librarypunk - 050- Q4Q: The Queer Personals Podcast

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

We talk with Haley from Q4Q: Queer Personals Podcast about how they came up with the idea for the podcast, how sourcing personal ads works, how niche podcasting is the new Tumblr side blog, and what a research project on personals would look like. We also do a mini Q4Q episode!  Q4Q: Queer Personal Ads Podcast Come on Q4Q as a guest  Q4Q: Queer Personals Podcast (@Queerpersonals) / Twitter  Media mentioned:  Gerber/Hart https://www.gerberhart.org/ OutWeek Magazine  Moulin Rouge - Wikipedia!  Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator on Steam Boyfriend Dungeon on Steam Jesse Helms Out Week cover: https://imgur.com/a/flIDOJS

I'm small, smoke weed. Damn, son, where'd you find this? Smoke, smoke, smoke weed. Smok, me, dead. Small, smold, smold, smold, smold, weed. Yeah. Smoh, small, smold, smoke weed.

Yeah. Smog, small, smoke weed. Every day. Oh, I'm Justin. Small, small meat, every day. Small, small, meat, every day. Smote, dead. Damn, son.

I'm Justin. I'm a Scalcom librarian. My pronouns are he. him. I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library, and my pronouns are they them. I'm Jay. I'm a metadata librarian, and my pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, I am Haley. I'm a they them archivist. I work at the National Museum of African Art, and I am the founder slash creator of Q4 Q, the Queer Personals podcast. Welcome. Thank you. I like they, them archivist. That's a pretty, that's a good way to tie that in there.

Thank you. Probably not the first day-them archivist, if I remember correctly. No, I feel like archivists and librarians in general, there's a lot of they-themes that find their way into the sphere. But phrasing it that way. Instead of like, my pronouns are they-them. It's like, I'm a they-them archivist. Yeah, I got to put it out in front, you know, to just like center the they-themness before, you know, the job title. Because, you know, I am a person.

I don't even think you're the first they-them archivist we've had on here, I think. No, because the leather archives. Yeah. I listened to that one. Which is excellent. More they-them archivists, the better. I was wearing bondage gear during that episode. It was a shame.

It wasn't, you know, I didn't get a picture. Yeah, I know. You've still got it. Yeah, I could just wear it again. Yeah. I could just wear it. Arthur, are you hugging me with your tail, buddy? Arthur does this thing.

We're like, you know, in movies where the teenagers are on a date at the movies, and the one does the stretch and puts his arm over, Arthur does that with his tail when he's sitting behind me. You know, now that the Black Sails is popular, you can bring back the line. If you were a pirate, would you put your parrot on this shoulder or this shoulder? Oh, yeah, because there's like the comedy version of Black Sails that I have no interest. I love Black Sails. I haven't finished it, but I'm sorry, I don't want, I don't care about the gay pirate show. I haven't watched it. I love Taika. It's already reached peak. I'm tired of hearing about this and I didn't get a chance to watch it. It'll be like two years and then I'll watch it. I'm going to love everything about it. I studied pirates kind of, kind of tangential to the work I did. Yeah, I have that like pirates and sodomy book. Yeah.

I only know Pirates of the Caribbean with Kira Knightley, so. Yeah. Pirates are always fun because they live in this really weird stage of capitalism where it's like happening and colonialism's happening, but also no one can really enforce the international order because that doesn't happen until like the late 1800s. So yeah, anyway, I'm not going to get into pirates. Not my field, but it would be a fun field to do specifically.

but I did have to read some pirate primary sources for my thesis. So we're going to talk about the Q for Q podcast, a personals jaunt. How would you describe the show so I don't get it wrong? I would describe the show as me hanging out with a person. Most of the time they're queer or identify as queer. Sometimes they don't. And we look through old queer. publications and read some fun, dirty, sexy, creative, just plain bizarre, personal ads,

figure out if we would have written back to them and kind of talk about like how society was in that time. A lot of episodes are like cute or funny and other episodes are more like, we're going to dig into this like one thing, this one like maybe not so great part of the queer community that, you know, it, uh, I can't find the words for it. But like the, the, the type of, like some, some part of the community that isn't necessarily like the greatest. We want to talk about that too. Because, you know, we're all living in a society. We all do bad things. And sometimes we need to talk about that, you know. You got to talk about the mask for mask, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And you, from what I can tell from the

episodes, you tend to like, I mean, obviously you create themes, but it seems like whenever you're working on a specific episode, you're pulling from like one source at a time because it's all like the same geographical area and the same time period because these publications don't last that long. Is that a fair assessment or am I totally off? No, no, that's a definitely a fair assessment. I mean, it's for some episodes, I focus more on a geographical location, others I focus on the specific publication and sometimes it's I have a guest who is interested in a different theme that I have and it kind of spans all of those things and we try to talk about all of that at once which is maybe a little bit more difficult to cover in an entire episode but well they're also

pretty short too I mean you you pack a lot into like a short amount of time I've had a lot of Not a lot of feedback, but I've had some people talk to me about like, oh, sometimes when I'm listening to a thing, if it's over 60 minutes, I get a little bit anxious about like if I'm going to finish it or not. So I try to keep them under that 60 minute mark because even like the five or 10 minutes over sometimes can be daunting. And I feel that too sometimes. So I try to keep it within that minute mark. Ish. But sometimes there are like really great conversation. I don't want to cut out. So, like, we're just going to go and everybody's going to, like, just vibe with that. It's going to be great. I'll try to shut the fuck up. The hip-reboats of the recording. No, this is our episode.

We can go as long as we want. Yeah. The hogs will like it. Yeah. Big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big. Oh, by the way, Justin will do drops and he will interrupt you and just talk through him. Oh, that's fine. I love that.

