431 - Q&A: Sex, Religion, Veto, and the 80/20 Rule with Billy Procida
Welcome back, Billy!
Billy Procida has come back to the podcast after he was on it back in 2016 to help us answer some of our Patreon listeners’ questions. For those who don’t know him, Billy is a stand-up comedian in New York City where he runs a monthly naked comedy show. He's been published in Mashable and Marie Claire, and has interviewed his exes for over 9 years on The Manwhore Podcast.
The questions we’re discussing in this episode are:
“My spouse and I attend a lifestyle club. I get a ton of attention and they don’t (they also present as masc). People come up to me all the time, compliment me, engage in conversation with us as a couple, but the minute I leave a group to grab a drink, use the bathroom or say hi to a friend, people typically lose interest in talking to my spouse. And when they do come up to them randomly, it’s to tell them ‘your wife is so hot!’
This hurts me because they are a good person who is interesting on their own. And they’re a kind and attentive dom. They are also extremely insecure. How might I navigate this environment differently to better support them?”
“I've recently left a very religious background, and I'm struggling to have comfortable and open conversations about sex with my partner, who has a similar upbringing. We're both in our twenties, and we're trying to discover what we like sexually, but our past experiences often make this difficult. We've had serious talks about consent, but we're still finding it hard to navigate this topic. Any advice on how we can grow comfortable discussing sex and exploring our sensuality?”
Commented on the above question: “This resonates with me so much! I started my religious deconstruction journey several years ago. About a year ago, my partner of 4 years told me he is polyamorous. We started opening our relationship but it's been a struggle for me to process the idea of him being sexually intimate with someone else. He came from a long-term relationship where his needs were ignored (and at times harshly judged). The logical, everyday side of myself fully loves and supports him being true to himself and exploring the wants and needs he wasn't able to for so long. As I've been processing where this dissonance is coming from (in part with my therapist), I'm realizing a big portion comes from the same shame around sex from my religious upbringing. It's compounded by my history as an SA survivor. He's been supportive of me through this process as well, but I feel like I've hit a wall of sorts with ways to move past it. I would love to hear your thoughts or any advice you have for ways to navigate this while still supporting my partner.”
“I recently went through a break up via veto. My partner is married and his spouse no longer wants to be poly. I'm hesitant to date anyone who is already partnered because I'm afraid of that happening again. The whole situation has made me put a freeze on dating anyone at all. Any advice on thawing me out?”
“As the current dating landscape is increasingly mediated by dating apps, this technology treats men specifically as a twofold problem: it uses the relative over-representation of men compared to women in the user base to sell women the filtering tools that come with premium subscriptions, and then sells men tools to make their profiles stand out and appear more attractive past these filters, in a weird arms race. This further gamifies the system and incentivises men particularly, but all users as well, to think of this in terms of investment and strategy to maximize returns: cast a wide net, devalue each individual interaction, approach each date as some kind of audition, and be superficial in making connections or judging people. This affects how people behave not just on-line but also in person. So how do we navigate such a dating landscape? How can we as men avoid internalizing some of the more pernicious and harmful dimensions of this dating culture, and go about meeting people with authenticity and care? In other words, how do we not play this game, especially not on these terms?”
“Do you know of any stats around how many of the folx who are polyam/non-monogamous are straight and how many are queer? Asking as someone in a six member polycule with some heterosexual-presenting relationships within it, but no heterosexuals.”
Find Billy’s podcast The Manwhore Podcast on any major podcast network, and find more about Billy on Twitter and Instagram at @billyprocida!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are once again answering questions from you, our amazing listeners. If you would like to have one of your questions answered on this show, we post that every month in our private Patreon, Discord, and Facebook groups, so go ahead and join those if you want to get in on these questions. In today's episode, we got so many amazing questions, and we had to narrow it down from there.
But we're going to cover a wide range of things, from an imbalance of which partner gets more attention at social events, getting over some challenges talking about sex because of a religious background, how to approach dating apps in a way that's healthy and avoid the temptation to just gamify everything there, as well as a little bit of statistics about straight versus queer people in polyamorous and non-monogamous relationships. We're really covering a broad range, and to top it all off, we are joined by our very special guest, Billy Procida. Billy Procida is a standup comedian in New York City where he runs a monthly naked comedy show.
He's been published in Mashable and Marie Claire, and has been interviewing his exes for over nine years now on the Manwhore Podcast. I know the name might sound like a bro show, but it's very much not, and that's one of the things that we love about it. Billy was on this show several years ago, and we're very excited to have him back. Also, if you are interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference over and over again on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships.
You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book, or wherever fine books are sold. Alternatively, you can check out the first nine episodes of this podcast, where we also go over some of our most widely used and shared, and referenced communication tools. With that, let's get into it. Billy, thanks so much for joining us today.
Billy: Thanks for having me. I love all those natural plugs up front.
Jase: We love having our book in the background behind you.
Billy: Oh, my gosh. That's your book.
Dedeker: Oh, shit. Wow, there it is.
Billy: I totally forgot you all published a book that was just sitting there. No big deal.
Dedeker: Oh, wow. Yes. I'm going to put my money on, it's been seven years since we had you on the show last. Emily, I know you looked up the specific episode. How close did I get?
Emily: It was in 2016, so fairly close.
Dedeker: Okay, yes. All right.
Emily: It was episode 94. I believe it was pre-Trump. These were really simple times back then. It was just a very different landscape, very different world that we all were living in. Yes, and now here we are a little older, a little wiser, perhaps. I don't know, something like that.
Billy: PerhapsI hope so.
Dedeker: Yes, I was wondering if Billy was still in the days of the double digits of our episodes.
Emily: I don't even remember those times very well, but we had you on to talk about group sex. Is that something that you're still doing? Are you still engaging in such a thing?
Dedeker: Yes. Can you still talk to us about group sex?
Billy: Yes, I'm still doing the group sex. It's just remarkable that that seems to be what I'm known for, or something. Because when people think orgies, they think this face, clearly. Yes, I still partake in some play parties from time to time. I feel like I need to go on a little break for a moment. Sometimes you can get a little orgied out, but-
Dedeker: I bet.
Billy: -still having a good time.
Jase: I personally have never been orgied out. I've also gone to very few, so that's not been my experience.
Dedeker: I don't think I could get orgied out, but I'm an introvert, so I think for me, it's more about being peopled out, or simulationed out, or interactioned out rather than the orgy piece of it specifically.
Billy: You never want the concept of an orgy or a sex party to get stale. You never want to be like, "Yes, there's Jay, and her tits out again, as usual." It's like you don't want to be like, "Oh, just another day at the office." Sometimes I have to go on a break to keep the luster and fun of it.
Dedeker: I go to these play parties, and I just end up hanging out with the cat in the corner, because that's my one bit of joy. I'm just so bored with all of it.
Billy: If there was a cat at Hacienda, there would be someone who just hangs out with the cat in the corner. I'm sure.
Dedeker: Oh, for sure. There'll be someone who is there only for the cat.
Billy: The community I go to, they've started having in the post "more parties". It used to be like, oh, once or twice a month. If you missed one month, oh, it's a whole another month and change. Now it's like every week there's several parties, so everyone's like, "Are you going to the party on Thursday?" I'm like, "I was just at three parties."
