The Hoely Hour - E139 Bridezilla or Bridechilla with Ceara O'Sullivan

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Comedian and SNL writer Ceara O'Sullivan helps us decide what's bridezilla and what's bridechilla! Liz and Amelia are starting a movement to unionize the hoes. This week's based words of wisdom: boycotting things that suck is just setting boundaries Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Until, like, my, like, I would say late 20s, I didn't really trust my own take on things. So whenever people, like, asked me for advice, I'd just be like, well, what do you think? Yep, that's correct. That's what I think, too. Welcome to The Holy Hour, a podcast about sex, relationships, mental health, and everything in between. I'm Amelia Sampson. And I'm Liz Baugh.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at The Holy Hour. I'm on Instagram and TikTok at Amelia Sampson. and i'm on instagram and tiktok at liz ball so hard you can also watch us on youtube or listen ad free on patreon at patreon.com slash the holy hour check out our merch at the holy hour.com and email us your spicy stories at holy hour podcast at gmail.com we are so lucky to be talking to kira today from the podcast petty crimes we've been a fan of her videos for yeah we were sending them back and forth like two years ago she you guys would definitely recognize her she did the pencil lady that was my favorite series i loved when she does

like the boomer boss oh my god yes always pronouncing her name wrong yeah um yeah no it's she's incredible she is she's now a writer for snl she co-hosts the podcast petty crimes um which you were recently on yeah i did i did a um criminal or minimal uh sesh i guess round with them and it was so fun and so we're really lucky to be talking to kira today we're recording this in advance so we haven't actually talked to her yet yeah otherwise we would give more context yeah i have no idea how it's gonna go i mean it'll be great it's gonna be amazing but we have no idea how it's the conversation what conversation's gonna ensue so anyway enjoy all right We have Kira here today, who we have both been such a huge fan of your TikToks.

We used to send them back and forth to each other. Yeah, yeah. Co-host of Petty Crimes. Do you want to do a little intro for yourself? Yeah. I write for Saturday Night Live. Not currently, because we on strike. But yeah, I'm a comedian and writer, and I host Petty Crimes, which is a podcast that

investigates non-crimes which is to say like basically we judge gossip that has been submitted by our listeners it's it's pretty fun 30 minute episodes comes out every tuesday i think the one i most recently listened to was like about the ring design yes and then i went to go look it up and i was like i kind of need that now oh yeah i don't blame them for it being stolen but still a little uncool i know i know the best crimes of all are the ones where you're like like your answer your verdict would change depending on if you're a good mood in a good mood or a bad mood like those are my favorite that is so true that's relatable too yeah um I did have a question for you I have a couple questions um I wanted to ask you who your favorite character to play is

on your tiktok bits um I love impersonating my mother just because uh well for two reasons one it's it's very accurate to the point that like family members will be like oh is that a video of your mom like it seems like I'm hearing her um which is fun because most people think it's must be an exaggeration but she really my mom is a character um and then I like when she sends me articles um from her iPad with the subject heading um like an article about me and it's like one of my videos that's been reshared so I like that she has like uh grocery store fame so for that reason I would have to say my mom she has google alerts set up for her seemingly I mean she really has her finger on the pulse of her specific presence on the internet um who I I also wanted to ask who

is like the fan favorite character that um definitely Lorraine which is like um like a Gen X boss. And I think the reason she's so fun is because she has a superiority complex and is really doesn't like is totally clueless. And she's a female boss, which I think is fun because we're more used to seeing maybe that energy from men. So like a woman that's like, I'm not in the office and I don't know, I don't care what's going on is just like fun for people. I think she definitely has kind of like a an everyman boss yeah yeah we're like oh uh we all have had a boss like yeah i was just i was just about to say that that's it makes sense why that's one of your fan favorites because i feel like everybody can see one of their bosses in lorraine oh god yeah

so funny we work in marketing so we either like have a boss or a client like that so it's it is cathartic yes yes i think some of my characters definitely fall under the like the catharsis umbrella totally I also love the IT guy oh yeah that is also an everyman's IT guy that just was my IT guy

at my old job like trying to help me while I worked remote and he was like I can tell you're just like an idiot sitting on your couch and they're just like in your computer and they're like do you have a password set up and you're like how do I do that so

Were you, before you started on TikTok, were you, like, doing sketches on YouTube? Were you just, like, doing these around your friends? Like, what did your writing career look like pre that phase? Good question. Yeah, I've been doing comedy for about a decade. And my background is in sketch and improv. So I performed on, like, the main stage cast at a theater doing, like, 10 shows a week every week. That's kind of where I, like, got my reps in.

and then I did Groundlings in LA and then I did Just for Laughs so like my background is in like performing characters live and I would say the pandemic forced me online but it honestly was a blessing and a gift. It was definitely a gift for us the audience. Yes. Everyone's just like isolated looking for something to make them feel better. Yeah totally and I was like chronically online during the pandemic so I was like I want to participate oh yeah I think a majority of us I mean that's how we ended up starting a podcast we're like well what else are we gonna do so when did you guys start during during the pandemic almost three years ago like three years ago to yeah this month congratulations today thank you today happy birthday

thank you it's also Amelia's birthday tomorrow yay double birthday I'm turning 30 Kira it's happening oh please you don't look a day over 15 oh stop the Botox is working so we wanted to make a game for you that is a little bit reminiscent of criminal or minimal um and we have heard that you're getting married soon so this one is called bridezilla or bridechilla and the premise of the game is we're going to present a series of scenarios to you and you'll have to tell us if they're reasonable or kind of like an overreaction aka bridezilla or bridechilla i'm obsessed my jaw is on the floor this is so cool i can't wait okay great okay bridezilla or bridechilla kicking a bridesmaid out of your wedding party the day of your wedding because

