EP. 58 — Meghan Tonjes (Ask Jameela Anything)

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil. I hope you’re alright. I know that things are particularly fraught this week, especially online and in world news. And there is so much happening and there is a lot of division online and a lot of screaming at one another. And that’s because terrible, terrible things are happening to human beings all around the world. And there’s only so much that we can take before we just start to snap at each other online. And so I just want to reassure you that it’s OK if you don’t have all of the answers, it’s OK if you don’t know exactly what to say, it’s OK if you’re not an expert on the things that you are reading about online, there’s always time to educate yourself. It’s never too late to start learning. It’s OK if you find it stressful, it’s OK if you find it overwhelming, it’s OK. If it makes you feel sad and anxious, it’s OK to step away for a minute just to breathe because you’re no good to anyone if you’re completely burnt out. And basically it’s just OK to be completely fucking overwhelmed because it’s totally, totally overwhelming and it’s hard to not be able to fix every single person’s pain in the world. And we all wish we could, but we can’t. So we just have to do our best to support as many people as we possibly can. And the best way we know how, whilst also looking after ourselves so that we will be around long enough and sustained enough to be able to continue to care for others for a long period of time. Now, speaking of not having all the answers, I certainly don’t. And that’s why I’m bringing you today’s episode. We are going to do one of the Ask Jameela Anything episodes. Now, this is a side series I have where basically you send me in your questions, things that you’re thinking about, things that you’re struggling with, things that you care about. And you ask for my advice now, because I dare not be so arrogant as to presume that I have all of the answers as I’ve kind of just explained in a long, rambling, not rant, but plea for understanding and plea for you to give yourself some understanding. I get people who are smarter and better and funnier and stronger than me to come on and help me answer some of those questions to the best of both of our capabilities and some of it’s tongue in cheek. Some of it’s incredibly sincere. Today’s guest is, in particular someone who I just think is the coolest. I think she’s so wise. I think she’s so funny and cool. I love the fact that we met because we actually didn’t like each other on the Internet. And she was slagging me off in a video. And I saw that video either because she sent it to me or someone else did. And we ended up in a big old altercation publicly and that we’ve somehow transitioned from that into being quite good online friends and having each other’s backs and being there for each other and having fun personal conversations. And she’s even now on my podcast helping me give people advice. This person who I look up to so much now, who thing started off in such an angry way. It really it’s really lovely side of the Internet where you can start by fighting with someone and end up finding that you’ve actually got more in common than you thought. And you actually know the Internet can be so bad at showing someone for who they really are. And we completely misunderstood each other, misunderstood one another’s intentions, and in getting to know each other now, quite like each other, if I dare say so myself, I fucking adore her. And she is an incredible activist for fat liberation. And she talks about racism so eloquently. She talks about injustice so eloquently. She talks about homophobia and transphobia so wonderfully. She’s a thoughtful person. She is so much better at giving advice than I am. She’s just generally better at the Internet, better at maybe everything than I am. And I think you should all follow her online. Her name is Meghan Tonjes. And in this episode, we discuss listener questions around anxiety being weighed, body image and sex and intimacy together, deconstructing sex from patriarchy, as well as other amazing questions from all of you guys. And also in this series, this mini series of Ask Jameela Anything we have a bunch of other amazing episodes on Stitcher premium. I have my friends, Leah and Krista, who are a new couple who came on my podcast together. That could have been dangerous, but it went fine. They came on to answer your brilliant questions. I have my friend Poppy Jamie on regarding mental health who talks to me so much about mental health and neuroscience and she’s so fucking fascinating. My own boyfriend, James Blake, is on this episode. That was a bit awkward, a bit awkward because we’ve never done anything like this before, but we had a really nice time chatting. My friend David Finn, there are so many and the great Scarlett Curtis, whose episode you enjoyed so much when she came onto this podcast last year, she was so fucking fantastic. She’s so wise and clever. Anyway, this series has been really wonderful to make. And so if you haven’t gotten a chance to listen to it yet, you can try out with a free month of Stitcher premium by signing up and using our promo code, I WEIGH just go to stitcher dot com forward, slash premium and use the promo code I Weigh when signing up for a monthly plan. I hope you like it. If not, I’m sure you will tell me in my DMs and I appreciate that. And I appreciate you. And sorry, I’ve been talking for like forty nine minutes. Lots of love, here’s the excellent Meghan Tonjes. Hello and welcome to another episode of Ask Jameela Anything, I hope that you are well, as you may know by now, this is a show in which you send in questions about issues that you are having or or things that you are wondering about. And I bring on someone smarter, cleverer, funnier and better than me to to come along and help me and make sure that I don’t fuck up the advice that I give you. So this week I have brought on someone that I really adore, who I’ve been following online for years now. We met in a in a moment of disagreement. We did not get along. We did not understand each other and and things were tense. But over the years, we have both kind of come to more of a similar way of seeing the world come to understand and know each other a little bit better. We’ve never met in person, only ever virtually either over text or D.M. or sometimes on a very, very random IG live. But Meghan is a singer first and foremost. I also consider you a comedian. I don’t know if you consider yourself that, but she’s incredibly funny. She’s incredibly smart. A wonderful online advocate for many, many issues and a voice of sense. Someone that I really look up to online as as a person who is responsible and and reasonable and logical solution based advice and and input to online discourse. So I couldn’t think of anyone better to come on this show than Meghan Tonjes welcome Meghan to Ask Jameela Anything. How are you? [00:07:09][429.3]

Meghan: [00:07:10] I’m good. How are you. Thank you for having me. [00:07:11][1.8]

Jameela: [00:07:12] I’m great. I’m so excited that you’re here because I feel much safer giving out any advice with you here because you’re also so blunt. So she will tell me when I’m wrong. Straight up, straight up she’ll be straight on it. And I really admire and respect you for that. And I’m really grateful for our odd virtual relationship that we have. [00:07:34][21.8]

Meghan: [00:07:35] Thank you. If it makes you feel any better, I’m also very blunt with myself when I’m in the middle of my own bullshit. And, you know, it’s I can’t help it. It’s a I don’t know if it’s I’m a Scorpio. I don’t know if it’s I’m from the Midwest. Just I’m sweet, but I’m right to the point. [00:07:51][16.7]

Jameela: [00:07:52] Oh, why are you so wise again? What’s going on? [00:07:55][2.6]

Meghan: [00:07:56] A lot of trauma. A lot of trauma. I think that for my entire life I’ve sort of looked at the world and seen the humor in it, but also. I have a desire to cut through again, a lot of the bullshit in myself and in other people is just get to the heart of the matter. So I think that comes across as wisdom and I’m glad for it to be experienced that way. [00:08:25][29.4]

Jameela: [00:08:26] Have you always been this way or is it been a growing experience? [00:08:29][2.3]

Meghan: [00:08:30] I mean, it’s something it’s something I’m still growing into, I think for a long time, it’s just been there’s something in me that feels like you need to speak up, you need to say something. And my childhood wasn’t the time for me to do that. And now as an adult, I’m starting to grow into that and step into that and the good and the bad of that. You know, I am constantly learning even from our interaction when we first started talking, I was defensive and I was upset and frustrated by things that I don’t remember what it specifically it was about. But it was at the height of me being defensive about things that I just kept seeing and experiencing and wanting to wanting to hit back at it. [00:09:13][42.7]

