Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Let’s Talk About Sex! | Ear Biscuits Ep.301

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

From coming across their first naughty magazines to what happened at a church lock-in, listen to R&L talk about their first understanding of sex in part 1 of the Ear Biscuits Sextember miniseries! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about sex for a long time. Oh goodness. I'm Rhett.

And I'm Link. This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we're getting into part one of four of our sex sub series. This episode and then the next three episodes are gonna be all based in sex. We'll guide you through- Based. That's what the kids say. Based in sex. We'll guide you through- Based.

That's what the kids say. Based in sex. Based. That means something is bad? We'll walk you through what each of these episodes is going to be in a second. But how did you prep for this? I thought a lot about sex.

And by that, I mean, did you have sex last night? Did I have sex last night? You heard me. I did not have sex last night because my wife stayed up late and I was like, I gotta go to bed because I'm gonna be talking all about sex in the morning and I wanna be fresh. Well, I had this idea in my mind.

I was like, you know, the best prep is gonna be like, give a little nookie and get a little nookie last night and prep for this. But we're trying to rewatch through Lord of the Rings as a family. And then after that, Chris and I- Nothing will kill a buzz like the Lord of the Rings. We had a show that Chris and I wanted to watch.

So we stopped Lord of the Rings and then Chris and I watched something. And then by the time that was over, I was like, man, I'm getting up. I gotta ride my mountain bike in the morning. And that's not a euphemism. You literally are gonna ride a mountain bike. It's getting late.

I mean, by that, I mean, it's 9 30 PM. So yeah, I didn't do all of my homework for this episode, but I will say when I do sort the mail, it's something to talk about, which I guess- For a month. It's something we're, you know, in a subsequent episode, well, in the third episode, we're gonna talk about our sex lives currently.

Oh yeah. And I think I'm ready. Strap in. I'm ready to do that. Or strap on. Come on. Oh gosh. So we're gonna talk about our sex lives in episode three, as well as the dynamics of parenting in a sex drenched world.

Oh gosh. No, talking to your kids about sex. And in the fourth episode, we are going to be taking the questions that have just built up like years of sexual tension and just releasing our answers in the fourth episode. So basically- Well they're not our questions.

They're your questions. They would be your questions. So use hashtag Ear Biscuits, even starting now, as you're listening to this, start letting us know, tweeting at us, what questions you want us to tackle. They can be personal in nature, or they can be philosophical in nature. Well, I think mostly questions that-

No barred limits. What's the word? No holds barred. No holds barred. You can use the episodes over the next three episodes that we're gonna explore different themes and different things to kind of lead what other, you might have clarifying questions.

I'm sure you're gonna have a lot of clarifying questions. But if you wanna go ahead and ask us some stuff, go for it. Episode two, which is the next episode, we're gonna be talking about purity culture, growing up and experiencing that firsthand within the Southern white evangelical church. But today we're gonna talk about how we first learned about sex

and what we first thought about sex as kids growing up. But before we get into that, I do have a theme song that I've been working on. I haven't told you about this and I haven't really prepared it. It looks like you're about to sing it. It goes a little something like this. If you wanna hear two straight white cis dudes

who only have had sex with one woman each and waited until they got married to have sex with those women, that they only had sex with each,. That they only had sex with each, yet they've only had sex with one woman each, and they both been married for about 20 years. If that sounds cool, those guys talking about sex for a month.

I'm trying to find my key. Then strap in, strap on. Stop. And get ready for sex-tember. I mean, I didn't really have it prepared, but. You could have sung multiple notes, but you didn't. No, no, because. It seemed like it was like, one note.

Yeah, it's kinda got that 90s thing that the I hate it. Anyway, that's the theme song. I won't sing it again. I don't think people really understood the substance of what you were trying to say, which I think is important because the song was so bad. It was kind of a disclaimer, yes.

We're a couple of middle-aged straight cis white dudes who both waited until we got married to have sexual intercourse with our wives who we are still married to and have only ever had sex with for 21 and 20 years respectively. This could be the most boring sex series you've ever listened to, but I actually don't think so.

I think we got something, I mean, I think we got something for you. Well, and we say that because we reckon this is not a prescriptive sex advice series, right? We're gonna be answering questions, I guess, in the fourth episode, but it's really, this is just us telling you our story. This is one point on the wide spectrum of perspectives

and it's not prescriptive, it's just personal and anecdotal. And we reserve- Do with it what you will. We reserve the right to be wrong about things and to change our mind a week after the podcast comes out. Yeah. Or longer, because we're still in process. Yeah. Second piece of this disclaimer,

it's gonna get graphic. It probably already has gotten a little bit more graphic than you're used to. It's gonna get significantly more graphic. So if the idea of your favorite internet dads or talking about- Or brothers. Yeah, whatever you wanna call us. Or internet sons.

Talking explicitly and graphically about their own sexual thoughts and exploits. And by graphically, we are gonna have graphics. That's what we mean by that. We're gonna have illustrations. We're gonna have animated illustrations. Some people will not realize that he is currently being facetious or sarcastic,

but he is. Just short of that, it might make you uncomfortable. So it's your choice. We're gonna paint very graphic mental pictures for you. And we're not gonna, I'm just saying we're not really gonna hold back and it's gonna make you feel uncomfortable if that kind of thing makes you feel uncomfortable.

And so I'm just letting you know, if you don't like the idea of us talking like that or hearing us talk like that, or you got somebody in your family that might listen with you normally. Now's the time to stop. Just skip September and do something else. Or put in the earbuds, that might listen with you normally. Now's the time to stop. Just skip September and do something else.

Or put in the earbuds, because I'm about to say female orgasms. Yeah. If you don't take anything else away from this series, spoiler alert, female orgasms. Right, we're gonna get into that. Let's go way back before we ever heard about any of that. What's the first thing you remember thinking about sex?

I don't have a recollection of a first, I can't answer that. You've blanked it, you've blocked it out. I have some things that I think will come up and then maybe I can backtrack into it, but it was just something that I was gonna say was thrust upon me, but I don't wanna use that verb. Let me put the question back on you

because maybe do you have an answer? I know enough about you to believe that you have probably a handful of answers enough about you to believe that you have probably a handful of answers. Now that you said both thrust and handful, I have to give a third part to the disclaimer and that is we are still at heart 12 year old boys, okay? And we're gonna keep seeing the innuendo

in things that we say unintentionally and laughing like 12 year old boys. They've watched Good Mythical Morning. Okay, so if that annoys you, that's not a surprise. If that annoys you, that's gonna happen a lot too. It's not a surprise. You know, I was attracted to girls

as far back as I can remember. I remember in first grade, we had the split class, first and second grade. So first grade, when I met you in Ms. Locklear's class, I remember having crushes on various girls in that class and I would have dreams about them. And in those dreams, I didn't know anything about sex. I had like literal zero idea about what the penis,

I knew the penis was involved, but I didn't understand how it was involved. And I wasn't actually that specifically curious about it. So in my dreams, there was just a lot of kissing or the idea of what kissing might be. Just being close to a girl, right? But I had no idea. But when you said a girl,

but these are specific girls that you were dreaming about. I am not going to be mentioning specific names. I probably have in the past, but yeah. Don't say the names, but I'm saying- Specific girls, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was specific. Yeah, and like I would have dreams and I would like, cause I was, in that day I was flying in my dreams

and I would realize I was dreaming and then realize I could fly to their house. And then I would, and their dad would always answer the door and say, she can't come outside. It was awkward and weird, so never really successfully achieved anything in my dream. But again, all I knew that I was going to do was kiss them. So, okay.

So I thought you might be getting at nocturnal admissions here, but you're not, we're not going in for a smog check yet. No, interesting. I'll get into- Cause how old were you? I'm talking like six and seven. Okay, yeah.

