Goes Without Saying - onlyfans and monetising sexuality: not bad for a girl with no talent

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

in this heated episode of Goes Without Saying, we (sephy & wing) argue about modern female sexuality and how this is expressed and consumed in the digital age. are nudes empowering... or are we ju...st performing for the male gaze? is it feminist to monetise your own objectification? join us in this fun episode as we explore sex positivity, the rise of onlyfans, slut-shaming and more. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Disclaimer guys, if you're clicking on this to get hate towards sex workers or slut shame, then you have come to the wrong place and we will see you never. This is a sex positive edition. We're not here to hate, we're not here to slut shame, we're here for empowerment only. Never the hating game. Hello and welcome back to Hire Priestess. I am Persephone. I'm Erin. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you guys. We're back in the quarantine episodes. Quarantine Diaries episode 3.
Starting point is 00:00:32 We haven't left. We've been on FaceTime this whole time. We're still here. Which is in a constant loop of podcasts. Nothing's changed. And this episode is all about monetising sexuality so that's only fans kind of i would like to talk about slut shaming about the patriarchy as huge as huge gosh i can't talk about anything else the patriarchy just can't even sleep even during a pandemic guys it's still going it never quits did you see that thing i posted on the story that was like the daily mirror saying studies show that women that take off their bras during quarantine are going to have saggy boobs and it's like guys also that dialogue is so conflicted in that the narrative runs twofold it's either going to make them really saggy it's either going to make them
Starting point is 00:01:15 if you wear a bra it's going to make them saggy it's like stop worrying about people getting saggy boobs just give it a fucking rest i do think, like, you went to fucking uni for this. Yeah, you probably did, like, a master's. Yeah. You're highly educated people here. Like, kind of shout out to all the journalists we lost to the Daily Mail. Yeah, imagine you think you're going to write, I'm going to write on the wall, I'm going to be a wartime journalist.
Starting point is 00:01:39 Oh, no, I'm actually writing that you might get saggy boobs. It's so big. It's crazy. Also, if a woman wrote that can you imagine the heartbreak of uploading that article just like okay i'm betraying my entire gender are we all doing that thing where you mute and block the daily mail etc on twitter and don't click on them have you seen that no i just saw your shocked face from across the screen. Oh my God. No. Miles apart. Miles apart.
Starting point is 00:02:07 Yeah, it was a whole thing. Post Caroline. I was talking about Caroline Flack, by the way, for you guys who don't know, or maybe if you're not in the UK, you might not be familiar. Caroline Flack was a TV presenter in the UK who recently, what would you say, last month, she died by suicide. And it was a huge thing because she was incredibly, like, insanely hounded by the press.
Starting point is 00:02:29 So they did this huge thing, they, the people, us included. I don't remember what they called it. It was kind of a catchy thing, but it was like, don't click on the Daily Mail, don't click on the Sun, don't click on the Mirror, blah, blah, blah, block them all. And everyone was like, yeah, I'm boycotting them, I'm boycotting them, et cetera, et cetera etc etc so get on board with that guys if you haven't
Starting point is 00:02:48 already something I was gonna say I was actually gonna put on the story the other day and then I thought I don't want to um totally against it I saw on snapchat which I know I'm like the one person who was on snapchat that day like I know it's dead but i had things to check up on and i saw actually you know we used to look at the um were they vice horoscopes yeah yeah vice horoscopes those were like a thing i used to love the illustrations yeah really nice illustration yeah they were ridiculous and they had so many errors all the time yeah they're like constantly yeah spelling would be awful anyway grammatically a nightmare astrologically genius yeah it was just stunning um there was a thing kind of where those little
Starting point is 00:03:31 stories are the articles and stuff there was a headline and it was about megan barton hansen who i think we're going to talk more about in this ep and it was a headline i think from the sun or one of those shitty things saying meg picture of Megan Barton Hanson. Who, by the way, was a woman that was on Love Island who got like horrifically slut shamed who we've met and we love her. Yeah, we do love her. She's a good pal. Yeah, she was awfully slut shamed on Love Island because her kind of sexual history was
Starting point is 00:04:01 kind of thrown out like dirty laundry and her... Her history as a stripper got like thrown in her face and like sex tapes and things like that, which was awful. Like while she was on the show and like her plastic surgery, her pre-surgery got revealed and everyone was saying just horrendous stuff basically. And she just got very, very attacked. I think it's still a huge part of her reputation and kind of like her presence in the
Starting point is 00:04:26 public knowledge is of being that girl yeah from love island a couple of years ago yeah so the headline was a picture of megan and then it said megan's giving away um x-rated toys because of the coronavirus love that it's just like good old megan fuck off yeah literally well exactly good old megan it's like first of all i'm not clicking on you no fuck you but second of all it's like the reality of that is going to be so far from the narrative that they are portraying like she's obviously just doing something good and they will completely take it for something it's just so frustrating like it's almost laughable like when you actually see it for what it is, it's insane. Yeah, absolutely mad.
Starting point is 00:05:08 It's literally just like why on earth has that made the news? It's like we're in a global pandemic. But the fact that Megan is giving out some vibrators is like, guys, this is hot press. Like we need to get your hands that keyboard right now. Yeah, but you're going to talk, the tone that you're using isn't like, yay. It's so not sex positive.
Starting point is 00:05:27 And it's so damaging. And so many people take it as truth, as gospel. Well, it's almost like evil, dirty Meghan, once again, getting her dirty paws on the innocent girls of the nation. It's just like, what is this narrative? Exactly. And something that really frustrates me is then people will comment. The Daily Mail comments are insane insane i'd never look but i see them through
Starting point is 00:05:48 tweets and stuff like that with people saying look how horrific these comments always are yeah the comments then will be like oh nobody cares like megan nobody cares nobody cares it's like no she knows nobody cares it's the daily mail who are trying to make you care she is not your enemy it's the press she's on her Instagram saying, hey guys, I'm going to give out some sex toys. And then the daily, you're at home on Snapchat, for starters, a dead fucking app, looking at an article at you.
Starting point is 00:06:13 She's attacking me. And then reading an article about what someone else did in their life. It's like, shall we look at the power dynamic here? You're reading an article about her writing a comment that's all fucking misspelled. What's on then you have it's just the audacity the absolute audacity i really find it i think the most bleak thing on earth that i know of today is the way we make kind of um not even just the working class the way we make the 99% hate one another yeah and you're
Starting point is 00:06:46 we're all so dumb as to believe it so where should we begin I think we should talk about how only fans has has reached new heights due to the apocalypse okay yeah take it away everyone wants that content so if you don't know what only fans is please tell us only fans I to be honest I've only just really like found out about only fans yeah you're probably the wrong yeah i didn't i it's definitely like become a huge thing recently it's um basically a subscription service where you can pay your favorite kind of providers i guess of like sexual content some money it's kind of um patreon and they that you kind of have like levels and shit it's also like i do see that it's,
Starting point is 00:07:25 so there are two sides to it. On one side, it's a really great way to like, rather than paying for porn or watching free porn, where you're watching exploited people, you're going directly to the source of a consenting person. Yes, brilliant. And on the other hand,
Starting point is 00:07:39 it's women once again having to use their sexuality to earn money by playing into the male gaze. There are two definitely like very valid schools of thought what are your thoughts on only fans well as you say so many um i even think it's more than i know you've just said two but i think the whole thing and those two things unfold into a million layers within themselves um i'm gonna pull out something that you said and we can discuss it yeah which was that in the second school of thought it is once again women having to exploit their own like sexuality for money or
Starting point is 00:08:13 whatever um what do you think well i just think it's such a shame that the thing that women are always going to be valued on the most is their appearance is their physicality and it's not like okay so the world is ending we all have this opportunity we can all monetize our minds we can all monetize this it's like we can all monetize our bodies one at one guess anyone is bodies every time it's like okay yes there is room for empowerment in that but we're playing into a system that we know so well but that's kind of why I love it so and I actually was thinking about what I said in the last episode um was it the last episode yes where I said um I'm not going to be too stubborn to acknowledge my exploitation of my appearance and not bank on
Starting point is 00:08:58 it myself like I will capitalize when I can um and so I do you remember I can't remember her name it was something is it the naked philanthropist loved it yeah and she raised literally millions like millions millions for the Australia Australian bushfires um I think there's more nuance than oh no here we go selling our appearances again but and I also think that narrative is damaging when the majority of our thought is to inherently we shame women for sex and I think our immediate response is to shame and while there is often accuracy in that unfortunately because it often is exploitative or not consensual and an abundance of other issues i think the way that we are immediately drawn to a discomfort when it comes to women profiting off of their sexuality
Starting point is 00:09:52 is actually a symptom of the patriarchy and not necessarily us trying to oppose it i completely think it's the first step do you get what i mean i think of the levels of nuance the first step is acknowledging oh shit yeah and then we take it further totally for example i'm talking about how only fans has like grown in popularity recently it's like okay so men making money in this thing so for example my brother so we're all literally like okay right how can we make how can we make some money in this situation like blah blah that is honestly what's going on in the deacon household oh for sure we're trying to monetize the apocalypse big time um and my brother um just for context how old is your
Starting point is 00:10:30 brother he's 16 years old okay and he is a money maker he makes money he makes more money than guys you have no idea he's literally a 16 year old he's in sixth form and he makes money but not just like oh he's got a part-time job like he's such a hard worker guys no like he will he has streams of income we're talking about a diverse he's a con artist he's a scammer big time scammer and to be honest my absolute icon so he is he went and sold so we had some guy show up at our house the other day and he sold him i don't even know what for 200 quid i don't even know what some shit they had in this room wait someone physically turned up at your door someone but yeah it was a really weird transaction I hope they kept a distance oh you won't believe the distance that was kept so Charles is outside
Starting point is 00:11:13 the door arms folded this guy shows up in his like van parked at the end of the road and then Charles like all right mate goes and brings him like the stuff at the end of the road the stuff as in what's he selling here it was so he went and bought a few months back he saw this whole thing coming and i can't even explain it he's been stockpiling he's been stockpiling it was the most unnecessary thing you could ever need in this situation so they're like nintendo fucking bobblehead things oh like um zoom 2 no is that what they're called those are like dis Disney. Yeah, Disney ones, but the Nintendo ones, yeah. But they're also kind of not Nintendo.
