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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha and welcome to stuff

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Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. So

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Speaker 1: it is time for another book club. And thanks to

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Speaker 1: listeners and friends who have suggested this one, um, because

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Speaker 1: today we are talking about Angela Chans novel Ace What

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Speaker 1: a Sexuality Reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex, which,

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Speaker 1: as the title might imply, is an exploration into ACE

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Speaker 1: experiences of all kinds and what we can learn from

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Speaker 1: these experiences in terms of how we understand love and desire.

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Speaker 1: And Chin is a journalist and speaker, has been very

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Speaker 1: open about her own experience as an a sexual person.

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Speaker 1: She's very clear that there is no one ACE, and

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Speaker 1: that the book mostly focuses on liberal, Western, generally sex

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Speaker 1: positive folks. She interviewed hundreds of people who identify as

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Speaker 1: ACE from all kinds of backgrounds, digging into the intersections

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Speaker 1: of race, disability, and gender with a sexuality and it

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Speaker 1: was a very very quickly, very good read. Uh, And

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Speaker 1: it was interesting to hear all these different perspectives kind

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Speaker 1: of woven together. And um, if you would like to

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Speaker 1: hear more, you can see our interview with a Doha

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Speaker 1: Donzo that we did on a sexuality. UM. We also

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Speaker 1: did We've done it with several episodes on this now,

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Speaker 1: but one that came to mind a lot for me

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Speaker 1: during this when I was reading this is our episode

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Speaker 1: we did on what is Love, which was kind of

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Speaker 1: an examination of what the sexual aspect of romance and

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Speaker 1: how that's sort of understood in a lot of our culture,

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Speaker 1: and how that might not be the case and perhaps

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Speaker 1: we should separate that out or at least think about it.

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Speaker 1: And Yeah, I would. I would recommend this because it

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Speaker 1: does go into things like you don't have to be

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Speaker 1: a sexual to this. I think it's it makes you

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Speaker 1: ask questions about a lot of stuff, So I would

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Speaker 1: recommend it. I definitely connected very hard with a lot

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Speaker 1: of it about like not understanding sexual attraction, feeling hypocritical

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Speaker 1: about things, UM, feeling pressure, feeling like I was a

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Speaker 1: problem in a relationship, and avoiding talking about all of it,

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Speaker 1: wanting to want what it seems everyone wants but not me. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just to put it out there. You did talk about

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Speaker 1: the fact that there are a lot of great examples

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Speaker 1: and personal stories and interviews within it. And when we

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Speaker 1: originally had the a sexual episode, we had a couple

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Speaker 1: of male followers who are like, hey, I identify as

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Speaker 1: a can you talk a little more about it, because

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Speaker 1: you know, we don't hear that. We only hear the

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Speaker 1: women because it's more acceptable for women to be ACE

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Speaker 1: than it is for men. And I absolutely understand that.

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Speaker 1: So if you're still listening, this is a great book.

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Speaker 1: If we didn't lose those followers, Um, this is a

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Speaker 1: great book for all sexes and all genders being able

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Speaker 1: to bring you prime examples from all perspectives. So I

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Speaker 1: think that's a great way to look at it. That so, yes,

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Speaker 1: recommended for all, and not just our female listeners or

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Speaker 1: those who have to defies female or non binary. Is

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Speaker 1: for all. So I think this is something to put

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Speaker 1: out there for anyone who's just trying to figure themselves

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Speaker 1: out and need to relate. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a there's

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Speaker 1: a chapter on male ACE experience and we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit. But yeah, I'm really

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Speaker 1: really fascinating a lot of stuff in there, and this

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Speaker 1: one is pretty quite heavy because a lot of it

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Speaker 1: and I was like, yes, let's just putting the quotes,

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Speaker 1: but we're going to have discussions around all of that.

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Speaker 1: So let's start with this one. I misinterpreted a person

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Speaker 1: who does not experience sexual attraction to mean a person

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Speaker 1: who hates sex, and so I personally could not be

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Speaker 1: a sexual I hadn't had sex yet, but the idea

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Speaker 1: held great promise. That's the strange thing about this orientation

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Speaker 1: and all the misconceptions that carries. It is possible to

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Speaker 1: be ace and not realize it, to see the word

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Speaker 1: and still shrug and move on. Definitions are not enough.

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Speaker 1: One as plumb deeper. Yeah, And I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: include that because this chin is really open with her

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Speaker 1: experience and all the questions she had and all of

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Speaker 1: the stuff she still wrestles with. And I think that that, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, you have to dig deeper. I think that's

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Speaker 1: good for everybody, first of all, but I also felt

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Speaker 1: that that was really true. And there's just a lot

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Speaker 1: of questions you have to ask yourself of like what

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Speaker 1: it's odd when there are things that you just take

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Speaker 1: for granted and when you realize, like, oh, maybe I'm

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Speaker 1: not experiencing this thing. Everyone else's right and that's fine,

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Speaker 1: but you do have to kind of really get to

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Speaker 1: know yourself, right, And I think in overall, it could

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Speaker 1: just be said as a blankett type statement. What we

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Speaker 1: see as sex by media and or assumptions is often

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Speaker 1: wrong for anyone who I didn't advise as anything, So

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Speaker 1: we all didn't know that that Like, it's just it's

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Speaker 1: just misinterpreted altogether. Point like the way it is represented

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Speaker 1: to us. Man, we need real honesty, and this is

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Speaker 1: part of that honesty is again feeling different or feeling

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Speaker 1: not the same as everyone else when it comes to

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Speaker 1: what it actually is. And yeah, really did for everyone

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Speaker 1: for sure. But the confusion for so many of us,

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Speaker 1: uh is because of what the expectations were rather than

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Speaker 1: what it actually is. Yes, um. And here's another quote.

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Speaker 1: There's the man who grew up in a religious environment,

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Speaker 1: followed all the rules, only to realize after marriage that

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Speaker 1: sex was not the wonder he had been promised. The

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Speaker 1: woman who ordered blood tests in high school because she

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Speaker 1: was convinced that her lack of desire for sex was

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Speaker 1: a symptom of serious illness. Disabled aces can have trouble

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Speaker 1: fitting into either community, wondering where their disability ends and

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Speaker 1: their asexuality begins, and whether finding that borders shouldn't matter.

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Speaker 1: Aces of color and gender nonconforming a says, question whether

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Speaker 1: there's a sexuality is a reaction against stereotypes. Everyone wonders

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Speaker 1: how to separate friendship and romance when sex is not

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Speaker 1: part of the equations. Aces who don't want romantic relationships

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Speaker 1: wonder if there's room for them in a world hyper

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Speaker 1: focused on a particular type of partnerships, and aces who

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Speaker 1: do want romantic relationships point out how consent practices don't

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Speaker 1: make room for their needs. Yeah, and those are like

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Speaker 1: all chapters, all those things she mentioned. She breaks down

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Speaker 1: into the whole chapters and has these interviews with people

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Speaker 1: and discussions with people, and there's a lot of things

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Speaker 1: I found interesting in all of that where I I,

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Speaker 1: like I said, I've been kind of dealing with this

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Speaker 1: for a while and asking questions about myself for a while,

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Speaker 1: And like I said in a recent happy are, I

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Speaker 1: think I'm starting to my mind is starting to expand

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Speaker 1: into like what could a relationship look like for me?

