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April 26, 2015 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:12:24

2958 Eat. Sleep. Bad Decision. Repeat. | Breaking the Cycle - Call In Show - April 15th, 2015

Question 1: How you address the stereotyping and hyper-sexualization of female characters in popular culture - in particular kids' video games - with your daughter? Also includes an in depth discussion of out of wedlock child birth, bad relationship choices, divorce, child custody disputes and how to break repetitive cycles of dysfunction. |Question 2: Do you think that you can “pay it forward” to the next generation and make the world a better place without having children?

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	Freedom in Radio, and go!
	Up first today is Linda.
	Linda wrote in, and her question is, I'm interested to know how you address with your daughter the issue of stereotyping and hyper-sexualization of female characters in popular culture, in particular kids' video games, like Rayman, where the player can choose which character to play as.
	What do you say to her to counteract or explain why the limited female options are cookie-cutter versions of the same slutty damsel in distress while the male options are many varied, interesting, and not sexualized at all?
	Hello, Linda.
	How are you doing?
	Hi, I'm good.
	How are you?
	I'm well, thank you.
	I'm well, thank you.
	It's a great question.
	It's a great question.
	So, for those who don't know, Rayman is a platform shooter that's...
	I think it's on Xbox.
	I think it's on PS4 or PS3 as well.
	And you start off as a guy who's got no limbs.
	He's just got, like, feet...
	And hands and a torso and a head.
	And then you can unlock other characters.
	Guy with a big nose, woman with armor and a big axe and all that kind of stuff.
	I haven't found them to be hyper-sexualized, but then I don't have a German fetish for chainmail.
	I'm not sure if you've seen pictures of other characters or female characters that seem more sexualized.
	No, not necessarily.
	I just mean in comparison to the male characters and, you know...
	Like I said, they're varied and have a lot of interesting backstories, and the female characters you have to rescue in order to unlock them.
	You know, their boobs pushed up to their chins and everything, so that's kind of what I mean by that.
	Well, do you read women's magazines at all?
	Not so much anymore, but yes, I'm familiar.
	Okay, and this is not to pick on any magazine in particular, but there's a magazine, I don't know why it comes to my house, but it does.
	It's called Glow.
	And that's not the glow of intense philosophical concentration.
	It appears to be a magazine devoted to turning your hair into a kind of silk river and your eyes into a kind of intense focused lasers.
	And as far as...
	Sexualization of women go?
	Boy, I mean, Rayman, it never even crossed my mind, but I'm certainly willing to entertain the idea.
	But I will certainly say that if I want to keep my...
	I need to keep her diametrically opposite in planet, space, and dimension to anything to do with women's magazines.
	I'm just going to hold this up to the camera.
	You can't see this.
	Guys, you need to read these.
	I used to read Cosmopolitan every couple of months.
	When I was younger, I'd grit my teeth.
	And go through it and just read about the astonishing, incredible, astounding, jaw-dropping objectification of women.
	Women being shrunk down to tits, ass, hair, Photoshop...
	And fantasy of, hey, if I buy this makeup, I will be born with that head as well.
	Perfect teeth, perfect hair, flawless skin, tousled hair.
	Here's an article called Booty Call in the magazine.
	Again, far outstripping anything that could be in Rayman.
	Pop culture's current obsession with le derrière, you see, because if you say it in French, it's somehow more classy, right?
	Prompts, Tracy Ho Lung.
	Okay.
	A woman who writes for Glow, whose middle name is Hal.
	To peep into the world of Brazilians and butt lifts and boosts her own backside in the process.
	Silver streak, when the notoriously youth-obsessed fashion and beauty industries finally shine the spotlight on women over 50.
	You know there's a change in the air.
	Now, they shine a spotlight on women over 50.
	I can't find a model in here that appears to be over 12, but that perhaps is a...
	Oh, look!
	Get gorgeous with the prose from L'Oreal Paris.
	Lush hair, flawless skin, and a flirty pout.
	Make this look a knockout for spring.
	Now, none of these women are doing anything.
	You know, they're not reading books.
	They're not typing.
	They're sitting in poses of infinite penis-drugging allure.
	Okay, Linda Cardellini, I just have a soft spot for her for Freaks and Geeks.
	Katie Holmes, I want to glow from the inside out.
	And since Fukuyama was booked and Scientology was unavailable, I thought I'd take this crap and smear it all over my body.
	And it just, like, lift here.
	You can smell like...
	Something else.
	And this is like, this is not human stuff.
	This is not human beings.
	I was going over this with my daughter the other day.
	She's like, what's that magazine?
	I said, this magazine is the opposite of everything I stand for.
	Right.
	Pure anti-wrinkle power.
	I mean, isn't Kim Kardashian not smiling at the moment because she's worried about wrinkles?
	A fresh spring beauty.
	Like, you can go through this from beginning to end.
	Is there a goddamn thing on economics?
	Is there a goddamn thing on anything?
	Nothing.
	Nothing.
	Look, here's pictures of a woman who's been Airbus to a waterfall, whose legs are pretty much as long as javelins.
	And here she is with leaves for hair.
	And here she is sitting in the back of a truck, completely spotless.
	And here she is holding corn.
	Because, you know, there's nothing that says holding corn like massive amounts of makeup because female farmers.
	Like, I took my daughter to a farm show because I wanted to sort of know, you know, where food comes from and so on, right?
	And there were these women there who were great!
	Fantastic!
	Great!
	They were strong.
	They were proud.
	They were fit.
	They were ruddy cheeks.
	They had not a scrap of makeup on among them.
	They probably could wrestle a steer to the ground using only their eyelashes.
	And I was like, see, these women, no makeup.
	And strong, healthy, energetic women who do great things and get up early and bring us food for sale and all that.
	So, you know, I find this kind of baffling to me.
	And I could be unfair and unjust.
	Obviously, you know, Linda, correct me where I go astray.
	But when I look at complaints from women about objectification of women, it's like you all go to supermarkets, right?
	I mean, you all see the checkouts, right?
	And you open these magazines, and it's jaw-dropping.
	Just this endless focus on physical, shallow, dumb, pathetic, false, lying beauty that has nothing to do with beauty in any fundamental sense.
	And it's all just...
	Glowing, glossy retardation.
	And, you know, I haven't read men's magazines in a while, but I don't...
	I mean, they're not great, don't get me wrong, but they're not this bad.
	They're not just all about, here's how to get liposuction using your dust buster so that your abs can score you chicks.
	I mean, there is that kind of stuff, but...
	And the other thing, too, I think is weird is that at least men's magazines have some pretty women in them.
	There's not a single straight guy in this whole magazine.
	I mean, it's bizarre.
	I mean, you know that this stuff is for sperm, right?
	That the eyes, the clear eyes, is an indication of health for sperm.
	And that the lustrous hair is an indication of, and the clear skin, health for sperm.
	And the butts, like the big butts, is an indication of excess body fat, which is great for growing babies.
	And you want a butt bigger than your waist.
	The waist being small shows that you're not already pregnant.
	And the butt means that you've got good baby food sitting on your hips.
	Same thing with boobs.
	Like, it's all for...
	For sperm and money for resources for babies.
	And yet there's like not a single, like it's not a guy in here.
	At least not a straight guy that I can see.
	A couple of designers and so on.
	They're always faded into the background.
	I mean like not one.
	I mean like can you imagine if there's a men's magazines that only showed pictures of guys?
	I guess there are.
	It's just that they're not really aimed at the straight man.
	Right.
	But, so, you know, I mean, this stuff is everywhere.
	And to me, this is pure poison.
	And women are buying this stuff.
	Women need this stuff.
	Women, like, live for this stuff.
	And it is, I think it provides this kind of weird thing, like, if I have makeup on, I look better.
	And it's always struck me as kind of strange.
	Like, you see some, I don't know, 55-year-old woman who's out of shape and overweight, but she's got lipstick on.
	And it's like...
	I'm not sure you're really getting this healthy thing.
	So then the idea that women come and say there may be objectification of women in video games, it's like, but what about these magazines that have circulations in the tens or hundreds of millions a month around the world?
	And are relentlessly focused on the most ridiculous, shallow, stupid, manipulative, false, expensive nonsense that you could conceivably imagine.
	And this female obsession with the objectification of women, there's nothing in here about a woman of quality.
	There's nothing in here about a woman of virtue or strength or courage or This shit makes your legs look longer.
	This shit makes your boobs look bigger.
	This shit makes your ass look bigger.
	This shit makes your hair shinier.
	Oh my god!
	Oh my god!
	Can there not be any glow that comes from the inside in any way, shape, or form?
	I totally agree with you.
	I'm not really that concerned about Rayman.
	I'm concerned about everything else that women consume on this planet.
	Well, little girls shouldn't be looking at those magazines.
	I don't let my kids see anything like that.
	But they are playing a first-person game where they choose who they're going to be.
	And that's important to them.
	They see them and they go, I want to be her.
	And the only palatable one to me is the little queen teensy with the pink dress on.
	It's fine.
	But the others do splits and they're Their skirts are, you know, up past their crotch, and when they die, their panties blow up in the screen.
	Okay, give us, in Skype, give me some pictures here, because I've played Rayman with my daughter, and I don't remember any, like, characters that I felt like stuffing $5 bills into the TV for.
	Really?
	So, if you can give me some pictures, it may be a little...
	Sure.
	For more than I perhaps...
	What I have seen is there is a female with armor and a big axe or something like that.
	But anyway, let's get through that.
	Yeah, and her boobs are barely covered.
	Well, I haven't seen that.
	I haven't seen that at all.
	But again, I may be playing a different version.
	Hang on, Mike's got me something here.
	There's like 8 million different Raymans, so we might be talking about different versions of Raymans.
	Oh, yeah.
	Rayman Origins, is that 2003?
	It's Rayman Legends is the one I think I have.
	It's the new one.
	Yeah, I mean, so there's a picture here, and I guess we'll see if we can link it below the video and the podcast.
	Where, yeah, there's a woman who not only is very scantily clad, but also looks a little frightened.
	And that's usually not a very good...
	Sex slave!
	On your computer.
	I haven't seen that one.
	Yeah, and when you go past their world where you have to unlock them, the door like gapes open as you walk past.
	You know, because I'm trying to avoid it with my girls and it's really hard to avoid.
	It's annoying.
	Well, I mean, why avoid it?
	I mean, this is important stuff to talk about.
	Well, just so I talk to you.
	Oh, no, that's good.
	Now, is this from 2003?
	03, Rayman Origins 03?
	Because I think Rayman has a pedigree that goes back to the 90s, if I remember right.
	Okay.
	Well, this is a very, very new one.
	And it's extremely highly rated for kids, like, nine years old or so.
	It's, like, the top rated on Amazon.
	And are there any, like, muscle men in this?
	No, there aren't.
	They're all cute little cartoon character monster type dudes.
	Because there's a lot of...
	Girls get the Barbie, of course, but guys get...
	The Incredible Hulk and Thor and all these He-Man incredibly muscled.
	Yeah, and that's not the case on this.
	It's a funny contrast to see these kind of bumbling, silly creatures next to strippers.
	I sent a couple of links.
	Let's see here.
	I guess I assumed that you had the most recent one because I thought it was a recent podcast I was listening to.
	Yeah.
	No, I haven't seen this stuff.
	Yeah, so she's got a skirt and she's got a top.
	You can see her belly button, boobs hanging out, and she's missing a tooth.
	That's not even the worst one.
	The trailer park boys that is...
	Yeah, and like I said, they all do splits.
	And then they go something like, ha-ha!
	Whenever they conquer something or whatever, they just say, ha-ha, all the time.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, I certainly would explain that that is not appropriate military wear for combat situations.
	That would be kind of important.
	I would say that there's a body image and a body pressure that women are exposed to, and there's a body image and a body pressure that men...
	All of them are unrealistic and all of them are designed to create dissatisfaction and have you buy stuff.
	Like they give you the original sin called looking like a normal human being and then they will charge you to attempt to rid you of this disease called reality.
	So yeah, I think it's bad.
