Woman's Hour - Shelly Chopra Dhar, Women's Rights in Poland, Lucy-Anne Holmes, OCD

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

Human Rights Watch has concluded that the Polish government is putting women's rights and safety at risk. It says that since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice Party government has targeted women’s rights groups through raids and funding cuts, often with little warning and no clear rationale. Hillary Margolis explains their concerns. Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga ( How I felt when I saw a Girl) is the first mainstream, commercial film featuring a Lesbian love story. We hear from director and co-writer, Shelly Chopra Dhar. How do you turn a memoir about living with ‘pure O’, a type of OCD which causes intrusive and disturbing thoughts, into a TV show? Pure is a new Channel 4 drama based on Rose Cartwright’s autobiography of the same name about living with the condition. Kirstie Swain, the screen writer and Charly Clive who plays Marnie, the main character discuss how they turned the book into a comedy drama. In her book Don’t Hold My Head Down, Lucy-Anne Holmes, writer and founder of the 'No More Page 3' campaign, describes her “sexual odyssey”. Disappointed by sex and uncomfortable with the porn industry, she compiled a list of things that would improve her sex life. She explains how exploring her sexuality changed her life.

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 to the podcast for Wednesday the 6th of February. Now tonight, the second episode of the Channel 4 drama Pure will be broadcast. How did the writer and the lead actor turn a pretty shocking memoir about an extreme form of obsessive-compulsive disorder into a television series. Shaili Chopra Dhar is the director of an Indian film whose translated title is How I Felt When I Saw a Girl. How ready is India for a Bollywood film about a lesbian love story? And don't hold my head down, What prompted Lucy Ann Helms to write a book about her own sex life?

A report published this morning by Human Rights Watch claims the Polish government is targeting women's rights activists and organisations and is consequently putting women's rights and safety at risk. The report documents how since coming to power in 2015, the law and justice government has targeted active groups and either closed them down or removed their funding. The report is called The Breath of the Government on My Back and Hilary Margolis is a researcher who's worked on it.

What did she mean by that title, The Breath of Government is on My Back. And Hilary Margolis is a researcher who's worked on it. What did she mean by that title, The Breath of Government is On My Back? Well, the title comes from something that one of the women who we interviewed said to me. As we were speaking, she was talking about her feelings as she was preparing for one of these black protests, which is the large women's rights movement that has grown up over the last couple of years in Poland. And she said that as she was preparing for this, this protest and being involved in it as a school teacher and someone as a public employee, she was very worried about her job, if anyone found out at the school that she was involved in this. And the way she put it was, I felt the breath of the government on my back. And I felt like that really captured the environment that these women's rights activists are working in.

What hard evidence, though, do you have of the impact the regime is having on women's groups? So in addition to the fact that they have put in place many retrogressive laws and policy measures, they've also are they're systematically defunding groups that work on women's rights issues, including violence against women and sexual and reproductive health education. They have raided offices of some of these groups as well, immediately following one of these mass protests. They've also dragged some state employees before disciplinary proceedings, simply for, for example, collaborating with groups that work on women's rights or allowing them to conduct workshops in schools. So we really are seeing a concerted effort by the government to send a message that these groups and these activists are not welcome, and that anyone who aligns with them

could potentially be punished. Now, there was an attempt to ban the right to a termination in 2016. What's happened in that area since then? So that was actually the initial prompt for these black protests was when the government tried to completely ban abortion. It's important to note that unfortunately, already access is quite restricted. So not only do they have one of the most restrictive laws in Europe, but in practice, access to abortion is virtually non-existent. At the same time, they have continued with additional proposals to further restrict abortion. There's actually one bill that's currently sort of going through the government, fortunately fairly slowly. But we are still concerned that there will be continued attempts to further restrict access.

There was also an attempt, if I remember rightly, to reduce the availability of birth control and emergency contraception. What's the position there now? Yes, the government did actually reduce the ability, limit the ability to access emergency contraception or the morning after pill, including, for example, for women who experience rape or sexual assault. So what used to be available over the counter, which is in line with European medical standards, is now requires a prescription and a doctor's visit, which, of course, can cause very risky delays. And in some cases, women may not be willing to go to a doctor's visit, which of course can cause very risky delays.

