Corey Allan:
Springtime is in the air. Summer is right around the corner. Where we are here, in the state of Texas, it's heating up.

Pam Allan:
It's heating up. It's felt like summer for a long time with the kids being home from school anyway, but it's nice to have good weather, and they love to play outside.

Corey Allan:
It's true. And our hope is that wherever you are in the SMR nation, wherever you call home, that you're finding times for sunshine, and family, and fun, and marriage, and all that that entails. Take advantage of the time that you've got because it is ... This could be a real sacred time you can steal.

Corey Allan:
And I actually just read a story from a mom, that's a working mom. And now that she's working from home, she's talking about how she's just trying to capture every moment she can because it's golden time in a sense. Man, a lot of times the world doesn't offer this kind of options and opportunity.

Pam Allan:
Yeah, I'm right there with her. I like it.

Corey Allan:
Well, this is Sexy Marriage Radio. We're so glad that you're joining us each and every week. We want to hear from you with what's on your mind and what questions that you may have. You can give us a call at 214-702-9565. Leave us a voicemail with whatever question you've got. Because if you've got a question that you don't know where to ask it, because maybe your dinner table or life group or family of origin isn't a place that you can ask these kinds of questions, we will answer them. And we want to hear what's on your mind.

Pam Allan:
Yep. Love it.

Corey Allan:
If you don't want to call us in, which calling and leaving a voicemail puts you at the front of the line, but if you don't want to call in, you can send us an email feedback@sexymarriageradio.com. And another little caveat, you can record the call, or you can record your message on your phone, and then email it to us, if you don't want to call the number.

Pam Allan:
That's good too. And you can still tweak the voice in that too, right?

Corey Allan:
We can cover.

Pam Allan:
We can tweak it so it doesn't sound like you.

Corey Allan:
Yep. If you are worried about being recognized with your voice on the air, all you got to do is say, "Hey, please disguise my voice." And I will easily do that and make it so that you won't even know that you asked that question.

Pam Allan:
There you go.

Corey Allan:
Actually, you probably would. You would know.

Corey Allan:
Today's episode of Sexy Marriage Radio is brought to you in part by BetterHelp. Find help in the comfort of your own home, where it matches you with a therapist that fits what your need is. Go to BetterHelp.com/SMR today.

Corey Allan:
Today's episode of Sexy Marriage Radio is brought to you in part by Beachbody, an on-demand, in-your-own-home workout service. Text SMR to 303030 to get access totally free.

Corey Allan:
We're coming up on today's regular free version of Sexy Marriage Radio, Pamela.

Pam Allan:
Yes.

Corey Allan:
It was a conversation I had with Peggy Orenstein, who is a journalist that has done quite a bit of work and just some research in society, in culture in trends. And specifically, we got her on the show with us because she has two different books out. She's got more than that, but she's got two different books out. One's called Girls & Sex, and the other is called Boys & Sex, where she's gone and sought out roughly around 100 of each gender in the teenage and young adult age bracket, and just asked them and had conversations with them about, "What are the contradictions that you face growing up with sex and sexuality? What you've been taught. What you haven't been taught. What your questions are."

Pam Allan:
So it's just asking them at that point in time. It's not a research that's following someone as they get older and into relationship.

Corey Allan:
No, she was just ... Yeah, she was just fascinated. She's been studying girls and sex for decades. And then just recently, her most recent book is Boys & Sex. And so she kind of realized, "We've got to go start having these conversations with the boys, too."

Pam Allan:
Right. Sure.

Corey Allan:
Because what she found is that there's a lot of information that we think is helping, but society is going counter to it in some regards. And so this was a conversation where we just wanted to have... She and I just kind of went down the whole route of us as parents, "What are we teaching our kids? What conversations are we having?" But then also secondarily, "How has this kind of path for ourselves impacted our current situations as married people or adults having sex in a relationship?"

Pam Allan:
That makes sense. That makes sense, looking at how you got to where you are based off of the message that was given to you.

Corey Allan:
Right. And so this was-

Pam Allan:
Helps you cope with it better, maybe.

