March 11, 2025 • 41 mins
In this final episode of Señora Sex Ed, we're joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Maria Hinojosa. She shares her healing journey along with the power of sharing our stories.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Senora Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Hi Senora.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to Senora.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Sex Ed.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Senora Sex Said is not your Mommy sex Talk. This
show is la platica like you've never heard it before.
With each episode, we're breaking the stigma and silence around
sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Just a reminder that in this show, a Senora is
a woman with a lot of life experiences and stories
to share. Maybe she's in her thirties, maybe she's in
her forties or fifties or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe
she sits.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
We are your hosts and producers, Viosa and Mala.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Lokatra Radio.
Since twenty sixteen, we've covered all kinds of topics, ranging
from politics to mental health, current events, and of course sex.
We still have so much to learn, though, and we
hope you listen to each episode with the Senoras and
senoritas in Your Life Chapter thirty, Your story is Power.
(01:38):
Today's episode is the last episode of the season, and
we're so grateful to everyone who's listened to Senora sex Ed.
Each episode was made with a lot of love and
a lot of intention.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
In a way, the show is a love letter to
anyone on a journey to love their whole selves, especially
the parts we have been taught to ignore or be
ashamed of, whether that be masturbation, abortion, or surviving sexual violence.
Senora sex Said is a project that delves deep into
the very human experience of sex.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In today's final episode, we are so honored to be
joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Inojosa. In this episode,
she details her relationship with identity as a Mexicana, an
investigative journalist, and a survivor of rape. She shares how
a TV show made her acknowledge her own experience. She
(02:37):
also shares how she worked through this with her therapist
and her husband. Her understanding of herself as a survivor
also contributes to how she views herself as a sexual being.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
This episode contains mentions of sexual violence, Please take care
of yourself and press pause if you need to. Now
here's our interview with Mariasa.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
So my name is Maria Josa. I think my claim
to fame would be that I'm the first person that
I know of that said her name in Spanish while
reporting for a national news network in English. I was
the first Latina hired at NPR, the first Latina hired
at CNN, the first Latina correspondent for PBS, first Latina
(03:21):
to anchor a front line, the second Latina to win
a Pulitzer in audio, a Pulitzer Prize. So I'm a journalist.
I'm an investigative journalist and I have my own nonprofit
media company called Futuro Media, and we produce Latino USA
that's been on the air for thirty almost thirty one years,
and we produce a many other podcasts like Suave that
(03:44):
won the Pulletzer, Anything for Selena Loud, the History of Reggaeton.
So we have multiple podcasts out of my nonprofit. And
I am a proud Mexicana, proud Chilanga from lac I
was raised in Chicago and then I went to school
(04:06):
in New York at Barnard College, which is part of
Columbia university and that's where I started doing college radio
and the rest is history.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Fabulous and growing up, can you talk to us a
little bit about your upbringing and your parents and who
are your parents and how would you describe their parenting
style and did you receive some type of a sex
talk or blatica growing up?
Speaker 5 (04:33):
And So my mom and dad were married for I
think sixty one years, very old school, traditional Mexican marriage,
although I don't know. My mom was seventeen and my
dad was twenty five, but at that time that was
(04:57):
and he was on his way to becoming a medical doctor,
and I was raised. Bappy worked all the time that
he was the dreamer. He was a medical doctor dedicated
to research, so he spent all of his time in
front of the microscope at the University of Chicago. Very
(05:20):
a very loving father in the sense that you know
Los Domino's Gonna familia, very present in that sense. I
was the youngest, so I think I got the benefit
of It's four of us, my sister, my two brothers
in the middle, and then I'm the littlest. So I
feel like I got as cool as my dad could
ever become. It was with me, but he was very
(05:43):
strict about the whole boy situation. Was like very very
very very very very very strict, and it was a
source of a lot of issues and problems that manifested
in different ways. My mom was seventeen when she got married,
and she was just fabulous. She was very happy. She
(06:05):
was the one who encouraged my father to let's leave
Mexico and go pursue your dreams in Chicago. So she
was very open. But to get to the question, no,
never a blatka, No, none at all. Ever.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So given that you didn't actually have a sex talk,
then what was your introduction to sex? Was it through peers?
Was it through school? Was it through movies? Ay media?
What would you say if you could pinpoint a moment
in time during your youth that you thought, Okay, this
is what it is.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Is this to me, everything that happens in my sex
life as a young person really has a lot to
do with identity issues. To me, that's like the central paradigm.
So Mexico misprimas they first when we were young did
(07:03):
not talk about boys, and then actually they were very boyish,
but it was like they had a nova and that
was that was so on the Mexican side. It was
very prudish, I would say, or at least faux prudish
behind closed doors. There was a lot of stuff happening,
for sure, but presenting outwardly it was very prudish. And
(07:29):
in the United States at this time and wanting to
be an American girl, there was a lot of pressure
to be an American girl. An American girl kisses boys,
you know, talks about boys, has boyfriends, you know, talks
about the bases and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned. There's more
to come.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
We hope you enjoyed the break and are ready to
listen to the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I know you're very open about your narrative, your personal
narrative as being a survivor, and it was a very
focal point in your memoir as well. So let's talk
about that and how that did inform the way you
approach these topics of sex, sexuality, and of course consent.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
I was thinking in regards to the now Secretary of Defense, Hegseth,
who has sexually assaulted women allegedly. But if there has
been a money paid to women to keep quiet, it
raises all kinds of questions and he probably walks around
(08:40):
saying at it, I didn't do anything, And I was like,
that's exactly how my rapist must walk around in Mexico now,
just like can I send okay? And it was only
when I actually when I was teaching in Chicago and
it was my student who told me to watch Thirteen
(09:02):
Reasons Why. That was one of the things that really
triggered me. There's a rape scene at the end of
season one, which is like no other rape scene I've seen,
and that's when I was like, oh my god. And
that coupled with Believe It or Not, an episode of
Law and Order where they spoke specifically about consent, and
I was like, did I just realize I was raped
(09:24):
because of a TV show? Are you kidding me? That
coupled with what was happening with the nomination for the
Supreme Court Cavanaugh, his assaulting of a fifteen year old
What that looked like so many women across the board
(09:46):
being triggered and realizing, wait, so wait, that's a sexual assault. Yes,
in my case, it was a rape. And again, I
think you know, it ties back to a lot of
the question around identity. Okay, my rape happens in Mexico,
it's not, it's not. It doesn't surprise me that my
(10:08):
rape happened in Mexico because Mexico was the place for
me that was, I don't know, the most authentically me,
and it was the place where I would bring my
American girl self. But I really loved being in Mexico
and everything about my Mexican ness. But I was also
(10:29):
truly a high school girl who who loved I mean,
I was an actor, so I was hanging around with
all the actors of my high school, which means that
there were queer people there, there were non binary people there.