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Speaker 1: And like it could be a bunch of different things,

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Speaker 1: which is really exciting in a lot of ways. Um

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Speaker 1: or if I even need it, or if I can

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Speaker 1: be complete, which I can be, but like that idea

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Speaker 1: of I'm not sure if that's even what I want,

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Speaker 1: but it's just that I'm thinking about it, right, And

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Speaker 1: so that I found that really interesting. There was a

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Speaker 1: chapter that we really went into like definitions around romantic

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Speaker 1: and platonic and attachment and all those how those are different,

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Speaker 1: and how we might misunderstand those things, and how they

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to be like they all have separate definitions,

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Speaker 1: but they also can interact, and how different groups of

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Speaker 1: people see those things differently as well. Um And of course,

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Speaker 1: because of the nature of this book, it does come

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Speaker 1: from kind of an a sexual understanding a lot of

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Speaker 1: times of like what what does that mean? Um? So

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Speaker 1: I just thought that was really really interesting, and like

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Speaker 1: the whole conversation of a lot of this is around language, right,

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Speaker 1: Like we don't have the language to express perhaps things

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Speaker 1: that are feeling. Are these different shades of relationships? Are

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Speaker 1: are any kind of I don't know, like attraction, And

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Speaker 1: so one of them was like friends versus more than

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Speaker 1: friends but not necessarily you know, like sexual partner. But

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Speaker 1: just having these like shades of it can be very passionate, um,

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Speaker 1: feelings for someone without sex, and we just don't have

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Speaker 1: a lot of times the terminology or even the tools

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Speaker 1: to express that, which I thought was really interesting. And

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Speaker 1: then yeah, we've talked a lot about this constant narrative

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Speaker 1: of not being complete without romantic love, and that is

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Speaker 1: present in our language, in our laws, in our media,

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Speaker 1: and our songs. Like just today, before we came in,

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Speaker 1: I was making a tally of all the times that

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Speaker 1: I was kind of bombarded with you need this relationship

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Speaker 1: and you need sex, and it's very sad if you're

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Speaker 1: not having And I just recently saw a TikTok or

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Speaker 1: Twitter I can't remember somewhere where this woman comes on

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty much joking about the fact that men

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Speaker 1: continue to threaten women with if you're not careful, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna be all alone. You're gonna be old alone. And

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Speaker 1: she started life and she's like, you have no idea

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Speaker 1: the fact I would be so excited to not have

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Speaker 1: to be responsible for someone else. I don't understand why

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Speaker 1: y'all keep using this as a threat as if said

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Speaker 1: something bad um, And of course everybody was like, yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And that's kind of that whole narrative is we've been

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Speaker 1: fed for so long that if we don't have a

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Speaker 1: partnership that means sex. Family all of those things, then

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Speaker 1: we have not done this right, and that that we

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Speaker 1: will be miserable. And it's just this weird stretch to

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Speaker 1: say you need to be codependent on someone, and it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like, really, is that the best you can do?

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Speaker 1: And what you're telling me is because I'm able to

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Speaker 1: rely on myself and I'm happy if I'm content with

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Speaker 1: just being here with myself and whatever hobbies I have

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Speaker 1: and or whatever dog I have, or indoor just joyfully

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Speaker 1: reading as you would fan fiction all day long. I mean,

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Speaker 1: and that's a flex to say, but you're going to

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Speaker 1: be unhappy, but I'm not. I haven't been, so I

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Speaker 1: don't understand. But yeah, stuff like that, that type of

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Speaker 1: narrative that's what existed for so long and that we

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Speaker 1: assume was the norm and true, right, And she in

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Speaker 1: this book gives some pretty excellent, slash really frustrating examples. Right,

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Speaker 1: we're going to go into um. But something else she

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Speaker 1: talks about is this idea that like, once you're in

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Speaker 1: a relationship, in this case particularly married, but like in

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Speaker 1: any relationship, there's this expectation that sex is like owed

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Speaker 1: or is a part of that. And she points out

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Speaker 1: like marital rape being essentially a pretty new thing, like

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Speaker 1: up into the two thousand's, like some long and that

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Speaker 1: that's not really right because you're in a relationship, and that,

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Speaker 1: again is just another instance of reallyationships look like that,

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Speaker 1: that sex has to be a part of it. And

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Speaker 1: if somebody wants another person doesn't, then too bad, and

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Speaker 1: that's not really rape, which is gross and disgusting and

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Speaker 1: completely wrong, right, and which, yeah, we've talked about that.

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Speaker 1: And she even brings up the example of the Trump

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Speaker 1: case with his former ex wife, which we talked about

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Speaker 1: a long time ago, and the fact that he settled

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Speaker 1: out of court because he knew he was wrong because

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Speaker 1: he was. The only defense they had was they're married.

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Speaker 1: It can't be rape, like that's what his life offered

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Speaker 1: up right. Here's another quote. Sexual rights should not be

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Speaker 1: assumed and self determination must never end upon entering relationship.

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Speaker 1: You can give a no with zero caveats in each

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Speaker 1: and every situation, full stop. You can say no if

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Speaker 1: someone loves you and you of them back, you can

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Speaker 1: say no for the rest of your life. Loving another

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Speaker 1: person should never mean forfeiting bodily autonomy. Right. Of course,

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Speaker 1: this has everything to do with the patriarchy in itself,

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Speaker 1: because it is absolutely directed more at women. Now, of

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Speaker 1: course it's gonna be twisted and flipped for sure, but

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Speaker 1: when you come into a heteronormative relationship, you know what

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Speaker 1: this is pointing towards, and that's women's obligation to men,

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Speaker 1: which has been a barrier for so long in general,

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Speaker 1: and why this conversation needs to happen more often because

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Speaker 1: it goes beyond just and she says us a lot

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Speaker 1: just ace community. It goes beyond to that, just to

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Speaker 1: humanity in itself. But yeah, that that that level of

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Speaker 1: expectation again an obligation, is part of the problem in

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Speaker 1: this narrative. Yes, yes, and then I did want to

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Speaker 1: just put on here, putting in your very briefly this

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Speaker 1: whole idea of like puberty being a very confusing time

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Speaker 1: and when you're like feeling these things and you're feeling

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Speaker 1: crushed is and all the stuff, and you're kind of

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Speaker 1: getting exposed to that through people that you know as well.

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Speaker 1: It can be hard when you're seeing mostly one type

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Speaker 1: of relationship two understand, especially if you haven't heard terms

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Speaker 1: or you don't know these things exist, what it is

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Speaker 1: that you're feeling are what you want and how that

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Speaker 1: compares to what other people are experiencing. And I think

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Speaker 1: that that can get in the way of a lot

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Speaker 1: of people. I know we recently read a listener mail

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Speaker 1: where the listener was saying, like, I didn't feel like

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Speaker 1: I could claim this sexual orientation or the sexual identity

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Speaker 1: because uh, you know, I was passing as hetero and

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Speaker 1: I was getting privileged, and also like I hadn't done it,

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Speaker 1: and so a lot like I didn't have enough women

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Speaker 1: partners versus men partner, like all these things, and I

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Speaker 1: think that can get in your head, and that does

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Speaker 1: it's just confusing, it's confusing time. Um well, in general,

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Speaker 1: I think when we look at this, uh, we have

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Speaker 1: to understand once again the true conversation of this is

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Speaker 1: people are fluid. People change, people's reaction changes. So what

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Speaker 1: may have interested you and at one point in time

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Speaker 1: may interest you less as you grow older. And you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the funny parts of women in sexuality, there's

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Speaker 1: this big conversation of when's the best time, or when

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Speaker 1: are the where their hormones high up, or you know,

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Speaker 1: all of these conversations and the fact of the matter is,

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Speaker 1: if it's that way hormones have about everything to do

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Speaker 1: with that. If there's a genetic disposition, if any of

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Speaker 1: those things, if it's biology, then we should allow for change.

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Speaker 1: Then that means, yeah, maybe what interested me one time

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Speaker 1: doesn't interest me anymore. Maybe what I was attracted to

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Speaker 1: then is not what I tried to tune now. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it was a certain person that I was attracted to,

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Speaker 1: you know, and and then for like to that point.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we love having identifiers and being able to

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Speaker 1: identify ourselves, but that could also block us in and

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Speaker 1: be like, well, already identified as this. Oh no, I

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Speaker 1: can't change. So that's a bigger conversation. Yeah, puberty is

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Speaker 1: super confusing, don't. I don't understand why. That's the moment

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Speaker 1: where we have to decide this is absolutely what I'm

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Speaker 1: going to be in their next hundred years. But you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean, right, Yeah? Yeah, And I think

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Speaker 1: that's worth noting as well. Again, and there's crushes upon

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Speaker 1: crushes upon crushes because of course I've identified one way

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Speaker 1: the whole time in my life. But I don't I

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Speaker 1: won't hesitate. TikTok obviously thinks I'm a lesbian. Okay, look,

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Speaker 1: show me all the beautiful women. I will gladly watch

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Speaker 1: them talk about their great day. Who it right? But that,

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Speaker 1: by the way, that's an inside joke for many of

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Speaker 1: TikTok ER's I think women have been like all been like,

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Speaker 1: why does TikTok I think I'm a lesbian? Well, this

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Speaker 1: is a cool video according to their algorithms. Yes, I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying it knows I'm like dogs and funny women content.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, And that's apparently what identify is. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what that means. I don't know if there's

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Speaker 1: a thing for that, but according to TikTok that's my identifier.

