EP. 109 — If They Say No, They Mean No

[00:00:00] CHRIS: Everybody, I just want to warn you that there’s some explicit stuff in this episode. There’s descriptions of sexual violence, of rape, of assault. And it’s very much well-worth warning you that that is coming. [music transition] Hello to all my animal lovers out there. It’s Beautiful Anonymous. One hour. One phone call. No names. No holds barred.

[00:00:33] THEME MUSIC: I’d rather go one-on-one. I think it’ll be more fun and I’ll get to know you and you’ll get to know me.

[00:00:45] CHRIS: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Beautiful Anonymous. Must be Tuesday morning! Hello, good morning. You’re waking up, listening to this download or if you’re listening in the future, hello to you too. I don’t know why I’m being so biased towards the Tuesday people. It’s your friend, Chris Gethard. Welcome to the show. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thanks for giving me this. The ultimate gig. My favorite thing. I tell you every week I grow to love Beautiful Anonymous more because it’s just laid back – it’s human connection. In the world, my everyday life, I connect with people less. This show – every week I connect more. What a beautiful thing and a luxury. Thank you guys for allowing me to have this role. Thanks to everybody who’s been supporting the Chris Gethard show live on Tru TV every Tuesday night, 11:00 p.m Eastern. Thanks to everybody who’s been buying tickets to my roadshows at ChrisGeth.com – a whole bunch of cities out there. Thanks for checking that out. Particular thanks to one listener out there who I tell you – and they’re not paying for me to mention it now – the response to these Thomas’s English muffin ads has been astounding. People are finding my reads of them very enticing. Some people have said sensual. One listener out there took all my Thomas’s English muffin ads, put what can only be described as soft core pornography style saxophone underneath them and it made me laugh very hard. Thank you for doing that. They posted it in the Beautiful Anonymous Facebook group. Go find it there. Thank you for that. It made my week. This week’s call. Tough one. Tough one. I’m gonna warn you right now – if you’ve had issues with sexual assault, you’re going to want to brace yourself. There’s a lot of talk of that in this call. So the caller is opening up very much about a sexual assault they experienced. Not just one. Multiple. Really got vulnerable. I got vulnerable, too. Here’s something that you might not expect. This is a guy, this is a guy talking about some of this stuff in a very frank way and in ways that I don’t think we recognize. We talk about this a lot during the call. I think the culture of sexuality when it comes to men is about like conquest, right, but the world’s not thinking like that anymore. And this caller isn’t thinking like that anymore. And I think the caller’s experiences really help explain something, and I applaud him for being as vulnerable as he was. I think it’s an eye opening thing. I think a lot of people might really raise an eyebrow and think about some things differently after this one. Thank you, caller, for calling. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I hope you enjoy.

[00:03:15] PHONE ROBOT: Thank you for calling Beautiful Anonymous. A beeping noise will indicate when you are on the show with the host. [beep]

[00:03:23] CHRIS: Hello.

[00:03:23] CALLER: Hello.

[00:03:24] CHRIS: Hey.

[00:03:26] CALLER: Hi, is this Chris?

[00:03:28] CHRIS: Yep. This is Chris.

[00:03:29] CALLER: Oh, well, hi. Wow. Cool to hear from you. How are you today?

[00:03:35] CHRIS: How am I today? Oh boy. Well, I like to answer honestly, I tell you. I don’t want to dwell on it and or make it about me, but the depression’s got a little bit of a hold on me. That’s a thing that happens. Happy to still get out of bed and fight the good fight and live my life and hold my head up high. So I’m doing today. How are you doing here?

[00:03:55] CALLER: Well that’s good your here.

[00:03:56] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:03:56] CALLER: Well, I’m – I’m still in bed right now.

[00:04:00] CHRIS: Lucky you!

[00:04:00] CALLER: I haven’t gotten out, so I kind of feel you.

[00:04:04] CHRIS: Lucky you. That’s nice.

[00:04:05] CALLER: Except I’m still nice and warm. I’m still under the blanket.

[00:04:08] CHRIS: Yeah. That’s a good, safe place to hide. You playing pong or something? It sounds like you’re playing pong. There’s little intermittent bleeps.

[00:04:16] CALLER: Oh no, I got my fiancee texting me. I told her I got on into the holding queue and now she’s texting me as in ‘no way, no way, no way, no way’. So that’s what’s going on.

[00:04:25] CHRIS: So she’s excited you’re on the show and doesn’t realize her texts of excitement are actually disrupting your appearance on the show?

[00:04:34] CALLER: I’m going to have to tell her to stop. I don’t know.

[00:04:36] CHRIS: You got to say ‘buzz off’ and we’ll see how that goes. You might get yelled at.

[00:04:40] CALLER: Yeah. She’s plenty nice. She loves the show. She follows it every week. So, I don’t know, she thought I should really tell you my story. ‘Cause she thought it would bring some good awareness.

[00:04:52] CHRIS: Woah, OK. Well, I’m all ears. What’s the story?

[00:04:55] CALLER: Okay, cool. So I guess I’ll kind of start like before I hit everybody with the bomb.

[00:05:01] CHRIS: The bomb?!

[00:05:02] CALLER: I don’t know. Can I throw my age out there? I’ll say mid twenties. How about that?

[00:05:06] CHRIS: Yeah, you can say whatever you want.

[00:05:09] CALLER: Oh, sure. OK. I just don’t want to give too much away. So I do… I work with animals. I love my job. But I can’t be too specific about what I do because we kind of have a small animal field. And this is supposed to be pretty anonymous, you know. So – oh, she says ‘tell him I say hello and I think he’s wonderful and I love all he does’. OK. So that’s her response to saying she can’t text. But…

[00:05:34] CHRIS: That’s cool, tell her I said, ‘wassup’.

[00:05:41] CALLER: Oh, I’ll just let her hear that.

[00:05:42] CHRIS: Yeah. Don’t tell her.

[00:05:43] CALLER: She’ll be happy to hear it from you.

[00:03:45] CHRIS: I’m just trying to get a chuckle.

[00:05:49] CALLER: So I work with animals now. I kind of grew up a Rolling Stone. I’ve lived all over the United States. Not so much the East Coast honestly though. But I’ve been all over the Midwest, which is like a giant cornfield, and then lived various places throughout the West, which has been pretty fun. So in my mid 20s, I’ve lived like thirteen different places now. So I’ve kind of been all over the place. But no, I’m not an army child, I will say that. My dad is in the medical field. So anytime he had to do some more schooling or studying like that, I got to travel around with him, which was pretty fun. Got to meet lots and lots of different people.

[00:06:33] CHRIS: That’s cool.

[00:06:35] CALLER: So in that time… Geez, I don’t know how to not drop the bomb on you right away, Chris.

