Speaker 1: It's almost like in many, many periods of time, it
Speaker 1: was a sin to have pleasure. Yeah, and it's really
Speaker 1: nice to see that. Well, hopefully we're coming out of
Speaker 1: that and we're coming out to us where it's actually
Speaker 1: okay to enjoy things and to talk about them and
Speaker 1: to experiment.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to separate bathrooms.
Speaker 3: We would like to acknowledge the Gadgor people of the urination,
Speaker 3: the traditional custodians of this land, and pay our respects
Speaker 3: to the elders, both past and present. I'm Ali Dado
Speaker 3: and I am flying solo today. But look, I did
Speaker 3: think that we should have some fun today, and by fun,
Speaker 3: I mean some kinky sexual fun.
Speaker 2: How about that? Who would have thought? Also? Who would have.
Speaker 3: Thought that mathematics and the history of human sex could
Speaker 3: be so entertaining?
Speaker 2: Okay, follow me here. This is how it works.
Speaker 3: Mother and daughter academic duo doctor Susan James and Esme
Speaker 3: James have combined their respective knowledge of mathematics and human
Speaker 3: sexual history and they're on a bit of a mission
Speaker 3: to explore intimate life with an Australian and probably the
Speaker 3: world's society, helping to erase the taboo which still exists
Speaker 3: around a really important subject. So Esme is a sex historian.
Speaker 3: She's incredible. She's a content creator, she's an author. She's
Speaker 3: working on a PhD at the University of Melbourne. She
Speaker 3: you might actually know her from her series Kinky History.
Speaker 3: She's got something like two point four million followers on
Speaker 3: TikTok and heaps more on Instagram, and she's also done
Speaker 3: a Ted talk on kinky History. Now, if you look
Speaker 3: that one up, you'll be quite amazed at the opening
Speaker 3: of that one.
Speaker 2: Be ready for it now.
Speaker 3: Her mom is doctor Susan James. She is a statistician
Speaker 3: and together they created the popular sextistics series on TikTok.
Speaker 3: They actually won a Double Acta Award for that one.
Speaker 3: She also co wrote the book with Esme, Kinky History,
Speaker 3: which was released in October last year, and they're actually
Speaker 3: currently working on a second sextistics series. I cannot wait
Speaker 3: to talk to these two, So let's welcome them into
Speaker 3: the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Es May and Susie.
Speaker 3: As May James and doctor Susan James, who I shall
Speaker 3: now be calling Susie because we've been chatting before this
Speaker 3: and now we're best of friends.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the bathroom. The two of you.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having it. It's been a
Speaker 4: wonderful bathroom.
Speaker 5: We have to be here.
Speaker 2: I am on my own.
Speaker 3: As I had mentioned earlier on, I actually would have
Speaker 3: loved Cam to have been here for this, but his
Speaker 3: he's given me strict instructions to give all the information
Speaker 3: about anything to do with kinky sex afterwards. So we're
Speaker 3: just going to die write in because it's such a
Speaker 3: great I'm just so excited to talk to a mother
Speaker 3: and daughter and like, how many mother and daughters have actually,
Speaker 3: you know, in the kinky sex business together in a way.
Speaker 4: I can't say many, that's not from an academic point
Speaker 4: of view.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right.
Speaker 3: What inspired you to write a book together about this
Speaker 3: kinky sexual history.
Speaker 4: It's been a bit of a journey we've both gone on.
Speaker 4: When I started on social media and I was looking
Speaker 4: at the history of gender identity and sexuality from a
Speaker 4: historical point of view. There was a point during lockdown
Speaker 4: when my social media really blew up, and you know
Speaker 4: that they created a community that Mum and I were
Speaker 4: just discussing some of the videos and you basically turned
Speaker 4: around and said to me you know, where are we
Speaker 4: in the conversation of liberation today?
Speaker 5: Where do you see us being?
Speaker 4: And I didn't really kind of you know, I was
Speaker 4: coming at it from a historical point of view, and
Speaker 4: you basically turned around and said to me, well, to
Speaker 4: actually bring a conversation of today, we need to look
Speaker 4: at things like statistics and mathematics, which is where you
Speaker 4: come from.
Speaker 1: Well, as we kept on all of our stories, she
Speaker 1: kept telling us that we're on part of a cycle,
Speaker 1: that this used to happen all of these years ago.
Speaker 1: It's what everything we're doing, it's actually not new. It's
Speaker 1: all been done before. We think it's new, but it's not.
Speaker 1: And so I kind of just said to her, well,
Speaker 1: if we want to actually put it into context, then
Speaker 1: we actually have to look at what's happening now, so
Speaker 1: we can kind of work out, you know, where are
Speaker 1: we on that cycle and where we could have been
Speaker 1: in another.
Speaker 4: Five ten years. And you know, we cracked open a
Speaker 4: bottle of wine that night.
Speaker 5: As always.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like, I know, some people think that
Speaker 1: data's like really really nerdy and boring, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's actually there to tell stories. There to tell what's
Speaker 1: happening now. On where we can possibly be in the future.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we started working together, but our two heads
Speaker 4: together to put the past and present into conversation.
Speaker 1: But we basically talk about everything all the time anyhow,
Speaker 1: So it was just more fun working absolutely, I know.
Speaker 3: It's it's not something that you would think. You know,
Speaker 3: a statistician, you know, and kinky sex liked. We how
Speaker 3: did we get those two blended? But you've done it beautifully?
Speaker 3: Can you can you give us a brief overview of
Speaker 3: what's actually in the book. The book is called Kinky History,
Speaker 3: A rollicking Journey through our sexual past, present, and future.
Speaker 3: It came out October last year. Of course you can
Speaker 3: still grab it grab it anywhere. But what's that? What's
Speaker 3: in the book? What's the juicy bits in the book
Speaker 3: that we can read about.
