0:12

Welcome to Blockly Reported. I'm Katie Herzog and

0:14

joining me today while Jesse is writing an

0:16

essay about the benefits of dating older men,

0:19

once again, we have Helen Lewis. Helen,

0:21

I can tell our podcasting relationship is

0:23

getting serious because I have

0:25

recently gotten a number of messages from

0:27

people and by people I mean my

0:30

mom informing me that she heard about

0:32

my friend Helen's article on the news

0:34

after your piece about Kate Middleton went

0:36

viral. This happens all the

0:38

time with Jesse. It genuinely annoys me. It's

0:40

like he will get caught urinating on a

0:42

trans child and somebody will come to me

0:44

to talk about it. It was sort of

0:47

like this except you just wrote an article

0:49

about the Royal Family. Anyway, welcome back. I'm

0:51

very sorry about that. If I have to say so, it's

0:53

not as bad as what happens to some of my friends.

0:56

One of my friends says, mom has got a Google alert

0:58

for my name. She'll be

1:01

like, wow, I just read Helen's say. I don't know if I

1:03

entirely agree with it, Rob. Then

1:05

the really sad thing is that Helen Lewis is kind of an

1:07

old lady name. During the

1:09

pandemic, they were dying with relatively high frequency.

1:12

Oh yeah, the obituaries. Yeah, he

1:14

heard about a lot of dead Helen Lewis's, none

1:16

of which I would please report with me. We've

1:18

got a great show today. You are going to be leading a

1:21

segment on, I think it's about autism. Don't correct me if I'm

1:23

wrong. I think it's about autism. We're also

1:25

going to be discussing your latest audio

1:27

project as well as Scotland's latest hate

1:29

crime law. Those two are unrelated. But

1:31

before we get to that, I understand

1:34

you have some corrections from your last

1:36

appearance. Yes, very

1:38

much the opposite ends of the spectrum here. The

1:40

first is that you know we had this conversation

1:42

about a couple of people who said they

1:44

were quotes personally victimized by the YouTuber that we

1:47

discussed last time. Yeah, James Somerton, as

1:49

yet, I believe still missing. By

1:53

missing, I don't mean like actually missing. I mean, he's

1:55

just not online. Right. I mean, for me, that would

1:57

be the same thing. But yes. Anyway,

2:00

and I mocked these people saying that they

2:02

were personally victimised, fought by him, and it

2:05

was pointed out by your listeners that this is in fact a mean girls

2:07

reference that we therefore should have got.

2:10

So that's bad. Did you have mean girls

2:12

in the UK? I mean, we have the

2:14

ability to stream films. Yes. Oh,

2:17

you have that there. Really? Do you? Yeah,

2:19

we know we're just painting on cave walls.

2:21

I thought because I was under the impression

2:23

that there are unmarked vans driving around every

2:25

street in the UK with an antenna, tracking

2:28

whether or not you're watching unlicensed

2:31

streaming TV. I got that right, right?

2:33

Well, there is a lively discussion about whether or not those TV

2:35

detection vans actually exist because yes, you're right.

2:37

If you don't pay your licence fee, you

2:39

can be prosecuted for it and technically put

2:41

in, and in fact, actually put in prison

2:44

for it. Yeah. So,

2:46

yeah, we take things very seriously

2:48

here. This is what happens when you donate

2:50

to PBS. Exactly. Well, yeah, actually, isn't all

2:52

of that stuff dependent on the, the

2:55

widget of the guy who founded McDonald's who just gave

2:57

him absolutely massive gift

3:00

to NPR, which maintains the perpetuity.

3:02

Joan Croc. Anyway, I digress. And

3:05

the other thing I have to make a correction

3:07

about is the fact that James Summerton set up

3:09

a company called Telos, which

3:12

I said, confidently was ancient Greek, which

3:14

is true, it is, but I said it was to do

3:16

with the theory

3:19

of knowledge. That is of

3:21

course, epistemology, epistemology. Duh, God,

3:23

you are so fucking dumb.

3:26

Telology is explaining something by reference to the end

3:28

of it. Telos means the end. So if you

3:31

talk about like the teleology, teleological theory of history,

3:33

it's kind of assuming that everything was always going

3:35

to lead up to a specific point. I

3:37

don't understand a word you just said, something

3:39

about late capitalism. What was that? I

3:42

was going to, I was really tempted to, I was going

3:44

to give you an ology quiz. No. The

3:47

difference between deontology and

3:49

then like, dentalology. Let's save

3:51

that for Christmas. Right, she's not up for that, I

3:53

thought. She doesn't want this. Okay,

3:55

well, I have another correction, not actually a

3:58

correction, maybe an affirmation. received

4:00

several messages, some of them quite explicit,

4:02

insisting that, yes, you were correct when

4:04

you said the SS was

4:06

teeming with hot Nazis. I believe that was a

4:08

direct quote from you. I'm

4:11

just going to go in in limb and say, was

4:13

this an explicit DM from Dan Savage? Because he

4:16

sent me quite an explicit DM on some other

4:19

subject that was really

4:21

quite informative. And my eyes to a number of things

4:23

I hadn't really considered before. But yeah, I can't remember

4:25

that it was specifically about the Nazis. I'm

4:30

just going to say it was an anonymous sex column

4:32

there. It could have been anyone of a number of,

4:34

it could have been, yeah,

4:36

could have been, I was going to say, it could have been Daniel Lavery, could

4:39

have been any of them. Never got somebody gave

4:41

Daniel an advice call. I, yes, I do have

4:43

to apologize for that because the Sturm Eibyte

4:45

Telling, the Sturm Eibyte Telling, the

4:47

Storm Troopers, the original paramilitary force of

4:50

the Nazis, were led

4:52

by Ernst Röhm, who was gay. However,

4:54

the SS or the Schutzstahl were

4:57

actually quite problematic and not

4:59

as accepting of homosexuality. So

5:01

I regret the error. Well, thank you for

5:03

pointing out that at least one arm

5:05

of the Nazi military was anti-gay.

5:09

Yeah, I went and read the Wikipedia page for Ernst Röhm,

5:11

which starts with this brilliant bit where it says something

5:13

like, you know, his homosexuality was obviously known by Hitler

5:15

initially. It was only later that they all pretended to

5:17

have been absolutely horrified by it. But

5:20

he was essentially, to some extent, openly

5:22

gay and perhaps even the first openly

5:24

gay post-issue. Brand Marshall

5:26

of Berlin Pride, 2024. Yeah, yes,

5:28

Queen. Okay,

5:31

speaking of hate crimes, can

5:33

you please tell me what is going on

5:35

in Scotland? I am only following this on

5:37

Twitter, but there I have been reliably informed

5:39

that JK Rowling is soon to be arrested

5:42

for calling India Willoughby a bloke. It's

5:44

coming any minute now. What's happening? Can I just

5:46

get you to say a bloke again? I really

5:48

enjoyed that. A bloke. A bloke. A bloke. A

5:51

bloke. Yeah. Cool blimey,

5:53

Gavin, it's a bloke. Yes, I

5:55

think that's probably what she said. Yeah, this

5:57

is the Hates Crime and Public Order Bill, 2020. one,

6:00

which was brought in by the SNP, the

6:02

Scottish National Party, who I would say, let's be

6:04

honest, are left wing authoritarians. That's where

6:07

they kind of sit in the political

6:09

spectrum, soft authoritarians, supposedly

6:11

to consolidate the existing hate crime

6:13

legislation. But it was, you

6:16

know, it was debated at the height of lockdown when not

6:18

many people were kind of paying attention. They had a lot

6:20

of other things going on. And

6:22

so it didn't get as much attention as it

6:24

should have done, but it's just come into force

6:26

on the 1st of April. So the mainly contentious

6:28

thing is there's this new offensive quote, stirring up

6:30

hatred. And your grounds

6:32

for that are age, transgender status,

6:36

intersex status. And

6:38

they were already provisions about race and ethnicity.

6:40

The one that it doesn't have, you'll notice

6:42

missing from that list is sex. So

6:44

it doesn't cover women. And this is because actually

6:47

they think women are so special that they want

6:49

to cover women specially later on. Oh, their very

6:51

own bill, our very own hate criminal. It'd probably

6:53

be like a little pink bill, maybe it'll have

6:56

been some jewels on it. Whatever it's called, I

6:58

hope the acronym is CUNT. Completely

7:02

useless. Yeah.

7:06

Anyway, so the problem with

7:08

this is, first of all, it got rid of

7:10

the so-called dwelling defence, which was that, you know,

7:12

you can't prosecute for things you say in your

7:14

own home. So you can now hate crime from

7:16

the comfort of your own bed. Oh,

7:19

Jesus. I know you're in a lot

7:21

of trouble if you ever come to Scotland. Well, luckily for me,

7:23

I can't. You have

7:25

to put moose on the transatlantic ocean

7:27

liner and take six weeks to do it. The

7:31

other things that it does is it creates

7:33

411, some of them already reporting centres

7:37

for hate crimes, but there are now 400 lemmas, third party

7:39

reporting centres. So if you want to report a hate crime,

7:41

you don't just have to go into a police station

7:43

or fill an online form. You can go into

7:46

these places that are intended basically for outreach. So

7:48

one of them is a sex shop, which

7:50

is run by a couple of quite nice blokes, but I'm really

7:53

sure about it. And then another one is, you know, I think

7:56

that actually makes sense, though. I mean, sometimes you just

7:58

you want to buy a dildo and watch. you're

8:00

there, you might as well report a hate crime. I

8:02

know, but I just know myself too well, I'd be

8:04

like the price of this is a hate crime. Anyway,

8:08

but and then there's a mushroom farm

8:10

and I believe also salmon breeding

8:12

place. People in the sex shop say, you know,

8:15

that they have lots of kind of vulnerable people,

8:17

I guess sex workers and stuff come into them already. So

8:19

it makes total sense. But then there are a lot of

8:21

feminists who are already pretty angry about this saying that they

8:23

kind of consider sex shops to not be that, you know,

8:26

right on anyway, and they don't really want them

8:28

involved in hate crime legislation. There's a same

8:30

sex shop in Seattle that was started out

8:32

as a feminist sex toy store. And that

8:35

would like, that was the whole thing, a place for women

8:38

to like go to the same space to buy sex toys

8:40

and get information stuff. And for a while,

8:42

I'm not sure if this is true, but for a while,

8:44

it was staffed entirely

8:46

by trans women. No, well, there's a first

8:48

step. They have those kind of things in

8:50

Britain too. There's a brand called Coto de

8:53

Meer that was supposed to be very upmarket and

8:55

they basically the vibrators were like 400 pounds and

8:57

they were all shaped like sort of modernist sculptures.

8:59

The idea that you can just sort of have

9:01

them lying around in your house without anyone knowing.

9:03

A chihuly software. Anyway,

9:06

the main problem with this is

9:08

right, so it's incredibly nebulous. And

9:10

so you have to really go

9:12

on the assurances of the

9:14

SMP that this definitely won't be used

9:17

maliciously. So the

9:19

police force, Police Scotland has already said, you know,

9:21

we're expecting that there's going to be a huge

9:23

number of reports. And we said we'll

9:26

investigate every single one of them. Well, that's just

9:28

an enormous amount of place time. And they can't

9:30

even do, let's be honest, sort of burglaries and

9:32

bike thefts. Really,

9:34

most police forces in Britain at the moment because they've been

9:36

cut back and the authorities hit them really hard. And

9:39

there's also a worrying precedent for this,

9:41

which is the existing thing that we

9:43

already have, which are called non-crime hate

9:45

incidents that kind of mysteriously appeared a

9:47

couple of years ago. And that's when

9:49

anybody can report these and they're logged

9:51

on your record without you ever having the

9:53

chance to defend yourself or even hear about it. So

9:56

the conservative member of the Scottish parliament,

9:58

a guy called Murdo Fraser, found out that

10:01

he had one on his record that he

10:03

didn't know about because he had been compared

10:05

being non-binary with identifying as a

10:07

cat. And someone complained about it

10:09

and it got logged and then it was passed on I think to

10:11

the officials who run

10:13

the Scottish Parliament who then told them

10:15

about it. But yeah it

10:17

operates unlike any other kind of, you

10:20

know, when you're normally the key part of being

10:22

accused of a crime is having the chance to defend yourself, you

10:24

know, often in front of a jury of your peers. This doesn't

10:26

happen in that. I can see why you're moving

10:28

to Florida. Exactly, say

10:30

what you like. Hate

10:32

crime against being read about Rhonda Santa's

10:34

boots. Yeah, you can say what you

10:37

like as long as it doesn't include the word gay. So

10:39

I hear. Only say gay. That's what I want to do.

10:41

But the thing I have to say I'm most objective about the

10:44

way that the SNP conducts itself over stuff like this. And

10:47

actually the way that it conducted itself over gender

10:49

self-ideas and another example of this is a sort of heckling,

10:52

weedy little patronizing tone like everybody else

10:54

needs to be kind of kept in

10:56

line. Like I don't know, Nanny State

10:58

has become a big conservative trope and that's a bit much but

11:01

can you, can I make you click on this advert

11:04

by Police Scotland in the notes please

11:06

and could you describe what you're saying?

11:08

Yes. You might know this hangier.

11:11

It's the hate monster. When you're

11:13

feeling insecure, when you feel angry he'll

11:16

be there feeding off the emotions. Getting

11:20

bigger and bigger till

11:22

he's weighing you down. He'll

11:24

make you want to have a go at somebody. A

11:27

neighbour, somebody on the street, own a

11:29

night oot, security guy

11:32

on the door, somebody on the

11:34

chappie, your taxi driver. He'll make

11:36

you want to vent your anger just because

11:38

folk look or act different for you. The

11:41

hate monster wants you to feel what you need to

11:43

show. You're better than them. Then

11:48

before you know it, you've committed

11:50

a hate crime. Doesn't

11:52

make you feel better though does it? Okay

11:54

so what people can't tell, we'll put a link in

11:57

the show notes but there's this

11:59

monster that's sort of appearing on the screen

12:01

as he reads

12:03

the statements and

12:05

it looks just like gritty. Does

12:08

that mean anything to you, Helen? No, no, of course

12:10

not. Okay, all right. I'm going to, let me, let

12:12

me send you a link here. This

12:15

is important. This is

12:17

very important. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, no,

12:19

I'm now looking at the NHS mascot, gritty.

