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“What’s wrong with porn?”: Monica Stambrini on sex, eroticism and ageing · Talking Italy

• Isobel Giles: Hello, I’m Isobel Giles, and this is Talking Italy from Italy Segreta. Each week, I ask my guest to explore an Italian word in their own words. I hope you enjoy listening. Isobel Giles: [00:00:00] Monica Stambrini is a filmmaker, writer and artist whose work has long explored female desire, intimacy and the politics of looking. Born in California in 1970 to Italian parents and based in Rome, she made her debut in 2001 with Benzina, a love story between two young women on the run. She later founded Le Ragazze del Porno, a collective of female directors creating sexually explicit cinema on their own terms, and went on to make films about pornography, performance, ageing, freedom and the erotic self. She has said that the true cinematic magic happens when sexuality is finally freed from its cage. Today’s word is eroticismo – eroticism. Monica, welcome to Talking Italy. Monica Stambrini: Thank you. What a lovely introduction. Isobel Giles: So how would you define the word eroticismo? Monica Stambrini: Eroticismo… Maybe desire, in the end – and especially desire that comes unannounced, and sometimes even from something one wouldn’t think is desirable. [00:01:00] It’s something unexpected, maybe not thought of. The brain has very little to do with eroticism, but it is just as powerful – and it can often be irrational, and revolutionary. Isobel Giles: You know, when we talk about eroticism in English, people tend to put it in a box, whereas I feel here in Italy it has a sensibility to it. It’s a broader term – or at least that’s my own feeling. It’s something that can also be found in things that aren’t necessarily… Monica Stambrini: Connected to sex. Isobel Giles: Exactly. Monica Stambrini: Yes. Well, actually, in Italy we have eroticism for the sun, for coffee, for food, for wine. [00:02:00] We put a lot of eroticism into the things that make our day, which is why Italy is such a great place to be. We’re erotic when we fall in love with an onion, or a piatto di pasta. And enjoying it is something we were taught as children. I was taught to drink wine, to appreciate wine, when I was six or seven. My father used to dip some bread into red wine and give me the bread to eat. Isobel Giles: And talking about being exposed to it from a young age – I know your parents separated when you were four, and your father had quite an open relationship with women in the house where you grew up. In your autobiographical film, Chutzpah, you reflect on that – on how you were, in some ways, participating in his love stories and sharing in his promiscuity. Do you think that’s informed the woman you are today? Monica Stambrini: Yes. Well, it definitely opened up a door [00:03:00] that maybe I wasn’t supposed to open when I was young – and it was wide open. It was the ’70s, so there was also an ideology behind it: love should be shared. On the other hand, my mother was much more bourgeois. Richer, and therefore more bourgeois, with many more doors closed. So I grew up with this contradiction. I was trying to save my father’s view, because for a child to be allowed into a room where parents usually close the door – I felt privileged, in a way. But of course then you have the no-boundaries problem, which can be so troubling. So, as anyone does, I used my means of expression – cinema, filmmaking – to explore, to question [00:04:00] myself on this issue I had. Because it was an issue. I felt free – freer than many people my age. But I knew I was queer, in a way, because nobody had a father like mine. Another door my father didn’t close was taking me to the cinema to see films that weren’t for children – Bergman, Fassbinder. Those films really questioned me. It was like entering a magic world of mysteries, and it inspired me to do what excited me. That’s what I went looking for. Isobel Giles: I know you’ve said that from the very beginning you knew you wanted to be a filmmaker, and that Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander was a huge influence. What was it about that film? Monica Stambrini: There was everything in that film. I was one of the few children with divorced parents – in the ’70s in Italy, I was one of the few. [00:05:00] Fanny and Alexander is about a brother and sister whose father dies, and they end up with a stepfather who is very cruel – and I had a troubled relationship with my stepfather. There was also the mystery of sex. I remember this house, this family full of relationships, people betraying each other – but it was all out in the open, and all connected by love and by theatre. It was all so beautiful and warm. I was 14 or 15, and I remember coming out of the film thinking, “Oh my gosh, so many questions, so many incredible worlds opening up to me.” And I thought, “Ah, this is what I’d love to do.” Isobel Giles: So many layers. Your first feature, Benzina, came out in 2001 and centred on a lesbian love story. You’ve said – about Benzina, and your work in general – that you’re interested in protecting people with the [00:06:00] camera, not exposing them. How does that work, especially in intimate films? Monica Stambrini: Well, that was a very clever thing for me to say, because… who knows? We protect, we expose. But when I love someone, I’m protective. And I fall in love with my actors, my characters, even the people in my documentaries. So I feel safe that I’m protective in the way I look at people. With Benzina it was a bit tricky, because there were sex scenes, lesbian scenes, and the girls were very young. One was very open; the other was more self-conscious about her body. In the end, you can only do what the actors allow you to do – and gaining that confidence is your job. And the producer – a famous B-movie producer, who was fantastic – kept saying, “You have to have sex scenes. Lesbians. [00:07:00] We want to see things.” And I said, “Come on. These two girls – the mother just died. What do you want them to do? Maybe they can kiss.” I also wanted it to be a lesbian film for 12-year-olds. Lesbian films were quite fashionable at the time – Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, Butterfly Kiss – and they all showed lesbians who killed someone, who were always very dark. And we were lucky: when we went to the censors, we didn’t get a 14 rating. It was for everyone. Isobel Giles: Wow. That’s a huge achievement. And I think it’s really interesting that you’ve talked about violence being so much more acceptable on screen than sex. I’d love you to say a bit more about that. Monica Stambrini: I read an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci about censorship. Someone said that in the [00:08:00] ’70s, in cinema, everything was allowed – sex, violence. There was a lot of both; it was just exploding. Then all of a sudden they realised it was too much and had to take something away – and somehow they decided sex should go, so that violence could stay. Who knows? Maybe sex is more complex. It’s a big question. I wonder if one day sex could be like eating – a pleasure people simply enjoy. And that doesn’t mean you have to be addicted to food. Isobel Giles: How do you think that would change the way we perceive eroticism? I feel there’s such a link between eroticism and mystery – not knowing. Monica Stambrini: That’s a big question, because everybody says eroticism is so tied to transgression – that the fact it’s not allowed is what makes it so kinky, [00:09:00] so attractive. Probably yes – but probably not. Something can be very pleasurable without the secret. If somebody touches you, it can be just as pleasurable. And now I’m going to say something I’ll regret – we say eroticism belongs to maturity, but kids play with eroticism a lot. Young children are discovering their bodies, their genitals – “Ooh, I touch here and it does that.” It’s a discovery. At that age you have no concern about what’s permissible or not. Isobel Giles: Any time I’ve seen porn – and it’s a largely male-dominated scene – you go on certain websites and one of the most popular categories is the non-permissible acts, right? Monica Stambrini: Which are? Isobel Giles: [00:10:00] Someone with a wife, or a teenager… Monica Stambrini: Oh, yes. Or a stepsister. Isobel Giles: Exactly. I don’t really know what my question is there, but I find it very interesting. Monica Stambrini: It is very interesting, because porn has the power to role-play. It plays out our fantasies – our deepest, most hidden, cringe-inducing ones, the ones we don’t even want to say out loud. Porn can act them out, sometimes very playfully, sometimes making fun of them. And it’s allowed. You’re playing a game – which is very sexy, I think. And going back to what you started with – yes, it’s definitely male-dominated, because women weren’t allowed, and didn’t allow themselves, to watch porn or read erotic magazines until very recently. Isobel Giles: And I think it still takes a certain kind of woman to talk openly about her desires. Speaking from my own perspective, it’s very hard for that not to be through the lens of what men want. It’s so embedded in how you’re brought up. Monica Stambrini: [00:11:00] Yes, absolutely. There’s a lot of talk about the male gaze and the female gaze, and when we started Le Ragazze del Porno, we pitched it as a women’s point of view on porn. But who knows what a woman’s point of view is? I grew up