Peggy Orenstein

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[18] Hey, we have an exciting guest today.

[19] Peggy Orenstein, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and afar.

[20] Peggy has also written for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and the New Yorker.

[21] And his contributed commentaries to NPR's all things considered the Columbia Journalism Review named Peggy one of its 40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years.

[22] Her books include the New York Times bestsellers, Girls in Sex, Cinderella ate my daughter, waiting.

[23] for Daisy and her new book, Boys and Sex, Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating The New Masculinity.

[24] Please enjoy this delicious conversation with Peggy.

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[28] Peggy.

[29] Yes.

[30] Welcome.

[31] Thank you.

[32] Thank you for traveling today to come see us from Berkeley.

[33] Well, it wasn't very far.

[34] Farther than most of our guests are coming from.

[35] Yeah.

[36] Also, yeah, the flight's fine.

[37] What are we looking at?

[38] 45 minutes or something?

[39] 53, I believe.

[40] Okay.

[41] And did you go into Burbank?

[42] I did indeed.

[43] Okay.

[44] I'm smart that way.

[45] Yes.

[46] And if you can do that, then it's really, it's not terrible.

[47] It's practically like driving.

[48] And then flying out of Burbank takes all of 12 minutes.

[49] Exactly.

[50] Now, where are you from originally?

[51] Minneapolis.

[52] Oh, you are.

[53] We love people from Minneapolis.

[54] We're going to stereotype right now.

[55] We know Peter Krausa.

[56] We played brothers on TV, and he delivered on the stereotype immediately.

[57] I'm like, he is the nicest person I've ever met.

[58] We're nice.

[59] Yes, you really are.

[60] And then we did a live show last summer in Minneapolis.

[61] And again, it was the nicest group of people.

[62] Everyone there was just shiny and nice.

[63] Minnesota nice.

[64] It's real.

[65] What did your mom and dad do in Minneapolis?

[66] My dad was a lawyer.

[67] And my mom was a teacher and then a stay -at -home mom.

[68] And what kind of law did Dad do?

[69] You know, I spent many, many years sitting at the kitchen table, staring out the window, not listening to that.

[70] Okay.

[71] So something riveting, like intellectual properties or something?

[72] Like bankruptcy.

[73] He actually won a Supreme Court case that changed bankruptcy law.

[74] He did.

[75] Yes, he did.

[76] My dad, he did.

[77] And he's still, he's 93 now, so he's still around.

[78] That's so impressive.

[79] We all went.

[80] Oh, you went?

[81] We all went to watch him.

[82] You watched him.

[83] Wow.

[84] My whole family out.

[85] My brothers are also lawyers.

[86] Okay.

[87] How many brothers?

[88] I have two older brothers.

[89] Okay.

[90] Now, do you have little sister syndrome?

[91] Yes.

[92] Okay.

[93] I thought you were going to ask me if I had little sisters.

[94] Yes.

[95] Yeah.

[96] I think of my poor sister.

[97] I have a younger sister and I also have an older brother.

[98] And yeah, just growing up in a house with two boys and those being the people you were emulating, it's quite a, it's a very specific path.

[99] Yeah.

[100] But I think it's good.

[101] I mean, I always say this about, I think, when boys have sisters?

[102] Older sisters.

[103] Older sisters.

[104] Yes, I agree.

[105] It makes a big difference in who they are.

[106] Oh, I think that dynamic seems to predictably make the best boys.

[107] I really do think it does, to be honest.

[108] I really do.

[109] It's healthy to be around female early in your life who can kick your ass.

[110] I think that's probably true.

[111] And for me, I don't know.

[112] I'm just like a permanent sister.

[113] Uh -huh.

[114] Like I relate to just about like all guys like their sister.

[115] Right.

[116] Well, in your new book, you had really kind of, I can't even imagine you expected the level of access or the level of openness that these young men were giving you, right?

[117] Wasn't that it come as a shock to you?

[118] Yeah, it really did.

[119] I mean, I was really hesitant to do a book on boys.

[120] I'd been writing about girls for a long time for like 25 years.

[121] Right.

[122] And part of my hesitance was that I basically have like whole transcripts of, uh -huh.

[123] Yeah.

[124] Where had you gone to college and what did you major in?

[125] I went to Oberlin.

[126] Okay.

[127] And we weren't allowed to major in anything practical at that point.

[128] Okay.

[129] I think they've changed that a little bit.

[130] So I was an English major.

[131] Okay.

[132] That's a useful major.

[133] Could have sent you right to law school.

[134] That's true.

[135] Well, that was the whole thing.

[136] I imagine.

[137] That was that I was trying very, very hard to avoid going to law school.

[138] Did your father want you to pursue that?

[139] Yes.

[140] Yes.

[141] And, I mean, I think my parents kind of expected that I would be a lawyer's wife.

[142] Oh, okay.

[143] Maybe go to law school and catch a lawyer husband there.

[144] Perhaps.

[145] Yeah, but my brothers, my lovely big brothers, who were by that time, both, you lawyers or in law school, sort of ran interference for me. I kind of pictured them like big linebackers sort of thing.

[146] Not her!

[147] And I think also that I think that I got through on this kind of weird, like sexism worked in my favor in a funny way.

[148] Tell me how.

[149] Because I think my dad didn't think that I was going to really have to make a living.

[150] Right.

[151] So expectations were low?

[152] Yeah.

[153] And so they weren't really, A, they weren't really paying attention.

[154] But B, you know, kind of sneaking through and saying, I'm going to be a writer, wasn't as threatening, because somebody else would, you know, take care of me. Didn't work out that way.

[155] It didn't work out that way.

[156] So your dad probably grew up in the 30s, 40s?

[157] Yeah.

[158] Right.

[159] Okay, so, yeah, his paradigm for what a woman was going to do was obviously.

[160] I don't say that with any ill will at all.

[161] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[162] Yeah, and when I said, I'm going to get on a plane out of New York dad and I'm going to go be a writer, the basic response was, that's a pipe dream.

[163] And you can't do that.

[164] Okay.

[165] And I thought, oh, yeah, watch me. Uh -huh.

[166] So off I went.

[167] Well, now there's a couple things there, though, too, because Peter has brought me into what the Minnesota culture is.

[168] And there is a modesty, right?

[169] There's kind of a celebrated modesty.

[170] Arrogance is bad.

[171] Arrogance is the worst, right?

[172] So in some weird ways, to pursue a dream as audacious as I'm going to move to New York and be a writer, could be seen as arrogance a little bit, right?

[173] Yeah.

[174] I mean, there's many different layers.

[175] There's the gender layers that are happening.

[176] And there's a fear of your child.

[177] I mean, I get that now having a kid, and I'm sure you do too, even though you followed a creative path.

[178] You feel kind of like, wow, that was a lot of luck.

[179] Also, 10 years of rejection.

[180] So it's weird to wish 10 years of rejection on your child.

[181] You have to be very strong -willed and have a very strong vision and basically be incapable of doing anything else.

[182] Yes.

[183] And or really low self -esteem and believe you deserve this flagellation at all times.

[184] Do you know who Anne Lamad is?

[185] No. Anne LaMade is this fantastic writer, and she wrote one of the best.

[186] books on writing.

[187] And one of the things that she talks about is the radio station, KFKD, or KFucked, that plays in your head when you're trying to write.

[188] So, like, one speaker is saying, you are the greatest, you are the best, you are the most, and the other is saying, whoever told you, you could pick up a pencil.

[189] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[190] And you've got to, like, quiet both of those down.

[191] When you went there, were you aiming to, because you've written for the New York Times for how long?

[192] Ever.

[193] Forever.

[194] Was that one of your first?

[195] Started when I got to New York, I was a, you know, there's like, at, editorial assistance.

[196] That's like I was below that.

[197] I was staff, which sounds like an infection.

[198] Oh, it is one.

[199] I know, right?

[200] At Esquire.

[201] So I got a job at Esquire.

[202] That's a fun place to have started out.

[203] Yeah.

[204] Yeah.

[205] It was sort of a little bit, I wish I had thought to write things down so that I could have written my own devilware's product.

[206] Oh, I bet.

[207] So, okay, so your first book, am I right to assume that you were probably, had you written articles that had been published before you write your first book?

[208] So I was a magazine editor.

[209] I worked at different magazines.

[210] And then I was, you know, worried about writing full time and what that would mean and whether I could live and all those things.

[211] So then, yeah, my first book was called School Girls.

[212] It was about young women, self -esteem and education.

[213] And I followed two groups of 13 -year -old girls through their 13th theory to kind of look at that transition to adolescence.

[214] So did you approach it like a journalist or a scientist?

[215] Really like a journalist.

[216] I mean, there's like a couple books that I read when I was in my early 20s.

[217] One was called Loose Change by Sarah Davidson and the group.

[218] And both of those kind of what they did was they looked at a turning point in history through the lives of individual women.

[219] And I just, I love that idea.

[220] I love this idea that you could like tell the story of an era through anybody really, I think.

[221] Through any of our stories.

[222] And that's been kind of the driving thing for me as a journalist is that like how do our individual?

[223] stories connect out.

[224] There's a neat saying in screenwriting, which is every single scene should encapsulate in a way the entire story you're telling.

[225] Like it should be a fractal in that sense.

[226] Yeah.

[227] That like every single sliver of it should be the thing in its entirety.

[228] And that's kind of what you're saying as well.

[229] Yeah.

[230] What did you find that was like shocking?

[231] What was the tasty thing that you were bringing to light with that book?

[232] I really think that that was just sort of setting me going on thinking about things like that was 1994.

[233] 1994 about like I was looking at the way that the media was affecting girls' body image, that I have a chapter in that book that's called School Girls and Sluts that was about sort of the perception of what it meant to be slutty and the way that girls' desire was suppressed and what that whole piece that I think later, years, years, years later was kind of the seeds of girls and sex.

[234] Which is your, that's your most popular book, yeah?

[235] I think so, yeah.

[236] It's a New York Times bestseller.

[237] Well, so is boys and sex in case you didn't know.

[238] Oh, that's fantastic.

[239] Yeah, the other day.

[240] Oh, wonderful.

[241] It's number seven on the list.

[242] Oh, that's great.

[243] That feels wonderful now.

[244] Yes, it does.

[245] Yeah.

[246] Yeah, so I feel like I was starting the conversation with myself and maybe with readers looking at the way, you know, I sat in on a lot of algebra classes for that book.

[247] You did.

[248] How do you get permission to be at a school as an adult?

[249] So for that book, gosh, it was really a long time ago.

[250] I feel like I approached principals and then principals would go through sort of a process with the, PTA and the school board.

[251] And the parents ultimately would have to.

[252] And the parents ultimately would have to sign permission slips of the kids that I, but I also always change people's names.

[253] Right.

[254] I didn't use the name of the district and the two districts I was in and sort of, you know, I offer some protection because they're kids and that would be wrong.

[255] I mean, one of the things about the way that I work and with all, well, most of my books, not all of them, but with that one and with girls and sex and boys and sex is that I'm not like looking for anything in particular necessarily.

[256] I just want to see what life is like in this.

[257] kind of world that I'm looking at.

[258] So I just go and hang around.

[259] Yeah.

[260] And I can't know what's going to happen.

[261] Right.

[262] So, you know, whether it was like in that book that there was a sexual harassment case that suddenly burst forward or like in boys and sex, one of my very favorite scenes in the book is when I'm talking to this boy, I'm Skyping with this boy, who's a senior in college by then.

[263] And when I met him, he called himself a feminist fuck boy.

[264] Mm -hmm.

[265] Break, break that down for us.

[266] You're like like, you already know what that means.

[267] Well, I just, weirdly enough, we were on a family vacation and family members who are teenagers, one of the girls told one of the boys that, do you know that what they call you in school, they call you a fuckboy.

[268] And he was so upset by this.

[269] He's a sweetest boy ever.

[270] And I thought, what can that mean?

[271] Yeah, right.

[272] When I was growing up, I graduated 93.

[273] So if someone called me a fuck boy, that would have been like a sign of glory or something.

