Latest / To All the Men I've Tolerated Before / Summer Replay: Writing Sapphic Horror

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Summer Replay: Writing Sapphic Horror · To All the Men I've Tolerated Before

• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Hey tolerators, listens to all the men I've tolerated before
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: with Meavlee Katona, your weekly look at everyday misogyny. Today,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we are welcoming a new friend to the team. Ray
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: is an author of dark fiction, and I was drawn
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to asking her to be on the show because of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the title of one of her latest books. I do
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: not apologize for my position on men. We will be
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: talking about writing sapak horror and the importance of queer literature,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: especially under this administration in these time trying times. Thanks
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: for coming on the show.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Ray, Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: so much for reaching out. It's such a rate fit,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I think with a lot of the themes that I
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: write about and talk about on the internet.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Yes, my copy came of I do not apologize
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for my position on men on Friday, and I haven't
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: had a lot of time to read this weekend because
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: of other stuff going on, But I have like four
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of the stories read, and I was like, yes, women's
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: existence is nothing if but a horror movie played out
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: again and again and again.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, And I'd love to kind of dig into
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: that if you're up for it. Unless you want to
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: kind of ease us in.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: No, I'm up for it. I was going to give
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: you a chance to introduce yourself and give a little
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: background on you. But if you want to go deep first,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I'm into it.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I'll be quick with my intro. So I'm reallywild.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I'm a queer author living unfortunately in the Red Skate
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: of Florida. I have some books published under my former
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: pen name, Ray Knowles, so you may have picked up
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Merciless Waters along the way. And I'm very interested in
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the lives of women and how we're impacted by the
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: patriarchal society that we're living under, and the ways that
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: different folks find to kind of cope with that. And
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: those are a lot of things that I explore in
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  Speaker 2: my writing. And when I say cope, I mean that
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  Speaker 2: both positively and negatively.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Right, Because again, I can cope with an entire bag
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of starbust jellybeans, or I could cope by just like
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: screaming violently, and both are sometimes less healthy but more
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  Speaker 1: valid than the other.
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  Speaker 2: Right, right. And I think one of the copes that
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I explore in some of my stories is this tendency
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: for women to sometimes seek a measure of power by
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: siding with the oppressor, which is a really interesting thing
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: that we see happen all too commonly. I think we
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: just saw it in the most recent election, where overwhelmingly
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: white women voted against their own interests. But I think
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that plays out in a lot of different ways beyond
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: just the explicitly political sphere, and it can permeate quite
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: a bit, I think, into our daily lives.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: It's so funny that you bring that up, because I've
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  Speaker 1: been going through this lovely little pattern where I'll be
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: either one on one or in a group of only women,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and that woman will be very stripped down and honest
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: about her current situation with a relationship with a man,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and You'll be like, yeah, no, that is either the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: abuse cycle or inappropriate behavior or anything like that. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: then you get like out of the group of women
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and you go back to her and she says something like,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I just don't know, I'm so in love.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I could have fifty more years with him, And you're like, really,
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  Speaker 1: I go because I got an outline of what this
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: year has looked like and it wasn't anything I'd sign
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: up for fifty more. And I literally say things like
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that sounds like that can't be true. Yeah, And I think, like,
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  Speaker 1: I think the way that women have been conditioned to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: just push it down and forgive men led to our
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: current trying times because they do just side with them
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  Speaker 1: against their own better interest.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's it's really important for people
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to be critical about their beliefs, and I think we
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: can look at it even in less, you know, clear
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: cut situation. So like an example I'm seeing right now
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: play out on social media especially is this massive sort
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: of smear campaign against Blake Lively. And by no means
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: am I like a Blake Lively stand. But I think
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: we're seeing something similar play out that we saw play
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  Speaker 2: out with Amber Heard, which is a few underlying assumptions
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: working together at once. One of them is that for
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  Speaker 2: us to believe that anything bad has happened to a woman,
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  Speaker 2: she needs to be the quote unquote perfect woman, which
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  Speaker 2: as we know, doesn't exist. I think it's challenging in
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  Speaker 2: the social media landscape for nuance to exist. You know,
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  Speaker 2: that's not an idea I'm coming up with. I think
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  Speaker 2: that's something we talk about a lot. But I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that when things like this circulate and pick up
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  Speaker 2: a lot of traction that folks always apply that logic, right,
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  Speaker 2: so we should be able to hold in our mind
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  Speaker 2: in two things, you know, So we can know that
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  Speaker 2: Blake Lively has done some really shitty, problematic stuff and
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: still acknowledge that maybe she was sexually harassed in the
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: workplace and that that is a bad thing. And it's
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: been very clear and very public that Justin Baldoni has
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: orchestrated a public smear campaign against her, but that's not
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  Speaker 2: really spoken about, even though it's been very out of
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  Speaker 2: the open. What you see is all of this content
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  Speaker 2: around how Blake Lively is annoying and unlikable. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that when we're introduced to a narrative about how
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  Speaker 2: we don't like a woman, folks don't always take the
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  Speaker 2: time to question like, okay, but is there a real
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  Speaker 2: substance here and is it possibly that this narrative is
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: coming up now to minimize a situation like a sexual
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  Speaker 2: assault or a sexual harass claim. And so yeah, I
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: mean I've kind of gotten this off track a little bit,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: but I think there are all these examples that people
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: don't necessarily look critically at, and I personally immediately get worried.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: When I see a woman at the center of what
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: seems like a very widespread takedown effort, I start to go, ooh,
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  Speaker 2: what powerful man did she challenge? Even if she's not
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  Speaker 2: great and has done other things like we should be
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: able to hold those two things at the same time.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: No, I agree, and we touch on it a little
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: bit at the end of our episode with Chris de
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Rosa about It Ends with Us, where I said, my
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: greatest fear is that no matter what happened to just
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: between Justin and Blake, it will set back legislation and
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  Speaker 1: legality for women one hundred years, because that's exactly what
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: happened with Amber. And I know women who have been
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: personally affected by laws that have changed because of the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Amber Heard Johnny Depp case. And whether or not even
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I remember in the midst of the Amber Heard case,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: because we when we're talking about men in my life
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: or men in guest life, I always say, I go,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to say a name, call him, loser,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: call him him, call him one night stand from April.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: But then the Amber Heard Kyle went down and I went, well, shit, now,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: if with the right text messages or date book entry
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in a calendar or anything. A dude can be like
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Netie talked shit about me on the internet for an
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: hour and a half, and I'd like to take her
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  Speaker 1: for all the hundreds of dollars she's worth.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Right, I think these things can set a really scary precedent.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I think you know, neither you or I or anyone
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: casual observer on the internet can really know what happened.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: But I think what I would encourage folks to do
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: is when you see a story like the Amber Heard
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: trial or this case that's happening with Blake Lively right now,
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  Speaker 2: is to really think big picture about Okay, whether or
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: not she is telling the truth, what is the lasting
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: implication of this, And especially in an example this blatant
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  Speaker 2: where we have in writing that this is an organized
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  Speaker 2: near campaign to discredit this person and it is still
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: working on the scale that it is. I think that
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  Speaker 2: in and of itself is pretty frightening and something that
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: people should be taking a harder look at. But I
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  Speaker 2: don't see a ton of that. I see a little
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: bit of it, which is great, But mostly I see
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  Speaker 2: videos about how it'll be like some interview clip that's
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  Speaker 2: ten years old of Blake lively being like a little
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  Speaker 2: rude to an interviewer and just talking about how much
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  Speaker 2: we don't like this, And my thing is like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's exactly the point.
