Full Transcript
Can we stop talking to your Volva about your Volva, please? Just talking about pounding asses a little bit. And this is Gatriarchs.
David:
So this morning it was breakfast, and we’re sitting around the breakfast table, and my son is sitting away from these sliding glass doors and it lets in all this light. And it was just one of those moments where I like looked at him and the light was hitting in his face and he was eating his cereal and he was just it just like his beauty, like just it’s just magic. It was just one of those magical moments. And I looked right at him and I said, Emmett, I want you to know that you’re beautiful and daddy loves you very much. And he turned his head towards me and he locked eyes at me and he went, butthole.
Gavin:
I kind of wish he had turned to you and said, Why do you refer to yourself in the third person? But butthole’s butthole.
David:
But it was such a perfect, perfect moment where I’m trying to have this earnest moment with this three-year-old, and he just wanted to say butthole to me because he knows it didn’t work.
Gavin:
I think that you and I have had exchanges like that before, where I’m trying to say something sincere and earnest. And so I’m glad what goes around comes around. But that’s absolutely you know, this morning I was sitting around um having breakfast, probably about four and a half hours before you were with a middle schooler, and um she suddenly said to me, You know what? I’m amazing. And I’m like, Yes, girl, yes, you are. I’m I’m glad you’re saying that. You you are amazing. And she just goes, Yeah, I know, dad. That’s why I said it.
David:
I kind of wish when she had said that, you turned to her and said, Oh, honey, no, you’re not.
Gavin:
Well, we have had a tense household for the last 24 hours because of tween attitude. So I admit, in my mind, I was kind of like, Yeah, but you weren’t so amazing last night. Or you were more amazing yesterday morning than you are this morning. But I’m glad that you are you are embracing your amazingness. Good for you, girl. Good for you.
David:
Gavin, what age, so when you were when you would like fantasize about, not fantasize, but when you kind of dream about being a very young, very, very young. But when you would think about that being a dad, like when you’re like, hmm, someday I’m gonna be a dad, what age were the kids in that dream?
Gavin:
Hmm. Probably, probably two and three and four years old. Because that’s just what you think of as parenthood. Your default age is having little kids.
David:
Well, I’ve been asking this question a lot because to me, I feel the same way. I was actually thinking like actually four to five-ish, but generally kind of like a little preschooler kind of kid, kindergarten. That’s default.
Gavin:
That is that is central casting for children, is preschool.
David:
But but what I’m but what I found is that men, the men I talk to, usually say some sort of preschool like tick him to Disney or go on the rides age. All the women I’ve talked to, every woman has said baby, like infant, holding in her hands. And that’s really fascinating because when I thought about being a dad, I never imagined a baby involved. Now I realize that you have to do the baby until you get to the toddler. But it was it’s just it was just, I don’t know, I put it on our list to talk about because I thought it was really fascinating that like men were thinking about this like preschool age, and then like women were thinking about this baby.
Gavin:
Yeah. And I wonder if that’s because it’s the most idealized time. I mean, even preschoolers are a complete pain in the ass, but they’re adorable pains in the ass. And so you just like it’s the quintessential parenting experience.
David:
Speaking of preschoolers, so we are towards the tail end of our potty training journey. And I thought just for the next few minutes before we jump into our top three, we could talk a little bit about potty training in general because I am so my son is potty training, and he now uses the potty fully. Um, no diapers. However, nighttime, we are still at the tail end of like we’re waking him up once a night usually to go use the potty. Other than that, like there’s no wet beds or whatever, and we haven’t quite figured out how to just let him sleep through the night and see like when that happens. But the thing that made me think about this was like my house is covered in piss.
Gavin:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then you had kids.
David:
And then we had kids, and now there’s more piss. But we’re like, you know, pee in the little hole in the toilet. We’d like try to do little things, but like, you know, boys, they just they just kind of fire hose it all, and it is so disgusting.
Gavin:
We are disgusting. I are disgusting. Every single time I get down on my hands and knees to clean the toilet, and I see that crustaceous, that yellow film on the you know, the back of the toilet where the bolts are, and you think, we are disgusting. Horrible.
David:
We don’t deserve anything we have. We’re disgusting.
Gavin:
Nothing. And but also teaching my children to be like, well now we gotta clean up. And and teaching my son, you know what, in the morning, you might want to sit down to pee when you’re still half asleep. Like, and you know, everything kind of needs to be shaken awake. Uh let’s not shake the dingle all uh all over the toilet, all over the bathroom, you know?
David:
Yeah, instead, do you know your morning pee. Go into the shower and do a handstand so you can pee quickly. Exactly. But there’s so there’s so many methods for potty training. Uh and and and I’m curious if you do the same method we did. We did like the three-day naked method where like you do it over a weekend, and on Friday, they’re not allowed to wear any clothes and you’re indoors all day, and you basically watch them like a hawk. And when the second they start peeing, or they have that you know, I’m about to pee face, you grab them, you run them to the toilet, you sit them down on the toilet, and then they pee. And the idea is that that whole day you start to connect for them the idea and the feeling of peeing and being on the toilet. So day one is they’re naked all day, and you’re just doing that. They literally like don’t go outside, don’t put a shirt on him. Yeah, he is naked the whole day. And then day two, they’re allowed to wear clothes but no underwear. But it’s the same thing where you have to watch them like a hawk, and the second they start peeing or they have that face, you run them to the toilet, and then after that, they start to associate it, and then it’s kind of like a slow, then you can wear underwear and then whatever. And we had been told by everybody we asked, they’re like, this is the method, this is the method. So we did it, and I gotta say, it worked perfectly for us. Like, it was wonderful. What did you do?
