>> metco along with these television company support c-span2 as a public service. . . . examines her own multifaceted identity. a world-famous model with tens of millions of followers. she is a household name for her looks and prolific image but refuses to let having a body people want to sell force her institute refuses to let having a body people want to sell for sure into dimensionality. "my body" tackles fame, love, friendship and betrayal in the intricate web of sexuality and power. feeling small one second, and powerfulfu the next both in and out of control. in reckoning with a level of

success that is brought her book pain and pleasure, emily investigates her own evolving beliefs, the perverse dynamics of a culture that modifies ave female body and for the continent between who she is the how she is perceived. emily ratajkowski is in conversation this evening with hannah rosen, editorial director for audio at new york magazine with they first published emily essay by myself back which was the magazines most red piece of the year. previously, o she was a cohost f npr's invisibility a pixies author of the book the end of men and is also written for the atlantic, the "washington post" and the new yorker, among others.ur later in the program we would love to hear questions and you will be invitedop to lined up at the standing microphones in either i/o. following the event signed books will be for sale in the main lobby. thank you all again both her and that held for being with us tonight, and please join me in giving a warm welcome to emily

ratajkowski and hannah rosen. [applause] everyone thank you sor being here. i have to like basque in the weirdness of this moment for one second of being live and having people live. hi. everyone. people are here so exciting. thank you for coming to washington. thank you for having me. thank you for being here. yeah, i feel. this book is so personal. that i was thinking like if i just dive right in i it'll be too therapy session. so so like the the construct i came up with is like i'm oprah

and you're adele. can we do that? i did get to watch it. so i feel behind but i'm a quick learner. hopefully i can yeah, we can do it. you just do it dalinopra. oh my god. yeah we can do it. we'll do our best at six and i so you called the book my body, which i feel like embodies. the thing about the book it's like in my head the title is like look at my body. stop looking at my body like it has like you're almost asking people to sort of come into the conversation right away. is that your intention like you could have just called it emily's life or something. well, that doesn't sound it's like friday prejudice and i'm gonna be honest with you. um, yeah, i mean, i definitely think that there was a part of me that liked playing with the idea of people thinking like rolling their eyes and being like, oh emily ratajkowski wrote a book called my body like right and then using that preconception hopefully to you know, maybe make them buy the book or even help, you know,

sort of the ideas in the book be more impactful. so it was, you know a new what i was doing. i knew i was embracing something that was gonna potentially annoy people. yeah. good. okay. i'm all for that. um, there's a whole section of the book that had i think of as like the miseducation of emily or like the signals basically that you received and i want to talk about that like even in your teenage life the interesting thing about that part of the book to me was normally when people are going through puberty or preteens. it's like the signals that come from inside that are confusing to you, but i feel like in your case even before you were conscious of it. it's all the stuff that it was like the the cues that came from outside to you. can you talk about that a little bit like the first time you realize that we're not necessarily the first time that your body was a thing and the people started to send that signal to you from outside. yeah.

i mean, i think that i developed really young and i had a woman's body before i even understood or knew what sex was. so it put me in a really strange position one of the first essays i ever published was something called baby woman because i was truly a baby, but i was now i look back at pictures and i'm like really people thought i was an adult. i looked like a child, but i did look older and i certainly i started to kind of have this experience of both feeling really self-aware in a positive and also in a negative way so, you know at middle in my middle school feeling the you know attention that i got from boys, which means that meant that the, you know popular girls wanted to be friends with me and thinking like, oh, that's a good thing. but then also, you know feeling like i had a vice principal snap my bra strap or i know i always

remember that. yeah at that image sticks in my head of like that sucks. she was a woman interestingly. i don't think i specify that in the book, but you know, what's the point like, what are you supposed to do in her mind? it was i mean and this is really kind of that essay in general beauty lessons, you know. i'm interested in exploring the ways that women try to protect other women by kind of teaching them the hard way or teaching them about the world and the way that their beauty and their sexuality in their bodies are going to be consumed and i think that for example that vice principal sort of thought she was saying to me like you should watch out you should be aware of this and like if i don't stand your bra strap somebody else will kind of thing. i think you know, i don't think she was doing it necessarily in a malicious way. i don't know but i mean it in general that was sort of the purpose behind that essay. i had an ex-boyfriend whose mom

was like a very cool lady and she only had a son and at one point we were talking about if she had had a daughter and she said well i would have like obviously made sure that she you know stayed thin and i like almost spit up my lunch because i was like, wait what like you're a smart lady. eat with cool politics and you're talking about how you would make sure your daughter stays thin like that's you come on. you must know that that's like recipe for an eating disorder and i realized that in her mind it was her it was her thinking that would be protecting her daughter and ensuring her daughter a good future and love because then women are loved more but your own parents. i feel like there's a there's weird mixed messages in there that there's like a thing that sticks in my head that your dad said to your mom when people complemented on her on her beauty. yeah, her father not was her father. yes. can you say what he would say? yes, so that's part of why i

