EP. 203 — Will I Ever Have Sex Again with Sofie Hagen

Jameela [00:00:15] Sofie Hagen, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Sofie [00:00:18] I’m good. How are you?

Jameela [00:00:19] I’m so good. I’m all the better for seeing you. You’re just a very soothing human being. You’re a salve on my very stressful day, and immediately in your presence, I feel more serene.

Sofie [00:00:31] Oh, thank you.

Jameela [00:00:31] How do you feel at the moment? Do you feel serene? Bringing out a book is really intense, especially a very personal book.

Sofie [00:00:37] No, I don’t feel serene. I think that would be a bit of an overstatement. I feel, I am excited. I’m actually excited. And, also just it’s, it just feels very vulnerable, doesn’t it? You know, it’s different than doing stand up because you make a joke, and a joke is in itself defensive. You know, it’s in-built defense. But this book is, it’s very, very honest. And it’s been written over the course of quite a few years, and then suddenly it’s going to be out for everyone to read. It’s it feels like releasing a diary, a very honest diary.

Jameela [00:01:09] Yes, Yeah. And it’s extraordinary. I hate the word brave. I think it gets overused and used in the wrong capacities, but I do think it’s a very bold thing to do that is extremely admirable because when people put out such personal bodies of work, it opens up in other people the ability they might not have had before to also face a similar thing that they are, you know, going through, and you have a history of doing that through your stand up and through your online presence because not everything you say online has always just been a joke. You’ve also talked about some important and serious things, but I feel as though something that you represent to a lot of my friends in many different ways, is you make them feel safe to think about and talk about certain experiences that they have that society has stigmatized. And I think that that’s such an extraordinary, it’s so mad to me that you can be such a funny icon and then also hold such a significant space, so your book is called Will I Ever Have Sex Again?

Sofie [00:02:11] Yes.

Jameela [00:02:12] Tell us the premise of the book, please.

Sofie [00:02:15] The premise is, I haven’t had sex since 2015, and I felt very alone with that because it’s not that I haven’t wanted to. I have a sex drive. It has just not happened. And whenever I’ve been close to it, I’ve started panicking a bit. And it then just went on and on and on and for various reasons, and, so the big is me looking into and exploring a specific amount of avenues that could potentially get in the way of having a sex life. So I look into sexual education, gender, sexuality, body image, sexual trauma and neurodiversity and explore different ways that those things can be tricky for us when it comes to sex.

Jameela [00:03:01] Mhm.

Sofie [00:03:01] And then I also half of it is like a diary thing where I then go into some of my more personal reasons for why I specifically haven’t had sex since 2015.

Jameela [00:03:11] Mhm. And you even go into your virginity loss.

Sofie [00:03:13] Oh, yeah.

Jameela [00:03:13] I loved that story so much. I resonated with it so much of the way that it was built up and built up and built up. And everyone’s telling you like, “You’ve got to do this thing. It’s such a big deal.” And then you do it, and it’s like “Oh, that’s fine.” And if you’re lucky, it was fine. But like, is that what the fucking big deal was about? Because I was, I didn’t, I was a really late bloomer. I didn’t have my first kiss til I was 21. I don’t think I got fingered til I was 22. I think I had sex around the same year. And I’d been so, so, not bullied about it because I think my friends really loved me, but everyone just found it really stressful that I hadn’t engaged in any of these things. It was such an anti-fucking-climax. And it was nice. I had nice first-time sex but I couldn’t believe how much pressure I’d been put under. And you were younger than I was. You were 16, right?

Sofie [00:04:05] Yeah, but but in my in my social class where I grew up, that was old.

Jameela [00:04:08] Yeah.

Sofie [00:04:09] I was the very last person to

Jameela [00:04:10] I’m from London. It’s also old here. Yeah. If you don’t have a baby at 11, it’s weird. Haha!

Sofie [00:04:16] Exactly. Yeah, you’re behind the times. When I think back at that time, it’s such a, I really look back at it with so much love and affection because it was so simple, and my relationship to sex was so simple because it was just, you know, we were young and I didn’t have any hang ups about it yet. It was just this, you know, oh, we tried this, and I was like, “Yay, let’s try it again. It can only get better.”

Jameela [00:04:38] Yeah. You said you want to get back to that feeling, right? Like, “Yeah, it was nice.”

Sofie [00:04:41] Now suddenly it has become this messy thing because since I was 16, I’m now 35, let’s call it 25. And it’s just been so much, right? There’s been so much. I was this 16 year old, you know, sure, I had confidence issues and I had all the things that teenagers deal with at the time. I was depressed and stuff, so it’s not like I was, my life was perfect, but since then there’s been just a bunch of, let’s be honest, men who have had an impact, a negative impact on my, on my relationship with myself. And on top of that, you know, I realized I was non-binary. I’ve gotten a lot fatter than I was when I was 16, and it’s just a lot of things that have been built on top of what was such a simple and joyful thing, and that’s what I wanted to get back to through the book.

Jameela [00:05:29] And it’s kind of what you want to hopefully guide I guess other people back to along with you is just taking this back to a lovely, intimate moment that is hopefully carried out in a safe and respectful way that you can look on, look back upon fondly, even if not with like, you know, feelings of being massively impressed, just still like, “That was nice.” Well, early in the book you do talk about the different sexual experiences you’ve had in like a, I wouldn’t say like a great level of detail, but in a very intimate and honest way. And I guess that must be a very important way of telling that story. And and do those people know already that they’ve been written about in the book? No?

Sofie [00:06:16] No.

Jameela [00:06:17] That’s alright. You’re not naming them.

Sofie [00:06:18] I don’t think I’ve told any of them. No, no, I’m not giving them their, oh, there’s one of them, one of them knows that he’s in the book. He’s also probably the only one I speak about super fondly. And I let him, because I still really like him, I let him choose his own, his own fake name in the book, and he found great pleasure in that.

Jameela [00:06:35] Hahaha!

Sofie [00:06:39] He was like, “Let me get back to you. Give me a week.” I was like, “A week??” And then he came back like, “Here are my options and here’s why I’ve chosen it.” And I was like, “That is why I have loved you forever.”

Jameela [00:06:50] 100%. Something that made me laugh out loud is when you talked about the last time you had sex, I’ve I guess it would have been around 2016, maybe. And, how if you’d known that it was going to be the last time, how differently you would have, I guess, treated the moment. Would you feel comfortable to talk about that?

Sofie [00:07:12] I, I would have looked, I would have looked at that penis like I was like it was a soldier, and I was, the soldier’s wife. And it was about to go to war, and I didn’t know if I would ever see it again. Maybe given it a little squeeze, an extra little kiss. I would have been so intense in that moment, I would have been so much more intense, and I was already intense, but I would have been so intense in that moment with taking the picture. I would have saved a little Polaroid. It had to be a Polaroid picture because that’s more, that’s a, there’s more emotion in a Polaroid.

Jameela [00:07:47] More nostalgic, yeah.

Sofie [00:07:49] I would’ve made that very beautiful moment instead of a very drunken booty call.

Jameela [00:07:56] Haha!

Sofie [00:07:56] One tear would have strolled down my cheek.

Jameela [00:07:59] Yeah.

Sofie [00:08:00] You know, put it back

Jameela [00:08:01] Wiped it off and smeared it on the penis.

Sofie [00:08:03] Yeah.

Jameela [00:08:03] Hahaha!

Sofie [00:08:08] Eye contact with the penis.

Jameela [00:08:10] Yeah, yeah. Oh, God, I love you. I love you so much. I love you so much. You’re so ridiculous. Where do you think all of the pressure on sex has come from since you were 16? Is it magazines? Is it media? Is it films? Is it friends? Just out of curiosity because I was trying to, I was wondering about this on the way here. When did it feel, when did it become more serious? Like trauma, etc. aside, I just mean the general messaging of what a vital like, like the fact that even that it’s shocking when someone hasn’t had sex for a long time, or that people feel ashamed even to say that. Where do we think that pressure came from?

Sofie [00:08:52] Well, I think in general patriarchy, blah blah blah, right? You know, it’s, sex is a, is often something that is very beneficial to within heteronormative relationships. It’s usually quite beneficial to men. I don’t remember the statistics now, but, in terms of who gets an orgasm in sex, it is usually men. And so I assume the pressure would come partly from that. I know for me, a lot of it is internal pressure because there’s a lot of, when I think when you have low self-esteem, sex is one of the ways you could, in quotes, get validation. We now know that that’s not the best idea in the whole world to rely on. That someone to have sex with you to feel like you are valid.

Jameela [00:09:39] It’s actually better to, I think Instagram likes is a really good way.

Sofie [00:09:42] Exactly. You want to go for the likes.

Jameela [00:09:44] Yeah, it’s much healthier.

Sofie [00:09:45] Go viral or you are nothing, or you are nothing

Jameela [00:09:46] Exactly. Exactly. Now you get it. You get it. You’re smart. Yeah, yeah.

Sofie [00:09:50] Yeah, we get it. Yeah. I’ve gone viral. No big deal. And I just feels feel better than sex with most men, but I am, for me, it’s it’s that for me, it was that. It was like, I want to prove that I can have sex. I’m a fat person. I want to prove that I can have sex because I don’t, you know, if I can’t have sex then that must mean that I’m not worthy. I’m not valid. I’m not actually beautiful. I’m not actually lovable. All those things. So for me, it was that. It was like, “Oh, no one wants to have sex with me, so I am ugly or people will have sex with me, so I am pretty.” Or whatever the equation was.

Jameela [00:10:23] And there seems to be a kind of Venn diagram between low self-esteem and allowing yourself to be treated badly sexually, right? Because you think there’s some part of you that’s like, “Well, I’m just lucky to be in the room,” you know, or “I deserve this.” And I think that that’s a massive thing that so many people that I know go through, I have, I’ve experienced that. And, and there are certain people who, I mean, whether they’re intentionally predatory or not, pick up on that energy in someone.

Sofie [00:10:50] Oh, they know.

Jameela [00:10:50] And can take advantage of those people.

Sofie [00:10:53] Oh, they know.

Jameela [00:10:54] You have a, you have a newsletter and you put out a questionnaire to your readers, I guess, around this subject and got so many replies that you had to shut it down.

Sofie [00:11:05] Yeah.

Jameela [00:11:05] Can you tell me about what information you received? And the reason this is so important is because, you know, I do sometimes these kind of Ask Me Anything episodes of the podcast and I, I notice how many people, when they write to me about something, they, they kind of allude to the idea that they think they’re the only person struggling with this thing. And yet I’m getting so many of the same question. And so I always think it’s important to let people know how much they aren’t alone when it comes to those subjects. And again, that’s why your work in this book is so fucking important. Can you talk to me about the results from that newsletter?

Sofie [00:11:39] Yeah, I, I genuinely thought I would get 20, maybe, maybe 30 if I had to push of people who could relate to the idea of really wanting to have a sex life.

Jameela [00:11:49] And people who’d be willing to divulge.

Sofie [00:11:51] That too, that too. But I really didn’t think, I thought it was such a rare experience. And they were in some ways all the same, and yet they’re all extremely different from each other because they all had that same thing in common, which is, I’m a bit ashamed. I’ve not learned enough about this. I’m not sure why. Also, I think it’s these reasons, and it was everything from a cost of living crisis, you know, our teenage, our teenagers had to move back in with us, so we’re all sharing a room. We kind of, you know, we can’t have sex because we’re doing it in the same room as our child. It was everything from that to like physical. There’s a lot of physical issues: vaginismus, disabilities and stuff. Stuff that I’d never even considered or knew could be a possibility. People’s sexuality wise, right? People who were queer but had never tried having sex with other than whatever gender they aren’t, you know what I’m trying to say.

Jameela [00:12:52] I know what you mean. Yeah. Haha!