All right. So I don't think it was even possible at that point. I don't, I wouldn't think so. Now, I know that my parents had no idea that I was thinking about any of these things because we didn't talk about those things. And I'm gonna go ahead and say, I did not confirm this with my mom and dad

because I didn't wanna have this conversation with them as an adult man. Okay. But, and maybe that says something about me, but I do not remember getting the talk from my parents. Now, I'm not throwing my parents under the bus because it was the early 80s and I didn't know many friends at all who received a talk from their parents.

That's much more common now with parents and children than it was at least where we come from. Also as the younger brother, they may have given the talk to my older brother, but I think that you just, there's a trickle down economics sort of thing that happens in most families. It's like we tell the old one and the rest of them will figure it out.

That's kind of what, I mean, that's what we'll get into the third episode, but that's kind of what happened in my current family that I am the father of. Right. I got you. So anyway, didn't have a talk. So it didn't talk to anyone else about it.

So these things were just happening in my brain, but I had not made any connections to the physicality of how any of this works. I hadn't even made the connection between an erection and like sexual, like what, okay, then what happens? Well, why is that thing happening? Why is this thing hard right now? What might that lead to?

No connections. But so it was a fixation on certain girls that you had crushes on. That was like the fuel for your- There was a lot of- For your thoughts. Sexual energy- I'm surprised. Directed specifically at girls and then at specific girls.

That you didn't have- Wet dreams? Girlfriends at a young age. You know- Yeah, I know, yeah. There were some classmates of ours, girls and boys, who were like, they would have a little boyfriend or girlfriend type thing, but you never had that.

I never had that. I had a crush on one girl in kindergarten. And at nap time, I looked over and she was sucking her thumb. And I didn't have a sexual response to that. I was just like, oh, I only very recently stopped sucking my thumb. Yeah, I get it.

But I remember like really crushing on her. And what did that mean for you? But it wasn't much of a fixation and I don't recall it lasting that long and it was- You weren't like, I wanna be that thumb so bad. It was, it felt weird and definitely something that I would never tell anybody about or acknowledge publicly.

Of course, never to her, never, you know, it was, I mean, years later, I was still like, I mean, the first girlfriend I got was in seventh grade. Well, mine was sixth grade. And I didn't want any, I didn't want my family to know that I had a girlfriend. I was very nervous. I was very nervous around girls.

And I felt like they could tell that they were driving me wild. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm this eight-year-old kid in a conversation with somebody like, oh, we're working together on a project. And I just know that she knows that I'm crazy about her. And that makes me lock up and not know what to say and be super awkward. So I just, I never thought to myself,

oh, you can like ask this person to go with you as we used to say. Until sixth grade. Until middle school. But then without having a talk, what was the next thing for you? What was the next stage? Well, there is a moment in which the puzzle pieces began to assemble themselves okay shop best buys ultimate smartphone sale today get a best buy gift

card of up to 200 on select phone activations with major carriers visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply. I'm estimating that this was about fourth grade, which would put my brother in about eighth grade? Was he seventh grade? Seventh grade. Seventh grade. Seventh grade, yeah. And we were in Georgia where we used to visit my grandmother and everybody, all our family lived in Georgia. And my grandmother's mother, great grandmother,

that we call Mama Johnson, had a shed, a shed in the backyard. And her, I think it had, it was a lot of stuff stored in there. Like, I don't think it was from her late husband because he had been dead a long time. But maybe it was from like. Remember those shirts?

That's where I learned about sex. Big Johnson shirts. Well, you gotta, I mean, you gotta really piece that together a lot of times. There's a lot of innuendo in those. So you're going, so you're creeping into this shed. You know, there's a shed with a bunch of stuff in it and we're boys.

And so it's just like, well, you're gonna go in there and you're gonna start looking around. Sure. Pulling things out, looking at it. Well. A blow up sex doll. All of a sudden, my brother is like, well, look at this.

And he has a calendar. A calendar featuring women playing sports. Okay. Naked women playing sports. Every month, it was a different lady in a different sport. In no clothes. Well, I mean, like the girl who was skiing, she had on ski boots and she was in skis.

She had on a beanie, she had on a scarf, but that was it. Wow. She may have been holding ski poles. I hope she was. At least one, you know what I'm saying? There was a girl holding a hockey stick. Oh yes, I get that. Now that I think about it, they were all holding sticks.

I never thought about that. I mean, the girl on the slopes is, I mean, she had to be a little cold. Well, it was all like, you know, she wasn't really on the slopes. It was a sort of a set. Okay. But of course.

A hockey player, a skier. That was probably basketball. I wasn't focusing on the sports. I was focusing on the boobaloobaloobies. And this was 1980, you know, five. So we're talking Bush City, right? Like we got, there's a lot as a Bush, this untamed Bush.

All 12 months. Okay, yeah. Year round. Year round Bush. It's a perennial. Evergreen. Now. I think that's the right word for it.

The, there's no talking between me and my brother at this point, but we did go through the entire year. I mean, we went through all the seasons, all the months, no conversation. This is your first naked woman. He's probably thinking, my little brother's looking at this with me. I definitely don't need to, he was like,

I'm not gonna stop, but I'm not gonna like talk about it, you know, and we'll never talk about it again. And I don't think we have, but let me just say, to me, it was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen in my life. It was the most captivating thing that I'd ever encountered. And- Yeah, I mean, cause you can put, you know, like meaningful dates on it

and you can plan things into the future. And you won't double book. That gets really awkward. You say, yes, I'm gonna do this to two people and then you're like, oh, I should have put it on my naked chick playing sports calendar. Wasn't the calendar part that was really getting me. But the funny thing is, is it wasn't like,

there wasn't a weirdness or a, I don't know what to think about this. It was like, I can't believe that I haven't really thought about what this might look like, like what a woman's body might look like. And it's better than anything I could have possibly imagined. It was kind of like I discovered

like a secret to the universe. And- Wow. We just kind of closed it, walked out. And I think a couple additional times during that trip, now we weren't staying at Mama Johnson's house, we were staying at Mama Nell's house, her daughter, my grandmother. But you were looking for reasons to go back.

If I recall correctly, there were a couple of quick trips back out there and I'm like, good Lord, you know, and just revisiting that. And again, this was super, super, super soft core. Just women standing in sports poses, naked. It sounds like a lot of fun. I'd like to Google it and maybe find it.

Well, we can put it in the video version of this. Okay. Well, we put this on what, our OnlyFans? Well, we'd have to start one. Exactly. I don't think you can put other people on your OnlyFans and it kind of defeats the purpose. I remember going to my dad's one weekend

and we rented Lethal Weapon 2, I think it was, the one where there's a sex scene in Mel Gibson's trailer. And I remember that my dad was like laying on the bed and I was down on the floor at the foot of the bed, like sitting on the floor, then watching the television from down there. And I was really glad that I was down there because I was super embarrassed.

And I was like, I'm not supposed to be seeing this. I was probably in like fourth grade-ish. And I remember that was just my reaction. It wasn't like, I mean, it was a sex scene. Your dad was there. My dad, yeah. I mean, this is not, my brother was there, but your dad was there.

Yeah, that certainly made it super awkward. And it wasn't just a nude woman, but there was like, they were participating in some sort of act. Right, they were copulating. And I just did not, I don't know how much sense I made of it, but I immediately knew that I was,

I should not have been watching this. And this is not something I'd be watching back at my house. So you didn't even have time to consider whether or not you were into the idea. It was more like, I don't think I'm supposed to be watching this. My dad is here. I was petrified.

But you were petrified of the sex? Or petrified of the situation? Of me watching something that was wrong for me to watch. This was wrong for me to see. But was there a moment where you were like, oh, that must be sex. I don't recall that. I don't recall that.

I think it was like, you weren't supposed to see that, so block it out. I might've looked away. I wasn't, especially in that instance, I wasn't intrigued. And I don't know if that happened first or if the next thing I tell you happened first, chronologically, I don't know. And if they happened in the other direction,

I had a little bit more information than I recall. But the way that I found, the way that I got the sex talk from my mom was, my mom always worked at the Harney County Health Department. Yes, she did. And there was this set of brochures at the front in the waiting area. And that was a resource for her, all types of things.

