Society, Sex and Women

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to stuff I've never told you. I
am Annie, and I have joined once again by Samantha, who,
unfortunately I surprised with my intro. I can't said, I

(00:28):
don't know why that made me laugh. There's a moment
of you looking up like you were trying to remember
your name. I actually have a history of I won't
say forgetting my name, but because I have an oddly
spelled name, UM, a lot of people look at me
and I've been asked more than once are you sure?
And so I had a period of my life, particularly

(00:51):
in high school, where a teacher came up to me
and he put my tests in in front of me
and he said, Annie, I think you misspelled your name name.
And I had a moment of complete panic Samantha, because
I was like, oh my god, what if he's right.
All of my life I've been saying my name wrong,

(01:12):
but I've said it that's a thing. It is, And
I've said on this show before, well I don't know
if that's a thing, but the self doubt certainly is.
And I said on this show before that I hate
the way I say my name because I feel like
I say it with a question like I'm annie question,
are we sure? Because I'm so used to get in

(01:33):
questioned about it. That's not what this episode is about.
But I do think it could be an episode. I
think we should because I have a hard time pronouncing
my own name, and I wonder if it's because I
learned Korean first and or I'm just really bad with words.
But this is why this podcast is really fun, because
words are difficult for me. Fun with pronunciation. I don't

(01:54):
do well with the well, I'm glad you're here, uh,
glass of the you are joining us again today, and
are our many series to distract all the things yes
keep going, particularly me um looking at trauma and the
age of me too. And we have a bit of
a lighter episode today because when we were kind of

(02:16):
arcing out our episodes, we knew that they were going
to be difficult for us and for you, and we
wanted to have some things that we're a little bit lighter. Um.
I will say that, of course I took it down
a dark path. I mean not to when your mindset is,
oh my goodness, all these things are bad, and when

(02:38):
it comes to sex, there's definitely a dark side and
a light side. Is that the word. Yeah, I feel
like you're in a Star Wars movie right now, and
I don't know what those are because she doesn't. She
hasn't seen them. Um, But for this our our lighter

(02:59):
at eisode, UM, we're going to be talking about sex
and society and women and how they all interact. And
it's kind of a first part two. We're gonna look
at dating and I'm going to count on you a lot, because,
as I've said before, I don't really date. Um, but Samantha,

(03:20):
you have a lot of stories. I have stories. Um,
I'm gonna say we might be in trouble for those
episodes because I'm awful at dating honestly, may not be
trouble as much as more entertaining indoor my downfall, which
is also entertaining. But hey, low expectations expect Go ahead

(03:40):
and assume that I have some weird dates and my
interaction as a social person is really awkward. Just yeah,
I love it. Yes, I don't love it as much
as oh my gosh, I did that. They're fun stories
to share. We'll say there there could be some enjoyment
from your I mean honestly, that's like, um, one of

(04:02):
the ways that you can meet people that you have
that commonality of this date was bad? While was your
date bad? Or really let me see let me tell
you about my story. Yes, and I have plenty of
bad dating stories as well. You're not alone. I just
like more accidental in mine. Um, you do go onto
accidental accidental dates A super weird all the time. I

(04:23):
don't mean to hints accidental. Yeah, but um, I can't
wait to talk about that. And if any of you
listeners have fun stories or embarrassing stories, any stories you're
willing to share about your dating experiences, and these are
modern times, please send them our way. We might include them.
We want to be normal, so therefore we would love

(04:44):
weird interactions to make us feel normal. Yeah, please please
help us feel normal. Um. Some trigger warnings before we
dive in. We're gonna be talking about date rape culture, UM,
definition and differentiate between rape and date rape, acquaintance, rape,
rape inside of marriage, body image expectation, and women's sexuality.

(05:08):
Am I a sloot because I like sex? We're gonna
investigate that whole question, sex, toys, and the value of virginity.
So if any of those are triggering for you, as always,
please take care of your own mental health before listening.
And we are creating a culture that perpetuates everything we're

(05:34):
talking about, like how we mentioned grooming on a national scale.
So that's why it turned into a much bigger thing
than the light episode we were planning, um again when
it comes to sex, especially right now in this day
and age, as we try to redefine women's rights, redefine
the role of women. And I say that because of

(05:57):
the administration and the atwards take we have on the
laws that have been created from way back when such
as well, I won't get all of that, but I
think people understand what we're doing. And it seems like
feminism has having to defend itself once again. Defend herself.

(06:18):
We're gonna put it as a person, it's it's an entity,
um once again and what does that look like on
a national scale? And unfortunately, right now we have to
again redefine what assault looks like, what abuse looks like,
what um, grape looks like. And then we shouldn't have to,

(06:39):
but yet the people in charge are having to make
us do. So I feel like, right, and this is
we're talking both culturally but also legally in this case, Yeah,
I mean, it's wild to me that after Kavanaugh was confirmed,
how many friends of mine were like, I try to

(07:00):
go get any right. Honestly, that was the first thing
I was like, we and I've had several friends, but
we're gonna go ahead and get a new one before
the law changes and we can't get birth control for
a reasonable price or for preventative purposes. Yeah, right, yeah,
And that's another thing of UM, I've told you I

(07:21):
have been too afraid to go because I had such
a bad experience and I need um, Like a lot
of friends of mine have gone and they got prescribed
like pain pills, and I need that because I had
like a panic attack last time I went. It was
incredibly painful. Um. And you're not the only one I know. UM.
There's many conversations just in conversations with Caroline from the

(07:45):
previous stuff I've never told you host as well as
now unladylike she and I had a very vast difference
in experience when it came to our I U d S.
I literally went in. She barely gave me anything. My
UM kind of college which was like you'll be fine,
and I was, And then I went running and as

(08:05):
where Caroline has told her experience of seeing colors and
things are like, what is happening with you? Right? And
that's not to negate that the people experience that, but
it's just the fact that there is a differentiation between
one and the other, and how actually it can be
traumatizing as well because it is kind of an invasive
process even though it's simple process. Oh yeah, I've talked

(08:27):
about that before on a different episode. How the first
time I went to a gynecologist he told me I
was pregnant and it scarred me for life. Oh my gosh,
I can now say with certainty life and it's just
a bad cheap pregnancy test. Um. But you know what,
when it comes to sexuality, I think the reason this
again we're talking a little deeper than what we had

(08:48):
intended because we when we you and I discussed it, it
it was a lot of funny anecdotes about our sexuality
or our sex life and or life thereof um. But
now we're starting to not start do it's always been
a thing where women's sexualization is almost used against them, Yes,
and that since that's something that's come up and our

(09:09):
previous episodes we've done around trauma, let's talk about sexualization.
The American Psychological Association the APIA specifies four things that
separate sexualization from healthy sexuality. One, a person's value comes
only from his or her appeal or behavior, to the
exclusion of other characteristics. Two, a person is held to

(09:31):
a standard that equates physical attractiveness, which is narrowly defined
with being sexy. Three, a person is made into a
thing for others sexual use, rather than seen as a
person with the capacity for independent action and decision making,
and or for sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.

(09:51):
This is especially relevant when children are imbued with adult sexuality. Yes,
and the images we see in media matter. They really do,
especially when we're talking about kids outside of school and sleep.
Children spend the most time interacting with entertainment media as
opposed to other things that they do in their life.

(10:13):
Sexualization and media can be revealing clothing facial expression that
conveys sexual readiness. So if you think about pretty much
any ad that has a what I would call a
sexy woman in it, she has this face. You'll recognize
it when you see it. Objectification is being presented as
an object. This is pretty common in advertising, seeing just

(10:35):
a body part and there's a whole website dedicated to
rounding up all the quote headless women that we see.
And I'm telling you you won't be able to unsee
that once you like start looking. It's everywhere. I don't
want to. I don't want to see that at all,
because I was already traumatized by some of the commercials
that try to make hamburgers sexy. Do you remember parties

(10:56):
you're talking about? Who Trump trying to put that in
charge of Yeah, that's right. No, Yeah, that was scarring enough.
I'm like, why we already know this woman doesn't eat
this hamwriter, she has paid a nutritionist to make sure
she can stay thin, and that's great for her, that's
what she wants. While I I mean, and then also

(11:19):
we can talk about this whole actual, say social media
thing that occurred between Natalie Portman Jessica Simpson. I'm assuming
you don't know, I know, but the whole Natalie Portman
came out and talked about how when she was a
child actress, she would look at all the images and
feel like she had to be sexualized, and she put
Jessica Simpson's commercial, which I believe wasn't she one of

(11:40):
the ones a the hammer. Maybe I think she was
she was and was so sexualized that she was really
she said she was really confused on what she was
supposed to be, which then Jessica Simpson was really upset,
feeling like she was being called out for sexualizing something
as a child. But the whole misinterpretation was that Natalie

(12:00):
Portman was confused and she was giving an example, but
why she was confused as where trying to figure out
between being sexualized objectively and or having your own sexuality,
which is what Jessica Simpson felt like she was doing.
So it's kind of this whole like then middle line
in this conversation what it is sexual be to be
sexualized and to be sexual yea, as we were talking about.