Speaker 4: We go through everything the stories of intimate lives past
Speaker 4: and present, So we discuss some of the kinky private
Speaker 4: lives of your favorite historical figures like Albert Einstein, James Joyce,
Speaker 4: Catherine the Great and then as well as that, what
Speaker 4: we've decided to do is put those conversations about, you know,
Speaker 4: the sourcy secrets from ancient times until now. In conversation
Speaker 4: with what are we doing today? So yeah, mums created
Speaker 4: some fantastic and statistics that you know, have never been
Speaker 4: done before, and looked at contemporary research, looking at things
Speaker 4: like how many people are rimming nowadays, how many marriages,
Speaker 4: you know, what happens in terms of divorces, sex after marriage.
Speaker 5: You can speak more to this than.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean a lot a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 1: What we did was we went back and we had
Speaker 1: a look at some of the huge national surveys that
Speaker 1: collect data on all sorts of relationships. But we decided
Speaker 1: that rather than look at just old research articles that
Speaker 1: are a bit stayed, we actually put out and did
Speaker 1: our own survey so over so social media. We duplicated
Speaker 1: lots of the questions that people have answered, you know,
Speaker 1: about their sexual experience and their identity and the gender,
Speaker 1: and we asked them all again and we actually got
Speaker 1: like fifteen thousand responses from people and a lot of
Speaker 1: that data. Then we were able to, in the context
Speaker 1: of the book say well, you know, this is how
Speaker 1: many people were doing it then, and this is how
Speaker 1: many people are doing now.
Speaker 4: This is what oral looked like in ancient Rome, and
Speaker 4: this is what oral looks like in Melbourne twenty twenty three, right.
Speaker 3: Because the Romans were pretty kinky, right, that is where
Speaker 3: it was anything and anything and anything and everyone. How
Speaker 3: I'm so curious, like, how did you is there encyclopedias
Speaker 3: of kinky sex is online? How did you actually find
Speaker 3: the history of those historical figures and what they were into.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting, And what I love most about my
Speaker 4: work is that these stories have almost always been in
Speaker 4: the history books and these conversations about sex, gender identity.
Speaker 4: I've always been there, but they're almost in the margin.
Speaker 4: They're in passing references, they're in lost letters and diary
Speaker 4: entries and.
Speaker 5: Journals of these favorite historical figures.
Speaker 4: And you know, I'm very privileged to come from a
Speaker 4: great tradition of like other historians who have touched on this.
Speaker 4: And when you put all of these stories together, you know,
Speaker 4: essentially with what we've done with kinky history, then you
Speaker 4: kind of see this kind of new history book where
Speaker 4: people from the past finally with kind of reclaiming their stories.
Speaker 4: And it's just put in all those like little lost
Speaker 4: pages that were kind of left on the cutting room
Speaker 4: floor of edits of textbooks past together and it's really interesting.
Speaker 4: We have stories from the ancient worlds that are still
Speaker 4: kind of being uncovered in places like the sites of Pompeii,
Speaker 4: where we find drawings and engravings on walls that are
Speaker 4: telling these erotic stories about how sex lives used to look.
Speaker 5: And we're still finding all of these facts out.
Speaker 4: And as Mum said, you know, one of the most
Speaker 4: record occurring factors is that nothing is new under this sun.
Speaker 4: We've been spanking, we've been interested in foot fetishes, so
Speaker 4: you know, we've experimented with dillos from twenty eight thousand
Speaker 4: years ago.
Speaker 5: Like, nothing is new under this sun.
Speaker 1: And there's been people who have been researching sex for many,
Speaker 1: many years, mostly though they've been doing it from the
Speaker 1: health perspective. But I mean you've got that, you know,
Speaker 1: people like Masts and Johnson who did heaps of research
Speaker 1: into the orgasm and how do women have orgasms? And
Speaker 1: they had their very famous glass dildo which they had
Speaker 1: a camera inside and they had people and they were
Speaker 1: filming them having orgasms.
Speaker 4: And this is in the nineteen as nineteen sixties, eighties.
Speaker 1: And then they were doing this to try and improve
Speaker 1: people's sex life, to you know, to make relationships healthier
Speaker 1: and so that all of this is out there. So
Speaker 1: we decided to put those kind of stories together. So
Speaker 1: we had all your historical figures, but with along with
Speaker 1: somebody sex researchers from the past or the statisticians mostly
Speaker 1: who quite bonkers themselves, you know. And you know, Marsins
Speaker 1: and Johnson were actually quite famous for the fact that
Speaker 1: they were researching sex, but they're also having sex as well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: When they couldn't get any more participants to come on
Speaker 4: their project while they were studying the orgasm, they just
Speaker 4: filmed themselves having them sex and they kind of said
Speaker 4: to their partners like, it's for research. Sorry, we must
Speaker 4: have sex with one another because sorry, anyone else to
Speaker 4: come in.
Speaker 3: Sorry, honey, I'm going to be late today. I've got
Speaker 3: some sex to do for work.
Speaker 5: What did you guys do today, old doggie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, wow, mind you that's a bit like
Speaker 1: sort of the conversations we've had and you said, what
Speaker 1: have you been doing today? And I said, I've been
Speaker 1: doing master basher honey. Actually mean I've been.
Speaker 5: Researching on it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I think, okay, right, we have to be
Speaker 1: careful how we talk to each other, especially when we're
Speaker 1: in a cafe and people can hear us.
Speaker 2: That's right, who's listening in?
Speaker 3: I remember it was it was not that long ago
Speaker 3: that because I don't know you would know this much more.
Speaker 3: I'm sure both of you, especially you Suzie, like how
Speaker 3: little we do know about about sex and the female
Speaker 3: But I remember just it wasn't that long ago that
Speaker 3: they really fully understood that the female sex organs and
Speaker 3: the size of the clitterists and what actually happens and
Speaker 3: how big it actually is.
Speaker 2: And yes, I.
