Culture Sex Relationships

Latest Episodes:

Ask Justin: My partner can't make me orgasm Feb 24, 2024

Show notes

Just a quick advice episode this week as I feel like I've talked a lot about orgasms lately on the show. But first there's some really lovely correspondence about when you, the assemblage, feel like the body without organs. More of this is particularly welcome! https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel

Ask Justin: What Feelings Are Mine? Feb 16, 2024

Show notes

“I often struggle with unpicking what of my feelings is really 'mine' and what's internalised homophobia/transphobia/sexism/sex negativity etc. As a result I really struggle to trust myself, and become anxious, worrying that I'm unconsciously repeating harmful patterns. I know that identities aren't fixed, that we're all constantly evolving and all in relation to one another. I suppose really, with this all in mind, my question is: how do we work towards being authentically ourselves and trusting ourselves around sexual/gender identity? How do we hold space for our own feelings (both physical and emotional) whilst also combatting all the crap that we are imbued with by society?” Here’s A Thousand Plateaus (free pdfs are available online) https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-thousand-plateaus Here’s that really interesting podcast episode I think I mentioned by Jeremy Gilbert https://culturepowerpolitics.org/2024/02/03/introducing-affect/ His book Common Ground is really great Here’s more about Antonio Damasio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Damasio The name of the theorist I’d forgotten was Vicki Kirby and her idea about nothing being outside of nature is in this piece I think Here’s an article I wrote at BISH the other day which explains the different ways of thinking about the self https://www.bishuk.com/relationships/how-to-impress-someone-you-like/ Here’s more information about my coaching service https://justinhancock.co.uk/#coaching and you can contact me and find other resources here https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel Hope we all found this useful and become the body without organs at some point this week. Let me know if you do! Justin

UK Sex Ed And Me Jan 26, 2024

Show notes

Sex Ed in the UK and Me Our wonderful Patrons have had this for a few days already. Why not join them from just £1 a month? Suggest shows, join the Patreon, DM me directly and get 10% off my coaching service ... patreon.com/culturesexrelationships This one is about a brief history of sex ed in the UK over the last hundred years or so. Part way through I tell my story of how I got into doing this job in 1998 / 1999 in order to tell an autoethnography which illuminates the problems which sex ed, sexual health services, and youth services have faced over the years. I think it reveals something interesting about what culture war and austerity have done and how this may result in a doubling down on a narrow sex ed which doesn’t seem to serve anyone. Here’s the Department for Education 1943 document I read from https://education-uk.org/documents/boardofed/1943-sex-ed.html I relied on ‘School sex education: policy and practice in England 1870 to 2000’ by Jane Pilcher https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14681810500038848 The Politics of Sex Education Policy in England and Wales and The Netherlands since the 1980s JANE LEWIS and TRUDIE KNIJN https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/abs/politics-of-sex-education-policy-in-england-and-wales-and-the-netherlands-since-the-1980s/8913118BB205C133930FED2E05240864 Seventy years of sex education in Health Education Journal: a critical review Padmini Iyer and Peter Aggleton https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0017896914523942 Here’s a useful document about sexual pleasure in RSE and that Pleasure leaflet debacle I was talking about https://shura.shu.ac.uk/16764/1/Pleasure%20Evaluation%202017%20FINAL%20final.pdf And you might be interested in this blog of mine I did last year about the state of RSE in the UK https://bishtraining.com/the-state-of-rse-in-the-uk/ Send in your questions / support the show / find things to buy here https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel

Ask Justin Safer Sex Protocols Resource Dec 16, 2023

Show notes

I have a safer sex protocol that consists of a set of good communication tick boxes and a set of medical/testing disclosure tick boxes and a spreadsheet for my partners to record their partners and activities they practise with each, testing status, barrier use, etc I then use some approximate quantification of risk for each partner. While I find my protocol helpful in making this usually sensitive and difficult discussion more matter of fact and clear, I have experienced a lot of push back and hurt feelings by partners. I am reaching out to you because you mentioned in your episode this week that some people feel repelled by safer sex discussions. Could you help me see a way forward towards finding a consensus or a creative solution that works for everyone in case a partner refuses to engage with my protocol? Thank you for creating your content! I find it really valuable and fun to listen to! Resource / discourse When one becomes the other What's a good resource? Heterogeneous, open, kind, Resourcing our bodies Towards collectivity, away from the individual risks It's not working right now, why not? Sounds like it's only resourcing one person Which means that it's not actually resourcing you For this approach the process and the content have to be flattened. It's the process for reducing risks which is the relation, which produces the outcome Trust To get trust we have to give it. It's a mutually constructed thing But saying it isn't it. Also running the risk of people rejecting doing it because they are made to say it. Privity of contract How does trust feel? How do other people know? How would you respond? Can you use that to work backwards to find out how you might resource yourselves (or your whole assemblage) Here’s the podcast I was recommending here https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-119-trust/ Joy and love is only ever a result of the relation As I've been saying lately, consciousness, becoming, can only happen in relation. Spinozan joy is just that if by increasing our capacity to act, we are reducing someone else's, it's sadness "Love means precisely that our expansive encounters and continuous collaborations bring us joy...without this, love, we are nothing." Antonio Negri So you need a resource, not a discourse, which you all can collaborate on Allows for volume levels (both in terms of the actual risks and how they are individual) Allows for different risks Gives people autonomy over how they manage their sexual risks (privity) Creates openness and the possibilities of persevering over time Gives everyone an out Just conversations A Google doc of affects, emotions, thoughts, doings Not just about safer sex but also increasing the possibilities to act https://www.bishuk.com/safer-sex/sex-infections/ https://www.bishuk.com/safer-sex/chances-getting-sti/ https://www.bishuk.com/safer-sex/sti-quiz/

