Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3: Who cares who you sleep with?
Speaker 1: Yuck?
Speaker 3: You're old?
Speaker 2: No one wants to think about you having sex? Gross,
Speaker 2: Keep it to yourself. Hasn't that part of your life
Speaker 2: kind of ended? Don't embarrass your children? Do you even
Speaker 2: want that anymore? Shush, don't make a thing of it,
Speaker 2: put it away. Who cares who you sleep with? You
Speaker 2: do and what you care about still matters? Hiding a
Speaker 2: part of yourself that's essential to who you are. Isn't
Speaker 2: the freedom you've waited so long for. Sex and sexuality
Speaker 2: is not only for the young and the lineless. Joy
Speaker 2: and pleasure and connection has no time limit. Truth has
Speaker 2: no deadline. You've had your time. Shush up about desire
Speaker 2: and love and longing. Now it's not your turn. So selfish.
Speaker 2: This idea has trapped plenty of women in places they
Speaker 2: didn't belong, when actually the opposite is true. Now you
Speaker 2: have a lot more experience and a lot less time,
Speaker 2: So why would you waste it? Not being who you are,
Speaker 2: not asking for what you need, not getting the pleasure
Speaker 2: until now? Only played out in the privacy of fantasy,
Speaker 2: not feeling the feelings.
Speaker 3: You weren't raised with a name for that.
Speaker 2: You were taught to fear and shove aside, push away
Speaker 2: into a voiceless corner. Who cares who you sleep with
Speaker 2: now you're mid whether you do or you don't, how
Speaker 2: much or how little, how often, how rarely, whether you
Speaker 2: even like it or not?
Speaker 3: Who cares?
Speaker 2: If you're stuck wondering what else there is, Whether there's
Speaker 2: a truer expression of you somewhere, whether there's a craving
Speaker 2: for a deep companionship or a cheap thrill you can
Speaker 2: no longer ignore, And who cares? What the world knows
Speaker 2: about who you really are? The answer to all of that.
Speaker 3: Is, as you do.
Speaker 2: Hello, I am Holly Wainwright, and I am mid midlife,
Speaker 2: mid family, mid learning, and this is mid your podcast
Speaker 2: for gen X women who are anything. But what if
Speaker 2: it took you until mid to say out loud something
Speaker 2: that you've been trying to find the words for your
Speaker 2: whole life, Something like, yes, I know I'm a mother
Speaker 2: married to a man, but I'm also bisexual. That's the
Speaker 2: story of today's guest, The novelist Julie Cohen. Julie was
Speaker 2: in her forties when she came out as bisexual. You
Speaker 2: can hear some of the reactions to that decision echoed
Speaker 2: in my intro today. Some people, she says, asked her
Speaker 2: why she bothered, as if age itself renders your sexuality irrelevant.
Speaker 2: Some people, she says, suggested that just as an adolescent
Speaker 2: sexuality can be dismissed as a phase, perhaps hers was simply.
Speaker 3: A mid life crisis.
Speaker 2: Her husband, Julie says, not surprised they're divorced after a while,
Speaker 2: although she's very clear that wasn't as a result of
Speaker 2: her sexuality, and slowly in lockdown, she started to date
Speaker 2: women dating after divorce, navigating the apps in the first
Speaker 2: post long term relationship. Sexual encounters are interesting and nerve
Speaker 2: wracking for anyone, and Julie says it was no different
Speaker 2: for her. You're going to hear how it all went,
Speaker 2: the pleasures of post penis sex, what she found. The
Speaker 2: differences are between dating men and women and just how
Speaker 2: it felt to be living the version of herself that
Speaker 2: Julie says when she was growing up she didn't have
Speaker 2: a word for. This is the last episode of Mid
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty four. My friends, there are plenty of
Speaker 2: other interesting little morsels of content are going to be
Speaker 2: popping up in your midfeed over the next six weeks,
Speaker 2: some expert conversations about Perry and menopause, some gen X
Speaker 2: storytelling podcasts and interviews that I think you're going to love.
Speaker 2: But as for Mid, we're going to be back with
Speaker 2: you in twenty twenty five with all kinds of new things.
Speaker 2: We wanted to leave you with a really honest conversation
Speaker 2: about how it feels to be finally living as you
Speaker 2: in the mid.
Speaker 3: Welcome Julie Cohen.
Speaker 2: Julie, I'd love to start by reading out the opening
Speaker 2: of an essay you wrote for Medium five years ago now,
Speaker 2: and the title of that was I came out as
Speaker 2: bisexual in midlife, and you wrote in my forties and
Speaker 2: having been married to the same man for twenty years,
Speaker 2: I came out to my family and friends as bisexual.
Speaker 2: I'd known for a while that I was attracted to
Speaker 2: more than one gender, but I never felt the need
Speaker 2: to talk about it publicly or to define my sexuality
Speaker 2: for other people. Looking back at my teens and twenties,
Speaker 2: the time when many people are discovering their sexuality. I
Speaker 2: really didn't know that bisexuality even existed. I grew up
Speaker 2: in a small town in Maine in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 2: I had gay male friends, but I didn't know any
Speaker 2: out lesbians. I only ever heard the word bisexual applied
Speaker 2: to David Bowie, who clearly lived by different rules than
Speaker 2: ordinary mortals. I knew I liked men, so I figured
Speaker 2: I must be straight. When I had intense feelings towards women,
Speaker 2: including emotional and physical attraction, I defined them as friendship.
Speaker 2: Gradually I came to realize that it was more than that.
Speaker 2: But by then I was in a relationship with a man.
Speaker 2: I was building a career, negotiating a marriage, being a parent.
Speaker 2: I hardly had time to breathe. Why bother to talk
Speaker 2: about my sexuality, Julie, Can you tell me how and
Speaker 2: when it became essential for you to talk about your sexuality.