Starting point is 00:11:48 There's like essentially like Jon Snow is one, like sort of all the characters from Star Wars, kind of like weird. Yeah, Jon Snow is still a thingy one. Do you know the ones I'm thinking? Am I thinking of the right thing? Yeah, but they're not plushy. They're like plastic.
Starting point is 00:12:00 No, yeah, yeah. Essentially, those are all in boxes and he had about 200 of them that he must have they're quite big yeah he had two big boxes of them i know the exact things yeah but what are they called what's the word i don't know he had two big boxes of them and he bought them months back and he probably bought them for like 50 quid and just sold them for 200 quid to some guy during the end of the world it's like okay you he's not silly yeah he's not messing around so for example my brother selling those fucking whatever they're called disney things whatever from what i have seen the male instinct is to be to monetize products and sell things i was in my
Starting point is 00:12:37 room thinking i guess i could set up an only fans i could tell sell pictures of my feet like blah blah and it's just like okay there's the there's the systemic difference that men would initially think okay what can I sell that I own women think I can sell my body I completely agree although I think it is um not as objective as that because I think it's not the majority of women it's not the majority of women's instinct to go straight to their body do you not think though because it's not mine no it might not be yours but then there has been a boom in only fans well completely but i don't i don't think that's yeah 100 but i also think there's been a boom in sex
Starting point is 00:13:15 positivity yeah it's not as simple it's not as linear as kind of oh here we are all needing money all the women want to sell their bodies and all the men sell their toys i think obviously women's um plainly yes like and it's an insane commodity is your body but that is do you not find that funny that a male commodity is very different from a female commodity like what you think you have yeah 100 but i also don't think it's that simple i think it kind of is i think i think that's very much the narrative of what we're told is in it's the narrative but i don't think it's the reality you think immediately every woman inherently thinks i'll sell my body first no no no no absolutely not i completely agree i think that's a trend but i but i don't think i don't think it's like um you're in a like thing that you think to
Starting point is 00:14:06 sell I don't think that's the immediate as you said like definitely no that's not it at all I just have spoken to a lot of women in this situation and I definitely had discussions of like I guess we could sell nudes but I don't think that's an immediate the men that I spoke to that has not been a thought that has not even no it's not an option yeah there's no market yeah it's just there's no market there's no market because it's like don't fucking send me your dick pics again you motherfucker literally it's like no we don't want you here but there is such a market there is an endless market for female news yeah well we say endless but here is the um paradox think, at the moment of OnlyFans. Completely agree with you that, yeah, I've said it, everyone says it, like, no, I've said it because I haven't,
Starting point is 00:14:51 but everyone has the thought of, do I do that? Could I do that? Blah, blah, blah. And some people do. The paradox at the moment is people who use OnlyFans, as in often the women providing the services, are saying, do not be disheartened if you're not making 20k in a week that's the thing you have to grow your um following yeah and a lot of young women are going into only fans thinking that it is like an easy way to make money quickly and the reality
Starting point is 00:15:21 of that is so far from what you're being told when you see kind of a model on instagram with 200 000 followers yeah starting and only fans are making 50k in her first week obviously people would buy their fucking toenail clippers if they offered like yeah you've got an audience they're ready to buy it doesn't matter what you're selling if you're starting and only fans with kind of a thousand followers you're gonna make a tenner maybe yeah literally and then you're gonna give up because it's not easy in so many levels because obviously the money doesn't come immediately and also are you prepared for the emotional weight of pictures of yourself being online for whoever and whatever to do whatever with forever etc etc and and and it's difficult
Starting point is 00:16:07 because there are definitely the two sides are really compelling to me because i'm so pro monetizing what you have the capricorn in me it's like fucking monetize that shit be resourceful use your privilege you're hot use your fucking privilege do it make money there is a market men are pervs do it then it's also the part even you're hot just you've got a body someone wants to see literally do it there is a huge market for anybody but then also there's the other side of me that's potentially the more old school feminist in me that is literally like why is it that that is the thing that we can monetize once again like that is such a depressing thing to me that the instant thing of like okay what do I have
Starting point is 00:16:46 to monetize oh okay it's my body it's not my mind the things that I value in myself I I completely agree it's a um depressing reality that oh once again what is our our prime commodity our bodies but then um is that like okay so what are you going to do about it do you know what I mean it's like oh okay are you going to make millions it do you know what i mean it's like okay are you going to make millions off of it or are you just going to be upset about it and be annoyed when you see an only fans account not you but you get what i mean no but i don't think those are the options i think the option is interrogating why why is the word there and questioning okay so i can either conform to doing this thing which is empowering for some but also incredibly damaging
Starting point is 00:17:23 i think those who are doing only fans aren't conforming no if you're making an only fans account conforming is not the word i would use you can either play into that aspect of the patriarchy and monetize it which yes i think there is definitely power to be found in that or you can reject it and find power in the rejection of that as well so what does that look like like? Do you get what I mean? Like, okay, so we've understood, we can all come to the conclusion that it's a shame that women's commodity is always brought down.
