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00:00:01
Kieryn & Scott - You Don't Have to Have the Answer
94 Plays2 years ago
I really enjoyed this chat with my friend Kieryn! (Go check out their pod Kitchen Table Cult!) We get into the intersection of personal romance and big picture cultural and political stuff. I do feel like there is a lot more to talk about here, and I hope we get to talk about this more soon!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Okay, welcome back to wish you all the best, a personal podcast about modern dating. I'm your host, Scott, and I am super excited to have a longtime friend to be my guest today, Kieran Darkwater. Can I say your awesome last name? Is that allowed? Yes, please.
Kitchen Table Cult Podcast
00:00:24
Speaker
I guess I want to introduce you. There are a lot of ways that we've been connected in life, but I want to introduce you via your podcast, Kitchen Table Cult. If you're listening to this, go check out Kitchen Table Cult. It's a very different topic, I will say, but a lovely podcast that I've enjoyed and that has taught me a lot. In a one sentence stab, I would say Kitchen Table Cult is about
00:00:53
Speaker
kind of like fundamentalists, religious, cultural things that I think people like me, lefty, liberal-ish people can kind of just, it'll just won't show up on my radar. How would you describe it? You can describe it better than I can, I'm sure. That's a pretty good description. But yeah, my co-host, Yvette and Jer and I, we talk about our childhoods growing up in the religious right race to be like,
00:01:23
Speaker
Bush soldiers of the Christian nationalist movement and how that relates to what's happening politically today. The reason that we started the podcast is because Trump got elected and all of our leftist friends were like, I didn't see this coming. How could this possibly have happened? And we were like, the signs were neon and flashing for like the last 10 years. Where have you been? What has we've been saying this whole time?
00:01:49
Speaker
And so we are the tagline of our podcast is the conspiracy is real. Because like back in the day, people were making fun of the right as like the vast right wing conspiracy. And like, that's so silly, you know, how could they be successful, but it's, it's a real thing, actually. And so we connect those dots. And we just recorded an episode, connecting all of the like,
00:02:19
Speaker
you know, organizations pushing a lot of the parents' rights and education bills right now, all stemmed from like the same five people in the 80s. And so I spent all of this week in a hyper-focus, like doing a Charlie Day, like connect the dots. All of those organizations have fed each other and like birthed in new organizations over the last like four decades. So that's what we do.
00:02:45
Speaker
Well, that's awesome. And again, I really enjoy the podcast. I would recommend it to anybody. It's definitely taught me a lot.
Modern Dating and Patriarchy
00:02:52
Speaker
And it is, of course, I would say a much heavier topic than my podcast. So hopefully this is a comfortable break for you because, yeah, let's talk about modern dating. Yes.
00:03:04
Speaker
But I was excited to have you as a guest because I do think these things are connected. I would say my experience is exclusively dating in major cities where people are mostly liberal-ish or apolitical.
00:03:25
Speaker
But as I've been listening to your stuff, I do think that a lot of our modern ideas around romance, especially for cishet romance, are still rooted in a very
00:03:44
Speaker
for lack of a better word, I'm just going to say like traditional approach. Um, I think traditionally it's kind of in a lot of ways the wrong word, but you know what I mean, right? Like patriarchal and just caters to men more than women.
00:04:03
Speaker
Okay, so I just want to jump right in here. Yeah, the patriarchal, much better word. I would say, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say, or correct me if you think this deserves to be sharpened or better or whatever, but I would say in a patriarchal system, men and women assume that men are to provide, pursue, and control. And we assume that women will attract and nurture and do labor, basically.
00:04:32
Speaker
And we were talking before we hit record, and this is something that's a really big deal for me, I think. A big concept for me that's been impactful for me is feminism has been doing, I mean, a lot of causes have been doing a lot of important work, but feminism specifically has been doing a lot of work over the past.
00:04:49
Speaker
I'm in a ballpark, 60, 70 years. And what women are able to do and what their expectations for life are have changed away from that attraction, nurture, and do labor model, right? Which is great. Women can, it's more acceptable for them to have jobs, to be the provider in a family, to be single mothers, to be unmarried.
00:05:14
Speaker
to be not in a relationship. Their model of what a happy life looks like has evolved away from that patriarchal system. And I think for men,
00:05:26
Speaker
It has not. I think the men, even the well-meaning men have said like, cool, awesome. Equality sounds great. Go ladies, thumbs up. See you when you get to equality land and we'll be there for you when you get there. Just totally ignoring and or not really realizing that so much of the life that like even I was promised when I was a young man, like depended, depends, so much of that life depends on the things that women do, that outmoded concept of, right?