Dedeker: Wow, that's incredible. Wow. I'm shocked that they have so many now, especially in a post-COVID world.
Emily: That must be part of it. That's what I've noticed, people are desperate for in-person anything.
Dedeker: That's true.
Emily: Some people still feel nervous about that, but a lot of people are just like, "Please, for the love of God, let me interact with the human face to face, and if that can be also sexually with 20 of them, even better."
Billy: Yes, they're coming up with all sorts of themes and everything. I don't know, I can barely come up with one outfit per month. It's really difficult when I got to start getting fashionably creative multiple times a month. I'm not built for it.
Jase: I didn't even think about the fashion part, gosh.
Billy: Yes. It's like, which color jockstrap is it this week? I can't.
Emily: You're one of the few podcasts that actually existed before us, and that's also pretty awesome.
Dedeker: Of all podcasts ever.
Emily: No, I just mean in our sphere, in the realm of--
Jase: Statistically speaking, that is actually even true. The number of podcasts that still exist that existed before us is actually a very low percentage of the total number of podcasts that exist-
Emily: Thank you, Jase.
Jase: -because of that explosion. It ramped up a lot after the time that we both started our podcasts in 2013, 2014, but then in 2020, it blew up. The number of podcasts just shot through the roof. Yes, statistically, that is even true.
Billy: There are also a lot of podcasts named sex with first name of the host that have pod-faded since. I feel like
Jase: Right. Exactly.
Dedeker: Speaking of, you are about to celebrate your 500th episode. We'll talk a little bit more about what you're going to be doing to celebrate that, but I want to hear from you first, how you have seen the landscape change in podcasting, in covering sex in particular, maybe even in comedy as well. Just curious about a little retrospective.
Billy: In podcasting, what's really cool is that, and Jase is a studies nerd as well, so I know you know this, more people know what a podcast is than when we started. More people have listened to a podcast since we started, and more people are listening to more podcasts, which is cool. I like to think that most people have never heard of my show, which means that there's a ton of people who could still discover my podcast, your podcast. I think that's really cool. Podcasts are showing up in media. We're starting to have characters in TV and movies who, they do a podcast. Like we're the new blogger, which is like--
Dedeker: I don't know how I feel about that comparison.
Jase: Yes, I don't like that.
Billy: I don't know. Isn't Carrie, I don't watch, but she was a blogger. Isn't she a podcaster now?
Jase: The new Sex in the City?
Dedeker: Yes. She wrote a column in a newspaper. So that's really old. Maybe that was a pre-blogger, and now that it went to blogger, so she skipped a generation and just automatically became a podcaster. I love that.
Billy: In the sex podcasting space, I think it's really cool that we're just seeing a ton of shows from a ton of different perspectives. That's pretty cool. You get a lot of variations of whether it's identities, or interests, or relationship styles. A lot more people are starting to, even a typical relationship show is-- like they're wise up to non-monogamy. Even if they call it modern relationships, they are starting to understand this isn't going anywhere. This idea of having a customizable relationship is, that's the future.
People are embracing choice. I think that we're seeing that reflecting in a lot of podcasts in our space. Sadly, in the comedy podcast land, it's a whole mess. There's a lot of great comedy and a lot of great podcasting happening, and then there's a lot of people just pretending, we can't say anything anymore as I'm saying it right now.
Jase: Right? Yes. I've noticed that's a recurring theme. Yes.
Billy: Yes. I can't really relate with that, but then again, I'm actually right now listening as an admin task/project. I am listening to the intros of all my episodes as I'm going back and redoing chapter marks for dynamic ad insertion. I was like, I'm re-listening to all the monologues, and then any of 'em that need to be trimmed down, which many of 'em do. Early criticism was very long interests.
I'm just cutting out a lot of fluff, but I'm also now hearing my evolution of my thoughts on things. I had a similar take of what you can and can't say, and I don't feel as much that way today. It's interesting to hear where I thought I was 24, 25, 26 versus now at the age of 34. Podcasting is changing, or collective views on sex and dating are changing, and I might even be changing. Who knows?
Dedeker: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, at least the group sex thing has still stayed consistent. I did want to comment about, yes, that whole thing about, "Oh, you can't say this, or you can't say that." I think that really just the list of what it is, that just changes. I don't know if the volume necessarily changes. If you think about several decades ago, the things that we could or couldn't say in polite society that we can say now, right?
Maybe things about our Lord Jesus Christ that we wouldn't say back then that many of us are quite free to say now, and it's going to be the same thing. There's things that we can and are saying now that in a few decades is going to be completely forbidden, or considered taboo. I do think that it just shifts.
Billy: Yes. Some comedy has always shifted with that. Eddie Murphy even today says like, "Yes, some of the bits in Delirious, I couldn't do today, or I'd have to change the language," and he wasn't complaining about it. That's just the observation of the times. Even then, there really aren't many, I don't even know if there are plural words you can't say on a stage as a standup comedian.
I do consider that a bit of a sacred space. It's different from when, "what we, the collective we can say," comics can still say most things, it just depends on, what are you saying, why are you saying it? From what perspective are you saying it? You really can say anything, and as usual, as there always has been, there might be social backlash to it. Lenny Bruce couldn't say everything.
He got arrested multiple times on stage for saying things by the state. A lot of people just want to cry that they're getting yelled at on the internet, and that's not new. Public criticism has always been around, and that's even a lesson I've had to learn. Yes, everyone can grow up about.
Jase: Yes. Great point. We're going to get into these questions. Do you want to tell us, though, real quick, what's coming up for your 500 episode.
Billy: Okay. I actually recorded this I think almost two months ago now, but I was like, "I should hold it for 500." Many years ago, I did-- I think it's episode 180 of my show. I did something we called the oral sex auditions. A friend of mine was complaining that she couldn't get guys to go down on her, or they would brag about how good they are at oral, and then they would suck at it. She was just complaining about finding quality sex in this city.
I said, "Let's hold auditions," because I come from sports land. Why not? Let's hold auditions, let's hold tryouts. I arranged five different men to come over to her place, and I would do pre-game, post-game interviews, but they had 12 minutes in the room with my friend to make a first impression, penis stays in the pants. Those were the rules. After each guy left, they come out sweaty like LeBron, I stick a mic in their face, they leave. Then she came on, tell us how it really went. Obviously, the dude who bragged about being a sex God was not, as usual.
Dedeker: Yes. Why is that? Why does that happen?
Emily: I was wondering if there was a clear winner.
Dedeker: Yes. Was there a clear winner? Was there a clear takeaway? Did anyone learn any life lessons?
Billy: I don't know about life lessons. There was a clear winner, and he was my ringer. See, I wanted to make sure that she had at least one competent mouth involved in this experiment.
Dedeker: Were you taking bets behind the scenes? Was that like?
Billy: Well, I asked around the community, so to speak. I asked my sluttiest friends in town, in the group sex scene. I was just like, "Hey, who's just an absolute, he comes over, he gets it done?" And they gave me the same name.
Dedeker: Wow.
Billy: He was my ringer.
Emily: There you go.
Billy: Yes, he did great. His name's Porno Jim.
Dedeker: Okay.
