Episode 11 Brothers and Sisters Recorded May 10, 2026

Discussed healthcare while sister traveling in Da Nang Vietnam. Discussed the violence associated with the Mormon messaging regarding normal human sexual development and how it has personally affected us and still trying to deconstruct the effects of the violent Mormon messaging in regards sexuality. Also noted the silence from the Mormon church on actual sexual violence and how the old motivations to marginalize young men during polygamy is still noticeable today with the messaging to young men and young women.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh go ahead and start I love this city. Love it. It's a million people. So it's big enough, you know, but it's not like uh uh five million people are here, right? It's not a hoji man or yeah. It it's a different vibe, right? We're right across the street from the beach. I've seen five rats, two five, five rats and uh two dead ones. This is so disgusting. They're dead and smashed flat in the road, and I took pictures of both of them. Does that make me like a serial killer? I just think it's kind of hilarious from my background.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

You're unable to save them.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I was un they are beyond CPR. Nothing I can do for these four rats.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Um you have saved them before. You're you're a known rat saver.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

I have. I've I have given rat uh rats CPR in my lifetime.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Prematurely born rat babies.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

So disgusting.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Because the rat was taking her cat.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

She was gonna eat the cat. You don't see very many cats here. I in fact, today I saw my first two. You don't see very many birds here either, which I think is kind of a weird thing. Isn't that weird? Yeah, that is like there's not seagulls, there's not today. I saw a block of little pigeons. There's probably 10 of them, but those are the first birds I've even seen here in the city. And a few songbirds, you know, here and there, but um, we went to this amusement park here up in the hills. And when I say amusement park thing, I am I don't know how to explain it. It like puts Disneyland to absolute shame. Really? It's yeah, it's on top of um these mountains, and like your ears pop this up so high, right? On the gondola ride, you ride a little gondola up there, um, probably seats, I don't know, 10 adults, and they whiz, right? They whiz up this mountain, but it takes probably 25 minutes to get to the top. That's how far up you are. You go over waterfalls, it's just absolutely beautiful. And when you get up there, um, that's where I don't know if you've ever seen in images the people walking across a bridge, and it's two hands holding the bridge. They're two big cement hands, and then the bridge kind of comes through them both. That's where that um feature is. Can you still see me? Yeah, and uh it was it was just amazing. So there's so much here. We're on the beach, it's a beautiful beach. There it's sandy, and people are singing on it and playing volleyball on it, and you can there's this big, huge uh lady Buddha statue that's um around the bend on the on the bay. The bay is really big, and she's lit up all night, and it's just it's just an amazing, amazing place. But my biggest experience from this week was I woke up a couple of days ago not feeling so well, like I was getting a bladder infection, and I'm 63 years old, you know, like I know what a bladder infection feels like, and so I was like, I've gotta go get medicine for this. We went um the first time to the hospital here, and they weren't really that much help. I was having a cramping issue, and they were like, they sent us to the pharmacy to find um calcium, and they were gonna give me a calcium injection, you know, through IV. And yeah, they wanted me to go to the pharmacy, pick up, and I don't speak the language, and I'm like, it doesn't like if you get too much calcium, is that like getting too much potassium and it can kill you, right?

SPEAKER_04 4:02

And I said it's not as it's not as dangerous as potassium, but you don't want too much calcium, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

And so I I was like, I just have these, just uh I didn't want to do that, and so we ended up just coming home, and I really got zero care at the hospital. But then the next day we went to this clinic and it was modern and clean, and they had all the equipment. And I walk in, I'm seen right away, I see the doctor, they take my blood, they take my urine, they run a urinalysis, a full blood panel on me, they do an STI check, they did a full ultrasound for a bladder infection thing, a full ultrasound and a pelvic exam. Okay, guess how much all of it costs? Just guess $2,000.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

$50 five zero fifty dollars.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

And when it was that was your that that was your um copay after insurance.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Well, when I was just home and you took me the urgent care because I was having that kidney stone, it was $175 to walk in the door. That's no test, that's no, you know, and and your deductible is so high with American insurance, it would have been $2,000 just to be seen for that. And I got zero, zero help there. And so it just it brought to mind how badly we are raped in America over health care. Well here's my medically Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

There's several problems with American health care. Okay and there's there are problems with Vietnamese health care. There is because that level of care is not available to everybody. Right. And in the United States, those that get care are subsidized those that can't get care. But everybody is carrying on their back the people that are profiteering off it.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

That's the problem, is that it's the corporations are are when you can't get a blood test, uh, and maybe it's because we're used to like giving dad blood, he runs to the lab, you know, and and runs it or whatever, when we were little, like that that stuff to me it seems obscene how much it costs in America for the for the regular person. But to have a two-hour doctor's visit with all of the tests run for $50 and there's no copay, you know, that's that was me out the door for that amount of money.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

Was all that out of pocket? That was the out-of-pocket.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

No, I don't have it. I have travel I have travel insurance now for catastrophic in case I break my leg. But I'm not I'm not even gonna submit this because it was fifty dollars. It's not worth my time to mess with how long it takes. Travel insurance is great in theory, it they're very hard to collect from.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Okay, who's your travel insurance through?

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Um, we've had three different policies. I'm not sure because Larry bought this last one. I think it was through his American Express because that's how we paid to get here. It was through American Express.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Um I like having it, but I don't like having to use it, you know. It's just like anything.

unknown 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

When when Katie and I went to Mexico last year, I got uh uh a health insurance policy for for the trip through uh Blue Cross Blue Shield travel geo. Um I think it's called. And I used their um included in the policy is um online uh medical visits. And I used an online medical visit, and that saved me a trip for some diary I had, and this very knowledgeable uh Mexican doctor who spoke perfect English says, it sounds like a virus, don't waste your time. You know, don't get dehydrated, do the da da da da. And if it's not better, da da da da, you know, all the right stuff, all the right stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

And then I went this week, it's been my medical week, to the dentist because you know, I have to have that implant, my very back tooth back here.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Um, I had the I had a bone graph done in Mexico, and that was, you know, completely reasonable, out of pocket, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Uh it's three, it was $300 for me to see this dentist. It's the best dentist in Vietnam in 2025. It was voted the best, you know, whoever votes, whatever. That's marketing hype, Paula.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

You should know that's marketing hype.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Well, but let me tell you why I kind of believe it. Because you walk in this place and it is all white marble. It's they have a panel machine, they have all of the latest, and I know a dentist office a little bit, you know. Um, they have all the latest and greatest, and it was $300 for my cat and for them to put the post in for my tooth. It's just it's not even by a percentage cheaper than it is in the United States.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Orders of magnitude. Yeah, orders of magnitude cheaper. Logarithmic. Yes, and and when you can go and have dinner beachside here at our little cafe for two dollars US, you know, it it it starts to make so some of that is because all oil trades happen in US denominated dollars, so we have an unfair currency advantage, but but some of that is because two, it is also genuinely cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah. Well, our driver, we met a guy, and we try to do this. We try to like have a contact when we get someplace, so we'll make friends with the first person who like picks us up if we like him. And he's married and has two um small girls. And when we went to that that that um amusement park, we asked if he had ever been, and he said, Oh no, it's above my means. And so I said, Larry, we've got to take him with us. Like, I'm not gonna make this guy wait in the parking lot for us to go have a great time and then drive us back to the hotel. So we took him and he just was bowled over. And I was talking to him, he took me to my dentist appointment, and I said, Like, how much money do you make? He makes $6,500 um Vietnamese dollars a month, and his wife makes $12, I think. And we did the math on it.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

No, no, no, US dollars.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Vietnamese dong is $20,000, $28,000 dong to the dollar.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

It's no, it's not $28,000, it's $40,000. It's 38. It's 38. It's 38 to the dollar.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

So when I did the math, 38,000.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Right, to the dollar. So you can be a millionaire here for 40 bucks, is what I'm saying, in in US money. So he that's a that's a million dong, whatever, it's not dollars, right? Um he raises his family on almost nothing. That's almost nothing for money. Um, his wife also works. Um, but people here, we figured out his his yearly income is about six grand.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Okay, that that sounds right, because it's about 500 bucks a month, is the average wage in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

500 US dollars is about the average wage in Vietnam. It's 26,307.97 Vietnamese dong to the dollar is the well then.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Larry and I have been doing our math all wrong. I need to check my bank account. Make sure I'm gonna do it. It's 26,000 for the okay, not 38. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:57

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Oh crap. I'll have to have that little chat with him.

unknown 12:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

He gets back. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

It's okay. It's all okay because it is it is in again orders of magnitude cheaper here.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Yeah. There the the you can't really retire in Vietnam without investing or business or being employed. There's not a retirement visa.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Right. So you'd have you're on a tourist visa visa and you have to do all these hops, right? You have to leave the country. Yeah, you have to border run every, I think it's every three months if you actually want to stay here, you know, for any amount of time.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

That is a problem because they're cracking down on that because they don't want people abusing their employment system. They don't work on unauthorized workers.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

But at the same time, it tourist dollars are good and they're bad because tourists come in, they make things more expensive, but they also bring money into the economy. So it's it's a double-edged sword for them.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

Yeah. There's not a Disney store, and there's certainly not a Disneyland uh in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

I think our driver didn't even know who Mickey Mouse was.

SPEAKER_04 13:16

Yeah. The the closest you can find is I think is it Hong Kong that has a Disney Disneyland?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Tokyo, I think.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

It's in Tokyo. Japan does, but I think there's might be one in China. I could be wrong about that, but yeah, Japan, Japan has one. Um what a great business idea to be the one to interface Vietnam and hook them up with Disney and open up a Disney store because there's a big demand. A lot of people love the hell out of Disney in Vietnam. And they would instead of going to Bangkok to go to the Disney store, they could go to Ho Chi Minh City to go to the Disney store.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah, yeah. I I just I love everything about this place. We've made friends with uh this girl. Um, we I found a cafe that has food that's not um Vietnamese, and I do okay with Vietnamese a certain amount of times a week, but the rice upon rice upon rice is not my normal diet, and so it's a little bit like reduct, you know, reductive after a minute, you know. So I found this this is a belief.

SPEAKER_04 14:23

If you haven't eaten rice, you haven't eaten.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Right. You can't start your day. Um, she owns this cafe, and tomorrow night she and I are going together to dinner. I'm gonna go over to her restaurant and she's gonna take me on her little motorbike. But she's done a really smart thing. She did a workplace cafe, and it's really more for expats because the food is not strictly, you know, Vietnamese cuisine. So I can get a salmon salad there and a coconut, like they they make you a coconut uh like a slushy almost, and it's like seven dollars for your entire meal, including the drink, you know, it's it's just so inexpensive. So she and I are gonna go. I'm gonna go over to the restaurant and then we're gonna go on her motorbike. So I'll take some pictures, and um, we're gonna go out to an Indian restaurant because before she and her boyfriend used to own an Indian restaurant because the food in this place was just amazing. And we I like where did this girl learn how to cook this way? You know, she's got two chefs that work there. It's an upstairs and a downstairs, but you can go in, it's got Wi-Fi, you can sit and stay all day and work from inside her place, and every time we're there, every table is taken.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Well, now if you understand Vietnam's history with cooking, the natural, the regular Vietnamese cuisine is excellent. And general colonization was a bad thing, but they did they were colonized by the French, and it wasn't the I know.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

At least they have that, right?

SPEAKER_04 15:57

So that's that's they got the best European cooks colonizing them, and so there's some real interesting fusion, and their their cuisine's on another level.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

It's a freaking other level. I I'm super excited about um Japan because I didn't know what a food place that was. No, it's a huge, yeah, it's a huge foodie place.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

Yeah, Kobe beef.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Yeah, and all the sushi, and so we were listening strawberries that are like individually curated, and they taste like a strawberry and tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. I was listening to probably it was a TikTok, and it was a chef that said he went there with another chef, and they were like, Where do you want to go to dinner? And he said, Well, let's just go down to the lobby at the hotel they were staying at some random hotel. He said he got a steak, and it was the third best steak he'd ever had in his entire life. He said they just have things after centuries, they've got it dialed in.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

Well, they care about quality and they're willing to support quality. It's not just all about widgets, it's about doing it right.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Then I then I saw something and it I sent it to you. It was um, they're starting to make lab-grown chocolate there, which they they what the hell, Jap Japan? Like if you're known for your food, why are you lab growing something? The lab grown meat in the US is just disgusting.

SPEAKER_04 17:32

What is it, ultimate burgers or yeah?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, it's bad. I mean what's bad about it is that we're A, not used to it, and B, we don't know what it really means. It's coconut fat.

SPEAKER_04 17:43

It's coconut fat. It's it the protein is the protein, but then the the flavor stuff, the fat is coconut fat. And it's not the same. No, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

It's not and I don't think it's the same texture either. So maybe I'm gonna have to after Japan, I'll think about going vegetarian, maybe. Or or or pescatarian, is that when you dish?

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Yeah, well, the there's some people say the the lab-grown meat isn't veget isn't vegan because the original stem cells came from a living animal. Would you eat lab-grown meat? Yeah, I've eaten it. I've eaten, I've eaten, yeah. I I don't want to do it every day. And do you like it? It's okay. It's like when Ben and Sam were were and Hannah were vegan, we'd do the impossible burgers and I'd eat along with them, and it was fine.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Yeah. But it was just I survive with summer too.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

But I make I survive with summer as well. My little vegan.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Yeah, maybe you ever hear about fruititarians? I think there's a comedy skit. It's like we only eat fruit that naturally falls from the tree on on its own and we don't pluck it.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

The monkeys haven't gotten to.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yeah, they're gonna clean out a fruit tree.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Is that really a thing?

SPEAKER_04 19:05

No, it was a it was a comedy skit.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Oh, okay. That kind of reminds me of something.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

ortho eating is becoming an eating disorder.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

No, I was gonna say it sounds like OCD to me.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

Well, yeah, they're finding more and more reasons why you can't eat something till eventually you don't eat anything, and it's and it's a way of getting to anorexia morally justified.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

I see. Yeah. So I would say Summer had a little bit of that when she first came to us, and I think me feeding her, and um she's got a broader range now, but she's still very vegan.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

I really like making her those vegan chocolate chip cookies.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Um she loves them. She feels completely seen and loved when she gets them.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Oh good. Okay. I did I showed the recipe, didn't I?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Yep, yep, and I gave it to her.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah, so are we gonna read?

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Oh god. Oh, that's such an evil book. You're talking about the miracle of forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah. So what do you think when Elder Bednar comes into power?

SPEAKER_04 20:18

Oh, Elder Bednar. I mean, uh choose your poison. Is are they really any different at the end of the day? You know, I think you know who is like lovey's a teddy bear and evil as hell was was uh Kimball. You know, he had this, oh, isn't he cute? Look at that little bald head, he looks just like Yoda. Yoda, and then you read what he writes and you go, holy moly, that's his soul. That is hateful.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

But I think people don't make that leap, right? They just only stay with, oh, he's so sweet that what he says has to match.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

And Doctor, I love you so much, and you know, we're you know, and you're such brave kids, and the last day, da-da-da-da, you know, build them up and oh, isn't that nice? But read any guidance he has. It's it's horrible. Okay. All right, so I just randomly open this up. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Did you randomly open it up and it and it landed on soaking?

SPEAKER_04 21:33

Yeah, at least they're gonna admit that like Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine being hauled into in front of the standards committee at BYU and it was only soaking. I always it was my roommate underneath me kicking the bed causing the movement.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It was only my armpit. Or my the back of my knee that we were using, so it doesn't count as sex.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

villainize sex and you cut off its normal expression the twisted stuff that comes out of that is is hilarious and weird and and sometimes dangerous to others yes and hilarious sometimes generally and to yours and to yourself because you think what is wrong with me yeah what is wrong with me because I'm a normal sexual person you don't think I'm a normal sexual person you think oh I'm so evil I have all these terrible thoughts and you're scandalized yeah okay all right my wife and I spent a holiday one year down in Maya land southern Mexico oh okay Maya land we we were days in Chicha Itza went there this year what I went there this year Chicha Nizza yeah we loved that climbing the old pyramid oh they like climb the pyramids and the ruins of an ancient civilization I won't say ancient but old and as we ascended these steep steps felt our way through those dark passages and looked out over that vast area the thought continued to come to me why why aren't these Mayan Indians still building temples and other magnificent structures temples to sacrifice humans okay go ahead okay um but it was such an honor we went we went man with the right beliefs we'll do anything we went into into some of the the little Mayan homes of today they are small houses elliptical in shape twice as long as they are wide having only dirt floors they are made of sticks plastered with mud they have fast proofs made from the grasses that grow in the ubiquitous jungles did you see any of that I didn't see any of that no again I wondered why do they grovel in the earth today when long ago past they had their observatories and looked into the heavens well the Spanish kind of put an end to a lot of that the answer comes ringing back in great force because they forgot the purpose of life not that they were violently invaded by the Spaniards who destroyed the purpose of they they forgot the purpose of life they forgot the thing for which they had come to earth and dwelt in the earth and lived an earth blue an earthy life and the time came when God could not tolerate it any longer so he sent the Spaniard to kick their ass. No came to the point that God could not tolerate it any longer thank you Columbus and they were permitted to be decimated and destroyed oh so okay he did say that their own pause they were permitted to be decimated and destroyed when we went abroad among the interesting things so the problem wasn't that the Spaniards violently destroyed their culture the problem was they just they they deserved it because they fell away from Christian God. But they were never Christian not a Christian according to the Book of Mormon you're right when we went abroad the historically accurate which they've gotten away from when we went abroad among the interesting things we saw in Italy was the city of Pompeii when I had been a boy in my early teens I had read from my father's library the last days of Pompeii it intrigued me I read it many times so when we crossed the border into Italy that day one of my greatest anticipations was to see Pompeii. After spending some days among the ruins of Rome we went down to Naples to climb Vesuvius and to see Pompeii and to get Pra that's kind of where it comes from we went as high as the mountains as on the mount as we could go in a taxi and then climb the rest of the way to the top we stood in the crater and less than a yard under our feet was a boiling seething mass of lava. We could feel its fiery breath we could see its rich color I just want to say but its fiery breath wasn't as fiery as his rhetoric Vesuvius was still active and we remembered that back in 80 79 the Lord permitted it to blow up literally and figuratively so these aren't like natural events these are things that God is directing he's they got to somehow pulling the strings according to his will because these these people deserve death yeah yeah yeah yeah and they and it's not natural things happening to them these are the judgments of God that's really truly where he's coming from that's bad. It's so interesting this to hear this now yeah yeah it it's it's not the natural world it's it's this arbitrary God who's somehow offended that is pulling the strings doing this he's giving the finger to humanity yeah the city of Pompeii as we came to know by firsthand observation was a worldly city the politicians the wealthy socialites came from Rome to Pompeii near the coast of the Mediterranean they spent their money and time in lavish and riotous living riotous living.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

And we took a tour um group and they took us through a brothel that used to be there and on the wall still today is a menu with pictures so you go to the brothel and you like I want it's like ordering up a Chinese menu I'd like number 12 please whatever was on the menu that you were interested in. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

Seems it seems efficient and more straightforward than and and a guy wouldn't get ripped off that way right this is what I want what what you do is you outlaw marginalize the people involved and then wonder why it's so broken.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yeah the city of Pompeii has now been excavated the stone roads so that's not true can I can I just interrupt you for a second they've only excavated a portion of it and the Italians the Italians are really smart this way I think because they want to keep studying it and they want other generations to have the opportunity to discover things. So they're only uncovering it a little bit at a time and the last time we were there we hired a guide she had two PhDs on Pompeii that was what her PhDs were in one was on the graffiti in Pompeii and the day that we were there they had uncovered a new fresco and um I guess the goldfish there was kind of a a status symbol and a symbol of happiness and they uncovered this big beautiful um new fresco of these uh goldfish and she actually got the text about it from her co-workers and we got to see it the day that it was uncovered it was just cool.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

Okay. Well why don't they have educated tour guides two PhDs only two PhDs two on Pompeii man oh man what a rich experience it was awesome. The city of Pompeii has now been excavated whatever the stone roads show the marks of chariot wheels the roads are lower than the sidewalks and we could see where the hubs of the chariots had worn into the stones at the corners of the blocks we went into their bakeries where the food had been prepared. We went into their homes where they had lived we went into their theaters and into their baths their empty brothels and houses of prostitution so he went into both brothels and houses of prostitution. President Kimball were locked with padlocks and carried signs in Italian for men only these places of shame stood after nineteenth centuries a witness of their degradation and on the walls in these buildings in color still preserved for these nearly two millennia were these pictures of every vice that could be committed so you just talked about it. Now this is his interpretation of it of every vice that could be committed by human beings so he'd already discovered every vice I'm pretty sure soaking wasn't on there pretty sure that's a BYU invention. But he said vices he said vices oh okay so soaking is a you get a you get a free pass on a technicality on a technicality okay yeah there were pictures all the vicious sins that have vicious god there's just this it's choice of words it's a vicious harsh um that have accumulated since Cain began his evil ways then I came to realize why Pompeii was destroyed and I came to realize why the church isn't growing in Italy okay okay I I have a I have a little complaint okay every time they want to portray the woman as a bad woman in a lot of writings and shows and series movies the the difference oftentimes between the virtuous woman the the heroine or the protagonist and the bad woman is the heroine or the good woman will have hangups about sex and will withhold sex and will indulge sex. But the evil woman or the the bad one the person that we're supposed to dislike is has a sex drive is is free with sex.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah has a sex drive and doesn't and is is more like grandma arnold about it than other people we know.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

That that's portrayed constantly I I have this little series that I generally generally liked but I just noticed them them splitting these two females that you know are going to end up fighting. And I I truly like the protagonist but what drives me nuts about this protagonist is she is clueless about saying that was the number one thing that I was determined to solve for myself when I lost my faith is I felt naive.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

I felt completely clueless like I and I don't mean any disparage to anyone that has Asperger's but I honestly felt like I had Asperger's of sex you know over sex because I did not understand the cues I did not understand what what things meant I didn't understand any of it because my education on it was so stunted because of things like this freaking book.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

Yeah well when my boys went to Disney World in Florida they wanted to go to the Star Wars Cantina bar and a couple of girls sided sidled up to them Ben's already in college um Sam was a little young he was still in high school but they invited them to go back to their hotel to go drinking and Ben said that was a nice offer but I don't know why they were being friendly like that seriously I I love that kid he is the most angry it kind of upset me it was like I have failed as a father I can remember playing Pokemon Go and these girls coming up to him to talk about Pokemon Girl I don't know why they were being nice to us they were flirting they were flirting they're saying something safe about it and you say something back you get a conversation started you get a little playful you began to take a little chance this is how the dance goes no you know what my sex education was just stay pure that was my sex education yeah yeah stay away from those vicious folks like the Italians who really know by the way those vicious sins yeah yeah that's so sad that's really an interesting story because I I felt that way for 40 years. I I I have had a good bit of that even you know by the time I finished medical school you know I wasn't doing the the Mormon sex code but I was still pretty clueless and I was an intern and I was on my cardiology rotation and Josh and I were friends and we would tell stories about what we had done and one day the this attending he's an interventional cardiologist he says this better not be another one of those Richard didn't get laid stories Richard didn't know how to get laid he wanted to get laid it's like it's like stop being so clueless. Yeah and I it just he ended up dying from a pulmonary embolism and it was a huge traumatic death he he broke he ruptured his Achilles tendon playing pickup basketball and oh my god and he took off his cast in the ortho clinic he threw a massive pulmonary embolism and it was this traumatic huge code in the ICU that went on for hours because he was a cardiologist that everybody loved and it was it was a sad thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

That is so sad especially was it he in his own hospital?

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Yeah army hospital yeah yeah oh my god hell of a guy is very distinguished but fun loving crying right now thinking about that that is so sad it just goes to all in the ICU and oh I I imagine people don't cry I see people don't cry no because they've seen it all they've been through it you have to be the one functioning you can't you don't can't afford the luxury of your emotions in the middle of a lot of this work oh my gosh that that is so traumatic yeah but but you just that was also one of the nicest things anyone could have said to me about this better not be another one of those Richard didn't get laid stories because it made me start thinking this made me start thinking about oh there is an issue there I didn't even realize there was an issue there I didn't realize my issue because you know the purity lesson the cupcake the chewed piece of gum the you don't want to be the girl bat dot dot dot right was so ingredient Oreo Oreo stuff in a in a glass of water oh I haven't heard that one before that was that was Sam's uh purity lesson in in high school oh lovely people stop it uh until um my two friends came to me you know my two best friends and when I was 40 years old and said Karen and Mickey we'd rather see you dead and lying in a coffin and I think that's a quote from Spencer Kimball isn't it the same guy that book yeah I remember finding in this edition because I think that was such a controversial story. Yeah because I was I think it was Joseph F or Joseph Filding Smith um was put on the train to go up on his mission and his dad tells him as a bringing off a body in a coffin I'd rather see you come back in one of those than see you return without honor. Yep that exact story returning without honors mean mean doing anything sexy.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Right even probably back then soaking oh wait there probably wasn't soaking that's a modern that is a modern BYU invention that just screams modern BYU invention all day long I'll tell you this it wasn't around when I was at BYU I was like I was would you have known if it was around I don't probably not because I was so removed from that my thinking we we we weren't from the cynical sect of the Mormons.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

There's a cynical sect of the Mormons who feel perfectly fine about all that we were we were the the true believers feel guilty about ourselves sect.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Right but truly help other people and care about other people on a true on a true level but but if that's all you ever are is just the caregiver the care person and you never for yourself say I'm gonna figure this out I want to know what what have I been indoctrinated to feel what have I been indoctrinated to believe is it true or is it not is this a really scary thing or is it not and in my experience it's not at all as devastating and scary and life ending and vicious what it what was the the acronym the um the adjective he used it it is yeah vicious it's sex in our sexuality is a beautiful thing it keeps us young it keeps us healthy it keeps us vital then become vicious and usually you twist it by imposing guilt and and these weird morality paradigms around it that don't fit in the right way you know instead of saying having sex with someone without their consent is a vicious crime which it is you say consent you say consensual sex is a vicious crime which it isn't it is not it is not and I never they never talked about consent I and and that leads to consent problem you know the consent the force the power you know the power dynamic the real problems are never addressed this so I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this very thing this week and really trying to evaluate honestly why we are so tied to the traditions that we are tied to as a culture in the world because the whole world oh that's probably my husband calling right now can you hear the thumb no no you have sound suppression on oh I do okay so I think what um I've been really struggling with is even the concept of marriage as as we have it in America today more than half of the marriages end the institutions that we have developed to keep sex pure to keep women pure to keep women under control don't work for a majority of people. Not not for the majority about are we expecting too much from any given relationship to and yeah and you don't when you're Mormon and you grow up Mormon I hope I don't get sued for saying the word Mormon but when you're Mormon and you grow up Mormon right there I just felt that victory he just got on the talkboard check victory you I don't remember what my point was now oh you married so young you marry so young and you have one sexual partner and that's all the sex that you know and what you know is so little because there is no education your mother doesn't talk to you about it your father doesn't talk to you about it.

SPEAKER_04 42:00

Yeah if if there's not a lot of withholding and power games played it can work out fine. But let's say one of the partners is a is a power player and a withholder or whatever. And and if if they're mad for some reason they withhold their emotional side their physical months months or years at a time or just because they're burned out and they don't like it because they have all this negative stuff in their head about how dirty it is what I see for people as they age as they mature once women in Mormonism quit having their children which in their mind is the purpose of sex a lot of them shut down they they're getting older they're harder official teaching that that's the only purpose what what what's what's the unspoken message that they internalized right is that I've had my kids I've had my kids and sex has served its purpose and so there's not that intimacy in marriage and for men who are more advanced in age when that happens and they are not getting a regular good freaking hard on and having sex and coming that becomes its own internal dialogue and its own internal problem which leads to other things for them right because they're they're they're gonna they're gonna find a way of relieving that itch it just it's it's men in the patriarchy who are up at the top and the power players who are saying to the men at the bottom hey you better mind yourself and I don't know the men at the top I really don't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