Because people are like, wait, what was happening in the seventies,
I'm like, yes, yes, So I was very I mean,
(10:57):
the conflict I felt around my attraction his sexuality was
the Catholic conflict, you know, just like the Mexican conflict.
Because I was like, but it feels good, yeah, but
you're not supposed to be doing this because of your
family's reputation. You know that you all know about the
you know, you when you take a mirror and you
(11:20):
blow on it and it gets a little bit foggy
and that's your reputation. Once it's foggy, it's never clear again.
Or the rumpled rose petal.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
My mom would tell me these things and I'd be like,
what are you talking about? But anyway, so I I yeah,
I liked being with boys. I definitely liked being with boys.
And except for the moral conflict of my father not
being cool with this and my Mexican cousin's not being
(11:52):
cool with this, I was cool with it. But also
I was like, am I just trying to be an
American girl? Anyway? Then I go to Mexico and I'm
at the most romantic place you could possibly ever imagine,
with the coolest music because I don't care what anybody says,
I am a disco queen. And it was Dona summer,
(12:15):
and you know all all of that, those you know,
nineteen seventies disco songs that just were amazing and still
are amazing. I will die on a sword for that.
So yeah, and then I met this Mexican. I mean,
I was sixteen. I had convinced myself for decades that
(12:36):
I was seventeen. I wasn't. I was sixteen. I was little.
I was sixteen. You know when I think about it,
I'm like eskate ass when I mean, meet that, really
you were a kid. He was twenty four, maybe twenty five,
definitely twenty four maybe, or maybe he was twenty three
and he was lying whatever. He was twenty four in
(12:59):
my mind, which is really a young adult. So by
then it wasn't so normal for a twenty four year
old to be with a sixteen year old, you know,
like when my mom and dad's time, and you know,
I think he we you know, we met at a disco.
(13:19):
He was friends of a family, friends of family friends
who we ended up all together, of a very wealthy family,
wealthy influential. Sounds like Delenovela. Literally is so this notion
of like, oh my god, it's it's the gardener who's
going to rape. He No, it was the cute boy
(13:45):
who knew exactly what he was doing. And I it
was only when I realized, many years later, you know,
in my kind of coming to terms with this and
doing therapy and talking about it, when I was like,
oh my god, of course I was raped. I said no.
From the moment he from the moment he got on
top of me, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
you know, and so that is the tell tale sign
(14:06):
of there was no consent, therefore you were raped.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Yeah, there's And there is also the age piece, right,
there's an age of consent. And I don't know what
the age of consent was in Mexico at the time,
but if we look at our own current standards, you know,
a minor can't give consent to an adult in that way.
So those are the multiple factors there. And I'm wondering
because you mentioned sort of later in life from students
(14:34):
from media piecing together that what happened was an assault
immediately after it took place and in the months years
following when you were sixteen, how did you categorize that experience?
Speaker 6 (14:47):
What did you call it? How did you think or
feel about it?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
I lost my virginity, so nobody had anything up on me,
but I didn't talk about it. It happened in my
Mexico with a guy after we were dancing at the disco.
No no, no, no no. That was not talked about
(15:11):
for years and years and years wasn't talked about.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
At what point did you start talking about it?
Speaker 5 (15:20):
I mean maybe, I mean, uh so more than a decade,
maybe fifteen years later, and I'm trying to remember, you know,
under what context did I feel safe enough to be
talking about it? Which is why I'm like, I did
I think I was safe with that guy to talk
about this, because it wasn't not with that guy. So
(15:44):
I'm figuring, yeah, definitely with my husband so I get
married at when I'm thirty. Definitely with Hermann, I said,
And that point, I remember that I categorized it. It's
going to sound horrible, so trigger warning because it's pretty horrible.
(16:07):
But this is the way I I could understand. I
called it a baby rape. Wasn't like a full rape
because you know, again we think of a rape you
have to be thrown down and slapped across the face,
and it has to be a nice I mean I
was thrown down, but you know it was there was
(16:27):
not a weapon involved. There didn't need to be. I mean,
I'm five feet tall and he was six foot three
or six or four. So I was like, you know,
I mean I consented to get in the car, so
it's my fault, right, so it's not a full on rape.
Full on rape would have been that he threw me
into the car and forced me to go. No, I
(16:48):
got into the car. And I should have gotten out
of the car the second he came back from the
pharmacy with a box of condoms. I should have just
been like, no, Seviski. But I was convinced that it
was going to be the most romantic thing ever, because
you know, we convince ourselves of these things that we
(17:09):
wanted to just be like, and it's going to happen
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And we'll be taking a quick break. Don't miss us.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
Thanks for sticking around. We are back.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Why do you think that this is a common I
think survival mechanism that survivors utilize to minimize what happened
in the retelling or in the categorizing of what happened
and in your own experience. Why do you think you
were minimizing.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
The assault?
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Oh god, so many reasons. I mean, I will tell
you that when my therapist, who is she's a Latina
immigrant refugee expert on sexual trauma and trauma, et cetera,
when she said, you know you're a survivor, I was
like wait what. I was like, wait, huh hold up? Well,
(18:13):
so I yeah, I had a hard time and my
husband had a hard time. You know, we did therapy
together to try to understand how this affected our marriage,
because of course it did. Of course it did. And
that's why, you know, I just feel very lucky that
I have a husband and a partner and a great
(18:33):
therapist and therapist throughout where we were able to kind
of unlock what was happening. Because if you if you
don't have the guidance, you're just gonna you're not gonna
understand what's going on, and it's going to be hard
to maintain a relationship because it's hard to label these things.
So even when Gristina told me, is can I Yeah,
you're a survivor, you are a rape survivor, I was
(18:56):
like snap. I was like, oh my god, like one
more like I'm an immigrant, Mexican, you know, radical journalist,
you know, all of the things that I had, all
of the labels good or bad, and I was like,
(19:16):
a survivor, I have to add this one to it.
