DOD160: Is the Way We Teach Consent Bad for Self-Esteem?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that fully consents, but only for its patrons. I'm Tom Curry, and I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen. Ha

0:00:40 Eli: Oh, we shouldn't have added that tier where they get to fuck us if they want to. Now that I think about it, that was a poor choice for us.

0:00:44 Thomas: Think we should have made it lower

0:00:49 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really? I thought $26 was pretty low, Thomas. I got to admit. I don't know.

0:00:49 Tom: Ha!

0:00:54 Thomas: It's most I've ever made for it. I

0:00:56 Eli: That's fair. That's Fair.

0:00:56 Tom: That's true!

0:00:58 Thomas: Don't know, check your privilege, but, uh, yeah Yeah. Feeling pretty good right now.

0:01:00 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, this usually an outgoing, not incoming line item, you know, on my on my balance sheet. So.

0:01:06 Thomas: I'm

0:01:05 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, guys, do you know the only thing worse than, uh, truly hundreds of people who said they're going to use our holes like the dirt bugs they are, their words, not mine? Why, it's the auto ads. The auto ads, the 26 dollars of getting having sexed with of the podcast world. But you can make those go away over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads. Work for as little as a dollar. You get a bonus episode every month, you get an extended commercial-free version of every show when Tom feels like it, and you can get all of it for as little as a buck over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads. Rip into it. I take my kid to the doctors on days that aren't Mondays.

0:01:51 Tom: Right. All I was taking my kid to the doctor last time. It's a dad thing. All

0:01:58 Eli: Tom, that's all I'm saying, 'cause I love our audience.

0:01:58 Tom: Right. Well, God damn it. That's fucking accurate.

0:02:02 Thomas: One tell Eli, that rip into it did not make an appearance in the previous episode. I don't know. No.

0:02:08 Eli: I Literally just went rip Rip into. Oh,

0:02:09 Thomas: In the previously

0:02:03 Tom: Oh,

0:02:09 Eli: The last What? What? Then

0:02:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:11 Tom: Yeah. Right. Well, no, that was on me, though. Yeah, that wasn't me. Me.

0:02:13 Thomas: We forgot, and I had a second chance to do it, but I totally forgot too, and ever

0:02:17 Eli: We're not doing it ever again. It's over. Rip into It is dead, everybody. No.

0:02:18 Thomas: Yeah. Is it, it over? No. No, it's all gone. I'll edit it now. I now I used to hate it, and now I just don't want it to be

0:02:21 Tom: No.

0:02:21 Eli: No. All the merch throw the merchant don't know what you got until it's gone.

0:02:26 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, Yeah, pay

0:02:31 Tom: So quick, before we jump any further in, I do want to address, we got a lot of really good feedback after the last episode on ARFID. And I realized after I was listening to it that I didn't mention enough, and I want to make sure I give him credit, the work that Donovan was doing on it. Cause he did a lot of it on his own. He's actually, working he's with a talk therapist on some of those food issues. I didn't give him credit for that. And I want to make sure I do that. So he's not sort of left out of that conversation.

And then there's a really cool, and I'll post it in the, in the dad's group on Facebook, but there was a really cool TikTok playlist that was actually super helpful that Haley found of somebody who was, like, in their, their early 20s and had eaten nothing their whole life but chicken nuggets and was going on with the help of his very supportive girlfriend, was, was working through some of those food issues on his own. So I know there was a lot of feedback on it, so I'll actually find that TikTok playlist, in the sense that I think Hayley already put it somewhere, and I'll pin it to the, uh, Facebook, Facebook, so people can find that if they had, if they had issues there. So, so, right, so I, I wanted to, to talk about something occurred to me this week because just seems like something that I'm seeing.

I see this online. I've seen this reflected in of our household and in our personal lives. And I was just kind of reflecting on this idea of the language that we use for boys boys around consent. And I know that we've kind of shifted the language culturally from straight consent to enthusiastic positive consent. I think that that's great. I'm very supportive of that shift. To sort of muse on the word itself on consent. Then also thinking about about the way that we talk more with boys about getting consent. And we talk a lot with girls about giving consent and

0:02:41 Thomas: Yeah. You

0:04:26 Eli: Right. It

0:04:27 Tom: How that language, I think, is, is some people is really creating a kind of toxic idea that boys ask permission to do things to girls, rather than this idea that, like, should be involved in a mutually reciprocal positive physical exchange. And seen this reflected in a number of spaces, in a member of places where there's this kind of idea, I think, that really spawned from some of that permission-based language, where, like, some boys and men believe or have cause to believe, I think from the language that we use both for men and women, that, like, is something they're asking to do to someone and that that person doesn't necessarily want to do that also, right? That this is something that they get permission to do rather than this is somebody who wants me and I get to be wanted also. Yeah.