(12:24):
And then that's kind of the same thing when I
talk about social media. Children have more access to porn
on the Internet, which has now begun this whole early
sexualization for children, and so because they have no context
of what this porn is trying to portray, they see
that as true sex. So when you have a conversation
with many of teens, many kids, and I say teens,

(12:47):
you will see this misconception continue on whether it's the
whole Oh, she's saying no, but she means yes. She's
wearing sexy clothes, she's coming on to me. That means
I can have sex with our all of these things,
and both female and mil youth that I've worked with
as a social worker because of what they see on pornography,
really are so confused about consent. They're so confused about

(13:13):
the right timing. And then they also have these urges
because of what they see, all of these sexy images
that they don't know how to control it, and neither
do they know consent and therefore move forward in violating
other people without understanding what it is. And like you said, yeah,
women and girls engage with a lot of media that
sexualizes women. Um, and people that do engage and more

(13:37):
of that stuff are more likely to ascribe a woman's
value primarily to their physical appearance. And I thought of
things like beauty pageants, Tardler's and tiers like Tarler's in tiers.
Think about that, right, I mean, if you look at
most of the reality shows, if you're a child who's
watching housewives of blah blah blah, not that they're not entertaining.

(13:59):
I do find them in entertaining at times, but it
does have this whole persona of you need to look
a certain way, you need to compete with other women,
data data DA yes, and then toys and clothing that
these are big factors in this conversation as well, things
like brats, the Brats dolls and monster high dolls that
have copies, makeup, high heels, may skirts, small waist, big boobs,

(14:23):
which yes, you could get in discussions like we have
around dress code. I think that's been my biggest like
personal wrestling with this because I'm someone that does like
to dress sexy on occasion and it's my own like
healthy sexuality, but I worry about how children are perceiving
it because and it's not on me, but it's on
this culture that has made my own healthy sexuality is

(14:49):
being taken as something that is working off of like
sexualization and the male gaze, you know what I mean, right,
And that's part of again the problem being sexualized and
being sexual And i'd, like you said at the very beginning,
because I too have that moment of like, hey, I
have lingerie, I like to wear it every now again,
it's not for him, it's for me, right, And that's

(15:10):
when I say him I'm gonna put a quote becau
isn't really for me to make myself feel better? And
then at the same time, yeah, you have this whole
persona that to be sexy, you need to look sexy
for your man or your partner, and that's the only
way you're valued is by taking on this claim that yes,
I'm sexual, but I'm doing this for you as well. Right,

(15:34):
the dichotomy of trying to be your own person and
liking yourself. But do you buy into this industry that
spends so much of their time to get money from
women because they work on their insecurities, which is another
episode Oh my goodness. But it does relate to magazines

(15:55):
and as study in two thousand and eight found that
across fifty eight magazines, over fifty of the ads featuring
a woman in them portrayed the woman as a sexual object. However,
when looking at specifically men's magazines, that number rose to
seventy six percent, which is pretty high, really high. Do

(16:15):
you think it's for the lonely men to appreciate this
woman more so than for women to actually buy these things? No,
maybe I'm trying to think of um, you know all
I'm thinking of our old stereotypes about young boys hiding
playboy definitely. I mean, and then some sitcoms you see

(16:36):
them taking Victoria's Secret magazine. Oh sure, you know what
I'm saying. Sure, yeah, Well, by the way, there's a
lot of photoshopping in there. Let's just put that out there.
Sam's no to the episode. There is photoshopping involved. No
one's perfect. In two thousand and six, the APA looked
at the sexualization of our society and here were their

(16:58):
key takeaways. Women and girls are more likely to be
sexualized and objectified by our media than boys are men,
which I would guess is no surprise to anyone listening,
but anyone can be sexualized. Boys are more likely to
internalize images of men being aggressive, dominant, and powerful, which
is a compliment to sexualization when it comes to rape culture, right.

(17:21):
I mean, you kind of talked about it when we
were talking about last uh, the last episode when you
were bruised up, and they're like, oh, you like it rough.
This is kind of that same mentality because I've definitely
been approached online and we're going to talk more about
it about me being dominated. That is definitely a comment.
I'm like, what I just said, Hi, translate to I
want to be dominated, Like, yeah, exactly, that's exactly it.

(17:44):
We're teaching women like through these ads, oh, you are
objects to be used for pleasure and hey, men, the aggressive, possessive, dominant.
If you want to be a real man and show
good sexuality, you have to dominate your partner. And like
we talked about in our episode around Terry Crews, this

(18:04):
is very damaging when it comes to men reporting sexual assault.
And honestly, we could also talk about the many incidents
of boys and their female teachers and or someone who
is female that have power over another and until recently,
it wasn't perceived as abuse and it's very underreported, even
to the fact. One of my favorite shows, Dirty Rock,

(18:25):
I appreciate it. I think it's fantastic. I think it's funny,
but they use plot plotline where one of the main
characters was abused as a kid by his teacher and
now has a formulated relationship. And I understand that was
supposed to be ironic, but at the same time it
perpetuates that whole idea is that's not a big deal,
but it should be because there's a lot of manipulation

(18:48):
that could be involved and or a lot of um
psychological trauma that we don't understand from boys because they're
also supposed to pretend like they like it even if
they don't, and if they don't, and if they tell,
then they're weak and they're not being they're not paying
avenge of the situation, which is absurd, right because in

(19:09):
our society, men always want to have sex, yeah, which
is unfortunate and bad. And every time I hear a
person grief joke, I get very angry. This whole thing
sexualization and seeing this objectified version in our media leads
to greater feelings of shame and anxiety about one's looks,

(19:32):
increased negative mental health outcomes among teen girls. And if
we look at girls and young women between ten to
nineteen years over a fifty year period, rates of anorexia
nervosa mirrored fashion and body image ideals. So it does
impact physically mentally how we are taking care of ourselves

(19:54):
are not taking care of ourselves. And if we focus
in on self esteem, the of Self Esteem Project found
that only eleven percent of girls would call themselves beautiful,
and concerns about their looks was enough for six out
of ten girls to avoid a fundamental life activity of
ten year old girls in the US are afraid of

(20:15):
being fat, right, I mean, I definitely understand that. I
feel like I've missed out on a lot of childhood
teenage things because I feel like I was too fat
in college activities. Even because I felt like I was
too fat, I didn't like the way on my body looked,
and therefore I had to cover everything. I isolated myself
and or over compensated by joking about my own body

(20:37):
and or race in or something that was obvious to
try to negate and try to push away from them
hearing someone else making fun of me. Right, yeah, me too.
And I wore clothing that was huge, like hide my body.
I did not wear jeans or pants for literally four
years really because I was associated with my body. Yeah, um,

(21:00):
what is that special? Is it the comedy special? Nan?
I don't know. I have to go back and research it.
But she was. She's a comedian who refused to who
refused to do her special because the majority of the
time she was a lesbian with you know, bigger body,

(21:21):
and so her jokes were always about her body and
or her sexuality, and it was so self deprecating that
it became damaging, and finally in this episode, she was like,
I'm done. I'm done with comedy. This is suppose you
think you're here for a comedic comedic stand, but you're not.
This is not what it is. I'm done making fun
of myself and putting myself down for entertainment of others.