Starting point is 00:17:51 Women's value is always brought to their appearance or their body, et cetera, et cetera, and, and. What now, practically, what do we do then on a personal level in your own personal life? What choices do you make? And on a society level, what do you understand to be the right move because as we say yeah there's so much power to be found in that
Starting point is 00:18:11 and it would be wrong to immediately discredit that from all women but also it's way too simplistic to say that's great everyone should have an OnlyFans and be almost so sex positive that it's counterintuitive in that no positivity is brought out of it because there's no room for growth or education. I think there's also a huge difference between the OnlyFans that we would have been necessarily seeing because the sort of sphere of the internet that we occupy is incredibly sex positive and incredibly self-aware but I do think there are sort of 18 year olds that are getting their only fans account and it is not what we're seeing it's not um the naked um philanthropist and all of that it's not
Starting point is 00:18:50 that it's not megan barton hansen it's insane they're self-aware of what they're doing and they know they're monetizing their own oppression fair it's not consensual because if you're not aware you're not consenting if you're not aware of what you're participating in or what you are doing or why you're doing it then how can that be yeah exactly because you don't understand it but there are a lot of kind of essentially children or people that are vulnerable shit how can i make money i guess that's an marketer does an easy way accessible way to make money and i think that is really dangerous um i completely completely agree that it's i completely agree with you it's definitely a dangerous option and i think it's so dangerous the narrative that we see of like oh my god you can make so much money just get your tits out like oh my god just show me your
Starting point is 00:19:35 bum hole and i'll give you ten thousand pounds it's like it's actually not all fun and games not that we know from experience but we're smart girls yeah but also it's like we see people saying yeah oh no it's fine mic drop just honestly drop the mic oops we see people on instagram that are going i love taking nudes that's so empowering and that is a great thing to see that is sex positivity that is sex work inclusive and needed there's a space for that and it needs to be there so necessary so important and that is um its own form of feminism but what is not feminist and what is playing into your own oppression is the children that are getting this and young people that just are like shit okay i can make some money from this and it's not self-aware and it is um i would
Starting point is 00:20:22 think that would be damaging to it's destructive feminism and them as individuals yeah i think um it's worth noting i think it's worth everyone consciously sex is every like you can be super sex positive and say yeah like it's a huge part of life blah blah we need to like not take it seriously just have fun etc etc but the reality is sex is an incredibly significant part of every single person's life even if they haven't had sex yet etc etc and so the way that you choose to talk about sex or only fans um can either spear as you say a narrative that pushes feminism or tries to push feminism and is this kind of pseudo sex positive like neo sex positive yeah discourse and actually ends up being really really destructive
Starting point is 00:21:06 for everybody who can see that because we were said before an interesting conversation we had so we were lucky enough to be invited to a talk where megan barton hansen was speaking um yes with the lovely lipstick feminist jess who if you guys don't know you should do we love yeah you should get to know definitely go follow her yeah at the lipstick feminist yeah go look and at megan barton hansen i presume go and have a look but we had some conversations after basically we went into it just like super excited to hear and came out of it thinking like fuck like megan is great she really impressed us not that she was there to impress us but boy she did yeah we're big megan fans now i just think i had never viewed her as
Starting point is 00:21:50 a self-aware person i viewed her on the closer to the end of the spectrum of like victim of the patriarchy she has had all this stuff imposed on her i think she's actually way more self-aware of like she is monetizing the patriarchy she is she gets empowerment out of stripping she gets empowerment out of sex work i think that is great that is that is a positive influence i think something else yeah i totally a positive influence because i also think and as we've said before she understands her role in the game that she's playing she is incredibly honest about not only the things that she monetizes but how she does it for example she spoke about um what was it like tucking in her double chin etc etc with face tune or whatever double chin and
Starting point is 00:22:30 also being so honest about that she was talking about how she she's just one of the people that would face tune themselves and then say oh yeah i face tune this like in the caption it's like okay well that's just fucking huge a completely different thing to face tuning your thing and not admitting it and those people don't get in the fucking daily mirror opinion she says she's fucking faced yeah she's a bad influence no every fucking influencer is doing that megan's just saying i'm doing it and that's the thing we always say the power of words fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself lovely but it's so that it's like if you're saying that you're fake you are completely removing the power from um kind of the secrecy and the shame of like what women do yeah and by owning that you are making sure you're taking the weight off of the narrative that isn't always reflecting the reality
Starting point is 00:23:19 do you get what i mean like totally by being so honest you're taking away all the space for like you're you're chopping in half even more so the women who will look at that picture and feel bad about themselves totally because they're gonna think oh she looks amazing there and i can too okay cool it's edited rather than she looks amazing there and i can never look like that um happy april fool's day by the way oh yeah happy april fool's day we had quite a funny joke the other day did we what was it do you remember the april fool's joke oh yeah we did a we did a pre-april fool's april fool's joke which i found hilarious was that um coronavirus is a big joke set up by the government and they're gonna come out on april fool's day today saying like almost like you guys stay in your houses you should have seen the looks on your faces
