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 load. Yumi Stynes and Monty Dimond share their tips on how to redistribute the labour on and before t...
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 domination) to humiliation and cuckolding, their tastes go well beyond missionary.
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 what we desire out of the experience, whether it's a one-time thing or for the hundredth time. Esther ...
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 with a job, a partner and a kid get time, and a dimly lit room to bring herself to O-town? Yumi Stynes...
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 no guarantee of a baby. Then there's the cost, between $5000-$10,000 per cycle. Alongside egg freez...
Samhita had it all. As the executive editor of Teen Vogue she was living the Devil Wears Prada life — fashion shows, fancy dinners and towering heels. She was a girlboss. But at the height of her success, cracks began to appear. She was anxious, burnt out and her body was falling apart. But Samhita was at New York Fashion Week in a fur coat and clutching a Gucci handbag, having just put Malala Yousafzai on the cover of her magazine, who was she to complain? After spending a lifetime trying to cl...
There's an expectation that couples share a bed, but what if sleep isn't compatible with being in the same room as your other half? Maybe they snore, maybe they starfish, or maybe you just need a few hours without another human touching you. Is a sleep divorce, AKA, having separate bedrooms, the answer? There's a trend towards normalising sleeping separately from your partner. Cameron Diaz is doing it. So are the Beckhams. But does this arrangement spell the end of sex and intimacy? Or does it m...
Is Ozempic the drug of our lifetime? Since it burst onto the scene it's become synonymous with weight loss, with everyone from A-list celebrities to your next-door neighbour rapidly slimming down. The popularity of the drug and others like it such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, has led to demand outstripping supply, with the price of these medications falling out of reach for some. And along with the cheekbones Ozempic face has unearthed, it's also forcing us to have some uncomfortable conversations ar...
There aren't many people on your Instagram feed who are as loved and as loathed as Abbie Chatfield. Ever since Abbie shot to fame as the slut-shamed villain on The Bachelor Australia in 2019, she's been a public and controversial figure who's hard to look away from. Five years and almost 500K followers later, Abbie's built an empire on sharing her trauma dumps, UTIs, political rants and sexcapades. Abbie's openness has earnt her lots of fans but it's also made her the target of sexist and violen...
What if your man has another, equally important woman in his life: his mum? For some sons, the aprons strings are tied so tight, it’s impossible to compete with mummy. She’s his number one fan, dotes on him and interferes in his life, including his relationships. It’s not sexy. So, can a mama’s boy ever reform and stand on their own two feet in a relationship? Or will you always come off second best? Yumi Stynes and Jess McGuire lay down the law when it comes to being with a mama’s boy. Hint: th...
As we get older, wiser, more resilient, and better placed to back seat drive, the world does not reward us. Or our grey hair. If the advances of human progress can make a potato chip taste like a beef rendang curry, why are women still, after all this time and progress, so judged by the way we look? The Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery estimates Australians spend around $1 billion a year on cosmetic procedures. We're talking facelifts, tummy tucks, brow lifts, neck lifts, rhinoplasties, ...
Aubrey Gordon is a fat woman. She's not on a diet or trying to get thinner and that pisses some people off, but she's done apologising. This self-acceptance has been hard fought. All her life, Aubrey has had to swallow comments about her size from strangers and family alike. Like all of us, she was force-fed the idea that there is only one ideal body: a thin one. Aubrey's resistance started with her blog, Your Fat Friend, where she wrote about what it's like to live in the world as a fat person ...
You're on a date and there's a spark, the chat is great, the vibes are flowing. But come the time to disrobe, all that potential sexual brilliance comes crashing down. They're a dud root. So what on earth do you do if you've got a connection with someone, but they're not rocking your socks off? How do you have a conversation about what you like, without hurting their feelings? And can you ever turn a jackhammer into a magical orgasm wand? Yumi Stynes and sex therapist Aleks Trkulja get under the...
The Other Woman. The bit on the side. Side hoe. She's the biggest villain of them all. She's probably younger, hotter and she's left the girl-code far behind, because THAT woman is stealing your man, girl. So, who is 'the other woman' and what's driving her towards married men anyway? In this episode, Yumi sits down with women dating men who are teken and finds out how they navigate their own messy relationships and emotions.
Jill Stark spent most of her life defined by alcohol. Either as a hard-drinking party girl, spurred on by a culture of drinking as a journalist, or as the poster child for sobriety, trapped by a public identity that revolved around abstinence. Yumi and Jill talk about her journey to genuine sobriety on her own terms, and how she has learned who she is without booze. Resources: National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline 1800 250 015 Alcoholics Anonymous: https://aa.org.au/ 1300 222 222 Hello Sunday ...
We’re all about labia love here at Ladies, but it seems that some women are less than enthusiastic about their lower lips. So what’s the real deal on the labiaplasty? Will cosmetic surgery really help restore the labia love to those who just aren’t feeling it? Yumi is here to unpack the problems with our flaps and give us the low-down on the down-there surgery.
Tick, tock, tick, tock... can you hear that? It’s your biological clock and it’s about to blow! For some, deciding whether to have a baby isn’t just about fertility, it’s also about weighing up whether becoming a parent is the path best taken. Never fear, Yumi Stynes has perched herself behind the mic to hold your hand and navigate this tricky time-bomb.
At 31, Jamila Rizvi’s life changed forever. The discovery of a rare brain tumour knocked the ass-kicking, over-achieving media advisor and young mum sideways. Jamila had two rounds of brain surgery, followed by radiation, and now lives with chronic health conditions. She’s had to re-map what life looks like and let go of the idea that she can control what lies ahead. Despite the challenges, Jamila’s found strength in herself and by leaning on those closest to her. In this episode, Jamila and Yum...
We all have days when we look in the mirror and think “who is that hideous moll staring back at me??” But what if those days are constant and you feel like a loser in the attractiveness lottery? Let’s face it, being hot is a social currency and the pressure to look a certain way as a woman is constant. So how can we let go of the ideal beauty standard (whatever that is on a given day) and learn to love the image looking back at us? Yumi Stynes is here with her gal pals Myf Warhurst and Zan Rowe ...
Perimenopause can be bad for your health. It’s not just the physical symptoms like weight gain, insomnia, exhaustion and loss of sex drive that can knock women sideways, the mental health impacts can be immense as well. Hormone fluctuations during this period can lead to mood swings, anxiety, brain fog and depression. To make matters worse, these symptoms are often misdiagnosed and mistreated. Help is at hand though! Yumi Stynes becomes an honourary member of the club and gets the 411 on all thi...
Have you ever had a sexual dry spell? And when we say dry, we mean years and years. Getting naked and doing the bedroom rodeo with another person can be daunting at the best of times, but especially if it’s been such a long time you’re worried you may have forgotten how to ride the horse. Anxieties begin to take over...Will everything work like it used to? What if they don’t like my body? And what if the dog walks in? So, how can you break the dry spell and get back in the saddle? Yumi Stynes an...
In life, there are a lot of random rules women stick to. One of them is not telling loved ones about a pregnancy until after the first trimester. But why??? The answer is more often than not, miscarriage.
Being in love feels so damn good, right? But what if you fall so deeply into your relationship, you start to forget who you are?
Swipe left, swipe right, match, meet, hook up, repeat. We all know the dating dance, but is it really serving us as women? Enter Hannah Ferguson, the 25-year-old media queen who isn’t afraid to tell us how it is. When Hannah was in her late teens and dating for the first time, Tinder ruled the scene and sex was available at the swipe of a finger. But a string of sub-par experiences left her wondering if hookup culture is selling women a lie. Have we come to expect scraps because that's all that'...
Women bear the load of most of the invisible (thankless) work in a household. And that shit gets heavy. School lunches, laundry, dentist appointments, shopping, snot-wiping, cleaning, care-giving – and don’t forget to get those 10k steps in while you’re at it! We're exhausted just thinking about it. Yumi dishes out advice on how to even out the mental load and take the weight off your shoulders. If you’ve got a snag in your life that you just can’t figure out, let us take on the burden! Send an ...
What if your appetite for sex was insatiable? Would you love to be boning every day, multiple times a day? There's this idea that it's men that are always lusting after sex. But guess what? Women can be horn dogs too! But that horniness often comes with the label "slutty". Yumi Stynes chats to women who are relishing their pleasure and enjoying plenty of orgasms while they’re at it.
When you’re stuck in the daily grind of working-mum life, sometimes it can be hard not to feel like a shitty mum. School lunches, getting them dressed (FFS), raising good humans, endless meetings – it's exhausting and soul-destroying. Yumi has some advice to ease the mum-guilt, when your heart is being yanked in opposite directions and backing away from work isn’t an option. If you’ve got a problem that not even your girl gang can help you solve, let us take on the burden! Send an audio note to ...
Yumi has been cheeky and stolen the keys to the ABC archive to bring out one of our favourite episodes. Life is tiring. The cozzi livs, the constant merry-go-round of caring and work and chronic stress can be overwhelming. For some, this relentless pace can lead to burnout.