Oh man. And then you realize that no, I'm proud
to be a survivor. No. But there was a lot
and the thing that one of the things that came
up is with my husband, he was like, so I
don't understand, like we talked about this a.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Long time ago, and you you didn't, so he didn't
remember because I, again I lo menos bressier, I made
it less than it was.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
He was like, I know something happened, but you never
talked about it as a rape and h and now
you're a rape survivor, you know. I took him a
moment and my therapist said, you know, I just want
you to know that I have clients who have been trafficked,
(20:09):
sex trafficked by their partners, and they will not accept
that they are rape survivors. And that's how profound it
goes that we reject wanting to have to label ourselves
as a rape survivor. Which is why I'm so public
(20:30):
about it because now, I mean, of course I did
a lot of therapy. I wasn't public in the moment,
you know, because I was figuring it out. But I've
done a lot of therapy and it's taken me to
the other side. But yeah, it's it's really and you know,
there's a part of me that would like to sometimes
(20:51):
I'm just like, I should find out where this person is.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
So you think about, like you think about looking him
up or tracking him down somehow.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
No, I know. I know, like I already asked. I
asked my cousin and I told her what happened. You know,
I know she was shocked, as as one would be,
but I don't know if she was entirely surprised. And
she knows his sister still dont yes COmON problem and
(21:26):
port In says, yeah, and I could you know. So
there's it's not like I'm there's nothing stopping me. It's
just I'm like, is that where I want to go?
Do I want? You know? I will say that the
latest manifestation is I think because of what's happening in
the news, has been a desire to at least get
(21:47):
a phone call and just be like, I just want
you to know to maybio lasti du locate to maybiolasti
parkilo do maybe your last day.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I'm wondering between going back a little bit between you
coming to terms of this identity, this new found identity
with your therapist and working through that with your husband
and then deciding to be very public about it. What
was that moment for you and what was the timeline
between that?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Would you say, well, so it's very important that that
and that's why I when I talked to women. I
have so many people who come to me and in
confidence they will say whispering the ear by the way,
I'm a rape survivor too, I don't talk about it
(22:44):
like so many times, and I'm just like, I understand.
But you know, there is healing if you do the
if you find the people who can help you do
the work. Gristina really helped me to understand. And here
it comes the full circle moment of it, because so,
you know, Christina was able to say, all right, so
you were sixteen and you liked boys, so that was
(23:04):
a given. You were a coquette like your mom. Loved flirting,
loved getting the attention of boys, loved just I mean,
I was an actor, I was, you know, so I
liked being on stage. I was a coquette and I
want to go get that, but not in a not
in a negative way, you know, not in a manipulative,
(23:25):
you know, sex negative kind of way. I was just
for God's sakes, I was sixteen. What can you know, like,
just you know, go get that. And so Gristina helped
me to understand that my mom and I were the
same age and we were both go getas right. She
(23:48):
just was about to marry the man. She was so ready.
And my mom said this to me. She was like,
la ganas. So my mom really believes That's why she's like,
I did have a talk with you, and I'm like no,
(24:08):
because in her life she really does believe that she
embodies a very sex positive feeling. So anyway, the point
is that my mom was sixteen. I was sixteen. What
my therapist was like, what do you feel at sixteen?
Like it is completely normal to be hot and horny.
Those are the terms that even you know, I just
(24:31):
finished watching the TV show sex Life of College Girls, right,
they're using the same terms that we were using. So
and it's because it's just a hormonal thing. It's just like,
it's what happens. So she's like, so, there was nothing
wrong with you even wanting to consenting to get into
(24:51):
the car because you believed that it was going to
be a certain way. Your mom was like, I'm getting married.
That's how I'm going to resolve it. But you were
both had legitimate desire. Doesn't make your desire worse than hers,
You're the same. And I was like, damn seriously, And
(25:15):
that was like the liberation point. I was just like, oh, snap,
so it was cool that I was interested in ready
and wanting and desirous, Like how cool is that? Yes,
you were the issue of the rape is that it
was not just a physical violation. It was the violation
(25:37):
of trust. You trusted when you got into that car.
You trusted and that's the hard part, apart from then
the physical consequences of rape as your first time ever
in terms of sexual intercourse.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. You actually, honestly really
illuminated a lot for me and my own rape as well.
So hearing you talk about that right now really put
a lot into perspective. And I was twenty So I
just want to affirm that and thank you because I've
been in therapy for a long time and I don't
think that has been stated so clearly, So thank you
(26:16):
for that. And because you also said that you know,
feeling that it was okay to be sexual right and
now at this point in your life, right, do you
feel sexually liberated and what does that feel like if you.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Do, Well, here's what I will tell you that I
have a great sex life now, I would say for
the last decade, frankly, because it happened about a decade ago,
twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, those were
the years of working this out, and so since then, yeah,
(26:54):
definitely things changed in terms of my my ability to
accept my own desire for sexual pleasure. I'll just be strict.
I'm not looking to sleep with another man like I'm good,
like I know my husband. I understand that I'm as
(27:20):
like no, no, and I know I'm a little bit like,
what's the matter with you? And it's just like no,
I have no interest like the kind of of kind
of intimacy and just being who you are that you
have with someone that you've been together with for I mean,
(27:41):
Henmer and I got married, what thirty we're going to
go on thirty four years, So that is thirty four
years worth of work of creating trust and intimacy.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What would you say makes a good sex life? Each
person can have their own definition of what makes their
sex life good, but for you, generally speaking, what would
you say makes a good sex life?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Having sex? So, yeah, one, I think a lot of
people think a lot of people are having a lot
of sex. I don't think a lot of people are
having a lot of sex. I think there is an
image that we have of this, but I think so
you have to make it a point to schedule it
(28:30):
into your life. And for me, that means that that
there's a whole lead up, right, and so the romance
the starts the week before, if it's been a week
or whatever, the day of that set that there is
like an anticipation, I don't know, the again, the quiet
(28:54):
of just the two of us, you know, in that
in that special moment. And I'm very lucky right because
my husband is a wild dreamer artist, and so he
has built some pretty extraordinary homes so that I actually
(29:16):
have sex in different places that are like our home,
like in the Caribbean in Po Dakhana, or here in Kinnecticut,
or in New York City in you know, the most
urban of environments with the sirens and jazz music as
we live in Harlem.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So we've been hearing from our guests that their sex
lives have gotten better as they've gotten older. Would you
say that there's some truth to that?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Oh, there's no doubt about that. But again, remember there
were many years where I was sexually traumatized because I
was I just didn't know what was going on. Yeah, yeah,
And there's that happens is that when you don't have
your adult children living in the home makes it a
(30:06):
lot easier, right, because remember we were empty nesters and
we were supposed to kind of continue in that, but
then the pandemic happened, and so the opposite happened, and
so when you you know, making time to be with
each other. And again, I think I think there is
like again, all the women's magazines and thellisticals and all
(30:29):
that stuff. I think I'm not going to throw it
all away. But you know, my husband and I made
some time, We've made a concerted decision that in twenty
twenty five we do want to spend more just like
unique special time. Right.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I want to take us back a little bit to
the conversation about identity, and I want to come back
to this because one of our like main sort of
arguments of Senora Sex said of this podcast is that
Latinas are hyper sexualized in media and popular culture. There's
all these tropes and stereotypes, but in actuality, there is
(31:14):
to borrow a word, prudishness. Within the cultures, there is
a lack of sex education. We don't talk about these things.