Corey Allan:
Yeah. This was such a fun conversation. It was one of those ... I'll be honest, going into it, I did a bunch of prep, and I was digging into where it was. I wasn't quite sure where it was going to go. And after it was done, I was like, "I want to keep talking. This is ... I'm going to get Peggy back on again because," assuming the SMR nation sees ... reaps the benefit-"

Pam Allan:
Sees value.

Corey Allan:
... and the value that I see in it ... It was such a good conversation.

Pam Allan:
Good.

Corey Allan:
And then coming up on today's extended version of Sexy Marriage Radio, which is deeper, longer, and there is no ads, Peggy and I are continuing the conversation. But specifically we get into some studies that have been done that look at the society and sexuality in the Western area, which would be the United States, and Holland is where they went and did some research based on, "How is how has that subject being approached there versus here?" And it turns out-

Pam Allan:
Which is a kind of more open environment.

Corey Allan:
It is.

Pam Allan:
Okay.

Corey Allan:
And it's much more supportive and open is what kind of turns out. Because what it really has shown is here in America there's a lot of fear-based teaching going on. And in Holland, the results were quite strikingly different. And we unpack that a little bit more. And then just talking about, "What does that really mean? How does that apply in?" and, "Are we as parents doing enough with our kids?" since most of our audience is here in the States.

Pam Allan:
Right.

Corey Allan:
So all that's coming up on today's show.

Corey Allan:
Joining me today for today's episode of Sexy Marriage Radio, I'm excited to welcome Peggy Orenstein, who is a ... You're a pretty prolific author. You've got a lot out there that you've written, but your newest book is entitled Boys & Sex: Young men on hookups, love, porn, consent, and navigating the new masculinity. But you also have a subsequent work with Girls & Sex.

Peggy Orenstein:
Previous work, yeah.

Corey Allan:
That was previous to this. Peggy, thank you for joining me on the show today. And where I want to go is really just kind of unpacking both of those, what you've kind of discovered, because it seems like one led to another.

Peggy Orenstein:
For sure. Yeah.

Corey Allan:
What are some of the main things that jump out to you that kind of helped create this process of work for you? But also, What are the main things you've recognized from this process? because as I've dove into your books and some of the different ... the Ted talk and some of the different things where you've been in the media ... Man, there's a lot of good information that we need to get far and wide for people. So, I don't even know where to start, I guess is the way to start all of that, other than the fact that everyone in the SMR nation is either one or the other of what you've worked with.

Peggy Orenstein:
And when you say, "I don't know where to start," that's kind of where a lot of people feel with kids, right? Like, "Where do you start? How do you start talking about all these things?" And because of that, we've kind of raised in a culture of silence. And regardless of your values around when you think a person should become engaged sexually, you want your young people to be setup to have the best possible experience and to have reciprocity, mutuality, connection.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
And everything in our culture, for different ways with boys and with girls, pushes them in the opposite direction.

Corey Allan:
And that's fascinating to me. What it is we all kind of say we want is not necessarily the message we're delivering or society has delivered. And I'm going to put it down to each individual is what makes up society.

Peggy Orenstein:
Right. And we live in a culture that is absolutely drenched with sexualized messages, right? I mean, it is there to sell. Whether you're trying to sell hamburgers or hit singles or whatever, it's sex, sex, sex, sex. And yet we never have any substantive discussion about what really healthy, positive, connected, joyful sexuality should and does look like. And so kids are getting, particularly in today's media, which is so much bigger than anything any of us grew up with, they get so many messages beamed at them from both mainstream media, and now online pornography every day, about what sex should be, and glorifying the physical, glorifying the disconnected, that when we're not talking to them about that, we're doing them a tremendous disservice.

Corey Allan:
Absolutely. Okay. So let's do this then. So, ladies first. Let's jump into ... Because obviously the messages and the way they impact either a girl or a boy is different because a girl's journey is different than a boy's journey. Because I take from your work, you don't necessarily fall in line with the androgynous, we're all going to be alike. I mean, we got a lot of similarities as humans, but culturally, biologically, genetically and societally, there's a huge difference between a girl's experiences versus a boy's experiences.

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah, for sure.