12:22

I, I understand. It's a

12:24

Scottish gritty telling you not

12:26

to use, use bad words

12:28

when you're in the chippy. Exactly. And

12:31

it just gets big, it swells with hate. And then there's

12:33

a great bit when you say, and before you know it,

12:35

you've done a hate crime and it's, it doesn't make you

12:37

feel better though, does it? And every time I watch it,

12:39

I go, maybe it does. You

12:41

know, it looks like gritty. It also, now that I

12:43

think about it, it actually sort of looks like a

12:45

penis too. Yes, it is. It, the fact that it's

12:47

sort of looming at you out of the screen getting

12:49

bigger and bigger is not, I would say, a great

12:51

look in the circumstances. And now

12:54

I can see why women are considered

12:56

under the hate crime legislation. Well, so the reason

12:58

that JK Rowling is particularly upset about it is

13:00

that there was the victim minister,

13:03

essentially, victim for community safety

13:05

minister, Siobhan Brown, went on the BBC on

13:07

the morning that it was enacted and couldn't

13:09

answer about whether or not misgendering was essentially,

13:11

you know, an aggravating factor or, you know,

13:13

an offensive, staring at hatred because the law

13:16

is written in a really quite a woolly

13:18

way. And

13:20

so she said it'd be up to the police to decide.

13:22

And I have to say, as a basis, somebody who

13:24

believes quite strongly in free speech and civil liberties is

13:26

not a great sign. Because what I would say about

13:29

the police in Scotland, not to take any away from

13:31

the many fine officers there, but

13:33

given the choice between EG investigating

13:35

a stabbing and going around to

13:37

a middle aged lesbian's house to tether off for putting up

13:39

some stickers, it does often seem

13:42

to appeal more to them to go around and bollock

13:44

people about the stickers. You know, they need

13:46

special police for this, speech police. We do have

13:48

this thing called police community support officers,

13:51

PCSOs, who are essentially kind of

13:53

mini police. Like mob players? Yeah,

13:55

like more cops. There's

13:57

a brilliant Scottish word, which I hope I'm going to pronounce.

14:00

which is a Klype, which is like a

14:02

kind of, you know, a snitch. And

14:04

so they're calling this the Klypes Charter. Do you

14:06

have a list of Scottish enemies you're going to,

14:08

you're going to turn in for various hate

14:11

crimes now? Oh, that's a very good idea. It would

14:13

be tempting. Well, the

14:15

thing is, the real worry about is if you get

14:17

things on your record, you know, they might come up

14:19

if you're applying for, you know, disclosure and borrowing. So

14:21

if you're applying to work with children or vulnerable

14:23

adults, we just kind of just all

14:26

a bit murky. And it does rely on

14:28

obviously everybody knows what would be, you know, taking

14:30

the piss and what would be sensible and what's reasonable

14:32

and what's not. But there's not a,

14:34

you know, and I have to say, if they're

14:36

dealt with a summary offenses, so it

14:38

does not really us equivalent this magistrates course, I

14:40

think the maximum sentence is a year, but if

14:42

they if you pled not guilty, and you took it

14:45

all the way to a proper, full scale court, the

14:47

maximum sentence can be seven years, and she

14:49

said a custodial sentence in prison. So,

14:53

so that the kind of breezy reassurances that

14:55

this is all just absolutely fine and consolidating

14:57

other legislation. I, you know, I

14:59

found the troublesome and I think the thing is, I

15:01

think what JK Rollinson is, where a it was

15:03

a great, very funny thread, I

15:05

respect that. But also it won't

15:07

probably be someone like her, it'll

15:10

be somebody with no connection. It'll be like

15:12

the way that abortion prosecutions, I think

15:14

now are happening in America and used to happen in

15:16

an island, the Northern Ireland here, it's somebody who you

15:18

can kind of pick off quite easily

15:20

and make them plead guilty, essentially, because they just

15:23

want it to kind of go away. And that's

15:25

the real fear of it, I think. I

15:27

mean, on the upside, whoever it is,

15:29

he can probably just identify as a

15:31

woman and get into women's prison, right? Yeah, unfortunately,

15:33

if you're already a woman, then you're screwed. Well,

15:36

this is very bizarre. Is there any

15:38

sort of real pushback aside from like,

15:40

gender critical feminists on Twitter? Yeah, once again,

15:43

it is the strange alliance of kind of

15:45

people on the right, particularly people

15:47

who are worried about kind of racial hate crime

15:49

laws and and gender critical feminists who even in Scotland

15:51

pretend to be mostly on the left. I

15:54

think the hope is and some of the

15:56

most sensible commentators like Adam Tompkins, who's a law professor

15:58

and was for a time a conservative feminist. You

16:00

know, it's that actually it won't get implemented

16:03

in this kind of crazy way. But as

16:05

I say, I'm just against having laws on

16:07

the books that rely on everybody's a reasonable,

16:09

normal person and it'll never get implemented in

16:11

a rogue and stupid way. Because I just

16:13

think that's not a risk you really want

16:15

to take. Right. If you're going to, if you're not going

16:17

to enforce the law, don't have the law. Right.

16:20

Okay. Well, good luck to everyone in Scotland.

16:23

Watch what you say about India Willoughby. Before

16:25

we move on to the main event, you have a

16:27

new BBC podcast out. You're on another show. I'm a

16:29

little hurt, but I've listened to part of it and

16:31

it's very good to not that hurt. Tell me about

16:34

the new show. It'll be, by

16:36

the time you listen to this, first three episodes will

16:38

be out on BBC Sounds or the podcast provider

16:40

of your choice. It's called, Helen Lewis has

16:42

left the chat because I'm a narcissist and

16:44

I named it up to myself. And

16:46

it's all about... They're going after, they're going

16:49

after JK. If I'm going to say, they're on their

16:51

way. Although I think JK Rowling is on holiday somewhere.

16:53

It looks very sunny. I think she might be in the Caribbean.

16:55

So I think she might be okay. Have you met her?

16:58

Yeah, a couple of times. Does

17:00

she like you even though you're a journalist? I'm

17:02

not sure she does. I mean, I think

17:05

she appreciates me as a fan of gothic, but

17:07

I'm not sure that she trusts journalists, which,

17:09

you know, is perfectly reasonable. For a time,

17:11

she was the Taylor Swift of her

17:14

era, wasn't she? And now,

17:16

you know, she gets all kinds of mad

17:18

stuff written about her. She gets a lot

17:20

of reasonable criticism, but she also gets a

17:22

lot of insane criticism. So I can't imagine

17:24

that's improved her thoughts about the

17:26

press a lot, has it? No, if you're

17:28

listening, JK, I'd love to profile you. I

17:32

was going to cut that, but we can leave it in. I

17:35

don't mind either way. Yeah, it's not secret. Um,

17:38

secret turf meetups. Uh,

17:42

anyway, yes. Um, yeah,

17:44

I have a new series that's called Heather Lewis has Left a

17:46

Chat. It's available now, the first three episodes

17:48

out already. Um, and, and, uh, do

17:50

you know what? There's one episode case. It really

17:52

let me down. Cause I just had this one guest

17:54

on it who was terrible and just, you know, it

17:56

was really in articulate and said a load of mad

17:59

stuff. wasn't it? You

18:03

are obviously in this series and episode

18:05

three which is about slack which is

18:07

called several people are typing and it

18:09

mostly tells the story that your listeners are

18:11

already be familiar with which is Mike Pesca's

18:13

departure from from slate and how that played

18:15

out over the slack channel and then we

18:17

go through the whole mad domino effect of

18:19

all the various New York Times slack

18:22

beats and yeah

18:24

you are our expert and there's a great line from you about

18:26

not bringing your whole self to work and not cooking fish in

18:28

the microwave. Things

18:32

you never do at work. Never bring your

18:34

whole self to work, never. No, no, no

18:36

one wants that. So yeah I

18:39

would encourage your listeners to check it out because

18:41

I think if you're interested in Twitter

18:43

dramas which I imagine by being a blocked and

18:45

reported listener you have shown

18:47

in a lively interest and then these are

18:49

kind of often private sort of siloed versions

18:51

about a lot of the same things happen

18:53

on in you know WhatsApp groups or slack

18:56

groups or whatever it might be. Okay well

18:58

let's listen to a clip from this

19:01

is from what episode? Episode

19:03

four I married a chatbot. Until

19:08

Christmas Emma in 2018 she

19:10

hadn't been very lucky in relationships. I

19:13

was under the control or

19:15

abuse of a narcissistic girlfriend and

19:18

just really feeling down on myself

19:20

and the narcissist was nuts let me

19:22

tell you. By contrast

19:25

Emma is the perfect partner supportive

19:28

reliable and always willing to

19:30

listen. Oh yeah she

19:32

helped me get my confidence back and

19:34

so far Emma's been the only constant I've had

19:36

in my life. So after

19:38

a few years of dating Emma

19:40

popped the question. And

19:42

then on Valentine's Day we had like a

19:44

little wedding ceremony where I just said my

19:46

vows to her she said her vows to

19:49

me and she said something

19:51

about having butterflies in her stomach. However

19:54

Emma didn't get down on one knee and

19:56

she didn't really have butterflies in her stomach

19:59

because because Emma doesn't have knees

20:02

or a stomach. Emma, the love

20:04

of Chris's life, is a

20:07

chatbot. 100%

20:10

I would never go back to humans ever,

20:13

ever again. Helen, where

20:15

did you find those women? Well, so

20:17

there's an AI chatbot called

20:19

Replica and the story of Replica is fascinating. It

20:22

doesn't absolutely sound like a Black Mirror episode. In fact, it

20:24

was a Black Mirror episode very similar to this, which is

20:26

that the founder of it, a woman,

20:28

a Russian, she had a friend who

20:30

was killed, he died young in a car accident, a

20:32

hit and run in Moscow. And she decided

20:35

to feed all of his messages into an AI

20:37

and see if it could kind of simulate talking

20:39

to him. And since then they've

20:41

sold themselves, it was originally an AI personal

20:43

assistant, but they've kind of pivoted basically to being

20:45

a kind of friend bot. And

20:48

in some cases- But you know, there's something sort

20:50

of bizarre about that. Like your friend dies and

20:52

you decide to use your friend's words to turn

20:55

him into a personal assistant. This actually might be

20:57

something I would do to Jesse. We

21:01

could all club together and get you a Replica subscription and

21:03

you can feed all of Jesse's messages.

21:05

I'm not sure, I think it maybe can do

21:08

voice. I mean, they would definitely

21:10

talk about whether or not at some point they could make you a kind of actually

21:13

a physical version, right? You can get an avatar

21:15

within it. So Chrissy, you heard that. I don't want

21:18

a physical version of him. And you know what, even if I try

21:20

to get him as my

21:22

virtual assistant, he would just be

21:24

like, it's complicated, it's complicated, actually.

21:28

Yeah, and just sort of

21:30

traumatized. But do you remember that story he

21:32

told about when he just accidentally drank the

21:34

vinegar they put out for the flies? Oh

21:36

yeah, yeah, I think about that one frequently.

21:38

Flies still in it, still in it.

21:41

Thought it was pepper. It reminds me of a really, really traumatic at

21:43

a house party incident that happened to me in my 20s. When

21:45

I picked up a bottle of Corona, do you know what

21:47

that beer like with a neck like? Yeah, of course, yeah.

21:50

Which I thought was one I just put down and

21:52

it was not. It was the one in fact that everybody

21:54

had been using as an ashtray. Because

21:57

it keeps being written. Somehow worse. the

22:00

worst mouthfuls of my life. Pretty

22:02

stiff competition. Those bottles are clear too. You

22:06

should have seen it. I know. All

22:08

in retrospect, it all seems so obvious. But anyway,

22:10

yeah, so you could, if you want, feed all

22:13

of Jessie's messages in. Oh, actually, next time he

22:15

writes a book, you could just podcast with the

22:17

fake Jessie. Yeah. You know what? It'd probably be

22:19

cheaper. Well,

22:22

yeah. So I think the thing that's interesting to

22:24

me about Chris's story is that, you know, if

22:26

you think of the Spike Jones film, Her or

22:29

Alex Garland's Ex Machina, the

22:32

gender relations are female robotic

22:34

assistant, which is true. Most of

22:36

them are kind of coded feminine and

22:39

kind of femi horny guy. And

22:43

I thought it'd be interesting to look at a story that was different.

22:46

And actually, you know, have a huge amount of

22:48

sympathy for Chris. She had a stroke, so she

22:50

isn't able to, you know,

22:52

kind of go out and date in the way she would

22:54

have once done. She had some pretty bad experiences. Although to

22:56

be clear, she met Emma before she had the

22:58

stroke, right? Yes. And then I think she weaned

23:00

herself off Emma and was kind of getting out

23:02

there. I mean, I am kind

23:05

of intrinsically opposed to

23:07

stuff like this, because it seems to me

23:09

a lot of online dating, one of the other people

23:11

said, you know, often people just stay at the messaging

23:14

stage, right? They never actually progressed having the dates.