The cultural expectations that you experienced in Mexico are different
than the American girl expectations as you describe them. So
how do we reconcile the popular narrative, the stereotype of
the spicy, hot and bothered Latina versus the actual lived
(31:37):
experience and the chastity that's expected and imposed.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
I think about joy and passion, and that I think
is more of who we are that they then label
as hypersexual. And you know again, I love dancing, and
I loved sensual dancing and sexual dancing, and so did
my mom. You know again, that attracted my father to her.
(32:04):
There's nothing wrong with that. In my case, it attracted
my rapist to me. But I think the the the
ability to be in our full selves dancing, you know,
to experience ecstasy, you know, And I experienced ecstasy, not
(32:26):
the drug like when I would when my parents would
take me to the Pyramids in Mexico, and I was like,
what the hell that was ecstasy to me? Right, But
that was also kind of defining me as a Mexican
girl as all of those things as on the one hand,
the humility of my indigenous self, but on the other hand,
(32:46):
the kind of boldness of many Mexicanas who I would
see around me who were centual. So I think that
so then so then it's really this love of life.
I'm almost labida. And in the Mayan text right it
(33:13):
says lavida is my lamas.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
I e.
Speaker 5 (33:18):
We are always in tears, like we're always crying because
like suffering is just like so when you're not in suffering, man, wow,
enjoy it, Enjoy enjoy this, this pleasure, live to this moment.
I mean, as AOC said on Latino USA when we
(33:39):
were talking about it, she was like, you know, the
Puerto Rican people have been oppressed for so long and
colonized for so long. Of course we're having the best
parties and laughing and dancing because otherwise we'd be crying
all the time. So to me, that is what represents
my my identification with my sensuality and sexuality as part
(34:01):
of my latins. And I think they mislabel all of
those things because they are our joy of life, are
ours rad viv our love of life threatens them, I mean,
there is That's what the people who are coming from
the south to the north, what they're bringing is actually
their love of life and their love of selves, and
(34:22):
this stupid motherfucking country is saying, well, we have to
build a wall to keep you out. And I'm like,
do you not see the love and the passion and
everything that they bring which is so positive and you're
building a wall you Okay? So that is what I
think my Latins represents and what I will continue to
(34:47):
look towards and to be more connected. You know, I'm
with my husband and I it's like, we have to
go dancing. We have to get back to going dancing.
That's how we met. We got to dance once a month,
once a week, once or whatever.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
We've had a beautif full conversation with you, Madia. Thank
you again so much for your time and your stories.
If you could say something to your teenage self, what
would that be.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Well, the first thing would be don't get in the car.
That would be the first thing I would say is
don't get in the car. And then the second thing
would be you should have continued just having as much
fun and having as much sexual experimentation as you wanted to,
(35:37):
because you were right, there was nothing wrong with you,
nothing wrong at all, and in many ways it was
setting you up to become the monogamous woman that you
have been for all of these decades. So go at
it and love your body more.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Do you identify as a senora? We've been asking all
of our guests this.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Do I identify as a seignora? Well? I think it really
depends on the situation, like if I'm in Mexico and
I need to get some respect from anyone, so, you know,
and it covers with a tone. But in my way
(36:24):
of approaching life, in the way I kind of dress, uh,
in the way I talk about things, I don't think
I'm a senora. But what's the right word, you know,
dia cool, dia. But I also understand that like I can't,
(36:44):
you know, like I I have to take myself. So
I mean, you know, I I am a Jingo na.
You know that I wear my little necklace that says
Jingo Na because yeah, and I got all those awards
because I worked my ass off because I believed in
my gut, which is what the both of you have done, right,
You just trusted in your gut and like just kept
(37:06):
on working and working and working. And in that sense,
so you're not And I love throwing that one out.
Oh I do if ever I need to.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
I learned so much from this interview with Maria that
it's hard to pinpoint one takeaway. But something that does
stand out to me is the fact that Maria is
a Pulitzer Prize winning career journalist who has heard hundreds,
if not thousands, of compelling, interesting, impactful stories from a
variety of people from all over the world, and she
(37:43):
is still in a place where she is still learning
and unpacking her own personal story from her youth. And
I think it's really incredible that someone with so much
access to stories from all over the place is still
willing and interested in sharing this particular story of hers
about trauma, about surviving trauma, and how learning about herself
(38:07):
allows her to be the best person she can possibly be,
and how it informs her relationship to her work, to
her children, and to her husband. So I'm really grateful
to Maria for sharing this story with us, Of all
the stories that she knows and has lived through, that
she brought this one to.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Senora Sex said.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Since this is the season finale of Senora Sex said,
I just want to express all of my gratitude to
all of our guests that have come on and shared
their stories, and to all of you, our listeners that
have kept up with this brand new podcast week after week.
It has been the biggest blessing to record these stories
(38:47):
and really think about the lessons that we can learn
from our fellow community of all ages. There was a
big emphasis for us to document the stories of Signoras,
and we're so grateful to the Signoras, whether they identify
as Signoras or not. We're so grateful to the women
(39:09):
that came on and shared their stories with each other,
with their daughters, with us. I think that we created
something incredible that I think will last a lifetime, because
these stories are forever and there's so much that we
can learn from each episode for years to come. My
(39:29):
biggest hope is that this podcast continues to find its audience.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I think what stands out to me about this show
in particular is that no matter where you are, no
matter what state, what town, if you want information about
sexuality and relationships and our relationships to ourselves, this show
can travel. This show can be one of hopefully many
(39:56):
resources for people out there who want to understand topic
like shame and masturbation and abortion.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
So on and so forth.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
So even as things look kind of dire out in
the world, especially when it comes to our federal government
and the things in this country that are being prioritized
and the things that are being cut. Senora sex Said
hopefully can just be one source of information that is
accessible to people, even if you're in a place where
(40:26):
you don't have access to sex Said in your schools
or at home.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Senora Sex Said is a co production between LOCATORA Productions
and Michael Dura Podcast Network.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munos and bios
a FM.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Also executive produced by Jasell.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Bances, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Creative direction by Mala Munios.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Story editing by Biosafem.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Music direction by Grisol Lomeli, and
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Music produced by Brian Gazo
Senora Senora, Senora, Senora, Senora, Hi Senora.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to Senora.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Sex Ed.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Senora Sex Said is not your Mommy sex Talk. This
show is la platica like you've never heard it before.
