May 14, 2025 • 38 mins
The Internet has a new favourite insult: narcissist. But what does it actually mean—and if you’ve found yourself quietly Googling it… should you be worried? Mia, Jessie and Holly discuss on today's show.
Plus, it’s one of the biggest celebrity trials in years, and the headlines are already dark. What’s going down in court with P Diddy—and which A-listers might be sweating right now?
And, what's an acceptable level of hatred in marriage? One very impressive couple says it’s normal—and even healthy. We unpack the theory that suggests a modicum of dislike might just be the secret to lasting love.
What To Listen To Next:
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- Listen: What If Love Never Finds You?
- Listen: The Mushroom Trial Details We Can't Stop Thinking About
- Listen: Mia On The Met Gala 2025 – Fashion, Lore & Drama
- Listen: WTF Just Happened? The Election, Prince Harry & Nagi
- Listen: Mia On The Met Gala 2025 – Fashion, Lore & Drama
- Listen: Uh Oh. The Most Low Status Way To Dress
What to read:
- 'I left my husband because he was a narcissist. 7 years later, I got a call from his new wife.'
- 8 signs you're talking to a conversational narcissist.
- 10 women on the moment they realised their mother was a narcissist.
- The complicated story of the Culkin brothers and their 'narcissistic' estranged dad.
- A witness has gone ‘missing’, and everything else that’s happened in the Diddy trial so far.
- There were whispers about which celebs could be named in Diddy's trial. Jurors have just been told.
- The headline Diddy wants you to miss today.
- At one of Diddy's first hip-hop events, nine people died. Backstage, even more horrors were unfolding.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and warders
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I only get profoundly irritained or invested enough to care
about people who are close to me. If I don't
care at all, it's a sign that you're not important
in my life. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, I have strong feelings about lots of people who
aren't important in who I've never met before.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud what women
are actually talking about on Wednesday, the fourteenth of May.
I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm.
Speaker 5 (00:47):
Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And welcome to our chaotic on the Road recording. Hopefully
you've been enjoying it this week and it continues because
today we are in Brisbane and we will see you
tonight out Louders on the show. There's a word being
thrown around a lot on the internet this week, and
it's narcissist. Why is everyone suddenly one? And if you
have to google whether or not you are one? Is
(01:10):
the answer clear? Also, the p Diddy trial started this
week and the headlines are already grimmed. What's it all about?
On which celebrities are feeling very nervous right now? And
is it normal to hate your partner? There's a very
respectable couples therapist who says yes, and that actually it's
a very good sign. But first, Mia Friedman.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
In case you missed it, Susan Lee has been elected
the first woman to ever lead the Liberal Party. She
defeated challenger Angus Taylor twenty nine to twenty five in
the battle to replace Peter Dutton as opposition leader after
the party's devastating election loss. Sounds a little bit like
a shit skirt hole, just like Thereasa May war in
(01:53):
the UK. Can you revisit what that means?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yes. Back in twenty sixteen, after the massive Brexit loss
in the UK, nobody wanted to be the leader of
the Conservative Party because they're in complete disarray. The people
who'd campaigned four breaks it didn't want to be responsible
for the mess of getting it done. The people who
campaigned against it, which was the sitting Prime Minister at
the time, David Cameron, obviously were humiliated. So no one
(02:19):
wanted that job until Theresa May put her hand up
and we discussed at the time how it was kind
of like she'd got a lot of shit on her
skirt and she was going to have to be spending
a whole lot of time trying to clean it off
as more and more people piled more shit onto her.
And that is how we came to the shitskirt analogy.
(02:39):
This does feel a bit like a shit skirt moment
because the Liberals have just had a historic defeat. They
are so reduced in the Parliament, Labor have more than
twice as many seats, so much to celebrate in the
female leader, but work cut out Jesse.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Yeah, a lot of people were talking about the glass cliff.
People talk about the glass ceiling that women face, which.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
She has broken through. Is the first female leader of
the Liberal Party?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Yes, And the glass cliff is the idea, we'll put
you in a position of power just to what you
fall off. And I don't think that's the whole story here,
because she was next in line, really like in terms
of she was deputy, it's not ridiculous that this would
be a job that she takes.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And to be clear, the idea that a woman might
be handled a shitskirt is not like denigrating the woman.
It's not like saying that she didn't deserve it. It's
just that sometimes establishments suddenly seem to decide that a
female leader or sea would be a great idea just
when everything.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Shit because Julie Bishop, remember was the deputy leader and
didn't get the job when it went to Scott Morrison,
and many people say that was the beginning of the end,
certainly for the Liberal Party's reputation with women.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Yes, so years ago, I think it was like twenty fifteen,
the Liberal Party established a target for how many women
they wanted to get too politics because the Labor Party
did this a long time ago. And now, of course
we are having a historic moment with more women in
Parliament and more women in the Cabinet than ever before,
which is really exciting. But they set this target and
(04:16):
were very much against quotas and they've not kept themselves
accountable to those targets at all. And last election in
twenty twenty two they had their worst result in thirty
years for female representation. Friend of the Pod Charlotte Morlock
has written a great deal about this, and she says
that most Liberal politicians are men. I think over about
(04:38):
sixty and the voters in Australia, the average voter is
a thirty seven year old female and they're not seeing
themselves represented by this party at all. She's actually put
together a petition and it's putting pressure on the Liberal
Party to go, let's introduce some gender quotas. Regardless of
how you vote, if you are not about the Liberal Party,
if you would never in a million years vote for them.
(05:00):
For a thriving democracy, what we want is equal representation
and we want a competitive democracy. And what we've seen
with the Liberal Party going further and further right them
to represent their electorates. And there are Liberal women who
have tried to put their hands up and so it'll
be interesting to see if they actually introduce a quota.
Maybe Susan Lee is the first step to having more
(05:22):
female representation.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Also, in case you missed it, you need to put
some tape over your mouth? Yes, you do. Everywhere I
look at the moment, there is a prominent and influential
woman mouth taping. Most recently, I saw Sally Obermeina on
Instagram saying that putting tape over her mouth at night
had meant that she wakes up more energized every day.
That she's sleeping better than ever. And then, of course
(05:44):
there's my mate Gwynneth, who says, the first thing she
has to do in the morning is basically on block
all her orifices.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I wake up, I take off my mouth tape, my
mouth earpl my mouth taping.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh my god, I gotta call you the what.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Oh yeah, I think it looks like such bullshit.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'll send you a bunch of research.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
She goes on, say, mouth tape, IM ask air plugs.
She basically is like when she goes to bed, she
has to block herself off from the entire world. Guys,
are we trying it? Are we ready to mouth tape?
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It's an interesting theory. I listened to Norman Swan talk
about it, and a lot of sentists and health experts
have poop pooed a bit because they say, if you
are a mouth breather, if you go to bed and
you're finding that you breathe through your mouth all night,
there's probably a reason for that, and that might be
that your nose is blocked, in which case, if you're
(06:35):
covering your mouth, then it could affect oxygen supply. If
you're suddenly putting all this pressure on your nose, so
it's definitely not advisable for everyone.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Couldn't do it if you had a cold, No, exactly right,
well allergy do it if you wanted to kiss someone.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
No, But there is this growing field of like health
and wellness focused around breathing and how we're all doing
it wrong. So apparently we're breathing too much a minute.
Someone told me once that you meant to breathe like
twelve times a minute. I reckon, I'm breathing like forty
(07:12):
two times a minute.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I'm thinking about it now, I'm like thinking, how many
times am I breathing?
Speaker 5 (07:16):
We've evolved, and it's to do with the fact that
we eat softer foods and a bunch of other things,
where our jaws are just wired differently and our airways
have gotten smaller. This is what everyone says, right, and
ancient civilizations knew the importance of breathing for stress, for relaxation,
for all of the things and being alive. Exactly, we've
(07:37):
lost the art, so we need to be retrained in breathing,
and I think mouth tape is a part of that.
