Hey what's up hello! This week we get a bit ~philosophical~ as we talk about human evolution, how we interact with sex and romance, and what it means to truly be a human.
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/evolution-sex-and-romance
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
Hey what's up hello! This week we get a bit ~philosophical~ as we talk about human evolution, how we interact with sex and romance, and what it means to truly be a human.
Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/evolution-sex-and-romance
Donate: patreon.com/soundsfakepod
Follow: @soundsfakepod
Join: https://discord.gg/W7VBHMt
Buy our book: www.soundsfakepod.com/book
(00:00)
SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)
KAYLA:… and a demisexual girl (that’s me, Kayla)
SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.
KAYLA: On today’s episode: sex and romance as resources.
ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Mmmm….
SARAH: M’otorcycle, Jesus Christ.
KAYLA: We were just talking about motorcycles.
SARAH: Y’all won’t ever hear it but we were.
KAYLA: I’ll tell you what. The problem I have is that every single time I want to say my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard but I’ve said it before. Every single time it is what comes to my head first.
SARAH: I mean it is good. But it’s been done. Very early on too.
KAYLA: You know what I’ve been thinking about? And this is something that we should probably talk about in a business meeting and not —
SARAH: Live on the podcast.
KAYLA: is that there’s a feature on iTunes and Spotify where you can do a trailer episode and you can just do five minutes of “here’s the show,” we don’t have one of those and we really feel like we should. And we should explain the m’ thing and the cow thing because I have recently seen people be like, I just recently started listening to the podcast and I don’t understand what’s happening.
SARAH: So that wouldn’t be a trailer though, that would be a five-minute explainer.
KAYLA: Well we would also talk about what the show is about.
SARAH: Of the weird shit we do.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Yeah okay, sure. Do we have any housekeeping? We are both in the same timezone right now but not seeing each other, so.
KAYLA: We’re seeing each other later, this year.
SARAH: Yeah but we don’t have anything specifically planned yet.
KAYLA: Yes because you’re the one that has less vacation days.
SARAH: I know.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Trust me, I know.
KAYLA: Let’s just–this podcast is now actually our personal lives conversation. Let’s not actually do the episode. Let’s just have a phone call.
SARAH: Okay. We’re talking about clementines earlier, so.
KAYLA: Yeah. Sarah had a bad clementine.
SARAH: I had a bad clementine. Anyway.
KAYLA: I’m personally recording from a bed because I don’t have a table so it’s feeling like old times when we used to always record from a bed. Just kind of holding my microphone up to my face. It’s kind of resting on my tummy.
SARAH: So if you hear any strange rustling noises we apologize.
KAYLA: So if the audio isn’t great on this one, sorry about that.
SARAH: Kayla just doesn’t have a table. At least not in a place where it can be quiet for a podcast.
KAYLA: I’m in Dean’s parents’ house. So.
SARAH: I take this as we don’t have any housekeeping. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, we’re kind of talking about, well I said in the opening, kind of sex and romance as resources. We’re kind of talking about how sex and romance were viewed evolutionarily, how that impacts the way people interact with sex and romance now, and what it means for aspec people.
SARAH: Yeah so can you start us off with what spurred this conversation?
KAYLA: I would love to. So this is—I’m assuming a book I’ll talk about more and more now that I’ve read it. But I recently read Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator by Amy Gahran, I think, as research for the book that we’re writing. And it’s a very good book. It’s about a lot of different things. There’s a lot of things about polyamory, how traditional relationships work, a lot about friendship. It’s just a very good and interesting book. I would recommend that everyone looks it up. It’s just very cool. And there’s a whole chapter on asexuality and aromanticism so, bonus. But, in one part of the book, the whole book kinda talks about love and sex and relationships and everything like that. But in one part of the book, there is a quote that says, “Often people view sex, love, family, stability or privilege as scarce resources and monogomy as the key to securing access to that.” So obviously this quote is referencing things like polyamorous relationships but it made me think that if that is the case then what does it mean for aspec people who are not interested in some of those resources and does that kind of impact how people view and interact with aspec people?
(5:00)
SARAH: So we’re just going to be widely speculating.
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: If you came here for real science, you are at the wrong podcast.
KAYLA: Yeah, it’s good to reference evolution stuff about sex and romance but this is not a science podcast so I didn’t want to just sit and read evolution theory to everyone because it’s very easy to look that up on our own. I can share, it did make me think of a few things that I learned. I think I took an evolutionary psych class at one point.
SARAH: I think you were going to say that you took a feminism class and I was going to say, wow.
KAYLA: I did. But this also did make me think of something I learned in one of my psych classes. That I think is somewhat relevant. Would you like to hear my fact?
SARAH: I was about to ask, “are you going to tell us what it is?”
KAYLA: No I was going to just point out that it made me think of something and—
SARAH: And not elaborate? Whatever makes you happy.
KAYLA: The thing I learned, it was kind of talking about cheating in a sexual sense and cheating in a romantic or emotional sense. And I believe there was a study done of what would you rather your partner do? Would you rather your partner cheat on you physically or cheat on you emotionally by falling in love with someone else? And I believe the results or at least the speculation of what the results would be, the theory behind it, was that men would be more upset if there was sexual cheating—no, hold on—
SARAH: That sounds right.
KAYLA: Okay, well now I can’t remember. Now we’re just going to have a think through this together, try to come up with a logical conclusion. Basically, the theory behind it was that in the caveman time, we can do this, we’re going to get through this together.
SARAH: Big brain.
KAYLA: Women needed the cavemen to protect them basically while they were taking care of the children in the cave. And so they needed to have an emotional bond with the man to keep them around. While men needed the women to have the children to take care of them and carry the bloodline. So, yes, it would be worse if a woman would get pregnant with another man because then she is carrying on someone else’s line. And it’d be worse for women if there’d be emotional cheating because then the man would go off and help take care and protect a different family. Does that sound correct?
SARAH: Yeah that sounds like it would be right. As in that would be what the theory would be.
KAYLA: I think that was the theory. Obviously, you know, a theory.
SARAH: There are a lot of factors.
KAYLA: Also from the year too when there were caves and no wheels.
SARAH: I thought you meant the theory was from the year 2. And I was like, oh wow, how’d we know that?
KAYLA: The cavemen had big brains on stuff like that. Anyway, I don’t know how relevant that is but it made me think of that as kind of the—I don’t know.
SARAH: That’s our conception of our interpersonal relationships. I was going to say “it’s always in relation to ourselves” which of course it is.
KAYLA: Well, you have a point.
SARAH: But like I don’t know, we just think of the world that way. This hasn’t been a very descriptive sentence I’m sorry.
KAYLA: Um, yes. I think the whole thing with evolutionary psychology and taking humans back to their roots, I feel like it’s hard to say because it’s been like thousands of years. So it’s hard to say how much of modern civilization and the way people act is actually tied back to the ancient times.
SARAH: Tied back to our genetics versus—nature versus nurture?
KAYLA: Right. And there’s definitely some of it. My therapist is always talking to me about “your anxiety is a response to your body protecting you because in the ancient times you needed to be on high alert because everything was a threat.” I feel like there’s definitely things that ties back to that but I think it’s an interesting thought of that kind of resource guarding and the way of thinking of that, if it does still unconsciously factor into the way we think about sex and romance now and how that impacts the way people think about polyamory or the way people think about aspec identities.
(10:00)
SARAH: Right. I suppose some people might still be thinking about their bloodline or family line but it’s not to the same extent that it once was. I mean, there are so many fucking people that it’s not like we need this for the continuation of the species.
KAYLA: There are too many people to be honest.
SARAH: So we definitely have a different conception of you know, why people have kids. Before it was well, you had to have kids so you could continue the species. Whereas now it’s like you have kids for one of two reasons. You have kids because you want to have kids, or you have kids because you think you’re supposed to have kids. And those are your options. It all just kind of builds on itself and now fucking here we are.
