It Could Happen Here - At The End of Hope: Self-Immolation In Tunisia and China

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Robert and Mia look at the wave of self-immolations in Tunisia and its role in workers protest in 2020's China.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app Hey everyone, Robert Evans here, back to introduce It Could Happen Here, part two of my discussion with Mia Wong of the history of self-immolation protests. We'll be starting with Tunisia in this one and then moving on from there. So please buckle up and listen in. But I will move us on to talking about Tunisia, which is the last place we will talk, self-immolation protests. Oh, I want to end, I guess, a bit. I want to end, after you talk about Tunisia, with one in China that kind of worked. Oh, okay. Well, that'll be nice. So, there was a, you know, Tunisia existed for most of the, like, 21st century under a dictator.

21st century under a dictator. This state of affairs changed for, unfortunately, a fairly limited period of time on December 17th, 2010, when a young man, he was 26, Mohamed Bouazizi, went out to sell fruit. And, you know, Mohamed lived in a very poor region, a very poor part of Tunisia, the city of Sidi Bouzid. It's about 100 miles south of Tunis, which is the capital. And like a lot of people, you know, in that part of the world, it is not uncommon, particularly for young men, because unemployment is so high for young men to kind of make their living doing a mix of odd jobs and like odd vending, right? Where you're just kind of like selling whatever you can get your hands on and think that you can make a profit on because there's not jobs in the traditional sense. And because political corruption was so horrific in the state at that point in time, it's one of those things where most everybody who's out there selling shit on the street is breaking the law by doing it, right? Because you can't get the permit because the permit is basically a bribe and you can't afford the bribe, right?

That's how a lot of this stuff works. So, you know, Muhammad kind of prior to this, he had been, you know, his friends, when you read interviews with people who knew him, he was always like one of these guys who was like really upbeat and funny. His nickname basically meant like funny man in town. And this had started to change like friends noticed like a couple of years before you know 2010 when he's in hits his mid-20s and starts getting into his late 20s that he's like it is impossible to get by as a young man there are no jobs for us there's no future i i don't feel at all like I have no nothing to be hopeful for. Right. I think a lot of people. Yeah. And can understand, empathize with where he was coming from.

So he goes out to sell fruit. And this municipal inspector, Fida Hamdi, sees him, realizes he doesn't have a permit and takes his shit. Right. And there are accounts that he like hits him to basically is like, what the fuck is wrong with with you you're not paying your goddamn bribe and like smacks him around so this is kind of the breaking point uh for was easy uh he goes to the police station because he's got like this scale that he's using to like weigh out fruit and stuff that he wants to get back it had been confiscated he like can't work without it and they tell him like fuck you you're not getting shit back so he says like i want to meet with the governor and like plead my case to the guy in charge. And they're like, fuck you, the governor doesn't want to see you. So at about 1130am, he takes his cart outside of

the governor's office, he pours, I think lighter fluid, something flammable over his head, and he lights himself on fire. His cousin gets a call, Ali Bouazizi gets a call, I guess from someone who was nearby and knew them both and was like, Muhammad just lit himself on fire in front of the governor's office. And Ali runs there, sprints over to the governor's office with his smartphone, and he gets there in time to record his cousin's body being taken into an ambulance. Protests start up after this. Almost immediately, people take to the street.

I think it's just everyone is living under the same regime. They're living under all of these fucking corrupt-ass officials. Everyone pieces together this. Yeah, and it's worth mentioning this is also a period of massive increases in food prices. Yes. Which are one of the big like if if you if you want if you want your protest to work like spark plus pricing food prices great way to get it to happen yes so you know the spark catches fire uh protests start up and they do not uh calm down part of why they don't calm down is ali was easy stays out in the street he uploads footage of his

cousin's body to Facebook, and he takes footage of the protests too, and he just starts sending shit to Al Jazeera, right? So all of this footage he's taking winds up on television that evening, and by the next day, other cities in Tunisia are holding protests. And this is the kind of thing where it's like, we all saw this, obviously with a different cause in 2020. Sometimes something happens that's so horrible that the whole country takes to the streets. And that's what happens in Tunisia. So the president at the time, basically a dictator, Zine el Abedin bin Ali, does the normal dictator thing. He sends out, and non-dictators, we do it here too yeah he sends the cops out to beat the shit out of everybody right but he's also he he's you talked in when we were talking about vietnam about like the playbook and they didn't quite have it down part of the playbook is down because in addition to sending the cops out to beat the shit out of people he visits was easy in the hospital because he lingers for a while right and he also has the officer the guy who slapped was easy