[00:06:39] CHRIS: I think we drop the bomb. I think we drop the bomb. It sounds like you’re gearing up towards it. Sounds like, sounds like it’s – I mean, you referred to it as a bomb multiple times.

[00:06:51] CALLER: Well, I mean, I guess what it is. I don’t know if the episode is going to start out this way, but as a man, I’ve been raped by two women, and sexually assaulted and molested by an older man when I was a child. So that’s that’s kind of the bottom right there.

[00:07:11] CHRIS: Oh wow. I’m really sorry.

[00:07:15] CALLER: Yeah, I mean the… Oh, yeah… No, that’s… I just don’t even know how to approach that. Like I really wanted to tell you about it. Talked to a therapist about it.

[00:07:25] CHRIS: You did? I was gonna ask.

[00:07:26] CALLER: Obviously my world doesn’t crumble now. I’m honestly a pretty happy guy. But. It is a little rough to talk about. I think that – I think for one, let me throw this out there. Rape is horrible and so is sexual assault. Anything like that. It’s obviously – it’s terrible. It’s terrible. But. I feel that with men, sometimes it does get brushed underneath the rug. I mean. I think that people – men, women, anything in between – everyone needs to be open about it. And I think that it needs to be talked about more because I don’t think that it should be happening.

[00:08:06] CHRIS: Of course, yeah. Of course.

[00:08:08] CALLER: Oh, yeah. Geez, I – I’m kind of struggling. So do you want me to start about kind of talk about the first experience that happened and then build from there? Do you think that would be all right?

[00:08:21] CHRIS: Yeah, I mean, chronological sounds like the way to go, right? And then we’ll figure it out from there. And I’m sure, it’ll be hard to talk about so any time you need to take a breath and, you know… if we need a palate cleanser topic just…

[00:08:37] CALLER: God, you have such a comforting voice.

[00:08:39] CHRIS: Oh thanks.

[00:08:40] CALLER: Has anyone told you you have just a very comforting voice?

[00:08:42] CHRIS: People have told me kind things about my voice since the launch of this show. I have spent a lifetime feeling insecure about my voice so I’m still getting – even two years in I’m still kind of baffled that people like my voice. That some people say nice things about the voice and I am always shocked by it.

[00:09:04] CALLER: Well, yeah I’ll give you a compliment: it’s very comforting. I think you would make a good therapist. Not that you need to look into that, you already made it. But…

[00:09:11] CHRIS: I’m happy to be a comedian. Happy to be a comedian and wanted… And want to mean it. I will say. Can I just say one thing before we launch into it? I am not a therapist, but I’ve underlined that on the show. And one of the things that makes me comfortable about us launching into this is that you – you have sought out the help of a real therapist. So that actually makes me feel comfortable. Yeah. Just want to get that out there.

[00:09:34] CALLER: Oh, yeah. Okay. So I guess I’ll start with the first experience. So I was 7 years old and my dad was traveling for work and I hadn’t seen him in a couple of months, so my mom and I decided to go visit him in the state of California. Beautiful state, by the way. I do love California even though there have been bad experiences. So, yeah, I was 7 and my parents wanted to go out a couple days and have some fun in California. So where my dad was staying. It was almost like Air BnB back in the year 2001. I don’t even know if it existed then, but, you know. Just rented a room at some kind lady’s house and she had extra rooms, so we didn’t have to get a hotel or anything like that. So. My dad asked the neighbor kid who was 18 if he could babysit me for a couple of days, couple hours at a time and he was – the neighbor kid honestly before anything happened, he was really nice. He was super outgoing and at the point in time a super big – into like Pokemon. And that was all coming out and whatever other anime shows. And I mean, me being a kid, I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know there was an evil in the world like that. So we were watching morning cartoons and boy, I’ll just slip into it. I mean, he – he started to touch me and I didn’t know what to think of it because no one had ever done that. And then as time went on, he was asking me to get naked and to touch him too. And this went on for days, and my parents had no idea, and between us and now everyone listening, they still don’t have any idea. That’s not anything I’ve ever felt like I could talk with them about. So I guess secrets kinda out now, but it’s all right. But they had no idea. And I think that towards the end of it, towards the end of these couple days with this man, they did start to catch on that something… some funny business was going on. I don’t know if I started to act different. I tried to erase all the bad things out of my mind. I don’t remember it 100 percent clear, but I do remember that after a couple of days he had locked the door to the room that we were watching cartoons in and my parents came home early and – not that either of us were naked. We were fully clothed – but I do remember my dad screaming at him and asking, you know, ‘why are you locking the door?’ Sorry. It’s just rough to talk about.

[00:13:11] CHRIS: Of course, you don’t have to apologize here.

[00:13:20] CALLER: Yeah. And so. I just remember my dad screaming about that. You know, my parents were asking me if everything was OK and they never asked if he had touched me inappropriately or anything like that. They didn’t ask those questions because they must have just assumed that I would tell them. I know that a lot of parents talk to their kids about, you know, if anyone’s doing anything inappropriate and touching them places they shouldn’t be, you need to tell someone. I mean, I did have that conversation with my parents, but it’s not – it was never really talked about all that much. We lived in a small town in Minnesota most the time when I was growing up and stuff like that just – it didn’t happen. So I guess they just assumed that they didn’t really need to have an in-depth conversation with me about it, but… So after that day we were in California for probably a few more days. Me and my mom, before we had to go back to Minnesota. In that time, I was trying to figure out why the babysitter wouldn’t… I could see him over the fence with his family. He wouldn’t look at me, he wouldn’t talk to me. And I said, ‘what’s going on?’ I asked him and he said, I can’t come over anymore and then that was it. That was the last time I saw him. And I remember that it was so weird that someone… I was 7 and he was 18. He’s eleven years older than me. And he like opened up to me about things that like a 7 year old wouldn’t understand: that he has a girlfriend and wants to go to college and do all this, this and that. And it was just the weirdest thing. Yeah, but he blasted me for days and I had never said anything about it. And. I guess I don’t know if I regret not saying anything or – I don’t know what the outcome would have been, you know? That’s something that you just never know. I wouldn’t say that that experience ruined my life. It definitely did not. It’s just kind of something that I’ve had to cope with you know?

[00:15:43] CHRIS: Sure. And it sounds – it sounds like pretty quickly into it you sensed at least that something was off about this? Even as a seven year old.

[00:15:52] CALLER: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my parents definitely knew something was up, but I don’t know if they were trying to catch him in the act or… I don’t know. I’ve never – I’ve never asked them. And it’s 14 years later now I still don’t feel comfortable about asking them. It’s not anything I had ever talked to them about. And it’s not that my parents are scary people. I just don’t know how I would approach that. And…

[00:16:22] CHRIS: Sure.

[00:16:23] CALLER: …what they would do after that.