Speaker 1: I think it was a professional decision as well as
Speaker 1: a personal one. As a novelist, I'm drawn to certain
Speaker 1: subjects and I can't help but want to write about them.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you're writing a novel, you're going
Speaker 1: to spend a year or so with a certain subject,
Speaker 1: and I started being more and more attracted to writing
Speaker 1: seam gender love stories, particularly love stories between women, and
Speaker 1: I thought, because I was exploring that so much in
Speaker 1: my fiction, it would be and I have to say
Speaker 1: this before I say anything, it is really important never
Speaker 1: to out anybody or for anybody to feel that they
Speaker 1: need to out themselves. Your sexuality is your own business,
Speaker 1: and when you come out of the closet is completely
Speaker 1: and utterly up to you. But for myself, I felt
Speaker 1: that it would be more authentic to my own voice
Speaker 1: and my own stories and my own life if I
Speaker 1: came out publicly to my readers.
Speaker 2: Was it a mystery to you in any way why
Speaker 2: you were really drawn to writing those relationships at that
Speaker 2: time when you were married to a man.
Speaker 1: No, not really, No, you knew. I knew. I really
Speaker 1: did know. I was writing a story at one point
Speaker 1: about this time, I was writing a story about It
Speaker 1: was called The Two Lives of Louis and Louise, and
Speaker 1: it was about one person called lou who it's a
Speaker 1: sliding doors story and in one reality born as a
Speaker 1: cisgender man, and in the other reality they're born as
Speaker 1: a cisgender woman. And that's the only difference between them,
Speaker 1: and it's the two stories. There are two stories, making
Speaker 1: one story of one person, and how because of their gender,
Speaker 1: everything about them changed, everything about the life around them
Speaker 1: changed the people around them too, because not because of
Speaker 1: who they were, but because of how they were treated
Speaker 1: because of their gender. And in order to make that
Speaker 1: story work and to give it the ending I really wanted,
Speaker 1: Lou had to be bisexual and be bisexual in both realities.
Speaker 1: And that felt like coming home. So much of that
Speaker 1: writing felt like coming home to me. And I think
Speaker 1: I was writing that about the same time that I
Speaker 1: wrote that essay, and I just wanted to be more
Speaker 1: authentic with my voice and with the people around me
Speaker 1: and just say, yeah, really, this is a lot of
Speaker 1: my feelings too.
Speaker 2: You talk a little bit about how there was among
Speaker 2: some people there was a bit of an idea, well,
Speaker 2: who cares, like you know, who cares who you're attracted to?
Speaker 2: Who cares who you're sleeping with? Why do you have
Speaker 2: to tell everybody? There's kind of an undercurrent in your writing,
Speaker 2: and you write, which I found really really profound.
Speaker 3: You wrote, I care.
Speaker 2: It isn't irrelevant to me, It's part of my emotions
Speaker 2: my thoughts, My choice is my work, the things I create.
Speaker 2: I'm a middle aged woman and I still matter. And
Speaker 2: I hope that being open about my sexuality might help
Speaker 2: other people like me who are struggling with being open
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 1: Absolutely to a certain extent, saying who cares who you're
Speaker 1: attracted to is homophobia, as we know, it's also agism,
Speaker 1: and I think the most insidious homophobia and agism is
Speaker 1: the internalized variety. So the kind you feel about yourself,
Speaker 1: tell me about that. It's what I was writing in
Speaker 1: that essay when I said, who cares what I think?
Speaker 1: I'm only a middle aged woman. I'm only a mom
Speaker 1: who cares if I fancy women as well as men.
Speaker 1: It's irrelevant to everybody around me. But the thing is
Speaker 1: that we live in a mostly straight world. We live
Speaker 1: in a world with compulsive heterosexuality, which is what I
Speaker 1: was talking about in that essay when I said I
Speaker 1: was attracted to men, so I must be straight. And
Speaker 1: unless you say otherwise, people assume that you are straight,
Speaker 1: and that assumption makes it raises a lot of yourself,
Speaker 1: and I think we are subject to that assumption because
Speaker 1: of our age too, and the fact if you're a mother.
Speaker 1: There are so many assumptions made about you as a
Speaker 1: human being that unless you stand up against them and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a mom and I love it. But I'm another
Speaker 1: person too. You know, I'm in my forties, I'm in
Speaker 1: my fifties, but I still matter. Unless you say those
Speaker 1: things out loud, you allow other people to write the
Speaker 1: narrative for you. I think the hardest barrier to overcome
Speaker 1: was my own feeling of that, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: relevant anymore. Who would care what I have to say?
Speaker 1: Why am I being selfish by saying something that could
Speaker 1: upset my family and my friends. It didn't upset my friends,
Speaker 1: but that could upset my family. Who am I to
Speaker 1: make that change? And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: I was at the center of my family. I was
Speaker 1: looking after my kid, I was looking after my then husband.
Speaker 1: It did actually matter a lot. But as women, I
Speaker 1: think we're taught to efface ourselves, yes.
Speaker 2: And also that our sexuality or our own priorities and needs,
Speaker 2: like it's frivolous and silly. You know, by now we've
Speaker 2: got all these serious things to deal with. And that's
Speaker 2: for young people, you know, like some kind of internalized
Speaker 2: idea that, as you say, it's selfish and greedy almost
Speaker 2: to be and now you want that too, you want
Speaker 2: to live an authentic life as well.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, there are stereotypes about bisexuals
Speaker 1: and bisexuality. That's one of the stereotypes that bisexuals are greedy,
Speaker 1: they want everything, they want everybody, and that they like
Speaker 1: to sleep around because you have to switch from one
Speaker 1: gender to another or whatever, which is not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: As all stereotypes, it's not true at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: at the time, I was married to a man and
Speaker 1: I had no interest in sleeping around or doing anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: You say that it's very important to you that it's
Speaker 2: clear that it wasn't because of your set. Your divorce
Speaker 2: was not because of your sexuality. Can you tell me
Speaker 2: a bit more about that and about the misconceptions that
Speaker 2: people maybe have around that situation.