Speaker 3: Mean even that was a surprise to me, and I'm
Speaker 3: a female. I was like, whoa, we got something really
Speaker 3: good going on in there.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: I think the story of the clitterists is a fantastic one,
Speaker 4: and one of my favorite facts about it was that
Speaker 4: a man in the fourteen hundreds called Colombo decided to
Speaker 4: discover the clitteris so sorry, yes, it's always a guy
Speaker 4: called columb and he decided to call it the seat
Speaker 4: of Venus, and he thought he just discovered this part
Speaker 4: of the female body, and it was the first time,
Speaker 4: one of the first times that we've kind of named
Speaker 4: the clitoris. But what's important to remember, for the majority
Speaker 4: of history until about two hundred years ago, we thought
Speaker 4: that in order to conceive a child, both the man
Speaker 4: and woman had to have an orgasm. So the clitteris
Speaker 4: and stimulation of a woman was actually very very important.
Speaker 4: You had to bring it to the brink of orgasm. Now,
Speaker 4: two hundred years ago, when we start, you know, we
Speaker 4: become much more medicalized. We start understanding the human body
Speaker 4: in a way we haven't before. We discovered that women
Speaker 4: don't need to orgasm in order for a child to
Speaker 4: be conceived, and so what happens we just throw all
Speaker 4: of these techniques that we've been teaching out the window.
Speaker 4: We completely do not talk about women's stimulation because if
Speaker 4: women don't need to be stimulated, and all this is
Speaker 4: doing is given them pleasure, then that's incredibly sinful and
Speaker 4: it's probably driving them wild. And so we stopped talking
Speaker 4: about the clitorists and sexual pleasure until researchers like Masters
Speaker 4: and Johnson come around, you know, in the nineteen hundreds
Speaker 4: and kind of again. They study the female orgasm, and
Speaker 4: one of their biggest findings was that women are more
Speaker 4: likely to orgasm when their clitoris is stimulated than when
Speaker 4: they have a phallic shape inside of them, which changes,
Speaker 4: are thinking again about female pleasure, and in that period
Speaker 4: of time, we were ready to open up that conversation again.
Speaker 4: So the clitterist is back on the table, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Gosh, that's fascinating.
Speaker 3: And during that time, just because I wrote a book
Speaker 3: on menopause, during that Victorian era, which of course is
Speaker 3: probably around that two hundred years ago or so, that's
Speaker 3: when they were removing the clitterists because they thought that
Speaker 3: was a cure for menopause, and that it was menopause
Speaker 3: hysteria induced. People were being you know, locked away while
Speaker 3: women I should say not people, but that this was
Speaker 3: somehow the cure for so many things, that this was
Speaker 3: this dangerous item on a woman's body.
Speaker 4: And I think all of these conversations you can see
Speaker 4: time and time again. And one of the messages of
Speaker 4: the book is that conversations about sex don't or they've
Speaker 4: never had to do with just us and our relationship
Speaker 4: to their body. There's so many external factors in play.
Speaker 4: There are social, political, religious factors always in play that
Speaker 4: determine how we relate to our body. And the conversation
Speaker 4: about the clitorists is such a clear example of that,
Speaker 4: because you come to this period of time where it's
Speaker 4: about controlling women and their sense of ownership over their body.
Speaker 4: You know, you even have to look at the way
Speaker 4: that in that period of time we start discussing terms
Speaker 4: of to do with the female parts. You know, the
Speaker 4: C word used to be a very common word we'd
Speaker 4: use for the volva, and around that time, that same
Speaker 4: time as you're saying that they're cutting off the clitterists,
Speaker 4: where you start describing it as an ugly name for
Speaker 4: an ugly thing, and we create the sense of disgust
Speaker 4: for the female body, and again it's about controlling women
Speaker 4: and their sense of ownership and agency.
Speaker 3: What was the most surprising thing that you discovered with
Speaker 3: the research?
Speaker 1: I think possibly a lot of it was to do
Speaker 1: with people's sexual identity, because one of the questions that
Speaker 1: we asked people what, you know, how do you identify?
Speaker 1: And we allowed them to have a category where they
Speaker 1: were able to fill in how they're identified. And what
Speaker 1: really surprised me was how many different ways people perceived
Speaker 1: themselves and a lot of you know, identities about a
Speaker 1: relationship status as opposed to sexual status. And it was actually,
Speaker 1: you know, to me that opened my eyes to how
Speaker 1: people these days feel that they don't want to be
Speaker 1: labeled into little boxes and they want to have the
Speaker 1: right to be able to describe themselves.
Speaker 6: In so many different ways.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the things I found with
Speaker 1: the work that we did with our and our research.
Speaker 1: Also just the different ways that women have been perceived
Speaker 1: over the years with sex being functional and the difference
Speaker 1: between it being functional and pleasurable. It's almost like, you know,
Speaker 1: in many, many periods of time, it was a sin
Speaker 1: to have pleasure. Yeah, and it's really nice to see
Speaker 1: that we're hopefully we're coming out of that and we're
Speaker 1: coming out to us where it's actually okay to enjoy
Speaker 1: things and to talk about them and to experiment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, did your what did your findings? I'm just
Speaker 3: asking because I know, a I'm at the age of
Speaker 3: being fifty four and a lot of my friends there
Speaker 3: are a similar age, and I think we've got a
Speaker 3: few listeners in that category too. What did you find
Speaker 3: statistic wise and in your research about women as they age,
Speaker 3: maybe post menopause. I know that a lot of my
Speaker 3: friends are like, I could not give a rat's ass
Speaker 3: about sexy anymore. Is that something common that you saw
Speaker 3: in your research back through history.
Speaker 2: Is this a new thing? Like? Where are we at today?
Speaker 2: Is that changing?
Speaker 1: I think you'll find though, these days, there are a
Speaker 1: lot more women who are now purchasing things like a
Speaker 1: sex toys, and because it's people are bigginning to realize
Speaker 1: it's actually okay to play that sex. As I say,
Speaker 1: it's not functional anymore. It is there to be enjoyable
Speaker 1: and to be playful. And you'd find that there's an
Speaker 1: awful lot of women who have only just started to
Speaker 1: purchase things like five Greiters and all sorts of sex
Speaker 1: toys and then beginning to ask, hey, this is actually
Speaker 1: really good fun and it can be it can enhance
Speaker 1: a sexual relationship. And I mean, I mean that generation
Speaker 1: myself and I'm having a ball. I'm not much happier
Speaker 1: these Maybe that's because I've been able to have conversations
Speaker 1: with my daughter. We talk about all of these things.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I think I bought you your first sex
Speaker 4: story about Oh yeah, she did.
Speaker 5: Seven years ago.
Speaker 6: She told me that she bought me a Harley.
Speaker 1: I was a bit surprised because I didn't know what
Speaker 1: a Harley was, but she.
Speaker 5: Was getting a motorbike and.
Speaker 1: I did, but I got to say it may not
Speaker 1: be a motorbike, but it was it's a pretty good ride.
Speaker 4: But you know, I mean that's the quote.
Speaker 6: I mean when used to.
Speaker 1: Work in a store and they you had many many
Speaker 1: women who coming in in that age group who would
Speaker 1: suddenly think, actually, I wouldn't mind, you know.
Speaker 6: What can I buy? And then they come back and
Speaker 6: that was good?
Speaker 1: So what else can be by Yeah, because it's not
Speaker 1: and it's not just solo plate, it's a couple's plate.
Speaker 1: Can actually be something that you can then bring into
Speaker 1: a relationship and say, okay, all right, Yeah, maybe things
Speaker 1: have become a bit stagnant and we've got jobs and
Speaker 1: we've got kids, but hang on a minute, this actually
Speaker 1: feels quite good.
Speaker 6: We can try this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think what's really interesting when we've looked at the
Speaker 4: conversation of menopause, and it's something that we're exploring in
Speaker 4: more detail in our kind of next season and.
Speaker 5: Survey of sexistics that we're working on.
Speaker 4: But one of the most interesting things is that you've
Speaker 4: kind of got two factors here. You've got one of
Speaker 4: the largest and quickest growing demographics for sex toys is women.
Speaker 5: Fifty plus.
Speaker 4: That they are some of the biggest and fastest growing
Speaker 4: consumers of sex toys. And then you have this other
Speaker 4: you know fact, which is women over fifty are also
Speaker 4: some of the people who, out of everyone, the demographic
Speaker 4: that will say that they've never experienced an orgasm, you know,
Speaker 4: And when you have a very different conversation for these
Speaker 4: generations that they you know, potentially they've been married once twice,
Speaker 4: you know, and sex has always been seen as this
Speaker 4: thing that you know, might be between man and woman,
Speaker 4: and their pleasure isn't really being brought into conversation. When
Speaker 4: they say they're not interested in sex anymore, that might
Speaker 4: not necessarily mean sexual pleasure, that might just mean sex
Speaker 4: with the partner because they've you know, if a huge
Speaker 4: amount of them are claiming, like nearly half, if not more,
Speaker 4: that they've never been able or never had an orgasm,
Speaker 4: or never thought they've had an orgasm. And then you've
Speaker 4: got this other demographic that is quickly buying sex toys
Speaker 4: and exploring for the first time orgasm. You know, as
Speaker 4: Mum says, I love that word play because it is
Speaker 4: this sense of play and exploring your body in a
Speaker 4: new way, and potentially one that doesn't mean that you're
Speaker 4: dependent on someone else, you know, being able to pleasure
Speaker 4: yourself and that sense of autonomy.
Speaker 1: We're about to do a new kind of fresh survey
Speaker 1: which is not based on all the old style questions
Speaker 1: that used to come up in the sort of national
Speaker 1: health surveys.
Speaker 6: So we decided that we would actually put.
Speaker 1: Out and actually ask people what kinds of questions they
Speaker 1: would like in a survey. And this is what I'm
Speaker 1: going for at the moment, so I can put their
Speaker 1: questions into a survey.
Speaker 6: But the questions that we were getting.
Speaker 1: A lot of the running themes were I've been with
Speaker 1: my partner for this long? How can I revive us
Speaker 1: sex life? Or I don't really want to have sex anymore?
Speaker 1: What can I do about it? And it was like
Speaker 1: they weren't really the kind of questions we wanted to
Speaker 1: put in the survey, but they were asking us and
Speaker 1: so many, so many of them were about that kind
Speaker 1: of long term relationship status, how can how can we
Speaker 1: bring this back? And also there are many, many, many
Speaker 1: women who said, I don't know if I've ever had
Speaker 1: an orgasm? How can I know if I have? Not
Speaker 1: sure how we're going to build that into a survey,
Speaker 1: But it was actually really quite you know when we
Speaker 1: when we read through the questions that you could see
Speaker 1: that there are these there's people out there and they really.
Speaker 6: Don't know if they've ever had an orgasm.
Speaker 1: And and then there are people out there who know
Speaker 1: that things are and they would say, I love my partner,
Speaker 1: with my partner for many many years, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do to revive our sex life. So
Speaker 1: there are people out there who want information and a
Speaker 1: lot of it comes down to having conversations with your
Speaker 1: partner as well. And that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: you find if you've got a healthy conversation, you can
Speaker 1: have that you know and sort of say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: I love you very much, for what can we do,
Speaker 1: you know, spice things up?
Speaker 2: And yes, you're so right.