Mayor this feels like something you'll be doing literally tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, I'm excited that there's another thing that I can
do yep, before bed. I mean, crikey, I already wear
a mouthguard, so you know I've already got stuff going
on in my mouth. I'm not an ear plug or
an eye mask person. I don't know whether it's a
hangover from having little kids, but I always feel like
I need to be alert to know what's going on
(08:07):
in the house. Not that that's got anything. Maybe I
don't want to take my mouth because I might have
something to say in the middle of the night. Apparently
last night I got up to go to the toilet,
and apparently on the way back to bed, I said
to the dog, I love you, Belle. I was not
even aware of that I said that out loud, but
it woke up my husband. So yeah, no, I won't
(08:28):
be mouth taping. Do you just use like reggular, use
like a band.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Aid, or you need special mouth tape? So it's something
else you to buy me. Oh, which is fine obviously
given that all the trendy people are into it. I'm
sure that there are degrees of cool mouth tape and
on cool, but a lot of people say it really
helps you sleep, you know, I've got issues with that.
I reckon I will be mouth taping in a hot minute.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The internet is accusing everyone of being a narcissist this week,
and we'd like to know what one actually is. You
may have seen the headlines about Abby Chatfield upset on
Instagram about a number of things that Clementine Ford has
said about her. These are two sort of prominent online personalities.
Clementine Ford currently said that Abby is a narcissist, and
(09:12):
Abby said that was very upsetting to her because that's
what an ex used to call her, and so she
asked her therapist if she was one, and her therapist
said no. Anyway, we aren't waiting into that online drama
because we're not stupid. But one of the top stories
on Mum and mea this week was about women who
realized their mothers were narcissists. Happy Mother's Day. That's a
good thing to put the card. You may have noticed.
(09:34):
I don't know if you guys have noticed, but people
seem to be diagnosing other people with narcissism at a
fairly alarming rate. So the question is, is everyone suddenly
a narcissist or is the term being overused?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Jesse Well there's actually a really interesting theory I read
from a doctor who said that the thing about certified narcissists,
as in people with narcissistic personality disorder as defined by
the DSM, and we'll get to the definition of that,
but the thing about them is that they can be
very charismatic and very attractive, and therefore might actually pro
create more, which means that we may be living in
(10:08):
a world that has more narcissists than ever before. It
might be a trait that is evolutionarily rewarded and therefore
is more widespread. I don't think it would happen this quickly,
but it was an interesting theory. I think the reason
we're hearing it more and more is because calling someone
a narcissist is a way of turning their identity into
(10:30):
this static thing and dismissing them in a way that
makes them totally irredeemable, because of course we all behave
in ways that are narcissistic, and psychologists will say, the
trait of narcissism exists on a spectrum, and we are
all there. We all have ego that exists within us,
(10:50):
and you know, all the time we act like narcissists.
It's less than one percent of the population that is
thought to be actual narcissists, and of those, seventy five
percent are thought to be men. So it's something that's
diagnosed a lot more in men than women, and it
looks very different in men than women. Holly, do you
(11:12):
think you know any?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I do. I also think although it's become very fashionable
for women in particular, Sale, my ex was definitely a narcissist.
There's a real community of people who believe that narcissists
have damaged their relationships, whether it's their romantic ones or
their familiar ones. As you said me about mothers. I
interviewed a woman called Margie Bowden who is a narcissism expert.
(11:36):
She has so many followers. She is so but she's
an Australian woman and she focuses very much on narcissism
and relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And you're in that relationship, you just you know, I
know that they love me. You know, we live in hope.
Hope is very powerful and often when you are in that,
in that early stage, you will have friends, You will
have people saying what are you doing? Can't you see
that they're no good? But you're now in an abuse cycle.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And she says some of the signs are lying, gas lighting, cheating, manipulation, control.
Now the thing is, it's not everybody who does those
things is a narcissist, but narcissists will definitely do those things.
And one of the things, to your point, Jesse, about
once you've called somebody that, and the reason there's so
much weight to it is it's incurable. Like a narcissist
(12:29):
is a narcissist. We all have our narcissistic traits, as
you've said, Jesse, and you can work towards working with
them or suppressing them or anything like that, but a
true narcissist is always going to be a narcissist. So
a lot of Margie's work is about how do you
copaent with a narcissist, How do you go to Mother's
Day when your mum's a narcist? How do you deal
with it?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I know it seems like splitting hairs, but there's a
difference between being narcissistic and having those traits and being
a narcissist. One is sort of an adjective and one
is a noun. The big thing that's happened online is
that there's confusion between the traits of narcissism and the disorder.
So people have started and labeling like selfish or arrogant
(13:12):
or even annoying behavior as narcissism. But actual narcissistic personality
disorder involves a persistent pattern of lack of empathy and
grandiosity and exploitative behavior. And it has to be not
just persistent but life disrupting.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yes, And they say that the thing about narcissists, and
we know this because of the way that we colloquially
use it, but it is all about them, right, that
everybody and everything around them exists only to serve their needs.
And I remember when I was talking to Margie the expert,
I said, that sounds like a psychopath, and she said,
there's a crucial difference. And psychopaths don't care what other
people think of them. Narcissists really do.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yes, that's the difference exactly. And that's the difference a
couple of I mean, you can't diagnose people with mental
disorders from the outside. But two prominent examples that display
not just narcissistic traits but narcissistic personality disorder symptoms are
Kanye West and Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
I think TikTok co opting a lot of this language.
Narcissism or you are a narcissist, has just become interchangeable
with you are an asshole, and they are different things.
But I wonder too if we're seeing more narcissistic behavior
because we live in a culture that so clearly rewards it.
(14:33):
So vanity, self centeredness, heightened sense of self worth, visions
of their own grandiosity, probably incredibly ambitious, undeterred by rejection,
craving attention, highly motivated. All of those things will make
you a winner in the world we live in, and
in fact, social morality can be a hurdle or a
(14:56):
hindrance to what we see as capitalist's success. So if
you don't worry about any of those things, then you
might rise and rise. But the irony to calling someone
a narcissist online, it's like when someone reads a memoir
and goes all they did is talk about themselves. It's like, yeah,
the medium is a message, like we're all narcissists on
(15:17):
our social media platforms because that's what the technology is
demanding of us. And I know it. It's like such
a basic primary school lesson, but you know, not weighing
into any internet drama. But the second someone calls anyone
a definitive name and stops playing the ball, but instead
(15:39):
starts playing the person, you've lost me. And I just
see so much of this all over my social media
where you just throw out these terms. It must feel
good to use.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Because it's so reductive, isn't it and dismissive.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Well, it always just undermines your argument as well.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's interesting how things have changed so much for gen
X's I remember that the worst thing you could be
at school and in Australia really is up yourself or vain.
That was the biggest diss But you're right, Jesse, like
in just a generation, we are now living in the
world of the front facing camera where we're encouraged to
(16:16):
just share our every thought, feeling, outfit, opinion with the world.
And there's a whole category of people that do that
that are very able to make a lot of money
for it, and they're called influencers. And you know, I
listened to us. Who cares what we think? Yep, here
we are here talking about narcissism. Who cares what the
three of us think? And we've been rewarded really well
(16:37):
for it. So I did google whether I was a
narcissist once?
Speaker 5 (16:40):
What made you google it?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Because someone called me one? Someone who knew me called
me one, and then afterwards they apologized and said I
was just being a dick and that's not fair. But
what I discovered, much to my relief, is that if
you google am I a narcissist, you're not a narcissist
because narcissists aren't worried about being narcissists because they don't care.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
I reckon. I know one that comes to mind, and
the sign for me is incredibly professionally successful, took risks,
made decisions that would be very difficult to make if
you had real social relationships with people, and left in
the wake of that are disastrous personal relationships?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Is it me?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
No, you have quite good relationships with the people around Jamana.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I think I've definitely got narcissistic tendencies. I think in
some ways, certainly, to get ahead in our industry, you
have to be self focused a lot, probably more than
is healthy. Jesus, I started a media company with my
own name in it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
It's the behavior you try and train your kids.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Out of, particularly if you're English or Australian.