00:05:56
Speaker
And so, I don't know. I'm not really sure what the question is here, but I'm interested to hear your take on that change, that cultural evolution. Yeah, I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, no, I think you're right. There's so many ways to get into this. Because the first thing that came to mind as we were talking was, well, that started changing around the 60s.
00:06:25
Speaker
And a rat of like, you know, like there's this cultural backlash. So like whenever progress happens, right, there's always a reaction. Yeah. So and that reaction tends to be more violent than the progress. So like in the 1960s, the Equal Rights Amendment was moving forward, which we have not passed. We have not ratified yet as a country thanks to Phyllis Schlafly. Right.
00:06:54
Speaker
a lot of the right-wing organizations, like the Moral Majority, who then developed into more and more organizations that are still making an impact to this day. Their whole idea is very patriarchal, in that Mims should be the head of the household. Phyllis Schlafly's whole thing against the Equal Rights Amendment was that it infringes on the rights of housewives to have rights.
00:07:23
Speaker
Like it hurts the good Catholic stay-at-home mom if women have equality because then she's not protected by her husband. And so that's like the anti-feminist take is like legal equality takes away the protections from women. And so you have like this war kind of on both sides of like, you know,
00:07:50
Speaker
women are protected by having more autonomy and more agency versus women are protected by being shielded by a man. And these have always been in conflict, these ideas. And so as women got more freedom, the right really doubled down on basically painting feminism as anti-feminist. Like when I was growing up,
00:08:19
Speaker
There was this whole organization called Ladies Against Feminism. And it was, you know, other homeschooled girls who were like teens when I was a teen, basically combating the modern idea that women should have decision making capabilities, that women should be able to get a job, that women should be able to go to college, that women should be able to do anything other than be a wife and mother because
00:08:49
Speaker
The idea is that God made women to be wives and mothers, and that's it. That's the end of the story. You're born with a uterus. You use the uterus with someone that you're married to. Very important. Gotta save the nuclear family. And so anything else is seen as hugely threatening. And a lot of common mainstream relationship advice in the 90s
00:09:20
Speaker
and 2000s and even till today, I think is still like that hasn't changed. Like the relationship advice is still like, well, men have to do the work, the outside labor and women have to do all the emotional labor. And if something isn't meshing, then women have to submit like the book, like the five love languages,
00:09:47
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone fucking knows it. Yeah. Very, very patriarchal Christian. Yeah. And that's still the standard. And so, you know, even though you've made all this progress, when it comes to relationship dynamics, like in general, the common approach hasn't shifted as much as like, you know, policies.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah. There's so much there and that's an awesome, like really fast flyby. I know you can go into the weeds on all that history and what's going on there, especially with policy stuff. Okay, wait. Okay. So something in there, like
00:10:36
Speaker
for me the difficult like when it comes to the policy stuff and when it comes to like Essentially emancipating women like humans For me, that's kind of a no-brainer, right? It's like should it should a conscious Being have the same kind of autonomy as the other conscious beings. I'm gonna hot take I'm gonna go with yes, right? Yeah And you know, I'm I live in San Francisco. I'm a very liberal whatever but so like I have a lot of privileges that are like
00:11:04
Speaker
getting me to that place, but that's my take. When it gets to emotional gut feel, romantic stuff, because sure, women's equality, amazing, but let's make this about me. Let's talk about how this affects us to say it white dudes. When it comes to the romance stuff, I have to admit, I think I have
00:11:32
Speaker
internalized a lot of the patriarchal stuff that we're talking about. And for me, it gets muddy. And I'm interested to hear your take on this, but for me, it gets muddy because
00:11:46
Speaker
I am super in favor of all these equality things, and I don't mean to brush that aside, but I hope you hear where I'm going. But in a romantic relationship, when I meet someone, when I feel that little spark, I often feel like
00:12:08
Speaker
what I want to do is pursue. I often feel like, I feel that, and you can call these like toxically masculine like habits, but like I'll want to pay for dinner. You know, I want to do the things that feel to me like, I don't know, like the Disney movie I watched when I was a kid or the wrong comic box, right? Like all those sorts of things. And I think
00:12:33
Speaker
I obviously can't speak for all women, but a lot of the women that I've talked to, um, uh, as a part of this pod or just like in life, like, uh, um, really need to feel pursued to feel, to feel that, that thing, to feel that thing in your heart, you know, where you feel like here is a person who sees me, who understands me, who is going to be my partner. Like I would say that connection, that feeling in
Insights from Queer Experiences
00:12:58
Speaker
here. And I'm like tapping my chest hair, like that feeling, um,
00:13:03
Speaker
is I think a feeling that is very, and I could be wrong here, but it feels to me like that feeling is very equal or is very connected and in a way balanced. That could be wrong. That could be totally wrong there. But to pursue that, to move towards that, I feel like there are things that I have internalized. Even that chemical
00:13:30
Speaker
I don't know, heart-based stuff I think has been, like I have been influenced by this society and it sort of has changed who I am. Does it make sense? Yeah, that makes total sense. I guess my question is like, how do I navigate that? Can we do anything about that? Have you thought about this? It's funny, right? It's so weird. So like, you know I'm trans, but for the audience, I'm trans.