Speaker 3: And it's really about being able to give yourself permission
Speaker 3: because I feel like that's been so stripped from women
Speaker 3: for so long. Is like that we get to have
Speaker 3: pleasure for pleasure's sake, as you were saying, and particularly
Speaker 3: as we get older, it's like, ah, it's just another
Speaker 3: job or to do thing or something, you know, and
Speaker 3: it's like to flip it, as you were saying, Susie
Speaker 3: into this idea of play. I remember a sex therapist
Speaker 3: that came on many years ago. She was saying, sex
Speaker 3: is a schmorgasport, like it can be all sorts of
Speaker 3: things like it does. Don't think missionary, think think toys
Speaker 3: like what you two are saying, Think toys, think lube, think.
Speaker 2: You know, positions?
Speaker 3: Is it just holding hands and saying what your fantasies
Speaker 3: are or whatever it is. And it was just really
Speaker 3: beautiful to keep opening that as you say, that conversation,
Speaker 3: the ideas, the thoughts, because I know I'm.
Speaker 2: Very guilty of that.
Speaker 3: I didn't grow up necessarily in a sex positive household.
Speaker 3: No one ever talked to me about sex or what
Speaker 3: was available. I just thought it was something that it's
Speaker 3: what helps you and your partner stay together, and that
Speaker 3: was that was kind of it. So it's been a
Speaker 3: long journey for me to sort of understand that, you know,
Speaker 3: we can all have pleasure, or there's only two of
Speaker 3: us in the bedroom right now. But yeah, I just
Speaker 3: love I just love the message that you're giving. It's
Speaker 3: really important and I think especially for us women at
Speaker 3: a certain age that need to know that, you know,
Speaker 3: our sex life is not over.
Speaker 4: No I think you know that there's some fantastic resources now,
Speaker 4: but you know, one of the hardest things is opening
Speaker 4: up that conversation and how do you do it. And
Speaker 4: when we were recently in Dublin, we were working with
Speaker 4: a fantastic sex educator called Jenny Keane and she's put
Speaker 4: together this kind of list of yes and no and
Speaker 4: goes through various things and she says, you know, sit
Speaker 4: down with your partner, look at this list, have a
Speaker 4: bottle of wine and just chat about it. And it
Speaker 4: will be stuff like have you ever fantasized about.
Speaker 5: Being dominated?
Speaker 4: Have you ever fantasized about being told off? You know,
Speaker 4: and like all these kind of things that you know,
Speaker 4: unless you're sitting there with a list, people potentially have
Speaker 4: never talked about these aspects of fantasy in imagination, and
Speaker 4: imagination in itself can play such a huge role in
Speaker 4: sexual life. You know, as you say, we need to
Speaker 4: take away this idea that sex is just missionary. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it cannot involve any kind of penetration, you know. Sometimes
Speaker 4: it can be as simple as feeling like bodily stimulation
Speaker 4: from feathers or silk on the body. You know, there's
Speaker 4: different ways that we can be erotic and play and
Speaker 4: be sensual with our partner or partners. And I really
Speaker 4: like the idea of this list of just you know,
Speaker 4: potentially opening up a conversation because our partner could be
Speaker 4: like one of them would be like, no, I've never
Speaker 4: wanted to be spanked, and the other one was like,
Speaker 4: do you know what, I've actually.
Speaker 5: Maybe wanted to try that a little bit. Maybe maybe
Speaker 5: I do want to try spanking, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the list was helpful because it gave people something
Speaker 1: to almost make it like a game, yes, to read
Speaker 1: through the listener, go okay, what about this as opposed
Speaker 1: to trying to open up conversation with you know, is
Speaker 1: there anything you.
Speaker 6: Would like to do that we haven't done?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a really not an easy way to do it.
Speaker 3: You know, so yeah, or even asking what their fantasy
Speaker 3: is as well might be hard for some people. But
Speaker 3: if you've got you've got like a stack of questions,
Speaker 3: then you can get to it a little easier.
Speaker 4: Well, there was this really fantastic moment that we had
Speaker 4: so in Dublin, we when we were celebrating the international
Speaker 4: launch of the book in June, we did an event
Speaker 4: and it was a king event run by this educator,
Speaker 4: Jenny Keane, and as part of it, she you know,
Speaker 4: I had a conversation about the history of sex. We
Speaker 4: had a dominate trix come out and do a kind
Speaker 4: of workshop on spanking. And one of the most incredible
Speaker 4: moments that we've spoken about after this event, like the takeaway,
Speaker 4: was when the dominatrix was kind of teaching.
Speaker 5: People how to spank, because there's a skill to it.
Speaker 4: She was doing a bit of a workshop and then
Speaker 4: she asked anyone in the audience, like, you know, does
Speaker 4: anyone want to come up and you can choose to
Speaker 4: be spanked or I can teach you how to spank.
Speaker 4: And this woman who was in her seventies put up
Speaker 4: her hand and then she came up on stage and
Speaker 4: she's like, can you please teach me how to spank?
Speaker 5: And so she learnt and she was wonderful natural.
Speaker 4: And then at the end of the evening, this is
Speaker 4: a really hard It sounds kinky, but it was a
Speaker 4: really really wholesome evening of people of all ages.
Speaker 5: Coming together just to learn.
Speaker 4: At the end of the evening, there was a time
Speaker 4: for questions and questions and statements from to all of
Speaker 4: the educators and this woman put up her hand and
Speaker 4: she said, I just wanted to say thank you because
Speaker 4: I've been with my husband now for forty years, and
Speaker 4: I came tonight because I wanted to try and understand
Speaker 4: this fantasy that he had, and I've never been able
Speaker 4: to understand it or the psychology behind it. And I've
Speaker 4: in all of our years of marriage, you know, we've
Speaker 4: never experimented with it. Tonight, but after hearing the psychology
Speaker 4: behind this fantasy, why you know what it could do
Speaker 4: for him? You know, You've given me the confidence tonight
Speaker 4: to try this. And she was just so genuine and lovely.
