The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Sex and Feminism with Kat Rosenfield

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Kat Rosenfield is a culture writer and columnist at Unherd, and the author of five novels including the Edgar-nominated, No One Will Miss Her.

🎵 This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller coming at you on SiriusXM 99. Raw comedy, formerly known as Raw Dog. We are also available as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube if you want to see our beautiful faces. Dan Natterman here with Noam Dorman. Periel Ashton Brand joins us, as always. And we are delighted to have with us Kat Rosenfield, a culture writer and columnist at Unheard, author of not one, two, three, four, but five novels, including No One Will Miss Her, and her most recent book, You Must Remember This, available now in paperback. Kat Rosenfield,

thank you so much for joining us in person. We love in person. We prefer it to the miracle of teleconferencing. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. I also love in person. It is much more intimate. I can smell you both. Just a brief announcement. Richard Lewis apparently died, the comedian. So that's very sad news at the age, I believe, of 76. I know. I could cry.

Now, a little production note. You could have told me on the air. But now, you just told me about Richardard lewis time before before we started yeah and just so you know i i can't react to it with the surprise well that's probably a good thing given what you said i'm just kidding oh no just in general tell you bad news on air yeah so okay so i learned this lesson once, and it stayed with me the rest of my life, and this is very good advice, okay?

You can't do it twice. So when I was, one of my best friend's fathers died, and his brother had to deliver the eulogy, and so he invited the closest friends over the house the day before to, he wanted us to hear the eulogy so that we could comment on it, help whatever. And the eulogy was just beautiful.

I mean, it was perfect. Didn't need a single change. And he read it, it was just beautiful. And then the next day he read the eulogy at the funeral and it completely fell flat. It was just beautiful. And then the next day, he read the eulogy at the funeral, and it completely fell flat. And the reason it was clear that it fell flat is that we heard it already. And there was just no way to ever react to it again as it had heard it.

And that was a long time ago, but that lesson always stuck with me. That sometimes I don't like to talk about anything before I get on the air because I know you just can't, you can't react to ice. Anyway. Can I ask a question though about that? Yeah. Did it fall flat for you because you'd heard it

or the whole room just didn't? There were enough people, the key people, the key people that needed to hear it had already heard it, most of them. I have more questions about that. We can do it when Kat's not on air.

I was going to ask if they booed him off the stage. The worst eulogy I've ever heard. Take it again. So, but as far as Richard Lewis goes, I didn't know him. I think he might have played here years and years ago. I opened for him at, I believe it was Comics. Remember Comics? The comedy club on, it was 14th Street and in the meatpacking district.

I opened for him. I didn't interact with him. He was very to himself, as you would imagine he would be. But he was one of those very important figures in that pivotal 80s, 90s generation of stand-up comics with Seinfeld and Larry David and all those guys who then they got sitcoms and stuff. Very well respected.

He was wonderful. I schlepped my husband out to the end of the earth in long island many many years ago to see him perform and i'm so glad i did you understand it he did well he's we're big fans of kirby or enthusiasm so it was very exciting um to see him live but it was really special. He was really incredible. And I'm a hypochondriac. I'm susceptible to everything known to man. And my doctor called me yesterday and he went, absolutely no phone sex. Okay. You know, and although phone sex is a nightmare for me, I'm in my hotel room in Oklahoma city there. I'm wailing away. I always have this paranoia that the woman's like, you know, in a kitchen making a beef goulash while

I'm on the phone, you know, you know, and I never have an orgasm healthily. I mean, I just, you know, I usually basically, I just do impressions of other men enjoying themselves, which is sad. The best one the last three years I do Gleason. Oh, that's good. That was, uh, so let's, let's talk about Kat. So I met Kat at the Olive Tree a few months ago with Conor Friedersdorf. Is that who it was that was there that night? Yep, holding court with all of his friends.

Yeah. This was a typical, I'm going to confess to like a sexist dynamic that I've noticed more than once where there were a lot of loudmouth guys at the table, and they introduced you as a writer, and very complimentarily so, but there were so many loudmouth men at the table,

you were kind of a little quiet through the whole interaction. And then afterwards, I went to follow you on Twitter and read a couple of things that you wrote. And I was like, holy shit, this woman is brilliant. Like, she's funny and she's like acerbic. And I was like, what's with us fucking men? Like, just like bulldozing over people in these conversations.

For the record, I remember this interaction very, very differently. How do you remember? I remember getting into a fight with you about your N95 mask. And you were telling me how you wore your N95 mask and you loved it and it worked. And I asked you if you still had the beard when you were wearing your N95. And you, yes. And I said, well, then it wasn't working. You know, you weren't wearing it right. And then you stopped talking to me. No, no. I do. I do remember like getting into a little thing with you about, I remember it was about masks or whatever it was, but that's, that was, that's a different aspect of the story that also happened. Um, the. The N95 mask that I wore is not the one, the black one,

like that drugstore one. I had the respirator one that really goes over the whole face. And I didn't wear the beer heavy like this, but it was, it might not have been perfect, but it was enough that you could feel the suction of the air when you were breathing. But, you know, no one, and if I have like a suction cup, but you're right that to really get it, but doctors wear them even with some facial hair. But I get it. I had this experience scuba diving one time too, where, so I know that's kind of similar, but that's, yeah. And I thought maybe you were pissed at me, but that's really a different matter. What, what, what, what made me feel bad

is that somehow in that conversation, I didn't realize how, how brilliant we were. So. I might just be, you know, like many writers, I'm much better in print than in person, but I'm going to do my best today. I just want to say. Did, what was your takeaway from that? Well, he, he thinks that because the men were drowning her out. Right. But what's your takeaway from that when you're sitting at a table like that? Well, he thinks that because the men were drowning her out. Right. But what's your takeaway from that when you're sitting at a table like that? Do you have, did you, was there like a kernel of knowledge that you left that with? Well, I think it's what she just said. And it might,

and it might be amplified by gender differences that, that, um, some people are not as aggressive and, and, uh, and maybe, maybe women more often than men, not exclusively, but it, it probably explains to some degree why we have the phenomenon where there's

so many more male standup comics and so many fantastic female comedy writers. And actually women have excelled in writing comedy for, for, for a very long time. There's just something loudmouth about men right the class clowns are men well haven't they done studies where like girl all girls schools they're more likely to raise their hand and i don't know maybe but i you know i was gonna say one other thing um as i remember it the conversation was just like endless endless discussion of geopolitics which frankly i'm not super interested in so it may have just been also that i was really bored oh but it's never boring with conor friedersdorf i think that was the first second time i met him

but he's always he's always interesting or maybe you're really bored and the men wouldn't shut the fuck up yeah i mean it can be both why Why not both? They're not mutually exclusive. So anyway, you write a lot about men and women. I do. And you sent us a few, and I asked you about them. But what are your general takes on the differences between men and women? Do you have opinions on the differences that they're born with? I'm in favor of differences between men and women. No, do I have opinions on the differences they're

born with? I wasn't expecting that question. You mean like anatomically? Periel believes there are no differences anatomically. But no, mentally. And do you think that certain male attributes are just male attributes and they were fighting a futile

battle to, to change them or control them. And same thing with women. Not fundamentally. I mean, I think that you have a greater distribution of certain attributes amongst the male population and a greater distribution of certain attributes amongst women. Um, there's some kind of, I feel like I've seen a bell curve chart where it shows that you've got more, for instance, male geniuses, but also more men who are just like abysmally stupid, whereas women are more smart kind of on average, but they don't spike at either end in the same way.

