- How to avoid divorce, avoid long exposure to your partner.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Pleasure Trove,
the series where we dive into stories in the news
and in culture around sexuality, love and relationships.
And before we get into it,
if you are not subscribed already, why not?
I make new videos about sex and relationships every week.
So hit that subscribe button and the notification bell,
so you're notified when I post a new video.
Obviously with the world the way that it is right now,
most of the news is dominated by Coronavirus
and that seeps in to Pleasure Trove news as well.
Fortunately, unfortunately, I don't know,
hopefully you find this information useful or interesting,
and maybe it will help some people.
So one of the biggest and most crucial things
that is happening, which I haven't been able to find
a way to talk about on social media
because I just felt so overwhelmed by the entire thing
and didn't really know how to help
but we are addressing it now
and it's that there's been a huge spike in calls
to the National Domestic Abuse helpline.
For some people staying at home means isolating
with an abusive partner or an abusive family member.
The Home Office recently launched a campaign to address this
called the You Are Not Alone Campaign,
and the symbol of which is a palm
with a heart print in the centre of it.
You may have seen some people on Instagram
posting pictures like this in support of this campaign.
And domestic abuse services are being given
an extra two million pounds from the government.
I believe this is on top of the charity package
that's going out to lots of charities as well,
so this is specifically for domestic abuse services.
The charity Refuge run the National Domestic Abuse helpline,
which is free and available 24 hours a day
and also that website has lots of really useful information
on that to know your rights, your options and get support.
The Home Office has said
that if you are in immediate danger, then call 999
and if you can't speak, press five, five.
I just really hope that, that message gets out there
to the people who need to hear it
and they get the support that they need
and they know that they are not alone
and that they do not have to be isolating
with an abuser right now.
On to some different news, there have been claims
and predictions from divorce lawyers
that divorce rates will go up when we come out of lockdown.
This and babies, these are the things
that people are predicting when we come off lockdown,
basically lots of Corona babies,
a new baby boom and divorces.
Obviously couples are not used to spending
this much time together and in normal circumstances,
I would say that a healthy relationship
is one where you don't spend all of your time
with that one person
and so this can put a huge strain on relationships,
but it also just might be the case
that it just brings to light pre existing issues
that before you could ignore and shove under the rug
but now it's just like you are faced with that.
This is something that I found really interesting.
Apparently peak times for divorce lawyers
is after periods of long exposure.
So there are a lot of divorces coming through
after the summer holidays, after the Christmas holidays,
where married people are spending
a lot more time than usual together
and I find that fascinating and also a bit morbid, maybe.
It's like, how to avoid a divorce,
avoid long exposure to your partner.
Obviously if you get married,
hopefully the person that you're marrying,
is the one person who you can spend a lot of time with
above like everyone else,
but apparently there's such a thing as too much time
and too much exposure to your loved ones.
And then I also saw this news story from Japan
and I do not know how real it is
but basically a startup kind of similar to Airbnb
is offering rental homes to couples
to help them distance themselves during lockdown.
So you can go and stay in this other rental property
to get away from your partner for a while.
I don't know what the lockdown rules are in Japan
but that just sounds wild to me,
I have no idea if people are actually doing it.
But I imagine that there's loads
of like empty Airbnb properties right now,
so now they're just like a being offered up is like,
hey, come stay here to get away from your husband
or wife for a while, wouldn't that be nice?
Yikes!
During this time, things that don't feel really urgent,
are obviously not taking a priority right now
and one of those things is sex education,
that is one thing that I really, really care about.
I know that there's not many teenagers who watch my content
and I also know there's not many parents
who watch my content but I do know
that there's lots of teachers who watch my content
because that does fall into the general age of people
who watch my videos, so teachers
if you do want to be keeping up with any sex
and relationships education in online classes,
or you want to give some resources to parents,
so that they can have conversations with their kids at home,
then I would highly recommend sexpositive_families
is an amazing resource, check out their Instagram,
there's just so many good nuggets on there
but then there's loads of resources
on their website as well and the website BISH, UK.
This is aimed at 14 plus
and has loads of useful articles on there
about healthy relationships,
also specifically stuff around relationships and sex
during COVID-19, during lockdown.
Ambish also has a training site for teachers,
for parents, with tonnes of resources
that if you want to be continuing sex
and relationships education at home.
Parents are going to be spending
a lot of time with kids right now,
so these may well be things that come up in conversation
but also it's necessary and good to be having these talks.
Okay, let's move on to some stuff.
I've got a Pleasure Trove book favourite for you today.
I just finished Holly Bourne's
"The Places I've cried in Public" last night
and oh, boy, it is a heavy YA read.
It's about this girl, Emily, who goes through a breakup,
and it flashes back and forwards between post breakup,
and then during the relationship,
and she's tracing all of the places
that she cried in public because of this boy,
this boy causing her to cry for whatever reason,
and she's trying to understand what the relationship was,
why it ended, why she feels so broken,
and ultimately, it's a book about an abusive relationship.
So it is really heavy,
the way that Holly writes these stories,
it just really hits you and it is so believable.
She is so good at planting these moments
that are like these little red flags
but you can totally understand
why the character in that moment thinks, oh my god!
This person is amazing, they love me
but then you're also reading it as an outsider
just being like, oh no honey, that's bad, that's bad
and you're watching her like fall
into this really abusive cycle.
So just as a content warning,
if you do plan on reading this book,
a lot of emotional manipulation,
controlling behaviour and rape, but it is a brilliant book
and Holly does such a great job
of speaking to that difference
between those emotional rollercoaster relationships
that feel amazing but then feel horrible
and then there's like steady, safe, warm, good relationships
that don't feel as exciting but feel secure.
