Speaker 1: This is Annie and this is Bridget, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to stuff I've never told you. And today we're going
Speaker 1: to try to answer a question, which is why do
Speaker 1: dudes show you their dicks? Oh? Do be showing there?
Speaker 1: Does that ever happen to you? Twice? I mean twice
Speaker 1: where it's been like, not just some guy on the train,
Speaker 1: like where it's been with just me. Oh god. So first,
Speaker 1: before we get into this, we should say quick trigger warning.
Speaker 1: This is about non consensual showings. So that's what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today. It's pretty gross. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: So not it didn't happen to you on a train,
Speaker 1: or it happened it was like that you and another
Speaker 1: person in a room together. Yeah. Um, well, it has
Speaker 1: happened in a public space like on a train before,
Speaker 1: but I've had two instances where it was more like
Speaker 1: private than that, And one the first time I was eight.
Speaker 1: I was eight years old, and I am just really
Speaker 1: glad that at that age I wasn't sure what was wrong,
Speaker 1: but I knew something was wrong and I went and
Speaker 1: got help. I'm very glad that I did. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: did they find the guy? They did find the guy.
Speaker 1: He was a friend of the family. He's someone I knew,
Speaker 1: and it often is. And that's one thing that really
Speaker 1: bothers me when the argument comes up about why didn't
Speaker 1: you report something earlier when we're talking about sexual assault
Speaker 1: or things like this is because it's it's almost always
Speaker 1: someone that you know, and there's kind of this pressure
Speaker 1: to like not make waves that is so much stronger
Speaker 1: than you might think it is. And also just like
Speaker 1: you know this person and you know that not only
Speaker 1: will you might you might not be believed. It will
Speaker 1: be difficult to prove if you succeed potentially ruin this
Speaker 1: person's life, this person that you know. So it does
Speaker 1: it really bothers Well, he ruined his own life, sure,
Speaker 1: but that's how you feel exactly Like. It really upsets
Speaker 1: me when people are like, yeah, why didn't you report earlier?
Speaker 1: There's so many things that go into it. It is
Speaker 1: such a complex situation. Um, And when you're a kid
Speaker 1: like I was a kid, and they were just like,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna happen again. You move on, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you do move on, I would
Speaker 1: imagine maybe it could stick with you forever. Yeah, it does,
Speaker 1: clearly because I do remember it very well, but as
Speaker 1: a kid, I guess I sort of thought it was
Speaker 1: just this weird thing and uh, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: about my my kid business. Yeah, I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's bad enough when it happens as an adult,
Speaker 1: grown woman, I can't even imagine how confusing and disorienting
Speaker 1: and destabilizing that is to be a little kid and
Speaker 1: to have that happened. You know, maybe it's even before
Speaker 1: you have your birds and the bees talk. You don't
Speaker 1: even really understand what is going on, but you know
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel right, and Jesus, I mean I I
Speaker 1: just really can't just so hard. It's scary and confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I yeah, I was very I remember being very scared
Speaker 1: and it it is. It is interesting, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more into this because we are trying to
Speaker 1: get to why this is a thing at all. But
Speaker 1: I do remember kind of the sense from the person
Speaker 1: that I would be excited or happy, and we were
Speaker 1: going to talk about that because there is kind of
Speaker 1: a psychology going on there. How about you have you
Speaker 1: ever had Yeah, it's happened a few times. I lived
Speaker 1: in New York for a while and something about living
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn it was the hotbed of indecent exposure. I
Speaker 1: don't know what what the deal was. It happened once
Speaker 1: in a really traumatic way on the subway. I actually
Speaker 1: didn't even live in New York at the time. I
Speaker 1: was just visiting New York and I was standing on
Speaker 1: the train and a woman next to me was being
Speaker 1: really weird, right, and I was standing holding on as
Speaker 1: a bar, and she was making eye contact with me
Speaker 1: and sort of tugging at me, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: woman is out of her mind, and I couldn't quite
Speaker 1: figure out what was going on. And then I realized
Speaker 1: the guy behind me had exposed himself and was actually
Speaker 1: going off in the back of my winter coat, and
Speaker 1: she was trying to get my attention. But of course
Speaker 1: it is New York's a your you know, and somebody
Speaker 1: tries to make eye contact with you on the subway,
Speaker 1: You're like, let me not make eye contact back. That
Speaker 1: was the time. That was pretty bad. Yeah, this memory
Speaker 1: just reminds me of this woman who kind of became
Speaker 1: a New York City folk hero. On the subway, she
Speaker 1: a man exposed himself to her, and when she realized
Speaker 1: what was happening, she was not having it. She really
Speaker 1: called him out in a way that I imagine. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish I had the courage to do that, but
Speaker 1: she made such a scene that it got other people
Speaker 1: on the subway invested in getting this guy off the subway.
Speaker 1: Here's a little bit of how it sounded. Are done
Speaker 1: for tonight I was starting. You can kind of see
Speaker 1: why she became a bit of a New York City
Speaker 1: lady folk hero in that situation. Oh. Absolutely. It happened
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. I went to an
Speaker 1: all girls Catholic school, and so sometimes there would be
Speaker 1: perverts and creeps who would do things to, you know,
Speaker 1: my classmates and I when we were out and about
Speaker 1: after school. Probably found it titilated or something. But there
Speaker 1: was a guy who would be to drove around and
Speaker 1: he would roll down his window and ask, do you
Speaker 1: know where broad Street is? You know where Main Street is?
