Bad Sex Ed vs No Sex Ed with Justin Hancock | Transcript
Find the episode shownotes here!
Justin Hancock
Bullshit neoliberal bubble bath self care. That's not what we mean when we talk about self care.
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things sex, relationships dating, and our bodies. Hello dear listeners, welcome back to Doing It. Today's guest is Justin Hancock. This was actually recorded a while ago, at one point we talked about the porn block, which the UK government tried to bring in. But in more recent news, it has now been dropped. So this is my like, intro news update on that whole thing. So that's very exciting. If you want to know more about why the porn block idea was bad, I made a whole video about it on my YouTube channel. But basically, we don't have to worry about it anymore. At least for now. Anyway, my guest, Justin. Justin is a youth worker and a sex educator, he created and runs the website bishuk.com, which is full of advice and information about sex and relationships for young people. It's aimed at like 14+. Justin is also one half of Meg-John and Justin which you may recognise because I had Meg-John on a previous episode where we talked about consent culture and intentional relationships. And so now I've got the other half of MJ and Justin on Doing It, very exciting. We talk about so much in this episode, we kind of ping around, we talk about how to become a sex educator, what it means to be sex critical, where that sits in between not being sex negative, but also not being sex positive. We talk about neoliberal bubble baths, and young people, and porn research about behaviours, and the effects of young people watching porn. And we talk about Justin's glorious pregnancy likelihood quiz, which is on the Bish website if you want to also take the pregnancy likelihood quiz. So yeah, we cover a lot. I really enjoyed sitting down with Justin and having this conversation with him. And I hope you enjoy listening to it. Bye.
Hannah Witton
Thanks so much for joining me.
Justin Hancock
Thanks for having me.
Hannah Witton
I have to say: big fan.
Justin Hancock
Oh, thank you.
Hannah Witton
Big fan of besch. Big fan of Meg-John & Justin, that brand. MJ and J, no? Does anyone call you that?
Justin Hancock
Yeah. No one's ever called us that. I was hoping that would catch on, so yeah. lets start it here.
Hannah Witton
MJ and J. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to start, like how you got into the sex education space, and you know what your background is?
Justin Hancock
Well, I took a very ill advised law degree.
Hannah Witton
Oh really?
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I honestly couldn't tell you why I did that. But you know, you make those choices at 16, and I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. So but when I wasn't doing my law degree, I was doing youth work, and then I'd sort of decided halfway through my degree really to finish my degree, but to retrain as a youth worker. So afterwards, so I did that. And as part of my training, I was really interested in working with young men around masculinities, and sexism, and homophobia, and racism, then a job came up working with young men around sex and relationships education. And at the time, I thought, I don't know anything about sex and relationships really, at all. But I had a very supportive manager, incredibly supportive colleagues, the specialist youth team in Derby, who are wonderful. And then I moved to London, worked for Brooke for many years, and then set up as a freelance sex and relationships education trainer.
Hannah Witton
That's really cool. I feel like everyone in like, the sex ed space has got so many different stories of like, how they got to it, because I often get asked questions like, how do you become a sex educator? And I'm like, I still have no idea because you can't like, go to uni and be like, I'm gonna do a sex ed degree.
Justin Hancock
It's, I mean, what I usually tell people is that it's not a job. I get people emailing me all the time asking how to get into it. And I say, well, I kind of put them off. It used to be there just isn't funding for the kind of like in person sex education that I used to do. So I used to work for a youth service -
Hannah Witton
So like, in schools and -
Justin Hancock
Yeah, and youth clubs and like, as part of a specialist outreach team, for example. Some local authorities in the UK have kept their specialist outreach teams doing sex and relationships education in schools, and clinics, and in youth services, and related projects. But many just haven't because of cuts. So there is, and it's there's not enough training of people and yeah, I could go on.
Hannah Witton
Become a internet sex educator.
Justin Hancock
If you can.
Hannah Witton
It needs more, we need more.
Justin Hancock
I mean, we need good ones. I mean -
Hannah Witton
Yeah
Justin Hancock
Part of the problem with sex education, which we might come on to is that I think that bad sex education is worse than no sex education because -
Hannah Witton
In terms of like abstinence only. Do you count that as even sex ed?
