Ladies, We Need To Talk

What does the manosphere and the rise of online misogyny mean for our relationships with boys and men? The Netflix drama Adolescence shows the violent consequences of being steeped in hateful messages about women. It follows 13-year-old Jamie, an incel, angry at the world because he's been sexually rejected by a girl. The show has started conversations about the real-world consequences of online m...

Charlotte's sugar daddy took her to the fanciest restaurant in Melbourne. Soraya's gave her a trust fund. Meet the attractive young women dating rich older men as Yumi Stynes peeks into the lives of sugar babies. Find out how the online sugar dating world (the sugar bowl) facilitates the kind of romance you pay for, and what can go wrong when sex mixes with money, wealth and power. Yes, there's a...

Great sex isn't inevitable. If you're a straight woman, chances are you've enjoyed far fewer orgasms than your sexual partner(s). And yes, we know, it's not just about the big O, but isn't it time the ladies got on equal frotting footing and closed the pleasure gap? Enter: Alyx Gorman. In her book All Women Want, Alyx investigates what makes for the best sex, how to get there, and how to communica...

If you think perimenopause is reserved for mid-life, think again. When other 20 and 30-somethings are out partying or decorating the nursery, how do you cope with night sweats, hot flashes, brain fog and a tired libido? What's it like to have the body of a young woman, filled with the hormones of someone decades older? Yumi Stynes meets women going through perimenopause far earlier than they expec...

What happens to your sex life in perimenopause? When Salt-N-Pepa wrote Let's Talk About Sex, they didn't get to that bit. Well, Yumi Stynes is here to update the lyrics! In this no-holds-barred episode she meets women who have experienced changes to their libido and sexual function during this phase of life and finds out what help is at hand. Yumi chats to women about what got them back in the gro...

Is perimenopause brain fog jamming up your workday? Are you constantly in a bad mood or irrationally angry at your kids who are only as annoying as usual? Is your memory failing you for the simplest words? Riding the hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause has a huge impact on our brains — from mood to memory, sleep to stress. Come hang with Yumi Stynes as she meets women convinced that they're lo...

Hot flashes. Night sweats. Aching joints. Sore boobs. Welcome to your body in perimenopause! In episode one of this four-part series, Yumi Stynes speaks to women in the thick of perimenopause and battling physical symptoms. She also sits down with Dr Susan Davis, endocrinologist and world-leading expert on sex hormones and ageing to learn the best treatments for bothersome symptoms and how look af...

Perimenopause: it's a huge physical, mental and sexual upheaval in a woman's life and yet, there's so much confusion as to how to make it through. Perimenopause is the months and years leading up to the last period, where a woman's hormones get feisty on their way down to retirement. This hormone fluctuation can lead to a range of symptoms, from hot flashes and night sweats to painful sex, mood sw...

What's it like to carry and give birth to a child for someone else? What compels a woman to take on something so profound? There's more to surrogacy than cooking a bun in an 'oven', it's complex as hell. In this episode Yumi Stynes meets women who have been surrogates and hears about the joy and the heartache the experience can bring. This episode contains references to surrogacy, family, baby, pa...

Babies. Some women know they want them, others know they absolutely don't, and then there are the women who find themselves trying to make the call one way or another before biology beats them to it. But how do you weigh up something so monumental? And can you ever be sure that you've made the "right" decision when it comes to starting a family? Yumi Stynes sits down with journalist and writer, Gi...

Our best friends are our ride-or-die, snort-laughing, crisis solving buttresses. But what happens when a friendship ends? In a romantic break-up, there's a cultural handbook instructing us all to sanctioned crying, bitching and ice-cream eating. Playlists, movies and a canon of literature are ready to validate the catastrophic pain of heartbreak. But with romantic break-ups, there aren't the same...

Swipe, date, sex, repeat. So went the life of Hope Woodard, constantly on the apps and looking for validation in the form of male attention. This perpetual cycle started from a young age and by the time she was in her mid-twenties, Hope was done. Done with terrible first dates. Done with being ghosted. Done with men. So, she set herself a challenge, to give up dating and sex for a year. Hope was g...

