Girls Gotta Eat - Stop Trying to Be a "Good" Woman feat. Author Elise Loehnen

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

We are kicking off the year with a very enlightening conversation with Elise Loehnen, author of the New York Times bestseller On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. We discuss these seven "sins" and the (wrong) notion we've been fed that a "good woman" is not supposed to indulge them, and why it's so much easier to damage a woman's reputation than a man's. We chat about embracing pride, using your envy to figure out what you want in life, owning your lustfulness, and why anger is a positive emotion. We also talk about the nonstop policing and judging of women's bodies, why we punish ourselves for being "gluttonous," and how we can learn to accept our bodies. There is so much ground covered, but above all – the importance of women supporting each other in the name of world domination. Before Elise joins us, we're doing a quick Christmas/appetizer contest recap, sharing our goals for 2024, as well as some from our audience, and announcing the official slogan for the year. Enjoy! Follow Elise on Instagram @eliseloehnen, check out her podcast Pulling the Thread, and get her book On Our Best Behavior. Follow us on Instagram @girlsgottaeatpodcast, Ashley @ashhess, and Rayna @rayna.greenberg. Visit our website for tour dates, merchandise, and more. Shop Vibes Only. Thank you to our partners this week: Hello Fresh: Get free breakfast for life when you go to hellofresh.com/ggefree and use code GGEFREE. Nutrafol: Get $10 off your first month's subscription + free shipping at nutrafol.com when you use promo code GGE. AG1: Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 + 5 free travel packs with your first purchase at drinkAG1.com/gge. Buffy: Get $20 off your order at buffy.co and enter promo code GGE. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have it in us. If we can figure out how to get on side with each other, if we can figure out how to get out of our own way, watch out. I don't really think the men are going to be a problem. First of the year, happy New Year. Happy New Year! We've missed you guys.

We have. Yes. We are recorded on Christmas Day. In the same outfits we were wearing the last time we recorded both of us. But different sides. This is so weird. like when a couple wakes up on the other side of the bed. Like they got so fucked up

last night. They were having sex and they just passed out. You like woke up in the kitchen. Do you wake up in the kitchen? No, but over Christmas. Pre-Christmas. Like, yeah, like with my boyfriend, we did wake up and my bra was on the kitchen island, which was pretty spicy.

You guys fucked in that kitchen? We got back and we started like hooking up in the kitchen. Your parents' kitchen. No. Like where we stayed in Dewey? And like, I had to go... The way you just coughed in my head. Like, I felt the breeze.

I don't know what you do. This is chaotic. We're really brave. We were talking about the theme. It's bravery. We've never sat this close together. No. You just coughed all over me.

Well, I am trying not to get you sick. I don't think I'm contagious anymore. We have no lights on us. I have no hair extensions in. Well, it'll be on over. It's Christmas. It is Christmas Day. We're recording.

We're in Delaware. We're in the farmhouse. The side piece. house. If you guys remember, that's a rain and called it during COVID. But yes, like, when you have sides with your partner and you wake up on the other side, you're like, what happened last night? But remember that one time, those people wrote in and said they don't have sides. That's mentally ill. That is living free. I could never. I just, I could never fly that high. Totally. Those people are in a call for sure. Like, what do they do to, like, get a rush? You're already doing something so crazy.

Those people are probably going to last forever. No signs. They're just so, like, living so free. Oh, my gosh. Your brother just FaceTime you and me? Is that your boyfriend? Your brother's face-thaming, me? He wants to do the presence.

Guys, keep us in. Yeah. Matt. Hi. What are you guys doing? We're recording an episode. We'll call you back. We'll be done in 30 minutes.

We'll be pre-Eagles game post-recording. Go, birds. Matt. I'll see you time you again. I'll try to get you. You can't really go on your time. We're literally working. We're worldwide celebrities, Matt, and you're on our time.

Bye. You're right. All right. All right. I'll see you later. Bergang. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

So hope you guys had a wonderful Christmas. We recorded before the holiday show. We're not going to recap it. That was quite a while back. But thanks again for coming. It was epic. All of our friends and family. we were just feeling so grateful and blessed and so thankful for one full year with Tessa and

our team and Anna, Ashley, and just everybody. And they were all there and it felt really nice. And again, so thankful for you guys for such an amazing year and to start another year with you going into our sixth year of this show. I can't believe it. So I bought Ashley a charm bracelet for Christmas and I put a little six on it. And your brother walked into the house last night and he goes, did you ever think the longest relationship you had with somebody with people with a woman?

I was like, I hoped so. I don't know. He was like, you guys spend an insane amount of time together, like crazy. And I was like, I know. I mean,

yeah, sort of. But I don't know what you've been doing the last couple weeks. But hang out my neighbor. I know. I saw a lot of movies.

My neighbor in the theater. On your theater tip, just every day at the movie theater, your neighbor took you and dropped you off and picked you up at the movie theater. Like, first of all, I have been sick and we have been having to work.

So I've been like hanging by a thread. so I do talk to you every day all day still, but it's been one of those weird last, this past week until you got here on the 23rd that I was like, I don't know what she's been doing. And then you get here and you unload crazy stuff. Three movies in a theater and a week. I was like, what?

Do I even know you? And then today when you said your neighbor, dropped you off and picked you up. Like, he's your mom in high school? I met his mom. Try to not be in love with Ryan anymore. Oh my God. That's your goal. That's 2024, what's one of my goals is not being a little bit of Ryan anymore. Oh my God. Well, I love to hear it. On that note, one wreck we have to give

is salt burn and it rain a salt in the theater. And then we did watch it with my mom the other night. And I fucking loved it. It's free on Amazon for a prime video. Do you want to go to the theater like Raina did? Or see it twice in one week. It's fucked up. I was getting popcorn full butter topping just all over that shit. You're true. Well, first of all, it's a week. It's a weird time in LA, the time between like, I don't know, like mid-December until New Year's, because no one's there, because nobody's from L.A. So everybody, like, goes to where they came from. And it's just, it's been like monsoon raining. No one's around. You're not around. Nobody's around. I'm like, it's weird to work, but like, we have to work. It's been like a weird time.

Yeah. So I've been in the theaters. So in the theaters. Cool Butter popcorn. Salt Burn was amazing. I saw poor things with Emma Stone, which is phenomenal. It's about this, like, grown woman with a baby's brain, essentially. It's sort of like a Frankenstein sci-fi movie. Saw the new Hunger Games. I saw Killers of the Flower Moon. I didn't even tell you about that. I couldn't get through it. It's like your massage life, your secret life. Well, we like the other three, Salt Burn. It's so twisted. I cannot recommend it enough.

I did not know what I was getting into, and I loved it. Yes, I was so excited. I didn't know if you're going to like it, but I feel like everybody likes it. I mean, I was like, is there rape? Is there extreme violence? Is there child abuse? Like, other than that, like, dark is pretty okay with me. I just don't like those things.

Not that people like it. But people watch movies with it. And like, even just a lot of violence. I don't like die hard. You know, like, I don't like a lot of, it's not for me. I don't either. No judgment. Salt, not for me.

Okay, so we had our Christmas. We had our appetizer contest. I'm so glad. I was like, we were on the fence about me coming because I've joked you got invited me, but you didn't really. And I'm so glad I came. You always love to throw this joke around. I've never once even alluded to it.

And you're like, Ashley, uninvited me. The one year you said I invited you, it was 2020. The narrative is so whack. I'm like, it's funny that I got uninvited during comedy. It's jokes on you guys. in the next year and got COVID. Oh, my God. So it's been really nice and it was so weird this year because I had to fly across the country.

I wasn't driving. So I was like, oh, yeah, I have to bring gifts. Like, how do I do that? So I brought a second suitcase with me for gifts, which I don't know. It's always nice to be here. And I'm so glad that like I can come every year. It's six years. Your mom got me stocking.

I know. It just means so much to me, like, included. And you got second an appetizer contest again. You get second a lot. I'm only, I've never had first. I think I get seconded most years. Or Matt, you lost a buck. Matt lost to me.

Buck is a sleeper. You never see him coming. And then he makes savić with shrimp in Delaware in December. You're like, where did this come from? And he just sweeps the competition. So if you're new here, welcome. But every Christmas Eve, the Hustle Titans do an appetizer contest. Everyone makes an appetizer.

And then we vote. And it gets heated. So I phoned it in for years. You did. And then I started stepping it up, but like never with an intention to win, just like a Mexican dip. Or I would make like guac with my rotele and then like a dip trio. Like one time I made like a seven-lare dip. I'm never like, I'm not going to get any boats.

Maybe I've gotten one vote one time, which was like a pity boat probably from you because you were like, I'm new here and I just don't know. But I'm so I. One of my college girlfriends, like on our very wholesome group chat, we share a lot of recipes and they sent this like Borson, bake. You just kind of breaded and bake it and put hot honey on it. It's from Cheese Gal, which was a new follow to me on Instagram. Obviously, I'm going to follow her for all the cheese recipes. And it was amazing. I did not win, but everyone did agree I got most improved.

You definitely get most improved. And I did tie for fourth. You did. You play. And I never hear your name even mentioned in the run-A. But then Bach made like what, bacon. Bacon, these like salty candy bacon on these crackers. And then with a cocktail with it, he did a bacon-infused bourbon, old-fashioned,

just on the sign. When he whipped that shit out, mason jars, he started pouring like red, orange. It was insane. Maraschino cherries.

Someone had the audacity to DM me. You guys never said Buck was hot. What? We, oh, that's, his name is Buck Fux. She said,

I think she was being cute about it. She was like, how did I not know? I'm like, I don't know, girl. Buck's hot. Buck is really hot. So he won with his bacon and bourbon

and Raina got second with a Caj and shrimp dip. And it was just really nice. I've had like, this has been a really full December, like our shows. And I've been here, but I did like a Christmas with Sparkle Eyes, like the weekend before Christmas. He came down. We did like all the things I've wanted to do in Brahobeath, Dewee Beach, like going to Shellville, which is this like incredible like Christmas.

I don't want to call it a market because it's so much more than that. But if you know, you know, exchanged our presents and like I feel fulfilled. I feel like I did the thing. He and I got a tree back in November. Holiday shows, of course. We've seen so much friends and family. We did like a Venice sign lighting with our LA friends. Like I had dinner with my hometown friends. did a Christmas with him and family. And like, I feel like I did good because it's just, it's not long enough. Like, I always want like more. And this year I'm like, I'm not saying I'm tapped out, but I am ready to pack it up. And do what? Move it to a new year. Come to LA from party. Go back to LA. As you're listening to this, we had a party last night. It was

really fun. Yes. And you're ready to go back and party more. Okay, right. As we are recording, I am excited to do New Year's in LA. You're having a party. I know. I have a party every year. I love it. It's my favorite. I've never had an L.A. party for New Year's, and this is my first one. I'm thrilled. Okay. Rob's flying in for it.

It's crazy. I'm really excited. I know. I'm a New Year's kiss. Maybe you'll too with your fucking neighbor. Is he in town? I know he's in Hawaii. I bet I'll say.