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I think that's bad. But also - so the sex negative stuff I don't like, but also the really sex positive stuff as well is not good, I don't think either.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz I think it was on your podcast I first really came across sex critical. Do you want to explain what that is?
Justin Hancock
It's s a term I think that Lisa Downing came up with. She's an academic who Meg-John and I really like. And basically it's we're kind of we try to situate ourselves in outside of sex negativity or sex positivity, which kind of confuses a lot of people. We've got a long podcast about it. But also it came from some, some public some editors of a book about sex positivity, asked me and Meg-John to write a chapter about what we think about sex positivity. And we were like, why have they asked us, because we're not. And so we kind of talked about some of the problems with sex positivity, in that often there is a kind of anything goes attitude, and the kind of constant unbridled enthusiasm for sex which a lot of people don't have, and there's this kind of idea that sex is natural, and sex is fun, and everyone should do it. I'm kind of quoting a George Michael song there. Love George Michael, pray for us St. George. And, you know, that's one of the things he was wrong about. And actually, for a lot of people - a lot of people don't want to have sex, asexual folk. But also a lot of people have very kind of ambivalent feelings towards sex often because of the messages that they received about sex. And so for many reasons, it's not going to feel natural and fun, in a way it's all great. That's all -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and I think that the underlying message in sex positivity of, as long as everyone is consenting, it's all okay.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, exactly.
Hannah Witton
But I guess being sex critical means like, underpinning, like, the how, and whys, and, and really kind of looking into things. I guess, I think it really helped me in terms of how I think about porn, as well, I think, because you can go the like, well, they're consenting adults, so you can't question it. Whereas I think being sex critical means no, we can question everything, and and we should.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I think it's the it's the underlying assumption of sex positivity, I think, is that everyone could be having really, really enjoyable and pleasurable sex, but actually our sex critical approach as well, obviously, the ability to enjoy sex or to have the kinds of sex that you want is dependent on your identity. So it's kind of unfairly apportioned, so it's easier for a cis, straight, man, and typically cis white, straight, able-bodied men.
Hannah Witton
To go out there and have great sex.
Justin Hancock
Exactly. And so, and also, it's a different kind of - sorry, I'm ranting about this. Now we do have another, you know, people - if they wantto listen to a whole podcast about it, we've got it, but the messages that those people don't also enjoy sex either. There is like a performative kind of idea of who has to do sex in a particular way. And yeah, so it's all very complicated, but we're not fans of the term sex positive for us. But we appreciate other people are into that term, as an antidote to sex negativity.
Hannah Witton
I think sex positivity is what brought me into this space.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And I found it, and still do sometimes find it, really useful, especially when I think sex negativity permeates still.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But then I think I enjoy having also the more nuanced thoughts and conversations.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Question everything. Yeah, I wanted to ask about what the differences that you see with the work that you do with Bish, which is aimed at young people, and then the work that you do with Meg-John, which is aimed at adults, which I think it's great, because I think people assume, oh, you have sex ed in school, and when you're a teenager, and then and then it's like, off you go, and then there's no more sex ed. So I think what you're doing is brilliant.
Justin Hancock
Oh, thank you. There's quite a bit of overlap actually, with what we do. And we try to use, because I'm working with like a younger audience, but a younger audience who are interested in maybe having sex or, and or relationships. So Bish is aimed at over 14s, and it's popular with people in their teens and 20s. So there is quite a bit of overlap with what the work I'm doing with Meg-John. But I guess the work that I do with Meg-John means that we can kind of go into a lot more detail. We can talk about things like neoliberalism and talk about 0
Hannah Witton
I think it was on one of your podcasts that I first heard the phrase neoliberal bubble bath.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I think we said, are we allowed to swear on this? Because I think we said bullshit neoliberal bubble bath self care. That's not what we mean when we talk about self care. Neoliberal is the idea that individuals are entirely responsible for their own success and, and so you know, I do talk about that at Bish, but I don't use the term, so it's like so it's small things like that, but there isn't a huge amount of difference. With Bish, the real difficulty is, I want 14 year olds to be able to get it, if 14 year olds are interested in reading about and watching videos about and looking at my graphics.