Speaker 1: A marriage is a very very complicated thing, and a
Speaker 1: long term marriage is a very complicated thing. There's so
Speaker 1: many aspects to it. To reduce the breakup of a
Speaker 1: marriage to one thing is way over simplification. And in
Speaker 1: my case, I was happily bisexual married to a man.
Speaker 1: I'd never dated a woman, and so I did think
Speaker 1: about that, but that wasn't any different than my fancying
Speaker 1: someone on the street thinking about that. Everybody has fantasies
Speaker 1: and wonders and desires. That's part of being human. You
Speaker 1: don't have to act on them, and that's part of
Speaker 1: being married. And nothing changed about that at all. When
Speaker 1: I came out. It was exactly the same. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to feed into those stereotypes of bisexual people
Speaker 1: being rapacious or greedy or promiscuous, because that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: What happened was our marriage came to a natural end,
Speaker 1: and then I started dating women.
Speaker 2: In this essay, you also write about this that young
Speaker 2: people are often told their sexuality is a phase, and
Speaker 2: I when told that mine was a midlife crisis. So
Speaker 2: when because there's a difference between the conversation you're having
Speaker 2: with your husband and with your very close circle, but
Speaker 2: then there's a difference of them when you're out literally
Speaker 2: out in the world as a newly separated or divorced woman.
Speaker 2: Is that a reaction that people had and why do
Speaker 2: you think? What do you think that's about?
Speaker 1: It was a reaction that some people had, Yes, And
Speaker 1: I do talk about this a lot, because it was
Speaker 1: just an enormous eye opener for me. There was a
Speaker 1: publishing professional who said that I had come out as
Speaker 1: queer for the career boost.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, no, and I so likely to kind
Speaker 2: of keep yourself relevant or something.
Speaker 3: Is that what they were thinking?
Speaker 1: Right, all the young people are doing it, that must
Speaker 1: be why. Oh my gosh, So it's and I celebrate
Speaker 1: that day every year that person.
Speaker 3: What do you mean you celebrated every day?
Speaker 1: Celebrate it by posting a picture of myself, you know,
Speaker 1: snogging the person I happen to be dating at the
Speaker 1: time or whatever. Because I'm petty like that.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh god, I mean, obviously we can't expose
Speaker 2: that person too much. But did you did that person
Speaker 2: stay in your life professionally?
Speaker 1: No? No?
Speaker 3: You were like, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I mean. Also, it's so funny because I talk to
Speaker 1: my queer author friends and I say that, and they're
Speaker 1: gassed at two things. One is like, hold on that
Speaker 1: as homophobic as hell and ages as hell. But also,
Speaker 1: how does someone in the industry not know that being
Speaker 1: queer is not a career boost? Rely is not.
Speaker 2: It's a very ignorant thing. To say on in Many
Speaker 2: Day twice. As you've made very clear, the story isn't linear,
Speaker 2: and that your marriage ended because of your bisexuality, but
Speaker 2: once your relationship was over, and without wanting to step
Speaker 2: on any other people's stories here, mothers are always really
Speaker 2: worried whatever when they go through a relationship breakdown, no
Speaker 2: matter what, that they're ruining their children's lives, and that's
Speaker 2: often part of the thing that plays into the sort
Speaker 2: of shame of you know, we being greedy again, whatever
Speaker 2: the circumstances are, to want to be happier, want to
Speaker 2: be more authentic, want to be freer. Did you do
Speaker 2: a lot of research and rehearsing and all those things
Speaker 2: before you told your child about your situation and what
Speaker 2: was going on.
Speaker 1: I came out to my teenager before, well before the
Speaker 1: marriage broke up. I came out when that I published
Speaker 1: that essay, in fact, because I know that they have Google,
Speaker 1: and I know that their friends have Google. So I
Speaker 1: thought it was best to just talk with them straightforwardly
Speaker 1: about that. And that was absolutely fine, not a worry
Speaker 1: at all. My child is very accepting and has lots
Speaker 1: of queer friends and is in the community themselves, and
Speaker 1: it's not a problem. The divorce was something else, because
Speaker 1: I have a complicated divorce story in that we decided
Speaker 1: to split up in January twenty twenty, and then we
Speaker 1: decided to take it very slowly and let our child
Speaker 1: know when we had all the living arrangements in place.
Speaker 1: But then lockdown happened and we were ended up in
Speaker 1: a house together, living together for another year, so divorced
Speaker 1: at the time. We actually got divorced in October twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but we were still living in the same house at
Speaker 1: the time because there was the restrictions were such that
Speaker 1: we had to be and that was a very difficult
Speaker 1: year in a lot of ways. But I'm also grateful
Speaker 1: for that year because it meant because we're stuck in
Speaker 1: the same house together literally not able to leave, at
Speaker 1: some points, we developed much better communication skills and we
Speaker 1: developed a friendship and mutual respectful relationship. That meant that
Speaker 1: the breakup of our marriage was pretty smooth in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. It laid a good foundation for it,
Speaker 1: and our child knew that we were splitting up after
Speaker 1: a while. After the lockdown went on for a while,
Speaker 1: they sort of noticed that I had been sleeping on
Speaker 1: the sofa for a whole while. I didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of research about it. We just did what felt
Speaker 1: right at the time. It was a difficult time, so
Speaker 1: I say it had a silver lining, but it was
Speaker 1: very hard because I had all these big feelings that
Speaker 1: I could not let out at all because I was
Speaker 1: with the person I was divorcing, and I was with
Speaker 1: my child who I didn't want to see them because
Speaker 1: they were mine and I didn't want my child to
Speaker 1: have to carry that. There were foteen at the time
Speaker 1: fifteen fourteen fifteen, So yeah, it made things intentional. It
Speaker 1: made things difficult, but intentional. So I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 3: What did you do with your big feelings in lockdown?