You're his best friend now. Guess you can't come Ryan in his van. You're only figured out I'm Ryan's best friend too. We have to be prioritized Ryan for the show. Yeah, that's part of my 2024 goals. Okay. So, really quick. I do just want to talk about vibes only

because I need to give a personal endorsement about that peppermint patty suck and blow gel. Of course, I tasted it when we were taste testing, but I did use it on a peppermint dick. Okay. I did, you got that peppermint stick. For Christmas?

I was saving it for Christmas. That was a part of my guess. You made me bring it to you. Yeah. Well, because then I used one for the show, and I was like, I don't have my own. Can you bring me? Like, whatever. So I honestly swear it tastes better on somebody than just tasting it alone. That's so funny. I could not get enough of it. It's so funny. It's so good. So I'm like, I knew I love this flavor. Obviously, this was more me. I'm more pepper more you're a more spier.

But I had not yet sucked to dick with it. And I am texting the whole company about it the next day. It's part of, you know, the whole process. And we sold out. And we thought we were closed, but we did not we were going to sell out that quickly. We start panicking. We were like, okay, let's talk to the supplier. Let's turn it around quick. And we were like, are people going to want this past Christmas? I was like, yes. And I will tell them that they do. So anyway, we brought back a limited quantity. So you can still get new flavors coming soon. But you can still buy the pumpkin spice on sale. In our new packaging, of course, you can still get the peppermint paddy for a limited time. So I just really want to hype it. It's so good. It's going to really be such a treat all winter long, all spring, whatever you want it. That's my number one flavor forever.

I'm going to stand by it. My nude, that would be your favorite flavor. But the second blow job, they can go on fulvas or penises, and it just activates the saliva glands in your mouth because it's so tasty, and it just leads to an even juicier blowjob. Like, it's less work for you. Yeah. Breath tastes good.

I get excited to whip it out. I was like, oh, I can do this all night. We have a new flavor coming out in the spring. I cannot wait to just get ready. I'll be licking it off nipples, anything. And then I have to say that I did use the kinklings, also at 3 p.m. And I was like, oh, no one was

less sure about this. You're like, I don't know. And I was like, I think they're going to do good. And you love them now. 3 p.m. 3 p.m. handcuffs. You guys were crazy. Why not? You know what are you doing?

Just hanging out? I think we'd like just open our gifts. I don't know. So anyway, I just lost. He's like, 3 p.m. He's like, you know what I want to do the rest of the afternoon is hogtie you. He was basically, oh, you know, let me grab something.

I was like, I know what this is. It was just funny. Like the lights streaming in. Like all the blinds are open. And I was like, let's just do this. Those are such a great gift and a stocking stuffer. And I hope a lot of people got them for the holidays and are using them. And they're so fun and they're so easy.

There's no locks or anything. They're super soft, stretchy silicone. It's just a nice, sexy thing to do. You can get out of them easily. You don't feel like super bound. And it's nice. I've never seen anything like it before. I think some like handcuffs, they just look so cheesy.

There's like heavy metal and they're just gross. And I just love you. It's the purple. They're beautiful. We have a lot of really great stuff coming out for Valentine's Day, you guys. but in the meantime, get in there. Vibesonly.com. And then do you want to make our show announcement?

Yes. So the big thing about 2024, and we're talking about goals and things like that, but I know that we said that we aren't really touring in 2024 until the end of the year. Like first Q1 and Q2. But we do have one surprise show

coming up for you guys. So one of our most favorite city is Miami. Miami. February 1st weekend, February 4th, Sunday. We will be part of Eastcon with the infatuation. I've been a long time. fan of this company. They're an incredible food media company. Ashley and I really love them. And we did EatsCon in Chicago. It's their really great food festival. No one is better at throwing

a festival than these guys. They just really get it right with the entertainment, the food, all these restaurants. So you come, you buy a ticket to the event, you can try all these different foods, and then there's entertainment all weekend. And the lineup for Miami is so phenomenal. I know. Mary Beth and Benny Drama are going to be there. Marcello, Hernandez, she's a friend of ours. And then Ashley and I on Sunday, we'll get you the exact time. I think it'll It'll be like three o'clock maybe, but we love doing it in Chicago. We're going to love doing it in Miami. We cannot wait to do a show.

And you can get tickets at Eatscon.com, and that's five E's. So like Eatscon.com. Also the infatuation, you should check out their Instagram. You can find it there as well. Yes. You can do Eatsconfives.com. slash Miami also. And February 4th was Dewey's birthday adoption day.

Wait, it was? February is your month. Yeah. February 4th is like a special. day always. So anything on that day is special. Yeah. And then actually like a few days after that we launched the podcast for the first time. Yes. It's a big month. And then

Rayna mentioned Benito Skitter and Mary Beth, of course, and Marcello and then us. And then the always sunny guys are the other headliner and people are like obsessed with them. They're doing this whole like live thing and there'll be Rob and Glenn who are responsible for creating, it's always sunny. And so they're the other

headliners as well. They just did like a huge radio city right? Yeah, they did. Jeremy went and said it was great with Bobby. Yeah, and then all these restaurants and all this food is part of the thing too. And it's like a cool venue, so you guys can come out and see us there. It's just a really fun day. And obviously, Miami and February, there's nothing better. That's the month we go.

We go every year, show or no show. And then randomly, the Friday before, we're going to, well, being Sparklizer going to see Drake and Tampa. You know, I love Tampa. That's actually why we agreed to be part of this festival. We were like, when can we see Drake? Drake House did. Tour with Jay Cole. And I was like, well, maybe if we do East Con, we could do Tampa, Drake and Tampa, what's that going to be like?

And also, my, like, other best friend lives in Miami. And I haven't really, like, spent so low time with her for, like, a long period of time in a long time. Like, I've, like, gone down alone and spent time with her. So I'm excited. I never see her anymore. I never seen her since my birthday. I miss her. I haven't seen her to my birthday.

She barely is around. Yeah. Okay. So, 2024. Big year. We're excited. We were just talking about what was the theme of the year. and we're going to read some of our audience's goals.

But I said, get money. Be kind and get money. And we'll talk more about that with our guests today who were super excited about. And kind of a different type of episode. I hope you guys really like it. I found the whole conversation super fascinating. But kind of like being kind to each other, other women, yourself. You know, I just like this.

People always say like, work hard and be nice to people. But I'm saying be kind, get money. Be kind, get money. I like that. In years past, it was fuck more cry less. fuck less crime more that's the goal COVID was a crazy year

but this is really the first year that you and I so you and I've been on tour we've done those 200 shows in like five years we have never not been on tour except for if it was unplanned so like COVID

and we've like canceled shows for unexpected reasons but we've never had like a large chunk of time since we met each other where we weren't running vibes running girls got to eat also on tour and so like really my goal until we go back on tour in the fall

is to be really intentional with my time and do stuff that I, like, have always said I wanted to do, but, like, there's just never, like, the time. And it's like, my life is great. I'm not complaining. I love working and I love working with you, but I want to, like, take this time to travel around California because we haven't really done that. And, like, we haven't even gone to, like, Santa Barbara. We haven't gone to Hawaii, which I know is not in California, but a lot easier to get to her. Yes. Big Bear or Tahoe. And just I haven't spent any time exploring. And then, like, my second, like, biggest goal is I want to take some classes and I've been threatening to do this for years. But I'd like to take

sex therapy and relationship psychology classes. And so I just want to really commit to doing that. I think it's so much easier than ever today to just take classes on Zoom. And Emily Morse was really, gave us a lot of good advice about how to do that. And I just, I think that you and I have so much knowledge and interviewed everybody and read all their books. And I think that we're really accredited, but to just add that on top of what we already do would make me feel really like happy and proud. So that's like my goal is to really focus on that. And I've like, like other goals, but that's like my main big goal for the year. Okay. Yeah. I mean, 2023 was incredible. I want to just keep it rolling, keep the good times rolling. But my main goal really

is to take vibes. Our main goal, I'm just speaking on it. We feel the same way is to really take vibes to the next level. And vibes is completely self-funded and it is a really successful, profitable company. I mean, it's still a small company. You know, we make money, we put it back into the business and we're really proud of it. You know, when we really take a step back and we feel sometimes I'm so overworked and we're annoyed at all the responsibilities we have. And we're still very grateful, obviously. And it's a privilege to be annoyed with how much work you have to do. But I think it's still important that we are proud of ourselves and what we build

and the community that we build around it and being able to give people their first sex toy experience or the best orgasm they've ever had or the first time listening to erotic audio or the first time giving a flavored blowjob or whatever it may be. But we really want to take it to the next level. And that really would be an investor or private equity. whatever it looks like. And that will really enable us to grow this company, reach more people, and help them enhance their sex lives and pleasure, and just take vibes only to the moon. We have met with people before and nothing has been the right fit. And we, of course,

want to work with people who believe in our mission as much as we do and understand women and women's needs. We have learned the hard way that being in this industry, how much regulation and restrictions there can be and like how hard it can be to get stuff done. sometimes and how women can just feel really misunderstood and underserved. So when we talk about investors, we talk about private equity and partners, we just need someone or someone's that get it. Yes. Well, private equity is very male driven, just like any financial industry. But it is, it's hard to walk into a room full of men and explain to them that you are really doing something. Of course, we want to do things for men and women, but we really want to empower women to take

hold of their sexuality, to try new things, to experiment, to just let yourself, you know, take the pleasure that you really want to take. And to have a woman invest in you, it just feels like right, you know? Yeah. Listen, I'll take a man's money too. But yeah, we always say we want a strategic partner that understands it. Yes, exactly. So yeah, I want to take fives only to the next level. And I want to figure out my personal shit. Like I, you know, have been taking a little bit of a break from stand-up. I've always talked about writing books. I don't really want to set a goal right now. I'm just kind of figuring it out. But by the end of the year, by mid-year, I want to like actually figured out when I'm going to put my time into when it comes to that and like having a little more

time that now they're not touring. I want to go to Italy with my boyfriend this year. That's we're planning it. So it's not like it's that stretch, a stretch. But that was like a trip I always want to take with a romantic partner. And like for years, you're like, I want to go to Italy. I'm like, it just feels so romantic to me. I just like want to go with a partner. I haven't been since I was 19 years old. I'm with my family. And to me, it's this ultimate and romantic destinations. And, he's down and we've talked about it going in July and just that's like my big like trip I want to take in this year. And I think lastly, I mean, I say this every year I want to buy a fucking house. I'm always looking. I put an offer in a couple weeks ago. I was like, didn't get it. It's just like,

what? It's a never ending thing. I'm just going to say it. This sounds really motivated. One year you're going to say it. You're really going to do it. Exactly. So if I just say it every year. All right. Well, we've talked about this and I think this is not a hot take, but like goals are hard to achieve if they're really like vague. Too broad. Too broad. Like I want to lose weight is not a goal. I mean, it is and good for you if you want to. But it's hard to say like if you can set like measurable goals that's easier for me. So like I want to buy a house is easier for me to accomplish. I read like 30 books this year. I want to be 35 books this year. I would also like to buy a house because I don't own anything. And I think that that would be really nice now that we've like

settled in California a little bit. So it's something I'm dabbling in. But it's my least goal. Yeah, but I have like travel goals. I want to go to South America because I really even spend a lot of time there. And I've spent some time in Columbia, the south part of South America. I've been to Argentina and Chile. I should I always say wrong. I say right. Chile? I'm just trying to, yeah. It's not chilly. Some people say that and then you sound stupid. But it's like, I feel like when you say like in the middle of the sense, you're like Chile, it's like when Giata delorentas like switches into like Italian stuff. She's like braata. It's like you don't have an Italian accent. But Chile is doable because you don't I feel so stupid when I try to like. do accents or do like I'm just I'm not good with languages and so like it doesn't feel natural it sounds cringe when I tried it but I can do Chile Chile okay well I want to go to Chile and I want to see Taylor Swift in concert so you and I are probably going to go do that with Sparkalize at my sister-in-law no not him he's not going to come he's going to meet in Italy after we're crashing our friends honeymoon so my friend Alana is getting married in Tuscanese we're going to go to that and then crash her home

I'm going to find out of my wife going to the wedding you're going to the wedding you're You're going to the wedding. I'm not going to the wedding with you. Sparklise is not coming to Taylor Swift with us. Let's get the guest list together. My sister-in-law is going to crash it too, so we're all going to go. But I haven't seen Taylor Swift in concert, so I'm really excited. So those are some of the goals for 2024.

