Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Valentine's Day

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand America’s obsession with Valentine's Day. Why do Americans fork out $20 billion each year in an attempt to woo a mate or prove their love to an existing one? David discovers he doesn’t have a valentine, so interviews online dating coach Perri Schneider. What are the do’s and don’ts of American dating? Farrier then discovers that sales of vibrators go up on and around Valentine's Day, so talks to engineer Anna Lee of Lioness who invented a smart vibrator. What can we learn from this smart vibrator, and why has the clitoris been mistaken for the nose when it comes to the world of vibrator technology? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now I noticed something strange while buying groceries the other day. I was trying to find some of my favourite cereal, Fruity Loops, but I found myself surrounded by aisles and aisles of packaged chocolates, all packaged in the shape of a heart. Driving past some florists on the way home, there seemed to be more flowers out than usual. Then the advertising started showing up in my mailbox. Valentine's Day. America loves Valentine's Day. And look, I'm not pretending we don't have it

back in New Zealand, but in New Zealand we probably associate the word Valentine's more with an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant chain. But here in America, Valentine's isn't a restaurant, it's a day. The third biggest spending day, beaten only by Christmas and Mother's Day. Americans fork out about $20 billion each Valentine's in an attempt to woo a mate or prove their love to an existing one. A couple of years ago, the average American spent $165 on Valentine's Day. But where did this day come from and what are you meant to do on it? How do you find a Valentine and what do you get them? So, grab a dozen red roses and hope to god someone else is

doing the same for you because this is the valentine's day episode i'm a flightless bird touchdown in america I'm so curious about Valentine's Day because genuinely in New Zealand, we don't really do it. It's there. You can get cards and flowers and it's sort of advertised, but nothing like the weirdness that you have here. I'm actually impressed that it even made it to New Zealand because it's a made-up holiday. I mean, I guess all holidays are made up. They're all made up, but it seems more made up. I mean, it's that thing where it's clearly just created to sell chocolates and cards, right? Exactly, as they say, Hallmark holiday.

Do you have Hallmark? We've got Hallmark cards. It's a card company, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have Hallmark? We've got Hallmark cards. Okay. Yeah. It's a card company, right? Yeah. Yeah. We've got those.

So there's something kind of beautiful about that. People love love so much. Yeah. They love love. Love made it all the way to New Zealand. Yeah. I mean, we did have love before Valentine's Day arrived. No.

But it was a way, I guess, we could express it via spending money on other people okay one thing we have to address real quick because of course everyone thought it fruit loops fruit loops yeah but you said fruity loops they're fruity loops yeah that's not what they're called are they just fruit loops yeah fruit loops oh i love fruit loops i can see that about you yeah they're so colorful and delicious. This is a ding, ding, ding in a way because you're very childlike in a wonderful way. Yeah, I'll accept that. It's a big compliment.

Thank you. I don't know if that's true. It is. It is. And I was just in Hawaii and I got Delta a present and I got you the same present. How old is Delta to recap? Eight. And the annoying thing is I know that whatever that present is,

I'll love it. And that's the annoying thing. Yep. You will. I was, I've been looking out to my friend's kids a little bit lately and I got annoyed that they were always getting into my Lego. So I had to get them their own Lego.

But I was so annoyed because I had this plan. It's like, you've got your own Lego now. But when they came over, they still wanted mine. So now what I have to do is I have to hide my Lego sets that are built and keep them away when the kids come and be like, no. And are you saying they got lost? Yeah, they lost. They got lost in the last couple of days. Anyway, yeah, kids are crafty.

They are. My question for Valentine's Day, take me through when you're at school. When does this begin when you are indoctrinated with this holiday and what you're meant to do on it? Absolutely. So this starts as young as preschool, maybe even younger, maybe when you're one, like your mom will get you a Valentine's Day present? Your mom gets you stuff? My parents don't participate in a lot of holidays. Like no Easter. They've got limits. That's not a thing.

Yeah. But Valentine's Day, sometimes my mom would bring like chocolates or something. So even it transcended her, which is a low. So that's an interesting thing because I thought it was only a romantic thing, but it's just love for your children or your parents. It's love in general. So it's like love in general. So that's expansive.

It is, except it's more of a romantic thing. If you're in a partnership, you have to participate. You can't opt out. You can't opt out. If you're a mom or a dad, you just get bonus points for participating for your children. Okay. So in preschool, whenever you're around. What's preschool?

Pre-five? Yeah, five is kindergarten. Okay. So probably four or three. Whenever you go to school for the first time, first Valentine's Day, you get cards. You go to the grocery store, drugstore, wherever. They come in boxes. Like a box of 10?