(21:43):
Embody image to level set is the mental representation that
we create of what we look like. And it might
be how others see you, or it might not be.
It is influenced by all kinds of things, what we
see in the media, our friends, our family. One of
my uncle that he used to joke with me that
I needed to shop in the maternity ward and I'm

(22:05):
sure he didn't mean it to have as much of
a damaging impact as it did. Oh yeah, I think
I love how family members feel like they have the
right to call you out on things when they're probably
just as guilty and worse. Right, Um, I definitely had
been told, oh you can kind of fit there. You've
been eating some you've been eating, haven't you You You're

(22:27):
looking good. It's okay, keep going girls. These a little
like nudge nudge, Great? Is that passive aggressive, I'm complimenting
you at the same time I'm telling you you're fat. Yeah. Yes.
And when you search body image online, almost all of
the top results are women and body image. Women's help
dot Gov has a whole page about body image, but

(22:48):
research does show that it is increasingly impacting men and boys.
A friend recently described this to me as the Disney
princessification of superhero rows impacting men. A new report in
the Atlantic found that of boys are concerned with their
weight and physique, then ideal media is a term that

(23:10):
gets thrown around a lot, and this impacts all of us.
But whereas women are most likely to feel pressured to
lose weight, men are equally likely to feel pressured to
lose weight and to gain weight via muscle at the
same time. Sexualization has been linked by several studies to
eating disorders, low self esteem, and depression. These are negative

(23:33):
mental and physical outcomes from what we're talking about, and
on a personal level, I'm not sure I could ever
properly express the shame and fear I have of my body.
In high school, I used to throw up every morning
when I saw myself in the mirror, and my parents
thought I might be pregnant um and explaying morning sickness,

(23:53):
and eventually I ended up in the hospital. I went
through several eating disorders. People are dying, are being sick
to a certain way, right. I definitely have worked with
many girls who have been hospitalized due to their illness,
and it is an illness. I think that's one of
the things that we need to talk about. It is

(24:15):
a mental health illness that they can never be satisfied.
And it's not just because of society. It is definitely
a big attribute to them, but then their own self
worth and control. So when we were talking about the
trauma and the loss of appetite, it is something that
people can control. So it is really really scary because
people have died, people have ruined their um. It's just

(24:38):
like they can't function, they lose their hair, they look
gone like it's just such an unfortunate thing. I will
say I didn't necessarily deal with anorexia or bulimia, but
I definitely stop eating. And even now, I mean this morning,
you and I talked about the things that we're doing
to try to combat are weight gain from the holidays

(24:59):
and is still a big important thing. I'm like, I
can't fit into these pants. I have to do a B,
C and D to lose this weight quickly because I
feel like blah, yeah, essentially yes, yeah, and it's it
really bothers me because, like one of my best friends
and also my mom to a certain extent, almost always
we end up talking about like weight and losing weight. Um.

(25:22):
And to this day, I still get uncomfortable when men
tell me they think I'm beautiful, and I'm not too
sure why. I think it's because I feel like I'm not.
I'm immediately self conscious and to me, it's like a
passing of judgment on more than looks, but also my worth,
and I can't help but interpreting it as I want
to have sex with you, which then frightens me because

(25:44):
I'm already thinking how can I diffuse this situation so
it doesn't reach that point? And I know that's a
lot to get from what ostensibly is a compliment, right,
I mean, I have similar reaction. I think for me
it has a lot to do with the fact I
was sexualized at such a young age, and even now,
the sexualized perception an Asian woman has me on edge
with most men I meet. I'm very, very weary when

(26:05):
I get head on, because the majority of the time,
I'm gonna say probably seventy at the time that I
get hit on, it begins with where are you from? Right? No? No,
but where are you from? Really? And or no, no,
where is your family from? Because I like to mess
with people. I'm like, I'm from Ella j Georgia. No no, no,
no no. But I mean, if I actually look at

(26:26):
all of these things, I automatically assume it's not sincere.
And again, it's kind of like you have a motive
for telling me this. And I will say, even my father,
my adoptive father, who I love and is my father,
would tell me things about how great I am or whatever,
and I would get so uncomfortable because I know you
don't like it, and it it would walk away trying to
tell me. But he needs to tell me, I think,

(26:48):
because he is a good father, trying to raise a
self worth and within myself. But to me just automatically
came hum manipulating me as you were saying, and or
are this is something that I can't control and you're
gonna use this against me? Right? Yeah, exactly. And when

(27:08):
your value is defined through your desirability to someone else,
and it's this super narrow window, UM that for a
lot of us is out of our reach. It's hard
not to internalize that and turn it into failure like
we were talking about in our very first episode in
the series, and to low self worth in two Feelings
of Shame. And as I've said before, I'm a big

(27:31):
cause player and kind of alluding back to what we
were talking about. This episode has made me think a
lot about how I love to dress and sexy cosplay
sexy outfits, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that,
but it did make me think about how children might
be perceiving it and why I feel like I can

(27:54):
only be sexy when I'm not me a k A
slut owen from um Mean Girls? Is that from Mean Girls? Yeah?
She jokes, and she's like, you're you're punishing she jokes,
but you're punishing these girls for being sexy. But it's
the only time they're allowed to be sexy, that it's

(28:16):
like sanctioned that they can do this. Um. I mean,
I agree with that. It's kind of hard for me
to dress up in general because of that. UM. You
and I have been talking a lot about Dragon Con
and cosplay and I and I told you one of
the reasons I don't attend these things as an Asian woman,
I'm scared about those who are infatuated with Asian culture

(28:41):
slash Sailor Moon anime and the that that automatically puts
me on edge because the conversations that turn into women,
Asian women wanting to be this, this and this, and
it's all very sexualized, and it's all very to me
almost the meaning. And also you got to remember a
majority of my trauma came from in Korea, So automatically,

(29:01):
I'm just yeah, Asian culture means I'm going to get
molested or sexualized in or sexually harassed. So it does.
It kind of puts you in one edge. But at
the same time, I do want to look sexy, but
how do I do that without feeling like I'm gonna
bring on a male perspective that's going to make me
feel gross? Right? And I mean we hear that all

(29:24):
the time, what was she wearing? So of course you're
gonna start to think about it, worry about it a
little bit more. And it's something like Giant Con, which
has a hundred thousand people come out and a lot
of them are in sexy clothing. It feels more like
I can do this. I'm the only one. Right. You

(29:45):
have a little more security in a group as well. Right.
And that's not to say terrible things that happened at conventions.
And we'll probably the reason we've been talking about this
because we're work shopping an episode perhaps around it. I'm
gonna stay for it. I'm gonna day forever. M. But
in the meantime we have a little bit more for you.
But first we have a quick break for a word

(30:05):
from our sponsor, M, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So,
sexualization has also been linked to sexual health, decreased use
of condoms, and decreased sexual assertiveness, which is really important

(30:26):
when you're talking about consent. Actually, that's a great conversation
in the myths of what is virginity, and I know
we're gonna talk about that later on, but that's kind
of how the link. People don't expect to have sex,
so therefore if they don't carry around condoms, that means
they're not sexually active, and then they fall into this
whole trap up lah, and then if they do other things,

(30:47):
everything but sex, I'm safe, right, right? Oh? No. Study
found that by the age of six, girls were already
feeling the pressure to be sexy when shown at all
on a sexy, revealing outfit and wanting a fashionable, trendy outfit,
of the girls said the sexy one looked more like

(31:07):
how she wanted to look, and seventy two said the
sexy one was more popular for young girls and women.
Sexiness is more commonly linked to popularity. I mean, if
you look at Instagram, it seems like that's right, because
one of the highest following is um I don't even
know her name. Is it Kindall Dinner? Are you looking

(31:28):
at me? I think is Kindall Jenner, who is a
part of the Kardashian Dinner family, and she was the
highest followed or the most followed on Instagram right until
the egg. Thank God for the egg. I'm just playing.
I'm sure she's a great girl. I don't know anything
about her, but all honesty, this perception of her being

(31:50):
sexy and her being able to be a model, and
her being able to make money off her looks has
been her whole thing, and people and people sponsored them
or specifically because they know they have this giant following. Yeah,
and back when I worked primarily in YouTube, and I'm

(32:11):
going to preface this and say it has changed a lot,
but when I first started, there was a like an
official suggestion to show cleavage in your thumbnails that you'd
use on YouTube videos because they got more clicks. Now
it's opposite, they punish you for doing that. Another thing
that we talked about in our cosmetic surgery episode is

(32:32):
how middle and high schoolers are more likely to get
cosmetic surgery these days, especially as a graduation gift. Uh yeah,
And I found a couple of studies and think pieces
that suggested sexualization has negatively impacted our ability to have
friendships women cutting off other women, um cutting them down
over their looks, viewing each other as competitors. For men,

(32:55):
are platonic relationships between men and women, where in a
heteronormous ends anyway, one person is always in the back
of their head thinking sex could come from this. I
have a friend who super subscribes to this belief that
there's no in her mind, somebody in a platonic man
woman friendship is willing to have sex with the other person.

