Ep 150: Sex-Repulsed vs. Sex-Averse
Listen to Ep 150: Sex-Repulsed vs. Sex-Averse here!
(0:00)
SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA:… and a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla)
SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: sex repulsion.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.
KAYLA: No no no I’m not ready yet.
SARAH: For those listening at home, while you were listening to the theme song, I was listening for Kayla to find —
KAYLA: Well you were saying it like you were waiting for minutes. It’s literally been seconds. I barely even had time to send a text.
SARAH: It was about 20-25 seconds which is about the length of our theme song.
KAYLA: I disagree that it was that.
SARAH: I’m literally looking at — Kayla!
KAYLA: Oh no, what if they’re at work?
SARAH: Kayla, I am looking at the recording right now. It is about 25 seconds. Okay, here’s the problem. I was talking to our good friend of the show, DM of Into the Gridge a very good podcast you should listen to, Perry and they gave me a good idea for a “M’.” They were like, “write it down,” and I was like, “okay,” and then obviously I didn’t.
SARAH: Cause you’re a m’oron.
KAYLA: Okay bad news Perry texted me back and they don’t remember and they told me to check the Skype logs and I’m not going to do that. So I’m just going to do one that I think someone said in the Discord, or maybe online.
SARAH: I already said a good one.
KAYLA: I didn’t hear it, what was it?
SARAH: I called you a m’oron.
KAYLA: Oh I don’t like that. Mine is M’59. For M59 the highway.
SARAH: For those Michiganders, you’ll know what we’re talking about. For those of you who are not familiar with the freeways of Michigan, you will be confused.
KAYLA: And that’s fine.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay, cool. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: No. First, we have announcements.
SARAH: Kayla, what are we announcing this week?
KAYLA: Well I thought we would — even though it was two weeks ago now — we would just say thank you to everyone that watched the panels of Ace Con, because last week was a pre-recorded episode so we didn’t get to talk about it.
SARAH: And for the aro panel, not sure when it’s going up or where it’s going up but it’s going to go somewhere. We took some of the questions that were submitted that we didn’t have time to answer and we wrote out some answers to them. So whenever those get published, wherever those get published, we will link those bad boys and we’ll put it on our Twitter.
KAYLA: True. So yeah, thank you to everyone who watched. I think we both had a very good time. It was similar to when we did our own livestream, just a very happy environment where you remember, oh this is what it feels like to be around people who really get it.
SARAH: Yeah. My panel only had two trolls.
KAYLA: I don’t think I had any trolls, I don’t know what happened to you.
SARAH: We had 2. But it was okay. They were dealt with.
KAYLA: That happens. But if you were at the panel, you might have taken part in the Gather, which was like the virtual meeting space. We have one of those now for our own Discord server, so join the Discord if you’re interested in that. Also, we have a newsletter now because I like to do more work. Also, people requested it. And I was like, it really isn’t honestly that much work anyway. So, we’re going to have a monthly newsletter and it’s going to have episode round-up, little synopses of what episodes came out that month, information about guests we had on that month.
SARAH: New patrons?
KAYLA: Yeah, a thank you to all of our new patrons that joined that month, poll results for episodes that month because I know that those of you without Twitter might never get to see results of the polls, maybe a cow of the month.
SARAH: Oh my god, we gotta do a cow of the month.
KAYLA: We are. It’s not a maybe, it’s already in there. Updates on events and things we’re doing. I already have October’s drafted, like the stuff that’s already happening, it’s very long.
SARAH: You going to show it to me?
KAYLA: Yeah I wasn’t planning on sending it until October.SARAH: I know, but I didn’t even know that you had already drafted an entire thing.
KAYLA: Yeah and I’ve put in — I’ll send it to you after. It’s going to go out at the beginning, probably the 1st of every month I think. And it will be just a roundup of the previous month, so there’s a link to subscribe in the description of this episode, so go do that.
(5:00)
SARAH: Yeah boy!
KAYLA: Yayyy.
SARAH: Am I allowed to ask you what we’re talking about this week now?
KAYLA: I guess.
SARAH: Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week we’re talking about sex repulsion and how that is a thing that some asexual people experience and also how that might not be the best word to describe that kind of feeling or experience.
SARAH: Yeah, so the reason I started thinking about this is because on our Twitter sometime ago, Kayla retweeted a tweet that was a thread where somewhere in that thread, the person was talking about the phrase “sex-repulsed.” Was I ever able to find that thread?
BOTH: No.SARAH: Even after I tweeted about it from the pod account, still no. It’s lost to the void cause I don’t remember who tweeted it or when. I don’t remember anything about it other than that this is what they talked about.
KAYLA: I tweet and retweet too many things I think cause I can never find anything ever again.
SARAH: But, I gathered some of my own thoughts and I’ve seen a little bit of discourse about this. Not a ton, but definitely some discussion. I have a thesis.
KAYLA: Okay but first we want to describe what we mean by sex-repulsed or sex-averse, or sex-favorable asexuality just for some basic definitions.
SARAH: Kayla when I wrote down my wall of text to prepare for this episode do you think I didn’t anticipate that?