Speaker 1: And he would have a map and when he would
Speaker 1: go to his car window, he would remove the map
Speaker 1: and it would be his junk. When it happened when
Speaker 1: when I was with friends, I did not internalize it
Speaker 1: as a sexually threatening experience. It was just so out
Speaker 1: of the norm for how people behaved that we laughed
Speaker 1: and like pointed, and my friend was like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: so small, like we and he drove away and we
Speaker 1: and I just thought like, Oh, what a weird, funny
Speaker 1: thing that happened. I told the story several times in
Speaker 1: a way that was humorous, like a joke. And then
Speaker 1: I remember hearing a classmate it happened to her the
Speaker 1: same guy, but while she was alone, and that was
Speaker 1: the first time I realized, Oh, that's actually scary and threatening,
Speaker 1: and it's so interesting how that dynamic changed it. When
Speaker 1: it was me with a group of my classmates, we
Speaker 1: laughed and pointed us at his small, weird looking dick.
Speaker 1: But when I heard about that that same situation with
Speaker 1: my friend being alone, I was like, she could have
Speaker 1: been her, Like it was just so different. So that
Speaker 1: was the time. It has happened a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but that was the time that sticks out at me
Speaker 1: the most, hearing about it secondhand from a friend when
Speaker 1: she was alone. It's happened a whole host of times
Speaker 1: on the subway, on the street, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: but that's the time that release too. Yeah, And there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of high profile cases of powerful
Speaker 1: men exposing themselves to women. Lately, you've got Harvey Weinstein,
Speaker 1: Luis k Charlie Rose, Matt Lower. There is a laundry
Speaker 1: list of people doing this. Um. I did read somewhere
Speaker 1: that this is not new behavior. It's centuries old and
Speaker 1: it's not confined to the entertainment industry obviously, but we
Speaker 1: have been hearing a lot more about it, and we
Speaker 1: were curious a science to why this would happen. A
Speaker 1: study conducted by the Barner Group and Seen found that
Speaker 1: out of one thousand respondents, one in four men did
Speaker 1: not consider exposing themselves are masturbating in front of people
Speaker 1: sexual harassment? What yeah for the same study found that
Speaker 1: women are ten to twenty more likely to consider something
Speaker 1: sexual harassment. So we have a disconnect. I feel like,
Speaker 1: if your dick is out and it's not was not
Speaker 1: an agreed upon a thing, it's sexual harassment. You're not
Speaker 1: at a nude beach and someone was not like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's see what in those pants? If it's out, faults up?
Speaker 1: If it's out up, oh, you're probably right. Not like that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Who are these men who
Speaker 1: don't think it's sexual harassment to take out your genitals?
Speaker 1: And pleasure yourself in front of someone who didn't ask
Speaker 1: for that. Well, you're like, I know who it is.
Speaker 1: It's Louis c. K, it's Matt Lowerd, it's Charlie Rose,
Speaker 1: it's Harvey Weinstein. Yeah, it's more men than I would
Speaker 1: have guessed, apparently, and we are, Yeah, we're gonna look
Speaker 1: more into that. And if you're wondering here in the US,
Speaker 1: most states do have indecent exposure laws that make exposing
Speaker 1: your genitals to someone else without their consent for the
Speaker 1: purposes of sexual gratification illegal. If touching the other person
Speaker 1: is involved at the same time, it could be escalated
Speaker 1: to a sexual assault charge. The typical punishment for indecent
Speaker 1: exposure is a misdemeanor charge, possibly a fine, maybe even
Speaker 1: jail time, and or requirement to register as a sex offender.
Speaker 1: So the law does not agree with these one in
Speaker 1: four men, yeah, one in four men, homies, homies, homies
Speaker 1: get it together. Yeah. One time president of the American
Speaker 1: psycho Analytic Association suspects it has to do with deniability. Quote.
Speaker 1: It could also be a kind of strange plausible deniability.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of disavowal, a kind of pernicious defense
Speaker 1: mechanism that allows a man to know that if that
Speaker 1: he did something on one level, but they are essentially
Speaker 1: telling themselves a story that they are not doing anything
Speaker 1: so bad. He could think to himself, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: rape anyone, which is true in a broader sense, but
Speaker 1: it is a twisted defense. So this wine of thinking
Speaker 1: I thought was so prevalent in the Lewis k situation.
Speaker 1: Like when I read that report, it really sounded like
Speaker 1: he was able to jud deify his behavior by saying
Speaker 1: it's not rape. And I actually saw a lot of people, frankly,
Speaker 1: people that I respected, say things like, oh, well, it's
Speaker 1: not like he attacked them, or it's not like he
Speaker 1: abused them, or it's not like he forced himself on them,
Speaker 1: and they sort of discount the fact that that kind
Speaker 1: of act wrapped up at it is the ability to
Speaker 1: make people say exactly that because you aren't necessarily touching them.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing that people who choose that
Speaker 1: as their mode of unacceptable non consensual sexual behavior, they
Speaker 1: are doing so because of that, because it has plausible
Speaker 1: deniability baked right into it. And again, when I actually
Speaker 1: sat down and read the report of what happened at
Speaker 1: the Louis p K situation. Two of the women he
Speaker 1: did this too. One of the things that stuck out
Speaker 1: to me in their stories was that he invited them
Speaker 1: back to his hotel room and it was the winter times.
Speaker 1: They were all bundled up, and he was already had
Speaker 1: his pants down and was masturbating before they took off
Speaker 1: their winter codes. That means they just gotten into the room.
