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How Asexuality Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
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Speaker 1: know from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant and he I can't really say what he's
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Speaker 1: doing right now, but he's having a fine time. I'm
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Speaker 1: playing by a little what is this try stop try Saratops?
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Speaker 1: We have dinosaurs in a jar in here. I don't
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Speaker 1: know who brought these in, but I thank them because
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Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. It is fun. It looks really
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Speaker 1: uncomfortable for the dinosaurs, like I've seen too many of
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Speaker 1: the toy story movies too. That's to leave these things
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Speaker 1: b That's why I've secured the try sterotops by my
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Speaker 1: side today. That's nice. He'll be with us through a sexuality,
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Speaker 1: Yes he will. Um, We're gonna go on a little
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Speaker 1: journey through a sexuality today. UM. This is this is uh,
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Speaker 1: I guess new to me. Like I've heard the term
1:01
Speaker 1: before a sexual um, but I never really realized that
1:05
Speaker 1: it's becoming. And there's a group of people who who
1:10
Speaker 1: claimed this as their sexual orientation. Yeah, you hear the
1:13
Speaker 1: word kind of thrown around like, you know, well, they
1:17
Speaker 1: never really had a girlfriend and boyfriend that scene. They're
1:19
Speaker 1: they're just sort of a sexual, right or it's often
1:23
Speaker 1: it's often um put alongside androgyny, you know, so like
1:28
Speaker 1: a sexual meaning genderless, but that's not at all what
1:31
Speaker 1: it means and improperly tied to uh abstinence, celibacy, celibacy.
1:36
Speaker 1: Tim Tebow, Yeah, if you believe the lies, I don't know.
1:41
Speaker 1: I think he's for real, do you yeah, sure yeah
1:43
Speaker 1: um Or Morrissey, Yeah, he's legendarily celibate celibate, right, but
1:48
Speaker 1: not necessarily a sexual difference. So I looked into this
1:53
Speaker 1: a little more before even proposing this, and I was
1:55
Speaker 1: just fascinated with it. Not in like a prurient sense,
1:59
Speaker 1: I was interested. And what kicked it all off was
2:02
Speaker 1: I was in Lyne at the bank and there was
2:05
Speaker 1: this woman reading a book while she was going through
2:08
Speaker 1: like the teller transaction, and she had um this uh
2:13
Speaker 1: this T shirt on and it said uh aven a
2:16
Speaker 1: V and and I looked a little closer and it
2:18
Speaker 1: said a Sexuality Visibility and Education Network. Right, It's not
2:24
Speaker 1: off the top of my head did have a logo
2:25
Speaker 1: or anything it did. I didn't recognize it until now,
2:28
Speaker 1: and I still can't conjure it up in my mind's eye.
2:31
Speaker 1: But it was a triangle, and I took it to
2:33
Speaker 1: me like a like a the pink triangle for homosexuality.
2:37
Speaker 1: It is not. It's just a triangle. Had I looked
2:41
Speaker 1: a little closer, I, had I looked now, I would
2:43
Speaker 1: see that. I think it's a slice of cake, okay, sure,
2:47
Speaker 1: which is their their symbol, right supposedly from a quote
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Speaker 1: from someone and a sexual who said, between the slices
2:53
Speaker 1: of cake and sex, I'd take the cake, right, So
2:55
Speaker 1: this think everyone feels that way once or another though, right, Okay,
2:58
Speaker 1: So that's an excellent point. Yeah. The difference is if
3:01
Speaker 1: you're a sexual, you feel that way virtually all the time.
3:05
Speaker 1: That is quite literally your orientation. You're oriented towards no
3:10
Speaker 1: sexual attraction, no sexual preferences. Um, although you may still
3:16
Speaker 1: if you do feel any kind of romantic feelings, it
3:20
Speaker 1: would still possibly go along homosexual or heterosexual lines, right right, Yes,
3:26
Speaker 1: let's get into this okay. Um, I guess Alfred Kinsey
3:30
Speaker 1: is a pretty good place to start whenever you're talking
3:32
Speaker 1: about people doing it or not doing it. Man, I
3:35
Speaker 1: don't know how he got into these people's how we
3:38
Speaker 1: got people to talk like this back then? Have you
3:40
Speaker 1: seen the movie? No, it's good. Yeah, the y fine,
3:45
Speaker 1: he beat everybody up. He did a bunch of poles
3:49
Speaker 1: and then whipped everyone's But yeah, um, he's like, I
3:52
Speaker 1: have a very specific data set. Uh so in his
3:56
Speaker 1: Kinsey uh scale, the famous Kinsey scale rates very inclusively
4:02
Speaker 1: a scale from I think in here they say from
4:06
Speaker 1: fleeting attraction to longer term, longer term compulsions like tries
4:11
Speaker 1: to include everyone in the scale, but it's still generally
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Speaker 1: not inclusive of a sexuals group X. It's like completely
4:19
Speaker 1: non inclusive. It goes from zero to six and it's
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Speaker 1: straight up hetero to straight up homo sexual that's right, right,
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Speaker 1: and then there's stuff in between, and you can fall
4:29
Speaker 1: somewhere in on this spectrum. But it was pretty groundbreaking
4:33
Speaker 1: at the time because first of all, people weren't really
4:35
Speaker 1: talking about homosexuality much so to make a scale that
4:39
Speaker 1: was inclusive of them that was pretty revolutionary. Yeah, but
4:42
Speaker 1: he did identify group X, he just didn't include it
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Speaker 1: on the scale. Group X to him was the one
4:47
Speaker 1: point five percent of men and of women who said
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Speaker 1: I don't have sexual relations, that I'm not interested in it. Right,
4:54
Speaker 1: but he just kind of disregarded that as an anomaly
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Speaker 1: group or maybe he thought he would come back to
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Speaker 1: it at some later day. Never did. Uh. And but
5:03
Speaker 1: out of this he said something that's kind of a
5:05
Speaker 1: famous quote. He said, the world is not to be
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Speaker 1: divided into sheep and goats, which means, like you're not.