Okay. Do you want to read some of our listeners? Yeah. You read some. My phone's warm because I was sitting on it. So just have her warm phone. Okay. Buy a house.

be the healthiest and hottest version of myself and earn more money, manage my money better. I'm just reading the money stuff. I know. I love all the money stuff. Try and find a real man in Boston. You can do it, sis. She wrote hashtag dream big. Learn how to big girl budget. Be high all the time. Have more sex and wake up earlier. Get off the struggle bus financially. Leave my husband. Okay. We love that. Wow. Wishing you all best. DMM if you want. Yeah. Lose 40 pounds and save 20K. Love the numbers. Specificity. Yes. I love it.

Get pregnant. Okay. That's my choice. Get laid more often. Abbs, a boyfriend. Pay off my credit card debt. Running the Philly Marathon. Stay consistent on the Peloton.

To get an engagement ring. Have a healthy baby. Make more money again. Open heart and legs. Hopefully to the same person. Doesn't need to be. That's a strong one for this year. Open legs, open heart.

Yeah. What can we say about money? Open bank accounts. Cash checks. Big decks. Open legs. Closing deals. Open legs and clothes and clothes and deals.

There it is. There we nailed it. That's the theme of the year. I'm going to just end on this one because I love the way she wrote it. Suck more dick, honestly. Honestly. To be honest. To be honest, I'd like to suck more dick.

Open those legs. Open that jaw. Close that deal. Open that throat. Yeah, obviously, when I'm more sex this year, I want somebody to hog time me at 3 p.m. God, my lap is the worst. I would love to get over this upper respiratory infection.

You have been sick way more than I have in the past couple years. I've been one sickness in March the last of the three weeks. It sucks. Like, if I neglect my immune proactivity for a day, I swear. And we'll talk about age you want to. But I just, it took a toll. Like, I'm going to talk about something next week where we just want to kind of wrap this up. We have a longer interview today and we're just not in the studio.

This is like, we're in the same outfit. Like, whatever, you guys get it. But something that kind of the happen. to me that I feel like my level of stress, like, affected my body in a way that I, like, want to speak about openly. Like, we were under a lot of stress, those shows, the travel, all the stuff,

and it just wore me down. Yeah, I don't know how we survived the fall and the Christmas season. Like, I did get sick. You know, if the first one was a cold, this was a little more intense, but it always is on the tail end of, like, all the things.

Like, the other time was when we got back from Europe and sometimes it feels like unavoidable. Sometimes you should take a day off of drinking, just one. Today's my day. One day. I'll take off a drink. You're not going to have a drink for the Eagles game.

Damn it. Ashley, yeah, obviously I'm going to drink. God damn it. Go words. I'm also, yeah, I'm an Eagles fan. I'm partial to the Eagles. I can't be the Steelers.

But if you guys really are, like, struggling to stick with your goals, I know it's hard. Our episode last year with James Clear is one of my absolute favorites. You got Atomic Habits. He's phenomenal. And I took those lessons with me always because he talks about, just because you, like,

fall off the wagon doesn't mean you can get like right back on it. It was always hard for me to work out because I would do it like six days a week. I would go so hard. and then I would skip it one day, and that would be this, like, slippery slope into stopping forever. And now I'm just like, if I take a couple weeks off, it's not over forever, I can start again. Well, that's in today's episode as well. Yeah. Really, like the way that she describes how, like, we almost view ourselves like these animals

breaking out of a cage that, like can't moderate our own eating or, you know, once we, like you said, fall off the wagon, we can't get back on. Like, it's very interesting. And it comes up today, too, which we love that for the new year. And just the energy in this episode we really love. And the money thing, I mean, Rameit, Satie, we really. really recommend both of his episodes. One was more recent this spring and then what 2018. Yeah. And he's just a great wealth of information to follow on Instagram. And so we find those

to be really great resources too of money is on your mind. Yeah. This year. And if you want to open your legs a little more this year, if I don't know what you're doing. If you want to suck a word dick this year and you don't have that peppermint paddy, I don't know what you're doing. You're a fake. Yeah. You don't mean it. You don't mean it. Open legs, open mouth, open heart, close and deals. Now that. Well, thank you guys for an amazing 2023. We're excited to go into this year with you again, our six year of the podcast. I guess this is our seventh year, right? We've done it for six years. This will be our seventh year. Going into our, yeah, I mean, February will be six years. So you're going into your seventh. You guys, I don't, don't quote me. I don't care. It's a long time. It's a lot of years. And we're also coming up in 300 episodes in like two or three weeks. Which is insane to have done anything that long. I can't believe it. Thank you guys for being here. for it. Yeah. The guests that have been on the show and, of course, to Ashley and to Tessa and to everybody who works with us, Anna, who does all of her videos and is phenomenal. It was a great 2020. We're excited for 2024. We'll be back on tour in the fall. In the meantime, come see us in Miami. Shop those vibrators. You said Anna, so I'm going to say one thing. What? That we had our company dinner. And we had our company dinner at Q, which is a place we love, KYU. Chef Chris is the best. And they're opening in Las Vegas, actually. And they're in Miami too. And we had an amazing meal there with our whole team. And Anna is pescatarian. And she,

we had like a set meal. And but they were like, we'll make sure we take care of you. So we'll bring you a fish, whatever. Because we were all having like meat. And I didn't pay attention. There are these huge boards of meat and fried chicken and short ribs, all the time. And so I lean over I hate myself. There was one person between me and Anna and I lean over to her and I go, how's your fish? And right now from across the table, yells, is your fish sick? As in like a pet. You guys, first of all, fissions don't get sick. They just die.

It took everywhere at the table. We were all like, do we just have a stroke? Like, she just, it took me so long to even, like, process that you thought it was a pet. Because she does have a cat. You know, like, you know, she has a pet. I feel like Ashley, our other Ashley looked at me. It was like, I can't believe you're my boss. Ashley's husband was like, I can't believe this is your boss.

Ryan just thought of love. like this is why I don't sleep with you. Tessa, quit. Took everyone a minute to digest. I was like, did I hear her waitress was like, I can't wait on you guys before. She's been over-served. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was going to leave the restaurant. It's the hardest I've laughed in 2023. Fish don't get sick. There's no antibiotics for fish. I was like, as it was coming out of my mouth, I was like, you can't put it back in. It was so cute because you just really said. I meant it. I know. It was like, well, because Anna has had to like take your cat to the vet before.

We care about the people that work for us and their pets. Obviously, we're pet lovers. And so you were like, is your fish sick? I really meant that shit. That might be the dumbest thing I've ever said in my whole life. It was just one of those moments. It's so ditsy. It's so deeply ditsy.

I love it. Yes. Okay, let's get into our interview. Yes. All right, guys, we are so excited to kick off the year with an amazing guest. She is a writer and editor. She's been roasting other people's writing for about an hour. Yes.

She's a roast master of other people's writing. She's a comedian. She's like, huh, that was an interesting choice. That's an interesting choice. She's a comedian. She is the host of Pulling the Thread podcast. Previously, she was the chief content officer of Goop, where she co-hosted the Goop podcast and the Goop Lab on Netflix.

She herself has interviewed hundreds of thought leaders, doctors, and experts in various fields. She co-wrote 12 books, including five New York Times bestsellers, but her first book under her own name is out and get it in your hands now on our best behavior at the seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good. It was an instant New York Times bestseller. It's our topic today. We are so excited to have her here. Please welcome to the show, Elise Loonen.

Thank you. I'm delighted. Raina, hot intro. It's hot. All year. Bring that energy. I mean, there's a lot to say. There is a lot to say.

At least, you have the street cred to roast other people's right. writing. You have the credentials to do so. To be fair. You picked up this magazine that we're in and you were just like, huh, it's an interesting stylistic choice. Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts.

A lot of thoughts. I'll send that guy a memo. That's what you're here for is to talk about this article of us from two years ago. We just were enthralled with everything that you do. And we're going to talk about your book today. We've both been reading it. But yeah, it's very interesting. We were just talking you about writing books with celebrities and the process and how you do it

and, you know, get into their head, master their voice, I guess. So it was just, you have a really exciting, fun career. Thank you. Do you feel like that? Yeah. I mean, you have to live your life. What's the saying? You live your life forward, but you can only really understand it by looking backwards.

Okay. When I think back on what I've done, I'm like, that's interesting. In the moment, I'm very rarely gobsmacked, if that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's been, I've had a pretty interesting life. And I've had a million career, so. Mm-hmm. It's part of it. That's why I ask, because I feel like something right to laugh.

I don't know. Because I was like, at the other end of that question is like, do you feel like this is cool or are you like dead inside? She answered appropriately. She was like, yeah, kind of. When I'm in it, I feel dead inside. What a minute. When I'm with Benis Paltrow and Lauren Conrad, I feel nothing. But looking back, I feel like that was neat. Yeah.

Now, people are people, right? I think maybe I am dead inside guys. No. No. both read your book and we were listening to you on Kate Kennedy's podcast, which I just kept being like, this is so profound. I took so many notes. I wanted to like self-edit. But the book is so interesting about like what makes women quote unquote good. And you also dive in so much into like what makes a quote unquote good man and what we value in society. And it's just so fascinating. We're really

excited to get into it with you. But maybe we could start with like why you wrote this book. Yeah. I wrote this book. Again, as as you mentioned, I'd written 12 books for other people. I love being a ghostwriter. I love standing behind other people and celebrities, et cetera, and being behind the scenes. That's always how I've seen myself. And it really wasn't until my 39th year that I realized that maybe this is a pattern I needed to break

and that I could stand in front of my own work. So it was that, it was a convergence of many factors, including COVID, but also wanting to attend to this lifelong anxiety disorder. I started actually maybe not lifelong. Started in my 20s when I was a magazine editor in New York. And I started to have these. It's called chronic hyperventilation. People who are listening might identify this in themselves

and not actually know that it has a name. But it is when you are over breathing, your lungs are full, but you have the sensation in your mind at least that you can't take a full or deep breath. So you sort of half breathe and you hit a wall. And then it creates panic. anxiety. And I can do this for months at a time. And it first started when I was at Kanei Nass,

and I was in a really horrible work situation, and I didn't know how to get myself out of it. And I ended up in the ER and convinced I was going to die and was told, you know, it's all in your head, you know, something that many of us here. But women specifically. Women specifically. Have a glass of wine. Yeah. Have a glass of wine. There's a Xanax. Take some Xanax. Right. Just some benzos, no big deal.

