We spoke to hundreds of women for Ladies, We Need to Talk. These are the most common things you talked about – ABC News

There's this idea that women talk with each other about everything.

We sit around and swap notes about childbirth, our incredible sex lives, or how we really feel about sucking up the whole burden of housework.

But after five years of working on ABC podcast, Ladies We Need to Talk, and revisiting all the interviews, research and audience emails while writing our new book, we're here to tell you that this is not true.

There are lots of important topics that are skirted around or ignored by people from every age and culture.

Hundreds of women have shared stories with us they have otherwise been too afraid or ashamed to tell anyone. Here are some of the ones that stood out to us (and yes,painful sex is one of them).

Claudine: So often people would tell us they had felt too awkward or embarrassed to talk about their fetish, fear, pain or the thing that brings them pleasure.

Yumi: Sure some of these taboos were about sex. Painful sex, having a fetish, having zero interest in sex, or a need for more foreplay. Others shared stories about bodies like how they find their bodies revolting or their long-held shame about their periods (yep, still a taboo in 2021!).

Claudine: Then there are the taboos that still exist in our relationships whether it be questioning monogamy, rejecting the mental load or choosing to be childfree.

Yumi: When something is taboo, it means you can't talk about it. There's shame attached.

And if your very body feels shame or gets a sense of that taboo, because it's lopsided, or extra horny, you feel alone! You feel unworthy. Taboos gag us.

Claudine: It breaks my heart the number of times we have heard from women who are experiencing really painful sex.

Very often it's not the thing they are contacting us about, it's mentioned as if it's an irrelevant detail in a much more important story.

Yumi: When one of our experts, sexologist Tanya Koens, said that sex should never, ever hurt, I remember a few of us took her aside and said, "Are you SURE?" because we've all been brainwashed into thinking that pain is part of the package when you're a heterosexual woman.

And by the way, she said she was sure! Pain is not part of the deal with sex if you're doing it right.

Claudine: Sex should never hurt. Not ever. Not even the first time. Not unless you want it to.

For a long time, Michelle thought her pain was just part of being a woman. And when she did finally speak to several GPs, her experiencewasn't validated.

Claudine: I was a grown adult woman who was pregnant before I first used the word 'vulva'. Even then I didn't really know what it was, I thought it was another word for vagina.

Yumi: I thought, "It sounds like a cross between Volvo the car, and 'vulgar'."

Claudine: I share this embarrassing snippet knowing that in 2021 there are still some people with vulvas who don't really know exactly what that is.

Yumi: 'Vulva' and 'vagina' are not interchangeable words. Wilfully ignoring this is a way of telling ourselves our bodies don't matter, or they're too gross to be honest about.

The vulva is the external parts of the female genitals and includes a number of body parts including, the vaginal opening. The vagina is the internal tube that connects the uterus to outside the body.

Claudine: I'm not sure why many of us are still uncomfortable enunciating the word vulva, it's just a word. An innocuous word that describes a very specific part of the human anatomy.

If you are a bit uncomfortable saying the word vulva. Why not start practising.

Start by simply saying it to yourself first, then build up to using it in a conversation with a trusted loved one. See if you can work it into the conversation with your GP.

Yumi: If you think, "That's gross, I don't wanna say that nasty word!" why? That's probably internalised shame. There is nothing inherently wrong or gross about any body part.

Claudine: Truth is, if you are a grown-up, with a grown-up body, who enjoys doing grown-up things, then you need to know your body. You need to know its names.

Want to know how to close the orgasm gap? Riding your hormonal rollercoaster blindfolded? Feel like kicking your mental load to the kerb? You're not the only one.

Yumi: I was a grown-ass adult woman still being caught by surprise every month when I got my period.

Still hitting emotional rock-bottom and shaking my fists at the sky, "WHYYYY?!" every month before realising, "oh", I was pre-menstrual. Every month.

When I realised that I and most of my friends were living in an information blackout about our hormones, I was furious.

The monthly hormonal roller coaster we ride can have a massive impact on our mental and physical health and yet we blithely sail around on it hoping if we ignore it, it will go away.

Claudine: My takeaway, after speaking to a bunch of experts and hearing from women with their own lived experience, is that there is a spectrum of experiences when it comes to the impact of hormones on our mental health and energy.

At one end of the spectrum are women who experience a condition called PMDD, which makes their life miserable for weeks every cycle. At the other end are those who really do not notice much difference during their different phases.

Yumi: But you will never know how much of an impact hormones are having on your life unless you start to track your cycle to see what is going on.

The thing lockdown has shown me is that a lot of the adornment and body decorating I thought I found 'fun' I didn't engage with when I was just with myimmediate family, Yumi writes.

Claudine: I've always considered myself fairly low maintenance when it comes to spending time on my appearance. But I had never appreciated how much mental energy so many of us, myself included, expend on our appearance.

When I learnt about 'body checking', all those moments throughout the day when you quickly check your appearance, I started to notice how often I do it.

Yumi: No one is surprised to hear that women spend a lot more time and money on looking 'groomed' than men.

But the kicker is when this so-called 'beauty gap' is enforced by our workplaces with no extra compensation AND we discover through COVID that not having to front up to work meant that actually most of us didn't care about looking "groomed".

Whether it's blatantly enforced in the rules of your workplace or expected as an unwritten convention, we're all victims of it.

Yumi: Everyone who's worked on the podcast has learned that embarrassing conversations get less embarrassing the more you have them.

It's a basic desensitisation technique, and I, for one, am here for it.

Claudine: In our work together, we decided to head right into those no-go zones. The ones that make us feel the most uncomfortable and that most urgently need to be talked about.

I think of it as a form of training that will one day empower us and those who come after us.

Yumi: Our podcast has spent five years removing the gags and unpacking every taboo affecting women that we could think of.

Yumi Stynes is a writer, broadcaster and television presenter. She has been the host of Ladies, We Need To Talk since 2017.

Claudine Ryan is a health journalist, podcast producer and editor at the ABC. She pitched the podcast with Yumi in 2017 and was supervising producer during the first season.

During the pandemic, the pair decided it would be a good idea to write a book based on the podcast.

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Posted16 Dec 202116 Dec 2021Thu 16 Dec 2021 at 7:00pm, updated17 Dec 202117 Dec 2021Fri 17 Dec 2021 at 2:39am

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We spoke to hundreds of women for Ladies, We Need to Talk. These are the most common things you talked about - ABC News