Ep 356: Hot Takes
Transcript Info:
Sounds Fake But Okay Podcast
September, 14th, 2025
Speakers
Speaker 1: Sarah
Speaker 2: Kayla
Episode 356: Hot Takes
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, ‘Hot Takes.’
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Yay.
SARAH: Yay, how is everyone? Are you good?
KAYLA: Sarah is not itchy and my tummy does not hurt, so.
SARAH: Exactly. Exactly. I've never been itchy, Kayla's tummy has never hurt.
KAYLA: Never hurted. I don't own a sweatshirt that says my tummy hurts.
SARAH: Mm mm
KAYLA: Mm mm
SARAH: Addie has just discovered that the anti… like the sound dampeners that I have on my wall…
KAYLA: Ah, are good to scratch?
SARAH: Are good for scratching.
KAYLA: Yeah, I've heard that one before.
SARAH: She's just discovered that.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's a tough one.
SARAH: But now she's distracted by the window and the curtains, which she also likes to… what she likes to do is she doesn't necessarily scratch entirely on the curtains, she just will hook her little claw on like one tiny loop of thread and then just kind of like look at it and then pull.
KAYLA: Ah
SARAH: And then it comes off and then she just does it again, just does it over and over again.
KAYLA: Very interesting stuff.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Oh, and here's mine, here it is, all seven pounds of it.
SARAH: Hi. Oh, beautiful. Look at her.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Well, now that we've had our cat section, I hope all of you who have cats, I hope your cats are good, I hope your dogs are good, your horses, your turtles, your bearded dragons, your fish, your hamsters, your guinea pigs, your gerbils, your tortoises
KAYLA: Snakes
SARAH: Snakes
KAYLA: Lizards
SARAH: Other reptiles
KAYLA: Frogs
SARAH: Birds
KAYLA: Birds
SARAH: Frog, toad, frog and toad are friends
KAYLA: I think everyone should send us pictures of their animals
SARAH: Bunnies
KAYLA: Bunnies, chinchilla
SARAH: Love a bunny chinchilla, hedgehogs
KAYLA: Hedgehogs, ferret
SARAH: Ferret, smelly, smelly ferret, donkey, goat.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: I just had another barn animal.
KAYLA: Sheep? Pig? Cow?
SARAH: Sheep
KAYLA: Cow, how could we forget?
SARAH: I was thinking more pets
KAYLA: You could have a cow for a pet
SARAH: I guess if you have a sheep for a pet you might as well have a cow.
KAYLA: You might as well. When you give a sheep a pet…
SARAH: When you give a sheep a shear…
KAYLA: It'll want a cookie.
SARAH: It gets naked. It gets naked.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: All right.
KAYLA: Anyway.
SARAH: Do we have a housekeeping? No. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week we are giving you our and your hot takes
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: Except I don't know if I have one.
SARAH: So maybe just mine.
KAYLA: Maybe, we'll see at the end, we'll do yours first and then we'll do…
SARAH: Okay
KAYLA: And then we'll see at the end if I've come up with one, because I'm sure I have one, I just don't know what it is.
SARAH: Yeah. This came about because I have been served a lot of Subway Takes on YouTube recently. For those of you who don't know…
KAYLA: And what is that?
SARAH: I'm telling them right now, Subway Takes is a guy whose name I forget, but he is Egyptian and he has a young daughter.
KAYLA: Okay, all you need to know.
SARAH: He carries a little microphone strapped to a subway card on the New York subway. And he asks people what their takes are and then they say their take and then he either says he agrees or he disagrees and then they elaborate; and it's very silly and fun. And I've been served a lot of them. And last night… I'm not very good at having opinions, I don't know if you guys know this.
KAYLA: But when you have them…
SARAH: But when I have them, I have them.
KAYLA: You have them.
SARAH: And last night, I thought of my subway take. And I said, “this is important.” And I spent 45 minutes writing it down at two in the morning.
KAYLA: Yep.
SARAH: So, I said to Kayla, I said, “we ask people to submit us hot takes.” Just so that I can do mine.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And Kayla said, “okay.”
KAYLA: Well, first I said nothing for hours, because…
SARAH: Yeah, and then I thought she was dead
KAYLA: She thought I was dead. Work was so crazy, bitch.
SARAH: Well, because I asked you a question, there was an action item related to the pod.
KAYLA: Yeah. And usually, I do a good job of that.
SARAH: Right. Like, if I text you random shit, and you don't answer me for 18 hours, that doesn't bring up any red flags.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I asked you a question regarding the podcast that we were recording today
KAYLA: Yeah, usually I respond to that
SARAH: And there was a potential action item involved and I was like, “why is she not answering?”
KAYLA: Because bitch, everyone was on my ass today.
SARAH: Oh, get them off. All right. So, we did ask, I did, because Kayla was dying… I'm gonna leave that in because I think it's fun and exciting
KAYLA: Oh, okay.
SARAH: Not the entirety of it, but everyone will have just heard the fun noise that just started recording instead of my voice.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Which I noticed this time.
KAYLA: Right. Good. We're learning and growing.