KAYLA: Okay. Why don’t you just do this episode by yourself then? I’ll just sit this one out maybe.
SARAH: I need someone to talk to.
KAYLA: No maybe just — this is a one-person podcast now.
SARAH: Okay here’s what this is. This is the case for phasing the term “sex-averse” in and phasing “sex-repulsed” out, or perhaps more specifically just pushing it a little bit further down the spectrum, by me Sarah, not by Kayla.
KAYLA: No, I’m actually not in this episode. I’m just going to be listening just like you all. I just get to hear the episode first.
SARAH: Mm kay. Cool. So, according to the ever famous lgbtia.wikia.org, I was just looking for definitions of sex-repulsed to see what the definition was. I found this wiki page about sexuality. It says, “sex-repulsed, also known as sex-negative or sex-averse is a term that is commonly used by asexual individuals to indicate that they find sex disgusting or revolting.” And then it goes on to explain that it can take on many different forms. For some people, they are repulsed by the idea of engaging in sex themselves but fine with sexual activity that doesn’t involve them. Other people may be repulsed by the idea of sex in general. And I think the fact that they had to spend an entire paragraph explaining all the intricacies of it are very telling of the fact that maybe sex-repulsed is too broad a term or too trying to be too overarching a term. Because it talks about sex-repulse and sex-negative and sex-averse as all being synonymous. But I don’t think they are. Cause, Kayla, when someone says “sex-positive,” how do you think about the definition of sex-positive?
KAYLA: I kind of have — and I think this is very similar to what we’ll be talking about in general but the way people use sex-positive in terms of asexuality I don’t think is correct either. When I hear the word sex-positive, it’s very like, oh I’m good with people doing whatever they want with their bodies. Like, I’m good with women having lots of sex if they want. But in terms of asexuality I think people often mean to use it as, “I am okay with having sex as an asexual person” when I think sex-favorable takes away any confusion. Cause when you say “sex-positive” it makes it seem like every other asexual hates that anyone is having sex, when that’s not.
SARAH: I think those terms are confused a lot. Then there’s also like in the middle you have “sex-ambivalent.”
KAYLA: Which I think that’s a good one.
(10:00)
SARAH: That one’s good. It’s actually really interesting because I went a little further on this wiki page and I clicked on “sex-favorable,” and for sex-favorable, it specifically says it is not to be confused with sex-positivity which is a political position. But, I don’t think that line exists clearly in the community.
KAYLA: And I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. I don’t want anyone who uses those words to be like, “oh I’m doing something wrong” or “I’m hurting ace visibility or education.” It’s a very linguistic type of unconscious thing. The reason we choose to use certain words.
SARAH: And so that’s kind of why I wanted to talk about this. I kind of want to make the case for sex-repulsed, sex-negative, and sex-averse being defined as different things cause I think they are all different things. I don’t like to use the word “sex-repulsed” for myself and never have, even though I do fit the official definition of what it means to be “sex-repulsed.” I don’t want to have sex with people, which is a part of the straight-up definition of sex-repulsed. But the reason I’ve never claimed that term even though I’ll willingly claim my connection to its meaning is because I’m not sex-repulsed when it comes to other people. I don’t care if you have the kinkiest sex on the planet, I don’t mind talking about sex, I don’t mind reading about it or seeing you on TV. The farthest it’s going to go with me is that I might get kind of uncomfortable or squeamish. But as much as I don’t understand it sometimes, I am not repulsed by sex itself.
KAYLA: And yeah there are people where that term fits much better or even just seeing anything involving sex, talking about it, makes them physically ill, or very uncomfortable or anxious. That is a much more visceral reaction, more serious, something that people would need to be aware of. If you said to me, “I am sex-repulsed, I do not want to talk about this,” then I would react differently and be careful about talking about things than if you said “I’m sex-averse” then I would know that I wouldn’t need to be as careful with my words.
SARAH: Right, and in even a couple of episodes we mentioned — we were like, oh this may not be the best episode if you’re sex-repulsed. But even as we were saying that I was sitting there being like, well, depends what kind of sex-repulsed you are because there’s no one standard meaning. For me, I am repulsed by sex that involves my own body. So I think the term “averse” better encapsulates that. It does a clearer job of indicating that it is my body having sex that I don’t like, not yours.
KAYLA: Not just like the idea of it.
SARAH: Right. And I think “sex-repulsed” just generally is a misleading term because it doesn’t have one standard definition. Although that is difficult with aspec communities, we’re not all on the same page, I think it’s especially bad when it comes to allos who are coming to learn about aceness because it makes it seem like a person is against all things sex, throw holy water on it, that sort of thing. And some people obviously are genuinely repulsed by the idea of it and that’s totally cool. But I think if you’re talking about sex-repulsion in this big umbrella way, it makes it seem like that’s the universal ace experience. That misunderstanding fulfills a stereotype that is ultimately harmful to aspec communities.
KAYLA: I remember when we were first starting this podcast, I feel like I saw some comments about, “oh I couldn’t really listen to this episode because I’m sex-repulsed or averse” and going in, I at least was so new to the community that I assumed that was standard. I was like, oh most people must be not comfortable with sex and so people probably aren’t going to be listening to this podcast much because we talk about it pretty openly. And it wasn’t until a long while later that I realized that there is a large portion of asexual people who have sex, have kinks, are part of that culture, are totally good talking about it and even I did not realize that was such a large portion of the community.