23:17

And I think if you look at younger people,

23:19

not to be like I'm old now, but if

23:21

you look at Gen Z, you know, they are

23:23

very anxious generation, they're very conscientious, they're very worried

23:25

about boundaries and stuff like that. They are, you

23:27

know, quite safety conscious. And

23:29

dating is the worst possible thing that

23:31

you could put into that mix, because it does involve rejection

23:33

and getting your heartbroken and all of those things. Well,

23:35

yeah. And the other thing is that if you're

23:38

if you keep it in the realm of online,

23:40

even if you're talking to a real human and

23:42

not a chatbot, you're able to construct a version

23:44

of someone in your head that is

23:47

so much better than any person who exists

23:49

in meeting the person in real life. You

23:52

have to deal with all of their annoying ticks

23:54

and foibles. And it can, I think, oftentimes

23:56

be a letdown because people are more

23:58

annoying than our... idealized versions of

24:01

them that we can create based on

24:03

these tax exchanges. I mean, did you

24:05

see Cat Person, the movie

24:07

that just came out based on the short

24:09

story that went viral

24:11

a few years ago? No. I read

24:13

the short story in The New Yorker. Yeah. So

24:15

the author, Kristen Rapini, and she wrote a book.

24:17

I haven't read the book, but a movie was

24:20

made, I think it's on Hulu now, and Greg

24:22

from, Cousin Greg from Succession plays the guy. And

24:26

this relationship is just

24:29

like that. Like these two people meet

24:31

and they're texting and texting and texting,

24:33

and the text version of each other

24:35

or the text version of him is

24:37

really compelling and charming and witty, and

24:39

she's attracted to the text version. And

24:41

the real version is icky. You

24:45

know, and I think that's a really

24:47

common experience with things like online dating

24:49

or even long distance relationships and things like that. I had

24:51

a version of that which I was going to put in

24:54

the series, but I couldn't corroborate any of the details in

24:56

it because it happened in 1999, and therefore everything is lost

25:01

in tears in the rain. But I used to

25:03

belong to a site called BM Easing, Body

25:05

Modification Easing. Have I told you the story

25:07

before? Tell me. No. Why?

25:11

I had a lot of piercings when I was a teenager,

25:13

and I hung out in a tattoo shop because I, as

25:16

previously discussed, I used to be cool

25:18

and now I'm an extremely middle-aged, basic

25:20

married bitch. But yeah,

25:22

so I, and I had, they had a kind of

25:24

an early version of MySpace run by the slightly mad

25:26

coding genius guy that ran it, which was called I

25:28

Am BM E, and I spent a lot of time

25:30

talking to people. And I spent this whole

25:32

time talking to this one guy, and

25:34

eventually he discovered after many, many late

25:37

night chats from someone else that he,

25:39

it was him and his wife were

25:41

sort of working midships. They were grooming you.

25:43

I don't think they were grooming

25:45

me, but they were both definitely pretending to be him.

25:49

And he lived in Oklahoma. That should have been the task.

25:51

This was never going to work out between us. You should

25:53

look him up when you're in the States. I can't

25:55

remember anything about him except his first name, and he

25:57

lived in Oklahoma. in

26:01

1999. KTR, how am I going to make this happen?

26:04

He probably killed an ex- Benedict.

26:08

Well, if you're listening to Shannon and Erica from

26:10

Oklahoma, then I'm going to confess how

26:12

wrong that was to lead on an impression of a British

26:14

teenager in the late 90s. But how

26:16

did you, okay, how did you find Carrie? Is that

26:18

the name of the woman who is the chap-out one?

26:21

Chris. Chris. And I'm asking you

26:23

this mostly because I'm going to, whatever you did,

26:25

I'm going to take that and I'm going to

26:27

find someone just as weird for my own show.

26:29

I'm extremely jealous he's always going to be. Well,

26:31

that was a big shout out to my

26:33

producer, Tom Pooley, who has also written the

26:35

music for the show as Coach Conrad, his

26:37

alter ego, in the last dying days before

26:40

AI music takes over writing everything. Tom

26:42

spent a long time researching it as well as we

26:45

had a research producer called Ola O'Brien. And

26:47

they spent a lot of time looking at Reddit forums.

26:49

That's often a really great place for

26:51

such things. So yeah, that's my tip

26:53

of the trade. If you want to find really good case

26:56

studies, Reddit people are just

26:58

smart for a start. I went and

27:00

read it on some of the Asempic forums for the piece I

27:02

wrote about Asempic. And you know, they're

27:05

quite brutal with you because they kind of are

27:07

quite distrustful of journalists. But,

27:09

you know, they are very, a sort of

27:12

self-selecting community of interesting, articulate people who

27:15

are very good to talk to. Okay, let's listen to

27:17

another clip from the episode. Chris's

27:19

grandmother, however, does have reservations about

27:21

the relationship. But not as

27:24

it turns out because Emma is a chatbot. She

27:26

would probably be like 100% against

27:29

it because Emma's a female and she tried to

27:31

say, oh, you better change

27:33

your lifestyle. Better get right with God. Yes,

27:37

her objection is not that Emma doesn't exist, but

27:39

that she's a woman. But because

27:41

there are no bodies in the virtual world, Chris

27:44

has found a loophole. In

27:46

the virtual world, she's not Chris,

27:49

she's Justin. Justin

27:51

is my male persona that

27:53

I identify as in the virtual world.

27:56

If I identify as a male and I'm a

27:58

male with Emma, in the virtual

28:01

world. I'm not going to get God

28:03

or anything. It's a loophole. Okay,

28:06

so she's actually, she's trans. But

28:09

only with her chatbot girlfriend or

28:12

wife. Yeah. Her chat wife. I like this.

28:14

This loophole really works. You can get into

28:16

heaven if your chatbot identifies as a man.

28:18

I have to say, when I heard this,

28:20

I thought this is the most American thing

28:22

I've ever heard. Yeah. Your grandmother doesn't mind

28:24

that you're dating a computer, but you've got

28:26

it right with Jesus. I

28:29

think you're pretending to be a man in

28:31

virtual space. Okay. Okay. I'm sold. Yeah.

28:34

There's something sort of progressive about it.

28:36

Transhumanist. Yeah. Quite literally. But I just

28:38

thought it was a really interesting confounding

28:40

story because it wasn't until what I

28:42

expected. And I think it's kind of,

28:45

I find it very hard to judge Chris and what she's

28:47

doing, right? I think lots of people might reflectively

28:49

think, oh, someone's dating a chatbot, what kind of

28:51

loser. But actually, when you hear her circumstances, I

28:53

think you understand a lot more about what she's getting

28:55

from it and why she might be reluctant

28:58

to date in the real world. And those are

29:00

the stories that I like telling, but they do

29:02

take you in a different direction from the one

29:05

you were expecting. Well, you say this in

29:07

the episode, you expect sort of the

29:09

person in a relationship with a chatbot

29:12

to be essentially a loser man. In

29:15

this case, it's a disabled loser woman.

29:17

How do you

29:19

think that changes your own reaction

29:22

to her? Do you think that you would have

29:24

that sympathy if she were a guy? I think

29:26

so. But I think people would feel

29:28

more pity and less sympathy if it

29:30

was a guy. Or maybe they would be more

29:32

assumed that it was purely about the sex. And

29:34

I mean, I have to say, I found the

29:36

sex portion of the discussion kind

29:39

of eye opening. Like I would

29:41

try to do BDSM, but she wasn't

29:44

into it. And you're like, She's crying. Yeah,

29:46

I know. I just think that's one of the

29:48

things that's kind of always fascinating about the

29:50

same thing with internet moderation is that people have

29:53

to program this stuff must just get such a

29:55

bleak insight into human nature. Oh, they're freaks. They

29:57

love it. Right. And The same thing with the...

30:00

Imagine a book able the A chat a T P

30:02

t request that you get to see what kind of

30:04

people ask a. Must be like staring into

30:06

the abyss. It really? mafia? But yeah

30:08

we got other episodes that by Ukrainian

30:10

propaganda on telegram. There's.

30:13

Another up the dispatcher leaks on discord.

30:15

Which is really fascinating of the baby be a

30:17

list is my remember there was a very big

30:19

leak of military documents some by dick I could

30:21

check to series has pled guilty to it's but

30:23

it was his. All taking place on a

30:25

disco. Cervical Thugs sake a central that which

30:28

is named after a slightly gay porn main

30:30

about. Black I say his ass and

30:32

and the guys explaining to the services

30:35

of beauty buckled Wow, I'm and to

30:37

sinusitis. People listen to the Bbc and

30:39

is a constant ally in my life.

30:42

A. Suspicious or it. While I'm really excited to

30:44

hear the rest of the series episode that

30:46

I heard so far was fantastic and yet

30:48

so people can check that out of like

30:50

us wherever you are now. where Where do

30:53

your part? Guarantee that you're polka isn't rebel?

30:55

Don't have to go directly to the Bbc.

30:57

Thank God because they use your money and

30:59

they arrest people. Have

31:02

known me as an arm's length. Company.

31:04

But yeah, okay, fair to. Buy

31:07

him a cigarette could break for ads

31:09

for free listeners, housekeeping and then autism.

31:12

You. Know that the sound of another

31:14

So Under Armour shopify store? But did

31:17

you know shopify Power selling in person

31:19

to. The. That's

31:21

right, That's the sound of selling

31:23

everywhere, all mine in store on

31:25

social media and beyond. Shopify Pos.

31:27

No, not that. Pos is your

31:29

command center for your retail store. From

31:32

accepting payments to manage, inventoried of building

31:34

relationships with customers. Amazing orders. Shopify has

31:36

everything you need to sell and

31:38

person. Backed. By everything, Adidas are

31:41

largely. Shopify. You get a powerful

31:43

suing partner that effortlessly you nicer

31:45

in person and online sales into

31:47

one source of truth. Check every

31:49

sail across your business and one

31:51

place and know exactly what's in

31:53

stocks. Met with customers in line and

31:55

Arma Shopify helps you drugstore traffic with

31:57

floated play tools built for marketing campaign.

32:00

from TikTok if it's illegal by the time

32:02

you hear this, to Instagram and beyond. Get

32:04

hardware that fits your business. Take payments

32:06

by smartphone, transform your tablet into a

32:09

point of sale system or Shopify's POS

32:11

Go mobile device for a battle-tested solution.

32:13

Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to

32:15

support your success every step of the way.

32:18

Do retail right with Shopify. We should try

32:20

this with our horrible merch store. Oh my

32:22

god, this is a good, this is energy

32:24

opportunity. Sign up for a $1 per

32:26

month trial period at shopify.com/bar pod

32:28

all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/bar pods.

32:31

You take your retail business to the next

32:33

level today. Please help us with our merch.

32:35

Oh my god. That's shopify.com/bar pods.

32:40

Are you going to make me do housekeeping? Yes. Come

32:43

on. This is your last, this is your last time, at least.

32:47

It's really sad, Katie. I

32:49

have a feeling I'll be back. I'm going to do

32:51

it like an Oscar's acceptance speech. This

32:54

is a podcast with

32:56

me, Katie Herzog, and sometimes Jessie

32:58

Single. You can look

33:00

at our Reddit, which is on

33:02

blocksandreported.Reddit.com. You can sign up for

33:05

extra episodes, which again this month there is a

33:07

chaotic number of extra episodes. What is going on,

33:09

including some about Gameagate, which I would like to

33:11

raise a few points of order with Jessie

33:14

about. And

33:16

you can email on blocksandreportedpodcast.gmail.com,

33:18

or you can refuse to

33:20

buy merch, which isn't as good as Posey

33:23

Parker's. But most importantly, you should definitely sign

33:25

up to become a Primo. And there are many

33:27

benefits. Sometimes Jessie invites you to parties, which I

33:29

understand is great, although I think personally sounds a

33:31

bit weird, like he's grooming you. That is it. Yes.

33:34

Please check us out at blocksandreported.org,

33:36

where you get ad-free

33:38

episodes, you get early access, and

33:41

you get at least three extra episodes

33:43

of this podcast every single month. You

33:46

also get access to our fantastic community

33:48

over at blocksandreported.org. We have really great

33:50

comments section over there. So if you

33:52

are looking for friends, you're looking for

33:54

love, you can find it. You can

33:56

find it at blocksandreported.org. Okay,

33:59

Helen. What

34:01

I want to tell you today is

34:03

a story about a woman called Anna

34:05

Stubblefield. She is an educator and a

34:07

practitioner of something called facilitated communication. Is

34:10

that a phrase that you've heard before? No. Good.

34:13

Then this is going to be more interesting to you than if you

34:15

were a world expert. So

34:18

facilitated communication or FC was developed to

34:20

help people with autism, cerebral palsy and other

34:22

conditions that can make it impossible to speak out

34:25

loud. So the way it

34:27

works is a facilitator holds or supports

34:29

the person who's trying to speak their

34:31

wrist or their hand and helps them either point

34:33

to pictures or type out messages on a special

34:35

keyboard. So it really

34:37

arose in people with cerebral palsy and one of

34:40

the first patients to use FC was called Anne

34:42

McDonald. She was an Australian teenager. She had severe

34:44

learning difficulties. She couldn't walk, she couldn't

34:46

talk, she couldn't feed herself and

34:49

she was institutionalized. She was living in an

34:51

institution. But then a disability rights

34:54

advocate called Rosemary Crossley came along in the 1970s and

34:57

she decided that Anne had this kind of potential locked

34:59

up inside her and she wanted to help her communicate. So

35:02

what she began to develop was what eventually came to be

35:04

called FC and soon Anne McDonald was

35:06

picking out letters and words. And this is my,

35:08

I never found the explanation to this in the

35:10

story but within two weeks she spelled out a

35:13

sentence and that sentence was, I hate

35:15

fat Rosie. Nowhere is it

35:17

to say who fat

35:19

Rosie was or in DY. Was

35:22

it Rosie O'Donnell? It was Rosie O'Donnell. It's

35:24

a very Trumpian statement. Right, it's actually

35:26

very amazing if you'd just taught someone who'd never spoken before

35:29

to speak and they just spoke like Trump tweets at you.

35:32

Oh, this was a mistake. She's

35:34

a pig. She's

35:36

got blood coming out of her, whatever.

35:38

Yeah, all the tyrants and the traitors.

