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April 11, 2025 19 mins

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This episode delves into the fascination with romance novels and how they influence real-life perceptions of love and relationships. The hosts share personal anecdotes and explore the allure of fictional desires, highlighting the impact of reading on modern intimacy. 
• Personal reading habits leading to a deeper discussion 
• Observations about significant others’ book choices 
• The addictive nature of romance novels 
• Unattainable expectations created by these narratives 
• The preference for reading over watching porn 
• How modern romance reflects cultural attitudes towards relationships 
• Conclusion on the implications for personal relationships

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Top Shelf Stories with J Chris and gentlemen,

(00:33):
White Hit me again.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Black.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
You are now tuned in to the echoing, impressive
sounds of top shelf stories.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
So you know, I've never been the reading type we
noticed.
What is that?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Hold on the reading type.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Basically, I can't just sit there for an hour or
two and read something andretain that knowledge or again
feel like I've I've earnedsomething from it.
I don't know, basically when Iread something, I have to read
it again to understand itbecause my mind drifts.
Basically, when you're readingsomething, do you think about

(01:24):
other things when you're readingit, if it's something that you
do not really really want to toread, but you're reading it
because you have to for somereason?
uh for you guys, if I'munmotivated to read something I
will not remember, I might aswell not even read it no, but
you're reading it, you're donewith it and you're like what the
hell did I just read and now Ihave to read it again.

(01:46):
Do you ever have that happen,sure?
all the time, all right.
Well, basically the only thing,the only reason I bring up
bring up reading now is becausemy wife has been obsessed with
reading.
She has been reading, dayreading, reading.
When she wakes up reading whileshe's eating dinner.

(02:07):
Are we talking actual books oris?

Speaker 3 (02:10):
she on like a kid.
Is it just the Bible?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
She's trying to withdraw all of her sins.
No, she's into the and I thinkevery woman at her age, at this
age, is into that dramatizedsexuality that women desire.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Last episode you say she's horny all the time.
Now you're telling me she'sreading the sex books.
Dude, okay, so I was likewhat's in your guys's?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
diet.
I was like, I picked up herKindle.
I did buy her Kindle a coupleof years ago, which was probably
a mistake, because once you getinto a Kindle, I did buy her
Kindle a couple years ago, whichwas probably a mistake, because
once you get into, a Kindle.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Now she's reading all the time.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Once you get into a Kindle, you're Kindle-ized I
call it.
So I picked it up and I'm likewhat the fuck is she reading?
Why is she so intensely readingabout this?
Why is this so addictive forher?
I feel like this is addiction.
Fucking.
Read one paragraph of this shit.
When I started reading it itwas like this sweaty giant

(03:15):
schlong of a penis was in thewoman's face with greasy.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Alright, I'm hard now Great.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Great.
I'm on a couch with my boy, jay.
Now great woman grabs thatshaft, inserts it into her
vagina and she ultimately moanswith the moan that's never been
heard before it's just I cantell, by the way you're
explaining this, that you didnot retain any of it.
Oh, no, not at all.
No, there was definitely a lotbetter than that.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I mean, I mean, I might have given you a long dick
.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
This sweaty, vibrating, pulsating fucking
pole was in her face slapping itand she was so excited she was
in.
No, but seriously, it wasreally like, really weird, like
that she's reading romancenovels at a healthy clip.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
A lot of different ones, you're telling me.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, I only read that one paragraph because I was
like kind of like what the fuck?
But is this the subject?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
matter of all the books.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I'm pretty sure Educational.
I don't ask her what she'sreading Okay okay, she'll read a
book in two days Interesting.
So it's like you got, say wegot one month going on of books,
she's got five books.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
She bought them or rented them.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
So you get into this Kindle program where you get a
free month.
You know free amount of, youknow free books unlimited.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh so you get free books, like tony's free cable,
once you buy the actual box forbooks, it's the black kindle I
got her the black soundsterrible.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Why doesn't she just start watching?

Speaker 1 (04:56):
porn, don't?
You guys live across the streetfrom the library?

Speaker 3 (04:59):
literally across street.
She's in the library like doyou have?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
anything on dicks.
That's where the books are Forfree Dicks.
They're free books.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
I want pictures.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Man, I don't fuck with these words, it's so old
school to read a paper book,though.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, but I feel like it, yeah, whatever.
So, and then in my mind I thinkthat women are putting
basically, we have to come up tothat.
I can't even think of thefucking word.
I'm trying to say that thesebooks are creating.