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  Speaker 1: Right Well, and also it's fascinating because when it ends
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: with us started to bubble up that there was like
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: drama between Blake and Justin. My initial gut reaction was, well,
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  Speaker 1: what gave Justin the right to want to tell a
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  Speaker 1: story that was so blatantly rudent in women's experience and
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: existence and the violence against women? And then he said, well,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I have a podcast and I've solved toxic masculinity, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, and then I'm always like, why aren't literally
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: any woman whoever gets any acclaim has to do that
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  Speaker 1: through the misuse of her body, talent, mind, and heart.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Taylor's it is a big one. Who comes to mind, Beyonce,
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  Speaker 1: you know, anyone, any woman who has ever been successful
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  Speaker 1: in their field. And yet Justin Baldoni built an entire
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  Speaker 1: brand on the backs of women's trauma and women's hurt.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And it's the same reason I hate ted Lasso, because
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: they took the idea of toxic masculinity and went, what
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: if we told everyone how toxic masculinity just really makes
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it so funny but so weird for this group of
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  Speaker 1: good looking soccer players. And I was like, I talk
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: about toxic masculinity every day and I'm bullied. I never
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: get Emmy's so it must be nice. And then to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: also find out that Jason Sujakis isn't the nicest of guys,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and so it's this whole idea of like and it
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: popped up again when Anora was getting all of the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Oscar nominations. It was praised as this movie that was
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: like so pro woman and so pro sex work and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: all of it, but at the heart of it was
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: a man. And I'm like, when are you ever going
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: to let us just tell our own stories and realize
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that you have no right to them? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think this question comes up quite a
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: bit in the writing community in terms of like who
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: should really be telling what stories? And I think it's
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: a very complicated and nuanced question with a lot of
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: room to explore gray area. But I know that I
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: feel a certain way. For example, if I see books
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: specifically on the lists for things like feminine rage written
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: by men, that's super challenging for me. And I think
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I would feel similarly if I saw, like a sapphic
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  Speaker 2: book written by a man, do certain like you know
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: extremely well and blow books written by savig authors out
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  Speaker 2: of a lot of It's difficult. And I think the
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: other piece of that too is that I think we
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: need to be super cautious and critical when we see
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a man with a platform building that platform off the
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: idea that he is a feminist. I don't think it's
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: inherently a red flag, but I do think we need
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: to not take those people at their word and look
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: at their actions and see if how they're moving through
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the world is really in alignment with that framing, or
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: if that is just a really convenient framing that will
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: be abandoned the moment it's no longer beneficial to that
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: person's career.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know what pissed me off this week, but
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  Speaker 1: I do remember saying out loud the way I'll know
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  Speaker 1: a man is an ally is when he's leaving us
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  Speaker 1: alone because he understands and.
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  Speaker 2: Like that.
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  Speaker 1: I was like, my brother in law only speaks on
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: women's experiences when he has a really great one liner
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  Speaker 1: that is at its core making fun of how men
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: have ruined the world, and I'm like and I'm like
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: ally because for the most part, you leave me alone
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: until you're like, ah, I have one witty thing to say,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and then we all move on. Yeah.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: You know, the way that men engage with content about
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: toxic masculinity, and I'm drawing mainly from my experiences online,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: is really interesting. I post a lot of content around
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: that idea, and I see sort of two things happen,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: at least in my experience, when I directly post something
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: negative about a certain type of man, or negative about
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the general impact of patriarchy on the world, I will
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: my first comments on the post almost every single time
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: will be from men loudly agreeing with me. I take
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that with a huge grain of salt, like that's sort
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of what I'm And that's not to say that that's
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: a sign that they are disingenuous. I'm just saying to me,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: that's a sign to like, look closer, like I don't
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: take that at face value. So there's that that happens,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: and I don't actually get attacked a lot on those posts.