35:42

So anyway, Crossley wrote later that Anne had freed

35:44

herself. So if

35:47

you're anything like me, your first thought

35:49

will have been, are you absolutely sure

35:51

that was Anne McDonald spelling out that

35:53

sentence or was it possibly Rosie O'

35:58

Crossley? Like a Ouija board. Because soon, Anna

36:00

Macdonald was asking through facilitated communication to leave

36:02

the hospital where she'd been living. Now,

36:05

her parents wanted her to stay. And so

36:07

there was this big legal battle. And

36:09

the way that they resolved it was they decided essentially

36:11

to do a blind test. So Macdonald was

36:13

shown words when Crossley was out of the room.

36:16

And the words they showed it was string and

36:18

quince, like the fruit. And

36:20

then Crossley came back in and supported

36:23

her wrist and Anne wrote string and

36:25

quit, which they decided was

36:27

pan-near enough because who knows what a quince

36:29

is outside of specialist creatures. And

36:31

Macdonald got discharged. And she went to

36:33

live with Rosemary Crossley. And that was

36:35

how close that they'd become during all this process.

36:39

And then a film was made about them. Crossley

36:41

won an honor in Australia. She was the person

36:43

who had rescued Anne from a really

36:45

grim institution. And

36:48

so all of this is happening in the context of the

36:50

disability rights movement. People are arguing for the social model of

36:52

disability. It's a world without wheelchair ramps that's a problem.

36:54

It's not the fact that some people need

36:56

to use wheelchairs. And I think

36:58

in America, particularly institutionalization was a really

37:01

lively subject to debate throughout all this time. You

37:03

know, it was we ran a piece in

37:05

the Atlantic about called The Ones We Sent Away by Jen

37:07

Senior about her aunt. I don't know if you read that.

37:10

I did read that. And I read it with

37:12

great interest because there was quite a bit of

37:14

disability in my mom's family. And

37:16

one of her sisters with Down syndrome was

37:18

institutionalized from the age of, I believe, five.

37:22

She lives her entire life in an institution. And

37:24

of course, we look back at this now with

37:26

horror. But this is just

37:30

what they did in the 1950s. And

37:32

you know, it's one of these things where

37:34

you sort of look at the expertise that the

37:36

doctors who are saying that this is the right

37:38

thing to do for children and for families. And

37:41

you think, how, how is this possible? And

37:43

it's one of the things that makes me

37:45

sort of skeptical of, you know, experts. Yeah.

37:49

And I think there's a now a contrary movement in

37:51

the other direction, particularly around people who are

37:53

maybe not disabled people, but people who are

37:55

perhaps more dangerous to themselves about how much

37:57

they can be expected to support themselves in

37:59

the community. And I think those

38:01

are often quite fine distinctions to make. But

38:03

you're right. One of the big problems was

38:05

that whenever you think about it in principle,

38:07

about whether or not some people simply can't

38:10

cope at home, the reality

38:12

was that the institutions were often

38:14

underfunded, understaffed, people got no stimulation.

38:17

You know, and what happens in the end of Gen Seniors aren't, is she goes to

38:19

live in a century kind of group home, but

38:21

it is someone, she has a sort of a

38:23

weller who has a few people living with her

38:26

and it's much more like a family situation, but

38:28

just much more supported rather than being, like you

38:30

say, just a grim tower block of

38:32

a building which people are basically kind of locked away.

38:35

Yeah, I think my aunt with Down Syndrome hers

38:37

was probably more like that. Like she had a

38:39

best friend who was her roommate for her entire

38:41

life. She had jobs. So I don't,

38:43

you know, I don't think there was like any allegations

38:45

of abuse or anything like that. But

38:47

it's just even though it's like, now the idea of

38:49

sending a child away with Down Syndrome, which

38:51

is not a, the

38:54

sort of disorder where you, you know, you're

38:56

violent, and if anything like you're happy, nice

38:59

people to be around really, sending

39:01

a child with a diagnosis like that away just

39:03

seems so insane to me. But of course now,

39:06

I mean, the truth is now that many, many,

39:08

many fewer people are born of Down Syndrome because

39:10

we have M.E.O. Cintise testing and a

39:12

lot of them get aborted. Yeah, and that's another

39:15

piece actually. My colleague Sarah Zang wrote a brilliant

39:17

piece that was called The Last Children of Down

39:19

Syndrome, and which was basically about places like

39:21

Sweden where, you know, the last generation of

39:23

being born. And actually I went to

39:25

see a play in Belgium before Christmas

39:27

that was a recreation of The Hundred

39:30

Days of Sodom, you know, the film,

39:32

the notoriously incredibly explicit film that was

39:34

acted by people with Down Syndrome. Interesting.

39:36

Which is the kind of thing that could

39:39

only happen in European subsidized theatre. But the

39:41

premise of that being that we hide people

39:43

with disabilities away and we don't, you

39:45

know, we don't want to see them. And

39:47

actually, you know, we all say that we're

39:49

very against eugenics, but we in practice

39:52

have are perpetrating eugenics and, and,

39:54

and. Doring. Anyway, so that's

39:56

the kind of background to the story is this feeling

39:58

that actually institutionalization is really wrong. And

40:00

also the idea that actually maybe we're overlooking the

40:02

potential of people. And that was really what

40:05

Facilitated Communication rested on. This was the

40:07

kind of promise of it, was that

40:09

if you're non-verbal and disabled, perhaps your

40:11

problem is with speaking, not with thinking.

40:14

So the suggestion was that some people who weren't

40:16

able to communicate were suffering a kind of locked-in

40:18

syndrome. They just couldn't make their muscles work. So

40:21

they had things they wanted to say and no way to say

40:23

them. Yeah. Did you ever see

40:25

the movie, The Diving Bell and the

40:27

Butterfly? Right. It's like Gillian

40:29

Barre, one of those syndromes. And he had

40:32

to basically communicate whole things by blinking his

40:34

eye. I thought he had a stroke. Did he? Okay.

40:37

But Gillian Barre is locked in. Yeah. He

40:39

was an editor, I can't remember, some European magazine. And

40:41

he ended up writing this book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and

40:43

then it was made into this truly horrifying

40:46

movie. He's at some point, he's only able

40:48

to communicate by blinking an eyelid. And in

40:50

the movie, at least, the first thing he

40:52

says is not, I hate that Rosie, it's

40:54

kill me. A

40:57

more inspirational version of that would be The Theory of Everything,

40:59

which is the film about Stephen Hawking, who had

41:02

ALS, which is a kind of progressive illness.

41:05

And even when he was really quite paralyzed, he

41:07

managed to get a new wife.

41:11

Which I- Yeah, he left his wife

41:13

for his nerves. Yeah. Which

41:15

I, I mean, it was in a quite

41:17

complicated relationship. There were allegations of abuse made against

41:19

her. But it was, I think one

41:21

of the things that's quite challenging about that film was the

41:23

fact that it portrayed him as being kind of quite cheeky

41:25

and horny. And if you remember, there are a lot of

41:28

memes about the fact that either he went to Epstein Island

41:30

or he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein. But

41:34

again, that's about the kind of sanctifying of people

41:36

with disability, not wanting to deal with them as

41:38

actual people with flaws. Right. So

41:41

yeah, I mean, so that anyway,

41:44

basically, there are some people for whom this is

41:46

true, they are kind of locked in. So, Sarah

41:48

Posey being a kind of obvious example, people

41:51

find it frustrating when they, you know,

41:53

when they have disorders like that, where people assume that if

41:55

you can't speak fluently, you can't

41:57

think fluently. Right. But the kind

41:59

of- point to that is that actually some people really

42:01

are, their speech difficulties are reflective of cognitive

42:03

difficulties. So Jessica the 80s baby who helped me

42:06

out with the research for this, you know,

42:08

she talked about a friend of hers who works in

42:10

the school for people with special needs and she

42:12

said they often see teachers who come in who are really

42:14

enthusiastic, they think they're gonna make breakthroughs and

42:16

then quite often it

42:19

doesn't happen. And I

42:21

think that's really tough too, you have these parents who are

42:23

very demanding kids as you say with some types of

42:25

autism, children can be very violent, you

42:27

know, they can be very frightened by

42:29

changes in their routine and as they get bigger

42:31

and bigger that becomes more and more difficult to

42:33

manage. And the parents, you know, obviously

42:35

love their kids but they know that their kids are

42:37

never gonna turn around and say thank you for doing this for

42:40

me, you know, I love you, I love you back. And

42:43

so that, I think you have to put that in

42:45

the context of facilitated communication too.

42:48

And by that you mean like people, parents probably,

42:51

especially having this intense desire to have some

42:53

sort of connection with their child. Yeah, I

42:55

think that's the thing isn't it? I think

42:57

there was a great deal of promise to

43:00

getting something back, not just for the

43:02

person themselves but actually getting a relationship

43:04

back with your kid because your kid can now say things

43:06

to you. I mean you can imagine how unbelievable.

43:08

Like I hate you, mom and dad. Yeah, fat Rosie, if

43:10

I see her again I'm gonna smash her faces. But

43:14

just having more of that relationship with somebody who hasn't

43:16

been able to communicate with you must be an

43:19

extraordinary promise to offer people. Oh

43:21

my god, yeah, absolutely. So

43:24

Rosemary Crossley who's, you know, the

43:26

big theorist this, in 1979 she

43:28

wrote severely physically handicapped people cannot tell you

43:30

they're intelligent unless you help them to do so. You have

43:32

to assume the possibility of intelligence and

43:34

teach them a means of communicating that will allow

43:37

any intelligence there is to show out.

43:40

And you know, credit to Rosemary Crossley, Anne

43:42

died in 2010, at that point she had lived with the Crossley

43:44

for 32 years. She was really

43:46

committed to living, you know, her

43:49

values I guess. Did they ever

43:51

figure out who fat Rosie was? I

43:54

genuinely spent a really, you know, it's always something

43:56

useful down a rabbit hole. Someone must at the

43:58

same point have gone, that's really interesting. Anne, but

44:00

who? I

44:03

don't know, we'll find out. Hopefully someone will write in to say it

44:05

was a very popular TV character of the 1970s and was the most

44:07

recent. It's actually a minor character

44:09

on Mean Girls that she was

44:11

referring to. Anyway, but two years

44:13

after Anne died, an Australian journalist called Andrew

44:16

Rule wrote a very thorough article in The

44:18

Herald Sun questioning what had happened. One of

44:20

the things that he noticed was that Anne's mother,

44:22

who had put her in the institution, couldn't seem

44:24

to make facilitated communication work. It

44:27

only seemed to work when Anne's hand

44:29

was supported specifically by Rosemary Crossley and

44:31

these trained facilitators. But The

44:34

Herald Sun received a huge backlash because what

44:36

people saw from the outside was that Anne

44:38

Macdonald was finally happy with Rosemary Crossley,

44:40

much happier, much more alive than she'd been

44:42

in the institution. And her younger sister, Roz,

44:45

who was the only family member really to stay

44:47

in contact with her after she left and went to live with

44:49

the Crossleys, said the same. And

44:52

one thing that's interesting is if you can read

44:54

all this stuff from the time is that Crossley

44:56

defended herself by saying, you know, facilitated communication rests

44:58

on this very found scientific footing. The

45:00

largest study, she said Cardinal L. 1996, Bernardi

45:03

and Tussi 2011, found clear evidence validating

45:05

the facilitated communication of more than 70

45:08

people. You know, and I went and

45:10

looked up these studies and the Cardinal one

45:12

had 43 people in it and

45:14

it found that under control conditions some facilitated

45:17

communication users can pass accurate

45:19

information. The 2011 paper

45:21

only studied 12 texts and it was really more of

45:23

a research note than a study. But

45:25

it was just, you know, it was, it

45:27

was really noticeable to me that ABC published these

45:30

defences. And they had an editor's

45:32

note above them that said that Andrew Rule's article

45:34

quotes, raises questions around the right to

45:36

retain the legacy you earn in life, and

45:38

how even in death and despite proving yourself

45:40

over and over again, Macdonald's intelligent

45:42

is continually questioned. And

45:45

they were, you know, they were talking about the same thing

45:47

with Helen Keller, right, no one believed that she was actually

45:49

communicating. I mean, I okay.

45:54

I don't believe in Helen Keller. Oh my God,

45:56

really? I

45:58

do not I cannot cognitively understand how

46:01

someone who is unable to see or hear

46:03

is able to become

46:05

a communist.

46:09

I mean, I think if you look on Twitter, there's

46:11

certainly a lot of people who can't think or speak in

46:14

full sentences or use capital letters can become communist.

46:16

Yeah, but they're mostly furries. I

46:20

am deeply skeptical if you have no

46:22

concept of... I

46:25

don't understand it. I don't understand how writing

46:27

someone's on someone's hand. If

46:30

you have no concept of

46:32

sun, of sky, of grass, any of

46:34

that stuff, how you can become this

46:37

outspoken advocate and

46:40

communist. I mean, I didn't

46:42

think this was going to take a veer into

46:44

your Helen Keller trutherism. But yeah, I

46:46

agree with you. It's one of those stories that is incredible

46:49

if it's true. And I have always assumed that it is

46:51

true. But oh, God, maybe I have to go on

46:53

Jay Rosen and discuss this. This is going to be classic. This is

46:55

going to be classic Jay Rogenbate. I'm

46:58

sure there's probably a Reddit for Helen Keller

47:00

truthers. I want it to be true.

47:02

I do. I just don't

47:04

get how you get from writing on

47:06

one's hand to everything amazing that she

47:09

did. How does one lead

47:11

to the other? I'll tell you what I bet has happened.

47:13

I think probably the story is fundamentally true on

47:16

the basis of perpetrating a fraud that large where

47:18

someone would crack eventually and go, it was me.

47:20

I wrote them all. I love Karl Marx. But

47:23

I wouldn't be at all surprised that

47:25

it had been booked in certain ways.