No, like 20. Oh. And they're just pieces of paper they're little cards you can get spongebob looney tunes also they're marketed at kids yes directly at children okay yes and if what do you do with them you open it up you write to david from monica be my valentine okay And you write that on every single one. You don't have to write be my Valentine, but you just sign to each person in your class. Is every kid in the class getting a card

from everyone else in the classroom? Yes. When I was young, I don't know if that was required because we were more like scrappy. It was a harsher time to be alive. Now it's definitely required. If you bring cards, you have to give one to everyone. You're right.

Okay. And then if your parents are rich and splurgy, they might also buy you a bag of little boxes of heart candies. You know the heart candies? The ones I've seen in the supermarket everywhere. Yes. Box candies. And they say Valentine's messages on them. heart candies you know the heart the ones i've seen in the supermarket everywhere yes box candies and they say valentine's messages on them they say like be mine or i love you or you're kind sometimes they say weird stuff so it's a happy time the thing i worry about is i've never gotten a valent so in new zealand right we have valentines and people

i think if they were dating someone yeah well we'd call it at school going around with someone or going out going out we had going around are you going around with so-and-so like yeah i'm going around with them weirdly when you're going around with someone you saw less of them than when you actually weren't going around with them of course it's just like a status thing but anyway people are going around with people and they would give each other valentines i never either if i was going around with someone it wasn't on valentine's so i mistimed it or if occasionally i just have never gotten a valentine's so i just want to make that i'm not dropping a hint i'm just being like listen david you've got hundreds of them i've had had experience this never. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Apart from the school, you have to give everyone a card thing. And also a fun part of it is you make a little mailbox and you put it on your desk. You're making it up. I'm not. This is like some bullshit. I'm not. You make a cute little mailbox and you put it on your desk and then everyone goes around and puts the Valentines in people's mailboxes. Oh, it's a joy.

Anyway, despite that required Valentines. Forced giving. Exactly. I've also never received a Valentine. And I was just complaining about this to Dax. And then he tried to spin it into, well, not everyone started a show on Valentine's Day. Because our show. Oh, that's so.

Yeah, that's nice. And I was like, that's not the same. Well, that makes me feel better I feel camaraderie and our rejection from society that's so nice

but it's hard right with other people I remember one I don't remember how old I was because I was homeschooled so mum was never giving me Valentine's stuff

because we never had that but once we were at school from 11 through 17 when I went to school there was one Valentine's I must have been 13 or something and I remember feeling sad.

It was like talk of the town, you know? Who's got a thing? The boys in middle school would always get their girlfriends teddy bears. A little teddy bear, that's weird. And then the girls would carry the teddy bears around down the hall and show off that they had boyfriends.

Ugh. Also our school did carnations, which is, sorry, carnation, a very crappy flower. What are they? Are they the red ones? No, these were pink. Okay. I think you can get them in multiple colors. Okay.

And in the lobby, they would have 4,000 carnations, individual. Right. And you'd go and you'd buy per stem and then you'd give them to people so also people are walking around with carnations some girls have like 40 carnations they can't even handle it because they are like their bears falling out and they have so many carnations a trail of carnations behind them down the hallway it made me stronger um i i i went out and talked to people as i always do about what you sort of mean to do on valentine's day because i have no idea okay let's hear it what does valentine's day mean to you well you better have a girl you don't have you get better for your

boyfriend what do you want me to tell you you're from brazilian right well i'm from texas but uh i don't know just gotta have a sweetheart to I'm from Texas. But I don't know. You just got to have a sweetheart to give us, you know, roses, chocolate. I don't know, whatever they want. I don't know. Like, it's person to person. I feel like people that aren't in a relationship have a very pessimistic view on Valentine's Day. We hate it.

What about you? I would say it's definitely a big thing. If you walk into, like, CVS, you see all the bears and the chocolates and everything, you know. I like Valentine's Day because I like the colors. Like pink and red and white. Lace. It just means loving yourself. Oh, um, roses and chocolate.

I'm perpetually single, so it's a tough one for me. Yeah, we're both perpetually single. But what it is, is buying the materialistic of buying chocolate and sentimental things. Spending money on someone, obviously. What the heck do you do on Valentine's Day when you're single? I'm single as well. What are we meant to do? We go on a resentful times day or whatever. It's one of those things. Usually it's trying to figure out in LA how early in advance I need to get a reservation and a table

and stressing over that more than just about anything. Valentine's Day. What does it mean to you? I'm going to get yelled at by my girlfriend. Why is that? She knows. Yeah, it got tense, actually. He sort of ran away after that.

