Carla Crivaro : Bonobo Lessons For A Safer World

We ask what the world could look like if women organised power differently, using bonobo matriarchies as a surprising lens on violence, safety and social cohesion. Carla Crivaro  joins us to talk boundaries, reclaiming sensuality and building coalitions that make women safer and stronger in daily life. 
• stepping away from constant news to reduce helplessness and rebuild agency 
• creating change through individual empowerment and local ripple effects 
• reframing “difficult” as a sign of boundaries and self-respect 
• learning from bonobo matriarchy and female coalitions that stop aggression 
• how shame around women’s sexuality functions as social control 
• distinguishing inner sensuality from sexualisation and the invasive male gaze 
• responding to inappropriate attention by staying grounded and turning questions back 
• workplace sisterhood as practical activism, including women backing younger colleagues 
• building community through Carla’s Sister Sanctuary and in-person events 
stay connected, follow the hell out of all of us and come and join our communities. 
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Transcript

Welcome And Big Question

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Say It Sister, the podcast where women speak truth, challenge power, and imagine what's possible when we lead from heart and truth. We are your co-hosts, Kevin Hellas Helly and Lucy Farkas, two friends, fellow coaches, women, empowerment experts, mothers, and just everyday women. So today we are joined by an incredible woman who I met whilst on a Zoom call discussing how women can shift this BS world that we are living in. You know, we were talking about the violence epidemic, uh, the manosphere, war, all the lies, the files, you know, everything was out there. And Carla Bravely was one of the first women to show up and speak up and say, I have something to say on this. Um and it was amazing. In those five minutes, um, she really captured my imagination. I thought, yeah, I need to follow this woman and make contact. Or since I've learned that Carla is a trauma-informed sex, love and relationship coach. Um, and you know, she really does brilliant work. Um, her five minutes really focused on the bonobo monkeys, uh, the matriarchal setup, um, which is totally the opposite of chimps, that were studied and confirmed that patriarchy is clearly the natural order of things. Um, so it kind of led us to thinking about that question: what if women really did rule the world? What would violence, safety, power look like if we organised ourselves differently?

Stop Doomscrolling Find Local Power

SPEAKER_01 1:42

We hope to talk about our anger as fuel for change, learning from the bonobos, who we share 98.7 DNA with, and who have thrived in matriarchy and really have a something to say about male violence and why reconnecting to our sexuality and sisterhood could be the key to creating safer, wiser communities. So, welcome, Carla. What called you into the Zoom that night? And tell us more about how you arrived at the work you're doing right now.

Being Difficult As A Boundary

SPEAKER_00 2:12

So, what called me into the Zoom was I had I'd I'd literally written a few days before my article, If Women Led the World Lessons from Bonobos, um, and people can find that on my website. Um, and I was um, and you know, I really wanted to get this information out, not just you know, for me to be able to support people locally, but I just was really seeing a vision that if lots of different pockets of women did this internationally, then you know, that's how we can make the change. Because what I was noticing was in myself, you know, my personal um the way that so I cut off from all news um just before COVID happened a few years ago, um, and I noticed like immediately a massive shift in my um in how I felt about myself. So not knowing everything that's going on all the time in the world and only just being, you know, um aware of pockets of information felt more empowering rather than knowing everything that's happening all the time. Um, and especially as COVID hit, it was a per, you know, it was a few months before that, it was a perfect time. So I sailed through COVID quite well, I think, in part um due to the fact that I wasn't constantly bombarded with all the messaging. And what I noticed in that time and also in my own evolution was when we are looking at things on a global scale, and you know, I've even said this to my children as well, you know, when when we're looking at sort of um pollution, those sorts of things, if we try and look at it on a big scale and we feel extremely helpless, we feel powerless, and it puts us into like a freeze response because it's just too much, it becomes too much. The idea of it becomes so big that we almost collapse and we freeze because it's just not possible. And it's like, what if instead that we look at the things that we are capable of doing initially individually? So how I as a woman can change how I show up in the world just by being me will inspire other women, but also when I'm you know empowered in myself, when I'm confident, when I am sure of who I am, and I can voice that when and I can you know um express that to people immediately in my community, you know, family members, then I am impacting the world, you know. I'm impacting it in a small way, but the more individual people do that, the more of a ripple effect that that we can create. And so I really wanted I want by joining that Zoom, my my goal was to say, you know, you're not powerless, like the power is within you. And if every I think there are like 200 women on that call, if each of those individual women went away and did her own internal work, that would affect the community around her automatically. Because when we no longer when we no longer um allow people to treat us in a way that's um unkind, when we no longer allow people to put us down, um, you know, are um uh you know that that don't show us respect, all of those different things. We're no longer enabling those people in their behavior. So we have a like responsibility almost to stop people from being destructive, unhealthy, and toxic. We ourselves have a responsibility to prove to no longer enable that behavior. And the way that we do that is by how we ourselves manage our our own energy and our own interactions and relationships with with those people around us. And you know, so many women grow up with this, you know, this indoctrination almost of like, keep quiet, be a good girl, don't stand out. And you know, I'm here to say something that was said to me so often when I was younger is that I was difficult. Oh, you know, you'll struggle in relationships, Carla, because you're difficult. And you know, as I've unraveled that over the decades, literally, you know, what I've come to understand is me asking for anything is difficult. Me saying no and not complying to other people's needs is difficult. So it's actually, no, what if I choose to be difficult, you know? And I'm not, you know, I want to be clear that I'm not saying go out in the world and just be hard work for the sake of it, but it's like, you know, not worrying about that label is difficult and actually seeing that, you know, label as a place of empowerment that actually are making other people feel uncomfortable, and that's not a bad thing because when people feel uncomfortable and when they feel challenged, then that's the opportunity that they have for growth, you know, they have a choice to either continue on the same path or go, hang on a minute, this person has challenged me. I feel really uncomfortable. You know, I need to look at myself and do something differently.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, it's it's definitely bringing something up in me because I feel like the inner knowing piece, like when I know who I am and I continue to do my own work, and that's every single day, I know that when I'm out in the world, I have this almost like space around me that is filled with a deep sense of knowing. And so if somebody comes towards me and com and tries to compromise that, then I'm not gonna give them what they want. I'm actually going to hold my sense of self and my own inner knowing and think, actually, this doesn't feel right. Like the messages that I'm getting from this person don't sit with my truth about who I am because I've done all this work, you know, I'm I'll be 50 very soon, and I'm like, I've got 50 years of untangling the nonsense, the things that people have told me I am, to go actually, no, this is who I am, I know who I am, and this is what I stand for. And everything that you're saying is the work that my myself and Lucy do personally, professionally, with other women, um, and educating as well, because I feel like when we know who we are, and I've seen this happen many times before when someone says, I know who I am, that story is your story, it's not my story, and I'm not gonna take that from you, I'm gonna continue with my own, and it it feels different, and also sometimes it can be hard because we're sort of standing in our truth every single day, and we are going to get challenged from the outside world who's gonna say to us, actually, no, that's not who you are, this is who you are, or maybe this is who you should be, you know, and it can be it can get confusing, but I definitely, definitely feel like the more we can sort of dig in, it's like if somebody said to me, You are stupid, I'd be like, No, I'm not, you know, like I'm not stupid. I'm I I um I have wisdom, you know, I know that about myself. So it they wouldn't really get me on that, they might get me on something else where if I was working through something and I thought actually I'm not sure about that part of myself, then I become a bit more of a you know, easier sort of target. But I definitely think this is about helping women to just go, like you said, back into themselves and come deeper in and just be like, hold on, I've got some fundamental truths here, and if I focus on that every single day, I'm gonna be in a pretty good place.

