Janelle Monáe joins Call Her Daddy to discuss her personal evolution and the work required to reach her own age of pleasure. Addressing past rejection and trauma from her father's instability, she opens up about how these struggles impacted her personal relationships and how she found herself closed off to love. Janelle and Alex reflect on lessons learned from failed relationships and share why we should actually be going back and thanking our exes. Janelle speaks about her experience being in polyamorous relationships and her choice to openly talk about her sexuality despite coming from a religious family. Janelle and Alex discuss what it means if a partner refuses to post you on social media and debate whether this is actually a red flag. Janelle speaks about the inspiration for her new album, The Age of Pleasure, and what this phase of life means to her. For the game mentioned in the episode look for: Real Talk: 110 Relationship Questions You Should Only Ask Your Friends by Amil Barnes.
Chapter 1: What is Janelle Monáe's Age of Pleasure?
what is up daddy gang it is your founding father alex cooper with call her daddy janelle monet welcome to call her daddy thank you so much for having me i'm first of all i'm just so excited to meet you i'm a huge fan of all your work i was listening to your music on my way here and i'm like okay you are giving sexual sensual fun party vibes it gives all the vibes your album is amazing i'm so happy to have you here
Oh, thank you so much for having me. Of course. I'm a big fan of your show. Thank you. Of your experience, rather. So I was really happy when I found out we were going to do this. So thank you. Thank you.
Okay, tell me how your summer is going. You were on vacation. Where were you? Let us pretend we were there with you.
Oh, please. I'm like, can we all just go on vacation for the whole summer? Come on, everybody. Everybody, let's do this. Let's all agree that summers are for vacations paid for by the government. I love this energy. Paid for by the government.
We're going to like manifest it here now because it's like when you were younger, I feel like summers were always vacation because off of school. But when you become an adult, nothing is fun anymore. We're like, we need to go on vacation. Okay, so where were you?
Okay, so I was in Ibiza, Spain. And then I stayed there for probably like five or six days, which was like an experience. Like it is a party place. So we did not go to sleep. I went with like 10 of my other friends and we didn't go to sleep till like seven in the morning, every morning. I can't even say night. But it was so fun. It was that ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. That Ooch Ooch music.
I kind of like Ooch Ooch, but I need like some hip hop, some something mixed in with it. But it was so fun. The sunsets are beautiful. And then the second portion of the vacay was Jamaica. Oh, I've never been. Ocho Rios. Beautiful people. The food, the chicken patties, the beef patties, the shrimp curry, the plantains. I had at least 152 plantains. What?
what one by one oh yeah the water i'm like oh i feel like i'm there with you oh it was like it was heaven so i will say i'm sort of mentally still there it's okay we can keep it chill we're on vacation this is summer like we're just gonna relax today okay let's relax and it's so interesting that you say like as kids growing up it just reminded me like yeah i didn't take vacations as a kid
I think that's why I'm so adamant about it now. I didn't, you know, my parents worked a lot and we didn't get the opportunity to go outside of Kansas. So I didn't take my first vacation until really my first album came out.
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Chapter 2: How has Janelle's upbringing influenced her relationships?
but it affected you and until you go through all of that it's gonna influence the way that you move in life that you see like yeah but even you saying it's interesting like it affected your art i'm interested to know how did it affect your personal relationships with this theme of abandonment within you it affected them for sure yeah it was just like trust issues um
You know, breakups were intense because it just mirrored that. But now like there are moments where, you know, I was dating someone and, you know, we broke up and and and I just was like, I will never talk to this person again. The way they made me feel, I will never talk to them again. And after I started to go through therapy and I have an emotional support coach that I talk to.
um after which by the way therapy like we're we're benefiting from therapy i just really wish that it was free for every person around the world i really really really do wish that there was a fund that everybody could access to where they could have therapy they could have somebody to talk to and work through i do believe that we will be in a much better shape as a community as a nation as a world
Um, so I just wanted to say that because I feel like, damn, I wish everybody could go, could experience these things. Um, so I was like, I will never talk to this person again. And after I went through, you know, understanding and getting to the root of like my, my rejection, abandonment, um, trauma. You know what I did?