SARAH: Right. And as someone who was new to the community and at the beginning didn’t even think you were a part of it, you thought you were coming out at as an allo, that wasn’t clarified to you. It wasn’t clarified, okay asexual is not equivalent to celibate. Some aces have sex, some aces masturbate, some aces talk about sex freely and openly. And I think the conversation around these things is a little easier to shut down when you’re faced with a term like “sex-repulsed” rather than sex averse. There absolutely are people that are genuinely sex-repulsed, don’t want to think about it, don’t want to talk about it, and you do you man. Or don’t do anything or don’t think about anything. We’re talking about general stereotypes.
KAYLA: We’re absolutely not saying don’t use this word because there are obviously people who experience that. I think we’re just trying to say we shouldn’t use it in such a broad manner when we’re talking about people or the community in general. If you use it for yourself because it’s true, obviously go for it. But for people like us, it’s something we need to be more careful about and for other people who speak publicly about asexuality it’s something to think about, the syntax, words that you’re using.
SARAH: Right, I wrote that down in my wall of text. It’s not to say there’s isn’t a place for the term “sex-repulsed” in the community. It’s just that maybe we want to push it down the spectrum a little bit and use it to refer to people who are highly uncomfortable with sex in all contexts. If they don’t want to hear about it, they don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to read about it, they don’t want to see about it. In parenthesis I wrote “see about it on TV” but honestly see about it is better.
KAYLA: They’re just not going to see about it.
SARAH: I don’t want to see about it. Well actually, because I’m sex-averse I don’t mind seeing about it.
KAYLA: But you wouldn’t want to see about it. You wouldn’t choose to see about it.
SARAH: Yeah. Whatever. In the spectrum, who cares? But if you feel like that, that’s totally fine.I support you. But that’s not how I feel about sex necessarily and those two relationships to sex are very different but they’re just often so conflated. Obviously labels can mean whatever we want them to mean. And that can differ from person to person, I don’t have to claim the label of sex-repulsed if I don’t want to even if it applies to me. But at the very least labels shouldn’t be misleading because that hurts us in our cause in the long run.
KAYLA: Yeah I think asexuality and every sexuality is such a nuanced experience and it’s the same thing with microlabels right. Some people will say “oh why do you need a small label or microlabel, that’s fake, that doesn’t help” but these kinds of nuances can really help to explain, to understand other people’s experiences. Even having asexual people understand other asexual people. There’s so many parts of the asexual community or experience that I don’t even understand. Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of people talk about kink culture and being into kinks as asexual and I don’t know anything about that. It’s very interesting.
SARAH: I’m confused by it but you know what, live your fucking life man.
KAYLA: There’s so many of these things that it just helps you understand what someone else is feeling about certain things.
SARAH: There’s so much to learn.
KAYLA: There is so much to learn.
SARAH: And if we had a better general consensus on whatever it means, if we used the words in different, more specific manners they could help solve the problem. And some people might look at this and be like, “oh look at those aspec folks with all their hyper-specific and unnecessary words here they go again” and to that I say, who the fuck cares? If it helps people understand and explain their identities to themselves and others, let it fucking help people.
KAYLA: This is what I always say about the split model of attraction and things like that. Yes, it is super specific but do you know how helpful it would be to people of all sexualities if they would just talk about it more? There’s so many allo people I know who are different levels of interested in sex and have sex. When you think about an allo person in a relationship you might think, “oh they must have sex all the time unless they’re 80 and then you stop having sex” but that isn’t even true. I know a lot of allo people that are like, “I have sex once a month and that’s fine.”
SARAH: I like to pretend that people in relationships don’t ever have sex.
KAYLA: Yeah that’s fair.
SARAH: I like to pretend that.
KAYLA: That’s fair. I also like to pretend that.
SARAH: You know what I wrote in regards to people who are angry at these specific words? I wrote “get that stick out of your ass and while you’re doing so I’d like to remind you that I don’t mind people discussing things they stick in their asses because I’m sex-averse and not sex-repulsed. Oh wow, weren’t those terms so helpful?” Unquote.
(20:00)
KAYLA: Ohh. Words are just very helpful.
SARAH: Sure are. And then looking at the term, “sex-negative” —
KAYLA: Does anyone use that?
SARAH: Not really.
KAYLA: I don’t see that as often.
SARAH: It does exist. And when I think of sex-negative, I think of the opposite of sex-positive in terms of sex-positive feminism. I think of very strict white Christian ladies —
KAYLA: A Karen if you will.
SARAH: A Karen who’s like “SEX IS THE DEVIL’S WORK—”
KAYLA: Well how did you get those 8 kids, Karen?
SARAH: I’m not done reading my all caps can you let me finish my all caps from Karen?
KAYLA: Well I wasn’t talking to you I was talking to Karen. Okay.
SARAH: I’m Karen.
KAYLA: You’re reading for Karen? You’re reading for the part of Karen?
