Ep 247: Thinking About Sex & Romance (Or Not)
(00:00)
SARAH: Hey, what's up, hello, welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl, I'm Sarah, that's me.
KAYLA: And a bi-demi-sexual girl, that's me, Kayla.
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, thinking about sex and romance.
SARAH AND KAYLA: Sounds Fake But Okay.
(theme music plays)
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod. I don't know about you, but we went through some trials and tribulations to get here this evening.
KAYLA: To be honest, you're lucky you're listening to this. If even you are, things could still happen.
SARAH: My microphone wants me to die.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: It sounds fine in my own ears, it sounds fine over Zoom, but any place I try and record it, it doesn't work.
KAYLA: And also, it doesn't really sound good over Zoom. It takes it a solid, like, 30 seconds to warm up. Question mark?
SARAH: Yeah, it's really quiet at first, and then it's fine after that.
KAYLA: That’s weird
SARAH: We had this issue last week, but when I restarted my computer, it fixed it, but that did not work this week. We also had a very long day at work, so we are a little delirious. Let’s get into it. Do we have any housekeeping?
KAYLA: Buy the book.
SARAH: Come to our book event.
KAYLA: Buy the book, come to our book event.
SARAH: It would be really embarrassing if all your friends went and you didn't.
KAYLA: That's true.
SARAH: Or all of your future friends, and then you didn't get to meet them.
KAYLA: True. In attendance will be step-dean, a.k.a. my boyfriend, my whole family, Sarah's whole family, a friend of mine from high school, a friend of Sarah's from college.
SARAH: A couple of my BTS Army friends.
KAYLA: Mhm.
SARAH: So. A lot of people.
KAYLA: Yeah, what I'm saying is if you want to really increase the parasocial relationship you have with Sarah and I
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: by seeing our actual selves, not our podcast selves.
SARAH: We can have a real-life parasocial gaze, you know?
KAYLA: To be honest, that's something I've been thinking about is like, I'm just gonna be there and I'm gonna be like, me? But I think of podcast me and physical me as like, separate people. But they're gonna have to be the same person?
SARAH: I just don't think.
KAYLA: That must be nice.
SARAH: So Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, it was suggested in our Discord to-
SARAH: I have who, I took a screenshot.
KAYLA: Good. Shouts out to our Discord people. It's been five years, y'all, and so sometimes ideas –
SARAH: They escape us.
KAYLA: We've talked about everything, you know, so –
SARAH: This was suggested by TacoCat1147.
KAYLA: Love. Would you like to read their suggestion?
SARAH: Sure. They have said, I've seen a bunch of people asking what asexuals think about in place of sex or aross in place of romance. It would be fun to have an episode of coming up with ridiculous answers to that question. And then eight people reacted with the “this” emoji.
KAYLA: I've started off by trying to find out how often, I suppose, an allo, or just your average, the average person –
SARAH: That's good to know.
KAYLA: Like how many hours a day they think about sex.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: I think the most common answer that people talk about, and they always talk about men, it's that men think about sex every seven seconds.
SARAH: That cannot be right.
KAYLA: Yeah, I don't know what study that came from. Also, notably, I googled, how many hours do people spend thinking about sex? That's what I googled. And then all of the articles that pulled up were, how often do men think about sex? Men think about sex every seven seconds. Do men really think about sex every second seconds? Men, men, men, men, men. Y'all, men are not the only people having sex.
SARAH: What about women? What about enbies?
KAYLA: Exactly. So I thought that was stupid, because I specifically put people. So it seems like there's been like a lot of studies throughout the years, and shockingly, there's not…
SARAH: No consensus.
KAYLA: Who knows? Because how do you track how often someone thinks about something? Like this one was talking about-
SARAH: Every seven seconds, I don't know a lot about allos, but that cannot be right as an average.
KAYLA: Well, because then you would like literally never be thinking about anything else, because you would think about it for a second, I guess?
(05:00)
KAYLA: and then spend seven seconds thinking about your job.
SARAH: Well, is it every seven seconds on average or one seventh of every day?
KAYLA: Let me, I'm trying to find, a lot of these articles are kind of old too, so.
SARAH: If it's one seventh of every day, that makes a little bit more sense, but that's still a big chunk of the day.
KAYLA: Yeah. Okay. So I think, I don't know if this is where the seven seconds came from, or if there was a different study, but it was an Ohio State University study.
SARAH: ugh
KAYLA: And they used clickers, and they gave it to students. And for some of the students, they asked them to press record each time they thought about sex, and then the other group was food, and the other group was sleep. So then I guess they like held record for as long as they were thinking about it or something. I don't quite know.
SARAH: But then you're primed to think about those.
KAYLA: Or it was one of those tickers like you do, like when people are coming in a line, maybe.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Maybe it's that kind of thing. So using that method, they found that the average man in their study had 19 thoughts about sex a day. And women, it was 10 thoughts a day. Obviously though –
SARAH: I don't think I even have 10 thoughts a day total.
KAYLA: Right. So they talk about the white bear problem, which is like you tell someone not to think about a white bear, and then all they can think about is a white bear.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: If you tell people click this thing every time you think about sex, all you're going to think about is sex. Like that's literally all I'm going to think about.
SARAH: Well then every time you think about it, you're going to click it, and then you'll think about clicking it, and then you'll think about sex.
KAYLA: yes
SARAH: And then you'll click the thing. And then you're going to be holding the fucking clicker. So even when you're not thinking about it, you're like, damn, I'm holding this clicker, what for, sex?
KAYLA: Yeah. So there's really, I cannot think of, and I'm not a scientist, I can't even think of a good way to study this. Because you could put someone in an MRI thing, you could test their brain when you say sex, you see what part of their brain lights up, whatever. But you can't do that for an entire day.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Like there's just, it would have to be self-report and there's just no way.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But anecdotal evidence leads me to believe that the allos think about sex far more than we do.
SARAH: I would say that's pretty certain. At least on a personal basis, I can't speak for all aros and aces.
KAYLA: But yeah, at least, yeah, I will tell you, we should do a whole episode about me living with three allos, because we were having a conversation about dating like two hours ago, and it baffled me that you could date someone for an extended period of time before realizing that you don't have much in common with the person.
SARAH: You're just fucking the whole time?
KAYLA: I don't know. That seemed like incredibly impossible to me. I was like, I feel like you would know before you start dating, because like, isn't the reason you start dating someone because you're like, oh, we have a lot to talk about, we have, like, obviously you don't have to have everything in common.
SARAH: Are you just talking about the weather every time you talk and then you fuck and then you stop?
KAYLA: That's what I'm saying. So I was like baffled by this.
SARAH: And then you talk about the weather again?
KAYLA: I was baffled by this. My roommate was like, no, that's like normal. Like my roommates were not off put by that at all.
KAYLA: And I was like, what?
SARAH: Maybe you discover that like you don't have as much to talk about as you expected, or it's not as substantive as you expected.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean like that happens all the time. Like the first few months or weeks you're talking all the time, you could talk about anything and then, you know, slowly the honeymoon phase, whatever. But like sometimes things happen and I'm like, I am demisexual.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Demisexuality is real because this person isn't and they're saying some shit that is wild.
SARAH: Yeah. Allos be wilding
KAYLA: Anyway, that could be a whole other episode because the people in my house, I don't know what they're doing.
SARAH: Their best. And you know what I tell myself? Sometimes your best is not very good and that's okay.
KAYLA: I can't tell if that's a good thing to tell yourself or not. That seems bad and like I don't know that you should be saying it to yourself.
SARAH: Sometimes your best is just not very good. Okay?
KAYLA: Yeah, and you're right. And like that is okay.
SARAH: Sometimes I just do some shit and it's not good.
KAYLA: (laughing) You shouldn't tell yourself.
SARAH: I'm mentally ill.
KAYLA: So am I. You can't use that as an excuse to me.
SARAH: I think it's a good thing.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: It's not that, you know, anyway, this is not Sarah’s therapy hour
KAYLA: Why not? I love Sarah’s therapy hour.
SARAH: Because I’m busy!
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Let's talk about things that we could think about, but that we do think about instead of sex and romance.
KAYLA: Yeah. Okay
SARAH: I would like to know that obviously Aros and Aces can still think about sex and romance.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And I feel like sometimes they might even think about it like extra because they're thinking about
KAYLA: Probably
SARAH: how other people
(10:00)
SARAH: they're trying to understand other people's perception of it.
KAYLA: Yeah, it's just thinking about it in a different way. Not like, oh man, I want to fuck. But like thinking, do I want to fuck?
SARAH: Unless you have a high libido and you're like, I do want to fuck.
KAYLA: I do want to fuck. But I do think you're right. It's different.
SARAH: I'm not attracted to a certain object of this fucking. It's just like, I want to fuck.
KAYLA: I want to do it.
SARAH: Yeah. I want to romance. I'm not attracted to it. There is no subjects. There is no objects to my romance, but I won't. I assume that's what they sound like.
KAYLA: Yep
SARAH: So yes, obviously, silly silly, funsy funsy. You know what I think about probably the most instead of sex and romance?
KAYLA: I couldn't even begin to guess.
SARAH: BTS.
KAYLA: (sarcastically) Oh, I'm shocked. I'm so shocked by this.
SARAH: They're always up in that head doing shit. They keep doing shit.
KAYLA: They really do.
SARAH: And for some people that leads them to think about sex and romance in a Y/N sort of way.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Yeah, her in a like aspiration/Lulu sort of way or a parasocial sort of way.
KAYLA: Mhm
SARAH: Or they think about them fucking and romancing each other.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: But yeah, I really but that's also not all of it for people who is – I've said this before for the people who like is all they do is sexualize them like that's weird. And I don't like it.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: So yeah, I just there's a lot of there's so there's there's seven of them.
KAYLA: That's a lot to handle. I mean, just remembering all of their names alone. Let's do it right now.
SARAH: Do it Imagine being an NCT fan. You know how many members of NCT there are.
KAYLA: I actually don't.
SARAH: Like so many because there are so many different NCTs.
KAYLA: Jimin.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: Jin.
SARAH: May he rest in peace. He's not dead. He's just in the military.
KAYLA: Sugar.
SARAH: Sugar is not his name.
KAYLA: RM.
SARAH: Sugar is not his name. RM is correct.
KAYLA: Jimin, Jin. Sugar. RM. Jungkook.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: One, two, three, four, five. Okay. Don't look at me.
SARAH: I'm looking at you, but your eyes are shut.
KAYLA: Don't. Don't. I can tell you're looking at me, even though my eyes are shut.
SARAH: This is a Zoom call. I'm looking at me.
KAYLA: J-Hope.
SARAH: Correct. His birthday is coming up.
KAYLA: One, two, three, four, five, six. Okay, everyone shut up.
SARAH: Oh my God. Wait, Kayla.
KAYLA: Shut up. Shut up. I'm thinking. I have one left. Shut your mouth. Oh shit. Is it another J one? It's another two letter one? Why are you holding up a two?
SARAH: It's not a two.
KAYLA: It's a peace sign.