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Speaker 1: That sounds right. I'm just saying alright, So moving on,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna read a little more. I understood for the

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Speaker 1: first time that it is possible to lack the experience

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Speaker 1: of sexual attraction without being repulsed by sex, just like

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Speaker 1: it's possible to neither physically craved nor be disgusted by

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Speaker 1: a food like crackers, but still enjoying them as part

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Speaker 1: of the cherished social ritual. Being repulsed by sex is

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Speaker 1: a fairly obvious indication of the lack of sexual attraction,

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Speaker 1: but the lack of sexual attraction can also be hidden

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Speaker 1: by the social performative or wanting having sex for emotional reasons,

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Speaker 1: and because of different types of desires are bound together

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Speaker 1: so tightly, it can be difficult to untangle the various strands.

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Speaker 1: People who have never felt sexual attraction do not know

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Speaker 1: what sexual attraction feels like, and knowing whether or not

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Speaker 1: they have ever felt it can be difficult, writes ace

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Speaker 1: researcher Andrew cy hinder Litter in a two thousand nine

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Speaker 1: letter to the editor of the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviors. Yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: and she wrote all of that. Yeah, I think that's

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Speaker 1: a big conversation. Like if you don't know what it is,

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Speaker 1: then what do you think it really? You know, you

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Speaker 1: make up your mind too, Oh, this is what it's like.

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Speaker 1: Kind of like if you're tasting food for the first time,

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Speaker 1: you have no idea what it tastes like, so you assume, Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's like this. Yeah, And you can't put yourself in

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Speaker 1: other people's shoes. You can like listen to them and

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Speaker 1: be empathetic, but you can't like experience right what it

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Speaker 1: is they're experiencing, and you're limited once again by your vocabulary.

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Speaker 1: And also like when people say what they're experiencing. It

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Speaker 1: might mean something to them that means something different to me,

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Speaker 1: and you're trying to make that match because you and

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Speaker 1: she's really honest about this, and she says like it

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Speaker 1: was difficult for her to be so honest about it.

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Speaker 1: But there are there are times when I've wanted, like

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Speaker 1: I feel like I should fit into this whatever this

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Speaker 1: is that people are feeling. I should feel that, So

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it work in my brain when

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Speaker 1: people are describing it to me, like maybe I do

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Speaker 1: feel that, and you know, just feeling like this would

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Speaker 1: be and it sounds so terrible to say, but easier.

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Speaker 1: It could be easier if I could just feel this

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Speaker 1: whatever it is. So I would try to convince myself

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Speaker 1: like maybe this is what people are talking about, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're just like it's almost like an expectations thing

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Speaker 1: where I'm just not as intuit as other people, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean you could say that about love in general too,

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Speaker 1: and for me when it comes to partnership love, I

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Speaker 1: never really understood that that was a new thing for me,

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Speaker 1: and I kept asking, even like recently, my friends who

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Speaker 1: would so easily tell their partners I love you. I

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Speaker 1: was like, how did you come to that point? How

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Speaker 1: did you get here? And they could never really explain,

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Speaker 1: and some people would be like, yeah, I just said

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Speaker 1: it because he said it like or she said it

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Speaker 1: like that was that narrative and something, so like in

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Speaker 1: my mind it didn't make sense and I don't. I

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Speaker 1: still don't quite understand it. And I say this and

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Speaker 1: that I absolutely care for the people around me, and

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Speaker 1: I would call that love because for me, it's a

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Speaker 1: measure of what I would do for you, or how

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Speaker 1: far I would go for you, or how how much

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Speaker 1: you are in my thought process. So I'm thinking of

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Speaker 1: things like I'm going to do this, but would any

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Speaker 1: enjoy this? Let me let let me think about it,

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Speaker 1: you know. And I don't think of it as like

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Speaker 1: cherishments some source, So like if you care for me

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Speaker 1: enough and you send me a message, I know that

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Speaker 1: you think you're thinking about me like stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: that to me is my measure of love. But it's

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Speaker 1: different from everyone. And I still can't grasp that for

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Speaker 1: partnership all the time, and I'm learning about it and

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Speaker 1: I'm there because I've reached that level with a new

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Speaker 1: partner where I'm like, okay, I'm willing to do the

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Speaker 1: things that I do for my best friends for you,

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Speaker 1: so that must be and right right, And I think

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Speaker 1: that's a good point. I think people are very different,

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Speaker 1: and I think that we do experience things that are

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Speaker 1: very specific to our experiences and our upbringing and all

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Speaker 1: these things like we internalized. Um. But that being said,

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Speaker 1: you know, there is sort of similar threads throughout, but

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Speaker 1: that can kind of get lost if you're if what

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Speaker 1: you think love looks like isn't what you're experiencing, then

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Speaker 1: that can be confusing, even though of course we do

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Speaker 1: experience it in different ways, just with two shared threads. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like how you know, I love my musical,

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Speaker 1: so I thought, you know, being and love and then

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Speaker 1: we're going to dance on the street in the rain

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Speaker 1: as well as I thought sex. Meant, uh, if you're watching,

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Speaker 1: you know, leave it the beaver. You just kind of

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Speaker 1: hug each other and you said sleep the supper beds

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Speaker 1: and you know like that, you know, yes, yes, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: going back to your point of like the food thing

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Speaker 1: or are you people just don't it's hard to describe

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Speaker 1: something that only you know. So, like I was, I

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Speaker 1: was talking about this with a friend the other day

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Speaker 1: about colors, like, I'm not entirely sure we're seeing the

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Speaker 1: same thing. Even though we're looking at the same thing,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what your brain in my brain, they

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Speaker 1: could be doing totally something different right there. And I think,

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Speaker 1: like this was a good I wanted to bring in

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Speaker 1: this quote just because it reminds me of the argument

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Speaker 1: around feminism, where feminism doesn't mean I hate men, but

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Speaker 1: that's what it gets turned into. And for a lot

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Speaker 1: of times, for a sexual people, it get turns into

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Speaker 1: you hate sex, which it doesn't necessarily mean that, it

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Speaker 1: can mean that, but um it can. Like she said,

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Speaker 1: like if you want to something you want to participate

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Speaker 1: in emotionally or are because it's like a you know,

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Speaker 1: a social ritual, then that's cool too, right as long

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Speaker 1: as you're if you're doing it because you want to

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Speaker 1: do it. So the book also goes into some history,

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Speaker 1: and here's another quote. People who could be described as

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Speaker 1: a sexual have existed for a long time. They were

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Speaker 1: certainly around in the nineteen forties when sex researcher Alfred

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Speaker 1: Kenzie was developing his model of sexual orientation. Kinsey believed

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Speaker 1: that sexual orientation was more than a binary of homosexual

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Speaker 1: and heterosexual. He created a scale, a line really that

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Speaker 1: runs from zero to six, zero for someone who is

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Speaker 1: exclusively heterosexual, six for someone who is exclusively homosexual, three

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Speaker 1: for bisexual. Today, the Kinzie scale is famous and has

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Speaker 1: become the main way of thinking about sexuality and sexual

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Speaker 1: orientation in the West. It does not make room for

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Speaker 1: a sexuality. Even though Kinzie knew about a sexual people.