When Dr Rena Malik posted a video on her YouTube channel called 'Where's the G-Spot?', twelve million people tuned in to hear the answer. The urologist and sex educator has carved out a space as a reliable and trustworthy source of sex education. But Dr Rena hasn't always been so open. She grew up in an Indian family that didn't talk about sex, no sir. Then she went to medical school, where she le...

Menstruating. An ordinary bodily function. Like breathing or sweating or digesting, it's as natural as the hairs on our heads, period (pun intended). And even though there has been some progress in our openness in talking about periods, we're still largely a bit…grossed out. Yumi Stynes investigates the lingering shame around women's bleeding and speaks to women who are shifting the tide on how we...

Saggy boobs, leathery skin, becoming invisible... is getting older as grim as it sounds? Ageing presents a unique challenge to us ladies, and while there's no stopping gravity, there are things to be excited about — from giving less f#*@% to not being afraid to ask for what you want in the bedroom. Yumi Stynes gets the low-down on what the hell happens to our bodies, brains and spirits as we age a...

Mind-blowing. Intoxicating. Earth-shattering. Meet the women having the best sex of their lives after years on end of ho-hum humping. Yumi Stynes speaks to ladies who have levelled up their sex lives, learns how they made it to the promised land, and whether there's room for us all to join them. (R)  This episode contains references to sex, pleasure, vulva, intercourse, marriage, dating, divorce.

What if being single wasn’t a problem to be solved but a state of bliss? For some women, living without an “other half” is the key to being complete.   But even though more women than ever are single by choice, we live in a society that values couple-dom. Marriage and motherhood are still held up as the ultimate end goals. Single women are viewed with pity or worse, scorn. Living alone? Cue the la...

Cheers! For a lot of us alcohol is a reward after a hard day, a way to unwind, a key part of our celebrations, but our love of a drink comes at a cost.   Some women are regularly drinking at dangerous rates while others find it difficult to go without.   Beyond the hangover fuzz, booze can take a toll on our health and relationships. So why are we so keen on a drink despite knowing the risks? And...

Penny Moodie’s childhood was marked by catastrophic thoughts: that her parents would die in an accident, that she had contracted HIV, that she was pregnant, even though she’d never had sex.      These all-consuming anxieties wouldn't leave Penny, they occupied a huge part of her life, and she developed compulsions around them which she believed would keep her and the people she loved safe. 

Ahh Christmas, the festival of eating, drinking and cranky mums. Because in order to have the beautifully set table, thoughtful presents and delicious glazed ham, someone's got to prepare and plan it all. And that someone, is usually a woman, who, by 5pm, has had enough. Is there a Christmas elf who can help out? Or maybe it's time for blokes to step up and take on their fair share of the mental l...

Note: This episode contains explicit content. What is it like to be a professional dominatrix? To indulge in the power play between dominant and submissive for a living? In this special bonus episode, Yumi Stynes goes into a domme's dungeon to find out what really goes on beyond the whips and chains. She discovers a world that's full of power, sexual fantasy, pleasure and pain.

Note: This episode contains explicit content. Kink, or BDSM is often played out behind closed doors. Because it's hidden from view, there's an assumption that it's just a few people at the fringes who are into kink, while the majority of us have vanilla sex. But what if interest in kink was more common than you think? Yumi Stynes meets three women embracing their kinky side. From findom (financial...

Psychotherapist Esther Perel is one of the most influential thinkers on sex and relationships in the world. She helps us make sense of how we relate to the people around us and what it means to be intimate. Is intimacy just in the bedroom? Or can we have intimacy with our closest friends? How about with the guy at the coffee shop? And when we do disrobe and have sex with someone, how can we get wh...

It's no surprise your sex life takes a hit as a parent. You're thinly spread. There are so many things to manage in your head, from cutting up cucumbers to potty training and paying the plumber on time. Getting it on with a partner, or even by yourself drops down the priority list, below napping. Masturbation can seem like a laughable indulgence. Because when, oh when, does a sleep deprived mum wi...

Egg freezing is sold as a way for women to hack their fertility and buy some more time on the biological clock. Fertility companies are marketing the procedure as an insurance policy, but some experts argue it's better thought of as a lottery. Rates of egg freezing have almost doubled in recent years but the number of people coming back to use those eggs are staggeringly low and even then, there's...