Billy: Not the guy you expect to be so talented, and yet, anyways. It ends up being like this episode, talking about female pleasure, and maybe making fun of a couple of guys. Now, I decided to do like a sequel to it, so to speak, and for my 500th episode, I went down on five different women in a recording day. That same friend, Roxanne, she comes on as the guest host, and she interviews them before and after.
Then, when these women left my place, she'd be like, "And how do you think you did?" I'd just shrug, and hope, and cross my fingers, and look up, and, "Eh," so that was pretty fun. I actually have not edited it yet, so I still do not know what these women said after.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Billy: All three of you?
Dedeker: How could you not instantly-- that's the first thing I think I would do is, "Listen and hear what my feedback was."
Emily: Well, and I want to know if they all had different experiences with you. Did you use the same technique on everyone, and--
Dedeker: Did you get tips from Porno Jim ahead of time?
Emily: Yes. Did they just have wildly different feedback? I'd be really fascinated to hear that.
Billy: These are also questions I have.
Emily: Well, you'll find out--
Billy: Yes. Everyone will find out in August when that episode comes out. But for now, I also am, I do not know. I have my suspicions, there's a few who will just say, I have physical, messy confirmation. I did. Okay. There's one who I just know, "Eh, I didn't get it." It was a long 12-minute audition. It was a lot of going to throw everything we have out here. I'm getting thrown into bed with a stranger, doing our best, and I've been seeing one of them for a couple of months since we did that. Can't wait to find out.
Emily: Apparently, she enjoyed it. Hopefully. We'll see.
Billy: I'm most interested in the one who did not enjoy, because that's going to be, hopefully, has the funniest lines in it. Anytime you can insult a man sexually in bed, I think there's so much opportunity for fun. I'm excited about it.
Emily: Awesome. Let's get into this.
Dedeker: Yes, let's get into this. I would love to ask six million more questions, but I guess we're all going to have to listen to your 500th episode to find out what happens.
Billy: By the way, y'all introduce like, oh, we got you the sex questions because you're the sex guy. I'm like, "I'm trying to shift myself, I'm also a relationships love person," but then I tell that story, and I'm like, "That makes sense. Okay. I get it. I get the perception."
Emily: You'll get a little column A, a little column B with these questions, thankfully. We do have to give our initial disclaimer that we as a trio, and Billy as well, have spent a lot of time studying healthy relationship communication, but all of us are not mind readers. Our advice is based on our own experience, and also the information that we have coming from each of these questions that were given to us, and every situation is super unique.
We encourage all of you out there to use your own judgment, seek professional help if needed, just take what you like from this episode, and then leave the rest. You are your only true expert on your own life and your feelings, and your decisions are your own. With that, let's get into these questions today.
Dedeker: Hey, question number one. My spouse and I attend a lifestyle club. I get a ton of attention, and they don't, and (they also present as mask). People come up to me all the time, compliment me, engage in conversation with us as a couple, but the minute I leave a group to grab a drink, or use the bathroom, or say hi to a friend, people typically lose interest in talking to my spouse.
When they do come up to them randomly, it's to tell them, "Your wife is so hot," this hurts because they're a good person who is interesting on their own, and they're kind and attentive dom, but they're also extremely insecure. How might I navigate this environment differently to better support them?
Emily: Can I just ask a clarifying question? Please explain to me what a lifestyle club is exactly just for all the laypeople out there and me.
Jase: Lifestyle just means swingers.
Emily: Got it.
Jase: Probably some people are offended by my answer, but that's really what it means.
Emily: It is that, because when you say sex club, I was like, is that different than a lifestyle club? Maybe functionally it is in some ways?
Billy: I think that's a fair assessment. People use and misuse language however they want, but if I hear lifestyle club, I'm thinking swingers, I'm thinking couple centric. If I hear play party, I'm thinking a little more egalitarian, a little more queer-friendly, a little bit more poly people.
Dedeker: I think when I hear lifestyle or swingers, I think probably pretty hetero presenting couple centric.
Billy: Absolutely, a problem still out there in the lifestyle scene. If you ask the younger guard, the newer guard of swinging, I just interviewed a bunch of swinger influencers for an article for Mashable about getting into swinging, and one, queerness, depending on the club and the population at that club is going to get taken either way. I don't know how this partner presents.
You said mask, but sometimes there's a streak, and some long hair, or a side shave that gives you little hints or clues. Depending on that, you might get people who are avoiding for those reasons. Sadly, there's still this. The reason I have an aversion to the swinger lifestyle is like, it's still as progressive as you are about it. I don't know, my heartbreaks for the partner in this situation because that's my fear. I don't want to be like the ugly one, but this doesn't even have to do with being ugly, this just has to do with people going like, "Oh, this is the one we want to talk up," this is who we flirt with, and I guess we can rope this person into.
Dedeker: Like the woman is the target of affections, attraction, interest, and bonus points if the guy or the mask also happens to be attractive, and someone that we're willing to tolerate inviting to play with us.
Billy: This listener is not the only person with this struggle, for sure. This is a very common thing in that world, in that lifestyle.
Jase: They mentioned that they attend a lifestyle club, and it sounds like it's just this one particular one, but you were implying Billy that it can really vary depending on the venue, or maybe on the event or something that's happening there?
Billy: Yes, or the region, depending where you swing. I imagine a lifestyle club in some parts of the country are going to be different, and for example, treat maybe queerness or progressivism differently than in a lifestyle club in the northeast, for example. That can play a role. Sometimes lifestyle clubs are going to have themed nights. There might be a theme that goes one way or another. Again, just also where you are, maybe it trends older or younger, you just find your space, and if you don't, if you have options where you are the first thing I would think of is like, "Don't go to this club if you have other options."
If that's the only game in town, that's the only game in town, but if there's a kink community that does munches, or if there's a polys scene where you might find something that they're calling play parties, that would be the covert I would think more too. Try to go to those. Try to go to other events. If these places are filled with a bunch of like, I don't even know what to call them without using a lot of expletives. I'm careful with my language on this show of all podcasts I do. I'm like, I got to behave on Multi.
Jase: You can swear and go nuts.
Dedeker: Yes, you can swear. It's okay. The first thing it made me think of is, yes, I know for myself personally the group sex spaces, or play spaces, or kink spaces that I've enjoyed the most have been spaces where there is a little bit more of that community vibe. It feels okay to make friends. It feels okay to be interacting with people even if it's not necessarily sexual, or cruising, or flirting.
That's not to say that if that isn't present in a space, that that's wrong, but I do know I have been in certain swinger spaces where the idea of, "Oh, like, I'm going to be friendly and treat like a human being even though I don't have an intention of trying to fuck you later," is just not really on the agenda, or even the idea of I'm going to talk to someone's partner when they're by themselves not with their "other half" like that in some spaces, in some microcultures, that's also considered to be rude, or not safe to do.
It sounds like, Billy, what you're saying is, this could be a microculture thing of a particular club, and, that, yeah, sometimes it takes a while to stretch out, and experiment, and dip into different communities, and see what might be the best fit. I'm wondering though if it is the case that this is just how it is, or I don't know, it's like, "Yes, we showed up to this one club this night and this was the vibe, this is what was happening," I am wondering about how to answer that question of how to offer support if this is happening.