watching porn and reading books mostly made by men, so they shaped my fantasies. Who knows what my fantasies would have been otherwise? I don’t know if women and men look differently biologically. Culturally, of course. But I’ve seen films by men that could just as well have been made by women – that same closeness to women. I think the same is true of porn. Women who come to porn probably come with the spirit of wanting to change things, to do things differently. So it’s more that spirit than a female gaze. Isobel Giles: I’ll come back to that – I’d love to talk about Queen Kong in a [00:12:00] little bit. But first I’d like to understand how you think Italy’s relationship with eroticism has changed. We talked about the ’70s, and then came the Berlusconi era, when women were put into two categories: the intellectual or the sexual object. What did that period do, and how has it changed? Monica Stambrini: Hmm. I remember witnessing a change when I was 14 or 15. We had fantastic Italian television – and all of a sudden there were all these shows on Berlusconi’s private channels, Canale 5 and Rete 4, where the women all had big breasts, wore bikinis and played around like little cocottes, barely speaking – just there for their boobs. I remember watching and thinking, “What’s happened?” It was shocking, because it wouldn’t have been thinkable a few years [00:13:00] earlier. This was 1984, 1985, and at 14, 15 it touched me especially. I thought, “Why are women suddenly being looked at like this?” I was used to women being perhaps shyer, but also more out in the open. We had Cicciolina, the porn star, in parliament. We had strong women, even erotic women – but not like Berlusconi’s girls, bloop, bloop, bloop, mostly silent, just there for big tits and a big arse. I remember that change, and then it became the norm. I think the division – that a woman is either the perfect wife and mother or the whore – is still there, and not only in Italy; it’s everywhere. Women are probably the first to feel that [00:14:00] conflict. But what’s even sadder to me is when the division is between the intellectual and the whore – which often comes from the left, from liberals. There’s a lot of talk about the new Euphoria and how it depicts sex workers. I love Euphoria – I have a lot of fun watching it. But there’s always this thing about sex workers, about being a whore. Even with OnlyFans, people say, “Yes, but OnlyFans isn’t porn, it’s different.” So what about porn? What’s wrong with porn? Isobel Giles: I couldn’t agree more. Actually, one of my questions was what you think of platforms like OnlyFans. It’s perceived as something in your own hands. You’ve talked a lot about how filmmaking can now be so personal, moving between the public and the private. How do you think [00:15:00] that’s changing our relationship with sex, with porn, with eroticism? Monica Stambrini: And with culture – with everything we do. Who knows how it will change sex, but everything is clearly changing. One thing is that porn has always been avant-garde. When photography was invented, some of the first pictures were of naked people fucking. When film was invented, some of the first films were porn. When the internet arrived, porn was among the first. Porn is always ahead, because porn is desire – and desire is such a powerful drive. What we see now is porn moving onto OnlyFans. It’s custom-made, so you feel, “Oh my God, this was made for me.” And it’s private. You have the illusion you’re actually talking to the porn star on her own channel, that you’re [00:16:00] looking into her house, that maybe that’s her boyfriend. All of that is very sexy now. And sometimes I think: what the fuck? We give our private lives to Instagram for free, just because we want followers, we want to be liked. We’re selling ourselves every time – when I film my kid, what I eat, where I go. We’re all working for Instagram for free, capitalising on our lives, our private selves, our bodies, everything. When I post a picture of myself, I get a hundred more likes than if I post a beautiful Caravaggio. So we’re invited to sell ourselves – and OnlyFans does exactly that. Maybe it’s more honest to pay someone to make content all the time. Isobel Giles: To be able to access that privacy. Monica Stambrini: Yes. Whether that’s good for sex – who knows? But I think sex [00:17:00] will always find its way. Isobel Giles: Talking about Le Ragazze del Porno – the women directors you brought together to make explicit films – what drove that decision? Monica Stambrini: It came out of the Berlusconi moment. Women in Italy came together – for the first time in a long while, probably since the ’70s – because they were appalled by Berlusconi, and the slogan was, “We