Shon Faye
Appearances
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
we were making kind of these emergency laws around the risk of coronavirus. Again, there was a lot of assumptions made about how people conduct their private lives. And also, I mean, like I'm a member of the LGBT community, right?
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Like, so I'm also, to me, I'm acutely aware that for some people, their love lives have been highly politicized, criminalized by the state, denied the opportunities for legal equality compared to other people. So yeah, We don't normally think, I think, of our love lives, particularly our romantic love lives, as political. We think of them almost as a refuge, like this is my private life.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
You close the door and, you know, the political world shut out. But that's, I just don't think that's true.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Yeah, totally. I mean, I think it goes beyond even dating apps, which are obviously the most... visible, like a spearhead of that. But like I would go so far as to say that a lot of consumerism, the message that's attached is you will become more lovable or at the very least more desirable.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
So for women, it's kind of obvious it might be the cosmetics industry, various other things, beauty, fashion. But for men too, and I think increasingly for men and younger men, But there's a whole kind of influencer infrastructure, you know, some of it quite misogynist, some of it less so about, you know, go to the gym. This is how you lead a life. This is how you access sex.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
This is how you access desirability. And a lot of this is designed to sell people stuff and to make money. And it's selling people the idea of you will access this thing called love.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Yeah, and I think it's a difficult conversation to have because you can look at it with different lenses, right? And I think it can be quite antagonistic to look at it sometimes from a feminist lens because quite rightly, a lot of women will be like, well, I've been lonely and I don't want to become this raving misogynist. It's a valid point, right?
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Yeah, exactly. No, I think that's so true. And almost, yeah, that like women are almost like a patriarchal spoil. Like, oh, you know, they're not getting the partnership they want. I tend to think the differences between men and women in a binary are not. Due to, you know, there are some aspects of biology, but like a lot of the behavioral stuff is about the social experience.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And I think we're not so different. But one of the things I always think about masculinity and being raised male, being raised as a boy is like how much... pressure there is to cut off parts of yourself that are vulnerable. And I think that really inhibits... Because the answer isn't just that men are lonely because they're not having enough girlfriends or sexual opportunities.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
It's also that a lot of male... are undernourishing or non-existent. I mean, I have this particular experience, right? Like I went to an all-boys school, which was pretty traumatic, to be honest.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
But one of the things that I kind of remember so much about like being like 13 or 14 in this like very crucible of like sort of emergent masculinity is you're only really allowed to like take the piss out of each other. You're only allowed to like, that's how friendship is expressed. There isn't much space there.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
for a lot of boys and men to be like vulnerable and to actually talk about their internal worlds with each other. And then when you combine that with this idea that status and power and domination and sex are the ways that you show you're a man, I think you have a real recipe. So like the trouble is, is I think the heart of the problem is
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
how we raise children to be boys and men, because I think we, societally, can do a lot of damage.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Yeah, I mean, it's certainly the business model, right? Like it isn't designed to be deleted. And in fact, you know, there is also a gamification. Like, you know, I'm on dating apps at the moment and it is like I've just written this book and then I'm sat there being like, maybe if I pay for the upgrade, I'll be able to go through and I'll get a better crop of men. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Because I'll be able to see who's like me. And then I can fit... Because the more you pay, the more filters you get. Because I'm like, well, if I pay an extra four quid a month, I can filter men that only want a relationship, not ones that just want casual sex. Right. So there is a gamification where it's like, well... you know, in for a penny, in for a pound, literally.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Sure, it's built in and I wouldn't deny that. I do think I have to sort of factor in here, though, that also we've experienced huge societal change around relationships. And while dating apps, certainly there is a commercial incentive to keep people lonely. I also think it's broader than that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
I think it's the fact that, you know, our working lives, the cost of living, the precarity of the way that we like work and the jobs market and the instability of even like housing. I think about London, where we all are. For young people, I mean, is it actually forces these extreme choices where I either know people that are living with a partner after knowing them two months because...