Bonobos Sex And Social Cohesion

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Oh, and it's so liberating to be in this place, honestly. Um I I was reflecting on um uh the relationship I've I've got with my mum now, and if you'd have spoken to me 10 years ago, we had a very different relationship because I allowed the the criticisms, the judgment, you know, the the the mothering, um, you know, because I was mothered in the 80s and it was a very different kind of mothering back then. And um, and over the last 10 years, since I've been doing the work on myself, I've absolutely stood my ground and I know who I am, and I'm not looking for that validation. What I want is the validation of the woman that I am now, and I have pushed back, I've said no, I've challenged things with her in a gentle way. Sometimes it got a bit tough, and um, we then had to have conversations about what happened there. And honestly, yesterday, you know, um at the point of recording, yesterday was Mother's Day, and we spent time together with my youngest daughter, and it was the most wholesome, beautiful um occasion, just like coffee, you know, in a nice coffee shop. But it was because there everything in the relationship had changed because I had done the work on myself and I had had the boundaries, and now she was able to just be a woman next to me rather than trying to change me. Um, and that's why I say everything is better on the other side of standing up for who you are. It absolutely, Carlo, it's the word empowering. So I want to hear because the the spark that came up was about the bonobos. Now I'd actually listen to another bloke talk about this, and he's a genius, and I found him on Instagram, and he was talking about this. So I then went into a bit of a um a rabbit hole of like what's this all about? And then you spoke about it. I was like, yes, somebody, another woman talking about this. So over to you. Talk about what you have learned about um these amazing sisters of ours.

Shame Control And Toxic Men

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Um, so well, the very first time I came across the bonobos was a few years ago when I started doing my training to be a sex and relationship coach, and I read the book Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan, and it opened up my world because that was the first time that I had had come across bonobos, and he looked at all the various different primates. Um, just to let people know, I'm not a primatologist, so you know, I'm just taking information that you know the researchers themselves have found and all of these different things. So, um, and I'm just relaying that information um and applying it to what I see um with regards to humans and our potential of where we could go. So, and in Christopher Ryan's X at Dawn, he's looking at you know the biology of human beings um and the um evolutionary sort of like journey that we've taken, looking at how we were before the agricultural revolution, how we were afterwards, you know, before the agricultural revolution, we were more tribal, you know, women were considered more promiscuous, um, and this was a way to create cohesion. It was also a way, you've probably heard the phrase, it takes a village to raise a child. And so, one of the one of the reasons that we are able to carry babies um, you know, that and and then birth them too, that basically they're too young for what they would be compared to other mammals. And so, because they are so fragile, we need other people around us to be able to support and help us. One of the theories is the way that we were able to do this, you know, pre-agricultural revolution, was because we were so promiscuous, we didn't know who the father was. It was in the benefit of the tribe to ensure that the babies were looked after and nurtured. The problem is now with the system that we've got, you know, that the nuclear family, which has basically created ownership of women, is you know, that the we are it's it's not a natural way of being. And so many mothers nowadays so struggle, feel very, very isolated, can't breastfeed, you know, don't birth properly, all of the problems that then, you know, start the trauma at birth. Because if you go to, you know, anybody, you know, they'll always ask you what was your birth like, you know, because that's the sign of like the first elements of trauma. And so, you know, you have all of these different threads together, and what what they were showing with the bonobos in this book, Sex at Dawn, and also in another lady called Wednesday Martin, she also looked at bonobos as well, why women are naturally promiscuous. Um, and they were they were both showing that like the hypersexualization of female bonobos helps to create social cohesion, so it helps to create a really good um um emotional social support within each other, um, you know, and this was really big eye-opener because it was like if we removed the labels around and the oppression around women's sexuality, and women were able to fully express in a healthy way that feels true to them, their own sexuality, um, how different the world would be. Because when I think about the women that I know that have done their internal work around their sexuality, when you can ask for what you want in the bedroom and when you can say what you don't want, like the everything else you can ask for, you know. The women that I've worked with and supported them, you know, in asking for what they want and saying what they don't want, some of those have had trauma, specific, you know, childhood abuse, or maybe they've been raped, some of them haven't, but they have just been indoctrinated by society. When thomen do that work, they go and ask for the prey rise, they go and leave the job and set up their own business. Because when the part of us that's been taught to take the shame, you know, women's sexuality has been shamed so much, and that is to control us, you know, because like I said, an untamed woman is a woman that's going to speak up for herself, and and a strong man, a man who's secure in himself is not intimidated by a woman who's connected to her sexuality, but a man with low self-esteem, because I work with men and women in my practice, so men that I see that have low self-esteem, that don't have high self-worth, that they themselves have a lot of shame, wear lots and lots of masks, aren't showing the real person that they are. They tend to choose women who are socially attractive, socially behave in a way that's conformative because they need somebody that reflects, you know, their own insecurity to protect them. So, you know, not necessarily a trophy partner or a trophy wife, but somebody who's going to you should say, look, I've made it. This is I, you know, I've chosen somebody that's socially acceptable. And so any guy who ever asks you anything related to your body count, who shames you for your sexuality, like that is a really big like no, because they're gonna control you in other areas of your life in some way. How you know, how you dress, what you do, he's gonna compete with you for you know how well you're doing at work, you know, if your business flies or if you get a promotion, he's not gonna be able to deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

