“I think that culture still exists very much.”
It’s been a big week for author and lecturer Emilie Pine, with her book ‘Notes to Self’ voted the An Post Irish Book of the Year 2018.
‘Notes to Self’ is a series of essays, with Pine writing about a variety of aspects of her life, including fertility, feminism, sexual violence and depression.
Emilie was a guest on Ireland Unfiltered with Dion Fanning this week and spoke about her book, but she also went into detail about some of her experiences growing up in London that didn’t get a mention in ‘Notes to Self’.
Even as quite a young teenager, she was introduced to the drug scene in London clubs and the “sexual harassment and constant expectation” that came with that lifestyle.
You can read what she had to say below.
Emilie: I had a really close group of friends and we all started going clubbing when we were 13-14. The idea that the bouncers didn’t know, and everybody didn’t know that we were kids is ridiculous to me.
It’s not in the book but I talked about it with one of my best friends, that we were remembering that one day she had lost her child travel card and she’d left it in a club. That club isn’t even there anymore on Charing Cross Road in London and we went in and got it, and we were back there later that night.
But also just the level of constant sexual harassment and constant expectation that if they buy you drugs, then you will have sex with them, as a kind of transaction. I think that culture still exists very much.
You can listen to the show in full below.
Ireland Unfiltered, brought to you in partnership with Carlsberg Unfiltered, will be available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Tuesday.