And I guess my ultimate take on this is that it doesn't matter because everybody should be treated as an individual, but also that it's okay to observe these realities if there are indeed differences between the sexes in terms of, for instance, what kind of work they gravitate towards or, you know, what kind of interests they have. It's okay to just acknowledge that. And it's one of those things where like in countries where you have some of the greatest gender parity, you also see the greatest discrepancies between the type of work that men tend to do and the type of work that women do. Because in fact, like they do tend to gravitate towards different fields.

So what do you mean? Like what kind of work? Give me an example of the work in those places. Yeah. So the shorthand is just that women tend to be more interested in working with people and men tend to be more interested in working with things. Yeah, well, I see that in my kids. I mean, the differences between my kids, you know, two boys and a girl, is so cliche and profound. My sons just love to build things and they want to be on chat GPT all the time and

anything new technologically they're fascinated with. My daughter does not have those interests. She's all into cosmetics and things that would bore me. And it just really does seem like these are inborn differences. Pretty much every guy remembers as a kid the disappointment on their birthday, opening up presents, and some joker would always give you clothes. Oh, the worst. And every guy was outraged by this.

And yet, girls, that's the go-to present for girls, is clothes. And now maybe there's some societal effect, but I think a lot of it's innate. Where the question certainly does matter, well, you probably thought a hundred times more about this than I have, but there seems to be something about

the modern version of feminism as processed even through the way we react to Me Too stories and stuff, which has come around again to being extremely, extremely protective of women as the weaker and more fragile sex. The kind of things that men get in trouble for saying, for doing, for physically or even verbally. No woman ever would get in trouble for these things,

nor do we think they should. We think that women, to be treated equally, need to be treated almost protectively. Is that wrong? I mean, I think it's wrong to do it, but I don't think you're wrong in your observation. But yeah, we do have, at this point, the way that things have played out in the public discourse. A lot of the things that we talk about trying to do on behalf of women tends to betray a sort of a low opinion of women. There's this sense that they can't handle things the way that men can, that they can't be expected to follow the same rules as everybody else in society,

that they need to be like treated as though they were a protected class almost in the eyes of the state in the same way that they're treated as a protected class in something like sport, where you have actually innate biological differences that make it necessary to break these categories out. But when you start to do that on like, you know, in terms of what kind of moral rules you're supposed to follow or how intellectually robust you can be, I think it's really a bad path to go down because we've had feminists out here for like 100 years saying, no, women are completely capable of competing intellectually with men. And then you have at the same time, this idea that if a woman hears an insensitive joke, um, or, you know, or is criticized in a certain way, she's going to fall to pieces where a man is not going to. But there is something, I mean, I guess I'm a little bit old school, but like every man has had the experience at some point where when you're younger, where a girl will take her shoes off and she'll like, you know'll fondle you under the table with her shoe.

That's her way of coming on, is to actually... Jack Tripper always would get... Yeah. They would always do that to him. And I am of the opinion that it's flirtatious when a woman does it, but it's inappropriate for a man to do the same thing. That a man making a physical move towards a woman has to be done in a different way than vice versa. I feel that way. I just want to,

I'm not sure that I'm understanding visually the picture that is being painted here. You're saying that somebody took their shoes off and put their stocking foot on your genitals? Is that what we're talking about? No, like... No, not naked. Just like, you know,

we'll caress you under the table in one way or just grab you. Have you ever done this to a man? Yes, she has. I have. Maybe it's a generational thing. Am I like a little too young to have learned to do this?

My mother never taught me about the stocking foot move. Well, I don't know. It doesn't have to be your foot. I mean, it could be your hands. In my case, it was my foot. Not on the genitals, but up the pant leg. Up the pant leg. A woman will grab for a guy's dick. She might do that too, but

I mean, maybe, but that's extreme. I think that... Let's follow that through. Let's say a woman did do that. If you then went on the news to complain, people would laugh at you. Listen, I'm going to tell you something. I have a very good girlfriend

who was... I'm intentionally going to be vague because it was a pretty big, it turned into like a big legal thing, who had a very high- Give us more hints, go ahead. Whatever. She had a very high position

and her boss did exactly- And what industry was that? I don't want to say, not comedy. And her boss did exactly that to her. He took her hands and put it on his dick. His junk. And it was wildly inappropriate. And she was totally traumatized.

And she also wound up losing her job over it. He lost his job, but they let her go because he was the one who was kind of like in charge of her position. It was a whole big thing. She should sue if they let her go. Well, nobody one who was kind of like in charge of her position. It was a whole big thing. Sue, if they let her go. Well, nobody said she didn't. Um,

but the point is, is I really do think it depends on the situation. If like in certain situations that can be like a nice flirtatious thing. I'm just, yeah. But if you know the man, well, look, when you,

when you were dating, that, that cat's been married for how many years? Uh, the man. Well, look, when you were dating, that cat's been married for how many years? Almost 16. 16 years. But when you were dating, did you expect the man to pay for the date? No, but I appreciated it when he did. You appreciated it when he did.

Only if he wanted to get laid afterward. What was your reaction if he did not? I didn't really think much of it honestly um unless he made a lot more money than me and then i was like what come on and that happens right yeah yeah i mean well you know when i was when i was dating you know pre pre-husband because he always did pay i just want to say you know people are listening my husband paid um that's why he closed the deal that's exactly right that and some other reasons but anyway but I digress. I don't want to get too anatomical on this podcast. I think we hear what you're saying.

When I was dating, I worked in publishing. I, you know, made zero money. So if I was going out with a guy who was like a banker or something and he wanted to go Dutch on the check, I was like, that's crazy. Yeah. It just, I mean,

it's not even a man woman thing. It was just more an I'm poor and you're rich and what's wrong with you kind of thing. I think it's horrendous that any man, I don't care how much money you make. Any man would not pick up the check on a date. I just, I can't, I can't process that. I think, okay, first of pick up the check on a date. I can't process that. I think, okay, first of all, the world has changed, though.