[00:16:24] CHRIS: Well, I mean, the fact that your dad was yelling and flipping out means I’m – I’m sure it’s something that they you know, it sounds like the very least they understood there was a situation they need to get to the bottom of. It’s a – I’ll say… and my… and just the reaction, like it’s. You know, just hearing you say, I’ve never talked with them about it. It’s – it sounds to me like like one thing worth saying is like it’s their responsibility to talk to you. And it’s not – it’s not something I think you need to feel uncomfortable that you’ve never brought up. It sounds like they knew something was going on, right? So I don’t think you need to…

[00:17:04] CALLER: That’s – you know when I look back and think about it, it really seems like they did know something was up. But I mean, unless I ask them about it, I guess I’ll never know. Which, I don’t know, the way I look at it, might not be the worst thing. It… I just, I don’t have a problem talking to a therapist about it or even talking to you about it, but something about talking to my parents about it, I just don’t want them to – I don’t know – see any different or feel bad for me for what happened.

[00:17:37] I don’t – I don’t want people to feel bad for me, that’s for sure. I’m just putting that out there.

[00:17:40] CHRIS: Of course.

[00:17:41] CALLER: I just… Yeah, I mean, it’s something that I’ve coped with and it hasn’t really torn me down throughout my life. So, I mean, that’s good.

[00:17:53] CHRIS: Yeah and I’m sure, I’m sure there must be… Is there some – is there some level too, to which if you talk to your parents about it, you might ask them why? Why didn’t – why did we just move on from this one when you were so angry and knew at least something was going on? Is that something you don’t want to confront either?

[00:18:15] CALLER: I guess so, I mean, I… I’m almost afraid to know that they knew something was going on because I never said anything.

[00:18:25] CHRIS: Right. Right.

[00:18:28] CALLER: I don’t know why that is. I mean, you know, siblings are like, ‘oh, don’t tell mom’ or anything like that. And she’ll find out when, you know, it’s 15 years later and you can all laugh about it.

[00:18:36] CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah. You’re not going to laugh about this one. There’s no laughing about this one 20 years later. Yeah. This is not one that’s… Oh, this is not like ‘Oh, yeah, we used to drink behind the garage. We buried the beer cans so you would never find them’. This is not one of those. That you’ll all start chuckling about.

[00:18:56] CALLER: Yeah, that’s exactly it. But I just I feel like, you know, I do have siblings. And you know we used to say, ‘oh, don’t tell mom’. But, you know, this just is not one of those things. I guess I would definitely – Sorry. That was Snapchat, I promise it’s not the fiancee!

[00:19:12] CHRIS: That’s okay. It’s 2018 and you’re locked in on this social media game. Brands are important, you got to get out there.

[00:19:22] CALLER: I mean, I guess I would just be afraid to know that they did know. And, you know, what would we say to each other after that? Like, ‘hey, I knew the whole time and we never talked about it’. I mean, honestly, I wouldn’t know what to say to them.

[00:19:36] CHRIS: Yeah, of course.

[00:19:37] CALLER: I wouldn’t know if I would ask, you know, why didn’t you – why didn’t you help me out when I needed it? Or anything like that? I guess I just don’t know. I don’t know what I would say to them.

[00:19:49] CHRIS: Yeah. When – who – what… When did you first address it or talk about it?

[00:19:55] CALLER: The first time I ever talked about it was when I was 19 and I went to therapy. Not actually for that reason I went to therapy ’cause I was getting over a drug addiction, but I still went to therapy. And I did tell my therapist about pretty much everything that’s ever happened in my life. And I did include every uncomfortable detail like that.

[00:20:25] CHRIS: Yeah. Did you – did you or your therapist feel like maybe the drug addiction is tied to this somehow? Cause I’d imagine you’re someone who from a young age, first of all felt pressure and confusion, and learned to keep big secrets, you know?

[00:20:42] CALLER: Yeah. You know, the therapist was more of a listener than a talker. To be completely honest and I don’t know, you know, what a therapist real duties are because I’ve only ever seen one but… He never related the drug addiction to, you know, the sexual abuse that happened. You know, sexual misconduct if you want to call it….

[00:21:09] CHRIS: And yeah, and that’s me playing armchair shrink right here as well, so let me cop to that. I don’t really – I don’t know what I’m talking about. Let’s just remind everybody of that.

[00:21:20] CALLER: But no, I just… He never tried to link anything together. He basically gave me coping methods that I ended up finding on my own to get over a drug addiction.

[00:21:32] CHRIS: Thank God for that.

[00:21:35] CALLER: I mean, honestly, it was really weird. Anytime I’d have it – not that this is related to the sexual assault. It is a drug related thing – but any time I had a tic, I would just chew sunflower seeds and that seemed to get me over it pretty quick. I don’t know. That’s a really weird thing to say, but…

[00:21:49] CHRIS: Really? Can I ask what it’s all fallen into?

[00:21:54] CALLER: Yeah. It was psychedelics and I had a really bad addiction to pot and drinking at the age of 19. I used to live in Denver, so it wasn’t – you know, at the time that I was 19, it was just becoming pretty street legal and pretty common. You know, pretty easy to obtain from any shop there in Denver.

[00:22:19] So, you know, psychedelics I – my friends had a coworker – or friends and roommate I should say, had a coworker who would make his own psychedelics. And I had a coworker that I could buy marijuana from at any point in time and he was older than me too so if we needed alcohol, we’d just ask him. So it was a – kind of a big old combination, and when I cut it, cut the addiction, I mean, I cut it cold turkey. I left Denver, left friends, changed my phone number, everything. So when I got back to the next place I was living – which I did move back with my parents. I mean, I had nothing. I took whatever few things I had out of my apartment in Denver and I left.

[00:23:10] CHRIS: Sunflower seeds?

[00:23:11] CALLER: Got back and all I really had was video games and food. Trying to curb an addiction with those is not exactly the easiest.

[00:23:20] CHRIS: Right. Right. Two things that can be addictive in their own right. That’s OK. That’s OK.

[00:23:29] CALLER: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that last part.

[00:23:31] CHRIS: I said those are two things that can be addictive in their own right. But that’s OK.

[00:23:35] CALLER: Oh yes, exactly. Then I had them combo hitting me at the same time, which was a little hard to deal with.

[00:23:44] CHRIS: Right.

[00:23:45] CALLER: For sure.

[00:23:46] CHRIS: Right. Wow.

[00:23:47] CALLER: So, yeah, I ended up going to therapy when I was 19 to help curb the drug addiction and then I did talk to my therapist about, you know, having had bad sexual encounters before. So there’s still two more that we’ve got to get to. I can see we’re sitting at…

[00:24:06] CHRIS: Right.

[00:24:07] CALLER: Twenty four minutes here.