Jameela: [00:09:13] I think I remember it was just around the time where, like, I’d I’d suddenly been cast on this hit show. So I had this huge platform and I’d been talking about these issues that I’ve been talking about for like eight years at least. But suddenly people like the media were acting like I’d never said it before, even though there’s documented like videos of me saying it for years and years and years. And and they had censored me entirely in the conversation of body positivity. No matter how many times I kept saying I was like, no, I’m an advocate, like around the eating disorder discussion. I’m not like I believe in body neutrality. Like I’m not trying to take over. I’m not trying to take up space in the body positivity movement. But the media would not stop censoring me. They were acting like not only had I never said these things, but no one had ever said these things before. And so I imagine as an advocate for, would you say fat liberation or body positivity, like I said so firmly in that space, it must have been so fucking frustrating to watch this like slim actress be consistently centered and there was nothing I could do. I was trying so hard to get away from that label, but they just kept on thrusting it up my ass and and I would have interviews with journalists and and say explicitly to them, please do not center me as as please not even refer to body positivity around me. That’s not my movement. That’s a social political movement for people who are bigger than I am, who are constantly concerned trolled at the doctor at the job interviews in life, in love on the street everywhere they go. And they would still write it in the headline. And so I because I understood that that’s what was happening. I think that’s why you and I were able to move through that. [00:10:49][95.1]

Meghan: [00:10:50] Yeah, I mean, I, I can appreciate that right. Where it’s you. I think the more that you start to see the world for what it is and you want to you want to give voice to it, you want to speak up for it and to it, it gets very muddled with who kind of gets that light and who kind of has the opportunity to be on a certain platform. And so, yeah, it gets a little messy. But we came to an understanding and learned, I think through our conversation a little bit more about what each other was feeling and and dealing with. And ultimately, you know, that conversation and our experience with each other was one of many where I’ve started to really ground myself in the reality that what I’m fighting for is much bigger than any person, it’s bigger than anyone else. It’s a system that it’s not about individual people and what they do or don’t do. There’s something else that is happening that’s circling us all about and making us fight each other. [00:11:46][56.7]

Jameela: [00:11:47] Yeah, and it’s what the opposition wants. They want us to be distracted fighting each other so that we never fight them. The ones who are actually profiting off of this oppression and the system is [00:11:57][9.9]

Meghan: [00:11:57] I’ve got a lot of fight, so I’m ready to fight everybody. [00:11:59][1.4]

Jameela: [00:12:00] No I know. I fuckin literally know you are. And I am both afraid of you and I respect you and I adore you, which I think is a good combo of feelings from a relative stranger. [00:12:11][10.9]

Meghan: [00:12:12] Listen, that’s all I that’s all I can ask for. [00:12:14][1.9]

Jameela: [00:12:15] Having followed you online for so long, I’m excited to ask for your advice on this next question. OK, so they say, hi, Jameela, I consume your content to rewire my brain with helpful and loving messages about women and our bodies. My question for you is this. After recovering from an eating disorder, mostly orthorexia, I’ve developed a fear of getting weighed, which only happens at the doctor now. I’ve developed a lot of anxiety around this event and it’s developed into a big thing due to a shame spiral and strict ways of incorrect thinking about how my body should be and what I need to weigh in order to fit the harmful label of Hot Girl, quote unquote. I’m in therapy and a lot of the shame has subsided, but the anxiety around going to the doctor is still present. What would you say to someone who is struggling with the fear of getting weighed? It’s largely to do with self-worth being tied up in weight. And I want to have your voice in my head while I’m sitting in the waiting room. Thank you for everything you do instead of having my voice first, let’s have my Meghan’s. Meghan, I don’t understand why she would feel uncomfortable at the doctor. Doctors don’t really have a long, well-documented history of making people feel bad about their weight and being incredibly fat phobic and ignorant, do they? [00:13:20][65.9]

Meghan: [00:13:21] No, no, not at all. No. I remember getting weighed at the doctor and the nurses used that time to go into her story about how her son is also struggling with his weight. Never, never experienced it, never gone into a doctor’s office. All my tests and everything were good, but they still wrote down my major issue is obesity and told me to lose weight. Never happened. Yeah, it’s you know, it’s interesting. The experience that, you know, this person is having is one that I also experience going into a doctor is not just going into a doctor. It is weighted with all kinds of in some cases, violence, and it’s something that I have to walk into with a shield on a lot of the time, and so that’s probably why I don’t go very often, because it is a lot of emotional labor to not only go in and be in pain or be suffering with anything that you need help with, but also having to advocate for yourself above and beyond, just, you know, what everyone else might be dealing with. [00:14:27][65.5]

Jameela: [00:14:28] And I also think just just to clarify for anyone is listening to this, I think the term violence has been used more recently in the last couple of years online in a way that doesn’t just mean physical violence. If anyone who hasn’t heard that before is listening to this. We’re talking about emotional and psychological violence where you can still harm someone without touching even a hair on their body. [00:14:48][20.5]

Meghan: [00:14:51] Yeah it’s it you know, I’ve had the experience of going into a doctor instead of them wanting to get a bigger cuff for a blood pressure cuff, having me hold close a blood pressure cuff with my hand, which, by the way, I’m not a doctor. That’s not science it’s not how that works. And so what happens? The repercussion of that is even in situations where you’re helping someone can help you or that you are safe with you are safe in that space, enough to understand what’s going on with you. You lose absolute trust in it and it becomes it can put you in a situation where you’re not even going to the hospital or the doctor when you really need to be because you just don’t feel safe there. And I’m not I’m definitely not the only person that deals with that. And it’s not just fat people that deal with it either. [00:15:33][42.4]

Jameela: [00:15:34] No, absolutely. But what advice would you have for our listener who’s dealing with this anxiety? [00:15:40][6.4]

Meghan: [00:15:42] Well, the first thing is I would suggest maybe bringing a friend when you go to the doctor’s office, just having someone there that already knows what you’re dealing with, that maybe in such a situation where you feel like you can’t speak up or you can’t say, hey, you know, I don’t actually don’t want to be weighed. I think I’ve heard that you can request not to be weighed during a doctor’s appointment, though. I’ve never done it. Having someone there that can advocate for you in a time where you feel really vulnerable might make that experience a little bit more of OK for you. I would also say that going in expecting. Yeah, it’s hard because you can only prepare so much for what the fallout of of that experience is going to be, but I would maybe talk to the nurse beforehand and say, you know, I actually deal with or rescue, I deal with an eating disorder. And this really is triggering to me, it’s really upsetting to me. And so actually request that unless I need to be weighed for something, which you really don’t. [00:16:42][60.0]

Jameela: [00:16:43] Yeah it sounds like it’s happening fucking regularly, which is really odd every single time. [00:16:47][4.5]

Meghan: [00:16:48] Yeah, I just it’s I don’t yeah. I don’t quite understand the correlation though I’m not a doctor. [00:16:55][6.9]

Jameela: [00:16:55] I do a little bit. I which I will, I will no pun intended but weigh in on which is you know an example of this is I’d have an abortion when I was twenty six because I took the morning after pill and I didn’t know that it isn’t as effective once you are over a certain weight which I was far over, I think I was maybe like two hundred and ten pounds. And I think the, the weight that it’s primarily effective for is if you’re under a hundred and seventy five. And so no one had ever told me that. The pharmacist didn’t tell me that the pharmacist could clearly see I was over that weight and I was too awkward to mention it to me. So I do think sometimes when it comes to medication, perhaps if if they’re going to prescribe you medication, I do understand the need to know physically what you weigh, but something you can do, which I do because I had an eating disorder for 20 years. I’m just like, weigh me do not tell me the number. Do not talk to me it is dangerous for me to learn that number. And it would be better for you to not even reference it to me or talk to me about that number. Like I’m just going to shut my eyes down on the scale and then I don’t want to hear about it. [00:18:02][67.0]

Meghan: [00:18:03] Yeah, its sort of takes some of the power out of it. [00:18:06][3.0]

Jameela: [00:18:07] Yeah. So that it doesn’t have to be because like, the way that I’ve decided to kind of, you know, my journey with body neutrality is to try to it’s to try to push myself towards. What am I trying to say, my journey with body neutrality means that I’ve decided that my body weight is none of my business, not only none of anyone else’s business, it’s none of my business. It’s not for me to worry about. I’ve decided to try and treat my body like it’s a car, which means similarly to what, my real car would like it’s covered in food and I try to put good enough fuel in the engine. Fuel that makes me happy, but that is something that I would genuinely recommend and and then work on. If you’re struggling with not knowing that number work on what that curiosity is with this therapist that it sounds like you’re doing really great work with. But, um, yeah, [00:18:53][45.9]