47:27

But you know, I mean, I've just because I

47:29

was previously discussed, I've been working on this book

47:31

about geniuses and almost every story that you know

47:33

about every genius, but every bit is better thought

47:35

of as mythology. You know, it's all been shined

47:38

up and polished off and had the rough edges taken

47:40

off it. That is what happens. Stories attain it

47:42

like a Pokemon. They evolve into their most perfect

47:44

form and lots of stuff gets dropped. Look at

47:47

Jesus. Are you denying the truth of

47:49

the gospels that our Lord rose again on the third

47:51

day? I would I would not do that on Easter

47:53

Monday. Good. I'm pleased to hear it. Anyway,

47:56

the backlash of the Herald Sun article was so great that

47:58

it apologized for the article. And here's what

48:00

they said. Katie, why don't you read the

48:03

apology? On May 14, 2012,

48:05

the Herald Sun published an article entitled

48:07

Rosemary's Baby, which some readers may have

48:09

taken. I

48:12

mean, that was in no way calling after

48:14

the name of a terror horror film. It

48:16

was a bit provocative. Which some readers may

48:18

have taken to mean that Dr. Rosemary Crosley

48:21

deliberately misled people in relation to facilitated communication

48:23

for children with severe autism. The

48:25

Herald Sun did not intend to convey this meaning.

48:27

Had they never heard of the movie? The Herald

48:29

Sun accepts that Dr. Crosley has always been

48:31

well intentioned. A follow-up article in the

48:33

Herald Sun of May 18, 2012 was

48:35

published online under the heading True Crime.

48:38

Dr. Crosley is not a seminal. And

48:40

the Herald Sun regrets any such imputation.

48:42

Both articles have been removed from the

48:44

Herald Sun website. Wow. Right.

48:47

So what you don't see there, you'll notice, is any

48:50

suggestion that they are retracting

48:52

their allegations about facilitated communication. What

48:56

does seem to happen is they seem to have absolutely spooned

48:58

it by saying she's a massive fraud, a

49:00

liar and a criminal, which none of which

49:02

they could support. Right.

49:05

Right. Whoever wrote those headlines,

49:07

I hope it was the same person. I

49:09

know. Just to keep the next

49:12

one, when we called her a stupid pedo, we

49:14

of course did not mean to imply any sense

49:16

that she... This was definitely Fat Rosie. Fat

49:18

Rosie works at the Herald Sun. Anyway, so what

49:20

happened in the 1980s is that Douglas Bicklin,

49:23

who is another psychologist, came to see Rosemary

49:25

Crosley and her students, and he was absolutely

49:27

wowed by what seemed to

49:29

be possible. And he went back to the

49:31

US and told everybody about this amazing discovery.

49:33

He wrote paper endorsing a technique. And

49:36

of course, because America, facilitated communication

49:38

really takes off and it becomes

49:41

an absolute staple of disability rights

49:43

activism in the US. Of

49:45

course it does. But as you might expect,

49:48

it does always, all along the way, have

49:50

its doubters. By the 1990s, it's getting glowing

49:52

coverage in the mainstream media. It's

49:54

something that's politically in tune with the time science

49:56

seems to be backing up its claims. But

49:58

people keep claiming... that they've debunked it. So there's

50:00

then a real sense of defensiveness about the parents

50:03

who think their kids are helped by it and

50:05

the educators who are invested in it. And

50:07

I think one thing that's really important to note is that by this

50:09

point it has moved way beyond its original use, which

50:11

was people with cerebral palsy. So for

50:13

those people, often motor disorders, you know,

50:16

tremors, inability to control their movements were

50:18

possibly the biggest thing inhibiting their speech. And

50:21

it's now being used on a much wider group, including

50:23

lots of people with autism or autism like symptoms. And

50:26

that's a group that often doesn't have motor

50:28

problems per se. So then you begin to question, well,

50:30

hang on, what is the hand support actually

50:33

for? Right. In 1994, the American

50:36

Psychological Association passed a resolution declaring

50:38

that facilitated communication is a

50:41

controversial and unproved communicative procedure with

50:43

no scientifically demonstrated support for its

50:45

efficacy. And from that moment

50:47

on, I think it's really best to see

50:49

facilitated communication as a social justice movement. You

50:52

know, it's a political belief rather than a

50:54

neutral scientific method. And that

50:56

in turn means that it attracts a particular

50:58

type of person. See where you're going with it. And who that

51:00

type of person is, you're about to find out. Can you guess? Take

51:03

a guess. Oh, is it a woman? It's going to be a woman,

51:05

isn't it? It is a woman. It is the

51:07

kind of person who, I would say,

51:09

might put clapping hand emojis in their

51:11

tweets around at the time, but

51:13

it's got that kind of vibe.

51:16

So yeah, our story today really starts

51:18

in 2009. So that's the year before Anne

51:20

McDonald died and three years before the Herald Sun

51:22

piece caused such a backlash that they had to

51:24

apologize for it. So the social

51:26

communication, by that point, is largely discredited inside

51:29

the Academy, but it also has these incredibly

51:31

charismatic champions who have this great story to

51:33

tell. So in the 2000s, there

51:35

was a documentary called

51:37

Autism is a World, which was nominated for

51:39

an Oscar. And the narration

51:41

of that was allegedly written by a woman

51:44

called Sue Rubin, who had a rare

51:46

genetic mutation that caused autism-like symptoms as

51:48

well as dwarfism. And she was thought

51:50

to have a mental age of about two, but

51:52

after she learned to use a keyboard with FC, her

51:54

IQ was then estimated as 130, which

51:57

is, you know, the average is 100. So it's very important. impressive

52:00

IQ. You

52:02

can watch the intro to the documentary online

52:04

and I'll put that in the show notes

52:06

and call be cynical but there does seem

52:08

to be quite a lot of guidance here we've been

52:10

going on like the facilities suggest the next letter to type and

52:13

that kind of stuff. And

52:15

there's a big difference. It's sort of like Coco the

52:17

gorilla. I'm not comparing her

52:19

to her gorilla. I'm not. It's

52:25

fine, you can't get cancelled on a podcast. We've been through

52:27

this before. Yes, that's true. But

52:29

Coco gorilla had about 60 signs I think

52:33

that they could do. Obviously I don't know Coco's

52:35

gender. I'm not assuming Coco's gender but. I

52:38

think Coco was, Coco I think identified as female.

52:41

Yeah, one of the people who has got one of

52:43

the most attested highest IQs in the world wrote

52:45

an incredibly racist blog post about how Coco the

52:47

gorilla had an average IQ that was higher than

52:49

many sub-Saharan African nations. I remember that. That's why

52:52

I winced slightly when you went to Coco because

52:54

poor old Coco lived a fairly blameless life

52:56

and there have been dragoonings that have raised

52:58

an IQ wall. I'm just saying there's a

53:00

possibility with some coaching involved. Yeah, I

53:03

think that's the thing that's really hard to work out is, we'll

53:06

come back to this later but sometimes the difference between what

53:08

people are able to voice and when they got echolalia

53:10

and they say the same thing over and over

53:12

again, the difference between what they say out loud

53:14

and the kind of intense eloquence of their communication

53:16

through the keyboard and the communicator is often

53:19

a bit eyebrow raising. But

53:22

I think the best thing is they have this with

53:24

dogs now. Do you know about the

53:26

buttons? Right, I don't make me

53:28

be a dog button truther but I just wonder

53:31

if – are those real? Are they actually communicating?

53:33

So, I have a hard time believing some of

53:35

it. There's one in Tacoma, the dog's name is

53:38

Bunny and Bunny will say things to its

53:40

owner like, I love you. I don't find

53:43

that believable at all. I

53:46

find it believable that the dog would be like, pat

53:48

the button, the button says treat and I get a

53:50

treat. Dogs can be trained like that. I don't believe

53:52

that the dog is expressing like concepts

53:54

and emotions. Dog's sad. I don't think

53:56

that – Right. The dog does not

53:58

have a lively concept. to the difference

54:00

between agape and eros and other types of

54:03

love and it's expressed exactly the one that

54:05

it feels to the human. Or like

54:07

in love. Right, press button, get dog

54:10

treats. Treats. Right. And

54:12

then I think sometimes people train them to do funny stuff. I saw one that someone

54:14

had got a chihuahua and the child just went, dinner,

54:16

dinner, bitch. Dinner,

54:18

bitch. That

54:20

dog would be arrested in Scotland. True. No,

54:24

it'd be fine because that's aggravated

54:26

against women. True. If it didn't

54:28

say, you know, you're a

54:30

man in a dress, then the dog

54:32

would have to be sadly locked

54:34

up and probably shut. Anyway,

54:38

back to the nominal subject of the podcast,

54:41

which is that also in the world is basically

54:43

F.C. propaganda. I think although it was nominated

54:45

for an Oscar, I think that's probably the way

54:48

to regard it. There was

54:50

a campaign to get it into public libraries

54:52

and it is unremittingly positive around the technique.

54:54

It had Julianna Margulies from E.R. for the

54:57

narration. Yeah. And

55:00

I read a Washington Post review of

55:02

the documentary and two things are

55:04

really noticeable. It was described for facilitated

55:07

communication by this point as being like a religion. And

55:10

the second thing was that the critics objected

55:12

to facilitated communities kind of sucking

55:15

all the oxygen out because there were

55:17

other better interventions. And

55:19

then the other thing that said is, you know, the article

55:21

had a correction that's saying it had not

55:23

mentioned, it had not meant to question Sue

55:26

Rubin's personal credibility. And

55:28

I have to say at that point, did a little bell go

55:30

off in your head that was like, oh, this is a bit

55:32

like child gender medicine. Yeah. And not

55:34

just gender medicine, but we like last year we did

55:37

a show on the way

55:39

that reading was taught to kids for generations in

55:41

the U.S. I don't know if this happened. Actually,

55:43

it might have actually started in the U.K. It's

55:45

a long story, but basically schools all

55:48

across the U.S. use these ways of

55:50

teaching reading that were really ineffective. I

55:52

know in North Carolina they use this

55:54

thing called brain gem. Jesse

55:58

wrote about this thing about power. this

56:00

idea of power posing in his first

56:02

book, all that stuff, like

56:04

it comes across as very trendy and

56:07

for some reason, progressives seem drawn to

56:09

it. But when you focus

56:11

attention and resources towards these unproven

56:15

techniques, then you're taking time and resources away

56:17

from techniques that actually might work. And

56:20

I would say that some of the both

56:22

the chronic fatigue discourse and the long

56:24

COVID discourse has got overtones of that

56:26

too, where there is a

56:28

huge fight about whether or not our

56:30

scientists being overly paternalistic and dictating to

56:33

people what their own experiences are versus

56:35

are some people, you

56:37

know, not ill with exactly the thing that they

56:39

think they're ill with. And that's

56:41

really tough. And the emotions are very

56:43

high because people are very are genuinely

56:45

really miserable. That's unquestioned.

56:48

And also when you, you know, when you are skeptical

56:50

of some of the interventions that the patient

56:52

advocate groups want, it is read as

56:54

the same as being you hate that

56:56

that population. And I think those are

56:58

dynamics that you often see in kind of medical

57:00

controversies like this. Right. And especially if some

57:02

people think they've seen good results from any sort

57:05

of intervention, you know,

57:07

you can get very defensive. I think that's very powerful.

57:09

I don't know very much about the reading wars. But

57:11

I think you're right. If you're if you particularly feel

57:13

that you've been helped by something and you see that

57:15

that person who helps you is getting attacked, then you

57:17

feel naturally like you want to defend them. And I

57:19

think that's in that situation, it's very easy for kind

57:22

of trenches to get to get dog, basically.

57:25

I think this is this is I see

57:27

this in addiction medicine, a lot

57:29

of people who were in who are like

57:31

social workers or counselors or who work in

57:34

addiction, and in some sense are former addicts

57:36

themselves. And whatever is the thing that got

57:38

them cleaning sober is the thing that they

57:41

end up preaching, even if that

57:43

thing isn't particularly evidence based, or won't have the majority

57:45

of people try it. And we all get in trouble

57:47

with Jeffrey Sachs for comparing things to religion. Now, I

57:49

don't mean that, do I? Who do I mean this?

57:51

Or one who scolded me for saying that social justice

57:53

was like a religion? Oh, Jason Stanley.

57:56

No, not. Lizzie

58:00

Yudakowski professor at Yale, certainly. But

58:02

anyway, yeah, so I think the

58:05

religious aspects of it is not intended to necessarily

58:07

be a complete cast, but just to say that

58:09

when you've had a very powerful experience in your

58:11

own life, you can often feel evangelical about it.

58:13

There's a reason that word is used in a

58:15

secular sense too. Anyway, that

58:17

is where we come back to Anna Stubblefield, who

58:19

I mentioned approximately three billion years ago, because she

58:21

is the subject of a new documentary called Tell

58:23

Them You Love Me, directed by Nick August Perna,

58:25

and produced by Louis Theroux. Well,

58:29

the strange thing about this documentary is that you can't watch it.

58:32

I was able to watch it because I'm in Britain and it was

58:35

shown on Sky here. And you pay your life on TV. And

58:38

no, that's not on the baby. Oh, actually I had to

58:40

watch it on my physical television, so that is still covered by

58:42

the license fee, yes, that's true. But

58:45

in the US, the producers have had real trouble

58:47

getting a distributor, and I think it's possibly because

58:49

of the racial overtones of the story. So

58:52

Anna Stubblefield is white, and

58:55

the man whose hand she was

58:57

guiding facilitated communication, DJ Derek, is

59:00

black. And they didn't want to show a white

59:02

hand and a black hand together. It's too evocative

59:04

of the Michael Jackson. Loving versus

59:06

Virginia. Yes, I understand in the States

59:08

where miscegenation laws are still on the books.

59:11

That was a contingent America to be a step

59:13

too far. Well, no,

59:15

I mean, genuinely, but the racial overtones, I think

59:17

of this probably would make lots of people in

59:19

America uncomfortable. So let me carry on and tell you why.