Corey Allan:
So when you're talking about girls and sex, what are some of the main things that are just a, "We can't miss this," that we need to make sure we're delivering this message better because this is actually the message they might be getting?

Peggy Orenstein:
Well, girls are learning so much that ... When I talk about the difference between girls and boys, what I say is that, what girls learn is to be disconnected from their bodies, and what boys learn is to be disconnected from their hearts. So with girls, they ... Today's girls, it's really easy to miss because young women do feel much more entitlement, both professionally, educationally, and also in terms of their right to be sexual or to be seen, but they don't necessarily feel entitled to enjoy it. So what girls would talk about all the time was having these sexual interactions or having these encounters, but they weren't ... It was all about sort of satisfying their male partner, and they had very little understanding of what it meant for them. And so they would say things like ... And this bears out in research too. You see that women are much more likely ... Young women are much more likely to measure their satisfaction by the yardstick of their partner's pleasure.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
So they would say, "If he's satisfied, then I'm satisfied."

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
And guys will measure their satisfaction by their own orgasm.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
So, "If I'm satisfied, I'm satisfied," right? And the more I talked about girls, I started feeling like ... We do kind of the equivalent of, I started calling it a psychological clitoridectomy.

Corey Allan:
And I heard you say that before, and I was hoping that this would work into our conversation because it's such a descriptive and profoundly accurate statement of what's going on.

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah. So what I mean by that, and it's just ... Yeah. For me, it distilled a lot. But when our kids are born, we tend to name all our baby boy's body parts. So we'll say, at least like, "There's your pee pee," or something like that. But with girls, we go right from navel to knees, and we leave that whole situation in the middle unnamed. How do you make something unspeakable? You don't name it. Right?

Corey Allan:
Yeah.

Peggy Orenstein:
And then maybe they go into puberty classes, and they learn that boys have erections and ejaculations, and girls have periods an unwanted pregnancy. Not the same.

Corey Allan:
No.

Peggy Orenstein:
And you see that thing that looks like a steer's head? And then like grays out between ... And they never say vulva. They certainly never say clitoris. And then, not surprisingly, fewer than half of teenage girls have ever masturbated. And then they go into a partnered experience, and we somehow expect that they will believe it's about them, and that they will have a voice, and magically be able to express their wants and needs. It's like we ... It's unrealistic.

Corey Allan:
Absolutely, because it's been clouded in silence and uncertainty, or just the unspoken. Man, most of us as humans, I think, whenever we get into these areas ... I mean, this is what we're facing right now, with the pandemic going on in the world, is it's the uncertainty that's freaking most people out.

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah.

Corey Allan:
Because it's like, "Wait. I just want something that I know." And when you add that to our sexuality, if there's stuff that I don't understand or is unknown, which some of it I'm going to put ... Peggy, I'm assuming I can speak for you to a degree here. But I think there's an element of our sexuality that's always a little bit of a mystery.

Peggy Orenstein:
For sure. Yeah.

Corey Allan:
Right?

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah.

Corey Allan:
Because of who we are and the depth of the profoundness of everything.

Peggy Orenstein:
And discovery.

Corey Allan:
Absolutely. And so there is an element of that, but if I have this cloud of secrecy or silence that then it seems like I'm going to immediately jump to the shame, the push it aside, make it about someone else, it's not about me. That's the message that I will buy, even if that's not what's intended from my caregivers, my culture, my society.

Peggy Orenstein:
Right. And it's super interesting because I've also found that when girls are more in touch with their own bodies and desires, that they actually are safer. The only program that has been shown to reduce, although it shouldn't be up to girls not to be assaulted, but to reduce the risk of assault on college campuses. Found that when they added a unit on positive sexuality and girls understanding their bodies, that it reduced their rates of assault even further, like exponentially further. Because when you understand your own needs and wants, you see things more clearly, like something coming at you sooner. Instead of thinking, "Gee, maybe it would be okay. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm wrong," You think, "Wait, no. Uh-uh (negative)." And if you can get out, you get out.

Corey Allan:
Right. Because then it's immediately a more empowered stance of, "Wait, I'm on equal footing, or at least closer to equal footing, with what I'm seeking in this exchange, interaction dynamic." That it's not just all about the other person.