But a healthy are you describing my own because I've been there yeah, I've been there and um they so both uh I've had two major adult relationships in my life. Um the first one I was um married by 22, and it was a very childish relationship. We thought we were grown up um and we were playing at uh at marriage, and so but uh well I was always very ambitious, the career woman, and he just wanted to drift a bit. Um, and you know, it fell apart, we're still friends, you know, fine. And then I met somebody who was really attracted to my power, my social status, um, my ability to network, and you know, I I was the woman that you almost described, and bit by bit by bit, he he felt demasculated by it. And for a long time, I I fought against it. I never gave in, but it took me a long time to walk away. And it was comments like loads of different comments, like if we'd go out, he would then say, Well, because of what you were wearing or the way that you smiled, those men were looking at you, and I'm I would be like, So they were looking at me, so what? But it just would eat him alive, and it would, and yeah, I was his trophy to start off with, and then I became his emasculation. Um, so it is so common, it is everywhere because of the messaging and their trauma, our trauma, the conditioning. But my uncle said something to me um just last week about some there are in my mum's village, there are some feral children, um, they keep getting in in uh trouble with the law, um, graffiti, burning stuff, you know, the the asbo kids. And my uncle made a comment that was, well, they're from single mums, um, she's got about six kids, God knows how many fathers. And I was like, wow, where's the father? Where's the father? Exactly. And we have no idea whether there's one father, there's five fathers, but regardless, yeah, where are they showing up and being good role models? Um, or you know, the the comments about, oh, well, she's got daddy issues. Well, what did he do to give her his daughter issues? And it is constantly about that. But also, when you start thinking about it, well, actually, if we were these monkeys and we had lots of children and we lived in a really healthy society, well, surely we would want, well, all of the children would be all of our children, and we wouldn't know who the mothers or the fathers were, they would just be the community's children, and we would feel so differently about that.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