SARAH: What else does this look like?
KAYLA: Peace sign. A V! V. God damn it. That was the best I've done.
SARAH: That was the best you've done. You know what is coming out soon?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: The documentary about the making of J-Hope's album.
KAYLA: That's fun.
SARAH: And you know when it's coming out?
KAYLA: Your birthday?
SARAH: His birthday, which is when I will be in Boston.
KAYLA: Uh oh.
SARAH: I'm just saying, if you ever want to have a nice little sit down.
KAYLA: Okay. We'll see about that.
SARAH: Join me in a little party.
KAYLA: We'll see about that.
SARAH: Anyway, thank you for voluntarily naming the members of BTS. That was very nice of you.
KAYLA: I just really felt like I could do it. And I'm pretty upset that I couldn't.
SARAH: You're getting better.
KAYLA: It was the best I've done. And it's been a while too.
SARAH: It has.
KAYLA: I'm impressed with myself.
SARAH: It has. Great. Anyway, I think about BTS a lot. What else can you think about?
KAYLA: I think about glass a good amount.
SARAH: Just like, what about it? I'm picturing like broken pieces of glass. But not like in a, this broke, but like a, oh, this is sea glass kind of way.
KAYLA: I like a sea glass. I just, there's something about glass. You see a nice glass thing and you're like, oh, that's nice. And then you can do a glass blowing. I really enjoy a glass blowing. You go to Greenville Village. You watch them do a glass blow.
SARAH: Make the candy canes.
KAYLA: Exactly
SARAH: In the winter.
KAYLA: You go, you watch –
SARAH: It’s one of the warm places.
KAYLA: It's so warm.
(15:00)
SARAH: If you're not from Southeast Michigan, you have no idea.
KAYLA: You don't know. You can, you can go on Netflix and watch the glass blowing competition show. I just…
SARAH: Glass
KAYLA: I like glass. I kept some glass kombucha bottles recently and put some candlesticks in them. Great vibes.
SARAH: Nice.
KAYLA: So you could think about glass.
SARAH: Yeah. Another thing you could think about is literally any hobby, any hobby whatsoever.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's true.
SARAH: In this context, having sex is not a hobby.
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, it could be a hobby.
SARAH: It's excluded from the list of hobbies.
KAYLA: We're excluding it. Yeah. Or dating. I feel like dating could be a hobby.
SARAH: Yes. You can think about playing a traditional stringed Chinese instrument.
KAYLA: Oh, okay.
SARAH: I'm just thinking of hobbies, you know, knitting.
KAYLA: Yep. My mom works at a yarn shop and she teaches knitting and crocheting classes. And apparently a lot more younger people have been taking classes recently, probably because everyone on TikTok is like crocheting their own clothes and such. But so you could take up knitting and crocheting.
SARAH: I went to high school with someone whose job is she crochets stuff and sells it.
KAYLA: That's very cool.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: My mom crocheted me this.
SARAH: You can't fucking see it. This is an audio medium.
KAYLA: You can see it
SARAH: I know, and it's eggs. It's eggs. Woo!
KAYLA: It's an egg tapestry. I don't even really like eggs. You can think about milk. I thought about milk for a long time today. I'll tell you why.
SARAH: Tell me why.
KAYLA: My roommate made us some very good dinner. It was very spicy. I was triple-fisting different drinks to try to find which one would relieve my pain.
SARAH: You don't have three fists.
KAYLA: Yeah. I ended up drinking milk.
SARAH: That's what they say is the best one for short-term help.
KAYLA: It was the best one.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: However, I haven't just drank a cup of milk in years.
SARAH: I do it way less than I used to, even in college.
KAYLA: Good. What I learned from this experience is I don't like milk.
SARAH: I have drunk a lot of milk in my life.
KAYLA: I know.
SARAH: A lot.
KAYLA: I know.
SARAH: I really only slowed down after I finished college.
KAYLA: Thank God. I just realized I don't mind milk in things, obviously, but I haven't just had milk. It doesn't taste good, y'all.
SARAH: It goes well with certain things
KAYLA: It tastes weird.
SARAH: That's because you're not used to drinking it.
KAYLA: I say this about everything. I should not have to train myself to like a liquid. I should not have to, oh, if you drink coffee enough, you'll like it eventually. I shouldn't have to train myself to like something. What are we doing?
SARAH: Well, then maybe milk's not for you.
KAYLA: It's not, and you could spend some time thinking about it.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: That's all.
SARAH: That's all.
KAYLA: Yes
SARAH: The other thing you could think about instead of sex or romance is if a dog wore pants, would they wear them like this or like this?
KAYLA: I think like this.
SARAH: Like the first one? Like this?
KAYLA: Like this?
SARAH: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think the second one's a little silly. They don't really work as pants that way.
KAYLA: Okay, now I need to know which one you're talking about.
SARAH: Like a galosh situation that does not even cover the ass.
KAYLA: You're talking about the one that goes on the full bottom?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Like it covers the full bottom half instead of the full back half?
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: Yeah, I agree. It needs to, the thing about the pants is it covers the butt. And if you think about it, the bottom of a dog is its chest. Like that's where its nipples are. So that would be a shirt.
SARAH: Yeah. That would be like when you put on a snuggie.
KAYLA: Yes, that would be like just wearing something on your front half of your body
and leaving your back half ass. It's assless chaps is what you're putting them in.
SARAH: I like how I went for snuggie and you went for assless chaps.
KAYLA: We were talking about assless chaps in my house earlier, so that's probably why.
SARAH: Amazing.
KAYLA: Yeah. You could think about how there is no need for you to play Hogwarts Legacy at all.
