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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 Caroline,

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen. Kristen. I have noticed in the news that, uh,

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Speaker 1: there's some young people doing something that I had never

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Speaker 1: heard of before that have to do with the texting. No. Surprisingly,

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Speaker 1: well maybe it could be involved, but no. I read

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Speaker 1: about young people selling their virginity online, and I think

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Speaker 1: this is crazy town. But when I looked it up,

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Speaker 1: when I looked back farther, there were so many other

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Speaker 1: instances of people doing this for various reasons. The most

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Speaker 1: recent pair were Katerina Miglioni and Alex stepping Off. These

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Speaker 1: were kids in their twenties selling their virginity. There was

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Speaker 1: a woman a couple of years ago named Natalie Dillon,

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Speaker 1: although that was a pseudonym, who was doing it for school.

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Speaker 1: Uh those other two you did it for to be

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Speaker 1: in a movie like and get money and all this stuff.

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Speaker 1: So it's crazy to me, like, why why these young

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Speaker 1: people would choose to do this? And it's certainly at

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Speaker 1: least in Natalie Dylan's case, lit up the blogosphere as

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Speaker 1: to like, you know, people were just going crazy over

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Speaker 1: why she would do this, that they didn't like that

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Speaker 1: she was trying to tie it into feminism. They didn't

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Speaker 1: you know, approve of her reasoning and all this stuff.

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Speaker 1: So I thought we should take a look at virginity

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Speaker 1: auctions and why the heck anyone would try to auction

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Speaker 1: their virginity off in the first place. Yeah, And by

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Speaker 1: auctioning off of virginity, it is essentially someone buying the

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Speaker 1: chance to have sex with that person for the very

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Speaker 1: first time. And which you know, for anyone out there

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Speaker 1: who has had sex before a lot of times, like

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Speaker 1: the first time, but like you wouldn't. I would not

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Speaker 1: pay the money these people unpaid to have that uh

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Speaker 1: sex again, not to be t m I about it,

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Speaker 1: because it's I mean, it's your first time. You just

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Speaker 1: don't it's not you're not experienced. Um. And also reading

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Speaker 1: all this stuff about these virginity auctions and the reaction

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Speaker 1: to that, to it, it's incredible that as in the

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Speaker 1: era of fifty Shades of Gray, that virginity in a

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Speaker 1: way is still a taboo. Um. So but let's let's go.

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Speaker 1: Let's let's start from the present and work back a

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Speaker 1: little bit. Let's talk about via the film in which

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Speaker 1: Katerina and what was the fellow's name, Alex Katerina and Alex, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're part of this documentary. The whole thing is kind

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Speaker 1: of shady to me. Yeah. Well, so there's this Australian director,

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Speaker 1: Justin sise Lye who came up with the idea for

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Speaker 1: a documentary in which a man and a woman would

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Speaker 1: each offer their virginity to the highest online bidder. So

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Speaker 1: he puts ads out seeking people, puts a website up,

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Speaker 1: and he's adamant, like in all of the like Business

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Speaker 1: Week kind of Q and A with this guy, he's

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Speaker 1: adamant that he's not just interested in sex, young people

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Speaker 1: having sex, young people being taken advantage of anything like that.

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Speaker 1: He says that his main interest is in change, and

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Speaker 1: in documenting this whole hubbub, he wanted to portray the

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Speaker 1: changes that these people are going through the entire time.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I'm I have the willies from just

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Speaker 1: thinking about it because you but yeah, I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: like Justin cisely is smart in knowing what will get

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Speaker 1: media attention. And if you make a documentary called Virgins Wanted,

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Speaker 1: then hey, that's a good job. You're gonna get some

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Speaker 1: some easy pr on that, but also the fact that

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Speaker 1: there is this assumption that heterosexual intercourse because that it's

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Speaker 1: all in like very heteronormal terms as well. They're looking

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Speaker 1: for a dude for her and a lady for him,

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Speaker 1: and the but the but the idea that having having

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Speaker 1: intercourse once changes you. I think it's also one of

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Speaker 1: the since why virginity in a way is still this

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Speaker 1: cultural taboo, myth, huge thing that we just can't let

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Speaker 1: go of. But I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: you're exactly right, and we will get into that. But

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Speaker 1: I think it's important to point out how much cash

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Speaker 1: these people raked in. Uh So. The bidding ran from

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Speaker 1: September to October, and the pair were scheduled to lose

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Speaker 1: their virginity in the air in an airplane to avoid