SARAH: I’m reading for Karen!
KAYLA: Okay.SARAH: I’m reading for part of Karen. And Karen says, “SEX IS THE DEVIL’S WORK AND TO PARTICIPATE IN SEX THAT IS NOT FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF PROCREATION IS THE EQUIVALENT OF SUCKING FROM THE DEVILS TEET”
KAYLA: Eew.
SARAH: That is what Karen says.
KAYLA: I hate you. Ew. I’ve never hated you more.
SARAH: And I don’t believe that. Have sex for every purpose you want. In fact, I’d rather have people calm down on the procreative sex like there are a lot of gross squishy babies out there. I don’t think it’s necessary or good to continue that growth at an exponential rate. We will eventually run out of resources and guess who’ll pay the price? Black and brown communities. Poor communities. The very people whose fault it isn’t that we’re stripping the earth of its resources so quickly as to make it uninhabitable for humanity anyway.
KAYLA: Is it you that I’ve talked to that one day we’re going to run out of room for dead bodies?
SARAH: I don’t think so but.
KAYLA: I have this thing of like, if we buried every person under the ground rather than cremating them or putting them in the little houses or whatever —
SARAH: Did you just call them little houses?
KAYLA: Mausoleum? What are they called? That’s not it, is it?
SARAH: No, it’s a mausoleum.
KAYLA: Oh, I thought that was too fancy of a word.
SARAH: A mausoleum is something to do with dying.
KAYLA: In the little houses they have.
SARAH: There’s a line in a Fall Out Boy song about a mausoleum.
KAYLA: Okay anyway. I have this thing about if we buried every single person on earth under the ground at a cemetery —
SARAH: It wouldn’t decompose fast enough.
KAYLA: How quickly would we run out of square footage? We would have to use every inch of land and how quickly would that go? I’ve had this conversation with people several times and no one is as interested in this question as I am, it’s really frustrating cause I think it’s very interesting to think about. Where are all these bodies going to go?
SARAH: For most of my life, I was like, I want to be buried as a person, I don’t want you to burn me. Now it’s kind of at the point, I’m just a waste of space, caskets are so fucking expensive. They’re really expensive.
KAYLA: I’d be creeped by putting my own body being put in the ground.SARAH: Then the maggots are just going to eat you.
KAYLA: I want to be burned.
SARAH: Give me a nice little headstone. Kay. But I don’t need to turn into a zombie.
KAYLA: I don’t want to be buried in the ground. Can anyone that’s a scientist tell me how quickly we would fill up the earth because I am not kidding. This is something I really am interested in and no one ever wants to engage with me in this conversation. It’s really frustrating.
SARAH: There’s a cemetery in my hometown, it’s quite an old cemetery and there are rules. You had to have lived in the town to be buried there and there are certain rules about it. It’s basically full. You can’t really add any more into the cemetery.
KAYLA: It has a waitlist? First come first serve. Here’s what we need: an Empire State Building of bodies. A tall mausoleum.
(25:00)
SARAH: That’s just an upright mass grave.
KAYLA: Yeah, but more respectful than a mass grave.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyone out there please answer me on this one.
SARAH: TL;DR I don’t think sex-negativity is good.
KAYLA: How did we get here?
SARAH: I was talking about sex-negativity and then I went on a Karen rant.
KAYLA: There’s too many bodies yes. Too many people. Okay, I understand.
SARAH: Too many people. Anyway. That’s a thing — when I looked at this website that was like, “sex-negative, sex-averse, and sex-repulsed are all the same thing,” I was like that’s just not true. I don’t believe that. I think there needs to be clarification in the way it seems to be clear for sex-favorable vs. sex-positive. There seems to be a slightly clear distinction there but not totally.
KAYLA: I personally would like to pause it that we stop using sex-positive in terms of how we feel about having or looking at sex. Us talking about sex-averse vs sex-repulsed, those are two things that we should keep both words and maybe even add some more I don’t care.
SARAH: Or maybe some words that fall under sex-averse.
KAYLA: Or in between averse and repulsed if we add some in there.
SARAH: Sex avulsed.
KAYLA: Sex convulsed.
SARAH: (laughing) sex convulsed!
KAYLA: That has to be a thing, right? But yeah the sex-positive one I think is very confusing particularly for people outside of the community because when you say that you’re a sex-positive asexual it makes it seem like everyone else who’s asexual who isn’t sex-positive or favorable doesn’t want anyone to have sex and that’s when the aphobes — like it’s not our fault the aphobes are stupid but we can do our part to have clearer language yknow?
SARAH: Yeah. As a human person, I am a sex-positive person in the sense of white feminist everyone should have much sex as possible, but I’m a sex-positive person as in you should have as much sex that is safe and consensual that you want.
KAYLA: Including no sex.
SARAH: Including no sex. So I can be sex-positive and also sex-averse at the same time because they’re not in the same category of things.
KAYLA: Right. There’s one spectrum of how you feel about talking about or participating in sex, and there’s another spectrum of if you’re okay with people having autonomy over their own body.
SARAH: All of the autonomy, so much.
