Humour & Childhood Sexual Abuse with Apollo Comedian Jonny Pelham

When is it appropriate to use humour and comedy to talk about traumatic experiences like childhood sexual abuse? How can this actually help to educate us better about suport? Join Sophia and comedian Jonny Pelham as he shares his experiences writing and performing his set for Live At the Apollo, which focused on his experiences of childhood sexual abuse.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:27 Jonny's Set
• 19:40 Trigger warnings and preparing your audience
• 23:35 Channel 4 Series ' Let's talk: Childhood Sexual Abuse'
• 35:57 Talking with your partner

Transcript

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I don't want to be defined by the worst

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thing that’s ever happened to me

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You know, going forward in your life.

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So there is some regret within me

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about doing my Apollo about that theme

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but with like everything it’s nuanced there is also

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a part of me that is really celebratory and happy

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that I was able to do it as well

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I made a joke to my fiancé the other day

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but I was basically like

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I just want to make it really clear that you turn out to be a paedophile or sex offender

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I am leaving you

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Hi welcome to Secrets Worth Sharing

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a series all about having practical and approachable advice

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on talking about childhood sexual abuse, but with serious joy.

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I'm Sophia, a survivor and a designer,

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and this episode is all about child sexual abuse and humour.

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And for that, I'm joined by wonderful stand up comedian Jonny Pelham.

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Hello. It's really lovely to be here. Thank you, thank you.

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So, who are you? Why’re you sitting on this chair?

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Well, I'm a stand up comedian who has written a show

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about my experience of child sexual abuse, which is a lot funnier than it sounds.

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And yeah, and I think humour is a really fascinating and important way

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that we can really talk about this very serious.

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So I think it really mirrors what this podcast is about,

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which is about finding joy in the darkest places.

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And it's why I'm really excited to come and talk to you.

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Thanks, hun.

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I thought it'd be quite nice to start by talking about how we kind of met.

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I was at a wedding and, you know, one of those weddings

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where you don't really know the bride and groom, you're like the plus one,

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you know?

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Anyway, I was chatting and I was chatting to the guy next to me.

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It was all who, you know, I'm Ian, I'm comedian.

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Oh, really?

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What do you do?

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And I was like, oh, the child sexual abuse activist.

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I'm normally that kind of like stops the conversation dead in its tracks

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It was quite bold to say that a wedding most people, you know,

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go for small talk and like, you know, like this is what I do.

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Yeah. Deal with it. Exactly.

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So I was like, oh yeah, I'm a child sexual abuse activist.

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And then normally people stop chatting about it.

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But he went, oh my God, that's so interesting.

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Someone I know was doing, a set about it for live at the Apollo

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and was asking my feedback on the set about child sexual abuse,

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and it was really weird because, like, as a friend,

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my natural instinct was to want to, like, affirm him and say it was all okay,

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but he wanted me to let him know how funny I found the jokes about his abuse,

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and he was like as a friend. It was a really weird environment.

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So we got talking and then I thought, oh, whatever, I'm just going to message

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you, see what happens.

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And that led us to chatting on the sofa.

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It's great, isn't it?

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It's amazing the way the world works. Yeah.

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Then I started to watch a bit of the set that I could see online, which I think

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by the way, is hilarious.

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Oh thank you. You're welcome.

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And it was just so nice to see a conversation on child

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sexual abuse in a refreshing and humorous way, because I think

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so much of what I try and do on this podcast is, like, serious joy.

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So yeah, of course we're talking about serious topics, but we bring the joy.

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We try and make it light-hearted.

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We try and make it hopeful.

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We try and give practical advice.

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And it felt like you were doing a similar sort of thing,

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I think so, I think there's an idea that,

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you know, if you to about this subject in comedy it trivializes it or undermines it.

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And I really don't think that's true.

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You know, there's no other art form

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where that would be seen as the case.

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And I guess for me, I just write personally about my life.

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And when I started writing

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that show, I’d just gone to therapy about it and it was very present.

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And there's so much humor, mainly in how much it sort of fucked me up.

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But then, that's funny, you know what I mean, like, like the bits of ourselves

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which are not perfect is where comedy resides.

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And so, so it just felt very natural.

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I felt like, I don't know what else I'm talking about.

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If I wasn't talking about this abuse because I was going to therapy about it

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I was thinking about I was trying to change the person.

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It felt very natural as a topic for comedy in the same way,

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you know, I've just got a diagnosis of ADHD,

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and right now I'm talking about that, you know, the similar thing.

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And this is what's happening in my life, this and I'm going to talk to the audience

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about and it really connected, which was really amazing.

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When you were starting to think about putting the show together,

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were there any topics that you were like, this is a no go for me?

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Or how did you put together the actual set?

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I built it by jokes a lot of the time it sounds obvious, but

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So, for instance, after the abuse I didnt have sex until I was 25

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because just, anxiety around being touched and things like that

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and then, during therapy I thought I want to have a sexual relationship.

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And so that was a big part in the show, was me trying to,

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started dating as a 25 year old virgin who’s never had sex

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Or like with, a history of child abuse.

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And there's humour in every bit of that. Yeah.

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And so you just you just start writing about the,

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you know, lived experience, which was me going on dates,

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struggling to talk about this thing, having to talk about,

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you know, having sex, very badly, all that stuff,

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which was just what I was living, just became the source material.

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And then I think what happened very quickly is you realize the social,

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political implications of talking about the abuse, which,

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this is a topic we absolutely don't know how to talk about in society.

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So, you know,

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I like to write shows which are personal but through the personal become political.

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And that was exactly what I tried to initiate, which is this is my experience

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and actually me talking about in this way and allowing other people to have

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these conversations is an important thing that we need to try and do in our society.

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When you

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said, you know, 25 year old never had sex before, even that, I can

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imagine, would have been quite a whoa, what moment for people.

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Because I think so often when we think about experiences of sexual abuse,

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people are like, oh, well, whether or not the sexual experience was unwanted

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or abusive or non consenting, it still adds to your sexual history.

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And I think just reframing that narrative as well

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feels quite like bold, especially to do via comedy.

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I think so I think comedy can talk about things in a way that no other artform can.

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I keep calling comedy and feeling like a bit of a wanker

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I'm going to say is an art form. It is an art form.

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But, you know, and because it can, it doesn't have to take things seriously.

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It's so true in politics and in politics, you have to have David

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Cameron and Starmer.

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Oh you know, whatever. Talking politely about the world,

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whereas comedy can go these people fucking idiots.

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And there's a truth to the fact

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that they're fucking idiots, which is un unsayable.

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Yeah.

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And comedy can do that around issues of child sex abuse too

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it can say

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these are some really fucked up things happened but they happened to me.

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And I don't have to sugar-coat it in polite language.

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I can just express how I feel.

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And then when people.

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The great thing about comedy is when people laugh, you know, it's connecting,

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you know, I mean, I think I really struggle

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to write a play or something because because I like the fact with comedy

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it's really a immediate if the audience resonate with it or not,

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they either laugh or they don't laugh,  if they don’t laugh you go

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This is too far. Yeah.

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Did you ever have that? Yeah.

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I’ve got a very dark sense of humour

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I thought a lot about

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my abuse through the lens of trying to make it funny,

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which turned it into a technical skill, if that makes sense.

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You know, I mean, so a lot of the times I was trying to make bits of my experience

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relate and humorous, and that was the way I could think about that thing

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that was like a practical, intent I was trying to achieve.