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  Speaker 2: What I find interesting is that where I really get
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: attacked by men online is when I am speaking to
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: a subject that has traditionally been a male dominated field
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: and doing so with some kind of sense of confidence
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: or authority. That is really when I will start to
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: see some clause come out from men and see the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: kind of classic misogynistic tropes of like oh, look, you
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: know a woman wants attention online, or like look, I
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: have an opinion even though I don't know what I'm
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: talking about, these things, you know, the tropes of like
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: you're stupid, you're not an expert, get out of you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: you're out of your lane, these kinds of things. So
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I find it really interesting and interesting that I will literally,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: even because I know that this will happen, when I
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: make a post like that, I will write in the
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: caption like I cannot wait for the men to come
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: into this comment section and they do not even have
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: like the self awareness to read that and go, let
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: me not walk into this trap today, like they're still
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: going to walk into the trap. And I because I
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: think it's rooted in this deep insecurity and ultimately fear
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: that if a woman is more knowledgeable or doing better
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: than them, or more successful than them, that that is
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  Speaker 2: some kind of condemnation on who they are. And all
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: of that is patriarchal positioning.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: And I think what has drawn me to horror for
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the last few years is the fact that when I
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: watch a horror movie or I read a horror story,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I see a lot of myself in the story. Like
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: take Barbarian, well maybe not Barbarian because it was created
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and directed by a man. Take Promising young Women. I'm
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: watching promising young women knowing that rape culture is very
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: prevalent in my every day, in my media, in my
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: social media and all of it. And I'm watching it,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and I'm watching a woman who has somehow gotten herself
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: right above that system and is now dealing out consequences
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to the men who take in part in that system.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm like empowering. Or a movie like Ready or
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Not where a bride is being hunted by her new
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: husband's family because they've decided that she's a gold digger
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: or something, and she's now dealing consequences because she's being attacked,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: so instead of taking the proactive role, it's still more
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of a final girl mindset. But at the end of
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the day, she's still victorious. And I see things like
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that and I go, we are fighting these monsters every day,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And horror has at least taken the second step and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: empowered us through it. But then we have movies like Men,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: where I left the movie theater and I was like,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: why did this movie just make fun of me for
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: not enjoying the company of men? Like I just felt
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: made fun of the entire time, like oh, so dramatic,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: like guys aren't good looking enough, and then you're scared,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I mean, I'm scared of good looking
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: guys too.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Men is a really interesting example because I I,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: first of all, I just want to say, let's pretend
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the ending never even happened, because it was such a
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: bizarre turn that, to be honest, I you know, I
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: don't even want to get into it. I thought that
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: actually the initial sequences of Men did a viscerally incredible
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: job at showing the every day fear that can be
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: involved in being a woman in the world. These small
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: run ins that are unsettling, the feeling of walking alone
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: and like checking over your shoulder and you're like pretty
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: sure that there's someone behind you, Like those things are
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: very real, and I think it actually did a really
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: good job there. But I totally agree that there there
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: is sort of the good for her genre of horror
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: that is super fun, and I think it's satisfying as
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: a woman to have that kind of content to see
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: a woman come out on top, right, a woman that
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: gets revenge, And I think that's kind of one way
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: to look at it. I almost feel like Promising Young Woman, though,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: is a more realistic version of that because of the ending,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: and I suppose I won't. I don't know if I
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: should spoil it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: You can go ahead and spoil it.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: So I kind of I love what they did where
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: she is ultimately killed in pursuit of revenge, just because
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: it it's gut wrenching, but like, of course that is
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: what would happen, like more than likely if a woman
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: in the world goes out and puts shady men in
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: threatening situations, eventually, right, it's highly likely that she's going
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: to come to harm. And I haven't inkling that that
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: ending is probably why the movie wasn't more popular than
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it was, because it is just devastating the entire movie.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But the other thing that I love that Promising Young
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Woman did was it shows within the film kind of
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: every shade of this idea of a nice guy and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: the ways in which that they uphold the patriarchy, because
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I think one thing that many men find challenging is
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: that there seems to be this black and white thinking
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: of like either you are a rapist or you are
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: you have nothing to do with rape culture, and like
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: this is a problem that sits over here, and like
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: what could I possibly do when in actuality, there is
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: an entire spectrum of ways that this rape culture is
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: upheld in our society, And I think that film does
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: a really good job showing a lot of different examples
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of how people can contribute to that without action being
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: read this.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've had personal experiences where male friends of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: mine have come up to me, I guess because I'm
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the expert on misogyny and or they're all afraid of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: me yelling at them, so they want to get ahead
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of it. And they know that their friend has done
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: something that is in a gray area of some sort
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: of assault or non consensual act or whatever, and they're
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: really torn up about it, and they go, well, manily,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: what do I do from here with this relationship that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I have with this guy? And I was like, Yeah,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: welcome to the realization that every man you love could possibly,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: at some point be the boogeyman, like I go, welcome,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: welcome to my everyday experience where from Garth Brooks to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: cousins to neighbors, I have to sit there and go,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: what day are you going to make a fool out
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of me for trusting you and letting you into my life?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I go, because it happens, and it happens in very dramatic,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: awful ways.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: And yes, and it can happen in very subtle, ambiguous ways,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: and I think in some ways that can be It's
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: obviously not more nefarious, but I think it is more widespread,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: and the impact of it, I think contributes to the
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: dismissal that we see from a lot of men of
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: this really being a problem. And I'll give you an
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: example of this sort of subtle thing that can happen.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: When I was going to publish my debut novel, So
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: this is a couple of years ago, now you know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: it was my very first book. I didn't really have
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: like connections in the publishing world, and I was invited
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: onto this podcast hosted by a man and at the
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: time he was like pretty well known on social media,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: pretty well connected to authors that were way further advanced
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: in their career than I was, So I was very
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: excited about doing this podcast appearance. So the podcast host
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: had private message meet a number of times about the podcast,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: about the book that he had received the book, and
