Cynthia Loyst & Josie Dye : Unmentionables

Mary Anne Ivison 00:00:01
The women of Ill repute with your hosts, Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway. 

Maureen Holloway 00:00:01
Wendy?

Wendy Mesley 00:00:09
Yeah.

Maureen Holloway 00:00:10
You have come a long way from your CBC days.

Wendy Mesley 00:00:13
Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. But yes.

Maureen Holloway 00:00:21
But I'm thinking well, in all sorts of ways, but basically, as a presumably impartial journalist on the state broadcaster, you couldn't say poop if you had a mouth full of it.

Wendy Mesley 00:00:31
Poop? Yeah. Now I can say poop. There is an image actually.

Maureen Holloway 00:00:35
There's an image. And now we talk or you talk, but we talk about all sorts of things with all sorts of people. We talk about mental health, sex and sexuality, terrible things that we've done, terrible things that have been done to us. Pretty much anything.

Wendy Mesley 00:00:51
Yeah. It's kind of neat, actually, realizing that well, I realized this even before the podcast, but it's really driven at home that everybody's weird. So we've just talked about everything. We put everything out there, whether it's failure or joy or something in between. We talk about everything. It's great.

Maureen Holloway 00:01:06
We do. The question is, what won't we talk about?

Wendy Mesley 00:01:09
Well, we don't talk about the actual sex act very much, unless it's hilarious. Anything is good if it's hilarious. And we don't talk a lot about porn.

Maureen Holloway 00:01:21
No, those are two. That's sort of a Venn diagram. But personally, I will talk about anything on this podcast that I will talk about with my friends. But as I started to think about this, I realized there are things I won't talk about with my friends.

Wendy Mesley 00:01:38
Like what? I thought I knew everything.

Maureen Holloway 00:01:40
Yeah, you are my friend. But I'm not great with bodily functions if they're my own and yeah, that kind of thing. I have a friend well, she's an ex friend, but she would always talk also about her sex life with her husband. And I found that really she'd be like, oh, Paul, and I, not his real name, where I was giving him a blowjob. And I'm like, oh, I don't want to know. So I'm not good that way.

Wendy Mesley 00:02:06
Well, we have to go back to human bodily functions because that was something like TV is supposed to be really glamorous, right? So there was never any pooping, God forbid, farting or sneezing or snoring. There was never anything like that because it was glamorous and it was news. But then we would go to tape and we would say, now Anna Marie Tremonti from wherever, and then we'd vomit. So, thank God.

Maureen Holloway 00:02:30
Not at Anna Maria, but just for sure. Well, I understand that. Okay, so sex and money is another weird one, especially my own sex and money, there isn't enough of either. That's basically all I want to tell you. And I worry if I talk about other people, like my family and stuff that they've been up to, that they will get mad at me. And I think that's a problem that a lot of broad and podcasters have.

Wendy Mesley 00:02:59
Yeah, I was really careful. Partly it was a CBC thing, but also because my mum was still alive. My mom raised me and then she died, and then I was free to talk about my mom and my dad, who was gay, a big secret, but whatever. I wasn't comfortable to talk about that while she was alive, but now she's dead, so I like to talk about everything different. You talk a lot about your husband and your kids and I don't know, I'm a little squeamish. I'm much more careful.

Maureen Holloway 00:03:23
You have to tell Kate and Liam that the only reason why you married him and had her was so you'd have material for your career. And once you've got that clear, then you're free to do whatever you want. We don't have to talk about all these unmentionable things because - 

Wendy Mesley 00:03:39
Well, yeah, because you may have seen in the bottom screen, we have two people who do talk about these unmentionable topics. That's actually the name of their podcast. They go there. They talk about hemorrhoids, cheating and broken penises. I haven't heard that.

Maureen Holloway 00:03:56
It's not Aaron Davis and Lisa Brandt, is it?

Wendy Mesley 00:03:59
Yeah.

Maureen Holloway 00:04:03
I'm just kidding ladies, if you're listening. No, this is Cynthia Loyst and Josie Dye. "Cynthia and Josie's Unmentionables."

Wendy Mesley 00:04:13
Yeah. So they call it the podcast where you're too shy to ask for. They're our guests this week.

Maureen Holloway 00:04:25
Look at them. We promised you fearless and funny.

Maureen Holloway 00:04:29
Hello women. Hello, Josie. Hi, Cynthia. Welcome.

Cynthia Loyst 00:04:34
Delighted. Hello.