Meghan: [00:18:53] I think that I think that’s great advice. I also think that, you know, if you’re if you find a lot of pushback from your doctor about having it set up that way, I would look at some health at every size physicians that might be a little bit more open to creating those same conditions that make you feel safe and comfortable. [00:19:09][16.0]

Jameela: [00:19:10] How do you find a health at every size, Doctor? [00:19:12][1.6]

Meghan: [00:19:13] Maybe I’m speaking something into existence that I wish for, [00:19:15][2.6]

Jameela: [00:19:16] I feel like we should work towards that if that doesn’t already exist. [00:19:19][3.3]

Meghan: [00:19:21] You know, if it doesn’t exist, like on a website, I would say that there are a lot of fat activists that compile that information. I you know, I don’t know if militant Baker Jesse Baker has that information on on their site, but I do remember there being a directory of of something. So I do I do think that people in this community probably have more information about how to get that. But I do think I do believe there is a there is a directory, whether that’s on a website or it’s just amongst the fat community. People are people are willing to share that information. So, you know, maybe that’s a community to kind of dive into just health at every size and start asking questions on some of those message boards and see who in your city is a provider. And even those physicians might step up and say, hey, I have a practice where we can, you know, make a little bit more comfortable for you. [00:20:13][53.0]

Jameela: [00:20:14] Yeah, this is definitely something we need to work more towards. I also just want to say, look, this isn’t fucking important, but maybe this might challenge your views on a weighing scale, which definitely changed my mind, is that your your body size cannot be dictated on a weighing scale. I just want to say that as a fact on top of everything else, and this isn’t necessarily relevant, but it helped me realize I couldn’t trust my weighing scale because, you know, muscle weighs three times more than fat or water fluctuates. And you don’t know if your bone density is maybe heavier than someone else’s. The idea of this arbitrary number dictating what quote unquote size we are or how healthy we are or what we look like or how attractive we are, whether or not we’re allowed to have a good fucking day, because that’s what a weighing scales are for people, a daily a daily kind of decider who gets to let you know. Are you allowed to feel confident today? No. Fuck off, get out, get on a diet. And so just remembering that that that they’re not very complex weighing scales. They’re incredibly simplistic and and a really, really, really pathetic judge of size, health or anything, really even just what your true weight is. So also start to just really discredit the weighing scale that really helped me just discredited the shit out of it, [00:21:33][79.3]

Meghan: [00:21:34] make it make it less scary. And it sounds like this person’s on that path, you know, of really breaking that down and even having what Jameela just said in your head is you get on this scale, it might take a little bit of the power out of it, enough for you to get through deficit. [00:21:47][13.6]

Jameela: [00:21:48] One hundred percent. OK, so next up, how do you deal with body image issues when it comes to sex and intimacy? I feel fine until I have to have my leg over my head. Well, well done for being able to do that. And my stomach is all squished together. I mean, that was a humble brag, if ever I heard one. [00:22:10][22.2]

Meghan: [00:22:11] Flexible. [00:22:11][0.0]

Jameela: [00:22:12] She’s like yeah, when I’m up on the ceiling. So what do you think? Do you have an experience with them? It’s super personal question. I’m happy to jump in if you like. [00:22:23][11.3]

Meghan: [00:22:24] I’ve had sex as a fat person, that’s the only kind of sex that I’ve had. And what I would say is, you know, the first thing is to understand that the person that you’re sleeping with, the person that you’re being intimate, knows that you’re fat. It’s not it’s not a secret. It’s not something that dissuaded them from wanting to be intimate with you. And I think that’s a little bit of that’s something that you really have to start thinking about. You’re so we have all these fears of what people are thinking and what they’re feeling. But the actions that are happening, the reality of the situation is that they’re there with you and they want to be there with you. You know, I know that there are people who will, like, turn off the lights and maybe that’s a way that you can kind of make yourself feel more comfortable in the beginning, just not feeling like you’re under a spotlight and someone seeing every little dimple and stretch mark. But I’m a big believer in doing the things that scare you. So I think, you know, in situations where I felt insecure, I’m the kind of person that’s going to turn the lights on I don’t know if that’s great advice. But I think that sometimes by doing the thing that scares you is something that you don’t think that you can do. And just being present in that and trusting the partner that you have it it’s like a muscle memory, self-love. It’s something that you have to practice is something that you have to do in little bits. And maybe that’s keeping the lights on. Maybe that’s trying a different position that you feel comfortable in. And then in the heat of the moment, turning over it and letting them see you. Maybe it’s doing something that’s not sex first. Maybe it’s having them put lotion and oil on your body and and feeling that sort of intimacy between you and your partner, where your body is the focus and having them asking them to sort of tell you how your body feels, why, why it feels so good, why what they like about it, to just sort of make you feel a little bit more confident and to snap you back into the reality that you’re there with someone that wants to be with you, [00:24:24][119.9]

Jameela: [00:24:24] That was really hot advice. I mean really good advice but also it was hot. [00:24:27][2.4]

Meghan: [00:24:27] Listen pizza, cake, and rubbing oil on eachother’s body Jameela. Whatever, whatever happens [00:24:33][5.5]

Jameela: [00:24:33] I’ll be around in five minutes. Uh, mask on, though, bikini on but mask on. But I 100 percent hear you on that. I think that’s really, really good advice. I’m definitely someone who struggled because I had body image issues and then also my weight would fluctuate on medication so much so it kind of I’d go up eighty pounds, go down eighty pounds. And so I you know, I’ve definitely at first felt self-conscious. But two things I realized. One, Meghan is absolutely right that people can see what size you are when you have clothes on. And so if they want to take those clothes off, they know what is coming and they’re down and very excited and hopefully quite grateful. But also something I realize is that the other lover is often and this isn’t healthy or great either, but they’re often wondering about what you think about their body. And that was a hilarious revelation to me later on in life is realizing, you know, talking finally to lovers about, you know, why I wasn’t wanting to ever put the lights on. They were like, you know, I’m fucking worried as well. I don’t know if you’re liking my body. It’s similar to social anxiety. We go out thinking, oh, God, everyone’s judging me. People don’t think I’m not funny enough. They’re going to think I’m not interesting, I’m not smart enough. And actually, everyone in that room is probably wondering what everyone else is thinking of them. Everyone is thinking we’re all narcissists, really. We’re all just self-involved and terrified or insecure or all these different things. And so, you know, everyone is feeling a little bit shy, maybe when they’re naked and vulnerable and and and truly just working towards confidence is is what makes sex so sexy. And so keep throwing that leg back as long as you feel ready and and, you know, start with a dim light and slowly work your way into daylight. But it is it is so frustrating to me how much we have been programed to think that people don’t find anybody that isn’t like EmRata’s body type attractive. If you look at any porn website, you will see that one of the highest categories is B.B.W., which is big, beautiful women. So, you know, so all genders have been told to think that the only thing that is allowed to be considered attractive is a very specific kind of skinny body with tiny waist, big boobs, big bum, but very, very skinny thighs, everything toned, nothing moving, everything looking like fifteen year old’s body. Nothing older than that. But actually when people are, you know, alone and and really, in their truth, they’re looking at all kinds of different body sizes and people of different colors and backgrounds and and looks. And so it’s just capitalism. It’s capitalism and growth media and gross marketing and the fucking industry that I’m in, which is why I’m always trying to expose everyone that have convinced us otherwise. That person’s taking off your clothes because I want to see what’s underneath. And so I hope that you can work towards that. Also, if you can access any kind of therapy, that would be a great thing to start working on because you don’t need that bully inside your own head. [00:27:34][180.3]

