Ep 380: Birth Order Determines Sexuality?
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi-demisexual girl (that's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode: Birth Order Affects Sexuality.
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pooooood!
KAYLA: Hellooooo!
SARAH: Hellooooo! How is everyone? Really?
KAYLA: That's interesting.
SARAH: Wow. I'm sorry to hear that.
KAYLA: Or congratulations.
SARAH: Or quite neutral. Well, I hope everyone is... I hope everyone does better, because even if you're doing well, you can always be better.
KAYLA: You can always be better, that’s so true
SARAH: Do we have any housekeeping?
KAYLA: No, but maybe next time, because we're going to have a business meeting this weekend.
SARAH: Our housekeeping is that next time we'll probably have a housekeeping.
KAYLA: Yeah, maybe. Did you know we have a book? You should go read it.
SARAH: We do have a book; you should read it. Have we gotten paid for it yet?
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: I’m waiting on my taxes until I get the second payment for last year. Anyway.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Tax season is upcoming.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: In the United States, I think also Canada. It's soon, so make sure you file those taxes.
KAYLA: I was listening to a British podcast today and they were talking about taxes. And they were like, oh, do you have to... like, can this be written off? Blah blah blah. And there was someone answering. And I was like, oh, interesting, good to know. And then I was like, this does not apply to me at all, this is British taxes, I shouldn't listen to this.
SARAH: Yeah. I was listening to my daily podcast this morning, and they were talking to a senator about a tax bill that is proposed that if you make like, I think $46,000 a year or under as an individual, and then there's a different number for a household, you have no income tax.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: And then if you're 80,000 or lower, it's reduced income tax.
KAYLA: That's nice.
SARAH: And then if you make a million or more on every dollar above a million, it's like five cents. And then as it gets higher, the amount increases so that it pays for itself. And I'm like, wow, I would love to have lower tax.
KAYLA: Imagine. Me too.
SARAH: I only have to pay like a thousand dollars a year.
KAYLA: I can't remember what I had to pay last year, but it was sad. Well, because I was on unemployment last tax cycle, which really made things…
SARAH: Last year and the year before I had to pay like $2,000 in taxes.
KAYLA: Oh, because your health insurance was fucked up.
SARAH: Because my health insurance fucked me, yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But hey, this year I'm paying $600 a month in health insurance. So, if they don't give me money fucking back.
KAYLA: Good, good, good, good, good, good, good.
SARAH: But I'm using it. Next week, I got four doctor's appointments.
KAYLA: I have a dentist appointment tomorrow and a doctor's appointment next week, so.
SARAH: I have a dentist appointment I think the week after, so.
KAYLA: We're so healthy.
SARAH: I need to call my insurance about a rheumatologist before my mom gives me a stern talking too.
KAYLA: Oh, no, Julie, please!
SARAH: Anyway, Kayla, what are we talking about this week other than taxes?
KAYLA: This is supposed to be some personal housekeeping; this is some personal stuff we're working there. Today, we're going to be discussing siblings and sibling birth order and whether that dictates your sexuality.
SARAH: I have a sibling and a sexuality.
KAYLA: Yes, and we will actually get to what happens when you have a small number of sisters. So, we will be discussing.
SARAH: Well, we both have a small number of sisters.
KAYLA: I know, I know we do. Have you ever heard of the fraternal birth order effect?
SARAH: Well, I read it about five seconds ago.
KAYLA: Five minutes ago, yeah.
SARAH: No, five seconds ago as I was scrolling.
KAYLA: Great, okay. So today I will be reading from an article called ‘Asexuality: Its Relationship to Sibling Sex Composition and Birth Order’ by a bunch of fucking people from the Archives of Sexual Behavior journal.
SARAH: Yippee!
KAYLA: It's like a fancy article, not like you other girls. Ooh, Canadian. Okay, so we'll start with previous research on birth order effects on sexuality and then talk about what they found for asexuality specifically.
SARAH: I'm curious about why they decided to start studying this.
KAYLA: That's a good question; it sounds like it started in the ‘90s.
SARAH: Was someone just like, hey, I've noticed this thing?
KAYLA: I am not… and I would love to know that because as I would like to talk about as we go through this, I think this topic and the results are extremely interesting. I think the theories that people have come up with about why it's happening are potentially extremely dangerous.
SARAH: Yeah, because I was going to say like, if the thinking is that you can't control it, there's nothing you can do to change it necessarily by force of will. You can't be like, oh, I'm going to have X number of kids so that this one…
KAYLA: Well, as you go through some of the theories, it gets kind of more scientific than that. And I don't quite understand… like, I can read it to you and I have a general understanding of what they mean, but it like gets into some stuff that to me, it feels like in the future, you could control the way that they talk about like you can choose your baby's eye color now.
SARAH: Yeah, because you can do… what did the Nazis do?
KAYLA: Eugenics?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah, to me, that is like the main… we'll get into it, but that is my main concern coming out of this, is it's really interesting. However, anything around this topic just gets into and like…
SARAH: Concerned about the future effects.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: A lot of science is like that these days.
KAYLA: And isn't it? So, yeah, they started in the ‘90s with studying the Fraternal Birth Order Effect, which is a well-documented finding that men who identify as homosexual have a greater number of older brothers than men who are not gay. Specifically, the odds of identifying as gay increased by 33% with each additional older brother.
SARAH: So, the more brothers you have…
KAYLA: The more likely you are to be gay.
SARAH: Interesting. I would almost expect it to be the opposite, but then again…
KAYLA: More older brothers, specifically.
SARAH: Older.
KAYLA: So, I guess, what are your initial reactions to why that’s happening?
SARAH: Weird homoerotic stuff happening? I don’t know
KAYLA: So, nurture though, not nature
SARAH: I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know enough about science and genetics to be able to speak to nature
KAYLA: Yeah, fair
SARAH: So, like my brain only goes to nurture because that’s the only thing that I have somewhat of a grasp on
KAYLA: That was my first thought, it was like, oh, you just like grow up being around men more, so that's like what you're comfortable with, maybe, is like male relationships.
SARAH: Yeah. Because part of me was like, well, if you have a bunch of brothers, they may like force heteronormativity on you because like you got to be a bro, you got to be a man, and that might backfire.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Or you're just around a bunch of men and you're like, I like that.