Josie Dye 00:04:36
Hi. Thank you for having us.

Wendy Mesley 00:04:38
Was that a broken penis or are you sharing a microphone?

Cynthia Loyst 00:04:43
We share things that look like this often.  

Josie Dye 00:04:43
We're not there yet.

Maureen Holloway 00:04:50
Well, let me ask you something. I've known Josie since she was a teenager. I've known Josie since you were a kid, and I've watched Cynthia. I just found out that you actually have not known each other all that long, have you?

Cynthia Loyst 00:05:04
Yeah, we'd met through the industry, obviously. She'd been on the social a few times. I don't know, we had kind of mutual friends. But it wasn't until the pandemic that we actually became close because I was looking for a place to send my son to school because I didn't feel comfortable with him doing virtual. And so I was looking for some families to get together and maybe have a little pod started. And then through the grapevine, I heard that Josie was already on it and doing it, and they needed one slot left, and they really wanted someone who had a son. And so I was like, pick me.

Josie Dye 00:05:35
Right. I don't know if you can see. I can, actually. You probably don't want to see past this square because it looks good in this square. But if I just move a little bit there's little desks. This is where you can kind of see I shouldn't really move.

Maureen Holloway 00:05:48
No, but that was your school.

Josie Dye 00:05:51
This is the school in the basement. And the five kids, they were down here with a teacher that we hired. And every day we had a school in the basement which was amazing.

Cynthia Loyst 00:06:01
And, I mean, I think that's where this whole idea was born. Because basically we, for almost a year and a half, maybe two years, didn't see anybody else. It was just us, our husbands and partners and our kids. We kind of really got into yeah, we bubbled. We bubbled together for that entire time. And so during that time, Josie and I, we found ourselves, like, over a glass of wine just starting to talk about ridiculous things. And we thought, maybe there's something to this. So we started building it from there.

Wendy Mesley 00:06:28
So, Cynthia, you're the only one who didn't among the four of us who didn't work at CKFM. I worked there. Maureen obviously stayed there for a while. I was only there for a brief period, but it's kind of weird. And in those days we would talk about things with our girlfriends but we would never talk about stuff.

Maureen Holloway 00:06:45
Oh, God, no.

Wendy Mesley 00:06:46
Yeah. A lot of things have changed. I had a flashback to CKFM. It was all except for Betty Kennedy, who was, like, the queen. And she was, like, 1000 years old, which she was probably not that old, but it seemed like a thousand to me at the time.

Maureen Holloway 00:06:58
She's probably our age.

Wendy Mesley 00:07:01
Yeah, it was all men. And so women, I don't know. We talked about stuff secretly, but we never talked openly.

Cynthia Loyst 00:07:10
So that would be the 99.9 now that Cynthia has been on a million times because Bell obviously owns 99.9.

Maureen Holloway 00:07:17
So she's part of the family. Yeah.

Cynthia Loyst 00:07:22
Yeah, I talked about sex on that in the morning sometimes. I think I bothered them because instead of using the words like hoohah and vajayjay I wanted to use actual, proper names. And they didn't like that so much.

Maureen Holloway 00:07:37
No, it makes men very uncomfortable. The word vagina makes men very uncomfortable. It actually makes a lot of women uncomfortable too. Particularly of a certain generation. But I hear you. After CKFM, I spent 15 years at Q 107 which was a complete boys fast which Josie's totally familiar with because she was down the hall at the edge at the time. And, yeah, I was the woman. And if I mentioned womanly things and did it in a womanly way meaning using the correct words you could see the men's faces would be like don't hurt me with your words. You don't call it a penis, you call it a dick. It's so delineated.

Cynthia Loyst 00:08:19
A lot of things haven't changed yes.

Wendy Mesley 00:08:21
Well, it's like comedians who do like, they screw each other up the behind or they do proctology jokes. But if a woman makes a joke about something, it's not funny. So a lot of things have changed, but a lot of things haven't changed.

Maureen Holloway 00:08:36
So tell us about some of the things that you've talked about. I've heard a couple of your episodes, but just for those that haven't, where do you go?

Josie Dye 00:08:44
Well, we started with hemorrhoids. Where do you go from there? Yeah.

Maureen Holloway 00:08:50
Really?