And also the the the element with the the bonobos, so so when you look at like the chimpanzees, we're a patriarchal society, then there's a lot of male aggression towards um females, sexual uh aggression as well towards females, but also a lot of infanticide, they kill children, and obviously we've seen you know the things that have happened in within the. Was that with the chimpanzees? Did you say with the chimpanzees, yeah? But with the bonobos instead, and this was the thing that I was bringing up on the Zoom, you know, the the female bonobos, the moment that a male is becomes aggressive, the females come together, they create a mini coalition. Sometimes some other men join the women, but it's the females that start it first, and they placate, you know, that the male, and the as far as the researchers have found, and this was researched back in April 2025. That so it's it's reasonably fresh, this like patriarchal, matriarchal society, and and and you know how how they're living in that in that sense. Um, but yeah, the this this information shows us like the opportunity that we as as humans have that you know, as women we we could create coalitions. My vision, my personal vision is you know, obviously, I've already mentioned work women working on their own sexuality because if you can be shamed for your sexuality, you can be controlled. So doing our own healing work to let go of that, and I'm not saying you have to go and have sex with loads of people because that might not be you, that whatever's true for you, but are you living your sexual life to its fullest in the way that's true for you? You know, are you connected to your wildness? Can you even keep your eyes open during sex? You know, because I have lots of female clients that sort of lie there passively, you know, and it's like, are you involved? Are you asking for what you want? Are you, you know, actually present in it? Um, and then you know, creating these connections amongst women, you know, the the witches trials are one of those things that helped really create that disconnection between women and and you know, have that competition and put us against each other, and then also, you know, um. Uh, when when we look at needing a man for our own survival, you know, women had to compete to get men's attention, and you know, I don't I'm not aware of, and I'm more than happy for someone to send me a message. I'm not aware of anywhere in the animal kingdom where it's women competing for men, it's the other way around, it's the men showing off with their beautiful feathers, it's the men doing the thing to get the female's attention. It's only that I'm aware of, and like I said, happy to be corrected. Um, you know, only with humans have we sort of put it the other way around. And so, you know, what I'm saying is if we as women come together, we are actually stronger. And the way that I imagine this looking is so say, for example, I'm gonna use um the the the um the legal industry as an example because I know that there's a huge amount of sexual harassment that goes on um in law firms. Um and so, and also in the financial industry, I'm aware of that that there being a lot, and so if as women we support each other, so oftentimes these harassments tend to happen to the younger women, there's no surprise that the beauty industry makes us dislike the youth and resent the youth, then says women, you know, that are older, you know, you're not enough, you need to look younger, then we project that feeling onto the younger women, again, creating that disconnection. But if we can do that work to our ourselves to see the wisdom and the health in our maturity, you know, and love that part of ourselves. When that young, you know, internship, um, that young intern is is harassed by one of the male colleagues, you know, we go to HR, they don't do anything. But if we know that there are other women at the firm who will turn around and say to him, stand up to him, and they come together and say, Don't speak to her like that, don't touch her like that. What you're doing is inappropriate and call him out on it. And there's a group of women, it's so much more difficult for him to continue working.

Sensuality Versus The Male Gaze

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I have an amazing example of this that happened just last week. Um, I won't name the company, uh, but it was a um a manufacturing company, and they brought me in to do an empowerment workshop for International Women's Day, so it's um yeah, last week. And it's the first time that women have come together to actually share experiences. Last year, I think it was the cupcakes and you know, the purple everywhere. This year we we designed it so it would be real conversations, real empowerment. And um, there were the younger members who were in their early careers, and then there were some formidable women who were in their, you know, their I'd say their per perimenopausal wisdom. And um at the end, I asked them, you know, um to get into small groups and just share one piece of activism or an action that they could take as a result of today. And one woman stood up and she literally just started the company and she said, There's a picture out there of a scantily clad woman draped over a car and it's framed and it's you know, it's there to look artistic. She said, It was the first image I saw when I walked into the building. And then another woman turned around and said, Yes, when that went up, I felt that same rage. And one by one by one, they all started to speak up and say, This is wrong. And literally, they went and got a screwdriver and they took the damn picture down, and you could see the awe of the younger women looking at these older women and just going, Wow, can we act like that? and they all came together, and it wasn't violent, it wasn't extreme, they just took action because they they came together, it was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

The thing I want to say is that there's something about women being sexualized for an image, and there's something about women feeling their sensuality from the inside of their bodies. It's two very different things. Um, I grew up, you know, page three was everywhere. It was like, you know, sitting in rooms with people looking at page three, reading the newspapers. It sent a really bad, bad sort of message through through to me as a young girl that actually women's bodies were there to be looked at. Now I I feel like now that I'm you know in my sort of mid-life phase, it's like this marrying that needs to happen on the inside that I'm still working with personally, where I think I am a sensual being, I I am a woman, but I don't want to be sexualized in any way, shape, or form. And when I think about it, you know, if I really, really think about it, when I'm in that sexual energy that I have, that I've always had, uh because I am quite a sensual being, I attract and when I but I don't always attract what I want to attract. And so this has been a bit of a battle for me because I know I've you know when I'm working, when I'm doing my thing, when I'm not thinking about anything particular but just doing the work, this energy comes through me and it's very, very, very powerful. If I'm with women, it's a very safe place. Now, when you add men to that room, for me, the dynamics change and I start to feel like I'm not actually that safe anymore, and that I have to sort of shut that bit down. So this has been something and I've I've you know I've seen it in different rooms, I've seen the magneticness of the energy that comes out of me. And actually, I'm at a place in my life where I'm just not able to go there. You know, if I was with women, I would totally be in that energy. But if you put some men in the room and they're sort of moving towards me, that that is being shut down. So this is a battle that I have internally from my own life experiences. You know, I I see the distinction between that's a sexualization, this is like pure energy, pure woman energy coming through. Can't quite marry the two things together. So, what would you say to that, Carla?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

