Emily Linden is the founder of The Unslut Project, a book, film, and movement to remove slut shaming. The Unslut Project promotes gender equality, sex positivity, and comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education for all ages.
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New York, NY, USA
Transcript
Hello, This is episode negative five from the Ruando podcast. This is another old episode from my old podcast with Emily Linden of the Unslut Project. The Unslut Project is a book, It's a film, It's a movement. I met Emily when she gave a talk on the Unslut Project some time ago in Brooklyn. And we connected and I love what she's doing in taking away the sexual stigmas, Basically attacking the word slut and removing slut shaming. But more than that, Deeper than that, At least in my opinion it's deeper, Is that she's coming at the topic of feminism and gender equality and all that good stuff in a way that doesn't shrink femininity, Which is my main criticism of a lot of the social justice warriors where they're trying to take away everything that makes humans colorful. They're trying to make us all black and white and like bland and not fun. And like that's, Anyway I could go off on that. I'll probably do another podcast on that topic for sure. But here we touch on some of those issues. I love what she's doing and that she really embraces sexual polarity while fighting for gender equality. And I think that's so important when it comes to any sort of social justice issue. I mean, I don't really like the term social justice, But what else do we call it? Human, Humanity, Human rights, Peace and love throughout the world. Anyway, Great episode. You should check out her stuff, Especially if you aren't into that stuff. This is Emily Linden, Episode negative five, The unslept project. You're listening to the Rwanda podcast, The petrol orgasm infinite play. Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show. I started the unslept project a few years ago, Almost exactly three years ago actually, By putting my diary entries from middle school online. And the reason I did that was because I had this primary source of what it was like to be labeled a slut starting around age 11 and what it was like to cope with that and the different thoughts that I wrote down, That type of thing and what the bullying was like day to day. And how did the slut, How did you start becoming made fun of for being a slut? Was there some incidents? Yeah, I guess we should back up a couple of decades. I was like, I mean, First of all, I was the first person in my class to like develop breasts and to start looking more womanly. And so I got a lot of attention already, Just people noticing me. And then there was one particular incident where this boy I had liked for a really long time. And when I put my diaries online and in the book now, His name has changed to Zach. And he and his friend, Whose name I changed to Matt, Invited me over to Matt's house and they talked me into going, We called it going to third base. I guess the slang term for it now is fingering. When I describe it to high school and middle school students, I'd say, I let him put his hands down my pants. And it was like not sexual. It wasn't something, Now as a sexually active adult, I understand what that can feel like and should feel like. And we were basically like a step up from playing doctor that afternoon. But he and his friend then went and told our friends and the school and eventually adults in our community knew as well this rumor that they had started, Which was that we had actual sexual intercourse that day. And since we were 11, It was pretty scandalous to other middle school students, Also high school students, If that had been the case. Are you from a small town? Even though I was having sex with other people. Yeah, It's probably about 15, 000 people. So it has about, I think there are about 600 kids in my high school class, If I can remember. So it's not a tiny town, But it's certainly not a city. Yeah. I would imagine this is huge gossip. I'm curious about, I don't know if you're still in touch with Zach, What was his impulse to share this information? Was he bragging? Was he like tattletaling? Like what made him mention it at all? I had never even thought that he might be kind of tattletaling. It was pretty clear at the time that he was bragging, The way that he was at least spinning it. But maybe he also kind of felt that I had done something wrong. I'm not really sure it was going through his mind, But he lost respect for me because of it. It's such a shitty thing that that happened because even when I'm going back and reading the way I wrote about it in my diary at that time, I had said, Oh, I don't necessarily want to do this this afternoon. One of my justifications for not wanting to do it was that I didn't want him to then think I was a slut. I knew that that might be a repercussion. Yeah, It's kind of a lose-lose situation. Yeah, Exactly. I felt like if I didn't, He would break up with me and he probably would have made it anyway. It's so interesting that at that age, You have this trope that's been, I guess, Of the oppressed woman since the dawn of time where it's like men want sex so badly, But once they get it, They shame the woman who gave it to them. Yeah, Yeah, Exactly. It's a really common story. Now, Since I started the Unslut Project, I've been collecting anecdotes and hearing from a lot of people about their experiences with slut-shaming and sexual bullying. It's so common today. I mean, It sounds like something that should be relegated to biblical stories or mythologies that we learn about in high school and college classes, But really it's happening in most of the women I talk to, Honestly. Most of the people I talk to have at least some experience with slut-shaming and almost all of the women at some point in their life have gone through it. Yeah, It's really curious. I'm curious if – because at that age, Because I mean, We look at a construction worker and we can make up all these stories about how he's been conditioned by society or he's full of insecurities or maybe sexually frustrated and that's why he catcalls or whatever it is. But like an 11-year-old kid having the very similar behaviors, I wonder where that comes from. Is it from parents? Is it from TV? It's really interesting. I think it's from everywhere. I mean, And that's – so here's a little tangent. I've been thinking a lot about sex ed and how important it is from a young age to expose kids to sex as something that's normal and fun and healthy and appropriate for certain situations. So doing that in age-appropriate ways from an early age is so vital. I never thought about it much until I started this project and then exactly, I realized kids by the time they get to be pubescent, They already have all these messages that have kind of been solidifying in their minds about what boys need to do and what girls need to do and what we should do when it comes to sex. As adults, We kind of need to get over our awkwardness and fear of