The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Kimberley Johnson, Host of the “Start Me Up” Podcast, Author of “Peyton’s Choice” & “The Virgin Diaries.”

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Kimberley Johnson, Host of the "Start Me Up" Podcast, Author of "Peyton's Choice" & "The Virgin Diaries." https://www.patreon.com/startmeup

hi this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com thechrisvossshow.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in be sure to refer the show to your friends neighbors relatives uh get them over the show go to thecbpn.com you can subscribe to all nine podcasts over there and you can also go to chrisvosspodcastnetwork and see them as well uh if you want to see different live versions of the podcast, if they're on there, they're on youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. This is going to be appearing on a few different podcasts, our book author podcast, Chris Voss podcast,

and the Resistance Radio podcast. So if you're listening on those channels as well, welcome. Today, there's been a young lady that I've been following for quite some time, and she does a political podcast on Twitter, and she has some of the most greatest guests. I'm kind of jealous, so I won't lie. She's the host of the Start Me Up podcast. She's also an author of Peyton's Choice and The Virgin Diaries. Her name is Kimberly Johnson, and today we have her on the show. Welcome, Kimberly.

Hi, and thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. We certainly appreciate you. You know, it's awesome. We've got a fellow podcaster and a brilliant author on the things as well. So I came in contact with you through through this uh private group that this gentleman reached out to me one time and i was kind of like what the hell is going on with this dude i don't know about you but but he wrote me and i was just like and he's like yeah i got this group

and it's private twitter thing and it's political podcast and you want to be a part of it and uh it's pretty cool it's got i think it's got deborah messi in it now yeah and elisa elisa milano and uh and so it's got really cool stuff it's it's kind of a i'm always excited whenever um miss milano takes and gives me a heart for my little podcast and everybody kind of shares their podcast uh deborah hasn't given me one yet, but, you know, she's busy. I'm having my people contact her people. But I saw you retweeting us, and we've retweeted you quite a bit. And I'm like, you know, let's have some folks on.

We had Rick Smith on. He was pretty awesome. We invited the two gals who talk about politics. I forget the name of their podcast. They're really sweet, but they're doing a lot of podcasts. So let's talk about yours. Start Me Up podcast. What's the dot coms people

can go look this baby up at and check it out? You can go to Patreon, which is P-A-T-R-E-O-N. So that's patreon.com slash start me up. And basically, I mean, like, yeah, it's a political podcast. And I,

I do mix it up, though. Occasionally, I have celebrities on and I'm sure they hate to be called celebrities, but you know, actors, and I used to be an actor myself. So when I interview them, if we're not going to talk about politics at all, I like to just focus on their craft. And I kind of model it after Inside the Actor's Studio. I mean, I'm not, it's not exactly that kind of interview, but because I used to be an actor in Los Angeles, I do kind of understand, you know, I studied, I worked on a soap opera for a while. So I, you know, I mean, I do understand how it works. And I also studied the Meisner technique. So I like to understand, you know, what, for instance, I interviewed Vincent D'Onofrio.

And, you know, he studied method acting, and he really likes method. And I've interviewed Kristen Johnston and Kirk Acevedo. So I like to kind of get into it with them about where they studied and how they apply it. And, you know, just whatever, you know, I look, I like to see their work, and then talk to them about individual things. But mostly, I'm interviewing political people, or, you know, if it's about, I like to talk about women's issues a lot, or if we're going to talk about social issues. And it's really kind of a casual show, but I love doing it because it's funny. I started off in my twenties, wanted to be an actor. And I did that for about a decade. And then I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to pursue that anymore.

And then I went into sales and I was in sales for about a decade. And then I had this idea to do this book called The Virgin Diaries, which is a collection of stories about first time sex. And so I was doing the author thing and then the blogger thing for just about, let's see, maybe six or seven years. And then I decided I listened to a Marc Maron podcast and I thought, I could do that. And then I just I listened to a Mark Maron podcast and I thought I could do that. And then I just started podcasting. So here I am. There you go. And I laughed a little bit when you said it was it was it was kind of like the inside the actor's studio, but but not like that, because I watched so many of the of the James Lipton episodes and gone.

How does he have this job i shouldn't be mean the late the late james lipton which right exactly wonderful he was wonderful and i you know what i liked about that show specifically is that it didn't just ask the obvious questions that every interviewer is going to ask an actor he goes in depth and and so while i do enjoy asking about whatever craft and you know craft questions i also like to get into um for instance like when i interviewed vincent d'onofrio i asked him about have you ever experienced as a man issues with um you know weight because women always have to deal with being a certain weight and looking a certain

way did did he way. Did he ever experience that? And he said he did. And actually, I was surprised. And he said, as I aged, I gained some weight. And when I was younger, I used to be thinner. I'm sure it's different for men because men are allowed to put on weight without so much scrutiny. But still, it was something that I really liked. I like hearing from men about like body image issues and things like that, because we all have them, but it's usually the body image is usually focused primarily on women. And people think in terms of eating disorders, but body image comes in so many different packages. I mean, some people have acne, some people, and you know,

I've had acne and I've, I've battled with my weight the whole time. I've always battled with not my weight so much as my body image. And so it's something that I love to talk to actors about both women and men. So it's not, like I said, it's not exactly like Inside the Actor's Studio, but I do like the questions about how the actors come to a role

and how do they apply whatever it is they've learned to a role. And even if you're not an actor, it's so fun. Just like on that Inside the Actor's Studio, it's like when James Lipton would ask these questions, even the non-actors loved hearing how the people came up with whatever it was they did. So I like doing that. It's pretty great. The business of, the business of acting or the, the method of it, uh, the form of it, whether it's business or not is, is quite extraordinary. Um, I was lucky enough in, I don't know, lucky. I, I basically invested in it.

Uh, but in the early two thousands, uh, I invested in, uh, um, acting and modeling agency. And it was in Salt Lake Utah during the Touched by an Angel years and there was I think Everwood and back then there had just been this Hollywood strike I think in years prior

that had drove a lot of business outside of California over the unions and so they were going to states that were non-union to do their filming and so touched by an angel was filmed up there on a regular basis a lot of movies were were being pushed up there and independent stuff and so there was a lot of business and so i got to know the directors i mean not major directors anything i wasn't sitting around spielberg but i had to know

directors of uh uh uh different movies that got filmed up there. And we had like actor studio. We were associated with actor training, gentlemen, people that, you know, they knew how to do all that stuff. And so they would have their classes. And so I would go and sit in the classes to see, you know, what this acting business was all about. And watch the students go, you know, evolve see, you know, what, what this acting business is all about and, uh, watch

the students go, you know, evolve from, you know, just being at, you know, at the beginning, horrible actors to these, these really amazing actors. And then I was lucky enough to sit on a few, um, low budget movie, uh, uh, casting calls. And, uh, and it was just amazing to me because you would see, I'd sit with the directors and you'd see like, you know, a hundred people and they wouldn't move you and they'd come read their lines. And so the black dog

