Hey everyone. Here’s the October open thread. For the first few days, this is open only to supporters of the podcast. After that, it opens to everyone (whom I like to think of as “future supporters”). As always, feel free to discuss whatever’s on your mind, but here’s a question to get the ball rolling:
Chris, can you please sort out getting your subscription content available to Spotify and Apple podcast platforms? It's not very convenient accessing my paid subscriber content on this website. It would be great to access my paid content (including video) on my podcast app which is Spotify. I have a subscription to the Economist and their paid content podcasts can be linked to Spotify so I can listen on that platform. Long time listener here (since day one) asking for some obvious convenience for my paid support. Thanks for all that you do, and for this great community that you've birthed.
Hey Alonso. I'm afraid that's not something I can sort out. That's a platform-wide Substack issue. The paid versions seem to go out on other podcast platforms, but there's some conflict between Substack and Spotify that doesn't allow it. Best bet would be to drop a line to Substack support and see what they have to say, but as far as I know, it's an issue with all Substack accounts.
This is tangentially related to this post but you should definitely try and get @aella_girl from twitter/X on the podcast. She's a former sex worker but also a super interesting person outside of that. What i most like about her is she isn't afraid to ask the socially risque questions about herself and society which i think you both share in common. Her website is knowingless.com. I think you guys would have an insightful conversation.
I just wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am for the community you've created through Tangentially Speaking 🙏🏻
Thanks to your podcast, my boyfriend and I recently connected with fellow TS-listeners while in Japan; meeting up with Steve from Canada living in Kyoto and Richard from South Africa living in Osaka 🇯🇵
Your show's ability to bring people together is remarkable. I am even organizing a Tangentially Speaking listener get-together in Oslo next month 🍻
Perhaps this can all be solved by living along the equator or close to the equator. No need for lighting, ( it’s the same every day) no need for technology (as long as community is strong) food is consistent, no A/C or heating as long as your 5000 feet up (perfect weather) like Lake Attilan Guatemala. Food being consistent eliminates poverty. I’m not sure about pandemics though
It would be like arguing with a flat-earther. It's just so utterly myopic that I really wouldn't know where to start, or why to bother. This is someone who is totally committed to a world-view I find to be utterly preposterous.
Short answer - sure - why not? As long as everyone involved is safe and healthy.
Off topic, regarding your request for themed songs, might I suggest "Rockstar" by Nicklelback (Canadian band :) ) for the "making fun of wealth" category.
One of my girlfriends is a sex worker, an escort that works with high net worth clients. I'm not a client, we have known each other for over a decade. As far as the "serious relationship" goes, I would say at this point in our lives we have a relationship structure that can more or less be described as an alternative family unit. Another girlfriend is on OnlyFans and I shoot video and photosets for both and am the male talent for them or other women on OF I meet and get along with. I would say from my experience many women that are doing porn/OF often have some type of "Sugar Daddy" type of escort sex work where they are paid per meet or are on an allowance. Not all, but many. For context, this is not my career, I just enjoy the lifestyle and I tend to be a good fit as a regular boyfriend/partner to these women. There is zero shame, blame or guilt in my world around sexuality in any way, and everyone is conscious about their testing, health, etc. Once you are in the world of adult content you find that these small tribes are quite common.
Thanks for sharing. I had a manager who worked for me at a security company, he would do side gigs of escorting escorts to their appointments. This is a job that would have not been approved by our corporate office to do on the side So I didn't say anything and just got all the scoop from his experiences. It was eye-opening. I learned a lot and was glad someone was escorting them to their appointments and could keep an eye on things in case they went weird. He got paid by tips each night for driving and being security for women while they went and made a living. He made about $300 a night and would help them to 5-6 appointments.
It's definitely a world that not many people have the opportunity to learn about. That type of escort work can have more risk because often the appointments are with complete strangers, and having a driver/security is common. In our world any potential clients for my GF get a background check and it's more of a "girlfriend experience".
Been reading Carl Jung and came across a couple of paragraphs that I thought would resonate with this community.
"Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The “newness” in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components. Body and soul therefore have an intensely historical character and find no proper place in what is new, in things that have just come into being. That is to say, our ancestral components are only partly at home in such things. We are very far from having finished completely with the Middle Ages, classical antiquity, and primitivity, as our modern psyches pretend. Nevertheless, we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots. Once the past has been breached, it is usually annihilated, and there is no stopping the forward motion. But it is precisely the loss of connection with the past, our uprootedness, which has given rise to the “discontents” of civilization and to such a flurry and haste that we live more in the future and its chimerical promises of a golden age than in the present, with which our whole evolutionary background has to yet caught up. We rush impetuously into novelty, driven by a mounting sense of insufficiency, dissatisfaction, and restlessness. We no longer live on what we have but on promises, no longer in the light of the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise. We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is canceled out nay increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us. The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and this we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.
Reforms by advances, that is, by new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dealt paid for. They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole. Mostly, they are deceptive sweetings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before. Omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est-all haste is of the devil, as the old masters used to say.
Reforms by retrogressions, on the other hand, are as a rule less expensive and in addition more lasting, for they return to the simpler, and tried and tested ways of the past and make the sparsest use of newspapers, radio, television, and all supposedly timesaving innovations."
That is a great share, thank you for that. This reminds me of a great book that I read called Technopoly by Neil Postman. I highly recommend this book and would put it out there to Chris as a possible book club read. Cheers Ian, thanks for this post, it gave me much to chew on.
Depends on sooooooooooooooooooo many things. What is my career, does it impact my earning ability in a positive or negative way, what is the nature of their sex work, etc?
I would say I am open depending on the circumstances. Too many grey areas in that question to answer with a yes or no. I've had one family member I was previously related to who was in sex work, some of my current friends are in it to one degree or another, and I am sure many more with a variety of experiences that I don't know about.
I try hard to be open to different lived lives and experiences outside of my own, hoping they add to it in a positive and productive way. I am open to exploring it.
It's going. We have the inside more or less squared away. Still need to tile the kitchen, but that's about it. I got a log splitter and have been cutting down beetle killed trees and processing them for the winter. Satisfying, if difficult work.
Nice. Well I hope we can see some of the spots in your place that you're most proud of, if you're down to share. Here's to the land of 'not for everyone'!
Sex is many things and from my understanding it is in some sense transactional.
We exchange our most vulnerable selves for physical pleasure and emotional intimacy, or connectivity; money is also an element to that transaction for some people.
Personally, I don’t share that moral dilemma of not wanting to date someone who does sex work solely because they are a sex worker.
I should state that I haven’t dated a person who’s in the sex industry, but regardless I think as long as the sex is safe, clean, and consensual, it shouldn’t be an issue.
I might be projecting here, but the image that is perpetuated by society to me is that sex
workers are “easy”, strung out, nasty, and abused.
That atmosphere surrounding any person, regardless of what they do to pay the bills, wouldn’t particularly attract me in a romantic way. I’d be more compelled to help them rather than date them lol
However, if someone is respectable, articulate, funny, or just attractive in the sense that I am genuinely intrigued and compelled by them, who gives a fuck if they’re a sex worker?
"Sex worker", that's a pretty broad term. I would definitely be able to have a relationship with a former sex worker. However, a current sex worker would be a little more complicated.... what type of sex worker? Someone who sells lingerie and sex toys, sure..... a stripper or only fans, maybe...... a prostitute.... probably not.
Chris, we started this conversation last month when I asked for a definition for "real sex". I have been thinking and having conversations with my partner about this. I really feel like there is a fuzzy line, maybe at the point of penetration? There is a point in sexuality where a transition from physical to emotional happens and there in that transition is where my hang up lies. But perhaps it is in my head and a result of my cultural conditioning. I'm just not sure!
This probably sounds ridiculous to someone as well educated in sexuality as you. What about the fact that penetrative sex between M/F can result in procreation? Could we subconsciously recognize the investment involved in that and therefore develop feelings involved in pair bonding? I heard Dan Savage say once that gay men are typically non monogamous because they approach sex very differently. Maybe this is due to the fact that procreation is not possible so that psychological barrier is not there? Hmmmm.... its a thought! 🤔
Could be, but there's a lot of evidence against that conclusion. Most sex doesn't result in reproduction and there's no way to know when it does. The fact that the human female is receptive when not ovulating (very unusual among mammals) strongly suggests that sex in our species is not primarily about reproduction and has, in fact, been disassociated from reproduction to the point where its primary function is something else. Of course, I'm talking about species-level, evolutionary stuff. How people feel in the current world is another matter.
"How people feel in the current world is another matter"..... so true! Again, perhaps it's my own social conditioning that creates these ideas. But, it certainly intrigues me! My partner and I were both in long term marriages where sexuality was an issue. We also participated in non monogamous relationships in the past, before we became a couple. However, when our relationship became more serious we started discussing the , "rules of the road". We are both very sexually liberal and even though we concluded that we wanted to be in a monogamous relationship, we could never really come up with as to why. We still get into discussions about it occasionally. The other night we talked about attraction. We both know that it is naive to think that we are always the most attractive people in the room both physically and personality wise. So we started discussing what is it that makes us attracted to each other beyond those two things.
She was so thoughtful and insightful, I would say yes I could have a relationship with her. But I wonder if IRL I would even take the chance to listen or if I would avoid them immediately when I found out their profession.
I had an idea for Chris could either do in video format or audio. Play a clip of someone like tim Ferriss, Jordan Peterson, Steven pinker etc then explain why you disagree with them. Could be a nice feature for those of us who subscribe to the podcast.
Hey Felix. Yes, we're planning to do the retreat in Montana June 18-23 next year. Eventually, we may be doing some stuff in and around Crestone, but that hasn't come together as yet.
Chris, can you please sort out getting your subscription content available to Spotify and Apple podcast platforms? It's not very convenient accessing my paid subscriber content on this website. It would be great to access my paid content (including video) on my podcast app which is Spotify. I have a subscription to the Economist and their paid content podcasts can be linked to Spotify so I can listen on that platform. Long time listener here (since day one) asking for some obvious convenience for my paid support. Thanks for all that you do, and for this great community that you've birthed.
Hey Alonso. I'm afraid that's not something I can sort out. That's a platform-wide Substack issue. The paid versions seem to go out on other podcast platforms, but there's some conflict between Substack and Spotify that doesn't allow it. Best bet would be to drop a line to Substack support and see what they have to say, but as far as I know, it's an issue with all Substack accounts.
Okay, thanks for replying. I'll try and reach out to Substack. Side note: Technopoly by Neil Postman. This would be a great book club read.
This is tangentially related to this post but you should definitely try and get @aella_girl from twitter/X on the podcast. She's a former sex worker but also a super interesting person outside of that. What i most like about her is she isn't afraid to ask the socially risque questions about herself and society which i think you both share in common. Her website is knowingless.com. I think you guys would have an insightful conversation.
She seems very interesting. Thanks for the tip.
Hey Chris! 👋🏻👋🏻
I just wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am for the community you've created through Tangentially Speaking 🙏🏻
Thanks to your podcast, my boyfriend and I recently connected with fellow TS-listeners while in Japan; meeting up with Steve from Canada living in Kyoto and Richard from South Africa living in Osaka 🇯🇵
Your show's ability to bring people together is remarkable. I am even organizing a Tangentially Speaking listener get-together in Oslo next month 🍻
Keep up the great work, man! ✨
thought you might all enjoy this... maybe an interesting essay to pick apart on the podcast, if you can get through it without having an aneurism.
https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
“We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.
We had a problem of starvation, so we invented the Green Revolution.
and decimated the earths topsoils, deforested the land, polluted the rivers…
We had a problem of darkness, so we invented electric lighting.
and now our circadian rhythms are fucked and we can’t see the stars (no problem, just look at the satellites instead)
We had a problem of cold, so we invented indoor heating.
We had a problem of heat, so we invented air conditioning.
and now we can only tolerate a 2 degree window of temperature (no problem we’ll just change the temperature of the entire planet through emissions)
We had a problem of isolation, so we invented the Internet.
and people are so much less isolated now that they can sit at home and have their base needs satisfied
We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented vaccines.
and we never have pandemics now
We have a problem of poverty, so we invent technology to create abundance.
and you can have it for a low, low price of…
Give us a real world problem, and we can invent technology that will solve it.”
mercy
Perhaps this can all be solved by living along the equator or close to the equator. No need for lighting, ( it’s the same every day) no need for technology (as long as community is strong) food is consistent, no A/C or heating as long as your 5000 feet up (perfect weather) like Lake Attilan Guatemala. Food being consistent eliminates poverty. I’m not sure about pandemics though
It would be like arguing with a flat-earther. It's just so utterly myopic that I really wouldn't know where to start, or why to bother. This is someone who is totally committed to a world-view I find to be utterly preposterous.
