Culture Sex Relationships

Latest Episodes:

Ask Justin: How To Get A Partner In My 30s Jul 07, 2023

Show notes

What if you have no problem making connections with people who are cute and engaging, but they are unavailable? My advice about how else we can see these moments of emergence and what we can do to bring reason and new stories into meeting people. I guess this is a companion piece to this podcast https://soundcloud.com/culturesexrelationships/how-to-get-a-girlfriend-boyfriend-themfriend

The 'Effect' Of Online Masculinity Influencers Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

This is a reading from my article I wrote for RSE folk but I think is relevant for CSR folk. I'm also really sick of hearing the bad takes about A***** T***. This article is in response to the questions I get about ‘what should we do about toxic masculinity influencers’. I complexify the idea of an individual having a singular ‘effect’. I argue that there are potential harms of uncritically accepting a common sense ‘cause and effect’ discourse of toxic masculinity. How paying attention to those discourses ‘covers over’ failings which are closer to home. Lastly, how the solution has been there all along, but it’s our own embedded institutional toxic masculinities which prevent us from accessing them. Here's the article https://bishtraining.com/the-effect-of-toxic-masculinity-influencers/ Sign up for the Patreon to see what I'm up to with this new zine. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships And here's that link I talked about at the end https://forms.gle/AVkYLaL4srDunrHC7

Gender Affirming Therapy May 12, 2023

Show notes

I was delighted to be joined by Laura Scaronne Bonhomme and Dr Michael Beattie who (together with co-author Skye Davies) wrote Gender Affirming Therapy. We talked about the need for this book right now. How trans and trans non-binary folk face such scarce resources and also an increasingly hostile and transphobic government. But also how the discourses around gender diversity may have produced an anxiety for health care providers in 'getting it right' and how this doesn't serve clients or themselves. We also talked about what [else] gender affirming therapy does. How their gentle affirming approach allows for gender to emerge (rather than putting clients on an A to B gender journey). The importance of allowing for indifference, ambivalence, and existential unknowings. How they bring an openness and fuzziness to discursive framings of gender together with a grounded understanding of the body, the material, and how this can help trans and non-binary and cis clients to emerge. Their book is out very soon so buy and review it here https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0335251544?ref_=k4w_embed_dp_err&tag=kpembed-20 Or here (where I'd earn a little affiliate commission too) https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10660/9780335251544 Also join their club at affirm.lgbt (as I have just done) I hope you enjoy the show. You are as much part of this as I am. So if you can support it on patreon.com/culturesexrelationships with £1 a month for a bit I'd be super grateful. It helps pay me to do the show. Or you could perhaps share the show privately or publicly and say a nice thing about it. Maybe you could give it a nice 5 star rating on your podcast app too. Ta!

Sophie K Rosa Radical Intimacy Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

I was delighted to be joined by Sophie K Rosa for a chat about her excellent new book Radical Intimacy. We chatted about some of the emerging themes from the book: - the neoliberal self as produced by society and culture, - reflecting on Covid and how the lockdown policy reproduced common sense ideas about the nuclear family, mononormativity, and safety - we critique the common sense idea of monogamy and link this with Fordist capitalism - even under it's own terms what kind of society do we need to allow for even monogamous relationships and the nuclear family to emerge and thrive - what are the possibilities for more queerer intentional, relational, and consensual ways of relating - how those doing radical relating might also benefit from a more radical politics (as well as how those with radical politics might benefit from reflecting on radical relating) You can get the book from here https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745345161/radical-intimacy/ And you can read Sophie's excellent journalism work over at Novara Media https://novaramedia.com/contributor/sophie-k-rosa/ Please support the show so that I can a) be paid and b) pay fellow freelance guests. If everyone listening donated £1 a month at patreon.com/culturesexrelationships I'd be able to treat this like a part time job and thus more podcasts.

How To Get A Girlfriend Boyfriend Themfriend Feb 21, 2023

Show notes

I've done a reading of and around an article I've written for BISH this week about How To Get A Girlfriend, Boyfriend, or Themfriend. I've read it out but also talked around it to complexify it, chat a bit about some of the theory, and also why this isn't neoliberal advice but a line of flight to become 'other'. Could you please help me share the hell out of the article https://www.bishuk.com/relationships/how-to-get-a-girlfriend-boyfriend-or-themfriend/ If you want to support the show (even just for a bit) there's a Patreon patreon.com/culturesexrelationships Thanks for listening! Justin

Cyndi Darnell Sex When You Don't Feel Like It Feb 10, 2023

Show notes

Renowned sex therapist and educator Cyndi Darnell joined me to talk about her amazing book ‘Sex When You Don’t Feel Like It’. We critiqued the idea of libido itself, the importance of curiosity, the new three word model you should be using instead of GGG on Feeld, the importance of allowing the body to speak, why talking about problems is often not helpful, the possibilities for the body to show the path to freedom and connectedness, and the difficulties of being saturated in discourse and how to become resourced. Here’s a link to the book (I earn a small commission if you buy it from this link but it is widely available) https://uk.bookshop.org/books/sex-when-you-don-t-feel-like-it-the-truth-about-mismatched-libido-and-rediscovering-desire/9781538161708?aid=10660 The paper that Cyndi mentioned is here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14681994.2021.1882672 And her website is https://cyndidarnell.com/ Please support the podcast if you can via Patreon and unlock bonus episodes and some other extras (Patrons have had this episode for a week ahead). Just £1 a month for a bit would be great and would pay me to make these shows patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

Eleanor Janega talks about her latest book 'The Once And Future Sex' Jan 16, 2023

Show notes

Here's an interview with Eleanor, about her amazing new book 'The Once and Future Sex'. We discuss the key themes of the book - about how the story of what it is to be a woman was told (and how this connects to power and hegemony), - where the beauty standard first came from and how women faced a double jeopardy of following them / not following them - how the story of what it is to be a woman meant creating stigma around sex and relationships - the role of the medieval mother and why motherhood was central to medieval life (yet women were still seen as inessential 'Others') - and why all of this matters for the present day, for feminism, and also why learning from this should be an important, central, part of post-capitalist politics Her book is out on 17th January 2023 in the US https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393867817 and here in the UK on 3rd March 2023 https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-once-and-future-sex-going-medieval-on-women-s-roles-in-society/9780393867817

How Covid is Still With Us Dec 05, 2022

Show notes

A listener asked me (via Patreon) to chat about Covid. The restrictions might be over, but Covid is still very much with us (and with others more than some). Why do we want to turn away from Covid? Why do we want to think we've 'beaten' the virus? Masks have gone, but does that mean that we've simply learnt nothing? I asked podcaster and storyteller Dave Pickering along to tell their story of Covid and help me put the personal in a cultural and political context.

A Workshop About Relationships And Sex Education Nov 11, 2022

Show notes

This week I am grabbing some hashtag content from my other Patreon for BISH (https://www.bishuk.com/)and introducing you to my 'Train Yourself in RSE' resources. You can see this (and read the resource) here for free https://www.patreon.com/posts/train-yourself-1-70736726 If this is the kind of thing that you might be interested in doing here, I could do special CSR versions which are aimed at you the individual (rather than educators). So you would receive really in-depth, adult, sex and relationships education in this way. We could also do monthly zoom meetings to chat about some of the activities with each other, and I could even facilitate actual workshops with you. Sign up for the Culture Sex Relationships Patreon to register your interest (from just £1 a month) patreon.com/culturesexrelationships Hope you find this useful! Justin

Bonk for Britain Booooooo Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

I invited Scott Burnett back on the show (here's his first appearance last year when we talked about the manosphere https://soundcloud.com/culturesexrelationships/scott-burnett-masculinities-masturbation-and-no-fap). He co-wrote this excellent paper this year called ‘Breeders for race and nation’: gender, sexuality and fecundity in post-war British fascist discourse. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2021.2011088 It's open access and although it's an academic article I think it's pretty accessible (we also explain it in the show). We talked about: Why we're having the conversation at the moment (Italy, and the Bonk for Britain story) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2022/oct/10/the-tory-ministers-bonking-for-britain-idea-is-a-vile-vision-lurking-behind-cheeky-carry-on-imagery The general overview of the right and gender How this reproduces whiteness and gender subjectivities (and how it is weaponised against the Other (people of colour, migrants generally, feminism) Where else we see these kinds of discourses around gender and sexuality How some of these themes are taken up in environmentalist discourses around overpopulation. But also seeing this as a spectrum where we might also see (seemingly benevolent) references to 'strong families'. We can also see this in culture generally in (what I tend to call) hegemonic or common sense sexuality education but also how gender and sexuality have been disciplined as part of the capitalist projects of the last 100 years. We talked generally about the failure of left / liberal politics to understand how gender and sexuality are not an 'over there' or 'nice to have' but an essential part of our political bloc. Some other reading / podcasts that you might be interested in that we chatted about. Hegemony Now - by Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams. https://www.versobooks.com/books/4015-hegemony-now They did a video summarising it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuYEKWx5q40 Abolish The Family - by Sophie Lewis https://www.versobooks.com/books/4075-abolish-the-family which is really really interesting (the title sounds scary and bombastic but it's really not that kind of book). I haven't listened to it yet but she did a podcast for Novara Media about it which I'm sure will be worth a listen https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/12/choose-your-own-family-adventure/ Here's that article by Sophie K Rosa https://novaramedia.com/2022/10/13/did-cuba-just-abolish-the-family/ about Cuba and the cool thing they've done lately.

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