Speaker 1: And if you think that's acceptable sexual behavior, like, there's
Speaker 1: a real pathology on display there. Yeah, it kind of
Speaker 1: almost feels like a calculation that maybe some people are
Speaker 1: making subconsciously. But this is as far as like I
Speaker 1: can get away with before something that I cannot even
Speaker 1: begin to convince myself as correct. Like I can get
Speaker 1: away with this behavior, but I can't get away with
Speaker 1: this one. It's messed up thinking and it's wrong. But
Speaker 1: I wonder if there is an element of that to it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was. When I was in college, there
Speaker 1: was a guy who was a complete sexual predator. And
Speaker 1: the way that he would sort of get around it,
Speaker 1: the way that he avoided being ostracized by our entire
Speaker 1: you know, seen, was that he basically quote unquote would
Speaker 1: only quote unquote his words, have sex with women while
Speaker 1: they were passed out drunk. And so for him, the
Speaker 1: way that he was able to sort of say like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not clocking them over the head and like dragging
Speaker 1: them back to my apartment, it would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just having sex with women who are too drunk
Speaker 1: to say no. And that was his m o to
Speaker 1: avoid being seen as a quote rapist rapist, which of
Speaker 1: course he was, but that he operated within he was
Speaker 1: he was such a good sexual predator that he operated
Speaker 1: within this area where he knew enough people will be like, well,
Speaker 1: if she was drunk and I saw them dancing earlier
Speaker 1: to the night, maybe it wasn't actually raped. He specifically
Speaker 1: trafficked in that kind of sexual abuse because he knew
Speaker 1: that people like these defendors, like the supporters, would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not that bad. Yeah, that is the mark of
Speaker 1: a good predator. Absolutely, this is a lot of women
Speaker 1: have been impacted by this. Jennifer Wright over at Bizarre
Speaker 1: wrote um about this time. She tweeted, quote, hey women,
Speaker 1: retweet if you've ever been shown a penis you did
Speaker 1: not want or expect to see. And it has over
Speaker 1: two hundred and five thousand retweets. A lot of the
Speaker 1: story shared were about this happening at a young age.
Speaker 1: Some male commenters, of course, responded with variations of you're
Speaker 1: a part of the problem, ladies. Butter boobs though are
Speaker 1: the always popular slitt Wait, how are you the slot
Speaker 1: if someone if someone is showing you there? Petis I know, right,
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense, doesn't make sense. Your argument is flawed.
Speaker 1: Sexist Twitter responder right said of the whole situation. What
Speaker 1: surprises me, if anything can surprise me anymore about this,
Speaker 1: is that not taking your genitals out in front of
Speaker 1: a colleague doesn't strike me as a high bar on
Speaker 1: being a decent person. It strikes me as honestly a
Speaker 1: really low bar. However, I suppose it is exponentially higher
Speaker 1: than no bar whatsoever, which until very recently was the
Speaker 1: world some privileged men were operating in. Yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: so depressing. That's so depressing, it really is. What's even
Speaker 1: more depressing to me is the fact that from I'm
Speaker 1: D women reported men masturating in front of them to
Speaker 1: the Everyday Sexism Project in Lauren Bates wrote over at
Speaker 1: The guard It about this quote, girls are growing up
Speaker 1: in a world where this is such a widespread experience
Speaker 1: that some don't even see it as something that is unusual.
Speaker 1: It's just part of being a woman. I want to
Speaker 1: pull my hair out. That is awful. Yeah. The fact
Speaker 1: that women are internalizing this as something that is not
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary is really infuriating. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: why I like, I had two separate categories when you
Speaker 1: asked me, right, Like, there are these two that stand
Speaker 1: out to me, and then there's all these other times
Speaker 1: where it just happened and I sort of went about
Speaker 1: my day because it is just part of being a
Speaker 1: woman and it should not be at all. So we've
Speaker 1: established that this is a problem, but the question still
Speaker 1: remains why Why exactly? And we'll delve more into that
Speaker 1: after a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and we're back, Thank you sponsor. The there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a lot of science looking into why this specifically, maybe,
Speaker 1: but there has been research into exhibitionism and exhibition disorder,
Speaker 1: which is a paraphilic disorder defined scientifically as recurrent, intense,
Speaker 1: sexually arousing fantasies urges, our behaviors that are distressing, our disabling,
Speaker 1: and that involved inanimate objects. Children are non consenting. Adults
Speaker 1: are suffering our humulation of oneself or the partner with
Speaker 1: the potential to cause harm from their Exhibitionism is categorized
Speaker 1: based on whether the exhibition is prefers to expose themselves
Speaker 1: to children adults are both. The behavior that we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, According to some, but not all, does fall
Speaker 1: under the exhibitionism umbrella. And yes, some exhibitionists are turned
Speaker 1: on by their own shame, perhaps even addicted to it.
Speaker 1: It's a cycle of feeling the shame. Yeah, going back
Speaker 1: to that experience in high school with my friends and
Speaker 1: we saw that guy of a car, I almost thought
Speaker 1: that he was into the fact that we were sort
Speaker 1: of laughing and pointing at him and belittling him, and
Speaker 1: that we we weren't bursting into tears. The fact that
Speaker 1: we were pointing and laughing. It seemed to be part
Speaker 1: of it. You're glad to say. Another thing that people
Speaker 1: who engage in this behavior often come with is narcissistic traits,
Speaker 1: a lack of both empathy and inhibition. According to the
Speaker 1: executive director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Ginus Garamela,
Speaker 1: this type of exhibitionist behavior falls into the same spectrum
Speaker 1: of a delusional entitlement to do whatever you want no
Speaker 1: matter what everyone else thinks, and then some level of
Speaker 1: embarrassing or shaming the person that you're doing it in
Speaker 1: front of. And she goes on to say for people
Speaker 1: who have been victimized in this way, things that people
Speaker 1: tend to express is that they feel stupid for feeling
Speaker 1: anything because they know that people are physically assaulted and raped,
Speaker 1: and they feel like, why am I having such a
Speaker 1: reaction when they didn't touch me. So we really talk
Speaker 1: about how the feelings are very similar whether or not
Speaker 1: you were touched. It's the same thing with people who
Speaker 1: were forced to watch pornography or listen to things. It
Speaker 1: doesn't always have to be physical to have the harmful
Speaker 1: psychological impact. Yeah, but that another way, I bet a
Speaker 1: lot of people can understand why having a sexually explicit
Speaker 1: conversation with a minor on the internet is not okay.