SARAH: Anyway, we fixed it. As I was saying, I posted on Discord and Instagram asking for your hot takes and you provided them and I will provide mine also first.
KAYLA: Yes. I'm ready.
SARAH: Who is ready?
KAYLA: Me, I'm listening.
SARAH: So, my subway take is that we have evolved out of natural selection and it's ruining our lives.
KAYLA: This feels like an ice-cold take, continue. I mean, ah, so hot. Ah, spicy. Ouch.
SARAH: I'm frowning and looking sad.
KAYLA: Doing a nice little pout. Ah, ouchie. So hot.
SARAH: Thank you. Okay. We continue. Okay. So, we got so good at science and technology that people who should have been naturally selected out were not. Like, entire lines of people that now exist would not have existed a few hundred years ago, I would argue most of them in the developed world should not exist.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: We have no right to it. We are an embarrassment to the wonders of multi-celled life and the alchemy of evolution and we are all suffering for it.
KAYLA: I mean, we are overpopulated, so, yeah.
SARAH: But also on an individual level, we're suffering for it, let me elaborate.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Back in the day, if some absolute crank in the tribe wanted to be insane and run full speed at a stationary object, vaulting over it and flipping over in the air, you know what would happen to them?
KAYLA: Dead?
SARAH: They would die. But we have ibuprofen now, so I did gymnastics for 14 years and stress-fractured my back four times.
KAYLA: So, you're saying you should be dead?
SARAH: Yes. Because now my back hurts when I walk, my back hurts when I stand, my back hurts when I sit. I like to consider myself like a reasonable person with a reasonable tolerance for pain and hardship, but I can't lay on the ground for more than a minute because it makes my back hurt. I've gotten back pain from hotel mattresses that were too firm. I would have to be the passenger princess of the roving pastoral tribe. They would have to find me some gentle moss to lay upon. I would not be able to pull my weight harvesting grain because I would need a break every 30 minutes for my fuck ass back. And now I experience back pain instead of death.
KAYLA: Hmm.
SARAH: My knees hurt if they're bent too long. If I were crouching in the shrubs hunting buffalo waiting for my moment to attack and I couldn't handle it because my knees hurt, I would have been trampled.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I can't put too much weight on my wrist, how am I supposed to carry the deer carcass we just hunted back to the campfire?
KAYLA: Don't.
SARAH: If I didn't die of natural causes, the tribe would have taken me out back and killed me with a rock, like not even a sharp one, they would have used a dull one, they would have taken pleasure in it. Here's another example, Kayla, are you nearsighted? Yes, you are. I am. I wouldn't be able to hunt hairs for shit. I wouldn't be able to see them. When I'm not wearing my glasses, I step on my cat because she blends in with the floor.
KAYLA: That's deeply upsetting.
SARAH: Only at night.
KAYLA: Oh.
SARAH: Only when it's dark.
KAYLA: Hey, only at night though
SARAH: Only if I don't have any lights on. She's always in my way.
KAYLA: Right. Right.
SARAH: But anyway, my eyesight isn't even that bad compared to some of y'all. Also, look at me, I know y'all can't see me, but imagine me, look at this Irish skin, this pale ass skin. My foolish ass moved to Los Angeles looking like this, it is a miracle of science and technology that the sun hasn't killed me yet. Speaking of skin, I'm allergic to my own cat, I keep getting hives, I started getting hives for apparently no reason at all, cat-related or otherwise, I keep itching myself into insanity. Can itching kill a person?
KAYLA: Yes, because if you itch too bad, you could infect yourself and die of infection.
SARAH: Exactly. A couple of hundred years ago, I feel like it would have killed me.
KAYLA: Yeah, probably.
SARAH: My teeth, no enamel. They would have fallen out by now. I would only be able to eat soft foods, like mash them between my gums. And who has time to prepare food that is soft that can be mashed between the gums when you're getting chased by hyenas?
KAYLA: No, you’re right
SARAH: Kayla, I'm anemic. In the modern day, it's okay to be a little tired, but behold, no need because we can fix it. Good thing science and technology has allowed for the creation of an iron supplement, but oh no, the iron pills make me vomit! Cool. Great work, body, I should not be here, I should be dead.
[00:10:00]
KAYLA: Okay, so your hot take is, I should be dead.
SARAH: I should probably not have even existed in the first place because my mentally ill autoimmune riddled ancestors should have been dead. And it's not their fault. Okay? It's not their fault that I'm here, they just wanted to be not dead and not suffering, and they used the science and technologies available to them to facilitate that. But now I'm suffering.
KAYLA: Yeah, but you're not going to procreate, so.
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: So good job.
SARAH: Exactly. Well, okay. Look, here's… I know people are going to be like, “oh, isn't it beautiful that we've figured out how to solve these problems and alleviate pain?” Like, yeah, your back hurts, but you could take ibuprofen, okay, yeah, sure, but now instead of dying of a fever at 15, we're suffering all the way to over 105, there's a tradeoff there, a tradeoff I wouldn't have to worry about if my ancestral line were selected out generations ago, if not for like, I don't know, the invention of hand washing or the polio vaccine. Or even if I personally did come into existence, I would have been like eaten by a black bear or something, just as evolutionary biology intended. Most of us should not be here. And I don't mean that in a suicidal or homicidal way. I simply mean, we're dumb and we shouldn't be here.
KAYLA: You think we've evolved too far?
SARAH: You don't need to be the strongest to survive anymore. And so, all these people who aren't strong…
KAYLA: You could say that's a good thing, though.
SARAH: Yeah. And my hot take is that it's not.
KAYLA: Okay. Okay. All right. So, you think we should just do a Survivor?
SARAH: Well, we're not gonna.
KAYLA: And all the weak people should die?
SARAH: Well, we're not gonna. Okay. It's too late. We have ibuprofen, we're not gonna want to live without it. Okay?
KAYLA: Can I rebut your hot take?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Okay...
SARAH: Just trying to cool this shit down with a glass of ice water.
KAYLA: Cool the shit down. I think an argument against your take could be that…
SARAH: Eugenics.
KAYLA: Nope.
SARAH: It's like weird reverse eugenics.
KAYLA: Well, yes.
SARAH: And that's problematic
KAYLA: It's an ableist take in a lot of ways.
SARAH: It is
KAYLA: But right now, it is like, okay, this is also not true. In an ideal world, the opposite of what you're saying is that now it's not the strongest physical people that are surviving, it is the smartest because they are able to come up with these technologies.
SARAH: Not necessarily, Elon Musk has so much money.
KAYLA: Right. This is what I was just about to say. That is the idealistic thing of like, oh, it's not the strongest anymore, it's the smartest and best. But we have seen that that is not actually how it has worked out.
SARAH: Right. That's what I'm saying, is that it's not the strongest or the smartest or the best because we've invented all of these things that make it so that anyone can survive.
KAYLA: Anyone, I see
SARAH: And am I saying that I want people with disabilities to die? No, obviously not. I'm just saying that because we have evolved past the point of natural selection, all of us are facing longer term suffering because of it.
KAYLA: Yeah, I mean, that's very real, people are living longer and longer and our bodies were not built for that and so now everyone is suffering.
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fair.
SARAH: And that's my take.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: And I can still be a leftist and still think that.
KAYLA: Insane. Insane.
SARAH: Hi, this is Sarah from the future. I think I made myself pretty clear. But I would just like to really emphasize here that I am not saying that we should go back to natural selection, that's not what I'm suggesting, I just want to complain about my back pain. My take is merely that we are suffering because of the lack of modern natural selection, this is not a call to action in any way, just a neutral observation, which I think is warm. That's all. Thank you. All right, that's what I came here to say.
KAYLA: Thank you for your time.
SARAH: Shall we get to some of our listeners’ hot takes?
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I said all hot takes were welcome. But we would specifically like aspec and queer hot takes if people have them. Do you want to look at the Instagram and I'll look at the Discord?
KAYLA: Yes. I just opened on a really funny one that is not queer-related at all.
SARAH: Hit me with it.
KAYLA: But Cubs Dem on Instagram said…
SARAH: I know who that is.
KAYLA: Do you?
SARAH: Yeah, sorry, continue
KAYLA: They said Imagine Dragons stole One Republic's career.
SARAH: You know what?
KAYLA: And no, I think that's fair.
SARAH: As someone who in middle school was like pretty into One Republic.
KAYLA: I loved One Republic
SARAH: And then in high school saw Imagine Dragons live.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Listen, Cubs Dem, I know you, not that well, but I know who you are and I don't think you're wrong, I think that's kind of a valid take. Imagine Dragons did kind of blow up One Republic’s spot.
KAYLA: Yeah, I kind of… Dean just went to the bathroom. Dean has some extremely strong, negative feelings about Imagine Dragons
SARAH: And I don't necessarily share them
KAYLA: So, I want to hear his take on this
SARAH: I'm not an Imagine Dragons’ shooter but I do like many Imagine Dragons songs, I have a lot of them on my playlist.
KAYLA: That's fair. Well, we can't ask him, but just know Dean doesn't really like Imagine Dragons.
SARAH: Okay, there are some songs that I don't like as much and some of them that I think are bangers. And One Republic has some songs that were very important to middle school Sarah.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: So, take that.
KAYLA: I think I saw One Republic live, you know the Today show does those like super-early morning things?
SARAH: Mm hmm
KAYLA: When I was in New York one time with my family, we went to one and I'm almost positive, I think it was One Republic
SARAH: Amazing. I love that for you.
KAYLA: Thank you.
SARAH: Okay. _Ace_ says, “hot take, Pride flags are overrated.”
KAYLA: I can see that.
SARAH: I think they've become such a stand-in for identity and identity is so very complex.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And people see your flag and they assume that they understand you.
KAYLA: Yeah, I think they're also just overused and over-commercialized now.
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: So, it's just doesn't really… like, when the flags were originally created, it was like, okay, this color stands for this and this color stands for that. But like no one… at least, I feel like I don't know people that know what the meanings are or like care about it.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: And like no one thinks about the flags in that way anymore.