[274] I can only imagine.

[275] But what does it mean now?

[276] Well, for him, what it meant was.

[277] that he slept with a lot of girls.

[278] Like more girls than he could count.

[279] Okay.

[280] But that he had this kind of veneer of a kind of, and I think he is.

[281] He has a sort of egalitarian perspective.

[282] But he, so he like would teach consent workshops and he was very scrupulous about all that.

[283] But that didn't mean that he didn't take advantage of what was like a super skewed ratio of girls to boys on his campus and manipulate that.

[284] and treat partners as disposable and there was like this kind of jerkiness underneath.

[285] And he was starting to recognize that when we met, he was like wrestling with what that meant and, you know, how he felt about that.

[286] And he was like, it felt really good, but maybe it doesn't feel so good.

[287] Well, yeah, so I personally have this history where I was, by all accounts, horrendously honest with people.

[288] Like, I was in an open relationship for nine years.

[289] And I would say, like, I'm in a relationship, I love my girlfriend.

[290] if you want to do something physical and that's all that you want, that I'm up for that.

[291] But, you know, I just want to be dead clear, right?

[292] And I have this whole thing.

[293] And now, obviously, in retrospect, people agree to things that they maybe don't really agree to, which is unfortunate.

[294] Right, depending on the position.

[295] Like in his campus, you know, the girls, if they said no to that, they weren't going to have much of a social life was the truth.

[296] So if I had talked to him a couple years before we met, he would have said exactly that.

[297] This is all good.

[298] I'm really clear.

[299] everybody's clear.

[300] I'm up front.

[301] But he was not kind of going, and, hmm.

[302] So we were having this discussion and it had been like, you know, he had been thinking about this for a year and now he was in a...

[303] But could I just own one thing on my side?

[304] Yeah.

[305] So the thing really I can recognize later is regardless of the permission and regardless of the understanding that everyone agreed to, I was using them to regulate my feelings.

[306] I'm an approval junkie.

[307] And I'm using them to get approval and feel good about myself for a while.

[308] So even if that side of the street really is spotless and they agreed and is in writing blah, blah, blah, I know that ultimately I'm just using someone to regulate my self -esteem, which isn't, I'm not crazy proud of.

[309] So, Dax, you are just like this guy.

[310] You would be the feminist fuck boy.

[311] Okay.

[312] Although I don't remember you hosting any consent workshops or anything like that.

[313] Well, that you know.

[314] Well, it's a late, it's a new time.

[315] Maybe you would if you were, if you were that itch today.

[316] I'm sure.

[317] Yeah.

[318] So anyway, he, I was talking to him and by now, you know, it was a year had gone by since He first met.

[319] He had a girlfriend.

[320] He was like reevaluating a lot of stuff.

[321] And while we were talking, this other boy texted me, Nate.

[322] And Nate had had like a bad history with hookups and he was somebody who really prized connection and relationships.

[323] And he was down in Southern California and he was looking at schools that he'd been accepted to for college.

[324] And he texted me and was like, you know, WTF with hookup culture.

[325] It's like an orgy down here.

[326] Do I just go to Bone Town and worry if they were blunt with me?

[327] They were.

[328] Do I just go to Bone Town and worry about it later?

[329] Or, you know, and and have an emotional connection later, do I skip that part?

[330] What do I do?

[331] Yeah.

[332] And so I read this text to Wyatt, who I was Skyping with, and they ended up having this, like, whole conversation through me. Oh, wow.

[333] About authenticity and about who you should be and who you are.

[334] And it was like this amazing moment, which, like, this was taking me way back around to what I first did, which is that I can never anticipate what's going to happen when I just hang out with these guys.

[335] And I just ended up feeling like, you know, they had this conversation.

[336] I mean, I'm a stranger to them, really.

[337] They never met.

[338] They don't know each other's names.

[339] And what would happen, you know, like, what would happen if guys could really have these conversations, honestly with, in their real lives, not with some, like, total stranger for a book?

[340] Yeah.

[341] Yeah, I think, yeah, so much, I mean, there's a million different bad ingredients in the stew, but one of them that's so powerful is, yeah, that boys really don't feel comfortable talking to other boys about anything, really, that could be vulnerable or show any, you know, lack of.

[342] total conviction on every single topic.

[343] Right.

[344] Which was totally at the heart of this.

[345] And so at the end, this boy, you know, Nate, the guy who was texting, was like, thank you so much.

[346] That's just what I needed to hear.

[347] And, you know, he sent me a little heart emoji.

[348] Now, I immediately think of, like, the murkiness of your role in that you start by hoping to learn from them what their culture is around this topic and how they are acting and whatnot.

[349] But, of course, you develop relationships as happens.

[350] And then they're asking you advice.

[351] So he was in Southern California and asked you, like, what should I do?

[352] Right.

[353] And so tell me about that aspect of it.

[354] What's the line you walk in?

[355] Is it challenging?

[356] It can be.

[357] I mean, mostly it's not.

[358] Mostly I feel like what they would talk about after our interviews was that it felt sort of cathartic or therapeutic or they had never had a chance to talk about sex and intimacy and masculinity and gender dynamics and all these way things in, you know, to anybody.

[359] I mean, a lot of times they'd say I'd never told anybody this or, you know, what the fuck, I'm just going to say this.

[360] sometimes that meant that they were going to disclose like something they did that they felt bad about, you know, whatever.

[361] But I felt like boys never have that permission to have those conversations.

[362] And so what I was kind of giving them, if my role is to give them anything at all, was this protected space where they could talk about their interior lives in a way that they never get to.

[363] So just kind of like by bearing witness to that.

[364] Yeah.

[365] Well, one of the points you make early on in your book, maybe even in the introduction, is that what you knew by doing girls in sex is that, what you knew by doing girls and sex is, is that parents are not talking to their kids about sex.

[366] No, they are not.

[367] At all.

[368] And then they're even talking less to boys because they're less concerned in general about it.

[369] Is that fair to say?

[370] Well, they had been, but I think things have changed.

[371] Oh, you think they used to be?

[372] I think things are changing because, well, because they're worried.

[373] They're worried that if their boys are going to cross lines and get into some kind of sexual.

[374] Into trouble.

[375] Yeah, it thinks that girls just used to see as the price of admission and not act on.

[376] Yeah.

[377] Luckily, we now do.

[378] But that means that boys have to be more mindful and more educated and actually see their partners as people.

[379] So what boys would say that they tended to hear was don't get a girl pregnant, don't get a disease, and respect women.

[380] And that last one encompassed all this stuff, right?

[381] And I would say, like, I don't know, one guy said to me, that's like telling your son not to run over any little old ladies and then handing him the car keys.

[382] I mean, you don't think you're going to run over any little old ladies, but you don't know how to drive.

[383] right yeah saying the word respect is a very yeah opaque kind of what the fuck does that mean exactly and also that you're in a really weird paradigm when you're at that age which is your parents aren't telling you the truth and you're dead aware of it right like you know they're not telling you the truth and so then your only other source is your peers and they're piecing it together so you're kind of trying to pick who's right and certainly your parents haven't earned your trust in that department.

[384] So you're probably more likely to believe whatever your buddies are, who everyone already likes.

[385] Whatever he's doing must be the right thing to do because everyone likes him.

[386] Right.

[387] You know, it just kind of ends up being really basic calculations you're doing that aren't probably the best ones.

[388] Plus the media.

[389] Plus now kids have this, like, you know, gigantic media that we didn't have, right?

[390] I mean, it just wasn't like that.

[391] No. I had to steal a playboy from my grandpa's out and hide it under the bed.

[392] Yeah.

[393] And not even the porn, but like all of it, you know, the coming at you, it's so big.

[394] that, you know, a lot of it comes.

[395] So that's why I kind of felt like, you know, we need to have some real conversations with boys and hear what they're thinking and know what's going on with them because, you know, we didn't have the luxury of not talking to them anymore.

[396] Yeah, so I think that in general, and again, this will be self -serving because I'm a boy, but just the general marching orders of the last three years in the wake of me too, just being like men be better.

[397] Well, okay, it's a lot more complicated than that.

[398] Like, we're in the middle of a working machine that women are a part of, men are a part of, parents are part.

[399] There's no one is just individually on their own, not interacting or not being affected, you know.

[400] Right.

[401] So it's so complex.

[402] No one could ever say a statement like girls be better or boys be better.

[403] It's like, hey, society, we got to be better.

[404] Like both sides, this whole thing has got to evolve.

[405] Right.

[406] Absolutely.

[407] And that's why, like, to me, doing the books together, girls and sex and boys and sex.

[408] Yeah.

[409] Like to just make all those dynamics visible.

[410] Yeah.

[411] You know?

[412] What were the girls against?

[413] So just in my own, having not written a book about it, but just being now a father of girls starting to recognize some of these things I've grown up with.

[414] One of the one thing that I tend to really stress out about is this crazy pressure that's put on young girls about their virginity.

[415] And that you have to make sure this guy is a good guy, that he loves you, that it's special.

[416] and no one's putting anything on the boy's shoulders.

[417] It's just like you at 14 or 16 or 17 need to have the ability to assess who's a good man who loves you in order to do this thing.

[418] And by God, if it turns out he wasn't that, then the shame that accompanies that.

[419] Just the whole responsibility is on this young girl's shoulders, which I find to be just wholly unequal.

[420] Well, and I guess I would even step back further and say, how do we define sex?

[421] Do we count oral sex as sex?

[422] Like, why are we not, could there be multiple virginities instead of just this one thing?

[423] Right.

[424] I mean, a lot of what I talked about in girls and sex was the ways that girls learned to disconnect from their bodies and that the ways that they learn to disconnect from desire and pleasure.

[425] I call it the American psychological clitoridectomy.

[426] Okay.

[427] So, like, when girls are born, when kids are born, when babies are born, we tend to name all of boys' body parts.

[428] So, like, we'll at least say, like, there's your pee or something, right?

[429] Yeah, bird.

[430] And with girls, we go right from navel to knees.

[431] And we don't, like, we leave this, like, whole situation in between.

[432] Uh -huh.

[433] Totally unnamed.

[434] Uh -huh.

[435] And then they go into, like, maybe they get older.

[436] They go into puberty education classes, and they learn that boys have erections and wet dreams and girls have periods and unwanted pregnancy.

[437] Right?

[438] Not the same.

[439] Yeah.

[440] And you see that, like, that internal diagram.

[441] Yeah.

[442] Of the, you know, it looks like a steers head or something, right?

[443] Look at Jodro, Keith painting, I don't know.

[444] Yeah, yeah.

[445] And it grays out between the legs, right?

[446] So you never say vulva.

[447] Uh -huh.

[448] You never say clitoris.

[449] Manora majora.

[450] Exactly.

[451] No surprise.

[452] Most girls have, you know, 14 to 17 years old have never masturbated even once.

[453] Really?

[454] The majority.

[455] Yep.

[456] And then.

[457] Wow.

[458] We're always trying to figure this out, by the way.

[459] We always get in a conversation.

[460] We're like, what percentage do you think?

[461] The girls versus girls.

[462] No, I would have to, I'm blanking.

[463] now is it 40 % or 60 % is the majority are close to it?

[464] Sure, sure.

[465] Email me later and I can email you and you can because it's in my, it's like not at the top of my head, but it's right, but it's a lot.

[466] It's most, you know, and so then they go to their partner interactions, right?

[467] Uh -huh.

[468] And we somehow expect that they're going to know what they want.

[469] They're going to know what they need.

[470] They're going to know their limits.

[471] Even if they knew all that, how to communicate that to some guy and he's trying to, like he knows what he's doing.

[472] Exactly.

[473] So we've like set them up.

[474] And then on top of that, we make this really big deal of this one act.

[475] like it's the line in the sand.

[476] Yeah, yeah, right?

[477] And that's not even an act that certainly the first time is going to feel that good to most girls.

[478] Right.

[479] So like the whole thing skews it away from girls having a sense of their pleasure, of their bodies, of their desires and having an experience that's really like in that body and connected.