Gavin:
Well, first of all, I think as with so much of parenting, it’s what works for you, and you just gotta be zen about it. You have to be zen about it because you’re gonna be doing extra laundry for a very long time. And man, we I think with it, we went through um an awful lot of middle of the night peeing, an awful lot of it. And I would get frustrated, and yet at the same time, I it was one of my better parenting moments of being just being like, oh, here we go again. Because we had an awful lot of peeing. But I will say we tried to do that three-day method, and the very first day my partner was standing with uh our uh kid in front of him, and uh I it’s hard to explain what this, but they were looking out a window together. So the kid’s butt was toward my partner, right? And suddenly the kid goes, uh, and and my partner starts to be like, oh, are we gonna and then it was not explosive diarrhea, but an ex like a missile of poop shot out of the butt onto his shirt. Like it and there was no there was no warning. It ju except for just like a oh, and it shot out. And you would have thought that the kid had reached over to grab their ankles to shoot it out? No, somehow, in squished butt cheeks, a but a poop missile shot out. At which point my partner was like, I’m out. This is I’m we’re not doing this. Now, admittedly, we were trying to uh potty train before we probably should have. Another guest that we’re gonna have pretty soon, I will mention this, said to me one time, I will mention this to her, said to me, Gavin, stop thinking that you need to potty train a boy before the age of three. It just just don’t just save yourself the trouble, save yourself the trouble. And so we then didn’t push it. And eventually my son was ready to tell us when he was done. And he it was actually really fluid. If you don’t push it, fluid, pun intended. If you just don’t push it, I think.
David:
Anyway, that’s the problem. The book with the book that we read that everyone was like swearing by, which I think is called oh crap, it says, if you wait too long, if the if your kid is three, they’re like, You’re you’ve you’ve missed the boat. And so we panicked because we didn’t even know when to do it. And our preschool was like, Oh, if he wants to move to the next class, he needs to be potty trained. I guess we’ll do it. Then we read the book and we were like, fuck, we are so behind. So I don’t know.
Gavin:
Is he but is he peeing the bed now or maybe a little bit?
David:
No, he did he isn’t, but we’re still waking him up at night.
Gavin:
Oh, right, right, right. You know, uh some advice that I got uh from a friend that seemed a bit cruel, and maybe the International Criminal Court might be calling us after admitting this. But she set an alarm on her phone at 4 30 in the afternoon and said, no more water after this because her kid was going to bed at like 7 30. And I started doing that too, and it did work. It didn’t work.
David:
That’s the most helpful thing for us for sure, is like after dinner, literally no liquids. And of course, inevitably, it his mouth is the Sahara Desert after that. He’s like, I’m so thirsty. I’m like, you can’t have anything. Um, well, I’m glad that we solved this.
Gavin:
So absolved, as always with Gage Rex, we have solved absolutely nothing.
David:
We’ve just complained about our problem. So uh with that, let’s uh jump into our top three. Gabin, this week is your list. What is our list?
Gavin:
So, our top three list, we were on a vacation theme last time, and I want to, and we complain about our vacations a lot. I want to know what are the top three successful vacations you have had with kids. Number three for me is just road tripping. Avoiding any kind of plane situation whatsoever and taking a long weekend and just staying at basically Motel Sixes along the highway and road tripping, and that means an awful lot of bad uh and yet I mean obviously awesome fast food. Literally just road trips. Don’t think of anything as a destination, just think of your vacation as the journey, and that always works for us, frankly, still at this age. Number two, recently we went to Cancun, all inclusive. Because you’re rich. Because we were pretending to live the lives that we deserve, and I am definitely paying for it in the end. But I gotta say, I don’t regret it until my credit card bill comes through. Although we did use the points. Anyway, I um I digress. At the age of nine and eleven, when I can just say to my kids, this fuck off and go eat ice cream all day long, and then they would keep coming up to me and saying, Can we go have more ice cream? And I’m like, don’t ask me, because then I’m gonna say, no, you need to go have some a salad first. Just go do it. Just go do it. It’s all inclusive, bitch. Keep going. Yeah. Exactly. I do have to say, I’m totally against um uh all inclusives uh because of the exploiting labor and the environmental cost, and yet at the same time, like we say on Gatriarchs, I’m a complete hypocrite. It was great one time, and I’m going to go donate to the Sierra Club after this. And finally, number one, it’s just a hotel with a pool. Doesn’t matter where my kids just want a pool all the time. It can be a Motel 6 on the side of the road, and that is their ideal vacation. What about you, David Evan Bond?