SARAH: It is really funny because tomorrow I'm going to be making a sign for a concert I'm going to and I will be putting pride flags on it, but that's mostly a reaction to cishet men. So, it's for a reason.
KAYLA: I see. Speaking of cishet men.
SARAH: Mm hmm.
KAYLA: This next hot take from Katty Maria is, “be wary of straight men with nail polish on.”
SARAH: Oh, yeah. Yes and no.
KAYLA: I mean, as all things, it depends on the person. Where I agree with this is have you seen the trend of performative male contests?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: So, if you haven't seen this, I feel like for the last like couple of years, it has been this thing of like a pop up in New York, it's a lookalike contest. Like, I don't know…
SARAH: Who looks the most like Timothée Chalamet? And then Timothée Chalamet shows up and doesn't win.
KAYLA: Yeah. And so, like people just randomly grouped together in New York and it's whatever. Like, I saw one that was like, meet me in the park and watch me eat like 10 slices of pizza or something. I don't know, people are just doing weird shit.
SARAH: Yeah, building community any way we know how.
KAYLA: Literally. So, this one is a performative male contest. And a performative male is like a straight man who in public purposely wears like a tote bag and is reading like a fantasy book
SARAH: Audre Lorde.
KAYLA: Yeah. And is holding a record and his nails are painted and he's listening to a cassette tape and like, so just like an overly like…
SARAH: The one I saw was in the Bay Area and I think it was like the third annual or something
KAYLA: I love that.
SARAH: Like, they've done this before.
KAYLA: So, it's just like a man performing as like the idealized version of like the female gaze of a man, kind of.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, it's supposed to be like, I'm not like other terrible guys. I'm like this soft understanding, whatever. But then the thing is that they often then end up being like male manipulators and that was all just a front, whatever.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: So, in that way, I agree. But also...
SARAH: I was going to say several of my K-pop boys like wearing nail polish, but you would be hard-pressed for me to call any of them straight. So...
KAYLA: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing to me is, I think men who wear nail polish are either posing as anti-gender like soft men or they are anti-gender soft men. And so then sometimes it's difficult to be like, okay, are you actually like nail polish doesn't have a gender? I'm comfortable enough with my masculinity to do whatever.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: Or are you just posing as that to get people to feel comfortable with you so that then you can be an asshole? So, hard to say.
SARAH: Yeah. And you can definitely be a cishet man and wear nail polish in a completely not problematic way.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: It's just when you look at someone, you can't always tell, just by looking at them.
KAYLA: You can't always tell how they're wearing, like, what is your motive here?
[00:20:00]
SARAH: Yeah. Who do you know here?
KAYLA: Exactly
SARAH: I saw recently there was an NFL player who had his nails done for like suicide prevention awareness. And then of course all the people on the Right were like…
KAYLA: Of course
SARAH: And people were like, “it's literally just some suicide prevention awareness.”
KAYLA: It’s also just some paint, dawg
SARAH: It wasn't even all of his nails.
KAYLA: Yeah, of course not.
SARAH: It was like the color on one nail and then there was something else on another nail. And then on his other hand, he had like, nine, eight and eight, because I think that's the number that you call. Like, nail-arted on his...
KAYLA: I think that men in sports, particularly, maybe even just like celebrity men are missing out on this prime real estate because they're all wearing ads everywhere, you're carrying your whatever bag that's branded by your brand deal, we could be writing shit on our nails.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: To promote whatever, that's prime billboard real estate.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: The nail. Well, I guess some sports they wear gloves, but like NBA, they don't and they're always showing their big fucking fingers holding the ball.
SARAH: Well, when you do the press conference afterwards, you can like put your hands all over the microphone.
KAYLA: That's what I'm saying, because it's… okay, getting like a brand tattooed on your knuckles forever, now I'm always with this brand. You could switch that up on the daily, holding my microphone, holding my branded water, my Gatorade and my fingernails say, ‘Propel.’
SARAH: Exactly. Well, it wouldn't be Gatorade then if it said ‘Propel.’
KAYLA: Well, I'm saying you could be sponsored by both at once.
SARAH: Oh, I see. They wouldn't allow that.
KAYLA: No, but this is what I'm saying, so
SARAH: One of my new K-pop groups that I really like are the ones that have never met a gender that they liked or couldn't be, gender is not real. They drink estrogen and the tears of transphobes every morning. And recently, all of them have started having like their nails done, but like acrylic nails, like long nails.
KAYLA: Hell yeah
SARAH: And so, then when they do like their ending fairies in the K-pop performances, when you go on a music show for the last many years, ending fairies have been a thing, where like a couple of the members at the end of the song, like the camera is just on them and they're like heavily breathing but then like doing cute things.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Or they don't have to be cute things, a lot of times they do, and then people make fun of it and then they'll do like fake heavy breathing and then, you know, because they're tired from the performance.
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: Anyway, but the camera will be just on you. And so, then like they can do things and then you can… and then it's like, “Ooh, look at their nails. You're a serving, queen.” And these are the ones where two of the members have specifically said that they're fine with femme, gendered terms and she/her pronouns.
