It’s the finale of season four! Thank you to all our guests and pleasure podders for making this a brilliant season, we’ve reached more people than ever before. We love our growing community and thrilled to know you’re as passionate as us when it comes to talking about pleasure. I’m taking a break to have my babies, but we’ll be back in January with a brand-new season. Don’t worry, there’s a juicy archive of episodes to explore so please dig in. But now for our finale guest, and this really...

Today on the Pleasure Podcast we welcome Sangeeta Pillai, founder of feminist online platform Soul Sutras and fighter of Indian Patriarchy! Sangeeta developed SoulSutras to be a safe space for South Asian womxn to tell their stories openly without shame or fear, connecting with one another, sharing a common cultural identity. Soul Sutras has developed into a feminist platform hosting the award-winning taboo-shaking Masala Podcast to developing Masala Monologues, a series of writing workshops...

This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome German portrait photographer, music video and lesbian feminist porn director Julia Schönstädt. Julia is passionate about platforming unheard voices, working with prisoners, refugees as well as sex workers, helping the world to see them beyond their labels. Her 16 Bars Project, a prisoner's portrait series that aimed to raise awareness for the penal system, led to a Guardian award. Her work as a guest director for Erika Lust, the pioneer in feminist...

This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome actor Paapa Essiedu. He’s been named a BAFTA breakthrough Brit and won huge acclaim for his performance as the RSC’s first black Hamlet. In Michaela Coel’s series I May Destory you he plays the sex positive Kwame, a gay man whose assault is ignored by the Police – a beautifully nuanced performance. But Naomi will always think of him as the man she met at the RSC who in one memorable show played a singing seal as her understudy – a role she'll never...

Next week we’ll be returning to business as usual but for now it’s the finale of our mini-series on parenthood. This week we welcome doctor and sexual function specialist, Janine David to speak to us about sex and sexuality in pregnancy. Janine is a GP working in Wales who specialises in Men and Women’s sexual health. She developed an interest in sexual health in 2013 and, like Anand, is a Fellow of the European Committee of Sexual Medicine (FECSM). This is the highest qualification you can...

This week’s guest is Bruntwood Prize winning playwright, screenwriter and director Anna Jordan. Her work has been performed in theatres around the country from the Royal Court to the Royal Exchange. On screen you’ll have heard her whip smart dialogue in shows such as Succession and Killing Eve. Her down to earth charm is combined with a furiously wicked humour – finding laughter and hope in the darkest of places. And it’s this combination that is so striking in her monologue for The Bunker’s...

Today we welcome award-winning Guardian journalist, writer and full-time single dad, Freddy McConnell. Freddy is perhaps most well-known for the film Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth directed by acclaimed director Jeanie Finlay which documented his journey into fatherhood as a trans man. Freddy speaks to us about the empowering experience of realising he was trans, of coming off of testosterone to become pregnant, and how being trans is not necessarily a transition but a state of being. We...

Today we welcome renowned child-birth coach and author Lindsey Bliss. Lindsey is co-founder of doula agency Carriage House Birth which has assisted in more than 1100 births across the US and is mother of seven including two sets of twins! As Naomi has been pregnant with twins for all of lockdown, Lindsey was the perfect person to speak to about the role of a doula in supporting people through a momentous but often stressful time. Anand had been taught to be suspicious of doulas at medical...

Our guest is Sunday Times Bestselling author, award-winning podcaster, novelist, blogger and speaker Emma Gannon. Her debut novel Olive follows the lives of women whose friendship shifts as babies enter the frame. Emma adds a refreshing voice to the dialogue around motherhood, through a story whose main character has actively chosen to live a child-free life without regrets.  When Emma asked if there was anyone out there who is child free by choice, she was inundated with responses from women...

Candice Brathwaite launches us into our brand-new season 4 and our mini-series on parenthood. And WHAT guest! She’s the Sunday Times Best-seller author of I Am Not Your Baby Mother and the founder of Make Motherhood Diverse, an online platform to provide visibility for all the “types” of mother you can possibly think of to stand tall, proud and heard. In her memoir she explores her childhood, her pregnancies and what it’s like to bring Black children into a racist society in which Black...

It’s the season finale! Our guest sends us off with hope and solidarity. We welcome femme non-binary trans writer and performer Teddy Lamb. I first spotted Teddy roaming around Soho with pink hair, frills, and a prominent, sexy moustache. The combination felt somehow audacious and I’ve been longing to speak to them about gender and identity ever since.  Teddy was using they/them pronouns long before being non-binary was even part of their vocabulary. They describe theirs as a gender rather...

Today we welcome Alex Cowan, a leading disability activist, performer and writer challenging the sexual erasure of differently abled people around the world. Alex has been a real pioneer, In 2014 she appeared in Alternative Miss World - their first contestant in a wheelchair, and appeared on Channel 4 discussing her relationship with her husband. She was the first disabled person to attend the world-renowned European Society of Sexual Medicine Summer school and has worked with Alistair...

Hello! Today we welcome award-winning actor and writer Charlotte Josephine onto The Pleasure Podcast.  I’m delighted to introduce our listeners to Charlie, they are one of my personal heroes having given me the strength and permission to write when I was just setting out and they were already on the way to prolific playwrighting. They swept onto the theatre scene with solo show Bitch Boxer which won the Soho Theatre Writers award and is now being adapted for film. The host of plays which...

Today we welcome journalist, author and feminist trailblazer Marisa Bate. Marisa was one of the founding members of The Pool and writes extensively about domestic violence. Issues that affect women’s lives are at the forefront of her writing, whether that be in Grazia, The Guardian, The Independent, Cosmopolitan – the list goes on. Her journalism is prolific, smart, hard hitting and very, very moving.  Anytime that families are together for long periods without normal routine, domestic abuse...

In this episode we welcome a multi-talented actor, writer, and regular co-host of The Guilty Feminist, she’s genuine, warm, and ferociously loyal to her friends, she’s one of my favourite people, it’s stage and screen’s Susan Wokoma. Suzie was named one of Forbes 30 under 30 in 2017 and a BAFTA breakthrough brit in the same year. Her breakthrough role as Cynthia in Chewing Gum firmly put her on the map as one the UK’s most brilliant comedy actors and she continues to bring huge depth and...

It's an emergency isolation episode! We welcome clinical psychologist and psychosexologist Dr Karen Gurney. Karen joins us in these extraordinary times to talk about sex, pleasure and relationships during this pandemic. How we can manage our anxiety and maintain our intimacy whilst distancing ourselves from others. This is a practical conversation with lots of tips and tricks for us all, whatever our sexuality or gender, whether living on our own, apart from our loved ones, in couples, in...

In this episode of The Pleasure Podcast we welcome Leïla Slimani. She was the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, which she won for Lullaby. A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture.  We speak to Leila about her collection of essays Sex and Lies which examine the sex lives of women in Morocco.  In...

This week of The Pleasure Podcast we welcome the award-winning comedian, actor and writer Richard Gadd. In 2016 he won the esteemed Edinburgh comedy award, with Monkey See Monkey Do, a raw, personal account about his sexual assault. It was a performance which pushed the boundaries of comedy and which felt monumentally cathartic for its win. In 2019 his first solo theatre show Baby Reindeer was the talk of Edinburgh. In it he relives his experience of being stalked by a woman with a dangerous...

Welcome to episode 2 of The Pleasure Podcast. This week we speak to multi-award winning, plus size style blogger, journalist, and author Stephanie Yeboah. This year she was the cover girl on Glamour’s self-love issue. And on Instagram she is making waves celebrating the bodies of plus size, black women. Her sexy, witty, and insightful posts redefine accepted beauty standards and challenge the co-option of body positivity by socially acceptable white bodies. Stephanie has experienced racism...

We're baaaaack! Welcome to Season 3 of The Pleasure Podcast. We're kicking off with a woman who needs little introduction. I think it's fair to say she is the nation's sweetheart. And not just because she speaks openly about bonking Jeff Goldblum with a piece of toast stuck to her bum (onscreen). Some of you may have grown up with her in Nanny Mcphee, had your hearts broken by her in THAT SCENE in Love Actually, or fell in love with her in Sense and Sensibility, Howards End, Last Christmas,...

It’s the SEASON 2 FINALE people! Not only has it zipped by, but we added on TWO MORE EPISODES from season 1 for your pleasure. Don’t say we don’t treat you well. And are we finishing this round with a bang or what?! (we are, yes) We have an extraordinary, golden guest for you to see us out. Welcome Rain Dove Dubilewski. You’ll likely know them better by face than by voice, but that’s soon to change… Rain Dove was the first model EVER to be in both male and female magazine covers at the same...

In this week’s episode of the Pleasure Podcast we talk to writer and illustrator Flo Perry. Flo’s work on Buzzfeed is always a viral sensation, and she has just published the wonderful How To Have Feminist Sex – A Fairly Graphic Guide. Flo is on a mission to improve our sex lives. Her graphic novel is a manual on how to have the sex you want whilst navigating the niggles and neuroses we've built up over a lifetime when it comes to getting down and dirty. This joyful and sexy book is filled...

This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome a woman who has heard it all. It’s Multi award-winning writer, broadcaster and sex educator Alix Fox. Alix co-hosts BBC Radio 1 show Unexpected Fluids, in which comedic ‘real life tales of sexual fails’ are used as a springboard for frank, constructive conversations. Over on Netflix, she’s a script consultant for hit series Sex Education, whilst on The Modern Mann podcast with Olly Mann, she’s fronted her own X-rated agony aunt segment for almost...

This week on The Pleasure Podcast we welcome radio producer, presenter, and writer Amrit Matharu. She’s worked with BBC Three, the Asian Network, Radio London, Radio Northampton, and BBC Stories to name but a few. Amrit published her dissertation "Desi and Desire" focusing on British-Asian female identity and has become well known for discussing taboo topics such as sexuality, a subject rarely talked about amongst the Asian community. She’s passionate about promoting body confidence and works...