And in some cases, women may not be willing to go to a doctor to ask for it. Last month, the Prime Minister shelved plans to redefine domestic violence. What's happened there? Yes, so this was part of a new bill or an amended bill on domestic violence that they've been drafting. When we met with the Ministry of Family when I was conducting the research in August, they assured us that the new bill would not contain any measures that would harm women and instead would simply make the law more effective. However, what we saw in this proposal on December 31, which was clearly meant to be kind of slid in under the radar, was an effort to actually decriminalize the first instance of domestic violence. And as people may know, this is exactly what Russia has done, did last year. It's extremely dangerous. It means that essentially, the first time a woman is abused by her partner or anyone is abused by their partner, that that would not count, essentially, as domestic violence.

And of course, we know this is a crime that escalates and becomes more and more dangerous, and there's more likelihood that it can end in injury or death. So fortunately, there was a lot of uproar, because there is amazing, strong civil society in Poland and around the world. And the president did send the bill back for revision. But again, we're still concerned about what the ultimate outcome may be. You also write in the report about the implications of all this for LGBT people. What position are they in now? They are also in a very, very difficult position. Essentially, anyone who doesn't

sort of mirror the image of the traditional, so-called traditional Polish person who doesn't fit in with quote-unquote normal and sort of typical traditional values is really under threat. So that includes migrants, LGBT people, women's rights activists, and they've really taken on this campaign against so called gender ideology with a vengeance. So both the government and the Catholic Church have been very outspoken in Poland about how anything related to gender equality, or sort of looking at gender as a social construct, really threatens and is dangerous to families and children. And that includes, of course, LGBT people. How much real influence then does the Roman Catholic Church have now? engagement with the government. Many parts of the government seem to be still quite influenced by the church and its views. There are many conservative groups that are extremely Catholic

or affiliated with the Catholic Church that also are very influential on the government. So for example, a very conservative group called Ordo Iuris, which has had enormous influence, particularly around, for example, attempts at anti-abortion law, has representatives who are government appointees. So there's quite a lot of influence there. What are you calling then on the Polish government to do as a result of this report? Well, first of all, we're calling on them to stop all harassment and attacks on women's rights groups and activists, and to investigate and punish those who participate in these kinds of acts. I mean, that's, you know, the first goal. But also, we want to ensure that they're upholding their obligations, which are to provide services for

violence against women, to provide sexual and reproductive health education, and to allow groups to operate in a way that they can express themselves freely, they can assemble freely the way that they should be able to. What about support from elsewhere? You're appealing to the Council of Europe and the European Parliament because of course Poland is part of Europe. How could they help? Yeah, so as an EU member state, Poland has certain obligations to uphold EU values, to uphold EU law. And so we're calling on the EU to really press them to do so and really to see this as part of an extension of the rule of law crisis in Poland.

I mean, this really isn't a separate issue. Women's rights issues are part of fundamental rights issues, which have already are being put to the test in Poland, and the EU has called them out on that. And we would really like to see the EU and EU member states be stronger on pushing back against Poland's efforts to undermine women's rights as well. What response have you had from the Polish government to your critique? So we did reach out to the government prior to the launch of the report. Some ministries responded, many did not. Essentially, the responses we received were primarily around things that they

feel they're doing correctly, and they don't necessarily need change and making arguments about why what they're doing is adequate. Hilary Margulis, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. Thank you for having me. Now, it was in 1998 that I interviewed the Indian film star Shabana Asmi, about her role in what was then considered a controversial and groundbreaking film called Fire. It was about two women, both trapped in miserable marriages, who fell in love with each other. It was, though, an arthouse movie,

and this week another film about a lesbian love affair has been released, which is much more in the mainstream Bollywood style of Indian filmmaking. The title in translation is How I Felt When I Saw a Girl, and it tells the story of a young woman whose parents assume she will marry a man who's fallen in love with her, but she eventually reveals to her father that she's a lesbian, and her father accepts it. The film is released only a few months after same-sex relationships were legalized in India. Shaili Choprada is the director and one of the writers. Shaili, why were you personally so keen to make this film? This has been a subject matter

very close to my heart for a long time and even before I was a filmmaker and even before I went to film school, I knew that I wanted to make a film on this subject. I am a parent of a gay child and I have gone through some of the emotions that I am showing my character, Balbir, played by Anil Kapoor, go through. And I also felt that this film was not getting, this subject was not getting the right representation in the Indian cinema. It's been shown in, you were talking about Fire, but that's a parallel cinema, art cinema.