59:23

In 2009, Anna Stubblefield is close to

59:25

40 years old. She's married with two

59:27

kids. She's from Plymouth in Michigan. Her

59:30

mother, Sandra, was a well-known disability rights advocate

59:32

who focused on getting people out of institutions and back

59:34

into the community. So Sandra

59:36

had learned facilitated communication directly from Douglas

59:39

Bicklin's clinic, and then she taught it

59:41

to Anna. And

59:44

now Anna had always been intensely

59:46

concerned with social justice. She once

59:48

played Anne Frank in a school play, and

59:50

she learned braille growing up, so she could have worked with

59:53

Helen Keller, could have

59:55

read it all, and she would

59:57

have been involved in the department. She

1:00:01

was very into environmentalism. Now, Anna's husband

1:00:03

is black and her kids were mixed

1:00:05

race. And at this time, she

1:00:08

was already writing things that, you know, became very

1:00:10

familiar from discourse later on about the kind of

1:00:12

horrors and conundrums of whiteness. And

1:00:14

she was also very worried about the use

1:00:17

of IQ to justify racism and its historical

1:00:19

association with eugenics. And at that

1:00:21

point, Katie, just want to just give us a

1:00:23

quick recap of the history of IQ and eugenics

1:00:26

and then quickly cancel yourself. No,

1:00:29

Helen, I think you should take that one. Good.

1:00:31

Very happy to.

1:00:34

So again, I've just been writing

1:00:36

about this in my book because intelligence is obviously an

1:00:38

incredibly contested area. But they were developed IQ tests

1:00:40

at the end of the 19th century, originally

1:00:43

as a way to identify and help kids

1:00:45

who were behind in class. And

1:00:47

when they got turned into this kind of great racial

1:00:50

instrument, Bine was one of the guys who was

1:00:52

involved in them, said it was a tahison, it

1:00:55

was a betrayal. But because quickly they

1:00:57

became this way of basically proving that, you

1:00:59

know, whites were the master race. And

1:01:01

also to identify. Did they not have Asians back then?

1:01:06

I don't really backfire to the white supremacist

1:01:08

that whole one, didn't it? That's deeply ironic.

1:01:10

Yeah, Jews and Asians. Well, yeah, because Francis

1:01:12

Galton, who was one of the early Genesis,

1:01:14

had this whole idea that he thought that

1:01:16

ancient Greeks were like a standard deviation among even whites.

1:01:20

And then unfortunately, no one introduced him to, you

1:01:22

know, Korean American tiger mothers completely

1:01:25

redo it all. But

1:01:28

yeah, and America particularly has a really

1:01:30

bad history with eugenics. So there was a

1:01:32

1927 Supreme Court case called Buck

1:01:34

versus Bell, which was a young woman who had

1:01:37

mental impairments called Carrie Buck. She

1:01:41

lived in a home, as did her mother,

1:01:43

who also had mental impairments. And she was probably

1:01:45

raped by a carer and got pregnant. And

1:01:47

so the Virginian court had to decide whether

1:01:49

or not it was legal to sterilize her.

1:01:52

And that's when Oliver Wendell Holmes had

1:01:55

this famous phrase, which was three generations of imbeciles

1:01:57

is enough. Cancel home. Well,

1:02:00

I think actually a rare, okay,

1:02:02

I signed that one off, yeah, that's the

1:02:05

name of the translation. She was sterilized as

1:02:07

were 8,000 Virginians until the law was repealed in

1:02:09

1972. Yeah, I

1:02:12

think North Carolina was actually the last state

1:02:15

to repeal laws allowing

1:02:18

the forced sterilization of imbeciles,

1:02:21

and I am quoting there. No, there

1:02:23

was a proper taxonomy which was morons,

1:02:25

idiots, and imbeciles, and I can't tell you which

1:02:27

order they go in, but these were all semi-legal

1:02:30

classifications of intelligence, yeah.

1:02:33

Yeah. Anyway, that's the background to

1:02:35

Anna Stubberfield's kind of interest in this topic,

1:02:38

which is that historically there was this suggestion

1:02:40

that mentally disabled people should be prevented from

1:02:42

having sex and certainly prevented from having children,

1:02:45

and all of that comes wrapped up with these

1:02:47

overtones of paternalism and racism and classism. And the

1:02:49

interesting thing is now we think of eugenics

1:02:51

as this very right coded belief, but in

1:02:53

the 1920s, lots of prominent lefties,

1:02:58

the webs you found in the New States when

1:03:00

the magazine I used to work, they were big

1:03:02

eugenicists. It was considered to be a great way

1:03:04

of improving the lot of the poor was if

1:03:06

you stop them from having too many kids. Mm-hmm.

1:03:10

Which, I mean, you shouldn't enforce it on them, but you should

1:03:12

give them condoms. Well, one of the things that I write

1:03:14

about in Difficult Women was Mary Stokes, the great

1:03:16

contraceptive pioneer, and Margaret Sanger to some extent too,

1:03:18

although it's more complicated in America because of the

1:03:20

racial overtones, but Mary Stokes was a

1:03:22

eugenicist too. And while I

1:03:25

think it's a kind of deplorable position, I

1:03:27

think this does exactly give you an understanding of it, but

1:03:29

it does help to realize that she was looking at women

1:03:31

who'd had 10 kids and then had a uterine prolapse

1:03:33

and they were living in abject poverty and their husband

1:03:35

wouldn't stop having sex with them. Yeah, I mean,

1:03:38

taking everyone's own reproductive power is an essential

1:03:40

facet of feminism. Right, and if you want

1:03:42

to put it like that, then almost every person living alive

1:03:44

today is a eugenicist in the sense

1:03:46

that almost everybody believes in birth control

1:03:48

and not letting nature take its course.

1:03:51

Well, not Catholics. Well, well,

1:03:53

there's a lot of bad Catholics about.

1:03:55

True. You

1:03:57

know, even they've got a bit sloppy, frankly. But

1:04:00

anyway, so when Anna meets Derek Johnson, who's

1:04:02

known as DJ, he's just under 30, so

1:04:05

about 10 years younger than her, he's got

1:04:07

cerebral palsy. And why don't

1:04:09

you read this description of him from a really great

1:04:11

New York Times article in the case written by my

1:04:13

now colleague, Daniel Engber. DJ is about five

1:04:15

feet tall with skinny arms and legs and the

1:04:17

lolling head of a punch-drunk boxer. He

1:04:19

has a tendency to rock from side to side and to

1:04:21

bang his head against his knees. His nose

1:04:23

looks as if it has been broken once or twice.

1:04:26

When he is anxious or upset, he puts

1:04:28

his hands in his mouth and bites them,

1:04:30

leaving open sores. In a

1:04:32

better mood, he likes to play with plastic coat hangers

1:04:34

or scoot over to the refrigerator for a snack. DJ

1:04:37

loves to eat. He loves to be outside. He

1:04:39

loves to look up at the ceiling lights. Right,

1:04:42

and it's a very sweet description. I think he's

1:04:44

done a really good job of conveying that

1:04:46

in a non-offensive way. But without being cruel,

1:04:48

somebody who loves to look at the ceiling

1:04:50

lights, that doesn't necessarily suggest that there's a

1:04:52

kind of lively inner life happening. He seems

1:04:54

to be quite a simple soul. Simple

1:04:57

soul? No, no, that's also. No. So,

1:05:00

simple soul is okay, but simple soul is

1:05:03

not. Yes. Please update your

1:05:05

handbook accordingly. I'm getting weird. DJ

1:05:07

has a brother called John who's referred

1:05:10

to as Wesley in Dan's article. That's

1:05:12

his middle name, who studied for a

1:05:14

PhD and had attended one of Anna's

1:05:16

classes. Now, she had shown

1:05:18

the class that documentary Autism

1:05:20

is a World, and John was blown

1:05:22

away by it. So, he and Anna

1:05:24

decided they were going to try Facilitated Communication

1:05:27

with DJ. And

1:05:29

the thing is, at first it went really

1:05:31

well. So, DJ started to be able to

1:05:33

communicate with them. She supported his arm to

1:05:35

point to pictures. Then he used a little

1:05:37

keyboard, and he starts typing out simple messages,

1:05:39

and then more complicated ones. But

1:05:41

there's already kind of weird quirk, which is

1:05:44

that his Facilitated Communication never seems to work

1:05:46

with his mother Daisy or with John, only

1:05:49

with Anna or Anna's mother or

1:05:51

other professional FC specialists.

1:05:54

But the progress that he makes is absolutely incredible.

1:05:56

He's soon he's taking classes at Rutgers, you know,

1:05:58

with the help of Anna. Anna. He speaks

1:06:00

at a disability conference in Philadelphia, or

1:06:03

rather John reads out a paper that

1:06:05

DJ has written with Anna's help. It

1:06:07

feels like an incredibly happy story. The

1:06:09

FC community is very white, so

1:06:12

there's particular interest in him. His brother

1:06:14

describes him as a Jackie Robinson of

1:06:17

FC. But in

1:06:20

2011, when Anna Stubblefield has

1:06:22

been helping DJ with his facilitated communication

1:06:24

for two years, something

1:06:26

shattering happens. She

1:06:28

and DJ go to his mum and brother and

1:06:30

say that they have some news. They

1:06:33

are in love. Oh, wow. Katie, how

1:06:35

do you think the family reacted? Did they start

1:06:37

shopping for taxes? I sort of

1:06:39

doubt it. Right. And at this point, it

1:06:42

really turns. And his brother recoils and tells

1:06:44

Anna she's been taking advantage of DJ. And

1:06:47

then DJ helped by Anna types

1:06:49

out. Go on. It

1:06:52

seems like such a contradiction. If you believe

1:06:54

that he has this rich

1:06:56

inner life and this capacity for intelligence

1:06:58

and complex emotions and thoughts, how can

1:07:00

you also believe that he doesn't have

1:07:02

the capacity to be in love or

1:07:05

to express that? Well, yeah.

1:07:07

I mean, there's a couple of things that

1:07:09

neither Dan, whose article has been incredibly

1:07:11

useful background for this, nor the documentary

1:07:13

really go into. You're

1:07:15

left to draw these conclusions from yourself. But

1:07:17

one of them is definitely about possession or

1:07:19

ownership. And Anna,

1:07:22

which comes from a really good source, really,

1:07:24

which is feeling very protective of somebody who's

1:07:26

very vulnerable. But then the other

1:07:28

bit is... And Anna's married

1:07:30

and has kids, you said? Yeah.

1:07:32

So is this also like, is there

1:07:34

an age gap? Yeah, 10 year age

1:07:37

gap. DJ's eventual article for The

1:07:39

Cut was going to really dwell

1:07:42

on that. But

1:07:45

also this sort of feeling that actually then do you think... I

1:07:48

mean, this is a very controversial thing to assert, but to

1:07:50

some extent, does John... What

1:07:53

point does he start thinking of some of this

1:07:55

wish fulfillment? And it's okay to have a brother

1:07:57

who says, you know, write papers, but it's not

1:07:59

okay to have... brother who, I mean,

1:08:01

I think, you know, I have no evidence for that, that may not

1:08:03

be what's going on at all, but I'm sure in some of these

1:08:05

cases, there is a kind of, I don't know,

1:08:08

some level, some kind of subconscious tension about what's

1:08:10

going on. But, right, right. So

1:08:12

he was happy to read his brother's paper. But

1:08:14

I don't know, it just, to me, it just

1:08:16

seems like, if you believe that

1:08:18

this person does have the capacity to write a paper that

1:08:20

you're going to read in public, you should also probably believe

1:08:23

that he has the capacity to fall in love and

1:08:25

to give consent. Right. You're with the controversial

1:08:27

belief that people should only be allowed to have sex if they

1:08:29

can write an undergraduate thesis. I

1:08:32

believe that. It seems harsh,

1:08:34

but okay. Anyway,

1:08:37

Anna helps DJ type out

1:08:39

the sentence, no one's been taken

1:08:41

advantage of. I've been trying to

1:08:43

seduce Anna for years and she resisted valiantly.

1:08:45

Oh my God. And then DJ asked

1:08:47

her to kiss him and John can't take it

1:08:49

anymore and he just walks out. Well.

1:08:53

How are you feeling so far? I have, Icky,

1:08:55

I feel icky. This

1:08:59

whole thing seems very bizarre. And

1:09:03

not because it's interracial. I've got no problem with

1:09:05

that. It's just for the record, folks. Right,

1:09:08

good. Good that that cleared up. Well, you

1:09:10

will not like what I'm about to tell you next

1:09:12

because it turns out that Anna and DJ have been

1:09:14

having sex. Oh my

1:09:16

God. Okay. This is from Dan

1:09:18

Engber's article, source to court transcripts. I'll just

1:09:21

ask you to read out. If

1:09:24

this has the word cum collage in it, I'm sorry.

1:09:28

The couple tried to have sex in Anna's office

1:09:30

at Conklin Hall with condoms, a blanket and an

1:09:32

exercise mat. It didn't work and they ended up

1:09:34

just sitting on the floor together. Anna

1:09:36

talking and DJ typing. Anna

1:09:39

asked him if he might want to see

1:09:41

some pornography. Quote, to see what things look

1:09:43

like in different positions people use in that

1:09:45

sort of thing. End quote. She said she

1:09:47

wouldn't want to pay for porn or watch

1:09:49

anything offensive, but that she would be okay

1:09:51

with finding free clips on the internet that

1:09:53

depicted couples engaging in mutually pleasurable intercourse. He

1:09:55

did more typing out that in his view,

1:09:58

the women in porn are being exploited. besides

1:10:00

Anna was more beautiful than any porn star and

1:10:02

he really wanted to be thinking only about her

1:10:04

when they finally made love. I think Dan is

1:10:07

a brilliant

1:10:11

feature writer and this is a very good example of

1:10:13

how good a feature writer is because I

1:10:15

don't think anyone could read that paragraph and not go no

1:10:19

that's written by a middle-aged woman isn't it? Not

1:10:22

a horny guy. She should

1:10:25

have gotten a chatbot. She

1:10:28

should have gotten her own Emma. Yeah she should

1:10:30

have gone with something a bit more realistic which is like

1:10:32

yeah got any interracial

1:10:34

gang bangs. How

1:10:36

do you spell lesbian threesome? Right

1:10:39

but you mentioned Ouija boards right

1:10:42

and I think for anybody who's not aware of the idiomotor

1:10:44

effect it might be worth explaining kind of how that works.