are not all whores” – or escorts, let’s say, the elegant word for whore. There was this effort to distance ourselves from the way Berlusconi looked at women. And I thought, yes, it’s important – but we’re also distancing ourselves from sex, and that’s a pity. Then a friend of mine, Tiziana Lo Porto, wrote an article about a group of women in Sweden who had made a feature [00:18:00] out of short porn films, Dirty Diaries. She titled the article “Le Ragazze del Porno”. And I thought, “Oh my God, this would be such a great idea to do in Italy” – with the Church, and with Berlusconi, at that moment. It felt challenging, provocative – not only towards Berlusconi, but towards the “we’re not whores” response too. So I started asking women directors I knew, “Would you like to make a porn film?” And everyone said, “Yes – I wish!” I thought, “Oh my God, it’s not just me. Everybody wants to make a porn film.” That’s how we came together. We fought a lot over whether to make erotic films or porn films. That was a big issue. Isobel Giles: And what’s the difference? Monica Stambrini: In cinema it’s very simple: whether you see a dick or not. It’s the detail – how much you see. That’s what makes the difference: [00:19:00] rated 14 or rated 18. Some of us wanted the 14 version because it was the cleverer option – it would have been much easier to get funding. But then we thought, “Why do women always have to be erotic, while only men get to do the details, the porn? No – we want to do porn.” The 18 version. And that’s why we never found the funding. Isobel Giles: One of the shorts you made with Le Ragazze del Porno was Queen Kong, which imagined female desire not as passive or decorative, but almost predatory – Monica Stambrini: And ugly. Isobel Giles: And ugly. I loved it. You’ve said women shouldn’t be afraid to show their animal side, and you really see that in the film. For people listening, could you describe what you were going for with Queen Kong? Monica Stambrini: Yes, that was absolutely the intention. Some people see it as a feminist film because it’s [00:20:00] about revenge – twisting the rape. We’re spoiling it a bit, but it’s fun to watch anyway: he is raped by her. It’s always fun to turn things around. But more intimately, it was about how we women grew up with the idea that we’re desirable if we’re pretty and clean – when sometimes we’re more desirable when we’re dirty and not pretty. That’s really what it’s about. And that’s very hard for women to deal with. It’s also why women are sometimes so afraid to express what they desire – because desire isn’t always pretty. Even dirty talk is dirty. Isobel Giles: I also find it really interesting that in the film the female character is the one [00:21:00] leading the intimacy – “I want this, I want that” – and then, without spoiling it, she leaves him hanging. As a young woman – young-ish – that’s still a conversation I find hard. I’m still learning to say, “This is what I want,” or “I can be ugly and still desire.” Monica Stambrini: Absolutely, because we were never taught. We were never allowed – we never allowed ourselves. And I’m sure we’d love it, and it would make it much easier to know what we like. For men too – especially in heterosexual couples. Sometimes these poor guys are lost, because women never say anything. They wish they had instructions. Isobel Giles: “Please tell me what to do.” When you were young and discovering your body and your desires, did you know what you wanted? Monica Stambrini: In my very first experiences, I knew nothing – so I was free. I had no taboos, in a way; I knew I could do anything. It was fantastic. Then, in [00:22:00] relationships, as you get older, you hit walls, barriers. So I’m probably not as free as I was when I was very young. But I also got hit a few times, so you learn to take it easy. Not so free. There are rules. Isobel Giles: That’s really interesting. One of the most fascinating people you’ve worked with is the porn star Valentina Nappi. What drew you to her – in relation to desire, the body, freedom? Monica Stambrini: She’s such a fantastic girl – a woman now, but when I met her she was 22, 23, and had only been doing porn for two or three years. She contacted Le Ragazze del Porno because, although she was so young and not yet well known, she was desperate to meet women, men, whoever, [00:23:00] who wanted to explore the full range of possibilities of porn and sexuality, creatively too. That seduced me straight away. Very clever, beautiful, and so small. I realised all the prejudices I had. I was expecting a porn star with lots of make-up and lots of body on show – and she turned up in trainers and leggings, no make-up. So straight away it was, “Okay, Monica – shame on you.” She