 Hello and welcome to downstream the show about politics, culture, political culture and books which I've been sent for free and think are really good. What don't we talk about when we talk about sex? One study identified no fewer than 237 distinct reasons why people have sex, ranging from because it feels good to because I was scared not to. And in the wake of the Me Too movement, a genre of infographics and educational social media posts emerged comparing sex to sandwiches and cups of tea, all to illustrate the importance of not forcing anyone to have it. But what about the different kinds of consent, enthusiastic, informed, anxious, strategic or conditional? And what are the limitations of positioning consent as the only thing which differentiates good sex and bad sex? So to discuss just this, I am really pleased to welcome Rachel Thompson, journalist and author of the new book, Rough, how violence found its way into the bedroom and what we can do about it. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us. My god, thank you for having me. This is an honor. I mean, I've got to say, my experience of reading this book was to read it, identify loads with it and then just sort of march around going, I have loads of thoughts about sex now. I don't want to talk about it. That makes me so happy. I mean, obviously, you know, the circumstances around the book, obviously, I'm not happy about, you know, the patriarchy and all of the terrible things that, you know, go on within, you know, that, but I am glad that you liked my book. That makes me happy on a very superficial and self-involved way. Like, validation is happening for me. I know, I crave it. Well, I was hoping maybe the place where we could start would be, there seems to be this theme that what the book is trying to do is give words and shape and content to all the things that don't normally have words or are unspoken or don't fit the predetermined scripts that we have for understanding what sex is or what rape is. So I was wondering if you could maybe talk a bit about that. Yeah, I think, you know, we say so often just like, you know, words, like, you know, knowledge is power and, you know, words are so important, language is so important when it comes to describing our lived experiences. But I felt particularly in the Me Too movement when we were talking about the Aziz Ansari allegations, and we kind of roved into uncomfortable territory for a lot of people, because if these weren't what you could say, you know, you could describe as kind of clear-cut, you know, violations, people weren't sure what to do with these uncomfortable experiences that didn't fit into this almost like binary of violence and non-violence. And I think, you know, people didn't know how to respond to those allegations. And I think there was obviously problems in terms of the reporting. I just found it very interesting that everybody just kind of shut down the conversation before we could even delve into that uncomfortable place because they just didn't have the words to talk about what was going on here. And they didn't, you know, people were like, it's a gray area, but even the term gray area is so loaded, and it's almost so, sounds almost like it's kind of invalidating whatever's being described. So I think people, we really kind of walked into this territory of like, it's nebulous, it's uncomfortable, we don't, we can't call it assault, we can't call it rape. And because it's not clear-cut, therefore, we just push it away, we put it away in a drawer, and we think, hmm, too complicated, too hard, don't know what to do with it. But I think for anyone who had ever had a sexual experience that, you know, they came away thinking, well, I wasn't raped, but dot, dot, dot, and they didn't have words that, you know, could come after that ellipsis, you know, I think that the kind of the way that that conversation was shut down, the way that people didn't want to engage with it, I think felt really like a missed opportunity. And I think I was just kind of left thinking, I don't know what to do. If, you know, if we're not able or ready right now in this Me Too movement to talk about things that are a little bit more complicated, are a little more hard to define, then, you know, I think that that can be incredibly invalidating for so many people who either don't categorise their experience as sexual violence or don't yet, you know, haven't quite come to terms with what happened. And so I felt that there needed to be a kind of space. I don't want to say like, I want to hold space. I'm holding space with my book deal. Yeah, I wanted to kind of just sit in that gray area and sit in that, you know, discomfort and just think, okay, well, what's actually going on in this, in this little spot where we don't have language and like, what are all those reasons for that lack of language? And it turns out, you know, there's quite a few reasons. There's lots of lots of things that feed into that. And also, I just think when I was kind of when I was writing the book and when I was talking to experts, you know, one thing that really shone through is like, it's actually incredibly personal thing, you know, choosing the words to define any of your lived experiences, not just ones that pertain to sex and violence. But, you know, we get to be the ones that choose the words that define those experiences. And those definitions, those categories can change over time. And again, that process is very personal. And that that's something that I found, you know, during the writing process, I had like, I started out thinking, yeah, this thing that happened to me was gray. It was a gray area, you know, it wasn't sexual violence. I and I even would tell myself this narrative of like, I'm