Yeah, it was quite an intense ending to my... Oh, my God. Do you think maybe last year he cheated on her? That's what I was thinking. Absolutely. On Valentine's Day it all came out. Oh, it all comes back. Oh, I think it was.

They reconcile, but that's still a soft spot. It's still a soft spot. Cheating is always a sort of a soft spot in a relationship, isn't it? Remember that time you fucked someone else? It's not a great thing to remember. Rob, what are you planning for Valentine's? We usually talk about it beforehand and decide whether or not we're going to do anything. So normally I'll send flowers and then we'll maybe plan a dinner.

Okay. But we don't do extravagant gifts or anything at this point. Do you get something from your partner, from Natalie? No, she doesn't, usually. Usually it's just me. If there's a gift exchange, but we've lately just been like, we've got enough going on. But what about in your early days? Because now you're married, you have two kids, it dissipates.

It dissipates. But what about these younger days? First Valentine's Day. The horniest. You know, back when you're horny. Yeah, yeah. Maximum horniness. There are mutual gifts and then, yeah, nice dinners.

Sex. That's cool. Usually there's sex. Well, that is true. Like, I think there's pressure to have sex on valentine's day like you have to right if you're in yeah right there's no valentine's if a valentine's day ends in a relationship without that it's a bit of a bad bad day yeah right why get into that in the podcast a little bit the sex side of things yeah so that is certainly a

interesting your horniness goes up on valentine's for sure oh wow i could see that because i know you're cynical so yeah so this is kind of perfect for you this is my perfect territory of just look at how we've all been marketed to and we're spending so much money and it's all bullshit love shouldn't need exchanges of like monetary gifts it's just crazy it shouldn't but i do for some reason even though i've never experienced a real valentine's day i find a couple of aliens that have landed on there i thought why is this no i have i see it all around me but i've even helped plan some other people's valentine's day the story of my life yeah but i do like it i'm totally endeared towards it i think celebrating love is really sweet yeah it's nice to have an excuse to do something like that yeah

yeah i can't disagree with any of that yeah but you want to everything in me feels annoyed but maybe that's just because I've never had a Valentine. This is my little audio documentary I put together. I wanted to know why we even have it in the first place. Okay, so last year, me and Rachel had been solidly dating for two years at that point. And we decided a romantic thing would be to rent a tandem bike for Valentine's Day, you know, bike it along the ocean path. And then you steered us into oncoming traffic and then we had to stop and we just sat in silence for like an hour before we moved on or did anything. It felt like we were going to break up a little bit.

Those are my friends Rachel and Ben, and they aren't broken up, else they probably wouldn't be telling me their terrible Valentine's Day story while eating waffles at Roscoe's. It seems like every American I've spoken to has either a really good or really terrible Valentine's Day story up their sleeve. Begging the question, how did it come to this? What is Valentine's Day? Well, Saint Valentine was born 1797 years ago and died when he was 42. Like all things that are very old, the history is confusing and there are so many different theories. But one is that Valentine was a Roman priest who ended up in prison. While he was there, he healed a blind kid and then just before he was executed, he wrote a note to the kid and signed it off, From your Valentine.

By the time the year 498 rolled around, the Pope of the time declared February 14th St. Valentine's Day, a Christian day of feasting on food. Why did Valentine's Day become associated with romance? Well, apparently, Valentine was jailed partly because he was secretly marrying couples when all the men should have been concentrating on being soldiers, not being horny. Also in ancient Rome, the 14th used to be a celebration for Pan and Juno, the gods of love and marriage, so there's some overlap there. Anyway, the first Valentine's Day card was written in 1415, and from there it all snowballed in England before jumping across to America in 1847 when a man in Massachusetts

started making cards en masse. Hallmark came along in 1913. Now about 145 million Valentine's Day cards are thrown around America each year, probably keeping the entire US postal system alive. Riding a tandem bike gets surprisingly difficult at first in my experience too. As Ben attempted to come up with excuses for ruining Valentine's Day, I started to think about my Valentine's Day experiences. And then I got sad because I realized I didn't have any. I mean, we don't really do it in New Zealand as big as America. Or maybe I'm just a massive, lonely loser.

Now I think about it, I've never gotten a Valentine's Day card, flowers, anything. With sadness closing in around me, I thought maybe I should learn about American dating and relationships. So I called professional dating coach Perry Schneider. What sets me apart as a dating coach is my parents met on a personal ad in 1978. And so I've kind of been around for my 32 years, this idea of like meeting someone who isn't in your normal walk of life. I wanted to know how people met their future Valentine here in America.