0:05:23 Eli: It frames consent as a thing you want that another person doesn't want, but here's the way to get it with the least friction possible, right?

0:05:35 Tom: Man, yeah. You, you know what I've seen too that is reinforcing of this idea, and I know that there's a lot that's kind of hidden in the background to it, but, like, have I'm sure you've seen, like, the TikToks and other memes and stuff that goes out there about, like, some guy, like, doing the laundry at home and being like, nothing sexier than doing some chores, or, like, you away the dishes, and it's like this idea that, like, if I perform these actions that are not in any way related to romance, love, sex, physicality, sexuality, but if I perform these ideas, somebody's gonna let me fuck them.

There's a message there. I know there's other messages too about, like, doing your fair share and creating a space for you guys to then have intimacy that isn't all you putting know the work on women. I totally get that, and I respect that, but I also think that there's that there is a lot of, like, really unpleasant permission-based language that flows in this one direction. I think, like, a lot, lot of men feel like women will allow them to be fucked or to be to have

0:06:11 Eli: Yeah. Exactly.

0:06:39 Tom: Sex with them, right? Like, and that's gross.

0:06:39 Eli: When you frame sex as a reward, right? You make it is a thing that one person doesn't want to give that the other person wants, right, but that they will consent to for reasons other than sex. It's, it's a non-mutualistic speaking about sex. And what's interesting is when you talk about this stuff, it's very sort of hazy where this problem comes from, but it's actually really obvious, which is that because men have controlled the narrative around sex for so long, even as we started to have a better conversation around consent, because men were in charge of it, the initial conversation about consent came from men to two other men under the presumption that rape is a thing that happens when men don't listen to women, right? So because we created, right, it's the sort of same idea as stranger rape, right? Which is largely a construction of men, right. That is a fantasy of men about a thing they view as property, right. A stranger will come and take away my property, right.

And so we've had, you know, years and years and decades and decades of moral panic around this idea of stranger rape when it is wildly, wildly uncommon, and we at the same time had decades and decades of knowing your rapist and rape happening in between acquaintances or people in a relationship and happening because proper enthusiastic informed consent didn't happen. But because men are in control of that narrative, and that narrative is always going to be what is least inconvenient for men and requires the least amount of self-reflection, we created this idea that a thing that you're always going to have to ask for, right?

That you're always going have to beg for, and conversation about consent that we had, because it's easier, right? Because many of us though, way too few of us, right, but many of have not taken sex when a person said no, right.

Focusing the narrative on that, as opposed to informed, enthusiastic, mutualistic consent, right, which is the modern sort of understanding of what consent should and can be, right, have let ourselves off the hook but at the same time trapped ourselves in a dynamic that's deeply unhealthy. Oh,

0:06:41 Tom: Yes. Yes A

0:09:02 Thomas: Know, is there any chance that maybe this more comes from the, you, we've done to women through socialization? I'm just thinking, get this through because know, I almost I think it's more because of that. Like, to me, like, the main driver of this paradigm behavior, I guess, that we're talking about is that women need to be, like, demure and not, you know what I mean? And so, like

0:09:10 Eli: I think it affects women. I think it's true. Of both Yeah. Or

0:09:12 Tom: Hundred percent. Yeah. Well,

0:09:25 Eli: The Baby Cold Outside syndrome.

0:09:28 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and that that causes that this, this dynamic, because women aren't socially really permitted to often, you know, the enthusiastic initiator of sex. And, but, like, it's socially okay for men to be that. Like, it's totally socially okay. It's a completely normal thing in our society to think, like, oh yeah, the dude, the husband, the whatever, they're always driving at it all the time, and it's not so much, I think, acceptable socially for women to do that, and then that can't help but of sort create this dynamic in a way. I

0:09:38 Tom: Dude,

0:09:39 Eli: Yeah. Absolutely.

0:10:01 Eli: 100 That's

0:10:01 Tom: A thousand percent. It's a, it's that line that, like, hurts everyone, right? Like, it hurts women first, most, it hurts men also, like, comes out of this unscathed. I was just thinking about this in relation to, like, how boys specifically, because I happen to have some boys that are, you know, entering those sort of, like, 17, 18-year-old teen years where

0:10:22 Eli: A weird way to introduce your sons. I I happen to have some boy.

0:10:26 Thomas: Got these boys in the back of my truck, if anybody

0:10:26 Eli: Yeah, I was going to say, it sounds like you're going to walk me around to the back of a U-Haul and throw open the back and give me a great deal.