You know, when I was in, well, shoot, I guess this was, well, I think this was fifth grade when I did the drug awareness poster contest. And I told mom I wanted to submit anti-drug poster. And she was like, well, here's an anti-drug brochure. You can just take the illustration from in that and make that into your poster. You can plagiarize that even though she nor I

used the word plagiarize and apparently didn't know what it meant. Right, and that's why you won. And that's why I won and I have it hanging in- The whole county, you won the whole county. I still got a laminated version of it hanging in my- And no one in the county put together that this is from the official county- My creative house office. This is from the official county. I still got a laminated version of it hanging in my- And no one in the county put together that this is from the official county-

My creative house office. This is from the official county anti-drugs brochure, which they're probably like, we're gonna take the winner of this and use it in the brochure. And they're like, oh, this is the same image from last year. There's a lot of fun things to do instead of drugs. Right.

Was their tagline and mine. Including sex, yeah. She also came home one day and said something to the effect of, Link, I want you to read this brochure. And then if you have any questions, you can talk to me about it. It's any questions you have, it's totally fine. You can just ask me anything to clarify anything

that you read in this amazing brochure. What was the illustration on the outside of this brochure? I don't remember, but it definitely, it was just text and illustrations. I'm pretty sure. There was no actual photos. This was not, and there was no sex positions either. This was a very clinical educational brochure.

Did you read it? I'm estimating I was still in like around fourth, fifth grade and I was like, okay, mom. And I took the thing and I remember I went into my room and I closed the door and then I went into my closet and I closed myself in my closet. Wow. Like pushed, I had this little cubby area

that I could sit in inside of my closet and hide. Like push my- When you're doing bad things like learning about sex. Yes. So I went in there and had like a flashlight or something and I read this brochure and I don't recall any sort of positive reaction, any sort of intrigue associated with it.

I don't know that there was an aha moment. This was not something, I wasn't asking any questions. I was not motivated to find any of this out. Now, I think it was probably a good time for mom to give me the brochure because sometimes you need to have some point of reference for things so you can kind of keep up. I applaud your mom for this.

I mean, you know- Yeah, I'm not critiquing how she did it. Well, no. But it does say a lot about me and how I responded to it. I mean, it also says a lot about your sort of lingering obsession with brochures. Like you ended up being a brochure collector well into your teenage years.

I didn't go to a lot of tourist destinations, but I had brochures for a lot of stuff. And it's, you know, brochures played a really integral role in your life. But anyway, I do think that- This one was very biological. It, I mean, it gave, it showed an erection. It showed an erection?

I thought you said there weren't pictures. It showed a diagram of an erection. It showed an erection? I thought you said there weren't pictures. It showed a diagram of an erection, but it was like a cross section of an entire human being. So you could see the inside of the erection. But who wants to see inside? Who wants to see an erection at all? But did you know like, oh, that's what happens to me. I don't, I don't.

You don't remember the details of how you're processing it. I probably did think that. I know I was in the closet and I know that I just felt like this was a clandestine thing that it was, I mean, there was a shame element. I don't want anyone to know that I'm reading this book, God forbid find it, this is just strange. And I think that's a pretty,

well, I may have been a little bit more driven and inquisitive about it. I still wasn't talking to anybody about it for the same reason. I wasn't gonna ask my parents a question about it because it's weird and there's a lot of shame attached to it in our culture. I mean, I have to conclude that at the time,

my takeaway was because it was just, it was so educational in a biological sense. Like this is, these are ovaries, this is a vagina, this is an erection, these are gonads, you know? Gonads, yeah. That type of situation. So my takeaway must have been more, this is how you make babies and-

I don't have to worry about that. I don't really recall being engaged and making a connection between desire, pleasure, intimacy. I venture to guess that none of that stuff was really covered, maybe more than just a blurb in this thing. It might've covered STDs, but I'm pretty sure that would have lost me.

Right. Cause I was just like, I'll get back to this later. I don't know what I did with the brochure. I have to think I hid it somewhere in a stack of stuff in case I needed to refer to it later, but I didn't throw it away. It's right under the Tweetsie Railroad brochure. Yeah, right.

I mean, I would call it a pamphlet. It had multiple pages. It wasn't like a three-panel brochure. It was a booklet. Okay, so I didn't get that. No one gave me any technical education. I should have given you mine. Yeah, I wish you had.

If we were talking about it. But I think as you'll see, I think as you'll see the way that my story unfolds, there is a, I'm not necessarily unhappy with the way that it came together, because at least it makes a good story of how I put these pieces together.

There's a happy ending. So definitely, the second piece of the puzzle came from a sleepover at a friend's house around that same time. I'm still estimating same year, fourth grade or whatever. You were doing a lot of sleeping around at that age. As you may know. I was not.

I invited myself over to anyone's house. Like the first day of school, if I met you, I would invite myself over to your house because I was really interested in people's homes and especially their fridges. But anyway, this was a friend and there were several people who were gonna be staying over at his house and we were all sleeping in like a rec room situation.

And he had an older brother who was even older than my brother who was already in high school. And I mean, that's where you get so much information is from these older brothers. They're just, you know. Yeah. They got so much wisdom about sex.

Yeah. But he had told his younger brother a number of things, which then were relayed to us. And the one detail that I remember really standing out, because it freaked me the hell out was he said, yeah, I'll find his underwear and his underwear has dried sperm in it. Ooh.

And I was like- What's he doing? Taking like core samples or something? Well, and he didn't say dried sperm. He just said sperm. And at this point, I thought, for reasons I don't understand, I thought that sperm was a powder.

Okay. But that's what you inferred from his story. Yes. There's something in your pants and it's probably powder. So I was just, so that was the first time that I was like, oh, something else comes out of your penis other than pee, and that's got something to do

with the sex stuff. It's like BC headache medication. But it comes out in like a poof. Like one of those mushrooms that you find that you remember when you were kids. Yeah, just give it a little squeeze. It's like squeezing a thing of baby powder. Stand back.

It's airborne, oh no. Anyone can get infected. Oh God. So I don't know why, but I thought that it was a powder. But I took that nugget with me. And again, I've seen the women, the naked ladies playing sports. I know that the more that I see of a woman's body,

the more I'm into it. And now I'm like, there's this second piece of the puzzle, which is I've got this ability to like puff out some powder from my penis under certain circumstances that I'm not yet aware how this is gonna happen. But apparently it can happen while sleeping. That was the whole point of his, he was like- Puffing out penis powder.

But he didn't call it wet dreams, because if he had called it wet dreams, I wouldn't have come up with the powder. Nope, you wouldn't have. You know, wet dreams and powder, that doesn't mix. So, I mean, younger brother looking at older brother's underwear is weird. Hey, but, I mean, apparently he was inquisitive too.

What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from your desk or your car in traffic? Well, for us, and I'm gonna guess for some of you, that thing is hi i'm nick friedman i'm lee alec murray and i'm leah president and welcome to crunchy roll presents the anime effect it's a weekly news show with the best celebrity guests and hot takes galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on Crunchyroll or on the Crunchyroll YouTube channel. Okay, now I'm getting very-

Don't, just go for it. I'm about to get very graphic. Just go for it. I mean, personally. We've already told them. I know, I just, okay. So I distinctly remember I had these pieces of information and sixth grade, like probably summer before sixth grade rolls around. And I had not ever masturbated, okay?

I didn't- And by that you mean? I did not know what masturbation was. I knew that I would get these erections, but it was just like, well, there's that thing happening. I hope no one sees. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? I put my backpack,

I'm gonna carry my backpack really low as I go to the lunchroom or whatever, you know. Hang it right on there like a door knob. Yeah. But I never masturbated. But again, it's crazy how I was piecing this together because it was just based on these disparate pieces of information, but I'm lying there in my bed at night

and here it comes, we've got full mast situation and then I'm like, well, let's just let it breathe. You know, like- You remember thinking all this stuff, like powder and let it breathe and stuff? Yes, well, I just remember thinking, I mean, this is the first time it happened. So it's out and it's in the open air.