KAYLA: I think we all know the correct side of that spectrum. I think we all get that one. I would like you to have extra autonomy.
SARAH: But, I have autonomy. My autonomy says, I wouldn’t like to sex you me. No me sexing.
KAYLA: Yeah, but I also think sex indifferent is very different form sex-averse too.
SARAH: Oh yeah, yeah.
KAYLA: I don’t think we distinguished those enough either.
SARAH: You retweeted a different thread on this recently about how someone who is sex indifferent like if you were not aro, and you are dating someone, you might be totally fine having sex with that person. You’re not sexually attracted to them, you’re not the kind of person who’s like, “yes I’m ace but I would like to have a lot of sex” but you’re willing to it’s fine, it feels fine.
KAYLA: Yeah like if there’s a reason that you deem good enough like you’re not mad about it but it’s alamo not like you seek out those opportunities but also I don’t feel that way so maybe I’m not defining them right anyway.
SARAH: The way it was described in that thread I thought was good.
KAYLA: I can find this thread.
SARAH: That thread we’ll be able to find.
KAYLA: That one I want to shout them out. Rach_lois.
SARAH: This person basically was making an equivalency with allo people. They were like, “okay, if you’re allo and you see a person that you are not sexually attracted to and you’re given the opportunity to have sex with them, if you say, “I’m not attracted to that person, I’m not sexually attracted to that person, I don’t want to have sex with them no matter how good of friends we are, how much I like them as a person,” then you’re sex-averse in that way.
KAYLA: This is what I really don’t get about allo people. I know that y’all and none of you are listening —
SARAH: I would say three of our listeners are allo.
KAYLA: Yeah. I know that you all did hooking up in college or whatever, when you were drunk, when you just needed a dick and I know you weren’t attracted to all of those people. I know that. So for you to be confused about people with no sexual attraction at all having sex, we know you’ve done it.
(30:00)
SARAH: Some people if they don’t feel sexual attraction, don't like to have sex with someone. And that’s totally chill. Some people, if they don’t have sexual attraction but maybe they’re friends with someone and they’re like, “maybe I’d like to get off —”
KAYLA: Or they’re horny, you can still be horny.
SARAH: Yeah, they might have sex with that person and they might be sex indifferent but still be allo, and then there might be people who are sex-favorable, but they’re like, “here’s a person I’m not sexually attracted to, but sure I’ll have sex with them it’s going to be a good time.” You can be allo — the same spectrum exists for all sexualities. There’s not a sexuality where you’re sexually attracted to every person on the planet as far as I’m aware.
KAYLA: Yeah you could be attracted to every gender but literally every person? That seems like a burden, to be attracted to everyone you come across, that seems like a lot.
SARAH: I think that’s one of the things that makes me most frustrated about allos who refuse to understand asexuality. It’s the same as you. If you’re a straight person, you’re a straight woman, you’re not sexually attracted to other women. That’s how I just feel about everyone.
KAYLA: But you could still have sex with women for a multitude of reasons.
SARAH: That really just brought the lovely, lovely Bill Clinton quote to my head of, “I did not have sex with that woman.”
KAYLA: I did NOT have sex with that woman. I know some people, who are men, and one of them is gay and one of them is not and apparently they got really high freshman year and did some stuff. One of them did not want to admit and it really ruined the vibe of the friendship for the next I don’t know I don’t talk to these people anymore. But they obviously had a reason for doing that even though one of them wasn’t attracted to the other one.
SARAH: There are no fucking rules.
KAYLA: Well, there are, about consent and things like that.
SARAH: But. In terms of who you’re attracted to and whether or not you’ll have sex with someone because of that or in spite of that, or just caring about that, no rules about that.
KAYLA: As long as they are not a minor, do consent, and probably aren’t related to you, or like your friend’s partner because then that’s cheating and that’s rude —
SARAH: Unless it’s an open relationship —
KAYLA: Unless it’s an open relationship then it’s fine. Other than those things, you can have sex with anyone, it’s fine.
SARAH: There are a few rules.
KAYLA: There are a few rules just about being a good person and not breaking a law but other than those it’s like, whatever.
SARAH: If you’re aware that you have HIV, you should make sure that the person you want to sex is also aware of that.
KAYLA: Or any STD or any of those whatever they’re called.
SARAH: Use protection. I’m like a mother awkwardly having the talk —
KAYLA: No I also have some friends who simply for no reason don’t use any protection or birth control and I hope she hears this because I am publicly calling her out. We can’t be doing that for many reasons such as pregnancy and diseases. We can’t be doing that.
SARAH: I loosely am a person who for religious reasons is against using any sort of birth control —
KAYLA: It’s a Catholic thing you’re not supposed to use birth control cause it kills the baby or whatever.
SARAH: But like this person is in college and this person has sex with this person’s significant other.
KAYLA: Well isn’t that against the Bible?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Well, you can’t be so choosy, ma’am.
SARAH: Anyway you should use protection. Or, don’t have sex.
KAYLA: If there’s scientists, we need to figure out male birth control —
SARAH: Well they tried and then there were a couple of side effects and they were like, “men can’t do it” like there are side effects to women’s birth control, right?
