Dining across the divide: ‘She felt people had become hypersexualised – I don’t think the solution is to go completely the other way’

Jo, 38, London

Occupation Teacher

Voting record Green in one election while at university; otherwise, has voted Labour

Amuse bouche Has two children and one on the way, and plans to start a family band when they’re old enough, singing close-knit harmonies of mainly 90s pop songs

Ruby, 19, Margate

Occupation Student

Voting record Labour in 2024

Amuse bouche Has just done hairdresser modelling – went in for a normal haircut, was asked to model, and came out blonde, with a pixie cut

For starters

Jo She seemed very cool. I was worried about being early – she was even earlier than me.

Ruby She came across as warm and friendly, even from the first minute. She had a nice pink dress on.

Jo We had lots of very delicious small plates. Both of us are vegetarians. We had curried cauliflower and hash browns with confit egg.

Ruby The egg was so good, we ordered it again. Plus watermelon and feta salad, and whipped Marmite butter and sourdough.

The big beef

Jo I’m very much in favour of sex before marriage. The foundations of a solid marriage are having total communication, honesty and transparency – being aligned in lots of areas, knowing that you’re going to grow together. Sex is a big part of your identity, not huge, but to hold that back would be not to reveal all your colours. And, while I think people do change as couples, if your libidos are misaligned, or you have very different niche interests, these are things partners should know.

People may have waited in the past and still made the marriage work, but often people just stayed together even though they were very unhappy.

Ruby I totally take the point that testing out your sexual chemistry is important. I want to be careful not to misrepresent myself as a puritan in this regard. But the flip side is, if you’re having sexual partners without any meaningful connection, that’s not sexual exploration either, really. More meaningful sex should be sought after; that doesn’t necessarily come from waiting until marriage, but we don’t live in a culture that promotes sexual learning.

Jo She felt that people had become hypersexualised, very focused on sex and not considering anything else. I don’t think sex is such a big deal that it needs to be shut off, and I don’t think the solution to a hypersexualised culture is to go completely the other way.

Ruby Lots of young people suffer from a lack of freedom in the role they’re expected to perform. There’s a huge range of diverse attitudes to sex and equality, but the hypersexualised, Sabrina Carpenter brand of feminism is quite dominant, which is a homogenising experience for people who don’t buy into it. I think it’s quite a plastic form of sexual liberation.

Sharing plate

Jo We talked about feminist sex parties, masturbation, self-awareness and pleasure. It’s a gendered stereotype to suggest that girls can’t enjoy sex without connection or can’t enjoy sex without intimacy. And, on sex work, we didn’t completely disagree – we both think it should be decriminalised and agreed that, for the majority of sex workers, it’s not the first thing they’d choose if they had other options. But we have to be very careful of saying to women: “You think you’re autonomous, but you’re not.”

Ruby I find it hard to see how sex work is liberating. Just as pornography is through a male lens, buyers of sex are predominantly men. It relies on a world where women’s sexual presentation is distorted to meet a male gaze. It fetishises white, thin women, and we know men’s sexual preferences aren’t described by that. I think women have a responsibility not to meet these expectations.

For afters

Ruby Women do have agency to resist the expectations that are put on to us. For every woman who gets plastic surgery, it only deepens the divide and entrenches the gendered expectation.

Jo She was really open to hearing about my experience of having children, and how that morphs your body in ways you’re not expecting. It’s not just that you put on weight, it’s that it feels unrecognisable. Sometimes surgery is giving you the confidence to feel like yourself again.

Takeaways

Ruby I thought she was lovely. She is definitely dedicated to improving education for women – I thought that was really a noble cause.

Jo My last impressions ended up the same as my first – she was really smart and wise beyond her years.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

Jo and Ruby ate at Little Bat, London N1.

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