included that in the essay. my grandfather would say to my mother, you know, you shouldn't say thank you when someone compliments you on the way you look because you've done nothing to deserve it and he was a really serious person and i think that he made her feel ashamed for the way. she looked and you know her body particularly and it was a source of shame for her and her family which is why i think in some way she took the other route of like celebrate your you know old boys looking at you whatever and kind of saying like this should be a source of pride but in a lot of ways it made me very aware of the way. i was perceived and you know, i write about this in that essay like praying for beauty when i was very young like six and and what did you think it was? like, was it a source of power? i mean just to be clear. yes. it was definitely a source of power. like this wasn't just in my family. it was also, you know, i grew up in the early arts and the age of

like the most powerful women to me were britney spears and pop stars and beautiful women. and not just my generation like my parents loved older movies. we'd watch like marilyn monroe and some like it hot and it was like, okay, so there's men who can be powerful because they're presidents or their comedians or their rock stars, but to me, it seemed that the most powerful women were always the ones who are most desired by men. so i think that as a very young person instead of for like money or intelligence or safety like it seemed it. just spoke. it said took so much to me when i looked back on that and thought about like at how did i learn that that should be the thing that prayed for and wanted? yeah. i i kind of really want to talk about the blurred lines portion of the book because i have you

rewatched that video you never watch it anymore watched it when i was writing the essay. um, what was your second rewatching? i'm curious if it was the same. it's so weird to think about that and think like that's what propelled me to fame. it's such an odd moment specific artifact of the culture, you know. yeah. i mean, i think you know what i wanted to convey when i wrote the essay and truly how i feel about it is i don't feel that connected to it. it was a job that i showed up to for a day. so, you know even choosing to write about it was strange strange for me because so much of the rest of the book is so personal and this was definitely a moment of using you know, what that video and what i represented in the zeitgeist to sort of give an inside look of my experience and my approach to modeling and the kind of like power dynamics that were on that on that set but yeah watching it again. it was like it's not i don't feel that much because i'm like,

i just think about that day of work. all right, you know, i remember how much i got tip remember who i was dating. do you know what i mean? like, i remember that time in my life. but i haven't watched it that many times so i don't feel. i don't like live in the video and my real you know what i mean, one of the pleasures of the book everyone out there. is that emily remembers the like the the treatment notes from that video? they're very embarrassing. what were they they were like trashy something man. like it was really yeah. i mean, i think it was just an interesting time because people were sort of already, you know feminist like beyonce hadn't you know coined the terms or owned the term feminists yet, but there was like this feminist blogosphere people were kind of talking about you know, like okay maybe things in the past haven't totally been like great for women. but like, how can we like, how can they be great for women

while still being hot, right, you know? right, essentially. well the interesting part which i did not know about that video is is that the setup? the person setting up the video was trying to create kind of a good. vibe for you guys. it was lower beside this like weird like sisterhood vibe in the room. yeah. well making of it. yeah. i mean, i think that another reason i wanted to write about that experience is because you know, there are multiple sides to that to the experience. it was a female director. it was a female dp there were tons of young women on props makeup set design whatever and for me at the time. i think i was 20 21, and i had just been working as a model which you know, i described in the book i had this really hard-headed kind of like, this is my industry. i'm working. i'm a mannequin like it's not fun. it's not glamorous.

i'm not going to be a supermodel. i'm saving my money because i saw what happened in 2008. i graduated high school in 2009 and i was like, i don't want to like move back into parents house and have to take a service industry job. so yeah, i was really scared and so modeling felt like this like cheat sheet essentially this like i also grew up with you know, my mom was a writer. my dad was a painter. i always understood the idea of like you have to have your day job. they were teachers, you know, so i was like, okay, i guess this will be my day job and then i'll figure out what i really want to do. so yeah, all of that was true and when the video was criticized and people came to me and sort of you know, i think there was a certain amount of pointing fingers and like how dare you be a part of this, you know, misogynistic thing. i felt really protective of of the women that i had liked so much on set and how much fun i had had on set compared to like front side back of a shirt or shooting with some, you know,

creepy group of guys. i was like wait i made friends on that video. they asked me how i felt i that's why i danced the way i did because was having fun. and did you feel tricked after that or you felt sincere like that what they thought it's me fear. i felt sincere. i felt also defiant which is sort of why i wasn't saying like also the guys who i shot it with were kind of --, you know, because i felt very protective of the experience that i'd had with that director and with those other women women and also protective of i wanted my politics to align. how i wanted to see myself and feel which would you mean by that? i wanted to feel powerful. i didn't want to feel small. i didn't want to feel like a mannequin. i wanted to say look i worked this system. i like, you know had this commodifile full asset my body

