Central Air - Presidentmaxxing

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

On this week's show: Cartoons Hate Her joins us to make her argument that Democrats need a presidential candidate who “fucks.” First we try to figure out what this figurative sense of “fuck” means exactly — “fucking is in your heart,” says CHH — and then we apply the analysis to the field of politics. Some calls are easy — John F. Kennedy fucked; Michael Dukakis did not fuck — but there are closer calls, like Margaret Thatcher, who may have fucked in some weird British psychosexual way, and there are candidates who fucked too much, like Gary Hart. We look at the elephant in the room — Gavin Newsom, who obviously fucks but obviously should not be the Democratic nominee — and we scour the rest of the field for potential fuckage. Perhaps Josh Shapiro would fuck if we got him some contact lenses and a leather jacket? We consider all possible angles.Plus: We have a very special surprise guest who helps us understand the bizarre phenomenon of “looksmaxxing,” recently covered in a 2,800-word New York Times profile of Braden Peters, a.k.a. Clavicular, the famous 20-year-old moron who improves his bone structure by hitting himself in the face with a hammer. (Peters, unsurprisingly, is a Newsom supporter.) And CHH gives her take on one of my favorite questions: are straight people okay?Sign up for updates at www.centralairpodcast.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.centralairpodcast.com/subscribe

Welcome to Central Air, the show where the temperature is always just right. This is Josh Barrow. I'm here with Megan McArdle, columnist for The Washington Post. Megan, how's the weather in Washington, D.C.? It is bad. The weather in Washington, D.C. is usually bad. It's sort of the city's specialty. It's either too hot or too cold, too disgusting. There's like three nice weeks when the cherry blossoms come out, but other than that. And then the city is mobs with everyone trying to see the cherry blossoms. Well, I don't go to that part of the city. That's where the tourists are.

We had snow that turned into ice because it was below freezing for basically two weeks. And because my house is 130 years old, it's not super weatherproof and it was not designed for cold weather. So I now own all the heated appliances. I invested in a heated mattress pad, which I recommend. Wow. Yeah, it has two sides so that if your partner does not like sleeping on a heated mattress pad, they don't have to. to that's finally ended, but now it looks like we're getting more snow, and I am perilously close to despair. Ben, I, you know, obviously you had the good sense to get the hell out of

Washington, D.C. And I know now you're in, like, the movie star paradise of Sun Valley. I do like that the heated mattress pad thing. I'm wondering if Megan learned about that from Christy Knoam, because, you know, we all read in the Wall Street Journal this week about Christine Hone's turbulent turmoil at DHS. In one instance, Corey Lewandowski threatening to fire a Coast Guard pilot who piloted a plane. They had to move Christyneome to a different plane, and they forgot to bring her heated blanket with them. And our DHS secretary doesn't go anywhere without her heated blanket. And so... If you have not tried the heated blanket, it is pretty choice. Yeah. Then you understand why you'd fire the pilot over that. It's a bit like when Amy Klobuchar

are, like, landed in Minnesota and her aide didn't bring her jacket. And she screamed at her. And then this became, like, a thing in 2020. And they were like, she's such a mean boss. I would fire that aide that second. You're not even getting back on the plane. Did you make that story up, Ben? There's the aide who forgot the fork.

No, no. I don't remember the aide who forgot the jacket. Why does she have such terrible staff? One of the staffers, one of the complaints was that, like, oh, she freaked out at Janet. And then they were like, all Janet did was forget her jacket at the airport in when they landed in Minneapolis in the winter. And it was like, Minneapolis in the winter. What are you talking about? Even ice horse jackets there. And they're supposed to be modern military men. Yes. Well, actually, we'll come back to Amy Klobuchar later this episode because we're going to talk about

whether or not she fucks. That's going to make more sense in a minute. But first, you know, in terms of like idiots one can read about in the paper. There's Christy Noem and her blankie. But there was also this week in the New York Times a 2,800-word profile of Bradent Peters, better known as clavicular. Now, we've talked about this guy a couple of times on this show. He's a 20-year-old streamer and, quote, looksmaxing, means going to extreme ends to look better than your fellow males. Clivocular, for example, started using anabolic steroids when he was 14 years old. He also hits himself in the face with a hammer, only very lightly. I think people get the wrong impression. about the bone smashing. It's not like he's like breaking his jaw. He like taps himself with a

hammer because he believes that improves his bone structure. Anyway, this guy makes $100,000 a month on kick, which is a streaming platform that most of our listeners has probably never heard of. He's very stupid. He represents a number of very stupid trends, but these are trends that matter in our society, whether we like them or not. And because this is central air, we're going to find a smart way to talk about them. And in fact, we think these trends are so important that we've gotten a very high-profile guest to join us this week to discuss them. He's taking time out of his very busy schedule to help us better understand clavicular and looks maxing and what this all means for the future of our country. So Ben and Megan, will you please help me welcome the president of

the United States, Donald J. Trump. Welcome. Welcome, Mr. President. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Ben and Megan. You know, Josh, I'm actually not that busy. We're supposed to say that we're busy. But while I'm here, I'm just going to be honest, we're doing a lot of Fox and Friends, a lot of McDonald's and a lot of other things. We've been having to do with Ben. We've been sitting in bed quite a lot. It's a very nice place. And we've been watching a lot of television. And we're having to do with New York Times. You know, we don't read the New York Times. It's a failing publication. It's a total disaster. And frankly, fraud. But we open New York Times. Sometimes people tell us about New York Times and they're doing having to do with clavicular. This is a person with tremendous problems. He's got tremendous problems. But at the same time, he's got a lot of strength. He's got a lot of strongness. And we like the hammer. We like the math. And also, Frank. We like all of the videos. He's doing so many videos with Sneako and other people. So we like what we see, but also we think he's a little bit of a loser.

We're very undecided on him at the moment. Wait, so you think he's a loser? I mean, don't you think of him as part of your political movement? Like, he's hanging out with Nick Fuentes and the Tate brothers. It's basically, you know, he's thought of as a right-wing thing. Aren't these people that you need? Isn't he the next generation of voters? First of all, I don't know who Nick Fuentes is.

I've never heard of that person before in my life. And Fuentes sounds like, get him out of here. But, you know, I don't know who that is. I don't know who any of these people are. And I don't know why you're talking about these people. While we're on the topic, who's David Duke? I don't know who that is either. Just a name that came to me in the ether.

But, you know, I think that a lot of people who like me are losers, quite frankly, I can say it. They let you say it on Central Air. There's a lot of people that like your favorite president, who are smart, who are wonderful. But Andrew Lloyd-Web are one of the greatest minds of our generation. but there's other people that are losers, okay? And they vote for me. We say thank you for the vote, darling. Thank you, darling. We appreciate the vote. But frankly, you've got problems. And we'll take Loviculars vote. We'll let him do it. It's okay. But he's a little bit of a loser. But that's okay. There's plenty of losers in my family. Okay. We've got, frankly, Eric and we love Eric. So it's okay. We'll let him be a loser. But when you want to be a man and you want to be strong, you can't be too pretty, okay? There's a problem with the pretty. You can't be too pretty. That's for the ladies, okay, clavicular. That's for the ladies.

That's for Melania. Darling, do I look nice in this? Darling, look at my hammer. It's too feminine. We don't like it. Ben, do you have a question for the president? Yeah, I mean, if the Secret Service came to you and said that they found Baron hitting himself in the face with a hammer,

how would you react? Well, probably I would hear about it from Melania Yeah, because they'd never be calling me about such matters. She's the default parent, okay? Melania handles the mental load, the mental load. There's so many things. She's got all the invisible labor. She comes to me.