Speaker 7 (17:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
But also adolescents are by their very nature very narcissistic
as a total right, like everything is literally around them
and the way they see the world, and so much
of parenting is constantly saying, think about what other people
might think, see yourself through their eyes? How do you
think that made them feel? How do you think? And
it's like one of the things about the age will
(18:09):
have in now, as you say, Jesse, which rewards narcisism
a lot, is it extends the adolescent view of the world.
It's like it is really just about you and what
other people think about you. Because to the point about
narcissists care about what other people think. It matters a
great deal that they have high status and that people
think they're amazing.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
In a moment, celebrity names and horrific testimonies, the court
case that could land Sean Combs or p Diddy in
prison full life.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
In case you missed it, men have a new Roman
Empire and it's man versus gorilla, or should I say
man versus one hundred gorillas? This bizarre question whether one
hundred men could defeat a single adult male gorilla in
hand to hand combat went very viral after mister bast
tweeted about it, and suddenly everyone from your teenage nephew
(19:02):
to your accountant has a passionate opinion about primate combat.
Here is a little explanation of the question.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
It's a hypothetical question that sparked a huge debate on
social media. Okay, so could one hundred man defeat one
gorilla nfight?
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (19:19):
So the question was first, this is locker room conversation, Adriana.
So it was thrown out there on x and has
been showing up on Facebook, TikTok and read it. People
seem to have some real opinions on the matter.
Speaker 8 (19:33):
Now let's talk strategy. I think this is very doable.
If you guys are rush in on him at once,
there's going to be at least ten of y'all that die, okay,
And as long as you guys are okay with that,
then I think you can take him down.
Speaker 7 (19:45):
What the gorilla would do to the first human man
would be talked about for generations.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Okay, it would be not ideal to watch.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
I'm going to be the first person to walk up
to the gorilla, and as I get to it, I'm
going to slowly turn around and switch teams.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Wow, well this debate has taken over dinner tables and
pub conversations and slack channels at work. And here's where
it interesting. Gorillas are absolute units of raw power. They
are three times stronger than humans. They can bench press
around five hundred kilos, and they have jaws that could
crush your skull like it's a grape. But humans have
(20:21):
numbers and strategy and the endurance advantage. Gorillas, particularly silver
back gorillas, they don't have a lot of endurance, so
it's kind of brute force versus teamwork and planning.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Jesse, I have a question, how do we know how
much a gorilla can bench press? Is a gorilla sitting
there in the zoo doing bench presses and we're just
adding going to another one.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
This whole thing makes me think evolution never happened. We're
just still back there. We're just still back there fighting
the apes.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
I have a mental block in my brain that does
not allow me to engage with this hypothetical. My husband
is talking about it, people in my life talking about it,
and I'm just like, but it wouldn't happen, And if
it did happen, I don't.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Know do you know what's interesting about this is that
usually it's the women that are in my experience, it's
women who talk about hypotheticals, and men aren't very interested
in hypotheticals. Very big generalizations I'm making here, but this
is one of those things that women are just like
most women. But who cares? And why are we even
talking about this?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
It's like men are pretending like they know anything about gorillas.
Like my husband's talking about it. I'm like, what if
you met at gorilla? What did you learn your gorilla
facts from Google? With your soft little hands? Like I'm
not trying to emasculate him, but it's like they're pretending
to be cave men.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Do you want to know the answer?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
The answer is clearly that one hundred men could beat
a gorilla in a fight. Of course they could.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Oh yeah, you're right, because the experts generally agree that
while the gorilla would absolutely demolish the first wave of humans,
eventually one hundred men who sort of coordinate it. I
don't know whether they'd need a meeting beforehand. I don't
think there's prep time involved in this hypothetical. It'd get
worn down eventually, But let's be honest, most of the
(22:05):
men would be severely injured or killed before victory.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Look Robert Erwin weigh in and he just said, just.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
As an animal conservationist, fighting an endangered species just doesn't
sit right with me. How many people does it take
to save gorillas? That's the question we should be asking.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Gorillas are friend not for unendangered changing gears. This week,
the trial of p Diddy or Sean John Colmes began
in New York. The fifty five year old wrapper, record
producer and record executive is charged with transportation to engage
in prostitution, sex trafficking, and racketeering, which refers to dishonest
(22:46):
and fraudulent business dealings. So what is this trial going
to look like, who will be involved and what are
we likely to learn. Experts have warned that any celebrity
involved in Combs's supposed free coughs, and they're the free
cough parties that you may have heard about, should be concerned,
and many have speculated that we will likely hear the
(23:08):
names of other people who have participated. Jurors were on
Monday presented with a questionnaire to assess their suitability to
the case, so the court might be checking for any
associations or prejudicial feelings towards celebrities that may be called
as witnesses during the trial. Names that were on that
questionnaire included Michael B. Jordan, actor and comedian Mike Myers,
(23:31):
as well as rappers Kid Cuddy and Kanye West. On
the first day of the trial, the New York court
heard claims that Coombs made a male escort urinate in
his then girlfriend, Cassie Venturer's mouth and threatened to release
images of her having sex with male escorts. Lawyer Emily
Johnson has said this is just the tip of the iceberg.
(23:55):
If found guilty of these crimes, Coombs is looking at
a potential life sentence. Holly, what do you think we
are going to see over the coming weeks.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I think we're going to see, and we're already seeing
it a lot of almost tittule sensationalist headlines about kinky
sex parties and extreme behaviors that lots of people participated
in at a group level at these because Co's defense
is basically like in a nutshell, is yeah, we lived
(24:25):
a wild life and people loved these parties, and everyone
involved was consenting and paid, and this is just how
we do right, like, that's basically his defense for this
sort of very particular subset of rich and powerful people
having a great time. And his defense argue that the
women who were bringing and there are some men of
(24:46):
course too, but the women who are bringing cases against
him and saying they were coerced, he's saying, actually, these
are just people who had a bit of a different
sex life. She's saying, his defense attorney is a woman
and calling these women capable, strong women who had the
freedom to make the choices that they made. The problem is,
of course, and this is what the prosecution are going
(25:08):
to lean hard into. Is at the center of this
case is this video of did he assaulting his former
partner who appears in lots of these stories, Cassie Ventura,
And well, you know, I'm sure that many people listening
to this have seen either that video or glimpses of
that video or heard about It's incredibly disturbing, and she
(25:28):
was with him for years and features a lot of
these stories. The idea that she was free to leave
at any time is rather negated by the fact that
there are witnesses saying that they saw her trying to
leave and she was violently made to stay. I guess
everything about this story is grim, and because a lot
of the names in it are high profile and exciting,
(25:48):
we're going to see wall to wall coverage, and some
of it's going to feel a bit like an ordinary
celebrity trial. And I just feel like we need to
hold at the center of it that a lot of
the things that are being talked about being done to
women at this are not ordinary, and they have said
over and over again that it wasn't. So it's going
(26:10):
to be really interesting to see how it plays out.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
The defense said in its opening statement that the government
has no place in this man's private bedrooms, which again
is to your point, Holly, that they are suggesting that
these are private sexual acts that were consented to, and
we don't know what the court will find. But also,
Cassie Ventura, she can be interested in whatever sex she
(26:35):
is or isn't interested in, and that doesn't preclude her
from being a victim. And it seems sometimes in a
court that there's sort of an assumption that it does,
and in fact, she enjoyed all of this. Well, she
can have enjoyed A and not have wanted B. And
so these cases are always especially for victims of sexual assault.
(26:55):
I think that they're incredibly confronting. It's going to be
particularly confronting because experts think that there is vision of
a lot of what occurred, and there could be tapes
played in this courtroom, and some victims claim that they
were made to look like they enjoyed things or they
were under the influence of drugs in those particular videos.