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Speaker 1: There's more than just straight, there's more than just gay,
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Speaker 1: there's some stuff in between, there's a range. But he
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Speaker 1: still left out group X. He still left out group
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Speaker 1: what's weird? And Kristin Conger, who wrote this article, good
5:23
Speaker 1: job too. Yeah, she did a good job tying this
5:25
Speaker 1: all together. There was a study in two two of
5:30
Speaker 1: rams that produced another group X, and it's in its sample. Interestingly,
5:38
Speaker 1: also rams and cheap because apparently there's a guy named
5:42
Speaker 1: m Charles Roselli and he was looking to find if
5:45
Speaker 1: there's a biological basis for homosexuality. So return to the
5:49
Speaker 1: animal kingdom, right, Apparently rams can be gay. They rams
5:54
Speaker 1: can party down with other rams for like, and when
5:56
Speaker 1: there's females around, they'll still just say, hey, that guy
6:00
Speaker 1: looks pretty good. To me. So he also found that
6:04
Speaker 1: there's some that don't go for either, and UM this
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Speaker 1: this group X among rams started to UM. This formed
6:15
Speaker 1: the basis of the idea of a sexuality is an
6:17
Speaker 1: orientation as far as like academy is concerned, right, And
6:22
Speaker 1: the flip side of this, which we haven't really mentioned,
6:24
Speaker 1: is as opposed to UM, a physiological problem, an issue,
6:29
Speaker 1: or a mental illness, which up until waste homosexuality is
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Speaker 1: considered a mental illness. So until seventy three, and then
6:38
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six they finally took out the secondary
6:42
Speaker 1: UM basically being stressed out from being gay was it
6:47
Speaker 1: was a diagnosis until six and finally there's like no
6:50
Speaker 1: homosexuality in the DSM any longer, but essentially until eighty six,
6:56
Speaker 1: and in seventy three that was when the straight up
6:58
Speaker 1: like if you're gay, you're mental ill was taken out.
7:01
Speaker 1: And the d s M is we've talked about it before,
7:03
Speaker 1: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders basically where
7:07
Speaker 1: they classify everything, and it's important, Chuck, we should say
7:12
Speaker 1: what goes in there, because it's basically the book that says,
7:15
Speaker 1: here's what society thinks is normal. And here's what society
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Speaker 1: thinks is abnormal. And if you who considers yourself normal,
7:23
Speaker 1: is in there that society has a lot of leverage
7:26
Speaker 1: against you to tell you that there's something wrong with you.
7:28
Speaker 1: But it's doctor's opinions, right, It's not like they took
7:31
Speaker 1: polls from society. Right. No, But I mean, like that's
7:34
Speaker 1: that's based on a lot, it's not not all of
7:37
Speaker 1: it's based on empirical evidence. It's basically saying, like, like,
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Speaker 1: you act this way in society thinks there's something wrong
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Speaker 1: with you. That's mental illness. Uh So we mentioned is
7:49
Speaker 1: not like celibacy, because that is a choice to remain uh,
7:53
Speaker 1: sexually inactive. Morrisey battles that every day. I'm sure he does.
7:58
Speaker 1: I mean, look at him. He dresses sexy. Oh, Morrissey's
8:01
Speaker 1: a sexy guy. I look at him. So he's a
8:02
Speaker 1: pop star, right, don't have anyone he wants on either side,
8:07
Speaker 1: but he chooses not to. That's right. Is he still
8:11
Speaker 1: I think he is? Isn't he? Oh? I think he's
8:13
Speaker 1: like lifetime celibate. Yeah. Yeah, but you never know. That's
8:18
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know Morrissey personally. You never told me.
8:21
Speaker 1: But I mean this is just from being a fan,
8:22
Speaker 1: this is why. Yeah. Yeah, And he's come out very
8:25
Speaker 1: hard lineed, you know, for his celibacy, so it's not
8:27
Speaker 1: like he's been a secret or anything like that. I
8:30
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, in the same it's like Tim Tebow,
8:33
Speaker 1: all of them, and we'll mention this even more. But
8:36
Speaker 1: the uh, it's the same with a sexuals. They the
8:40
Speaker 1: what is it, one percent roughly of the population in
8:45
Speaker 1: these samples. In these samples, it was one point five
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Speaker 1: in this big survey. So there's this is all very
8:50
Speaker 1: very very new, like thinking about it. That Ram study
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Speaker 1: was from two thousand two, right in two thousand four,
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Speaker 1: that Ram study I think piqued somebody's interest enough to
9:00
Speaker 1: start looking into this. So it's real new, like this
9:03
Speaker 1: is the twenty one century sexual orientation and people are
9:06
Speaker 1: at least people who study it are just now starting
9:09
Speaker 1: to look into it. Well, I've already figured out how
9:11
Speaker 1: to discriminate again. Anthony Bogert bo Garrett, I don't know
9:15
Speaker 1: how you say it. We'll just say Bogert, Uh, he
9:19
Speaker 1: is the one in two thousand four. He's a psychologist
9:22
Speaker 1: at Brock University in Canada. I don't think they have
9:25
Speaker 1: any kind of a football team and Brock University Brock.