KAYLA: Love that
SARAH: Love that for the class.
KAYLA: I don't give a fuck.
SARAH: I don’t give a fuck. So yeah, I think… here's what I think, I think if you see a man who appears to be cishet wearing nail polish, first of all, do you know that they’re cishet?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Second of all, I feel like the vibe check… I feel like the vibe… like you just need a quick vibe check.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And maybe you will be wrong and in 10 months you'll find that out.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I think for the most part, you can suss out who is weird about it and who is just like, yeah, I like painting colors on my nails.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Oh, also _Ace_ said, “I may be a hypocrite because I just remembered I literally have an ace flag in my profile picture.”
KAYLA: Listen, I have a flag behind me.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But I can still think that they're like, you know?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I have two that are similar from Chae Morgant and Reich Sophie. One is transmasc lesbians are valid and people on the internet should stop policing their identities and male-presenting gender fluid people can be lesbians, I agree with both of these.
SARAH: Yes. I think the second one, this relates to something in the Discord. Oh, The Lesbian Life of a Cow Torte says, they're saying how a good chunk of the queer community is using labels in order to stop cishet people from complaining. They said, “a.k.a I say I'm non-binary because I use they/them pronouns and my gender identity is a lesbian will have the cishet baffled and confused and annoying, but I use they/them pronouns because I'm non-binary is usually quite fine. So, I say non-binary instead of lesbian to stop them from complaining,” which I think is in the same realm of there are things that especially cishet people, but also queer people like…
KAYLA: I was gonna say like the… I think the transmasc lesbian
SARAH: That's one that people struggle with.
KAYLA: I think queer people are maybe even more upset about that.
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Than cishet people because I think cishet people maybe just don't even like know enough.
SARAH: Yeah, they're just like…
KAYLA: To understand why to be… I think that's more confused than upset.
SARAH: Yeah, yeah. No, I do think transmasc lesbians are legit and I don't know any super well, but like I have, you know, some mutuals on the internet and at first, I was like, “huh?” And then I was like, “I don't care.”
KAYLA: That's my thing is like… and I think it's hard because part of the reason I'm like, “I don't give a fuck, do whatever makes you feel comfortable,” is also because I'm not in those communities; I'm not trans, I'm not a lesbian, so I don't have any reason to feel hurt by that.
SARAH: You don't have a stake in it.
KAYLA: I can understand why a lesbian would feel like someone is encroaching on their community, that like we have it hard enough, I want to be in a community with people who have a similar experience as me so I can like feel in community and safe and people coming in that aren't like me it makes my community not feel like my community more, I get that.
SARAH: Mm hmm
KAYLA: But also like, shut the fuck up?
SARAH: Yeah, it's just the thing about… I think the thing about queerness is what we all know and understand, those of us who are read into all of this, is that there are no fucking rules, everything is made up, everything is a spectrum.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And I think to that end, all of these identities we have are identities that we have tried to map onto that to make sense of everything to ourselves, but also especially to straight people.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Like yes, obviously there are certain identifiers that of course you use them for yourself, like it's important to understand yourself and know yourself and blah, blah, blah. But the reason why we have these words and these descriptors, I think is in large part because we felt the need to explain ourselves to straight people who thought that we should be one way and we are not. And so, I think all of these terms that we have in the community, and I don't necessarily mean like specific, like super hyper-specific, aspec identities, I mean like big terms like lesbian, and just gay.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I think these words have been mapped on to a group of experiences, and some people view that as a narrower group of experiences, and some people view it as a wider group of experiences, but the reality is there is no clear definition because we're trying to map definitions onto something that fundamentally can't be defined.
KAYLA: Yeah, I think it's also because then if you're trying to get very specific with how you define it and get into things like micro-labels the way the aspec community does.
SARAH: That was the word I was looking for.
KAYLA: People don't like that either, because like to me what I perceive a transmasc lesbian identity to be is like I was born a woman, I am now masc, but I don't love what women as a man loves women, I love women as a woman loves women because that's…
SARAH: In a sapphic way.
KAYLA: In a sapphic way. And so, do you want me to come up with a new word for that? Or are you going to be pissed off that now I've created another micro-identity and you're pissed that we're confusing the straights with our nuanced language and we're not accessible anymore? I just don't think you can have it both ways.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, it's like do you want me to use the language you already have, trans lesbian, which I think completely gets the point across, I read that, I understand what you mean by that. In a broad way, obviously every person is going to be more specific by how they mean that because it's an individual experience, but it's like do you want me to use that or do you want me to come up with some new hyper-specific language that's going to be more inaccessible? Like what do you want from me?
SARAH: Yeah, it's all just… at the end of the day all of it is silly. Why do we fucking care what other people do?
KAYLA: I don't know, girl.
SARAH: If you're not hurting anyone. And as a reminder, that person is doing something I don't like does not count as hurting you.
KAYLA: Yeah. Yeah.
SARAH: So, there's that. Anyway, I agree with those hot takes. Dorman says something, he said, “oh, actually this might be spicy.” And I read it and I was like, “I don't think that's spicy at all.” But that might be a product of me being like too in this community or something.