With each episode, we're breaking the stigma and silence around
sex and sexuality in LATINX communities.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Latinas have been hyper sexualized in popular culture, but notoriously
denied sex education. This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between
Latinas from gen X to gen Z, covering everything from
puberty and body image to representation in film, television, and music.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Just a reminder that in this show, a Senora is
a woman with a lot of life experiences and stories
to share. Maybe she's in her thirties, maybe she's in
her forties or fifties or older. Maybe she's trans, maybe
she sits.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
We are your hosts and producers, Viosa and Mala.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
You might recognize us from our flagship podcast, Lokatra Radio.
Since twenty sixteen, we've covered all kinds of topics, ranging
from politics to mental health, current events, and of course sex.
We still have so much to learn, though, and we
hope you listen to each episode with the Senoras and
senoritas in Your Life Chapter thirty, Your story is Power.
(01:38):
Today's episode is the last episode of the season, and
we're so grateful to everyone who's listened to Senora sex Ed.
Each episode was made with a lot of love and
a lot of intention.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
In a way, the show is a love letter to
anyone on a journey to love their whole selves, especially
the parts we have been taught to ignore or be
ashamed of, whether that be masturbation, abortion, or surviving sexual violence.
Senora sex Said is a project that delves deep into
the very human experience of sex.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
In today's final episode, we are so honored to be
joined by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Inojosa. In this episode,
she details her relationship with identity as a Mexicana, an
investigative journalist, and a survivor of rape. She shares how
a TV show made her acknowledge her own experience. She
(02:37):
also shares how she worked through this with her therapist
and her husband. Her understanding of herself as a survivor
also contributes to how she views herself as a sexual being.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
This episode contains mentions of sexual violence, Please take care
of yourself and press pause if you need to. Now
here's our interview with Mariasa.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
So my name is Maria Josa. I think my claim
to fame would be that I'm the first person that
I know of that said her name in Spanish while
reporting for a national news network in English. I was
the first Latina hired at NPR, the first Latina hired
at CNN, the first Latina correspondent for PBS, first Latina
(03:21):
to anchor a front line, the second Latina to win
a Pulitzer in audio, a Pulitzer Prize. So I'm a journalist.
I'm an investigative journalist and I have my own nonprofit
media company called Futuro Media, and we produce Latino USA
that's been on the air for thirty almost thirty one years,
and we produce a many other podcasts like Suave that
(03:44):
won the Pulletzer, Anything for Selena Loud, the History of Reggaeton.
So we have multiple podcasts out of my nonprofit. And
I am a proud Mexicana, proud Chilanga from lac I
was raised in Chicago and then I went to school
(04:06):
in New York at Barnard College, which is part of
Columbia university and that's where I started doing college radio
and the rest is history.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Fabulous and growing up, can you talk to us a
little bit about your upbringing and your parents and who
are your parents and how would you describe their parenting
style and did you receive some type of a sex
talk or blatica growing up?
Speaker 5 (04:33):
And So my mom and dad were married for I
think sixty one years, very old school, traditional Mexican marriage,
although I don't know. My mom was seventeen and my
dad was twenty five, but at that time that was
(04:57):
and he was on his way to becoming a medical doctor,
and I was raised. Bappy worked all the time that
he was the dreamer. He was a medical doctor dedicated
to research, so he spent all of his time in
front of the microscope at the University of Chicago. Very
(05:20):
a very loving father in the sense that you know
Los Domino's Gonna familia, very present in that sense. I
was the youngest, so I think I got the benefit
of It's four of us, my sister, my two brothers
in the middle, and then I'm the littlest. So I
feel like I got as cool as my dad could
ever become. It was with me, but he was very
(05:43):
strict about the whole boy situation. Was like very very
very very very very very strict, and it was a
source of a lot of issues and problems that manifested
in different ways. My mom was seventeen when she got married,
and she was just fabulous. She was very happy. She
(06:05):
was the one who encouraged my father to let's leave
Mexico and go pursue your dreams in Chicago. So she
was very open. But to get to the question, no,
never a blatka, No, none at all. Ever.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So given that you didn't actually have a sex talk,
then what was your introduction to sex? Was it through peers?
Was it through school? Was it through movies? Ay media?
What would you say if you could pinpoint a moment
in time during your youth that you thought, Okay, this
is what it is.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
Is this to me, everything that happens in my sex
life as a young person really has a lot to
do with identity issues. To me, that's like the central paradigm.
So Mexico misprimas they first when we were young did
(07:03):
not talk about boys, and then actually they were very boyish,
but it was like they had a nova and that
was that was so on the Mexican side. It was
very prudish, I would say, or at least faux prudish
behind closed doors. There was a lot of stuff happening,
for sure, but presenting outwardly it was very prudish. And
(07:29):
in the United States at this time and wanting to
be an American girl, there was a lot of pressure
to be an American girl. An American girl kisses boys,
you know, talks about boys, has boyfriends, you know, talks
about the bases and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
We hope you're enjoying this conversation. Stay tuned. There's more
to come.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
And we're back.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
We hope you enjoyed the break and are ready to
listen to the rest.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I know you're very open about your narrative, your personal
narrative as being a survivor, and it was a very
focal point in your memoir as well. So let's talk
about that and how that did inform the way you
approach these topics of sex, sexuality, and of course consent.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
I was thinking in regards to the now Secretary of Defense, Hegseth,
who has sexually assaulted women allegedly. But if there has
been a money paid to women to keep quiet, it
raises all kinds of questions and he probably walks around
(08:40):
saying at it, I didn't do anything, And I was like,
that's exactly how my rapist must walk around in Mexico now,
just like can I send okay? And it was only
when I actually when I was teaching in Chicago and
it was my student who told me to watch Thirteen
(09:02):
Reasons Why. That was one of the things that really
triggered me. There's a rape scene at the end of
season one, which is like no other rape scene I've seen,
and that's when I was like, oh my god. And
that coupled with Believe It or Not, an episode of
Law and Order where they spoke specifically about consent, and
I was like, did I just realize I was raped
(09:24):
because of a TV show? Are you kidding me? That
coupled with what was happening with the nomination for the
Supreme Court Cavanaugh, his assaulting of a fifteen year old
What that looked like so many women across the board
(09:46):
being triggered and realizing, wait, so wait, that's a sexual assault. Yes,
in my case, it was a rape. And again, I
think you know, it ties back to a lot of
the question around identity. Okay, my rape happens in Mexico,
it's not, it's not. It doesn't surprise me that my
(10:08):
rape happened in Mexico because Mexico was the place for
me that was, I don't know, the most authentically me,
and it was the place where I would bring my
American girl self. But I really loved being in Mexico
and everything about my Mexican ness. But I was also
(10:29):
truly a high school girl who who loved I mean,
I was an actor, so I was hanging around with
all the actors of my high school, which means that
there were queer people there, there were non binary people there.