talking about it with kids and come up with ways that we can start conversations about it so that they're not tormenting each other in these ways and then not just tormenting each other but so that they're not ashamed of themselves. Yeah. It's making me think of – this is another tangent but making me think of like when I first heard of the concept of homosexuality, Like maybe I was seven or eight, And like all the boys would use it – immediately use it as like an insult to other boys. Like if a guy was – even the slightest bit effeminate or even not, It was just an insult. We all use it as an insult not because we wanted to like shame that thing or shit on that thing but we didn't want other people to call us gay. So it just became this like cyclical thing and I thought looking back on that and how I'm embarrassed of that behavior, Like if I knew about it at a younger age, If it was more normal to me, The way that like a man kissing a woman was normal, I probably wouldn't have those prejudices at that age. Yeah. That's one of the things that really has bothered me the most about my diaries from that time is the way that I also – not to excuse it but it was pretty unfortunately normalized behavior in the mid-90s to mid-2000s I guess in the town where I lived that we would use gays to mean everything from stupid to silly to gross and we would not just say in a serious way that a boy was gay as if we were accusing him of something that we had learned was wrong or that we had. It was more like, Oh, That's gay for a class or for something that's an inanimate object that clearly cannot be attracted to someone of the same sex or opposite sex. It's really upsetting, That type of language matters and it matters so much because then when you meet people who identify as gay, It can't deny that you have all these negative associations and giving those to kids and kind of not calling them on it or not asking them to think critically about it can lead to lifelong homophobia honestly and I think even in a lot of gay people it does. Yeah. I mean I know a lot of gay people use the term gay in the same way that it's eight-year-olds do. But nowadays maybe there's less of a sting to it. You can kind of use it ironically I guess if you're gay and you feel comfortable doing that but when we were using it we didn't even know any gay people and so we didn't have – we hadn't thought it through. It was kind of like regurgitating this term that we kind of sensed meant something that was icky and abnormal. Right. So you kind of have stepped in – I mean it seems from like looking at your website, It seems like you've stepped a little bit into LGBT activism too because that's a major area that sexual shaming occurs, Is that right? I wouldn't say that that's what my activism centers on but there's so many overlaps with slut-shaming and general sexual shaming and targeted shaming of LGBTQ people that I'm an intersectional feminist and so that type of thing enrages me as well when I see it. So I definitely post about it and my social media feed is full of enraging stories about trans rights being restricted, That type of thing. Yeah. I think because looking at how parents react to the choices of kids and I think I just saw your clip with Amber Rose speaking about how with any other decision your parents might back you up but with a sexual shaming thing they say, What did you do? I see that a lot in the LGBTQ world too where it's like with anything else your parents want to back your decision but with something sexual, Sex as a general topic is so taboo that if a kid shows some sort of unusual or not normative life choice like being gay for instance or not choice necessarily, It suddenly becomes this very difficult thing at home. Yeah. Actually, Now that you brought that up, One of the models that I had in mind when I started the Unslaught Project was the It Gets Better Project. Dan Savage's mostly living on YouTube project where gay adults will record short little videos explaining that they too were bullied because they were LGBTQ in middle school or high school or whatever and that their life got better. That idea seems like it's just so helpful that you can, Because you're being sexually bullied whether it's because of your orientation or identity or because of a label that's been slapped on you like slut, Then you don't necessarily have the support of the adults in your life. If you're living in certain areas of the United States, It's pretty certain that you won't have the support of any adults in your life if you come out as gay and that can be really isolating. Similarly, With the slut shaming of young girls, If you go to your parents and this was my fear as well, If I went to my parents and told them people at school are calling me a slut, Their reaction I thought and probably rightly wouldn't have been, Well, Let's talk about what you want to be and what you really are and how you feel about sex and what a slut even means. They wouldn't have necessarily interrogated it that way or been supportive. I think they probably would have said, Well, Maybe you should reconsider the way you dress when you go to school or something that put the onus on me to come out from underneath that label. Is that what your parents said? Well, I didn't tell them specifics. They heard, I should say about my parents, We're great friends now and they're on board with the project. I talk to them almost every day on the phone even though we live across the country. They're really supportive. When I was growing up, We were growing up in the Boston area and they were Irish. My dad's Irish Catholic and my mom is Italian Catholic. The diaspora of Irish Catholic people and Italian Catholic people in the Boston area is really strong. It's like a strong identity and it really permeates your sense of self. I think actually the new movie Spotlight kind of gets into that in a really good way. I don't know if you've seen that. No, I haven't. Just the way that people who don't even go to church anymore have this Catholicism, This guilt deep in their bones for their whole lives. Yeah, I was raised past like, I know it for sure. Yeah, All right. I need to explain it to you. I still honestly sometimes struggle with that type of thing, But my parents were free-thinking adults. They weren't necessarily just kind of by the book Catholic or any other type of dogma, But they had said things to me in the past and I had overheard them talking about other women in the news. I overheard the way they talked about Monica Lewinsky when that scandal happened and I was quite young. I was old enough to absorb those things and to recognize and know deep in my gut that they wouldn't be on my side. I don't think they would have been. I think they would have probably victim blamed. I think that doesn't make them bad people. That's a common knee-jerk reaction for a lot of parents is to first of all be terrified of the idea that there might be any truth in sexual rumors about their child because the idea that your child might be sexually active is scary for a lot of people