Starting point is 00:24:08 you shut down your business so you didn't pay your rent you idiot you all emailed your landlords and you said hey can we not have our rent it's like to be honest fingers crossed it was all in april fools day it would kind of be the ultimate joke awful oh like it's like you're anticipating an ultimate revolution you all worked from home for weeks it's like you wore a fucking mask you idiot you wore gloves it's awful but unfortunately no word yet of whether this is a joke or no no word in yet they're sticking with it for now yeah my mum did a prank on me this morning i was just getting into the shower um and she knocked on the door she was like hi um actually my friend is gonna come and stay so do you mind giving up
Starting point is 00:24:56 your bedroom and moving into the small bedroom and i honestly the look on my face i came out of the shower and i literally flipped my hair and went would i move into the small bedroom and then straight away so april fools and i was like fuck that's quite an embarrassing response like that was that's embarrassing i was so indignant i was like excuse me would i give up my bedroom my room like honestly that's hilarious in my mind the hierarchy is so me at the top in this house it's like go and ask one of the others they'll have to give up their room go and ask one of the others don't come to me asking for that shit that's a really funny joke from your mum i wouldn't have thought your mum would be doing april fool's jokes and then she went and did it to lizzie and charles she went through the whole house doing them in age order who was everyone what was everyone else's reaction? Lizzie was like, fuck off as if. And then by the time we
Starting point is 00:25:52 got to Charles, he'd already heard it done twice already. So he was he was on to it. Charles has already scammed his way into a better room anyway. He's got a five star hotel lined up for the next week. Exactly. Yeah, he doesn't need to be here I would love to prank someone I haven't pranked anyone in ages I'm not really a big pranker but you really are quite I'm more the pranky yeah you are kind of pranky am I a prankster I'm like already thinking I'm Jim from the office what you're Jim from I look around my whole room is in jelly. Yeah, literally. Well, last year at uni, I think Stella's quite the pranker. So you would team up with her.
Starting point is 00:26:31 Yeah, we were quite the team. Jim and Pam team. Yeah. Jim and Dwight. The iconic duo, yeah. I do love a prank. We have spoken about in detail about our horrific prank about us, the movie. Honestly, it's like how close, how such a fine line talking about pranking and not bringing up that prank i can't like i've got shivers down my spine i don't even
Starting point is 00:26:52 want to think about it if you guys don't know what happened to us you have to go listen to what episode is in the halloween episode i think it also features in another one and maybe even another one go to the halloween app but we got pranked out of our minds we got pranked out of our jumped out of our skin with a horrific song my brother still sometimes does things best because i told him about now he uses it against you he said to me last night there's a family on the driveway oh fuck off charles fuck off it's too much it's like i'm running to the window i can't cope just don't you fucking dare bring that up right now don't even think about it not on my watch i'm not in a position to get information
Starting point is 00:27:31 that could potentially harm me honestly that and you're not in a position to deal with me after i've been in a position where i've been in a situation where the information is potentially hard on me you are not ready to deal with me oh anyway anyway back to sex so i want to talk about something that you hear a lot which i have so many thoughts is oh i'll just like do an only fans ha ha ha like oh just oh my god i'm just gonna like sell pictures of myself ha ha ha like oh my god like ha ha ha ha ha yeah or whatever etc etc ultimately the vast majority of young women or people like us will not sign up for OnlyFans etc etc because they feel too um ashamed about sex to do so etc etc and have other feelings that um is kind of the umbrella of everything
Starting point is 00:28:27 links back to the shame that you would feel if your only fans was exposed yeah yeah i think well that's that's the whole thing about so we went to a talk recently and they spoke about sending nudes god look at us listen to all these talks we went to women at the world festival we were doing press look at us we got press tickets. Dude. We really did. It was a really great day. And now I haven't left the house since. That was the last time I saw that.
Starting point is 00:28:54 And now I go to Sainsbury's. And it was an amazing day. Think about it every day. It really was. If it happens next year, if there is a next year, you should think about going. We'll be there. If we make it through this, we'll be there. If we make it.
Starting point is 00:29:05 If we make it through this, we'll be there. Yes, we saw a talk and there was somebody talking who we really, really loved. And she was talking about sending nudes and how it's a very, very empowering act. And I'm sorry that I'm really picking this apart as in sex positivity, but I really, really am. I think it goes without saying. Oh, don't apologise. It's what you're here for. I'm really going to pick this part because there was one thing that she said that was a strange narrative i think that she
Starting point is 00:29:27 pushed throughout where she's kept on saying send nudes people are not gonna share them around send nudes send them send them send them and it was like her whole thing i thought it was quite interesting that that was i think it's difficult because we are from a community on instagram that is incredibly safe with things like that and incredibly free with things like that. But I think amongst an audience, you don't know who's listening. There are 15 year olds in this audience hearing send nudes around.
Starting point is 00:29:53 They won't go. People are nice people. They won't share them. We learned from our poll that we did on our Instagram story last night. People are not good. People are not to be trusted with things that you don't want shared around.
Starting point is 00:30:03 If you are happy sharing your body around, then send it out. Send that shit around town. That's great. But if you're a 15-year-old in school and you're scared that that picture is going to go on the fucking whiteboard, on the fucking projector, my advice is do not do that.