9:28
Speaker 1: We're probably wrong though, but um he is the one
9:32
Speaker 1: who did uh publish a journal in Journal of Sex
9:35
Speaker 1: Research in August of two thousand four that you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: one of the first people to do a lot of
9:40
Speaker 1: studying on this in recent times. He examined data from
9:44
Speaker 1: a survey in the UK UH from n and basically
9:49
Speaker 1: out of the nineteen thousand sample size, which isn't too bad, no,
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Speaker 1: it's huge, Yeah, he found one point five said I
9:59
Speaker 1: have never never ever felt sexual attraction to anyone at all.
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Speaker 1: And that wasn't like part of that was it was
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Speaker 1: a huge survey with of a huge sample of a
10:08
Speaker 1: bunch of questions and that was just one of the
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Speaker 1: one group with lumped into a little data set based
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Speaker 1: on that response. And this guy went back and found
10:19
Speaker 1: that and they really started to look at it well.
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Speaker 1: And he's the first one in two thousand six to say,
10:23
Speaker 1: you know what, this is a sexual orientation and that's
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Speaker 1: how it should be treated. And a sexuals were you know,
10:31
Speaker 1: they're they're proud to be who they are. I mean,
10:33
Speaker 1: the ones that come out in the support groups at
10:35
Speaker 1: least I'm sure, there's a lot more that, you know,
10:37
Speaker 1: wrestle with it, and they're quiet about it. But at
10:40
Speaker 1: least with the what is it, the a v ETON. Yeah,
10:45
Speaker 1: that a Sexuality Visibility and Education Network. They're all all
10:50
Speaker 1: about being proud to call it a sexual orientation, like
10:53
Speaker 1: we don't need to be treated for any kind of dysfunction. Yeah,
10:57
Speaker 1: leave us alone. We're happy with the basically how we're born.
11:01
Speaker 1: The thing is is like, leave us alone. It's not
11:04
Speaker 1: just that, it's also take us seriously. Yeah, because there's
11:07
Speaker 1: there's a lot of accusations that are leveled against them,
11:10
Speaker 1: like you know, you guys are all victims of trauma,
11:14
Speaker 1: so you know that's probably what it is, or you're
11:17
Speaker 1: being willful or you know, and to not be taken
11:21
Speaker 1: seriously as a human being, that's a big deal. Uh.
11:25
Speaker 1: David J. Would agree with that. Not to be confused
11:27
Speaker 1: with David J. From bau House. No, and there's another
11:30
Speaker 1: David J. Too. Yeah, I think it was some other
11:34
Speaker 1: kind of writer, unless about House guys a writer. Now,
11:37
Speaker 1: David J. From the House just goes by David capital
11:40
Speaker 1: J period saying that this is David J. A y
11:44
Speaker 1: J a y founder of the A d e n
11:48
Speaker 1: And there's a site a sexuality dot org that he
11:51
Speaker 1: founded in two thousand one where you can find out
11:54
Speaker 1: all kinds of information and get support if you uh
11:57
Speaker 1: find yourself in this one point five percent. And and
12:00
Speaker 1: he made a lot of news because you know, he's
12:03
Speaker 1: a young, handsome dude, and everybody's like, why don't you
12:06
Speaker 1: want to do it with anybody exactly? And he's just like,
12:09
Speaker 1: because my orientation is a sexual and start wrapping your
12:13
Speaker 1: heads around that. People. I think Matt Lauer actually like
12:16
Speaker 1: poked him in the stomach like, ma'am, what's going on
12:19
Speaker 1: during an interview Videoally now, okay, But there is a
12:23
Speaker 1: range of you know, not a sexuals are the same.
12:25
Speaker 1: Um Kristen points out that some are virgins, some are
12:28
Speaker 1: not um and it's not even just necessarily from a
12:32
Speaker 1: past experience before they kind of figured out where they were.
12:35
Speaker 1: Some still have sex to satisfy their partner, only to
12:39
Speaker 1: satisfy their partner. And if you like want to get
12:42
Speaker 1: a first person, firsthand view of, you know, what it's
12:46
Speaker 1: like to be a sexual in a very hyper sexual world.
12:51
Speaker 1: They have a lot of essays and UM tips and
12:55
Speaker 1: guides for interacting with a sexual people, I'm sure. Um.