Like, people now are- Well, this is my point. I'm sorry to interrupt you because of my nature, but I don't believe- And also because you're one of the men you were complaining about. But I don't believe the world has changed. I don't believe it's changeable. I believe that the primitive feeling that a woman will have when the man pays or doesn't pay is not overcomable through cultural brainwashing. I believe that the woman expects and will always

expect the man to be a man. But if you're going out on multiple dates from a dating app, like there are people who go out like every single night. Sometimes they have multiple dates per night. I think the expectation is different. No? Can you take that bottle off the table? With the gum in it? Yeah.

By the way, Noam does expect you to pay for ice cream when you go to Maine with him. Go ahead. For our regular viewers. I'm so distracted by the bottle with the gum in it now that I forgot what the question was. It's actually several pieces of gum. You think a man ought to be a man. That's what we're asking. As opposed to what?

As opposed to half a man. But I don't know. I mean, is the idea that, like, there is some biological drive to have the man pay. And if he doesn't, then everything just, what you experience, like complete organ failure. I believe he's diminished in a way that you can't. You may not even notice, according to Noam. I'm probably going to alienate so many people. I have been in so many situations with women

who considered themselves to be feminists in good standing, and they were sincere. And yet they would find themselves falling into traditional feminist, feminine roles in terms of, you know, making breakfast in the morning or whatever it is. This was not something I expected. It was just a natural, seemed to be natural. There's no way to know it's not cultural, except that it just seems that there would be differences between men and women biologically. And it does seem that the idea of taking care in such a way

would coincide with the sex that has no choice but to be the one that takes care, because women have children, and technology didn't really afford much alternative for thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. What if this is a unique case, but there is a situation where, for example, Amy Schumer's husband, I believe, is a chef. Gene, yeah. So I imagine Amy's income far surpasses his by exponentially.

And should he pay on the day? Absolutely. And what if she says, no, I'll take care of it? He should still pay. He should insist? Yeah, he should insist. Same thing with the ice cream.

No, once you start a family situation. Once you start a family., once you start a family and he makes, I mean, but it would not surprise me, this is not to do with Amy Schumer, that a man who is the dependent in a relationship where the woman makes much more than he does, it would not surprise me that that's a haunting psychology. I'm not saying you can't live with it,

but it would not surprise me that any man in that situation is a little bit bothered by it. I'm trying to really be honest here with the answer. I think there's an exception to that rule, by the way. Go ahead. If the man is a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and wounded, and the woman pays the bills, then he can still feel a man. You were saying parallel.

I'm trying to think like, I think that if you go out with a guy and there is something nice about him paying for dinner, but I think, for me, but I think that maybe there are other ways to make it feel more equal. Like you would, because that is quote unquote how it's been, right? So I do think that there's,

whether we're brainwashed or not, there's no inherent reason why men need to do that. There's another layer to it. And then I want you to read a paragraph of Kat's writing for me. The other layer to it is that, and it touches a little bit on what you said, which is that now there's this extra suspicion

that the reason he's not paying is that he's hiding behind the new cultural norms in order to save money. You follow me? He would love to pay. I'd love to pay, but I don't want to insult you by paying, but actually he's happy to pocket the difference. That is what I suspect. Any guy I know, and I know to pay, but you know, I don't want to insult you by paying, but actually he's happy to pocket the difference. Because that is what I suspect.

Any guy I know, and I know a few guys who go Dutch, they're cheap. Yeah, there is something a little bit. What do you think? I mean, there is something a little bit that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, especially if he asks you out. Right, yeah. I mean, I think what I was taught growing up was that whoever asks should pay. I like that. And then typically it is the guy doing the asking. What strikes me though, is that like, we're in this moment where we've kind of done away with a lot of the courtship

norms, right? And maybe, maybe rightfully so, maybe some of them were bad, maybe all of them were bad, but the result now is that it's like the Wild West and nobody knows how to behave and everybody's anxious. And so we're now trying to find our way to new rules to replace the ones that we decided to dispense with that, you know, that were no good because they were based on patriarchy or whatever it is. And we're just kind of flailing around. I mean, look at us like we're, you know, we're trying to figure out is there any way to get past the emasculation of letting a woman pay on a date? Maybe we should just go back to letting the guys pay. I have no problem with the guys paying.

I'm pretty sure. I mean, I haven't dated in quite some time because I've also been married for what feels like forever. I don't think the new rules are better. I think in a lot of ways, the pendulum, you know, from the 1900s swinging over our heads and sometime around the eighties and nineties, it actually was in a pretty good place. And now it's swung too far in the other direction, except of course, for the constant problem of women being sexually harassed. And that, and, and, and to the extent that i don't think the new rules have really affected that but i mean i don't think if women are being harassed less often now i don't

think it's because of the new rules or the new courtship stuff but to the extent that women are being less sexually harassed that's a very very very good thing but the idea that courtship has been upended that the mating dance which is kind of something that was within us. I mean, every species has their mating dance. It's not something you're taught. You know it. It's in your DNA that our culture is now literally fighting against what appears to be the natural mating dance and then catching people reverting to what is coming naturally to them is, I think, terrible. I'm thinking about my nieces who are like gorgeous and in their like early 20s and how they go out with like all these guys and the stories they tell me about how like the guys don't pay. And I'm just like, oh, it's awful.

And they think it's awful, too. Right. But it's true. Like what you said, it's like you're in this like space, and nobody really knows how to act or what to say. What do the guys say when the check comes? They split it. Yeah. Oh, God.

I have another question for you guys. Wait, let me read that while you're at it. So I have a daughter. Okay. Congratulations. And she's very pretty. And this is, I think, objectively true. No, she's beautiful. She's very pretty. And this is, I think, objectively true. No, she's beautiful.

She's very pretty. She is. And people are always saying to me, oh, you better be careful with that one. You better be careful with that one. And my reaction has been the following. And you tell me if you're wrong, if I'm wrong. Of all the people, of all the girls I knew growing up who were not, you know, horse, you know, were not like really loose. Loose, really?

Whatever word you want to put on it. The point is like the girls who maintain their dignity the most. Wait, so having sex means you lose your dignity? Let me get past the speed bump. And you can go back into it. Keep digging that hole. I'm purposely bringing it up because I know it's controversial.

The girls who were very pretty, I'll put it this way, the girls who were very pretty and came from stable families that didn't appear to have any psychological trauma or issues or daddy or something, these were always the toughest girls to get into bed. That's all I'm trying to say.