[00:24:08] CHRIS: We’re only a third of, only a third of the way through the list. We’re talking about a week of childhood nightmares, sexual nightmare. Yeah, OK. We’re only 20 minutes in on this one. That’s usually – I got say, usually the bell’s going off for most people.

[00:24:22] [AD BREAK]

[00:27:56] CHRIS: Usually that – you’re a third of the way through, usually the bells ringing about now.

[00:28:01] CALLER: Oh, boy. We’re just gonna have to find ways to fill in at the end. I feel we’re carrying through this pretty quick. I guess I can throw some other stuff in there…

[00:28:09] CHRIS: It sounds like sounds like you have no shortage of life experience, my friend. Sounds like there’s…

[00:28:14] CALLER: I really don’t. After living in so many different places with so many different things that happened, you know? Yeah. Especially growing up too.

[00:28:20] CHRIS: Tell me what else… What’s that knocking sound?

[00:28:26] CALLER: Oh, sorry. The dog’s chewing on a toy.

[00:28:28] CHRIS: That’s OK.

[00:28:28] CALLER: He’s got a – he’s got a toy fish that he likes to eat. I’m sorry about that.

[00:28:32] CHRIS: That’s OK.

[00:28:32] CALLER: I didn’t think it was that loud.

[00:28:35] CHRIS: I just like asking. I find that with ancillary noise in this podcast, there’s actually a lot of people who appreciate it as long as they know what it is. When they don’t know what it is then they go nuts. Like that one guy who one time – that cop. Remember that cop Jared? Who microwaved something and people – the guy was just trying to eat a hot pocket and people wanted to take his head off his shoulders. Never heard anything like that.

[00:28:58] CALLER: I guess I understand the same thing. If anything, if I’m on the phone with anybody and I hear a noise, I always have to go ‘what is that noise?’

[00:29:06] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:29:07] CALLER: And then when I find out I go, ‘oh okay that’s totally fine’.

[00:29:09] CHRIS: Yeah.

[00:29:09] CALLER: But until then it just makes me nuts.

[00:29:12] CHRIS: Yeah, but I think we’re all good. I think people actually love when it’s a dog. I think if people know it’s a dog, they’re going to be psyched. Who doesn’t love a dog? I’m not much of a dog person anyway…

[00:29:22] CALLER: I mean, what if I told them it was a puppy who’s four months old? Who doesn’t love a four month old puppy?

[00:29:27] CHRIS: They’re gonna want you to just hold the phone up to the puppy, just so the puppy can respond… But we have too much ground to cover.

[00:29:32] CALLER: We can talk to him. Yeah, that’s true. We could talk to him but…

[00:29:38] CHRIS: I think we have enough ground to cover the grand scheme.

[00:29:39] CALLER: I’d love to say his Instagram name, but I can’t. So yeah. Let’s -let’s move on to the next one. So, so I moved to – oh boy, I moved to Denver when I was in high school and I moved there with my family. Now I can’t exactly say which high school I went to just to keep it plenty anonymous, cause I guarantee everybody at my high school or alumni listen to this podcast. I’ll just say that.

[00:30:08] CHRIS: Oh wow! OK.

[00:30:12] CALLER: So when I moved to Denver and I attended my new school I – so, oh boy, how do I put this out there without sounding kind of arrogant? I – I’m just gonna throw it out there and I’m not trying to sound very full of myself – I am a good looking person with significant traits. How about that? Does that, does that set me apart from the crowd?

[00:30:44] CHRIS: Significant traits? We talking…? What’s your shoe size? We talking about your shoe size here. What’s your shoe size? That what you’re getting at?

[00:30:49] CALLER: We’re talking about like – like [beep]. God, I know it’s supposed to be anonymous. I don’t know if you want to take this part out or not. [beep] and it’s kind of significant because there’s only like [beep] of us in the world and I’ve got [beep] two. Yeah. Can we take that part out? Would that be good?

[00:31:05] CHRIS: Okay. Yeah, we can bleep…

[00:31:07] CALLER: Really?

[00:31:08] CHRIS: Yeah. If that’s making…

[00:31:09] CALLER: OK that’d be good.

[00:31:10] CHRIS: I will say I’m shocked that that’s the thing you’re like, ‘can we bleep that out?’

[00:31:17] CALLER: It’s – I mean, I know, I know that. It’s just that I do have a like significant look and people know me and…

[00:31:25] CHRIS: Fair.

[00:31:25] CALLER: I mean, like I said, I’ve met thousands of people, so it’s hard to be anonymous about it.

[00:31:30] CHRIS: Hey, anything you want taking out, we take it out. Even if it’s the most seemingly innocuous detail. I get it, I get it. OK. So you’re good. You’re a good looking and distinct looking person. I thought you were talking about…

[00:31:41] CALLER: Yes, there we go.

[00:31:41] CHRIS: I thought you were talking – I thought you were saying that you were at a big hog. That’s what I thought you were getting at.

[00:31:49] CALLER: No, I – no, no, no. Just just the way I look. That’s just what stands out.

[00:31:54] CHRIS: Alright.

[00:31:54] CALLER: I mean, and to answer your thing about the feet size. I’ve got size eight feet.

[00:31:58] CHRIS: Size eight feet?

[00:31:58] CALLER: So it’s pretty little.

[00:32:00] CHRIS: That’s OK. That’s great.

[00:32:04] CALLER: So, yeah, let’s let’s move on to this. So I was a junior when I moved to Denver and I attended my new school and I had a lot of people approach me, you know, ‘hey, who’s the new kid’, and I’m used to it, I’ve moved around plenty. And one girl approached me and I thought, ‘God, she’s like, extra nice’. And I didn’t think anything of it because I was trying to do a long distance relationship with a different girl back where I used to live. And so I was like, ‘oh, she’s just being real nice’ and all that stuff. Then we had – there was a theater in our school. You know, every school pretty much has a theater. And she knew her way around the school because she was a senior and she was doing ins and outs. So she’s like, ‘hey, I want to show you this really cool part of the theater’. And I said ‘yeah, sure thing. Why not?’ I’m interested in knowing what’s going on in the school. And she brought me backstage and there was like this wicked, crazy secret part of the school that like I never would have found on my own. It’s like above the theater. And I mean, very few people know about it. It’s where they keep the sound and the lights up there. You know, all the crazy wires and connections and stuff like that. And I was like, ‘wow, this is really, really cool up here’. And she was like, ‘yeah, look around. There’s art on the wall and stuff like that. There’s a few of us that like come up here and draw on the wall’. It was just chalk so it wasn’t harm or anything like that to the wall and not that it was a public part of the school is more of a private part. And she… came on to me right then and there and I was like, ‘woah, what the hell is going on? Like I didn’t invite this. Like, this is really weird’. And I mean, she was real aggressive about it. Like, suddenly my back was against the wall and I was being pushed up against it. I was like, ‘oh, my God, there’s no way that this is happening right now’. And I I told her very politely, I said, ‘hey, I’m not into you this way. I do have someone that I’m trying to keep a long distance relationship with’. And the words just didn’t matter to her. And I’m – I’m not one to you know, really push back with women. With men I don’t have a problem with it because I grew up playing sports, so that was nothing to me. But with women I just couldn’t bring myself to fight back. And, you know, as I was saying, ‘no, I don’t want this. I’m not interested in this’. Suddenly my pants were down around my ankles and I’m not the one who did it. And she was just groping me a lot and I felt my stomach turn because I felt like I couldn’t do anything and I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone because I’m the new kid and who’s going to believe them when they say that? And she had for – sorry, the dogs being dumb, if you can hear that – she had performed oral on me and she kept trying to say that she wanted to have sex right there, right there. I just kept telling her no and I eventually just had to close my eyes for the next 45 minutes until the bell rung. And then I could go to my last class of the day. So I was kind of trapped there. And it’s not that anything physically hurt, I was just extremely uncomfortable for almost an hour. And I felt that there was no way out of it because I just couldn’t bring myself to fight back. I was scared. I was embarrassed. I just felt completely violated. And I’m sure that there’s other victims of this who who can say that they felt the same, that they felt that that there was no way out. Who do you – who do you run to? Do you run to the nearest stranger and say something? Will they even take you seriously? I just I didn’t even know my way around the school, so I wouldn’t have even known where to go or who to talk to. I mean, this was in the first couple of days that I had attended this new school. So I was I was scared. I didn’t – you know, I didn’t know what to do. And so from that moment – I did have a class with her. And she she wouldn’t look at me and I wouldn’t look at her. It was it was really, really uncomfortable. And I mean, I just I didn’t say anything to anybody. I didn’t say anything to my parents again. I didn’t say anything to my friends. And, you know, there was there was no talk about it. And I would say two weeks after that, she finally came up to me and said ‘hey, I want to talk to you. I want to apologize’. And I said, ‘that’s fine. Do you do we need to go somewhere? Like, do you want to go into like’ – we had like kind of by where the band rooms were there were practice rooms there that had big windows on them. I said, ‘well, we can go in there if you want? We can talk so that it’s it’s pretty soundproof. No one’s going to hear what you have to say for yourself. And that’s fine’. And so she – she said, ‘no, I kind of want to go somewhere else’. So she went back to kind of – kind of where behind the theater where she had brought me before. But we had gone upstairs where the lights and the cameras – or not cameras, the sound system more like, I just wouldn’t let her bring me up there. I was like, ‘what are you doing?’

[00:38:18] And she’s like… She attempted to do this again. She undid my belt and I finally slapped her hand away. I’m like, ‘what are you doing? You said you wanted to apologize’. She just didn’t… She just ignored every word that I said and she undid her pants and she grabbed my hand and I – like I didn’t want to – but she grabbed my hand and I ended up touching her private parts. And I was just so uncomfortable. I said, ‘this is not an apology. You told me you were going to talk to me about what happened’. I mean, this time I actually did – I backed away you know, just took my – like I took my belt and I just kind of ran you know. I just kind of went to – I went to my next class early so that I could sit with my teacher. I didn’t talk to them about it, but I just wanted to be around an adult so I knew I was safe. And, yeah, I mean, that happened twice with the same person. And there’s still one more person to go.

[00:39:29] CHRIS: Woah. Well, before we get to the next person so it’s not just a laundry list – that sounds super traumatic. Again, I’m sorry. This is a crass question, but just – I’m not saying this to be funny. I’m not saying it to be crass – when you said this was, when you said this first incident last 45 minutes, was this 45 minutes of sad oral sex? Is that what happened?

[00:39:53] CALLER: It was, it was… Yes. I mean, it was… Basically. It basically was. And there was nothing in it for me and it was all one sided and like you said, you know, hands, mouth, the whole deal. And I just stood there uncomfortable and frozen, stomach turned, back up against the wall, you know.

[00:40:16] CHRIS: Well, I got to say, I think hearing this is eye opening. And I think, you know, I just yesterday read a story about a teacher who was sleeping with a 13 year old student. And, you know, you…

[00:40:30] CALLER: Oh, God.

[00:40:31] CHRIS: Yeah. But, you know, I think when it’s men, especially young men, especially high school boys who have a reputation for being like, ‘oh, they’re just like a bunch of horn dogs’. The reaction a lot of people have is like ‘Ah man, lucky kid’. And it’s like this ‘oh living the fantasy’. But I think I think people underestimate the – you know, you’re able to hear the level of confusion in your voice as you talk about this many years later. And I think that’s not the case. And I think a situation that feels scary and sad is scary and sad.

[00:41:09] CALLER: Yes.

[00:41:09] CHRIS: No matter who you are, or what demographic you’re from.

[00:41:16] CALLER: You’re asking me? Or are you just saying in general?

[00:41:18] CHRIS: Yeah, just saying in general. Just in general. I think it’s good – I think you’re doing – I think you speaking about this right now is going to help a lot of people. Because I’ll say this. Here’s something, and I’ve never talked about this publicly myself. I’ve never talked about this publicly myself. Some friends of mine know this. My wife knows this. I’m embarrassed that my mom is about to hear this. But I’ll tell you, I’ve been in a similar situation. I’ve been in a similar situation. And it was when I was in my thirties, it was when I was – six or seven years ago. I was in a situation with someone who I was dating. And if she hears this, I’m not trying to make her feel bad. But I was… we’re dating. I was not not feeling very good with some of my mental health stuff. And she felt like sex might make me feel better, spice things up or bring me out of it. And I really tried to explain that’s not how this works. And we – she was pretty insistent. And it was one of these things where I understood that this was just like a misguided impulse and she was really not reading my signals and we wound up sleeping together. And in my mind, I knew I was like, I am doing this to get it over with because I was – I kind of felt browbeat into it. And I was a guy, I was a guy in his 30s who had certainly gone on some stretches where I was comfortable sleeping around. And I just walked away feeling like, you know, not like it was a traumatising thing that affected my life long term, but definitely walked away like, ‘woah, I feel like my head is spinning with confusion’. That was – that was dark. That was a dark thing.

[00:42:55] CALLER: Yeah. God. That hits home, like just the words that you said. It’s so accurate with how I have felt in the past.