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Like like it was a problem to work through.

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Yeah.

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I was trying to solve problem of how do I make this thing funny

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and that meant I had to think about that thing a lot

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Did you, because, like, I felt the same when I set up Secrets Worth Sharing

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because so many people were like to me, are you okay?

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Like, this is probably going to be a really difficult period of your life.

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It's probably going to bring up a lot of the abuse.

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But for me personally, I felt like it was a problem to solve as well.

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Like my biggest stress is about where the money's going to come from

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and where I'm going to get like speaking events and that kind of thing.

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I'm not necessarily processing the abuse in that way, and I think it's

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because you have to reach a certain point with your abuse

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in order to be able to talk about it publicly in the first place.

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And that's that's in so many ways.

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It's like a personal thing.

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It's around whether or not people around, you know, the sort of support you've got.

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And if you're ready to be,

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I guess, the vessel that receives other people's disclosures

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and all of that kind of thing.

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So I feel like I'd already dealt with it in a way that I was comfortable

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enough to be like, right, this is me. Yeah.

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And now how am I going to turn this into like, a business?

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Yeah.

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I mean, I'm very similar.

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Like, I went to therapy for about a year and and I was completely in denial

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about the impact of it, you know, I described it as a thing we did together.

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I never thought about it. Complete avoidance.

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Then went to therapy.

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Like went to therapy for other stuff really just, you know, dissatisfaction

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with my life.

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Started talking about it for like a year in therapy

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And then it felt like, oh, now this is what I need to talk about.

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And I actually wrote a show in 2018.

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I think 2017 maybe. That was pretty shit.

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Where it was talking about the issues I was dealing with an abuse,

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which was an inability to have sex or all the struggles I had.

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I daydream a lot and quite as dissociative as a person

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I was sort of talking about all the things in therapy but without talking about the abuse.

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And so it just didn't have a grounding that made sense.

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And so I fell back on like, oh, I'm a middle class English person

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who's bad at sex with women.

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And, you know, so like, the reality wasn't there

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the abuse was the context that was necessary to explain who I am.

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And so one of the decisions I made in the show was I in the hour long show,

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I talked about the abuse within the first five minutes, you know, so

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I say I had sex when I was eight with a man who was acting very immorally.

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And it's a way of going were in this now because I

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everything else in the show needs that context.

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Once they have that context,

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I as a person make sense to them and the journey I'm on makes sense.

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How did that first show go down?

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Well, so the first time I did it, I’d do it in little 5 or 10 minute spots around London.

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And I think one of the things I had to be

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very clear about was my presentation of the disclosure.

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So when I told them I had to do it in a way

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that they were aware that I was okay.

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So one of the big things was me saying,

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I had sex with someone when I was eight with a man who was acting very morally, and I know.

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Some of you are going to freak out. But I understand that

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I'm going to talk in line for the next hour.

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So strap in

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So there’s a way of going this is what's happening.

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Yeah and I'm okay with it.

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And that would reassure audiences most of the time enough

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that they would then come with me on the, on the journey.

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It's funny because regardless of humor

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or not, it feels like when a lot of people do disclose their abuse,

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it's always thinking about, okay, how is that other person going to respond?

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Yeah, I think that's so true and almost impossible to change.

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Well, I couldn't agree with you more it’s one of the hardest things

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about telling anyone is that you then have to think about how they’re gonna’

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deal with it, particularly the people you love the most.

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Absolutely.

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And also like what you've got to be in that moment, right?

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Like, are you a child that needs to reassure a family member

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or a parent that they didn't fail you? Yeah.

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Are you a friend that is trying to support someone else

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who's going through a difficult time as well?

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Or are you a partner or are you looking to date?

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Are you trying to,

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you know, to reassure them that you're not broken or that sex is

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still possible or an option or, you know, explore those kind of things. -Hugely.

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I think I think that's so true, actually.

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That's why when I decide to do Live at the Apollo about it, one of the things

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I really wanted was to be able to sort of have this conversation in a way

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that someone could watch it on the TV and go, oh, that happened to me.

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Yeah.

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And it like, you know, because it's so tragically common, you know,

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every profession, everyone will know someone who's been sexually abused.

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And so just to have the conversation in a way where it's very matter of fact,

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this is what he did to me.

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These are my jokes about it. And leave.

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It was like hopefully allowing someone to say it.

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Someone else. Yeah.

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In a similarly matter of fact way, without that person thinking

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they're going to be like you were saying, just freak out, basically.

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And it also what you've done and what I think was so powerful

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about the show is you've enable people to go,

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oh my God, did you hear about that comedian who did

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A one hour set about the fact he was sexually abused like that opens up

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so many conversations and questions in itself, I think.

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And that's what's great about what you're doing.

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It's exactly the same thing of going,

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putting this into the mainstream, this idea that this is happening to people

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and they can have chats about it and, you know, neither of us are crying right now

00:12:15:13 - 00:12:18:03
No! What a win!

00:12:18:03 - 00:12:20:18
But I think thats like when you watch documentaries, right?

00:12:20:18 - 00:12:24:14
And you know, like true crime things are on and they want people to be crying

00:12:24:22 - 00:12:28:09
and they want people to be emotional and hugging and talking about how it

00:12:28:10 - 00:12:29:15
fucked them up in.

00:12:29:15 - 00:12:30:02
And actually

00:12:30:02 - 00:12:34:05
there is a place for that, you know, there is a need to heal and a need to do all those things

00:12:34:05 - 00:12:35:07
And also there's also need.

00:12:35:07 - 00:12:38:01
Just to chat about it and go yeah, it happened to me. Happened to you.

00:12:38:01 - 00:12:41:01
I'm able to live a happy, functioning life now.

00:12:41:04 - 00:12:41:21
No thank you.

00:12:41:21 - 00:12:43:15
And the thing is as well,

00:12:43:15 - 00:12:46:19
what I find quite funny about the whole child sexual abuse situation

00:12:47:09 - 00:12:50:11
is obviously not what happened to the person and the experiences

00:12:50:11 - 00:12:53:18
they went through, but actually the way other people respond to it.

00:12:53:22 - 00:12:54:11
Hugely.

00:12:54:11 - 00:12:58:04
Yeah, that's why I'm doing this whole show is it's like actually, yes,

00:12:58:04 - 00:12:59:03
the thing happened. Yes.

00:12:59:03 - 00:13:02:12
It was very dark, but actually the worst thing for me

00:13:02:13 - 00:13:06:20
was the way other people in life, especially loved ones, responded to it.

00:13:06:20 - 00:13:09:15
And just laughing at the joke that like, as a society,

00:13:09:15 - 00:13:12:14
we can roll around a nonce joke like no tomorrow,

00:13:12:14 - 00:13:16:18
but we can't actually talk about how funny it is, how ridiculous it is.

00:13:17:03 - 00:13:18:07
So much of my comedy

00:13:18:07 - 00:13:21:21
was that that was in an Indian restaurant, and I told one friend and,

00:13:22:01 - 00:13:23:24
he just handed me a samosa he was about to eat.

00:13:26:12 - 00:13:27:06
What no words?

00:13:27:06 - 00:13:30:06
Yeah he just panicked

00:13:30:16 - 00:13:34:11
But it was exactly that thing, if there's some more, like, people can deal with it.