0:10:29 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I got some boys, I guess, if anyone needs them. Yeah. Oh,

0:10:37 Tom: They're they're needs them. Yeah, I'm gonna hire them out. Wait, no, that doesn't sound good. I meant for chores. So, like, I actually wrote down this joke that I heard. I was watching a reality show last night with my wife and there was a joke that somebody made. And there's some version of this joke that is incredibly pervasive and common and sort of the sort of thing that, like, not even a good joke, but it's so common we don't even hear it. Right. So some married couple was talking and this guy was, he made some joke about how, like, oh, like the deal didn't go go through, like he had a business deal, he's like, deal didn't go through, and the wife makes this joke, she's, "Oh no, paycheck night is a no sex night," and

0:10:38 Eli: Flash sale.

0:10:39 Thomas: God Jesus.

0:11:12 Tom: There's some version of that that you hear all the time, right?

0:11:16 Thomas: Fucking Christ, really.

0:11:17 Eli: Yeah.

0:11:18 Tom: If you, like, start looking for it, you'll find it all the time, where there is an idea that's like really become culturally embedded that sex for men is something women provide as, like, Eli was saying, as a reward because it's something that they don't actually want to do. Another joke from the same show was, like, this woman was getting a gift. She was given an expensive gift.

And the other woman jokes, she's like, oh my God, a gift like that, that's a blowjob every night kind of a gift. Some version of that joke is so pervasive and they happen all the time. And if you're a man listening to that cultural narrative, part of what becomes embedded in that narrative is women don't want to sleep with you.

They will if you can provide to them something that is not sex. Sex is something that women provide as a reward to men. You, it's not something that women also want to engage with mutually with men, and this cultural narrative, I think, really creates a dark fucking space for boys and for men, some of them who've internalized this idea to grow up into and to live with them.

And it's also like reflected, I think, very much in the kind of language that we provide when we're giving like into your point, Thomas, like we talk to girls about giving consent, making sure that they're they comfortable giving consent that they are not, you coerced into giving consent.

We don't do a whole lot of socially social, speaking, we don't do a lot of talking to girls about getting consent, because there's this idea of who is the gatekeeper of the thing that only one of the two parties actually wants.

0:13:03 Tom: And that's embedded in that language.

0:13:03 Eli: And about women's consent to sex as a thing of value, Don't right? Give it away. Don't get it. Don't put it up, right, chewed gum narrative,

0:13:11 Tom: Yes. Yeah. Buy the cow when you get the milk for free?

0:13:17 Eli: Right. Exactly. Right, you know, he's gonna say it he'll say anything to get this right we prepare women to be pursued. It also and it reminds me of something. There's a really really good writer. Oh, fuck, I'm forgetting her name. Ah, damn. There's a really good writer who writes about women waking up to desire in the kink scene specifically that I think is really great. And what it talks about is, like, because women are told and lectured in this manner that when they wake up to desire, shame is such an integral part of the experience that it's a big part of your early journey. And again, this to the kink scene. A, like, bunch of her early journey in kink was just recognizing that she didn't need to be ashamed for having sexual desire and for sex being the reward of her sexual desire, right? That she didn't have to hold it above someone's head, that sex could be a thing that she wanted and could be the reward unto itself.

0:13:18 Tom: Right?

0:14:16 Tom: And like, we That's of mutuality and way that women become stigmatized really creates a situation where I think, you know, I'll raise my hand and be kind of personal. Like this is an issue I wrestled with very much as young person, Right? Like, I fully believed that I wanted to have sex with women, but that was only going to be possible if I were all of these other things, none of which had anything to do with being sexually attractive, all of which has something to do with offering other things of value, which would sort of bridge that gap between what I thought of as my desire and what is sort of socially told to us as what is the thing you're going to do to make it reasonable, like, right? Like, Like, it's like no paycheck, no sex, right? Like, you nice know, gift, blowjobs.

These jokes are so pervasive that like if you internalize that, what you're learning as a young person, as a boy growing up and as a man growing, that growing up, what you're earning and internalizing is like not that you are mutually desired, not that desire like is something that's felt by women.

And again, women are socialized in this horrible system not to be allowed to express that, so we have these, like, circumspect crazy ways of talking about desire that, yes, on an individual basis can those things be broken down, sure, but, like, a social and socializing basis, the way that, like, we teach men to think about their own sexuality, desirability, attractiveness is to be like, yeah. Yeah. Someone will let me act upon them. And that's why I'm going to get consent or permission instead of gauge whether or not this is something we both want to enjoy together.

0:14:28 Eli: Oh, yeah, of course.

0:14:45 Eli: Absolutely.