Speaker 1: I mean, she said that she'd always thought that her
Speaker 1: husband was a bit of a freak because he said
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't mind doing this, and she said and
Speaker 1: then the whole idea was that what made the event
Speaker 1: so good because it made it all normal. They talked about,
Speaker 1: as you say, the psychology behind it and how it
Speaker 1: can actually make people some you know, feel good, and
Speaker 1: there were it was incredible. They got the whole audience
Speaker 1: stood up at one stage and you had to turn
Speaker 1: to the person next to you and you had to
Speaker 1: practice how this technique of bankking, and most people were
Speaker 1: doing it with totally random strangers. Now it was hilarious
Speaker 1: and it was just.
Speaker 6: It was it was normal, it was fun.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of everyone having a bit
Speaker 1: of a practice because they were all giving little paddles, brushes,
Speaker 1: some wooden spoons you know, on their chairs to use,
Speaker 1: and they all sat down and we went on to
Speaker 1: the next session and it was just like, Okay.
Speaker 4: It was hysterically. I've never seen it. It was a
Speaker 4: room of two hundred people laughing hysterically and just and
Speaker 4: you know, some people were there with their partners, some
Speaker 4: people were there with their friends, and everyone was just
Speaker 4: having a great time.
Speaker 5: Some people are on their own.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was really nice.
Speaker 3: Imagine bumping into like the person that you spanked, like,
Speaker 3: you know, two weeks to spank you in that kinky workshop, Like.
Speaker 4: Two is really familiar to me, so you look really
Speaker 4: familiar if you just bend over again, Yeah, it was easier.
Speaker 2: It was definitely.
Speaker 3: Have you found in your research that won certain countries
Speaker 3: are further ahead in their openness about their sexuality and
Speaker 3: what they're into, Like we always, for some reason, I
Speaker 3: always think of Amsterdam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's probably completely wrong.
Speaker 3: But like our Australia progressive in their sex kinks or
Speaker 3: is where have you discovered that's sort of really open
Speaker 3: or rather really closed.
Speaker 1: Certainly in terms of buying sex toys Australia, Okay, And
Speaker 1: I think that was that became even more so during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. We were locked down for so long, we
Speaker 1: locked each other down.
Speaker 4: Well there's until though, will I get this week there's
Speaker 4: a really interesting stat that we talk about, which is
Speaker 4: as every state in Australia went into lockdown, their sex
Speaker 4: toy sales tripled.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this happened in Brisbane, it happened in Melbourne, it
Speaker 4: happened in Sydney. Sex toy sales tripled within the course
Speaker 4: of months in each one of these states. We literally
Speaker 4: were like, well, if we're gonna stay here, we're gonna.
Speaker 5: Do it down.
Speaker 6: We need something to do, yeah.
Speaker 4: Which I also think speaks to the fact that there
Speaker 4: is a there's clearly enough openness of conversation in Australia
Speaker 4: that that is the immediate thought of a lot of people.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't just sex toys, it was bondage items
Speaker 4: as well. That okay saw a huge skyrocket.
Speaker 6: Yeah, a different form of lockdown, a different.
Speaker 5: Form of lockdown.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What do you hope readers will take away from reading
Speaker 3: your book?
Speaker 2: Which I hope everyone gets your book.
Speaker 3: By the way, because I love the sound of it.
Speaker 6: Just that it's normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sex is normal, Relationships can be you want them
Speaker 1: to be, and how you define your relationship, because we
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of other things as well, about
Speaker 1: the ability with partners to be open what you want
Speaker 1: from a relationship and what they want, and that nothing
Speaker 1: has nothing's new, nothing. Yeah, whatever you can think of
Speaker 1: you might possibly want, it's probably already been done.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think you know, the ongoing theme of
Speaker 4: the book is about openness of conversation, which the book
Speaker 4: is actually staged around this kind of fictional dinner party.
Speaker 4: And you know, while we're talking about facts from the
Speaker 4: past and the present, one of the ways that we
Speaker 4: made it really fun was that we have this kind
Speaker 4: of ongoing metaphor throughout the book of all of these
Speaker 4: famous figures being around a dinner table and we're all
Speaker 4: having a party and we're all chatting. Because this is
Speaker 4: meant to be an open conversation and it's meant to
Speaker 4: be a welcoming conversation, and also it should be silly.
Speaker 4: There is a sense of joy and play when it
Speaker 4: comes to these conversations that really changes our relationship to them.
Speaker 4: We don't have to look at sex in a medicalized way.
Speaker 4: We don't have to you know, have the sense of
Speaker 4: like being.
Speaker 5: Very very serious. We can be silly.
Speaker 4: James Joyce was talking about his wife's farts. Mozart is
Speaker 4: writing canons about licking people's asses. You know, there's this
Speaker 4: sense of silliness of sex that we are still trying
Speaker 4: to reclaim. I think a little bit today, which was
Speaker 4: one of the reasons we staged it around this dinner
Speaker 4: party and we have all these people being silly. You know,
Speaker 4: we have Virginia Wolf on the table doing tangos while
Speaker 4: talking about her bisexual experiences. Like there's a sense of silliness.
Speaker 1: No, that's also because we spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: around the dinner table talking about all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: discussing the things that we were learning.
Speaker 5: I learned a lot writing, really did.
Speaker 6: But you know, we would read.
Speaker 1: Articles on things and you know, whatever it was, and
Speaker 1: we would about them. So we just wanted people to
Speaker 1: be involved in that dialogue. And most of the book
Speaker 1: is set where we're actually talking to the reader as
Speaker 1: well to try and get them to participate and think
Speaker 1: about the conversations.
Speaker 4: Well, that's it. We want people to agree, disagree, cry, laugh,
Speaker 4: you know, we really want this to be a very
Speaker 4: there's a sense of inclusion for the reader to be
Speaker 4: part of this book and one of our Since we
Speaker 4: started working together, one of the most common things that
Speaker 4: we have seen and been messaged is this sense of
Speaker 4: some people, you know, looking up to our relationship with
Speaker 4: one another, and we get messages saying, you know, I
Speaker 4: wish I had this with my own mum, or I
Speaker 4: wish I'll one day have this with my daughter, And
Speaker 4: so there was also a sense of, you know, wanting
Speaker 4: to invite people to our own dinner table and be
Speaker 4: part of this conversation as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's so true.
