EXPERTS ON EXPERT: Dr. Alex Katehakis

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Experts on Expert.

[1] I'm Dr. Dack Shepard.

[2] I'm joined with surgeon Monica Padman.

[3] I wish, in another life.

[4] Why?

[5] Why do you wish that?

[6] I just think it'd be cool, like on Grey's Anatomy.

[7] Oh, okay.

[8] I had a friend who dated three surgeons in a row in Michigan.

[9] Wow.

[10] And his conclusion was that they were hornier.

[11] Really?

[12] Isn't that interesting?

[13] Huh.

[14] I wonder why.

[15] I don't know.

[16] He said they were real raunchy in a fun way.

[17] Maybe just because they're dealing with the nuts and bullies.

[18] of humanity.

[19] Maybe.

[20] Maybe it's like life is too precious.

[21] You should just fuck.

[22] Well, what a great transition to our guest today.

[23] We have an incredibly smart and interesting sex addiction therapist, sex therapist, and marriage and family therapist named Dr. Alexandra Cotahacus.

[24] I had so much fun talking to her.

[25] Me too.

[26] She was fascinating.

[27] I liked her a lot.

[28] I just love talking to her.

[29] And she has a great book called Mirror of Intimacy.

[30] So this is a great opportunity to purve out with us, an expert that actually knows what they're talking about.

[31] Yeah.

[32] So please enjoy Dr. Alexandra Cotahakis.

[33] Ooh, one more thing, Monica.

[34] Yeah.

[35] If you like watching me on TV.

[36] Which I do.

[37] You do.

[38] Okay, great.

[39] Of course I do.

[40] I'm on tonight.

[41] I am the host of a game show.

[42] Oh, I love games.

[43] Called Spin the Wheel on Fox tonight after Master Chef.

[44] It's so exciting.

[45] You can win $23 million.

[46] How come you didn't invite me on there?

[47] Because you're not good enough of a person, nor am I, nor am I. The people that are on this show have, like, rescued people out of derailed trains, for real.

[48] Yikes, okay.

[49] Yeah, so never was I standing across somebody that I was even remotely as good as.

[50] Okay.

[51] But it's a very high -stakes fun game show, and then I am a little bit weird on it, as you would hope.

[52] I'm talking to the contestants about how handsome their husbands are, what their workout routines are.

[53] You know, that's what you'd come to expect.

[54] Sure.

[55] Just a dose of purvingness.

[56] If you want to check it out, it's on tonight.

[57] Fox after Master Chef.

[58] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[59] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[60] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[61] He's an armchair expert.

[62] He's an out of chair expert.

[63] Will you pronounce your last name for me?

[64] It's Cataaccus.

[65] It's sort of phonetic Katahakis Where's that from?

[66] It's Greek I would imagine Are you proud of that?

[67] I am, yeah There was a time Like when I was in elementary school Where I hated it Right?

[68] Because I grew up in a very white area Of where?

[69] Well, I grew up on the Central East Coast of Florida And there's an Air Force base there So it was like very white middle class Waspy Like white people And I have really curly hair hair.

[70] When I blow dry it, it's straight.

[71] But as a kid, I look like Tiny Tim.

[72] That dates me, obviously.

[73] So I hated my ethnicity.

[74] Poor mom and dad, Greek?

[75] Well, my mother was born of Greek parents in the States, and my father was right off the boat.

[76] He was an immigrant.

[77] Oh.

[78] My parents have a really interesting story in that my father came right out of World War II as a young man, and he couldn't make a living on his island.

[79] He grew up in Crete.

[80] So he does a decided to join the Merchant Marines and travel around the world and make some money and go back was his idea.

[81] But when he got to New York, he called his uncle who lived in Miami, who said, why don't you come visit us?

[82] And so my father had, you know, change in his pocket, essentially, spoke no English, got on a Greyhound bus, and made his way through segregated South, eating cheese and crackers and coffee for hours, and had this experience of like getting off the bus in Georgia and going to the bathroom and there were black and white bathrooms.

[83] Sure.

[84] So he was an alien, really.

[85] So when he got to Miami, by then he had, you know, broken all rules of curfew.

[86] He was now in trouble.

[87] He was AWOL.

[88] That's exactly.

[89] Yeah.

[90] His aunt and uncle were very good friends with my maternal grandmother.

[91] And my mother had married very young and had a child and then her husband divorced her and then he died.

[92] He had cancer.

[93] So he knew he was dying.

[94] Oh, interesting.

[95] Yeah.

[96] Because that could either be an incredibly benevolent gesture or a very weirdly selfish gesture.

[97] And so my father comes along and my grandmother says you should marry him because, you know, you don't have any options.

[98] Sure.

[99] And she does.

[100] So he can get his green card and stay in the country.

[101] Right.

[102] Well, though, just in the 30s and 40s, marriages were very much financial arrangements in ways, right?

[103] So this wasn't too crazy.

[104] A different kind of arrangement.

[105] Yeah.

[106] Both people benefited.

[107] Now, did they fall in love?

[108] Well, I think it was more unilateral.

[109] I think my mother was crazy about him because he was Greek and gorgeous and all of that.

[110] And my father was young and handsome and no way ready to settle down.

[111] So it was rocky.

[112] But they were together for like 25 years.

[113] And that's how I ended up there also.

[114] And there were a bunch of Greeks there that were in construction, flooring mechanics.

[115] Yeah, what's the Greek stereotype?

[116] I know Italians are brick layers.

[117] They were in my Detroit suburb.

[118] Well, they're usually restaurateurs, but my father wasn't.

[119] He did a whole bunch of different things.

[120] Oh.

[121] He ended up building and establishing a flooring company that my brother now runs today.

[122] Oh, no kidding.

[123] Wow.

[124] It's very hard for a family -owned business to survive a generation, isn't it?

[125] Yeah.

[126] Now, the reason I ask all that stuff is because we get to talk to a lot of people, and I'm always interested in why they chose the field or were pulled towards the field that they ultimately went towards.

[127] Right.

[128] And I was just curious if you yourself knew why you were drawn to...

[129] Sexuality?

[130] Human sexuality.

[131] Yeah, yeah.

[132] Well, I had a very circuitous route as most people do.

[133] Uh -huh.

[134] And so, you know, I grew up in this family where there was a lot of tension and there was infidelity.

[135] Sure.

[136] My mother made that very vocal to all of us because she was so unhappy.

[137] And so I didn't have a compass or any kind of way.

[138] role model for what it meant to be in a healthy sexual relationship over time.

[139] And so I grew up on the backside of the sexual revolution and had a lot of sexual experiences that really didn't lead me much of anywhere other than heartbroken mostly.

[140] So at some point, I started to ask the question of, first of all, what am I doing with my life?

[141] And that's when I considered going back to graduate school.

[142] The question really was, how do people have a long -term committed relationship that remains erotic over a lifetime?

[143] And is that even possible?

[144] Right.

[145] Now, really quick, were you equally judgmental of mom and dad, or did you put your judgment on one or the other?

[146] Were you forgiving of dad and thought mom should have left him?

[147] Or did you think dad was a dog?

[148] No, I don't think I was really judgmental of either one of them in that way.

[149] Oh, that's interesting.

[150] The ways in which she was vocal, wasn't explicit, but she was angry and something was up.

[151] And I really adored my father, loved him deeply.

[152] Clearly, if he was having many affairs, he was probably a charismatic, charming gentleman.

[153] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[154] Yeah.

[155] Handsome, sexy, you know, continental, the whole nine yards.

[156] There's a terrible Chris Rock joke that's really funny is that men are only as faithful as their options.

[157] If you've ever heard that routine.

[158] I would imagine he probably had a lot of options.

[159] Yeah, he did.

[160] He was also seeking them, I'm sure.

[161] Right.

[162] And he got married and he didn't fall in love the traditional way.

[163] That's right.

[164] Right.

[165] And, you know, my father passed away last year.

[166] But as he aged, his later years, he told me that he was homesick for a very long time.

[167] He never intended to leave Greece.

[168] There was a woman there that was, you know, his girlfriend.

[169] He always thought he was going to marry her and return home.

[170] So he was really torn between these two worlds.

[171] And so he was not.

[172] satisfied or happy for, you know, most of his life, I would think, where that was concerned.

[173] Wow.

[174] Okay, so at a certain point, the many roads lead you to getting a doctorate degree in human sexuality, and you're also a licensed psychotherapist?

[175] Yeah, I'm a marriage family therapist.

[176] Do we know what percentage of people who stay monogamous are sexually active?

[177] Well, I think increasingly what we're seeing is that Americans overreport their sex lives.

[178] Sure.

[179] And are actually having less sex than ever before.

[180] Uh -huh.

[181] Even young people, right?

[182] I've read that too, yeah.

[183] Yeah, especially there's a researcher in San Diego who's really on the forefront of all of this.

[184] Her last name is Twengee, and she looks at really 20, the 20 cohort college in the 20s.

[185] And everybody's been so freaked out about all this sexting and texting and young people having so much sex.

[186] It turns out they're having much less sex than ever before.

[187] Solo sex and virtual sex.

[188] Like nobody goes steady anymore.

[189] as a teen.

[190] I mean, it's so uncool.

[191] Really?

[192] Yeah, it's much more of a hookup culture or it's all through virtual conversation.

[193] Wow.

[194] Imagine males here would still list sex is a number one priority.

[195] Yeah, but they're probably using a lot more porn than having sex.

[196] So it's more of a solo sex trend that's taking place.

[197] And I don't know how familiar you are with the latest generation of vibrators, for example.

[198] I own all of them.

[199] You do.

[200] So, yeah, you don't have to tell me. So they're all, okay.

[201] Well, there was a time when vibrators were all this kind of hard plastic, flesh -colored, plastic thing.

[202] They're, like, really unattractive.

[203] And now they're made in all these, like, gorgeous colors.

[204] They look like lipsticks.

[205] I know.

[206] I have one that's lavender.

[207] Right.

[208] They're made out of beautiful materials that don't cause cancer, and they all have USB ports.

[209] They'll plug right into your computer if you want to recharge them so that you don't longer need batteries and have to deal with that whole mess.

[210] So that becomes an extension of the computer.

[211] and that people are having more and more sex by way of porn or camming through these devices and we're wiring up our brains and our sexual arousal template towards these boxes.

[212] Well, and I can only imagine that they're going to only get more and more interactive.

[213] Sure, yeah, with VR.

[214] Sure, and if the vibrator already has a USB port, then clearly it could be linked and synced up to some kind of imagery that would change its pulse and all these things as the images change.

[215] Like that can't be far away if it doesn't already exist.

[216] I mean, we already have robotic sex dolls now and they're really AI.

[217] They're being made and especially the female dolls are just let's say not your father's blow -up doll.

[218] Right.

[219] You can have them designed any way you want.

[220] And there are even molds of famous porn stars and stuff that people can get, right?

[221] Yeah, you can get just about anything you want now.

[222] I mean, there's even a company called We Vibe that has a remote so that if you are with a partner, and let's say you're in London and I'm in LA, you can use this vibrator and one person can actually adjust the stimulation of it and over Wi -Fi.

[223] Yeah.

[224] Oh, wow.

[225] Wow.

[226] My wife and I are living in the Stone Age, I guess.

[227] We're not doing any of this exciting stuff.

[228] Well, let's start with a religious general question.

[229] Let me tell you, so I'm addicted to most anything I enjoy.

[230] So the topic of sex addiction has come up on here numerous times, and I generally defend the concept.

[231] I think some people have an issue with it.

[232] I think generally people in the public feel like it's an excuse as opposed to an explanation.

[233] So how do you feel about how the public views sex addiction?

[234] Well, I think when people say it's an excuse, there's a profound lack of compassion in that statement.

[235] For sure.

[236] People go right to being angry.

[237] And we have a culture in this country where we love to watch people rise to the top and then we love to watch them crash and burn.

[238] Yeah.

[239] But it's a very bizarre kind of sadistic relationship we have with celebrity especially.

[240] Yep.

[241] And so there's no place for compassion or this idea even of redemption, that people can redeem themselves, that they can make restitution.

[242] And then it's through this, and I'm sounding so biblical right now and I'm not, but through this dark night of the soul that we recover ourselves.

[243] And so I think that, you know, sex addiction has been sort of in the zeitgeist now.

[244] as a constellation of behaviors as we know it.

[245] And the argument between the sexologists and the sex addiction therapist, the sexologists say you can't be addicted to a behavior.

[246] And the sex addiction people are saying, well, it's not the behavior.

[247] It's the neurochemical adaptation in the brain and in the nervous system that keeps driving these repeated behaviors that lead people to destroying their lives.

[248] The drug you're taking isn't actually eliciting the sensation that you're experiencing.

[249] The drug you're taking generally is unlocking dopamine serotonin, all these things that are already in your brain.

[250] You have the chemistry set in your brain, and then the drug is, if it's cocaine, it's a three -time inhibitors, so you're going to have a flood of all these different things that's hard to get.

[251] But so it's already your body's chemistry that's producing the euphoria and the experience, right?

[252] So there's no reason to say that some kind of behavior wouldn't act in the exact same way.

[253] And as someone who has used sex to regulate my own feelings and emotions, I can tell you I have been high as hell off of that.

[254] So that's crazy to think that the behavior is not producing a reward system response just like a drug would.

[255] Right.

[256] And it does.

[257] And people speak about it repeatedly.

[258] And that's where tolerance comes into play because looking at one person having sex is not that novel anymore.

[259] So then you need two, three, ten Martians, you name it in the mix.

[260] Well, like drug addiction, right?

[261] It continues to escalate.

[262] It has a pretty predictable trajectory.

[263] Sure.

[264] And then there's a tolerance to the escalation.

[265] So there's always a seeking of more indifferent.

[266] And that's what has their lives, you know, derailing.

[267] American Psychological Association does not recognize it, does it as a...

[268] It does not, but there's an international coding book called the ICD -11 that's coming out.

[269] And they do recognize and they are recognizing sexual compulsory.

[270] in the newest edition of that book, which is coming out in the next couple years.

[271] And that's a big boon for the field of sex addiction, because that means people will get insurance reimbursement and help and treating the problem.

[272] Right.

[273] Now, what is the history of it?

[274] When's the first time people even suggest that you could be a sex addict?

[275] It was in the 80s.

[276] There was a researcher in the UK named James Orford that started talking about sexual compulsivity.

[277] And then John Money, who was at John Hopkins University in the United States.

