Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Public Displays of Affection Politics

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: Public Displays of Affection Politics · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Steph.
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your protection, but I heeart radio. I
0:18
Speaker 1: think I know the answer to this, but I'm going
0:19
Speaker 1: to ask it anyway. Samantha, what are your thoughts on
0:23
Speaker 1: p d A. Public displays of affection is imcordant to
0:26
Speaker 1: how much p d A holding hands, being cute, kisses
0:31
Speaker 1: here and they're cool everything else. I'm like, that's not
0:35
Speaker 1: meant for me to see. I'm going to turn and
0:40
Speaker 1: like yourself, do you do you engage rarely? Rarely, Like
0:45
Speaker 1: if we're somewhere that we've been there for a while,
0:49
Speaker 1: Like let's say we're at a show, or we're hanging
0:52
Speaker 1: out and it's dinner and then we're having conversation and
0:54
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, we're at a restaurant, you may
0:56
Speaker 1: see me lean in on my partner or rub his back.
1:01
Speaker 1: That's about it. Yeah, Yeah, I'm about the same, I
1:08
Speaker 1: I think because I didn't realize that I was ACE
1:10
Speaker 1: at the time, Like any kind of physical interaction scared me.
1:14
Speaker 1: So it was a big deal. And I can like
1:15
Speaker 1: literally remember asking my partner at the time, like can
1:19
Speaker 1: I hold your hand and being scared or like one
1:23
Speaker 1: time I put my hand in his back pocket and
1:25
Speaker 1: that memories burned in my head because the whole time
1:27
Speaker 1: I was like, what have I done? Um? So it
1:31
Speaker 1: was something that I I did and sometimes enjoyed, but
1:36
Speaker 1: most of the time it was just like surrounded in fear.
1:38
Speaker 1: I do I do remember one time we kissed. I'm
1:43
Speaker 1: a terrible person. Uh So there's this big race that's
1:47
Speaker 1: coming up in smith and I've talked about it in Atlanta,
1:49
Speaker 1: the Peach Tree Road Race. Um, he did it, but
1:52
Speaker 1: he was like way back and like double and I
1:55
Speaker 1: was in c and I was like, no, I'm going
1:58
Speaker 1: to see and you can be a w but I'm
2:01
Speaker 1: not running because I'm that kind of person. The heat
2:06
Speaker 1: is a big deal, though. You want to run that
2:08
Speaker 1: race quickly reason you try to qualify early more. Did
2:12
Speaker 1: you lie? That's right, Georgia. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
2:17
Speaker 1: I get you because I think I did the same
2:18
Speaker 1: thing with my friends. Will be like I'll meet you
2:20
Speaker 1: at the end. Good good luck to you. There's always
2:26
Speaker 1: the concern that'll catch up with you, though, and then
2:28
Speaker 1: you really feel like, but we kissed before we parted.
2:36
Speaker 1: Ways that the kind of opening gate and the photographers
2:41
Speaker 1: snapped a photo and like we're all these people around
2:43
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh that was quit. Yeah. I was like,
2:47
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'll never pd A good. I didn't
2:50
Speaker 1: need an audience. Sorry, yeah, that's just also I don't
2:53
Speaker 1: like to be seen, so that's too too sane. M
2:56
Speaker 1: h yeah, uh yeah, I want to bring this back.
3:02
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure when this one's going to publish it.
3:04
Speaker 1: I think it might actually be early July from the
3:07
Speaker 1: Peachtre road Race characters, but it's kind of the tail
3:10
Speaker 1: and of pride, I think. Um, and I just uh,
3:14
Speaker 1: this episode kind of talks about like pd A within
3:16
Speaker 1: the queer community and how that can look and how
3:19
Speaker 1: it can kind of be scary depending on where you are.
3:22
Speaker 1: So I just thought it was interesting. Someday we should
3:24
Speaker 1: talk about more. So please enjoy this classic episode. Welcome
3:31
Speaker 1: to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff Works
3:34
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
3:42
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. Caroline. Happy Valentine's Day whatever, I know, right,
3:49
Speaker 1: it's America's least favorite holiday. Welcome and yet our favorite one.
3:53
Speaker 1: Somehow not to use to manipulate other people. Oh you
3:58
Speaker 1: mean our like a active hour, like and by people
4:03
Speaker 1: you mean people you're dating. I don't want anything. Yeah,
4:09
Speaker 1: it's It's true. It is one of the most confusing
4:12
Speaker 1: days of the year, I'd say. And um, I went
4:15
Speaker 1: onto our Facebook page. If you're listening right now and
4:19
Speaker 1: you haven't gone to our Facebook page to like us,
4:21
Speaker 1: because it's Valentine's Day, you should do with be our
4:24
Speaker 1: Valentine please. Um. I went on there to ask listeners, Hey,
4:30
Speaker 1: do you want a Valentine's Day episode? Come on? Like,
4:33
Speaker 1: this is sort of our wheelhouse. We talk about dating
4:36
Speaker 1: and love and kissy stuff all the time. What would
4:39
Speaker 1: you like to hear about? And half of the responses
4:42
Speaker 1: were about how Valentine's is the worst, about how Valentine's
4:46
Speaker 1: is a fake, consumer driven holiday, and I was like, y'all, y'all, y'all,
4:52
Speaker 1: come on now, Yeah, it's you know, it is what
4:56
Speaker 1: it is. So I think that folks are gonna like
4:59
Speaker 1: this episode. It though, yeah, not particularly lovey dovey in
5:03
Speaker 1: a direct way, right, but it's got a twist in it.