Speaker 1: Even though that minor is not touched, it's still impactful.
Speaker 1: It still has a impact on them even though you
Speaker 1: never touched them or see them whatever. Yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: a doctor or Darryl Turner, who is a forensic psychologist
Speaker 1: with a focus on sexual offenses. Thinks that quote for
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who are exposing themselves, as ridiculous
Speaker 1: as it seems, is about the act of exposing yourself
Speaker 1: to someone who isn't expecting it. That is sexually arousing.
Speaker 1: It's power play, it's control. The high profile cases we mentioned,
Speaker 1: they are acting out on impulses and not in voluntary compulsions,
Speaker 1: which is an important distinction, and California's sex therapist Alexandra
Speaker 1: Kada Hawk has told Slate something similar. Exhibitionists purposefully looked
Speaker 1: to shock their victims because they are angry. They are
Speaker 1: not looking to make friends or go on a date.
Speaker 1: These are acts of revenge against women. These men are
Speaker 1: in saying the body part that is most threatening to
Speaker 1: a female, and in doing so, they're acting out what
Speaker 1: is called sexualized hostility or eroticized rage against their prey.
Speaker 1: That look of fear or humiliation on women is arousing
Speaker 1: to them. We see clinically that these men feel wildly inadequate,
Speaker 1: and going back to Luis k, he said as much.
Speaker 1: In his statement, he said, what I learned later in
Speaker 1: life is that when you have power over another person,
Speaker 1: asking them to look at your dick, isn't a question.
Speaker 1: It's a predicament for them. The power I had over
Speaker 1: these women is that they admired me, and I wielded
Speaker 1: that power irresponsibly. Yeah, the c K situation, Emily and
Speaker 1: I did an episode on it. I was really conflicted.
Speaker 1: His statement seemed to illustrate a wider understanding of why
Speaker 1: what he did was so faked up and how he,
Speaker 1: you know, really kind of stuffed the trajectory of these
Speaker 1: women's lives, like some of some of them were budding
Speaker 1: comedians and just left the industry altogether. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: it almost felt kind of designed to make me pity him,
Speaker 1: And it's sort of like what you're getting at, right,
Speaker 1: idea that he kind of realized that this was about
Speaker 1: some up, dark, sad, gross thing inside of him, and
Speaker 1: by writing about it in his statement, it almost on
Speaker 1: the one hand, I was like, Oh, he really gets it,
Speaker 1: But then it's like, is he just using that as
Speaker 1: a shield, Like, Oh, I'm pathetic and up and you know,
Speaker 1: I need to work it out. So I felt so
Speaker 1: conflicted and bothered by by his statement. And I also
Speaker 1: think because on his show and in his stand up
Speaker 1: he talks about feelings of like how shame and sex
Speaker 1: or sort of connected. And I think when I found
Speaker 1: out that he was doing this to women and have
Speaker 1: been doing it for a long time, and had been
Speaker 1: very hostile to people who brought it up and interviews
Speaker 1: journalists this and that, a fellow comedian, Tig Nataro, you
Speaker 1: know how how he went to great lengths to cover
Speaker 1: this up about himself but then was open about it
Speaker 1: on stage. It just was a really confusing, conflicting situation.
Speaker 1: I think that we know. I think I don't want
Speaker 1: to put words in anybody else's mouth. I think that
Speaker 1: I gave him too much credit because he seemed like
Speaker 1: someone who understood his dark impulses, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that excuses his behavior, right, Like, I guess what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of working at how how I'm feeling in
Speaker 1: the moment, But I guess what I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: I think that he perhaps expected a level of forgiveness
Speaker 1: because he is someone who both is open about his
Speaker 1: deep dark and talked about his deep dark in his statement.