[278] States, started looking at parapherias.

[279] So people that were engaging in aberrant sexual behaviors, like exhibitionism and voyeurism, and saw that people could be addicted to those behaviors.

[280] So when Patrick Carnes came along in 1983 and wrote Out of the Shadows, it was previously called The Sex Addiction, he looked at Money's work and said, well, what if we looked at compulsive sexual behaviors that were non -paraphylic?

[281] You know, just people that had this problem with being addicted to these sex behaviors that were problematic, that weren't offending behaviors.

[282] And so that's when he really brought the term sex addiction to the foreground.

[283] Of course, he was attacked heartily during that time as being homophobic, sex negative.

[284] Those were the primary accusations.

[285] Well, it is a tricky topic.

[286] I find a pattern that emerges quite often in this country in particular is there is this puritanical bedrock that does hijack many things.

[287] I'll see it in feminism.

[288] Like there's like a clear feminist argument and then all of a sudden it gets hijacked by this secret puritanical desire we all have.

[289] Like what?

[290] Can you give an example of that?

[291] Yes.

[292] So we had a live show.

[293] Monica was talking to one of our guests.

[294] Thomas Midditch.

[295] Yeah, he's talking to Thomas Middletch.

[296] She started talking about her breasts being big.

[297] And then Thomas said, oh my God, I'm just excited now just because we're on this topic.

[298] And Monica jokingly said, well, I'm here to please.

[299] Well, we then got a bunch of tweets from fans saying, you know, this takes us backwards, a hundred years, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[300] And I kept pointing out, I think what you'd like to say is that you would feel uncomfortable in that situation, which is totally fair.

[301] It's not fair for you to tell Monica she should feel uncomfortable in that situation.

[302] Or if she wants to instigate that, she should be free to do that.

[303] Always feel like there's just an undercurrent.

[304] It's just waiting to pop up and pull everyone back into the very puritanical bedrock that is America.

[305] When I hear parents so reluctant to talk to their kids about how you shouldn't, you shouldn't eat any penis besides dads.

[306] That's a very hard conversation for people to have, which boggles me. Right.

[307] Because everybody has one.

[308] Yeah, it's not a big deal.

[309] It's not awkward for them.

[310] It's awkward for you.

[311] It's a stupid looking penis that they see on dad.

[312] It looks ridiculous.

[313] Right.

[314] You shouldn't see anyone else's.

[315] And if you do, you should tell me. No matter what they say, you'll not be in trouble.

[316] You know, have that conversation.

[317] But there's a lot of of, I think, shame and embarrassment around sex in this country.

[318] Yeah, I would agree with that 100%.

[319] And even the way you were just talking about that, it's just so normalizing.

[320] It's like saying you have two feet or, you know, but when the parent has shame, they're transmitting that shame to the child.

[321] And shame is the absolute bedrock.

[322] It's the cause and effect of sex addiction from my perspective.

[323] Because most people who are sex addicts grew up in unbelievably shaming families where there was some kind of abuse, whether it was neglect or emotional or physical or sexual abuse.

[324] And as such, they have a shame -based sexuality.

[325] They had to go have it in these furtive ways or difficult ways.

[326] And nobody knew about it.

[327] Nobody was stewarding that child into their sexuality.

[328] And then it becomes like a tumbleweed.

[329] It just gets bigger and bigger and more egregious.

[330] And people feel disgusting about their behaviors or what they like and they feel like they're abnormal.

[331] I mean, it goes on and on.

[332] It's become shame addled because you think your horny feelings are unique and wrong.

[333] Right.

[334] Right.

[335] Yeah, as opposed to their biological and evolutionary.

[336] And it's the way the human organism is wired and how we continue the species and all of that.

[337] Yeah, like I wish my dad had said, so hey, you're 12.

[338] Now or soon, you're going to get horny and you're going to masturbate.

[339] And that's how we do it.

[340] Exactly.

[341] I think what.

[342] What we know from neuroscience now is that every human being is coded for pathological dissociation.

[343] So that means when you've got data coming into the central nervous system, meaning through the eyeballs, through the five senses, and it's too much for the organism to handle.

[344] So a five -year -old organism, a 10 -year -old, a 35 -year -old, we have different capacities depending on how old we are.

[345] So you take a child who's got all this data streaming in, and the autonomic nervous system that regulates the body is geared towards what we know is fight or flight, right?

[346] So something horrible is happening.

[347] Like if there was an earthquake right now, we wouldn't sit around and talk about it.

[348] We would all just dash out the door as best we could.

[349] Well, I wouldn't because my adrenal glands are shot, but yes.

[350] I would watch you guys.

[351] Yeah, I would definitely see.

[352] We would grab your hand and take you with us.

[353] But the brain is designed to move the body.

[354] So we'd be in a high flee state, high adrenaline, high cortisol to get ourselves out of danger.

[355] But if you have a child that's little, infant, five, eight, you name it, and it's in a family where there is violence or alcoholism or just neglect, no food, no tending to nothing, that little system can only take so much.

[356] And because it cannot handle what's coming at it, the cortex, the higher cortical functions uncouple from the lower part of the brain.

[357] So it's a cortical, subcortical disconnect.

[358] That's what dissociation is.

[359] So the cortex goes offline and it's the biggest operating system.

[360] It requires the most oxygen.

[361] It's the slowest.

[362] That's why when you're on a plane, they say put the oxygen mask on first, then put it on the child.

[363] Also, at certain heart rates, right, that frontal lobe goes offline as well.

[364] Correct, right.

[365] And it's different for everybody.

[366] So during 9 -11, there was a group in Boston that looked at the faces of people that were running during 9 -11, and they tried to discern who was going to have PTSD and who wouldn't.

[367] And they could tell it by the face, by the social engagement system, who was online and who was offline.

[368] Interesting.

[369] And the folks that were online were not going to have PTSD?

[370] That's right.

[371] Yeah.

[372] Because they were able, what, to process all that information in real time?

[373] The cortex, yeah, they could process it.

[374] They could remind themselves to breathe.

[375] They could probably use some positive self -talk to help.

[376] help down -regulate the high arousal state they were in.

[377] Yeah.

[378] And so each one of us are different.

[379] If we look at the four of us here right now, if that earthquake happened, depending on how regulated we were as infants and what kind of abuse we suffered will depend on whether or not we would go offline or not.

[380] So that depends, again, on how securely attached you are, meaning how regulated you are.

[381] So maybe this would be counterintuitive, but a fancy myself someone who does that, very well in high, high stress, shit's going wrong, situations.

[382] My personal theory had always been, oh, well, I've seen so much violence growing up, and I lived through it, that each time it got kind of successively less impactful, or I had lived through it, so it was like, oh, this is happening again.

[383] But is that counterintuitive?

[384] What should have happened?

[385] That's a couple things there.

[386] One is, it could be that your tendencies more towards avoidance.

[387] So you start to over -regulate instead of someone who's under -regulated, who freaks out in the face of that.

[388] So your system's quietly going down, but you look chill and like you got it all together.

[389] That's my case.

[390] It is.

[391] Yeah, you want therapists that are kind of more on the avoidance spectrum than on the hyper -arrow spectrum.

[392] Right.

[393] Well, insurgents.

[394] Of course, also.

[395] Oh, my God, he's bleeding.

[396] Holy shit.

[397] So we don't want that.

[398] So it could be that you're desensitized to it.

[399] It could be that you're able to regulate your heart during that or that your system starts to really go down and you are slightly, let's say, moderately dissociated in the face of that kind of trauma.

[400] That's what has you able to handle it.

[401] Yeah, interesting.

[402] Now, I wonder evolutionarily, again, I'm going to get into big stereotypes.

[403] There's a lot of, I'll be incorrect about a big section of the population.

[404] Let me just stipulate that.

[405] But for 140 ,000 years, we were hunting, gathering.

[406] The male pursuit of hunting was such that you had to click into a weird mode occasionally.

[407] There's a gnarly side of hunting.

[408] Let's just say that.

[409] And I wonder if evolutionarily men disassociate more easily than females.

[410] What you're talking about is dissociation, but let's be clear that dissociation is not always pathological.

[411] So hunting, mathematics, people that are mathematicians say the numbers sing to them.

[412] Artists when they're painting, when you're in a flow state and that flow state is a form of moderate dissociation, it's required in order to be creative.

[413] So the left goes offline.

[414] So you're not thinking and criticizing everything you do.

[415] It's a bodily based right brain process that's very much emergent.

[416] When we talk about these flow states are art. And it's true for athletes, anytime you're in a groove, whether you're writing, singing, painting, you name it.

[417] So dissociation is a feature of the human organism.

[418] When it's pathological, it's what a mentor of mine, Alan Schwarz says, you know, it's the escape when there's no escape.

[419] When we were talking about abused children.

[420] And so it's built into the human organism to go out when it's just too dangerous and we can't handle it anymore.

[421] So those hunters, I would say yes, their focus is starting to get very narrow.

[422] They only have their eye on the target.

[423] they're not thinking about their children or their wives or the cave or anything else.

[424] It's just about killing the deer.

[425] Or the approaching warring tribal adversary.

[426] Sure, yeah.

[427] Well, I think my best understanding of it, again, is that we are unbelievably automated creatures.

[428] Our brains are very automatic and we're adaptive.

[429] And so we will adapt our strategies towards survival.

[430] I think you can turn a child in large part into a sociopath or a saint, depending on you raise that child.

[431] Now, of course, there are genetic predispositions and all sorts of things in the mix, but if you take a child who is sexually abused and especially repeatedly, there's high sympathetic arousal there, and there's also shame in the mix.

[432] How does high sympathetic arousal work?

[433] Well, it's activation in the nervous system, so you've got high adrenaline, as I said before, high cortisol, maybe even dopamine because it's novel.

[434] There's also fear.

[435] There's a fear state on board.

[436] And there's probably a shame state, which is deeply visceral.

[437] It's in the interic system in the gut.

[438] So the child is getting sexually aroused because that is, again, an evolutionary strategy.

[439] It feels like this is dirty, bad, and wrong, and it feels good.

[440] Right?

[441] And that fusion, especially early on, pre -puberty, puberty, creates an arousal template that is very, very tenacious to get rid of.

[442] So if that child doesn't have a trusted other to go to, like a parent that says, if you see anybody's penises besides dad, you need to tell me, they can't tell the parent, and it happens repeatedly, over time, that becomes an adaptation towards this is how I have sex.

[443] Yeah.

[444] I look for sex that's furtive.

[445] that's humiliating, that's shaming, that where I'm treated poorly, because it's arousing.

[446] Yeah.

[447] But it's also dirty and I feel horrible about myself.

[448] It's so complicated.

[449] We'll get into these theoretical conversations and I wonder how you feel about it.

[450] So my wife and I will argue about strip clubs.

[451] She'll go rightly so.

[452] I think the majority of women in there are probably sexual abuse survivors.

[453] Right.

[454] And I think statistically she's correct.

[455] I'll propose.

[456] So yes, I agree, but who are we to say how someone should best deal with their trauma?

[457] Or if someone, for whatever reason, it's not me, I can't personally relate to it, but if that is the hand you were dealt, and here is an occupation that you don't mind that you actually, for some reason, are drawn to, is there a moral imperative there?

[458] What if someone's trauma creates a certain type of person and they're that way, is that ambiguous at all morally?

[459] Yeah, I think morality is kind of a tricky conversation because you could say, like let's say this young woman is 1922 years old.

[460] She doesn't know what she doesn't know.

[461] Right.

[462] Right.

[463] So how much of her trauma is dissociated or repressed?

[464] How intelligent is this person where they feel like something's wrong and I want to get a out of this.

[465] They're not even thinking that.

[466] Do they have the capacity to get out of it?

[467] Do do they want to?

[468] Or do they just not even think or would never imagine that they could do anything more than that?

[469] I can see where someone would be a stripper and go, you're right.

[470] I do this because I was abused.

[471] But here I am and I like it and I'd rather make money doing it this way than another way.

[472] Does it get complicated?

[473] Are you doing that?

[474] I don't think so because for me, that's when it becomes a healthy choice.

[475] It's when people don't understand why they do what they do, that it's problematic.

[476] So if we take the example of BDSM, right, which has a lot of controversy.

[477] BDSM?

[478] Bondage, discipline, say don't ask.

[479] That's a great example.

[480] Okay.

[481] So let's say you have a young woman who was terribly abused as a child.

[482] I mean, this is a real case, a female who's father was very violent.

[483] And so she ends up picking really violent guys that beat her up.

[484] And so for her sex is hot because it's autonomic arousal when she's being humiliated and beat and hit.

[485] And so she goes through this a number of times until finally she learns about the BDSM community.

[486] And she goes to therapy.

[487] And she starts to see that, wow, this is really destructive for me. It's hurting me. I hate myself because of it.

[488] And then she finds out that there's something called a pro -dom, a pro -dominator, a man that she can pay to dominate her.

[489] Only now she gets to call the shots.

[490] She gets to say, this is how hard you hit me. This is, you know, where you hit me. This is what I like, what I don't like.

[491] And afterwards, I want you to hold me and tell me I'm a good girl and then I'm okay.

[492] Wow, that exists?

[493] Okay, yes, it's called aftercare in the domination BDSM world.

[494] And so over time, she works with this pro dom who is really a form of therapy.

[495] Yeah, like immersion therapy.

[496] Exactly.

[497] And she starts to have an experience, and it's not sex.

[498] He may not even have intercourse with her.

[499] But she's starting to have this experience with someone she trusts who's not going to violate her boundaries and who takes care of her afterwards.

[500] And over time, she no longer has to choose guys that are batterers, essentially.

[501] So now she's saying, hey, I like BDSM.

[502] I like being tied up or spanked or whatever.

[503] Right.

[504] But I'm not leaving with black and blue marks and going to the hospital and hating myself anymore.

[505] She's like, I know that's why I got into it.

[506] I'm no longer seeking that validation.

[507] I just happen to love the sport and it's fun for me. Yeah, and it's very easy to be kind of judgmental from the outside.

[508] You bet.

[509] Yeah.

[510] To go like, even in that case, no, you shouldn't be getting hit as someone who doesn't hit anyone who gets hit.

[511] Yeah, it's easy for me to draw an arbitrary line and go, no, that's not healthy.

[512] I guess what does healthy mean?

[513] I think it's about awareness.

[514] I really do think it's about awareness.

[515] If somebody is dissociated and they have no insight and they don't know why they're doing what they're doing, they're generally going to get hurt.