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: then he sends me a message that's something along the
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: lines of, oh, I had a dream about you, and like, immediately,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: like alarm bells are going off for me, I'm immediately
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: super uncomfortable. Here is a man who has a measure
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of power in like I'm already booked on his show,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: like all of these things, and it's subtle and it's ambiguous,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: and there's plausible deniability in saying something like that, so
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: I don't respond. He goes on to say something about, oh,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the dream was that I showed up at his house
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: to like deliver this book to him. And so you know,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the story itself isn't super important, but I think the
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: end result is so like the action I took is
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I reached out to other women that I had seen
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: on this man's podcast and I said, Hey, this thing happened.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: It's sort of ambiguous, but it made me feel really uncomfortable.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Has anything like this come up with you and this person? Right?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Can I reality test this with you. And what I
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: found was that not only had it come up with
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: every single person I reached out to, it had come
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: up almost in exactly the same way, in exactly the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: same language. So now, you know, you go from looking
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: at a situation that is so easily dismissed, right if
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I had tried to run to you know, at the
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: time it was Twitter was like the big whatever. And
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: then like this guy said he had a dream about me.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine the hundreds of comments that I would
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: receive from men going, You're such a bitch, Like that
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: doesn't mean, that doesn't mean anything. You're trying to ruin
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: this man, you know what I mean. But in actuality,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: this was someone who was wielding their power to try
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: to get some kind of sexual kick out of like
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: this veiled language. And in my mind, it's instances like that,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: those more gray situations that are way more common and
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: tend to be what other men will excuse in the
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: behavior of their family, friends and even in themselves.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the subtle ways that I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: watch misogyny play out in a very normalized like you
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: can very quickly brush it away and explain it away,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: is how men will dehumanize us once we're a threat
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to their convenience or power or confidence, Like if we're
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: how many statistics have we read about women who have
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: been left by husbands after their second round of chemo,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: When women are tired from raising children that men want,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: then it's you're not sexy, you're boring. Our marriage is
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: on the rocks, this lack of empathy that we two
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: are people who have days that we are living and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: experiences that we are going through because caring for us
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: has caused them physical pain, or they're not getting sex
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: as often as they wanted, or losing our job has
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: caused them a financial strain, or us learning more about
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: ourselves has threatened the power that they have in our relationship.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: And and it's one of the weirdest things about the objectification
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of women because I watch people say, well, you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't feel well because he's so tired
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of taking care of me, and it's like, well, yes,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and but at no point did he circle that back
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to I, Like, I just feel like, as the person
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: who does not feel well, you're not the person that
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: he complains to about that they're a therapist. There are
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: his own mother, hopefully he has friends and or well,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not having sex with him because the kids wear
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: me out all day, Okay, And did he lay off
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: when you explain that to him? Like, yes, his pain
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: in his inconvenience is easily explained, explained away, but so
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: is yours. And it's always us making up for those gaps.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I also think like some of the things you're
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: mentioning are like the big tropes, right that you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: the man is the provider and the woman is like
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: this caretaker who stays home and has so much like
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: far less responsibilities. And I think that that is in
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: the like huge minority of experience, Like it's become this
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: super prevalent narrative that like that is the way of things,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: or that it was once the way of things. But
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I think in actuality that has almost never been the truth.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Like I think if we were to dig in, we
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: would find that there's almost no point in history that
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the average FAMI did not need two incomes to survive.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Like this is sort of a mythological time that never
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: really existed and was never really a dynamic except in
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: very wealthy circles where truly the women weren't working. But
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: then they had this whole other set of expectations and
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: responsibilities around hosting.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: There's you know that.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Circle has its own weird expectations of women. But what
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: I'm getting at is like the men on the internet
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: today railing about like gold diggers and wanting a traditional
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: wife with your with your best buy income.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Like, where's the gold? Like? Is my question because by
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: and large, the men who are espousing these beliefs and
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: that this should be the norm and like this return
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: to quote unquote traditional values do not have the means
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: to even survive on a single income. So it's really
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: interesting that there are these grand ideas that these men
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: have about themselves. But it's it's fed very much through
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: a right wing media that's very well funded.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that you use the term minority because
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: that will become my new mantra when I see it
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: play out in my very Midwestern white lifestyle, where I'll go, Okay,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: this is just a tired trope that Joe Rogan has
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: fed him, and this is how he got the language,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and this actually isn't the norm of every woman that
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I know. This is an instance where I'm like, Okay,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I can see the Joe Rogan writing on the walls
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and the Fox New verbiage just filling from your mouth.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: And this isn't actually grounded in reality. And I feel
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: like we should start saying that out loud when we
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: hear it, to be like, that's not grounded in right reality.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Your mother worked, your mother raised kids while working. Grandmother
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: probably works exactly.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: There's you know, sure the you know, over the years
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: your income goes a lot less further than it did.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: But in reality, like both my grandmothers work, Like none
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: of the women in my family line were stay at
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: home wise because they could not be like, this is
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: not really real. And I think the reason that it
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: resonates with men today, especially young men, is that it
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: feeds this sense of entitlement that I think there's this
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: pivotal age, you know, where a man is kind of
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: transitioning into a version of masculinity that's going to carry
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: through to his life. And I think if you feed
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: this idea that like you're entitled to it, all right,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You're the big strong man, you're the breadwinner, you're the provider,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: and this woman has to listen to you and shouldn't
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: challenge you, and should just do whatever you want and
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: get pregnant with your kids and stay home and make
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: all your food and somehow you're living comfortably when like
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: none of this is based in reality. These men do
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: not have the income to support this kind of life.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: This woman does not exist, right, she cannot be both
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: this your idea of what a fifty's housewife was, which
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: is wrong by the way, like that's not how it looked.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: But she cannot both be that and the super sexy
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: models that you're finding on only fans right, like you,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: there's been this false narrative created. I think this idea
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: of a lady in the streets and a freak in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: the sheets, Like how long have we been hearing that?