She says, darling, we're going to play fair play. And I said, is this having to do with monopoly or even frankly, clue and other things? But apparently it's a game where you decide who does more stuff around the house. And I said, Melania, you win. You win this game. Okay, I'm not going to play it. And if there's anything having to do with Barron, I probably hear about it from her when we talk on our weekly basis. We have a check-in call on Slack. We do our check-in call. And we have the AI note-taker

and everything. And sometimes Barron comes up. But this would probably be her problem, okay? And if he's doing things having to do with Hammer, if he's doing Hammer, we've got tremendous problem, but also, frankly, not my problem. This is more of a problem for her. Megan, do you have a question for the president? Should the social service? We don't do social services. anymore. Okay, it's 2026. We're getting rid of social services. Should the Secret Service be looks maxing? That's a very good question.

I mean, don't you want like an attractive looking guard? I like, I look, I love women. You know I love women and I like when women look nice and do I like when men look nice? Of course I do. Not in that way. But I like being surrounded by strong, tough, frankly, glistening men all the time. And I think they look tremendous. So yes, I do want them to look nice. But they're working for me, okay?

You'll never catch me doing anything like that, okay? I have to look a little bit disgusting, okay? Because that shows how strong I am. I have to look disgusting. Have you ever seen me working out? That's by design, okay? Because you have a finite energy with you. But I really believe this, by the way.

You can look it up. I actually said this in real life. You have a finite amount of energy. And if you use it, you'll lose it. And then you're dead. So we don't like to do the looks maxing, but we want to be surrounded by people that are very good looking. So if clavicular wanted to work for the president,

And first of all, we're giving jobs to everybody. We've got an 18-year-old Groyper behind the Homeland Security Twitter account. So he can get a job very easily, even if he looked like garbage. But if he wants to work at the Secret Service, that's okay. That's okay. They let you do it. We don't have standards for that. It's fine.

Him being good looking would be possibly an asset. Maybe we'd like it. Maybe we'd say clavicular. Let's see. The front and the back. Let's see how you look. You look tremendous. But we wouldn't take him so seriously.

Okay. There's different levels to respect. and he doesn't have the strongness to get the full respect. But he's beautiful. He's a beautiful person. So we would possibly look at him, but that's about it. Are you concerned that there maybe needs to be more looks maxing in the Republican Party? I mean, clavicular himself talked on Michael Knowles' podcast about how he would vote for Gavin Newsom over J.D. Vance.

Because J.D. Vance is fat. And Gavin Newsome mog's, quote unquote, mocking. This is a key clavicular thing about you have to mong and not get mugged. Mogging is when you show yourself to be more of an alpha male than the person next to you by having, for example, better bone structure or a better frame, etc. Anyway, are you concerned that Republicans might be at risk of being mobbed rather than doing the mogging? Frankly, I'm not concerned about anything having to do with election, having to do with 2028, because once we're done, we're done, we can have AOC as president and we'd say, hello, AOC, it's fine, we're done. we're going to be on whatever the new plane that they get after you're not on Air Force One anymore. Air Force Two, we're going to be on Air Force Two and we're going to be having a wonderful time.

But if we have to pretend that we care about the Republican Party, I do think it's a problem. I think it's a tremendous problem because Gavin Newsom is a handsome man, okay? Gavin Newsom and frankly, Gavin Newsom has done disgusting things with the fiancé, the fiancé. I don't know who my son is married to. Kimberly Garfoyle, they was doing disgusting things with Gavin Newsom. It was horrible what they were doing. We're not going to say what they were doing, but probably Gavin Newsom used his,

we're going to call it his item, and he was using it in Kimberly's Place, okay? And we're a little bit afraid of the place. We don't like to think about the place. We don't even like to think about Melania's place, okay? But they were doing item and place, and it was frankly disgusting. And I know that Don Jr. doesn't like to think about it.

I bring it up and he says, Daddy, Daddy, don't talk about the item and the place. It's disgusting what they were doing with Gavin. and other things. And you look at Gavin Newsom, he looks tremendous, okay? But we're not going to forget about what he did with French laundry, okay? We haven't forgotten about French laundry. What he did with French laundry was terrible. He went to Paris. He took everyone's clothing and it was in the middle of a pandemic and he started putting it in the laundromat. And they said, Gavin, you're not allowed in the Paris laundromat. Okay. We're in a pandemic. And he said, I'm going to do what I want.

I'm going to wash everyone's clothing. Okay. It was disgusting. What was he doing with everyone's clothing, probably people's underwear, very disgusting what they're doing with slimy, sneaky Gavin over there. But he does look good. We're not going to lie about that. He's got a full out of hair, which, by the way, J.D. Vance does have very nice hair. People are not giving him credit for the hair. It's terrible what they're doing, having to do with hair and having to do with couch, by the way, which is not true. But it was funny. It was very funny, but it wasn't true. And that was also an item story, by the way. But I think Gavin Newsom looks very good. And I think we need to have a little bit more of that in the Republican Party. I think we can maybe start with the

low-hanging fruit, you know, like Stephen Miller could probably just go out in the sun a little bit. He might look a little better. If he ate a vegetable every now and then, you know, we can start with the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, the fruit. A little bit of fruit on the diet wouldn't kill you, you know, Stephen Miller just drinks a diet of blood and organ meat. It's disgusting. But, you know, we can do a little bit. We don't need to do the hammers, though. I don't think we need to resort to hammer. I don't think we need to go that far. But I think we could do a little bit better, a little bit better than we're doing right now. Are you concerned at all? And I want to be mindful of your time here. But I mean,

one of the things that clavicular has talked about is, you know, he says to the New York Times that he was slay maxing, which is the way he talks about having sex. But he really talks about sex like at some kind of chore. And even at one point talks about how, you know, he's more interested in getting women to want to have sex with him than actually having sex with him. It's a big time saver to not actually have the sex. Are you concerned that your young supporters are maybe not getting late enough? Well, they're definitely not using the idea. as often as they're using the item by themselves, okay? They're using the item quite a lot by themselves. I call it gooning. The teens are gooning. They're all over the screens and monitors and

having to do with chair and desk and gaming setup and they're doing gooning. And it's disgusting what they're doing having to do with goon. But I think the problem is they're not meeting each other. And I think that's very sad what they're doing with meeting because we used to go to clubs and nightclubs and restaurants and all sorts of places and we would see the beautiful women. Studio 54, right, Mr. President. Studio 54, many, studio 55, 56, the list goes on. But we would go to these wonderful places and we would meet beautiful ladies and we would say, hello, I'm your favorite president, except I wasn't the president back then. I was just Donald, okay? And we would have lovely conversations and maybe we would do a little item in place at some point, but they don't let you do item in place anymore. You go to these places. Everyone's on their phones. It's disgusting what they're doing. And then you look at the phone. They're not even on truth social. They're on Instagram watching some terrible. craft videos. It's horrible what they're doing. They're not even looking at good content. But they're doing this and it's making it very hard for them to meet each other. And then they're getting so much thrill from their phones. There's so much they can look at, really. It's just,

it's tremendous what they're doing with phone that then they don't get to talk to each other. They're looking at flat one. They're just on the screen on the flat one. They're just swiping, swiping, and then they don't meet each other. And so then when it's finally time, it's a lot of work, by the way. It's a lot of work to use the item in the place. And it's even more work to get someone to agree to it. And, uh, Once you're done getting someone to say, yes, it's very hard to continue with the whole process. So I think it's very difficult for young people. I think it's sad what they're doing.

And they talk about the birth rate. You know, we want to have more baby. I'm supposed to say that, right? That's what they told me to say. They say, we got to worry about the birth rate. Oh, no, the babies, the beautiful little babies. We don't like babies. They're disgusting.