00:13:57
Speaker
Um, and so I am trans and I'm queer. Uh, so like I'm bi, like it's not, I, I, I blow please. Yes. Thank you. And so like, but it's so weird because I grew up, I was raised to be a wife and mother and like, I got married to the first person that I dated. I don't want to go into, I'm not going to explain courtship.
00:14:25
Speaker
I mean, although we could if there's a lot of work, you know, keep going. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there eventually. Like, so I've been on both sides of the spectrum, right? Yeah. So like, being raised to like, be the person who was pursued and to appreciate being pursued. And then, like, that never really sitting quite right with me. Like, it always felt a little stifling. Like, I wanted to also do something like I wanted both I wanted both experience.
00:14:52
Speaker
I still do that's important to me. And so it's like, you know, growing up in this like very rigid, like, I have to act this way, I could never open a door for a dude, because that would be like disrespectful, right? Especially like in a romantic situation, like it would crush his ego. If I if I opened the door, like that was the kind of level that I was taught. Yeah. And so
00:15:20
Speaker
men's egos on the right are like so like they're made of like porcelain. It's, it's reserved. Um, and, and so like that never like quite fit, obviously, because I'm trans. And so then, um, when I started dating my current partner, it was before I started HRT. So we like, we seem, I went from like looking like a straight couple, even though we were both queer and bi.
00:15:48
Speaker
to looking like a lesbian couple, even though we're both queer and bi, to now looking again like a straight couple, but with like significant height differences in the reverse order of most people. And so it's, it's so weird because like the expectations that I felt socially changed as I was like, and I'm also, I'm polyamorous. So like I date multiple people at the same time, ideally it's,
00:16:16
Speaker
haven't done that in Berlin yet, haven't gotten there yet. I'm like, that's the goal for this year, is to find find my people here. But um, yeah, so it's weird being in this in between space where you have the you kind of have like both expectations. Right? Like, like masculinity, and depending on like, who is reading you and how you're being read and like, how you're presenting yourself in a particular situation. So
00:16:45
Speaker
That was a weird, very confusing time period, very early on HRT and trying to figure out, you know, because it's not always safe to be out as a trans person. So it's like, how am I being perceived by this person who isn't me? And how should I react in a way that is going to not get me beat up? And I was lucky enough to be in the Bay Area. So I never got beat up.
00:17:12
Speaker
like it was pretty chill, but still that's a calculation that like, you have to make. Like, how is this going to end for me and how can it end well? And it's just, it's so tricky and weird. And now that like, I'm like, most of the time people see me and they're like, oh yeah, you're a dude. And I'm like, okay. But like, you know, and I enjoy,
00:17:41
Speaker
doing pursuing activities, but I also really like to feel pursued. And so it's finding that balance in the best way that I've found interrelationally is just like it varies by the person. So whoever you're seeing at the time, what's the vibe that works for both of you? Do you both need to do the exchange of pursuing and being pursued? Is it one person just really wants to have all of the flowers sent and that's something that you can do?
00:18:11
Speaker
It really kind of, that's the question you ask on like a second date, is it worth third date? It's like, okay, how, what makes you feel the warm fuzzies? But there's not like a, you know, this universally works across the board because that just isn't how people work.
00:18:30
Speaker
That's so awesome. And obviously, thank you for sharing. I didn't want to like, but yeah, thank you for sharing. And this is another reason why I really sort of love your perspective on this because you have walked through, you've experienced so many different sides of this kind of, yeah, this kind of equation. So, okay. There's so, so, so much in there. Wait, hold on. What was the last thing you just said? Sorry.
00:18:55
Speaker
Uh, it all is like, there's no straightforward rule of like, what's best. It's like more of an individual, what works for you and the person that you're seeing in the relationship. Right. Yes. Sorry. Podcast brand. I'm over here. If you hear me typing, it's cause I'm taking notes cause I don't want to like, yeah. Um, right. So, so I forget who it was. I think it's Dan Savage, um, who, you know, says some good things that says some things that are
00:19:17
Speaker
question mark. It talks about queer sex for straight people, right? Because you're talking about how sometimes you like pursuing and sometimes you will want to feel pursued.
00:19:33
Speaker
I, as a cishet dude, definitely feel pursued sometimes. I don't know, but I think a lot of dudes out there like me want to feel pursued. This patriarchal system says, no, you don't get to do that. You are the one that has to be the aggressor.