Sofie [00:12:55] Like, it’s hard for me too because I that’s one of the things I can relate to because I’m non-binary and queer, and I’m probably moving closer and closer towards, like, fully gay than being straight. But I’ve only ever had sex with men. And that’s definitely, I could relate to so many of their stories because it was a lot of particularly women being like, “I’ve never had sex with women before, but it’s all I want to do and I don’t know how to do it.” And I was like, “Yeah, you and me both.” And then there was low self-esteem was a big one. A lot of people who were like, “I’m too fat, I can’t find anyone because I’m not attractive.” Trans people, trans people who are like, “No one’s ever told me how to have how to have sex as a trans person, you know. I don’t know what to do with my,” for some who were post up, they were like, “I now have a penis or a vagina, and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t, I’m nervous about showing it to people. I’m nervous what people are going to say, how I’m going to go about the world like this.” And there’s just a lot of questions and a lot of trauma. I think 99% of them were people who had experienced some kind of sexual trauma from, you know, being exposed and the, you know, a man showing his dick in a park to full on assault. So, so many stories that I had to take a lot of breaks in between reading them because it was so many of those stories. But the thing that we all had in common, all of us, was just we all just really want to connect. We all just want to connect with people. It’s, people weren’t like, “I just want to fuck so I can get an orgasm.” People would just like, “I would just love to have that intimacy with someone.” And I was so, I really wanted to put everyone in the same room and just be like, “Hi, we’re all human. We all have the same worries. We all have the same concerns. We we’re all scared. But also we all think that we’re alone with this. So what if we all just said hi to each other?” And then maybe, I’m not suggesting

Jameela [00:14:45] You all fuck eachother.

Sofie [00:14:45] A hundred people gangbang. Yeah, yeah, you know, I’m also not saying it. Haha!

Jameela [00:14:51] Haha! I’m coming to that book launch for sure. The trauma thing is really hard. And you talk to a lot of experts in the book in different areas, including a flirting expert, which I would love to talk to you more about because I think I would need their help. I still can’t flirt even for my own partner of nine years. And, it’s he’s a very patient person who’s very good at reading very, very, very discreet signs. But will you talk to me about the flirtologist?

Sofie [00:15:22] She’s amazing. Her name is Jean Smith, and she’s written a book called Flirtology. She is, I was so, I was so against the whole idea of her existence before I met her, I was like, “Oh pfft” because I don’t flirt either. I’m bad at flirting, I don’t. Oh, it feels fake to me. It feels risky. It feels weird. And then I spoke to her and she’s a genius. The woman is a genius. The book is genius, I highly recommend.

Jameela [00:15:49] I’m going to get her on the podcast.

Sofie [00:15:50] I recommend reading the book about her but also

Jameela [00:15:51] Yeah.

Sofie [00:15:52] The main thing I got from her, well, there was two things. One of them was, I straight up said to her, I was like, “I’m neurodiverse in so many ways.” I have so many like trauma. My brain is all traumatized and I’m an introvert. And I think for me, flirting is when you roast someone. Yeah, I think it’s flirting when someone is really mean to me. And she was just like, “Well, that’s, then that’s your flirting. You don’t have to become another person to flirt.” I was like, “Oh, I oh, oh, okay. So you don’t have to be like. Blink, blink. You know, shoulder shimmering like, oh you don’t have to do that?”

Jameela [00:16:32] Yeah, I can’t do that. That doe eyed shit I can’t.

Sofie [00:16:35] We’re not meant to.

Jameela [00:16:36] I just can’t.

Sofie [00:16:36] We don’t have to. But the most important thing she said that really stuck with me was because I said, well, rejection. We’re all afraid of rejection. That’s me projecting, but I am afraid of rejection. And she essentially said, if we think of of flirting as a gift, right? You see someone, you think they’re attractive, you like them. That is why you want to flirt with them. So you just want to give them the knowledge that you think they’re nice. You’re not expecting anything back. You’re giving them a gift. Then you can’t be rejected. And it just blew my mind that I could go up to someone and be like, “You look amazing. I just want you to know that.” And then I can walk away. And I have flirted. And they could say, “thank you” and then not do anything else. And I wouldn’t be rejected because I’ve just given them a gift. Mind blown.

Jameela [00:17:26] That’s a really lovely way of thinking about that and framing that. And I think that, I think that also, you know, I’ve spoken about this recently on the podcast is that, you know, we don’t talk enough about rejection. And a friend of mine, Jimanekia Eborn whose been on this podcast before, talks about the fact that her work about consent is is like it begins with teaching children about rejection and how to reject and how to be rejected. And because we can’t look at or because we don’t currently look at flirting as a gift, we see it as like an transactional expectation or an offer or pressure some people feel like, and I understand why because sometimes it can be offered to you in a very pressurized or threatening way. We also don’t know how to receive the gift always.

Sofie [00:18:10] Yeah.

Jameela [00:18:10] In a way that is also kind or gracious. And so then we are all doing this like fucking infuriating and scary dance that, again, it’s just like, I just don’t understand why we don’t have more clarity around all these things like, this thing is so complex. It shouldn’t be complex, but it is. It’s been made complex and there are all these fucking rules, but everyone’s got their own different individual rules. There’s no general even handbook or guideline for any of us. I mean, I guess there is now because of your book and all the experts that you’ve spoken to, but we we’re so afraid of having the conversation. And so instead, just like, dive in headfirst and wish for the best, which, just as you saw in your own research leads to what 98% of the almost 2000 people who responded to you saying that they had experienced some sort of trauma. And that normally comes from the fact that people weren’t prepared for what happened.

Sofie [00:19:04] I think

Jameela [00:19:04] And that we don’t have proper guidelines around this.

Sofie [00:19:07] What really shocked, not shocked me, but what kept coming back in all of the chats I had. I spoke to quite a few people and did a lot of research for the for the book. And safety was the big one, like the big, if there was like an overall theme, it was safety. In order to have nice sex, we have to feel safe. And that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to feel, you know, physically safe, as in a tiger won’t come and attack us kind of thing, or we don’t even necessarily have to feel safe that this person will never hurt me because we can never actually know that. But it’s a safety within yourself, and it’s a safety that that you will listen to your body and that you will do what your body tells you. And a safety in feeling like you can express what you want as well. And then hopefully ideally that you can express that and it will be listened to and respected. And I think that is something that I’ve just never heard anyone say. Like when I grew up, when I was learning about sex, safety was never a thing anyone talked about, but every single thing I kept looking into when it came to flirting or gender or sexuality, it was all about because when I was imagining having sex with a with a woman for the first time, or anyone who just wasn’t a cis man, I was so, I got so scared and so anxious, and I think it’s because my body was like, “Oh, you’re just going to do this thing that’s could be really scary.” And I kind of had to tell myself, “Oh, but I’m not going to do it if it doesn’t feel very nice and good the whole time.” And it was as if I’d never made that promise to myself before because I’d never consider that that was what I needed. So now when I meet someone I like, I still go into a panic, but then I have to tell myself, “Oh, if you don’t want to do this, we’ll stop.” It was like, “Oh, okay.” And then suddenly I feel more capable of doing it. And I think it’s just one of those things that

Jameela [00:21:03] It’s agency.