jumped over the wall. You know, that sort of thing. But then you'd have like this one person that would come in and just boom, just like kill it. And you'd have like this one person that would come in and just boom just like kill it and you'd be in tears and you'd realize you're like holy crap i'm in tears there's no music yeah no there's no background you're not you're not you're not you know you don't have all that whole setup that you have like in a movie that can bring you to that emotional right thing this person just walks in a room and boom hits it yeah and uh and it was extraordinary

to me to see when that magic you know would go on with an actor and and it really gave me a great appreciation for um for watching movies and tv and and seeing the real thing and i used to like i used to watch every now and then james lipton's uh inside the actress studio sometimes he'd drive me mad with his his whole questions thing and the table and yeah and and stuff but uh but yeah he would throw some zingers at a lot of different things i watched um i think i've watched all the great actors on there in fact i think one was one was uh who's the guy who played with lady gaga in that recent uh redo oh right yeah and of course i can't remember his name but he's got the eyes that are kind of turquoise or teal or whatever yeah they really stand out at you uh what was i think it was during al pacino one and they, and they're doing audience questions,

and he's in the audience in the actor's studio. He's like a nobody, right? He's asking questions and stuff, and now I can go back and be like, you know, he's been in all these movies. So you've got a great podcast. How long have you been doing this podcast for? I believe I started it in September of 2016, and it's funny because, as I said started it in September of 2016. And it's funny because as I said, you

know, I was during the summer of 2016, I was in Maryland, which I now live on the East coast, but I used to live in California. And so my boyfriend and I were back in Maryland visiting family and we were going to drive from Maryland to Virginia. So it's like a two hour drive. And so he put on the Mark Maron WTF podcast. So, and it was an interview with, with Jeff Goldblum and it was really fun. And I loved how Mark Maron was just so relaxed and how he wasn't, he wasn't like your typical interviewer. And the questions that came up were kind of like organic in the moment. And one thing led to another. And, and I really liked

that and so I thought well I would want to I don't want to do exactly the same thing but it's like it inspires me so I so I always say like my podcast if there's going to be an actor it's kind of um it's kind of a not if but I should say it's like combination between those two WTF and inside the actor studio so it's like relaxed and casual, but when it's political, like when I talk about politics, I like it to be a discussion more so than an interview. Although I've had certain people on the, you know, I mean, I do ask them questions and I want to know what's the deal, but I also just like having conversations. And so it started out where I just interviewed or talked to, I think I did two shows per month.

And then I decided, I think it was last April or so, I decided that I wanted to up it and I was going to do one show per week. But then I decided I'm going to do two shows per week. So now I do Mondays and Wednesdays. And then what I do is for patrons only, I do two times a month, a patrons only show where it's just a little bit more personal. And I often do it with this woman named Steph Walton, who for quite a while was my, my regular co-host. Right now I just, I do the show alone, but I have regular people who come on and we just do discussion, you know, and it's like, there's so much going on politically. And I think that, you know, there, I always say that I'm not an expert,

although I am a political junkie. And I've been one for the last at least, you know, 10 or 12 years. So I do have a good understanding of what's going on. And I also, you know, I mean, I've blogged about politics and women's issues. So the show is basically just an extension of that. And it's my, you know, obviously it's going to be my point of view, but I also like to have people on that I feel I can learn from because I, you know, I feel like the whole point of all of this is to, you know, be inspirational. It's to be entertaining, but it's, it's great to learn. And I think that, I think it's good to be open to other people's points of view.

Oftentimes you see online people just doubling down on their own points of view without opening their minds to other possibilities. And so I like to present that, not every day, but, I mean, when it comes up, I like that kind of thought where you can, you can just say, all right, maybe I've never thought of this before. And then instead of, you know, people are always in their corner. No, it's this way. No, it's this way. And it's like, no, let's just have an open conversation and you can disagree with me and that's fine. And we don't have to get ugly about it. You know i mean yeah and i i love podcasting too

i've always i've always been a story collector uh for you for many years i had very large businesses so i had you know hundreds of employees so i i could always come home with a story i always had stories right and um you know employee stories are the best in fact i wish i'd written books back when i can remember all the stories because i'd have like three books of employee stories are the best. In fact, I wish I'd written books back when I could remember all the stories. Cause I'd have like three books of employee stories. Um, but, uh, I've always been a story collector. In fact, uh, when I was, when I was in some of our relationships, I would be like, um, I remember, and I had some wonderful girlfriends. I'm not cracking on any of them, but, uh, I remember i had one girlfriend who flew for delta airlines and so she would you know be in three cities and meet hundreds of people on a daily basis and i was

coming home with my stories i'd be like hey hey you won't you won't believe what the hell happened today and and we had some crazy stories and then i'd be like so what happened to you today and she'd be like nothing and i and and i just be, one time I just said to her, I says, you know, I think I'm going to pay to have you kidnapped. And then, you know, they'll just release you after a day. But then you'll have a story to tell me. And so I like my podcast because I learn from other people. I'm innately curious about people, why they do things, what their journey is, how they got to where they were, the choices they made. And so it's interesting to me, the different stories.

So I love collecting them and, and, and everything else. So I love the journey of being on a podcast or having a podcast. I recently we recently launched the resistance radio.com. I was struggling with trying to do a a political podcast for quite some time and uh one of the biggest challenges is there's just so much the trump administration does so much criminal shit like you don't even know what it like i'll be like okay well there's there's that's pretty significant stuff to happen today so i'm gonna put down my notes and we'll probably just compile everything tomorrow and like you know for years of watching

rachel maddow and she's like we threw out the show at five o'clock we had and there's a new one exactly and we're just winging it and it's like it's insane like i technically if i was to do an hour show on really trying to cover everything it had had to be three hours. And I don't know. That would be all I do all day. I'm already losing my mind. Well, that's what I like to kind of take the approach of. Instead of focusing on the breaking news and worrying about that, just like I like to pick a couple of different things.

I always like, for instance, on my podcast, I like to ask my guests who they like for VP choice and why, and listen to the reasons why, or talking about the protests that are going on and listening to people's opinions about that. Because one of the things that scared me about the protests was COVID. And I totally get why there are protests and why there are people. And I'm grateful that people feel so motivated right now to go out in the streets and have their voice heard. But then the worrying side of me worries about, I mean, thankfully, so many of them are wearing masks and you can't really practice social distancing, but still most of them are wearing masks. And it's hard to tell

with these rising numbers of COVID where it's actually coming from. But if you look in some of these cities, obviously, where you have governors who are not enforcing some of the important things like mask wearing, or if, excuse me, if they're opening up too early or whatever. But it's like, I like to kind of talk about the broader subject as opposed to, you know, the breaking news thing. Or even if it is a breaking news thing, it's about like if it broke yesterday, okay, well, it doesn't mean it's not news today. And there still can be kind of a conversation about it.

Yeah. That's probably the smart way to take an approach. Sometimes I'm just like... Because it's too much. Yeah. And then just you think you have an atomic bomb news item and then something bigger. Like Trump's like, hold my beer.