David:
So I have very young kids, as we know, so we haven’t really taken a lot of vacations, unfortunately. Um, we there’s something we talk about where like we need to push out of our comfort zone. But uh, and number three for us was we went to Florida for Christmas last year, and there was just not enough space in the both the hotel we were at and then at my mom’s house. And we just were like, I don’t know, Hannah maybe sleeps in the closet. And we put her little pack and play in the closet, and it was so wonderful because it was a great kind of ripping the band-aid off of like, your kids can sleep anywhere, they will be fine. And my son slept in a big bed, like a regular bed with no crib rails, really no one. We just added like a an outline of pillows so we didn’t roll off, and I was so terrified, he went right to sleep, and it was totally fine. And so it was a really good moment for us to kind of be like, your kids will be fine. Um, number two for me was uh a friend of mine, uh, actually, you know this person, um, has owns a he owns an island um in the middle of this gorgeous lake, and we went to his lake house, and it was the same thing where like we had never had naps somewhere else, and we were so nervous, and oh, he’s in a different location or whatever. And so we put him down for his nap. He went right to sleep. Yeah, he was fine. He slept for two hours, he woke up, and so I it was but it was so wonderful because we were out of our comfort zone, he was in a different bed, we were eating different food, we were swimming in a lake. It was so so great. So um, that was number two. And number one for me, it may sound silly, but was the first two days after our kids were born when we were in the hotel next to the hospital, and our kids actually slept in the drawers of the bureau. We pulled a drawer out, we put a blanket in, and we laid our baby inside. And it was just this it was almost like this is a weird way to say this, but it felt like camping where like me and my husband were up in the middle of the night at this hotel feeding this baby. Yep. We’re or it’s just this adventure, it was the beginning of this beautiful adventure together. So, and number one for me was those first two days in the hospital with our kids sleeping in the drawers. I’ll post when this episode airs, I’ll post the photo of Hannah, my uh daughter, in the drawer of the bureau at the hospital. Um, okay, so uh next week, our top three list came from a listener. Now I got a message um through from one of our listeners who suggested a top three list, and we’re gonna go with that.
Gavin:
Is it someone we know already? Does that count?
David:
It is somebody I know already, so it does not count. Um and the top three list for next week is top three movies you wanted to show your kid before they were born. So, like when you imagine being a dad, you’re like, I can’t wait to share these three movies with my kid. And so that’ll be next week. So, our guest this week is somebody who just had a birthday, by the way. Happy birthday. Um, she is a sex and intimacy coach. Um, she is an author of the book Radical Intimacy. She is a certified sexologist, which I need to know the certification part of that. Um, she’s the mother of two. Please welcome Zoe Coors. Hi, Zoe.
SPEAKER_02:
Good morning.
David:
Good morning, how are you?
SPEAKER_02:
I’m I’m good.
David:
Um did you have a great birthday?
SPEAKER_02:
I I did, you know, I’m running a year-long program for women. So we had our inaugural session, group session last night. So that was really um heartwarming and wonderful and exciting. And then um I really I thought about this is my last, I’m gonna reveal this. This is my this I’m 59. So this is my best work. Yes. I’m starting my 60th year, and I just thought, you know, what do I want? I want to just do whatever I want for my birthday. What like and I I just closed my eyes and imagined the best possible evening. Which was I ordered uh uh an array of food from one of my favorite restaurants, and um I have watched uh Succession Season 4 for the fur the first five episodes. I’ve watched each episode twice because there’s so much.
David:
I know I haven’t watched it yet, and I’m so eager to do it.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I mean you know it’s just I I’m absorb I mean it’s the last season, so I’m absorbing every nuance, and that show is all nuance. A lot of nuance. My my husband has not yet seen it, so I just said, I want delicious food and I want to binge the first five episodes of Succession with you.
Gavin:
So I was so excited to have you on here because I’m like, finally, we’re gonna talk sex. Because frankly, David and I don’t think talk enough sex. We do a lot of parenting talk. And so here we have a certified sexologist who tells us that on her big ass 59th birthday, she’s going to watch TV and stuff her face. Which sounds fantastic.
David:
Wait, I I know a person, and I won’t rebuild them, but I know a friend who on her 40th birthday, she was doing the same thing you did. She was thinking, okay, I’m turning 40, I want to just do something just for me. What have I always dreamed of doing? And she self-organized a gangbang. And yeah, she was like, I’ve always wanted to, I’ve always felt embarrassed about it, but I I was like, I’m turning 40, I’m gonna fucking do this. And she organized it and she had somebody help her to kind of like screen and do all like the safety stuff. She was like, it was amazing. I was like, God bless you. What an incredible gift to yourself.
Gavin:
Well, thank goodness David and I could bring the sex to this conversation about with a sexologist.
SPEAKER_02:
That’s the difference, that’s the difference between 40 and 59. Totally.
David:
Yeah. Um, so Zoe, you when we were talking yesterday, you were saying I’m a certified sexologist. I I consider myself pretty um pretty sexually uh awoke, but I don’t even know if I know what that means. What does that even mean?
SPEAKER_02:
Well, I wish I could say that it meant a lot, but um, I mean, really what it means in my case, anyway, it’s not something I pursued. Um, I don’t know, I guess uh there are programs where you can, like I’m a certified integrative somatic trauma therapist. You know, that’s a specific training and a program that, you know, you’re required to um reach a certain level of skill with, you know, treating trauma. Um my certification in sexology came um through the American Sexology Board or Board of Sexologists. Um the uh director of that organization reached out to me and said, Listen, I I want to offer you this. I’ve read your book, I’ve, you know, I’ve stalked you, I know what you do. Um, and we would like to offer you a certification because of your accomplishments. So I said, Yes, please, thanks. I can tell you what I do as a sexologist, and I guess, you know, according to the board, it’s legit. So I I work with people to um improve their their intimacy, their intimate lives. I work with people to improve their intimate lives, and um that includes you know all aspects of intimacy, including physical intimacy. Um I do a lot of sort of unwinding cultural narratives and uh myth busting, a lot of uh pleasure-based sex ed, um, which is something that none of us receive. Um it’s all you know reproductive at best. And if we’re lucky. Yeah. And yes, even at that, I mean, very few of us really know how our bodies work, you know, what body parts we have and what they do in in terms of you know pleasure and um their entire physiological raison d’être. Um, and then, you know, and then it’s a and then there’s like a whole component of uh, you know, the our self-talk, uh what kind of permission we give ourselves, the shaming of any kind of sexual pleasure or pleasure in general, guilty pleasures, you know?
David:
Yeah. Is that what your book is about, largely is about what you’re talking about?
SPEAKER_02:
My book is about um yeah, yes, and there’s a whole component. I mean, my book is very Very much uh about the three. We have it right here. I have a previous incarnation as a graphic designer. Um, so uh I designed my own book cover, much much to the delight of my publisher.
David:
Not so I bet you probably deal with a lot of parents too, who have kind of I think what’s common is is with parenting is that you kind of become this like parent person only. And then as the kids get older, you start to go, wait a minute, I’ve I I left parts of me behind. And I think a big one that’s very common in parenting is sex. And you and I talked about this a little bit last night about maintaining your whole person as a parent, but I bet when people come to you often for help, they’re like, Yeah, I became a parent and then I forgot that sex was a thing that I did for pleasure and and connection.
SPEAKER_02:
Yes, absolutely, a hundred percent. And I’m gonna tell you though, that um most people who enter into parenthood don’t have a fantastic sex life to begin with. Interesting. Most.
SPEAKER_00:
Wow.
SPEAKER_02:
Well, uh, you know, I’m trying to think. I have a wide array of clients, but many, many of my clients are um heterosexual couples.
David:
I’m sorry for your loss.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. My uh my LGBTQ clients are much more fun, to be honest with you.
Gavin:
Well, why why is that? Is it because they’re less um uh inhibited sexually and in their expression, would you say?
SPEAKER_02:
Well, I think that anybody who uh who f falls out you know falls into that category of you know the vast array of LGBTQ, you know, sort of um uh expressions, you know, uh and identities. Yeah, I think that um living in a heteronormative society, you have to deal with your sexuality already. You know, you have to give yourself permission to want what you want. Um, and so you know, that’s sort of like you guys do the work.
David:
We also say we’ve we’ve I’ve said this before on the podcast, is like gay people when they when they literally two people go to bed, there is a conversation required about what is going to happen because there is no default with heterosexuals. It’s like, well, if we don’t talk about it, we kind of get what’s gonna happen. When two men or two women go to bed, you literally have to discuss what’s going on. So you’re you’re starting the process with a dialogue about sex. So I think that’s why we’re maybe a little ahead of the heterosexuals. Um, I I always love when when a straight person’s like, so um, I don’t know, but I’m thinking about maybe having an open relationship with my husband. I’m like, girl, you are 20 years behind us. Yeah, get going. Come on.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I just I don’t know, gay people rock.
Gavin:
What you’re talking about uh about um parents and the struggles that we have um to maintain intimacy and whatnot, and um seek pleasure. Do you feel like that’s a particularly American uh trait? Or is this worldwide? Is it can you say that this is a universal phenomenon that we all kind of lose ourselves in the parenting aspect?
SPEAKER_02:
You know, I have never actually lived in Europe, traveled extensively, but I’ve never really lived in Europe. So um, and there’s so many different subcultures. I I think that depends where you are. It’s different if you’re in Paris than you are in London, you know. But um I do believe that we have this undercurrent of of like a puritanical sort of ethos in this country. And I think it’s it’s really and and I don’t believe that there’s you know, there’s all this sort of evangelical Christianity and um, you know, a lot of sex shaming that doesn’t really exist. I mean, you go to London and or England and and there’s a little bit of a um, you know, people aren’t really sexually embodied, you know, it’s not a place that you think of like maybe Sweden or, you know, maybe Italy in in a certain flavor or areas of Africa, you know, um, where sexuality is much more widely accepted as part of a human existence. Um in this country, we are just flat out shamed for having desire, for for having uh uh, you know, an interest in sexual pleasure and sexual relating.
David:
Yeah, and just having the conversations, right? Like in inhibiting any sort of dialogue about what you want or what you don’t want or all all of that stuff, like just inhibiting the dialogue is is is so powerfully negative to all of that.
SPEAKER_02:
Right. I mean, you know, as a sex and intimacy coach in the United States, I spend an unbelievable percentage of my clinical hours helping people discover what they like. Because because they won’t touch themselves, because they didn’t have sex before they were married, because pornography is the de facto sex education, and that doesn’t really appeal to many people, women particularly, because it’s a completely fictitious portrayal of female sexuality.
Gavin:
Right.
SPEAKER_02:
Um, you know, so wha how how does a, you know, how a a woman arrives at like, you know, the age of 30, is, you know, about to try to have a baby, is married to a man who grew up in this country as well, and like nobody knows what they’re doing. Nobody feels like they have permission to touch themselves. And you know, it’s like so you go into so back to what happens when you become a parent and you sort of forget that you are a sexual being. Well, for many women in this in this country, we never had an identity as a sexual being. That was something that was that yeah, that we weren’t sort of there’s no context for that. So now we have hormones raging, we’re sleep deprived, we’re in like you know, our kids are our lives, and um and it’s a great excuse not to have to have sex to maintain the relationship because that’s really all it’s ever been for you.
David:
I was having a conversation with my trainer this morning. Hold please, this will make sense in a second, and we were talking about Cardi B. Hold please, how we get to the point. And I was saying what I so love about Cardi B is that she doesn’t kind of minimize her past in order to maintain this like celebrity image. She’s not like, okay, well, yeah, I uh one time I was a dancer, but anyway, I I I’m the singer now. She’s like, I was a fucking stripper, I was a hooker, and I loved it. And here’s what she so owns herself and her past in a way that is I am so jealous of. I feel like I’m like 95% owning who I am, and which is a high number.