KAYLA: I like it. Yeah, but to me, if I was to think of… and this is extremely stereotypical, I will grant that. If I were to think of what sibling makeup would ‘make’ a man gay, it would be a bunch of older sisters.
SARAH: Yeah, I would also think that.
KAYLA: But that's also just like a lot of stereotypes about a lot of things.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: The theory that they have come up with is called the Maternal Immune Hypothesis, MIH. According to this, some mothers are immunized to male-specific antigens from male fetuses and the maternal antibodies created during that immunization interfere with the brain masculinization of later born male fetuses resulting in the later born males to develop a gay sexual orientation.
SARAH: So, they're less masculine because of science?
KAYLA: Yeah, I guess.
SARAH: And less masculine means more likely to be gay?
KAYLA: Yeah. So, there's a lot there.
SARAH: There's a lot there. Yeah, a lot to unpack.
KAYLA: So, it's basically like, because the mother has had male fetuses before, they become like immune to the masculinity of the fetus? I just killed a bug.
SARAH: I'm proud of you, so masculine of you.
KAYLA: I know, I was just going to say. And so that's why.
SARAH: I'm raising one eyebrow.
KAYLA: I just don't, A, what do you mean? And B, what do you mean?
SARAH: It's interesting to attribute it to this scientific reasoning and I can see why you would want to do that.
KAYLA: Yeah.
[00:10:00]
SARAH: However, what do you mean the masculinization?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like, what does that mean? What is masculinity? What is the masculinization? Like, is there a scientific definition of what that means? What is that definition?
KAYLA: Yeah, because to me, there are so many different markers for sex. Like it is not just genitals or hormones, there are like so… and that's why like intersex identities are so varied and diverse is because…
SARAH: X, Y, X, X. And then the intersex is just like, X, X, X, Y, W, where the W comes from, I don't know.
KAYLA: Yeah, there are so many different things that go into the sex of a person, that to me I'm like, okay, is this trying to say that like certain of those markers then and like, that's how it like…
SARAH: Yeah, I don't know.
KAYLA: So, you're trying to say that like a baby that is born… like there's a range of babies from like all male markers to all female markers and the closer they get to the middle, the more likely they are to be gay?
SARAH: Yeah, because that also posits that there's an inherent default to heterosexuality, which I think biologically-speaking, maybe you could make that argument because the goal is reproduction, right? But like…
KAYLA: Yeah. And there is something on that a little bit later too.
SARAH: Okay. But I think that it gets dangerous when you start getting into like stereotypes like that of, well, less masculine means more likely to be gay. Okay, well, what about gay men who are masculine?
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Like those people exist and to pretend that they don't is to exclude them from their own culture and also to feed into a stereotype that is actively harmful in a lot of cases.
KAYLA: Brain masculinization is…
SARAH: What does it mean?
KAYLA: Let's look it up. I guess maybe the initial like testosterone jump that the male brain gets?
SARAH: So, the Google AI interview, which is always reliable.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: They are citing the NIH, but can we even trust the NIH these days with this?
KAYLA: And let's talk about it.
SARAH: This brain masculinization is a developmental process where the perinatal surge of testosterone in males is converted by aromatase into estrogen, aromatase, I may have read that too Japanese, into estrogen within the brain, inducing male typical neural structures and behaviors. So basically, the testosterone becomes estrogen.
KAYLA: Yeah. What I'm seeing clicking into that article is estrogen sets up the masculine repertoire of sexual and territorial behaviors and testosterone controls the extent of these male displays. Sure.
SARAH: But like…
KAYLA: But then also this article gets into like obvious behaviors related to reproduction like courtship displays, territorial aggression, mating and parental care. Like this is getting like extremely like stereotypical down to like the animalistic type of thing.
SARAH: And like, are we animals? Yes. Do we have more complex brains than almost slash all other animals? Yes. So, like maybe there is some truth to it, but it can't be the whole picture. Also inducing male typical neural structures and behaviors; what does that mean? How do you define something as male typical?
KAYLA: I mean, the one thing I will say is this study they did on mice. So, I think it's easier to say a male typical behavior for an animal such as a mouse in like mating rituals, but yeah extrapolating that to…
SARAH: Yeah. As I said, our brains are bigger.
KAYLA: Extrapolating that to a human is… which maybe they aren't trying to in this, I couldn't say.
SARAH: I just…
KAYLA: Okay, moving on, because we have so much more to cover.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, the sororal birth order effect is the finding that later born male children with a greater number of older sisters… okay, so we said this. Later born male children with a greater number of older sisters have a higher probability of identifying as homosexual.
SARAH: So, basically if you're younger, you're more likely to be gay.
KAYLA: I guess, because the printer like runs out.
SARAH: Yeah, the printer runs out of ink.
KAYLA: Mothers who have delivered more female offspring are more likely to have experienced an immune response to a male fetus. Given the finding that a mother's number of miscarriages is correlated with her number of live born children and then approximately half of miscarriages are male. Interesting.
SARAH: Hold on, let me read that again. Is that just saying that miscarriages count in the science?
KAYLA: I mean…
SARAH: Because why mention it if it's about 50/50 for miscarriages too, like why is that relevant?
KAYLA: Well, what it's saying is that if a mother has a lot of female fetuses, the body gets used to that and then it is more likely to reject a male fetus leading to more miscarriages of male fetuses.
SARAH: Really?
KAYLA: That's what I'm reading.
SARAH: Given the finding that a mother's number of miscarriages is correlated with her number of live born children.
KAYLA: So, the more live born children you have, the more likely you are to miscarry?
SARAH: I don't think I'm going to understand this today.
KAYLA: Just two idiots trying to read science. I mean, I could be extremely wrong in my reading of that.
SARAH: Someone explain.
KAYLA: Someone help. A scientist please, immediately. Okay, the female funconduity effect...
SARAH: Fecundity.
KAYLA: Fecundity? Is the finding that mothers of gay men have more offspring than mothers of heterosexual men.
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: And there's an evolutionary explanation, so don't worry everyone.
SARAH: Let's go.
KAYLA: It's the balancing selection hypothesis, which combines the known heterability…
SARAH: Heritability.
KAYLA: I'm having a hard time.
SARAH: You can inherit gayness?
KAYLA: Heritability of homosexuality in men with the finding that gay men produce significantly fewer offspring than heterosexual counterparts, understandable, positing that genes that predispose men to a same sex attraction may offset their lack of reproduction by also increasing functuity in their…
SARAH: Fecundity
KAYLA: Fecundity in their female relatives.