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Speaker 1: prostitution laws of any country. Uh And about mid November,

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Speaker 1: and I have no idea. I tried to google updates.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't find any more recent updates, you know, as

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Speaker 1: of December. But Katerina's top bidder was a Japanese man

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Speaker 1: going by the name Natsu, who offered seven hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars. Alex's top bitter. This is a a

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Speaker 1: Russian man. Alex's top bitter was a Brazilian woman going

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Speaker 1: by the name any B who offered Yeah, and that

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Speaker 1: huge pay difference that worth in quotes um for male

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Speaker 1: virginity versus female virginity is also something that we will

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Speaker 1: circle back to because that also gets at the heart of,

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Speaker 1: you know, the implicat the major implications of the fact

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Speaker 1: that we still talk about virginity so much and get

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Speaker 1: so worked up about virginity which even you know, you

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Speaker 1: could like really isn't even a thing. But again, I

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Speaker 1: keep getting ahead of myself because there's so much to

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Speaker 1: talk about. Um. And not surprisingly, Katerina has received more

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Speaker 1: scrutiny than Alex. There was a pro their profiles of

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Speaker 1: each of them, and the one for Alex painted him

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Speaker 1: as this kind of sad and depressed kid who wanted

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Speaker 1: to have sex so that he could get more, you know,

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Speaker 1: gain more self confidence and wants to find love, whereas

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Speaker 1: Katerina is just being slut shamed left and right. Yeah. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: she said that she wanted to start an NGO and

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Speaker 1: invest in a public housing project in her hometown in Brazil,

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Speaker 1: but even the director himself Justin Sisily said he was

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Speaker 1: skeptical of this, to which I say, like, you know what,

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Speaker 1: if you're going to auction your virginity off, who really cares? Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know who cares what you do with the money, honestly,

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Speaker 1: but uh. Cleon Daska Lakis, who's an ex hockey player

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Speaker 1: who runs net raffle dot org, which is a site

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Speaker 1: that raises money for online charities, pointed out that some

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Speaker 1: charities might actually refuse the money because he says, this

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Speaker 1: type of transaction is setting a dangerous precedent not to

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Speaker 1: mention a call for global prostitution on a one time basis. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I think that that is a little bit overblown. I

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Speaker 1: think that's also it's missing the point in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways, um. And I think that we can get

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Speaker 1: to that point a little bit more when we talk

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Speaker 1: about the two thousand nine case of Natalie Dylan, which

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Speaker 1: again is a pseudonym who that year and now on

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Speaker 1: Howard Stern's show along with Dennis Hoff, who was the

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Speaker 1: owner of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada, that she

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Speaker 1: was going to option off her virginity to pay for

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Speaker 1: her master's degree in Family and Marriage therapy and as

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Speaker 1: part of a quote unquote sociological experiment. Yeah, she she

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Speaker 1: posted a column in The Daily Beast where she says

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Speaker 1: that I wanted to study the public's response. She said

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Speaker 1: that she was doing her upcoming thesis project on the

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Speaker 1: value of virginity and said that as a Women's studies

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Speaker 1: undergrad she learned that the concept of virginity quote is

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Speaker 1: just a tool to keep the status quo intact. Deflowering

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Speaker 1: is historically oppressive. Early European marriages begin with a dowry,

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Speaker 1: in which a father would sell his virginal daughter to

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Speaker 1: the man whose family could offer the most agricultural wealth dad's,

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Speaker 1: she says, we're basically their daughter's pimps. Well, and one

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Speaker 1: thing though, that is that is troubling about that dowry analogy,

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Speaker 1: speaking of it as a relic of a bygone air ruh,

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Speaker 1: is that Hey, guess what, that stuff still exists. We

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Speaker 1: aren't living in some kind of like post feminist society

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Speaker 1: where uh that does not still go on? And even

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Speaker 1: like India is um one place where a lot of times,

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Speaker 1: even now, money is typically exchanged between families when couples

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Speaker 1: are getting married, and a lot of times dowries have

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Speaker 1: and still do equate too many times the households annual income.

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Speaker 1: Uh so I'm just saying, you know, Dylan, do a

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Speaker 1: little bit of history work first, but continue. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: so she's basically saying, like, all right, if if historically

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Speaker 1: women have been you know, quote unquote pimped out by

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Speaker 1: their fathers, what's to stop me from benefiting from the

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Speaker 1: value that society places on my virginity. So she's basically

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Speaker 1: saying that she wanted to turn her virginity quote into

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Speaker 1: something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men.