Because people are like, wait, what was happening in the seventies,
I'm like, yes, yes, So I was very I mean,
(10:57):
the conflict I felt around my attraction his sexuality was
the Catholic conflict, you know, just like the Mexican conflict.
Because I was like, but it feels good, yeah, but
you're not supposed to be doing this because of your
family's reputation. You know that you all know about the
you know, you when you take a mirror and you
(11:20):
blow on it and it gets a little bit foggy
and that's your reputation. Once it's foggy, it's never clear again.
Or the rumpled rose petal.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You know.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
My mom would tell me these things and I'd be like,
what are you talking about? But anyway, so I I yeah,
I liked being with boys. I definitely liked being with boys.
And except for the moral conflict of my father not
being cool with this and my Mexican cousin's not being
(11:52):
cool with this, I was cool with it. But also
I was like, am I just trying to be an
American girl? Anyway? Then I go to Mexico and I'm
at the most romantic place you could possibly ever imagine,
with the coolest music because I don't care what anybody says,
I am a disco queen. And it was Dona summer,
(12:15):
and you know all all of that, those you know,
nineteen seventies disco songs that just were amazing and still
are amazing. I will die on a sword for that.
So yeah, and then I met this Mexican. I mean,
I was sixteen. I had convinced myself for decades that
(12:36):
I was seventeen. I wasn't. I was sixteen. I was little.
I was sixteen. You know when I think about it,
I'm like eskate ass when I mean, meet that, really
you were a kid. He was twenty four, maybe twenty five,
definitely twenty four maybe, or maybe he was twenty three
and he was lying whatever. He was twenty four in
(12:59):
my mind, which is really a young adult. So by
then it wasn't so normal for a twenty four year
old to be with a sixteen year old, you know,
like when my mom and dad's time, and you know,
I think he we you know, we met at a disco.
(13:19):
He was friends of a family, friends of family friends
who we ended up all together, of a very wealthy family,
wealthy influential. Sounds like Delenovela. Literally is so this notion
of like, oh my god, it's it's the gardener who's
going to rape. He No, it was the cute boy
(13:45):
who knew exactly what he was doing. And I it
was only when I realized, many years later, you know,
in my kind of coming to terms with this and
doing therapy and talking about it, when I was like,
oh my god, of course I was raped. I said no.
From the moment he from the moment he got on
top of me, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
you know, and so that is the tell tale sign
(14:06):
of there was no consent, therefore you were raped.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Yeah, there's And there is also the age piece, right,
there's an age of consent. And I don't know what
the age of consent was in Mexico at the time,
but if we look at our own current standards, you know,
a minor can't give consent to an adult in that way.
So those are the multiple factors there. And I'm wondering
because you mentioned sort of later in life from students
(14:34):
from media piecing together that what happened was an assault
immediately after it took place and in the months years
following when you were sixteen, how did you categorize that experience?
Speaker 6 (14:47):
What did you call it? How did you think or
feel about it?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
I lost my virginity, so nobody had anything up on me,
but I didn't talk about it. It happened in my
Mexico with a guy after we were dancing at the disco.
No no, no, no no. That was not talked about
(15:11):
for years and years and years wasn't talked about.
Speaker 6 (15:17):
At what point did you start talking about it?
Speaker 5 (15:20):
I mean maybe, I mean, uh so more than a decade,
maybe fifteen years later, and I'm trying to remember, you know,
under what context did I feel safe enough to be
talking about it? Which is why I'm like, I did
I think I was safe with that guy to talk
about this, because it wasn't not with that guy. So
(15:44):
I'm figuring, yeah, definitely with my husband so I get
married at when I'm thirty. Definitely with Hermann, I said,
And that point, I remember that I categorized it. It's
going to sound horrible, so trigger warning because it's pretty horrible.
(16:07):
But this is the way I I could understand. I
called it a baby rape. Wasn't like a full rape
because you know, again we think of a rape you
have to be thrown down and slapped across the face,
and it has to be a nice I mean I
was thrown down, but you know it was there was
(16:27):
not a weapon involved. There didn't need to be. I mean,
I'm five feet tall and he was six foot three
or six or four. So I was like, you know,
I mean I consented to get in the car, so
it's my fault, right, so it's not a full on rape.
Full on rape would have been that he threw me
into the car and forced me to go. No, I
(16:48):
got into the car. And I should have gotten out
of the car the second he came back from the
pharmacy with a box of condoms. I should have just
been like, no, Seviski. But I was convinced that it
was going to be the most romantic thing ever, because
you know, we convince ourselves of these things that we
(17:09):
wanted to just be like, and it's going to happen
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And we'll be taking a quick break. Don't miss us.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
Thanks for sticking around. We are back.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Why do you think that this is a common I
think survival mechanism that survivors utilize to minimize what happened
in the retelling or in the categorizing of what happened
and in your own experience. Why do you think you
were minimizing.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
The assault?
Speaker 5 (17:47):
Oh god, so many reasons. I mean, I will tell
you that when my therapist, who is she's a Latina
immigrant refugee expert on sexual trauma and trauma, et cetera,
when she said, you know you're a survivor, I was
like wait what. I was like, wait, huh hold up? Well,
(18:13):
so I yeah, I had a hard time and my
husband had a hard time. You know, we did therapy
together to try to understand how this affected our marriage,
because of course it did. Of course it did. And
that's why, you know, I just feel very lucky that
I have a husband and a partner and a great
(18:33):
therapist and therapist throughout where we were able to kind
of unlock what was happening. Because if you if you
don't have the guidance, you're just gonna you're not gonna
understand what's going on, and it's going to be hard
to maintain a relationship because it's hard to label these things.
So even when Gristina told me, is can I Yeah,
you're a survivor, you are a rape survivor, I was
(18:56):
like snap. I was like, oh my god, like one
more like I'm an immigrant, Mexican, you know, radical journalist,
you know, all of the things that I had, all
of the labels good or bad, and I was like,
(19:16):
a survivor, I have to add this one to it.
Oh man. And then you realize that no, I'm proud
to be a survivor. No. But there was a lot
and the thing that one of the things that came
up is with my husband, he was like, so I
don't understand, like we talked about this a.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Long time ago, and you you didn't, so he didn't
remember because I, again I lo menos bressier, I made
it less than it was.