Speaker 1: But if you're an adult man and you don't know
Speaker 1: that inviting women back to your hotel room, women who
Speaker 1: are your colleagues, women who you work with, women who
Speaker 1: admire you, taking out your dick and non consensually ding
Speaker 1: off at them and then using your power and your
Speaker 1: money and your status to swish them and anybody else
Speaker 1: who asked you about at anybody else who questions you about,
Speaker 1: at anybody else, even a journalist who's doing her job
Speaker 1: to question that. There are so many stories of him
Speaker 1: getting people blacklisted, journalists getting blacklisted from the red carpet,
Speaker 1: people not talking to journalists, him using his agent to
Speaker 1: shake people down. Like if you get to be an
Speaker 1: adult who is rich and powerful and famous and you
Speaker 1: don't know that's wrong, like golf forever, Like I like
Speaker 1: part of me wants to be sympathetic to Oh he's
Speaker 1: dark and twisted, but it's seems so deliberate. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a tangent. I loved Luisy K for a while,
Speaker 1: and that situation really held up a mirror both to
Speaker 1: me to like what I'm willing to sort of excuse
Speaker 1: and be okay with. Yeah, it just really made me think, well,
Speaker 1: predators are good, Like predators know how to do something
Speaker 1: horrible to someone else and in the end have you
Speaker 1: feel sorry for them? Yeah, absolutely agree. And going back
Speaker 1: to sort of what we were talking about earlier of
Speaker 1: the whole it's not rape, but it's not there wasn't
Speaker 1: touching involved. Conscious Suffers, who is a therapist with a
Speaker 1: specialty and problematic sexual behavior, has this to say. I
Speaker 1: like to use the metaphor that if you're attacker, it
Speaker 1: hit you over the head with a frying pan, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't call it cooking. Just because the invent event evolved
Speaker 1: genitals doesn't make it sexual. The person used masturbation as
Speaker 1: a weapon no different than a gun. It is violence,
Speaker 1: so it is an attack. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's someone listening right now who is thinking he just
Speaker 1: showed me as penis he just off near me, he
Speaker 1: just touched my boobs, or like there's someone out there
Speaker 1: thinking that something that happened to them wasn't that bad
Speaker 1: and it was that bad. Like if you feel like
Speaker 1: it was that bad, it was that bad. And I
Speaker 1: think as women, we are whether it's our pain, whether
Speaker 1: it's our physical pain, or whether it's something traumatic would
Speaker 1: happen to us. I think we are conditioned to it's
Speaker 1: not that bad and to put it in a little
Speaker 1: category of I don't need to deal with it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make a fuss. I don't wanna make
Speaker 1: a bother. But yeah, we don't want to make waves.
Speaker 1: But then you can't lock something away and not deal
Speaker 1: with because it always comes up. And so the same
Speaker 1: way that fifteen year old bridget maybe laugh when that
Speaker 1: guy showed her and her friends his dick, I still
Speaker 1: think it at it like it didn't go It didn't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. It didn't. It's still with me. We lie
Speaker 1: to ourselves and tell ourselves that it's not that bad
Speaker 1: because we don't want to make waves, and we're just
Speaker 1: sort of increasing the burden on ourselves and we shouldn't.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't have to do that. No, we shouldn't. We're
Speaker 1: gonna take one more quick break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor. We're gonna keep digging into this. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm pissed, we're getting worked up. Let's find Louis c K.
Speaker 1: We've got something to say. We knock on the door.
Speaker 1: You don't know who we are, but you know who
Speaker 1: you are, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. During that break,
Speaker 1: we did not go track down Louis c K and
Speaker 1: bang on his door. In case you were curious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to take a really long break, do
Speaker 1: some digging. Yes, this seems like the beginning of like
Speaker 1: a vigilante group of women who like go get justice
Speaker 1: on men who are harassers and abusers. Like this is
Speaker 1: how those things start. Well, if something happens, So Louis
Speaker 1: s k, I'm afraid they're going to suspect for suspects,
Speaker 1: We've got it on records. They're not very good a criminals.
Speaker 1: They made a whole podcast about what the bands first,
Speaker 1: We've got to find him. Oh boy, okay. So researchers
Speaker 1: who were looking into this affirmed that many men who
Speaker 1: are exhibitionists do have sex dist views of women, are
Speaker 1: probably looking to reaffirm their masculinity, and or may have
Speaker 1: experienced abuse in the past. There are treatments available to exhibitionists,
Speaker 1: namely medication and or psychotherapy, perhaps cognitive behavioral therapy to
Speaker 1: identify triggers and alternate ways of coping, but most don't
Speaker 1: seek these out until they are caught. A blog post
Speaker 1: on Psychology Today suggests that men who masturbate in front
Speaker 1: of women do it out of quote intolerable anxiety and
Speaker 1: a need to reassure themselves that their penis ak their
Speaker 1: manhood is acceptable, and their heads. Although perhaps on an
Speaker 1: unconscious level, they have a fantasy that women will be
Speaker 1: excited to witness such a thing. The actress sues the
Speaker 1: anxiety around their masculinity, at least for a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that is the man's primary goal in this scenario.
Speaker 1: This blog post argues not to humiliate the woman. She
Speaker 1: is being used to reflect back with the man desires
Speaker 1: to see. So she's just like a vessel or like
Speaker 1: a mirror. Yeah, and so in a kind of way,
Speaker 1: it's not even really about her. It is because she's
Speaker 1: there and it's part of it. It is taking something
Speaker 1: away from that situation herself. But it seems like what
Speaker 1: they're saying there is that it's just she is a
Speaker 1: tool to work out something inside of himself. Men are
Speaker 1: complex creatures. I'll tell you that they're Rand's making a
Speaker 1: lot of like ringing hand trying. I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: like get my like wrap my head around that, because
Speaker 1: oh boy, yeah, there certainly is a lot at play here.
Speaker 1: And like I said at the beginning, when this happened
Speaker 1: to me when I was young, I definitely got the
Speaker 1: sense from that guy that he thought this was going
Speaker 1: to be a great experience for all involved. So I
Speaker 1: think there is a level of yeah, you're you're not
Speaker 1: a person. Whatever woman they're doing this in front of
Speaker 1: is no longer a person. It is a tool or
Speaker 1: something to use to make something easier or better inside yourself.
Speaker 1: Something that you mentioned that struck with me is this
Speaker 1: idea that men who do this don't usually get help
Speaker 1: until it's too late. I would have had so much
Speaker 1: more respect for people like Louisy k if he had said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is gonna come out sooner or later.
Speaker 1: Because he waited until it was already out. Sure, I
Speaker 1: feel like people give him credit for getting ahead of it.