00:13:34:13 - 00:13:36:20
Yeah. And so much of the humour is that

00:13:36:20 - 00:13:39:14
Exactly that thing of, you know, talking about taboo topic.

00:13:39:14 - 00:13:42:21
And then you see people freak out, like, now I'm not really talking

00:13:42:21 - 00:13:44:08
about the abuse in my comedy at all, really

00:13:44:08 - 00:13:46:23
because it feels like I'm sort of just in a different space in my life.

00:13:46:23 - 00:13:49:23
It's fascinating to go back and re-remember,

00:13:50:01 - 00:13:52:08
you know, like what it was like and, and, and.

00:13:52:08 - 00:13:53:16
Yeah, and just the idea

00:13:53:16 - 00:13:57:15
there isn't this, it doesn’t have to be this life defining experience and,

00:13:57:20 - 00:14:01:04
you know, you can do other stuff, you can talk about it in your work

00:14:01:04 - 00:14:02:09
and then you can move on to something else.

00:14:02:09 - 00:14:05:02
When I was setting up the platform, someone said to me,

00:14:05:02 - 00:14:07:04
are you sure you want to go live with it?

00:14:07:04 - 00:14:09:09
And they said it completely, like in a place of care

00:14:09:09 - 00:14:10:10
But they were like,

00:14:10:10 - 00:14:14:11
you will forever be known as that girl that talks about childhood sexual abuse.

00:14:14:11 - 00:14:15:10
And I'm fine with that

00:14:15:10 - 00:14:17:17
because obviously, like my stuff is slightly different in that

00:14:17:17 - 00:14:19:07
I want to encourage people to talk about it

00:14:19:07 - 00:14:22:22
more and set up like a community interest company around it, that sort of thing.

00:14:23:07 - 00:14:25:20
So I was like aware that that was what I was going to.

00:14:25:20 - 00:14:29:06
But I think the very fact they were asking me that question is in itself

00:14:29:06 - 00:14:32:21
why I want to do it, because it shouldn't be this huge thing of like,

00:14:32:21 - 00:14:34:19
you disclosed it and then your brandished forever

00:14:34:19 - 00:14:36:06
because actually the reality

00:14:36:06 - 00:14:39:17
is like 1 in 4 people that we know about have gone through this experience.

00:14:39:17 - 00:14:41:17
It's unbelievably common. Yeah.

00:14:41:17 - 00:14:43:08
And I had that a bit and I still have that.

00:14:43:08 - 00:14:46:09
I mean, there's a part of me that regrets doing my Apollo about the abuse.

00:14:46:09 - 00:14:48:02
For exactly the reason you're saying in that

00:14:48:02 - 00:14:51:02
I think it makes you, that's my USP for

00:14:51:02 - 00:14:55:01
not much of a horrible word and how limiting that is, as a comedian

00:14:55:01 - 00:14:56:23
And that's why now I'm just like, what other stuff?

00:14:56:23 - 00:14:58:24
You know, you don't want to be defined by the worst thing

00:14:58:24 - 00:15:01:24
that's ever happened to you, you know, going forward in your life.

00:15:01:24 - 00:15:05:24
So let me some regret within me about doing my Apollo about that thing.

00:15:06:24 - 00:15:09:01
But like everything, it's nuanced because it's also a part of me

00:15:09:01 - 00:15:13:01
that is really celebratory and happy that I was able to do it as well.

00:15:13:01 - 00:15:16:01
But I really understand that of not wanting to be like

00:15:16:01 - 00:15:17:24
I’m the child sexual abuse comedian.

00:15:17:24 - 00:15:20:19
And I think it's so important to talk about that regret as well,

00:15:20:19 - 00:15:24:02
because I think we forget that people who have these conversations

00:15:24:02 - 00:15:28:18
like it is so tiring because you're using your experience as material.

00:15:28:18 - 00:15:32:20
We both are in different ways, but it's also incredibly, incredibly personal.

00:15:32:20 - 00:15:34:15
And then I think as a result of that,

00:15:34:15 - 00:15:37:15
talking about these things in a joyful way is quite rare.

00:15:38:00 - 00:15:41:03
At least I feel a sense of duty or responsibility

00:15:41:03 - 00:15:44:03
to people who then disclose what has happened to them to me. Yeah.

00:15:44:03 - 00:15:46:05
And I'm not trained to do that. Yeah, yeah.

00:15:46:05 - 00:15:49:10
Obviously I can share and educate and share my own experiences

00:15:49:10 - 00:15:50:21
and the things I've learned on this journey.

00:15:50:21 - 00:15:52:17
But I'm not a therapist.

00:15:52:17 - 00:15:53:24
I'm not any of those things.

00:15:53:24 - 00:15:57:11
And it's almost like there's A Sophia of Secrets Worth Sharing

00:15:57:19 - 00:15:59:13
who, like, walks down the street.

00:15:59:13 - 00:16:03:08
And then there's also, like Sophia, the Croydon hun who walks down the street.

00:16:03:08 - 00:16:06:05
So I just, I don't know how the two marry. Yeah.

00:16:06:05 - 00:16:10:04
It was the worst thing about doing the Apollo was people talking to me

00:16:10:15 - 00:16:14:08
about their experience of abuse in settings, like a pub

00:16:14:23 - 00:16:17:22
when I was out with my mates, because, like, you have incredibly intense

00:16:17:22 - 00:16:21:13
conversations with people when you're not in that headspace at all

00:16:22:03 - 00:16:25:09
and you just have to flip a switch, and then there's a duty of care

00:16:25:19 - 00:16:29:07
you have towards that person is disclosing this information there’s a duty

00:16:29:07 - 00:16:34:02
of care to yourself to figure out how how much do I give this person?

00:16:34:10 - 00:16:36:04
Because of the way I spoke about it,

00:16:36:04 - 00:16:40:02
I think I got a lot of people talking to me who had never told anyone, you know?

00:16:40:03 - 00:16:43:16
I mean, and so there is like a... It would be immoral

00:16:44:09 - 00:16:47:06
well I decided it was immoral to not talk to them.

00:16:47:06 - 00:16:51:14
It was bigger than I realized it would be in terms of

00:16:51:14 - 00:16:57:02
the amount of people who reached out to me.

00:16:57:08 - 00:16:59:10
It wasn't even we reached out to me, because when people reach out to you

00:16:59:10 - 00:17:02:16
online, you've got time to go, like, right, I've got an afternoon.

00:17:02:17 - 00:17:06:13
I will respond to these people and you can get in that headspace.

00:17:07:02 - 00:17:11:10
When I was out, you know, with mates having a good time.

00:17:11:16 - 00:17:12:01
Yeah.

00:17:12:01 - 00:17:16:04
Three pints down, you know, when you just completely in a different headspace.

00:17:16:05 - 00:17:16:19
Yeah.

00:17:16:19 - 00:17:21:01
And then someone would  say I saw you on Live at the Apollo and my heart would sort of sink.

00:17:21:02 - 00:17:25:23
Oh. -and often they’d just be saying I liked it or whatever. There was regret for me there

00:17:26:16 - 00:17:31:07
About what it does to your life, to talking about it so openly.

00:17:31:13 - 00:17:33:01
Because if I tell jokes about,

00:17:33:01 - 00:17:36:13
you know, other jokes I could have done, people just say, I like your Apollo.

