Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

This week’s episode brings together journalists Natalie Fiennes and Lynn Enright to discuss their books, Behind Closed
Doors: Sex Education Transformed and Vagina: A Re-education. In conversation with Birmingham Literature Festival director Shantel Edwards, they talk about the politicisation of women’s bodies and sexual desire, the importance of sex education and the impact of the porn industry on our attitudes towards sex and our own bodies.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

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Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 8: Lynn Enright and Natalie Fiennes  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. This week’s episode brings together journalists Natalie Fiennes  and Lynn Enright to discuss the politicisation of women’s bodies and sexual desire, the importance of sex  education and the impact of the porn industry on our attitudes towards sex and our own bodies. In  conversation with Birmingham Lit Festival director, Shantel Edwards, this episode continues the  conversation about sex, intersectional feminism and gender started by the authors’ books, Behind Closed  Doors: Sex Education Transformed and Vagina: A Re-education.  

Shantel Edwards 

Welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival podcast. I'm Shantel Edwards and I'm the Festival Director  and I'm really excited today to welcome writers Lynn Enright and Natalie Fiennes to the podcast, and to join  them in discussion about their books. I'm going to introduce them both and their books to you, and then  we're going to dive into a wonderful chat about their work and all the ways their books are challenging our  ideas about sex, women's bodies, intersectional feminism, and last, but most certainly not least, vaginas.  Our first guest is Lynn Enright and she's a journalist who has written for Vogue, The Irish Times, the  Guardian and BuzzFeed, as well as many other publications where she writes about feminism, current  affairs, women's health, fashion, the arts, politics, and pop culture. The book we're here to talk about today,  Vagina: A Re-education, is her first book, and it provides people with information that's often obscured  about the female body, confronting taboos and the patriarchy in the process. Our second guest is Natalie  Fiennes, a journalist and film-maker who writes for the Guardian and the Independent. She makes  documentaries and has taught sex education and consent classes in schools, universities and youth centres.  Behind Closed Doors: Sex Education Transformed is her first book, and it offers a manifesto for an inclusive  sex education that offers young people an honest insight into sexuality, whilst identifying the varied and  layered inequalities that currently stand in the way of sexual freedom. A very warm welcome to you both.  Thank you for being here. 

Natalie Fiennes 

Thank you for having us.

Lynn Enright 

Thank you. 

Shantel Edwards 

I loved both of your books. I thought they were really compelling reads and I came away from them feeling  like I'd learned a lot. And when I was reading them it really felt like there was real passion and impetus  behind them. And I wanted to start by asking you both – and perhaps we could start with Lynn – about what  had inspired you to write them? 

Lynn Enright 

So I was working at The Pool, which is now defunct but was a website aimed at women. And it was a place  that kind of covered a broad array of topics, and I was Head of News and Content there. So commissioning  stuff about politics and feminism, but also, you know, kind of film or books or, you know, really everything.  But when we did, when we covered subjects about women's bodies, and about kind of taboo subjects like  fertility, infertility, miscarriage, childbirth, post-childbirth, vaginas, all of that kind of stuff, there was just a  real response from the readers. So that got me thinking and, you know, I could sense that and I wanted to  do something with that. And then also around that time #MeToo had happened and the Repeal the Eighth  movement in Ireland was underway – so the push for free, safe legal abortion in Ireland, and we'd never  had legal abortion in Ireland but we were on the cusp of it then when I started to write this book. And so I  got to think about how the basics of biology and the fact that so often just the basics about our bodies are  obscured, whether that's in sex education or even in the way we're spoken to with a sort of woolliness and  a lack of clarity around the way we speak about our own bodies and the knowledge we actually have  available to us. So I got to think how that's connected to then these much wider concepts and problems.  Like, you know, like what we saw with #MeToo, so like sexual assault and sexual abuse, and like the fact  that, you know, abortion wasn't legal in Ireland until two years ago. And I think that that was connected to  our discomfort around biology. So it was kind of bringing those two subjects together was how this book  started. 

