Before we start here's some housekeeping. This show is inspired by Time, the drama on BBC 1 that concluded last week and is available on iplayer. It’s not a review of the show but there are a couple of spoilers. We also mention self-harm but don’t go into any detail at all.

As you’ll hear Jazz Tehara works in a prison environment with offenders with highly complex and challenging behaviour but with a NHS led pathway strategy in place. So this conversation raises some of the possibilities of what a well funded and resourced prison service, focussing on mental health outcomes and work on masculinities, could look like.

Also if you would like to support this podcast please consider becoming a Patron of the show. Just £1 a month will help to pay me to make this show as well as to pay an appearance fee to fellow freelance guests. There are also occasional bits of bonus content for Patrons as well as access to the Discord server where you can chat with other listeners. That’s at patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

I was delighted to be joined by Juliet Jacques, who is a writer, film maker, and one of our leading cultural commentators. We talked about her latest book Variations which is her debut short story collection. She uses uses fiction inspired by found material and real-life events to explore the history of transgender Britain.

Juliet very kindly agreed to do a reading for us where she tells the story of a press intrusion into the life of Laura, a model and actress in the 1950s. We also talk about the transphobia and 'trans discourse' in the mainstream media (and how stupid and reductive this often is) and how the role of fiction and story telling might be a compelling and creative alternative.

Variations is out now on Influx Press https://www.influxpress.com/variations

Her excellent podcast Suite 212 can be found here https://soundcloud.com/suite-212 and the Patreon for that is here https://www.patreon.com/suite212

If you like this interview and would like to support us, from just £1 a month, please consider subscribing to our Patreon patreon.com/culturesexrelationships Your support pays me to do the podcast and also helps me to pay a fee to freelance guests.

I was delighted to be joined by Jamie Hakim and Ingrid Young to talk about their project ‘Digital Intimacies: how gay and bisexual men use their smartphones to negotiate their cultures of intimacy’. We chat about intimacy and why it’s not just what happens in private between two people but actually the connections we depend on for living - be that public or private. The loss of the possibilities for public intimacy was felt keenly by gay and bisexual men, where, as with for a lot of queer folk, counter public spaces were some of the few places they could 'be'. Interviews with participants reveal how smartphones could open up new avenues of intimacy during a pandemic, just as others are closed down. The opportunities for pause and reflection and new relationships, as well as the possibilities for negotiating safer covid safer sex practices. All of this as a counter to the ‘common sense’ and reductive stereotypes about gay and bi men, technology, and sex.

This was a super interesting chat and there’s so much in here for everyone to think about and reflect on. Perhaps it might give you some pause for thought about the intimacies that are available to you? How we have managed and continue to manage our relationships via our phones and zooms. What opportunities there might be for forging relationships of comradeship and coalition. Anyway, have a listen and thanks so much to Jamie and Ingrid for coming on and chatting about their excellent project.

For the full show check out patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

There’s a great presentation from Jamie here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gwO5SenCok

Also follow the project at https://twitter.com/digintimaciesUK

We did a live stream on our new twitch stream twitch.tv/culturesexrel just now about Eurovision. Here's the audio!

This weeks' Culture Sex Relationships is the 3rd Ask Justin. You send your questions and I try and give great advice. There are three questions this week.

One on sex discrepancies and opening up a relationship to non-monogamy.

Second is about BDSM and the risks of practising it when you have a straight laced job.

The third one is about disentangling arousal and desire and the role of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. This last one contains a mention of sexual assault but I don't go into any detail or specifics.

If you like this show and would like some more of it, please considering supporting the show on Patreon. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships From just £1 a month would be a great help. If you can afford more so that I can keep as much as this free for others that can't, that would be even better. Thank you!

Here are some links I mention

For the user guide zines check out megjohnandjustin.com/publications

Here's our book https://uk.bookshop.org/books/a-practical-guide-to-sex-finally-helpful-sex-advice/9781785783876

Here's the BDSM survey I mentioned http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/h38baes6ei/InternalResults_150209_BDSM_Website.pdf

The topping and bottoming books are by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy http://www.dossieeaston.com/books.html

I also mention the Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett, which is great https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-idiot-brain-a-neuroscientist-explains-what-your-head-is-really-up-to/9781783350827?aid=5561

Meg-John's work on trauma is excellent https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/trauma-and-the-body-basics/

I chatted with Sarah from Decrim Now about the laws around sex work and why it's an issue at the moment. We cover the current position (which is partial criminalisation), the Nordic Model (which criminalises the client), and full decriminalisation (which is what sex workers and many big unions and charities are calling for).