The toughest girls to get into bed in high school and college were the girls who were hot, who didn't have any apparent like, you know, they weren't needy, they weren't trying to make up for the fact that daddy didn't love them. These were the things. All of which is saying

like, I've... This narrative is getting worse and worse. It's an interesting... Okay. I'm trying to think back. Are you saying that women that were less attractive, even if they came from good homes, were more likely to be promiscuous? Let's put it another way. Insecurity. I'm not sure that was my observation. Insecurity of various

kinds manifests itself in certain ways. And one way insecurity can manifest itself is by trying to make up for it by being loved, by getting attention, by sex, or whatever it is. So to the extent that somebody, as I'm basically describing, is the most secure profile that somebody can be, confident, they're looks confident, that person is least likely to be a whore.

I was being a little, you know, over the top. But any of that, or the other option is like, no, there's no profile. Every person is as likely as any other person to either have little sex

or a lot of sex, be promiscuous, not promiscuous. That's another option. But if there is some reason that some people are more promiscuous than others, is what I'm describing perhaps one of the things that might be statistically significant. I'm going to let you take this. I just feel like this was a very convoluted story about how you figured out how to prey on ugly and emotionally damaged young women.

That's very perceptive. Over the course of many, many years. Which is a strategy for sure. And who said you're better on paper? So, I mean, is the question whether beauty is protective in some way from being seduced by morally hideous men such as yourself. In other words, that a hot, secure woman will have sex, of course, but only because she, on her, it's a seller's market.

Yeah, only because she, on her, it's a seller's market. Only because she actually finds you attractive. Like, she wouldn't do it just because you you know, because you looked really sad. Right. Or because she feels, I want something like... Or because you were emotionally manipulating her. You know what, I should have known

that this is a bad... I mean, you brought this up like completely unprompted. Something you said reminded me of... No, no, but wait a second. I mean, you brought this up like completely unprompted. Something you said reminded me of that. But wait a second. We've actually talked about this before because we do know that women who are emotionally unstable are more likely to be victims of sexual violence.

And then people use that as an excuse to not believe those women that they say, oh, I was raped or whatever. And they're like, well, like, who knows if you can really believe her because she's crazy or she's fucked up. So you might be on to something. Well, that seems to me a separate question. The question being- It's not a separate question.

It's part of the spectrum of the same question. But the more direct question is, as you articulated, are less attractive women trying to cop, more emotionally needy, necessarily emotionally needy, and does that make them

necessarily more promiscuous? So this is putting me in mind of something that's a little bit galaxy-brained, but I just remembered that I read this memoir back when I was a teenager called Autobiography of a Face by a woman who was facially disfigured. And one of the things she wrote about was how she was obviously very self-conscious about her appearance. And she had a list of all of the men who she had managed to seduce or who were willing to sleep with her. And this was in some way a proxy for her, you know, to understand herself as desirable,

despite the fact that she had this facial deformity. And so I don't think that like, I don't think what you're saying is false. I'm not sure that I would extrapolate it out to I have a hot daughter therefore she'll never be like emotionally harmed by somebody who sleeps with her and hurts her feelings and breaks her heart but well I don't think he was saying that

he's saying she'll be less likely to sleep around yeah that's what I was saying unless she's horny in which case maybe she women don't get horny I'm kidding all right here so I thought this was I thought this was a very good Kat Rosenfield paragraph in which case maybe she... Women don't get horny. I'm kidding. All right, here. I thought this was a very good Cat Roosevelt paragraph,

and it'd be better to read it in a woman's voice so that she could read it too. Well, you can read it. I think that women historically have not been granted agency over their sexual desires, and I think that that's the part of this that you are missing because nobody would ever say that about their son. You would never say, well, my son's very good looking and he comes from a stable background and therefore-

And thank God he'll never have sex. Or thank God he'll never have too much sex, right? Or too many partners. And what does that mean? What is too much sex? And so historically... Listen, I'm copping to having some deep sexist kind of views. I do...

I can't help it. I do feel differently about men and women. We've talked about it years ago. I do feel like if my son's high school teacher wants to sleep with him, it is different to me than if my daughter's high school teacher does it. I can't help it. I've been trying to tell

you for years that it's not different. Well, it might not be. I think it's different. It's my truth, Perry. I think it's different. You think it's the same thing? Well, I know one thing. I know that the women I've known

who have been seduced or whatever it is, taken advantage of by their high school teachers, have a lot more anger about it years later than the boys do. How many boys do you know in that situation? The boys, you know, you won't believe what in high school my English teacher and girls can be quite resentful of the fact that their English teacher.

I would argue that. It's always the English teacher, by the way. Okay, but here's a question. Or the gym teacher. How much of that has to do with the narrative that we construct surrounding those kind of relationships, depending on whether it's between an older woman and a younger man or an older man and a younger woman. A person who like if you have a guy, a teenage guy who sleeps with his 20 something teacher, the reinforcement he gets from his friends, from the culture is, dude, good for you. You bagged a hot older woman. You must be very sexually desirable. If the same thing happens, but the, you know, the sex is switched and it's a young woman and an older man,

we tell her, well, you were taken advantage of, you were victimized in some way. And, you know, maybe there's also some genuine feeling behind that on either side, but I don't think that the narrative is nothing.

Yeah. And this is where the whole thing really crisscrosses because what I'm describing is a kind of protective attitude about women which actually lines up more with current feminists but what you hear them talk about, the whole Me Too movement and all this stuff implies that women need to be protected

from this stuff, even as adults, let alone I would almost argue that a 15 year old boy is less emotionally mature than a 15-year-old girl. And maybe he's not resentful in the same way, but I would venture to guess that he's fucked up or that took a toll on him somehow. In some way, sex, just intercourse, is generally less emotional for men than it is for women generally because just generally less emotional how much of that is also the narrative i mean what's interesting to me that's exactly right is like what you just said about i cry after sex i've heard

um but what you just said about women not... You know what it cost me. Oh, God. You win, you win. But what you said about women not getting horny, like a lot of contemporary feminism agrees with you on that, that women experience no desire. I was kidding, obviously. I mean, I'm married.

Right, right. Married women don't get desire. But no, that's the thing. like, you know, a lot of feminist kind of rhetoric and feminist thought suggests that women do not ever want to have sex. And if they, you know, so like any circumstance under which they say yes, it was probably that they were in some way tricked into it or they were. They don't want casual sex, emotionless sex. No, just that they experience no desire whatsoever. That's insane. I mean, people will talk about women like, and women talk about themselves this way.