[00:43:05] CHRIS: Yeah. And when you’re a guy, there’s a lot of people who are like ‘hey man, you got some’. Like, that’s what you fear. But I actually had a good friend of mine, and I still feel very grateful for her, I had a friend of mine who when I was talking with her, it was shortly after that maybe the next week. I was like ‘I had this thing happen. I’m… I don’t know, I’m feeling like pretty confused’. And she said, she was like, ‘you know, if you were – if you were not male, what you’re describing would be date rape’. And I was like, ‘I don’t know if I feel that way about it, but I feel conflicted about it. I feel like there’s a middle ground here’. And again, I want to say, I’m fine and it’s not – it’s not anything that I’m hung up on on my end. But I say it to let you know, I too have had some maybe forced feeling – not great feeling, sexual experiences. And I know what you mean. I know how confusing it can be.

[00:44:04] CALLER: Yeah. God, it’s just the words – I mean, you took them right out of my mouth. That’s exactly how I felt before.

[00:44:13] CHRIS: Yeah. And yours is even more traumatic because this is a relative stranger. This was someone I was dating who just had a, maybe a very misguided instinct. But this was someone who I knew and trusted and still feel like is a very good person. I want to be clear I’m not trying to compare myself to what you went through, but I’m with you in the feelings of confusion.

[00:44:36] CALLER: It’s – I’m not saying that you’re comparing it all. Honestly for me, guy to guy, it’s so nice… Well, Jesus, let me try and find the right words: it’s comforting to hear that I’m not the only one you know. It’s not nice that it happened, but it is nice to know that, you know, I’m not alone in the experience of what I’ve been feeling.

[00:45:03] CHRIS: Yeah, you’re not. And I think the stereotype is when guys get together and talk about sex, it’s like a bunch of frat dudes, like, right. Like some brunch of bro-y dudes. It’s like, ‘oh, let’s talk about this and that’. And I won’t lie, I’ve had conversations like that too with people. And I don’t know if I feel good about that, but in 2018, I think we can also have some conversations where it’s like maybe some sensitive fellow is going, ‘has anybody here ever been… anyone here ever felt a little awkward about sexual expression?’ I think 2018 we’re allowed to say that too now.

[00:45:36] CALLER: That’s – yeah, I mean, that’s so true anytime… I don’t know if it was me and I pictured a bunch of dudes getting together. Yeah, I do picture like a bunch of frat guys going, ‘oh yeah, I totally was banging this chic’k but you don’t definitely pictured bunch of guys getting all sensitive and crying on each other’s shoulders.

[00:45:57] CHRIS: I’ve come to realize I think my contribution to the world is to have a soaking wet shoulder. I think maybe that’s what I was put on this earth for is…

[00:46:08] CALLER: I’m with you there. I try and be very sensitive…

[00:46:13] CHRIS: Yeah, you gotta.

[00:46:13] CALLER: …she’ll know how sensitive I am. She’ll probably think I was crying. I was a little bit. Don’t worry about that. I’m a very emotional man. I’m proud of it.

[00:46:24] CHRIS: Yeah, same here. Same here.

[00:46:26] CALLER: I just let it all hang out. OK. So I got to get to this last one here before we hit the bell, okay?

[00:46:32] CHRIS: Let’s do it.

[00:46:36] [AD BREAK]

[00:48:06] CALLER: So this last one isn’t too bad. I don’t know if it’s bad as the other ones, but it’s a little easier for me to tell. So then when I was a senior, I did have my last – hopefully last – experience with sexual assault or rape. We – I had a class with one… and she was – I say was, she was very nice to me you know, leading up to this experience. She would openly hit on me and I would laugh about it. She was just not my type of person – you know personality wise and looks wise, it just not… you know, not clicking on any cylinders. But she was nice, I’ll give her that. Like I said, she would openly hit on me and at the time I had a girlfriend, so I was like, ‘ha ha, you know, that’s funny, I’ll just brush it off. I don’t really care all that much’. And then we had a… oh boy everyone’s probably going to know who I narrow this down to. We had a campout my senior year at high school. And I was planning on sharing a tent with a couple of my other friends in my senior class and when I had showed up to the party, they had said that there was no room for me. So I was like ‘oh that’s fine I’ll just throw my stuff in my car and then if I need to go home or need to sleep, I’ll just sleep in the car. There’s no problem with that’. And so this girl who was, like I said, very nice, very open with me, said, ‘you can put your stuff in my tent’. And I said, ‘oh, sure thing. If I need anything out of my tent, like a change clothes or something like that I’ll just come get it from your tent. That’s no problem’. You know, I thought that was pretty nice that she had some extra room in there. And so as the night goes on, you know, seniors are having a little drinking party and all the guys are playing football and all the girls are gossiping. Stuff like that. We – so I’m going to say it was honestly like 3:00 in the morning before I ran out of energy as an 18 year old and I went to go get my backpack out of this girl’s tent. Now, mind you, there were like five or six other people in there. This was a gigantic tent. So I went to go get my backpack and she was actually awake. And I was like, ‘what are you doing awake?’ She was like, ‘I was wondering if you’re going to come get your backpack’. I said, ‘Yeah, I think I’m just gonna go sleep in my car’. And she said, ‘well, if you want your backpack, you have to have sex with me’. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God’.

[00:51:01] CHRIS: Oh boy.

[00:51:04] CALLER: ‘No’. I really tried to play it off. I was like, ‘no, I don’t want to, but, you know, I really do want my stuff’. So what I did was I just left. I just left the tent and I was probably gone for another hour. I was trying to hang out with other people. Like ‘hey, can like someone go get my backpack? I really don’t want to deal with that right now. I have no interest in dealing with that ever’. But no one would help me out. So 4am rolled around and everybody else is asleep and so I tried to sneak back into the tent to get my stuff. And at this point, she now had my backpack with her underneath the sleeping bag so how am I supposed to take my stuff? It was only concerning to me because at this point I couldn’t get into my car because it was locked and the keys are in the backpack. So I’m kind of S.O.L. at this point, you know. So I woke her up and all she said – she didn’t say have sex, she just said lay down. I was like ‘alright, fine. I can lay down’. But I had no intention of getting underneath the sleeping bag. I just – not doing it, okay? I tried to set a boundary and as soon as I laid down she rolled on top of me and 150 pounds and she was heavier than me at that point in time and I couldn’t get her off of me. So she wouldn’t let me go without having sex, which was rough. I’ve never had flaccid sex in my life except for that point in time, which was honestly just the weirdest thing. Aside from the rape – weird, weird feeling. I didn’t keep track of time on how long this instance had lasted, but it did end at some point in time. Obviously I made it out alive and I got my backpack. I went in my car and I went home and I did not go to school that day. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to see her and I knew I would because we share that same class together. And I found out later that after I had left the tent, she had texted her boyfriend – yes, she had a boyfriend and she raped me, how about that – and he was in the class below, so he wasn’t invited to the senior camp out, so she invited him to come there and have sex with her. Yeah, I found that out later, which I thought was a little odd. And I did talk to my fiancee, kind of in depth about this one. She was really, really pissed about it, rightfully so. I mean, I’d be mad if someone raped her, too. And she actually, my fiancee messaged the girl who raped me and she was honestly, politely asking if she even knew who I was. And I had gone to school with this girl for two years, and she claimed to not even know my name. So she is in such denial about it that she won’t even acknowledge who I am. And I thought that that was really interesting because my fiancee only messaged her after the girl sent me a friend request on Facebook. So that is my third story if…

[00:55:16] CHRIS: Wow.