Shantel Edwards 

Thank you, I think you can really, you can really feel that in the book as well. As I was reading it I certainly  felt like I could see the intersections of the ways all those things were working together. And the same for  your book as well. Natalie, I thought you did a really good job of showing the ways that women's bodies in  particular are the intersection for a lot of those things. The same question to you really. Was there a  particular moment that led to you writing the book?

Natalie Fiennes 

Yes. So I was also working at a magazine called Consented magazine and we used to kind of publish these  pieces on an array of different topics. But we also used to go into schools and teach classes and lead  workshops. And I, with a kind of a few other people, and we were attached to this kind of activist collective  called Resist and Renew, started teaching consent and sex education workshops in schools. And for us the  focus was always around, you know, not just providing like the practical tools of sex education, but also  trying to teach young people or show them how these issues are often so much more connected to wider  political, social structures. And I found going into the schools like really, really rewarding and incredibly  inspiring. And since then I kind of, afterwards I started writing about it and realised, you know, in lots of  ways quite how far young people had come in terms of their sex education. The same as Lynn, it was also a  similar time that #MeToo was all coming out, so lots of the young people were discussing the implications  of the movement, and what it meant for them in terms of their own experiences with sexual violence and  feminism, and so on. And there have been some really fantastic resources that are now available online. But  in lots of ways it also hadn't come along that far, and it made me reflect on my own sex education and how  bad it was, which you know, really motivated me basically, to turn those articles that I was writing into  something a bit more sustained, which is where the book came from.  

Shantel Edwards 

Thank you. I think reading both of your books it did also really make me think of my own sex education  classes in school, which were also terrible. So, it's nice to know that we've at least all shared that terrible  experience. I think what really struck me about both of your books is the ways in which women's bodies and  sex and sex education are all political issues. I think that came across really well, specifically the female  body – so that seemed to be like, a very specific political site. So thinking, you know, the cultural refusal to  properly name the vulva, and you know, anything from that to the sort of the overwhelming fixation with  the bodies of trans women and girls. And I was wondering whether you think that now that we are sort of  in the aftermath of #MeToo, and those sort of really great moments of activism, whether we're starting to  move away from these oppressive ideas about women's bodies? Maybe if we start with you, Natalie? 

Natalie Fiennes 

Yeah, I think, I think there's been, you know, in particular, since the outpourings that came about, since the  #MeToo movement, but more generally, I guess, since like the birth of social media, and how much more  available information can be online about body positivity, you know. Dispelling some of the myths around  diet culture, you know, tackling some of the norms we have around race or ableism, or, you know, the kind  of bodies that we were told growing up that you have to look like because they were plastered all over the  magazines, and they were in all the films and everyone looked exactly the same. So yeah, I think in lots of respects there's been a huge backlash against some of those, like, norms. And I think you see that within  the kind of commercial sphere as well. So, you know, like, products, the companies that sell products have  now realised that there's this movement for inclusivity, or challenging norms around beauty, particularly for  women. And there's much more like diversity in advertising, which in lots of respects is very good. But I  think, you know, these, as with everything, these norms around beauty and these norms around the way  that women are supposed to look, or people generally are meant to look do come from somewhere, and  they come from systems of oppression, which in lots of ways haven't, the material conditions of those  systems aren't necessarily being as challenged. So even though it's really fantastic that you see these kind of  norms around beauty standards being criticised, you know, sometimes it would be, it'd be really great to  see those connected to kind of more broad movements that are kind of really challenging, really radical,  and putting forward a different, a different way of viewing bodies and, and beauty. 