I thanked the person who I was in a relationship with and it did not work out for us. I thanked them. I said, you know what? And my emotional support coach said that I was going to do that. It's like, you are going to thank this person because you know what this person did for you. They forced you to deal with something that you were not going to deal with.
They pushed you to go back to the root of the problem. You were not going to do it. You were moving forward. You were too busy moving. You didn't have time. But that relationship, the ending of that specific relationship forced that. And I literally called that person and I thanked them. I said, thank you so much. You have no idea.
Like I was really walking around here hurt and you forced me to like. You know, and so they started sharing things with me. They were just like, I just wasn't ready. I was confused myself. I did not trust it was going so well for us. I'm so used to chaos that I didn't. I felt like this was not going to end how I wanted it to end. I'm also dealing with rejection issues.
So we just kind of heal through each other. And and that and it helped me in my other relationships. I was like, here are the here are the things that I was doing because of my trauma. When I'm free from that trauma, I'm like a really, really, really like beautiful partner to have. And it just helped me to understand how I want to show up for for my future partners.
isn't that so interesting when you meet people in life that obviously again like you needed to work on yourself to be able to have that hindsight and be like wait that was so helpful but like most of the time in life in romantic partnerships I feel like specifically like you can get so hurt by them but that's not your family so you're like I can walk away but you're always going to learn something so incredible and if you can get past that hurt initially yeah
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Chapter 3: What lessons can we learn from our exes?
Like, OK, of course, I'm going to say glowing reviews about me, you know, or maybe like a couple of things that I need to work on. But, you know, it could have been some other things. So for me, if I was being honest in a relationship, I mean, I think I used to be a very like hard to know if I really loved them sort of person. Like it was hard to get to my heart. Yeah.
Because I had just been hurt and I hadn't really, again, dealt with sort of that trauma or of someone what it would feel like of somebody leaving me. I never wanted anybody to leave me. And if they did, I didn't want them to ever feel like.
really loved you you know cuz like if you if I really told you that I really loved you and you we still didn't work then like wow what a stab in the heart right yeah but now having gone to this new space I'm a big communicator I you know believe in evolution even in your partnerships and even if you started out one way I'm always open to us growing and
And I want to make sure that as we grow individually and as, you know, together, um, um, I've also been in polyamorous relationships as well. And I, you know, know what it's like to be with multiple partners. So it's very important that, you know, we're communicating in real time about our feelings. And if things are coming up, like if, if one person feels like, okay, um,
I'm having feelings of jealousy or I need some more time with both of you or, you know, how do we, you know, if we need to, like, work on some things, I like to know that. And I always welcome, you know, feedback. Um, I'm that type of person. Like I, I don't, I don't ever want to be in a relationship where, uh, I'm thinking we're good and we're not. Yeah.
Like you're wondering, like, just let me know. Yeah. Because I, I could probably adjust. We could adjust. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding or perhaps like, Oh, you know, maybe you thought you knew me or you knew how you, you don't know how much I love you.
Yeah.
I need to be more expressive in, in those things. And, um, um so I think I'm averse I love it so I can be dominant sub like you know I'm non-binary as well so I can go with the I can go with the flow about things.
I love it.
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Chapter 4: How does social media affect relationships?
Oof. Sheesh. Man. I would say, I wish I had discovered vibrators a long time ago. Like, honestly, it's so fun to experience that with your partner.
It's phenomenal.
It's so great. It's like, what, going to the sex shop? Like, I remember when I first went, see, again, when you come from those sort of like conservative backgrounds, a sex shop, I was full sunglasses on, like, do not have me in here. Oh, my God, what am I? Oh, my God, please. Nobody take photos of me. Like I did not know. Right. I did not know the world of vibrators.
I did not know the clitoral stimulation that you and the fun y'all can have with one. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to be penetration.
It's life changing.
Right. How about you?
I remember I didn't have one and my friend bought me one for my birthday in college. And I remember like the first time I tried something with the back of my electric toothbrush.
And I was like, I ain't gonna front the electric toothbrushes. If you're if you forget, just go buy you a brand new one.
It slaps.
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