And then I just kinda, I just grabbed it, you know, I just put my hand around it. And the reason I'm telling you in this graphic situation is because of how this happened. So I didn't understand what a fantasy was and I didn't understand what masturbation was. But I began to imagine, don't make me feel stupid for telling you this.

I'm not, I'm not. Don't make me feel stupid for telling everyone this. How am I making you feel stupid? What am I doing? If I would've told you. What am I doing? When we started this podcast that in 2021, I'm gonna talk about the first time I ever masturbated, would you have been like, let's not,

let's just stop this podcast now? Or you're like, let's see where this thing goes. Dude, I'm hanging on every word first time I ever masturbated. Would you have been like, let's not, let's just stop this podcast now? Or you're like, let's see where this thing goes. Dude, I'm hanging on every word. I wanna know if it was powder. Well, I was hanging onto my dick. So I'm sitting there and I began to have this, I didn't even understand what I was having was a fantasy. I began to imagine that I was lying on a table

in a hospital with my full erect penis sticking out like from underneath a sheet and that nurses who just happened to be all the girls from our school who I thought were cute. What? Were coming by and like investigating it and like testing it and like putting their hands on it and being like, yep, it's a penis, yep, it's okay.

Like I had this weird fantasy. And of course, the whole time I'm doing this, I'm touching myself in a pleasurable way. And then about literally like after 10 minutes of this, I'm like, boy, this feels good. Like this feels so good, it feels like something, like it feels like something weird is happening. Like I didn't, you know, I didn't understand

what the beginning of an orgasm might feel like. One thing led to another. So there's a lineup that's happening. Yeah, and I mean, I'm talking, listen, I- There's a batter on deck. And you know, and so all of a sudden it's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's happening? And then poof, some powder came out the top.

Wow! No. Hold your breath. There was the moment of release and it was not powder. So I immediately thought I had broken my dick. Oh no. And I was like, is it blood? It's good that I'm in a hospital. I was like, is it blood?

Oh God. Like I honestly, I was like, it's not pee. I know that because it feels like soap. And I was like, did I get soap in there when I did? I was freaking out. You're talking about soft soap. The first type of liquid soap we have was a brand called Soft Soap.

Very soft soap. And that was probably what you were thinking. And I was like, did I get some soft soap in there when I took a bath? I was really concerned. And then I was like, well, who am I gonna talk to about this? And as I sat there in my bed,

piecing together the calendar, the conversation about sperm, which then I realized, oh, you only assumed that it was powder. This is sperm. And the funny thing is, is I'm sitting there- The real thing. I'm like 12 years old, 11, 12, I don't know. It was like a cave boy.

I'm not trying to make the adults in my life, especially my parents, feel that I was just piecing this together, but it was like, it was like a, it was like Lord of the Flies. It was just like cave boy sitting there. Ooh, there were flies? Figuring out what sex was. Yeah.

But the way that it was kind of locking into place, it was the complete opposite of a brochure. You know what I'm saying? Like you had the brochure that had the technical information. I'm sitting there thinking I've broken my penis and then realizing that, oh, sperm is not powder. That's what just happened. I can tell you that the brochure

did not say anything about masturbation. I think I would have remembered that. Well. There was no how to. Let me just say, once I broke the seal, you felt- I became a connoisseur. So you were- Lots of soft soap afterur. So you were- Lots of soft soap after that.

So you- On the daily for a long time. So you- It was so easy. But it wasn't the type of thing that would ever come up in conversation with your brother. Hell no. And it wasn't the type of thing that as an older brother,

he would joke about you jerking off because that would validate it. No, no, no, no, he didn't. And that is very common. That's very common now. I hear those jokes in my own home. Right. But no.

There was no external validation. And you never taught me about it. Maybe in like movies, maybe like in pop culture, I was like, oh yeah, that's what they're talking about. Now I know what whacking off or jerking off is. No, that's the thing that I do all the time now. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It's my new thing.

It's the best thing that I've ever done. Yeah. You know? Okay. I can't recall the first time I masturbated. Really? I don't, I really can't. I think that, well, first of all, the older brother of it all, of course I didn't have that.

I was an only child. And then I also didn't, like at this point I had a stepdad in the house, but he was a nice guy, but we weren't that close. And there was never, and he wasn't the type of guy to like make any offhanded, I couldn't, offhanded jokes or anything like that. So it wasn't like I learned anything from him.

He had a daughter who was much older than me. It was, you know, we weren't having any conversations. There was nothing to be learned there. And again, I had, I was not motivated. I was not interested. I was not interested, I was not asking questions. And I think when I was presented with information, even a brochure or a movie I wasn't supposed to be seeing,

or I remember one time there was like these older kids who stayed at the same babysitter as me after school and during the summer. And he was like real sex obsessed. And I remember he used the word clitoris or clitoris. As you do. I don't know how he said it. I was like, what is this guy talking about?

A clitoris? Like, I mean, I was like, what? Okay, it's like now I've heard a word that is something that this raunchy dude is saying that now goes in my pretend you didn't hear that column. It was probably in the brochure. I think that that must've been how I reacted to these things for me to not have these active,

vivid memories like you do, it was a suppression thing. It was, I'm not supposed to know about this stuff. I don't care to know about this stuff. So I'm gonna act like I don't know about it. And then after a while, when you're not re-accessing those memories and fixating on it, then it kind of fades

into the background. That's at least my explanation in hindsight. Because it feels like- But I can't, I mean, I remember- If that was your attitude towards sex, then you would have waited. So it would have been later, like middle school, high school, whatever.

And if there was so much trepidation around it, it just feels like the moment that you decided to do it would stand out. I think it was, there was- Do you remember the time in your life? There was shame associated with it. I remember one time in particular, we were being picked up to go somewhere, like you had gotten around with somebody.

I actually think it was these older girls that were in our youth group and they were old enough to drive. And then they came by and picked me up to go somewhere to go to some church thing. And then I remembered that I had left something at home and I was like, oh, you gotta take me back home to get so-and-so, can't remember what it was.

So we turn around at the end of the street and we go back and I go in the house to get the thing and I look on the couch and I had left the Victoria's Secret magazine out on the couch. Okay. And I had been looking at the Victoria's Secret magazine out on the couch. Okay. And I had been looking at the Victoria's Secret magazine and I have to believe that I was jerking off.

You have to, I have to believe that was. I have to believe it. I mean, there would be all these, it would be the nice lingerie and then you get to the back and it would get lacier. The back of the Victoria's Secret, if you made it that far, you got into really good stuff. Lot more lace.

Sometimes you could feel like you could almost see a nipple, but you really couldn't, but you almost could. I mean, and they'd be like, they would have those like stockings that would then come up to like the middle of the thigh. And then there would be like a little connector, like a strap from the stocking to the panties. I'm aware of this.

And I remember I did fixate on that. Like that was my jam. Well, the thing is, is I got to a place where I didn't need that. It could just be like a woman in the Sears catalog holding a vacuum. Oh, wow. And just there's enough cleavage and I'd be like,

I mean, literally there was, when they talk about like sex crazed, sort of when you get, like when you're going through puberty and the hormones are, you're just saturated in hormones, it got to a place, thankfully it didn't, that stage of my life didn't last, where the simplest thing could just be like, oh, well, yeah,

now you need to go masturbate. The thing for me that I remember about that is, first of all, that could have been eighth grade, honestly. Maybe seventh grade. It wouldn't have been less than that. Like my mom was at home. We were like, we were in the new house. Of course that had been a while.

I'm gonna say it's seventh grade, but it could have been eighth grade. And I mean, I was definitely suppressing going to any of these places in my mind. And you know, I was a late bloomer, I think you would call it that. Developmentally, I was behind. I believed in Santa Claus many years later than you thought was appropriate and you remedied it.