and also just new territory. You might not know how to talk about it. A common reaction, Unless you've trained yourself otherwise, Unless you're mentally prepared for it, I think is to blame the child. Even if it doesn't feel cruel or mean, It can just be kind of a subtle implication that it's their fault. It's really, Really harmful. My parents had heard rumors. Almost all the adults in my town knew. At least it felt that way. The parents of my friends, Certainly. My mom asked me about it. It was kind of a nonstarter. We wouldn't have a conversation about it at all because I didn't feel like I could trust them. Yup. Outside of the shame you may have felt from your parents knowing other people thinking less of you, Did you feel any personal guilt without people knowing? Was there any of the Catholic guilt ingrained in you that made you feel guilty by yourself? I didn't feel. . . It's hard to remember, So that's why actually it's really good that I have this diary as a source because I can read what I wrote at a time. From what I remember and from what I wrote, I didn't feel guilty about the actual act. I think you might be the first person to ask me that question, Which is strange. It seems now like an obvious one, But I liked being sexually powerful in some ways. I noticed that I had this new attention that didn't displease me completely. I would masturbate at that age and I would often pray before and after for forgiveness, But it wasn't like the masturbation itself or the sexual contact with this boy were what I was so afraid of or so guilty about. I think I sensed that there wasn't really that much wrong with it, But I felt guilty because of my reputation. I felt that I had lost that purity, And I put purity firmly within quotation marks, That I had thought defined me. If I didn't have that, Then I was worthless. I believed that. I honestly had internalized that idea that being somehow sexually pure for me and for girls in general was the determining factor of whether or not I was marriageable years down the road, Whether or not I was worth being friends with or worth loving. It wasn't like I went over and over in my head. I shouldn't have let him touch me like that. I shouldn't have been sexual or whatever. It was more that people thought of me that way. I could have been. I probably would have felt the same shame if I hadn't done anything sexual. That's often the case for girls who are labeled a slut. They feel ashamed of that reputation and that label because of what people believe about them regardless of whether or not it's actually based in any truth about their real sexual behavior. Yeah. It's a really interesting thing about what bullying is and how it affects someone in that really we all just want to be accepted. Who cares about these morals and all these things? It sounds like you actually like being a quote-unquote bad girl from what you're saying. You just didn't want to lose your social standing. Yeah. I should say I don't really know what the implications are when you put it in quotes, Quote-unquote bad girl. But I wasn't really doing anything that if I found out my child was doing it would horrify me if that makes sense. I wasn't taking drugs. I think I did a couple of shots a few times around people I wanted to be cool in front of. But I wasn't acting out as much as one might think given my reputation. Most of that was because I was grounded most of the time. My parents grounded me whenever I lied to them and they found out, Which was really often. I would sneak out to go to the library and stand near boys I thought were cute. In a lot of ways I was really – I wasn't especially sexually precocious. I just looked different. I had gone through puberty earlier, So I was aware of these new sexual feelings. I just didn't really know what to make of them. I think the most troubling way that I coped with this – one of them was that I cut myself and used sharp objects to cut the skin on my arms. That is really common among girls. That's been made really clear to me by a lot of the stories that preteens and teenagers share through the Unsled Project, Which is surprising to me. I honestly didn't realize that it was such a common way to cope. That's upsetting. The other thing that I'm really ashamed of honestly still to the adult is the way that I turned on other girls and sexually bullied other girls. I felt a little bit – at times it was defensive of my reputation of a slut and if I thought other girls were also trying to be sexy, That made me feel threatened because I thought all I was was a slut and they were trying to take that away from me. That was at times what I'm reading into, The way I wrote about it in my diary. Also at times I just had bought into – I just internalized this idea that girls who were flirting with boys or who expressed interest in making out with boys and hooking up were attention seekers and should be made fun of and shamed for that type of behavior. Yeah, Because a lot of it, If not maybe perhaps most of the slut shaming comes from other women. Is that correct? I don't know if it's most for everyone. For me, It was a mix. It was differently motivated I guess is something to point out. I'm a little bit wary of the assumption that I don't think you're making, But a lot of people I think use to write off slut shaming is that like, Oh, It's something that women do to other women because they're jealous. Honestly, That's something that when my mom noticed I was being bullied even though she didn't know the reasoning behind it or where it really came from, She knew that my friends had deserted me. She knew I had become isolated in my class and she would say, Oh, They're just jealous because I was a typically pretty young girl. She would say, They're jealous of the way you look. They're jealous because boys pay attention to you. Don't worry about it. That I think really maybe it's part of it to some extent for women, But I think it doesn't really give us that much credit for – it kind of reduces women to children throughout our lives because we do it to each other as adults as well. I honestly think it comes more from this, Whether or not we acknowledge it, This really deep-seated understanding that's been something that we've learned from a really young age, Which is that at any point we could be the one who's labeled a slut and there's no way to prevent that. It doesn't have anything to do with our behavior. It's just because someone who wants to bring us down or who is maybe motivated by jealousy, Maybe motivated by something even more sinister, Or maybe just carelessly, Honestly, Causes a slut. It can undermine all of our work achievements. It can undermine our family lives and really cause a lot of damage even in adult women's lives. When we know that and when it's this constant threat hanging over us that we might or might not acknowledge, It becomes pretty tempting. I think even like a really base instinct to – I wouldn't use the word instinct because that implies there's some biology behind it. But there's like this temptation to direct the attention