(33:18):
Maybe they don't want to, but they're like, you know, well,
today you just met one of my really close guy
friends who has been my friend for over many years,
origenerally with at that um. But there definitely it wasn't
so much us, it was everyone else around us that
was thinking, are you guys. You guys aren't living with
each other, You guys are good for each other. Why

(33:38):
aren't you dating? You should be dating. And we were
very happy for the fact that we were close friends,
and I still call him one of my best friends
to the day, and his wife think goodness is also
a good friend. So none of that weirdness. But I
will say it's such a weird phenomenon to have someone
in the back of your head telling you what you
should fill. Yeah, but that's a whole different factor as

(34:00):
we Also we were talking about the competitiveness between women
the housewives earlier. That's kind of the whole spain who
not necessarily from men, but who looks better, who looks younger,
who has more? Who it does more, I guess because
it's such a weird thing that every woman needs to
outshine other women because apparently that's the only competition that's

(34:20):
sarcastic by the way, and also I want to say
I have plenty of male friendships that I truly believe
very very platonic and very wonderful. And I know I
have a bad track record, but I also feel like
I I do have those friendships and they can't exist.
But the point being, I can totally see the argument

(34:42):
that this sexualization aspect does impact friendships. Also, again, just
like the example that I gave with my friend, there's
an expectation of beyond us who are in this relationship
that it should be for the reason other than it
makes sense that they're together rather than single, right And
I we talked about this in our fan fiction episode,

(35:04):
and I could go. I think I could give a
lecture on fiction, on man fiction, and on why there's
so many romances in our media. And it's because when
you introduce a woman and a man into a situation,
they can't just be friends. Because that's what we've creators
and producers have said forever, like, there's never just a

(35:26):
man and a woman that are friends. They always end
up together. Therefore, if you add a woman into the situation,
because we all know that the main character has got
to be a man, then people are always going to
be expecting them to end up together. So they put
a man as the best friend, and then there's romance.
I guess that's how Friends ended up having all the
characters date each other, whether it made sense or not,

(35:47):
because they can't just be friends. I told you that.
That's one of my biggest pet peeves as far as
L G B, t q I and homophobia. This whole
thing plays into the ma sho men don't share their feeling,
don't hug other men thing out of fear being labeled
as a homosexual or effeminate um. And that also plays

(36:07):
into the the bromance. Oh conversation, I really want to
talk about that soon. I'll help you. I'll be here
for that in the studio right here. And another thing
that we wanted to talk about is the Lolito effects.
So you you know a lot more. You knew a

(36:30):
lot more off the bat about this, and I knew
about it once you explained it to me. But so
if we look at Roy Moore, GOP nominee for Senate,
accused of pursuing women in their teams while he was
in his thirties, that's kind of a modern day and
this happens all the time, right, example of the lolit effects. Right,
So the loally effect. So when we're talking about the

(36:54):
Lolito effect, where we would loosely define what we're talking
about by referencing the no voll Lolita by Vladimir Nobukov,
who's protagonists obsess about a twelve year old who he
calls a nymphet or the nymphet. And if you are
a if you were or are an English major, you

(37:16):
already know about this book and about the people say
this is their favorite book. I understand it is a
well written book, but so was The Butterfly that pell
Butterfly was a great book by him too, By the way,
I wanted to find an alternative, but um, I think
everything about this book makes me angry, and I don't

(37:38):
care how many English majors, sorry guys, love it. The
term is often used as a reference as to a
young female who seduces older men. So when we're talking
about R. Kelly, he is a prime example of saying
these younger women who he has power over are suited
seeing him, which, by the way, has been an argument

(37:59):
four years about why a fourteen year old or twelve
year old can have a consent because they seduced me.
And I'm a forty year old man, and they have
power over me, which is amazing. You can be a
president that you don't have a power over fourteen year
old right, which is problematic um because perpetrators try to
use this as a justification of wrongdoing. That's what I see,

(38:21):
and I've heard on many occasions, like I said, where
finders will say she acted older than she was and
she came on to me. Let's be very clear and
just a quick reminder, miners cannot consent. That is law.
Let's just automatically put that out there, because one of
the things that made me so angry and what I've

(38:41):
seen beyond anything else, is this whole idea that a fourteen, fifteen,
sixteen year old who came on to year old we're
trying to seduce them. Let's be again, and you and
I talked about the fact that Daddy is use and
that's the whole conversation that we can have, which is

(39:03):
also a really gross term as well, about how we're
seeking out approval in older men, and if you really
want to put it in a real conversation, I think
older men take advantage of that situation because between a
fourteen year old and a twenty five year old. I'm
going to blame the twenty five year old. This is

(39:23):
what I talk about when we hear about the nymphete.
It has been an old term and an old excuse
to abuse young women essentially. Yeah, and something else that
we need to talk about is the hyper sexualization of
girls of color and that tends to come with the
belief that they will not perform well academically. And to

(39:46):
be clear, hyper sexualization is when a combination of multiple
sexualized attributes are present. Black women, Latino women, spicy latinas,
the finish around Asian women like you were talking about
Middle Eastern belly dancers. Women of color are hyper sexualized
intermedia and in our society, and this has led to
a long dark past of rape, for serialization and trafficking.

(40:09):
And like I said before about the Asian fetish, which
is the people I try to avoid. Um, it's definitely
at the forethought of when I consider going on date
with someone. I think I have that as part of
my profile. So you've ever seen my profile that if
a your first question is where am I from or be?
Your second question is will I dress up as an

(40:31):
anime character? Please don't talk to me like it literally
is something on my profile because I've had some random
requests Oh my gosh, Like I haven't had any dick pics.
I definitely had weird Asian fetish requests. It's a wild
world out there. I can't wait to learn more about it.
I mean. And on top of that, if you look

(40:51):
at the women of color who are sexual life, that's lower.
I think you and I talked about the whole racial
day being phenomenon and that white women are the end goal,
and then the women of color are like, Okay, yeah,
but that's kind of that's over sexualization of you want
something pure and chase as whereas women of color are

(41:15):
probably more sexual and deviant and therefore impure. Yeah that
I mean again another whole other conversation. Yeah, there's a lot,
there's a lot of play here. Another thing is a
lot of studies have shown that the sexier you dress,
no matter your gender, the more likely you are to
be viewed as incompetent. And it's a trap because, as

(41:38):
I've said before, we don't respect women in our culture.
And if your value is in your desirability towards men,
but the more desirable a k a. Sexy you are
the less competently you are viewed. You're seen as an
object whose only worth is defined by someone else. That's
a mirage of power, but that is not real power.

(41:58):
You know what. I don't understand that because when you
look at some of the sexualized horn and all of that,
women like librarians and teachers who actually don't dress that
sexy are are automatically sexualized. It's kind of this whole
thing of like wanting to corrupt I guess a power figure,

(42:21):
and that could be a whole other conversation about male
female dominance or whatever you're edifice rex complex, oh my gosh.
On top of that, sexualization impact concentration and the ability
to perform task and one study, participants were given ten
minutes to take a math test in either a swimsuit
or a sweater. The test results while in the swimsuit

(42:44):
were way worse for the female participants, but not for
the male participants. For the women, comparing themselves to the
beauty standard in their head got in the way of
them concentrating on the math problems. Other studies on young
girls show that those that report higher levels of internalized
sexualization are more likely to spend time on their physical

(43:07):
appearance as opposed to their academic requirements. US interesting study. Yeah, yeah,
I was looking at um getting ready for like a
trivia thing or a test, and you have like ten
minutes to prepare something. Um, and the girls who showed
higher level levels of sexualization were more likely to spend

(43:29):
time putting on makeup as opposed to studying or preparing
for what they were about to do. According to the study,
I'm a genius because genius, And yeah, I got no
problem with putting on makeup. But it is like when
you think about how much time and money goes into it,
you know what. So I also bartend on the side.

(43:49):
I have like ten jobs. Everybody have ten jobs. When
it comes to bartending, I do dress up a little
more and make sure that I'm a little more personable
and flirty in order to get more money. So that
makes sense. Yeah, And all of this helps nurture so
called rape culture and does and its most destructive form

(44:13):
results in sexual assaults and abuse and sex trafficking. And
if you want some depressing numbers on that one and
twenty million girls around the globe have been victims of
forced sexual acts and rape in the US around eleven
percent of high school girls report that they have been
raped and again, and this is one of the most
underreported things, especially in high school and middle school. I'm

(44:35):
gonna put that in there, and honestly, some elementary schools, um,
they don't even understand what rape is, right, and yeah,
but keep going. Yeah. One of the main reasons young
women give for not coming forward when it comes to
sexual assault is that they did not think it was
serious enough. And it's one of the reasons I didn't

(44:56):
come forward. And that and the fear of not being
leaves everything we're talking about laze into that, right, So
let's talk about my masturbation. Okay, yeah, cool, let's do this.
I'm ready talking about women, society and sex. I didn't
know women could masturbate till I was in college. It
makes it kind of sad for you. I'm not gonna lie.

