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Its a bright mid-afternoon in Corinne Fishers New York apartment, where she apologises for her next door neighbour renovating for what seems like the past year. Dull beats punctuate the sentences of our conversation, one Ive been trying to organise for some three weeks, battling schedules and time differences.

For those trying to pin down Fisher, a long road lies ahead. People can accuse me of a lot of things, she laughs, twisting her shoulder-length brunette hair with her fingers to lie along the top of her spaghetti straps. Her broad New Jersey accent, thick and juicy like tomato sauce-covered meatballs, unravels as she meets me at eyeline again. But laziness is not one of them.

Born to a Jewish father and a lapsed-Catholic mother with a radical approach to sex (we were never shamed for talking about it), Fisher studied film direction in New York City before pivoting to open-mic nights and improvisation work (Fisher is an alumna of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatres prestigious improvisation training program) in late 2010.

Her art first made critics stand up with her debut one-woman show Corinne Fisher: I STALK YOU, which ran at The Peoples Improv Theater in 2010 and was featured in Time Out New York. Since then, she has boasted regularity on the stand-up scene, selling out shows across the US and internationally, including at The Comedy Store, New York Comedy Club, The Stand, and Carolines on Broadway as well as The Wilbur in Boston, the Athenaeum in Chicago, and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center in New York City.

In 2013, when Fisher was dumped by a then-boyfriend at a Panera Bread restaurant (Its like a step above McDonalds), she texted her friend on the comedy scene, then-Saturday Night Live intern Krystyna Hutchinson (they had previously teamed up at Gotham City Improv to tell tales about their own sex lives) to say: We should do a podcast where we interview the guys we fucked. Raunchy, rough, and a subverting mixture of absurdist and caustic, Fisher and Hutchinsons Guys We F**ked, debuted under the radar, later that year. A blend of bold-face interviews, mostly about sex with the people who they used to do it with; and tough-love agony-aunt style advice (Stalins regime, at times, was more compassionate), the series had an unusually high hit rate for a new comedy show.

We wanted the title to draw people in, and I guess we did that, Fisher laughs today. It quickly became a megalith, top-five iTunes chart sensation and self-proclaimed anti-slut-shaming podcast, drifting somewhere between voyeurism and education, all under episode titles such as WHERE DO YOUR ORGANS GO WHEN THE BABY COMES OUT? and DID I RUIN THE BEST SEX OF MY LIFE BY BEING A BITCH?.

The show... provides a fascinating insight into the way we shape our own narratives, like how we truly believe that the person we flirt with at work needs to be with us and not their live-in girlfriend

It grew to host several like-minded provocateurs, fellow comics and people in the sex industry such as Hannah Berner and Amber Rose, and remains steady at over one million listeners (f**kers, as theyre called) worldwide, who share not only intriguing sexual encounters but experiences of sexual assault, abuse and shame due to sexual exploration when censorship doesnt block their content, that is. I just think its so silly, Fisher says now. Out of all the problems we have in the world, the f-word is the thing youre gonna focus on?

The show, now in its 10th year and exceeding 500 episodes, provides a fascinating insight into the way we shape our own narratives, like how we truly believe that the person we flirt with at work needs to be with us and not their live-in girlfriend, or how we refuse to identify ourselves as victims because the sexual assaults weve experienced havent been that bad.

I dont ever want to make someone feel like a victim, Fisher shares. I dont know what its like in Ireland, but were obsessed with victimisation over in the US and sort of making it our whole identity. And I think that can be just as dangerous as not recognising that something bad has happened to you. Its a big reason why weve moved on from the term sexual assault victim to sexual assault survivor, because otherwise theres this like stench of stigma on having something like that have happened to you. If you really dont consider yourself a survivor or victim, then you really dont have to deal with it. Its a lot to ask someone to unpack. And, quite frankly, we dont have the time. Being a woman is exhausting enough already.

Corinne Fisher will be performing at Whelan's in Dublin on April 3rd. Photograph: Alex Schaefer/Joseph Alva Photography

As it happened, Guys We F**ked came at a good time. The early aughts bet on bawdy, female-driven comedy with a never-before-seen tenacity: Whats Your Number?, Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher which starred Cameron Diaz as a weed-smoking, foul-mouthed school teacher received widespread critical acclaim, allowing the new genre of hard female comedies, resplendent with women behaving badly, to provide new footing for the way we view us all. None of this dismisses Guys We F**keds brilliance, instead commending Hollywood for catching up.