[00:30:00]
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: They said, “I'm not sure how much anyone is actually attracted to a particular gender versus being attracted to just a bunch of traits that might generally correlate with that gender.”
KAYLA: Yeah, I think that's almost in the same vein of what we were just talking about is there are all these amorphous blob experiences, and for our human brains to try to understand them we have to group them into these boxes of like man and woman when in reality everything is whatever.
SARAH: And once you understand that gender isn't real and once you internalize that gender isn't real, attraction to gender cannot be clear-cut because gender isn't real.
KAYLA: Honestly, and I think I've talked about this before about my transition from being straight to identifying as bi. I truly don't know that I've always been bi, there is a large part of me that feels like as I've been in this community more and understood how stupid gender is more, that I have just let that go.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And that is why I identify as the way I do now. But before that, I didn't have that conceptual understanding of it. So yeah.
SARAH: Yeah. I have one from Barefoot Backpacker.
KAYLA: Slay
SARAH: “Heterosexual doesn't work conceptually in society/culture if you're an enby and semantically the hetero part meaning different or other means a hetero enby would be attracted to everyone who isn't an enby and therefore equally semantically homosexual implies an enby would only be attracted to other enbys.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Semantically, can a person be non-binary and a lesbian or straight? I don't…
KAYLA: Semantically? I truly don't know where that leaves you because…
SARAH: I don't know.
KAYLA: Because semantically, when you talk about sexuality, it is this gender to this gender.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So, then what do you do when it isn't just one concrete gender?
SARAH: I don't know.
KAYLA: I don’t either
SARAH: And that brings us back to none of it is real, nothing makes sense and we're all just trying to fit definitions onto things that are amorphous and cannot have a definition cleanly placed onto them.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And those things and definitions cannot align perfectly with our language regardless of what language we're coming from, because in English all of those terms are like, oh, like Latin roots, whatever. But even if it were coming from another language that came up with its own terms for all of this independently and had completely different roots, you would still have these same limitations even if they look a little bit different because of the language.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because language is… the intention of language is to be specific.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And identities are vague.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: They're specific for you maybe. But if that's the case, then everyone's identity is just themselves. Like I identify as Sarah.
KAYLA: Sarah, yeah.
SARAH: And then no one knows what that is. Our friend Miranda said that she was going to say it on the Instagram and then maybe didn't, but she texted it to me. So, I'm going to read it to you. WLW relationships.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: We'll call them sapphic because ‘WLW’ is difficult to say out loud.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Sapphic relationships in TV are treated differently and held to a different standard. And I asked her to elaborate because I was like, I think I understand what you're getting at.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I was like different standard to what? Like, I want to know more.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And so, she sent me a block of text.
KAYLA: Good.
SARAH: Okay. So, she said, “in terms of a different standard, it feels wrong to compare it to MLM,” not pyramid scheme but Achillean, I believe is what they're called
KAYLA: Yes
SARAH: “Relationships since queer couples are under fire always, particularly in this climate, but within that space shows that center around sapphic couples require the couple to be extremely compelling and well-written from the jump and are expected to be intense and hot and aren't allowed to be cheesy or ridiculous or genuinely complex compared to the Achillean-led shows, because deep down, there's still misogyny at play, not to mention historically queer women will support the MLM-led shows along with queer men and straight women leading to larger viewership and thus season renewals, whereas you don't see that turnout from those two demographics.” And by that she means MLM, like queer men and straight women.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: “For sapphic-led shows, making it an uphill climb to convince networks and streaming to renew anything.” And then she gave me some examples and also said, “and don't even get me started on if a woman of color is in the couple because they get treated worse than the usual two white women couples.”
KAYLA: I think this is another ice-cold take.
SARAH: It's because we're too in the community.
KAYLA: I guess. And I think this is true across all media. Like, I've noticed this with books too, is queer authors that I read, even if they do eventually publish sapphic-led books, they usually start off with MLM-led books and then as they become more successful, it's like, okay, now I can do this.
SARAH: Even people who themselves are sapphic individuals.
KAYLA: Yeah. Yeah. Like I think Casey McQuiston is like a perfect example of that.
SARAH: Yeah, a perfect example
KAYLA: As you start with Red, White & Royal Blue, hugely successful, and then you move into a sapphic book. And I think then their next one was like…
SARAH: Yes
KAYLA: It's like non-binary people, at least one I think was non-binary, the main character.
SARAH: Yes. I own it, I haven't read it.
KAYLA: I've seen it, I haven't read it. So, yeah, I think that is true across media is like, you dip your toe in, allow the audience to get used to queer men. And then you're like, “queer women, my lord?” And they say, “no.”
SARAH: And they're like, “no.”
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Well, and Miranda was saying that like the landscape for sapphic relationships is so bad out there that she's forced to watch military propaganda shows because it's some of the best sapphic representation currently on TV.
KAYLA: That is crazy.
SARAH: It's the something, something lioness show on like…
KAYLA: I’ve got no idea, never heard of it.
SARAH: It's Special Ops: Lioness
KAYLA: It sounds terrible, respectfully to Miranda.