she spilled red wine on your dress and not apologizing before you're supposed to walk down the aisle oh my god the layers the layers um so many layers okay okay okay i it was bride chilla all the way up till didn't apologize oh no no wait okay sorry it was yeah it would have been bridezilla up until didn't apologize at which point it becomes bride chilla that accidents happen but you gotta apologize sweetie you're out of the group bride bride chilla i pulled this from reddit and the backstory too is this dress was her mom's old wedding dress and her mom had passed away and then the bridesmaid was like well you could have spilled it on your own so like why is it a big deal if i did it yeah like you were just about to wear it it was going

to get wrecked anyway yeah she was like why were you walking around my dress with a glass of red wine so okay can i say something from my experience hosting petty crimes i have now this new spidey sense that goes off when you're hearing only one side of the story and somebody is maybe being misquoted or they at least would have like described the story differently so i would i would love to hear the other side of that story yeah i wonder like how much wine it was like if it was just like a splash exactly exactly she's standing there with the whole bottle just pouring it on the dress right exactly it was malicious it was like it was actually the bride's fault like she bumped into her you know what i mean yeah there there are two sides to every story we always say

uh there's two sides to every story and the truth is somewhere in the middle yeah um the next one bridezilla or bridechilla wanting to design your baby's dress for your wedding and asking your mother-in-law to return the dress she insists the baby wears instead which made your mother-in-law cry inconsolably oh my god so you want to design your baby's dress do you are you the bride are you a dress designer in this scenario we'll say okay yeah she has history designing dresses and it's your baby and you want your mother-in-law to return the dress yeah bride chilla it's your day babe good good luck designing a baby's dress yeah this this specific story the um husband-to-be was on the

mother-in-law's side and was like you are going over the top about this baby nobody's going to be looking at the baby like you made her cry yeah so she was like am I the asshole for just like wanting to make this dress special for my child I mean I she can do whatever she wants it a little bit reminds me of when I announced my mom that I would be making my own wedding cake and my mom was like no you're not sweetie and I was like yeah I am yeah I am because cakes are overpriced and she was like you're not making your own cake tuts like she put her foot down and was like we're buying a cake who won if they're buying it yeah I was like all right and we found a cheap one because that's where it all started is when I learned how much wedding cakes cost and I lost my mind

anything with the word wedding slapped on it they're like I know increase I know how do I how do I give my wedding a funeral theme so it can all it's like instead of the pink tax it's the white tax god yeah I actually was thinking about how weddings are expensive and how weddings matter to women and i was like there's something there there's something there because golf golf doesn't cost this much i don't know which i don't know maybe it does probably not as much as i wouldn't know either we're not gonna we're not gonna fact then quote me okay bridezilla or bridechilla not allowing children at your wedding but still allowing your eight-year-old niece huh um okay I would say bride chilla if you're doing a no kids

wedding but you're like except for my my family member I guess that's your prerogative because you want your family yeah I guess that's cool like I can think of friends of mine who are coming to my wedding and I'm like I don't know your baby but I just invited them but I mean it is it's like you have to pay for the yeah i say bride chilla i agree i agree you can also send the the eight year old home after a certain point is there bad time and then you can really party yeah yeah um this next one telling your bridesmaids they can't be pregnant at your wedding um iconic chaotic um you're incredible you're insane i love your energy i'd love to meet you um you're a bridezilla yeah and on the flip side there's something so sweet about like looking back

on your wedding photos and being like that's like johnny and her belly or whatever like it's like a snapshot of a moment in time like to think that you would like I don't I mean yeah you're wild you're crazy I love you okay next one having a destination wedding bride chilla but some people might not go what about having a destination wedding and getting mad at people for not going right see that's where you sort of like might kind of switch over to the other category yeah so that's tough yeah um definitely bridezilla i think i would pick a destination wedding for the reason that less people would come yeah just weed them out yo that's that's real yeah i've i've heard that when people are svp you know it's kind of a gift

all right liz you want to do the last one yeah this one's my favorite it's my favorite too okay um bridezilla or bridechilla asking a bridesmaid to wipe you because your dress is too big for you to reach to wipe okay wow it's like a moral dilemma wow okay so and there's sort of like the question within the question which is like can you shit on your wedding day like is that bridezilla to which i say no um wow bridezilla bridechilla um let's just say it's number one it's oh oh that does change things it i'm sorry i hear the word wipe and i assume the worst um okay all right yeah you've peed a little bit and you need somebody to wipe you know what bride chilla i don't know that's yeah draw the line at number two yes yeah that

would be bridezilla exactly yeah yeah you guys were making faces when i said that i was like oh i um sorry i seem to have misinterpreted the question no i was just thinking about how awful it would be to actually have to wipe someone's like ass for them yeah i also hadn't considered that I was like only thinking if they peed yeah well because I was reading we like pulled some of these from reddit and this one was like um my my friend was the bride and she had this like big organza like wedding gown and they all had to go in and hold it for her when she went to go pee and then she demanded one of them like wipe for her because she couldn't do it and then they were like no and then she got mad at everybody wow I'm like I think maybe I would for my friend

yeah I guess if my friend I mean if my friend asked me yeah I would do it if they asked me I don't know maybe you know we're gonna see like a shark tank invention for like wedding dress wipers honestly just like a hook that's like a hook that just I was definitely not that idea someone like i was familiar with like the bathroom stall hold but the wipe wow that's beyond that's a new level yeah okay amazing um i love this thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us carol we've been like we said huge fans of yours for forever we're so excited to be talking to you um do you have anything you want to you want to roll out the red carpet before we let you go um no i mean if you i have um a live show that's touring this summer it's like an unhinged dating seminar and it's me