Yeah. And you're just like, holy crap. And it's just it's just a rolling nightmare of of whatever. So a lot of interesting things happen for women's rights today. Well, not a lot, but we have the scotus uh right uh uh decision on the controversial abortion law it's interesting uh you know it looks like kavanaugh's in there definitely with his his slant on things i think we should surprise do you think we should i mean one of the problems with uh impeaching someone off of scotus is it sets a horrible precedent that future presidents

would you know we'd all just start you you know, peaching everybody on that thing. But I think he's one guy that we probably need to do a take back on. Yeah, well, I believe he did lie to Congress. And so if we're going to impeach, we should get them on something very specific. I mean, obviously, we tried to, well, not we, but, you know, there was supposedly an investigation into these allegations, which were BS. It was a BS investigation. It was like a week long, and they really didn't interview people who wanted to be interviewed when it came to the Christine Blasey Ford story. So there really was no investigation. It was just BS, time wasted to say, okay, well, we talked to a few people.

But it goes beyond that. It goes beyond those allegations. It goes beyond him lying to Congress. And so, or it goes to him lying to Congress. So yeah, I think in the case of Brett Kavanaugh, but I agree with you. I mean, we have to be very careful because we do know that as soon as we get a Republican controlled Congress, again, we're going to see impeachments all over the place. So it's going to be, I mean, I don't know what to expect, but I will say that I think regardless of what we do, whether, like, if we choose not to impeach Brett Kavanaugh, I still think Republicans, when they gain back control, will impeach everybody. So why don't we do it? Why don't we go and fix what has been terribly broken in this administration and things that have gone through? I know there were some arguments during the Kavanaugh thing,

oh, this is just partisan, oh, this is just partisan. It's like, no, because nobody ever questioned Neil Gorsuch. He got through, nobody threw a fit about him. I mean, we were pissed off that Mitch McConnell refused to let Obama put Merrick Garland up, but we still, and Democrats still voted for Neil Gorsuch. So it wasn't a partisan thing. You know, Brett Kavanaugh is very specific. And again, no matter what Democrats do, the Republicans are going to, I mean, it really does depend though, what happens in November, because if, if Republicans lose big, I think they're going to have to, and I would hope that they would reassess how they behave. But if they're able to, you know, when they're able to gain back power, that we have to be careful because they're going to, they're going to want to impeach everybody. It's going to be an interesting journey that

we're going to go on. And some of that's coming to light with, you know, the cleansing that we're doing with Black Lives Matter right now. I was really heartened yesterday to see the Mississippi flag get changed where move the rebel thing. And and I think there's going to be a huge accounting. In fact, I'm kind of starting to see little kind of me to things happening with the racist Trump supporter area. And I'm wondering if we're going to go through a cleansing where it's like, Oh, were you a CEO who supported Trump during the Trump regime? Yeah, you got to go now. I infriended, you know, I've lost so many friends over Trump and racism. And, you know, I mean, my policy has been with it even before, you know,

in 2015, my policy is I'm not going to be seen with racists and I'm not going to have people going, why is Chris still friends with those people? Right. I mean, you know, I'll be nice to them. If they, if they fell over in a store, I call 911 and help them. I'd be a good fellow American to them, but that doesn't mean you're going to come over and eat lunch with me and my family. And, and I don't want to be seen with you um because you know i have a lot of friends that that are social media people and and they're like well you know we don't want to we need to keep it on mind everyone kumbaya whatever i don't know and i'm like and so i'll get these messages from

people it's like is so-and-so a racist and i'm like no they're not they're good people and they're like but they hang out with so-and-so and i'm like oh that's why yeah that's why we cut them loose but um some interesting things went on today and we're seeing this uh where facebook finally relented you know i used to go in the deplorables group just to monitor what was going on there and see what was going on and i would see just the most horrific racist stuff yeah the transsexual uh accusations and ugly memes they edited of michelle obama yeah you know i hey man if you want to go after the presidents if you want to go after obama and you want to go after bush or you know whatever i mean knock yourself out but i mean when you're really doing racially disgusting things with with the kids or with michelle obama i mean

you really have to look at your soul i know and uh so today reddit uh shut down this group uh that was the large donald group i guess they were the poor rules group of reddit and they should have done a few other groups but it was over 790 000 users who posted memes viral videos one of the reasons they shut them down is because uh they um overhauled their hate speech policies they've seen the pressure campaigns twitter went through and complied and facebook is now starting to comply with and i think that i think hopefully there's a reckoning these social media uh uh platforms that they've kind of gotten us here i mean i i oh yeah kind of blame facebook for trump yeah absolutely i mean i think that

the thing about facebook and um twitter is you know, I know, like, especially with Facebook, I know they took rubles, literal rubles to run and, you know, a disinformation campaign, and then play dumb got called in front of Congress. And, you know, interestingly enough, I had a very thriving Facebook page. It was verified. I had 5,000 friends. I had 16,000 followers. And I started it, I think, in 2010. And I guess it was 2018 one day. I'm just sitting, you know, doing my thing. And all of a sudden, I was also, let me just say that I was connected to a lot of other political liberal Facebook pages, right? So there was Liberals Unite, along with the

Pragmatic Progressive, and I can't remember the names of all of them. There was a feminist page, there was a number of them. And then I was working with this guy, Sam Wardy, on the blog Liberals Unite. So what we had going on was we had our own blog, and then we had our own pages that had hundreds of thousands of people on them. And then we had a network, especially Sam, a network of other bloggers with big pages, and we would all share our work on each other's pages. And so I'm sitting here doing my thing and I see that, oh, you know, the pragmatic progressive page has been deleted. And I'm like, what? And then a few minutes later, I see the next page has been deleted. And then all of a sudden my page is gone. My profile page that has a verification mark. And I never got it back, but long story short, what wound up happening

is Zuckerberg had this ridiculous terms of service thing that I can't remember the name that they used, inauthentic behavior or something like that. But basically what it was is what, oh God, I think it's Newsmax or one of these, no, maybe not Newsmax. It's the Daily Wire or the Daily whatever it is where Ben Shapiro is part of it. And they're doing it right now. What we were accused of doing. So what we did was we shared each other's work. So I would post, whether it was an article of mine

that I personally wrote on Liberals Unite or a Washington Post article or a HuffPost, whatever, I would fill up a number of pages and I would put the same content on. If I was doing feminist pages, I'd put the same content on those pages and I would fill it up for the day and then I would also you know put my stuff on other just the political pages that I had access to but didn't necessarily fill up but because because we were putting the same content on different pages which hello isn't that what Facebook is for we lost everything and and I believe I mean we lost everything my friend Sam believe, I mean, we lost everything. My friend Sam, I mean, he had this blog going for many

years and he, you know, he wasn't wealthy or anything, but he was earning a living and I was getting paid. And so that all ended. And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg wanted to, and some, I should say, there were liberal pages that were lost, but there were also, it was like over 800