	I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to be exposed to that kind of stuff.
	But at the same time, she's far more exposed to things in the supermarket checkout area than she is in video games.
	So you say you don't need your kids.
	I'm sorry.
	Well, and I said, which I hate, you know, that they are exposed to that at the grocery store checkout.
	And I don't buy that and they don't look at it.
	But you know, like I said, they don't look at it.
	Do you have, like, horse blinders on them or something?
	Kids, don't look at that stuff!
	Yeah, right.
	I mean, they do.
	They see it, right?
	I mean, you can't help but have these ridiculous images for both boys and girls floating out there, right?
	Like I remember, so there was a Julia Roberts, obviously a very attractive woman.
	If you like a horsey smile so wide, it looks like it's eating its own head in nine dimensions.
	But no, I mean, a talented woman and a pretty woman, as the movie says.
	And I remember that for the movie Pretty Woman, she had a body double.
	I mean, Julia Roberts, that's like me having a forehead double.
	I mean, it just doesn't make...
	So she had a body double, and the body double was interviewed and said, oh, yeah, you know, well, of course, you start, you know, when you wake up in the morning, you start doing your calf exercises in the shower.
	You know, like, and that's what you do all day.
	All day is you exercise.
	That's their job.
	That's their job.
	And as I've mentioned before, I had an interesting conversation at a bar one evening with a Calvin Klein model who was telling me just how insane it was to do an underwear shoot.
	Because he said, basically, you can't drink anything for like two days because you have to be so dehydrated that your skin is clinging to your underwear.
	To your abs.
	And so, yeah, you know, he works out like ridiculous hours a day, and then he doesn't drink, and then they Photoshop, and it's like, so this has nothing to do with reality whatsoever.
	I mean, look at Matt Damon in off-season.
	The guy's got a fairly sizable spare tire.
	You know, I mean, Brad Pitt's famous abs when he's not making a movie, or even Harrison Ford when he was younger, you know, they don't maintain that weight or weightlessness when they're...
	Not making a movie, and there is this weird thing where it's like, these muscles you now have to see.
	Before, you had to see a cigarette in the 40s, and now you must see these muscles that suddenly become vogue.
	And of course, now every time a guy takes his shirt off in a movie, it's like, oh, I wonder how his abs are, everyone thinks.
	And a man who looks even remotely like a normal human being.
	Is considered to be like, and not even average, like a fit human being is just way, way off the mark.
	So I think that, you know, this predatory body image stuff is really horrendous.
	And pornography plays its role in that as well, of course, right?
	Because then you have people who need to look good, as far as I hear, from just about every angle, including some internal ones.
	Right.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just more along the lines that this is a game for children, and so the children are, you know, visualizing themselves as that little player, you know, and what are their options?
	I played a bunch of games with my daughter, and I haven't I'm not saying it's not there and around.
	I mean, that obviously I don't think is particularly great, and I'm certainly not going to defend that.
	And, you know, people should vote with their dollar, and maybe there's a way you can download clothing as an add-on for these women.
	It might not be bad.
	But I haven't seen that much.
	A lot of the stuff is, like De Blob 2, which was a fun game, was, I mean, very androgynous, and you just play basically a blob, not a testicle.
	But a blob.
	But I haven't seen that in other games.
	Sorry, did you have something you wanted to add to that?
	Because I think there's another topic that's related to video games and gender that's interesting.
	Did I have anything to add to what?
	I'm sorry.
	Oh, just to the Rayman thing.
	Yeah, I would definitely explain that.
	And I would not play that game with her because I just would not want that message.
	You know, I can't remember which Rayman I played.
	Maybe I'll find it and we'll post it.
	But it was much more generic and there was nothing that I recall.
	Again, I wasn't looking at it.
	So from what you saw just now of the Legends version, you wouldn't even let your daughter play that with you?
	I don't think I would want to play something which had overtly hyper-sexualized characteristics in the avatars, either male or female.
	Like if there was some guy in a loincloth and a giant cartoon V-shape looked like he was made out of like Minecraft blocks or something, I wouldn't want that for either child.
	Because, you know, realistic body images is really, really important.
	You know, I mean, ponies don't look like that.
	Neither can they fly.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	Yeah, so far I just haven't unlocked any of the damsels in distress and we've just been playing with the male characters.
	Or the androgynous ones, right?
	Yeah, they look androgynous, but they're all namely male.
	How do you know?
	Well, when you hover over them, the little story gives a background that he's Rayman's best friend and he does this and he does that.
	Oh, okay, okay.
	Yeah, now I wonder, yeah, I mean, first of all, of course, you always wonder about the demographics of who's buying it.
	But to me, that's kind of irrelevant because no matter who's buying it, That shouldn't be in there.
	Like, even if it's all boys and guys buying it, it should not be.
	Because you know what I think of these kinds of things?
	I think, I always think that they have to have meetings.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So they have to be, and I can't imagine that there are a lot of enlightened people in these meetings.
	I just think there's a lot of creeps.
	You know, like, more boobs.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	More belly button.
	Make her look more scared.
	You can't see, like, higher.
	Put her in yoga pants.
	And it's like, ew!
	Make her panties blow up when she dies.
	Yeah, I mean, like, that's just something I always, you know, think of when I see these, like, there's a meeting.
	And then somebody puts the proposed artwork up there.
	And is that even a friendly environment for female developers?
	Do they even have any female developers there or female graphic artists?
	And if so, are they saying, guys, kids game, cleavage, really?
	Do we need this so much?
	Yeah, we do.
	Because it's a really beautifully done game.
	I mean, it's got amazing music and graphics and play and everything about it is amazing.
	And I could see my kids wanting to be video game developers.
	But yeah, you're right.
	There's no place for them.
	And I'm sure you've heard kind of the controversy about girls and gaming lately that it's a big deal.
	I believe that the Voyager interstellar spaceship has heard that controversy.
	And again, I... I think that, yeah, I would not, you know, I would, if I came across that, I would, you know, I'd write a letter and say, like, guys, you need to not do this stuff.
	Come on, it's a kid's game.
	And even if it wasn't a kid's game, you know, but again, what's more going to be more challenging for your daughters is this crap that is so addictive in a, like, horrifyingly addictive way.
	To women with regards to...
	More cheekbones!
	I want you to look like a skull!
	A vampire skull with hair and red lips like you've just fed on something unholy.
	That, I mean, I think that's where the real...
	You know, if I were...
	A woman and focused on this and of course I'm focused on this to some degree as the father of a daughter but you know we have to go over this stuff and say anyone who wants to date you for your looks is not worth dating and a lot of this is a lot of this stuff around the objectification of women which is a market by and for women largely.
	There is not that most of the women I've gone out with have used makeup Maybe sparingly a little, maybe if we're just heading out or whatever, which is fine.
	But I don't know that there's a big market in men for this.
	I think that men kind of put up with this beauty obsession of women.
	Because I don't know that there's a man alive who says, oh yeah, 45 minutes of waiting, that's fantastic.
	It's well worth it.
	Porn doesn't help, for sure.
	I'm sorry?
	Porn doesn't help.
	That the men are, you know, what they're watching is completely unrealistic.
	Well, perhaps...
	I don't know what's new in porn these days, but if you're heading out, then that's not porn.
	I don't know that there's any porn called, and then we went for dinner.
	Fade out.
	You know?
	I waited 45 minutes, and then we went out for dinner.
	I mean, I think it's mostly about staying in.
	But...
	Well, no, as far as how the women are done up, you know.
	How the women are made up.
	Do they wear body makeup in porn?
	I would assume.
	I mean, there's tons of tanning, you know, and fake nails and makeup.
	Wait, somebody who works for Freedom Aid Radio is saying, oh, yes.
	I'm familiar with some of the makeup that they use for HD TV. No, Mike, go on if you can tell us a little bit about some of the research you've done.
	Go ahead, Mike.
	I'm familiar with some of the makeup procedures for HD TV because I read some stuff on it around the time when everyone was making the switch from SD to HD and all the news anchors that are...
	Mid-40s, 50s, some of them 60s.
	And, you know, SD, you don't notice the freckle stuff.
	You might be able to relate to this.
	But you put the HD cameras on them, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, hello!
	And, yeah, they have this new airbrush makeup.
	I don't know if it's new, but airbrush makeup, so it doesn't even show up.
	You don't even see, like, the pats of the powder and that kind of thing.
	I gotta think that's being used in porn.
	Everything technology-wise seems to be driven by pornography, so I imagine they're using the airbrushed makeup in some way, shape, or form.
	That's why there's not a lot of porn in the rain, right?
	Because they're aging!
	The Crypt Keeper is emerging from the Vixen, right?
	No, and it certainly is the case for me, like, starting off in YouTube at 240p with a crappy old webcam, like, I mean, what, eight years ago or something like that, and it's like, there's nothing that ages you faster, like 1080p.
	60 frames a second, babe.
	60 frames a second?
	Well, I don't know if that helps or not, but, yeah, I mean, and so I sympathize with, and I would definitely try and keep my daughter away from that kind of stuff, and I would probably tell the vendors about not great.
	But, yeah, so, you know, I'm sorry that your kids are exposed to that.
	And I think it is.
	I think it's childish.
	I think it's inappropriate for kids.
	And, yeah, it's disappointing.
	I was just going to say that.
	Disappointing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, for sure.
	And so, but there's something else as well in games as well.
	And I assume that, I don't know if you're a gamer or if you mostly play games with your kids or for your kids.
	Oh, I'm definitely not a gamer.
	And that's why I just went solely off your recommendation of what...
	And you didn't recommend it, but your conversation about Rayman is what led me to buy it.
	Previous to that, we just did dancing games on the Kinect.
	Well, and isn't on the dancing games, there's some body stuff too that for boys and girls that is not hugely realistic.
	I mean, even on something like Subway Surf, I think you can see the woman's belly button while the guy's in this full...
	The ones we have are real people.
	The ones we have, the dance games we have, are real people, which, you know, they're real dancers and they have great bodies, but they're real.
	So I don't mind that so much.
	Right.
	But I would say that as well, there is a kind of strange thing that happens with video games and gender.
	I don't know if people have commented on it, and I'm sorry if this goes way off topic for you.
	We'll certainly circle back.
	It's okay.
	So when my daughter, I'm sort of previewing games for her where you can sort of design your characters and choose their hair and, you know, that kind of stuff, the gender and so on.
	And what's interesting to me is that there is a very interesting kind of egalitarianism that goes on in those kinds of games, wherein, as far as I understand it, there are no strength penalties for choosing a female character.
	Which is wildly unrealistic, right?
	Women have...
	It's either 40% less or 40% of the upper body strength of most men.
	And almost all sports...
	I'm trying to think of an exception and tell me if there is one...
	Almost all sports are segregated by gender, right?
	Like swimming and tennis and fencing and like you name it, running, are all segregated by gender to recognize that women are physically not as strong as men.
	And yet when you play these games where you choose a gender, there's no physical penalty for choosing a female.
	And the reason why I think that's important is that because of a lack of upper body strength and a lack of sort of mass, There are professions which women are not excluded from but doesn't work as well.
	The average woman, of course, there's exceptions all over the place.
	But what that does, of course, by having no physical variation between male and female characters, it puts out a kind of weird egalitarianism wherein things like gender pay gaps become a little less comprehensible.
	And I think it's withholding from children a kind of necessary, important biological facts.
	I mean, the facts of life involve our naughty bits and reproduction and digestion, but it also involves physical gender differences, which don't show up in games at all, and therefore I think makes the adult layout of the economy and various other aspects of things to be somewhat less obvious to kids, if that makes sense.
	Not kids, but to young people, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, it's more opaque.
	It's less understandable.
	I see what you're saying.
	But I also know my boyfriend's a gamer and he pointed out how there's a racing game where the brand new muscle cars or the brand new sports cars are on par with the old muscle cars and there's no way they would ever be as fast.
	You know, so it's, I mean...
	That happens in gaming, I suppose.
	It does, but that doesn't really have much of an effect on people's perception of gender egalitarianism with the economy and so on.
