Let's Talk About Sex (And Ethics)

TOPICS DISCUSSED

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EPISODE RESOURCES

Primary Election Results in Pennsylvania and North Carolina

Sexual Ethics

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:00] The macro takeaway is that no one is okay. Why are we consumed by micro analysis when the the macro conclusion is nobody is okay. Everything is weird. 

Beth [00:00:15] We have people worried about getting infant formula. There's a war -- like, just too many things.  

Sarah [00:00:27] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:29] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:30] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. 

[00:00:44] Hello, everyone. I'm back. Welcome to another episode of Politics Politics here with both of us, Sarah and Beth. Today, in the immortal words of salt and pepper, we're going to talk about sex. We've been fascinated by the recent public discussions about sexual ethics and sex positivity and wanted to talk about it here on the show. First up, we're going to discuss the results of last week's primaries. We're also going to tackle the latest celebrity news outside of politics and discuss the defamation trial against Amber Heard. Before we get started, thank you so much to everyone who reached out and checked on me during my Covid convalescent. My entire family got Covid last week. It really sucked. Nicholas and I did take Paxlovid, so I feel like I have a new Covid experience to add to my Covid memory book. But thank you for all the kind words and virtual Cobbler. I'm ready for a real Cobbler. I'm just going to be honest. It's Cobbler season anyway, but I really appreciate it. And Beth and our entire team, thank you so much for letting me just be sick and taking the reins and doing the News Brief and doing all the things last week.  

Beth [00:01:53] I'm glad that you're feeling better and that you're back. I got a cold over the weekend. So far testing negative for Covid and I'm feeling better, so hopefully it's just a cold. But I also really appreciate everyone's patience and grace. Sarah mentioned the news brief, which is a reference to Good Morning that she hosted Monday through Thursday for our members. We have two podcasts that are paywalled. Good morning with Sarah Monday through Thursday mornings, and More To Say with me Monday through Thursday evenings. And that community really takes the brunt of it when we're struggling around here. And it's also the place where we feel incredibly supportive and like we can have real conversations about what's going on in our families, in our lives and with our work. So special thanks to everyone there for your patience and grace as we were on the struggle bus last week. And if you are not part of that community, we would love for you to join it. It's one of the most wonderful places on the Internet.  

Sarah [00:02:46] It's also the support that allows one of us to take a sick week or for me to go, you know, to Vanderbilt when my child was diagnosed with diabetes. So I feel like my gratitude for our premium communities knows no end over the last three weeks. So thank you so much to everyone for your support. We'd love to have you if you haven't checked it out yet. Up next, we're going to talk about the primaries. Last week, all eyes were on Pennsylvania where we still don't have a winner. And the Republican Senate primary between Dr. Oz and David McCormick and a third candidate who really surged at the end and played a substantial role, Kathy Barnett. So as of Saturday afternoon, with more than 1.34 million votes counted in the race, turnout was very high across Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz has 1,070 more counted votes than McCormick. It's a difference of less than 0.08 percent. So with less than 0.5, they're definitely going to have a recount. It is fascinating to me to watch the 2020 lie that has infected the Republican Party and their approach to elections and recounts play out in a primary, which is what you're seeing here. You know, Trump has encouraged Dr. Oz to go ahead and claim victory. He's steaming about ballots and in recounts and there's all these court cases. And they're just swallowing their own poison pill right now with this sort of infectious attitude. You've seen it play out with candidates across primaries right now. I think the candidates that really spout that lie and lean all the way in can see some voter passion. But then when it comes down to really close races like this one, the pragmatic reality of that narrative really comes to play.  

Beth [00:04:56] I've actually felt really encouraged that neither candidate here has declared victory, and both candidates have just been like willing to wait for every vote to be counted. I think knowing that Trump's encouragement has a limitation is really positive. Even in a race where he tried to impact the outcome and perhaps did to some extent. I mean, I think the conservative NeverTrump analysis that I have been consuming a lot is that Trump wins in any scenario here, because while he hasn't endorsed the Cicero Longwell's line, I think it's so brilliant. Well, he hasn't endorsed all the candidates. All the candidates have endorsed him. And I think that's significant. But it is good to see that even where all the candidates endorse him and perhaps feel that they must to have any chance through a Republican primary, that when it comes to the actual result of the election, there is a limit to how far they're willing to take his advice. I think that's encouraging.  

Sarah [00:06:01] There is not a consistent conclusion to draw from this primary or any of the primaries. I think up until this point, it's not as if Donald Trump's endorsement crowns you a winner. It seems like there's about 20 to 30 percent of the 30 percent of people who identify as Republicans that are going to vote for the Trump endorsed candidate no matter what. There was a really crowded field in the Pennsylvania Republican primary for governor. And State Senator Doug Mastriano won. And he is much less encouraging when it comes to the message to regards with elections. I mean, he was like at the Stop the Steal rally ahead of the insurrection on January six. He wanted to do an Arizona style partizan review of the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. His approach is scary and I think he won the primary much to the chagrin of the Republican establishment. And it was a crowded field. And it didn't feel like the establishment really focused on one candidate. They wanted to beat him. And the way that they did, for example, in North Carolina -- we're going talk about that in a second. You know, even that I don't think is a sure fire way to beat back some of these scarier candidates across some of the primary races. You  can't really draw a conclusion with regards to Trump, with regard to the establishment, with regards to the Republican voters, except for it does seem like if you want to succeed, the party line now is that the 2020 election was stolen.  