Speaker 5 (19:47):
He was like, I know something happened, but you never
talked about it as a rape and h and now
you're a rape survivor, you know. I took him a
moment and my therapist said, you know, I just want
you to know that I have clients who have been trafficked,
(20:09):
sex trafficked by their partners, and they will not accept
that they are rape survivors. And that's how profound it
goes that we reject wanting to have to label ourselves
as a rape survivor. Which is why I'm so public
(20:30):
about it because now, I mean, of course I did
a lot of therapy. I wasn't public in the moment,
you know, because I was figuring it out. But I've
done a lot of therapy and it's taken me to
the other side. But yeah, it's it's really and you know,
there's a part of me that would like to sometimes
(20:51):
I'm just like, I should find out where this person is.
Speaker 6 (20:56):
So you think about, like you think about looking him
up or tracking him down somehow.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
No, I know. I know, like I already asked. I
asked my cousin and I told her what happened. You know,
I know she was shocked, as as one would be,
but I don't know if she was entirely surprised. And
she knows his sister still dont yes COmON problem and
(21:26):
port In says, yeah, and I could you know. So
there's it's not like I'm there's nothing stopping me. It's
just I'm like, is that where I want to go?
Do I want? You know? I will say that the
latest manifestation is I think because of what's happening in
the news, has been a desire to at least get
(21:47):
a phone call and just be like, I just want
you to know to maybio lasti du locate to maybiolasti
parkilo do maybe your last day.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I'm wondering between going back a little bit between you
coming to terms of this identity, this new found identity
with your therapist and working through that with your husband
and then deciding to be very public about it. What
was that moment for you and what was the timeline
between that?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Would you say, well, so it's very important that that
and that's why I when I talked to women. I
have so many people who come to me and in
confidence they will say whispering the ear by the way,
I'm a rape survivor too, I don't talk about it
(22:44):
like so many times, and I'm just like, I understand.
But you know, there is healing if you do the
if you find the people who can help you do
the work. Gristina really helped me to understand. And here
it comes the full circle moment of it, because so,
you know, Christina was able to say, all right, so
you were sixteen and you liked boys, so that was
(23:04):
a given. You were a coquette like your mom. Loved flirting,
loved getting the attention of boys, loved just I mean,
I was an actor, I was, you know, so I
liked being on stage. I was a coquette and I
want to go get that, but not in a not
in a negative way, you know, not in a manipulative,
(23:25):
you know, sex negative kind of way. I was just
for God's sakes, I was sixteen. What can you know, like,
just you know, go get that. And so Gristina helped
me to understand that my mom and I were the
same age and we were both go getas right. She
(23:48):
just was about to marry the man. She was so ready.
And my mom said this to me. She was like,
la ganas. So my mom really believes That's why she's like,
I did have a talk with you, and I'm like no,
(24:08):
because in her life she really does believe that she
embodies a very sex positive feeling. So anyway, the point
is that my mom was sixteen. I was sixteen. What
my therapist was like, what do you feel at sixteen?
Like it is completely normal to be hot and horny.
Those are the terms that even you know, I just
(24:31):
finished watching the TV show sex Life of College Girls, right,
they're using the same terms that we were using. So
and it's because it's just a hormonal thing. It's just like,
it's what happens. So she's like, so, there was nothing
wrong with you even wanting to consenting to get into
(24:51):
the car because you believed that it was going to
be a certain way. Your mom was like, I'm getting married.
That's how I'm going to resolve it. But you were
both had legitimate desire. Doesn't make your desire worse than hers,
You're the same. And I was like, damn seriously, And
(25:15):
that was like the liberation point. I was just like, oh, snap,
so it was cool that I was interested in ready
and wanting and desirous, Like how cool is that? Yes,
you were the issue of the rape is that it
was not just a physical violation. It was the violation
(25:37):
of trust. You trusted when you got into that car.
You trusted and that's the hard part, apart from then
the physical consequences of rape as your first time ever
in terms of sexual intercourse.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. You actually, honestly really
illuminated a lot for me and my own rape as well.
So hearing you talk about that right now really put
a lot into perspective. And I was twenty So I
just want to affirm that and thank you because I've
been in therapy for a long time and I don't
think that has been stated so clearly, So thank you
(26:16):
for that. And because you also said that you know,
feeling that it was okay to be sexual right and
now at this point in your life, right, do you
feel sexually liberated and what does that feel like if you.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Do, Well, here's what I will tell you that I
have a great sex life now, I would say for
the last decade, frankly, because it happened about a decade ago,
twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, those were
the years of working this out, and so since then, yeah,
(26:54):
definitely things changed in terms of my my ability to
accept my own desire for sexual pleasure. I'll just be strict.
I'm not looking to sleep with another man like I'm good,
like I know my husband. I understand that I'm as
(27:20):
like no, no, and I know I'm a little bit like,
what's the matter with you? And it's just like no,
I have no interest like the kind of of kind
of intimacy and just being who you are that you
have with someone that you've been together with for I mean,
(27:41):
Henmer and I got married, what thirty we're going to
go on thirty four years, So that is thirty four
years worth of work of creating trust and intimacy.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What would you say makes a good sex life? Each
person can have their own definition of what makes their
sex life good, but for you, generally speaking, what would
you say makes a good sex life?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Having sex? So, yeah, one, I think a lot of
people think a lot of people are having a lot
of sex. I don't think a lot of people are
having a lot of sex. I think there is an
image that we have of this, but I think so
you have to make it a point to schedule it
(28:30):
into your life. And for me, that means that that
there's a whole lead up, right, and so the romance
the starts the week before, if it's been a week
or whatever, the day of that set that there is
like an anticipation, I don't know, the again, the quiet
(28:54):
of just the two of us, you know, in that
in that special moment. And I'm very lucky right because
my husband is a wild dreamer artist, and so he
has built some pretty extraordinary homes so that I actually
(29:16):
have sex in different places that are like our home,
like in the Caribbean in Po Dakhana, or here in Kinnecticut,
or in New York City in you know, the most
urban of environments with the sirens and jazz music as
we live in Harlem.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
So we've been hearing from our guests that their sex
lives have gotten better as they've gotten older. Would you
say that there's some truth to that?
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Oh, there's no doubt about that. But again, remember there
were many years where I was sexually traumatized because I
was I just didn't know what was going on. Yeah, yeah,
And there's that happens is that when you don't have
your adult children living in the home makes it a
(30:06):
lot easier, right, because remember we were empty nesters and
we were supposed to kind of continue in that, but
then the pandemic happened, and so the opposite happened, and
so when you you know, making time to be with
each other. And again, I think I think there is
like again, all the women's magazines and thellisticals and all
(30:29):
that stuff. I think I'm not going to throw it
all away. But you know, my husband and I made
some time, We've made a concerted decision that in twenty
twenty five we do want to spend more just like
unique special time. Right.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I want to take us back a little bit to
the conversation about identity, and I want to come back
to this because one of our like main sort of
arguments of Senora Sex said of this podcast is that
Latinas are hyper sexualized in media and popular culture. There's
all these tropes and stereotypes, but in actuality, there is
(31:14):
to borrow a word, prudishness. Within the cultures, there is
a lack of sex education. We don't talk about these things.