SARAH: Listen, she was saying that she watches a lot of things that are terrible. Well, and also, I mean, as you were saying though, like they're held to a different standard. And so, like, if they're not amazing or if they're cheesy, then people are like, “oh, this is horrible, we don't want to renew it,” or whatever. And she was like, “but sometimes you want cheesy.”
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And like MLM media is allowed to be cheesy, so, why isn't sapphic media allowed to be cheesy too?
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It reminds me of how, especially when like the first couple queer movies were coming out and of course they were all MLM, man-man movies, there was kind of this discussion of, you know, we want there to be so many and we want it to be so normalized that it's okay if they're bad.
KAYLA: There's a bad one, yeah.
SARAH: And I think for Achillean media, we're getting to that point slowly.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: In certain communities.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But I think that's still so far away for sapphic media.
KAYLA: Yeah. We need to get to the point where any type of relationship can have a horribly written shitty hallmark Christmas romance movie and it's okay.
SARAH: Yep.
KAYLA: It's like we talked about with this podcast, I want so many aspec podcasts that it's okay that this one has gone to shit.
SARAH: Yeah, exactly. Someday when I finally write my aspec sapphic rom-com.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: Someday.
KAYLA: One day.
SARAH: And I told Miranda there will be no military propaganda in my aspec rom-com
KAYLA: Thank Christ. I would be so concerned if you showed me a piece of your writing and it suddenly… I would not know what… I would like call…
SARAH: You would think I had been possessed
KAYLA: I would like call in a mental health check, I would like do a wellness check on you, I would be contacting your parents. Like, I think something is deeply wrong.
SARAH: Yeah, that's fair. Are there any other ones that we like really want to hit on? We got quite a few and we obviously can't get to all of them, especially because we're yappers.
KAYLA: I think one that I like from Instagram is from Ava Hopkins that is basically saying when people look at two people from history and they're like, “ah, best friends.” And then some people are like, “no, they're gay.” And then it's like… Ava's point is what if they were actually just best friends? And that's fine.
SARAH: Literally two minutes ago on Discord, Wallflower said, “I'm late, but in case of a part two…” and then basically said that exact same thing.
KAYLA: Yeah, which I totally agree with and it's something I am deeply guilty of doing all the time because I love… I just like saying the word gay, I think, sometimes I see something, I just say, “gay.” It's like a… you know?
SARAH: Well, and when I say something is gay, when I use the term gay like that, I don't necessarily mean homosexual.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I mean queer.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: But it's weird to say queer.
[00:40:00]
KAYLA: It's weird to be like, “ah, QPR.”
SARAH: Well, because also if you just said, “queer,” that could also just mean like odd because queer has another meaning.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I guess gay could mean happy, I don't know.
KAYLA: I suppose.
SARAH: But yeah, I mean, that's what Wallflower was saying, you know, every historical figure who was forever single and emotionally close with friends, not every single one has more legitimate evidence like sharing beds and love letters, people were more close with friends than their partners in the old days, not all of your needs were put on your partner and honestly, I think we need to get back to some of that.
KAYLA: Yeah, friendship was very different. We talked about that I think when we had Rhaina Cohen on about her book about friendship is that you look historically about how friendship was and it was very intimate and it's just not like that anymore.
SARAH: Yep. Yup.
KAYLA: Yup.
SARAH: All right. Thank you everyone for your takes. Even if we didn't read them, I think we agreed with all of them.
KAYLA: Do I have a take?
SARAH: Oh yeah, do you have a take?
KAYLA: A take
SARAH: Du du du. Du du du. Du du du. Du du du.
KAYLA: I can't think of one under this pressure.
SARAH: I was singing the Jeopardy Theme Song, but quiet enough that I knew the mic wouldn't pick it up for you and you said that right when I finished it.
KAYLA: Whatever. No, I heard you.
SARAH: Did you?
KAYLA: Yes.
SARAH: Usually Zoom gates it out.
KAYLA: I heard that.
SARAH: Oh, I should have done it louder then.
KAYLA: That was part of the pressure, that was part of the pressure.
SARAH: I should have done it louder then.
KAYLA: I can't think like this.
SARAH: Damn. Okay. Kayla does not have a hot take. She has many hot takes, but not one today.
KAYLA: I'm sure, like, why can't you think of the hot takes I have?
SARAH: You're full of takes. You have all the takes that I don't have.
KAYLA: Yeah. I wish I could think of any of them.
SARAH: Your many takes make up for my lack of takes. Well, you keep thinking about that. Actually, but before you do that, Kayla, what's our poll for this week? What's your hot take?
KAYLA: What's your hot take?
SARAH: Were there any hot takes that we discussed today that you vehemently disagree with?
KAYLA: Yeah. Yeah. What are your hot takes about these hot takes?
SARAH: And if you say it's me because I'm ableist, you missed the point.
KAYLA: We already covered that.
SARAH: The point is that we're all suffering and it sucks, which is a result… Anyway. And those who are disabled are suffering the most.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: Okay. Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is that I spent so much money at the vet today.
SARAH: Mm. Several.