and i had a great time on set and like yeah, you know what that was, maybe that was even power and i think that that i think that's true of a lot not to go on a separate tangent, but a lot of the ways that our beliefs are often about our identity and what we want to how we want to see and feel about ourselves which was why it was so important for me to also write kind of the full experience about what it really was like and you know, also inspect why i was defiant and why it felt so important for me to feel powerful as the naked girl in a music video. i mean, i think whole trick of the book is like something that we see generally on the surface like we're just seeing your instagram or we're just seeing you in the video we like the pleasure of the book is that you get in you get the internal thoughts of that like what that experience is like and that's

what's interesting about it, but it's like a heart. it's like a hard line to walk like they're because it's not you commodifying your own body yet like not yet. you're just getting paid to show up for a few hours, but and some and people other people are telling you you're being objectified, but you're trying to like somehow feel powerful, you know? yeah, and i mean, i would say that you know my relationship with instagram at that time actually felt the same way. it was similar to the ways that i felt about that video and the environment that was on set which was that i you know was in control in some ways. i you know models in the 90s didn't have a way of dictating. what images they were putting out. it was just left up to the magazines and whatever editor and blah blah and i was like, wow can curate my identity. line myself i can control that and that felt really good. it felt like you know it it felt

like control. yeah, i mean the thing that like is on the other side of the scale is there are moments in the book when you realize await if this is my path to power money control, i'm kind of dependent on men like the men who want this. it's like their desire and playing to so that what is that realization? like, how does that turn to feeling? i mean, i think that's the thesis of the blurred lines essay is sort of realizing you know that as a young girl in my 20s which by the way, you know, obviously my experience is a model is very specific. it's an industry, but i have friends who look back. i mean taylor swift we should talk about, you know, how she feels looking back at being my tiktok is all taylor swift and jake gyllenhaal. i've been let's talk about it for 10 minutes. exactly. yeah exist. i would love to um but no, i mean, i think that a lot of the

experience i had as a young person as a model, but also with interactions in my personal life was like, oh i'm because i'm young and i'm desirable. i'm the one who has the power and i think that even men felt that way the men that i was interacting with and i think actually some of the instances that i write about in the book, they almost felt like they were like reclaiming their power by kind of doing these like disrespectful things because it felt like oh this young beautiful girl like she she's the one in like she's actually emasculating me in some way because she the power here because she's desired even though now i look back and i'm like, oh i was actually so young. i was a kid and you were an adult and you know, the situation was the power dynamic was very different than what i thought. and so yeah, that's sort of part of the revelation of blurred lines and and charting my relationship to that video my memory of that video and how it's also you know, representative of the evolution

of my politics that was such a hard end to that sentence. that's good. probably for a little longer. the the one there's a super creepy incident in the book. i mean another thing the book does is take you into worlds that most of us don't have access to and it's kind of like after blurred lines and a lot of success you end up in like weird vips situations. can you just tell i mean, this is a less well known story, but the one about the 25,000 to show up at a sports game. that is such a weird. story like what is that world and how to different women behave in that world? um, yeah. well that essay is called transactions and an excerpt of it ran in the guardian. so if you read that then that's what i'm referencing. i was really interested in investigating my own judgment of women and how they navigate systems of power in regards to

men specifically, you know in my you know there i could write a whole book just about that called like victoria's secret girl. she's a great character in the oh, yes. yeah. she's a real life person. but you know, i was interested in i mean, i think people kind of like do that in their marriage. sometimes i have friends who you know, marry somebody wealthy and whatever there's all kinds of negotiations but in the industry, it's very specific because as an unknown model, you're basically, you know, there's women who kind of are sent out to castings to recruit other young models to essentially go out with richmond and just like stand with them at a table and like they're kind of hoping to have sex with you, but like honestly they just want you to stand next to them and make them look cool. it's funny, but it's pretty dark and you know, it's it's a step away from the jeffrey epstein

kind of world to be totally honest and as as now living in new york city, i see i don't really go to nightclubs, but there's been a different few different moments where i've watched these like groups of very underage. very clearly very young women walk in with like one guy who's the party promoter and then you know the wealthy guys kind of join and it's related. also, there's celebrity men. there's this whole kind of market around this and you know as an unknown model you don't get paid, but they essentially host a dinner. so if you're you know a working model in la you're not making that much money you're hungry straight up and you go to these things and they know what they're doing. they're like come to nobu and you know, the whole vibe is like eat whatever you want drink whatever you want and so a lot of models go because they just want meal and then they get a little drunk and then they're invited to the club and that's sort of like when these wealthy men come into play so i had experiences with that where you

know, i felt extremely uncomfortable as somebody who you know had not had was always very liked clear transactions and those were not very clear and then the the other part of that essay is an experience i had with the now fugitive joe lowe malaysian fugitive who produced and financed the wolf of wall street, and he was essentially stealing money from the malaysian people. it's pretty horrible story the malaysian government. the president was essentially working with him to help that happen. it's great. if you haven't read it, there's a book called i think billion dollar billion dollar whale or something. it's it's really crazy, but you know my manager got a call like oh and i had just moved into a apartment. work that have bed bugs and like i was totally not i was living in the east village and it was i was new to the world.