It's interesting because I did I did a I did a video, so I did like um I I was having some uh like burlesque or like some type of like sexy dance lessons, and the song that I had on that that we danced to was I Bet You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me. And so I purposely did this Instagram video, like dancing provocatively to I Bet You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me. And the caption or what also on the video was I Bet You Wish Your Girlfriend was hot like me. Read the caption to find out why she's not, and and basically I said exactly that like women have this desire to be sensual, to be sexual, to do all of that for themselves, but it's that creepy male gaze that feels invasive and non-consensual that shuts women down. Um, and so then they don't want to do that because of the unwanted attention. And so and so there are two parts to this. One, you know, men need to learn to contain their own energy, and there are men teaching other men how to do that. That's something that I work with with men as well. Um, but I find that men tend to dominate that message better in what sense it's domination.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I feel like you know, if you've got their energy coming, they want like it's a feeling of I want to dominate her, like ownership, patriarchal power. Like that is that's a system that we live in. So the education is really, really important to say, you know, like this isn't about dominating women, this is about you know working with women, this is about honouring each other. It's it's very, very different to uh what I often see when you've got men leering at you, um, or or the young women, for example, as I'm getting older, you know, I I see them, you know, a seat more towards other young girls on the streets, and I just think this is just awful, and actually it's getting worse.

Staying In Power With Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Sorry, I cut you off there, but domination is kind of just I prefer to separate domination to domineering because domination, you know, especially when you're looking at it from like a power perspective, is is is is a power dynamic where there's permission for somebody to dominate over somebody. The other side of that is domineering, so it's like somebody who without consent is trying to take somebody else's power away from them. Um, and so the way that I like like to encourage and empower women is when you feel connected to your own sense of power as well as connected to your own sensuality, when a man comes towards you, you don't shut down. You're able to like, you know, from from that place of you know your own internal sense of domination, able to turn around and and stop that. Because, you know, the photos that I have that I use for my social media, um, you know, it's a lot of the content, of course, I get a lot of unwanted comments. And so, you know, rather than like getting angry or upset, I ask questions and put the focus back on them and make them feel uncomfortable because they, you know, ask ask the questions, you know, send me very extremely inappropriate messages. But the moment that I turn it round and you know, and I say something like, you know, is this appropriate to send to a woman on LinkedIn? Where do you think, you know, where do you think that why why do you think that this is a suitable message to send? And you know, asking those questions, putting it back on them, then then they're the ones that all of a sudden are, ah, you know, but when I think when as women, when we when we act uh uh aggressively and we show our um our anger or our hurt or we shut down or we fawn, I think then that almost is is gives gives the power back to them because they've got the reaction in some way. So it's like you know, staying true to myself, dealing with my emotion, and then putting it back on them. And that I look, you know, the amount of men that all of a sudden obviously realize that they're not gonna be able to make me feel shameful, not I'm not gonna play along with it, all of a sudden, like you know, they they they uh they delete that they they block their account from me because it's like, oh my god, you know, I bring them absolute discomfort. When I first started doing the work that I do and he used to get those sorts of messages, I would try and get try to get them to see what they were doing wrong, or try to educate them, or get angry, or get upset, or just immediately block them, or whatever it might be. Um, but then that encouraged it almost even more, you know. Some people that you would block them on on one platform and then they'd find you on another. Um, but I don't get that now. When I put it back on them, it's completely different, and so it's learning as women to stay connected to our sensuality and stay connected to our power, and it's like my sensuality is mine for me. You know, it's it's my creativity, it's my way of listening to myself, you know, because you were talking right at the beginning of um, you know, not listening to yourself. I can't remember how you were phrasing it, but just doing things for other people, and you know, quite often one of the reasons that we do that is we've stopped listening to ourselves. So we don't first of all we don't know who we are, and then we stop listening to that person of who we are, we've been disconnected from that, and so coming back to my sensuality is for me, it's not performative for somebody else, it's all mine, and I'm and I'm really true in in who I am, and I can have really good boundaries as well.