When I read this line,
I immediately was like stop everything,
give me a pen and paper, I need to write this down
so that I remember this.
"I've chosen being whisked off my feet
"rather than the steady ground beneath them."
And that just sums it all up.
Although, can you really choose anything
when you're being emotionally manipulated?
And then also shout out to my bookmark
from The Vulva Gallery,
Hilda, who is the creator of The Vulva Gallery
and does all of these amazing illustrations evolvers
sent me the book and then also a few little goodies,
including this bookmark and it is my new favourite bookmark.
So thanks, Hilda.
I have an Instagram favourite for you.
This isn't someone new that I've just discovered,
they're actually a friend of mine
and I've been following them on Instagram
for I don't even know how long
and they were even on my podcast.
It is Eva Bloom from What's My Body Doing
but I just wanted to give her a shout out
because her Instagram is so good.
She is like on it right now, with the posts,
really informative stuff about sex and about relationships.
Her background is in sex research,
so she is just like all about that information
and nerding out around topics around sexuality.
She's a bisexual girl and everything that she does
is just so damn inclusive.
I don't really watch that many people's Instagram stories
but hers I watch because just the nuggets in there
but then also just they're really warm and funny
and inviting and aesthetically pleasing.
Big fan, shout out to Eva, go follow her on Instagram,
if you want lots more information, about sex,
about dating, about relationships
that is just really good and really inclusive.
We love Eva, on to TV.
Last night, I watched the new documentary
on Netflix, "A Secret Love."
It's just a feature documentary, it's not a series
and it is about an old lesbian couple
who only recently come out to their family
and their loved ones.
They've been in a relationship
and living together for like 65 years
but obviously, it was a complete secret,
no one knew that they were gay.
The documentary is really sweet.
I loved all of the backstory about their relationship.
When I was at university, I studied history,
and I did a whole module on the history of homosexuality
and there was a point in it
where we talked about the lack of sources.
So it's like, you can't really say
that these women were gay, who lived together
and wrote really like loving letters to one another,
'cause there was nothing that said,
we are definitely in a relationship, we are a couple,
we are married, we have sex,
like, none of that stuff is there because they couldn't
and so a lot of historians
have named these relationships romantic friendships.
And I think if Terry and Pat had never come out
to their family, that was definitely like a label
that would have been used to describe them.
But no, they are two gay women
in a relationship with each other.
One of the things I found really fascinating
was when they were going through a bunch of old stuff,
and they came across love letters
that they'd written to each other,
but the top and the bottom was torn off,
which was the bit where they would have written,
dear Terry, love Pat, but they ripped their names off
and got rid of those because they were like,
well, if something happens to one of us,
and someone finds these letters, then everyone would know
and we can't have everyone knowing and I was like, whoa!
The amount of things
that they would have had to think about to do,
in order to hide the truth of their relationship.
But weirdly, the documentary
isn't just about their secret love,
and about them and then them coming out
and their friends and family being really happy
and supportive for the most part about it,
there was also just this plot of the documentary,
which is because they were old,
they needed to be moving out of the house
and like lots of conflict and discussions with family
about where they were going to live,
what retirement home, who's going to look after them
and there was just all of this drama,
that kind of thought was a bit unnecessary,
like I wanted more of like the history
and the backstory of their relationship
and like more of that stuff
but it was also really interesting exploration of like,
what happens when you get older
and like, who looks after you?
So that was interesting but not what I expected
but it was really sweet documentary
and I would recommend it.
Now we're on to the Stuff section, which is basically,
where I don't know how to categorise something,
so we just stick it in stuff and don't ask any questions.
I want to recommend you a newsletter
from journalist and writer, Frank Cookney.
I realised I've never said her name out loud before,
so Franki, I hope I got your surname pronounced correctly.
Frankie's newsletter is called,
"The Overthinker's Guide to sex."
And she's a journalist and in her work
mostly covers topics around sex and relationships
and her newsletter is where you can basically,
hear her thoughts on different sexual topics
that she wants to talk about.
And the way that she describes it is,
the newsletter that aims to bring back some,
okay, a lot of the nuance back to conversations
around sex and relationships and I support that
'cause nuance is very important
and yes, is often missing when speaking online about things,
when it's all about sensationalising stuff
and like getting that headline and getting those clicks,
and often having to be polarising for views,
nuance, doesn't get your views my friends.
I'm not sure how often she releases the newsletter,
I think it might be monthly, but if you sign up,
you basically just get a really interesting,
kinda like an article basically,
around a topic that she is exploring
and has some thoughts on, so would recommend.
Thank you so much for watching
this episode of Pleasure Trove.
If there's anything that you'd like me to cover
in future episodes, whether that be stuff
or things that you see in the news,
then please message me things, on Instagram,
tweet me things, I will be looking in those places.
I'm making note of them for the next episode,
maybe we'll be able to find some happier news in this field.
If you'd like to support the work that I do
and the content that I make,
then please do check out The Common Room over on my Patron.
One of the things that I do over there,
is after an episode of Pleasure Trove comes out,
I send people at the $5 tear and above,
a extra reading list basically,
of things that I was reading for this episode,
but then also other things that didn't make it
into the episode, around sex and relationships.
So, if you're interested in getting
like a bonus Pleasure Trove,
kind of like newsletter with like lots of links
and resources in it, then that is the place to get it
and they come out usually a day or so
after these episodes come out.
Thanks again for watching,
and I'll see you in my next video, bye.