He does them all. So where'd you get the idea for the show? Do you want to tie that into your work or how did it all come together? Well, my work, so I work at the National Museum of African Art in the Archives, which is specifically photographic. That's not really connected in large part with the podcast. In fact, it kind of came out of like the podcast itself came out of the pandemic. and getting a job sort of within a field that I wasn't necessarily specializing in. I love archiving, but I was like, I want to really get and dig into like the queer community,

whether it be in D.C., whether it be in my where I grew up in Indiana, whether it be like across the fucking ocean into all the other places. So it kind of like creating this podcast was both like a long and short game. I was very fascinated by newspapers and specifically queer ones and how they capture particular moments in time and just like the different moments in communities. And I was always using these LGBTQ sources in my research throughout grad school or undergrad, whatnot, doing different papers, et cetera. And personal ads always grabbed me. They were always like there during my research, but they were never like the focus. And when the pandemic happened, I graduated from my public history master's program into a pandemic. And I was like, yeah. So it like, I find a hobby.

I didn't have a job. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to do this thing, kind of relax, not make money. I just want to jump back into the research that I didn't have time for while I was, you know, studying for my life. And when I thought about research that didn't make me want to die, I was like personal ads. They sound incredible. So I started looking at different online sources because none of the physical archives were open and came across a lot of different, like, digital publications and just spent a lot of time going through screenshoting, being like, I could really do an episode. I could make a podcast about this.

I could conceptualize something where it's, I don't know, just thinking about the now and then the then the then and then the people, just being in love, wanting love, craving some kind of connection with someone. But yeah, that's my spiel. Yeah, I know that feeling. I was pretty unemployed after grad school for a while, and I just wanted to go back into doing the work. So it was...

Also, this podcast started during the pandemic, so... Yeah. I wonder how many queer podcasts started during the pandemic. Hopefully a lot. Or just podcasts in general. I hope so, too. No, I was kind of... When Justin first said that, like, we were going to be doing this episode,

I was really excited because I live in Washington and kind of Seattle adjacent, especially when I was growing up as like a young teen. And me and my friend would always try to get our hands on a copy of the stranger. Have you heard of the stranger? I haven't heard of it. It's where Dan Savage kind of started. Yeah. So he had the Savage Love column in there and there were personals.

And that was like the two reasons we would grab it at like a fairy dock or if we were or anything like that. So it just brought all of that back. I was like, oh yeah, we used to just like read those in like the very, very late 90s early aughts.

It was like two. And she's queer too. And neither of us knew it at the time. Just like pouring over these personal ads like as we're writing a ferry to go into Seattle for whatever reason. So yeah, I'm excited for this. That's an incredible gay culture right there.

Yeah, I think, um, that grad school time, sorry I'm still on this, but it's like a weird time in your life because like that was when I started, I convinced I was a grad assistant and I convinced our special collections to move to a Tumblr blog so that we could just post all the cool photos of shit that we found instead of like, because before it they had a blog on the website that like the dean made them right and they all hated it.

And we were like, why don't we just post these photos that we're scanning and emailing to each other anyway and having fun with? And I remember, like, Tumblr was a little more active back then. So you'd find, like, graffiti blogs and just like, so I can totally imagine this as like a Tumblr project where someone just finds old articles of personal ads and just like making them. But you made a podcast, which is the Tumblr of the now. Yeah. I would love to hear more about blog and how much interaction it had in terms of, yeah, just I want to see like how people like that resonated. with them because it's super fun. I know that the leather archives also has been posting a ton of personal ads lately within Twitter and Instagram because I've been following and retweeting or

putting them on my stories and I'm like, oh. I love the leather archives Twitter because it's so nice to just be like in line to get a try latte and to see like a leather daddy and to see like a leather daddy, you know, it just perks your day up. I love seeing a butt during. like my waking hours. I thought it had a drop for butts. Sorry. No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me. What the fuck is that from?

It's from Sonic. I think one of the TV shows. Oh, he's got to go fast. Okay. Yeah. He's a cool dude who isn't bothered by copyright laws. I love that for him. I wish that were me.

It can be. It could be. You're right. Yeah. No one owes shoes. No, I'm kidding. Well, huh? And the weird anarchist who's really into copyright law.

Like, to break the rules of it, but I'm a nerd about it, too. Yeah. I feel that. Yeah. So you mentioned finding sources for the show, like, mostly digitized stuff, but have you, like, stumbled across things in your work that you're like, oh, I could pull this out? or is it all just like based on what can be digitized because that's always tricky. Yeah.

I mean, I will say I haven't gone to a physical archive like to look at any sources yet because of pandemic and also time restrictions on my own life. But I did come across. There's an interesting there was an interesting wrinkle. And in fact, you guys have heard of the Lex app, maybe. Oh, yeah. Very complicated. Has a history in the On Our Backs, like the person,

Cal faced it off of old personal ads in the back of On Our Backs. So I was like, let me look at On Our Backs. Sounds great. Probably online. They are not. They used to be online in like the Revealed Digital Archives, which was hosted through J-Store. Now they're all, I mean, they're digitized and through Brown University, but they're not online because of privacy issues.

And I was like, that fucking sucks. I hate that. But then I was reading this, I think it was a Tumblr blog, of like a woman who was, or is a lesbian, but who is, like, interacting and had a lot of her friends post for the magazine and was like, you shouldn't have these online. like back in 2016, my friends posed for this magazine didn't realize it was going to be online. Like, and now they have families and lives and jobs.

Like, it kind of sucks that you have these out here for whoever to do whatever with them. I was like, that's a fair, I guess that's a fair point. Anywho, so I did end up, like, contacting one of the Brown University librarians and was asked them about if they could just send me pictures of the personal. as I said, you can cut out any personal information you want. And she did. And there were a lot of good queer shit, you know, of course. Have you been in contact with the Gerber Hart at all? I have liked and retweeted a lot of their stuff.

I know that they just started their own podcast. And I've been there before. Yeah, it's like an opening. I did my grad practicum there. Oh, really? Yeah, they have a shitload of, newspapers and magazines. I like spent like the last few weeks of my practicum just helping them get rid of duplicates. So treasure trove like definitely hit

them up. So I live my my hometown is northwest Indiana like on like the region that is next to Chicago on the same time frame. So I have been I went there for the opening of the Gay is Good exhibition but I haven't been there since. Because it was like my, I was like, I want to be gay and go to this archive museum. And then I immediately moved to D.C. afterwards and was like, I can't go back. And what a bummer. But it's an incredible place. All volunteers. They're only open on like weekends. Yeah. Jesus fucking Christ.

Yeah. It's magical. It's only like a few blocks away from the leather archives as well. Okay. Yeah. They're in like the same little part of Chicago. The queer, the queer little spot. Yeah, it's like Rogers Park. It's not the Gaperhood or whatever. No.

Whatever that means. Really? At this point. Well, Andersonville is like the Dyke Center, right? So I don't know. Anywho. So I'm curious, I'm not sure how long ago you started. I think I heard of the podcast within like a few episodes.

But in the episodes you've done so far, what kind of feedback have you got from people? Yeah, I consistently ask for feedback from like various guests, from Twitter, from whomever. I mostly get feedback from my fiance when I'm just cruising for a bruising, asking them to, like, hurt me. And so, hang on, I have notes because I can't remember all the things. Okay.

Justin, you are on that drops today. I don't know if we've had this any drops in a while. Sorry, that was on repeat. I was just trying to time it so that you could talk over it. But we'll do that. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll do that bit later. I got intimidated and just said,

I'm just going to sit right here and listen to the music. No, no. So anyway, so the people that I asked me on the show do tend to echo that they enjoy, like, the window into other people's lives. and like that look at the language that other people use to describe what they want or they don't want or like a lot of the feedback also has been like oh yes like gay men love sex or lesbians are more flowery with their language which isn't always true it's just like I think I kind of just choose the ones that are like really out there and then it just kind of happens to be that

But yeah, once again, my fiancé instructed me one to stay under one hour because, you know, people and thinking about getting intimidated about time. But also like, yeah, it's, I think I haven't, I mean, I've gotten a little bit of feedback, but it hasn't been a lot. I've only been at this for like a year. I have like about like 30 to 40 like genuine listeners. And most people are like, seems great. But yeah, most of them are just like, maybe turn up your sound a little bit more. I'm like, okay, but like, give me something. So, yeah. I know you always mention, like, the dating apps these days. So, like, how are, do you think, like, dating apps are working for queer folk? Like, we've got the who's swiping bit. I will say, I haven't been on a dating app since 2018, 2019, because then I met my partner and we fell in love and blah, blah, blah.

But from talking with other people who are still using the dating apps, it seems that it's obviously like a hit or a miss. In terms of like comparing them to personal ads, obviously one of them is more text based. And so like Lex is very comparative to like the personal ad in some ways, except that nothing is really weeded out because there's very little editing that happens there. And then the other one is like you see a picture and you get the age, the gender of a person or pronouns and then, you know, location. When I did my trans episode with Dan Griffiths, he talked a lot about how trans people experienced dating ads and how it was like either like fetishized or like kind of difficult to break into or interact in certain ways. I'm not, like, quite getting, like, the multiple nuances that he could go into because he wrote an entire dissertation on this whole thing. But, yeah, I don't know who's swiping. We all swipe for different people, you know, love in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah. I feel like dating apps are the worst. Yeah. I'm married, so I have never had to use a dating app, like, seriously. and recently I was going through it was a Tumblr that was just like it was it was a tumbler of posts pulled off of our Tinder

and like screen caps of conversations and all of this stuff and a friend of mine had sent it to me one that was IT related got a good chuckle out of that and then I ended up on this blog for three hours scrolling through all of these tender conversations and it was some of the straightest shit I have ever read. And like some of them too were like straight up like, you know, straight up transphobic people.

And then people are like, I don't, I don't see a problem with this. Why did this person get mad? And I'm just like, I can't, I can't imagine. I'm so grateful that I don't have to do dating apps. So yeah, it seems like it's a straight man's world for worse, no better. The last time I was on a dating app was like, around this time a year when quarantine first started. And I was like, I'm going to try being on Grindr for the first time because people can't come over.

So I'll just see what it's like. And it was just a bunch of like libertarian weirdos. And then like also my pool was limited because it's like I work at a university near here. And I'm kind of young. So, you know. And then I haven't been on one since. but on Twitter, all the, like, trans leather dykes that I follow always make fun of Lex ads. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's how I mostly know about Lex's, like, trans leather dykes being like, what is going on. No, that makes sense. I think also, like, there's so many fucking personal ads, like, there's so many different dating apps. Just like, whatever, like, none of them quite fit the bill. Like there's Tinder and Grindr where it's like, oh, you want to fuck? Go ahead. Like, sounds great.

Let's connect. And then there's Bumble where it's like the powers and the females' hands. And I'm like, I don't want it. And there's like Lex's like queer non-binary folks, which is fine. But then like there's no kind of regulation of like what is posted. Because it's kind of, I mean, and sometimes it's like nice because like it's not just romance. you can look for friends or like, like, roommates or whatnot. But then like it becomes Facebook and like weird and, I don't know, in its own way.

Or somebody just posted on Twitter that like, I'm going to start writing poems on Lex and like write a story and see who else comments on the story. And then we can like do that together and like, please don't do that. But also I guess do whatever you want. I don't know. It's interesting to think about how gay dating or just dating in general has changed and not changed. And that's what my whole podcast is about. Like literally just hasn't changed. It's the same old shit, different era.

Maybe there's less pictures. Well, I feel like people don't, like, I feel like this would be an interesting, like, in library science because there's a lot of studies and research projects and everything. Like to this day about like information seeking behaviors. And I'm a metadata person, but info seeking. I've studied it a lot in my research. And I feel like people don't talk about like,

I mean, maybe I've just not been looking recently, but like dating apps as a form of like information seeking. Like there's like definitely behaviors that go in there and there's like types of information you're looking for and the ways that you parse information about whether or not it's good. Surely someone out there, if you can think of a study or something about information seeking behaviors of like dating apps, please send it to me because I want to read it. If not, I will do it. Yeah, same. I would love to hear about that too. Yeah. Justin looks like pensive.