Ask Justin: Disgust In Sexual Contexts Dec 08, 2023

Show notes

[If you have a question of your own, or would like me to give a Second Opinion of someone else’s advice, get in touch via the link tree here https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel ] “My question is about (changing) feelings of disgust in sexual contexts. My sense of disgust can change rapidly depending on context. For example, most of the time I really don't like kissing, even the idea is repelling to me.” It’s okay. We shouldn’t have to find any kind of sexuality to be normal, or okay, or expected. Doesn’t matter what kind of relationship we’re in. Some things we are told are ‘normal’ part of sexuality are deeply weird when we think about it! Polymorphous perversity. (Here’s that episode https://soundcloud.com/podcast-co-coopercherry/three-essays-on-the-theory-of-sexuality ) Navigating discrepancy is the normal (there are tips about this in our book A Practical Guide to Sex). https://megjohnandjustin.com/relationships/sex-discrepancies/ https://megjohnandjustin.com/sex/enjoy-penis-vagina-sex-want/ https://megjohnandjustin.com/sex/enjoy-non-genital-sex/ Perhaps think about the different ways of doing them. Maybe you need more mutual sex where you are both doing something with each other at the same time, or you might need to go one at a time. There’s some really great stuff about this in Cyndi Darnell’s book https://cyndidarnell.com/book/ (we did a podcast earlier this year, check it out) (Though I still think we are actively having sex with each other even if one person is receiving pleasure and the other ‘giving’ it. If pleasure was only about this giving and receiving mode, the giver gives and the taker takes, then how come I enjoy touching other people’s bodies?) Disgust and consciousness. How things become conscious and how we might pay attention to other affects. The exceptions. Kissing is great. Enhances sexual pleasure. What’s the difference? What do you notice? Things change rapidly, this is really useful. Can things change in the other direction? I didn’t talk about Epicurus, Lucretius and The Swerve, but I probably should have because that would have been fun. Here’s a good podcast about it https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-was-lucretius-with-thomas-nail/id1512615438?i=1000575225008

What (else) Do Orgasms Do? Dec 02, 2023

Show notes

I thought I'd do a reading of a couple of my articles from BISH that I've written about orgasms and then have an adult and theoretical rambling about them. They demonstrate really nicely how gendered sex discourses have produced orgasms in a very narrow (territorialised) way, and how unlearning our sexual knowledges is the key to enjoying it a bit more, but also has some micropolitical implications. Here are the articles https://www.bishuk.com/bodies/how-do-i-know-when-ive-had-an-orgasm/ https://www.bishuk.com/sex/what-is-gooning/ If you do have any questions for me, here are the links you need https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel Justin

The One About Masculinities And 'Friends', with Greg Wolfman Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

I was joined by Greg Wolfman to talk about his excellent book 'Masculinities in the US Hangout Sitcom'. https://www.routledge.com/Masculinities-in-the-US-Hangout-Sitcom/Wolfman/p/book/9781032426211 (it's an academic book, so expensive, but there's a 20% off voucher at the website. Also Routledge sometimes have really huge sales on. They also published Meg-John's Rewriting The Rules. Also, ask your library to get it) After a brief tribute to Matthew Perry / Chandler Bing, we - chatted about whether it was possible for us to enjoy Friends - Greg situated Friends in the socio-political context of neoliberalism, the 90s, and the long 90s (a term by Jeremy Gilbert which is usefully explained in his book with Alex Williams called 'Hegemony Now') - Greg helpfully walked us through the 'chrononormativities' of career, relationships, settling down (and we also chatted about how they show us a glimpse of queerness in the show but always shut it down) - Then we talked about the episodes in series two when Joey moves out and when Joey moves in. What this says about how masculinities are performed, the idea of 'the closeness in the doing', and whether we really are living in a more homosocial era of masculinities. Pivot! - And what does it say about Friends and us that it's still such a popular show? Why isn't there a sitcom for the luxury automated gay acid communism conjuncture? Call it 'Comrades'. Hire Greg as your script consultant!

Drag A British History Sep 09, 2023

Show notes

I was thrilled to be joined by Jacob Bloomfield to talk about his excellent new book, 'Drag: A British History'. It tells the story of drag from 1870 to 1970 and I found it to be super entertaining and informative. I came to this as someone who was ambivalent about drag and I learnt so much. You can buy it from this affiliate link and then I get a small commission (and helps support the show) https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10660/9780520393325 or get it direct from the publishers https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520393325/drag The article Jacob mentions is here https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/drag-surprising-mainstream-history/

Working Class Queers Yvette Taylor Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

I was delighted to be joined by Yvette Taylor to talk about her fascinating book Working Class Queers Time, Place and Politics. You can buy it from here https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341026/working-class-queers/

Tina Sikka Sex Consent And Justice II Aug 01, 2023

Show notes

Patrons have had this show for a few days already. Sign up at patreon.com/culturesexrelationships from just £1 a month and support the show :-) My last advice show was popular. Send your questions through via the link in the bio and I will answer them! :-) The UK are having a round of allegations against public figures which centre around sexual ethics, consent, power, and bullying. These are all very different cases with their own particularities, yet the discussions surrounding them reveal a lack of nuance, lack of curiosity for critiquing sexual ethics, binary assumptions, carceral justice logics. As it seems we’ve learnt nothing about sex, consent, and justice, I thought it would be great to invite Tina Sikka back on the show to talk about this and to apply her framing of a ‘pleasure and care-centred ethic of embodied and relational sexual Otherness’ and see what might become. Here is that first conversation from a year ago https://soundcloud.com/culturesexrelationships/tina-sikka-sex-consent-and-justice You can pre-order the paperback of Tina's book here https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-sex-consent-and-justice.html

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected