Shifty Seduction - an interview with ASU Professor Ron Broglio

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 Shifter romance emphasizes our primal instincts over the violence that mainstream entertainment prefers. Is shifter romance more about repression or revolution? 

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:09):
Hey, Ron Brolio, author of Animal Revolution and
professor at ASU University.
You are an expert in animals,the philosophy of animals, and
you've written several booksabout it.
And we are fans of romance, andwe particularly talk about 80s

(00:30):
romance, vintage romance.
But we also read a lot of thecurrent romance.
And a huge subgenre in romanceright now is animal shifters,
where they're actually an elitegroup of people.
The animal shifters arefrequently like alphas.
And it's actually like they havea human side and they have this

(00:53):
animal side.
And the animal side doesn'treally seem to serve much
purpose other than to showthey're alphaness, but they
operate in society as likesuperior.
They have enhanced senses whentheir shifter side is they have
superhuman vision, hearing,sexual capacity, of course,

(01:13):
because that's the main thingwith the romance.
And so I wanted to ask you aboutyour experience with the fantasy
lore of animal shifters and howthat's maybe either conflicts or
jives with the philosophicalaspect, because one of the
things, I mean, I think a lot ofus read the shifter Romans is
just because it's fun because welike it, but there are people

(01:35):
that think, you know, that it'sjust that it is like a cover for
just a patriarchal fantasy, youknow, that it just kind of
accentuates the status quo ofsuperiority.
But in your book, an animalrevolution, you talk about how
humans are not very nice toanimals.
So, I mean,

SPEAKER_00 (01:52):
yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
talk about your book that, in terms of shifting.

SPEAKER_00 (01:56):
Yeah, no, it's great.
Thanks for having me here.
And I've been interested in withanimals is how we, obviously
humans are animals, but how wemake a distinction between
ourselves and other animals.
And this is usually done throughthe apparatus of what we call
culture.
As culture is the thing thatdistances us from the animal

(02:20):
world.
Culture is often the thing thatprevents us or friction with the
animal world or the world ingeneral.
So one of the examples I use is,for example, if you're eating,
you don't eat with your hands,maybe you eat with utensils.
Or driving, when you're driving,you're not touching the ground,

(02:40):
you're gliding through space,unless of course you're in
traffic.
And even the clothing we wear isto kind of protect us from the
external world, right?
So All these culturalenhancements or cultural
distinctions we have are ways ofsaying, I'm human and we're
protecting ourselves from thething that's outside that world.

(03:04):
It's like trying to distinguishourselves from the other
animals.
But what's really interesting tome is that we are animals.
As much as we try to repressthat or deny that aspect of
ourselves, it shows through in avariety of ways, right?

(03:25):
The animals kind of can hackinto our cultural systems to
remind us we live in the sameworld as they do.
So ways that they do that, ifit's a cow getting loose from a
slaughterhouse, if it's theorcas who are attacking leisure
ships in the Mediterranean,whatever it might be, they're

(03:47):
reminding us, hey, your part,you humans, are part of a bigger
world.
So that's often my approach.
Now, when we get to shifters inthe capacity that you're talking
about, I think it's interestingto think about what non-human
capacities, what things aboutour animalness are they trying

(04:09):
to remind us of, right?
So how are they trying to say,you know, you're part of a much
bigger animal world, and The sexor sexuality or sexual prowess,
for example, is often, is alsoone of the ways we distinguish
ourselves from other animals.

(04:30):
We say, oh, you know, we have aculturally reified or a
culturally established ways ofcourtship and sexuality.
And animals don't have that inthe same way.
And so this is a way ofdistinguishing ourselves, but to
say, you know, really, we tooare or just like other animals.

(04:51):
Like we're in the same earth,we're part of the same world.
So these authors seem to behacking into the capacities of
the animal world to remind us ofsomething that we often forget
in our human world.

SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
Do you think it's a way to kind of get around The
repression that sex is under nowin our society, we're kind of
under almost this new kind ofHays Code almost, where do you
think these shifter genres arisea way to get out what really
can't be repressed?

SPEAKER_00 (05:21):
You know, that's a really great way of saying it,
that it becomes, there are anumber of books, a lot of the
authors, contemporary craftwriters who write about animals,
are using animals as a way oftrying to talk about the human
world.
in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 (05:39):
To be a shifter, when we write these stories, are
we just getting in touch withour animal nature?
I mean, is the sex and thepassion part and the enhanced
ability part just theanimalistic part of ourselves
that we can't otherwise, it'snot acceptable to admit to?

(05:59):
It

SPEAKER_00 (06:00):
becomes a license, right?
So you can say, well, Thisreally wasn't a human thing.
This was a fantasy thing withthis enhanced animal capacity,
right?
So it becomes a way of kind ofeliding or getting around this
really basic problem.

SPEAKER_03 (06:17):
I'm going to jump in here and say, I think it's
interesting.
I almost wonder if it's moreabout wanting to connect to
power and less about wanting toconnect to animals, because when
you think about your typicalshifters and They're shifting
into things like wolves.
They're not shifting intobunnies or nematodes.
They're shifting into predators,carnivores, animals that are

(06:41):
seen as sometimes dangerous tohumans or certainly more
powerful in terms of the animalkingdom.
What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 (06:49):
So one of the things you might think about is, you
know, I think that would makesense in terms if we think about
carnality, flesh, being humansand being part of a world of
flesh.
Then you have this idea that,no, our animal nature, we often
have this idea we're trying tokeep in check our animal nature,

(07:09):
our more bestial sides, right?
And what this does is say, thosesides have capacities that maybe
we need to tap into, or theyhave powers and capacities that
the society wants to repress.
And the carnal element, asopposed to sort of like the idea

(07:31):
of flesh eating, in some ways,you know, this is going to get
out there, but this happens, Ithink, a lot with animals.
The desire to be consumed.
We want, you know, there's thisdesire for either absolute
annihilation or absolutetriumph.
So either side of that, right?
And this idea of, you know,tearing someone apart, being

(07:53):
torn apart, right?
being ravished.
These are the kinds of languagewe use oftentimes.
So the animal becomes amanifestation of that.
It's interesting, I wasthinking, and I write about this
a little bit in AnimalRevolution, about the edible
complex in Freud.
So, you know, in Freud's ediblecomplex, you want to, much like

(08:16):
Oedipus Rex, you kill yourfather and marry your mother.
This is the desire of everyyoung boy, supposedly.
So, One of the things thathappens in analysis of this
child he calls Little Hans isLittle Hans is looking outside
and he sees a horse, a carthorse.

(08:37):
He's really interested in thecart horse's big penis.
And so Freud analyzes the kidand says, well, really it's
about him wanting to be like hisfather.
to have a big penis like hisfather, and replacing the father

(08:58):
in his affection for his mother.
And Freud calls thissocialization.
We realize we have the know.
The know of culture is know youcan't do that, and in that know
is the law of the world.
And so we live under that law.
But other philosophers havesaid, well, you know, maybe

(09:19):
Little Hans just liked thathorse, and he wanted to be
outside with the horses.
He didn't want to be inside.
He didn't want to be socialized.
So I think there's an aspect ofthis where part of ourselves
don't absolutely want to besocialized, don't want to fall
within that realm.
So we can maybe think of it thatway as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
So is animal representation in romance, do
you think, more of an example ofthe revolution or the human
repression?

SPEAKER_00 (09:49):
Yeah, so it's both, right?
So it's the repression.
It's a notation on therepression.
It's like, notice how much we'rerepressing this.
And it is the revolution in thesense of we're going to create
another realm where other thingsare possible,

SPEAKER_01 (10:07):
right?

SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
And this will...
often happen in fantasy isthere's something we can't talk
about directly in a morerealistic novel so we can
imagine it through the characterof an animal.
Also, it begins to excuse a lotof things because we don't blame
animals the same way we mightblame humans, right?

(10:29):
So you say like, oh, well, youknow, the animal did this, so it
didn't know what it was doing,right?
Or that's its nature.
It's natural for it to you know,to do whatever it does.
William Blake, the authorWilliam Blake said, one law for
the lion and the ox isoppression, right?
So you can't make a lion, youknow, be a vegetarian and you

(10:51):
can't make an ox eat meat.
So there are certain animalsthat have their way and maybe
it's very possible this allowsor channels or it excuses
particular kinds of behavior.

SPEAKER_02 (11:05):
Right.
And it's, I mean, A lot of theshifter themes are all about,
they're all, everything that washugely maligned and rejected in
vintage romance and the bodicerippers and the historicals,
everything that people dislikeabout that is represented in the
animal shifter stories becausethey have this faded mate.

(11:27):
They have like, they sense, theysmell their mate and they, and
the mate, the woman usuallydoesn't, Whether or not she's
interested, he can sense thatshe is because her body is
giving off this sense, so he canoverpower her, and that's okay.
But, you know, it is not okay toread a rape fantasy in a

(11:51):
historical romance novel now.

SPEAKER_00 (11:52):
Right, right.
So this becomes a way ofexcusing behavior or writing
behavior in a way that, well, inthe fantasy world, this is
possible, right?
Because there are these things.
They're animals.

SPEAKER_02 (12:06):
And there is, so I guess the sexual metaphor and
the animal symbols, you know,that is what is really
interesting to me as far interms of romance.

SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
Here's another thing.
Let me ask, you know, anotherthing that interests me about
this, I write about this in alittle bit in Animal Revolution,
is fur, the role of fur.
So humans often, we don't haveas much hair.
As most animals, right?
As most mammals.
And there is this, you know, youlook at most male models, you

(12:40):
look at, you know, thebodybuilders, etc.
They're hairless, right?
Or they have very little hair.
The whole idea being thatculture elides or is outside of
nature, right?
And hair becomes the symbol ofanimalness and nature-ness and
friction, right?

(13:00):
right?
The kind of like frictiveness ofhair.
So it's interesting when wethink about reverting to an
animal state, we can also thinkabout the role of hair as the
bestial, right?
As this larger friction of thisotherworldliness.
So I've often found thatinteresting as well.

(13:22):
You know, there's a wholeSasquatch genre of romances.
I don't know if you know aboutthese.
Bigfoot sexual fantasy stories.
And

SPEAKER_02 (13:35):
here are the tentacles one, right?
The tentacles.

SPEAKER_00 (13:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the Sasquatch, I mean, it'swhat we want in Bigfoot is to
both, we want to explore what itmeans.
Here's the animal side ofsomething that's someone or
something that's human, butknows it's animalness.
So could it communicate acrossthat divide across that bridge.

(14:03):
And I think that's one of thethings that's been fascinating
about that kind of work.
And if we think too about sex asthis other world that we can
fall into that has a whole othermode of communication and
engagement, and then you kind ofcome out of it into the cultural
world, that there is that animalcomponent to it, this kind of

(14:27):
just carnality of sex that thenyou can come outside of and say,
okay, now we're civilized again,but then you can fall back into.
And I was also lovely.

SPEAKER_02 (14:39):
Yeah.
And it's strange to think abouthow it's, there is this, I mean,
it's fun.
It's really, it's a pleasure inthinking about the animal
fantasy part of this.
Right.
But it's also, but it's also away of keeping it separate
because it's like, you have tobe this uncontrollable animal
side in order for it to beacceptable.
Right.
And then you have to come out ofit to be, you know, acceptable

(15:02):
in society.
It has to be completelyseparate.
Whereas, I mean, like in the insex and like in the ancient
Hindu traditions, for example,sex was like part of a ritual as
a worship.
It was like it was an elevatedthing.
It wasn't necessarily a separatephilosophy that had to be kept
in a closet, so to speak.
But the animal also gives somepeople say that.

(15:25):
It's a negative that animalskind of that is kind of just
perpetuating a fairy tale, themessage that the patriarchal
hierarchy is AK.
But on the other hand, there'slike the Omegaverse where men
can be pregnant and it kind ofallows for it does allow for
different expressions of genderand sexuality in an animal

(15:45):
hierarchy.

SPEAKER_00 (15:46):
Sure.
You know, it's interesting.
There's an artist who has done aseries, Susie Silver.
she had a collection of artiststhat did some works on alien
sexuality.
It was the Institute for theStudy of Alien Extraterrestrial
Sexuality.
So they were all queer artists.

(16:07):
And the whole idea of kind ofbeing queer was you are often
seen as alien in different ways,or your sexuality might seem
alien or different in certainways.
And so they were able to expressthis through artworks that were,
imagine these, what would aliensex look like, right?

(16:30):
What are the possibilitieswithin alien sex?
And all of a sudden, there are alot of limits, our so-called
natural limits or the blindersor the limits we put on
ourselves are dropped becauseyou can think much more
expansively.
So I think there are theseopportunities in multiverses, et
cetera, to let's imagine muchlarger ideas of how sex and

(16:54):
sexuality can work.
And rather than using it assimply a social regulatory
platform.
Right.
And this is one of the things,you know, I was thinking of the
philosopher Michel Foucault.
So Michel Foucault, Frenchphilosopher who spent most of
his life looking at how societymicromanages, uses ways of

(17:17):
micromanaging the human body.
So whether it's schools tellingyou how to sit, how to stand,
form lines, the military and howto do much of the same, assembly
line construction where inassembly lines you perform
certain acts over and overagain.
So anyway, the modes ofregulation of human bodies.

(17:38):
And the reason he was reallyinterested in that is later in
his life, he actually got to athree-volume set on the history
of sexuality, is he's a gay guy.
And he had, you know, he wasbathhouses, BDSM, the whole
thing.
But he always saw that asdeviant to the accepted culture,

(18:03):
the accepted French culture.
So for him, he was veryinterested.
in understanding how dosocieties regulate us, even in
these kind of minute ways,right?
Almost not at the, just at ourcognitive level, there's in our
minds, but even within ourbodies, what we can wear, how we

(18:24):
can wear it, et cetera.
So I've found that kind of workreally interesting.
I also like to look, I don'tknow, have you ever done this?
Now I'm getting off topic alittle bit, but, you know, go
back and look at what peoplewore in the 70s.
It's totally different.
Yeah.
It's amazing what people gotaway with in ways that I don't

(18:47):
think we do today, you know,just like in normal life.

SPEAKER_02 (18:51):
I know.
And it's, I mean, even in the80s, how did we get there?
Can we go back?
Because we should, it's justwild that we're going backwards.
I can't imagine as a child ofthe 80s where we are right now.
When anything, pretty muchanything went in the 80s, you
know, we were so promiscuous andwild and, you know,

(19:12):
cross-gendering with our makeupand dress.
And wow.
And somebody said on Twitter theother day, you know, teenagers
in 80s movies had better sexlives than adults now in movies,
you know, because it's so justshut down and sterile.
I

SPEAKER_03 (19:31):
do think that's somewhat regional.
I grew up in Indianapolis, andtrust me, not everything went.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I think your upbringing inNew York, I think, is different
than my upbringing in aconservative Midwest family
living in the Bible Belt.
Okay.
But, you know, I wanted to touchback on something that Ron said

(19:52):
that I thought was reallyinteresting, and it kind of
piggybacks with something yousaid, Pam, in that when you were
talking about the Frenchphilosopher and talking about
How do we police our bodies andour clothing?
And your separate part aboutthinking that culture is, you
know, it's a common phrase tosay, well, that's what separates

(20:12):
us from the animals.
And that is seen as a goodthing, right?
We have opposable thumbs.
We're different than this.
We wear clothes.
We drive cars.
I wonder, is that an innate needto feel superior that goes
regardless of gender orstructures related to gender or

(20:34):
do you think that is kind ofintertwined with our systems of
power that do tend to bepatriarchal like is it is it an
instinct that we want to thinkof ourselves as different from
animals because it protects usor is it because it gives us
external power

SPEAKER_00 (20:54):
Right.
Those are really, and you can goeither way on this, but I often
see that difference as, you'reright, a power over the earth
itself, right?
So we often think of we'reseparate from the earth so we
can do whatever we want to it,right?
Even, you know, this goes backin some ways to the Bible where
Adam names all the animals, isgiven power over those animals,

(21:19):
right?
So there's that kind of likesense of a hierarchical
distinction.
The other thing that Foucaultdid in terms of thinking about
how society affects our mind ishe did in a book called
Discipline and Punish, he waslooking at prison systems.

(21:40):
Jeremy Bentham had this thingcalled the panopticon.
And in that prison system, allthe jail cells were visible from
a central tower.
So the police in that centraltower could see all the
prisoners.
So they had to behave.
Eventually, Foucault says, youwouldn't need a jailer in that

(22:04):
cell tower watching you becausethey would police themselves.
In other words, you wouldinternalize the idea that you're
always being watched.
And so you would begin to behavea certain way.
And his idea with that is that'show culture works.
We've internalized socialpolicemen as a way of regulating

(22:28):
our behaviors, of what'sacceptable and not acceptable.
And that goes both socially andalso in the bedroom, which is
kind of crazy to think aboutbecause there's usually not
anyone else watching.
So it's a really interesting...
idea of how we self-regulate.

(22:49):
So in some ways, while it mightbe power over the animal world,
culture has a power over us.
And that animal portal, theshifter portal, allows us to
escape that being controlled.
It allows us some other kind offreedom.

(23:11):
And oftentimes, when we'rereading, that's what we want.
It's the

SPEAKER_02 (23:16):
same kind of thing people were looking for in the
70s and 80s bodice rippers whenthey had to be overpowered in
order to enjoy the sex.

SPEAKER_00 (23:45):
someone else's pleasure and your own pleasure
is an incredible freedom, right?
I don't have to make thedecisions anymore.
I don't have to decide all thesethings about what I'm spending
money on, what I'm buying, whatI'm cooking for dinner, the kids
and the chores and the laundryor whatever it might be.
Instead, I can just give myselfover.

(24:08):
And that's often the idea thatone of the pleasures of
submission, is that kind offreedom.

SPEAKER_02 (24:19):
And so, I mean, overall, I think it's a good
thing.
I mean, I read that we're ableto do this with this genre.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (24:26):
well, what it does is, to me at least, it expands
our capacity.
We think our capacities arefairly narrowed.
But in fact, they're incrediblylarge.
Sexuality and sexual fantasyallows us to get beyond very
narrow limits of what we thinkour emotional, psychological,

(24:48):
and physical capacities are.
That's kind of one of thebeauties of it.
Oh, there's another thing about,we haven't talked about it, but
it's kind of related, is Ovid'sMetamorphosis, which is like all
these gods turning into...
animals to rape women or to likeoverpower a woman.

(25:10):
And, you know, like Zeus becomesa swan so he can take Leda or a
woman is being chased by a manand she's fleeing him.
So she becomes a tree so that hecan't rape her or something.
So all these kinds ofrelationships between the human
animal world and Abed isabsolutely fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 (25:33):
But then when he wants to rule the world, it goes
back to being human.

SPEAKER_00 (25:36):
Yeah, yeah.
Human form, human form divine.

SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
So do you think, could we say that the, would it
be correct to say that thesocial media platforms are like
our panopticon now that we'renever going to get away from?
Like, can we overcome this atall?
Because, you know, that's such acontrolling, that's such a
factor in, you know, controllingbehavior.

SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah, and it kind of feeds us what we think our
desires, what they think ourdesires are.
So it learns what we like orwhat we like to look at and just
kind of continues to feed that.
And one of the great thingsabout books is they really are
portals to other spaces.

(26:19):
And they get us out of theseother kind of regulated worlds.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:27):
Before you go on, because this is kind of like
what you said and something thatPam said, but if we do look at
how the bodice rivers uh the thehistoricals the women being
overcome and i read a lot ofthose books as a young person
and i liked them and i havediscussed with pam that so i'm
50 now as a 50 year old womanwho's been you know married for

(26:48):
almost 25 years i have childreni see those books differently as
our culture has shifted to theme too experience and the things
like that has changed it seemsas if whether intentional or
not, authors of shifter romanceshave been like, all right, well,
this is our workaround, right?
We can't do the kind of rapekind of, she said no, but she

(27:12):
really meant yes, that we did inthe 70s, even if we're not the
same author.
So we are putting this in ashifter form.
But if my understanding of yourbook, Animal Revolution, is that
there needs to be more of arespect of the, similarities
between species and thatsometimes animals kind of assert

(27:36):
that, like in your example ofthe cow escaping a
slaughterhouse.
So if we come to a point wherewe evolve, that we recognize
animals as more alike us thannot, where will romance go then?
What will the vehicle be that wecan express that desire to be
overtaken, to have the freedomof not making a choice.

(27:58):
I mean, I think that's aninteresting thing about where
romance might evolve in responseto cultural evolution.