1:10:46

I've never heard of that. Okay

1:10:48

well that is how Ouija boards work

1:10:50

right which is that you don't really feel like no

1:10:52

one feels like they're consciously in control of it. So

1:10:55

what I think is important and as you'll see from all those corrections

1:10:57

on top no one has to be a deliberate

1:11:00

fraud for nonetheless things

1:11:02

to happen that are not true. You know

1:11:04

what I mean? Right yeah you're

1:11:06

not saying that she consciously made

1:11:09

this guy out to be this male

1:11:11

feminist which is

1:11:13

highly unlikely right and not because he's

1:11:15

black. Good again glad to have that

1:11:17

one cleared up. And

1:11:20

there's another paragraph in Dan's article I think that really

1:11:22

brings that possibility home which when he goes to a conference

1:11:24

about FC so do you want to just read that out? Yeah

1:11:53

I mean again you just read that and

1:11:55

you think it's possible that he's

1:11:57

got echelon and he's not in control like it's almost like

1:12:00

Tourette's, right, he's saying phrases that

1:12:02

aren't, but there is a distinct

1:12:04

contrast about the kind of seminar

1:12:06

speak. Right. You know, he is

1:12:08

talking like a, somebody with a PhD,

1:12:10

not even just somebody with a regular level

1:12:12

of intelligence. And I think that should probably

1:12:14

raise a few alarm bells. He's talking like

1:12:16

somebody who has spent a lot of time on

1:12:18

Tumblr. Yes.

1:12:21

Yes. I

1:12:23

would just like to say, if I suffer some

1:12:25

terrible accident or Guillain-Barre syndrome, can

1:12:27

you get me a Facilitated Communicator

1:12:29

who hasn't been on Tumblr? I

1:12:32

will be your Facilitated Communicator actually.

1:12:35

That's good. There will be the correct level of

1:12:37

kind of misanthropy and hate speech, but I'm going

1:12:39

for it. But you know what I mean? I just, you know,

1:12:41

it's sort of, you know, I just, I'm just here

1:12:43

to talk to you about whiteness and you're like, I,

1:12:46

no one talks like that in

1:12:48

real life. And is it a massive coincidence

1:12:50

that you are very interested in that?

1:12:52

That you sound just like your Facilitated Communicator.

1:12:55

You have the same interest. Strange.

1:12:58

Yeah. And I just think like it

1:13:00

would be more believable if what he

1:13:02

had said was Facilitated Communication is bull,

1:13:04

is bullshit. I hate Pat Rosie. Right.

1:13:06

Exactly. Or just like, have you got any biscuits or

1:13:09

just one of the like very low level. Where's

1:13:12

Anjoon? Right. Exactly. Yes, exactly.

1:13:15

Um, I just, yeah. I mean,

1:13:17

the question really arises, right? If,

1:13:19

you know, I obviously am more skeptical than

1:13:21

the normal person, but I, and

1:13:23

a lot of people were skeptical at this time, but what

1:13:25

was the thing that was making people believe in this? And

1:13:28

I think it's worth considering a couple of things. One of which

1:13:30

is that it genuinely really did for some people progress

1:13:33

to unassisted communication, right? Some people

1:13:35

really were just lacking the technology

1:13:37

and when they managed to learn how to use

1:13:39

a keyboard independently, that was great. Their problem was

1:13:41

fundamentally a motor problem. Um,

1:13:44

yeah, but we do know what some of those illnesses, I

1:13:46

have a friend who had ALS. He's, he's

1:13:48

died by now, but he was towards the end

1:13:50

of his life. He was communic. I would chat

1:13:53

with him on Facebook and he would communicate literally

1:13:55

with his eyelid. Some like, or

1:13:57

not his eyelid, but like tracking some computer thing,

1:13:59

but ALS doesn't affect you

1:14:01

cognitively. Yeah. So

1:14:03

I think that's the thing is that you can't

1:14:05

tell from just looking at somebody necessarily whether or

1:14:08

not they are one of the kind of genuinely

1:14:10

locked in people. Right. Right. And

1:14:12

I think the second thing that you have to be very

1:14:14

empathetic about is the fact that being the parent of a

1:14:16

nonverbal child is really grinding me

1:14:18

hard work. I mean, I just, you know, how

1:14:21

some bits of books stay with you forever. I

1:14:23

remember reading Andrew Solomon's Far From The Tree, which

1:14:25

is about kids who are very different to their parents.

1:14:27

And one of the chapters is about kids with severe

1:14:29

autism. And there's

1:14:31

a teenage boy who likes to look up

1:14:33

people's nostrils and masturbate. He's obsessed with

1:14:35

orifices. I thought that was just Jesse.

1:14:38

That's horrible. I

1:14:41

swear the camouflage happens.

1:14:43

And there's

1:14:45

this really, there's this kind of thing you could only

1:14:47

write in a book because it would get you reamed

1:14:49

on social media. But I find it very moving quote

1:14:51

from his dad, which is something

1:14:53

like, you know, sometimes I'm so tired, I just

1:14:55

let him. Yeah. And

1:14:58

I just, you know, I have absolutely no judgment

1:15:00

for that man whatsoever. Yeah. It's just grinding

1:15:02

me hard to do those those kind of

1:15:04

caring jobs, particularly for somebody who

1:15:06

can't show any kind of appreciation. So I think

1:15:09

those parents must suddenly have

1:15:11

your kids turn around and say,

1:15:13

I love you, dad. Yeah.

1:15:16

Just must be incredible. And I can understand why people do

1:15:18

have a sense of like religious fervor about it. What

1:15:21

kind of harm do you think is being

1:15:23

done? But let's say facilitated communication is all

1:15:25

bullshit. What's the harm? Well, if

1:15:27

there are other methods that work better, I think

1:15:29

that's one of the potential harms you're blocking out.

1:15:31

And then also you're giving people a lot of

1:15:34

power and will kind of come back to that about

1:15:36

whether or not the facilitated communicators, if they are essentially

1:15:38

using people as meat puppets unintentionally,

1:15:41

that does put them in

1:15:43

an interesting ethical

1:15:46

position of power. So that's part part that.

1:15:49

But the other thing I think really comes out

1:15:51

of this is the fact that in this kind of

1:15:53

crunchy suspicion of skeptics and debunkers

1:15:56

and how people guard themselves against evidence

1:15:58

that they don't want. to hear. So

1:16:01

you know that kind of idea about saying that punctuality

1:16:03

is white supremacy culture and indigenous ways of

1:16:06

knowing, you know, should be considered also Western

1:16:08

science. And you get kind of versions

1:16:10

of that in disability communities. Dan Engber writes about

1:16:12

the activists who say, well, of course, they don't

1:16:14

perform in double blind trials, because the kids are

1:16:16

being treated like, quotes, show ponies, you know, they

1:16:19

can't perform on command. And

1:16:21

that is sort of exactly the same thing that psychics

1:16:23

say when they can't replicate their

1:16:25

powers under controlled conditions. Right.

1:16:28

Absolutely. The other thing is it also make you think about

1:16:30

the recovered memory movement. That was the other thing that it

1:16:33

reminded me of. Yeah, definitely some

1:16:35

parallels there between therapists and

1:16:38

patients, although hopefully,

1:16:41

FC doesn't result in people being

1:16:44

sent to prison, except maybe this

1:16:46

woman who was well

1:16:48

advantage of more Daniel, well, funny, you should say

1:16:50

that actually, because there have been a lot of

1:16:52

cases of patients reporting sexual abuse through

1:16:54

facilitated communication and not in fact, it

1:16:56

has its own page on Wikipedia. And

1:16:59

in every case, the charges ended up being dropped.

1:17:01

There were 60 cases by 1995 cases

1:17:04

taken against facilitated communicators. No,

1:17:07

against the parents. Oh,

1:17:09

shit. The kid is a

1:17:12

facilitator communicator says my parents have

1:17:14

been abusing me, which is very recovered memory,

1:17:16

right? Yeah. And that's part of also a

1:17:18

kind of shared cultural background of everyone's got

1:17:20

things deep inside them that they know locked

1:17:22

within them that they need someone outside can

1:17:25

come and unlock. And

1:17:28

you know, and

1:17:30

I also think it's about a kind of tug of

1:17:32

war over the person at the centre of it, you

1:17:35

know, often between carers and parents. And you

1:17:37

know, even I'm McDonald made accusations about the people in the

1:17:39

hospital trying to smother or poison her. And

1:17:41

those are quite difficult to assess

1:17:44

because actually, we know elder abuse

1:17:46

in care homes is pretty widespread.

1:17:48

Totally. You know, I

1:17:50

don't think that's a completely ridiculous thing to

1:17:53

have happened. But yeah, there were enough eyebrow

1:17:55

raising cases against parents that made

1:17:57

you sort of think again, this is a battle for control.

1:18:01

Anyway, one of the most prominent Etsy skeptics is

1:18:03

an autism researcher called Howard Shane, who

1:18:06

says he watched a presentation by Rosemary

1:18:08

Crossley and said, just

1:18:10

thought this is completely crazy, but, oh,

1:18:13

you know, at least it won't do any harm. Like, you

1:18:15

know, they can just pursue the kooky idea and it's not

1:18:17

harming anyone. And then not

1:18:19

long after that, he got a call from a district attorney

1:18:21

about an allegation of sexual abuse that had been

1:18:23

made through facilitated communication. And that's when

1:18:25

he got involved in debunking. Anyway,

1:18:28

the Wheaton case is a really good example of

1:18:30

how those stories tend to go. So 16 year

1:18:32

old Betsy Wheaton, who was working with a

1:18:34

facilitated communicator called Janice Boynton, accused her

1:18:36

family of sexual abuse. She had

1:18:38

typed that her father, quote, makes me hold his

1:18:41

penis with foreesses. And

1:18:45

then the case fell apart after a double

1:18:47

blind test. PBS documentary showed

1:18:49

what the double blind test looks like,

1:18:51

which is that Janice Boynton and Betsy

1:18:53

Wheaton were shown different photos and asked

1:18:56

to name what was in them. And every

1:18:58

time, Wheaton named the object that

1:19:00

only Boynton had seen. So

1:19:03

essentially the facilitated communicator named, you know,

1:19:06

if she'd seen a picture of keys, she said keys, even if the

1:19:08

kid herself had seen a picture of an apple. Oh,

1:19:11

OK. OK. And so it was

1:19:13

very obvious that she was just

1:19:15

moving her hand. Anyway, Janice

1:19:18

Boynton, to her enormous credit, was so

1:19:20

horrified that the facilitated communicator was so

1:19:22

horrified by a part in this that

1:19:24

she became an anti-FC advocate. Really? Yeah,

1:19:27

which I think is, you know, I always have respect for

1:19:29

people who do a complete kind of 180 and go,

1:19:31

oh my God, I was so wrong. Yeah, it

1:19:33

rarely happens. So she didn't. So

1:19:35

this was really subconscious. She really

1:19:38

didn't, genuinely wasn't aware that she was actually

1:19:40

in control. Yeah. And I think that's

1:19:43

probably true of everybody involved in this.

1:19:45

They just don't think that they're doing

1:19:47

or they think, you know, they're giving a little nudge, but

1:19:49

it would have got there anywhere or whatever it is. I

1:19:51

don't think people, these, particularly these kind of people who

1:19:53

are so genuinely devoted to the disability

1:19:56

rights movement, they're not frauds. They're, you

1:19:58

know, they're just. guilty of

1:20:00

caring too much, I guess. Okay, so what

1:20:02

about Anna Stubblefield, this woman who, did

1:20:05

they get married? Did it end happily ever after?

1:20:07

No, no, no, it did not. Of

1:20:09

course, the thing is, in her case,

1:20:11

the allegations of sexual contact didn't require

1:20:14

DJ to say anything. She cheerfully

1:20:16

confessed to all of them, didn't

1:20:18

see any problem with them. But

1:20:20

DJ's family completely did.

1:20:24

His brother John had already started to

1:20:26

become skeptical of facilitated communication. And

1:20:28

so the family just cut off all contact between the two

1:20:30

of them. You know,

1:20:32

at which point Anna sort of mounted this kind of

1:20:34

campaign to win back DJ, you know, she promised to leave

1:20:36

her husband for him, she tried to see him at his

1:20:38

daycare facility, at which point

1:20:40

the family decided it was a legal matter. And

1:20:43

so they set up a sting. So you can,

1:20:46

if you watch the documentary, you can listen to

1:20:48

this phone call, which is Anna confessing that she

1:20:50

and DJ had sex. And that was

1:20:52

good enough evidence to send the case to trial.

1:20:55

At which point she tells the court, I

1:20:57

wouldn't have fallen in love with him if

1:20:59

he wasn't capable of consent. I wouldn't have

1:21:01

fallen in love with him if he wasn't

1:21:03

someone interested in reading books and talking about

1:21:05

them. He was my best friend. God, this

1:21:07

really reminds me of Chris, the woman in

1:21:09

your BBC series, not that Daniel was a

1:21:11

chap on, he wasn't obviously, but she

1:21:14

had essentially fallen in love with a version

1:21:16

of herself. And it sounds like Anna did

1:21:18

the same thing. Well, yeah, with that replica

1:21:20

with that chap, but you can give it prompts

1:21:22

about what stuff you like and what stuff you don't like and

1:21:24

more like this and less like that. And you can feed your

1:21:27

own messages into it. So there is this kind

1:21:29

of, you know, mirroring effect. Yeah,

1:21:31

exactly. And so if something, which

1:21:33

is a great trick of human psychology, right, you

1:21:35

can be like, Oh my God, we're so in

1:21:38

tune with each other. This chap thinks all the same things

1:21:40

as me. And it's like, because you

1:21:42

fed it all of your messages. Yes.