0:16:08 Eli: And it's also why. So speaking back to that crazy book, No Nice Guy, which, again, ends super fucking crazy. But one of the good points he makes is, like, way too many men are having bad sex because the only framing they've ever had for sex is the minute you get permission, you take whatever you get. Right. Not about what you want. It's not about your needs are and your needs or are varied and wide, right? Sexually, men have as complex a need, but you're not taught that, right? You're taught that someone will give you permission, they will press the go button, and you will be happy with what you get in that moment. It, the right yes, is all you get when it comes to your own sexual desire. Exactly.

0:16:49 Tom: There's also like the reinforcement of the idea of a scarcity economy around sex. So like if are not allowed to express socially, are not aloud to express express their own desire in these sort of overt ways. And the expectation socially is that men chase and women are chased. Men ask permission and then act on permission given by women. There is a scarcity economy. And that means that like oftentimes men will feel like, okay, like I have to engage in a sexual act whenever it's offered because I don't know when the next offer or opportunity will arise, right? Because there's a scarcity of this, like, I mean, I hate to talk about it this way, but, like there's, a scarcity, of this like, desired commodity, when in fact, like are also a desired commodity. Right? Truth is so much different than that.

0:17:40 Thomas: Oh.

0:17:41 Eli: Yeah, yes.

0:17:42 Tom: Well, like the truth, is so, much different, than the way that we're socialized And like, on an individual couple's basis, I think these barriers can be broken down and understood and sort of discarded. But we don't exist outside that socialization. And so within that socialisation, in the broader context of how we grow up and what we internalise and how we think about ourselves, was just thinking so much like this language, this permissive, chase, opportunistic kind of language, like it enhances a whole bunch of shit that like is really toxic for men to have to grow up in and live in and feel about themselves

0:17:45 Eli: Absolutely.

0:18:22 Eli: Yeah, know when you look at it in comparison to healthy behaviors, right, like love, right? So our idea, I mean, they're not perfect because everything in society is not perfect, but like we have a pretty mutualistic idea of how love should work in society, right? We understand that like people should love each other and that they should show love in different ways.

And like, we all understand that, like the way you and your wife love each other is different than the way that Thomas and Lydia love each another is different from the way that Anna and I love each Other. And we would never expect our love, right, me and Anna's love to be identical point for point, beat for beat to each other's love. We understand that that's a deeply personal and individualistic with different wants and different needs.

And yet we tell men that their sex lives are going to be identical to all other men. And the jokes we make and the socializations that we reinforce are you are going to beg for sex. Occasionally she's going to say yes. You're going to have penetrative vaginal sex where you will come too quickly

0:19:26 Tom: Yeah.

0:19:26 Eli: Then you'll roll over and fall asleep, right, which is a crazy note. Right, imagine if I, if everyone, if was like, and the first time you write a love poem comparing her to a rose, you know she's gonna cry. Like if just if you knew that that was always supposed to be step one in every romantic relationship, imagine the havoc it would ravage on your mind if you weren't a person who wrote poems or weren't a person who liked poetry, right? And that's what we're doing, obviously, young women as well, but to young men, as sexist. We give them this expectation of this deeply unfulfilling, um, based relationship, right, that always makes it about sneakily taking a thing that the other person doesn't want. And ironically, right, even though the, like, meta narrative is supposed to be about permission, it encourages rape culture, right?

0:19:30 Tom: Right. Yes.

0:20:19 Eli: Because it make something like sex a scarcity or a thing that you have to get, if it's a goal that you have to sneak your way to or beg your way or earn your way, if the goal is getting sex, then people are going to socially dysfunction into taking sex when they shouldn't have it. Enforces. So this idea of rape culture where sex is the goal and you get it by any means necessary. Even when you you look at, like, shows that aren't too old but are definitely outdated, like, I think a lot about Barney and How I Met Your Mother. Did you guys ever

0:20:19 Tom: It does, yeah

0:20:52 Eli: Watch How I Met Your Mother

0:20:52 Thomas: My God You

0:20:52 Tom: I'm really curious how Barney's gonna enter into this Hey, Thomas, you want to have a little side conversation that that let's

0:20:54 Thomas: Meant Barney I was like, Jesus Christ. I never watched that show Yeah. Did

0:20:56 Eli: You guys never think about Barney the dinosaur and whether he was fucking those kids that dinosaur fucked those kids, why did they pay so close attention to him if he wasn't gonna fuck

0:21:01 Tom: Fucking that dinosaur Oh.

0:20:59 Thomas: That purple dinosaur Fuck. Someone Yeah. Yeah. But under the old consent model or the newer consent is that the problem like he was like, well, they didn't say no. Oh.

