Hi, I'm Anna Marie Cox.

Welcome to With Friends Like These.

The first thing I want you to know about this week's guest is that talking to Melissa

Fibos about her book, Girlhood, was personally healing for me and my producer.

The second thing you should know is that we talk about sex and about consent and about

lack of consent.

And I would give a more formal content warning here, but I asked Melissa at the top of the

interview to give her version and to give her pitch to keep listening.

This is a hard conversation, but it is so necessary.

Melissa's book, Girlhood, is about how people learn what patriarchy wants from girls, what

it feels like when you're someone that doesn't fit into that definition or what it feels

like when you try too hard to fit into that definition and you wind up losing some of

yourself.

Melissa Fibos, coming right up.

Melissa, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

So I love your book and I love your writing, but in full transparency, both my producer

Allison and myself found ourselves having really profound reactions to your work.

There's a lot of stuff that comes up, you know, you write about unwanted touching, which

in and of itself I had not realized I would have such a strong reaction to.

And I'm going to put a content warning at the top of the show as people listening right

now, probably will know.

...