Speaker 1: He didn't. It was like a thing for a very
Speaker 1: long time. I would have so much more respect for
Speaker 1: these people if they said, I have this thing I
Speaker 1: need to work out. Why wait until it gets worse.
Speaker 1: I need to be honest with myself and the people
Speaker 1: are aunt me and get help. I want someone to
Speaker 1: not wait until there's a blind item on jezz Ball
Speaker 1: about who was this famous comedian masturbating in front of people.
Speaker 1: I want someone to think to themselves, I'm not on
Speaker 1: the right path, and I need to put a stop
Speaker 1: to it before it gets worse. Yeah, I would have
Speaker 1: so much more respect for them if they did that
Speaker 1: and they didn't wait until they had to deal with it, right,
Speaker 1: And that's I think that's part of the problem when
Speaker 1: you were talking about like Lucy Kay's statement is that
Speaker 1: it was if he had known these things, he did
Speaker 1: wait until he was caught to do something about it.
Speaker 1: And I have a relationship in my life with someone
Speaker 1: who uses pity very much so that you cannot judge them.
Speaker 1: You have to pity them, and it's just so that
Speaker 1: they don't have to face the consequences for their actions.
Speaker 1: Weaponized pity. That was basically having a sputtering and ability
Speaker 1: to express myself. That was what I was trying to
Speaker 1: get at. It's weaponized pity. It's this idea that because
Speaker 1: I have expressed and I'm in a vulnerable situation, I'm
Speaker 1: going through this tough time, I'm dealing with this hard thing.
Speaker 1: I had a bad childhood. I grew up a fat
Speaker 1: nerd and nobody wanted to do whatever it is. It's
Speaker 1: this way of using people's pity as a way of
Speaker 1: getting out of taking responsibility for your own stuff and
Speaker 1: I think that I was trying. I couldn't express it earlier,
Speaker 1: but that exactly what it is. It's it's weaponized pity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we see that play out a lot, probably
Speaker 1: a lot more than we realize. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on here, and we could use more more
Speaker 1: research because this is a problem, clearly, and we've just
Speaker 1: been dealing with it and we need to find some solutions. Well,
Speaker 1: I have one pretty easy solution. Don't show your dick
Speaker 1: to anybody who doesn't want to see your dick. That
Speaker 1: is classic. Just assume they don't want to see your
Speaker 1: dick in a workplace setting. They probably don't want to
Speaker 1: see your dick on the subway. They probably don't want
Speaker 1: to see your dick. And I would say, unless they've
Speaker 1: asked to see it, they probably don't want to see it.
Speaker 1: Just just a you know, if you if you have
Speaker 1: to ask, here's my advice, speaking of like stuff your
Speaker 1: mom ever told you if you have to ask, air
Speaker 1: on the side, if she doesn't want to see it,
Speaker 1: it's my advice. That's good advice. Yeah, we didn't even
Speaker 1: get into um dick picks. I could I could do
Speaker 1: an art installation. I could wall paper the walls in
Speaker 1: my apartment with dick picks unsolicited. I've gotten so many
Speaker 1: do want be tm I but your girls on the market. Uh,
Speaker 1: I just don't understand it. Like I can show you
Speaker 1: conversations where it goes from, Hey, oh, I see you
Speaker 1: like to surf? Where where? What beach was that? That
Speaker 1: looks like a nice beach to penis in so so quickly,
Speaker 1: so quickly? What do they do? Here's my theory. I
Speaker 1: think a guy suspects I said my penis picture unslictened
Speaker 1: to a hundred girls, one might be into it. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's a numbers game. That's what
Speaker 1: I think that I could see that it's wild to
Speaker 1: think that this is just another thing that, oh, what
Speaker 1: we learned to do with because I remember it's kind
Speaker 1: of like that fear and snapchat that you'll just get
Speaker 1: a dick pick one day or I can't remember what
Speaker 1: was that other kind of like I used to call
Speaker 1: it Russian roulette chat roulette chat roulette, Yeah, and was
Speaker 1: all it was all like disembodied dicks masturbating. That was
Speaker 1: what it was like. Basically that masturbating dot com was
Speaker 1: basically what it was yeah, and it was just a
Speaker 1: thing we all knew. Yeah, So I think perhaps that
Speaker 1: plays together with what we've been talking about today. I
Speaker 1: didn't really even think about, Yeah, how many unsolicited dick pics? Girl,
Speaker 1: I'll show you some off off my because I have
Speaker 1: some stories and it's ridiculous and I don't get it.
Speaker 1: There's something about getting sent an unsolicited dick pick that,
Speaker 1: at least for me, it just kind of makes me wonder,
Speaker 1: what is it about me or our interaction that made
Speaker 1: you think that this was okay? Yeah? Well, I wonder
Speaker 1: if it is sort of the same thing where it's
Speaker 1: like you're they're just using you for whatever pleasure, gratification
Speaker 1: or whatever reassurance they need that their penis is okay.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'll say that it does feel very
Speaker 1: hostile to me when I just get one and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I didn't at least ask. Yeah, Like, I personally have
Speaker 1: never been in a situation where it even made since
Speaker 1: like you were saying, like, conversationally, there's nothing in there.