KAYLA: Lots of money. And I just don't think the vet should have to be that expensive.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: So that was unfortunate. Please become a patron to pay for my vet bills. My juice…
SARAH: The cats are fine, I would like to clarify.
KAYLA: They’re fine. Okay. Yeah, my cats are fine. Billy, the bigger one, we were gone for the weekend and we came back and she was doing a limp, but acting completely normal, running, jumping, annoying her sister, scratching, biscuits, everything. So, I was like, “are you aware that you have a limp? Because you're walking with a highly noticeable limp.”
SARAH: “Are you aware that there’s something wrong with you?”
KAYLA: So, I took them to the vet and I was like, okay, well, while I'm here, they'll overdue for literally everything because I'm the worst cat parent ever.
SARAH: That’s probably not true
KAYLA: So, I was like, well, just do everything. So, we did vaccines, we did blood work and she got pain meds. The lady was like, yeah, she seems… it's probably just like she tweaked a muscle or whatever, just give her some pain meds and it'll be whatever. Her diagnosis, I decided, was probably fucked around and is now finding out.
SARAH: Finding out. Yeah.
KAYLA: So yeah, everyone is fine, just expensive and they don't even pay rent or have jobs. So, it's like, you know?
SARAH: And you know, in a lot of places, you could have paid for a whole month of rent with the amount of money that you spent on them.
KAYLA: Yeah. I was thinking, it was damn near a paycheck, you know?
SARAH: Classic.
KAYLA: Classic. My juice is that I was home over the weekend for my cousin's wedding and I got to see all my family, which was so nice and the wedding was very lovely.
SARAH: Mm hmm
KAYLA: But I guess gravy is that I might have had a little bit too much fun.
SARAH: Uh oh.
KAYLA: And was a little bit sick.
SARAH: Uh oh.
KAYLA: Including in the car.
SARAH: Uh oh.
KAYLA: The next day…
SARAH: Kayla.
KAYLA: It's okay, I wasn't the only one in my family who got sick, you know who you are.
SARAH: Oh. You did both your beef and your juice, I thought about it before I said it
KAYLA: Thank you. Thank you.
SARAH: My beef is I continue to be itchy. I made a really funny TikTok about it that I got scared to post on main and I was going to post to friends only and then the caption stopped working.
KAYLA: Oh
SARAH: Like it had all the captions and then they just stopped. Like they still show up on the editor, but then they don't show up on screen, so, I haven't posted it. Not that any of y'all would be able to see it anyway, I think it's funny.
KAYLA: You're not friends like we are.
SARAH: I think it's funny. I'm itchy and that's my beef. My juice is I'm seeing a concert. I am seeing Le Sserafim. Yes. Excitement.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: I also have beefs and gravies about it, but we'll discuss those maybe next week
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Depending on how beefy they end up being.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: If you want to support Kayla's vet fund and Sarah's concert fund, you can become a patron, patreon.com/soundsfakepod. We have a new $5 patron, it is Clark Fadoir.
KAYLA: Ooh, la la
SARAH: It's either Faduah or Fadoyer.
KAYLA: Both good, I think.
SARAH: I'm not entirely sure, but thank you for your money
KAYLA: Thank you
SARAH: We appreciate it. This week it has gone to Kayla's cats.
KAYLA: Yeah, we should start telling people each week what their money is funding. This week, you're sponsoring my cat's stupid ass limp.
SARAH: Yay. Oh my God. Thank you, Clark. Our other $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Alexander, Alma, Alucard Zavertnik, and Amanda Kyker. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are my aunt Jeannie, who would like to promote Christopher's Haven, Johanna, who would like to promote being kind to one another, Kayla's dad, who would like to promote JandiCreations.com, and Maff, who would like to promote the Don't Should Sweatshirt on sale now at soundsfakepod.com/… shop? Maybe the shop or store, every time we can't remember.
KAYLA: We never know
SARAH: And Martin Chiesl, who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone's Special and No One Is. Our other $10 patrons are Purple Hayes, Quartertone, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, Val, Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Clare Olsen, Derick & Carissa, Elle Bitter, and Eric. Our $15 patrons are… That's what happens when you read the real name and you combine it with the stage name. Our other $18… 18? Hello? Am I okay? Kayla is not even listening.
KAYLA: She’s not okay
SARAH: Our other $15 patrons are Ace, who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White, NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla's aunt Nina, who would like to promote katemaggartart.com. Did she change her last name?
KAYLA: I don't think so, maybe hyphenated, I'm not sure.
SARAH: I was just like, “is the website gonna change?”
KAYLA: I don't think so.
SARAH: Okay. She was the one who got married.
KAYLA: True
SARAH: Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. And our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex, who would like to promote their company, controlaltaccess.com. Dragonfly, my mom, and River and the three of them would like to promote all the girls are girling.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: All the girly girls and all the non-girly girls and all of the non-binary girls.
KAYLA: Mm hmm
SARAH: Because you know how you can be a non-binary girl, we've been over this.
KAYLA: We just talked about this.
SARAH: We just talked about this.
KAYLA: Please
SARAH: And that's what they would like to promote. 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]