Hannah Witton
Do you do all of those?
Justin Hancock
I do everything.
Hannah Witton
Aw, brilliant.
Justin Hancock
It's exhausting. I want them to be able to get it. So it's just like writing for different audience. One of the things that I've been finding, though, which is also kind of interesting and slightly makes me worry a bit, is that obviously I'm also working with adults who are working with young people. So I train practitioners.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, of course
Justin Hancock
I train teachers, and whether our youth workers, I still train them, and people are working clinics and stuff who work with young people. And obviously, the kind of the content of a training course is different to what I'd be teaching with young people if I was teaching young people in person, but the young people are kind of more aware of quite a lot of things that certain around certain topics, than a lot of like the adults working with them are. Particularly around stuff like gender and sexuality.
Hannah Witton
Oh yeah.
Justin Hancock
Thats the thing that's really been changing, and also consent stuff. I'm finding that young people are much more, often much more clued up about that than a lot of people kind of think that they are.
Hannah Witton
That makes me hopeful, though.
Justin Hancock
Yes.
Hannah Witton
And also, we need the content for adults as well, obviously. Not just, not just adults who are going to be teaching young people, but just any adult.
Justin Hancock
I learned so much from young people when I work with them as well. They gave me so many great ideas, and I have really interesting thoughts about stuff that I might not have even considered before. I'm constantly learning about how to do things, I'm learning about the subject, but also learning how to teach the subjects. Being constantly young person centred, or person centred, is one of the keys, I think, to what I do, and what me and Meg-John do. And that means constantly reflecting our own practice. And also reflecting on this for ourselves as individuals and to think about how we deal with these big topics.
Hannah Witton
It'll be really interesting to see what happens in the future, with the compulsory RSE that's coming in, and how that works with training teachers or, you know, if there is going to be any, like funding to help train teachers or bring in external people, I don't know.
Justin Hancock
My hot take about that is that there's never been a worse time for this to happen.
Hannah Witton
Why?
Justin Hancock
Well, there's no funding. As I was saying, the expertise has gone in a lot of local authority areas, because -
Hannah Witton
It's been underfunded for so many years.
Justin Hancock
Also, schools are really feeling the pinch as well. They don't have the budgets to buy people in, or to access training, or even to access resources. And it's just another burden on a lot of teachers who feel uncomfortable about teaching it already. So my fear is that schools are going to not be motivated to do a good job, they just want to do it.
Hannah Witton
Just tick a box.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Another box to tick. That's such a shame if that's true. But I definitely, like the thing that I was thinking about any anytime I've seen some of the guidance and stuff I'm like, but who's paying for this? And like - and like where where's the time going to come out of an already jam packed school timetable gonna come from to fit this in?
Justin Hancock
Yeah, and the big charities working in this area as well are probably no longer big charities. We need more funding for everyone working in the area, otherwise, it's not going to happen. Or if it does, it's not going to be very good.
Hannah Witton
But apparently a really important thing for the government to put money behind is this porn block.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, exactly.
Hannah Witton
Priorities.
Justin Hancock
Exactly. It's just, yeah.
Hannah Witton
What's your hot take on that?
Justin Hancock
Well, the government has their own hot take on it. They've commissioned two reports, looking into the the sexualization of young people, and the effect that porn has on them. And they both found that there's no cause or link between porn and any so called harms. I mean, young people are not nearly as interested in porn as adults think as well. That's the other thing.
Hannah Witton
And also, they know how to use VPNs.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
So it ain't gonna stop them.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I don't think so.
Hannah Witton
If they want.
Justin Hancock
Well, one of the concerns as well about that is, is that if young people find it more difficult to access, I'm not sure if I'm starting a moral panic here, but if young people are unable to access professional pornography, then they might be more inclined to share images of each other, like sexting images. I'm not sure whether that's going to be true or not. But that is certainly one of the concerns that I've heard other people raise, but it feels like a very ill thought out policy, where really sex and relationships education, and funding that, is the answer.
Hannah Witton
It is the answer. It's the answer to everything.