They're always covered in slime. They're very gross. But we want more of them for this beautiful country, even though we're going to be dead by the time it's a problem. But okay, birth rate. Okay, Stephen Miller. We'll talk about the birth rate. Yes, Daddy, we'll do birth rate.

We're doing birth rate. Anyway, we care about the birth rate insofar as we're told to, but we want the young people to meet each other. But most of all, we want them on truth social. And we want them signing up for the new Trump Stake subscription service, which is kind of something we're lining up for 2028 when we're bored. And we don't want to be buttering around Mar-a-Lago, bothering millennia. Okay. Well, Mr. President, with that note, encouraging the young people to have very much more. more sex and buy the Trump stakes and get on truth social. That's a, that's a lot of food for thought

for our listeners who are surely in that demo. We're going to let you get back and maybe do your Fox and Friends hit or play some golf, but thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Josh. We really appreciate it. We know that you're a terrible liberal, centrist, whatever. We know you're not going to give us your vote, but we do appreciate you having us on and maybe we change your mind about some things by saying so many wonderful things. So thank you so much. We'll be right back with more central air. Megan pointed out to me in the break. That's not really Donald Trump. And so I'm sorry, Megan, Ben, that I've misled you there a little bit. I'm sorry, Josh, I didn't know how to tell you, but I felt you really should know.

Yeah, well, most importantly, the listeners should know. And that's so, in fact, who was that? Who was doing that, you know, wonderful spot-on Donald Trump impression? It's cartoons hate her, which is an excellent substack about the folkways of straight people. I read it every day. And she's here in her own persona to join us. So first of all, how should we address who? You're like, fake name is a full sentence, which is a little weird. Yes, I really regret choosing that as my name, but by the time I did, I couldn't get rid of it. I used to do web comics. And see, I'm like trying to get out of the Trump voice.

I was doing web comics and other things. I was doing webcom. And, you know, it was like a funny little thing I was doing because I wasn't doing well in my job and I needed something to like entertain me. And I wasn't really thinking about the name. And then I got stuck with cartoons hate her. A lot of people just say C-H, which I actually prefer. It just sounds like a brand. I like it.

You could even call me. me C and that would be okay. Ooh, C. Yes. Yes. Once we're not recording, I'll tell you my real name so we can be friends. But you can call me C. Now you're like a big successful substack and you're stuck with this name whether you like it or not. But we're really glad that you're here with us today. Thank you. You wrote a column this week because you do the sort of like political social commentary. And you have a column this week saying that Democrats need a presidential candidate who fucks. And I, you know, get the like, you know, Joe Biden.

was, you know, I mean, well, he was getting senile at the end, but he was also like, you know, he wasn't, he definitely didn't fuck, especially at the end. And I get the sort of like, senile men can fuck. Yes, but should they? Why not, Josh? Who are you? I don't mean to be agist and ablest here. But so I get the impulse here like, you know, the party needs to be cool. One of the things I really worry about, though, is that if you say going into 2028, the Democrats need a presidential candidate who fucks is that you're going to end up nominating Gavin Newsom, who definitely fucks. but who would be a bad candidate. And so I want to talk about that. But first, I want to define some terms so we can figure what we're talking about here. What does it mean for a politician to fuck? Yeah. See, this is a really important nuance you bring up. And I actually got slammed for this a little bit in my comments because men had a very hard time, especially, separating I would have sex with her versus she fucks.

And like, just to be clear, I got in a lot of trouble for saying that I tentatively do not think that AOC fucks. I open to being convinced. But they were like, no, that's not true. AOC is hot. I don't deny AOC is hot. She's very pretty, very attractive. But like Amy Klobuchar fucks and is not conventionally attractive. Like, you would not see Amy Klobuchar on Playboy.

But I do think she fucks because of how she berated that intern and then like ate her salad with a fork. Like that was kind of like a fucking move. And so people ate her. She ate the salad with a comb. It was like important. Yeah. Yes. It's forked.

Salad with a fork. Because dog bites man. Salad with a comb, that's man bites dog. Yes. Okay. I... Nothing hotter than a woman eating salad with a fork. I mean, with a comb. But see, Ben, it's not about being hot. Like, that's the thing. And so then people were asking me if I consider myself as fucking.

And the answer is, no, I don't. You do not fuck. I don't. I have sex with my husband. But I don't fuck. And I think anyone who knows me could, like, very clear. So to be a fucker in this sense, in like the politician sense. And real people can fall into this category too. They're fake people, real people. It's a certain degree of coolness. But it's not just being cool. It's being cool in a very

like dominant and aggressive way, which I think we can get into this. But there's like, can a woman fall into that category. Yes. But like I think it is harder because women who behave that way tend to be socially punished. So I think it's, it's a much narrower pathway for a woman to walk, which I think that's why it's hard to come up with, like, female candidates that are a good example. But, like, to be a candidate who fucks is like you can't just be good looking or, like, a lot of people think you're hot. Like, that's very little to do with it. I would say Trump in 2016 fucked. And I did not want to have sex with Trump in 2016 or at any other time.

Gavin Newsom is good looking and he fucks, but those things don't. Mayor Pete, that's one I'm kind of on the fence about. I think he kind of does. Oh, he doesn't fuck. You don't think he does? No. No. Oh, okay.

I was a bit on the fence about Mayor Pete. not even a little bit. I want to describe what I think people mean when they say that someone fucks, you know, whether it's a politician or someone else. I think it's about having an unusual ability to get women to want to have sex with you. And it doesn't, you don't actually have to have sex with them. Like, Barack Obama definitely fucks. And it's like clavicular. I was going to say, this is clavicular adjacent.

Well, actually, but we'll get in this later. Clavicular does not fuck. And we can talk a little bit later about why and why this is something that's wrong with the whole clavicular phenomenon. on because if you're going to be an exemplar of good looks, you definitely should fuck and he doesn't. But Barack Obama fucks, even though he wasn't actually like going around like fucking all of these women. It's about that he had this sexual charisma that women are drawn to and that men are also drawn to because they admire someone who has this like sort of unusual like sexual capacity. And that's why I don't think women can fuck in this sense because it's not that impressive that a woman gets men to want to have sex with her. Like that's just kind of Tuesday.

The default, yeah. And I also don't think it really applies with gay men just because it's like, you know, like, again, like the idea, oh, a gay man can get laid. Let me call the newspaper and talk about that. And so I think that there is this very real kind of sexual charisma that Barack Obama had, that George W. Bush had in his way that the Kennedys certainly have had. Yeah. And I think that's what people mean when they talk about how a politician fucks. And I think Gavin Newsom has that. Yeah. But I think it is a very like straight male coded thing.

Like I think, I think Amy, I like Amy Klobuchar a lot. And I also think Amy Klobuchar is like, cool. and intimidating and that that can be a useful charisma as a politician. But I don't think I would say that Amy Klobuchar fucks. Like, she's way too dorky for that. I mean, the thing about Gavin Newsom is that Gavin Newsom looks like he just fucked. Yeah. Like, Gavin Newsom has fluids on him.

You know, like, he just left. And you go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, what I think about the, when I read your column and I was thinking about, like, what, who fucks? And how do I use that term? I don't mean it in it. I am going to have sex with this. person way. I mean it in somebody who's sort of out of fucks to give, you know, but they make it

look cool that they're very James Dean about it all, you know, it's a little Steve McQueen in it. But importantly, like when you talk about Democrats, the Democrat that you want is someone who's not a little dry dick pussy bitch and who isn't sort of so afraid to offend people that they think 10 words, you know, in front of their brain and fall down all the time. And then you come to like out of fucks to give thing where like they're ready to uh to not be taken in by the groups they aren't gonna be afraid of all of these people and in that sense i think you're on to something Megan what does fuck mean to you I think what you're describing is dominance not fucking right like well you fuck you fuck you fuck which is why it's hard for women to pull off women dominant women

don't necessarily play that well especially to a national audience I have an empirical bone pick with your assertion that Joe Biden fucked in 2020? Yes, this was one thing in the CHS call. I was on the campaign trail. I was somewhat surprised he could stay upright. Oh, okay. Maybe I'm thinking Joe Biden 2010s. Yeah, I think that might be closer.