13:00
Speaker 1: And one of them that I read was like having
13:01
Speaker 1: sex with an a sexual person, and like, how you
13:04
Speaker 1: get to that point? Yeah, I mean it's not, it's
13:08
Speaker 1: like that's a a gift, as I understand it. Yeah,
13:13
Speaker 1: like that means they that person really cares about you
13:15
Speaker 1: because they are not into this since really at all,
13:18
Speaker 1: or if if they are into it, it's not it's sexual,
13:23
Speaker 1: it's romantic, right. Well, And that's the other point Conger
13:26
Speaker 1: goes on to make, like some are virgins, some are not,
13:28
Speaker 1: Some masturbate, some do not, Some pursue romantic, long term,
13:34
Speaker 1: committed relationships, and some don't pursue that like anything beyond
13:38
Speaker 1: platonic relationships. So it kind of runs the gamut on
13:42
Speaker 1: how they choose to integrate and live their life or
13:45
Speaker 1: not integrate and just still live their life, which I
13:48
Speaker 1: guess is still integration. Uh you're thinking of that rough
13:52
Speaker 1: song pretty well, okay, Um, And I think we should
13:55
Speaker 1: also say chuck, like there's even while we're trying not
13:59
Speaker 1: to pidge whole anyone, we're still managing to still I'm
14:02
Speaker 1: sure like leave some people out, like there's this is
14:06
Speaker 1: a it's a very broad swath of people, and that
14:09
Speaker 1: was a good point to say, like a lot of
14:12
Speaker 1: different ways to live as an a sexual person, we
14:15
Speaker 1: haven't figured them all out, just as there are a
14:17
Speaker 1: lot of ways to live as a sexual person exactly exactly.
14:20
Speaker 1: The tie that binds a sexual a sexually oriented people
14:26
Speaker 1: is that they literally don't feel sexual arousal or sexual attraction.
14:34
Speaker 1: That's just not part of it. And this Indiana University study,
14:39
Speaker 1: you didn't talk about that, right, So these researchers set
14:43
Speaker 1: down to Indiana University with four self identified um A
14:47
Speaker 1: sexuals and basically said, tell us about it, you know,
14:52
Speaker 1: and most of them, I think, basically the the consensus
14:57
Speaker 1: was was that, um yeah, it's kind of tough, especially
15:00
Speaker 1: when you're attracted romantically to people like you want to
15:05
Speaker 1: have a relationship, but most people aren't a sexual. This
15:09
Speaker 1: is one point five percent of that sample. So you're
15:12
Speaker 1: gonna have to have there's gonna be some sort of
15:14
Speaker 1: conflict or problems or no matter how understanding your partner is,
15:18
Speaker 1: this is gonna be tough. Sure, not just for you,
15:20
Speaker 1: but for them. Um So they said that that's tough,
15:23
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, you have a lot more
15:25
Speaker 1: free time and your chances of getting an STD or
15:29
Speaker 1: an unwanted pregnancy or like virtually nil. Well I kind
15:32
Speaker 1: of laughed at the free time thing, like you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: how many hours a day or people spending having sex.
15:38
Speaker 1: But if you totally are devoid of sex, that means,
15:43
Speaker 1: as a single person, you're not spending any time going
15:45
Speaker 1: looking for it or you're not doing people. So a
15:48
Speaker 1: lot of time theoretically goes into people you know, out
15:52
Speaker 1: there trying to hook up. You know what I'm saying exactly,
15:55
Speaker 1: Like there's if you step back and think about it,
15:57
Speaker 1: especially especially if you're like single person. Yeah, like there's
16:02
Speaker 1: a lot of time and energy that goes into all
16:05
Speaker 1: that goes into getting to the sexual act. Right, It's
16:09
Speaker 1: not just the time that you spend remember those days.
16:12
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago. I don't remember what
16:13
Speaker 1: that's like, But the point is, like, that's a lot
16:15
Speaker 1: of time and energy, and like, what else could you
16:18
Speaker 1: have done with that? Often spent my time doing other things.
16:21
Speaker 1: Actually I was never that guy, yeah, cruising the bars,
16:25
Speaker 1: you know. I was always just hanging out with my friends,
16:27
Speaker 1: which probably explains a lot. Uh So interestingly in these
16:33
Speaker 1: polls as well, um women make up generally across two
16:39
Speaker 1: different polls. They both made up seventy five I'm sorry
16:43
Speaker 1: of the population of a sexual individuals. Yeah, that British
16:48
Speaker 1: survey of the households. And then later um, the an
16:52
Speaker 1: Avan pole that just last year. No, that was two
16:55
Speaker 1: eight that was and then it went down. The ratio
16:59
Speaker 1: of men to women changed in the last year's pole
17:02
Speaker 1: it went to like women. And then but the other
17:07
Speaker 1: thirty three percent wasn't all men? A lot of them
17:11
Speaker 1: identify themselves as a gender neutral? Yeah, that's a lot.
17:18
Speaker 1: So this suddenly now you have a subset of a
17:22
Speaker 1: subset of as far as sexual orientation goes. Um. And
17:26
Speaker 1: I was reading on Avan today about how to use
17:30
Speaker 1: Remember when we did our Executive order UM podcast, the
17:35
Speaker 1: Flawless one on Executive Orders, UM. They we were trying
17:40
Speaker 1: to figure out what you would call a gender neutral president.