KAYLA: Now at this point I feel like it’s kind of just like, a societal expectation like, back in the day monogamy might have been a thing because people wanted to protect a scarce resource which is what the quote was talking about, like sex and romance being seen as a scarce resource. It’s not easy to get because once you get it you want to hold on to it for yourself.
SARAH: Right I would even say that at the time children were a scarce resource.
KAYLA: Yeah they were dyin’.
SARAH: Because they were dying all over the place, there weren’t nearly as many people around, and so you had to protect them in order to continue to line. I mean sure you still have to protect children to make sure they don’t actively die but it’s not the same. The same scarcity doesn’t still exist.
KAYLA: There’s also a lot of other factor that go into traditional practices of monogamy. There’s a lot of cultural differences and purity culture in especially Catholicism had a lot to do with shutting down other family structures and stuff like that but viewing things as a resource scarcity I think it goes back, way way back. But at this point it’s not so much resource protecting because sex at least—I guess romance is still a scarcity and hard to find—but sex you can just go out and get it so at this point it’s not so much that it’s a scarce resource, it’s just ingrained in our unconscious mind that once you have it—
SARAH: We think it’s a valuable thing.
KAYLA: Yeah that’s the other thing, is society has taught us it’s a simultaneously terrible thing but also the best thing ever that you need to have so once you get it you have to hold on to it.
SARAH: It’s a terrible thing only outside the confines of monogamy. Inside of the confines of monogamy, it’s everything.
KAYLA: Yeah. So anyway, bringing this back to aspecness but the quote originally made me think, I wrote it down in my little notes while I was writing this book is that it makes me wonder if part of the reason that people have such a hard time understanding aspec identities is because of this fundamental misunderstanding of why you wouldn’t want to have this scarce resource that everyone else seems like so interested in spending their entire lives surrounded and protecting.
SARAH: Right. We’ve evolved so far past, as we mentioned, you must reproduce, it’s just instinct you have to do it. We’ve evolved way past that and yet we are still clinging to this thing. And it’s like, nah man, let me do what I want, I don’t—why do you—even if you think it is a scarce resource, why do you care what I’m doing with it? It’s not like I’m going out here and actively murdering your children or actively you know. And if you’re someone who’s not participating in sex or romance, that’s just more resources for everyone else.
SARAH: It is such an interesting concept that I think is a little bit of an offshoot of this but same house. Same house, what? Whatever. Is the idea that each person has so much love to give and that eventually you’ll run out and sure on any given day you can only give so much because you’re going to run out of energy. But it’s not like you have a limit in your life as to, oh this is how much love I can give out, this is how much whatever. And so I think both has to do with polyamory and also on the other end of things, there’s aspecs where people are like, “who are you saving your love for, I bet you’re not getting enough love” and it’s like, what the fuck are you talking about? Humans have infinite capacity for love regardless of the type of love. What are you talking about?
(15:00)
KAYLA: Yeah I really—the whole thing with polyamory especially with that too—what it makes me think of is when people are like, “oh well you have multiple partners, how are you able to love them all” and it’s like, you have five children.
SARAH: And then people always joke everyone has a favorite kid. Maybe some people have a favorite kid. I don’t know that everyone has a favorite kid.
KAYLA: You can also have a favorite partner. And so?
SARAH: But doesn’t mean I love any of the others less.
KAYLA: It’s like your kid, so there’s different reasons for loving—I have two cats.
SARAH: Sometimes one of them will annoy you. Sometimes you’ll be like, “ugh, that one’s annoying me right now.” Even if they’re your favorite, they can still annoy you and you can still be like, “ugh the other one is so much better right now.”