Meghan: [00:27:34] You deserve your pleasure. You know, and I think that in general, pleasure is sort of taken from us. But also when you when you exist in a body that is told consistently, you don’t deserve pleasure, you don’t get pleasure until you reach a certain weight or until we decide that you can have it. to to have to to be intimate with other people in the body that you’re in is really revolutionary and it’s really rebellious. And so tap into that. And also what’s helped me a lot in my own body journey is following people that had bodies that looked like mine and maybe even going on Only Fans are going on sites that, you know, you have fat creators who you can see who are sharing their bodies and who maybe sort of desensitizing yourself a little bit to seeing what a body like that looks like. You might start to actually find an appreciation and a love for their body in a way first that you can then bring to your own [00:28:34][59.9]

Jameela: [00:28:35] such good advice [00:28:36][0.4]

Meghan: [00:28:37] and watch it with your partner. [00:28:37][0.6]

Jameela: [00:28:38] Yeah, I agree. OK, so next up, Jameela, um, one second. They always put compliments at the beginning and I’m trying to become more humble, so I’m just trying to skip that part it’s a really long compliment. [00:28:51][12.5]

Meghan: [00:28:52] You can just. Yeah, you can just read the compliments to me if you want, as if they’re compliments for Tonjes. [00:28:55][3.6]

Jameela: [00:28:59] Ok yeah Meghan, firstly, I want to say thank you so much for sharing your heart with the world via this podcast, which is true. [00:29:03][4.2]

Meghan: [00:29:03] Welcome. You’re welcome. [00:29:04][0.7]

Jameela: [00:29:05] The I Weigh community, which Meghan is a participant in somewhat and and Meghan, your work on The Good Place. Thank you for that. Sincerely, your existence has been a beacon of light in a shit ass world over this past year. OK, so Meghan, she loves you. [00:29:21][16.0]

Meghan: [00:29:21] Yeah, I love you too. [00:29:22][0.6]

Jameela: [00:29:22] Meghan. They love you. OK, so some background. I also have EDS that means Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is a collagen deficiency, which I also have, and it impacts your skin, your bones, all of your organs, generally every single cell, literally every cell in your body, because collagen is something that is a it’s a binding agent in your cellular system. And so with not much of it, you run into constant problems with dislocations or bleeding too much or having difficulty with operations or your teeth or whatever it’s a fucking nightmare. So we’re going to find out what’s going on with it. And I’m struggling. So some background. I also have EDS and I’m struggling with the diagnosis. As a fat woman, I took about 10 years of being gaslamp by half a dozen doctors, the fucking doctors, and diagnosed as quote unquote fat and told to starve myself, literally, they say, before finally meeting a kind rheumatologist, a woman of color, I might add, and getting my diagnosis confirmed by a geneticist. At first I was just so relieved to know that it’s not all in my head, all the bizarre, inexplicable and often invisible symptoms. However, now I am struggling with the reality of the prognosis that this is genetic, progressive and incurable. My question for you is, how do you cope with this illness, specifically chronic pain and invisible disability? Lots of love. OK, I’m going to take this one. [00:30:45][83.0]

Meghan: [00:30:45] Yeah you take it. I’ll touch down a little bit with chronic pain but you take this one. [00:30:47][1.3]

Jameela: [00:30:50] OK perfect. First of all, I want to say I’m really sorry because it is a frustrating condition to live with. And it’s also a hugely underfunded and under researched condition. So a lot of people, including doctors, don’t know a lot about it. Another thing that’s really frustrating about it is that it causes tremendous issues with your joints and loads of swelling. Just yesterday I was on set and I had to leave set to go and lie upside down in my trailer for half an hour because my legs had swollen to twice their size. Now I am a relatively slender person. I’m a US size six, so that’s happening to me at this size. But because we associate weight with joint issues, I can 100 percent imagine and in fact, I’ve actually experienced this before with doctors who don’t know what Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is when I was bigger than I am now, then blaming all of my joint issues on my fucking size. And that’s not possible because here I am as a thin person having the exact same symptoms I had before. So I’m sorry that you went through a decade of being gaslit. I’m very lucky to have been diagnosed at nine years old and so I’ve had a lot longer than most people to come to terms with this. Uh, things I would say are first things first you just have to accept it and you have to just try to find a way to look at your body with gratitude for the things that it does do that aren’t uncomfortable. I have chosen to look at my body with love and like, oh, this is really fucking challenging. Well done for getting up today. Oh, well, my hands are working today. I was able to give a hand job. Excellent work. Hands. Oh, great. I was, you know, my like, my my teeth are bad, but some of them are still in there and they’re my full teeth. Yeah. You know what? I’m I’m covered in scars and literally covered. I’m covered in scars. I have several hundred scars across my body. Every time I get eczema and I scratch myself, that’s another scar. That’s like a big keloid scar because it’s big with EDS. So I’ve chosen to look at that as like, oh, well done skin. You managed to finally heal over even though you are underprivileged in the collagen department. So gratitude for what your body can do is a great way of kind of glass half full-ing the situation. I know that that is a hard thing to ask for, but with incremental practice, you really do start to build a like an appreciation and deep respect for your body. Like, you know, our bodies are going through more than other people’s bodies that we’re here, we’re still here, we’re still waking up. We’re still trying to get through the day like we are. We are legends. We’re warriors. It’s fucking harder than it is for completely nondisabled people. I would also like to express any sorrow if you are someone who similarly to me on a worldwide level, gets gaslit about your health because EDS does not present visibly as as they referenced earlier, it is an invisible illness. So therefore you are more likely to not only be doubted by doctors, but also by everyone around you, sometimes even and often friends and family and colleagues, people who can’t see on you. It’s like if you’re not in a wheelchair or you don’t look physically ill, they presume there can’t be anything wrong with you. And chronic pain is something that’s really hard to live with. So just a big fuck off. Well done for still being here, are still getting through the day and still looking for solutions. Thank you for writing and looking for solutions. I would also try to find as many other people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome as you can. There is a big EDS community growing online and it’s incredibly comforting. I’ve learned so much about my own condition from this community because sometimes doctors don’t have the information. There are all these new symptoms we’re learning about all the time and having to tell each other about them so we can finally understand what’s happening to us. You know, something I learned about from the Internet is Marcel, which is something that comes alongside Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, where you develop these random allergies for no reason all the time. And they come and they go sometimes after six months, sometimes after three years. But they just pop up out of nowhere and they can be an allergy to food and allergy to candles and allergy to a skin product, sometimes an allergy to your own fucking tears. My skin briefly became allergic to my own fucking tears. [00:35:10][260.3]

Meghan: [00:35:11] I would die. I cry too often. [00:35:13][1.6]

Jameela: [00:35:13] I was really frustrating. And so, you know, I learned about that years and years ago from the Twitter community. I was able to take that to my doctor and be tested. And then the doctors were like, Oh yeah, you do have Marcel. So find your online community. It is rough to know that it is degenerative. It is rough to know that it’s going to last forever, but is therefore also amazing to know that now you have confirmation you have to treat your body like it is made of glass. And that’s not to say that you are weak. It is to say that you deserve to be protected and preserved at all costs. I am so fucking intense about what I will and will not do with my body. I don’t go out all night. I treat my body with so much care I refuse to do anything impact sport wise. I refuse to do anything that’s going to test my boundaries. I treat myself with the utmost care. I treat myself as though my body is my most prized possession because it fucking is. And so take that knowledge to know that you deserve the right. If you want to stay in bed for a week, stay in bed for a week. But you just do whatever you need to do to get you through the day because you’re a legend and you need to be protected. Sorry, those big rant go on. [00:36:26][72.8]