won me over immediately. She was so curious, so talented, and very professional. I didn’t think she was right for Queen Kong, because I was looking for an ugly beast, and Valentina was anything but ugly. But then I realised she’d be the best. I’d also had a really hard time finding women – even very brave performers – who would agree to penetration. [00:24:00] And I thought, “Well, Valentina has no problem with that – she’s the porn star. I should cast her.” I didn’t know if she could act well enough to play a creature, an animal. But she’s a hard worker, she did it, and she was fantastic. Isobel Giles: And didn’t Bertolucci say he fainted when he watched it? Monica Stambrini: Yes! He said, “The first time I saw it, I nearly fainted. I had to watch it four or five times.” He kept it on his desktop. Whenever there was a dinner and he was a bit bored – someone was a bit stiff – he’d say, “I have a nice film to show you,” and show them Queen Kong. Isobel Giles: I love that. I’d like to talk about ageing. You’ve said the last real taboo is ageing. Do you think Italy is particularly cruel about ageing because it worships beauty so intensely? Monica Stambrini: No, I don’t think so. [00:25:00] Compared to America, definitely not. Compared to India, probably yes. Everybody’s cruel about ageing. But now it’s shifting, partly because so many people are ageing. We used to be old at 70; now at 70 you’re still young. So we’ll have to make peace with ageing. I think menopause is an issue for women, definitely, because something really changes – not only your looks, but something inside. All of a sudden you’re like, “What the fuck is happening?” You get hot flushes, you cry. It’s like being a teenager again – another adolescence. It’s shocking, especially the change in desire. Sometimes you go through a loss of desire, and I don’t think we talk about that enough. There are ways through it – hormones, for example – and you get over it. [00:26:00] I think it all comes back. It’s just shocking at first. But in porn there are actresses who are 70 and still porn stars. There’s a category – MILF – no, GILF. Not just MILF, because MILF is easy – GILF. So porn actually teaches us you can have fun fucking and be desirable at 70. And there again, it’s Queen Kong: maybe ugly is sometimes erotic. So even old age can be erotic. Isobel Giles: How has eroticism changed for you personally, as you’ve gone through it? Monica Stambrini: It has changed a lot through menopause. I kind of stopped. I had much less desire than before – which in a way is also nice, because sometimes desire is a need for attention. Sometimes you feel, “I’m lonely, [00:27:00] so I look for sex” – which doesn’t always make you feel less lonely. Sex can be a way, like drinking, of getting over sadness. It isn’t only about joy. So maybe being more centred, without that constant urge, can be good. But in a way it makes me sad, so sometimes I say, “No, no, no, I have to get over this. I have to fuck. I don’t want to accept that sex isn’t part of my life any more. I don’t accept it.” I think it’s a story they tell us – because sex is tied to having children, so once you can’t have children, women aren’t supposed to have sex any more. No. We have to change that. Isobel Giles: We have to keep going. I know that after your separation you spoke about evenings at home that had to be full of seduction to cover the loneliness. You described your life as split in two: one week an efficient mother, and the next – [00:28:00] when the children were with their father – a lawless teenager, with alcohol at your disposal. What does that look like? How does that work? Monica Stambrini: Well, that’s more about being a mother than about the relationship with my husband. The division in me was: why did I split from my children? Being the daughter of divorced parents myself, I was conflicted, because I knew how much I had suffered from not seeing my father enough – staying with my mother all the time and seeing him only at weekends. I didn’t want that for them. So I thought one week on, one week off was good for them. But it probably wasn’t good for me. Anyway – how do you do it? So for me the question is really about being a mother. And with the father I had, who was so fantastically open about sex – I don’t know if I want to expose my children [00:29:00] to that. That’s a big drama: how open can you be as a parent about your sex life with your teenage children? It’s difficult, and I don’t have the answer, because I grew up a bit fucked up there. So I don’t know what’s right. But I still love my father. I love how open he is, how few taboos he has about sex. I think that’s something very precious, and I wouldn’t give that up either. And sex life is complicated – in our time, our culture – especially with all these apps. It takes a lot of work. I wish you could just go to a bar and… Isobel Giles: And just – Monica Stambrini: Yes – fall in love. For one night. Isobel Giles: I do think that as a woman, after you’ve had children, you naturally become conflicted between the person you are as a mother and your erotic self. Monica Stambrini: Yes – because being a mother is also [00:30:00] erotic. That’s the thing. They conflict because motherhood is another kind of eroticism. So maybe you don’t need as much eroticism when you’re being a mother a lot. But of course, you can’t be a mother 24 hours a day. You are, of course – but you’re not always there. Unless they’re very small. Isobel Giles: Certo. What would you say age has taught you about desire that youth never could? Monica Stambrini: I think I still have a lot to learn. It’s a mystery. Desire is always a kind of mystery, because you can’t impose it. You can work on it, but it arises in unknown ways. My latest passion, painting – I had a very erotic thing with painting, because I was painting all the time. I just wanted to paint and paint for hours. That was kind of erotic. So maybe age teaches you [00:31:00] that you can find eroticism not only in sex, but in many other things you love. Isobel Giles: Talking about your painting – you’ve just had your first solo exhibition here in Rome. You’ve described painting as a slower, more private kind of looking. Is there an eroticism in painting that cinema can’t touch? Monica Stambrini: In a way, yes – because cinema is made with others. You have to be cautious; it’s a relationship. With painting, it’s just you and the person, if you’re painting a person. That’s why I love painting people: you can watch someone for hours, take your time, just look and look. And I struggled a lot – the process of finding money for films is really not erotic. It’s very unerotic, and I went through a lot of frustration. Painting is just there for you. And there’s the material side of oil paint – I work in oils – which is so smooth and soft and wet. It’s fantastic. Isobel Giles: [00:32:00] After everything you’ve filmed and lived through, what do you think people misunderstand about eroticism? Monica Stambrini: Maybe that eroticism isn’t proper. There’s always something judgemental. Even in Italy, we’ve dared to make a few TV series and films about porn stars, about porn – but rarely is there any joy in them. There’s always something sinful. And that’s the real sin. Isobel Giles: It’s interesting – Italy is so shaped by the Vatican and its tradition of shame around the body, but it’s also a culture that celebrates desire, pleasure and sensuality. How do those things coexist? In some ways they feed one another, don’t they? Monica Stambrini: That’s a mystery. Well, Italians – you see it even in politics – are a bit, “Yeah, whatever.” Maybe that helps. I was saying that eroticism is often seen as a sin. [00:33:00] Actually, there’s maybe only one Italian director who is the complete opposite, and that’s Tinto Brass. In all his films, sex and eroticism are natural, joyous, easy. There’s nothing perverse – it’s just as it is. And that’s quite exceptional. Isobel Giles: Interesting. Talking about young women now, and these new forms of expression – what would you say to a young woman still learning how to inhabit her own eroticism, her own desire? Monica Stambrini: Personally or professionally? Isobel Giles: Both. Monica Stambrini: Oh. I think they should teach me – I’m sure they know a lot more. Probably just: explore. And maybe one thing is relationships. When you find a partner, it may be easier to explore. In a couple, you can dare to explore more [00:34:00] than we think a couple should. Who knows? It’s not easy, because then there’s jealousy, which makes it very tricky. Isobel Giles: And power, right? Power plays such a part in sex. Monica Stambrini: But power is sexy. You just have to turn it around, to make it even sexier. Make fun of it. Isobel Giles: What would you say to your younger self, if you could go back to 14- or 15-year-old Monica? È una domanda difficile, lo so. [It’s a difficult question, I know.] Monica Stambrini: Difficilissima. [Very difficult.] What would I say? Maybe: relax. I was obsessed with becoming a filmmaker. Growing up, my obsession was “I want to be a filmmaker” – that was my identity. Which was good; it was a big drive. But now I’d say: just explore. Don’t be so obsessed. I grew up believing my work was who I was. And look at me now. Isabella taught me that at 55 [00:35:00] you can start painting, fall in love with painting, and wish you’d been a painter all along. We can be so many things. And I think young people today can learn