They're like, don't approach women when you see them. Don't approach a woman at the gym. Don't approach a woman if you see her in the grocery store. Don't approach a woman on the street. Women don't want to be wanted. They don't want you. They just want to be left alone. The popular conception of women amongst a certain, I'm not saying all feminists, but a certain segment of like the kind of

progressive, like radical feminist left is that women are like these neutered entities that they do not experience sexual desire and that their ideal is to just be left alone until they die. And then hence, because of that, men, anytime they approach a woman, their sexuality, just like constitutionally, is predatory. Yeah. You know, of the various privileges in life that are unfair, one that doesn't get talked about enough is, in my opinion, the emotional intelligence intelligence privilege because there's so many relationships out there and overwhelmingly they start with the man sensing that the time is right and making the move right most men are not asking permission to kiss or whatever it usually they sense the time

is right and if they are not completely oblivious, if they have a good sense for things, it's received nicely and they go on to have a family and children, right? But the dudes who don't have the emotional intelligence to realize she has no interest in you.

And they can't help that. That's probably genetic, too. But they could listen when she says it. Well, but then she goes online and she's outraged. And at the workplace where people are having sex all the time in the workplace, those few dudes, it's not that they did something no one else was doing. They just didn't have the sense to know that don't do that with her. She has no interest.

And they go out down in history as these horrible people. No, but no, there is a phenomenon where a guy's hitting on you and you are. Some people are creeps. Yeah. I'm describing the non creeps. Of course.

Okay. But I do think that there is a level as somebody who I got married quite a bit later in my life. And I was somebody who was out all the time and in nightclubs and I also worked in that industry. And she was promiscuous we know from her books. I wouldn't use the word promiscuous. She was sex positive. But there are you know there is it's like you're not fucking getting it like I'm not interested and you're not getting it but you just said something that really resonated with me

that goes back to you calling me promiscuous, which is that if a boy or a teenage boy is having sex, it's like, good for you. That's awesome. Nobody ever, and that you said that men are less emotional about that. And there might be something, I mean, I'm not a scientist. I know that comes as a great job.

I know your husband's less emotional. Well, you know what? I don't think that's true. I think that men are just as fucking sensitive in different ways. But you said that men are less emotional about sex. And maybe there is something biological or scientific about that. I don't know. But I don't

think that girls are ever given the option or recognize that is like you can just go get laid and have fun and have sex just for the purpose of having sex because you want to have sex. And that's totally okay. Perrie, can I ask if you give any credence to Noam's theory that pretty girls are necessarily more secure and necessarily less promiscuous? No, I think that there are plenty of beautiful women and men who are totally insecure. All right, okay.

I was coming up with a theory why I couldn't get pretty girls in bed, right? Thanks a lot, Marielle. By the way, there's good empirical evidence from my point of view. And then we'll get to that part, which is that if you look at the online sex sites, they're almost 100% geared towards men. When Ashley Madison got hacked, which was this site for men and women to go have a, it turned out to be basically 100% men and prostitutes.

Right, but you- So this is a pretty good scientific description But what I just said is the base of that. It was like nobody else would know. Women were not going on sites just to get laid between three and five o'clock and run home. They wanted to know somebody. They didn't want to just fuck somebody

they could see for two seconds online. I do have a theory about why that is the case that has nothing to do with women's emotional constitution, everything to do with women's biological and anatomical constitution. Like the fact of the matter is if you're a woman and you're trying to have casual sex, the first time you do it with a new person, you're probably not going to have that much fun because it's a little more complicated for us than it is for men. Yeah, that's right. And for a man,

the second time is not as much fun. The half-life already... You're already bored. There's a sweet spot a few times in where you're comfortable, but not... Well, maybe Catlin, do you want me to... Okay. Okay. What are you reading from my diary? There's a sweet spot a few times in where you're comfortable, but not. Well, maybe Catlin. Do you want me to? It's a little.

Okay. Okay. What are you reading from my diary? How'd you get that? It's one of your articles. Just the first paragraph? Just the middle paragraph. Okay.

Quote. She is such a good writer. Okay. Everybody has to read herself. She's such a good writer. Go ahead. Hit it. Women, as the radical notion goes, are people.

We do not share one singular concept of what makes a man desirable or dull or creepy. One woman's red flag is another's red light special, and so on. I have friends who have told me in earnest that they think Henry Cavill is not that handsome. I have a friend who married a guy who looks so much like the pudgy Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark that every time my husband and I watch that movie, we say, Hey, there's Brian. Do I love and respect these women? Yes.

Would I ever substitute their judgment for my own on the question of whether a given man is a good idea? Absolutely not. Now, there's so much that I want to ask. That is so good, Kat. Thank you. Everything she writes is great. But first of all, your friend who has the pudgy Nazi, I assume you changed the name of the person.

Yes, thank God. I had no idea that it was going to go national here. But they're going to know who you're writing about? Not necessarily. How many friends of yours have husbands who fit the description of pudgy Nazi? More than you'd think. That is so excellent.

And, all right, so I was like, my gosh, she's actually not camouflaging this very well. And then there are really bedwetters? Yeah, I mean, this was many, many years ago. But this was a friend of a friend who I knew from just kind of like the college lore about him was that if he had too much to drink, he would pee in the bed. And a friend of mine was clearly like vibing with him at a bar and everyone was really, really drunk. And I said, you know, just so you know, this guy has this history.

And she was like, okay, I'm still taking him home. And I said, that's a great idea. Just make sure he pees before you go to bed. And she did. I think they had a very good time. Oh, he did? By the way, the man in question is Ronald Lacey. Is this the guy?

Oh, I thought you were talking about the bed wetter. I was like, no, that's not his name. No, that's the guy. Is that the person you were talking about the bedwetter. I was like, no, that's not his name. No, that's the guy that, is that the person you were referring to? Yes, yeah. Ronald Lacey, an English actor. That is so good, and it's so accurate. It's so true, and I think, and so why?

Because we're not as shallow as men are. I mean, because the things that turn us on or that we find attractive are not. What turns you on, Perrielle? I mean, you know, we can get into that. But it's not just like this facade of kind of stereotypical good looks, right? Yeah. of kind of stereotypical good looks, right? Yeah, and I mean, the reason that I was writing about that was with respect to the idea of the, quote, type of guy that women warn each other about,

as though this is a universal thing where all women share one idea of what that type of guy is. We had, a while back, the shitty media men list, which I don't know if you guys have ever talked about, but there was this whole list that was created of men in media who were allegedly, it was like this crowdsourced Google document full of anonymous entries, men who had allegedly done something untoward sexually. Do I need to stop? No, that's siren I'm saying. It's okay. There's my ride.

But so there were all these guys on the list, some of whom I knew. And what just struck me was that, you know, a lot of these men were supposedly, it was like, oh, he flirted with me and it was weird. Or I know he had an affair with someone and that's bad. And like a lot of these two were like, I heard he raped somebody or I heard he did an assault. And but I mean, the thing about most of these guys on this list is they were in some cases people that I knew who were already, you know, married to somebody else who seemed like perfectly good husbands. And I think the thing is that like a lot of the times that people start warning each other about, oh, this guy, he's bad. What they're really saying is I personally had a bad time with this guy. Like we were not compatible. We didn't click.