00:19:54
Speaker
And then a lot of things, so Dan Savage, one of the things he talks about is that he wished more straight people had queer sex. But I think he's talking about relationships where it's like, you have to have the conversation of what are you into? Let's communicate about what gives you the warm fuzzies. And let's not just assume that we both know what's going to give each other the warm fuzzies. You know what I mean? That's something that I've tried to
00:20:21
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's a useful concept. But it's hard. You filter people out pretty quick.
00:20:31
Speaker
You know, when you're somebody like me and you kind of have that conversation in there and I'm talking to a woman and she's looking for that more sort of patriarchal template. For her, it's a big no when it gets to, or maybe a gentle no or whatever, but like it's not something that she's used to. If it's outside of that kind of
00:20:57
Speaker
framework of pursuit. Does it make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Are you, I don't know how much like in like the internet discourse or what pools of the internet you swim around in, but like in sort of the dating discourse corners of TikTok and Instagram and whatever, um,
00:21:22
Speaker
There's been kind of this conversation around the masculine
Masculinity and Identity
00:21:29
Speaker
and the feminine. Have you heard about this? Are you aware of this at all? I have an idea where that's going. I don't remember thinking of the same thing.
00:21:38
Speaker
You're probably correct. It's like, to me, it always sort of has kind of like alt-right-ish vibes where it's like, like some people talk about like embracing their divine masculine and their divine feminine, which I'm just like, why did we slap divine on the front of that? Like when did this get supernatural? But oftentimes also not. Oftentimes it's just talking about like,
00:22:05
Speaker
you know, what, it's a conversation around like, what is feminine? What is masculine? And I think on its face, it's a pretty, on its face, it tends to be a pretty modern conversation. And what I mean by that is that it's like, it's not necessarily like 1950s, um, you know, guy wearing a suit, working 10 hours a day, earning money and women raising the kids are doing everything. It's more of sort of like a modern, I think,
00:22:33
Speaker
take or shade or approach to the modern realities of dual income households and being single and that kind of thing.
00:22:49
Speaker
And like I wanted to say as far away from like Jordan Peterson and like those people. There's always like a red light in my head that goes off whenever I hear myself about to say something that's like even remotely like men's rights. So I want to double click on that. But I do think it's fair to ask a question or I should say I find myself wondering like how much of like nature nurture kind of, right? Like how much of me feeling like I want to be quote unquote masculine to the extent that I do.
00:23:19
Speaker
just so that I like being pursued as well. I think there are feminine parts of me. I like to think I'm secure enough and proud enough to embrace those, but who knows? That's a question mark. But as I'm
00:23:35
Speaker
examining who I am and how I want to approach romance and seeing the masculine side of me. I sometimes wonder how much of that is have I learned from society and from peers and from movies and from ads on the sides of buses, just everything everywhere, right? And how much of that is
00:23:58
Speaker
in my DNA, how much of that would have been exactly the same if I had grown up on the moon raised by robots, right? And I guess it doesn't matter. Even if I could figure out how much of that is nurture or nature,
00:24:21
Speaker
what would that change and could I change it and what I want to change it? Does that make sense at all? Yes. These were a lot of the questions I was having when I was early on in my transition trying to figure out, okay, now what? I've always been shoved in this box and now I obviously wasn't going to go to the Syshet mailbox for so many reasons. Namely, I'm not a Syshet man, but
00:24:53
Speaker
There's not many good examples of men that I wanted to emulate. So I decided, fuck it, I'll do my own thing, which has worked out pretty well so far. But I think a lot of it is like, obviously I grew up under the patriarchy too, like we all have. Unless you're lucky enough to somehow exist in some weird, extremely,
00:25:22
Speaker
liberal bubble that does not interact with Western society, which has its own problems too. So we're all impacted by this. I grew up watching the same Disney movies and listening to radio pastors who had very specific views of what marriage and relationships looked like. And so I grew up knowing, OK,
00:25:50
Speaker
men are supposed to meet these expectations, or at least like having that idea of like, you know, men meet these expectations, otherwise they're failing. Like, you know, you have to have a job that provides for your family, you have to like be chivalrous, you have, you know, all of these, whatever the ideas that we have, when we think of like, men in the dating scene, you know, kind of have those presuppositions. And those are like, we're not born with them. But
00:26:19
Speaker
are like, we grow up in a society of some kind, and all of those ideas are given to us as children. And so we like make sense of them how we do. And so I don't know how much of it is nature and nurture. I know a lot of it is definitely like, whatever we grew up in, we're all products of like, how we grew up. But there's also like, there are, and sometimes I wonder too, like,
00:26:47
Speaker
that when I was growing up, there were a lot of like really masculine qualities that I had, that I had to like, put a lid on. Like all my, all my leadership skills were seen as too masculine and threatening. So I couldn't like really develop those until I became an adult. And that was like an accepted thing to do because I escaped that bubble. And like,
00:27:13
Speaker
I forgot entirely where I was going with this. But it definitely made sense to me to slap a gender label on what I saw as just qualities and traits people have. There is no reason to tie leadership to masculinity. There is no reason to tie chivalry to masculinity. There is no reason to tie being nurturing to femininity.