so 25,000 dollars is a lot of money huge amount of yes, um, and they were like, yeah, he just wants you to come to the super bowl and i was like, what do you mean come to the super bowl and my manager at the time was like trust me? it's cool like jamie foxx will be there leonardo dicaprio like other celebs will be how much do you think they got paid? i would love to know love to know. i mean, i do know that, you know, it's public record that like there were basquiats that were seized from you know these actors' homes and whatever that were gifts from jolo. it's worth it. i mean just to show up at the super bowl like yeah. well i didn't care about football. so, um, why do you like cheer at the wrong moments? oh, i have no idea what was going on at all, so i wasn't even pretending and that was the other really bizarre thing about these interactions is like, you know, you don't actually have to do that. like i wasn't i wasn't being told to cheer or anything but was what was interesting in both

of these experience was watching how other women like saw opportunities and capitalized on them and was like, okay like this guy obviously wants to have beautiful women around like, how can i parlay this into something larger? and i think that at a certain point in my life, i was like, i would never do that. meanwhile, i'm you know doing paid posts for toothpaste that are owned by the same type of men essentially and maybe the transaction is a little bit more clear. but that was another instance of sort of like my own judging my own internalized misogyny and also, you know kind of like realizing how how we all exist on the spectrum of compromise. although there's an undercurrent of like i when you say the transactions not clear it helps me understand what was going on your head because there's a lot of there's like almost it's not quite violence, but it doesn't feel safe. like you don't know what's going to happen to you don't know what's expected of you. it's like a really weird

situation to fall into and the other thing is you can't necessarily i'm reading into it. you can tell me if this is true or not. you can't necessarily rely on the other women. mm-hmm. like it's the it's hard to tell in a lot of the interactions that happen when you fall into these situations are what's the relationship between the women like are they friends? are they competitors? like what how are they playing off each other in these situations? yeah. i mean i actually wanted to write more about the inter. that i had with the other woman, but they were actually quite limited and i realized it was because we were sort of focused on the experiences, you know being at this like club or whatever or you know, also it i guess there's a little bit of a thing of like whose side are you on like and yeah, i think that that's something i mean honestly to me the book is more about relationships with other women and other women than it is men.

i at one point wanted to name every essay after like i mean, i basically talk about my mom, you know friend in high school famous women what you've had an impact on me. like i do think that that could have been the alt title for the book or in some way. you always stopped to abruptly for me to catch up to you. that's okay. i don't even know i'm doing it. there's a there's a point. well, i think it's they were this is a risky thing to do in the book which is to like like the thing you wrote about your trip or sort of when you start to. commodify yourself almost and and ask people it's hard to be sort of rich and successful and ask people to inhabit your mind or feel sympathetic that feels like a risky thing to do. did you ever think about that and like how people like will they feel sorry for me? no, they won't feel sorry for me because i am rich and or whatever. i mean i didn't write any of the

essays like looking for sympathy. i wrote them because i had questions about my own existence and my own contradictions and my own life that i wanted to explore and maybe try to come up with some answers, but also just have like and investigation and a record of that investigation and an essay, but then people could kind of, you know, tell me what they what they think about these things when they're what are their thoughts. what are their politics? what do they make of these experiences? and like what does it say about the world we live in that you can be paid to go on a vacation and you know like the ways that i'm kind of trying to take back control and i mean, you know when you say commodifying yourself, it's like i hear you but at the same time my experience from blurred lines to doing that feels very like it feels like the same thing. it's like taking a check. you know, what do you mean like there's a moment when you're what i think it feels like in

the book. there's a moment when you actually make the decision like, why would i why would i put you know, why would i wear a bikini for somebody else's bikini company? i might as well do it for myself posted on my own instagram and that feels powerful, but that's not like the end. well, i think it's just about control about having more control as a model and as a commodity and using my body and that way, but i don't know. if it relieves power, i mean one of the questions of the book is sort of like what is empowerment is it financial success? is it a feeling is it fulfillment is it fame? is it in feeling wanted is it in not feeling wanted like where what what is empowerment really mean? it's such a it's a word i hear so much when it comes to women, especially in pop culture and in my own experience. i'm like wait, can we just go back and like can we define that so that's that's sort of one of the larger questions in the book. in a weird way the most powerful

essay in the book which everyone talks about which is the felt that happened to you when you were younger and then should we tell that story? i never know how much people know. i mean, that's the story that was on the cut. yeah, we'll tell it in very brief, but it what's interesting to me about that story is it's the most clear like a lot of other in it basically, well, you tell a summary of it it's weird for me to do it. but but it is the most like to me that's like a thing that happened that is so bad that it would lead you to take control of your own body commodity destiny whatever like it's just so wrong that. yeah, i at the time let's tell the story. so we're not like speaking in inferences. yeah, there was a photographer who shot me when i was like 19 it was kind of a pretty uncomfortable situation and then he went on to publish multiple books using the images and my galling like years later. they just go up and he's such an -- as it's happening and then