Speaker 1: Almost see if we're having a flirtatious conversation and you're
Speaker 1: like ian hew, Mary flat this into what she thinks,
Speaker 1: I could maybe see that maybe I wouldn't recommend it,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it, but I understand it the times
Speaker 1: when you're talking about where it's like there's not even
Speaker 1: a logical you can't even follow what like why it's happening. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's in the context of I find when this happens,
Speaker 1: it's almost always somebody you barely know. Um, Like it's
Speaker 1: one thing if you're in a relationship and maybe you've
Speaker 1: been talking about sexty ng or whatever. But if it
Speaker 1: is just some random dude that you don't know, that, well, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, keep it in your pants. Yeah. The end,
Speaker 1: that's it? Is that so much to ask? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really I'm not showing my genital to anybody right now.
Speaker 1: That's how it is. Yeah, you almost have to work
Speaker 1: harder to do it. Yes, So yeah, I hope we've
Speaker 1: gotten through to some people. We probably haven't because that
Speaker 1: most of our listeners are already pretty pretty rad. But
Speaker 1: speaking of listeners, we do have listener mail, and both
Speaker 1: of these listener mails are kind of on the longer side.
Speaker 1: Their responses to the episode we did about the vote
Speaker 1: in Ireland, and I wrote as a double and listener
Speaker 1: and a journalist myself, who has been marching for choice
Speaker 1: since I was a teenager in the early nineties, and
Speaker 1: spent April and May campaigning for a yes vote in
Speaker 1: the recent Irish referendum. I really enjoyed and appreciated your
Speaker 1: latest episode. Like thousands of others all over Ireland, I
Speaker 1: went out canvassing with my local group Shout Out to
Speaker 1: the Dublin Bay North Yeah Shout Out, knocking on doors
Speaker 1: all over Dublin and encouraging people to vote yes. It
Speaker 1: was an incredibly stressful and grueling campaign, not least because
Speaker 1: the thought of what a no vote would say about
Speaker 1: our country was basically unbearable. But it was also incredibly rewarding.
Speaker 1: Not only was their enormous camaraderie among the campaigners, who
Speaker 1: all really supported each other, but we got to have
Speaker 1: really good, thoughtful conversations with all sorts of people on
Speaker 1: the doors, including many who were undecided about which way
Speaker 1: to vote. These conversations always left me hopeful that compassion
Speaker 1: and empathy would win the day, as indeed it did.
Speaker 1: People really opened up to us, telling us the most
Speaker 1: personal stories, which were often incredibly moving. I was too
Speaker 1: scared to let myself get too hopeful, But the day
Speaker 1: before the vote, members of my campassing group gathered on
Speaker 1: a local footbridge at the evening rush hour, asking commuters
Speaker 1: to beat for Yes. We had a constant stream of
Speaker 1: beeps and thumbs up and even applause, and it really
Speaker 1: made me feel that my country, or at least my city,
Speaker 1: was on the right side. The same thing happened the
Speaker 1: next day when we gathered on Traffic Island after the
Speaker 1: anti choice crowd took over our bridge to deafening silence
Speaker 1: from drivers. I'm pleased to say Repeal Island as it
Speaker 1: quickly became known, became a hub of joyful support. I
Speaker 1: knew then that whatever the result was, my city was
Speaker 1: full of what we in Dublin would call sound people.
Speaker 1: When the exit poles came in that night showing all
Speaker 1: landside for Yes, my group gathered in a nearby pub,
Speaker 1: hugging and laughing, unable to believe it. The next day,
Speaker 1: after finding out our constituency had returned to seventy yes
Speaker 1: vote with seventy one voter turnout, we gathered in a
Speaker 1: sunny Dublin castle for the result, where we toasted our
Speaker 1: neighbors and ourselves with prosecco. Working on the campaign is
Speaker 1: one of the best things I've ever done, and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad I did it. After the campaign, many of
Speaker 1: my friends and I felt a huge calm down. It
Speaker 1: was like being jet lagged. We were so used to
Speaker 1: being stressed and constantly working, we didn't know how to
Speaker 1: relax anymore. But we're all gradually getting back to normal.
Speaker 1: My canvassing group had a reunion meeting last week where
Speaker 1: we about that abortion is accessible to everyone who needs it,
Speaker 1: including migrants and people from marginalized communities of all kinds.
Speaker 1: The fight continues, but we're still feeling pretty good about
Speaker 1: what we achieved, as you should. Yea yeah, and that
Speaker 1: first of all, I have that kiddo gave me flashbacks
Speaker 1: to what I wrote on campaigns, because that feeling is
Speaker 1: completely normal, that sort of whiplash feelings of you know,
Speaker 1: balls to the wall, high octane campaign life where you're
Speaker 1: sort of stressed, having good time, kind of stressed a lot,
Speaker 1: and then it's over and you're like, wait, I can
Speaker 1: sleep now, you know what? Um, but that's so awesome
Speaker 1: and you say like warm with my heart, Yeah me too,
Speaker 1: me too. I'm so glad that there are sound people
Speaker 1: out there and then your city, and thank you for
Speaker 1: working on the campaign and making your voice heard. Our
Speaker 1: next letter is from Kaylie. Katie wrote, I Abason mindedly
Speaker 1: puts Minty on today while I was Brau shopping as
Speaker 1: I want to do, and let me tell you, I
Speaker 1: can now tick crying surrounded by ugly beige braws off
Speaker 1: of my list of reactions I've had to the podcast,
Speaker 1: so thanks for that. I was involved in canvassing for
Speaker 1: a yes vote in the referendum, out on the streets,
Speaker 1: talking to people, knocking on doors, manning informations, dolls, writing letters, etcetera.
Speaker 1: The referendum campaign was an all encompassing emotional experience for
Speaker 1: those of us involved. I'm going to attribute crying and
Speaker 1: the double D plus braw aisle to that. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to thank you for covering the topic at all.