KAYLA: Do you know when I got on birth control — this is not what this episode is about — when I got on birth control my sophomore year, do you know where the side effects landed me? SARAH: It was bad.
(35:00)
KAYLA: It was the ER I went to and men can’t deal with being moody? I had to go to the hospital. Sarah had to walk me to class so I didn’t faint on my way to class.
SARAH: Your dad had to come to town.
KAYLA: If anyone knows me during sophomore year and wonders why I was always so ill all of sophomore year, or the beginning of it, now you know.
SARAH: It’s cause of fucking birth control.
KAYLA: Anywayy.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: What’s this episode about again?
SARAH: It’s about sex-averse. I’ve run out of my block of text so. You know.
KAYLA: I — what do I have to say? Alright let’s put our new spectrum — it’s not new we didn’t come up with any of this. Let’s put our spectrum in order.
SARAH: Our preferred spectrum.
KAYLA: Our preferred pronoun spectrum. We have at the one end, favorable.
SARAH: Favorable.
KAYLA: Not positive. That’s a different spectrum.
SARAH: Positive is a different spectrum.
KAYLA: You can be both.
SARAH: Positive is not here. Nowhere in here. It’s a different thing.
KAYLA: We have “favorable,” which means you’re DTF.
SARAH: Yeah, DTF.
KAYLA: Probably not whenever but you know, you’re down. We have “indifferent” when you could be down, could be not down.
SARAH: Indifferent or ambivalent, I think those are both equally good words.
KAYLA: Then you are averse, when you are like, “I don’t want to be having this but I can talk about it or see it.”
SARAH: I don’t necessarily want to participate in it myself, but I am not so disturbed or alarmed by it that I am not okay with seeing it on TV or being present when people discuss it etc.
KAYLA: Then we have - (burps) - what was it?
SARAH: (laughing) Sex-repulsed. I was going to cut all of that out but I couldn’t stop laughing so we’re going to leave that in.
KAYLA: Nooo. Then we have “repulsed” where you don’t want to do it, you don’t want to talk about it, it is probably a more intense reaction.
SARAH: More visceral.
KAYLA: More visceral. So yeah these are the words that we like. We could be wrong though. So if you have better words even or more words, you should let us know probably.
SARAH: Yeah I think those are my preferred words and that’s how I’ll use them moving forward.
KAYLA: Yes, we will do our best to use clear words.
SARAH: But yeah. I just think yep that’s better. And then of course sex-positive and sex-negative is a whole other spectrum and that is about bodily autonomy and not about anything else.
KAYLA: And that spectrum is different because there is a correct answer there.
SARAH: Yeah, it is a politically motivated—
KAYLA: With your sex favorable to repulsed you can be whatever and that’s fine, and I don’t care what you are — I mean I do care and I’ll keep it in mind but—
SARAH: You can be sex-repulsed and you can be sex-positive.
KAYLA: There is no correct answer.
SARAH: Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
KAYLA: But, being sex-positive is the correct answer. And being sex-negative is stupid.
SARAH: Bodily autonomy. Anyway. Okay. Do we have anything else to add or does that cover it?
KAYLA: That might be it.
SARAH: Mm kay. What’s our poll for this week?
KAYLA: I had one. I was going to ask if you see yourself as sex-repulsed, sex-averse, sex-indifferent, or sex-favorable?
(40:00)
SARAH: That’s a good one. I also think we should have a secondary poll that’s open-ended which is I want to know our listeners’ opinion of it and if you think there’s anything missing or there’s any other words that you feel should be there or should be sub-categories or whatever, tell us. We’d like to know what people think. Cool. Kayla, what is your beef and juice this week and you’re going to go first because you prepared it!
KAYLA: I’m going to go first because I wrote things down. Because it’s been a while since we recorded because we technically had the week off last week. So, I guess I’ll do my beefs first. My first beef I wrote down is life. I think we can all feel me on that. My second beef is the University of Michigan because is it good to be a Michigan Wolverine? No, not currently.
SARAH: I’m so glad we still don’t attend —
KAYLA: I would like to be proud of where I went to school but at the moment it is embarrassing because they are not treating their students well, there is no Coronavirus protection, the grad students were on strike and they tried to sue them.
SARAH: Guys we’re going to give you a small rundown.
KAYLA: First of all, the University of Michigan is where we went to school for college.
SARAH: But we no longer go there, we have graduated. The University of Michigan was like, “we’re still going to go back to school in person,” like partially in person, partially online but we’re going to go back in person.
KAYLA: Lots of students on campus, in dorms.
SARAH: Yes, it’s a large school. And they basically don’t have enough testing or PPE. I saw a chart today that was like how many COVID tests each school has done and of the big 10, U of M is second lowest.
KAYLA: There are schools, NYU and I forget what other school, they’re doing weekly testing for everybody. Everyone gets tested once a week no matter what.
SARAH: I’m pretty sure University of Illinois are doing everyone gets tested once a week and all undergrads get tested once a week.
KAYLA: Yeah. And for U of M I’m pretty sure only if you have symptoms maybe you get tested and the places they’re putting kids for quarantine, and maybe they changed this —
SARAH: At first they sent them home to bring COVID to their own communities.
