Why Won't You Date Me? with Nicole Byer - How to Date Virtually (w/ Jinkx Monsoon)

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

"Sex is always better when you can be yourself during it"Jinkx Monsoon (Winner of Rupaul's Drag Race S5) dishes about fulfilling race chaser fantasies, heteronormative roleplay, how their Grindr use has changed since being on Drag Race, and so much more. Also, Nicole shares the only appropriate time to yell 'NAILED IT' at her.For more drag queens on Why Won't You Date Me, check out our episode playlist on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3fg8EpuSupport Black Lives Matter. For a list of resources and places to donate click here: https://linktr.ee/dragherFollow Nicole Byer:Tour Dates: nicolebyerwastaken.com/tourdatesTwitter: @nicolebyerInstagram: @nicolebyerFacebook: www.facebook.com/nicolebyercomedyBuy Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/nicole-byer?ref_id=964Order Nicole's book: www.indiebound.org/book/9781524850746

Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Why won't you date me? Please tell me why! Oh boy, oh baby, welcome to another episode of Why Won't You Date Me? A podcast where me, Nicole Byer, tries to figure out how I'm still single, even though you could shit in a hat and tell me to wear it every day and I'll do it. Oh boy, my guests today, you know them, you love them.

They won a season of RuPaul's's drag race it's jinx monsoon hi thanks for having me thank you so much for doing this jinx what a treat thank you you're in a closet right now i love it i i am i'm sitting in a closet i've got one bare red light bulb it feels like a nightclub in the gay district in New York in my closet right now. I love it. You can't go to the nightclub, so you brought the nightclub to your closet. Do you know the one I'm talking about? Have you ever been to the cock in New York? I don't think I've ever been to the cock in New York. You've got to go, Nicole. It's amazing.

Wait, where is the cock? You've got to go, Nicole. Where is the cock? I don't even remember. I don't think I've ever been in enough wherewithal to like know exactly what streets we were on. But I think it's, you know, it's down. It's like in on Second Street or Fourth Street. I don't know.

I don't really understand New York, but it's this gay club. It's like an anything goes gay club. And it's a favorite spot of the drag race girls to go when we're on tour. You know, they'll be open till 4 a.m. And there's all kinds of things I probably shouldn't share online. I don't want it to get shut down because it's my favorite place. I yeah, I've never been. I wonder why. yeah i've never been i wonder why but i did go to this gay bar in florida called ramrod where i walked in and there was a man fucking right as i walked in and he recognized me he

said i love you and i was like i love this this is a dream come true i mean public sex always just takes me aback for a moment and then i always feel so appreciative that i witnessed it you know but yeah public sex is funny because you're like oh i just walked into something i shouldn't have been seeing but then you're like oh well no it's in public and we're in a public place and i guess it's just porn outside of a screen i do i love a gay bar i love them so much there's one in la called foobar where they have like a penis contest where you like go in the back they take a picture of your penis they put it on the monitors and then you vote for the nicest one. You know, at first that sounds kind of shocking.

But then when you think about the fact that like in the UK, they have a dating show where they show you one quadrant of the body at a time. So, you know, that's just where we are as a society. You know, we are willing to just dehumanize people down to the point that they are just genitals that we give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to. Yeah, that is so wild. I couldn't imagine being on that show and being like, all right, show them my pussy. And let's see those pussies. and let's see those pussies. Honestly, that would be the only way I would go on this show if it was a bunch of pussies being revealed and the host being like,

all right, show those pussies. Yeah, because as it is right now, it's a very genteel, very conversational show. No one makes a big deal out of the fact that everyone's naked but if it were to come to america you know we'd have some kind of obnoxious like frat boy host like show me the pussies it is funny that everywhere else people are pretty okay with like well not everywhere else i i just think we are so repressed with sexualities and whatnot. And I think it's so silly.

The fact that like we can show so much gratuitous violence on TV, but we're still so uncomfortable with a man's butt, you know, unless it's set in the Middle Ages. Then suddenly it's fine for everyone to be naked. then suddenly it's fine for everyone to be naked i was watching um that new ryan murphy show on netflix maybe called hollywood yeah but uh yeah i was watching it oh yeah because they climbed the hollywood sign it's like hollywood but uh there was a scene where there was a man just walking naked and you saw his dick and i was like like, oh, excuse me, please pause that. So my roommate had to pause it and then we rewound it. And then he was very kind. He paused it right there for me. And I said, oh, this is nice. This is nice that us as a family can gather around the television and see a penis attached to a nice story. I know. It was always so thrilling for me,

you know, as a queer teenager, you know, the two years between puberty starting and me coming out of the closet. It was not a facade that lasted for long. But I always got so thrilled, you know, by the movies

that you just get a glimpse of a man's penis in it because I always felt so thrilled, you know, by the movies that you just get a glimpse of a man's penis in it. Because I always felt so, like, bombarded by breasts constantly in movies, you know. And I would get excited when I would watch an R-rated movie at the thrill of nudity, you know, as a young teenager. And it was always breasts. And I was like, I've seen enough breasts. Can I finally see? And then it was train spotting ewan mcgregor you see him in profile um you know in the shadows remove a condom and his

penis just flies around in a helicopter you know and it was so thrilling to me as a queer teenager i think i wore that part of the VHS out. Growing up, my mom was pretty, my mom was, I didn't grow up in like a naked house per se, but my mom wasn't fully clothed all the time. And when we would watch movies and she saw like a nice man's butt, she would go, and I'd always be like, mom. But then then i was like i grew up and was like oh you know she was just truly appreciating the body and bodies are okay they're just buddies yeah i i was desensitized to nudity at an early age because for some reason in my family it was just entirely

acceptable for us all to just go into the bathroom while my grandmother was taking a bath and lots of like family meetings happened with my grandmother in the bathtub you know um gingerly covering up just her nipples with her arms we were a close family that's very funny i i mean honestly if i were a grandmother that's the only way i'd want to be one. My grandkids gathering around my bathwater being like, Grandma. It's like, I can have no peace. I have a question. Are you in a relationship? Are you single?

