Quitting men: Hope Woodard's 'boysober' movement
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I had so much ownership of my body and my space and my time. I realized when taking a step back how many times I had said yes to men when it came to sex or romance just to not hurt their feelings because saying yes is easier than saying no sometimes.

At the tender age of 26, Hope Woodard coined a phrase that led to a global movement: 'boy sober'. She'd been having sex since she was 13, centring boys, getting validation from being considered attractive, getting validation from sex and romantic connection, dating relentlessly, swiping constantly, until finally she realised she needed to get clean.

When it came to the conversation of not having sex, it opened a new door, just having this new word. It comes with the understanding that you're giving up a toxic thing.

Boy Sober is more than just rebranding celibacy. It's quitting something that is clearly bad for you. When you've been taught from childhood that value comes in the form of male attention, male attention, however, diminishing, compromised or apathetic, and we will get to that later, male attention is the fix and straight women are the addict.

Hope absorbed this from the women in her family, but also from a culture that judges a woman's worth by her value as a girlfriend, a wife, a mother, a carer. At the same time, she was also being force-fed the idea that sex positivity was a win-win, that we could date and have sex without limits or feelings or pesky expectations. I'm Yumi Steins. Ladies...

We need to talk about getting boy sober with Hope Woodard. Hope is attractive and outgoing and was living her best life in New York, constantly on the apps, countless first dates, hook-up sex, the game that you play, presumably hoping to eventually win a life partner.

But then a couple of years ago, while looking after her grandmother, she had an eerie moment where she realised she was completely mirroring her gran. I'd been ghosted by this guy. I was feeling so kind of untethered and confused. Hope and her granny were hanging out, both on their phones, obsessing over men who weren't texting them back. The thing is, the guy grandma was waiting on, Hope's grandfather, was permanently

permanently unavailable because he was, well, he was dead. He passed away 10 years ago, but I was like, oh my gosh, the same thing is happening to both of us. We're both getting ghosted. Watching her grandma fixate on a man who was quite literally and permanently unavailable was a wake-up call for hope. If I do not get off this ride, figure out how to, like, detach myself from

From men and male validation and like romantic validation, I think specifically, I will literally die getting left on read. Dating had become detached from what Hope actually wanted. It was about appearances. She wanted to look like she'd won a prize. A big, handsome, man-shaped prize.

I was living in New York City and I wanted to be a certain type of person dating a certain type of guy that was perceived a certain type of way. But being spiritually mistreated by men does seem to be stitched into the fabric of the apps.

I was so desperate to, like, find someone, and finally I matched with this guy who was so apathetic, who did not care about me. And, you know, when you, like, mistake being boring with being mysterious... Yeah, I mean, it's interesting what you're describing, this sort of backlog of history that stands behind you and is sort of thrusting you towards certain behaviours that are not suitable for right now. But you've also got, let's not...

ignore the cohort of men who have these types of behaviors I'm picturing this incredibly handsome guy and the word apathy or apathetic it's so unsexy it definitely just became a game of what can I do to make you like me and it was so just about like winning and being chosen I should not be 27 years old and still be like obsessed with a guy like this like I'm 17 you know

Disgusted with the whole dating scene, Hope decided to take a year off. She entered what she famously called her boy sober era. No situationships, no dating apps, no exes. The boy sober journey is supposed to take into account how you're interacting with love. Love, not just like sex and intimacy and romance, but how

How are you loving yourself and others in your community or whatever? And what steps are you taking that are helpful and what steps are you taking that are hurtful? For Hope, this self-assessment meant looking back at the patterns she'd formed around men.

She'd had her first sexual experience at 13 and had been chasing male attention ever since. For so long, the world has been built around being attached to a man and letting that take you somewhere. I've been interacting with sex and romance in such an intense way since I was so young. Truly, who am I without it? Going cold turkey from dating meant that Hope had time for self-reflection.

And a lot like coming off a drug addiction, it was a reckoning full of grief. I definitely felt so

some anger and some resentment from the time and energy that I felt like was taken away so instantly. Young girls just, they're always asked like, what boys are you interested? What crushes do you have? You know, like who's giving you attention? Boys are so at the center of everything. And I think when this moment happened, I was upset. Who would I be? Like,

I had not attached myself to men so early on. What did it feel like for those first few discovery months? It was amazing. For the first three months, I was just pure bliss. I had so much ownership of my body and my space and my time. I had kind of realized when taking a step back how many times I had said yes to

to men when it came to like sex or romance just to like not hurt their feelings because saying yes is easier than saying no sometimes. This was the first time where I was like, nobody gets any piece of me other than just like friendship. It sounds like you were kind of euphoric from it. I've gotten sober from drinking before too. I took a year off of drinking. And I think when you give up something like this, something that's like,

but it can be kind of intense, is you have to ask yourself, how do you have connection again? How do you have fun again? And I think curious as well. Totally. Yes. Very useful. Totally. Did you get horny? Were you touched up? Oh my God, that's so funny. Yeah, of course. And it was kind of one of the first times where I was going through like a really deep and dark, difficult moment and I couldn't have like a romantic crutch.

I went through this really emotional friend breakup. My best friend and I, we parted ways. And that was one of the most soul-crushing, heartbreaking moments

losses I've been through. And in the end, like I kind of had to reconnect with my family in like a really interesting way. And in the end, I also sort of saw that my relationship to her was filled with codependency. And for the first time, I was like, oh, man, I'm

This is not just a thing I have with men. Look, it's tricky. And I see why the word sober is so useful because it does kind of point to the fact that the addictive behavior is damaging you. But I also love the idea of being codependent with your friends and having that deep connection. Yes, and you're totally, you're so right. Because I think sometimes in this conversation people can

get away from like romance. And there is something so delicious. And like, this is just a piece of life, you know, kind of getting lost in someone. It's like, this is what love stories are about.

Even though she was renouncing dating, de-centring men, and I do want to say mothballing her vagina, but that sounds very weird and maybe a little bit boomer. But even though she was doing all of those things, Hope was careful not to attach judgment to the boy sober movement. So the word celibacy was off the table.

I feel like the word celibate is just so charged culturally. On the women's side of it, it's about control and chastity and saving yourself and purity culture. That's what comes to mind for me personally. I'm not somebody who wants to police women and their desire. Voice over is about finding more intention in one's love life.

When it came to the conversation of not having sex, it opened a new door to me, I think, just having this new word. It comes with the understanding that you're giving up a toxic thing. You're getting away from a bad habit. You're getting, you know, you're getting sober. You're doing the work. Hope took her boy sober message online and around the world, young women, heads down, scrolling on their phones as they waited for some dude to message back, they heard the rallying cry.

And when you think about how dire modern dating is, it's no wonder. First dates from a dating app, the likelihood that it's bad is so high. You're meeting up with someone who is so outside of the context of your life that

It takes away so much kind of spontaneity and natural progression of interest. People get totally addicted to just the options and the notifications. Needing someone to text, needing to see who likes you, needing to see who sent you a message. People probably become disillusioned when they realize how unsustainable and unproductive it is.

Well, you get the notification high, but it doesn't correlate to a connection with a human. Totally. It is simply just validation. It is simply just quick dopamine hit in your brain. Yeah. It's like not a real... Yum, yum, yum, but also not... And totally. Which I love. With going voiceover, did it feel like this generation of women got so on board because they were rebelling from growing up in this...

hookup or sex positive culture that really didn't serve them? Oh, I love talking about this. Yes, totally. There's a great book written called American Hookup Culture. And one of my favorite quotes from that book is, so many women have had sex, but not that many women have held hands.

And I think everyone was thrown to the wolves that was hookup culture where like we were sold that it was an empowering thing when actually it was like extremely destructive and draining and like nobody was really winning. I don't think the men were really winning either. Can we put that toothpaste back in the tube, Hope? Absolutely.

I agree and I think other people do too. But we don't know how to go back to something a little more considered and thoughtful and sexy. Yeah.

Well, I do just think it is about having the conversation and about being honest, because I've talked to so many girls who have talked to me about their sex lives. I'll ask them questions. I'm like, do you say what you want? And they're always like, no. And I'm like, do you tell them what you need? And they're always like, no. And I'm like, do you express yourself?

Any of your wants or desires, do you know what that want and desire is, what it looks like? Make some space for it to... Make some space...

and see how what you do to still get those feelings of romance and how do you deal with being horny if that's off the table. You think about desire, you think about fantasy, you think, you imagine. Let yourself think about that, explore that, you know? Whereas sometimes if like sex is always on the table, it almost feels unapproachable. How can you explore connection and intimacy and romance

without so much pressure and without having to go so intense so quickly. If you take it off the table, you get to decide like what to do in that space. And I think that can sometimes actually build a more like well-rounded sex life or more informed desire.

This conversation seems more relevant than ever. When sex on the first date isn't mandatory, but it is pretty common, it feels fast-tracked and inevitable. And whole generations are complying with what they've learned about sex through pornography, which for all genders isn't necessarily what they'd choose to be doing if they felt permission to really interrogate their own desires.