SARAH: No, there's not. Don't be giving her your money.
KAYLA: It's using game mechanics from…
(20:00)
KAYLA: years ago. There is nothing unique about this game.
SARAH: Mhm
KAYLA: This game, I hadn't known anything about this game. Learned today. Storyline? Racist.
SARAH: Of course it is.
KAYLA: Shocking? No. So there's no need.
SARAH: You can appreciate the old Harry Potters, the old books, the old movies, but anything that's new, do not give her your fucking money.
KAYLA: And here's the thing, because looking back on it, there is some really weird anti-Semitic stuff from the original books.
SARAH: Oh yeah. Why is the only black character named Kingsley Shacklebolt?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Why?
KAYLA: Weird racist stuff. And we say this in our book, actually. It is okay to look back on it and be like, wow, this series got me through a really hard time. Or like, wow, this part of this franchise helped me feel this way about some identity.
SARAH: Or I met some of the most important people in my life through it. That's all fine. And you can still enjoy watching and reading it now. But, Kayla, continue.
KAYLA: But you, first of all, should actively realize what's wrong with it and inspect that. And two, not spend money on it.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Like, if you must buy the books, get it from a resale. Like, get it used so the money is not going to her. Like, if you must watch the movies, pirate them.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Do not buy the game.
SARAH: My roommate does work at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
KAYLA: That's tough.
SARAH: But she's taking money from them.
KAYLA: I mean, that one I can live with because she needs money.
SARAH: She needs money to live.
KAYLA: And like, what are you gonna do about it?
SARAH: Needs money to live. And a lot of her and her work friends, you know what they do pretty often? They all work at Universal Studios. You know what they all have? Fucking Disney magic keys. And they will take off work to go to Disney.
KAYLA: It's like a gay person working at Chick-fil-A. You know, it's like...
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah. Anyway, you could think about that.
SARAH: Think about that.
KAYLA: Think about it.
SARAH: You could think about memorizing as many digits of pi as possible. 3.1415926535 is as far as I go.
KAYLA: Yeah. I can do 3.1459.
SARAH: Nope. Wrong.
KAYLA: Well, I can't actually. Fuck me.
SARAH: 3.1415926535.
KAYLA: I will see myself out.
SARAH: I got bored in math class.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And now it's just in there. Well, my calculator only went up to 54, but then I wanted to know what the next one was. And I learned that it was actually 53, but then a 5, so it rounded up.
KAYLA: Yeah. That's tough.
SARAH: It's rough.
KAYLA: My tag on my shirt is being a real pill. Hold on. I need to cut it off.
SARAH: That’s very neurodivergent.
KAYLA: Keep them entertained, like I did last time.
SARAH: She didn't even say that. Oh my God, I have a story. My story is that, fuck, Kayla's never going to hear this. I edit the podcast and she doesn't listen to it. What shit can I talk? Guys, guys, let me tell you something about Ms. Kayla. She… I saw her recently, and you heard me. And then, and then, also this and that. And I am a storyteller at heart. And you can really tell based off of this incredible, incredible storytelling prowess that we have today. She is itching her back. I see her on camera. Hi.
KAYLA: Hi.
SARAH: You'll never know what I said.
KAYLA: I probably won't because, well, I'll know when I get the transcript, I guess.
SARAH: Oh, that's true.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But you won't get the full experience.
KAYLA: Maybe I'll ask someone in the Discord to give me an exact timestamp so I can listen to as little of my voice as possible.
SARAH: What I do want you to know is I was saying this right as you were taking your headphones off. That was very neurodivergent of you.
KAYLA: Well, I'm getting my brain tested tomorrow, so we'll see about that.
SARAH: Amazing. Whose turn is it? Is it mine?
KAYLA: No, it's my turn. You could think about geography. It's a good skill to have to know where things are. Recently, and by recently, I feel like he's been doing this for years. You know the game you can, like there's the websites that you used to play on in school where it's just like has a bunch of really random games.
SARAH: Yeah. coolfungames.com
KAYLA: And there's one where there's just a blank map
SARAH: Mhm
(25:00)
KAYLA: and you like pick where the countries are.
SARAH: I love doing that with the United States. I can't do it with the world. This is what happens when you’re American.
KAYLA: Dean does it with the world. Like when we're just watching TV or whatever, he'd be on his computer doing it with the world. He can do every single country now. He knows where every country is. So when we're doing the crossword and there's a geography question, we say, Dean, where's this country? And he knows. So you could spend your time doing that.
SARAH: So he could tell you the difference in location between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
KAYLA: You could give him a blank map and he could just write the countries in.
SARAH: He could tell you where Malta is?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Wow. He could tell you where Curacao is?
KAYLA: I believe so.
SARAH: He could tell you where the U.S. Virgin Islands are. You shouldn't be shaming them for being virgin.
KAYLA: No, we should really stop doing that.
SARAH: Anyway, another thing you could do is think about other people's romantic and sexual endeavors, often fictional peoples in the form of media, you know
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: TV, movies, books, fan fiction, manga, anime. What else can a person consume? Podcasts.
KAYLA: Radio.
SARAH: Sex lives of your local NPR host.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, listen.
SARAH: I was thinking more fictional people.
KAYLA: You know who is sex and romance lives I'm very interested in right now? Have you seen the new show coming out about farmers dating?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Oh, Sarah. So it's like The Bachelor.
SARAH: farmersonly.com?
KAYLA: It's like The Bachelor, but there's four farmers and a bunch of girls.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: And they're like trying to find their one true love or whatever in the commercial.
SARAH: Are they farmer girls?