Hi Chris,
Short answer - sure - why not? As long as everyone involved is safe and healthy.
Off topic, regarding your request for themed songs, might I suggest "Rockstar" by Nicklelback (Canadian band :) ) for the "making fun of wealth" category.
Please keep doing what you're doing.
With sincere thanks, Dawn
One of my girlfriends is a sex worker, an escort that works with high net worth clients. I'm not a client, we have known each other for over a decade. As far as the "serious relationship" goes, I would say at this point in our lives we have a relationship structure that can more or less be described as an alternative family unit. Another girlfriend is on OnlyFans and I shoot video and photosets for both and am the male talent for them or other women on OF I meet and get along with. I would say from my experience many women that are doing porn/OF often have some type of "Sugar Daddy" type of escort sex work where they are paid per meet or are on an allowance. Not all, but many. For context, this is not my career, I just enjoy the lifestyle and I tend to be a good fit as a regular boyfriend/partner to these women. There is zero shame, blame or guilt in my world around sexuality in any way, and everyone is conscious about their testing, health, etc. Once you are in the world of adult content you find that these small tribes are quite common.
Thanks for sharing. I had a manager who worked for me at a security company, he would do side gigs of escorting escorts to their appointments. This is a job that would have not been approved by our corporate office to do on the side So I didn't say anything and just got all the scoop from his experiences. It was eye-opening. I learned a lot and was glad someone was escorting them to their appointments and could keep an eye on things in case they went weird. He got paid by tips each night for driving and being security for women while they went and made a living. He made about $300 a night and would help them to 5-6 appointments.
It's definitely a world that not many people have the opportunity to learn about. That type of escort work can have more risk because often the appointments are with complete strangers, and having a driver/security is common. In our world any potential clients for my GF get a background check and it's more of a "girlfriend experience".
Been reading Carl Jung and came across a couple of paragraphs that I thought would resonate with this community.
"Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The “newness” in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components. Body and soul therefore have an intensely historical character and find no proper place in what is new, in things that have just come into being. That is to say, our ancestral components are only partly at home in such things. We are very far from having finished completely with the Middle Ages, classical antiquity, and primitivity, as our modern psyches pretend. Nevertheless, we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots. Once the past has been breached, it is usually annihilated, and there is no stopping the forward motion. But it is precisely the loss of connection with the past, our uprootedness, which has given rise to the “discontents” of civilization and to such a flurry and haste that we live more in the future and its chimerical promises of a golden age than in the present, with which our whole evolutionary background has to yet caught up. We rush impetuously into novelty, driven by a mounting sense of insufficiency, dissatisfaction, and restlessness. We no longer live on what we have but on promises, no longer in the light of the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise. We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is canceled out nay increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us. The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and this we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.
Reforms by advances, that is, by new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dealt paid for. They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole. Mostly, they are deceptive sweetings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before. Omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est-all haste is of the devil, as the old masters used to say.
Reforms by retrogressions, on the other hand, are as a rule less expensive and in addition more lasting, for they return to the simpler, and tried and tested ways of the past and make the sparsest use of newspapers, radio, television, and all supposedly timesaving innovations."
That is a great share, thank you for that. This reminds me of a great book that I read called Technopoly by Neil Postman. I highly recommend this book and would put it out there to Chris as a possible book club read. Cheers Ian, thanks for this post, it gave me much to chew on.
this was from Memories, Dreams, and Reflections right? great book either way. i recommend it
Depends on sooooooooooooooooooo many things. What is my career, does it impact my earning ability in a positive or negative way, what is the nature of their sex work, etc?
I would say I am open depending on the circumstances. Too many grey areas in that question to answer with a yes or no. I've had one family member I was previously related to who was in sex work, some of my current friends are in it to one degree or another, and I am sure many more with a variety of experiences that I don't know about.
I try hard to be open to different lived lives and experiences outside of my own, hoping they add to it in a positive and productive way. I am open to exploring it.
not on the topic but Cat Person is now a movie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2VukOLSxoY
really liked the episode where Chris read it
I know someone who does telephonic sex work, and that I'd have no reservations about. But for in-person sex work, it would depend on the context.
How’s the work on your house going, Chris?