pages that went down, profiles and pages. And it was all that day. And Zuckerberg was basically saying to Congress, look, you don't need to regulate me. I can do it. I can do it. Leave me alone. But I think in the end, you know, that's all to say that the internet and these kinds of sites need to be regulated because, you know, it's just like with on, you know, cable television or regular television, you can't just be promoting white supremacy. You can't have racist after racist after racist saying stuff. And so, you know, I don't like to necessarily be quieted, but I think when it comes to hate speech and when people are inciting violence, yes, we need regulation and and what's funny is we

do have laws about hate hate speech um and attacking people and stuff i mean if you do that in a public format you can be held by law and somehow these groups like i was just astounded when i looked in the deplorables groups in 2016 um at the ugliness the hate the racism and um even then we've been having discussions on the chris voss show we had a great author uh yesterday dr chatters uh and we talked about inclusivity and and some of the different race thing and and uh well it was fairly good because it made me do some inventory about do i I have some racial animosity or racial things, or are there different tropes that I've subconsciously picked up? And so it made me kind of realize that there are certain keywords

that the white nationalists use, like, legacy and and uh culture and and the way they use it is very different than what maybe you or i think of it but when we use it it's like oh wow we're just adding to their right thing and so uh it did open my eyes a lot um and so it's kind of interesting this journey we're going on but but i really think that you know i i came up in 2008 with social media uh i had a bunch of businesses pretty much wiped out by the housing crisis and so then it was like well what do i do now and i was looking around we were trying a lot of different businesses things and then um i discovered twitter 2008 and i started realizing, Hey, if I bang this button with some tweets, people go to my website and shop like this is pretty cool.

I just bang this button some more. And so, you know, I mean, we have like 10, 12 Twitter accounts and I think there's three LinkedIn accounts and the giant 135,000 group we have. But I literally, you know, I Kumbaya was starting this twitter thing and for yeah and on there was a small group of us that were kind of running twitter customer service and and uh helping twitter because they only had like 40 employees and uh and uh so there was this big kumbaya back then of like oh you know bringing the world together you know you saw the arab spring and different things and then after spring a lot of countries kind of went wait if we can overthrow people yeah yeah this is a nice little toy and and then you know we went from this kumbaya moment to

this uh the dark side of the force yes very, very, very dark. And this hate and propaganda, I mean, child pornography is a huge problem on the internet. And I think we're due for a huge correction. What do you think? Oh, absolutely. Like I said, I mean, I believe that, you know, especially what happened with Russia

and how they successfully launched this disinformation campaign, which has not ended. And I'm sure it started before 2016, but 2016 is when it really mattered because it did push the election to Trump. And I mean, it wasn't just Russia that helped him, or I should say it wasn't only Russia that got him to win, an electoral win. It was a combination, I think, of a lot of, you know, whether it was suppression or decades of smears against Hillary Clinton that just stuck, even with liberals. And, you know, so I, but Russia kind of helped push it over the edge and they used our own social media against us. And I was somebody who really saw it firsthand because in 2016, I supported Bernie Sanders. And I want to say, I didn't support him

in the primary this time. In the primary this time, I mean, I did vote for Joe Biden, but that's because my first choice was Elizabeth Warren. And so by the time it came time for me to vote, she was no longer an option. So I chose Biden, but, and also Bernie was out. So, cause I voted in Maryland. So by that time Bernie had already dropped out of the race. So I just voted for the obvious, but when I was supporting Bernie Sanders,

and I just, I want to say that I never considered, I never, I consider myself a progressive and I like Bernie's platform, but I'm very pragmatic and I understand that in government things don't happen just because you want them to. There are so many steps and so many considerations and compromises that have to be made. And even though we're dealing with, you know, an obstructionist GOP, there are still some GOP that are willing to work with Democrats. And I'm totally getting off the point now of Bernie. But just to go back to him, what I noticed was I joined these groups on Facebook, the Bernie groups, and they were all loving and friendly. And every once in a while, somebody would come in and post something negative about Hillary Clinton, and they would get chased off. And they would say, no, this is not a Hillary hating group.

This is just about promoting Bernie and talking about Bernie. So I would say in April, it's like April or May of 2016, everything changed and they became total pits. And I know they were infiltrated by Russians who were pushing that division. And I mean, I'm not, obviously I'm not naive, but I am a human being and I can be manipulated just like anybody else if I'm not aware that I'm being manipulated. And so there were times that while I was, you know, in these groups and I was looking at the posts and seeing how people were talking, I was, I would say, you know, I didn't, I never hated Hillary Clinton or I never thought she was as bad as the way that some people would talk about her. But, you know, seeds were planted and I questioned things. And once she became the nominee, I really did get behind her and I actually learned a lot about her and watched, there was this really great, I think it was a PBS special that focused on both Trump and Clinton.

I learned a lot about her then. So anyway, I saw firsthand how much they infiltrated social media and how people like to think, oh, I could never be brainwashed or I could never be manipulated. And it's like, yeah, we all can. That's kind of like, again, I'm going back to my podcast. It's like, keep an open mind about things because you may be an intelligent person. I know plenty of intelligent people who support Donald Trump. They've been brainwashed by Fox News. They've been brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh. And they've got certain biases and they've got certain fears. And so somebody

who really truly understands how to utilize brainwashing techniques knows how to play into those fears. And I lived in Soviet Russia when I was 12 years old because my father worked for ABC News. I had firsthand experience living in, you know, a Soviet run country. And so, you know, while I'm no expert in the Soviet lifestyle or, you know, Soviet government, I did see it and I saw the propaganda and I saw how people reacted to it. And so, you know, it certainly didn't keep me from falling for some of it when I, you know, when I was supporting Bernie, but I,

I think that I can understand the idea that you have intelligent people. It's not just the poorly educated as Trump says he loves so much. It's not just people who aren't educated. It's not just the poorly educated, as Trump says he loves so much. It's not just people who aren't educated. Good propaganda, good brainwashing techniques play into your natural instincts of fear and biases and whether it's racism or hatred or whatever it is. And they really know how to plant those seeds of doubt. And so, yeah, I absolutely think that we should regulate our, you know, our internet and make sure. I mean, I don't exactly know how we would do that. That's what people in Congress would need to figure out. And I think they should work with, you know, Twitter and Facebook and all that.

Not that they should let them call all the shots, but they should work with them so they can understand how the algorithms work and how it all works but i absolutely think we should regulate you know and and one of the issues that they have that's very hard i mean one of the things we've seen is the gop has been taken over by by trump i mean it is the trump party uh and i do feel bad for uh people that i see trying to make a difference, the Joe Walshes of the world, the Rick Wilsons and stuff. And I really do believe there's GOP people out there who aren't full racist. Although, you know, it's really hard to – I think this country's got to deal with its it's it's a unconscious bias if you will i mean even i was surprised to learn you know so many different things uh confederate statues and how they were put into place i mean i just figured they'd been there since abraham and uh come to find out there's

a whole you know this whole agenda and i think there's a lot of, you know, bias that we have, but it's really been propagated in the GOP party. And so they need to do their own reckoning over there. And for years, I mean, for years, they've been an all-white, pretty inclusive sort of group. I mean, I think even, what, 10 years ago or something, I can't remember remember one of their leaders was calling out and saying or several of these were calling out and say hey man we need to get some more people that aren't white in this party because it's kind of becoming its own clan meeting in and of itself and you know well there's a whole lot you can say about pro-life and conservatism and you know fiscal responsibility and blah blah blah, blah.