But so, Megan, in that case, does Margaret Thatcher fuck? Or did she? She was certainly dominant. That's a good question. Again, I think that you're right that dominance in men plays better than dominance in women. But I mean, like Andrew Sullivan will say

that British men had a kind of like perverted schoolboy thing about her, no nonsense. Like, I am in charge. So maybe, yeah, maybe she fucked. Wait, I may need to read that. Andrew has a column saying that people had like a psychosexual thing about Margaret Thatcher

where they were turned on by her. decades ago. Huh. Well, I mean, British schoolboys always, they always want to fuck the school marks. Maybe it wasn't him. I think it was him. But this is a long time ago. But so getting back to fucking.

So I guess, you know, if the thesis is Democrats need a candidate who projects dominance and who is able to show that they are strong, like, I can buy that. But I think we've just gotten kind of far away from the fuck concept. Like, I don't know why we, like, I don't know, CHS. There's something that I'm missing there that, like, it's not good enough to be dominant that there needs to be some sexual charisma component to that. Yeah, see, because I don't fuck, I find myself capitulating to both of you and being like, yes, mommy and daddy, I want to make you happy. I agree with you both. Like, I'm trying to, like, what do I think?

I don't know. I don't have a pain. For someone who writes about all my opinions, I have no opinions. I just like. Oh, come on. You wrote a column that was full of opinions. You say, I mean, some really wrong opinions, like you say Elizabeth Warren fucks. I think, okay, so I recant Elizabeth Warren.

I do feel like Elizabeth Warren kind of, why am I blanking on Michael Bloomberg, the short billionaire? Yes. I feel like she kind of fucked him and got him off. And so not got him off, but got him off the stage. Like she, like, he was never on the stage again after she, like, fucked him a little bit. And I liked that. I wouldn't say she fucked in general. I feel like I was kind of like, I don't know, I have some regrets because I feel like it is kind of straight mail coded.

But I knew that if I did that, there would be all these people in my comment. And by the way, even though I'm relatively successful in substack, like 80% of my comments are people yelling at me. Like, I think they pay to just like verbally abuse me. And they're like, well, I mean, that's a kind of flex in itself, right? That people will pay to pay to complain to you about you. I know. That's true. Yeah.

And I think there are people being like, well, this. doesn't cover, first of all, the article is free, but there are people being like, I'm disheartened that there were no women mentioned here. And I'm like, well, there were. And it was free. And you have no excuse. Like, they were just like mad. They just like want to be mad. But I did feel like I had to get ahead of the whole woman thing because I don't want to say it's impossible for a woman to fuck. Like, it's possible. I think I might have stretched some of the examples. I'll put it that way. I might have stretched some of the examples because I was coming up a little short and I was having a hard time coming up with anybody because it is a little straight male coded. I was trying

I think of counter examples. Like Timothy Chalameh. I think a lot of young women want to have sex with him. But would he be a good political candidate? I kind of doubt it. No. Does he fuck, though? Is the second question that I would ask. Because you don't have to be a politician to fuck. And like, I mean, he is a very intense dude. And like, in that sense, I would imagine he does. I'll put it this way. I think Timothy Shalamem. fucks more than Jacob Elorty, even though they are both in the same school of like good looking, hunky actor, Timothy Shalameh, like, you get like almost like the Gavin Newsom thing where you're like, he just fucked like five minutes ago.

And like Jacob Allorty, you got the sense that he like went on a really good date last week. But like you don't, you know what I mean? And like Glenn Powell, very handsome, very hunky, doesn't really fuck. I just feel old now. I don't really have an opinion about Glenn Powell. When we were talking about this last night, we were then trying to think of like, what presidents fuck and what once happened? And like all presidents have have fucked their wives, at least. Except for Nixon who didn't fuck anybody because he was a freak. Is that true? He did have two. He did have children. He did a couple of times. They had kids. But like he was a he was a freak. He liked power. He liked to sit and get drunk. I think this is asexual erasure, which is actually very offensive. And he was an ace ally.

But like up until my when I was a kid, my dad used to say, look, Ben, all the presidents used to have affairs. They all did. If you were the president, you would fuck around too. Everyone did. FDR. Did FDR's wife was fucking women up until like Reagan maybe didn't. And then he was, but this is also in the 90s when they were all defending Clinton for instance.

Right. But then I think that like George W. Bush, like a number of people in your column who you mentioned didn't fuck around. No. You know, they fucked their own one. I think so. Like, George W. Bush didn't fuck around. Like, Obama didn't fuck around. And I think, like, Reagan didn't fuck around.

But aside from that, really a lot of these guys in the past, even Jimmy Carter, who loved God, but still felt the corruption in his soul, as he famously said. He had lusted in his heart. I actually don't think Jimmy Carter fucked. I think most presidential candidates did. But I don't think Jimmy Carter did. I don't think Jimmy Carter did. Well, this is actually, this is a point in favor of CHS's column,

which is I was thinking about, you know, what presidents fuck and what presidents didn't fuck. And if you make a list of like the presidents who did not fuck, it's like Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter and George Bush Sr. It's like a list of presidents who were defeated for re-election. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's, you know, that makes me reluctantly want to award points to this thesis that, again, I worry is going to lead to the nomination of Gavin Newsom, which would be bad. Now, the flip side of that is that, you know, maybe there's just some hindsight bias and we think Jimmy Carter didn't fuck because he was defeated for reelection. But there was also some of this in advance.

Like there's this 1987 cover of Newsweek with George Bush Sr. on the cover. And the headline is The Wimp Factor. And so people talked about him like, you know, comparing him. It was like he was getting mugged by Ronald Reagan. Then he got elected president over Michael Dukakis, who like definitely didn't fuck. And so maybe like the 1988 presidential election had the lowest fuck quotient of any election of my lifetime. But the... Except for Gary.

Gary, what's his face? The electoral, well, right, but he was... Gary Hart. Well, yeah, but Gary Hart, that was back when we had standards and rules, and Gary Hart, you know... He fucked too much. Gary Hart, for, like, the young people who are not familiar with this, by the way, he was a senator from Colorado. He ran for president in 84 and 88, and he was accused of having an affair. And he told reporters from the Miami Herald, go ahead, follow me around.

You'll be very bored. And then they followed him around and found him having the affair, which involved him going to Bimini in the Bahamas on a boat called monkey business. So, you know, politics did used to be funny. But anyway, he was defeated by Michael Dukakis. And then Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush. So we do have this track record of, you know, presidents who fuck winning. Although on the other hand, I would note Bush v. Gore, Al Gore did win the popular vote. And Al Gore, I don't think fucks.

Stop steal. Stay in line. I'm still very hurt over the 2000 election. That was my loss of innocence. One way of thinking about it is, is like, when you think, about men from the 20th century who were synonymous with fucking. I think that like one of the names that comes out is Warren Beatty, right? Yeah. Warren Beatty.

Warren Beatty fucked. He's also famously, Warren Beatty fuck and he fucked he wouldn't stop, you know, until he met and Ned Benning. But like Warren Beatty also is famously in his heart wants to be the president of the United States. Like has always been a very like passionate liberal Democrat. And, you know, he and Gary Hart used to be friends and they would like sit in their kitchens talking to each other. and you could realize that each one wanted to be the other one. You know, like, Gary Hart wanted to be a movie star. And Warren Beatty wanted to be a Democratic politician.