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah. So, in so many ways, it's just ... In their relationships, in their positive relationships and in potentially concerning situations, it's always better for girls to have full agency and understanding of their bodies.

Corey Allan:
Oh, completely agree, especially since I've got a teenage one of those running around my home, and the message I'm trying to deliver, that we are trying to get across.

Corey Allan:
We might've maybe needed to have this conversation right at the very beginning, Peggy, but I think it's worth noting for the SMR nation. How did you find, because this is all ... I mean, journalism is a lot of what you've been doing, where it's just lots and lots of interviews, lots and lots of data that you're finding. But just so people understand where you're coming from with this, I think we've got to at least insert that here. How did the two works come to be?

Peggy Orenstein:
I'm really glad you ... I was just thinking, "I didn't even say how I did this."

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
So, while I started with the girls, I have been writing about girls for a long time, and it started with the girl book. And what my ... I'm a journalist, so I combine all the sort of larger, deeper research that's out there with academia and stuff and all that stuff, and then I also do in depth interviews with hundreds of kids. And so I talked to, for each book, for the girl book about 75, and for the boy book over a hundred young people that were between 15 and 22, who were in high school and college bound or in college. That was my demographic. And just had these wide ranging conversations with them.

Peggy Orenstein:
I really didn't have an agenda when I went in. I just sort of felt like ... When I started the girl book, I felt like there was something that nobody was writing about. That we had written so much about girls, and how they were achieving and all these other things, but then nobody was writing about their intimate lives, and I just felt there was something there. And so I just started going out and asking questions and just talking, and talking, and talking. And I went all over the country, so they're from big cities, small towns, all over, all regions. And they are straight. They're gay. They're different ethnicities, so sort of the whole spectrum of young people.

Corey Allan:
I love a journalistic slant and take on things because you're just trying to get into it where, "What's the data show?" Right? "What's the story of people? What's their experiences? And let's make that be known because that helps people."

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah. And I'm a real believer that stories really connect with us more than numbers. And understanding, hearing people's stories and hearing people's lives, can be really transformational. And that's what I get. One of the things that's been really gratifying about doing these books, which I wrote sort of ... My first audience was really thinking about adults and parents, but I get so many emails and tweets and stuff from teenagers and young adults themselves, and that's what's been kind of the most gratifying.

Corey Allan:
That's good. And I want to go further into what are some of the main ... Let's get into a little more of the nuance of the interviews and the data that you've got in the extended content with you. That's my little tease to everybody listening in the SMR Nation to hang in for the extended. If you've listened to SMR for any length of time, you've heard us talk about how marriages have struggles. Life actually has struggles, but you're not alone.

Corey Allan:
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Corey Allan:
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Corey Allan:
This is actually one therapist recommending other therapists because finding the right professional to work with makes a great deal of difference. To get 10% off your first month, you just have to visit BetterHelp.com/SMR today.

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Pam Allan:
I love the results too, baby.

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Pam Allan:
That's right. We went through Insanity together, just a couple of years ago.

Corey Allan:
The workout, that is.

Pam Allan:
Right, the workout. Exactly. And I've jumped in and joined you when you've been going through some of the other programs that are offered on the platform. My favorite one is actually the one you're doing now, the Lift Four.

Corey Allan:
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Corey Allan:
So I'm curious, before we switched to the boys, is there any other message that the girls have taken that has been their journey, what you've discovered that, because there is this ... You're describing a disconnect between their body and their sexuality.

Peggy Orenstein:
Right.

Corey Allan:
Any other kinds of things that were revelatory for you in that work?

Peggy Orenstein:
Well, around all that, so what replaces that is they start thinking that sexiness is the same as sexuality. And there's so much pressure in the media for girls to present themselves as sexy all the time and think that that's the thing, that that's what's going to give them power, that's what's going to give them ... And so I would talk ... Girls would say to me things like ... One girl showed me a picture of herself going to a frat party, and she was wearing what girls ... the sky high heels, and the crop top, and the short skirt and the whole thing. And she said, "I'm proud of my body. And I never feel more liberated than when I'm wearing skimpy clothing."

