The Glow West Podcast
Glow West is a podcast that explores sex, sexuality, and the body, through a sexual wellness perspective. The podcast shines a soft light on many aspects of sex related issues, and offers a space for calm, informed conversations. Guests include activists, sex educators, academics, sex workers, sexual health experts, and more. Glow West is hosted by Dr. Caroline West, who has a PhD and an MA in Sexuality Studies.
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Mr Leather Ireland: Pride and Community
Consent is a conversation that we need to have urgently. Join Caroline this week as she chats to Justine Ang Fonte as she explains why it’s important to teach consent at a young age. She outlines how consent conversations can help maximise sexual agency, pleasure, and authenticity. Justine also covers consent and porn literacy, and why consent is a “womb to tomb” conversation.
Phone Sex
and Covid Erotica
Join Caroline for another live Glow West podcast. This time she chats to Jessie Sage and April Would about their work creating audio erotica.
They chat about the difference between custom content and mainstream porn, the relationships with consumers, and what it’s like to create Covid themed erotica.
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A Question of Consent
Justine Ang Fonte
Consent is a conversation that we need to have urgently. Join Caroline this week as she chats to Justine Ang Fonte as she explains why it’s important to teach consent at a young age. She outlines how consent conversations can help maximise sexual agency, pleasure, and authenticity. Justine also covers consent and porn literacy, and why consent is a “womb to tomb” conversation.
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Condoms Trains &
Reproductive Fascism
Join Caroline on episode 16 as she chats to Donna J. Drucker, author and lecturer. Donna delves into the history of contraception around the world, its ugly racist and fascist past and explores the future of contraception.
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Miss Ireland’s
Knickers
Join Caroline this week as she chats to Yvonne Costelloe about her life. Yvonne was almost nude in Playboy as a 15 year old, won Miss Ireland at 17, ran a lingerie shop in 1980s Ireland, and is now working as a psychic.
Listen to her sharing her escapades in life, including her eight marriage proposals and what it was like flashing at the Horse Show in Dublin.
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Black Pride
Ireland
Episode 14 features a conversation with Rayann and Diana from Black Pride Ireland as they outline why they set up the group, and what they plan for the future.
They discuss what its like to experience exclusion in queer spaces in Ireland, and how capitalism and colonialism has impacted black people and black sexualities.
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Relationship
Recovery
Join Caroline for episode 13 as she chats to Dr. Marianne Brandon, a sex therapist and clinical psychologist. Dr. Brandon outlines how relationships can recover from affairs, how monogamy doesn’t always deserve a reputation as “boring”, and how people can recover sexual desire after sexual violence.
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Trans Visibility
in Ireland
Listen in to Caroline’s chat with Aoife Martin and Noah Halpin, a trans woman and trans man, as they explain what’s it’s like to be trans in Ireland. They outline what trans healthcare is like to access in Ireland, and why visibility is so important for trans people, especially in the media.
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Gender Killer
on the Loose
Join Caroline as she chats to Alber Saborío, one of the founders of Gender.rip, a trans led art collective in Dublin. Alber talks about making art that explores trauma, sexuality and the trans experience in both Ireland and Honduras. They also discuss how racism has affected how we view gender. Content note for some discussion of sexual violence.
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End Direct Provision
Bulelani Mfaco
Join Glow West for its tenth episode as Caroline hosts a live podcast with Bulelani Mfaco.
Bulelani is a gay asylum seeker from South Africa who is an advocate for MASI, the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland. Bulelani talks about how the system fails LGBT+ refugees, why direct provision needs to be abolished, and how he came to be a “certified homosexual”.
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Polyamory, Race
and Relationship Anarchy
Is there a right way to do polyamory? Join Glow West this week as married couple Kevin and Antoinette Patterson explain polyamory in practice. They explore how race intersects with polyamory and sex, what relationship anarchy is, and how accurate representation in the media is important.
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Adventures in Sextech
Cindy Gallop
Join Caroline this week where she chats to Cindy Gallop, a marketing mogul and the brains behind makelovenotporn.com.
Cindy outlines how sextech and social media interact, why there is a difference between makelovenotporn.com and pornography, and what the future of sextech is like (spoiler alert: its already happening!)
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Referendum
Refelections
This episode looks back at the Marriage Equality and Abortion Referendums in Ireland. Listen to my chat with grassroots campaigners Tracey and Karen, as we discuss how they got involved, the highlights and lowlights of the campaigns, and processing it all.
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Melted Dildos
Shawna Scott
This week marks the first live podcast for Glow West and it was a joint event with the wonderful Rachel O’Neill from Disturbing the Peace podcast.
We chatted to Shawna Scott from premier Irish sex toy shop sexsiopa.ie.
Listen in to find out what happens when you melt a dildo, how to identify body safe toys and what is’t like to be a sex toy retailer in Ireland.
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Lenny Abrahamson
#NormalPeople
It was a great treat to be joined for another of our Tortoise Shack Live in #LockDown podcasts by filmmaker, director and Live Line content creator, Lenny Abrahamson. Caroline, Tony and Martin ask Lenny about the (unforeseen?) success of Normal People, the good and bad reactions to the sex scenes and the thought and care that went into the consent putting consent on screen.
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Juicy Lucy
Dry Dora
Joan Price is a 76 year old sex educator and author of Sex After Grief, and Naked at Our Age. She joins Caroline to discuss how she became a sex educator in her 50s, how to maintain an active sex life, the negative impact of Viagra, and safe sex. She also discusses how to have sex after bereavement.
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Sex Work
Adeline Berry
Joining us in episode three is the amazing Adeline Berry, who is trans, intersex, and a sex worker. She joins Caroline to discuss identity, labour, and the politics of running a dungeon and fighting for sex worker rights. Addy also discusses how art can be a medium for change as well as stress relief.
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Herpes and Me
Jenelle Marie Pierce
Join us for episode two where Caroline chats with Jenelle Marie Pierce from the stiproject.com. In this episode, Jenelle discusses her work to spread awareness of sexually transmitted infections, and shares her experience of living with herpes. Jenelle also talks about the need for education that covers STIs in a calm way, and how to banish shame and stigma.
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Wetter is Better
Samantha Evans
This first episode of Glow West features an interview with Samantha Evans. Sam is a sex educator who is passionate about sexual health and wellness, and she also runs an online sex shop called Jodivine.com. We chat about why not all lube is good lube, what body safe toys are, why orgasms are important for overall wellness, and why we need to stop faking orgasms.
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Introducing
Glow West
Welcome along to Glow West, the podcast that talks about sex, sexuality and the body from a sexual wellness perspective. Every week Dr Caroline West will shine a soft light on on many aspects of sex related issues. Guests include activists, sex educators, academics, sex workers, sexual health experts and more. In this short trailer you’ll hear from intersex and transgender sex worker, Addy Berry, about what intersex means, sex work, what happens in a dungeon and how art is therapy. You’ll also hear from Co-founder of sex toy company, Jo Divine, Samantha Evans, about sex education, the effect of medication on sexual wellness, talking to your doctor and lubrication.
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Tortoise Shack Remote
Vibes & Scribes
Martin, Rachel, Caroline, Ruth and Tony talk Comrade Britney, social distancing, the Covid-19 elephant in the room, the bare necessities and ways to get that beach body in time for summer, 2022. Not for little ears, but we had a great laugh.
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The Archive
#MuchMore
Enjoying our podcasts and want to hear more? Just visit our Archive Page where you’ll find links to many more hours of top quality content.