	I mean, the number, like I was reading about how female cops use their weapons more often than male cops, because male cops are able to physically overpower or physically intimidate, whereas female cops are more likely to go for the gun, and they end up shooting people more than male cops.
	Well, that's Kind of a problem, right?
	And I think they just drummed out in the army women who were trying to get into a particular program, and there's a problem with firefighters that they have to lower the standards of strength for women, which doesn't do you a whole lot of good if someone has to break down a door and you're choking to death on the other side.
	I mean, I don't care who, but somebody who can get through that door would be very nice.
	Thank you very much.
	And so there is some...
	It's just a weird egalitarianism.
	Like, everything's exactly the same among men and women from a physical standpoint, and therefore...
	And again, obviously people can think about it for a moment and they get it, but there's a lot of programming of, you know, it's completely the same for men and women in video games, and that's not realistic.
	Well, I was thinking when you first started talking about it, how in video games it seems like the women maybe have a weapon that does compensate, you know, whereas Rayman just uses his fist or whatever, but the girls have a sword or something.
	I thought that was just to make their digital creepy boobs jiggle.
	I don't know if that's the case or not.
	Yeah, and they have armor and so on.
	But yeah, I mean, I agree with you.
	The gender stuff, we've still got a ways to go for...
	For boys and for girls.
	And I don't know how to crack the nut of this makeup stuff.
	I mean, I don't know if you wear makeup or not, but I've heard that it's mostly for, like, women dressed not for men, but for other women.
	Women wear makeup not for men, but for other women.
	Is there that sort of, like, grim sisterhood of endless judgment going on that's causing this stuff?
	Yeah, and I would say, like, when you referred to if my daughters wanted to date someone that, you know, was judging them by their looks, and that isn't their concern at all.
	Their concern is, I want to look like this other girl, you know, this woman, this princess.
	There's a lot of princessing, and I don't know how you deal with your daughter and all the princess movies and all that idealization of...
	She has no interest in the princess.
	She hates the princess stuff.
	That's great.
	Because people always get up to her because she's very pretty, and then we go to, oh, hi, princess.
	I'm not a princess.
	I'm a queen.
	See, Princess is not, it's a demotion from her mental interest.
	She's like, no, I don't have a kingdom, I have a queendom.
	Can't argue with that.
	Like the Anne Hathaway stuff, right?
	I mean, Anne Hathaway, as I mentioned recently about the movie Interstellar, by the way, in the movie Interstellar, the giant wave scene, the guy gets washed away, they have this big philosophical discussion about space-time and they don't even bother looking for the...
	But Anne Hathaway, her eyes are so big.
	It's like if she held a sneeze in with her eyes open, they'd go almost half out like Roger Rabbit.
	She's just got this weird, freaky eyes, which has this neotenic thing of making her look a lot younger than she really is.
	Because, of course, baby's eyes are pretty large relative to their faces.
	And it's like the girl who plays the trashy one in Modern Family.
	She's got these weird kind of bug eyes, these sort of Marty Feldman eyes.
	And that you can't like there's no amount of makeup that will, you know, maybe if you hold your breath for 19 minutes, your eyes will stick out like that.
	Have you seen the Monster High dolls that are the latest thing?
	They're like double the leg of Barbie, like the legs are half the width of Barbies and double the length and, you know, up to their chin.
	And their, you know, heads are humongous.
	But yeah, the big eyeballs, they've got the Bratz dolls.
	They're, it's amazing.
	You're exactly right.
	The big eyes, it's creepy.
	In the Frozen movies, the eyes are way bigger than their wrists.
	I mean, if you see someone like that in real life, you damn well need a priest nearby or some sort of airstrike because that's someone who's probably going to take you up to a spinning saucer of anal probing.
	And so this bug-eyed...
	Child stuff, and it's big in Japanese anime as well, right?
	Where you have these giant eyes, and the whole Japanese sexual stuff is just way too creepy for words.
	Not all of it, obviously, but a lot of this Sailor Moon...
	Boarding school costumes with, like, bug eyes and giggles appropriate to eight-year-olds.
	That's just all too creepy for words.
	I mean, I'm just waiting for, you know, the Vagina Tentacles Japanese animation studio to open up so people can just really start talking about how they feel about their moms.
	But that's a topic for another time.
	But, yeah, I find that...
	In general, this swing seems to be occurring in culture, as I've talked about before, from the K to the R reproductive strategy, from the long term investment to the short term.
	And in the short term, where you don't put as much investment into your kids and you don't pair bond, in the short term investment strategy for reproduction, there is such a focus on looks.
	Because you need strength, you need health, and looks have power in the world.
	Of course, we want our kids to be tall and healthy and good-looking because tall, good-looking people do better, right?
	I mean, like every inch you are taller as a man, you get like $10,000 more a year in income.
	And so pretty people do well and there's a currency to it, but I think it's a currency that's so dissatisfying in the long run.
	That it's useless and of course the other thing too about having really great looks I had written a novel called After.
	There's a woman who's very beautiful and she says when she was young, she decided to put her beauty to work for her like a glistening slave.
	It was going to be something that was her crop.
	Her crop was her cheeks.
	The problem, of course, is that when you do that, you simply move into another area.
	If you become a model, then you're just in competition with other beautiful people and you and I get a pimple, not the end of the world.
	This other person gets a pimple.
	It's like The end of their career until it's gone.
	And I've also shown my daughter the videos where they take a normal looking woman and turn her into a bikini model.
	Because I really wanted to understand that she's looking at distorted cyborg art when she's looking at At pictures.
	Like, there was a famous one that floated around recently of Cindy Crawford, and I don't know if you've seen it, but she's got a human-looking belly.
	In other words, this is the belly of someone, I think she's got two or three kids.
	Yeah, that's a good idea.
	Yeah, good for her.
	Like, this is what human beings look like, because I don't want, I certainly don't want my daughter to be looking at pictures of male movie stars in their 20s and saying, you know, Dad's a pear!
	Or something like that, right?
	And so I think just pointing out that this is really bad.
	We got a bit of data here.
	Let's see here.
	Less than 3% of CEOs are below 5'7 in height or 1.7 meters.
	90% of CEOs are above average height.
	You know, it's hard to dominate someone when you're counting their nose hairs, right?
	When they're looking down at you.
	A research paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that height is strongly related to success for men.
	It showed that increase in height for men corresponds to increase in income after controlling for social, psychological variables, age, sex, and weight.
	The height premium found that a 1.8% increase in wages accompanies every additional inch of height.
	They also found that men's wages as adults could be linked to their height at age 16.
	On average, an increase in height by one inch at age 16 Increased adult male wages by 2.6%.
	So that's 850 bucks in 1996 annual earnings per year.
	And so yeah, it is one of these things that...
	But there's not a lot of men's magazines.
	I guess there's ads in magazines for insoles to make you look taller.
	But there are some people who are so obsessed with high-toothed parents, or even young people, they get their shins like...
	Not stretched, but they basically cut the shin and insert bone.
	Or insert something to make the person taller.
	I had a boss who his parents gave him growth hormones when he was young to try to get him to grow taller.
	I was just going to bring that up.
	I knew someone that also took growth hormone too because he was short and was like a tank.
	Like a small tank.
	He didn't grow height-wise, he just bulked?
	Pretty much.
	Yeah, I mean, it increases your lean muscle mass severely and burns fat as well.
	So he was just like this ripped short tank of a human being.
	Wow.
	Yeah, and I mean, you know, everybody wants beauty and everybody wants health and everybody wants power and everybody wants wealth.
	And I'm not saying that that's bad.
	I mean, even if I did, I don't want these things.
	It's human nature.
	This is why we're at the top of the food chain is because we want things But I think that it's become kind of pathological lately, insofar as it is easier to be pretty than it is to be good.
	It is easy to primp the exterior than to improve the quality of one's heart and mind and soul and kindness and courage and all that kind of stuff.
	Particularly for girls.
	I'm sorry?
	Particularly for girls, I think.
	No!
	Oh, no!
	What?
	No, don't make it all about women, Linda!
	Oh, God!
	No, no, but enough about men.
	Let's get back to the women.
	No, it is for men.
	It is for men.
	You don't live in a man's shoes, so you don't know the pressures that men are under, right?
	You know the pressures that women are under.
	True.
	But men are under pressure for height.
	Women don't go bald.
	Men are under pressure for hair.
	There's a reason why guys get hair plugs and do this weird Bermuda Triangle weave or whatever the hell's going on on the top of Donald Trump's noggin.
	I mean, there's height and muscles and six-packs and money and hair.
	And I mean, this for men is a lot of pressure as well.
	Oh sure, of course.
	But it's in a different direction.
	Men are pressured to do and earn and have, and women are pressured to be.
	And it's like you said about the magazines.
	The women, they're just laying around.
	You just look pretty.
	You just are a princess.
	You don't have to actually do anything.
	But men, it's the opposite.
	No, no, no, no.
	But I mean, they do because you're supposed to work out and you're supposed to buy all this stuff and you're supposed to learn how to do your makeup and you're supposed to not move after all of that, right?
	Right, right, right.
	Art that I don't think men would find that attractive.
	Like, let me just...
	Again, this is...
	Sorry for those who are just listening, but there's a picture here.
	Fresh Spring Beauty.
	See, to me, Fresh Spring Beauty is like new asparagus coming out of the ground or something like that.
	But apparently, it's, you know, this.
	And this doesn't even look like good.
	It doesn't...
	You know, she looks hungry.
	Like, that seductive stare makes me feel like a buttery croissant that's about to meet its maker.
	And it's just, it's not, it's not functional, it's not attractive, and it's, you know, it's city girls, right?
	I mean, country girls, and I worked a lot in the country, I worked a lot in the boonies, country girls are not like that.
	I mean, you show them these magazines, I think they'd roll their eyes, you know, pretty.
	Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, so, you know, when you say particularly for women, I think that sort of bothers me because it's like, no, there are lots of pressures for men to be a certain way and to have a certain look and to have a certain amount of resources.
	I just mean in a different way that they're pressured.
	Body image concerns more men than women, research finds.
	More men worry about their body shape and appearance, beer bellies, man boobs are going bald, than women do about how they look, according to research.
	More than four in five men talk in ways that promote anxiety about their body image by referring to perceived flaws and imperfections compared to 75% of women's.
	So it's not a big gap, but a little bit higher.
	38% of men would sacrifice at least a year of their life in exchange for a perfect body.
	Again, a higher proportion than women.
	Dr.
	Philippa Diedrich, from the Center of Appearance Research, which I bet he has a beautiful frontage to it, She wrote, these findings tell us that men are concerned about body image just like women.
	We knew that body talk affected women and young people and now we know that it affects men too.
	She conducted the study of 394 British, oh, wealthy British men.
	Well, that's, anyway.
	Which was commissioned by, anyway, it doesn't really matter.
	So, yeah, men have high levels of anxiety about their bodies and that some resort to compulsive exercise, strict diets, laxatives, or making themselves sick in an attempt to lose weight or achieve a more toned diet.
	Physique.
	80.7% talked about their own or others appearance in ways that draw attention to weight, lack of hair, or slim frame.
	30% have heard someone refer to their beer belly.
	19% have been described as chubby.
	19% of overheard talk about their man boobs or moobs.
	23% said concerns about their appearance had deterred them from going to the gym.
	Well, that's a bit of a vicious cycle.
	63% thought their arms or chest were not muscular enough.
	29% thought about their appearance at least five times a day.
	18% were on a high-protein diet to increase muscle mass, and 16% on a calorie-controlled diet to slim down.
	The oft-cited figure is that only about 1 in 10 eating disorders occur in males, but according to Lemberg, newer research suggests that the real ratio is probably closer to 1 In four.
	I don't know what they define as eating disorders.
	Obviously, that's not straight on get to the hospital for a feeding tube anorexia.
	But yeah, there is a lot of pressure.
	And of course, for men, there is this increasing feeling, not to speak for all men, but I think it's out there, this increasing feeling of disposability.
	There's a song that Beyonce catawals, screeches, I guess you could say sings.