Josie Dye 00:08:51
Yeah. So we started with hemorrhoids, and that was honestly how we met. We tell the story in the podcast. We'd already started this pod, but really we bonded over hemorrhoids. Yeah. I don't know if you want me to tell you about that or not or keep going. Move past that part. Yeah so Cynthia is a very open person. And as we were talking, she was telling me that she was having problems with hemorrhoids, and I was going through surgery for hemorrhoids. And I honestly thought, she must know my husband has told her this because why would she be sharing this really personal secret with me? So I stopped, and I was like, you know, you know, don't you? You know? And I had been lying about this medical problem that I had been having for about a month. I said to everybody that my thyroid needed to come out.

Cynthia Loyst 00:09:44
It was this mysterious medical problem that she had, and it was hard to pin down. And anyway, I just was, like, on the phone with her, and I said, yeah, I'm in a terrible mood because I've got hemorrhoids. And there was a pause on the phone, and I thought, oh, I've gone too far with our friendship. I've opened up a door that I can't close, but it turns out that that's what she had. And so we laughed. And it was one of those things where when it came time to do the podcast, I was like, we have to start with that. And you were like, you didn't want to.

Josie Dye 00:10:13
I did not want to. I was like because also, I had lied to my work forever. I had lied to them and told them I had my thyroid out. So how does that podcast come out? And then my bosses and the owner of the company, they realize they gave me all this time off work for hemorrhoid surgery.

Maureen Holloway 00:10:35
How do you explain I know when you have your thyroid, they take it out of your neck, and when you have hemorrhoid surgery, you have to sit on a doughnut. So I'm not really sure how you-

Josie Dye 00:10:47
No sense to be made, Maureen, of this done, none. Well, there is a little bit. There is a little bit, because when I did have my son, my thyroid was messed up. So I kind of knew a little bit about that. And that's why I was like, it's not really a big deal if your thyroid is messed up. I knew I could go down that path. And I talked pretty openly in the podcast about how someone asks to see my scar and my co host. And I ran to the bathroom, and I got eyeliner, and I started putting it on my neck, and I was like, see?

Maureen Holloway 00:11:17
Wow. 

Josie Dye 00:11:19
Cool. That was that. To me, this you went I drew, like a little, and I actually said they didn't go right in. I was googling. I was looking at all the information. Just drew a little black line right there, and that was it.

Cynthia Loyst 00:11:32
She was deep in this lie. To me, this was an illumination about just how much shame and embarrassment that women have to go through. 50% of the population experiences hemorrhoids, and-

Josie Dye 00:11:44
I think more than that, probably. And they just don't admit it.

Maureen Holloway 00:11:48
They don't say.

Cynthia Loyst 00:11:48
Yeah, no one talks about it. So I think that this was one of those perfect ones. And literally right after we released the first one, I don't even think we'd gone public. I don't think we'd publicly announced we were going for a walk down in the beaches, and this woman, and she was very stylie.

Josie Dye 00:12:05
Every time Cynthia tells the story, she's like, she was very stylie.

Cynthia Loyst 00:12:08
I don't know why that's an important detail. She looked stylish, and she was with her baby and her husband, and she stopped us, and she goes, I just listened to your podcast about hemorrhoids. She didn't say hemorrhoids. I just listened to your podcast, and I loved it. And let me just say, going through it now.

Maureen Holloway 00:12:24
Oh wow. You're probably going to get a lot more of that as you open up this Pandora's box.

Wendy Mesley 00:12:29
What kind of reaction are you getting?

Josie Dye 00:12:32
Oh, we're getting great reaction. Every day we text each other or call each other, and we're like, did you just see that email? Did you just see that message? People have responded really well to this.

Cynthia Loyst 00:12:44
It's something that has been quite emotional because we launched it not knowing. You never know what's going to happen or how it's going to be received. And so to hear people saying that they're laughing, that they feel seen, that they feel like relatable, that they're sitting in with their closest girlfriends or even the girlfriends that they never thought they could talk to about this stuff. And it's funny. The ones that resonate with people, like some people we talked about, and it was a more serious one about a weight loss journey that we went on that kind of made us really obsessive and over controlled, and it was really problematic that one has resonated with people. You said someone at your work was crying about it. So we're doing a range of topics because as you, Maureen, started off the topic, unmentionables is a broad topic. And so while sex and bodily functions is a huge part of that, there is also I envision us talking about everything from death to identity to money. Like, all those things, I think, have a place in our sort of secretive, shame- filled world that we're hoping to get people to open up more about misogyny. There's a whole bunch interesting.