But the person about whom that is being said could be perfectly compatible with somebody else. That's true. I do think that you can be compatible with somebody else that, you know, I would or you would find really unappealing by all accounts uh bill and camille had a great marriage bill cosby and camille yes they did that's true i was just about to say though i'm not sure that this idea of being like a perfect husband necessarily like means anything because you could be a perfect husband and have a whole other family in another state. As a matter of fact, if you have a perfect husband, you ought to be very suspicious

why he keeps his nose so clean. Listen, it's funny, but I had a perfect bookkeeper one time. 24 hours a day, I could call her and say, why is she so devoted? Because she was stealing. She didn't want to be at any risk with me actually

sniffing around. She robbed me for all my money. But she was a great bookkeeper. She was fantastic. I'd still take her back today. That's incredible. All right. You finished parallel? I'm waiting to exhale here.

It's interesting because I'm not going to just say the thing that comes into my head like hot girls are whores. Like I actually want to like think about it. Is there anything to be said for an intelligent woman? When I think back to women I knew in high school that weren't beauties, but they were intelligent and seemed quite confident. Yes, of course that's true. And not, you know, not insecure.

Yeah, you know why? Because they're not caught up in like this nonsense of like looking like this like perfect, made up, manufactured doll. They're actually have brains in their heads and I'm sure that some of them are quite beautiful in their own right. Now, I heard today,

this is completely probably the opposite of everything I've been saying, Tom Brady's wife was having an affair with the jujitsu instructor? Who's his current wife? It was Gisele Bundchen. I don't know. The blonde supermodel type? She was

cheating on Tom Brady? Okay, I'm going to tell you something. What? There is a very famous Israeli singer and... David Broza. No, no no no no his name is a y'all rami khan's name go go go go go and he's you know i don't know he's he's not gorgeous but um and he was married to the beauty queen of israel and she was but i mean she was absolutely stunning she was absolutely stunning. She was the most beautiful woman in Israel, right? And he was caught fucking all of these other women and some of them were not attractive at all.

One second. And so he got called on to some talk show and they're like, how could you be cheating on your wife? She is the most beautiful woman in the land. And he goes, well, you know,

you can't eat filet mignon every night. Sometimes you want like a piece of pita with a little bit of like chocolate spread on it. Yeah. But that's not news. You, you grant, you know,

and divine. I was just thinking of that same thing. Yeah. Well, it does. There's, is there another dynamic there, which is that when women see this homely guy with this beautiful woman, that they then somehow find him more attractive?

Is that possible? There was a movie. What was that movie? I don't know. It was a movie where some nerdy kid started dating the beautiful girl, and all the girls were like, oh, this guy. Let me put it this way. Pete Davidson's not an ugly guy or anything, but Pete Davidson is an average looking guy, right? I mean, when we knew, when Pete Davidson was

here as a regular comic, nobody was like. Yes and no. He has something. He has the perfect blend of weird, but he's tall and gangly and thin. He's, as I was saying, he's not an ugly guy by any stretch of imagination. But I go so far as to say he's

hot in his own way. Okay, when he was here, I didn't hear waitresses or whatever. And I hear these things. You know, like Pete Davidson. Pete Davidson was a, you know, a hot guy. There's no question in my mind that after having slept with, you know, Kim Kardashian. Yeah, of course. He has access to a different group of women now somehow because he slept with Kim Kardashian. He always had hot girlfriends, though.

They weren't famous, but they were. Yeah. And I mean, the thing that I've heard of, I've heard two things about Pete Davidson. Big, big. Yeah, that's one of them. And then the other is just that he's a really, really sweet man. Oh, he's awesome. I hope none of this came out.

And he's got his secret weapon is vulnerability. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's... And he's funny. He is funny. He's very funny. So all of that together. But I do think that the things that,

and I'll speak for myself, or I won't speak for myself, that women find attractive, you know, are different. Like, I mean, we've talked about this a lot. You know, you could find a guy who might not be traditionally good looking, but he's charming or he's intelligent or he's successful. I mean, all of those things are sexy. I've never heard a man be like, that woman is, you know, she's a surgeon and that's like really hot.

I think that... Can you let Kat answer? Well, I'm just going to ask, is it possible for a woman who didn't necessarily catch your eye or spark your interest physically at first blush to win you over by being alluring in some other way. Well, first of all, as far as I read something where recently there's a phenomenon, I forgot

what it's called. Did you answer her question? Yes, yes. You know how when you listen to a song a couple of times, sometimes you don't love it at first and then by the third time you're like, this song's great. There's actually, that's a phenomenon. And that works also with sexuality. There are women that I see the first time, I'm like, eh.

And then two or three times later, I'm like, oh shit, you know, she's hot. Now this is nothing necessarily to do with she won me over with some, you know, it's just familiarity. To your question about whether they can win me over, no, I don't know. I know it sounds like the answer is yes.

You literally just gave an explanation of how the answer is yes. Well, it's yes because I, because I see them a few more times. Yeah. And you begin to understand the appeal of them in a way that you didn't necessarily at first blush. The answer is definitely yes.

Everybody's had the experience where they've had a friend or whatever. And then at some point down the line, all of a sudden say, Hey, I'm attracted to you. Like a connection, a mushrooms up or whatever the word. Yeah.

So I, I, I think, yeah, mushrooms, just, you know or whatever the word. Yeah, so I think, yeah, mushrooms up. Just, you know, just springs up. But do you think that it's objectively attractive or a turn on if like some, I don't know, an industry that you respect, so like not comedy?

What? Is somebody from an industry, I was trying to make a joke, an industry that you really respect. I told you not to do that. An industry that you really respect. I don't know, maybe music or journalism or somebody who's not traditionally attractive, um, or like quote unquote hot,

but that is coming into your world where you're like, um, Oh wow. Like that's something that is a turn-on. I don't know. I don't know. But I will say this, just because I don't really understand what you're saying. This is what's cruel about dating apps because so many attractions have come from what you're saying,

like really being with somebody, experiencing somebody, and so many people find themselves falling in love the rest of their lives with somebody they would have never swiped in the proper direction before. And that's very cruel. And it's, and John Hightower was telling us that the hottest

appearing photographs get like 80% of the dates online. Which is, it's just ugly. It's called the mere exposure effect. The phenomenon. And it's, most people are familiar with it from songs, but it can also work with the opposite sex as well, or the same sex, if that's your orientation.

Now, before we go, either you can tell us more about your defense of the pickup artistry, which is interesting, or is there some other topic completely not to do with, you know, the battle of the sexes that's been on your mind lately that maybe you've written about that you want to talk about in the last few minutes? What's your hot take on something we haven't talked about?