Billy: Clearly, like be your partner's hype woman, I think was the gender of the person involved in this question. If a couple is talking to you, and the other guy's leading that conversation and trying to break through ,like introduce your partners like, oh my God, he's a really great and attentive dom.
Tell a fun story about DSCE you recently did, and highlight their qualities that made them such a good dom for you, and maybe that'll perk up the ears of the other partner of this couple, and maybe that'll get some crosstalk going there. Maybe the guy who's like so zeroed in on you, like, here's you share some of those things, and now it gives him some to talk to your partner about, but maybe be a bit of your partner's hype woman.
I don't know how social or comfortable chatting up they are, but that would be my first thought. Honestly, when I'm uncomfortable, when I've been like so clearly socially uncomfortable at a party, that's what I've had dates do for me, and we didn't even really talk about it. They would like hype me up with other people, and introduce me, and I think that would be the move, if this is where you got to be.
Jase: It sounds like from this they said that their partner is also extremely insecure, and so, I think that's probably part of it, and as someone who tends to be more introverted, or especially uncomfortable in new situations around new people, it takes me a while to get comfortable and warm up to that, I can relate to that, and I know for some people that's even more difficult.
I love that idea of not only talking them up, but also if possible, and maybe this is hard if you don't know these people well, but if possible, to introduce something that does start conversation. I remember if we take this more general, so take away the lifestyle part of it, that a piece of advice that I've heard before in terms of introducing people to each other at parties, or social events, or networking events, or whatever is that rather than the, "Hey, this is so and so, they do X. This is so and so, they do y, meet each other."
Instead it's, "This is so, they were so awesome and helped me move all my stuff when I moved into my new apartment. I really appreciate them for that." Tell some other story or like, "Hey, this is so-and-so, they are super into World of Warcraft and I know you are too," or whatever it is.
If you know something in common, or if you know some little interesting story rather than just the facts of they're great, but it's like, here's a specific story, here's a specific interesting thing, can just help them then have something to start a conversation from. At least to give them a chance at that. Shall we move on to the next one here?
Dedeker: Let's do it.
Jase: This question was extremely long, so I have paraphrased this down, but if you have any clarifying questions, I have the whole text here so we can go check that out. Basically, this person is saying that they recently left a very religious background, and in that background, sex was taboo, and their only real education about that was having access to the internet, and like talking to some friends.
It wasn't really a thing that was talked about openly, and so they had a lot of shame and guilt about sex. Now their partner just left a long-term relationship, also was from that lifestyle, very religious, a lot of shame and guilt about talking about sex, and they're both in their early to mid-20s trying to discover what they like sexually, but both of their past experiences are making that challenging to talk about openly and to experiment with.
They've had talks about consent and feel like they have a good foundation with each other, but they're still struggling to be comfortable discussing sex, and exploring their sensuality together.
Emily: Immediately this reminded me of some of the things that the two of you do on the Paired App, which is an external way to answer questions and get yourself thinking about something that might be interesting to you in your relationship, or past things that you've done with yourself, or with each other, or whatever. To find to me like some external way to write down or to answer questions on an app, or look at flashcards or something, something to get the ball rolling in terms of even going there, and even talking about it, because I think if you don't have a lot of practice knowing about yourself sexually, or even like where to start, it's great to have somebody else do that for you.
I know Sex with Emily just came out with a book, and maybe she has some cool stuff for Emily Nagoski. Some sort of external thing I think might feel a little bit easier and better than just like, "Oh, shit, I've got to rack my brain to try to come up with something that I really don't know anything about.
Dedeker: I heard a story from a couple. It sounds actually relatively similar. I don't know if they had a religious background, or if it was just maybe a more sexually repressed background, but for them, it was listening to My Dad Wrote a Porno together, which, it's a different take from listening to Sex With Emily, or reading Dr. Emily Nagoski's book, but something extremely silly and very hypersexual, and even pretty gross in my opinion in some scenarios, going to this silly extreme that helps to make it less taboo, and maybe less scary, because the way that I see it, it's like anything you express after that is probably going to feel more tame after listening to that show.
Billy: Yes. That's why I was thinking, it's like listening to sex podcasts, and then talking about it, because instead of jumping straight into our sex stuff and what we want, how about let's just get comfortable saying some of these words? "Oh my gosh, did you hear that episode where they talked about doing rim jobs at the beach?" Then whatever. I can't relate, but now, you're saying these sexual words that maybe you've been a little less comfortable speaking out of your mouth hole.
Then you just get a comfort in saying them, and then maybe you'll be willing to say them in relation to something you want to each other. That's what I would think, is like listening to sex and dating podcasts, and then just talking about an episode, or listening together, something like that.
Jase: I think that's a super fun idea to just become more comfortable before even dealing with like, "What do we like?" That's super cool. There's also a few websites that are another way to get this external stuff. I think we talked about years and years ago on this show, it's called Mojo Upgrade. It's a site where you and your partner both answer questions on a little questionnaire that's like an example of something like, "Here, let me pull it up. Have my partner talk dirtier to me."
You say like, "No. If they want to," or, "Yes, I would love that." You go through all these, and then it gives you your results at the end, just showing you the stuff that you agreed on. If either person said no, it just doesn't show up in your results. There's another one called Carnal Calibration. Same idea. Then there's another one called Sexionnaire, like a questionnaire but with sex.
I don't think they thought that title through very well, but the same idea where you both fill out your answers to this, to just get a sense of where might we start. Maybe we both answered, "I don't know if my partner's into it, then maybe you try it a little bit, or talk about it more, or look up a podcast episode about it or something like that.
Emily: We had somebody comment on the previous question, and the text of that is what I'm about to read now. It relates to what we just talked about there. This person says, "This resonates with me so much. I started my religious deconstruction journey several years ago. About a year ago, my partner of four years told me he is polyamorous. We started opening our relationship but it's been a struggle for me to process the idea of him being sexually intimate with someone else. He came from a long-term relationship where his needs were ignored, and at times harshly judged.
The logical everyday side of myself fully loves and supports him for being true to himself, and exploring the wants and needs he wasn't able to do for so long. As I've been processing where this dissonance is coming from, in part with my therapist, I'm realizing a big portion comes from the same shame around sex from my religious upbringing. It's compounded by my history as a sexual assault survivor. He's been supportive of me through this process as well, but I feel like I've hit a wall of sorts with ways to move past it. I would love to hear your thoughts or any advice you have for ways to navigate this while still supporting my partner."
Dedeker: Yes, so this is a little bit of a similar flavor to the previous question, having a religious upbringing, going through religious deconstruction, and then that difficult push-pull that many people go through of, when I feel aversion to something, is that truly me? Is that just the product of how I was socialized? Is it okay, is that matches how I was socialized or do I want to distance myself from how I was socialized in this process of deconstructing, and really trying to understand who you actually are, and what you actually want, and what your worldview actually is?
These things can be really sticky. I think this can be sticky even for people who didn't necessarily have a religious upbringing. Something that I find myself saying to clients a lot is that sometimes if a situation-- The phrase I use is if a situation rhymes enough with a similar situation, it can make us uncomfortable. The example of this is, sometimes if I'm working with a client who's a woman, who's very pro-non-monogamy, maybe she was even the one who inspired the idea, maybe she's even very happily dating.
