn in the past month and 14% said they might have been addicted. Why has more attention been paid to men than to women on this subject? Well, Dr Angela Gregory is a psychosexual therapist and joins us from Nottingham. Neelam Taylor is 24 and describes herself as a former heavy user of porn,

and she joins us from Salford. Neelam, why do you describe yourself in that way, a former heavy user of pornography? Hi, I used porn, watched porn most days between the ages of about 12 and 15, 16. And then when I got to the age of 16 and kind of had my first real sexual experience, I realised that porn had affected my physical arousal. So then I stopped watching porn altogether and haven't really watched it very much since then. You were very young when you started. How did you become so engaged with it at the age of 12? Well I think 12 is actually a fairly average age especially for boys to start watching porn but yeah it was quite young and I think I was

you know I was 12 years old I was curious about sex I think society social media marketing is so sexualized I think when I got to 12 I was kind of looking for some sort of outlet and porn really served that purpose and it's the only opportunity I got to properly learn about sex at the time because you know school kind of just tells you about anatomy and STDs whereas porn at that time was the only thing time I got to actually see sex happening and understand that. How aware were you when you were at school of other girls friends also watching it? Not aware at all as a young girl it was my secret, shrouded in a lot of shame. I felt like I was doing something wrong, and that as a girl, watching porn, especially at that age, was something that was only for boys.

I really felt a lot of shame about it. And Jo, if I can bring you in here. In the survey, 44% of men said they'd watched pornography within 24 hours. 47% of the women said within the last month how surprised are you by those figures um i have to say not at all surprised um i think what's made a big difference from um my perspective is the availability of porn and sexualized content and that's available on smartphones, and I think, therefore, the accessibility is so much easier. And many of the young men I see in my clinic

would say that they, you know, masturbate and use pornography, you know, once or twice a day. That's not uncommon. What about the women? Only in the last month that they'd they'd watched it and we've heard neelam talk about shame and how she felt ashamed of using it how much is that playing into the percentage of women and the amount that they've been watching it so i don't I mean I'm not surprised about the men um I think you know whether this is about differences in desire you know sometimes in terms of you know if you think about it logically um

quite a few people are watching pornography and sexually stimulating themselves at the same time whether that has some relevance to that difference in how often it's accessed i'm really not sure the other thing i don't know whether it's the same for young women but certainly a lot of the young men i speak to it's not always necessarily them engaging in watching pornography but it's explicit images and pornography that's shared between their peers, you know, on things like WhatsApp or Snapchat. And what about the shame question? I certainly, among women, I mean, we don't see as many women who would complain

of a problem with pornography use as we do with men. So I'm not sure whether they feel more shame-related to that, and so they're less likely to admit that that's a problem. Certainly with the young men, they don't seem to think it's a problem at all. Neelam, what real effect did so much consumption have on you? You said you realised it was causing difficulties when you had a boyfriend. Yeah, so when I had my first boyfriend that was my first sexual experience when I was 16 so I'd had four years of basically my only education and

access to any any sexual outlet was from porn um so I think basically my my arousal was triggered by porn at that point so then when I had a boyfriend I found that um I wasn't as aroused and then but I was doing watching porn so I kind of trial and error cut off porn and found that after about three four months my arousal kind of returned to usual Angela of all those surveyed 144 men and 55 women thought they were addicted, which to some extent it seems Neelam had been in those early years. What do we know about women using it compulsively? I think we know very little.

I think sexual compulsion as a disorder has only just recently been recognized. Whereas if you talk to most therapists that work in this area, we were seeing problematic behavior in people coming forward as long ago as sort of 12, 15 years. As soon as people had easier access to online pornography when people used to just have one home PC in the kitchen or the living room. That is when we first started seeing people, generally men, presenting with problems with their online behaviour.

That has only escalated as time has gone on, but it's really only been very recently officially recognized as a problem what sort of problems then would you say are caused for both men and women from an addiction to porn well it can be like any other addiction where it can overtake someone's life so it can be that they would be online for many hours at a time it would be to the exclusion of having relationships of you know it can be quite isolating i mean that's in a a general term with the compulsion but it can also lead to an excl um that the what people watch actually escalates in terms of the content i mean that can be problematic and it can also cause problems as Neil

I'm already pointed out with arousal so you can get problematic arousal with a partner because you've almost become desensitized both physically and psychologically because of what you've been watching online and then when you're with a partner it's no longer you know, it doesn't feel very arousing because you're used to very explicit images. Angela, why would you say relatively little is known about women's choice to use pornography? We've heard a lot, as I said, about, you know, girls being drawn into it by boyfriends. What do we know about choice? I think we know very little.

And I think there needs to be more research. Because, you know, a lot of people use, you know, pornography is not new. It's been around for hundreds of years. What's changed is the availability. And I think, you know, we don't know really a lot about, you know, a lot of research has been focused on male sexual functioning rather than on female sexual functioning and I think that needs to

change because there will be a lot of people that you know view online explicit images in whatever context and we'll be fine with that and find it enjoyable. There will be other people that go on to have problems related to it. Neelam, we know that in the UK you'll soon have to prove you're 18 or over to watch online. What difference do you reckon that will make? I think that it's damaging for children to be educated on sex from porn. And that is something that definitely needs to be tackled. But I think banning under-18s from watching porn is kind of paying lip service to the greater effects of porn

because if a teenager wants to access porn on the internet, they will still find a way to do that. And I think the focus really needs to be on breaking the taboos about talking about porn and increasing education on it so that when they do watch it, which they will, they're more educated and they realise that actually sex and porn are two very different things and not to be confused. Neelam Taylor and Dr Angela Gregory,

thank you both very much indeed for being with us. And BBC Three's three-part series porn laid bare is available on the iplayer now and we would like to hear from you if you've had experience of using porn using it too much we'd really like to hear what you think about it now still to come in today's program a gynecological condition we failed to discuss yesterday. Lichen sclerosis was described by one of you as pure torture. What is it and what can be done about

it? And on the spring equinox, poetry to celebrate the changing season. Christine De Luca was raised on Shetland. Now earlier in the week you may have missed the amazing young jockey Bryony Frost, the Queen of Cheltenham Racers and yesterday Mary Berry making trifle

Don't forget if you missed the live programme you can catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app search for Woman's Hour and you'll find all of our episodes There's also of course the Woman's Hour Instagram account where you can see lots of lovely things Now this week on the late night Woman's Hour Instagram account where you can see lots of lovely things. Now this week on the late night Woman's Hour podcast Emma Barnett is joined by Chidera Egeru, the Daily Record journalist, Anna Burnside and Heta Howser, lecturer in medieval literature at City University London. They talk among other things about Marie Kondo and her method of tidying up. You get everything out in a big pile in your house.

You pick everything up. If it sparks joy in you, if you feel joy when you hold it, you get to keep it. If it doesn't, you say thank you for your service and put it away. And then there's all kinds of ingenious ways of, like, rolling and folding up clothes to make them look really good. Which she'll only do once on the camera when she's there at the documentary. Yeah, and then it's never happened again yeah and it is so on the one hand I was like I was I was feeling quite you know down January's a sort of dark and dim month and I was feeling a bit stuck and I think

I wanted to kind of impose some order on my life and I got really into the show and and into sort of condoing my room and on the one I was was like, this is a really productive use of my time and I'm making everything look really nice and I'm getting rid of stuff. But then I started to kind of feel quite a lot of pressure to do it properly. And my housemate like pulled open a drawer and she'd done like all her t-shirts really beautiful

and they weren't as nice as I'd done mine. I also threw away a lot because joy is quite a strong emotion. And I think this is kind of my sort of after the buzz of it's over my issue with the kind of craze of it is it just buying into this is yet another thing that we have to do really well like look how beautiful my socks now are like I don't just have a tidy room I have a memory also I don't have Instagram but if I did I would have done right I'm very bad at

taking pictures I don't I don't take a good picture so I I don't have it but I would have done right I'm very bad at taking pictures I don't I don't take a good picture so I I don't have it but I would have done into this perfection and I wonder if it's you know does everything I sort of feel sometimes at the moment and maybe I'm alone in this that everything has to be amazing or joyful or brilliant and sometimes socks are just socks and you need socks you know I need you know a certain amount of pairs even if they don't bring me joy when I hold them and it and I wonder if it's sort of this thing of like look how good I've done my Marie Kondo room in this sort of constant Instagram everything needs to be perfect optimizing everything and actually just yes another thing when I look around my room now and it's not quite so good as it was in January that I failed we know how Anna feels about the shower but she dearly I mean sometimes socks are just socks this whole like craze to be perfect yeah I feel like it romanticizes wellness a bit too much and

it is useful it is a really useful skill to be able to you know roll up socks nicely and roll shirts in a way that actually is more space efficient because people have so much crap I mean that's what that I'm one of those people I'm have so much crap. I mean, that's what that show shows you. And so little space in London. I mean, I think that's why it's been quite popular here, because everyone's sort of living in a tube. But even most of the shows, I think, were in America, where people had large homes, you know,