5:08
Speaker 1: And the twist is that in so many of the
5:11
Speaker 1: topics that we talk about, we we in things with
5:14
Speaker 1: like well and then we tried to talk about, you know,
5:17
Speaker 1: find information on how this applied to the LGBT community,
5:20
Speaker 1: but you know what, research had nothing to say about it.
5:23
Speaker 1: Guess what, It's not the case this time. So let's
5:29
Speaker 1: get going. Let's let's give our public display of affection
5:33
Speaker 1: to our LGBT listeners. Let's do it unless that would
5:37
Speaker 1: make them uncomfortable, in which case I'll just shake your hands,
5:39
Speaker 1: that's fine. Or maybe you'll give them a kiss on
5:43
Speaker 1: the cheek. Kristen, Yes, a public social kiss. Is there
5:45
Speaker 1: anything more confusing? It is very confusing. No. I walked up,
5:49
Speaker 1: I walked my parents elderly neighbor home not too long ago,
5:52
Speaker 1: and I went for the hug and she went for
5:54
Speaker 1: the cheek kiss. And then she confused me further by
5:57
Speaker 1: going for the double cheek kiss, to the point where
5:59
Speaker 1: I said, can we do that again again? You wanted
6:02
Speaker 1: to repeat, Well, yeah, she's this adorable Greek lady. And
6:05
Speaker 1: I was like, come on, I've never since I was
6:07
Speaker 1: a baby. I was like, can we just can we
6:08
Speaker 1: fix this? She's like, you know, dart, like we always
6:10
Speaker 1: do it on post cheeks. Oh, and then it was fine.
6:15
Speaker 1: So now that have you taken up Greek double cheek kissing. Absolutely,
6:19
Speaker 1: not that you don't know what is on people's faces.
6:22
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's what I was I was worth thinking
6:26
Speaker 1: about the awkwardness. Well, yeah, that's actually my germ fobio
6:29
Speaker 1: is just a cover from my fear of awkward situations. Um. Yes,
6:33
Speaker 1: there was a recent article in the New York Times
6:36
Speaker 1: about the confusing situation of the public social kiss, which
6:41
Speaker 1: has become I feel like this is kind of fueled
6:43
Speaker 1: by reality television, especially the Real Housewives franchise, because they're always,
6:49
Speaker 1: you know, doing the kiss kiss when they greet each other,
6:51
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's kind of like it's not
6:53
Speaker 1: something that I encounter. But maybe it's because I'm not
6:56
Speaker 1: fancy enough in my day today. Um So, it's not
7:00
Speaker 1: common in American culture to do the social kiss. Uh,
7:04
Speaker 1: it's more of a European thing, but I think it
7:08
Speaker 1: is becoming a little bit more common. Yeah, but there
7:11
Speaker 1: are they're actually rules apparently that govern the public social kiss,
7:16
Speaker 1: which I wish there were rules for actual p d
7:20
Speaker 1: A because I don't consider the social kiss p d
7:23
Speaker 1: A or gross. It's just awkward. It's just like, why
7:25
Speaker 1: are you kissing my face? I don't know you well,
7:28
Speaker 1: it can it can be awkward. Um. This is This
7:30
Speaker 1: article was written by Henry Alford, who is the author
7:33
Speaker 1: of a Modern Manners book and um. He talked to
7:38
Speaker 1: a British etiquette consultant, William Hansen, who like points to
7:42
Speaker 1: the celebrity culture and sort of the false intimacy and
7:45
Speaker 1: the kiss kiss that now confuses the social kiss. And
7:48
Speaker 1: he says that the proper procedure for a social kiss,
7:52
Speaker 1: if it's a guy and a gal, is that the
7:55
Speaker 1: woman sets the terms. If she wants her cheek, she
7:58
Speaker 1: profers her cheek. If not, she pro for sir hand.
8:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to start like proffering my hand for for
8:04
Speaker 1: hand kisses, do wear a giant cocktail ring so that
8:07
Speaker 1: people are forced to kiss it like for the pope
8:08
Speaker 1: or something, or like a ring pop perfect But you
8:12
Speaker 1: don't well, you don't anybody to linger. Yeah, And then
8:15
Speaker 1: he says that if it's a woman woman woman interaction.
8:18
Speaker 1: I just said woman three times, but I mean two women,
8:22
Speaker 1: the senior woman sets the terms. So in my case,
8:26
Speaker 1: the the elderly adorable Greek woman was going in for
8:30
Speaker 1: the double cheek kiss, and I was lost as an
8:32
Speaker 1: ignorant American, But what if you're really close in age.
8:35
Speaker 1: See that's why I'm just saying like it's just because
8:38
Speaker 1: then it's an insult because if you wait, you're you're
8:39
Speaker 1: insinuating that you think they're older. Yeah, oh man, that
8:44
Speaker 1: it's confusing. Um. But but the funny thing is when um,
8:48
Speaker 1: I think it was William Hanson that the British etiquett
8:51
Speaker 1: consultant was saying that the like frontal hugs that Americans
8:56
Speaker 1: might think are way less uncomfortable than social kissing act
9:00
Speaker 1: really quite the opposite, because that is full on body
9:03
Speaker 1: contact and it signals even more intimacy. I mean, I
9:07
Speaker 1: don't like hugging strangers either. What happened to a handshake? People?
