‘The gunfire finds me’: Yumi Stynes thought writing books would be safer than TV

Yumi Stynes is an author, broadcaster and podcaster. I spoke to her earlier this week.

Fitz: Yumi, how did you get into the whole media world?

YS: I grew up as a little kid from regional Victoria, with a Japanese mother and fifth-generation Australian dad, and I understood that mainstream media wasn’t for people like me. But at Monash Uni I couldn’t stay away from the student radio station and I volunteered all the time and loved it dearly.

Yumi Stynes: “What was directed to me was disproportionate: very gendered, very racist, and an awful lot of wishing murder, rape, dismemberment of my family.”Credit:

Fitz: So, you’re away! You make the breakthrough into the wider public domain co-hosting the music show Channel V on Foxtel, before co-hosting The Circle chat show with the likes of Chrissie Swan and a roving cast … Did you want to be a voice for, in your words, “people like me”?

YS: I don’t think so. I think I completely wanted to be incognito and treated like a “regular” Australian, and it was just one of those things that was thrust upon me: to see things from the perspective of the minority and the underdog and to represent that.

Fitz: The first time I remember you causing controversy was when you commented on footage of a buff Ben Roberts-Smith VC and said, “He’s going to dive down to the bottom of the pool and see if his brain’s there,” whereupon co-host George Negus said, amused, “I wonder if he’s not up to it in the sack.” At what point did you become aware of “oh shit, it’s just hit the fan”?

YS: Within half an hour. But it really started to kick off that afternoon. I remember taking my kids’ rabbit to the vet in a box, and I could feel my phone buzzing in my pocket, and I was like, “I don’t know what’s going on but this can’t be good”. But pile-ons like that were new at the time, and the rules and the boundaries hadn’t been set. And it was all so intense. I was, like, “I’m not sure what I’m apologising for but OK”. So I went on air and said, “Look, I’m really, really sorry that what I said offended people …” but I realised that the apology wasn’t enough. In that situation I don’t think any apology will do. What the anonymous trolls want you to do is actually die.

Stynes with Dr Melissa Kang, with whom she has co-authored a series of books including Welcome to Sex and Welcome to Consent.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Fitz: Did you have any resentment that, in terms of the fallout, you copped 95 per cent of it, while the attacks on Negus were more drive-by than sustained?

YS: I think he lost a bit of work around it but what was directed to me was disproportionate: very gendered, very racist, and an awful lot of wishing murder, rape, dismemberment of my family, the whole thing. The whole of my existence was questioned, whereas I think for George it was like, “that probably wasn’t the best thing you’ve ever said …” For me, it was so bad I wondered, “Am I ever gonna work again? How am I going to feed my family? Am I safe to go to a netball game or something when people are threatening to kill me and hurt me? How am I supposed to survive?”

Fitz: And yet you had a very successful career thereafter, going straight on to breakfast radio, podcasts, books and all the rest.

YS: I beg to differ about a very successful career. I feel like I was on a trajectory to have a very successful television career, and that came to an end and hasn’t ever recovered. There are networks that won’t touch me. I don’t feel like I bounced back at all. I’m a great broadcaster but I’m still paying the price and it’s very f---ing annoying … although I do love my work in radio and podcasting. And I’m an author now, which was my fantasy job when I was a kid.

Stynes on Studio 10 in 2019 when she clashed with Kerri-Anne Kennerley.Credit:

Fitz: Under the circumstances, one might have thought you would take a vow that, from this moment on, I’m just gonna be two scoops of vanilla, with extra sugar, hold the crunch. I am gonna be as bland, as obvious and as white-bread, populist mainstream as they get! But you certainly didn’t take that vow.

YS: You know what? If I could have done that, I would have. Because I’m not attracted to this feeling of being besieged, of being hated. I just want to live a peaceful life with my family. But at the same time, I do have strong convictions around politics, racism and women’s health and women’s safety, and I do want to live according to those values. To be honest, I thought I was choosing a safer, more measured path by writing books. Just trying to keep my head beneath the parapet. But the gunfire finds me, I think.

Fitz: But even before you got to the current controversy over the books, you were speaking out. I remember when you were back as a guest of Studio Ten with Kerri-Anne Kennerley and she was attacking those who were calling Australia Day “Invasion Day”; saying few of them had been to the “outback where children, where babies and five-year-olds are being raped, their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped”. Did you not have a little voice inside, saying “vanilla, vanilla, vanilla! Triple-scoop! Don’t say anything, Yumi! Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything!”

YS: Yes. But I had to say something. It would be a terrible betrayal not to say something. I have to honour those people who don’t have their own voice. So I spoke out and said that was racist, which caused the next pile-on.