and jimmy fowley who's uh a writer on snl and the other two and we're both in drag as like these insane characters leading a dating seminar and it's going to be in la and new york and boston so um you should that sounds so fun and um if you guys want to come i'll give you free tickets i was just we might need to come definitely i want to make that happen when is when's the one in la um it's at dynasty typewriter june 23rd 24th where can people find you at kira jane o on socials it's kira spelled like nothing you've ever seen before it's c e a r a thank you so much thank you thank you this was so great and we'll talk to you soon bye y'all i turned 30 this week it's happening by the time this comes out i'll be 30

that's crazy i think it's exciting i'm excited now okay now that it's the week of i mean i'm probably gonna have one more do you feel like you're getting married like to yourself or something yeah yeah it does feel like a wedding it does yeah it does i'm like okay it's happening and i can't stop it and so like i just have to you know like everything's gonna fall into place how it should and it's gonna be the perfect day yeah that's kind of it feels like a wedding yeah yeah i'll probably have one more meltdown beforehand but i have therapy the day before so i'm good oh actually then you might be yeah you might be good i think i might be good i think having my parents here has helped a lot honestly you know it's like okay like now it feels like a

birthday you know what i mean i don't know i don't know what it is but i was were your parents here last year for your birthday too yes okay they must have been i'm pretty sure they were have you celebrated every birthday with your parents really oh i guess you know like even in college like it was the summer yeah yeah and um they were always here in the summer before they moved to florida full-time because it was the six months out of the year that it was cold here that they were in florida so they were always here in june so yeah now that they're here it's like okay it's fucking happening and i picked a theme everybody loved the invitations you made i got so many compliments on the invitations i was like liz made a big shock people were like oh she's

for design it honestly it was like a template and then i like i i just did up it's so pretty thank you so much for doing that i added some spice it's so cute i love it i am excited especially now that like the location is locked in and i've been reading a lot of articles on like turning 30 which is like actually very helpful i want you to send those to me i will send those i'm in like a big um honestly i i have probably said this on the podcast i feel like i'm in a soft era interesting yeah explain um i'm just like in a big growth period i saw an intuitive counselor this weekend people that work in energy have such calming presences like that energy healer that you and i both went to like right when we got right when i got there i was like oh like oh

like i get it one of my friends just went to see her and she was like i went in you know not really expecting anything and she like had an amazing experience i need to go back to her yeah me too um oh back to my soft era yes um i just am kind of in a period of like wanting to grow and i explained to her how you and i had this conversation recently where it's like i feel like I'm on like the precipice of like a breakthrough or something and I was like the best way I can describe how it feels is like you're a little seed under the soil and you're working so so hard to like pop out into the sun and see what's going on around you and she was like I definitely know what you mean that's that's very much like what I'm seeing and sensing and

she was like I'm so glad you have a friend like that that you can talk to about these things and i was like we're very much though that like friend for each other yeah we really are yeah we're so lucky to have that i know it's like i hope everybody like finds a friendship like this yeah you know where you can like be honest about how you're feeling and know that you're not going to be judged and like the person you're talking to also like has your best interest at heart too yeah so and they're not just going to say something like this goes with best interest at heart this is me just saying the same thing in a different way but like not just saying things because like you think that they want to hear it too yeah it's like like I know that when I come

to you with things I can like trust what you say you know you're not just like saying shit just to like pacify my emotions in that moment yeah or be like oh I don't really want to talk about this so I'm just gonna like minimize it yeah or something yeah you know totally and I think that when people do that it's because they're just uncomfortable with like their own feelings that they're like oh I can't help someone else so yeah I'm gonna minimize this that and also like just saying just kind of being like a yes man because it's like you don't want to like ruffle any feathers too it's like I get because I used to be that person I was like I didn't really until like my like I would say late 20s I didn't really trust my own take on things so whenever people like

asked me for advice I'd just be like well what do you think yep that's correct that's what I think too you know because i was just like i just gotta tell them what they want to hear you know yeah i think that that like being able to like give that to someone and also like receive it back to like like yesterday for example like when i was texting you about the um cover for my birthday this just for context the venue that we're having my birthday party at is ten dollars per person and i was just gonna eat that cost because i was just like i don't want that to deter people from coming and i wasn't even like considering making people pay it and liz was like no it's ten dollars a person you guys it's not a lot of money it's well and then i was like i've had people i've asked

people to chip in for all my birthday activities yeah and like people happily do it yeah i know what it like like it makes me the exception in my mind to that like right when i sent out the invite i got a bunch of mmos from people yeah well because ideally it's like you want to be able to pay for all of it yourself you know and totally one day we can be that financially that would be the fucking best yeah just like it would be so great to just be able to like pay for shit and never worry or let's just start stealing i think i think we should just start stealing yeah make stealing legal again save money for other stuff like buying things for your friends i love that idea yeah steal for yourself buy for your friends and free you can you can

unclog the legal system because people won't be in jail for theft this is the platform i'm going to run for president on everybody steal yeah but not from small businesses don't steal from small businesses don't steal from small businesses that's the only rule uh prostitution will be legal and protected and people get health insurance are in prison and healthy yes unionized we're unionizing the hoes and i mean that with like the utmost respect we gotta make unionize the hoes merch unionize though that's a great idea we need to unionize the hoes i would wear that every day and i mean every kind of hoe like sororities need to be unionized like we are like i told you about this like boycotting a fraternity if they are allowing like sexual

assault or other creepy shit we we just need to band together and like boycott things that suck yes i agree like in an interpersonal level yeah maybe that's just setting boundaries fuck that's based liz boycotting things that suck is just that's what setting boundaries is that is a fucking good ass point i feel high i'm like whoa i that's how i felt the last few days because uh so what I was gonna say about some of this like soft girl era stuff is I've been doing like a lot of um self-reflection and values work so like really sitting down and like listing out what my values are so what you do it's like if you look up like a values worksheet it the same thing always comes up um and it's like a circle um and you write your values and the things that