Gavin:
I was gonna say that’s a seems high totally.
David:
And I was I literally asked my trainer, I was like, what percentage of you is authentically you? He was like, mm, 90%, and I was like, no, you’re like 80%. But but but she’s a perfect example of like somebody who owns that in a space that is not common for women to a own their sexuality, but b own a past that people could conceive would conceivably judge pretty harshly. And I just it’s so it’s so authentic and it feels so uh there’s just I’m so attracted to that energy.
SPEAKER_00:
Yeah.
David:
Um, and and obviously it’s easier for me to do that than a woman, but to watch her do that in a way is is just so fantastic.
Gavin:
So on your parenting journey then, Zoe, can you do you mind sharing with us? Uh like, did you ever have any some kind of a re realization that you might have been losing your own self or losing your pursuit of pleasure or losing your own sense of satisfaction in the midst of sleep deprivation when you were or sanity, or losing your sanity or your mind or parenting journey?
SPEAKER_02:
Okay, so I have a 16-year-old son and a 26-year-old daughter. Um, two different dads, two completely different contexts in which I had these kids. Um, the f my daughter, um, my first kid, um I this is such a story. I um was in a 10-year sexless marriage. Um, how did I get pregnant, you ask, in a sexless marriage? Please do tell us. It was a miracle.
David:
It it was like It was a six-pack of Zima and you know, sweet home Alabama, right? Like like that’s how y’all do it, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:
He was a black man, so there was no sweet home Alabama going on in that house. Yeah, yeah. Wonderfully awkward moment.
Gavin:
Look at that, uh, those assumptions made.
SPEAKER_02:
Um and and tequila nozima.
Gavin:
Um she isn’t 87 dead. I am though.
SPEAKER_02:
I am, that’s right.
Gavin:
That’s right.
SPEAKER_02:
Um so uh yeah, there wasn’t really a great and and we can dive into that. My that that man that I was married to is now a woman. Um so just recently, as it, you know, as of about a month ago, um, has trend transitioned. Um at 62, right? At yes. She’s 62 now, she’s 62.
David:
And we worked at we were talking about this yesterday about like, you know, there’s one angle I think which is like, oh my god, like you’re you’re so much older in life to have this realization, like, oh my god. And then the other part, which was something that Katy Perry said on American Idol, which is like how wonderful to find who you are, because some people don’t get that opportunity. Some people die before they find out who they are. So that did that when she transitioned, did you have any did that impact you at all personally as far as your relationship in the past was concerned? Or did it feel separate enough to where it didn’t it was just kind of like, oh, good for you?
SPEAKER_02:
Yes. Both, right? Of course, yeah, yeah. I and and I was saying last night, you know, everybody that I sort of revealed this to, um, she is very open. My ex is extremely open, like very much, and and has always been this person, you know. It’s like this is who I am. I mean, when she was a man and we were married, she was a black man, beautiful, um, and who had like long, long, long, long hair and a blonde streak and shaved half of his head. Um, and so has always sort of pushed boundaries and and you know, not been afraid of attention and setting an example and self-expression and all of that. So there’s an aspect, and and I was aware of some bisexuality and um, you know, just sort of um, yeah, just a certain level of of freedom and adventurousness in that realm. And so, yeah, it it it made perfect sense. Like, there’s an aspect of like, oh, and there’s also an aspect of like, oh my fucking god, what? Yeah, what? Um, so it’s both. I was I was not at all surprised, and I was utterly stunned. Um, and yes, it I mean, look, uh being who I am, right? I’m the perfect, we’re very close, we’ve been very close. We have a nice little sort of triangular family constellation with my daughter. They both live in New Mexico, um, where my husband and I are heading after Oliver sort of is done here. And um yeah, I mean, there’s an aspect of like, great, who are you now? And and I was able to help like organize her thoughts about what was happening to her, like what she was experiencing. Like, you know, there’s and maybe some of the people I I have a feeling that your your audience is very hip. Um but all three of them, yes.
David:
All three of them very hip. They’re very a great trio of people.
Gavin:
Yeah, we have two hips and a head, so yes.
SPEAKER_02:
So um, you know, there’s it and an aspect of like your sex, which is, you know, your body parts. Do you have a penis? Do you have a vulva? What anatomy were you born with? And um, and then there’s your um gender, which is like, are you a man or a woman or somewhere in between, or do you, you know, flow back and forth? Um, and then there’s your orientation. Who do you like to have sex with? And in, you know, here’s a person who has been feeling something and experiencing something and not really tapping into that part of themselves, and then all of a sudden that reveals itself, and um and and there’s no real context for that, you know. So, like, am I, you know, am I gay? Who am I attracted to now? Wait, I want to have sex embodying, you know, a woman and that energy. And in the case of my ex is uh, you know, has no intention of so far, this could change, but has no does not want breasts, loves her penis, you know. There’s that sort of cocktail of of these three different areas of selfhood that you know you get to explore.
David:
The way you describe that was so simple and beautiful, and I so wish I could just take that and put it on like by 30 seconds on Fox News and just like put it on to where Tucker Carlson once you stood, and just put it on there to be like, here’s what sex is, here’s what gender is, here’s what orientation is. And and they because it’s so people are like, Well, he’s got a penis, why is he pretending to be a girl? And and to you so simply put that in a a really beautiful way, which is which is wonderful.