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: And I think that there's an idea that that is
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: a person walking around in the world. And I think
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: there is not a clear understanding that like the lady
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: in the streets, the woman who is is prudish and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: reserved and isn't you know, is waiting until marriage or whatever,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: has these sort of Christian traditional ideas about sex and
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: love and relationships. That is because that is rooted in
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a shame culture that cannot exist in like, she is
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: not going to magically transform on your wedding night into
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: an only fans girl. That is not real, right, because
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: those two patterns of behavior each exists for reasons under
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: entirely separate circumstances and under separate ways of moving through
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the world and understanding on you know, sexuality and shame,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So I just think all of
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: this is like made up fantasy land. It's made up fantasyland,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and I think it feels good for weak men to
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: believe that it exists because they can blame their problems.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: On how are you doing with the new online narrative
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: of what we abandoned men? And the men are in
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a male loneliness epidemic, and of course they resent us
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and are angry at us, and Trump appealed to them
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: because we let the men behind in the gutters.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: I think it's easy to hear that and immediately be
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: super activated and angry. I do think it's worth really
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: taking a careful look at what has happened, because I
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: believe the men left the men behind. Men are hurting
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: because of the patriarchy. Women are hurting because of the patriarchy.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: The root of the problems are the same. But when
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: we have things like the Joe Rogan podcast and Andrew
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Tait constantly messaging to young, impressionable men that actually the
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: root of all their problems is that is women. Right,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Women are the problem, and they can just sublimate all
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: their anger onto this group of people that are less
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: powerful than them. That's more appealing than going, hey, can
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: you do the really difficult work of looking at yourself
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: and taking accountability for your own character flaws and building
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: up your strength. That's not click baby, right. So I
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: think that men are hurting. I think that is a
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: problem that does exist. But I think that the simplest
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: solution for those men has always been to point the
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: finger at women, and I do not at all believe
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: that women are responsible for that dynamic.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Well, and then to bring it back to saphic horror
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and sapphic women. You know, it used to be that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: men resented and hated and drove saphic women the most
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: because they had like gotten out of meeting relationships with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: men or wanting men, and they did not design men.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: But now as we see women who are more heteronormative
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: or heterosexual leaning or straight being like, I also can't
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: find anything attracted about you, and you get more social
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: media click baity stuff about the four Be movement or whatever.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Now it's just like they're not even mad at the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: one group who like just also decided like, we're just
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: not attracted to you. That's not how we're wired. Now
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: they get to be mad at all of us, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: of course it would be our fault about it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, existing as a sapphic woman. I've seen
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: all shades of the male reaction to that, and I
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: think they're all super interesting. There was when I was
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: growing up you would hear lesbian thrown around it an
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: insult and like associated with like rose O'Donnell, and the
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: implication was that like, lesbians are physically unattractive and like
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: what a what a terrible thing to be. I don't
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: think I hear that as much anymore, But I think
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: that largely men's interface with saphic women is a little
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: bit nonexistent, So I think it's created in a mythology, right,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: So of course you see a lot of feti fetaticization
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: of sapphic women from men, and I think where the
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: anger comes in and potentially the violence is when those
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: same men are forced to confront that this is not
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: a porn setup for them, that actually these women don't
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: need them. And I think that that idea strikes at
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: that same super deep in security that like, then I
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: am not important, than I am not valuable. Then I
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: feel shame and so now I'm going to react with
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: like hate and violence. So I think what we mostly
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: see is men just not taking it seriously, so they're like, oh,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: that's so hot, or they reach for the lower hanging
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: fruit of like whatever, you're ugly anyway. But I think
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: it does have the potential to escalate even further in
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: a negative direction when men do are forced to take
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: the relationship seriously, because now you're striking at that vulnerability
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, you actually don't want me. I also
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: think like the man hating lesbian trope is really interesting
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: because like, in my experience, lesbians and staffic women are
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: really just not that interested in men, Like we're not
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: really sitting around thinking about men. It's just not coming
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: up that much for us. So and I want to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that I said right in the beginning that I
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: would talk about the book, and then I have not talked.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: About it at all.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: So I've been to kind of use this as a
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: bridge to circle back. One of the things that I
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: do in my writing is I think a true decentering
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: of men, So like, I have many stories that don't
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: either have no male characters at all, or the male
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: characters are just side characters. They're not central to the story.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: And to me, that's sort of a reflection of my
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: own journey in first kind of acting with more of
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: a like anger at noticing the ways that men were
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: harming me in the world and in my life at
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: mostly a structural level, but sometimes at an interpersonal level,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: and being angry and wanting to do that thing that
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: you were talking about and like promising young women and
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: where there's like a revenge narrative and like we're going
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: to make them face consequences. So for me, that was
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: sort of a first stage. I think I've moved into
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: a different stage that it's just like, actually, like this
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: group of people is just not very impactful in my life.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: And I feel stronger about telling full stories and narratives
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: that simply have very little to do with men because
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I don't need them, right, I don't need them, and
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: that can be difficult for men to hear.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: No, And here's the thing, and this is very much
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: how my brain is wired too, where it's like I'd
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: rather you be angry at me than apathetic towards me.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Like the fact that it's like, well, I just don't
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: write about you because you're not important to me. Devastating
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: would literally lay me out on the floor for days
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: on end. I hope that there are men in my
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: life who have tried to check out this podcast and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: then cried because there wasn't one episode about them. But
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to be like I I really thought I had impacted
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: her somehow, but I guess not. I like, I hope
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: because I find apathy devastating. No, that's big top.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's easier, and I think most of us have,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: you know, experienced to this, like after the end of
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: a relationship or something. In some ways it's easier if
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: the person hates you and it's like saying bad things
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: about you then to grapple with the idea that actually
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: are just not important to them at all.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, honestly, So it's almost like apathy is a
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: bigger a tool against misogyny and patriarchy than anger, because
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, if I well and no, that's a
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: fucked up thing to say, because then it's like we're
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: not fighting against it. So maybe not against the structure,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: but the people within the structure to just go well, Actually,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the reason why I don't care about your views is
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: because I don't care about them. They're not in any
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: consequence to what I actually feel or think or say,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: because I do feel like the ultra right and the
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: conservatives the reason why they're always screaming at us is
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: because all they want is for us to be like,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: you know what, you're right, give me my red cap
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: fuck women, fuck women's rights and healthcare, and like let's
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: get everybody barefoot and back into the kitchen.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And that's where we start to see that
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: group of women making a choice to side with the oppressor.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: And and I don't think that that's a conscious choice.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's something that has a lot to do with,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: you know, how you're raised and your understanding of your
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: own capabilities in the world. And I do empathize with
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: the women out there who probably truly believe on a
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: deep level that they can never be in tendant or
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: successful on their own away from being attached to a man.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: What I do not empathies with however, is actively voting