Yes, I said it was an art movie and it was 20 years ago. Yes, absolutely. And the other mainstream cinema has handled the subject in a very, either in a very derogatory fashion or as a comic relief. And that, instead of helping the community, it only reinforces the fact that they need to be laughed at, I felt. Because cinema in India, people do learn from it. People follow. How difficult was it for your son to tell you he was gay? I think he was 13, wasn't he? It was hard because I also belong to a community and I also have grown up not as conservative as mostly other people. But it's still easier to talk about it when it's not in your own family. And when it is, it sort of changes your outlook a little bit. So how did you deal with it with other family members and friends, especially at a time when it was illegal?

I truly believe that solution to almost all problems in the world is a change of perspective. If you begin to look at something from a different point of view, the problems go away. For example, it's like from childhood, we are taught kids are giving in kindergarten pictures to draw a happy family. What do they draw? It's a little house, one daddy, one mommy, one brother, one sister, maybe a pet, a dog, you know, that's the happy family. So we all grow up thinking, this is the box we all need to fit in. And we want that for our children. So I thought, I was thinking that, what is it that you really want for your children at the end of the day? It is their happiness. It is their peace of mind, their success in life, right?

And you just have to come to terms with that everybody doesn't get that goal, get to that goal through one single path. How significant do you reckon it is that this film of yours is coming so soon after The Law in India was changed? Actually, when we were writing this story and when I shot the film, we had completed the entire film before this happened. I was all done with my shooting, and after that, 377 article was, you know, taken away from our lives.

And so obviously that was not going to stop me from making this film. We had already, I had the backing of the production house, I had the backing of all the actors who were equally passionate about the subject, like me. And we just were not going to stop. Now your lead actors are Sanam Kapoor and her father, her real father, Anil Kapoor. Why did you want to cast them together so that you had a real father-daughter relationship in it? Actually, they are both professional actors, and they both individually liked the script. Like, Anil liked his part, and she liked her part. So it

really wasn't that I offered it to them as a package deal. It genuinely they both individually like those roles. And I think I'm fortunate that they both did and they came in together in this film and also happened to be the first time that they were coming in a Bollywood film together. But how much of a gamble is it for someone who is a big star to play a lead role as a lesbian in India? Because it is still controversial. It is. I think the trend in the change of content in cinema, we have seen that there are many topics that are coming up. Films are end of the day, we are asking people to relook and re-evaluate how they look at things, whether it's sanitary napkins, whether it is toilets, whether it is a 60-year-old woman getting pregnant. So we are, you know, we are, I think the Indian audience is getting to a point where they are willing to listen to new ideas. And this is nothing more than just one of those paradigms.

And why were you keen to make your setting a Bollywood setting where there was singing and dancing rather than that rather serious arthouse movie that I remember seeing, as I said, 20 years ago? Yes, because I had to keep my eye on my goal. And my goal was to reach as many people as I can. And people come to a film to be entertained. Nobody wants a sermon. I mean, if you want a sermon, you're not going to go to see a film. Even I don't want to go see a film that's going to give me, that's going to preach. So you have to make sure that it's palatable for the people to come and watch your film. Number one, they have to was to reach the smaller towns, to reach the people, to reach those families and maybe help some of these little kids. change if their parents talked about love in a way, instead of talking about falling in love with a girl or a boy, they talked about falling in love with people. What do you know about how it's being received in those small communities? I really don't know, because I am not sitting in the marketing chair and looking at numbers. I'm not very media savvy. And I am just concentrating on listening to, since I have come here.

Yesterday we had a screening and a Q&A at Theatre Genesis. I was so happy to see that this film has touched so many lives. And people are so emotional about it. They are bringing their families, they are bringing their parents, that somewhere it's making a difference. They are sharing who they are with their families through this film. I think we are winners. Shelley Chopra-Dar, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning.