How do people date here? What do they do? In New Zealand, their tradition is to get very drunk at a bar in order to get over drunk at a bar in order to get over our crippling anxiety. I mean, we actually have a huge alcohol problem in New Zealand probably because of this. It's bad. But what do Americans do? When you're in the college era, you know, you go out, you're like unabashedly just a drunk, happy kid where you're talking to everybody and that's kind of how it can happen. You end up

going home with someone and then you're like, oops, look at us. But there is also a total other genre of Americans who a little bit later in life, or maybe they had a relationship as a young adult and now they're like, oops, my values and interests and lifestyle has changed. Or there's the facet of being divorced, having a relationship, having kids, and then being in the older generation and needing help getting into the current dating world, which is all basically electronic. Perry actually specializes in coaching people on how to use dating apps. And going through the app store on my phone here,

I'm stunned by all the options available. America, the land of opportunity and multiple dating apps and multiple potential Valentines. It really ploys into what I think is a very American factoid of like, there's always something better. You can get on the app, find a person tonight, and then never talk to them again. People have almost this ADHD mentality of like, I'm here now, I'm present now, I'm with you now. And then tomorrow, you'll never hear me again. Tinder reigns supreme. They are so fortunate because they got in pretty early.

Match.com and eHarmony were the first dating apps, but they were predominantly on a computer. Then there's also Bumble, which is like the Sadie Hawkins of dating apps, where it's women start the conversation with the man. And then there's Hinge as well. Tinder is still the most popular by far in America, followed by Bumble and Hinge. Tinder and Bumble are probably the most popular because they're the most gamified. Quick swipe and reward lizard brain stuff. Hinge is a bit slower and more user controls, more questions. Then there's Raya, the ultra exclusive dating app that's more expensive than all the others. So no one actually meets on Raya. A nice statistic from Raya is that 0.01% of people who actually take it from the app to real life. Full disclosure, I've gotten on most of these apps, including Raya.

I wanted to see what they were all about. It took me a year and a half to get accepted to Raya. Not pretty enough. I've seen a few TikTok videos of women who are on Raya who they go, look who's passed me. And they sift through many different single male celebrities. And they're like, Maddie Healy passed me up from the 1975 and Brooklyn Beckham passed me up. And then we're all going, these guys are really on a dating app. They're so celebrity or celebrity adjacent. You really want me to think that they're sitting on their couch home alone, eating pad thai and swiping right and left. Say what you like about Pieri and her dating advice, but good God, I was literally on the couch eating pad thai and swiping last week. I want to sink into the ground. weak. I want to sink into the ground. I mean, it's funny because I've been on dating apps in New Zealand and in America. And a big trend I've noticed in America myself and talking to people that use apps is there's a lot of people posing with cute animals. That's mainly what guys do,

I think, to try and make themselves more attractive. And I've been guilty of that. Also in America, you often get people big game fishing or with guns. That's actually a really great fact. So I coach both men and women. And so here's the thing about seeing men with fish or guns or hunting. Men don't take photos in the way that women do. Women who go out with their girlfriends are like, let's take a photo to commemorate this night. Men do not have that thought come across their mind. But when they're hunting or when they achieve something like catching a big fish,

that's when they want to commemorate the moment. The other thing that I find amusing in photos is when people drag their friends into the shot and they kind of either blur it out or just there. If there's one real solid tip that I'm happy to give away is your profile should be of you. We're going to assume you're not an isolated person. So don't have five photos of you and your girlfriends because this could also bleach into the lovely American boldness of, hey, your friend's really cute in the red shirt. Can you connect me with her?

Oh my God, that happens? All the time. It's happened to me and girlfriends and I've heard from clients. Americans are a little too cocky. I liked Perry. I quizzed her for advice and she said, while it's not vital, sober dates can be a very good idea. Do what you want to do and be honest. It's all

obvious stuff, but in the world of psychotic apps, it can all get a bit confusing. It's like having the worst job interview. You want to look good, you want to sound confident, but it's really nerve-wracking. And so we use alcohol as a way to take the edge off. But I think the better dates are when you can just be more relaxed and not see them as like, I've got to be on my best behavior, but more, I'm just going to be myself and they'll like me or they won't like me. Because then you can't put up that facade for too long, you know? I had one final question before I left, an important one. I went for the bog standard example, a guy takes a girl out on a date. Who pays for the meal? Yeah, I am on the team of whoever asks the person out.

And I'm also a coach that coaches men. And so I understand it's a lot of money to often pay for dates. However, my understanding is a first date shouldn't be that expensive. I think then date number two or three, then you go Dutch or you split the check. Any tips for single people, myself included, on Valentine's Day? What do we do in America as we're sort of lonely, sort of wandering the streets? Well, there's the cheesy side. You can celebrate self-love. You can celebrate being single.