Sofie [00:21:04] We need to keep thinking about. It’s agency. It’s it’s.

Jameela [00:21:07] Yeah I, yeah, I’ve

Sofie [00:21:08] Knowing that you can set the boundary.

Jameela [00:21:09] I spoke about this like a few years ago about urging people to, and I probably didn’t word it as well as you did because I’m a stupid, clumsy fuck. But I was trying to encourage people to be more focused on their own desire and more focused on, like, you know, don’t suck a dick because you want a phone call back. You know, you want a callback to this audition of dating.

Sofie [00:21:32] Do you do merch for this podcast? Because that’s a t shirt. Don’t suck a dick for a phone call.

Jameela [00:21:38] Yeah, exactly. But I think it’s really important that we don’t, you know, and I didn’t use the terminology of stuff right, but I guess that’s kind of what I was alluding to. And I think some people may be perceived as a kind of victim shaming. That wasn’t what I was trying to do at all. I was trying to say that it would be so great for everyone, and I think especially women, but all people, to reclaim that agency and reclaim that feeling of like, “You know what? I’m just gonna,” I’m, we are so far away from our bodies in every way. We are so detached as we were alluding to earlier, and we really don’t feel like we have the right to listen. We feel as though our bodies do not know best and our bodies, the older I get, the more I learn that my body knows better than me, or any of my friends or anyone else around me. My body is smarter than I’ve given it credit for, and I think that that’s something that I’ve become much more respectful of. And I, I know that there are certain things and pressures and power imbalances and stuff, and I think that it’s okay to acknowledge those, but also remind ourselves that it’s empowering to take back that responsibility, that when you are in a, you know, if someone’s not literally threatening you, you do have the right and the responsibility to your body to walk away. And you shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t, but you should definitely remind yourself that you have that power. We take that power away from ourselves or society and programing takes it away from us. And this is a really important reminder from you for us to reclaim that because it never goes well.

Sofie [00:23:00] The thing that really blew my mind with that when I was doing the research was, you can also say, not right now. You don’t have to just say no forever and no isn’t forever. In my head, it was like, “If I say stop, then that’s it. I fucked it like we’re done.” Like he’s going to be angry. I’m going to be sad. It’s all going to be. But there’s also a possibility of saying, “Oh, can we pause for five minutes?” Oh, I had no idea. I had no idea you could say that. You could say, “Not right now. Can we give it a few minutes? I just want to, I just need to recenter. Like, can we just do a pause.” I don’t, or if they are like, “Do you want to do this?” You could be like, “Maybe. Let me figure it out. Let’s explore this together.” Like curiosity. And it’s, I think we think of setting a boundary as a punishment or like a slight, you know, by saying no, I’m telling you to fuck off.

Jameela [00:23:47] It’s again because we stigmatize rejection. Yeah.

Sofie [00:23:49] It’s a gift. You’re giving someone a gift. Like I’m going to say no to you so we don’t end up in a situation that’s really uncomfortable for both of us because you also don’t want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to do it. So I’m giving you the gift of honesty and of trusting you with this no or maybe. Can I tell you about something that actually didn’t make it into the book which is odd? It got so long at some point, but I went to see a sex worker who I didn’t know was a sex worker. I thought it was like a therapist, um, that’s a long story. But he, It was

Jameela [00:24:23] A lot of questions there.

Sofie [00:24:23] I know, I know, I know. The title on the website, I think was not necessarily misleading, but could be interpreted in many different ways. One of which was I thought I was going to go and see a sex therapist. That wasn’t it. So I arrived and it’s in a dungeon. And

Jameela [00:24:42] Were they just wearing, like, a sexy nurse outfit? And you’re like, “That looks like a doctor.”

Sofie [00:24:46] No, no, it was a, listen, there were many, there were many signs.

Jameela [00:24:51] Okay.

Sofie [00:24:51] There were, like, hands on skin and a photo on the website. And I was like, I just thought, oh you know, it’s like a progressive

Jameela [00:24:57] A sex positive. Yeah.

Sofie [00:25:00] Tell me about your childhood kind of thing. It wasn’t. So his job was to essentially, the point of it was, it was a three hour session. Again, I thought, that’s a long time to just talk, but I didn’t put two and two together. The idea was that you would get naked if you wanted to, and then he would give you, like, an erotic massage and probably an orgasm, but it was like therapy. But it was also sex. So we arrived, I arrived at this thing and he had a ponytail that should have given it away. And we were in this dungeon and I again, I thought, “Well, maybe it’s really, you know, expensive to hire an office for a therapist in London, so he might have had to put us into this, latex covered room.” And, we start talking, and he’s very sort of what I would say flirty, like, “Hi, yeah, mhm.” That kind of vibe. And I was like, “Oh, he’s sitting very close.” And I was just, I was like, “Okay. So I grew up there, and then my dad left,” and I was like trying to give him like background information. And then at one point I said, “Okay, can I just, I’m just going to ask, what’s the difference between what you do and then sex work?” And he said, “Oh, nothing, I’m a sex worker.” And I was like, “Oh, okay, okay, okay. Oh, okay.” And at this point, I hadn’t had sex in seven years. And I was like, “Okay, so I’m at, this is an option. Like it’s an option for me to get naked and undress and let this man do his thing.” But I was completely, I got so panicky around him, I was like, “I am not there. I’m not at the point where I am ready to do this at all.” I didn’t, I wasn’t attracted, well, I think I could have been attracted to him if the possibility of sex wasn’t there. But that just made it.

Jameela [00:26:54] But but then something. Yeah, something is missing from, I’ve, I’ve had a few friends in this situation, but they did know they were going for a sex, to a sex worker. And, and there’s nothing wrong with going to a sex worker. But I think for some people it also kind of it can further play on the low self-esteem of the fact that, well, if I’m paying this person for this, then this becomes transactional. It’s not because they desire me. And how do I know if they actually desire me or not? Even if they’re flirting with me and acting like they are, and then it triggers that part of you that isn’t sure if you are wanted or lovable, or fuckable.

Sofie [00:27:26] I apologized so much. I was like, “I’m so sorry, I just. Is it okay if I don’t? Is it okay if I don’t?” He was like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Okay, are you sure? I mean, you’ve come all this way.” It was, but one of the things, because I ended up just telling him, like I ended up just talking at him for those three hours. And we were talking about consent. And I was like, “Can I rehearse setting boundaries?” Which in itself is a funny sentence to say, May I please set a boundary? But I would kind of boss him around. I’d be like, I was like trying to listen to what my body wanted. And I was like, okay, he’s too close. So I said, “Can you sit on the other side of the of the table?” It wasn’t a table, it was a massage massage table. “Can you sit on the other side of the massage table?” He was like, “Okay.” And I was like, ah. I felt so powerful. I was like, “Oh my God. I’ve like set a boundary.” And then I was like, “Okay, could you open the door now? I would like for the door to be a bit open.” He was like, “Okay.” And he did. And then as he was standing up and he was like about to walk back, I said, “No, can you close it?” And he said, “Okay.” And then when he closed it, I was like, “No, open it.” And I was like, I felt, it was, it was, I felt mad with power because I could say in a situation where sex was on the table, I managed to say these little tiny things that my body wanted, and it was exhilarating. It was exhilarating because I have not been able to do that before at all. I like, as soon as I was in a situation with someone who would have sex with me, I would just shut down. Like I went to, one of the things I do talk about in the book is going to witness a porn shoot with this amazing feminist porn company in Berlin called Ersties, e-r-s-t-i-e-s. And I saw the two porn actors, actresses talk about the sex they’re going to have, and one of them would just be like, “I, I really like,” it was amazing. She was like, “I love when someone holds their hand over my vagina, but without touching because I feel like I can feel the energy. And that’s really sexy. I don’t like up when my hair is pulled, so I want you to be careful that you don’t pull my hair.” And I was watching that and I just thought, oh if, I would never feel comfortable saying that. I would never feel comfortable saying, “Please don’t pull my hair,” because I would be so scared that they would go, “Okay, well then I’m out. I’m not going to do this if I don’t get to pull your hair.”

Jameela [00:29:52] Hmhm

Sofie [00:29:52] I was like, and in that situation I thought, “Oh, I’m not ready to have sex yet.” If I don’t feel like I can say, don’t pull my hair, I should not be having sex right now.

Jameela [00:30:00] I’ve always said that no one’s allowed to come on my face because then I have to wash my fringe. But that’s one of my favorite boundaries that I’ve ever drawn. But I think that, sorry, just the intrusive thought, just one.

Sofie [00:30:14] No, that is important. That is very important.

Jameela [00:30:16] Yeah, but that was the first ever boundary I ever drew in sex.

Sofie [00:30:20] Is that why you have a little

Jameela [00:30:22] Parting. Yeah. Just so you can, like, just so you can come, like, a little bindi, you know, like a little Indian bindi. Just of jizz.

Sofie [00:30:27] A little place for the sperm.

Jameela [00:30:29] I’ve just pulled back the curtain to create a landing strip for semen. We’re not gonna let that be the clip I think.

Sofie [00:30:38] That’s the viral clip that’s going to feel better than sex. After watching this clip, you don’t have to wash your fringe.

Jameela [00:30:44] But the reason I said it was just like that was the first time I ever drew a boundary of, like, asking for something or saying that that’s what I don’t want. And then I, similarly with you, was like, so exhilarated by someone going like, “Okay, absolutely.” I was like, “Oh my God, now I’m going to be asked to be kissed differently and I’m going to advocate for myself.” And something that you brought up that just like immediately exhilarated me, and then it’s just been like continuously washing over me again and again in waves is when you were talking about the fact that women feel embarrassed to admit that they are feeling, you know, sexual or horny or anything, even with a partner that they’ve been with for a long time. I definitely resonate with that, that I feel like a little bit embarrassed to even initiate because it doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to be that way, and and that we are supposed to be chaste and like, I haven’t even unpacked that in myself. When you said it was like a nuclear bomb went off in my brain about how confusing that is then not only for us, but also for other people who are having sex with us because it’s just this, it turns, it turns into a fucking like riddle. You know, a labyrinth.

Sofie [00:31:57] Yeah.

Jameela [00:31:57] To be able to try and work out what someone’s, you know, what messages someone’s actually given to the point where with, I’ve spoken about this before on the podcast, but my boyfriend and I, because I don’t know how to flirt or initiate, I will just tug on his, a piece of his clothing, or he’ll tug on a piece of clothing of mine. And that’s what we’ve established is like a a way to flirt that makes me feel comfortable. And then it’s very clear, and and then there’s no innuendo because I can’t stand, I can’t understand innuendo. I can’t read between lines. And it also just feels like sweet and playful. And it’s not like a yank. It’s just like a little, a little pull of the, of the clothing that feels so gentle and fun and is pretty much the only way that either of us can get laid.

Sofie [00:32:45] Wow.

Jameela [00:32:45] Haha!

Sofie [00:32:46] That’s so cute.

Jameela [00:32:47] All of our clothes have got, like, a little bit, liked stretched on the sleeve, but it’s something that

Sofie [00:32:54] It’s a sexy cardigan.

Jameela [00:32:55] But I, yeah, exactly. But I highly, yeah, yeah, I don’t wear a lot of cashmere, but, but I would say that it’s a, like little cues like that, learning how to, like, make playful cues with someone that you’re having intimacy with, that kind of becomes like your secret code to each other. There’s a way to make it really sexy that doesn’t feel like, oh, I’m just, immune to being sexy, like, I’m just incapable. It’s a nice way that gives you those, like, little signals, but it is, it is so interesting. And I think a lot of people haven’t unpacked that in themselves through their kind of like, you know, post-Sex and the City women’s sexual liberation era. I think a lot of us still feel a little bit, I think the reason that so many people are drawn to the character Samantha especially, is because we’re so illuminated by her freedom.

Sofie [00:33:40] Yeah, I imagine like, even just you’re saying Samantha made me go, “Oh!”

Jameela [00:33:45] Yeah, she gives me an endorphin rush, but it’s because of her liberty. But very few people would say that they are a Samantha. They want to act like a Charlotte, but they love the Samantha type character the most because she is the most free and the most wild, and that’s what feels like so exciting, but we would never dare. Most of us would never dare.

Sofie [00:34:01] She feels so safe as well because she’s not, I mean, we know she does end up, you know, she does get her heart broken and stuff, but she feels so strong. And I think I for a long period of time I was like, okay, so I’m going to be either sexually like free and powerful and fuck it, I just want to fuck everyone. I don’t even give a shit or I’m going to be really desperate and sad and pathetic and actually have feelings for the people I sleep with. And I couldn’t figure out how to be both. And I think a lot of that is also about fat people are never seen a sexual in popular media. We’re never ever told like and when they are, either fat people on TV don’t have a sex drive at all. They’re like mothers or, you know, the best friend who never has anyone. Or they’re sexually aggressive.

Jameela [00:34:54] Mhm. Like, like desperate.

Sofie [00:34:55] When you start noticing that like, no, but like aggressive, like violent. Like there are scenes in, the only fat person in, what’s it, what was it called in [______’s] TV show, there were two fat people over the course of, I think it’s just the first three seasons I saw. There was one when they were about to walk into a restaurant, a restaurant, barbecue restaurant in Texas, and they see fat people going in and they go, “Oh, that must be good.” And then there’s another clip where a fat woman is like, aggressively sitting on a man trying to have sex with him against as well. And I was like, that is such a clear, like those are the two tropes we see in popular media. It’s the fat person who’s a joke or it’s the fat, rapey woman. And and I’ve the roles I have been offered in my time as like, oh, this is a comedy TV show, so you would be playing a fat 40 year old, I was 22, a fat 40 year old who tries to rape someone. And it’s really funny because she’s trying to rape him with a big dildo and it’s like, hah. Or like one of them was she, she’s trying to buy a car battery for her dildo because the joke is, of course, I’m fat so I use a vibrator that’s so big it needs a car battery. Not quite sure. I don’t think anyone questioned that joke.

Jameela [00:36:09] Fuck me.

Sofie [00:36:10] But I was so afraid of coming across, so when I was trying to flirt, I’m still so afraid of coming across aggressive because I know that my sexuality is seen as aggressive because I’m fat. So, like, then I try to hide it, or I tried to own it and become like, “Yeah, who wants to fuck?” To kind of show that I do have a sexuality, so it’s those two, like, those two tropes that you have to constantly fight with being someone who has no sexuality at all or being like, aggressive and rapey because that’s the only way you can be fat and sexual.

Jameela [00:36:44] Yeah. And there was a comedian called Raanan who recently was talking about the fact that the fat best friend character for guys is often, like, obsessed with sex. It’s the only thing they think about. It’s the only thing they talk about, and they’re more concerned with the main handsome protagonist having sex than getting sex themselves. Like, “Did you fuck her yet? Did you fuck her? Tell me all about it so I can imagine it, and then jerk off to it on my own, thinking about the great sex that you had.” And that is that such a memorable 90s American trope of, like, that’s all they they are. And then also I think with like with larger black women in media, it’s always that they are so sexually aggressive and want to fuck anyone. And there’s no type that they have. And it doesn’t matter the personality of the man, they are always portrayed in this very specific way, as if like, they’ll just take anyone, anyone who’s up for it and they speak in a very sexually aggressive way. So all these tropes that are just like seeded into our society so insidiously that then shape and create people’s timidity.

Sofie [00:37:39] And it’s always poor, poor, conventionally attractive men who are the victims of these fat women. But as soon as they are forced to show them in a relationship, they will only ever be in a relationship with another fat person. It’s like they, people can’t imagine a fat person and like a conventionally attractive/thin person being together, like that is somehow a like a weird like, no, that can’t be like, yeah, they can fuck all these men against their will, all these thin men against the will. But the love interest will always be another fat person.

Jameela [00:38:09] That’s also quite gendered, right? Because you can see a larger man with a slim woman, but you will not see a large woman

Sofie [00:38:15] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jameela [00:38:15] Very often, almost ever with a with a slim man. And then you also never see a woman, a tall woman with a short man like that just isn’t a done dynamic.

Sofie [00:38:23] No.

Jameela [00:38:24] It’s just not a thing. Like I’ve had to film things where because the man is shorter than me, I’ve had to stand in a ditch in an actual ditch that was dug for me, rather than people just see me on camera and be taller than someone, and it’d be feasible that we would be attracted to each other. It’s really odd.

Sofie [00:38:40] Why don’t you just place him on a box, isn’t that?

Jameela [00:38:42] I mean, we’ve tried both, but I guess if they need to do like a, I’ve, I’ve done it all. I’ve done all the different things.

Sofie [00:38:49] I think finding a box is easier than digging a hole.

Jameela [00:38:52] Yeah, we had to put like Kristen Bell on like a ladder.

Sofie [00:38:54] This is why I love Hollywood.

Jameela [00:38:54] Yeah, take after me. But but yeah, I’ve, I’ve done it all, but, it is such a shame. And I really appreciate you explaining how dangerous that is, not only for the way that other people perceive you, but for the way that then you hyper perceive and hyper police yourself because I think that people don’t think about that when they are creating those tropes on camera. They don’t think about the fact that that’s not just going in for the people who are maybe considering having sex with you, that that’s then all you’re thinking about is, how do I, and these are racial stereotypes that also exist. And I think Asian people feel very similarly. And it’s so unfair that media can have such a massive impact and pour so heavily into society. So where are you at now? Like you’ve, this, you’ve been documenting and kind of journaling your journey through all of this. Emotionally where are you at now because you’ve had therapy, you’ve spoken to a lot of experts, etc.? I mean, I’m not expecting that you’re at your final destination necessarily, but I am just curious what, like how this has all shaped you.

Sofie [00:39:56] When I pitched the book 2 or 3 years ago now, I was like, “And then at the end I’ll go,” because there’s a sex party, I don’t know if it’s still there, but there was used to be a sex party in LA for plus size people called, I think, Taco Tuesday, like this big gangbang of fat people. And I was like, “So at the end, I go to LA and I’m, I do the gangbang.” And I remember one of the publishers I spoke to was like, “Well, we might want to have like an open ending, just in case you don’t end up at the gangbang.” And I was like, “I will end up at the gangbang.” And I did not, I did not end up at the gangbang. I’ve ended up in a place where I feel very ready to have healthy, consensual, fun, exciting, curious sex with someone when that feels right and when I find the person I want to do that with which is better, I think, than an orgy at this point in time.

Jameela [00:40:52] For sure. Also, the beans in taco make that like it’s a dangerous

Sofie [00:40:56] It’s a fascinating

Jameela [00:40:57] Dangerous precoital meal, but do you feel like you have more of a sense of agency? Are you excited to practice that agency in sex?

Sofie [00:41:07] What I do know is that if I am in the situation and I don’t feel agency. I will be able to remove myself, which is way more than I could have said before.

Jameela [00:41:16] Yeah, you have the vocabulary now.

Sofie [00:41:18] And I’m looking for the right thing. Like I’m looking for someone who is curious and open and who gets it, like in the book my absolute favorite bit is my interview with Djuna Roche, who’s a trans author and activist, and the entire chat with them, I was like “Wow.” The way they talk about their transness, the way they talk about sex, the way they talk about the, they talk about in quotes, their “beautiful trans cunt.” And it was just exhilarating. And I hope I’ve done it justice in the book, rehashing that, but the way they talk about sex and how much enjoyment they take from sex. That in itself just made me go, “Okay, well, now I know what I, what I’m looking for.” Like I’m looking for this feeling.

Jameela [00:42:03] You have a benchmark. Yeah.

Sofie [00:42:04] Yeah. And I think and that is possible.

Jameela [00:42:06] For sure. And that’s amazing. And what about when it comes to, you know, you struggled, you talked about the fact that since you were younger, body image has impacted the way that you feel like you can move forward sexually. Where are you at with that? Like do you feel more comfortable in your skin? Do you feel sexier? Your haircut is really hot.

Sofie [00:42:22] Thank you. Well, that’s the thing, throughout the book I cut off all my hair, so there’s a lot of sort of gender stuff and body stuff and sexuality stuff as well that I have to figure out because I don’t think I’m going to be looking to have anything to do with men, sexually or romantically now, at least right now. So it’s also about looking into that and kind of embracing that I look more queer now and I feel more queer and I feel more. I mean, you know, sexuality and gender doesn’t have a look right? But I feel more me now. And I know that I’m read differently by other people, so I kind of feel like I’m at the very beginning of like a journey.

Jameela [00:43:07] God so then that that dick in 2016 really might have been the last one ever.

Sofie [00:43:11] 15. 15.

Jameela [00:43:11] That was really, sorry 2015. Yeah, then that really was, that was, that was not just au revoir.

Sofie [00:43:18] Maybe.

Jameela [00:43:18] That was,that was a real goodbye.

Sofie [00:43:21] I have not said goodbye to penises forever, but I, it might be a while until I say welcome back. 100%.

Jameela [00:43:31] Can I just ask for anyone who’s like, you know, been listening to this and resonating with a lot of this and maybe with the trauma element or the body stuff because it sounds like that’s, you know, you’re talking about the fact you’re still on that journey, so you’re still finding your comfort with your body, finding your comfort with your gender and sexuality, etc.. What advice do you have now, having gone through so many years of investigating this and investigating yourself? What advice do you have for anyone out there who is struggling with trauma? Something that I would hope, even though it’s so fucking inaccessible, is therapy feels like a must.

Sofie [00:44:02] I think therapy is a very good one. I’m a big supporter, big fan of therapy. In in the book, I talked to a sex, sex and relationship therapist Chantal Gautier, and she talks about using basically the teachings of the nervous system as something that you can learn on your own if if therapy is completely inaccessible to you, which it is to unfortunately, to a lot of people. I think if you deal with trauma-trauma like if, if you have anything that’s like an actual issue, I would stay as far away from CBT cognitive behavioral therapy as possible because that is more of a patch kind of solution, you know, that might make you feel good in the moment, but long term having someone say, “Try and think positive,” might not solve your

Jameela [00:44:48] No.

Sofie [00:44:48] Deep, deep trauma, but if you have CTSD or PTSD, learning about the nervous system and learning about the window of tolerance is something that, and I try to explain it in the book, but of course there are bigger works written about this like The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk his name is. And it’s essentially a way that you can, if you can learn how to regulate your nervous system, you’re halfway there. And if you can recognize when you are in fight flight mode, when you are in freeze mode, when you are just dysregulated, and when you are present in your body, it, you’re halfway there because then you can, then you can tell, “Oh, I’m in fight flight mode. I probably shouldn’t be having sex right now. I probably shouldn’t be making big decisions. I probably shouldn’t be, you know, I need to regulate my nervous system and come down to earth so I can make a decision that is healthy for me.” And that has changed everything for me learning about that. I’ve been lucky to learn about that in therapy, but it is something that if you really look into it and you start to recognize that in yourself, it’s a thing of feelings, learning that you can’t think feelings you have to feel feelings was such a relevation.

Jameela [00:45:56] Huge light bulb moment. Yeah, I think that’s really wonderful. I hope everyone goes and reads this book. And I also hope that everyone knows that you are so, you’re just so not alone, and there isn’t a specific look to the person who is not having sex. The amount of my friends who have gone years and years and years, they all look completely different. They’re all completely different ages. These are also people who haven’t even had a handhold like they have not experienced, even the tiniest bit of intimacy. They are from different backgrounds. They have different jobs, they make different kinds of money, that there is no sole identity. You are not part of this, like, kind of this minority club. I’d say, especially with the growth of, like, the dating apps and the social media, and we live online and we do everything online. We order our food online and we just like don’t interact with human beings. Loneliness is is the new pandemic like it is the worst it’s ever been I think maybe in history, and it’s somehow like we never really recovered from lockdown and we just developed so many negative habits when it came to actually being able to pursue any kind of human contact. So I do just want to reassure you that you have no idea how much less it is about you specifically than you think it is, and the things about you that it might be like maybe needing to uncover your trauma, these things are all possible to overcome, and I’m really happy for you that you’ve managed to get to this place that feel so much lighter around sex. It feels like you’re getting back to that 16 year old who was like, “This is fun.” It is so nice that you’re looking for something, that you’re looking for pleasure, because it’s not something that people really feel entitled to.

Sofie [00:47:28] And I think a lot of it is that the pressure of when you think about sex, you think about the act of sex, right? You think about, and now sitting here in my in my living room, and then the next step is fucking. And if you start to think about the steps in between of like just seeing someone you like and feeling attracted to them, and then maybe speaking to them. Just that first step, just that little tiny, you know, you go and you buy a coffee and then you just look someone in the eyes and smile, like just the little things, like everything else will feel so less frightening and big if we can just acknowledge that we’re all kind of humans going through a lot of messy stuff. And if you’re anywhere near my generation of people, you will not have grown up with the education we should have had around sex. And on a very fundamental level, like Jodie Mitchell, who’s a drag king, queen non binary drag king  in my book says like, “It’s just about enjoying bodies. And when you boil it down to something that’s so simple, it’s not that scary. It’s just about enjoying bodies. It’s about being curious about bodies.” And that, isn’t that fun. How can you think of that as something other than fun?