very lucky. But then over time, as I started to research, I was like, there was a kind of slow coming to terms, but also coming to find language that to describe these things. And I found that interesting. That was really, really the sense that I got was once you added time, and the way in which self knowledge develops almost like a piece of photographic film, because in the moment of the thing happening when it is formless, and you are looking for the point at which you must have consented to this thing happening. Otherwise, why would it be happening if it wasn't a decision that you made somewhere? To then realizing, well, maybe I did consent to something, but it wasn't this. And there was no point at which the signal was given to do this thing. Or even if I said, hey, let's try something. And then I no longer wanted to that no longer wanting to was not honored or seen or perceived. And it seemed to me that between enthusiastic consent and sex, which you enjoy, even if you don't have multiple orgasms or whatever, be you enjoy it for whatever reason. And then rape on the other side, you've got this other thing in the middle, which is somebody is having sex, and it is to you rather than with you. And it seems to me that we don't get into that spot where pleasure or the completion of an experience or an experience looking away that people expect and want it to look takes priority of somebody else's safety, comfort and pleasure. Yeah, I find this so interesting. I think it's, you know, we don't, we're only really starting, I think, to talk about this, what academics actually just refer to as unwanted sex and unwanted sex, you know, you have, it's a spectrum, I suppose, where you have the unwanted sex that takes place within relationships and can happen in a kind of loving context. You know, you, you have sex, even though you're kind of not really in the mood or you have a headache, you feel kind of bloated, whatever, but you're like, I love this person. Usually I love having sex with them. I'll just, you know, I just want them to know that I love them. I want them to know that I've, they, they, you know, I find them desirable. So, you know, there's that and I feel like that's different to looking at it from a kind of when we look at the power dynamics, we look at the, the way that, you know, a person's socioeconomic status, their gender, their, just their kind of like migration status, their, you know, whether they are in a precarious situation in life, these factors, these conditions can all have a role in a decision making process. And this, you mentioned in your introduction, strategic consent. And I, and this is something that when I was, I was speaking to an academic, she coined the term, Lena Baichung, she's the academic that coined this term. And it's essentially, you know, basically consenting to sex because it's the safest option for you in that moment in time. And, and that means that you're not consenting because you desire that person, you're consenting because the worse, like the opposite is worse, that, you know, the alternative is worse because you feel like if you say no, then you're, you would be even more like at risk. And so that is something I just feel is really missing in a lot of conversations when we talk about sex and sexual violence. And it, you know, it is kind of this, you could call it a gray area because yeah, okay, they consented. But I think what Lena Baichung said is we need to ask the question of like, yes, she consented, but why, you know, and I think all too often the conversations surrounding consent, I mean, like obviously these kind of bad faith conversations that happen online where, you know, say, you know, some high profile celebrity, there's allegations made against them. And people then begin this kind of public discourse of dissecting the description of the events and saying, well, she consented, or, well, she said yes, didn't she? And that's the kind of, I find that really problematic that we are so willing to accept, like we're so willing to just accept the yes, and not question why, not question the circumstances that led up to that yes. Because I feel that once you do, then then you start to understand how a person might have felt in that situation, which is they may have felt violated, and they may have felt they had no choice, or they may have felt like, you know, also within a dating culture context, you know, I, a guy pays for dinner, and, you know, they feel like they need to repay that person, you know, or like it's all these kind of transactional elements that can play into it as well. So I just, yeah, I think that we're missing something in our conversations when we don't rove into that and it is uncomfortable because people, people do engage in unwanted sex, and you can, like some of that doesn't have to necessarily be problematised. But I think if we think more about power dynamics in our sexual culture, some of it, you know, I think it is a problem that someone consents to something because they feel they have no choice other than to say yes. I mean, I guess one of the things I wanted to talk about next was non consensual or non negotiated sex acts in which you have consented to have some kind of sex with someone, whether that is penetrative sex or being naked and touching or in my case just talking about barbecue. That's the hottest thing for me. And then that time where somebody is knocking on the door of your boundaries or pushing your boundaries or insisting that something happens in a particular way and lots of the time, this stuff is non verbal, like I will never forget hooking up with a guy once and he kept trying to sneak anal up on me as if I wouldn't notice, as if it wasn't on me. And it was maybe a third or fourth time