Shantel Edwards 

Yeah, thank you. I can see that it does, it does feel like maybe a more superficial empowerment but the  underlying foundation's still the same. Same question to you really, Lynn. Do you feel hopeful about the way  that we're moving in terms of the way we view women's bodies? 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah, I am hopeful and I think, you know, that things are changing all the time. And that, you know, I sort of,  Natalie's book came out and my book came out and lots of other books came out – it was, you know, this  weird year, I think, where a lot of books relating to the vagina came out, Dr Jennifer Gunter's book came  out. And, it felt like it, it was, you know, even when I was doing the press for the book, it felt like magazines  and newspapers were really open to it and really wanted to talk about it. So it was there in the media. But  at the same time, when I was doing the research for my book, I sort of realised – and I think that this is just  what happens to every feminist along the way – you realise, you know, people have done this work before. I  mean, literally for centuries, women have been doing this work to educate each other about their own  bodies. And, and then very specifically, people were doing very similar work in the 70s and 80s. And I feel  like just before I was born (I was born in 1983) and just around then, you know, there was a real movement  of educating women about their bodies and talking about the vulva and looking at the vulva. And that was  all happening. And yet I feel by the time I sort of became an older child or a teenager 10 to 15 years later, I  didn't feel like that was present in the way that I was taught or in the conversations I had, or in the media.  So it almost is like, we do all the work, and then we forget it and we don't, it's not passed on to the next  generation. And so I think we need to watch out for that. And we also need to watch out for the fact that  we do all this work but it's kind of simultaneously happening alongside labiaplasty being on the rise, and,  you know, lots of other quite harmful stuff. So yeah, like Natalie said there's, you know, there are these movements in advertising, but the wider structures remain. And so I think you're always balancing, trying to be happy about what's good and what progress has been made, but be aware that the job isn't done, and  that the job may sort of never be done in a way that you can just sign off on. 

Shantel Edwards 

Yeah, so cautiously hopeful. 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah, well, that's a nice way of putting it, yes. 

Shantel Edwards 

There's that really nice moment in your book where, you realise you'd never asked your own mother about  her experience of the menopause. And I guess, thinking about hope and things changing going forward, do  you think that now we're of – I guess, I was born in 88 so we're a similar generation – now that we're  slightly better at talking about those things it will be slightly easier for the generations that come up  afterwards? 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I look at friends of mine who have children and definitely I think the way they speak  to their kids about their bodies is different to the way my parents. My parents were so lovely, so open, but  you know, but Irish and Catholic, and we didn't really speak about our bodies very openly, and now my  friends who're bringing up kids do. And so there's just more of a, more openness and I do think that will  lead to, yeah, more openness about menopause, or more openness about abortion, or miscarriage, or  pregnancy. And I suppose, you know, I guess with all of this stuff you have to think that a lot of it is very  depressing because of the sort of history of it, but also, you know, a lot of it is unpleasant, you know: period  pain is hard, abortion is hard, miscarriage is hard and traumatic and horrible. But then there is joy. And so  you want to be open about that joy as well, and open about the joy of sex and, and open about the joy of  menopause, you know. I think that even when we do speak about the menopause now, it's either in a really  kind of jokey way, so it becomes the butt of the joke and the woman who's experiencing it is also sort of the  butt of the joke, or its about how terrible it is. And it’s really important to talk about that, but it's also  important to talk about the fact that it can be really empowering for some people, and it can mark the  beginning of a really positive change for some people. And I think that, you know, I want us to be more  open about both sides of everything: about how hard it can be to have a vagina sometimes but how brilliant  it can be too.

Shantel Edwards 

Yeah. Thank you, that's a really nice way of putting it. What struck me, from both of your books really is that  there is a real sort of cultural silence around these issues. We don't talk about sex and we don't talk about  periods and all of these things. And I wondered, if I might come to you first Natalie, and just ask what you  think the consequences of that cultural silence around women's experiences and women's health might be? 

