Ask Emily - The Bad Advice Column
Back by slightly popular demand - It's the Bad Advice Column!
I don't know why, but people often ask me for advice. I get DMs all the time asking what I'd do in situations I hope I'll never find myself in, and people ask me for tips when I clearly have very little wisdom.
But I do have a newsletter, and so I thought, why not? Why not me? If people are going to get advice from all of the terrible influencers out there, why shouldn't they get advice from a chaotic, ADHD-addled, menopausal, anxious mess?
So, welcome to Ask Emily - The Bad Advice Column, where I try to give good advice, but I'm not very good at that, so it's bad.
Email me at emily @ emilywrites dot co dot nz if you want to be in the next edition! I'm sorry I couldn't include everyone's questions this time!
Feel free to skip to the comments if you read this already in your email!
Hi Emily,
Could you please give me some bad advice on how to get my cats to be friends? My old girl is gentle, kind, and patient, and has never scratched anyone. The new kitten is a maniac who learnt to open doors at 14 weeks old and is obsessed with jumping on my old girl every time he (both neutered) sees her and biting her on the bum. She’s had enough! I keep telling him we don’t bite family on the bum, but it’s not getting through. Thanks Emily!
Gemma, 44
Gemma, I'm going to tell you this - you have come to entirely the wrong person for advice here. I really thought I could not f*ck up the delicate ecosystem of my family more than when I got a second cat. But then I somehow f*cked it up even more by getting a demon dog. Oh, how I love my OG cat, Bruce. Much like your poor old cat, Bruce was a dream. He was our family's emotional support cat. And then I fell for a car park kitten, and we got Bear Grylls. Living up to his name, Bear Grylls is a massive asshole. He was also a bum-biter (hmmmm feels like a slur but I'll keep it) and was constantly terrorising Bruce. Then I got Pipitita the Pom. She is the worst (I love her) and has joined forces with Bear Grylls to make everyone's life hell. Pipi even tops Bear and I had to show a video of them doing it to the Vet and the Vet was like - 'yeah I umm...OK that is unusual they are both desexed and ummm hmmm the car seems to be quite OK with...hmmm'. Why is my dog mounting my cat? Why? Anyway, the short answer to this is that Bruce keeps running away to live with the neighbours and we keep trying to make him live with us. But at this point, I too want to live with the neighbours to get away from Pipi and Bear so....Does that answer your question?
As I responded to you I was sent a message from my dad - so that says a lot haha.
Dear Ms Writes,
As a relatively recent subscriber, I was excited to learn you had a column where you give your readers bad advice. However, I was shocked and appalled to find that some of the advice in the column was rather good, certainly much better than advertised. Would you kindly advise where one can find some genuinely bad advice? I'm talking, horrible, impulsive, life-and-relationship shattering poor judgement. Simply nothing less shall do.
Yours sincerely,
Contrarian in Canterbury
Emily Writes
Look, my friend, flattery will get you everywhere with me. So I will tell you: if you want bad advice, I'll give you places to find it. Yes, I said places plural - because I am good like that. So, here's where you could ask for legitimately terrible, awful advice:
- You could pay an Australian company $2 million dollars to give you bad advice, as they did for Erica Stanford. They told her to win the hearts and minds of teachers; that's a logistical impossibility for someone without a heart or mind.
- You could ask the Infrastructure Commission, not because they give bad advice but because the miniature, I mean the minister, for Energy Simeon Brown just ignored their advice and will inevitably claim they gave him bad advice.
- You could ask the average NZ First voter - because they clearly always act against their own interests by voting for a man who would turn their skin into leather for new boots if he could.
- You could ask Keir Starmer - I heard he has some time on his (bloody) hands.
Glad to be of service! x
Emily, I need your advice I have been married for 11 years and with my husband six years before we married. For the last two years I have had no sex drive. I have tried oestrogen and supplements and nothing has helped. But I do like your recommended 'smut' books but it doesn’t translate with my husband. He doesn’t seem to notice my lack of drive. He works long hours by choice and travels a lot. We have not had sex for 15 months. What is wrong with me Emily?
-Lonely and frustrated in suburbia, 42
Dearest Lonely,
I wish I could give you a hug instead of advice. Variations on your question are always asked of me, and I know it's not comforting to know that other women are hurting and feeling lonely, but it does speak to this being a societal problem I think...
So, I'm going to hold your hand when I say this, but babe - it's not your libido, it's your life.
It's not the experience of all women (rarely do we all experience the same thing after all), but so often women are put on one track in life from the moment they have their first lover. The relationship, the engagement, the marriage, the kids, the white picket fence...It's what we're told we want, need, and must have.
So many women are born into boxes, then put into slightly bigger boxes, and still, when they find it stifling in there, are told we can't have a bigger box because our box is big enough. Ok, that doesn't quite make sense, but in my head it does.