I was like, honestly, man, what do you think is going to happen that I'm going to go? Oh, well, may as well. He's persisted. God loves a trier. You know, what is going on here that, you know, there's so much of sex where we are conditioned to think that by naming it or asking, do you want this or saying I want this? How do you feel about it? That that is the death of eroticism, right? That you lose the mystery. But let me tell you, there was nothing less sexy than this guy like, you know, tap, tap, tapping on my back door as if like, I would go, yeah, great, fine. Fifth time lucky, I guess. Well, yeah, I mean, this, I, this has happened to me as well. And it's just like, I'm sorry, do you think I'm not going to notice that? Like, I'm just gonna be like, oh, how did we end up here? Oh, accidents happen. Yeah, like, oh, you've, you got lost. And, okay, here we are, we may as well just stay here. Yeah, I don't, that, yeah, it's not something that you love when that happens. I think there's this element, I think in our sexual culture of, I think, particularly within heterosexual sexual culture, I think of boundary pushing and the idea of it being sexy for, for people to push other people's boundaries. And I think that's, that's certainly there's some truth in that, right? But I think that it has to be done in a way that is like communicated and probably done so in advance as well, not just in the moment of like, Hey, let's try this. And suddenly the person who is naked and may feel vulnerable because they're naked. And, you know, maybe it's in first time having sex with that person may feel kind of put on the spot and not able to be like, hang on a sec, do I want to do this? Or am I just naked and into this person and thinking, Oh, okay, maybe, maybe I'll do it then. The idea of sexual boundaries is something that I never learned about in, in like sex educate, well, the limited sex education that I received at school. And I think in, in terms of our like the way we talk at the moment in terms of we have become quite, and for many reasons, we talk so much about consent. And we, you know, I think that is important. But we also need to I think also talk about sexual boundaries and ways that you can assert boundaries and make sure that you're honoring other people's boundaries. And, and also the very like the various different ways of saying like, Okay, this is a hard limit, which, you know, would mean I don't ever want to try that. But this is a soft limit. So, you know, it's a no for now, but it's something I'm interested in maybe exploring another time. And I think, you know, wouldn't that be so valuable to teach young people that they can have that kind of, they can have those kinds of conversations. And I mean, as you said earlier, like, the idea of this of talking in during sex, right, of saying, Do you mind if we do this? Or how do you feel about doing this? I don't know where this, I think I do think it's a myth that it's killer. And this has come up, this came up in the book. And they've been like studies kind of social experiments where university students were doing consent workshops. And the whole conversation became the whole workshop got derailed by these young men becoming really concerned that like these conversations, these, you know, basically consent negotiations would be mood killers. And they almost felt more concerned about the mood killing than they did about about the, I don't know, the possibility of violating someone or not, you know, not negotiating consent in a correct way. And I just, I don't understand where this has come from this kind of obsession with mood killing and how that, you know, almost like the cost of like maybe having a momentary bit of embarrassment if someone rebuffs you in the bedroom when they don't want to do 69 or something, you know, like that momentary embarrassment that momentary feeling of perhaps like sexual rejection is is almost like a bigger social penalty than honoring someone's boundaries. And I think we have to move away from that idea that that being like having a momentary awkwardness or someone's telling you, I don't really feel like doing that today, or maybe ever, like that isn't the worst thing that's going to happen to you, right? It's also like, I think you, you talk about this in the book later on where you talk about that sex scene between Connell and Marianne in normal people and how rare it was to see during a sex scene, someone go, this is okay, we can stop if you want. And that was incredibly fucking hot. This idea that a guy was going, we don't have to do this, like this is based entirely on your comfort, your pleasure and your desires. And I was like, Oh, my God, that's really hot. So if there's someone watching this going, well, I don't want to kill the mood by asking too many questions, doing too many check-ins, just think it works for Connell and normal people. But I wanted to sort of move on to I think lots of people, and this is obviously a really contentious thing within feminist politics, it's very tempting to go while porn is to blame here. And in porn, you don't see somebody go, hey, can I do this? Or how would you feel if? It is often a bit like watching a wildlife documentary where there is predator and prey and the predator, usually a man, but sometimes a woman kind of attacking a like passive erect penis that's sort of decontextualized and floating around. But very often a man's job is sort of pounce on a woman in a particular way. And then suddenly, like legs are splayed, juices are flowing, everything's going. And personally, I find it really hard to talk about pornography and its role in shaping sexual culture because I feel caught between two very rigid ways of thinking and almost that I'll be