Speaker 3: In that situation?
Speaker 1: I wrote a book that was unpublishable, right, and I
Speaker 1: walked the dog a lot. Yes, and my female friends
Speaker 1: were there for me one hundred percent. I owe them everything.
Speaker 3: Thank God for that.
Speaker 2: It's a very difficult circumstance in which to be divorcing though,
Speaker 2: and maybe sort of trying out your training wheels as
Speaker 2: a newly single person. Yeah, yes, when, when and how
Speaker 2: did dating happen in that situation?
Speaker 1: I had a couple of dates after we'd split up,
Speaker 1: but before he had moved out, they obviously had to
Speaker 1: be out of the house, so dog walks and things
Speaker 1: like that. And the apps are a wonderful thing because
Speaker 1: you can test out flirting with people and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a whole new It was a whole new world
Speaker 1: for me dating women as well. I mean dating anyway
Speaker 1: in your fifties is like what, Yeah, after you've been
Speaker 1: married for so long, it's a complete landmine.
Speaker 2: And was it scary or thrilling to learn? I mean,
Speaker 2: these are two new things you're learning, I guess, but
Speaker 2: after being married for a really long time flirting again,
Speaker 2: like and like what was it like?
Speaker 1: And then there's the whole thing about when you're flirting
Speaker 1: with another woman. Because I flirt with my friends constantly.
Speaker 1: I'm just to flirt, and so then I would I
Speaker 1: tend to flirt with people when I newly meet them.
Speaker 1: So then trying to parse that out about how much
Speaker 1: am I flirting because I'm attracted and how much am
Speaker 1: I flirting because that's just my normal way of relating
Speaker 1: to somebody. It's I read something somewhere that is when
Speaker 1: you come out, you go back to being a teenager.
Speaker 1: So you have to relearn the world in a way
Speaker 1: that you did when you were fifteen sixteen, but in
Speaker 1: it you know completely differently. So it's weird being, you know,
Speaker 1: in your fifties and being a teenager at the same.
Speaker 2: Salutely, once you knew the marriage was over and you
Speaker 2: were going to start dating again, you knew that this
Speaker 2: was you were going to date women. Was it Did
Speaker 2: it feel like I get to be me now? Was
Speaker 2: it exciting and thrilling or was it scary?
Speaker 1: Both both. I think we have a we have an
Speaker 1: illusion that people stay the same throughout their life, and
Speaker 1: I think that in contrary to that, I think that
Speaker 1: people have many different selves to them depending on the
Speaker 1: situations that they're in, depending on what they find important
Speaker 1: at the time. I think you can be slightly different
Speaker 1: with different people. So trying to work out who you
Speaker 1: are through dating is not really a good idea because
Speaker 1: then the dating affects yourself. I have been trying to
Speaker 1: be very mindful about being myself and who I am
Speaker 1: rather than responding to the needs of others in a
Speaker 1: romantic situation. I feel that I did that for many
Speaker 1: years in my marriage, and I was trying to work
Speaker 1: out who I was myself and who I was now,
Speaker 1: not who I was before I got married or who
Speaker 1: I was during my marriage, but who I am now.
Speaker 1: And so I've dated and then taken time off dating,
Speaker 1: and then going back to dating, and because I want
Speaker 1: to always walk into it with a strong sense of
Speaker 1: self and not feeling that dating women is going to
Speaker 1: fulfill a wonderful part of me that was never fulfilled before.
Speaker 1: That's not the way it works, not for me anyway.
Speaker 1: I need to be comfortable and happy within my own skin,
Speaker 1: and that is regardless of who I'm dating and what
Speaker 1: gender they are. So I did discover a lot about
Speaker 1: myself through making mistakes and through meeting people that I
Speaker 1: didn't really deal with. I learned a lot about women
Speaker 1: dating women and how different that is.
Speaker 2: What's what was some of those early lessons. What's what
Speaker 2: is different?
Speaker 1: It's different. The thing that leaps to mind, Holly, is
Speaker 1: when I had my ad a first uh overnight date
Speaker 1: with someone who just brought her sex toys. It's like, wow, lesbians,
Speaker 1: they're so evolved. Yeah, that was great. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: And that's not to say that has happened every time,
Speaker 1: but that was a real shock for me, but some
Speaker 1: of the other lessons I think because I haven't dated
Speaker 1: men in a very long time, I'm I contrast it
Speaker 1: with my friends who got divorced about the same time
Speaker 1: and who were dating men while I was dating women,
Speaker 1: and that experience seemed to be quite different for us.
Speaker 1: There seemed to be fewer women who were on there
Speaker 1: just to waste your time or just to have a
Speaker 1: hookup or just to see what was going on, and
Speaker 1: maybe more women who are that's it's a cliche to
Speaker 1: say that women want to jump right into a relationship,
Speaker 1: but I did feel fine that the women who I
Speaker 1: was dating, and maybe that was because as I was
Speaker 1: choosing them intentionally, were very clear about what they wanted
Speaker 1: in their life. Absolutely because which I found very refreshing.
Speaker 2: It's a common experience for women who are dating after
Speaker 2: divorce in the straight world.
Speaker 3: I guess to.
Speaker 2: Suddenly, and I don't know, maybe this is the same,
Speaker 2: but there's a world of opportunity suddenly opens up on
Speaker 2: the apps, and it can be very good for your
Speaker 2: self esteem in a way, and then it can also
Speaker 2: be devastating if you're rejected, even by people who you
Speaker 2: were perfectly prepared to reject yourself.
Speaker 1: It feels so raw because you know.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's so different about being in
Speaker 2: a long term relationship, even if it wasn't a very
Speaker 2: happy one necessarily, not that I'm suggesting yours wasn't, is
Speaker 2: there was a certainty to it, is.
Speaker 3: That a similar experience.
Speaker 2: Was it a bit of an emotional roller coaster in
Speaker 2: terms of am I going to feel desired?