[516] And I think when we start to have awareness and we start to see, even in Alcoholics Anonymous, right?

[517] They talk about the return of choice.

[518] That you're starting to make choices.

[519] There's an intentionality like, oh, I'm going to go do that thing.

[520] And if I do it, I know there's probably going to be suffering on the other side of it, but hey, it looks like fun, so I'm going to do it anyway.

[521] As opposed to I do it and I keep doing it and I can't wake up in the morning and I'm hurting myself and I can't get to work or whatever.

[522] Yeah.

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

[524] What's up, guys?

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[544] Now, what's really interesting, I've only been to one or two SLA meetings.

[545] And I think it's kind of fascinating.

[546] I was just explaining to someone else in A .A. That sobriety is a self -defined thing within SLA.

[547] Correct.

[548] Well, with a sponsor, presumably.

[549] Okay.

[550] But unlike A .A., you can't drink and claim to be sober.

[551] It's pretty cut and dry, right?

[552] But for a lot of people that go into SLA, it may be sobriety for them is not seen any sex workers.

[553] Another person might be no strip clubs.

[554] Another person may even no pornography.

[555] It could get tighter and tighter until some people no masturbation, right?

[556] And so they define is at their bottom line.

[557] Is that what it's called?

[558] Yeah.

[559] Yeah, because I guess it can't be abstinence.

[560] Like can't be like the removal of sexual stuff because we need that.

[561] Or is it for some people.

[562] For some people it is, but it's typically time limited like for 30, 60, 90 days or something.

[563] Yeah.

[564] Interesting.

[565] Well, it is one of the challenging addictions to deal with in the same way that food addiction is.

[566] Right.

[567] I am most sympathetic to people with food addictions because you have to eat three times a day.

[568] Similarly, if you end up in a relationship, sex is a healthy component of any good relationship.

[569] So presumably you're going to be sexually active at some point.

[570] Well, that's the idea, right?

[571] It's for people to restore their sexuality.

[572] Yeah.

[573] SAA, Sex Addicts Anonymous, uses the same sobriety plan.

[574] that Overeaters Anonymous uses.

[575] They use a circle plan.

[576] What's the circle?

[577] Well, the inner circles are the behaviors that are problematic that people don't want to engage in anymore.

[578] And it's different for everybody.

[579] I mean, there are a lot of people that are addicted to porn that never touch another person.

[580] They're really quite avoidant.

[581] And then they're the guys that, you know, hire escorts and go for sexual massage and they look at porn, but their thing is other people.

[582] Right.

[583] So it depends on the person.

[584] Sure.

[585] Just like somebody who eats, over eats.

[586] Like you might, you know, Monarchy, like cheese and bread, and I'm like, oh, I'm just like cake.

[587] Right.

[588] So that's what goes in the inner circle is the thing that's most problematic for you.

[589] And then the middle circle defines all the triggers, all the things that lead people to sex.

[590] So you have to consider that compulsive sexual behaviors or problematic or addictive behaviors are maladaptive coping skills, right?

[591] If you grow up in a family where there's nobody there to soothe you, to tell you it's going to be okay, to say that, you know, you're loved anyway, that child is going to find another way to take care of themselves, whether it's masturbation or looking at porn or, you know, chasing after other people.

[592] That's like a one -trick pony.

[593] When you're a secure person, when you're a healthy person and your feelings are hurt, you call a girlfriend, right?

[594] If you're sad, you ask for a hug.

[595] If you just got a promotion at work, you call your best friend and you're like, dude, guess what happened?

[596] Right?

[597] You've got lots of ways.

[598] of soothing yourself interactively with other human beings.

[599] But addicts are isolated people.

[600] And so they only do this one thing.

[601] It's in secrecy.

[602] It feels dirty.

[603] And they hate themselves for it when it's not working.

[604] So that's the middle circle.

[605] And then the outer circle are all of the life -affirming, constructive behaviors that people want to move towards, like fellowship and making phone calls and being with friends and family.

[606] Right.

[607] Again, so anecdotal.

[608] I've only been a two meanings.

[609] But it did seem to be a pretty consistent division between many of the women seem to be what is maybe referred to more as love addicts.

[610] It's really an addiction to fantasy, isn't it?

[611] Yeah, which is dissociative.

[612] Okay.

[613] Explain how.

[614] We all go into fantasy.

[615] I mean, you're driving home, right?

[616] You're thinking about something.

[617] You're imagining your weekend.

[618] You get home.

[619] You don't know how you got there.

[620] Oh, right.

[621] Well, we all are mildly dissociating all the time.

[622] Yes.

[623] But fantasy is more of moderate to severe depending on the person where you're living in a bubble which is even language they use in SAA where you're not really present or in reality so you see somebody and all of a sudden you're like oh my god I wonder what it would be like to marry that person and wonder what he's thinking and where he's going and should I drive by his house and I'm going to arrange to meet him and it can get really stalkery also because it's a one person system I'm having this experience in my own head.

[624] And I've never even talked to that person or I have and they've been kind of lukewarm, but I didn't notice it.

[625] In that state, are people assigning emotional states to it?

[626] So, oh, when I'm with him and we live in this house and I prepare dinner, I'm going to feel this way.

[627] And you can actually even feel that way while in the fantasy.

[628] That's right.

[629] Because imagination is very powerful and how we create our reality.

[630] So yeah.

[631] Yeah, Esther said that.

[632] Bruce said love is a product.

[633] of the imagination, not the other person?

[634] Something like that.

[635] It was really good.

[636] Which is really, that's love addiction, you know, at its height.

[637] I would not have the goal of convincing everyone listening that they're a sex addict.

[638] But I think it would be helpful because we all kind of have some barometer of what substance abuse looks like.

[639] I think sex addiction is far more closeted than alcohol addiction.

[640] And A, it's easier to hide, I suppose.

[641] It is, yeah.

[642] And you probably don't know.

[643] You're not aware that you're doing.

[644] doing it, that you're using all these mechanisms to control your emotions.

[645] A lot of times they're not aware until they keep hitting a wall, like they can't get into a relationship or sustain one.

[646] That's the main thing.

[647] And the thing that they're doing is no longer fun or pleasurable or doesn't give them the same high.

[648] It starts to feel depressing.

[649] There's despair.

[650] They can't stop doing it because they don't know what else to do.

[651] And that's because of the adaptive nature of it.

[652] You just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.

[653] Yes.

[654] And you can't not do it.

[655] it because you don't know what else to do unless somebody intervenes on it.

[656] And that's the power of fellowship and a power of a program.

[657] You know, without labeling things right or wrong or bad or good or this or that, what are some kind of red flags, I'd say, for people to be aware of when they're thinking about how they're pursuing people, how much fantasies involved?

[658] Are there any guidelines for people?

[659] Or is it just something they have to know that they don't feel good at the end of it?

[660] Love addicts.

[661] Love addicts have a tendency to push the fantasy.

[662] That's.

[663] where they go.

[664] They're not in reality about what's happening.

[665] So for the sake of argument, are you married?

[666] No, okay, so I'm going to use her as my partner.

[667] Yes, please.

[668] Okay, instead of you.

[669] So let's say Monica and I are dating.

[670] And I'm super excited and we go out and she's kind of aloof.

[671] And, you know, I can't really tell whether she wants to be with me or not, but I've got this idea now that this is going to be my partner.

[672] And so she says, yeah, I'd like to get together again and I'll call you and she doesn't call.

[673] And so I'm thinking, okay, well, I'm making excuse for why she doesn't call.

[674] And then she calls like days later and says, oh, my cell phone battery was gone and, you know, I forgot about it.

[675] And I'm like, oh, okay, no problem.

[676] So that's a viable possibility, right?

[677] And then she's supposed to pick me up and then she's, you know, 30 minutes late.

[678] And there are all these yellow flags along the way.

[679] And I keep making excuses for why she's the one and this is the right relationship.

[680] Yeah.

[681] And then I meet her friends and they're just like awful, but I don't care because I'm so desperately want to be in relationship with her.

[682] Yes.

[683] And so in end quote, normal person is going to look at these things and say, you know what, this is not going well.

[684] This person doesn't call me back.

[685] They don't do what they say they're going to do.

[686] Their friends are kind of douchey, so I don't know.

[687] And she has like no relationship with her parents whatsoever or, you know, she doesn't have many friends.

[688] So I look at the yellow flags and the red flags too.

[689] And then we go out and she takes a makes me do a really nice dinner, and she's like, oh, I forgot my credit card.

[690] And I'm like, okay, she has no money.

[691] And I'm still going out with her.

[692] Right.

[693] Well, you know what's interesting, it makes me think of advice I heard long ago.

[694] When dealing with a stalker, the very best response is zero.

[695] That's right.

[696] Any response will be interpreted by a stalker as fuel.

[697] They can twist any.

[698] You could write, fuck off, never call me again.

[699] And they will figure out how to make that a green light.

[700] Yeah, well, that's like, you know, actually, he really likes me, right?

[701] Because it's like, remember when you were in elementary school and the little boy would kick dirt at you or pull your pigtails?

[702] They read it as that.

[703] Or they're scared to be with me and they're right.

[704] You know, like, yeah, it's too intense for them.

[705] Yeah, and the love addiction at the extreme is exploitive like that.

[706] It does turn into stalking because now she's like not into me, but I'm driving by her house and then I see who's car in the driveway and I'm wondering if I should like climb through the window or, you know, go over there drunk and get her to have sex with me like all these machinations people go through to get what they want but it's their fantasy it's not reality of what's happening i don't even know if this is an answerable question but why do you want me is it something i've given because i'm making you feel a specific way or is it just because you've just decided this is the person it's because the love addict decides this is the person and it's a projection of what i need you to be because i never got what i wanted and needed but it's a one -person system.

[707] I'm not seeing you.

[708] I'm not reading the cues.

[709] And that's probably why in the first place, you wouldn't have wanted me if you were a secure or solid person.

[710] Right.

[711] It would be like, okay, this person's not quite right.

[712] So that book, he's just not that into you, was basically for fantasy addicts.

[713] Yeah, in large part, and saying, get into reality.

[714] Because a realistic scenario is we go out.

[715] We like each other.

[716] We agree.

[717] We're going to meet again.

[718] She's on time.

[719] Then she says she's going to call and she doesn't.

[720] And she said my cell phone was dead.

[721] And I'm like, okay, and that really was the truth.

[722] And I meet her best friend, and she's okay, but I really like her sister and her mom.

[723] Right.

[724] You see?

[725] So there's an oscillation, but mostly I keep getting green lights to keep moving forward.

[726] I realize there's no perfect partner that we're all impossible people to live with.

[727] Yeah.

[728] Right?

[729] Yeah, even ourselves.

[730] And so that is a more secure system moving forward.

[731] And I'm actually, we're listening to each other.

[732] We're talking.

[733] we're getting to know each other.

[734] The love addict will also, like the sex addict, just lunge at the sex.

[735] It's all about that right off the bat to seal the deal out of my anxiety, to make it happen.

[736] Intriguing.

[737] Yes.

[738] This is a concept I heard there that I was like, oh, I'm so guilty of this.

[739] If I understand it correctly, could you maybe give us a definition of intriguing?

[740] Well, I think it's similar to what I've been talking about, but it's more about trying to get that person's attention also, right, with the intent of being sexual.

[741] So, you know, looking at that person, checking them out, giving bodily -based signals that I'm interested.

[742] Rhythm, I call it rhythm.

[743] Just shooting some rhythm at somebody.

[744] Right.

[745] That's a great word also.

[746] Yeah.

[747] It would be my preference that I knew every single female I met was in love with me. That would be my ideal world I'd live in.

[748] Now, granted, you wouldn't give it to me right away.

[749] I'd have to earn it every single time, but I would like to go from person to person to person and just get everyone's approval slowly.

[750] And I'm married, so there's some level I feel like is okay, flirty, but I'm not going to ask for your phone number.

[751] But I think that's a healthy space.

[752] And I just did a webinar on Flortation on Monday.

[753] And I talked about flirtation is exchanging energy without intent.

[754] There's no intention to flirtation.

[755] You can flirt with babies, old ladies.

[756] I flirt with dudes probably even worse than I flirt with women.

[757] And all of that is about saying, I see you.

[758] I see your beauty or your humor or your wit.

[759] and there is an energy exchange with that.

[760] Look, all human beings need validation to a certain extent.

[761] The idea, though, is that we internalize it so that we can walk with confidence and know that we're good enough on any given day.

[762] Good enough, not perfect, but enough, as opposed to people that have extreme narcissistic wounding where they really weren't seen as children.

[763] So it's a bottomless pit of look at me, see me, want me. Those people can be emotional vampires.

[764] Those people become actors.

[765] I mean, right.

[766] It's true.

[767] Actors.

[768] And we see that a lot in sex addicts also, that chronic validation.

[769] Now, has your line of work been at all challenging in your own life?

[770] You mean sexually?

[771] Yeah.

[772] Yes and no. I've gone through all sorts of iterations with it.

[773] But at this stage of my life, I'm very, very interested in the tantric practices, which are really about deep in close connection with my partner.

[774] Now, I have a very generic stereotype, movie version of what tantric is.

[775] My interpretation is just you have sex and try not to have an orgasm.

[776] No, that's not right.

[777] That was like the old sting thing.

[778] Okay, okay.

[779] So please help me understand what.

[780] Well, I mean, I'm not an expert in this by any means, but these practices come from the Hindu tradition.

[781] And they are about sort of the honoring of the masculine and the feminine, a deep, deep honoring.

[782] So it's not just about lunging at genital sex.

[783] It's about close in eye connection, breathing together, touch, lots and lots of touch.

[784] So it really is slowing down the sexual experience and building an erotic charge so that we are all our own best lovers.

[785] Not looking for someone else to bring me to orgasm.

[786] We're all responsible for our own orgasm.

[787] We need to know what we need and what works for us and communicate that to our partners.

[788] But when there is a deep honoring of oneself, and a deep love for oneself and a desire to bring that to the other, therein lies this connection that can be, you know, you could call it incredibly spiritual and deeply novel because when you look into your partner's eyes, that's one of the most novel things we can do because it's activating the autonomic nervous system.

[789] That's why people love movies.

[790] It's a very privileged point of view to stare at someone's face without any panic of I'm not allowed to do this.

[791] That's the appeal of it.

[792] Right.

[793] But one of the, I think, propositions of becoming deeply intimate is about getting present in one's body and being able to make eye contact in the most intimate, quiet moments, or a quiet love, not this, you know, like, pornographic sex.