KAYLA: And then they sent them to these really janky dorms up on this remote area of campus. And then didn’t give them bedsheets, didn’t give them a microwave, one roll of toilet paper, literally doomsday shit. And so kids weren’t going to get tested when they had symptoms because they were afraid of getting sent there. They did recently change this and then they did a promotional video where they spent literally 30 seconds panning over the microwave so we all knew it was there.
SARAH: Oh my god. So then the grad student union decided to go on strike because grad students they serve as grad student instructors —
KAYLA: Teaching assistants —
SARAH: A lot of them are TAs. And so because the university is forcing the school to have at least some classes in person, the GSI — the grad students all have to interact with people in person, they have no choice. And so they went on strike because they were like, you were not protecting us.
KAYLA: Because they weren’t providing them any materials to stay safe and they were still forcing them to do this.
SARAH: Yes. And so what does the university do? The university decided to sue them. So they’re currently suing them and the lawyer —
KAYLA: It is over —
SARAH: Oh it’s over?
KAYLA: They settled today.
SARAH: Okay. The law firm that they decided to use is the same law firm that was trying to block any justice coming to fruition from the Flint water crisis.
KAYLA: They did settle today and they’re not striking anymore but it wasn’t a happy settlement. Also, the students who are residential assistants in the dorm the RAs also went on strike even though they aren’t technically employees or a union but they still they did which is good, they should.
SARAH: Did you see they met with the person in charge but he basically threatened to fire them all.
KAYLA: They also are not being protected, they’re being forced to live in dorms, come into contact with sick kids, no PPE, no protection at all, these are other students, other kids —
SARAH: And, next month, the football season’s coming back!
KAYLA: And it’s like, Mark —
SARAH: And the football players are going to be tested constantly because the school cares about making money but not their students.
KAYLA: Well to be fair I think the Big 10 is paying for that testing, but yes, it still makes no sense. So anyway, none of you cared about that but.
SARAH: That’s how America’s doing.
KAYLA: Yeah in case you were wondering how America’s doing that’s just a little look. So that’s my beef, that’s just embarrassing and awful. That’s bad for everyone I know that’s still a student. My juices are I got my nose pierced last week I wanted to and a bunch of you told me I should and I did, and it looks very good and it’s shiny.
SARAH (singing): Shiny.
KAYLA: Also Ace Con we already talked about that and that’s one of my juices. Also this TV show, it’s a Netflix show called Glow Up, it’s about a makeup competition show and it’s British and me and my mom have been binging it recently and it’s very good. Except for this one guy who luckily got kicked off this episode I watched last night. Spoilers I guess. But he was very bad at makeup and he was very annoying. Also, he had so many lip fillers that he said he couldn’t get anymore because his lips would literally burst and he looked scary. I don’t care if you have lip fillers but you can’t get that many, it’s unhealthy. It’s just not good. And then my last juice is the “meteor vs. meatier” TikTok.
SARAH: Kayla loves that fucking TikTok. It’s the shrimp was the manager all over again.
KAYLA: This time you agree with me, and so does everyone else this time.
SARAH: Excellent. My juice is the book Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. It is gay and question, what is the point of a romance if it’s not queer? Answer: there is none. Sometimes you just gotta read this book and cry a lot. And then as a result of that, you don’t know anyone else who’s read it, anyone that you know well, like none of your close friends have read it. What you gotta do is buy copies of Song of Achilles and ship them to two of your friends from an independent bookseller in Hamtramck and write about them cause you tried to buy them at Literati which is the best bookstore in the world obviously and then you send them to your friends so you can have a gay book club and you make them read the books.
KAYLA: Uh-huh.
SARAH: Yeah, that’s what I did.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: I thought that you were going to be mad I didn’t send you one and I had a really good response prepared.
KAYLA: I mean I was slightly mad but I wasn’t going to say anything.
SARAH: Whenever I tell you that you should read something or watch something, you never do.
KAYLA: Well you talked about the reason why just the other day, Sarah.
SARAH: I forgot it.
KAYLA: Remember we were both talking about how we get very stressed about starting new things even though it makes no sense. We literally talked about this. Also if you sent me a book I would read it. What an asshole thing to do — you pay for a book and send it to me and I don’t read it? Honestly Sarah, if you do want me to watch or read something, just spend money on it, and you’ll have guilted me into doing it.
SARAH: So I should send you a copy of Stick It?
KAYLA: Yeah but I’ve seen Stick it — send me a box set of Schitt’s Creek and then we can talkSARAH: Dude Schitt’s Creek is for free on Netflix.
KAYLA: I told you, you have to guilt me into it somehow.
SARAH: I’ve also been going back and watching more Schitt’s Creek because I’ve also needed the bursts of dopamine/serotonin whatever the fuck it is. My beef is that the entire west coast is shrouded in smoke.
KAYLA: But you know what’s good Sarah, that President Trump recently said that it’s just going to get colder soon, so don’t worry about it.
SARAH: It’s going to get colder soon!
KAYLA: It’s going to get colder!