[480] So even beyond what you were started with of saying you've got to find this right guy and stuff, the whole premise is wrong in a way.

[481] Right.

[482] Yeah, well, by the way, the reward for finding the right guy, is not that you'll enjoy it or have an orgasm or find joy and intimacy, is just that you won't have the shame and regret.

[483] You won't be made a fool of and made to be a slut and all these other pejoratives.

[484] And it is true that most young people want to explore sexuality in a trusting relationship.

[485] But we just act like doing it, this one thing, one time, is suddenly going to make you experienced or suddenly make you know something that you don't know.

[486] And we all know that's a lie.

[487] Like if you make out with somebody, you're, you know, 15 years old and you make out with somebody for three hours and you're experimenting with like sensuality and communication and, you know, you're going to learn a heck of a lot more than if you get drunk at a party and hook up with a random to punch your V card, you know?

[488] No, you're right.

[489] The much bigger source of that feeling of intimacy and love and connection is actually.

[490] And eroticism and sensuality, all that stuff, right?

[491] Yeah.

[492] Okay, so with girls, there's that issue.

[493] There's also these two options on the table, right, which is you're either a prude or you're a slot.

[494] Right.

[495] Both of which are negative.

[496] You know, what's the right number?

[497] How do you, like one girl said to me, usually the opposite of a negative is a positive.

[498] But when you're talking about girls and sex, there's two negatives.

[499] So where do you go on that pole and figure out where you are?

[500] Now, so personally, I was super sexual really young.

[501] I was also molested when I was younger.

[502] So it's hard for me to iron out what I think a human's just natural disposition is to that.

[503] I certainly desired it greatly.

[504] I don't know how much I can speak to, like, your average boy.

[505] But I definitely do remember having many friends who I was shocked to learn, like, they didn't want to have sex.

[506] So, like, I was subscribing to this stereotype as well that, like, boys just want to have sex.

[507] And then occasionally, I would have a friend that would be like, yeah, I'm scared to do that.

[508] And I was like, oh, I wasn't expecting that.

[509] Yeah.

[510] I mean, that's, you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about with boys is that stereotype that they're always down to fuck.

[511] You know, they aren't necessarily.

[512] There's that pressure that you're supposed to be that way as a guy.

[513] You know, the whole way you get status, that's a big way to get status.

[514] Hooking up with as many girls as possible, with as little feeling as possible and treating your partners as disposable.

[515] And guys had related to that in all kinds of different ways.

[516] I mean, I always think about this one guy who said he'd had a bunch of hookups in college that included intercourse.

[517] And he said it's weird because it's like there's not.

[518] not a lot of eye contact, you know, it's a lot of conversation, and it's like you're acting vulnerable without being vulnerable.

[519] Uh -huh.

[520] Yeah, you're, yeah, you're taking physical steps of vulnerability, but there's really no emotional vulnerability.

[521] And really, and I know that the whole vulnerability issue is really interests you.

[522] Oh, big time.

[523] Yeah.

[524] Sometimes after you write a book, you don't realize what it's about until after you write it.

[525] Mm -hmm.

[526] And you start talking about it.

[527] And I've realized that really at the heart of this book and you see the word vulnerable It's like a neon sign throughout the book is that issue of guys wrestling with the taboo against vulnerability, whether it's that they're rejecting it or denying it or embracing it or capitulating to it.

[528] It's all of it, whether you're talking about the masculinity itself or all the different ways that I talk about the relationship to sex and it's always dancing around that.

[529] It's always trying to reckon with that and with the wall that they've all put up between themselves that vulnerable self and the world.

[530] Yeah, and I was really acutely interesting.

[531] in how things have changed since I was that age when I was reading your book.

[532] And what I saw, which was completely consistent, is still the worst thing you can be is a girl in any capacity.

[533] So being vulnerable as being girly or not wanting to fuck would be girly and all these things.

[534] The only thing beyond that, of course, is to be a fag.

[535] Right.

[536] And so I was curious if that was still the thing.

[537] And it is still the thing.

[538] But then I was really interested to hear that they are very explicit about the fact that they don't mean gay.

[539] Right.

[540] They still say fag and call each other fags, but they also want to be clear.

[541] We're not saying that about homosexuals.

[542] I mean, that's really, there are a lot of differences with boys now.

[543] I mean, they have female friends.

[544] They see girls as totally deserving of their placences in the classroom and, you know, on the playing field and in leadership and professional.

[545] I mean, all that is there too.

[546] And that's why I was started when we were talking earlier about girls on the contradiction, you know, that I was always interested in these contradictions between the new and the old.

[547] I think that's what's going on with guys, too, where I get this sort of inflection point in a way with boys.

[548] where we maybe were with girls 25 years ago.

[549] And so that stuff, you know, when I would say, what's the ideal guy, they would still be saying, yeah, athleticism, dominance, aggression, sexual conquest, emotional suppression.

[550] All of them said athleticism.

[551] All of them said athletic.

[552] I was like, athletic, athletic, yeah.

[553] Wow, really?

[554] Yeah, it was like, bang, maybe.

[555] Still.

[556] Still, absolutely.

[557] You know, when I would say that, even though that wasn't necessarily who they were.

[558] Also, think about what small percentage of the high school population that applies to you.

[559] What percentage of people are athletes or are actively involved in that, you know?

[560] At less than 10%, so you've got an ideal that less than 10 % of the people are going to achieve?

[561] It's just kind of a bad recipe right out of the gates, you know?

[562] Right.

[563] But back to the, you know, to the fag thing, it didn't mean to them necessarily that they were questioning somebody's sexual orientation.

[564] Right.

[565] And they would say all the time, well, I would never say that.

[566] I have gay friends.

[567] I would never say that to a gay person.

[568] I'd think, and that makes it okay?

[569] I don't think so.

[570] But it was about masculinity.

[571] Right.

[572] And there's this...

[573] The word fag is the antithesis of masculinity.

[574] And it can be...

[575] And it's like slut.

[576] Yeah.

[577] You can mean anything.

[578] It can be applied to anything.

[579] It can, you know, and so, like, it creates, like, when they talk about the man box or the mask you live in or whatever you want to call it, that draws the lines.

[580] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[581] What's up, guys?

[582] It's your girl Kiki.

[583] podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[584] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

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[599] C .J. Pascoe, who writes about this, who's a sociologist in Oregon, did this whole thing where she looked at a thousand tweets with the hashtag no homo.

[600] Oh, my God, yes.

[601] By the way, we've talked about this on here before.

[602] I've received many of them.

[603] Like, a guy will want to tell me he liked me in a movie.

[604] Yeah.

[605] And that's just way too vulnerable.

[606] So then hashtag no homo.

[607] Then that's exactly what she said.

[608] She said, what you see when you look at them all is that it's used as a shield so that they can express normal emotions of affection or connection.

[609] And the no homo allows them to do that by using this kind of homophobic slash joke in the process.

[610] I'm 45.

[611] I was just in the hospital with my friend.

[612] my friend was receiving, it was back in Michigan, was receiving these beautiful texts from his friends.

[613] You know, he's a roofer, he's a manual labor.

[614] His friends are also, and these, these texts were like, dude, scared me so much, so glad you're safe in the hospital, and then straight into some kind of homophobic.

[615] Epitaph, like, same thing as no homo, like, oh man, that was hard.

[616] I just said, I was worried about you.

[617] I'm glad you're safe.

[618] And now I got to throw something out there to just kind of negate the whole thing.

[619] Right.

[620] And I pointed it out to him and he was like, oh my God, it's so true.

[621] And we just went through all of them.

[622] Every 100 % of them had some kind of disclaimer.

[623] It exists within the gay community as well.

[624] Because we have a very, very good friend, Jess, who's gay and we're doing this separate 10 episode podcast together about relationships.

[625] And he talks about being gay and within those relationships, how femininity is also devalued.

[626] Devalued.

[627] Exactly.

[628] So it's a hard thing to combat because it's everywhere.

[629] It's even coming from the source.

[630] Like, yeah.

[631] And women can treat men that way too.

[632] Of course.

[633] There's research that says that women say they want men to be vulnerable about when they are not so happy about it.

[634] Put that back in the box.

[635] You know, so I think that we can collude as well.

[636] Like I think I'm only getting away with it because I'm also like embarrassingly committed to all these hyper -masculine things, like off -roading and fighting and all these things where that bought me enough leeway to also be very vulnerable.

[637] Even I have to, I feel like there's some weird balancing act in my life where it's like, oh, I can get away with all that, I can wear a ponytail, I can do this because I'm doing that.

[638] So I, so someone couldn't just blanketly call me that.

[639] But that's your version of no homo.

[640] Yeah.

[641] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[642] It's the same thing, essentially.

[643] I mean, I genuinely like those things, but yes, yes, it is.

[644] now okay there's a call for parents to talk about sex and what specifically do you think parents should be saying about sex with this book with boys and sex I did something different with my books I tend I've tended to always like take the reader into some situation because you're like when you're a writer the first thing you learn is show and not tell right right so I was always like well I have to you know give an example of what this looks like and a classroom or a person I'm profiling or something And I kept trying with boys and sex I kept trying to go to different programs or going to classrooms and I just kept thinking this isn't right, this isn't right.

[645] And I think it was because I've been writing about teenagers and sexuality for nine years now and I felt like I have things to say.

[646] And so in the last chapter of this book not exactly a script but a little bit of a template for the kinds of conversations that we have because it's a lot of conversations and it's about sex but it's not about sex just like our conversation has been about sex but not about sex.

[647] It's just an overarching identity of being male.

[648] Yeah, it's about all these different things.

[649] And it's like you can't just, it's, you know, we have this idea that it's the talk.

[650] But like, if you sat your daughters down and said, all right, girls, I'm going to tell you about table manners now.

[651] You're going to use your fork and cut nicely with your right hand with your knife.

[652] And you're going to say, please pass and thank you very much.

[653] And may I please be excused from the table.

[654] Okay, go forth.

[655] Now you know table manners.

[656] That would be absurd.

[657] Right?

[658] And this is like at least as important as table manners.

[659] No, I would argue far more important.

[660] Yeah.

[661] So I talk about a lot of different kinds of conversations that we need to have, particularly with boys in this book, and also the role of adult men, whether it's your father or your cool uncle or whatever the guy is in your life.

[662] Yeah.

[663] And I think it's really hard because adult men weren't raised this way, right?

[664] Weren't raised to have these conversations.

[665] More than that, we also know exactly what the outcome would have been had we behaved in a way that maybe we're going to now urge our boys to behave.

[666] So I'll just tell you the deep fear I would have, I would have the fear of like, okay, I saw the mask you live in, I now know what I know, I can't not incorporate this yet.

[667] So is my child going to be the sacrificial lamb?

[668] Is it going to be my boy who is vulnerable and open and cries in public?

[669] And then all the boys kick his ass and his life's fucking miserable because I gave him permission.

[670] to do that that's the fear surrounding all of us guys i totally get it i would reframe that in a couple different ways one is resilience is what you're after here um not you know the guy who's going to burst into tears in public kind of thing like what does it mean to raise a resilient person but also because i've written about girls for all these years if i had been here 25 years ago telling you about my first book if i've been talking about school girls and the ways that we have to you know that girls tend to like pull back when they're teenagers and start saying what they know and stop volunteering in class and stop stepping up and that we really need to change that.

[671] That's hurting our girls.

[672] And really quick, I'm semi aware of that concept, but I doubt everyone is.

[673] But girls did that right because at some point, guys don't like smart girls.

[674] Well, part, I mean, it was a whole, it was again, it was like it's not an easy thing, but it's like it's a dynamic that we were giving them profoundly mixed messages about how they should behave as women and what they were able to do and what was okay.

[675] And, you know, that you were supposed to leave, simultaneously stand up and speak your mind and shine bright, but as a girl, you're supposed to be deferential and please everybody.

[676] So it was this contradiction that girls were living with, and to a degree still do, but I think we've done a lot better at broadening ideas of what it means to be a girl.

[677] I mean, even like, you know, when I started doing this, people were like, well, girls are just innately bad at math.