	Mike, if you could look at something about you are replaceable, you are disposable, I could get another one of you, I could get another you in a minute, or something like that.
	Because the role of men historically, biologically, has been to provide.
	And now that women can survive through the state, the men feel that they're less relevant to...
	The family, they're less necessary.
	They have less weight.
	I think they feel pretty insubstantial in relationships.
	It's much more acceptable to criticize men.
	They're going to hear comments about the way they look, but it's not okay to flat out tell a woman that she's bad or whatever, ugly.
	I can see where that would exacerbate Men's insecurities because it's okay, you know, ostensibly to criticize them on their appearance.
	Irreplaceable?
	Is that the name?
	Is that the name of the song?
	But it's not your Irreplaceable, is it?
	See if we can just get me the lyrics.
	I won't attempt to sing it for a variety of reasons.
	It's the stupidest song.
	You've heard it though, right?
	Oh yeah.
	Don't think for a minute that you're irreplaceable, I think is what it says.
	Alright, so here we go.
	I'll wrap it.
	To the left, to the left.
	So everything you own in the box to the left is in the closet.
	That's my stuff.
	Yes!
	If I bought it, please don't touch.
	And keep talking that mess.
	That's fine.
	But you can walk and talk at the same time.
	And it's my name that's on that jag.
	So come move your bags.
	Let me call you a cab.
	Standing in the front yard telling me How I'm such a fool talking about, I'll never ever find a man like you.
	You got me twisted.
	You must not know about me.
	You must not know about me.
	I could have another you in a minute.
	Matter of fact, he'll be here in a minute, baby.
	You must not know about, you know, you must not know about me.
	Okay, I can have another you by tomorrow.
	So don't you ever get for a second of thinking you're irreplaceable.
	So go ahead and get gone.
	Call up that chick and see if she's home.
	Oops, I bet you thought that I didn't know.
	What did you think?
	I was putting you out for because you was untrue?
	Rolling her around in the car that I bought you?
	Baby, drop them keys.
	Hurry up before your taxi leaves.
	Anyway, so I think that's...
	Since I'm not your everything, how about I'll be nothing?
	Nothing at all to you, baby.
	I won't shed a tear for you.
	I won't lose a wink of sleep because the truth of the matter is replacing you is so easy.
	And it goes on and on, apparently.
	It's like a Prowse novel.
	But...
	You know, and I'm not sure that the black community needs to hear a whole lot more about disposable men.
	Like, I just, oh, I just, I don't know that that's really that great for the black community to tell, you know, this woman obviously has a lot of influence in popular culture, and, I mean, it's tough for the black families as it is, and the black men are feeling pretty extraneous in a lot of ways, so pumping this stuff up, I guess it sells albums at the cost of something more important, but...
	Yeah, so I think there's this, what am I there for, and I'm not necessary, and where do I fit in the world, and what's my purpose?
	This is, I think, tough for men.
	Particularly, I could say, I mean, you're a parent, so men without kids, I think it can be tough figuring out what the life stuff is for.
	But apparently, men have this endless ability to do porn and video games, so what can I say?
	Yeah, and like you said, they just tell them to move along.
	And what happened to the father of your kids?
	Oh, there you go.
	There's the can of worms.
	He is a narcissistic personality, I would say.
	And we've been in a vicious, horrible custody battle the last three years.
	And I believe we're...
	Headed towards a resolution very shortly, a more positive resolution.
	I was really, really close to losing custody completely to him due to a few terrible, you know, extreme missteps.
	Wait, missteps?
	I don't want to pester you for anything that you want to keep private, but...
	I mean, what, 85% of custody goes to women, and of the remaining 15%, 7% of those, I think, are because there's no contest.
	So, what missteps on your part, or lies from the boyfriend, the ex, was he ex-husband, or just ex-boyfriend?
	He's my ex-husband now, yeah.
	No, we were married.
	Well, you know, I've got my own anecdotal evidence on that front.
	There is a huge perception that custody goes to women.
	You know, I don't know what the statistic is, but most custody disputes, or if there is a dispute, most are resolved amicably.
	But the ones that do go to court, they're super high conflict because of high conflict personalities.
	And that usually involves one or both issues.
	Partners being, you know, just completely unreasonable.
	And that's why it goes to court because reasonable people can work it out.
	So then when there's a perception that custody goes to women in the courts, the dads are ready.
	They've heard that rumor and they're ready with good lawyers.
	And the moms are told, don't worry, you'll get custody.
	And, you know, that's what I was told.
	And I ended up with a horrible, just empty suit of a lawyer.
	He's about 90 years old now.
	And he did nothing to help me prepare.
	And it was a complete disaster.
	And my ex ended up with primary custody that I've been fighting and scrapping and clawing to get back ever since then.
	I'm sorry, that's such a horrible, god-awful, ghastly mess, and crazy expensive, right?
	Yeah, very much so.
	And it was all to avoid him.
	His threat to me has always been, I will never, ever pay you a dime of child support, which I never...
	It wasn't important to me.
	It wasn't anything I fought for.
	I just wanted him in my kid's life, which maybe was silly in hindsight.
	It would have been better if he just vomosed.
	Just to avoid paying child support, he hired expensive lawyers to make sure that wouldn't happen.
	That's where all our money has gone lately.
	Not that either of us had any to begin with.
	And how long were you married?
	We were married about seven years.
	And looking back at the early time of dating and meeting, were there any clues that in hindsight you're like, ooh, go back in time, look for this?
	Absolutely.
	You couldn't have missed them.
	You just couldn't have missed them.
	I mean, I've obviously been listening to you and Doing some self-analysis and looking back on what happened and how I ended up in that relationship.
	If you'd like to know what the red flags were.
	I would love to know.
	In fact, I mean, I'm not going to date him, but my concern is that for younger people, you know, like those of us who've had those relationships that you kind of wake up like, What am I doing here?
	And how did I end up here?
	It's really helpful for other people to know what to look for.
	So that, you know, it's like you come back from the battlefield with one leg and it's like, don't go that minefield.
	So what would you have noticed?
	You don't have to look hard.
	It's really, I was 20 years old and he was 40.
	And he didn't.
	You were how old?
	I was 20 when I met him.
	He was 40.
	And he was 40.
	And he told me that after prying and poking, he told me he was 30 and he did his best to cover up that lie until we were engaged.
	God bless baldness.
	I'm telling you, baldness, best thing that ever happened to me.
	Anyway, go ahead.
	Oh, he was bald.
	He shaved his head.
	No, no, but did you know that he was bald and shaved his head or he just said, I shaved my head?
	Well, you know, he covered it up, but he always wore a hat, but it was pretty obvious.
	Right, okay.
	But the bigger lie that was the bigger red flag was that he was married with a small baby at home.
	What?
	Yeah.
	What?
	How long were you going out before?
	I don't know.
	Three or four months, maybe.
	So three or four months, how did you find out?
	I feel this should be in Brazilian, like in Spanish or Portuguese with subtitles, so this is like, what?
	Okay, how did you find out?
	I don't recall exactly, but I know that I was a bit of a stalker, and I got...
	You were a bit of a stalker.
	Huh?
	Yeah.
	I was.
	He gave me his business card and it had his home address on it.
	I went and drove by his house.
	It was this big, nice house.
	He had two cars.
	Just following him around and meeting him places.
	I don't know exactly how it came out, but eventually he confessed to it.
	Like he had a house that's too big for...
	A musician.
	A single guy?
	He was a musician?
	Well, having a house at all then.
	Musician, you're either living like in an old Lada or you own most of Bel Air.
	Anyway, so...
	Right.
	Yeah, and there's this statistic that says if a husband is nine or more years older than his wife or two or more years younger, the risk of getting divorced is actually twice that of couples who are closer in age.
	So...
	What was this guy's, like, Svengali hypnotic power?
	Was he, like, super great in bed?
	Was he, like, what, what, what?
	Well, he's a musician, like I said.
	Is that your thing?
	I didn't think it was my thing, but it's, you know, there's a charisma and a power to that, you know?
	He's the leader of the band.
	Oh, he's, like, the front man?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	And...
	Is it a band?
	Don't tell me the name, but is it a band people might know?
	No.
	No?
	Like a bar band?
	Not anymore.
	No, it was nothing.
	Okay, so it was like a garage band, but he was the leader of the garage band.
	Well, it was a local, known-in-the-area kind of band, but it wasn't anything national.
	Right.
	We're here for the chicks, not for the country.
	Okay.
	And...
	And so when you found out that he was dating you, lying about being 10 years younger, lying about having a wife, lying about being a father, what then?
	Then I told my parents and I broke up with him.
	What did your parents say?
	My mom said, oh my gosh, I think her phrasing was, your pickers broke up.
	Your what?
	Your man picker?
	Your picker, the way you pick the men.
	I mean, was your dad even like within miles of this guy?
	Do you have any template that, did dad have affairs or was your dad some crazy narcissistic liar or what?
	You know, I've gone over and over that because on the outside all appearances are that he's A great family man, provider.
	My parents have been married 40 years.
	And I think the thing was that he didn't take a stand.
	And in my childhood, he was the decision maker.
	My mom would always defer to him.
	So you said he wouldn't take a stand or he would stand on what?
	On this man, my ex.
	Oh, so your dad was not loading up and trying to find him in a pickup truck or something, right?
	Right, right.
	He swore until six months ago that he was the most talented person he'd ever met.
	And his mom was an angel.
	Oh, the musician's mom was an angel.
	Yeah, and my dad's just the consummate diplomat and always everybody's best friend.
	So he didn't He didn't take a stand against him or caution me against him.
	And my mom's opinion didn't matter because she always deferred to my dad.
	So I didn't listen to her.
	All right.
	And what did you get a Stanley Kowalski bellowing of Linda, like tearing off his shirt and abs?
	Like, I mean, how did he get the Venus flytrap closing over your heart again?
	Hmm.
	Good question.
	Well, how long were you broken up for?
	I don't know, a month or two.
	Did you ever meet his wife or see his wife?
	I have since then, but at the time I hadn't.
	I don't think I had any really inkling of her except from what he told me.
	Did you think of telling her?
	He told her.
	Oh, he told her about you?
	Eventually.
	I pressured him.
	No, no, but did you think of telling her?
	I'm sure it crossed my mind.
	Why didn't you?
	I don't know.
	Because, you know, people are all, you know, there's this thing in society, and I'm just going to give my two bits here, and I hope you be patient with me, because I want to find out more.
	But there's this thing in society, it's like, I found out that he's cheating on her.
	Should I tell her?
	Yes!
	Yes!
	Go tell her!
	Go tell her!
	People who cheat, people who love, go tell people they need to know!
	It's not...
	You're right to withhold that essential information from people.
	You know, I think he's got leukemia.
	Should I tell him I'm his doctor?
	Yes, you should tell him.
	Yes, it will make his day bad, but it might make his life continue.
	And when you have information that is really compelling and necessary, I think withholding it is really an act of significant cruelty.
	It's like blindfolding someone and putting them out on a highway.
	I mean, it's really really bad We need to watch each other's backs as a society as a culture as a group We need to watch each other's backs Which means if you get information pass it along with all the caveats and so on but pass it along Get people the information they need to find out who they're actually with right?
	Because you wanted your dad to take a stand, right?
	You wanted your dad to say, oh my god, this guy is a complete monster.
	What an unholy human being that he's stepping out on his wife when she just gave birth to the baby.
	There's not enough Lysol in the world to clean this stain from the human fabric.
	So anyway, let's go.
	So how did you get your back?
	Was there no other man in the state?
	I mean, is that...
	Oh, gosh.
	I don't know.
	I think I was just enticed by the facade and the...
	Facade of what?
	He's married.
	He's got a kid.
	Facade of what?
	He's a musician with financial responsibilities and he's in a bar band.
	I mean, what?
	Was he very good looking?
	Is it...
	I don't understand.
	Help men who are currently beating their head against cheese graters.
	Was he rich?
	Nope.
	But he tried to appear to be.
	He had a lot of convoluted stories that didn't add up.
