The Pleasure Podcast

It’s the SEASON 2 FINALE people! Not only has it zipped by, but we added on TWO MORE EPISODES from season 1 for your pleasure. Don’t say we don’t treat you well.

And are we finishing this round with a bang or what?! (we are, yes) We have an extraordinary, golden guest for you to see us out. Welcome Rain Dove Dubilewski. You’ll likely know them better by face than by voice, but that’s soon to change… Rain Dove was the first model EVER to be in both male and female magazine covers at the same time and have been using their hefty social media platform (350K+ followers on IG) to defy gender norms and raise awareness about social issues including women’s rights and mental health. Rain is an open-minded, self-aware, funny interviewee who is open and giving with their unusual, moving life story and their hopes for society. You’re going to get a lot out of it. PROMISE.

 Rain joins us to talk about the impact of growing up whilst fitting into the aesthetic expected from women despite the F on their birth certificate. It wasn’t until working as a firefighter in an all-male team who thought Rain was a man, that they realised they were able to present both as male and as female. Living as a man during this time allowed them a sneak peek into what they thought would be a bed of toxic masculinity. What they learnt there would change how they understood the power dynamics at play when it comes to the currency of emotion.

 You ought to know that when Rain is presenting as either male or female or simply themselves, they are absolutely drop dead gorgeous.

 We talk about the benefits and drawbacks of presenting as either gender, and what being a ‘a Gender Capitalist’ really means. Rain tells us about their often harrowing experiences of using male and female bathrooms and why unisex toilets are in fact the safest loo option for everyone. What struck me most about her story is how despite having Trump supporting parents and leaving home at 18 to save face for the family after coming out, they believe in empathy with the people who most ostracise them. Their message of acceptance and kindness is paramount and is quite frankly, inspirational.

 Rain is making a mockumentary series Queers Without Fears developed entirely by the queer community. It’s a fun sci-fi venture which seeks to readdress the balance of highly sexed and violent portrayals of queer folk that presides in film and TV and it’s out in December!

 They are also releasing a mockumentary in response to Piers Morgan’s insistence that if you can choose your pronoun, then he chooses to identify as a penguin. It’s going to be very funny but with an undoubtedly important message about love and kindness at its heart.

Enjoy and we’ll see you next year with more terrific guests and topics on pleasure and the body for Series 3. 

You can watch Rain’s TedX talk on Gender Capitalism here

CW: misgendering and violence

We would love to continue the conversation and hear from you, our listeners: email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Rain Dove @raindovemodel

Naomi Sheldon: 

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In this week’s episode of the Pleasure Podcast we talk to writer and illustrator Flo Perry. Flo’s work on Buzzfeed is always a viral sensation, and she has just published the wonderful How To Have Feminist Sex – A Fairly Graphic Guide. Flo is on a mission to improve our sex lives. Her graphic novel is a manual on how to have the sex you want whilst navigating the niggles and neuroses we've built up over a lifetime when it comes to getting down and dirty. This joyful and sexy book is filled with Flo’s gorgeously drawn humans that don’t just decorate the pages, they populate her world.

Flo’s illustrations grace a variety of books including The Girl's Guide To Growing Up Great, written by Sophie Elkan and Remember This When You're Sad by Maggy Van Eijk. Flo is also one of the founders of Aphrodyki, an incredible (and always sold out) queer club night! Find her on the door…

Flo proudly reclaims the word slut and we talk dating apps, sending nudes and ghosting. We learn her top tips for one night stands and how to end a date without causing offence, even if it’s five minutes after you’ve sat down. We even answer the big questions - how to learn what turns you on and the unexpected side effects of chlamydia meds. We discuss body image, the bisexual experience and the gap in the market for a modern day Samantha Jones. Where are our slutty heroines?

You can buy Flo’s How To Have Feminist Sex – A Fairly Graphic Guide, published by Particular Books from Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookstores

Flo’s lovely photograph is by Hannah Eachus. 