disciplined by one of them. One is a radical feminist or traditionally radical feminist view, which is like all pornography is a form of rape. You're a terrible person for wanting to enjoy sexual imagery in any way. And then there is the kind of, you know, what I call like fundamentalist sex positivity, where if you articulate anything other than I have 50 orgasms a day, I'm having one right now. I love sex. I love porn. All this stuff is great and empowering. If you differ from that, then you're sex negative or you're policing. And the room for a conversation about what is porn doing to our expectations of sex and how we have sex and, you know, not just about porn in isolation, but how porn operates within a context where we're not having other kinds of conversations about sex and not having other kinds of education about sex. What is that doing to us? So I was wondering if you could offer off the back of my big rant about porn. What's the deal? I completely share this. Well, I just I share your view completely because I felt that tension, the tension that exists, I think it was certainly within British culture of, of there being a binary yet again, and that you cannot sit anywhere in the middle of it because that you must therefore have the wrong opinion. And I think I do think that there's some problems in terms of, and I mentioned this in the book because, you know, there is, yeah, the Brad Femme kind of idea that porn is causing sexual violence and porn is having this like, you know, terrible effect and it's, you know, fueling misogyny and all of that. And then, but that has not, that as a theory has not been proven by academic research. And, but you do see lots of studies that appear that try to prove this, but they all have methodological issues. And they very often will prove an association, not a causal link. And sometimes through, you know, irresponsible media media reporting that association is framed as direct cause when in fact it's, it's different. And yeah, I think that basically it's really hard in this country to have a conversation where we can critique or have some kind of critical conversation and analyze the tropes and the misinformation that exists within mainstream porn. I think that it's possible to say, I, I don't want porn to like, I don't want to access to porn to be limited in any way. I don't want to feed into that, that culture, that the kind of anti-porn brigade of wanting to just, you know, change our like, legislate our desires basically and, you know, just remove everyone's access for, you know, to pornography. And I think that in our desire to not feed into that conversation, we then, and I have seen a lot of people kind of almost, they're just so reluctant to be in any way critical of, of porn or to even delve into some of the more problematic aspects of it. Because they're so worried that they'll be perceived as wanting to ban porn, basically. And I just think it's a real shame that we aren't able to speak a bit more freely, basically, without fear. Well, in the spirit of speaking freely, maybe I could invite you to talk a bit about what you see porn doing in terms of sexual culture. The floor is yours to articulate the nuance that you can't do anywhere else. Well, yeah, I think, I think basically there are, like that, I think within mainstream porn, there are issues with tropes. And there are issues with misinformation and things being presented as, you know, like, choking, for instance, that being presented as something that everybody wants to do. And I'm not trying to like, you know, create this like idea of normativity within sexuality. But, you know, I think that there are certain sex acts that within mainstream porn are now presented as very common and done, you know, all the time in people's bedrooms, when in fact, that's not the reality. And again, with, I think in terms of BDSM acts, there's, I think there is an issue with misinformation being disseminated on mainstream, you know, the kind of tube porn sites, because there's no there's no consent negotiation, there's an, you know, consent boundaries are, you know, huge part of that community and the way they practice. And you don't that doesn't come through. And I get why it doesn't come through. And that's because porn is obviously entertainment, it's not education, right? And it is just serving up fantasies. So, of course, like, it's not going to be responsible because it's not thinking of itself as a training resource, or it's not thinking like, what are the kids going to think, you know, they're not thinking at it like thinking about it like that. So I think that there are I do think that there are issues in that respect, I think that we are that there is misinformation, and that there are problematic tropes, I think, you know, from like a racial perspective, I think that there are kind of, you know, just as you say, you know, like, just misogynistic presentations of that sexual dynamic. They're also really problematic racist tropes that are rooted in, you know, colonization and things like that, that I think we should be able to dissect and just call out and think, maybe when people watch that, like, it's hard to say perhaps because we don't honestly have enough academic research that we can trust on this topic. You know, it's hard to know if people who watch it already have those views, like already have some kind of bias, and perhaps watching it feeds into that, you know, if people, you know, if, if like a white boy, a boarding school who's never maybe ever met a black girl before, if that's his first sexual, you know, interaction with, you know, if by watching porn, he sees this kind of racist trope on his screen unfolding, and he just thinks, Oh, right, like that's, that's how