The cultural expectations that you experienced in Mexico are different
than the American girl expectations as you describe them. So
how do we reconcile the popular narrative, the stereotype of
the spicy, hot and bothered Latina versus the actual lived
(31:37):
experience and the chastity that's expected and imposed.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
I think about joy and passion, and that I think
is more of who we are that they then label
as hypersexual. And you know again, I love dancing, and
I loved sensual dancing and sexual dancing, and so did
my mom. You know again, that attracted my father to her.
(32:04):
There's nothing wrong with that. In my case, it attracted
my rapist to me. But I think the the the
ability to be in our full selves dancing, you know,
to experience ecstasy, you know, And I experienced ecstasy, not
(32:26):
the drug like when I would when my parents would
take me to the Pyramids in Mexico, and I was like,
what the hell that was ecstasy to me? Right, But
that was also kind of defining me as a Mexican
girl as all of those things as on the one hand,
the humility of my indigenous self, but on the other hand,
(32:46):
the kind of boldness of many Mexicanas who I would
see around me who were centual. So I think that
so then so then it's really this love of life.
I'm almost labida. And in the Mayan text right it
(33:13):
says lavida is my lamas.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
I e.
Speaker 5 (33:18):
We are always in tears, like we're always crying because
like suffering is just like so when you're not in suffering, man, wow,
enjoy it, Enjoy enjoy this, this pleasure, live to this moment.
I mean, as AOC said on Latino USA when we
(33:39):
were talking about it, she was like, you know, the
Puerto Rican people have been oppressed for so long and
colonized for so long. Of course we're having the best
parties and laughing and dancing because otherwise we'd be crying
all the time. So to me, that is what represents
my my identification with my sensuality and sexuality as part
(34:01):
of my latins. And I think they mislabel all of
those things because they are our joy of life, are
ours rad viv our love of life threatens them, I mean,
there is That's what the people who are coming from
the south to the north, what they're bringing is actually
their love of life and their love of selves, and
(34:22):
this stupid motherfucking country is saying, well, we have to
build a wall to keep you out. And I'm like,
do you not see the love and the passion and
everything that they bring which is so positive and you're
building a wall you Okay? So that is what I
think my Latins represents and what I will continue to
(34:47):
look towards and to be more connected. You know, I'm
with my husband and I it's like, we have to
go dancing. We have to get back to going dancing.
That's how we met. We got to dance once a month,
once a week, once or whatever.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
We've had a beautif full conversation with you, Madia. Thank
you again so much for your time and your stories.
If you could say something to your teenage self, what
would that be.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
Well, the first thing would be don't get in the car.
That would be the first thing I would say is
don't get in the car. And then the second thing
would be you should have continued just having as much
fun and having as much sexual experimentation as you wanted to,
(35:37):
because you were right, there was nothing wrong with you,
nothing wrong at all, and in many ways it was
setting you up to become the monogamous woman that you
have been for all of these decades. So go at
it and love your body more.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Do you identify as a senora? We've been asking all
of our guests this.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Do I identify as a seignora? Well? I think it really
depends on the situation, like if I'm in Mexico and
I need to get some respect from anyone, so, you know,
and it covers with a tone. But in my way
(36:24):
of approaching life, in the way I kind of dress, uh,
in the way I talk about things, I don't think
I'm a senora. But what's the right word, you know,
dia cool, dia. But I also understand that like I can't,
(36:44):
you know, like I I have to take myself. So
I mean, you know, I I am a Jingo na.
You know that I wear my little necklace that says
Jingo Na because yeah, and I got all those awards
because I worked my ass off because I believed in
my gut, which is what the both of you have done, right,
You just trusted in your gut and like just kept
(37:06):
on working and working and working. And in that sense,
so you're not And I love throwing that one out.
Oh I do if ever I need to.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
I learned so much from this interview with Maria that
it's hard to pinpoint one takeaway. But something that does
stand out to me is the fact that Maria is
a Pulitzer Prize winning career journalist who has heard hundreds,
if not thousands, of compelling, interesting, impactful stories from a
variety of people from all over the world, and she
(37:43):
is still in a place where she is still learning
and unpacking her own personal story from her youth. And
I think it's really incredible that someone with so much
access to stories from all over the place is still
willing and interested in sharing this particular story of hers
about trauma, about surviving trauma, and how learning about herself
(38:07):
allows her to be the best person she can possibly be,
and how it informs her relationship to her work, to
her children, and to her husband. So I'm really grateful
to Maria for sharing this story with us, Of all
the stories that she knows and has lived through, that
she brought this one to.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Senora Sex said.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Since this is the season finale of Senora Sex said,
I just want to express all of my gratitude to
all of our guests that have come on and shared
their stories, and to all of you, our listeners that
have kept up with this brand new podcast week after week.
It has been the biggest blessing to record these stories
(38:47):
and really think about the lessons that we can learn
from our fellow community of all ages. There was a
big emphasis for us to document the stories of Signoras,
and we're so grateful to the Signoras, whether they identify
as Signoras or not. We're so grateful to the women
(39:09):
that came on and shared their stories with each other,
with their daughters, with us. I think that we created
something incredible that I think will last a lifetime, because
these stories are forever and there's so much that we
can learn from each episode for years to come. My
(39:29):
biggest hope is that this podcast continues to find its audience.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I think what stands out to me about this show
in particular is that no matter where you are, no
matter what state, what town, if you want information about
sexuality and relationships and our relationships to ourselves, this show
can travel. This show can be one of hopefully many
(39:56):
resources for people out there who want to understand topic
like shame and masturbation and abortion.
Speaker 6 (40:04):
So on and so forth.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
So even as things look kind of dire out in
the world, especially when it comes to our federal government
and the things in this country that are being prioritized
and the things that are being cut. Senora sex Said
hopefully can just be one source of information that is
accessible to people, even if you're in a place where
(40:26):
you don't have access to sex Said in your schools
or at home.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Senora Sex Said is a co production between LOCATORA Productions
and Michael Dura Podcast Network.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
This show is executive produced by Mala Munos and bios
a FM.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Also executive produced by Jasell.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Bances, produced by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Creative direction by Mala Munios.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Story editing by Biosafem.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Music direction by Grisol Lomeli, and
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Music produced by Brian Gazo
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