Beth [00:07:39] I haven't read much about turnout in Pennsylvania, but something that really pumped the brakes for me on trying to draw any conclusions from any primaries whatsoever on Tuesday was the primary turnout in my county. We had really significant local races on the ballot races that would be decided by the Republican primary. And the last count I saw had less than 5000 people voting in the race for my state representative for a district that includes about 50,000 people. That's pretty discouraging, you know, that a candidate can narrowly win or even blow out a primary with so few people not have to run in the general election and just have the seat. And I understand why primary turnout is low for a midterm election year. At the same time, it just depresses me so much and makes me like leery of trying to say too much about any part of America right now based on what might not have been a very representative slice of the population.  

Sarah [00:08:48] Well, the turnout was really high in Pennsylvania, and I think the turnout is reflective of everything we've seen, which is the nationalization of politics. And so it is a hot national race, which we did not have in Kentucky. You're going to see huge turnout. Georgia's got a primary coming up with a very, very hot, I would argue, nationalized governor's race. And you're seeing really high turnout in the mail-in ballots. And so, I think it's just it's the the same thing on a different day, which is if it gets a lot of national news media, if it's something that Trump's paying attention to, if it's something that political Twitter is paying attention to, if it's a race that everybody knows whether they live in the state or not, which that is absolutely true of the Republican primary in Pennsylvania, then you're going to have high turnout. I don't know if that makes you less depressed or more. 

Beth [00:09:45] Both. I think it's both. The thing about Pennsylvania, too, is that it garners a lot of attention because you have an incumbent in the race and how rare that is to have a Senate election without an incumbent in it, which is also something like it might make you a little bit depressed if you think about it too much. The longevity of careers in the Senate has benefits for sure, but it has risks as well. And I think one of those risks is that once a seat does come open, the amount of money thrown into those races and the amount of national attention on those races, kind of distorts what you might otherwise understand about a state and its politics.  

Sarah [00:10:23] Well, the Republicans are not the only ones who had a primary for that open Senate seat. There was also a Democratic primary like Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman won pretty handedly over Conor Lamb, who used to be sort of a darling of the Democratic establishment. But Fetterman wiped the floor with him. And there's been lots of writing about what kind of candidate Democrats want, that they want a fighter just as much as the Republican side does. I don't know if one primary is cause for that much sort of hand-wringing or across the board conclusion making. I think that is definitely the theme of the segment, is everybody chill with the conclusions. But I like Fetterman. I think he's totally an interesting and intriguing guy and a good candidate. And so I think he'll do well against whoever comes out of this recount as the winner. I think he would do particularly good against Dr. Oz, if I'm being honest. Because if it's an authenticity battle about who knows and understands Pennsylvania, I think it would be hard for Dr. Oz to beat John Fetterman, but we'll see what happens.  

Beth [00:11:36] I absolutely would have voted for Conor Lamb. I think he is a really good candidate and the kind of person that I would like to see more of in the United States Senate. I agree with you that I think Fetterman just rings true to people in a way that Dr. Oz is not capable of ringing true to people. Even if he were kind of a different form of charismatic, I just think Pennsylvania is a hard fit for him given the career that he's had.  

Sarah [00:12:03] And the fact that he's not from Pennsylvania and he doesn't live in Pennsylvania. Perhaps that's what's really untrue to people. And then, of course, we had a primary race in North Carolina, several important primary races. But I know the one you guys want us to talk about is the fact that Madison Cawthorn lost his primary to State Senator Chuck Edwards so that he will not be on the ballot in November and will not be returning to Congress. He went on a little bit of a rant. Beth, I don't know if you saw this.  

Beth [00:12:33] Oh, yes.  

Sarah [00:12:34] He said, "It's time for the rise of the new right. It's time for Dark MAGA to truly take command." What does that even mean?  

Beth [00:12:43] I thought we were already experiencing Dark MAGA.  

Sarah [00:12:46] I definitely feel it. Yes. I thought we were already there. Dark MAGA feels like a thing that already exists for sure.  

Beth [00:12:53] If January six we're not Dark MAGA, I'm confused about where this might go and alarmed.  And you had started talking about this. I just think that Madison is not okay.  

Sarah [00:13:06] He's not okay. I know people want me to dance on his grave and be thrilled. I cannot do that. I cannot. He is clearly in distress. Where are his parents. Does he have a therapist? Does he have anybody in his life who cares about him or his mental well-being -- even his soul? Where are those people?  

Beth [00:13:30] I mean, I for sure think this is a scenario where the United States, the state of North Carolina, his colleagues in the House, and he himself, everyone is better off with him not being in Congress. What I worry about is that he will be given an even larger microphone now that he has served a term and lost and is making such a thing of his loss. I hope that he finds a path toward okay at some point. But I think a lot of people are not okay. I think Elon Musk is not okay right now.  

Sarah [00:14:09] He's not okay.  

Beth [00:14:11] I think I'm not particularly okay. But I just see a lot of people with really public platforms who are decidedly straying. And when I say not okay, I'm not trying to diagnose anyone from my couch, I'm just saying I see a shift here. And even for Madison Cawthorn, I see a shift that indicates to me that something in life has gone down a path that is not what he wished and that there is at least some serious disappointment that isn't being felt as much as it's being like splattered all over everything.  

Sarah [00:14:48] I think that would be my take away from the primaries. The primaries we have yet to hold, the general election coming in November, is it feels so weird and disjointed to me to have these elections to sort of check the Dave Wasserman Twitter feed and do the traditional things, when the macro takeaway is that no one is okay. Why are we consumed by micro analysis of these individual races when the macro conclusion is nobody's okay, everything is weird, the candidates are weird, the choices are weird.  