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Speaker 1: During the thousands of interviews that he conducted, Kinsey had

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Speaker 1: come across people who didn't fit onto his line, who

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Speaker 1: in his language, had no socio sexual contacts or reactions.

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Speaker 1: Faced with data that didn't fit this theory, he didn't

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Speaker 1: revise his line to make it more multidimensional and said

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Speaker 1: Kinsey marked these people into a separate category called X

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Speaker 1: and carried on heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual dominated while group

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Speaker 1: X was mostly forgotten. Yeah, and I that was so.

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Speaker 1: According to this book, one percent of the population in

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Speaker 1: the United States identifies as a sexual. And she does

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Speaker 1: go into the history of that and talks about the

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Speaker 1: importance of the Internet for finding connection. But it's very

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Speaker 1: clear like that's not when it started, that's just when

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Speaker 1: people because there aren't you know, a huge population, we're

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Speaker 1: able to find others and connect um through that. And

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Speaker 1: then she does go into like a whole section on

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Speaker 1: the difficulty of definition of being divined through negative space. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: a sexual is defined by like the negative, the lack

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Speaker 1: of something. And then it was interesting to read the

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Speaker 1: history of this community and conversations around well what does

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Speaker 1: it mean? And I love how often the question what

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Speaker 1: about masterbation comes up? Because I get that question all

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Speaker 1: the time to I get it all the time. And

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00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,439
Speaker 1: we're going to talk more about that. And in a minute, Um,

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Speaker 1: here's another quote to the best I can tell. Sexual

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Speaker 1: attraction is the desire to have sex with a specific

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00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: person for physical reasons. Sexual attraction can be instantaneous and

430
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: involuntary heightened awareness, a physical alertness combined with mental wanting.

431
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: My allo friends say they feel sexually attracted to people

432
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 1: they have just met, to people whose company they don't enjoy,

433
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: two people they don't like, or even find good looking

434
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: fair enough. Aces don't experience this. Aces can still find

435
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: people beautiful, have a libido, masturbate, antiquat porn. Aces can

436
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: enjoy sex and like kink and be in relationships of

437
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: all kinds. So yeah, this. This reminds me of a

438
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: very specific conversation I had with a friend Katie who's

439
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: been on the show, where I was literally like, look,

440
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask some questions that probably sound very strange

441
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: to you, but I just am curious. And I was like,

442
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: so tell me what it's like to want to have sex.

443
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: So tell me what you're do you like fantasize and

444
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 1: what is that like? You know what happens when you masturbate?

445
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: What are you thinking about all these questions, because it

446
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: is it's a moment of having or you're you're like

447
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: I don't think I have and experiencing these things, and

448
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: and then you're just trying to go back to like

449
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:10,119
Speaker 1: the square one of Okay, I've assumed it's it looks

450
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: like this, but maybe my assumption was wrong. And so

451
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: I have what I call tame kink, and I look

452
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 1: forward to discussing this and a future future happy hour.

453
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 1: But basically, I experienced what I imagine is close to

454
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,479
Speaker 1: sexual attraction, but it's not sexual attraction because there's no

455
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:36,119
Speaker 1: like actual sexual part, but like the physical feelings where

456
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: my fingers will get all tingly and it feels like

457
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 1: my body is all warm and my butterflies in my

458
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: stomach when it's something very tame happens, like somebody shows

459
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: that they care about somebody else, Are they really protective

460
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 1: of somebody else, or just like really sweet, caring stuff.

461
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: That's what gets me going, and that's what I seek

462
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,360
Speaker 1: out in fan fiction. And I do feel the thing,

463
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,239
Speaker 1: but it's not like a sexual yeah, because I'm not

464
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 1: like seeing anybody. Usually it's just something I'm reading about

465
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: or even thinking about, or it feels kind of like

466
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: when you're at the top of a roller coaster and

467
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: it's just about to drop. But that's what I experience,

468
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: and it's almost never I do with fictional characters. Obviously,

469
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,959
Speaker 1: like Luke Skywalker being the number one, I feel like

470
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 1: strong emotions, but like if you remove it, I don't

471
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: feel for the actor. So it's like it's a fictional uh,

472
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: entirely based on that. And if I get if I

473
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: find somebody really like emotionally attractive, I can think someone's

474
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,160
Speaker 1: really beautiful, I can and feel that, but I think

475
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: even then, I don't think I'm feeling sexual attracts me

476
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: so much as just like I want to be with

477
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: that person and just like spend time with them and

478
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 1: talk with them, right, I don't know like all of

479
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: those makes sense into the level of like safety and

480
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: such as well. Everybody has different things and it's according

481
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 1: to how I feel a certain time. It could be

482
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: an action that someone does. I'm like, oh, day on

483
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: the sexy you know, that's definitely I think, uh, something

484
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: that I do have a moment of of course, I

485
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: have a harder time sometimes because of the sexual trauma

486
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: that I've experienced as well as the sexual trauma that

487
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 1: I saw in work um and had to deal with

488
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. I had a lot of sex

489
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: offender cases, so there's a lot of different levels to

490
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: that and trying to separate some of these things because y'all,

491
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,640
Speaker 1: when you've been in that field, and I'm sure we've

492
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: got more and more social workers following us, how y'all,

493
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure they know what I'm talking about that you

494
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: want to be in that moment. But even like being

495
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: distracted by whatever work that happened that day is a

496
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: huge thing and changes things pretty quickly no matter what,

497
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 1: And that could be a whole conversation of being just

498
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:52,400
Speaker 1: really distracted and your mindset as well as preferences. But yeah,

499
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: I think all of those things that you're talking about

500
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: which you find as attraction, is that what would you say?

501
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: But it's not necesarily sexual, but us an attraction. Okay,

502
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 1: I'm trying to see how to say. It was like

503
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: not making a romantic thing, but it is a romantic

504
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: thing without the sexual thing, but not necessarily always yes, right, okay,

505
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: so you're getting there. But like for me, all of

506
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: those things are just and it is for you too,

507
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: But for me, it's like a personality thing that is

508
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: an automatic that I would want that you know what

509
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: I mean, or want to give that. You and I

510
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: are very close and reason were very close as we

511
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: have that language of giving to each other or comforting

512
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: each other in a manner of helping or or doing

513
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: something that you see as the other person likes or

514
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: wants or enjoys. So you cater to that for me

515
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: my own life because you have very defined loves and

516
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: I love that you make it very easy to give,

517
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: even though it's a little abstract, so it's harder to

518
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: find those things. We'll have to create my own things

519
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: for you, but I know you love it because you

520
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: also have tons of things that you like. Uh, kind

521
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: of like our other friends who have those interests already

522
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: have it. I'm like, what the what the hell do

523
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: I do? In the hell? They already got this because

524
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: I loved it for so long and they've always been

525
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: a part of them, So that's easy and hard at

526
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: the same time for me, I don't really have those interests.

527
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: I thought about that the other day. It's like I'm

528
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: a I feel like sometimes I'm a sociopath and this

529
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: is going on a whole different level because when we

530
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: talk about attraction and I've thought about this, I thought

531
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: about this one. I was watching Dexter too, and I

532
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: don't know if people who have gone through and probably

533
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: had been a diagnosed with the react of attachment disorder

534
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: at one point in time and or could have been.

535
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: I'm still sure it could have been. I have a

536
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: hard time in finding loves and likes of things I

537
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: used to make myself because I'm like, this is normal.