you, you know, if you want to have sex with black women in the future, that's how you treat them. And they're fine with that, you know, and I think that that's a problem in itself as well. So if that makes, is that making sense? Yeah, it does. It does. I suppose what I'm saying is, do you think that maybe there is a certain desire to go, Well, there's, you know, a correlation, but not causation, that's not been proved. Do you think that maybe that just simply reflects a certain amount of squeamishness of going, we don't want to violate the liberal principle of saying, well, do what you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anywhere. But actually, we would apply a lot more criticism to any other part of our culture, where the main way in which women of color were being presented was as like animalistic malevolent sluts. Do you know what I mean? Like we would do that if that was on ITV. So the minute when it's on Pornhub, why do we suddenly back off from following that train of thought in terms of, well, what is this doing to people's expectations? Simply because it's in sex now. And then we kind of can't judge. Do you think that essentially being held hostage by our own unwillingness to judge? I completely agree. I actually, I feel that tension within me, you know, and I felt it when I was writing the book, because we, yeah, it's, you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't, like I don't, I absolutely would not want any of my arguments in the book to be misconstrued as that, as that wanting to, you know, limit our society's access to Pornhub. But at the same time, like, should we be talking more about the really problematic and dehumanizing tropes that do exist? Absolutely. And I don't, there's just no critical framework for that. Like there's no way that we, like, I don't think that there's a way in, certainly in the UK where people feel at ease, I think they feel very hamstrung by this, the radfem kind of ideology that has kind of become quite dominant. And I think it has been, you know, fuelled by, again, like irresponsible media coverage and things like that. So, yeah, I do think people, there's a fear. I mean, I feel it. And I don't know what to do about that, basically. I mean, I feel the same way. I mean, one of the things I wanted to maybe talk about is the way in which Pornhub has changed the practice of how people have sex, and not because it has awakened a desire within them, but that's because people go, oh, that's what I'm meant to do. And there are two examples that you give in relation to that. One is, you know, slapping and spanking. And I remember, you know, like, facial slapping, not really being a big thing in Pornhub and suddenly it was everywhere. And I'd be like, watching something like just about to have, you know, kind of like lazy, half-hearted wank, which is my favorite kind. And then suddenly I was like, oh, wow, he's just here in the face. I didn't, I didn't, I don't want that. That's killed the, I'm going to go read some Quran and think about what I've done because I don't want to see that. Like, you know, and then choking, being the other example. And what was incredible was reading the book. There were so many instances where, you know, choking became part of a couple's regular sex life. After a certain point, the woman turns around and goes, actually, I don't like this. Or the man goes, I don't know why you're into this. And both of them realize neither of us enjoy this thing we're doing. Yeah. That, that's so shocking as well, I think that really, I think it was Layla from La, La, La, Let Me Explain who told me that. And basically, you have, yeah, this, and I do think it comes from just having such shit sex education and like, from just literally not being equipped with the skills to be like, let's sit down and chat about what we like in bed. Like, have you ever been, have you ever felt, I've never felt confident to be like, this is what I like. What do you like? And I, I mean, maybe I'm just quite British for that, you know? No, no, no, I also have that conversation with a degree of honesty. Like, I certainly feel, and this is also about thinking about porn in a critical way about the impact it has on our culture is that there is not a firewall between mainstream culture and the culture of pornography. You hear it in music, you see it in fashion. And that's not a bad thing either, right? There has always been this kind of porous membrane between forms of sex work and explicit sexual content and mainstream culture. That's, that's a part of pop culture. But certainly it then became this thing where like, to say, I actually don't want to do some of this stuff. It made me feel like I wasn't a freak, you know, and I wasn't sexually interesting or intriguing. It's like, no, I actually, I just don't want to be spat. Thanks. Or like, I don't want to be slapped or like, you know, I actually, I'm sorry, Cardi, I don't want to gag and I don't want to choke. I don't want you to touch that dangly thing that's swinging at the back of my throat. I like that song, but I don't, I don't want to do it. And so I guess maybe, you know, maybe talking about the difficulty in identifying what it is you authentically want when there are pressures outside of the immediate pressure of your partner to present a certain sexual self. Yeah, that's fascinating because, you know, I do think, I think some of us, I know in myself, right? I'm insecure sexually and think like, I probably am. I like, sometimes I'm like, maybe I'm really bad at blowjobs. Like, you know, like, when you're a teenager or a young person, like, and some of the people I spoke to in the book, like, you watch porn because you want to figure out how to do certain things. And