But we've just seen all that blown to hell. I mean, we've just seen that that was all just... It's a cover. It's a word-cellar cover for power. And it's a dying... If the Republican Party after this gets sent into the desert for a while, which it looks like they are from the polls and everything else that's going on um the they they've really got to come to grips with their embracement of uh embracement their embracement of of uh people of other colors because really what they they become is this this white genocide party that believes that there's this rise of people of

color and immigrants that are going to come take over and and they're you know they're going to the white people are going to be the minority that's really what they cornered themselves into after two decades of this crap it's interesting to me and and oh to give also uh an added point to what you mentioned earlier uh one of the things that was amazing in 2016 was the, let's call it the real fake news because what Donald Trump says is fake news is probably true. Uh, anything he says, you just go opposite. Um, you know, I mean, I, if he actually came out and said, yes, I did get the briefings on the Russians killing Americans.

And I'd be like, like oh clearly you didn't um you know it's you know it's just there's that but what was interesting me was the fake news element uh where there were people that were actually democrats that had figured out that if they if they created clickbait and they were making like 20 or 30 grand in clickbait websites. And first they started with fellow Democrats and they're like, we're going to make fake clickbacks, you know, like,

and there were stories like, you know, Hillary pizza gates sort of things. Yes. And they couldn't get any traction because a lot of Democrats would, you know, go double check and do their thing. And, and then they found that Republicans would just eat it up.

Yeah. And I think if you're a Republican or if you support the Republican Party, you have to really question why that psychology worked. And I'm not going to tell you why it worked, but maybe you should question why it worked. Now, given, I i mean if i can get you to believe in all sorts of fantasy beings of 3 000 gods that have been created since the beginning of man and there's a boogeyman on your bed and all sorts of other weird shit going on

you're probably a little bit more pliable to me okay i'm an atheist yeah but and you can believe what you want i'm not knocking it but but certainly if i can get you to believe things from a faith basis beyond physical science or reality i can get you to believe some other shit too yeah and um because your belief is what is is sucking you towards that that truth that you're seeking that then bias but uh it was interesting to me and these guys were democrats they you know they hunted them down after the election they make like 20 30 grand a month doing clickbait stuff and posting in the groups that you talked about right and so they're just they were just driving this whole narrative which uh you know ended up getting uh elected. But, but yeah, I mean,

we really reached this toxicity and it really became this team thing where it was like, you know, I mean, I'm on the, I'm a Raiders fan, which is very hard to be a Raiders fan. You know, I think the last Superbowl was 92 or something that we won. And and so, you know, know, I stick with the team. I don't swallow everything they put out. But, you know, and I bash the team, actually. I'm, you know, I'm the person screaming at the TV every Sunday.

Have to hide all the knives in the house every Sunday. But anybody I've ever voted for for i've actually been more critical of the people i voted for because i voted for them and i felt like they represented me and if i felt betrayed by them i didn't i didn't become this jonestown cult thing i would you know i'd crack on them i mean i voted for obama about 50 of the time I was in the happy, um, about same thing with George Bush. I voted for George Bush in his first term. I was completely unhappy with how that turned out.

Um, you know, I mean, after nine 11 and, you know, just pretty much became president Cheney. And so I never got this whole, you know, the part of the brilliant thing about our constitution is we can vote for people and then we can criticize a hell of a lot of them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think I think it's I because not every candidate is going to be so exciting and different and new. And I can look back and while I don't think Hillary Clinton is perfect, I do think that she was more than qualified to be president. And I think, you know, I do believe it was stolen from her. And regardless of what you think of her policy ideas or anything like that, I mean, I can certainly critique things that I think, well, I wish she would have done this differently, or I wish she would have done that differently. But she specifically said, you know, like my husband is the guy who likes to go out and shake everybody's hand. Bill Clinton was just

such a natural. And again, it doesn't really matter what you think about his politics right now. It's just the idea that he understood how to just connect with the public. He thrived on it. He loved it. It was his thing. And Obama had, you know, he was such a great orator and he brought something that was new and different, you know, but, you know, it was obviously a woman is going to have to have her own hell because she's a woman. But she said, you know, I'm not that person. I'm not the handshaker. Her favorability always went up when she was just doing the work. That's what she does best.

She just did the work. And people loved her when she was a senator. People loved her when she was the doing the work. That's what she does best. She just did the work and people loved her when she was a senator. People loved her when she was the secretary of state. I mean, Republicans didn't, but still she had high favorability ratings when she just did the work. Campaigning was not her thing. And that's what I think, you know,

we get lost and thinking that the candidates have to be superstars. And it's like, these people are going to be legislating and making ideas about the laws we have to be superstars. And it's like these people are going to be legislating and making ideas about the laws we have to live by. It's not a popularity contest, but it has become one. And I think that's very dangerous. We should look for boring wonks who know what they're doing. Yeah, like I don't ever want to see if Joe Biden,

I posted this on my Facebook the other day, I'm like, I don't want to see if if if joe biden i posted somebody facebook the other day i'm like i don't want to see joe biden tweet i mean maybe he's got some you know surrogate that does that for him but i don't want to see him tweet just go do the damn job and protect the constitution yeah and uh i don't know if it's because we quit teaching civics in school yeah certainly a lot of people that came out for trump though you can't blame on like millennials who are always like i must have what i want or fuck it um the um because really the it was the old generation of racism all our great you know our crazy grandparents who are you know who came from that racist era in the 50s um that still have that subconscious bias and closet racism going on and uh that really

supported and came out for trump uh and then of course there was the um there was the repression of the black vote you know they didn't feel like showing up because they didn't feel represented but you know even then we're still seeing it now we see these people that are i'll see like the bernie bros uh have still have this thing going on. Somehow they're still trying to overthrow Biden and get Bernie on the ticket. And you're just like, do you realize where we're at? Like that was maybe a discussion a year ago, but I mean. Right.