Justin Hancock
Yeah. The Danish education secretary said that we're not going to put filters on the internet, we're going to put filters in their brains. So you know, they can work the stuff out for themselves. So we're going to do really good sex and relationship education without -with Danish kids, and that's their approach.
Hannah Witton
Also, I've always found that children and young people self censor. Like I was talking about the porn block of my dad, and he said this to me, something happened but I do not remember this when I was 13 or 14 or something. And I was showing him something on my computer. I was like, oh Dad, look at this, on the internet, and then these like pornographic pop ups.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Like came up, and apparently, what I did was, ah, ew, ah, and like closed them all.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hannah Witton
And he and I think he like walked away from that being like, okay, cool don't have to worry. Like, she's not ready yet.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, that's actually what all the research shows as well. There's a brilliant project called the EU kids online project, which is a survey of young people and their parents across the EU. There was a follow up project that's called Net Children Go Online. And the UK version of this was run by the London School of Economics. And they found in research, and in the in the qualitative interviews that they're doing as part of this, that's exactly what happens. If a young person finds something that they're not, see something they're not happy with, they'll close it down. Young people might be looking for, like sexually explicit material. But you know, there's a huge amount of different kinds of sexually explicit material. So for example, somebody might be looking for, like, what is known as like, soft core or you know, like, glamour modelling, or something.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, just like, a 13 year old boy searching boobs.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And you're just like, ah.
Justin Hancock
Exactly. I guess the thing with the internet is that, is that people you don't know what it is that you might click through to.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and the thing that really bothers me about the porn blockers, because that can happen, like you, you don't know what, where you're going to stumble across on the internet. And if it's made illegal, like for under 18's to watch porn, to view porn, then like before, you might get like, a teenager accidentally stumbling across something, but feeling like they could go to an older sibling, a parent, or an adult, and go I saw this thing, is that okay? Or, or is that normal? Or whatever it is. But then as soon as you make it illegal, like they'd then be admitting to doing something that was criminal and any thought that they might get in trouble for, then they might not tell people about what they've seen, and then they don't necessarily get that like open dialogue, and that communication of like, oh, that's this thing, blah blah blah.
Justin Hancock
I mean, in truth, what they're doing is creating another thing, that another job for sex educator, so that's another thing that we're gonna have to teach people is that under 18s won't be criminalised by accessing porn that they that they that the government is trying to, to prevent them from watching.
Hannah Witton
It's the websites that would get punished.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But just by making it illegal adds that like just extra layers of shame and, and silencing. Just not not good. I wanted to take a pivot. I was on Bish, your website.
Justin Hancock
Okay.
Hannah Witton
Just before you came over, and I found the pregnancy likelihood quiz.
Justin Hancock
Okay. How did you do?
Hannah Witton
I got 8 out of 10 correct. And then the other two, I got like, partial correct.
Justin Hancock
Right.
Hannah Witton
You're like making -
Justin Hancock
Making notes of this, yes.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, well done. But before I clicked on it, I genuinely thought it was a how likely are you to get pregnant? quiz. I thought it was going to ask me questions like, what kind of sex?
Justin Hancock
Oh, I see!
Hannah Witton
Do you use protection? What contraception are you on? And it was going to be like you are this percentage likely to get pregnant? Like, that's what I thought I was clicking on to.
Justin Hancock
That's a really good idea.
Hannah Witton
But no, it was about statistics and facts around like how you get pregnant. I was really pleased with myself that I got the first question right, which is like, about what is the percentage likelihood that you would get pregnant from one time act of penis in vagina sex? And the answer is 3%.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Which I remember knowing that, because I read it in Testosterone Rex, by Cordelia Fine.
Justin Hancock
Okay, right.
Hannah Witton
It's in that. She has this whole chapter about, like, just the probability of one person with a penis being able to have like, 100 babies in a year or something, or get 100 people pregnant. Yeah, so remember, remember that from that book, and I was like, ah, yes, reading! But the thing that I really loved about that quiz was, it went into, like, where a lot of my sex education as when I was in school really lacked, which is just like, if you have unprotected sex, there is a really high chance you can get pregnant.