Peggy Orenstein:
And I said, "Interesting. Okay. Now let's talk more about that." And about five minutes later, she said, "I wouldn't have worn that outfit a year earlier because I was 15 pounds heavier, and some guy at the party might've called me the fat girl, and that would have been bad for my mental health." And, setting aside for a minute why it's so toxic for girls to be called fat, why they're so afraid of that-

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
But you have to ask, who gets to be proud of which body under what circumstances, and who decides, and how empowering is that?

Corey Allan:
Right. Who's the determinant of all of this?

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah. And so talking to girls, I think, about those issues when they're sold this idea, because they're ... I think what's really different for this generation than previous generations was that they are so self-objectification, or putting themselves out there in this sexualized way, as being the ultimate form of personal empowerment. And that's a real bait and switch for them because everything that what we know about that is that it has a negative impact on them, everything about that, on their mental health, on their cognition, on their ... You name it, and even on their sex lives. Girls who are more self-objectifying actually are less satisfied with their sex lives, and are more likely to be constantly watching themselves from the outside when they're in a sexual encounter rather than feeling embodied in it. So, it's a total lie.

Corey Allan:
Yeah.

Peggy Orenstein:
And so that was a really big ... That was the other disconnect, was between this idea of what it means to be embodied. Does it mean just showing off your body in this very narrow way that we call hot over and over and over and over again? Or does it mean something about feeling really inside of your body and understanding, again, your wants and needs and limits.

Corey Allan:
That's ... Man, we could keep going. I know there's so much that you've got.

Peggy Orenstein:
I know. It's endless, right?

Corey Allan:
Yeah, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but I want to switch gears, because the newest work you've got, with the Boys & Sex. What ... Again, I don't even know where to start because there's so much that the messages that are portrayed, and even over the course of my lifetime, in the last couple of, a decade, a decade and a half, of how that's even transitioned and shifted on men's experience and masculinity. And I just think of it, having one of those creatures running around my home too. As a teenager, there's a whole different journey he's on right now. So, what are some of the things that this work discovered for you?

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah. I mean, I have to tell you, I never imagined I'd write about boys. I'd been writing about girls for 25 years when I started in on the boy work. I just sort of felt like I had to ... You can only do so much with one half of the equation.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
And the world had suddenly changed so much for boys with Me Too movement, and with issues around consent and all of this kind of thing, so I really wanted to talk to them too. And I think the biggest takeaway with the boys was, and the biggest surprise for me, was how much they wanted to talk. I really was worried. One of the reasons I didn't want to do the book was that I thought, "Oh gosh, I'm going to go talk to teenage boys, and I'm going to have full transcripts that consist of, 'Uh-huh (affirmative). Nope.'" Like that would be it, you know?

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
And they really wanted to talk really seriously about sex. They wanted to talk a lot about pornography. They wanted to talk a lot about emotion, which I was not prepared for it. And I think it's because nobody really does talk to boys, and they're so rarely asked to have these conversations. They all would say, "Nobody's ever talked to me like this. This is really interesting." And they would ... And they were such insightful narrators of their lives. They were really reflective. So that was ... I think the biggest thing that I carried through was that boys are not having the conversations that they need to have, and that they want to have, and that they're afraid to have.

Peggy Orenstein:
And I think about ... Recently I was talking to a group of 15 year old boys, and one of them said, "I want to have those conversations like you're talking about, and have that vulnerability, and be able to share with other guys. But I'm afraid that even if they do, if we can do that in the moment, that a week from now, a month from now, they're going to turn around and use that against me and use it as a weapon.

Corey Allan:
Yeah. I mean, that's-

Peggy Orenstein:
That's heartbreaking.

Corey Allan:
Absolutely it is because you're talking about, if I share who I am, and that's the vulnerability work. Brené Brown's one of the leaders-

Peggy Orenstein:
And I talk a lot about control.

Corey Allan:
Is the idea of, "I'm giving people ammo that they can use against me when I'm vulnerable."