Beth [00:15:34] And we have people worried about getting infant formula. There's a war -- like, just too many things.  

Sarah [00:15:40] It's so bad and weird. And so to be engaged in this election analysis, which has as its foundation, this just sort of pragmatic presumption of a baseline reality, which I don't think we all share. It just feels weird to me. It feels really weird. Also, it was the first primary I didn't vote. And it was the first election that -- I mean, turnout was down. I wonder in Kentucky for the same reason I didn't vote, which is a lot of people have Covid right now and I couldn't go. I didn't get a mail-in ballot.  

Beth [00:16:18] And a very short early voting window.  

Sarah [00:16:19] Very short early voting window. And I'd planned to vote on election day and I was very sick. I  don't think I've missed an election until this one. So, again, it's just another reflection in my personal life of the just weirdness.  

Beth [00:16:33] It's a reminder of the enormous gap between people who pay attention to politics and people who really don't. Ellen came home from school on Monday and I said, "We don't have school tomorrow. Do you know why?" No idea. Usually, there's at least some chatter about the fact that we're voting and the schools are part of the voting. And that's why we want teachers to vote and families to vote. Nothing. Not a clue. And she doesn't miss much that Ellen Silvers. So I just think I get why this didn't rise to the top of everyone's to do list in my county. I seriously regret the fallout of that because many important races were decided here because there are zero Democrats running for those offices. But here we are and that is how it works in our system. And I can't even bring myself to say, like, "Come on, everybody, let's rally. We got to get more people running for office," because, you know, everything's weird right now and pretty difficult and it's hard to know what to prioritize.  

Sarah [00:17:37] I think that is the perfect transition into our next discussion where everything is weird right now and it's difficult to know what to prioritize, which is about sex and sexual ethics in our culture. Before we start this conversation, obviously, a warning. We're going to talk about sex. So if you have littles in the room or littles listening and you don't want them to hear any of that, now here's your chance. And even if you don't have children in the room, just a moment at the outset to say this is a very tender topic. We have gotten lots of emails with people sharing heartbreaking stories of sexual assault and sexual trauma and their own journeys through sexuality. It's fraught. It's tender. We are not going to cover even a tiny portion of the entirety of what is swept up in this topic. But we are going to have a conversation. Beth, I thought the best way to start this conversation was to talk about our own sexual ethics, sort of how we grew up and what our sexual ethics were informed by and how that took us into adulthood.  

Beth [00:19:01] I was raised in rural Kentucky by parents who had me with them at church every time the doors were open. And that was usually Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday. So my church was a huge part of just who we were and what we did with our time. And it's interesting to me to contrast my experience because if I tell you, I grew up Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening in a Southern Baptist church in rural Kentucky, that probably makes me sound like I'm going to be a poster child for purity culture, and I got a little bit of that. I think what I understood from the church side of things was that there was just an expectation that everybody understood that sex is for marriage and we don't really need to address it beyond that. I did not get beaten over the head with those messages. I think I did at some point sign a true love waites card in the context of some dumb youth rally. And I say dumb because whenever I was outside of my church it did start to get dumb to me. But inside my church, I always felt like there was some space for individual questioning, individual discernment. We used the phrase personal relationship with Christ a lot, and I think people meant it. And so I didn't get hammered over the head with messages about sex like I know a lot of people who grew up in a situation with a similar description to mine did.  

[00:20:28] My parents did not talk with me a whole lot about sex. They, I think, very wisely gave me a lot of room around relationships. If I had a boyfriend, he was welcome at our house. He was welcome to do things with my family. They didn't insert themselves a whole lot into those relationships, and they also didn't insert themselves in that sort of, oh, I think you two are going to get married kind of way. I think they neither underdid it nor overdid it in terms of their influence around me dating while I was still living at home. So I think I always had a sense, if I'm thinking of like my teenage and college years, that the rule is that sex is for marriage. Maybe we're not super serious about that rule in particular, but it is a serious thing and it is a thing that always carries really high risk. And I need to be sure that I'm ready to accept that risk before I enter into a relationship that involves sex. Does that make sense?  

Sarah [00:21:33] Yes. I was beat over the head with purity culture. And I don't want this episode to become about purity culture. We have done episodes on purity culture. I'm sure we'll do another one. But I definitely [Inaudible]. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church in a youth group where there was an enormous amount of emphasis on girls, in particular, staying pure and only having sex inside of marriage. But I was very lucky because my mother had a very open and honest approach about sex. My mom did talk to me about sex very regularly from a very young age and was always just 100 percent transparent with me in a way that I think really was an important balance to what I was hearing at my youth group and inside my church environment. That was very, very, positive. But I got to college, I met my husband and I don't think it will come as a surprise due to the fact that we have three children, that we had sex. And he's been my sexual partner ever since. I understand that is an incredibly unique experience, like, not particularly common. So the window at which my sexual ethic was informed sort of outside of my parents home and outside of a monogamous, committed relationship was very small.  

[00:23:07] It was like my freshman year of college when my politics changed enormously when I became a women's studies minor. And so I did take in a lot of very different sort of approach to sexual ethics. I went from this, like, Baptist environment where it was like sex was for marriage to a liberal arts university where it was like, no, sex isn't just for marriage. I think I had a couple female professors and friends that gave me a really good foundation about sort of the importance of female desire and the importance of consent. The vagina monologues was like really huge at that point in our college career. And so I think I took in a lot of a very different sexual ethic than what I had been raised from in a very short amount of time. But then really found myself in the place that the church wanted me to be in which was sex inside marriage. And I think we could do a whole other show on sex inside of marriage. But what I think is really interesting is sort of the messages we absorb about sex. And I definitely absorbed the message that not only was sex for marriage, but purity was something to sort of put on a pedestal.  