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
You can't afford to not. Or, you know, there's also the kind of anxieties that come with you don't have this like roadmap of like, you know, then I'm going to be stable in my job by the time I get to my late 20s and I'll be able to buy a house or whatever. And so people are potentially in a permanent state of adolescence to a certain degree by the economy.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
That's one other factor on top of all the tech that we use around dating. The other is... I think is this changing expectations of women around partnership, where you touched on it earlier, where you were like, well, I don't think we should have to date these men. And I think that that's the point, right? Is that like my grandmother, she, once you got married, that was it.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Good or bad, you stuck with it. Like, and if you marry, my mum said this, if you married a wrong and, you know, it would be like... That would be it till someone dies. And then like, you know, for my mother's generation, my mum was a single mum and divorced my dad in the 90s. And there's a peak of divorce in the UK from the 70s to the 90s.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And now divorce rates have actually fallen, but that's because less people get married. And now I think what we're left with, perhaps for millennials and Gen Z, particularly for, you know, in heteronormative dynamics with women is women, you know, for a long time now have not needed financial dependence on a man.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And there isn't the same level of social pressure on you need to be married and in this established kind of partnership.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
we're going full socialist now. Like the wealth inequality in the UK is like so egregious and it's only getting worse. And I think one of the reasons for a falling birth rate is the fact that like younger people cannot see how it's financially viable to have children. And until that changes, you're not going to change that.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
There's also the fact that we're not doing, like even the stuff that we're not doing anything about the climate. Like, you know, I'm not saying that that governs everyone's decision or not, but there is a general sense of, political nihilism that has been relentless.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Like if you think if you, you know, people who are like 10 years younger than me, like Gen Z or whatever, like all they've known is austerity and nothing getting better ever and no input into the kind of social safety net. I was a child of a single mother in the 90s, which basically, like, It's so funny now because there's a panic around the falling birth rate.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
But like, you know, single mothers in the 90s, it was basically like it was their fault and that we should be penalising them. These irresponsible women on feckless fathers.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
given me like it's like an acid reflux like it's this horrible memory sort of lurching up in my body single mums was almost like culturally it was almost like a slur that people would throw around yeah totally the other thing to say as well is that we haven't like remotely addressed with all whatever feminist progress there has been things like domestic violence which is actually so endemic and I think like all of us
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
often forget because it's so normalised about how prevalent it is. There has been very little redress of that. And in fact, it's, you know, again, refuge places, support services around domestic violence and family trauma and social services. I'm from a family of social workers. And I can tell you like child protection, like when the family unit goes wrong, there is nothing.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
There's so little, like they're just firefighting all the time. So for me, we would need to improve people's basic income, have like a properly furnished social network, not create socially stigmatizing narratives about alternative family units, whether that's LGBT people, single mothers, whatever. trans people.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And then alongside that also like provide like actual support for when, you know, love isn't there in people's families and when the society we live in, I say in the book, it's a profoundly sick and loveless society. It's kind of an obvious point, but like hatred is actually... is increasingly just very, very validated and like hatred and anger gets you ahead.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
We're increasingly losing a space for the idea of compassion. You're made a laughingstock off for even talking about that as a serious political principle.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
In the book, I look at like being a trans woman, right? Like for most of the 2010s, one of the kind of online hubs of transphobia and really like big mobilization of anti-trans groups and some of the most prominent taking to the streets anti-trans campaigners. actually kind of got radicalized on a website called Mumsnet. It's a parenting forum.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And like, I think it serves, you know, a function for a lot of parents. But I think it's something like 90% women, so mostly mums. But yeah, like on certain corners of that, it became like this hub. And like basically any pro-trans point was shut down. Mums of trans kids were... basically bullied off the website and it basically became this. Now, is that coincidence?
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And what I was interested in, and it's kind of a, for me, like a microcosm of the general problem that you're talking about. Because in America, there's a lot of right-wing groups that use moms in the title. Moms for Liberty. Right. Yeah, One Million Moms. And they're like these like essentially far-right groups. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a link? Why Mumsnet?
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
I guess what they would say is that motherhood is a point where you're radicalized and they're like, well, we're not going to accept this like denial of biology by the trans cult or whatever they say. The reality, I think, is that actually you find quite a lot of women on parenting forums who have lost their identity or feeling quite unsupported, often whether they have a partner or not.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
There's even these studies that show like men think they're doing 50 percent and they're not. So a lot of women who have young children are on these parenting forums and perhaps, I argue, feeling quite resentful. Resentful at maybe
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
suppress resentment at their own partner, resentful at like the fact that society does this bait and switch with motherhood where like there's a lot of pressure on women to do it. And then when they do it, it's kind of like, well, get on with it. And if you're a bad mother, that's your fault. And if you fuck your kids up, that's your fault.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Andrea Dworkin, the sort of radical second wave feminist kind of said that like, Women often can't express their resentment against the men closest to them. So they deflect it. Right wing women will deflect it onto people of color or lesbians in the 70s. And I think that's a good example of like how motherhood is used.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Like lots of motherhood was so used in Trump's recent campaign because it's this idea, particularly white motherhood. Right. It's like we've got to protect white children from the threat, whatever the threat is at any given generation. Right.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Literally. I was about to say, when I said in every generation, I was like, but it's usually the same way. It doesn't vary that much. It doesn't feel that abstract. As we sit at this table, it does not feel that abstract to me. Yeah, I mean, fair observation. But it's clever, right? Because anyone who's a parent, you know, the protection of young people is a sort of noble aim.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And a lot of parents will have a very real fear. The fear of like children being harmed is a very natural fear, but it's also one that's easily manipulated. Yeah, and with far-right movements, you know, it has a long history of, like, it's good for, you know, recruiting women, and it's also good for recruiting other men.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