Gavin:
And start with cocktail, like you said, a wonderful cocktail. It’s the holy trinity. The holy trinity. Yeah. So back to sex, the act. I’m still curious. I’m God, hey, I’ve got a sexologist at my at my not fingertips, obviously, at my eyeballs. But um, so going back to though, you were in a 10-year sexless relationship, which uh marriage, which there’s probably a lot to be read in there. But I’m curious, were you a sexologist at the time, or did you become a sexologist in reaction to realizing, wait a minute, I’ve been missing out on an awful lot of pleasure for the last 10 years?
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, that’s it. Here, here I am. I had a very um I I grew up with very sort of uh liberal, um educated, free uh parents who really sort of like gave me a uh a sort of environment in which I was able to masturbate and even have sex with a boyfriend in my bedroom. And um, I felt very healthy sexually. And then I get into this marriage, and um it’s essentially, I mean, you know, we’re in our 20s, so there’s a lot of like, what was I doing? And how did you what did you say to me? And how did that go down? And but for the most part, we had a really healthy, loving, uh, hilarious um relationship. Like we had more fun in that 10 years that we were together than I than maybe I’ve had since.
Gavin:
I’m glad to hear you point that out too, because obviously uh sex can be separate from fun, and that it wasn’t a miserable time, it just happened to be a non-intimate time. Right.
David:
And it was a and it was a positive experience, right? Like it, you like we we talked about this before. We’re like it it isn’t unsuccessful because it’s over or because you didn’t have sex. It was a s it continues to be successful in the way you co-parent and have that sort of intimacy as pro I guess friends.
SPEAKER_02:
Well, I yeah, I always I mean, for for this whole for decades now, I’ve been saying we’re like brother and sister, and now I guess I have to say we’re like sisters, which doesn’t feel right either.
David:
So when you ask me about Okay, especially when you say, Oh, did you just fuck your sister? I sure did. We had a kid, so and they’re like, wait, excuse me? And you’re yeah, and we walk that back.
Gavin:
But I think it’s interesting that um you did l grow up in a liberal household where sex was celebrated or embraced, and um and then and did you feel like, oh, this is just what life is or and it’s okay, and I’m still having fun, so that’s fine, and I don’t miss sex, or you were like, wait a minute, there’s a I was very troubled.
SPEAKER_02:
I was very troubled this whole time. Um and and it it’s sort of, I mean, I can now, through the lens of what I know about my ex-husband’s sexuality, I now can go back through a new lens and say, okay, so when I said, I don’t know, I can’t, like, you know, in my young 20, early 20s self, um, thinking like, I’m very attracted to my husband. He’s beautiful. We have a great relationship. I love this man. Like, I we’re and why don’t I want to have sex? There’s something wrong with me. I went to my gynecologist. She was like, you know, I I can tell you, like, I’ll run whatever blood tests you want, but um I’m gonna tell you that like you’re a healthy woman, and if you’re not wanting to have sex with your husband, there’s something happening in your relationship. And and I just couldn’t, I wasn’t really willing to see it, or I couldn’t see it, you know. Um, and so it, you know, the best that I could think about it at the time was that we’re sexually incompatible because we want the same things in bed. We both want to be dominated in bed, you know. Like that was the flavor that I could bring to it. You know, it it was a we were in the cycle of desi what what I now call, what I now know to be desire discrepancy, and we were in like entrenched in the cycle of like, you know, request, rejection, um, and and what that does to a relationship. Um, you know, I didn’t want my husband to go outside the relationship, and I didn’t want to have sex with him, and I didn’t I knew it wasn’t fair to ask that he never have sex, you know, and I was it was a total conundrum. And I didn’t know what to do about it. And we’re we we have a life together, you know. Before we at the end of that 10 years, we we had a baby, we separated when she was four months old. Um, we you know, we had dogs, we had bought a house together, like we had a whole life to deconstruct. And um, and so at that point, you know, when I realized at my six-week postpartum checkup when I got the okay to have sex, and I mean sidebar here, but I had never been after I gave birth, my son was a C-section, my uh daughter was a a vaginal birth, and after I gave birth, I had never to that to that date, had never been so horny. I had never been so turned on. Wow. I I I joke that she flipped the switch on her way out, and she flipped it in many different levels, you know. That’s awesome, but yeah, and so in that six weeks before that checkup, I was like, oh my god, it’s back. Oh my god, I’m cured. Oh wow. I like I was ravenous. And I went to the appointment, drove home, my my ex was with our daughter, um, and I walked in and I I and you know, he knew where I had been and was sort of hopeful that we get the green light. And I took one look at him and was like, Oh wow. Like every ounce of desire drained out of me. And I went into the bathroom and sobbed, you know, because I thought that that’s it. Like this can’t go on. This cannot go on. It’s not okay for either of us. Yeah. I can feel those things again. There isn’t anything wrong with me. There’s actually something going on in this relationship, and I’m done.
David:
Yeah, we just aren’t the people to satisfy that part of it for each other. Right. Now, so moving on to parenting and parenthood. First of all, your I you posted recently photos of your daughter who is a PhD biology candidate who’s studying in Antarctica. You’ve uh you posted these photos, and I was like, first of all, she’s so old and so beautiful. But second of all, I was like, there’s just something so magnificent about like I’m getting my PhD and I’m in Antarctica. Like, how fucking cool is that? Um, she was probably not always so inspiring and wonderful and crazy. And any um parenting horror stories that uh maybe she’s partly involved with while that we can put into her PhD biology uh dissertation.