Maureen Holloway 00:13:47
Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah. Joel's broken penis. Joel is Josie's husband. Long suffering, I might say. So obviously not a problem, because as Wendy and I were saying, off the top, our families are like, well, I don't want any of my shit out there. So this is kind of a surprise.

Josie Dye 00:14:12
Well, Joel was first to document this on his Instagram.

Maureen Holloway 00:14:18
He'd already gone out. Okay.

Josie Dye 00:14:20
When it happened. He knew, like, your families probably know that I have a microphone every single morning and that I tell personal stories on air. And I think he wanted to get ahead of it. He was like, I'm going to have the narrative. I am going to be in charge of my own story this time, instead of me going, Joel, so what part can I say? Can I say this part? Or you just never know. It's like Broken Telephone, how things translate on air. So he started it. He came out the second day. Like, the day after this happened, he broke his penis. He told everybody. And like us, he had men all over the world. Because my husband travels he's a music, he's a manager. He manages some big bands in Canada, travels all over the world. And he had men everywhere in Australia, at the Grammys, everywhere, come up to him and say, tell me about your penis. They all wanted to know about his penis. And so he's been educating men across the world, and we thought we would tell the story as well. And it was a nice way for us. Also, we've had a lot of females listening to this podcast, but I think just this week, there's been a lot of males that have jumped on board, which is fine.

Mary Anne Ivison 00:15:36
The Women of Ill Repute 

Wendy Mesley 00:15:36
So is there stuff that you won't talk about? I mean, obviously, if you're not going to talk about it, you're not going to tell us. But is there any limit, I guess in our lead up, Maureen and I talked about how there are certain limits. Like, I don't want to talk about porn. Is there anything that you don't want to talk about?

Maureen Holloway 00:15:55
I was going to say we've had because we're called Women of Ill Repute, we've had porn workers or sex workers, which is probably the who've asked us if we wanted to talk to them. It's not that we don't. We might down the line, but that's sort of like, we're not there yet. I just don't want, Wendy I don't want them to think that porn comes up all the time and we're like, Absolutely not.

Wendy Mesley 00:16:17
No, I'm very pro porn. It's just a secret.

Cynthia Loyst 00:16:24
That's fair. Obviously, my background, I started out as a producer for Sex TV, and I've been a sex educator for a long time. I got a sex education certificate from the University of Michigan. So it's my beat. So I feel very comfortable in that space. Having said that, I also am with a partner who is a cinematographer and he's a complete introvert. He is not on my Instagram. He's shy. So I have to navigate carefully where I step, because, like you were saying, off the top, it's one thing when it's your story, it's another thing when it involves your other family members. Although, having said that, accompanying this podcast, we have a video series, a YouTube series, and Jason, my partner, shot them. So we were sitting there talking about really odd sexual experiences and he was behind the camera, so we're still together. But I think my biggest line right now probably is around him and our personal experiences and then my family, because I would never, or anybody else in my life's story, if it implicates them, I'd have to clear it with them first. Do you have a line?

Josie Dye 00:17:28
Yeah, it's the same thing. I mean, even though Joel is pretty open about his penis breaking, there are certain things that he didn't feel comfortable with us talking about, and he's already flagged them, so we'd had to take a couple of things down already. And yeah, I have to be mindful of my kids, obviously, but we've talked a lot about this, and you have a really great philosophy about Jaya. Jaya's, Cynthia's son.

Cynthia Loyst 00:17:50
Yeah, because I did have that worry when we first launched this. I thought to myself, there's always that fear that your kid is going to see something and think of you differently. And I was saying this to a friend of mine and she said, you know what? Your kids, when they hit teenagerhood, chances are they're going to be embarrassed of you anyway regardless. Right. And the thing is that this is part of who I am. And I do really fundamentally believe that shame and secrecy is what breeds the worst parts of humanity. It makes people angry, it makes people fearful, it makes people judgmental of other people. And I think the fact is that all the stuff that we're talking about are very human and are very relatable. And so I think that hopefully my friends thought this. She's like, you're going to raise a son who sees you and knows that you had a belief system and he's going to respect you for that line, though, right?