KAYLA: It’s like friends. You can have multiple friends that you can love for different reasons. I don’t know. It’s very stupid. Going back to things about the evolution of sex and stuff like that, I started to look up articles about this and got very bored because there’s a lot of science behind it. But kind of the reason behind why people have sex at all anymore, originally for a lot of species, it’s just to reproduce and I think there’s very few species on earth that actually do it for pleasure. I’m pretty sure it’s humans, monkeys, and dolphins or something.
SARAH: Yeah, I mean the reason it feels good is for people to do it for evolutionary reasons. Once again, we’ve taken it so far beyond that.
KAYLA: But what it made me think is step one, is you have sex because we need to populate the earth or spread the genetics for evolution whatever. And then it was like, okay we’ve done a lot of gene spreading but this feels good so we’re going to keep doing it. Not to say that asexual and aromantic people are better, but it seem as though we are the next step of evolution of we’ve done enough and now it’s over.
SARAH: And there is also a time when people would just have a lot of kids cause they needed farm hands, you know? I don’t know, I think you can’t really compare humans to any other living beings that we’re aware of.
KAYLA: We’re just so much better.
SARAH: I might argue that we’re worse but we’re different. I don’t know, this also brings up when people are like, gay animals don’t exist.
KAYLA: First of all, they do.
SARAH: First of all, it’s not even true. Second of all, even if they didn’t, us and lions—lions are very smart and very powerful and very evolved as lions. But we’re not on the same level as lions. In theory, they should be eating us all the time. They should be on the top of the food chain. But they’re not. For reasons of evolution and human brains being like oh wait I’m a little smart boy and I’m going to work with people and also maybe start a war but don’t worry about it. But, you know you can’t compare human experience to any other species. It makes it harder because there is nothing to compare us to.
KAYLA: But a lot of animals, as far as we know I guess, don’t have a lot of consciousness of their existence to be like these are my likes and preferences, you know. Maybe they do and we just don’t know yet. Maybe dogs can talk.
(20:00)
SARAH: Do mice have kinks? I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure.
KAYLA: I haven’t asked one to be quite honest.
SARAH: Mickey! Please come on out.
KAYLA: Oh no.
SARAH: I think this whole idea is whole interesting that aspecs are judged in part because people think they are not valuing the same things that they value, you know. And whether that’s sex and romance is a limited resource or valuing sex and romance more broadly. And they feel that aspecs are not doing that enough. And it’s like, okay maybe it’s a very important part of your life but it doesn’t mean it has to be an important part of my life. And if I’m not hurting anyone, I don’t know why the fuck you care, but of course they do. They find reasons to care. I still don’t quite know what they are.
KAYLA: Also not just caring but I would assuming not understanding because I think to a lot of people, if you would ask them, “is sex and romance a big value of yours?” People might be like, “yeah I like to have sex” or “I’m a romantic” or something. They probably—unless they were doing some introspection—wouldn’t think about “Ahh yes there’s a societally-ingrained value in these things.” I feel like a lot of people wouldn’t stop to think about why they value those things. Why they value them, why aspec identities may irk them in a certain way or confuse them because they themselves might not realize how big a part those things play in their lives and you know all humans want to be included and be around people that are similar to them. So you know, when you meet someone that doesn’t have similar values to you, it’s an ultimate, all of a sudden othering thing. You know we don’t have the same goals or we aren’t the same on some basic level so I’m not going to let you into my little tribe or little wandering group of cavemen.
SARAH: I stopped recording and I started again and I know for a fact that I started again.
KAYLA: Triggered!!
SARAH: Yeah, I was just going to say, on top of that it’s basically you don’t abide by the status quo. And I abide by the status quo and it continues to benefit me. So why would I support you in doing something that might change the status quo when the status quo benefits me, you know? When this society is built around monogamous relationships and certain types of families, why would they bother to want to change that?
KAYLA: Oh yeah I guess it could seem like a threat. And not just to give aphobes and homophobes a bunch of credit like, “oh I understand why you’re a piece of shit.” No, we’re just having a chat.
SARAH: We’re just spitballin.
KAYLA: We’re just having a time.
SARAH: Vibing.