(27:19):
But it will be very damning for a number of celebrities,
and there will be celebrities named over the next eight
to ten weeks.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
After the break. If you have a partner and they're breathing, typing,
or chewing near you right now, that deep rumbling hatred
you're feeling, it's got a name, and apparently it's a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
drop episides every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week and a huge
thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
What is normal marital hatred?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
The essential rhythm of all relationships is harmony, disharmony and repair, closeness, disruption,
and a return to closeness. That's where the skills come in,
how to move from disruption to repair. Our culture doesn't
teach it. We don't deal with reality. The father of
couple's therapy back in the fifties said, the day you
(28:26):
turn to the person who's next to you and you say,
this is a mistake I've been had, This is not
the person I fell in love with, that said FRAMO
is the first day of your real Mary.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
The voice you just heard is a guy called Dr
Terry Reel, and he was on the Tim Ferris podcast,
and he's a guy who has lots of letters after
his name that Jesse would think were very important for
me to tell you, but I'm choosing just to tell
you that he's worked in couple's therapy for a really
long time, and he says that he's been going around
the world talking about what he calls normal marital hatred
(28:58):
for years and not one person has ever come to
him afterwards and said, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
Except for Holly, who says, can I have normal marital
hatred if I am not married?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Does normal marital hatred sound familiar to you? To married
people who have been married for about two issues and
twenty ish years, respectively. Does normal marital hatred resonate?
Speaker 5 (29:26):
I had no questions after listening to that excerpt, I went, yeah,
play on that. I have no questions. I did a
bit of research into it, and this therapist has had
a lot of criticism and a lot of blowback, especially
from female therapists who want to make clear that you
don't undermine your instincts. If you hate your partner, If
(29:49):
you hate your partner every day for three years, that
is not normal marital hatred. And of course, in cases
of abuse or anything sinister, you listen to that gut instinct.
But there's a lot of discussion around the word hate,
and I think it's almost a definitional tension because hatred
means intense dislike, checks out, opposition or revulsion towards something. Yep,
(30:14):
that's what I mean. And it can pass very quickly.
So some people have said, compare it to how you
feel about a sibling, Like I know the feeling of
having intense hatred for Claire one minute and then going, hey,
do you want to eat some chocolate? And it passes
like very very quickly. But close personal relationships lead to
(30:38):
such an intensity of feeling, And do you see parts
of them that are ugly? You see parts of your
self reflected back that are ugly. That's surely a sign
of real intimacy. If you have fleeting moments of hatred
mayor do you hate your husband some of the time
or all of the time.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Not all of the time. A, You're right, I think
it's about duration that's important. I know that in that moment,
and I've experienced that moment enough times, as I'm sure
he has, where you just go, oh, I can't imagine
anyway back from this. I can't imagine ever not feeling
this way about you. And sometimes I guess, well, for us,
(31:15):
it hasn't been true yet. Oh, I guess it was
true at one point because we did split up. But
I think you're right, like I also can't hold onto
things for very long. I've also been in relationships before
him where I felt that and it didn't pass, and
that feeling it's a different feeling because that was an
(31:36):
abusive relationship that I needed to end, and even though
I didn't feel that way all the time, because there
were incredible highs in that relationship, as there often are
in abusive relationships. There were incredible highs, but the lows
just felt different. They didn't feel fleeting, they felt fundamental,
(31:57):
and so much of it actually was not how I
felt about the person, but how I felt about myself
in those low moments.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And that's also can be when you feel the normal
nratal hatred in a vert Commas die directed at you.
Because we're talking a lot about this, like I can't
bear it when they do this thing. I can't bear
it when they type too loudly, breathe too loudly, put
that thing on there, you know whatever. But when you
feel it back at you, when you think, oh my god,
(32:25):
they hate me right now, that's very confronting, right And
one of the points that this guy makes. And I'm
glad you brought that context, Jesse, because when I first
saw this, and I don't know a great deal about him,
I was like, he sounds a bit like he's got
an agenda, Like he sounds a bit like he would
like women in particular maybe to stay in unhappy marriages
(32:45):
for a long time, which sometimes the kind of code
of you can get past it is code for you know,
stay where you are. And I think that that obviously
is not ideal. But the reason that obviously this catch phrase,
this normal marital hatred, travels so far is we all
feel it. And then when we have to recognize that
sometimes people feeling about us too, it shifts the way
(33:06):
you look at it. But if you're constantly feeling like
your partner doesn't like you, doesn't value you, all those things,
it's a different thing.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
I was reading that all relationships, all close relationships, are
like a relational weather system, where there are storms and
there's springtime, and there's flowers and blue skies and frozen
pipes and electrical outages and all of that. And I
actually think we can also apply it to podcast host
(33:33):
hatred because there would be moments where, like, we spend
too much time together. I'm sure we can all agree,
and especially we've been touring tonight, we're on stage together,
there can be a moment where you just go oh maa, oh, holly, ugh, yeah,
and you feel this frustration, but it lifts as quickly
as it came on. And I think Esther Perrell talks
(33:55):
about I think the four horsemen of like what you
can't come back from, and her big thing is resentment
and how toxic resentment is to any relationship. You can
hate someone briefly, it doesn't imprint. It's like a feeling
of intense irritate more than anything, and then you forgive it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And also it's like if you didn't care about someone
at all, you wouldn't have those powerful feelings about them.
It's like, I only get profoundly irritated or invested enough
to care about people who are close to me. If
I don't care at all, it's a sign that you're
not important in my life, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
No, I have strong feelings about lots of people who
aren't important, who I've never met before. I have a question.
Does no marital hatred, which apparently you can come back from,
how does it compare to the ick?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah? It sounds a lot like the ick, doesn't it. Well.
I've always pushed back on the idea you can't come
back from a nick. I think if you couldn't come
back from an ick, then no one would ever stay
in a long relationship because there are always going to
be times in a relationship when you're living in close
proximity with someone, sharing a bathroom with someone, watching them
eat and do all of the intimate things that we
do all the time, that someone you love is going
(35:06):
to give you the ick. I believe you can bounce
back from the ick if the other respects are in place.
That's what I think.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
I reckon. This is so different to the ick, the
feeling of I will be having an argument with my
sister or Luca will have done something the other day.
I had a really frustrating day and I had to
blame it on someone, and it really worked when I
decided it was Luca's far And you almost want to
say I hate you, like you just want to say it.
You know you don't mean it. You know it's not
(35:34):
about anything. You couldn't even really explain why. But you're
not disgusted by them. You're just filled up with anger.
And I reckon that parenting compounds that, because you know
that you shouldn't hate your kids. So there are moments
where like your buttons are being pushed and your patience
(35:55):
is all being invested into this little person who doesn't
know any better. But your partner can handle it, and
so you kind of re orient it towards them.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
That's all we've got time for today, out louders, I
hope you've enjoyed listening to today's show, and massive thank
you for our fabulous team for putting it together under
tough circumstances, everybody being in a different place. We will
be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Can I ask, do you reckon that our audience has
normal hatred towards us?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Sometimes? Definitely?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Oh yeah, Like on.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
A bad day, they chuck us in and they go,
Jesse is pissing me off today.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I think that's when they like shout also at like
they might be in the car, or they later shout
in their heads. Sometimes they say they shout out loud
at us.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
I reckon when you're feeling like that totally valid feeling,
I reckon. You don't got to leave a review. I
think that's fine.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
That's a good time to step away.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, a review if you are looking for something
else to listen to. This is if you're not feeling
profound hatred right now. On yesterday's episode, we invited Amelia
Lester on the show to share her story about being
at Harvard University with Mark Zuckerberg. We should say we
forced Amelia Leicester show us his story. Amelia is not
(37:10):
kind of going through the world going ask me about Mark.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
This wasn't her idea. It wasn't because there was someone
with intense hatred in that moment who left a review.
Last time she mentioned Mark Zuckerberg and Harvard. But we're
always the ones that bring it up, so we want
to make that clear, and.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
In our private lives, we should say Amelia doesn't even
bring up Mark Zuckerberg as.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Much as I would if at one time.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
So look, if you are interested, it is so interesting.