SPEAKER_00 (28:06):
Right, yeah.
Do you want to kind of expand onthat a little bit, what you're
seeing in some of these romancesand how they might be moving
that way?
That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 (28:14):
You know, Pam can speak better to shifter
romances.
I've read a few, but that's notreally my genre, but Pam can
probably talk to you a littlemore about that.

SPEAKER_02 (28:23):
What do you mean in terms of The hierarchies are
there, but they have differentworld building things where
you'll have dragons that mate inthrees, where you'll have two
men and one woman.
You have a lot of gay couplesthat are normal in some worlds.
And then you have the Omegaversewhere you have alphas who can

(28:47):
impregnate anyone and whocontrol everything.
You have the omegas, which arelike the breeders that are
impregnated and they...
They go into heat all the time,and that's their thing.
And they can be male or female.
There's a big subgenre of maleswho get pregnant.

SPEAKER_03 (29:03):
I guess, not to stop you, but I think kind of where I
was going was the moretraditional of the Fabio
character who was on the coverof all those books.
He is now the alpha malewerewolf.
He's the alpha male werepanther.
The fact that it's okay to beovertaken now, it would not be
okay for a woman to be overtakenby a human man, but because it's

(29:25):
a wereperson, it's, oh, that'stheir animal nature.
So what happens if we stopothering things into animal
nature?
Will it become less okay to be,will people eventually say,
Well, no, it's still wrong.
Like, even though he's a beast,that's not that different.
And so it's not okay to beovertaken by the alpha male who

(29:48):
shifts into a panther.
That's kind of my thoughtprocess.

SPEAKER_00 (29:52):
Right.
So in some ways, do we need the,you might think it was the
veneer of the animal shifter, orcan we just, we can just say,
no, you know, as humans, thesethings can happen.
That can be part of the fantasyworld.

SPEAKER_02 (30:06):
Yes.
I think we're a long way fromthat.
as we can see in the movies andTV and how everything's so
repressed now there.
I don't know how we would getthere.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
Yeah.
And also, you know, it'sinterestingly, it'd be
interesting, even if we did, youmight ask the other thing is
what might be lost by that?
Like the, it's almostallegorical, but like the, the
idea of being associated withparticular kinds of animals
gives us a different flavor ofor a different way of thinking

(30:39):
about ourselves that can also bea real capacity for us.

SPEAKER_02 (30:44):
But that's kind of, when we kind of not touched on
the, our society has kind of putviolence over sex and you kind
of talk about like the bonobosand the sex, make love, not war.
So can you, that would be

SPEAKER_00 (30:56):
more.
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
So there's this book called TheInheritors and it's by William
Golding.
William Golding did Lord of theFlies.
But around the same time hewrote Lord of the Flies, he did
this book called The Inheritors,which was, when you start
reading it, you're like, okay,this is some kind of primitive
human and a primitive humangroup from maybe 20, 25,000

(31:21):
years ago, and they encounteranother group.
And then you begin to realizethat, no, the one whose
perspective I'm reading fromisn't human.
It's a Neanderthal.
And they're encountering thehumans.
And the Neanderthal thinks thatthe humans should be friendly.

(31:44):
Clearly, they're out to justgreet them.
And in fact, you know, thehumans were out to kill them.
And one of the things, you know,we often ask is, why aren't
there other intelligent lifeforms, right, on Earth?
And of course, there are.
There may intelligent, you know,dolphins and elephants, etc.
But the other answer to that isthe reason there aren't

(32:05):
intelligent hominids is we'vekilled them all.
We've killed the Neanderthal.
So there have been historicallyother ways of being with other
dispositions.
And one of the things I do talkabout in Animal Revolution you
mentioned is the bonobo, whichresolves things through sex much

(32:28):
more than through aggression.
Their sex can sometimes beaggressive and sometimes be
playful, but It's almost sex,you know, mutual masturbation is
like, it's like a handshake forthem, right?
It's like, you know, or a way ofcomforting each other.
So all of a sudden you see, youknow, what that gives you a
window onto again is maybe thereare other ways of other types of

(32:52):
social arrangements,

SPEAKER_02 (32:55):
right?
I think we'd have to down in oursociety, we'd have to value
violence a little less in orderto raise the sexual acceptance
more because

SPEAKER_00 (33:04):
The amount of violence we accept in, say,
video games and in movies andnot sex is kind of really
interesting.
What we often want is thetitillation of sex, but not
actual sex and sexuality and thefull spectrum of that sexuality,

(33:27):
right?
With the tease of sex and sexualplay as if it were provocative
or erotic.
but without it becoming overly,without exploring the other
aspects of sex and sexuality.
I mean, I do wonder like, youknow, if, all right, so this is,

(33:47):
use this or not, but do thingslike, where does something like
Bridgerton sit within this kindof thing, right?
Which shows more sex than likemost TV shows, right?

UNKNOWN (34:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:01):
but displaces it onto an imaginary 19th century
or something.

SPEAKER_02 (34:07):
That is kind of like progress, maybe, I think,
because finally we're gettingsome, I mean, the sexuality back
in film and television.
I mean, it kind of just wentaway for a long time.
And so I think I'm glad to seethat.
I think it's kind of a progressthere, and it's still not any
close to what it used to be, butat least it's there and

(34:30):
represented.
So I think

SPEAKER_03 (34:31):
that's a little breakthrough.
It's interesting, though.
So I read the Bridgerton books.
I watched the first season andthen I read all the books and I
really enjoyed the books.
And there's a lot of controversyright now after this particular
season.
It's interesting that you saythat because while, yes, they've
shown a whole lot more sex, butthey've couched it kind of in a
period of time that we thoughtof as repressive.

(34:55):
I'm going to give spoilers here.
Hope you don't love Bridgerton.
The end of the third season,which just happened, teased a
major plot change in thatthey're predicting a
female-female relationship wherethat particular relationship in
the book was definitely afemale-male relationship.

(35:16):
And there's a good amount ofpushback on social media about
that.
Anywhere from someone who says,you know, if you disagree with
this, You're homophobic.
We need to get with the times.
We need to have representation.
And I have other people who say,I agree, we need representation.
I just really liked thisparticular character in the
book.
And if you created newcharacters who were in a

(35:38):
female-female relationship, Iwouldn't have a problem with
that.
So it's interesting because Ithink it kind of shows where
people started pumping thebrakes on like, oh, we can have
this sex, but maybe not thatsex.
I don't know.
Like I said, it's very...
And I'm personally conflicted,like I said, because I liked the
book.
And that particular book was oneof my favorites.