you do that support those values so i picked a bunch of values and i think i wrote down like 30 and then i just kept narrowing them down until i got to 10 that i was like these really resonate i love that but you write the things down that you do uh that support those values so like the example that my therapist always uses like i really value my job so the things that i do are like reply to emails on time make sure my schedule is organized blah blah blah so um yeah that was a really good exercise I'm trying to think what would be on mine another really good example that she uses is like she like she says like my kids don't know I love them just because I say it I have to like pack their lunch and take them to school and give

them a kiss and hug them and hold them like those are actionable things that you do to like support that value I think a lot of people could benefit from that little tip and trick about showing people that you love them I've actually been thinking a lot about that but that's a conversation for another time like no you want to we should talk about it okay but anyway um to just to tie off that last thought like I I love the idea of put like just writing down what you value just in in general yeah it's it's great work that I everybody should be yeah like do at least once totally it's because i don't think that we i think we think about it often but we don't ever really like like put it like in a concrete format yeah you know like it's all just kind of like

amorphous exactly and when you hear the word values like we convolute the word value with just like morals and having it come like concretely laid out like that it helps you better set boundaries and like understand internally like this is what I will do this is what I will not do yeah I'm flexible with this boundary I'm not flexible with this boundary I love that yeah so I'm trying to figure out my boundaries I realize like I'm not really clear with myself about what those look like and are to me yeah and it's weird because I just walk around with kind of like uh unfounded confidence about giving advice to other people even though i like i'm i feel like i'm starting to see all of myself but i think that there's like

part of what is i mean i don't want to speak for other people but i think part of what people like about what we do on here is like we both of us have no fucking clue you know yeah and like we don't try to act like we do that's the whole thing it's like we've like listening to the first few episodes of this podcast and like looking back on it since the since the job we've changed our opinions on so many things and we're not like we don't try to like make excuses for like what we used to think we've just grown and have had new experiences and like by episode 200 it'll probably be entirely different you know so it's like well i hope that everyone what everyone takes away from you know listening to if you've been here since the beginning like you just it's okay to change

your mind and like it's okay to grow i think a lot of people think like i see this a lot on the internet where like someone thinks or says something shitty and then they double down on it instead of being like huh maybe i have something to think about or or changing over time because it's kind of like what we were talking about last week was her name's esther not esther um esther perel i have been binge binge listening to her on as a guest on different podcasts i love that since then she is amazing i want her to be my mom um but what esther perel was saying about uh polarization yeah because like you take on two different opinions and you're just gonna dig your heels and more when someone's like hey you're wrong yep totally and especially when like

in on the internet too when like you have people like coming at you and questioning your character it's so easy just to like take the defensive side and like double down on it but i don't know like like you said it's okay to change your mind it's kind of dope having this like this forum to kind of earmark where we've changed our minds too just how we've talked about our own personal like dating styles like and how that's changed in the past yeah wait liz this is our three-year anniversary today this week oh my god we have the same birthday week me in the pod that's right this is so exciting we'll do something to celebrate three years happy birthday and happy 30th birthday Amelia and happy three-year birthday podcast oh I love the number three me

too this is gonna be a good year for the pod I hope so I hope so I know so you do have great intuition I know so I am feeling really good about this year there's something that feels very like like how like you're on like the verge of like a breakthrough of blossom like it just kind of feels like it's gonna be one of those years a blossom year yeah we need one as a collective yeah we have been through some shit we we all have been through so much shit we really really have like you blink and you're like how has it been only three years and like also what the fuck i know it feels fast and short at this or it feels long and short at the same time it really really does it really does that was something that i saw repeated a lot in the

articles that I was watching all the articles I was reading about turning 30 like a lot of the women that were being interviewed for these articles were talking about how they feel like the last few years of their 20s were kind of robbed because of the pandemic and it's it's made time go really really fast and really really slow for a lot of people and like so much life and so little life has been packed into the last three years for people it makes you really think about the concept of time because i do all the time like for it feels like the days go by kind of slowly and that might just also be like seattle summer sun is up literally until like 10 p.m yeah um i think it's down for maybe four hours that's what it feels like it's like alaska almost oh my

god um that's so true but like the the days feel very long and then the weeks feel so short like i blink and it's the weekend i know which then makes the months feel really short yeah but then the year feels long yeah the year feels long but then you think about what you were doing this day last year and it feels like yesterday it's fucking blows my mind i can't stop thinking about the fact that we're like in a matrix you know maybe that's part of my existential crisis i'm like nothing matters and everything also matters and nobody cares and everybody cares it's just it's really a lot to think about yeah that is a big saturn return energy yeah real i was looking at that meme of like the guy on the bus it's cartoon and the one on the right is looking at the window

and it's like this beautiful like scene and then the other guy is looking out another window and he's next to like a wall and he looks all sad and depressed and i was just thinking like if both of them said nothing matters that's really funny nothing matters and then you're like wait nothing matters you should make that that would go i think it probably already exists that's so funny it's so true yeah i i had that thought like while i was getting ready before you came over damn because I was I'm just like uh in a productive mood I am not being as productive as I would like at work but I did do a lot of like necessary things like find a place that could refill my prescription that's amazing everyone needs those kinds of weeks I love to-do list weeks and then I end up

just jamming everything into one day but in my defense I have been affected by the Adderall shortage who has an among among us and at least i did tell my boss i was like well i've been struggling to find a pharmacy with adderall because the one down the street for me obviously doesn't have it it's such a fucking nightmare right now because why would it why would they have it why why would they why would anything be easy right now i well i had stopped taking adderall like kind of right around this shortage happening because um i went on leave so i was like oh yeah oh you know what someone messaged me and asked for more details about like taking leave because I've mentioned it but I haven't gone into detail about it so I can do that for y'all right now