And a lot of people in relationships are unhappy. And it's really tough to be single. And it really sucks to be in a relationship because it's hard. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Primal Kitchen. Now, the last time I talked about Primal Kitchen, I talked about putting some sauce on a sausage roll.

I've experimented putting ketchup on another kiwi delicacy, the mince and cheese pie. Mince beef, cheese, and a beautiful crisp pastry. Okay. I found a shop that sells them. And when you put the Primal Kitchen ketchup on there, unsweetened, I tried the unsweetened. A plus delicious. Ate that pie so quick.

Yum. I mean, look, ketchup makes everything better. I am so for ketchup. I don't really understand the people in this world who don't like it. No, it's New Zealand and America's biggest bridge to friendship is our love of ketchup. Yes. And Primal Kitchen has a great one. They also have really good salad dressings. What I like to do if I'm having girls nights, I will have a big salad out and then I'll just put out a bunch of Primal Kitchen salad dressings so people can pick which one they want, but they're all delicious.

Yeah. Primal Kitchen products are made with high quality ingredients, good fats from plant-based oils, no artificial sweetener, and most importantly, delicious flavor. It's fun to cook with these ingredients. Cooking's a step too far for me, but I'm going to continue putting the condiments on pre-made things.

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Yeah. Real talk. That's real. I like that. I was looking at you during that. You were doing some good facial expressions at different parts of that doc. I know you're just coming back from New Zealand, and you've declared that in New Zealand it's okay to be pathetic.

That was my takeaway. Yeah. You're wallowing a little. I could be accused of wallowing slightly. I need you to pull up your bootstraps a little bit. I like being here. I like being in the swamp. Why?

No, no, no, no, no. Because then I find when you wallow, anything good that happens is like a nice surprise. If you're up too high all the time, you can come down. But if you're wallowing, anything nice that happens is like, wow, that's a nice surprise. I you're up too high all the time, you can come down. But if you're wallowing, anything nice that happens is like, wow, that's a nice surprise. I'm now up. Do you get me? Technically, I do. But that's like choosing to have 95% of your life be shitty so that the 5% can feel a little better as opposed to the opposite. Yeah. Now you say that out loud loud it does seem like a bad way to live bad math does this tie in with this self-love thing that people keep talking about

as well loving yourself and all that kind of what is that why don't you love yourself name five things about yourself you like oh this is no no you're doing it this is horrible i know this is your worst nightmare and i want you to do it for me No, because we can't Three Face your fears, David Three Okay, I like being tall Okay

Because I can, when I'm at a concert, I can see over people's heads And that's really good Yes, sure, I'll take it I like, oh, being tall, what else? It's amazing how awful this is for me I know Yeah, horrible I can can tell we're not allowed to say things in new zealand you're not allowed to say things that are positive about yourself and what's the suicide rate and that's arrogance it's quite high yeah yeah because we're wallowing uh-huh

exactly yeah seeing some patterns for me two more i think i'm curious i think that's a good thing i'm curious about things and i think that's good in life and in my work. And my hair grows really fast. So if I get a haircut and I don't like it, then it's going to grow back really quickly. Okay. Look, you did it. You accomplished that. Thank you. And that was a big thing for you to do. Speaking of your hair, you got a haircut. It looks wonderful. Thank you. I was happy with getting a haircut. It's very nice. It got too long. It was getting in my eyes. I haircut it looks wonderful thank you i was happy with getting a haircut it got too long it was getting in my eyes i think it looks very nice so that was self-love what i just

did yeah felt bad oh right let's get back into the documentary should we wait there's a couple things so this documentary in part two of the doc it begins with um a friend of mine talking about one of their more average valentine's days oh wait real quick real quick dax believes that men hate valentine's day men feel so much pressure and it's generally just fucking awful for them and yes the reservation the flower you get in a line at the flowers all the guys are just looking around at each other like which ones do we get like they're lost at sea so glass half full this year you don't have to stress this is true there's zero stress in any way and that is nice yes i also about wallowing i also have a thing on dates where i have a philosophy that

people have disagreed with at times. I think on a first date, you shouldn't try too hard, like dress up or be anything. You should kind of turn up like a slob. People should see you at your worst in that first time. Oh, my God. Because then it's all uphill. If you go in over-delivering in any way, everything else is going to be a disappointment. So I often go into a date in more of a mess than I normally be.

Like you smell bad and stuff? Yeah. Sometimes instead of getting an Uber there or something something i'll walk so i'm a bit sweaty just like a bit of a mess why don't you just go normal like you come here you know i agree with you for monica and jess season one we had patty the matchmaker from millionaire matchmaker on and she gave us some questionable advice she challenged me to go on a date and dress in her words slutty amazing and i was like unique okay and so i had to do that but also i totally disagree with that i think go totally comfortable i agree 100 sweaty you know you shouldn't turn it to a date trying to excessively sell yourself like a used car salesman trying to sell a car it feels desperate you also want to not give the signal that you don't give a shit

that's the only signal i give i think you gotta find somewhere in the middle yeah that's probably good advice actually okay. Okay, back in the talk. So when my partner and I moved to LA, we started going to really fun restaurants for date night for Valentine's Day every year. And this one year we chose Olive Garden, which is like a Italian food chain that's all across America. There's all you can eat breadsticks and salad.

It's a really good time. So we're really excited. We have some slimming tea to curb our hunger, which side note, some of them have a natural laxative in them, but I'll come back to that in a bit. So we get to Olive Garden and the host tells us this is actually the busiest day of the entire year for them. And there's a two hour wait for a table. And we look around and it's just a parking lot full of couples that all have the same intention as us. But we've committed at this point, so we just go for it.

And we finally sit down and have this giant meal and eat way too much food. 10 out of 10, we feel sick and drive back home. And as we pull into our place, I kind of notice this really strange smell in the car. And my girlfriend jumps out and immediately runs inside. So I go inside after her and I give her a hug and I say, hey, are you feeling okay? And she kind of looks at me and then just immediately bursts out laughing and says, oh yeah, I just pooped my pants. And so yeah, that goes down as the best Valentine's date I've ever had for sure. We're still a couple, 12 years strong now,

and moral of the story is slimming tea and Olive Garden, maybe not the best combo. I feel that maybe Olive Garden is America's answer to New Zealand's Valentine's restaurant. With Aaron's romantic story running through my mind, I got back to thinking to that grocery store I was in, and all those chocolates. I thought there must be a fancier Valentine's Day present than chocolates in a heart-shaped box. So I googled best Valentine's Day presents and came across a site that said this. While chocolates, a sentimental card,

or cute stuffed animal are probably never a bad way to say I love you, a grown-up toy that you can both play with come night time, alone time, is another way to elevate the day into something twice as memorable. Apparently vibrators are becoming a more popular part of that 20 billion dollar valentine's day spend. What better place to go in this valentine's day episode than into the world of vibrators, a world I knew very little about. What is a smart vibrator? What does that even mean? Yeah, so I think smart is maybe overused at this point, but ours basically is a biofeedback. So what we're measuring is pelvic floor contractions. It's one of the best indicators for arousal and orgasms for people with vaginas. Anna Lee is an engineer by trade and is currently the

big boss at Lioness, the company she founded to make smart vibrators. That means her vibrators don't just move around, they're also full of sensors, which when paired with your phone, tell you everything about the orgasm you're having. It's a bit like a Fitbit for vaginas and bums. So what we're doing is basically you use the vibrator, you insert it vaginally or anally, and then you can get that pelvic floor contraction and you can see when you have an orgasm through your app. So there's a unique pattern that happens. And that looks different if you've had a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, you're stressed, that orgasm data will look totally different. The idea is that people who use this vibrator have a nice time while also understanding their orgasms and why they might be different at different times. We basically track everything about our lives. We have sleep trackers, nutrition trackers, exercise trackers, but then we

don't really track our sexual function. And it's actually one of the least researched areas, especially for women. When she started her business seven years ago, there was barely any research on female orgasms. Her big surprise was that even in the field of vibrators, which are mostly used by women, it was mostly all men making them. In the ocean of vibrators, it was a sea of dicks. I ended up meeting a founder of a sex toy company at the time,

and it was this guy. And I was like, how do you know what your building works for women and people with vaginas? He was a male engineer making products for females, the founder and CEO of that company. He was like, oh, there's this industry standard where you put the vibration on your nose. And that's what a clitoris feels like. Look, I don't know a lot about the clitoris, but I'm confident they're very different to noses. It's basically a historically

male dominated industry. The reason why it's like pink and purple, for example, is because they're trying to sell to what they think women want. They're like, women love pink and purple. They're actually trying to advertise it to men to purchase for their significant other to quote-unquote spice up a relationship. Enter Valentine's Day, I guess. Anna showed me some photos of her workspace

and all I can say is that inventing vibrators is wild. There are different sizes and different shapes, prototypes held together by zip ties, different things glued onto other things. It's like a mad scientist project, and the project is vibrators. Luckily for her, a previous engineering job working with Kindles, those electronic books, came in handy. The biggest thing I worked on was

the page press technology. You like squeeze the border of the glass and it turns the page as if it was a button. And the great thing about that is that that was using force sensors. And we use force sensors in our company to measure pelvic floor contractions. So I learned a lot about sensor integration and force. So I find it a lucky crossover. Your Kindles and vibrators have a slight link. Yeah, thank you, Jeff Bezos. Anna knew that she could put sensors to good use in a vibrator and off she went.