(35:58):
So it's hard for me to wrap myhead around it being told in a
different way.
And

SPEAKER_00 (36:05):
this is a way they can create controversy, right?
So controversy is a way ofsocial media hits, interest,
etc.
By shifting things from the waythe book was, then all of a
sudden people were either as yousaid, either scandalized or
disappointed that it's not likethe book or perhaps telling

(36:25):
people to go read the book ifthey want something different.
And so it becomes a part of alarger conversation, which is
kind of interesting.
I don't know if you've seen themovie The Challengers, which is
out, or Challengers, which istwo men tennis players who are
in competition, top tennis,young tennis player men in

(36:46):
competition for a woman, butalso men falling in love with
each other in a way.
So it's a really interesting,um, you know,

SPEAKER_03 (36:57):
I haven't seen it, but my 18 and 19 year old saw

SPEAKER_01 (37:00):
it.
They

SPEAKER_03 (37:04):
had mixed.
One of them was like, and I justthink it was a very good movie.
And it's interesting because,um, My daughters are not
straight, so they are very mucha part of the LGBT community and
have many friends of differentboth sexualities and genders.
So I don't know if that playedinto it or not, because one of
them was like, yeah, I liked it.
And the other one was like, Ijust thought it was kind of
crappy movie.

(37:24):
But she didn't really elaboratebecause they're teenagers.

SPEAKER_02 (37:29):
Right.
Well, you know, I think thereis.
something to say for, you know,not changing the source
material.
Like you, when you talk aboutstar Wars, I mean, I'm really, I
am not a fan of that becausethey fundamentally changed like
Luke Skywalker in a very badway.
I think, you know, they, theybrought them down from a hero
to, I mean, it was just, I'm notgoing to get into that, but so

(37:50):
there is, that's a validargument, but on the other hand,
Bridgerton is different.
I think because it's already thewhole world and the television
show is already completelydifferent and people love it.
They have no problem with theBlack characters and all these
different changes that were madefor the show.
So to specifically be unhappywith, you know, all of a sudden

(38:13):
a gay character instead of a,you know, a substitution of a
gay romance instead of a heteroone is, I think, that's not a
positive complaint that theinternet is making.
In this case, so I think thereis a way to tell, that's an
interesting thing about what'sthe difference between a valid
objection to changing the sourcematerial to just a bigotry, an

(38:36):
expression of that, which Ithink more in this case it is
because why it doesn't matter inthis case.
It would just be anotherexpression of a sex and romance
in a show that explores lots ofdifferent expressions of it.

SPEAKER_00 (38:52):
You know, that becomes interesting.
It's like where, as we'retalking about what is the
future, is what are the forms bywhich that will get expressed,
right?
Like, will some of the, youknow, the HBO, Netflix, Hulu,
etc., will they begin to developthese out further?
As, you know, is there a socialappetite for beginning to

(39:18):
explore these things?
And I don't know that.
People are interested oftentimesin talking about sexuality, but
you rarely see, statistically atleast, I guess, in surveys,
people's sex lives are down inthe last decade.

(39:38):
So while sexuality and itsexpressions have expanded, for
many people, they've lost actualsex.
I don't know what to do aboutthat.

SPEAKER_02 (39:52):
I don't know.
I, that's why I'm glad.
That's why I want to talk aboutit more.
This is one of the reasons why Iwant to do this podcast.
So I want to like, I'm beingmore open on social media about,
because I feel like I'm older.
I'm in a position where I cantalk about these things with
less consequence than maybesome, but, but, and I think
putting it back out there needsto be done to make it, to

(40:12):
de-stigmatize sexuality and sexand to, that's how we're going
to get to progress to havemultiple sexualities and genders
be acceptable because you haveto, I mean, if you can't even
talk about it, that's going tobe an obstacle.

SPEAKER_00 (40:27):
Right.
Yeah, I mean, if you think aboutit, when, you know, I did not
have role models growing up thatwere ideal in any sense of that,
right?
And so the questions arebecoming, you know, what are the
models by which we think aboutthese things?

SPEAKER_02 (40:43):
And so, you know, it's wild.
I think I read you were going tobe a Jesuit pastor Brother once?
Or was it priest?
It's brother.
I went to Jesuit high school andthey were brothers.
But there's no Jesuit priest,right?
It's brother?

SPEAKER_00 (40:52):
Yeah, there are priests and brothers.
Yeah, I was in the Jesuit orderfrom age 18 to about 28.
So...
But

SPEAKER_02 (41:00):
that's a power.
I mean, everybody...
I never know.
Any Jesuit brother or priest Iever met was like a scary...
They are like...
The alphas of the spiritualworld.

SPEAKER_00 (41:12):
We used to say they're the Marine Corps of the
Catholic Church.
But yeah, so it was poverty,chastity, and obedience.
And those are really intensevows to maintain.
But I used to joke, poverty willkeep you chaste.
But in fact, that was a timewhere I was actually running

(41:37):
from I was both running to a lotof things.
I wanted to do a lot of service.
I believed in a lot of thesocial work and the social work
aspect of the Catholic Church,living in Tijuana and in housing
projects in New Orleans, etc.
So the social aspects.
And I believed in the education,Jesuit education being very

(41:59):
strong.
But in other ways, I came outwhen I was about 28 with...
The sexual knowledge probably ofa 16-year-old, you know, so like
I just didn't, I hadn't reallybeen on dates.
I hadn't done all the thingsthat people do in their teens
and 20s.
So it took a long time to catchup, right, to begin to realize.

(42:23):
And I think that's one of thespaces where, as we were talking
about models and models forsexuality, that could have been
and would have been reallypowerful for me growing up.
Right.
And I think for a lot of folks,you know, Monica, you talked
about, you know, growing up inthe Midwest and those models
also might have been kind ofenclosed, right, or limited.

(42:47):
And so one of the things that wecan do is to allow people to
explore a variety of ways ofbeing.
And fantasy is a great modebecause there's a certain safety
in fantasy as well.
Right.
It's like, let's just explorewhole other worlds, human
animals and aliens and all theseother capacities and multiverse

(43:11):
capacities.

SPEAKER_02 (43:13):
So when you talk about like the taboo, then is
that like making things nottaboo, like taking it out of
that realm?
Because we sort of need taboo,right?
If there isn't any, what wouldthat be like?
I mean, we kind of got awayfrom, that's what kind of makes
the excitement there, right?

SPEAKER_00 (43:30):
Sure.
Yeah, the violation.
The violation of the taboo orhaving these limits and then
crossing the limits.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (43:39):
Can we have a balance there?
Is it possible even to have abalance that's healthy?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (43:48):
And without an absolute sort of denigration of
those who cross thoseboundaries, right?
So in order to allow for...
you know, taboos and, but alsoto realize the complexity of
human desire.

SPEAKER_02 (44:07):
That's the other big thing.
There's a lot of like, at leastin all the romance discourses, a
lot of policing of people'sdesires and pleasures and what's
okay to read and write andwhat's not.
And that's one thing I wouldkind of push back against and
why I am all for the, this genreand all the genres, because I

(44:28):
mean, we just, Should not startgoing there.
We should talk about it andevaluate it, but not in
moralistic terms.

SPEAKER_00 (44:35):
Right.
It's interesting.
It's also if you think aboutwho's reading stuff, right?
And you think, well, okay, whatis the readership like?
Who's interested in this?
How do they find it?
Because sometimes authors won'twrite something because they're
afraid there's not a readershipfor it.
But if we can imagine, yeah, infact, there is that readership

(44:57):
something I'm working on or Ifeel or I'm interested in, there
must be someone else out there.
I'm not the only person.
Then I think that becomes much,the capacities become much
larger.