Fitz: Which brings us to the Welcome to Sex book for tweens and teens. It ain’t vanilla white bread with hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top!

YS: It came from our ABC podcast, Ladies, We Need to Talk. One of the things we kept encountering in all these conversations was the level of ignorance women had about so many important things, including sex. Doctors would tell us stories about asking their twenty-something patients, “What do you actually like, sexually?” And their patients would have an absolutely blank look because no one had ever asked them that and they didn’t know the answer! The “Welcome to” series, which includes a guidebook about getting your period for the first time, and what consent consists of, is all about supplying information to young people at a time when they really can use that information.

Fitz: So, the book comes out – filled with information on all kinds of sexual acts – and goes well for a couple of months until suddenly, one day, it explodes as the meltdown du jour on social media, and among shock-jocks and night-time carnival barkers on TV. Looking back, was it a mistake to say the book was OK even for an eight-year-old to look over?

YS: Well, this is something I’ve hesitated to mention, I haven’t said it to anyone else because I don’t want to drag my own kid into the cookers’ bullshit. But I took the book to the beach, and my own eight-year-old had a flick through, and I watched her. She was not grossed out, she was not trying to decipher things that were way above her pay grade. She just flicked over them. Sex educators talk about this all the time: if they’re not ready to hear about it, they literally don’t hear it. It passes them by. I stand by what I said, which was, “It depends where your kid is at in maturity. Roughly 10 to 15 years old but I’d be happy with a mature and smart eight-year-old having a flick through.”

Fitz: You clearly feel this passionately?

YS: Talking about sex is important. Sex education is not saying, “You must do this, here’s how”. It’s saying, “These are things that some people do, that you might want to do in your future. So let’s explain what we mean by them, and the safe and respectful way to do them.” It demystifies sex, treats it as something quite normal that can be talked about. Sexual abuse thrives in secrecy and shame. And very much within the text and threaded all through is: none of this is essential. None of this is mandatory. So don’t get sucked in to thinking that everyone’s doing it – that’s a myth, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t want to do it.
And don’t be informed by what you might have seen on porn. Aside from porn, there’s not really an alternative resource where people are very frank about what the reality of these sex acts are. If you try and imitate what you see in porn, it’s gonna be probably like an assault – like, really, really, really vile for the recipient. To speak realistically about it, the book is more in the realms of healthcare.

Fitz: And then, two months after publication, the controversy explodes – accusing you of everything from being a “paedo” to “grooming”. Where did it blow up?

YS: First, among the cookers on the net; and then the whole controversy got picked up by Ben Fordham on 2GB [which is owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead], which saw the outrage go mainstream.

Fitz: Was the agony of the attacks worth it for the fact that people now know about it and it’s selling its socks off?

YS: It’s a question that I’ve grappled with. Because there are huge net gains for the younger population of Australia who will have the book as a valuable resource. The book series is now the go-to for mainstream sex and body education for teens, and that is excellent for now and excellent for the future. But if I were given a choice: “Do you want a bestselling book with death threats and threats of violence, or a regular-selling book with peace?” I would pick peace.

Fitz: But you’ve been here before, Yumi! You’re a veteran. When you push the envelope, there is pushback. You’re a survivor, who knows the current gunfire will fall away as they whip up the mob for their next target, and you’ll be still standing.

YS: I wish I had a happier story than I do. But I actually get so triggered and stressed out that all the controversies blur and I can’t tell one from the other. I can’t tell you the real threats from the fake ones. It’s not over, it’s never a walk in the park, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst f---ing enemy. Seriously.

Fitz: How real are those death threats? Is it just dickheads on social media saying you deserve to die, or are there envelopes under your door?

YS: It’s not under the door … Murders of public figures are always preceded by threats. Death threats and threats of violence are very real and I take them seriously. And I’m aware that the people who are threatening me might just strike it lucky and pass me on the street just by sheer coincidence and seize that moment to punch me in the head.

Fitz: Is it possible, though, that the times will suit you? You’ve made your mark as a progressive woman of diverse background, and the times in Australia have never been so progressive, female and diverse as right now.

YS: We’ll see. Right now, my time is for myself, my little family and my little projects.

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

Joke of the week

“Make me one with everything,” says the Buddhist to the kebab-store man. Then, after getting his kebab, the Buddhist hands the fellow a $20 bill. The kebab man takes the money and begins helping the next customer. The Buddhist looks puzzled and asks the man, “Where is my change?” The man replies, “Change comes from within.”

Quote of the Week

“I don’t want to be Captain Killjoy on this … but …” – Nationals Leader David Littleproud on ABC, saying he was not in favour of a public holiday if the Tillies won the World Cup.