Thank you so much for having me. Now, still to come in today's programme, Lucy Ann Holmes, campaigner against page three, and her book about finding a way to a better sex life, Don't Hold My Head Down. And the serial, another of Jenny Eclair's little lifetimes. Now, just a reminder about the podcast, you may have missed the discussion yesterday about Barbara Castle,

50 years after her white paper in place of strife. Who was damaged, the unions or Barbara Castle? You can hear it on the podcast. All you have to do is subscribe to BBC Sounds. Now, you may have already seen the first episode of the new Channel 4 drama, Pure. The second episode goes out tonight. The title comes from a condition called Pure O, which is an extreme form of obsessive compulsive disorder which was suffered in real life by Rose Cartwright, who wrote the memoir on which the series is based. In the fictional version, Marnie leaves her home in Scotland for a new life in London and continues to be mystified by her condition until a new friend, Charlie, takes her to the library

and reads an explanation from a reference book he's found. Her intrusive thoughts step in from time to time. OCD is a psychiatric disorder characterised by obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions. I'm really untidy. I don't wash my hands for long enough and I always leave the house with tea lights accidentally burning and I don't care because they're little and they just go out.

Obsessions manifest as recurring intrusive thoughts which are disturbing thoughts, images or ideas. Compulsions are the actions sufferers carry out to relieve the anxiety they cause. Liking wine, moving to London and gate-crashing random support groups are not compulsions. They're subtle cries for help.

Shh. No, talk. Typical obsessive themes include contamination, illness, and animal-ordnliness, but sufferers also obsess about violence, murder, blasphemy, and sex. What? Sexual obsessions can include doubts over deviant behaviours,

but also unfaithfulness or suitability of one's partner or sexual orientation. That sounds like me. What if I sinned? What if I don't really love my partner? What if I feel sexual love for a parent? What if I assaulted someone? What if I'm infected? What if I'm sexually attracted to animals?

What if my entire personal identity is wrong? Give me this. Oh, my God. Jo Cole as Charlie and Charlie Clive as Marnie. Well, I spoke earlier to Charlie and to Kirsty Swain, who adapted the memoir for television. What was her response when she first read Rose Cutt-Wright's really rather

shocking memoir? Well, she writes about sex and mental health in such a candid and frank and funny way. It was a joy, but also disturbing as well. I really responded to it because I was a massive worrier, still am, and that whole idea of cyclical worrying and obsessive doubt, that really jumped out at me. Charlie, you have to play the character. What was your reaction when you read Kirsty's script? Because you have to do a lot of swearing and then quite a lot of shocking things that you're seeing in your mind. Yes, that's all true.

When I first read Kirsty's scripts, I was really struck by how funny they were. I was totally able to relax into it and go, OK, great. So there's comedy which really warrants the drama and earns the drama. The aspects of filming that weren't the norm were never gratuitous and they were always really essential to Marnie. So it always kind of felt like an exciting thing to be doing, to be telling the story. And since we've not seen the story before, I actually felt quite sort of proud to be doing it in hindsight. Obviously, at the time, I was quite nervous and sweaty. Now, Kirsty, Marnie, your central character, played by Charlie, is not Rose, although you've drawn on her memoir. Her introduction to us is giving a speech at her parents' wedding anniversary in Scotland. Why? Because I was like, what is the worst possible situation that you could imagine,

you could think the worst thing you've ever thought about your family? Because until that point, she's not really had thoughts about her family like that. This is the first time she's ever thought this thing about her mum and that is the pinnacle moment that sends her away from everything she knows and loves. The things that you have to be surrounded by, Charlie. I'm sorry I keep laughing, but honestly, I watched it

and half the time I was thinking, oh my goodness, this is shocking. And then I was laughing my socks off. Oh, that's great. It is extremely funny as well as quite shocking and I thought what's it like for Charlie being surrounded by lots of naked bodies some of them young some of them old some of them grotty some of them not grotty how was it for you um It was a real education on the human anatomy, I think, first and foremost. One of the things about it was I began to feel a bit like the odd one out, that I was fully clothed. And when in between takes, everyone in the background who was totally naked

and having to do quite, you know, wild things. Yeah, sure. They were just talking and having cups of tea and chatting and being really normal, and I felt like I couldn't really join in because I was really the odd one out. As I said, you start her off in Scotland, in her small town home, and then you bring her immediately to London. How important is that move to London all by herself? It just felt like that was the furthest place we

could get her to geographically in the UK. That was the furthest away place from home in terms of geography and in terms of what she's used to. And going from this little place where everybody knows your name and everybody knows if you, like everything that you do is seen by someone that you know, but in London you can hide. Charlie, I know that you had treatment for a brain tumour and made a show about it in Edinburgh, and I know you don't want to go on about it, but I did wonder how that experience helps your understanding