538
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: I have to play normal, so I would pretend to

539
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: collect or want something. And then my dear love of mother,

540
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: who also is similar to you, and I have like

541
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: you like this, I'm gonna cater to this and I'm

542
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: gonna focus on this because you love it would give

543
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,719
Speaker 1: me tons and tons and tons of stuff like that,

544
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: me realizing I only said it because I needed to

545
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: say because I needed to be normal, and now I

546
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: have all this I do with it. I'm going on

547
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: a different round this one, but it's kind of that

548
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: whole level of trying to figure out what is it

549
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: that I love and when I do find attraction, what

550
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: is it? So for me, for the longest time, it's

551
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: just physical. It wasn't emotional. It's in fact, I took

552
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: emotions completely out of it. For the longest time, there

553
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:23,239
Speaker 1: was no such thing for me. So it's kind of like,

554
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: I don't do the emotional sexual attraction. I don't do

555
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: that because I think someone said, maybe you just don't

556
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: like romantic you're you're a romantic and I was like,

557
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: because I want it. There's there's there's sometimes to be like, Man,

558
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 1: if someone so did this for me, I would be

559
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: blown away, you know what I mean, Like growing up

560
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: like these kind of romantic notions and queues. I love it,

561
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: And so when I do get it, I'm like, oh,

562
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: thank you. I love that, and I want to do that.

563
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: I want to do that for other people. Do what

564
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: you love. So let's do this, but it's weirdly enough,

565
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: like I don't know what that is for me? Again

566
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: read discovering all these things, but that that conversation of like, okay,

567
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: so what is this attraction for me? Is it? ABC?

568
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: And d okay, let's figure this out and trying to

569
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: also combat the very very like and again, you know

570
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: this as well as I do. And I think anyone

571
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: who identifies as anything but heterosexual would understand. This is

572
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: that level of how do I pretend to be normal?

573
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: And it's so ingrained with me in me that what

574
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: I'm pretending to be becomes what I think I am.

575
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Like, okay, so for the law,

576
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: this is normal, So I'm gonna say I am. And

577
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: then I believe it to the point that I can't

578
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: change it. So I'm like, wait, do I actually like that?

579
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: Like it's kind of that level, and it is It's

580
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: really hard to like decipher all of that because I'm like,

581
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: all right, these makes does these makes this? But this

582
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: is what I know and this is what I pretended

583
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: to be. And of course this goes beyond once again,

584
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: and I keep pulling this in and I don't mean

585
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: to that it goes beyond just sexuality, like identifying my

586
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: sexuality goes beyond that. It goes beyond the every day Again,

587
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: am I freaking sociopath? Do I need to rethink my life? Yes?

588
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: But dot dot dot. But to say there's a lot

589
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: to that level of just beyond if we can focus

590
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: beyond that, it's like, wow, Okay, let's have a big

591
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: conversation of again, what societal expectations of norms are are

592
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: placed on us and how tangled that makes everything else

593
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,239
Speaker 1: in our thought process. Yes, yeah, I think that's one

594
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: of my biggest takeaways from this whole book is that

595
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: it's messy, Like we can't you can't remove the patriarchy

596
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,719
Speaker 1: from your experience and you can't remove white supremacy from

597
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: your experience, and like you can be aware of it

598
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: and do work on your part, but you grew up

599
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: in that system. And so when you start asking yourself

600
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: these questions which we're going to talk about more, but

601
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: you you can get really in your head about well,

602
00:33:00,440 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: what does this mean? Am I? Is this some something

603
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: that came out of being raised in this system? Like

604
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: am I playing into a stereotype or against the stereotype?

605
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: And why am I doing that and just really really

606
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: being uncertain on something you were probably already kind of

607
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: I didn't feel maybe, or I should say, for me,

608
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: it makes it hard for me to claim something one

609
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I can't say for sure, And that's

610
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: not a great mind space to be in where you

611
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: can't say why you feel the way that you do

612
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: or don't feel the way that you do. Oh no,

613
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: now we're the advice gonna think of as sociate about

614
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 1: That's okay. I recently told some friends of ours that

615
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: I thought about the whole dogs thing being overrated, a

616
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: babiot of being overrated, and let me say, people would

617
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: not let it go, They would not drop it. They

618
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: already you should have learned this lesson, Andy, You got

619
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: mal about your stays on, but not about the baby Yoda.

620
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: Not about the baby Yoda, but about the I do

621
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: want to say, though, because this is actually kind of

622
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: relevant to what we're talking about, is I think that

623
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 1: my when I say overrated, I think that my version

624
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: of overrated might not mean what a lot of people

625
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: mean when they say it. But it is kind of

626
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: a similar thing of And we talked about this in

627
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: my Dead Inside episode where it's like maybe I'm just

628
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: not maybe I'm feeling the thing you're feeling. I'm just

629
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: not emoting like you're emoting, or like maybe we're just

630
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: expressing it differently. But A get you can't be in

631
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: somebody's head, right, Okay. You can think something's not interesting

632
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 1: and that's okay, and that might be dog and like

633
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,839
Speaker 1: oh yah, it's there cool in the story and that's

634
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,320
Speaker 1: kind of your conversation. And I thought about this because

635
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: every time before I started watching Star Wars, every time

636
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,799
Speaker 1: I said I never saw it, the look of like

637
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,399
Speaker 1: that I got, I was like, calm down, and then

638
00:34:58,400 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 1: I had to be a bigger stance on like, oh,

639
00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: I'm never watching it, which is what my other friend

640
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: who have known for years, when I told him I

641
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: actually watched it, he's like, I thought you that was

642
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: gonna be your thing where you just never watched Star Wars.

643
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I gave in. He was like

644
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 1: huh like and it wasn't because people are so like

645
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: pushy to be like you need to watch this. And

646
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: then this weekend I just got the you didn't watch

647
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: Star Trek. I don't know if you can read friends,

648
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know what's happening, and

649
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: then me having to explain I don't like sci fi

650
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: that much. I'm starting to get into it, and they're

651
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: like and me just having to stare. So that's a

652
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: whole different conversation. But yeah, it's literally like, it's not

653
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: that I hate it here. Yes, I totally hear you.

654
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: I even brought you up. No, I was just saying, like,

655
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: I know she's not feeling what I'm feeling when I

656
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: watched Star Wars, And that's kind of the thing we're

657
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,240
Speaker 1: talking about. We're just experiencing the same thing in different ways.

658
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: It's kind of like food. You may like this thing,

659
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: I may not. The one thing we agree with was

660
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:03,280
Speaker 1: Mayo's trash. I don't think that's one thing we agree

661
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: with it. No, I'm just saying it's one of the

662
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: things that like, like, I won't touch it. I won't

663
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: even like I don't like it. I don't have it

664
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: in a refrigerator and I've never had it, and it

665
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:13,279
Speaker 1: blows my mind. I'm like, oh, yeah, is that a

666
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 1: thing you want? I mean, anyway, sorry, you've gone Okay,

667
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 1: So back to the book. Let's go back to some quotes, right,

668
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: repeat after me and she wrote this not don't not me,

669
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,400
Speaker 1: so I don't repeat after me, se repeat after me.

670
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: Sexual attraction is not sex drive. These two phenomena are

671
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: often treated as interchangeable, but understanding that their separate helps

672
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: explain ace experience. Simply put, sex drive or libido is

673
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,320
Speaker 1: a design for sexual release, a set of feelings in

674
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,080
Speaker 1: the body, often combined with intrusive thoughts. It could come

675
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,840
Speaker 1: out of nowhere and for no obvious reasons and not

676
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: be about anyone. It's an internal experience of sexual frustration

677
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: that does not depend on sexual orientation. A woman can

678
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: be gay and have a high sex drive, that is,

679
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: she frequently wants sexual release. A man can be straight

680
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 1: and have a low sex drive. A person can be

681
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: ace and have no desire for sexual release at all.

682
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: Or a person can be ace and have a so

683
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: called undirected sex drive that tingling in the other's and

684
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 1: undirected sex drive isn't a cork of ex experience. It's

685
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: another way of saying being horny, which can afflict anyone.

686
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: Because horny nous does not need to include sexual attraction.

687
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: Imagine a gay man with a high sex drive surrounded

688
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: by women. It is possible for him to fill horny

689
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 1: and want to get laid even if he's not interested

690
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: in anyone around him. Sexual attraction then is horning this

691
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: toward or caused by a specific person. It is the

692
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 1: desire to be sexual with that partner, libido with a target.