Natalie Fiennes 

Yeah, I mean, it's a really important question. You know, I think its part of the reason why I definitely wrote  this book and I imagine why Lynn wrote her book and why all these other people write books about sex, in a  way that we hope is progressive and transformative. And I suppose, in the void, you know, when there's an  absence of conversation or discussion. You know, you almost get an amplification of the norms around  these issues, whether that's, you know, body image, or if that's around sexual violence, or the expectations  of gender, or the kind of the fluidity of sexuality, it's in the silence where, you know, really strongly held  traditions are maintained and continue to exist. It kind of reminds me a bit actually, and perhaps we’ll come  on to talk about this, but you know, at the moment with COVID and young people aren't going into schools,  and there's a whole group of people who are going to miss out on their sex education because of the  pandemic because there's a global health crisis. And there's particular age groups in particular, like year five  and year six, where it's really important that there's an intervention made by educators and by parents and  by supporters and their friends, because it's in those years in between primary and secondary school where  people kind of come into puberty, and they're learning about sex and sexuality. And, you know, in the  absence of a good education or an absence of conversations around these topics, you know, the research  shows that people then go on to secondary school of an age where they're slightly older, you know, with  really entrenched views around like LGBTQ rights or about feminism or about relationships. So you know,  we do literally see in these instances, and all the research shows that when we don't talk about sex, and  when we don't talk openly about relationships and the body, and feminism really, these norms prevail. 

Shantel Edwards 

Yeah, and I think that's a really interesting point. And actually, one of my questions was, because you both  mentioned in your books that the education framework around sex education was due to change, I think  next month, and I wondered if either of you knew – and Natalie, I don't know whether, you know – if those  plans to change are, are still going to go ahead now that we're in the midst of this global pandemic? 

Natalie Fiennes 

Yeah. So I think basically, the government, the Department of Education has said that schools can implement the new sex and relationship education curriculum if they want to but it's no longer compulsory.  So they'll intend to make it compulsory next September, September 2021. You know, which, in lots of  respects, kind of does make sense. Like, as we know, schools are under an enormous burden at the  moment. There's a huge crisis in education what with the A-level results and with, you know, ensuring that  young people have the right education tools. And even though it does make sense it's still, it's still a great  tragedy when you think about all the education that people are going to be missing around sex and  sexuality. So, there's a huge question on what we can do after COVID or when things calm down, when  things open up. There's going to be quite a big job I think to be done for sex educators and for teachers to  see how we can move forward. And, you know, both reflect on the period but also fill in the gaps. 

Shantel Edwards 

Yeah, completely. And I think one of the ways that you both talk about those gaps being filled, I guess, is,  through porn and the huge rise of the sort of cultural normalisation of porn. And I was hoping to ask you  both about that and the way that you think its impacted on young people's ideas about sex and our  relationships with our own bodies. And I wondered what you thought the long-term impact of that, of  growing up with porn being such a normal part of our culture really, will be? 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah, I mean, I suppose it, it just feels like, I think I say in the book, that the cat is out of the bag, you know.  If you're an 11-year-old and you want to see porn you can find it. And if you're doing that in a family that  isn't open about sex, in a culture that isn't open about sex and an education system that isn't open about  sex and sex education, so there's a vacuum around sex education but simultaneously, you can access porn  whenever you want, you know, I think that's a problem. And I think that, you know, you're not getting the  education that you need to be able to contextualise that. And that's how you end up with a situation where,  you know, young girls are requesting labiaplasty because the labia sort of, is absent from our culture, you  know. We don't really know what the labia looks like, you know. I think that, that most straight women  don't really see other labias besides their own very often. And then if they do see it in porn it's likely to look  quite different either because the porn performer has had labiaplasty, or if it's a still image, perhaps it's  been photoshopped. Or, you know, porn performers, will happen to have very sort of symmetrical labia and  that's why they have been recruited into the industry or that's why they'll have you know, that's why they  have chosen to get into it. So, you know, I think that that's just a clear example of how you can look at porn and if you don't have the right context, and that's your only way of seeing something, it can be really  harmful. And so, I think, you know, sex education has been, it's been so outdated because, you know, it was  eighteen years or something between the last guidance and the most recent guidance. And in that time  internet porn had happened and, you know, something like that should have been a wake-up call or should  have been a clarion call to action, you know. If suddenly something happens that disrupts how porn is 

distributed, which internet porn did, then of course that should have been addressed in sex education. And  I think it's really important that, that we do it now. 