like sorry, i mean, it's a truly, you know, it's funny that you say that it's so clearly wrong because at the time i you know, first of all, i turned to like the legal system and tried to say, okay, like what's my legal protection here? and there was no way that anyone could say this is wrong and there was no justice there and then i actually turned to the internet and tweeted about my experience and how i didn't want the images to be out there and also no one felt like it was wrong. that's a good point that legally like you signed this release, but like your bait you're so i didn't sign the release. oh, right. yeah. i didn't find the release potentially an agent maybe sold it or it was forged. i will probably never know but i mean, yeah, nope. nobody thought that that was very clear cut when it was happening even when i kind of like turned to my followers and was like, hey don't buy this book whatever everyone was like no, took those pictures, so i

didn't feel like it was clear. like that was the essay was clear. i think it was received as such when it went up. was printed in new york magazine, but i think it was received as wrong. yes. people felt very like, oh, wow. this guy is an -- and whatever but it just feels morally outrageous that someone could essentially like trick a young person in this completely weird setup and to taking these pictures be totally dismissive of them and then years later like when when they're worth something come back and publish pictures of you and make a ton of money off of it not contact like it's an outrageous like in your soul it feels so outrageous that that could happen. i mean i hear you but you know for me that was an experience. i had a ton of shame around i thought i acted a certain way. i didn't protect myself. i wanted to impress him as he dismissed me. i tried even harder to kind of impress him. i you know, i did take those pictures. so for me, it didn't feel clear.

it still doesn't feel totally clear-cut. i felt complicit in the situation and i had a lot of shame around it and also in that essay i write about paparazzi like the least relatable thing anyone, you know when i published the essay i was like, i don't think anyone's gonna like this because i was sure that it was kind of, you know, my experience up into that point was that people had not been sympathetic with those those things even though they had been out in the public which was you know, another it was very encouraging i had already sort of written about 50,000 words of the book, but it hadn't edited. it hadn't kind of doven and started to edit, but it was really encouraging to have that. peace go out into the world and see that like writing could be a medium where you know, at least people could think about the questions that i was posing in a way, you know that i was communicating something and a way that, you know gave me control. i mean, i think writing the book we're talking about control as an act of control to kind of try to take back my narrative.

yeah, it's interesting that you say you're not looking for sympathy because i think the reason that essay resonated so much is because it just feels i guess. it just feels real like you're not you you put it out there in in all the circle of internal thoughts that you had about that situation including feeling complicit. and so it just even though your experience is extremely particular. it's not like a million people have had that experience. it's still relatable because everybody's been in a situation where they feel complicit or they've looped around or they don't know if it's their fault or not. so, yeah, maybe that's why it was received. so well, yeah, i mean again, i wrote the essay sort of to lay everything out and to look at it myself, but also to have other people be able to examine like i even say in the book like i'm gonna proclaim my contradictions, you know, because i i think you know, it's also a tendency i have of kind of like overexposure which for better or worse has led me to

have the life i've had but you know, yeah, i'm very interested in sort of like being very honest rather than and trying to make people feel a certain way because i'm not totally sure how i feel about all of these things. there's a that there's a romantic moment when you talk about meeting your husband. i don't know if i read this correctly, but it's like a moment when he it's it's maybe it's him. maybe it's not empowerment. i don't really know it's just romantic but when he comes and and like essentially just kind of puts himself between you and people who feel they have a right to you. can you just like talk about that moment? it's literally like stop someone from putting it's a very interesting moment in the context of the book. yeah before we were dating he was like at some party that i was we were both there and somebody asked for a picture and like kind of like put their hand like this like little finger

came over here on this side. i was don't say that a little drunk. yeah, and i was just like, oh whatever, you know, and i heard him say like no touching and the guy like immediately like dropped his hands. i'm like, oh i'm so sorry, which i would have never done myself to be honest, which i don't that's probably not a good thing. i wish i was more the type person to say that because i do think as a public persona and as a woman i sort of feel like no i'm like public property and something have a complicated feeling around it and the past i had dated men who were very like she's got this she doesn't need, you know, enter any interjection and i always thought that was very respectful. so, you know, i think if you would ask me before he had done that i would have said like i don't like it when men like feel like they have to i can handle the situation on my own but all of a sudden i was like, oh, wow. he's interested in protecting me and using his relationship in