Right. Thank you for letting me know. And thank you for not telling me about the powder because that would have really freaked me out. And thank you for not telling me about the powder because that would have really freaked me out. And thank you about not telling me about any of your discoveries. Or maybe, I don't know, maybe I wish you would have told me, but I do remember with the Victoria's Secret thing

in that moment, I was like, oh shit. If I wouldn't have come back in here to get my so-and-so, then that magazine would have been sprawled out and my mom would know I was looking at it. And I put it back where it was supposed to be and put it away. I had all of these weird shame things around this time. Like when I started growing my,

realizing that like I had a unibrow and you told me that I couldn't shave it, I needed to pluck it. I didn't have tweezers, but I knew my mom had tweezers because I had gotten the toenail clippers from her drawer in her bathroom. And I saw that there were tweezers in there. So what I would do is I would just go borrow

my mom's tweezers, but I wouldn't do the thing that seems totally normal, which is tell my mom, "'Hey mom, I wanna pluck these eyebrows. I'm gonna use your tweezers.'" When my mom was in another room, like in the kitchen or something, I would walk from my bedroom across the living room, you remember how it was,

all the way into her bedroom and her bathroom, and I would take her tweezers and I would sneak back out into my bathroom and pluck my eyebrows because I was ashamed that I was doing that. So if I was ashamed of plucking my eyebrows in front of my own mom, which is kind of sad. How much more when it came to this unknown world

of sexuality and going through puberty and so much unknown. And yeah, my mom did a good job of saying, hey, she used proper terms growing up like penis. We didn't talk about vagina that much. We used ding dong. Did you say ding dong in the brochure? She fostered open communication when it came to biology

and things like that. And she left an open door for questions. And so I'm not putting any of this on my mom, but something about the way that I was and what, I don't know, everything I'd gone through, there was like, I had a predisposition towards shame, I think, in other areas. So you layer that on this and I'm like,

the last thing I want anybody to know is that I masturbate. And so I just kind of had this innate belief that no one can ever know. No one can ever know. Well, it's interesting because I am a deeply shameful person. Like as an Enneagram three, shame is your main vice. And as we will get into an exquisite detail

in the next episode, shame is sort of the linchpin of purity culture itself. So I was dealing with intense amounts of shame as I was piecing together the sexual sort of facts in my experience and then coupling that with the Christian worldview that I was saturated in and then would really embrace as I got older. But at this point, did you experience shame?

You were keeping it secret. You weren't talking to anybody about it. I think for, well, I'm not, again, I'm not diagnosing me or diagnosing you. I'm just saying that it's interesting because I don't feel like the main difference was, okay, yeah, I plucked my eyebrows and I had a conversation with my mom about that.

So I wasn't ashamed about that. But when it came to the sex, the idea that anyone would know that this stuff was happening, that I was thinking these things, I had no way to know that it was a completely normal thing. For all intents and purposes, I thought that I was strange and weird

and all these desires were bad and wrong, but they were so intense that it didn't matter. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, as we'll talk about next episode, the idea of both at the same time, holding the idea that masturbation is sinful and wrong, and then holding your penis and masturbating a lot at the same time for many, many years.

Creates quite a crisis. That attaches so much shame to sex. So that was happening at the same time for many, many years. Creates quite a crisis. That attaches so much shame to sex. So that was happening at the same time. So I guess I'm just throwing that, I'm adding that piece of information because it feels like you're tying your shame to the way that you saw it. But I had a lot of shame around it too,

but at the same time, it was just so intense that I couldn't stop it. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and I didn't have that much of a drive and it did happen much later for me. But I did like get hair on my legs earlier and that kind of thing. So what is the next, what's the next step in your process?

And I'll tell you where, you know, if I'm later, I'll jump in when I can relate to it again. So this was sixth grade. And again, I'm a year or so off probably in these, but so this whole, the pieces of the puzzle coming together is like fourth, fifth, sixth grade, like getting ready for middle school. Sixth grade at a party that I could have sworn you were at,

birthday party, overnight sleepover at somebody's house. It was the one where we put someone's hand in the warm water, trying to make them pee on themselves. And again, just so you don't think- Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Okay, yeah, yeah. Just so you don't think we're bullies,

we all talked about it ahead of time. Whoever falls asleep first, this is going to happen to them. So it was agreed upon. It didn't work, by the way. It doesn't work. It's like an urban legend. Now, there was a moment where we went outside

and the birthday boy was like, I've got something I wanna show you guys. And he broke out a penthouse magazine. I don't remember this. All the trampolines. I do not remember this. Oh, I remember it. If I was there, maybe I was like, I'm gonna go inside and not be a part of this,

or it may have been two different times, but go ahead. And we all gathered around, five, six boys, with a flashlight, and we turned the pages. And for those of you who are not porn initiated, the calendar showed bush. Penthouse showed what the bush was hiding. Yeah, you can get in the bush. And exquisite detail.

And which I think is the second time I've used the term exquisite detail in a short period of time. But I remember another kid there made this specific comment. No one understood the placement of the vagina to be graphic. We didn't know, we kind of thought that it was like, oh, it's just where the penis is. But then we're like, oh no, it's not.

It's like, it's lower. And I remember one kid saying, it extends, it extends. So like- It extends. Because it was like, you know, you could see like, you could see the whole anatomy, the relationship of the different orifices. Yeah. And there was this like

conversation about it, but this like, stand by me level of like wonderment being exchanged by these middle school boys. So amazing that you don't remember this. I just, I was not there. You must've just- I was not there. But I would not have said it extends. I might would have said it opens, it blossoms.

No, meaning it extends further than anybody understood. You know what I'm saying? It's taller than I thought. Well, it goes lower than anyone thought. Okay. Okay. And I just remember like, it was like the final piece of the puzzle had fallen in place. And I remember thinking to myself,

I feel like I have found my purpose in life. And this is what my hand is simulating. And it is a vagina. And I mean, I'm not trying to be funny here. Like it was so crazy, like exactly more than I could ever imagine. It was like I was a space traveler going throughout the galaxy,

looking for my home planet and finding it. And like, this is the place I came from and this is the place I must return. It was so powerful and it sticks out in my memory. And again, I also was just thinking, this is gonna be trouble. Like, cause this is the only thing I'm gonna be able to think about.

The fact that this exists and you can just get a magazine and look at it. Again, I know it might feel, and this may seem crazy to some people who don't have that much sexual attraction, but like it was overwhelming to me. I totally get it. At that point in my life, I certainly did not.

But I mean, I totally understand now, just for the record. Between then and now, there was a point closer to then than now that I did figure all this out and I was a point closer to then than now that I did figure all this out. And I was a lot more motivated than I was when you started getting motivated. Well, I guess the reason I say that,

because I don't, again, I've never talked about any of this publicly and I've only talked about it with a few people privately. You don't wanna seem like a- A creep. Like just being, just seeing a vagina and thinking that it's by far the best thing that the universe has ever created. Being a vagina and thinking that it's by far the best thing that the universe has ever created, like by far the best thing it's ever created.

And I still believe that to this day. The vagina is the pinnacle of creation, okay? You say it again. The vagina is the pinnacle of creation. I still believe that. I still feel that. I am H.O. I am H.O. Does that make me, I feel-

Just say in my humble opinion. I still have, oh yeah, in my humble opinion, I still have, there's shame associated with that. Like, am I a creep for thinking that? Or is it the shame that we're gonna explore in the next episode where it comes from my worldview that like was paired with this? No, there should, we do know that there should not be.

And yeah, so there's nothing to apologize for here. But I mean, it's extraordinary how different we were at this time that if I was there, I probably physically got out because I just didn't feel like I could allow, that it wasn't allowed. That was off limits. That was X-rated.

Kind of a thing. I'm almost willing to say that this, and again, I'm not trying to be facetious, but for me as an agnostic, my best evidence for the existence of God is the vagina. Okay. Now you're, if you keep going, you are gonna get, it's like, okay, dude, we get it.

