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That’s Not Very Ladylike is the podcast for every woman who was told to be polite, stay calm, or stop being so dramatic, meanwhile her hormones, boundaries, and sanity were quietly falling apart.
Hosted by Tracey Willingham, licensed social worker and the voice behind That Hormone Girl™, each episode starts with one rule: Ladies don’t…and then they do it anyway.
Together, we unpack the unspoken expectations, the emotional labor, the generational BS, and the hormone chaos modern women are carrying and we get honest about what it actually takes to feel like yourself again.
If you’re ready to question the rules, trust your body, and stop shrinking to make everyone else comfortable, you’re in the right place.
You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week, we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. Welcome to another episode of That's Not Very Ladylike. Today, we are once again talking about a topic that is not for little children. This month has been so fun for me. I've enjoyed the spice of February.
Tracey:We need to do spice more throughout the year and maybe I'll sprinkle some in. But we are going to talk a little bit more about some explicit adult terms. So little children in the room, pause me, put some earphones in, come back later. The show is here when you're ready. But I do want to mention same type thing that I usually do at the beginning of these podcasts because I do think it's just so important to always say it.
Tracey:Not all women have had safe sexual experiences. Not all women have had choice, honored. And for some women sex has been shaped by obligation, coercion, or silence. So when I talk about sex and desire in an episode, I am coming from the framework of it's adults, There's consent, there's choice, there's safety, and there's a right to want or not want without punishment. So if this episode opens something up for you that feels tender or unsettling, I want you to know you are not alone.
Tracey:Support matters and it's out there. So let's start by talking about the rule, which is ladies don't initiate sex, they wait to be wanted. And what that means is we wait to be chosen, we wait to be pursued, and we wait for permission to want because wanting first has never felt safe. So here's the rule most women learn so early, it feels like instinct. You have to be pursued.
Tracey:You have to be chosen. You have to let someone else make the first move, and then they decide whether to respond. And that gets sold as power. But let's actually call it what it is. Waiting isn't power.
Tracey:It's permission seeking wrapped in politeness. So it teaches women that desire is something you respond to, not something you originate, and that wanting is only safe if it's already been invited. So we learn to manage ourselves. Is it too soon? Is it too much?
Tracey:Do I look desperate? Do I look needy? Oh gosh, what if I misread the moment? Instead of just simply saying the honest thing, like many men do, I want you. We wait.
Tracey:We hint. We flirt quietly. We test the waters. We hope the signal gets picked up. Wanting openly has never been neutral for women.
Tracey:It always comes with consequences. So I want to share a story that makes me laugh every time I think about it, and it fits this episode so perfectly. If you've had the pleasure and quite really truly, I'm going say if you've had the honor of meeting my husband, he is the most chill, calm, moseying through life, quiet man I think I've ever met. It's why he's so perfect for me because he doesn't want to talk and I get all the space. I get all the microphone time.
Tracey:We're like a perfect pair. And so but he has these moments in life where like a hidden part of himself appears and I'm like, who's this dude? And I'm not gonna like I like that dude. I like when he shows up. So we were at a wedding and my husband had been drinking.
Tracey:And the funny thing about my husband is he's very stoic, very silent. But when he when he drinks, he can get like he can get funny, which I enjoy, but he gets affectionate, which is just weird because you know, it's like my husband is more of like a doer. So my family and friends all the time. Okay, I'm going give you an example. So many of you are probably going to send me an email and be like, you're ridiculous.
Tracey:But I hate scooping ice cream. I hate it. It's horrible. And yes, I know you can like run the scoop under hot water. I just I don't enjoy it.
Tracey:So my husband pre scoops ice cream into containers for me. Now, before you all start jumping on me, my husband actually prefers to do acts of service more so than if I asked him to sit down and have a five minute conversation on emotions. And so he is affectionate through doing things for me, for caring for me. But he's not the guy that's going to stand outside. What was that?
Tracey:Say anything? He's not going to stand outside my window with a boombox and be like, I love you. It's just not going to happen. So when he is affectionate like that, it's just like, who is this dude? And I mean, time at the wedding, he was being loudly affectionate.
Tracey:He was telling everyone how much he loved me. He was winking at me. He's making comments about, hey, later you and me. And at one point, I'm pretty sure he said something that made people gasp and laugh at the same time. And so our friends are starting to nudge me and family.
Tracey:Family is there too. That's always awesome. So friends are nudging me like, hey, do y'all need to get your own room tonight? Family members are making jokes. Someone literally asked if we like, should we give you privacy?
Tracey:And I'm laughing because here's the thing, friends. I know my husband and I know nothing is going to happen. And they're looking at me like, girl, this dude, like, yeah, something's going to happen. And I said, no, I'm going to tell you right now, I've been married to this man long enough to know he's not even going to undress. He's going to fall half off the bed, pass out.
Tracey:And once he's out, you can't move him. And I'm gonna let him sleep like that. And he knows that. And everyone was like, okay. You're so silly.
Tracey:And we get back to the room. And guess what, y'all? Exactly what I said. He was walking in the room wink wink wink wink. Passed out half off the bed, half on the bed, didn't take off his clothes.
Tracey:And I just stood there smiling and laughing and saying I know this man. And so I share that with you because there are times where we probably even think we're initiating. And there's maybe even times like that where you have some outside influences that help you be like, Okay, I'm going to take these shots of vodka and I'm going to initiate. But most of the time, what we think we're doing, what we think we're subtly say, maybe we're even loudly saying drunk, a lot of times that isn't going to be the full initiation. Plus, I just love a good story where my husband is not himself.
Tracey:So what I want to go from there, my husband's like, I love that you're sharing my life here on a podcast, by the way. But here's what I want to talk about on the other side of that is here's what's waiting to be wanted does over time. It teaches women to distrust their own desire. So you're waiting for confirmation before believing what you even feel. You're looking outward for validation instead of inside yourself for truth.
Tracey:And you're confused. You're confused about being chosen without being empowered. And slowly, desire stops feeling like something alive inside the body and it starts feeling like something that only exists when someone else activates it. So now wanting has actually turned into watching. I'm watching for cues.
Tracey:I'm watching for interest. I'm watching for reassurance that it's okay to want what I want. And that's not intimacy, friends. It's vigilance. And vigilance keeps our nervous system on edge because when you're always waiting, you're not present.
Tracey:You're scanning, calculating, protecting yourself from rejection instead of maybe even allowing connection. And it's such an exhausting way to live, but also an even harder way to experience intimacy. So historically, this rule did not come from romance. This was not a romance novel. It came from control and survival.
Tracey:So historically, a woman who initiated sex wasn't seen as confident or empowered. She was seen as immoral, unstable, untrustworthy, and promiscuous. And I want you to think about this. Everybody thought it was adorable when my husband was doing those things. I want you to sit and think about what if the role was reversed?
Tracey:What if I acted that way? There'd probably be comments like, I'm so embarrassed for him. What is she doing? She's out of control. This is nuts.
Tracey:So just let that and think: immoral, unstable, untrustworthy, promiscuous. Women's desire was treated as something dangerous, something that needed to be contained, regulated, or erased. And marriage was not a partnership. It was about control, lineage, reputation, and protection. So a woman's safety and status, it depended on how she was perceived.
Tracey:So women were taught, let the men pursue. Let the men initiate. Let the men decide when desire enters the room. And most of the time, we're gonna be honest, that desire was not romantic. It was strategic.
Tracey:It was a way to stay respectable. It was a way to avoid punishment. It was a way to survive in systems where women paid the price for wanting openly. And even though those times have maybe, maybe somewhat changed, that conditioning has not disappeared. And so you can still see this inheritance to that everywhere.
Tracey:Women still worry about being seen as too eager. They still hesitate to initiate even in long term loving relationships And you still fear rejection more than disconnection. And it's not because we don't want to initiate. It's just because an old rule keeps whispering, What if you're not wanted back? And that fear is not made up.
Tracey:It's learned, and it's generational. It's the echo of a time when wanting carried real consequences, and the body remembers, even when the mind knows better, so women wait. Even when we're lonely and we're disconnected and we want that closeness just as much as our partner does. So before initiation is ever physical, it's emotional. And it's the moment a woman lets herself be seen wanting.