[678] I mean, they just are, you know.

[679] We don't say that anymore.

[680] So when I was doing that work, I would come out and talk about it.

[681] And people would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[682] And then parents would say, but, you know, I think about raising my own daughter differently to be like a stronger, more assertive girl.

[683] And I worry that she's going to be the sacrificial lamp.

[684] Right.

[685] She's going to get called a bitch.

[686] And that guys aren't going to like her.

[687] And girls aren't going to like her.

[688] She'll be lonely.

[689] And she'll be lonely.

[690] And I'm worried about what it would mean to do that.

[691] So again, you know, I feel like that's where we are a little bit with boys that we have to start taking these risks and recognizing, so that they'll be better partners or be less likely to commit assault or be better in bed or whatever it is.

[692] Because those qualities that they keep citing as being, you know, this ideal guy qualities are really harmful to them.

[693] You know, I mean, they are linked to all these behaviors like being violent, having violence committed against you, binge drinking, risky sexual behavior, car accidents, self -harm, depression, loneliness, you know, they're not doing boys any favors.

[694] Yeah.

[695] Well, again, yeah, I go like, oh, I could raise my boy to be this, but really, are any of the girls going to like him?

[696] Like, this is where I say it's like such a yin and a yang scenario.

[697] It's like the whole system's got to be changing simultaneously.

[698] Yeah.

[699] And we have done so much changing in a certain way with girls, you know?

[700] Like, I feel like we've done a lot around media literacy.

[701] Like, I think when you're seeing, like, right now in media shows like sex education and Big Mouth that actually acknowledge the existence of female pleasure or, you know, different things.

[702] Girls in leadership, that's been a huge change.

[703] Girls on the playing field, enormous change, right?

[704] We've made all kinds of changes, but we haven't brought boys into the conversation in the same way.

[705] Well, one thing you pointed out, which was really fascinating that I hadn't even thought of, is that if you were a young woman for the last going on 40 years now, there was a movement called feminism where you could get interested in this movement, you could start being a part of the conversation of what it means to be feminine or a woman or a feminist.

[706] So they were kind of actively encouraged to define what it is and presumably guide where they want it to be.

[707] But there's never been a movement for men.

[708] Not in the same way.

[709] I mean, I think feminism is a movement like that for men, but, you know, like I think for everybody.

[710] But there's no like term where it's like where the guys are starting to go like, Oh, yeah, I inherited a role too.

[711] I don't want to be a 50s house father.

[712] You know, I don't want to be that guy cut off emotionally.

[713] You want to be able to connect with your children.

[714] You want to be able to connect in your relationships.

[715] You want to be able to, yeah.

[716] But there's no like name for that movement.

[717] You know what I'm saying?

[718] No, there's no. But it is funny because just inherently because feminism has feminine in it that men feel a little like squeamish about attaching themselves to that.

[719] Even if they are totally feminists, which just means equality, that that idea that I'm a feminist, I think there's fear that it means they're feminine and they don't want that association.

[720] I only mean that feminism in its most literal term means like the experience of women in raising equality for women, not for men conventionally.

[721] Well, raising female equality to meet men, so then everything's equal.

[722] Right.

[723] And so if you look at like wages or title attainment or any of these things, yes, men are just crushing.

[724] Why would they wouldn't be needed to raise to anyone's level?

[725] But we're also completely bereft in all the emotional experiences in life that are as important, if not more, than being a CEO of something.

[726] So it's like there's this whole pocket of life that we don't have.

[727] have great access to in our society, which we should want access to that.

[728] We should have talks about how we get that.

[729] Well, yeah, and we framed it sort of so that when women are seeking that public power, that's aspirational, right?

[730] That's like reaching up.

[731] But if men want access to that.

[732] To raise their kids.

[733] To all those emotional things, that feels like weakness or stepping down.

[734] And so that's that dynamic right there makes it really difficult.

[735] Yeah.

[736] That we have to question that.

[737] Another aspect as we talk about affairs and cheating, what I have noticed in my experience and having lots of different friends who've dealt with this is if a woman cheats on a man and that man confronts her about it, about 90 % of the time within the first three questions will be, how big is his dick?

[738] And did you come?

[739] That is the man's greatest fear is that someone outperformed him.

[740] that there was another man who did it better than them, who had a bigger dick.

[741] And to me, it's just very eye -opening of what our fears are.

[742] Well, and also misconception about how orgasms works.

[743] Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure.

[744] Because that's like, that goes back to what the guys that, these boys that I would talk to had, like, such misconception of what sexual satisfaction was.

[745] And they were not, I mean, like, in a particular than a hookup, they weren't particularly interested in female orgasm.

[746] I mean, that was not a given.

[747] Uh -huh.

[748] So when I was writing about the girls, that was like a big thing that we would discuss was the sort of disinterest in female orgasm.

[749] But when it was really surprised me with the guys in that hookup culture was that they were interested in female satisfaction, but they didn't measure it the same way.

[750] Well, didn't they think that as long as they were lasting a long time?

[751] It was lasting a long time and dick size.

[752] It wasn't about the sex.

[753] It was about the story that you go back and tell your friends.

[754] And they wanted to make sure that the story the girl was going to tell her friends was.

[755] was one about stamina and size.

[756] Absolutely.

[757] One boy said, like, I started glancing at the clock before I'd start intercourse, so I'd know that I lasted a respectable amount of time.

[758] Right.

[759] And not for her pleasure exactly, but so she would tell her friend she wasn't disappointed.

[760] Yes, it came too fast.

[761] And he said it turned sex into kind of a, he said I enjoyed it, but it also turned it kind of into a task where I wasn't exactly in the moment.

[762] The most known go -to scenario was like, think of baseball.

[763] Why is that something every guy knows on planet Earth?

[764] think of baseball during sex.

[765] Oh, to laugh.

[766] You know what I'm saying?

[767] There's no one you could say think of baseball to who doesn't know that concept, who's a male, which just tells you that every male's dealing with some fear that they're going to orgasm too soon and that they believe staying in the saddle a really long time is the recipe for satisfaction, which is not the case.

[768] And I guarantee if you presented any guy with a rumor surrounding him could be you have a humongous dick and you last forever versus you have a moderate -sized penis and you come pretty quickly, but you gave the girl 12 orgasms and you're great at oral.

[769] No one's picking the second option.

[770] Even though every woman, every woman would.

[771] But by the way, it's a two -way street.

[772] You guys have the same stuff.

[773] This is like, no one's unique in this.

[774] So this is an argument we, yes, so all of us guys think dick sizes everything because each other does.

[775] It's just guys.

[776] Like we, we're the only ones perpetuating that.

[777] It's all our fault.

[778] Likewise, all the women they're saying, I have to be so thin because of men.

[779] It's like, no, we don't look at supermodel magazines.

[780] We actually don't know about fashion models.

[781] We're in the dark about that.

[782] That's not what we like.

[783] Yet you guys have convinced yourself that's what we like.

[784] I think it's on both sides.

[785] I don't know.

[786] Monica looks like she doesn't agree.

[787] I got to mediate here.

[788] Yeah, please do.

[789] I mean, yes, I think women place a lot of judgment on other women and bodies and all of that stuff.

[790] That's real, but men are involved in that.

[791] There is a body type in society that it seems that men prefer.

[792] At different times, that changes also.

[793] Also, we don't.

[794] I'm just going to tell you in the same way that women don't prefer mussely men, but all of us men have convinced ourselves that all women want a mussely man. We're delusional.

[795] You guys don't all want a mussely man. We don't all want a skinny, wafy girl.

[796] We don't.

[797] I can tell you of all my friends, we don't want that.

[798] And yet women really believe we want that.

[799] And it doesn't matter how many times I say that me and all my group of friends are not looking for that.

[800] I also know that's not true because I know one of your friends who does.

[801] So it is just person to per -look, everyone probably has their own preference for their own thing that varies across the board.

[802] But there is some societal on both ends.

[803] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[804] Why would we be susceptible to this narrative that we're self -perpetuating and the women would not be susceptible to a self -perpetuating narrative?

[805] Well, the women probably are, well, with the dick size, that's a different thing than body types.

[806] I think the women do feed into a male body type.

[807] And I don't think, and that's not my preferred body type, but the women are a part of that conversation.

[808] Some women like muscular guys.

[809] Exactly.

[810] But it is not right to say that all women like muscular guys, nor is it right to say men all wants 80 -pound runway miles.

[811] Correct.

[812] I think all is probably the part of the sentence.

[813] That's a problem.

[814] But I'd argue it's equal on both sides.

[815] I think we're both delusional about what the other wants.

[816] Yes.

[817] But what I was saying is annoying as you were giving two options.

[818] One of the options had the woman being satisfied and the other one didn't.

[819] In your opinion, most guys would pick the one where the women wasn't satisfied.

[820] That I find annoying.

[821] But it's not.

[822] Of course it's annoying.

[823] Because it means it has nothing to do with you.

[824] But they are earnest in that they think that's what a woman wants.

[825] So where do you feel that they're getting that?

[826] From each other.

[827] Because the guy's in the locker room going, oh, I fucked her for an hour.

[828] And everyone else is like, I come in a minute.

[829] So I can't do that.

[830] So that must be the goal because it seems hard and unattainable.

[831] Most goals are.

[832] Right.

[833] So that lot, I mean, the locker room conversation piece, that was something I listened to a lot with boys.

[834] And what did you hear?

[835] Well, you know, there's a lot of bonding as straight guys.

[836] the control of women's bodies like that and yeah they never talk about like I was we had this really incredibly central experience it's always like they bang they pound they hammer they nail they tap that they hit that they pipe you know it's like they were in a construction site right it's not like they had an intimate experience but the thing was was that I felt like the boys they weren't like these blank slates on which the culture would inscribe that they were just all going yeah yeah yeah that's right that's how I feel you know, they were like struggling with that stuff.

[837] Yeah.

[838] So they would, you know, I have a lot of guys still like writing to me saying, what do I do about the locker room talk thing?

[839] It really offends me. Or, you know, I really don't like hearing the guys talking like that.

[840] And one of the guys that I talked to, he tried to go up against it, right?

[841] He and a friend.

[842] And they got mocked and, you know, immediately shut down.

[843] And the next time it happened, one of them, the guy that I was talking to said that he decided not to say anything and his friend kept saying stuff he says I just watched him he lost all his social capital and I just had buckets of it but I wasn't spending it and he was like I was actually going into the military and he said I don't know what I'm supposed to do you know I don't want to have to choose between my dignity and these guys I'm going to serve with but how do I make it so I don't have to choose and there was this whole thing Michael Thompson who's a psychologist talks about the silence in which boys become men and so so much of it to me was not only about those, you know, the, like, you know, big dick comments and stuff, but also about all the things that boys learn they can't say, won't say, don't say.

[844] And how that is what creates that kind of rigid masculinity too or creates a place where you...

[845] Yeah, because I would say just in general, if some boy in that circle offers up something vulnerable, even if the others can relate, they've never been given the tools to now help deal with what.

[846] was just revealed.

[847] So now it's just six people feeling awkward.

[848] No one has the tools.

[849] And maybe the whole 10 minutes was just a bummer for everyone.

[850] Even the guy who decided to be honest, you know, or brave.

[851] Right.

[852] With other men.

[853] Yeah.

[854] Well, and as you say, sometimes the person, that man's picking between success career -wise, like in the military.

[855] If he chooses to do that, then he's not going to be one of the guys.

[856] And he's not going to actual impact on his life or.

[857] Yeah.

[858] And so him, too, like I talked to him a year later and we had a whole, you know, new conversation about so like, how is that going for you?

[859] What's happening?

[860] What's doing?

[861] He had, he was just very, as he predicted, he was really struggling with it.

[862] And he was hoping that, you know, he'd be able to lead by example at some point.

[863] But really a lot of what he was doing was being quiet.

[864] Yeah.

[865] And that's hard.

[866] I mean, I totally understand how hard that is.