SPEAKER_03 (45:10):
And going along with that and kind of something you
said, Pam, about social mediaand social policing and things
like that, it seems to me thatsocial media can work in both
ways, right?
On the one hand, you can Sign onto something anonymous and ask
questions about things thatmaybe you don't feel like you

(45:30):
can talk about.
You could admit, I want to reada book about an alien with three
penises and I'm user one, two,three, four, five.
So you don't know who I am.
You're not going to see me atthe grocery.
On the other hand, you have theside of social media of, People
who are saying, no, you can't beinterested in that.
You can't be interested.

(45:51):
They're kink shaming, that typeof thing.
And I think it's interestinghow, I mean, I guess that's just
the overall how social media canbe used for good or evil, right?
It's a form of social policing,but in some senses, I feel like
we've lost some of our socialpolicing skills.
And people say things these daysthat they wouldn't say before

(46:13):
then, and they probablyshouldn't say it now.
So I don't know, I'm kind oframbling here, but I'm just, I'm
thinking about, is social mediaa way to have those authors find
their readership and then havethe confidence that that's going
to turn into dollars, right?
Because I don't think thesepeople are writing, I mean, some
people write for fun, butultimately, I think even
self-publishing on Amazon, yougot to spend a little money.

(46:34):
So you'd probably like to makesome money too.

UNKNOWN (46:37):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 (46:37):
Yeah, the filter's definitely gone.
The anonymity, yeah, but I thinkit's in a negative way.
I mean, to have the socialinfluence of like shaming, to
keep society, you have to havesome universal, some common
values.
Now people are able to say whatthey want to say terrible things
without repercussion throughanonymity.
Whereas, you know, it would bebetter if we could use it, the

(46:58):
platform to enforce, toencourage, you know, healthy
acceptance, to discourage thebad behavior.
You know, where people, whereyou would be shamed for saying
those things, not for having,you know, not being comfortable
to have the freedom to say anyterrible thing under it.
You know what I mean?
Maybe I'm not saying that right,but it's, I don't see a lot of
people, when somebody gets onand says bad things anonymously,

(47:21):
I don't see a lot of, there'snot a lot of huge immediate

SPEAKER_03 (47:24):
pushback.
There's not even a lot of hugeimmediate pushback when you put
your name on it.
I mean, they're still invited tothe block party, right?
And I'm always like, nope,you're not invited to the block
party.
Those are really hatefulcomments.
Or, you know, I always jokinglysay I'm surprised at
neighborhood groups wherepeople, for example, next door,

(47:44):
I hate next door, but you haveto use your real name.
You have to sign up with yourreal address that you can't, you
know, you could, you know, putyour picture up there, but you
do have to have your real nameand your general location.
So the chances are, of yourunning into someone who
commented on Nextdoor are good.
And I always say to myself,someday I'm going to be at the
grocery and you're going to havethree items and I'm going to
have 55 items and coupons and acheck.

(48:07):
And I'm going to remember whatyou said on Nextdoor and I'm not
going to let you go ahead of mebecause that's going to be my
own personal social policing.
But I think overall, yeah,there's not a lot of pushback.
And you said somethinginteresting, Pam, which is that
we, for social media, I think toencourage acceptance, There
needs to be a shared set ofmorals.

(48:29):
And I wonder if we don't havethat right now.
And that's why it's so difficultfor social media to bring that
sort of purpose.

SPEAKER_00 (48:37):
You know, one of the things you might also consider
doing that might be reallyinteresting is talk to some
craft novelists about howthey're writing sex and how
they're writing about sex inways that open an exploration
while maintaining a kind ofBeauty of the novel itself as
well.
I just read Little Rabbit, whichI think New York Times has

(49:02):
reviewed and is pretty highlyconsidered.
And that was a dominantsubmission novel across
generations.
So the woman's 23, I think, andthe man's 52 or something.
And it's the complexity of ageand the complexity of dominance

(49:24):
and submission.
And it's really well written.
I've been trying to think thename of a novel that was based
off of the Florida woman who wasa high school teacher who was
having an affair with one of herstudents.
There's a really good novel onthat as well.
And so you get into the minds ofthe character in a different

(49:47):
way, and you begin to explorethinking, desire, And there's,
you know, it's not judgmentallike this is right or this is
wrong.
It's I'm interested in what kindof mind is thinking these
things, what kind of desires arethere.
And those are interesting.

SPEAKER_02 (50:05):
So, yeah, we can't really.
Are they all OK, though?
Are any trope or any theme orshould we?
It's

SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
not to say it's necessarily okay.
I mean, look, you can read anovel about, you can read
Silence of the Lambs and not belike, well, okay, I'm going to
go out and find a few people toflay.
But it becomes an interest inhuman psychology in those cases.
So it doesn't always necessarilycondone behavior as much as we

(50:37):
are intrigued by the varietiesof human behaviors.

SPEAKER_02 (50:41):
Yeah, and understanding when you read
things that you're indulging infantasy and being able to
separate, which I think is onething that is lost in the
internet is separating thefantasy from the reality and
just not assuming that becauseyou enjoy reading something or
writing something that you wantto do that in real life.

(51:02):
And we seem to understand thisin other genres, but not so much
in romance.

SPEAKER_00 (51:07):
Yeah, that's actually really interesting.
Yeah.
Do you also write?
Yes.

SPEAKER_02 (51:13):
That's fine.
A lot of people who read themwant to start writing them, and
that's just because we like itso much.
We want to start writing them.
I

SPEAKER_03 (51:23):
am not a writer.
I went to law school and was anattorney for seven years,
although I've been out for 18now.
But I did plenty of writing backthen, and I think that finished
my career.
creative bone off.
I like to read a lot.
And I, you know, one thing thatyou kind of said, Pam, about,
because you and I have discussedthis before, about accepting

(51:46):
that something is fantasy.
I think along the lines goeswith people have different
lengths to which they canpersonally accept that fantasy.
And that may change in theirlife based on their experiences.
And sometimes you don't knowtill you read it.
There's a A popular book rightnow called Haunting Adeline and

(52:08):
it had all this buzz.
And so I was like, I'm going toread this.
And it had a lot of triggerwarnings and it was a very
honest trigger warning.
But I had not read that type ofbook before with those
particular triggers.
And it made me realize afterreading it that I was like,
nope, this isn't mine.
Do I accept that it's verypopular to other people and that
they like that and that they cansee that as a fantasy and not

(52:30):
that they want to go out andengage in dating violence or
things like that?
Yes, I do understand that.
Could I personally get past thatto enjoy it as a fantasy?
No, I couldn't.
So to your question of, youknow, should we be policing what
types of material is out therefor adults or people who are
like adults have at least theability to make those decisions?

(52:53):
My thing is no.
You know, I don't mind thatthose books are out there.
I just don't want to read them.
So, but, you know, that'sobviously always a choice about
what you choose.
You know, you don't like thattelevision show, change the
channel.

SPEAKER_02 (53:05):
Right.
That is not happening inromance.