elsewhere. If everyone is looking at her, Then for now at least, I'm not the one whose sexuality or sexual expression is under scrutiny. Yeah, And I get this is kind of like the eight-year-old boys calling each other gay. So they don't call them gay. Yeah, Exactly. Yeah, It's interesting because I didn't think of it as a reduction because I might be influenced by the TV I'm watching. I'm binge watching Orange is the New Black right now about the women's prisons. Oh my gosh. Don't tell me about the most recent season I haven't started yet. I started a week ago. I'm only into season one. But there was something and I'm glad you watch it. You might remember the second episode, They talk about how in women's prisons, Stabbing and overt violence isn't as common because women cut each other with – I forget what they said exactly, But with shaming and with words and with social standing. It made me think about how – so to me, It wasn't like a reduction to being a child to the way that maybe women shame each other more. It was looking at kind of like how throughout history, Throughout the patriarchal world, Men have dominated each other through violence, Whereas women have – female social systems have kind of operated on something way more subtle, Something that's more emotional than swinging an axe at someone's head. I understand. Yeah, I'm glad you explained that. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I'm still curious about that because when we think of women in power – and I'm looking at this very abstractly and like just thinking off the cuff. But like women in power, It's like this skill that like quote-unquote dominant women have to like I guess get under people's skin perhaps. Right, Right. I do think that's – I mean, I can't really argue with it because it's been pretty clearly demonstrated that that is one of the ways that women get – and it's like I'm thinking for whatever reason what comes into my mind is French aristocracy in like the mid-18th century when that was – which actually seems pretty similar to what middle school is like in terms of like cutting people down and scandal and rumors, That type of thing. But yeah, When women have real political power, I think that will kind of fall away. I also – it applies to bullying in really clear ways, Which is that when we think about bullying and when traditionally we talk about what bullying looks like. I think – I hate to generalize, But I do think a lot of older men like baby boomer generation don't think of verbal bullying or of social manipulation as bullying. They think that bullying looks like a scrawny kid being put into a basketball hoop and left there or something, These images that they see, These physical violence. So yeah, I mean I agree with you. I think that's a really valid point. So with the word slut, To bring it back, I guess a lot of the rumors spreading and diversion of attention away from ourselves can probably be traced to women using that instead of one of the ways that men might react to a woman being labeled a slut and often do, Which is sexual assault or feeling entitled to her body because the assumption is that she's apparently consented to something once. So now the consent is ongoing and applies to everyone. We're stoning her to death as they do in some countries still. Oh, Stoning, Exactly. Violence. I mean I'm talking about here in the United States. But yeah, Around the world it's even worse. I mean I don't even know. It's a whole – it actually makes me really, Really frustrated to even think about. Even now that they're being – we know about it and how often it happens because there are these viral videos of – I mean I haven't watched any of them. I accidentally saw part of one in my Facebook newsfeed, Which was like doubly upsetting to me because I was like, This is a video of a woman being stoned to death and Facebook is okay with that, But not with like half of a nipple accidentally being stoned. Like are you kidding me? Before they took it down and actually I think made news that it was up there for a while. But yeah, I'm getting a little bit off topic and I'm – No, Totally okay. I'm thinking that it might actually make sense in like a larger – I mean this is the most devastating result, Right? Killing a woman because of either her actual sexual behavior or because there's been some wisp of a rumor spread about her and that she deserves to die for that. On a much smaller scale and one that might be more relatable to girls growing up in the United States is this idea that like you can't be anything other than a slut. So like when that translates to this woman needs to be killed because of her dishonor or however you want to put it in countries where that's legal or where laws against it aren't enforced, On a much smaller and more close to home level, It happens not death, But rates happen because of that. And because women are reduced to – often we're reduced to what people say we are or what men's gut feeling about what we might be kind of trumps our lived experiences. And that can result in – and it does often result in sexual assault and kind of disregard for women who are thought to be worthless, Whose lives are thought to be dispensable or disposable. So, Outside of – I mean perhaps keeping it to America or places where physical violence doesn't occur from this, At what point would you tell like the victim of bullying to just have a thicker skin versus fighting back about it? That's another good question. And it's another one that I have to have a disclaimer that like I get frustrated when that's people's initial response. But it is a nuanced thing and it is true that there are some things that are disagreements that often get labeled as bullying. There are some things that are one person being honest and perhaps frank about something that the other person is uncomfortable about and that can be labeled as bullying when I don't think it is. When there is an imbalance of power is I think the line. Like if you are – and when we're talking about adults, The power is often obvious in terms of like socioeconomic status, Race and sexuality or gender identity, That type of thing. But with kids, It can be kind of arbitrary like who's in the popular group and who is a loner for whatever reason. But that's a manifestation of power, Of social power even at a young age. So when there's that imbalance of power, Then the slut-shaming becomes really – I think that's when it crosses line into bullying where the power imbalance is such that the person who's being bullied doesn't really have a recourse that would make their life more comfortable. So when they could ignore it and try to let it roll off their back and grow a thicker skin so to speak. But if you are going to school every day and you know that you're like at the very bottom of the totem pole and not even that, Like if you're just – just for a second, Like imagine if you're going to school every day, You're spending like the majority of your life sitting and forced to sit among people who hate you and who make it very clear constantly