yeah do it um I went on medical leave for depression and um I don't want to explain too much about that because it's just it's hard to talk about yeah you know so um it also like took a lot for me to get to that point like i needed it so badly and then you just you feel guilty but like these this is what these services are here for um i can only speak to the state of Washington I know every state has different rules but for Washington um you have to have your employer has to have I think more than 50 people working there and you have to have worked there for a certain amount of hours um and I think it adds up to like about a year to be there working there for at least a year um and then it's you go through the state and then it's like also

part of your insurance I don't know how all that's figured out but you apply through Washington State online and you have one of your health care providers fill out the paperwork on their end that's recommending you to take medical leave and I went through my psychiatrist because it has to be your your doctor has to be covered by your insurance which is a weird caveat so my therapist was not covered by my insurance a lot of therapists like aren't so i went through our psychiatrist because she is and she was like she's done this like a million times i love that that makes me happy to hear that she's done it so many times yeah do you is it does it have to be through your insurance because your insurance is what covers your pay while you're out i'm not sure

well because like a portion of your insurance like your job pays for part of it and then i don't know i i i would imagine that to be honest i don't know how it's all sorted out that i guess that's the only like reason that i can think of why it would need to be covered by your insurance yeah but anyway well because it's like you can also take medical leave like for pregnancy and things like that so um you have them fill out the stuff and then you tell your job like as soon as possible because the state is going to reach out to your job and be like this person filed for paid medical leave and you get up to 90 of your salary to a certain point so if you're making like a lot a lot of money they cap it and i can't remember what that's at but

like what the cap is was it easy to find out though like if somebody wanted to go and like see if they were able to get yeah you can calculate it i think they even have a calculator on the website i love that that's so great that they make it so accessible it wasn't too difficult of a process it was like a little confusing to figure out just because you're like i've never done this before um but luckily like the washington state website is pretty like for a state website it is very well done um yeah so that's what i did i'm so glad that you did that me too i i really need i don't even know where i would be if like i hadn't done that i'm so glad that they you had the option to do it too like because you could have like just left your job that would have been

a bummer and i don't know if i would have been able to like leave my job right right so like being able to know that like you're being financially compensated still while also taking care of yourself is huge because it's true like mental health days feel so counterintuitive because like you feel guilty about taking them and then like you and like that feels like such like that falls on corporations to make sure that people don't feel that way because it really is like part of corporate America and capitalism that like we prioritize work and money over taking care of ourselves there is this on the new season of i think you should leave have you watched any of it frank has made me into such a fucking nut job with this show

it's so funny i keep seeing clips of it and it seems fucking hilarious it's pretty dark but it's like i mean yeah it has been but no this one i'm not gonna even talk about what it was about but there was like a part where this guy tried he was talking about um like a monster breaking into his house and he was thinking like well he was pretty happy that he was gonna get eaten because then he wouldn't have to go to work the next day and he's like what does that say about america that that was my first thought you know and it was like how it was shared or like how it was portrayed was fucking hilarious but it's so true like people are like oh fuck yeah like i'm sick i don't have to go to work tomorrow it's like that sucks yeah it's so real but that's how it that's how it goes

it's just like that's that's the world that we live in so the fact that you were able to like figure out how to make that happen it was still like obviously a little difficult to get to the bottom of how to make it happen but like that you're able to like figure it out and like move it through the system and take the time that you need it is so that's such a privilege that if like if you have it available to you and you need it it's definitely such a good option to be able to take yeah and like i said like this is designed for you yeah it's designed for people who need it so don't make yourself feel even worse than you already do if that's something that you need to to do yeah um like your project you're protected from being

fired from your job like while you're on leave but there is like a contingency of like you can come back and they can be like well while you were gone we realized like we didn't need this role and they could let you go um and my my job like i wasn't concerned um because that's so scary they're afraid of a lawsuit and they should be yeah i'm like you know what if if it's just because you're afraid of a lawsuit i'll take it right right i would love to like a byproduct of that is me keeping my job stay scared yeah so it ended up working out pretty well and my boss was super understanding and supportive so that took a huge weight off of my shoulders because i was the most afraid to tell her because i just was like oh i managed the biggest team and

i'm going to leave uh-huh so yeah but she was like we got it and they did and well and like um i recently heard a quote that was like how many um how many irreplaceable employees like have died i don't know something like that or like there are uh graveyards full of um irreplaceable employees like when you think about a death is the great equalizer but corporations are always going to replace you so yeah like it kind of sucks but it's true it's like we we're all just kind of cogs in a corporation we're a drop in the bucket I don't think I realized that until our company got acquired by the company that we are now yeah that nothing I do really matters yeah that's crazy that's also like something that is such a shitty feeling about

working in marketing you're like oh i'm doing the selling for capitalism yeah right but it's a means to an end baby yeah you can't really afford to not play the game no that's the thing is like as long as much as i want to be able to say like i like i like love what i do and like i feel like what i do like really makes a difference in the world like finding those kinds of jobs and being able to actually like survive in in this kind of city too in seattle where it's so fucking expensive it's like you just kind of have to play the game yeah i hate it anyway so anyways that's uh some some high level information about taking paid medical leave for depression um there's like a list of things that it covers too so if you have something else going on check it out like

depression and anxiety are are part of it so and technically those things are disabilities so they sure do feel like them yeah they're debilitating true they can get in the way of you being able to effectively do something yeah at your job and you know what it's kind of uh it's just like kind of a fucked up cycle of like your job gives you depression it makes you anxious and therefore you're depressed and anxious and you need a break from the thing that's making you depressed and anxious. So you can sit with your depression and anxiety

and think about how depressed and anxious you are. Yeah, I can't do my job because I'm depressed and anxious and I'm depressed and anxious because of my job. Yep, right. And the only way for me to get any sort of help for my depression and anxiety is by doing the thing that's giving me depression and anxiety so I have insurance to fix my depression and anxiety.