[867] And as I've been going around, you know, talking in different cities with boys and sex, I've had guys come, like the other day, a division one athlete came up to me. and said, what do I do?

[868] Tell me what to do.

[869] Tell me what to say.

[870] In a book signing line, not so much, but, you know, we corresponded after that.

[871] Yeah.

[872] What advice do you have?

[873] Yeah.

[874] Well, it's not easy, right?

[875] I mean, ideally, there's a coach that you can talk to that can bring in programming or there's a program called coaching boys into men for high school and middle school boys that is fantastic.

[876] And a really, like, super light intervention is coaches having like one, 10 or 15 minute conversation a week with guys on these certain topics.

[877] And it's been shown to really make a difference to reduce violence and increase bystander intervention and reduce the language and all that stuff.

[878] So coaches can make a huge difference if you've got that coach.

[879] But sometimes coaches are part of the problem.

[880] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[881] So then are there guys on your team who are on your team, you know, who maybe you can listen to.

[882] I give some resources to them about ways you might be able to.

[883] take aside somebody who's doing some of this talking.

[884] Just say your piece neutrally.

[885] Not in front of a bunch of other people.

[886] Not in front of a bunch of other people.

[887] Just say it and like, yeah, maybe they'll say, you know, do I need to get you a tampon or don't be a pussy or whatever they say?

[888] Yeah.

[889] But you're just like, you know, you say what you say and you do what you're best.

[890] And or maybe you can't and you think about working with younger guys yourself and being the example.

[891] And doing that sort of mentoring that has.

[892] has no tolerance for that or offers some other way or supports the guys that you were but didn't find support in being, you know?

[893] I mean, there's, there's not a magic bullet, but I feel like there's...

[894] Hold on one.

[895] Uh -oh.

[896] I had to code switch.

[897] I was in here being vulnerable and then I had to go with a guy.

[898] Dude, you can't honk.

[899] Yeah.

[900] I'm not going to, all right, you're good?

[901] Okay.

[902] But also, again, that, like, that's guy mode.

[903] Right.

[904] We didn't go out and tell him.

[905] I did not.

[906] But I code switched.

[907] And now I'm cold switching back.

[908] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[909] So interesting.

[910] There's one piece that was written after this book came out in men's health by this guy, Brad Weiner's.

[911] He said that he felt that he saw himself reflected in some of the Me Too stuff.

[912] Uh -huh.

[913] His behavior, his past.

[914] And he, not accused, but he recognized.

[915] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[916] And he was like, okay.

[917] So how am I going to do that?

[918] this differently with my kid.

[919] Yeah.

[920] And he, like, took seriously the stuff in the book and really grappled with it and went and, like, had these conversations with his son.

[921] I felt like I was watching, you know, watching it in action.

[922] It was really, really cool.

[923] But it was struggling with how do you have these conversations with boys and support them in, you know, making that kind of change or just thinking about their dynamics with women or any of this stuff?

[924] The vulnerabilities, like, guys' vulnerability, especially when they're drunk, to over -perceiving yes, you know, to seeing anything that a girl does or says, any act of friendliness as it's on, you know?

[925] Yeah.

[926] How do you talk to guys about, to boys about that?

[927] Well, that's my big.

[928] So the thing I've said on here before is I agree wholeheartedly with the direction it's going.

[929] I think God it's going the direction it's going.

[930] Again, I have two daughters.

[931] Thank God it's going the direction it's going.

[932] With that said, I think the entire traditional role of a man pursues a woman and she's got the brake pedal and he's got the gas pedal, that too has to change.

[933] I mean, because people have to hook up.

[934] People need to fall in love and have sex.

[935] So, yes, we're going to teach the guys as we should to put the fucking brakes on.

[936] But we also have to tell girls like, you be assertive.

[937] You want to have sex?

[938] You know what I'm saying?

[939] I do.

[940] I had this whole thought about that.

[941] that recently because I was talking at a at a all -girls school and this dad raised his hand and said you know I just I'm really troubled by the way we've been talking about consent like it's something that boys are getting from girls and that is like still not you know giving girls the agency right right so I was writing this book and I was writing about this whole thing about gay guys and how they're better at negotiating consent and like navigating consent than straight people yeah and how because they kind of have to learn how to do that because it's not like obvious what's going to happen with whom or how or any of that.

[942] Well, there's more defined roles.

[943] Yeah, but I said, well, I mean that they have to have a discussion because who's going to be doing what.

[944] That's what I'm saying.

[945] Like you're a top or a bottom and you do.

[946] Or whatever, yeah.

[947] Or whatever you're going to do.

[948] And so Dan Savage, so Dan said to me at the beginning of a gang counter with two guys they'll say the four magic words, what are you into?

[949] And at that moment you roll anything in and anything out.

[950] Everything's on the table and you have this discussion and it's like the kind of open -ended question you wish people would ask in a sexual, like all people would ask.

[951] But I started thinking about it after and I was like, yeah, that's really great.

[952] And I wrote about that.

[953] I said, you know, this would be ideal.

[954] And then after that, more recently I've been thinking, but Dan's gay.

[955] He has sex with men.

[956] If you had heterosexual young people and a guy asked that question, the answer, and this is back to these, like, hidden, the girl's answer might be, I have no earthly idea.

[957] Mm -hmm.

[958] Right?

[959] Right.

[960] And where do we go from there?

[961] Yeah.

[962] How do we get from that to people being men and women, young men and young women in particular, starting their sexual experiences, being able to ask that question and answer that for real with each other?

[963] Because that's when we're going to be where we need to be with this stuff.

[964] Entirely.

[965] And, yeah, I just worry that.

[966] Yeah, I just worry who's instigating.

[967] And you're right.

[968] The concepts never even considered whether the guy gave consent.

[969] I've never even, I've never read one line of writing about a guy giving consent.

[970] You will in my book.

[971] Oh, okay.

[972] I'm not there.

[973] You're not that far yet.

[974] I'm not that far yet.

[975] Okay.

[976] So there's a whole chapter that is about the issue of boys and unwanted sex, which includes molestation for sure.

[977] But also like sex that you could have stopped, but you continue with.

[978] And also things that reach the level of.

[979] of assault in terms of both men -on -men and also things that young women may do.

[980] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[981] Columbia University did a two -year, like, multimillion dollar study on sex and sexual assault on campus and found that one in three girls was sexually assaulted, but so were one and eight guys.

[982] And that much of the time, the perpetrator in those situations, and a lot of it was groping or, you know, it wasn't like necessarily being forced to penetrate or involving being penetrated.

[983] Yeah.

[984] But in cases where it was penetration, a lot of it was women who either through incapacitation or nagging, you know, like saying, you know, what are you gay, I'm sorry your friends.

[985] Oh, right, right, right, right.

[986] You know, pushed guys to have sex that they didn't want or had sex with.

[987] them when they were incapacitated and didn't know they were having sex.

[988] And I have, and I frame that chapter with this boy.

[989] I mean, by the way, I'm just going to have to imagine also it's more than one in eight because what, it's such an emasculating thing to admit.

[990] Exactly.

[991] There are differences.

[992] The Jesse Ford, who's a researcher, looked at men and unwanted sex and young women unwanted sex.

[993] The range was much bigger, obviously, of the kinds of things that girls experienced.

[994] And there was, they felt physically threatened.

[995] Sure, the women.

[996] Right.

[997] Yeah.

[998] And the men did not tend to.

[999] was that threat of physical violence or force that tended to really result in trauma and that loss of control.

[1000] But guys sometimes did feel that.

[1001] And some of the guys that I've talked to, not a huge number, a lot of them would say, I don't know what I call that.

[1002] I mean, if the situation were reversed, you would call it assault, but I don't know what I call it when it happens.

[1003] You know, like they don't really know what to do with it.

[1004] But some of them, especially if it was like their first time having intercourse and they had wanted that to be with somebody significant and they had been drunk.

[1005] and erections do not equal consent.

[1006] They were pretty devastated in the way that girls would have been devastated.

[1007] And it took me a number of times hearing that from boys.

[1008] Yeah, to even believe it, maybe.

[1009] To believe it.

[1010] Yeah.

[1011] Like, I just would kind of go, well, that's weird.

[1012] Yeah, yeah, me too.

[1013] I'm like, I can't imagine feeling that one.

[1014] Yeah, but it was, for some of them, it really spiraled them down the words.

[1015] And with more shame, because who are you going to tell?

[1016] Like, one guy, I mean, his experience had not been quite as extreme, but he had had a first time that was not great.

[1017] And he said, you know, it felt good, but it didn't feel good.

[1018] I felt kind of traumatized by it.

[1019] And he said, but what am I supposed to tell my friends?

[1020] You can't say that to a guy.

[1021] Yeah.

[1022] It's like it's got to be.

[1023] It's not even it's got to be great.

[1024] It's great.

[1025] Sure, sure.

[1026] Like pizza.

[1027] Yeah.

[1028] No bad pizza.

[1029] So there's no room.

[1030] And, you know, I mean, if you can't say no, it's back to that thing that we were saying earlier, like guys always being down to fuck.

[1031] If you can't say no, you don't have sexual agency.

[1032] and that's enough.

[1033] Like that in itself is enough, right?

[1034] But I also don't know how you can hear somebody else's know if you're not allowed to say it.

[1035] I think that's an issue too.

[1036] Right, yeah.

[1037] And then there was a subset of guys too who had been molested sometimes by other boys or other men and sometimes by adult women.

[1038] And that whole piece too, I mean the whole porn fantasy of the milf, right?

[1039] Oh, yeah.

[1040] No, no, I witness it in my sense.

[1041] at least once a year, a story breaks where a 17 -year -old boy is having sex with his 30 -year -old teacher.

[1042] And I'm like, good for that, dude.

[1043] I would have loved to have had sex with a couple of my teachers.

[1044] And then I hear the reverse, 30 -year -old dude having sex with a 17 -year -old student.

[1045] I'm like, that guy's a fucking predator and she needs protection.

[1046] And I'm like, well, I can at least acknowledge those are obviously concerning that that's my reaction.

[1047] But that is my true reaction.

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] And, you know, that may be an inappropriate reaction.

[1050] Uh -huh.

[1051] Well, clearly, I'm aware of it.

[1052] But I'm just telling, the honest thought is like, I don't feel bad for that 17 -year -old boy at all.

[1053] So what if you were 14?

[1054] Like, what is your line there?

[1055] 14's dicey.

[1056] 15 feels less dicey.

[1057] I mean, at least when I was 15, I was like 6 -3, and I would have loved to have done that.

[1058] So I'm, I can all, I'm locked in my own perspective.

[1059] Yeah.

[1060] I mean, I've talked to guys of all ages.

[1061] I have a friend who is in his 50s, whose early first experience was, you know, maybe he was 15 or 16 with a friend of his.

[1062] mom's and he looks back on that really unhappily uh -huh really unhappily yeah well but then it gets into the particulars right right was she manipulating him was you know there's so many always taking advantage if it's a 14 or 15 it always is that person it just is that person does not have the frontal lobe cognition to make a real decision in that way they just don't right yeah I mean if You use the example of like, okay, when I was 15, I was in love with Demi Moore.

[1063] She was probably, I don't know if I was 15, she was probably 25 or something.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] I'm no victim in that scenario.

[1066] Yes, you are.

[1067] If she has sex with you, yes, you are.

[1068] Not being in love with her.

[1069] I was in love with 50 -year -olds when I was, I mean, tons.

[1070] But if he had actually had sex with me, I mean, sure, maybe in the moment I would have been like, yes, this is everything I ever wanted.

[1071] I'm getting taken advantage of.

[1072] Even though you pursued him.

[1073] Sure, sure.

[1074] All right.

[1075] You should read the book, Three Women.

[1076] Do you know that book?

[1077] No. It's really good, but one of the stories in it is about a 17 -year -old girl who has a relationship with her high school teacher.

[1078] Right.

[1079] Who's 30.

[1080] But it's not until she's a bit older until she's like in her 20s, that she has the wherewithal to see what that power differential was and how.