Yeah, I was trying to figure out like how you would do that study, but I can't really figure it out. Yeah, I come up with these ideas and I have no idea how I would do them. And I'm like, that would be neat to study. I guess if you like took certain words, like if you scanned a lot, like a ton of personal ads classified ads and took certain words and like what people were looking for and like in terms of like age, sex, location, just to go off of that classic AOL shape. Yeah. Or it's like, I feel like I've started seeing or like I started seeing like the types of

emojis that gay men use on Grindr on Tinder now as well. Like they're using like like their semiotics of like this emoji means this that normally was reserved for grinders also in like Tinder now. Yeah. What's the term a sapian language when you're you're changing around? language in order to avoid filters and stuff. Oh, like the kids on TikTok saying like Unalive and Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's called a Sopian language. That's cool because it's so weird to see it happening in real time. Yeah.

And we used to we used to always make fun of Chinese social media like 10 years ago for doing that. They're like, oh yeah, mud grass mud horse. Ha ha ha ha ha. On a live view. But the one thing I do like about the podcast that always, like, the company. up a lot because I think about it in terms of like having been on the apps, although I absolutely hate them and just refuse to use them now. But it's like whenever a personal ad was like, I will reply to you and I will send you a photo back, but it's going to be prepaid postage and you

got to give me time. But like clearly people are just like already sick of just sending out responses to personal ads and just hearing nothing, which is kind of like also the dating app problem of like you're trying to talk to someone, but like you'll match and you don't talk or on Bumble. It's like you've got to wait for the timeout thing, which seems weird. Yeah, I don't know how it is and like the other end of dating because I've only been doing like woman seeking woman or like friend, even though I'm not like I don't necessarily identify as a woman, but you know, you got to do what you got to do. Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

What did you say again at that? Oh, just like the radio silence, like people being sick of just, it's like clearly coming through in the personal ads that people are sick of like having no responses. Yeah. Because like the whole like crazy because you send a reply through or you're like, hey, you're cute on a personal, or in the app. And you're like, all right, I've waited a day and they haven't replied back. And you're like shaking and sweaty and like maybe. they don't like me. And then like 20 years back, it was like three weeks have gone by and haven't heard a reply back from Josh. Uh, fuck. I guess he doesn't like me, but maybe also my

letter got lost with my nude in it. That's not great. But okay. I don't know. It's, yeah, gotta hate it. Yeah. And also working out like what people wanted because they're like send photo, but like what does that mean? Does it mean like a headshot? shot or like a nude or like and it's completely unclear from the context. There was that amazing Tumblr. It was like, rate my dick pick where you could send this woman your dick pick and she would rate it based on like the composition of the photo and the lighting and whatnot. So not necessarily like the dick itself, but like how good of a photo.

I love that. It was incredible. It was perfect. It was so good. Yeah. That's incredible. Before Tumblr outlawed porn, porn, quote unquote. Yeah.

They banned the nipple. Female presenting nipples. Yeah, yeah, female presenting nipples. But then every ad becomes how to get your balls as smooth as possible. Okay, so you've been noticing that, too. No, I've only noticed people talking about. The algorithm has no idea what it wants. The Tumblr ads keep trying to sell me spanks and bras.

Like, they have no idea who I am. No, it's just showing me the ball shavers. I'm going to look at my Tumblr right now. It's been years since I've been on that site. Me and Justin and Sadie are trapped. Yeah. It got kind of good again, though. It did?

Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's no port on there anymore, but, you know. Half of the time, that's what I use it for. So I'm like, so I, there's no, why go back? Yeah. The sponsored post thing has been interesting. They started, you know, you can, you can pay to get your post sponsored for a certain amount of things.

And yeah, there's been, there's been some pretty hilarious. Like, it's just people boosting their own shit posts. So it's, yeah. Which is great.

Which is fantastic. Getting the money it needs that way. That's hilarious. Yeah, I've done that on Facebook. That's, that's always fun. I was just,

like, trying to learn how, like, Facebook ads and everything worked. So I'd, like, put, like,

10 bucks into it. And I was like, how can I craft my ad? to for whatever. I don't even remember what it was. That's what my mom did for a living. She worked at one of the places that so when you are a brand and you want to get ads on Facebook, it's not actually Facebook that handles them. They outsource that to another company. And my mom was an account manager for that. So if a brand wanted to like have ads and stuff, so not just the random ad here or there, but you know, they were a company and they wanted to put ads on Facebook and like have a

page and everything, my mom would like be one of the people who managed. their page and so she would get like free swag and and whatnot like my um so do you have a ton of facebook shit in your house right now don't ask me why i have a metal screw uh no so she died a few years ago so this is before the meta thing but i have this like you know oh yeah thank you this like waiters corkscrew from wines that rock oh no i have what i call my gay capitalism shirt which is a pride at Facebook and it's like a spray can. I have an Instagram shirt. That's perfect for pride in any city.

Yeah, yeah. She got to go to the Facebook campus for Ad Week one time, you know, just Capitalist Hell. So yeah, so that's how ads work on Facebook is there's someone outside of Phoenix, Arizona. in like a, you know, boring office managing that shit and getting like free swag. Nice. Yeah. I love that for them, I suppose. Yeah.

Yeah. As long as you get like, you know, I've had this wait. I've had this waiters corkscrew since like grad school maybe. Like the knife, like the foil cutter's little dull now. But like, it's pretty solid. You got to sharpen that. Get yourself a knife cutter. Yeah.

Knife cutter. A knife sharpener. I mean, technically. Cut those knives. Cut those knives. Cut those. knives. Inter-slice those knives.