Where To Find Carla And Closing

SPEAKER_02 33:57

That's sexy, you know. You feel sexy when you're in that power, but again, you don't have to give it away. But I also um something that you uh came up in the conversation um about uh I think like Karen had said it, um, about the well, no, it was actually you saying about educating men um that comes into it. And I've just got to say to anybody out there, there is nothing sexier or more attractive in like in that dating phase when a man says, Tell me, how can I pleasure you? You know, because it is just phenomenal that actually they're not thinking about I want to dominate you to get what I want out of it. It's actually I want to give you a really good time, tell me how. And that for me, that always makes me just like go, yeah, I'm in for this. Um, however, I've always been really open and honest with this. I've been um consciously celibate for eight years now, um, because I needed to do the work on myself without that distraction of the male gaze and centering men. And and it has been transformative because actually I have spent my last eight years in community, in coalition with other women, and they have probably taught me more about my own sensuality, my own adoration for my curves and for my smile and the twinkle in my eye. Um, because I've been able to safely express it and dance and move with other women in safety without going out into town and practicing it and then just getting leered by a load of men. So just to kind of like bring it full circle, something about in the safety of being with other women who have got women who have got women's backs, it is just the most freeing and empowering thing. Um, and so I'm with you, Carla. Um, I want the I want the women to come together because it is it will change the world. I want to be a monkey. So we are at the end of our podcast. Um and it's it's been phenomenal. I mean, literally, this is the stuff that gets both me and Karen thinking and excited and exploring everything. So I'm so glad that we are finally getting a proper conversation. Um, it will spark conversations and thoughts and reflections in other women. So before I sign off, can you just tell people where do you where do you hang out most? Where are you most responsive?

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Okay, so the best place is my website, just because Meta is, you know, there's a lot of censorship on Meta. I don't know if you're aware, but LinkedIn is I have I've changed my gender on LinkedIn to male and I avoid using women. So, you know, LinkedIn also is reasonably restrictive. So the best content, because I do, you know, do a lot of writing is um is on my website. So that's the best place to get like different ideas and thoughts and support like with free resources and stuff like that. I am on um, like I said, LinkedIn and Facebook on Instagram, the.sexuality.sanctuary. But as I was saying before, you know, this idea of like growth and empowerment of women and bringing women together to support each other. Um, I have started building a community called the Sister Sanctuary, which has a profile on um Instagram, the.sister dot sanctuary. Um, and it's basically a platform within um my CRM system where I put events not only run by myself but by other women who are supporting women in their own growth and development. And so women in the northwest of England, so at the moment it's only in the northwest of England. So women in that area that are looking to connect with other women, that are looking to do events and workshops, or just even meet up. So some of the things range from free to paid events. So women who are looking to meet other women, who are looking to develop their own sense of empowerment, um, and have really been inspired, I would say, by this conversation are welcome to join the Sister Sanctuary. To join that, it's completely free. Some events that are on there are paid for, and then some are uh free as well.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Oh, that sounds amazing! Well, we are going to go and stalk you, and actually, I've um although we'd only met on um this Zoom call, I've actually been connected with you on uh LinkedIn for some or following you at least for a while, um, and I've seen some of those comments that you get. Um, so it's very interesting in that respect. But yeah, huge uh respects for you. Um so yeah, today's conversation has reminded us that women grow together when they gather, they lead together, they are powerful, they are empowered, they are sexy, sensual women. We have wounds we are there to create. Um, but it's not easy in the world that we live. So we are imagining a different way. The conversations are being had in Zoom rooms, in coffee shops, in these events, on our own peer to peer groups. Um stay connected, follow the hell out of all of us and come and join our communities. And of course, subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Until next time, say it's sister.