And so my question is, is if Warren Beatty was younger and Warren Beatty ran for president, do we think Warren Beatty would win? No, not now in the 80s, maybe. And not then, because he was, like, in fact, like a soft limousine liberal at a time when the party was moving in a direction where you needed like Bill Clinton. Yeah. Although I'm willing to say that, you know, he would probably just become that he would become a Clinton liker. People's beliefs change. He just wasn't really like the guy in Reds. You know, he was just somebody who believed things.

He said, believe whatever he needed to say. He liked the power. I think that he actually is a charming guy. And I think him versus Trump would have been a great election. Okay. So speaking of Trump, I feel like he's getting lost in the weeds here because Trump, not attractive. I do not want to have sex with Donald Trump. I don't think that many women do. But you've said several times now, unprompted that you don't want. want to have sex with Donald Trump. It's a little defense. The lady doth protests too much. I don't want to have sex with Trump shirt is, you know, but real pick me energy here. Okay. So the reason I say this is because Trump is the reason I would say the Trump fucks is because he's very good at asserting dominance in really any situation and he's very good at seeking out power and allying, allying with those in power.

So a great example would actually be a deep cut from The Apprentice. I think it was a 2005 episode, you'll see where the world was very homophobic in the early 2000s. And so one would expect that Donald Trump would be homophobic. He's not exactly politically correct. He's having this episode. And something comes up where there was a seminar that the candidates had to do or the contestants had to do. And it involved having relationships in the workplace. It was like a sensitivity training for relationships in the workplace. And one of the people who did it. They assigned that on the apprentice? It was like they had to do a course, like an e-course about dating in the workplace. And one of the, this was their choice to do it.

They could do an e-course on anything business related. And they were like, we're going to do dating in the workplace. And the guy you did it was gay and openly gay. And then another guy on the team said that him being gay and talking about sex in the workplace made him, quote, unquote, uncomfortable. And in this moment, you might think that Trump would have been tempted to rail on the gay guy and make fun of him for being gay because it was 2005. But no, Trump identified correctly that the gay guy was stronger. And his name was Clay. And Trump allied with Clay.

First, Trump said, does everyone know that Clay is gay? Because he was offended that no one told him. And he was like, everybody knew this. And then just to double check, he was like, Clay, so you don't find Olive attractive. He tested him and, like, gave him a woman. It was like, what about her? And he was like, no, she's a beautiful woman, but I'm not attracted to women. And then Trump, very correctly, was like, Clay is the alpha in this situation. He's the dominant one. And we're going to humiliate this homophob that's making fun of him. So he allies with Clay and the other guy, the guy who's uncomfortable with the gay talk. is named Adam. And he's like, Adam, have you ever had sex? And then like, this guy refuses to answer, which is kind of weird because he could have just said yes. And he was like, he was like one

day, 10, 15 years, you'll understand there's nothing like it. It's gotten me in a lot of trouble Adam. Adam's not good with sex. And he just like humiliates him and calls him a virgin. And he's teeming up with the gay guy to make fun of the straight guy, which was kind of unusual for the time. And I feel like Trump is very good at seeking out the dominant in any situation. And people make fun of me because they feel like I'm always injecting BDSM plotlines into all of my, but like, I just see the world that way. And I feel like Trump does too. I think he, and I don't think he does BDSM. Again, my Trump doesn't do BDSM shirt. But like, I think he just views the world in winners and losers, killers and babies, you know, power and no power. And I think that is a key part of being a quote

unquote fucker, even if it's not about actual sex. Like he dominated this guy in a way that might have been unexpected for the time, but like he correctly surmised Clay has the power and I'm going to ally with Clay. And that's how we won the 2016 primaries. And so when I think about a president who fucks, like, that's kind of what I'm thinking about. Okay. So what's the lesson here for Democrats? You've read the Madaglacius column. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And you, you understand the argument about you nominate Gavin Newsom and it's just like white male Kamala Harris. Yeah. who, you know, spent, you know, billions of dollars to give Medicaid to illegal immigrants and, you know, more broadly spent his whole career optimizing on winning Democratic primaries in California rather than appealing to a national electorate. So if Democratic primary voters say, okay, we have to go out and find the candidate who fucks, how do they take that advice and avoid nominating Gavin Newsom?

I think it's tricky because we don't have that many people. And I also think a lot of who we have doesn't fuck. I think Gavin Newsom would probably be a mistake. but the question is who who else is there and I'm well you can nominate Josh Shapiro does Josh Shapiro fuck yes I think Josh Shapiro would be okay but I think I don't know that Josh Shapiro fucks a little

You think Josh Shapiro fucks? A little like he doesn't not I think Gavin I don't know that he does I'm look we're all I'm due to it's okay but if he fucks he's like he's like Portnoy fucking he fucks himself

you know like while like hiding in the restroom while the family's having dinner. Josh Shapiro has four children. Like, Josh Shapiro does literally fuck, but like, no, but we have to separate it from that. It has nothing to do with that. Mitt Romney has like 15 kids, and I don't think Mitt Romney fucks, although he is handsome. There was this great Kevin Williamson piece for National Review in 2012. The headline was, own it, Mitt. And it was basically about how Mitt Romney needed to admit that he fucks. Yes. And it's talking about how like this, you know, this giant family that he's built is just like a such a like makes him a male fertility

idol. And he talks about how 51% of babies are male, but 60% of children of Fortune 500 CEOs are male. And there's this like tendency in like very high status families that they produce more male offspring. And there's Mitt Romney with his five sons and no daughters and these like these giant Mormon family photos. And he gives Romney crap for like flying commercial. And it's like, you know, you're this like very successful rich guy with this, you know, this huge, beautiful family. And you should just admit that that makes you a ball. But this sort of like this thrift that like, you know, you could call it like, you know, it's like it's a Mormon virtue or it's, you know, that's actually conservatism to be, you know, to be modest. But he was saying no,

like Mitt Romney fucks, although it's not the language you used in the column. And that Mitt needs to admit that he fucks. I thought there was some truth to that. Yeah, but I think if you need to be told that you admit it, if you need to be told like to own it, then you truly don't. Like it fucking is in your heart and I don't think that he has it and it doesn't have it. I didn't have the juice. I think I like, I think Mitt Romney is probably like a good dad and I think it's good that he has a lot of kids. But like I, if he has to be told, that's like sub behavior. I mean, I get that. But also the lesson of the movie Greece is that sometimes you are told and then you get cool at the end.

And then you're wearing a leather jacket and you go out and suddenly they go Sandy? Yeah, but what if Greece is. Okay, but one of the genders had been reversed. Yeah. What if it was a man who was like, you have to be cool. And then he went and, like, returned and was like, everyone told me to be cool. Like, that would suck. I mean, I don't know.

I've been around a lot of people who were total little babies. And you're like, oh, that guy's, that guy, he's an insult. Then they put on a leather jacket. And they started, they part walking the walk. And you go, you know what? All right. So what you're saying is the DNC, yeah, needs to buy Josh Shapiro a leather jacket. And some contacts.

I'll need some contacts because girls don't make passes at boys who wear glasses. Okay. That's the thing. If you puts in contacts and wears a leather jacket, then maybe. But this is what I hate about this whole frame. And maybe I'm just being too optimistic about the electorate, but I really don't think I am. It's like, you know, like Hunter Biden fucks. Oh, obviously.

Why did I not bring him up earlier? Could he run? Is there something like? But Hunter Biden is awful. Like, and like the Kennedys, like their whole thing was that the Kennedys fuck. And it's like they all like, they end up either killing themselves or some woman in some idiot way because they're reckless and stupid. Or giving kids malaria. Right.