Gosh, okay. Well, here's something that we could completely shift gears. I would like to get your guys' take on this. Is Ozempic for weight loss. Is it cheating? What do you think? Uh, no, but I understand why people feel this way about it. I wrote about this because like, um, obviously Ozempic is really a big thing right now. And I have this vivid memory of about 10 years ago, I got really, really into fitness. I've never been overweight, but I was like, I want to get in the most amazing

shape of my life. And so I started training for a bikini competition, which I didn't ultimately compete in. So don't ask me to see pictures. There aren't any. But I got so incredibly lean that at one point I was at the gym. I was on an exercise bike, I was looking at a picture of fruit on the internet and it just looked so good. I started crying because I couldn't have fruit. I hadn't been able to have fruit in like so many weeks, even though I was like ripped as hell and I was like, this isn't worth it. But I had also this perverse pride in what I was experiencing. I was like, I put in all of this work and like I'm lifting all these weights and I'm not eating all this stuff and I'm seeing all these results. And I was trying to imagine like,

how would I feel if I had managed to achieve the same effect, um, you know, and had six pack abs just because I was like giving myself a shot every week. And I read about people taking Ozempic who basically have ceased to desire food. And they're like, yeah, the weight's just falling off. And I'm like, you are cheating. Like, I understand why people think that's cheating. It seems like it's unfair. Well, would you be less attracted to somebody who got in shape that way?

No, I don't think so. I mean, like, I have the original emotional, like, well, that's not fair. Like, I had to do it the hard way. And then I take a step back intellectually. I'm like, no, it's totally fine. I don't like fake boobs. But anyway, even if I never, just knowing that they're fake. So I take a step back intellectually. I'm like, no, it's totally fine. I don't like fake boobs, but anyway, I, and if I, even if I never, it's just knowing that they're fake. So I have two answers to that. You get over it pretty quickly. No, I just knowing about it,

I'm saying knowing about it, it's like, it's cheating, but there's two answers to it. It reminds me of two psychological phenomena. So first one is every parent goes through this, the things which were hard for us, it's impossible for us to understand. Well, that's the new reality for your kids, so stop complaining about it. Like when I was a kid, it was calculators. Like I was in the generation where, you know, I just crawled over from slide rules

to using calculators. You can't use a calculator. It's cheating. You're supposed to, and, you know, the schools say, well, it's ridiculous to do this. And now they let kids use calculators on tests. All sorts of things that kids do, letting them have cell phones, whatever it is. When I was a kid, blah, blah, blah.

So it's just if you've been through something, a certain hardship, you feel that the other people should have to go through that hardship as well, even though that hardship has become technologically obsolete, as maybe losing weight has become. There's so many other drugs. We don't think antibiotics are cheating, right? The other thing is that, you know, from time to time, I've seen this in like racial issues, like some very, very, very smart genius black conservative will speak that you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps like I did. Don't

tell me it's a racist country because look at me, I was able to blah, blah, blah. And often I think to myself, well, yeah, but you were gifted. Like at some point you have to understand that you were gifted and most people are not gifted. So even though you were able to accomplish your way in this world, that's not really proof that average people could overcome in the same way. And there's something about that that reminds me of this whole weight loss issue because everybody knows that the people who are thin, for the most part, it's easy for them. People who are thin is because they're born in such a way that they are thin. I was always like that.

And people who are overweight, they struggle with it their entire lives. For whatever reason, whatever switch turns off in me, and I'm like, no, I'm good. I don't need anything else to eat. It turns off 20 minutes later for them. A few hundred calories later for them. Or not at all. Well, or not. And that few extra

hundred calories a day adds up to being overweight. And if they don't get them, they're not satisfied. They don't feel good. It's a constant battle of will for them. And that's unfair to them. And the drug can alleviate that for them. And it's our arrogance by the thin people who don't suffer with that. Say, oh, you're cheating. And they're like, fuck you. You don't know what I go through because you don't go through that. You're gifted. It's easy for you.

That's my feeling. Are people saying that they're cheating? I've never heard that said. This one is. Well, Kat said it, but I don't know if that's a widespread attitude. I think they are. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of suspicion about Ozempic

for this reason that it seems like it's too easy. And I think that... Well, they might feel that the drug... They might feel it's too good to be true and the drug might have horrible side effects, perhaps. I think it does. I think we've learned that already, haven't we? Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

Right, occasional gastrointestinal paralysis. Loading, gastro... Whatever the... Gastroparesis, where your intestines just simply stop doing their job. Is that true? Yeah, but it's rare. I think, you know, the jury's out on whether it's actually going to be the magic bullet for weight loss that people think it could be. Well, I was just gonna say the other thing too about it is that like, when people manage to lose weight just by taking a shot I think it subverts a lot of the narratives we have in this country about weight loss as transformative not just physically

but like psychologically and emotionally it's like this triumphant thing the fat person emerges thin often on a stage in front of like an audience of thousands you know they're like look how much weight I lost my life is so much better now it It's not just their bodies smaller. It's that they've shed the person they used to be that was, you know, who was sad and underachieving. And now they're going to go and be great and thin. So when you take away that journey, which is like a drama that everyone kind of, I think can, if not relate to personally, then can relate to watching and like cheering for. It's like, you know, Rocky getting in shape.

Everyone gets excited about that. Then there's this question of what do you replace it with? I don't know. Would you begrudge an alcoholic a shot which helped him not drink? What is that called? That pill that they take that makes them, if they take the pill, then when they drink, they get sick. Oh, I forgot the name of that drug.

But anyway. Isn't there a pill that alcoholics can take? Yeah, it makes them sick once they... Yeah, and they stop, and then they lose the desire for booze. I know what you're talking about. I don't remember the name of it. But it's like, would I begrudge the alcoholic that? No. Would I want to watch a movie

about somebody taking that pill? Probably not. But a sobriety movie where someone's white-knuckling their way through it and they're puking and they're blacking out and they're trying so hard, that I would watch a movie about. Aren't we just inextricably drawn to judging each other? One of the problems with human nature is we look for things to judge.

Vivitrio, not vitrio. Vivitrol. No, vitrio will make you drink. I think you should give this to people prophylactically. What about the fact that I'm on the patch for months and months and months? Which patch? Cigarettes. Oh. And Mike, I, you know, I go in and out of these phases, but as otherwise I just of smoking and I just put the patch on, I mean, I could be on the patch for a year until. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think any quit aid is great. My husband quit smoking by turning to vaping.