(53:28):
Censorship does not always tendto win, I've noticed, you know,
then it's like, okay.
And I've always think it isnever okay.
You have to allow, you know, youcan't be criticizing these books
in terms of what's acceptable,what is okay to write about.
And that's one of my objectionsto some criticism about the

(53:51):
vintage romance and the bodicerippers.
I'm like, well, you know,that's, don't read it then.
You know, I'm more in, Don'tread it.
Don't try and forbid it forother people.
But there's a surprising numberof contemporary liberal-minded
people that don't agree withthat view.
So that's what, there's a lot ofwhat you'll see in the dialogue

(54:13):
online about romance novels isthis is terrible.
You know, you can't, this isinfluencing.
Suddenly, if it's the wrongsubject to them, this is
something that's gonna influencesociety.
So we can't have this out there.

SPEAKER_00 (54:28):
This might be an interesting question as well, is
how has the online communitychanged the way romance novels
were?

SPEAKER_02 (54:37):
Oh, that's interesting.
They have changed a lot.
Well, there's a lot more.
It's always been a genre that isformulaic, which is fine, but
they've, well, they've added awhole layer of politics to it
and political correctnessthat...
In some ways could be so, Imean, like some things like it
is not necessarily bad.
Like they all mandate.

(54:57):
Now you have to talk aboutconsent.
You have to talk about wearingprotection.
And that is like in every, everysingle contemporary book, like
even in some of the monster onesand in the, that are about.
So no, there are genres thatobviously that don't conform to
that, that are aboutnon-consent, but.

(55:17):
The other way it manifests is inthe quality of the book because
a lot of them, they're gettingshorter and shorter.
The story element is changed,the story structure, because
it's impossible to writeconflict and tension when so
many things are not okay towrite about politically.

(55:37):
And so a lot of the books arejust beyond formulaic into
terrible and boring because theycan't say anything.
Mm-hmm.
And so it is all about sex.
It's either just straight upporn or it's this ridiculous,
cheesy romance without any sexin it.

SPEAKER_00 (55:53):
Interesting.
So are there particular onlinevenues that are the most popular
for the romance novel genre thatpeople go to?
Is it like Reddit threads or?

SPEAKER_03 (56:04):
TikTok.
TikTok is huge.
If you go in there and you lookup hashtag smut talk, hashtag
romance, see all those things,you're going to find a ton of
stuff.
I feel like just because TikTokhas overall become a platform
that went from silly dancingvideos to a lot of people
communicating information.
Like I said, I have teenagers,young adults, and they get a lot

(56:27):
of their like actualinformation, like information
about world events from TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 (56:33):
Yeah.
So I think that's also anotherarea for obviously for a podcast
is just social media, onlineforums and the romance novel.

SPEAKER_02 (56:42):
And I also think we should have a whole one.
You talked about symbolism andmythology because I love that
and love the mythology.
I know you talked about the fur,but there's also the male
appendages and the penis.
A lot of them have two andthey're enhanced.
You know, they've got thesespecial knots and things that
are designed to make for femalepleasure.
And, you know, what does that,you know, it's really

(57:03):
interesting to talk about thatin terms of actual human sex,
you know.

SPEAKER_00 (57:08):
Yeah, you know, it's also, since we're talking about
appendages and we're alsotalking about social relations.
There is Ursula Le Guin, afantasy writer, wrote a very
short piece on the carrier bagtheory of fiction.
And her idea was that often wehave heralded the man who's out

(57:31):
there with the spear killing theanimal for meat.
He says in primitive cultures,while that happened, it wasn't
the only thing.
You had to have a lot of peoplewho had bags who were gathering
wood, gathering berries,gathering nuts, gathering all
the other stuff in thehunter-gatherer communities.

(57:55):
And her fiction actually looksat, she's almost like an
anthropologist.
She looks at social relationsthrough this idea of not the
singular hero male, but throughas I said, the carrier bag
theory, the idea that how do wecarry a society through

(58:15):
cooperations or where thosecooperations fall short.
Left-handed darkness is one ofour very kind of famous examples
of that.
But yeah, so the carrier bagtheory, again, appendages as
being either a spear or a bag,right?
Either the phallic or thevaginal in turn.
And to see those prosthetics assymbolic of both sexuality but

(58:42):
also social relations.

SPEAKER_02 (58:45):
Yeah, even in the Omegaverse genres, there's not a
lot of women in power in theAlpha position.
It's almost always the male.
I mean, obviously nothing, I'msure there are some that are
female, but it's predominantlyvastly masculine dominated.
I

SPEAKER_00 (59:04):
will say, just as a teasing this out, I have a
friend of mine, Matt Bell, whohas been finishing a novel that
is about social relations, muchin line with Ursula Le Guin,
with a leading female orgender-switching protagonist.

(59:28):
And it would probably be out inanother year or so.
But I think there's some reallyinteresting work being done.

SPEAKER_02 (59:37):
Is he talking about that?
I haven't seen.
I used to see him on Twitter,but I haven't seen.
No,

SPEAKER_00 (59:41):
this is like so vocal.
So he's you know, this is stillin production.

SPEAKER_02 (59:48):
That'll be interesting.

SPEAKER_00 (59:49):
I think there are a lot of people who are working on
these varieties of materials.

SPEAKER_02 (59:55):
By the way, we don't have a lot.
Have you read anything aboutdragons when you come across
your animal research?
Like the dragons, the dragonsare like they're not real
animals, but they are.
are animalistic and they're likethe elitist snobs of the animal
shifters because they have thetypical dragon stereotypes of

(01:00:15):
the wealth collectors andthey're the smartest and the
strongest.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:21):
They've been around forever.
Dragons have been aroundforever.
The initial coding of dragonswas with greed.
So if you went back to Tolkienand The Hobbit or something, You
know, why does the dragon havethe hoard that he sits on all
the all the gold and all justbecause of greed?
It's not there's nothing there.

(01:00:42):
He can't cash it in for anythingbecause he's a dragon.
But but it's simply this desireto obtain things.
But the dragon genres havechanged so much because now you
have.
a lot of Asian dragon stuffcoming in as well.
So there's all kinds ofdifferent kind of codings that

(01:01:03):
go on along with the dragon.
And, you know, if the dragon'sassociated with the serpent and
the serpent with either the fallin the biblical tradition or
kind of a phallic figure.
So

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:15):
that's kind of interesting.
You talk about the fall and theserpent because in many of the
dragon worlds in romance, theyare the top dog, but they are
all afflicted with this cursewhere the females have been
wiped out and they have to startmeeting with humans because
they're invincible on the onehand and immortal, but yet

(01:01:38):
they've been afflicted with thiscurse and they are being wiped
out unless they find a way toadapt with humans.
So I'm really interested inwhat's behind that world
building.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:48):
Yeah, so if we think of those powers or that greed
that they have as not just apower, but also as a curse.
They're cursed with thiscapacity that they have to
fulfill.
And can they adapt to the humanworld, right?
Life has moved on beyond them,right?
This is, you know, as an olderguy, many things have moved

(01:02:12):
beyond me, right?
Can I adapt to the world today?
So we often think about that.
What is lost in thoseadaptations and how can...
one generational figure, oneproclivity or one sets of
desires and interests adapt to adifferent world.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:31):
I do think overall, we need to allow more things to
be acceptable to be writtenabout in romance.
And we have to get rid of that.
We have to get rid of thiscensorship and to make the
stories better.
For one thing, you know,everybody complains about it.
And then our complaints aredirectly related to this
censorship.
And a lot, some people don'twant to see that.
I think that are going to needto.