SARAH: Sorry, what does fecundity mean again? I forgot.
KAYLA: The fecundity is that mothers of gay men have more offspring than mothers of homosexual men.
SARAH: I don't understand how this… okay
KAYLA: I don't… the genes that predispose…
SARAH: They may offset their lack of reproduction by also increasing fecundity in their female relatives.
KAYLA: So basically, a mom has a fuck ton of kids, one of them is a gay man, but that is offset by the fact that her other kids…
SARAH: Are more likely to have gay kids, I think.
KAYLA: Maybe.
SARAH: That's what I understood.
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: We've been out of college for a while.
KAYLA: The supporting evidence for this is inconsistent, so it's not our fault that we don't get it.
SARAH: Hi, this is Sarah from the future with the awful audio. This is my second time recording this because the first time I made it more confusing. I was… Addie, can you please stop chewing on my chip bag? Anyway, I was wrong, but only partially wrong. So, it's not just increasing the fecundity, like it's… the siblings’ increased fecundity does not just mean that they're more likely to have more gay children, it's that they're more likely to have more children in general. And by that, I mean more successful pregnancies, is my understanding. Now, if you have more successful pregnancies, you're also more likely to have gay kids partially because of statistics and partially because of this thing about the printer running out of ink. But I think that's… I think that's it. Not just more gay kids, more kids in general to make up for the fact that the gay boys are not having as many kids. Their sisters make up for it. Whoa, okay. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Okay, wait, but I just listened back and okay. If you're more likely to have successful pregnancies, that means fewer miscarriages, that means fewer times that the printer tries to print ink, which means that maybe less chance of gay kids? I think I'm thinking way too much about this and I'm probably wrong either way. So anyway, there's science and it says something. What? What does it say? No one knows. No one will ever know. It's me again. This is my fourth time recording something. Okay, I went back to Google, the definition of fecundity. So, fecundity is about, it's often measured by the number of eggs or offspring produced for female. It is distinguished from fertility, which is actual births as a measure of potential. So, the female siblings will have more viable eggs, that does not mean they will automatically carry all of them to term once fertilized. I need to just stop. I need to just stop.
KAYLA: I mean, all this to say, there is, it seems a good amount of research that this like is an effect that's happening. I am questioning the hypotheses that we are coming out with about the genes and how...
SARAH: But there is science that you can observe, a pattern.
KAYLA: Yeah. I'm much more interested in like the nurture hypotheses of which they discuss very little of.
[00:20:00]
SARAH: Yeah. I also wonder if you have more kids, the younger kids are more likely to be cared for by the older siblings. And so like, what impact does that have, if any, you know?
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, I think also what I've heard from like every parent is that the younger kids are… when you have your first kid, everything is very like stressful and you're very like strict with the first kid. And then the more kids you have, it's just kind of like, eh, whatever.
SARAH: Let them go
KAYLA: So, it's like, are we maybe introducing more cultural norms to earlier children and by later children you're kind of like, I don't know, man, you do whatever you want.
SARAH: Also like, maybe you were raised by your older sisters and you know, like… I'm just thinking about like my dad's family because my dad is one of eight kids and it's four and four, it's four boys, four girls. Are any of them that I'm aware of queer? No. Would I believe that at least one of them is queer? Sure.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: One of my aunts I think had a theory that my grandma was bisexual, so.
KAYLA: Which I love.
SARAH: And also given the number of queer cousins I have, like queer grandkids, if it is like hereditary…
KAYLA: Yeah, there has got to be something in there somewhere.
SARAH: There's something somewhere.
KAYLA: Yeah, there's something in there.
SARAH: And my cousin, the first one who came out as gay, I mean, they all knew he was gay from day one, but the first one…
KAYLA: Okay, where is he in the birth order?
SARAH: He's the last of four.
KAYLA: And what are the other ones?
SARAH: Brother, sister, sister. And the second to youngest is a gay woman.
KAYLA: Interesting. See, so the printer runs out of ink straight at the end.
SARAH: Me and my sister, both gay.
KAYLA: Both gay.
SARAH: My two cousins, both queer. 100% success rate from Ann.
KAYLA: Huge.
SARAH: My father was kid number six and their father was kid number seven.
KAYLA: See that’s what I'm saying, the printer runs out. I wonder if… yeah, it would be interesting to see… like for me, I'm the baby of the baby of the baby. And I don't think my mom or my grandma are gay, unfortunately. But it would be interesting to see if it affects birth order like generations down.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: We're scientists, everyone. I just know there's people… Dr. Jacki is listening to this right now screaming.
SARAH: What is Dr. Jacki a doctor in?
KAYLA: It doesn't matter. All I know is Dr. Jacki is smarter than us and probably understands everything better than us.
SARAH: Objectively, probably true.
KAYLA: Jacki, I'm sorry.
SARAH: We're doing our best.
KAYLA: But I don't remember what Dr. Jacki is a doctor of, sorry. Sorry, Jacki. Okay, are you ready to learn about how birth order affects asexuality?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Okay. They found that the higher overall number of siblings, which is the female fecundity effect, was associated with higher probability of asexuality in men. Adding one younger sibling to the sibship, fun, increased the odds of the participant being asexual versus heterosexual by 47%.
SARAH: That's a lot.
KAYLA: So, the more siblings there are, the more likely a man is to be asexual.
SARAH: I mean, the more siblings… oh, that's the wrong keyboard. The more siblings there are, the more likely you are to be queer because aspecness, queer, gayness, queer. Scientific backing that aspecness is a part of the queer umbrella.
KAYLA: Ha ha. So, they also talk about the balancing selection hypothesis potentially explaining this. Okay, maybe this will help us understand. In other words, it is possible that genes that predispose men to be asexual may also increase fecundity in their female relatives. Thus, the evolutionary paradox of the presence of asexuality in men may be explained similarly to the presence of homosexuality in men. Even though asexual men are probably even less likely to produce offspring than gay men, the genetic link between asexuality and the fecundity of their maternal female relatives balances the reduced direct fitness of, okay, of asexual men.
SARAH: Such explanation, however, should be considered with caution.
KAYLA: Yeah, they do say with caution. But so, I guess what they're saying is like, evolutionarily, queer identities don't make sense because you can't continue your line.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But what they're saying is your other siblings...
SARAH: Will continue the queerness for you.
KAYLA: Well, so maybe, okay, wait, maybe I'm understanding. Because you have so many siblings, the genetics, the genes are like, this one doesn't need to have kids because this lady already had eight other ones and they can do the kid-having and now we can just save some genes from this one and it doesn't matter. Is that what… I think I figured it out, I think I've done it.
SARAH: I mean, I think we're definitely placing a narrative on something that may not have a narrative, but that narrative makes sense to me.
KAYLA: We're just two girls trying to figure it out.
SARAH: I do think it is interesting that there is evidence that if you are a queer man, your siblings, specifically your sisters, your female relatives are…
KAYLA: Yeah, are having a bunch of babies. I guess are more likely to be straight, I suppose.
SARAH: More likely to be straight, but more likely to themselves produce queer children.
KAYLA: Produce, yeah.
SARAH: Because queerness is a part of the human expression and experience and it cannot be stopped because the queer line stops.
KAYLA: It's true.
SARAH: The queer line will continue.
KAYLA: We will continue.
SARAH: Whether or not queer people have biological children. Check mate.
KAYLA: I can't wait for someone to comment and be like, that's actually not what they were saying.
SARAH: That's actually completely not at all what they were saying.
KAYLA: But that's what we're saying.
SARAH: That's what I've decided.
KAYLA: So. Okay, the results did not provide support for the fraternal birth order effect. In fact, it was perhaps the opposite, though not statistically significant, so a grain of salt, suggesting that less older brothers is associated with asexuality in men rather than more.
SARAH: So more older siblings, more asexuality in men?
KAYLA: More siblings, higher overall number of siblings, more siblings in general, higher probability of asexuality in men.
SARAH: If you have fewer siblings, if they are male, this.
KAYLA: Then you're… yes. Then you are… Okay, because for gay men, it's the more older brothers you have, the more likely you are to be gay. For this one, the fewer older brothers you have, the more likely you are to be ace. Well, again, that was not statistically significant, so who the fuck knows?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And they're saying, it makes it unlikely that the maternal immune hypothesis is associated with the development of asexuality, which to me, I'm like, how can you say this hypothesis is a thing, but it only works for certain sexualities? To me, that's like, well, then this is nothing.
SARAH: Right, yeah.
KAYLA: It only works for gay. How does the genes know it's gay?
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: How does the genes know it's gay?
SARAH: And I think, again, that's… so, if we're talking about brain masculinization as a marker that can point to a man being gay, what is the marker that determines a person being asexual? There doesn't seem to be one that they have identified.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: So, like, hmm.
KAYLA: I know, that's, to me, I'm like, if we're talking about like masculinization of the brain, I think asexuality and homosexuality are like both decently the same non-masculine, stereotypically, like, so I'm just like…
SARAH: The neuterization of the brain.
KAYLA: I just simply… okay, they also found that having fewer older sisters, and this is where we come in, fewer older sisters predicted an increased probability of asexuality in women, replacing one younger sibling with one older sister. What kind of fucking math are these people doing? Replacing one younger sibling with one older sister decreased the odds of the participant being asexual versus straight by 36%. Who cares!? What is that statistic? What do you mean? Who cares?
SARAH: This finding needs to be interpreted with caution in light of the fact that our control heterosexual sample of women was characterized by a deficit of older brothers, smaller than expected ratio of older brothers to older sisters, which results in excess of older sisters in comparison with general population, which may indicate presence of stopping rules in our sample.
KAYLA: They did say though, after that, that it's consistent with some results from another study. And so, they're reluctant to dismiss it just as like a bias.
SARAH: Okay. So, I want to explain what stopping rules means, which is parents using informal rules when deciding whether to have another child often related to parental preference for a child of a particular sex. So, if your first…
KAYLA: See, how do we rule that out of all of this?
SARAH: If your first kid is a boy, you're less likely to have a ton more kids. If you have four girls, you're more likely to keep trying until you get a boy.
KAYLA: And then that boy is going to be gay. And now what have you done? You wanted a football player so bad, maybe you'll get one, I don't know. Gay people can play football.
[00:30:00]
SARAH: Maybe you'll still get one, but they'll be gay.
KAYLA: They'll be gay about it. This part I found interesting though, they talk about that we can maybe, for the first time, it might not be the first time in this article, but for the first time I'm seeing, we're talking about, oh, perhaps some family socialization we should maybe discuss.
SARAH: Really?
KAYLA: For example, it may be easier for women to identify as… Easier to identify, anyway. Easier to identify as asexual or bisexual if they are not exposed to modeling of heterosexual behavior by older sisters. The same effect of an older sister deficit was found for bisexual women in our study. Interesting.
SARAH: This is the first reference of bisexual, people.
KAYLA: So, they did, the study they tried to do, I think, for a variety of like more minority sexuality groups, and it seems like they just didn't have enough participants of lesbians and bisexual people to get good results.
SARAH: Have a statistical… yeah.
KAYLA: Yeah, because they referenced that a little bit at some point, so, it seems like it just didn't work out for them. And then there's something about elevated rate of only child status among asexual women. Where do they talk about that? I don't know where they talk about that, but that's a thing, I guess.
SARAH: This is interesting. They're saying that they were open to asexuals of all genders and considered the gender, like they collected information on the gender. They said, this, however, excluded a substantial number of participants who identified as asexual because a very high rate of gender diversity in that population. In our study, 140 asexual participants reported trans or gender non-binary identity and were excluded from our analysis because they don't identify as women and you can't necessarily lump them accordingly.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's not about sex, it's about gender.
KAYLA: Yeah. But it is about sex.
SARAH: Yeah, they’re saying brain masculinization
KAYLA: Because you're telling me that the mother's body is becoming immune to this type of fetus, that is not the gender of the fetus because that fetus does not have a gender, it has a sex.
SARAH: Future studies of potential biological mechanisms of asexuality development should seek to include all asexuals regardless of gender identity. It is important to continue examining potential subship effects in gender diverse asexual individuals in light of well-established correlation between gender identity and sexual orientation, which points to biological contributions to the development of those two dimensions.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, I would be interested to see what the stats are on like gender diversity with sibling order. If it's a similar thing that the younger you are in the sibling order the more likely you are to be queer in that way too. But that really makes no sense to me because they're specifically talking about sex for the theories about why this is happening with like the mothers being immune. But then you're also categorizing it by gender of the sibling, but that's not what you said you're doing.