KAYLA: Some of them are farmer girls. Some of them are like, I've tried dating city guys and it's never worked. So like I'm here to see if like a country boy is better for me.
SARAH: That's a bad perspective. I feel like you're not going to go into that with a proper respect and appreciation for the way that they live their life. But Okay.
KAYLA: Yeah. But the commercial is like Take Me Home Country Roads, but like a really dramatic version, you know, with like the, with the big moments and I kind of want to watch it.
SARAH: Sometimes those trailers really get you.
KAYLA: Yeah. And especially because I was just reading the transcript from our episode about The Bachelor and Colton jumping the fence.
SARAH: What a guy
KAYLA: And I was like, man, I was like, man, I want to relive that.
SARAH: Hashtag gay. Yeah, true.
KAYLA: If only we knew.
SARAH: He jumped the fence because he was gay. Jumping the shark, but the fence. Another thing you could do instead of thinking about sex or romance is think about who the fuck invented lava lamps. It can't have been on purpose, right? That had to have been an accident. Kayla’s Googling as we speak.
KAYLA: I have to know now.
SARAH: There's no way that was on purpose.
KAYLA: Wasn't the Slinky invented on accident?
SARAH: Probably.
KAYLA: They were invented by an accountant. He was inspired by an egg timer in a pub made of a cocktail shaker filled with an alien look at liquid looking liquids bubbling on a stovetop.
SARAH: What year?
KAYLA: It took him 15 years to perfect his design.
SARAH: Slay? What year did he perfect it?
KAYLA: It was invented in 1948.
SARAH: What?
KAYLA: It was originally called the Astro Globe.
SARAH: He was like, there's a lot going on in the world. World War II.
KAYLA: Fun fact.
SARAH: World War II. The Holocaust, World War II. But my focus. The lava lamp. And you know what? We need happiness. So he's right for that.
KAYLA: No two lava lamps are the same.
SARAH: Slay
KAYLA: Fun fact. The Craven, Craven Walker, the inventor knew he made it when he heard that Ringo Starr bought a lava lamp. It made its first TV appearance on Doctor Who in the 60s.
SARAH: Ooh. That makes sense.
KAYLA: The sales slumped during the 70s but experienced a resurgence.
SARAH: I'm sorry.
KAYLA: Popular in the 90s after it was in an Austin Powers movie.
SARAH: I'm sorry. It slumped in the 70s?
KAYLA: And it was like a big thing in the 60s with hippies and psychedelics and stuff.
SARAH: I guess Austin Powers is also a 60s. I'm thinking, sometimes I get my decades. Sometimes they kind of bleed together.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: So I guess they're going counterculture. They said no more. No more.
KAYLA: No more fun.
SARAH: No more of these lava lamps. These lava lamps are from the 60s. It is 1975. And we're-
KAYLA: The largest lava lamp-
SARAH: In the war, I think? Vietnam?
KAYLA: Yes. The largest lava lamp ever made is four feet tall.
(30:00)
SARAH: How wide?
KAYLA: And the most expensive lava lamp ever sold is $15,000.
SARAH: That's too many dollars. What is it?
KAYLA: What? What's what?
SARAH: What is a lava lamp? What is it?
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Let me see. The history of the lava lamp from the Smithsonian Magazine. Look how much we're giving you to think about. Can you believe it?
SARAH: Yeah, I think that's enough. I’m bored.
KAYLA: Hold on. I'm not anymore. The accountant who made them, whose other claim to fame is making underwater nudist films. This man was not an accountant. Why do you keep- No, he wasn't.
SARAH: He just had an interesting hobbies.
KAYLA: He was an artist. He was an artist. Was accounting his hobby? What? He had a disability somehow. I'm shook. Anyway, continue.
SARAH: Another thing you can do is feel like Cinderella, naega byeonhae
KAYLA: What? Say it again?
SARAH: Feels like Cinderella- Actually, no. Singular. Feel like Cinderella, naega byeonhae.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: That's something you can do instead.
KAYLA: Okay. You could learn to tell your rights and lefts apart.
SARAH: You can't do that.
KAYLA: I never have struggled with it before, until the past three weeks.
SARAH: Something happened.
KAYLA: I don't know what happened.
SARAH: There was a shift. A fundamental shift in the Kayla.
KAYLA: The beans that roll around in my head got knocked out of place, I think.
SARAH: Oh my god I just realized I skipped two of the things on my list. One of the things you can make about instead of sex and romance is the War of 1812.
KAYLA: Mm. Sexy.
SARAH: Another thing is dinosaurs.
KAYLA: Oh, okay. Oh my God. My back is so itchy. I could die.
SARAH: Peel it off with a carrot peeler. That's a horrible image.
KAYLA: That would feel so nice.
SARAH: That's a horrible image. I'm so sorry.
KAYLA: That would feel so nice right now.
SARAH: Do you have something to say?
KAYLA: Do I? That's a good question. No.
SARAH: I think you could learn a new language or an old language, like Latin, I guess, or like a dying indigenous language, you know?
KAYLA: You could think about...
SARAH: Why was Genghis Khan like that? You know?
KAYLA: That's a great question.
SARAH: Who made him like that? What did he go through as a child?
KAYLA: Probably his parents.
SARAH: I'm sure someone out there has at least some sort of answer for that question.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I personally am not an expert on Genghis Khan. So if you know, let me know.
KAYLA: You could think about mummies. Did you know that...I'm trying to remember the facts. The reason that there aren't a lot of mummies left is because I think it was that people like crushed them up and ate them.
SARAH: Hello? Tasty.