(50:00)
SARAH: It’s going to get colder soon. But yeah. It was finally starting to cool down a little here in LA and I was like, finally I can walk outdoors, maybe even go on a hike. And then I woke up one morning and it was yellow outside. Granted, it is nearly not as bad here in LA as it is further north in the Bay Area and in Oregon and in Washington. But the air quality is shit for the past 2 weeks, it hasn’t been better than when the weather app is like, “unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups” that’s the best it’s been. Oh man — just the sensitive groups are in trouble? Amazing. Not amazing. But, I still haven’t been able to go outside cause it’s fucking smoky outside and it’s making my throat hurt a little bit more and I’m coughing a little bit. It’s really not that bad for me, but guys, we’re in a climate crisis.
KAYLA: It’s bad.
SARAH: And the fact that it’s making my throat hurt a little bit is the least of our problems. So I’m annoyed and I’d like to please go outside without fearing. Anyway. Okay. That was a long beef and juice segment. Poll? There’s a poll. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your universities’ shitty behaviors on our social media @soundsfakepod everywhere.
KAYLA: Oh yeah I remembered another beef. It’s just JK Rowling. And if you guys go back to old episodes, you will been knew that I’ve been saying she’s shitty for literal years, so I’d like to say I told you all.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: That’s all.
SARAH: Anyway. @soundsfakepod. We also have a patreon.com/soundsfakepod. We have so many patrons these days.
KAYLA: We do, and if you want to be one, you should. Because it will help us hopefully get new microphones soon, these are really starting to bother me. And to make transcripts. And you’ll get a shoutout in our newsletter, which you should subscribe to. So really so many perks.
SARAH: And you’ll get to be a part of the 3 minutes it now takes to read all the patrons.
KAYLA: There’s 82 of you. Where did you all come from and why are we worthy of your money? I’m not saying take it away, please don’t unless you have to and it’s a financial thing because that’s fine.
SARAH: Yeah. Anyway, I’m going to read them now. We have a new $2 patron. It’s Meike, I think is how it’s pronounced.
KAYLA: That better be right. You have a reputation for saying things —
SARAH: I have a reputation to uphold.
KAYLA: I really hope you don’t ruin it.
SARAH: ur $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le — nope can’t read, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Sajmon, Jamie Jack, Jessica Shea, Ria Faustino, Daniel Walker, Livvy,
Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W , Savannah Cozart, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP, Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Rory, Amberle Istar, Rachel, and my cousin Kate.
KAYLA: KATE!SARAH: Thanks Kate! No Kate has been making a little bit of — Kate, listen. I know she’s a $5 patron and she doesn’t get to promote anything but I will promote something for her.
KAYLA: Because she’s your cousin, so it’s fine.
SARAH: Because she’s my cousin! And she sends me mail. She has an art Insatgram @katecoste141. And there’s some cool stuff there. I’m just saying.
KAYLA: True.
SARAH: Thank you for becoming a patron Kate.
KAYLA: Thanks Kate.
SARAH: if you want to support Kate so she can give us more money, buy things from her Redbubble.
KAYLA: It’s just a way of supporting us more if you think about it.
SARAH: Yeah. Our $10 patrons are Kevin and Tessa @DirtyUncleKevin, @tessa_m_k, Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, anonymous who would like to promote spooky Halloween Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra who would like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug Rice who would like to promote "Native" by Kaitlin Curtice, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote her dogs Leia, Minnie, and Max — oh my god, I tried to do this too fast and I did nothing fast, H. Valdís, Purple Chickadee who would like to promote their blog which is ichliebevogel.wordpress.com, which is “I love birds” is German, except they couldn’t include the umlaut, so hit that up, and if you don’t know how to spell it, just Google Translate.
KAYLA: Or look at our transcript.
SARAH: Or look at our transcript. Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote the Biggest Book of Yes, Ashlynn Boedecker who is @shlynnbo everywhere, and we have a new $10 patron who’s just called The Steve — me and Kayla have received so much joy from the fact that we have a patron called just The Steve
KAYLA: Just The Steve.
SARAH: Anyway, The Steve would like to promote Ecosia I believe how you say it. I wrote “a search engine for the trees,” what they do is they plant trees—
KAYLA: Every time you search for something on the search engine — it’s like a Google — they give money to trees. They say, “here tree, I’ll give you a loan, but you don’t have to pay it back it’s fine.”
SARAH: It’s not a loan, it’s a grant.
KAYLA: Ah yes. It’s a scholarship for the trees.
SARAH: Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Dia Chappell who would like to promote the Underrealm series by Garret Robinson, Andy A who would like to promote Being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote mental health, specifically good, and Dragonfly and and I had something for dragonfly to promote about a minute and a half ago and I forgot it.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Maybe it was just Kate’s Instagram. Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears. And don’t forget to buy Ace by Angela Chen.
KAYLA: You should.
SARAH: Mine’s coming in the mail today.
KAYLA: Today? When’s mine coming in the mail?
SARAH: I have something coming in the mail today.
KAYLA: It said it was coming, I just don’t know when it’s going to be here. Anyway, bye.
SARAH: You didn’t say the thing.
KAYLA: Because you ruined it, you ruined the flow.
SARAH: Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.