	I'm just like, oh, whatever you say.
	So was he high status?
	Was it like, oh, you're having sex with that guy?
	Wow.
	Right.
	Yeah, that's kind of what it was.
	He was on the radio.
	So you basically got to parade around the golden vagina?
	Like, look, golden vagina grabbed high status penis.
	Right.
	The guy in the band, he's doing me.
	Yeah, because that's usually a mark of huge pride and discernment.
	But was it that he was high status and you felt like elevated to be his...
	Yeah, I think that was a lot of it.
	He told me, you made me feel alive again or something like that.
	Like he'd just been dead inside because he had this dead marriage.
	And, you know, I awoken this feeling in him or whatever.
	Yeah, I mean, Dr.
	Frankenstein to his penis is not necessarily, I live!
	It's like, isn't being a father enough to get you?
	Anyway.
	Okay, so he had these, would you say in hindsight, Linda, that these were lines?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	My wife doesn't understand me.
	You get me.
	I'm alive for you and we brought my heart back to life.
	I wrote this song.
	She was a cold-hearted bitch and she was always stressed out and she had a fucking six-month-old.
	I mean, of course she was stressed out.
	She was a lawyer.
	She's very smart, you know, but she had let herself go and she used to be so attractive.
	Wow.
	So he flattered you, right?
	And you were like youthful, pre-baby, no responsibilities kind of girl, right?
	Yeah.
	I was in college and I was going places.
	I had just had a baby and given him up for adoption like six months before I met this guy.
	Does he know that now?
	He knew when he told me about his wife and son, I told him about this child.
	Right.
	And what effect do you think this had on you?
	The child?
	Yeah, giving the child up for adoption.
	A boy or a girl?
	Boy.
	A boy.
	What effect did it have on me?
	Well, so much.
	I think it was a huge failure that this was like blood.
	This was my family and I let him go.
	Well, let him go, right?
	I mean, it sounds like, you know, a bear that was too big to hold.
	I mean, you gave him up, I assume, with great regret, right?
	Yeah.
	And how did that come about, with unprotected sex and so on?
	Yeah.
	I was raised Catholic, and...
	Oh, that took.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, good job.
	Yeah.
	And the man who got you pregnant, was he not going to be any kind of suitable dad?
	No, absolutely not.
	He was adopted himself, but was immediately, you know, was like, oh, you're going to take care of that, right?
	But why was he...
	I guess you were, what, 19 when you got pregnant?
	Yeah.
	18.
	18, 19.
	And he...
	He was not even remotely interested in settling down or any kind of family or anything like that, right?
	No.
	And I imagine that you felt pretty low through that whole period, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	I mean, certainly by the way you were raised, it's a pretty big series of sins, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, but there was a funny, there was a weird pride, though, also, because I didn't abort.
	It was like, look, I'm doing the right thing, you know?
	So there was that.
	No, and look, I mean, I'm certain that your son is glad that you didn't, right?
	But I always wonder, Linda, and I wonder the degree to which When we do things that are, I'm not going to say moral or immoral, right?
	I mean, you had sex, you got pregnant, you gave the kid up for adoption.
	Tragic, obviously, and not what you wanted at the time in your life.
	And I'm sure there's not a day goes by when you don't think about it.
	But I wonder if when we act kind of against the values that we were raised with, the degree to which we set up ourself up for punishment.
	Mm-hmm.
	Like, flagellation for, like, that the husband was the next guy.
	If you have acted against the values that you were raised with, did you keep, did your parents know?
	Mm-hmm.
	They knew?
	Yeah, they knew.
	And what were their thoughts about it?
	Um, they did not really...
	Share a lot of their thoughts.
	And I think that was one of the biggest failings of the upbringing was not that it was conservative values or anything like that.
	It was that it wasn't talked about.
	And they just didn't share their opinions with me.
	My mom would go to church and pray and cry in church and not talk to me about how she felt.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, because, I mean, clearly the guy who's a musician who's not doing much or well, and he's lying about his age, and he's sleeping around with a newborn kid at home, he's married, doesn't tell.
	He's a liar, right?
	I mean, he's a liar and a cheater and a vile husband and crappy dad, I assume, and all that sort of stuff.
	And so the fundamental question of this is what drives good men nuts about Women, particularly women who make these kinds of choices, is like, were there no decent men around?
	And why, oh, why would you get involved with a man like this?
	I'm sure there were other guys around who were asking you out and interested in you and so on, but drawn to this, drawn to this, and the question is why.
	And I don't know, obviously, but one thing I sort of gravitate back to always is this idea of that's all I'm worth.
	Mm-hmm.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Yeah, I think you're right about, you know, kind of seeking out the punishment that I deserved kind of thing.
	Because this guy, my ex, he was very good at bringing up old wounds and throwing them in my face, you know, and like...
	Well, that's...
	Yeah, that's all you're worth.
	Right, and you have...
	Secrets that I'm sure would be very hard, like a good man, and so a good man comes along, and how you were going to explain the pregnancy, the giving the kid up, like, is that just going to, is a good man just going to be like, check, right?
	Yeah.
	Whereas this guy, it's like he's got enough bad secrets that your secrets aren't dangerous to the relationship, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, totally.
	Totally.
	Right.
	And again, this is not with any sort of like, ooh, bad woman or whatever.
	I mean, you got pregnant, which obviously wasn't smart, but at least the kid is still alive, which is good.
	But yeah, because if you have a good man, you either have to pretend these things didn't happen or you have to take the risk that if you tell the good man, he's going to look at you in a different kind of way.
	And therefore, you kind of have to sink down to people who have as grim a set of secrets as you.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	Right, right.
	Right, yeah, that is rough.
	And that is rough.
	And I mean, you paid, and you continue to pay a heavy price, right?
	Yes, very much so.
	And my kids are paying.
	Yeah, and how long did you date before you got married?
	We dated, I don't know, close to a year maybe before moving in together, and then another year later got engaged, and We were engaged for four years before getting married.
	Wait, so you were together for six years, if I got that right?
	Dated for a year, lived together for a year, got engaged for four years, six years, then you were married for seven years?
	Something like that, yeah.
	Wow.
	Okay, okay, so like 13 years.
	This is a big chunk of time.
	Right, exactly.
	You never told me how he got you back.
	Don't tell me you don't remember.
	Don't even try.
	I don't think it was hard.
	The memory I have is we were saying goodbye, and I'm putting air quotes around that, and went swimming in a pool What?
	Oh, no.
	No, you didn't.
	Oh, my God.
	That's the worst.
	Hey, let's get into bathing suits.
	Right.
	Exactly.
	Let's get into water.
	Let's be almost naked.
	I'm sure that's going to be a great breakup.
	Exactly.
	Yep.
	That's about what happened.
	So you went together to say goodbye, and lust and sex got you back together, right?
	Pretty much.
	Right.
	And then he must have left his wife, right?
	And he got a divorce.
	Is that why it took so long for you guys to get married?
	No.
	What took so long was he proposed and was going to make an honest woman out of me.
	And then he found out that I had cheated on him.
	After I had found out that he was married and everything, I went on a study abroad trip and hooked up with a guy.
	While we were out of the country.
	And he found out about it through his brother.
	Were you together?
	Or were you the famous Ross?
	We were on a break!
	Um, no.
	We were together.
	And you didn't tell him, but his brother found out?
	Right.
	How the hell did he have an invisible drone?
	I mean, how the hell did he find out?
	He found out because the guy was bragging about how he banged the Musician's golden vagina.
	Right, so you were the high-status arm candy of the musician, and he's like...
	But did you know the guy overseas?
	Did he know...
	Or did he just brag on Facebook or something?
	Did he brag on Facebook?
	No, he...
	This is a lot of details.
	But he was at the bar...
	I'm on the beach bragging, and my ex's brother was the bartender, and he's like, oh, you're that guy's brother?
	I banged his girlfriend.
	You and Classy were kind of like, not the best of friends, like the guys, okay.
	Right.
	Yuck, yuck.
	Yeah, it sort of reminds me of this yoga teacher I had the hots for, which I've mentioned before on the show.
	And there was some guy in the men's change room who was bragging about banging her.
	I'm like, oh, so if that's the guy you bang, I'm fine.
	It's gone, baby!
	Penis has now resumed its original state of staring at China.
	Anyway, so what happened then?
	So then he...
	I was extremely angry and...
	Sure, because you cheated on him.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like you lied to him about your age, it wasn't like you lied to him about being married.
	Like, he had sex with his wife, I assume, since he got together with you, but you cheated on him, so that's just, oh, outrageous!
	Exactly, yeah.
	Right, okay.
	I mean, to get it down to a double standard would be a massive improvement, right?
	Right, that's his middle name.
	Yeah, hypocrite, yeah.
	So then he instructed me I should tell my parents that I was unfaithful and were trying to figure things out or something.
	And I had to kind of demonstrate my love and devotion to him before I could propose to get the engagement back on.
	Did you tell your parents?
	I did.
	What did they say?
	Nothing, right?
	Pretty much, yeah.
	Okay, let me just speak to the parents out there for a moment.
	Okay, mom, dad, that child, you carried in her belly for nine months, you cuddled her, you breastfed her, you bathed her, you kept her safe, you got her her shots, you took her to the dentist, you Washed her, bathed her.
	All of this, you took care of her.
	You took care of her and then you start sending her out into the wide world.
	I assume you're an attractive woman, so there's going to be sharks in the water.
	Sharks in the water and...
	I don't know.
	I can mix my metaphors.
	Blood coming from the hoo-hoo.
	And it's really, really, really important that you keep your children safe.
	And this does not end when they...
	You keep them safe in the dating world.
	You keep them safe in the living together world.
	You keep them safe in the marriage world.
	And you are ferocious.
	You must be ferocious against the predators, the liars, the exploiters, the narcissists, the abusers, the emotionally unavailable, the whoever.
	The drifters, the failure to launch, nowhere to land, guys.
	And you must stand between...
	Unproductive, naughty bits.
	You throw yourself in.
	You throw yourself on the genitals sometimes like it's a grenade.
	I'll take it.
	My intestines.
	Work to keep your kids safe.
	And if, say, your daughter has, oh, I got pregnant, oh, I'm giving the kid up for adoption, oh, I'm dating a guy who turned out to be married, and he's a dad, and he's 10 years old, and then he told me, and then I cheated on him, this would be an excellent time To put her in a nunnery, you know, and if this requires, you know, the Popemobile windowless van, you get it to the nunnery and you do something with a chastity belt.
	That's all I'm saying.
	That's what you got to do.
	And just try and get her out.
	Of the arena when these kinds of decisions are raining down and parents you got the world is different You know I get all these people who tell me out you can't talk about dating now you're 48 and now the kids are 20 and they can't date these women and so on right so I'm willing to accept and and you know I apologize if I'm speaking out of turn to people I'm obviously not dating women who are 20 Because you know you could probably lie 40 to 30.
	I don't know if you can lie 50 almost 50 to 30 but I'm willing to accept that things have changed a lot, and because things have changed a lot, boy, you've got to step up and step in when your kids start going haywire sexually, right?
	Because wouldn't you say that sexuality has kind of led you astray in some ways?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	Okay, good.
	I didn't want to speak out of tune.
	Okay, so then you had to apologize to him and prove your love and prove your reliability.
	You had to basically show that you were trustworthy to the guy who started your foundation of your relationship on massive, egregious, horrendous lying, right?
	You had to prove that you were trustworthy to the master liar, right?
	Yeah, and I don't even know if it was that, but it was just to prove that I was under his control, that I was obedient, that I was...
	And he also needed to know that your parents wouldn't interfere in the marriage, which is why you had to tell them, right?
	Hmm.
	I never thought about that.
	Right.
	So then you get married.
	And how long until you have kids?
	About a year before I got pregnant.
	And who wanted the kids?
	Hmm.
	I... I don't know that we ever agreed on having kids, but I got pregnant, and so we had kids.
	Okay, but you know how not to do this, right?
	Yeah, we weren't so good about that.
	I mean, one way is to assume the prayer position, but don't pray, at least according to a Madonna song that I recall.