Gavin:
We love to be able to say, How is your kid an asshole today? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:
Okay, well, yeah, I was thinking last night about like parenting horror stories, and Rachel definitely gave me a run for my money in a in a few different ways. Um one of the things we I had this experience with her that I will never forget that I I really wasn’t quite sure what was gonna happen. We traveled to Hawaii. We were in Kauai and we had other family with us. Um and I can’t quite remember, but like extended family vacation. And we went to lunch at a a sort of upscale hotel down in Pui Poo, and um at some point Rachel had to use the bathroom. She was seven at the time, if I I believe I have that right, um, right around seven, maybe a little bit younger. Um, so I take her to the bathroom in this hotel, like off the hotel lobby, and we go in and I leaned over, I had my sunglasses on my head. I leaned over, the sunglasses fall in the toilet. Oh joy, right? I um I am not a squeamish person and I’m not a uh a dermaphobe, but uh I that even pushed my my boundaries. I like reaching into a public toilet and pulling out my sunglasses. So I did that. I reached in, I was just like, okay, here we go. And I pulled them out and I leave the stall and go wash them in the sink. In the meantime, Rachel closes the stall door and locks it. And she pees, and she is absolutely petrified to like a phobic level of automatic flushing toilets.
Gavin:
And she relatable.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. So she’s in there with the door closed. It’s a it’s a um, you know, it’s kind of a fancy schmancy hotel. So the stalled doors, I don’t know why this is exactly, but when you’re in a in an upscale place, um the stalled doors go almost to the floor.
Gavin:
So you can’t climb under.
SPEAKER_02:
I can’t climb under.
Gavin:
Even if you’re not a germaphobe, you can’t flatten yourself on a piss-colored floor and a covered floor and get under the door. That’s right. That’s the point.
SPEAKER_02:
And and at some point I would have had to have done that, and I would have done it, you know, and then what? Like take a birdbath in the in the in the bathroom sink until I get home and you know, do the soakwood thing, right? So there I was. And she pees and she won’t get off the toilet, and the door is locked, and that’s the end of uh human existence for my daughter and meeting. We die here.
David:
Yeah, we grow old and die here. This is it.
SPEAKER_02:
That’s it. And I’m and I’m sitting there. Meanwhile, our family is like, where are they? What’s happening? We’re in there for a long time, and there’s, you know, it’s such a nice bathroom that there’s a you know, a beautiful chair, like an overstuffed chair sitting in the corner. And and like I’m trying to convince her to get off the toilet. It’s okay, it’s not gonna swallow you, you’re gonna be okay. Just sit there and prepare yourself and then open the door and run out, like it’s gonna be okay. And she was just petrified, she wouldn’t do it, and she was just, I mean, refused. And so we sat there for a long time.
David:
Is she still there? Is that where she’s getting her PhD? Is she still in that bathroom? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:
So at some point, after like all kinds of ninja mind tricks, she says to me, This little voice, and then I sit down and we’re like quiet for a little while, and I hear this little voice from beyond the door going, What if I just get up and let the toilet flush and get out of the stall?
Gavin:
You’re like, Yes, bitch. I’ve been saying that. I mean, like, my God. She’s like a man. You had to convince her that it was her idea herself instead of there it is.
SPEAKER_02:
I think I needed to give her space to like work it out for herself. Like, yeah, how am I gonna get out of here? Like, I’ve got I’ve created the situation for myself. I mean, I relate, you know? I’ve created the situation for myself that I don’t know how to get out of.
Gavin:
That’s great parenting advice. And along those lines, I want to ask how what are your say top three or top one or whatever bits of advice for um parents wanting to raise sexually healthy children, age appropriate. But I want to couch that with saying, Surely there’s a time in your life where your children have been utterly mortified by their mom, the sexologist.
SPEAKER_02:
The story that I make up is that they’re secretly really impressed.
SPEAKER_00:
I’m sure they are.
SPEAKER_02:
Um, my son does a hilarious impression of me uh sitting at my desk. He he like, you know, he he pretends to log on to my computer and he says, Hi, I’m Mommy Coors, and I help women feel better about their vaginas.
David:
Wow. Fantastic. And you should be proud of that. That’s great.
Gavin:
You’re welcome, son.
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. Um, he also blocked all, he went into my Instagram with my permission and blocked all of his friends from my Instagram account.
David:
That’s that is such a gift you gave him, honestly, because I can imagine if when I was a kid, my parents had social media and were embarrassed, like doing anything that could be thought of as embarrassing. Yeah. To be able to block all of that, fantastic.
Gavin:
Kind of for my tween who um is might or might not be aware that I’m on a podcast called Gatriarchs, and she would be like, What? But so what would you say to parents to hopefully raise um sexually healthy kids?
SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, normalize a body call body parts by what they are. Don’t say things like down there or you know, whatever. Like use the real names. It’s a it’s a vulva, it’s a vagina, it’s a penis, it’s a scrotum, there are testicles in the scrotum. Like, say it all.
David:
We have we have to, you know, there’s so many like creams and stuff when you have kids and babies and stuff, and I have to because we have so many kids and so many creams for things. I literally have a cream upstairs that says Hannah Vulva. Yeah. Because I just need to make sure I have the right cream for the right body parts.
SPEAKER_02:
That’s right. Um and you know, I think one of the best gifts that my mom ever gave me is that I started masturbating when I was three, like in the living room. You know, against the against the edge of the coffee table. And um, and my mom, who is a preschool teacher and knows kids really well and and was not shocked at anything, um wasn’t quite sure what to do because apparently I was doing it a lot. And so she asked the um the pediatrician what she should do, how she should handle that. And thankfully, he said he didn’t look particularly woke, you know, or a 1967 version of woke. Um, but he did say, he said, don’t don’t tell her to stop, just tell her that that’s perfectly fine, but she needs to do that in the privacy of her own room. That’s true. And um, and so you know, I it’s super common with kids that they touch themselves. It’s more common and normalized with boys because they you know, they grow up with their penises in their hands.