in vast swathes of America. And they were filled, like, with stuff. It doesn't matter almost where you live. We've just got more stuff. Bording is always going to be relative. So go on, it romanticises wellness. So I think it romanticises wellness and whilst I do think

it comes from a place of good intention the problem with it like you've said is that it it does place that pressure on you to now have to it's like if you're not

if you're now not a tidy person then are you really living up to your greatness as a human being and I don't for me personally i'm aware of this whole marie kondo thing i've seen all the conversations happening but i still choose my mess over the tidy the tidy stuff because i'm going to mess it up again

and you can find this week's late night woman's hour and any other recordings of course that you might have missed on bbc sound if were listening yesterday, you'll have heard a discussion about the health of the vagina, vulva and all things down below with the gynaecologist Dr Anita Mitra. But some of you got in touch to say we hadn't quite covered everything and here I learned that despite all my years on Woman's Hour and thinking I knew everything about such matters, there is a condition of which I was completely unaware.

It's called lichen sclerosis, and some of you asking us to discuss it said it has made life miserable. It's pure torture, said one. So, as some of you were shouting at the radio yesterday begging us to talk about it here goes Fatima Suleiman is head of research and services at Scleroderma and Raynodes UK. Fatima what is lichen sclerosis? So lichen sclerosis is a relatively uncommon condition it's characterized by white thin patches of skin and these can be quite itchy, and they mostly form around the genital area and the anus. It does affect more women than it does men, so one in a thousand women are more likely to be affected, whereas one in a hundred thousand men will be affected. So in women, it will form around the vulva, so the skin around the vaginal opening, and as I said, around the vulva so the skin around the vaginal opening and as i said around the anus it can also occur on the upper arms back and breasts but when it does in that general skin area it's not quite

as itchy and painful as it can be down below what do we know about what causes it so i think one of the things to be really clear on actually is that it's not infectious and it's not caused by poor hygiene. It has been linked to having an overactive immune system. So one of the, so I represent scleroderma in Raynaud's UK. And one of the conditions that we fund research into is called scleroderma. And if you have localized scleroderma, which is a rare autoimmune condition that does affect more women than men, you are at higher risk of developing lichen sclerosis. And we think that that may possibly be a link. But unfortunately, there hasn't been enough research done into the cause. One woman described it, as I said, as pure torture and said she can't even penetrate her vagina with her finger. What causes such terrible pain? So when those white patches are forming around the vulva,

the skin of the vulva, what can happen is that they'll look quite dimpled, they'll be raised lumps, they can also form blisters and bruise quite easily, and for a small number of women, what will happen is the patches on either side of the vulva may combine they may spread and join up and this tightens the skin around that vaginal opening and in those rare cases for an already rare condition surgery may

be the best treatment option now she's 54 at what age it appear? At any age or does it come generally when you're older? So it does tend to affect women older, when they're older, so post-menopausal age, so generally beyond their 50s. Now, surgery sounds like an extreme kind of help. What generally are the kind of treatments that should be tried? So for most women, their symptoms will be relatively mild. So if they are experiencing quite itchy, painful inflammation, doctors can prescribe corticosteroid ointments or creams. with regular application this can really help minimize the symptoms and eventually help them to go away. They may recur because this is a chronic lifelong condition. Unfortunately there is no cure but that kind of application can really help.

There are other practical things that women can do. I wondered what kind of things you can do for yourself maybe to make things easier. Absolutely. So things like avoiding using soap when you're washing your genital areas, dabbing gently with water to avoid irritating the skin can really help and go a long way. It sort of, it can go without saying, but try to avoid scratching yourself down there because it is quite itchy. And wearing loose clothing, so loose pants rather than skinny jeans, for example. And try to avoid man-made fibers. Natural fibers will help more because really it's all about having a gentle gentle non-abrasive contact with the skin.