Meghan: [00:36:26] I mean, I loved all of it. I deal with chronic back pain and degenerative disc. And so I have that experience of like sometimes I’m OK and and sometimes I’m really, really not OK. And it’s definitely something that in the moments where I am not as in much pain I can, I feel like I sink into joy a little bit deeper than I did before. I have such an appreciation for the friends and the people around me that hold space for me to be in pain and to not have a forward path. But just stay with me. Know that if I’m. If I’m in bed for two weeks and I can’t move, will rally around me to see what I need to to send me food if I need it to to check in. And I think that online communities have been a big thing, too, for me in the sense of finding out what’s going on. You know, because I’ve had doctors that basically have told me just to lose weight, just lose weight. And I did. I lost a ton of weight. I lost a lot of weight and very few in just three months. And my back still went out and it was still the same pain. And finding people that can teach me and take the time with the stretches and just information on how to sleep and just a, you know, a general care in other people are going through. It has been really helpful in situations where you feel like you’re in and out of a doctor’s office and they don’t they’re not really taking the time to to help you deal with something that you’re going to be dealing with for the rest of your life, [00:38:00][93.7]

Jameela: [00:38:01] the hilarity that they treat like anyone, because though they are lazy, when actually the laziness is in the doctors who cannot see beyond your external size and really be bothered to be arsed to to to do the tests that are necessary to see what if there is actually something else underlying that they can’t be bothered just in and out they want to collect their fucking paycheck it’s really very frustrating. [00:38:24][22.9]

Meghan: [00:38:24] I had one doctor in my life that I remember. This is the best doctor that I had and I felt like listened to me. And when I was young, just another side story. When I was young, I was sent to fat camp when I was 12. So I went to like a pretty infamous fat camp. I lost a lot of weight. I lost like 30 pounds in six weeks. They sent me home I started getting sick [00:38:45][21.0]

Jameela: [00:38:47] Holy shit that’s so unhealthy. [00:38:47][0.0]

Meghan: [00:38:50] After I would eat. For about a month I would miss a lot of school because I would eat dinner on Sunday night. I would be so sick, I would be in so much pain. And I had a parent that thought I was faking it. I had the doctors that guessed every possible thing it could be that wasn’t what it was. I thought maybe I’d hepatitis or maybe I actually was given like a giant bottle of Tums. Just take Tums and I ate all of the Tums. And I had one doctor that was a younger guy that walked in and said, well, why don’t we check this and see if her gallbladder is giving her an issue. And because I was so young, no one was looking at that. And he was the one person that figured out that not only was, my gall, my gallbladder, give me an issue. I had a dozen gallstones and pancreatitis and I needed emergency surgery. But at the same time, on the other side of that, this is also a doctor who, when I was 13, was at my parent’s request, was giving me diet suppressants. So, you know, it’s you take one you give one. [00:39:46][55.7]

Jameela: [00:39:47] It’s an ongoing search. We need to do more work to find better communities of doctors that can go through this. So frustrating I have so many friends who’ve been misdiagnosed or gone undiagnosed for such a long time, but sending all of our love to you so much. Next up, dear Jameela Jamil and the I Weigh community from the bottom, my heart, I want to thank you for creating the I Weigh movement it’s genuinely changed my life. If it’s OK, I have a question that I’m hoping you will take into consideration. I think I might have been struggling with this for a lot longer, but only become consciously aware of it in the last year or so, I would say I identify as a heterosexual woman, although it is a spectrum and I have had sex in long term relations as well as a one night stand or more casual dating situations, although this has been enjoyable in varying degrees and has taught me a lot about sex as well as myself. I noticed that I started to relate and perhaps equate sex to the patriarchy. In a way, I started to view sex as a tool of the patriarchy. And it’s something that we are, as women, conditioned to give men. Regardless if this is something she wants. There is a tendency within me to be less inclined to have sex because there is a sense of male entitlement to sex. This is fascinating. There is definitely a trust issue here from my side, the subconscious notion that guys only with me for the sex rather than for love. But I feel like it is more than that. I know that sex is about an intimacy and pleasure and that women are sexual beings who deserve good sex with or without romance involved. Yet somehow I feel as if I am no longer able to tap into that when I am with a man. And instead the sex is about the guy owning me, using me for his pleasure in relation to overarching structures of patriarchy. I hope you’re willing to discuss this topic because I’m a bit desperate about this whole issue and would love to just enjoy sex with someone else again, without all these outside structures complicating something that is actually beautiful and supposed to bring us pleasure, it’s somewhat exhausting to feel like I’m either giving in or fighting patriarchy through sex, wishing you nothing but the best and lots of love and many covid proof hugs. Fuck me, I didn’t see that one coming. [00:41:50][122.5]

Meghan: [00:41:51] I didn’t see that one coming either. I mean, even as they were saying, it was like, you know, I don’t disagree with this, I feel where you’re coming from. [00:41:58][7.5]

Jameela: [00:42:00] 100 percent. We live in a world that is 100 percent been designed around male pleasure. Even women’s magazines like 10 ways to drive him crazy, 10 blowjobs to give him. It’s always about how to keep him, how to impress him. You know, I remember for years, for years, and I have only been having sex for a matter of years because I was a late bloomer because. [00:42:20][19.6]

Meghan: [00:42:20] Me, too. [00:42:21][0.8]

Jameela: [00:42:21] Yeah exactly. So, you know, I was putting it out there. No one was catching, you know? Just what happens sometimes. [00:42:25][4.8]

Meghan: [00:42:25] I just had crushes that went on for so, so long. [00:42:29][4.1]

Jameela: [00:42:30] Oh same. [00:42:30][0.0]

Meghan: [00:42:30] All of a sudden we were twenty six. [00:42:33][2.6]

Jameela: [00:42:33] Yeah, exactly. So I was in, I was in my 20s as well. And so I for years only thought I’d had good sex if the other person had a good time. That was how I measured sex the whole time I was having sex. Are they having a good time? Am I doing a good job? And then afterwards I would before I would decide if I had a good time or not, I would look over to their face to see if they looked like they’d had a good time. And then I would be like a version of the weighing scale. We are just like, do I have permission to enjoy myself? [00:43:04][30.6]

Meghan: [00:43:04] Like, now I can breathe because you’ve experienced your pleasure. And so I did a good job. And so my work here is done. [00:43:10][5.8]

Jameela: [00:43:11] I actually used to ask people afterwards, was that OK? Not a hot question, not a hot question at all. So I completely understand that. And, you know, I think the pornography world has a lot to answer for in that department. But I’m going to let you start off this one. [00:43:26][15.0]

Meghan: [00:43:28] That’s that’s a huge part of it. I I’m actually not quite that place, but looking at a lot of the sex that I’ve had and the experiences that I’ve had because I didn’t start till I was twenty six, I can see that where, you know, I had the experience and I’m glad that I had them. But there were a lot of instances of me going right into pleasing someone else because I didn’t trust or I didn’t feel comfortable or safe to experience that pleasure or to ask for that pleasure and what they were. Yeah. You know, you sort of shift yourself to appease someone else and then it’s looking back at it, you think, oh, I don’t even know that I really liked this person enough to do that. And I was sort of shortchanging myself by not asking for what I wanted. I kind of love the idea of this person having experiences where they don’t please someone else first, that they’re like this. This session is about me, you know. I’m intrigued by the kind of partner you would bring in with that. [00:44:31][63.5]

Jameela: [00:44:32] Megan Thee Stallion vibe. [00:44:33][0.5]

Meghan: [00:44:33] There are plenty of men who are very much into, you know, pleasing and being a little bit more submissive. And maybe that’s something to tap into. [00:44:42][9.0]