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Speaker 1: So using something that you know, whether or not she

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Speaker 1: herself places any value on it, she knows that society

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Speaker 1: does that men do, and she wants to see how

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Speaker 1: much money she can get from the sale of this

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Speaker 1: quote unquote virtue. Well, and her argument about um, you know,

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Speaker 1: using this in a way that allows her to gain

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Speaker 1: power and opportunity with men does echo a lot of

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Speaker 1: feminist arguments in favor of sex work, saying, hey, you

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Speaker 1: know what I can I can strip, I can have

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Speaker 1: sex for money. I'm just you know, using being using

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Speaker 1: the during the tool of patriarchy for my own benefit.

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Speaker 1: But the the whole thing of using virginity as a

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Speaker 1: commodity is troubling because it still doesn't that's different from

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Speaker 1: just having sex for money, if that makes sense. It's

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Speaker 1: it's the whole thing of perpetuating the mythology of virginity

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Speaker 1: that is that is problematic to me. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: the only one who has found, you know, Dylan's Dylan

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Speaker 1: thesis to be a little bit wonky. Yeah, the whole

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Speaker 1: internet basically was like what. There was a slew of

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Speaker 1: blog post articles and everything written about this woman. After

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Speaker 1: her Daily Beast column in early two thousand nine, Carrie

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Speaker 1: Polos over at The Huffington's Post said that, you know what,

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Speaker 1: Dylan is just proving what we already know, that virginity

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Speaker 1: is still considered something of value. And Polis points out

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Speaker 1: that the real problem to her is that we have

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Speaker 1: someone who's willing to spend, in Dylan's case, almost four

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Speaker 1: million dollars to sleep with her just because no one

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Speaker 1: else has. So why isn't there equal media attention about

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Speaker 1: those men, about the whole cultural perception of well, she's clean,

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Speaker 1: she hasn't had any other man or any other man's baby.

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Speaker 1: You know, I can you know verify that she's clean,

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Speaker 1: so to speak. Yeah, the the whole thing, the backlash too,

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Speaker 1: is not a thing of oh well, she's selling the

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Speaker 1: opportunity for someone to have sex with. No, if she

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Speaker 1: wants to go to the Moonlight Bunny Ranch and have

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Speaker 1: sex with someone for money, that's fine, that's not that's

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Speaker 1: not the issue here. Um. Megan Carpenter, who used to

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Speaker 1: work over at Jezebel, wrote at the time that she

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Speaker 1: was acknowledging the patriarchal system, but rather than working to

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Speaker 1: end it, she's accepting its terms and using it to

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Speaker 1: make money, which serves one person it serves her, in

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Speaker 1: which case, do not try to And this is me

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Speaker 1: now expounding on this. Don't, uh, you know, use feminism

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Speaker 1: as kind of a strong man for for your own

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Speaker 1: little experiment that you're that you're pulling off here, right.

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Speaker 1: Kate Harding at salon Or at the time had an interesting,

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Speaker 1: interesting take on it. She said that virginity isn't priceless,

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Speaker 1: but it should be valueless. She says that objecting to

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Speaker 1: the whole concept of putting a price on a young

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Speaker 1: woman's virginity implies that I do believe it's priceless and

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Speaker 1: so she said that objecting to Natalie Dilan auction puts

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Speaker 1: her up there with people who you know, support purity balls,

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Speaker 1: the dances where a daughter pledges her chastity basically to

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Speaker 1: her father. Um. And so she says, what I want

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Speaker 1: is a world in which there are no virginity auctions

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Speaker 1: because there are no bidders, because nobody fetishized as a

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Speaker 1: woman's purity or actually thinks of a sexually active woman

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Speaker 1: as dirty and spoiled. Right, And this is something that, uh,

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Speaker 1: the implications are so huge for women versus men, because

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Speaker 1: for men it's a stigma if you more of a

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Speaker 1: stigma if you have not had uh sex with someone

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Speaker 1: you know, just go back to the Virgins Wanted documentary,

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Speaker 1: you know, Alex the guy is portrayed as you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of oh, he's so set someone bid so that

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Speaker 1: he can finally have sex, you know, whereas for women

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Speaker 1: it comes with having sex then comes with the additional

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Speaker 1: burden of being stigmatized. Um. And one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: why we wanted to title this episode what is Virginity Worth?