[00:24:26] I vividly remember like being a virgin and being taught that I can be like you whenever I want, but you can never be like me again. Vividly. It was like it hit every button I had as [Inaudible]. And so then when my understanding politically started to shift and what I was taking out in and around sex as far as reading and movies and TV, it shifted.  And I understood that the sense of like, okay, well now it's not about purity is what makes you good. It's about a situation where everyone is consenting inside this sexual encounter or this sexual relationship. And I got that message loud and clear. I'm not sure that I would say it it outweigh the messages I got about purity. Those were so formative and in such an important age to me. I'm sure I'll be unpacking those like so many members of our audience for a long time to come. But I got a new message around sex for sure during that college time. And I think I absorbed it, continued to absorb it even in my twenties, even to now.  

Beth [00:25:31] That virginity piece is what I think I didn't absorb the way that I understand it from people who were more immersed in purity culture. Like, I never felt that I had a different responsibility than men in terms of my sexuality, except that I was terrified of pregnancy in a way that I think the boys in my youth group did not have to contend with.  

Sarah [00:26:00] Right.  

Beth [00:26:01] And that stuck with me until my twenties. And it wasn't until late in my law school career when I met Chad, who I would ultimately marry, that I felt like this is a risk that I can contend with now, that if I were to get pregnant, that's a scenario that I could handle. It wasn't one I desired, but it was one that I could handle. And that for me, the fact that I felt that I could handle it and that I trusted that he would handle it with me, even though it was very early in our relationship when I made that assessment, that's what persuaded me that like, okay, this is a risk I'm ready to take now.  

Sarah [00:26:42] And so there's been a lot of interesting writing and essays and a couple of books recently about these sexual ethics. I was intrigued by the critique in particular of sex positivity in this idea that is this sexual ethic, that I definitely absorb, which is that it's based on consent. That's the ethic. The ethic is based around consent is is not quite enough. There's been a lot of writing about the fact that teenagers are having a lot of sex. And, look, I'm not here to get into that moral panic. I don't really care how much sex teenagers are having. I mean,  we're going to get into this in a minute about what we want our children sexual ethics to be. And I'll expand on that. But everything I read about that, like the teenagers, I sort of take with a grain of salt because we made teenagers up in the 20th century. And I just try to keep that in mind as I'm officially now raising a teenager. And so I think those statistics are interesting. And there are definitely statistics that say teen pregnancy is down and teenagers are having less sex. I don't think this is like a reason to panic, but I do think it's interesting.  

[00:27:49] And I think in particular the writing coming from women and men in their twenties, late twenties that are saying this is what access to porn did to me. This is what these ideas around sex and consent and desire sort of where they lived up to their promise. This is where they fell short. I think that's a really interesting conversation, not because I think we're trying to reach any conclusions, not that I think that there is a right conclusion, but I think what our culture could really benefit is a more open and nuanced conversation around what are our sexual ethics? What do we want them to be? Where do we feel like they fell short? I mean, I think we've all definitely decided purity culture was bad. Well, not all of us. But I think there's been a really positive conversation around all the ways purity culture fell short. And I think that it is beneficial to talk about sort of the mirror image of that sexual ethic and where it falls short, because of course it does. Of course it falls short. Of course it's not perfect.  

Beth [00:28:59] I've never met a single person who doesn't have some real hang ups about sex, who hasn't absorbed some really strange messages about sex. Whether you come from it's more of the sexual liberation end of things or the purity culture and are somewhere in between even. The way that we joke about what sex means in a marriage. Just almost every one of us is carrying some real baggage and you see that in the statistics. I think the thing I absorbed in addition to consent is the name of the game, when I started to get older and hear more conversation about sexual ethics, it was number one, that consent is the most important component of a sexual encounter. And number two, understand that sex is about power more than it's about love. And I think that that has truth in it and also is incomplete. And also has led to some kind of messed up dynamics. And if you just look at the statistics on how many people have been sexually assaulted and then have lived in that gray space of I didn't say no, but I didn't quite mean yes. Or I meant yes, but not yes to all of it.  

[00:30:20] And just that weird feeling of being involved in an encounter that didn't feel like everyone's dignity was respected and upheld and uplifted. Like too many of us have those stories. And so,  something is broken here and has been since we've been people. And so continuing to talk about it seems really important to me and continuing to talk about it in ways that are filled with a lot of patience and grace for each other's language.  I've been reading Christine Emba's Rethinking Sex, which she subtitles A Provocation, and I get hung up on just her words constantly. And then I think, of course, you're getting hung up on your words. These are all the words we're fighting about everywhere all the time right now. And you cannot talk about sex without talking about gender identity, sexual orientation, abortion. Like, it's infecting everything and always has been. And so, yeah, we need to put it on the table and be willing to say like, okay, I would have expressed that idea differently, but I still want to grapple with this idea.  

Sarah [00:31:29] Right. And I think that's what's so hard is that we want -- I mean, there's a part of me that thinks, can we find some sexual ethics? Is that even available to us? Are there rules that we can, in a perfect world, find that are going to guide us through those incredibly complex gray intimate. That's what's so hard about these sexual encounters. They're intimate. They're vulnerable. There is power at play. There are incredible emotions at play. And I think that's what's so hard. I'll never forget one time my mom and I talking about this. And it was in college where I definitely rejected this idea of like sex only belongs in marriage. And I was like, you were so upfront and transparent with me about everything else. Why didn't you say, like, well, you don't really need to worry about that? And she was like, well, you were a teenager. What was I supposed to say? Like, I didn't want you to have sex.  I think that's what's so hard. Is like we're trying to talk about sexual ethics from what, you know, cradle to grave? That's a long timeline to govern people by. And I think, yeah, it is tempting to just look at every 14-year-old, 15-year-old, 18-year-old and go, "Just don't. Just don't do it.".  