Now it's interesting that some of the women who got in touch with us begging us to talk about this had tried to find doctors who would recognize it and who would take it seriously. How much are you finding that it's quite difficult to get treatment? I think the thing to bear in mind is that this is a relatively rare condition. So if we look at the stats of occurrence in women, that sort of puts the UK numbers at about 32,000 women who will be affected. And most of them will have quite mild symptoms. So they may not actually go to their GP in the first place or their doctor. So there needs to be a lot more awareness amongst

healthcare professionals, that this is something that, you know, if left unchecked for some women could cause quite severe discomfort. I think one of the things that we do at Scleroderma in Raynards, UK that it's useful to mention is that we fund research into scleroderma and its associated conditions. And that's also part of what we do is also about raising awareness. Well, Fatima Suleiman, I hope we've raised some awareness this morning as well. Thank you very much indeed for being with us. Now, today is the spring equinox,

and as part of Radio 4 Season's Poetry Project, we're joined by Christine De Luca, who was raised on Shetland, now lives in Edinburgh, but still writes in the dialect of her homeland. She joins us from Edinburgh. And Christine, shall we begin with Soonescapes in Shetlandic? Indeed. Happy Spring Equinox to you, Jenny. Can I just briefly say this is a poem which paints pictures through sound, spring sounds, and it starts inside the house

with a very kind of repressive, restricted feeling with the blue bottles, refusing to get outside. And then you move out, and I was visiting a little chapel out on the moor, and the old organ was there, very silent, but just opening my ears, sitting in this little granite chapel, I could hear the windmills, and I could hear the curlew and the lapwing. And it was like a little orchestra. And then walking out onto the moor, this was added to by the wind through the aluminium gate and the feed hoop for the animals.

And it was just like a huge orchestra, weird and wonderful, and just like an uproarious sort of lullaby. So that just gives you a feel for it, and I'll just go an uproarious sort of lullaby. So that just gives you a feel for it and I'll just go for it. Soonscapes It a dizzied hoose, a strum of flecks, bit endless drums for nance the frenzied window. Be

lidgerent, they want neither in nor out. A pit of brew, a hant ofwhisted chapel, twa windmills spin new sunscapes o'er the land, kert wheelin' alleluias. Cloistered granite had the orchestration of birds,

a oorie whirr, a vimmer no whaps and pee-wits. The wind through the grind is a-spickening tongues with a brocket-feed hoop tuning in, eitherworldly, intimately insistent. Ah, this music to lute, to slap into, a ald organ nunning, a hushy hubble skew, up over the hull,

Erem's turn, the heart lofts. Christine, that's really beautiful. And some of the words are familiar. I suppose Soonscape isn't far away. Belligerent, tongues, chapel. What's the origin of Shetland's dialect? Well, we belonged to the Norwegian Danish kingdom until nearly 1500.

And the language spoken at that time for many hundreds of years was Norn, which was, I suppose, a bit like Faroese, perhaps, or Norwegian. And then we became part of a marriage settlement, the Danish princess, the Scottish prince, and he pledged, the Danish king had no money, so he pawned us to the Scottish crown. And we became Scottish by default because he never paid back the pledge.

And so Scots came in, Old Scots, and it became the language of power, of course, of the business community and the landowners and the law. And so it really squeezed out the Norn, but it still lingered. And so you might describe the Shetland tongue as sort of old Scots with a strong Norse influence. How many people speak it now? I mean, I think you grew up with it. And obviously, you love to write in it. But how commonly would you hear it if you were on

Shetland? I think you'd hear it pretty commonly. I mean, when I was a child, it was all around us, especially in the rural areas. And the town at that time only had a quarter of the population. Now the town and it's around about it have about half the population at Lerwick. And of course, it's maybe a bit less rich there. But it's still quite used, really. The problem is, I suppose, it's much of the vocabulary of the sea and fishing and peat cutting and crofting, a lot of vocabulary is, you know, out of date now. And so perhaps it's not so rich as it used to be. Can we have another poem, Love in a Cold Climate, which I think you're going to read first in English and then in Shetlandic. Okay, this is about my parents. They were inveterate gardeners. Sorry. Love

in a cold climate. It wasn't his wooden paling, nor the lattice of stones set to break the wind, nor the heather he packed tightly between fences, nor the seaweed he tore from the foreshore and turned and turned, nor his fingers breaking clods, nor was it the sun squinting gently. No, it was the dream she planted and the praise in her look as she staked it, willing the one rose to open to hold the long dusk.