KAYLA: It can be threatening you know, this is my way of life and it keeps me very safe, it keeps my family very safe.
SARAH: It keeps me fulfilled.
KAYLA: Right and as a human, I am to my bone very interested in safety and living a long life and so when I hear something about you trying to change that, it’s like, well excuse me, no thank you.
SARAH: People are scared of that which they don’t understand is what it comes down to.
KAYLA: I think it’s kind of the bottom line is that people are scared period.
SARAH: People are scared, people are scared of anything that’s different from them because they view it as a threat for some reason. People want to be in their in crowds, they want to be surrounded by people that are like them. People are social pack animals but they don’t want to be with anyone too different because that can cause conflict.
KAYLA: This conversation is just really making me realize that I think aspecs are a different breed. I think we are the next level of evolution and I do think we’ve figured it all out.
SARAH: Interesting, interesting. I don’t know that I fully agree because I don’t want to give aphobes the fodder that we are an entirely different breed.
(25:00)
KAYLA: I’m saying it in the meme way okay?
SARAH: I know you are. I mean, yeah, I guess. We’re not more evolved than everyone else but also we are.
KAYLA: You know, maybe.
SARAH: If you want us to not say stuff like that, maybe make us more socially accepted. Maybe put that work in. Maybe then we’ll stop saying we’re more evolved than you.
KAYLA: Yeah. Maybe let’s just start doing that. Let’s just start being as annoying as possible and it’s like, if you want us to stop, just stop being rude.
SARAH: Stop being rude. This is a give and take relationship. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, for some reason that phrase—
KAYLA: I don’t love it.
SARAH: There’s something about it I feel is weirdly sexual.
KAYLA: I just don’t really like that phrase in general. It kind of weirds me out.
SARAH: Yeah it’s a - I don’t know. We’re going to move on.
KAYLA: How many years do you think it’ll take for humans—or do you ever think we will get past our deep evolutionary roots of being afraid of living out in the wild and being afraid of lions and shit? You know what I mean?
SARAH: I think if we evolve beyond that then we will cease to be human.
KAYLA: You’re so smart.
SARAH: I think that is an innate part of the human experience and we can try and train it out of ourselves. We can try and make changes to how we view the world but at a certain point if we’re trying to create a more perfect being, that perfect being is no longer going to be human at a certain point.
KAYLA: That’s very lame isn’t it.
SARAH: Not to get into fucking I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know what that is.
KAYLA: So what I’m hearing is mental illness and anxiety is the human experience.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Fun!
SARAH: I think being selfish is the human experience. But I also think loving other people is also the human experience. And those are all very human things and if we evolve ourselves out of any one of them that’s not human anymore.
KAYLA: This is so inspirational.
SARAH: These are just my theories about human consciousness.
KAYLA: This is just our deepest episode yet I think.
SARAH: You have those people that are like “sex and romance are an inherent part of humanity and to not experience those means you’re not human.” But it’s like, I don’t think we have to go as specific as sex and romance. I think the innate parts of humanity are much broader than being like, I want to stick my dick in it. You know? It’s about love and also selfishness. Those are the two main human things.
KAYLA: It really is. Well like you said earlier, humans are social pack animals that’s very true. Humans evolved and survived because they stuck together and built society and whatever.
SARAH: We started doing agriculture. We started capitalism.
KAYLA: Just History of the World on Youtube.
SARAH: I recently showed that to my roommate for the first time in her life.
KAYLA: Would recommend. Highly recommend. It’s half an hour but it’s so worth it.
SARAH: It’s 20 minutes.
KAYLA: Whatever. But you’re right. I think what it comes down to is that humans are social animals and some humans express that through doing a sex and some humans can just do that by being friends. And yes, back in the day, sex was required to move the human race forward. And it is still required.
SARAH: To a certain extent. But again, test-tube babies—maybe soon, we don’t even have to do that.