Yeah, that's what always happens with a foil cutter. Is you just like you lose your box cutter for the mail and they just start using the foil cutter because it's all you can find? Yeah, that's what I use my paragon knife for. Yeah. Okay. So we thought it would be fun to do a mini episode of Q for Q. So I have loaded up your theme music and I'm just going to let you take it away from here real quick.

Hello. and welcome to the Q for Q minisode. Today we will be looking at ads from the Outweek and NYC magazine posted on outweek.net. The full 105 issues are also on this website from June 1989 to July 1991. So everyone, the questions that we're going to ask ourselves along the way are would we swipe left or right and a yay or a nay? So left is the name. So left is the nay, right is the yay. Is it any wonder then that I've chosen not to learn the intricacies of an antiquated and idiotic system?

It is a wonder. Who would we think would go well together as a couple? Or maybe there isn't anyone. What do we think is the context of the ad, the town, the city, the state, the paper, and how that affects the ad? And what generally is going on here? I'm excited. I'm excited too.

I was that child who would watch the game show network where they would show all the 70s shows where they were just like asking couples what they did when they were fucking but using coded language. So like I am here for this. I'm excited. There is some code and language.

Yeah. I've got a good bit for this first one. So would you mind if I read it or? Please fucking do. Okay. Wait, but first can I give a little bit of, sorry, can I give a little history

of Outweek just to like prime our little minds. This will be quick. It was closely affiliated with Act Up, the AIDS campaign for you know, people actually understanding AIDS and safety.

Both of the ads are from 1990 or the three of them are and they are printed under the underneath of the rest of the classifieds with below the model slash escort service advertisements into the right of the business peddling phone sex lines.

The cost is $1 per line. And you also had a seven line minimum. So you had to fill up that space. So that's why these ones are longer than like a typical one that I would have chosen. All right. And Justin, get at this. Wait, so they called in all of these ads. No.

These ones, I think these ones were written in. These weren't called in. Okay. Because I don't think I would have access. I don't know. Maybe. Okay. I've got the perfect voice for this one, so...

I love this one so much. I tested this earlier, so hopefully this works. Man, meat monster, local sex animal looking for young muscle dudes into long, obsessions with soothing fish oils and sandbacks. Must like Gregorian love chants and extended vacations in humid climates. Swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right, swipe right. I fucking concur. I am so curious.

I'm gory and love chance. Soothing fish oils and sandpacks. Sounds like he's into some tantric shit. Yeah. It sounds like somebody who would fuck in Asana and survive. I am impressed. And I like, is this person still looking is what I want to know. You might as well write out week box 32180.

Oh, right. I'm doing it. maybe the box will still be in order. And there are different boxes. So it's not like a PO box. It's like a reply box. Yeah, it was set up by the newspaper. It's like your campus post box.

Yeah. That's so cute. Exactly like that. Except I think most of the time you had to pay for it rather than it was included with your like $5,000 room and board. Oh, we live in Hellscape. But yeah, I just, thank you so much. Justin for reading this in that fucking crazy voice. I love that.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Venom movies. I'm not a like, what is it? I'm not a young muscle dude, but everything else. Okay, so I looked up what sandpacks were and I couldn't find anything official, but I did find Urban Dictionary, which, you know, lies to you all the time because it's full of people trying to make-up slang that like never existed. But apparently this refers to sex on the beach, which is something we talked about in the last episode. And Jay was the only one who was in support of it.

So I feel like the swiping right works perfectly. This is my new boyfriend. Wow. Man meet Monster. You can hear the wedding bells. Yeah, baby. Man meet Monster. If you're listening and you're still looking, I'm singing.

now. It's probably like a silver fox at this point. Oh, fuck yeah. That's even better. Or he's probably in Florida because humid love or humid love climates, humid climates, you know. Maybe he's an alligator.

I don't know. Love's extended vacations in humid climates. That sounds like a Yankee, which is why I have to swipe left because I just couldn't stand this person. That's okay. I'll take him. He's mine, Justin. He's not yours. I hate the humidity.

It's awful. I have to live in it. Why would I go there? I hate it. But I'll deal with it for the Gregorian love chance, you know. Which is ahead of its time, because this is before Gregorian Chance took back off, wasn't it?

Yeah. So, you know, you got to make compromises in any healthy relationship, you know? Hmm. Well, I wonder if it's like to go with like that sauna stuff. Right. Like, we love an extended vacation

in the humid climate. and, you know, maybe in the spa, maybe with a sand. I'm just expecting, like, this person to have, like, a glove of sandpaper, which is not the vibe. Or maybe this is, like, some, like, you know, gay slang for, like, being into armpits or something. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Which still swipe right. Yeah, like, what if human climates is a metaphor? I'm still into it.

It's hot. So anyway, shout out to the man-meat monster. Hope you found love. Me too. In Jay. Does anyone want to read the next one? I can read the next one. I liked this one.

Once upon a time, an attractive 27-year-old black woman awoke to discover herself a lesbian. Immediately, while laying in bed, she threw a party for herself. Believe it or not, the celebration continues. want to come. RSP with photo. I love this one, like awoke to discover herself a lesbian. Like,

it was just like, it was like a divine revelation and, you know. She immediately celebrated by masturbating a whole time. I mean, yeah, what else would you do? I'm assuming that's what immediately celebrating means. Yeah.

But I would definitely swipe right on this. She sounds like my type. I love the drama of it all. It's very operatic. She's telling a story, you know, a narrative. I could follow it. It had a beginning and middle. Not quite an end yet, though. You know, that's what the ends. It's for you. Exactly. It's enticing. I'm drawn in. Yeah. Does not mention travel, which is good. Loves to travel. Red flag. Loves the outdoors, red flag. Stays in bed all day. I've got to swipe right. I mean, this is my ideal partner. I love that for you. Yeah, just a sleepy person. Yeah. It's really good in bed in multiple ways. I mean, yeah.

