It started with chafe and ended with pubic hair. Let me explain. Last week I returned from my holidays to work and opened my first Woman’s Hour show back with a heartfelt admission, that was also a casual throwaway remark, intended to raise a wry smile.
I said something along the lines of: “It’s good to be back with you. I hope you have been faring well in the heat; all I am going to say about that situation is one word: chafe. And perhaps one more: thighs.
“Right, on with today’s programme…”
And that was that. So I thought. Until every woman and her mate started messaging me online, or coming up to me in the street or at my best pal’s recent wedding, passionately recommending their anti-chafe strategy. There was genuine concern about my poor thighs, but also much laughter and gratitude that I had aired such concerns. (Airing is key too, apparently).
Dear readers, I now own barrier cream and some anti-chafe shorts. And since the bloody heat has returned, I also plan on purchasing some “longer knickers” another wise woman told me about. It’s all kicking off.
Don’t get me wrong. We rightly had a large and very strong reaction to the item that followed: an esteemed and passionate trio of Afghan women talking a year to the day since the Taliban took control of their country about the radical changes that have ensued, especially to the lives of women and girls.
But why do people feel they can come to you, on air, online and in real life, and really go there? It is the stuff of chafe. Or other, often bodily things, that usually, we are told, exist in a locked box marked “taboo”.
Two days later came another eruption of contact. Vabbing is back. Don’t worry if you ain’t got a Scooby – neither did I. I most definitely missed it the first time around, which was meant to be 20 years ago, according to the sex expert Tracey Cox. Vaginal dabbing, to give it its full title, is where a woman uses their vaginal fluid as a perfume behind the ears and neck. Proponents claim it acts as an aphrodisiac to would-be lovers by spreading pheromones.
It’s back en vogue thanks to some videos on TikTok. Now, I would rather run for the hills, with chafed thighs and all, than wear myself as a perfume – but we did our job properly. We found out on air from the evolutionary biologist, Dr Tristram Wyatt, that presently there is no scientific evidence to back this juicy movement up. That’s simply not how we mate. Nor are there any dangers, providing your vagina isn’t infected and you aren’t spreading your ill self around your body. And yet, Cox when asked on air “to vab or not to vab”, she is firmly on team vab for the placebo effect of making a woman feel sexy and ready to find a partner.
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I have to say, she made a decent case. But when an old male friend from uni walked up to me at that same wedding last week, whom I haven’t seen for ages, of all the things I expected him to greet me with, it was not this: “Hey up Barnett, you vabbed today?” He then regaled me with how his mother-in-law and wife couldn’t stop discussing it in the car on the drive over. He didn’t have to feign interest. They had him from the off.
That was the first of several such questions on the topic that evening and others that have followed since.
Another wedding highlight at the same bash was when the father of the bride brought up listening to another Woman’s Hour item later that week, about the dangers of anal sex for some women, following a British Medical Journal report. His listening partner? His daughter – my best pal. The perfect wedding prep soundtrack I’d say.
And finally, to complete the set, this week is Listener Week on Woman’s Hour. It’s a pretty simple formula: every discussion or interview has to come from a suggestion made by a listener. Economic issues have come up a few times; one listener has admitted how wrong it went between her and the Ukrainian refugee she took in, and another wanted me to interview those who knew about thinning pubic hair post menopause, and the impact such hair loss had on libido.
Of the many discussions I have had this week, at the direct behest of our listeners, pubes and the loss of them is the one that keeps on giving in terms of avid interaction long after the programme.
When considering this chasm between how we think people are about such subjects and how they actually are, a colleague aptly reminded me of the long running joke about the Channel 4 show, Embarrassing Bodies. This is a programme where contestants, who are apparently too nervous to go to the doctor with an allegedly embarrassing complaint, instead choose to reveal all on national TV. Quite.
It seems we are crying out to connect over the subjects marked taboo, with total strangers as well as our friends. This is, quite literally, the stuff that gets our juices flowing. We want to laugh at ourselves, and with each other, in a bid to bond and find the answers we didn’t know we needed. We want to cry together, too.
Sometimes we just need strangers to get us out of our ruts. The sex therapist who came on the programme to advise the woman with thinning pubes really encouraged her to relocate her desire. She believes it’s necessary and the right thing for her. Who knows what will happen, and what might change for our 61-year-old listener. I do hope she will return to tell us.
As journalists and programme-makers, we know what is billed as the important news of the day and what order we think it should go in, in terms of prominence on a website or a programme. But what people actually want to talk about, can and does differ enormously.
Personally, I love asking for advice and admitting I don’t know things. But even I get hamstrung on the stuff where it seems that everyone knows what they are doing, and perhaps it is a bit too personal to ask about. Yet now, after talking to lots of strangers and letting my summer problem slip. my thighs are feeling considerably better.
Plus, to vab or not to vab is definitely better small talk at a wedding than most of the usual tired conversational canapés on offer. Because it certainly seems we hungrier than ever to share our commonly held taboos. Now pass the next one – I’m ready.
Emma Barnett presents BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’