Are you mingling? What's going on? I am currently in a relationship it um we just celebrated our one year anniversary of being together in April and so this is the longest relationship I've been in that hasn't been un you know it hasn't been interrupted by something like I had a boyfriend leaving high school and we kind of were on and off again my first two years of college. And that's the only thing that's lasted longer than this one continuous relationship. So I feel pretty, pretty blessed relationship wise right now because my boyfriend is, you know, I'm pretty sure I want to marry him once he's ready.

I love that. That's so sweet. Congratulations on a year. Thank you. Yeah, we're having a good time. I mean, he lives in the UK. So we get to see each other about half of the year just with my work taking me over there. And, you know, then every once in a while he comes over here for a couple weeks. But, you know, with the the pandemic it really does feel kind of like okay so we have no idea when we'll see each other again oh boy that fucking sucks we're making the most out of it that's good but like it's long distance so a lot of your communication would be through like video chatting right yeah I mean we text constantly normally, you know, like I'm flying around and stuff. So we're not always eight hours apart. But right now we're on opposite schedules because he wakes up early and goes to bed early, eight hours ahead of me. So by the time I'm waking up normally, he's like gearing down. So it's stupid. And so it's so stupid. But, you know, we're getting better at, we had a virtual date on the night of our anniversary, which was like. That's sweet. It's all this like sappy relationship stuff that I'm like, oh, I can't believe I'm participating in this.

But then, of course, it's like, you know, like, take it away from me. And I'll be like, well, why don't I have anyone to do stuff with? I think that's sweet to do. So, okay. Walk me through a virtual date because I can't envision it. Oh, well, Michael is his name. He had big plans. He really wanted us to cook the same dinner.

And then sit down and, and like pretend we were eating dinner together but again the time difference you know it's like by the time we were trying to eat a meal together it was like 2 a.m for him like 4 in the afternoon for me I don't remember but it was it was ridiculous we tried it we ended up watching um the new invader zim movie on netflix together because you can like sync up your netflix accounts and watch them remotely together but um but okay so what i both love about him and also the thing that worries me is he has um he has a really short attention span so he like just doesn't watch tv and to be dating someone who can't just like sit down in front of the tv for four hours

and just like sit there not talking with the tv on and you know he'll get 20 minutes into something and suddenly he's playing ukulele or he's like poking me in the back with his boner. It's just all kinds of stuff. I mean, there could be worse things. I would love to be poked in the back right now. I would say, Ooh,

okay. Hello. Um, it sounds like your boyfriend is a lot like me. I have a pretty bad ADD. Um, so yeah, it's so hard for me to sit and watch something new because i'm like wondering about an old thing that i watched or like what i'm gonna eat in a couple minutes yeah it's like i went grocery shopping yesterday and i forgot to take my

medicine walked into the grocery store and there was a stand of children's umbrellas and one had flames on it. And I picked it up and I went, I must have this. And then I wandered down the aisles and was like, I don't think I collected anything to make a complete meal. But then I was like, I got to get out of here. And then I got home. I bought a bunch of ice cream, but I didn't buy any salad dressing for the lettuce I bought you know it's it's a it's fun yeah i mean i would be i i live with my best friend who's also been like my assistant and tour manager since drag race um and i don't know you know he he and i think in the opposite ways i'm very much like a big picture you know like i'm like tonight i'll make a casserole

and that's the end of my thinking about it and he's the one who helps me like think okay so what do you actually need to make this casserole and you do realize we need to go to the store and i'm like no i have declared the casserole shall be made yeah that was me last night i was like i'm gonna make chicken nuggets and my roommate was like how i was like i got the chicken and he said do you know how to make chicken nuggets i said i'll find a recipe online then i found a recipe online it was very bad and he was like i'll just i'll do it i'll help you and i was like thank you that's the other way to utilize your community, you know,

just make yourself so helpless that someone comes in and does it for you. Can I ask, so, oh, wait, when did you start doing drag? So I started drag, I think the first time I, like, did it to perform in drag was age 14 or right before 15 and by 16 I had won this under 21 pageant title so I kind of like got shooed into performing every weekend at this all ages queer dance club that existed in Portland back in the day you You know, it was like for ages 13 to about 20, 21. And it was open till 4 a.m. And the fact that all these horny queer teenagers

were just allowed to like create our own animal kingdom in this tiny nightclub is really amazing that like I had that growing up. But so yeah, I started doing drag um around age 15 and was like basically working as much as any other drag queen works um by age 16 lying about my age and getting into bars and performing in their cabaret shows and stuff um gay bars and drag bars in particular um tend to be a little lax about rules you know when you're in drag you can get away with a lot they're like yes this is an adult woman yes we love this adult woman please give her your

crumpled up ones for her to live off of. Did you find dating, was dating harder once you started doing drag or was it just kind of the same? No, it was definitely, you know, I dealt with a stigma for a long time, really until drag race started becoming the cultural phenomenon that it is now. race started becoming the cultural phenomenon that it is now um dating was very being a drag queen was something i kept secret and would hide until the right moment to like let someone know who i was seeing and it was such a big part of my life and it was such a big part of who i am that it's amazing to me that there was ever a time that I was able to lie about it. You know, there was a time that I was able to keep it secret.