Love in a cold climate. Had Wisna his wooden paling Now the open wark of stain set to brack the wind Now the hider he prammed between fences Now the tang he tore fae the ebb and turned and turned Now his fingers bracken clods Now wisit the's screaming pity-wise. Nah, it was the dream she planted and a rose in her look as she staked it,

willing the one rose to open the head-markening. The poem reflects the difficulties of growing plants in Shetland. What are the actual signs of spring in a landscape that is mostly grass, no trees from my memory? Well, it is pretty treeless, but as with global warming, you're getting definitely a little bit more in the way of shrubs and low bushes growing. But I think probably the birds, more than the plants, seem to signal spring. When they come, I mean, the first curlew that you hear, or the first arctic tern, especially, where they're very excited,

and your head turns and you think, ahks are back as we call them all the birds have north names and that's a great moment light of course the longer light because it's been a long dark winter and by the time you get to midsummer of course you you've you're almost light all day around so the seasons and the light will have a tremendous effect on people in Shetland? I think so, yes, they do. And the first peats you see cut, there's not nearly so many peats cut now, but there are still significant numbers. And the first lovely peat bank that you see cut, that's significant. The first hill lamb, perhaps in May, struggling to its feet. I have to ask you, because I'm afraid I've been a bit of a fan of it,

the last episode of Shetland was on television last night. What did you think of the dramatic portrayal of the island? Well, I tried to watch it several times and I just, I really can't. It's not the Shetland I know and love. It's all this grim and gruesome stuff. Lack of the local culture and sort of attitudes of people and the lack of local voices. It's just to me a very useful background for crime because it's an island and you can't get off the island. So I'm afraid it's not for me, Jenny.

Was there not a crime reported recently that someone had had some washing stolen? Well, that was some years ago. There was something, it was a poet I knew who'd gone to visit Shetland and was amused by the fact that in the newspaper on the front page, the local newspaper had reported that Charles' clothing had been removed from a washing line. Nothing that we've seen on Shetland on television. Christine De Luca, the poems

were beautiful. A very happy springtime to you and thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. I was talking to Christine De Luca and listening admiringly to her beautiful poetry. We had quite a bit of response to the discussion about pornography. An anonymous emailer said, I'm a psychotherapist and need to remain anonymous, but I was pleased to catch your article about porn. And then lots of response to our conversation about lichen sclerosis. Molly said,

thank you so much for the discussion on this awful condition. I had this diagnosed years ago, having been self-medicating for thrush, which was making it worse. I'm so grateful to the GP who spotted that it wasn't. It's a horrible thing to suffer from. The itching is like torture. It can feel like tiny creatures crawling around on your vulva and anus. I use a cream when it's really bad, but as it contains a steroid, I try not to use it too often if I can help it. The worst thing is the secrecy. Such intimate itching is simply not something we talk about, though thank goodness I have a female partner I can share this with. More women suffering such itching should get it checked out.

It may not be the thrush you assume it to be. Someone else said lichen sclerosis and the very similar vulval hyperplasia, which I have, can be temporarily soothed by oatmeal baths. During a really bad episode, I was taking these baths at three o'clock in the morning. It really is a nightmare. Then someone else said my LS was diagnosed after repeat biopsies by a gynaecologist. The skin symptoms were not obvious to my GP or to the gynaecologist, but I persisted by asking for more biopsies. The gynaecologist was surprised when the diagnosis came back as LS. Eventually, I was referred to dermatology as it's a skin condition rather than

a gynae condition, and the appropriate course of steroid cream and oestrogen cream was prescribed. Following the advice given on your programme this morning has kept things at bay. Any woman suffering from burning or itching should seek advice from a GP, as if this is left undiagnosed, it can progress to the point of disfigurement. And then Alice, who's a GP, said, I think your speaker is hugely underestimating the amount of lichen sclerosis in the population. I see a lot of it in milder forms

and it's hugely under-recognised and poorly treated. I don't agree with your speaker. Don't use just water. Do use moisturiser to wash. Do use high-dose topical steroids and review. It is not rare. And then Lynn Eaton wrote, Great piece on lichen sclerosis today. Thank you. After years of suffering, I found a sympathetic GP and have steroid cream for occasional use. Such relief. Now do join me tomorrow when we'll be

discussing when and how it's appropriate to talk to children about disability and how it might affect their life prospects. Caroline Casey is a disability activist. She's legally blind because she has ocular albinism but didn't find out until she was 17. If you have experience in this area, then please do email or tweet us. We'd love to hear from you at BBC Women's Hour. Join me tomorrow if you can for today. Bye bye. Beyond Today is the daily podcast from Radio 4. It asks one big question about one big story in the news and beyond. Just how big is Netflix?

Why are young people getting lost in the system? I'm Tina Dehealy. I'm Matthew Price. And along with a team of curious producers, we are searching for answers that change the way we see the world. I was actually quite shocked by how many people this issue affects. So we're doing stories about technology, about identity. Are you

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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 somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.