KAYLA: Well, yes. But, in the end, if you really think about it, sexual attraction never necessarily had to be a part of that. Yes, it helps moves people towards having sex and eventually having babies, it helps. But as we’ve discussed many times, there are many reasons to have sex. And I doubt that every caveman or any caveman at all evolved to understand sexual attraction. That’s just libido, baby.
SARAH: Yeah it’s less about attraction and less about instinct.
KAYLA: Yes.
(30:00)
SARAH: And that’s not to say that the attraction that people do experience isn’t valid because it absolutely is. But it’s maybe not the most innate part of the human experience in the way some people will make it out to be. Sure it’s a natural thing. But that doesn’t mean it’s the most basic thing about humanity.
KAYLA: Sure, every human feeling is a natural feeling. It’s not man-made. But to say that sex is inherent to humans is — obviously, it’s inherent to some humans or none of us would exist. But, clearly, we made it this far without every single human on the earth having sex and we’re already overpopulated.
SARAH: And you have the people being like, well now the only reason people exist is because we’ve evolved past the point of natural selection but it’s like, who’s to say? That again, as you were saying, alluding to before, who’s to say that all of the people who had sex and reproduced before were sexually attracted to each other? We don’t, we don’t.
KAYLA: I know, I mean there’s like, think about how long lesbians have existed without the word lesbian. In the 18 whatevers, the olden times, those women were still marrying men, getting pregnant because they had to.
SARAH: They were expected to, yeah.
KAYLA: Right. And the ancient Greeks they were fucking everyone.
SARAH: A lot of kings and shit had male and female concubines.
KAYLA: Mmhmm.
SARAH: Right, vibing.
KAYLA: You can’t tell me that a man caveman never fucked another man caveman.
SARAH: You can’t!
KAYLA: You can’t.
SARAH: I recently heard about two cave paintings that in the same cave that were painted—you can still see they’re still there—that were painted further apart than the distance between us and Jesus.
KAYLA: I don’t understand what you’re saying.
SARAH: One of these cave paintings. Imagine this. One of this cave paintings.
KAYLA: Riddle me this.
SARAH: Riddle me this. One of these cave paintings was done in, let’s say it was the year 5000 BC. Okay? And then another one of these cave paintings was done in the year 1000 BC. And they are two separate cave paintings in the same cave. But they took place so far apart there’s more time in between those cave paintings than in between us and Jesus.
KAYLA: Us and when Jesus was alive?
SARAH: yes.
KAYLA: So the time in between the cave paintings were painted, that’s how much time, okay.
SARAH: And they’re still in the same cave. My point is if those two cave paintings can exist in the same cave that many thousands of years later, you’re telling me not a single man fucked another man in the cave?
KAYLA: This was a long way to get to no point. Cause what I was expecting you to say was there were cave paintings of men fucking.
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: And that was going to be proof.
SARAH: I think there—I mean there are definitely pieces of art, I don’t know about cave paintings but very old shit of like, oh yeah that’s gay as fuck. I mean, obviously cavemen didn’t have enough free time to just fuck each other. They were busy.
KAYLA: But I’m sure there were many of them that were horny. That’s a natural feeling that some humans have.
SARAH: What if the women weren’t around? What if they were off hunting some buffalo?
KAYLA: What if it was a Brokeback Mountain situation?
SARAH: Yeah. Maybe they fucked each other in that cave with that cave painting.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm.
SARAH: And maybe while they were gone, the women fucked each other too.
KAYLA: Yeah. I think this probably comes down to—there’s probably a lot more history of gay sex and gay romance and shit. My guess would be that the Christians probably burned a lot of it.
SARAH: There’s so much that we don’t know. It’s already mind-blowing to think that I live in my own little universe and I have a fully realized brain and fully realized thoughts and fully realized everything. Everyone around you who you’ve ever met and who know you also has their own little universe, right?
KAYLA: I hate thinking about this, it stresses me out so much.
SARAH: And if you think about how all people who have ever lived on the planet earth have had their own little universe and their own thoughts, we know a tiny speck of sand in the beach of what humans have done and know.
