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In a photographers’ studio, two profitable skilled ladies in brightly colored frocks and golden earrings are having their pictures taken. On the proper is Rubina Pabani, head of quick type at ITN Productions (“I work in podcast and video, pitch, put groups collectively”), at the moment on maternity go away for her first little one. On the left, Poppy Jay, investigative documentary producer-director of 24 Hours in Police Custody and the Bafta-nominated Queens of Rap. However their day jobs should not why we’re right here. We’re right here – there is no such thing as a method of sugar-coating this – due to their intercourse lives. In addition to holding down spectacular media careers, Poppy and Rubina are the tell-all hosts of the podcast Brown Women Do It Too, which has simply began its third collection on BBC Sounds. Their material? Intercourse. Particularly, intercourse as skilled by British South Asian ladies.

“Oh, we’re undoubtedly not sexperts, we’re intercourse clowns,” says Rubina, 34. “We’re the silliest, most open individual within the room, the one which encourages everybody to affix in, to be foolish and free…”

“She’s filtered that for you,” says Poppy, 36. “She normally says we’re essentially the most perverted uncles at a celebration. Or we’re like white van males in brown woman pores and skin.”

The rationale why we have been so sincere and overshared at first was as a result of we thought nobody was going to hear!

Intercourse clowns? Perverted uncles? White van males? Or simply blissful to speak about what intercourse means for them? In distinction to many of their group, for these ladies no sexual topic is off limits. Listeners know that Rubina has gone off masturbation since having a child, that Poppy doesn’t like porn, that Rubina as soon as left a newly bought intercourse toy on a prepare, that Poppy, just lately out of a 10-year relationship, is web courting for the primary time and is certainly up for intercourse on a primary date, however provided that there’s some kind of connection – “not simply dry chat”. Having binged the present from the beginning, I may offer you many extra intimate particulars about them each however, you realize, this isn’t fairly the place. You’ll simply should hear.

For those who do, you’ll be becoming a member of a broad viewers. Regardless of its title, Brown Women Do It Too has been successful with audiences from all cultural backgrounds. “Properly, everybody has intercourse,” factors out Poppy. “Most individuals wank. And lots of people really feel like outsiders. Within the second collection, we found we had plenty of white ladies listeners of their 40s, who all the time appeared to take heed to us at a grocery store, within the pasta aisle. They usually’d be like: ‘You’re each humorous, however I typically cringe at what you say.’ And I’m like: ‘Hey, we cringe at what we are saying!’”

“Truthfully,” says Rubina, “the explanation we have been so sincere and overshared at first was as a result of we thought nobody was going to hear and nobody would care!”

Really, Brown Women got here very near ending after only one collection. The BBC didn’t recommission it, however then the present received two British Podcast awards in 2020, together with podcast of the yr, so a second collection was made – minus the third presenter, Roya Eslami, who selected to go away after the primary collection. Then Poppy and Rubina appeared on Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton’s much-missed The Excessive Low, which helped usher in listeners, as did the passion of Deborah Frances-White, host of The Responsible Feminist. “The feminine podcast group is far tighter than individuals suppose,” says Rubina. “There was that stat the opposite day that stated solely 11% of podcasts are hosted by ladies … everybody’s very supportive.”

For this third collection, they’ve a brand new all-female manufacturing group and it’s noticeable that their presentation has improved with each collection. Off-mic, they each converse at one million miles an hour, Rubina presumably at one million and a half. They’ve a loud, high-octane power, like youngsters on the lash.

There’s additionally going to be a Brown Women Do It Too tour, Mama Instructed Me Not to Come, within the autumn. It received’t be a easy reside model of the podcast, they are saying, nibbling at rooster wings within the dressing room off the studio. As an alternative, it’s extra like a sketch present – they each love Goodness Gracious Me – with them telling tales of their childhood and teenage years, after which doing daft skits to emphasize their factors. Rapping is promised. “We’re even doing Indian accents,” says Rubina. “Which everybody goes to hate us for.”

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Now a bona fide double act, Rubina and Poppy say their connection, basically, is each having skilled late private liberation after sheltered childhoods and repressed teenage years. Poppy grew up in a Bengali household in Tower Hamlets, east London, the oldest of 5 women and a boy. Her dad and mom don’t converse English and she or he had a strict upbringing. “I used to be a dweeb with a moustache, a monobrow,” she says. “I wore a headband. All my mates have been sporting denims and western garments, and I wasn’t allowed to do something. I by no means did the sneaking out, by no means modified my garments earlier than faculty. I simply accepted it. I actually was the dutiful daughter.”

At residence, she had plenty of duty, studying official letters, translating for her non-English-speaking dad and mom: “Being a 3rd guardian, handled like a boy.” However when she was together with her cousins, she says: “I used to be instantly handled like a lady, a second-class citizen, and I couldn’t perceive it.”