of how complicated a brain can be and how it can be doing these peculiar things. It's funny because I think that, so something I said a lot when I was initially diagnosed with my tumour was like, well, now I don't have to be scared of anything because the scariest thing I can imagine is in my brain and it's going away soon. Something I could really at least take some solace in with the tumour is that

you know exactly what it is and you know how to deal with it or ways to treat it. I think something like what Marnie goes through is really difficult to talk about and it was never really that difficult for me to talk about my tumour except for emotionally. I knew that my tumour wasn't me. Nobody thinks Charlie's got a brain tumour. She is a brain tumour. But if you say, you know, I've got this type of pure O, then talk about how it manifests itself. Potentially, I feel like you can be very, very self-deprecating and worry about the judgement that others will have of you. And I think that the idea of your brain kind of turning against you or being not an ally,

even though it's the thing that makes everything tick, it's the reason you wake up and go to sleep, how can it during the waking hours be so cruel, is something I could really, really relate to because I found that actually it was a really cathartic experience for me to be able to do those, to say the words that Kirsty had really astutely written about being scared of something that's inside

your head. And that's the scary thing as well the fact that they're your thoughts and you think it's you and you don't know where you end and a mental illness begins and for Marnie she doesn't even know it's a mental illness, she just thinks that she's an awful person. Kirsty, the production I know is pretty much

led by women and there is no doubt that some of those scenes are really, really quite shocking and sexually explicit. But I wondered how the fact that you are primarily women influenced the way you did it because I didn't feel it was oh it didn't have fun with it it was just being as truthful as it could be we just wanted it to be naked it wasn't supposed to be titillating or to arouse the viewer it was it was meant to be disturbing because we we had a lot of conversations about that and and growing up and seeing programs where you have to watch a pair of breasts walk through a bar because someone thinks that's what the audience wants to see. We didn't want that.

We wanted every single visual sequence that has sex in it was there for a story reason and it moves the story along and we never just show it. We always deal with it. It's so easy for me to write something down on a bit of paper, but I was so mindful people were going to have to do that in real life. And I think you have a responsibility to do that especially when there's this discussion about female representation on screen and I think it really helped that there were so many women on on the team. How relieved were you Charlie to feel this is not exploitative? Oh massively it was also

my first time on set so I was really conscious that I didn't really have anything to compare it to. And I was really worried that potentially there would be moments because of the content of the show that I was out of my depth and didn't know how to ask the right questions. Being able to go into work every day and know that there are challenging scenes or there are sexual scenes, being surrounded immediately by women and having someone give me my schedule, who's a woman and someone talk me through the day who's a woman, as well as having lots of men around made it feel like it's just a safer environment. Really, it was so normalized so early on that I feel really lucky that my standard now for the industry is so female led. I think I'm really lucky. I'm probably in a minority of people that can say that it just made it just a really proud experience. I was talking to Charlie Clive and Kirsty Swain, and if you saw episode one last week,

we'd really love to know what you thought about it. You can send us an email, or of course you can tweet. You can email or tweet about anything you hear in this morning's programme, but I'd particularly like to know what you thought of Pure. Now, some readers have said, I cannot express how much I loved this book. Others, notably the comedian Bridget Christie, said I won't be reading this filthy book. Clearly, she was joking. The book in question is Don't Hold My Head Down. It's written by Lucy-Anne Holmes, who was the founder of the No More Page Three campaign.

And she describes the book as a sexual odyssey. Lucy-Anne, you begin with a list of things that would improve your sex life. Why were you so unhappy when you set out on this? Right. Well, I had a bit of an epiphany one night night and I was actually watching pornography one night um and I saw something on one of the big free porn sites um and it was a thumbnail picture of um I'm sure it was a woman but she looked very young so I'll say she looked like a girl and there was a sex act happening to her and the image shocked me and I turned my computer off and I found I was worried about this girl, hoping she was okay. And I have, at the time I had four nieces, one of whom was I think 13 or 14,

and I just kept thinking of her at that age, curious about her body, her sexual awakening, and going into one of these sites and this is what she'd find. And I just thought wow this is the sex we're giving our young people and it made me feel very sad and I typed in a few things that night I typed in good sex great sex and everything led me back to these same sites but I remember typing in beautiful sex and I got um I got one uh film of a woman giving a man a blowjob while he held her head down. And then I got offers of other things.