arrested you know he's kind of desperately trying like maybe this will calm everybody down for a while, right? And he also has the officer, the guy who slapped Bozizi, arrested. You know, he's kind of desperately trying, like, maybe this will calm everybody down. It does not. Bozizi dies in the hospital a couple of days later, and the protests, which are known now as the Jasmine Revolution, it takes about a month, but they force bin Ali to flee the country for Saudi Arabia, and, you know, successfully bring an end to his regime and the return of a democratic system. There are functional elections for a while in Tunisia. They gain a significant amount of, like, political freedom. Like, there are some really significant inroads made in terms of, like, civil rights during this period immediately after the jasmine revolution but things also don't get better at

least not enough right this is generally seen tunisia as the start of the arab spring and if you know anything about the rest of the arab spring this was also seen as like kind of the successful case right like shit didn't work out very well in syria um or or in egypt but like bahrain yeah bahrain but here they got rid of the dictator and they gained a lot of civil rights and that's great the problem is that the the the other issues the high food prices the fact that unemployment is is at a nightmarish level the fact that corruption was a hideous problem in tunisia this doesn't just go away right because it's deeper than the dictator. The culture, whenever you have a culture of corruption like this, which is, by the way, it's not just the Middle East that has to deal with this, but if you've spent time in the

Middle East, one of the things that is really depressing is how massive and absolutely different, by the way, from the kind of corruption that we have in the West, it is over there. The degree to which, and you start to care about this, not because you're getting fucked over as a tourist, because you really don't notice it much as a tourist. It's when you make friends in that country and you talk to them about like how many different people are constantly taking a little bit from them, right?

And often not a little bit. Like the degree to which regular people suffer because every single person who is quote unquote a government official is is just soliciting for bribes is that's so much deeper than any one guy in charge right that's something you can't just revolt your way out of yeah like one of my professors in college i don't know if he ever actually wrote about it but he's okay long story but he lived in egypt for a long time and one of the things he would talk about is like the is the the concept of like the oddly powerful bureaucrat so like his thing

was like the like the the the guy who sells you tickets at like the train station in cairo like that guy if you don't fucking pay him he can just say no and you can't get on a train and there's just like so many layers of like this guy who controls this specific thing and you can't get on a train and there's just like so many layers of like this guy who controls this specific thing and thus can fuck you over unless you like do what he tells you which is give money unfortunately we need to go to ads we'll be back in a second hola mi gente it's honey german and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game.

If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't

miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times

unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yeah. And part of why it's more durable is it's not like in you know i think in south vietnam you know when when dm was around you had a lot of you have all this corruption

but a lot of it is top down it is people who are loyal to the president right a lot of the corruption in places like this is bottom up in that it's not a situation where all of these men who are so loyal to the dictator have this corrupt position. I mean, that's part of it. I'm not saying that it's not, but a lot of it is that like, well, maybe it's technically my job to stop the guy who works at the train station from denying people entry if they don't bribe him. But if I that then maybe he's gonna make a fuss about how i'm doing the same thing for like permits to to to fix your roof or whatever right like there it's so much more bottom up in a lot of ways and so the reason this matters is that like shit doesn't really get better in tunisia right and now that the so while

all these problems continue corruption continues to be issue, high food prices continue to be an issue, unemployment continues to be an issue, particularly for young men. Another thing that's changed is that now everyone has seen what Wazizi does – has done. And obviously he dies horribly, but one thing that happens is his family moves to Canada, right? Right. Like they and this is I don't think fair to his family. I haven't seen the evidence. They were like corrupt or whatever. But like I think because of how like because they're able to like get out of this situation, it's seen as like, well, maybe if I do this, not only will it hurt whoever whatever corrupt motherfucker, you know, I'm angry at, but maybe shit will work out for my family. Right. This is often not what actually happens. But there have been hundreds of self-immolation cases in the last 10 years in Tunisia. It has become, you might compare it to kind of mass

shootings in the United States, not obviously on a moral level, you're not doing nearly the same thing, you're not hurting anyone else, but in terms of the fact that it is this really, really shocking event that then becomes kind of routine because people pick up on it as like, well, this is what you do in this situation, you know? One of the articles that I read for this was an AP News piece that interviews a guy named Hosni Kalea, who's one of the dudes, one of the many Tunisians who have attempted or succeeded in killing themselves through self-immolation as an act of protest. Hosni survived, right? And he did not survive without serious injury, right? Now he has to, he covers his face

at all times, his left hand, he's lost a bunch of fingers, his right hand has no fingers at all anymore. Like, he is just grievously injured as a result of this. And he said when interviewed by the AP, quote, I would never describe the act of self-immolation as an act of courage because even the bravest person in the world couldn't do it. When I poured the petrol over my head, I wasn't really conscious about what I was doing. Then I saw a flash.