SARAH: Right. It's also… I forgot.
KAYLA: I just don't, this research is interesting, but I question how… I mean, what is the use of any of this, you know? But I question the use of it when we don't even have like a full understanding of what makes sex sex. Like it is clear that it is far more complicated than just chromosomes, hormones, genitalia. Like there is a lot going on there. So how can you say things like this, that like you're immune to this part of it or whatever, but then also not scientifically recognize that there are a bunch of different markers that make up sex?
SARAH: I think that also goes back to my initial feeling when I read what this study was, where I was like, why are they studying this? Because if I'm a person at a university who is awarding grants to people to study stuff, you have to apply for grants to get money to study stuff. What did they say could be done with this information? Like what is the point of this study other than sheer curiosity?
KAYLA: Interesting, yeah
SARAH: Which do I think we should pursue things that we're just curious about? Absolutely. But I feel like there are other things in this arena that I would think we would need to hit first.
KAYLA: Let me see if I can get access to the original article from like 20 years ago.
SARAH: I think also I remembered what I forgot, which is that I think there's absolutely a socialization aspect of it in terms of how people identify, not how they experience attraction, but how they identify that attraction. Older siblings, I would assume, this is an assumption based on stereotypes, feel more pressure to be and display heterosexuality because they're the people who have to carry on the family name, they have to do whatever. And even if they experience same-sex attraction or… it's like that tweet where it's like, you see this a lot on K-pop Twitter, where it's like, so-and-so is probably non-binary but they don't have time to think about that right now, they have a job.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like it's that sort of thing where it's like, maybe you are, but you don't choose to identify that way because you just kind of push it to the side and you're like, this is my role as the oldest sibling. Whereas younger siblings, as we already touched on a little bit, tend to have more freedom.
KAYLA: Okay, I found an article from ‘96, which is I think where the stat of like the 33% more likely comes from. But at the beginning of this article, they reference other studies that have shown the average birth order of homosexual men is higher or whatever. So, there's other studies. So, who started this?
SARAH: Who did it?
KAYLA: Who started? Oh my God.
SARAH: Yeah. I think it's just…
KAYLA: Who started this? Why were you doing this? And in the ‘90s, I don't trust what y'all were doing with gay people in the ‘90s.
SARAH: It's so difficult to study queerness in this way. It's so difficult to study queerness scientifically. Like what causes this? What causes that? When we don't have a clear indication of what causes queerness.
KAYLA: Yeah. I also think like… because I do find it so fascinating, the thought of like, maybe there is like a gene in there that is like queerness is passed down.
SARAH: Gay gene
KAYLA: Like your preferences are passed down. I think that is so interesting. And I think like, maybe it's even likely, I don't know, like there has got to be something.
SARAH: Isn't kink hereditary?
KAYLA: They do say that. I don't know what the science is, but I have heard that. I think it's so interesting, but I also am like afraid for that information to be found
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Because now we're just like eugenics is possible and if you can just choose which genes your baby has and you're like, I don't want them to have the gay one, then like.
SARAH: Personally, I would want them to have the gay one.
KAYLA: I would want them to have the gay one.
SARAH: Yeah, that's, yeah, it's difficult. Like I understand the impulse to look into this and to try and figure it out just from a pure curiosity standpoint. I'm really curious as to what the authors of this study believe the use of this information is.
KAYLA: Yeah. Because now I'm seeing like just other research on the fraternal effect and they're talking about like, other studies on factors that influence development of human sexual orientation, including genes, epigenetic influences, hormones, prenatal hormones, immune reactions. So, there's like clearly a lot of research on like, what is it that makes people gay? Which again, extremely interesting, I would like to know.
SARAH: No solid conclusions yet though.
KAYLA: But why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Why do you want to know? I know why I want to know, it's because I think that's interesting. Why do you want to know?
SARAH: Yeah. Are you trying to do something with that information?
KAYLA: Yeah, like what do you want? What do you want from me?
SARAH: You know how if a pregnant person eats a lot of one food when they're pregnant, they have their child, their child is like pretty likely to really like that food?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I wonder if that's true if you like watch a lot of Drag Race or like listen to a lot of Lady Gaga. You know?
KAYLA: That's interesting. I mean, I think it's maybe a little different because one goes in the blood and one does not.
SARAH: Well, you could get Lady Gaga in your blood and it would probably be really illegal and dangerous.
KAYLA: What's something like really gay you could eat?
SARAH: A sausage.
KAYLA: A sausage, but only if you're a man. If you're a lady and you eat a sausage, no you're so being straight.
SARAH: A lady you just need to eat flowers that look like viginas.
KAYLA: An orchid, a guava. Is the guava the one that looks like a pagina?
SARAH: Girl, I don't know.
KAYLA: I don't think that's what I was thinking of. What's the pink one with the black inside?
SARAH: I don't know. Oh, passion fruits are pretty pink.
KAYLA: Pink with black inside. No, not dragon fruit, the other one. I don't know how else to describe it, pink fruits.
SARAH: Just look up fruits that looks like a pussy.
KAYLA: Fruit that look like vagina, ah, a grapefruit, not what I was thinking of, but that's a good one.
SARAH: Oh, great, yeah.
[00:40:00]
KAYLA: Papaya? What is this orange thing with black inside? Orange fruit, black seeds. What is it? Papaya. But only sometimes when it's cut. Hot dog, not hamburger.
SARAH: Okay, papaya.
KAYLA: Papaya, cut the long way.
SARAH: Oh, I see, yeah.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: I don't like all these pictures because I've looked up fruits that look like vagina papaya and…
KAYLA: Well, I have a really disturbing picture of a blood orange here.
SARAH: In many of these photos there are human fingers involved.
KAYLA: There's a human finger all up in this blood orange and it is…
SARAH: No, that's what… and they do it such that it… I'm sick of it.
KAYLA: It reminds me of the grapefruit video. Do you remember the grapefruit video?
SARAH: No, not the grapefruit video.
KAYLA: Ooh, okay, these should be censored. Like, I understand that's an orange, but like, is it an orange? Okay, I was thinking of a papaya, which I think I've had and didn't like.
SARAH: Mm. What does that mean?
KAYLA: Mm. Anyway.