it's all yeah part of big depression yeah big depression well and then insurance companies that they're like for-profit organizations so they're just scamming you insurance is the greatest scam it really is but and then there's no winning honestly in health care no like i think privatized health care is obviously the worst but also like some of the problems you see with socialized health care is like shit just takes forever oh my god i know when i was dating the guest r.i.p to that that piece of my life but when i was dating the guest he was it took me a second to remember who that was yeah well he's so he's canadian and he was talking about like the issues with universal health care and how like he you have to like

see a physician that then recommends you or like gives you like a referral to go to like a specialist but those specialists are all backed up like six months that's bananas but at least they have fucking health care it's wild to me it's like what's the lesser of two evils yeah you either wait a long time or you don't have any yeah that's whereas here it's like you can rack up like a million dollars in debt because you don't have health insurance i was thinking about that on the way over here like what like i feel like murphy's law would really take over if i didn't have health insurance you know like it would be like all right you're gonna break both legs trying to leave the house i had obamacare insurance did i ever tell you that no um when i

quit my job and i didn't have a plan and i was like applying for jobs before i got the one in Seattle um I signed up for Obamacare and I miss him yeah um but it was well and I don't know my parents are like moderates essentially and you know they think everyone who's doing that or like yeah qualifies for social security or what or whatever is like some person some lazy person of course and not just like a poor person and when i signed up for those things because even with my job i qualified for social security that's how little i was being paid um so uh or no i qualified for food stamps that's what it was and you were working in pr yes oh my god dude yeah it's rough so um like i was getting paid more at my retail job

yeah i took a fat pay cut how do they get away with that i don't know i i have no idea um i try to block out that part of my memory um jesus but when i when i had to sign up for all of that my mom was like well i guess you know i stand corrected like there's people like you who need this i was like see look at that now don't you regret taking me off your health insurance plan but we love somebody that can appreciate when they are i have an opinion that's wrong about something yeah and that circles back to changing your mind you can always change your mind change your mind that's the best kind of like way to be firm in a belief is being flexible on it still if you change your mind i'm the first in line honey i'm still free take a chance on me

take a chance um shall we do a little flipper rooney of the script here yeah i want to talk about foreplay because it's been a while i think i don't know if we've talked about foreplay really in great length i i if we did it was so long ago such a long time ago it was back in the early days before we were changing our minds exactly i think that's the theme of this episode is boundaries and changing your mind that's so beautiful it is and that's on growth fuck man well now we're talking about foreplay which is um not any either of those things but we have changed our minds about foreplay I'm pretty sure well I mean like I haven't really well okay I'll get into it so I was thinking the other day about I fucking hate foreplay yeah we've talked about that asterisk though

but I was thinking I thought maybe I didn't like foreplay because the people that I was having sex with just didn't know what the fuck they were doing which is probably also true I think it's um they didn't know maybe they didn't know what the fuck they were doing but also maybe they're just like douchebags who were like oh i don't really want to do that yeah like they were just like checking a box yeah right they're like i'm gonna do it bad on purpose so i don't have to do it again right well they would just like rush through it you know like all right let's just like do this and like work out and do like a little like quick dj set and then like let's slip it in but frank like foreplay champ and like genuinely loves it and i'm still like all right

let's get this show on the road like i don't need it you know and i was thinking a lot about like why is that because it's not it's truly not like i'm not enjoying it which has been the case in the in the past yeah i just like want to have penetrative sex i think well has he said to his he explained to you why he enjoys it yeah uh what does he say he he likes making me feel good and like getting me warmed up and it also like prolongs the process because like when we have penetrative sex he like is like ready to come like pretty quickly so he wants to know that i'm also like at the same point that he's at which i love but then he also makes sure i come every time so it's like it's not like i need to be like it's not like i need that foreplay to know that i'm

going to have an orgasm you know what i mean but that's why he likes it and i i love that you know that sounds similar to well there are some reasons that i enjoy foreplay like both giving and receiving and it's because i like the build-up i like the tension yeah and i like um having some kind of control a little bit um and switchy she's a little switchy okay going back and forth between having control and not having control um so i just think it's fun yeah i get that i like that part i'm in like a sexual lull right now that's fine yeah i think we all have those yeah maybe that comes with the soft girl era maybe maybe of just being like i'm not really interested in anything i mean i've i've had a few of those and then i've still forced myself to have sex through them and

that sucks when you're not feeling it yeah yeah it's just kind of like well that my partner wants to be having sex so i guess i'm gonna be doing this yeah i don't like frank and i have been we've had sex up until the past week because our uglies needed some need a little bit of breaks you know what i mean i was we were having sex every day for like wrong with that two weeks nothing it was phenomenal were you like let's just take a break well yeah we were just like we like need it we were a little sore uh it was like a lot of sex okay so we were like let's take like a few days off yeah um that makes sense and like i just realized in that in those two weeks how much I just do not need foreplay and it's not even a need it's not like oh yeah I could do

without like I prefer not to and it's now kind of like a running joke with us like he's like on your birthday we're just gonna get right into it and then on his birthday which was like two weeks or his birthday was only foreplay yeah right exactly he just like drew it out as long as possible but yeah no his for his his birthday was very long drawn out foreplay which is fine birthday it's not like i hate it like it's like i'll do it i just don't i just prefer not to so i was like looking up like why and like the history of foreplay do you experience um fuck what's it called spontaneous desire oh yeah yeah most people do not experience spontaneous desire yeah so they need like not just foreplay but like the emotional foreplay