Wendy Mesley 00:18:41
My daughter, I don't want to say her last name, which is my husband's last name. It's not that hard to figure out. But I was very deliberate to not give her my name because I thought it was really important that she get to establish, and she's been quite grateful for that, that she gets to say, I am my own person, I do my own thing. But now I'm of an age where, like, Maria and I talk about all kinds of things and we want to get other people to talk about things. And so there's a little bit of hypocrisy there, but then, I don't know. Kids and husbands are complicated because they want to be honored, they want to be part of your life, but they also want to be in control. And I remember the first time walking down the street when our daughter was like five and she rolled her eyes because we said something embarrassing. So, yeah, she's still rolling her eyes and we're still embarrassing. But, yeah, it is a fine line between sort of addressing shame and protecting people that you love.

Maureen Holloway 00:19:37
The word shame has come up a few times since Cynthia, you've used it too. And it's amazing how women in particular, all of us, but women in particular, are raised to be. You should be ashamed of yourself and what a waste of an emotion that is unless you actually have done something shameful.

Cynthia Loyst 00:19:56
Well, I was raised Catholic, so embedded in your entire experience as a girl, you had the same it's part and parcel of the way that you're taught to be female. And I think not to negate the experiences of men in that religion as well, but there was a through line with all the women in my life that you were supposed to not trust your body. You were not supposed to indulge in your desires. Everything was a slippery slope to ruin and it really messed up the people closest to me. There was all kinds of teenage pregnancies surrounding me. I saw the very real impact of what happens when you don't empower and inform girls to know their bodies, to have a voice, to say what they want. And so this has been a battle cry for me for a long, long time. And so, to me, I feel zero shame about it and I don't have any wavering around that.

Josie Dye 00:20:49
Also, we do a really good episode of a cheating, which is an incredibly taboo subject, right? And if you think about it and we talk about our own experiences with infidelity and you think about it, men, it's more acceptable when a man cheats versus when a woman cheats. And women are slut shamed and going back to the age of time they had a scarlet letter A on them, or they were stoned. And men, it's like, oh, we can understand it, we understand how and why. So I think this is really great for us to openly discuss some of these issues and do it our way, too. So I don't feel so ashamed about some of the stories because we're talking about them and we're talking openly about them.

Wendy Mesley 00:21:30
Yeah, I said the menopause word to a male friend and he was like, don't issue that word. Like, that's disgusting. And I was like, yeah, it can be, and if you want about it, but why should it be banned? Like, we talk about all these crazy things that have happened to men and it actually does. I always thought it wouldn't happen to me. It just happened to crazy old ladies, but then you turn 50 and stuff or you have cancer and things happen earlier, it happens to everybody. So why can't we talk about it? Because we still can't. I mean, we can say vagina instead of vajayjay, maybe.

Cynthia Loyst 00:22:07
And that to me, even bothers me. I've gone on a rant on the social recently about the fact that we shouldn't be saying vagina because the vagina is a birthing canal and that's what it is. The equivalent of penis is the clitoris. We don't say that ever because that's a useless I mean, a very useful but in a patriarchal society, the clitoris only serves pleasure. So we erase it when we talk about the vagina and the penis being similar to one another, it should be the vulva is actually the word that we should be using because that includes the clitoris. 

Maureen Holloway 00:22:39
No one uses the word vulva. No one. It is an unused word.

Cynthia Loyst 00:22:44
I know this is a hill I will die on. My son will use the word vulva and he will be made fun of and I will tell him, this is what most people say, vagina. But vulva is actually the proper word. Because if we want men also to grow up who are heterosexual, to understand the female anatomy, to be better lovers, to be more understanding of consent, it starts there. So, yeah, that's my rant.

Josie Dye 00:23:06
It's a good rant.

Maureen Holloway 00:23:08
She doesn't need us to plug her. But have you guys watched Kara De Levine's Planet Sex?

Cynthia Loyst 00:23:12
Yeah.

Maureen Holloway 00:23:16
She goes there. She made a plaster mold of her vulva, but she wouldn't show it on camera.

Cynthia Loyst 00:23:25
Well, she's also part and parcel. She's partnered with a woman who is the front of a sex toy company, a very high tech sex toy company, and she's used her name for that. So, yeah, I mean, there are things there are people who are taking control. Pleasure is a big, important subject that none of us learned about in sex ed. It was all about sex for procreation. And if we start to re add that into, I think, women's lives the idea of seeking out pleasure not just in the bedroom, but in the boardroom and in all spaces, I think there's like a revolution to be had there as well. And women need to stop judging other women also for seeking out those things.