00:17:37:00 - 00:17:40:00
And then they'd leave, you know, and it wouldn't be the same level of

00:17:40:10 - 00:17:41:22
conversation, I guess.

00:17:41:22 - 00:17:45:09
And I think until it becomes such a commonly talked about conversation,

00:17:45:23 - 00:17:48:07
you are going to be a bit of a spotlight example.

00:17:48:07 - 00:17:48:17
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:48:17 - 00:17:51:18
And there does hold some, some duty with that.

00:17:51:18 - 00:17:55:10
Like I agree, when you were prepping to do your first show

00:17:55:10 - 00:17:58:10
or at least to do Apollo, was any of that in your head?

00:17:58:14 - 00:18:01:07
Not at all in the way it should have been, really.

00:18:01:07 - 00:18:04:00
So the show like, in Edinburgh

00:18:04:08 - 00:18:06:24
the show was in a room with like 60 people

00:18:06:24 - 00:18:11:04
and the scale so much smaller, and then you get the right after Edinburgh

00:18:11:04 - 00:18:13:00
Where i giged at the Edinburgh festival,

00:18:13:00 - 00:18:16:22
you get, Apollo tells you who they're picking.

00:18:17:06 - 00:18:22:00
And Apollo said, we'd like to use you and you've got two weeks

00:18:22:08 - 00:18:25:14
to get your 20 minute Apollo set together and so

00:18:25:14 - 00:18:30:02
I had to break up an hour show into 20 minutes and then gets edited to seven minutes

00:18:30:02 - 00:18:31:05
and 12 minutes.

00:18:31:05 - 00:18:36:03
Wow. So it very quickly again became a technical exercise of like,

00:18:36:03 - 00:18:41:12
what of this show works as a 20 minute standalone bit

00:18:41:12 - 00:18:44:02
And what I started grabbing is all the bits that are the funniest.

00:18:44:03 - 00:18:46:15
But what, what I, what I think about my Apollo

00:18:46:15 - 00:18:49:15
Again, this is another reason I feel regret about it is like I made this the

00:18:49:15 - 00:18:53:00
the political points and the the nuance.

00:18:53:00 - 00:18:54:20
You can say in an hour.

00:18:55:23 - 00:18:56:17
And even the nuance

00:18:56:17 - 00:19:00:05
you can say in a room like let's make so flat about Live at the Apollo

00:19:00:14 - 00:19:04:04
you know, not in a negative way, but just like seeing stand up on TV.

00:19:04:05 - 00:19:04:17
Yeah.

00:19:04:17 - 00:19:08:04
You know, people are watching it eating a curry

00:19:08:04 - 00:19:09:23
They're not invested. Yeah.

00:19:09:23 - 00:19:14:12
And so that is such a different experience for the audience.

00:19:14:19 - 00:19:17:07
And so I was sort of so wrapped up in like shit, I've got Apollo.

00:19:17:07 - 00:19:18:03
This a dream

00:19:18:03 - 00:19:19:01
Yeah. Shit.

00:19:19:01 - 00:19:21:09
I need to make this hour, 20 minutes.

00:19:21:09 - 00:19:25:10
Seven minutes blah blah blah that the, it sounds sort of crazy

00:19:25:10 - 00:19:28:19
but the after effects of that many people.

00:19:28:19 - 00:19:32:23
You know a million people hearing about my abuse hadn't even really occurred to me.

00:19:33:02 - 00:19:34:18
You were just busy living your dream.

00:19:34:18 - 00:19:36:01
Yeah. And I was like, right.

00:19:36:01 - 00:19:38:03
And then afterwards I was like, oh, this is sort of mental.

00:19:41:01 - 00:19:44:01
I'm really interested to know what you think about, like

00:19:44:09 - 00:19:47:21
prepping an audience for this kind of material, for example,

00:19:47:21 - 00:19:51:05
like when you watch a film and they're like, okay, be aware

00:19:51:05 - 00:19:54:05
there's going to be nudity, strong scenes of sexual abuse

00:19:54:19 - 00:19:56:22
that doesn't really do anything to prep for me.

00:19:56:22 - 00:19:57:23
Yeah.

00:19:57:23 - 00:20:00:17
Like for example, my triggers are going to

00:20:00:17 - 00:20:04:03
the countryside, the Queen, Scrabble and pink silk pyjamas.

00:20:04:03 - 00:20:06:04
Like, no one's going to be like, beware.

00:20:06:04 - 00:20:08:15
There's the letter Z in Scrabble coming up.

00:20:08:15 - 00:20:09:05
Do you know what I mean?

00:20:09:05 - 00:20:12:17
So I'm just curious how you think about prepping an audience

00:20:12:17 - 00:20:15:10
for this kind of material and how it's currently done.

00:20:15:10 - 00:20:18:14
You know, I honestly think this is an area where I

00:20:19:01 - 00:20:21:14
haven't got a firm opinion and I can see both sides.

00:20:21:14 - 00:20:24:23
On the one hand, I feel there is probably a duty of

00:20:24:23 - 00:20:26:23
care to people coming to the show to let them know

00:20:26:23 - 00:20:30:19
they're going to be extreme topics that might be triggering and difficult

00:20:30:20 - 00:20:34:20
for them to hear, particularly around child sexual abuse if they’ve experienced it

00:20:35:23 - 00:20:37:21
And also, it's very difficult to get people

00:20:37:21 - 00:20:40:22
to come into a show when you tell them it's about child sexual abuse.

00:20:41:04 - 00:20:44:04
We used some language which didn't say anything about child sexual abuse,

00:20:44:08 - 00:20:47:10
but we said this is like a difficult show with themes of

00:20:48:09 - 00:20:50:12
I can't quite remember the language. Well.

00:20:50:12 - 00:20:52:10
What are your thoughts on it?

00:20:52:10 - 00:20:53:17
Quite similar.

00:20:53:17 - 00:20:57:10
Like all I know is that pre warning audience now

00:20:57:10 - 00:20:58:22
I don't think currently works.

00:20:58:22 - 00:21:01:22
First of all the people we most need to hear about talking about childhood

00:21:01:22 - 00:21:05:12
sexual abuse aren't going to be the people who are actively looking for it.

00:21:05:15 - 00:21:08:05
So I think you need to like normalize that conversation, make it a bit.

00:21:08:05 - 00:21:11:07
More. Light, touch casual, dare I say.

00:21:11:19 - 00:21:15:07
And then the other part of me is like, yes, but there are some elements

00:21:15:07 - 00:21:16:19
of triggering that can happen.

00:21:16:19 - 00:21:20:00
But for me personally, those have happened in like action

00:21:20:00 - 00:21:23:04
films or like, yeah, I don't know, thrillers or whatever.

00:21:23:04 - 00:21:24:07
Like it's not

00:21:24:07 - 00:21:27:15
a film where I've gone knowing that it's going to be about childhood sexual abuse.

00:21:27:15 - 00:21:31:07
And as I said, the trigger for me, like my worst triggers are the things

00:21:31:07 - 00:21:34:13
that I said, things that no one could possibly know would be linked to abuse.

00:21:34:13 - 00:21:38:18
So I just I just don't know how helpful it is because sometimes it can

00:21:38:18 - 00:21:43:02
like, categorize a conversation and people have already brought their biases in.

00:21:43:09 - 00:21:44:10
I agree with that.