As I mentioned in last week's show we would please encourage you to use this template to email your MP about it https://decrimnow.eaction.org.uk/nonordicmodel and if you have clout or belong to an organisation that does, please sign the open letter https://decrimnow.org.uk/open-letter-on-the-nordic-model/

Meg-John and I did a show about how we might slowly begin to open up again. How we might be able to make it easier for others. The importance of good consensual processes (and how we can pay attention to those).

Here's the excellent infographic we talked about https://twitter.com/CounsellingKaz/status/1381200139839225856?s=19

Here's the link to the open letter put together by Decrim Now for the decriminalisation of sex work https://decrimnow.org.uk/open-letter-on-the-nordic-model/

Support Meg-John's Patreon https://www.patreon.com/MegJohnBarker and please sign up to the Culture Sex Relationships Patreon to help support the show https://www.patreon.com/CultureSexRelationships

This has been out and available on the Patreon feed for a few days now, so you've been denied the freshest of takes until now. If you want to hear future episodes early and in full, then please support the Patreon.

I was delighted to be joined by Katherine Angel to chat about her latest book Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. We had to rely on the zoom recording so sorry about the occasional blip in the background.

We chatted about the main themes of her book: consent, desire, arousal, and vulnerability. We also chatted a little bit about my book Can We Talk About Consent and compared notes about how a more bottom up approach to understanding sex might be possible. We covered the topic of sexual violence but we didn't go into any detail. It was a really interesting and engrossing chat and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Katherine's book is on sale wherever you get your books. You can also buy direct from the publishers here where it's on sale atm. https://www.versobooks.com/books/3743-tomorrow-sex-will-be-good-again Get yourself a Comrade tote back to carry it in while you're there.

You can also get my book from this indie bookshop as well as any others https://uk.bookshop.org/books/can-we-talk-about-consent/9780711256545

We also mentioned my book with Meg-John which is now known as A Practical Guide to Sex https://uk.bookshop.org/books/a-practical-guide-to-sex-finally-helpful-sex-advice/9781785783876

If you want to chat about the show with likeminded listeners (and also support the show) please support the Patreon from just £1 a month and you can access our Discord server.

And if you have any questions for an upcoming advice episode do send them to me via here in the direct message option or email to culturesexrelationships at gmail dot com

Justin

This week we do Freak Nasty: which is both a jam and a bop according to Eleanor. It's an extremely interesting sex jam which flips subjectivities and desire whilst also being extremely interested in non-reproductive forms of sexual activity. As with all the Culture Sex Relationships episodes, this is for over 18s. We swear in this one.

In the extra version for Patrons there is a few more minutes chat about the song and also we watch the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNVuhP8ehdo

Hope you like it!

Justin

Here are the questions and some of the links I mentioned

"Everyone I know and everyone I follow on social media is very pro-vaccines and so I kind of go along with the crowd on this one, without really knowing much, something I’m not proud of and want to change. All of the discourse I see online is very loud and angry and - I’m sure it’s with good reason - but I struggle to build my own stance on it based on this.

I was wondering if you could answer something along the lines of ‘How can we practice consent in discussing and making choices around vaccines whilst also protecting each other and especially the most vulnerable in our society?’

I know it’s a big and sensitive topic (especially at the moment) so totally okay if it’s not something you want to tackle right now but thought I’d put it out there just in case."

Freedoms and Covid

https://www.bishuk.com/relationships/freedoms-and-covid/

Herd immunity

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/herd-immunity-lockdowns-and-covid-19

Vaccine hesistancy

https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n513

Going with the cognitive grain paper

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01483/full

“I work with teenagers in my private practice and run a training course for counsellors wishing to work with C & YP I wonder if you could discuss the following question in an 'Ask Justin' show if you feel it would interest your patreons. How to support under 21's in consensual decision-making re sex? I am particularly interested in the decision-making or not of those YP who say the following

' I have to have sex or they will tell everyone at school I won't'

' It's what you do to keep a relationship'

'blow jobs aren't sex and they are expected of course'

I am struck by the lack of their knowledge around consent and choice.”

https://www.bishuk.com/can-we-talk-about-consent/

https://www.bishuk.com/tag/consent/

https://bishtraining.com/product/the-consent-teaching-pack/

“In response to your invitation for questions for the podcast, I was thinking recently that maybe it's time to query user guides. I think to the extent that they help people reflect and focus on their own needs and desires, it's really helpful. But I think the concept is a bit limiting. It risks fixing people's understanding of their sexuality, and propagating quite a static model of it.

If you understand your sexuality is something that evolves over time, and connecting with another person as something that has a possibility of revealing different aspects of it, I'm not sure how user guides could do this justice?”

Our zines

https://megjohnandjustin.com/publications/

Our episode on this

https://megjohnandjustin.com/you/writing-our-own-scripts/

Deleuze and Guattari episode

https://culturepowerpolitics.org/podcasts/

Also latest ACFM https://soundcloud.com/novaramedia/acfm-trip-14-desire