But I opened the book in a scene where I'm at my therapist's office. I'd been in a protracted hyperventilation period for months. And we were really trying. I was trying to understand what was haunting me, this feeling that I'd never be safe. I'd never be secure. I'd never be enough. All the enough. It's not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, wealthy enough, all of those things.

and essentially in that process of evaluating, like, what is it? What is this thing that's chasing me? That was the genesis for this book wanting to answer that question, because I realized, actually, I'm not alone. I think that this is a voice in many women's heads. Yeah. The word enough, I think, is something I think about a lot. And I have to tell myself, like, you're doing enough.

You know, like, you can stop. You can enjoy your life. Like, I don't know. I just, I think about that a lot. Like, you are enough, but also like, you're doing enough. Yeah. So I'd like that that was like what came of it with the conversation with your therapist. Uh-huh.

I think it was in an interview as a little quote-unquote being at capacity and why do we run ourselves ragged to be at capacity as though we're a machine. Yeah. You know, am I being a good enough wife and a mother and am I working hard enough? And sometimes Ashley and I'll just be like, I don't have anything left. Yeah. And that's also in the Beyonce movie. Oh, really?

She opens it with that. Like, we are not machines. and we act like it. She stole it from life. God. Beyonce. How could she? Yeah.

She's, she's, I thought you were better than this. I can't do all this. Like, I'm beyond capacity. Barbie movie cribbed my book too. Yeah. Oh, honestly, I was reading your book and I heard the Barbie monologue in my head.

Yeah. Of course. I'm kidding. But your book is very much like that. It's about as women, I thought about a lot in talking about, like, being desirable, which we'll talk about the women are supposed to be desired and desirable,

but not desire other things. And this male gaze thing, you're not supposed to be a slal. lot, you're just supposed to look like you might be one. Well, you're not supposed to be sexual, but you're supposed to look sexy. Yeah. So there's so many just like oxymorons and just like confusing ideas when it comes to being a woman. Yeah. So is that the catalyst for, I want to write this book essentially? I'm at least starting to think about it. Yeah. I wanted to answer some big questions that I had

about my own life. Namely, you can look at the lack of equity for women across culture. And obviously there are reasons for this and it's baked into our legal system and there's a pay gap and there's a wealth gap and yes, all of that is true. And there are pernicious men in the midst, predators, etc. But I couldn't, essentially when I looked at my own life, I'm like, I'm actually been surrounded by a lot of amazing men and boys. I've had incredible bosses who are men. And I couldn't figure out what it was. It didn't explain the gap in what I see across culture. And what I wanted to understand was like, what is it in me? How am I policing myself?

How am I policing other women? Why is that our instinct so frequently for women to police other women and keep each other small? Where does that come from? And how can I address that in myself? That was one of the big questions was, what is this? What is this? Why do we do this to each other? I love that.

It's so interesting. And you talk about, of course, some of it comes from religion, but like if you didn't grow up with any religion, how did I still internalize these ways I'm supposed to be? Well, and the patriarchy. I mean, you do. We were joking.

You do 21 pages of the condensed whole history of the patriarchy. It is, why did I forget this word again? You say it's the most dense and academic. The most academic. I'm like, am I that stupid? It's the most academic part of the book. So that is part of it.

But I really like what you said. I mean, and we're going to go through these seven deadly sins, one by one. But yeah, there are definitely these like women on women crime parts of it. Yeah. You know, especially when we come to like the jealousy and the slut shaming and things like that. And the meanest things people have ever said to us have been for women.

Don't get it twisted. I mean, men will be like, you're fat and ugly, whatever. Women are just like going to cut you your core. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that was a big genesis for really wanting to understand it. Why do we do that? Because you'll be told, right? Like, that's just how women are. Women are catty bitches. And no. It's culture. It's culture. It's culture.

It's not nature. It's impossible to pull those two things apart, but it's culture. So what is that? Why do we do that? And I really wanted to get at it. And you mentioned the patriarchy. It's another concept. It's a word that we throw around.

And for me, at least, I was like, I don't even know what is it. What is it? What is patriarchy? We talk about it. It's like, it, they, there. It's in the air. It's in the air. And it's like, is it Mitch McConnell?

Like, what is it? Wait, I love what you said that because sometimes, do you sometimes say it and feel like a fraud. Like someone's going to ask you what it is. Like if someone's like define it, do it now. I know what I'm saying, but I'm like, you know, you were like, it's patriarchy. If someone were to be like, can you break that down for me? I'd be like, oh, I just got to, I got to shop on a call. I was like, maybe another time. Okay, bye. No, but it's become this sort of boogeyman, right? Right. Like, what is it? Where did it start? Is this how it's always been where we're in a male-led patriarchal culture? No, it's actually not how it's always

been. It's not a foregone conclusion. We're far more creative and partnership based than that. But I wanted to sort of not puncture patriarchy, but actually understand what it is that we're talking about and how does it live on in us. And you mentioned religion. The book, even though it's about the seven deadly sins is a secular book. I am my dad's Jewish. My mom's a recovering Catholic. I grew up in Montana, going to services in a Methodist church. I had to look up the sins. I didn't know what they were. You just got to watching movie seven. Exactly. They're not in the Bible.

They're not in the Bible. I know. That's what's great. I know. That was a hot take in the book. That's what's so crazy. They're not even in the Bible. But they've been fed to us. They're part of culture. And then we whispered these things into each other's ears. And the way that we pass culture on is, you know, how we

establish our own behavior and then enforce behavior in other people. So to be clear, don't you feel like we are in a patriarchal society or you don't? I just want to make it clear because people have read the book, I don't want them to think that we're saying like, no, the patriarchy is fake. It's all women on women crime. No, no, no, no, no, no.

No, it's 100% of patriarchy, but the thing about, and this is maybe too far in the weeds, but we're all enforcing and enabling the patriarchy. And there's a lot of internalized patriarchy. And that's what I wanted to understand. Yes. Women can behave in very patriarchal ways. Right. So I think the thing that is

really interesting that we can wrap this conversation around it is like, what do we value in men to make it a quote-unquote good man and what do we value in women today that makes that quote unquote good women. And then we can talk about maybe where that came from. So when we say like a good woman, like what do we value in women? The whole book is about how women are programmed for exactly that for goodness, but as an external idea of what it is to be a good woman.

A good woman needs no rest. A good woman has no appetite, no desire, no need for affirmation or praise. She's never upset about anything. Jealousy. Yeah. Yeah, she has no wants. She's happy to subjugate all of her wants to other people's needs. Sure.

Endless capacity to do for others, but never needs anything for yourself. Yes, a good woman is in service to the world while a man is in the world. And men are conditioned and program for power, which can be very insidious too. I think men are victims of patriarchy as well. Yeah. You said this thing about the consequences of breaking those norms and that like women, the worst thing in the world that you can do is like have a bad refugee. Like that's so terrible for a woman, but men can have, and I'm taking your words, men can have terrible reputations and we forgive it if they're powerful.

And we might love them for it. Yes. So women, the worst thing you can do is, you know, assault a woman's reputation. Say she's a bad person, bad mother, toxic coworker, mean, yeah, slut, lazy, all of those things. And all it takes is the intimation, like the idea of that for a woman to be perceived as bad. and in many ways irredeemable. Irredeemable. Right. Like, I mean, you bring up one of the ones that I still think about,

which was Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. And I think about it all the time. It ruined her career. Yeah. This thing that happened and it did nothing for the man involved. I think about it with Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Her sex tape came out and ruined her career was the end of it, even though she was a playmate.

Yeah. And I think about it, we were talking about this yesterday. So weirdly, this came up, but I don't want to put him on the spot. These claims never been substantiated. But Ben Bralthusberger, who was the quarterback of the Steelers, was accused. was violently sexually assaulting multiple women, but he was never substantiated in court,

but he wanted a bunch of Super Bowls. People don't think about this at all. They don't talk about it because he's powerful. He's successful. Yeah. No, the only time, I mean, men can do truly terrible, heinous things, and we will still revere them so long as we think they're powerful. It's only weakness that we abhor in men.

Mm-hmm. And, I mean, of course, it's like we've taken some down, thank God. You know, but way too late. Ish. After they're out of that. Yeah, after about their, about the, die or they're not in power. Right, right, right.

They're irrelevant. Yes. Only then are they vulnerable. It's actually stunning when you look at it and when you think about it. It's not even a double standard. It's just different standards. It's different standards. Yeah.

I thought a lot about reading this, like how my decision making was all formulated by this. And I don't think of myself as somebody who conforms to the societal norms of being a woman. I was raised by somebody that said ask questions, push boundaries, don't take no for an answer. Your opinions are valid. sex isn't a bad thing. I was not raised by these constraints. I did not grow up a people pleaser,

but all my decisions were still formed around the society I grew up in. To say that this didn't affect me is not true. Right. Culture is so strong and insistent. And same. I grew up with liberal parents who gave me a progressive education, sort of anti-patriical peace protesters, right? And yet this is still so alive.

me, which is why I really, really wanted to understand it. Because I've, you know, you guys love therapy. I love therapy. I done a lot of therapy and I was constantly trying to place things. And I would find myself in therapy sort of blaming my mother and then having my therapist say, okay, so tell me about the time when you felt silenced by her. I'm like, wait, what? No, my mom never. Like my mom would never silence me. But I think so many of us are conditioned to think like, oh, we can find this in ourselves. We can find this in our parents. But it's culture. Culture has the biggest impact on who we are. Yeah, I know. I think about that a lot of the things that shaped me in this way. And it was like absolutely culture, stuff that was happening at school,

things like that as opposed to what was like happening at home. Because I definitely grew up with, you know, I don't know, I just never cared about being like good or well-behaved or like, I didn't subscribe to any of this. So it was like when things like this happened, you're like, that's just in my surroundings. Yeah. I think like an easy example for people is thinking about anger and how boys and girls are raised to understand anger. And you can just think about how contagious this is as a cultural norm that's then sold to us as who girls are and who little boys are. So kids have a lot of natural aggression.

boys push, yell, shout, shove, right? It's just boys will be boys. That's what they do. And girls, meanwhile, are told, like, girls don't do that. You don't see other girls doing that and normalizing that behavior. And so all of our aggression typically comes out in covert ways, whisper networks, alliance building, backstabbing. It has to go somewhere.

I think about, like, the consequences of not adhering to those things as well. Like I was somebody who kind of, I didn't put myself in a box. I said crazy stuff about sex and the world. And I remember being made fun of it for. Like you never know what she's going to say. Like I just wasn't this like quiet person or I looked really sexual when I was very young. I had huge tits when I was 12. And girls made fun of me and called me a slut.