One was titled Daddy Loves to Hate Sex Jap School Girl. And I thought, wow, you know, if you type in beautiful conservatory, beautiful pasta sauce, you'll probably get something that we could all generally agree, you know, was quite beautiful. You type in beautiful sex and and I found that the results quite alarming and then I thought oh well I'm hardly raising sex to some divine art form myself sitting here masturbating to online porn and so that I would say was the epiphany and I started to think my friend has a great expression if you always do

what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got. And I thought, actually, I don't want to get what I've always got with sex. I felt when I thought about it, it was quite often performance led. It was something that was done to me rather than I was shaping it. One of the most interesting things in the book is something which I suspect is really common for so many women a loathing of your body image which clearly played into the way you felt about sex why do you think it had such an impact on you oh yes it's it's fascinating that isn't it because I had I just hated my body particularly my bum and my boobs I you know I was I hate my bum I hate my boobs I said it you know again and again or thought it again and again and everything else really there wasn't any part of me

I liked and I had never thought about it until I got to my 30s and started off on this sort of sex what I'll call a sexual odyssey or a sexual adventure and I it really did make me think because I thought I didn't come out of the womb hating my bottom you know I wasn't there as a toddler moaning about you know the shape of my thighs I've learned this I've got this from somewhere so I started yes I started to really think you know how that had developed and one thing you know you mentioned I did a campaign against page three you know that I was a woman in my 30s and I never thought questioned why I hated my boobs and And I thought, you know, when did this hate start? And I thought, oh gosh, I can actually remember when the hatred came

and it was when my breasts came. But was the paper in your house when you were a kid? Yes, so yes. So it was around, my brother used to bring it home and it was around in the house. And I just, and it was fascinating because it was the sun, it was, you know, it was lively. I think we also had the Times in the house,

but I didn't pay any attention to that. It was the sun because it was, you know, it was lively. I think we also had the Times in the house, but I didn't pay any attention to that. It was the sun because it told me stories about pop stars. But there was always this, well, at the time, the women were 16, you know, these young women in their pants. And I just, my breasts were developing, and I just thought, gosh, they don't look like these women in the papers. So you set out on your sexual odyssey to love your body. Tell us all how you do that.

Right. I made friends with that. I really started looking at my thoughts. So I didn't set out to love my body. I set out to explore various things sexually, one of which was slow sex, one of which was learning about my own pleasure. I learned that there were 14 different types of orgasm and I wanted to explore them um and I kept coming up against my body hatred again

and again and again uh so I couldn't explore great slow sex because I hated my body I didn't want to show it you know I needed a lot of wine to show it to anybody so I I so I then started to explore the body hatred and one thing I did first of all is I had to really I really monitored my thoughts because I thought I'm a bit of a hippie I'm all about peace and love really and then I realized that I was actually pouring loads of hatred onto myself and actually I wanted to be a friend to myself so I really started to watch when it's you know when these and they were horrible thoughts you know I can't believe anyone would ever had sex with you you know you're disgusting.

This word disgusting came up again and again. And I really just started to just breathe into it, just try to love myself. I made friends. My boobs, I just said, you know, you're sensitive. And I'm so sorry I've given you so much hatred. You did go from tantric sex with a boyfriend to group sex at a festival.

Yes. Why that rather rapid escalation? I think, yes, a lot of people have spoken about the sex festivals and sex parties aspect of it. And I think unless you've been, you have quite a base vision in your head of it. Yeah, I do. vision in your head of it yeah and actually one thing one thing that I came I found again and again with this journey was that actually sex for me was the most transformative most spiritual thing I could do and I've I went to a catholic convent where you know there was a lot of shame you were given a virgin mary you know sex was something you're not supposed to do or enjoy or

talk about and actually I found it was you know cathartic healing spiritual so so when you go to what you know a sex festival you've got all the best teachers there giving you workshops in tantra in intimacy it teaches you how to tune into yourself how to state your boundaries which was just really really empowering for me there's some wonderful women leading work in this area, some really wonderful women leading work in this area, because essentially, if we're having sex, and I think for a lot of women, sex is something that's done to them,