KAYLA: Or something like that. Or… Oh, no, no, no. No, that was something else. I think they had like… Okay, no. I think what it was is they would have like mummy unwrapping parties.
SARAH: Rude
KAYLA: Like rich people would buy a mummy and they would be like, oh, I'm trying to remember if there's something.
SARAH: When? Are we talking about like in the last 300 years? People would do this?
KAYLA: Back when people sat in their parlors and had nothing to do.
SARAH: Okay, so like the somewhat recent history.
KAYLA: Oh, yeah. Not as old as you would want it to be.
SARAH: Right. Like if it happened a long, long, long time ago, then I would be like, okay, that's a weird cultural thing that...
KAYLA: No. Back in the time where we were Victorian, people were like, I love death.
SARAH: Like fucking white people.
KAYLA: Yeah. Obviously, it's a white person thing.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Why did people eat mummies? It was the eating. Unwrapping parties. I was right about both. I've never been smarter. Yeah, people would buy them and just unwrap them and be like, ooh.
SARAH: Imagine just buying someone's casket with the body inside.
KAYLA: Yeah, and then...
SARAH: Or buying someone's urn with the ashes inside. A stranger.
KAYLA: Yeah, and then people would buy a mummy, grind it up into powder, and then like swallow it, because it was supposed to like cure your diseases?
SARAH: I don't think that's how that works.
KAYLA: This was in… yeah, the late 1800s. So you could think about that. Lots to think about there.
SARAH: Horrible. You could think about… Now, one might argue this is thinking about sex, but I think it is coming from an educational standpoint, historical standpoint, which is –
(35:00)
SARAH: when do you think the first sex toy that was used exclusively as a sex toy was invented?
KAYLA: Probably a lot longer ago than you think.
SARAH: Yeah, a lot.
KAYLA: Like, ancient times.
SARAH: Yeah, they were just like, this is a cool rock.
KAYLA: Gotta shove it up there.
SARAH: I bet it's good for sticking up your body.
KAYLA: Yeah, I bet people have been doing that for a long time.
SARAH: We ain't got no lube, but we'll work something out.
KAYLA: I mean, there's natural lube, certainly. Grab some coconuts or whatever. Coconut oil.
SARAH: Coconut oil. What?
KAYLA: What is happening?
SARAH: Lizzo!
KAYLA: No, I know. You could think about...
SARAH: Instead of thinking about sex or romance, you could build a very tiny model airplane. Get so frustrated because you fail that you throw it into the sea. Feel bad about littering. Swim out to the sea and get it. But if it is just wood, though, what you can do then is donate it to a beaver to build a dam with.
KAYLA: (yawning) Wow, I mean, that will take up a significant amount of time.
SARAH: Yeah. Especially if you don't live anywhere near the sea.
KAYLA: Yeah, then you have to get there.
SARAH: Like, imagine you live in Kansas.
KAYLA: That would be a trek.
SARAH: Imagine you live in Central Africa.
KAYLA: Unless you could find a river that goes to an ocean.
SARAH: But then how? But no, but then you have to swim? No.
KAYLA: Okay
SARAH: You need to be right into the sea.
KAYLA: Okay. You know what you could think about? The fact that, I guess, a chunk just fell off the sun.
SARAH: Oh
KAYLA: And scientists are, quote, baffled, which is never what you want to hear.
SARAH: I don't think the sun has chunks.
KAYLA: Well, it does now.
SARAH: The sun is not a solid. It's not a solid, so it can't have chunks.
KAYLA: I'm just telling you what I heard.
SARAH: I don't know what it is, but it's not a solid. It's a sun.
KAYLA: Chunk fell out of the sun. Scientists have discovered a huge chunk of the sun has broken off. So what are you going to do about that now?
SARAH: lather it in Nutella. Put it back.
KAYLA: It broke off, and it began circling the sun's north pole like a vortex. So what do you think about that? It's a vortex of sun. Just think about that.
SARAH: Yeah, you could think about that. I think that also, instead of thinking about sex or romance, you could think about how old you would live to be if natural selection still really ruled the day. I think maybe 12, because that's when my eyesight really started getting worse, and that's also when my body started breaking.
KAYLA: I don't know how, because I'm pretty small, so that's not going to help.
SARAH: Mhm. One in four children would die before the age of five, so you're lucky if you even make it that far.
KAYLA: I'm very mentally ill, but is that inherent or because of the world we live in?
SARAH: Yeah, if you were just foraging.
KAYLA: I might love foraging. I might be okay, so I don't know.
SARAH: I have ADHD, as everyone here knows.
KAYLA: Okay, brag. We get it. You got a diagnosis. Whatever.
SARAH: You know how in Percy Jackson, all the demigods, a lot of them have ADHD, but it's actually their battle instincts for being a part god?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Maybe I would just be really good at hunting.
KAYLA: Oh. Yeah, maybe. Who’s to say?
SARAH: Not I. I'm busy taking 45 medications a day to try and fix my brain.
KAYLA: LOL.
SARAH: LOL.
KAYLA: I had one, and then I forgot.
SARAH: I have one more that I wrote down. I think you could conceptualize an intensely detailed, incredibly intricate imaginary world, like the kind that you would see at the beginning of a really long series of fantasy novels, and then completely forget about it like an hour later.
KAYLA: Oh. Okay.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I had one.
SARAH: I think you could think about getting piercings on your body. You know what else you could think about? You could think about how great Haka is.
KAYLA: What's that?
SARAH: You know the indigenous Maori people of Australia and New Zealand, how they do that dance where they're yelling and scaring
(40:00)
SARAH: and intimidating you?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: Oh, you should look it up. Haka's great.