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Speaker 1: Is because it is a little bit of a twist

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Speaker 1: that title that it should not like, Kate Harding said,

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Speaker 1: I agree with that it shouldn't be not like worthless,

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Speaker 1: sounds like a throw way. We should value our bodies

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Speaker 1: and have bodily integrity. But I do agree that it

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Speaker 1: should be valueless. You know, it shouldn't be an issue

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Speaker 1: of being so titillating right to a portion of the population.

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Speaker 1: But I mean that gets us into the whole conversation

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Speaker 1: of why are we obsessed with virginity? What? What is

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Speaker 1: the big deal about it? So Lauren Carpenter wrote a

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Speaker 1: book called Virginity Lost and Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences,

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Speaker 1: and she talks about the etymology of virginity, which entered

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Speaker 1: the English language in the twelve hundreds, and by nine

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Speaker 1: we were speaking of virginity in terms of keeping it

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Speaker 1: versus is losing it. It is this thing that we

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Speaker 1: have and from about the twelve twelfth century onward, women's physiology.

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Speaker 1: This is important. Women's physiology was believed to allow for

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Speaker 1: a more complete virginity than men's because, quote as Carpenter rights,

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Speaker 1: the female body was hollow and therefore capable of both

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Speaker 1: containing the divine and being sealed to exclude all other influences.

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Speaker 1: So for centuries, a woman's virginity has been imbued with

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Speaker 1: so many, uh different things as opposed to male virginity. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And she offers the example of a popular thirteenth century poem,

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Speaker 1: Hail Maidenhead, which describes virginity as quote, the one gift

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Speaker 1: granted you from Heaven. Gave it away once, and you

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Speaker 1: will never recover another in any way like it. So

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Speaker 1: that was the thirteenth century version of what the whole giveaway?

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Speaker 1: The giveaway ice cream samples here, the whole milk or

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Speaker 1: cows the milk lots of dairy. Yeah, and why yeah,

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Speaker 1: why do we also equate like intercourse with cows like

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Speaker 1: somehow well, that's just weird. Yeah, And this leads into

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Speaker 1: the Reformation, during which time virginity was viewed basically as

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Speaker 1: a stage girls passed through on the way to marriage.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteenth century, however, there was the rise and

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Speaker 1: out of wedlock births, which became a problem for the church.

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Speaker 1: So virginity became even more cherished and cult like during

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Speaker 1: this time. And then, you know, do we even need

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Speaker 1: to go into the Victorian era of sexual repression and

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Speaker 1: what that did to people's attitudes towards sex and cross

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Speaker 1: gender relationships. So in a way the what Hannah Blanken

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Speaker 1: we've interviewed before for the podcast. She wrote a book,

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Speaker 1: Virginity and Untouched History, in which she talks about how

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Speaker 1: it really is more mythology than fact, and it is

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Speaker 1: something that has been used as a tool to, you know,

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Speaker 1: make sure the women aren't causing too much trouble in society,

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Speaker 1: making those out of wedlock babies and I don't know,

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Speaker 1: enjoying themselves or or something like that. And considering all

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Speaker 1: of that history, it really isn't incredibly surprising that only,

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Speaker 1: you know, a couple of centuries post Victorian era, we

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Speaker 1: are still kind of like, we don't, you know, virginity

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Speaker 1: is still this thing the capital V. Right. Well, Jessica Valenti,

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Speaker 1: who's the founder of Feminist NG and the author of

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Speaker 1: the Purity Myth, how America's obsession with virginity virginity is

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Speaker 1: hurting young women, had a conversation with Tracy Clark Floory,

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Speaker 1: who's a writer over at Salon. All of that to say,

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Speaker 1: they had a conversation about virginity, and uh, Hannah Blank's

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Speaker 1: book came up. You know, you mentioned virgin the in

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Speaker 1: Touch History, in which she talks about there's no actual

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Speaker 1: standard medical definition of virginity that it's completely culturally constructed.