Speaker 3: Am I going to fall for everybody? All of those
Speaker 3: kind of things.
Speaker 1: Well, you feel differently about your body in your fifties
Speaker 1: than you did in your twenties, that's for sure. I am.
Speaker 1: I love my body, and I'm really happy that it's
Speaker 1: still healthy and it's still you know, looking pretty good,
Speaker 1: and that I can still wear what I want to
Speaker 1: and I can do what I want to do. I'm
Speaker 1: very grateful for it. But it's really not the body
Speaker 1: I had in my twenties, you know, it's very different.
Speaker 2: Well, it would be strange, if it were to be honest,
Speaker 2: It would be strange.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got the cesarean scar and the stretch
Speaker 1: marks and the cellulate and all of these things, and
Speaker 1: I did worry about that. I think another sort of
Speaker 1: strange bit of internalized misogyny is that we want our
Speaker 1: bodies to look good for men, but we really want
Speaker 1: our bodies to look good for other women. I think
Speaker 1: as women, we are taught to be almost competitive or
Speaker 1: to outshine, to be you know, perfect in front of
Speaker 1: other women. And I really had to let that go,
Speaker 1: you know, and think these I'm not dating someone to
Speaker 1: impress them or to have the perfect body, and I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I expected that of myself, because
Speaker 1: I don't expect that of the people I'm dating. I
Speaker 1: love the signs of age on a woman's body. I
Speaker 1: think it's wonderful. So I don't know why I would
Speaker 1: have trouble accepting that about myself. But I it's a journey,
Speaker 1: Yes it is.
Speaker 3: And that's so true.
Speaker 2: That is that's absolutely things that you wouldn't even think
Speaker 2: about on somebody else's body for yourself.
Speaker 3: You're like, why am I so this? Why am I
Speaker 3: so that?
Speaker 2: Without wanting to get too personal about this, were those
Speaker 2: first experiences? Was it how you had imagined? You were
Speaker 2: saying that, you know, when you grew up in a
Speaker 2: small town in the seventies and eighties, even though you
Speaker 2: know that you were an are sexual there wasn't really
Speaker 2: a framework for that. I imagine you had a lot
Speaker 2: of years and you're writing and was it how you imagined?
Speaker 3: Did it live up to expectations? That's what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get at here. I'm so English.
Speaker 1: I like, you know, you know what completely exceeded my
Speaker 1: expectations And I'm going to go there right away is boobs.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, God, Holly, boobs are great.
Speaker 3: Oh tell me, I just suddenly.
Speaker 1: Understood why what was going through every man's mind? I mean,
Speaker 1: boobs are just awesome. They are just the best. So, yes,
Speaker 1: that the fact that boobs exceeded my expectations.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more from Julie Cohen,
Speaker 2: but first a little break. Please tell me if this
Speaker 2: question is inappropriate. But given that you wrote in the
Speaker 2: essay about growing up in a time and a place
Speaker 2: where there wasn't a framework for bisexuality beyond David Bowie,
Speaker 2: do you think if you were growing up somewhere different
Speaker 2: and now your life would have been very different? And
Speaker 2: do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Yes, I think if I had grown up in a
Speaker 1: city it would have been different. But it was the eighties.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it might have been different. I can't.
Speaker 1: I love my upbringing. I grew up in the most
Speaker 1: amazing place with the most amazing people, and I love it.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a small town in Maine. It
Speaker 1: is fantastic. I wish that I had grown up someplace
Speaker 1: broader minded, with more diversity and more queer role models.
Speaker 1: I did not have to suffer what my gay male
Speaker 1: friends had to suffer, which was pretty horrendous bullying. That
Speaker 1: was a privilege of being a straight passing woman. And
Speaker 1: I am not surprised that I didn't know anybody any
Speaker 1: lesbians of my own age, because their lives would have
Speaker 1: been hell. So the homophobic bullying was awful, and I
Speaker 1: believe it's got better there when I've been there in
Speaker 1: the past. More people seem to be joyously out. It's
Speaker 1: really nice to see things have changed. The twenty first
Speaker 1: century has caught up with Rumford mean.
Speaker 2: It's one of the things about being older, I often think,
Speaker 2: when is that you do literally have this body of
Speaker 2: hindsight and seeing your and sometimes you do think, I
Speaker 2: don't know what's trying to get at. When you look
Speaker 2: back and you think, well, that is what happened, it
Speaker 2: could have been like that. It could have been like this,
Speaker 2: and there are things you grieve and things that you're
Speaker 2: happy you went through.
Speaker 3: Do you grieve not.
Speaker 2: Having had twenties your twenties or whatever as an out
Speaker 2: bisexual woman, or do you think that you got the
Speaker 2: joys you needed.
Speaker 1: I think that would have been super fun, really would
Speaker 1: have been fun. So I don't grieve it, but I
Speaker 1: would have enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to ask you. So the essay that
Speaker 2: we started this with, it's five years old. A lot
Speaker 2: of things have changed in your life since then, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Tell me what your life looks like now compared to them.
Speaker 1: Well, then I was married to a man.
Speaker 3: And you are still living, still living.
Speaker 1: In the same house, and now we're divorced. He lives
Speaker 1: a couple miles from here and we're friends. I've had
Speaker 1: a relationship with a woman which has now ended, and
Speaker 1: now I am dating, and that's all in very early stages.
Speaker 1: But I'm really working on myself and who I am
Speaker 1: and what I want. Around the time I wrote that essay,
Speaker 1: I belonged to the Romantic Novelist Association in the UK,
Speaker 1: which is for people who write relationship fiction, and I
Speaker 1: started the Rainbow Chapter, which was for queer writers writing
Speaker 1: queer love stories. So I started that about that time,
Speaker 1: and so I got to meet a lot of queer writers,
Speaker 1: which was fabulous. Through that, for a few years, we
Speaker 1: marched in Pride in London as a group of romance writers,
Speaker 1: which was just fantastic. I've met some great people. I've
Speaker 1: taken part in queer literary festivals, which is always joyous
Speaker 1: and relaxing. It's one thing I didn't understand before I
Speaker 1: came out and before I really was able to join
Speaker 1: the community, is how wonderful it is to be with
Speaker 1: a group of people where you don't have to you
Speaker 1: don't have to explain yourself, and that is just wonderful.
Speaker 1: And I love the queer community that I have formed
Speaker 1: for myself and that I've found within writing circles.
Speaker 3: So wonderful group of friends. Family.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, writers who understand how difficult it can be
Speaker 1: as a queer writer in this profession, how much you
Speaker 1: have to fight sometimes to make your voice heard and
Speaker 1: to get your books in the hands of the correct people.
Speaker 2: So we should let the listeners know, because we talked
Speaker 2: about this off Mike earlier on is that you are
Speaker 2: a very professional novelist who writes romance fiction, as you've said,
Speaker 2: and what you describe as queer feminist thrillers.
Speaker 3: But are they queer feminist thrillersts.
Speaker 1: They're not queer. The relationships within those books so far,
Speaker 1: the main relationships have been heterosexual relationships, but they what
Speaker 1: they are is critiques of heterosexual relationships. Yes, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say very.
Speaker 2: Much the vibe I get from them. I have not
Speaker 2: read them yet, but having observed them on your social
Speaker 2: media and stuff, that's exactly the vibe I get. I
Speaker 2: guess one of the things I would say is my preconception,
Speaker 2: and please disavow me of this, is that the Romance
Speaker 2: Writers Association might be quite a conservative.
Speaker 3: Body, am I like? Is that right or not?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I know, there's quite strict rules about what a romance
Speaker 2: novel is.
Speaker 1: And isn't there used to be, Holly, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that is so true anymore. There is a growing
Speaker 1: body of diverse romance.
Speaker 2: So and as you said, you started a rainbow chapter
Speaker 2: within that relations.
Speaker 1: Right, And when I started that, that was before the
Speaker 1: rise of big books like Red White and Raw Blue
Speaker 1: and Heartstopper and some very popular queer romance that has
Speaker 1: come out in the last seven or eight years, which
Speaker 1: has transformed the market, not as much as I would like,
Speaker 1: but it has opened up the door. So there is
Speaker 1: a body of diverse romance, you know, romance between trans characters, romance, romance,
Speaker 1: romance featuring disabled characters and characters of color, and characters
Speaker 1: of different religions at neurodiversity. There is a growing body
Speaker 1: of that, but sometimes you have to look to be
Speaker 1: able to find it. Some of it is self published,
Speaker 1: some of it is only published. It's not always the
Speaker 1: stuff that we see on our bookshelves, and I would
Speaker 1: very much like that to change. I think that all
Speaker 1: romance readers are all readers should be able to see
Speaker 1: the world as it really is in their books, even
Speaker 1: in their fantasy books that they read for pleasure. Romance
Speaker 1: is not just between a white man and a white woman.
Speaker 1: The tropes and rules of romance and the satisfaction of
Speaker 1: reading about a couple who get together is the same
Speaker 1: no matter what.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so, with the exception of the person in publishing
Speaker 2: who thought that maybe your bisexuality was a career was
Speaker 2: the resistance, Like people, changing is often very confronting for
Speaker 2: the people around you.
Speaker 3: Right, We liked it, you said before.
Speaker 2: We like to have people in boxes and think I
Speaker 2: know who you are, I know what your life is,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it can be very confronting for the people
Speaker 2: around you, professionally or otherwise. Has that been the case
Speaker 2: in these five years or more. Have you sort of
Speaker 2: shared and realigned people in your life or is that
Speaker 2: not something that was such an issue for your people?
Speaker 1: Fortunately, I think the people in my life love me
Speaker 1: for myself and are generally very accepting and wonderful human beings.
Speaker 1: So I think I have added people to my life
Speaker 1: rather than lost anybody, which is great. It's been a
Speaker 1: positive experience. And one group of the people who I've
Speaker 1: added to my life are people who, like me, have
Speaker 1: been married or in seemingly straight relationships, but we'd like
Speaker 1: to come out. And I've talked to quite a few
Speaker 1: people who this is very rewarding for me because I
Speaker 1: was so open about coming out in midlife, wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to me about their situation, saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel the same. I'm in a marriage that is happy
Speaker 1: or unhappy, but it appears to be straight from the outside,
Speaker 1: but I am not straight. I really feel that a
Speaker 1: part of me is being suppressed or not expressed, and
Speaker 1: you know, can I talk to you about that? And
Speaker 1: I people who say that they wouldn't have come out
Speaker 1: if they didn't see somebody else do it first. And
Speaker 1: like I said, everybody should come out in their own
Speaker 1: time and space. It should be your decision and nobody else's.
Speaker 1: But for me, the timing was really fantastic because it
Speaker 1: let me connect with these people and give them a voice,
Speaker 1: and not give them voice, let them find their own voices.
Speaker 2: If there are people listening to you talking now who
Speaker 2: are in that situation, what do you say to them?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, first, be safe. I think you have
Speaker 1: to do what is safe to do. You have to
Speaker 1: think of that first. If you're in a situation where
Speaker 1: it's not safe to come out, then you have to manipulate,
Speaker 1: you know, find your own way through that. I think
Speaker 1: coming out in your own time and in your own
Speaker 1: space and in your own way is the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And you don't owe it to anybody ever to come out.
Speaker 1: It is your personal truth that you can tell anybody
Speaker 1: you want to or not. And what I didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time is that you don't just come out
Speaker 1: once you come out over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: You know, you come out when you go to the
Speaker 1: doctor and they say, are you on birth control? And
Speaker 1: you say, I don't need it because I'm just leaping
Speaker 1: with women. You know, it's when you know the postman
Speaker 1: comes to your house and starts talking to you about
Speaker 1: your husband and you say, I don't have husband, I
Speaker 1: have a girlfriend. You know, it's having a poster on
Speaker 1: your wall that talks about feminism turning women into lesbians.