17:45
Speaker 1: It's not out there. No one has any idea. Like
17:47
Speaker 1: even people who are gender neutral don't really know. There's
17:50
Speaker 1: not a standard way to address somebody like that with
17:53
Speaker 1: a gender neutral pronoun So we gotta figure that one out. Well,
17:58
Speaker 1: somebody smarter than us and more sensitive than us should
18:00
Speaker 1: do that. So the A V E. N Has grown
18:04
Speaker 1: since two thousand one, from nineteen thousand to thirty thousand members,
18:09
Speaker 1: which is pretty great. These people are getting some pretty
18:10
Speaker 1: good community support. Um they Conger points out that disinterest
18:17
Speaker 1: in sex is usually regarded as a symptom, a problematic symptom,
18:23
Speaker 1: rather than like a sexual identity. So that's the battle
18:25
Speaker 1: they're kind of facing now is again, don't treat us.
18:29
Speaker 1: We don't need We're not dysfunctional, like we were born
18:32
Speaker 1: this way. The guy uh that founded the network uh
18:36
Speaker 1: said that, you know, I remember being a kid and
18:39
Speaker 1: once people started talking about like hot movie stars, I
18:42
Speaker 1: was just like, what, Like, I don't get it, what
18:44
Speaker 1: does that mean? And you know, from a very young age,
18:47
Speaker 1: are you making humping motions in the air? Little kids
18:51
Speaker 1: are dirty? Kids are so healthy, dirty. I don't even
18:54
Speaker 1: know they're innocent. You know what's going on, what's going
18:58
Speaker 1: on with my hips? Yeah, it's all very sweet. They're
19:01
Speaker 1: just trying to figure it all out, you know, poor kids.
19:05
Speaker 1: And then comes the hair spray. So um. The we
19:11
Speaker 1: we mentioned the the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, there
19:15
Speaker 1: are two disorders that look like they could cover this
19:20
Speaker 1: as far as sexuality goes, and one of them is
19:24
Speaker 1: s a D sexual aversion disorder, and the other is
19:27
Speaker 1: hypoactive sexual desire disorder. You can throw out s a
19:31
Speaker 1: D because that's an actual phobia of sex. Yeah, it's
19:35
Speaker 1: like you you get real anxiety from that, even the
19:39
Speaker 1: idea of having sex. Right, that's not what a sexuality is. No,
19:43
Speaker 1: it's not, So go ahead and toss that out. H
19:45
Speaker 1: s d D is a little closer because it's described
19:49
Speaker 1: as persistently or currently deficient or absence of sexual fantasies
19:53
Speaker 1: and desire for sexual activity. The difference there, though, is UM,
19:59
Speaker 1: as Congress calls it critical footnote, Uh, it must be
20:02
Speaker 1: UM inciting marked distress or interpersonal difficulty, which I'm sure
20:07
Speaker 1: can happen. Happen. But a sexual is also a lot
20:10
Speaker 1: of more saying you know what, I'm fine. Well, that's
20:12
Speaker 1: part of what avan is all about, is kind of
20:14
Speaker 1: like accepting and celebrating and saying like, dude, you're okay.
20:18
Speaker 1: You don't have to I don't have to feel bad
20:20
Speaker 1: about this is it's just who you are. Um. So yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: that last little that last one, what is it HSD D.
20:29
Speaker 1: That's I feel so bad because it's like, okay, guys
20:32
Speaker 1: are starting to make their way through the civil rights
20:35
Speaker 1: discrimination road, and they're you know, starting to come out
20:40
Speaker 1: on the other end. And okay, who who else is
20:43
Speaker 1: there discriminated against? We're almost out of people. Who can
20:45
Speaker 1: we go to next? Oh good, here's a group called
20:48
Speaker 1: a sexuals and here they come. So let's run them
20:51
Speaker 1: through the pike because that's what's about to happen. It
20:54
Speaker 1: looks like, well, I could see them being more accepted about,
20:57
Speaker 1: you know, the people that don't accept homosexuality. I could
21:00
Speaker 1: see them being more lenient with asexuality, yes, because it
21:03
Speaker 1: doesn't threaten anything in their life. You know. I agree,
21:06
Speaker 1: it's tough to discriminate against somebody based on the lack
21:09
Speaker 1: of sexuality. It's more like, you know, taking it seriously
21:14
Speaker 1: and treating it not as a mental illness. Does are does? Are?
21:18
Speaker 1: You know? That's got to be big because think about it,
21:21
Speaker 1: like like the whole Chick fil A thing that's going on, right,
21:23
Speaker 1: So let's say that. Um still, to this day, uh,
21:29
Speaker 1: the field of psychology considered homosexuality a mental illness. Now
21:34
Speaker 1: consider you know, those donations, what they're going to Are
21:37
Speaker 1: they going like to discriminate? Are they going to treat
21:39
Speaker 1: mental illness. That's that's a big deal to be in there.
21:43
Speaker 1: It's a lot of power that little book wields totally,
21:47
Speaker 1: and if for no other reason than just respect and
21:50
Speaker 1: self respect, like you're talking about. I mean, what's our motto,
21:52
Speaker 1: chuck live and let live. That's one of them to
21:56
Speaker 1: each his own. That's right, that's kind of the same thing.