So I think a lot of women don't know what they want, haven't allowed themselves to think about what they want, question what they want. I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the tube, but I think if we could all be more honest about what we want and need and our desires, we can all have better sex. Sweeping all the expectations away and populating things you like that you actually know you like.

It's pretty revolutionary, Hope. Women getting in touch with themselves and saying, what do I like? Yes, and it is so crazy that it is revolutionary, but you're, yeah. What do I like and how do I express it? Yes. And how do I say it? Yes. How do I ask for it? It's not easy. Being intentional and making herself accountable in her sex and dating life has taken Hope to some pretty interesting places.

The other day, I went to a sex addicts meeting. It was like towards the end, because my voiceover year was like October to October, you know? And right before I was like about to sort of be done, I was just like, let me go to this sex addicts meeting and see if I belong. So what did you get from going there? What I got from the sex addicts meeting was, first of all, they have a lot of pamphlets, you know, kind of like any other anonymous meeting, and they have a test.

Am I a sex addict? And I took the test and I'm like, some of the questions I do identify with. But with a lot of like sort of addiction treatment, especially AA style, there's so much conversation of like higher power. And as a woman from the South who was raised really Christian, really conservative, I get scared when the higher power conversations enters a conversation about sex and love and desire.

After taking the test, Hope learned that she is not a sex addict, but that sex and love and romance are important to her. Weird, right? She left the meeting with some pamphlets and a better understanding of who she is.

It almost sort of tipped me into kind of what you were saying of it's nice to be a little bit messy sometimes. It's nice to be a little bit lost in love sometimes. I've kind of decided sex is like a necessary piece of the puzzle to mental wellness for me at this point in my life. After a year of being mostly boy sober, Hope has rewritten her criteria for romance, love and sex.

I have a sex partner now. He's bald and he's funny and he looks at me like I'm the first person he's ever seen. Wow, that's adorable. And did you feel trepidation to sort of wade back in there after a break? Totally. You know, sometimes I'm like, I don't know if you have this feeling, but being scared of myself almost. And I didn't want to lose any of my progress because

I didn't want to just go back to being someone I was, and I haven't done that yet. And I've been thinking about it. I think using language like, oh, I've been fixed, isn't so productive. From the outset, Hope set clear boundaries with the bald sex buddy. I'm not trying to be anyone's girlfriend. I am not trying to break any hearts. I am not trying to confuse anyone. And we need to be honest at all times.

about how we're feeling, what's going on and what we want out of this. You said to this friend that you were going to start having sex with. I don't want to be your girlfriend. That had so much baggage for me where I see you putting down the caring role, shunning the maternal role, the caretaker role, the diary watching secretary role.

Totally. It's so much assumed baggage that comes with those positions in relationships. Being honest is so difficult, like for me anyways, because I want to say the nice thing. I want to say the thing that will placate or appease or build up. Like I want to say the nice thing. I don't want to say the honest thing. But now I'm very much saying the honest thing. And also like I have a life that I have built without being

and sex and romance. And it's not the center of my life anymore. And if he were to like disappear tomorrow, I would be like, okay, well, I still have like such a full life and projects that I care about and art that I'm creating and friendships that I need to water and tend to at all times. And so I feel safe where

Whereas beforehand, when men and dating and love was like so at the core of everything, I was like never safe because without it, like I had nothing. It felt like which is dramatic to say, but also kind of true.

Some of us have to get sober from drugs and alcohol, and in a lot of ways getting boys sober can be similarly healing. Not just turning the volume down on the chatter from apps, but turning the noise all the way off. Muting the bullshit of dating and being wanted, rejection, mind games, dick pics, bad sex, and that's just the good stuff.

muting it all can be a merciful reset. Hope Woodard had to go cold turkey to learn how to nurture herself and the other rich parts of her life. She found that there was real value in dipping out of this ongoing churn of a culture that has, for hundreds of years, put men at the centre of women's lives. But do you know what I've never had to get sober from?

And it's not alcohol because I did have to get sober from that. But the thing I've never had too much of, never been maddened by or exasperated or deeply, profoundly let down by? My female friends. Because, you know, statistically, sex partners will come and go. But mates, friends are forever.

This podcast was produced on the lands of the Gundungurra and Gadigal peoples. Ladies We Need To Talk is mixed by Anne-Marie de Bettencourt. It's produced by Elsa Silberstein. Supervising producer is Tamar Kranzwick and our executive producer is Alex Lollback. This series was created by Claudine Ryan.