Hannah Witton
And actually, that is not true. But it's there are just so many footnotes. And I think you touched - you touched on it really well in the quiz where it's like, there are so many reasons why we teach young people this because like, there's not enough time to do it. It's you're just trying to protect them from any unwanted pregnancies, which can cause a lot of harm potentially. And so it's just easier just to be like, just use protection all the time, like you could get pregnant again any minute now. But that is not the case. And I - it's so tricky doing that with young people, because you because I was thought that you just, like as soon as you have start having those conversations, you're just like, you can get pregnant. Use protection, all of that jazz. And then maybe when they're a bit older, go, oh, by the way, here are all the footnotes.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But like how do you how do you decide like, when you start bringing in all of these little footnotes of, well actually there's only like a small window of time when you actually can get pregnant?
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And withdrawal is actually better than not withdrawing, but still, like, because I was just taught pull out method, doesn't work.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But actually, it might.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, if somebody doesn't ejaculate in someone's vagina, then it's very unlikely they're going to get pregnant. It's the issue is, we don't know when ejaculate starts quite often.
Hannah Witton
And you have to practice, and control, and -
Justin Hancock
So I mean, one of the reasons that I put that in, and this is a good example of where bad sex education is worse than no sex education, I think, is that is that if we say to people, if you have sex without using contraception, you will get pregnant, then what happens is in real life, young people have unprotected sex a few times and then assume that they're infertile. And research shows this to be true, both in the UK and the US.
Hannah Witton
A friend of mine, who also works for young people, said this happened to a young woman that she was working with. She thought she was infertile, just carried on having sex, got pregnant.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I hadn't even thought that as a possibility.
Justin Hancock
Yeah. So, so it has the unintended consequences of meaning that actually, young people stop believing us. And a similar thing was happening around things like in the 90s, around ecstasy and some of the like, the messaging that we had around ecstasy, which was, you know, if you take it, you'll die, kind of thing.
Hannah Witton
And then people took it anyway, didn't die.
Justin Hancock
Having a great time.
Hannah Witton
And like, they lied to us!
Justin Hancock
Exactly. So there's like a credibility issue there that actually in drugs and alcohol education, they they've been aware of doing that, of not doing that for a long time. They don't try to scare people into, around drugs and alcohol, they just try to inform young people, make them have informed choices, you know, treating them like young adults, but we don't really do that and sex and relationships education very much. I think this is partly due to the fact that there's not enough time in the timetable, but also, there's not enough expertise. There's not enough, there's not enough training for sex educators, there isn't a quality standardd for sex and relationships educators in the UK, so there's not enough oversight so people could just be teaching wherever they want.
Hannah Witton
I was shown pictures of genitals that had untreated STI s when I was 14 years old. That was a really interesting slideshow. But it's that fear mongering, and actually I internalised that for years, to the extent where like, I it kind of worked on me because I was never gonna have sex without a condom. I was like, oh, hell no. But I then internalised all of these negative attitudes towards STI's, towards people who got STI's, it was bad.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Took a lot of unpacking.
Justin Hancock
So that also has the same unintended side effects of people think well so long as my genitals don't look like that, I can't have an STI. Not realising that you can have an STI because you often don't have symptoms, or if you do they're very mild. So it's the same kind of thing, that kind of scare mongering, and it's known as fear appeals in the academic literature, doesn't work. And is shown to and creates this stigma which actually then prevents people from getting tested, which is the one thing that we need to do. So yeah, it's it's wild out there, it needs to improve quite frankly. And you know, we've all often - if we think about our own, dear listener, if you think about your own sex and relationships education, you probably agree, you're probably nodding away with what me and Hannah are talking about, and it is often it is still pretty fear mongering.
Hannah Witton
It's those basics of like, okay, we have one hour in year nine, to do it all.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
What are we going to do? How to not get pregnant, how to not get an STI, and how to not get raped, as well, like it's kind of like how to not not not. And it's really interesting because even with the how to not get pregnant, you then I don't think I was ever taught actually how to get pregnant. Yeah, cuz that's like a whole other thing.