693
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 1: To use a food metaphor, a person can fill physiological hunger,

694
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: which would be like sex drive, without craving a specific dish,

695
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,399
Speaker 1: which would be more like sexual attraction. And just as

696
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: people have different sex drives, they also experienced different levels

697
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: of sexual attraction. Some aces have a libido and some don't,

698
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: but we all share the lack of sexual attraction and

699
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: most of us have low desire for partnered sex. As

700
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: a side note, it's important to clarify that neither sexual

701
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: attraction nor sex drive are the same as physical arousal.

702
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:23,280
Speaker 1: People can have random erections or be aroused during medical

703
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: exams with no libido or attraction involved. And by the way,

704
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: that could also be said, and this is not what

705
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,760
Speaker 1: she writes. This is me speaking about when rape cases

706
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 1: happen and they're talking about being aroused. That is always

707
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: a conversation, and yes, that is a physiological thing. It

708
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: is not necessarily sexual attraction or wanting it, yes, yes, um.

709
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: And we talked about that in our other our pass

710
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: book Club Come as you Are, And I think that

711
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: this is a good quote to kind of describe those things.

712
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: It's like I said, that's one of the number one

713
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 1: questions I get, is like, but you mastured it, so

714
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: you must you must um have some kind of sexual desire.

715
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: But they are just all these we've gotten all these

716
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: things tangled up together and they don't need to be

717
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't be. And I think, you know when

718
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: I yeah, I mean this who I've been t m

719
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 1: I on this many times, but like when I masturbate,

720
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: I'm not it's usually because it feels good, and also

721
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: it's like a release. I can concentrate better, and I'm

722
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 1: like almost never ever thinking of somebody, and if I am,

723
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: it's a fictional character, but it's not. It's not like

724
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 1: I saw somebody, I got some turned on and I

725
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: gotta go to this Like it's just talk about specifically

726
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: about that too. But a lot of times people are

727
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 1: having masturbated because it just feels good in the story,

728
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,359
Speaker 1: it just feels and if I mean, I know this

729
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: is probably much bigger conversation, but it feels better than

730
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 1: any sex I've ever had, and I would prefer it

731
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,359
Speaker 1: for the older one who would say that even people

732
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,919
Speaker 1: who would consider themselves sexual would have that same conversation. Yeah,

733
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: which is I mean makes sense. And I'm not trying

734
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: to like throw anybody under the bus here because it

735
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:15,439
Speaker 1: just makes sense. You would know your own body better

736
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: and you figure those things out. And it's also like

737
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: battery operated easier to communicate you in your head, yes, exactly,

738
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,360
Speaker 1: and it's just kind of like instinctual, Oh this is

739
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: where to go. And and I mean, I think people

740
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: can have amazing sex and can communicate really well and

741
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to say that that doesn't exist,

742
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: because I totally believe it does. But there are just

743
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: some things that are easier. It's yourself and yeah, you

744
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: know what you want and you don't have to really

745
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: try to communicate that because the words can be tricky

746
00:40:46,760 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 1: and explain it can be tricky. Right. Here's another quote.

747
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: In fact, demi sexuality and gray sexuality not only can

748
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: describe aloes, they actually referred to many who could technically

749
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,760
Speaker 1: be considered alo a. Sexuality is about who you're sexually

750
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: attracted to. No one demi sexuality described the conditions under

751
00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: which someone developed sexual attraction after an emotional bond is formed,

752
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 1: and gray a sexuality can be about how often someone

753
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: developed sexual attraction rarely as possibility. Pan sexual and demisexual,

754
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: are gray a heterosexual, or any number of other combinations.

755
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: And I want to include that because I think there

756
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: was a lot of interesting things that was brought up

757
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: through interviews in that chapter. There was one point about

758
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,919
Speaker 1: hookup culture and overall sexualization that maybe kind of an

759
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 1: anxiety that these terms, these labels were being used for

760
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,360
Speaker 1: people who basically thought that the level of sex they

761
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: should want they weren't there, and that as a society

762
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: we've just been totally hyper sexualized and oversexualized, and so

763
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:03,320
Speaker 1: they thought that maybe something was and very heavy quotes

764
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: wrong with them, or they weren't on the same level

765
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:10,720
Speaker 1: of people, and maybe that's just a cultural thing they've internalized.

766
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: And then there's also the interesting point of people using

767
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: these labels but really they were just being jack it's

768
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: about it and having anxieties around that of like and

769
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: I'm being very general and stereotypical here, but kind of

770
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: you know, like the man who says he is like

771
00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: a romantic and and all this stuff and then treats

772
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: you like like that's not cool. Don't treat people terribly.

773
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: So I understand all those anxieties, and I think, again,

774
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: this book does a really good job of like it's complicated, um,

775
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: and people have acted in ways that are cruel to

776
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: other people that can unforeinately sometimes sort of aligne with

777
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: how people understand or think that these labels what they mean,

778
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 1: which isn't necessarily the case at all, but just what

779
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 1: people think. Like if you, I think of her a

780
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: lot of women, if you met a guy who said, like,

781
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: I'm not into romance, even if he did identify that way,

782
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:19,839
Speaker 1: you would immediately have kind of like a tensing up

783
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 1: of oh, he means like he just wants to tree

784
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: use me and then throw me away or something, which

785
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 1: I'm again generalizations. I know that you can be a

786
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 1: romantic man and not be like that, but I think

787
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: that's like the anxiety um that people have. Yeah, it

788
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 1: labels in general make people nervous all kinds of ways.

789
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: And and then we also see people who are being

790
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: dicks about the fact that labels can be important in

791
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: that you need, you want to identify yourself, you you

792
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: need to know about yourself, which I know is like

793
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: a lightbulb moment for many of people. And we've got

794
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: we're kind of seeing this and I don't think she's

795
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: she's definitely didn't really mention this, but like with the

796
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: pronoun stuff, and we have the right coming in and

797
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: going real hardcore and being like, how dare you do this?

798
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: Because now you're categorizing in or whatever, making me see

799
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:10,320
Speaker 1: something that I don't want to see, or making me

800
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: acknowledge something that I don't want to acknowledge type of

801
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: conversation as well, and it's it's kind of like, well,

802
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: it's not for your son down, yes for sure. Yeah,

803
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: So going on with more quotes. Sexuality is more than

804
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, and attraction is more than sexual attraction, Yet

805
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: humans can act as though sexual interest is the only

806
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 1: reason we find ourselves compelled by others. Aesthetic attraction can

807
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,800
Speaker 1: guide romantic attraction, or the feeling of being romantically interested

808
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,879
Speaker 1: in or having a crush on someone. Romantic orientation then

809
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: denotes the gender that people usually develop crushes on. These

810
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:55,359
Speaker 1: use the same linguistic constructions as sexual orientations, swapping out

811
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: the sexual part head a romantic pan romantic, homo romantic,

812
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: and so on. People who don't experience romantic attraction towards

813
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: anyone are called a romantic or arrow. The concepts of

814
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: a romanticism and a sexuality developed alongside each other, so

815
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,560
Speaker 1: arrows have long been part of the ACE community, though

816
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: some people are a romantic and not a sexual. Yes,

817
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: which the one asked me if I was well, And

818
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: that's something else I had no idea about until I

819
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: started on this show, right, that was new to look

820
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: it up. I was like, is that a thing like,

821
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 1: you know, well into my adult life, and that's I

822
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: identify personally as by real bantic. But it is nice

823
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: to know because I would feel like attraction to both

824
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: Luke and Leah and be very confused by it. But

825
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: then I want nothing like sexual and I'm like, how

826
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: is this happening at all? Right? Right now? I know?