KAYLA: This is so stressful.
SARAH: You’re telling me that—
KAYLA: It’s just like people are like well it wasn’t written down so it must not have happened. And it’s like, no, I don’t write everything I do down.
SARAH: yeah, I don’t. I also recently came across, I saw some pictures of, it was basically a gay wedding from the 50s. Obviously when same-sex marriage was very much illegal and also same-sex sex was very much criminalized. The wedding was indoors all of the blinds and curtains were closed, there were very few people there cause it was like a secret. And apparently, these weddings happened quite often, it’s just that they were rarely documented because it was dangerous to have documentation of them. And so it’s like, think about all the fucking shit we don’t know, even in recent history. There are plenty of people alive today who were alive in the 50s.
KAYLA: Mmhmm. How many thoughts do you think are thunk a day?
SARAH: Infinite.
KAYLA: It just really stresses me out.
SARAH: I think last week’s episode was me losing my mind. And this week’s episode is—
KAYLA: My mind exploding.
SARAH: Your mind exploding while we talk about the deep depths of the universe and the human experience.
KAYLA: The thought of other people having their own lives really stresses me out. It’s very hard to fathom that some random person I’ve seen on the street and never see again just like—
SARAH: They have rich inner lives too. And external lives.
KAYLA: Even though I’m never going to see them again, they’re still living and doing their own thing.
SARAH: You’re a blip in their story and they’re a blip in yours.
KAYLA: It just really stresses me out.
SARAH: I’m sorry to hear that. I think it’s nice.
KAYLA: My brain can’t comprehend it. It’s a lot.
SARAH: Kind of like how your brain can’t comprehend that there isn’t a center to the universe?
KAYLA: We don’t need to talk about this at this time.
SARAH: I mean, I don’t have more to add. I didn’t have anything to add in the first place, I was just vibing this whole episode.
KAYLA: Yeah this episode was a vibe. I don’t know, I just think it’s interesting to really think about the deep depths of why are people this way? What do people value even if they don’t realize they value it?
SARAH: Philosophical. I’ve been trying to think about the word philosophical for 10 minutes.
KAYLA: This episode has been very philosophical.
SARAH: All I could think of was psychological and I was like, no, close. I’ve literally been trying to think, that we were having deep philosophical conversations. I’ve been trying to say that for 10 or 15 minutes and I couldn’t think of the word.
KAYLA: So proud of you. I’m glad you got it now and that you didn’t text me 20 minutes from now. Guess what?
SARAH: That would be tragic.
KAYLA: Yeah I don’t know I just think it’s interesting you know?
SARAH: So, what’s our poll for this week?
KAYLA: I don’t know.
SARAH: How many thoughts do you think are being thunk in one moment?
KAYLA: I hate that.
SARAH: How many people did you think fucked in this cave?
KAYLA: I hate that. A lot probably, ew. How many times do you think in the entire existence of the earth that people have had sex?
SARAH: Ew.
KAYLA: Just curious.
SARAH: I’m trying to remember what it was, yesterday, I think it was yesterday. I saw something. A normal thing on the Internet related to sex or something. It was not an abnormal thing at all. And I looked at my phone and aloud I just said, “ew.” And now I can’t remember what it was. Oh man. That’s how I feel sex is just ew. Just objectively ew.
KAYLA: I don’t know about objective.
SARAH: I do think objectively ew. Lot of liquids.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Anyway what’s our poll for this week?
KAYLA: I don’t know.
SARAH: How’s your little universe doing today? How’s your unique little universe doing on this fine day? I don’t know, I have nothing.
KAYLA: I also have nothing.
SARAH: I mean we could do something like do you think, I feel like it’s too simple to be like, sex is a resource. But there’s something to be discussed I think.
KAYLA: Maybe like evolution and the deep—I don’t know, something like do you think evolution and survival have anything to do with how we view sex and romance now?
SARAH: Like it all compounding on everything and all of that still being in our brains. Even though the world is very much different now. Fit that in a tweet.