(45:17):
It was a bummer. I I literally remember exactly the
moment we were playing never Have I Ever, and I thought,
you know what, this will be funny. And then everyone
was like, what did it become awkward? Did you make
things awkward? I usually do, that's what we're friend. I
thought you could only get sexual pleasure with a partner,

(45:40):
probably a man. Well, for me, masturbation was something I
knew about in the age of five, if not earlier.
I'm just gonna say five as an estimate. I think
because of that, the shame factor remained for me well
until after college. Part of that due to my religious
upbringing and the fact that you're you're not supposed to
have sexual thoughts and for women, you're not supposed to
be sexual and general. And now as a late thirty something,

(46:04):
I see this is a great way of avoiding bad
dating situations. And it's so much more time efficient just
to be real and and now let's get this done. Yeah.
I had to do a lot of research recently on
the history of dialders, and so until the twentieth century,

(46:28):
physicians and men at large in Europe in the United
States thought women did not experience sexual desire pleasure like
legitimately thought scientifically they don't. That's how they exercise demons
was by masturbating women. Historically, well, that's why the dildo
was invented because of tired male physician fingers. Back in

(46:51):
the eighteen and early sex stories for women were actually
more commonly talked about and advertised but it was under
euphonistic names, and they started to be more commonly sold
in the sixties is what they really were under the
name of what they really were. That's when we see
all of this anxiety around them build up and around
the female liberation that they were associated with. If you

(47:12):
think about it, even now, we sometimes call them massagers.
We call them in the state of Georgia of senity laws.
Until like two years ago, very recent you could not
sell sex stories. You could sell novelty items from marital
aids because marital aids, because you had to be in
a relationship. Ladies, if you're gonna want this thing, I

(47:33):
will say I did help a girl who had just
gotten married and couldn't quite understand, well not quite understand,
but couldn't quite get there with her husband, and we
bought a sex way for her for her and her
husband to enjoy together. But she needed that for her pleasure, right,
And yeah, totally use them for marital aids. If we
look at something like Fifty Shades of Gray, which did

(47:55):
so much to bring awareness to six stories, it was
in the context of a man using them on a woman.
Even the name sex toy makes women's pleasure sound like
it's a childish pursuit. Advertising for sex toys when you
do see them, it often does shy away from the
fact that women could use them by themselves, terrifying almost

(48:17):
trying to reassure men you're not going to be replaced
dudes calling them Mary delaides things like that, And the
first male designers up dildos thought women just wanted longer
penises longer, yeah, longer, as they made dildos much longer
than like an average male penis. No, no, men are

(48:40):
obsessed with penis like I mean, honestly, it's not about
the size, It's about the motion and the ocean. Am
I right? Ladies? Huh okay, can't we get a rim shot?
Ever since me too. We're perfectly able to talk about
women being assaulted, raped or harassed, and this aim of

(49:00):
women being preyed on sexually by men, but we still
can't talk about women being able to have sexual agency
and find pleasure on their own. That's still so uncomfortable
for us. The whole reason I did this research is
because of the o say sex toy um that won
an award at this year's CS and then the awarders
are sended because quote, it was probably obscene, profane, are immoral.

(49:26):
I like that that's being labeled for a sex toy,
literally something that is supposed to be only done with
a man. If you want to talk about morality according
to the Bible, which right, that's where morality has to
come from. That or the law which in the US
kind of based it on the Bible. They do, even
though in theory we have separation of church and state. Yes,

(49:47):
but apparently we don't care. Nope. And you can even
take this argument as it pertains to healthcare. The idea
that erectile dysfunction pills are covered by insurance and money
is thrown studies looking into rectile dysfunction. Birth control, on
the other end, is so regulated that you'd be astounded

(50:07):
at how recently we've even started looking at the female
body and other ways of birth control, right, I mean,
when you talk about Plan B, that's such a taboo
statement in itself, and then you and I are talking
about getting birth control before it gets taken away from us.
Yeahthing happened, as well as the fact that it just

(50:30):
recently became a thing as being preventative. I don't quite
understand that because how is it not preventive if you
if you don't if you want less abortion, I know,
don't conceive. I guess that's the whole absentence thing, which
by the way, is ridiculous, right, And that's a whole
conversation around um, because I have a lot of friends

(50:52):
that are very Catholic and that it is viewed in
in their religion, or at least in there, because I
know different churches are more or less liberal or whatever.
But um, I come from a very conservative town, and um,
I know that bird control was seen as like a
boarding right. And I've definitely had discussions with friends of

(51:13):
mine who say that any kind of hormones that prevent
anything or kill off sperm, as they would say, is abortion,
and therefore they don't believe in it, in which my
face does if you can see my faces, and what
the hell? Mode? Yeah, And I have to be like,
you're a reasonably college educated woman, what right? What the hell?

(51:35):
Most should be a snapchat filter? Who can work on that?
I want money for it? Okay? Well, okay, so we'll
work on it and then we'll sell it for for
top dollar. So I guess we're going to embarrass ourselves
even more because we're talking about sex toys, we're talking
about preventatives. So if we're not going to have sex,
but we feel sexual sex toys is in this but

(51:57):
the next best option, yeah right. Um, And I will
say before I talk about that, very briefly, I was
prescribed birth control at fourteen for migraines, you know what
I think. And then there was the yeas that was
prescribed for acne. Yes, but I did experience very negative

(52:22):
side effects extremely and so I haven't used it since.
I will say I've had issues with birth control where
I was laid out because I was experiencing vertigo so
badly that I could not sit up and I had
to be like this, this is not working. This is
not working. And I've had to go through one, two, three,
four different forms before I figured out watch which one

(52:44):
I liked. Yeah, yeah, it's a it could be a difficult,
intimidating process. But and as we were the minute, like hey,
it's fine, you got this control. But if we look
at sex toys by sex toys, which is why I

(53:04):
don't want to talk to none, keep going back to
sex toys. So when I got my first vibrator, I
was in college and I was about to move to China,
and I had already been there for eight months, but
it came back to the United States to graduate make
some arrangements, moved back to China, and some of my
best expat lady friends in China very strongly recommended getting

(53:28):
a vibrator while I was in the US. In their words,
I would not be having much sex, if any, while
I was in China, and vibrators weren't hard to come by.
I don't know if this is true, but that is
what they told me, and they said it was a
lot of conviction. And I was at a party and
with a little liquid courage. This is in the United
States before I go back to China. I asked some

(53:49):
of the women who were at the party, who I
didn't know very well, by the way, for their recommendations,
and they had so many, so many cocommendations. And at
the time, I was the only women in my in
my dorm, so it was five stories. I'm the only woman.
Georgia Tech was Georgia Tech dudes um And there was

(54:13):
an insurrection, which is a six toy shop which sounds
like a sex toy does. And it was across the
street and it had this blue and pink blinking light
that kept me up all night. I remember when my
parents moved me in. My dad was like, what is that?
And I was shying to like, oh nothing, man, don't
worry about that. You should be like, it's a candy
store next, you know, just Atlanta. Don't worry about it.

(54:37):
There's lights around. And that's where I went, and the
male salesman followed me around the entire time, a new vary, uncomfortable,
exactly how you should have this experience? Right? I got
a blue in a shaped thing called devolved. Well you
remember this clearly, I do remember. God. I was like,
I've never been before. I mean, I get it. It

(54:59):
is play on d loved like you don't need love.
And when I checked out, he made it. He put
the batteries in and he made me like hold it
and showed that it worked because you can't return them,
you know, and I blushed so hard. Demonstrated it for you.
He made me like say, yes, it works. Okay, okay,
none of that makes sense, but as like a like

(55:20):
a sells approach that you can't complain about it. Yeah,
but that's still creepy. Oh man, um and for me
as a sexually repressed religious girl, I actually didn't have
one until my twenties and it was actually given to
me by a roommate. It was brand new, so don't
worry about that if you, if you need to know,

(55:41):
UM And that was the only one I had for years.
Obviously it was a good one. I was happy with it,
and then I discovered the wonderful, wonderful world of online shopping.
I think the only sex store I had actually gone
to was in Paris, in the red light district, and
when which I was accompanied by an adorable gay boy
who was dismayed I had never been to one before.

(56:02):
He had to take me there and I was like, okay,
And to be honest, I don't really remember it. It
was so I was so embarrassed. It kind of turned
into a blur. And uh, definitely I've been since I
kind of told you the story about the married girl
who was trying to help and get a sex way.
But even then, I mean, even now, even though I'm

(56:23):
very open about sex and more willing to explore or
talk about it because I think it's important, it still
it still feels really uncomfortable to go into a building
with all of those darkened windows. If you think there's
a couple of stores here that seemed to both sexualized
Asian people, you know what I'm talking about, as well
as trying to make it fancy. But I'm like, no,

(56:45):
I can't, I can't. That's everything I'm against in some
type of way of form. But I'm surely that's some
nice things. But honestly, online shopping has been my sex
toy saving grace. Think's Internet. Thanks Internet, It's for providing
all the good things I need without having to go
into a darkened store where a man has to show

(57:07):
me how to use it right. Well, and I've told
you before I move on briefly that recently one of
my favorite memories very embarrassing, but I enjoy it. Me
and a group of my best friends went to a
Harry Potter party and I was dressed like to the
nines and my Harry Harry Potter her money kind of outfit.