827
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: There you go. Something else that Chen goes into in

828
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: this book is religion, which is something we talked about

829
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 1: a lot in this show, and how that impacts views

830
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:07,280
Speaker 1: on sex and and morality, and how not wanting sex

831
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: can feel old fashioned and conservative. You know, this whole

832
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 1: idea of not wanting to feel repressed, wanting to feel liberated,

833
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: and that's something I really identify with, I really connected with,

834
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 1: and yeah, I just feel and I talked about this

835
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,399
Speaker 1: briefly because I'm so happy that we're finally talking about

836
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: women having sex and liking sex and wanting sex. I

837
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: think that's great, but I think it has gotten kind

838
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: of like tied to that means you're liberated and if

839
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: you don't want that, then you're not. And I think

840
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: that also is changing. And again, it is another thing

841
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: that is complicated because of the patriarchy and and things

842
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:46,479
Speaker 1: like religion, which of course the patriarchy touches. But yeah,

843
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: it's sort of where's the whole chapter about? Is a

844
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: religious aspect of this and this assumption that everyone struggles

845
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: with sexual desire and religious text is kind of a

846
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: lot of in a lot of ways, the heart of

847
00:46:56,560 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: a lot of religion is that the idea that everyone

848
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: struggles with this and you have to be chased and

849
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: withhold hold back from your desire until you are married

850
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: and then you know, have kids and that's it. Speaking

851
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: of which, there has been this viral video recently of

852
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: this dude who decided to approach several eighteen year old

853
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 1: girls on the beach to tell them that they are

854
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,280
Speaker 1: causing mendicine and they need to think about their life.

855
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: And what they're doing is they're dressing like sluts and

856
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: they need to get it together. Oh yeah, because he's

857
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: like he said, my son's out here, my family is

858
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 1: trying to enjoy somethings, and all they can see is

859
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: your bikinis. And by the way, they're normal bikinis. Like

860
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 1: that it matters, not that it matters at all, Like

861
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: they can be wearing jeez jeans and whatever whatnot and

862
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: enjoy your life, do your thing. But they were just

863
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 1: regularly wearing regular bikinis. They look great. Go ahead, enjoy it,

864
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:55,359
Speaker 1: love your life. You look wonderful. Enjoy that body. But

865
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: and it went viral to the point that all the

866
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: people were like, what the hell is wrong with you?

867
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: And he came and decided to come back with a

868
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 1: video is saying that he was, you know, a god

869
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: fearing man and he was doing the work of God

870
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: and just wanted to let this and he tried to

871
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: be real cool. I just wanted them to protect them

872
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: and let them know that you know, this is really

873
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 1: harmful into what Jesus loves them more than that essentially, Yeah,

874
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: to say he got fired and then he got chastise

875
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: and he's been reamed over the coals repeatedly has been

876
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: a delight. But anyway, but I think stuff like that,

877
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:33,760
Speaker 1: And again, we talked about it when I was talking

878
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 1: about the murders that happened in Atlanta, the shootings that

879
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 1: happened in Atlanta. This conversation causes a lot of violence

880
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: in general when we talk about morality, but it also

881
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: causes a lot of like fear and just again this

882
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 1: whole conversation of like am I normal? Am I supposed

883
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: to be feeling this? So if I'm not trying to

884
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,879
Speaker 1: be religious and I'm not trying to be and I'm

885
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 1: trying to go forward in the feminist movement and me

886
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: saying I don't want sex and my doing the wrong

887
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,359
Speaker 1: thing because I'm not, you know, liberated again like she says.

888
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,160
Speaker 1: And I think that's a big conversation because we have

889
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: one extreme or the other. Is there either you have

890
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: to completely chase or you have to be you know,

891
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: raging and and constantly turning over partners. You know, there's

892
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 1: not this middle ground of just being just being and

893
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: just being happy to be what they were and who

894
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: who they are and not wanting this, and then you

895
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 1: go on into like, yeah, that it's both good and

896
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: bad when it comes to relationships and what it is

897
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,720
Speaker 1: expected under the misogynistic idea of what marriage is supposed

898
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: to be. When we look at the religious conservative religious

899
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: ideas of what marriage is and how damaging it is

900
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 1: for one or the other, and it's such a weird

901
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 1: conversation because yeah, it doesn't feel like there's much of

902
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: a common like a middle ground or a no ground situation. Yeah, yeah,

903
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: and I think that's something we can we should all

904
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:00,439
Speaker 1: examine perhaps and maybe we'll come back and do another

905
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: episode on it one day. But there's just a lot

906
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: of judgments around if people are having sex, in the

907
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: type of sex they're having, so like, even if maybe

908
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 1: you are having sex but it is quote, you know, boring, right,

909
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: but maybe that's fine with you, maybe that's what you want.

910
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 1: But I feel like there's a lot of judgment around

911
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: that and like how much sex you are having. And

912
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:26,080
Speaker 1: I do think it has a lot to do with

913
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: this history of the patriarchy and repressing women and not

914
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: letting women be sexual and not letting women have pleasure,

915
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: and so we do have a lot of concern around

916
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 1: that and anxiety around that, but the fact is those

917
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,800
Speaker 1: things can exist and that might be what somebody wants,

918
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 1: and again it can change, Yeah, it can change. And

919
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: that's kind of part to that is um, this whole

920
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,839
Speaker 1: level of duty and that that's a conversation we need

921
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: to call. Like we've talked about many times, but how

922
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: that stigma also really really hurts everything everything and this

923
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: obligation and in this whole narrative of again your sex,

924
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 1: women's sex, just saying it as this is something to

925
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: be a prized and then gifted to those worthy. So

926
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 1: if you're gifting to those who are worthy, that means

927
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:16,360
Speaker 1: you can't deny it because it's a gift, you know

928
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: what I mean. And so that's just both of those things.

929
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 1: And to slow it down, it's become a running joke

930
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: obviously and like the once you get married you stop

931
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: having sex. That especially to the points like I'm very

932
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:31,839
Speaker 1: confused why, like like as a kid watching this conversation

933
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: and this constant joke that I'm like, don't get it,

934
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 1: what's happening? And I get it, but like having that, Yeah,

935
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:42,959
Speaker 1: people sex drive changes and there's a lot of again,

936
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: like I talked about my job and we know that

937
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: the outside narratives and then feeling that guilt not only

938
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 1: for those, it's just I think for everyone if you

939
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: can't keep up with that and feeling like, okay, well

940
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: I'm not normal now, you know. Yeah, that's a that's

941
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 1: a good point because that's just another example of this assumption,

942
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 1: which I know we're going to talk about that more

943
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: later too, but the assumption that this is like sex

944
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: is the best thing and you should be getting it

945
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:15,720
Speaker 1: all the time and it should be great and the best,

946
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: and if you're not, then something's wrong or you're boring

947
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:24,279
Speaker 1: or like all these things that we assume about people

948
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: like that. But it's just assumed that that that's what

949
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 1: you should want. And it is a joke like once

950
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: you get married. The fact that it's a joke that

951
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 1: once you get married, all of a sudden it's usually

952
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: the woman doesn't want to have sex anymore. That we

953
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: should question why that is why? Very much question why

954
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: that is my name? Mini? Alright? Yes, and going on

955
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: with more quotes because we love it. None of this

956
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:56,319
Speaker 1: aligned with my goals, She writes. The words used to

957
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:00,319
Speaker 1: describe women who didn't have sex celibate, absolute pure chase

958
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 1: seemed either clinical or moralistic in a way. I disdained

959
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: the words used to describe women who did free empower

960
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: bold I liked and wanted to apply to me down.

961
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: A few people would explicitly say that sexually conservative women

962
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 1: are wildflowers, but popular culture made it that insinuation clear,

963
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: and so I had a vague, unquestioned feeling that the

964
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 1: women who pursue sex are more fun and feminists in

965
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:28,879
Speaker 1: the women who don't. Yeah, And I think that's really

966
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:32,239
Speaker 1: interesting that's what she writes, because also there's that opposite

967
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,839
Speaker 1: within the feminist group. Yeah, you want to say that's

968
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: free empower bold, but within outside of that, that's a

969
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 1: slut or any of those narratives. Again, as we talked

970
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: about that, dude, So it's kind of interesting that that's

971
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: how she saw it. But it is that narrative, like

972
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: you want to fit in, So what structure do you

973
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: want to fit in? Yeah? I I find that dichotomy

974
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:57,200
Speaker 1: interesting as well, because there's the version of, you know,

975
00:53:58,320 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: for so long a woman who's actually liberated it has

976
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: been called a slut or a horror or like even

977
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 1: just you know, might have had sex once that can

978
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: be thrown lobbed at her. But in feminess circles, it's

979
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: it's more like, yeah, girl, you get you have that sex,

980
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,399
Speaker 1: which is great. Again, all for it, but it does

981
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:21,759
Speaker 1: once again rely on this assumption that that equals empowerment

982
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:25,759
Speaker 1: and and a liberated woman, which it does in some ways,

983
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:29,839
Speaker 1: but it's not the only way that it can. Here

984
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: is another quote. My ideas about the humiliation of repression

985
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:35,760
Speaker 1: and the meaning of liberated sexuality did not come from nowhere.