	But come on, I mean, you know how to get pregnant, so if you got pregnant, it wasn't an accident, right?
	Sure.
	Well, don't tell me sure like you're agreeing with something I'm putting forward out of nowhere.
	Well, I mean...
	Did you get pregnant on purpose?
	I'm sorry, say that again?
	Did you get pregnant on purpose?
	I mean, in other words, did you engage in sexual behavior that sooner or later was going to get you pregnant?
	Well, obviously.
	Right.
	So, did you choose to get pregnant?
	In that sense, yes.
	Okay, in what sense did you not choose to get pregnant?
	I mean, if I drive blindfolded and say, well, I didn't choose to get into an accident, people may doubt my veracity in that area, right?
	Yeah, that's kind of how it happened.
	You chose to get pregnant.
	Not consciously.
	Why is this tough?
	Do you feel like I'm being mean, or is there some resistance to you in this?
	No, I just don't think it was a conscious decision.
	It very much was running with my hands over my eyes.
	But that's a conscious decision, right?
	Isn't any time that you have unprotected sex a conscious decision to risk pregnancy?
	Well, I don't want to get that much into detail.
	There were some conscious attempts Not to get pregnant.
	Oh, like withdrawal or something?
	Right, exactly.
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah, okay.
	If only there was a place, a computer where you could type in and get statistics.
	Anyway, okay.
	And then what, were you guys both faithful to your knowledge outside of his ex-wife and your vacation fling?
	Were you guys both faithful to your knowledge throughout the course of the remaining 12 or so years?
	Up until I found out he had a mistress, yes.
	Wait.
	Wait, Linda, hang on a second.
	Are you telling me that the relationship started with you being the mistress, and then he ended up with another mistress?
	Yeah, shocker, isn't it?
	By God!
	Couldn't predict that one.
	Yeah, of course, if he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you, right?
	Of course.
	That's the name of the game, right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	Right.
	I'm...
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so you found out he had a mistress and was that it?
	That was it.
	You said that's it, it's over.
	And how long did he have the mistress for?
	I can't know for sure, but at least what I do know for sure is at least a few months.
	Right.
	And was he still a musician?
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Hanging on by a thread.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Getting kind of Grateful Dead on you there, right?
	Yeah.
	More dead than grateful.
	All right.
	And so then it was over, and then you've, of course, been battling, as you say, for three years.
	I mean, so this guy's been, you know, cooking in your vicinity for, like, what, 16-plus years now?
	Right.
	And is he now shacked up with the new girl, or is there someone else?
	Yeah.
	No, that's her.
	Same one.
	A couple of years, she's probably going to start hitting on nurses, right?
	Anyway.
	Wow.
	Yeah, I'm sorry about all that.
	Have you done any therapy about the whys of this?
	I've done a little bit of counseling.
	I don't know that I would call it therapy, really.
	But that's my next, that's my plan, is real therapy.
	Good.
	Because, you know, the issue that we started with, that there's some scantily clad digital images in Rayman, is not going to be the big challenge for your kids, right?
	No.
	Exactly.
	Right?
	You have daughters, you said?
	I do.
	If you don't know why you ended up with this guy, Rayman characters are going to be very much the least of your problems, right?
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	Were you hoping that I was going to come to that?
	I wouldn't say hope, but, well, yeah, I would say hope, sure.
	Okay, hoping like, so we basically were having unprotected social intercourse, and you were hoping that something was going to be brought forward that was, yeah, because...
	Sure, it's a little more interesting.
	Yeah, this is where the challenge is going to be, right?
	I mean, the fact that, I mean, these patterns are...
	So horrible.
	But they can be great.
	But the patterns, right?
	So you first got pregnant with a guy who was himself an orphan, and you ended up creating an orphan.
	Right?
	That's a pattern, right?
	Totally.
	It's just so strange that...
	My parents didn't abuse me.
	It wasn't a horrible childhood.
	I think I know where the problem originates.
	Where?
	It just doesn't seem like it should have turned out this bad.
	But where did the problem originate?
	Well, like I said, my mom would defer to my dad Um, had no confidence in herself, no, no ability to follow her convictions, always regretting and self-doubting and, and, um, he would swoop in and, and, you know, make the decisions.
	And basically the, the message to us kids was you are in incompetent hands with your mother.
	Wait, so you, you felt that you were in incompetent hands with your mom?
	As far as I can tell from the little bit of self-analysis I've done, yeah.
	So were you spanked?
	Maybe once.
	Once or twice, maybe.
	And what kind of religious instruction, Linda, did you go through?
	Was it like hellfire and brimstone, or was it more mild?
	Yeah, it was Catholic school up until, you know, eighth grade or so.
	But there was not the rulers.
	We heard about how Catholic school used to be and it wasn't that bad.
	I'm going to make a guess here.
	Okay.
	That's the sound of my creaky limb.
	Are you ready?
	Not my arm or leg, but going out on a creaky limb.
	Are you ready for my guess?
	I'm ready.
	You are quite a bit prettier than your mother.
	Interesting.
	Are you?
	I know she would agree with that.
	Yeah, I would agree with that.
	All right.
	And I was thinking, because in the last show, we had this couple of polyamorous octopus people calling in.
	Just joking.
	They were actually a very nice couple.
	She also was like, I saw a picture of her, and yeah, she's very pretty, a nice figure and all that.
	And it is very hard for less attractive moms to help daughters who are more attractive.
	At least it seems to be.
	I don't know if it's a self-selecting bias of people who call into the show.
	I don't know, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	If you're a lot, let's talk, so when you were 20, right?
	Let's say 19, 18, 18, let's say 18.
	Where would you put yourself on a 1 to 10?
	And let's not do the false modesty dance, right?
	Like, where would you put yourself on a 1 to 10?
	Maybe an 8, something like that.
	Okay, and so 8, that's good.
	And the guy, the musician?
	6 or 7, maybe?
	Right.
	Okay.
	God almighty.
	I'm just listening to these distant Brazilian drumbeat of men hitting their heads against walls.
	But anyway.
	Well, you got a guitar.
	I mean...
	Yeah, okay.
	Guys, get a guitar.
	No, don't!
	No, guys, I'll know that.
	But...
	So could your mother really help you, right?
	In...
	You know, my daughter is pretty, and we've already begun to have little conversations about this.
	You know, that men and women are going to be interested in her because she's pretty.
	And that's just the reality of being pretty.
	And did your mom ever talk to you about, you know, listen, you're really pretty, and blah, blah, blah, right?
	I want to give you two little examples, if I might.
	One I remember from very young, maybe seven, six years old, her telling me, maybe a little older, her telling me, people used to tell me all the time and stop me all the time to tell me how beautiful you were as a little child.
	And I didn't want to tell you that.
	I didn't want you to get a big head, I think is the way she phrased it.
	Hmm.
	I'd like to leave you unprepared in the realm of human predation on beauty.
	All right.
	Yeah, and then the other thing I remember was shopping for this is like sixth or seventh grade Catholic school.
	There was a dance and shopping for a dress and My mom I don't know how she could have let me wear this thing.
	It was completely off the shoulder, skin tight, cotton, like basically like Pretty Woman in what she wore in that movie.
	And I don't know for those who don't know the character's job in that movie, would you like to relate it?
	She was a prostitute.
	She was a prostitute.
	So if it's like Pretty Woman, don't think of the Roy Orbison song.
	Think of someone swinging a purse downtown looking on the lookout for cops.
	Yeah, and my parents just looked at me admiringly, and I remember that distinctly, and it's sick now that I think of it.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Right, right.
	So the degree of, you know, like, if you're a billionaire, right, and then you're going to have to say to your kids, look, we got a lot of money.
	And people are going to want things from you and people are going to want to be your friend and people are going to want to use your stuff and people are going to want to lend you.
	Like you're going to get a lot of people interested in you because of your money.
	I'm sure Bill Gates has these conversations with his kids and it is the same thing with physical beauty.
	With the caveat that if you lend money to people and they don't pay it back, it's not like a human life has been created, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	So, what was your mother's relationship?
	Did she have any really pretty friends?
	Yeah, I think she did.
	I think her best friend was super, super attractive.
	She also had four sisters, and several of them were very pretty.
	One in particular.
	Now, did any of those, your mom's friends or your aunt who was super pretty, did they sit you down and say, you've got the family blessing and curse or whatever, right?
	So here's what you need to know?
	No, absolutely not.
	Son of a bitch.
	Yeah, the pretty aunt in particular, she married down a troll, like horrible guy.
	And that guy was my dad's best friend.
	Yeah.
	Wait, the troll was your dad's best friend?
	Which means your dad's a troll.
	He has to be.
	Because his best friend was a troll?
	Yeah!
	Best friend.
	Gotta have stuff in common.
	Gotta have the most in common of anyone he's ever had the potential to be friends with.
	So your dad male dated down.
	Yeah, my dad was slumming.
	Yeah, my dad was...
	Okay, so now we're starting to unpack, right?
	Yeah.
	Your dad took...
	Why?
	Like, why would he be friends with this troll?
	Well, I'll give you the surface level version is I think he prides himself on...
	Being friends with everyone.
	Don't give me the hallmark.
	Don't give me the crappy self-justifications that people use.
	Don't give me the false pride.
	Give me the real stuff.
	Maybe to feel better about himself was that, well, I'm better than this guy.
	You always take a friend that's uglier out with you so you look better.
	Well, I don't know.
	You say this like this is some general rule.
	It's kind of something in the dating world, I suppose.
	No, it's really not.
	It never occurred for me.
	I was never like, oh, I gotta take a guy out who's less attractive than me, so I'll look better.
	Well, I don't think, yeah.
	Normal people don't think that.
	Because I wouldn't want a woman to say, I wouldn't want a woman to say, well, I don't find that Steph guy attractive, but at least he's more attractive than that tree plant he's standing next to, so I guess I'll go out with him.
	Like, I wouldn't want a woman to choose me just because I'm not the guy next to me.
	Do you know what I mean?
	No, normal people wouldn't, no.
	But just kind of like a superficial mainstream.
	Well, manipulative, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so your dad maybe wants to feel superior to his best friend?
	That's the word, superior.
	Okay, he wants to feel superior.
	But why?
	I mean, it's a terrible way to feel superior, right?
	I mean, it's like me saying I run faster than a paraplegic.
	I mean, what a shitty way to feel superior, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So why?
	Why would he want to feel superior in that horrible way?
	Well, I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that his father was abusive and his mom was a doormat.
	Like the woman he married, right?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	So is the woman he married also a way of him feeling superior?
	Yeah, probably.
	Okay, and the reason why it's so horrible to have those kinds of relationships is because when you are with someone to feel superior to them, you must crush them all the time.
	Right?
	You must crush them.
	Anytime they show a sign of life or initiative or enthusiasm, you must...
	Call in the airstrike of indifference and contempt and weariness and superiority.
	You must forever, ever be crushing them down.
	Your ego is heavily invested in the failure and paralysis of those around you.
	Yeah.
	Well, she certainly provided that on her own.
	She didn't even need his help.
	So he wasn't just friends with a troll.
	He was making the troll in real time.
	He was keeping the troll a troll in real time.
	He wasn't just like, well, here's a person, I'll be friends with them.
	He actually contributed to and maintained the inferiority of those around him, right?
	You're talking about my mom now, right?
	And the troll.
	And who else?
	Who else am I talking about, Linda?
	Me.
	You.
	Because a father who is invested in his daughter's success and happiness would lock her in a goddamn dungeon before he would let her go back to that guitar-picking nutjob.
	Do you understand?
	Yeah, totally.
	So he was invested...
	I would imagine.
	This is just theory, right?
	But he was invested in your lack of success, which you say, well, he didn't say anything.
	No.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	Because it was necessary.
	In the same way that your mother's paralysis and deference was necessary, in the way that his troll's trolliness was necessary.
	And this is a form...
	It's a form of using other people for an empty ego, right?
	What was the first word you used to describe your ex-husband to me?
	Narcissus.
	Right.
	It only matters how people feed my ego, and it doesn't matter at what expense they feed my ego.
	It doesn't matter at what expense they feed my ego.
	I'm dying of thirst.
	I kneel down at a giant lake.
	I don't care.
	That I'm emptying the lake out, I'm going to drink, right?
	Because the lake has no feelings and I have no care or concern for the lake's quote well-being.
	That's how these kinds of people deal with human beings.
	I'm dying of thirst from an empty self.
	I will feed on whoever is around me and it doesn't matter.
	Not only does it not matter what effect it has on them, there's no even way to comprehend that it could have an effect on them that matters.
	Mm-hmm.
	I just wonder how he did that to me.
	I can't...
	Wait, wait.
	We're not connecting emotionally at all here, Linda.
	Okay.
	I mean, what I'm saying...
	I'm not saying I'm right.
	I'm just telling you what I think.
	But there's some pretty heavy stuff, if it's accurate, right?
	Yeah.
	So where are you emotionally?
	I'm trying to...
	Because I can't see you.
	I can't...
	I'm trying to picture that person...
	And I can see it in my ex.
	I have trouble.
	I mean, I know my dad did a lot of things wrong.
	I just have trouble envisioning him as that person.
	Well, can you think of any times...
	Well, it could be because he's so successful at it.
	I don't want that to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy, but can you think of times where your mother may have shown enthusiasm or where you may have shown enthusiasm for something wherein your father may have moved against that or deflated that?
	And don't, obviously, if it's not there, that's fine.
	I mean, don't do anything to please me.
	It's just a theory, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm sure there's got to be something.
	I just can't think of anything specific offhand.
	No, don't.
	Don't assume anything.
	Again, I'm just some guy talking on the internet, right?
	So don't assume anything that I'm saying is correct.
	It's just that I can't conceive of how you would end up with a narcissist, as you call him, if your dad didn't share any of those tendencies.
	And the fact that your dad did not block you Like, this is what bugs me about parents.
	It's like, Linda, either he knew that this was not a good match for you, to be happy, or he didn't.
	Now, if he didn't know that a guy who lied about his age by 10 years, that's not insignificant, lied about his age by 10 years, lied about being married, lied about being fathered, That he might not have known with his...
	Got 30 years more experience or 25 years more experience than you or whatever.
	The idea that he would not know that this is fucked up beyond words is incomprehensible to me.
	Yeah.
	Incomprehensible to me.
	Yeah.
	So he knew that it was messed up.
	That you were walking into blades.
	That you were walking into dysfunction.
	That you were walking into a very dangerous environment.
	And the fact that he did not do anything or say anything, as far as I understand it, if I remember rightly, he didn't comment on it at all to your memory.
	Right.
	Or, you know, he praised this guy.
	Yeah, he praised him.
	Because he said, your dad said about this guy, he's the most talented person I've ever met.
	Mm-hmm.
	So he praised this guy to you.
	Oh my God!
	So how is it possible that your father praised a man who pathologically and destructively lied not just to you, but to his wife?
	A father who was sleeping around with his own daughter right after becoming a father.
	And he praises that man.
	You're not getting this.
	You give me mm-hmms like I'm reeling off a list of things that you need to pick up.
	No, I mean, I've thought of all of it, and it all makes sense.
	I just, I can't see.
	No, what makes sense?
	What makes sense?
	Because what I'm pointing out to you is that I can't see it, right?
	You say, I can't see it.
	He praised a man who preyed on you, who lied to you.
	Right.
	Who cheated on his wife and the mother of his own children to sleep with you who's 20 years older than you.
	He praised that man after he betrayed you.
	No, still don't get it.
	No, what I can't see is what happened before that.
	Where was his pattern?
	Where was the pattern with me before that?
	Because I got all that.
	Okay, no, let's go back to before that.
	Did he meet the guy who got you pregnant?
	No.
	Why?
	Because we weren't serious.
	Did he meet any of your boyfriends before this musician?
	Yes.
	And what was the quality of your boyfriends before the musician?
	The main one that was over a year of relationship was very similar, I would say.
	Very conservative.
	Similar to who?
	Similar to my ex.
	That he was like four years older than me.
	He was 19.
	Sorry, did you just say conservative?
	Well, like religiously, like, you know, on the...
	Wait, sorry, sorry.
	I'm getting a head spin.
	So your ex-husband, the father of your seven-year marriage, he was religiously conservative?
	No.
	I know that sounds weird.
	But he was older.
	Was he like the front man to slayer?
	I'm sorry, go on.
	Well, that's not- Because you just dropped conservative in there like that, you know?
	No, no, no.
	I don't mean that they- I'm sorry, I phrased that wrong.
	They were similar in the fact of being older than me and being very controlling.
	And then I was kind of- Hang on, sorry.
	So was this a boyfriend you had when you were 16 or 17?
	15.
	14, 15.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm assuming, I'm assuming the crash position, okay?
	I am, you know what, I'm not even going to assume the crash position.
	I'm going to go in a fetal position on the floor.
	I'm going to be sucking my thumb, so this next part's going to be a little bit hard to hear, okay?
	Are you ready, Linda?
	Are you ready?
	All right.
	Are you ready?
	Okay.
	When you were 14, no, no, I can't adjust myself a little bit, okay.
	When you were 14, Linda, how old was your boyfriend?
	19.
	No!
	So a statutory rapist.
	Thank you.
	Am I wrong?
	I'm not talking about whether the law is right or wrong.
	I'm just saying that is the law, right?
	I believe you're right.
	Really?
	I don't think that's far off.
	I mean, I think even in Thailand that's a problem.
	Yeah.
	No, I think you're right.
	And did your father...
	When you were 14, meet your 18 or 19 year old boyfriend?
	Yes.
	And what did he say?
	Did he say, excuse me while I call 911?
	Nope.
	What did he say?
	He said, come on over, have some dinner with us.
	14?
	You're 14?
	Guy creeping around, a 14 year old?
	Mm-hmm.
	But I think we can feel safe that 18 or 19 to 14 is a problem.
	And your dad was like, come on over for dinner.
	And what was your mom like?
	Biting her nails.
	Ooh, I don't know.
	I don't know about this.
	Oh, so at least your mom said that there may potentially be a problem.
	Yeah, but we don't listen to her.
	I'm sorry?
	I said, yeah, but we don't listen to her.
	Might have been helpful.
	No, I'm just saying.
	Now, you said that you were raised Catholic?
	Mm-hmm.
	Now, I'm not any kind of expert on Catholic dogma.
	Oh yeah, so it's not statutory rape if we don't have sex, right?
	Yeah, because absolutely, there's no question that 18 or 19-year-old guys are into 14-year-old girls just for the conversation.
	Because, you know, 14-year-old girls, all kinds of erudite.
	And I'm sure your knowledge of Renaissance poetry and medieval dance was unparalleled.
	Yeah, but we didn't have penis and vagina sex.
	That's very important to the conservative religious thing.
	He was a born-again Christian.
	He would never do that.
	The 18-year-old was a born-again Christian?
	And was he your first boyfriend?
	No.
	I mean, I had, you know, little flings as a teenager.
	Wait, wait, no.
	We're talking 14.
	So you're saying that you were dating before you were 14?
	Yeah.
	Dating, holding hands, like walking to the Carnival kind of dating.
	Well, okay.
	Okay.
	And where did you meet the 18-year-old?
	At an amusement park.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, okay, that fits.
	He didn't work at the amusement park, though, I hope.
	No.
	All right.
	I pursued him.
	That doesn't matter at all, but I get what you're saying.
	I get what you're saying.
	Poor 18 year old was helpless.
	All right.
	And did you ever have conversations about dating when it's appropriate and in what context and with your parents?
	Not that I can recall.
	I remember a talk, you know, the talk.
	With my mom and basically the takeaway message was it doesn't have to go all the way in for you to get pregnant.
	That's all I got.
	Right.
	Well I tell you Linda, it's tragic.
	It's tragic.
	I mean I'm so sad at the lack of mentoring, the lack of instruction, the lack of help, the lack of Feedback, the lack of care, the lack of concern, the lack of safety, the lack of protection, the lack of security that you received as a budding young woman whose physical attractiveness would have obviously been a magnet to guys.
	I am incredibly sorry.
	I'm telling you, this is absolutely not right.
	I can't comprehend in my wildest dreams the idea of, like, my daughter's 14 and you're 18 or 19.
	Yeah, come on over.
	I don't know if you know what's missing.
	What do you mean?
	Well, I don't know if you know just how not right that is to allow this To encourage this, to enable this with your daughter.
	Yeah.
	To enable this musician creep, to enable this 18 or 19 year old creep, to welcome them with open arms, to praise them, to have them break...
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I see where it's...
	No wonder they couldn't say much about you getting pregnant.
	What are you thinking?
	What are you feeling?
	Um...
	Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, I know where it's gotten me and my girls and how horrible I feel for the damage that's been done to my kids.
	That I need to figure this out and I need to fix it.
	I need to repair their lives.
	And in order to do that, I have to understand this.
	And it's hard to know when something's missing.
	Like when something is present that's negative or destructive or abusive, that's easier to see, right?
	But the absence, it's not like, like if we're hungry long enough, it just short circuits and we don't get hungry anymore.
	And if we're not protected long enough, we just make our own way, right?
	We just try and figure things out for ourselves and we give up waiting and hoping for this, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, one of the adverse childhood experiences that is very traumatic is neglect, is a lack of parental involvement.
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	No, I was just going to say that, you know, I think looking back that I, you know, they always say teenagers are testing boundaries or whatever, and I can see how my behavior, I looked to them to get the backlash and get the, no, don't do that.
	This is wrong.
	Of course.
	And they, you know, when it was something to do with men or boys or dressing sexy or whatever with my sexuality, they smiled.
	And it was an encouragement.
	It was a positive reinforcement.
	Well, I must be on the right track kind of thing.
	And that is...
	I mean, I hesitate to say it.
	Because...
	I'm just telling you what I think.
	I'm not telling you anything that I can claim is true, Linda.
	But that is incredibly destructive.
	I mean, any daughter, but an attractive daughter to encourage the sexuality, the skin-trite dresses, to have wildly age-inappropriate boyfriends over for dinner, to To praise people who've lied to you.
	That is engineering disaster.
	You understand?
	Yeah.
	That is creating an engineering disaster.
	You know, there's this story that happened in a zoo that the parent and the mom, I think, was dangling some two-year-old kid over the cheetah pit.
	The two-year-old kid fell into the cheetah pit.
	They're dangling you over the man pit.
	Yeah.
	You know, well-marinated for the predators.
	It's like you're groomed for this.
	You know how they say predators groom the kids?
	That's what's happening to my daughters.
	Sorry?
	That's what's happening to my daughters.
	The narcissist is grooming them.
	He's telling my little girl, you're pretty enough to be a model.
	He's counting on them to take care of him in his old age.
	He's grooming them up to be his minions.
	Hmm.
	Well, that's where the real battle is going to be.
	It's not in the court, it's in who your daughters are going to be, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I assume they are pretty, and it is essential.
	It is essential to predator-proof people.
	Children.
	I'm not talking about guys in vans.
	I mean, that's so wildly uncommon.
	It's like getting struck by lightning or whatever.
	But I'm just talking about there are just creepy...
	Our style reproductive artists out there.
	So when their dad is that person, and they love him, and he instills fear in them of the creepy guy in the van.
	Like he has them terrified of being abducted, of being molested, of drowning, of bees, of pit bulls.
	You know, he's got all of those stranger danger things in their head.
	And he's the one abusing them.
	But isn't that natural?
	I mean, we always want, isn't that like the American government saying that the danger is Al-Qaeda or ISIS? It's like, no, no, no, not really.
	Not really.
	They can't tax me one penny.
	They can't enter into debt on my children's behalf.
	They can't start wars.
	They can't arrest.
	I mean, no.
	Of course, yeah, everyone who's the most dangerous points at external dangers always, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think to really focus on what's missing, you know, I really believe this, and I can't prove it.
	Evidence accumulates.