Then there's something about being home alone while her male partner is out on a date with another woman where it rhymes enough with this kind of cultural archetype of, "Oh, the woman who's left behind at home while her man is running around on her." Or sometimes being the "other woman," the homewrecker. Even if everyone's above board, and everyone's consenting, there's still these images, these social mores that we've received that even when logically and cognitively, we're 100% on board, there can still be something that's a little bit more seeped into our bones that can make this feel uncomfortable.
I guess that'd be the first thing for me, is just validating that sense of discomfort that maybe feels dissonant from the way that you want to feel, or the way that you think that-- If you're raised religiously for 20, 30 years, that stuff doesn't get rewritten overnight.
Jase: I was just going to jump in quickly with, I don't know how this person is trying to think about this, or what kind of thoughts come up for them. I just wanted to throw out there that not everybody, even who does this for a long time and is very comfortable with it, loves thinking about their partner having sex with other people. Some people love that. Some people was like, "Oh yes, that's so hot knowing my partner is having sex with someone else. I want to hear about it as much as I can. This turns me on. I really like it. I'd like pictures if I could get them."
There's some people that feel that way. I'm not one of them. I generally prefer to not think about it. I guess I just wanted to throw that out there just to be sure you're not trying to get yourself to feel a certain way that just isn't how you're going to feel, and rather a sense of like, "Yes, I'm comfortable with knowing intellectually that they're doing that, but I don't have to be thinking about it, or being excited about it exactly."
It's like, "Yes, I want them to be happy." They even said here, logically, I'm like, "Yes, I'm happy for them to be exploring that." I just wanted to throw that out there in case you're trying to hold yourself to like, "I want to be someone who gets off on this," and you don't need to be to be perfectly happy and comfortable in non-monogamy.
Billy: To piggyback right off of that, it's like we can throw suggestions and strategies of how to get your mind off that during a partner's date night. There's things we can say like, "Make sure you schedule some for yourself, have an activity to get your-- Make sure maybe you go have a date. Make sure you hang out, make it a girl's night. Go have fun with your friends, something." At a point, if even doing those things, several dates in a row and you still can't stop thinking about it, then there's also the possibility that maybe that relationship style isn't for you, or maybe the frequency needs to be adjusted.
There's all sorts of ways to get your mind off of it, it's the ways you get your mind off of a lot of things. You schedule activities for yourself. You get really into work. You have a solo date night. You get the tub, and the rose petals, and the candles, and a good book, and a glass of wine, maybe, or a joint, depending where you're at.
Billy: Again, it's also okay if it ends up not being for you in the first place.
Emily: Yes, I think that's huge right there that so often, we really do want to fit ourselves into a box, or take ourselves out of one box and put ourselves into another one, and sometimes it's just not quite the right fit, and that's also totally okay what you both said. There are varying levels of that. It could just be, "Hey, I just want to more practice parallel polyamory where I'm not really somebody who gets very intimate, or knows my metamour very well, or has to think about them having sex together, or whatever, but I'm okay with the concept of polyamory, and I enjoy engaging in it as well."
Or it may just be, "Maybe this isn't the right thing for me at this time in my life." We've said that a lot on this show too that we go through various stages where non-monogamy may be more of a thing that you want to do, or it may be less of a thing that you want to do at certain times in your life, and that's totally okay.
Billy: The reason I wanted to make sure that got brought up was because in her text, it does say, "I'm curious about this," or, "I was just seeing the desire to do the relationship model came from wanting to support and let him be true to himself," and relationships are a compromise, maybe it's not a free for all, or maybe there's a certain frequency of dates that he can go on, or maybe it's just not for you. I never saw a desire expressed in the email.
Jase: That's a great point.
Dedeker: Yes, that is.
Jase: It was just that the partner told the question asker. I actually don't know if they mentioned their own gender here, but that the partner was the one saying, "I'm polyamorous, and they're doing it." The question-asker wants to be supportive. Yes, you're right. There wasn't any like, and I also am excited about this, and into it. Yes, that is also something worth thinking about, and I hope that it does work out for them, and that they do find a way to be comfortable with it and happy with it. I just want to be clear, you don't have to be gung-ho-stoked about your partner having sex with someone else. If you can just feel even neutral about it, that's great.
That's cool right there. We have a few more questions, but before we get to those, we want to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show, if this is content that you appreciate, and that you're benefiting from, and if you'd like to become one of the people who gets their question answered on the show, take a moment to check out our ads and to join our Patreon community. That's where we post our request for question submissions each month so that we can do these Q&A episodes. Either way, if you can take a moment to listen to them, it really does help support our show, and allows us to keep this information coming to everyone out there each week for free.
Dedeker: Okay, let's dive into this next question. I recently went through a breakup via veto. My partner is married and his spouse no longer wants to be poly. I'm hesitant to date anyone who is already partnered because I'm afraid of that happening again. The whole situation has made me put a freeze on dating anyone at all. Any advice on thawing me out. I wish they had a sassy sign-off.
Emily: Sincerely--
Dedeker: Comes in Fresno.
Emily: Yikes. Yes, veto power boy, it's a tough one. It really is. Definitely, being broken up with because somebody's going back to monogamy. That's a really challenging thing to go through. I think if on dating apps you see that somebody has had established multi-person relationship for a number of years, then probably, hopefully, they may not be a person that wants to automatically just blow their relationships apart and go back to monogamy, but I think that it does happen in situations even with people that you don't expect it to. I'd say a lot of communication early on in a relationship about what kind of polyamory do you practice?
Is veto power even a thing? Are you coming from a relationship structure where you opened up, and there's the possibility of it closing again? All of those types of questions I think are really important to ask right off the bat. Clearly, if somebody's already partnered, not all of them are going to automatically just want to close back up and become monogamous again, but it does happen, and, yes, it can be really shitty when it does.
Billy: Yes, this doesn't have to do with necessarily even a veto. What I'm seeing here isn't like, "Oh, I didn't enjoy the experience of dating someone with a partner." It was, "Oh, this bad outcome." If I remove the whole dating people, I'll prevent all the bad things, but that's never how the world works. It's just going to the next breakup will be some other factor. Oh, they travel too much for work, or they're a comedian, or they're not a comedian. Not fixing any one of these things does fix the issue that was just, "What happened in that situation, it was really unfortunate. It's sad."
Hearts break, and then we pick it back up, and we go back into it. You might be missing out on a really awesome relationship because all of a sudden you're just going to get rid of anyone with a partner. Again, unless you didn't enjoy the experience of being with someone with a partner, keep at it. Don't check them off right away. Otherwise, you're just going to keep ponging between filters put up.
Dedeker: It's a weird balance. Of course, when we're dating, and I think this goes beyond whether you're monogamous, non-monogamous or whatever, of course, we can start to hone some of those filters in the sense of, what do I know about myself as far as what I'm looking for in a relationship? What do I know about myself as far as the type of people that I have chemistry with? What are the red flags that I've started to identify based on my lived experience? Of course, like we can hone our ability to pick partners, but that only goes so far in actually insulating us from heartbreak and pain, which is impossible if you're going to be in a relationship with human beings.