0:21:10 Eli: That's a great question Yeah, no. Right. Yeah, he never had the no song, right? But no, I'm I'm talking about Barney from How I Met Your Mother, right? Like, so if you watch old episodes of that show, Barney spends a tremendous amount of time tricking women into having sex with him. Which we now understand is non -consensual sex, It right. Might not be rape, right, but it's definitely not consensual. And that show is like 10 years old, right.

0:21:15 Tom: God. Right.

0:21:19 Thomas: God. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah.

0:21:40 Eli: Archie Bunker, right what I'm talking about like the reinforcement of rape culture, right? Is that we, there is not a person alive today who didn't grow up with that zeitgeist of rape, culture feeding them both from the male and female side. And so I guess what I'm interested in, Tom, especially because you do have boys of this age, and like, they done such a good job as a dad that they are asking you those questions and you are having those conversations, or you can have them on your blog and then send the malink or whatever. How do we have those conversations in a way that is healthy? And why is it letting me talk to your kids about the kink community on air

0:21:39 Thomas: It's not not that old, I'm

0:21:40 Tom: Right.

0:22:04 Tom: Have I really

0:22:18 Eli: As a bonus episode.

0:22:19 Thomas: Just gonna gonna have my kids watch Barney. I think it's the right. Yeah, jeez.

0:22:19 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:22 Tom: I I want to talk about that in just a second, but there's one other note that I made while you were talking that I think I don't want to lose, and that is, like, also this conversation, the way that we have this conversation socially, is also really fucking damaging to female pleasure, like, incredibly damaging to male pleasure because it way that we center, if we center the idea of sex as something I want and you want less than I want it, then, like, I know that I'm doing something to you you don't necessarily want to do unless I I meet these other non-sexually related preconditions, right? That's the sort of cultural narrative we're working against here. So how in the world can female pleasure be centered in that headspace? It it kind of can't, right? Like, so and when you look, there was just an article not that long ago that I read in the Times about, like, there's still an enormous orgasm gap between women and men. Like, women have far less orgasms.

It's not it's good. So like female pleasure is already decentered. But like if men are going into the sexual exchange with the idea that this is something you're giving to me or for me, that is not necessarily something that's like perfectly mutually reciprocal, that that would help to sort of explain part of that orgasm gap, that female pleasure gap.

0:22:36 Eli: Sure. Mm.

0:23:44 Tom: So, like, I just is bad for everybody in in different ways, but it's like really fucking bad for everybody. No

0:23:45 Eli: -hmm. Yeah. Well, and it also it miss conveys female desire, right? Like, I think of all the time about the Batman study. Do you guys know about about the Batman study? God

0:24:01 Thomas: What did that fucking guy do? I, what other childhood shows Barney

0:24:02 Eli: Yeah. That's

0:24:03 Tom: That utility belt has more in it than I would have thought. Huh. Just

0:24:06 Eli: It's just a bunch of Yeah.

0:24:06 Thomas: Did the Teletubbies rape anyone or what

0:24:08 Eli: So They, researchers, men were like, we want to find out what women think is sexy. So who do they think is the sexiest superhero, right? And these dudes were like, it's fucking Batman because he's got muscles and money. And of course the answer was Spider-Man, right? Women like Spider-Man the most, right? They They were the one that, like, of the pictures they showed and the illustrations, interactions.

0:24:09 Thomas: What's

0:24:30 Tom: The ones that want to be tied up, yeah.

0:24:32 Eli: Yeah, obviously very helpful for anyone who enjoyed rope play. Sticky, you know, works and the things. But, like that giant misconstrual of, like what women find desirable, right? Is built into it. And that's also a part of that culture that we send to young men, right, is like women are going to be turned on when you do clap pushups, as opposed to like women are going going to be turned on when you have a particularly

0:24:44 Tom: Yeah.

0:24:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:55 Thomas: It's like you know, like 10 pull -ups or something, you know, like For example. Like Maybe if I got To 12. Maybe

0:24:56 Eli: Right. Exactly. Yeah. When You Have Like A good conversation Or whatever the case may be, like that that desire doesn't evolve from having one's genitals referred to or touched. Yeah.

0:25:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:10 Tom: So You asked me, I want to get, so it's a good question. I like have just started thinking about this issue, and what I've realized is, like, the result for boys that have to deal with this and who have internalized this message, which, I just want to be clear, isn't all boys or men, right? Like, not everybody internalizes every social message the same way, but if you do internalize this message, there's an enormous, like, self-esteem gap that then has to be sort of made up, right, because and Worry I have with the boys specifically is that then also creates a big power differential in the relationship where the boy or the guy is like worried that he's with somebody that he wants something from that they don't necessarily want to give, that there's a constant sort of like cat and mouse chase here, and not in a fun, sexy way, but in a I don't necessary deserve to have this person unless Unless I continue to produce, provide, do all of these other sort of, you of fucking strength or whatever nonsense like we're sort of like culturally like to do.