David:
You you and we’re a patriarchal society, so that’s also important.
SPEAKER_02:
But it’s also, you know, yes, and you know, you’re touching your penis to pee. You’re you know, your your your genitals are external. You can see it all, you know, with us, even the external parts, you kind of need a mirror to really see what’s going on there. So that’s that’s part two, is that I I I can’t emphasize enough, particularly, I mean, this goes for all human beings, no matter what you have, you know, male, female, intersex, whatever you’ve got going on, know your body, master your instrument. There is I I can’t emphasize the level of trauma that we live with as adults because we don’t know the bodies that we’re walking around in. And that and either explicitly or implicitly, we’ve been shamed for having these body parts that are beautiful and functional. And, you know, like you brush your teeth, you comb your hair, you take a shower, you eat good food, you masturbate, you know, it’s all just very, very normal and healthy.
David:
I love that. That’s so wonderful. Zoe, you’re amazing. Where can people find you on the internet and where can they buy your book?
SPEAKER_02:
Uh, my book is called Radical Intimacy, and you can buy it anywhere you buy books. There’s also an audiobook uh on Audible and and everywhere that I uh narrated. I mean, I read it. Yeah, that was fun. I I enjoyed those recording sessions. I used to front a punk band, so uh being back in the studio in any capacity was fun for me. Um and my hub is ZoeCorus.com. Um, I feel like there’s so much more to say about parenting, and I know that’s kind of your your your sort of you know flavor.
David:
Yeah, but you know what? We’ll we’ll maybe we’ll bring you back for a round two and we can we can dive further in. But thank you so much for coming by and and and helping Gavin with his sexuality because he’s really been struggling a little bit. And I I so appreciate it, but but I’m sure everyone just learned a lot. I certainly did. And thank you so much for getting up very early and happy birthday.
SPEAKER_02:
Thank you so much. What a pleasure.
David:
So, something great. So this week, don’t laugh at my something great, Gavin. I can already tell you’re gonna be. No, it’s but it’s great. I we talked about before, like, I like when people are good at things. I like watching shows where people make things. So this week, my something great is Ryan Seacrist. Now, the reason he’s Gavin just put his hand over his face. So we we like to watch American Idol mostly like hate watch it, right? But like you watch him host a live show, the skill level he has to keep things moving, to know which camera’s going well well, when uh when a person says something that he wasn’t expecting, he’s just an expert at hosting, and you realize that that job is really fucking hard, and he’s really great at it. And Ryan Seacrest, you’re my something great this week. Gavin, what about you?
Gavin:
So this weekend, um, I uh over the last year I’ve received a little bit of social media uh suggestions from uh teenagers because of actually another podcast that I occasionally do locally. And one of the teenagers said to me, you know, uh you might as well embrace social media and be on it with your kid. Because this uh girl said to me, I really liked it that my dad sends me snaps, and it makes me feel like we’re engaging, and instead of him being against social media, he’s with it. So, kind of along those lines, this Saturday, it was just me and the kids, because I was solo daddy again, and we ended up having an evening where we were all just Snapchatting together. My um my younger son, who doesn’t have a phone yet, but he was on his iPad. We were all playing Among Us, which was fun because we were all in separate rooms, but then yelling at each other at the same time, saying, You’re the imposter! No, you’re the imposter, no, I’m not the imposter! And uh, and then we were snapchatting each other, and it was uh a really it was a something great evening where I uh was you know engaging on my damn screen with them, even though at the same time I was like, I just want to read the New York Times. But it was great. It was something I’m such a loser.
David:
And that’s our show. If you have any questions, suggestions, or general compliments, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:
Or you can DM us on Instagram, we are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is David FM VaughnEverywhere, and Gavin is at GavinLodge when he’s had enough to drink.
David:
Please leave us a glowing five-star review wherever you get your podcasts.
Gavin:
Thanks, and we’ll harass you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs. You can click off in the middle of the story if you need to, because I need I know you need to go, but one time my kid was pooping in France in one of those Turkish toilets, you know, just like the hole in the ground. Yeah. She needed help wiping. So I reached over and I was like, I don’t really know what to do. There was no toilet paper to be found because France. And so I bent over and I was like, Well, I guess I’ll just literally wipe your butt with my hand, because I don’t know what else to do, right? I do. And my sunglasses fell out of my pockets into the hole. They were Ray-Bans and they were new. And I’m like, I’m not losing these. So I reached into the hole and got my sunglasses out, washed them off. There was no soap, washed them out, just thought, well, I can’t touch my face, right? I went, there was another dad that I was with, and I told him this story. Like, this is actually really embarrassing, but it’s really fucking funny, so we’re gonna laugh about it. And he’s like, Oh yeah, well, that’s why you have to carry tissues with you, and I’m like, oh Jesus Christ, friends, you’re such a pain in the ass. Then my next kid had to poop, and he’s like, Oh, here, take my tissues that I happen to have with me, and don’t forget your sunglasses. I’m like, like that’s gonna happen again. It did. Oh the exact same thing happened two times in a row, and I still have those fucking sunglasses.
SPEAKER_02:
Oh my god, they’ve been anointed. Wow, those are like twice, those are like sacred sunglasses. Twice.
Gavin:
I’m not losing those puppies.