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.

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

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.

As you may have been hearing on recent podcasts, I’ve been training in solution focused therapy / coaching recently. I’ve been finding it pretty transformational, both for me personally but I’ve also found it really useful in work too. It’s a very postmodern practice, in that it just works. In the training that I’ve attended the trainers have been disinterested in the theory, or why it works. Their response is that it does, and here’s how we do it.

That’s good enough for me, I really enjoyed getting cracking with it and trying it out on lots of my loved ones before doing coaching with paying clients. However, I have a podcast to run and I need that content baby! So what is the deal with solution focused therapy and what’s the theory behind it?

[for the full blog post that I read out here head over to the Patreon where I've unlocked it https://www.patreon.com/posts/70372857 ]

If you’re interested in booking a session with me (Patrons get 10% discount) check out the coaching page at justinhancock.co.uk

If you want to have a session with someone who isn’t me, I can recommend Biba (who I’ve had some sessions with too). She’s great https://ribalon.org/

If you’re interested in getting some training yourself, I’d recommend the courses at Brief, which is where I’ve been training. https://www.brief.org.uk/

To help with this I’ve been reading How to Read Wittgenstein by Ray Monk and Ludwig Wittgenstein by Edward Kanterian (part of the Critical Lives series).

This article by Steve de Shazer is really interesting (and helpful) https://www.sdstate.edu/sites/default/files/2018-06/dont_think_but_observe.pdf

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy came up trumps again with their excellent entry (such an amazing resource) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/

The Wikipedia page for solution focused therapy is packed with links to the evidence for how effective it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution-focused_brief_therapy

If you want to understand what I meant by postmodern check out this podcast by Jeremy Gilbert (when Liz Truss was having a go at postmodernism, obviously she didn’t understand what that meant)

Latest episode is an expanded version of some of the stuff I've been writing lately for BISH (my website for over 14s) and for Mashable which you can read here https://mashable.com/article/porn-sites-viewers-workers For a blog post of this article you can head to the Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/72285998 and while you're there please considering supporting the show. Just £1 a month would really help out. If everyone who listened did that then I could work for 2/5 of a week on it.

If you want more anti or post-capitalist content check out the work of my comrades at ALE https://www.alternativeleftentertainment.org/

Yes we're back with another Sex Jams and we're back with another George Michael song. Perhaps the horniest of his songs. Freeek! We're doing Freeek! 04 and the video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnYPXTs9LY

Patrons support the show and also get bits of bonus material, including the full length version of this podcast. Just £1 a month would support the show. If everyone who listened did this I'd be able to work for a day or two a week on this show!

CN - I don't go into detail about abuse but the whole episode is (as the title suggests) about the relationship between what kink might do (for some people) and previous experiences of abuse.

For the full blog post that goes with the episode, sign up at the Patreon and support the show. Or if you can't afford that but want to read the post, email me at culturesexrelationships at gmail dot com and I'll send it to you.

NB: it's 29th July 2022, so if you listen to this in a few weeks time you might want to check out my article at BISH below just in case the advice changes.

Here's a quick episode about monkeypox: it's a chill and informative explainer. It's based on the article I wrote at BISH https://www.bishuk.com/safer-sex/monkeypox/ and also in the article I wrote for Mashable https://mashable.com/article/monkeypox-symptoms-signs-safety

The links I mentioned are in those articles but also here are a few more

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/monkeypox/

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2207323

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S147330992200411X?dgcid=coauthor

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/monkeypox

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/index.html

This twitter thread is really useful too https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1550757056256294912

And here's my article about how to worry https://www.bishuk.com/about-you/how-to-worry/

Justin

Here's the latest episode of Sex Jams with Dr Eleanor Janega and me, discussing a sex jam. Here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbFQEcpJ3A

We talk about pretty interesting stuff. Why the ideal Sex Jam is actually John Cage. Two seed theory. How liberal notions of the self and sexuality come from the classical and medieval notions of sex and sexuality. What is cream? The mirror phase. (Sexual) subjectivity. And having the horn.

Eleanor's blog is https://going-medieval.com/ her other podcast is called We're No So Different https://feeds.transistor.fm/were-not-so-different and if you want to watch her on TV check out her seriess on History Hit https://access.historyhit.com/videos/medieval-pleasures-sex You can see the rest of her stuff here https://linktr.ee/EleanorJanega

I offer an advice / solution focused coaching service about sex, relationships, and you. So if you find my advice on here useful you might want to book me for a session. More details here https://justinhancock.co.uk/#coaching

https://linktr.ee/culturesexrel

Here's an interview with Cory Cascalheira who was the lead writer of an academic paper called 'Curative Kink: Survivors of early abuse transform trauma through BDSM'. It's open access and I'd encourage you to read it because it's well interesting and I think very important.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352440982_Curative_kink_Survivors_of_early_abuse_transform_trauma_through_BDSM

I say more about this in the introduction, but we're not saying that Kink is a prescription for dealing with trauma from sexual abuse, or neglect, or violence. It's to say, for people who take part in Kink, in the context of cultural healing, what does kink offer people therapeutically.

Support this show via patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

You can also support https://www.bishuk.com (one of the most popular and widely respected websites for young people) at patreon.com/bishuk

Or if you want to find out about all the other work I do, including one to one sessions for solution focused coaching or sex and relationships advice, head to https://justinhancock.co.uk/