There's a, there's really like a lot of like deep programming to a large degree that really has to be based on helping boys understand that girls also want them.

Them that maybe they can't and won't ever be able to articulate that in the same ways that maybe, like, they might not initiate sex because, like, there's a lot of shit that women are enculturated against doing, right? We can't ask them to do the work of fighting the fucking patriarchy for us, and that's where that stems from, as you noted. But, like, for boys, you've got to sort of be like, hey, hey, these are real things that exist and, like, real thoughts and real feelings, and, like, deprogram them out of that shit and help them build a healthy sense of their own, like, -esteem and, like, sexual self-esteem, right?

A dad, those are conversations that, if you have to have them, you just have to decide you're gonna be comfortable having. What are sort of awkward conversations, conversations where you're just going to be like, all right, we're going to have to talk about sex and attraction and, you know, reciprocity of affection and making sure that you're not in this sort of like constant chase underdog power position, so that you can evaluate whether something works for you rather than evaluating whether or not you deserve to have it in the first place.

A lot of work. Like what you have to do as a parent is swim upstream against however many years of, you know, these jokes that I was mentioning, that and these tropes and these memes and these, you, influencers and all the rest of it that reinforce that constant messaging. And you have to do it in a way that, like, exists within yourself, because nobody else socially is going to do that work with you. That's something that I am constantly, I over the last week, that I've been wrestling with.

Other than than just talking, like really talking and, you things like, well, what, what Have I done In the past to sort Of think through these things, which is to write down basic truths about myself, and then to reflect in and reread those things until they not only are true, but feel true. So to move things that I think are accurate into the space where they also feel accurate, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I've got a secret sauce for this.

0:25:37 Thomas: Man Think I I have much to offer here, because I I just think that I think we've talked about before, but if you're somebody with a high sex drive, you're just always in this anyway. Like, it almost doesn't even matter. Like, if you're someone whose sex drive is perhaps a little, uh, a little high, it's never a case other than I'm interested in sex and I have to kind of see if, if, uh, Lydia's feeling it too. That's, know, know, so I don't know. It just feels like it hard to not think in those terms, because not for any of the reasons that kind of you're talking about, even like t. I guess I don't even know how to think about what could be different about that or should be different about that in a way that's controllable. I

0:29:10 Eli: Think that's a conversation about mismatch sex drives, right, in partnerships, not, not projecting that onto you. You mentioned, mentioned Lydia just now, but I want to be very clear, I'm not talking about you, but I think that's a really important narrative that men don't get told about, right? Which is that, like, mismatched sex drives are a thing. They're not inherent to maleness or femaleness, right? They're about that particular partner and their sex drive and learning how to operate within the, um, of that relationship and that relationship sex drive, because I've had partners with way higher sex drives than me and I've had partners with way less sex drives than me, and it's about, like, that conversation. But I think if you are the high sex drive partner and you're male, society serves you that answer with so much shame and bullshit attached that you just accept that answer whole hog, is like, oh no, that is actually true, because it's what I'm experiencing, right?

0:30:07 Tom: Looking at this just the other day, it's the case that men have the higher sex drive in a relationship. It is often the the case, but it's not overwhelmingly the case. But

0:30:17 Eli: And that's. It's inseparable from socialization as well. So it's, it's.

0:30:20 Tom: But the narrative, the social narrative is that it is always the case the narrative is, that it has always the. That it is men who want and women who are wanted. And so when you have that narrative that's out there, then like, how are men supposed to think about the idea of also being wanted? We're not enforcing that notion.

0:30:21 Eli: Yeah.

0:30:42 Thomas: Mean there's some amount of nature we're fighting against, right? I mean, I don't think it's kind of silly to pretend otherwise. Like, there's some amount of base biology here that does create these differences on average. Like, so many examples, those fucking birds, birds have to do a dance routine to fucking get it. All they all do a dancer team to try to Earn the Female mate. I

0:31:00 Tom: Thomas feathering up a nest, like walking around with his feathers out behind him.

0:31:02 Thomas: Know, I Don't Know. I Have To do All that. It's hard. I've tried. How do you guys do it each time when your partners make you do the, the bird dance thing that you have, you don't have to. Okay, you're just not talking about out right now, but maybe I'm off mic. You can tell me, like, which moves You do. I'm

0:31:16 Eli: Yeah, no, I mean, look, the basic biology is definitely a factor of it for sure. Right. I think, I think base biology is the factor of, you know, a lot of behaviors that we have. But, you

0:31:34 Tom: Can you socialize yourself? That's an interesting idea, Eli. Can you sexualize yourself out of something when or do you have to like, is there ever a time you're not swimming upstream against enculturation like this?