that more easily than we did – because, you know, they have no work. Isobel Giles: I think that’s true. There was definitely a time when we – the collective “we”, women – felt we had to choose a path and stick to it, and that was our identity. We put ourselves in a box, and it felt safe to stay there. Whereas, like Isabella, if you’re light about it – light about life – so many doors open when you don’t restrict yourself. Monica Stambrini: Yes – and you can express yourself in so many ways. Isobel Giles: After everything you’ve lived and witnessed, what feels erotic to you now? Monica Stambrini: I still have to find out. Right now, painting is what makes me feel most erotic, more than anything else. But maybe also becoming more confident with sex, with my [00:36:00] body, with my changing body – that would be a great victory. You never reach some kind of guru state with age. You always have to work on it. Maybe you feel more mature, but you have new frailties to deal with. I wish I had a funny answer. Or maybe – you know what? I’m starting to find that what’s erotic – it sounds so old – is something like meditation. When you finally understand how your brain is always judging and thinking and plotting, and you get rid of that – through meditation, through whatever: drugs, sex, whatever – and you get a glimpse of what we really are, deep down. Are we one? Are we whole? What are we connected to? I think that’s very erotic. I wouldn’t have had that curiosity when I was young, because you’re drawn to everything new out there in the world. But now that you feel you’ve kind of seen it all, this new introspective, [00:37:00] spiritual path – I find that very erotic. Isobel Giles: And once you let go of all the ideas of who you should be – your true self – that’s erotic. Monica Stambrini: Absolutely. And that’s when you’re curious. Otherwise you’ve seen it all, you know it all, that’s who you are – and that’s it. Isobel Giles: Absolutely. Okay – our final act. I’m going to ask you five quick-fire questions. Favourite place in Italy? Monica Stambrini: I shouldn’t say – then everyone will want to go. I want to keep it a secret. Isobel Giles: Okay, we can keep it a secret. Can we have a region? Monica Stambrini: It’s in Sicily. It’s an island. Isobel Giles: An island off Sicily. Go-to Italian dish, and where you eat it? Monica Stambrini: At home – something my father taught me. He’s from Emilia-Romagna, he’s romagnolo – and it’s ragù. But we make it the way he taught me, with lots of vegetables, and it just cooks and cooks. And I [00:38:00] add lots of spices – cardamom, even. I mess it up a bit. But I’d say that’s my favourite dish now. And pasta e fagioli – that’s fantastic too. Isobel Giles: Essential Italian book, film, song or work of art? Monica Stambrini: A book – the first that comes to mind is the last Italian book I read. It’s by a friend of mine, who’s now in the running for the Strega Prize – so this is a little publicity. I didn’t like his previous books as much, but when I read this one, I was like, “Wow.” It’s called Lo sbilico, by Alcide Pierantozzi. It’s autobiographical – and it’s not easy to write a good autobiographical book. It’s fashionable, it sells, but it isn’t always good. This one is quite extraordinary. He writes about his mental health, the medication he takes, and the problems it causes in his sex life. It’s very dramatic, but also very funny and self-ironic. A really impressive book. Isobel Giles: I’m going to have to read it. Monica Stambrini: I don’t know what he can write after that. Isobel Giles: And your favourite Italian expression? Monica Stambrini: [00:39:00] The first that comes to mind is Oscia dla Madòna – another expression from Romagna. It’s a kind of blasphemy, because it’s aimed at the Madonna, but in a very funny way, the way romagnoli are. Isobel Giles: In what context would you use it? What does it mean? Monica Stambrini: When you’re surprised. Not when you’re angry – when you’re surprised. Isobel Giles: So you’d say, “Oh, gosh—” Monica Stambrini: Oscia dla Madòna! Yes. It’s not mean. Isobel Giles: Okay, I like this. And finally, what has Italy taught you? Monica Stambrini: I grew up in Italy, but maybe the pleasure of eating. I love eating and drinking, and talking while eating and drinking with friends. The pleasure of sitting at a table with friends – I think that’s very Italian. Everybody loves it, but Italians put a lot of effort into it. Isobel Giles: Monica Stambrini, thank you so much for talking us through eroticismo in your own [00:40:00] words. Monica Stambrini: Thank you very much. Isobel Giles: Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of Talking Italy and my conversation with Monica. Ciao ragazzi, see you next week.