(01:02:53):
They want to see their owncauses represented more.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:57):
You know, I used to, in teaching fiction, I used to
sometimes assign students totake a novel, say Frankenstein
or something, and add a chapter.
Write something that you thinkshould have gone on or goes on
there that's unspoken in it.

(01:03:18):
And that exercise...
is really useful for providing alicense to explore a whole bunch
of stuff.
So as a writer, you know,sometimes take something you
like, but where you've seen itbeing inhibited and write an
interstitial chapter thatexplores some of the stuff that
you wish they had pushed theboundaries of.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:40):
That's a great idea.
You must have seen some greatpapers on that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:43):
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:46):
Are you still teaching that?
I mean, you're still teaching...

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:49):
You know, because I'm running a humanities
institute now, I rarely have theopportunity to teach, and mainly
I'm teaching either animal stuffor philosophy.
But, you know, I'm teachingNietzsche's Genealogy of Morals
probably next year.
And Genealogy of Morals is abouthow an overpowering morality of

(01:04:09):
the hero class, the so-calledhero class, is taken over by the
slave class.
So the slaves...
have resentment at the power ofthe powerful.
So they say, oh, only the meekshall inherit the earth, only
those who are weak or strong, etcetera.
And so they change morality inorder to try to make the

(01:04:33):
powerful feel guilty about beingpowerful.
And so they gain power over thepowerful through their weakness.
And this is often read, youknow, you can do this in terms
of sexuality of saying, oh, youknow, people are having no sex
or straight sex, end up policingeveryone else because they're

(01:04:56):
saying, oh, no, all those otherthings are wrong.
And we're going to shame youinto thinking they're wrong.
And so we're going to policeyour sexuality, kind of bring
you back into the herd.
So that's.
Kind of how genealogy, part ofhow genealogy in Warhol's works.
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:15):
But importantly, if we're going to not police
sexuality, we also can't policethe people that are drawn to the
patriarchal sexuality either.
And that's just another validavenue.
So, but a lot of, I don't knowthat we can take the attitude of
toppling it and eradicating itand making everybody, you know,
you have to just allow multiplethings to exist.
And that's one of thosemultiple.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:37):
Right.
So rather than it beinghomogenous or singular, it's a
heterotopia, you know, it'sheterodox as multiple things and
some topia being spaces,multiple spaces that can be
different and conflicting, butalso coexist.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:55):
Right.
Right.
So if you were going to add achapter to your book about the
animal revolution, what would bea romance topic for that
chapter?
Do you think there is one?
I know you don't read them, butI mean, could you imagine a
suggestion for romance?

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:08):
So either I would have done the Ovid, the obvious
Ovid move and talk about, or thewerewolf move, you know, with...
the power of werewolves andshape-shifting in relationship
to nature and change.
Or, you know, I do have thechapter of the role of hair, the

(01:06:30):
role of hair in culture andanimality.
And you could extend that outinto a much more romance and
sexual capacity.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:41):
Well, so finally, though, you were...
To bring it back to your book, Ithink this has been categorized
as speculative nonfiction.
Is that true?
What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:52):
Right.
The one thing I did not do inthe book and I wish I'd done is
all the stories in the book tookplace.
They're actual events.
Some of them I cite the date orthe newspaper they came from.
So they all took place.
So that's where it's nonfiction.
It's speculative because whatI'm doing is I'm weaving them

(01:07:13):
together.
in an unusual way with thepremise that animals are in
revolt against humans.
They're just not telling usbecause it's their revolution.
There is one chapter that'sobviously speculative and
fictional, which is on GeorgeWashington's teeth.
The facts about the teeth aretrue.

(01:07:34):
It's just what he thought aboutthose teeth.
I speculate what he thought.
So I just kind of fill in alittle, you know, so for a few
paragraphs there.
But everything else actuallyhappened.
All the animals biting him backagainst humans and the jellyfish
taking over a nuclear aircraftcarrier.
The cows

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:55):
escaping from the slaughter was really disturbing.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:59):
So all of those happened.
You know, the woman who liveswith 300 rabbits.
So they're really interestingstories.
I collected them from about 2005to about 2017, 2018.
after having so many of themdecide, okay, I need to weave
these into something.

(01:08:19):
And it was finding, you know,I'm mainly an academic writer,
but this is a non-academic book,anyone can read it.
And so it was finding a way oftelling those stories that kept
the spirit and wonder of theseanimal worlds.
And so hopefully AnimalRevolution does that.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:36):
So is that what you want people to take away from it
mostly?
More of a more, just a morerespect, a greater respect for
animals?

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:41):
More respect to like, look out there and realize
there's a much bigger earth thatwe humans and animals live on.
We're in different worlds, butwe have a shared earth.
And what does it mean tonegotiate that space together?

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:54):
By the way, one last thing.
I know we're running out oftime.
Did you ever consider monstertheory?
I didn't,

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:59):
but you know, I guess that would be Jeffrey
Cohen's work, you know?
And if you haven't, Talked withJeffrey.
He would be a really good personto talk with.
He spent his early careerwriting and collecting stuff on
monster theory.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:13):
That seems like it would be really interesting in
terms of our romance questions.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:19):
Right, right.
Monsters often monstrate.
They show something that we tryto repress.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:25):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:26):
They demonstrate, monstrate, they show.
Do

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:29):
you have pets?

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:30):
Dogs.
Boxers.
All right.
I'm just curious.
They're fun.
How about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:36):
I do.
I have two cats.
I had a dog, but he died.
But he was great.
We've had dogs and cats.
I love cats, even though they'resnobby killers.
I let mine

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:48):
outside.
And I am not a pet person.
We didn't have pets growing up,and I'm not a pet person.
I understand that they're superimportant to many other people,
and I have friends who have beenvery attached to their pets, but
I'm fine without them.
It's fine for it to be someoneelse's pet.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:07):
Okay.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Yes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:09):
Well, I know you probably have to go,

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:12):
but yeah, thanks so much.
Thanks

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:15):
for

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:15):
talking to us.
It was very

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:17):
fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:18):
I will.
I have two sun devils, so I'lltell them to look up maybe their
music major.
So I don't know if they'll makeit over to the humanities, but,
but if they have room in theirschedule for some, for some
elective credits and they getupper divisional, I'll send them
your way.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:33):
All right.
Sounds great.
Yeah.
Let me know how this goes.
I'm interested to see howyou're.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:37):
Yes, you will.
So thanks.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:41):
Great.
Thank

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:42):
you.
Have a good one.