(57:31):
And there's a lot of drinking involved and it my
friend had just broken up with her boyfriend whom she
was very much in love with, very miserable, and she
wanted to go to a get purchased sex story and
past the man she vomited inside the store. And I

(57:52):
have a picture of me dressed as her money inside
a sex store, like comforting my friend. And it's one
of my favorite pictures ever. And you're about to get
so many emails from random guys saying, send me that picture.
It's really it's top nuts, it's stop nutch. But anyway,

(58:13):
something else we wanted to bring into this conversation around
this embarrassing conversation as we admit to things virginity. But
I will say right at the top, defining virginity is difficult,
and I wouldn't say there is one definition. It's mostly
been defined as penetrative penis and vagina sex, but that

(58:33):
is changing, not only because it's extremely narrow, but it
also loves out l G B t q I folks.
And we discussed in our Bad Sex episode how some
young folks think of it as their first orgasm. And
just to be clear, there is no medical definition for this,
you know what. And I find it really interesting a
lot of youngsters, I'm gonna say that as an old person,

(58:53):
would not classify anal sex as sex, and this is
kind of their loophole of staying of virgin which is um, Yeah,
that's not correct. Now, we're not going to say that
that's the same definition of at least it it's not
you're not a virgin, you've had a storm of sex,

(59:13):
which I think is the problematic point of what sex
is and why people don't talk about it, because you know,
what we need to talk about anal sex and how
it can or it can be used in a nice
way or an awful way, and you should have the
choice either way. But that's another story. So I'm gonna
stop now. Yeah, And something that I've brought up a

(59:37):
lot recently is the fact that we teach women and
young girls that having sex will be painful the first time,
like you should expect it to hurt, that you should
expect to plead, which used to be the test to
tell if a woman was a virgin if she bled,
And sometimes that will happen, sometimes it won't. In either case,

(59:58):
the bleeding is usually very minimal. UM. Some women will
so stitches into their vaginas to make sure that they
bleed so someone will think they're a virgin. UM. Someone
would use artificial hymen's that bleed red die bleed in quotes,
um or cosmetic surgery called hymenoplasty, which some countries have

(01:00:18):
labeled as female genital mutilation. Some women won't go to
a guidecologist because they don't want to quote lose their
virginity there um or ride a bike. They won't put
it tampons in. It's fantastic all those urban legends about
there are so many, so many, like I know all
of these. I just sat and really thought about all

(01:00:38):
of them. That you have a friend of a friend
who sat on a bike and she lost her virginity.
You know, like, wait, what that help? I think then
as a child is terrifying. I'll never ride a bike again.
But why And it's such a strange concept to me,
tying virginity to virtue, like sacrificing a virgin to lose

(01:01:01):
your virginity, or he took her virginity, gave it up,
pop your cherry deflowered. All these things are negative and
a lot of them are kind of violent, and it's
definitely dismissive of an experience for a woman that should
be something on her own, be prized if it wants,
if they wanted to be and or whatever. Right, and

(01:01:22):
then we could also look at things like purity balls,
which are these big parties where young girls pledge their
virginity to their fathers, which I find very weird, but
okay until a suitable husband comes along. My niece's mother
asked me to come to her purity ceremony and I refused,
and it caused some trauma. I said, I would talk

(01:01:43):
to her about sex anytime, but I am not willing
to go to a purity ball. I have never participated
in in these, but it was interesting to see that
families saw this as a middle class celebration um as
of virtue and virginity was a profitable currency, which was
a thing way back when, and which is why they

(01:02:03):
pretended or tried to prove that they were a virgin.
And there's this almost unseid understanding sex is dirty and
lower class and ignorant, which isn't true because if you
really think about the conversations or when you talk about
women having sex, so she's she's a home, she she
gave it up to this guy, or she did this
to this guy, And it's usually a lot to do

(01:02:24):
with some type of socioeconomic status as well. Um and
I mean conservative groups still only believe in teaching absinence,
which leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. And I
think that's part of the reason, is that if you're
a good girl, if you're truly a middle class girl
with the virtue or up a middle class of virtue,
you won't need to know about sex because you're not

(01:02:46):
going to have sex and until it's right. Yeah, that's
a good point. And uh, another point of Annie not
knowing anything about culture unless it's marvel at it related.
Isn't the bachelor right now in virgin Okay, now this
I have no idea. Reality shows are not my thing.

(01:03:08):
Oh is the heat that would be a bachelor not
the bachelored? Okay. Um. It caused a big stir on
Twitter because people are mad. They're like, why don't keep
calling him a virgin? Isn't this this is a negative?
It's perpetuating negative stereotypes about virginity. I mean, that's the
thing that is the other part that I think we

(01:03:29):
need to think talk about is virginity. And if that's
something that you believe in and that's something that you
hold true, that's not a bad thing either. Like you
do you and if you feel that you want to
be in a healthy place before you have sex. That's amazing.
Please do that, Please do that. So in no way
are we negating the fact that virginity can be a

(01:03:50):
good thing or is a good thing. But also we
want to put on the fact that people who stressed
that as an important is also misleading. Yeah, as if
it's the is it, it's your identifier, which is can
be unfortunate, right. Yeah. I think that this timeline we
have is very stressful to a lot of people because

(01:04:12):
they feel like by this age, I should have done
this and it. Yes, I think it's much more important
to be in a healthy place to be with someone
you like. Forget about that timeline other terms like popping
the cherry, breaking the hymen. That is not how it works.
But it is an incredibly enduring myth, so much so
that the Sweetest Association for Sexuality Education started using the

(01:04:35):
term vaginal corona as an alternative to hyman in two
thousand and nine because people misunderstand it so much. And
I remember when I was in Europe in college and
I was living with mostly Belgium university students, but some Spanish, French, British, German,
all kinds people from all over and they all reported

(01:04:56):
a very different experience and expectation around Loo seeing your virginity,
mostly that it wasn't a big deal, probably wasn't great,
Maybe you wouldn't even remember it, as opposed to here
in the u S where we build up this whole
losing your virginity thing to be immagical once in a
lifetime experience. That just puts more pressure on something that

(01:05:17):
is already full of pressure. International listeners, please right in
and let us know if that If that is the case,
this is just what I heard anecdotally from people I
was living with for a long time. When people would
ask me when I lost my virginity, I would go
through these mental hoops to not define what I had
been through as losing my virginity. Oh yeah, well, I'm

(01:05:39):
pretty much Liz Lemon from Dirty Rog, in which she
awkwardly jokes she jokes about being mid twenties, which was
myself as well, and losing it awkwardly, Oh, it sounds
like you would to fit in with my European friends.
That that's exactly what they were telling me. Was probably
pretty bad. You don't know what you're doing here in experience,
I was gonna say that, wasn't it didn't necessarily hurt,

(01:06:00):
but at the same not like, is this it? I'm
gonna go back to that vibrator my friend gave me. Okay,
all right, guys. On the flip side of this Madonna
horror situation, yeah, is the horror or the slut um
shaming is so prevalent and it leads to things like
revenge posts when an ex post news or suggestive pictures

(01:06:21):
on social media, and this could cost someone their job,
can lead to self harming and suicidal ideation. Um, yeah,
it's any news I don't think makes me so angry
when people are like, well, she shouldn't have said it. Yeah,
well you shouldn't have posted it, right. Cool. We talked
about in our Sexism and Language episode how so many
words in the English language went from meaning women of

(01:06:42):
power to essentially prostitute, because how else could a woman
have any power in her vagina? Yes, well, recently a
slutty vegan opened near us, and it got both of
us thinking about all this weirdness around that words. But like,
you should be ashamed that you like it, like hid

(01:07:05):
how much you like get strange. There's also an egxcelet
in Vegas too, that is a similar marketing campaign. I
guess it seems like it's trying to make food sexy,
which then again goes to perpetuate. Is this a thing
that we want to sell something? Does it sell better
because they're sexy, slutty? Whatever? And you you can control that.