Yes. for example. And then meanwhile, like, you know, I look around the world, like, Mark Carney doesn't fuck. And in fact, you know, the, like, as Canadian prime ministers go, like Justin Trudeau was the Canadian prime minister who fucked. There he fucked. Won three elections in a row. Right, but then he was about to get his ass kicked. And the Liberal Party of Canada was like, oh, no, we're going to lose. And so, like, a functional political party, what they did is they fired him. They replaced him with Mark Carney, who's like 5'8 and definitely doesn't fuck. And then they also, like, junked Justin introduced signature unpopular carbon tax policy. But so then they put up Mark Carney and Mark Carney

led them to an election victory. And it just shows that like you don't need to fuck in order to win the election. In Canada, though. I think in the U.S. it's different. I think, you know, I think the U.S. is a very individualistic, rugged culture. And a lot of countries have had female presidents now, and we still have not. And I actually would be, I think we'll have another man of color president and possibly even a gay male president before we have a female president. I'm not saying that's necessarily for the better. I'm just saying I think that's how it is in this country. Well, I mean, I want to get back to what something you said, which you guys were talking about whether Mayor Pete fucks, okay? Obviously, we have a token homosexual on this podcast who can talk,

speak to. I'm the lead host. How can I be the token? Well, because you're the, okay, I guess I don't even know what the word token means. We're just a bum straight. We are the token heterosexuals, Ben. Yes. Yes. But also like I, when you guys said that he didn't, I, I thought that was a little surprising just because one of the things that he and Gavin Newsom have both done that I have found as brave and impressive is that they are willing to go on Fox News and argue about it and aren't little babies like most Democrats who just are like, you know, need safe spaces and won't go fight with these dumb-dums on Fox News. And both Newsom went and did that dumb thing with Sean Hannity constantly. And, you know, he's ready to, ready to fight for it. And,

People love that. And also, Mayor Pete constantly is willing to go and gets that. Trump also, you know, loves going and talking to Teen Vogue or not too, but some, some dumb things because he can go on and you're like, yeah, he's going to go and fight because he's a fucker. He fucks. And I think that Gay Pete does it too. So I have a set of uncharitable opinions about Mayor Pete that, like, people get mad at me when I express them. I think that if you weren't able to get yourself out of the closet until you were 30,000. you are not ready to be president when you are 38. Like, I just like, I just like, I, then he wasn't openly gay until he was 33?

Right. Yeah, no, he was, he had already been elected twice as mayor of South Bend. And he came out in 2015. Oh, and then, you know, like a couple of years later, he's running for president. And I realize, you know, like, you know, there hadn't been an openly gay major presidential candidate before. And it's obviously a difficult field bubble. But like, you know, lots of gays have difficult coming out stories. and they sack up and admit their truth and tell it to people. And I just generally think these days, if a gay man doesn't make it out of the closet until that age,

what does that say about his self-actualization? Will you forgive them if they have a really good backstory for it? Is it a really good backstory? Like, they were raised in, like, a very traditionalist household and, like... His parents were college professors. Right. I'm not saying he has one. I'm just saying, like, will you accept... a reasonable backstory. Like, they accidentally got married when they were 20. Sure, but I don't, I, I don't think he hasn't especially good, but I just, I take it as a sign of a lack of self-actualization. And that's fine, you know, like, you don't have an, I mean, honestly, look at our current president. Couldn't we use less self-actualization? Actually, wouldn't we like someone who is not at all self-actualizing? It's all Trump does is actualized. His own instincts. And I, I

I could frankly use someone who has done less of that. Someone who is so caught, who demonstrates caution by being unwilling to accept themselves. And that means that maybe they won't like fire, fire the nukes at the wrong time. No, I am quibbling with the, I'm quibbling with the particular idea that we need a president who self-actualizes rather than say one who is self-aware and honest.

Those are, I think, two different things. Have you guys ever had, Sex dreams about presidents? No. Dear God, no. Wait, hold on. We need to hear both of these stories. Ben, you first.

I've had two sex dreams about presidents. One was Obama. Because like all liberal journalists, I had secret dreams about fucking Obama. Ben, Ben, I'm the token gay on this podcast. You have to stay away from my territory. He was the only sex dream I've ever had about a man. But we were at the opera and he put his hand on my leg.

And I went, Michelle's right there. Michelle's right there. She can see. And then Michelle, look. at me and nodded and said, it's okay. And I went and had sex with Obama. This is so on brand for like a Washington monthly staffer, Mother Jones, sorry. But then in 2016, to show that I'm a bipartisan centrist, I had a sex dream about Trump. And in that sex dream, we were in, you know, Mara Lago, an hotel room. He was wearing an oversized

shirt and had like a Diet Coke. And he was like, caressing my hair, pawing at my hair, and, like, directing my hand. And he, it was all very transactional. It was all about him. He didn't care about my pleasure, you know? And at the end, and I woke up. You've only ever had one sex dream about a man? Well, at the time.

At the time. At the time. But then, so at the time, like, afterwards, when I woke up of the Obama one, I thought, like, I'd like to see Obama again if I was in that dream. And when I walked up after the Trump one, I was like, I don't want to see Trump. I don't know that I do want it to drum again. Maybe I will, but he's going to have to prove to me that this relationship is changing, that it's evolving that I'm not just some some masturbatory rags, some little hand there helping him out.

And I just thought that it's an interesting division of who those two men are. And I'm just curious to know if you guys have ever had these very normal dreams. So I have. Sorry, hold. I need a moment to digest. Mine is less detail. I'm speechless. Sorry.

Let's have more horrifying presidential sex dream stories. CCHH, what nightmare fuel do you have for us? Mine, much like Ben's, was a gay dream in the sense that I had a dream that I discovered I had been in a situation-up relationship with both Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell, and they had found out about it. And it reignited their feud from 2006. I know this sounds like I made it up to be funny, but it's not. And you could talk to like, I can bring a family member on the point.

pod at some other time because they can testify that I have a lot of very vivid dreams that sound made up. I mean, I guess I've been lying since I was a kid, but like, I've had a lot of dreams where I'm like, no one will ever buy that this was a dream. No, this definitely happened in real life. Well, that's why they have the feud. It was all about me. Megan, do you have like a Gerald and Betty Ford sex dream story for us or anything? I wish I had. I think we've done enough writing and for the listeners this week. Let's take a quick break. And then we're going to come back and I'm going to ask my favorite question, which is, are straight people okay? This is central air. I want to talk, you know, I mean, we opened this show talking about that moron clavicular. And one of the, like, weird aspects of him is the sort of the performance of being as good looking as possible and looks maxing, and I'm going to hit myself in the face with a hammer because that's supposed to improve my bone structure. And it's all clearly a performance for other men and not for women. And he even talks about like sex as being a time-consuming chore. And his fans all seem to be, I I mean, he talks in the profile about how his fans are men who can't get laid,

and so they watch him go on dates because they can't get dates. And I look at this, as I've discussed previously on this show, from afar, from my gay island, with some pity for straight people who seem to just fundamentally not understand each other, not even want to understand each other, not even increasingly want to spend time together. And so, CHS, you, I mean, you write about this day and day out, and you live it as a heterosexual person yourself. Am I right to be worried about this? Or is like, is clavicular?

Is he just some fucking weirdo? I mean, he's making all this money on the streaming. Someone wants to watch this. Are straight people deranged like this? Well, first of all, I want to thank you for your allyship. You know, the straight community has been through a lot over the past several years. And it's just such a breath of fresh air to find that there are people willing to learn about our lived experiences. And, you know, I see that you're sitting down and you're listening.

I care. You're not taking up space. It's not our job to educate. Yeah. Also, yeah. Also, it is not my job to educate. you and it's emotional labor than I'm here at all. Literally, that is your job, CCH. That's what you, that's what your substack is. It might not be straight people's job generally, but it is literally your job. I have a degree in straight studies. Actually, fun fact, I do have a sociology degree. Barely. I almost didn't graduate college because I never went to class. But I do have a sociology degree. So technically, I am qualified to discuss this topic. But I'm also straight and I'm married to a man. But yeah, so I think this is a generational thing where you see like with my generation, so I'm 36. And you see with my generation, I'm

chopped unk status, as I've heard. Wait, I'm sorry, what is that? I'm a chopped unk. What is that? It's like an ugly old person. So like, how do they even know? Nobody's seen your face. All unks are chopped if you're 21. So basically, what is an unk if not chopped? Get with the program. But, you know, I post about this on subsect the other day, but basically a big, and I'll get back to straight thing. But like a big critique I get, my biggest, my strongest, like, I hate CHH demographic is like very, very young men, I think, usually right wing. And they haven't read my stuff because they can't pay for it. But a lot of the time they're like, oh, why is this a 36-year-old liberal woman and not a 21-year-old

Nazi man? And that's like their main gripe is like, why is this not me? And I'm like, maybe it's not for you. Like, I write about how moms can make friends at the park. Like, I write about other things, too, but like, maybe you're just not the target audience. Anyway, they did. They have called me a bunch of names regarding my advanced age, you know, which is a bit of a tell. But, yeah, so I think it's a generational thing because you see a lot of guys in my generation who have adopted the real, like, wife guy archetype where they're just like, I love my wife. She's so amazing.

My wife is so smart. And then you got the people, like when I was single, which wasn't for long. met my husband when I was 19, but you meet guys, they'd be like, I love women. I love everything about women. I'm such a feminist. I love women. And there's nothing more than I love than making love to a woman. Like they'd be very like, like, I love women, but like they're just horny. And like we made fun of them back then. But like I kind of miss those guys because now there's guys that are like, they at least were trying to have sex with women. And now you just have guys that are like, I fucking hate women. I can't believe I have to have sex with them, which I'm also

not doing. Like, it's so miserable. It's so sad. And they're also the same people that are very worried about the birth rate, which is very ironic. But, like, they, they truly just don't enjoy women, like, in any capacity, like, not even in a sexual capacity. And I don't think that they enjoy men. I actually wrote a separate article about this because the easy dig is, like, well, they're gay. But I actually don't think that they are because it's 2026. Like, they could just have sex with a man if they wanted to. I think, you know. Nick Fuentes is gay. He is. Yes. I think some of the, I think a lot of them are not gay and just like, can't relate to people at all, but Nick Fuentes is. Nick Fuentes is. I will carve out an

exception there. I think he actually is. But I think a lot of these other guys, I call them high five sexual, which is the sort of developmental stage where interacting with the gender you're attracted to, which I'm going to use straight, I'm going to be heteronormative for a second, like assuming you're straight. Like, assuming you're a boy attracted to girls, when you're in middle school, you're mostly interested in like making fun of girls or like antagonizing girls so that your male friends will be like, ha ha, you're so funny and cool. And girls are like an avenue to bond with your male friends. And then I think there's a similar thing with adolescent girls. Like I kind of was in this where I had a boyfriend and we would like full around

for like doing a lot of heavy petting when I was 13. And I actually didn't enjoy any of it. But what I would do is I would do this and then I would like take notes back to my female friends and be like, I've been a third base. Have you guys? Like it was all about them. It was like I'd be thinking about my female friends while we were doing this stuff. And I think and then I got over it eventually because I started actually becoming attracted to men and now I have sex for the purpose of just having sex, but I think there's this stage that happens. And I don't know if it happens with people that turn out to be gay or bisexual or maybe just a straight thing. I don't know. But like, I think a lot of Gen Z people, including girls, women, are still stuck in this stage.

Like I see like, um... So like girls have cootie's stage. Yeah, like they still are performatively, except that they're 27 and it's so embarrassing. Like, I posted this thing about like cute things to wear for date night, like the kind of clothes that men like. And for the record, I had another guy. with the genders reversed. So it wasn't like women must adhere to men. You know, like, I have a similar one where like men, here's like what women want you to wear. And all these Gen Z women were like, ew, barf, imagine caring what men think in 2026. I don't even want to look at men. And I'm like, unless you're actually gay, which like I don't think that they are. And like they're doing all

these things to still look attractive to men. Like you see like they're posting the selfies and they've got like filler and they've got makeup. But then they're like, ew, men. I'm doing it ironically. I'm only being hot to intimidate men. And it's like very embarrassing. Or I'm doing it for me, right? Like, you're getting fillers for you? You can't see you. I ripped out all my pubic hair because I have sensory issues. That's my favorite one. Wait, someone said that? Yeah. This is a common one where they'll be like, I have sensory issues. I can't handle pubic hair. It's disgusting because of my sensory issues. So I get Brazilian waxes, but it's not for men. And I'm like, I'm sorry. And yet none of them shaves their head.

My eyebrows are triggering my sensory issues. I need to shit. Like, why is it only below the neck? Like, and then the eyelashes are fine. I have sensory issues and therefore I need to get the hair painfully ripped out of my body. Yeah. That doesn't track. It doesn't. No, it doesn't at all. And like, I can tell when someone's actually, like, I don't care about the male gays, like true, like, radical feminist, because usually they will date women because it's much easier to swear off men if you're attracted to women. And, like, they're not looking like they're trying to attract men. Like, they're, you know, truly not adhering to the mailcase. Yeah. So why are your people doing this? To put it in Trump's voice, they have tremendous problems. No, so I think they do have tremendous problems. These are some sick, demented people, and they've got tremendous problems. But they, I think it's this developmental stage that they've stuck into because a lot of them came of age during COVID.

And there were a lot of social changes around the late 2010s and early 2020s that made it really scary to interact with. other people in person in a vulnerable way. And by vulnerable, I don't mean crying. I mean like being honest about liking someone and like going to a bar and hoping to meet someone as opposed to like going with your friends and then leaving with your friends and never speaking to anybody. And I think part of that is the easy access of social media, being able to get a bunch of digital attention without ever having to like make yourself truly vulnerable. I think part of it is like, I don't want to get too controversial here, but like don't let this be quoted out of context. Me Too did a lot of great things for the world, of course. But it also made people really afraid to date their

co-workers, to go up to women at the gym, you know, that kind of like normal risk-taking social endeavor, right? This is why people think you're right-wing. I know. It's funny. I mean, you think Elizabeth Warren fucks. Like, you are like, objectively, like, definitely not a right-wing person. No, I'm so lib-cuffed. But I do think, like, what you're describing is, is that, like, we were talking about something like this a few episodes ago. And there was some weirdo, in-cell psychopath who was talking about how they didn't have sex. And I remember thinking... I think it was Nick Frento's.

We were talking about like how, you know, if I... The person was like bragging about how they hadn't had sex and so long or something. It's like, even if that were true of me, I would lie about it. Like, you would never get me to admit that because I associate that person with being a loser. Like, like in the millennial brain and all the generations that came before, when I was in high school, you know, the joke is you lie about your girlfriend to towns over, right? Like there's something about how it's uncool. And then the other thing that's uncool is being too afraid to talk to someone in a bar because they might say no and say they don't like you. You have to like have the courage of your own to like put up with it.