the world like who he is as a, you know, cis white male kind of a big guy to like protect me and it for lack of better term was hot. it was hot my girlfriend read it and she was like wow that that part was hot and i was like yeah, i was so yeah. i was looking at your instagram before this event, and i was thinking like almost as an addendum to my body like the kinds of pictures you've posted lately like the pregnant the pregnancy. the pregnancy baby series the pregnancy breastfeeding series, and i was wondering about the relationship to whether those were freeing. i mean, there's like a beautiful picture of you naked and pregnant. how does that moment of your life relate to everything you're writing? it's like your body being used in a totally. i mean, there's a few breastfeeding pictures. yeah, just what was that about for you? it was a trip because i was

finishing the book as well. so i was writing about my body and there was a moment where i was like, well, i can't publish this book because now i have to write all about pregnancy and birth because that's like that's everything but i think that'll just have to be another book. i do write about the birth of my son in the last essay. i was curious about how pregnancy was going to affect me talk about lack of control like you wake up every day and your body is just doing something completely different and there's no way to ensure that, you know, everything's going you don't know what's going on like you really don't and you're just kind of growing and everything's changing and but i found it actually really i really enjoyed it. everybody's experience with pregnancy is really different, but it actually helped me appreciate my body. trust it kind of like let go of control and say like, okay this

thing knows this vessel knows better than me and i have to sort of take the passenger seat and let that happen. so much of my life has been relating to my body as a tool and you know a tool to guarantee lovability as a tool to guarantee financial success, and i think that you know, it didn't feel like a tool particularly in birth and in pregnancy because it required me to let go of managing that tool. it was just doing something on its own and then, you know even more so in the in that last essay, really honestly, the biggest moment for me was the bike ride that i take with my husband and my friend and just sort of being able to appreciate my body is a thing that takes me through life, which is what a body is. mm-hmm, which the breastfeeding pictures that i was particularly thinking about because it is

like your body as a tool like that many mothers have experienced but in a totally different way like nobody's buying it nobody's paying for it, but it has to do work, you know, and i guess it's sustaining life and that was breastfeeding was actually a chunk that was in that last essay. so it's funny that you're saying that and i took it out because it didn't work timing wise but there's this really crazy thing. i don't know how many people have had children or had this experience but you your breasts wake you up to feed your child like they ache and they hurt and you like i would find myself like walking. like a zombie to meet my baby to feed my child and it was this really bizarre experience of like, oh, i'm not in control here. like there's there are things at work that have kept human beings on the planet and that's that ancient machinery is then it was within me and i have to just

like release control and see what happens and trust my body and and the process. oh, sorry. we we're gonna open up for questions everyone in just a few minutes. i don't know how to ask this question. i was i was as i got to the end of the book. i was thinking you talk a lot about playing the game like about capitalism playing the game with your body or or losing. you feel like you. or winning or losing great. i don't know. i don't know about the game. i feel like what i do have clarity on is when winning with outside of the game by like doing something as fulfilling as writing a book. mm-hmm. i don't know if that sort of side. that's definitely a moment where

the actual writing of it. yeah fulfilling it is weird because most of the time you're used to just like being look it's like a surface thing. so it must be such a like a 180 degree turn to be like i'm by myself. nobody's looking at me. this is like my internal. i mean i loved it. i love writing and that for that partly that reason but nobody really loves writing. you just love that. oh, it's like miserable, but i love the oh to be clear. yeah miserable. yeah, but i think that that like focus and the like exercise of or the experience that is just like i don't feel this way about physical exercise, but i know when people talk about running sometimes and they're like, i hate it, but it feels like it's so satisfying. i'm addicted. i'm like, oh i understand that in relationship to my experience with writing. mhm. yeah. yeah. i don't think it would be fair if you were like, i'm beautiful and i writing is so easy for me

and it's totally great and it's like you don't you don't want to be that writing is so hard really so hard well, it's really beautifully written. it should read it it is all i mean so many of the essays are like so moving and opened so many windows into so many worlds that are both completely exotic and totally familiar at the same time so much. thank you for doing this totally so we are gonna open up for questions. so if anybody wants to ask questions, please come to the microphone as people are lining up i am going to ask questions from our virtual audience. i don't know where the camera is, but hello virtual audience my mom's in the virtual virtual audience and my nieces. so from katie in chicago, have you heard of or talk to other models buying back their photos? and what are their motivations in doing? so? so this is like i'm in a very

particular position. most working models don't have the ability to do that or have access to it. i do think that there's more conversations around copyright. and also, you know in the age of the internet in general like i would say that with revenge -- and with everyone essentially is kind of like putting their images out there. i think that there's a lot of conversations around ownership that are interesting but specifically in the modeling industry. no, i don't think that they're there has been a lot of that that's true. like they can't afford it. yeah. i want that before i get to you guys. this one question is really really great. i wanted to ask about race in public perception. how do you think people reacted to you to blurred lines as opposed to megan and cardi b and -- how to sexuality interact with whiteness ethnic ambiguity, but it is interesting to think of like from blurred lines to -- like that videos. i start the book off with -- because it was it had come out

and i was like wait this conversation around sexuality and like empowerment really in a music video really reminds me of this, but i will say i mean, i think that those women as black men have had it's so much worse. i mean like like without a doubt the racial stereotypes that come into play. it's insane and even though you know, it was their music video and they were in control they have to battle a whole other. set of issues that you know. are crazy, but it is a similar thing going on in that video that goes on in this book which is like am i in control? like i'm doing this thing. i'm leaning into it and maybe that's a form of empowerment. but well, i think she does know cardi b, but well no, but it was so interesting because it was like you had you know, really leftist feminist and right-wing people both saying like this video is trash and like when does that happen in this country? so i know they come together.