[1081] abusive that was absolutely but i'll also add into that equation i think that it was deception in that i'm certain she thought she was going to have a life with that person or a relationship maybe she but she well she thought i think that often people when they're in that kind of dynamic that they feel special they feel chosen sure they're often isolated from their friends because they're you know they're more supposedly grown up than they're i mean there's like all these things that sort of happen in that dynamic that can happen with either girls or boys.

[1082] It can, but I would argue, though, that quite often the young female really believes she's going to be in a relationship with that man. Right, because she doesn't know any better, and that's why we have to not have that let that happen.

[1083] That's right.

[1084] I'm not making a case for anyone to do this.

[1085] I'm only saying the man is consciously manipulating her because he is not looking for a relationship with a 17 -year -old.

[1086] So there's deception right out of the gates.

[1087] It's a bad intention.

[1088] Like, I'm going to trick this person to thinking we're in a relationship so that I can get sex out of it.

[1089] So now, it is quite often that a 17 -year -old boy just wants to have sex with a 25 -year -old woman.

[1090] So whereby both people are trying to get the same thing in getting it does feel different to me. Not okay.

[1091] Just I think the fact that there's deception involved in one heightens it.

[1092] I don't know.

[1093] But I can tell you that, you know, I certainly had boys who talked to me who were being sexually preyed upon.

[1094] by adult women, by teachers and other people who believe that very thing, did believe that they were going to have a life with those people, or did believe, you know, they were manipulated, they were groomed, they were preyed upon, and, you know, exactly the same way that girls are.

[1095] Our tendency as a society is to not see that in boys.

[1096] As they're a victim.

[1097] Yeah, and they very well can be.

[1098] Of course.

[1099] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1100] I know it's wrong.

[1101] But I'm just exploring out loud.

[1102] I know it's wrong that I don't care that this boy did this.

[1103] Yep.

[1104] And so what is the case I'm building for why I don't think it's the same?

[1105] With the full admission, it's not right by any stretch.

[1106] I don't think it's healthy for any 30 -year -old woman to be wanting to have sex with a 17 -year -old boy.

[1107] I think there's all kinds of things probably going on with her.

[1108] And then you can ask the same question, like what if it were a man?

[1109] What if it were 30 -year -old man and a 16 -year -old boy?

[1110] would you see that differently?

[1111] I would.

[1112] Would you see that the same?

[1113] I do.

[1114] So it's an interesting.

[1115] Because I have a lot of gay friends who have been introduced to the gay life style and educated by someone older than them that have had a great experience.

[1116] And I'll listen to that story and I go, wow, if that's between a man and a woman, to me, it's very predatory and wrong.

[1117] And then the way you're describing this thing is much different.

[1118] So I do think that exists.

[1119] Or, you know, I mean, I've talked to Dan about this a lot too.

[1120] also can be a problem, can be abusive, can be manipulative.

[1121] And I had a lot of guys of gay boys that I talk to who, especially now because they've got Grindr, they would lie about their age and go on to Grindr and be hooking up anonymously with much older men, which, you know, and I would say to them, if you were a girl, I would think that was really, you know, I would have to report you.

[1122] And they would say, yeah, it's not great.

[1123] They didn't feel great about that.

[1124] They didn't feel that there were other options and sort of the way that we've suppressed people being able to express their sexuality has kind of forced a dynamic maybe.

[1125] And maybe if we could provide more situations, more social situations, for gay kids where they could have age -appropriate experiences and, you know, have social experiences and have romantic experience and have sexual experiences in the ways that other teens are allowed to, you know, that's what we should be thinking about.

[1126] Yeah.

[1127] Yeah.

[1128] That if that was on solid footing, maybe the other thing wouldn't exist.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] And I mean, one of the things that I wrote a lot about was that like with gay boys, I mean, obviously it's a new time, right?

[1131] I mean, obviously things have changed enormously for them.

[1132] And, you know, they can come out of 15 and there's like a gay guy running for president and all these things.

[1133] But it was like all on this social front.

[1134] Like it was more like, you know, you could be the gay best friend or you could be the theater boy.

[1135] But nobody was still talking to them about what a mutually gratifying and personally fulfilling.

[1136] sexual experience or relationship would be like for them.

[1137] Yeah.

[1138] And heterosexual parents in particular kind of didn't want to think about the whole sex piece.

[1139] So they were, you know, if you're not talking to your straight kid about sex, you're sure as hell not talking to your gay kid about sex.

[1140] Well, sure.

[1141] And I really probably know nothing about.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] So that really did drive them more into this world where they were kind of looking for a mentor or looking for a mentor or looking at porn as a template.

[1144] And that's not ideal.

[1145] That's not you know, what we want for any young person.

[1146] Yeah.

[1147] Now, again, more anecdotal information for you.

[1148] I'm in AA.

[1149] I hear a lot of people share.

[1150] I noticed about five years ago, oh, the younger guys have a much different relationship with sexuality than I had growing up, or at least different parameters.

[1151] I'm noticing this like fluidity with younger guys that certainly didn't exist when I was 22 years old.

[1152] I'm just wondering how that's evolved now.

[1153] As you're writing your book, do you notice, like, is it still all the same or is there's substantial difference in?

[1154] What's on the table for everyone?

[1155] I'd say kind of yes and no. I mean, it seemed to me that sexual fluidity was more acceptable for the girls, that girls were more likely to identify as bisexual or pansexual to be interested in going out with trans boys or trans girls.

[1156] Boys still felt pretty boxed, maybe less so a little bit, but I think that had moved a lot less.

[1157] Oh, okay.

[1158] It's that's what I saw.

[1159] Yeah.

[1160] And what impact is that having on the conventional definitions of masculinity and the roles everyone's playing?

[1161] You know, I did look at trans boys to a degree, not, you know, not like hugely, but it's definitely part of the book.

[1162] And it was, I mean, they're not, as one guy said, you know, we're not sent down like angels from heaven to change your masculinity.

[1163] That's not why we exist.

[1164] Yeah, yeah.

[1165] And some of them just wanted to be the most conventional of guys.

[1166] But sometimes they pushed other guys to not like question, you know, whether they were really men or anything like that, but to sort of broaden their ideas of like, what does it actually mean to be male?

[1167] What does it actually mean to be a man?

[1168] What does it actually mean to engage in these things?

[1169] And that guy in particular would talk about, he said a lot of times like, well, you know, that's not my masculinity or, you know, like he talked about it like this dynamic thing that he was building.

[1170] And I thought, that is so interesting.

[1171] I never heard any other guy.

[1172] I never heard like a, you know, we would now call a straight cis guy, right?

[1173] Say, well, that's not my masculinity.

[1174] You know, and I thought, what an interesting way of looking at it.

[1175] That was looking at masculinity is something that you're like creating kind of and making decisions about.

[1176] And this is my masculinity, but that over there, that's not.

[1177] You know, it was kind of fascinating.

[1178] I just wonder if now that there are, there's more acceptance of gay men and they're, as you say, holding offices in student council and they're, you know, not...

[1179] Running for president.

[1180] Running for president and not relegated to the fringes of school.

[1181] If that is somehow encouraging going like, wait, if that's the worst thing I can be and everyone likes this guy, like, can I move closer to that?

[1182] You know what I'm saying?

[1183] I guess that would be my hope that is happening.

[1184] I did see in some communities that, you know, your conventional penis tote and guy was friends with us.

[1185] you know, straight guy would have, they would have gay friends, they would have trans friends, you know, but there was, like, I think there was a quota in their head a little bit, like, like, you know, this many trans and gay friends, but if you have too many, then, like, you know, maybe that's too many, then they maybe start, will be, people will question you.

[1186] So there was, like, weird, you know, ways that you could slice it, but I did see that, and, you know, some fraternity guys that I talked to, they had one guy who was, like, you know, big 10 school.

[1187] really Midwest dude, they had a trans guy in their frat.

[1188] Oh, no kidding.

[1189] Yeah.

[1190] And that had really, he said at first ever, it was like, hmm, not so sure about this.

[1191] But that over time, you know, they were accepting and that that had broadened their idea of what masculinity was.

[1192] So it did have kind of a good effect.

[1193] Though, again, like I said, transboys would say not really my job.

[1194] Right, right, right.

[1195] Nor is it.

[1196] Now, how about pornography?

[1197] So when we talk about why us idiot guys have this notion of like big dick and last a long time because that's what you're seeing in a porno.

[1198] Right.

[1199] You're not seeing the guy's not clitorily stimulating the girls he's having sex with 99 % of the time in a porno.

[1200] Yeah, if that's a never been more accessible ever in the history of the world.

[1201] Right.

[1202] And if that's the only version of sex you're saying.

[1203] It's the default sex educator.

[1204] Yes.

[1205] I know.

[1206] That's a huge problem.

[1207] there's a lot of racial politics that play out in porn.

[1208] You know, whether it's black guys' penises or black women not being present or only certain kind of black bodies or how Asian women are depicted.

[1209] I mean, there's all kinds of race stuff in porn and I would ask boys about that all the time.

[1210] Like, how do you deal with the racism?

[1211] Yeah.

[1212] And they go, well, what race?

[1213] And like, these are guys who would see racism like in their normal lives.

[1214] Of course they would.

[1215] They were very aware.

[1216] But it was like they left that stuff.

[1217] They're like, you leave so much at the door when you start looking through the porno videos, that that is just one more thing that you're leaving at the door.

[1218] But it's another thing that's affecting you.

[1219] You're just not acknowledging that it's there.

[1220] My wife and I were reading Missoula, the John Cracker's Herbook.

[1221] And one of the cases was this, you know, two again, blackout drunk people.

[1222] This guy starts, you know, digitally penetrating this girl.

[1223] And she's like kind of coming in and out.

[1224] And then she says, stop.

[1225] And he says, no, I'm going to make you squirt.

[1226] and this boy's a virgin.

[1227] He doesn't know.

[1228] He thinks his job in a sexual experience is to make someone squirt.

[1229] That's what he's been led to believe is the norm or the high watermark of proficiency in bed.

[1230] Well, yeah, and that's why, I know.

[1231] And that is why we can't, we got to talk to, you know, to ignore what boys are absorbing.

[1232] And girls, too, because girls look at it more like a manual for what guys want.

[1233] Right, right.

[1234] But if we're ignoring, like, because it's really different.

[1235] And you have to, I mean, I always like to frame this by saying curiosity about sex is normal, you know, and masturbation, yay, you know, good for everybody.

[1236] And, you know, there's all kinds of different porn and a lot of some people consider some porn to be feminist porn or ethical porn or queer porn or whatever it is.

[1237] A lot of that's behind a paywall.

[1238] That's all behind the paywall.

[1239] What you're going to be able to, what changed was porn hub.

[1240] Right, right, right, right.

[1241] Right, yeah, yeah.

[1242] Pornhub came online in 2007 and dropped the paywall for the moment.

[1243] most mainstream kind of hardcore porn.

[1244] Yeah.

[1245] I've been so curious how they're making money, to be honest.

[1246] Yeah, I don't know how they do it.

[1247] I don't really know their business model.

[1248] But that's what changed.

[1249] Yeah, that's what changed.

[1250] And that was what allowed any kid with a smartphone to look at anything.

[1251] Yes.

[1252] Right.

[1253] To get a master class in male fantasy.

[1254] Right.

[1255] That kind of easy access porn keeps reinforcing the study that sex is something men do to women, that people.

[1256] female pleasure as a performance for guys.

[1257] They have nine orgasms while a guy just holds steady.

[1258] Right, exactly.

[1259] All these kind of distortions.

[1260] And kids are looking at, and boys in particular look at it, you know, from the time they go through puberty and start masturbating, that's how they're, you know.

[1261] I had one guy who said to me that there was a boy on his sports team who was a legend because he had decided he wasn't going to use porn anymore.

[1262] And they were like, well, what do you do?

[1263] Uh -huh.

[1264] And he said, I use my imagination.

[1265] They were like, whoa, how does that work?

[1266] That's not a thing.

[1267] But, I mean, you know, that's what, it's right there.

[1268] Of course, it's so easy.