like, honestly, like, I've never given someone a blowjob, like the way I've seen it on porn. But I thought, if I'm not doing it like that, then maybe I'm doing a terrible, terrible job. But like, I do think, yeah, like it's watching porn, especially when you're in that like, really formative period of your life, it sets you up with these expectations basically of like, this is what people do. And, and if you're not doing it, then you're really boring. And you're maybe if you're not doing it in a certain way, you're just not sexually adventurous, or you're not good at it. And I, I feel that, like, I still feel the effect of that. And I think because, you know, I went to a state school where, you know, no one got any sex education other than we got shown like a couple of pictures of, you know, genitals with STIs. And then they just put a condom on a banana. And that was it. They're like, good luck to you. I mean, that was, that was so completely the same as my experience. We had someone come in with a blue model penis. You were told to put a condom on it. And I will never forget one girl packed up went Miss, Miss, I can put one of those on with my mouth. And we were like, good for you. But that was, that was it. It was no sense of pleasure or what might feel good or how do you open up a conversation or where you might learn what certain things are. And also it was this like, really, you know, she looked like she could have worked in a peacocks, you know, like that's the woman who came in to explain it. And so there wasn't necessarily a lot of like a sense of affinity or cool or want to be like you or want to trust you with a discussion of pleasure. So I guess my question for you is how do you then introduce a holistic approach and conversation to sex and sexuality, where you're not just teaching people these are the bad things that could happen. You're also trying to open up the conversation of and these are the good things that can happen. Yeah. I mean, just pleasure being talked about from a, certainly from a, you know, woman's perspective as well. Like that's something that feels radical to me, you know, I'm just like, because I think so many of us grew up being told like, you know, I think actually one of the things that was said was, oh yeah, girls, when you know, first time you have sex, it's going to hurt. And of course, that doesn't really account for anyone who's LGBTQ in the room who might not be having penetrative sex the first time they have sex, but it just obviously, you know, creates this idea that, you know, there's only one, one legitimate form of sex. And second of all, it's creating this idea that pain is the default experience for heterosexual women. And, and I think that that's, it's, it's dangerous. You set this, the bar, I mean, the bar is in hell. And I think that, you know, our expectations are low, because we're like, well, it's going to hurt, and it's probably not going to be great. And no one thinks any differently. And I think basically, just having pleasure, and I think masturbation should be talked about as well. Like I think that if you know how to pleasure yourself first and foremost, and you explore, like what you like, what you don't like, I think that you figure yourself out, sexually, on your own without having someone else kind of, you know, test those boundaries. And you think, Oh, actually, no, that's like really not right for me, actually. But you know, obviously that I think sex is a little bit like that to an extent, you know, it's a bit, bit trial and error really, sometimes the only way to figure out what your boundary is, is when someone else crosses it, right? And that in itself is, I guess a problem. I was taught in a way that there was something so uniquely dirty about female pleasure. So I went to an all girls state school. So you can imagine I had a really healthy socialization when it came to sex. And the rules, the rules that, you know, we were all telling each other, because you know, 13, 14 year old girls, we don't have a realistic view of how this stuff works. But we're teaching each other these rules, because it's a way of making ourselves seem more worldly. And the rules were, you could do anything with a boy. But if you touched yourself, that was disgusting that you could do anything to a boy. But the dirtiest thing that could happen was that he goes down on you. And there was this like viral video very famously around one New Year's Eve of a guy in a stairwell, where his friends came around and filmed him with like a woman like sitting on his face. And it was seen as like the most humiliating thing he could have been caught doing. And so it went in really deep that like, there is something so fundamentally dirty and disgusting about the female body and female pleasure and how we experience it. And what sex is, is like a series of checkpoints with a man, which ends with in some way him coming. And that's what sex is. And you still carry that like satchel full of crap with you, like through university after you graduate. And then, you know, suddenly a cultural moment is happening where we can have better conversations. And you're like, Oh, oh, wait, that's really fucked up. That's super fucked up. Yeah. I think what you were saying about this, you know, growing up feeling like that shame around masturbation and the, the very idea of pleasuring yourself. I mean, I didn't, no one said the word masturbation at school, like other than some of the boys. And I was just like, what does this mean? Like, I understand most words, like, I'm a good reader. Like, why haven't I heard this? This isn't in my Jacqueline Wilson books. Like, so I asked a friend, I was like, my friend Charlotte, I was like, I feel really embarrassed asking this. But do you know