(01:07:29):
I mean, when it comes to slut shaming, let's talk
about enjoying sex and the misconception that women's orgasm isn't important,
which let's all agree this is a sham. Traditionally, women's
sexuality is about procreating, and as someone who has no
desire for children, that's me. That is not my objective.
And I like sex. I mean, I'm gonna be very

(01:07:54):
honest and tell you I start becoming fairly frustrated and
feel like I'm missed out on quite a lot because
I waited so late and having sex and and actually
having good sex. Let's say that, and I will state
that I absolutely again I enjoy sex and uh went
without it long enough. I mean, I'm now I'm just

(01:08:15):
now I'm too awkward to do the hook up thing
because I don't know how to do that, and there
are days I just need someone, as I'd like to say,
just someone to lay on me. That's my stratement. And
as a strong woman, we've come far along when it
comes to understanding our own pleasures and ability to state
what we want. But I think we don't exercise that

(01:08:36):
as a conversation enough. Um. I think when it comes
to really wanting to pleasure ourselves. And I will say
for me, part of that is also hoping that the
partner also feels pleasure by me, obviously, but to have
that conversation of like, I don't actually like this, I

(01:08:56):
do actually like this. I don't want you to do
with that ever again with that conversation or actually stopping. No, no, nope,
you can't do that. You know what I mean. And
let's talk about DJ Kalen. Let you know what I mean.
I'm want to say, hey, man, you need to learn
to play pleasure a woman because your wife deserves it.

(01:09:16):
So being dumb, you had to explain this to me,
So maybe explain it to your listeners who might not.
I will say. DJ Khaled was it on an interview
at a radio station in which he talked about oral sex,
and yes he gets the oral sex from his wife,
but he doesn't give oral sex to his wife because
he feels like he doesn't have to. He's the man, right,

(01:09:38):
And I think everybody kind of lost their mind about that,
including Nicki Minaj. She puts that in her like one
of her rep songs. She's like, I'm done with you
because you refuse to pleasure your wife. I mean, that
is a conversation. If you want a good marriage this
day and time, it should be equal in all things,
and that includes sex. And I know that I have

(01:10:00):
some friends who don't like receiving oral sex for whatever reason,
um whether they get too self conscious or whatever it is.
But if if it is something you like, then that
should be a part of a healthy relationship, right and
not because he thinks he's the man and he doesn't
have to exactly. Another thing that we need to talk about, unfortunately,

(01:10:21):
is honor killings. Almost always, this is a situation where
a man is killing a woman for bringing him and
or his family and her family usually dishonor maybe the
woman falls for someone the family doesn't approve of, maybe
she leaves her abusive husband. About one thousand women a
year died this way in Pakistan, about five thousand worldwide,

(01:10:43):
and appens in the US too, And it's absolutely terrifying.
It deserves its own whole episode, but I wanted to
include it here because it does illustrate how we view
women and their agency. And they're right and that honor
is again a currency for the family, and I think
that's an important conversation about how women's virtue is not

(01:11:08):
necessarily about the woman, but it's about the family, which
is an absurd idea in itself. UM. And we can
also talk about semicide, which has been the newest label
for men killing women because the women refused to do
what they want essentially and or make them mad or
upset however you want to say it, which is part

(01:11:29):
of that as well. Yeah, and if we look at
the l g B t q I community on our
violence is on the rise when it comes to UH,
particularly gay men, but the whole community. So it is
something that is frightening and we should definitely come back

(01:11:51):
and revisit that topic. But we have a little bit
more for you, but first we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor m H and we're back,
Thank you, sponsor, And we're back with UM. A depressing

(01:12:13):
topic but one that is necessary, and it is rape
culture because society sex and women, you've got to talk
about rape culture. A survey conducted by the United States
Department of Justice from two thousand looking into sexual victimization
of college women, found that less than five percent of
rapes experienced by the women participating have been reported. Less
than five percent, and the number one reason they gave

(01:12:35):
for not reporting is not believing the crime was serious
or bad enough. Going back to what we said earlier,
which is taught to us women or people who are
victims children as well, that this is actually true. You
need to calm down. It's not like you got murdered. Yeah,
it's not as bad as this other thing. Um. And

(01:12:55):
the media, the media is so key and perpetuating this
pop culture rewards both persistence and passiveness when it comes
to men with women, like the nice guy who quote
deserves it or is entitled to it. Yeah, like if
they bought you a nice fancy then or treated you nice,
that means you need to put out also a gross term.

(01:13:17):
I want to say that it is um. And then
there's this whole thing of women as sexual gatekeepers, a
virgin in the streets, but a freak in the bed,
that type of thing. Jokes about men with tiny penises
are bad at pleasing women equates to their worth as
well doing the nice guy thing of treating women like people.
The woman thinking this is a friendship, Oh my god,

(01:13:39):
that's me, and the nice guy thinking this lack of
sex after doing everything right. It's a judgment on his
masculinity and an adequateness, and that is tied to his value.
And I would love the five. I roll up on
some men's profiles who say, I know you don't want
the nice guy. This is me, so you might as well, Like,
is so self approcating. I'm a nice guy, but I'm

(01:14:05):
really angry you won't choose me. And I'm like, I
don't think you're as nice as you think you are. Yes,
oh yes, um, things like friend zone or forty year
old virgin. If we look at those things defining men's
value as their ability to quote land a hot woman
in their lives, women always end up with jerks in
these things, a k someone who is not the nice guy,

(01:14:26):
because we have to be more forgiving. And these mean
guys are probably nice, but for the men, you definitely
deserve that hot girl who was the whole catch. Great job,
great seems of humor. All that things right, Yes, yes,
who definitely exists? That's you right, that's what I heard,
Thank you, thank you. She doesn't exist. Um, as long

(01:14:48):
as women are afraid men will kill them or violence
will ensue, they say polite nose, which are misinterpreted as maybes,
and we punish women for their sexuality but tell men
they're entitled to it. As long as that's going on,
this is going to continue. We make jokes about men
who are sexually inexperienced and unsatisfying and about women being loose,

(01:15:10):
so we're punishing the opposite of we're creating the situation.
And also, yeah, lack of access to birth control, abortion services,
lack of sex said, and a little line item called
pregnancy white makers a little nervous. That's how I trapped
my men. I'm just playing. I'm just playing. I just

(01:15:30):
love that stigma though that I would I would get
pregnant and snare you. And I'm like, no, no, that
sounds like a lot of a lot of work and
a lot of pain and probably a lot of money
sacrificing all of that for you. Yeah. Um, hypothetical guy,
hypothetical man out there. I really can't stress enough that

(01:15:52):
we are perpetuating a cycle where and no one is happy.
Men think they're entitled to sex. Women are faced with
multitude of obstacles that in their way for them wanting
it and or enjoying sex. They're at a violence, loss
of reputation or job, lack of birth control or access
to reprotective health that might lead to pregnancy, followed up
with lack of access to abortion. We get called withholding.

(01:16:14):
We might not want to be withholding or cold. We
have all of this stuff that impacts our sexual agency
or lack thereof. Again fan fiction. That's why I always
wrote male characters, because I didn't have to worry about
any of that stuff. With a male character I was.
I didn't even realize that's why I was doing it,
but that's why I was doing easier way to do it. Yeah,

(01:16:35):
And I think it's so hilarious that if we don't
have sex, we're withholding. Maybe I'm just tired, right, you know,
um and kind of to bring about the whole rape
culture um and trying to identify exactly what that looks like.
I do kind of want to talk about the disease
and sorry incident um in which we're talking about society's

(01:16:57):
expectation on women and um and what it looks like
to be at tease or being called to tease, and
a zeas and sorry incident, it's kind of what I
saw more than anything else. First of all, let me
go ahead and say that everyone, anyone has the right
to change their mind and when it comes to what
they want to do physically and emotionally. If I changed

(01:17:17):
my mind in the middle of the actual act of
having sex, and the overall reaction should be to stop,
no question. I remember there was a lot of confusion
with this accusation of a zeas and sorry versus the
Harvey Weinstein incident. I think that is partly due to
the fact that many women have gone through similar incidents
as the woman with I'm sorry dead, which then makes
individuals question was a victim too. So you have the

(01:17:41):
Harvey wind Steine incidents where it was forceful rape essentially
and or some type of violence were involved and threat um.
And it also comes down to the fact that they
it was actually said by one of the female correspondents
when it came to as ease and sorry, that this
was just a bad date essentially. Um. But if you

(01:18:05):
look at it that deeper, it's a little different. Uh.
I think even myself, I mean quicktics he's bad behavior
as just bad experiences or even giving into prolonged sexual
experience just to get it over with and not because
I wanted. Um. I think the bigger question is why
have we allowed this to be a state of being.

(01:18:28):
I think this also reiterates the feeling of guilt for
not having sex, whether it's because we think we owe
it because they bought me a fancy meal or there's
nice and they deserved this right like they earned it somehow,
not because I want to or because we don't want
to seem like a teeth and I know, ay, this
is something you talked about before, feeling guilty for not
wanting to actually have sex. And I think that's the incident.