Shantel Edwards 

And you mention in your book, Natalie, you talk about – Erika Lust I think her name is – who is the feminist,  she makes feminist porn. And I guess the same question but also a slight add-on of as to whether you think  there are ways in which porn can be used as a resource? 

Natalie Fiennes 

Yeah, I think. I mean, it's such an interesting question. And I really agree with Lynn that, you know, in the  absence of a proper, good, rigorous sex education porn does become the sex education for many people,  certainly for, you know, most people that I know. But, you know, something I write about in the book is like  how porn has existed, as far as we know, you know, for thousands of years. Like humans have always  created objects or visual representation as erotica, basically. And I think when we talk about porn today  what we mean generally is the kind of mass-produced, hyper-commercialised, really deregulated straight  porn that most of us think of when we imagine it. Which is, you know, as we all know, riddled with  problems, riddled with unrealistic expectations, both on women, but on men, around body, around  performance, around sexual expectation and all of this stuff. But there is, you know, a group and a growing  part of the industry which kind of calls itself feminist, or which follows principles around, you know,  particularly around the politics of work. So paying performers properly, making sure that they're safe, that  they use contraception. You know, and in many cases, that they have some input into the performance and  the production of the films, you know, which means also that consent is right at the heart of any of these  kinds of, new sort of parts of the industry. So there is, I think there's a growing movement of porn, which is  sort of challenging some of these norms around it, which I think is really exciting. But still, the vast majority  porn is, you know, free, it's often degrading for women and so on. 

Shantel Edwards 

Just, I guess, changing tack slightly. I think what really struck me when I was reading your books and then  thinking about your books was the way that language seems so critical, both in the sense of the words we  use to describe women's bodies and the way, you know, we say 'front bottoms' instead of 'vulvas'. But also  in the ways that words associated with women's bodies are almost unspeakable. So you were saying Lynn  that, you know, we don't talk about miscarriage and we don't talk about menopause and periods. And I  think both of your books are really excellent contributions towards helping us vocalise these things in ways  that we haven't been able to before. But I wondered if you, if you felt like that was changing in society more  broadly, if we're becoming more open and, I guess, feeling less shame about our bodies. Do you think that's the case, Lynn? 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah. I do, I do. I think it's the same thing: cautiously hopeful. And the same thing about looking at friends  of mine who have kids and, you know, and calling a vulva a vulva. But at the same time when I was  promoting this book and going to bookshops and literary festivals often, you know, people would ask the  question, 'Well, what, you know; I have a daughter and what do you think we should call it because there  isn't a good name because, you know, front bottom I know is a bit ridiculous but there's nothing else'. And  you know, I just went, 'You can say vulva'. So, I think there is still a bit of hesitancy about using the word  vulva. I think it's got a sort of, I don't know, a bad reputation or something. I feel like – and I say it in the  book, because the book is called Vagina: A Re-education. And when I started to write the book, I kept  referring to the whole thing, the whole area as vagina, because I thought, you know, well, that's what we  call it. You know, I know that it's not biologically correct, but it's what you know, colloquially, we call that  area, the vagina. But then, as I did more research, I realised, you know, what a disservice we're doing the  vulva by calling it the vagina, and by not using the correct term, the vulva. And again, that's something that, you know, feminists were talking about in the 70s and 80s, the importance of the word the vulva and I think  that we're still a little uncomfortable about that word, because I think the vagina is, you know, it's the birth  canal, and it's where if you're having heterosexual, penetrative sex, it's necessary; whereas the vulva is, it feels more sort of, I think it does feel a bit more like a feminist word because it exists on its own not to give  birth and not to be penetrated but its its own thing and its own sort of pleasure. And I think we're still a  little bit awkward about that. And I think, yeah, it's an interesting point that we're sort of awkward about  the very basics of the vocabulary and then awkward about the experiences and what happens and, you  know, we're not good at talking about any of that. You know, about sexual assault, about miscarriage, about  anything that doesn't go well, I suppose, you know. And even if it does go well, you know, I think that  people – I only realised when my friends started to have kids how different each birth story is, because even  birth, you know, this absolutely triumphant and brilliant experience and everybody's so happy, you know  'Babies, everybody loves babies', and it's a really happy time and people, you know, everybody wants to talk  about it. But they don't want to talk about the birth story. And I just thought birth was kind of the same for  everybody. And I thought that, you know, whether or not you got painkillers was because, was a personal  decision, rather than the facts of each birth being wildly different. And so you know, I think we are really  bad at talking about almost every aspect of sex and anything that can happen to the vulva and vagina. So  hopefully, we will get better but we're not quite there. 