Speaker 1: You come out in all times and spaces, and some
Speaker 1: of that feels safe and good and rewarding, and some
Speaker 1: of that feels very scary and frightening, and it adds
Speaker 1: a whole new aspect to your life and your safety
Speaker 1: that you might have never had to think about before,
Speaker 1: because straight privilege is a thing. And as a bisexual woman,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of lucky because I haven't had to deal
Speaker 1: with that fear all of my life. I am very
Speaker 1: lucky that I haven't had to deal with that fear
Speaker 1: for most of my life. But that comes at the
Speaker 1: cost of a racing part of who you are. My
Speaker 1: main message, though, is that you matter. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how old you are, it doesn't matter whether you have
Speaker 1: kids or who depends on you. Your own thoughts and feelings matter,
Speaker 1: and they are real, and they might change, they might not.
Speaker 1: This might be a phase, it might be a mid
Speaker 1: life crisis. Maybe it isn't. It doesn't actually matter. Your
Speaker 1: feelings are real and they are true to you, and
Speaker 1: you shouldn't feel that you have to push them down
Speaker 1: to benefit anybody else.
Speaker 2: My conversation with Julie Cohen continues after this break, you
Speaker 2: said about life before coming out, that you may have
Speaker 2: to erase a part of yourself to be able to
Speaker 2: live in this box, this busy mom married to a man,
Speaker 2: doing all the things we're doing. It's kind of trite,
Speaker 2: But do you feel now out fully colored in Ooh?
Speaker 1: Yes? No, Sometimes you have to go back into a box,
Speaker 1: not intentionally, but just because sometimes it's easier, that's what's expected,
Speaker 1: or because it's really not about you right now and
Speaker 1: it has to be about somebody else.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We all have various boxes that we go in and
Speaker 1: out of. I hope most of my boxes do reflect
Speaker 1: who I am in some way. But we all know
Speaker 1: the frustration when someone assumes you're something you're not. I
Speaker 1: think that's very familiar to all of us as women,
Speaker 1: and I think that's very familiar to middle aged women,
Speaker 1: particularly in different ways.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and a lot of marriages and in midlife for
Speaker 2: all kinds of reasons, in that way where women are
Speaker 2: suddenly like, I can't anymore stomach not living my life.
Speaker 2: You know, that's something that I hear all the time
Speaker 2: from midlife women in all kinds of different ways. And
Speaker 2: I was thinking, you know, some and also not all
Speaker 2: marriages do, and some of them just morph when I
Speaker 2: read which I'm sure you would have read all fours
Speaker 2: Moranda July's book.
Speaker 3: One of the things that.
Speaker 2: I can't stop thinking about from that no spoilers towards
Speaker 2: the end, it's this reimagined marriage as like family, but
Speaker 2: sex and romantic intimacy is kind of separate, almost, And
Speaker 2: I find that really interesting that people are beginning to.
Speaker 3: I'm sure people always have.
Speaker 2: But like people are talking about this idea of picking
Speaker 2: those parts of ourselves apart sometimes or you know, messing
Speaker 2: with that idea that it should be everything. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: a bit of this and a bit of that. And
Speaker 2: long term relationships, as you said earlier, are very complicated.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're not romantic relationships anymore. I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: my question is there, but do well.
Speaker 1: First off, you're the second person to recommend that book
Speaker 1: to me very recently, so I clearly have to read
Speaker 1: it immediately.
Speaker 3: You must rated so wonderful.
Speaker 1: And secondly, I think I think our culture idealizes the
Speaker 1: romantic relationship between two people to be everything, to be
Speaker 1: your entire life and the be all and end all,
Speaker 1: and I think that is very self evidently not true.
Speaker 1: I think that queer people for centuries have found ways
Speaker 1: around that, and have had to find ways around that.
Speaker 1: But that's also part of being queer is finding new relationships,
Speaker 1: new relationships structures, new relationship expectations, new ways to be
Speaker 1: coupled or have a partner or have several partners, to
Speaker 1: be sexually active in the world. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the wonderful parts of being this community is that the
Speaker 1: whole one more man, one woman lifetime together by defaults,
Speaker 1: is not the only option. We have infinite possibilities within
Speaker 1: ourselves that we can explore if we are allowed to.
Speaker 2: I like to ask people how they imagine themselves when
Speaker 2: they're properly old, like really gloriously old woman, What do
Speaker 2: you imagine what life are you living with her.
Speaker 1: I do this a lot. So my best friend and
Speaker 1: I have decided that we are going to buy an well,
Speaker 1: we're going to buy an island. But then we just
Speaker 1: thought maybe an island is not a good idea because
Speaker 1: what if there's a storm. So we're gonna we want
Speaker 1: to buy just this vast tract of land and have
Speaker 1: two houses on it because she's very messy and I'm
Speaker 1: very neat, so we can't live together. And then just
Speaker 1: get a lot of dogs and just have all dogs
Speaker 1: running around and they can go wherever, and we just
Speaker 1: have this communal pack of dogs because we're both crazy
Speaker 1: about them, and we called it Dog Island. And just
Speaker 1: when we get upset with life as it is right now,
Speaker 1: we get frustrated with our kids, with our jobs, with
Speaker 1: our homes, with our lives, we just turn to each
Speaker 1: other and we say, isn't it going to be great
Speaker 1: on Dog Island.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's going to be great on Dog Island.
Speaker 1: It's going to be so great on Dog Island. And
Speaker 1: then we'll have, you know, lovers come in as we want.
Speaker 1: If we have a partner, maybe they can live there
Speaker 1: with are in our house, or maybe they'll have a
Speaker 1: separate house because it really depends on whether they make
Speaker 1: the bet or not. And you know that that's the
Speaker 1: sort of way of being. I don't necessarily see myself
Speaker 1: married or or you know, growing old with one person.