KAYLA: I don't think I've ever seen this.
SARAH: Haka's wonderful.
KAYLA: Sounds great.
SARAH: It's for all sorts of different purposes. You can try and intimidate your enemy with it. I think I saw a video of the New Zealand women's rugby team before a game. They did Haka.
KAYLA: Damn. That would scare me.
SARAH: But I've also seen very emotional situations where a Maori person married a white person, and at the wedding, the white person did Haka with the Maori family.
KAYLA: Aw. That's nice.
SARAH: Yeah, and it's emotional, even though they're yelling and screaming and looking as angry as possible.
KAYLA: That sounds very nice.
SARAH: I would suggest looking it up. I think it's a very nice tradition.
KAYLA: I shall. Once again, I did have one. I got so wrapped up. I don't fucking know. What was I thinking about?
SARAH: You could think about how Kayla can't fucking think of what she was thinking about.
KAYLA: I don’t know what’s going on
SARAH: And you can try and search your brain to see if you can find what fell out of her brain.
KAYLA: Oh, oh, oh, oh. You could think about silence retreats. You heard of these?
SARAH: That's like simultaneously the greatest thing ever and the worst thing on the planet.
KAYLA: No
SARAH: For someone with ADHD, are you kidding?
KAYLA: I think it's bad because here's how I heard of it. Aaron Rogers. You know him. You hate him. Aaron Rodgers? Football.
SARAH: I was thinking baseball.
KAYLA: No, he does football in. I think he's the Green Bay Packers one.
SARAH: Well, you have to understand your household watches way more football.
KAYLA: I know, but he's like been around anyway.
SARAH: I don't know him.
KAYLA: He's an anti-vaxxer. He's crazy. He would dated Shailene Woodley during the pandemic anyway. Yeah, I know. He just like says things. He went on Joe Rogan, horse pills, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. His new thing is that he's going on a silence retreat where he is going to be in complete silence for five or six days
SARAH: Great, I don’t want to hear him
KAYLA: in like a clay hut.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: A clay hut.
SARAH: For some reason I thought you were going to say like a clay enclosure. I thought you were going to say that he was in like one of those, you know, like those things, the sensory deprivation.
KAYLA: I mean, I don't think it's going to be big. Like it's a small structure, I think. And it's also completely dark. And then they just give you, they like slot in your tray of food.
SARAH: Oh, that's horrible.
KAYLA: And then it's just that for five or six days. And I think I would go crazy. That's voluntary, like solitary confinement.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: I think I would go crazy. But also if you're left with your thoughts that long, then you'd probably just end up thinking about sex and romance.
SARAH: Because also if you're like a monk, right
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: they don't, they often don't speak, but they still can do things.
KAYLA: Yeah. This is just sitting.
SARAH: They have a purpose.
KAYLA: Yeah. You can't do anything. Small space. Completely dark.
SARAH: Horrible.
KAYLA: Just you. That's literally just solitary confinement.
SARAH: Horrible. I hate that.
KAYLA: Yeah. So you can think about that.
SARAH: I think finally you could think about the rules of UNO. You know, that's bad.
KAYLA: Nope.
SARAH: We're going to try something else.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: I think.
KAYLA: Take that. Can I get it clean?
SARAH: No, no, no. I think instead of thinking about sex and romance, you could think about friendship and platonic appreciation.
KAYLA: Wow.
SARAH: Full circle.
KAYLA: Beautiful.
SARAH: Hashtag slay.
KAYLA: Sliving.
SARAH: I'm sorry for the hashtag. I'm not sorry for the slay. I am sorry for the hashtag.
KAYLA: Sliving.
SARAH: Sliving. Kayla?
KAYLA: yeah.
SARAH: I know you have nothing else to add. What else? What is our poll for this week?
KAYLA: Cutting. I mean, what, what do you think about instead of romance sex?
SARAH: Think about what kind of skin you have on your face, like whether it's dry or combination or oily. That's something you could think about. Think about the t-zone. Why is it like that?
KAYLA: I think my skin's pretty dry.
SARAH: You could think, you could think about this thing that I learned from my cousin who works in, well, she's in college. She's studying roads, like civil engineering and road things, transportation. The influx of electric cars is actually really bad for roads because electric cars are heavier than gas powered cars.
KAYLA: Huh
SARAH: And so they wear out the roads faster.
(45:00)
SARAH: And so the only way to fix that is to have to repair the roads more often or to make thicker roads. But that's like very, very like to add like an inch of asphalt is so much fucking money. Oh, now you know.
KAYLA: The more you know.
SARAH: More you know. What's your beef in your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is, I'm itchy.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I don't want to be itchy. My juice is getting, I'm going in for my neuropsych testing tomorrow. It was going to be in March and then it got rescheduled. So that's pretty fun. Um, yes.
SARAH: Cool. My beef. Well, I finally bought new headphones. But because I got a discount, I
ended up just buying the same ones
KAYLA: Mhm
SARAH: because I, it was too difficult. I thinking about, and I got a discount because they were broken. But because of that, I have to like send my old ones in the ones that I'm wearing on my head right now, which is good because then I will have less things in my house and I would definitely keep them and be like what if I need them, but the problem is that they won't send me my new ones until they receive mine in the mail. So I don't know how long
KAYLA: So then you won't have any.
SARAH: Yeah. I don't know how long I'm going to be without headphones. And I have like other ones that I can use, but.
KAYLA: That's annoying though.