[794] Terrible charged, yeah.

[795] Exactly.

[796] And sex can be incredibly aggressive and sweaty and erotic from these moments of meeting.

[797] But then it becomes about a heart connection that leads to erotic.

[798] as opposed to a full -on crotch connection, which is about getting off, which is what porn is.

[799] Right.

[800] So it's not an anti -sex movement.

[801] My feeling about sex addiction, you know, recovery is about creating a very alive sexuality that has no shame to it, right?

[802] No pain, no degradation, unless you explicitly say, hey, I'm into that.

[803] Yes.

[804] Right?

[805] So that there's an intentionality behind it.

[806] And that's the distinction.

[807] Okay.

[808] Now, Fidelity, monogamy, what direction do you think it's moving in?

[809] I don't know.

[810] I think it's going to be different for everybody.

[811] And that's part of what is interesting to me is that, you know, a couple, was it last year, there was a big article in the New York Times about polyamory in open relationships.

[812] They really did a good job of featuring couples that were in open relationships.

[813] And I think there's a generation of people that are trying this out to see if it works, and it may work for some, and it may not work for others.

[814] So we may be moving more in that direction.

[815] There are some people that are going to be more simpatico with solo sexuality and asexuality.

[816] The binary is going the way of the dodo bird, I'm pretty sure, that there are going to be all these different iterations of sexual expression, and the normative standard is going to continue to melt away, even in the face of the Puritans holding onto a male and a female in a monogamous committed relationship.

[817] Yeah, the moment for me that it hit me like a ton of bricks was in a meeting with like a 23 -year -old guy sharing about hooking up with trans prostitutes.

[818] And this is, by all other measures, a heterosexual male.

[819] And the way he was talking about it, it like hit me all of a sudden.

[820] I was like, oh, my whole definition is dated.

[821] Like for a 23 -year -old, he's just sexual.

[822] And sexual includes sometimes hooking up with whatever feels.

[823] good.

[824] Yes, there's not even an inclination to label that for that person.

[825] But I think we're seeing is that male sexuality is much more fluid than we ever wanted to admit to.

[826] Yes, this is something I'm now moving off of, but it's very still, I can admit, confusing to me, because in my life, generally I had known lesbians that had been with men and women.

[827] I had never met an openly gay male who ever went back to a female.

[828] Yeah.

[829] I just had never had never.

[830] never seen that.

[831] But I'm no longer thinking that that's a fact.

[832] I don't know that that's relevant anymore.

[833] I don't know that it is.

[834] And I think what I see is a lot of straight men who identify as straight having sex with other men in all different iterations.

[835] Again, because pleasure is pleasure.

[836] Yeah.

[837] And there was a woman named Jane Ward who wrote a book a couple years ago called Not Gay.

[838] I don't know if you remember seeing that book.

[839] And she was very interested in Craigslist when it was up and all these single white men seeking sex with men.

[840] So they were Caucasian men, don't know if they were all single, but they were all Caucasian men looking for sex with other men.

[841] And when she interviewed them to find out why they did it and whether they were gay or not, the distinguishing factor whether they were gay or not was if they said they weren't gay.

[842] And that's why the book was called Not Gay.

[843] Because gay is a lifestyle.

[844] Gay is a sexual orientation as opposed to know this was about hooking up.

[845] Because you can't find like a public bathroom where women are hanging out wanting to have sex with guys.

[846] They don't exist.

[847] There are plenty of guys that'll hook up with guys.

[848] Bathrooms, beaches, parks, you name it.

[849] Yes.

[850] Well, I am a big proponent of the direction it's moving.

[851] And we always tout this documentary we love called The Mask We Live in.

[852] Yeah.

[853] Yes, I have.

[854] Yeah.

[855] It's incredible.

[856] And they make a great point in there that when you do psychological evaluations on 10 ,000 people, what you really find is that men and women are really different by about 5 % on either shoulder, which is encouraging and interesting.

[857] And I believe.

[858] And we see this from infant developmental studies too now.

[859] Right.

[860] The men are just as empathetic, but we beat it out of them.

[861] And there's all these things, right?

[862] The one thing I'm going to push back on is, we see when you have an all -male population what their sex life is versus an all -female population.

[863] That's just to me completely undeniable.

[864] As someone with many gay male friends, in the amount of sex that's happening daily and the frequency and the, as you say, they'll go to a bathhouse and they might hook up with four dudes in under an hour.

[865] you're not seeing women do that.

[866] No, I mean, like a guy can be in a restaurant and see an attractive guy and they can go have sex and be back and for cocktails.

[867] Yeah.

[868] That I think will, that'll stay consistent in the future, I feel like.

[869] I can't imagine that evolving much.

[870] That's just this poison we have testosterone now.

[871] Yeah, that's right.

[872] So I was in a nine -year open relationship.

[873] I would say the one downside that I couldn't argue was into downside.

[874] is just that we neglected our sex life.

[875] Right.

[876] It takes the most work, and it's so interesting that it's the thing couples marginalize the fastest because of the discomfort and the time it takes.

[877] And there's this erroneous belief that it's something that should be happy naturally.

[878] Right, and spontaneously, and you should want it all the time.

[879] And it's all these mythology.

[880] And unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way.

[881] You've got to, like, schedule a fucking date.

[882] And you've got to, you know, you maybe got to have a massage.

[883] And there's the laptop.

[884] Yes, and the phone and all these things.

[885] I would be interested in hearing people living polyamorous lifestyles.

[886] They must have a very strict dedication to maintaining their own sex life.

[887] Yeah, I think it's challenging for people.

[888] I mean, just scheduling all those people as kind of a nightmare.

[889] It's hard enough to schedule two people.

[890] I don't know how you do it with kids.

[891] I can see you doing it without children, but I really can't imagine how you would.

[892] I think it's harder.

[893] And I'm starting to think also that monogamy may be for people that are more mature because it takes so much work and the level of vulnerability that's required to say to somebody after you've been married to them 15, 20 years, you know, that sometimes I wonder if I still want to be married to you or I wonder if I'm still attracted to you or this is what I don't like about my own body.

[894] And can you hear this from a neutral place without taking it personally or running or making it into something where we can be really emotionally naked with each other?

[895] takes a level of maturity.

[896] Well, I am head over heels in love with my wife.

[897] I respect her.

[898] I admire her.

[899] She's a perfect mother.

[900] But I will think, not based in any discomfort on happiness, I'll just go, oh, this is going to be the rest of my life.

[901] This is the last personality I'll try on.

[902] This is the last.

[903] That can sound daunting.

[904] Like, oh, I'll never wander around Europe and bump into somebody and get to know them.

[905] I'm like, oh, okay, well, that's something I have to accept.

[906] You know, not born out of any unhappiness.

[907] No, it's just, you know, that's the novelty seeking.

[908] But I would say that, you know, to start to, and this takes work, really orient your compass towards the deep novelty in her, the infinite sense of her that you can't possibly know right now because you haven't known her five years more or 10 years more.

[909] Because I think there's something powerful about knowing someone deeply over time that helps us to know ourselves in ways we couldn't have known otherwise.

[910] Because my knee jerk to that is, no, I know her.

[911] I can probably predict what she's going to do much more accurately than she can.

[912] That's a different kind of knowing that what I'm talking about.

[913] Oh, okay.

[914] The kind of knowing I'm talking about was what I was talking about before, when you're deeply gazing into her eyes and you're gazing into the universe.

[915] Uh -huh.

[916] It's a visceral connection.

[917] It's like a right brain to right brain communication, body -to -body communication.

[918] That's producing oxytocin, I assume?

[919] Well, dopamine initially, yeah.

[920] Oh, okay.

[921] And dopamine loves novelty.

[922] And so you'll start to see her as goddess lover, erotic consort.

[923] And it's not the personality of who she is and what you know she's going to say.

[924] It's the essence of who she is, if I can describe it that way.

[925] Sure, the intangible being inside of that.

[926] That's right, yeah, the siren, the temptress.

[927] Like all of the sort of mythological characters that represent aspects of humanity and nature.

[928] Mm -hmm.

[929] Hmm.

[930] That sounds infinite.

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

[932] What are your thoughts about porn?

[933] But what do we think?

[934] I remember being in college and there was a lot of pro -porn.

[935] Sometimes it was even a feminist statement to be pro -pornography.

[936] There's the literature that says it's a great pressure valve for people.

[937] You know, some people say it leads to rape and sexual dysfunction.

[938] Others will prove that it's lower where that's about.

[939] So what does current science say about porn?

[940] Well, look, there is a lot of science that is looking at the way porn impacts young brains.

[941] So I don't have any morality about porn as long as it's between consensual adults.

[942] I'm not into porn with children or animals or innocents that cannot consent.

[943] Right.

[944] What about dolphins?

[945] They seem pretty horny.

[946] I don't think so.

[947] I think dolphins are horny.

[948] I do?

[949] Well, you always hear these stories about them trying to have sex with female swimmers.

[950] Maybe that's it.

[951] Yeah, yeah.

[952] It's like hard to feel bad for them.

[953] I have not seen dolphin porn.

[954] I'll just tell you that.

[955] What I do have a problem with is the fact that pornography is completely unregulated online and that any child can open a laptop and see intense, hardcore, even violent pornography.

[956] That's a problem for me. Because, look, we have limits on weed.

[957] California, you have to be a certain age, buying alcohol, buying tobacco, gambling.

[958] And there used to be a time when you had to be an adult to look at porn.

[959] You had to have a credit card, remember?

[960] And then with the advent of the tube channels, anybody can look at it any time.

[961] Yeah.

[962] In fact, you can accidentally look at it.

[963] Well, are you kidding?

[964] The pornographers know what words to put keywords into.

[965] So you got an eight -year -old little girl typing in Miss Kitty or pussy, and boom, you've got pornography popping up.

[966] Yeah.

[967] And the impact that has, first of the first of, first of of all, the average age of children looking at pornography right now is eight years old.

[968] Fantastic.

[969] So imagine seeing, like, I mean, and I've had many clients who are now 30 years old, 20 years old.

[970] They were looking at porn from the age of eight.

[971] By the time they were 20, they had erectile dysfunction, and there are studies on porn -induced erectile dysfunction, and a bunch of sexologists are be screaming, hearing me now saying that, that it's not real, but it's real for a lot of people, which is why Gabe Deem started Reboot Nation, and Alexander Rhodes started the no -fat movement on Reddit.

[972] I mean, these are online platforms.

[973] What's the no -fat movement?

[974] No masturbation.

[975] Oh, okay.

[976] To pornography.

[977] And these are grassroots young men that have started these forums to help each other get off of porn because they feel like they're addicted to it.

[978] Yeah.

[979] They're no therapist in sight.

[980] They don't call it addiction.

[981] They just say, we have a problem with this.

[982] Well, they have fucking gaming addiction in South Korea.

[983] They recognize that.

[984] How on earth could you not recognize?

[985] Because it impacts.

[986] the brain in the exact same way.

[987] It's intermittent reward.

[988] It's dopaminergic.

[989] It's addictive.

[990] And so young, especially male brains, start to wire and myelinate to these images very tenaciously.

[991] Because every brain is different.

[992] So let's say your kids have nobody at home after school and they come home and they put that on and they start to look at it over and over and over again.

[993] They're grossed out by it.

[994] They're freaked out by it.

[995] But it's like the accident by the side of the road.

[996] They can't stop looking at it.

[997] And so some people you know from alcoholism are just more compulsive than others some kids will take it or leave it some kids won't be able to stop looking at it and if parents had the option to opt in or opt out then we wouldn't have this problem but the porn industry is a 96 billion dollar a year industry worldwide and how by the way it seems like everyone's getting it for free i guess the advertisements on the wow 96 billion dollars and so they are very invested in crediting the research.

[998] And so it makes it very difficult to get any kind of parental controls on this problem at all.

[999] Yeah.

[1000] And do you think it's also affecting expectation?

[1001] It's maybe why people are moving towards just solo sex because real sex isn't that interesting anymore because you can get whatever you want.

[1002] It is if you use X to C while you're doing it.

[1003] Okay.

[1004] I just want to be on records from experience.

[1005] But it's not just that, Monica.

[1006] I had a woman call me once a couple years ago.

[1007] She was 27.

[1008] She worked for, I think, Penthouse.

[1009] She wanted to interview me about sex addiction.

[1010] And she said, you know what, I don't go out with guys my age anymore.

[1011] And I said, how come?

[1012] She said, because the first thing they want to do is come on my face.

[1013] Because that's what they see in porn.

[1014] They just think that's what girls want.

[1015] And girls will also, when I say girls, I mean, young women in their 20s, a lot of them will admit to doing it, not because they want it, because they think that's what guys want because that's what's in porn.

[1016] Exactly.

[1017] Even though we don't want it or we're not sure why we're doing it.

[1018] It must be sexy.

[1019] Right.

[1020] Yeah.

[1021] Precisely.

[1022] But boy, it is a slippery slope because I remember the exact turn when all of a sudden pornos were all about the girls gagging when they gave oral sex.

[1023] I want to say that was like probably about 16 years ago.

[1024] I remember going to a friend's house, a married couple, and I was like, oh, I saw this fucking video.

[1025] I was watching porn and I wanted to just beat the shit out of these guys.

[1026] Like they were all about just gagging these girls.

[1027] And the wife was like, that's awesome.

[1028] And I was a little bit like, oh, that's interesting.

[1029] This woman who's very empowered digs that.

[1030] Right.

[1031] And who the fuck am I to say that that.

[1032] Exactly.

[1033] That's where it gets all very murky.

[1034] It does.

[1035] I mean, and that's where we come into these matter of consent and people really talking to each other about what they like sexually, what they don't, what's okay, what isn't.

[1036] Yeah.

[1037] You know, not all women want to be spanked or have their hair pulled, but a bunch of women think it's hot.

[1038] Yeah.

[1039] Boy.

[1040] How does someone navigate that?

[1041] By talking about it.

[1042] Yeah.

[1043] Yeah.

[1044] I think it's harder for young adults, like people in their early 20s.

[1045] Yeah.

[1046] Because there's still a lot of self -consciousness about sex and sexual.

[1047] Did you read Missoula by John Crackauer by chance?

[1048] I didn't know.

[1049] It was all about rape about Missoula.

[1050] And my wife and I were reading at the exact same time.

[1051] My wife and I felt bad for both people.

[1052] Virgin boy, female girl, both hammered.