And I never even held hands with the boy. But like I got made fun of for looking sexual. Yeah. So like there are consequences I think to not adhering to these things. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we want to go through some and maybe not deep dive him. everyone. But I think also if people are like, what are the sins again? Like, should we just

do like sloth, envy, pride, gluttony, greed, lust, anger. And then you added in sadness here, which is like, it was on the list originally. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, there's amazing takeaways in all of them. I would love to talk about envy and also you break down jealousy versus envy, which I found really interesting too. And I think this is a lot of things of like even more with social media and just, you know, I feel so lucky to have, grown up really without it. You know, I got through college without having social media and then even years after that without Instagram. And I can't imagine growing up in these formative years and seeing what everyone else has and what you want. And so I just think it's really interesting and like how to

also use it to guide you you talk about. Yeah. This is my favorite chapter. I think it's the most potent chapter. And it's funny because it was also a part of the genesis of the book in this comment that Lori Gottlieb had made where she says that she tells her clients to pay attention to their envy because it shows you what you want. And it was just a small mention in her book and maybe you should talk to someone, but it was one of those moments I just couldn't stop thinking about it. For two reasons. One, I had this immediate, like, I don't have any envy. Gross. Ew, like, oh, you know, I would never, right? I would never. Which was full of information for me of obviously I do. And then also I realized, like, I don't know what I want, actually. I have no idea what I want.

So it started a little bit of a healthy crisis in me as I really thought about that. And when I asked her about it, when I asked her about envy and how you can sort of sense that it's present, she talked about how we tend to deprecate each other. You know, you have all this bad feeling and you want it out of your own body. And so you put it on the person who's, making you feel bad about yourself. So that's the instinct to sort of say, oh, she bothers me. I don't like her.

Who does she think she is? Oh, her book sucked. Clearly, I'm envious of the writer of this podcast magazine. Why I'm criticizing his writing. It's actually full of information because the person is grading on your nerves or tormenting you because they have something or they're doing something that you want for yourselves. And so I think that the reason that this is so,

rampant amongst women in particular is because we're conditioned to think that envy is bad. So we repress and suppress and deny it. And we don't have any comfort of working with it and saying what dream is being pushed on right now. What's trying to come through me? What's alive in me? And the more comfort we get with that process, I think the less we place it on another woman by criticizing her. And the thing is, because you hear it all the time, right? Like she just sucks. I don't know. I can't cite any behavior, but I just don't like her. Some people do suck. Some people do suck. I was waiting for you to say it. No, and you're completely allowed to dislike people, but I bet that you could say,

oh, I really hate that woman. I find her demeaning. I find she's really insulting. Like, there's a name it. Yes, yeah. Well, I think about it, but we do have it really good. I would never go on like any internet forms of read horrible comments about myself, but nobody really leaves terrible comments about us. We're really lucky. But every time I see one, I think, like, why am I bothering you so much? You could just ignore me. Exactly. You don't, Ashley and I would cease to exist if you decided to not listen to our two-hour show per week. Well, and you can usually dig a little deeper in the comment. So you're so full of yourself, while you don't like that I'm confident. You know, you have this in the book too. You use a,

you use an example of this like kid on the sidelines at a soccer game, basically, that all the moms were like, luck at her. And it was just like we like don't like big, confident, big, big in terms like big personality, taking up a lot of space, confident women and things like that. So it's kind of funny. You can sometimes see in the snarky comment or the email like where it's actually stemming from that I'm bothering you or that someone is bothering you. It's pretty easy when you start, when you get a little bit more literate and actually figuring out what's happening in your own body, what's this discomfort that this person is making me feel? And then when you're on the receiving end of saying, does this land, is this something I hold against myself or is this someone else's

rejection. And if you just start that type of hygiene even, it can be so helpful. And I'm glad you mentioned pride because some of the sins really bend up, they crash into each other. So pride and envy are closely correlated. And in working on the book and talking to women, there's a lot to say about pride and what we do to women who dare to be seen in our culture. But I would hear frequently, oh, I didn't want my promotion announced because I don't want to inspire any envy because then I have a target on my back, et cetera. And then what I'd also say,

which I think is so important about envy, and I write about this in the chapter on greed, but this toxic myth of scarcity, which is real for women. Often there's only one person at the boardroom table, there's only one, et cetera. But we've been trained rather than sort of identifying all the men around the table

and saying like, oh, well, I'm going to take your spot, we're just trained to focus on the woman and dethroning her. And so when we see a woman who has something that we want for ourselves, our instinct is to say, oh, because she has it, I can't have it too. Right. Rather than, oh, like, these guys have a hit podcast. Like, I'm going to see what they're doing and I'm going to try and have a hit podcast too.

Yeah, I mean, I love that. And Ashley and I always credit Nikki Glazer for this because she's this really famous comedian. and we had her on the show, and she promoted it so heavily. And I love that she doesn't come from a mindset of like, because you get a thing, I don't get that thing to. And I just was really inspired by her. And Ashley and I have always just lived our lives in the podcast of like lifting up other women, I hope, and promoting them.

And we were on tour promoting another female comedian's tour. Her name is Heather McMahon. Like, I just, I want to live my life like that. And only good things have come to us because of being like that. I don't think that the podcast didn't suffer or tour didn't suffer because we uplift other women that do what we do. I'm glad you brought this up because I think it's massive, exactly what you said.

And men understand this and going straight into sort of the world of podcasting, and you guys operate on a different level than I do. But you look at the men who typically don't really feature women. I don't know if you've ever audited. I've done an audit of popular men's health and wellness shows. It's like startling. It's like 8%, 10% of their guests are women. but they are exceptional at promoting each other.

Yeah, it's like this boys club. It's a boys club. I think they're all in a WhatsApp. They all help each other. And their dominance only grows. They've only benefited. They've all gotten bigger, my virtue of sharing their audience. And there's just no corollary on the side of women.

I want to say a couple things. Nikki is also, I thought about Nikki, she's very open about being envious. Yeah. And she will openly say, I have to mute that person, because I don't want to see it for my own mental health. And I think there's something to that too. But I like her openness of like, I'm envious, but she's also probably a person that lets it drive her.

And I really love what you said about not knowing what you want. So using the envy as a guide, you know, I think there's so many people out there like, I don't know what I want. It's like, who are you jealous of? Yeah. I like that you said they're all kind of tied together. And those, the envy pride and greed really ties into kind of how I see people treat celebrities, too, or anybody really in the public eye. talk about flying too close to the sun, which is something that Jamila Jamil, who was somebody

we've had on the show, and she talks about a lot how we just like bring women up to tear them down. And you just can't, you have to stay in your lane and you can get as big as you want in that box, but don't try to break out of it. And just the things that we do to women in the public eye, it's like sickening. It's stunning. And it's such a playbook. And we all experience so much Chadenfreude, you know, like joy plus harm when we see that happen. It's like it gives us a visceral kick, I think, because of that. Who does she think she is? I would never let myself be seen like that. I would never let myself be celebrated. I would never try to fill an arena with bands. And it's such a vicious cycle. What I relate this to is like you see a lot of podcasts specifically,

like if you read like reviews. In the beginning, they're all positive. And then after a couple years, every single review is, this used to be good. They've changed. You've changed. It's every female podcast I've ever read their reviews. The second people hear an ad you've sold out. Oh. What is this supposed to be for just... Let me just make no money forever just to make you happy. I just, I think it's so interesting because I see this a lot.

Even in podcasts that like crime junkies, they don't even talk about themselves. But like people will write stuff like this used to be so full of themselves about all female podcasts. And it's hysterical because it's like, I'm just supposed to stay less successful to make you happy. And some people do change. And some people become different than when they started. but Rayne and I've watched this throughout the years with our own and with everyone else. Like it really is also a formula there.

And then the way that people want to tear women down, the second they see that you've gotten some success. And I feel like we have more women though unapologetically saying they want to take over the world, which I think is great. And, you know, actually being like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do all the things. And I think of like the trifect of like Taylor, Beyonce and Kim Kardashian. Yeah.

And like I just, I think they are three. And I think I don't like to talk so much about celebrities because that's not. relatable to the average person, but it's the language that we use surrounding them. And it's, but this is what I think is so interesting about what you said. They're not relatable. And so I think that what we do is we watch these women, these famous women, and I chronicle the ascent and dissent of a few of them, but it's so easy. I mean, you could just think of any woman and you can see the trajectory in which she is celebrated until she hits a point of relevancy and then we decide collectively that she's too big for her britches or she needs to be put

back in her place or she's had enough and then we destroy her. And then sometimes we wait for the comeback, hashtag free Britney or we revere them, you know, Amy Winehouse or Billy Holiday or Princess Diana after they're dead. But for the most part, it's just a trajectory that we can see. And then we say, well, they're famous. So we can't really relate to them. But the reality. But the reality, is it's a playbook for the rest of us. And that's the cultural norm setting to which we then all have to abide. And so you look at female founders. You look across culture and this is the pattern. It's the same pattern. It's just not as visible as what happens to Anne Hathaway, right? Or years after her, Jennifer Lawrence. But it's repeatable. And I like also what you said and going back to Nikki Glazer talking openly about her envy because the way to change the culture and the way to change the norm is for all of us to push against it and to talk openly about our envy and to start to diagnose it so that other people know what we're talking about and to be openly proud of ourselves and to refuse to go away when people decide they've had

enough and we need to be quiet. I love that. Like I've had this fear with Taylor Swift of like it's too much. Now she's on Monday night football and like it's going to be this over exposing. But then she's the time person in the year being like, I don't give a fuck. I was just there to watch my boyfriend play football. Like, she's in her, I don't give the fuck era. But she also has the whole, the Swifties. I know. It's in response to that pattern recognition that I don't know enough about this to pretend,

like I know what I'm talking about, but I'll try. But the Swifties, I feel like they formed as a way to defend and protect her because they knew that otherwise this is exactly what would happen to her. Absolutely. I do think that it's changed a little bit. I know it's not like cool to say like boss babes anymore. It's embarrassing. But like,

but like, But. I just, I'm going to take talk about in the culture. No, MLMs ruin that term. I feel like boss babes would still be cool.

Right. Everyone who didn't sell like a pyramid scheme product didn't start taking it. Right. If you have 3,000 Instagram followers, you're not boss babe. Okay. You don't get to own by just that.

Just that virtue doesn't make you a boss babe. But I do think that like the term diva doesn't sound as bad as it used to. I do think that women are talking about their success. But yeah, it's not a popular thing to talk about your money, your need for attention, your success. And I wrote this down that we say like it's coded as negative for women, but we revere men. Oh, yeah. Like I think that like we come down on women so hard. This like, you know, they used to be different.

They've changed. Nobody would blink twice if a man was like, my money, my cars, my Rolex, my bitches. I mean, that's every single man on earth. And no one cares. Exactly. So I think it's like fun and special to have women be like, I did this. Yeah, I did this. And I don't get, fuck what you.

So when we go to pride, like pride and greed, like how do we shift that to work in our favor? Is it like basically at the end of the chapter and I can even find? You kind of write like a final quote of like how do we reframe pride, reframe greed. Yeah. So I'd say with pride, and this goes back to the envy and the wanting, that, and this might be too woo-woo for some listeners, but try to stay with me. I would argue that we're all uniquely gifted, right? there's a reason that none of us are the same. And I'm good at things that you're not good at.

You're far better at things than I am. And we are all here to bring our gifts to bear. And not wanting, that knocking on the door around what you want, I think is your soul saying, pay attention to this. This is what you're supposed to do. So walk in this path. And I think the way to re-evaluate pride is it's essential that we all, particularly at this really fucked up moment in time

when it feels like everything's in crisis, it's imperative that we all show up and that we all bring our gifts to bear and that we get in touch with who we are and that we stop wasting time, you know, keeping each other and ourselves small. Yeah, and like you said, refusing to go away. And I also think,

understanding where it comes from, you talk about this, was she like a newscaster, or a news anchor and beloved, always booked and just refused to take a compliment and just, you know, always wanted to like dim her light. And she understands that it came from childhood and like getting a lot of attention. What is a child? And her mom being like, don't, you know, make other people jealous and don't make your siblings jealous. And, you know, I think recognizing where that comes from too and being like, that wasn't fair that I was taught that, you know, at a young age to like not shine as bright. Yeah. And I think that every woman I know has learned this lesson and maybe less,

over ways, but the thing that's typically easy for you or where you really shine, where you have ease and grace, often that's what's sort of pushed down so that you don't make other people feel bad, you know, be humble, stop showing off, don't get a big head, but you're really doing what's in many ways easy for you, right? And we all want to be seen, we all want to be celebrated. It's very human, right? Totally. Yeah. I remember I was talking to a fan. family member about all the stuff that we've going on in the tour and something. She said to me, like, you don't have to ram it down everybody's throat how hard you're working and how much you're going on.

And I was like, huh. We get it, Kim, you work hard. You said the other, the whole season is just the Kim works hard. How hard. Kim works. I'm here for it. Single Kim. Ashley really loves Kim Kardashian.

I've always loved her. Kim Kardashian Esquire. Ashley is the president of the fan club. I fucking love it. And people would be like, oh, she can't be a lawyer. she did a sex tape, it's like, oh, I'm sorry, now she wants to help people that are underserved. Like, why can't she? Like, I don't know. I didn't used to be as much of a fan, but I'm like, she's really proving that you can do whatever you want. I'm jumping in there with you. What she's

built is amazing. I love that people think that you can just become exceptionally famous and build a billion dollar brand that the two are just somehow both easily achieved. Right. It's amazing. Courtney's not impressed. Courtney's like, I'm going to take a nap. I need a nap. And a salad. Okay. No, I remember this moment. It was like very pointing for me. I was just talking about what we had going on.

And like a woman in my family said to me like, you don't need to ram this down to every's throat. And I was like, huh, why shouldn't I be able to talk about what I have going on in my life? I'm not inflating anything. That's just my life. Well, okay, I actually, that comment of brat, you're bragging. Of course, some people can brag, right? It's a tone, it's what you're saying, but like, you know, someone said to me, like, all you do is brag about your relationship. And it's like, I'm just talking about it.

This is a sex dating and a relationship podcast, and that's a person I have sex with that date and I'm a relationship with. What do you want me to talk about? Like, so it's like, that girl should check herself on like, why do I feel like Ashley's bragging? Like, what is that triggering in me? Because I am not. No. I am just sharing. And it is really good.

So it's like sharing good things automatically gets turned into bragging somehow. You know, because bragging, that hits different. You know, you know, when you see it, you know. Yeah. No, it's that discomfort. It's what you're triggering. I know that's an overused therapy word, but whatever isn't in her that she is feeling as bad, uncomfortable, I need to get this out of my body and I need to place it on you.

Well, you are triggering it on that person because I was sitting here reminding my own business. You felt triggered. You came to my job. and said something to me. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, men are a huge problem for women. Don't get it twisted, you know.

But I think, like, when we talk about, what we want to talk about is, like, we want to serve women by sharing these things. Like, these things that you could be feeling or doing, you can use them to, like, better your own life as opposed to just, like, saneming things and giving negative energy into the world. I don't want to minimize the role that men have played. But I think that what we tend to do is look for the place to place the blame, which is on men or other women who are grading.

our nerves rather than identifying it in ourselves. And this is what I would also offer. Yes, we have really problematic systems and a problematic culture in this country. Yes, this is very much a patriarchy. And women have been outperforming boys in school for a century. Women live longer. We're more physically durable. We're out earning men and degrees all over the place. We're out earning medical degrees, PhDs, you just look and you'll see evidence of women's excellence. The book is essentially about how we outwork men and outperform men. We're better negotiators. We're actually better investors. It goes on and on and on. And part of this is from the fact that we've had to learn how to survive and thrive in a world not built for us besides our own excellence.

I write about this anthropologist, Ashley Montague, who wrote this piece in the is called the natural superiority of women, which is funny because it sounds crazy, but he's like, actually all the scientific evidence is here, so you can't refute this point. Point is, we have it in us. If we can figure out how to get on side with each other, if we can figure out how to get out of our own way, watch out. I don't really think the men are going to be a problem. They've actually convinced us to just be a problem for each other. Yes. They're like, we're going to see ourselves out.

We've done enough here. You guys break the place. We planted the seeds, you guys. Harvest the crop. Oh, God. That's so funny. I just love that you're like, men are not going to be a problem. As soon as we figure this out, men better watch out.

You're just not. I mean, women are like boxers. You've been training at high altitude. And you talk a lot. I mean, you're a white woman. We are white women. And I really, you do speak in the book about like women of color and marginalized communities that like you speak on it. You're not blind to it.

You know, obviously we can only speak out. And it's pernicious and it's real. Yes. So I wanted to acknowledge that too. I wonder like I do like sloth and I want to go back to because women are just trained to like never take a moment for themselves. And then if you do, I mean, mom shame. I'm not a mom. You can relate to it more. But at least not Ashley. Just feeling like you have to work and raise the kids and everything falls on you. And like if you ever voice like it's too much I don't want to do this, you are the devil. You are a lazy mom. You're a terrible mom. you're a terrible mom. I think we've come a long way in like the self-care era.

You know, I think Gen Z has helped here, you know, with the take care of yourself and don't overwork yourself for some company you have no tie to and self-care and be, you know, bed rot. I don't really relate to the bed rot, but like that's a whole thing too. Like, I don't know. I think we've made some strides, but I, the moms are like a different animal because that really is still, you really are supposed to do it all. Yeah, it's insidious.

because one, there's endless doing that needs to be done. And then there's just so much anxiety and there's no certainty, right? And so when you have kids, you're convinced, and I think our culture convinces you, too, that there's a way to create that certainty by just being a really great and present mother. And one of the other things, I mean, this gets into sort of patriarchal history, but is this idea that's so pervasive and not true, which is that women have a choice. and by choosing to work, you are abandoning your children and that you could choose differently.

Well, the reality is, you know, we talk about the 50s. People have all sorts of nostalgia for these single-income families, right? Where the mom was Leave it to Beaver. That was a reality in this country for a decade and it was captured by TV, but the reality is in order to stay in the middle class, you need a dual-income family.

This idea that women, men could not work is not real. And I personally need to work and I want to work. But the way that it's been fed to us as a choice that, yes, your work outside of the house is extra credit because you're really, you know, violating gender codes by not just being a mother is so insistent still and so wrong. And there are so many families led by single mothers too. But it's sort of the double whammy of You're choosing to work, and now you need to pay the penance of your absence by doing even more for your children and at home. And what about people that like to work and find value in it and want to find value in themselves and fulfillment outside of their family? And my mom said to me, like, your father made plenty of money, but I would sit in on with this fucking baby all day.

She didn't call me a fucking baby, but I was. I was a fucking baby. And she was like, I would just sit at home with you all day and just talk to no one. And she was like, I was dying to go back to work after six months. and talk to anybody all day. And my mom was a great mom sacrificed a lot, but had to go to work for her own mental sanity. And I promised you it made her a better mother.

Yeah. Leaving the house. But I mean, if that's not your story, then that's fine too. Yeah. Totally. If you don't want to work and you are able to not, you know, and you're still going to be a great mom. Like, it just, it's not everybody's true.

It's like there's just no proper or right way to do it. And many people don't have a choice, right? So then piling on with the anxiety certainly doesn't help anyone. And you talked about sort of that subhead, the myth that mothers matter more. And that's what's also so pernicious. And any same-sex couple just inherently proves this wrong. And you listen to like Esther Perel's podcast and you listen to her doing therapy with same-sex couples. It's like those dynamics exist regardless of gender, right?

There's usually one parent that's put in a more primary position and the other person has a bigger life. of the home. But dads are great parents too. Yeah. But you had like scientific evidence that like they have the same instincts. And the oxytocin soars. And yeah. There's just so much maternal gatekeeping. Again, that's like you should really be the primary parent. And when if you guys have kids, you will get that programming that your partner really can't be trusted to change a diaper or feed the baby. Did you mean us? We're not. Never. Doing that. No. Probably not for me, but definitely not for actually. I think...

Actually, always brags about how she doesn't want kids. It's not a bad choice. I think about a girlfriend of mine and I like... I mean, this conversation just lives like rent-free in my head. She's married to somebody I've known since I was like 12. I've known her since I was like 19. They have a son together. And she was going to take a trip to, I don't know, Arizona or something.

And I was like, for five nights, you're going to leave your son with your husband? And she was like, I refuse to live a life where I subscribe to this. That my husband cannot get him up in the morning and put clothing on him and get a where he needs to go, and I'm not going to live my life subscribing to that because I'm never going to take a vacation alone again. I love that. So important. I think about it all the time, and it's true. Like, I look at her husband who's incredibly capable, one of the smartest people I know, was a great athlete growing up, a great student. He will be fine with his kid. He's an adult. Yeah. I tell the story in the book about a good friend of mine who we were magazine editors together,

and she really wanted to be a playwright, and she got a job as a writer on Nurse Jackie. And she got pregnant accidentally. They were married, but it wasn't. wasn't planned. And when her son was born at like, I don't know, not many days. I mean, maybe like two weeks, she needed to be back in the writer's room. And her husband's also a screenwriter. And he was like, go, you go. And she had messed. I mean, it was a mess. Two weeks. That's inhumane. It was slightly inhumane, but she did it. And I was like, what happened? And Jeff, to his credit, he was like, it was a disaster. And we survived. I think she even had to maybe go to L.A. They were living in New York.

And they told me this story. And before I had my first child, because they were like, it was a great lesson of he's a better parent than I am. Like, ensure that you have a co-parent, like that you are pushing your husband into that primary, if not close to primary position so that you have equity. They can do it. Yeah. And they get a lot of confidence. Yeah. Create redundancy so you can leave the house.

Yes. Can we talk about gluttony and women's bodies? I'm so glad. I wrote this thing down that like we... Girls got to eat, guys. I don't know if you know that, but... It's problematic. No.

