Season 7 Episode 13: Reproductive Coercion: Breaking Down the Hidden Signs with LC De Shay
About This Episode
Reproductive coercion rarely announces itself with a dramatic confession. More often, it shows up as a pause in the exam room, a quiet “I don’t really have a choice,” or a new mom who seems exhausted beyond what postpartum should demand.
Ruth and David sit down with LC De Shay (also known as the Digital Dominatrix), an international gender and migration psychosocial analyst, reproductive health specialist, and full spectrum doula, to name what so many families are living through and what too many systems still fail to catch. They dig into the behavioural landscape of coercive control around sex, contraception, pregnancy, and parenting, including why survivors may not recognise or disclose coercion without the right language and the right questions.
LC shares how clinicians can miss obvious signals when screening becomes a checkbox and why open-ended, concrete prompts can surface what “Do you feel safe?” never will. Ruth, David, and LC also talk about the perinatal period and postpartum window as a time of elevated domestic violence risk and how partner behaviour can shape maternal health, breastfeeding, infant feeding, and child development while professionals keep placing responsibility on mothers alone.
From migration-related vulnerability to workplace pressure, from school systems to child welfare responses, David, Ruth, and LC map the “whirlpool” of entrapment that keeps people stuck. They also confront how high-control religion, Quiverfull culture, and trad wife messaging can frame reproductive coercion as virtue, while “progressive” judgment can unintentionally shove survivors back into isolating communities. And they make space for a crucial nuance: Men’s pain under patriarchy can be real, but it never justifies violence, and accountability means redirecting anger upstream rather than dumping it onto women and children.
If you care about reproductive safety, health, autonomy, trauma-informed care, maternal health, and practical domestic violence prevention, this conversation gives you language you can use today.
Additional Resources
Podcast: Season 3 Episode 8: Understanding Reproductive Coercion: An Interview with Dr. Heather McCauley
Safe & Together Institute’s domestic abuse–informed trainings
Safe & Together Institute’s upcoming events
David Mandel’s book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence