Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Elisa star, Elisa star. Lemon melt. Breathtaking. So bizarre. Elisa star, Elisa star.
[00:00:13] She's your friend.
[00:00:20] Hello, everyone. It is I, Elisa Star and trigger warning. I'm going to talk about sexism, miscarriage, and dv, murder and abortion. So this is your chance to peace out if any of that stuff is going to upset you. Today, there is a movement sweeping the US called four B. It came from South Korea.
[00:00:45] B in South Korean means nope. Four B means they don't do four things. They don't date men, have sex with men, marry men, and have babies with men.
[00:00:58] Joon Siyoung and Baek Hana are two proponents of it. South Korea is a lot different than the US. You can.
[00:01:10] You can claim to be part of a movement anonymously there. They don't make everyone show their credentials in order to announce that a movement is real or an idea is real. They don't vet the ideas authors as well. People are just allowed to say their opinions anonymously, I guess.
[00:01:34] And a lot of people online that they're sure not bots are saying that they're part of this four B movement.
[00:01:45] So Jung and Baek are criticizing marriage as reinforcing gender roles and South Korea. The movement draws some inspiration from the novel Kim Jiyoung, born 1982.
[00:02:02] And that was kind of that novel. Like, do you remember, like, ten years ago after we'd already sort of started? Me too. Here, there was that video of this girl just, like, trying, like, just going across New York and, like, ten minutes of, like, her day and watching all the cat calls she got and, you know, and that kind of spurring women to join in a lot of, I don't know, pussy marches.
[00:02:41] So this novel, Kim Jong, born 1982, was kind of like their subway video. It was kind of like their wake up call across the country where every single woman was like, that's fucking me too. That's like, um, they also have something called escape the corset in South Korea, which is fucking crazy.
[00:03:06] I didn't realize before I started doing research for this episode that South Korea makes most of the world's beauty products, which I. I mean, like, I. I guess I subconsciously knew because a lot of times if you have bubble bath or. Or if you get some face cream, if lotion, all kinds of stuff, some of the really good shit, like, you can only get it, like, in Korean. Like, you don't always know what's in it because it just straight up just comes in, like, korean packaging.
[00:03:42] So I like, you know, as a fat woman, I don't get a lot of my clothes from there. I don't. I don't do corset stuff, but, like, the bras I wear are heavy duty. Like, they're. So they're not making a lot of my clothes, but they are. They. They do make most of the world's beauty products in general. So the escape, the corset movement in South Korea is women saying fuck you to the fashion industry there and the beauty industry there.
[00:04:16] It's women not using a corset, obviously, but also shaving their heads, burning beauty products in general, and refusing to participate in heterosexual stuff.
[00:04:37] The Forb movement only claims to have about 4000 members. It was started in 2019. There are 51 million people in Korea. So you think the 4000 women, not hetero, wouldn't be a big deal.
[00:04:55] And it may or may not actually be affecting their population problem. However, the idea of it seems to be scaring men around the world, and Korea is having a fucking population problem, basically. I think in order to. In order for your population to be on track to thrive, in order for more people to be born than to die, you want people reproductive producing at that 2.6 level, you know, for every woman, you want them to have 2.6 children.
[00:05:30] And South Korea is down, I believe it's one down to 1.7. I think maybe korean me too. Like, me too, started in America, and then it just went around the world. And the korean me too movement focused on femicide, which is not, which is a unique problem to their society, which is good and non consensual pornography. And this was the tipping point, as well as misogynistic practices in the workplace, which, you know, worldwide problem there. But the non consensual pornography, basically, the reason for be rose up, I believe, is because there were some very public south korean cases of upskirting videos, as well as men recording sex with their girlfriends and selling it on porn sites and putting it online live without their girlfriend's consent, which is just.
[00:06:45] It's fucking crazy to me. Like, upskirting videos, I don't understand because basically, like, it's the.
[00:06:52] Well, I do understand it. Upskirting videos are about humiliation. It's about looking at someone else's privates in the grossest possible angle, which is. I mean, that's insane to me. Like, why would you do that? That sounds. It sounds like. Like none of those pictures are going to be good unless you get off on the fact that they're.
[00:07:19] They're secret, on the fact that they.
[00:07:23] That the humiliation is baked into.
[00:07:26] To stealing pictures of them.
[00:07:32] So, um, south korean men and women know that their society is dying, that there are more people in their society dying than being born. Like I said, you have to hit 2.6.
[00:07:49] Every woman has to have that 2.6. That has to be your general population, 2.6 babies, and they're hitting 1.7, maybe actually even down below one. So south korean women know that, and yet the four b movement is taking hold in their country, and it's making its way over here. A lot of women over here are hearing four b and going, oh, oh, shit. I've actually already been doing that.
[00:08:26] Cause we're on track for that too. Our pregnancy rates are way down, and we all know why. You know, having a baby will cost you millions of dollars.
[00:08:36] Women in the US are dying in childbirth at much higher rates than other first worlds, and you're more likely to be killed by your partner when you're pregnant. So just getting pregnant means the baby could rip you in half. Your partner is more likely to murder you. And if none of that happens, taking care of that family will cost you millions of dollars.
[00:08:58] Add to that the anti abortion laws. So if your baby dies inside of you, it's illegal to get medical care. Doctors have to let your uteruses rot or your life begin to ebb away before they can intercede. In a lot of cases, they just have to let you die. Otherwise they risk jail time.
[00:09:18] Ob GyN doctors are fleeing the states where the draconian abortion laws are being enacted, which, you know, and across the board in the United States, we're always already experiencing a doctor shortage because of the pando, meaning that there are fewer and fewer doctors who can help a woman not die in childbirth. So if you and your kids survive all that, get home.
[00:09:45] Male partners are still expecting you to take care of all the housework in addition to a job that you probably already have that you're probably going back to. If you're a stay at home mom, they disrespect your work and time, and if you don't stay home, they expect you to take care of your job and the housework.
[00:10:05] If women get sick, male partners are six to seven times more likely to leave their wives, then stay home and take care of them. And by sick here, I mean if. If women get cancer.
[00:10:18] If. Oh, my God.
[00:10:22] Sorry. My neighbors have been yelling at each other. I don't know what it's about, but I tried to wait until it was over to record this for you guys.
[00:10:30] Okay, so, like, what I was saying is that male partners are six to seven times more likely to leave their wives when their wives have chronic illness diagnosis or cancer diagnosis.
[00:10:49] So you may sink years into taking care of a man, raising his children, cleaning his bathroom and underwear, because also, apparently, they are not wiping their asses. And then if something happens to you, he's out because the quote unquote wife appliance is broken and he needs a new one.
[00:11:07] So finding a male partner who respects your time equally and sees you as a person is so fucking hard. Us women are also adopting for bee, and that's becoming so apparent that last week we had the bumble fumble.
[00:11:27] The dating app bumble, which was formed supposedly to be a safe space for women, put up billboards that said, thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun. And you know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer. And it took one day for the Internet to taunt them into an apology, you know, and those taunts weren't even like that. Me, they were just, like, observant, you know, they got them antisexual, anti asexual billboards in LA was one of the tweets.
[00:12:06] Geordijor on Twitter said, in a world fighting for respect and autonomy over our bodies, it's appalling to see a dating platform undermine women's choices. Wasn't this app supposed to empower women to date on their terms? I don't know. I never tried bumble, but I'm not. I'm not surprised that with a terrible name like that, they thought it would apply to appeal to women.
[00:12:32] So women all over the US are deleting dating apps. Bumble tried to apologize. They put out a statement saying they made a mistake.
[00:12:43] And then, like, there was a long ass apology. But honestly, I just want to talk about two sentences. They said, we made a mistake. Great start. That is the beginning of a terrific apology.
[00:12:56] Then they said, our ads referencing celibacy were an attempt to lean into a community frustrated by modern dating. And instead of bringing joy and humor, we unintentionally did the opposite.
[00:13:11] Okay, so they were attempting to lean into a community frustrated by modern dating.
[00:13:23] They were just telling ladies to put out on billboards. That's all they did.
[00:13:28] So instead of addressing a bunch of different dating issues, like dick pics, just say no or wash your ass.
[00:13:43] They could have made those two billboard billboards for men. Wash your ass.
[00:13:51] Wash your ass to get some ass. Could have just been that.
[00:13:56] And then they could have been like. And ladies put out, and then they could have had like. Like, because they had several different billboards. They could have addressed some of women's complaints about women on them.
[00:14:09] Like, sorry. Some of women's complaints about men on them.
[00:14:14] But instead of that, they just made a bunch of different. Like, they just said, hey, ladies, have you thought about putting out more in just a lot of different ways? Instead of.
[00:14:29] So they only gave a shit about one community.
[00:14:34] One they wanted to lean into. A community frustrated by modern dating. A community frustrated by modern dating. It just. It just implies that they were thinking about more than one demographic in that sentence, and they weren't. They were just like, het dudes aren't. Aren't. Aren't getting enough.
[00:14:56] Must fix.
[00:14:58] Instead of being like, why het dudes not. Not getting enough. Instead of being like, how can we help the hectic. What should we tell the het dudes so they get more. No, no, no, no.
[00:15:11] Okay. So then they were like, uh, apparently you. Asex is a real, um. And also, sometimes, ladies, apparently you don't want to fuck because of rape.
[00:15:25] So we're just gonna give the national domestic violence hotline all the billboard space that we bought for this campaign that apparently they were gonna tell us to put out for, like, a really fucking long time. Like, what? Dude, you didn't have a single billboard addressing women's complaints about men. It was just, ladies be ladies not be putting out enough.
[00:15:58] Okay, so Cecilia Regina on Twitter. No, TikTok said that dating sites used to be free because they're selling women to men without women's consent.
[00:16:09] I never thought that. I thought that they were free because they were selling all of our information to someone else.
[00:16:21] Um, like I said, thousands of real people have deleted the app. There's. However, their stock price has gone up, which proves to me that men fuck with the stock market way more than women, because any. Any intelligent woman is going to look at the situation and be like, oh, now it's just dudes and bots. Okay, well, this can't end well. And they pull their stock.
[00:16:54] I love the bumble fumble because it gives the game away. Men need us. Capitalism needs us. We have more power than we've been told we do.
[00:17:06] And just like in any union strike, withdrawing our labor and our literal bodies will cripple the system, which is the plan of any union strike, to make clear the striker's inherent worth and then to have it reflected by their employer's actions.
[00:17:27] I would delete the apps, too, but I went on an okcupid date ten years ago that just ended all apps for me. We were sitting in a corner booth at a bar.
[00:17:36] My date had bought us drinks, but he didn't ask me any questions about myself. He just got out his phone and started showing me pictures of his dick.
[00:17:45] I was so annoyed. I was like, this could have been a text.
[00:17:49] We're in person. I don't need you to see pictures of your dick. If I wanted to see it, I would have asked was what I was thinking, but I didn't say what I was thinking back then as much as I do now.
[00:18:06] So he actually got to ask me if I wanted to touch it.
[00:18:12] I said, no, thank you, made up an excuse, and I left. And this was a guy that I spent some time vetting. Like, he was interesting online.
[00:18:23] I was so mad at myself after, like, not just because he was so boring in real life, but because he didn't bother to pretend to be interested in me in order to fuck me.
[00:18:34] I tried to go back to the apps after that, but I was just like, so frustrated. I'm Google able, I'm worth Googling.
[00:18:43] And none of the apps, none of those people were bothering.
[00:18:48] People are delighted on, like, buy me in person. So I let that be enough. And I'm also a happy spinster. In my twenties and thirties, I wanted to fall in love with men, and I wanted them to be in love with me. But men, including and especially my father, have always been terrified of me and then alternately angry at me because they were terrified of me.
[00:19:15] Like, since I was a child, since I was a baby. It was really upsetting because I'm just me.
[00:19:24] Why were they so afraid? It made me depressed and confused and embarrassed and really, really sad until the handmaids tale came out. And I realized I probably would have gotten, like, murdered in the first episode. And I just felt, like, relieved that I didn't have to go through all that shit that just looked exhausting.
[00:19:44] And I've been happy in the last few years. Pretty much since I turned 40. I've realized that being terrified has kept me safe as an adult.
[00:19:57] You know, between my indifference to coupling and my own strong personality, I haven't been in a toxic relationship in a decade. But then again, I only have relationships once a decade.
[00:20:13] The abusive relationships I have had with men, and, like, all of my relationships end with men. Like, all of my relationships with men end in about three months or less.
[00:20:25] And I think being terrifying has kept a lot of men from approaching me, abusive and otherwise.
[00:20:37] Yeah, men still want to tame me. And there was that.
[00:20:43] There still is that. Men who act like my personality is an invitation for us to do battle, like, I don't need to fight with you, dude. I'm just like this. I just want to exist in the world, but I'm also not gonna let you tell me what to do. It just infuriates me.
[00:21:16] And some of women telling their stories. I get to see in real life what would have happened were I to let someone tame me.
[00:21:33] Whenever I stayed in a relationship with someone who wanted to tame me, it just. It always felt so bad, you know? And growing up with a man that wanted to tame me, at some point, the dude I was dating would remind me of my dad, and I would just be out.
[00:22:06] You know, any. Any reenactment of my battles with my father is, you know, will capture my attention for a moment and then repel me.
[00:22:17] You know? He doesn't. He doesn't like my loud, confident, boisterous, friendly personality. That's okay. That's fine, I guess. Like, you're. Everybody's allowed their own feelings, and I'm not. I'm not gonna hold it against them. I. It never worked out for the lady tamers because I didn't realize what they were doing, usually until they were already mad at me because it wasn't working.
[00:22:50] Like I said, if I ended up feeling bad in our interactions, I would leave early or with someone else.
[00:23:01] But the gaslighting, the acting like you, like me while trying to make me feel ashamed for who I am would fuck with me. And I get how with someone else, you know, somebody. If I'd wanted to be loved, if I was desperate to be loved that kind of way, I would have sat. I would have lived with the shitty feelings.
[00:23:31] You know, it did seem like those were the relationships that were available to me as men who didn't quite ever really like me.
[00:23:43] It took me years to find people who actually liked me and acted like it. And the thing is, is we're seeing some of that reflected in a lot of kind of, like, big, big celebrity movements moments.
[00:23:59] This week. P. Diddy, the video of him beating his ex wife came out, and people are talking about how he doesn't. He doesn't actually like her. You know, when men shove cake in their wives faces on their wedding day, they don't actually like those wives.
[00:24:19] And it took me years, like, and I was actively trying to make sure everybody in my orbit did actually like me, because the theme of my family was, I don't like you. Nobody likes you, and you can never leave me, which is like.
[00:24:37] Which is why I tend to like to. I like to get out of social situations as quick as I can. I always like to know where the exit is because I like to leave.
[00:24:54] I like to walk away because at the very least that, you know, I can't ensure that everybody likes me, but I can ensure that I've got. There's always an exit door.
[00:25:05] I feel like four b is straight women, heterosexual women, especially, being like, no, I can just leave. Even if that means that I won't get married, even if that means that I won't have kids, even if that means that a bunch of stuff I thought would happen in my life won't.
[00:25:33] I'd rather choose me. I'd rather be alone, which is something that I had to learn to do as a teen and a young adult in order to deal with my abusive family. I had to walk away.
[00:25:55] And I started snarky cards. I started writing them and selling them because I wanted a job that utilized my personality. I wanted it to be a plus, to be myself.
[00:26:05] I was tired of hiding it or trying to reshape it in order to make a living, in order to be loved, in order to make men feel comfortable around me in romantic situations.
[00:26:21] And between my personality, my love of bright colors, my booming voice, and my then undiagnosed bipolar disorder, I needed to create a specific kind of job for myself.
[00:26:38] And the gaslighting of those bumble ads reminds me of some of the lady tamers of my past. The condescension midge, my best friend from middle school, was so excited. She was like, without us, bumble is Grindr. She tickled a pussy strike. She giggled. And she's right.
[00:27:05] Women are opting out of things that don't benefit us. Marriage is one of those things. We are starting to prioritize ourself. I make this card that is my best selling card of all time. It's gotten 10,000 people late. I've made and sold it 10,000 times and a lot of different iterations as my printing.
[00:27:25] I used to hand paint it a lot, and now I printed a lot. It says, do you want to make out with me? Yes.
[00:27:35] No, maybe. Do you go down?
[00:27:39] Those are the options, right? Check boxes? Right.
[00:27:43] I've been making that car for 15 years. Hundreds of men, only men, have said, I don't want to give her the option to say no.