My body has like, it's been like the number one thing on my mind always. Like I said, it developed really young. And so I started taking diet pills to try to be really skinny. And I just, I always thought like about my body and how I showed up. And you wrote we congratulate ourselves when we resist the donut in the office break room. And the fact that we like, congratulations. congratulate ourselves when, like, you wanted something. So anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah. I mean, this was probably in some ways both the easiest and the hardest chapter to write because it's the most obvious and pernicious way that women are corralled and the way that we police ourselves. And it's just so big in culture, right, that you have to have a conforming and abiding body. And it's like every time we somehow seem like we're pushing against that or breaking that, it comes back with the vengeance.

Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about that. Like the, you know, I've read think pieces and, you know, TikToks, of course, about it. Of like, was this body positivity movement just fake? You know, because now we're back into this like skinny is in bullshit, all of it. You know, so like killing your appetite through OZMPIC, which I know is a life-saving intervention for people with type 2 diabetes and people who need it should absolutely, well, one, have access to it. But this idea that you could just cut off your appetite is so sad to me that that's where we're at.

That so many of us would rather have just actual medicalized, distaste or disinterest in food. And listen, no shame. Ashley and I are like the number one people that are like, do whatever you want through your body. Like why are people commenting publicly on if you're an ozepic or not? That's totally whack. It's insane. And also all these people that have gone on it, I understand why, because people have talked about their bodies for so many years. I was saying to Ashley. Ashley we posted something about the daughter of a real housewife.

And she was really heavy. And people made comments about that for years. And now she's on Ozempic, maybe, I don't know. And people are making comments about that. And it's like, you go on Ozempic as a response to what society has already been saying to you about your party. And it goes back to even this idea of potty positivity, right? That like the body is so charged for women. It has to, you have to be positive or you, you know, there's no neutrality. It's so consuming, so front and center such an essential conversation for women in a way that's, I think, devastating and a waste of our time and energy, you know? And I'm with you because as much work as I've done and I don't weigh myself anymore and I have really tried to unleash myself after being punishing and terrible to myself for most of my

life, but this idea of just like, can I just be at peace? And like, how do I get there? I don't know. People are at therapy, their whole lives for it. And I remember, I mean, I've had disorder-eating issues my entire life. And I would go on a juice cleanse every five minutes. I'd start juice cleanse five days a week. And I said to Ashley, we were in Cancun two years ago. We were on a cab over to the airport. And I said, I think this is the first, like, beach trip I've ever taken where I didn't, like, obsess about how I looked and have a meltdown and think about what am I going to look like in front of other people. And like, I got there finally. But it's taking me my whole life. Like leading up to a beach trip, I would have been like obsessing

over like, are my hip bones protruding enough? Like have I been eating really bad this week? It would have been on a constant loop in my head as I've gotten older. I've been a kinder to myself. But like it's a lifelong struggle to feel like I don't have to be so mean to myself. Yeah. I know. And one of the things, this one helpful reframe for me was when I was writing the book, my best friend from college was sending me photos of our spring break trips. And I was looking at photos and I was like, God, I had a slamming body. Like, I looked amazing. And guess what? I thought I looked like shit. And so I am not a reliable narrator of my own experience or appearance. And I just not allowed to pass judgment on myself anymore. I love that. I feel like that's a

meme of like when you look back at times you like thought. I wish I was as fat today. I wish I was as fat as the last time I thought I was fat. I love what you said about it's a waste of our time. Who came out with this recently. Was it like Brooks Shields? Bruch Shields had a big moment. Yeah, she was just like, I'm sick of doing this. It's a waste of my time. I love, so boring. It's so boring. It was a waste of my time. It's a waste of my fucking time. It's a waste of my fucking time to worry about my body nonstop. I relate to this so much. I think about how much this has occupied my time and my self-hatred and every moment thinking about like every bite of food I put into my body. And it was a waste of my fucking time.

I looked amazing. I didn't like myself then. And I'm 20 pounds heavier than I ever was back then and I look great and I'm just, I'm happier now. Yeah. No one has been weirdly relieving for me. I'm sure you guys have watched naked attraction. Thank you for bringing this up. Ashley hasn't talked about it in two weeks. I thank you so much, Elise. This is her whole personality. I am so glad we kick the ear off like this because I have taken two weeks off. It is my whole personality. I love that you brought that up. That show was so empowering. Isn't it? a viewer and for the contestants on the show. Everyone.

You think they'd leave and be like, that was brutal. Instead, they leave and they're like, I feel more confident than ever that I just was out here with my pussy out getting critiqued. I watched that show and I was like, I have a perfect vagina. It's amazing. I'm so proud of me. I was so, listen, okay, from somebody who has had three breast surgeries to look how she wants to look, I'm allowed to say one thing that was God given was my little

vagina. I'm totally kidding. No, I know. It's just very funny. That's your takeaway. It's your perfect pussy. I'm proud of you. No, but it's fascinating. Yeah, what do you want to say about it? I mean, just the variety is incredible and the people's preferences and what they're into. I find so refreshing and unexpected. And I don't know. I've found the whole thing to be, I mean, I'm not going on naked attraction. I'm married and I'm in my fort. Nobody wants to see that. But I'm like, I could do that. And I think I would have a validating experience. No one's to see it. I mean, my husband wants to see it. But it goes to sort of the like the point.

as someone who has valued, prioritized, venerated, really thin bodies and wanted that. And I'm a tall person. I'm not someone that anyone would ever call small. You know, I've never been in that person. Yeah, same. I'm not petite at all. To watch, too, that like, almost invariably, like, the skinniest girl gets kicked off first. Have you noticed that? Yeah. It really is fascinating to watch. And I want to tread lightly. Like, because we don't want to. like have our bodies be like for men. You know what I mean? But if you are a woman and you're a straight woman

and you are looking for a male partner, you know, you're thinking about it. What is going to make me attractive to somebody? But you realize how little they care about like super thinness, I guess. Apparently it does not rate. And it's part of it, you know, because my husband's always like, what are you talking about?

And like I like your body a little bigger and da-da-da-da. And I'd never take him at his word. And then as, you know, I'd probably 20 pounds. heavier than I was before I had kids. And then watching that show, I'm like, oh my God, he's actually telling me the truth. And then some people really want somebody thin, and that's fine too.

You know, for the women are listening, they're like, wait, don't like skinny shame. Like, one of our best guy friends, if his wife gets too thin, he'll start sending her pizzas. He hates it. He is just like, I want her pregnant body back. Like, every time I say that I'm in a workout class,

he launches in a mile, don't get too skinny. I don't like it when my wife gets too skinny. You've got to have an ass. I'm like, I took a workout class. This isn't a problem. He's like such a good friend of ours, and I don't want this to come across wrong, but he'll sometimes be like, has, your ass is smaller.

And he's like, I don't like it. And I'm over here like, I feel so skinny today. He reminds me that like, don't do it. You know, he doesn't like when I take one workout class. I'm not fucking him. Yeah. Nobody points to how insidious it is. And I think, yeah, I don't want a skinny shame.

One of my best friends is like, she can't gain weight. So I feel sensitive. Totally. On her behalf. And everyone is constantly trying to intervene on her. you know, and it's like, oh, leave her alone. I mean, that's the reality, too. It's like the way that we think that we should be able to influence the size and shape of our bodies

is actually so strange. We do have, I guess, some modicum of control, but you can't change the shape or size of your feet or your penis or your hands or, you know, like there's so much that we can't, we just are who we are and yet we spend most of the energy of our life trying to be. be different. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, you write about how pointless, if that's the right word, like dieting is.

Don't you? Didn't I read that last thing? Yeah, yeah. Like, it's like a fool's errand, essentially. It's a full errand. Well, the way you break it down isn't interesting. Yeah. Every diet intervention is a failure inherently.

Like, you're never not on Weight Watchers, right? Like, it's rigged against the player of the game. Mm-hmm. It's not actually achievable. You're never there. There's no there there. Where is there? Yeah, right.

We had an instructor from Peloton on, and I think I was talking to her about it during the episode, but working out was the thing that, like, made me actually start to accept my body so much more because I was like, I'm working hard to be healthy. I haven't lost a ton of weight. I'm probably the same weight that I was most of this podcast. But I know that my body is how it's supposed to when it's the healthiest. I eat pretty much what I want. I eat healthy, but mostly what I want, and I work out.

And I'm proud of the body that I've achieved because I'm like, this is what it's supposed to look like, unless I make crazy extreme changes like, Ose, Zay. But like, I'm proud that I worked for this and I know that I'm healthy and this is how I'm supposed to look. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked with Dr. Amon about this too of just like the food you choose to eat that makes you feel good. Like sometimes it's great to indulge and whatever you want to eat is your business. But, you know, we do things that kind of we're punishing ourselves.

So I think like part of like, would you really choose to love your body, you can do things that make it feel good in terms of like health-wise. And I think that's the answer. Yeah. And distinguishing between the two. I mean, for example, I went to an event for my book last night, and I got home at 930, and I hadn't had dinner, and I'd made my kids turkey tacos, very gourmet. But at, like, 1030, I was, like, pounding whatever, a bowl of turkey taco stuff with, like, sour cream and cheese and chips, and I, like, pounded it. And then I, I know, it was delicious.

And then I had half a pint of Jenny's peanut butter, chocolate chip ice cream. Oh, what a night. It was great at your house. I know. But I was like, oh, that was delicious. And then I actually, I woke up this morning and I was like, oh, I feel really bad. I almost felt like hungover having not had anything to drink. And I was like, okay, I can differentiate now that I actually feel a little physically unwell versus shame.

And I've like gotten rid of the shame. And I was like, oh, I shouldn't do that. I should have had something a little lighter at 10 o'clock at night. And I don't feel well, but it's not because it's emotional. Yeah, I love the distinction. I mean, I like my body more than ever. I really don't deprive myself. I listen to my body.

I really practice intentional eating and I indulge here and there. And yeah, sometimes I eat too much and feel sick. And wake up, we went to carbola and I was like, I have a food hangover. I didn't even drink that much. It doesn't even drink that much. For the next time. For years, it was just like so extreme. It was just like indulge, you know, binge drink, binge eat and then have to die.

Like it was just the highs and lows. And a lot of that's being young, I think I outgrew some habits. I think I looked back and realized times when I was. eating because I wasn't happy, and I think you can reflect on a lot of that as you grow up. I don't know. I just kind of worked on it a lot to realize my relationship with food, but I really love what you're saying of being like it wasn't that it was shame. Like we can't, you know, beat ourselves up. Yeah. And I learned a lot from James Clearer last year. We had him on. And he talks about, you know, your habits and how to change them. And that like, just because you do something

for a while doesn't mean you can't pivot. And I used to feel like, oh my God, it's 10.30 and I've eating all this food. I've drank two glasses of wine and I'm drunk and I'm going to eat the whole thing in the refrigerator and I wake up the next morning and be mad at myself. And now I wake up and I'm like, okay, well, I did it. I'll work out today or I'll take a walk or I'll not fucking be mad about it and think about it anymore. Like, this isn't my whole personality now that we stand in front of the refrigerator with no shirt on and eat everything in here. Like tomorrow I'll make a different choice and I won't be mad at myself about it. Yeah. Well, I think we've been fed this idea and I've been working on a special series on my podcast about addiction and going into sort of the moderation

movement and how often people get to abstinence, but this idea of moderation is so much less terrifying to people. But it also gets at this idea that you're out of control or you're in control. Like, you're practicing perfect abstinence or you're a full-blown person with addiction. And that's how women treat ourselves with food and our bodies as well. It's like I write about Janine Roth and her work with women and eating and compulsive overeating because she talks about how women, all of us, are on the spectrum of permitting and restricting all the time and that we treat ourselves like we're crazy people, that there's some maniac inside that needs to be sort of guarded by a prison warden that's going to get out and just like eat the whole content of the refrigerator.