I felt my skin start to burn and I fell down. I woke up eight months later in the hospital. And I found that really interesting because there's a lot of talk right now, you know, with what Aaron Bushnell did about, like, principle and courage or mental illness or whatever. And, like, to what do we credit something that is so incomprehensible to most people? And I found what Hosni says here really interesting because what he's saying is that, like, you can't even call it courage, you know? It's almost like someone else is doing it. You were animated by such rage and hopelessness that it's almost like someone else is in control of your body. And I don't, that doesn't sound

like mental illness to me for certain. That sounds like someone, that sounds like desperation of such an extent that it's mind-altering i don't know any other way to describe it than that and i'm not saying this is what goes through everybody's head when they self-immolate but you don't get a lot of interviews with those people after the fact right yeah well like there's some people who survive in tibet and it's like well those guys the the chinese government will not let anyone near them right like no you know and like i i guess i should also i should mention this about the chinese government line on this is that it's very similar to what you see in the american press it's like the well no you're you're seeing the

terrorist stuff too here but like the the chinese government line and this line works pretty well is like these people were mentally ill these people are terrorists um or they were like misled by like the dalai lama who's like leading his people to the flames yeah and that's been kind of the that's been kind of the playbook everywhere for this that like the one the one that kind of works is that one it's it's you have to attack the moral character of the person because it's such an it's such an act of it's an inherently selfless selfless yeah so the only way to do it you can't describe it anywhere else they're lighting themselves on fire yeah yeah so and so they like you know the the it's it's the the roger stone rat fucking thing of

attack them where they're strong and you know so it's the attack on the moral character that like happens i i think the thing with tunisia too is it's like like the political alternative to this is this like rabid anti-immigrant politics in a way that's like we'll talk about that in a second but yeah it's it doesn't end well one thing i do want to hit on is the degree to which again this kind of does function in tunisia as like a memetic virus um hosni the guy we heard from, survives, but his brother shortly thereafter lights himself on fire in an act of protest and kills himself, and his mother attempts to do the same, right? Like three members of the family all carrying out self-immolation. And it is one of those things, this is listed as like an example of the tactic succeeding, and it does in terms of it

gets the regime out of power power but things are not better in tunisia especially since so you know there is a period of time where there is at least a functioning democracy and significant gains for civil rights but because food still doesn't get affordable there aren't jobs a lot you'll find a lot of articles from around 2020 especially where people are like yeah i guess freedom's nice but it's not really worth much if you're starving, you know? Yeah. Which, you know, anyway, all of this leads in part to the coming to power of the guy who is currently leading Tunisia, Kais Syed. And as you noted, Mia, you know, this guy is a populist. He is elected with 72% of the vote. He frames himself like populist Hindu is like, I am, you know, I'm outside the system. I'm going to help you take on

the elite that have corruptly ruled our country. And he also is very anti-migrant, right? Tunisia, a lot of people who migrate into Europe do so through Tunisia, just for geographical reasons. And he is blaming a lot of their problems on, he does like great replacement shit, that all these black migrants are causing our country's problems. He inspires a wave of violence against black people in Tunisia that's pretty hideous and horrific. And he has gained a significant amount of backing from particularly the Italian government, I think also the French government, because he's cracking down on migrants, right? And those migrants come to Italy and France, and that's a problem for those governments.

So they're supporting this guy who, by the way, has turned himself into a dictator. All those gains Tunisia had in the wake of the Arab Spring, he has rolled back. He has centralized power. He has more or less destroyed the judiciary as something that's independent. You know, he is, if he's not a dictator, he's not all that far from it, you know? And he's being supported by these, these quote unquote democratic nations because, well, I mean, because racism, right? Yeah.

Same reason they supported Gaddafi. Like, yeah, when it comes to the politicians, it's a mix of racism and just like, well, racism wins votes. And when it comes to like why racism win votes, it's back to racism, right? Anyway, so those are, that's Tunisia more or less. votes and when it comes to like why racism when votes it's back to racism right anyway so those are that's Tunisia more or less unfortunately we need to go to ads we'll be back in

a second Hola mi gente it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias Come Again the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, pelic where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you.