(05:37):
We have to be more romantic inour lives to keep up with the
book that she's reading.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
So the book?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
That's not even fucking real?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
That's not true reading.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
So the book is creating an unattainable
impression of what a man shouldbe.
As far as romance, yes.
Is it any similar to the pornmovies where they're like hi,
oops, my boobs fell out of myshirt and I accidentally stuck
your dick in my butt, dude, okay.
Like obviously that shit'sromanticized.
That's what the most guys likeand the girls to do tend to like

(06:09):
reading it for some reason,like over watching porn.
I bet you, if you like, yeahwhy is that?
if you pulled a hundred women,men are more visual I'll bet you
that some of them would saythey don't interact with with
pornography in any way.
Some would say that they watchvisual pornography and a

(06:29):
majority of the remainder thereare like I don't know a good
high percentage would say thatthey read pornography.
You know, like exotic magazinesor books, right?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, because they're striving for something that's
unattainable.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Like a throbbing shaft dick.
You call this His big schlongcock.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
It was a shiny fucking sun His glistening
glaze-dipped schlong dick Filledwith custard Lays dipped Shlong
but filled with custard.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Could you imagine you as like a 12-year-old kid and
your mom's?
You come home from school oneday and your mom's like what is
this, chris?

Speaker 3 (07:17):
And it's all text.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It's an erotic red magazine Like what the fuck.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Mom, what's a custard gun.
Did you just make that up now?
Yeah, that is awesome.
That is the name of thisfucking episode.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Custard gun, I mean.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Wait a second.
What Vanilla or chocolate?

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Me and my brother have been calling our dicks
custard guns for as long as Ican remember.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
No, you remember that guy that I work with, that I
brought the books he found inhis basement attic thing.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
I got it in my car.
I've been trying to give thatthing away for almost two years.
My husband's mistress Is thatwhat your sister's called I gave
them all back to him.
I leave it laying around fromtime to time when I'm going to
be in social situations withsomebody at my house, so I can
blame it on my wife, I really, Ido actually want to hear what

(08:19):
your, jay, what your, what youropinion or thought of the reason
why women tend to read it.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I think they would like to drown themselves in a
non-realistic reality that theycannot get from their own
husbands.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
So basically, so do you feel intimidated?
No, from a book.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Well, I just Okay, fine, maybe you know what.
Listen, you know how theycomplain about.
You are on your phone playing avideo game, looking at crypto,
doing this and that, not payingattention to them.
Sure, and you don't reallyunderstand why they're so mad.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
I mean, I know this exists, I'm playing along, okay
play along, just play along,motherfucker, all the time and
then now they're like what abitch.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
They're more attracted.
They're more attracted to theirbook than they are to you.
And then it's like wait, wait,wait.
You ask her a question or tryto actually even talk to her and
she's like wait, I got aparagraph to go I should be
right.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
I was just gonna ask you that I'm not supposed to say
this like ever, but this is thegayest shit you've ever said I
was gonna ask you if you've'veever started making out with her
Like on the couch.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
the kids go to bed and everything.
All the deities do.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
I just imagine her at home reading her smut books,
jay on the couch next to herbecause he doesn't want to get
yelled at for being on his phone, so he's crocheting.
Let's see her say something,now that I'm making fucking
tangible items.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
That's it, man.
I ain't crocheting you mittensanymore, bitch yeah, no, but
seriously, though, like I, Ifeel like I understand why
they're mad at us for being onour phones, when I kind of get a
little upset about being her soindelved and so deep in stop
touching my hand, motherfuckingsexually when I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
It just goes with the subject matter you are kind of
projecting your individualexperience as our experience
right now, and I kind of justwant to pause and make
everyone's clear that this isnot my experience.
My wife doesn't even payattention to me at all.
How would she know I'm on myphone?

Speaker 3 (10:40):
she's like oh shit, you're home.
When'd you get back like three?

Speaker 2 (10:47):
days ago.
She's like chris, I thought youwere still at that concert that
was for you, guys, that was foryou so.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
So all right, given the option as it, as it sits
right now, because your wife'soptions right now, I get turned
on by a book read a book whereshe can visually imagine a
character.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
So so like porn, yeah she allowed to get mad at you
if she catches you.
Your browsing history looking alittle sus, or no?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
quick before you say that though she was mad about
because she read the Grey movies.
What is those fucking FiftyShades?
Fifty Shades of Grey?
Thank you very much, Chris.
She was mad that they casted anugly guy for Not what she
thought it was going to be.
Yeah, not what she thought itshould be for the movies.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
But, the movies.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
You think she was just like they should have got
you in there, jay, no but wecouldn't have the cameras that
kind of looks like me.
That's the weird thing.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
So she's like this guy's hideous.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Oh, he looks like you , but tall yeah actually, yeah,
he can fucking change the lightbulb with all ladder, ladder.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
So I'm going to start by saying I'm kind of out of
the loop on porn.
It's literally been like yearssince I watched porn.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Liar.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
It's pretty aggressive stuff bro.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
No for real.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
It's pretty aggressive.
Nowadays you can't get anyreally good.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Give Tony his noise, noise, noise.
You can't get really good pornanymore anymore.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
It's all in your face , fucking shit like like the
last time me and the wife triedwatching some porn together,
it's like, oh, let's, let'swatch this one.
This one looks good, she's hot,he's hot it's gonna be good,
girl gets stuck in laundrymachine and it's like
immediately, it's like okay, sohe just jammed his dick down her

(12:43):
throat until she puked.
That was really I.
What hot.
I think they like that shit,tony.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
And then and then, but not from you not from the
husband.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
You know he went ass to vagina.
That's a fucking infectionwaiting to happen, like it's
just.
It's just, it's really likeaggressive.
So I understand women startingto be like turned off by porn
and going to reading, but do youthink if, like the Cinemax,
softcore, romantic?