But this is like, this is what's in our minds that if we aren't checked, if we're not disciplined, if we're not writing ourselves really hard and watching ourselves, that we'll be just out of control, out of control with our eating and our sloth. And it's a terrible way looking at ourselves rather than like, I'll be fine. I know. That's really how I used to live. I'd have to plan.

Like if I was going to go on a vacation or a bachelor's out, I knew I was going to go so hard. And then I would come back and then just feel like a different person the Monday after, you know, just like couldn't fit my clothes. like sluggish and everything. And now it's like, no, you can live a life that feels that's more moderate than that. Yeah. And I don't have to come back from a thing.

You can trust yourself. Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. I think that's kind of a theme of a lot of the book, you know? And I think that like going to the new year, it's just important to remind yourself to like go a little easier on yourself and be kinder to yourself. And we talked about this a lot this year.

It's very like L.A. Wu. But like your body hears the stuff that like your brain tells it. Yeah. And if you like look at yourself all the time and you're like, I'm out of control. I'm not doing enough. I need to work hard and get better everything. Like, you hear those things about yourself. You believe those things. They become true. And the more we say it, the more true it becomes to us. Yeah. And when I was pitching this book before I started writing it, some of the editors who I spoke to about it were thought it should be a stunted book, right? That I should spend a year of my life being

lustful, gluttonous, lazy, et cetera, and write it sort of in that vein. And I was like, I don't think that's the point. It's extreme. It's extreme. And the whole point. And the whole point, of the book is rather than suppressing and denying and restricting and ignoring and maligning all of these instincts that make us human and allow us to have contact with the world, right? Like eating and drinking and having sex and experiencing our bodies, rather than pretending like those instincts and desires aren't present and real, like bring them into balance. You don't have to go wild, but you also can't deny that they're part of who you are. Well, that leads us into lust.

Lest. Yeah. Can't relate. I never have any lust. I have a pure virgin. No, it's like, that's a funny. She's a drunk slut, and so is I. You can only be one or the other.

There's just two extremes as women. Drunk slut. Like virginal. I just, I wrestled with it a lot growing up. I've been these stuff. People were just like, we get out of you big boos.

But like, I just, I looked really lusty as a. Were you something? sexual or were you just sexy? No, I was just sexy. I had a lot of attention from boys and you develop an interesting relationship with attention because you're getting a lot of attention for this, but it's not attention you really want, but you like the attention. But it really informs how you act in the world. And then, yeah, I was a little more sexualized than other kids, I think, because of stuff I saw in like chat rooms on the internet and stuff. And I started masturbating earlier and yeah, like girls called me a slut for how I looked and I don't know. I think that that's so

huge because you mentioned at the beginning this idea that girls and women are taught to be desirable but not desiring. And I think that we're also conditioned to believe that we should be sexy and be objects of desire, right, but not actually be sexual. I think sexual girls and women are terrifying to the culture, right? We actually, we don't want to see a woman who's really in her body who knows what she wants and is like, I want to fuck, right? It's becoming more normalized now, thanks to people like you and Emily Moore. But for the most part, there's still so much stigma around, yes, be desirable, be an object of desire, care about your body, et cetera.

But like, I don't want to hear about your conquest. I don't want to hear about your appetite for men or women. It's a strange twist, you know, I think for women where I would like to see the opposite, like highly sexual, highly embodied women who really know what they want and can talk about it clearly and ask for it and demand it who are less obsessed with appearing sexy. This is the thing I think that makes men mad more. Like in what I see on the internet You know Doing what we do Me doing stand up

Like this is when you see the men Get into the comments or you know Get into the messages of like how dare you Say you want to fuck I don't think women really subscribe to that as much My girlfriends are like I love hearing your story Tell me what a slut you're being

You know I think we've championed that Women to women More in the last year We've championed Yeah it just seems like Men are bothered What do you think that is

That we don't want to fuck them? No, I'm kidding. It's like very, like, in-cell behavior to me to, like, comment on women that are talking about sex. It's like, as a female stand-up comedian, it, like, makes me feel crazy. It's like, the comments are just... They're like, that's our thing. Yeah. It might be intel.

It might be that they're not. I think some are. Nobody wants to have sex with them. I think some are. I mean, a lot of it is just, they're really bothered by it because of the way they were brought up. Women are supposed to talk about this. Like, they're just supposed to be kept women and not be sexual and, you know, sleep with one partner. it bothers them.

I think it challenges their belief system of what a woman should be. And yeah, I think that the way that the women on women hate or the problematic behavior pattern for girls and women and sexuality is when we don't believe women or when we say like,

what were you wearing and how much did you have to drink and going to this idea of, in our culture, it's a woman's responsibility to keep herself safe and patrol her own body. And women are set up as,

the babysitters of these, the rapacious male desire, boys and men aren't responsible. They can't be trusted. They can't control themselves. Sure. So it's your job, which is actually insane. Totally. Yeah. I wrote down a line you wrote that we live in a culture that will offer women no protection when something has happened, that we shame them and call them slots and blame them and we question their accounts of everything. And I do think the Me Too movement has like really been big in moving that forward. We do believe women more today. But it's, It's been a struggle. It's a struggle today.

It'll always be a struggle. It's moved it forward, but, like, statistically, like, just the stats on rapists is, like, keeps me up at night and how little they ever see jail time, punishment, anything. I mean, it's, like, staggering. So I just, I mean, I could, it's like the thing that kind of, like, enrages me the most. I'm not seen you're not wrong. But, yeah, of course, I feel like we've seen men be a lot more careful. Yeah.

You know, I think that they were like, oh, no, I don't want that to happen to me. I guess I'm not going to be raping anymore, you know, like, be like, but, like, be a predator anymore, but I just, it still is not in our favor at all. No. It's been like a down and dark turn, but it is. I feel like in the meet-in-me, you saw women come out and defend these men that were doing this. You saw Milakunas come out and defend Danny Masterson.

It was insane to watch. Yeah. And I don't know, I don't know where the point I was getting at was, but yes, I do think it's moved the goalpost, but I think that there will always be more work to do. Always. Forever. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what else Ray and I even have to say, other than, like, own your sexuality.

Like it's such an essential energy, right? And it's the source of all of our creative energy as well. And I think so many women, and I speak of this, you know, from personal experience of being dissociated, shut down. And so many women have experienced trauma, myself included. I'm sure probably you guys as well. And when you're dislocated from your body and when you're scared to have that sort of attention, there's work that needs to be done. Because honestly, like, when you're in the presence of people who know how to run their sexual energy, whether they're having sex or not, there's a vibrancy and an aliveness that is cross-contextual, right? These are people who are alive. And we all deserve that level of aliveness. Yeah. I agree. And I'm proud to be somebody who's really, I am who I am. And I'll stand on a mountaintop and say that.

I'm as sexual as I want to be. I say what I want. But, you know, I'm older than some of our listeners. But I'm really proud that Ashley and I have built a community where we just, we are exactly who we are. We show up as who we are and we don't really make a lot of apologies for it. And I want that for other people. But that's been hard and I think about it all the time and people will say stuff to you about it. But I am proud to be the kind of person that just I am what I am and you can take it or leave it. I'm not going to apologize for it. I think you are so much like that. This is born this way. Right. I'm like, I'm talking about. Okay, so the final anger, which we touched on a little bit, but let's chat about angry women. So angry women are amazing. Anger is an essential animating emotion. It's how we articulate our needs. It's where we know that a line has been crossed. It's that energy that says, don't tread on me. And women really need to get in touch with their anger because righteous anger changes the world. And what's really interesting, I was just interviewing.

the Gottman's actually, and John Gottman was talking about research, how anger, when they've looked at sort of the left and right brain hemisphere, he always thought anger had to be a negative emotion or too dangerous. But it's actually an approach emotion. It shows up on the same side of the brain as there's the emotions that are sort of retreat, like disgust, fear, sadness, and then there are approach emotions. Joy, anger. Interesting. An emotion that makes you curious and makes you want to engage with the world. Joy and anger, my primary emotions. Excellent.

Yeah. So you're well-schooled. Joy is literally my middle name and I'm just constantly fighting with everything. So anger. It's a rollercoaster of joy and anger. Yeah. We just need to use our anger productively and use it well and not be so scared when people are upset.

To your point, like if we didn't get angry, we would make no change politically. Like if women didn't get angry, like, what would we be doing if women ever got angry in the history of the world and we're so. provoked that they took to the streets, did whatever it took to like get our equal rights. And even now, we're still fighting these battles. But what would it be like if we didn't? No, and you even said got angry. The reality is we are angry, right?

It's part of who we are. But what too often happens with women is that we internalize it. And it becomes depression. I think it becomes disease in some instances. And it needs to come out of us. We need to process it. Doesn't mean we have to land it on other people. There are ways to express.

I talk about nonviolent communication. So instead of saying, I hate you, you didn't do the dishes, you know, blah, blah, blah, you say I'm upset because I'm needing some more support. And if you could help me keep the house clean, it would really go a long way. Great. We'd love an action item in a way to say things. I feel like we talk a lot and we want to tell our audience, like, that's how you say it. Use these words.

Exactly. You bring it back to yourself and you state your positive need that needs to be met instead of putting someone in the blame seat. It would go a long way. I love that. Seriously, it's just like for a while, it'll be really great for me if you do the dishes once. Yeah. Yeah, I love that language. Okay.

Well, we covered a lot. We love this energy for the new year. Yes. Yes. Don't apologize for who you are. Yeah. Be just kinder to yourself. Take a nap.

Be sexy. Get angry. And then yell at them. And make them through the dishes. And be bad. Just recognize we're all bad. We're all good. We're all bad.

We're human. Yeah. Love that. Elise. I'm so excited. Okay. Well, Elise, the book is out.

Yeah. You guys can get it. And whatever else you want to plug. If you want to follow you on social. So honor best behavior, available wherever you get your books and audio book. And I have a podcast pulling the thread. I have a substack.

Elise lunen. Substack.com. And I'm on Instagram. Elise Lunan. And I theoretically have a TikTok account, but I haven't been on there in a minute. Okay. And you know where to find us. Girls Gotta Eat.com.

Hit that for no tour dates. Hit it. Hit it test up point. Hit the site if you want to check us out. And Girls Got to Eat podcast is on Instagram and TikTok. I'm Ash Hess. Raina's rana. com.

Of course, YouTube, subscribe, show this episode with a friend. And grab our sex. toys embrace your sexuality at vibes only.com and we'll see you next week. Happy New Year guys. We love you. Happy 2024. Bye.