If you spend that much time there, you know. Games in bed, eats in bed. Really good in bed. Really great in bed. Can I read the last one? This one was made for you, Jay. I know, I know. Hey, girlie, I love diamonds.

Show me your gems. Do you have a camera? I'm very photogenic and would love to develop a diamond-like affair. I'm just imagining Nicole Kidman and Moulon Rouge, like coming down, the fridge are glad to die for love and like, you know,

going into diamonds or a girl's best friend. Like, that's what's happening in this one. And I don't know if this is like the gay girl or like these are lesbians. You know, if it's like, hey girlie. or if it stikes, you know, either way. Yeah, yeah, this one would need some additional context because, like, who are you? I think we're all writing it, honestly.

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely a right, swiping, right, right, right. They do actually separate them into men seeking men versus women seeking women. I am just a bad archivist and didn't write it down. That's for us to decide. Yeah. I mean, it makes it a little bit more gender neutrally, though, if you want to worm your way into it. I love that do you have a camera? I'm very photogenic, not send me a picture, but you want to come take pictures of me? I love it. I have an ego and I want you to feed it for me. Yes. It's very high time-traveling into the past. Oh my gosh.

I love this person. I support them. Does this just show me your gems? This can be like anything. Because I kind of misread it and thought it would show me your gams. Your gams. At first. I was like, oh, this is old school.

Okay. Was this before, family? Was this before during the whole family jewels sling? I can look that up. The Oxford English Dictionary is your best friend. I feel like that's an old one, isn't it? Yeah. It's one of those things like Shakespeare would write.

Like, I kicked him in the family jewels, and then we all go, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's the sort of thing, he loves that shit. Don't give me that look, Jay. You know what he's up to. It was the laugh that got me. I can't hear my own laugh. Otherwise, it was perfect.

Spot on, 10 out of 10, no notes. Okay. I have the literature degree. Well, I used to get my friends around, and we would get drunk and read Shakespeare. each other. We'll call it having a shake. That sounds fun as hell. It is actually a really fun thing to do. Can we restart

that tradition amongst us? Can we get drunk and read Shakespeare together? That's my personal ad. I want to get drunk and read Shakespeare with me. That's hot. I can't get a lot of luck supplies. No, don't insult me like that.

I'm so glad we went to the same place. All the people that are like, I love lesbians and Afabs and not trans women. Yay. Yay. Stop being that way, Lex. Just let all the, like, leather dyke doms take over. And it'll be much happier place.

You should plan a takeover someday. Oh, yeah. I'm still not sure what a diamond-like affair is. That's giving me pause. Well, it's hard. Hard and shiny. Hard and shiny. Heart and shiny.

Shiny and chrome. I feel like this person would go well with the man meat monster just because... I'm this person. Yeah. Diamond like a fair, shiny, sweaty. I can just see that happening on a beach somewhere. You know, very glamorous. Yeah.

Yeah. It does feel it feels very sugar baby high femme-ishness. And, like, you could definitely be into some manned me. Yeah, this is the other like... If you like a vacation in human climates, you know? Yeah, this is like a high femme, or this is like a twink. Or that. Yeah.

A high femme twink. A high femme twink. You know, why put boundaries? I do... The naivist, in terms of camera, getting it... Like, I don't feel like a lot of people knew how to develop their own film. And I feel like film developing might be, like, expensive. So even that

element of it, not only the gems, not only the diamonds, not only the thing, she says, they say, camera, spend at least $20 on me. Oh, I'm just now realizing the double entendre with Develop. Oh, yeah.

Oh, this person's smart as fuck. They always are. It's layered. Hey, girlie. Hey, girlie. Oh my God I knew you were going to I knew you were going to do it

Sadie which were you swiping on this one I don't think you've weighed in Oh this one's This one's hard for me because I I don't think I can't swipe because I am this person Yeah I'd swipe right I'd have a conversation and see

See where it goes I don't have a camera though so It's like when I played dream daddy and got to Goth Dad, and I was like, wait, I can't, I feel weird. This is just me. I can't kiss me. Self-sess. Yeah.

There's a kink for that. I was like, although, you know, wouldn't rule it out. I went for Bad Dad as my first try, and I didn't realize the game wasn't that short, because you just lose the game, basically, for not respecting yourself. Yeah. Yeah, my dream daddy is fucking Hugo, the English teacher dad, who likes wrestling. That tracks. Yeah.

He's my daddy. I love him. Like the coffee shop dad. Coffee shop dad's pretty good, too. He takes you to a pup concert. You also smoke weed together, or you can. Do you? I don't remember that.

Yeah, you can. What is this? Dream Daddy. It's a dating simulator. For you date dads. You're a dad who dates other dads. It's very fun. And you can choose to be gay or bye or scissors trans.

And goth dad is canonically trans and his voice actor is trans. Oh, I don't know that. All right. All right. It's very fun. It is very fun. Yeah. And you all have kids.

Yeah. Except bad dad, I think. No, bad dad has a kid. His kid's like 20. She's an adult. Yeah. And she has a lot of trauma. Yeah.

does. Daddy issues. Yeah. But who doesn't? Were we going to say, Sadie? Oh, I was just going to say that when we played that, me and my wife were fighting over who got to play next because we were sharing the same Steam account. Yeah, it's very fun. It's very fun. Yeah, and the game abbreviates to D-D-D-D-D-S, Dream Daddy, A Dad Dating Simulator. So it's Dads. Dads. Oh, it's hot. No, I'm definitely looking this up.

when I get off to see if I can date some cute daddies. It's pretty cheap, I think. Yeah. And there's like a different kind of dad for all your tastes. Like I was disappointed in like the fat like bear because I found his storyline to be very boring and I was disappointed because I wanted to date him so hard. I played through all of them. Yeah. I have opinions.