00:27:41
Speaker
people have all of these qualities and that's what makes us human. I don't think that necessarily ties into gender outside of what our society has decided to tell us. I think it's awesome to recognize that
00:28:01
Speaker
like me chewing on what I think or me reevaluating what I think gender roles are or who I want to be and trying to figure out how much has society or whatever, how much has external stuff influenced me and do I want to accept that? Do I want to roll with that? And of course your journey through that, like your journey through that, I'm going to just say it was much more, I want to just honor that, that it was much more challenging and
00:28:31
Speaker
you know, awesome in a way, but also awesome in the sense of like, scary. Just to honor that. But like, I guess, do you, I don't know, like the whole like, are the straights okay thing? Do you see in straight culture, like those, that conversation happening or that, um,
00:28:56
Speaker
evaluation happening or is, I don't know, is it, it doesn't really feel fair for me to ask you like, you know, do you recognize in the straits, uh, uh, the, the journey that you've had or the struggles that you've had, but in a way I kind of stay straight. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Like there's, so it's, it's so cute. Um, so there's a lot of, you know, like,
00:29:21
Speaker
straight allies who are like, I'm such an ally. And they're having all these really, really good, healthy conversations that literally everyone should be having, regardless of where they are on the gender and sexuality spectrum. We should all be having these conversations. We should all be unpacking the gender roles that have been prescribed to us and whether or not we fit and whether or not we like them or what we don't want to keep about them. We should all be having these discussions. These are very healthy, good development discussions to have if you want to grow as a person.
00:29:51
Speaker
But I don't see that happening a lot in super straight people. I see it happening a lot in people who are allies, who then eventually realize, why do I get along so well with all the queer people? And then they're like, oh wait, why do we have so much in common? And I'm just like, I'm just going to move this heat lamp over to you. And I bake a little bit. And eventually they hatch into this beautiful queer person that I've been like, yes.
00:30:20
Speaker
They're like, oh, I was queer this whole time. Like, I know, honey. Welcome to the club.
00:30:28
Speaker
I mean, listen, as me in San Francisco, I, not to like overshare, but like, you know, I have not been closed-minded and I've been like experimental and I think I know sort of where I am on the Kinsey scale, right? And look, if I could change that, I'm a dude in San Francisco. If I could change that, I would absolutely change that, okay? Like it would make life so much easier for me. Not easier, but right. It would make some parts of my life easier.
00:30:57
Speaker
But I, okay, then like, I guess my question is like. But yeah, I want to go back to that because I don't want to say that like every person who has these like realizations winds up being queer or trans because obviously that's not the case. Like, cishet people also can have these conversations and think about these things and realize that there's cishet, I know people who have done that, you included, but like, that's also a thing. It's just not as common as it is
00:31:25
Speaker
in the queer community, I think because we are forced to reckon with that as we work with our identity. Totally. And then so I guess if I can ask, is there any wisdom? Coming from a space, coming from a community where you have walked that pathway of I need to reevaluate who I want to be and how I'm going to operate in that regard.
00:31:53
Speaker
that's a path that queer spaces have trodden much more thoroughly and I feel like have potentially maybe wisdom around. And I think a lot of straight spaces, straight people are, especially men, I mean, definitely men, are beginning to do that. And it's awkward. It's like,
00:32:18
Speaker
Well, there's more there, but let's start there. Like, is there any wisdom that you might give to the straight men who are like trying to grapple with, I mean, maybe grapple with their sexuality, but even if, even if they are like a Kinsey zero, right? And straight. And, and I think there are still conversations to be had around like, how, how do I want my sexuality
Impact of Patriarchy on Men
00:32:40
Speaker
to be? How do I want my romantic self to exist in a world? Because like a lot of the,
00:32:47
Speaker
I'm going to, I think so much of the patriarchal default like doesn't work even for, especially for straight dudes. So like, I don't know. Yeah. Any words of wisdom? What should I be looking for? What should straight men be looking for as they're kind of walking that path of being like, who am I? How do I want to operate figuring themselves out? You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean,
00:33:14
Speaker
That's a big question. That's such a hard question. It varies so much on how you got to this point, right? But the biggest piece of advice is listen to people who aren't cishet dudes. Listen to women. Listen to people of color. Listen to queer people about whatever questions it is that you're having. And also, when you get to the point where you realize that the patriarchy isn't working for you,
00:33:43
Speaker
That's huge. And there's a lot to unpack there. And that is world shattering. And you just have to be patient and go with it. And the hardest thing to accept is that you don't know everything. And it feels like you don't know anything, which is not entirely wrong. But that's OK. You don't have to know everything. You don't have to have the answer while you're in the middle of the process of figuring out what you want.
