0:06

Hello, and welcome to stuff I've never told

0:08

you. I

0:21

am Annie, and I have joined once again by

0:23

Samantha, who, unfortunately I surprised

0:26

with my intro. I can't said, I

0:28

don't know why that made me laugh. There's a

0:30

moment of you looking up like you were trying to remember

0:32

your name. I actually

0:36

have a history of I won't

0:38

say forgetting my name, but because I

0:40

have an oddly spelled name, UM,

0:42

a lot of people look at me and

0:45

I've been asked more than once are you sure? And

0:48

so I had a period of my life, particularly

0:51

in high school, where a

0:53

teacher came up to me and he put my tests

0:55

in in front of me and he said, Annie,

0:58

I think you misspelled your name name. And

1:01

I had a moment of complete panic

1:03

Samantha, because I was like,

1:05

oh my god, what if he's

1:08

right. All of my life

1:10

I've been saying my name wrong, but

1:12

I've said it that's a thing. It is, And

1:14

I've said on this show before, well

1:17

I don't know if that's a thing, but the self

1:19

doubt certainly is. And I said on this show

1:21

before that I hate the way I say my name because

1:24

I feel like I say it with a question like I'm

1:27

annie question, are

1:30

we sure? Because I'm so used

1:32

to get in questioned about it. That's not what this

1:34

episode is about. But I do think it could be

1:36

an episode. I think we should because I have

1:39

a hard time pronouncing my own name, and I wonder

1:41

if it's because I learned Korean

1:43

first and or I'm

1:45

just really bad with words. But

1:47

this is why this podcast is really fun, because

1:50

words are difficult for me. Fun

1:53

with pronunciation. I don't do well

1:55

with the well, I'm

1:57

glad you're here, uh, glass

1:59

of the you are joining us again

2:01

today, and are our many series

2:05

to distract all the things yes keep

2:07

going, particularly me um looking

2:09

at trauma and the age of me too.

2:12

And we have a bit of a lighter episode today because when

2:14

we were kind of arcing out our episodes,

2:18

we knew that they were going to be difficult for us and for

2:20

you, and we wanted to

2:22

have some things that we're

2:24

a little bit lighter. Um. I will

2:26

say that, of course I

2:29

took it down a dark path. I

2:31

mean not to when

2:33

your mindset is, oh my goodness,

2:36

all these things are bad, and when

2:38

it comes to sex, there's definitely a

2:40

dark side and a light side.

2:42

Is that the word. Yeah, I

2:45

feel like you're in a Star Wars

2:47

movie right now, and I don't know what those

2:49

are because she doesn't. She hasn't seen them.

2:56

Um, But for

2:58

this our our lighter at eisode, UM,

3:01

we're going to be talking about

3:05

sex and society and women

3:07

and how they all interact. And it's kind of

3:09

a first part two.

3:12

We're gonna look at dating and I'm going

3:14

to count on you a lot, because, as I've

3:16

said before, I don't really date. Um,

3:19

but Samantha, you have a lot of stories. I

3:21

have stories. Um, I'm gonna say we might

3:23

be in trouble for those episodes because

3:26

I'm awful at dating honestly,

3:28

may not be trouble as much as more entertaining

3:31

indoor my downfall, which

3:34

is also entertaining. But

3:36

hey, low expectations expect

3:40

Go ahead and assume that I have some weird

3:42

dates and my interaction

3:45

as a social person is really

3:47

awkward. Just yeah,

3:49

I love it. Yes, I don't love

3:51

it as much as oh my gosh, I did that. They're

3:54

fun stories to share. We'll

3:56

say there there could be some enjoyment

3:59

from your I mean honestly, that's

4:01

like, um, one of the

4:03

ways that you can meet people that you have

4:05

that commonality of this date was

4:07

bad? While was your date bad?

4:10

Or really let me see let me tell you about my story.

4:12

Yes, and I have plenty of bad

4:14

dating stories as well. You're not alone. I just like

4:16

more accidental in mine. Um,

4:19

you do go onto accidental accidental dates

4:21

A super weird all the time. I don't mean

4:23

to hints accidental. Yeah,

4:28

but um, I can't wait to talk about that.

4:30

And if any of you listeners have fun

4:32

stories or embarrassing stories, any stories

4:34

you're willing to share about your dating experiences,

4:37

and these are modern times, please send them our way. We

4:39

might include them. We want

4:41

to be normal, so

4:43

therefore we would love weird interactions to

4:45

make us feel normal. Yeah, please

4:48

please help us feel normal. Um.

4:52

Some trigger warnings before we dive

4:54

in. We're gonna be talking about date rape

4:56

culture, UM, definition

4:59

and differentiate between rape and

5:01

date rape, acquaintance, rape, rape inside of marriage,

5:04

body image expectation, and

5:06

women's sexuality. Am I a sloot

5:09

because I like sex? We're gonna

5:11

investigate that whole question, sex,

5:15

toys, and the value

5:17

of virginity. So if any of those are

5:20

triggering for you, as always, please

5:22

take care of your own mental health before

5:26

listening. And

5:29

we are creating a

5:31

culture that perpetuates

5:34

everything we're talking about, like how we mentioned

5:36

grooming on a national scale. So

5:39

that's why it turned into a much bigger thing

5:41

than the light episode we were planning,

5:45

um again when it comes to sex,

5:47

especially right now in this day

5:49

and age, as we try to redefine women's

5:52

rights, redefine the

5:54

role of women. And I say that

5:56

because of the administration and the

6:00

atwards take we have on the

6:02

laws that have been created from way back when

6:05

such as well, I won't get all of that,

6:07

but I think people understand what

6:10

we're doing. And it seems like feminism

6:13

has having to defend itself once

6:15

again. Defend herself. We're

6:18

gonna put it as a person, it's

6:22

it's an entity, um once

6:25

again and what does that look

6:27

like on a national scale? And unfortunately, right now

6:29

we have to again redefine what

6:32

assault looks like, what abuse looks like,

6:34

what um, grape

6:37

looks like. And then we shouldn't have to, but

6:39

yet the people in charge are

6:41

having to make us do. So I feel

6:43

like, right, and this is we're

6:46

talking both culturally

6:48

but also legally in this case,

6:52

Yeah, I mean, it's

6:55

wild to me that after Kavanaugh

6:58

was confirmed, how many friends of mine were like, I try

7:00

to go get any right. Honestly, that

7:02

was the first thing I was like, we and I've had several friends,

7:04

but we're gonna go ahead and get a new one before the

7:06

law changes and we can't get birth control

7:09

for a reasonable price or

7:11

for preventative purposes. Yeah,

7:14

right, yeah, And that's another thing of

7:18

UM, I've told you I

7:21

have been too afraid to go

7:23

because I had such a bad experience and

7:26

I need um, Like a lot of friends

7:28

of mine have gone and they got prescribed like pain

7:31

pills, and I need that because

7:33

I had like a panic attack last time I went.

7:35

It was incredibly painful. Um.

7:38

And you're not the only one I know. UM. There's

7:40

many conversations just in conversations

7:42

with Caroline from the

7:45

previous stuff I've never told you host as

7:47

well as now unladylike she

7:49

and I had a very vast difference

7:52

in experience when it came to our I U

7:55

d S. I literally

7:57

went in. She barely gave me anything.

7:59

My UM kind of college which was like you'll

8:02

be fine, and I was, And then I went

8:04

running and as where

8:06

Caroline has told her experience of seeing

8:08

colors and things are like, what is happening

8:11

with you? Right? And

8:13

that's not to negate that the people experience that,

8:15

but it's just the fact that there is a differentiation between

8:18

one and the other, and how actually

8:20

it can be traumatizing as well because it

8:22

is kind of an invasive process even though

8:24

it's simple process. Oh yeah, I've

8:26

talked about that before on a different episode.

8:29

How the first time I went to a gynecologist he told

8:31

me I was pregnant and it scarred me for life.

8:33

Oh my gosh, I can now say with

8:35

certainty life

8:38

and it's just a bad cheap pregnancy test. Um.

8:41

But you know what, when it comes to sexuality,

8:44

I think the reason this again we're

8:46

talking a little deeper than what we had intended

8:48

because we when we you and I discussed

8:50

it, it it was a lot of funny anecdotes

8:52

about our sexuality or our sex life

8:55

and or life thereof um. But

8:57

now we're starting to not start

9:00

do it's always been a thing where women's

9:02

sexualization is almost used

9:04

against them, Yes, and that since

9:07

that's something that's come up and our previous

9:09

episodes we've done around trauma,

9:12

let's talk about sexualization.

9:15

The American Psychological Association

9:17

the APIA specifies four things that

9:19

separate sexualization from healthy sexuality.

9:22

One, a person's value comes only from

9:25

his or her appeal or behavior,

9:27

to the exclusion of other characteristics.

9:29

Two, a person is held to a standard

9:32

that equates physical attractiveness,

9:34

which is narrowly defined with being

9:36

sexy. Three, a person

9:38

is made into a thing for others sexual

9:41

use, rather than seen as a person

9:43

with the capacity for independent action and

9:46

decision making, and or for sexuality

9:49

is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

9:51

This is especially relevant when children

9:53

are imbued with adult sexuality.

9:57

Yes, and the images we see

10:00

in media matter. They

10:02

really do, especially when we're talking about kids

10:04

outside of school and sleep. Children

10:06

spend the most time interacting

10:09

with entertainment media as opposed to other things

10:11

that they do in their life. Sexualization

10:14

and media can be revealing

10:16

clothing facial expression that conveys

10:19

sexual readiness. So if you think about pretty

10:21

much any ad that has a what

10:23

I would call a sexy woman

10:25

in it, she has this face. You'll

10:27

recognize it when you see it. Objectification

10:30

is being presented as an object. This

10:33

is pretty common in advertising, seeing just a

10:35

body part and there's a whole website dedicated

10:37

to rounding up all the quote headless women

10:40

that we see. And I'm telling

10:42

you you won't be able to unsee that

10:45

once you like start looking.

10:47

It's everywhere. I don't want to. I don't

10:49

want to see that at all, because I was already traumatized

10:51

by some of the commercials that try to make hamburgers

10:54

sexy. Do you remember parties you're

10:56

talking about? Who Trump trying

10:59

to put that in charge

11:01

of Yeah,

11:03

that's right. No, Yeah, that was scarring enough.

11:05

I'm like, why we already

11:07

know this woman doesn't eat this hamwriter, she

11:10

has paid a nutritionist to

11:12

make sure she can stay thin, and that's great

11:14

for her, that's what she wants. While I

11:18

I mean, and then also we can talk about this

11:21

whole actual, say social media thing that

11:23

occurred between Natalie Portman Jessica Simpson.

11:25

I'm assuming you don't know, I know, but

11:28

the whole Natalie Portman came out

11:30

and talked about how when she was a child actress, she

11:32

would look at all the images and feel

11:34

like she had to be sexualized, and she put Jessica

11:37

Simpson's commercial, which I believe wasn't

11:39

she one of the ones a the hammer. Maybe

11:42

I think she was she was and

11:45

was so sexualized that she was really she said

11:47

she was really confused on what she was supposed to be,

11:49

which then Jessica Simpson was

11:51

really upset, feeling like she was being called

11:53

out for sexualizing something

11:56

as a child. But the whole misinterpretation

11:59

was that Natalie Portman was confused and

12:02

she was giving an example, but why she was confused

12:04

as where trying to figure out between

12:06

being sexualized objectively and

12:09

or having your own sexuality, which is what Jessica

12:11

Simpson felt like she was doing. So

12:13

it's kind of this whole like then

12:15

middle line in this conversation what

12:18

it is sexual be to be sexualized

12:20

and to be sexual yea,

12:23

as we were talking about. And then that's kind of the same

12:25

thing when I talk about social media. Children

12:28

have more access to porn on

12:30

the Internet, which has now begun

12:33

this whole early sexualization for children,

12:35

and so because they have no context of

12:38

what this porn is trying to portray, they

12:40

see that as true sex. So when

12:42

you have a conversation with many of teens, many

12:45

kids, and I say teens, you

12:47

will see this misconception continue on

12:49

whether it's the whole Oh, she's saying no,

12:51

but she means yes. She's wearing sexy

12:54

clothes, she's coming on to me. That means I can have sex

12:56

with our all of these things, and

12:59

both female and mil youth

13:01

that I've worked with as a social

13:04

worker because of what they see on

13:06

pornography, really are so confused

13:09

about consent. They're so confused

13:12

about the right timing. And then

13:14

they also have these urges because

13:16

of what they see, all of these

13:18

sexy images that they don't know

13:20

how to control it, and neither do they know consent

13:23

and therefore move forward in violating

13:25

other people without understanding what it is.

13:28

And like you said, yeah, women and

13:30

girls engage with a lot of media that

13:32

sexualizes women. Um, and

13:35

people that do engage and more of that

13:37

stuff are more likely to ascribe a

13:39

woman's value primarily to their

13:42

physical appearance. And I

13:44

thought of things like beauty pageants,

13:46

Tardler's and tiers like Tarler's in tiers.

13:49

Think about that, right, I mean,

13:51

if you look at most of the reality shows, if

13:54

you're a child who's watching housewives

13:56

of blah blah blah, not that they're

13:58

not entertaining. I do find them in entertaining at

14:00

times, but it does have this whole persona

14:03

of you need to look a certain way, you need

14:05

to compete with other women, data data

14:07

DA yes, and then

14:09

toys and clothing that these

14:12

are big factors in this conversation as well,

14:14

things like brats, the Brats

14:16

dolls and monster high dolls

14:18

that have copies, makeup, high heels,

14:21

may skirts, small waist, big boobs, which

14:23

yes, you could get in discussions

14:26

like we have around dress code. I think that's been my biggest

14:28

like personal wrestling with

14:30

this because I'm someone that does

14:32

like to dress sexy on occasion

14:35

and it's my own like healthy sexuality, but I worry

14:37

about how children are perceiving it because

14:40

and it's not on me, but it's on this

14:43

culture that has made

14:46

my own healthy sexuality

14:48

is being taken as

14:51

something that is working off of like sexualization

14:54

and the male gaze, you know what I mean, right, And

14:56

that's part of again the problem being

14:58

sexualized and being sexual

15:01

And i'd, like you said at the very beginning, because

15:04

I too have that moment of like, hey, I

15:06

have lingerie, I like to wear it every now

15:08

again, it's not for him, it's for me, right, And

15:10

that's when I say him I'm gonna put a quote becau

15:12

isn't really for

15:15

me to make myself

15:18

feel better? And then at the same time, yeah, you have

15:20

this whole persona that to be

15:22

sexy, you need to look sexy for

15:24

your man or your partner, and that's the only

15:26

way you're valued is by

15:29

taking on this claim that yes, I'm sexual, but

15:31

I'm doing this for you as well. Right, the

15:34

dichotomy of trying to

15:37

be your own person and liking yourself.

15:39

But do you buy into this industry

15:41

that spends so much

15:43

of their time to get money from women because

15:46

they work on their insecurities, which

15:48

is another episode Oh my goodness. But it

15:52

does relate to magazines

15:55

and as study in two thousand and eight found that across

15:57

fifty eight magazines, over fifty of

15:59

the ads featuring a woman in them portrayed

16:02

the woman as a sexual object.

16:04

However, when looking at specifically

16:07

men's magazines, that number rose to

16:09

seventy six percent, which

16:12

is pretty high, really high.

16:15

Do you think it's for the lonely men to appreciate

16:18

this woman more so than for women to actually buy

16:20

these things? No,

16:23

maybe I'm trying to think of um,

16:25

you know all I'm thinking of our old

16:28

stereotypes about young

16:31

boys hiding playboy definitely.

16:34

I mean, and then some sitcoms you

16:36

see them taking Victoria's Secret magazine.

16:38

Oh sure, you know what I'm saying. Sure, yeah,

16:41

Well, by the way, there's a lot of photoshopping

16:44

in there. Let's just put that out there. Sam's

16:46

no to the episode. There is photoshopping

16:49

involved. No one's perfect.

16:52

In two thousand and six, the APA looked

16:54

at the sexualization of our society and

16:57

here were their key takeaways.

17:00

Women and girls are more likely to be sexualized

17:02

and objectified by our media than boys are men,

17:05

which I would guess is no surprise to anyone listening,

17:07

but anyone can be sexualized.

17:10

Boys are more likely to internalize images

17:12

of men being aggressive, dominant,

17:15

and powerful, which is a compliment to sexualization

17:17

when it comes to rape culture,

17:20

right. I mean, you kind of talked about

17:22

it when we were talking about last uh, the last

17:24

episode when you were bruised up, and they're like,

17:26

oh, you like it rough. This is kind of

17:28

that same mentality because I've definitely been approached

17:31

online and we're going to talk more about it about

17:34

me being dominated. That is

17:36

definitely a comment. I'm like, what

17:38

I just said, Hi, translate

17:40

to I want to be dominated, Like, yeah,

17:43

exactly, that's exactly it. We're

17:45

teaching women like through these

17:48

ads, oh, you are objects

17:51

to be used for pleasure and hey,

17:53

men, the aggressive, possessive,

17:55

dominant. If you want to be a real man and show

17:57

good sexuality, you have to dominate your

18:00

partner. And like we

18:02

talked about in our episode around Terry Crews,

18:04

this is very damaging when it comes to men

18:07

reporting sexual assault. And honestly, we could

18:09

also talk about the many incidents of boys

18:11

and their female teachers and or

18:13

someone who is female that have power

18:16

over another and until recently, it

18:18

wasn't perceived as abuse and it's very

18:20

underreported, even to the fact. One of my

18:22

favorite shows, Dirty Rock,

18:25

I appreciate it. I think it's fantastic. I think it's

18:27

funny, but they use plot plotline

18:30

where one of the main characters was

18:32

abused as a kid by his teacher and

18:35

now has a formulated relationship. And

18:37

I understand that was supposed to be ironic,

18:41

but at the same time it perpetuates that whole idea

18:43

is that's not a big deal, but it should

18:45

be because there's a lot of manipulation

18:48

that could be involved and or

18:50

a lot of um psychological

18:53

trauma that we don't understand from boys

18:55

because they're also supposed to pretend like they like

18:58

it even if they don't, and if they

19:00

don't, and if they tell, then they're

19:02

weak and they're not being

19:04

they're not paying avenge of the situation, which

19:07

is absurd, right because in

19:09

our society, men always want to have sex,

19:12

yeah, which is unfortunate

19:15

and bad. And every time I hear a person

19:17

grief joke, I get very angry.

19:19

This whole thing sexualization

19:22

and seeing this objectified version

19:26

in our media leads to greater

19:29

feelings of shame and anxiety

19:31

about one's looks, increased negative

19:33

mental health outcomes among teen girls.

19:36

And if we look at girls and young women between

19:38

ten to nineteen years over a fifty year

19:40

period, rates of anorexia nervosa

19:43

mirrored fashion and body image ideals.

19:45

So it does

19:47

impact physically mentally

19:51

how we are taking

19:53

care of ourselves are not taking care of ourselves. And

19:56

if we focus in on self esteem,

19:59

the of Self Esteem Project found that only

20:01

eleven percent of girls would call

20:04

themselves beautiful, and concerns

20:06

about their looks was enough for six out of ten

20:08

girls to avoid a fundamental

20:10

life activity of

20:13

ten year old girls in the US are afraid

20:15

of being fat, right,

20:18

I mean, I definitely understand that. I feel

20:20

like I've missed out on a lot of childhood

20:23

teenage things because I feel like I was too fat

20:25

in college activities. Even because I felt

20:27

like I was too fat, I didn't like the way on my

20:29

body looked, and therefore I had to cover everything.

20:32

I isolated myself and or

20:34

over compensated by joking

20:36

about my own body and or race in or something

20:39

that was obvious to try to negate

20:41

and try to push away from them

20:43

hearing someone else making fun of me. Right,

20:46

yeah, me too. And I wore clothing

20:48

that was huge, like hide

20:50

my body. I did not wear

20:53

jeans or pants for

20:55

literally four years really because

20:57

I was associated with my body.

20:59

Yeah, um, what is that special?

21:01

Is it the comedy special? Nan?

21:05

I don't know. I have to go back and research

21:07

it. But she was. She's a comedian who

21:11

refused to who refused

21:13

to do her special because the

21:15

majority of the time she was a

21:18

lesbian with you know,

21:20

bigger body, and so her jokes were

21:22

always about her body and or her

21:24

sexuality, and it was so self

21:26

deprecating that it became damaging, and

21:29

finally in this episode, she was like, I'm done.

21:31

I'm done with comedy. This is suppose you

21:33

think you're here for a comedic comedic

21:35

stand, but you're not. This is not what it

21:38

is. I'm done making fun of myself

21:40

and putting myself down for entertainment of others.

21:43

Embody image to level set

21:46

is the mental representation that we

21:48

create of what we look like. And

21:50

it might be how others see you, or

21:53

it might not be. It is influenced by all

21:55

kinds of things, what we see in the media, our

21:57

friends, our family. One of

21:59

my uncle that he used to joke with

22:01

me that I needed to shop in the maternity

22:04

ward and I'm sure he didn't mean

22:06

it to have as much of a damaging impact

22:08

as it did. Oh yeah,

22:10

I think I love how

22:13

family members feel like they have the right to

22:15

call you out on things when they're

22:17

probably just as guilty and worse.

22:20

Right, Um, I definitely had been told,

22:23

oh you can kind of fit there. You've been eating some you've

22:25

been eating, haven't you You You're

22:27

looking good. It's okay, keep going girls.

22:29

These a little like nudge nudge, Great?

22:32

Is that passive aggressive, I'm complimenting you

22:34

at the same time I'm telling you you're fat. Yeah.

22:36

Yes. And when you

22:39

search body image online, almost

22:41

all of the top results are women

22:44

and body image. Women's help dot

22:46

Gov has a whole page about body image,

22:48

but research does show that it is increasingly

22:51

impacting men and boys. A

22:53

friend recently described this to me as

22:55

the Disney princessification

22:59

of superhero rows impacting

23:01

men. A new report in the Atlantic

23:04

found that of boys are

23:06

concerned with their weight and physique,

23:08

then ideal media is a term that gets thrown around

23:10

a lot, and this impacts all

23:12

of us. But whereas women are

23:15

most likely to feel pressured to lose weight,

23:18

men are equally likely to feel pressured to

23:20

lose weight and to gain weight

23:22

via muscle at the same time.

23:25

Sexualization has been linked by several studies

23:28

to eating disorders, low self esteem,

23:30

and depression. These are

23:33

negative mental and physical

23:35

outcomes from what we're talking about, and

23:37

on a personal level, I'm not sure I could ever properly

23:40

express the shame and fear

23:43

I have of my body. In

23:45

high school, I used to throw up every morning when I saw

23:47

myself in the mirror, and my parents thought I might

23:49

be pregnant um and explaying

23:52

morning sickness, and

23:54

eventually I ended up in the hospital. I

23:56

went through several eating disorders.

23:59

People are dying, are

24:01

being sick to a certain

24:03

way, right. I definitely have worked with many

24:05

girls who have been hospitalized

24:08

due to their illness, and

24:10

it is an illness. I think that's one of

24:12

the things that we need to talk about. It

24:15

is a mental health illness that they can

24:17

never be satisfied. And it's not just

24:19

because of society. It is definitely a

24:21

big attribute to them, but then their own

24:23

self worth and control.

24:25

So when we were talking about the trauma and the loss

24:28

of appetite, it is something that people can control.

24:30

So it is really really scary

24:32

because people have died, people have ruined

24:35

their um. It's

24:38

just like they can't function, they

24:40

lose their hair, they look gone

24:42

like it's just such an unfortunate thing. I

24:44

will say I didn't necessarily

24:47

deal with anorexia or bulimia,

24:49

but I definitely stop eating. And even now,

24:51

I mean this morning, you and I talked about the things that we're

24:54

doing to try to combat are

24:56

weight gain from the

24:58

holidays and is still

25:00

a big important thing. I'm like, I can't fit into these pants.

25:03

I have to do a B, C and D to

25:05

lose this weight quickly because I feel like

25:08

blah, yeah, essentially yes,

25:11

yeah, and it's it really bothers me because,

25:13

like one of my best friends and also my mom

25:15

to a certain extent, almost always

25:18

we end up talking about like weight and

25:20

losing weight. Um. And

25:22

to this day, I still get uncomfortable

25:24

when men tell me they think I'm beautiful, and

25:26

I'm not too sure why. I

25:28

think it's because I feel like I'm

25:30

not. I'm immediately self conscious

25:33

and to me, it's like a passing of judgment on

25:36

more than looks, but also my worth, and

25:38

I can't help but interpreting it as I

25:41

want to have sex with you, which then frightens

25:43

me because I'm already thinking how

25:45

can I diffuse this situation so it doesn't reach

25:47

that point? And I know that's a lot to get from

25:49

what ostensibly is a compliment, right,

25:51

I mean, I have similar reaction. I think

25:54

for me it has a lot to do with the fact I was sexualized

25:56

at such a young age, and even now,

25:58

the sexualized perception an Asian woman

26:01

has me on edge with most men

26:03

I meet. I'm very, very weary when

26:05

I get head on, because the majority

26:07

of the time, I'm gonna say probably seventy at

26:09

the time that I get hit on, it begins with

26:12

where are you from? Right?

26:15

No? No, but where are you from? Really? And

26:18

or no, no, where is your family from? Because

26:20

I like to mess with people. I'm like, I'm from Ella j Georgia.

26:22

No no, no, no no. But I mean,

26:24

if I actually look at all

26:26

of these things, I automatically assume it's not

26:28

sincere. And again, it's

26:31

kind of like you have a motive for telling

26:33

me this. And I will say, even my

26:35

father, my adoptive father, who I love

26:37

and is my father, would tell me things

26:39

about how great I am or whatever, and I would

26:41

get so uncomfortable because I know you don't like it, and it

26:43

it would walk away trying to tell me. But he

26:46

needs to tell me, I think, because

26:48

he is a good father, trying to raise

26:51

a self worth and within myself.

26:53

But to me just automatically came hum

26:56

manipulating me as

26:58

you were saying, and or are this

27:01

is something that I can't control and

27:03

you're gonna use this against me? Right?

27:06

Yeah, exactly. And when your

27:08

value is defined through your

27:10

desirability to someone else, and it's this super

27:13

narrow window, UM that for a lot

27:15

of us is out of our reach. It's

27:17

hard not to internalize that and turn

27:20

it into failure like we

27:22

were talking about in our very first episode

27:24

in the series, and to low self

27:26

worth in two Feelings of Shame. And

27:29

as I've said before, I'm a big cause player

27:32

and kind of alluding back

27:34

to what we were talking about. This episode

27:37

has made me think a lot about how

27:39

I love to dress and sexy

27:42

cosplay sexy outfits,

27:44

and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but

27:47

it did make me think about how children

27:50

might be perceiving it and

27:52

why I feel like I can only

27:55

be sexy when I'm not me

27:58

a k A slut owen from

28:01

um Mean Girls? Is that from

28:03

Mean Girls? Yeah? She

28:06

jokes, and she's like, you're you're punishing

28:10

she jokes, but you're punishing these

28:12

girls for being sexy. But it's the only time they're

28:14

allowed to be sexy, that it's like sanctioned

28:18

that they can do this. Um. I

28:20

mean, I agree with that.

28:22

It's kind of hard for me to dress

28:24

up in general because of that.

28:27

UM. You and I have been talking a lot about

28:29

Dragon Con and cosplay and I

28:32

and I told you one of the reasons I don't attend

28:34

these things as an Asian woman, I'm scared

28:37

about those who are infatuated

28:39

with Asian culture slash Sailor

28:42

Moon anime and the that that automatically

28:44

puts me on edge because the conversations

28:47

that turn into women, Asian

28:50

women wanting to be this, this and this, and

28:52

it's all very sexualized, and it's all very

28:54

to me almost the meaning. And also you

28:57

got to remember a majority of my trauma

28:59

came from in Korea, So automatically,

29:01

I'm just yeah, Asian culture

29:03

means I'm going to get molested

29:06

or sexualized in or sexually harassed.

29:08

So it does. It kind of puts you in one edge.

29:10

But at the same time, I do want to look sexy,

29:13

but how do I do that without feeling like I'm

29:17

gonna bring on

29:20

a male perspective that's going to make me feel

29:22

gross? Right? And I mean we

29:24

hear that all the time, what was she wearing?

29:26

So of course you're gonna start

29:29

to think about it, worry

29:31

about it a little bit more. And it's something like

29:33

Giant Con, which has a

29:36

hundred thousand people come out and a lot

29:38

of them are in sexy clothing. It

29:41

feels more like I can do this. I'm

29:43

the only one. Right. You have a little

29:45

more security in a group as well. Right.

29:48

And that's not to say terrible things that happened

29:50

at conventions. And we'll probably the

29:52

reason we've been talking about this because we're

29:54

work shopping an episode perhaps around

29:57

it. I'm gonna stay for it. I'm

29:59

gonna day forever. M. But

30:02

in the meantime we have a little bit more for you. But first

30:04

we have a quick break for a word from our sponsor, M,

30:16

and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So, sexualization

30:19

has also been linked to sexual health,

30:21

decreased use of condoms, and

30:24

decreased sexual assertiveness, which is really

30:26

important when you're talking about consent. Actually,

30:28

that's a great conversation in the

30:30

myths of what is virginity, and I know we're

30:32

gonna talk about that later on, but that's

30:34

kind of how the link. People

30:37

don't expect to have sex, so therefore if they

30:39

don't carry around condoms, that means they're

30:41

not sexually active, and then they fall into

30:43

this whole trap up lah, and then if they

30:46

do other things, everything but sex,

30:48

I'm safe, right, right? Oh?

30:50

No. Study

30:53

found that by the age of six, girls were already

30:55

feeling the pressure to be sexy

30:58

when shown at all on a sexy, revealing

31:01

outfit and wanting a fashionable, trendy

31:03

outfit, of the

31:05

girls said the sexy one looked more

31:07

like how she wanted to look, and seventy

31:09

two said the sexy one was more popular

31:13

for young girls and women. Sexiness

31:15

is more commonly linked to popularity.

31:17

I mean, if you look at Instagram, it

31:20

seems like that's right, because one

31:22

of the highest following is um

31:24

I don't even know her name. Is it Kindall Dinner?

31:27

Are you looking at me? I

31:29

think is Kindall Jenner, who is a

31:32

part of the Kardashian

31:35

Dinner family, and she was the

31:37

highest followed or the most followed

31:39

on Instagram right until

31:41

the egg. Thank God for the egg. I'm just playing.

31:44

I'm sure she's a great girl. I don't know anything about

31:46

her, but all honesty,

31:49

this perception of her being sexy

31:51

and her being able to be a model, and her being

31:53

able to make money off her looks

31:56

has been her whole thing, and people

31:58

and people sponsored them or

32:01

specifically because they know they have this

32:04

giant following. Yeah,

32:06

and back when I worked primarily

32:09

in YouTube, and I'm going

32:11

to preface this and say it has changed a lot,

32:14

but when I first started, there

32:16

was a like an official

32:19

suggestion to show cleavage

32:21

in your thumbnails that you'd use

32:23

on YouTube videos because they got more clicks.

32:26

Now it's opposite, they punish you for

32:28

doing that. Another thing that we talked

32:30

about in our cosmetic surgery episode is

32:32

how middle and high schoolers are more likely

32:35

to get cosmetic surgery these days, especially

32:37

as a graduation gift. Uh

32:40

yeah, And I found a couple of

32:42

studies and think pieces that suggested sexualization

32:45

has negatively impacted our ability

32:47

to have friendships women

32:49

cutting off other women, um

32:52

cutting them down over their looks, viewing

32:54

each other as competitors. For men, are platonic

32:56

relationships between men and women, where

32:58

in a heteronormous ends anyway, one person

33:01

is always in the back of their head thinking

33:03

sex could come from this. I

33:05

have a friend who super subscribes to this

33:07

belief that there's no in

33:10

her mind, somebody

33:12

in a platonic man

33:15

woman friendship is willing

33:17

to have sex with the other person. Maybe they

33:19

don't want to, but they're like, you know, well, today

33:21

you just met one of my really close guy friends

33:24

who has been my friend for over many

33:27

years, origenerally with at that um.

33:29

But there definitely it wasn't

33:32

so much us, it was everyone else

33:34

around us that was thinking, are you guys.

33:36

You guys aren't living with each other, You guys are good for each

33:38

other. Why aren't you dating? You should be dating.

33:40

And we were very happy for the

33:42

fact that we were close friends, and I still

33:44

call him one of my best friends to the day, and his wife

33:46

think goodness is also a good friend. So

33:49

none of that weirdness. But I will say it's

33:52

such a weird phenomenon to

33:54

have someone in the back of your head telling you what you

33:56

should fill. Yeah, but

33:58

that's a whole different factor as we Also we were talking

34:01

about the competitiveness between women the

34:03

housewives earlier. That's kind

34:05

of the whole spain who not necessarily

34:07

from men, but who looks better,

34:09

who looks younger, who has more? Who it

34:12

does more, I guess because it's such

34:14

a weird thing that every

34:16

woman needs to outshine other women because

34:18

apparently that's the only competition that's

34:20

sarcastic by the way, and

34:22

also I want to say I have

34:25

plenty of male friendships

34:27

that I truly believe very very platonic

34:29

and very wonderful. And I know I have a

34:32

bad track record, but I also

34:34

feel like I I do have those

34:36

friendships and they can't exist. But the

34:38

point being, I can

34:41

totally see the argument that this sexualization

34:44

aspect does impact

34:47

friendships. Also, again, just like the

34:49

example that I gave with my friend, there's an expectation

34:51

of beyond us who are

34:53

in this relationship that it should be for

34:55

the reason other than it

34:58

makes sense that they're together rather than

35:00

single, right And I we talked

35:02

about this in our fan fiction episode, and I could go. I

35:05

think I could give a lecture on

35:07

fiction, on man fiction, and

35:10

on why there's so many romances

35:13

in our media. And it's because when you introduce a

35:15

woman and a man into a situation, they can't

35:17

just be friends. Because that's what we've

35:21

creators and producers have

35:24

said forever, like, there's never just a man

35:26

and a woman that are friends. They always

35:28

end up together. Therefore, if you add a woman

35:30

into the situation, because we all

35:33

know that the main character has got to be a man, then

35:36

people are always going to be expecting them to end up

35:38

together. So they put a man as

35:40

the best friend, and then there's romance. I

35:42

guess that's how Friends ended up having all

35:44

the characters date each other, whether it made sense

35:46

or not, because they can't just be

35:48

friends. I told you that. That's one of my biggest

35:51

pet peeves as

35:53

far as L G B, t q I and homophobia.

35:56

This whole thing plays into the ma sho men

35:59

don't share their feeling, don't hug

36:01

other men thing out of fear being labeled as

36:03

a homosexual or effeminate um.

36:06

And that also plays into the

36:09

the bromance. Oh

36:12

conversation, I really want to talk about that

36:14

soon. I'll help

36:17

you. I'll be here for that in

36:19

the studio right here. And

36:22

another thing that we wanted to talk about

36:24

is the Lolito effects. So

36:28

you you know a lot more. You

36:30

knew a lot more off the bat

36:33

about this, and I knew about it once you explained

36:35

it to me. But so if we look at Roy

36:38

Moore, GOP nominee for Senate, accused

36:41

of pursuing women in their teams while he was in his thirties,

36:44

that's kind of a modern day

36:46

and this happens all the time, right, example

36:48

of the lolit effects. Right, So the

36:52

loally effect. So when we're

36:54

talking about the Lolito effect, where

36:56

we would loosely define what we're talking about

36:58

by referencing the no voll Lolita

37:01

by Vladimir Nobukov, who's

37:04

protagonists obsess about a twelve year

37:07

old who he calls a nymphet or

37:09

the nymphet. And if

37:12

you are a if you were

37:14

or are an English major, you already

37:17

know about this book and about the

37:19

people say this is their favorite book. I

37:21

understand it is a well written book,

37:24

but so was The Butterfly

37:26

that pell Butterfly was a great book by him too,

37:28

By the way, I wanted to find an alternative,

37:31

but um, I think

37:34

everything about this book makes me angry,

37:37

and I don't care how many English

37:40

majors, sorry guys, love it. The

37:42

term is often used as a reference as to a

37:45

young female who seduces older men.

37:47

So when we're talking about R.

37:49

Kelly, he is a prime example

37:51

of saying these younger women who he

37:53

has power over are suited seeing him,

37:56

which, by the way, has been an argument four

37:59

years about why a fourteen

38:01

year old or twelve year old can have a consent

38:04

because they seduced me. And I'm a forty

38:06

year old man, and they have power over me, which

38:08

is amazing. You can be a president that

38:10

you don't have a power over fourteen year old right,

38:14

which is problematic um because

38:16

perpetrators try to use this as a justification

38:19

of wrongdoing. That's what I see, and

38:21

I've heard on many occasions, like I said,

38:23

where finders will say she acted older

38:25

than she was and she came on to me. Let's

38:28

be very clear and

38:30

just a quick reminder, miners

38:32

cannot consent. That

38:35

is law. Let's just automatically

38:37

put that out there, because one of the

38:39

things that made me so angry and what I've

38:41

seen beyond anything else,

38:44

is this whole idea that a fourteen, fifteen,

38:47

sixteen year old who came on to year

38:51

old we're trying to seduce

38:54

them. Let's

38:56

be again, and you and I talked about

38:59

the fact that Daddy is use and that's

39:01

the whole conversation that we can have, which

39:03

is also a really gross term as well, about

39:07

how we're seeking out approval

39:09

in older men, and if

39:11

you really want to put it in a real

39:13

conversation, I think older men

39:15

take advantage of that situation because between

39:18

a fourteen year old and a twenty five year

39:20

old. I'm going to blame the twenty five year old.

39:23

This is what I talk about when we hear

39:25

about the nymphete. It

39:27

has been an old term and an old

39:29

excuse to abuse

39:32

young women essentially. Yeah,

39:35

and something else that we need to talk about is

39:37

the hyper sexualization of girls of color

39:40

and that tends to come with the belief that they will

39:42

not perform well academically.

39:45

And to be clear, hyper sexualization is when

39:48

a combination of multiple sexualized attributes

39:51

are present. Black women, Latino

39:53

women, spicy latinas, the finish

39:55

around Asian women like you were talking about Middle

39:58

Eastern belly dancers. Women

40:00

of color are hyper sexualized intermedia

40:02

and in our society, and this has led to a

40:05

long dark past of rape,

40:07

for serialization and trafficking.

40:09

And like I said before about the

40:12

Asian fetish, which is the people

40:14

I try to avoid. Um, it's

40:16

definitely at the forethought of when I

40:18

consider going on date with someone. I

40:20

think I have that as part of my profile.

40:23

So you've ever seen my profile that if

40:25

a your first question is where am I

40:27

from or be? Your second question

40:30

is will I dress up as an anime character? Please

40:32

don't talk to me like it literally

40:34

is something on my profile because

40:36

I've had some random requests Oh

40:39

my gosh, Like I haven't had any dick pics.

40:43

I definitely had weird Asian fetish

40:45

requests. It's a wild

40:47

world out there. I can't wait to learn more about it.

40:49

I mean. And on top of that, if you look at

40:52

the women of color who are sexual

40:54

life, that's lower.

40:57

I think you and I talked about the whole racial day

41:00

being phenomenon and that

41:02

white women are the end goal, and

41:04

then the women of color are like, Okay,

41:08

yeah, but that's kind of that's over sexualization

41:10

of you want something pure and chase

41:13

as whereas women of color are probably

41:15

more sexual and deviant and

41:17

therefore impure. Yeah

41:19

that I mean again another whole other

41:22

conversation. Yeah, there's a lot,

41:24

there's a lot of play here. Another thing

41:26

is a lot of studies have shown that the

41:28

sexier you dress, no matter

41:30

your gender, the more likely you

41:32

are to be viewed as incompetent.

41:35

And it's a trap because, as

41:38

I've said before, we don't respect women

41:40

in our culture. And if your value is in

41:42

your desirability towards men, but the

41:44

more desirable a k a. Sexy you are

41:47

the less competently you are viewed.

41:50

You're seen as an object whose only worth

41:53

is defined by someone else.

41:55

That's a mirage of power, but that is not

41:57

real power. You know what. I don't understand

42:00

that because when you look at

42:02

some of the sexualized horn

42:04

and all of that, women like librarians

42:07

and teachers who actually don't dress that

42:09

sexy are are automatically sexualized.

42:12

It's kind of this whole thing of like wanting

42:16

to corrupt

42:19

I guess a power figure, and

42:21

that could be a whole other conversation about

42:23

male female dominance or whatever

42:26

you're edifice rex

42:28

complex, oh my gosh.

42:31

On top of that, sexualization impact

42:33

concentration and the ability to

42:35

perform task and one study,

42:37

participants were given ten minutes to take a math

42:39

test in either a swimsuit or a sweater.

42:42

The test results while in the swimsuit

42:44

were way worse for the female

42:47

participants, but not for the male

42:49

participants. For the women, comparing

42:51

themselves to the beauty standard in their

42:53

head got in the way of them concentrating

42:57

on the math problems. Other

43:00

studies on young girls show that those

43:02

that report higher levels of internalized

43:04

sexualization are more likely to

43:06

spend time on their physical appearance as opposed

43:08

to their academic requirements. US

43:12

interesting study. Yeah, yeah, I was

43:14

looking at um getting ready

43:16

for like a trivia thing or

43:18

a test, and you have like ten

43:21

minutes to prepare something. Um,

43:23

and the girls who showed higher level levels

43:26

of sexualization were more likely

43:28

to spend time putting on makeup as

43:30

opposed to studying or preparing for what

43:33

they were about to do. According to the study, I'm

43:35

a genius because genius,

43:40

And yeah, I got no problem with putting on makeup.

43:42

But it is like when you think about how

43:45

much time and money goes into it, you

43:47

know what. So I also bartend on the

43:49

side. I have like ten jobs. Everybody

43:51

have ten jobs. When

43:53

it comes to bartending, I do dress

43:56

up a little more and make sure

43:58

that I'm a little more personable

44:01

and flirty in order to get more money. So

44:03

that makes sense. Yeah, And

44:07

all of this helps nurture

44:09

so called rape culture and

44:11

does and its most destructive form results

44:13

in sexual assaults and abuse and sex

44:16

trafficking. And if you want some depressing

44:18

numbers on that one and twenty million

44:20

girls around the globe have been victims of forced

44:22

sexual acts and rape in the US

44:25

around eleven percent of high school girls report

44:27

that they have been raped and again, and

44:30

this is one of the most underreported things,

44:33

especially in high school and middle school.

44:35

I'm gonna put that in there, and honestly, some elementary

44:37

schools, um, they

44:39

don't even understand what rape is, right,

44:43

and yeah, but keep

44:45

going. Yeah. One of the main

44:47

reasons young women give for not coming forward when

44:49

it comes to sexual assault is that they did not think

44:52

it was serious enough. And

44:55

it's one of the reasons I didn't come forward.

44:57

And that and the fear of not

44:59

being leaves everything we're

45:01

talking about laze into that, right,

45:04

So let's talk about my masturbation. Okay,

45:07

yeah, cool, let's do this. I'm

45:10

ready talking about women, society

45:12

and sex. I didn't know women could masturbate

45:14

till I was in college. It makes it kind of sad for

45:16

you. I'm not gonna lie. It was a bummer. I

45:19

I literally remember exactly the moment

45:21

we were playing never Have I Ever, and

45:24

I thought, you know what, this

45:26

will be funny. And then everyone was like,

45:29

what did it become awkward? Did you

45:31

make things awkward? I usually do, that's

45:33

what we're friend. I thought

45:36

you could only get sexual pleasure

45:38

with a partner, probably

45:40

a man. Well, for me, masturbation

45:43

was something I knew about in the age of five, if not

45:45

earlier. I'm just gonna say five as an estimate.

45:48

I think because of that, the shame factor remained

45:50

for me well until after college.

45:53

Part of that due to my religious upbringing

45:55

and the fact that you're you're not supposed to have sexual

45:57

thoughts and for women, you're not supposed to be sexual

45:59

and general. And now as

46:02

a late thirty something, I

46:04

see this is a great way of avoiding

46:07

bad dating situations. And

46:09

it's so much more time efficient just to

46:11

be real and and now let's get this done.

46:14

Yeah. I had to do a

46:18

lot of research recently on

46:21

the history of dialders, and

46:26

so until the twentieth century, physicians

46:29

and men at large

46:31

in Europe in the United States thought women

46:34

did not experience sexual desire

46:36

pleasure like legitimately thought

46:38

scientifically they don't. That's

46:40

how they exercise demons was by masturbating

46:42

women. Historically,

46:45

well, that's why the dildo was invented because of tired

46:47

male physician fingers. Back

46:51

in the eighteen and early sex

46:53

stories for women were actually more commonly talked about

46:56

and advertised but it was under euphonistic

46:58

names, and they started to be more commonly

47:01

sold in the sixties is what they really were

47:03

under the name of what they really were. That's

47:05

when we see all of this anxiety around

47:07

them build up and around the female liberation

47:10

that they were associated with. If

47:12

you think about it, even now, we sometimes

47:14

call them massagers. We call them

47:16

in the state of Georgia of senity

47:19

laws. Until like two years ago, very

47:21

recent you could not sell sex

47:23

stories. You could sell novelty items

47:25

from marital aids because

47:28

marital aids, because you had to be in a relationship.

47:30

Ladies, if you're gonna want this

47:32

thing, I will say I

47:35

did help a girl who had just gotten married and couldn't

47:37

quite understand, well not quite

47:39

understand, but couldn't quite get there with her husband,

47:42

and we bought a sex way for her for her

47:44

and her husband to enjoy together. But

47:46

she needed that for her pleasure,

47:49

right, And yeah, totally use them for marital

47:51

aids. If we look at something like Fifty

47:53

Shades of Gray, which did so much

47:55

to bring awareness to six stories, it was in the

47:57

context of a man using

48:00

them on a woman. Even

48:02

the name sex toy makes women's pleasure sound

48:05

like it's a childish pursuit.

48:08

Advertising for sex toys when you do see

48:10

them, it often does shy away from

48:12

the fact that women could use them by

48:14

themselves, terrifying almost

48:17

trying to reassure men you're not

48:19

going to be replaced dudes calling

48:22

them Mary delaides things like that, And

48:25

the first male designers up dildos

48:27

thought women just wanted longer penises

48:29

longer, yeah, longer, as

48:32

they made dildos much longer than

48:34

like an average male penis. No,

48:37

no, men are

48:40

obsessed with penis like I mean,

48:42

honestly, it's not about the size, It's

48:44

about the motion and the ocean. Am

48:46

I right? Ladies? Huh

48:49

okay, can't we get a rim

48:51

shot? Ever

48:54

since me too. We're perfectly

48:56

able to talk about women being assaulted, raped

48:58

or harassed, and this aim of women being

49:01

preyed on sexually by men, but we still

49:03

can't talk about women being able to have sexual

49:05

agency and find pleasure on their own. That's

49:07

still so uncomfortable for us. The whole reason

49:09

I did this research is because of the o

49:12

say sex toy

49:14

um that won an award at

49:17

this year's CS and then the awarders

49:19

are sended because quote, it was probably obscene,

49:23

profane, are immoral.

49:26

I like that that's being labeled for a sex

49:28

toy, literally something that is

49:31

supposed to be only done with a man. If

49:33

you want to talk about morality according

49:35

to the Bible, which right, that's where morality

49:38

has to come from. That or the law which in

49:40

the US kind of based it on

49:42

the Bible. They do, even though in theory

49:45

we have separation of church and state. Yes, but

49:47

apparently we don't care. Nope.

49:50

And you can even take this argument

49:52

as it pertains to healthcare. The idea that

49:54

erectile dysfunction pills are covered by insurance

49:57

and money is thrown studies

50:00

looking into rectile

50:02

dysfunction. Birth control, on the other

50:05

end, is so regulated that you'd be

50:07

astounded at how recently we've even started

50:09

looking at the

50:11

female body and other ways of birth control,

50:14

right, I mean, when you talk about Plan

50:16

B, that's such a taboo statement in itself,

50:19

and then you and I are talking about

50:22

getting birth control before it gets taken away

50:24

from us. Yeahthing

50:27

happened, as well as the fact that it

50:29

just recently became a thing as being preventative.

50:33

I don't quite understand that because

50:35

how is it not preventive if you if you don't if you

50:37

want less abortion, I know, don't

50:40

conceive. I guess

50:42

that's the whole absentence thing, which

50:44

by the way, is ridiculous, right,

50:47

And that's a whole conversation

50:49

around um, because

50:51

I have a lot of friends that are very Catholic and

50:54

that it is viewed in

50:56

in their religion, or at least in there, because

50:58

I know different churches are

51:01

more or less liberal or whatever.

51:03

But um, I come from a very conservative

51:06

town, and um, I know that bird control

51:08

was seen as like a boarding right.

51:10

And I've definitely had discussions with friends

51:13

of mine who say that any

51:15

kind of hormones that prevent anything

51:18

or kill off sperm, as they

51:20

would say, is abortion, and

51:23

therefore they don't believe in it, in which my face

51:25

does if you can see my faces, and what

51:27

the hell? Mode?

51:29

Yeah, And I have to be like, you're a reasonably

51:31

college educated woman, what right?

51:35

What the hell? Most should be a snapchat filter? Who

51:38

can work on that? I want money for it? Okay?

51:41

Well, okay, so we'll work on it and then we'll sell

51:43

it for for top dollar. So

51:47

I guess we're going to embarrass

51:49

ourselves even more because we're talking about sex toys,

51:51

we're talking about preventatives. So if we're not going

51:53

to have sex, but we feel sexual

51:56

sex toys is in this but the next best option,

51:58

yeah right. Um, And I

52:00

will say before

52:03

I talk about that, very briefly, I

52:06

was prescribed birth control at fourteen

52:09

for migraines,

52:11

you know what I think. And then there was the

52:14

yeas that was prescribed for acne.

52:16

Yes, but I

52:19

did experience very

52:21

negative side effects extremely

52:24

and so I haven't used it since.

52:27

I will say I've had issues with birth control

52:29

where I was laid out because I was experiencing

52:32

vertigo so badly that I could not sit up

52:35

and I had to be like this, this is not working. This is

52:37

not working. And I've had to go through one,

52:40

two, three, four different forms before

52:42

I figured out watch which one I liked. Yeah,

52:45

yeah, it's a it could

52:47

be a difficult, intimidating process.

52:51

But and as we were the minute, like

52:53

hey, it's fine,

52:56

you got this control.

53:00

But if we look at sex

53:02

toys by sex toys, which is why I don't

53:04

want to talk to none, keep going back to sex toys.

53:07

So when I

53:09

got my first vibrator, I was in

53:11

college and I was about to move

53:13

to China, and I had already

53:15

been there for eight months, but it came back to the United States

53:17

to graduate make some arrangements,

53:20

moved back to China, and some

53:22

of my best expat lady friends in China

53:24

very strongly recommended

53:27

getting a vibrator while I was in the US. In their

53:30

words, I would not be having much sex,

53:32

if any, while I was in China,

53:35

and vibrators weren't hard to come by. I don't

53:37

know if this is true, but that is what they told me,

53:39

and they said it was a lot of conviction.

53:42

And I was at a party

53:44

and with a little liquid courage. This

53:46

is in the United States before I go back to China.

53:48

I asked some of the women who were at the party,

53:51

who I didn't know very well, by the way,

53:54

for their recommendations, and they had so

53:58

many, so many cocommendations.

54:01

And at the time, I was the only women in my

54:03

in my dorm, so it was five stories.

54:06

I'm the only woman. Georgia

54:08

Tech was Georgia Tech dudes

54:12

um And there was an insurrection, which is

54:14

a six toy shop which

54:16

sounds like a sex toy does. And it

54:18

was across the street and it had

54:20

this blue and pink blinking light that

54:22

kept me up all night. I remember when

54:25

my parents moved me in. My dad was like, what

54:27

is that? And I was shying to like, oh nothing,

54:29

man, don't worry about that. You should

54:32

be like, it's a candy store next, you

54:34

know, just Atlanta. Don't worry about

54:36

it. There's lights around. And

54:38

that's where I went, and the male salesman

54:41

followed me around the entire time, a new

54:43

vary, uncomfortable, exactly how

54:45

you should have this experience? Right? I

54:47

got a blue in a shaped

54:49

thing called devolved. Well

54:51

you remember this clearly, I do

54:54

remember. God. I was like, I've never

54:56

been before. I mean, I

54:58

get it. It is play on d loved

55:00

like you don't need love. And

55:03

when I checked out, he made it. He put the batteries

55:06

in and he made me like hold it and showed

55:08

that it worked because you can't return them, you know, and

55:10

I blushed so hard. Demonstrated

55:13

it for you. He made me like say,

55:15

yes, it works. Okay, okay,

55:18

none of that makes sense, but as like a like

55:20

a sells approach that you can't

55:22

complain about it. Yeah, but that's

55:24

still creepy. Oh man,

55:27

um and for me as a

55:29

sexually repressed religious girl, I

55:31

actually didn't have one until my twenties

55:33

and it was actually given to me by a roommate.

55:36

It was brand new, so don't worry about that if

55:39

you, if you need to know, UM

55:41

And that was the only one I had for years.

55:44

Obviously it was a good one. I was happy with it, and

55:47

then I discovered the wonderful, wonderful

55:49

world of online shopping. I

55:52

think the only sex store I had actually gone to was

55:54

in Paris, in the red light district, and

55:56

when which I was accompanied by an adorable

55:59

gay boy who was dismayed

56:01

I had never been to one before. He had to take

56:03

me there and I was like, okay, And to

56:05

be honest, I don't really remember it. It

56:07

was so I was so embarrassed. It kind

56:10

of turned into a blur. And uh,

56:12

definitely I've been since I

56:15

kind of told you the story about the

56:17

married girl who was trying to help and

56:19

get a sex way. But even

56:21

then, I mean, even now, even though

56:23

I'm very open about sex and more

56:26

willing to explore or talk about it because

56:28

I think it's important, it still it still

56:30

feels really uncomfortable to go into a building

56:33

with all of those darkened windows. If

56:36

you think there's a couple of stores here that

56:38

seemed to both sexualized Asian

56:41

people, you know what I'm talking about, as well

56:43

as trying to make it fancy. But I'm

56:45

like, no, I can't, I can't. That's everything

56:47

I'm against in some type of way

56:49

of form. But I'm surely that's some nice things.

56:52

But honestly, online shopping

56:54

has been my sex toy

56:57

saving grace. Think's

57:00

Internet. Thanks Internet, It's for providing

57:03

all the good things I need without having to

57:05

go into a darkened store where a man

57:07

has to show me how to use it right.

57:10

Well, and I've told you before I

57:12

move on briefly that recently

57:14

one of my favorite memories very embarrassing,

57:17

but I enjoy it. Me

57:20

and a group of my best friends went to

57:22

a Harry Potter party

57:25

and I was dressed like to the nines and

57:27

my Harry Harry Potter her money

57:30

kind of outfit. And

57:32

there's a lot of drinking involved

57:35

and it my friend had just broken

57:37

up with her boyfriend whom she was very much

57:39

in love with, very miserable, and she

57:42

wanted to go to a get

57:44

purchased sex story and past

57:48

the man she vomited inside

57:51

the store. And I have a picture of me dressed

57:54

as her money inside a sex store,

57:56

like comforting my friend.

57:59

And it's one of my favorite pictures ever.

58:01

And you're about to get so many emails

58:04

from random guys saying, send me that picture.

58:07

It's really it's top nuts, it's

58:10

stop nutch. But

58:12

anyway, something else we wanted to bring into this conversation

58:14

around this embarrassing conversation as we admit

58:17

to things virginity.

58:20

But I will say right at the top, defining

58:23

virginity is difficult,

58:26

and I wouldn't say there is one definition.

58:29

It's mostly been defined as penetrative

58:31

penis and vagina sex, but that is

58:33

changing, not only because it's extremely narrow, but

58:35

it also loves out l G B t q I

58:37

folks. And we discussed in our Bad

58:39

Sex episode how some young folks think

58:42

of it as their first orgasm.

58:44

And just to be clear, there is no medical definition

58:47

for this, you know what. And I find it really

58:49

interesting a lot of youngsters, I'm

58:51

gonna say that as an old person, would

58:53

not classify anal sex as

58:55

sex, and this is kind of their loophole of

58:58

staying of virgin which

59:00

is um, Yeah,

59:03

that's not correct. Now, we're not going to say

59:05

that that's the same definition of

59:09

at least it it's not you're not a virgin,

59:11

you've had a storm of sex,

59:13

which I think is the problematic point

59:16

of what sex is and

59:19

why people don't talk about it, because you know, what

59:21

we need to talk about anal sex and how it

59:24

can or it can be used in a nice

59:26

way or an awful way, and

59:28

you should have the choice either way. But that's another

59:30

story. So I'm gonna stop now. Yeah,

59:33

And something that I've

59:36

brought up a lot recently is

59:39

the fact that we teach women and young girls

59:41

that having sex will be

59:43

painful the first time, like you should

59:46

expect it to hurt, that you

59:48

should expect to plead, which used

59:50

to be the test to tell if a woman was a

59:52

virgin if she bled, And

59:55

sometimes that will happen, sometimes it won't. In

59:57

either case, the bleeding is usually very minimal.

1:00:00

UM. Some women will so stitches into

1:00:02

their vaginas to make sure that they bleed

1:00:04

so someone will think they're a virgin. UM.

1:00:07

Someone would use artificial hymen's

1:00:10

that bleed red die bleed

1:00:12

in quotes, um or cosmetic

1:00:14

surgery called hymenoplasty, which

1:00:17

some countries have labeled as female

1:00:20

genital mutilation. Some

1:00:22

women won't go to a guidecologist

1:00:24

because they don't want to quote lose their

1:00:26

virginity there um or ride

1:00:28

a bike. They won't put it tampons in. It's

1:00:31

fantastic all those urban legends about

1:00:33

there are so many, so many,

1:00:35

like I know all of these. I just sat and really

1:00:38

thought about all of them. That you have

1:00:40

a friend of a friend who sat on a bike and

1:00:42

she lost her virginity. You know, like, wait, what that

1:00:45

help? I think then as a child is terrifying. I'll

1:00:48

never ride a bike again. But

1:00:50

why And

1:00:52

it's such a strange concept to me, tying

1:00:55

virginity to virtue,

1:00:58

like sacrificing a virgin to

1:01:00

lose your virginity, or

1:01:03

he took her virginity,

1:01:05

gave it up, pop your cherry deflowered.

1:01:07

All these things are negative and a lot of them

1:01:09

are kind of violent, and it's definitely dismissive

1:01:13

of an experience for a woman that should be something

1:01:16

on her own, be prized

1:01:18

if it wants, if they wanted to be and or

1:01:20

whatever. Right, and then

1:01:23

we could also look at things like purity balls,

1:01:25

which are these big parties where young girls pledge

1:01:27

their virginity to their fathers,

1:01:31

which I find very weird, but okay

1:01:33

until a suitable husband comes

1:01:35

along. My niece's mother asked

1:01:38

me to come to her purity ceremony and

1:01:40

I refused, and it caused some trauma. I said,

1:01:42

I would talk to her about sex anytime, but

1:01:45

I am not willing to go to

1:01:47

a purity ball. I have never participated

1:01:49

in in these, but it was interesting

1:01:52

to see that families saw this as

1:01:54

a middle class celebration um

1:01:57

as of virtue and virginity was a

1:01:59

profitable currency, which

1:02:01

was a thing way back when, and which is why they

1:02:03

pretended or tried to prove

1:02:06

that they were a virgin. And there's this almost

1:02:08

unseid understanding sex is dirty and

1:02:10

lower class and ignorant, which isn't

1:02:12

true because if you really think about the

1:02:15

conversations or when you talk

1:02:17

about women having sex, so she's

1:02:19

she's a home, she she gave it up to this guy,

1:02:21

or she did this to this guy, And it's usually

1:02:24

a lot to do with some type of socioeconomic

1:02:26

status as well. Um and I

1:02:28

mean conservative groups still only believe

1:02:30

in teaching absinence, which leaves

1:02:32

a lot of important questions unanswered.

1:02:35

And I think that's part of the reason, is that if

1:02:37

you're a good girl, if you're truly

1:02:40

a middle class girl with the virtue

1:02:42

or up a middle class of virtue, you won't

1:02:44

need to know about sex because you're not going to have

1:02:46

sex and until it's right. Yeah,

1:02:49

that's a good point. And

1:02:52

uh, another

1:02:54

point of Annie not knowing

1:02:56

anything about culture

1:03:00

unless it's marvel at it related.

1:03:02

Isn't the bachelor right now in virgin Okay,

1:03:04

now this I have no idea. Reality shows

1:03:06

are not my thing. Oh is the heat

1:03:09

that would be a bachelor not the bachelored? Okay.

1:03:12

Um. It caused a big stir

1:03:15

on Twitter because people are mad.

1:03:17

They're like, why don't keep calling him a virgin? Isn't this

1:03:20

this is a negative? It's

1:03:22

perpetuating negative stereotypes

1:03:25

about virginity. I mean, that's

1:03:27

the thing that is the other part that I think we need

1:03:29

to think talk about is virginity.

1:03:31

And if that's something that you believe in and that's

1:03:34

something that you hold true, that's not a bad thing

1:03:36

either. Like you do you

1:03:38

and if you feel that you want to

1:03:40

be in a healthy place before you have sex. That's

1:03:43

amazing. Please do that, Please

1:03:45

do that. So in no way are we negating

1:03:47

the fact that virginity can be

1:03:49

a good thing or is a good thing. But also we want

1:03:52

to put on the fact that people

1:03:54

who stressed that as an important

1:03:56

is also misleading. Yeah, as

1:03:59

if it's the is it,

1:04:01

it's your identifier, which is can

1:04:03

be unfortunate, right. Yeah.

1:04:07

I think that this timeline we

1:04:09

have is very stressful to

1:04:11

a lot of people because they feel like by this age, I should

1:04:13

have done this and it.

1:04:17

Yes, I think it's much more important to be in a healthy

1:04:19

place to be with someone you like. Forget

1:04:21

about that timeline other terms

1:04:24

like popping the cherry, breaking the hymen. That

1:04:26

is not how it works. But

1:04:29

it is an incredibly enduring myth,

1:04:31

so much so that the Sweetest Association for Sexuality

1:04:33

Education started using the term vaginal

1:04:36

corona as an alternative to hyman in

1:04:38

two thousand and nine because

1:04:40

people misunderstand it so

1:04:43

much. And I remember when I

1:04:45

was in Europe in college

1:04:47

and I was living with mostly Belgium

1:04:49

university students, but some Spanish, French, British,

1:04:52

German, all kinds people from

1:04:54

all over and they all

1:04:56

reported a very different experience and

1:04:58

expectation around Loo seeing your virginity,

1:05:02

mostly that it wasn't a big deal,

1:05:04

probably wasn't great, Maybe you wouldn't even

1:05:06

remember it, as opposed to here in the u S

1:05:08

where we build up this whole losing

1:05:11

your virginity thing to be immagical

1:05:13

once in a lifetime experience.

1:05:15

That just puts more pressure on something

1:05:17

that is already full of pressure. International

1:05:20

listeners, please right in and let us know if that

1:05:23

If that is the case, this is just what I heard anecdotally

1:05:25

from people I was living with for

1:05:29

a long time. When people would ask me when I lost my

1:05:31

virginity, I would go through these mental hoops

1:05:33

to not define what I

1:05:35

had been through as losing my

1:05:37

virginity. Oh yeah, well, I'm pretty much

1:05:40

Liz Lemon from Dirty Rog, in which she

1:05:42

awkwardly jokes she jokes about being

1:05:44

mid twenties, which was myself

1:05:46

as well, and losing it awkwardly,

1:05:50

Oh, it sounds like you would to fit in with my European

1:05:52

friends. That that's exactly what they were telling me.

1:05:54

Was probably pretty bad. You don't know what you're

1:05:56

doing here in experience, I was gonna say that, wasn't it didn't

1:05:58

necessarily hurt, but at the same

1:06:00

not like, is this it? I'm

1:06:02

gonna go back to that vibrator my friend gave me. Okay,

1:06:07

all right, guys. On

1:06:09

the flip side of this Madonna horror

1:06:11

situation, yeah, is the horror or

1:06:13

the slut um shaming is

1:06:15

so prevalent and it leads to things like revenge

1:06:18

posts when an ex post news or

1:06:20

suggestive pictures on social media, and this could

1:06:22

cost someone their job, can lead to self

1:06:25

harming and suicidal ideation. Um,

1:06:27

yeah, it's any news I don't think makes me so angry when

1:06:30

people are like, well, she shouldn't have said it. Yeah,

1:06:33

well you shouldn't have posted it, right. Cool. We

1:06:35

talked about in our Sexism and Language episode

1:06:37

how so many words in the English language went

1:06:40

from meaning women of

1:06:42

power to essentially prostitute,

1:06:46

because how else could a woman have any

1:06:48

power in her vagina?

1:06:50

Yes, well, recently

1:06:53

a slutty vegan opened near us,

1:06:56

and it got both of us thinking about

1:06:58

all this weirdness around that words. But

1:07:00

like, you should be ashamed

1:07:02

that you like it, like

1:07:05

hid how much you like get strange.

1:07:08

There's also an egxcelet in Vegas too, that

1:07:10

is a similar marketing campaign.

1:07:12

I guess it seems like it's trying to

1:07:14

make food sexy, which

1:07:17

then again goes to perpetuate. Is

1:07:19

this a thing that we want to

1:07:22

sell something? Does it sell

1:07:24

better because they're sexy, slutty? Whatever?

1:07:27

And you you can control that. I mean, when

1:07:29

it comes to slut shaming, let's talk about enjoying

1:07:32

sex and the misconception that women's orgasm

1:07:34

isn't important, which let's

1:07:36

all agree this is a sham.

1:07:38

Traditionally, women's sexuality is about

1:07:40

procreating, and as someone

1:07:43

who has no desire for children, that's

1:07:45

me. That is not my objective.

1:07:48

And I like sex.

1:07:50

I mean, I'm gonna be very

1:07:54

honest and tell you I start becoming

1:07:56

fairly frustrated and feel like I'm missed out

1:07:58

on quite a lot because I waited so

1:08:01

late and having sex and

1:08:03

and actually having good sex. Let's say that,

1:08:05

and I will state that I absolutely again

1:08:08

I enjoy sex and uh went

1:08:11

without it long enough. I mean, I'm now

1:08:14

I'm just now I'm too

1:08:16

awkward to do the hook up thing because

1:08:18

I don't know how to do that, and

1:08:21

there are days I just need someone,

1:08:23

as I'd like to say, just someone to lay on me.

1:08:27

That's my stratement. And as a strong

1:08:29

woman, we've come far along when it comes

1:08:31

to understanding our own pleasures and ability to

1:08:33

state what we want. But I think we don't

1:08:35

exercise that as a conversation enough.

1:08:38

Um. I think when it comes to really

1:08:43

wanting to pleasure ourselves.

1:08:45

And I will say for me, part of that is also

1:08:48

hoping that the partner also feels pleasure by

1:08:50

me, obviously, but

1:08:53

to have that conversation of like, I don't actually

1:08:55

like this, I do actually like this.

1:08:58

I don't want you to do with that ever again

1:09:00

with that conversation or actually stopping. No,

1:09:02

no, nope, you can't do that. You

1:09:05

know what I mean. And let's

1:09:07

talk about DJ Kalen. Let

1:09:09

you know what I mean. I'm want to say, hey, man,

1:09:12

you need to learn to play pleasure a woman because

1:09:15

your wife deserves it. So being

1:09:17

dumb, you had to explain this to me, So

1:09:20

maybe explain it to your listeners who might not. I

1:09:22

will say. DJ Khaled was it on an interview

1:09:25

at a radio station in which he talked about oral

1:09:27

sex, and yes he gets the oral sex from his wife,

1:09:30

but he doesn't give oral sex to

1:09:32

his wife because he feels

1:09:34

like he doesn't have to. He's the man,

1:09:37

right, And I think

1:09:40

everybody kind of lost their mind about that, including

1:09:42

Nicki Minaj. She puts that in her like one

1:09:44

of her rep songs. She's like, I'm done with you because

1:09:47

you refuse to pleasure your wife. I mean,

1:09:49

that is a conversation. If you want a good

1:09:51

marriage this day and time, it should

1:09:53

be equal in all things, and that includes sex.

1:09:57

And I know

1:09:59

that I have some friends who don't

1:10:01

like receiving oral sex

1:10:03

for whatever reason, um

1:10:06

whether they get too

1:10:08

self conscious or whatever it is. But if

1:10:11

if it is something you like, then that should be

1:10:13

a part of a healthy relationship, right and not because

1:10:15

he thinks he's the man and he doesn't have to exactly.

1:10:18

Another thing that we need to talk about, unfortunately,

1:10:21

is honor killings. Almost

1:10:23

always, this is a situation where

1:10:25

a man is killing a woman for bringing him and

1:10:28

or his family and her family

1:10:30

usually dishonor maybe the

1:10:32

woman falls for someone the family

1:10:34

doesn't approve of, maybe she leaves her abusive husband.

1:10:37

About one thousand women a year

1:10:39

died this way in Pakistan, about

1:10:41

five thousand worldwide, and appens

1:10:43

in the US too, And it's absolutely

1:10:46

terrifying. It deserves its own whole

1:10:48

episode, but I wanted to include it here

1:10:50

because it does illustrate how we view

1:10:52

women and their agency. And

1:10:55

they're right

1:10:58

and that honor is again a

1:11:00

currency for the family, and I think

1:11:02

that's an important conversation

1:11:05

about how women's

1:11:07

virtue is not necessarily about

1:11:09

the woman, but it's about the

1:11:12

family, which is an absurd

1:11:14

idea in itself. UM. And we can

1:11:16

also talk about semicide, which

1:11:18

has been the newest label

1:11:21

for men killing women because

1:11:23

the women refused to do what they want essentially

1:11:26

and or make them mad or upset however

1:11:28

you want to say it, which is part of that as well.

1:11:31

Yeah, and if we look at the

1:11:33

l g B t q I community on our violence

1:11:36

is on the rise when it comes to UH,

1:11:39

particularly gay men, but the whole community.

1:11:41

So it is something

1:11:44

that is frightening and

1:11:48

we should definitely

1:11:50

come back and revisit that topic. But we

1:11:53

have a little bit more for you, but

1:11:55

first we have one more quick break for word from our sponsor m

1:12:03

H

1:12:06

and we're back, Thank you, sponsor, And

1:12:09

we're back with UM.

1:12:12

A depressing topic but

1:12:14

one that is necessary, and it is rape culture

1:12:17

because society sex and women, you've got

1:12:19

to talk about rape culture. A survey

1:12:21

conducted by the United States Department of Justice

1:12:23

from two thousand looking into sexual victimization

1:12:26

of college women, found that less than

1:12:28

five percent of rapes experienced by

1:12:30

the women participating have been reported.

1:12:32

Less than five percent, and the number one reason

1:12:35

they gave for not reporting is not believing

1:12:37

the crime was serious or bad enough. Going back

1:12:39

to what we said earlier, which is taught

1:12:42

to us women or people

1:12:44

who are victims children as

1:12:46

well, that this is actually true. You

1:12:48

need to calm down. It's not like you got murdered.

1:12:51

Yeah, it's not as bad as this other thing.

1:12:54

Um. And the media, the

1:12:58

media is so key

1:13:00

and perpetuating this pop culture

1:13:02

rewards both persistence and passiveness

1:13:05

when it comes to men with women, like

1:13:07

the nice guy who quote deserves

1:13:10

it or is entitled to it. Yeah,

1:13:12

like if they bought you a nice fancy then or treated you

1:13:15

nice, that means you need to put out also

1:13:17

a gross term. I want to say that it is

1:13:19

um. And then there's this whole thing of women

1:13:21

as sexual gatekeepers, a

1:13:23

virgin in the streets, but a freak in the bed, that

1:13:26

type of thing. Jokes about men

1:13:28

with tiny penises are bad at pleasing

1:13:30

women equates to their worth as well

1:13:33

doing the nice guy thing of treating women

1:13:35

like people. The woman thinking

1:13:37

this is a friendship, Oh my god, that's me,

1:13:40

and the nice guy thinking this lack of sex after

1:13:42

doing everything right. It's a judgment

1:13:44

on his masculinity and an adequateness,

1:13:48

and that is tied to his

1:13:50

value. And I would love the five. I roll

1:13:52

up on some men's profiles

1:13:54

who say, I know you don't want the nice guy.

1:13:57

This is me, so you might as well, Like, is

1:13:59

so self approcating. I'm

1:14:04

a nice guy, but I'm really angry you won't choose me. And

1:14:06

I'm like, I don't think you're as nice as you think you

1:14:08

are. Yes, oh yes,

1:14:11

um, things like friend zone or forty year

1:14:13

old virgin. If we look at those things

1:14:15

defining men's value as their ability to quote

1:14:18

land a hot woman in their lives, women

1:14:21

always end up with jerks in these

1:14:23

things, a k someone who is not the

1:14:25

nice guy, because we have to be more forgiving.

1:14:28

And these mean guys are probably nice, but

1:14:30

for the men, you definitely deserve that hot

1:14:32

girl who was the

1:14:34

whole catch. Great job,

1:14:36

great seems of humor. All that things right, Yes,

1:14:39

yes, who definitely exists? That's

1:14:42

you right, that's what I heard, Thank

1:14:45

you, thank you. She doesn't exist. Um,

1:14:48

as long as women are afraid men will kill

1:14:50

them or violence will ensue, they

1:14:53

say polite nose, which are misinterpreted

1:14:55

as maybes, and we punish women for

1:14:57

their sexuality but tell men they're entitled

1:15:00

to it. As long as that's going on,

1:15:02

this is going to continue. We

1:15:04

make jokes about men who are sexually inexperienced

1:15:06

and unsatisfying and about women being loose,

1:15:10

so we're punishing the

1:15:13

opposite of we're creating the situation.

1:15:16

And also, yeah, lack of access

1:15:18

to birth control, abortion services, lack of sex

1:15:20

said, and a little line item

1:15:23

called pregnancy

1:15:25

white makers a little nervous. That's

1:15:27

how I trapped my men. I'm just playing. I'm just

1:15:29

playing. I just love that stigma though that

1:15:32

I would I would get pregnant and

1:15:35

snare you. And I'm like, no, no,

1:15:38

that sounds like a lot of a lot

1:15:40

of work and a lot of pain and probably

1:15:42

a lot of money sacrificing all

1:15:45

of that for you. Yeah. Um,

1:15:47

hypothetical guy, hypothetical

1:15:50

man out there. I really can't

1:15:52

stress enough that we are perpetuating a cycle where

1:15:54

and no one is happy. Men think they're entitled to sex.

1:15:56

Women are faced with multitude

1:15:59

of obstacles that in their way for them

1:16:01

wanting it and or enjoying sex. They're

1:16:03

at a violence, loss of reputation or job, lack

1:16:05

of birth control or access to reprotective health

1:16:08

that might lead to pregnancy, followed

1:16:10

up with lack of access to abortion. We

1:16:12

get called withholding. We might not

1:16:15

want to be withholding or cold. We

1:16:17

have all of this stuff that impacts

1:16:20

our sexual agency or lack thereof.

1:16:22

Again fan fiction. That's why I always

1:16:25

wrote male characters, because I didn't have to worry

1:16:27

about any of that stuff. With

1:16:29

a male character I was. I didn't even realize

1:16:31

that's why I was doing it, but that's why I was doing

1:16:33

easier way to do it. Yeah, And I

1:16:35

think it's so hilarious that if

1:16:38

we don't have sex, we're withholding.

1:16:40

Maybe I'm just tired, right,

1:16:43

you know, um and kind of

1:16:45

to bring about the whole rape culture um

1:16:47

and trying to identify exactly what that looks

1:16:50

like. I do kind of want to talk about the disease

1:16:52

and sorry incident um in

1:16:54

which we're talking

1:16:56

about society's expectation on women

1:16:59

and um and what it looks

1:17:01

like to be at tease or being called to tease,

1:17:04

and a zeas and sorry incident, it's kind of what

1:17:06

I saw more than anything else. First

1:17:09

of all, let me go ahead and say that everyone, anyone

1:17:11

has the right to change their mind and when it comes

1:17:13

to what they want to do physically and

1:17:16

emotionally. If I changed my mind

1:17:18

in the middle of the actual act of having sex, and

1:17:20

the overall reaction should be to stop, no

1:17:23

question. I remember there was a lot

1:17:25

of confusion with this accusation of a

1:17:27

zeas and sorry versus the Harvey Weinstein

1:17:30

incident. I think that is partly

1:17:32

due to the fact that many women have gone through similar

1:17:34

incidents as the woman with I'm sorry

1:17:36

dead, which then makes individuals question

1:17:39

was a victim too. So you

1:17:41

have the Harvey wind Steine incidents where

1:17:43

it was forceful rape essentially

1:17:46

and or some type of violence

1:17:49

were involved and threat um.

1:17:51

And it also comes down to

1:17:53

the fact that they it was actually

1:17:56

said by one of the female correspondents

1:17:58

when it came to as ease and sorry, that

1:18:00

this was just a bad date essentially.

1:18:04

Um. But if you look at it that deeper,

1:18:07

it's a little different. Uh. I

1:18:09

think even myself, I mean quicktics he's bad

1:18:11

behavior as just bad experiences

1:18:14

or even giving into prolonged sexual

1:18:17

experience just to get it over with and

1:18:20

not because I wanted. Um.

1:18:23

I think the bigger question is why have we allowed

1:18:25

this to be a state of being. I

1:18:28

think this also reiterates the feeling of

1:18:30

guilt for not having sex, whether it's because we

1:18:32

think we owe it because they bought me

1:18:34

a fancy meal or there's nice and they deserved

1:18:37

this right like they earned it somehow, not

1:18:39

because I want to or because

1:18:41

we don't want to seem like a teeth and

1:18:44

I know, ay, this is something you talked about

1:18:46

before, feeling guilty for not wanting to

1:18:48

actually have sex. And I think that's

1:18:51

the incident. What came down to with azeas

1:18:54

I'm sorry, was the fact that she kept

1:18:56

saying no, but he kept

1:18:58

going, and so she finally just let it oh and let

1:19:00

it happen essentially, and

1:19:03

and that became well, that was just many

1:19:06

of us have experienced that. That's just a bad day.

1:19:09

I mean, come on, just

1:19:12

just get on with it. This is a part

1:19:14

of your decision. You went home with him. You knew

1:19:16

what he was about, you knew what he was trying to do, and you

1:19:19

didn't fight him off, which I know we're going

1:19:21

to have that conversation later on. And again

1:19:23

for her, she didn't report because she felt guilty

1:19:26

that this was something that she had to do and

1:19:28

so therefore wasn't his fault.

1:19:32

Yeah, the guilt of not wanting

1:19:34

to have sex in my last relationship was probably

1:19:36

one of the main things that destroyed it on

1:19:39

both Like on my end, I felt

1:19:42

all the time guilty. Before

1:19:44

we wrap up the section on

1:19:46

rape culture intersectional

1:19:48

aside, I was recently listening

1:19:51

to coverage on Donald Trump's

1:19:53

wall and there was a montage

1:19:55

of his supporters describing

1:19:58

why they wanted the wall, why they supported

1:20:00

it, and almost all of them said

1:20:03

they didn't want their daughter, their

1:20:05

wife, their mother to get raped

1:20:09

or one of the women interviewed

1:20:11

said, I don't want to get raped. Um,

1:20:14

I am so tired of hearing this for

1:20:16

multiple reasons. If we look

1:20:18

at just the data, there's nothing to

1:20:21

support this fear unless you want to be real

1:20:23

and discuss colonization, conquest, and rape

1:20:25

of women as a war tactic, and the fact

1:20:27

that women are yes, viewed as property, something

1:20:30

that you can use in war, that's

1:20:32

different. But if we're looking at this, there

1:20:34

is no data. There is data

1:20:36

to suggest we already have a problem

1:20:39

with sexual assault and rape see

1:20:41

the term rape culture, and we aren't

1:20:43

doing anything about it. The

1:20:46

women and young girls, MN and boys in

1:20:48

our life need protection from their husband's, father's, teachers,

1:20:50

priest, other American men and

1:20:53

women. And I know it's all politics,

1:20:55

it's easy scapegoat scary

1:20:58

thing, but it makes me so angry.

1:21:01

I mean, this happened before the Civil War,

1:21:03

where they use ex slaves

1:21:06

as predators for

1:21:08

no reason other than they needed predators.

1:21:11

And so let's go ahead and use these

1:21:13

people of color, right exactly.

1:21:16

Yeah. And I just if

1:21:19

you want to protect women, if

1:21:21

you're serious about it, start

1:21:25

in our own borders. I mean, you can go as simple

1:21:27

as start within families. Yeah.

1:21:30

And then on a similar note, we hear something

1:21:32

something kind of the same when it comes

1:21:34

to policing the bathrooms, especially

1:21:36

when it comes to trans people, something

1:21:39

like, oh, I don't want my little girl to get molested

1:21:41

in the bathroom by a trans person. Again,

1:21:45

we have a problem. It is not that,

1:21:48

it is not that and That's what makes me realize

1:21:51

people don't understand what trans people,

1:21:54

trans community, what they're about. It's not about

1:21:56

trying to be something else, it is trying to be who

1:21:59

they really should have been to begin with. And

1:22:02

I know I probably don't have to say this to our audience,

1:22:04

but there is no data to back up that that isn't

1:22:07

concerned none at all.

1:22:10

This is a political move

1:22:12

as old as time women interviewed his property.

1:22:14

Men in power, mostly my white men don't

1:22:17

want anyone decreasing the

1:22:19

value of their property or going

1:22:21

back to desirability youth

1:22:23

and how we value women and girls or don't,

1:22:26

or as a way to further punish a marginalized

1:22:28

group, imprisoning or launching black man for

1:22:31

having sex or even being suspected

1:22:33

of having sex or not even but

1:22:35

it's a great way to wave up a crowd of men into violence

1:22:37

with white women. Actually, I just

1:22:40

read today about the Liam Neeson isn't in

1:22:42

blaming black men in general after

1:22:44

he found out a friend of his had been accosted

1:22:46

by a black man, which makes me really

1:22:48

sad because I really did like Liam Neeson. And

1:22:51

I'm sure there may be more context,

1:22:53

but that in itself tells you once again. Even in

1:22:55

today's society, we're quick

1:22:57

to say, oh, yeah, that minority, they're

1:22:59

dead, only the bad people be

1:23:01

afraid of them, instead of working

1:23:04

on the problem within our own

1:23:06

community. Um yeah,

1:23:08

women's bodies are reserved for those in power,

1:23:10

and those in power legislate those bodies.

1:23:13

And that's a whole other thing when making

1:23:15

decisions about what women can and cannot do with their bodies.

1:23:18

But anyway, I'm very tired of hearing all of that. Um,

1:23:21

we have enough problems. Don't make up fake

1:23:24

ones that start working on the real thing. Well,

1:23:26

well they've already made up the fake one. Build

1:23:29

the wall, right, yeah,

1:23:33

yes, and we

1:23:36

have We have a little bit of

1:23:38

advice for you, some resources. Um.

1:23:41

One one thing that would be great

1:23:43

on a more institutional

1:23:45

level, but also personally,

1:23:48

more research, um,

1:23:50

particularly more inclusive research education,

1:23:53

particularly sex education. Be mindful

1:23:55

of your media, and especially the media we let our

1:23:57

children consume. So I

1:24:00

to find the things that you like about your body. If you're ever feeling

1:24:02

negative, try to think of some things

1:24:04

like, you know what, maybe I don't like my thighs,

1:24:06

but I do like this other thing. You

1:24:08

know. What's best is to sit with your friends

1:24:10

and have a conversation about why this is

1:24:12

silly. Yes, yeah,

1:24:15

reach out to your support group. I always suggest

1:24:17

that a couple of places are working

1:24:19

on combating sexualization of young girls,

1:24:21

like the Gina Davis Institute on Gender and

1:24:23

Media, Spark s p A r

1:24:25

K for Every Girl, Campaign

1:24:28

Together for Girls, the End Trafficking

1:24:31

Project. So there are some

1:24:34

things that you can look up or support if

1:24:37

this is something that you're really passionate about.

1:24:39

And as always, as we end these episodes,

1:24:42

please feel free to reach out to us

1:24:45

with your stories, um

1:24:47

or if you have any questions, if you need resources

1:24:50

in your area, we're very happy to help you as

1:24:52

well as if you have resources, we'd

1:24:54

love to hear that. We want more and more and

1:24:56

more resources. Yeah. Or if you're Sometimes

1:24:59

people have written in and their community is doing something

1:25:01

really interesting but I've never heard it before. That's

1:25:03

great. We'd love to share that stuff as well. UM

1:25:06

for the D

1:25:09

and D fact that the episode to end

1:25:11

on our self care bit so

1:25:15

I'm carrying around a torso

1:25:17

and my bag of holding. You're

1:25:21

you have a you have a torso? Yeah?

1:25:24

Concerned, I love, truly

1:25:27

concerned to anyone who hasn't played

1:25:29

D n D. I love how weird that statement

1:25:31

must sound. You know that's the

1:25:33

weird statement, right, I know, it's strang Okay,

1:25:35

okay, keep going. So bag of holding, like

1:25:38

if you've seen Harry Potter, it's like Hermiones

1:25:40

bag or she can fit all that stuff in there. It's

1:25:43

like a little bag, but it can fit a ton of

1:25:45

stuff and have a Torso. So

1:25:47

what happened was our party

1:25:50

was questioning this guy and

1:25:52

he wasn't being cooperative. And

1:25:55

while this was happening, while we were questioning

1:25:57

him, we were attacked by a basilisk like

1:25:59

you are, and we wanted

1:26:01

to we weren't none

1:26:03

questioning him, so

1:26:06

we were gonna, you know, put

1:26:09

him in the bag of holding. Uh,

1:26:12

but he he got turned to stone

1:26:14

unfortunately, and his arms and legs were kind

1:26:16

of because the batilist he looked in the

1:26:18

eye turned him to stone. So

1:26:23

I wanted to put him in my bag of holding. And

1:26:26

also to any nerds out there, he

1:26:29

was in stone because if you put a living

1:26:31

creature in the bag of holding, they die in

1:26:33

ten minutes. But he was stoned, so he was going

1:26:35

to be fine, but uh,

1:26:38

we couldn't fit him in because his

1:26:41

arms and legs, so

1:26:43

we broke off his arms and legs.

1:26:45

I'm starting to think this is just like a Choose your Adventure

1:26:48

book that you guys are reading out loud with some

1:26:50

dice something like that,

1:26:52

that's too far. But yeah,

1:26:54

we broke off his arms and legs and put him in my bag

1:26:56

of holding. He's still in there. We've mostly forgotten abou

1:26:58

him, but occasionally I remember or oh, yeah,

1:27:01

there was a Torso in here, stone Torso.

1:27:03

But if we ever like turn him not into

1:27:05

stone, he's gonna awake

1:27:08

screaming, bleeding. Probably

1:27:11

I'm going to bleed. I don't know if you does

1:27:13

it like okay, Well, I don't know the physics

1:27:15

of breaking off magically breaking

1:27:18

off stone arm that turns back

1:27:20

into human. I don't know, but

1:27:22

maybe we'll find out. I feel like after

1:27:24

your stuff, I have no real good facts

1:27:27

to add because mine is not in depth.

1:27:33

I can't talk about Peaches being in a bag. I

1:27:35

mean, that's not a thing, but I

1:27:38

will talk about my dog all day.

1:27:40

Again, mine doesn't hold a candle

1:27:43

to yours, but whatever, um

1:27:46

I will say. If anyone

1:27:48

that would like to meet Peaches, please

1:27:51

be aware she gets so excited

1:27:53

and wants to impress you so much that

1:27:55

she peace. I think she did that with you first

1:27:57

time, didn't she Yeah? And I was like,

1:28:00

and then I figured out what was happening. And

1:28:03

apparently this is not a new thing for

1:28:05

a lot of dogs. So I try to get her to meet

1:28:07

people outside, but she still

1:28:09

pieces everywhere. I don't quite

1:28:11

understand it. I guess again,

1:28:13

they get so excited. And to be fair myself,

1:28:16

when I get really excited about something and if I already

1:28:18

need to be is over, I'm just playing.

1:28:20

I'm just kind of kind

1:28:24

of but yeah, that's her thing as well as the fact

1:28:26

like she's also going to try to eat your face

1:28:28

because she's gonna jump towards your face, and

1:28:30

I wanted to eat your face is more of like smell your

1:28:33

face to see what she

1:28:35

can see in your face, like food and

1:28:37

if you have beard, oh my god, she's

1:28:39

gonna start looking at your beard because she knows you got fit

1:28:41

food hidden in there. You

1:28:44

know, that's just facts. That's just facts.

1:28:47

So if you ever meet my dog, be prepared

1:28:49

for all of those things. Yeah.

1:28:52

Yeah, what a way to impress

1:28:54

someone. What about

1:28:56

you, listeners, what are you doing for

1:28:59

self care. Do you have any questions

1:29:01

for us about all of this, If

1:29:03

so, please send them our way. We're thinking

1:29:05

about doing a Q and A episode if

1:29:08

enough of you right in, and also maybe an

1:29:10

in person meet up where you can talk to us about

1:29:12

all of these things, UM and D and D.

1:29:14

I'll talk about D and D all day and I

1:29:17

just I just want to hang out with people so I can

1:29:19

say I have friends. I say,

1:29:21

look, mom, see I have friends. This

1:29:23

is all approved to your mom. Ye have friends

1:29:26

in my living room with peaches, eating beggie

1:29:29

chips, watching Parson

1:29:32

Rick all day long, repeatedly. That

1:29:34

was very specific. But I believe that you don't

1:29:36

do I don't do that. Perhaps

1:29:43

perhaps, but if you

1:29:45

would like to your email as you can. Our

1:29:47

email is mom Stuff and has stuff works dot

1:29:49

com. You can also find us on Twitter

1:29:51

at mom Stuff Podcasts and on Instagram

1:29:53

at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always

1:29:56

to our producer Andrew,

1:29:59

and thanks to you for listening. M