Here's my latest Ask Justin podcast where I answer a listener question about abusive relationships, past experiences, discourses, and how she can trust herself and her relationship now. There are no details of any form of abuse at all, but feel free to skip this one if it's too raw for you for whatever reason right now.

I've written out my answer over at Patreon, which is unlocked for this one.

https://www.patreon.com/culturesexrelationships/posts/ask-justin-hold-167762205?pr=true

https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel Send your questions in folks!

Unlocked episode from Patreon. Here's another one of my experimental solution focus recordings, Solution Tracks. This one is about sleep and rest.

So your best hope from listening to this will be that you will be able to sleep really well and to wake up well rested. If being able to nod off and sleep all night and wake up feeling alert and rested will be a useful outcome for you, then continue listening to this. As we go I will invite you to respond to my responses as we go through some solution focused prompts to help you sleep and feel well rested when you wake up. You can listen to this at any time of day, it's not meant to put you to sleep right now (it's not hypnosis, but I am told I have a soporific voice). Usually in solution focused conversations, the best hopes happen while you are sleeping but for this one we're going to imagine that they come true at some point between now and when you go to sleep. So you might want to try listening to this (at least for your first listen) at some point in the daytime.

In this one I received an email about how communicating about sex is perhaps making someone anxious.

I talked about how conversations to do with how we do things (consent conversations) have to take into account that there are scripts that we need to navigate and perhaps smooth out, but also that there are ways in which we can articulate verbally what is is we need and want but also that we need an on going ethic of pleasure and care focused ethic where we are trying to increase our collective capacity to act.

So this is an old fan favourite of the three handshakes combined with the three lines: it's the call back to end all call backs folks.

Here's the handshake video https://megjohnandjustin.com/sex/handshakes-and-consent/

I've also doing a video version of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X151A36QSng

Justin

Hi everyone

Sorry long time no record.

I'm back with a reading of a recent article I did for BISH (my website aimed at a younger / general audience) about Foreplay. As I have done in the past, I'm reading it and then interjecting myself with further thoughts and ideas - this time explaining the Body Without Organs (BwO). Here's the article at BISH What Is Foreplay https://www.bishuk.com/sex/what-is-foreplay/ please share it around for to help alert the algorithm to its existence.

If you look in the episode art you'll see a little drawing that might help you to understand the becoming, here it is from the BISH article too.

https://i0.wp.com/www.bishuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/what-is-foreplay-bish-a-becoming.png?w=600&ssl=1

Through paying attention to the difference a thing makes (and the difference that difference makes) is how we unfold, or 'become', through time. Leading us towards the interesting, valuable, important and remarkable (this is from the Todd May article below).

Here were those references I mentioned

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F., 2004. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (tr, Massumi, B.) London. Continuum.

Fox, N.J. and Alldred, P., 2013. The Sexuality-Assemblage: Desire, Affect, Anti-Humanism. Sociological Review. 61. 769–789. 10.1111/1467-954X.12075.

Komisaruk, B. R., & Whipple, B. (2011). Non-genital orgasms. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 26(4), 356–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2011.649252

May, T., 2003. When is a Deleuzian becoming? Continental Philosophy Review 36, 139–153. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026036516963

'What are your best hopes from this conversation?' That's how we start Solution Focused Conversations (SFBT). Recently a client said that they wanted to decentre love, from just romantic love for a possible romantic partner. Instead they wanted to create the capacity to feel able to love this intensely across all of their assemblages: a rhizomatic love.

This case study maps their preferred future, if you were able to feel intense love across all of your assemblages, what will you start to notice? How will you know? How will people respond? Your kid, your co-parent, your mum, your friend? How will you respond to that? What will you be pleased to notice? What differences will it start to make? What difference will that make? What else?

Then (from a second session) we go backwards and I asked them to remember moments recently when they were pleased to notice the very first signs of this rhizomatic love happening. At a tube station, going to a friend's house, a spring in their step, smiles, hugs lasting longer. How feeling this rhizomatic love has created an extra capacity for more love, more care, more warmth, and increased capacity to act.

It's a bit of a special one this as it's the first time I've given this much detail about a client conversation, as you would expect, the client has given me their permission to do this. I think it really gets to the heart of what is at stake of the CSR project, and how this molecular, rhizomatic love reveals a very important micropolitics. However we organise our intimate lives (monogamy, relationship anarchy, etc) there is a lot to learn from this wonderful client and it feels a real privilege to be able to share.

If you would like a Solution Focused Conversation, find out more here https://justinhancock.co.uk/#coaching

You can ask a question for the show here https://forms.gle/vX9hW1zXVPpTLFkZ9

Hi Justin, could you talk about quarter life crises? Either personal experience or just generally and how they relate to the 'self'. I want to shake up my life but I am scared to quit my job (which is niche and hard to get and that I should apparently be 'grateful' for). Tried to search the feed and couldn't see that you have covered this before but I may be wrong!