Justin Hancock
Well, the thing is, is that if they taught you how to get pregnant, then they would realise that actually what they were teaching you about how not to get pregnant was bollocks, because you can't teach both of those things, because often people find it very difficult to get pregnant. And people, couples can be very distressed about trying to get pregnant if there's not a got pregnant within a year or two years, which actually is completely usual. Yeah, but they get very, very distressed and actually -
Hannah Witton
Because they've just always been taught that like one random act of unprotected sex and yeah, bang, you're pregnant. Yeah, you will get pregnant, and you will die. You won't, statistically.
Justin Hancock
But usually in the sex education video, that might happen.
Hannah Witton
That is what happens. I wanted to talk about kind of, I guess the people that I've seen in the, I guess, more of the public eye doing sex ed. So like, for me, that's like YouTube, and podcasting, and then also, like bloggers, and writers and, and that kind of world, and that I can think of, you are the only straight, cis man doing sex ed. And just from, from my experience, it feels like, it's a woman's issue, it's an LGBTQ+ issue, and like, like, why? And I don't know, do you have any insight into that as like, as the straight, cis, man?
Justin Hancock
I mean, there used to be more of us in real life, but they're just the, because of the nature of sex education as a career, you know, a lot of people just don't work in the sector anymore. But there is this thing about what is seen as being feminised work, and what's seen as being like masculinized work, and doing this kind of work, which involves talking about emotions, and values, and teaching people about safety and care and kindness, and, and consent, is not seen to be something that men should do. So that's, you know, it's the same, you could ask the same issue about why there aren't so many male primary school teachers, for example, it's seen as being like, a caring profession, but also caring professionals don't pay very much because we only value, in a capitalist society, jobs that are meant to be done by men. So where there are men, they're going to be disinclined to be doing work that is less well paid, for work that they shouldn't be doing. So that might be one of the reasons.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I think also, on the surface, it looks like a lot of the problems caused by a lack of sex ed, or bad sex ed, tends to disproportionately negatively affect women, non binary people, and LGBT folks. And so then it's, it's always just then on us to solve the problem that is affecting us.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But obviously, like and you said yourself, that you started working in a space through working with young men, and about masculinity. And I just, I, it just bothers me every time that it's, it's such a shame and a good friend of mine, he's a gay, cis man, and he often does like sex ed stuff, and it's in - it's very, like queer related. But I don't know, it does make me sad that it's just like, he's probably a really great person for a lot of other gay men to like, learn from and stuff, but then, I don't know, straight men are just so often the problem, but then no one no one's giving them any solutions.
Justin Hancock
No, I mean, one of the, I think the, the, the, I guess the corollary of that is that we should get more men like me doing work with lads, but there was a big move towards that in the early 2000s, where there was an increase in in emphasis on doing, it was known as boys' and young men's work. And so what was happening was that people were deliberately employing, going out of their way to employ men to do that work. And in my experience of working with some of those men, they were some of the most under qualified, under skilled people. I've known some very, not talking about any of my friends, but I have met people who literally were just employed because they were a bloke, so I think that the the main issue is that there's not enough expertise, and training, and quality standards in sex education, sex and relationships education. And then I think that needs to come first and then any kind of role model effects, needs to come second, I think.
Hannah Witton
Okay, yeah.
Justin Hancock
But also, with the work that I do for Bish I, I'm aware of my identity, and I'm aware of my own privileges, and me as as a as an individual, which means that I actually kind of try to hide that a bit. I try to, Bish is a kind of a, as like a brand, because I don't want it to be, you know, Justin Hancock.co.uk. I want it to be Bish because eventually, you know, at some point, I'd be nice if I could hand it over to young people and they will still be creating things that were Bish, rather than -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, it doesn't need your face and name on it.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, and so I kind of, because I think if I did that, it might take away from the fact that I'm trying to queer and crip sex and relationships advice to young people, and trying to make it as inclusive as possible on every page. And I think if it was a guy talking about it, and being if it was very much me talking about it, then I don't think that would work so well.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz, yeah, that's interesting. On Bish, what are some of like the most common questions you get asked from young people? Because on that pregnancy quiz, you said, like, the biggest one is, can I get pregnant from precome?