986
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 1: For so long, women have been encouraged to deny our

987
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:40,799
Speaker 1: sexual needs and instead serve the needs of men. Are

988
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 1: worth is tied to sex. We are sexualized until we

989
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,320
Speaker 1: are too old, get shamed and police for being sexual,

990
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: ourselves prevented from exploring what we desire, are allowed to desire.

991
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: This is doubly true if the women in question aren't straight.

992
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's kind of going off of what you

993
00:54:54,560 --> 00:54:57,759
Speaker 1: were saying, Samantha. That is just once again, you cannot win.

994
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:01,359
Speaker 1: You cannot win, no matter what it. And I want

995
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,280
Speaker 1: to include this because I did feel this as well,

996
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 1: especially when I came into work on a feminist podcast.

997
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, I have to keep this

998
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: to myself, like I gotta be loud and proud about

999
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: go having sex, women, go get it, which I am.

1000
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: And I was like that in high school too, because

1001
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be normal

1002
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 1: and heavy quotes and I did. I wanted people. I

1003
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: wanted women or any marginalized group to have sex that

1004
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,839
Speaker 1: they wanted and it'd be fine. But and that does

1005
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 1: get all mixed up with this sort of the patriarchy

1006
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:40,080
Speaker 1: and feminism and assumptions around sex. But I will say

1007
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:42,839
Speaker 1: for me, and I don't think that this is a

1008
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 1: healthy thought either, but I experienced almost the opposite of

1009
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: this whole thing where I It's hard to describe, but

1010
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: I guess I thought sex was degrading for women because

1011
00:55:57,360 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 1: it had been for so long been about men's pleasure,

1012
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:05,720
Speaker 1: and to me it seemed and that this was also

1013
00:56:06,200 --> 00:56:09,279
Speaker 1: really uninformed about like what I saw on corn and

1014
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,320
Speaker 1: in movies and stuff. But to me, it just seemed

1015
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:14,120
Speaker 1: like the woman was apprised to be one and the

1016
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: man won in my sexual encounter and the woman lost.

1017
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: So I experienced almost this opposite thing. And that's also

1018
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 1: because I wasn't where I grew up. You know they

1019
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: were feminist people, but that conversation was not being had,

1020
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: So I didn't really have that sort of like empowered

1021
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 1: narrative as much as I as I do now as

1022
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 1: I hear now. But for me, I just and I

1023
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: would hear my friends talk about uh, sex they were

1024
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 1: having and how how much they enjoyed it, and I

1025
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:50,239
Speaker 1: was like, my brain could not get on board. And

1026
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 1: and I just thought that was interesting that for me

1027
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:53,839
Speaker 1: it was like the opposite where I was like, I'm

1028
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: never having sex with a man because the patriarchy. So

1029
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:02,799
Speaker 1: it's like a different form of someone of not not

1030
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,720
Speaker 1: good feminism, but you know, kind of this really misinformed

1031
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: understanding of it. And uh, I don't know. I just

1032
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 1: thought I was I was intrigued by our different experiences

1033
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 1: around that. I think it's interesting too because I feel

1034
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: the same way as you did. It's it's always been

1035
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: about power. It's all about men gaining power taking something

1036
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: and women are just prizes essentially, uh. And I grew up.

1037
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 1: I grew up with that and like that's what we

1038
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:30,360
Speaker 1: learned in high school. That's what we hear guys saying,

1039
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: and like having brothers and kind of talking about you know,

1040
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: so and so did this is so and so, and

1041
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,439
Speaker 1: it was always the girls a slut, and the dude

1042
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: obviously was the one pressuring. And that was that conversation

1043
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 1: I grew up with and understanding, this is what happens.

1044
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: Oh no, I don't want that. I don't. Every time

1045
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: I'd hear a story about something happening between a couple,

1046
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 1: the girl is always, you know, something happening, whether she's

1047
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: forced to do something or whether they do something that's

1048
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: gross to like, always an added to humiliate the woman,

1049
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: and then including like oral sex and having blow jobs

1050
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 1: on any of that to me was the most degrading

1051
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: of all things, because that made women seem nothing but

1052
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:13,959
Speaker 1: the vessel. Yeah, I don't know, like orpheus, I guess,

1053
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: I don't know, for something just for a male pleasure only,

1054
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: that's what it seemed. And to me, that was one

1055
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 1: of the most humiliating things that you could think of.

1056
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 1: And so that was the biggest joke for anything that

1057
00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:30,439
Speaker 1: happened within high school, teenagers or whatever. Like. Of course

1058
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: it's not sex, but it's still something that men can

1059
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: have and therefore used women even more so That's that's

1060
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: what it seemed, and it wasn't until Sex in the City.

1061
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: They kind of turned that perspective from me when they

1062
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 1: talk about again, it's still that power dynamics, but how

1063
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: it can be pleasurable, how it's not pleasurable, and all

1064
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:53,480
Speaker 1: these things. Because it literally goes from one character saying

1065
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: she doesn't like it, she doesn't want it, she doesn't

1066
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: want to do it, and that ended their relationship to

1067
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 1: another character talking about I like sometimes I would yeah,

1068
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: like literally says I'll order it off the menu every

1069
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: now and again, yeah, and talking about how you know,

1070
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: things have been changing and how that can be a

1071
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:15,160
Speaker 1: thing for women to enjoy as well. This again negates

1072
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:19,160
Speaker 1: all of the love and romance and trust and communication

1073
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: in a relationship that can happen in that too, which

1074
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,880
Speaker 1: we want to come back to in general. But like, yeah,

1075
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: I write with you, or like this is degrading, and

1076
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:29,920
Speaker 1: this is what it means. But it also came with

1077
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: that misogynistic idea of my virginity is my prize and

1078
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: I must not give it unless say, are worthy, right, right.

1079
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:42,640
Speaker 1: And I have had friends where I've had this discussion,

1080
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: this very discussion with them, and they'll they'll tell me, like,

1081
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 1: you know, I get real pleasure out of like really

1082
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:50,919
Speaker 1: bringing someone like to the edge and like having being

1083
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: in control of that pleasure for them. And I totally

1084
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 1: get that, but yeah, these formative ideas I had are

1085
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 1: these really misinformed ideas I had at the beginning that

1086
01:00:01,480 --> 01:00:04,520
Speaker 1: I was. Yeah, I thought it was degrading, And I

1087
01:00:04,520 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 1: think that also says something about great culture and the

1088
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 1: media we consume and how sex is often portrayed that

1089
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: that's what I thought it looks like, And it's never

1090
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: about the woman's pleasure ever, or if it is, it's

1091
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 1: only like we talked about as a way for the

1092
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: man to be like, look how good I am? Yeah,

1093
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 1: still about him. Okay, So, because we went so far

1094
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: off the rails on this one, we're gonna we're gonna

1095
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:33,480
Speaker 1: have to break this one up into two our first

1096
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: book club two partner. Yes, So keep an ear out

1097
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: and eye out for part two soon. But in the meantime,

1098
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,480
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for book club, or or

1099
01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: any suggestions at all, we love to hear them. You

1100
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 1: can email as a stuff media mom Stuff at iHeart

1101
01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at

1102
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never

1103
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: Told you I thinks it's always to a super producer, Christina,

1104
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:01,360
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I

1105
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: never told these production of I Heart Radio. For more

1106
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: podcast on my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

1107
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.