We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with ch man laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo

actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Yeah, so let's end on a slightly more positive note where well so the line i was gonna give was a one about how like you know i mean this is the thing with tunisia right is like you have this like tunisia has effectively structural unemployment rates of like 30 40 percent right yeah it's it's and that's that's the thing that that's the thing that can't be solved without changing the economic system yep if you you know if you you can have your political revolution without your social revolution

you'll be right back to where you were in like 10 years the problem though the other thing is you can have your social revolution and also end up in the same place which is where we're going with with china where so one of the there's a very famous okay i guess the place we should start with this is that one of the... I've talked about this a bit on this show. One of the ways that labor works in China structurally is that you're a contractor, you work for a contracting company.

The contracting company is this series of shell companies, and there's a payday on New Year's, because that's when the year rolls over and that's when you get paid and so these companies are designed to specifically go out of business like the day before new year so they don't have to pay any of the workers for the work that they've done and this leads to a a rash of protests in china like every single year on new year on like

new year's day there's like this massive, there's this massive protest fucking everywhere because people have been screwed. It happens a lot with construction companies. And so one of the very common tactics you see is people standing on top of buildings holding banners saying, we're going to jump unless you guys pay us. And so that's kind of the background of this, which is that that's a fairly common kind of like workers' protest. In 2021, there's a delivery driver in Jiangsu who he... So something I didn't really talk about in the 10 episodes is that China's economy is increasingly becoming a gig economy.

And this has been happening for a while now. And so this guy is a delivery driver for Alibaba. And he's like trying to change apps. And the app garnishes his wages and steals 700 from him and that's an enormous amount of money yeah i mean the app garnished his wages is a sentence that just makes me want to light something on fire so i get why this would spark protests yeah and he like tries to get it back and they don't give it to him and he like And he lights himself on fire.

And this turns into... So he lights himself on fire, and then... This is in 2021. This is the same year where the Temu employee falls over dead, or dies in her bed from overwork, and also the same year when a Temu employee jumps off of the building because of overwork. And this sets off like a giant kind of shift in in the way that the chinese public is thinking about labor because up until

this one people have been you know like china it's it's not it's nowhere near as bad as tunisia but it also has this problem of everyone works harder and harder. You're working 9-9-6, right? You're working 9 a.m., 9 p.m., six days a week. And you're working more and more and more hours, and you're not getting ahead, right? You're still stuck in your shitty apartment, and your app isn't paying you for the work you did. and this leads to a whole like a whole thing that sort of culminates in in something i talked about a bit in the time of episodes which is the chinese supreme court like the chinese constitution says you're not supposed to be able to work people for longer than like 35 hours unless like special

circumstances and the chinese supreme court goes like well obviously you're not allowed to work people uh like 12 out like 12 hours a day six days a week and that isn't like in large part and partially it's because of the the the temu suicide and the temu um thing but the the other huge contributing factor to this and the other huge thing contributing to chinese society attempting to reckon kind of with their unbelievable overwork culture is is the self-immolation and it's it's what it's what it goes viral so fast that there's no way to sort of like cover it up there's it's it's you can't the chinese government can't really just press the racism button like they normally would because this isn't someone in tibet or this isn't someone in xinjiang they can't the chinese government can't really just press the racism button like they normally would because this isn't someone in tibet or this isn't someone in xinjiang they can't really do that and so they kind of are they're forced to make at least like

some kind of change because it pisses off so many people in ways that like can't really be contained so you know i i guess the lesson from that if there is one is sometimes very rarely you can back a government into a corner where the normal things that they would say about it or like the the normal like mental illness terrorists uh deluded things don't work because the the the the raw simplicity of what they did and why just breaks through the media sphere thing and it's again very hard to predict because obviously like this isn't the first within the last 12 months this isn't the first self-immolation the united states right and the last self-immolation attacked or not attack sorry i should jeez do i have a brain or what well the last self-immolation um that we had which i believe was was over climate change um oh there was there was a palestine one too oh then

there was a pass so i guess we've had a couple like two in the last or three now i guess in the last like 12 months or so but they didn't the other ones did not really move the needle. Yeah. Right? Why Aaron, I mean, I think part of it might have to do with, with how deliberate it was and how,

you know, it got, was very quickly picked up by local media and the national media. I don't know. That's, that's really outside the scope of these episodes, but I hope you at least now have more of a grounding in like how this has gone.

Other times people have used this as a method of protest and hopefully that's of use to you. Anyway, have a good day. Bye. It could happen here as a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com.

Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds

and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.