It's cool, that's cool. No, but let me just give my theory real quick, because it's sort of shaped, like it's kind of shaped like a bean, right? Like it's oblong. There's a bean that's part of it, again, as you said, the clitoris earlier. And then this whole shape is reminiscent of the shape of it again, you know, as you said, the clitoris earlier. And then this whole shape is reminiscent

of the shape of the galaxy, which is probably the shape of the universe. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I just think it's all, it's like, it's like a, this shape within a shape, within a shape, within a shape. It's just like, I think that, I'm not joking when I say that.

Like I'm, you know, I'm like, okay, this feels like an intentional creation. Yeah, if that's your thing, great. I won't say anything else about it. Right, it's just, you know, it's, to me it's not about, oh, does that, does it make you look like a creep? It's like, does something like this,

do people map that on their own experience and then judge themselves? And I get concerned about that, but I'm actually not gonna do that either. Oh yeah, I'm not saying, I'm not saying you should feel this way. I'm just saying, I'm trying to just articulate my own experience.

And you may not have thought about it to that degree at the time, but you did think about it almost to that degree. And then you experienced this reaction and then there might've been a secondary or tertiary reaction that was, I'm not gonna tell anybody about this or talk about it. I mean, the guys on the trampoline,

there was a lot of conjecture, but then in our friend group, there was never, there wasn't joking about masturbation or- I think it just started to happen at that point. Body parts until high school in my recollection. Yeah, it got very prevalent in high school, but there was something to socially connecting with other boys about it.

And again, we talk about our, we were still best friends at this time. We've always been best friends. And the other person I was really close with was Ben. And we didn't like, Ben and I didn't talk about it. And you and I didn't talk about it. And it was kind of like something reserved for a few friendships that like,

dude, so you could like, you set down a porn magazine in front of, and you just all start kind of just ewing and ah. And there was some sort of connection at that point, which began to sort of break down some of the bonds. For me, it was, oh, these guys are just as fascinated by this as I am and that makes me feel normal. That was an important step for me.

I remember seeing porn, whenever we would go in the woods, we would find porn and we would look at it some in the woods. And then in between school and home, there was a stretch of woods where we found and then re-hid the porn. Cause you don't want the porn at your house. You want the porn in the woods.

So you, and then, so I remember thinking, and again, we were, the church stuff does start to come in even in middle school. It's like, all right, we definitely knew you should not be looking at porn. This was wrong. That's why you hide it in the woods, but you hide it under like a piece of metal

so when it rains, it can stay dry, even though it still gets really damp. And every time you come back to it, it's a little more decrepit. And then you finally get so guilty that you go out there one day and you're like, I'm going to burn it. And then you don't burn it.

And then you come and then you just look at it. And then you go out there the next time and you're like, I'm really gonna burn it. And you look at it. And then the third time you're like, okay, I'm just gonna burn it. I'm not gonna look at it. Well, it begins to lose its effect.

You're like, oh yeah, I've seen the girl with the hockey stick. Yeah. And then I burned it. Yeah, then you can burn it. But I remember, we both knew it was there. And I think I remember having a conversation telling you that I burned it.

And I didn't care because I had found porn stashes, not at my own home, okay, but at other people's houses. Like other kids I was friends with had found their dad's porn stashes. Yeah, I remember one of those. And of course, porn stash sounds like a porn mustache, but I'm talking like a stash of porn. A stack of Playboys in the walk-in closet.

And it's like most kids knew where their dads kept the porn stash and they would gladly share it because it made your house cooler. So, again, this is pre-internet. Obviously, nobody had internet. So this brings me to the grok because I think there's still, when do you, okay.

So are you ready to tell that story? Sure, yeah. I'm trying to remember when this was. This was summer of- Couldn't drive yet, I know that much. I mean, I'm guessing this is summer after seventh grade. That sounds about right. And we would just ride our bikes around Buies Creek

all hot summer long. Cause this was also before we got summer jobs. We weren't old enough to get summer jobs, which I think happened after my eighth grade year. I started working for my dad or maybe it was ninth grade. So anyway, we're in the right territory. And at the edge of campus, there was a now torn down and totally rebuilt with something fancy.

There was this really old gas station building that didn't have a gas pump in front anymore. It was just a convenience store, no longer serving gas. And it was called the Grok, short for grocery. And we would go in there and play the Gilligan's Island pinball machine. And baseball cards were a huge craze. And that's where you would go to buy

and sell baseball cards at the Grok. And there was some, what I felt was like some shady dude who worked there. Definitely shady. And then all summer long, all these baseball cards would be coming in and going out because there would be camps all summer, all types of sports camps, but no naked sports camps.

Yeah, that hasn't caught on yet. In retrospect. And the guy kind of knew that we weren't campers because we were there week after week after week playing the Gilligan's Island thing. And he was like, hey, if you guys wanna sort my baseball cards for me, I'll give you a dollar an hour. I'm like, hell, okay.

That's good money. And I was like, I wonder, is this okay? Can I do this? And we're like, yeah, let's do this. So he said, just go to the back. There's a bunch of baseball cards that need to be sorted and you can do it on this pool table. Use the pool table as your desk.

So there was all these baseball cards up there. We're looking in the pool table and where all the billiard balls would gather, like underneath the pool table, like those cubbies there, where you would hide all the pool table accoutrements. There was porn in there. Lots of porn.

I mean, like if you ran and bumped into the pool table, porn would just fall out. There was, I mean, like if you ran and bumped into the pool table, porn would just fall out. There was, I mean, it was coming out of every orifice of this pool table, if I remember correctly. It wasn't like one magazine or three. It was like every orifice was rolled up, shoved in, stacked up, smushed, just in there. It was strange.

And that was when we began to piece together that we were gonna get paid $1 an hour to just look at there. Yeah. It was strange. And that was when we began to piece together that we were gonna get paid $1 an hour to just look at porn. Yeah. And which is a good deal. Which is a really, you usually have to pay for it. Yeah, and so we had to work out some strategy. You gotta do some baseball card stuff.

You gotta demonstrate some sort of progress to actually get paid, but we do need to look at all of this porn. But we're working for a really low rate. This is a- Don't have to do too much baseball. I mean, this is a treasure trove of porn. Do you remember, okay, so I have-

I remember what we did, the system. Well, okay, we'll talk about the system and then I've got a specific thing I remember. The solution was I'm gonna sort baseball cards while you take your pick of the porn magazines, you take one and you'll go into the bathroom right over there. Right.

That was the nastiest bathroom. And we only made it nasty. I had ever been into. Yeah. It was so gross. This one guy who was a slob. Yeah. I mean, shoving porn into every place.

And sending a couple of middle schoolers back there. The bathroom had not been washed for decades. It was scary, but we would take shifts so that if at any point he came back there, he can't know that we're looking at his porn, in my mind. Right, but he of course did that. Because that would be embarrassing and we'd probably get fired and it seemed wrong.

I didn't want this slob of a person to judge me, what? So we always had an alibi. If he came back there, I'm sorting the cards. Oh, he's in the bathroom and vice versa. So we would take shifts. You'd go in, I would go in. You would go in, I would go in. You would go in, I would go in. I could only go in a few times

before I couldn't go in anymore, if you know what I mean. I never once masturbated in that bathroom. What? Never once. I thought that was the whole point. We didn't, we talked about this system, but we never talked about jerking off. I didn't feel like we had to talk about it. I thought it was understood.

And I'm telling you right now, this is kind of like a key date in my memory, because if we're saying this is summer after seventh grade, maybe it's- You hadn't done it yet. I hadn't done it yet. You hadn't done it yet. Because if I had done it, I would have done it then. I mean, that kind of bathroom, those kinds of magazines.

If I knew that you were- Prime location. I didn't think you were doing it. Well, I was. Because I didn't know- But I was quiet. I didn't think you were doing it. Well, I was. Because I didn't know- But I was quiet. I didn't know it was a thing to be done. And if I'd have known you were in there doing it, I certainly wouldn't have kept going in there.

That's gross, man. No, to be clear, I was respecting the system and I did not, I touched the magazine with one hand and my own self with another hand. I mean, there's no cross-contamination. You don't have to worry about that with me. I'm a professional. I'm getting paid a dollar an hour to masturbate, okay?