But yeah, it was like, you know, there was just a lot of stigma. There was a lot of confusion over what being a drag queen means and what that means for your sexuality and gender identity. But there was also a lot of confusion within me because I used because of that stigma. I used to think that like, you know, the only way to get boys to be interested in me was to act really, really boyish out of drag, you know, to counteract all the negative stigmas about being a drag queen. So in my own way, you know, it's not like I was butch by any means, but like in my own way, I acted super boyish i was butch by any means but like in my own way i acted super

boyish out of drag and built this like boy persona that was really inauthentic to me because that's what i thought i had to be for guys to want to date me nowadays that the stigma of drag is like kind of torn down and on top of that the like the fact that the queer community is embracing, you know, all forms of gender identity and all forms of sexuality in a way that it wasn't doing 15 years ago. My dating life has improved and a lot of that's coming out as non-binary and being more authentic to who I truly am. You know, now I'm having sex with people who want to have sex with me as myself rather than as this boy persona, you know? Yes, that I love very much. Because sex is always better

when you get to be yourself during it. Yes, absolutely. It's very hard to like keep up whatever persona you're trying to convey when you're like trying to be open and vulnerable at the same time. It's like you're doing double the work. Oh yeah, like when someone's eating your ass,

it's really hard to like be also doing a character voice. You know? Oh, I love that. I also love to ask like comics and drag queens who travel a lot, do you get race chasers? This is what Bendala told me that they're called. Yeah, we call them race chasers. So my boyfriend and I, I don't know if his family will end up listening to this, but my family doesn't give a shit but um we're we're open mainly because of the long distance and we

have a lot of you know our we have our communal um boundaries and our shared language about being open together and it's it's worked for us um but yeah you know flying around the world you know you're alone in your hotel room it's like i think it's got to the point where i get into a hotel room and the first thing i think is is this a hotel room that would be fun for hooking up in you know but um um so yeah it used to be that i wouldn't want to hook up with or sleep with you i'm that's redundant hook up or sleep with someone but if they like knew who i was or if they brought up drag race or if they told me they loved me on my season or something i would just instantly disengage and then raja who's another

winner you know and of course we winners of course all sit together and just talk all the time you sit at the winner's table and you have winner's discussions. She said to me, you know, Jinx, these people are called star fuckers and that means you're a star. So why don't you just let them fuck you and feel that star fantasy?

It was something like that, you know. Honestly? It was 4 a.m in florida so i don't know why 4 a.m in florida made it even more perfect it's such a specific scene it really is but honestly i really like that i never thought of it that way uh i've i always thought of it like if people know who i was and they were like trying to hook up with me i'm like you want something from me but like raja really broke it down it's like the only thing they want from you is to feel part of what you have for a night that's literally it they just want to fuck you so they have a story about

fucking you yeah and with like with all my sexual it's like, as long as there's a transparent, open conversation about what we're both like getting into this for and what we both hope to get out of it, you know? And so I'm, I feel like over the years, eight years of being on the road, I'm pretty good at vetting people.

I'm pretty good at knowing like who to invite into my hotel room and who to disengage from but sometimes it's like yeah oh they're just a fan boy but they're also horny and they're also you know pansexual and I find that like it's also you know there's a lot of overlap between the fans and younger boys who want to do me because our fan bases started skewing younger one but also i think younger queer people are a little more open-minded to um various gender identities and stuff like i find that guys my age are still very much into that whole mask for mask ideal whereas younger guys are more open-minded to being with someone who's gender non-binary

and super femme and you know who has a has a penis but is very nelly i mean the older i get the more i'm like oh i like feminine men i like men who like musicals and dancing and like who aren't overly like uh masculine i like a little femininity to my men or maybe i'm just like oh i like men who seem to be caring and have a heart and i'm just like what a novel feminine on them i'm like they're so feminine they they're they're thoughtful and it's like no they're human beings kind so sometimes i get it twisted but i don't know oh absolutely but then again it's just all about it's all about transparency because i had oh my gosh you know back in the day um i don't do this so much these days post drag race but you know there were those nights and um in i'd be doing my drag show and i'd think i was just so gorgeous and i'd be feeling my oats so much that night that i'd stay

in drag after my show i knew exactly which bar to go to to pick up a guy who wanted to go home with a drag queen and i used to call it heteronormative role play because we both knew what was going on you know he was a chaser and i was a drag queen and we were both like fulfilling a fantasy on each end um but we very much it would often involve a lot of playing into like oh i'm just on my way home from my show will you walk me to my door so i make it safe very much playing into this antiquated you know gender role play from the 1950s like i don't know mr sweetie how am i gonna get home by myself honestly this is a real dream. I love this. I want to do this. I don't know. Gee golly.

How will I get home? I don't know. You better walk me to my car and into my bed and right into my pussy. I love it. What happened? Okay, we have to take a break and we're back before you started dating your boyfriend were you on any of the apps you know i um i used grinder before drag Race and I've just continued using it.

And how I use it has changed over the years because there was a while where I didn't want people to know it was me. Now it's very upfront. You know, now it's just like I'm Jinx Monsoon. And that helps with the vetting process because if it starts with, oh, my God, will you be my drag mom? You know, we're probably not fucking. But and then and there's two sides to it, because there's the people who are really into the drag race thing. And then there's the people who are really into the fact that I'm femme and trans and non-binary and want to fetishize it, you know, and call me baby girl and send me a picture of their dick right away. Like, you know, know oh that's how you court a woman that's how you court someone femme you just say you infantilize them and then show

them your penis and everything's good to go i mean i think that's just an agreement amongst men that that's how they think people want things uh and it's not i gotta see that dick later yeah so um i i i tried tinder for a little bit when i was more interested in like dating and not just hooking up but when you're on the road tinder's like when you're answering all the messages and and matching with people you're like you're in texas and you're still going through profiles from you know arkansas or something it takes a while for it to catch up to you so i was never like getting messages from people in the city that i was in and i realized tinder is really for like um stationary people not for nomads

yes it definitely is I feel you on that because yeah you leave a city and then you go through and you're like oh this person's very attractive you're like oh they're now 4,000 miles away okay yeah it's so upsetting um the only yeah Hinge is also like stationary i feel like a lot of dating apps are stationary and not meant for people who are out and about moving and grooving yeah yeah and that's why grinder works so well because i mean really what we need is for grinder to branch out and make a grinder for for everyone. You know, there should be a lesbian Grindr and there should be, you know, straight by curious couples looking for a third Grindr.

Because it's not just gay men who want to know who's 20 feet away from them. Honestly, you're fully right. And I'm always like, I wish there was like a grinder that i can use or well i mean i guess i could use grinder if i want but like you know to find people who want to fuck me um yeah but people are like there's tinder i'm like tinder doesn't tell me by the foot where somebody is i want to know how close you are are you in the room are you is it coming

from the house and nothing it feels like i'm hitting the jackpot when you're on grinder in a hotel and you realize someone you want to sleep with is in the same hotel and you're not even gonna have to leave the building that night jinx what a treat that would be i would love that i have been so horny so many times just like in a hotel room and like austin texas being like oh oh i have to leave the hotel to figure this out do you ever go down to the hotel bar and just make yourself look very available sometimes but i feel like unless you're at a very like trendy hotel it's older people who are just like not looking to fuck not that i wouldn't fuck an older person

yeah a lot of times it's a lot of people like couples being like ah man we just have to get a nightcap because i'm martha over here and you're like what did martha do to you you know i'm just realizing we talked about like people coming to me um you know being fanboys and stuff but um i'm wondering if you get anyone hitting on you like directly referencing your work you know like have have you ever had sex with someone and afterwards they go nailed it you know no and people yell nailed it at me constantly but the only way i'd be happy with it is if someone did it during sex nobody has done it yet it would be so funny to me and then just a lovely story that i could repeat on stage it'd be like a five minute story i'm sure but yeah nobody's ever done that i i do believe someone once like oh my god so my catchphrase on my season of drag race was

water on the duck's back I was some kind of you know I was talking to myself constantly it looked like I was speaking in tongues half the time I was so anxious about that high competitive environment that the only way to get through it was to like constantly talk to myself just like focus and ground myself anyway blah blah blah one time some boy's like wiping himself up afterward and he's like like water off a duck's back that is very funny yeah i've had i mean i've had enough i always say the good experiences on Grindr, when you get used to like how to like filter out the weirdos and stuff, the good experiences have outweighed the bad ones. ridiculous interaction with someone or some kind of hookup gone wrong. But I also, you know, it led to me meeting my boyfriend. And when you stay open-minded, like, you never know when a hookup might turn into something more serious.

Oh, wait, so you guys met on Grindr? A year later, you're with the same guy. Yeah. I mean, I hope his family doesn't listen to this. They're so supportive. They probably will. He gave me permission at one point. He said, you know, I don't think I would mind.

But anyway, I'll check with him before this gets released. Yes, and I can send it to you and you can listen and we can edit out anything you don't like. Yeah. Well, my boyfriend was working in a gay bar as a bartender at the time. So it was really easy to tell his mom and sisters that that's how we met. But no, it was on Grindr. And it was actually it's not a very romantic story but i like it you know um it was in manchester england where he lives

and i had plans with someone else that night someone you know i i had seen more than once when i make my way through manchester and so I had basically, without giving the sordid details, had prepared myself mentally, spiritually, physically for sex that evening. And then the person totally bailed. So when you've gotten all dressed up, you know, when you've gotten all taken the full... When you've cleaned it out, you're like, okay. We're all talking about douching here, people.

It is a shame to waste a douching because it is such a to-do. And if you're a Virgo like me, you're just like a perfectionist about it. So anyway, I didn't want to waste it i take the grinder and um yeah my boyfriend ended up coming over there and we hung out and he spent the night and like you know of course we we hooked up and fooled around but we really fell for each other the next day because he stuck around and was playing my ukulele and he it was like i don't know why this did it for me but like a commercial on the tv would play and he'd start playing the ukulele along with the song that was playing like i knew i fell for him when he was playing the who wants to be a

millionaire theme song on my ukulele and i never thought those would be the that would be our meet cute but I think that's fucking adorable I love that so much to like have a hookup stay and you're like I don't know if I need this person here right now but then they do something so endearing that you're like oh I don't want them to ever leave I love that that's adorable I mean it was we moved pretty quickly but we also you know it was two weeks later we decided to start going out. But like I told him every step of the way, you know, like it's fun right now while I'm in the UK and we can keep like, you know, taking buses to see each other. But it's going to be difficult. But we've navigated through it. You know, I think it's just like anything's possible if you're just like willing to have the conversations. Yeah.

But it's also, you know, like I'm reveling in this time with my really great boyfriend. I'm also 11 months sober from booze. So it's like it's just felt like a really nice rejuvenative time for me. But congratulations on 11 months. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I always say it's the most boring thing I've ever done. It was like congratulations. I'm like'm like for what i literally stopped doing something

well it's hard i keep saying i'm gonna quit smoking cigarettes and then i'll quit for a little bit and then i'll be like i love them they're bad oh it's especially in quarantine it's like what else am i gonna do honestly, Robert T. you for not drinking during quarantine. I have a very dark sense of humor, so everything makes me laugh. One of the roommates will cook something with white wine, and I'll be like, I pretend to relapse in the middle of the meal. That kind of stuff cracks me up to no end.'s on that i mean to me that's very funny i love very dark jokes i think humor i think humor toes a very fine line between funny and tragedy i think it's they're almost one in the same i think one of my favorite things my uh my

favorite teacher in college i went to acting school um my favorite teacher was first my least favorite teacher she was such a stone cold bitch but then that's why i came to love her but um you know i had a tumultuous childhood and she asked me something one day in class and she said um uh do you do either of your parents drink do either of your parents have substance abuse problems i was like um yeah i've dealt with some of that in my life and she turns to the class and says see this is why they're so funny if you want to be a good comedian start by having abusive parents that's so fucked up it was so fucked up but it was so relatable because all of my material stems from this place of making light of like a really um up and down childhood you know and i really love that i have comedy because i feel like having comedy as my

outlet for more tragic aspects of my life keeps me from walking around being an angrier person. Like I'm able to be a joyful person because I get all my demons out on stage. Yeah, I fully agree with you. I like one of the first jokes I ever wrote was about my dead parents. And one of my favorite things to do is very casually talk about being an orphan in front of people who may not know my parents are dead and then a friend that knows and has heard these jokes before because like my friends this year will laugh uproariously over a dead parent joke and then someone will be like oh my god are you okay why are you laughing and then that makes me laugh so much harder i just yeah i love dark dark dark shit

i am i remember one christmas party at um um oh why why now why is the name leaving my head dan savage okay so i lived in seattle for 12 years and Dan Savage lives there and he has this annual Christmas party and I went one year and I was talking with all his well-to-do neighbors and they were all just talking about frustrating things with their parents. refined sugar or something and then i think i said something like oh well you know i can relate my mom still my mom claimed me as a dependent this year and stole my tax return and everyone was so mortified and i thought that was like that's the least of my worries right yeah i think that's so funny to like undercut someone's non-problem with a real problem but also you find the joy in that real problem that's so funny i was talking to a friend recently who was like oh yeah my mom took out a car loan in my name this year i'm 20 i'm 29 years old i was like your mom's i love her she's funny she's funny that's very funny i've been having a really i i love it's just so easy talking to you i feel like we've barely

talked about relationships oh it's fine i mean yes it's a relationship focused podcast but also i just like talking to people who i find funny and interesting oh me too and i think you're very funny and very wonderful it's been it's been a lot of fun like rediscovering having phone call conversations you know because i avoid my phone i mean i'm a textaholic but i'll be sitting there texting with someone and then they try to call me and i just stop responding i don't answer the phone i'm like no why are you trying to change this good thing we have well i think it's because with a text message you can revise a text message until you have exactly what you want to say but then when you're talking to someone and like on the phone or

whatever you you can't really do that you're just you're like oh well i said that was it good was it bad i don't know and it's also the like the audacity of asking me to pay full attention to you isn't it enough that i'm i'm texting you while i'm also playing hearthstone on my phone i mean my therapist was like we should she's like mean, I'll put it out there. We could FaceTime. And I was like, no, I prefer a phone call. And then the last phone call session we did, I was like, oh, I prefer a phone call because I'm naked in bed playing Animal Crossing. And I'm not completely listening to her.

So then our next session, I was like, I have a confession to make. listening to her so then our next session i was like i have a confession to make um i don't remember a thing you said to me because i was fully not paying attention yeah i mean i i text with my therapist um because that works the best with my schedule on the road and stuff but um you know in quarantine it's been i'll draw a bath and then do my sessions with my therapist in the bathtub and i think what what uh what a time to be alive where one you can text a therapist and two you can do it from your bathtub i love it that's so opulent and elegant I've been taking more baths since quarantine started. I've taken maybe like four or five, maybe six baths. What I love about baths. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

What's the thing you love about baths? is that you're doing something you have to do, but you can multitask. Like you have to clean yourself every once in a while, but you also have to answer your emails. And when you do that in the bath, you're getting all your chores done at once. Well, the first bath I took, I used a bath bomb. And then in the middle of my bath, that was so relaxing and luxurious, I was like, wait, are bath bombs bad for your pussy?

Am I going to get a yeast infection? Oh, no no so then i drained the tub and then was like washing myself with the regular water it was a whole to do and then the second time i was like oh this is luxurious i love it and then i started playing like sad breakup music and then i started crying and then i was like wait this bath was supposed to make me happy and now I'm just sobbing as I softly like sang along with it then I was like what are my roommates thinking are they listening to this oh boy it's been uh it's been a journey I um accidentally made a bath recently where I used um the peppermint body wash for the for the bubbles which meant the whole like just getting into the water it was like hot water but my skin was tingling like it was freezing

it was the weirdest sensation to be both hot and feel like you're freezing to death in the same in the same tub i just started getting into peppermint soap and I really like it. It wakes you up. It truly does. And it like dries you out a little bit more. But then I just like put in that lotion and then I'm like,

oh, I'm so soft and supple. Oh wait, Jinx. Have you are you pole dancing for real? Because the video you sent me was so fucking funny. But then I was like, Jinx has some pretty good upper body strength. They really be swirling around that pole. I highly disagree. I my my house is it's me and one of my best friends from high school bought this house together. And she's been running it as an Airbnb for the last couple of years.