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Speaker 1: And along those lines, Tracy Clark Floory says that it's

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Speaker 1: often a really limiting version of sexuality that doesn't include

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Speaker 1: certain types of intimacy that are pretty important, right because, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, some people listening might think, like, I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: like you are a virgin when you you're no longer

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Speaker 1: a virgin when you've had sex. But that is one

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Speaker 1: kind that's a completely heteronormative construct of one kind of

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Speaker 1: penis and vagina action, like disavowing like any other kind

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Speaker 1: of sexual contact that people can have. Right, So basically

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Speaker 1: they're arguing, like, does that mean that gay people are

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Speaker 1: always virgins forever and ever? Well, I mean, according to

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Speaker 1: this very black and white idea of virginity that we

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Speaker 1: have here that we're talking about, apparently just a large

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Speaker 1: portion of the population is very chaste. Well, and I

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Speaker 1: think it's problematic too that there is so much emphasis

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Speaker 1: placed on penis and vagina intercourse, where you know, we

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Speaker 1: have young girls wanting to quote unquote protect this virginity

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Speaker 1: and are doing other things that are very adult that

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Speaker 1: still can have you know, physical implications and are arguably

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Speaker 1: as sexually intimate, if not more so, you know, and

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Speaker 1: the same thing goes for guys. To you, I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that guys are left out of this equation either,

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Speaker 1: but uh, it has been more of an onus for

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Speaker 1: for the women's right. And I mean this, we haven't

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Speaker 1: even gotten into how you can't even prove necessarily that

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Speaker 1: someone is a virgin. And that's what was going along

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Speaker 1: with all of these virginity auctions was that the women

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Speaker 1: had to go through medical exams to quote unquote prove

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Speaker 1: that they had not had sex. But you can still

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Speaker 1: break your hymen if you have engaged in vigorous exercise,

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Speaker 1: you know, inserting a tampon, Like just because your hymen

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Speaker 1: is not intact, doesn't mean that you're not a virgin.

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Speaker 1: Like there's all these other issues in this right because

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Speaker 1: and we've we talked about this on a long ago

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Speaker 1: podcast specifically dealing with hyman's but it's not People imagine

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Speaker 1: it as some kind of cellophane wrapper over our vagina,

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Speaker 1: when in fact, it's more like a doughnut of tissue

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Speaker 1: that simply with time wears a way. So if you

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Speaker 1: are you know, if you're an old, an old galon

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Speaker 1: you've never had sex like your hyman would would not

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Speaker 1: look as quote unquote intact as it would. So when

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Speaker 1: thinking about this whole concept of virginity, auction, and the

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Speaker 1: the worth of virginity again, I I just think that um,

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Speaker 1: even even flirting with the idea of putting a price

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Speaker 1: on it only reinforces all of these things that still exists,

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Speaker 1: not only in Western society but around the world. If

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Speaker 1: we're talking about money exchange, if we're talking about um,

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Speaker 1: sexual stigma, if we're talking about the these myths about

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Speaker 1: like what the himan does and how you can medically

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Speaker 1: prove whether or not someone is a virgin, which is

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Speaker 1: completely impossible, as any like sexual practitioner will tell you

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Speaker 1: sexual practitioner. That makes it sound like like what we

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Speaker 1: just practice all the time. UM, well yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it is. Virginity is a social construct, a cultural construct,

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Speaker 1: and women like Natalie Dylan are saying, well, I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna stick it back in your face, like I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna take advantage of your social perceptions and earned two

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Speaker 1: million or three four million dollars four million dollars in

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Speaker 1: the process. Well, and she did not end up doing

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Speaker 1: it the winning bitter. I guess he turned out to

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Speaker 1: be married and his wife found out and was not happy.

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Speaker 1: But then last we heard she had found someone else.

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Speaker 1: To these stories kind of trickle off vaguely. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I I I think it's an interesting conversation

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Speaker 1: to have on gender and sexuality. Well, and maybe they

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Speaker 1: go off to Caroline because uh, you know, there's so

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Speaker 1: much lead up to the grand finale, which is yeah,

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Speaker 1: well we we had sex and that was it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, well I know that in the most recent

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Speaker 1: with the Justin Slicely documentary, like no sex toys allowed,

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Speaker 1: no additional partners and condoms had to be used, Like

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Speaker 1: it was very much like you are just buying the

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Speaker 1: experience of having sexual intercourse with a virgin on a plane,

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Speaker 1: on an airplane, so they get a mile high club.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna make a Snake's on my plane joke,

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Speaker 1: but never mind. Oh I like that one better. Well, UM,

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Speaker 1: I am going to be very curious to here from

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Speaker 1: listeners on this um and we're not again like this

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Speaker 1: is not saying that people should not be careful with

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Speaker 1: their bodies and respect their bodies and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: pay attention to things like consent if you aren't ready

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Speaker 1: to have X. We're not saying like, everybody, go have

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Speaker 1: sex right now. We haven't had sex. You just need

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Speaker 1: to to do it um or just saying that it's

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Speaker 1: time to high time to really um examine. What are

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Speaker 1: we talking about when we're talking about virginity and why

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Speaker 1: do we get so worked up about it? Let us

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Speaker 1: know your thoughts, mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com is

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00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: where you can send them, and we've got a couple

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Speaker 1: of letters to share with you. But before we do that,

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Speaker 1: we've got a quick word from our sponsor that brought

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Speaker 1: you this episode, and it is from Jack Threads dot com.