And it does seem like at some point in the last decade, this other generation decided that what was cool was not like those things, but what was cool was like preemptively denouncing it and being an angry psycho who's 28 years old saying like, cooties. cooties, kudies, which is just like a societal change in what you put, like, what posters were putting on our walls? Yeah. Right. Never would have thought that like that sort of thing that we all had in the past where, where you think like, wow, you know, these people were, Warren Beatty was a cool guy. You know, like, like those, I guess that was a different generation, but like, things like,

had, we, everyone talked about them in this toxic way, but now we see the other side of it is where people are lying about having autism. so that they can justify the fact that they like don't, they are trying to attract people but don't want to attract people. Well, it's not embarrassing. Like, you can't get rejected if you don't try. And that's kind of what they've internalized. So I think I've heard a lot of people say, like, oh, the world has become more misogynistic. I actually disagree with that.

If you watch movies from my childhood, it's full of like, whoa, like, you can't make that joke anymore. Like, I don't think that's true. I don't think the world has become more misandrous either. But I do think young people are increasingly afraid of each child. other. And I think it's more about fear than about hatred or bigotry. Sometimes it's about bigotry, of course. But, like, I think it's a lot about anxiety and fear and, like, risk of embarrassment. And the thing is, when I was younger, we had to just fucking get over it. Because if we didn't get over that fear, you just wouldn't date anybody. And, like, no one would ever like you.

Like, social media collapses what used to be separate domains. Yeah. Right. You would sit around with your girlfriends and complain about how terrible guys were. Yeah, yeah. And then you would go be like, oh, hi, honey. And now you can't do both. But so did they not publish that stuff in New York Magazine before like 15 years ago? Because that's like on the female side of this, like, for men, it's like idiots on kick and other like streaming platforms. For women, it's like highbrow publications that have whole verticals for like, oh, man.

Like the cut. Like I stopped having sex with my husband. and I found myself. Like, I could write that article and just put a new name on it and be like how I learned to love myself through celibacy. And then it's all about how I like,

won't let my husband touch me. I'm going to fucking do it. Like, I'm just going to write to the cut and be like, look, I want in on the scam you're running. Like, let me publish this shit essay. Just look at women's magazines pre-imposed social media.

Yes. Right? Like, Cosmo in the 90s is like how to make him think you're hot. Right? Like all of these is like, what are you doing for him this Valentine's Day? How to touch his members. Make yourself like irresistible to men.

And then like social media happens. And now it's all like how to like understand Donald Trump through the lens of like, like of pegging. Right. Like it's just completely. You're going to give Ben another dream. That's going to be. I'm sorry, Ben. You're going to dream about.

You know, I go back to the thing though about like, you know, like you can't be embarrassed if you don't try. Like, I think it used to be considered embarrassing to not try. Yeah. To be seen not trying was embarrassing. I mean, like, I realized, like, when you look back at movies from our childhood, there are definitely things that have improved. Like, they didn't have great concepts about consent in a lot of these teen movies in 1980s. And they're definitely, like, social improvements we've made there. But, like, I just think about, you know, Clueless came out in, I think it was 11 or 12 years old in mid-90s.

And the classic put-down in that that Britney Murphy delivers to Alicia Silverstone is, you're just a virgin who can't drive. And like, now it's not only not aspirational to have sex. It's also not aspirational to drive. I can't drive, actually. Okay. Well, so now you're part of the problem. It is true that in clueless she ends up with her cousin.

I think it was that her father had previously been married to his mother, but they were married and then they were divorced. Yes. I take it back. It was an ex-stepbrother, which, you know, is kind of something. And it was Paul Rudd. Oh, yeah. How much can you argue with that?

There's weird, like, incest-themed porn where they always have to say, like, you are my step. Yes. Or, you know, like, they always like, insist on adding the word just in the dialogue. Just so it's not too disgusting, right?

There's a limit. We have our limits. Even the gooners are like, whoa, whoa, let's just be clear here. Even the gutters. Not real. Try to be just disgusting enough. Blood relation.

Well, I think we can leave that there. CCH, thank you so much for joining us and for allowing us to see your face. The viewers will still not see this. Thank you. She is a real person, and you can find her writing on Substack Daily at Cartoonshater.com. Before we go this week, as listeners presumably know, this is a professionally produced and edited podcast. We have sound production also, which a lot of our peer shows do not.

And so if you listen to it and you're like, hey, that show sounds really good. Well, that's why. It's, you know, time and money goes into this. And so one of the things that we cut is, you know, sometimes we mispronounce something or sometimes we get a fact wrong. And what we do is we go back and we go back and we go back. we insert something new or if it wasn't important, we just cut it out of the show entirely. And incidentally in last week's show, we ended up discussing Raios, the legendary East Harlem Italian restaurant that is basically impossible to get into, although not in Miami. You can go to the really

mediocre one in Miami Beach and like any idiot can get in there. But so we talked about that, and Megan and I were both under the misimpression that it has pronounced rouse. And Ben, would you like to, Ben knew it. Ben, how do you pronounce it? Ben, how do you pronounce it? Rayos. Yes. And so Ben said Rayos, and Megan and I were like, no, no, no, it's Rows.

And then we figured out that it's really Rios. And so Ben, Ben, Ben was annoyed that his correctness got cut out of the show. And so, Ben, I just want to allow you to take a victory lap. You can, do you want to say the name of the restaurant a few times? Well, I just want to, I just want to say that what happened is we finished after I said Rios and you guys both started to bully me

because I'm this dumb clown. And then we finished recording. I then knew I was right and Googled it and made the mistake of emailing, texting all of you to rub it in your faces. And then Josh said, all right, let's cut that out. And I was like, oh, oh, my God, they're flipping over the monopoly board. Well, because we had to cut it because it was wrong. We would have misled our listeners and they would have all started mispronouncing it like Megan and I had been. I mean, you mispronounced Kalamata olives.

You didn't cut that one out. Wait, how did I say it? Did you not in the in the in the subtext chat for subscribers only, which I encourage everyone to sign up for and go in when I pointed out that this. Subscribe folks. We need the money. People who are like oh yeah I wonder if they're going to talk about how Josh doesn't know how to pronounce Kalamata olives. Wait Kalamata. How else would you say it? You said you said like Kalatamaa you like got it. You said something very straight. Well that sounds Hawaiian. Well, we also had another listener who wrote in to point out that since since we're, you know, being so, like, high and mighty about how we pronounce things right, that we've been pronouncing Envidia wrong. We said... It's Navidia. No, no, it's not Navidia. No, it's Envidia.

Yeah. You've got to be kidding. I was forced to say in Navidia by another, another show, which will remain nameless. But I'm going back to... Was it Derek Thompson's show? No, I wasn't on Derek Thompson's show, but I'm not going to say who it was. But anyway, like, I was bullied into... into saying it wrong, apparently. Yes. Well, I would just like to thank you, Josh, for giving me the chance to correct the record, one about Rios,

but also about how I was right. Sometimes the clown gets it right. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes Ben Dreyfus with his Obama Trump sex dreams of men. Yeah, sometimes he's right. Sometimes. Ben, Megan, thank you for everything,

including the Mumu. Thank you. Actually, I would not thank you. Thank people for some of the images that I will be taking away from this podcast. I understand you needed to speak your truth. I hope it was a healing moment. I want to not thank you for keeping your Gerald Ford, Betty Ford secrets to yourself. We all wanted to hear that story. I think, honestly, like, Gerald Ford, they were pretty spicy.

Gerald Ford was hot. Well, actually, but like almost all politicians were hot when they were younger. Like Joe Biden was 20s smoking hot, John McCain. Hank Paulson, like people you don't even expect. Like, you find pictures of them in their 20s. And it's like, yeah, that's, that's, that's why they became so popular because they were, they were hot when they were young. Centillaires created by me, Josh Barrow and Sarah Fay. We're a production of very serious media. Jennifer Swaddock mixed this episode.

Our music is by Joshua Mosier. Thanks for listening. And stay cool out there.