She lives here full time. And I was, you know, most of the time on the road. And I had my home base in San Francisco. But right before quarantine, I decided to move into the house. And so we're all living here together. She put the poll in at some point and I've never really interacted with it. But, you know, when we started realizing all my work is going to be online for the foreseeable future, you know, my roommates just keep throwing ideas out at me. out at me and if I if I had like if I had any drive or like any self-motivation I'd have like 10 videos out by now but as it is like two months into quarantine and I've got one video of me pole

dancing but um yeah it was just one of my roommates said you should give a pole dancing tutorial with your current level of pole dancing knowledge so i had a lot of fun making that and um it really was as exhausting as it seems my favorite was and now you're upside down you're upside down you're upside down because that is the bane of my existence i cannot get upside down yet i all i want to do is be upside down and my body's like you big bitch it's not in the cards yet you gotta work a little bit more i mean i love the idea of the pool you know i love the i i love that at any moment if i actually had the drive i could go downstairs and put on some Gloria Estefan and like work out with my pole um but the only time that happens is if I'm doing it for comedy it's

like the only time exercise works its way into my life is if it's a byproduct of comedy yeah I started roller skating almost as a bit I was like I want to I went to like a roller skating almost as a bit. I was like, I went to like a roller skating rink and I like couldn't do it. Then I was like, I'll learn. So then I started taking roller skating classes. And my teacher was a man named Ty who was very kind and loved telling me he was a champion. And then I was like, I'm going to buy roller skates and I'm going to film videos. Like, I don't know if you know Meatball. She's a drag queen in LA.

Oh, yeah. I fucking love Meatball. And she's always just swirling around on roller skates. And I was like, she's funny. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do bits with Meatball. And then I just, I can't learn. It's so hard.

And it's so exhausting. I'll be on them for 15 minutes and I'll be dripping with sweat. And I'll have moved two feet. Yeah. Roller. Oh, my God. dripping with sweat and I'll have moved two feet yeah roller oh my god it's all the stuff that I used to feel so confident about when I was young and then just haven't cared about for two decades basically and then it's always the trick of like you you convince yourself because you could do it at 12 years old that you can still do it now. You know, like I used to have no problem going upside down in a pole. I used to do it at the drag bars I worked at all the time. I'm flipping and twirling.

And then just trying to like wrap my mind around the idea of my body being upside down on that pole was such a leap of faith. Yeah, I feel like when you're younger, there's a lot of just disregard for safety and your life. Oh, oh, absolutely. I'm going to live forever. Who fucking cares? Yeah, I would like swing on the monkey bars. I took gymnastics and now I'm 34, 35, 39, 42 years old. And I'm like, everything is so hard. My body hurts. I mean, you know, something's changed within you when you can't like bend over to pick

something up without making a noise. And it's like I catch myself making the noise and I'm like I know that the noise did not help me stand back up like why does my body do that and why does it seem so necessary in the moment I feel like the noise is like extra oomph like um it pushes you through yeah like when people are weightlifting they're like it's like you didn't need to do that but like maybe it did help a little bit i dated a bodybuilder really how was that what are muscles like oh my gosh well you know it was it went through many stages um honestly i mean like it changed everything like he got so big that i couldn't comfortably share a bed with him. And, you know, it was just like everything piled up and it was hard because he had moved in with me. And then it was like, you know, we had been off and on and he moves in and I'm like meeting him again for the first time after three months apart suddenly.

three months apart suddenly um so it really didn't last long after he moved in and he ends up moving down the hall for me in my same building um with his new girlfriend oh and that was a whole i mean i've had some really interesting relationships i mean that one's pretty fucking wild i wait tell me another um i i had i was dating this guy okay so it's it was one of those situations where it started bad so it's like it ending bad i kind of had it coming the whole time but i was young i was right out of college um he was you know four or five years older than me and he was in a very adult relationship sharing an apartment and he started flirting with me and it was one of those things where it was like, I'm just going to do it once just to see what it's like. And I know we'll, we'll totally go back to being just friends. friends but you know um i we end up fooling around a bunch and he breaks up with his boyfriend and then we start dating and we were together about like eight months and then he basically did the exact same thing to me but the person he upgraded to was like 20 years old 90 pounds when wet and i've realized that his boyfriends just keep getting

younger and twinkier as he moves from boyfriend to boyfriend um so i always referred to that as my um my first wives club moment i felt like the new one the new boyfriend was the sarah jessica parker and i was the bett midler who had to get her waistline back. But honestly, I would want to be Bette Midler. Obviously, everyone wants to be Bette Midler. That was probably the only time I went into a really bad post-breakup depression. And I don't know exactly what caused it, but I don't know what about that relationship made the breakup so much harder than every other breakup but i for a solid month was just in this pattern of go to work go get drunk at a bar walk home um stop and get some um baked barbecue lays and a two liter of

diet dr pepper and then i would sit in my bed and shovel the chips into my mouth and chug down the dr pepper and watch king of the hill for whatever reason that was my depression show so i watched my way all the way through king of the hill and the day that i pulled myself out of this breakup depression was the day i woke up and my bed was soaked. And I was so sure that I had gone to bed drunk and wet myself in my sleep. Luckily, it was just that I accidentally dumped the root beer into my bed that night. I was just sleeping in a puddle of root beer.