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But other than that, what are the other heavy hitters?
Justin Hancock
I get asked, I get asked with quite a lot of relationship questions like, how can I get over someone?
Hannah Witton
Aw.
Justin Hancock
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
I mean, thats relevant at like, at all ages.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, exactly. I get asked questions about like sex things like orgasms and things, people are really into asking me about orgasms. And they ask me about their genitals.
Hannah Witton
Like, are they normal? Kind of thing
Justin Hancock
Yeah, although it's something that they're worried about, or, and like penis size is one. But also people telling me about painful sex, which is really common, sadly and -
Hannah Witton
You you reply to people? Or do you reply in like public anonymous posts?
Justin Hancock
I do both. I reply to people, I don't have time - I only I am sponsored to do my website, but I only get like a couple of days max to do a week. So I'd like to do much more. So I, I try to answer young people's questions quite quickly. Just sometimes they need a bit of reassurance, and I'll link to a thing on the website, because they're not seen it, because there's a lot there. But if I if someone's written me a question that I think I've not really answered, or it would really benefit from me thinking about it for a day or two and then writing something, then I'll answer it on the on the website in the, your questions section. So yeah, a bit of both is the answer, really.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And what is the answer to can you get pregnant from precome?
Justin Hancock
If there is, well, okay, this is complicated again. So there are not very many studies about precome. And there was one done by Hull University that's the most recent one, I think it's probably the most rigorous, but that only involves 27 participants in the study. And they, in study they ask people to masturbate and then produce a sample of precome before they ejaculated. So these, the participants we're doing this in in private, so we don't know to what extent they're creating cowper's gland fluid.
Hannah Witton
The correct sample.
Justin Hancock
Or whether it's the beginning of ejaculation.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Justin Hancock
So in some of, I told you it's complicated. So in some of the sperm there were found to be enough motile sperm to be able to cause a pregnancy. But the, even with the, the highest numbers of sperm, were still found to be pretty, would still be considered very low sperm count if we were looking at fertility study. So, the answer to your question is, the researchers were saying it's not zero, but it's, it's much lower. So it was probably between zero and 1% if precome was inside the vagina. So if there's unprotected sex of a penis inside the vagina, and the penis pulled out before ejaculation ejaculation, I'm saying it twice so you know what I mean, dear listener, then it's thought to be a non zero chance of pregnancy, if that makes sense, yeah, but probably under 1%
Hannah Witton
Wow, but then, it's interesting that then it only goes up to 3% if there is ejaculation.
Justin Hancock
Yeah, so but the so it's 3% on average, but it's between zero and 9%, depending on when during the menstrual cycle, it is.
Hannah Witton
Okay yeah.
Justin Hancock
Somebody wrote to me the other day saying I had sex three times recently, and it was just after my period, so I was like, well, you're not telling me how long your menstrual cycle is, but that sounds like it's more likely to be pregnant so you're in this part of your cycle. So here I am, a cis, straight, white man, telling people about their menstrual cycles. How did I get to this job? But yeah,
Hannah Witton
Yeah, but but now I really want that the how likely am I to get pregnant? quiz.
Justin Hancock
I should probably do that.
Hannah Witton
I just love the idea of like a BuzzFeed style quiz. Just like you are this percent likely to get pregnant in the next year?
Justin Hancock
Yeah, I thought about doing those like personality quizzes.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, what kind of sexter are you? Yeah, no, that just sounds bad.
Justin Hancock
The thing is, whenever I do a quiz, I find them really difficult. I think oh, I'll just sit down, do a quiz, that'll be easy, and it's really not.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Well thank you so much for sitting and chatting with me. Dear listeners, make sure that you check out Bish, Meg-John and Justin, the podcast and website, and anything else?
Justin Hancock
If you're a teacher that do RSE for schools project is if you want some teaching resources that are free, and some help with your teaching, then go to DoRSEforSchools.com, or BishTraining.com if you'd like me to come and teach in your school or run a training course for you.
Hannah Witton
There you go. Thank you so much for listening.
Justin Hancock
Bye
Hannah Witton
Bye. Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at DoingItPodcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
Hannah Witton
This was a Global original podcast.