Wendy Mesley 00:24:00
Well, you guys are, I don't know, you're probably 20 years younger than me. And I'd like to think that everything has changed. But the other day I was in a flea market and there was some lady who said, yeah, I remember you. I was a flight attendant and we got pregnant, or somebody got pregnant and they had to leave. And I thought, this woman is still alive. I knew that happened in my grandmother's time, that she had to stop being a teacher when she got pregnant. But I remember, and I'm not like I'm not a young person anymore, but I'm still alive. And I remember. And I'm sure you do too, Maureen. That when we had cancer, you weren't supposed to talk about it. It was like revolution. Yeah.

Maureen Holloway 00:24:36
Cancer. Yeah.

Wendy Mesley 00:24:37
You were let alone appear on the air with a big belly. That's only 15 years ago. Things are still changing, I hope. 

Maureen Holloway 00:24:46
I would actually add to that I find, like, our kids so you're the generation after us, and our kids are the generation after that. Because our kids are in their twenties I found them and I have boys and Wendy has a daughter. I find them very prudish. They don't shower together anymore. Like, my son played hockey, but they never showered. Which can you just imagine communally. And then I've heard that this young generation is having less sex than previous generations. And I find it kind of astonishing that we seem to be despite or maybe because of social media, that we're heading back in that direction.

Cynthia Loyst 00:25:28
I think that stat around the kids of this generation having less sex is an interesting one and I think it needs to be teased out. I think some of the reason why may be because they're prudish. I suspect that that's not the entire story. It might be that they're more on their devices and they're connecting less in person, they're more intimidated. I think it's also that they're getting confused messaging about who is initiating what that means. Consent is complicated. But I think one of the biggest reasons might be that, and I hope this is true, that young women are having less or refusing to have sex that they don't want to have. Because I think that there was a lot of sex in many generations in the past that happened just because it was like, I guess I got to put out if I want to keep this guy. And I hope and I may be wrong, that more and more women feel empowered to say, like, yeah, you're not doing it for me at this level, so you're not going to go any further. I don't know.

Wendy Mesley 00:26:18
Are we talking about sex? Because I'm going to have to click off because this is.

Maureen Holloway 00:26:25
But I would add to that Cynthia, as the mother of boys, nice men, nice young men with lovely girlfriends that they are also very aware of, not ever the permission thing, it goes way beyond that. They no longer see themselves as people that have to get sex to achieve it. So I guess in that sense it's a step in the right direction.

Josie Dye 00:26:52
You think about all of the sex that you had in high school that you didn't want to have. Right?

Maureen Holloway 00:26:56
Honestly, exactly. All the sex I didn't want.

Josie Dye 00:27:01
All the sex I didn't want to have, or at least that wasn't pleasurable.

Maureen Holloway 00:27:06
Yeah, you just felt that that's what the cool kids were doing and didn't know how to tell anybody. I don't really like that.

Wendy Mesley 00:27:14
That's still happening now that I'm sort of quasi retired. Maureen and I do this podcast, but. I have a lot more time off than when I was a news person. So I'm skiing and I'm going up the hill and there's all of these bras from young women are like, the trees, the trees.

Maureen Holloway 00:27:37
It happens everywhere. All ski hills. You will find that they're -

Cynthia Loyst 00:27:43
Is this what happens?

Maureen Holloway 00:27:43
Yeah. Well, I think it's a girls I think it's girls weekends and they're just they all bring yeah.

Josie Dye 00:27:50
Because I go skiing every Sunday and I'm going to start looking in the trees. I don't see any bras, but this is called Lake Ridge, Ontario. So maybe it's a little like, not as cool as where you're going.

Maureen Holloway 00:28:00
How do you find so, Josie, you work with boys and they live with boys, and Cynthia, you work with women. Do you ever talk about your shared experiences and your very different experiences?

Josie Dye 00:28:12
We often do a lot. Yes. Our very different experiences. Do you want to go ahead? 