what this word means? And she was like, yeah, yeah, so it means touching yourself. And I personally have never done it. And I've probably done it but like by accident. And so immediately, my very first understanding of the definition of this word is instilled with this idea of like, but we don't do it because I'm a nice girl. So yeah. And I just think if you don't have those conversations, like people's first, you know, like people's first conversations about, you know, it's going to be with someone that maybe isn't the best person, they're not the best person to talk about masturbation. They don't know how to de-stigmatize it. They don't know how to like tell you that it's, you know, not something to be ashamed of. So I feel like I've just gone off on a tangent there. What was your name? No, I'm with you. Listen, Wanking Defense League, me and you. Exactly. No, but you're so right about this, the checklist of like, you know, there's certain boxes to just tick off in order to just get the sex, right? You know, and I just think that those narratives, like we have this hierarchy in our minds. And I think that it comes, I think it does probably come from having sex education, like probably like this, you know, not talking about other forms of sex other than penis and vagina sex. And that creates this idea that you've got the hierarchy and that you, you know, you do, you know, like hand jobs, fingering, then blowjob, he goes down on you. And then, and then eventually penis and vagina sex, that's the narrative. And if you don't, you know, tick off all those boxes, then you haven't, you know, done it in a fulfilling way. And if you don't do penis and vagina sex, then it's not, it's not valid sex. And I think that that is so problematic for, for, you know, when we talk about sex, that is, you know, it completely erases the LGBTQ community, the LGBTQ community's experience of sex. And I just think that this, yeah, like, why, why do we need to put penis and vagina, like sex at this pinnacle of like, this is the gold standard, this is what you're working towards? Honestly, is that what's going to make us come? Like not always? I also think the pressure that that puts on cisgender heterosexual men is enormous. So the stigma around, you know, erectile dysfunction, or, you know, the fear of not being able to perform, particularly if it's like a first date or a hookup, and you don't have that basis of like, mutual understanding and latitude and kind of shared vulnerability there. Like, I guess maybe this is my last question, which is, do you think that sex as it is, is enjoyable for men, considering how they're socialized into it? I mean, I obviously don't want to speak on behalf of men. I'm sure they probably don't want me to be their spokesperson. But I would say that just as we like, just as women suffer under the patriarchy because of all of these gender roles, men also, there's, you know, the like, virility myth. There's the idea in within the context of unwanted sex, which we were talking about earlier, you know, there's a gender role that, you know, men should consent to all sex, like all men are, you know, this idea that men are horny all the time and want sex all the time. And therefore, you know, if they don't say yes to a sexual offer, then then maybe they're masculinity or a virgin. Yeah, they're kind of a crack. Like, if they're not up for it all the time the same way you are, and it's got to be the most like pneumatic version of it, then their masculinity is questionable. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I obviously looked a lot at kind of just gender roles and how they influence, you know, the reasons why we enter sexual situations that we don't want. And I think that there should be, we should be able to talk about the fact that, you know, men also enter into these, you know, sexual situations that they don't want to have. And they feel pressured by ideas surrounding masculinity and what it means to be a real man. And I think people should start to interrogate that as well, because that's a pressure that exists. And, you know, it doesn't necessarily happen in all male sexual experiences. But, you know, I'm sure that that, like, I'm sure that that leads to the kind of self-violation and them feeling kind of weird or, I don't know, even traumatized afterwards. And I think maybe, honestly, like, there needs to be some kind of discussion of that. And I think often we, you know, obviously my book talks mostly about women and people of marginalized genders. But, you know, I think we have to acknowledge that men also share these experiences too, you know, some of them at least. Well, I think maybe the thing that I took from the book the most is that a lot of this starts with self-knowledge and not sound like a massive hippie, but tuning into yourself, your desires and your boundaries a lot better. And if you need help doing that, by this book, by my friend Rachel Thompson, it's really good. And there's so much in here that, like I said, are really strongly identified with. And there's so much which then remind me of things other people have said to me. And I think that that's the mark of a great book where the humanity is just oozing from it, like a weird secretion. Is that, do you want to put that in the back of the book? Please, I would love that, can we blur that? Yeah, 100%. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's been a real pleasure. And thank you for tuning in. If you want to see more of this kind of content you know what to do, subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you want to fund more of this kind of content, go to navara.media forward slash support and chip in as much as you can afford. This has been downstream. Good night.