Meg-john And Justin

Sociological review playlist: The Meg-John and Justin desert island discs This time on the podcast we talked about our desert island discs - the songs that we most relate to our Meg-John and Justin project. The prompt for this was that the online journal The Sociological Review asked us to be part of their ‘Music and Sound’ themed month (July 2020) where twelve sociologists provide them with a 'sociological' playlist. Full blog and tracklist at megjohnandjustin.com patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

We talked about sadness, sorrow, grief, mourning and melancholia. How can we be with sadness and use it to help us to connect with ourselves and others, and mobilize us towards justice? And how can we avoid shutting down on sadness, or giving up in the face of overwhelming grief? Full blog post and links at https://megjohnandjustin.com/you/sadness/

In this edition of the podcast we thoroughly unpacked the recent TV show Normal People. For an overview of advice about sex, relationships, and ourselves - based on the show - check out Justin’s post over on BishUK. We agreed that we felt ambivalent about the show. While it depicted some things beautifully and profoundly, it also reproduced and reinforced some normative narratives - and engaged in forms of tokenism and erasure - in ways we found problematic. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

This time on the podcast we talked about anger. How can we be with anger and use it to help us to hold our boundaries and mobilize us towards justice? And how can we avoid reacting out of it in ways that manifest as aggression, violence, or hatred (whether turned inwards towards ourselves or outwards towards other people)? Read the full article over at megjohnandjustin.com patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

This time on the podcast we answered a listener’s question: What is this neoliberalism (that we often mention) and how does it relate to sex and relationships. Read the full show notes / blog at the website megjohnandjustin.com patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

Justin was joined by Joana Ramiro, a freelance journalist. We chatted about a concept which Joana calls Radical Hygge. About how in this moment of coronavirus we might think of ways to collectively organise our lives so that we can have the flexibility, capacity, and opportunities to have better lives. The twitter thread that started this conversation is here https://twitter.com/JoanaRamiroUK/status/1239148454485557249 Joana also makes podcasts about left wing journalism 'Red Hacks' the latest episode of that is here https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/redhacks-socialism-football-and-when-sports-journalism-turns-radical-w-suzanne-wrack Here's the Craig Gent article about supermarket logistics https://novaramedia.com/2020/03/23/when-logistics-run-out-of-time/ Here's a podcast with David Graeber about Bullshit Jobs https://soundcloud.com/novaramedia/novarafm-david-graeber-bullshit-jobs-direct-democracy-the-end-of-capitalism Remember that every other episode is for Patrons only. So if you want to hear m

This time on the podcast we went through the different kinds of love - as suggested by the Ancient Greeks - to consider how each of those might be done in the time of Covid-19. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

Special bonus episode for this week. Today on the podcast we talked about how to deal with the stress that a lot of us are experiencing around Covid-19. Read more about this at our website megjohnandjustin.com patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

This episode of the podcast was a Corona virus special where we reflected on the issues that the virus raises for consent, from the micro level of self-consent to the macro level of wider culture and societal systems and structures, and everything in between. The podcast should be useful whenever you’re listening to it though as most of our points are generally applicable to sickness and consent rather than specific to Corona. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

A while back a listener asked us to do a podcast to help people who were worrying that they might be a sex addict. MJ decided to do an interview with their friend Dominic Davies - the head of Pink Therapy - who has a critical perspective, and lots of expertise, about sex addiction. In the podcast Dominic updated MJ on where the diagnostic terms relating to sex addiction were at, why he is still cautious about using the term, why it should be ‘principles’ instead of ‘act’ focused, and what people can do if they are concerned about their sexual desires or behaviours. Head to megjohnandjustin.com for the blog with all the links patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

Subscribe now to hear all our episodes patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

We're having a couple of weeks off the podcast to catch up with other stuff #gentleness. In the meantime please enjoy our first ever episode for our Patreon feed, a watch-along of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Listen to us chatting about relationship hierarchies, love, and how boring Charlie and Carrie are. If you want these Patreon specials you need to sign up at patreon.com/culturesexrelationships from just $1 per month. Thanks to everyone who has already signed up. With your help we can make more podcasts. Anyway on with the show. "They're writing songs of love, but not for ..."

Subscribe now to hear all our episodes patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

In this (long) episode we chatted about disagreeing with people. Firstly we talked about the differences between disagreements and challenging prejudice. Then we chatted about how to disagree with people, why disagree, when to disagree, and when it's okay to not argue with someone. patreon.com/culturesexrelationships

We chatted a bit about what's been going on for us personally this year. Then we went through some of the podcasts titles we've done this year (both here and on our Patreon)to see whether we have taken our own advice or not. After that we chatted about what we'd like to do with the podcast and our plans for 2020. Here are a couple of our other New Year's Eve related podcasts https://soundcloud.com/megjohnjustin/are-you-struggling-with-new-years-resolutions https://soundcloud.com/megjohnjustin/we-watch-when-harry-met-sally And don't forget that every other podcast is for Patrons. You can subscribe to these from just $1 per month at patreon.com/megjohnandjustin Happy New Year! Meg-John and Justin xxx

This week on the podcast we spoke about our feelings after the recent UK election, and about how people might cope in the aftermath of cultural events like this which can leave us feeling very precarious indeed.

In this show we talked about how you can be accountable when a friend or other person in your life comes to you to say that they’ve been hurt in some way by your behaviour or choices. Head to our website https://megjohnandjustin.com/relationships/how-to-be-accountable for a blog post with all the links

This week on the podcast we addressed a listener’s question about how we might go about knowing whether we are on the asexuality spectrum or whether our lack of sexual attraction is due to trauma in our life which perhaps we should address. See the full blog post and further links at our website megjohnandjustin.com

Back in June we did a couple of episodes about how to make friends. We thought we’d follow up with one for our Patrons about being intentional in ongoing friendships, and one for everyone about friendship endings.

This time on the podcast Meg-John interviewed Elsie Whittington. Elsie is a researcher at Manchester Met Uni who did her PhD on consent and studies youth sexuality. For the podcast episode Elsie and MJ decided to focus on awkwardness because this was such a big theme in Elsie’s research that it ended up being a whole chapter of her thesis.