There wasn't good character development and that's fucked up. I know because he's pretty hot. Yeah. You have a Pokemon battle of your daughter against his daughter. Because your whole thing is you're like enemies to lovers because you're like competitive over whose daughter is better. Tension. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a newer game that came out that was kind of similar was dating dungeon. I hate that game. Really? Oh, no. I played it all the way through. Oh, the one where like you date your sword. Yeah, you're a sword and you date users.

It was very heavy-handed in a way I found very annoying. A lot of people didn't like it, but I thought that a lot of the criticism was like they didn't, Nintendo didn't put the right trigger warnings in, but Steam did. That's not why I was, I just found it very kind of like condescendingly heavy-handed with the stuff about like... To dating sim. Well, yeah, about the like, yeah, I just thought it was kind of annoying. Dream Daddy sets the standards high. It does.

It is. It's funny. Yeah. Yeah. Very cleverly written. Yeah, I felt like the sword one took itself a little too seriously. I can see that. It's very big on the like that this person is toxic. And I'm like, I know game.

I can figure that out. I'd love to see a video game made out of personal ads. You have to make it. That would be hot. Yeah. Like, you know, like a tender-like experience, but. Someone give Haley a bunch of money so they can make this game. And also some tech capabilities.

Well, that's why they give you a bunch of money so you can hire other people to do that for you. Oh, yeah, consultants. You know, with the health insurance, though. Yeah, you just write it, you know. Yeah, yeah. And then have other people make it for you. Or you can, like, make a twine game. Oh, there you go.

Twine game. I can help you do it. I'm so sorry. I am not a gamer. Interactive fiction where it's purely like HTML text-based, like hyperlink fiction, where it's just like you click things. And it's like, yeah, it's just like paragraphs and you just click links into it. We made one at my last job for APA citation.

Yeah, they're very retro. Okay. They're fun. Yeah. That would be lit. There's a very fun one that this one, like trans webcomic artist I follow and it was sucking Dracula's dick with the sequel eating Dracula's ass where you're Jonathan Harker and you go to Dracula's castle and you suck

Dracula's dick and then the sequel you eat his ass. It's some wish fulfillment scenario right there. This person made makes like a lot of like queer vampire web comics. I can just picture my grandfather. looking down at me from heaven. I fucking play that game. It's pretty good. It's very short.

It's like kind of like choose your own adventure. Haley, did you want to show us the cover of Outweek? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I have the Jesse Helms cover of Outweek. Oh, while you're doing that, let me go grab something. Justin, I took psychic damage. Thank you.

You can hear the lyrics though, right? It's a midi illusion. Was that All-Star? Yeah. Instead of like remaking it as a MIDI, it's been transformed into a MIDI. So you can actually, the lyrics, the words themselves have been changed in the MIDI. So that's why it creates an auditory illusion that you can hear the words, but you can't. Oh, this is incredible.

I'm just now saying it. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. Okay. So this is the Jesse Helms cover of Outweek, which I believe what year was this? Let's see, Pink Panthers. I don't know what year this is. I'm sorry. They don't have it on the cover and that's on them, I think. Like within September. Yeah, this is definitely 1990. Jesse Helms. And would any of you want to describe who this dickhead is? Or I have a history, but I wanted to give you all. the opportunity to talk about your own feelings. No, all right. Well, so Jesse Homes, drawn as a wicked witch of the West.

He's got killer legs. He's writing a Miller Light bottle, and he's got a pack of Marlboros in his witch's hat. And this image is advertising a later article about the boycott of the Philip Morris Company, and they make both the Miller Light and Marlboro, because they financially support Jesse Homes like a lot. he's like a politician. So of course, Philip Morris owned a lot of shit, mainly cigarettes and different things. But the gays and they decided to just focus on these two sub-genres because they're like the biggest ones. But Jesse Holmes was in politics for a while, most notably as a U.S. senator for the North Carolina, the North Carolina, between 1973 and 2003, which is way too long, in my opinion.

And during that time, he tried to take down the National Endowment for the Arts, because of Robert Mapplethorpe in his gayness. And also he fought against funding for federal research and treatment of HIV slash AIDS. He voted against RBG's confirmation to the Supreme Court, which is fine, I guess, sort of, but she still got in there. But because she, like, supported, like, the hashtag gay agenda allegedly. But anyways. Not very well. Not very well.

Exactly. That's why I'm like. he could have just supported her. Anyway. But yeah, he's in hell now. He's dead. Hallelujah. The witch is dead.

But yeah, yeah. So this is him. He's, he's giving me, like, chaney vibes. Yeah. So is this like their crab rave? Is this what is happening here? Or is this before he died?

Before he died. This is because they, so, because Philip Morris supported him and gave him so much money, they were like, you know what? we for the first time as queers have like what is it like the pink capitalism like we've got that cash and so we can control the economy so we're going to boycat miller light and we're going to boycott marlborough cigarettes and i don't know i don't i didn't look up the outcome of this because i forgot but i don't know they they thought it would be good also you know it's it reminds me of like the juice boycott of the earlier years with, oh, what's your face? Anita. Anita Bryant.

Yeah. No, I'm really loving the red eyes and the fact that his witches tights matches his tie. We love some queer labor action. I'm wearing my pits and pervert shirt tonight. Because I did some union work right before he came. What? So, you know, appropriate.

Got great cats, though. He does. He's got like, it's like, they made him the wicked witch of the West with his like little ruby slippers. And I'm really confused. They're mixing up the imagery a bit as like a Wizard of Oz queen. Like, they're a bit confused. They, I don't know if these are friends of Dorothe who drew this. Yeah.

It is strange. Did she wear yellow and green stockings or is, I didn't look up to see if that was symbolic of like North Carolina. or like something that Jesse Homs was or if she wore them and that's why it was a thing. I think it was black and white. I don't know if we see her stockings because the witch we see with the slippers on and tights, that's the wicked witch of the east who the house falls on. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. God, I am so gay. Yeah. Fuck. Amazing. Yeah. We don't really see the wicked witch of the West's. accoutrement. You're right.