[00:27:52] And I have to explain, if someone can't say no, then they're not really saying yes, are they?
[00:28:01] Without the no option.
[00:28:04] Like, if you can't walk away from something, then you're not really choosing it.
[00:28:12] I gently explain consent to them.
[00:28:18] And that's the four b movement. It's a women. It's american women giving ourselves permission to just say no. Yes, some lucky few of us are asexual or gay or bi, but I love that my fellow streets are learning to just say, I'd rather be alone than be with a gaslighting asshole.
[00:28:41] This episode is also sponsored by magic mind.
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[00:32:37] Link and discount code are in the description.
[00:32:41] So man versus bear is the question that a lot of women and men are asking each other around the country and maybe around the world would you rather run into. Who would you rather run into in the woods? A man or a bear? I have seen hundreds of TikTok videos from women who have actually run into men and bears in the woods, explaining to you why they always choose bear.
[00:33:13] I mean, they're. They're beautiful illustrations of women just, like, settling down with bears.
[00:33:19] Like, hardcore choosing bears.
[00:33:23] Um, like. And it is a good way to illustrate what they put us through.
[00:33:30] The thing is, I think that men in the United States at least think that it's our way of reconnecting with them or getting them to understand our lives better.
[00:33:47] And you and I keep seeing all these replies. I keep seeing men being like, well, I hope you get mauled by that bear you chose.
[00:33:54] Like, that's why we're choosing the bear, because the bear won't wish us dead. Because we didn't choose him.
[00:34:06] We're not trying to relate to you anymore. We are explaining why we're leaving you now. Man versus bear is those of us who are choosing four b, explaining why we were seeking to go and no contact with dudes sexually, why we are choosing peace.
[00:34:30] I lived through third wave feminism in the nineties and early two thousands, and it made me study earlier waves. And one thing I really loved was heterosexual women who decided, because of what they'd seen in their work, not to fuck men anymore or engage in head life.
[00:34:47] Andrea Dworkin is. Was my favorite hero, maybe the first real antihero I ever discovered. She wrote extensive feminist essays from the seventies up to her death in 2005.
[00:35:02] She did some crazy hardcore studies and testified before groups of powerful men all the time about the studies that she'd done and the book intercourse that she wrote in 1986. She argues that all heterosexual sex in our patriotic, patriarchal society is coercive and degrading to women, and sexual penetration may, by its very nature, doom women to inferiority and submission and may be immune to reform.
[00:35:37] She became politically gay. I loved her work. I loved her radicalism. I found her inspirational.
[00:35:45] I even loved. I especially loved how red with rage men would turn at the mention of her name. Dude, you just throw Andrea Dorkin into a conversation in 1996 and watch men just flip the fuck out. Because she.
[00:36:00] She. I mean, I don't even know if any of them even knew that she said that. I'm pretty sure when I explained to them that she said all heterosexual sex is rape because of our inherent inequality in society, they were surprised. They just knew she was a feminazi. And indeed, I believe Rush Limbaugh, maybe, or whatever jackass that came before him created the term feminine Nazi to describe Andrea Dworkin.
[00:36:35] And she did become politically gay. Like, she was not heterosexual, but she stopped having any kind of heterosexual activity. There was a life partner that she had who was a gay man who she lived with for 30 or 40 years.
[00:36:59] I believe it's said that they occasionally had sex, even heterosexual sex, with a gay man. Doesn't sound that hetero. It does sound more consent y to me.
[00:37:16] Okay, so I just wanted to let you know, it's. It delights me that the question she asked us in that 1986 book intercourse is now when one women all across the world are asking ourselves, like, can we be respected by men while sharing their bed? Because the four b movement is thousands of women saying, nope.
[00:37:43] Also, I'm glad we don't have waves anymore. Feminism is no longer a seasonal fad I get to enjoy while it's in town and more like the school of thought that women are people, and most people just agree.
[00:38:00] I loved Andrea Dworkin. I treasured her research and ideas, but I couldn't do it personally. Like I said, I liked throwing her name into conversations to watch men freak out. But I, giving up men on principle just sounded impossible to me. I am so heterosexual. I do not enjoy kissing women. I like men.
[00:38:21] I've always liked men. My mom told me over and over again that ever since I was born, as long as a man was holding me, I was fine. I loved men so much, I was a slutty baby.