[00:32:50] And there is a part of me, you know, as we sort of talk about, like, what do we want it to be?  What do we want the sexual ethics of our children to be like? I'm pretty open. Like, I don't want my kids to have sex in high school. Not because I think they're going to go to hell. Because I think they should wait until they find the person they want to marry. Just because I think it's a bad idea. And the actions and consequences of their brains are not fully developed yet. And it seems like a part of your brain you really want before you start having sex. And at the same time, I know -- my friend Kate is always like, that is a fool's errand. Like, their hormones are raging. And I'm like, well, I didn't have sex in high school. Nicholas didn't have sex in high school. How hard could it be? And she's like, it was hard, remember? And I was like, yeah, actually, I do remember. And it was very hard. But I think that that's the temptation of those rules. Like, just don't. How about just don't? Can we just go with maybe just don't?  

Beth [00:33:42] I really like the move toward talking not just about sex education, but about relationship and sex education. Because I think for me, the reason I would definitively say I don't want my kids to have sex in high school either is what I see with my 11-year-old. She is still really working out what friendship means. What do we owe each other as friends? What do we get over in conflict as friends? What tells us that this friendship is not worth continuing to pursue? And I don't know how you start to do the risk reward calculus with sex without having a really good handle on relationships and understanding what a relationship that has a romantic component is supposed to mean. And we're terrible with that as a culture. When I came out of law school and started doing some divorce work, it was just like a flashing neon sign that said people get married for really different reasons. And people want really different things in their relationships and those things change constantly. And people have really wildly different expectations for what a house ought to feel like. And we don't talk about much of that or depict it well even in what we are to understand as love stories. And so I don't know how I am to get a 14 to 18-year-old ready to even understand what that relationship is supposed to be, to create a context for sex that would make much sense.   

Sarah [00:35:21] Well, you know I'm raising three boys. Obviously, I want them to be informed by a sexual ethics of consent. You know, I want that to be that dang foundation that they build everything else on. I want them to understand that power at play. I want them to maintain some of that vulnerability and tenderness themselves and to be informed by desire and intimacy. I want all those things for them. But it's what am I supposed to do? Just sit down and talk to them about it? Like, I think about what my mom did right and that it was an ongoing conversation in our house. And that's what we try to practice in our house as well. And I also think she got lucky with a kid that, like, wanted to talk about it. And at least one of mine definitely doesn't. And it feels so hard. It feels like so much of what you learn about your own sexual ethics is just from tiptoeing out into the world and having the experiences. And it's like with the complexity of those situations, I can't prepare them for every gray area. I can't, you know, create a sexual ethics flowchart for them where it says, okay, well, if this happens, then you do this and hope they memorize it in the moment. It feels really hard and it feels like, well, I guess the best I can do is -- and maybe this is the best all of us can do is to formulate and teach just ethics overall that hopefully prop up those sexual ethics and moments where there are situations we couldn't have anticipated or taught them how to deal with.  

Beth [00:37:09] I think that's true. And I also think about how I don't think that I can impart rules to my daughters. I think I can impart scaffolding. As much as I want all the other values that I hope they are absorbing in our house to inform their sexual relationships and activities, and I think they will, I also really take from Christine Emba's writing that sex is unique and without metaphor, that it is an unusual human experience and you can draw some metaphors around it. The one that keeps occurring to me as I think through it is skydiving. Because people skydive for a lot of different reasons. I think people have sex for a lot of different reasons. I think it is a very high risk activity and I think sex is very high risk. And that's something that I want to make sure that my daughters understand. And I think that it changes you no matter what reason you did it for, something and you will be different after you've done it every single time. I imagine that if you skydive 15 times each time leaves an imprint on you in some way. And so when I say that I want them to have a good foundation and just what they're looking for in relationships, I don't mean to suggest that I want them to repeat my pattern. I don't mean to suggest that I want them to find their one true love and that.Be their only sexual partner.  

[00:38:34] Seems like a fool's errand to me to try to imagine what a good number of sexual partners for either of my kids will look like. And I just can't predict what any of this is going to mean to them or what they're going to want that part of their lives to be like. And I think they deserve the room to figure that out for themselves. But what I would say a scaffolding is even every person you have a crush on in your life kind of makes a mark on your heart. You know what I mean? Like, something in you will be changed when you let somebody in this way. And that is probably my point of departure from the total sex liberation side of the scale, because I do think these encounters have an element of meaning whether you intend them to or not. That is what I most want to convey to my kids as they make their way out into the world. There is going to be meaning here whether you intend it or not. There is going to be high risk. There is often going to be pretty low reward, especially if you intend there not to be meaning here. And so just proceed with caution and with intention about what you're looking for.  

Sarah [00:39:48] As I look back over my life how my sexual ethics have changed inside just a monogamous relationship, and I think about when Nicholas and I were first married, how consumed I was with like how often we should be having sex and how important that was. Seemed like a reflection of everything and sort of just how so many things have shifted. And I think my ethics could have shifted outside of that relationship. There's a part of me that wonders would I have gone on that same journey across several sexual partners. I think maybe. I think maybe. And I can't know. The multiverse is not available to me. I'm intrigued by that sliding door, but I don't have access to it. But I think maybe. And so, with my boys, I think you're right. I think it is a high risk activity. But I do think people find a deep and rewarding experiences with their own sexuality engaging in a lot of high risk behaviors. It's just so far outside of my experience, it's hard for me to even speak to. And I think we just need to find ways. You know, we've found a lot of ways to speak to the spectrum of sexuality. Griffin and I had a conversation about all the labels, the sexuality labels that have sort of blossomed in the last several years. And I said, "You know, I'm not bothered by any of the labels. I just wish everyone was followed by right now. I'm asexual right now.  