But now it's just a purity test and purity tests always lose. They always lose. I'd like to say this because I've been an advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment. I found out in 2012, I did a speech at the Capitol building and it was basically on women's issues. And I met this woman named Kamala Lopez and she was doing this documentary called Equal Means Equal. She asked me, do you think women and men are equal in the United States? Well, at the time I was, I believe 40, I don't know, 44. And I thought we were. And so of course she corrected me and she goes, no, we don't have an equal rights

amendment in the constitution and women can be discriminated against. Actually men can be discriminated against as well, but women are the ones who usually are. And so I decided at that moment that I was going to become an advocate for the ERA. And I've got a funny little story about Alyssa Milano there. But so for a long time, I was writing about it. And, you know, there were all these other people, men and women, who were living in different states, whether it was Virginia or Illinois or Nevada, and they were all doing what they could. But there had been three states. It was cut off. We had 35 states that ratified in the 70s, and we need 38. And then Phyllis Schlafly came along. It was anti-ERA, the Stop ERA campaign. She was very successful. And for some reason, Congress attached a deadline

to the ERA, and that deadline expired. I think it received an extension, and the extension expired. So it just laid dormant for all these years and people thought it was a dead issue. So activists knew that we needed to get those three states ratified or we needed to get rid of that deadline altogether. So I was kind of part of that effort. I blogged about it. And I remember thinking, and this comes to something about Republicans, but I remember thinking, and this comes to something about Republicans, but I remember thinking, we really need somebody strong who's a nice looking person, because people respond favorably to nice looking people, who is articulate and understands the issues and who is passionate. And I looked for somebody like that to, you know, I would write open letters to Oprah Winfrey. I would try to find people who were famous who would start talking about it,

and I couldn't. And eventually, I kind of just dropped it. Funnily enough, back in 20, I believe it was 2017, I was in one of these groups that you're talking about where you get this guy, Renato Mariotti, who was running for attorney general in Illinois, said, hey, I'm in this group, Alyssa Milano's in it. I would like for you to help amplify my campaign. Are you interested? So I said, yes. And I knew that there was an ERA push in Illinois. And I was secretly hoping, because I put in the group, I was secretly hoping that Alyssa would see this. But I, because this was after the Me Too thing. And, you know, she was getting a lot of attention. And I had asked Renato, do you know

about the Equal Rights Amendment? And there are people who are talking to legislatures right now, you might want to go hook up with them. And Alyssa saw that, and so did Renato. And he did actually meet with the ERA activists in Illinois. But Alyssa saw it, and she goes, what is this about? And I gave her a quick blurb and she said this is going to be my new I don't know you know I'm gonna I'm just gonna nail this and stay on it and I was so excited so I gave her all like I I sent her an email with so much information about the ERA and oh my god did she completely immerse herself in it and I don't know if you're aware but I mean she's written things for like

Cosmopolitan and she's gone out and she really, really, she had a shadow hearing, which I actually attended in 2018. And so while Trump has been president, it was Illinois, Nevada, and then finally Virginia ratified. So that's three states that we needed. Now we're working on getting rid of the deadline. But what I find so fascinating is that there were, I believe it was six or seven male Republicans that pushed it over the edge to pass it in Virginia. So, you know, we keep hearing about, and it's true, the obstructionist GOP, but there are, it's like you said, there are some Republicans out there who are not necessarily motivated by these hot issues like abortion or racism or something, but they're just wanting to, you know, do their job. Yes, they have a different idea about ideology, but basically they want the same thing. They want equality. Maybe there are not a lot of them, but they still exist because six or seven of them, and I wish I could remember the number exactly, but voted for the ERA in

Illinois. And, you know, unfortunately we still have to deal with, like I said, either extending once again that deadline or just obliterating it. And that's another motivation to vote for. And this brings me back to your whole thing about the purity thing. It's like we need a blue Congress to get that deadline out of the way. And so, you know, if you're going to scream that it has to be Bernie or let it be Trump for another four years, well, we'll never get the ERA passed. And the ERA is going to help. I mean, it will help men, but mostly it'll help women.

And very specifically, it will help women of color, because women of color have been the hardest hit when it's, you know, discriminatory issues, whether it's about equal pay or it's an, you know, ERA isn't only about equal pay, but it's about basically fairness in the workplace, whether it's pregnancy laws or anything like that. So, you know, I mean, when it comes to these purists, it's like, look, I'm all for all what you want. I want the Medicare for all. I want $15 or $25 an hour. I want all of it, but we're not going to get there right now. Incremental is not a dirty word. Incremental is better than losing. Sorry, I just went off on a total tangent there.

No, no, you covered a lot of great stuff there. And fun fact, I grew up when I was a kid, my mom was active in the ERA thing in the 70s. And so we used to go to all the rallies and help her. And, you know, we get to see the issues. I spent a lot of time sitting in parks and stuff, having lunches and, and the area movement and stuff. Um,

and, uh, you know, I, I saw that a lot in 2016 and speaking of what we mentioned earlier, the, the GOP party also became that barefoot and pregnant sort of party. I like to call it where they're like,

shut up and get back in the kitchen woman. Yeah. Um, so between racism and misogyny, they just really became this whole sort of thing, especially with the abortion issue and everything else. I was just watching today a video of Kamala Harris singing to Brett Kavanaugh in the confirmation hearing. So what sort of laws, like the ones that regulate women's wombs, you know, are there for men?

Right. Really? And so, you know, and recently we just found out that the whole anti-abortion thing was a farce when they got a hold of the Roe versus Wade one. That was an interesting sort of thing. And, you know, I think it's great that, you know, people can have their own decisions as to what they want to take and do. But I think hopefully with this Black Lives Matter, we're looking at marginalized minorities and women have definitely been marginalized. I think sexism and misogyny is something we need to deal very deeply with. The Me Too effort brought that.

In fact, we're kind of seeing the resurgence of the me too in the gaming industry right now yeah um where the gaming industry is being called out it's extraordinary to me because in the 90s i got it with sexual harassment when sexual harassment became a thing you know i remember talking with our state um the state people oversaw the enforcement of that and they're like you give people two warnings they get one warning in the second warning they get fired because if you do three it looks like you're implicated in you know being okay with it and so i'm right cool man i'm not getting sued for sexual harassment um so you know i i we had you know pretty much zero tolerance by you had to give people

one warning um but it was kind of interesting. Most people, they just weren't getting it. Most anybody who got one warning got the second one and got fired. But, you know, I mean, there's a lot of issues. In fact, me too, it was really hard for me to understand because I don't send dick pics. I don't behave towards women that way. I kind of know, you know, what women like or don't send dick pics i don't behave towards women that way i kind of know you know what women like or don't like and i i just don't behave that way um but it was interesting to me that i was just kind of like what's going on are you freaking kidding are you what it's

rampant and uh i remember watching the the, because a lot of our initial arguments were when Donald Trump took office was, this is about misogyny and racism. Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of misogynistic sort of attitudes towards Hillary Clinton. And it was funny because I see like Van Jones, which, you know, he just makes me mad with some of his crap. Yeah. And I would see him, you know, he's trying to with some of his crap uh and i would see him you know he's trying to play both sides and we should we should balance and um he'd go out and he'd interview these people and be like why did you vote for you know trump over hillary and they're like we don't

jobs and you know they spat off the economics and we're a poor area and then what was interesting to me is the more that you talk to people like i'd see that you know some reporter interviewing somebody and they'd always spout the usual shit like you know it's about jobs and we're just trying to be jobs and and then like all of a sudden the longer you talk to either racist comment come out or misogynistic come yeah you know hillary well you know she's a woman and you're just like oh too emotional yeah and you're like there it is that's yeah that you were giving me the pr before that that's where the problem is you're a misogynist you're a racist and that's it this whole job is bullshit in fact we talked like i said we talked about that uh with a couple of people on the show recently where there's such an unconscious bias and stuff um that uh you know

they end up there so um yeah let's let's talk about your books as we round out the show uh because i might get the plugs in on those but uh we should have you on again to talk politics we probably go on for hours um and uh hopefully we overcome these things hopefully we get the era yeah i mean to me this uh we talked about this the Dr. Chatter show that we just didn't yesterday. There, this, this, this scarcity thing where we're like, well, we can't get women's rights or women's vote, uh, you know, more, we can't lift them up because, oh my God, there's only so much.