We would love to continue the conversation and hear from you, our listeners: email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Flo Perry: @FloPerry

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Follow us at @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

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This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome a woman who has heard it all. It’s Multi award-winning writer, broadcaster and sex educator Alix Fox. Alix co-hosts BBC Radio 1 show Unexpected Fluids, in which comedic ‘real life tales of sexual fails’ are used as a springboard for frank, constructive conversations. Over on Netflix, she’s a script consultant for hit series Sex Education, whilst on The Modern Mann podcast with Olly Mann, she’s fronted her own X-rated agony aunt segment for almost half a decade, answering listeners’ most intimate queries in ‘The Foxhole’. A proud ambassador for both Brook young people’s sexual wellbeing charity and menstruation education foundation Bloody Good Period, Alix was a face of HIV Testing Week, and is scheduled to reappear as a fetish and pleasure expert on Channel 4’s The Sex Clinic. Resident Sexual Wellness Expert for Superdrug, and brand ambassador for Tenga and Womanizer masturbation toys (she wouldn’t put her name to anything she wouldn’t happily, fappily put her genitals on!), she’s currently working on an audio documentary series about the history of kink for Audible. A former editor on alternative culture mag Bizarre, her writing can be found in publications including The Guardian, Stylist, Grazia, Glamour, Fabulous, Cosmo, Vogue, Time Out and more, and she’s made videos and shows for folks including Bodyform, EllaOne and Durex. She’s a judge on Lovehoney’s 2020 Design A Sex Toy Competition.

I can’t think of anyone I’d rather confide in about my sexual concerns.

We speak to Alix about the experience of being an X-rated agony aunt, including what questions she commonly gets asked, issues of transference, and the pressure to be at forefront of sexual practice in your private life when you’re a Sexpert. She guides us through an extraordinary array of sex toys, and gives us golden advice on how to keep sex in long term relationships fresh. Micro-dating anyone? We are all in.

Alix’s open-hearted, open-minded approach leaves us feeling that we could talk about anything that’s on our minds about sex and intimacy.

We would love to continue the conversation and hear from you, our listeners: email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Alix Fox @AlixFox

Naomi Sheldon @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel @therealdranand

Follow us at @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome radio producer, presenter, and writer Amrit Matharu. She's currently working for the Asian Network, and has contributed to Radio London, Radio Northampton, and BBC Stories to name but a few. Amrit published her dissertation "Desi and Desire" focusing on British-Asian female identity and has become well known for discussing taboo topics such as sexuality, a subject rarely talked about amongst the South Asian community.

She’s passionate about promoting body confidence and works as both a body positive activist and plus size model.

We talk to Amrit about her Sikh background, Asian family dynamics, and how her parent’s values have impacted on her own relationship to romance and sex. She brings a fascinating insight into how a typical Asian upbringing which focuses on virginity, can leave you without the skills to manage dating and relationships, whilst the family pressure to get married ramps up. Asian Tinder and temple matrimonial lists provide one solution to prospective couples, but the beauty standards in this game of top trumps based on height, hair texture, weight and skin colour can create a narrow dating field.

Amrit is a firm believer in being part of the ‘generation of change’ where although she recognises and understands her parents’ beliefs and the affect it has had on her, she would not impose those views on her children. It’s an interview full of the cognitive dissonance that surrounds tradition and modern living that gets to the core of our need for tribes and belonging.

You can follow Amrit’s life and thoughts on her blog Amaretto’s World and find links to her dissertation Desi and Desire here.

We would love to continue the conversation and hear from you, our listeners: email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

Social Media:

Amrit Matharu @AmarettosWorld

Naomi Sheldon @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel @therealdranand

Follow us at @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

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This week on the Pleasure Podcast we welcome an expert in all things historically sexual. It’s the incredible award-winning historian, lecturer, and author Dr Kate Lister. However you might know her best as the mind behind Twitter’s very own behemoth Whores of Yore.

Kate is a lecturer and researcher in the literary history of sex work at Leeds Trinity University and she regularly writes for inews, Vice, and the Wellcome Trust. Kate has also graced our screens, most notably giving historical context to our sexual desires in Channel 5s My Secret Sex Fantasy (which is where we first met!).

The research behind Whores of Yore, a wildly popular historical archive of sexuality and sex work, has culminated in Kate’s book, ‘A Curious History of Sex’. This whistle stop tour through sexual history covers immense ground including the etymology of cunt, the control of women’s desire, the history of same sex relationships, pubic hair, monkey testicle transplants, sex robots and incredibly much much more. 

Kate’s book is available for pre-order from Unbound, Waterstones and Amazon and will be published in February 2020. Pre-order sales support Basis Sex Work Project in Leeds.

We speak to Kate about this erudite, funny and at times very shocking book – it’s a broad and genre defying conversation running the gamut from Ancient Greece to The Rock via Noel Edmonds House Party. It’s the naughty history lesson we didn’t receive in school, but wish we had.

We would love to continue the conversation and hear from you, our listeners: email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

Social Media:

Kate Lister: @WhoresOfYore and @literaturepeep

Naomi Sheldon @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel @therealdranand

Follow us at @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

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This week we welcome Jen Brister to The Pleasure Podcast. She’s a critically acclaimed stand up comedian, actor and author of the frank and funny book The Other Mother. She’s regularly been on our radios, toured six solo shows around the world and graced our screens on Live at the Apollo, Live at the comedy store and Frankie Boyle’s New World Order. Later this year she’ll star in the Sara Pascoe series ‘Comedy Lectures’ and ‘Hypothetical’, and she’ll be touring her hilarious show Under Privilege around the UK in 2020. I saw it at the Edinburgh Fringe this year and she blew my woollen socks off.

We speak to Jen about her first book ‘The Other Mother’, an honest, funny memoir in which she describes her experience of being a gay non-biological ‘other mother’ to her twin boys. Jen speaks to us about what happens when the reality of your sexuality comes face to face with your childhood dreams of parenthood, about gay visibility within the entertainment industry, kissing in public, the financial and emotional cost of IVF and the division of labour when raising two babies in a same sex relationship.

Jen is one of my favourite comedians and she makes us laugh a lot whilst tackling issues that are pertinent to everyone, no matter what sort of family you have.          

You can get your copy of The Other Mother published by Square Peg now at all good book stores. Her latest show Under Privilege will be touring the UK in 2020. It explores the meaning of privilege and what it’s like as a lesbian to raise two young boys whilst putting two fingers up at the patriarchy. Dates and tickets are available through her website jenbrister.co.uk.

Could can buy Jen’s book The Other Mother HERE, and find the dates for the UK tour of Under Privilege HERE.

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As usual, we would love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Jen Brister: @JenBrister

Follow us at: @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

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This we speak to consultant breast cancer surgeon, author, TEDx Speaker, triathlete, and nominee for Woman of the Year 2016 Liz O’Riordan.

Liz was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2015 and had a recurrence in 2018. She went viral when she dressed as Elastagirl from the Incredibles for the last day of her radiotherapy. Liz uses her unique perspective of being both surgeon and patient to write her award-winning blog about living with breast cancer and more recently a book: The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer.

She writes to empower cancer patients, separating fact from fiction. We speak to Liz about her experience of surgeon turned patient and the lack of information breast cancer patients are provided with when it comes to sex and intimacy after diagnosis. Her story of redefining her sense of feminity when the treatment removed a breast and plunged her into sudden early menopause is powerful and eye-opening. We felt very honored to have Liz with us to speak on a subject we hear so little about.

You can read Liz’s blog and watch her TEDx talk here: liz.oriordan.co.uk

Buy her book The Complete Guide to Breast Cancer: How to feel empowered and take control published by Vermilion from @hivestores HERE , or HERE @wordery or from Amazon HERE

Liz's TEDx talk Jar of Joy can be found HERE

Her top twitter sex gurus are Jo Divine and @SamTalksSex 

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As usual, we would love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Follow us at: @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode of The Pleasure Podcast we have a rare interview with Wild Iris - sex worker and Queer woman of colour. Her name and voice have been altered to protect her anonymity.

Wild Iris speaks eloquently and openly about her experiences of having sex with men in order to fund her true passions in life. Iris shares how her autism, negotiating the social interactions and office politics, meant keeping a ‘regular’ job was virtually impossible and how that led her to consider sex work. We discuss the various forms of sex work and her views on ‘sugaring’. Wild Iris reveals how the majority of her time is devoted to administration rather than sex: the business of hotel bookings and websites.

Iris talks openly about the groups of men she works with, the services she provides and what it’s taught her about men. Fascinatingly she reveals how her sexuality intersects with the work she does and how her skin colour makes men view her, in the world vs in a private sexual space.

Iris talks movingly about loneliness and otherness, the isolation of sex work; and sadly, why relationships with health care and particularly the Police are a source of threat and violence to sex workers, how the current law continues to make sex workers remain at risk.