(13:16):
Porn still existed.
Do you think your wife wouldwaste her time reading Like if
she could watch an?

Speaker 1 (13:24):
actual movie with encounters.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I think they want to have their own interpretation.
You think they want to imaginethe characters.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yes, I think they want to have their own
interpretation.
That was my biggest problemwith porn is that I'm so
specific on the person I want towatch.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
She's not it, she's not it, she's not it.
I never find it.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Wait, wait, wait.
So it's just me watching thefirst 10 seconds of 3,000
mortals.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Her boobs don't look enough like torpedoes falling
out of the sky.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Her boobs are not in her belt, they ain't long enough
.
Hey, have you ever jerked offto a porn book of a black guy
having sex with a girl?
No, why is that you racist?
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, their dicks are far too large, very
intimidating.
It's unrealistic.
I think that's a generalistthing, just another thing I
don't even know if their dicksare that big or if this is like
a Hollywood thing where they gotto put like an extra dick over
their dick to make it that big,but if those, if, if, the black
dicks that I've seen in my lifeare a real holy fuck I don't

(14:32):
know, dude, I think it's uhmisconception and I think that,
uh, you're overlooking theboundaries of your own
personality.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
I just made all that shit up, tony.
But seriously, though, wouldyou rather watch a porno where
someone like you don't see theguy at all, you just see the
girl and you're in like thefirst person aspect of the porno
?
Nope, so you want to see theguy pounding?

Speaker 3 (14:56):
I gotta see the pounding, but you can still see
the pounding in the first personBack in the day, remember there
were these things, dvds, andyou would go to a store and buy
a porno.
My wife and I went to the pornostore and we bought a DVD
Recently no 20 years ago, easily, I wonder what them stores look

(15:21):
like god they even sell moviesanymore you can get the shit for
free.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean they'll sell like toys and shit, but so I I
bought this.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
I bought this movie.
You know it was always likehere buy 10 of them for three
dollars.
So I came home with all thesemovies.
There's one, one, that Iapproved of See.
The problem is you can'tpreview before you buy them,
Sure, and uh, just go by thename of the, the, the, the.
So I got one.
I got one that was amazing.

(15:50):
It was the only porno I watchedfor years.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
I don't want to know.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
And I do, what is it?
And one day me and some dudesat work were talking about
pornos and I said I said I gotone and it's my fucking favorite
one I've ever had.
And my buddy was like can you,can you let me borrow that?
And he never fucking gave itback.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
What's it called?

Speaker 3 (16:14):
this is like this is like 18 years ago and I still
run into the dude and I stillask him if he has my copy of
mexican humping beans by far thebest thing ever put on a dvd.
I look for it at flea markets.
I know one day I'm gonna runinto a copy of it you can find

(16:35):
it on the internet.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Go on your black box and search your black, your
black movie box yeah, but that'snot as fun as finding it in the
wild so there's another thing,too is like she'll read books
before there's a movie thatcomes out for a book, for
example, the movie it ends withus with Blake Lively, the wife

(16:58):
of Ryan Reynolds, deadpool.
She had a what.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I thought we were just naming off Ryan Reynolds
flicks.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Okay, this movie was a book.
She read the book first.
It ends with us.
It's called and Blake Lively isthe main character in it.
Is he hot?
Blake Lively is a maincharacter in it, is he hot?
Blake Lively is a fucking girl.
Oh, it's the wife of RyanReynolds.
You don't listen to me,motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I said it twice now, jay, you are our Hollywood
correspondent.
How would we know you tell?
Us the news.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
She had a date with another girl to go see because I
was like I don't want to seethis shit.
It's a fucking girl movie.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
They probably scissored right in the theater.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, that didn't happen because I had to go to
the movie Because her fuckingfriend was sick or something
she's like.
Well, she already bought thetickets and she has no one else
to go with.
It's either me or one of mysons, and she called.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
She called the movie theater.
They had a booster seatavailable, so you got to go.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
So I had to go through this movie and it was
basically in my eyes.
It was a guy.
She just this Blake Lively justmet a guy on top of a rooftop
and she gets involved with himand he basically beats the shit
out of her and she just is likeit's like, why do you like this

(18:29):
shit?

Speaker 3 (18:29):
oh, if it wasn't for the butter beat off, you
probably would have had aterrible time oh, my stomach
hurts.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
I gotta go to the bathroom.
Can you guys continue thispodcast without me for like five
minutes?
It's your podcast.
Yeah, just continue it.
I had
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