It's going. We have the inside more or less squared away. Still need to tile the kitchen, but that's about it. I got a log splitter and have been cutting down beetle killed trees and processing them for the winter. Satisfying, if difficult work.
Nice. Well I hope we can see some of the spots in your place that you're most proud of, if you're down to share. Here's to the land of 'not for everyone'!
Sex is many things and from my understanding it is in some sense transactional.
We exchange our most vulnerable selves for physical pleasure and emotional intimacy, or connectivity; money is also an element to that transaction for some people.
Personally, I don’t share that moral dilemma of not wanting to date someone who does sex work solely because they are a sex worker.
I should state that I haven’t dated a person who’s in the sex industry, but regardless I think as long as the sex is safe, clean, and consensual, it shouldn’t be an issue.
I might be projecting here, but the image that is perpetuated by society to me is that sex
workers are “easy”, strung out, nasty, and abused.
That atmosphere surrounding any person, regardless of what they do to pay the bills, wouldn’t particularly attract me in a romantic way. I’d be more compelled to help them rather than date them lol
However, if someone is respectable, articulate, funny, or just attractive in the sense that I am genuinely intrigued and compelled by them, who gives a fuck if they’re a sex worker?
Just my personal take.
let’s be frank, in my thought experiment, we’re talking about someone who we’re attracted to who’s also a sex worker.
So they meet all the criteria of what we subjectively define as attractive and they shamelessly enjoy having sex? I’d take that deal dammit.
"Sex worker", that's a pretty broad term. I would definitely be able to have a relationship with a former sex worker. However, a current sex worker would be a little more complicated.... what type of sex worker? Someone who sells lingerie and sex toys, sure..... a stripper or only fans, maybe...... a prostitute.... probably not.
Chris, we started this conversation last month when I asked for a definition for "real sex". I have been thinking and having conversations with my partner about this. I really feel like there is a fuzzy line, maybe at the point of penetration? There is a point in sexuality where a transition from physical to emotional happens and there in that transition is where my hang up lies. But perhaps it is in my head and a result of my cultural conditioning. I'm just not sure!
This probably sounds ridiculous to someone as well educated in sexuality as you. What about the fact that penetrative sex between M/F can result in procreation? Could we subconsciously recognize the investment involved in that and therefore develop feelings involved in pair bonding? I heard Dan Savage say once that gay men are typically non monogamous because they approach sex very differently. Maybe this is due to the fact that procreation is not possible so that psychological barrier is not there? Hmmmm.... its a thought! 🤔
Could be, but there's a lot of evidence against that conclusion. Most sex doesn't result in reproduction and there's no way to know when it does. The fact that the human female is receptive when not ovulating (very unusual among mammals) strongly suggests that sex in our species is not primarily about reproduction and has, in fact, been disassociated from reproduction to the point where its primary function is something else. Of course, I'm talking about species-level, evolutionary stuff. How people feel in the current world is another matter.
"How people feel in the current world is another matter"..... so true! Again, perhaps it's my own social conditioning that creates these ideas. But, it certainly intrigues me! My partner and I were both in long term marriages where sexuality was an issue. We also participated in non monogamous relationships in the past, before we became a couple. However, when our relationship became more serious we started discussing the , "rules of the road". We are both very sexually liberal and even though we concluded that we wanted to be in a monogamous relationship, we could never really come up with as to why. We still get into discussions about it occasionally. The other night we talked about attraction. We both know that it is naive to think that we are always the most attractive people in the room both physically and personality wise. So we started discussing what is it that makes us attracted to each other beyond those two things.
It’s an interesting question. I remember listening to this interview with a sex worker.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0AGzkpXaKJg
She was so thoughtful and insightful, I would say yes I could have a relationship with her. But I wonder if IRL I would even take the chance to listen or if I would avoid them immediately when I found out their profession.
I had an idea for Chris could either do in video format or audio. Play a clip of someone like tim Ferriss, Jordan Peterson, Steven pinker etc then explain why you disagree with them. Could be a nice feature for those of us who subscribe to the podcast.
Hey Chris
Will the sex at dawn retreat take place in Montana next year?
Are you contemplating about hosting events on your property in Colorado as well?
Greets from Germany
Hey Felix. Yes, we're planning to do the retreat in Montana June 18-23 next year. Eventually, we may be doing some stuff in and around Crestone, but that hasn't come together as yet.