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: against your own interests and the interests of other women
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: because you hold those positions. And I think all people
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: as adults have our responsibility to examine their beliefs and
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: reality tests them, and you know, way harm when you're
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: making a decision, especially something like a vote that impacts
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: people beyond just you.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: My sister and I were having a huge talk about
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: empathy last night at dinner and how we can look
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: at a woman who is playing into the patriarchy or
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: misogyny and is using that as a shield and a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: shroud to get through these trying times and the trying
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: because the system is set up to make us so
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: tigh and to make us so exhausted, and to make
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: us think that citing with patriarchy and you know, nineteen
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: fifties housewives mythology is the way to go because maybe
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: at some point it would feel less hard than what
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: is currently happening. And I told my sister, I was like,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I can empathize all day long, but I also reserve
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the right to be tired. I also reserve the right
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: to be capped with my involvement in you tearing yourself
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: down and tearing the rights of other women down and
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I can empathize all day long, but I reserve the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: right to think that you're a moron, Like I reserve
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the right to think that you are the problem as well.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think what you're describing is something that
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are experiencing right now, and it's
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's an impact of compassion fatigue. What I
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: would encourage, you know, women and anyone to do is
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: to really examine, like where you are getting these ideas,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: because again, I just keep coming back to the fact
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: that none of this is real. These quote unquote trad
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: life influencers, first of all, break like, examine that statement
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: in your mind. Trad life influencers who are allegedly spending
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: eight hours in the day, you know whatever they're doing
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: making a strudle by hand from me they collected in
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: their brackcard or whatever. Understand that this is an influencer
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: who is making easily six figures. This is not a
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: trad life She is not stay at home mom. Look
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: at what these people are wearing, the clothing, their status
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: in life. They are actually the primary breadwinners in their family.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: These women that are telling you that you should stay
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: at home and not get a job. Are the primary
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: breadwinners in their upper class families, right, Like, none of
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: this is real. And I would also encourage people to
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: look at what the right does to these women, how
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the right repays their supposed loyalty. We just saw it
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: play out with this semi successful right wing influencer who
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: came out and said she had had Elon Must's child. Right,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So from her right wing narrative, she did everything right, right.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: She she slept with this powerful man with money, She
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: got pregnant with his child, which he has like a
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: thing right about, like making all these kids. She did that,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: She carried this baby, she kept the baby secret, which
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I'll bet you dollars to donuts was what this powerful
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: man would have wanted. She did all of these things,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: and was she lauded for this? Was she rewarded by
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: the right? Absolutely? Not the moment she says on anything,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: she is dragged across the internet. So I would just
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: encourage you know, women who are in you know, in
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: this space, or any marginalized person who is having thoughts
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: of like, but maybe I could be like the celebrated
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: one in this group, or you know, whatever it is,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: look at how they treat these people ultimately like the
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: leopards eating face party will eat your face too, like
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: you're not the chosen one.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: There's there's something about this like culture of like if
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just nice to them enough times, if I'm just
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: more subservient, if I'm just more upheasing, if I'm just
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: like he'll he'll love me and he'll make sure that
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I live through the Handmaid's Tail. And it's like we
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: were watching two different shows.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Then, baby, like, no, one hundred percent, they cut off
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Strema's finger too, like there's no amount of bootlicking that
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: you can do that will save you right, because their
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: ultimate goal is to oppress women. It is about power.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: You look at it's not even about sexual gratification. You
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: look at what Andrew Tait's espouses on the internet has
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: this massive audience of young men and boys saying things
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: like if you're having sex for more than two and
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: a half minutes, it's gay. And the message is that
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: sex and any relationship to women is and can only
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: be about power and dominion. It is not even about
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: sexual gratification because even that is giving the woman too
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: much credit. It is literally only about power and how
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: you can use her body right to your own whatever
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: that is, whether it's cleaning your house, popping out kids,
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: making you dinner, whatever. That is the ultimate goal of
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: the right wing. So I feel for women who are
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: caught up in it. I think that they will get
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: what they voted for. And I also think it's okay
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: to have compassion fatigue and to say, you know, I
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: can't take God too much empathy for this person because
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: me and many others are directly suffering as a result
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: of their choices.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, the title of the book, I Do not
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: apologize for my position on men is so strong, and
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: I did want to ask you how often have you
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: felt like you've had to apologize for the themes in
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: your book or the things that are important to you.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: So it's funny. I expected a lot more pushback when
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: I released the book with this title, but I think
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: part of it is that I have I've released many
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: other books at this point, and I think I've built
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: up I'm by no means, you know, any kind of
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: influencer or any influential person in the writing world caveat. However,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: in my small circles on social media, I do think
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: I've been very vocal about being someone who is not
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: going to listen to any bullshit. Situation with the podcaster
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: that ended with me publicly outing what had happened on
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the internet that was years ago. He was completely ousted,
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: is gone from the community, and it's happened with one
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: other man as well. So I think, and this is
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: again just a guess on my part that the would
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: be men right to drag me. I have realized that
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: maybe I'm not a great target for that. So I
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: haven't gotten a lot of pushback on this book, but
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: I do still get it's I'm telling you, it's always
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the weirdest things. I posted about cheese curds once and
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: I made a lot of mine really angry. I didn't
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: know that, Like there were some strong opinions. I made
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: a video about encouraging people not to panic and pull
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: all their money out of their four on one case
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: right now because the stock market is, you know, not
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: doing well with them, and I got a lot of
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: shit for that. So like, it's more for me when
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: a man feels I have stepped out of my rightful lade, right,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: but when I'm directly talking about men, they shut the
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: fuck up. Mostly for me anyway.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: It's so funny because when I was living in Dayton,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I had such a comfortable echo chamber around me. It
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: was me and all queer women and people of color,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: and I had by the time I moved last August,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I had all but eradicated toxic masculinity in my personal life,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: where it's like, I'm not going to engage with men
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: who make me uncomfortable and keep them in my friend
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: group and keep giving energy to like, well, maybe they'll
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: be good one day, or maybe I'm the person who
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: can teach them the way or whatever. And then I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: moved back home, and now I'm in Indiana and it's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: very white, and it's very great year, and every day
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I go, damn, I wish I could go back to
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the Pink Pony Club, where I had created a home
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: where truly my cat every day is like, why am
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: I looking at another man? You promised me this would
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: never happen, I go, I did. I promised myself that
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: would never happen. And look where we are, Like, yeah.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: I feel for you. I mentioned I'm in Florida, but
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I'm very fortunate to be in a blue dot in Florida,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: so I don't have to contend with that kind of
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: stuff overwhelmingly right. There's some of it, of course, but
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: that's super tough.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: It's super tough, and I'll and I also know that
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: part of it is that my online community and my
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: creative circle is so strong that there's so much safety
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: in that that I'm not going to book club every
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: month in Indiana trying to be like, maybe I could
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: find someone who is also upset about our current existence
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: or whatever, because I'm like, well, I have tons of friends.
