No (The Heart)

Determined and confident showdown with the taboos of rejection

Kaitlin has set out to find out why it's so hard for her to say no to men who want to have sex. After an era of adolescence where she was notoriously bad at saying no to something as simple as a cup of coffee (she doesn't like coffee), and was often confused about what she wanted, came an adult life where she felt more assertive. But suddenly, with only a few years apart, her sexual boundaries were challenged twice by men she'd thought she could trust.

© The Heart

The podcast series is divided into four sections, with Kaitlin exploring two questions: Why is it so hard to say no, and why is it so hard to takeno for an answer. The series is a nuanced patchwork of stories from a multitude of sources, constantly focusing on the main story of Kaitlin's own moral balance. The audio is delightfully varied, with excerpts from Kaitlin's teenage diary, interviews with her friends, ex-boyfriends and parents, messages from listeners, a terrible Elvis song called 'Don't', a really clever sex therapist, a re-enactment of one assault and a tape recording of the other.

Due to the topic alone, the podcast can be uncomfortable to hear at times, but the result is a deeply reflected and universally relevant story about personal boundaries and integrity.

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