[00:41:33] There were definitely times in my life that I have been asexual for that period of time. And I think there were periods in my life where I was more bisexual than other periods in my life. Was just for that time. And I think we've like created this spectrum of identity and I wish we would create that spectrum for experiences. If a deep, wide and varied proliferation of sexual partners is what you're into right now, fine. Fine. That's what you're into right now. But there's just so much variance over a life. And I wish our sexual ethics had more room for that. Like I said, not just the spectrum of identity, but that spectrum of experience. I wish there was more room inside our sexual ethics for the sort of beauty of long term monogamous sex. I think that sort of fallen out of favor in some places. And I think there's something really beautiful there, too. And I think that there's, you know, sexuality found later in life that we don't have a lot of room for to talk about in our culture. You know, we're too consumed with how much sex teenagers are having to find that sort of entire spectrum of existence and be able to speak to it. That's what I hope for my kids. I just hope they have space for that entire spectrum of experience.  

Beth [00:43:10] I love how Esther Perel says that sex is a journey. And I think that gets to some of what you're talking about, that throughout your life your journey is going to just very. I understand why there is fear of talking about it that way and that there is a fear of diminishing certain identities by talking about them in temporal ways, especially given that we came up at a time when the argument in favor of marriage equality was, this isn't a choice. This is how people are born. Love is love. Let's recognize that. That there was a static quality that kind of gave everyone a sense that we weren't shifting things too much.  And so I understand the difficulty inherent in any conversation about this. I think there's difficulty inherent in conversations about porn, because I do think that so much of our current culture and the expectations around sex and the emotion surrounding the types of sex people are having is influenced in a really negative way by porn. I think a lot of the people who participate in the creation of porn are being exploited and abused. At the same time, I think it is important for us to figure out some safe, healthy ways for people to sort of explore their sexuality in a more passive sense. Honestly, that's why I feel really good about having Dipsy as one of our sponsors, because I think that that audio format where you're storytelling often in a really normal context, like there isn't anything really boundary pushing about it, but it gives people a safe way to engage their imagination, consider how they feel, and you know that the people creating it are not being exploited in the process and it doesn't have these kind of harmful visuals. I feel good about offering that to people as a way to say, "Hey, we all have this part of us and we need ways to engage with it. And a lot of the ways that we've been doing that have been really hurting us. Let's try a different one. But it's all very complicated.  

Sarah [00:45:36] I mean, I know what I don't want their sexual ethics to be informed by. And I know as I look back on my own life and definitely read so many of the stories that y'all have sent us over this last week, I mean, there are things that when they enter the space where sex is present are toxic, cancerous. I don't want their sexual experiences or mine to be informed by sham or guilt or violence or control. I think that's where we see all the cancerous effects of our sexual culture. Where you see people keeping secrets. People being assaulted with no recourse, with no justice. With just trauma and trauma and trauma informing decades of their life. And I think all the long reads in the world are not going to unpack and shift the sexual ethics and the way that those have really just ruined lives. I think we have a lot of work to do as Americans when it comes to sexual abuse and sexual assault and the shame that so many people deal around sex. And, you know, I don't I think we've done good work. I think we've made some progress, but we still have much further to go.  

Beth [00:47:21] Something I've been thinking about in the category of I would like my children to understand this. This is a draft. I'm not settled on it. Is that I think some amount of confusion is inherent to many sexual encounters, even in the context of long term monogamous relationships. And I think that confusion does not feel good. And so there is a sense that confusion must mean someone has a level of culpability. And I'm just not sure that that's always true. I think there are probably a lot of sexual encounters where there was an egalitarian experience and both people wished for it to be good for the other, and both people wished to respect the other. And did in fact. And still one or both people walked away from the encounter, experiencing a level of confusion. And I just kind of want to let them know that that's okay. It's something they don't have to hold by themselves, that they should have people in their lives that they can talk that through with to try to figure out what it means. But I noticed a theme in the messages that we received and a theme in all of the interviews from the long reads that I've read about this topic where people are kind of searching for a judgment on whether something was wrong. Like, did he do something wrong? Did I do something wrong? Should I have said this? Should I have done that? And in some some of the cases, yes, I think someone did do something wrong.  And someone did take advantage of someone else or exercised their power in a way that was abusive, but not all of them. I think some of them are just this confusing where we get confused about our bodies and our spirits and our emotions and our connections with other people and what we expected versus how it was. And I think a good baseline might be I might feel confused sometimes, and that doesn't mean I need to feel guilty or start to question whether this other person harmed me in some way.  