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: They just all happen to be on the computer and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: my phone, and that's fine, and I know that I'll
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: get there. I can feel myself already being like, how
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: do I start building an in person community in the
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: current that does not only include my toddler nephew and
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: his newborn brother and me teaching them the good word
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: of Celine Dion to be like, this is my culture
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and it's important to me, and it'll be important to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: you too. But one of the last things that I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: want to touch on before we kind of move into
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: our closing out ceremony is you had asked specifically about
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: combating misogyny within queer relationships through your writing and in
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: your own life.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think in the same way as you
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: already talked about that these patriarchal ideas and systems patterns
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: of behavior seep in in a way that like, it's
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: not always super clear to people, And I've seen it
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: seep into the saphic community and in different ways. And
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: one of the things that I find myself writing about
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: a lot are toxic saphic couples and the patterns of
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: behavior that they are playing out that I think our
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: current patriarchal society really feeds into. For example, just like
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the idea that there is a chaser and a chaste,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: right so like and usually it's the man is supposed
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: to like chase the woman, and the woman is supposed
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to be resistant to that, and like koi and whatever.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's interesting to explore those ideas and dynamics
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: with them characters. And what I'm hoping to do is
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: not only to decender men from my work give these stories,
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: but show like, hey, this is a little more like
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: nefarious than it seems on its face, Like there are
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: elements of this that we can carry with us and
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: do carry with us unless we do the active work
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: to recognize like, oh, I am recreating a power dynamic
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: that is actually really unhealthy and patriarchal and like doesn't
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: mean to exist, right, the idea that like one person
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: should be the one who pays for the dates, and
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: it's generally going to be like the more masculine one,
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: like these power laiden things, Queer people have a really
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: unique opportunity to throw out those scripts and create something
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: new and different. So yeah, I think, to me, it's
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: more interesting. And obviously I'm biased, but I think it's
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: more interesting to to look at these things through a
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: queer lens because it's much more obvious in a queer
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: context that these things don't need to exist because we're
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: not as socially programmed to just accept them at base value.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: No, for sure, And I do think, and I think
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: when people can understand that, like you know, the writing
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: is coming from or the call is coming from inside
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: the house or whatever, where you're looking at queer relationships
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: that really have no reason to live inside of these
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: patriarchal norms, but somehow, maybe through no fault of anyone,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: still end up do. Then then it's like, what more
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: evidence do you need that this abusive system is insidious
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and it is so normalized because a lot of times
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I think that we're just told that we're being really
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: dramatic about it and nothing is truly that bad.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Totally, and you know, it's funny. One of the not
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: really complaints but things I've heard a few times about
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: the collection is people saying, well, I kind of thought
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: there'd be more shitty men in it, which, like, I
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: hear you, I get why you would think that, but actually,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: so the framing device I used for the collection is
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: that the opening and closing stories are fictionalized versions of
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: real things that real men did. So that's on purpose.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: But for the most part, those stories in the middle
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: like are not your typical good for her, A guy
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: is shitty and she stabs them at the end type
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: of stories, And I because I want people to lean
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: in and love closer and recognize like, oh okay, like
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: these are the behaviors, these are the things that have
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: carried over. This person is acting this way probably because
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: of these systems that are in place, right, so we
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: can see beyond just guy is shitty, girl is victim,
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: because it's so much more entrenched than that.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny because now I'm rethinking about one
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: that I've read which is correct me if I get
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: the title wrong because I don't have anything in front
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of me. I'm not the ghost you wanted. Is that
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the correct title?
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: And how it plays on the tripe that like, get
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: the U haul ready because you know we're going to
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: move quickly as a Sapha couple. And I think about
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: personal times in my life where I've watched women transition
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: from dating men to dating women and then all of
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: a sudden they're like, I'm going to move a million
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: miles an hour in the relationship. And sometimes my like
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: secret shitty thought is is this the first time that
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: someone's been nice to you in a relationship?
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, I think a lot of times the answer
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: is yes, And I think so for anyone listening you.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Haven't read it.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: The premise of the story is essentially that this saphic
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: couple sort of makes a promise lightheartedly. You know, they're like, oh, well,
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: I'll be you forever and if you died, I would
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: haunt you, ha ha. And then one of them dies
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: and is stop haunting their partner, And it's kind of this,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not the ghost you want to hear,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: like you were in love with somebody else. The love
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: part is dead, the shine has worn off. And I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: think the question I want to ask is like, how
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: about the promises that we make to each other right
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: and the reasons that we're making them, because I think
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: that there is this impulse in relationships to like promise
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: the moon and promise it early, whether it's a staphic
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: relationship or is that just a mirror of what we've
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: seen since growing up, Like every Princess movie is like
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: she meets Prince Chremming and then they get married. That's
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: the next thing, is I promise it's forever? And what
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: does it mean when we promise forever? And how critically
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: do we think before we make that promise to a person?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think a monized version of the Disney
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: movies that we all watched is honestly, love is Blind
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: and Married at per Site where it's like we're sitting
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: in a pod, we've gotten really deep, really hard within
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: four days, and now we're getting married because we're in love.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: And what I see countless times on Love is Blind
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: and Married at per Site is men get on the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: other side of either the engagement or the marriage and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: immediately go wait, is this real and then you're like, yeah, buddy,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: but I see women being more built, like bought into
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the process because I'm like, well, yeah, this has been
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: normalized for women. You meet a man, you charm him
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: enough that he marries you. That is the goal, and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: you need to move quickly before he realizes that you
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: might not be the one that you he wants to marry.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: But you also have to play it cool but married
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: at per site and Love is Blind has kind of
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: taken the cool girl factor out of it because you're
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: on your schedule and timeline, and it's really interesting to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: watch how women and men go differently into that process.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I am I just want to say, I'm so happy
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: you brought up love as well. I'm obsessed with it
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: because when you watch them in the pause, you can
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: watch this happen in every single episode where they obviously
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: cannot see each other. One is saying something, the other
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: is saying something else, and you can watch them both
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: imagine how the other person is responding and it's not
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: what's really responding. So you can watch them in real
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: time create these fantasy versions of the other person, and
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: of course, without fail, watch it implode when they get
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: together in real life, and you know, I know we're