Jameela: [00:44:42] Listen to listen to Megan Thee Stallion songs. I would say especially to like as a kind of fight song before before sex because because patriarchy is not having any impact from the sounds of it on Megan Thee Stallion’s sex, she is getting what she fucking came for and I am all here for it. It’s so empowering to hear a woman talk like that about sex. May I offer the opinion that I don’t think sex, heterosexual sex even is inherently linked to the patriarchy? I think it can be, but I don’t think it is inherently. And I think a lot of it has been. But that doesn’t mean it has to continue to be so and so. I would try to to just get away from the idea that it cannot be anything but patriarchy, because, as you know, as Meghan has said, there are plenty of guys out there who are very into pleasuring and, you know, being, you know, maybe even sometimes more servile towards the women they may be having sex with. And that’s fantastic. And there are plenty of people who are also worried that you’re not having a good time, because if you’re not having to have a good time, you might stop shagging them and they might want to keep shagging you. So everyone is concerned as as as they should be that you know. Well, you would hope you’re sleeping with someone who is concerned about your wellbeing during the sex that you’re having. And if they aren’t, you should never have sex with them again. Yeah, 100, 100 percent. But I do think it’s just about maybe being more thoughtful about picking your partners, maybe starting to work on, you know, being when you’re having sex, be present of the thoughts that are going through your head. That was a process I really went through where I found myself. Like I realized this is like very early on in having sex is like, oh, my God, I think I’m performing. I think I caught myself in the act to perform. I was like flipping my hair around and doing all the things. And I was like, oh, I am acting sex. I’m acting sex. I’m like, it’s like I’m in a French movie. I’m being penetrated, but I’m acting the sex. [00:46:40][117.3]

Meghan: [00:46:40] I mean, how was your performance? Would you be cast in the movie, do you think, or [00:46:43][3.0]

Jameela: [00:46:45] I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t think I would have gotten maybe understudy at best. But I you know, I think I was you know, we grew up so we grew up so in like not just with pornography, but like Hollywood, you would walk, you know, you would see them, like, burst through the door. They start kissing within a second. I mean, no one’s no one’s wet in one second he’s inside. He’s all the way in. Within 60 seconds he’s had an orgasm. And somehow so has she. And it’s been at the same time and they’ve had the most extraordinary time. And then it’s onto the cigarette and the next scene. And so A) I thought that was supposed to be me. So I felt really, really guilty and wrong and bad for not being able to go into instant penetration. But also I was like doing all the moves that they were doing. And it’s not very fun to to perform like that for me anyway. Some people might find fun and arousal in performance, but like I was I was just copying what I saw in the films and then worrying that I was taking too long to get to orgasm, if it was longer than 30 seconds, I feel like apologizing to people, if it took longer than 30 seconds to reach orgasm like it was [00:47:54][69.3]

Meghan: [00:47:55] or I would I would just like, OK, move on to the next thing. Like, if this isn’t working and I feel like maybe it’s taking too long, then it’s like almost foregoing your pleasure. [00:48:03][8.3]

Jameela: [00:48:04] One hundred percent. [00:48:05][1.2]

Meghan: [00:48:05] Just get to the blowjob because at least I know that, you know. So I think that my suggestion would be to maybe, you know, invest in a partnership that maybe is not just about hooking up and or is someone that, you know, there’s a difference because I’ve hooked up with guys that it’s not a very caring experience afterwards. And then I know men that are really serious about aftercare, sexual, regardless of if it’s a hookup or not, because they they’re thankful. They’re grateful for the time that you’ve spent with them. And so I think that was [00:48:41][35.6]

Jameela: [00:48:41] Was that an act like was that like? [00:48:42][0.9]

Meghan: [00:48:43] I’d never experienced I’ve just talked to men that are like, but one day I know it’s coming [00:48:49][5.4]

Jameela: [00:48:49] What kind of aftercare would you want. [00:48:51][1.1]

Meghan: [00:48:53] I mean, I’m taking a full body massage, you know, I’m taking like maybe a meal, you bring me food, [00:48:58][5.0]

Jameela: [00:48:59] Yeah yeah toasted cheese sandwich. [00:48:59][0.0]

Meghan: [00:49:01] While you’re up will pay my rent. You know, whatever it is you feel you feel would help me. I’m here for [00:49:06][5.5]

Jameela: [00:49:08] this is more a sort of simp situation. I love it. [00:49:11][3.8]

Meghan: [00:49:12] I’m just I’m just trying to manifest you know what I what I want. I would also say, like, maybe if you’re feeling this tension with what sex is and what it means, maybe with these partners, instead of going to penetrative sex, having a full night of foreplay, you know, having times where it’s not just about them getting off for their pleasure in a way that maybe you feel like your body is being used or you’re being taken in some kind of way that doesn’t feel good, but really about an exploration and a slowing down and a orgasm not being necessarily the point, but that like intense intimacy and connection, which is very hot. It’s just me talking about I think it’s just me describing like sex fan fiction [00:49:54][42.5]

Jameela: [00:49:56] My brain starts slow down with fucking great. So I yeah, my brain slowed down. It happened. So I’m into the I’m just thinking about the body massage now. I’m not OK. So I would also suggest, you know, I did this documentary a couple of years ago about consent and I was talking to someone from the BDSM community who said that what they do with online dating is that they have a list already prepared of what they like sexually, and then they send each other their list. And if it’s not compatible, they don’t meet up. Fuck, I wish we did this in the non-BDSM world, just in the just in the world in its entirety. But I feel like a lot of in particular women don’t even know what they like. I don’t think many women have even ever asked themselves. And so I’ve been suggesting since I heard that for years that everyone makes a list, just get your notes app on your phone and and write down. What do you actually want? What do you like? What are you wondering about that you’ve never even tried and then start asking for that stuff. You can even text beforehand. [00:50:55][59.0]

Meghan: [00:50:55] I used to I used to like take Tumblr gifs like back in the day of Tumblr. They’d be like porn gifs and things, things that looked interesting to me or that I wanted to try. I remember having conversations with a partner where we would send back and forth like videos or anything that was just like, oh, I would I would love to have this done to me. And that might be an easier way to say what you want as opposed to saying this is, you know, this is what I need. It’s also a way of you saying this looks like it would feel really good. [00:51:24][29.1]

Jameela: [00:51:27] Yeah. Go make that list. I would say go make that list and maybe question if part of this has come to come from having had bad lovers in the past and bad lovers in the past does not dictate you’re going to have bad lovers in the future. It’s just all about, you know, I bring this up literally every day. But my therapist saying to me that doormat is already lying down for people wipe their feet all over it. And I feel like that can be applied to so many different situations. We can almost always dictate the pleasure we receive. And if we if someone does not want to give us that pleasure, then we reserve the right always to walk away. So wishing you the best of luck with that. I don’t think it’s inherent. I do think it’s possible to experience sex heterosexually with a man without patriarchy being involved. Hi, Jameela, I have two questions on my mind, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on these. She had also complimented the podcast. I just want get it, OK, I do this every week it’s so infuriating. One in the episode with Catlin Moran, you both discussed the topic of negative self talk and how to take control of it. As a young mother ,I’m really curious about how we can teach our kids from a young age how to talk positively to themselves. Kids are incredible imitators, but since this is something that happens internally, I’m wondering how we can set an example for them in this case. Okay, so let’s just break this to start with that one. Firstly. It might happen internally, but it never starts internally. We are born with nothing but self acceptance. Right. We don’t think about thighs. We don’t think about stomachs. We don’t think about personalities. We don’t think that we’re being problematic. If we ask for our basic needs to be met, if we’re lonely, we tell someone, if we’ve shat our pants, we tell someone. If we’re you know, we cry when we need to cry, we don’t hold anything back. We are born perfect in our in our relationship to our self and our body. It’s it’s kind of dragged out of us or beaten into us the idea that we need to feel shame around expressing emotions, shame around our body, shame around the way that we look. It’s not something that occurs to us when we first enter this world. So it’s very important to be aware of that, that the external is so important. What is your child looking at? How are you talking about your body or other people’s bodies in front of your child? [00:53:48][141.1]

Meghan: [00:53:48] Mm hmm. What do you. Yeah, how are you. How are you talking about yourself when you look in the mirror and who’s standing behind you hearing that, [00:53:53][5.2]