Starting point is 00:30:15 If you're a 15-year-old who's still scared of their own body, still trying to get to grips with stuff, don't take that advice. Don't place that in the hands of somebody else. Particularly, there is no set of hands worse to put them in than a 15 year old boy and his friends than the people in your classroom it's amazing as empowering as sex positivity is on instagram i think know your own limits if you're if you're not that person that can get your body out and be amazing with that don't feel the pressure
Starting point is 00:30:42 to do it don't do it because someone on instagram told you to do it if you physically yeah my nips are gonna make me some money yeah but if you don't if you're not happy with your nips don't send it out if you don't want those on the fucking white board nips you don't want those on youtube yeah it's so true i think that i completely completely completely agree with you and i think you'd be a fool not to because our ultimate point is this is absolutely great if it's consensual and i think as we kind of touched on earlier i think there is a line further to be drawn than what we presume to be consensual you think if you are doing it you're making the choice to do it for yourself it must be consensual but actually um if your own pathway to that thought has been corrupted by the patriarchy
Starting point is 00:31:26 and social messages that you've been um like fed which undoubtedly it is then it's not just your consent that you're giving it's kind of it's not just your choice that you're giving it's everyone else who has pointed you in that direction and that i think is one of the biggest things to be aware of is 100% this is sex we are sex 100% we're sex positive and there is so much room for empowerment and if women are capitalizing on anything I'm there for it like we're a fan totally yeah yeah but we can't ignore the nuance and the dangers that women find themselves in in so many different ways and OnlyFans doesn't escape that. I think that's the thing that bothers me. There is this whole lack of nuance within the discussion
Starting point is 00:32:10 of OnlyFans of women are capitalising on this. That's amazing. Yeah, it's either black and white or it's the worst. They're all sluts or it's great. Exactly. And it's not that simple. I'm on the end of it's empowering more than it's damaging. Well, you're not on it. You're not on the spectrum. You're on the other level. you're on the higher level with the higher priestesses saying it is empowering and here's why it is damaging and here's why it's not either or it's a whole complex gray mix of everything i love the idea that people can make money out of their own oppression fucking genius fucking never the same iconic unique i fucking love that appropriate it but yeah it doesn't that's not the full stop that
Starting point is 00:32:51 is not it doesn't end there that's the introduction well because i think a lot of people i thought i watched who was it there was some influencer that i was watching and she was like taking fun nudes with her flatmates and she is like a sex positive like really cool girl and she was taking these nudes and her nudes were do you know who it was to shout out no because i'm about to rip her to shreds oh forget it i'm not i'm not um but go on yeah i'm actually not but she was taking these fun nudes and she when she said okay i'm gonna take nudes with my flatmates i thought okay that's interesting i'm gonna see how these turn out and she posted them all and a lot went on her only fans and a lot went on just her Instagram but like kind of covered up and stuff but she was wearing like a crazy top hat
Starting point is 00:33:31 like her hair was like crazy that's fun it was like a whole circus look it was a fun look and I was thinking okay so when your message is take nudes send nudes to people um get an only fans it's so empowering I was imagining um kind of like classic sexy pic like on your bed like bum sticking out like little selfie but then it's like okay so there's a whole other world where people are taking like crazy nudes i understand how that's an expression of your creativity there are lots of different niches within this of creative expression empowerment of your own body and also this like subtext of just like um gross old men looking at your pics it's like yeah that's the audience we're going for i completely agree with the people that
Starting point is 00:34:12 are profiting from this the people that are profiting are young women love that tick love them profiting but also the people that are winning are disgusting gross old men oh okay yeah not so happy about that one i was gonna say you reminded me when you said well i think it i think it's a thing to acknowledge but that she said her friend took her nudes for her because i was gonna say i've done that for quite a few friends taking their nudes yeah and i was gonna say i can imagine that you haven't yeah because the look on your face yeah no they want it they're just like let's it's just fun they're just like it's a funny thing like and that is the reality of and even if they don't go anywhere it's just like a funny thing
Starting point is 00:34:51 or whatever i'm like let me take them on my phone a better quality like or whatever like oh but that one's good blah blah etc it can actually be a really fun thing quite a few different people why can't they take themselves because if you're taking a nude of yourself it's like what you're doing it in a mirror like it's kind of you need someone to hold the phone right it's like a setup do you get what i mean if we if me and you were getting a picture we wouldn't really want it to be a selfie we oh guys you don't even know what we do to get i mean let's not even go let's not even go the the tripods in quote marks that we have used or the photographers in quote marks that we have used have been another level we've used a punnet of strawberries with no strawberries in it
Starting point is 00:35:29 with tin foil in it with a pen propping it up i mean sellotape it's insane the things we've done but you go i mean that's why you need someone else to hold the camera right yeah i got it you mean they didn't use a punnet of strawberries with a sellotape thing oh no they didn't like tape it to the wall or get a passerby to do it yeah i get it but i also think how old were you when you were doing that like young i imagine um youngest i was 18 at my younger that was the first time not that it's like that was the first time yeah pics of your friends naked at 18 yeah and i'm that's not that much of a rarity no i wouldn't think it would be but i would also say there's a huge difference between doing that so these influencers who are like 26 let's say and then 18 and then making that to be sold the way they were doing was very much
Starting point is 00:36:21 like fun content that people could then go and buy and they were wearing like crazy outfits right because then versus kind of 18 year olds um in their bedroom sending it to their boyfriends no no you're reading it wrong it was 18 year olds like in the way that when you are growing up you're understanding your own sexuality your own body as you say and it was Okay. And that is a reality. Yeah. And that's why I think, that's what I was going to say,
Starting point is 00:36:48 that influencer doing that, there's a whole, as we say, undercurrent of the messages that you decide to send to whoever may be in your audience. That is a huge thing we need to be aware of. But also, if part of the message that you're sending is this can be a fun thing and if you are safely um engaging in that then that is really really necessary and those messages really need
Starting point is 00:37:13 to be there because if they're not we are in no way defeating the shame around women's sexuality we're just leaving it there to fester absolutely not and then people come into only fans for the wrong reasons but then my argument also with that it's interesting that men groups of men 18 year old men are not taking pictures of them and their friends naked in rooms like why is the emphasis so much put on the female body that men are not going okay let's let's understand our sexuality like let's take photos of each other let's see what we look like from the outside. Well, I think that's a sad reality about the ways that men connect with one another. I think that's a sad reality of the way the things that...