She tells us all about it, what he was like,
what it's been like since.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Except when she wears that sweatshirt that says Harvard and
Mark Zuckerberg signed it.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Signed it, that's actually very true. And when she gets
her phone out and she goes hey Mark and like
she's not him on the phone, then that's a bit arrogant.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
But I'm just going to text my friend Mark.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Yes, we had a few questions for her. So listen
to yesterday's subscriber episode. There is a link in our
show notes. As always, Bye bye, shout out to any
Mum and Me a subscribers listening. If you love the
show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom
and Mia is the very best way to do so.
There's a link in the episode description.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and warders
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I only get profoundly irritained or invested enough to care
about people who are close to me. If I don't
care at all, it's a sign that you're not important
in my life. You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, I have strong feelings about lots of people who
aren't important in who I've never met before.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud what women
are actually talking about on Wednesday, the fourteenth of May.
I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm.
Speaker 5 (00:47):
Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And welcome to our chaotic on the Road recording. Hopefully
you've been enjoying it this week and it continues because
today we are in Brisbane and we will see you
tonight out Louders on the show. There's a word being
thrown around a lot on the internet this week, and
it's narcissist. Why is everyone suddenly one? And if you
have to google whether or not you are one? Is
(01:10):
the answer clear? Also, the p Diddy trial started this
week and the headlines are already grimmed. What's it all about?
On which celebrities are feeling very nervous right now? And
is it normal to hate your partner? There's a very
respectable couples therapist who says yes, and that actually it's
a very good sign. But first, Mia Friedman.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
In case you missed it, Susan Lee has been elected
the first woman to ever lead the Liberal Party. She
defeated challenger Angus Taylor twenty nine to twenty five in
the battle to replace Peter Dutton as opposition leader after
the party's devastating election loss. Sounds a little bit like
a shit skirt hole, just like Thereasa May war in
(01:53):
the UK. Can you revisit what that means?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yes. Back in twenty sixteen, after the massive Brexit loss
in the UK, nobody wanted to be the leader of
the Conservative Party because they're in complete disarray. The people
who'd campaigned four breaks it didn't want to be responsible
for the mess of getting it done. The people who
campaigned against it, which was the sitting Prime Minister at
the time, David Cameron, obviously were humiliated. So no one
(02:19):
wanted that job until Theresa May put her hand up
and we discussed at the time how it was kind
of like she'd got a lot of shit on her
skirt and she was going to have to be spending
a whole lot of time trying to clean it off
as more and more people piled more shit onto her.
And that is how we came to the shitskirt analogy.
(02:39):
This does feel a bit like a shit skirt moment
because the Liberals have just had a historic defeat. They
are so reduced in the Parliament, Labor have more than
twice as many seats, so much to celebrate in the
female leader, but work cut out Jesse.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Yeah, a lot of people were talking about the glass cliff.
People talk about the glass ceiling that women face, which.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
She has broken through. Is the first female leader of
the Liberal Party?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Yes, And the glass cliff is the idea, we'll put
you in a position of power just to what you
fall off. And I don't think that's the whole story here,
because she was next in line, really like in terms
of she was deputy, it's not ridiculous that this would
be a job that she takes.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And to be clear, the idea that a woman might
be handled a shitskirt is not like denigrating the woman.
It's not like saying that she didn't deserve it. It's
just that sometimes establishments suddenly seem to decide that a
female leader or sea would be a great idea just
when everything.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Shit because Julie Bishop, remember was the deputy leader and
didn't get the job when it went to Scott Morrison,
and many people say that was the beginning of the end,
certainly for the Liberal Party's reputation with women.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Yes, so years ago, I think it was like twenty fifteen,
the Liberal Party established a target for how many women
they wanted to get too politics because the Labor Party
did this a long time ago. And now, of course
we are having a historic moment with more women in
Parliament and more women in the Cabinet than ever before,
which is really exciting. But they set this target and
(04:16):
were very much against quotas and they've not kept themselves
accountable to those targets at all. And last election in
twenty twenty two they had their worst result in thirty
years for female representation. Friend of the Pod Charlotte Morlock
has written a great deal about this, and she says
that most Liberal politicians are men. I think over about
(04:38):
sixty and the voters in Australia, the average voter is
a thirty seven year old female and they're not seeing
themselves represented by this party at all. She's actually put
together a petition and it's putting pressure on the Liberal
Party to go, let's introduce some gender quotas. Regardless of
how you vote, if you are not about the Liberal Party,
if you would never in a million years vote for them.
(05:00):
For a thriving democracy, what we want is equal representation
and we want a competitive democracy. And what we've seen
with the Liberal Party going further and further right them
to represent their electorates. And there are Liberal women who
have tried to put their hands up and so it'll
be interesting to see if they actually introduce a quota.
Maybe Susan Lee is the first step to having more
(05:22):
female representation.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Also, in case you missed it, you need to put
some tape over your mouth? Yes, you do. Everywhere I
look at the moment, there is a prominent and influential
woman mouth taping. Most recently, I saw Sally Obermeina on
Instagram saying that putting tape over her mouth at night
had meant that she wakes up more energized every day.
That she's sleeping better than ever. And then, of course
(05:44):
there's my mate Gwynneth, who says, the first thing she
has to do in the morning is basically on block
all her orifices.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I wake up, I take off my mouth tape, my
mouth earpl my mouth taping.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh my god, I gotta call you the what.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Oh yeah, I think it looks like such bullshit.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I'll send you a bunch of research.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It's so good.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
She goes on, say, mouth tape, IM ask air plugs.
She basically is like when she goes to bed, she
has to block herself off from the entire world. Guys,
are we trying it? Are we ready to mouth tape?
Speaker 5 (06:15):
It's an interesting theory. I listened to Norman Swan talk
about it, and a lot of sentists and health experts
have poop pooed a bit because they say, if you
are a mouth breather, if you go to bed and
you're finding that you breathe through your mouth all night,
there's probably a reason for that, and that might be
that your nose is blocked, in which case, if you're
(06:35):
covering your mouth, then it could affect oxygen supply. If
you're suddenly putting all this pressure on your nose, so
it's definitely not advisable for everyone.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Couldn't do it if you had a cold, No, exactly right,
well allergy do it if you wanted to kiss someone.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
No, But there is this growing field of like health
and wellness focused around breathing and how we're all doing
it wrong. So apparently we're breathing too much a minute.
Someone told me once that you meant to breathe like
twelve times a minute. I reckon, I'm breathing like forty
(07:12):
two times a minute.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I'm thinking about it now, I'm like thinking, how many
times am I breathing?
Speaker 5 (07:16):
We've evolved, and it's to do with the fact that
we eat softer foods and a bunch of other things,
where our jaws are just wired differently and our airways
have gotten smaller. This is what everyone says, right, and
ancient civilizations knew the importance of breathing for stress, for relaxation,
for all of the things and being alive. Exactly, we've
(07:37):
lost the art, so we need to be retrained in breathing,
and I think mouth tape is a part of that.
Mayor this feels like something you'll be doing literally tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, I'm excited that there's another thing that I can
do yep, before bed. I mean, crikey, I already wear
a mouthguard, so you know I've already got stuff going
on in my mouth. I'm not an ear plug or
an eye mask person. I don't know whether it's a
hangover from having little kids, but I always feel like
I need to be alert to know what's going on
(08:07):
in the house. Not that that's got anything. Maybe I
don't want to take my mouth because I might have
something to say in the middle of the night. Apparently
last night I got up to go to the toilet,
and apparently on the way back to bed, I said
to the dog, I love you, Belle. I was not
even aware of that I said that out loud, but
it woke up my husband. So yeah, no, I won't
(08:28):
be mouth taping. Do you just use like reggular, use
like a band.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Aid, or you need special mouth tape? So it's something
else you to buy me. Oh, which is fine obviously
given that all the trendy people are into it. I'm
sure that there are degrees of cool mouth tape and
on cool, but a lot of people say it really
helps you sleep, you know, I've got issues with that.