That's not true. You know, this America was built was built on hey everyone contributes and makes the country great people minorities and so hopefully out of what comes with black lives matters we realize that rising tide lifts all boats yes and we should support um marginalized communities so you wrote two books actually i've actually done four oh wow, wow. Yeah, I'll start by the first book was called The Virgin Diaries. And that's funny because I got the idea to do this book in 2004 when I was sales and not a writer or anything. And I just said to my mother one night, we were talking,

I was visiting her for Christmas, and I said, wouldn't it be cool to watch a documentary about how people lost their virginity? And, and she's an author. And so we started back and forthing about it. And she's like, you know what, it would be a better book, because people would probably feel more comfortable sharing, you know, their private stories. And then, and then she said to me, if you don't do it, I'm going to do it. I go, no, no, no, I'll do it. So long story short, first, first i started only interviewing women and then i branched out to men and then and then i branched out to people from the lgbq community didn't it was much harder at that point to get people to agree because i didn't have a social media presence and i was literally going on like craigslist and

going into the volunteer section and asking people to volunteer their stories and so um what i wanted to do though with that book and my mom and i did collaborate in the end um we i wanted to you know people always say their first time sex stories are boring and really they're not because i think they're there it's it's so much more than just the act the act itself is probably kind of boring because you're young and you don't know what you're doing and it's awkward and it's often painful for girls. But there's so much more to it because it's like, what were you taught about it? Did your parents talk to you about sex? Did your friends talk to you about what did they say? Did you have religious figures talk to you? so many people who responded were Catholic. I just thought that was funny. I didn't seek them out. It was like anybody who wanted to do it. And so we, you know, I had, I think, 25 different questions and everybody would go through and answer. And sometimes we were asked about like, how do you know they were telling the truth? Well, because it just, it just sounded like the truth. Why would they lie? I mean, you know, there were, there were some embarrassing things, people,

there was never anything overly shocking. There was a couple of stories that we didn't think rung true. It sounded like they were making it up and they were just having themselves. So, and then there was one that was a little disturbing that we weren't sure what was up with it. So we did in the book, we did put like a little asterisk and say, okay, this is disturbing. And if anything ever happens to you like this, because I think a father was present and directing the whole thing. And that was a little creepy, but mostly it was just normal. You know, people, I spoke to a woman who at the time, I believe she was in her seventies and her whole take on it was like, I was 15 and I did it and I liked it and I wanted to do it again, you know,. You know, and, you know, she gave her whole story. And then there was a man who the first time he ever had sex, he was 32.

And so, you know, I mean, there were some really surprising stories. And then I think the youngest person was a girl who had shared her story. I think she was 12 and a half when she first had sex. But she didn't have any regrets with it or anything. So, you know, we did that, which led to the second book, which was a second anthology, which is called Ain't No Sunshine, Men Reveal the Pain of Heartbreak. And so that book is a compilation of stories from men talking about what it feels like to go through a broken heart, whether they lost a wife or a husband or a love, whether it was

unrequited love, maybe it was a death, maybe it was a divorce. But a friend of mine said to me, I think people think that men can walk away from relationships easier, especially if they have their heart broken, if it's easier for them. And she goes, I don't think it is. And I agreed with her. And so my mom younger and was not paying attention, because I wanted to convince my younger self to be engaged politically. And then the last book that I wrote was Peyton's Choice. And that came out, I believe in 2015. That was the most fun book because it was my very first fiction book. And it's about a teenage girl who is very loosely based on me, who met a guy, fell in love, had sex for the first time, and then had a sexual relationship, and then wound up pregnant. And she chooses to have an abortion. And I specifically wanted to write a book about a girl who chose abortion and kind of spoiler here. I mean, she doesn't really regret it, but the story is not about the fact that she had an abortion. There are so many layers

because the abortion doesn't even come in to like two thirds of the way in. It's everything that got her there. It's the experience that she has with this guy who's a good guy, but sometimes says shitty things to her. And so she has to navigate through this new world of relationships and sex. And then, oh my God, she's pregnant. And it's loosely based on me because I said it in Torrance, California, which I went to high school in Torrance. And it was kind of just this wonderful beach town. And I had a lovely experience as a teenager. And so I just, you know, use that as the backdrop and use the fact that I had at the time, three friends of this, Peyton has three friends and it's the four of them. And so, you know, and I just, I wanted to touch on some of the things that we talk about politically,

but I wanted to make it, it's for young adults because she's 17 when she has the abortion, but I, but it's something that I think that, you know, I drew from the headlines and I just, I used my own personal experience with dating and, and some good guys. Like I said, there are good men out there who say shitty things to you sometimes, and you don't speak up because you don't, you don't want to lose their affection, especially when, when you're young. So it's like, he was not a bad guy, but you know, how did she, how she handled that? I really wanted to address it because it wasn't necessarily, it wasn't misogyny, but maybe it was a little sexism, you know, where he had parents that were sexist. And so he was

just going on what he knew. So those are my books. You can find them all on Amazon under Kimberly. I think I'm Kimberly A. Johnson on Amazon. Awesome sauce. So was there, through the Virgin Diaries, was there any sort of overall theme you came away with? Yeah, pretty much. The overall theme was girls, you know, it was mostly girls. It was what you would think. It was painful. It didn't stop them from doing it again, but it was painful and uncomfortable and nobody you know there were

some people who felt some shame but mostly people didn't really feel shame it was just kind of like this and then like the guys were like oh hell yeah awesome there was one guy who who said so this is what what you know this is all it is um i don't know exactly what his uh this is all it is like you know i mean it obviously just wasn't what the hell what the hell was he expecting i mean no but i mean you know i had sex it was awesome i was like i'll be back for more yeah that was pretty much the deal for most of the guys but um you know in each one of like like i said the older woman who shared her experience was like i loved it and i wanted to do it again. But I wanted to write that book in part because I remember when I was a virgin and I was, and I don't like the term virgin, but

before I had had first time sex, I was curious and I had a friend who was having regular sex and she told me how great it was. She did not say, okay, when you first do it, there's, and in the book I describe as like a ripping pain because it is, you're literally ripping skin down there most of the time. And not every time do you break the hymen, but most of the time you do. And it was excruciating. And so even though I was aware, you know, on some level I had learned about sex in school and I had heard about it and read about it and this and that, but I understood that there would be some pain involved. But I can still to this day remember how, oh my God, it hurts so much.