Speaker 1: I see myself growing old with a bunch of dogs.
Speaker 1: Love it and the people who I really care about.
Speaker 1: My My friendships have been the longest running relationships in
Speaker 1: my life aside from my family, and they are infinitely
Speaker 1: precious to me. And I can imagine a life without them.
Speaker 1: And I think a life where I prioritize those friendships
Speaker 1: sounds wonderful.
Speaker 2: It's a very common female fantasy that we finally get
Speaker 2: time to really honor those relationships when all the other
Speaker 2: caring responsibilities are done, like that we can go to
Speaker 2: the commune, go to dog Island, just.
Speaker 3: Be with each other, just.
Speaker 1: Be just be covens of witches, crazy dog ladies, all
Speaker 1: of those, all of them. I want to be all
Speaker 1: of those cliches. I want to have purple hair, I
Speaker 1: want to you know, have lovers. Yes. One.
Speaker 2: I've got one more question, which I should have asked earlier,
Speaker 2: but actually it was about age and sex because for
Speaker 2: lots of us, as we go through perimenopause and menopause,
Speaker 2: a libido takes a beating. I am interested curious to
Speaker 2: know if you are kind of going through and I'm
Speaker 2: really sorry for the cliched language, like a sexual realignment
Speaker 2: or something I don't know, or you're just single again
Speaker 2: for the first time in that period of life.
Speaker 3: How do you juggle that?
Speaker 2: And do you think that the desire, like the desire
Speaker 2: can override that.
Speaker 1: Ah, The libido is a real thing. It is a
Speaker 1: real thing, and it's it's true of so many women
Speaker 1: that I talk to and women who I date as well.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a and I love HRT. I
Speaker 1: really adore it, and it's great about dating menopausal women
Speaker 1: is like, you know, you have a really good time,
Speaker 1: you go out, you have really good time, You get
Speaker 1: into bed, you have a really good time. Then you
Speaker 1: get up, you put on your estrogen.
Speaker 2: And you say, everybody knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping to maybe explore a testosterone and see
Speaker 1: how that helps. But it is, it is a thing.
Speaker 1: Dating does give you a bit of a wush. I
Speaker 1: think having a new lover for anybody is an exciting thing.
Speaker 1: Flirting is exciting, Touching is exciting. Snogging is just the
Speaker 1: best I think real a lot of snogging can get
Speaker 1: can get you over that lack of libido. It's just brilliant.
Speaker 1: And what I love about dating women is that it
Speaker 1: is not as focused on always one focused on the
Speaker 1: act involving a penis, and so sex takes in a
Speaker 1: wider variety of things to do, in ways to touch
Speaker 1: and ways to feel, in ways to feel good then
Speaker 1: traditionally is the case between men and women. So I've
Speaker 1: found a lot of pleasure in that where libido actually
Speaker 1: might not even have that much to do with it,
Speaker 1: because there are so many things you can do to
Speaker 1: feel good and to give yourself that endorphin hit and
Speaker 1: to feel close and intimate to another person that's not
Speaker 1: just the old in out, you know, and making hand gestures.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are listening.
Speaker 3: Yes, the old and out, they know that. Yeah, everybody's nudding.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Jie, Well, how beautiful was that?
Speaker 2: I don't think we talked about this on the interview,
Speaker 2: But when Julie writes in her two different persons, because
Speaker 2: she writes as Julie May Cohen and she writes as
Speaker 2: Julie Cohen and we talked about it. She writes these
Speaker 2: feminist thrillers, and she writes these romance books. She actually
Speaker 2: sits on different sides of her study and they have
Speaker 2: different pictures on the walls and.
Speaker 3: A different atmosphere.
Speaker 2: I've found all that so interesting, you know, just the
Speaker 2: idea that isn't that shocking, really, But we all contain multitudes,
Speaker 2: and we're very often being told pick a lane, stay there,
Speaker 2: and you know, sometimes in Mid that shit just all
Speaker 2: falls apart. Anyway, there's a link to where you can
Speaker 2: find out more about Julie and her novels in the
Speaker 2: show notes to this episode, So go and have a
Speaker 2: look there and you'll see where you can buy the books.
Speaker 2: As I said at the top, this is the last
Speaker 2: traditional MID episode for twenty twenty four, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask for a Christmas present.
Speaker 1: I know that's rude.
Speaker 2: I know you're not supposed to do it, but if
Speaker 2: you like Mid, if you've really enjoyed it this year,
Speaker 2: and we only launched this year. We launched in May,
Speaker 2: so we've only had six or seven months of Mid.
Speaker 2: Like it, Share it, review us, give us five stars,
Speaker 2: Tell a friend. It really really helps this show become
Speaker 2: and stay successful, and that means that then brands want
Speaker 2: to partner with it, and that means we can keep
Speaker 2: making it. And that's how it all works. So if
Speaker 2: you love Mid, please support us with your likes, your
Speaker 2: five star reviews, your shares, your follows, and I will
Speaker 2: be eternally grateful because making this show has been the
Speaker 2: highlight of twenty twenty four for me. And if you
Speaker 2: want to hear more stories about sex, who doesn't listen
Speaker 2: to episode one of season two with Leslie Morgan who,
Speaker 2: after her divorce went on a little bit of a
Speaker 2: sexual adventure. It is so good that conversation and all
Speaker 2: the way back in season one, which is naturally that
Speaker 2: far back, as discussed Catherine Mahoney about midlife dating is hilarious.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us on this mid journey,
Speaker 2: and thank you, of course to our amazing team ep
Speaker 2: Nama Brown, our producer Charlie Blackman, our audio producer Jacob
Speaker 2: Brown and all the talented people have worked on Mid
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 3: It's been a wild ride. Can't wait to show you
Speaker 3: we've got in store next year. Have a wonderful summer,