And I woke up that day and smelt the root beer and I was like, it's time to get over this breakup. It is funny the things that snap you out of it like you'll be just a very small thing you're like oh I'm done I'm done being sad absolutely I was so sad over this boy who like we were dating truly not for a very long time but when we finally stopped dating I was devastated I was like this could have been my boyfriend I like him so much oh this is. And I was so sad for months and months and months. And then I was like, I got in my car and I was like, I'm going to drive by his house just to see if he's

home. And on my way, I was like, who cares if he's home? And then I was saying out loud, I was like, you've done so many wonderful things since you stopped dating this person why are you so hung up on this and then i started crying because i was like you're being ridiculous and then i started laughing really hard then i was like am i crazy and then i didn't realize my window was down and i just screamed fuck and this man next to me was like i get it and i i was like oh my god and then've been like oh you can't be like this all the time you have to be normal and you can't be screaming so yeah it was like a just a silly time i wonder where the okay so i wonder where the overlap is with our intersectionality and the minorities and the and the subgroups that you and i represent um i wonder you know like i don't know if you do this but now that i've experienced some

success and now that i feel really proud of myself in lots of areas of my life. I play this game where I pull up the Facebook profiles of men who have totally broken my heart and click through their Facebook profiles and then click through mine. And I'm like, oh, like, OK, so they're at a picnic with their family last Sunday. I was in Australia performing to a sold out comedy club. I think I can let this go now. I sometimes do that. I'll do that with like people I've dated, just like check in and be like,

what are you doing? Anything interesting? And it's never anything interesting. And then people from high school where I, like I wasn't made fun of. I had a fine time in high school, but all those people that I was jealous of, I was like, what are they doing now?

And I'm like, none of them are doing anything that seems remotely something I would be interested in. I don't want to say like having a family and a husband is like stupid and shitty and boring to me. It is. I don't, I don't want to just be a mom or just be a wife.

And I'm like, yeah, I don't know if you're living your dream, but like I definitely am. And then I'm a mom or just be a wife and I'm like yeah I don't know if you're living your dream but like I definitely am and then I'm like am I an asshole then I'm like no I'm just you know trying to feel better oh yeah I I like you know I I especially like looking back on the guys that like maybe fetishized me or maybe made me feel degraded for being a drag queen or for whatever reason that they like left me with a bad taste in my mouth i think the most shocking one was one time i was playing this game and then i found out this ex of mine was like involved in some murder trial i couldn't find enough of the details, but I was like, okay, this game got dark. I don't want to sit here and be patting myself on the back for having gone to the GLAAD Awards when he's on trial for murder. Oh, no.

He wasn't on trial for murder. I just said that. I said that for the the joke of it but well i liked it i would love to see someone i dated be on trial for murder i'd be like well i really dodged that yeah and then you'd have to be in the courtroom you know dressed with a giant hat and like like a film noir you know femme fatale i know for a fact if someone i dated was on trial for murder whether it was true or not i'd be like well there was a time i felt like i was in danger and i'll tell you all about it like just very dramatic trying to make it about myself oh

absolutely oh yeah i i i mean that's i think that's just a trait of performers is to be like you know you hear of something tragic happening and you're like oh my god i was supposed to perform there four months from now that could have been me if it happened four months later that is so funny just like turning it around to yourself it's just like oh no my god wait jinx you said you were a virgo way back a while ago when is your birthday september 18th the same day as greta garbo's and two days before michelle visage's and michelle visage and i are like tv personalities and like our public personas who we play on stage couldn't be more different but who we are backstage like we always share a dressing room because we're the only two who

want to like belt out show tunes while we get ready and uh yeah i it's it's funny like i've become really close with michelle over the years and you know it's always fun when the person who used to like make you shit your pants because you were so scared of them is now like one of your good friends you know i love michelle she's so she's like very very funny and real and she is different off camera than she is on camera oh yeah you think this jersey bitch persona is her but she's actually like one of the nerdiest people I know. Just like the fucking sweetest. I love her.

And it was funny because like when I judged, I did all stars. I was a judge in all stars. And we were just talking about something in between like the judges critiques or whatever. And I said something about being from Jersey. And then we just like really talked about Jersey. And then we found out that we went to the same acting school and we were talking about that and it was just so she's great i love her so much oh she's so much

fun and what i love about her when i tour with her is that she is very much a mom um off stage she's got she's got two kids and she's just constantly FaceTiming with them. I know too much about her kids. I think just touring with Michelle, I know a lot of intimate details about her home life. I mean, I guess it goes both ways. I mean, she, oh God. There was a time, me and my assistant, assistant you know having been best friends for so long

and sometimes you just really get on each other's nerves touring together and um michelle had to like break up an argument between us in an airport in amsterdam because security was about to like take us into holding because we were having this obnoxious petty fight and michelle visage had to like step in and referee and i'm like i can't believe this woman from tv is now like helping me and my best friend de-escalate our problems it's it's the really surreal thing about like being a performer and like especially i don't know how you might feel being i i don't know what were you doing before you started experiencing success and started getting some notoriety um comedy like it's funny because i feel like drag queens drag queens

comedians have so much in common. Like you do drag at nightclubs. You're doing the same thing you were doing. You get on Drag Race. You achieve fame. And you're like, I was doing the same thing. You just saw me on a bigger like platform. So you like me now.

And it's the same thing with like comedy, like jokes that I was doing in clubs that didn't work before Nailed It or before Girl Code or whatever suddenly worked after I was on television and I was like oh you think it's okay to laugh and like me because the world kind of co-signed it for you you know like the television was like like her and you're like I like her uh so yeah it's truly the same thing I was doing before that I'm doing after. Oh, yeah. I mean, I just, there's these moments where I feel like it's important to look back on our roots.

You know, I think comedians and drag queens, you're absolutely right, go through some very similar experiences on your way up you know like as you work really really hard and if you don't give up over the years you know you're generally going to have some of those horror stories where like i remember this club i used to work in where we had to lay duct tape down around our makeup you know like make a little duct tape moat around our makeup so that cockroaches would crawl on our makeup you know and we'd come back from doing our number and there would be like cockroaches trapped on these strips of tape right next to your eye shadow and and having to tap out your heels to make sure like cockroaches had crawled in i think about that anytime i'm also having a moment like of mich Visage in an Amsterdam airport saying like, you two stop fighting like she's our mom.