[00:55:17] CALLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there it is. That’s that’s the third one.

[00:55:20] CHRIS: Well, I think it’s – you know, one thing that’s jumping to mind to me is obviously right now, too, in the climate of our current culture, consent has become like a big thing that people are, I think, talking honestly about more and more. And, you know, one thing about your experiences is there are probably people listening who are gonna go, ‘well, you shouldn’t have gone back into the tent’. There’s probably people who were thinking that. And I get that. But there’s something to said for – I think one thing that your story illustrates is, you know, maybe some of these people thought that this was gonna be hot. Maybe some people thought this was seduction. But you’re expressing that it’s not. And maybe they don’t even know. Maybe they don’t even know that necessarily that they’re crossing major boundaries. But they also don’t know that you’re a survivor of childhood abuse. And because they’re not slowing down and listening to your cues, this is now, no matter how you slice it even if their perspective on it is different from yours, they’re putting you in a place that is very unfair and that they would never do if they knew your background. But it’s not, it’s not your responsibility or their right to know everything about your background. And I think it’s extremely eye-opening. Extremely eye opening to hear your perspective, you know?

[00:56:45] CALLER: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I do agree with the consent thing and I’m not going to say, you know, these people are terrible. I knew them before and after anything had happened – well except for the male when I was seven. But the two girls, one of them, you know, she went on to have a great life, you know, and she really, she – I guess I did forget to mention she did apologize to me truthfully with people around, months later. She honestly did feel terrible about what happened. But the second girl, I mean, I don’t know what she does now, I know that she did have a bright future in front of her. I mean, she was on a Fulbright scholarship to some school, I couldn’t tell you which one it was. But I mean, it’s not like they’re really bad people. And, you know, maybe it was a thing of not hearing, ‘no, I don’t want to’. Or like you said, maybe they thought it would be hot and heavy and it was just a one sided thing and I was not into it at all. I don’t know. I mean, I know I for sure said ‘no, I don’t want to’. Maybe it’s because I really didn’t push back when I should have that it almost didn’t seem like I meant it. But, you know, at any point in time when someone says no – to me, that that means no. Like they don’t want what you’re offering. So, yeah, I’m sure people will say, ‘well, why did you go back into the tent?’ Well, to answer your question, it’s because I was cold as shit and I wanted to be in a warm car.

[00:58:26] CHRIS: And sometimes it can be as simple as that.

[00:58:29] CALLER: Yeah, I definitely think it’s not too complicated of a situation, but… Well let’s see, how much time do we have to kill? Because if we do…. well, I guess I can talk about some more. How much time do we have?

[00:58:47] CHRIS: We got nine and a half minutes. We got nine and a half minutes.

[00:58:51] CALLER: Nine and a half minutes. OK. Geez, I could talk about my ex-girlfriend for a little bit, and she did have some issues with suicide. We could talk about suicide.

[00:59:06] CHRIS: We could. We could. I do also just want to say though, I just want to say before we – I feel like, I feel like you told us three very impactful things and I want to make sure that I let you know that that’s pretty – it’s pretty rattling stuff what you just shared and eye opening. And there’s just one more thing I want to get on record, if that’s okay, which is that I think one of the things about this podcast I’ve grown to love is that it always reminds me people have more going on on the inside than we ever assume. And I think your story is illustrative of that. I think your stories illustrative of that; of, you know… You get – even like you were just saying, like maybe, maybe I should have like physically pushed back more. And it’s like, well, you also went through something as a kid where maybe that’s a terrifying thing to do or a really brutally confusing thing to do. And it’s just eye opening. But I’m glad that puppy – I’m glad we got a puppy playing in the background. That sounds like it’s nice. Sounds like it’s nice.

[01:00:06] CALLER: Yeah, he was telling me to let him go outside so he can go and diddle. So I might as well let him out so he’s not going in my house but… I mean, yeah. I think that people do have a lot more going on on the inside than what so many, so many people will never know. I definitely tried to live by that ‘don’t judge a book by its’ cover’ because of that reason you know. And I definitely don’t appear as though I’m damaged at all. I honestly am kind of a happy go lucky guy, which I just try and live by, try and be as happy as I can and I don’t want things that happened in my past to affect me. I mean, sometimes it does – not to get too personal on the show, but sometimes when I’m getting intimate with my fiancee…

[01:00:52] CHRIS: Well we wouldn’t want to get too personal. Right – oh I’m sorry.

[01:00:56] CALLER: Oh, yeah, we’re going to get personal.

[01:00:57] CHRIS: Yeah…

[01:00:58] CALLER: You know, at some points when I do get intimate, I have to say, ‘hey, I need a second. I need some space because right now I just can’t’. And she understands. And as soon as I say ‘no’ or ‘hey, give me a second’, I get all the time that I need. And, you know, I just wish more people would be respectful and listening like that. I guess that’s one thing I would like to spread today is people become more understanding when someone says no or ‘hey, I need a second’. Give him time. Listen. If they say no, they mean no. They’re not into it. Even if you are… you got two hands to deal with your own deal.

[01:01:41] CHRIS: How do you…?

[01:01:45] CALLER: So I guess there – that’s my goal. I hope people listen to it. Spread a positive message to each other.

[01:01:53] CHRIS: How do you… How did you come to a place where you could open up with your fiancee about this? How do you know she was somebody you could trust with all that? Because I’d imagine this is not something you’ve shared with everybody you’ve dated over the years.

[01:02:07] CALLER: No, she is I would say one of two people to know it and that includes my therapist. So how it really happened is I think that – how long? We’ve been together for almost four years now. And at one point in time, I mean, I was just in a sexual slump. Nothing was going for me. And we tried having sex. And I did, you know, say I want to give it a shot and let’s give it a go. And, you know, it just wasn’t working on my end. And I said, I think that, you know, we should talk about this because there’s obviously some underlying issues. And then at that point in time, I hadn’t opened up about childhood problems or anything that happened as a teenager. So she didn’t know. She didn’t know how to work with it. But she wanted to. She wanted to, you know, make me feel comfortable. So that, you know, next time there is a slump: I’m not pushing it, she’s not pushing it. And now that we’ve gone over everything and opened up, I mean, she – I’m going to marry this person. We’re going to be together for the rest of my life. And of course, she wants to know. You know, ‘hey, this works with you. This doesn’t work. Here’s your boundary. Here’s my boundary’. You know, we wanted to know everything about each other. So I mean, I really – I did open up to answer your question and I had to open up because the problem on the outside came from an underlying problem. So that is how I ended up opening up.