00:21:44:10 - 00:21:48:17
And the thing about my show was it was very matter of fact and it was never so it never

00:21:49:03 - 00:21:52:14
there were some dark jokes in there, he said, remembering one particularly dark joke.

00:21:52:22 - 00:21:56:08
but there was there was nothing that was about the abuse happening,

00:21:56:18 - 00:21:58:10
and there was political bits, there were bits where I said

00:21:58:10 - 00:21:59:23
we need to talk about this more.

00:21:59:23 - 00:22:01:20
And there's a bit about me talking about how I cried

00:22:01:20 - 00:22:03:23
when I saw some eight year olds and realized,

00:22:03:23 - 00:22:06:03
that's how, young I was when I've been abused.

00:22:06:03 - 00:22:09:12
But it wasn't like it was all delivered

00:22:10:15 - 00:22:13:12
quite, conversationally.

00:22:13:12 - 00:22:16:13
I think my show, although I am biased, might

00:22:16:21 - 00:22:20:06
well have done more good than it would have done any harm

00:22:20:06 - 00:22:24:04
for people who have not thought about this and, experiences hearing it

00:22:24:17 - 00:22:27:17
and seeing me talk about it in the way I talk to my,

00:22:28:02 - 00:22:30:14
I am biased about not know.

00:22:30:14 - 00:22:31:02
But you know what?

00:22:31:02 - 00:22:31:22
I'm so happy

00:22:31:22 - 00:22:34:13
because I think you put yourself in quite a vulnerable space

00:22:34:13 - 00:22:37:01
when you go public with it, when you do the comedy.

00:22:37:01 - 00:22:41:00
So I don't know to hear that you had an overwhelmingly positive,

00:22:41:09 - 00:22:44:04
as in, in terms of the reception or feel you have that.

00:22:44:04 - 00:22:45:19
That's good to hear. It was.

00:22:45:19 - 00:22:49:04
Yeah, it was, it was very it was really very positive.

00:22:49:13 - 00:22:50:08
Yeah.

00:22:50:08 - 00:22:53:03
And I guess the other thing is like if what you interpret as comedy,

00:22:53:03 - 00:22:53:19
do you know what I mean?

00:22:53:19 - 00:22:57:14
Like when I've had a long day, I love to go home and watch horror

00:22:57:14 - 00:22:59:18
and just watch people getting bashed about, like,

00:22:59:18 - 00:23:01:06
that's what I'm not trying to say, you know?

00:23:01:06 - 00:23:02:21
But it's my, my idea of release.

00:23:02:21 - 00:23:05:13
But I guess if comedy for you is your idea of a release

00:23:05:13 - 00:23:08:21
that could take so many forms, and for some people it's cat means, yeah, yeah.

00:23:08:22 - 00:23:11:16
If other people is joking about their child sex abuse. Yeah.

00:23:11:16 - 00:23:12:21
And Live at the Apollo

00:23:12:21 - 00:23:14:21
It was a bold decision by Apollo to do it.

00:23:14:21 - 00:23:17:15
Yeah, because it isn't what the audience was expecting.

00:23:17:15 - 00:23:18:15
They were going to get.

00:23:18:15 - 00:23:21:07
And and there's just a jarring there

00:23:21:07 - 00:23:24:00
that might have led people to have a negative reaction to it.

00:23:24:00 - 00:23:24:18
Yeah.

00:23:24:18 - 00:23:27:17
And I think that's what's nice about is that you can

00:23:27:17 - 00:23:30:09
wholeheartedly say it was a group decision in the sense

00:23:30:09 - 00:23:33:11
that, like, you got asked, yeah, you put the set together.

00:23:33:11 - 00:23:35:07
There was a whole team behind it as well.

00:23:37:09 - 00:23:39:02
Which then leads me quite interestingly

00:23:39:02 - 00:23:39:22
leads to your Channel Four

00:23:39:22 - 00:23:42:22
series that I think came off the back of that, wasn't it.

00:23:42:22 - 00:23:45:18
It came off the back of The Edinburgh Show. Okay.

00:23:45:18 - 00:23:48:19
They also came in and said, do you want to do a documentary about this?

00:23:49:02 - 00:23:52:02
Look at all of these opportunities that came from it, though.

00:23:52:15 - 00:23:53:10
Yeah, yeah.

00:23:53:10 - 00:23:55:06
I mean, that's what's great about Edinburgh

00:23:55:06 - 00:23:58:22
I mean, Igo on a rant about the Edinburgh Comedy Festival but I won’t

00:23:59:18 - 00:24:04:00
one of the only good things about it is that you get seen

00:24:04:09 - 00:24:08:01
by lots of people who can help you do interesting things with your career.

00:24:08:08 - 00:24:13:16
So, yeah, Channel Four came and said, well not Channel Four, a production company came

00:24:13:16 - 00:24:16:04
and said do you want to do a documentary about it?

00:24:16:12 - 00:24:17:21
And that was a really,

00:24:18:24 - 00:24:20:20
great experience too.

00:24:20:20 - 00:24:23:08
It was more it was slightly more challenging.

00:24:23:08 - 00:24:26:19
The fundamental contradiction at the heart of that documentary

00:24:26:19 - 00:24:28:07
was that they’d come to see a commedy show

00:24:28:07 - 00:24:32:22
wanting a sort of a comedy, or at least a humorous documentary

00:24:33:04 - 00:24:37:15
on child sexual abuse in the same topic, in the same tone that I do my show.

00:24:38:09 - 00:24:41:05
But I was talking in the documentary to other people.

00:24:41:05 - 00:24:44:23
Who had suffered child sexual abuse, and with my own story

00:24:44:23 - 00:24:48:14
I can be as flippant or whatever.

00:24:48:14 - 00:24:51:07
However I want to tell my I can do it and if humour is the way I can do it.

00:24:51:07 - 00:24:52:04
I can do that.

00:24:52:04 - 00:24:54:01
Obviously, when you're telling someone else's

00:24:54:01 - 00:24:57:13
about someone else's experience of, child sex abuse, you can't be flippant.

00:24:57:13 - 00:24:59:18
It's like if someone disclosed they were abused

00:24:59:18 - 00:25:01:14
And I was like, ha ha, yeah,

00:25:02:20 - 00:25:04:10
like it would just be crazy.

00:25:04:10 - 00:25:05:22
So it was.

00:25:05:22 - 00:25:08:24
So I just had to make sure that that isn't what happened.

00:25:09:16 - 00:25:10:14
I think it was very good.

00:25:10:14 - 00:25:12:11
I'm very proud of the documentary,

00:25:12:11 - 00:25:15:16
so I think we made it good when it was just that thing of going,

00:25:16:06 - 00:25:19:10
yeah, I'm sort of repeat myself, but, you know, I can talk about my experience.

00:25:19:10 - 00:25:21:22
I want to see what other people's disclosures

00:25:21:22 - 00:25:27:04
or I’m talking about their trauma then I have no right to trivialise it, you know.

00:25:27:10 - 00:25:28:17
Yeah, of. Course.

00:25:28:17 - 00:25:30:12
And I think that's where like we talked

00:25:30:12 - 00:25:32:14
we talked to off camera a bit about responsibility.

00:25:32:14 - 00:25:36:19
And like when you're making a joke like who is who is the butt of the joke

00:25:36:19 - 00:25:38:23
and who is telling the joke? And I think you're exactly right.

00:25:38:23 - 00:25:41:22
Like own yourself, own your own experiences.