9:11
Speaker 1: Or do the Obama fist bump or an elbow bump? Yeah, anyway,
9:15
Speaker 1: we should write an etiquette book. Um so yeah, Like
9:19
Speaker 1: you said, though, Caroline, the public social kiss not so
9:22
Speaker 1: much of a p D A as in in the
9:25
Speaker 1: way that we would think of it, especially Roam Valentine's Day. Right,
9:28
Speaker 1: we're talking about like PDA in terms of smooching, smooching
9:32
Speaker 1: your honey bun in public. I can't take it. I
9:36
Speaker 1: hate p D I don't want to be a part
9:38
Speaker 1: of the pd A beyond like hand holding, but I
9:40
Speaker 1: also don't want to watch the p d A. I
9:42
Speaker 1: was at a restaurant the other night and this couple
9:43
Speaker 1: next to my friend and me were just like all
9:46
Speaker 1: over each other. If let's say you have a gentleman friend,
9:52
Speaker 1: You're very friendly, you like him, you love him. He
9:56
Speaker 1: wants to kiss you fully on the mouth in public,
10:00
Speaker 1: do you what do you do? Uh? Peck? That would
10:05
Speaker 1: be a push push You put your hand on his
10:08
Speaker 1: chest and then I throw a drink in his face.
10:11
Speaker 1: You called him a cad and stalk away. Um, well,
10:17
Speaker 1: you mentioned girling going to the restaurant and being picked
10:20
Speaker 1: out by the kissy face. I gotta stop saying kissy
10:24
Speaker 1: face by the amorous couple. Well a B T A
10:29
Speaker 1: B T. Well. ABC Prime Time decided to kind of
10:33
Speaker 1: do that in mass in two thousand six. They hired
10:36
Speaker 1: some actors to go and go around to restaurants and
10:40
Speaker 1: pretend to be super affectionate couples be making out all
10:44
Speaker 1: over each other. And the funny thing was a lot
10:47
Speaker 1: of people were kind of fine with it. Yeah, if
10:51
Speaker 1: they talked about some older couples who were in the restaurant.
10:54
Speaker 1: You know who thought like, oh sweet young love and uh.
10:59
Speaker 1: Carrie Keating, who's a psychology professor at Colgate University, actually
11:02
Speaker 1: says she defends p d A too to a point.
11:06
Speaker 1: She says that it's sometimes can have a positive effect
11:09
Speaker 1: on the observers. Have you ever been watching a movie, Kristen,
11:13
Speaker 1: and that you've watched a movie You've never Okay, well,
11:16
Speaker 1: hopefully our listeners will will know what I'm talking about.
11:19
Speaker 1: Have you ever been watching a movie and the two
11:20
Speaker 1: people on screen kiss and you find yourself making the
11:23
Speaker 1: kissy face two at the same time? Okay, weird? Maybe
11:27
Speaker 1: I mean neither of I over um anyway, So Keating says,
11:33
Speaker 1: the very motor behavior, the tiny muscles of the face,
11:36
Speaker 1: the smiles, the gaze are often mimicked by observers, and
11:40
Speaker 1: that mimicry actually feeds back to the brain of the
11:43
Speaker 1: observer and gives you that sort of warm and fuzzy
11:45
Speaker 1: feeling inside. I think she's giving p d A a
11:48
Speaker 1: lot more credit than it deserves. But I think that
11:53
Speaker 1: to a point, like seeing um unless you've just been
11:56
Speaker 1: broken up with or you're you know, feeling bitter that day,
11:58
Speaker 1: like seeing a young couple in love holding hands could
12:01
Speaker 1: actually make you feel slightly better. I'm the opposite, It's
12:04
Speaker 1: not I'm I'm more prudish when it comes to seeing
12:08
Speaker 1: younger couples. Older couples though, holding hands, um, you know,
12:13
Speaker 1: kissing I basically I just don't want to seek tongue,
12:17
Speaker 1: but older couples that that warms my heart. But there,
12:21
Speaker 1: of course, in this ABC experiment, there were some people
12:24
Speaker 1: who did not take kindly to seeing all the p
12:27
Speaker 1: d A and tried to intervene. And Keating goes on
12:30
Speaker 1: to Warren that you know it, don't try to stop
12:33
Speaker 1: p d A if you see it happening, because you
12:35
Speaker 1: don't know what the cultural norms are. Um. And and
12:39
Speaker 1: this comes up a lot, maybe the litmus test if
12:42
Speaker 1: ifs if kids are around, it's always about the children,
12:45
Speaker 1: you know, if they're children around, don't what about my retinas.
12:49
Speaker 1: I want to protect my retina exactly. Um. But then again,
12:52
Speaker 1: I mean you say that, you know. Keating goes on
12:54
Speaker 1: to talk about how there's this physiological effect from witnessing PDA,
12:57
Speaker 1: but then she also goes on to say that, well,
12:59
Speaker 1: it kind of listen the range of emotions, so it's
13:03
Speaker 1: a pretty non specific answer. And I and I did
13:06
Speaker 1: dig around for some studies seeing if if there were
13:09
Speaker 1: more whether if there was more empirical data on the
13:13
Speaker 1: kind of response that people have to p d A.