00:34:12
Speaker
One of the things that I did when I was just trying to figure out who I was as a person before gender and sexuality and anything, I just made a list of the things that I felt like I was good at and the things that I liked and the things that I liked about myself and the things that the ideas and the characteristics that I wanted to grow up to emulate as a person. So I was like, I want to be kind. And I also want to be
00:34:43
Speaker
passionate and like fight for justice and like I want to make art and like just sort of what are like you and you sit with that you're like does this feel right like is this like go to therapy basically go to therapy is what I'm saying and if you can't go to therapy sit with yourself write these things down like because I think a lot of like when we're when we're at the point we're having these questions it's because we don't feel aligned with ourselves too right
00:35:12
Speaker
Like we don't, like there's a couple of parts of us worrying and we just like don't necessarily like ourselves where we're at and we feel like we need to change. And so that process is just like sitting with yourself and taking in pieces of your identity that either like you developed or we're given to you or we're forced on you and sitting with that and looking at it and being like, does this like make me happy? Does this make me feel fulfilled? Does this, is this something that like,
00:35:39
Speaker
I want to be? Is this how I see myself when I'm old? And if no, then put that aside. And if yes, then like you stick that in your pile of like, okay, these are
00:35:53
Speaker
This is the way I see myself or the way that I want to become. I don't know if that makes sense. It makes total sense. I'm very, very happy staying in this space where we're talking about the emotional and the internal.
00:36:11
Speaker
But to take a quick rabbit hole down the political, I think the internal dissonance or the internal gap where you feel unaligned, where if I am behaving in a very patriarchal way or if I am adhering to this social contract where I'm going to be the controller, the provider, the pursuer as a man,
00:36:32
Speaker
But internally, there is a gap, I think. If I pursue that model for me anyway, there's going to be a loneliness. There's going to be an emptiness because there are things that that model doesn't give me that I emotionally need. To make it political, I totally half-baked theory, but I think that emptiness, that dissonance is something that a lot of political movements
00:37:02
Speaker
I would say either consciously or unconsciously, but like tap into or capitalize on, right? Because they're telling men like, you don't feel good. You're feeling bad. Something feels wrong. And somebody stands up and says, I get that. And then just goes authoritarian. Do what I say.
00:37:20
Speaker
We can make it better. The reason it's interesting is because it's a thing that is so difficult to diagnose that somebody on your television screen can pop up and say, hey, I know you feel this pain.
00:37:38
Speaker
and not have to name it, not have to really demonstrate understanding it, but can prescribe a solution, and men will go, that sounds about right, and they'll sign up, you know? And it's like, I forget what it is, somebody, I think I was like Liz Plank on a podcast with me, but like, it's like there are two roads in the woods for men, and one of them is like, go to therapy and talk about your feelings, and the other one is pretty much fascism.
00:38:04
Speaker
You're choosing the not therapy pathway. You know, isn't that weird? Isn't that weird? It's weird, but it tracks so hard. Because like, that's like, we're taught growing up, it's really common, right? That like, you know, men, if you do this, this and this, then this will happen. You will, you know, if you are a good provider, if you are, you know, whenever a good person today, then like, you get married,
00:38:32
Speaker
you have the trophy wife, you have your like two and a half children in your white picket fence. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't happen. People are like, what the fuck? I was promised, I was promised this thing. Like I was promised that if I did XYZ, this would happen. And not only was I promised that this would happen, I was told that I inherently deserved it. It is my right to have this. And so, and it,
00:39:01
Speaker
getting back in politics, this goes right back into all these organizations that are like, you know, this is a threat to the American way if women have rights, because then you as the man, you do not get what you are owed. You cannot control a woman who has the ability to have her own bank account to get a job. Yeah. So who has bodily autonomy and can choose whether or not she wants to become a mother. Exactly. Exactly. Which is why we see all these fights on all of these fronts and why they're trying to like
00:39:30
Speaker
get rid of education because they want to keep that, to keep those roles, to keep everyone in their separate tiny little boxes where men have all the control and authority and everyone else is just like under them. I, okay. I want, I want to pull on this thread a little bit more because I think I would go, I would go even a shade further or I would, I would, I would, I would spin it just a little bit that I think, I think, I think men are sold this idea to set manner sold this idea. Um,
00:40:00
Speaker
Not as like a I mean, I think it is implied that they deserve it It is implied that by virtue of being born with this person you you are owed this that is implied but I think it's I think it's kind of sold by society as It is useful to people around you you are an upstanding and respectable member of your community if you adhere to these you do you know I mean like I think it's it's it's sold as
00:40:28
Speaker
I mean, it is a huge privilege. It is a very advantageous position, but it's sold as you need to do this work. You need to not feel your feelings. You need to not cry. You need to do your job. You need to be good at doing your job. You need to be, I mean, another whole rabbit hole here is you need to be capable of violence. You need to be like a physical protector. That's totally part of it, right?