And one of the things that drives me crazy is how moralistic and otherwise kind of like sensorial, like you have all of these government entities who want to try to ban vaping because there's this sense that if you're going to quit smoking, you were sinning because you were a smoker. So you should have to suffer

like some kind of crucible if you're going to quit. It shouldn't taste like cake, right? It's similar, right? It's similar to the whole Zephyr thing. Yeah, yeah. I've never understood why anybody that was born after 1940 would start smoking. It's fun.

First of all, the first time you smoke, it's not fun. It's fun. But you knew always how that it could kill you. You knew that. We all knew that growing up. Isn't that part of the fun? How old were you when you started smoking? 15.

Do you smoke too? No, I never have. Although I like cigarettes. I mean, I have had cigarettes. I've never been a smoker. It's a very social thing. I also have anxiety. And so even though it's actually.

You have anxiety? Yeah. About what? I never knew that. Okay. We can talk about that off air. About you mostly. And so even though it actually doesn't make your anxiety better, it feels like it does.

It's a very intimate moment with somebody else and it's also and as a writer somebody who writes it's really fun to sit there and like um and it gives you something to do with your hands and it also gives you a chance to take a break to like disconnect i mean there are so many reasons why people love cigarettes it looks cool as hell. John Travolta and... Yeah, there is something. It does look cool, yeah. There is something about that. Here's a follow-up question. Is somebody that's good-looking,

but they're a sperm donor baby, is that cheating? Dan. What? Somebody is good-looking, but their father was a sperm... In other words, their mother went to a catalog and said,

okay, this guy's hot, and so I'm going to pick him. The answer's no. The mother cheated. The mother cheated, and maybe the kid cheated. How could the kid cheat? Well, inadvertently. I don't give them full credit. Do we give people credit for being, like, genetically good looking?

Yes, we do. Even if it's not, yes, we for sure do. I know we treat them better, but do we say like good for you that you came out that way? No, but I think that it's inherent in how they're treated, right? I mean, we know that,

I mean, there have been so many studies where if you're good looking and you go to try to like get in the front of the line or something. Oh yeah, no. I mean, pretty privilege, we call it, is absolutely a thing. I'm just trying to split this hair of like, does it originate from a sense that a person has accomplished something by being beautiful?

Or is it just that we like how beautiful people look? It's an interesting... Well, do you accomplish something by being smart? You know, arguably you don't accomplish anything. I spent a couple of days one time with a woman. Even people that are hard workers, that's sort of who they are. I spent a couple days one time with a woman. I wasn't dating her, but

whatever. And she wasn't just very, very pretty. She was strikingly pretty. But she had very obvious big breasts. And she carried them. She didn't pay for a goddamn thing. What's that? You said she carried them. I was like, in a bag?

No, in other words, she led. Like, you couldn't not. It was mesmerizing. And she did not pay for anything, anywhere. It was ridiculous. Like, no, you can have it. Oh, I lost my ticket. No, it's okay.

We believe you. Like, I couldn't believe. How. Oh, I lost my ticket. No, it's okay. We believe you. I couldn't believe, how could anybody go through life this way? I thought this was a story about how she was shoplifting things by shoving them down into her cleavage. Oh, that would have been better. Rachel Feinstein,

who is one of our comedian friends, brilliant comic, just did a very funny, like, on the street video where she just pretended to be, like, wildly stupid and like playing like this like dumb girl act and she's like i can't open this candy bar have a cleavage out yeah she looks you know and like all of these guys are coming and like do like i just like the

dumbest thing like i can't figure out like she like banged the candy bar against the wall and the guy's like oh honey, honey, I'll fix that for you. It's unbelievable. All right. Kat Rosenfield. By the way, you don't look Jewish. Are you Jewish? 100%. On my father's side. She looks like Pat Benatar to me.

Is it just the hat? No, it's the face. Are you half Irish? No, I'm half Jewish, half Finnish. Half Finnish. All right. Well, you're still welcome back. Are you half Irish? No, I'm half Jewish, half Finnish. Half Finnish. All right. Well, you're still welcome back. Thank you. Yeah, if I'd known that.

I feel like all of you guys are Jewish enough to kind of make up for my... You're not supposed to say that. Aren't I allowed? You can have me. I don't know. Okay, so my daughter's going to be in your boat. She's half Jewish, but she has a very Jew-y last name, so you can't hide it, really.

Do you feel an affinity with your Jewish side, or do you feel like— An affinity. That's what I said. Oh, affinity. You said you feel an affinity with your Jewish side, or do you feel like your number ran out, your luck ran out like i could have if i didn't have this damn name nobody would know and i could i could just pass my entire life you know it's funny i was i was raised totally secular in a really small town in upstate new york where

there are no jews um kooksaki so um i actually i didn't really have any sense of myself as being Jewish I just knew that I had this last name that was a little different from everybody else's and then it took me a really long time to realize because I would as I came into the adult world I would sometimes encounter people who were really mean to me for no reason and one day it

finally clicked I was like oh my god they were anti-Semites really? maybe they just don't like your music. Yeah, or my face. Is that really true? I'm like Pat Benatar. Yeah, yeah. It happened a couple of times in college particularly

where somebody would be really nasty to me and I was like, this is very weird. I don't understand the dynamic here. And then a couple of years later, light bulb. Wow. Have you ever felt somebody was mean to you because you were Jewish? No, they're mean to me because I'm a bitch

no no I'm I'm surprised by that alright so we have to wrap it up what time is the press coming in 545 could you send me an intro please they just landed 10 minutes ago you know I never say this stuff if it's not true

everybody needs to read where's the best place to read your writing I am at Unheard every week and I also sometimes write for the free press if it's not true. Everybody needs to read. Now, where's the best place to read your writing? I am at UnHerd every week. And I also sometimes write for the Free Press and other various incendiary locations. So you can always find me posting links to my work on Twitter, the cursed site. But that's probably the best place to-

And what's your Twitter handle? Kat Rosenfield. Really hard to remember. And- Not saying it. Pat Benatar. I'll take it. Thank you.

Honestly, you are one of the best writers. And I really meant that story. Mask, N95 Mask notwithstanding. I was really... Like, I couldn't believe what a anime... What's the word? Acerbic is really weird. But just like...

I hate to use... I'm trying to avoid the cliches, but what a voice you had. This is really a unique singular kind of voice of social commentary that really impressed me. And I'm sorry it took so long to get you on the show. There's just so many things going on

that we were obsessed with. What he's really saying is he couldn't believe that somebody who's just so pretty was also so smart. That's my reputation, pretty but dumb. Anyway, so thank you very much for coming.

I hope we didn't let you down. I hope I was as much of a jackass as you. Even more, honestly. You exceeded expectations.

All right. And maybe when one of our mutual friends comes into town again, we'll hang out again. I would be delighted. Thanks for having me. Thank you.