Sarah [00:49:30] Yeah, I think getting better at dealing with confusion. Again, that vulnerability in moments of intimacy is about the best we can hope for, for ourselves or our friends or our kids. Well, thank you to all of you who wrote in and helped us wade through this topic. I'm sure this will not be the last conversation we have about sex here on pantsuit politics. Up next, we're going to tackle what's on our mind outside of politics. Beth, we've stuck this outside of politics, but I'm not really sure it is. We're talking about Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard, which is in case you live under a rock is an ongoing defamation trial in Virginia. It is Johnny Depp, the actor, famous actor from Pirates of the Caribbean, making claim for three counts of defamation for $50 million plus in damages against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who has counterclaiming for $100 million. They were married. It was, by all accounts, a toxic and abusive relationship. She wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, never naming him by name, but claiming that she was an abused spouse. This is what his defamation suit is based on. He sued in Britain. I believe it was in the Daily Mail and lost his suit there when they called him a wife beater or something along those lines. He lost that case there. But here in the United States, this trial is going differently. The court of public opinion seems to be very much on his side. It has been a proliferation of very intense and very weird social media advocacy. I don't even know what to call it. Like his fans, sort of this team Johnny Depp situation has taken on a life of its own.  

Beth [00:51:27] I had to go to school on this a little bit because I have not been following this closely.  

Sarah [00:51:34] But you can't avoid, in a way, really weird.  

Beth [00:51:37] Well, I am aware of how closely others are following it, and I am aware of the fact that I cannot hop on any social media platform without being greeted by a video clip from the trial. And then Axios had this bananas chart about how people were so much more engaged on this topic than on the possible overturning of Roe versus Wade and a host of other issues.  

Sarah [00:52:03] Yeah. More interactions.  

Beth [00:52:05] And so what's interesting to me about it is less the conflict between the two of them and more why it is so captivating to people. But as I went to school on this, I went back and watched the video they made shortly after they got married, when they got into trouble for smuggling their dogs into Australia. And they made an apology video kind of. And watching the two of them in that apology video about the dogs right after they had gotten married, I just thought you can just tell from the beginning that these are two folks who live in a real different realm than I do and who are operating at kind of a different frequency than I am and maybe from each other. And I'm not sure what it is that they understand to be real, but is something different than I do. Because the apology video was like so un self-aware in every way. And so acted. That's the only way I know how to say it. So acted. That I just am not sure how you assess the credibility of either of them or figure out like what -- I used the word scaffolding a minute ago. I don't know what the scaffolding is around Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and what it has been in their relationship and how any of us are to enter this hall of mirrors with them.  

Sarah [00:53:31] Johny Depp has been famous a very long time. I think when he reached his level of fame for as many years as he's been famous, it does something to you. But, yeah, I'm not really interested in the intricacies of their clearly very toxic relationship. I do think he was abusive towards her. I think that she in good faith wrote that op-ed and felt that she had been abused. I am really horrified by the villainization of her. One of the best things I read was Steve McNeil wrote about sort of this villainization and she quoted Sarah Marshall, who is the historian on you're wrong about where they've gone through all these different women in the nineties in the arts who are mistreated. I mean, it's basically its own industry, right? Now, let's revisit Britney. Let's revisit Whitney. Let's revisit Monica Lewinsky. Let's revisit Tanya. Like, all these women and how they were villainized. And it's clear that it's just an industry for our entertainment and that we've learned nothing because here we are doing it to her.  

[00:54:32] You don't need to know the intricacies. You don't even need to agree or disagree that maybe she does have some mutual culpability inside the relationship to know that the way she is being portrayed and treated and talked about in social media is so gross and disturbing. And it's kind of depressing. It's depressing to me because I just feel like, oh, so all this talk about Paris Hilton and all these women who we're going to revisit and understand, like, well, this was patriarchy and this was misogyny and this is what we do to women in the public eye. Like, we aren't learning from it. This wasn't an exercise in self-awareness or cultural growth. It was just another form of entertainment. And we're going to do it to the next woman that comes along. And here we are doing it to her.  

Beth [00:55:21] Yeah. I think it's awful. I think a lot of what I dislike strongly sorry about the true crime genre is at play here. This need to play detective in their lives and to decide who's right and who's wrong and to have a judgment on that be available. This sounds to me like a very complicated situation always and a very volatile situation always. And the law is such a blunt instrument. This is the conversation I keep having about abortion with people. I will be sitting with someone who is staunchly pro-life and the conversation will become you and I probably agree, if we were presented with a hundred scenarios, we would probably agree about the ethics of each scenario in like 99 of them. But we cannot write the law in a way that captures the complexity of what we would go through in all 99 of those scenarios. The law is a blunt instrument, and that's how I feel about, honestly, the fact that he brought this lawsuit. The law is too blunt an instrument. I understand he's mad about losing his movie, and I understand that he might perhaps feel that he has really been lied about here.  

[00:56:48] Just as I think she wrote that op-ed in good faith, I think it is very possible that he in good faith believes that he has been unfairly maligned. I think both of those things can be true. And we don't have a court system that knows what to do with a situation like that. And we certainly don't have a court system that knows what to do in a situation like that, in the presence of a jury of millions of people watching this thing play out over their phones. So I hate it. And at the same time, I get why there is a draw to what feels like a messy, complicated, personal story that lots of people have some connection to, even if it's in the tiniest way that things are being talked about here that aren't talked about in a lot of places and why that's captivating. So I'm not, like, mad at anybody who's interested in it. Just on a macro level, it makes me want to pull my hair out.  

Sarah [00:57:47] Well and I think, to pick up our sexual ethics conversation, in the fallout from MeToo there have been a lot of very public situations really recently even in the last few weeks. Fred Savage got released for inappropriate behavior. Bill Murray got released from a project for inappropriate behavior. I think that there's all these situations where clearly and I think this is where you see that the passion from team Johnny Depp. People have feelings about that.  

Beth [00:58:19] Oh, yeah.  