My dear friend, I don't know you, but my advice to you is that you deserve more than a comfortable box. You deserve a world of pleasure and desire and joy to soften the edges of the way the world inflicts harm on us all. It feel wrong and greedy to want this, to want 'too much', but that's society's patriarchal conditioning I promise you.
I am just a year younger than you, and I can tell you - I am discovering new things about myself every day. I am, at this very moment, quite astonished at where my life is. Who knew I could be this happy? Certainly not me.
I once thought I was too much, that I wanted more than what was allowed, that I didn't deserve to be truly happy because I was happy enough, wasn't I? Wasn't it ungrateful to want more? Wasn't it wrong? It turns out - no. We're always hoping someone will come along to save our lives, but I think it can only ever be us.
I think sometimes we just have to be very brave and say that if seeking a life that we deserve blows up the life we have, maybe that's a good thing. Take your life and shake it up. It's the only one you've got, so if it's broken, it needs to be fixed.
So, I'll say again, it's not your libido, it's your life. I think when you feel someone truly desires you - husband or lover or husband/lover (I dunno you do you), when you are touched by someone who you know really, really, really wants to touch you...when your body is on fire for them...Well, you'll realise your libido wasn't the problem.
Signed, Emily, who is also on oestrogen but not supplements anymore because really supplements are just very expensive pre-wee.
Emily! I have been divorced for 17 months now and I'm finally ready to start getting myself out there. I'm also keen to explore my sexuality and hopefully sleep with some other genders other than my own. I am not nervous about meeting people. What I need your advice for is body confidence in bed. I have had three children and four pregnancies. I am 46. I have saggy skin, I'm going through menopause, I have a very big scar from an emergency birth across my stomach which can only be described as a disaster. Will anyone want my body? You seem so confident online. How can I be like you? -Hopeful, 46.
Dear Hopeful,
I have been working on liking my body for a long time. And while I might seem confident online, I struggle a lot with feeling OK about my body - I have 'ugliest girl in the world days'. It doesn't help that people are very mean online! And - I often focus on the bits that I don't like, the bits that won't ever change, because I am a mum and I carried babies.
I want to tell you it doesn't matter to partners...But that kind of depends on who you tumble into bed with. And I am of the view that I don't want to tumble into bed with someone who might make me feel awful about my body. So maybe avoid cis men like they're a variant of Covid 19, maybe be cautious with who you share your body with so it's healing and lovely.
While there are good cis men out there, mostly, they don't seem to love the bodies of women the way literally all other genders do.
So, I guess my advice, badly worded as it is, is that a good lover will make you feel like you're beautiful even if you don't feel like that. Or they'll at least take you out of your body so you won't be thinking about it at all. And that's what you deserve, Hopeful. You deserve to feel adored and worshipped, and when you feel that, it's really healing.
Arohanui Emily x
Hello Emily, I subscribe to your newsy but I also follow you insta and I'm always impressed by your bikini photos and your fits. I want to be that brave. How do you do it? Also, do you/did you use a specific body butter for your bum and thighs to not have stretch marks please don't gate keep! - Kelly, 35
Kelly, I'm gonna be real with you. I don't think I'm brave for wearing a bikini just because I'm fat. But I guess brave is relative, and if you feel like you can't wear a bikini, I feel sad for you. So, I'll tell you how I was able to wear a bikini. You can also do this:
- Get a bikini.
- Put it on.
- Decide that ridiculous beauty standards are not going to stop you from being the bad b*tch that you are, especially because real ones love a fat ass.
That's it. If I waited until I was thin to wear what I want to wear, I'd never get to wear it. This is the shape my body is after two kids and it's not going to change. I go to the gym and I am quite fit and I can lift very heavy things. That's enough for me. I don't exist to please people who don't like fat bodies.
Oh and I use Palmer's Cocoa Butter. It's about $13 from The Warehouse. Stretch marks are genetic. No body butter is going to stop a normal genetic function of your skin based on elasticity! Either way, stretch marks are hot so don't worry about it.
Love, Emily
Kia ora Emily, I notice you often talk about gym workouts on FNC. I am trying to get into going to the gym. What keeps you motivated when everything is so exhausting? My children are about the same age as yours and motivation is my problem. Any tips? GG - 45
GG, I would love to say something nice here. Like that, my motivation is my health, my children, or any number of things. But the short answer is this: I work out to fuck better and fight better. That's it! It's about the only thing that works in terms of making me get my ass to the gym. I need stamina! For fucking and fighting!
And unfortunately, working out increases dopamine (for me) so I have to work out for my mental health, which is so annoying because it's often the last thing I want to do. The most irritating thing about the assholes who say your mental health will improve if you move your body is that they're right. In solidarity, Emily
So! How wrong was I? You can give your own advice then. Surely it can't be worse than mine.
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, send them to me! I'd love to hear from you. emily writes @ emilywrites dot co dot nz. Anyway, thanks for being here! Arohanui, Emily x