Speaker 3: One of my questions that I had written down was,
Speaker 3: you know, we've spoken to quite a few sex and
Speaker 3: family therapists on the podcast, and they have all encouraged,
Speaker 3: in fact, said how important it is to normalize conversations
Speaker 3: with your children about sex. Was that something that you
Speaker 3: just knew to do, Susie. Was that something that you'd
Speaker 3: been doing with Esme is actually have more kids than
Speaker 3: Esmai is it?
Speaker 1: Just yeah, so Esmy has a younger brother. And I
Speaker 1: think probably one of the reasons that our relationship has
Speaker 1: developed how it has, it's you and our beautiful little darling.
Speaker 1: He's he's disabled, I mean you inside beautiful Giant six
Speaker 1: book two. He can't speak or do anything for himself.
Speaker 1: He just brings us joy.
Speaker 6: But he was actually.
Speaker 1: Growing up looking after him was not not easy and
Speaker 1: and some of the things that go on in our
Speaker 1: household were really bonkers, really bonkers, yes, And we had
Speaker 1: to do things in order to look after you, and
Speaker 1: that many many don't they don't do and you know that,
Speaker 1: you know, people would sometimes feel like, oh really almost
Speaker 1: almost disgusted. Yea. But so we grew up in a
Speaker 1: together looking after him, and in a house where all
Speaker 1: sorts of things happened, could.
Speaker 2: Go wrong, you know.
Speaker 5: And I suppose because.
Speaker 1: We we talked about many, many different things with him,
Speaker 1: we just, I don't know, it became natural that we
Speaker 1: would talk to each other about absolutely everything, Esmi. You
Speaker 1: always has always told me everything, sometimes too much, but
Speaker 1: that's but so therefore, you know it, we just developed
Speaker 1: that way that we have a very we are obviously
Speaker 1: extremely close.
Speaker 4: I think there's a you know, there's a two kind
Speaker 4: of factors to that. There's the factor of our mother
Speaker 4: and daughter relationship was always there was also a care
Speaker 4: element to that as well, which changes the sense of
Speaker 4: responsibility and authority when you're both looking after someone. And
Speaker 4: then there's another factor of when you have the position
Speaker 4: of being a keerr and you're looking after someone whose
Speaker 4: body is vulnerable, and there is a sense of kind
Speaker 4: of collapsing of the body and what it means to
Speaker 4: relate to the body, and you know all of that,
Speaker 4: I guess I say the clothing, but like the dressing
Speaker 4: up that we do of humans and what's private and
Speaker 4: what's not private, it all kind of we didn't have that.
Speaker 4: We didn't have those marks. You're looking after a vulnerable
Speaker 4: human and another human's body, So those conversations about bodily
Speaker 4: function has always been We've been able to kind of
Speaker 4: open up and you know that it's such a privilege
Speaker 4: to be a carer and have that relationship to someone else.
Speaker 4: That sense of trust and conversation about that then flows
Speaker 4: really naturally because of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wow, what an incredible I mean that life experience
Speaker 3: for both of you, from learning from your son and
Speaker 3: how you've handled and where this has led you.
Speaker 2: That's what a journey to be where you are today.
Speaker 4: We're very He's an absolute light in our lives.
Speaker 6: I think it's made us appreciate so much more.
Speaker 1: You know, she really has and and you know, we
Speaker 1: always were happy, you know, and one of the things
Speaker 1: we really focused on is making sure that you always
Speaker 1: look on the positive side of absolutely everything, and you
Speaker 1: do whatever you can to turn some situations into fun.
Speaker 4: I was actually having a conversation last night about because
Speaker 4: so my brother he needs help with going to the bathroom, eating,
Speaker 4: you know, all basic needs, and we'll always have someone
Speaker 4: watching him at all times. I was telling a story
Speaker 4: last night. Someone said, did you used to have a
Speaker 4: pool when you were little? And I was like, actually,
Speaker 4: we had a pool in our family house, and I
Speaker 4: just remembered the memory of one day trying to bring
Speaker 4: my brother into the pool, and I was like by myself,
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, I can be big
Speaker 4: and brave. I'm a big sister. I will go swimming together.
Speaker 4: And you went's hand instantly got caught like in the
Speaker 4: filter of the pool and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: Oh my god, what am I going to do?
Speaker 2: What am I going to do?
Speaker 4: His hand's going to be chopped off. And then Mom
Speaker 4: comes home from work and she's like, what the hell
Speaker 4: are you doing? Why's you went's arm in there?
Speaker 5: I was like, Mom, jump in the pool.
Speaker 3: You've got to.
Speaker 5: Grab you one's arms.
Speaker 4: So you jumped in the pool with all your clothes
Speaker 4: on to grab you one's arm, and you're like, run
Speaker 4: to the neighbor's house and get a chainsaw.
Speaker 5: And so I ran to the neighbor's house in my
Speaker 5: babors and these neighbors who we'd never spoken to.
Speaker 2: I was like, can I have a chain saw?
Speaker 7: My brother's in the pool. And then I got in
Speaker 7: and then you were like shopping you in out of
Speaker 7: the pool with this chainsaw while we were both in
Speaker 7: our like clothes at this stage.
Speaker 4: And then you know, my brother's fine and he's laughing,
Speaker 4: and we just looked at each other, soak him wait
Speaker 4: in the pool. You're still in your clothes from work.
Speaker 4: I've been running around with a chainsaw, and we're just like,
Speaker 4: this is hysterical.
Speaker 5: This is hysterical.
Speaker 4: And it was moments like that that take these kind
Speaker 4: of bizarre situations and it just becomes something that was funny.