00:40:54
Speaker
And in ways I think that is sold as like if like this takes strength this takes courage this takes risk to do these things and sure it does right, but it's like Like that's just sort of like the only thing on the menu under this sort of patriarchal system and it's like How you don't do that you failed Correct. Yeah, there is no yeah. Yeah, exactly if you don't do that you failed and I think that's why I
00:41:23
Speaker
kind of getting off track, but I think that's why a lot of men are so... I think primarily the provider thing has been going away for men because of all kinds of reasons, because we're moving towards a service economy, because women are able to do more things, because women are doing better in higher education, all these kinds of things, right? This whole rabbit hole go down. But
00:41:43
Speaker
that social contract where these men, these dudes believe that what they need to do is become a provider as they're not able to be a provider. I think that's one of the reasons that we sort of see them veer further into like capacity for violence or the masculine like don't show here. I think this is where like Jordan Peterson and what's his bucket, that dating advice guy who got arrested for
00:42:10
Speaker
It's not narrowing it down. That's fair. All the time, it doesn't. These pickup artists that are telling you dudes treat women like objects, treat them like garbage, and they'll actually like it. It's actually what you're supposed to do because bizarre reference to one unsubstantiated paper from the 80s about evolutionary psychology or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, anyway, anyway, sorry. This is fun to talk about.
00:42:37
Speaker
I guess the thing that I think is interesting or the thing that I'm interested in pulling apart is how do we navigate that?
Vulnerable Conversations and Self-Discovery
00:42:51
Speaker
I've made this podcast in the hopes of just having these conversations, being a cis-set dude that's having these conversations, because I don't really see in the dating space, I don't really see this happening. In the dating space, I see
00:43:08
Speaker
comedy where women are laughing at men's bad profiles, which is funny. Those women are hilarious. I'm not taking anything away from that. I see really wholesome, like you can do it, hang in there, you'll find your partner, do therapy, whatever. Not whatever, but do therapy. But wholesome, encouraging,
00:43:29
Speaker
like supportive content, which is aimed I think at men and women, but I think mostly at women because that's who the audience is. And then the third category is those pickup artists dudes who are just like spouting unsubstantiated garbage stuff that I think sounds good for very fragile, very lonely men to hear, but is absolutely not a healthy conversation. And it's like,
00:43:55
Speaker
I didn't see content or I couldn't find spaces where it was just like men being vulnerable, having conversations about dating. And so that's why I wanted to kind of do this. But then I'm not an expert. This podcast is just a wild swing, a wild shot in the dark on my part just to have these conversations. And I guess I would ask, there's a question here somewhere, right? Again, kind of that
00:44:24
Speaker
that wisdom from an external perspective in a way, or external, but having been internal, having been on both sides of the masculine, feminine. How, I don't know, what can we say or what can we do to as best as, because if you could snap your fingers and just change society, you would, right? Yeah, that would be so nice, man. Yeah.
00:44:48
Speaker
Everyone keeps saying trans people are that powerful, but I haven't been hit with the magic yet. But as soon as that happens. I mean, I think you are that powerful. You specifically, Karen, because I think, as I've known you, because we first met doing activism around housing policy and trans people policy. And if there's anything that just requires doing the work,
00:45:17
Speaker
it's that. It's a slow thing. You have to figure out how to do the work. And I think Kitchen Table Cult is you and Eve doing the work. I don't know. Is there any wisdom? How should I or any cishet dude looking to do make this change in ourselves or in people around us?
00:45:39
Speaker
And by extension, society at large. But so that's the big picture. But like, how do how do we do the work? Like, is there any do you have any wisdom on how to do that work? I guess is what I'm asking. I mean, my whole sort of like life motto, I guess, for lack of a better term is just like be the change you want to see. So, you know, like, yeah, there's only this one item on this is patriarchal menu. So like,
00:46:08
Speaker
turn it over and write your own menu. I started out early on in my adulthood, coming into the world, realizing literally everything I knew was wrong and having to relearn everything from the ground up. And that is like, that's a lot of fucking work. But it is so clarifying because you have to find sources that aren't making shit up and pulling stuff out of their ass.