21:59
Speaker 1: Uh So they have petition the board though to have
22:02
Speaker 1: that removed, much like they did in nineteen seventy three
22:05
Speaker 1: with homosexuality. So we'll see what happens there. Do you
22:07
Speaker 1: think the DSM five maybe how often does it published,
22:12
Speaker 1: you know, like seventy three to eighty six, because we're
22:16
Speaker 1: in between. Yeah, so when you're in there, it's it's
22:18
Speaker 1: a big deal. I wonder if it's a set republished
22:21
Speaker 1: or if it's every time they need to like have
22:24
Speaker 1: some changes stacked that they really different editions of different
22:27
Speaker 1: versions like um, that makes sense, revised ones. But like
22:31
Speaker 1: it's a it's I mean, they've been working on this
22:34
Speaker 1: for years and so much controversy around it because it's
22:38
Speaker 1: saying here's what's here's what's normal hot off the press.
22:42
Speaker 1: On one hand, it's like it's great to be able
22:44
Speaker 1: to diagnose people with problems. But the other hand, there's
22:46
Speaker 1: something about just taking a book and seeing, like, let's
22:49
Speaker 1: see what you are. Let me look it up. It's
22:52
Speaker 1: kind of like I'm a person. Well it's it's there's
22:55
Speaker 1: a checklist. It's like, if this person, here's the set
22:57
Speaker 1: of symptoms we say are associated with this disease based
23:01
Speaker 1: on probably a lot of study, and if they have
23:05
Speaker 1: eight of twenty, then there that they're that thing. They had,
23:09
Speaker 1: that mental illness down the list. So there are some
23:15
Speaker 1: supposed notable a sexuals throughout history. Yeah. I found a
23:20
Speaker 1: few lists that were pretty hanky Nicola Tesla, and one
23:24
Speaker 1: of them had like fictional characters. They're like Dexter Texture
23:28
Speaker 1: not a sexual. Yeah, no, he's not he at all.
23:33
Speaker 1: He's weird. He's a serial killer. But he had like
23:36
Speaker 1: affairs like girlfriends, live ins, well those were mostly damask
23:42
Speaker 1: his homicides. No, I mean he goes at it pretty
23:46
Speaker 1: good season and the first couple of seasons like he's
23:50
Speaker 1: I could see him being considered a sexual, especially the
23:53
Speaker 1: first season. Plus Michael see how was just coming up
23:56
Speaker 1: six ft under. Yeah, he's like I went from homosexual
23:59
Speaker 1: to a sexual when I really just want to be
24:01
Speaker 1: a serial killer. But he was straight in her life
24:05
Speaker 1: because he was married to his co star. Yeah, I
24:08
Speaker 1: think they're reconciling. Oh, they reconciled. Isn't that nice? Alright,
24:13
Speaker 1: So back to the supposed list. These are the ones
24:16
Speaker 1: that I kind of weeded out to potentially be correct
24:21
Speaker 1: off of the bunk list. What about Nikola Tesla made
24:24
Speaker 1: you think it was hinky? I don't know. It didn't
24:28
Speaker 1: come from like his cousin the report. I think it
24:30
Speaker 1: was just from the website where I got it, and
24:32
Speaker 1: I didn't see him on any other websites. Um, Paula Poundstone,
24:36
Speaker 1: the comedian perfect, she supposed he's a sexual. Tim Gunn,
24:42
Speaker 1: he's okay, fashion guy right. Um Edward Gorey the illustrator,
24:47
Speaker 1: I did not know that. And J. M. Barry, the
24:50
Speaker 1: creator of Peter pan Um. Although it's hard to substantiate
24:55
Speaker 1: that one because I've seen some works where he was
24:58
Speaker 1: called a pedophile without a whole lot of backup aside
25:03
Speaker 1: from rumors has it that he and his wife like
25:05
Speaker 1: never consummated the marriage and he sure did like hanging
25:08
Speaker 1: around kids. But that's kind of unfair too. But see
25:12
Speaker 1: that's the other thing too. It's like, that's really unfair. Actually,
25:14
Speaker 1: I think about it. If he is a sexual, then
25:16
Speaker 1: then how would you rectify that. I mean, if this
25:19
Speaker 1: were twenty years from now, years from now, and a
25:23
Speaker 1: sexuality were normal, you could look back at that set
25:26
Speaker 1: of behaviors and be like, oh, he was obviously a sexual.
25:29
Speaker 1: But we have to drag these poor people's lives out
25:33
Speaker 1: into the spotlight for the rest of us to observe
25:35
Speaker 1: and you examine, so then we can say, okay, all right,
25:38
Speaker 1: we will agree that this is normal, and they can
25:40
Speaker 1: come out of the DSM agreed like he might have
25:42
Speaker 1: been straight up a sexual and they just didn't know
25:45
Speaker 1: what that was. So we love not having sex with
25:47
Speaker 1: his wife, so that means he's a pedophile because he
25:49
Speaker 1: writes children exactly, because we don't understand man. So that
25:53
Speaker 1: was the list of a sexuals. Huh. Yeah, there were others,
25:56
Speaker 1: but that didn't feel great about. There were two in
25:58
Speaker 1: this article that I thought were pretty good. So apparently
26:00
Speaker 1: among a sexuals, like the a sexual TV character is
26:04
Speaker 1: Doctor Who. I'm not a Doctor Who guy, but I
26:07
Speaker 1: know that a lot of our army is. So doctor
26:11
Speaker 1: Who's supposedly a sexual. He Um, he exhibits a lot
26:15
Speaker 1: of the behavior, but he's also not very judgmental, and
26:18
Speaker 1: he has satisfying, um, substantial relationships with others. Those are
26:23
Speaker 1: great points. And who else was in there? Sheldon from
26:26
Speaker 1: Um Big Bang. Yeah. I don't watch that oht either,
26:30
Speaker 1: but I know who they're talking about, and I could
26:31
Speaker 1: see him being a sexual because that's more rumor. Apparently
26:35
Speaker 1: doctor who is like, that's that's an a sexual hero.