[00:38:32] Hear that? That's adults blaming children for sex abuse. It's called the eighties.
[00:38:38] Or really any year before 2010. It's nice that we don't blame kids anymore for being assaulted.
[00:38:44] I don't remember that ever really bothering me, though. It was just, like, good info to have about myself, you know, that. That I was kind of a slut even as a baby.
[00:38:56] Okay? I think every time she tell me that. Guess I've always been a slut and then just, like, keep doing my 7th grade homework or whatever.
[00:39:05] But the pando has changed me.
[00:39:08] The pandemic revealed that straight men haven't been wiping their asses, side note. Or washing their legs or their ears. Less upset about the legs and ears, though. The asses thing is. Feels too close to your dick. A place you would like me to put my mouth on for me to be okay with the ass problem, the dirty ass problem of men simultaneously because of COVID now other people's juices can cripple you. And I'm already a crippled. I can't get more crippled.
[00:39:45] So now straight men just seem grosser than they used to. Like, in general, before I knew all of these hygiene things, before we started interrogating what we actually do in the shower. And now just making out with somebody can give you RSV or Covid or something weird and gross that we haven't thought of yet as dangerous and crippling.
[00:40:07] So it comes with a lot more risk one to the dirty ass thing.
[00:40:17] So I do. I deal with the ass thing straight off. When guys hit on me on the bar, you know, hawk eyes, I say, I'm a little nervous about men since I found out that you guys haven't been wiping your asses.
[00:40:32] And then whoever's in front of me, the dude who's always like, I always want wipe my ass, I keep my ass very, very clean. And I'm like, great. Contact me on Insta so that I can see that you have one ex girlfriend who is alive and two friends.
[00:40:47] This is too high of a bar.
[00:40:50] They might follow me on Insta, but that is because I created a QR code so hundreds of people can follow me on Insta. Because my business is getting people to buy things that I make.
[00:41:06] So they follow me, but they don't come at me with like, hey, look, this is my not murdered ex girlfriend and me with two of my friends. Do you want to go out next week?
[00:41:16] Because, honestly, if anybody came out me with that, I would be like, yes. Look at you being all together and shit, having two friends and an alive ex girlfriend.
[00:41:29] I mean, I want to stalk the ex girlfriend or ask them and the friends a few questions just to make sure they were her. They said they were. And ask them what they think of you then I'd say yes. Is that too much to ask? Apparently yes, it is.
[00:41:45] Is it intimidating that I'm actually asking for it also? Apparently yes, it is.
[00:41:51] So when I heard about the four b movement, I was like, maybe. And also yes.
[00:41:57] And then I could hear my dead grandmother nanny be like, I told you from heaven, I don't really believe in heaven. But Jesus was her best friend and I like to think of her hanging out with him at his house because she had a really hard time when she was actually alive. I'd like to think that in death she got something nice and she really loved Jesus. I don't have any really great feelings about him.
[00:42:31] I always made time for nanny. As soon as I could drive, I drove as far away from my parents house as possible, but I made time for nanny.
[00:42:44] My family was the first set of people to experience my brutal honesty. And they fucking hated it. They told me over and over and over again that I'd never meet a man because of my mouth, that I'd never get married because I couldn't shut the fuck up. No, they didn't. River said, shut the fuck up. They said shut up. That no man would ever love me.
[00:43:01] Nanny heard them say all that shit, but she never participated in it. And occasionally when she and I were alone, she would ask me if I had a boyfriend and I'd come back at her like, what about you? And she'd be like, no, I don't want a man in my life. Never again.
[00:43:31] I knew at six I was going to be a writer.
[00:43:35] I announced that to my parents and they left.
[00:43:39] Since I learned how, I've been constantly reading or writing, and this company wanted to publish my poetry in an anthology. When I was 13, my family called it a scam.
[00:43:52] That was 1991 in the Silicon Valley. I moved out of the Silicon Valley because all of the valley thinks all art is a scam or worthless.
[00:44:04] They think spending time working on something and showing it to other people with no little profit motive is ununderstandable.
[00:44:13] Writing makes me feel normal. Writing gives me energy, it keeps me going. It gives me the happiness my parents, friends, co workers and others have told me that men, marriage and children should would give me.