[01:03:58] CHRIS: Here’s a weird question and intrusive, but I feel like we know each other well enough. When you talk about the slump, does getting to a point where you can open up about it and where you can share that knowledge and maybe even burden with someone, does that does that affect it? I could, I could see – I’ll just put it out there. I could see a world in which that maybe helps the slump. Does that help the slump?

[01:04:26] CALLER: Oh, it helps the slump. Oh yeah. It’s like if you’re working out and you drop a like a heavy bar on your chest. You kind of need some help getting it off, but you feel a lot better when the bar is off your chest and you can finally move around. It just – it really does feel like a huge weight gets lifted off of you and you can just move freely again. Everything just goes back to flowing nicely, honestly.

[01:04:49] CHRIS: That must be some very passionate stuff. When you’re like, ‘I’m going to share all this dark stuff with you. I’ve never shared with anyone except a therapist when I was 19. But I’m gonna put it out here because I really believe in this relationship. I trust you and I love you. I want to be with you forever. And you’re gonna have to know why this is happening. It’s not about my attraction to you. It’s not about my – it’s not about any of that. It’s about this other stuff that no one knows’. And then someone actually accepts it and is compassionate and caring. And then the lovemaking works after that. That must be some of the most passionate lovemaking you’ve ever had, my friend.

[01:05:24] CALLER: Yeah, it really does – it changes a lot of things, though. And she’s a very emotional person, too. So we’ll sit here and cry for 30 minutes and then make love afterwards. It’s just how it works. But I mean, it’s so – it’s so nice to be able to talk about it with someone, you know. Someone who is understanding and compassionate and then, you know, you have a little benefit afterwards. But honestly, it is great to be able to open up to someone and let them understand the pain that you’re feeling and what’s really going on inside. Because, you know, she is – she’s a beautiful person and it did not have anything to do with physical appearance or sexual attraction. It was just a mental block I couldn’t get over, you know. But after that, you know, everything is fine. And it’s not that it happens super often, you know. Once – maybe once a year. But you know, the point is that it’s nice to have someone there to talk to and to be able to get over it and have her understand you.

[01:06:29] CHRIS: Yeah…

[01:06:30] CALLER: To understand where you’re coming from you know?

[01:06:31] CHRIS: That’s a – that’s a huge weight off the shoulders. It must be a pretty beautiful feeling when you realize ‘I got the person that I want to share not just my life with, but my secrets with’. That’s a pretty great thing.

[01:06:42] CALLER: Mmhmm secrets are fun. Well they can be.

[01:06:45] CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah. My wife knows my secrets. My wife knows some secrets. Yeah.

[01:06:51] CALLER: They could be fun with your wife really. I don’t know. I don’t know your secrets.

[01:06:55] CHRIS: Well, it’s fun – it’s every… Right, everybody’s got things that they think on the inside. Experiences that they’ve had. Things that they hold close because, you know, they inform who you are in positive and negative ways. And sometimes you got to put it all on the table and sort of say, ‘hey, I’m going all in. Here’s the stuff. Here’s everything we need to know about each other’. Because like you said, four decades from now, we’re still gonna be hanging out. So let’s get – like a band-aid, let’s just get all this stuff out there.

[01:07:28] CALLER: Yeah, no kidding. That is the truth, though.

[01:07:32] CHRIS: Yeah. Well, we got less than a minute left. I’m sorry that I cut that one off, but I felt like I didn’t want to rush, I didn’t want to rush past all these reactions to the stuff you shared, because it’s not – I don’t think it’s… I think it’s a story that probably my guess would be and I don’t know facts and figures – my guess would be that things like what you’ve described happen more often than we all talk about and are discussed…

[01:07:56] CALLER: Yeah.

[01:07:56] CHRIS: …less in depth than you just did it. So I bet it helped a chunk of people. Thanks for doing it.

[01:08:03] CALLER: Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

[01:08:07] CHRIS: Yeah. No sweat. Pet that dog for me and tell your wife I appreciate her kind words and support even though it created Attari sounds during our call.

[01:08:17] CALLER: No problem. I definitely will. Oh yeah. I’ll pet him right now for you. Good boy. Good boy, get your toy. Good boy. There you go. That’s just for you. He was very happy.

[01:08:28] CHRIS: [ring] Caller, thanks. Thanks for calling up and being so honest. Thanks for telling us about some really dark things. I do not take it lightly that it was your shrink, your fiancee and then me that you open up to. And again, a lot of people listen to this and I think it might help people. And  I’ve always really felt like if you’re in a position where you can help people and you don’t, it’s just not a cool way to be. And I think you stepped up to the plate and said, I want to put this out there and be a voice that might help people. Thank you for that. Really, really brave of you and kind of you. Thank you to Jared O’Connell and Harry Nelson in the booth as always. Thanks to the Reverend John Delore and Gretta Cohn who helped build this show. And as always, thank you to Shellshag, my old friend Shellshag bringing the music that sets the tone for this whole shebang. Want to know about me? I’m getting out on the road. I got dates coming up. We got shows in Chicago, in Bloomington, Indiana. In St. Lewis, in Minnesota. All coming up soon. ChrisGeth.com is where you can find out about the ticket information for all of those. If you like Beautiful Anonymous here’s a thing you can do to help: you go on Apple podcast., rate, review, subscribe. Can’t stress how much that actually helps. Thanks a lot. See you next time.

[01:09:38] THEME MUSIC: Kiss me face to face.

[01:09:52] [AD BREAK]

[NEXT EPISODE PREVIEW]

[01:10:34] CHRIS: Next time on Beautiful Anonymous, what’s life like in the underground? So your job is mostly just to keep a poker face?

[01:10:44] CALLER: Basically.

[01:10:45] CHRIS: As horny men with fetishes objectify you as the, as the person who will fulfill their fetish.

[01:10:52] CALLER: You know, it’s a lot less sexual than you would expect.

[01:10:56] CHRIS: Really?

[01:10:58] CALLER: Yeah. Like the one that I hang out with in person, part of the reason I hang out with him is because he’s such a softy. He’s like a little tiny queer bear.

[01:11:08] CHRIS: I’m so confused by all of this. I am confused by all of this. A tiny little queer bear?

[01:11:13] CALLER: That’s why I want to talk about it. People have very weird conceptions about it, about sex work. It’s so funny. I love talking about it ’cause people are always so surprised.

[01:11:24] CHRIS: That’s next time on Beautiful Anonymous.