00:25:41:22 - 00:25:45:22
But if someone's coming to you to do a documentary about that, their trauma

00:25:45:22 - 00:25:48:22
or the way that they respond and you're just sitting there being like,

00:25:48:22 - 00:25:50:15
wink to camera

00:25:50:15 - 00:25:54:00
It was one of the things about it was that it was so obvious,

00:25:54:00 - 00:25:57:24
the tonally it couldn't be what they maybe wanted it to be

00:25:58:12 - 00:26:01:17
because, you know, I remember talking to someone

00:26:01:22 - 00:26:05:04
and they were disclosing their abuse and it would have been jarring,

00:26:05:12 - 00:26:08:21
insanely jarring to not meet that person

00:26:08:23 - 00:26:12:10
where they were, which was a really quite personal traumatic information.

00:26:12:10 - 00:26:12:24
Yeah.

00:26:12:24 - 00:26:17:03
And so, so quite organically actually isn't humorous,

00:26:17:17 - 00:26:20:05
you know, I mean, because it just it couldn't be.

00:26:20:05 - 00:26:22:21
Can we start by explaining to people what it was

00:26:22:21 - 00:26:24:02
because I’m just aware not everyone’s watched it

00:26:24:02 - 00:26:26:15
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no one's watching it.

00:26:26:15 - 00:26:27:12
I’ve seen it!

00:26:28:15 - 00:26:30:07
your one fan.

00:26:30:07 - 00:26:32:14
So it was a documentary series.

00:26:32:14 - 00:26:34:06
It's on YouTube.

00:26:34:06 - 00:26:36:23
Now it's called Let's Talk Child Sexual Abuse, I believe.

00:26:36:23 - 00:26:38:13
And there's three parts to it.

00:26:38:13 - 00:26:42:13
The first part is talking to a survivor about why it's such a different thing

00:26:42:13 - 00:26:45:13
to talk about, and how we can try and make it easier to talk about it.

00:26:45:16 - 00:26:47:10
The second,

00:26:47:10 - 00:26:52:17
section was about how can we how we doing about trying to prevent it

00:26:52:17 - 00:26:55:20
and what we can be doing more on how we could go about doing that,

00:26:56:14 - 00:26:59:14
which is, I mean, insane how bad.

00:26:59:15 - 00:27:02:18
Because that's the thing about it being such a taboo is it

00:27:02:18 - 00:27:06:05
means we can't have any serious grownup policies about how to prevent it.

00:27:06:10 - 00:27:07:05
And, you know,

00:27:07:05 - 00:27:12:10
there is nothing more that abuser wants then for it to be not talked about

00:27:12:16 - 00:27:14:11
It's literally thriving on secrets.

00:27:14:11 - 00:27:16:14
It has to be. Yeah. And you know,

00:27:18:02 - 00:27:19:23
the more people, the more we're able

00:27:19:23 - 00:27:23:13
to talk about this thing, the more easy it be for kids to say, this guy touched me.

00:27:23:13 - 00:27:25:12
Yeah, and that's got to be why?

00:27:25:12 - 00:27:28:12
That's why normalizing these conversations is so important.

00:27:28:14 - 00:27:30:21
Because if you normalize them and you allow someone to say,

00:27:30:21 - 00:27:35:17
without shame, this happened to me, then abusers would be fucked

00:27:35:20 - 00:27:36:16
Yeah.

00:27:36:16 - 00:27:41:06
And so, so anyway, so the second was about how do we policing, what can we do.

00:27:41:11 - 00:27:45:20
And the third one was talking to people who were sexually abusing children.

00:27:46:06 - 00:27:49:12
Scientists estimate between 1 in 100

00:27:49:12 - 00:27:52:12
and 1 in 20 men pedophiles.

00:27:53:11 - 00:27:55:15
And so that doesn't necessarily mean they offend.

00:27:55:15 - 00:27:58:09
And a lot of people who offend aren't paedophiles.

00:27:58:09 - 00:28:01:03
Weirdly, they just power, whatever. Fuck knows.

00:28:01:03 - 00:28:04:02
Well, that's a fascinating thing that you think about.

00:28:04:02 - 00:28:06:21
1 in 20 and 1 in 100 people in this country are

00:28:07:24 - 00:28:08:14
paedophiles.

00:28:08:14 - 00:28:09:00
Yeah.

00:28:09:00 - 00:28:12:00
And then it's like, we have to and we have to deal with that somehow.

00:28:12:04 - 00:28:15:24
So the last part of the series was talking to someone

00:28:15:24 - 00:28:20:04
who was attracted to children, but who never wanted to act on it and sort of

00:28:20:04 - 00:28:24:07
hated himself, but could never disclose it to anyone because of 

00:28:24:13 - 00:28:27:20
His shame about being someone who is attracted to children.

00:28:28:15 - 00:28:31:04
that was the idea of the documentary, was looking at it as a structural thing.

00:28:31:04 - 00:28:31:22
And go

00:28:31:22 - 00:28:35:14
how do we talk about this topic seriously in depth and try and find

00:28:37:04 - 00:28:38:11
answers to it.

00:28:38:11 - 00:28:40:05
And that's what I thought was so powerful about it,

00:28:40:05 - 00:28:41:20
because you had the whole

00:28:41:20 - 00:28:46:06
speaking to survivors, then you had the vigilante pedophile hunters,

00:28:46:20 - 00:28:50:08
and then you had the speaking to a paedophile themselves, which just

00:28:50:08 - 00:28:53:22
so people are aware, like paedophile means that you have a sexual attraction.

00:28:53:22 - 00:28:55:20
Yeah. It doesn't mean you act on it. Yeah, yeah.

00:28:55:20 - 00:28:58:03
So if you act on it, you're an offender.

00:28:58:03 - 00:29:03:05
And as you just said, people who offend aren't necessarily always pedophiles.

00:29:03:05 - 00:29:04:15
There's lots of reasons why people,

00:29:05:15 - 00:29:07:06
do these things.

00:29:07:06 - 00:29:10:01
But yeah, what I thought was really interesting is like,

00:29:10:01 - 00:29:12:10
sometimes when I think about me,

00:29:12:10 - 00:29:16:15
I think I'm quite an archetypal cookie cutter person that comes to mind

00:29:16:15 - 00:29:19:15
when you think about somebody who's had, like, gone through child sexual abuse.

00:29:19:18 - 00:29:22:18
I'm not saying because I look like absolutely like

00:29:23:08 - 00:29:26:01
fucked up or whatever, but.

00:29:26:01 - 00:29:27:01
I think, I don’t think you are.

00:29:27:01 - 00:29:29:13
At all I wouldn’t say you are. Really? Oh that’s interesting

00:29:29:13 - 00:29:32:20
I guess what I mean is that, like, I'm, I'm a woman.

00:29:33:00 - 00:29:34:00
I like cis a woman.

00:29:34:00 - 00:29:36:07
I was abused as a young girl by an adult man.

00:29:36:07 - 00:29:37:10
And I think a lot of people,

00:29:37:10 - 00:29:40:19
when they think child sexual abuse, they think, okay, little girl, older man

00:29:41:01 - 00:29:44:11
and think was really nice about the people that you interviewed in the documentary

00:29:44:11 - 00:29:45:02
and yourself.

00:29:45:02 - 00:29:45:22
Is that okay?