[Comedian Grace Campbell: I treated my need for male validation as an addiction]

The ahistorical truism of internet comedy before that used to be that the more a site led with sexually explicit content, the fewer women signed up for it; early doors dating sites resorted to euphemism, letting users look for activity partners or meet-cutes and added questions about hobbies or children to attract people seeking long-term relationships, less the seedy underbelly. While comedy generally remained an outlier to such tact, shows such as Guys We F**ked allowed the underground feminist streaks finally to let their roots grow out.

Weve gotten a few people who have written things like, I bet your dads proud!, which is actually funny because no one was more proud of me than my dad

According to the Luminary, the US-based subscription podcast network on which Guys We F**ked is hosted, the typical listener is female, between 25 and 35, and lives in a big city, most likely New York or Los Angeles. Were huge in Australia too, Fisher continues. Im not sure where specifically, but big, big, big. She credits the recent cultural shift in sexuality with its simultaneous release and acceptance. Its so funny, when we started [the podcast], the idea of having a threesome was so interesting and shocking. These days you see, like, Refinery29 articles about 5 Ways To Make Your First Threesome Amazing. Its hacky, she smiles, but good.

Ten years down and topics such as transitioning, shower sex, codependency and flatulence are commonplace. Do they get tired of being the sex girls? Oh, god, yes, she laughs. We joke that its gonna say Guys We F**ked girls on our graves. I mean, you know, Im very proud of the show. But to me, I think my issue with it is that I dont think about it as a sex show. Its a feminist show. So, Id be perfectly happy to be thought of as a feminist, but it kind of bothers me that when people hear about this programme that weve done for a decade, all they get out of it is sex. That makes me feel like Ive failed in the messaging, you know? Its not at all about sex really, we just put that title on to get people to listen.

Theres nothing new about comedy with a feminist bent, but recognition of the hitherto artistic radicals who paved the way for Guys We F**ked, such as Eve Ensler of The Vagina Monologues or Candace Bushnells Sex and The City, act as useful relics when feminists were labelled as not funny, a smear that persists. Its just a joke, an anti-feminist (or reply guy in todays parlance) might retort. Weve gotten a few people who have written things like, I bet your dads proud!, which is actually funny because no one was more proud of me than my dad. He passed away not too long ago, but up until then he was literally my number one fan.

[I flattered him, knowing hed try to kiss me: Alan Partridge interviews Steve Coogan]

Offstage, Fisher behaves assuredly, breaking character occasionally to laugh. Her dark hair and sweeping eyes lean into Disney villain territory, with a brogue one might associate with the feminist heroines we categorise with Gloria Steinems 1970s, all steady-voiced and strong-postured. She talks about travelling and quotes Michelle Obama (or is it Hillary Clinton?) about learning about a place by the way they treat their women.

I ask her feelings on the word ladylike. My relationship with that word is estranged, she laughs

Onstage, shes fearless. Fisher draws your attention like a petite, pouting fawn ambling through a shooting club meadow wide-eyed and vulnerable, yet perennially the focus of your attention, nimbly darting through the danger. Her voice is an important part of that. Defiant and booming, it erupts from her lips like a loaded gun. I ask her feelings on the word ladylike. My relationship with that word is estranged, she laughs. I think its been used as a way to tell women to shut up and sit down in a way that sounds somewhat still socially acceptable.

This subject matter isnt Fishers alone, of course. It would be easy to lump her in with others who talk dirty, Amy Schumer, Grace Campbell, and Ali Wong among them, but such comparisons often read like a trap, suggesting that female comics exist only in the context of one another, rather than the world at large. That said, theres something to be said for Fisher and Hutchinsons work, allowing material of a sexual nature to become the default and not the exception.

The light dims in Fishers apartment as next doors renovations kick into a higher gear. She leaves for Ireland next week for eight days (my friends are going for 10 and no offence to them, but theres nothing relaxing to me about leaving for more than eight days) where her friends have a whole itinerary planned. Ding, my phone goes off. A bonus episode of Guys We F**ked has just dropped. SHOULD HE TELL YOU YA CANT SLEEP OVER BEFORE YOU GO TO HIS PLACE TO F**K? Another day another dollar, especially when podcast hosts wont let you use every letter.

Guys We F****d is available to stream or download on all podcast platforms

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'I don't think about it as a sex show. It's a feminist show': Corinne ... - The Irish Times