And she never wears the slippers. Right. But she does say surrender Dorothy. So I guess. So maybe this one, oh yeah. Surrender Jesse. Yeah. But also you're wearing the Wicked Witch of the East.

Well, maybe she has killed Dorothy. What is tea room entrapment at Penn Station? Oh, so tea room, I believe, is another word for like a bath. Yeah, it's a type of like cruising. Yeah, so like they, someone, a cop came and arrested someone at Penn Station for getting it on. It's like the American version of cottaging, I think. Because like cottaging is mainly British slang, I think. Is this what Cottage Corps is all about?

I wish. I've heard, yeah. The reason I scooched on away is I also have some. Old gay magazines. I don't know if they have personals in them, I don't think. But I thought maybe you'd be interested. Because I got these at the Gerber Heart when I was helping weed. Hell, fucking, yeah. So this is the, similar to Woodstock, but with better hair. So this is the 1995. It's a 1995 dragazine for the magazine for Halloweeners and in-betweeners. as seen on TV's issue and the cover is Lana Luster

interview with a vamp and this queen is dressed like Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard which is great so I just thought that was fun and then it's got

wigstock lady bunny on the back but the real fun one is Girlfriends America's fastest growing lesbian magazine from March April 1997

and this is the first ever lesbian men we love issue. That's incredible. This is 1997. Did I see Leonardo DiCaprio on there? Yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio, baby Butch. Why Drew Carey is a dyke. Is Howard Stern our friend?

Dennis Rodman invited to our locker room. Brad Pitt, lesbian love object number one. We'll save the best for last, because that's a surprise there. So some of the departments are Ask Dr. Dyke. There's letters from the editor, girl talk, sports. Of course, there's horoscopes. So the last lesbian men we love is the truth. David DeKovny is out there.

The reason I took this from the Gerber heart, I mean, they had another copy. That's why I was allowed to take it. they were weeding though is um this is the centerfold oh my god to describe reasons why david de coveny is a lesbian sex symbol and it's a centerfold of uh david de covenny i don't think oh he's wearing khakis so he's in his like x-files outfit but without his trench coat and he's got like a polka dot tie and he's like laying seductively on a bed like holding the pillow five reasons

oh my god yeah I'm like there could be something hiding I don't know yeah and so I do love that his pants are so pressed like they're oh yeah

that crease this is bulge though you know yeah yeah gender envy oh yeah no there's a reason I took this five reasons

number one he's smart he holds a master's degree in English literature from Yale. It was on his way to a doctorate when he decided to get acne a try. Two, he lives like a dyke. He's a vegetarian. He practices yoga. He fell in love with Winona Ryder. And he speaks apologetically about not sleeping on a futon. Three, chicks love him. Members of the David Accomni estrogen brigades, many of them lesbian, have been overloading

the internet and post office with love letters and fan zines. And important note to our listeners, Zines has an apostrophe in front of it, which is adorable for women come first. A regular and showtimes feminist erotica red shoe diaries. Tecobny is an activist for female sexuality. Doubtors to check out episode three, another woman's lipstick, in which a woman's

spies on her philandering husband and ends up not enraged, but in bed with the other woman. Now I wouldn't watch this. I would. He's ACDC on TV. He turned his sex symbol status on its head by appearing on the Larry Sanders show as himself with a crush on his real-life pal, Gary Shandling. As a yuppie writer in California, he practically fell in love with Brad Pitt. And on TV's Twin Peaks, he convincingly played a transvestite, you know, older language, a government agent.

I mean, that's the lesbiansman. We love issue. The, this just makes me think of like, like, I was listening or I was watching a stream and somebody was talking about how like the mummy is always a bisexual revelation. Like you either you're either by and somebody hands you the mummy or you watch the mummy for the first time and realize you're by. And the X-Files is very similar. like David Dekhovany and Jillian Anderson thank you for being there in the late late 90s for baby Sadie figuring things out I was a big I was a big like Scully Dyke

and then I turned into a fag and now I'm just molder I'm not attracted to either with them I'm just molder now but you know lesbian men we love I think it fits it with a thing yeah those are some of my prize possessions I love them that I have a David DeCumney Centerfold in a lesbian magazine. That absolutely suits you. I know.

It's so good. I think you need it framed. It's gender. There's a man in a lesbian center fold. And it's David de Covday, you know. It's gender. It is very gender. That's been this episode.

It's been gender. It has been. Gay agenda. I still want to meet my man-meat muscle husband. Listen, I'm sure if you went out and found him in NYC, he's probably still out there. Because, like, I'm a monster fucker. He's a man-meat monster, you know? Yeah.

It's meant to be. It is. I'll look him up. Okay. Get back to me. Reportback. A lot of reportbacks that we're waiting on. Yeah, like Louisa, have you fucked in the library yet?

Okay. Haley, was there anything you wanted to mention before we wrap up? Not really. I mean, I have myself advertised on Lex and for more guests for my little show, because, you know, always need that new content, baby. So if anybody out there listening wants to hang out with some queer personal ads, definitely hit me up. you know, via the Twitter or the Instagram or through filling out the Google forum on my link tree. Yeah, Q4Q Personal ads at Gmail.com and whatnot. But I really appreciated you guys, like talking with you guys. Like, thank you so much for, I don't know which, what are you, texted me over Twitter. I think it was Justin. He mostly does our Twitter. And then every once in while, I'll be like, Justin, can I retweet this thing? I'm worried people will be mad at me. And he's

like, fuck, I just do it. Yeah, it's your Twitter. Like, I retweeted the, like, I love the Netflix subscription thing now and it's just how you pirate things with Plex. But yeah, I really, I really enjoyed this. I'm glad that you reached out and I really enjoyed getting to know you guys. Don't hesitate to contact me if you need anything, even if it's just a couch to sleep on. in DC. Yeah, so I'll put all the links for everything in the show notes. Okay, yeah. Hell yeah.

Thank you so much. Good night.