At 17, a husband was chosen for her. After they married at 20, Poppy moved into his dad and mom’ home. It didn’t work out: at 23, she moved again into her dad and mom’ residence – “And he didn’t come and get me” – earlier than getting divorced at 25. She didn’t discuss this for a number of years, however does now, as there are “so many Asian ladies compelled to marry somebody they don’t need, a cousin, or somebody from again residence. It’s such a standard expertise for us. I don’t actually even see it as trauma. I talked about it the opposite day with a pal. I stated: ‘I had a compelled marriage.’ They usually drained their pint and stated: ‘Who hasn’t?’” Nonetheless, although, she says she was working with somebody just lately who talked about that his girlfriend was about to fulfill the husband her dad and mom had chosen for her, and she or he may really feel the trend rise. “I almost began to cry; I used to be like: ‘Give her my quantity, she will come and reside with me.’”

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Rubina’s upbringing, in Enfield, north London, was extra liberal than Poppy’s, although there was nonetheless a gender-based hierarchy: at mealtimes, her father and brother would all the time eat earlier than her and her mum. There’s a really transferring episode in Brown Women about daddy points, which begins as a joke about whether or not they would name a lover “daddy” within the bed room (neither would) after which strikes into an upsetting dialogue of not feeling near their very own fathers. “My dad didn’t converse to me for 2 years once I began seeing my associate,” says Rubina. “He solely began once more as a result of we’ve had a child boy. He’s made big progress. However he’s 75 – we wasted all this time.”

There’s a lot to unravel from their previous, they usually’re nonetheless doing the unravelling. Poppy is just not solely coping with the breakup of a 10-year relationship, however with the truth that her dad and mom didn’t know she was in that relationship. “It breaks my coronary heart,” she says evenly. “All these recollections they’ve misplaced. He was such a beautiful man and he liked Asian meals, and Asian household is all about cooking and having the household round. However I didn’t introduce him to them as a result of he wasn’t Muslim. I’m a part-time Muslim at finest, however I’m a Muslim once I see my mum and pop. And I’ve began pondering that I might need enabled this double life. I fuelled it. I lied for therefore lengthy, I ought to have been courageous sufficient to say.”

How a lot of your self are you able to be when you’ve got all these individuals to try to fulfill? You possibly can’t ever be your self

She additionally, she says, finds it arduous to consider how she handled her sisters when she was younger. “My dad and mom actually groomed me into elevating my sisters the way in which they raised me,” she says. “I used to be their head henchman. It was horrible. I used to be so strict. In the event that they wore eyeliner, they wore lipstick, or they bunked off faculty … I really suppose I would like remedy to return to phrases with how I handled them.” Two of her sisters minimize her off once they discovered in regards to the podcast, although they’ve reconciled now. Her dad and mom nonetheless know nothing about it.

Rubina, who met her associate on Tinder, is discovering it attention-grabbing to guardian a mixed-heritage little one (her associate’s household are South American). She’s been enjoying her son Bollywood music, though she by no means actually listened to it herself earlier than: “I’m culturally appropriating my very own tradition.” She is an Ismaili Muslim and her son could have a bay’ah (a pledge of religious allegiance), however received’t be circumcised: “Simply don’t inform my mum!” She and her mum have a great relationship, however she’s decided to not recreate her household dynamic. “I’m 100% equal with my associate, we’re in a civil partnership. And I don’t suppose you must be a martyr to be a mum. To be a great mum, you must be: ‘I like my life!’”

Chiming over one another, laughing, joking, Rubina and Poppy are immensely good firm. They department off into why Asian guys don’t fancy them, which podcasts they like (Harsh Actuality, Whoreible Choices) and what they took from the large podcast hit Candy Bobby, a few British lady of South Asian heritage who was romantically catfished by somebody from her group. They notice that when she instructed her household, the podcast host (who isn’t Asian) was shocked on the father’s response. “The dad didn’t need a fuss to be made due to the group,” says Poppy. “Not a shock.”

“Being disowned is such a preferred trope in Bollywood movies,” agrees Rubina. “And also you watch that rising up – the entire time you realize that you just’re on this edge together with your dad and mom. You do one thing improper they usually may disown you.”

“That’s kind of what our present’s about,” says Poppy. “Like how a lot of your self are you able to be when you’ve got all these individuals to try to fulfill? You possibly can’t ever be your self … The extent of poor psychological well being amongst South Asian ladies is so excessive, comparatively, to different ethnic communities. And I do know that issues are altering now, individuals are speaking about it. But it surely’s so sluggish. It’s like dinosaurs, fossils, oil forming. It’s occurring, however we’re like: ‘Can we hurry up and get there?’”

• The Brown Women Do It Too: Mama Instructed Me To not Come tour runs from 18 Oct-19 Nov. The podcast is on BBC Sounds