yeah, something is that i hate on heart warming. basically. yeah. yes. go ahead since you lined up first. sorry. really cool as a young woman who was navigating her career your independence and your femininity. and not to mention dating my question is how did you deal with the heartache and kind of the failures and rejection especially from an industry. that is so easy and and quick to reject women kind of another. yeah. i mean, i think that this is something i've might hear me say this again because i really it was one of the takeaways that i had with a book. i mean, i wrote it to investigate experiences that i had a lot of shame around and i thought that i was going to look back at the book and be like, that's the moment that's where i should have done something different or that was so stupid or why did you compromise yourself in this way? why did you agree to do this blah, whatever and what i've realized is that women that's

actually a really not a healthy exercise and i think that young women need to learn to give themselves a break. and understand the larger things that are at play outside of their personal choices that lead them to those heartaches and to those brutal kind of realities which is, you know, partly why i wrote the book is, you know, i don't just think that my life has been a product of my choices. it's also the culture and the world that we live in and i think it's really important for young women to in particular to learn to not be so hard on themselves. oh nice cool. go ahead. i was wondering if people in general are your followers kind of if their opinions on you if they started taking more seriously changed after you opened your business or started your business. no.

more if they started taking you more seriously like with all these stigmatizations and stuff that you're talking about. yeah, i mean, i definitely think that you know in the world of skims and you know, kylie lip quit there's like a i think that when people see women taking control of their image and like using what has been used by other people to to have their own hustle people definitely are like, oh wow, maybe she's business savvy whatever so yes, i think in in some ways, you know that has been a part of it, but i do, you know, the book only came out a week ago, but i'm hoping that the book is maybe more impactful in that way. but also i shouldn't worry about it so much right like that. that's the chance you do have the true hero friend. whoever your friend is who like helps you build your business like your actual true friend in life. yeah does show up that's like a good counterbalance to all this other like girl on girl weird. yes. no, i think female friendships

are hugely important. yes. hi emily. thank you so much for coming. my name is iman, and i'm a college student. you operate between so many industries from modeling to entrepreneurship and now literature and i was wondering what advice you would give to young woman and their 20s on owning their sexuality and entering these professional fears and even overlapping between them as you have. thank you for coming. um, i i mean, i think that one thing i've learned and this sounds it's like the kind of thing. i got advice around pregnancy and motherhood and i'd be like i've heard that a million times. it's not helpful, but then you come back to it. you're like, all right. that's what they i that was good advice. um, do think that trusting your gut and following your instinct. there's you know. i think that there's a culture of sort of like find a mentor

like, you know, people are going to guide you and that's true, but i think in particular with young women there's a lot of mentors will be quick to sort of just say like you should do it this way and like don't listen to yourself and whatever and can be sort of dismissive. i have found that taking that advice from people has not been helpful for me that instead kind of doing what i want to do. i mean nobody i think would have said like write a book of essays about sexuality. like that's what that's the ticket, you know, but it's something that i felt passionate about and you know, whether or not it's successful i at least can go to bed at night knowing that i did what i cared about. so trusting your gut. thank you so much. thank you. yes. hi emily. thank you so much for sharing in the cut. your your essay. last september is one of the greatest things already 2020. um, i guess my question is you

mentioned about like i guess being considered like public property, but being control and curating your instagram and about like the accessibility that you feel like you have to have to people how do you navigate that now? i mean, especially i know this that you don't like share it your son that much in your instagram like i guess through going through this process of like getting fame overnight. like how do you control that? like how much you having to share and how much people think that they know you because they see you everywhere. that's a really good question. i'm figuring it out every day for example with my son at you know, one point i wasn't sharing his face and then he was getting paparazzi and that was another example of me kind of wanting control and feeling like, you know, if there's gonna be images of my son. i want to choose which ones are going to be the out in the world. it's not the ideal but it's you know, it's my way of control and also like you know, it started to feel like more of a headache to try to protect his image from being out there than to just like relax and be like, it's okay. he's he can be out in the world