I'm like, you know, at least I'm not in a basement with cockroaches crawling all over my makeup anymore. God, yeah. I've done shows to like, I did one show to literally, there were six people before I went on. The comic before me walked two of those people. So two people left. So I did a show for four people. And my best friend, Sashir, was there. My other very good friend, my best friend, Mateo Lane, was there.

And I turned and looked at them. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to give these people the best 15 minutes of their lives. Because for whatever reason reason we were doing 15 minute sets instead of 10 minute sets so i truly performed like it was a crowd of like 600 people and those four people laughing i was like you know what this is how i should be doing this all of the time i should be giving 100 all of time. But you know how you see like four people and you're like, fuck, I don't want to do this.

But like, oh, I think back to that so much when I like sell out a show. And I'm like, yeah, there was once a time where I did shows for four people. Yeah. I mean, there was a time where I was standing on a trash can, you know, like barking on the street, trying to get people to come into my audience

i i you know it's like i just love looking back on those moments because um there's no way to like get anywhere successfully as a performer unless you like really just stick at it throughout the hardest hardest parts of it yeah i once had a teacher say to me in school he was like if you can live without performing and acting do that and i was like what the fuck and then as i started doing it i was like oh because it's really hard and it hurts your feelings over and over and over again absolutely and. And then, you know, it's just, I know we're not there yet. I know we were constantly trying to push big steps forward for representation. But just the fact that like, you know, being starting drag at 15, thinking there was no

possible way that I could ever, you know, like be on TV as a drag queen. And now not only that, but like I've done the competition show, I've done some scripted work and, you know, not all of it's great. A lot of it's very much like, oh, drag queens are in right now. So let's have one in our show. And she'll say a catchphrase that doesn't have anything to do with the plot of the story. And we'll shuffle her off. You know, she's just here to say a catchphrase that doesn't have anything to do with the plot of the story and we'll shuffle her off. You know, she's just here to be a catchphrase. But with that, you know, you got to take the good with the bad. And we've got to allow room for like bad art to be made, too, because it also allows room for the good stuff.

So, yeah, it's very exciting to be living in a time when, like, drag is getting this representation, even if some of it's, like, totally hokey and cheesy. Like, who knew we would ever be here? Yeah, I love it. I love seeing it. It makes me so happy. Yeah. Well, Jinx, we've come to the end. Oh, wonderful. I truly enjoyed talking to you you're a goddamn delight back and also i remember because i loved watching you on drag race and i got to meet you

at drag con and i like walked past you and you went nicole byer and i was like i truly freaked out i love that day I remember it like it was yesterday because me and my best friend had just watched, we had binge watched Loosely Exactly Nicole, right? Is that what that was? Loosely Exactly? Yes. It was such an amazing show. We binged it in like two days. And then it was like a week later, we were at DragCon and you just walked by me. And I remember the whole thing being very much like, Nicole Byer, Jinx Monsoon. Oh, hi, Nicole. Maybe I had already tweeted at you or something about saying I loved your show. So in my world, you know, you liked my tweet. So we're best friends now. So it's not a big deal for when we meet the first time. It was honestly perfect. And you were dressed like, what are they? Fleur?

No, from Harry Potter. That was my Rita Skeeter day. I had a Fleur Delacour day and a Rita Skeeter day. It was perfect. I loved it. Well, Jinx, do you? Oh, wait. Oh, I usually ask people this. Sometimes I forget. But would you date me? that you um you know you can be into femme guys you know and i myself at 32 years old i find myself leaning so much more pansexual and queer than like strictly about penises like i was in my teen years so at this point i'm like you know i love buffets why not take that principle into my

whole life i mean i was raised trash. The fanciest thing we would do as a family is go out to a nice buffet. So really, like I should be employing that principle in all areas. I love it. Honestly, that's the best answer I've ever heard. Buffet rules to life. Yeah. Well, Jinx, do you have anything you want to promote? You know, it's so hard to tell what will be going on in the next couple of months, but I do a lot of shows at stageit.com. And that's with Producer Entertainment, my management firm. We do a digital drag festival. And I think we're just going to keep extending it as long as we have to to you know um

it's it's a very interesting time to be a freelance artist so i'm not planning too far ahead but i i have been doing a lot of shows over there and um so i'm sure i'll be doing a lot more streaming i do a lot of shows on my instagram live mostly like karaoke request shows. And I'm working with Bendelicrem, Peaches Christ and Major Scales on a podcast called WQUR Queer Quarantine Radio. And we've just released our first episode. By the time this podcast comes out, I think we'll have done two or three episodes. So you can check that out. We've got a patreon and we're just doing it for the love of new art creation in a medium we've never worked with before i love it well if you like this episode of why won't you date me you can like it you say you can subscribe you can rate it five

stars and if you send me a nasty come on i will read it this nice person said singing sunday singing sunday is for the moans you letting out because that dick's so thick money monday monday is for shoving money in those pole dancing rolls taco tuesday taco meaning the food we eat whilst we fuck no need for euphemisms we can have tacos and pussy. Wacky wet Wednesday. Trampoline pool sex? Only on Wednesday. Thought Thursday. A day for intellectuals to teach men about properly eating pussy.

Freaky Friday. You ever heard of the polar bear sex position? Me either. Let's make it up. Sex Saturday. Of course you need a day to get back those reverse cowgirl roots that was very silly thank you so much i won't say who it is because sometimes people get mad that i say their names okay thank you bye This has been a Team Coco production.