I reckon I will be mouth taping in a hot minute.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
The internet is accusing everyone of being a narcissist this week,
and we'd like to know what one actually is. You
may have seen the headlines about Abby Chatfield upset on
Instagram about a number of things that Clementine Ford has
said about her. These are two sort of prominent online personalities.
Clementine Ford currently said that Abby is a narcissist, and
(09:12):
Abby said that was very upsetting to her because that's
what an ex used to call her, and so she
asked her therapist if she was one, and her therapist
said no. Anyway, we aren't waiting into that online drama
because we're not stupid. But one of the top stories
on Mum and mea this week was about women who
realized their mothers were narcissists. Happy Mother's Day. That's a
good thing to put the card. You may have noticed.
(09:34):
I don't know if you guys have noticed, but people
seem to be diagnosing other people with narcissism at a
fairly alarming rate. So the question is, is everyone suddenly
a narcissist or is the term being overused?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Jesse Well there's actually a really interesting theory I read
from a doctor who said that the thing about certified narcissists,
as in people with narcissistic personality disorder as defined by
the DSM, and we'll get to the definition of that,
but the thing about them is that they can be
very charismatic and very attractive, and therefore might actually pro
create more, which means that we may be living in
(10:08):
a world that has more narcissists than ever before. It
might be a trait that is evolutionarily rewarded and therefore
is more widespread. I don't think it would happen this quickly,
but it was an interesting theory. I think the reason
we're hearing it more and more is because calling someone
a narcissist is a way of turning their identity into
(10:30):
this static thing and dismissing them in a way that
makes them totally irredeemable, because of course we all behave
in ways that are narcissistic, and psychologists will say, the
trait of narcissism exists on a spectrum, and we are
all there. We all have ego that exists within us,
(10:50):
and you know, all the time we act like narcissists.
It's less than one percent of the population that is
thought to be actual narcissists, and of those, seventy five
percent are thought to be men. So it's something that's
diagnosed a lot more in men than women, and it
looks very different in men than women. Holly, do you
(11:12):
think you know any?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I do. I also think although it's become very fashionable
for women in particular, Sale, my ex was definitely a narcissist.
There's a real community of people who believe that narcissists
have damaged their relationships, whether it's their romantic ones or
their familiar ones. As you said me about mothers. I
interviewed a woman called Margie Bowden who is a narcissism expert.
(11:36):
She has so many followers. She is so but she's
an Australian woman and she focuses very much on narcissism
and relationships.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
And you're in that relationship, you just you know, I
know that they love me. You know, we live in hope.
Hope is very powerful and often when you are in that,
in that early stage, you will have friends, You will
have people saying what are you doing? Can't you see
that they're no good? But you're now in an abuse cycle.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
And she says some of the signs are lying, gas lighting, cheating, manipulation, control.
Now the thing is, it's not everybody who does those
things is a narcissist, but narcissists will definitely do those things.
And one of the things, to your point, Jesse, about
once you've called somebody that, and the reason there's so
much weight to it is it's incurable. Like a narcissist
(12:29):
is a narcissist. We all have our narcissistic traits, as
you've said, Jesse, and you can work towards working with
them or suppressing them or anything like that, but a
true narcissist is always going to be a narcissist. So
a lot of Margie's work is about how do you
copaent with a narcissist, How do you go to Mother's
Day when your mum's a narcist? How do you deal
with it?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I know it seems like splitting hairs, but there's a
difference between being narcissistic and having those traits and being
a narcissist. One is sort of an adjective and one
is a noun. The big thing that's happened online is
that there's confusion between the traits of narcissism and the disorder.
So people have started and labeling like selfish or arrogant
(13:12):
or even annoying behavior as narcissism. But actual narcissistic personality
disorder involves a persistent pattern of lack of empathy and
grandiosity and exploitative behavior. And it has to be not
just persistent but life disrupting.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yes, And they say that the thing about narcissists, and
we know this because of the way that we colloquially
use it, but it is all about them, right, that
everybody and everything around them exists only to serve their needs.
And I remember when I was talking to Margie the expert,
I said, that sounds like a psychopath, and she said,
there's a crucial difference. And psychopaths don't care what other
people think of them. Narcissists really do.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yes, that's the difference exactly. And that's the difference a
couple of I mean, you can't diagnose people with mental
disorders from the outside. But two prominent examples that display
not just narcissistic traits but narcissistic personality disorder symptoms are
Kanye West and Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (14:12):
I think TikTok co opting a lot of this language.
Narcissism or you are a narcissist, has just become interchangeable
with you are an asshole, and they are different things.
But I wonder too if we're seeing more narcissistic behavior
because we live in a culture that so clearly rewards it.
(14:33):
So vanity, self centeredness, heightened sense of self worth, visions
of their own grandiosity, probably incredibly ambitious, undeterred by rejection,
craving attention, highly motivated. All of those things will make
you a winner in the world we live in, and
in fact, social morality can be a hurdle or a
(14:56):
hindrance to what we see as capitalist's success. So if
you don't worry about any of those things, then you
might rise and rise. But the irony to calling someone
a narcissist online, it's like when someone reads a memoir
and goes all they did is talk about themselves. It's like, yeah,
the medium is a message, like we're all narcissists on
(15:17):
our social media platforms because that's what the technology is
demanding of us. And I know it. It's like such
a basic primary school lesson, but you know, not weighing
into any internet drama. But the second someone calls anyone
a definitive name and stops playing the ball, but instead
(15:39):
starts playing the person, you've lost me. And I just
see so much of this all over my social media
where you just throw out these terms. It must feel
good to use.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Because it's so reductive, isn't it and dismissive.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Well, it always just undermines your argument as well.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's interesting how things have changed so much for gen
X's I remember that the worst thing you could be
at school and in Australia really is up yourself or vain.
That was the biggest diss But you're right, Jesse, like
in just a generation, we are now living in the
world of the front facing camera where we're encouraged to
(16:16):
just share our every thought, feeling, outfit, opinion with the world.
And there's a whole category of people that do that
that are very able to make a lot of money
for it, and they're called influencers. And you know, I
listened to us. Who cares what we think? Yep, here
we are here talking about narcissism. Who cares what the
three of us think? And we've been rewarded really well
(16:37):
for it. So I did google whether I was a
narcissist once?
Speaker 5 (16:40):
What made you google it?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Because someone called me one? Someone who knew me called
me one, and then afterwards they apologized and said I
was just being a dick and that's not fair. But
what I discovered, much to my relief, is that if
you google am I a narcissist, you're not a narcissist
because narcissists aren't worried about being narcissists because they don't care.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
I reckon. I know one that comes to mind, and
the sign for me is incredibly professionally successful, took risks,
made decisions that would be very difficult to make if
you had real social relationships with people, and left in
the wake of that are disastrous personal relationships?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Is it me?
Speaker 5 (17:23):
No, you have quite good relationships with the people around Jamana.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I think I've definitely got narcissistic tendencies. I think in
some ways, certainly, to get ahead in our industry, you
have to be self focused a lot, probably more than
is healthy. Jesus, I started a media company with my
own name in it.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
It's the behavior you try and train your kids.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Out of, particularly if you're English or Australian.
Speaker 7 (17:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
But also adolescents are by their very nature very narcissistic
as a total right, like everything is literally around them
and the way they see the world, and so much
of parenting is constantly saying, think about what other people
might think, see yourself through their eyes? How do you
think that made them feel? How do you think? And
it's like one of the things about the age will
(18:09):
have in now, as you say, Jesse, which rewards narcisism
a lot, is it extends the adolescent view of the world.