[00:44:31] I grew up hearing that writing an art is a scam, or you have to be a scammer to make either of them professionally. But heterosexuality is a scam too, built on the backs of women.
[00:44:47] Part of the reason why the four B movement's gaining traction is because of all the women coming forward to tell their stories. They did stay home with their kids, and their husbands left them as soon as they got sick. In this case, getting sick includes being pregnant or recovering from giving birth, which is insane to me. Giving birth is a ten year project that you and a buddy agree you want to start together, but it's starting to sound to me like most men testicle out after the first five months. Five months that required almost no work from them, by the way. And by testicle out, I mean, you know how testicles are, like, soft and smooshy, and if you insult them, they, like, run away and hide and you never see them again.
[00:45:37] Easily destructible.
[00:45:41] You can damage them just by looking at them wrong. Yeah, that's what I mean.
[00:45:47] Most men are just.
[00:45:51] Just testicling out. I don't even know how else to put it. Five months in, six months in. They're on those dating apps trying to get a different girl. They're.
[00:46:05] Excuse me.
[00:46:08] They're starting fights with their lovers. They're the now mother of their child. They're. They're cheating already.
[00:46:16] They're being abusive and divorced. Women, who society has typically pitied up until this four B movement, are telling stories about how much easier it was after they got divorced. They had less money because their exes made them and their children poor.
[00:46:39] But those exes had to get their shit together to take the kids for two days a week.
[00:46:45] And those two days were the first time that those moms had any kind of support from those exes.
[00:46:51] You women have to divorce these men to get them to take responsibility for their families.
[00:46:57] Like I said, these divorces impoverish these women, but their peace was worth it.
[00:47:02] So the four b movement showing me that even if I'd spent the last 15 years devoted to making a man happy or a baby, I might still be broke without any kind of security I can. Every time I dig deeper into four b, I can hear nanny shudder. No, thank you. No, man.
[00:47:27] I see her struggle in these women's stories. I get it. My grandfather had schizophrenia. He was abusive and having to go out all day, make a living so that she and her family could eat, and then coming home worried that he might hurt her or her kids or himself.
[00:47:46] And this was the last in a long line of men who had abused my grandmother.
[00:47:54] I get why she was living the four b life before it was even a thing.
[00:48:02] During the pando, I saw my life splayed out before me. I realized I was going to have a lot less sex in the future.
[00:48:09] So I had a tattoo artist come to my house and tattoo a sunset over water on my leg with the word spinster life emblazoned on the setting sun.
[00:48:22] I don't take a lot of pictures of it because I never shave my legs, which has always embarrassed me a little because I look like, I don't know, a very swarthy man is the way I feel like I look.
[00:48:39] But then I realized that that was the most spinster part of it all, is, like, my long ass leg hair all over it, which is why it's the featured art for this episode.
[00:48:50] I also. It's a big picture of my leg.
[00:48:56] I promise you, my leg is regular sized. I'm five'two, I think.
[00:49:03] Five'two? 280.
[00:49:07] Five'two. Hundred. 80 pounds. 44 years old. Hairy as fuck. That's right. Spinster life, baby. It's crazy because people are starting to compliment it, which I'm not used to usually. I used to have to, like, explain the word, but I think it's coming into Vogue now. I think people are starting to really embrace it. They're like, oh, I've never seen it all positive like that before. And I'm like, ooh, I'm a happy spinster, though. I was a happy slut, too, when I was a slut. I just, you know, like, it's just grosser to slut around now. It's. It's. It's more of a risk, and it's, um. It seems like I'm the one taking on all the risk.
[00:49:56] So for b and man versus bear are women withdrawing our labor and our participation in things that don't serve us and their conversations women all across the world are having. We're looking for support and love that doesn't cost us more than what we get back.
[00:50:15] I hope you find love that makes you happy and doesn't cost you more than you put in.
[00:50:21] As always, thank you for listening to this episode. If you like me, follow and subscribe.
[00:50:28] If you want to find my snarky cards, go to snarkycards dot etsy.com.
[00:50:34] there are links to my Insta TikTok YouTube channel below where I post all the snarky cards and other videos that I make. And feel free to buy some snarkies or tip me in the links below for the labor that I put into making all this cool shit for you. Thanks for listening. I hope you find peace.
