A bit about ‘Thighs Wide Shut’:
“When Emma hits her quarter-life crisis and moves back to the city where she went to college, she finds herself neighbours with the boy whose heart she broke five years earlier in this heartfelt and witty second-chance debut romcom for fans of Hannah Bonham-Young and Sex Education.
Emma thought her late twenties couldn’t get more complicated after she quit her teaching job and moved across the country to figure out what comes next. Her new life in Boston is filled with more than enough to worry about: a basement apartment full of disorganized boxes, a resistance to finding love, a medical condition, vaginismus, that holds her back from putting herself out there, and on top of it all she hears a familiar voice from the apartment above . . . Harrison.”
In this episode of the podcast, we were thrilled to be able to chat with author Hayley Fleming about her recent book, ‘Thighs Wide Shut’. It’s fun, it’s full of humour and follows a main character who has a medical condition that is often not spoken about – vaginismus.
We chatted with Hayley about:
- The real-life inspiration behind Thighs Wide Shut and bringing vaginismus into contemporary rom-coms
- Why sex education often fails us when it comes to helping us understand our bodies
- Tips on how to advocate for yourself at a gynaecologist appointment (or in any medical setting for that matter!)
Find Hayley at her website: https://hayleyfleming.com/
Check out her books here: https://hayleyfleming.com/books
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
01:32: - What is vaginismus?
02:18 – Hayley's experience with vaginismus.
05:41 – Advocating for yourself in medical settings.
07:12 – The physical and mental aspect of vaginismus.
10:34 – Why this book matters.
13:32 – How to support someone with vaginismus.
15:11 – Why we need to rethink our definition of sex.
18:13 – How can sex ed impact vaginismus?
21:55 – How writing this character was healing for Hayley.
24:22 – Why you should read this book whether you have vaginismus, or not.
26:15 – What alternate word can we have for vaginismus?
28:01 – What Hayley wishes more people would know about vaginismus.
30:44 – Where can you find a copy of the book (and what you should know before you read it!).
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Check out our books, 'How to talk with your kids about porn' and 'The Organ Education Forgot', available at https://www.sexinspace.com/books to download or buy.
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