Jameela [00:48:35] Yeah, yeah, it took me a really long time, and I think it was after taking that very, very, very long, I think 3 or 4 year break from sex that I was able to reapproach not as something I do to please someone else or to appease someone else, but I finally learned to look at it as playing. I get, it’s play time.

Sofie [00:48:53] It’s play time.

Jameela [00:48:54] And and it took me a really long time, especially because I had so much child abuse, you know, like in my past. I didn’t abuse any children, just to be very clear, I was abused in case that comes across not clearly. Haha! Just cause I sometimes I’m like, “I’m an eating disorder advocate.” I’m like, no, I’m like, “I’m an eating disorder advocate.” I worry that people think I advocate for eating disorders. So sometimes the wording of that could be a bit clumsy, but that’s something I experienced, so it just took me forever to look at sex as something that was mine or ours.

Sofie [00:49:24] Yeah.

Jameela [00:49:25] You know, mine, and the person. It was felt like it was just theirs, and I was there to facilitate.

Sofie [00:49:30] Yeah.

Jameela [00:49:30] As if I was in service. And now it’s just play. And I never thought I would get there given my history and I, I seek to reassure people that you can. For me, I tried a short course of EMDR therapy, which again, isn’t always super accessible, but it is mainstream. You can get it on the National Health Service in the UK and in several countries around the world, unlike America, that actually look after their people, but it is very quick and very effective for things like PTSD if you find the right therapist. That was something I used as long as just listening to my body as Sofie is saying and and working to find a partner who similarly and suitably also wanted to play, who didn’t want to make it this intense thing or this battle or this ego trip.

Sofie [00:50:15] Yeah.

Jameela [00:50:16] Just before you go, when you do have sex again, are you going to tell everyone? Like, because because like, I imagine that everyone’s going to be waiting with like bated breath to find out, like, has it happened?

Sofie [00:50:27] Well, that’s what the fear is.

Jameela [00:50:28] Do you feel like a pressure now that you’re putting it out there like this?

Sofie [00:50:32] Well, I think at the moment, like this is the first time I’ve probably spoken about the book in public, so I’ve yet to get all the questions about my current sex life.

Jameela [00:50:40] Okay, have I just injected that pressure into you? I’m so sorry that your first time chatting about it. Haha!

Sofie [00:50:46] No, it’s, I know it’s coming, and I can, I feel weirdly, I feel bad for the for the person I’m going to have sex with. I feel worse for them because, like, there’s a whole book about this, like good luck. Good luck.

Jameela [00:51:00] Yeah. Better be good.

Sofie [00:51:01] Yeah. I mean, we’ll both be under pressure won’t we, of like, “So this is the ending to that book that you wrote last year or whenever, five years ago,” who knows when it’ll happen. But that’s the part of part of what I’m, I’ve learned in the book is the one step at a time. And if it feels too scary

Jameela [00:51:18] One step at a time and that you don’t owe anyone anything, and you can tell us or never tell us and

Sofie [00:51:22] And it was gonna, it was going to be, it was going to be weird and messy anyways because, you know, even if there wasn’t a book, I would still be like, “I don’t think I’ve remembered how to do this.” Or if it’s with someone with a vagina, I’ve never done this bit before, so, you know, yeah, there’s a book, but also, “Oh.” It’s just, let’s see.

Jameela [00:51:43] Well, I mean, maybe there’ll be a whole other book after this, who knows.

Sofie [00:51:47] Yeah, haha!

Jameela [00:51:47] The next book: I Can’t Stop Having Sex. Yeah, haha! Will I Ever Stop Having Sex? The second book. Hahaha!

Sofie [00:51:56] Haha! And each page is just a picture of me high fiving you.

Jameela [00:51:59] Yeah, yeah. Hahaha! This was such a pleasure. Thank you for for allowing me to be one of the first people to talk to you about. This is such an intimate and important subject, and so you know that I’m madly in love with you. And so thank you for giving me this great honor. And I’m really excited about the book. It is available for preorder now, and then it’s coming out in May, and if you aren’t already following Sofie online, then what the fuck are you doing? Because they are the funniest, the funniest and the best and just the warmest hug on the internet.

Sofie [00:52:31] And I’m also taking the book on a book tour, a book and standup tour where I’ll do a standup show about some of the sex I’ve had. And, and then there’ll be like a Q&A and, I’m going to be signing books afterwards. That’s in June and July, sort of all over the UK.

Jameela [00:52:46] Amazing. I can’t wait. I will be, I will be coming to that. And I will be expecting it to be like Caligula. We’ll all just be shagging.

Sofie [00:52:54] Yeah, oh, yeah. And then there’s a, yeah, I forgot to mention the fact that it’s going to be an orgy after every show.

Jameela [00:52:57] Yeah, yeah, and tacos.

Sofie [00:52:58] Yeah, I forgot. Tacos and orgy.

Jameela [00:53:00] Yeah.

Sofie [00:53:01] Taco Fridays.

Jameela [00:53:02] I think you have to have a taco truck at this tour. Thank you so much for coming on today. Everyone go follow and read all the things that Sofie does and says, and, love you lots and and

Sofie [00:53:15] Love you.

Jameela [00:53:15] Come back when you finally have sex and tell me all about it. No, don’t do that. Haha! But come back anytime.

Sofie [00:53:23] You’ll just receive a selfie of a thumbs up and then you’ll know.

Jameela [00:53:25] It might be fun to do an Ask Me Anything episode at some point and maybe get you back to have people

Sofie [00:53:30] About the one sex? The one sex I’ve had?

Jameela [00:53:31] No no no no no no, as in on this subject, so people can ask some more specific questions that maybe I haven’t asked.

Sofie [00:53:38] Oh yeah, I’d love that.

Jameela [00:53:38] So maybe when the book actually comes out I’ll have you back and we could do that. But for now, Sofie Hagen I love you.

Sofie [00:53:44] I love you.

Jameela [00:53:53] Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmie Gregory, and Amelia Chappelow. And the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording, sharing what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners.

Listener [00:54:28] I weigh my resilience and resourcefulness. I weigh the ability to get through whatever shit life gives me. I weigh the power to keep going. I weigh being myself.