Speaker 5: And it bonds us. Sure, that's really special.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got childhood stories and then you've got some
Speaker 3: that's a childhood story.
Speaker 5: It's a unique experience, it sure is, it sure is.
Speaker 4: Hey, look you.
Speaker 3: Talked about you know, I love that the way you've
Speaker 3: written the book around set around a dinner party in
Speaker 3: that way, it's so so clever. If you could have
Speaker 3: dinner with any of the historical figures related to your book,
Speaker 3: who would it be and why?
Speaker 4: Oh hmm, that's I mean, it really depends on which
Speaker 4: ones were really quite fun in the book. I think
Speaker 4: you would choose some of the sex researchers when Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would definitely choose Masters because he's a real character.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Einstein, Einstein.
Speaker 4: Einsteiners who I was thinking as well.
Speaker 6: He's such a serious person. But he had all sorts
Speaker 6: of views on relationships.
Speaker 4: Yes, Einstein wrote that he believed monogamy to be the
Speaker 4: bitter fruit of all marriage, and he believed that humans
Speaker 4: were naturally polyamorous, and he you know, had he cheated
Speaker 4: on both of his wives many many times. Because while
Speaker 4: he believed in free love, he only believed in it
Speaker 4: for him and not for the wife. But interesting, you know,
Speaker 4: I think he's a fantastic so fantastic. I think he's
Speaker 4: a really interesting historical figure because genius, you know, is
Speaker 4: now synonymous with Einstein. And at the same time, you
Speaker 4: have a man who has a like, you know, what
Speaker 4: seems like quite liberal rules, rules and views on love
Speaker 4: and what it means to be in a relationship. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, those views of free love are
Speaker 4: very much shaped by the culture that he belonged to,
Speaker 4: which was a patriarchal culture that women would stay home
Speaker 4: and bring him. You know, he writes a letter of
Speaker 4: demand to his wife and then it basically says, you know,
Speaker 4: when I come home from my affairs, dinner will be
Speaker 4: ready on.
Speaker 6: The table for me, you know.
Speaker 4: And so I think he's a I would love to
Speaker 4: talk to him and kind of firstly put him in
Speaker 4: his place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dialogue would be like, how do you think
Speaker 1: that could possibly be right?
Speaker 4: But you know, we spoke about him at length because
Speaker 4: we found him such a fascinating and sure, you know,
Speaker 4: that's a triple factor there. You've got his influence for
Speaker 4: his work, You've got his liberal.
Speaker 5: Views on love.
Speaker 4: But then you've got how he was shaped by external
Speaker 4: factors like cultural pressures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: Is there is Is there a woman that you researched
Speaker 3: that you admire for her sexuality, her flavor, her experience.
Speaker 3: I know they always talk about free to Carlo, but yeah,
Speaker 3: is there someone that just speaks to you that's like
Speaker 3: she was owning it all?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I was looking at me.
Speaker 5: She knows exactly what I'm going to say. Okay, I
Speaker 5: want to talk about Gertrude Stein.
Speaker 4: Gertrude Stein is this incredible figure at the turn of
Speaker 4: the nineteen hundreds. She is considered like the mother of modernism.
Speaker 4: She's an incredible writer. She is the reason that we
Speaker 4: have existing works of the likes of Picasso and Matisse,
Speaker 4: because when Paris was invaded, she took all of their
Speaker 4: artwork and saved it because she was their friends. She
Speaker 4: cultivated all of these men's careers. But in the course
Speaker 4: of all of this, Gertrude Stein lived with her wife Alice.
Speaker 4: You know, you couldn't be married at the time, but
Speaker 4: she was very proudly living a lesbian relationship on the
Speaker 4: banks of Paris with her wife Alice. And she also
Speaker 4: wasn't quiet about queer sex and lesbian enjoyments. She would
Speaker 4: write poetry all about kinna lingis and would hide all
Speaker 4: of these descriptions of the female body and female pleasure
Speaker 4: in high art that men who didn't understand it would
Speaker 4: like sit around the dinner table reading it all loud
Speaker 4: and not realizing they were actually reading out poems of
Speaker 4: gays X. And she's just this incredible figure who really
Speaker 4: kind of demonstrates that if you're confident enough and you
Speaker 4: can kind of get away with everything, like this woman
Speaker 4: is just living openly at a time where you are
Speaker 4: not allowed to live with another woman was saying very
Speaker 4: proudly that is her wife writing poems and books about
Speaker 4: her affairs with other women, about kind of lingers. And
Speaker 4: you know, she's also a Jewish woman who lives on
Speaker 4: the banks of Paris that is going to be invaded
Speaker 4: by the Nazis and stays there and protects people on
Speaker 4: all sides of this war just because she feels like
Speaker 4: it's the right thing to do. She's an incredible figure.
Speaker 4: She's an incredible figure, and she is definitely your sex
Speaker 4: positive icon that everyone should go and look up.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm googling immediately after this podcast.
Speaker 2: The name's familiar, but I didn't know that about her.
Speaker 3: Oh, Esme and Susie, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: I feel like we could talk for a lot longer,
Speaker 3: but for right now, everyone can go get their book
Speaker 3: Kinky History, A rollicking Journey.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 3: I love that word, rollicking journey through our sexual past,
Speaker 3: present and future. Thanks so much for your time in
Speaker 3: the bathroom.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having as girlie.
Speaker 4: Bathrooms are always the best good right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's just blown my mind.
Speaker 3: I have to say that chat with es May and
Speaker 3: Susie Wow. As I said, I know we could have
Speaker 3: gone on and on. We'd love to get them back
Speaker 3: in actually, because I think they have a lot more
Speaker 3: to share about kinky history. And hopefully that's got you
Speaker 3: thinking about your own sexual history and why don't you
Speaker 3: just go and have a bit more play. I think
Speaker 3: that's the message. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 4: Bye,