Emily: This next question, I feel like is really geared, and I'm really interested to hear what the two gentlemen of the group have to say about it. It's geared towards y'all. Here we go. As the current dating landscape is increasingly mediated by dating apps, this technology treats men specifically as a twofold problem. It uses the relative overrepresentation of men compared to women in the user base to sell women the filtering tools that come with premium subscriptions, and then sells men tools to make their profiles stand out and appear more attractive past these filters in a weird arms race.
This further gamifies the system and incentivizes men particularly, but all users as well to think of this in terms of investment and strategy to maximize returns, cast a wide net, devalue each individual interaction, approach each date as some kind of audition, and be superficial in making connections or judging people. This affects how people behave not just online but also in person. How do we navigate such a dating landscape? How can we as men avoid internalizing some of the more pernicious and harmful dimensions of this dating culture and go about meeting people with authenticity and care? In other words, how do we not play this game, especially not on these terms?
Billy: Amazing use of the word pernicious just tossed in there. Put that in your dating app, I'll be like, "I used the word pernicious. No big deal." Wow. Jase, do you want start, or do you I or should I rant?
Jase: Go for it. Go rant.
Billy: Wow, this is like, I want to tell this guy to take a deep breath and relax. When he is describing all these problems going on externally, like, "Okay, how, what do I do?" I thought at first of the serenity prayer, and if not familiar with religious, but it does say the word Lord in it. Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, and so, you're describing all this stuff going on as if it's like messing with your game, but honestly, just do you boo boo. All you can control is yourself. All you can do is just be authentic and be yourself, and if other people don't want to be authentic, then I hope you're not attracted to that.
Then that just helps filter things through, and eventually you and another authentic person are going to authentically connect and be like, "Wow, look at all these fake weirdos." You're like, "Yes." Now look at that. You connected on authenticity. I don't love games. I hate the games. As a professional comedian, can't you afford to play all the games? I just don't, I just beat myself, and I let that go where it's going to go. The dating market becoming a market had done this whole weird gendered thing, and with men it's like you keep pushing yourself up.
Again, it goes back to the swinger thing we were talking about where in the heteronormative dating culture scene, women are seen as this object to win or prove yourself worthy of or whatever. Just be decent, put your best foot forward, well-lit photos. Jesus Christ, everybody did well-lit photos. What's your light? You hold the phone up, you turn around in a circle till your eyes look good, and then you hit enter. Just do the best you can, be yourself, don't worry about all the BS around it because you can't avoid it. Capitalism will corrupt everything. Don't let it corrupt you, dude.
Dedeker: Sorry, before Jase jumps in with his two cents on this, I think that's interesting because, sometimes I've had a lot of male friends, especially straight male friends or clients who share these complaints. Of it is all feels like this huge machine that I'm completely powerless to do anything about. I'm completely at the mercy of, and dating just sucks. I don't know, often I feel inclined to want to give a similar strain of advice of like, "Yes, it sucks." It sucks for everybody, trust me. Even people on the other side of it. Take care of yourself, and preserve your energy, and show up and be yourself. I feel like I can't say that because I feel like every dude is like, "Oh, would you ba duh ba duh." It's interesting. I guess I find it validating that that's your take on it, Billy.
Emily: Yes. I've heard this discourse going around on a lot of podcasts that I listen to as well, that the top, I guess 90% of women are only dating the top 10% of men or something. It's like these--
Dedeker: What does that mean, and where are those numbers coming from?
Emily: I know. I agree with you. I don't know where those numbers are coming from, but basically it's perpetuating this idea that men out there just don't have any women to date, basically, or that there's only--
Jase: Dedeker’s ripping her own face off right now.
Emily: I know. I'm sorry the women out there only are dating the top 10% of men, whatever the hell that means. Everyone else is left in the dust. I agree, that's a really shity thing to hear as a dude. I'm assuming that must blow. Just throwing all of that out there, I get the want to be like pissed, and to want to do something about it, or want to go out and rant about it. For sure. Go, Dedeker.
Dedeker: Fine. All right. I'm going to regulate a little bit. Here's the deal, it's so funny. I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent, but there's something that I started to notice whenever I was being interviewed on other people's shows. Usually, this would only happen on shows that were slightly more mainstream. Not necessarily shows about sex, or weird relationships, or things like that.
What I've often noticed being interviewed by guys in particular, when guys are trying to wrap their head around the whole polyamory thing, there is this fear, this phobia that has been repeated to me multiple times by these men that, oh-- but if everyone could just date whoever, and everyone could have multiple partners, all of the women would just pick out the hottest guy, and they would all just date the hottest guy. We can't let polyamory be okay, because that's what's got to happen. All of the women are just going to date the five hottest guys. I'm just like, "Where is this coming from?"
Emily: Those men are the only ones who will ever date--
Dedeker: I don't know where this comes from. I do not know where this narrative comes from, but like more than one man has expressed this phobia. I'm just like, "Where does this come from?" For me, that statement of, "Oh, yes, 90% of women are dating the top 10% of men." I'm like, "That's just that same phobia being pulled out of somebody's ass, and they're putting arbitrary numbers on it." This could be a whole other episode, or maybe just a whole other solo two-hour rant on my case. I don't know. I don't know where that comes from.
Jase: In looking into this, that particular question about the 80% of women dating the 20% of the top guys, or sometimes it's 90 and 10, sometimes it's 95 and 5, there's a lot of different numbers floating around, which is one clue that it's based on nothing. Two is that it sounds like this person was just reading a lot of Tim Ferriss, and got really obsessed with the whole 80-20 rule. They're like, "Oh, this applies everywhere in life. Look, here it is." Same with all that phobia that Dedeker was talking about. It's a whole lot of nonsense.
It's not based in anything. From what I can tell is based slightly on some post from OkCupid from back in 2014 when they posted some statistics about something. What people are missing is, one, they're not even interpreting the data right. Two, what it actually is is more about the amount of messages from men going to a smaller percentage of women. It almost makes the opposite argument of a smaller percentage of women are receiving most of the messages from men and that kind of thing. It's just like people took out what they want, and as I saw on the two X chromosome subreddit, someone said incels going to incel, what can you do?
Emily: For sure. I think that's part of that though. It's definitely like feeding into that narrative, and causing people who are in cells to get more angry and upset about things that they think that they can control.
Jase: If you have some excuse to blame a struggle you have on someone else, or just life or whatever and be like, "Oh this is so unfair that I'm suffering so unnecessarily." That's tempting to take and it sucks. It's not going to get you very far.
Billy: It also doesn't require you to change anything about yourself because everything's happening to you. There's nothing for me to do better. I'm a great guy. Just no one knows how great of a fucking guy I am. I was thinking of this also when we were hearing the question, and if I had to give a tip, it's just seeing how much this guy's clearly thinking about the dynamics and the "Game of this all," was like I wanted to say, "Don't let yourself get angry, and obsessed, and resentful of some system, none of us controls that isn't even the system you think it is."
They go, "What?" All these women are getting most of the messages from men, yes, because a lot of men are being real freaking thirsty playing a numbers game. That's how it's going to be. If you personally do quality control, don't be one of those dudes upset that you just 100 copies messages and only got back one response. Be all thick maybe and-- I don't know, look, man, Dedeker, next time we get a drink, we can have a two-hour rant about this.
Emily: Oh, I would love to. That'll be a bonus episode. I would love that.
Billy: It's just so frustrating to see the resentment because inherently it's thinking, obviously, I should have dates, and it's, let's help where we start with. Should you? Are you doing a decent version of y'all? Can parts of yourself be better? Not that anyone's perfect, but if you're not getting a lot of matches, have we looked at the profile? If the profile is set up as best as this human can be, are the other things we can work on? Maybe let me sit down with your messages. I can point out a lot of things that allow women complain to me about guys like you do it.
I don't know. In all of this, I see a lot of resentment from the manosphere that the system's unfair, and I never see the ability of looking at yourself the first thing, am I deserving of some fair system in the first place? Or were they just taught that they were mama's fucking prince, and deserves all the dates in the world? I don't know.
Dedeker: I just want to jump in just to say to the question asker, we're not projecting all of this onto you specifically. We're all angry. Hashtag some men.
Billy: I'm only undecided because I can-- and I feel for this guy because, look, when I was younger, I was one search away from being in the incel land, or the red pill stuff or whatever. I just probably clicked on like Dan Savage instead by accident. I do feel like I can empathize with a lot of the men and a lot of things I see them say, I don't sympathize with them, but I know I can feel what they're feeling because I felt it before, and thought my prospects were zilch or whatever.
Now, I'm known apparently for group fuckings. I just want to say is, being this resentful about it, again, I talked to a lot of women, I have no dude friends. I'm working on it, Jase, one about this because I need more Y chromosomes in my friend pool. It's, they complain about this because they can read it off you. It's not one thing you said, there's a vibe and an energy of the guy who's just like, "Brian, can’t get a date," where he's on the date. He's like, "I'm trying to get this," you can read it off of you.
Just don't let yourself get hold onto resentment because they can tell, and it's unattractive, and it's going to be one of the reasons they skip over, or they don't dig the conversation. If we go back to the concept about how do we play in this gamified system, it's, you don't play the game. You just be yourself, and maybe try to improve yourself to make yourself a better self, and don't think of this as something you deserve, but just as experiences and connections hopefully will get to have, because if you get resentful, like it stenches off you, and then they come talk to me about it.
Emily: Yes. They go off of that. Our episode with Michael Kaye from OkCupid, he talked about the fact that a lot of people really get burned out of the dating apps. I'm sure that that's true, especially if you're potentially coming at it from a more resentful place. Just maybe take some time away, really give yourself a break from it because, you're not going to be your best version of self, whatever that may be if you're really upset about the way that the processes or the gamification or whatever. Maybe just give yourself even a few months off of it, and try to do some self-reflection during that time. Come back to it with more of a clear head in order to be able to put your best foot forward at that time.
Dedeker: I wanted to bring in just a slightly different flavor of this, and just to point out that, I don't think men or straight men are the only ones guilty of having this resentment that-- I appreciate Billy you mentioning that you can wreak of resentment because what I've noticed, I think the companion phenomenon to that resentment that I see with a lot of women, straight women, women who date guys is heteropessimism.
Which is this, oh my God. It's impossible to find a guy who's worth anything. Every single guy is trash, men are trash, men on dating apps are trash. It's coming from a different approaching point here, but sometimes I see that as being just as big of an obstacle to finding partnership or whatever it is that you're looking for as the whole resentment gamification approach to it that we usually see with straight men. I don't know. Emily, I'm sure you've noticed, because I feel like you listen to more mainstreaming lady podcasts than I do.
Emily: I do.
Dedeker: Have you picked up on that trend?
Emily: That women sometimes are just like, there's no good men out there. It's funny because so many of the women who I listen to are either lesbians, or they're married already, so that's tough, but I've heard it with some friends that I have that maybe aren't partnered, or who haven't been partnered really ever, and that is that question of why is that? Is it just this internal, well, I hate the scene, and I hate the men out there, and it just is never going to happen for me. I don't know. It's understandable to get dejected, and feel bad, and feel like shit if you are constantly getting told no in one way or another, but I think a lot of what Billy said really is true. It's like what's happening underneath there, underneath the surface? What is the deeper question of like, why isn't it working out for you on both ends?
Dedeker: Just to round this out. I read Blythe Roberson's book, How to Date Men When You Hate Men. I was hoping that it was full of more practical advice, but it really wasn't, but I think that's a symptom of the whole thing. Literally, it's like how do you date men when you hate men? That could probably be a whole other episode, maybe we'll just leave that topic on the table for now.
Jase: I want to bring this back to this particular question here, because I think we've gone off the rails a little bit, because clearly we all have a lot of strong feelings, and have experienced a lot of other people online being a lot more negative than this person. I want to say, based on the way this person wrote their question, they said nothing about the whole 10% thing. That's all the incel shit-
Dedeker: That's true.
Jase: -that Emily brought up from other podcasts. This person is not saying any of that, but they are talking about how as a man you are getting a lot of those kinds of messages, about like, "Oh, you've got to play this numbers game, or you've got to pay for this thing so your account stands out, and that women are trying to filter you out. You're getting a lot of those kinds of messages. I think that, sure, there might be a little bit of truth to it, but I think it's also worth remembering that, take some of the intensity out of what everyone's been saying so far, and to be like, "Hey, you know what? Yes, it takes time, and it's not easy."
I also want to bring up the fact that, something that really occurred to me recently as I've been getting back into the potential of dating, I haven't actually been on any dates in quite a while, but getting back on the apps, starting to think about that is realizing how much decision effort and mental effort doing dating apps takes. There's this thing called decision fatigue which shows up a lot if you have a job where you have to make a lot of decisions, where you're the one who's responsible for deciding things. Whether that's just deciding things within your own projects or departments, or you're having to write content, or you're having to decide what to say, or if it's like you're leading a group of people, either way, that there is an actual physical limitation on how much of that our brain can do before it needs time to recharge.
We've talked about this a while ago, but it's been quite a while, so I figure it's worth mentioning. What I noticed is that, I was like, "Why am I having such a hard time being on these dating apps?" What I realized is that, it's because as soon as I open them up, I'm just overwhelmed by how much decision-making there is at every step of the process. There's the decision-making of looking at the profiles, trying to read a little bit about them, look at the pictures, try to decide what can I gauge about this? Do I think this would be a good match? Trying to figure that out.
Then if you do decide, yes, then it's like, okay, what message would I send? What's a good introduction? What's something that's not just like, "Hey, what's up?" I also noticed recently that on OkCupid, when you match with someone, it gives you some suggestions of messages, and one of them is like, "What's up?" I'm like, "Are you fucking kidding me OkCupid? That is literally the worst message you could send. Everybody knows this. Why do you make it a one click button to send that message? This is ridiculous."
Anyway, all of that to say, what I noticed is, I was just like, I want to say no to everyone because it's easier, because then I don't have to make all those extra decisions about how to initiate this just because I'm tired of making decisions and doing that, because I do that a lot at my job, I do that a lot for this podcast, and for our other podcast, and there's a lot of that figuring stuff out.
I do that a lot with scheduling things with my friends or whatever. If you have other partners, it's there too. I guess I want to just bring that up to say some of that burnout and frustration with dating apps could be coming from other things like that and not just the relative success rates, or the way the system's trying to be gamified, or how they're trying to get everyone to spend more money on their apps. Like Billy said, don't let capitalism do that to you. I think that's true. Then also, just, here's my hot take. I think we have passed the golden age of dating apps, and I think we are going to see people moving away from them, because I think we have reached this saturation point where it's like, I think they will never go away.