13:17
Speaker 1: Not a lot of stuff out there, because even the
13:19
Speaker 1: researchers are grossed out. Probably yeah. Um. But the thing is, though,
13:25
Speaker 1: Keating does have a point though, saying that p d
13:28
Speaker 1: A elicits a range of emotions, but unfortunately those range
13:32
Speaker 1: of emotions can also be very negative, depending not just
13:38
Speaker 1: on the type of pd A that's happening, but who
13:42
Speaker 1: is doing it. And this was something that ABC again
13:44
Speaker 1: went back a year later to test out when they
13:48
Speaker 1: had two gay couples go out and get all frisky
13:53
Speaker 1: in public, and they went to Birmingham, Alabama and Verona,
13:56
Speaker 1: New Jersey, because they also wanted to see if there's
13:57
Speaker 1: a geographical difference. Yeah, and then both places. I think
14:01
Speaker 1: for the most part, the attitudes were I mean, there
14:04
Speaker 1: was a range of attitudes about it, but they none
14:06
Speaker 1: of them were very strong. I will say that, Um,
14:09
Speaker 1: a lot of people were concerned, just like, how will
14:12
Speaker 1: I explain this to my children? When my small children asked,
14:14
Speaker 1: why are those two men kissing in Alabama. However, there
14:17
Speaker 1: was one instance where a woman called nine one one
14:20
Speaker 1: when she saw two men kissing, and the officer responding
14:24
Speaker 1: officers said, just don't do that in public. Yeah, that's
14:28
Speaker 1: that's not okay. Um. But there there was a difference
14:32
Speaker 1: though in how people reacted to, uh, the lesbian couple
14:37
Speaker 1: versus the gay mail couple, because like the two women
14:41
Speaker 1: being affectionate to each other, people for the most partably
14:45
Speaker 1: it's sweet, but there was more negative reaction directed at
14:49
Speaker 1: two men showing affection to each other. Right, yeah, And
14:55
Speaker 1: an example I think of how people are not in
14:59
Speaker 1: general super comfortable with two men expressing any affection for
15:03
Speaker 1: each other. There was a Snickers Super Bowl commercial several
15:06
Speaker 1: years ago, this was in two thousand seven, I believe,
15:10
Speaker 1: where two mechanics they pulled a lady in the tramp
15:14
Speaker 1: with the with the spaghetti thing, but they were eating
15:16
Speaker 1: a Snickers bar. Uh, so they're biting into the same
15:19
Speaker 1: candy bar and then recoil when their lips meat and
15:22
Speaker 1: start trying to act really masculine. And it got a
15:25
Speaker 1: lot of activists angry people, you know, they're like, why
15:29
Speaker 1: are you why are you furthering this perception that two
15:33
Speaker 1: men kissing is disgusting. Yeah, homophobia. That's a terrible punch line.
15:39
Speaker 1: That's not funny at all. Actually, uh. Because of the
15:41
Speaker 1: protests in response to the ads were eventually pulled. But
15:46
Speaker 1: it was, um a good example. Not and I say good,
15:50
Speaker 1: I mean it was a depressing example of how it's
15:56
Speaker 1: it's the type of homophobia that we don't necessarily think about.
16:00
Speaker 1: Like when we first started doing, you know, looking into
16:02
Speaker 1: stuff for podcasts on public displays of affection, I just thought,
16:06
Speaker 1: we're going to find some psychological studies, how do you feel?
16:09
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, this whole LGBT angle of
16:12
Speaker 1: it opens up to where it's a completely different side
16:15
Speaker 1: that you and I don't think about. You know, we're
16:17
Speaker 1: two like straight women walking around, you know, and if
16:20
Speaker 1: we we have the privilege of if we want to,
16:24
Speaker 1: you know, kiss our dude or whatever real fast, then
16:27
Speaker 1: no one's probably gonna bat an eyelash about it. But
16:30
Speaker 1: it is much different we've learned, especially for men who
16:35
Speaker 1: are in relationships with each other. Yeah. Christopher Records over
16:39
Speaker 1: at Salon in July wrote a column about how it's
16:43
Speaker 1: a tight rope act basically, and he talks about the
16:45
Speaker 1: stress of having to check one's surroundings before even holding hands.
16:50
Speaker 1: He calls it instinctive profiling, basically that he is he
16:53
Speaker 1: feels forced to do when he goes into a public space.
16:56
Speaker 1: And he writes that like a lot of same sex couples,
16:58
Speaker 1: we know where to touch where not to touch, as
17:01
Speaker 1: far as you know, going into one bar or store
17:04
Speaker 1: or public place versus another. And he writes that safety
17:08
Speaker 1: carries with it issues of race, age, gender, and class,
17:12
Speaker 1: that he and his boyfriend feel safest to quote freely
17:15
Speaker 1: act like a normal couple in places that tend to
17:18
Speaker 1: be wider, younger, less male, more liberal, and generally more
17:22
Speaker 1: gentrified than others. And like Kristen said, I mean, this
17:25
Speaker 1: is not necessarily like I don't like p D A,
17:28
Speaker 1: but I also don't always have to consider where I
17:31
Speaker 1: am if I'm expressing affection. Yeah, there's typically not a
17:36
Speaker 1: risk of violence or harassment if you express p d A. UM,
17:42
Speaker 1: And this was something that I mean, speaking as well
17:45
Speaker 1: to what Christopher Records in that Salon article was talking
17:48
Speaker 1: about in terms of where and how they feel safe. UM.