that they hate you. I mean that does real long-lasting psychological damage. That is not something I would wish upon any adult I know. Even adults who are trying to take away my rights as a woman, I wouldn't wish upon them to be forced to live the majority of their lives surrounded by people who very vocally and openly are disgusted by them or hate them. For that to happen to a child, I don't think that it's usually a solution to just kind of encourage them to ignore it or to not let it get to them. But I do think that it's one of the strategies that can be developed not by simply saying, Oh, Get over it, Grow a thicker skin, But by – and I'm talking about like the adults in their lives – taking initiative to help them redefine themselves and so that they can find real confidence, Not kind of a band-aid of just not letting it get to them. But they can actually develop that skill of not letting other people determine how they feel about themselves. One that will be really useful in life as they get older, Being able to have a deep-seated faith in yourself and a confidence that how other people define you doesn't equal who you are. That type of skill can be developed from a young age, And I think that's what we owe to those kids who are being bullied. It's not so much just kind of a dismissive, Well, Grow a thicker skin, But rather let me help you develop a skill that will allow you, As you become an adult, To not let the hurtful words and the opinions of other people bring you down. One of the ways to do that is to encourage middle schoolers and high schoolers who are going through it to get involved in activities that they enjoy doing and that make them feel good about themselves, Usually because they're good at those activities or naturally or with practice they'll become better at them. Then there's something to focus on. There are goals to set and achieve. When I say activities, I'm talking about musical instruments that you can practice and get gradually more and more accomplished at or a sports team that's not affiliated with the school or community where they're being sexually bullied where they can develop those skills. For me, It was musical theater and performing. It might be any number of things, But just allowing them to redefine themselves according to that and according to who they want to be. Yeah, I'm sorry. That was a bit of a rambling answer, But I do think that it's important to develop it as a skill rather than just as a dismissive. It doesn't really matter because it does matter. Yeah, Because in speaking of skills, I really love what you said about. . . I forget what you said exactly, But something around how you didn't think you were wrong. When I asked you about the guilt question, You seemed to have some sort of internal compass of what was okay or not. You didn't take on the mob's judgment that you were a bad person because of something that happened or because of their judgment. It seemed like you had something internal. From my brief encounter with you, It seems like that's what probably helped you get through it more than most people. Yeah, I agree. It was very lucky. It wasn't something that I did purposefully at the time. I didn't think like, Huh, I'm doing pretty well at school, So I'm going to focus on academics and redefine myself that way. I enjoy singing and I have a musical talent, So I'm going to enroll myself in voice lessons and redefine myself this way. Thus, The slut-shaming won't bother me. I didn't have a plan like that, But looking back on it, Yeah, I agree. A lot of it was my parents' motivation, Honestly. This is why I tend to give them a break when I look back at this time in my life because I think they didn't really know what was going on, But they knew that I was upset. One of the strategies that they used was to encourage me. I was lucky because they were financially well off enough to enroll me in voice lessons and to help me pursue community theater. They had some time on their hands that they could help me with homework. That type of thing that middle class and upper middle class kids have that advantage in a lot of times. What was caused by this avoidance of this slut reputation? Did you try harder in school, Do you think, Perhaps unconsciously? Yeah, I think so. I think that must have been part of it because honestly, This was in the late 90s, Early 2000s. I didn't have a cell phone at that time I was in middle school. I don't know if I would have anyway, Although maybe. I know a lot of middle schoolers today who have cell phones. Yeah, Nowadays, Yeah. I didn't. I wasn't allowed to really watch much TV. I wasn't allowed to do a lot of things. My parents were – might be surprising to people who read my diary. My parents were pretty strict. I knew that and my friends knew that. I wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies before I turned 13. I still lied to them about it, Which is again why I was grounded a lot of the time. But yeah, I do think that I was bored. I was sitting around being grounded. Part of it was being grounded, But also being grounded was in some ways a relief because I knew that people didn't really want to hang out with me anyway a lot of the time. I had this excuse, I'm not really being left out. I'm grounded, So I couldn't go anyway to your party. That type of thing. But I was by myself a lot. I had that time on my hands free of distraction really where I could write in my diary, Which in addition to helping me cope, Helped me develop writing skills, Which helped me earn my college degree and pursue higher education. Now I often write and it's part of my career. Honestly, I wouldn't have written such detailed diary entries if I hadn't been struggling in the way I had. So that's part of it. Definitely. Is advocacy what you do now? Is this your full-time project? Yeah, It's pretty much full-time. Although, Don't tell my academic advisor that. I won't send her a link to this podcast, But I'm wrapping up my dissertation. When I started the Unslip project, I was just starting to write and had finished my coursework for my PhD in music history. Oh, Cool. Yeah, It is cool. I really like it. For the past few years, I've had a double life where half the time I'm writing a dissertation on film music and half the time I'm advocating against slut-shaming on behalf of girls who are being sexually bullied. I've actually really enjoyed that a lot. It's helped me personally and I think with my emotional health, Really, To be able to take a break from – well, From dissertation writing on the one hand, Because I know that can also be insanely draining. Also, It's a bit of self-care for me to write in a different type of way and to really focus my mind on my academic work that's not related to all this suffering that is really clear whenever I am dedicated to the Unslip project and spending my time with girls who are suffering right now. All that is to say, My original life plan was to be a professor of music history. Now that I have started the Unslip project and thrown myself into it, I'm finishing up my degree but I don't think that will steer my life in the future because it just seems like – I mean I can't imagine abandoning this cause. It's just so obviously crucial now that I've started working on it, Which I guess I have to think. I mean otherwise, I wouldn't be able to do it. Gotcha. Yeah, If you don't mind me asking, Is it a way you can support yourself? Because I know a ton of advocates who also have to work full-time doing something else because it's not necessarily a money-making profession. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. It's a feminist issue as well, Honestly. I know that advocates of any gender or people who are activists and dedicate their lives to that would struggle to support themselves. One of the things that's been hard for me, One of these things I've internalized I guess is asking for money for paid speaking engagements, That type of thing. It's almost assumed that because you care about a cause, Nobody needs to pay you for your time. So, It is a struggle. Now that, Just to be frank, Now that my book is out, Apparently when you have written a book on a topic, You become legitimate in a way you weren't before, Which I don't necessarily agree with. I don't really think that's fair, But it has made it so that I can do speaking engagements at colleges and universities that can pay. Then when I have that money, I can live off it and donate my time to what I really care about, Where the message needs to be spread. Honestly, On university campuses it does as well, But at an earlier age for public and charter schools, Middle schools, High schools, That type of thing, Who do really benefit from the message of the Unsolved Project, But who can't necessarily fund a speaker. I think that it's worked out. I don't feel guilty getting paid by colleges and universities. I think if they're going to pay a speaker, It might as well be me with this message. That allows me to then continue to dedicate myself to younger girls who don't necessarily have the means to, Who might not stumble upon the message otherwise. Cool. Yeah, Yeah. When I was 23, I wanted to be a youth motivational speaker because I love public speaking. I was going to different charter schools in New York City, But no one had a budget and I realized this is not a way to earn a living. Right. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, It is like a nice way of filtering out people. I mean, If you've written a book, One could presume you actually have intelligent things to say, Even though of course it's not really the case, But it's a nice filter. Yeah, I know. I'm thinking of all the people who've written books that have very little intelligent things to say, But you're right. Yeah. I guess for people who were thinking of hiring a speaker, It's like, Well, If they've dedicated the time that it takes and the energy that it takes to write a book, Then maybe they care enough about this topic to be able to talk about it in a helpful way to kids. Yeah. I want to go back to something you mentioned about power dynamics within adults, But also with middle school kids. You mentioned if the victim of bullying is low on the totem pole, They don't have much to say, But I wonder if that's just a part of society. With adults, It's the same case too. There's bureaucracies and hierarchies of all different sorts, Whether structured or implicit. I'm bringing this up because I have recently had a debate with a guy who is arguing against hypergamy. Are you familiar with that term? No, I don't know the term hypergamy. What is it? This I'm all getting from him. I'm not very educated in this topic, But it's the idea that he was speaking from a man's perspective like the elite, Quote unquote elite or the alpha males in a certain environment end up sleeping with all of the women and then the beta males don't. We've heard this in sexual anthropology in different forms, But he was arguing against it and why monogamy was so important because then it allows everyone to have a partner and everyone to procreate. He was arguing against this idea of women being fully sexually expressive and sexually freed because then they'll all gravitate to the guys at the top of the totem pole and everyone else will be left out. I was arguing with him, Well, That's kind of just how human behavior is. Should we really be doctoring people's sexual choices just so it's fair? What do you think about all that? Yeah, I am also hesitant. I tend to agree with you that when we start trying to monitor or decide what's fair in other people's lives because of our personal general sense of what ought to be, Then it's a slippery slope. I hate that term, But it kind of is. At that point, When do you stop trying to monitor and control people's sexual expression and sex lives? I don't know if this is necessarily tied into that conversation specifically, But when we talk about alpha and beta males, My gut actually kind of wrenches up because it reminds me of pickup culture, Pickup artist culture and MRAs, Men's rights activists, That type of thing. The assumptions that certain qualities in a man make him an alpha, In quotes, Or make him more desirable to women in general because I think when we make those assumptions, Regardless of whatever extent they might be biologically true or rooted in some kind of biological truth, Which is I think arguable and it is argued among evolutionary biologists, That type of thing. It also allows us to reduce women to wanting all the same thing or being attracted to all the same thing or having the same goals. It's not even like a slippery slope at that point. It already is implicit in the argument that men must act a certain way, And that's usually hyper-masculine and even bordering or probably going into toxic masculinity in order to win a prize, And that prize is a woman. That's of course the language that we use matters, But it's objectifying. It also is dehumanizing to the women and takes away from them this agency to want to be sexual for men. Why can't we talk about alpha females and beta females who are interested in – if we're talking about males in this way – who are just kind of interested in having sex with as many guys as they want to and attracting as many men as they want to? I think implicit in that assumption is that men are more complicated and have more going on and more that goes into their decision-making and that type of thing when choosing a mate, Where women are kind of acting on something they don't really understand and can't really control, But just draws them to these quote-unquote bad boys or alpha males. That's disturbing to me. I think that when you kind of unpack that and think about not necessarily its theoretical applications but how it actually plays out in the world when most of the women that I know have encountered these pickup artist types or like wannabe pickup artist types who think that they need to put us down and take away our self-esteem in order to gain control over us and prove their dominance or whatever. It's so backward. I think it's really – regardless of whether – I mean sometimes it plays out in really obvious ways, But even the suggestions that come with it and the ways that we all kind of absorb those messages in more subtle ways are really dangerous and do shape and lead to violence. I'm thinking right now of Elliot Rodger at UCSB, Which is my school and was my campus. I was living there at the time. He went on a killing spree, Motivated, According to his manifesto, By his sense that he was somehow wronged by women who didn't want to sleep with him because his justification was while I'm handsome, I come from a wealthy family, I drive a nice car, These women – I'm entitled to some attention from these women or I'm entitled to have sex with these women. It's their fault for not understanding that. They're stupid sluts and so I'm going to kill them. When it's laid out that way, It seems so obvious that that's like the Frankenstein's monster of our culture, Which is Dr. Frankenstein, Which is kind of putting together these types of assumptions and then we produce something that's like this violent – that can often be a violent manifestation and often in like a white man who feels entitled to these things that he's not getting. Yeah, Yeah. The entitlement of men – oh really, I mean I should say this sexual frustration has been a cause of so many problems in society. Yeah, I agree. We should not be sexually frustrated if I think any steps we can take toward undoing that would be great. Yeah. So on the other side of it, Like say like looking at the woman's side and this is not necessarily my opinion but it's something I've daydreamed about. Like say your project does really well the next five years and slut-shaming and shaming of sexuality in any case is completely eliminated from the earth. What would society look like? Would monogamy be out the window? Would everybody be sleeping? Would it be total chaos? Because like most theories are that society has tried to clamp down people's sexual impulses because it's so chaotic and so antithetical to order. I mean this is of course very hyperbolic but could society be kind of moved off kilter if everyone was 100 percent free? I mean I think that's certainly a possibility and in a lot of ways moving society off kilter wouldn't be the worst thing. But I'm a monogamous person and I always have been. I don't think that's only because of the societal messages that I received. I know that when I have sex with a partner and I believe in my heart that – or whatever – believe in my literal heart but understand on a deep level that he or she and I are only doing this very intimate act that we take seriously with each other, It adds a level of intimacy. I mean it adds a level of trust that I think is really important to a lot of people. Even if my husband or in the past my partners had wanted to have an open relationship, I'm not sure I would have wanted to pursue my end of that. Yeah, It's hard to kind of unravel exactly how much of that is innate in individual people, Either they're monogamous or non-monogamous, That type of thing, And how much of it is learned behavior and adherence to social norms. But perhaps in a few centuries we would see a world in which the monogamous couple, The nuclear family is not the norm. I mean nuclear family is not the norm already, But this ideal that people are striving for in some general sense. But not over – I don't think that would happen anytime soon. I mean it's just so deeply ingrained. Think of how long it's taken to undo the idea that men own their wives. That's something that should be quite obvious. I think so many people enjoy that, Enjoy having a monogamous sexual relationship. But I do hope, I honestly do hope, And this is something I kind of have a page I've taken out of Dan Savage's book, And not one of his actual books, But this line that he often repeats that I agree with, Which is that if a partner sexually cheats on their other partner, That shouldn't necessarily be the end of a relationship. I do think that's a shift that can happen sooner, Which is this understanding that a sexual misstep or dishonesty regarding to a sexual encounter doesn't somehow automatically outweigh years and years and years of a trusting, Loving, Supportive partnership. I do think that that knee-jerk reaction of like, Boom, He cheated, Okay, It's over, We'll be quick to fall away. That's something that I hope for because it seems – it's still pretty normalized, Unfortunately. Maybe not in the circles that we run with, But it's pretty, I think, A common kind of assumption, That it's something that destroys everything in a relationship when it really ought not to. Yeah, I think sexual norms will change a lot more rapidly. I mean, Given that with the internet, Everything is changing more rapidly, But with people like you and Dan Savage, With the platform of the internet, I think within our lifetime, Things will be pretty drastically different. I hope so. Yeah. So has the Unslip Project affected your own dating life? Like, Are you married now? Yeah, I'm married and monogamous. When I started the project, I was living with the man who's now my husband, And it didn't affect my dating life or it didn't really affect my actions, I guess, But it did affect our relationship and the conversations that we had. It has led to a lot of unpacking of our sexual history. This looks like a lot of reflection on my past relationships and ways I reacted in jealousy situations or when partners would try to control me. So I would try to control them in certain ways, And I think that has stemmed from a lot of my past experiences related to sexual shame, That type of thing. And also, Going back and reevaluating my sexual experiences and times in my life when I thought I was being completely sexually free, So to speak, Or autonomous or making decisions that ought to have been empowering for me oftentimes really weren't. And that's a shame. And I think being able to kind of reevaluate them and think of everything that went into them and how I was coping with past reputations and past assumptions about who I was that I had internalized really affected my relationships as an adult into my 20s. And so even though since starting the Unslip Project, I guess to answer your question, It hasn't really in any way affected my personal sex life or partnership. It has allowed me to kind of look back through a different lens at my relationships and sexual partners leading up to where I am now and kind of beginning at middle school and going through high school, College, That type of thing. So it's kind of been like therapy for yourself. Yeah. Actually, I really think it has. And that's something I didn't really expect. It's been really cathartic. Cool. Awesome. Yeah, We kind of went off track with your story as predicted. We went on many times. But briefly, Could you get into how you actually formed the Unslip Project after all those experiences? And I'm curious how you got in touch with Mick Foley and where you're at now. Oh, Sure. Yeah. When I started the project, I was 27. So it had been like 15 years since I stopped – since I