I think they still can be a useful tool, they can be a way to branch out of your social circles and where you would meet people, but just compared to before where I felt like there was this heyday. When Dedeker and I met each other, well, through Emily meeting someone through OkCupid, and then introducing us, but I think there was a little bit more of that. It was on the upswing, and it hit this saturation point, and then I think this combination of the depersonalization we've all had with each other because of being really isolated during the pandemic, and a lot of fear and extra concerns coming up along with just general political and social stress getting a lot higher in recent years, and then economic stress, I think all of these things have combined together that I predict, and I think it's already happening.
Like we said at the beginning of the episode, people are so ready to be in person, and to have a connection that's not just looking at information on a screen, and not just making decisions based on that, that I think this also might be something that's not as hot as it was, and so the question to ask yourself is I think, it's becoming increasingly mediated by dating apps. I'm not sure that's true. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I just predict that we're going to see that way of dating apps is legit. The way people meet each other is not going to just continue to be like that's the only way you do it. I think meeting in person, and finding events for that, and people hosting events for that I think is going to be making a comeback if it's not already.
Billy: Yes. I emcee speed dating events on the side, and there are a lot people at those, man. People do want those in-person connections. I recommend it. The diversify your portfolio if you're going to think about this in such an efficiency terminology.
Jase: Right. You might look at someone and be like, "I don't know." Based on just their pictures and their profile, but if you met that person in person, you might go, "Damn, okay. I'm interested. I at least want to know more." There is something very different to that, like seeing a living, breathing person. There's a poly speed dating event that happens here in Seattle that I haven't been to yet, but I've heard it's packed. So many people are showing up to it. That they've been having a really hard time organizing it actually, so it's like, yes, there is a lot of desire for that in person. It makes a lot of sense.
Dedeker: Well, thank you for being two resident dudes to weigh in on that.
Jase: Thanks, dude.
Dedeker: Then also let the resident ladies get stuff off of our chest as well.
Billy: Sorry if I went too extreme and intense.
Dedeker: No, no, no, no. It's totally fine.
Emily: It's all right. We had many different viewpoints so it was great.
Dedeker: No, Billy, I think completely appropriate level of intensity. We just know that this question asker is in our Patreon group, and so that's how we know they're a cool and good person.
Billy: Oh, you're like, "He's a good guy." You don't know Ben, but he's a good dude. It's fine. You tone it down. You don't have to treat him like one of those.
Jase: There you go. Yes, yes. Question asker, I empathize with you, and I support you, and I don't think that you're one of those people who's just blaming the system for your problems. You're trying to say, "How do I avoid the temptation to fall into that?" And I think that's great that you're asking those questions.
Billy: discord and apologize by the way.
Emily: Oh no. Okay.
Jase: All right. We have one last question. This one's just a real short one, but I just thought was interesting, so I wanted to put this in here, and that is, do you know of any stats around how many of the folks who are in the polyam or non-monogamous communities are straight versus how many are queer? Asking as someone who is in a six-member polycule with some heterosexual presenting relationships within it, but none of the people identify as heterosexual.
Basically, the short answer to that is, there's not been a statistically-validated study of the general population of everyone who identifies as polyamorous and non-monogamous that has found these numbers that I'm aware of at least. No one's done that. It's actually a really hard thing to do because getting a generalizable sample of non-monogamous people is actually pretty hard. Partly because, it's hard to identify what counts as non-monogamy, and then also hard to get respondents. Basically, if you think that maybe 5%-ish of people in the US are some kind of non-monogamous, which is the latest numbers that we've heard, although they might be higher now. Because that's studies from several years ago, but even if you took that, you would have to randomly survey so many people to get enough of a representative sample of that 5% of that larger sample, and ask the right questions. It's a challenging thing to do, and very expensive, but I can at least give maybe a little bit of an insight.
A few years ago, Dr. Ryan Witherspoon, who's been on this show before, he does some cool studies about non-monogamy, and he had a study that was about basically discrimination and microaggressions against non-monogamous people, and various resiliency factors, and how that affects their lives and things like that. They collected data by having an internet survey that people could, I think it got advertised various places in different online groups, and people could self-select to decide to respond to it.
This is not meant to determine the demographic representation, but we can look at some of the demographics from it, and it might give us at least an idea of what polyamorous or non-monogamous people respond to surveys online, which, maybe biases it a little bit, but it could give us some insights. On that, in this particular study about, it looks like around 36% identified as heterosexual, and everyone else was something else, whether that was bisexual, pansexual, gay, lesbian, other, or queer, something else like that.
It is also worth noting that of these respondents, only 35.4% identified as male, the rest were either female, or non-binary, or trans. That also could be skewing those results a little, but it does at least give you a sense of like, yes, there does seem to be a fairly good representation of things besides heterosexuality within that population just based on who responded to that survey. Again, nothing definitive, but it is at least interesting to look at those numbers and wonder about it, and hopefully someone can do more of an actually generalizable study about it.
Billy: Similar to that swinger question earlier, you find more of like that heteronormativity or like those like opposite sex pairings in swinger land as opposed to anywhere that calls itself like poly, play. If you're looking at first couples, that's why I was like, if that's quire cult, if they're a quire couple, they may want to edge towards the poly land because you're going to find a lot more quire representation like open queers as opposed to like say in a swinger community.
Jase: That's a great point. Yes, and this survey included all of those. Yes, if you had a survey that was just one particular subset of that, one, it makes your data even harder to collect in certain ways, at least, numbers-wise. That very much could skew it in a very different direction. Thank you, everybody, we really appreciate you submitting your questions. We got a lot of submissions for this episode, and I'm so sorry that we couldn't get to all of them. We tried to do as many as we felt like we could get to in this week's episode, but thank you to everyone who submitted those. We really appreciate you, and thank you to Billy for joining us today in this discussion.
Billy: Thank you for having me back.
Jase: Yes, it's been a pleasure. Billy, please tell us, where can listeners find more of your stuff? Where can they find your podcast, your standup comedy shows, all that stuff?
Billy: I host the Manwhore podcast. That's Manwhore, one word. You can find that wherever you're listening to Multiamory. I live on Twitter and Instagram, you search me Billy Procida, P-R-O-C-I-D-A, I pop right up. If you're in the greater New York City area, I do host a monthly naked comedy show in Brooklyn.
Jase: Is the audience naked or the comedians?
Billy: The comedians are naked, and the first two rows of audience are clothing optional.
Jase: Oh, wow. Okay.
Billy: We get quite a bit of participation in that regards. "Why the first two rows, Billy?" I can see you in the front two rows. I don't know what that guy in the back corner is going to do if I let him take his pants off. I'm going to where the right still hits.
Jase: You got to keep an eye on him.
Billy: Absolutely got to. We do it at this sex-positive community space called Hacienda where they do educational shops, performances like this one, and a lot of play parties. If you are in the New York area and you maybe heard of Hacienda, and you want to check out the space, this is a great way to do it. Our next are July 28th and August 18th, and if you are following me on social media, you listen to the podcast, you'll certainly know how to get tickets.