	You know, I'm in the unique position of having had many, many of these conversations over the years with brave and courageous people like yourself, but nothing is accidental in family.
	People aren't just distracted.
	They don't just miss.
	They don't...
	They're not just disengaged.
	They didn't, you know, things don't just pass them.
	Nothing that happens in families is accidental.
	And yes, of course, you know, Dr.
	Phil has this story about he had a friend of his over and they were supposed to go see some basketball game, but the weather was really bad.
	And Dr.
	Phil's dad said to him, no, you can't go.
	I mean, you can't drive.
	The weather's too bad.
	And he got really upset with his dad because he really wanted to meet some girls at the basketball game or whatever.
	And this guy who was a friend of his was a real tough guy, and the guy turned to Dr.
	Phil with tears in his eyes and said, I wish my parents cared enough to tell me now.
	Yeah.
	They'd have let me go.
	Mm-hmm.
	You know, sensible restraints is a sign of love, sensible boundaries, sensible...
	Mm-hmm.
	The far-seeing consequences that the adult mind can process that the child mind and the youth mind can't nearly as well is what's needed.
	I mean, the idea that you were still two years shy of driving but could have an 18-year-old boyfriend is incomprehensible.
	Sorry, are you going to say?
	Oh, no.
	No.
	And you were groomed to be used.
	Mm-hmm.
	And what was...
	I would tell you this with absolute certainty, that what was important for your security was not only ignored, Linda, it was dismantled.
	When your father says, great guy, most talented guy, that is incredibly disarming.
	For the daughter, because for you, as a young woman, to sit there and say, well, wait a sec, this guy's creepy, lied to me, he's cheating on his wife, he's cheating on, he's got a kid, he didn't tell me, right?
	I mean, for you to then process that and say, well, what the hell does it mean that my dad is okay with all of this, is praising this guy?
	What the hell does that mean about his relationship to me and my security and my safety?
	What kind of man is he?
	Mm-hmm.
	That he's praising the guy who betrayed his daughter.
	That is so messed up.
	It's a horrible betrayal.
	It is a horrible betrayal.
	And it's because of your father that your ex was in your life at all.
	Because if your father had done 20% of the right thing, you don't have to go all the way.
	But if father had 10% of the right thing, this guy would never have even been around.
	That's why I said, he said, tell your parents to know that your parents wouldn't interfere.
	Yeah.
	And he was right.
	Even after you said, well, I cheated on this guy, he's cheated on me.
	They're like, did they show up to the wedding?
	Did they clap?
	Did they tingle?
	Did they...
	Yeah.
	Hey, they're getting married!
	They paid for it.
	They paid for it.
	Yeah, he lied to her.
	He cheated on her.
	She cheated on him.
	He was married.
	He was a dad.
	He's left his wife.
	Yay!
	That is not accidental.
	And I'm...
	I always...
	I hate having to point out where people have ownership and they can say, well, we didn't know, but I mean, this is just incomprehensible.
	Nobody with an IQ over 75 would have any doubt that some guy who lies to you and cheats on his wife when he's a dad and lies about having a wife and a kid is a good catch.
	I mean, there's nobody who would say that, right?
	And so you were engineered into this I'm not saying you didn't have any responsibility, but as the parents, starting at 14 or whatever, who knows how far back it goes, but you are maneuvered into this situation.
	They are in some reason or in some manner invested in you not succeeding.
	Maybe they...
	Got real problems with pretty women in their own pasts.
	Or maybe there's...
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	What do I know, right?
	Sure.
	You know, maybe you remind your dad of your mom and he couldn't take any vengeance against her.
	So he's going to take vengeance against you by engineering...
	And enabling failures on you so he can feel superior and get back at his mind.
	I don't know.
	I mean, just whatever.
	It could be any number of things.
	And I'm no therapist, so there's something you should talk about with a therapist.
	But yeah, if you can crack this code, Linda, holy crap, your kids are going to benefit massively.
	Sure hope so.
	And how are you doing now?
	Good.
	I can't wait for this hearing to be over.
	I can't wait to get into real therapy.
	I can't wait to get my kids back and be what they need in their lives because I failed them.
	How?
	By making all the bad decisions that led up to them being in the home of a psychopath.
	Well, it sounds to me like you're on the right road for examining these questions, and they're brutal and difficult to examine, but that's the kind of work that needs to be done to break the cycle, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, you want your daughters to make better decisions than...
	And I don't even want to say that you held decisions when you're making at the age of 14, right?
	But you want them to end up with better men than you did, right?
	Yeah.
	Much better.
	Way better.
	And I would like for them to end up with way better men than you did because I want men who are immature and untrustworthy to not get the hot chicks, right?
	Is that unreasonable?
	No.
	Let's steer your kids when they're 20 towards moral guys, towards good guys, towards guys that you'll be proud to have in your home.
	Absolutely.
	Will you keep us posted?
	Yeah, I will.
	I will definitely keep you posted.
	Thank you so much for all your time.
	Thank you very much, Linda, and best of luck.
	Thank you.
	All right, up is Leon.
	Leon wrote in and said, Stefan, thanks for your further insight on paying it forward in terms of having kids.
	Would you say that investing your time and or money in better slash enriching the lives of other children through spreading slash donating to the cause of better parenting can never sufficiently pay it forward?
	I mean, personally, I think I may never be qualified to be a truly good parent, but success in my career path will allow me to invest many times the money slash resources into aiding the growth of philosophy and better parenting that I could achieve by having kids.
	And why not have kids?
	So, yeah, I mean, I obviously want to have kids.
	I'm just skeptical about doing that in the near future, whereas I'll In terms of my career, I probably have more resources to contribute that way.
	Then what's your age range?
	What sort of stage of life are you in?
	Oh, I'm 26.
	And why does your career preclude you from having kids in the near future?
	Oh, it wouldn't.
	I just think right now, since I've just basically stayed on, just started on kind of self-knowledge and working on my own issues with my parents, It's going to be some time before I feel confident that I can responsibly do the peaceful parenting thing with my own kids.
	Right, yeah, okay.
	I mean, so it's premature.
	It's not like you're 45 or something and wondering if you're too old to have kids or whatever.
	No, and...
	You certainly may have kids at some point, right?
	Right, yeah.
	I mean, and I realize that the age gap between My husband and wife, in terms of marriages, contributes in some way to more success during marriage.
	You mentioned that statistic of nine years or so, but I'm not there yet to where that's a particular concern.
	So instead of investing my resources right now and looking for doing more socializing in terms of looking for responsible and moral and virtuous women, I'm I'll just contribute to those resources within the next few years until I've worked out my own issues first.
	Right, right.
	Well, look, I mean, if you don't end up having kids, then there's lots that you can do to help out the world.
	And if you do have kids, then you can do that by having kids.
	Then there's more that you can do as well.
	I thought maybe there was some fork in the road at the moment, like you're trying to figure out whether to have kids this month or whether to, right?
	But yeah, there's tons of things you can do to do great things in the world.
	You know, and like my sister, she's getting married and it's like been just, you know, months, maybe less than a year when I've discovered kind of, you know, read UPB and started listening to your podcast and And started working on that myself.
	And I've been just really...
	So I don't really have any relationship with my mom or dad at the moment.
	But my sister does, unfortunately.
	And so I've been doing as much as possible I can to kind of forewarn to prepare her.
	Like, okay, well, what's your husband like?
	Because I met the guy in the past, but I didn't think about the various factors...
	That's important to get into because she's getting married and making those decisions.
	And that's kind of all rolled into the situation with me not really communicating with my parents recently.
	I have a lot to work on before I think I can directly work out the issues that I need to start on my own path with a committed relationship and kids.
	Yeah, and look, I mean, certainly, I hope that you can work things out with your parents.
	And if you can, that's certainly going to be helpful for raising kids, right?
	Having grandparents around can be very beneficial for raising kids.
	And so, yeah, I think I certainly would pursue the work of self-knowledge.
	And that's going to get you, I think, a better partner.
	And through the work of self-knowledge, once you work on yourself and you understand your patterns, you can face the future with much more confidence that you are not going to repeat the mistakes, right?
	So it bugs people when I say my wife and I are never getting divorced.
	It's like, you don't know, man.
	Yes, I do.
	Yes, I do.
	Because I have really, really worked a lot on self-knowledge and continue to work a lot on self-knowledge.
	And the idea that That it could happen.
	It's not going to happen.
	And, you know, people can hang on to their, you never know, until, you know, I'm buried next to her.
	And then they'll say, well, I guess, you know, in the meantime, they didn't.
	So once you get self-knowledge, you don't worry about, like, I'm not waking up tomorrow saying, hope I don't beat my daughter.
	It's not going to happen.
	Not going to happen.
	And so with self-knowledge comes certainty.
	It comes, you're in You're in control.
	You have no bizarre undertones, which you don't know why you're doing what you're doing.
	So you can choose the right person.
	You know with confidence and security where you're going to go in life and the positive things that you can achieve.
	And if those lead you towards kids, you know, maybe the woman of your dreams doesn't want to have children.
	It's certainly possible.
	Or maybe you change your mind, in which case there's still massive amounts of good that you can do.
	And it's not like second prize.
	Lots of great things that you can do.
	It's like gay couples who don't want to adopt can do wonderful things in the world.
	I think that having kids is a great thing and I've made that case for that elsewhere.
	But if you don't choose to have kids, wonderful things you can do in the world.
	So yeah, I think that either way is fine.
	I appreciate that.
	And the comment that I made that What turned into this question was in related to a video you had about in response to men going their own way question.
	And usually those people react to your videos negatively because they have their own seated dysfunction that they haven't worked out, at least from what I can see.
	Well, it's a bit of a confirmation bias, right?
	So they have seen, I assume, smoking craters Smoking family court craters where their dads were or whatever, or they've got friends who've done it.
	And disastrous things have happened.
	But so what?
	I mean, that was me too.
	I mean, my parents got divorced and it was ugly and it was messy and it went on forever.
	And it was still going on when I was in my teens.
	And so I've seen that too.
	And you learn from that lesson.
	You learn from that lesson.
	And you figure things out in a different way.
	But, you know, it's confirmation bias because of the statistics that are thrown around, right?
	I mean, 50% of marriages end in divorce.
	It's not true.
	It's not true.
	It's got as much validity as the one in four rape statistic, which we debunked, and we'll be working on debunking that in the future.
	But it's that confirmation bias.
	The decision to get married on it is so important.
	You'd think you'd do a little bit of research into such a momentous decision rather than fixating upon the 50% number.
	But if you just fixate upon the 50% number, it's because it's serving an emotional...
	Issue for you and that doesn't mean that there's not risk in marriage and it doesn't mean that family court is not a horrible disastrous Man-hating system.
	Yeah, it is and I recognize all of that but It is the arguments that are put forward are arguments From there's just no way to know and once you have self-knowledge there are ways to know and until you have self-knowledge it seems impossible and Anybody like that.
	That's why when I say my wife and I ended up never getting divorced People are delusional.
	Everyone thinks that until she wakes up one day and blah blah blah, right?
	It's like, no, no!
	You're on the other side.
	You don't know yourself.
	You haven't done the work, so you don't know.
	I mean, it looks magical for someone to play chess really well if you haven't done the work.
	It's like, wow, they have a supercomputer in their ear?
	No, they just practiced a lot.
	So I would say that...
	People who say it's impossible, it's just, well, if you haven't done the work, I guess it looks that way.
	Sorry, are you going to say?
	Yeah, related to that.
	So, obviously, it took some time for you to do the work to get to that point.
	Oh, yeah.
	So, that was really the crux of my concern, is that in the meantime, what can I do?
	And say, you know, never get there, whatever.
	No.
	I can still contribute in other ways, of course.
	Massively.
	Absolutely.
	No question.
	And with self-knowledge, your contribution in any area will be infinitely better than without self-knowledge.
	Yeah, that was the crux of my question.
	I appreciate your time and your continued efforts in the front there.
	I think you've pretty much answered my question.
	Alright, I appreciate that.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	And please don't forget, freedomainradio.com slash donate.
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	Have a great night.

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