Read Wild Iris's Gal Dem article on loneliness and sex work here. Whilst she prefers to stay away from social media, if you would like to contact her directly, Wild Iris has given permission for her email address to be shared: [email protected].

If you're affected by any of the issues raised in this episode or interested in learning more about keeping sex workers safe, please check out the links:

The Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement (SWARM): https://www.swarmcollective.org

National Ugly Mugs: https://uknswp.org/

https://decrimnow.org.uk

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CW: This episode has mentions of rape and sexual violence.

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As usual, we would love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Follow us at: @ThePleasurePod and visit us at www.thepleasurepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Pleasure Podcast we welcome the talented multi-hyphenate Jason Domino: activist, porn performer, sex worker, and head of the sexual health think-tank: The Domino Foundation. 

Jason was raised as a committed Christian and tried to change his sexuality as a teen using aversion therapy and conversion camps. He shares with us how he started in sex work and porn and how a health scare following a porn shoot opened his eyes to the need for sex education, particularly around HIV prevention. This led to the creation of Porn4Prep, a groundbreaking film combining sex and HIV education featuring porn performers and health care professionals.

We talk about the rules for negotiating open relationships and how Jason separates sex with a client from sex with a partner. 

Jason discusses the problems with the current sex work laws and advocates the full decriminalisation as the method that would most reduce harm and stigma to sex workers. 

Jason’s activism in sex work and HIV prevention has taken him all the way to the United Nations in Geneva, speaking on Sexual Health & Human Rights.

All the safe (and not so safe for work!) videos are at https://porn4prep.com and you can read more about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV which is already reducing HIV transmission.

Please check out the links below mentioned by Jason in the podcast to learn more about helping sex workers keep safe, the fight for the decriminalisation of sex work and the legal frameworks that are in place across the world. 

https://decrimnow.org.uk

SWARM: https://www.swarmcollective.org

National Ugly Mugs: https://uknswp.org/

If you’d like to support Jason’s work please take a look at https://thedominofoundation.co.uk.

CW: This episode has mention of rape and gay conversion therapy.

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We would love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Jason Domino: @TheJasonDomino 

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Follow us at: @ThePleasurePod and visit us at acast.com/privacy

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back! Welcome to the second series of the Pleasure Podcast. We are thrilled to be kicking off our first episode with multi-award winning comedian, author, actor, documentary maker and fellow podcaster Sara Pascoe. This year her comedy show Lads Lads Lads, had a primetime BBC2 special, and her new BBC2 sitcom has just been announced. It’s on family dynamics, sex and the reason humans behave the way they do, a theme Sara has become master of. Sara’s work is characterised by the studious findings of a ferocious intelligence delivered with warmth and wit, and her latest offering to our bookshelves is no exception. Her first book Animal a partial autobiography mixing feminism, memoir and evolutionary biology. Sex, Power, Money her second non-fiction, is an utterly insightful, funny and sensitive exploration of the way human behaviour and modern masculinity is underpinned by wealth and economics.

We visited Sara and her dog Mouse in her lovely home in London to speak about her new book, which is why you might hear some puppy water slurping and paw pattering. 

We talk about Hebephilia, the true meaning of ravishing, the evolutionary perspective on sexual desire, why we socially respect a large penis but don’t choose to have sex with them, the psychology of catcalling and why we lay everything at porn’s door to avoid having educational conversations about sex. We also manage to squeeze in a little about how in researching for her book Sara's perspective on porn and sex work began to evolve. She’s one of the brightest, funniest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. We hope you enjoy being welcomed into the brilliant mind of Sara Pascoe as much as we did.

Sex Power Money is available to buy from all good bookstores and her companion podcast of the same name (a brilliant series of interviews with people we rarely get to hear from) is available from wherever you get your podcasts.

You can buy Sex, Power, Money here and Animal here.

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CW: This episode has mentions of rape, sexual violence and suicide.

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We would love to hear from you and continue the conversation. Email us at [email protected] or tweet us @ThePleasurePod.

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Social Media:

Naomi Sheldon: @NaomiSheldon1

Anand Patel: @therealdranand

Sara Pascoe: @sarapascoe

Follow us at: @ThePleasurePod and visit us at

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