She had a lot of ideas that slowly got whittled down to the final device. When we first started, we wanted to build like an AI vibrator that moved and changed the more it got to know you. And we've started, we wanted to build like an AI vibrator that moved and changed the more it got to know you. And we've realized two things at that time. One, women were like, oh, I kind of know what I like and I don't like. I don't need it to like move in whatever way. And then the second thing is, there's actually, if you look at research around sexual function

for women, especially very, very little papers out there. So there's like a statistic for every seven papers that are about male sexual function, there's one on female sexual function. And most often that sexual function paper for women is about fertility in some way, which is important, but also we don't know anything. And so we realized we couldn't even build AI in this space because there wasn't enough information or data points.

So that's kind of how we realized that we wanted to do more of a data-focused product versus doing this AI sentient vibrator. I'm not quite sure anyone is ready for a sentient vibrator, so I feel she chose the right path. Her main goal is to just keep learning, and for people who use her stuff to keep learning as well. There's something very interesting that happens with THC and how long the orgasm is and how intense it gets. We've seen it with a couple people. We did a marketing study with about 20-something women.

They tried different strains of cannabis, and that showed people generally had better orgasms through it. And Anna says she happily shares her own data too, which is sort of more intimate than your typical data you'd add to a sales presentation, I suppose. But she's gone all in, posting her own statistics and research on her popular TikTok channel, Anna Is Average. I kind of love it because it's probably the best way that social media doesn't flag the content. They'll flag everything to do with sex and all

of that. And so in a way, it's such a dry piece of graph. But then you're like, this is my orgasm. And then people kind of freak out. You can feel it, you know, when you're doing a presentation and you're like, this is my orgasm. You can just feel the... The room sort of shrinks down. And then I have to like laugh to have everyone relax about it. And so it's the sexiest, non-sexy way to masturbate, I think.

And this Valentine's Day, plenty of Americans will be masturbating. Anna says that every Valentine's, sales peak. It's a good time of the year to be in the vibrators game. But hey, this is America. As I leave Anna to invent version 3.0 or whatever, she tells me that she also runs up against strange little pieces of American culture in her job. Sex toys are still illegal to sell in Alabama. Get out of town.

What? They still have that law. They're still like sex toy shops, but technically it's illegal. And in Texas, they still have a law where you can only own six dildos. So they can own more guns than they can dildos in Texas. Which I think it just says a lot about how old school and traditional I think and conservative America really is. Noted. When I go to record some more episodes of this show in Texas, I'll only take the six dildos. Number seven can stay at home.

Rob, you can keep it. I mean, I know this episode has kind of gone all over the place, but I just wanted to explore some different aspects. And I saw the stat that, yeah, vibrator stats, especially young monks, sex toys, just go through the roof on Valentine's because that's a sexy gift. Yeah, that is so fascinating. And I never thought about new technology happening because her TikTok is just orgasm data and looking at an orgasm. And they've never had that data before and now they can get it themselves i just think that's really fascinating i worry about this this to me is an example of technology gone wrong why is it wrong though isn't it isn't it fun to see what's

happening no no no because if a woman is gonna fake as they do sometimes you have to and if your partner demands to see the graph oh so you're worried that like a partner will tap into the app yeah and like have a little cheeky look if it's being used like during sex as well yeah fights well i'd say maybe that partnership needs to break up if there's too much faking going on sounds like deceit oh yeah it's your year of honesty i feel likeaking going on sounds like deceit oh yeah it's your year of honesty you're like it's like a great little discovery tool maybe it's a big positive would you like an app that said every time you told a white lie you wouldn't like somebody else tapping into your lies i wouldn't like that that would be a true hideous nightmare yeah i think it is a trip

if you have an orgasm know how it's doing compared with when you had fruity lunch breakfast instead of a steak dinner or something i just find that's kind of fascinating and kind of an amazing idea but i also wonder that if we're going to start doing so much correlational data. Oh, I had like an insane orgasm and I had cottage cheese this morning. You didn't suddenly like cottage cheese. It becomes the only thing you eat. Just as in the fridge. And it just might be that that day you had that. I don't know. It's all, it's very interesting that it's moving into that space. Also so interesting about the pink and purple. Yeah, that was,

I'd never thought about why there are colors in these things. Me either, but it adds up. And it's just funny to think that it's just men creating female sex toys. I mean, it shouldn't be a surprise, but it is just such a funny thing. And yeah, Anna said females in the space are very minimal. She's one of not many doing this which is kind of cool get into it look there's a space there's a market there's a market there yeah valentine's day is the time i would not have it be pink or purple i would what color pink or purple those are my favorite actually those aren't my favorites they're the ones they're the ones no i have one that's black and i that's my and that's my favorite.