Tracey:And that part feels dangerous because women aren't just taught to initiate sex. Not we aren't just taught not to. We're taught not to initiate anything that reveals need. So no affection, no closeness, conversation, vulnerability. We learn things like we learn early that wanting something first puts us at risk.
Tracey:So risk of rejection, risk of being judged. So women don't just wait to be wanted sexually. We wait emotionally and we wait for someone else to reach out, start the conversation, ask how they're doing, name the disconnect, make the first move. Because initiating emotionally requires the same thing initiating sexually does, self trust. So when women wait emotionally, they learn to disconnect from themselves.
Tracey:So we start saying things like, it's not that important. I don't want to bother them. Well, I don't want to make things awkward. Instead of saying things like, I miss you, we instead stay quiet. And instead of saying, I need some reassurance, we minimize it.
Tracey:And instead of just saying what we want, I want to be closer, I want to feel closer, We wait and hope the other person notices and hope becomes the strategy. But hope isn't connection. It's longing without voice. So why emotional initiation feels riskier than physical? And it hits deep.
Tracey:It really hits deep, my friends. Physical initiation can be brushed off. Emotional initiation feels personal. So when you say, I want sex and it's not return, it stings. When you say, I want closeness and it's not met, it cuts deeper.
Tracey:So women protect themselves by waiting. Waiting feels safer. But protection does have a cost because when you never initiate emotionally, you slowly disappear from the relationship. And it's not usually loud or a dramatic exit. It's very quiet.
Tracey:So here's the shift that happens. And quite frankly, it happens around this like midlife perimenopausal time. That's why I do all my work as that hormone girl is that women realize that waiting, it's not patience, it's not maturity, it's not grace, it's just absence. And so emotional initiation is simply presence. It's saying, I'm here.
Tracey:I want connection. I care enough to step forward. And it makes me feel alive. It's not about forcing anything. It's about saying this is what I want.
Tracey:So if this were allowed to be said and I mean like just not bold on a good day, but just honest language if we were allowed to say it, it would sound like I want to feel closer to you. I don't want to keep waiting for you to notice. I want you. I'm allowed to initiate. If I get rejected, I can survive that.
Tracey:And I don't want to outsource my desire anymore. So same rule as always, you don't have to say these. These aren't like practice. You can just say them to yourself. If maybe one of those you were like, Oh, she got me on that one.
Tracey:But here is some reflection to take it a little deeper. So instead of asking, What if I'm rejected? Let's look at some different questions instead. Where in my life am I waiting instead of participating? What do I believe initiating would say about me?
Tracey:Who taught me that wanting first was risky? And what have I been protecting myself from? What might become possible if I trusted my desire even a little? And I want you to pay attention to your body to see if any of those gave you a little bit of a tickle. And those are the ones you want to start sitting with.
Tracey:So let's start closing it for the day. My friends, here's the truth. Women didn't learn to wait to be wanted because it was romantic. It's not a rom com strategy. It's because it's safer.
Tracey:And it's safer to let someone else lead. It's safer to let someone else risk rejection. And it's safer to stay desirable instead of visible. Let that one sink in. That one hurts.
Tracey:That one really hurts. Safer to stay desirable instead of visible. But safety that requires you to silence your wanting, it isn't safety. It's self erasure with really good manners. So you are allowed to want.
Tracey:You are allowed to initiate emotionally, physically, relationally. You are allowed to step forward instead of standing still. And it is your damn right to know what you want and to name it and to participate fully in your own desire. And choosing not to wait anymore, choosing presence over protection is not desperation, it's power. And that is the most unladylike thing of all.
Tracey:Thanks for joining me today for that's not very ladylike. If today's episode lit a fire, pushed your buttons, or called a little BS on the stories we've been sold, share it with another woman who's tired of being told to tone it down, smile more, or play nice. And help a girl out by making sure you subscribe, leave a quick review, and catch me on Instagram at that hormone girl. And until next time, keep getting loud, messy, and raising hell because being ladylike is overrated.