that makes sense yeah and this is the thing too is like it feels like it up until i started doing research it felt like something was wrong with me you know for not for not wanting it because interesting because like everybody that i've talked to has been like oh i fucking love foreplay or i need foreplay or and i'm just like i don't i don't and so like i think i do have spontaneous desire like i'll just be like let's fucking go you know um and i just want the penetrative sex aspect of it but as i was doing well i so i posted on instagram and asked what people's take are voted on did you yeah did you say you love it um yes okay i did well funny you should say that because you're in the majority i will read these results 553 people which is 89 said

that they need foreplay that's a big portion the next highest was meh i could do without it 64 votes 10 and then five people which was one percent said that they hate it interesting which is really interesting a lot of the hate it votes were um straight men oh that's right you can see the who voted on what yeah so i of course i thought that that was interesting don't date those five guys yeah sit read their names on the podcast dm their girlfriends seriously i mean i'm sure they know if they if they're uh if they actually have one right and if they do then their girlfriends for sure know yeah but i was looking up the history of foreplay because i was i looked on i think it was quora which is just like not a good place to look because everyone's a fucking

expert on quora but someone's just the internet someone and it there i don't know if there's any sort of like credence behind this because i wasn't able to corroborate it but it makes a lot of sense that foreplay in the past has been thought of and when we speak about foreplay too it's like between a man and a woman because a lot of the foreplay research that has been done has not used anybody any like gay individuals because what we consider foreplay in a like a female male sexual encounter is what a lot of gay couples consider sex so like in in studies that have been done more recently like like lesbians will consider oral sex and the like that same research will ask a straight couple and oral is considered foreplay so it's a very like um like exclusive

kind of sample size that they've used to discuss this which is there's obviously issues with that and more research needs to be done but the thoughts around foreplay have changed so much over the years and originally people believed that it was being peddled to like prod women into having sex like they would think that women needed prodding to be interested in having sex which is why foreplay like became such like a hot topic but there are differences in different levels of education how people think about foreplay which i thought was interesting like people with only high school educations like refuse to give oral which is interesting that is very interesting not that's obviously not like a not everyone but that was like the a wide

majority let me find these numbers hold on i'm gonna read this paragraph because it's really interesting uh this researcher's name is kinsey this is on encyclopedia.com which this is the only time i've ever read a fucking encyclopedia it's about foreplay because it's surprisingly hard to find any sort of information on foreplay anyway um though kinsey's sex surveys in 1948 and 1953 restrict their most extensive detail regarding foreplay behavior to that of married heterosexual couples, the results are nonetheless revealing. Kinsey's discussion of sexual techniques include data on the frequency of lip kissing, deep kissing, breast stimulation, manual genital stimulation, and oral genital stimulation. His findings reveal substantial variation based on

education levels. In those with no more than a high school level education, foreplay was most often perfunctory, involving little kissing and minimal bodily contact. Kinsey claimed that lower educated men often regarded oral to genital contact, oral breast stimulation, and even deep kissing with some aversion or suspicion. Cunnilingus and fellatio were widely avoided and were practiced frequently by only a small minority of married couples. The prevalent attitude towards sex of men with some or no high school education was utilitarian. The goal was to achieve orgasm as quickly as possible after instigating sexual relations. Among college educated men and women, foreplay tended to be much more extended, generally ranging between

five and 15 minutes those with higher education were far more likely to regularly utilize a variety of sexual techniques including manual stimulation of the genitals deep kissing and breast stimulation though fellatio and cunnilingus were more likely to be practiced by college educated couples frequent usage was limited to a small minority this is obviously a very old study and sex attitudes have changed over time but it's interesting looking back that far yeah knowing how much research was being done into this to understand and seeing such like wide differences between different levels of education which is not something i would have ever have thought of i wouldn't have considered that either but i guess if you think about it like

um if you were to think about it like sexual education in high school versus like what you are able to learn about human sexuality in college um i also think that it says a lot about like the complexity of romantic relationships like how they've developed so much yeah um because now we expect and this is me just parrot parroting what um ester perel has said love it which is just that uh we expect our romantic partner to provide like all of the security and feelings and romantic connection um that a community used to provide for us now we expect that from our partner and she's like i want to be clear like i think it's a beautiful thing but um it's just interesting to notice the difference in like what our expectations are now for a romantic relationship

is really really interesting well and i i think it also has a it says a lot about like how individualized american culture has kind of created this like this is i guess if you really want to think about it as like a result of like patriarchal capitalism because we're in our house with just our partner and then maybe our kids and then the things that we would do to take care of each other as a community are no longer accessible because we've individualized ourselves we've we've taken ourselves away from that kind of community yeah yeah where you know women are helping each other raise their children we don't have that anymore no right that's so true it's it's really interesting to look at how these trends have changed over time the article that i was just

reading goes on to like explain how it's changed even like 20 years from then after the sexual revolution and how like you know like oral sex became so much more of like like a hot topic that people were talking about and how that changed attitudes toward foreplay but like it's just so interesting to see for something as like quote-unquote simple as foreplay like how much like the difference in eras that we're living in makes such a difference in how people think about these things like really because like the society that we're living in is what drives how we talk about these things how we feel about these things and i don't know maybe my attitude toward foreplay is a result of like the time we're living in i don't know how but like i don't know

if it's also like a result of like the people that i've had sex with in the past where it feels like kind of transactional because like reading back on this and like having you know like lower educated men in the 50s like thinking of sex is like kind of like transactional yeah it's like oh i mean like i kind of resonate i kind of resonate with that because it's like i'm in this like very loving relationship now where like sex isn't just like transactional but i'm still finding myself doing things like i used to with sex like oh we're gonna fuck okay let's fuck you know and then fucking will be done and so i'm having to kind of like adjust how i think about it and i don't know it's just it's been interesting like doing a deep dive into this world but also