Peggy Orenstein:
Exactly. And so that was what ... I really felt that at the heart, like I said at the beginning that it was more with boys. It was about sex, for sure, and I talked about all those issues. But at the core, there was that pressure to disconnect from their heart, disconnect from their emotions, and to disconnect from vulnerability, like you said with Brené Brown, who is such a genius. What she says is that vulnerability is the secret sauce for holding relationships together." And when we disconnect boys from their capacity for vulnerability, we disconnect them from their capacity to have the kinds of relationships that we want them to be able to have. And that hurts them. And that hurts their partners moving forward.

Corey Allan:
Yeah. Because this is what I'm hearing is, is not only ... I mean, there's, there's two sides to this equation, Peggy, at least in my mind. There's this element of, "Okay. If we are parents listening to this ... " As members of the SMR nation, if you're a parent, and you've got one or both of these roaming around your home, what are the messages that are being delivered? How are you confronting things? How are you dealing with things? What are you modeling? All of that matters.

Corey Allan:
But I also hear the other side of this equation. All of these young people are going to end up in relationships, and learning's going to happen at some point. Because I just think of it ... We've done shows in the past on Sexy Marriage Radio of the church's silence on this subject, and how it impacts couples who have done it, quote unquote, religiously. And now, man, they've got these whole mountains of things to deal with, to confront, to just reprogram in some regards to find some freedom and some beauty and some sacredness in what our sexuality really is and the power that is inherent within it. So, it's almost like, "Okay. At what point are we going to disrupt this?" because it's going to happen at some point, whether the world will do it, or we get a chance to do it.

Peggy Orenstein:
Right. And I try really hard not to take a stance on what is the appropriate context in which to be sexual because that's not my job.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
But to describe what's going on out there. And obviously I do have ... It comes through pretty clearly that I would bias towards connection, and I believe that that's what we want as people, and that's what we're seeking in both our emotional and sexual intimacy. But again, for boys in particular, everything in the culture pushes them the opposite way, whether it's mainstream media, whether it's, now, the easy access porn, which is ... One of the main things boys wanted to talk about was messages that they were getting from that, and what was normal, and what was okay, and how to navigate that whole piece of stuff coming at you, through all of that.

Corey Allan:
So you found that what these boys ... Because this is, you're talking teenage, young adult, right? This is kind of the same respondents in the sense of what you did with the girls, right?

Peggy Orenstein:
Yeah, same age. They were a tiny bit older because the guys needed to be a little more older to have the conversation in terms of maturity level.

Corey Allan:
Okay. That's fair. Well, yeah, because if you're talking about ... I think in my experience, and this is what comes to my mind, Peggy. I had a mom that always wanted to know what was going on in my life. But the way she came about it, we had to navigate because she was ... It was the peppering of questions. And as a young boy, I was like, "Uh-uh (negative). I'm not answering those."

Corey Allan:
And so we finally, when I ... This was probably high school, late high school, when my boundaries got a lot higher, as far as where I could start going and had more mobility. We came up with, "Mom, when I come home, give me 10 to 15 minutes. I'm going to find something to eat. I'm going to kind of get navigated into this environment. And then ask an open-ended question. And then let's just talk. I don't want 20 questions." Right? That's where I feel like I'm now under the ... I'm in the detective chair, and you're trying to find something on me. And I will share my life." Because at that point, yeah, I've got nothing to hide, in large parts. But it was just that we had to navigate this. And I just think of, man, it's so difficult for my experience as a boy becoming a man to just even understand the complexities of, "What do I feel? How do I name this? How do I ... " because it's not part of our dynamic.

Peggy Orenstein:
That's so true, because you don't learn that. There's a piece of research that I love, that talks about how people ... There's a classic study where adults watch a video of an infant being startled by a jack-in-the-box. And if they are told in advance that the baby is a boy, they're much more likely to say that the emotion the baby's expressing is anger rather than anything else. And similarly, mothers of infants talk much more emotionally, much more broadly to their girls. The boys grow up in a constrained emotional environment. They don't learn how to name emotions. And what they would say to me was that you learn as a boy to put up a wall between your true self and the world. And the only things that are allowed on the other side of that wall are happiness and anger. That's all that you get to show.

Corey Allan:
Yeah.