[1053] She's in and out of consciousness.

[1054] He starts putting his fingers in her and he's saying, I'm going to make you squirt.

[1055] This kid's never even kissed a girl.

[1056] And he's like his first move is going to be something he saw on a porn.

[1057] It's terrible for her.

[1058] No question about it.

[1059] She's the victim.

[1060] But my wife and I both were like, also, feel bad for this kid.

[1061] Like, this is what he thinks a woman would want.

[1062] Right.

[1063] Or all women's bodies do that.

[1064] Yes.

[1065] So that goes then to our lack of sex education in this country.

[1066] Which is just about don't get pregnant, don't get HIV, don't get STD, don't, don't, don't, don't.

[1067] And that's the beginning and the end of it.

[1068] There's nothing about sexual pleasure, about desire, about stating your needs.

[1069] Yeah.

[1070] And experiencing your own body.

[1071] what this particular body likes, which is different than the other bodies.

[1072] Yeah.

[1073] Just none of it.

[1074] And do you think the foundational fear of it is that by talking about it, it'll encourage kids to do it earlier?

[1075] Yes, but the irony is by not talking about it, they're doing so much more of it in different ways.

[1076] Like there was this whole movement, I think about 10 years ago now, this, what was it called, where the girls got the rings from their fathers?

[1077] Do you remember this?

[1078] Oh, Chastody, something.

[1079] I don't remember what they were called.

[1080] But it was sort of like the more conservative faction was encouraging their daughters do not have sex, abstinence only.

[1081] So they weren't having vaginal intercourse.

[1082] They were having anal sex.

[1083] So they could stay virgins.

[1084] I've always loved that rationale.

[1085] Well, there's something really poetic justice in that.

[1086] Good news, Mike.

[1087] Jenny is still a virgin.

[1088] Vaginal version, but she's had anal sex a hundred times.

[1089] Right.

[1090] And you get to walk her down the aisle.

[1091] What do you see as the future of sex in America?

[1092] Well, I think that ties back to what we were saying.

[1093] You know, some people are predicting that we're moving towards a more solo sex culture the way the Japanese have, that it's burdensome and bothersome.

[1094] And I think this ties into, I mean, these are sociopolitical, cultural questions, but ties into the level of secure attachment we have in this country and how we're raising our children.

[1095] So if you have a more avoidant population, you're going to have a bigger population of masturbators and people that are looking at internet porn because they don't connect with other human beings.

[1096] I mean, that's kind of a doomsday scenario, but we have to look at that secure attachment in this country has significantly reduced from the 1970s.

[1097] Yeah, and you know, I try to resist the urge of just being an old man where things aren't the way they were when I was a kid, so they're implicitly wrong.

[1098] But I will argue you're not going to get around the fact that we are a social primate by design.

[1099] It's just that simple.

[1100] We're supposed to be with 100 other primates in close proximity at all times.

[1101] That's what we're designed to live as.

[1102] So I do think we're going to have unavoidable consequences of the isolation that technology allows for.

[1103] Right.

[1104] And especially with all this AI and people having sex with robotic dolls and I mean, what's going to happen?

[1105] And I already think that the internet has changed the way we have sex.

[1106] And this is the good news.

[1107] Like with 50 shades of gray, no matter how horrendous, you know, the book was poorly written.

[1108] It was a movement.

[1109] And there are lots and lots of young women that I talk to in their early 30s that all of them are into some kind of light BDSM.

[1110] And they've seen more and they're more experimental.

[1111] I'm sure than their mothers ever were.

[1112] So it really has stretched the capacity for pleasure and trying things.

[1113] And that is the perfect example to illustrate the complexity of the issue because someone in here that was being very critical of that book because the female was exhibiting visual signs of arousal yet she was succumbing to his will and the point was you can have visual sounds of arousal and it can still be non -consensual and all this stuff right and then it just occurred to me later after I left I was like but it was written by a woman so you can't avoid that part of it women read it women read it women made it a woman wrote it so like you can be mad at it but a woman wrote it so you can't tell that woman she's not allowed to have that fantasy that's right and one of the things people don't really understand about BDSM is that the sub really has the power in the diad.

[1114] The sub...

[1115] Oh, you just threw two words at me that I don't know.

[1116] Okay, the submissive writes the script for what the dominant can do to her.

[1117] Oh.

[1118] She says, you can pull my hair, you can spank me, you can't call me names, you can't humiliate me. I like rope play or flogging, but I don't like electrical shock.

[1119] Like, she defines how this scene is going to be played out.

[1120] So she's very much in control.

[1121] She writes the script and then she surrenders it to the dom, the dominant, because she trusts that he's going to do exactly what she said.

[1122] And that's 50 shades of gray.

[1123] There is an interplay between the two of them.

[1124] That woman is not just subjected to that male.

[1125] I'd be the worst dom because I'm known for improvisation.

[1126] That would be a problem.

[1127] Yeah, I would be underemployed as a In a script.

[1128] How do people know, and I was kind of hinting at it earlier about what people could maybe just be aware of as they whip up fantasies or how much time they're spending there.

[1129] But how do people know if they are sexually compulsive or if they just like a lot of sex?

[1130] Again, I wrestle with this because I'm super sexualized.

[1131] Most of my humor is sexual.

[1132] It's on my mind all the time.

[1133] I'm also aware of the fact that I'm an abuse survivor.

[1134] Likely that's a part of the recipe.

[1135] Doesn't matter.

[1136] I still enjoy it.

[1137] So I'm always kind of like, is it a pathology?

[1138] Is it just who I am?

[1139] I understand the root of it.

[1140] Like, what's good?

[1141] What's bad?

[1142] Like, you know?

[1143] The simplest, I think, test is whether your behaviors are secretive, shaming, and abusive.

[1144] And so if you can go home and tell your wife about, not your dirty thoughts, because no one needs to know the inside of our head on any of the day.

[1145] But what you did, like, if you went to a sexual massage parlor today and you, you know, had a happy ending and you can tell her and she's like, then there's no problem.

[1146] But if you're doing it and you're spending the family money and you're lying and you're sneaking around, then you got a problem, no matter what it is you're doing.

[1147] Right, right, right.

[1148] So if it's creating messes or what we call unmanageability in your life, you got a problem.

[1149] So when you start ignoring your friends, your family, you don't really make commitments to do something because you never know when you want to go do that thing.

[1150] And really one of the hallmarks of all addictions is a high level of preoccupation, all you're thinking about all the time.

[1151] I have this great example of a friend who I have no judgment of their sexual activity whatsoever, but they have an app and they're on the app around me nonstop in the planning of it.

[1152] The fact that you're not present with me now because of that thing, that seems like a red flag.

[1153] Exactly.

[1154] Because the primary relationship is with that thing, as you know, with alcohol, with the gambling, with the sex, with the whatever the thing is, then you're no longer really have control over your life.

[1155] Yes.

[1156] Again, it just depends on the messes that it creates in one's life as to whether or not it's a problem.

[1157] Mm -hmm.

[1158] This is just one of my pet peeves.

[1159] There was a great, I want to say it was either a radio lab or this American life, and it was about Facebook.

[1160] One of the things that they accidentally discovered was when people post a photograph and they tag you in it, you can ask that Facebook remove that photo.

[1161] and it gives you a drop -down menu of reasons why you don't want that picture up.

[1162] And in the original drop -down menu, it said, that's not me, something else, I'm embarrassed, and then other.

[1163] And what they found quickly with just having that up for like a month, 75 % of the people weren't clicking one of the boxes, they were writing under Other, it's embarrassing.

[1164] So no one will check, I'm embarrassed.

[1165] Oh.

[1166] But they'll write, it's embarrassing.

[1167] And they changed the drop -down menu to it's embarrassing, and that became a very high percentage of the reasons people pull it down.

[1168] Right.

[1169] But there's this great window into how people's brains work in that.

[1170] It's objectively embarrassing, i .e. anyone would be embarrassed.

[1171] It's not my own insecurity.

[1172] Yeah.

[1173] Versus I'm humiliated by that or I'm embarrassed by that.

[1174] Right.

[1175] That, that's too personal.

[1176] The second one takes vulnerability, right?

[1177] And I guess in the world of sex, I do find sometimes that people want desperately to label sex acts, sexuality, as objectively wrong, objectively gross, objectively demeaning, objectively anything to get out of owning their own personal triggers or their own personal insecurities.

[1178] And I think that's part of what's driving the whole puritanical wave at times.

[1179] It's also what keeps people from really getting close to each other, I think, because to be that vulnerable to talk about what a person really like sexually or what they don't like means that they are letting their partners see them in ways that they've maybe never let anybody see them before.

[1180] And if I tell you what I really like sexually, I mean, I have had this happen many times where a couple's talking about sex and the other party rolls their eyes, which is so judgmental and really shaming and humiliating.

[1181] It may just be that I'm just so embarrassed at the thought of doing that.

[1182] I'm going to make you out to be a weirdo.

[1183] Oh, yes.

[1184] But it's really my sexual limitation.

[1185] It's my hang up.

[1186] You're right.

[1187] I'll often hear people say, you know, he's just a freak or...

[1188] That's right.

[1189] They're a pervert.

[1190] He wants to have anal sex with me. It's like, it's okay to just not want to have anal sex.

[1191] He doesn't have to be a pervert because you don't want to have anal sex.

[1192] Well, I don't want to say, well, I'm a prude.

[1193] Right.

[1194] He's a pervert.

[1195] I'm not a prude.

[1196] Yes, yes, yes.

[1197] And so there's - And neither are true.

[1198] That's right.

[1199] But there's a real dishonesty in that, as opposed to, are we really going to get vulnerable and talk about why do you like it?

[1200] Why don't you like it?

[1201] What do you feel about you?

[1202] So animals do not make meaning about sexual acts, but humans do.

[1203] So you line up 10 humans and you ask them about anal sex, and one person's going to say it's the most disgusting thing on the planet.

[1204] Go to hell for it.

[1205] And number 10 says it's the road to nirvana.

[1206] So which is it, right?

[1207] Right.

[1208] And that's where I think we get hung up is that we're dishonest about our fears.

[1209] And then there's also the meaning we make of it.

[1210] What does it say about me if I like that act?

[1211] Right.

[1212] What are you going to think about me if I like that?

[1213] Because that's not how I comport myself in the world and I don't want anyone to know that.

[1214] Yeah.

[1215] Is there any statistical evidence that it seems anecdotally in my circle with many male friends who have many wives that the men want more sex?

[1216] Many wives like as like.

[1217] Oh, I wish that.

[1218] I had friends with many wives.

[1219] No, no, no. Many friends and many wives.

[1220] Yeah.

[1221] Many married friends.

[1222] Am I being misled by the data around me, the anecdotal data?

[1223] Do men, I know all of the cliches that are true.

[1224] rooted in reality, which is men have sex to be intimate and women, intimacy leads to sex.

[1225] So right there, you have a reversal, which is an issue.

[1226] It's a bad design.

[1227] It's a very bad design, right?

[1228] But it's accurate.

[1229] So is that kind of statistically the norm?

[1230] Well, I don't know about statistics.

[1231] I can only tell you what I see clinically.

[1232] Okay.

[1233] So clinically, yes.

[1234] It is.

[1235] It is.

[1236] Part of that, I think, is just, again, biological.

[1237] Yes.

[1238] But if you look at the work of Helen Fisher, who talks about, you know, why we love and how we fall in love and that pair bonding happens and it's usually good for four years because that's what it takes to raise a child to fruition.

[1239] But then the novelty starts to wear off.

[1240] And with males, you've got, you know, as you said, high testosterone and some females are higher tea and some are lower tea.

[1241] So some have higher sex drives lower.

[1242] Once women have children, their energy all going towards their children.

[1243] And then we live in this hyper -sexualized culture.

[1244] Like you just, all I have to do is drive out those gates and down to sunset and boom right there are boobs or abs or something looking at me all of it is about you know sexuality and being sexual and some people are going to be more activated by that than others so i think that is part of the the desire disconnect between male and female is a real thing yeah and some people just have more drive and less but ultimately and especially as we age the question is why do we have sex what happens when it's not no longer about a drive.

[1245] Why do it?

[1246] Right.

[1247] And I would argue to bond, right?

[1248] And to connect.

[1249] To bond or to really learn about ourselves.

[1250] That it's about the development of the self.

[1251] You know, who am I sexually?

[1252] At 20, I can just tell you, at 20, all I'd have to do is look at a guy and I was ready to have sex.

[1253] That was it, man. Sure.

[1254] You know, in their 30s, you know, people are having children and then it's all about children.

[1255] Then 40s are sex drive changes again, 50, 60, 70s.

[1256] At some point, there's no drive.

[1257] And that's when I think it really requires a maturity and an exploration of who am I sexually now that my body has changed.

[1258] And what is the meaning of sex for me now?

[1259] And how do I have sex today?

[1260] It's very different than it was when I was 20 years old.

[1261] Yeah.

[1262] Because the body just doesn't work in that way anymore.

[1263] So when people come in and they say, well, none of my girlfriends have sex, I'm like, well, do you want that marriage or do you want this marriage?

[1264] And what are you going to do to look at what turns you on sexually, what you need, how you can have these conversations with your partner so that you can move towards the kind of sex life you want to have.

[1265] And that, I mean, it's complicated because it's just so complicated, so many factors.

[1266] Yeah, it is.

[1267] And it's changing rapidly as it should, and we're evolving and women are empowered, and they don't need men for financial security.

[1268] Or for sexual pleasure.

[1269] Yeah.

[1270] There's just all these developments that are going to probably end up exposing even more of our true nature, because we won't be.

[1271] Oh, that's interesting.

[1272] Yeah, we won't be so battened down.

[1273] Yeah, or driven by some arterial motives.

[1274] when you're really just going to be like, well, you're taking care of.

[1275] So now whatever you do is you're just probably doing your own desire.

[1276] Right.

[1277] Yeah.

[1278] And I think that will be true, too, with gender expression as we started out talking about, that everybody will express in what's really true for them.

[1279] So your current book, Sex Addiction as Affect Disregulation.

[1280] Is your new book.

[1281] Yeah.

[1282] And that's part of the Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology.

[1283] We're really looking at a scientific point of view at these underlying regulations.

[1284] issues that lead to attachment that lead to addiction.

[1285] That was sort of my theory that dysregulated children, abused children, become addicts.

[1286] And that's what I see in classic sex addiction, is that people just don't become sex addicts by accident.

