This week Carla GS and I were celebrating that our podcast The Prude and the Pornstar had been nominated for Best Adult Podcast at the Australian Adult Industry Awards.
If you haven’t listened to it yet, The Prude and the Pornstar is a podcast about sex. The joke is that I’ve slept with more people than I can count, and Carla is a Christian mum from the burbs who was a virgin until her wedding night. We tackle all the taboo subjects from all aspects of people’s sex lives.
But it’s so much more than that. Really, it’s about two non-judgmental women from completely different worlds coming together to tackle the taboo subjects of sex and relationships.
The result is compassion, the promotion of empowerment to recognise and assert personal boundaries, and that it is ok to be different. And the feedback has blown us away. From insecure virgins, to those wanting to know if their fetishes are normal, it’s lifted the sheets on a community that has always been there.
I was expecting this show to be distasteful. I couldn’t have been more wrong…The content is extremely rude but they make it inclusive and judgement free and funny.
But the most beautiful thing about our podcast, if you ask me, is how it has captured the unlikely but true development of a real friendship. Carla and I confront our differences and through embracing them, we build each other up. We’ve become each others allies. Earlier this year when Carla was prude-shamed for her choice to maintain her virginity till marriage, I jumped in to defend her. Equally, when I get slut-shamed Carla has my back.
We are both strong women who recognize that there are many ways to tackle this thing called life, and whilst we could not be any more different, we champion each other.
So we were both shocked to see that some women have began a campaign to garner votes against our podcast by putting Carla and I down. Calling Carla and the team at Mamamia ‘Whorephobes’ – a word created by the Adult industry to mean anyone who detests whores – and calling me a ‘bully’ and a bad representative of the adult industry.
See the tweets..
I want to point out that we have concealed the author’s identities of these tweets. We want to call out and discuss behaviour, not shame the people who wrote that.
It saddens me when women seek to get ahead through pulling their competition down, or shaming others. This isn’t a dynamic that is unique to the adult industry. How often do we see women shamed for their choices to breast-feed or not? For the way they give birth? For what they wear, how they speak, their career and family choices?
We're still fighting for gender equality, as sex workers we're still fighting stigma. With so much to fight against surely we also don't need to also fight against each other?
Carla and I both want to see a world where as women we have each other's backs, where we embrace our differences and celebrate that we all have the right to make our own choices.
So if you love what were doing we would love you to vote for us. But equally, if you love what someone else is doing more then please vote for them. It is awesome that we have these moments in life to celebrate and recognize excellence.
And regardless of the outcome I know that Carla and I will be celebrating how far we’ve all come and the public contribution of so many great women.
You can vote for The Prude and The Pornstar to win Best Adult Podcast Here.
You can vote for Madison to win Best Sex Educator here.
And you can help Madison make history to be named Australia’s Best Pornstar for the 4th year in a row here.
And for more episodes of The Prude and the Pornstar, subscribe in itunes, or listen here: