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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Kristin and Kristen. Um. I have heard

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Speaker 1: of a s MR very sort of vaguely in the

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Speaker 1: media online, you know, there are articles about it, and

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Speaker 1: I really thought, well, that's weird, that's billy, I've never

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Speaker 1: felt that before. And then as I started to read

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Speaker 1: more about it, I realized, oh, wait, yes you have.

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Speaker 1: Starting from a very young age, when I would be

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Speaker 1: hanging out with my little girlfriends in elementary school and

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Speaker 1: we would be braiding each other's hair, I would get

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Speaker 1: this like incredibly relaxed, almost tingly headed feeling when they

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Speaker 1: were braiding my hair, and I realized that, my friend,

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Speaker 1: is what these people are talking about. Yes, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about autonomous sensory more Ridian response known as a s MR.

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Speaker 1: And it's not a clinically accepted term. It's more of

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Speaker 1: a neologism that has been used to describe this sensory experience,

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Speaker 1: often referred to as a brain orgasm. And when a

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Speaker 1: listener first wrote in about this months ago now mentioning

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Speaker 1: an s MR, saying you'll should do a podcast on this,

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Speaker 1: and then he described what it was and I immediately

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Speaker 1: knew what he was talking about. I didn't know that

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Speaker 1: there was a word for it, but I definitely knew

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Speaker 1: what he was talking about. And you mentioned your girlfriends

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Speaker 1: and the hair brushing. I had a similar experience with

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Speaker 1: a babysitter who would brush my hair sometimes and it

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Speaker 1: was just so gentle with it, and it would just

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Speaker 1: give me tingles and um. So we decided every like you,

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Speaker 1: you had heard more about it, and you emailed me.

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Speaker 1: And since that guy had emailed, I've done some research

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Speaker 1: as well, and we decided to do something on a SMR,

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Speaker 1: even though it's a little bit outside of our our

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Speaker 1: normal sminty wheelhouse. But among the a s MR online community,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the people involved who are referred to

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Speaker 1: as evokers, and these will talk about more. But there

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Speaker 1: are people who make a s MR videos to try

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Speaker 1: to trigger these tingling brain orgasms. A lot of them

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Speaker 1: are women, so there is a gendered aspect to this.

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Speaker 1: But first let's let's give listeners some more information about

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Speaker 1: what a s MR is, because I feel like if

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Speaker 1: you haven't experienced it, it seems very strange, right. And

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Speaker 1: it was originally greeted with a lot of skepticism, especially

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Speaker 1: from science the scientific community. People are like, that's not

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Speaker 1: really a thing, but a lot of people have come

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Speaker 1: out and said, now, if people experience it, it is

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Speaker 1: real and and um. One neuroscientist Stephen Novella said that

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Speaker 1: it's similar in that way to migraine headaches. We know

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Speaker 1: they exist as a syndrome primarily because many different people

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Speaker 1: report the same constellation of symptoms and natural history. So basically, um,

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Speaker 1: what people are experiencing is certain triggers, which we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about in a second. Certain triggers set off this feeling

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Speaker 1: of relaxation. A lot of people use it, for instance,

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Speaker 1: to overcome anxiety or to overcome insomnia and be able

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Speaker 1: to sleep at night. And it's accompanied sometimes by by

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Speaker 1: the tingles, so your your scalp might tangle, the sensation

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Speaker 1: might go down your arms and legs. And some of

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Speaker 1: these videos um actually have been flagged on like YouTube,

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Speaker 1: for instance, for adult content or inappropriate content, because it's

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Speaker 1: like some people associated with almost a fetish community. But

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Speaker 1: that's really not that's really not the gist of it.

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Speaker 1: It's really not meant as like a sexual thing or

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Speaker 1: meant to ex cite people sexually. It's it's sort of

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Speaker 1: the opposite. Yeah, And to give some better insight into

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Speaker 1: what that sensation is, there are all sorts of colloquialisms

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Speaker 1: for a s MR and the experience of it, such

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Speaker 1: as attention induced euphoria, attention induced head orgasm, attention induced

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Speaker 1: observing euphoria, brain gasm, buzzing, celestial wash that sound nice.

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Speaker 1: I like to take a celestial wash, um, and that

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Speaker 1: one's more related to spiritual theory. Some people get very

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Speaker 1: into it and almost derived like a whole meditative state

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Speaker 1: from SMR. Goose sloping, which sounds like a euphemism from masturbation.

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Speaker 1: I would just like to say, yes, it does that.

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Speaker 1: Once you start talking about goose looping, you're probably gonna

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Speaker 1: get flagged on YouTube. But also hairgasm, headgasm, nerv alanch

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Speaker 1: how about that portmanteau of nerve and avalanche. And I

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Speaker 1: understand that because it sometimes does feel like it's swooping

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Speaker 1: from the top of your head all the way down

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Speaker 1: your spine and then finally we have WHS or weird

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Speaker 1: head sensation. Yeah, I mean it is an interesting feeling

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Speaker 1: and something that I was thinking, Uh, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of other researchers have asked two, is is this not

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Speaker 1: just something that we all experience in one degree or

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Speaker 1: another at one time or another, and maybe we're just

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Speaker 1: now coming together and talking about it thanks Internet. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a thing that everybody experiences.

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Speaker 1: It could be the a s m R is a

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Speaker 1: lot more common than it might seem. When you hear

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Speaker 1: words like head gasm, celestial wash, you know you mighty

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Speaker 1: hear them and say, no, that doesn't happen to me.

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Speaker 1: But when you consider the range of a s MR

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Speaker 1: triggers that people have identified, and then the online community

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Speaker 1: started to make videos of to sort of stimulate that

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Speaker 1: auditory response, the triggers include things like soothing voices, NPR

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Speaker 1: is a big trigger for a lot of people, and

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Speaker 1: Bob Ross. Yes, the let's paint happy trees trees. Bob

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Speaker 1: Ross is a common trigger. I don't on almost any

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Speaker 1: a s MR blog, you'll hear about Bob Ross and

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Speaker 1: I briefly listen to a little Bob Ross audio and

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Speaker 1: I totally got it. I get it now, I totally

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Speaker 1: get it. I remember watching it as a kid and

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Speaker 1: thinking it was like the most relaxing thing ever, because

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Speaker 1: he he's got this real soft voice, gal and he's

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Speaker 1: just painting those happy clouds and those happy trees. And

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Speaker 1: I get it well as British journalists Roadri Marsden put

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Speaker 1: it in an article about a SMR and The Independent.

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Speaker 1: He explains how Bob Ross clearly took all of the

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Speaker 1: a s m R boxes, expertise, precision, reassuring speech patterns

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Speaker 1: and gentle sounds, from which that characteristic tingling inevitably follows,

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Speaker 1: and so along similar lines. Other common triggers are massa obviously,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's going to probably be very relaxing, getting

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Speaker 1: a manicure, pedicure, getting a haircut, just soothing voices in general,

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Speaker 1: as we've said, someone paying extremely close attention to a task,

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Speaker 1: and I have heard anecdotally about one that reminded me

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Speaker 1: of that. The thing about someone paying a close attention

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Speaker 1: to a task someone I know says that they're a SMR.

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Speaker 1: Trigger has been when uh, in school, if a teacher

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Speaker 1: or professor is reading a paper that they wrote in

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Speaker 1: front of them just like that, and it's that close

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Speaker 1: attention and then like or reading it allowed. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what it is. I don't Yeah, I might need

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Speaker 1: a listener to write in and explain that one, because

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Speaker 1: I know there are videos of like people folding towels

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Speaker 1: for a Chile and I just like, as someone who

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Speaker 1: hates to put away my laundry and fold it, I'm like, well,

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Speaker 1: it's more of the tell folding tutorial. And I want

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Speaker 1: a lot of these videos to you are simulations and

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Speaker 1: kind of role playing, which again gets people thinking that

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Speaker 1: it's a weird fetish thing. Um, but it really is

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Speaker 1: all just about these noises and um. As far of

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Speaker 1: my research for this podcast, I tried to watch one

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Speaker 1: on a haircut. It was the simulation that that you,

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Speaker 1: the viewer, we're getting a haircut, and the woman had

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Speaker 1: a three D microphone, so it actually sounded like she

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Speaker 1: was walking around, you know, and and trimming all parts

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Speaker 1: of of your hair and playing with your hair and stuff.

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Speaker 1: And I kind of got it, but then once it

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Speaker 1: required the certain detachment, because once my brain kicked in

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Speaker 1: and said, Christen, you're watching a video in which you're

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Speaker 1: having to pretend that this woman you don't know is

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Speaker 1: cutting your hair. This is very strange. I just and

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Speaker 1: then I just lost it. Yeah, I would imagine as

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Speaker 1: part of the whole process of relaxing and getting into it.

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Speaker 1: You really can't be self conscious about it or be

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Speaker 1: self aware or aware of you know, it's it's definitely

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Speaker 1: a suspension of disbelief. You kind of just have to

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Speaker 1: roll with it. But how and when did a SMR

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Speaker 1: first emerged? Because I feel like it's just sprung up recently,

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Speaker 1: even though like for you and me both we have

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Speaker 1: memories of this to go back to our childhood. Well,

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Speaker 1: it kind of gained traction earlier this century. On October ninete,

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Speaker 1: two thousand seven, Steady Health Forums member okay whatever posted

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Speaker 1: a thread titled weird sensation Feels Good, describing a strange,

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Speaker 1: itchy sensation triggered by several different social interactions and it

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Speaker 1: kind of grew from there. So in December two thousand eight,

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Speaker 1: there was a Yahoo group started called Society of Sensationalists.

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Speaker 1: It was launched with a similar purpose, gaining over thirty

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Speaker 1: two hundred members in less than three years. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten, a s MR really went

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Speaker 1: big time with Hug Your Brain Day, which was partially

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Speaker 1: organized by Jennifer Allen, who also launched the a s

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Speaker 1: MR Research and Support website after she coined the term

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Speaker 1: autonomous sensory Meridian response and a related Facebook group, and

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Speaker 1: of course who catches onto this but Reddit users um so.

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Speaker 1: On February two eleven, we have the first a s

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Speaker 1: MR Reddit discussion board popping up all of this. By

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Speaker 1: the way, this timeline is coming from no your mame

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Speaker 1: dot com and I feel like it really hit the

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Speaker 1: mainstream mainstream on March twenty nine, two thousand thirteen. Earlier

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Speaker 1: this year, when novelist Andrew Siegel did a This American

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Speaker 1: Life story about her a s MR triggers. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: everything I read comments that I see online people who

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Speaker 1: are talking about this. Under every article you see about

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Speaker 1: a s m R or column, people are like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, I never knew there was a name for this.

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Speaker 1: I have felt this, uh since childhood, or I feel

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Speaker 1: this every day, or you know, I've always wondered and

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Speaker 1: I just thought everybody had it, or or I thought

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Speaker 1: I was the only one who had it. And so

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Speaker 1: it's interesting to watch uh in real time, like the

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Speaker 1: evolution of this concept, whether it's really medical or not

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Speaker 1: online as people talk about it. Yeah, that that online

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Speaker 1: factor has been so important to it. I feel like

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Speaker 1: if it weren't for discussion boards and Facebook groups and

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Speaker 1: things like that, we we wouldn't really know about it.

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Speaker 1: We would still every now and then get a cool

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Speaker 1: head gasm and be like, oh that was nice, and

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Speaker 1: I'll get you can't wait from the next haircut. And

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Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why a Slate writer referred

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Speaker 1: to it as this convergence of quote, technology, alienation, and intimacy.

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Speaker 1: So it's become something that we only thought that we experienced,

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Speaker 1: but now they're all of these communities who have developed

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Speaker 1: these little languages around it. Yeah, and part of that language,

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Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned evokers, Kristen, the people who create

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Speaker 1: the trigger videos. There are chasers, the people who go

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Speaker 1: to great links to experience a s m R. So

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Speaker 1: they might sit on YouTube all day and watch these videos.

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Speaker 1: There was one video I watched that included fingernail tapping,

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Speaker 1: rubbing paper together, whispering, and the one that I was like,

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Speaker 1: I'm turning this off now, she was like dipping her

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Speaker 1: hands in and out of a bowl of water really fast,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, that just sounds that sounds chriss um. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: these videos are made for chasers. And then we have

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Speaker 1: asthma's or even as marian's. Who are the people who

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Speaker 1: experience this condition a s MR? And they really go

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Speaker 1: out and seek out these videos in the a s

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Speaker 1: m R community on YouTube, a lot of which are

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Speaker 1: made by women. Yeah, and and the whole point about

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Speaker 1: the videos is that it's a way to get a

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Speaker 1: jolt of a s MR. You know, obviously you can't

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Speaker 1: go and get a massage or a haircut every day probably, um,

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Speaker 1: So there's this whole community that has sprung up making

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Speaker 1: all sorts of videos specifically geared to, you know, set

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Speaker 1: off off those kinds of head orgasms, the celestial washes

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Speaker 1: by trying out different triggers like that you were talking about,

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Speaker 1: the fingernail tapping, the running fingers over hairbrush bristles, things

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Speaker 1: like that. And like you said, a lot of them

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Speaker 1: are made by women. And there was an article in

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Speaker 1: Vice magazine about this and they interviewed Maria, who is

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Speaker 1: known on YouTube as Gentle Whispering, and she says that

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons why women make so many of

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Speaker 1: these videos is that quote, if a guy is in

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Speaker 1: front of the camera and whispering, there aren't many things

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Speaker 1: he can do that won't seem creepy, but I mean

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Speaker 1: by the same token though, the first time I watched one,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of them are, it's referred to as

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Speaker 1: a whispering community because a lot of these videos do

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Speaker 1: involve women. And I'm not going to do this into

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Speaker 1: the mike right now because I'm sure that would be

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Speaker 1: kind of off putting for people, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: the videos are women whispering directly into the mic. And

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Speaker 1: the first time I send to one and watched one,

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Speaker 1: I was initially kind of creeped out, but then once

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Speaker 1: it started sitting off head tingles, I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't so bad, It's not so creepy.

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Speaker 1: They're interesting issues brought up though, of what exactly is

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Speaker 1: causing it, Like we know what's happening, but why do

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Speaker 1: we response is strongly to do these whispers feminine whisper

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Speaker 1: and and a lot of people have brought up the

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Speaker 1: theory that maybe this is something that reaches back to

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Speaker 1: our mother's uh Emma a k A. Lush Whispers told

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Speaker 1: The Independent, maybe it's because of our experience as we

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Speaker 1: had as children, a mother's voice, a kind teacher, a

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Speaker 1: friendly optometris because some of those role playing videos are

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Speaker 1: like you're getting a monologue from the dentist or the optometris,

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Speaker 1: some professional who has to be very close to your face.

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Speaker 1: And she says that it can be a mixture of

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Speaker 1: the sounds and visual stimuli that trigger response. Yeah, in

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Speaker 1: more formal terms, a slate posture, it's that maybe, Um,

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Speaker 1: the a SMR videos address a desire to regain some

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Speaker 1: pre lapse Sarian state of mother child unity. Um, because

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Speaker 1: there are also a lot of videos that involve um,

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Speaker 1: these whisperers basically saying like you're gonna be okay, you

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Speaker 1: work so hard, uh, you know, oh you're sick, let

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Speaker 1: me take care of you, like very nurturing and coddling

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Speaker 1: as well. But asmar blogger Heather Feathers Um notes that

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Speaker 1: there are also plenty of male evokers out there, but

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Speaker 1: that they deal with some haters on YouTube because a

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Speaker 1: lot of viewers assume that they won't like hearing a

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Speaker 1: man in a nurturing role or that it will make

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Speaker 1: them uncomfortable, kind of like what Maria of Gentle Whispering

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Speaker 1: said about how you know, if we see a guy

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Speaker 1: whispering to a camera, it's just automatically going to be creepy.

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Speaker 1: And I did sheet Heather Feathers that some links to

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Speaker 1: some male evokers that she liked, and so I watched

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Speaker 1: one of them and and he was, yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: still gentle and uh tingly. I mean, I don't think

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Speaker 1: that you can say that all men evokers would be creepy,

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Speaker 1: just like I don't think all women evokers are necessarily

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Speaker 1: un creepy. I think it depends on your video, It

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Speaker 1: depends on what the person saying, and you're going to

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Speaker 1: find something creepy that somebody else won't and vice versa.

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Speaker 1: So well, and this also deals with like how how

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Speaker 1: we're using the word creepy, you know, for a as

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Speaker 1: far people who are out there who might be very

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Speaker 1: much into the whispering community would probably take offense at

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Speaker 1: that descriptor. But at the end of the day, the

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Speaker 1: thing is maybe not creepy. But at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, it is strange to think about intentionally whispering

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Speaker 1: into a microphone and maybe slowly opening a bag of

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Speaker 1: potato chips and eating them very quietly, because that's one

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Speaker 1: of the triggers for people to that that celephane frankly, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but don't crinkle too glad or too fast. That's right,

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Speaker 1: that's a slow, gentle crinkle. But um, but again, a

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Speaker 1: s MR community members always want to emphasize that even

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Speaker 1: though you know you use terms like brain orgasm, headgasm, hairgasm,

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Speaker 1: it's not a sexual thing, right, It just I mean,

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Speaker 1: it just feels good, but not necessarily in a sexual way.

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Speaker 1: I mean, just because something feels good and is relaxing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that is why people are calling it,

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Speaker 1: you know, blank gasm. But it definitely does not equate

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Speaker 1: to an actual orgasm, as people who have had orgasms

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Speaker 1: could tell you. But I do wonder, though, Caroline, if

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Speaker 1: at this point people who are listening who are not

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Speaker 1: familiar with what we're talking about, and we're sitting here

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Speaker 1: talking about having experienced this, if maybe we sound a

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Speaker 1: little crazy. I don't know, maybe we do. Well. We're

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Speaker 1: usually we're usually more skeptical in the side of things,

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Speaker 1: but once we both started researching this was like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we experienced this. But I mean speaking of skepticism though,

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Speaker 1: like we said at the top of the podcast, when

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Speaker 1: the term autonomous sensory meridian response a s MR first

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Speaker 1: popped up online, a lot of people did greeted with skepticism,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, when someone first created a Wikipedia page

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Speaker 1: for it, it was promptly taken down because Wicki editors

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Speaker 1: said that it lacked scientific evidence, although now the page

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Speaker 1: is back up and there are no flags on it

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Speaker 1: because I think that it's received enough media attention. And

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Speaker 1: there are also some researchers looking into who want to

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Speaker 1: put people who claim to experience a SMR into an

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Speaker 1: MRI machine so that they can hopefully see what their

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Speaker 1: brain looks like when it's being triggered, to try to

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Speaker 1: figure out what's going on. I believe there's a psychologist

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Speaker 1: at Dartmouth who's doing this. I mean, that's fascinating. I

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Speaker 1: would love to know the outcome of that. And I

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Speaker 1: know that that's the kind of stuff that Jen for Alan,

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Speaker 1: for instance, over at a s MR Research and Support

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Speaker 1: was really pushing for, like, Okay, this is a feeling

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Speaker 1: that people have, it's time to research it and see

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Speaker 1: what's going on. And psychologist Tom Stafford wrote for the

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Speaker 1: BBC that yeah, you know what, maybe the medical community

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Speaker 1: just hasn't caught up to people, since people are just

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Speaker 1: now kind of coming together and saying okay, there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of us that have felt this, and some

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Speaker 1: clinicians think that it could be a good thing to

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Speaker 1: glean more insight into because a lot of people used

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Speaker 1: it as a form of stress relief through a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who can't sleep, who can only finally get

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Speaker 1: to sleep by watching an s MR videos. So they're

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Speaker 1: wondering if they can see what's going on in the brain,

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Speaker 1: what kind of pathways that it might be triggering, that

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Speaker 1: maybe they could apply that to new kinds of therapies,

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Speaker 1: which could be great um, and a lot of people

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Speaker 1: have compared it to something like synesthesia, which is a

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Speaker 1: phenomenon where experiencing one sense results experiencing another one. For instance,

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Speaker 1: a common one it's called graphine color. It's where letters

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Speaker 1: might have a color in your brain, or if you

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Speaker 1: here read a specific word, there's a taste that goes

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Speaker 1: along with this. There are a lot of musicians in

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Speaker 1: fact um that have a form of or claim to

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Speaker 1: have a form of synesthesia where they see music in colors.

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Speaker 1: And for a long time, kind of like a s

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Speaker 1: MR synesthesia was written off as just some you know,

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Speaker 1: trippy whatever, like it wasn't something that people believed actually existed,

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Speaker 1: but then once the clinical community caught up to it,

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Speaker 1: they realized that, oh, this is actually something that does

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Speaker 1: happen in our brains. Yeah. I thought for a minute

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Speaker 1: when I was reading about that, I was like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, I think I have that. And then I

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Speaker 1: started examining why I thought certain letters were certain colors,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, no, that's just because of kindergarten,

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Speaker 1: because like remember your big alphabet charts were like A

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Speaker 1: was the apple, you know, and BE was like a bumblebee.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's because red apple, And that's why

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Speaker 1: I think A is red. And so when you hear bees,

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Speaker 1: are they always yellow and black stripe? Yeah? Apparently, I guess.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I realized, no, Caroline, you're not

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Speaker 1: that special. It's just so stop reaching for all of

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Speaker 1: these weird brain cross wiring conditions. But yeah, speaking of

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Speaker 1: the cross wiring, though, some wonder whether a s MR

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Speaker 1: is just the result of that in which a trigger

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Speaker 1: like watching Bob Ross paint his happy trees is stimulating

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Speaker 1: a particular brain regions. Some also think that it's related

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Speaker 1: to serotonin release that sets off all of those calming,

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Speaker 1: happy feelings because you can't hit a ceiling with it,

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Speaker 1: like some of the One of the reasons why you

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Speaker 1: they're the term chaser exists is because if you watch

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Speaker 1: a lot of a s MR videos, you can almost

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Speaker 1: get a s m R out. It's almost as though

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Speaker 1: the brain can develop a tolerance for it, so it

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Speaker 1: needs to kind of reset. So it's kind of addictive,

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Speaker 1: kind of satisfying some need and you need more of it,

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Speaker 1: so it's like like mental crack. Yeah, but I I really,

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Speaker 1: I really wish that I could go into an MRI machine.

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Speaker 1: I want to know what's going on in my brain

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Speaker 1: now that there's language to go with it. I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: curious to see. And also knowing that there are these

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Speaker 1: videos that are out there to trigger them, I'm really

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Speaker 1: curious to know. Um. And also, I mean, if there

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Speaker 1: are any guys out there who make these videos, I'm

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Speaker 1: curious to know, because there is. I mean, it does

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Speaker 1: seem like it's overwhelmingly dominated by women. Like what is

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Speaker 1: it about those soft female voices, because I know exactly

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Speaker 1: the type of voice that they're talking about where it's

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Speaker 1: like almost Terry gross, but not it's not quite Terry gross.

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Speaker 1: Terry Gross is too like high pitched and nasally for

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Speaker 1: me and like creaky host of fresh air. Oh, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I enjoy it, but it's not a smr ish.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Um. I'm hoping though that listeners who

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Speaker 1: know what we're talking about right in, let us know

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Speaker 1: your triggers. Let's know, if you watch these videos, if

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Speaker 1: you've made these videos. Also let us know if you

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Speaker 1: think that we are cuckoo and you have no idea,

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Speaker 1: because I wonder if that is a different brain wiring too,

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Speaker 1: If there why would there not be some kind of

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Speaker 1: relaxation trigger. But also if you, you know, if you

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Speaker 1: really think that you have an experience that maybe you

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Speaker 1: need to do what I didn't think back to when

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Speaker 1: you were like seven and be like, oh right, hair

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Speaker 1: braiding made me just want to fall asleep in the library.

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Speaker 1: So maybe you need to, uh, you know, have go

401
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,640
Speaker 1: get your hair braided like once a month or something.

402
00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:00,680
Speaker 1: It's a port with therapy. All the girls in the

403
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: office are like in a hair braiding circle. It's like

404
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:05,919
Speaker 1: it's the three o'clock slump. We've got to do something,

405
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: do something to calm down. The bosses are really breathing

406
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: down my neck. Um, But yeah, right into us about

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Speaker 1: a s m R. If you will. Mom Stuff at

408
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com is where you can send your emails.

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00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: You can tweet us at mom Stuff podcast, or send

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00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,640
Speaker 1: us a message on Facebook. And we got a couple

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00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: of letters to read for you right when we get

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Speaker 1: back from a quick break. And now back to our letters, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: I have one here from Jamie. She was writing in

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Speaker 1: about our women's college episode. She says, I just recently

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Speaker 1: graduated from Mount Holyoke, which we were always told was

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Speaker 1: the first women's college in the country, and I identify

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Speaker 1: as transgender, specifically trans masculine slash gender queer. I am female,

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Speaker 1: assigned at birth and identified as trans before I entered

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Speaker 1: Mount Holyoke and was looking forward to being in an

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Speaker 1: environment that would allow issues such as trans issues to

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Speaker 1: be more relevant and potentially safer than co ed colleges.

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Speaker 1: The semester before I graduated, I and a few other faculty,

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Speaker 1: alums and professors in the area who identify as trans,

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Speaker 1: as well as our president, Lynn Pascarella, spoke on the

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Speaker 1: issue of trans spoke at all women's colleges. You might

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00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: notice a lot of trans men at women's colleges. Actually,

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00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: the issue is trans women. It gets really messy, especially

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00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: with Title nine. And while I think anyone who's not

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00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: assist gender male should be able to apply at a

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00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: women's college, I quite frankly think that trans women belong

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00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,120
Speaker 1: at women's colleges such as Mount Holyoke more than I did.

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00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:36,439
Speaker 1: There is a lot of work to be done gender

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00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: neutral bathrooms, ending extreme amounts of essentialists and transphobic language

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00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: and actions, and just all around equality and anti oppression.

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00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: I really really loved Mount Holyoke and got an incredible

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00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: education and made relationships with students, faculty, et cetera that

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00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: I think will last me a lifetime. Also, being a

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00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,960
Speaker 1: part of the five college consortition was great. While I

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00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: can't speak about being straight at a woman's college, I

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00:25:57,600 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: did meet lots of guys at all the schools, some

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00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: which became my best friend. Anyway, I had a great

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00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: time at Mount Holyoke, and I'm really happy that Trances

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00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: she was a being talked about so widely in all

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00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: types of conversations. So thank you, Jamie Well. I've got

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00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,879
Speaker 1: an email here from Alessandra about women's colleges. She is

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00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: currently a senior at Barnard Whoop Whoop, one of the

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00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 1: Seven Sisters schools, and she writes, I was originally among

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00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: the ninety seven percent of high school girls whom you

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00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: quoted who would not consider attending a woman's college. I

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00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:31,760
Speaker 1: had never heard of Barnard and checked it out on

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00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: a whim because my father really wanted me to. I

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00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: remember sitting down with two students and asking specifically about

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00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: the lack of boys, God forbid. These girls explained to

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00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 1: me that because of Barnard's unique relationship with Columbia University,

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00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: many of their classes did have boys, and they took

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00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: several of their core curriculum classes across the street at

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00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: the co ed school. Plus they said, it's New York,

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00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: there are plenty of boys, and so my fears were assuaged,

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00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: and I was even committed to applying early decision to

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00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: Barnard as my top joys. However, to my high school friends,

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00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 1: I continue to qualify my decision with statements like, oh,

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00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: it's not really in all women convent or anything, because

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00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: I was the only girl in the living memory of

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00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: my high school to even apply to a women's college,

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00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: and I definitely felt socially judged. Three years have gone

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00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: by since receiving my decision letter, and I no longer

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00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: feel awkward or compromising over my women's college choice. In fact,

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00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: more than any other part of college, the all women

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00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: component has been the most influential and educational to me. True,

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00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: it's not for everyone, and true I still encounter many

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00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: negative stereotypes from other college students when they hear I

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00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: to know women's college. However, I have found the opportunities

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00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 1: and experiences that I've been exposed to as a result

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00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,919
Speaker 1: of my single sex education have played an invaluable informative

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00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 1: role in making me the capable and empowered feminist go

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00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 1: getter that I am today. Ps I recommend your podcast,

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00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: all my phones and all that well. Thank you, Alessandra,

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00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: and good luck finishing up at Barnard. It is an

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00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: impressive school to go too, and thanks to everybody who's

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00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: written in on seven. Discovery dot com is our email address.

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00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,

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00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: and you can hit us up on Facebook as well.

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00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 1: Like us while you're at it, and we're also on

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00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: Tumbler at stuff mom never told you dot tumbler dot com,

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00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: and don't forget that we are on YouTube as well

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00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,400
Speaker 1: if you want to see our faces you can head

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00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: over there. We've got new videos coming out four times

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00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: a week, so don't forget to Go to YouTube dot

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00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: com slash stuff Mom Never told You and subscribe for

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't have

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00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:39,400
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