Hannah Charnock, "Teenage intimacies: Young Women, Sex and Social Life in England, 1950-80" (Manchester UP, 2025)

Drawing on her own experiences with late-onset disability and its impact on her sex life, along with her expertise as a cultural critic, Jane Gallop explores how disability and aging work to undermine one's sense of self. She challenges common conceptions that equate the decline of bodily potential and ability with a permanent and irretrievable loss, arguing that such a loss can be both temporary and positively transformative. With Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus (Duke UP, 2019), Gallop explores and celebrates how sexuality transforms and becomes more queer in the lives of the no longer young and the no longer able while at the same time demonstrating how disability can generate new forms of sexual fantasy and erotic possibility. Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Jun 202159min

If opposite-gender partnerships remain the societal ideal, then why are so many straight couples miserable? Author Jane Ward has been studying this question for some time and outlines her ideas about the tragic effects of heteronormativity in her new book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (New York University Press, 2020). In our interview, we discuss her compelling case for why queer people, and lesbian feminism in particular, have much relational wisdom to offer their heterosexual counterparts, and why only a deepening—rather than queering—of their sexuality can save them. Jane Ward is Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at University of California, Riverside. Her prior books include Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men and Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in Miami. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image problems, and relationship issues. He is a graduate and faculty of William Alanson White Institute in Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology in New York City and former chair of their LGBTQ Study Group; and faculty at Florida Psychoanalytic Institute in Miami. He is also a contributing author to the book Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Defining Terms and Building Bridges (2018, Routledge). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 202144min

Raven Bowen's Work, Money and Duality: Trading Sex As a Side-Hustle (Policy Press, 2021) is a rare and valuable exploration of work duality. It calls on practitioners, policymakers and researchers to recognise the experiences of sex workers and to address race, culture and sex work in the UK against the backdrop of Brexit. Based on extensive empirical work, it illustrates contemporary accounts of individuals who take extraordinary risks to hold jobs in both sex industries and non-sex work employment. Raven is the CEO of Ugly Mugs - check them out here. Rachel Stuart is a sex work researcher whose primary interest is the lived experiences of sex workers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 20211h 4min

Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on relationship coaches, seduction boot camps, and couple’s therapy in a search for happiness. In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (NYU Press, 2020), Jane Ward smartly explores what, exactly, is wrong with heterosexuality in the twenty-first century, and what straight people can do to fix it for good. She shows how straight women, and to a lesser extent straight men, have tried to mend a fraught patriarchal system in which intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and mutual respect are expected to coexist alongside enduring forms of inequality, alienation, and violence in straight relationships. Ward also takes an intriguing look at the multi-billion-dollar self-help industry, which markets goods and services to help heterosexual couples without addressing the root of their problems. Ultimately, she encourages straight men and women to take a page out of queer culture, reminding them “about the human capacity to desire, fuck, and show respect at the same time.” Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 20211h 9min

What makes a woman 'bad' is commonly linked to certain 'qualities' or behaviours seen as morally or socially corrosive, dirty and disgusting. Bad Girls, Dirty Bodies: Sex, Performance and Safe Femininity (Bloomsbury, 2020) explores the social, sexual and political significance of women who are labelled bad or dirty. Through case studies (including Empress Stah, RubberDoll or Doris La Trine), the book challenges the notion that sexual, slutty, bad, or dirty women are not worth listening to. Gemma Commane speaks to Pierre d'Alancaisez about her study of neo-burlesque, queer performances, and explicit entertainment as sites of power, possibility, and success. Gemma Commane is Lecturer in Media and Communications at the Birmingham School of Media, Birmingham City University. She is active in research in the fields of media and cultural studies, and gender and sexuality. Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 202157min

Today we are talking with Becca Andrews, a journalist at Mother Jones, where she writes about reproductive rights and gender. The story we discuss is “When Choice is 221 Miles Away: The Nightmare of Getting an Abortion in the South” and its follow up. Becca’s debut work of nonfiction, No Choice, based on her Mother Jones cover story about the past, present, and future of Roe v. Wade, will be published by in 2022. Andrews is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism and wrote for newspapers in her home state of Tennessee. Agata Popeda is a Polish-American journalist. Interested in everything, with a particular weakness for literature and foreign relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jun 202124min

This collection of narrative essays by sex workers presents a crystal-clear rejoinder: there's never been a better time to fight for justice. Responding to the resurgence of the #MeToo movement in 2017, sex workers from across the industry--hookers and prostitutes, strippers and dancers, porn stars, cam models, Dommes and subs alike--complicate narratives of sexual harassment and violence, and expand conversations often limited to normative workplaces. Writing across topics such as homelessness, motherhood, and toxic masculinity, We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival (Feminist Press, 2021) gives voice to the fight for agency and accountability across sex industries. With contributions by leading voices in the movement such as Melissa Gira Grant, Ceyenne Doroshow, Audacia Ray, femi babylon, April Flores, and Yin Q, this anthology explores sex work as work, and sex workers as laboring subjects in need of respect--not rescue. A portion of this book's net proceeds will be donated to SWOP Behind Bars (SBB). Rachel Stuart is a sex work researcher whose primary interest is the lived experiences of sex workers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21 Jun 202154min

The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America (Reaktion Books, 2020) is a beautifully written and groundbreaking historical study of homemade, handmade and amateur pornographic artifacts. Covering everything from erotic scrimshaw to amateur videos on the web, Lisa Sigel offers a fascinating account of what ordinary people thought about sexuality and desire. This hidden chapter of American sexual history is not only a much-needed counterbalance to ahistorical arguments which dominate pornography today, it’s also a reminder of humanity’s prodigious tendency to create and communicate sexual desires. At times, the images and objects presented in this book might appear shocking, crude, grotesque, problematic, confrontational, unrestrained, unruly; but in the end they are deeply human. Zachary Lowell holds an MA in global studies from Humboldts Universtität zu Berlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Jun 20211h 10min