[1287] Is there a genetic component like with alcohol addiction?

[1288] We don't know for certain, but Patrick Carnes won a Fulbright Award a couple years ago.

[1289] And the last two years has been in the University of Alberta and Canada collecting data, saliva data on 500 sex addicts.

[1290] And they're going to be looking at all of this data and they're looking for a genetic factor for sex addiction.

[1291] Right.

[1292] It would make sense.

[1293] It would make sense.

[1294] On the surface, if all the other addictions seem to have a genetic component.

[1295] I think it's Brune Brown who says genetics load the gun and trauma pulls the trigger.

[1296] Yeah, because that's the epigenetic component is the trauma.

[1297] The epigenetic.

[1298] Epigenetics has to do with how the environment gets the gene to express.

[1299] Right.

[1300] So you may have a latent capacity towards something, but the right environmental factors will have it express it.

[1301] It's very interesting.

[1302] So sex addiction as affect dysregulation, a neurobiologically informed holistic treatment.

[1303] Super interesting topic.

[1304] I'm glad that there are people kind of synthesizing all these different things.

[1305] Right.

[1306] We're finally in an era where like we're combining biochemical stuff with kind of clinical observations.

[1307] Well, all the fields of science are finally talking to.

[1308] other.

[1309] Right.

[1310] And has technology made that possible?

[1311] For sure.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] Oh, yeah.

[1314] Yeah, things start making sense and there's some symmetry to all this stuff.

[1315] Yeah, it's really fascinating.

[1316] So thank you so much for coming in.

[1317] It was really fun.

[1318] I hope you'll write another book soon so we can ask you more out there questions.

[1319] Good.

[1320] All right, be well.

[1321] All right, you too.

[1322] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1323] Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling.

[1324] Dr. Katahakis.

[1325] If my name was Dax Katahakis, what line of work do you think I would have found my way into?

[1326] Well, you said doctor, so medicine.

[1327] Oh.

[1328] If you're a PhD, you call someone that has a doctorate degree in physics, a doctor, right?

[1329] They have a doctorate, yeah.

[1330] But you still call them doctor.

[1331] They always call those professors like, Dr. Simmons, the best architect in the world.

[1332] My grandfather was a doctor.

[1333] He was, but not a medical doctor.

[1334] Now, let me ask you this.

[1335] Is it ethical?

[1336] if you're a doctor to examine your family members, it is, right?

[1337] Well, you just go straight to gynecology.

[1338] No, I didn't.

[1339] I went to that riddle, the riddle about the mom that has to operate on your child.

[1340] I can't operate on this man. He's my son.

[1341] Yeah, just so indicative of the time of that riddle.

[1342] Oh, it flummoxed me. Let's tell people in case they don't know it because they're young and they wouldn't even understand this.

[1343] A man and his son are driving a sports car down a windy road.

[1344] The father loses control.

[1345] of the vehicle and he said that he was infallible but he clearly was not now you're cross -pollinating you're cross -pollinating fact checks you can go to monday's fact check if you want to know more about that about my status is infallible okay so the father and son are driving in an italian sports car down a windy road and the father who's had a couple cocktails loses control of the Ferrari it was a Ferrari Dino they called it the poor man's Ferrari because it had a six cylinder but they've risen in value anyways he lost control of the Ferrari they land upside down the father is killed the son is rescued from the crashed Ferrari rushed to the emergency room straight into the OR and the surgeon looks down at the boy and says I can't operate on him this man's my son how is that possible this boy this boy is my son yeah and in the 80s people were like I don't know, man. That doesn't fucking make sense.

[1346] People could not figure it out.

[1347] Myself included.

[1348] Really?

[1349] Yeah.

[1350] Oh, absolutely.

[1351] I was like, oh, yeah, how the fuck?

[1352] Oh, my God.

[1353] Is he got two?

[1354] Literally, I went, oh, it's his stepdad.

[1355] And obviously to everyone listening, who I'm sure is young, they'll know it was his mom.

[1356] The easiest riddle on earth.

[1357] In 2019, it's a really easy riddle.

[1358] Yeah, it's not even a riddle.

[1359] It's just a scenario.

[1360] In the 80s.

[1361] I heard it in the 90s.

[1362] I mean, I heard that riddle in class.

[1363] I did get it immediately not to brag, but.

[1364] Hold on.

[1365] What percentage of surgeons were women in the 1980s?

[1366] Oh, my God, my tracheotomy's back.

[1367] Okay, how about this?

[1368] This gives a little, at least, like, cover fire for us.

[1369] In the 80s, women only made up 2 % of surgical residents.

[1370] Ah.

[1371] So, you know, 98 % percent.

[1372] percent of the surgeons were men.

[1373] Yeah.

[1374] It was stark.

[1375] You know, now that I think about it, even when I asked you that question, I'm still sexist, I guess, because I was picturing like the patriarch of the family being the doctor.

[1376] Really?

[1377] What do you want me to do?

[1378] I can't grow up in a different time period.

[1379] You come from a working mom.

[1380] That's why this is weird.

[1381] That's why that riddle never makes a doctor.

[1382] Still, though, when that riddle was said, I immediately was like, oh, that's his mom, because my mom works.

[1383] Yeah, yeah.

[1384] And I think in the 80s, that was a little bit less.

[1385] But also only 2 % of surgeons were women.

[1386] So you've probably never seen one.

[1387] Okay.

[1388] But look, you know, I can be evolved today.

[1389] Today I can recognize my errors.

[1390] And even when I say it, I recognize, oh, that's an era.

[1391] Error and an era.

[1392] It was an era where women weren't surgeons.

[1393] That's when I grew up.

[1394] So my brain cemented in a period where only 2 % of the women were surgeons.

[1395] Okay.

[1396] That's unfortunate for me. But I will probably always be trapped in my first image of a surgeon's going to be a man. I mean, I can think my way through it, but my instincts.

[1397] I can still think that's, ugh.

[1398] Of course.

[1399] But I would want you to cut me some slack that we grew up in different eras.

[1400] Sure.

[1401] When I was a kid, smoking was still a very healthy endeavor.

[1402] I didn't say that you did anything wrong.

[1403] You took that so defensively.

[1404] Well, no. Rewind the tapes, Rob.

[1405] When I thought of the person being a doctor, I went to the patriarch.

[1406] And you went, ugh.

[1407] Exactly.

[1408] I'm going to say, ugh, to that.

[1409] Yes, but that's not me being defensive.

[1410] You expressively were disappointed that that was my thought.

[1411] So I feel compelled to explain to you why that's my thought.

[1412] But it seemed like you were defending that.

[1413] No, I don't defend it.

[1414] But that is the reality of, you know, I don't know.

[1415] Does that make any sense?

[1416] Yeah.

[1417] Okay.

[1418] Your nose thing looks like a small pair of headphones.

[1419] Oh, my goodness.

[1420] They are headphones for my nose.

[1421] It looks like...

[1422] My intake breathing .com, nose breathing apparatus?

[1423] It looks like you have another tiny pair of headphones on your nose and you're wearing two headphones.

[1424] You want to snap a picture of me from there?

[1425] Yeah.

[1426] I'd say at least three times a week someone tweets me or Instagrams me, who takes your photos.

[1427] Yeah, they're great.

[1428] Yeah, always a big compliment to wobb.

[1429] Yeah.

[1430] Anyway, so it looks like you have two headphones on, one tiny and one big.

[1431] Now I can't not see it.

[1432] Anyways, if my name was Dax Catehakis, I have an idea of what I'd be doing.

[1433] What is your idea of what I'd be doing?

[1434] I have you in a doctor's office, doctor.

[1435] You do?

[1436] Yeah, in a lab coat.

[1437] I think I would be a structural engineer.

[1438] Oh, okay.

[1439] Dax Cotahawkes.

[1440] Karate instructor.

[1441] Oh, that's really good, too.

[1442] I think that might be a, sorry, but a waste of that doctorate degree.

[1443] Being a structural engineer?

[1444] No, a karate instructor.

[1445] Oh, but just as a hobby, I think.

[1446] Okay, but you know what?

[1447] Tell me. I don't think you need a doctorate degree to be a structural engineer.

[1448] No, no, no, but I'm also a professor of engineering.

[1449] Oh, you're a professor.

[1450] I'm almost like Stark, Iron Man. Tony Stark.

[1451] Anthony Stark, where, like, I still teach a couple of classes at, like, a prestigious university, but I'm also building, like, the biggest skyscrapers.

[1452] Okay, okay.

[1453] I drive, like a...

[1454] And then do you turn a little bit evil?

[1455] No, just more sexual.

[1456] Oh, I think.

[1457] Like in the classroom, I wear sweaters with, like, a v -neck sweater.

[1458] Sure, sure.

[1459] And then when I'm designing my buildings, I'm in, like, Armani suits and stuff.

[1460] Okay.

[1461] And I'm a little slimy.

[1462] I think there's a period where you turn a little evil.

[1463] Probably.

[1464] I probably start drinking my own Kool -Aid because I'm the best structural engineer in the world.

[1465] Your ego gets huge and you can't really see reality anymore.

[1466] No, because I claim to be infallible at structural engineering.

[1467] Oh, yeah, you would.

[1468] You would claim.

[1469] One of my buildings collapsed is because I didn't do enough soil sampling for the bedrock, which has happened in San Francisco.

[1470] Do you know about this building they built there?

[1471] And it's sinking way faster than it's supposed to.

[1472] And they're afraid it's going to fall to other buildings.

[1473] Oh, geez.

[1474] The other thing that I saw, now that we're on a structural engineering tangent, is this amazing airport in Japan.

[1475] I think it's service is Tokyo.

[1476] And it's a floating airport.

[1477] They went and claimed a piece of the water.

[1478] They put up, you know, seawall.

[1479] Then they dredged out the water.

[1480] and then they filled it all with sand and cement and they built an island to house the airport because they were out of real estate for an airport.

[1481] So then did they have to ferry people off the airport to get to the land?

[1482] There's a bridge.

[1483] They built a bridge.

[1484] But when I was watching this Discovery Channel show about this, Nariata Airport.

[1485] Kansai International Airport.

[1486] No, it's the like Nariata or something.

[1487] Anyways, so both ends of the building, a very long terminal, right?

[1488] And then both ends were built on these huge screws because they knew that the island they built would settle unevenly and that they would have to jack up sides of the building.

[1489] And at the time of this documentary, they were a little worried because they had already run through like 90 % of the jacking up capacity and it was only the first like 10 years.

[1490] I don't know how they, Narita.

[1491] Is there a Narita area?

[1492] No. Kobe.

[1493] No. Kyushu.

[1494] Ozaka Kansai.

[1495] Okay, none of these sound like any of the ones you said.

[1496] Narita Airport.

[1497] God.

[1498] Narita International Airport Airport in Narita, Japan.

[1499] Wow.

[1500] But are you sure that's floating?

[1501] I'll tell you.

[1502] I'll fucking tell you right now.

[1503] It says nothing about it being an island.

[1504] This map does not.

[1505] Okay.

[1506] That's the wrong airport.

[1507] That was a long walk for nothing.

[1508] I am kind of impressed I knew the name of A airport in Japan.

[1509] Yeah, that's cool.

[1510] I guess.

[1511] I always try to find something.

[1512] I'm silver lining when I'm wrong.

[1513] You've noticed that.

[1514] It's the bane of your existence.

[1515] I get nervous about the people who had to build that floating airport that's now sinking.

[1516] Sinking.

[1517] They might get Korochi.

[1518] Oh, die from overworking.

[1519] Yeah.

[1520] And the stress of now a sink.

[1521] Yeah.

[1522] It's kind of like those guys in Chernobyl.

[1523] Oof.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] Do you say Chornobo or Shonobo?

[1526] or Chernobyl No, please don't associate my mom With that horrible disaster I was just thinking of how I botched her name that time Really bad I say Chernobyl Chernobyl Okay great like C -H -A -I -R That is how I say Chair and then Nobel Like Nobel Peace Prize Chair Noble I wonder if that's my southern accent coming out What if they started giving out a Chernoble Peace Prize And people are like, we're good No thank you Yeah.

[1527] Okay, Dr. Alex, speaking of other countries, she's Greek.

[1528] Ooh, that's where that fun name comes from.

[1529] Yes.

[1530] And you asked what the Greek stereotype is.

[1531] What a crass question.

[1532] She kind of blew past it smartly.

[1533] Yeah.

[1534] But then I looked it up.

[1535] Oh, wow.

[1536] Yeah.

[1537] Wow, I'm tempted to guess.

[1538] There's a few that they say that they can't shake.

[1539] Shake hands?

[1540] Oh, there's a few stereotypes.

[1541] I'm like, I've never heard that Greeks don't shake hands.

[1542] Okay, the stereotypes are hairy, loud, carefree, which is kind of, gossippers, smokers, and mama's boys and daddy's girls.

[1543] So.

[1544] Okay.

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] I'm glad we got that out there.

[1547] Okay, so she said that nobody goes steady anymore.

[1548] Okay.

[1549] And, yeah, so I was looking at some articles, and a lot of them confirmed that dating or going on dates does not.

[1550] happen anymore.

[1551] It's too old -fashioned, too formal.

[1552] The best you'll get is coffee, a casual drink, or hanging out at someone's house or apartment.

[1553] If you want to be taken out to a nice dinner, take yourself.

[1554] Even if people do get together in a way that an older generation would consider an official date, millennials will never call it a date.

[1555] This sounds like it's an article in YM.

[1556] Do you remember that magazine?

[1557] Young Miss. It was all the rage in the 90s when I was like every girl in high school read YM, Young Miss. Oh no. I was more of a Cosmo generation.

[1558] I feel like every Cosmo cover I've ever read was like five blowjob tips to make your man stay.

[1559] Basically, the theme always is like, you better get your shit together in the bedroom or you're going to lose your man. Yeah.

[1560] Am I right in that?

[1561] Yep.

[1562] Pretty much.

[1563] Okay.

[1564] Yes, exactly.

[1565] It was all sex tips, basically.

[1566] And every now and then an article or two about charity.

[1567] Boy, this is all really emblematic of the problems because I used to read Maxim when I was younger.

[1568] Uh -huh.

[1569] They had a lot of great articles in there.

[1570] I don't remember any sex tips, and there should have been.

[1571] Right.

[1572] It takes a lot more knowledge to get a woman off than a man. Yeah, I think you're right.

[1573] If anyone should be being educated, it's the men.

[1574] That's true.

[1575] You could probably slap a young man's penis and it would ejaculate.

[1576] I mean, it doesn't take much.

[1577] But there are endless articles about tricks and tips and do this and practice this.

[1578] It's not even realistic.

[1579] Like, yeah, if your goal is to get your man off.

[1580] in two seconds, which you know what wants.

[1581] I guess, though, sometimes that is the...

[1582] Not at that age.

[1583] No, but if you're in a hurry, maybe.

[1584] The article should have been like, if you're in a hurry, here's five tips.

[1585] Yeah, that should just be one article one time, not 500 articles every year.

[1586] Yeah, that's interesting.

[1587] And the other article should have been how to get yourself off while you're having sex.

[1588] Yeah, I mean, there might have been that.

[1589] There probably is.

[1590] There probably is, but yeah, you're right.

[1591] That's not great.

[1592] We just have a pole in our pants.

[1593] There's not a bunch of stuff.

[1594] You know, there's not a menorah, majora, clitoris, a vaginal canal.

[1595] Okay.

[1596] You know what I'm saying?

[1597] Yeah.

[1598] Well, they do say, though, that the prostate is the male G spot.

[1599] I've yet to experience that.

[1600] But I've heard that.

[1601] Really?

[1602] Have you heard that?

[1603] Mm -mm.

[1604] I've heard that.

[1605] You've heard that right.

[1606] Yeah.

[1607] Probably from him.

[1608] I love all this, by the way.

[1609] I never was into taking anyone on a date.

[1610] I was like, let's just go hang out.

[1611] Let's not have it a forced awkward.

[1612] Right.

[1613] High stakes, stare at each other.

[1614] Oh, sit across from each other.

[1615] Your strangers stare directly at each other's faces.

[1616] It's my nightmare.

[1617] And then eat a fucking meal, which is like already.

[1618] And stuff's falling out of your mouth.

[1619] And what you order and when you get gas.

[1620] All that stuff.

[1621] Forget it.

[1622] Let's play pickup basketball or I'll join you at the fucking flea market.

[1623] We'll look at shit.

[1624] Yeah, that's nice.

[1625] That's a date though, flea market.

[1626] It's just a cool date.

[1627] It's like a fun date.

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] Fun date.

[1630] I said my favorite date would be to go to the Barnes & Noble, but this is once you know the person.

[1631] Go to Barnes & Noble or a bookstore.

[1632] And then you guys pick out a book for the other person.

[1633] I read this on a blog.

[1634] Oh.

[1635] Also, I love the bookstore so much.

[1636] Yeah.

[1637] Anyway, so to go to the bookstore, find a book for the other person.

[1638] And then you go to dinner, probably pasta.

[1639] Uh -huh.

[1640] And then you give each other your books.

[1641] Probably pasta.

[1642] That's great.

[1643] Everyone gets nice and bloated and full.

[1644] And then roll around with your distended bellies.

[1645] Yep.

[1646] Smear them around on each other.

[1647] Love it.

[1648] Yeah.

[1649] Let the gas fly.

[1650] So you said that cocaine is a three -time inhibitor.

[1651] What does that mean?

[1652] So SSRIs, which is the common antidepressant in the country, be it Zoloft or all these different.

[1653] Prozat.

[1654] Those are serotonin uptake inhibitors.

[1655] You're making serotonin and then it is reabsorbed and then you make more, right?

[1656] So basically what those drugs do is prevent the absorption so that the serotonin's floating around your brain longer before it is uptaken, uptaked, uptook.

[1657] Re -uptake.

[1658] Yeah, re -uptake.

[1659] That's why there's no past tense for uptake, I guess, so they had to say re.

[1660] Uh -huh, yeah.

[1661] Well, again.

[1662] Ria.

[1663] Diarya.

[1664] When you're sliding in the first And you feel a juicy burst Is that your favorite one?

[1665] Sarah Ria.

[1666] Oh.

[1667] Is that your favorite?

[1668] Song.

[1669] Juicy burst.

[1670] You know there's like different iterations of that.

[1671] Yeah, well, you know what's weird though?

[1672] There's nothing for second.

[1673] They just pretend that the baseball goes first base, third base home.

[1674] Oh.

[1675] Because when you're sliding in the third and you feel a juicy turd, diarrhea.

[1676] Diarrhea.

[1677] When you're sliding into home And your pants are full of foam Diarrhea Full of foam Just does a great version of that He does?

[1678] Oh my God, he does a beautiful He's like When you're sliding into verse Oh, he sings it beautiful And you feel a juicy burst Diarrhea There's a verse for a second base What is it?

[1679] When you're sliding into two And your pants are filled with goo Oh, so they had to call it two Yeah, because you can't rhyme second.

[1680] That's a cheat.

[1681] That's a cheat.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] So you're saying that cocaine.

[1684] Yes, disrupts the uptake of dopamine, serotonin, and something else.

[1685] Something else.

[1686] It says cocaine binds to the uptake pumps and prevents them from removing dopamine from the synapse.

[1687] This results in more dopamine in the synapse and more dopamine receptors are activated.

[1688] This only talks about dopamine.

[1689] I couldn't find anything about three times.

[1690] Yeah, I was reading something recently about it.

[1691] And I was like, oh, that's why it's so good.

[1692] Cocaine uptake inhibitor, re -uptake.

[1693] I can't say, yeah, you have to do re -uptake.

[1694] That was part of my Googling problem at first.

[1695] Because I guess the SSRI, the R is re -uptake, right?

[1696] Oh, yeah, I guess it is.

[1697] Anyway, but I didn't find three -time, just FYI.

[1698] But we'll keep looking.

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] Okay, so the percentage of strippers who were abused.

[1701] Oh, is there a number on that?

[1702] this?

[1703] Yeah.

[1704] Uh -oh.

[1705] Between 66 and 90%.

[1706] Ooh.

[1707] Yeah, as children.

[1708] So I've got a lot of statistics about strippers.

[1709] Oh, give it to me. That are interesting.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] Okay.

[1712] We'll start with some happy ones.

[1713] Okay.

[1714] They make great money per hour.

[1715] Well, average earnings.

[1716] Okay.

[1717] $70 ,000 to $100 ,000.

[1718] That's a good wage.

[1719] It is.

[1720] It is.

[1721] It's according to Malcolm Gladwell's study, enough to be happy.

[1722] Right, right, right, right.

[1723] Six largest U .S. Although it says six largest and there's eight here, so.

[1724] I can guess two of them for sure.

[1725] Okay, largest U .S. market.

[1726] For strippers?

[1727] Yeah.

[1728] It's either Dallas or Atlanta.

[1729] Atlanta's in there and Dallas.

[1730] Mm -hmm.

[1731] Well, I guess Vegas has to be in there.

[1732] Vegas is in there.

[1733] Okay, so Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta.

[1734] There's eight of these.

[1735] New York?

[1736] No. Oh, okay.

[1737] What hit me then?

[1738] Houston?

[1739] Mm -hmm.

[1740] Is that making sense?

[1741] It is.

[1742] I think you should try a little more.

[1743] I think you'll know some more if you think.

[1744] Okay.

[1745] Norlands?

[1746] No. I'll give you a clue.

[1747] The next three cities are in the same state.

[1748] And they're in the same?

[1749] Oh, Florida.

[1750] Yes.

[1751] Okay.

[1752] So Orlando?

[1753] Yep.

[1754] Miami.

[1755] Yep.

[1756] Jacksonville.

[1757] No. What?

[1758] Fort Lauderdale.

[1759] Fort Lauderdale.

[1760] Nice, nice, nice.

[1761] Right, of course.

[1762] And then Los Angeles is in there, too.

[1763] Oh.

[1764] Oh, great job, L .A. It's rare that L .A. finds itself on a list with two Texas cities, three Florida cities.

[1765] That's right.

[1766] And Atlanta.

[1767] Yeah.

[1768] Yeah, the whole make it rain thing is an Atlanta phenomenon, right?

[1769] It's the rappers in Atlanta.

[1770] It's a lot more socially acceptable to, like, hang at strip clubs, I think, in Atlanta than you are.

[1771] Like, we have them here, but you never hear anyone like any dudes bragging that they spent the day at the strip club.

[1772] Well, yeah, there was one at my college.

[1773] What?

[1774] Yeah, I went there.

[1775] Oh, fun.

[1776] Did you get a rap dance?

[1777] It was called Toppers.

[1778] I wonder if it's still there.

[1779] Toppers.

[1780] That's an ironic name.

[1781] So you didn't have tops, right?

[1782] Correct.

[1783] Could have been called Toplaces.

[1784] Correct.

[1785] Leandra and I did a production of Closer.

[1786] The play.

[1787] Oh, then brought to the big screen by Mike Nichols.

[1788] Correct.

[1789] So then I went for research.

[1790] Okay.

[1791] Because you were going to play the Natalie Portman character?

[1792] Yeah.

[1793] Okay.

[1794] But Leander didn't go.

[1795] So it was just me and then two, the guys.

[1796] Oh, okay.

[1797] That would have been great if it was just you.

[1798] And then I went another time with my group of friends.

[1799] We went.

[1800] To a male review?

[1801] No. Oh, well, then I've also been to that for like a bachelor party.

[1802] Oh, you have.

[1803] Oh, wow.

[1804] Tell me about the male one.

[1805] Because I want to go so bad, but I want to be discreet about this.

[1806] But I think there's nothing goofier.

[1807] It's so silly.

[1808] The guys dancing sexy and smacking their penis.

[1809] on people.

[1810] I think it's the goot.

[1811] You know, my dream, I've been asking for the same birthday present for seven years.

[1812] I know.

[1813] We got to do it.

[1814] Thunder down under.

[1815] I want front row seats and I want to scream the whole time.

[1816] But I've seen a lot of videos online of these bachelor parties that go haywire.

[1817] Yeah.

[1818] And they're smacking their penises on people.

[1819] When you went, were they smacking their junk into women's faces?

[1820] I mean, I don't remember it being like on their face.

[1821] Like they're in their little panties.

[1822] Yeah, and then they're smacking their panties, which is clearly filled with dong.

[1823] They're smacking their panties in the women's face.

[1824] They are doing weird stuff.

[1825] Yeah, it's weird.

[1826] The one I've seen, too, the guys do is they do the splits and then they start popping their butt cheeks up and down.

[1827] And it just, to me, it doesn't read as sexy on a man. No, it's not sexy, but it's funny, but then people get wrapped up, I think.

[1828] They get really wrapped up in what's going on.

[1829] See, this is why I wish I'd never drank alcohol.

[1830] Because you'd remember it better?

[1831] I don't have a good memory of that night.

[1832] And I think, I think my friend and I. Blue one of them?

[1833] No, but I think we did have like a special dance.

[1834] Oh, wow.

[1835] Can you call that friend and do an update?

[1836] Actually, I will find out if that happened.

[1837] Yeah.

[1838] And I'll report back next time.

[1839] Because maybe you got panied in the face.

[1840] I might have.

[1841] Oh, man. You know what?

[1842] I'm going to say this.

[1843] Say it.

[1844] If we go to the mail review thing, I want to get.

[1845] hit in the head with a penis well yeah not a bare penis but in the panties you do in the back of the head i think i would start laughing so hard you would not you would punch that person no no if i asked for it if i went in there and i was like talking to you and all of a sudden i felt this pitter patter on the back of my head and i turned around there's a little blue panties bouncing around hit me in the way they poke a donkey to get it to go up a hill like that's what would be happening to the back of my head I truly think that you would react in a way that you wouldn't even expect and you would, like, get really angry.

[1846] I don't think so.

[1847] Okay, well, I hope not.

[1848] Wait, let's find out.

[1849] This could be a challenge we could go on air.

[1850] Okay, well, it's also, it's almost Rob's birthday.

[1851] His birthday's this week.

[1852] So maybe we should arrange for Rob to have some penis.

[1853] It's today.

[1854] Oh, when this is airs, it's today.

[1855] It's Rob's birthday today.

[1856] Should we find a mail review?

[1857] Boxed around.

[1858] Yes.

[1859] I'll tell you why I'll like it.

[1860] The same reason.

[1861] And I really loved that scene with Ryan in Chips, where we were banging our penises together.

[1862] You do like, well, because I like things that feel uncomfortable and weird to me. I like new feelings.

[1863] You do.

[1864] That's safe with Ryan.

[1865] And that's also completely under your control.

[1866] You wrote that scene.

[1867] You directed that scene.

[1868] It was your best friend, your favorite person in the world, callback.

[1869] And I had control.

[1870] If you didn't have control, I don't think you'd like it.

[1871] I just don't.

[1872] Right.

[1873] And I guess we'll just have to find out.

[1874] But to me, I think it's so silly.

[1875] I think it would be the goofiest, silliest, I think men's penises are the stupidest, silliest appendages in the animal kingdom.

[1876] Yeah.

[1877] You have the stick hanging between your legs.

[1878] So weird.

[1879] It's so stupid.

[1880] They look ridiculous.

[1881] For me to be banging my penis against Ryan Hansons.

[1882] Right.

[1883] It gives me the weirdest butterflies in my skin.

[1884] stomach not sexual but like um i don't know i just there's a physiological and it makes me giggle yeah because i'm uncomfortable and then the giggling is really fun so right and i you couldn't say that we enjoyed the feeling of our penises hitting each other but we loved the giggle session that came out of that sure sure and i just think if ryan and i were at the strip club and you guys had paid these guys off and they just started whacking the back of our heads with those little panties on i have to assume i would start laughing maybe maybe you would Okay.

[1885] You know, these penises are kind of like legs that didn't fully grow.

[1886] Mm -hmm.

[1887] Like a baby leg.

[1888] Tiny legs.

[1889] Yes, an infant leg.

[1890] You guys have three legs and one is just tiny, forgot to grow.

[1891] Ideally for us, we have three legs.

[1892] Not for women, between each other.

[1893] Yes, ideally it's three legs.

[1894] Oh, geez, God.

[1895] Okay.

[1896] Okay, so more facts about strippers, sad ones.

[1897] So, yeah, between 66 and 90 % of women in the sex industry, were sexually abused as children.

[1898] Sex industry or strippers?

[1899] Hmm.

[1900] This whole thing was about strippers, but it is saying sex industry.

[1901] Okay.

[1902] So maybe that's also.

[1903] Yeah, it could be, yeah.

[1904] 89 % of women in the sex industry said they wanted to escape but had no other means for survival.

[1905] Strippers are often substance abusers.