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: just about out of time. But I think another sort
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: of social conditioning thing that I would love for especially women,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: really examine is this idea that like you are incomplete
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: or have failed if you are not married or in
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: a long term relationship, And to ask yourself, is this
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: really the goal for my life? Is that really my
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: ultimate goal? Knowing everything that we know about the impact
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: of marriage on women, which by the way, if you
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: don't know, means poor outcomes on every single metric, health, happiness,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: length of life, quality of life, all of it. Women
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: perform more poorly, men perform more positively. Marriage benefits men,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: it does not benefit money. So like to really examine
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: is that something I want? And to challenge this idea
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: that like women need to go out and find a
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: man who will agree to marry them, instead of asking
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: questions like who do you want to be as a woman,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: what do you want your life to look like? But instead,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: I think unfortunately so many people just run full speed
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: into like need to get a man, need to like
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: get a man to give me ring.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we do have a little closing out tradition onto
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: all the men I've tolerated before where we kind of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: synthesize our biggest lesson from the conversation, or about your
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: experience in queer literature and horror literature and being a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: published author who's also using the Internet to promote your
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: sapphic horror stories and things like that. So, if you
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: wanted to impart a lasting lesson on the audience, what
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: would you try to impart on them?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: I would just encourage thoms to look closer. I think
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: the idea that feminism is just like angry women who
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: don't like men not only dismisses the queer merits of
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: feminism as a movement, but it.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Also makes.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Makes people a lot more easy to get away with
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: things and continue to enact male violence and continue to
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: uphold systems that oppress women. And I think, you know,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: just to circle back quickly to the Blake Live, I
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: think it's the perfect example of this point now. So
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: I would just encourage people to think more critically about
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: what's on your for you page and know that like
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: these things can come and really egregious forms, and they
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: can also come and really subtle, ambiguous forms, and yeah.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I think I'm just gonna sign
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: off on that one too, because I was gonna be like, yeah,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: we have to start paying attention to where our narratives
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: are coming from. It is no longer cute to tell me, well,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I'm loyal to Fox News because I enjoy what they're
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: telling me. It's like, well, we know the news and
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: the media of painting a story that will be sensation,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: so you feel validated in the shitty ways that you believe, Like,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: we gotta be critical thinkers at some point. And I
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: think because I have an education background. I used to
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: be a teacher early in my career. I think one
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: of the things too that we have to kind of
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: grasp as a society is that this is more on us.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: It is on us to educate ourselves to make sure
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: that we have a diverse background and the authors and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the shows and the movies that we are partaking in.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Because part of our extreme conservative nature that's currently going
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: on in this country is they are dumbing down education
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: and critical thinking and critical response on purpose. The education
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: that you and I went through in elementary and high
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: school non existent in the current day and age. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: they're barely teaching kids how to read at this point.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: It's scary. It's scary. Yeah, So if you're a parent
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: out there, you might want to start taking your kids
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: reading comprehension into your own hands, because they're basically teaching
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: kids to memorize how to read books for tests. Then
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: it's scary. Talk to your kids about Talk to your
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: kids about the Little Mermaid and why it's creepy, Be like,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: this is creepy. She's fourteen. Just so you know, you know,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: what would be a manifestation that you would like to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: offer up to the collective.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, that women are really powerful women, non binary folks
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: are trans community. I think a really amazing thing that
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: I want to do this year, and I think that
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: a lot of.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: Us could do this year, is just invest in ourselves
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: and continue to grow and be wonderful, set ourselves up
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: for success, and do everything we can not to drown
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: me titlely of bad news that's coming at us all
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: the time.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yesterday it was International Women's Day to kind of
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: give a time stamp on when we're recording, And I
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: think my manifestation is just going to be I hope
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: we're taking time to love ourselves and love each other,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: because I think like I'm starting to feel the exhaustion,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: and we're only in March of year one, and I
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: can feel my patients start to dwindle and start to thin,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: and I can feel every day just be a list
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: of things that I have to live through or get
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: through until it's time to go to bed again. And
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: so I hope we're all. I hope there's at least
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: one person currently in your in person community that's making
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: you feel loved and valued and affir me with you
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: that this is not okay. I mean, Ray, this was wonderful.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be, which is like
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: a know it all thing to say at the end
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: of my own show, like good producing Napley, But you
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: were I love that you were a fantastic guest. I'm
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: so glad that TikTok brought you to my feed and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: that once again you were a person who's like I
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: am going to click on this woman's profile who just
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: dropped in a comment. I have a podcast, and I
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: think we'd be friends. So thank you, Thank you so
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: much for being.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Here, Thank you for having me. This was super fun.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and please plug anywhere and everywhere that our listeners
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: can find you.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Great. So I'm Ray Wild mostly on Instagram and TikTok.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I have a blue sky, but I'm not really there.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: My next book coming out is called I Can Fix Her.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: It is a sapphig horror sort of sci fi leaning
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: story about a toxic relationship and second chance at romance
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: gone very very wrong. So super excited for that release.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: If you like the sound of I do not apologize
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: for my position on men, do pick it up sooner
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: rather than later, because I was just informed that the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: publisher is shutting down, so it will go out of
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: print in June, if not sooner, depending on if I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: find it another home, et cetera, et cetera. So all
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: that to say, if it sounds super cool to you,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: maybe grab it, because I don't I can't promise it
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: will be consistently available in the near future.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, And that's always important about like understanding. I feel
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: like one of the things that I have to keep
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in the back of my mind is that just because
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: I have a vast knowledge in many different things and
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: how things work, doesn't mean like that the person that
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have copy with later understands how the book
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: publishing world works. And I'm like, no, you have to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: like keep up with stuff like that and whatnot. So yeah,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: that was important to note. Thank you, because I do
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: want everyone to have access to this in all of
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: your books, and tolerators, you know where to find us.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: It's been I've tolerated pod on Instagram, Nadley K one
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: two four for my personal Instagram and TikTok, and then
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I'm also on Blue Sky, but I don't know how
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: to use it and I don't know if I'm being
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: good at it, so I guess give us a chance,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and we're on YouTube too. And remember, tolerators, you don't
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: have to smile through anything you're tolerating, including living through
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: the handmade's tale, but being told that it's a utopia
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: every day that's leading us to the correct place. Smiles
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: are for joy and