ended middle school. And I had not really thought about that so much. I mean, I knew in the back of my mind that I had been labeled a slut. And my friends from that time who I'm still in touch with knew about it. But we didn't like harp on it. It didn't haunt me or anything. And it didn't, In ways that I could perceive, Really shape who I was as an adult. And it wasn't until I heard about girls who had committed suicide for going through something similar that I felt compelled to do something to participate in the conversation about slut shaming and how harmful it apparently can still be, Which was using this primary source I had, My diary. I put it up online on a platform called Wattpad. And it allows for in-line comments. So 70 percent of Wattpad's readership are adolescent girls, International, All over the world. And it was amazing to be able to have my diary online and have these readers commenting on each line with responses to things that I wrote or conversations that I had recorded. And sorting through it alongside them was really not just helpful for me, But really eye-opening about the ways that the problem has changed. So that was, Again, Almost three years ago now. And from there, It grew organically. I thought that was all it was going to be. I thought, Well, My diary's online. That's a weird thing that I've done in life. I'm going to go be a music history professor. But instead, People started just sending me their stories, Unsolicited. And the movement grew very, Very quickly. And it became clear that people were really ready to talk about this. Not just on in-person-to-person conversations, Although that's sometimes the most helpful, But mainstream media platforms want to talk about it and want to unpack it and try to work against it. They know that it's a topic that people are interested in hearing about. So that became pretty apparent pretty quickly. And I'm glad that that's the case, Because it's part of my whole understanding of slut shaming and sexual shaming in general, That one of the ways to undo it is to talk about it, First of all. So that's been great. And then Mick Foley got in touch with me when I was doing a Kickstarter for the documentary film, Unslutted documentary film. We Kickstarted it in August of 2013 for production. And we had a week to go and didn't look like we were going to make our Kickstarter goal. And if that happens, You don't get any of the money. That's the way the platform works. So I was panicking. And he called me and said he had seen my project because a porn star that he follows on Twitter, Siri, Had made a contribution to the Kickstarter and had retweeted it. And so he just happened to see it in his Twitter feed and called me up on the phone. And I didn't know who he was because I am not a WWE fan. I didn't recognize his name, But I recognized his photo when I looked him up online. And he said not only was he going to contribute as a producer of the film, But he was going to match donations until we met our Kickstarter goal. So it's one of my favorite details about the way that film got made that are a good portion of our crowd funders are just these diehard WWE wrestling fans who are a population that I wouldn't have assumed would be interested in a feminist documentary about slut-shaming, But it's really awesome that they are. And that, Again, Was a really cool realization for me to realize that this group of people that I had assumptions about, The types of people they were and the types of things they were interested in, Those assumptions weren't necessarily true. And it's a topic that can engage a lot of different people and is really important to all types of people. Yeah. It was really incredible when I saw you and Nick Speak at the premiere in Brooklyn. And you both sitting next to each other, You're so from different worlds, But with the same message. It was really awesome. Oh, Yeah. I'm glad you said that because I didn't. That's really true. And having Megan the film, One of the things that people comment about often when they watch the film is his presence really adds so much, Not just because he's a celebrity in general, But because he's this man's man. He looks like he's really a big guy. He's over six feet and takes up a lot of space. And he has his- Yeah, And his sweatpants and a fanny pack. Yeah, Exactly. He wears a fanny pack. So his presence that makes you a specific type of celebrity as a wrestler who uses violence to express himself or as his art form or however you want to think about it, Having him be a volunteer at the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and having him be on board with the Unsled Project and helping to spread its message in the film sends this message that it's not just about women. It's not just our problem to solve. We want to call in guys and people of all genders who are interested in making change starting with themselves. And having him there and just on screen makes it a little bit more welcoming and easy, I think, For straight cis guys who might otherwise think it's not really their problem. It invites them in. It makes it easier for them to engage. So I'm glad that. . . I'm so glad, Not just because we got the funds to make the film in the first place, But to have him involved because he's, First of all, Just a great guy. And a good friend. And also because of the weight that his presence lends to the message. Yeah, Totally. So I know Unsled Project has many legs right now. How can people get involved or find out more? Well the website, Unsledproject. Com, Is the hub. And that's where they can. . . Listeners can share their experiences with sexual shaming just by clicking share your story. And to access all of the other shared stories that are collected on the website, They can watch the film, Which is now on iTunes and on demand, Or organize a screening in their school or community. And the book is also available for purchase on the website. So everything you need to know, Including getting in touch with me for any kind of collaboration or idea or speaking or anything that they would want to talk about, Is pretty accessible and easy on the website. We also use social media a lot. Most of the tweets and Facebook posts on the Unsled Project page and at Unsled Project are for me directly. So I interact with people a lot on social media. One of the main thrusts of the project is to use those tools for good rather than for cruelty or bullying or tearing people down as they often are. So connecting on social media is a great way too. Awesome. Yeah, I liked your tweet about Rap-Hole-Punzel. It was at midnight's prompt. I love that show. Nice. Awesome. Well, Thank you so much. This has been awesome. I think what you're doing is awesome and I really hope we speak again. I hope so too. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. It's been a great way to start my day. Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. If you want to be a part of the virtual audience for future episodes, Make sure to follow me at crowdcast. Io slash Rwanda. See you next time. Bye. Bye.