Peggy Orenstein:
And so that makes it hard to have those conversations.

Corey Allan:
Totally. It totally does. Man, again, we could do multiple shows on this.

Peggy Orenstein:
But it was interesting because of that, as a woman doing this work. I worried about being a woman doing this work, but in the end I felt like it was sort of an advantage because if boys are going to have those conversations, they're going to have them with a woman, not with another man.

Corey Allan:
Yeah. I can understand that because I think there is an element of just receptiveness on ... And even that's a bias of, "A woman's going to hear my story a whole lot more than if a man that was a researcher or interviewer coming in-"

Peggy Orenstein:
And it's a potential issue in relationships. And I always say, when I'm talking to mothers, that you have to be careful when you ... Because it feels so good to have your son confide in you, but if they learn that women are the ones who are supposed to do the emotional labor in a relationship, that's not going to serve them very well when they're adults, as lot of us know.

Corey Allan:
Right.

Peggy Orenstein:
So you have to balance that idea of helping your son to confide, but also helping them to learn how to process their own emotions.

Corey Allan:
Yeah. Okay. So, Peggy, I want to-

Peggy Orenstein:
Anyway, yeah.

Corey Allan:
Just for the sake of time, I want to give a chance for anybody that's heard what we've talked about thus far, how they can find you. But I also want to put a little marker in for anybody that's listening to the regular version, that is going to be worth jumping into the extended version. You've made a comment that I came across in prepping for this, some research that you found on how kid talking to kids about sex from a Dutch culture versus Americanized or more Western culture. And I want to unpack that some in the extended. That's just because there's a huge difference, right?

Peggy Orenstein:
Right. Yeah.

Corey Allan:
And it's a great message.

Peggy Orenstein:
You're going to want to buy wooden shoes. Everybody's going to go out and buy wooden shoes and move to Holland.

Corey Allan:
But tell people how they can find you so that they can learn more about just what you've discovered.

Peggy Orenstein:
Sure. Well, the books are Boys & Sex and Girls & Sex. And you can also find me at my website, which is PeggyOrenstein.com, O-R-E-N-S-T-E-I-N. And on that website, in addition to the books and other information, there's some resources for parents of boys and girls, so that you can help break silence and put together your own script, and start thinking about how to talk further to your child.

Corey Allan:
That is fantastic. Peggy, thank you so much for the work that you're doing and for sharing it here today.

Peggy Orenstein:
This has been huge fun. Thank you so much, Corey.

Corey Allan:
It's great to me to come across people that are in our world and within our society that are, not only trying to be aware of what's going on in society, but also trying to use that information to steer it towards something a little bit better.

Pam Allan:
Yeah, to help just people in general, not keep it to themselves, but share it. And, "Hey, how can we all be better and steer it better?"

Corey Allan:
And at its face, at its core value right there, of a journalist that ... To me, what I think of a real journalist is the same as a researcher of, just there's a curiosity of, "I just want to understand. I just want to ask questions, and I just want to know more. And then I want to use that data for really good things and give it to the people." Because this is one of the things that we've tried to do here at Sexy Marriage Radio for all the years we've been on the air is ... I think one of the things, I could speak for you here, Pam, is that what we want most is we want our listeners in the SMR Nation to be informed. I just want you to have good data to know what's going on, and how it impacts you, and how you can then use that to help you, and marriages across the globe, and the kingdom, and everything.

Pam Allan:
Good data, good ways and perspectives to have on life, and to keep just pushing yourself to be better and learn. Right?

Corey Allan:
Right. Because the whole world that we live in, the society that we are all residing in, it impacts us. Whether we like it or not, there's influence upon us. And so the messages that we get, we can act like they don't impact us, but man, they really do.

Pam Allan:
Yeah.

Corey Allan:
And the more you can know that, and the more you can lean into it, confront it with truth, confront it with your real values, make the better strategic moves for you and your marriage and your family, the better everybody is.

Pam Allan:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Corey Allan:
Well, this has been Sexy Marriage Radio. If we left something undone, let us know, 214-702-9565. Wherever you are, whatever you've been doing, thanks for taking some time out of your week, again, to spend it with us. See you next time.