00:46:38
Speaker
actually think about what it means and think about how you want to incorporate that into your life and there will be stuff that comes up when you're rebuilding your world from scratch that feels really threatening and you won't want to adopt this piece of information. Gender isn't a binary.
00:47:00
Speaker
Excuse me, that's very threatening. How how dare you say there's like not only two genders and then you have to sit with that feeling and figure out what it is about that that bothers you. Like when I think I think you were right earlier when you said like, people are getting activated because there's something missing and something doesn't feel right. And someone else is saying, hey, I know that feeling. I have the answer for you.
00:47:25
Speaker
And the only true answer to that feeling is that there is no easy answer. If someone is saying, I have an easy answer for this emotional problem that you're having a hard time describing, they are bullshitting you. Like, it's like in the princess bride, right? When it's like, life is hard.
00:47:53
Speaker
anyone is telling you any different they are selling you something like that is life is pain. You have to figure it out. There is no easy solution to this. It's just like, you have to sit with it, which is really uncomfortable. You like literally the answer to doing the work is you just have to get in and do the work and you have to be at peace with like, not being perfect at it. You're gonna fuck up. You're gonna say shit that sounds weird that you shouldn't have said.
00:48:22
Speaker
But then you have to go back and apologize. And that's, that's the thing. Like you learn from the mistake. That is the, that is the key. You make the mistake and you learn from it and it's fine. I like that. I like that. I was going to say, um, life is pain. It's probably a bit much for the, for the episode title. You said earlier, you said earlier, you don't have to have the answer, which I think is really, I love that. I like that. That is like.
00:48:51
Speaker
The realization that really set me free and it allowed me to figure out the rest of my life. I say this as if I figured stuff out. I have not figured everything out yet. I've just figured some things out. But the thing that enabled me to get there was realizing that I didn't have to know the answer and that I could find it out. The way of getting the answer is in the journey.
00:49:21
Speaker
You can't know it from the start. That's just not how that works. It was the friends we made along the way. I mean, it's cliche because it's true. Well, Kiran, I really love that. I think that's a great place to wrap up. Is there anything else bopping around in your mind that you wanted to put out there? No, I feel like we covered everything. Just sit with that uncomfortable
00:49:51
Speaker
feeling and do the work and like, don't be afraid of it. It's gonna feel weird and uncomfortable and that's okay. That's fine. That's normal. I love that. Thank you for making time to have this chat. And thank you guys always for being an awesome friend and for being open and vulnerable and talking about this stuff.
00:50:17
Speaker
This is so much lighter than everything I've been talking about in my podcast lately. This is a nice pallet cleanser. Your audience totally cut out.
00:50:49
Speaker
Oh, sorry. I guess I hit mute. Right. Look, look, I mean, dating for straight people is a much lighter conversation than the work against authoritarianism, basically, which is what you're doing. But I, you know, in a way, not to be sort of self centered here, but like, in a way, I do think it's significant. Like, I think that like,
00:51:17
Speaker
I don't want to say that men are being failed, but I do think men are kind of failing each other right now. And I think that finding ways for, at least, I think finding ways, if men can find ways to comfort each other or finding ways for all of us to comfort each other as we go through this stuff.
00:51:41
Speaker
is important because I think romantic connection, whatever that means for you, whatever shape that takes for you, I think it's an important part of being a human. And I think not being able to do that
00:52:00
Speaker
is really damaging. A lot of people talk about the epidemic of loneliness in Western culture, and I think that's real. And I think for the dudes, I think to an extent it's because we're having a hard time kind of evolving and changing with the times in a way. And I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to contribute to the conversation for men figuring out
00:52:26
Speaker
how, uh, how we do that. And if, if, if all I do is normalize babbling and saying incoherent things about, about what this means, I'll, I'll take that as a win because maybe someone more because nothing is going to change unless people start being okay with being vulnerable and being themselves. And like you having this podcast and creating a space where that's okay. That is huge.
00:52:54
Speaker
that is huge and that's the only way that change is gonna last is if people really figure out, especially if dudes really figure out that it's okay to have feelings and it's okay to talk about feelings. A lot of the reason that we're in the mess that we're in right now is because dudes are like, it's not okay to talk about feelings. So they're taking their feelings out on everyone else instead of talking about the feelings. If we get to this place where it's comfortable, we can talk about our feelings and our struggles and support people.
00:53:24
Speaker
That makes the biggest and actually long lasting impact, I think. I love that. I think that's a great place to wrap up. Thank you everybody for listening and hopefully I'll have more. I wish you all the best soon. Karen, thank you so much for joining my friend. Thanks so much.