00:29:45:22 - 00:29:46:21
Here's an adult,

00:29:46:21 - 00:29:50:12
a grown male adult talking to other adult men who were as survivors,

00:29:50:20 - 00:29:54:10
and then the person who you spoke to was a vigilante paedophile hunter

00:29:54:10 - 00:29:56:22
was like a woman, a mum

00:29:56:22 - 00:29:59:09
in her house doing it on Facebook or whatever.

00:29:59:09 - 00:30:00:14
Yeah, that was June. Yes.

00:30:00:14 - 00:30:04:04
She was just like, like, a mum who decided to take it on

00:30:04:13 - 00:30:09:04
I find it so fascinating about how we police it, and my sort of view

00:30:09:19 - 00:30:12:22
is if you have the thought, but don’t act on it

00:30:13:10 - 00:30:15:24
Then we should try and help these people, support these people.

00:30:15:24 - 00:30:18:24
And then as soon as you acting on it, sort of fuck you.

00:30:18:24 - 00:30:21:09
And we should put them in prison for a long time.

00:30:21:09 - 00:30:22:18
Is my just my

00:30:24:01 - 00:30:26:20
personal view. But.

00:30:26:20 - 00:30:28:09
Yeah, but it was just it was just fascinating for you

00:30:28:09 - 00:30:31:08
to talk to all these experts about it and to try and realize

00:30:31:08 - 00:30:34:08
how complicated and difficult and

00:30:35:05 - 00:30:39:07
because what the person who was the non offending paedophile said is

00:30:39:07 - 00:30:43:22
basically, he realized he was attracted to children when he was 13 or

00:30:43:22 - 00:30:47:10
14 and went through puberty, and then he hated himself

00:30:48:01 - 00:30:50:12
and couldn't talk to any one about it.

00:30:50:12 - 00:30:53:15
And it surely is just going to make him more likely to offend,

00:30:54:03 - 00:30:57:01
you know, the fact that he can't and doesn't have any support network.

00:30:57:01 - 00:30:58:24
And I mean what that support network looks like

00:30:58:24 - 00:31:01:09
and what that help looks like. I've no idea.

00:31:01:09 - 00:31:03:02
You know but it is a

00:31:03:02 - 00:31:03:19
I guess it's something.

00:31:03:19 - 00:31:06:23
If you want to stop this, you have to admit that it is a problem.

00:31:06:23 - 00:31:10:14
Yeah, that some people have a mental illness or whatever it is.

00:31:11:09 - 00:31:16:12
And if we know, if we just pretend that isn't real, yeah, then we won't solve it.

00:31:16:16 - 00:31:17:01
Yeah.

00:31:17:01 - 00:31:20:20
I'm so with you on the front of, like, supporting people

00:31:20:20 - 00:31:25:06
who haven't offended, who have the sexual, yeah, attraction to kids because

00:31:25:22 - 00:31:29:11
and I didn't realize how controversial that point of view

00:31:29:11 - 00:31:32:20
was until I got into the sexual abuse, child sexual abuse space.

00:31:32:20 - 00:31:36:17
Because like, for example, there's this charity called Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

00:31:36:17 - 00:31:37:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:31:37:11 - 00:31:40:11
So they're like the only charity in the UK that have,

00:31:40:16 - 00:31:44:20
solely prevented to stopping childhood sexual abuse by working with,

00:31:45:17 - 00:31:49:03
non-offenders, offenders like people who have sexual thoughts towards children

00:31:49:11 - 00:31:53:21
and they get like death threats, you know, their callers have to have really,

00:31:54:14 - 00:31:57:24
rigid training about the sorts of hate and abuse that they are going to receive

00:31:57:24 - 00:31:58:22
for helping people.

00:31:58:22 - 00:32:02:16
But I just feel like our whole system is so stretched,

00:32:02:17 - 00:32:05:11
we're only able to plaster up support for survivors.

00:32:05:11 - 00:32:06:24
Yeah, if they can even get you.

00:32:06:24 - 00:32:08:05
I mean, there's a million different ways

00:32:08:05 - 00:32:11:11
why someone might not want to go through justice or access support or whatever.

00:32:11:20 - 00:32:16:13
But like on top of that, then we're not getting to the root of the problem

00:32:17:13 - 00:32:18:20
and the silence that

00:32:18:20 - 00:32:21:01
surrounds it, which enables it to happen in the first place,

00:32:21:01 - 00:32:23:01
which is why we're doing these conversations.

00:32:23:01 - 00:32:24:22
But yeah, I guess what I was trying to say

00:32:24:22 - 00:32:27:22
is that in this, in this whole documentary,

00:32:27:22 - 00:32:29:11
I think the people that you spoke to,

00:32:29:11 - 00:32:31:20
you were people you wouldn't necessarily expect.

00:32:32:17 - 00:32:36:04
To be so active in this space or having those conversations.

00:32:36:15 - 00:32:37:05
Well whats

00:32:37:05 - 00:32:38:01
What was remarkable about

00:32:38:01 - 00:32:39:13
 is seeing how many people were working

00:32:39:13 - 00:32:42:13
so hard in various different ways to try and stop it?

00:32:42:14 - 00:32:44:22
Yeah. And I think, you know, whatever.

00:32:44:22 - 00:32:48:04
You know, your view on the vigilantes, whatever your view on the therapist

00:32:48:14 - 00:32:53:08
treating non offending paedophiles, it was, all of them

00:32:53:14 - 00:32:57:13
coming for such a genuine place of trying to stop this awful thing.

00:32:58:03 - 00:33:00:19
And that was very because I think you can get into times

00:33:00:19 - 00:33:04:19
and be like, you know, vigilantes are bad therapists are better

00:33:04:19 - 00:33:07:24
Everyone’s trying to stop this awful thing.

00:33:08:10 - 00:33:11:10
Then from there, you can sort of build a coalition of people and,

00:33:11:17 - 00:33:16:03
and try and get somewhere and, again it is kind of just about talking about

00:33:16:03 - 00:33:20:03
psychologically for a nation, what paedophilia is at the moment.

00:33:20:03 - 00:33:23:19
It's the monster at the door that we've got.

00:33:23:19 - 00:33:26:01
They're evil, awful people.

00:33:26:01 - 00:33:29:01
The only the worst people in the world too.

00:33:29:01 - 00:33:31:03
And you see, you know, every year

00:33:31:03 - 00:33:32:14
there's a moral panic.

00:33:32:14 - 00:33:34:04
There’s a paedophile everywhere.

00:33:34:04 - 00:33:37:11
And that makes us feel great about ourselves because we're not them.

00:33:37:15 - 00:33:39:04
Yeah. We are good.

00:33:39:04 - 00:33:43:23
And all that does is it completely disallows any sort of nuanced conversation

00:33:44:15 - 00:33:47:01
or any real conversation about the scale of it

00:33:47:01 - 00:33:52:18
and how we go about preventing it, and it just keeps it in this, in the shadows

00:33:52:18 - 00:33:56:12
as this mysterious thing that then never gets near a solution.

00:33:56:13 - 00:33:58:11
Yeah. If anything, it makes it harder, right?

00:33:58:11 - 00:34:02:20
Because it puts like Jimmy Savile, I mean, Russell Brand, all of that.

00:34:02:20 - 00:34:05:10
Like they’re now an us and them kind of situation.