[1269] Yeah.

[1270] Right?

[1271] Yeah, it's fast food.

[1272] But it's exactly fast food.

[1273] And it does, even when they say it doesn't, because they'll say, I know the difference from reality and fantasy, but how would they know that?

[1274] Like, what is their context?

[1275] What have they actually, they haven't even kissed anybody.

[1276] Yeah.

[1277] You know?

[1278] So, of course, meet the whole point of media, any kind of media, is that it affects our thoughts and feelings and beliefs, even when we think it doesn't.

[1279] So I just wonder, like, this will be a provocative thought, but I don't see us getting rid of pornography.

[1280] I don't think that's in our future.

[1281] So to me, then it goes, well, then counter -programs.

[1282] So more female directed, written, inspired fantasies of sex that are counteracting.

[1283] When it exists is behind a paywall.

[1284] Well, we've got to get it out of the paywall, I guess.

[1285] Yeah, but, I mean, that's, you know, that's fair trade, right?

[1286] So that's probably not going to happen.

[1287] but I think that we do have to talk about pornography with our kids.

[1288] We have talk about pornography with our kids.

[1289] Our boys and our girls because our girls watch it too.

[1290] And what it is and what it isn't.

[1291] What's real, what's not real, what's missing.

[1292] It's no different than the superhero movie they go see.

[1293] It's as much an abstraction of a male fantasy.

[1294] This is a completely malconstructed male fantasy of what a male would do in bed.

[1295] In the same way.

[1296] You know what you always have to ask is like, so why does that fantasy keep getting more and more aggressive?

[1297] these guys who are consuming a ton of pornography and they're not getting any real life sex are getting more and more frustrated and aggravated and they're getting more misogynistic and they're more pissed at women.

[1298] Now they want to see the guys punish these women because they're, you know what I'm saying?

[1299] I have to believe that's part of the cycle.

[1300] Yeah, I think that's, but there's also, there is, so Emily Nagoski is this woman who writes about the science of desire.

[1301] Uh -huh.

[1302] She wrote this book, Come As You Are, which is one of my very favorite books.

[1303] She talks about how when something is simultaneously sexual and taboo, it creates this response like if I suddenly said to you, okay, Dax, don't think about a polar bear.

[1304] Stop thinking about that polar bear.

[1305] Do not think about the polar bear.

[1306] Like now you're thinking about a polar bear.

[1307] Oh, I can see it perfectly.

[1308] A ton of tiny legs.

[1309] Right?

[1310] So because embedded in that don't think about this is think about this.

[1311] So embedded in like don't think about sex when this really offensive thing is happening or when this really disturbing thing is happening or it's really taboo things happening is think about sex when those things are happening and it can make something that's like that you find objectionable even more like turbocharge arousal more than something that you don't find objectionable and I think it's really actually that's one of the things that I say in the book that we need to talk to boys about are some of these like physiology ideas because a lot of the boys really wanted to talk to me about porn that was a big one and part of it was because they had a lot of confusion around it or a lot of anxiety around it or like Yeah, was there a most common question they were asking?

[1312] Well, you know, being aroused by things that upset them or like...

[1313] They were like choking people or gagging people or...

[1314] Yeah, choking or gagging or things that involved shit or, you know, various, you know, I mean, there's a lot out there.

[1315] Sure, sure.

[1316] There's a lot, gangbanks, whatever, you know.

[1317] Or whether what they watched, you know, how much was normal.

[1318] But, I mean, guys related to it differently.

[1319] They didn't all relate it the same way.

[1320] I mean, some of them really did kind of go.

[1321] like I really felt like it was messing with my head.

[1322] One guy said he was sitting in class in high school and he was like looking over at this girl and he started imagining what she looked like with cum on her face.

[1323] He said that was it.

[1324] Like not even naked, right?

[1325] Not naked, not like what would it be like to kiss her or something?

[1326] What would she look like with cum on her?

[1327] He's like, that is over the line.

[1328] I don't want that in my, I don't want those images and thoughts in my head.

[1329] I think about it like with jumpsuits.

[1330] Like the first time, I don't know if you had this, but like the first time I saw somebody wearing a jumpsuit, I thought recently I thought, oh what's that and then the second time you see them wearing a jumpsuit you're like well hmm and the third time that's kind of cute yeah and then the third time you're like I got to get me a jumpsuit you know it it just gets in your head so there were those guys there were guys who said oh it doesn't affect me at all it's just like sneezing but you know we know that even when you think it doesn't media affects you and then there was some guys who really felt like whether it was I can't say whether it was true or not but they felt harmed by their porn consumption and they had never told another adult that.

[1331] And they wanted to talk to me specifically to talk about that.

[1332] Well, look, I wasn't even watching porn and when I was new to masturbating I felt so guilty.

[1333] We weren't even a religious house.

[1334] I was constantly trying to quit that activity.

[1335] I thought it was abhorrent of me and showed a total lack of control and I was regularly trying to monitor that.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] And I couldn't.

[1338] So I can't only imagine if I had on top of that objectively some gnarly images I'm tying with this already behavior I'm for whatever reason shameful of.

[1339] And then that's in there.

[1340] Yeah.

[1341] So, yeah, it's really important not to shame boys when talking about it for sure.

[1342] Right, right.

[1343] And to recognize, like I said, curiosity is normal.

[1344] Masturbation is normal.

[1345] And to just kind of think about some of the stuff.

[1346] Like if you know college guys who watch porn are less satisfied with their sex lives and with their performance and with their partner's bodies, that's an interesting thing to know for a guy.

[1347] Sure.

[1348] Yeah.

[1349] The thing that one guy said to me that really affected me was, it's not even about any of that.

[1350] He just said, you know, I feel like pornography for this generation, it's affected our ability to be innocent in a sexual relationship and just explore sex without preconceived ideas.

[1351] He said, that's just been fucked by porn for us.

[1352] Well, you kind of start knowing every single conceivable thing that could happen.

[1353] Yeah.

[1354] Right?

[1355] You've seen every iteration.

[1356] And yet you know nothing.

[1357] Yes, yes, yes.

[1358] And yet you know nothing.

[1359] And we don't, I mean, I don't know.

[1360] I don't know what the ultimate impact is of all of that, but it's a huge change.

[1361] And I don't think that we can raise kids in a culture of explicit media and not even porn, but like regular media too has gotten much more explicit and pretend like we don't have to talk to them about it.

[1362] Yeah.

[1363] I mean, that's another thing with girls.

[1364] Like, we have, in all these years that I've been writing about girls, we've recognized, I'm sure as a parent, you recognize that the media images out there can be harmful to girls.

[1365] You know that, right?

[1366] They can reduce them to their body.

[1367] They're objectified.

[1368] They're, you know, whatever.

[1369] It's bad for the mental health.

[1370] All these things.

[1371] We know.

[1372] So we've done a much better job of like...

[1373] Checking in with them about all that.

[1374] Yeah.

[1375] Creating like this media literacy.

[1376] And there's organizations and there's like psychologists and advocates and activists and parents and everybody's like all careful and conscious about how we raise our girls in this media culture.

[1377] But boys are in the same stew, right?

[1378] Yeah.

[1379] Well, even in my current circles, like most L .A. parents are hyper aware of not creating potential food disorders.

[1380] Yeah, body dysmorphia.

[1381] But no one's thinking about that for their boys at all.

[1382] Right.

[1383] Right.

[1384] It's not even crossed anyone's mind.

[1385] No one's worried at all.

[1386] No. That's my point.

[1387] So, like, we know how to do this.

[1388] We've done it with girls.

[1389] We know how to create media literacy.

[1390] And at least, I mean, it's not perfect and it doesn't always, you know, but we try.

[1391] We try to give them a, because we can't make the media go away.

[1392] We try to give them a lens.

[1393] We try to give them a critique.

[1394] Nobody's doing that with boys Nobody's doing that with boys And I feel like that's something That isn't even about like You know Saying the word clitoris to your son Which maybe you'd rather poke yourself In the eye with a fork than do But you know You can like start pointing out I mean I remember when my daughter was really little She's 16 But when she was like You know when she was little And we would watch You know whatever animated films And I just go like Hey honey You know look That character's eyes are bigger than her wrists Are your eyes bigger than your wrist?

[1395] Is your head bigger than your waist?

[1396] Like, where does she keep her uterus?

[1397] Is it in her purse?

[1398] Like, what is going on here?

[1399] Sure.

[1400] And I know, I wouldn't have said that if I had a son.

[1401] I wouldn't have said her at all.

[1402] Right, right.

[1403] Yeah, yeah.

[1404] We say to our girls like, we're reading, we came under fire about this, but we have no way saying that you shouldn't read snowing the seven doors.

[1405] We love it.

[1406] We still read it.

[1407] But we're always like, kind of weird.

[1408] A stranger came and kissed this woman who was dead.

[1409] Isn't that kind of bizarre?

[1410] Yeah, without even asking.

[1411] And she's dead.

[1412] And she's dead.

[1413] And she's a necrophiliac.

[1414] And he's not asked permission.

[1415] and, you know, just something to observe that that's kind of a weird part of the story.

[1416] But those are like those little weird, I mean, those things with your daughters, you learn how to, like, throw them in all the time.

[1417] But it's because, like, you think, okay, the culture's going to try to brainwash your daughter, right?

[1418] And you've got to get in there first.

[1419] Yeah, yeah.

[1420] You got to get it so that she hears your voice whenever she sees that Snow White story saying, well, that's weird, isn't it?

[1421] You know, like, you want her to hear that.

[1422] Yeah.

[1423] But we haven't really thought about, like, how our boys need that from us to.

[1424] Yeah.

[1425] Yeah.

[1426] Well, I'm just delighted that you've explored this topic.

[1427] It seems still in its infancy where we're talking about what we need to do to get boys.

[1428] But that's so exciting, right?

[1429] I mean, that's what I think, like, with the Me Too thing, like, on one hand, it's created this imperative to reduce sexual violence.

[1430] Super important.

[1431] But it's also created this really positive and exciting opportunity to engage boys in all these conversations about.

[1432] sex and intimacy and gender dynamics and masculinity in ways that we never have and that is like a tremendously exciting possibility to me yeah you're right i don't i can't imagine there's not a household where this topic doesn't come up comes up with mine all the time i mean it's in the news all the time and it's one of the only happy accidents of the whole thing is like it is starting a conversation that's long overdue right and that doesn't have to only be negative but can also be about the positive right how do we help young people get it?

[1433] it there.

[1434] Yeah.

[1435] Well, Peggy, thank you so much for lying down.

[1436] Yeah.

[1437] I'm about a third of the way through the book and I absolutely love it.

[1438] It's just, I like it as much as the mask you live in.

[1439] It's just really great.

[1440] I also like how Frank it is.

[1441] Thank you.

[1442] Yeah.

[1443] I appreciate that.

[1444] I like how you're talking to them.

[1445] I like how you're talking to them.

[1446] Nothing's kind of sugar -coated.

[1447] It's like, no, this is a glimpse.

[1448] This is what it is.

[1449] Yeah.

[1450] Thanks.

[1451] This is super fun.

[1452] It's great.

[1453] All right.

[1454] Well, Thank you and come back.

[1455] Thank you.

[1456] I will.

[1457] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1458] Peggy.

[1459] Peggy.

[1460] Very enlightening.

[1461] I liked her a lot.

[1462] Yeah, yeah.

[1463] She was very interesting.

[1464] We got into some debates.

[1465] Sure.

[1466] You know, as we do.

[1467] Okay, so Peggy, I emailed her because she left an open -ended question about masturbation, which is a question that we've been asking each other.

[1468] a long time.

[1469] Do girls masturbate?

[1470] As much as boys or at all or whatever.

[1471] And she had said girls do much, much, much less.

[1472] And then she responded and said, fact -checking, yes, I was right, according to the largest study ever conducted on American sexual practices, which came out in 2012, I think.

[1473] Fewer than half of girls 14 to 17 had ever masturbated.

[1474] Half of girls 14 to 17.

[1475] Fewer than half had ever masturbated.