That's your favorite. How many do you have? Three. You've got three. Yeah. And they do different things? Yeah. Where do you keep them?

Nightstand. Classic. Classic place. You got to be able to get them fast. You should try. I'll get you one of these smart ones and you can put your data up on the things. Yeah, social videos. See your social video and we can see what your

orgasm's like oh i am curious now see now i immediately do want one and i am curious i just think it's an interesting experiment how does a stressful day vary because you might not know what is affecting your sex life in that way and this will tell you well but also then do you think it's going to become another tool for girl on girl competition like this girl has amazing orgasms and you don't go down that road yeah it does yeah but i still want one okay i'll send one your way i'll order my first vibrator online i'll keep you updated okay okay do you have any i got none. I've got no sex toys whatsoever. When I was a journalist in New Zealand, Durex, which is, do you have Durex here?

They're like a condom maker. Oh, yes. They sent me like a pack of sexy things, condoms and like condoms with cock rings, I think was one of them. All sorts of that stuff. And that was, I found it sort of stressful to look at, to be honest. Okay. This is a sidebar, but I have a question. If you are going on a date and you feel we're probably going to have sex.

Yeah, right. Do you bring a condom? No, I don't. Two reasons. Because once I did have condoms in my wallet and when I opened them, they poked out. And I was so just, i've never been more deeply mortified really it should be a positive it's like wow yeah you're prepared the image in my mind was it's just like it just looks like i'm some like it looks arrogant a little bit kind of

arrogant it's just arrogant and horny you know it's just like i'm horny here's my credit card and here's so anyway so that was bad but i also think that maybe if condoms aren't where you end up it's just not meant to be if they're not there well then you're just not going to have sex oh see you know because i think you should use them so it's like i think if they're not there it's just like oh maybe this isn't the thing that's meant to happen but then you're you're deciding that planning yeah you're deciding that beforehand if you're not bringing any or you're assuming the girl will have okay this is why i ask because yes should your partner assuming that female have them right because i assume and this is old school

i assume the guy's gonna come with a condom and this happened to me yeah where there was no condom and i was like i am not prepared with a condom for you all right and that was just like yeah you're suddenly you're in this huge and were you annoyed that he didn't have the condom in the wallet i was you're like what were you thinking i was like you know we're gonna have sex and you're expecting me to provide a condom for you i was so embarrassed that time when they poked out of my wallet i was like i can't do this anymore i see the rationale behind that but i do find this in it because then i talked to my therapist about it because we had sex anyway all right and then i was very nervous after yes i was still on birth control at that

time so that was a little better but still i went for a, this is going to be a whole other episode, I went in for like a regular sexual health check, and the guy there was so interesting. He said, kids today, less and less condom use. The whole thing in the youth these days is we just talk it out, and if you've been tested and you've been safe, and you're with someone who says they're safe, it's probably going to be okay. So apparently condom use is on the decline and hiv is also on the rise in los angeles specifically

what a crazy correlation oh my this guy was just like people are kind of being really relaxed about things oh yeah which is an interesting thing you should just keep one in your wallet but not where you keep your money put in a better spot i've got that tiny little tiny condom tiny condom it's like a tiny purse it's like a child's purse i've got so there's no areas or room it's all in one all the cards and everything's all crammed in there receipts and so it all just spills out whenever i open it maybe you should get a new wallet may all get you that for valentine's day oh that's nice oh that's nice yeah okay get one with the zip so he can put the condom that's a cool idea happy valentine's day happy valentine's day yes yes and there are so many more than the three things that you said about yourself that you should love thank you um about 40 to 50 things

really minimally oh man yeah i'm really good at building Lego. Yeah. That's a fourth. Really good. I'm really quick on the instructions. Yeah. And you said you were going to build me a friend set. Your friend set.

We're going to build that up from the ground up. Yeah. It's in that box, ready to be built. It's ready. Happy Valentine's. Happy Valentine's Day, guys. Bye. Thank you.