SARAH: I wouldn't like to try a papaya.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I'm not a fruit girly.
KAYLA: I love a fruit
SARAH: I mean, I ate a bunch of fruits today, but I'm just not… I'm not a berry girly. I went to…
KAYLA: Love a berry.
SARAH: I went to Knott's Berry Farm over the weekend and it's their Boysenberry Festival right now. All of the foods have boysenberry in them and they do them special for the festival every year.
KAYLA: You didn't like that?
SARAH: Well, at one point I was getting beignets.
KAYLA: Of course.
SARAH: And there's beignets and they came with some ice cream. And I was like, excuse me, sir, may I have it without the boysenberry?
KAYLA: Oh, did he arrest you on the spot?
SARAH: No, I was… every time I always just asked for it on the side.
KAYLA: That's nice.
SARAH: Which ended up being fine. And when I got the boysenberry jam, whatever, that went with the beignets on the side, he gave me a lot, and then one of the other people that I was with really liked it and they ended up keeping it and bringing it home.
KAYLA: Lovely.
SARAH: So, you're welcome.
KAYLA: A win for all.
SARAH: But yeah, I was talking to Kyla about it and she was like, you came here for the… I was like, I came here for the Boysenberry Festival, hold the boysenberry…
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: Anyway. It's also interesting to me, somewhat related, of families that are more likely to have girls versus boys, just in general.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I know that there's a certain science behind that, of like, if you're not having boys, it's the fault of the sperm for being sort of a weak swimmer or something, I don't know. Because like me and my sister, or me and my sister, my mom has one sister, my mom's mom has one sister. Like, there's like three pairs of girls generationally.
KAYLA: I’m trying to think, because me and my sister are a pair of girls. My mom and my aunt, two girls. My grandma, I know there's a… I think there was a lot of siblings though, I don’t remember.
SARAH: Whereas my grandpa, like my mother's father, two brothers.
KAYLA: Yeah. You know what this makes me think?
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: All those very religious families pumping out like 12 kids
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: They're all gay.
SARAH: Perhaps.
KAYLA: All the little ones, gay.
SARAH: Kayla, I know what our poll for this week is.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: You're probably gay, dear listener.
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: You’re probably queer.
KAYLA: A queer of a sort.
SARAH: I want to know where you fall in the sibling lineup. Do we have any oldest queers in this house?
KAYLA: I know an oldest queer. I know two oldest queers. I know three oldest queers.
SARAH: Yeah, one of them is my sister.
KAYLA: I know four oldest queers. I'm just thinking of the people I know in Boston. A lot, actually. One, two…
SARAH: You know, my other cousins… Because my other cousins…
KAYLA: I'm counting. One. Two. Three. Four. In my own backyard.
SARAH: Your own backyard. It's always… it's wild to me…
KAYLA: Five. Well, she doesn't live here. Dean has three siblings and then him and the oldest one is the gay one.
SARAH: Mm, the printer gained ink.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: The printer got a new ink installation.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: It makes sense to me to have all straight siblings and then queer. It makes sense to me to have eldest queer, the rest are queer. It's confounding to me if the eldest is queer and then they've got straight ones after that. What!? Odd.
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: Anyway. Yes, I would like to know about where you fall. I'm also really curious, like only children. Do you have cousins? Do you have queer cousins?
KAYLA: Do you have cousins?
SARAH: I have a lot of queer cousins.
KAYLA: I think I have. Maybe some, I couldn't say though.
SARAH: Well, yeah. So, what's your beef and your juice for this week, Kayla?
KAYLA: A great question, my juice is... No, I’ll start with my beef… My beef is, work has been really stinky this week.
SARAH: Ew
KAYLA: Kicking my ass. And also, I've been having jaw pain.
SARAH: Oh
KAYLA: I do fear I finally developed the TMJ disorder that I have been destined to have my whole life.
SARAH: Noooooooo!
KAYLA: Here she is.
SARAH: I'm destined to have it too, if it makes you feel any better.
KAYLA: Because I do be grinding my teeth and clenching me jaw, but I have a dentist appointment tomorrow and a doctor appointment next week, so.
SARAH: One time my grandma was up north and she fell off a ladder.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: And she got her jaw completely locked up.
KAYLA: Nope, that is a huge fear of mine.
SARAH: And then they had to go to the hospital, but they were like up north. So, like they didn't have great nearby access to quality healthcare. Also, it was, I think the late ‘70s.
KAYLA: Tough, tough stuff.
SARAH: I do believe my aunt saw her like laying on the ground with her jaw fucked up and just looked at her. And I may be making this up, but maybe she just looked at her and started crying.
KAYLA: I would.
SARAH: And then my mom had to be the big kid and be like, “dad!?”
KAYLA: “Dad!?” There was one time I had a… this was years ago now, but I had a terrible dentist experience where they were just like, it was so painful. And my mouth was open so wide for so long that I really thought my mouth was going to get stuck open.
SARAH: Oh no!
KAYLA: Because my jaw like clicks when I open it really wide and sometimes it really does feel like it's never going to close and that's very frightening to me.
SARAH: Sometimes I'll just be going about my life and I will suddenly realize that my jaw is really tense.
KAYLA: Yep.
SARAH: That I'm just holding it like that.
KAYLA: Yep. My problem too is I naturally jut my jaw forward a little bit, like in my most relaxed state, my jaw is kind of like, just like kind of nasty, just like jutted forward a little bit, that can't be good.
SARAH: Probably not.
KAYLA: No. I think it's because my jaw is like loose, that's the problem. I think I've worn down my joints really bad and now my jaw is just like loose.
SARAH: Mm
KAYLA: Anyway. If you're a doctor, let me know. And my juice…
SARAH: And let us also know what you're a doctor of.
KAYLA: Yeah. So, we know if I care or not. No, I’m just kidding.
SARAH: No, Dr. Jacki, I mean.
KAYLA: Dr. Jacki.
SARAH: We need to know.
KAYLA: We have known that, I know we did.
SARAH: We have.
KAYLA: I have known that once and then I did forget.
SARAH: There's no space in your brain anymore.
KAYLA: My juice are… it's all falling out my jaw. My juice are; I breathed the same air as Malala this week.
SARAH: That's true.
KAYLA: So be jealous of that. And also, I'm seeing Project Hail Mary tomorrow, I'm so excited, I'm going to get a great pop, I'm very excited about it.