[1476] She said, it's been a while since I cited that, so I suddenly thought, dang, could that be true?

[1477] It seems like it couldn't be.

[1478] But here are the citations, National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior.

[1479] More than three quarters of boys at ages 14 to 17 say they've masturbated and less than half of girls have.

[1480] Interesting.

[1481] So not even double, though.

[1482] Right.

[1483] Yeah, not like astronomical.

[1484] No. But I guess only...

[1485] By the way, let me just tell you something.

[1486] 100 % of boys have masturbated between 4%.

[1487] And they're just not saying it.

[1488] Yeah.

[1489] And I imagine that girls too aren't saying it.

[1490] And I would imagine there's even more pressure on girls to not say it.

[1491] Yeah, that is true.

[1492] I mean, yeah, what kind of poll would this be?

[1493] I mean, I guess.

[1494] Can you imagine asking like a 14 -year -old girl she jacks off?

[1495] Who's asking that question?

[1496] Oh, my God.

[1497] About a third of girls in every age group masturbate regularly.

[1498] A third in every age group.

[1499] Uh -huh.

[1500] Okay.

[1501] Masturbate regularly.

[1502] early.

[1503] While the percentage of boys rises steadily with time.

[1504] Oh, that makes sense.

[1505] Because they're getting less sex from their wife.

[1506] I think this is just boys, not men, that would be my guess.

[1507] I don't know that for sure.

[1508] They probably just get more comfortable and start talking about it with friends.

[1509] Like, they feel less ashamed.

[1510] Yeah, guys are pretty open about jerking off from a young age.

[1511] There's like a period, there's a couple years where you're first doing it where no one's talking about it.

[1512] Yeah.

[1513] And then all of a sudden, everyone just owns it.

[1514] And is there like bragging involved?

[1515] No, no, no, no, no. More like comparing like Aaron and I going like, you ever put your finger in your butt while you're jerking up?

[1516] You know, just kind of seeing like what kind of weird, weird things you've done.

[1517] War stories.

[1518] You guys more swapping war stories.

[1519] Uh -huh.

[1520] Trying to pick up tips, you know.

[1521] Yeah, sure.

[1522] Is there anything out there that could increase this?

[1523] Oh, yeah.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] Well, I'm glad really that you guys are talking about something.

[1526] It is really, I can't, I cannot really imagine what it would have been like to have been 12 and 13 with pornography at the ready, you know?

[1527] I was like looking at bra ads in like a normal magazine and using that, you know.

[1528] Well, I think you were probably better off.

[1529] Well, probably my imagination is much better.

[1530] I wonder if that really will have an effect on like a whole generation of imagination.

[1531] Yeah, because I had to fill in a lot of blanks and just in a big, it was big full -sized like Sears catalog underwear.

[1532] even skimpy.

[1533] Oh, wow.

[1534] And occasionally, once in a while, you'd hit the jackpot and there'd be like a Victoria's Secret thing laying around somewhere.

[1535] And you could really get a sink your teeth into that.

[1536] Did you ever sneak into a Victoria's secret and like look at the panties?

[1537] Never.

[1538] No. You sometimes see men in there and I'm always like, gross.

[1539] I know.

[1540] I guess in theory they're buying it for their lover.

[1541] That's what they want you to think.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] I'm not sure it's true.

[1544] They're probably buying it for themselves.

[1545] I think so.

[1546] Okay, percentage of high schoolers who are are athletes.

[1547] The estimate is that 55 .5 % of all high school students play a sport.

[1548] That's way more than I would have guessed.

[1549] Me too.

[1550] Me too.

[1551] But it also says the sports programs continue to grow.

[1552] The rate has slowed over the past decades sports participation has increased by roughly 100 ,000 students per year.

[1553] The 40 ,000 increase over the past year is the smallest since the late 1980s.

[1554] Well, there's a big decline in football participation.

[1555] in white communities.

[1556] Because of CTE?

[1557] Yeah, yeah.

[1558] But troublingly, it's not having a impact on the minority groups.

[1559] The numbers are the same, if not increased, filling those holes.

[1560] Interesting.

[1561] Well, that one's so tricky because that's like one of the things that I think is like dangled over communities that don't have poorer communities.

[1562] Yeah, yeah.

[1563] Of, like, use sports to get out of that.

[1564] Yeah.

[1565] Get a scholarship to school.

[1566] Yeah.

[1567] Yeah, they didn't delineate whether or not the lower socioeconomic whites were.

[1568] Right.

[1569] It just was a big number for whites.

[1570] But I have to imagine the poor white kids are still doing it too.

[1571] I bet it's the same thing.

[1572] I bet it's just a, yeah, but it's just a class thing.

[1573] Yeah.

[1574] Okay.

[1575] How does Pornhub make money?

[1576] Yeah.

[1577] So ads is a huge one.

[1578] Ads, there's, I guess, a premium member.

[1579] Membership.

[1580] Sure.

[1581] And then one said production companies pay to feature videos and promote porn stars.

[1582] That was my question.

[1583] I'm not confused how Pornhub's making money because they're like YouTube.

[1584] They've got ads.

[1585] But the producers of pornography, unless Pornhub is sharing that ad revenue with the people who post the clips, which I can't imagine they are, but maybe they are.

[1586] I see.

[1587] I was more confused.

[1588] It used to be they made a porno and then they sold the DVD.

[1589] Right.

[1590] And so they made money.

[1591] They must make some money from putting it on there.

[1592] I think there were like when I was Googling it.

[1593] There was stuff that came up saying, um, fuck young teens in your neighborhood.

[1594] Yes.

[1595] Was there any of those pop -ups?

[1596] Oh, for sure.

[1597] There was a lot of stuff that popped up.

[1598] I didn't want to see.

[1599] But it set a lot of how to make money on porn hub.

[1600] But I didn't click that because I didn't know that's what we were talking about.

[1601] But yeah, so I guess there's ways.

[1602] Yeah, I'm just shocked that there's still as much production.

[1603] Mm -hmm.

[1604] Because, you know, the movie industry, the revenue was cut in half with the end of DVD sales, basically.

[1605] Right.

[1606] And they've clawed some back with the streaming services and internationals grown.

[1607] But overall, that was just a big chunk that was lost.

[1608] And that was the entire model for pornography.

[1609] Yeah.

[1610] Or I don't know if they're at any AMC Cineplexes.

[1611] Well, maybe.

[1612] Maybe that'll circle back around.

[1613] Yeah.

[1614] Hope so.

[1615] That's all.

[1616] That's all?

[1617] You know, it's interesting.

[1618] I'm in general, like, philosophy 101, you always debate pornography.

[1619] Like, you debate abortion, you debate pornography, all these different things.

[1620] I have always been pro pornography.

[1621] I think it's liberty and art and who's going to decide what's pornography and who's not.

[1622] Yeah.

[1623] Yet the porn that is most popular is, I find disturbing.

[1624] Yeah.

[1625] I know.

[1626] I find it to be very, like, violent and aggressive and not even mirroring what real sex is life.

[1627] Well, that's the big problem, I think.

[1628] Like, I don't think there's, I mean, yeah, we could debate whether porn should be allowed or not.

[1629] That seems like a different debate than just, is it healthy?

[1630] It's not.

[1631] It's not good for these young brains to be exposed to this non -reality of sex.

[1632] Yeah, these, like, juiced up fucking meatheads pounding some 80 -pound -year -old, 80 -pound -year -old, 80 -pound gal so aggressively.

[1633] Yeah, so it was a rough.

[1634] Well, and even Peggy said something that I thought was so interesting that, like, girls watch it too, of course.

[1635] But she said girls mainly watch it almost as like a playbook.

[1636] Like, this is how I should act during sex.

[1637] I should make these sounds and I should do this, which is.

[1638] Yeah.

[1639] And I believe that she's right that probably a lot of girls do watch it.

[1640] Right.

[1641] But I also think in the like Dr. Alex way, like, you don't know what turns people on.

[1642] I think a lot of women watch it for stimulation, too.

[1643] So I think it's a little, I guess I always bristle a little bit when there's some implication that women can't, don't do anything on their own accord, that it would just be to please a man. It feels a little dismissive of like women's agency.

[1644] But I don't even know if it's just to please a man. It's like, this is my role in sex.

[1645] Uh -huh.

[1646] This is what it's supposed to look like.

[1647] Uh -huh.

[1648] This is what a face looks like when you're in that position.

[1649] Like, I don't think it's about pleasing a guy.

[1650] It's just like, well, I guess this is what it's supposed to be.

[1651] Right.

[1652] It's the same thing that's happening with the boys of like, well, I guess this is what it's supposed to be.

[1653] Yeah.

[1654] Big dicks and lasting a long time and all this stuff that none of that's necessarily true.

[1655] Normal.

[1656] Or normal at all.

[1657] But I feel like girls even just from seeing movies take away an idea of what it should look like.

[1658] And that's not necessarily true.

[1659] Right.

[1660] You've never, you've never watched pornography, right?

[1661] I, no, I, we watched it once in college, like a bunch of us watched, watched one.

[1662] Some dirty clip.

[1663] Kind of as a joke, yeah.

[1664] But I've never watched it seriously, no. Right.

[1665] You can't imagine it being sexy, no. Yeah.

[1666] Oh.

[1667] Yeah.

[1668] I have enjoyed it at times, but again, it's one of the, there's a few anomalies in my kind of addictive personality, which one is I can gamble normally.

[1669] I don't get weird.

[1670] Yeah.

[1671] And then also pornography, I've always been able to kind of take it or leave it.

[1672] Yeah.

[1673] Well, your imagination, as you said.

[1674] Oh, it's razor sharp.

[1675] I need very little to go on.

[1676] Yeah.

[1677] Now, when you're masturbating and you're fantasizing, do you, does the fantasy have to be plausible?

[1678] Because for me, it has to be incredibly plausible.

[1679] Some people can, like, jerk off to, like, movie stars and stuff.

[1680] I can't do that.

[1681] Yeah, I can do that.

[1682] Or, like, a centerful.

[1683] You can.

[1684] It does not have to be plausible.

[1685] And it's not even like, it's not even like a full, like that's why I think porn, the whole like a plot that's happening with porn, I just, that's so, yeah, and it's just would take me out because it's funny and stupid.

[1686] Yeah, yeah.

[1687] It's not the greatest writing.

[1688] But it's more just like flashes of images.

[1689] Yeah, mine is, it's almost hard for me because it has to be so realistic that I get really ball.

[1690] down in the details oh your plot is really thick yes because i'll all like oh yeah that girl's hot blah blah blah blah and oh this could happen and then i'm like oh and then you know then she's going to tell a bunch of people and i'm gonna i'm gonna lose my life and then i just start i i it's real rough yeah yeah so then you kind of so then i'm like well go through the some greatest hits sure that were real yeah and that's good that's nice but i do wish i could just like see a picture of a gal and really imagine the whole thing.

[1691] But the whole time I'm like, I'm not going to meet this person.

[1692] That's a bummer.

[1693] Yeah.

[1694] It's real complicated.

[1695] It is.

[1696] It's all complicated.

[1697] All right.

[1698] Well, happy masturbating, everybody.

[1699] Thanks for listening to the program.

[1700] And, you know, if you masturbate, listen to the program, that's fine with us.

[1701] Oh, we're pro masturbation.

[1702] Peggy is very pro masturbation.

[1703] She said so.

[1704] And do you think anyone masturbates listen to this program, though?

[1705] God, I hope so.

[1706] What do we say?

[1707] dolphin what's our code word asparagus so look if you listen to this episode just pop us a dolphin asparagus that'll mean that you are in fact what was that I don't know that was if you've ever had sexual fantasies about a dolphin but you didn't want to admit it and you just write dolphin asparagus and we got a least 15 dolphin asparagus and I have to imagine 14 and a half of those were joking but I like to believe that 0 .5 of those was sincerely attracted to a dolphin Oh, man, this show.

[1708] This show.

[1709] What a show.

[1710] It's going down hell.

[1711] I love you.

[1712] I love you.

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