It's like it is really just about you and what
other people think about you. Because to the point about
narcissists care about what other people think. It matters a
great deal that they have high status and that people
think they're amazing.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
In a moment, celebrity names and horrific testimonies, the court
case that could land Sean Combs or p Diddy in
prison full life.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
In case you missed it, men have a new Roman
Empire and it's man versus gorilla, or should I say
man versus one hundred gorillas? This bizarre question whether one
hundred men could defeat a single adult male gorilla in
hand to hand combat went very viral after mister bast
tweeted about it, and suddenly everyone from your teenage nephew
(19:02):
to your accountant has a passionate opinion about primate combat.
Here is a little explanation of the question.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
It's a hypothetical question that sparked a huge debate on
social media. Okay, so could one hundred man defeat one
gorilla nfight?
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (19:19):
So the question was first, this is locker room conversation, Adriana.
So it was thrown out there on x and has
been showing up on Facebook, TikTok and read it. People
seem to have some real opinions on the matter.
Speaker 8 (19:33):
Now let's talk strategy. I think this is very doable.
If you guys are rush in on him at once,
there's going to be at least ten of y'all that die, okay,
And as long as you guys are okay with that,
then I think you can take him down.
Speaker 7 (19:45):
What the gorilla would do to the first human man
would be talked about for generations.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Okay, it would be not ideal to watch.
Speaker 7 (19:53):
I'm going to be the first person to walk up
to the gorilla, and as I get to it, I'm
going to slowly turn around and switch teams.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Wow, well this debate has taken over dinner tables and
pub conversations and slack channels at work. And here's where
it interesting. Gorillas are absolute units of raw power. They
are three times stronger than humans. They can bench press
around five hundred kilos, and they have jaws that could
crush your skull like it's a grape. But humans have
(20:21):
numbers and strategy and the endurance advantage. Gorillas, particularly silver
back gorillas, they don't have a lot of endurance, so
it's kind of brute force versus teamwork and planning.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Jesse, I have a question, how do we know how
much a gorilla can bench press? Is a gorilla sitting
there in the zoo doing bench presses and we're just
adding going to another one.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
This whole thing makes me think evolution never happened. We're
just still back there. We're just still back there fighting
the apes.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
I have a mental block in my brain that does
not allow me to engage with this hypothetical. My husband
is talking about it, people in my life talking about it,
and I'm just like, but it wouldn't happen, And if
it did happen, I don't.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Know do you know what's interesting about this is that
usually it's the women that are in my experience, it's
women who talk about hypotheticals, and men aren't very interested
in hypotheticals. Very big generalizations I'm making here, but this
is one of those things that women are just like
most women. But who cares? And why are we even
talking about this?
Speaker 5 (21:24):
It's like men are pretending like they know anything about gorillas.
Like my husband's talking about it. I'm like, what if
you met at gorilla? What did you learn your gorilla
facts from Google? With your soft little hands? Like I'm
not trying to emasculate him, but it's like they're pretending
to be cave men.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Do you want to know the answer?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
The answer is clearly that one hundred men could beat
a gorilla in a fight. Of course they could.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Oh yeah, you're right, because the experts generally agree that
while the gorilla would absolutely demolish the first wave of humans,
eventually one hundred men who sort of coordinate it. I
don't know whether they'd need a meeting beforehand. I don't
think there's prep time involved in this hypothetical. It'd get
worn down eventually, But let's be honest, most of the
(22:05):
men would be severely injured or killed before victory.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Look Robert Erwin weigh in and he just said, just.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
As an animal conservationist, fighting an endangered species just doesn't
sit right with me. How many people does it take
to save gorillas? That's the question we should be asking.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
Gorillas are friend not for unendangered changing gears. This week,
the trial of p Diddy or Sean John Colmes began
in New York. The fifty five year old wrapper, record
producer and record executive is charged with transportation to engage
in prostitution, sex trafficking, and racketeering, which refers to dishonest
(22:46):
and fraudulent business dealings. So what is this trial going
to look like, who will be involved and what are
we likely to learn. Experts have warned that any celebrity
involved in Combs's supposed free coughs, and they're the free
cough parties that you may have heard about, should be concerned,
and many have speculated that we will likely hear the
(23:08):
names of other people who have participated. Jurors were on
Monday presented with a questionnaire to assess their suitability to
the case, so the court might be checking for any
associations or prejudicial feelings towards celebrities that may be called
as witnesses during the trial. Names that were on that
questionnaire included Michael B. Jordan, actor and comedian Mike Myers,
(23:31):
as well as rappers Kid Cuddy and Kanye West. On
the first day of the trial, the New York court
heard claims that Coombs made a male escort urinate in
his then girlfriend, Cassie Venturer's mouth and threatened to release
images of her having sex with male escorts. Lawyer Emily
Johnson has said this is just the tip of the iceberg.
(23:55):
If found guilty of these crimes, Coombs is looking at
a potential life sentence. Holly, what do you think we
are going to see over the coming weeks.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
I think we're going to see, and we're already seeing
it a lot of almost tittule sensationalist headlines about kinky
sex parties and extreme behaviors that lots of people participated
in at a group level at these because Co's defense
is basically like in a nutshell, is yeah, we lived
(24:25):
a wild life and people loved these parties, and everyone
involved was consenting and paid, and this is just how
we do right, like, that's basically his defense for this
sort of very particular subset of rich and powerful people
having a great time. And his defense argue that the
women who were bringing and there are some men of
(24:46):
course too, but the women who are bringing cases against
him and saying they were coerced, he's saying, actually, these
are just people who had a bit of a different
sex life. She's saying, his defense attorney is a woman
and calling these women capable, strong women who had the
freedom to make the choices that they made. The problem is,
of course, and this is what the prosecution are going
(25:08):
to lean hard into. Is at the center of this
case is this video of did he assaulting his former
partner who appears in lots of these stories, Cassie Ventura,
And well, you know, I'm sure that many people listening
to this have seen either that video or glimpses of
that video or heard about It's incredibly disturbing, and she
(25:28):
was with him for years and features a lot of
these stories. The idea that she was free to leave
at any time is rather negated by the fact that
there are witnesses saying that they saw her trying to
leave and she was violently made to stay. I guess
everything about this story is grim, and because a lot
of the names in it are high profile and exciting,
(25:48):
we're going to see wall to wall coverage, and some
of it's going to feel a bit like an ordinary
celebrity trial. And I just feel like we need to
hold at the center of it that a lot of
the things that are being talked about being done to
women at this are not ordinary, and they have said
over and over again that it wasn't. So it's going
(26:10):
to be really interesting to see how it plays out.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
The defense said in its opening statement that the government
has no place in this man's private bedrooms, which again
is to your point, Holly, that they are suggesting that
these are private sexual acts that were consented to, and
we don't know what the court will find. But also,
Cassie Ventura, she can be interested in whatever sex she
(26:35):
is or isn't interested in, and that doesn't preclude her
from being a victim. And it seems sometimes in a
court that there's sort of an assumption that it does,
and in fact, she enjoyed all of this. Well, she
can have enjoyed A and not have wanted B. And
so these cases are always especially for victims of sexual assault.
(26:55):
I think that they're incredibly confronting. It's going to be
particularly confronting because experts think that there is vision of
a lot of what occurred, and there could be tapes
played in this courtroom, and some victims claim that they
were made to look like they enjoyed things or they
were under the influence of drugs in those particular videos.
(27:19):
But it will be very damning for a number of celebrities,
and there will be celebrities named over the next eight
to ten weeks.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
After the break. If you have a partner and they're breathing, typing,
or chewing near you right now, that deep rumbling hatred
you're feeling, it's got a name, and apparently it's a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
drop episides every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week and a huge
thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
What is normal marital hatred?