But, like, the idealization of a certain kind of puritanical motherhood, I mean, I'm really loathe to invoke Nazi Germany. Like, fascistic regimes have always known that a particular idea of the mother is quite a potent idea in that imaginary. And... You know, that's not me saying that motherhood or motherly love is always this right wing reactionary idea. It's not.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
But yeah, I think it can be weaponized in that regard.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
At the end of the book, I write this postscript because it was about to go to the printers and actually whilst I was writing it, I had like a whole unrequited situation and got heartbroken again. I was like, oh yeah, this is really shit. I haven't got any better at dealing with this. And I kind of wanted to be like the postscript to the final words of the book are like, I haven't given up.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Also, I knew I was going into promoting this book and I didn't want to become like the face of single people. Because that's really bad too. I don't want to box myself in there. Like, you know, no, I think the point being, I have this very full life where I'm quite happy single.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And I have like amazing friends and I genuinely like have, you know, had to accept like romantic love for me hasn't worked out that well.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
that well thus far and being trans it's a little bit trickier to find it and I have this great life but what I do say in the book right I'm not I'm because there was the single positivity movement a few years ago and if you notice who was leading that it was quite a lot of like middle-class women of means because it's like it's easy to have a nice life single when you've got enough money I live alone and work alone so like living alone and not house sharing into your 40s
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
It's quite nice being able to live alone. But that's a luxury. And then to be able to access a social realm where I don't get lonely. I mean, it's like every time I step outside my house to do something with a friend minus 50 quid. Yeah, 100%. Do you know what I mean? So yes, decent romantic love, but it's not about saying romantic love doesn't matter.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
But one of the things that there's a whole chapter in the book about friendship is I basically say like, we devalue friendship. friendship. And one of the ways I guess we do that is, is that stuff about having people to be able to have an affordable, livable financial life, because capitalism doesn't care about friendship. The reason being, families reproduce workers for capitalism.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And there is a lot of like tribal bonds in a family that serve that marriage for that same reason, romantic love serves the interest of capital. your relationship with your colleagues does. Friendship, it's kind of like, that's why historically it's been treated as like a youthful pastime because it's like, well, this isn't the real work of love because it doesn't serve any interest.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
We're literally friends with people. because we enjoy being friends with them. And it doesn't make any money. It doesn't serve any aim. And then we've got this very bastardized form of friendship now as a result of like techno capitalism, which is like a million friends in your phone and no friends.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
By virtue of being a trans woman right now, there are people that hate me, like you described, people that hate me, that do not see me as human. There is nothing I can do to humanize myself to them. They are a minority, but unfortunately quite a growing, powerful minority. And it's depressing. And so one thing I touch on, I talk about spirituality and the rediscovery of like a spiritual life.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
For me, that looks like belief in God, but like it The book isn't about trying to get anyone to believe in God.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
The reason though that helped me is because I realized that probably a few years ago, I was consumed with rage all the time and wishing ill on people that wished me ill and permanently in that state of rage and kind of hatred and realizing I was being coached into meeting that energy with that energy and
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And I realised that there's a reason why it's destructive, you know, when they say it's like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Or why even Martin Luther King said that love was easier to bear than hate. And that's how he felt about his enemies, because people often forget that he was a deeply spiritual Christian.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And I think like, yeah, to me, some of that with the people that really hate me, it's like, well, they're dehumanizing me. They refuse to see my humanity. And my way of responding to that dehumanization I've realized is to always remember people's humanity, even people... who are doing the most heinous things. Sounds really noble. It does sound noble.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Yeah, but even at the psychological level, that doesn't mean I'm going to be friends with them. It doesn't mean that I'm going to be, you know, DMing with them on X or whatever. People throughout human history, oppressed groups, have had to find ways of dealing with oppression and not being consumed by rage. And for me, it's what works.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
Now, there's also a category of people who I disagree with or who are not like me, but perhaps aren't full of hate. And I have been quite bad at engaging with them. And even people quite close to me on the political spectrum, I talk about the kind of wild west of the left wing internet in the 2010s. Where like everyone was calling everyone out. And I mean, I was engaging in that too.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And I sort of say in the book, like I have regrets about that. And in some cases I've apologized to people directly for like the ways in which I was quite unforgiving and quite self-righteous as many people in their twenties are. It's easy to love people that are like us. And that we would pick as friends. Sometimes in progressive movements, we're very quick to tear each other down.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
And that's actually replicating the tactics of our enemies. So it's much harder to be loving to everyone. But I think for me, that's like the challenge of the work of being a progressive.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
11%.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
I mean, I think it, It is a political issue. If you think about how often even just politicians mention the word families, right? Like there's an implicit judgment about the way that we lead our lives and what's politically significant.
Pod Save the UK
Trump’s plan for “Peace” in Ukraine only pleases Putin + The Politics of Modern Love
If you think about our laws and our tax system, the fact that if you are not a citizen of the UK, there are certain kind of relationships that means that someone could join you here. And there are certain kinds of relationships where someone can't. And I think a lot of us five years ago, it feels like a long time ago now, like in the pandemic, even realized that when