Starting point is 00:37:54 I think that's a sad reality of the way women have to connect with themselves. Yeah, it's both. But I also think men don't escape this. There's a really interesting TED Talk and I have no idea whose it is. She's a sex worker. If you type in sex workers ted talk it will come up i'm so sorry that i don't know this woman's name um she's a sex worker and she said um she actually did it really beautifully it's at the beginning of the ted talk she's like oh i um i'm really butchering this but she was like this guy came to me and whatever like i helped him out so much like and he said he then said to
Starting point is 00:38:24 me um your work has saved my life and like reels him out so much like and he said he then said to me um your work has saved my life and like reels up to be super dramatic and then she says my work is sex work and everyone's like whoa and like clapping and stuff because you're kind of thinking oh she's gonna be like a fucking surgeon or something etc etc obviously you know that she's a sex worker but the audience i guess i don't know she talks about how um men and like intimacy for men is so hard to come by in so many different ways that they have to pay for it and sometimes they can't even pay for it because a they don't have access to it b they're too ashamed to do so etc etc so i think yes it is a huge thing about the way that women see their bodies and bodies women's bodies female body etc etc it's always about women's bodies looking a certain way perceived from the
Starting point is 00:39:08 outside you want to see how you're perceived from the outside it's whereas for men it's very internal or you are the watch you are the viewer whereas for women you are the object you're being viewed it's just quite interesting yeah but then there's also the the second part to that which is it's unfortunate that men don't get to have that fun moment at 18 harmlessly kind of in that safe room or i don't know if it is harmless i don't think that is or for example that now my favorite stat which is so bleak that 16 people in the uk die by suicide every day 12 of which are men there is a huge it's its own pandemic what we do to men what the patriarchy does to men yeah um and i think it's it's horrendous and i think they're
Starting point is 00:39:53 missing out on that the way that they see their body the way that they can connect with one another in that way i wouldn't link that though i wouldn't necessarily link that i wouldn't think of nudes and i wouldn't think of connection being the next thing though, or like friendship connection and or like even understanding of your own body. To me, nudes, I understand how recently that has been turned into, like appropriated into a way
Starting point is 00:40:15 that you can connect with your own body and understand your own body. I understand that. But that's quite recent. Up until about, I would say literally three years ago, nudes have always been. For you, for you, because I wasn't 18 three years ago that was longer ago nudes have been there's a there has been a subculture where nudes are positive for young women for a lot longer than
Starting point is 00:40:36 three years a lot longer than three years i don't know if 18 year olds in their room taking nudes is an empowering act. That seems to me like people... I think what makes me uncomfortable is, whether it's a safe room or not, is that men in their rooms, their group of friends, are playing FIFA together. Women in their rooms are taking nudes, which I guarantee will have been sent to the men. Well, not in that situation they were. Definitely. I'm not talking about yours. I was going to Well, not in that situation they were. Definitely. Not in that, I just said.
Starting point is 00:41:07 I'm not talking about yours. I was going to say, because that is a real situation where that happened. That's what I'm saying. With that situation, what is there to be bothered by apart from the inherent shame that you get of being a woman
Starting point is 00:41:18 in the patriarchy, that it makes you uncomfortable to think about 18 year old girls kind of having fun. It's not that. It's if women, I'm not even talking about yours, but in yours if those pictures were like um an empowering act that you kind of all took together they were literally in that situation where i was
Starting point is 00:41:32 18 and it was that girl was also maybe 19 18 they were literally just for her that is very different that could be could have been an empowering thing sure but what I think is more likely happening is those pictures are then later being sent to the men I think very often that's the case which is a really strange thing that men in their rooms are not all right okay let's make you look great there let's do that let's do put your makeup on blah blah take pictures of you to send to that's just not it's like a really weird imbalance that the men when they're on their own they're not having to perform in that way whereas a woman it is so inherent that you're an object that you're getting your friends take pictures of you so you can feel empowered in this whole like look and then that picture is then being used for
Starting point is 00:42:14 your essential validation by sending that to a man yeah i think that's a specific scenario though that i think comes i think those nudes are going to men really the 18 year old girls are taking well i've just told you not all of them are've just told you, not all of them are. I've just told you, not all of them are. So you can't say, I think all of those nudes are going to men. I think the majority of nudes that women take are going to men. I completely agree with you. And as we've said, there's a whole spectrum of problems and positives that come under that.
Starting point is 00:42:40 But I do think that scenario is not that uncommon and should be encouraged and praised just as we should be encouraging young girls to be um getting to know their own bodies etc etc and not feeling validated by validated by boys etc etc i think that is a scenario that is worthy of airtime because it's that important messaging from the the crux of that though is that it's not going to man because you just said if if it's not being validated by men but the crux of it also is how did you get there and it's the the story of consent as in from what is that situation born out of and if from where does it come from and where does it go where did you come from Cotton eye joe yeah literally where does the where did that come from as in why were you led there
Starting point is 00:43:29 and where is it going is it going to a boy where do you go tonight joe is funny yeah but do you get what i mean it's like interrupt it at the beginning and question interrupt it in the middle and question are you safe interrupt it at the end where is this going to who who are you putting your body in the hands of yeah i think at every point we can interrogate um what this the reality of the situation is there are a lot of situations where news can be an empowering thing but i think yeah absolute like nut of the issue like you've broken down the layers you think at the end of the day i think for the complete core if those nudes are being used for your own validation from men then they are problematic which i think a huge huge huge percentage of nudes that are being taken i'm not talking about the sex positive nudes that are going that megan's taking or sex positive
Starting point is 00:44:21 influences i'm talking about the yeah the common people the common people that are sending nudes the ones that end up in the hands of men a large majority of those that you are taking in your rooms trying trying trying to look good and you're hoping that he likes more as man is just taking a picture of their dick and sending it and sending it to you and kind of 25 other people yeah it's so different and i think that speaks absolute volumes about how about female oppression with their own sexuality is that it is all viewed not through your own experience but your experience as an object completely agree but it's not even just nudes it's if anything is coming down to the validation that you want from men you need to
Starting point is 00:44:56 read validating by high priestess sweetie there's ties all up with a promo that was my plan let's do this whole conversation i'm joking um honestly yeah everything's a problem if it ultimately is looking for the validation of somebody else because you cannot outsource validation that is not a sustainable model of life i loved it i love it yeah um yeah so i think sexuality all those things it's a complex issue there are a thousand different ways that you can read this and also it's all interwoven with your own personal experience of life nudes porn all of these things i'm nodding viciously you're big time nodding i'm big time nodding it's all interwoven with all this stuff and also just your own understanding of like your positioning within the world history all of these things it's just like all the stuff you've consumed over the years i think ultimately to to truly consent to anything
Starting point is 00:45:50 you have to be educated and aware and that is the starting point that's but i think that's what gets me about the 18 year olds you are the opposite of educated and aware at 18 well i was going to say to you earlier when you said that that woman had 15 year olds in the crowd i was going to say i don't think age is necessarily a diet. Is it not always synonymous with like understanding? No, I've met 50 year olds that are as fucking dumb as a load of 12 year olds I've met. Yeah, literally. Exactly. Yeah. And I think obviously with social media and everything, the kids are...
Starting point is 00:46:18 Totally. But I think to say to a group of essentially young people, send your nudes. People aren't going to send them around. Yeah. Was crazy. Well, when you're young, everything's so formative. Yeah, yeah. It just felt quite crazy. It's like, okay, so you could potentially get this, girls. Yeah, you need to be careful with the messages that you're...
Starting point is 00:46:37 It's almost like not everyone is as empowered as the people you see on Instagram. So like, I might be okay to have my nudes shared around because I'm okay with that. I would send them and it's like, okay, it doesn't matter. People were nice, but if they're not, it doesn't really matter.
Starting point is 00:46:49 The next person could be shaking in their booze. Yeah, you can't dismiss the weight and the severity of these situations. You can't dismiss it because you would be naive to ignore all of the problems and like the danger that women find themselves in, in these situations, which is a bleak way to end yeah it's like if my message is yeah if my message is anything my message is not trust men
Starting point is 00:47:13 which is not that like her whole thing was trust men it's fine it's like no no look at the mess look at the mess we're in yeah that is not my message it's so true um just be safe be safe have fun be empowered and read validating buy it it's out now link in bio it's out now link in bio if you want to hear more about this topic i feel like we could go on i could honestly go on for hours and hours and hours we've got loads to say and also with every podcast we never exactly articulate exactly what we want so just just give us the benefit of the doubt here can't spit a slack would you yeah it's not like we're recording a podcast and there's only one goes out forever into the world it's like quite a lot of pressure guys exactly you have one shot honestly do not miss your chance to blow
Starting point is 00:48:02 and i've got vomit on my sweater already mum spaghetti spaghetti spaghetti everywhere thank you guys so so much for listening yeah thanks guys i hope you enjoyed it i would love to hear your thoughts send us your thoughts send us your money send us send us your news send us whatever you've got to give send us your um disney some some things send us all yeah i've got a lot of stock to shift on that so if you want to hit me up send in your requests thanks guys right see you later speak to you later bye Goodbye.

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