and that feels better to me. i think it's just a day-to-day, you know feeling gut checks and sort of saying like what what feels comfortable and even when i was writing this book deciding what i wanted to share and why you know, that was kind of just it was my it was what felt right and, you know being really checking in with myself in the way that i definitely used to not i used to feel like, you know, i would never even if somebody touched me whatever i would never have thought because i knew you know that they would think she's rude now. i'm a little bit more interested in taking care of myself rather than worrying about the way i'm perceived. in some ways you're lucky as a writer because that's like a response to social relationships. it's like here have it like these are my thoughts. this is what i think about these situations. this is all my complicated feelings. it's like a great way of addressing, you know, all the

things that people are projecting on you. it's like you don't have to project you. here it is. you can read it, you know totally yes. thank you for coming. i'm curious now that you're a mom at a business owner. what are your thoughts on we've seen a couple articles in new york magazine or the new yorker about like the fall of the girl boss trope and how that sort of like came out of like grind culture and like women have to like work 14 hours, but then also, you know care to their maternal instincts and they have children now that you're a mom like, what do you think of that whole phenomenon? where do you see yourself and all that? yeah at one point. i was like, i need to write a girl boss essay, and then i sort of realized that my girl boss essay was the essay that you talked about the maldives going to this vacation and sort of being like okay. well i might as well be the one to sell the bathing suits rather than this guy. i mean, i think that capitalism is really rough on everyone and

i think that, you know women had this feeling of that's not it's related to the conversation. i'm interested in having of you know, i have to become the man. i have to become the boss in order to be viewed as successful. so even if that means being an -- who like doesn't pay fair wage, that's that's the game i have to play for and especially as a woman i have to go doubly hard in order to be taken seriously and i think that was unfortunate because it didn't mean, you know, real change at the same time. also was nice to see some women and businesses and and places of power that we don't normally see women and i think actually the backlash to the girl boss phenomenon and the way that so many women were held accountable in a way that i don't think that there were amen being held accountable was also related to sexism. so we're just gonna take three

more questions three, you sure. okay. okay good. all right. hi, my name is romeo and thank you for being here. my question is what would men learn from reading this book? hey romeo, thanks for coming. um, you know i think that i wrote this book with men in mind in some ways because there were there are men that i'm close to who i felt like really didn't understand why i'd get so emotional or upset about any number of situations and they'd kind of be like, i mean i get it like it's hard right and i i felt like so frustrated that i wasn't doing a good job of explaining what it's like to be a young girl or be a woman in this world and when i wrote the book i kept i didn't want to just to be in i obviously was

thinking about women a lot, but i wanted it to be accessible to men so that they could potentially feel compassionate. and empathetic with what it's like to be a woman. thank you. thanks. yeah. hi emily. hi. hi, my name is oh, my name is drew. i just wanted to ask i see a lot of people it's hard to tell with masks. i see a lot of young people in here and i'm 23 and all my friends are 23. i was just wondering like you talk a lot about control and like being able to or like feeling out of control and sometimes like how hard it is to navigate that. i was just wondering for someone at our age and like starting out because a lot of the experiences that you talk about were in your early 20s. what is the best advice that you have for like navigating that and really harnessing that control in different spaces? i mean, it's so hard when you're 23, because you're 23 and people are like, oh, you're 23 year old woman. what do you know and why would you know, even if you are

inserting your your agency like there's a certain amount of dismissal and distrust i mean i think being aware of. i don't want to say the same thing but of protecting yourself and having a frame of reference. that's not not letting things land personally that can be helpful and as you kind of tried to find control because you're going to get so much pushback. but it's it's really tough. i don't have you know, i wish that there was some kind of guidebook to this. i think just knowing yourself and really trusting your instinct and reminding yourself that the reactions that you are getting aren't because of who you are. it's because of the world and the culture that we exist in you last question hi, i'm lee. thank you so much for coming. my name is lydia. um, i finished the book a couple

days ago. i loved it. oh, yeah, and i especially loved the chapter called the woozies and definitely made me a little emotional. um, and i love that you talk about the relationship with your mom because i think you know the relationship that a woman has with her. mom is such an important aspect of life. and so my question was before writing the book or before it was published. did you ever sit down with your mom and you know have these conversations that you talk about in the book and if so, like, how did that go? oh, thank you. i meant to ask that question. i'm like well what your dad thought of the book? um, you know, i i shared everything with my mom and it's an ongoing conversation like all intimate close relationships. i mean, i think that you know, what i tried i mean, i think that you know, what i tried to do was really give her, you know, to be as

empathetic. like, i know that everything in the book she did out of love and out of the desire to be close, out of a desire to protect me. and as m a parent myself i likeo have to accept that i'm going to be imperfect as a parent and they're even the most well-intentioned person is going, , there's going to be things that are messages that just don't land the way that you intend them to. but yeah, it's an ongoing conversation. >> that is a lot of like cheese and wisdom around him mother relationship. thankom you, emily, so much for coming to d.c. thank you all for coming. >> thank you so much a plastic. >> hello, everyone and welcome to the national book festival. >> over the past 21 years in partnership with the library of congress booktv is providing in-depth uninterrupted coverage of the national book festival featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and guests.

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