Speaker 6 (28:04):
The essential rhythm of all relationships is harmony, disharmony and repair, closeness, disruption,
and a return to closeness. That's where the skills come in,
how to move from disruption to repair. Our culture doesn't
teach it. We don't deal with reality. The father of
couple's therapy back in the fifties said, the day you
(28:26):
turn to the person who's next to you and you say,
this is a mistake I've been had, This is not
the person I fell in love with, that said FRAMO
is the first day of your real Mary.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
The voice you just heard is a guy called Dr
Terry Reel, and he was on the Tim Ferris podcast,
and he's a guy who has lots of letters after
his name that Jesse would think were very important for
me to tell you, but I'm choosing just to tell
you that he's worked in couple's therapy for a really
long time, and he says that he's been going around
the world talking about what he calls normal marital hatred
(28:58):
for years and not one person has ever come to
him afterwards and said, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
Except for Holly, who says, can I have normal marital
hatred if I am not married?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Does normal marital hatred sound familiar to you? To married
people who have been married for about two issues and
twenty ish years, respectively. Does normal marital hatred resonate?
Speaker 5 (29:26):
I had no questions after listening to that excerpt, I went, yeah,
play on that. I have no questions. I did a
bit of research into it, and this therapist has had
a lot of criticism and a lot of blowback, especially
from female therapists who want to make clear that you
don't undermine your instincts. If you hate your partner, If
(29:49):
you hate your partner every day for three years, that
is not normal marital hatred. And of course, in cases
of abuse or anything sinister, you listen to that gut instinct.
But there's a lot of discussion around the word hate,
and I think it's almost a definitional tension because hatred
means intense dislike, checks out, opposition or revulsion towards something. Yep,
(30:14):
that's what I mean. And it can pass very quickly.
So some people have said, compare it to how you
feel about a sibling, Like I know the feeling of
having intense hatred for Claire one minute and then going, hey,
do you want to eat some chocolate? And it passes
like very very quickly. But close personal relationships lead to
(30:38):
such an intensity of feeling, And do you see parts
of them that are ugly? You see parts of your
self reflected back that are ugly. That's surely a sign
of real intimacy. If you have fleeting moments of hatred
mayor do you hate your husband some of the time
or all of the time.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Not all of the time. A, You're right, I think
it's about duration that's important. I know that in that moment,
and I've experienced that moment enough times, as I'm sure
he has, where you just go, oh, I can't imagine
anyway back from this. I can't imagine ever not feeling
this way about you. And sometimes I guess, well, for us,
(31:15):
it hasn't been true yet. Oh, I guess it was
true at one point because we did split up. But
I think you're right, like I also can't hold onto
things for very long. I've also been in relationships before
him where I felt that and it didn't pass, and
that feeling it's a different feeling because that was an
(31:36):
abusive relationship that I needed to end, and even though
I didn't feel that way all the time, because there
were incredible highs in that relationship, as there often are
in abusive relationships. There were incredible highs, but the lows
just felt different. They didn't feel fleeting, they felt fundamental,
(31:57):
and so much of it actually was not how I
felt about the person, but how I felt about myself
in those low moments.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And that's also can be when you feel the normal
nratal hatred in a vert Commas die directed at you.
Because we're talking a lot about this, like I can't
bear it when they do this thing. I can't bear
it when they type too loudly, breathe too loudly, put
that thing on there, you know whatever. But when you
feel it back at you, when you think, oh my god,
(32:25):
they hate me right now, that's very confronting, right And
one of the points that this guy makes. And I'm
glad you brought that context, Jesse, because when I first
saw this, and I don't know a great deal about him,
I was like, he sounds a bit like he's got
an agenda, Like he sounds a bit like he would
like women in particular maybe to stay in unhappy marriages
(32:45):
for a long time, which sometimes the kind of code
of you can get past it is code for you know,
stay where you are. And I think that that obviously
is not ideal. But the reason that obviously this catch phrase,
this normal marital hatred, travels so far is we all
feel it. And then when we have to recognize that
sometimes people feeling about us too, it shifts the way
(33:06):
you look at it. But if you're constantly feeling like
your partner doesn't like you, doesn't value you, all those things,
it's a different thing.
Speaker 5 (33:12):
I was reading that all relationships, all close relationships, are
like a relational weather system, where there are storms and
there's springtime, and there's flowers and blue skies and frozen
pipes and electrical outages and all of that. And I
actually think we can also apply it to podcast host
(33:33):
hatred because there would be moments where, like, we spend
too much time together. I'm sure we can all agree,
and especially we've been touring tonight, we're on stage together,
there can be a moment where you just go oh maa, oh, holly, ugh, yeah,
and you feel this frustration, but it lifts as quickly
as it came on. And I think Esther Perrell talks
(33:55):
about I think the four horsemen of like what you
can't come back from, and her big thing is resentment
and how toxic resentment is to any relationship. You can
hate someone briefly, it doesn't imprint. It's like a feeling
of intense irritate more than anything, and then you forgive it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
And also it's like if you didn't care about someone
at all, you wouldn't have those powerful feelings about them.
It's like, I only get profoundly irritated or invested enough
to care about people who are close to me. If
I don't care at all, it's a sign that you're
not important in my life, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
No, I have strong feelings about lots of people who
aren't important, who I've never met before. I have a question.
Does no marital hatred, which apparently you can come back from,
how does it compare to the ick?
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah? It sounds a lot like the ick, doesn't it. Well.
I've always pushed back on the idea you can't come
back from a nick. I think if you couldn't come
back from an ick, then no one would ever stay
in a long relationship because there are always going to
be times in a relationship when you're living in close
proximity with someone, sharing a bathroom with someone, watching them
eat and do all of the intimate things that we
do all the time, that someone you love is going
(35:06):
to give you the ick. I believe you can bounce
back from the ick if the other respects are in place.
That's what I think.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
I reckon. This is so different to the ick, the
feeling of I will be having an argument with my
sister or Luca will have done something the other day.
I had a really frustrating day and I had to
blame it on someone, and it really worked when I
decided it was Luca's far And you almost want to
say I hate you, like you just want to say it.
You know you don't mean it. You know it's not
(35:34):
about anything. You couldn't even really explain why. But you're
not disgusted by them. You're just filled up with anger.
And I reckon that parenting compounds that, because you know
that you shouldn't hate your kids. So there are moments
where like your buttons are being pushed and your patience
(35:55):
is all being invested into this little person who doesn't
know any better. But your partner can handle it, and
so you kind of re orient it towards them.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
That's all we've got time for today, out louders, I
hope you've enjoyed listening to today's show, and massive thank
you for our fabulous team for putting it together under
tough circumstances, everybody being in a different place. We will
be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Can I ask, do you reckon that our audience has
normal hatred towards us?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Sometimes? Definitely?
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Oh yeah, Like on.
Speaker 5 (36:26):
A bad day, they chuck us in and they go,
Jesse is pissing me off today.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I think that's when they like shout also at like
they might be in the car, or they later shout
in their heads. Sometimes they say they shout out loud
at us.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
I reckon when you're feeling like that totally valid feeling,
I reckon. You don't got to leave a review. I
think that's fine.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
That's a good time to step away.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, a review if you are looking for something
else to listen to. This is if you're not feeling
profound hatred right now. On yesterday's episode, we invited Amelia
Lester on the show to share her story about being
at Harvard University with Mark Zuckerberg. We should say we
forced Amelia Leicester show us his story. Amelia is not
(37:10):
kind of going through the world going ask me about Mark.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
This wasn't her idea. It wasn't because there was someone
with intense hatred in that moment who left a review.
Last time she mentioned Mark Zuckerberg and Harvard. But we're
always the ones that bring it up, so we want
to make that clear, and.
Speaker 5 (37:26):
In our private lives, we should say Amelia doesn't even
bring up Mark Zuckerberg as.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Much as I would if at one time.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
So look, if you are interested, it is so interesting.
She tells us all about it, what he was like,
what it's been like since.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Except when she wears that sweatshirt that says Harvard and
Mark Zuckerberg signed it.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
Signed it, that's actually very true. And when she gets
her phone out and she goes hey Mark and like
she's not him on the phone, then that's a bit arrogant.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
But I'm just going to text my friend Mark.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Yes, we had a few questions for her. So listen
to yesterday's subscriber episode. There is a link in our
show notes. As always, Bye bye, shout out to any
Mum and Me a subscribers listening. If you love the
show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom
and Mia is the very best way to do so.
There's a link in the episode description.
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