26:38
Speaker 1: I saw Doctor House listed to no way. He was
26:43
Speaker 1: like all about that, um, his sex wife and and
26:46
Speaker 1: uh he was all about, um, oh what's that. There's
26:50
Speaker 1: another doctor who's like an administrator. Yeah, this is not
26:52
Speaker 1: a sexual that. I think that was the same list
26:55
Speaker 1: that had Tesla and Dexter on it. That's why I
26:57
Speaker 1: was like, well, that's a poo poo list. You watch House,
27:01
Speaker 1: I mean from time to time if it's on and
27:03
Speaker 1: I'm like jogging or whatever and there's no law in
27:05
Speaker 1: order on, I'll watch House gotch TV when you jug
27:08
Speaker 1: yeah nice, Yeah, it's it's nice. That's great. So yeah,
27:15
Speaker 1: if I ever go outside and run, I'll be like,
27:17
Speaker 1: what's on? Uh. If you want to learn more about
27:21
Speaker 1: a sexuality, we strongly encourage you to go check it out.
27:24
Speaker 1: There was another, Um, there's another uh podcast stuff Mom
27:29
Speaker 1: never told you did this? Oh did like years back?
27:33
Speaker 1: Maybe go give that one to listen to get their
27:36
Speaker 1: take on it. Yeah, and then um, you can also
27:38
Speaker 1: go check out the Asexuality Visibility and UM Education Network
27:45
Speaker 1: and it's AVIN and I what's it's a sexuality or
27:49
Speaker 1: that's right. You can check them out or you can
27:51
Speaker 1: type in a sexuality in the search bar at how
27:54
Speaker 1: stuff works dot comm and it will bring this up,
27:56
Speaker 1: I said, search bar. So it's time for all right,
28:09
Speaker 1: this is uh, maybe our last installment. This is what
28:13
Speaker 1: we do when folks have sent in uh little tokens
28:18
Speaker 1: and chatchkeys and gifts and cards and letters. We like
28:20
Speaker 1: to give them their du on the air because a
28:22
Speaker 1: lot of times there are small businesses and their Etsy
28:24
Speaker 1: sites and talented people. So did you, um, did you
28:28
Speaker 1: grab the one from yesterday that I didn't finish? I
28:30
Speaker 1: did finish it, didn't they? Okay? Good, alright, So we're
28:32
Speaker 1: all all right. So we got a postcard from Claire
28:36
Speaker 1: Hinders in New Zealand. It's very nice. Yeah, you want
28:40
Speaker 1: to go ahead? How is that it? I thought you're
28:43
Speaker 1: gonna say thanks Claire or something. Oh, thanks Claire from
28:46
Speaker 1: Etsy dot com, slash shop, slash b F four e Emily,
28:52
Speaker 1: and you me got some charms. Yeah, thank you very
28:55
Speaker 1: much for those. That was very sweet. Yes it was
28:58
Speaker 1: uh coffee, we got coffee. I'm jin you got that
29:00
Speaker 1: from Corey who was living in Haiti at the time.
29:04
Speaker 1: Huh do you remember that? Yes? I do. It was good. Oh, yes,
29:06
Speaker 1: it was nice. I drank the heck out of that
29:09
Speaker 1: good and um I had many sleepless nights because of it. Uh.
29:13
Speaker 1: We got some real men Way two Bills T shirts.
29:16
Speaker 1: That's right. We said that off handedly in the podcast
29:19
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and apparently it was on a
29:22
Speaker 1: T shirt. So we got that from custom inc dot com.
29:25
Speaker 1: Thanks for that. We have received several books that I'm
29:28
Speaker 1: going to list here. Seven Deadly Women by Jamie Hale. Uh,
29:33
Speaker 1: the official Doomsday survival handbook. This one was really good.
29:37
Speaker 1: W h mumphrey. I've been prousing that in my brakes
29:41
Speaker 1: here at work. You have brakes I do the Savvy
29:44
Speaker 1: Converts guy to Choosing Religion. Really good book. Uh. Knock
29:49
Speaker 1: Knock dot biz is where you can find that. And uh,
29:54
Speaker 1: then this one is really cool. Wind of Water a
29:56
Speaker 1: bartender's quest to bring clean water to the world followed
30:00
Speaker 1: up with This guy's name was Doc Henley and he
30:02
Speaker 1: was a bartender that founded an organization called uh Wine
30:07
Speaker 1: to Water dot org and they're doing awesome, awesome work.