0:31:45 Eli: An example of a socialization that I think you can unlearn or a biological need that you can be socialized out of that I think is a good example here is, like, eating meat, right? Or, you consuming animal products, right? So, like, it is absolutely, and I know there are vegans out there who lie and say that it's not natural to eat animal products, but it is. It is, you're supposed to.

0:32:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:06 Eli: That's what your body is meant to do is to digest animal products. But you can be socialized out of that behavior, right, I am fat and also have been socialized. It is not for lack of liking to eat things. Uh, I have been socialized out of that behavior. And similarly, I think we can sort of socialize ourselves into healthier ideas about sex rather than those sort of, uh, biological, uh

0:32:07 Thomas: Oh

0:32:33 Tom: Yeah. I will say this: I agree with you. Wonder how much of that work is ever fully put to bed, when is always like working with this sort of language model and this sort of comedic Model and This sort of Do You know What I mean Yeah.

0:32:45 Eli: Oh, I completely agree. I completely disagree. Yeah.

0:32:48 Tom: That's, I guess that's, that's the part that, like, I do, I also think about, is, like, and it's sort of fucking, like, god damn it, like, is there ever a time we can just be done with something Like, is it every time we could just, like, get fucked up by society or by the way that we're were enculturated and be like, well, I fixed that, and it's like, well, no, because you're In the soup, like you're just, oh, you can dry yourself off and get all the soup off of you, but you're jumping right back in as soon as you turn on, like, fucking TikTok or TV or whatever and continue to receive this messaging. Yes.

0:32:57 Eli: Hmm. Yeah, and Also think it's important to note that, like, we are the first generation having this conversation, because our generational conversation was stop raping people, right?

0:33:28 Tom: Which was the right conversation, right?

0:33:30 Eli: Was the, which was Needed And A necessary Conversation, right? We are always moving towards a more healthy

0:33:31 Tom: Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's Still a Really important conversation. Let's always have that conversation. Yeah.

0:33:36 Eli: Right. Yes, no, exactly. It's not over. It's Still Really Need to have a stop rape. There's not anywhere close to a little enough rape that we need to stop having that. But, like, the fact that, like, for us, right, and I've talked about, like, how struck by my father's progressiveness about consent was with me, right? No always meant no. And, you know, I, I think I've told this story on air before, right? Like, if you hear the word no, you get up, you walk across the room, right? That was a thing Dad struck, and early in me and Anna's relationship, I, like, leaned on her hair or something, and she said no or Ow, and I, like, got up and walked across the room.

She was like, what you doing, weirdo? And I was like, you said no. And I was informed that this is the Bad. This Over here is the safe place to be. I am hither now and you are thither, right? And Like that look, that's the conversation my dad had that was wildly more progressive than the conversation his dad had with him, right? I think his dad, like, flicked a rubber at him on the way out of the door at college and was like, trying not to knock up any broads.

0:34:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:21 Tom: Right.

0:34:42 Eli: Right, and so the conversation Yeah.

0:34:44 Tom: Also excellent advice though. Also

0:34:46 Eli: It's also fantastic advice. Yeah.

0:34:42 Thomas: I

0:34:47 Tom: Just excellent advice. Yeah, not mutually

0:34:49 Eli: Not music just like the raping conversation we can be having all the conversations, but like, I, I, I think it's also worth noting that like, a lot of the time, and I noticed this in myself, I noticed this especially around Me Too, when, like, the guys would gather to talk about Me Too. So, so it's funny because culture moves so fast, right? That Me Too feels forever, right? Me Too feels like a thing that we have just always lived in the post Me Too of, and there are good and bad sides to that. But like, I remember gathering with male friends who had never had conversations about affirmative informed consent before and sort of comparing notes to have that conversation, right? Right. And the, the problematic version that you had with your friends is they were like, right. And these were the Fox News representatives being like, so there's new rules for everything.

0:34:49 Tom: Exclusive. Yeah oh my god

0:35:40 Eli: Right. Oh, just out the blue. I can't. You know, I've got to approach with a flag that says I'd like to kiss my wife tonight. Right. And it just everyone told on themselves for being a rapist so hard that but the real conversation, the good conversation, right. That happened. And I know it happened with with, me and my close male friends are like, what are the rules? What do you understand the rules to be? Right.