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00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,959
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00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: sale for the trendy dudes in your life. And considering

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Speaker 1: it as the holidays, what better time to go check

370
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Speaker 1: of skate, surf and streetwear for the guys in your life. Again,

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00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 1: that's Jack Threads dot com slash Mom, and don't forget

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00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: to have over there soon because everything on the site

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00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,119
Speaker 1: is eight percent off because, as they say, full price

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Speaker 1: is for suckers. Now back to our letters. Well, I've

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Speaker 1: got an email here from Kirsten and she's from South Africa.

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Speaker 1: Oh international listener, and this is in response to an

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Speaker 1: episode I did a while ago. We're talking about scent

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Speaker 1: prints and her subject line is unattractive scent print and

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Speaker 1: she says, I just listened to your podcast on unique

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Speaker 1: scent Prince, and I have to say I dated a

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Speaker 1: guy several years ago who just didn't smell good to me.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he smelled very unpleasant. I could tell it

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Speaker 1: wasn't his deodorant or bad cologne, but his natural scent.

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Speaker 1: It sounds strange, but it was almost soapy, a baby

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Speaker 1: powder smell, but not quite. Who wouldn't like a soap smell?

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Speaker 1: But nevertheless it grossed me out. This upset me. I

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Speaker 1: tried to ignore it and tell myself it was on

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Speaker 1: my head, but every time I would get close to him,

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Speaker 1: I smelled it. Anyway, the relationship ended pretty quickly and mutual.

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Speaker 1: Maybe he didn't like my smell either. I've only met

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Speaker 1: one other person in my life who had a very

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Speaker 1: unpleasant smell to me. And let's just say, I think

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Speaker 1: there's something to be unpleasant smell connecting with unsuitability that

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Speaker 1: you guys talked about. Although both dudes were great, I

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Speaker 1: don't think either are suited for me at all. I

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Speaker 1: just want to let you guys know about that little

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Speaker 1: story because I've always thought it was strange, and I

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Speaker 1: have never heard anyone really talk about it before. So

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Speaker 1: perhaps in love Caroline the Nose knows. Okay, here's an

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Speaker 1: email from Charles that combines two amazing things, Pinterest and

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Speaker 1: crazy cat People. Yeah. So he's talking about how he

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Speaker 1: uses Pinterest and is trying to use it more, and

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Speaker 1: he does use Twitter as well, but he says I

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Speaker 1: find that Pinterest is useful for keeping things i'd like

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Speaker 1: to remember separate from my Twitter and Facebook feeds. I

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Speaker 1: don't use the social feature on Pinterest. Really, I'm not

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Speaker 1: particularly interested in what other people are pinning. For that reason,

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Speaker 1: I'm not concerned with the feminine slant on the public boards.

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Speaker 1: My Pinterest is for me. Other people can look at

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Speaker 1: it if they want, but it's a repository of digital

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Speaker 1: reminders and brainstorming material. If I want to kill hours

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Speaker 1: and hours, I go to Twitter and Facebook. Still, I

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Speaker 1: find that the information tends to be more targeted and

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Speaker 1: less of a time suck also, and this is where

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Speaker 1: the gears change. As an owner of not one or two,

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Speaker 1: but three cats in a small New York apartment, I

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Speaker 1: have to say that I can officially come out as

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Speaker 1: a crazy cat guy. There aren't many of us, but

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Speaker 1: we're out there. I have at least one friend that

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Speaker 1: I'm not positive but fairly certain would self identify as

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Speaker 1: such as well. I probably wouldn't have been such a

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Speaker 1: crazy cat guy if it weren't for my wife. But

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Speaker 1: I'm pooped now. Cats really are the perfect city pet,

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Speaker 1: and far more loyal and attentive that people give them

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Speaker 1: light on the elusive New York male cat lover slash

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Speaker 1: Pinterest user. So thank you, Charles, You've enlightened us. That

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Speaker 1: was delightful. Charles. I kind of want to hang out

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00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: and your cats sometime. Uh so let us know about

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Speaker 1: your cats as well. Mom Stuff at discovery dot com

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Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com.