17:51
Speaker 1: Clarence Patton, who was a spokesperson for New York City's
17:55
Speaker 1: Gain Lesbian Anti Violence Project told The New York Times
17:58
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, and this was in response to
18:01
Speaker 1: that Snicker Super Bowl commercial. He said that, um, gay
18:04
Speaker 1: people aren't threatening if they quote play a very tightly
18:08
Speaker 1: scripted and choreographer role in society, putting your wedding together
18:11
Speaker 1: or what have you. It's then more once they cross
18:15
Speaker 1: out of those things and actually begin, you know, behave
18:17
Speaker 1: just like you and me, just like you know everyday
18:20
Speaker 1: couples on the street, that, um, the risk increases. Now
18:24
Speaker 1: that was in two thousand seven. Um, and hopefully, even
18:28
Speaker 1: though it's only been you know, five six years, things
18:31
Speaker 1: have gotten better. UM. Catherine M. Frank, who's a lesbian
18:34
Speaker 1: Columbia University professor, also told The New York Times that
18:39
Speaker 1: in the past five years she had observed things getting
18:43
Speaker 1: better in terms of her girlfriend her actually getting smiles
18:46
Speaker 1: from straight couples and uh, you know, gay allies wanting
18:49
Speaker 1: to congratulate their love and rather than looking at askance
18:53
Speaker 1: at them. And it's that whole you know, time marching on,
18:57
Speaker 1: people getting used to seeing things that weren't used to
19:00
Speaker 1: seeing before that. Jesse Burling talks about in his piece
19:04
Speaker 1: for Scientific American in June two thousand nine. He's a
19:07
Speaker 1: research psychologist, and he says that while the issue of
19:10
Speaker 1: gay marriage is very important, the issue of gay people
19:14
Speaker 1: feeling comfortable to express p d A is so important
19:18
Speaker 1: also because it's not just like a social attitude of like,
19:22
Speaker 1: oh no, it's I'm totally cool with gay people kissing
19:24
Speaker 1: in public, because, as we just mentioned, you know, people
19:27
Speaker 1: are not necessarily as comfortable with that as they say
19:30
Speaker 1: they are. UM. He's saying that it is so important
19:33
Speaker 1: to change negative attitudes towards gay people, and that begins
19:38
Speaker 1: with exposing people out in the world to more regular
19:44
Speaker 1: same sex romantic behavior. Yeah, and bearing is gay as well.
19:48
Speaker 1: And he started off that Scientific American article talking about
19:52
Speaker 1: being abroad with his boyfriend and kind of feeling, you know,
19:55
Speaker 1: negotiating the same the spaces public spaces in the same
19:59
Speaker 1: way that Christopher Records was talking about over at Salon
20:02
Speaker 1: of you know, testing the waters of okay, is it
20:05
Speaker 1: is it? Are we getting stairs? If I hold your hand,
20:08
Speaker 1: is it gonna be okay? If I touch your leg?
20:11
Speaker 1: Just basic things like that, And then he goes into
20:14
Speaker 1: talking about UM discussed sensitivity and intuitive disapproval disapproval UM
20:22
Speaker 1: and basically kind of how researchers have tried to figure
20:26
Speaker 1: out the ways that we might be subconsciously repulsed by things.
20:34
Speaker 1: So this study that we're talking about and that bearing
20:37
Speaker 1: mentions in his article was sort of to to test
20:40
Speaker 1: people's attitudes toward gay p d A. And the first
20:45
Speaker 1: part of the study was based on previous research that
20:48
Speaker 1: people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional
20:52
Speaker 1: when they see it as morally wrong, and that is
20:55
Speaker 1: known as the Nobe effect that was named for Yale
20:58
Speaker 1: philosopher Joshua Nobe. Yeah, And in that philosopher dudes explanation, um,
21:07
Speaker 1: it was basically the idea of okay, so you have
21:09
Speaker 1: a CEO of a company and the company slash CEO
21:14
Speaker 1: takes an action that affects the environment, And basically people
21:18
Speaker 1: assumed that if the action had the side effect of
21:21
Speaker 1: something positive for the environment, that it was unintentional. But
21:25
Speaker 1: if the action that the company took had a negative
21:28
Speaker 1: effect on the environment, people in the study interpreted that
21:31
Speaker 1: as intentional. So the negative, the disgusting was viewed as intentional,
21:37
Speaker 1: the morally right, the positive, the yea, you help the
21:40
Speaker 1: environment was viewed as unintentional. So in this case with
21:45
Speaker 1: the Harvard study that was published in two thousand nine.
21:48
Speaker 1: What they did to sort of remodel that Nobe effect
21:52
Speaker 1: was creates scenarios where a director had created a music
21:58
Speaker 1: video whose side of cause game into french kiss publicly,
22:05
Speaker 1: or there was so there was that scenery, and then
22:08
Speaker 1: there was one where it just caused, like, you know,
22:10
Speaker 1: anybody to start making out, right, And so they found
22:16
Speaker 1: that the more discussed sensitive the participants were, according to
22:19
Speaker 1: this discussed sensitivity scale, So the more discussed sensitive they were,
22:23
Speaker 1: the more likely they were to say that the director
22:26
Speaker 1: whose music video had the side effect of causing game
22:29
Speaker 1: into french kiss intentionally encouraged them to do that, whereas
22:34
Speaker 1: if a male female couple a man and a woman
22:37
Speaker 1: saw the music video and kissed, that would be like, oh, well,
22:40
Speaker 1: that's just an unintentional side effect of seeing a sexy
22:42
Speaker 1: music video, right, And what they inferred from all of
22:46
Speaker 1: this was that there was an implicit association really based
22:50
Speaker 1: on that that was mediated by their discuss sensitivity and
22:54
Speaker 1: that discussed sensitivity scale. For instance, judges you know, or
22:59
Speaker 1: a value awaits how gross all you are by things
23:02
Speaker 1: like rotting meat corpses bodily fluids, etcetera. And um, those
23:08
Speaker 1: people who were more discussed sensitive seem to show more
23:12
Speaker 1: unfavorable automatic associations with gay people as opposed to heterosexuals.