SARAH: Yeah. My juice is I got TXT tickets to both LA shows. My beef is that I got waitlisted for both pre-sales. And the only reason I got tickets is because I have very nice mutual on Twitter and also because they released another show and were like, ha ha, actually tickets are going on sale in two hours. Good luck.
KAYLA: That's why we didn't record yesterday.
SARAH: True.
KAYLA: I have another juice. I finally checked my PO box after a while
SARAH: Mhm. Oh I need to check mine.
KAYLA: and I had two very nice, yes you do. And I had two very nice, um, holiday cards. One from someone named Sarah and one from, ah, I had to go check.
SARAH: Now, how does she know it wasn't from me? I know it wasn't from me. How does she know that? You know, there's a lot of Sarah's in this world, but like, I would say I'm definitely the most important Sarah to her. If not, she's a liar.
KAYLA: What?
SARAH: Don't worry about it.
KAYLA: Okay, one was from someone named Sarah and one was from someone named Thomas and the Sarah sent a picture of what I assume is their cat or else it was just some random cat. Either way, I appreciated it.
SARAH: Sarah with an H?
KAYLA: Yes, obviously.
SARAH: If you are named Sarah and you spell it without an H, I'm so sorry for what your parents did to you. And if you're like trans or something and that's the name you chose, why? I hope it was like a family name. Like, I really hope you have like a good reason.
KAYLA: Oh, Sarah.
SARAH: anyway, tell us about your beef, your juice, your reasoning behind choosing the name Sarah with no H or, or with an H. I mean, either way, I wouldn't choose it for my, it's too common. You know, 40% of my sister's bridal party was named Sarah.
KAYLA: Yeah. That was pretty funny.
SARAH: anyway, uh, you know, that's about your beef, your juice, your local Sarah's on our social media @soundsfakepod. We're also on Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod. If you'd like to support us there. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Ellie, Emily M, George Ankers, Green_Sarah and H Valdis. We’re everywhere. They – we’re everywhere. Sarah's. You can look right, look left. Every corner the earth. Pretty much every culture. Sarah. Lurking. What's the Alaska, the bad Alaska one?
KAYLA: What?
SARAH: The governor of Alaska. I can see Russia from my house. Palin.
KAYLA: Sarah Palin. Lord.
SARAH: Anyway, our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are SongOfStorm who would like to promote a healthy work life balance. Never met her. The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia a search engine for the trees, Zirklteo, who would like to promote the fact that England isn't real, which is it's truer and truer by the day. Our other $10 patrons are Arcnes, Alyson, Ari K, Benjamin Ybarra, CinnamonToastPunch, David Jay, David Nurse, Derek and Karissa, Elle bitter, JB. My aunt Jeannie, Maggie Capalbo, Martin Chiesl, Mattie, Nathan Lisch, potater, purple Hayes, Rosie Costello, and barefoot backpacker. I'm also just going to shout out any of our patrons named Sarah. Let me look at the $2 patrons. We do have two $2 patrons named Sarah.
KAYLA: Good
SARAH: Shout out to Sarah and Sarah T. Our $15 patrons are Andrew Hillum who would like to promote the invisible spectrum podcast. Click4Caroline who would like to promote ace of hearts. Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia. Hector Murillo who would like to promote friends that are supportive, constructive, and help grow as a better person, John Young who would like to promote John being the Sarah of men. My dad’s name is
KAYLA: So true.
SARAH: John, so is Kayla’s.
KAYLA: So is my dad. Yeah. It's tough out there.
SARAH: Neither of them go by it, but they're named that.
KAYLA: Nope. And if you'd like to meet them, you have to come see us in New York. Ha ha, got you.
SARAH: My dad would be so confused if someone was like, Hey
KAYLA: Hi John
SARAH: I'm a fan of your daughter. He’ll be like, okay.
KAYLA: (laughing) Okay. And then my dad would talk to them for like three hours.
SARAH: (laughing) Yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Ah. The duality of John.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Keziah Root who would like to promote people who come into your life just for a small time at right when you need them. Nathaniel White who would like to promote Nathanieljwhitedesigns.com. Kayla’s aunt Nina who would like to promote KateMaggartart.com, And Sara Jones who unfortunately spells her name wrong and is @sarahlolli everywhere. Nope.
KAYLA: eternalloli.
SARAH: Eternaloli everywhere. Whoop.
KAYLA: Nice.
SARAH: Too many Sarahs on the brain. Our $20 patrons are Sabrina Hauck who would like to promote Christmas from your parents. Are one of your parents named Sarah?
KAYLA: Likely, to be honest.
SARAH: And Dragonfly who would like to promote, don't name your kids Sarah. Like it's a perfectly fine name, but too many people have it.
KAYLA: Too much.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: Too much.
SARAH: Emily is also bad. I know this because my sister is named Emily.
KAYLA: Your parents fucked up.
SARAH: They fucked up so bad. They intentionally didn't want super common names. And what do they do? They name us fucking Emily and Sarah.
KAYLA: I don't know what they were thinking.
SARAH: My mom was like, well those names haven't made it to the elementary schools yet.
KAYLA: Girl. Gotta do more research than that.
SARAH: You're telling me in 1996 and 1997 you didn't just have an easy way to look up the most common names?
KAYLA: Crazy. How?
SARAH: Thanks for listening. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears. And nope. Fuck you. Fuck me.
KAYLA: And yeah, okay. Till then take good care of your cows. Whatever. It's not even my podcast.
SARAH: I don't know how to fucking read.
KAYLA: Clearly
SARAH: I'm Jared. I'm 19.
SARAH AND KAYLA: And I don't know how to fucking read.
SARAH: Road work ahead. I sure hope it does.
KAYLA: Okay.
(52:45)