Sarah [00:58:19] People have some feelings about the fact that they feel, right or wrong, that it is very easy to accuse a man of something and to 'ruin his life over it'. Now, look, that sentence might run one way up and down the other, and I get it. It runs up MeToo. That doesn't change the fact that clearly millions of Americans feel like we've gone way too far in one direction. So we can just try to wish that away or we can see this manifestation in this Johnny Depp trial for what it is, which is people think it's too easy to ruin a man's life with an accusation and they want to talk about it. So if we're going to talk about sexual ethics, you know, I always think celebrity stuff is where we work it out. This is not just about people being WikiLeaks, although I'm sure that's a huge part of it. When something hits the way this is hit, it's because it's touched something that everybody's real raw about, or at least a huge portion of the population is really raw about. And that's why this has taken off like rocket fuel, I think.  

Beth [00:59:20] No, I think that's right. There is a reason I'm just sitting here still marinating on lookie-loo, which is a term I've never heard before.  

Sarah [00:59:30] You don't say Lookie-loo?  

Beth [00:59:30] No, but I enjoyed it. I think there's a reason that Republicans wanted to bring up Brett Kavanaugh during Justice Cassandra Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing, because you would think that would have been an embarrassing episode, but not so. It's rocket fuel for them in a lot of ways. And, yeah, I think we have to figure out how to have an adult conversation about the fact that some people, including an awful lot of women really believe that we are too quick to ruin someone's life over an accusation. And I think we got to have that conversation while holding in our other hand, and maybe with both feet, the fact that we have forever ruined lots and lots and lots of lives by not contending with real serious, substantial abuse.  

Sarah [01:00:26] With secrets that are still buried deep. Still buried.  

Beth [01:00:29] Absolutely. And we're not going to get to that through this trial. But I do think this trial is what we have. You know, for a lot of people, this trial is currently what we have to try to continue to work that out.  

Sarah [01:00:46] I'm not enjoying it as a vehicle to work that out. I don't know about you.  

Beth [01:00:49] I would just like to move on from it. But then I feel crappy saying that because I really don't feel judgmental of the folks who identify with some piece of this. So I am having a hard time talking about this one because I so hate this use of the court system. I think the court system is the worst place to be able to hold all these things. How do we have accountability and truth telling? And what the court system can never do is some kind of healing. And that's what everybody needs. But I just can't be mad at people who are like, we have nothing. So this is the instrument that we have. And I'm going to try to figure it out here.   

Sarah [01:01:38] I don't think we're figuring anything out. I think that's the problem. All I figured out is that people still love to villainize a woman. That's what I figured out from this trial. They love it. They love it so much.  

Beth [01:01:48] Well, and that he has been beloved for so long in so many roles. I mean, he was very, very, famous before the Internet. And it's people are not going to let that go easily.  

Sarah [01:02:00] And they feel like they're getting something back.  

Beth [01:02:02] I think that's right.  

Sarah [01:02:04] They feel like that something was taken from them and they're getting it back in this, like, very visceral way.  

Beth [01:02:14] I actually think that might be the most important thing that has been said in this conversation, because that's it. And I don't understand what the thing is that's being gotten back, if it is a sense that redemption is available for Johnny Depp so it's available for me also. Where it might potentially be if I ever need it to be. I don't know what the thing is.  

Sarah [01:02:37] Or this thing I loved, I can have it back. You told me I couldn't love it any more, but I can.  

Beth [01:02:41] Yeah. There's something to that that I think is infusing a lot, a lot, of our politics right now.  

Sarah [01:02:53] And I just think what's so hard to remember, especially with somebody as famous as Johnny Depp, they're both real people. Every meme you see, every jokein Tik Tok, that's a real human being. I can't even fathom what that must be like for either of them, honestly.  

Beth [01:03:11] Or all the people who love them. So many people are opening these apps and seeing this who have a genuine connection to one of them. Can you imagine? This is one of your friends.  

Sarah [01:03:25] Or your daughter. Or your father. I just can't.  

Beth [01:03:27] Oh, my gosh. 

Sarah [01:03:29] Again, maybe it's not even the villainization. It's just like this two-dimensional characterization. Like, I thought we weren't going to do it anymore. I don't know why I thought that. I just felt like we were watching all this. Like, I mean, but I was going to say we're watching all these true life and Pamela Anderson biopics understanding the cost of these things. But they made that movie without Pamela Anderson's consent. So, clearly, these biopics aren't really here to teach us anything. They're just here to entertain us and make a buck.  

Beth [01:04:01] When it was happening in the nineties, it was being done by very powerful media corporations. I do sense in the very powerful media corporations an effort to put some distance between themselves in this story. But media is so democratized.  

Sarah [01:04:21] True. And they can just operate on Tick-Tock, right?  

Beth [01:04:24] Yeah, exactly.  

Sarah [01:04:25] Jay Leno doesn't have to make the joke. Joe Schmo on Tik Tok is making it a million times.  

Beth [01:04:29] Yeah, yeah, that's right. Now, the big, powerful media corporations could be having conversations like this. What does it mean that we're doing this? But I at least feel like they are not. And maybe I'm missing some of it because I'm not in search of this story. But as I did some searching around this story, I saw an effort to deal with this differently than I saw around whenever the nineties equivalents of this were.  

Sarah [01:04:56] Yeah, I hope it's not too little too late, unfortunately.  

[01:05:01]  Thank you for joining us for this very long episode of Pantsuit Politics. Can you tell we missed each other, guys? Can you tell we missed talking to each other? We will be back in your ears on Friday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [01:05:23] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [01:05:29] Maggie Patton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [01:05:35] Our show is listener-supported special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [01:05:39] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliot. Sara Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.  

[01:05:56] The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Aysa Villeli. Kathryn Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [01:06:15] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  




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