23:18
Speaker 1: And this might not this wasn't outright homophobia, because these
23:21
Speaker 1: same people were saying, you know, oh, no, I don't
23:25
Speaker 1: have anything, you know more, I don't see a problem
23:28
Speaker 1: with a gay couples making out. But then when you
23:30
Speaker 1: start to test those implicit associations, things do change a
23:35
Speaker 1: little bit. But the good news that Bearing points out
23:39
Speaker 1: in that Scientific American article is that you can still
23:42
Speaker 1: change those implicit associations through exposure. Right. And Hugo Schweiser,
23:49
Speaker 1: who's an author and gender studies professor, takes us a
23:52
Speaker 1: step further in his column on the topic about p
23:56
Speaker 1: d A. He says that he was telling his students
23:59
Speaker 1: that they're is a total political side to sexual behavior
24:03
Speaker 1: instead of just like you gross as people are making
24:05
Speaker 1: out or oh it isn't that cute? Those people are
24:07
Speaker 1: making out the idea of upsetting people to to put
24:12
Speaker 1: something in their face so that they eventually get used
24:14
Speaker 1: to it. He says, sometimes, I argued, offending others is
24:17
Speaker 1: desirable and necessary because the prejudices that undergird the sense
24:21
Speaker 1: of being offended need to be uprooted. Yeah, I mean
24:25
Speaker 1: think about it, and it makes complete and total sense.
24:27
Speaker 1: Like you do, you do need exposure to things sometimes
24:30
Speaker 1: to break down those prejudices. I mean, think about just
24:34
Speaker 1: like the first thing that pops into my mind is
24:36
Speaker 1: racial desegregation. You know when we talked about the Arkansas nine,
24:41
Speaker 1: like going into the school to desegregate. You have to
24:43
Speaker 1: have exposure at some point to start breaking down those barriers. Yeah,
24:49
Speaker 1: Because even if you don't think something is outright gross,
24:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you still might not be used to it.
24:54
Speaker 1: So the more that people are exposed to something, the
24:57
Speaker 1: more they are used to it and don't think it's absurd. Right.
25:00
Speaker 1: And speaking of race, is actually does tie in pretty
25:03
Speaker 1: well to pd A because it's not just the LGBT
25:07
Speaker 1: community that has to sometimes walk more of a tight
25:10
Speaker 1: rope when it comes to p A. Um, inter racial
25:13
Speaker 1: couple studies have shown are also less likely to show
25:18
Speaker 1: p d A in public. Is that redundant? Show PDA
25:21
Speaker 1: in public too? Well? I mean I guess you could
25:24
Speaker 1: have pd A in your house in front of a
25:26
Speaker 1: large wind at a party. Yeah. Um, Hugo Schweizer also
25:30
Speaker 1: chimes in on this one um. He says that hate
25:33
Speaker 1: often hides behind propriety. So people who are arguing like, well, no,
25:37
Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me that a white man and a
25:39
Speaker 1: black woman are married or dating. No, that doesn't bother me.
25:41
Speaker 1: It's just p d A grosses me out. Well, so
25:43
Speaker 1: that's kind of what he builds off of when he's
25:46
Speaker 1: talking about an experience he had with his first wife,
25:49
Speaker 1: who was Asian American, and they're walking through Chinatown with
25:52
Speaker 1: each other and holding hands, getting a lot of basically
25:56
Speaker 1: angry stairs. He drops her hand and she asked him
25:59
Speaker 1: angrily why he did that, and she says, they need
26:03
Speaker 1: to be offended. We aren't doing anything the same race
26:06
Speaker 1: couple wouldn't do. And so he says that part of
26:10
Speaker 1: me being a discerning adult is doing what Alyssa asked
26:13
Speaker 1: me to do nearly twenty five years ago. Distinguished between
26:16
Speaker 1: a generalized discomfort with p d A and a far
26:19
Speaker 1: uglier hostility towards affection that violates racial or gender norms.
26:25
Speaker 1: One is worth respecting, the other isn't right, I mean,
26:28
Speaker 1: and and the sad fact is there as reflected again,
26:31
Speaker 1: I know I keep going back to it in that
26:33
Speaker 1: Salona say that there there is still a risk of
26:37
Speaker 1: violence for people. Um, but I guess the only thing
26:42
Speaker 1: that we can hope because you know, at first, PDA
26:45
Speaker 1: might seem like such such a frilly, fluffy little topic,
26:49
Speaker 1: but it is. It gets to the heart of so
26:52
Speaker 1: many things of what we are comfortable with and what
26:53
Speaker 1: we aren't, and you know, questions of why on earth
26:57
Speaker 1: is that? What kind of prejudice is still out there,
27:01
Speaker 1: just in terms of you know, doing like a flinch
27:03
Speaker 1: test of of seeing something then you know, if it
27:06
Speaker 1: bothers you, why doesn't bother you so much? Yeah, it
27:09
Speaker 1: might not be so much the problem of the people
27:12
Speaker 1: who were expressing affection. It might be more year problem.
27:15
Speaker 1: Although honestly, seriously, the couple who was making out next
27:19
Speaker 1: to me in the restaurant, come on, what do you well,
27:21
Speaker 1: let's take a moment, Carolin, what do you think it
27:24
Speaker 1: was that was so close to me? Oh? It was.
27:29
Speaker 1: I think it was more proximity. And I couldn't like,
27:32
Speaker 1: it's wondering if you're kissing your significant other and I
27:34
Speaker 1: can like turn away and not watch you suck their face.
27:38
Speaker 1: But I they were so close to us. Yeah, yeah,
27:41
Speaker 1: I think that the proximity thing makes a lot of sense.