Jameela: [00:53:54] yeah, kids would pick it up 100 percent. A lot of my body image issues came from the way that my parents spoke not only about their own bodies, but also about the bodies of other members of our family or friends or commenting, or they’ve gained weight and then having a chuckle about that or being jealous if someone had lost weight like it, really, I really soaked it all up because children are just sponges. So really be aware of that. Being aware of what’s that what they’re watching on television. Do you see body diversity, general diversity, racial diversity, disability diversity on that screen? Are you are you showing them, you know, old Disney cartoons where the where the princess as a one inch waist and long flowing hair and she’s normally only ever white and blond or snow white, a brunette, very diverse. So, you know, what are you showing them on the television? What magazines do they have access to? Are you giving them your phone? Are they scrolling through Instagram? Who are you following on Instagram? Are you making sure that they are constantly exposed to a spectrum of different sizes and shapes and colors and levels of physical ability or non disability, et cetera? That’s something I feel. [00:55:00][66.2]

Meghan: [00:55:01] Yeah, I mean, it really comes down to how you’re talking to them, what questions you’re asking them about how they feel in their bodies and and things that they’re hearing. Like I remember being in school. I remember the first moment I realized I was fat when it was just second grade. It was just the first memory I have of a kid in class whispering to me that I was fat and understanding at that point that that was meant to hurt me. And, of course, raising my hand to tell on him immediately because that’s who I was. But then, you know, you have that experience outside of the home and then you go home and you kind of receive that same bullying at home in even more subtle ways. I had very extreme like I had a parent that was trying to pay me to lose weight, like I’ll give you a certain amount of money per pound and diet pills and fat camps and all that stuff. But it was [00:55:47][46.2]

Jameela: [00:55:48] Have you ever put on a were you ever put on a powder soup diet, I was put in a powder soup diet for three months. [00:55:53][5.2]

Meghan: [00:55:54] I was never put in the powder soup diet. But I was I was my parents lied about my age to get me into a gym when I was 12 so I could work out. [00:56:00][6.4]

Jameela: [00:56:02] Even sending you away to fat camp, just making you feel as though you must go away from us to be fixed. [00:56:07][4.4]

Meghan: [00:56:07] Yeah. It’s interesting to you because when I talk to my mom about it, she sort of remembers me wanting to go, like me asking to go. I don’t have that memory, but I also I hold space for that because I think that I was being teased to the point that I understand that there was there was a part of me that thought maybe if I just change it, I’ll have some kind of relief. And then I ended up in the hospital so clearly. But, you know, it’s it’s even subtle. It’s even more subtle than just family picking at you, too. It’s how they’re talking about their body. It’s when they’re showing up to Thanksgiving and, you know, they have their own diet version of foods because they’re trying to lose a certain amount of weight. It’s the [00:56:47][40.0]

Jameela: [00:56:47] complementing weight loss. Don’t do that. [00:56:49][1.7]

Meghan: [00:56:50] Complimenting weight loss. Yeah, but it’s it’s jarring the experience and how you’re treated after a major weight loss. And that’s a it’s a whole other level of trauma. But yeah, I think that wanting to set an environment where your kid can come to you and talk about what’s being said to them, what’s being said around them, how they feel about it, and then helping them, guiding them through the thought process and the understanding that your body is going to change your body is going to go through lots of changes. And there’s nothing wrong with whatever those changes are, because I love you as your parent. I’m here for you. And there are people in this world who will love you and who will support you. And I’m going to be here with you for the entire journey. [00:57:36][46.1]

Jameela: [00:57:36] Also and we could all benefit from this. Focus on the inside, focus on how smart they are and how funny they are, focused on how great they are with Lego or how sporty they are or whatever, but find ways to build them up in so many other ways that their exterior is just to kind of it’s just lost in the pool of other things that are cool and interesting about them. That’s what, that’s what the whole of my I Weigh movement is. It’s like, who are you? What are you. So to the point where, you know, listen, if the way that you look is one of your priorities, I’m not a dick, like I’m not going to tell you that’s not allowed. Who fuck am I? Turly who the fuck am I? I don’t know anymore. It’s been long, but seriously, like I. It can be in your top ten. But can we just stop making it our entire top ten. It can’t be one through ten. It can be like eight. But let’s like top let’s let’s throw it to the top of the leaderboard there. I like all the things that you are, what you contribute to society, who you are. And so I think that’s a really healthy thing to just to plug my own movement, a really healthy way to implement self confidence into your child. Another really interesting thing I remember is a friend of mine had a very kind of traditionally, quote unquote, beautiful daughter, very long hair, very slender, big, beautiful kind of eyes, very symmetrical, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of the traditional beauty standards. And my friend, actually, and this might sound a bit weird, but it’s not. And it has ended so excellently, but will warn people from beforehand when she’s bringing her child over or teachers or other friends. It’s like my child is extremely beautiful and I don’t want you to comment on her appearance at all because very young, from about two onwards, you noticed the first and only thing people said, oh, you’re so beautiful, what a beautiful child you have. And that would immediately create a value system for her child. So, you know, saying to other people around you, like, please don’t ever comment on the way that my child looks or anything about their physicality whatsoever, even if it’s their big eyes or their eyelashes being very long. Just leave it alone. Just comment on the things that are on the inside that was really fucking helpful for my friend. And now this child is is very, very grounded. I mean, God help her in her teens at secondary school because the value system becomes imposed upon you. But I feel like they’ve done a really, really good job with just preserving in the most formative that kind of my first seven years where you really create your neurological coding, really has done a great job in protecting the child from that life gross value system of esthetic. [01:00:10][153.6]

Meghan: [01:00:12] It’s also what it what did it experiment for or, you know, a test for adults in that situation, too? Because I think we don’t really learn how to compliment people without it being about physical stuff. Oh, you look so good. You know, I think that there is to comp when I’ve gotten compliments from friends on my kindness or my attention to something or something that’s outside of how I look. Those compliments feel so unique because we’re not used to giving them and they feel more powerful. [01:00:40][28.3]

Jameela: [01:00:41] People tell me that I make them feel I make them feel better about themselves because of how often I embarrass myself publicly. So they feel less embarrassed about their lives because I’m so much more embarrassing than them. So that’s the thing you see that I bring to People magazine. That’s really great. I’m sure I’ve done that for you. I appreciate what not to do. You know, I’m that guy, so. Yeah, you know, I love being complimented like that because it’s not about my body. It’s about who I am [01:01:06][24.5]

Meghan: [01:01:07] I love how embarrassing you are. It’s my favorite quality. [01:01:08][1.1]

Jameela: [01:01:11] Yeah truly. You make me feel so much better about myself because I’m not like you. OK, so second question and then we’re going to wrap this up. So I’m not sure if you’ve talked about female masturbation before, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. I think that there’s a distinct connection between the way that we are taught to not masturbate and feeling ashamed of our bodies. Masturbation is such an amazing tool to learn about our boundaries, what we enjoy and most importantly, how incredible our bodies are and what they’re capable of doing. I guess this isn’t much of a question, but more of an invitation to delve into this topic. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart and my wife’s. And she does say I’m an absolute inspiration because you might be talking about you. I don’t know. I’m not sure. Like, who knows? It’s not important. It’s not important right now. [01:01:55][44.2]

Meghan: [01:01:56] Alright alright I feel I feel like this whole episode is just be getting me to try to describe sexual things. And I’m here for it. If you guys want to hear the soothing tones of my voice. [01:02:06][10.3]

Jameela: [01:02:07] Oh, for sure. [01:02:07][0.1]

Meghan: [01:02:08] As I talk about masturbation. [01:02:09][0.5]

Jameela: [01:02:10] For sure. I don’t feel like I’ve been aroused enough yet for this fucking entire hour. [01:02:14][4.3]

Meghan: [01:02:15] Jameela, I’ve got to take a break after this because. [01:02:16][1.6]

Jameela: [01:02:16] Yeah, I need to have a little lie down so. OK, so talk to me, female masturbation. [01:02:21][4.8]

Meghan: [01:02:22] My thoughts on masturbation. My favorite thing to do a probably top three hobbies. [01:02:28][5.5]

Jameela: [01:02:29] What are the other two. [01:02:30][0.5]

Meghan: [01:02:30] I think I much prefer to sex most of the time because it is such a focus on my own pleasure and I get to think about whatever I want. I get to, you know, it’s it’s great. I started touching myself when I was young too. Like I didn’t have parents again growing up in the Midwest. No one really was like here’s your sex ed class and I don’t even remember if they really mentioned masturbation. It’s like one afternoon where all the girls watch a video about periods. And my I was so curious about things that my mom would just buy me books to read, which was, you know, I thank God because then I could kind of go through and learn on my own. But I remember the first time I like, sat in front of a mirror and looked at everything and found where the clitoris was. And since then, clit and I have been best friends. [01:03:19][48.1]

Jameela: [01:03:19] Besties. Are there are lots of little girls who stop masturbating at the age of sort of like two or three or four. I think it’s really important to be careful in how you have that conversation. I don’t even know how I’m going to have that conversation if I have children, because you do want them to be safe and to not draw attention to themselves. Not that not in the shaming way, but obviously, like there are some really sick people in this world and you don’t want your child to be putting themselves in a vulnerable situation. You but you also don’t want to make them feel bad or like they’re doing anything wrong or evil, you know, disgusting, like you have to be so gentle in the way that you navigate that. And perhaps on the podcast, I need to bring on a child psychologist who can maybe talk through that and teach me because I have fucking no expertize on this. But I just think it’s really important. I for years, the first of all, masturbation is something that only men did and that women didn’t really need to because men don’t have the kind of cycles of sexual repression that men do because men, you know, need to release something. And I was like, well, I don’t have anything to release, so why would I need to do that? I’ll just have sex. If and when someone have sex, I mean, like, for example, between the age of like twenty three and twenty six, I did not touch anyone else or myself. For three years. Just a graveyard of no touch. That was it, and I was this like model and deejay and I was, you know, like I had, you know, externally it appeared that I had it all on. I could have anyone. And I was just there going home for another cold, wankless night, cold, sexless night. And I really feel like I would have had a happier life. I would have made less mistakes on Twitter or in interviews or if I if if I only ever just had a wank first. I feel like maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to tweet until we’ve had a wank. I feel like there’d be less problems in the world. I think there would be less war if there was more wanking. I really do. [01:05:12][113.3]

Meghan: [01:05:13] I think I’m going to carry that into my life. I can’t tell you how many times during this quarantine I’ve fallen asleep with a sex toy next to me with the full intention of using it and then woke up and nothing had happened. And I was like, well, maybe tomorrow night babe. [01:05:25][12.1]

Jameela: [01:05:27] I have a headache. [01:05:27][0.4]

Meghan: [01:05:28] Truly sorry. [01:05:29][0.6]

Jameela: [01:05:29] Not today. Yeah, I really do. I think that I think we really need to continue that. I think Emma Watson was like one of the first celebrities I ever saw, like just come out and talk about the importance of the female orgasm and masturbation and dildos. But there are lots of lots and lots and lots and lots of sex advocates online who aren’t in Harry Potter, who are very, very knowledgeable and people from different backgrounds. We’ve had Shadeen Francis, the amazing love and sex therapist who was on this show before talking about it. People like her are fantastic to follow. Do you have any great sex followers that you like, Meghan? [01:06:05][35.3]

Meghan: [01:06:06] Oh, Jimanekia is someone that I would shout out instantly. Dirty Lola. I have a few people that I follow that are that are friends, thank God, but also do incredible work in this space and are very tuned into their pleasure and how to share that pleasure with other people and teach them sort of about themselves. And yeah, I’m trying to think if there’s anyone else at the top of my head, but I think that those those two are a [01:06:33][27.4]

Jameela: [01:06:34] great place to start. [01:06:34][0.7]

Meghan: [01:06:35] And yeah, and I also think that, like, you know, when it comes to masturbation, something that I wish that I had been told or had been communicated to me a little bit younger was not just masturbation and sexual release specifically, but also all of the the feeling in the the pleasure that comes from touching beyond your clitoris, you know, just the your inner thighs and like even incorporating that sort of pleasure practice into when you’re putting lotion on after a shower like it doesn’t always have to have a point beyond you feeling really grounded in your body and feeling all those sensations that you know. Yes you know, I know I’m just like touching myself as I’m doing it. But I actually [01:07:19][44.3]

Jameela: [01:07:20] her shoulders, just to be just to be clear. [01:07:22][2.2]

Meghan: [01:07:23] is not although sometimes I’m podcasting, I can’t help. I just do grab myself like this. And I just [01:07:29][5.3]

Jameela: [01:07:29] I always love holding my breasts. [01:07:30][1.1]

Meghan: [01:07:31] It’s comforting. [01:07:31][0.2]

Jameela: [01:07:32] It’s so comforting it’s wonderful. [01:07:33][0.9]

Meghan: [01:07:34] It’s not like a sexual thing it’s just really comforting. And so that’s that’s what I think it is. It’s it’s not always necessarily sexual. But I think masturbation is a great gateway to pleasure beyond that in your body in finding out what that is. [01:07:44][9.4]

Jameela: [01:07:44] I agree. Go get toys. Go get all the toys, in fact if you find yourself about to buy an appetite suppressant lollipop or a weight loss laxative tea or anti aging cream not a thing also aging’s really cool and a great privilege. I hope we’ve learned that in the last year. Or fucking stretch mark cream. Not a thing. Anticellulite cream, not a fucking thing. Before you’re about to go and spend money on any of that bullshit. Why don’t you buy yourself, a nice sex toy, a nice vibrating, new, innovative, highly recommended, expensive, even they don’t have to be expensive. But why don’t you play with I’ve got a friend who’s got an actual trunk, and even though she’s going to go and stay at her parent’s house for a couple of weeks, she brought like half the trunk with her in a giant bag and just rolled that through customs. So all these different big old dildos just didn’t give a shit because she’s concerned about her pleasure. And also, like, really even that might sound a bit weird if there’s ever a place that you’re going to need some release. And pleasure is when you’re dealing with your fucking family. [01:08:46][62.1]

Meghan: [01:08:47] So I get of that. [01:08:48][1.3]

Jameela: [01:08:49] But yeah, go buy yourself a go buy yourself some sex toys, maybe, you know, get into it. I think it’s really, really important. And we need to keep having those conversations and and who better than Meghan to have stroked herself while having that conversation with me? [01:09:03][14.3]

Meghan: [01:09:03] I just you know, I’m talking about my body and I’m in my body and I just sometimes it feels good to touch your shoulders, you know? [01:09:11][7.2]

Jameela: [01:09:12] Yeah. Very sensual. Very sensual. OK, well, I need to leave. Meghan, this was fucking great. Thank you so much for coming on. And where can people find you online? [01:09:20][8.8]

Meghan: [01:09:22] You can find me at Meghan Tonjes on most things. YouTube is a great place. Instagram is a great place. But also I have music streaming on Spotify and iTunes and all those good places and I have a podcast called No Lie’s Detected, which you can find wherever you find podcasts. [01:09:35][12.7]

Jameela: [01:09:36] Boom. All right, well, go find her and have a lovely day. Thanks for coming on and helping me. [01:09:41][5.1]

Meghan: [01:09:43] Of course, any time. [01:09:43][0.6]

Jameela: [01:09:44] Oh, and just by the way, we did actually find a website, it’s called Health at Every Size. So if you just go to HAEScommunity.com, you will be able to perhaps find is not a huge directory, but some doctors who take health at every size seriously. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode I Weigh with Jameela Jamil’s produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Aaron Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it. And it amps me up to bring on better and better guests. Lastly, at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at one eight one eight six six zero five five four three. Or email us what you say at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not in pounds and kilos. Please don’t send that. It’s all about you just you know, you’ve been on the Instagram anyway, and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners. [01:10:51][67.3]

Listener: [01:10:55] I weigh having a loving and supporting family. I weigh being a psychotherapist and a professional dancer, I weigh being grateful always, and I weigh being kind and loving to others. [01:10:55][0.0]

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