[1906] One study found the number to be around 40%.

[1907] That doesn't seem that high to me. Women who work in the sex industry have only a 25 % chance of making a marriage last for at least three years.

[1908] 70 % of strippers reported they've been followed home, and 42 % say they've been stocked 4 ,000 clubs in the United States.

[1909] Wow.

[1910] Yeah.

[1911] I had kind of an inside look at the whole culture when I lived in Santa Barbara.

[1912] I had a high school friend who moved to Santa Barbara after I did, and she stripped at a place called Spearmint Rhino.

[1913] Okay.

[1914] And I would often hang out at her apartment, and her roommate was a stripper as well.

[1915] well.

[1916] Okay.

[1917] And I was kind of privy to that whole lifestyle of theirs.

[1918] Yeah, there was a lot of alcohol consumption and some drug consumption.

[1919] Yeah.

[1920] It's rough.

[1921] Okay.

[1922] So the Esther quote that we couldn't really exactly remember, but you said, I think, almost exactly right, which is a Proust.

[1923] Is that you say it?

[1924] Proust?

[1925] Proust.

[1926] I think so.

[1927] It is our imagination that is responsible for love, not the other person.

[1928] Basically what you said.

[1929] Okay.

[1930] Are dolphins sexual?

[1931] Oh, they're so horny.

[1932] It's crazy.

[1933] Well, they've raped females, right?

[1934] Humans.

[1935] That's the rumor.

[1936] I know.

[1937] I think that's just a rumor, though.

[1938] I don't think that's true.

[1939] Whales and dolphins have surprisingly interesting sex lives.

[1940] Replete with various positions, elaborate vaginas, and a rare type of penis that's almost always erect.

[1941] Oh, how lucky.

[1942] Not looking for everyone.

[1943] Some species like dusky dolphins.

[1944] Oh.

[1945] Copulate belly to belly.

[1946] Oh, so they can look eye to eye.

[1947] Bottle -nose dolphins seem to make a T formation, where the male crosses the female exactly at her midline.

[1948] Harbor porpoises are really unique in that they wait for the female to come to the surface of the water to take a breath, and then they leap out of the water and try to hook her with their penis.

[1949] Oh, my goodness.

[1950] Yeah, fun.

[1951] Yeah, isn't that fun?

[1952] Yeah.

[1953] So one of the questions is, could it be that some of the positions are just for fun?

[1954] They have sex all year round, even when they can only conceive for certain periods of the year.

[1955] So recreationally.

[1956] By looking at how the genitals align, we can now say certain body positions are more likely to lead to successful fertilization than others, which might be for the purposes other than reproducing.

[1957] Is it play?

[1958] Is it working out hierarchies?

[1959] Is it establishing dominance?

[1960] Is it learning?

[1961] There can be many functions of sex.

[1962] Isn't that always the case?

[1963] Yeah.

[1964] You know, dolphins became a part of a really compelling dinner table debate we all had one time, which was beastiality, you know, because quite often these homophobes, they would say, oh, yeah, let's legalize gay marriage.

[1965] And then let's just also allow people to marry animals, right?

[1966] So they would, they would compare something criminal with something that's not criminal.

[1967] Right.

[1968] And something that's definitely amoral and unethical because there is someone suffering.

[1969] Exactly.

[1970] An animal suffering if a man is humping it.

[1971] Yes.

[1972] And they have no consent or control.

[1973] No consent.

[1974] They're a victim.

[1975] It's harmful.

[1976] But then I thought the one exception of that is I guarantee a dolphin would love to have a relationship with a female, a human, in which case that dolphin would not be a victim at all.

[1977] We don't know.

[1978] How do we know?

[1979] So if the animal has an erection and starts humping, my presumption is, oh, it wanted to.

[1980] It was hard and it started humping.

[1981] Okay, but this is where we get into some tricky, just because a man humping, a female dog is moral.

[1982] It's clearly immoral.

[1983] Okay.

[1984] But a German shepherd humping a woman, I don't know that it's as clear for me. Okay.

[1985] But just because you get an erection doesn't mean that your brain is saying, yes, I want that.

[1986] Boy, that's tricky.

[1987] You could get married men get erections.

[1988] A woman just saw that they were erect and thought, well, I guess that means we can have sex because they clearly want to.

[1989] It doesn't mean you can.

[1990] Wait, is the man married?

[1991] Yes, the man is married and they could get an erection and they could still get erections around other women.

[1992] It doesn't mean seeing an erection does not equal consent, is my point.

[1993] Right.

[1994] There needs to be a verbal consent.

[1995] Agreed, agreed, agreed.

[1996] But what about an erection followed by getting on the female and then humping?

[1997] That's clearly consent.

[1998] At that point, they're driving the thing.

[1999] Okay.

[2000] This is just a fun, like, if you open yourself up to this as kind of a Jonathan.

[2001] and height kind of moral thought experiment, which is, I bet the male dog, if it decides to hump, it probably enjoys it.

[2002] So what are the moral consequences of that?

[2003] It's interesting.

[2004] But we also don't know enough about canine psychology.

[2005] Yes.

[2006] We don't really.

[2007] Glad you asked.

[2008] I happen to know a tremendous amount.

[2009] Maybe that's what Dr. Dax Catastoccus.

[2010] He is an animal psychologist.

[2011] Anyways, I do think I don't, let's just put it this way.

[2012] I was going to put my final thought on that thing.

[2013] I would feel very bad for a female dolphin getting plowed by a human male.

[2014] I would go, come on, dude.

[2015] Now.

[2016] Just try not to just lay off a little bit.

[2017] But if I saw a male dolphin humping a beautiful swimmer and they were both parties who were enjoying it, I just don't think I would have the same reaction.

[2018] This kind of goes back to the debate about the young, the male students having sex with their female teachers versus.

[2019] It does.

[2020] There's some double standards happening.

[2021] And also, to be honest, yeah, no one's looking at that and thinking like, oh, good for that dolphin or good for them.

[2022] Like, you start thinking something's happening with that lady that she wants to have sex with this dolphin.

[2023] Shemental issues.

[2024] Yes.

[2025] It's not healthy to want to have sex with something that's not human.

[2026] Well, again, is it?

[2027] It's not healthy.

[2028] Yes, your gut says no. That's wrong, clearly.

[2029] Immediately your gut is just like, no, that's absolutely wrong.

[2030] But that doesn't mean you can really make an intellectual defense of that position.

[2031] I bet there's a division between men and women.

[2032] So I think myself and my guy friends, if we saw a dolphin, male dolphin, humping a 10 female, I think we would all be like, good for that dolphin.

[2033] I wish you would think something's wrong with that person and she needs help.

[2034] I wish that would be what you.

[2035] would think.

[2036] But I definitely believe, I'm almost certain of this, there are definitely women who have sexual fantasies about dolphins.

[2037] No. Yes, 100%.

[2038] Because I watched this show, it was called Fatal Attractions, and it was on the animal planet, and it was people who had wild animals who then were attacked by the wild animals.

[2039] Right.

[2040] And it was predominantly women who had these huge, large African savanna cats.

[2041] Yeah.

[2042] And when they were being interviewed, viewed, I was like, there's something more going on than they just, they like cats.

[2043] There was like, they were having a love affair.

[2044] They were having a love affair.

[2045] Yeah, and do you think that's healthy?

[2046] Well, clearly not because they got eaten by these cats.

[2047] Exactly.

[2048] None of this, this is all pathological.

[2049] But, right, but I'm only making the point that there are women sexually attracted to dolphins.

[2050] They have this weird spiritual connection with dolphins.

[2051] They have, you know how many women have fucking tattoos of dolphins on their lower back?

[2052] There are no men with, That's sexy or cute or both.

[2053] Or they are hot for dolphins.

[2054] No, they're not.

[2055] No, they're not.

[2056] Look, some people, sure, I'm sure there are some people on this planet who are attracted to dolphins.

[2057] Please, if you're in the audience and you have sexual fantasies about a dolphin, please, please, please tell us on social media.

[2058] And you're not going to want to type, I have sexual feelings for dolphins because you could get red flagged or something.

[2059] So the code word will be dolphin is barry.

[2060] listen this is serious kind of is it it you know it is serious a people with the cats and stuff uh -huh those people have a deep -seated nurturing thing that's not getting met and now they're going into a weird realm and it's a pathology and that's not good my um they died because of it My theory on it is more specific.

[2061] I think that those people had a crazy, dangerous, dominant parent that they didn't get love from.

[2062] And if they contain this wild killing machine, it'll be like getting their parents' love or approval.

[2063] It's an option.

[2064] That's my theory on those people.

[2065] That could be an option.

[2066] I think mine's an option, too.

[2067] They're both options.

[2068] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[2069] Well, also that desire to nurture something also comes from probably something of not good.

[2070] Yeah, like it's the ultimate, I'm going to fix this guy.

[2071] Yeah.

[2072] Because I'm going to make this killing machine lovable.

[2073] Love me. Love me. And not hurt me. Yeah.

[2074] Oh, wow.

[2075] Yeah.

[2076] But the dolphin thing, again, they're not eating humans out there.

[2077] So I think it would be a different thing.

[2078] I think it could be more purely sexual.

[2079] I, no, it's not.

[2080] It's the same.

[2081] It's the most extreme.

[2082] dream level of wanting something you can't have.

[2083] I also think women are attracted to horses.

[2084] Not all women.

[2085] I think some women.

[2086] Just because you like things doesn't mean you're attracted to them sexually.

[2087] No, I know.

[2088] And I think the 99 % of women who like horses aren't sexually attracted to horses.

[2089] But I think some women who spend their whole life in a stable, like riding and all that, I think that gets perverted into some kind of sexual attraction.

[2090] Yeah, well, there's videos of women having sex with horses.

[2091] And I guess you could say that's probably orchestrated by some weird man. Yeah, I would say so.

[2092] Yeah.

[2093] And I don't think that woman is excited about having to do that.

[2094] Yeah, I mean, some, though.

[2095] I'm trying to think if I've ever fantasized about having sex with an animal.

[2096] I don't think so.

[2097] Yeah, I can say I haven't.

[2098] I just had to go through.

[2099] The giraffe.

[2100] I was going to just say, I do think giraffes are pretty.

[2101] Okay.

[2102] And llamas.

[2103] Okay.

[2104] They have a pretty face.

[2105] Like they have like these big eyelashes, very anthropomorphic faces.

[2106] But you don't want to have sex with a giraffe.

[2107] No, but I'm only saying I've recognized that they're pretty.

[2108] Yeah, but again, that's my point.

[2109] I've never looked at a female bear and been like, oh, she's clearly feminine and pretty.

[2110] I guess that's what I mean about women and horses.

[2111] Like they might be like, oh, this is a beautiful creature.

[2112] It doesn't mean they want to have sex with it.

[2113] But it's hypermasculent.

[2114] It's like so muscular.

[2115] The penis is so large.

[2116] I don't consider horses to be super masculine.

[2117] You don't.

[2118] Well, clearly you have.

[2119] You've stood next to like these big ass.

[2120] Yeah, I know what a horse looks like.

[2121] Oh, you do?

[2122] I don't know if you'd ever seen one.

[2123] Thanks for checking.

[2124] So the movement where girls wore rings from their fathers, I couldn't really find the father thing, but the purity ring.

[2125] Yeah.

[2126] Worn is a sign of chastity.

[2127] Practice originated in the U .S. in the 1990s as part of the purity movement that gave rise.

[2128] a Christian -affiliated sex abstinence groups.

[2129] Yeah, wearing a purity ring is typically accompanied by a religious vowed to practice abstinence until marriage.

[2130] And then they're all having anal sex, is what she was saying.

[2131] Uh -huh.

[2132] There was a girl in my high school who was with her boyfriend for a really long time, and she was really religious, and we knew they were going to get married, and they were not having sex, and it was a big deal that they were not having sex.

[2133] And we were talking about it one time in this big group And she was like, well, I mean, he's put it in In her vagina?

[2134] Oh, just the tip.

[2135] No, I think he just didn't come in there.

[2136] Or maybe he just placed it in there and didn't move back and forth.

[2137] Yeah, maybe this is not sex.

[2138] Because we're just.

[2139] I've had a similar conversation in my youth where the girl's like, let's not have sex, but just put it in.

[2140] What are they?

[2141] I don't understand.

[2142] Talk about mixed messages.

[2143] yeah yeah yeah i don't want to have sex put it in of course probably should just not do it with a person like that just in general well definitely now if i were in my 20s in 2019 i would say i'm sorry i need a little more clarity yeah sure do you want to have sex or not but back then yeah just wanted to remain a virgin no it wasn't even about virgin it was just we shouldn't have sex oh just put it in by the way everyone knows about this that's why the just the tip conversation in wedding crashers was so funny and everyone was laughing so loud because they related many many people related to just the tip we're gonna try to wait we're not going to do it just put the tip in that was a very common that's why everyone laughs that's why it's a joke that made it on well it's also just funny i laughed and i just the idea of only putting the tip in is funny it is funny but i would argue that it wouldn't have made it in the movie if 0 .01 % of the population had some connection to that.

[2144] Yeah.

[2145] So you said there's a really good radio lab or This American Life.

[2146] You couldn't remember on Facebook and how they discovered the it's embarrassing thing.

[2147] Yeah.

[2148] I emailed Ira and asked if it was this American life and he said no. Oh, okay.

[2149] But he said Radio Lab did a great Facebook episode about them censoring content and how hard that is.

[2150] That has nothing to do with this, but just FYI.

[2151] I'll check that out.

[2152] And I couldn't find that.

[2153] I couldn't find it on Radio Lab or he said maybe reply all.

[2154] I looked.

[2155] I couldn't find that.

[2156] Oh, right.

[2157] That does seem like it could have been that too.

[2158] So I couldn't find it.

[2159] So if you find it.

[2160] I'll tell everyone.

[2161] That's it.

[2162] That was it.

[2163] Yeah.

[2164] Okay, great.

[2165] Well, I sure love Dr. Alex.

[2166] Yeah, me too.

[2167] Very smooth and steady.

[2168] Yeah, I liked her disposition a lot.

[2169] Me too.

[2170] It was very confident and calm.

[2171] Yeah.

[2172] Well, I love you.

[2173] Love you.

[2174] And happy birthday, Wabiwob.

[2175] Yeah, happy birthday.

[2176] Thanks.

[2177] We got to find a mail review.

[2178] Yeah.

[2179] All right, good night.

[2180] Good night.

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