0:35:41 Tom: Oh yeah

0:36:01 Thomas: Yeah. Well Yeah, I think that's where I'm struggling here because again, I mean, there's going to be some difference, even if not, set that aside, um, you're in a situation where, or in a, a relationship where there's a sex drive difference and on the higher end, you're always going to be in this dynamic somewhat. It just depends on the degree of it being something that is like you want and the other person might not necessarily want. And I think, I've been trying to think like how, I don't know how to relate to this conversation other than, I think maybe the answer is when we actually are honest about all this and we know what's going on, it's less of a thing you take personally, you know, we're open and honest about what's happening and about drive and, and it's more about, like, oh yeah, not, not right now, rather than, like, never, or this is something that is an aberration if, yeah.

0:36:51 Eli: Haven't earned it yet.

0:36:53 Thomas: Exactly. That Exactly. Like rather than, like, oh, guess I need to do more stuff to earn it. I didn't earn my rest. So I need. So I think maybe that's what it is. Why don't I don't like, yeah, it can be hard with a severe mismatch in drive. Like that's going to be hard. Much no matter what for both parties like that's always gonna be hard but like of something kind of catastrophic, it doesn't need to be as big of a deal as it seems to be, you know, know what I mean, exactly.

0:36:53 Eli: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I

0:36:54 Tom: Right right yeah well like when there's a mismatch in drive, like I was having this conversation the other day when there was a mismatched drive, been thinking about these issues just in general, but like when there is a mismatched drive, the person who wants sex less often, right? If they are having sex anyway, now they're having sex they don't want to have.

0:37:24 Eli: I wouldn't fucking Right.

0:37:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:42 Tom: And if you're the person, yeah, that is no good, right.

0:37:41 Eli: Exactly, and you know what we call that not cash money

0:37:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:47 Tom: That is no fucking good. And like, what I think that like, just to get back, like to the, to the sort of like beginning about like the, the emotional, like psychological component, what I think men want that is not being talked about is not that they want sex alone. Certainly everybody wants, or not everybody, because there's probably asexual people that are listening, but like Like, certainly Certainly what many people want is certainly sex. But what also people want, I think just as much, is not the sex act alone, but they want also to be wanted.

0:37:47 Eli: Maybe we're skeptical, skeptical, right?

0:38:24 Eli: Yeah

0:38:25 Tom: And the narrative that we've created for men and for boys neglects very much the idea that they too are wanted. So sex becomes something to do to someone rather than a way to feel also wanted and when we use this permission-based language, and these jokes and the rest of it, we continue to reinforce that idea. So then now you've got men who are having sex, but they don't necessarily have the emotional component of, like, having sex that they feel like, I'm sure in this moment I was wanted, I was also desired, because if we're using this idea of permission and consent as the basis for these conversations, that's not addressed in any way. And that seems like a really troubling emotional space to sort of shoehorn people into.

0:39:19 Eli: And if you project it onto any other part of the relationship, right? Like, so for example, imagine I'm leaving the house and I say I love you to Anna and she turns to Cameron and goes, fine, I guess you did the dishes, I love you too, and the laugh track plays, right? That's a poisonous ass message to send somebody. Right now, Tom, and maybe you can help me, because you're, you're so smart, Tom, I'm sure you'll figure this out if there's um if there is a mismatched sex drive between two partners, like, uh, if one person wants more sex than the other person, is there, like, anything you can think of that might correct that, like, in dynamic, like if I wanted a hamburger but my favorite hamburger restaurant is closed, can you think of, I'm

0:39:33 Thomas: Dear

0:39:34 Tom: Yes, you don't have to do that. I'll fuck you.

0:40:06 Thomas: Old

0:40:06 Eli: Just wondering if you have any ideas. You talk, not me. I have no idea. I'm out here on a limb, big dog, but I bet you could think of

0:40:14 Tom: Yeah, I know what you're alluding to. I know What you're Alluding to over there, Eli Bosnick. I know what you're alluding to

0:40:20 Eli: It's an episode that ends in Y so, you know, I gotta

0:40:22 Tom: Uh they all are, it turns out they all are oh

0:40:27 Thomas: Day, sorry

0:40:36 Eli: Gentlemen. Before we leave, what do you call an imaginary color? Pigment of your imagination.

0:40:44 Tom: I like that one, actually I

0:40:45 Thomas: That's good that's good, hey

0:40:50 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:41:30 Eli: Are going to beg for sex. Occasionally she's going to say yes. You're going to have penetrative vaginal sex where you will come too quickly, then you'll roll over and fall asleep, right trying not to knock up any broads, right, and they're going to use our holes like the dirt bugs they are, their, I want perverts to use my body, that sounds fucking it's

0:41:40 Tom: I'll fuck you.

0:41:52 Thomas: To grab every one of these clips for the after-credit thing, but nobody who's not a patron will know what they are. I'm torn, they

0:41:59 Eli: Not my spleen, I was using that, right? Great. You can't pee in the hole where Tom's butt was. Okay,