And of course, it didn't stop me from doing it again. In fact, it was my decision to do it and I wanted to kind of just get it out of the way because I knew it wasn't going to be great and so and then I felt like haha I achieved my goal you know and so I mean the theme I think overall is what you would expect except for the fact that um and you know I don't know if I'll ever do another like a sequel or whatever um not a sequel but like a second book but this time time, the difference, like that was the first time I'd ever attempted any kind of anthology. And so one of the things that I did that I would do differently now is when I put out the questionnaire, I would say,

how did you feel? Were you? And then I would give a list of adjectives. And so people would use my adjectives that I offered to describe their experience. And so there is some repetition in the book, which I do like, because I think that's another theme, that it's very much the same for all of us. But I would love, you know, if I were to do it again, I would look for a much more diverse group of people. I would love to get people of all, you know, nationalities. And although I never asked anybody what their nationality was, but I mean, I would like to know what it's like, you know, for people who are Jewish because there's so many Catholics that answered. So it's like, you know, what's it like for atheists?

What's it like for, you know, you know, all the different, you know, whatever you are, however you were raised, because there were just so many people who, you know, I was raised Catholic and I was basically told it was a sin and, you know, don't do it. Yeah, and don't do it. You know, you raise a lot of points that I never really have thought about. I might have considered them over the years.

But, you know, thinking about what people go through in their first times, I know there's a lot of pressure on women because they have more at risk than we do. You know, we don't get pregnant. Right. And I remember my young girlfriend, she was not a virgin, but she, you know, I think we waited a year and a half or something to have sex. And, you know, I mean, her fear was, you know, she validated her fear to me that, you know, oh, you might get pregnant. And, you know, I mean, it's terrorizing, I think, if I was to grow up as a woman.

Although I don't know if you can do a second book because, you know, basically you've already done the Virgin Diaries. After that, it would be more like the Horror Diaries. You know, second, no, I'm just kidding. Just doing jokes. Well, I mean, it would just, you know, I think one of the things that I enjoyed about it was that it's a universal experience for the most part. And, you know, people always think,

oh, I'm so different. I'm the only one who thinks this way. And, you know, come to find out, no, we all feel that way. We all, you know, it might be a different thought, but it's the same sentiment. It's, you know, we're all afraid. We're all curious.

You know, children are curious about sex. And interestingly too, when I would ask parents if they would let their child read the book, because I think it would be, I think a good age would be between like say 12 and 16. Parents would be like, oh no, I would not let my kid read this, maybe if they're 18. And I'm like, well, by that time they've probably lost their virginity. So it's too late. And you know, when I was when I was nine years old, I was, my mother was moving to California, and I was staying with my grandmother. So she, you know, my mother was driving across country, I was staying with my

grandmother for the summer. And I turned on the television. And interestingly enough, I happened on Days of Our Lives, which was the soap opera that I appeared on for seven years. But I turned it to whatever channel it was on and there was a scene with two teenagers having first-time sex and I was nine and I was totally approved, but I was riveted. I was so curious about it. And then when I was, I think, 10 years old in fifth grade, a girl friend of mine brought

this book to school called Forever by Judy Blume. And we went outside at recess and basically it was a book about two teenagers having sex. And I read that book before I wrote Peyton's Choice. But she was reading out loud all the sex parts in the book. And again, I was before I wrote Peyton's Choice, but we were reading, she was reading out loud all the sex parts in the book. And again, I was a prude. I wasn't interested in sex for me. I didn't want to have it, but I was so curious about it. And I ran to the bookstore after school, I bought the book and I read it in a day. And so kids are interested in sex and parents are always so afraid to expose their children to the realities of sex but it's like they're gonna find like my friend told me oh it's so great well really it

wasn't the first time wasn't so great and so you don't really get the real so i wanted to give the real like if you're a kid and you're curious about sex and you know i mean i think eight years old is too young maybe even nine years old is too young around 12 years old you're starting to experience you know things happening to your body you're seeing movies and you're seeing television shows and you're curious about it and you know who are you going to get the real honest truth from your parents no and your friends don't know enough to tell you anything so this was my i wanted to just offer something to younger people that they could say this is what it's really like it's the good the bad and the ugly i would have liked to have anything so this was my i wanted to just offer something to younger people that they could say

this is what it's really like it's the good the bad and the ugly i would have liked to read a book like that before uh yeah i would have my first time i mean it would have been it would have been uh i could to know although i you know we we've been practicing for a year and a half so we kind of yeah well i mean you figure it out but there's a lot of dry humping that had gone on leading up to that point but i think that it was more the emotional situation that i was focused on rather than the sexual i didn't really care about the sex part because we all we all know what that is we all know what happens there so i didn't and i also i didn't want this gratuitous sexual scene after sexual scene i just i wanted it to it to be about the emotions involved and, you

know, how you felt before, were you afraid? And then while it was happening, what was going on? And then after, did you regret it? Were you happy with your decision? Do you wish you would have done something differently? And so that would give an insight to a young person, which, okay, yeah, you know, you can figure out what to do sexually, but the emotional side of it is much more complicated. And so, you know, and it would also, I think, give both boys and girls an insight to the other, what, what they're going through, because plenty of boys were nervous. They were excited and everything, but they were nervous and they wanted to, you know, make the girl feel comfortable, but they don't know what they're doing. And so there, there was, you know, this way you would get like that inside scoop on what the other one

is thinking. It's awesome. All right. So everyone go to amazon.com, check out, uh, uh, our books and, uh, like I said, give us your plugs one more time so people can look you up on the interwebs and all that good stuff. Okay. Well, my, my, um, my Patreon patreon which is my podcast page it's again patreon.com slash start me up and then obviously uh you can my twitter is author kimberly but it's k-i-m-b-e-r-l-e-y there's an extra name extra e at the end of my name and if you go to amazon you just go to kimberly again l-e-y-a johnson and all my books are there awesome sauce well it's been wonderful having you on the show kimberly we'll have to have you on more and talk about politics so anytime you want to come on and and bang on uh you know trump

i do that very well hopefully awesome well thank you you can come on uh after you know the november election we can have drinks celebrating from office. You know, I got to tell you, I'm more concerned about what he's going to do in a scorched earth sort of thing if he loses. Because they still have two and a half months in office. They could burn down the White House for all we know. That's going to be some volatile stuff right there, yeah. I hope his dementia just gets so bad because he's collapsing so much that he he just has to bow out because of his dementia his frontal lobe dementia i hope so and it's clear he's having probably many strokes i'm seeing a lot of him i agree i agree anyway uh

thanks to my audience for tuning in thanks for kimberly for being on the show uh and uh check her out uh go to the cvpn.com and chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. You can see online podcasts there. Subscribe, learn stuff. Your brain might grow so big you'll have to order a new cream from Amazon. And you can also go to youtube.com where it says Chris Voss and hit that bell notification for all the shows we do there. Thanks to my audience once again.

Stay safe. We'll see you next time.