Speaker 1: Your episode was so well researched, balance and its delivery.
Speaker 1: I've seen and about a lot of international takes on
Speaker 1: the Wrath in the last few weeks, but I'm a
Speaker 1: fan of the show, so I was great to hear
Speaker 1: something so dear to make at the Spinty stamp. The
Speaker 1: way you talked about Sevito was especially moving and completely
Speaker 1: in line with how we as pro choice activists felt
Speaker 1: about her preventable death and what it meant about our
Speaker 1: places women in Ireland. The Eighth Amendment came in three
Speaker 1: I wasn't due to be born for another decade and
Speaker 1: my mother wasn't even old enough to vote at the time,
Speaker 1: yet it essentially reduced our entire beings to nothing more
Speaker 1: than walking wombs as far as the law was concerned.
Speaker 1: Growing up, abortion wasn't talked about except in hushed tones,
Speaker 1: normally after seeing the graphic image posted by anti choices
Speaker 1: outside public landmarks on Saturday mornings, or if you heard
Speaker 1: a rumor about a girl in the area who had
Speaker 1: quote gone to England. It's also worth bearing in mind
Speaker 1: that contraception wasn't freely available here until and the morning after.
Speaker 1: Pill didn't become available without prescription and with a very
Speaker 1: judgy consultation from your local GP until terrible. They have
Speaker 1: been activists fighting the Eighth since the eighties, of course,
Speaker 1: but as you mentioned, it wasn't until Sevida's death that
Speaker 1: the issue truly got the attention in mainstream support it deserved,
Speaker 1: and that's why I personally started to become invested in
Speaker 1: the issue too. It's worth noting that our victory in
Speaker 1: this referendum is a testament to people power and specifically
Speaker 1: the power of women. Since the result, I've noticed a
Speaker 1: lot of politicians from traditionally right leading parties like the
Speaker 1: one that has become the current majority in our government,
Speaker 1: have crept in to try to claim our victory. As
Speaker 1: the story is being retold, decades of work by activists
Speaker 1: are being rebranded by politicians to try and earn them
Speaker 1: voters in the next election, when as recently as last
Speaker 1: year they were not behind the issue. Our tea shock.
Speaker 1: The Irish Prime Minister called the win quote a quiet revolution,
Speaker 1: when in truth there was nothing quiet about it. The
Speaker 1: win for the Yes side was because of us, the
Speaker 1: women of Ireland who were sick of being treated like
Speaker 1: second class citizens, and the men who supported us instead
Speaker 1: of trying to keep us down. It belongs to the
Speaker 1: normal people who marched health strikes, lobbied and fault with
Speaker 1: everything they had in them. It belongs to the activist
Speaker 1: groups like ARC, the Abortion Rights Campaign ROSA for Reproductive
Speaker 1: Rights Against Oppression, Sexism and Austerity, the m E r J,
Speaker 1: Migrants and Ethnic Minorities, for reproductive justice to name a few.
Speaker 1: We definitely had the support of some amazing politicians whose
Speaker 1: work can't be discounted, but that came towards the end
Speaker 1: of that fight. At its core, the movement was just
Speaker 1: normal women taking to the streets and making their voices heard.
Speaker 1: It was only a quiet revolution to those who weren't
Speaker 1: willing to listen to it. I'm so proud to count
Speaker 1: myself as one of those women, and to be someone
Speaker 1: who stood shoulder to shoulder with women and some men
Speaker 1: like that. Change has been a long time coming in Ireland,
Speaker 1: and over the last few years it really seems to
Speaker 1: be snowballing. Our next step is to fight for those
Speaker 1: same rights for our Northern Irish sisters. On May I
Speaker 1: was in the public courtyard of Dublin Castle but the
Speaker 1: announcement of the referendum results, surrounded by hundreds of others
Speaker 1: who had fought for our Yes vote. We pretty much
Speaker 1: knew from the exit polls that it was going to
Speaker 1: go our way, but I needed to hear the official
Speaker 1: announcement before I could be relieved after what happened to
Speaker 1: our neighbors with Brexit and the U S election. Sorry
Speaker 1: to even bring it up girl, me too. I was
Speaker 1: worried that it would be a no. There was a
Speaker 1: good feeling in the air, but only the day before
Speaker 1: the day of the vote, I had Amanda stall and
Speaker 1: received the most openly hostile reaction I have ever experienced
Speaker 1: while camvtcing to date. When we finally got the news,
Speaker 1: the place exploded. We only got to hear the words
Speaker 1: in Irish Gaelic before we started screaming and hugging, so
Speaker 1: the English announcement got drowned out. Once the initial celebration ended,
Speaker 1: a chance started and together hundreds of us who fought
Speaker 1: to change things changed the name of the woman who
Speaker 1: really changed it all, Sevita. She won't be forgotten. Wow.
Speaker 1: I have chills. I feel like I was there. It's
Speaker 1: inspiring stuff. It's been so wonderful hearing from so many
Speaker 1: of our Irish listeners who have stories like this and
Speaker 1: who made this change happen. Definitely. Yeah, I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: that they worked on the campaign and volunteered and just
Speaker 1: really did the work. Yeah. Thank you to both of
Speaker 1: them for writing in, and all of the other listeners
Speaker 1: who have written in. If you would like to write
Speaker 1: to IS, you can Our email is mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: hosts dot com and find us on Instagram at Stuff
Speaker 1: I've Ever Told to You and on Twitter at mom
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast. And thanks as always to our producers, Dylan
Speaker 1: Fagan and Catheine Killian's h