Shantel Edwards 

No, I completely agree. And I still find myself, even though I've read both of your books and I know it's the vulva, I still find myself saying vagina, and I do try and check myself now for like, slightly like – your voice is  in my head, Lynn, every time I do it. So thank you for that! I guess the same, similar question for Natalie  because I know you work with a lot of young people. Do you feel like that's changing for them? Like they  have a better language to talk about their own bodies and their experiences? 

Natalie Fiennes 

Yeah, I really, genuinely do actually. I always come away from these workshops I do in schools feeling really  hopeful and inspired by the level of knowledge that exists amongst so many young people. And I think that  is testament to the fact that there's so much more information out there. You know, since writing my book,  and, and I guess Lynn's coming out as well, Sex Education, the series was released on Netflix, which has been huge. And I think it's absolutely fantastic that something like that is out there. And I really wish that  when I was younger, I'd had something that was so, you know, honest and frank and candid about the  language around our bodies. But also funny. It kind of comes back to what Lynn was saying earlier about the  joys of sex and the joys of our bodies that we also need to remember and that is so often missing in some of  these kinds of conversations around sex and relationships. But no, I really, I think having been into schools I  feel very optimistic about the next generation, you know. And that's not to say there aren't problems.  There’s a worrying trend amongst some young men around, you know, being anti some of these feminist  discourses, which I've definitely noticed in a lot of schools. And I think that's the kind of darker side to the  internet that exists, and perhaps, is kind of inevitable when you've got a really strong liberation movement,  from a marginalised group that there's going to be pushbacks from, you know, those that hold power. I  don't, I mean I'm not sure what the kind of, the anti-feminist stuff is about, but it's definitely there as well as  the progressive stuff. But on the whole, I feel, I think we've come a long way, and particularly from, you  know, in comparison to when I was growing up. We never spoke about our bodies, you know. We never  spoke about masturbation, we never spoke about our periods. When I first got my period, I didn't tell  anyone for about six months. I didn't tell my parents, I felt so much shame about my body. And I think,  yeah, I think we've come a long way which is brilliant. 

Shantel Edwards 

In your book, Natalie, you talk about the origins of the birth control pill, and the ways in which obviously, it  gave these amazing new options to women, but it was actually quite steeped in racism and prejudice. And I  wondered if you'd just tell us a little bit about that?  

Natalie Fiennes 

Yes, it is an interesting and quite troubling history. So I think it was in the early 60s or late 50s when the pill  was being developed, and as with many medical trials around that time, and I suspect still today, it was first tried out on very, very poor American women with devastating effects, I think. Quite a lot of women died. A  lot of people experienced some of the more extreme side effects of the contraceptive pill. So, they weren't  allowed to test it any more in America. So they moved it, they moved it out of the [United] States to, to try  it on Puerto Rican women, and to exactly the same effect with lots of women who died, lots of people had blood clots and were very, very sick, and had mental health problems. And they changed the composition of  the pill so what we have now is quite different to what it was then. It's much weaker. But, you know, there is  a very troubled history with contraception and, you know, with a lot of these topics. I mean, the fact that  the bodies of poor American women, and also the bodies of women of colour, poor women in the global  south were considered much less important, you know. So there is, when we talk about the liberation of  women, and the pill when it came out was hailed as the symbol of the sexual liberation of women. But, you  know, you have to ask at what cost and which women are we talking about? And it's many of the same  questions that we need to be asking in all different aspects of feminism. Its which women are benefiting  from these movements? And what demands are we calling for? Is this cis women? Is it trans women? Are  we being intersectional in our politics? Are we being aware of class differences? So yeah, I think, you know,  when we think about contraception we do always have to consider – and lots of these topics – we have to  consider the kind of differences between women. It's not that all women are the same. 