Quarter life crises (or any life crises), quitting jobs, fear of the unknown/change, sunk cost fallacy, not knowing what you want to do, not letting other people's opinions dictate our life choices, etc etc

In this episode I talk about how ‘thingy’ the quarter life crisis is (answer, quite thingy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis

I talk about my own experience of this

I then talk about Egg from This Life

I talk about the Three Lines of Deleuze and Guattari

I also talk about the idea of Becoming-Child vs being Infantile (here’s that great paper https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2022.2128759 )

And I give advice about, whether you are locked in or locked out, how you can find some molecular resources for becomings, and to make use of the falling in love line of flight and how this is the source of the agency, the agencying, the agencement, the becomings-other. What if you can be both free and gently held, whether you stay in your job or quit?

You’ve Got To Have Freedom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYKHCvmu1z4

Okay we're doing this. Egg gets too close to a case, or is it that he is desiring his own servitude as if it were his salvation?

Content note for this episode about eating disorders. There's one scene (incredibly well played) where Delilah eats a lot incredibly quickly at around 20 minutes in. Beat have been offering support around eating disorders for years now https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

The episode is here at iplayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007801x/this-life-series-1-3-living-dangerously

For all episodes of this watchalong series please consider joining the very cheap Patreon. Just £1 a month gets you all episodes and also lots of exclusive stuff

Look, no-one has asked me to do this but I want to have fun and you might like it, so let's see what happens. This Life, the very popular TV show about young lawyers living in London in the mid to late 90s is back on BBC iplayer as it's celebrating its 30th anniversary. It's also one of my favourite shows. So listen to me occasionally reflect on some Culture Sex Relationships themes (neoliberalism, sex, identity, Deleuze and Guattari) while we watchalong together.

For this one hit play on your podcast player at the same time as you hit play on the episode (sometimes iplayer serves trailers, so you might need to skip those). We start at 00:00. Hopefully we can enjoy it together and I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of the themes that come up for you. Please send them in and I'll throw some of your reflections in as we watch together.

Episode 2 is already up at the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/culturesexrelationships/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=This+Life

Okay, let's hit play together. Meow meow meowwwww, meow, meow, meow

Justin

Here is the link at iplayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00pft4t/this-life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Life_(1996_TV_series)

If you have a question for the show please email me culturesexrelationships at gmail dot com

justinhancock.co.uk/coaching if you want a session of solution focused conversation with me

https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel to find the google form to get in touch without email

patreon.com/culturesexrelationships where you can sign up to support the show, get extra content, like episode 2 of 'Watch 'This Life' With Me?', a new zine I'm working on, and also buy the zines Meg-John and I did

Justin

I was researching this article for BISH on Aftercare https://www.bishuk.com/sex/aftercare/ and it was raising lots of interesting things and themes which we talk about on this show. So I thought I'd get them out of my system.

This article about how fist fuckers view aftercare is really interesting https://journalofpositivesexuality.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/10.51681.1.1124_phases-of-aftercare-a-reflexive-thematic-analysis-of-how-fist-fuckers-understand-aftercare_Martin.pdf and so is this one about how people relate to aftercare regarding their gender and leaving the right impression on their BDSM partner (not sure if this pun was intended, but very good if it was) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224499.2024.2410338#d1e109 . Both these articles reflect on aftercare as a community value and how it operates as an inside / outside thing which I talk about in the podcast.

Look I haven't read this whole thesis about Aftercare but I'm sure it's interesting https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1999&context=honorstheses and this Masters thesis talks about the phenomenon of it being talked about on TikTok https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/706/

This paper on the Biology of BDSM is really good https://academic.oup.com/jsm/article-abstract/19/1/144/6961196?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false and this one is a review of the BioPyschoSocial science in understanding kink which is very helpful https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X22001944

Hope you enjoy this!

Email me culturesexrelationships at gmail dot com

justinhancock.co.uk/coaching if you want a session

https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel to find the google form

patreon.com/culturesexrelationships where you can sign up to support the show and also buy the zines I mentioned.

Dear Justin, should I do a PhD in sexology? And what does it mean about my life that I even ask this question? And what small baby-steps can I take to find the path forward without jumping head-first into doing it full-time?

In this answer I talked about the different kinds of sexological approaches that exist: which I describe as being Royal Science or minor science (Kinsey and Masters and Johnson for example). Then I talk about different approaches one could take to doing sexology. Also I talk about how doing a PhD is a really focussed piece of work which might actually prevent you from doing the reading you enjoy. Lastly I give some ideas of being nerdy about sex that might be still be sexy and enjoyable without it having to lead to an outcome like a PhD.

Email me culturesexrelationships at gmail dot com

justinhancock.co.uk/coaching if you want a session

linktr.ee/culturesexrel to find the google form

patreon.com/culturesexrelationships where you can sign up to support the show and also buy the zines I mentioned.