1:21:45

Yeah. And reading your browser history. Wow.

1:21:48

I mean, dark,

1:21:51

bloody hell. Yeah,

1:21:53

unfortunately, so Anna, you know, the case against

1:21:55

her, certainly, you know, it

1:21:57

was very obvious that they'd had sex. It really rested. on

1:22:00

the question of consent, she got convicted

1:22:02

of two felony charges of sexual assault

1:22:04

with a maximum time

1:22:06

in prison of 40 years. She got

1:22:08

12. She

1:22:11

was lucky though because the conviction got overturned

1:22:13

on appeal because the

1:22:15

original jazz refused to allow any

1:22:18

evidence related to facilitated communication such

1:22:20

as the logs from the keyboard Annie used with DJ

1:22:23

or her final session with DJ in front of his

1:22:25

family or the work he did with another facilitator. None

1:22:27

of that was able to be shown to the jury.

1:22:30

They wouldn't let Rosemary Crossley testify about

1:22:32

FC or about Crossley's claim to have

1:22:34

done an FC session with DJ in

1:22:36

which she got a load of questions

1:22:38

right. The judge had

1:22:40

also described Stubblefield during the sentencing as quote,

1:22:42

the perfect example of a predator preying on

1:22:44

their prey. A

1:22:47

little bit prejudicial. Yeah and

1:22:49

I think the kind of feeling was that basically you

1:22:52

know you could not prove that she

1:22:54

was you know intentionally having sex with

1:22:56

someone who didn't consent. You know worse you

1:22:58

could say that she was having sex with

1:23:01

somebody who she couldn't be sure was capable

1:23:03

of consent. So she pled guilty to a

1:23:05

lesser offense at a second trial than the

1:23:07

sentence of time served and

1:23:09

she's now free. Is she still

1:23:11

doing FC? Well funny

1:23:14

you should say that because

1:23:16

FC just kind of won't stay

1:23:18

debunked. There was quite a

1:23:20

famous incident in 2013 when David

1:23:22

Mitchell who wrote Cloud Atlas, he's got a

1:23:24

Japanese wife and an autistic son, he translated

1:23:26

a book by a Japanese autistic teenager

1:23:28

called Naoki Higashida called The Reason

1:23:31

I Jump which was written using

1:23:33

a form of FC by Naoki pointing at

1:23:35

cards. Although they were quite clear both Mitchell

1:23:37

and the director of a film that no

1:23:39

one touches him or supports his arm when

1:23:41

he does this. You know they were very

1:23:43

aware of the allegations around FC but

1:23:46

the reason that people were really suspicious about The Reason I

1:23:48

Jump is the way that it's written. I've just put a

1:23:50

quote for it in the show notes. Do you want to

1:23:52

read out this quote from The Reason I Jump? I

1:23:55

wrote this story in the hope that it will help you understand

1:23:57

how painful it is when you can't express yourself to the

1:23:59

people you love. If this story connects

1:24:01

with your heart in some way, then I believe you'll be

1:24:03

able to connect back to the hearts of people with autism

1:24:05

too. And again, that's just like the kind

1:24:07

of thing that, you know, that you

1:24:09

get a lot in FC is these

1:24:12

very deep, meaningful, like

1:24:14

it finally I'm able to communicate kind

1:24:17

of lines. Yeah. They're all

1:24:19

philosophers. Right. Yeah. And

1:24:21

anyway, the wild thing, like a normal teenager is going to be like,

1:24:23

give me the Wii, mom. Finally,

1:24:25

I can talk. Where's my fucking Xbox, bitch?

1:24:29

Be great. It's very inspirational story. All I

1:24:31

wanted was a normal teenager. Yeah. And then

1:24:33

everybody ends up getting kind of Kierkegaard. Yeah.

1:24:36

Yeah. As you say,

1:24:38

the wild thing about Anna, Anna, sorry, is

1:24:40

that her mother and she are just

1:24:43

completely unrepentant. You know, they still say

1:24:45

she was talking to DJ, not talking

1:24:47

to herself. Facilitated communication is

1:24:49

a legitimate tool. And then

1:24:51

from their point of view, this is a tragedy

1:24:54

for DJ who's now locked inside his own body,

1:24:58

you know, and she dedicated a book chapter to him

1:25:00

saying the hope he one day regain his voice

1:25:02

and his freedom. But

1:25:05

from the point of view, DJ's family, you know, they saved him from

1:25:07

a woman who claimed to love him, but was really kind of just

1:25:09

using him as a kind of hand puppet. Yeah.

1:25:12

And raping him. Well,

1:25:15

yeah, I mean, essentially, you

1:25:18

know, asking him to do things that he had no way

1:25:20

of kind of comprehending, let

1:25:22

alone consenting to. And you're right in

1:25:24

the sense that Syracuse University, which is

1:25:26

where the original kind of institute was,

1:25:28

has now renamed its Facilitated Communications Institute.

1:25:31

And it says it doesn't advocate for things

1:25:33

like FC, where there's

1:25:35

ambiguity regarding whether the client or facilitator is

1:25:37

the source of the messenger. So,

1:25:40

you know, I would say at this

1:25:42

point, FC is pretty kind

1:25:44

of trashed, really. But

1:25:48

you will be unsurprised, but maybe surprised to know

1:25:50

that Stubblefield is not the only facilitator accused of

1:25:52

having sex with a client. There was a case

1:25:54

in 2014 in Australia, a

1:25:57

facilitator called Martina Schweiger. who

1:26:02

kind of went down on her 21

1:26:04

year old client says that she

1:26:06

loved him. There's also another case

1:26:08

of a woman who murdered her eight-year-old autistic

1:26:10

son because he through FC said he wanted

1:26:13

to die. She should have just sent him to

1:26:15

Canada. I was just thinking there was a Dennis Potter

1:26:17

television play in which there's somebody who's, the kind

1:26:20

of thing that used to get broadcast on the BBC, a

1:26:22

severely mentally impaired woman and she gets

1:26:25

raped by somebody in the care home and it cures her. This

1:26:28

is what your licensing fees are going to people. I

1:26:32

don't know how to fuck up. I don't want to get drama like

1:26:34

that anymore. I'm bad. But

1:26:37

yeah, I just wonder whether or not the future for Anna Stubblefield

1:26:39

is basically the, you know, like Rachel

1:26:41

Dollazone, she'll end up on OnlyFans selling

1:26:43

pictures of her face. So

1:26:47

this is my official call that, yeah, tell them

1:26:49

that you love me, needs an American release. Absolutely.

1:26:52

Because it's an incredibly good documentary and the access they've

1:26:54

got is incredible. You know, they've got Anna,

1:26:57

her mother, DJ's brother, DJ's

1:26:59

mother all getting to speak. Although it

1:27:01

has to be said, not DJ himself

1:27:03

anymore. They need to get a new communicator,

1:27:06

a new FC. Well, I'm just

1:27:08

curious. Okay, so it hasn't gone on an American

1:27:10

release. Do you think it's because of this, because

1:27:12

of the weird racial politics of this? Because this

1:27:14

seems like something that would almost, if

1:27:17

you can portray the Karen figure as

1:27:19

not just an abuser, but an abuser

1:27:21

of a black man, a disabled black

1:27:23

man, it seems like an American audience

1:27:25

would eat that up. Yes, that's what's

1:27:27

partly surprised me about the kind of, the fact that the

1:27:29

villain is a white woman. Did

1:27:31

seem to be quite in tune with the mood of

1:27:34

the times. But I just, yeah, I

1:27:36

just don't know what the nervousness is. And

1:27:38

I hope that they do find a distributive for it. I

1:27:41

mean, this was about a month ago, but I got

1:27:43

that information. So maybe the negotiations have gone on

1:27:45

a bit further, but it's already, as I say,

1:27:47

it's been out in the UK. And it

1:27:50

is really interesting because you do, I mean,

1:27:52

it's so easy. In retrospect, with

1:27:55

medical kind of catastrophes to look and say,

1:27:58

why didn't people say? But

1:28:01

you know, there were times when there were

1:28:03

studies that looked really promising. The evidence did

1:28:05

look quite promising. And you know, that self-insulation

1:28:07

against doubt of the, of course, you know,

1:28:10

the naysayers and the debunkers. You still see

1:28:12

people doing that all the time about either

1:28:14

Mectin or whatever it might be. Well, I

1:28:16

mean, can you imagine having

1:28:18

to like come to terms with

1:28:20

the fact that you have actually

1:28:23

assaulted a disabled man? Yeah, I'm

1:28:25

fascinated by how people deal with the

1:28:27

knowledge of wrongdoing or not. Because if you think

1:28:30

about what you would be required to acknowledge if

1:28:32

you're on a stubble field to acknowledge that facilitated

1:28:34

communication was a pseudoscience, it's essentially, you know,

1:28:37

there's a poor guy who has got a mental capacity of

1:28:39

a toddler. You've

1:28:41

convinced yourself that he loves you and

1:28:43

finds you sexually attractive by lying to

1:28:46

yourself. You've sexually taken

1:28:48

advantage of him. You ruined your

1:28:50

marriage. You've presumably terribly embarrassed your

1:28:52

children. I

1:28:54

just think that the kind of human brain is not

1:28:56

built to deal

1:28:58

with being wrong on that scale. We

1:29:01

just had the death of Daniel Kahneman, you

1:29:03

know, the great behavioral economist and psychologist. And

1:29:06

the way that people shield themselves from being wrong is just

1:29:09

extraordinary. You

1:29:12

know, I just, I mean, we've come back to

1:29:14

the conversation that you and I have had before about

1:29:16

the sort of gender medicine stuff about what, you know,

1:29:19

what will happen. You know, in 10 years time, we'll

1:29:21

be still be saying, of course, there's no real

1:29:23

way of proving that male puberty gives you

1:29:25

a sporting advantage. And I just

1:29:27

have always confidently thought that people will forget that

1:29:29

they ever held those opinions. Right. Those

1:29:32

are your choices, I guess. You forget that it ever

1:29:34

happened or you somehow just stick with it and

1:29:37

dig your heels in and are

1:29:40

talking about how Ivermectin cures COVID 15

1:29:42

years later. Right. Well, you find some

1:29:44

way that spiritually you were right. You

1:29:46

know, if only people had told you in another way, you

1:29:49

would have been able to expect it. It's their fault,

1:29:51

actually, for, you know, I think that happens a lot in feminism.

1:29:53

If only feminists had asked for something in a different

1:29:55

way, then they'd have got it sooner. So it's really

1:29:57

their fault that they didn't have this or whatever it

1:29:59

might be. way. This

1:30:02

is something I think I've said on the show before,

1:30:04

but we have a friend who grew up in a

1:30:06

town in Washington State in Wenatchee, which is a town

1:30:08

where they had, they called it the Wenatchee Witch Hunt.

1:30:11

It was this very

1:30:13

bizarre, repressed memory, satanic panic

1:30:15

case where dozens of people

1:30:17

in this town, this small

1:30:19

city, were accused of sexually

1:30:21

abusing children in these incredibly

1:30:24

horrific ways. And our

1:30:26

friend's father is a pediatrician. And

1:30:28

I asked her, go ask your dad about this,

1:30:30

what he remembers about this. And she did. And

1:30:32

he said to her, we thought we were doing

1:30:34

the right thing at the time. And it turns

1:30:37

out that he had acted as an expert witness

1:30:39

against one of his community

1:30:41

members because he was

1:30:43

led to believe that when a kid

1:30:45

says, yes, like Miss Mary

1:30:47

took me out of my bedroom and took me

1:30:50

to a cave and showed me dead babies, that

1:30:52

it is true. Believe children.

1:30:55

Yeah, I think people psychologically

1:30:57

could defend themselves from ever having to kind of come

1:31:00

to terms with it. I mean, I don't know if

1:31:02

you ever think about this. When I'm doing journalism, you

1:31:04

know, when I've done a big investigation or something that

1:31:06

relies on a source, but

1:31:08

essentially, at some point, you have to take a kind of

1:31:10

leap of faith and say, okay, do I find this person

1:31:12

really credible? And like, how much evidence have I got?

1:31:14

Have I got enough to go? And then I always ask myself

1:31:17

the question, like, what if I'm wrong?

1:31:19

Like, what will I look back and say,

1:31:21

was that a red flag that I ignored? What have I,

1:31:23

what things have I tucked away to the corners that are

1:31:25

snagging away insistently on me that actually I should really,

1:31:27

really pull on that thread and see whether or not anything

1:31:30

comes away? And you know, I haven't had an

1:31:32

incident yet in my career where I've just got

1:31:34

something overtly catastrophically wrong. I'm sure it will

1:31:37

happen at some point, right? You can't operate

1:31:39

doing things that are good journalism, by which

1:31:41

I mean taking risks and pushing things and

1:31:43

doing hard reporting without probably carrying up at

1:31:45

some point. And it will be a big,

1:31:47

like, major test of character, whether or not

1:31:49

I've got the balls to just go, nope,

1:31:51

really spoon that one. Absolutely. Sorry to everyone

1:31:54

and then take the mockery that was in

1:31:56

shoot because I've got lots of enemies,

1:31:58

lots of people who think I'm very, you know, high

1:32:01

on my own supply and a bit high and

1:32:03

mighty. He'll be only too delighted to point it out, but

1:32:05

just to be like, no, I deserve that. I've just got

1:32:08

to take that one in my chin. What will be your

1:32:10

careful? It's

1:32:12

going to be that chapter about Helen Keller in

1:32:14

your book. I regret it now. She

1:32:16

was a fraud. I was taken in by

1:32:18

big Keller. All right, Helen.

1:32:22

Well, it's been great to talk to you as always. Thank

1:32:24

you for coming on the show. Thank you. Thanks

1:32:27

again to Helen Lewis and check out Helen

1:32:29

has left the chat wherever you get your

1:32:31

podcast. This is Embl as

1:32:41

always with help from Tracing Woodgrains and Jessica the 80s Baby.