27:45
Speaker 1: And the guy's legs were really long and the girl
27:47
Speaker 1: was really tiny and so he had his legs like
27:49
Speaker 1: on either side of Well, there are I do think
27:52
Speaker 1: there are some. There are some basic pd A guidelines,
27:56
Speaker 1: you know. There this comes up in a lot of
28:00
Speaker 1: etiquette discourse. You know, Judith, Miss Manners Martin, for instance,
28:05
Speaker 1: would say that being overly affection is just childish and
28:08
Speaker 1: silly and not very considerate of others, to which I say,
28:12
Speaker 1: he's up, miss Manners, and and that's Miss Manners to
28:16
Speaker 1: you while I'm at it. Yeah, I mean there there
28:19
Speaker 1: are degrees. There are degrees. She says that, you know,
28:22
Speaker 1: p d A is okay in a greeting or as
28:25
Speaker 1: part of a celebration, but it's not okay, And I
28:27
Speaker 1: agree with her, it's not okay when people are in
28:30
Speaker 1: a stage of love making. I'm sorry, call me a
28:32
Speaker 1: proud Christine Conger, do it? I dare you groping? Yeah? Grow,
28:36
Speaker 1: I feel like my my line starts to come with groping.
28:39
Speaker 1: You know. But there is that thing. I think maybe
28:41
Speaker 1: p d A is so frustrating because there is that
28:44
Speaker 1: I can't look away factor. You know you want to
28:48
Speaker 1: look away. You can't look away, and it's not because
28:51
Speaker 1: you are enjoying it, but just because it's it is there,
28:58
Speaker 1: and it is somewhat shocking to our lingering Victorian era sensibility.
29:05
Speaker 1: If there's one thing that people have called me, it's
29:08
Speaker 1: a Victorian prude. Well, dear roommate, my my dead roommate
29:11
Speaker 1: has one piece of advice for people who are really
29:14
Speaker 1: put off by over the top p DA go home.
29:20
Speaker 1: He says that you should just stare at them really
29:21
Speaker 1: hard until they finally notice you. And he goes, no,
29:25
Speaker 1: no, no no, just keep going. It's fine, I'm just watching,
29:27
Speaker 1: and that will discourage people expressing p d A. I
29:31
Speaker 1: just got creeped out, dude, roommate. Everyone, Uh well, how
29:35
Speaker 1: about one one final finding. This is sort of an
29:39
Speaker 1: outlier from our research. This was actually one of the
29:41
Speaker 1: only studies correlation causation, I will say, but one of
29:46
Speaker 1: the only studies we could find on on possible backgrounds
29:50
Speaker 1: for people's level of comfort, which is generalized p d A.
29:54
Speaker 1: And it's just coming from the Journal of Divorce and
29:56
Speaker 1: Remarriage published in two thousand and ten, and it linked
30:00
Speaker 1: rental divorce with feelings of discomfort with witnessing PDA. Yeah,
30:06
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder, I wonder how accurate that is.
30:10
Speaker 1: But they did a study and they found that there
30:13
Speaker 1: was a definite change in cardiac activity. Women from divorced
30:17
Speaker 1: homes reported more discomfort than women from intact homes with
30:21
Speaker 1: pd A, but they also had a hire cardiac response
30:24
Speaker 1: to it. So I'm is that so much the divorce
30:28
Speaker 1: or I mean, there's so many other things you could
30:30
Speaker 1: take ano because I mean my parents are still married. Yeah,
30:34
Speaker 1: I mean, you know where I stand on this. I
30:37
Speaker 1: couldn't have anything to do with my mother, who when
30:39
Speaker 1: I called her earlier and she was on pain pills
30:41
Speaker 1: from a minor medical procedure she had, was like, you
30:43
Speaker 1: should have had me on your video to talk about
30:46
Speaker 1: p d A because that's gross. So I don't know,
30:50
Speaker 1: maybe it's generational. I don't know. Maybe she passed it
30:52
Speaker 1: down to me gross. Maybe you should take over for
30:57
Speaker 1: Judith Martin for the mis manners. I don't know if
30:59
Speaker 1: I'm mom has enough manner um. Well, I think I
31:04
Speaker 1: think that about covers it with p d A, do you.
31:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I've done all this complaining where do I care, Um,
31:12
Speaker 1: if you bring up a good point about proximity, I don't.
31:14
Speaker 1: I don't want to be able to hear any any
31:16
Speaker 1: mouth sounds. I don't love saying it, you know. I
31:22
Speaker 1: I was actually out at a bar a couple of
31:24
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and on the opposite side of the patio
31:30
Speaker 1: there was a couple just just really getting to know
31:33
Speaker 1: each other very well, and my my friends and I
31:37
Speaker 1: like pointed and kind of laughed, um, and then I
31:40
Speaker 1: went because I got turning around, and it was you know,
31:43
Speaker 1: I don't like to do it. I mean sometimes though,
31:46
Speaker 1: like I I can't. I can't be horrified by it
31:51
Speaker 1: because I do engage sometimes. Sure not I try. I hope.
31:56
Speaker 1: I hope not to h an uncomfortable extent. Well, pretty
32:01
Speaker 1: last last night, keeping in mind that I was going
32:04
Speaker 1: to come record this episode, I tried not to be
32:07
Speaker 1: too judgmental because it wasn't it was the p d A,
32:11
Speaker 1: that's not outside issue they were. I got into my
32:14
Speaker 1: car after leaving the grocery store and there was a couple,
32:17
Speaker 1: I mean her seat, her seat was reclined, and she
32:21
Speaker 1: was yeah. I was like, no, no, no, I'm saying no,
32:23
Speaker 1: I'm no, no, no no, I'm defending the couple on Yeah, technically,
32:28
Speaker 1: I mean I tried not to be judgmental, remembering what
32:31
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about today. Well that's good, Caroline,
32:35
Speaker 1: you you know that's that's good. I grimaced to myself
32:39
Speaker 1: and then put it out of my mind, just turned
32:42
Speaker 1: that NPR up and kept driving. My stereo is broken.
32:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, so to speak, Well, um, I hope we
32:49
Speaker 1: get lots of stories about p d A, p p
32:52
Speaker 1: d A or nay is it okay to p d
32:55
Speaker 1: A as the title of this episode asked, because I
32:57
Speaker 1: do want to hear from listeners out there, because I
33:01
Speaker 1: feel like it's one of those there there's no like
33:04
Speaker 1: middling ground when it comes to p d A. That's
33:07
Speaker 1: what's so fascinating about. You either hate it or you
33:10
Speaker 1: are doing stuff in your car next to Caroline. Oh,
33:14
Speaker 1: come on next to me in traffic. Traffic. Uh So
33:21
Speaker 1: send us your thoughts and the happy Valentine's Day. Even
33:24
Speaker 1: you probably hate Valentine's Day, you know there's a chance,
33:28
Speaker 1: but either way, I hope you have a good a
33:31
Speaker 1: good February fourteen, you know, so email us mom stuff
33:36
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. And here's one from Kiley. She says,
33:44
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed your interview with Emily Matcher, and I
33:47
Speaker 1: planned to read her book, Emily Matcher. F y, I
33:50
Speaker 1: that's the new Demistice steep blogger that we interviewed. Keili
33:54
Speaker 1: goes on to say, I'm a thirty one year old
33:55
Speaker 1: female PhD student in the biological sciences, and I definitely
33:59
Speaker 1: find myself drawn to some of the activities that you
34:01
Speaker 1: talked about with Emily, knitting, sewing, gardening, cooking things from scratch.
34:06
Speaker 1: I think for me, part of it is that my
34:07
Speaker 1: research is relatively long term in nature, and it can
34:10
Speaker 1: be very frustrating and disheartening when something I have poured
34:12
Speaker 1: days or weeks into simply doesn't work. On the other hand,
34:16
Speaker 1: if I decide to make muffins, forty minutes later, I
34:19
Speaker 1: have muffins, and usually they are at least edible and
34:21
Speaker 1: sometimes quite delicious. It's a quick return on investment. I
34:25
Speaker 1: also wonder about the role of the economic downturn in
34:28
Speaker 1: this phenomenon. Some of these activities really are ways of
34:31
Speaker 1: being frugal, i e. Making a gourmy meal instead of
34:33
Speaker 1: eating at a really nice restaurant. I think in general,
34:36
Speaker 1: my peer group is trying to temper the consumerism that
34:39
Speaker 1: we grew up with and not be terrible to the
34:41
Speaker 1: environment and make things of high quality that will last
34:43
Speaker 1: for a long time. Those, I think are some of
34:47
Speaker 1: my motivations. So thank you, Keiley. And I've got one
34:51
Speaker 1: here from Wendy and it's in response to our episode
34:54
Speaker 1: on fitness fads, but it has more to do with
34:58
Speaker 1: electrical muscle stimula issue that we touched on in that episode.
35:02
Speaker 1: So she talks about when she was a kid in
35:04
Speaker 1: the eighties, she use electrical muscle stimulation during physical therapy
35:07
Speaker 1: because she broke her left leg in several places and
35:10
Speaker 1: couldn't walk for almost a year. So here's what happened.
35:13
Speaker 1: My physical therapy was basically learning to walk again. At
35:16
Speaker 1: the end of all my workouts, the physical therapist would
35:19
Speaker 1: mistakenly leave me, a sixth grader on the table with
35:22
Speaker 1: the E M S knobs within reach. I would turn
35:24
Speaker 1: the electrical current as high as I could. Once they
35:27
Speaker 1: walked away, I would lay back down and watch as
35:30
Speaker 1: my leg jumped up and down on the table to
35:32
Speaker 1: the horror of the others on tables and the staff.
35:36
Speaker 1: I couldn't feel the current, but it was so much
35:38
Speaker 1: fun to watch my leg bounce. I loved it when
35:41
Speaker 1: others freaked out. They had to tell me every single
35:43
Speaker 1: time to stop, and they also told my mom. The
35:46
Speaker 1: steff eventually stopped leaving me alone during this part of
35:49
Speaker 1: the therapy because let's be honest, would you leave a
35:51
Speaker 1: sixth grader alone with machine like that. I'm happy to
35:54
Speaker 1: say all the therapy worked and I can walk without
35:56
Speaker 1: any sign of injury, which are the small miracles. Since
35:59
Speaker 1: my leg broke and about seven spots, although it's hard
36:01
Speaker 1: to tell how many hairline brakes were sustained around my
36:03
Speaker 1: knee joints. It took me about ten years to get
36:06
Speaker 1: back on a road bike, but I'm glad I did.
36:10
Speaker 1: And thank you Wendy for that very bizarre image of
36:14
Speaker 1: us child with a crazy leg. Uh well, you know,
36:17
Speaker 1: being electrically stimulated, not broken. That would just be sad anyway.
36:22
Speaker 1: So if you have a letter to write us, mom
36:24
Speaker 1: Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can send it,
36:27
Speaker 1: And if you would like to give us a Valentine's
36:29
Speaker 1: Day present, it would be going on to Facebook right
36:31
Speaker 1: now and liking us and following us on Twitter at
36:34
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast and following us on Tumbler stuff Mo'm
36:37
Speaker 1: never told you dot tumbler dot com. And if you
36:42
Speaker 1: are not feeling so lovey douby and you want to
36:44
Speaker 1: know how breakups work, you can read about it. It's
36:47
Speaker 1: at our website how stuff works dot com for more
36:53
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
36:56
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com