not being able to find like a whole lot about it like i had to read encyclopedia.com like that's crazy you know i'm glad the encyclopedia has a website me too i'm not flipping through that shit encyclopedias were like the original google yeah i wanted i bet a lot of like really really old people still have encyclopedias oh probably do you think they're still printing them they have to i wonder how much they go for probably like 200 books they're probably fucking huge now there's so much to know anyway so yeah i'm just i'm sure i'm gonna be learning more about this over the next few weeks

because i'm in this phase of my life now that i'm doing a lot of like personal research on shit that i'm confused about about myself like turning 30 and why i'm not into foreplay so if you have any thoughts about any of that i would love to hear it that's your version of a soft girl era yeah mine is why don't i like i'm in my why don't i like foreplay era one of these things is not like we need a shorter name for that no foreplay era um for playlist era era uh i think that ties into this question that someone literally just posted on the questions and advice section of our discord um so shout out to this person we're about to i know you didn't submit this to the email but we're about to read it because we thought it was

like a good thing to discuss they say okay i am in need of advice because i am in a situation i haven't been in before i've had a consistent friends with benefits for almost a year now we have had multiple conversations about what we are and he has been clear that this won't move beyond friends with benefits the condom has broken twice in the last month i am also on birth control because i'm a double or nothing kind of girl and now he asked if we should just refrain from penetrative sex which feels which feels the best for me like she means physically i don't think that's a great option but also don't know how much room i have to complain because i don't give oral which i have been clear about from the beginning so we aren't left with a whole lot of options

i feel like maybe i should cut off the relationship but don't really know how to do that with her friends with benefits i also don't want to phrase it like if we don't have penetrative sex i'm out because I feel like that's an unfair ultimatum any advice is appreciated I think this is a really good question like you said I like I think that this is something that a lot of people have faced in the past especially like this kind of seems like it's already at a fork in the road because a friends with benefits for around a year is a long fucking time and it's also like if that's if that's the extent of your relationship, I don't really feel like she owes him a ton,

but also this is what a counselor talked to me about this weekend, which was the difference between an ultimatum and a boundary. Yeah. Because an ultimatum is something that you are doing to intentionally try and control someone else's behavior, which is like, if you don't do this, then I'm going to do this.

but setting a boundary is different because boundaries can be flexible and then your boundary does not need to be flexible but I think that this is one of those things where it's like already kind of a transactional situation so if part of your agreement is friends you want your friends with benefits to be penetrative and that's not something that they're willing to do anymore then you don't have to participate in this relationship anymore yeah totally I agree I understand why it feels weird because like once you like spend this much time with someone it kind of does feel like you owe them something at that a certain point which but you don't um it also kind of like sounds like from how this is written and maybe this is not right is like it sounds like

he's maybe asking you if you should refrain from sex like because how it's worded is um and now he asked if we should just refrain from penetrative sex like is he asking that because he thinks maybe that's what you are the most comfortable with because it might just be a misunderstanding too like a miscommunication who knows I don't know who knows but I think that it's worth having another conversation about and if he's like okay well I have two thoughts this is two-pronged why the fuck does the condom keep breaking it sounds like he's using the wrong condoms well someone replied shortly after and said that the reason a condom breaks is because it's it might be old or expired yeah or like you need to use lube with it too that's something i've noticed when my ex and i

had sex toward the end of our relationship um whenever we would use condoms like when i would like miss a pill or something i they would always break and i realized too late that it was because i wasn't into the sex so i was dry um so the condoms would always break so i mean there's ways around it if you do want to keep having penetrative sex with this person and you do want to keep having this friends with benefits relationship and you're okay with that then like there are ways around it it doesn't need to be one or the other um but it would be clear it would be good to clear up like if it's a boundary thing with him yeah you guys like if you don't want to completely like be out maybe you can maybe you guys can talk about what you're willing to

compromise on see that's a boundary what what are your boundaries sexually in this specific dynamic um and if your boundary is like you're not willing to perform oral at all um then you're out like that's that's fine that's a that's a promise you've made to yourself yeah you're not like threatening him no like it right if you don't do this then i'm i'm leaving it's just like this is this is what i want out of this and um there's no point yeah i'm not going to be happy yeah if we continue yeah I think that's more than fair yeah yeah and that doesn't really feel very ultimate to me that really is that really does feel like just boundary setting and that's such an important distinction I'm so glad that like you talked about that this

past weekend yeah it's well because it's easy to get the two confused or like they do have some commonalities so you have to be really considerate and thoughtful of like okay this is a boundary versus this is an ultimatum and to me this just seems kind of more like a boundary yeah because you're not threatening him you're just like this is this is what i want out of this and if that's not what i'm going to get then i don't think we should be in this relationship because neither of us will be getting what we want totally yeah well said i love that people are talking in the discord huh yeah mr liz is here so we're we have an audience now that's also why gramps is so chatty there's another man in the house it's like finally i've been around these bitches for like

a full hour anyway thanks for listening next time you hear from me i'll be an old fucking hag hey if you're an old hag then what am i you're a spring chicken it's only me that's old i'm just i'm i'm aging at an alarming rate i'm 90 in spirit it's just insane that like every year you're a year older yeah fuck liz sometimes i think about how everyone dies and it's really upsetting to me okay i try to not think about it because before you were saying that's pretty comforting and it scared the hell out of me that we're all gonna die yeah i don't remember saying that you said it a few times i could probably find some instances on this podcast but you know i'm glad that you're changing your tune no anyway i was really hot i was really hot

yesterday thinking about it i was like ah we don't know what happens when we die shit's fucking i just want to know me too that's it who doesn't it'd be so much more comforting if we do all right uh you want to play us out yeah i i feel um self-conscious i understand that we pick them up there we go we love you our children

I'll take the reins on this one Liz don't worry since I have the noise gate on it made your Mariah Carey sound kind of weird that's exactly what it sounds like perfect Yeah, oh, oh, oh, yeah