Shantel Edwards 

And do you know, Lynn, who the audience for your book has been, because I was thinking that as I was  reading it? Do you know who readers are? 

Lynn Enright 

Well, I always say that I think it's probably aimed at people in their late teens and 20s. And I just always  presumed that it would be girls and women but actually, it's been way broader than that. I think, you know,  women in their 30s and 40s and 50s have enjoyed it too because, like we've discussed, you know, there are  gaps in the knowledge, even you know when, even after you grow up, you know, the sex education hasn't  been done. And you sort of spend your life catching up and getting information as you go. But also men – cisgender, straight men and gay men – have been much more interested in it than I thought they would be.  And that's, I think that's really heartening, actually. I remember going for a coffee with somebody who, he's  a gay man and he doesn't know very much about vaginas. But he had read the book and he was really  pleased about having read the book because he wanted to sort of be able to understand what his sister  went through. He said that his sister experienced really heavy periods and period pain and that reading the  book was really helpful for him to understand that for her. I've heard that a few times. I actually just got a  message from somebody today, from a man, about having read the book and enjoyed it and he found it  worthwhile. And that happens much more than I would have thought it would happen

Shantel Edwards 

You talk specifically, and explicitly, in the book about your own experiences with things like thrush and  period pain and abortion and masturbation. And I wondered how important it was for you to include your  own experiences and what that was like to be so open? 

Lynn Enright 

Yeah, it's a weird one because I think that it's quite important to say that I don't think that women should  have to tell their stories in order to get human rights. It became a hot topic with #MeToo as well because,  you know, women were telling their stories and presenting their stories, and that was the only way to be listened to. But then we did see how powerful it is. And it was similar with the Repeal the Eighth. So, when  there was the campaign to legalise abortion in Ireland women came forward and started to tell their stories.  And I wrote about having had an abortion. I wrote about it in Vogue magazine. And I hadn't, you know, I  told my parents about the abortion before I published the piece, but I hadn't told them about it previous to  that. And I think there were a lot of people having that same experience in Ireland at that time. And it was a  sort of, it was painful for so many people, but I think it was really, really useful. And there was a piece of  research done that – it was just a survey at the end, after the referendum – but it asked people what had  made the biggest impact on deciding how they would vote and people said personal stories, that came out  at the top. And I think that's so telling. And so, I suppose I feel like, for me, I'm quite privileged, you know.  I'm a freelance journalist most of the time so I don't have an employer who would be, you know, I feel like it's almost good for my career to be able to speak out, it doesn't harm my career. I have a very supportive  and loving family and husband. And, you know, it's quite easy for me to tell my story because also I enjoy  creating narratives or I enjoy thinking about experiences as a kind of narrative, so that for me is an easy  thing to do. And so, I think if it's an easy thing for you to do, or it's a thing that you want to do, then it's  useful and good. But I don't think that it's ever something that you should feel that you have to do. So, I feel  like I can do it because it's not that big a deal to me, so I may as well. 

Shantel Edwards 

Thank you both so much for your books and for being part of this year's Birmingham Literature Festival  programme. It's been a pleasure to speak to you and participate in such an important and engaging  discussion. Thank you both again. 

Lynn Enright 

Thank you very much.

Outro message 

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. If you enjoyed  this episode, we’d love for you to tell us about it – leave us a review or a rating and find us on Instagram,  Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. You can download our latest podcast episodes, every Thursday, from  all the places you would normally get your podcasts and find transcripts of our episodes in the shownotes  and on our website at www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org . Details about our full programme can also be  found on our website. Until then, happy reading! 

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is curated by Shantel Edwards and produced by 11C and  Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.