(01:18:52):
What came down to with azeas I'm sorry, was the
fact that she kept saying no, but he kept going,
and so she finally just let it oh and let
it happen essentially, and and that became well, that was
just many of us have experienced that. That's just a
bad day. I mean, come on, just just get on

(01:19:13):
with it. This is a part of your decision. You
went home with him. You knew what he was about,
you knew what he was trying to do, and you
didn't fight him off, which I know we're going to
have that conversation later on. And again for her, she
didn't report because she felt guilty that this was something
that she had to do and so therefore wasn't his fault. Yeah,

(01:19:33):
the guilt of not wanting to have sex in my
last relationship was probably one of the main things that
destroyed it on both Like on my end, I felt
all the time guilty. Before we wrap up the section
on rape culture intersectional aside, I was recently listening to
coverage on Donald Trump's wall and there was a montage

(01:19:55):
of his supporters describing why they wanted the wall, why
they supported it, and almost all of them said they
didn't want their daughter, their wife, their mother to get
raped or one of the women interviewed said, I don't
want to get raped. Um, I am so tired of
hearing this for multiple reasons. If we look at just

(01:20:18):
the data, there's nothing to support this fear unless you
want to be real and discuss colonization, conquest, and rape
of women as a war tactic, and the fact that
women are yes, viewed as property, something that you can
use in war, that's different. But if we're looking at this,
there is no data. There is data to suggest we
already have a problem with sexual assault and rape see

(01:20:41):
the term rape culture, and we aren't doing anything about it.
The women and young girls, MN and boys in our
life need protection from their husband's, father's, teachers, priest, other
American men and women. And I know it's all politics,
it's easy scapegoat scary thing, but it makes me so angry.

(01:21:01):
I mean, this happened before the Civil War, where they
use ex slaves as predators for no reason other than
they needed predators. And so let's go ahead and use
these people of color, right exactly. Yeah. And I just
if you want to protect women, if you're serious about it,

(01:21:24):
start in our own borders. I mean, you can go
as simple as start within families. Yeah. And then on
a similar note, we hear something something kind of the
same when it comes to policing the bathrooms, especially when
it comes to trans people, something like, oh, I don't
want my little girl to get molested in the bathroom
by a trans person. Again, we have a problem. It

(01:21:47):
is not that, it is not that and That's what
makes me realize people don't understand what trans people, trans community,
what they're about. It's not about trying to be something else,
it is trying to be who they really should have
been to begin with. And I know I probably don't
have to say this to our audience, but there is
no data to back up that that isn't concerned none

(01:22:08):
at all. This is a political move as old as
time women interviewed his property. Men in power, mostly my
white men don't want anyone decreasing the value of their
property or going back to desirability youth and how we
value women and girls or don't, or as a way
to further punish a marginalized group, imprisoning or launching black

(01:22:30):
man for having sex or even being suspected of having
sex or not even but it's a great way to
wave up a crowd of men into violence with white women. Actually,
I just read today about the Liam Neeson isn't in
blaming black men in general after he found out a
friend of his had been accosted by a black man,
which makes me really sad because I really did like
Liam Neeson. And I'm sure there may be more context,

(01:22:53):
but that in itself tells you once again. Even in
today's society, we're quick to say, oh, yeah, that minority,
they're dead, only the bad people be afraid of them,
instead of working on the problem within our own community.
Um yeah, women's bodies are reserved for those in power,
and those in power legislate those bodies. And that's a

(01:23:14):
whole other thing when making decisions about what women can
and cannot do with their bodies. But anyway, I'm very
tired of hearing all of that. Um, we have enough problems.
Don't make up fake ones that start working on the
real thing. Well, well they've already made up the fake one.
Build the wall, right, yeah, yes, and we have We

(01:23:36):
have a little bit of advice for you, some resources. Um.
One one thing that would be great on a more
institutional level, but also personally, more research, um, particularly more
inclusive research education, particularly sex education. Be mindful of your media,
and especially the media we let our children consume. So

(01:23:59):
I to find the things that you like about your body.
If you're ever feeling negative, try to think of some
things like, you know what, maybe I don't like my thighs,
but I do like this other thing. You know. What's
best is to sit with your friends and have a
conversation about why this is silly. Yes, yeah, reach out
to your support group. I always suggest that a couple
of places are working on combating sexualization of young girls,

(01:24:21):
like the Gina Davis Institute on Gender and Media, Spark
s p A r K for Every Girl, Campaign Together
for Girls, the End Trafficking Project. So there are some
things that you can look up or support if this
is something that you're really passionate about. And as always,
as we end these episodes, please feel free to reach

(01:24:44):
out to us with your stories, um or if you
have any questions, if you need resources in your area,
we're very happy to help you as well as if
you have resources, we'd love to hear that. We want
more and more and more resources. Yeah. Or if you're
Sometimes people have written in and their community is doing
something really interesting but I've never heard it before. That's great.
We'd love to share that stuff as well. UM for

(01:25:07):
the D and D fact that the episode to end
on our self care bit so I'm carrying around a
torso and my bag of holding. You're you have a
you have a torso? Yeah? Concerned, I love, truly concerned

(01:25:27):
to anyone who hasn't played D n D. I love
how weird that statement must sound. You know that's the
weird statement, right, I know, it's strang Okay, okay, keep going.
So bag of holding, like if you've seen Harry Potter,
it's like Hermiones bag or she can fit all that
stuff in there. It's like a little bag, but it
can fit a ton of stuff and have a Torso.
So what happened was our party was questioning this guy

(01:25:52):
and he wasn't being cooperative. And while this was happening,
while we were questioning him, we were attacked by a
basilisk like you are, and we wanted to we weren't
none questioning him, so we were gonna, you know, put
him in the bag of holding. Uh, but he he

(01:26:13):
got turned to stone unfortunately, and his arms and legs
were kind of because the batilist he looked in the
eye turned him to stone. So I wanted to put
him in my bag of holding. And also to any
nerds out there, he was in stone because if you
put a living creature in the bag of holding, they
die in ten minutes. But he was stoned, so he

(01:26:35):
was going to be fine, but uh, we couldn't fit
him in because his arms and legs, so we broke
off his arms and legs. I'm starting to think this
is just like a Choose your Adventure book that you
guys are reading out loud with some dice something like that,
that's too far. But yeah, we broke off his arms

(01:26:55):
and legs and put him in my bag of holding.
He's still in there. We've mostly forgotten abou him, but
occasionally I remember or oh, yeah, there was a Torso
in here, stone Torso. But if we ever like turn
him not into stone, he's gonna awake screaming, bleeding. Probably
I'm going to bleed. I don't know if you does
it like okay, Well, I don't know the physics of

(01:27:16):
breaking off magically breaking off stone arm that turns back
into human. I don't know, but maybe we'll find out.
I feel like after your stuff, I have no real
good facts to add because mine is not in depth.
I can't talk about Peaches being in a bag. I mean,
that's not a thing, but I will talk about my

(01:27:39):
dog all day. Again, mine doesn't hold a candle to yours,
but whatever, um I will say. If anyone that would
like to meet Peaches, please be aware she gets so
excited and wants to impress you so much that she peace.
I think she did that with you first time, didn't
she Yeah? And I was like, and then I figured

(01:28:01):
out what was happening. And apparently this is not a
new thing for a lot of dogs. So I try
to get her to meet people outside, but she still
pieces everywhere. I don't quite understand it. I guess again,
they get so excited. And to be fair myself, when
I get really excited about something and if I already
need to be is over, I'm just playing. I'm just

(01:28:22):
kind of kind of but yeah, that's her thing as
well as the fact like she's also going to try
to eat your face because she's gonna jump towards your face,
and I wanted to eat your face is more of
like smell your face to see what she can see
in your face, like food and if you have beard,
oh my god, she's gonna start looking at your beard
because she knows you got fit food hidden in there.

(01:28:44):
You know, that's just facts. That's just facts. So if
you ever meet my dog, be prepared for all of
those things. Yeah. Yeah, what a way to impress someone.
What about you, listeners, what are you doing for self care.
Do you have any questions for us about all of this,
If so, please send them our way. We're thinking about

(01:29:06):
doing a Q and A episode if enough of you
right in, and also maybe an in person meet up
where you can talk to us about all of these things,
UM and D and D. I'll talk about D and
D all day and I just I just want to
hang out with people so I can say I have friends.
I say, look, mom, see I have friends. This is
all approved to your mom. Ye have friends in my

(01:29:26):
living room with peaches, eating beggie chips, watching Parson Rick
all day long, repeatedly. That was very specific. But I
believe that you don't do I don't do that. Perhaps perhaps,
but if you would like to your email as you can.

(01:29:47):
Our email is mom Stuff and has stuff works dot com.
You can also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff
Podcasts and on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You.
Thanks as always to our producer Andrew, and thanks to
you for listening. M

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