30:11
Speaker 1: That's a great name for it. Yeah, very very cool.
30:15
Speaker 1: That's that was a long good Um. So Glenn and Sonja,
30:20
Speaker 1: who we thank for the champagne of course. Um, we
30:22
Speaker 1: also want to thank there are Kiva captains by the way, Um,
30:25
Speaker 1: we want to thank them for these t shirts from
30:28
Speaker 1: the Princeton Library. I think of Einstein and it says
30:32
Speaker 1: Einstein Simplified, and it's three drawings and they just get
30:34
Speaker 1: simpler and simpler. It's awesome my way all the time
30:38
Speaker 1: while I'm jogging and watching television. Right, Russian candy, remember
30:43
Speaker 1: the Russian candy? Yeah, you're all over that. We got
30:45
Speaker 1: some Russian candy from Audrey. It was like it had
30:47
Speaker 1: pop rocks in the middle and I couldn't stop eating
30:51
Speaker 1: as crazy. It was pretty funny. Yah. Um. We got
30:55
Speaker 1: a postcard from Margaret in Chile, Joanne and Stephen in
30:58
Speaker 1: Colombia from the Amazon Institute. Oh yeah, that's right. Those
31:03
Speaker 1: our friends. That's who uh nominated us with the Grammy.
31:07
Speaker 1: That's right, thank you very much that we were Grammy
31:10
Speaker 1: nominated nominated podcast. It's right. Uh Dan Burtwell from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
31:16
Speaker 1: And some graphic novels just as a like, here, dudes,
31:19
Speaker 1: I heard your comic book thing, and just here's some
31:22
Speaker 1: graphic novels that I've enjoyed in my life. Right next time. No, no, no,
31:27
Speaker 1: he's very cool. Um Watchman, which I've already read. I
31:32
Speaker 1: want to see that one. Yeah, I think I have
31:34
Speaker 1: it over there. Um Coward which I have not read yet,
31:38
Speaker 1: The Punisher Max, which I have not gotten to yet
31:41
Speaker 1: and I definitely yeah, And Why the Last Man, which
31:45
Speaker 1: I did read. And um, I want to thank Dan
31:49
Speaker 1: because Why the Last Man was awesome. And I also
31:51
Speaker 1: want to punch Dan because now I have to buy
31:53
Speaker 1: the other nine volumes to see where the story goes.
31:57
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna get him. Actually with to Amazon the
31:59
Speaker 1: other day. Oh you gotta go to Oxford Comics and
32:02
Speaker 1: get them. Man, what you gotta like stand around in
32:05
Speaker 1: the comic book shop and buy them. Then you can't
32:08
Speaker 1: just order them. You can. It's pretty easy actually, So um,
32:12
Speaker 1: let's see remember our Roller Derby episode. Well, the Deutsche
32:15
Speaker 1: land Rollers sent us a sticker. Thank you for that.
32:20
Speaker 1: That's right, kick. But uh and my last one is
32:23
Speaker 1: Maureene from the Therapy Sisters at therapy Sisters dot com.
32:27
Speaker 1: They sent us their music CD and it's like funny stuff.
32:31
Speaker 1: Yes it is. Yeah, thank you for um. I've got more.
32:35
Speaker 1: Do you want to split these? No? Go ahead? Alright?
32:37
Speaker 1: So Emily from Idaho sent us a cool photo pulled
32:40
Speaker 1: out postcard from Maui. That's right, remember, thank you, um.
32:44
Speaker 1: Jennifer from Nature's Classroom in New Englandton is a handwritten letter. Again,
32:49
Speaker 1: very rare. It's nice to see those. Um. Leah from
32:52
Speaker 1: Halifax sent you a birthday card. Ah, yeah, that was
32:57
Speaker 1: very nice. That was nice. Um. And then can Crowder
33:00
Speaker 1: sent us a one dollar bill which I still have
33:02
Speaker 1: yet to get any of. It's over there on my desk.
33:06
Speaker 1: I have a brain like a little like our first
33:08
Speaker 1: dollar earned, like businesses do. Do you really? Yeah, that's
33:11
Speaker 1: our first dollar earned. It's actually not braining, but it's
33:14
Speaker 1: still over there. Okay, I leave it out, just daring
33:17
Speaker 1: somebody to be brave enough. The steels well if you
33:19
Speaker 1: if it's replaced by fifty cents soon. That's me okay. Uh,
33:23
Speaker 1: and then Aaron Spivey sent us in Atlantic Core Vets,
33:26
Speaker 1: Drum and Bugle core patch. That's right. Thank you very
33:29
Speaker 1: much to all of you for awesome free stuff. Yeah,
33:32
Speaker 1: that's really cool when you guys think of us and
33:33
Speaker 1: send us things like that, it's very sweet. So that
33:35
Speaker 1: was it. Huh. Administrative details is over. Yeah, I'm gonna
33:39
Speaker 1: start my new list we uh, we need some emails then,
33:42
Speaker 1: right for a listener mail, which will start up next. Uh.
33:46
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, you
33:47
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
33:50
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
33:52
Speaker 1: you Should Know, and you can also send us an
33:55
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. Yeah. For
34:06
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
34:08
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