SARAH: Yippee! I've heard mostly good things and then some people being like, I have a hot take, but like on the whole everyone is like, it’s great.
KAYLA: I'm not interested in anyone's hot takes. I've only heard good things. The book is so good, it's so amazing. And I trust...
SARAH: It's by Andy Weir, right?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I learned that approximately two hours ago.
KAYLA: It's the Martian guy.
SARAH: I know. Is it as dense as the Martian?
KAYLA: Like scientific stuff?
SARAH: Because the Martian is really dense, it took me a long time to read that.
KAYLA: I would say like, if it's the scientific concepts that are dense to you, like, yes. To me, when I was reading it, I just kind of like floated my way through that stuff.
SARAH: Ooh, cool
KAYLA: I saw someone talk about like, I read it as like fantasy where I'm just like, I don't need to understand that. So, like, yeah, there are a lot of like scientific concepts in it in the same way as the Martian, I think…
SARAH: Are they like trying to grow potatoes?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: In the tiny little thing that they have in space?
KAYLA: It's different. But they're… I don't… well, no, you know this because you've seen the trailer, right? You've seen the trailers? Okay. There is… he's not like completely alone the way he is in the Martian. So, there's a lot more of like relational aspects.
SARAH: There's an alien, right? There is an alien.
KAYLA: Yes, there is an alien. And then also flashbacks…
SARAH: I've not seen a trailer, but I've heard things from people.
[00:50:00]
KAYLA: Yeah. Well, because the book does not advertise it's an alien story. So, like when I… like, if you read the back of the book, there's nothing about an alien. And then all of a sudden, you're reading it and you're like, “hello!”
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, there's the… the relationship with the alien is like the core of the story. And then there's also flashbacks to like, before he left on the spaceship, you see his relationships with like other people. So, it's, I think less dense than the Martian in the way of like, there's other like characters stuff moving it forward. And because it jumps back and forth between past and present, that helps like break it up.
SARAH: Should I read it in five to seven business years?
KAYLA: I think you should, it's really good.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I've also heard that Artemis by Andy Weir is really good, which is about a lesbian living on the moon.
SARAH: I love moon lesbians, I love all lesbians except for ones that are assholes
KAYLA: Yeah, that’s fair
SARAH: But as a concept, I love all lesbians.
KAYLA: I'm kind of beefing with the moon right now though.
SARAH: Oh, what did the moon do to you?
KAYLA: I feel like she's up to no good.
SARAH: And I support women's wrongs.
KAYLA: Me too, except when they're against me in particular.
SARAH: Yeah, that's valid.
KAYLA: Like, I don't know what the moon in Boston is doing, but like me and the homies are beefing with the moon right now.
SARAH: The other day I saw the moon and the moon was on her butt.
KAYLA: That's what I'm saying, doing nothing. What is she doing sitting around on her butt doing nothing?
SARAH: Okay, you know how like the moon…
KAYLA: Get up, go to work.
SARAH: You know how like the moon when it's in a crescent, the crescent is usually to the side.
KAYLA: It was on the butt?
SARAH: The crescent is like on the bottom right now.
KAYLA: Stand up, girl.
SARAH: It's like on her ass, she's sitting down.
KAYLA: Stand up. Some of us are going to work every day and what are you doing sitting in the sky for not even the whole day? Stand up, bitch!
SARAH: Anyway…
KAYLA: Beefing with the moon.
SARAH: That was both your beef and juice, right? You just added an extra beef.
KAYLA: Yes, it was
SARAH: Okay. My beef… I thought of a new one just now and then I tried to… and then I forgot everything.
KAYLA: Right, good.
SARAH: So, the new one that I thought of, gone, the old ones that I had, gone.
KAYLA: Gone.
SARAH: Cool. My My My! by Troye Sivan.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: It's gone. I had several beefs and I even had a juice, gone. There's nothing in there anymore.
KAYLA: I'm trying to think of what you have told me, your work is really busy.
SARAH: Yeah, I've just been very busy because I'm doing two jobs at once.
KAYLA: You're going to bathe in a forest?
SARAH: Yeah, maybe doing that. Not actually, I won't be bathing, like my great uncle likes to take showers outside
KAYLA: No!
SARAH: And walk around in nude outside.
KAYLA: No, thank you.
SARAH: He has really kind of become a nudist in a lot of ways.
KAYLA: I don't even think, like if I lived in the middle of a bunch of acres and I knew it was just me, I still don't think I could do it.
SARAH: One time he sent a video… because he and my grandpa, their father, them and their other brother, their father, built, it was basically a hunting cabin up north when they first built it. It was like, barely, it was like a...
KAYLA: A shack.
SARAH: It was a shack, it didn't have a bathroom, they had an outhouse.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And it has been improved since then. They had to add the bathroom on, but because they added it onto the outside, there's a window that goes into the bathroom.
KAYLA: Nice! Yes!
SARAH: They finally changed it like a couple of years ago so that it doesn't have a wood-burning stove as the source of heat. Anyway, there's three brothers, the second and third brother, the third brother is my grandfather, the second and third share custody of this cottage. And so, there's a calendar of who gets to go when and blah, blah, blah, blah, and who does different stuff. And a couple of years ago, I believe this was after my grandfather died, but it was when my grandmother was still alive, he was like, oh, I put in the dock. And he sent a video of himself putting in the dock.
KAYLA: Naked.
SARAH: He was not wearing clothing.
KAYLA: Why he do that?
SARAH: Because he doesn't like wearing clothes, I guess.
KAYLA: But also like, why was he in the video?
SARAH: Because he was putting the dock in.
KAYLA: Well, he just set it up like on a tripod?
SARAH: Yeah. He did like a time-lapse, but like just a regular video.
KAYLA: Just a nudist vlog of him putting in the dock?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And sent it to his family?
SARAH: By email.
KAYLA: Did you see it?
SARAH: No, I didn't want to see it.
KAYLA: That's good, that's good.
SARAH: His daughter and his granddaughter have learned that if they're going to go over to his house, they need to like call first or else be really loud when they come in so that just in case.
KAYLA: I don't like it.
SARAH: That's what happens when a man becomes a widow, he says, “I'm going unleash the nudist in me.”
KAYLA: Yeah, yeah.