we're pounded, we're tweaked, we're grabbed. We're not directing the show. You did meet someone. I did. And then you became pregnant. Yes someone I did um and then you became pregnant yes what impact has having had a baby had on the odyssey uh a huge impact um but a beautiful one as well what was really interesting with starting out on the sexual journey is I asked myself what I wanted to experience and I I set about exploring that and then after I'd had a baby

my body I'd changed physically and emotionally hugely and I had to come back to myself and ask myself again what I wanted and needed and interestingly in some ways it was quite similar because you know when I first set out in the Odyssey it was I wanted to experience so slow sex and post baby I I've really struggled to have penetrative sex again after I had the baby I had an episiotomy and um I you know so I was stitched and I'd read that in six weeks I was supposed to be okay but I couldn't you know four months later and it was agony and uncomfortable and I had to really just tune into myself and go, what do I need? And I really just wanted the most tender touch. I wanted to be touched like I was precious.

And actually, yes, a light, gentle touch on my episiotomy scar, and I would weep and weep and weep. Just one last question, Lucienne. There are moments in the book when you go, oh, should I really, oh, should I really? Am I embarrassed? Are you embarrassed now it's out and you're talking about it? No, not at all. It's really strange that because it was a hard book in a way to write.

Definitely the hardest book I've ever written. And I did keep saying, should I be writing this? I did keep checking in with myself. Do I want to do this? But now it's here and it's out and people are responding to it. No, I feel quite proud. I was talking to Lucy and Holmes and we had an email about the interview with Shelley Chopra-Darr the Indian filmmaker it came from Pretty who said it's very important to highlight issues regarding homosexuality in the Asian community. It's been a taboo subject for

too long and I'm sure a source of a lot of trauma for people in the LGBT community. And then on the Pure discussion, Catherine said, I've been diagnosed with perinatal OCD but don't have compulsions. I used to call it lazy OCD but now now I know there's a name for it, thanks to the programme. Watching the first episode of Pure was both difficult and interesting. Although my intrusive thoughts are violent rather than sexual, I could really relate to the protagonist. I now find I can use it to explain what happens in my head to other people. And another Catherine wrote, I just wanted to say it's very important to let people know that Pure O can be about many other things, not just sexual thoughts.

The only thing about this series I worry slightly about is that people will just assume it's about this one subject, as it can be hard for people to see the bigger picture when presented with just one example of the condition. Someone whose name we didn't want to use said, I've suffered from this form of OCD for years. At its worst, I had the idea that I might hurt my baby son and was terrified that anyone should find out, lest I have a visit from social services. I later found out in

the course of my work as a vicar that this was a common form of the illness with many first-time young mothers in absolute terror that they might take up a weapon and hurt their child. They would hide all knives in the house away so that they are prevented from the scenario they fear. And Lorna said, I watched the first episode. It was a marvel. The writing is utterly brilliant, making the conversation so real, honest and engaging. I have students who experience intrusive thoughts and find it so hard to explain to others why they disrupt their learning. I've recommended this to my students to watch. I think they'll find validation, relief, self-identity, and it's funny in all the right ways. So many honest conversations should arise from the insights offered by this brilliant play.

And Mary said, I've watched the entire Pure series. Brilliant, moving, funny, intelligent. And Elsie Wow said, Women are so good today, I just want to stop what I'm doing and go and have a big chat with Kirsty Swain and Lucianne Holmes. So relatable, I could cry. And then on Lucianne Holmes, Ambitious Mother said, What a brilliant saying

if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got and Jane C. Wood said I'm loving Lucy Ann Holmes on sex for women for so many women sex is something that's done to them she is beautifully frank

I'm definitely in the must read category challenging and inspirational. And thanks for all your comments on today's programme. We love to get them and I'm sure you'll have something to say tomorrow when I'll be talking to Laura Mutcher about her book, Love Factually, the science of who, how and why we love. Join me tomorrow, two minutes past ten, if you can. Bye-bye. The monarch.

Many wish the shard to fall. Hope for revolution. The frightened. You can smell the fear. Do you now see why I must be firm with my people? Please, I am innocent. Lie down on the table. Lie down on the table now.

The insurgent. My country suffers. He stands against the Shah, doesn't he? The country burns. What does he stand for, though? That's a question for later. And a story that reverberates throughout the world today. I have one purpose only.

To execute God's revenge on this earth. The BBC World Service presents Fall of the Shah, telling the story of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Available now on BBC Sounds. 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.