Josie Dye 00:28:18
Well, I mean, they each come with their own there's no perfect team dynamics, right? And I think I've had the great benefit of having a lot of great female leaders and great female teams. And I came up in an era where I think there were so few spots, seats at the table for women. I started out as a producer, right? So I didn't have to deal with it. It was just a very interesting, eclectic group of men and women trans. It was a whole sex. TV was very eclectic. When I moved into the on air space, I could feel a shift because I believe that the generation just above me found that there was a bit more of a threat. It's what it felt like. I remember meeting with somebody who I'm very much admired in the industry and asking for some sort of tips, and it was a very frosty exchange, and I don't judge that. I know the way in which women were treated in this industry for so many years, particularly on air, and the way in which men also manipulated them to be threatened by other women. One of the things that happened early on when I got to the social was that we made a pact with each other that we were like, we have each other's backs. We have to we have to align with each other, even if we're not going to always like each other. And we do fight like sisters sometimes, but we have to have each other's back. And since then, there's been a lot more growth, there's been a lot more females in front of the camera. And I know that when people have come to me to be mentored, I remember one time I had to check myself because I was a little bit like, I don't know, but this girl is a bit of a hustler. And then I was like, stop it. This is wonderful. I will mentor her. Shut that voice down. I'm not continuing that on. Sorry. You were going to say something?

Josie Dye 00:29:58
No, about that. I mean, I want to talk about the how many women are at the seat at the table. Because it's often like you're playing musical chairs and you're trying to get that seat right. So there's a lot of competitiveness with women in our industry. And it's because there are only so many seats at the table. I feel now, more seats, more seats, but in rock radio definitely less. And that's kind of how I grew up. And I'm still trying to deal with me as a female in this industry. And I think there's a moment where there's times where I think I don't think I was a great female. And it's nothing to do with the way I treated other women, but I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was the boy's girl. I was the girl that got along with the boys. I was the girl that when they were laughing sometimes at other women, I would be there and not say anything in hopes that I wouldn't be the target. And by being that person, it's almost like I let misogyny just take over. And then one day eventually I grew up because I started in radio young. Like I was 17 in radio. And one day I stood up and I realized by me being silent and being the only girl that hasn't been fired at the edge after twelve other women have been, I'm not being like the cool chick. I'm being the girl that helps breed this misogyny that continues to this day. So I think that to me was like, I'm just starting to figure that out now. And it's taken a long time because I work with all men all the time.

Cynthia Loyst 00:31:26
I still can't believe again in radio looking in. Like I remember saying to you one day we were talking about morning shows and I was like, why couldn't there be just three females or two females? And she's like, that's never been done.

Josie Dye 00:31:39
Doesn't happen.

Cynthia Loyst 00:31:41
But I feel like I see all. Kinds of sports radio shows with three guys, often three white guys, or radio.

Josie Dye 00:31:47
Shows in general with all men, not even sports. I'm talking rock pop, all guys. But you put two females together and oh my God, those voices clash with each other. How do you tell each other apart? How do you figure that out? I can't hear two females on the air like, this is mind boggling. It's fucked up. It's actually crazy. So we have a long way to go.

Maureen Holloway 00:32:07
Yeah, there are a couple of shows that are hosted by two women, but I shouldn't say marginal, but they're not the big stations. They do do that. Josie, everything that you say, you know, I was feeling the same thing down the hall. Right? It was the same deal. So I just get these washes of not shame. There's that word again. But that you know that's-

Josie Dye 00:32:30
And this is the thing I have to realize, too, it's not my job to stop massage. This is not my job. In fact, it should be men that are taking on this issue, that are tackling this issue. And the good men, the men and of course, every man is going to be a little biased because they're male. But there are incredible men that work in radio. There are so many of them and they should be standing up for the women in radio. They should be having a voice.

Wendy Mesley 00:32:57
Don't you think that's changing? I find that I remember when I was on the hill and there weren't very many women 1000 years ago, and Anita Hill, she was speaking out against the appointment of the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice. And everyone was like, oh, she slept and she probably slept her way to the top. And she's saying that he shouldn't be there because he's a pervert and nobody believed her. And all the men in the office were she's just a slut. But I don't think that would happen today.

Maureen Holloway 00:33:27
Back to your podcast. So tell me what else is coming up? What have you got? And sometimes you have experts on, but sometimes it's just the two of you. Will you take questions from the audience or people who want to relate their weird experiences? Tell us what else is coming down the pike.

Cynthia Loyst 00:33:48
Yeah, I mean, we do have a woman who she's a real estate agent by day, but in the rest of her life she has cats and two husbands. So we talked to her about how she navigates that life and how she introduced her second husband. They do they all live together. They have separate bedrooms. It's a complicated story that we got exhausted listening to.

Josie Dye 00:34:06
And they actually don't have a lot of sex. Like they don't, which was mind boggling too. Sex isn't like the whole thing. And I think it's exhausting. Can you imagine having two husbands?

Maureen Holloway 00:34:15
Exactly.

Josie Dye 00:34:17
But all those cats. We also tackle some rumors about us. So there have been rumors in the industry whether it's we slept our way to the top or it's that Cynthia over here is sleeping with the Canadian celebrity. We go there. 

Cynthia Loyst 00:34:30
We're also talking about hockey gate, which was a big deal, basically, on the social. There was a comment made by one of my co hosts and it sent a firestorm for a long time that was very traumatic for all people involved. So we've got her on talking about speaking out using her voice. Yeah, those are just sexual fantasy. We interview a Dutch researcher who is so charming and his whole thing is he actually brings people on stage to share from people from all ages and all cultural backgrounds to talk about their sexual fantasies. And he was just so delightful and sort of joyful and curious like a journalist. But he's managed to find this little weird sweet spot and written a book about it. He and another woman do this, so we interviewed him about what sort of sexual fantasies also say about the culture that we are from, about what we kind of repress and what it means about us when we should introduce it in a new partnership. Those are just some of the things that are coming up.

Wendy Mesley 00:35:25
Interview Maureen about that one. Not me.

Maureen Holloway 00:35:28
Sexual fantasies? No, I'll listen, I'll watch, but no, I can't. I'm convin bread, too, like Cynthia, and it's still in there. But it's good luck, you guys. This is wonderful. I think you're absolutely the right people to be doing this. It's nice that you enjoy each other for whatever that means. We'll put that rumor out there and hope you're having fun. Wendy and I are, and this is a wonderful way to it's great to work this way, isn't it?

Cynthia Loyst 00:36:07
Yeah. And we're just looking forward to develop this community as I'm sure you reach out to women who listen to your stories and connect with you and talk to you. And we're just trying to encourage our listeners to start sharing their stories, too. There's something very cathartic, I think about it.

Wendy Mesley 00:36:22
We really wish you both all the best. And I wish that you would say that everything's fixed and everything's different, and it's not. But things are better, and you're part of making things better, better. So it's great.

Cynthia Loyst 00:36:33
Right back at you guys. Thank you so much for including us.

Maureen Holloway 00:36:36
It was absolutely our pleasure. Bye.

Wendy Mesley 00:36:42
They were lovely. Lovely, lovely.

Maureen Holloway 00:36:45
Yeah. I did not know that. I think I knew, but Cynthia has she is a major in gender studies and she's, you know, worked, so she has I mean, you were saying off off air, anybody can be an expert if they just say they are.

Wendy Mesley 00:36:59
That's the way it seems today. But she actually has a few degrees and she feels very strongly about I'm still not sure I can say the C word which starts with C-L-I-T.

Maureen Holloway 00:37:11
That's the word.

Wendy Mesley 00:37:13
Yeah, that's C word.

Maureen Holloway 00:37:15
I don't even know how to pronounce it. I don't know whether it's clitoris or clitoris or just clit. And even just saying this makes me really uncomfortable. What's wrong with me?

Wendy Mesley 00:37:23
I know. Yeah. Anyway.

Maureen Holloway 00:37:27
I wish them well. They will talk about all the things that we don't talk about. So that's covered.

Wendy Mesley 00:37:33
Well and some of it I think that shame is a nasty thing. It is a big thing, supporting women. And I was saying to someone the other day that having a co- host I mean, the two of them, they have co- hosts. They've worked that way, but I haven't. I've always kind of been on my own. Here I am with you and you're not. We've said a couple of C words and we're getting there. Yeah. Another 20, we'll be all set.

Maureen Holloway 00:38:01
I think we're, like, closing in on 50 episodes at some point in the next few weeks, so we should be very proud of that. 

Wendy Mesley 00:38:01
Really?

Maureen Holloway 00:38:01
Yeah. I think certainly we've celebrated our first anniversary since we started this. Okay, well, math is not my strong point, Wendy. All right, 35. 35, then. How's that?

Wendy Mesley 00:38:27
Every day is Tuesday as far as I'm concerned. But, no, they were wonderful. And I think they are talking about some of the things that we're not, which is great. I don't want to talk about hemorrhoids, but they can.

Maureen Holloway 00:38:39
And they did.

Wendy Mesley 00:38:42
Wonderful. Yeah. Anyway, lovely to see you.

Maureen Holloway 00:38:44
Anyway, lovely to see you. 

Mary Anne Ivison 00:38:44
Women of Ill Repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley with the help from the team at the Sound Off Media Company and producer Jet Belgraver.