00:34:05:10 - 00:34:06:07
And I I've seen it

00:34:06:07 - 00:34:09:09
and I remember when I was thinking maybe I should tell an adult

00:34:09:09 - 00:34:12:21
about what's going on and all these cases were coming up on the news and the way

00:34:12:21 - 00:34:16:02
people in my life responding were like, oh, well, that would never happen to us.

00:34:16:02 - 00:34:18:00
Or like picking apart the stories.

00:34:18:00 - 00:34:22:03
It you see how society responds by when they're put like these.

00:34:22:10 - 00:34:25:22
And also it's always offenders who are put on a pedestal.

00:34:25:22 - 00:34:26:17
Yeah, totally.

00:34:26:17 - 00:34:29:02
Like going back to the nonce joke thing.

00:34:29:02 - 00:34:32:11
Like I don't even know what nonce stands for. Non.

00:34:32:11 - 00:34:33:20
I have no idea

00:34:33:20 - 00:34:37:01
Basically it's slang for paedophile in the UK and like,

00:34:37:10 - 00:34:40:15
I feel like it's so common in British comedy to joke

00:34:40:15 - 00:34:43:15
about nonces and pedophiles and all of that kind of thing.

00:34:43:20 - 00:34:44:08
And I think no

00:34:44:08 - 00:34:48:04
matter what you think about that, it really holds up a mirror to society.

00:34:48:04 - 00:34:52:09
Like we joke so easily about paedophiles, but not about the way

00:34:52:09 - 00:34:54:07
we're responding to sexual abuse.

00:34:54:07 - 00:34:57:07
Like, society's a real joke in this situation.

00:34:57:12 - 00:35:00:15
Totally. And I think it is. It is.

00:35:01:15 - 00:35:02:14
It's that we are so

00:35:02:14 - 00:35:06:17
scared of admitting that it is family members and teachers

00:35:06:17 - 00:35:12:01
and successful people who wear suits and go to work and pay a mortgage,

00:35:12:01 - 00:35:18:00
who are abusing you, abusing children, you know it's some crazy stat

00:35:18:00 - 00:35:22:03
that I’m actually not going to say. So much of it is inter familiar, you know, inter family.

00:35:22:03 - 00:35:25:06
Yeah. And it's like it isn't monsters. Yeah.

00:35:25:06 - 00:35:27:08
And that's so much scarier.

00:35:27:08 - 00:35:29:17
That it's actually someone who. The person who abused me

00:35:29:17 - 00:35:33:24
incredibly charismatic, incredibly well liked, incredibly well respected.

00:35:34:10 - 00:35:36:16
And it's these people who are doing it.

00:35:36:16 - 00:35:40:12
And we are so scared of that, that like, you think we put Jimmy Saville out there

00:35:40:15 - 00:35:41:03
and go

00:35:41:03 - 00:35:42:17
These are the people. Yeah.

00:35:42:17 - 00:35:44:17
And we go they’re the worst people in the world.

00:35:44:17 - 00:35:46:03
We need to kill them and murder them.

00:35:46:03 - 00:35:49:16
And we should never and and actually it’s fucking loads of people.

00:35:49:21 - 00:35:53:11
And it’s loads of people have had lunch with and had a great time with.

00:35:53:23 - 00:35:56:17
And we just, our refusal to admit that

00:35:58:09 - 00:36:01:08
and I, I'm thinking about my girlfriend

00:36:01:08 - 00:36:05:16
and I, I know... Processing what to do with a kid

00:36:05:21 - 00:36:06:14
Yeah.

00:36:06:14 - 00:36:11:12
Knowing how common it is will be very difficult for me.

00:36:11:15 - 00:36:13:08
But it's definitely better that I know.

00:36:13:08 - 00:36:16:13
Of course, So rather than just go, it's just evil

00:36:16:13 - 00:36:20:08
people who might snatch them, going actually, there are people out there

00:36:20:08 - 00:36:24:01
who I’ll know who’ll probably be a paedophile, child sexual abusers.

00:36:24:02 - 00:36:25:20
Yeah. And it's terrifying.

00:36:25:20 - 00:36:29:09
But is better to know than just to wander around unwittingly

00:36:29:18 - 00:36:32:18
giving your children to them?

00:36:32:18 - 00:36:33:08
And you know what?

00:36:33:08 - 00:36:35:09
It's so good that you're talking about it with your partner

00:36:35:09 - 00:36:40:01
because it's something that you're aware about, and you're actively going

00:36:40:01 - 00:36:44:03
to have those conversations, hopefully with your kid if the time comes, whatever.

00:36:44:03 - 00:36:48:02
And like I made a joke to my fiancé the other day, but I was basically like,

00:36:48:05 - 00:36:49:20
I just want to make it really clear that

00:36:49:20 - 00:36:53:05
if you turn out to be a paedophile or sex offender, I am leaving you.

00:36:53:15 - 00:36:56:22
And that comes from a very like personal place of like seeing what happens

00:36:56:22 - 00:37:00:08
when people stay with pedophiles and stay with sex offenders and stuff like that.

00:37:00:15 - 00:37:04:21
And like obviously I meant it as a joke, but like having that conversation

00:37:04:21 - 00:37:08:09
really early with your partner and just being like, how do you feel about

00:37:08:18 - 00:37:09:15
talking to your kids?

00:37:09:15 - 00:37:13:13
Because he was like, I've always seen it as being like, children are innocent

00:37:13:13 - 00:37:15:13
and you have to protect them and ...

00:37:15:13 - 00:37:18:23
But actually, like you, you're an example of someone who grew up

00:37:18:23 - 00:37:21:02
with that kind of upbringing, but you still got abused.

00:37:21:02 - 00:37:22:06
So where do I stand now?

00:37:22:06 - 00:37:24:16
We've had a very active conversation, I think,

00:37:24:16 - 00:37:27:14
at least for me, like getting married to someone was such a moment where I was

00:37:27:14 - 00:37:30:16
like, right, I want to understand how they feel about this, this and this.

00:37:31:06 - 00:37:33:14
And, you know, he's on board. So, yeah.

00:37:33:14 - 00:37:36:23
And and the way and the way I started that conversation was with a joke.

00:37:36:23 - 00:37:38:21
Yeah. So yeah.

00:37:38:21 - 00:37:40:10
Comedy's connection. Yeah.

00:37:40:10 - 00:37:41:14
At its absolute core

00:37:41:14 - 00:37:43:22
comedy is a connection between you and the audience.

00:37:43:22 - 00:37:44:24
And then we connect.

00:37:44:24 - 00:37:46:09
And that's such a great way to begin

00:37:46:09 - 00:37:48:06
any conversation is to go

00:37:48:06 - 00:37:50:15
we can laugh and smile and joke.

00:37:50:15 - 00:37:52:18
And now let's talk about something serious.

00:37:52:18 - 00:37:53:14
And I think you right.

00:37:53:14 - 00:37:57:20
I think that idea of kids being innocent is so prevalent.

00:37:57:20 - 00:38:03:09
But you can maintain innocence and safety and they're not mutually exclusive.

00:38:03:14 - 00:38:03:20
Yeah.

00:38:03:20 - 00:38:06:14
You can say to and child, if something someone does

00:38:06:14 - 00:38:10:06
this, you need to tell me without saying because they might do this and this

00:38:12:08 - 00:38:12:18
Yeah.

00:38:12:18 - 00:38:16:24
And so yeah, I don't think they're mutually exclusive at all really