KAYLA: Yeah I’ll work on that.
SARAH: Okay! Kayla, what’s your beef and your juice this week?
KAYLA: My beef is that I’m in a different timezone which I really didn’t think was going to impact me much because it’s only 2 hours but I’ve been very tired and taking naps every day.
SARAH: Once you get past the age of 22, it’s all going to hell. My roommate keeps telling me do not turn 25, don’t do it. I’ll try.
KAYLA: How old is she?
SARAH: She’s one day older than my sister actually. She took a gap year between high school and college.
KAYLA: My other beef is that I’m very sensitive to my surroundings I think. And so when I work I like to have all of my things in my place and for everything to be the same. So I’ve been very frazzled trying to work in a house that is not mine without my setup and stuff because I’m mentally ill. My juice is I’ve been really into watching people play The Sims recently. I’ve been into this for a while. I’ve been on another kick recently. Very calming.
SARAH: Mmkay. My beef is that last week I complained about the US insurance system. And what I want you all to know is that I still don’t have my fucking Adderall. I think I have to call Walgreens today because I checked my insurance and they were like, “you don’t have any claims pending. Your other two claims were approved and those were the medications I picked up.” And I said I don’t have anything pending. So I think I’m going to just ask Walgreens and talk to my doctor again cause why did they not refill the refill? She was like, “I don’t know sometimes Walgreens is weird.” And I was like, “Cool thanks.” Anyway. Luckily, I’m not doing this right before I run out and also it’s Adderall which is not something you have to take everyday. What the fuck. Please.
KAYLA: America’s bad.
SARAH: My juice is by the time you hear this I will be in Michigan. I’ll be holding Rosie’s hand. Seeing my family and friends. Vibing. Living the life. Also my sister got engaged which is exciting. So. There’s that. You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your nope not physiological—philosophical—your falafel. Your philosophical thoughts about the state of human nature on our social media @soundsfakepod. You can also support us on Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod. We have two new $2 patrons. First one is actually a 2 Pound patron. It’s Eilidh Fraser, this is a Scottish Gaelic name I had to look up and I was like, wow, I’ve learned so much. And Steve Jones, who is a $2 patron so thank both of you for your contribution. You’re great. Our $5 patrons who we are highlighting this week are Kelly
Scott Ainslie, Orla Nieve Eisley, Julianne, and Lost In Space. Yeah both Gaelic names this week. That’s fun. It’s exciting. Our $10 patrons who are promoting things this week are David Jay who would like to promote Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown, The Stubby Tech who would like to promote checking patreon to make sure you're actually supporting the podcasts you think you are, and Simona Sajmon who would like to promote QYS magazine, which is a Slovak magazine for queer people. The rest of our $10 patrons are Rosie Costello, who I’m going to see so soon. Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Anonymous, Sarah McCoy, my aunt Jeannie, Cass, Doug Rice, H. Valdis, Purple Chickadee, Barefoot Backpacker, The Steve, Ari K, Mattie, Derek and Carissa, Aaron, Khadir, Potater, and Changeling MX. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote free mom hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone’s Special and No One is, Leila, who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people, Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia, Sherronda J Brown, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote their dogs Minnie, Leia, and Loki, Andrew Hillum would like to promote finding your words and your people during pride month, and Dragonfly who would like to promote not causing a wildfire because of your 4th of July celebrations. Our $20 patrons are Sarah T who would like to promote long walks outside and HomHomofSpades who would like to promote getting enough Vitamin D but also not overheating if you’re in a place that’s really fucking hot right now like the Pacific Northwest.
KAYLA: Or during a heatwave.
SARAH: Or if you’re in Michigan not fucking drowning because it keeps flooding there. Thanks for listening. We love climate change. You know there’s a part of, I think Pakistan, where it’s literally hotter than the human body can handle right now?
KAYLA: I didn’t know that.
SARAH: it’s absurd. Anyway. Tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then take good care of your cows.