I'm one of the only people that's ever just gotten paid to masturbate. I was so frustrated and scared of getting caught, but I learned a lot. And this porn was not Playboy. This was like, there are some porn, and again, we only had images. We did not have a video at this point.

Yeah, that's- But there was porn at the time. It was a magazine, yes. Where the people who made the porn had come to understand something. Some people are only interested in seeing the stuff they want to see. Do we have to put them in sports equipment?

Do we have to make it look like she's skiing naked? Do we have to write an article? Do we, yeah. Can this, and again, I have, I've seen a lot of porn in my life, but there are certain images that stick out and one of them is, it was the first time I ever saw the two page spread. I remember that one.

And let me tell you, when I say two page spread, I mean spread. Definitely. And I just, that image sticks out in my mind and I'm just like. I mean, it could have been in a biology class. The universe is happening right here in front of me. So that's what I remember about that.

And it's funny, we've never talked about the fact that I just assumed you were going into the bathroom to whack off as well. I didn't even know. I'm sorry, man. I feel like I should have told you, but that would have been weird. I mean, it was weird anyway,

because it's like, here I am just waiting for you to come. I was interested and I was, you know, and I do remember the next phase was let's, I'm gonna steal one of these. I'm gonna put it down my pants and we're gonna walk out of here with it. Yeah, good idea. And that may have been where the one in the woods

came from actually. Right, get the glossiest one cause that one will resist the rain the longest. Do you remember stealing it? Now that you said it, I do. It's interesting because I'm the one who stole it. It went in my pants and I walked out and that's the only time I've really shoplifted.

I don't think I would have stolen it. Was that shoplifting? I mean, it wasn't for sale. Here's the difference between me and you. It was stealing, but it wasn't shoplifting. I was afraid of my dad, right? And so I felt like, yeah, I could go into this bathroom and whack off for days, especially at this rate.

But if my dad knows that I stole something, I'm gonna be, I got in so much trouble when I did things wrong. So I was very good about not like breaking. I would never tempt fate in that way. So by that age, I was certainly motivated to have unfettered access to pornography. Yeah.

Cause here I was hiding it in the woods. Right. I remember walking out with that thing down my pants and just being- With a limp, just a little bit. Just playing it cool. A little stiff leg. You can pay me tomorrow, slob. I'll be back. And maybe I was thinking every day I'll walk out with one downlob. I'll be back.

And maybe I was thinking every day I'll walk out with one down my pants. He'll never notice. There's 85 of them. Right. Well, right around that same time, and we can kind of use this as a way to sort of set the stage for what we're gonna talk about in the next

episode. So you got all this stuff that's happening privately between you and this woman in a magazine in your own hand. And that's the experience for so many people. But then you start to realize that, oh no, like, I could have a girlfriend. And at this point I had had, you know, I had been in relationships

that were not physical, not because of my choice, but because they didn't last long enough, right? But around that same time, I got into a relationship that was a little bit longer term and more serious and it was with someone who had kissed other people before. Right? And so that was when I began to think, oh my goodness, it's just like these unreal sort of,

these women in these magazines are not real, but this girl that I'm in a relationship with is real, but you're making this weird connection. Now, as a young Christian boy who is in the youth group, the one thing that I know definitively is that I'm not supposed to have sex. And I took that and as you did as well, very seriously as you will come to find out

over the next few episodes. So seriously that the possibility of having sex with a girl wasn't even on the radar. It didn't feel like something. I remember specific conversations in our friend group about what the kids in Dunn were doing. And do you remember that one story? There was one story that one of our friends told us

about how the middle schoolers in Dunn, which was the big city, would go to the Dunn Twin Plaza, which was the movie theater, and they would do the heavy petting, hands down the pants. And he told the story that one girl had taken, I can't believe that this is a story, but had taken a Barbie doll's hair and cut the hair off. What?

Yes, cut the hair off the Barbie doll and glued it down there to make it seem like she had hair. Like I remember that story. I don't remember that story. I was like, this is so, like what is happening in Dunn? Like Dunn, the place of debauchery, right? I mean, the Barbie got some long hair.

That's, I mean, that's hair. That's a damn curtain. There's no way that was true. It was just one of those middle school things that people make up the dumbest shit. It's just like, and I believed it. Like done, they're doing crazy shit and done. But I was getting into like third, fourth, fifth month of a relationship and we were doing lots of kissing.

You're talking about eighth grade. Eighth grade, lots of kissing. You're talking about eighth grade. Eighth grade, lots of kissing. I had a girlfriend too and we would go to, I mean, the guy's house with the trampoline, he had a party. These were make out parties at this point. Right. So if you had a girlfriend,

then all those people would go to a room and start making out with each other. Right. My interaction with that was, oh, I have a girlfriend, I'm going to this party, oh shit, now I've gotta meet expectations, I've gotta fit in, I've gotta, like it wasn't about an internal motivation

and seizing an opportunity, it was about meeting expectations and fitting in, despite being very anxious about it, but still intrigued. And I started to be motivated, but I would observe, you know, it's like, okay, this is the room that I'm supposed to be in because we're a couple and everyone,

all the other couples are in here. It's funny that sort of the framework of the setting was what was driving your actions. Yeah. Where I- It was like, okay, they're already in here and they're already making out, so I just gotta find another place that we're gonna sit

or like lay down on this couch and make out with each other and hope to God that the parents who live here don't come in here, observe something and then report it to some authority. Yeah. And I felt like I just had this engine that was just full like 5,000 RPMs all the time. But I was a respectable good kid.

And so it wasn't, and again, I had this standard that was like, well, I'm not gonna do, and at the time I was like, I'm not gonna do anything besides kiss her, right? Because I can have a lot of fun kissing and I just, but the only thing that I had definitively thought and I was like, I know we're not gonna have sex, so I don't even have to even think about not having sex

because I'm definitely not gonna do that. Yeah. But for some reason, the church lock-in rolls around. I mean, talk about a setting. Not our church. It was the other Baptist church in town. Yes. That felt a little bit more liberal.

And maybe that's why I got a wild hair, literally that night. You know, it's so weird the way lock-ins work and I don't know if this is still the case, but like you put a bunch of kids in like the fellowship hall in sleeping bags, just next to each other. Everybody's supposed to stay awake all night and do stuff. It's keeping kids off the street

and hopefully introducing them to Jesus. But then there's this other room, it's like, well, if you are sleepy, you can lay down on the floor in this room. And if you wanna lay next to your girlfriend, well, I guess we didn't address this, so it's kind of your discretion. Remember, there was an older couple in there.

They weren't watching too closely. But you don't, I mean, you can watch closely when there's- No, they were in high school and they were laying down next to each other. And I was like, why are they in the same sleeping bag? What's happening? Awkward, I gotta get out of here. Well, I just wanna make a couple of things clear

that consent was part of the equation for this, okay? So this was not, there was consent. We were in a, our relationship had been physical up until this point and we had done a number of things, but for some reason- And you had some discussions about it. Yeah, we talked about it. We actually talked about it very openly.

I mean, in some ways I think it was a very healthy relationship when it came to that stuff because we talked about things in every step of the way. But for some reason we took this opportunity at the church lock-in, again, the other church's lock-in. Gosh, you heathen. In front of all these other people. I mean, you were right next to me.

And this was my first experience with heavy petting underneath the sleeping bag, both ways. Me to her, her to me. Okay. We're sitting there at the church lock-in, like the youth pastor from that church, we're like coming in and like making an announcement and it'd be like, maybe as the youth pastor is talking to me,

maybe I shouldn't be in the act of heavy petting. I'll pull my hand out. I don't like the term heavy petting, but I do like the fact that you're using it instead of being more, I'm just, I'm not gonna- I don't want you to be more graphic, but I don't like heavy petting,

but is there another name for it? No, I'm gonna stick with heavy petting. Don't derail this. But I think- Because you weren't making out. I mean- No, no, you couldn't make out because- Yeah, because that's not allowed. Because that would be un-kosher

for people to sit there watching you make out. So you just stick your hands down each other's pants. It wasn't a temple. We didn't even know what kosher was. We weren't Jewish. Right. But Jesus was a Jew. So I think we can still use the term kosher.

Okay, fair point. But I think that what this illustrates, because I began to piece together- When were you looking? Well mean, how do you? Well, other, just parts of the church. You were like, huh huh. Were you whistling? Don't look at my hand.

Uh, no. Like you weren't making eye contact with her? Well, no, because I think if we were looking at each other and doing that at the same time, I think it would have been a little too obvious. It's so awkward. It's so not the right way to do it. Oh, I think it would have been a little too obvious. It's so awkward. It's so not the right way to do it.

Oh, of course it isn't. But again, it's just- It's not the right place either. Again, and again, this was going both ways. It wasn't like I was this crazy sex crazed kid and she was just like, I don't know what to do. Right. This was-

You were a match for each other. we were kind of crazy about each other in this way. Yeah. And the interesting thing is that there was this intense physical connection and sort of exploration that was beginning, but it was also the same time when I was beginning to understand or become, as we would say, convicted about what I was doing.

I knew that it was wrong, right? I knew that I was breaking some, a moral code. Because, and I think this is one of the reasons that I probably didn't get a talk. Because I think my parents' philosophy was, well, if he's involved in the church and he's involved in Sunday school and the youth group, we know that they're gonna be talking about these things.

And the fact is they were right, because we were being told very specifically what we should not be doing by our youth director at the time. And so I began to understand that what I was doing was wrong and began to associate a very high level of guilt and shame with those actions. Yeah.

To the point that eventually we broke up and it was in large part by how guilty I felt about the way that the relationship had progressed physically. And now, of course, in the next episode, we'll talk like all about the purity culture and that we were in and the emphasis that, the applications that we made.

But for now I'll say, I remember this was the point where we did start talking about this. Like when we would go to the make-out parties and even with the lock-in, you told me what you did. And I don't quite remember if it had gotten to the point that it got to later, which we will discuss, which is like formalized accountability where you were like confessing to me

and asking for some help to not do that again. That eventually happened. But at first, there might've been a little, I think that might've been part of your motivation. I don't know if you recall when we first started talking about it, that it was like- Confessional.

Confessional, but it was also, hey, I did this and I'm like, it's great. You know, it's crazy. And I remember my application was I'm behind. You know, I thought they were, I thought at the make-out parties, you were just making out like you're doing stuff with your hands, dude. It's like, and I was, yeah, just trying to figure out

before it all became about let's, we have to not do this, we have to help each other not do this. There was that moment where it was like, ah, should I be doing more of this? Should I? Oh gosh, and then it was, I mean, my girlfriend at the time, we were a pretty good match in terms of not being too driven or aspirational.

It was more just about making out. Aspirational. If I flirted with a boundary, then she let me know and great for her. You know, there was communication that was like, I'm not, this is not for me kind of a thing. But we didn't have this, we weren't communicating it to the point

or getting communicated to by anyone who said, this is how you're a responsible person in a relationship. This is how you communicate. We were going on, we were just kind of like feeling our way through it, I guess literally at times. But yeah, I never, I was not nearly as experienced as you were going into high school. Well, it's one of those things where the timing

of the engine getting started and then the RPMs getting really high, and then the opportunity of being in a relationship with someone who felt the same way, that was all sort of headed towards the end zone or the home plate, so to speak, in a very intense way. But it was the sort of assembly of the Christian worldview that just stopped it. Like stopped it really, really abruptly. And what we're gonna get into next episode

is what it was like to navigate. That engine was still revving. It started revving even more for Link a little bit later. And it revved all right up until our wedding day. And like, what was it like getting from that place where you began to buy into this idea that sex is wrong, sex outside of marriage is wrong, but to be an adolescent kid with all this sex drive

and all this op, well, you had more opportunity than I did, but I made some opportunities for myself. What was it like to navigate that through high school? And then when it got even weirder in college, when we went all in with purity culture. So that's what we're gonna talk about next time. Yeah, and I'm just struck with how different our experience was.

I mean, it's the thing you know, but then it's very palpable, like how people develop at different rates, you know? And it's one of those areas where at this particular timeframe, we were so different. And yet ultimately, hey, I did catch up and we arrived at basically the same place. It's just a matter of timing.

And of course people arrive in all different types of places too. We're only speaking about our experience, which ultimately got more in lockstep as we'll talk about. But from that developmental prepubescent puberty stages, yeah, we were in such different places. It's very fascinating and it does impact,

it does make me start to think about what we'll talk about episode after next, which is how do we approach this as parents? Yeah. And I'm very much informed by how a lack of communication and just this feeling of awkwardness and shame, these are things that I've tried to be very pointed

about heading off at the pass if one of my kids happens to be like I was. But even if they're totally different, like how you came up in your experience, the answer is still wrapped up in communication, I think. We both talked about how it would have been helpful. And I think that's something that we'll get into week after next.

And I think one of the really interesting aspects of that conversation about parenting is really rooted in the sort of crazy upheaval of our Christian worldview. That Christian worldview that took us all the way up into marriage and well into marriage that was then stripped away and well into marriage that was then stripped away

and the underpinning of sort of what led to the purity culture was no longer a part of our worldview. What does that do as you approach parenting kids through, you know, the desires stay the same, but the framework, the philosophical framework changes. Well, what does that mean? So we'll get into all that. I'm excited to have these conversations. I mean, this one didn't make me nervous.

I'm trying to figure out which ones do. We've had good conversations with Christy and Jesse, the four of us talked about our approach to this. So I actually feel pretty good. I don't know if I'm nervous about any of it, but I don't know what their questions may be. So again, hashtag your biscuits, go ahead and start giving us your,

what's on your mind. If you wanna create a dummy account to do it, that's totally fine. Hashtag your biscuits. You got a rec? I got a rec. Now, let me just give my non-rec. What I thought would be perfect to tie in with this

is a book that has been many years since I read. I was gonna recommend Sex at Dawn, which was a fascinating look at sort of the evolutionary origins of monogamy. That was just kind of, it was just a really crazy read that I was just intrigued by. But then as I was getting ready to look it up for a rec, I realized that, oh, this is a very popular book,

but the scientific community has poked a bunch of holes in this. So you just made an anti-rec. So if you wanna read something that's probably not true, according to many scientists, but it's really fun, read Sex at Dawn. But my real rec is completely out of left field because I was running low on ideas

and I thought I was gonna rec that. I'm gonna recommend the eye drops that I use. Not a sponsor, but I have been accused of looking old, tired and high many times in the history of the internet. And I got so tired of those accusations that I started to use eye drops. You didn't get old or high? I started to use eye drops in order to look alive

and bright and because I now have naturally sort of dry, irritated eyes and I have allergies. So my eyes always look a little bit red if I don't take some sort of precautions. And for years I just used to like, you know, when we would shoot, I would use like Visine, but I started feeling like I'm not, I shouldn't be using

these like Visine type things because there's this thing called the rebound effect that if you can overuse them and then your eyes actually become dependent on the way that the blood vessels are constricted. So you use powdered sperm. Yeah, right in the eye. There's a new product, it's not new,

but it's a couple of years old, I've been using it, called Lumify, which operates on a different receptor, has the same impact on your eye, actually in my case, makes my eyes even wider than any of those other products does. And it acts on receptors that do not have a rebounding effect, so you're not gonna become dependent on them. Sounds like an ad.

So it does sound like an ad, but I'm just giving you the facts about this product that they may end up finding out that it causes some other thing, but so far it's safe. And that's why I can say that kind of thing when I'm not being paid to say it. Yeah, that's true. Lumify, it's a little bit more expensive than normal eye drops,

at least last time I checked it was. Try that if you've got really bad eye problems and you don't wanna look high or old or tired on camera. All right, see if you can hang on till next week. We will totally blow your load. Oh gosh.