SARAH: Anyway, what? Okay, I don't really… I'm not gonna say beefs and juices because I forgot them. My beef is that I forgot them. My juice is I watched a television program. I watched Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. I watched one and one fifth episode so far and it was very brave of me.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Okay, you can tell us about your beef, your juice, your place in the sibling order on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you'd like to support us there and help us pay our taxes slash… Well, if you give us enough money, we might have more taxes.
KAYLA: We'll have tax problems, yeah.
SARAH: But you would have to give us a lot more money for that to work.
KAYLA: Who is to say? I don't know how taxes work.
SARAH: Well, a couple of years ago, I had jumped up in the tax bracket. So, it would take a lot for me to jump up to the next bracket.
KAYLA: That is fair, that is fair.
SARAH: So, anyway. It was really inconvenient when I jumped up in the tax bracket, that's why I had to pay $2,000 in taxes. Anyway. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Rachel, Rebekah Monnin, Rick Turpin, SammyO, and Scott Ainslie. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Eric who would like to promote Queer ASL, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher's Haven and the fact that she has two queer children. Johanna, Kayla's dad who as far as I'm aware only has one queer child, but also JandiCreations.com. Also, my Aunt Jeannie, Christopher's Haven, I don't know if I said that. And KELLER bradley who would like to promote being queer in a basement or in an attic or on a ground floor or anywhere in between.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: There's nothing in between a basement and a ground floor, but there are things in between a ground floor and an attic, potentially. Our other $10 patrons are Maff, Martin Chiesl, Purple Hayes, Quartertone, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, Val, Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Clare Olsen, Danielle Hutchinson, Derick & Carissa, and Elle Bitter. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer, Crystal Scherer. Nathaniel White, who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com. Kayla’s aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome, even if we can't explain why you are queer. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex who would like to promote their company ControlAltAccess (Dot Com), Dr. Jacki, Dragonfly, my mom, and River who would like to promote the fact that Dr. Jacki is a doctor of something we just can't remember what.
KAYLA: I feel really bad, because I know I knew.
SARAH: Ever since I hit the age of approximately 20.
KAYLA: 2? Oh.
SARAH: My brain stopped being able to hold things, I became a worse speller when I got to college.
KAYLA: That's tough.
SARAH: Because I stopped being able to hold words in my head, because my brain got full. Although, I've been dealing with many other writers in the past couple of weeks, and boy are they bad at spelling, they make me feel really good about myself.
KAYLA: Not just you.
SARAH: I'm good at spelling. I was the only person in my Second-Grade class who spelled friend right on the first try.
KAYLA: I actually have spelling trauma right now because we were playing a game of like, it was kind of like a who is more likely to type party game. And one of them was like not be able to spell the word illiterate. And Dean, out of seven people, Dean voted for me.
SARAH: Spell illiterate.
KAYLA: I-L-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-E.
SARAH: I was partially not listening, because I was writing it with my hand, but I think you were right.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: I can't do it with just my brain. Like if I were in a Spelling Bee, I've never done super great in the Spelling Bee situation, I've only been in them a couple of times, but it's because I need to be able to like write it down and look at it.
KAYLA: Yeah, I would have to be the person with like on the back of their little card, like spelling it out with my hand. But Dean was… and I was like aghast, because I was like, we are always talking about how much I read. And then I was like, I certainly can spell better than you. And he keeps talking about how he like won the Third-Grade Spelling Bee and I'm like, who cares?
SARAH: Oh, so, he can spell better than a third grader?
KAYLA: That's what I'm saying, like who literally cares?
SARAH: I can spell better than a third grader.
KAYLA: Are you sure? You just said you were really bad at it.
SARAH: No, that's not what I said. I'm still a good speller; I am not as good of a speller as I used to be.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: So, jot that down.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: And to my work computer, I never mean able like Cain and Abel or the weekend. I always mean able, A-B-L-E, sometimes I just type too fast and it's wrong.
[01:00:00]
KAYLA: There's a person I've been emailing at work recently and my email thing always auto-corrects their name to Toilet.
SARAH: Noooo!
KAYLA: And it's really scary because I'm afraid that one day I'm not going to catch it.
SARAH: I'm afraid that one day I'm going to spell my own name wrong in an email.
KAYLA: Huh!
SARAH: Because sometimes if I'm like writing, I'll write, I always write Best, enter, Sarah. And then I hit send. Now, usually I reread my emails approximately 6,072 times before I send them.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: But if it's like a really short thing, like I don't always. And so sometimes when I go to type Best, Sarah, sometimes I often will accidentally type Beset. And then I write Sar-ha. It's going to happen one of these days.
KAYLA: Sorry, I'm looking up Dr. Jacki right now.
SARAH: All right, that's why we're still going.
KAYLA: Medicine? I feel like I've met Jacki.
SARAH: Yeah, I think you have.
KAYLA: At the thing I did.
SARAH: But your brain is too full, you can't remember.
KAYLA: I just feel as though I have met Jacki and that makes me feel even worse.
SARAH: Yesterday was my cousin's birthday and I remembered. Well, I saw it in my calendar a couple of days prior, but then the day of I remembered.
KAYLA: It's a PhD of some sort, I can tell you that.
SARAH: I know that.
KAYLA: Jacki, I have met Jacki, this face is so familiar to me.
SARAH: Doctor of philosophy, that wasn't even hard, I just Googled her name.
KAYLA: I googled too, I didn't find it. Anyway, I have met Jacki at the thing, at the conference I did.
SARAH: It's doctor of philosophy at… That sounds right, does that sound right to you?
KAYLA: Sure. It was like a Midwest conference I went to.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Well, Jacki, if you see that I looked at your LinkedIn, this is why, it's because I'm a bad person and I didn't even remember anything at all.
SARAH: Thank you for coming to our TED Talk.
KAYLA: I feel really bad now.
SARAH: You don't have to feel bad, I don't think Jacki is gonna hold it against you.
KAYLA: Yeah, but I should remember the people I've met.
SARAH: You've met so many people.
KAYLA: Mm.
SARAH: I don't even remember very basic facts.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: I don't remember what I ate for lunch yesterday. What did I eat for lunch yesterday?
KAYLA: What did I eat for lunch yesterday? I think I had chili, no? Maybe.
SARAH: I had my last two freezer chickens.
KAYLA: That's very sad. I do not know what I'm gonna eat for lunch tomorrow because I don't have any leftovers.
SARAH: Aaahhhh! Okay. Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]