But if their wife isn't swinging from a pole every night like I know that men think about sex. They think about it more than I do and I think about it a lot. So I it just Sets everyone up for failure.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a a psychologist, um, and she actually had studied with Masters and Johnson. Uh and she and she did a lot of sex therapy and she couldn't practice um her her sex therapy like she wanted to, like the surrogacy was illegal in Indiana. So she just got kind of stepped away from that part of her practice, and she was just doing general psychology. But anyway, she was she was great. And I told her about a lot of these conflicts I have about religion and the messages I had growing up and how I felt like a bad person. She looked at me and said, you know, I think the bad people are the people that that um not the people that indulge in pleasure, but the people that say that's bad.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah, and who shame you for it openly, who shun you for it. Yeah. Larry's been shunned by by his family. His wife is the one that his ex-wife, I guess I am his wife. Um, his ex-wife shames him for it, and his kids carry that through. And so it's not just him that's suffering, it's not just it's his it's his relationships with his children because of sexuality. It makes it just does not make sense to me.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Well, yeah, yeah, it it's it's an effective lever for control. And if you don't have control in any other way, and you don't have influence any other way, withholding that and weaponizing that is a powerful tool.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

It is a power play.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

It's sad, and it's pathetic, but it is a powerful, effective tool. Well, what it means and that's why that happens is because these sad, pathetic people use the tool they can use, and it's it's not doing them any good anyway, so they might as well weaponize it against other people.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

What it leads to is a lack of human connection, yeah, which I think is vital for your health. You know, you just being touched physically on your skin by someone else.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Yeah, yeah. We know that we know that infants that aren't touched die.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Well, and your skin actually, inside your skin, there are receptors that feel that that feel the touch of a gentle love, you know?

SPEAKER_04 46:16

And Katie used to say that hugs cure everything, and I said that that was um saying too much because if I cut off my leg, um that wouldn't you know cure my cutoff? And she said, I'd hug you on the way to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

You have the best wife ever. I love Katie.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

And I I think that's what Larry spent a lot of time after his divorce trying to discover. Like, really, what is this about? So we we both had our own roads to try and figure that out. Mine was more dramatic than his, but we have both really tried to see are we looking at things as Mormons?

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Yeah, well, Larry Larry got to discover some of his sexuality at a much younger age.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yes, than I did.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

And and and the age you had a lot more violence for a lot longer.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yeah. I was w why do you say violence?

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Well, it's it's violence to have somebody suppress their sexuality that long. And remember your your friends that said we'd rather see you dead? That's violence.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

It is.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

It's violence.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

It is, and it affected me emotionally and psychiatrically, you know. I and my ego, you know, I had no feminine ego, none.

SPEAKER_04 47:55

Right, and and and all the little happy chemicals that are a natural byproduct of sex, you don't have that, and the depression's your fault, by the way, because you thought about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

And God forbid you ever didn't.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

And why why isn't the Prozac and and talk therapy working?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Yeah. So that was my biggest complaint after spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and many, many hours in a psychiatrist's office, is they can't say what you just said to me, you know?

SPEAKER_04 48:26

Like Yes, they can't. That that's a cop out. Yes, they totally can't. They are unwilling to they haven't faced it, and it's a problem. I remember being taught as a medical practitioner that we are not to criticize religion, and that psychologists and psychiatrists are inappropriate if they criticize religion. But it but it but but a lot of the violence is coming from those sources, so you're not addressing the root source of the of the violence of of the uh the source of the depression by by giving them a free pass.

SPEAKER_00 48:59

It was very depressing. I had a lot of depressive years.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

I mean, it's like I'm sorry, you're a disappointing piece of shit. Why do you feel bad about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 49:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

And the number one is Are you listening to even what you're saying to me? Do you realize the messaging you're giving to me? And then you're telling me it's my fault.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

And I don't get to become a mother and get get the chemical.

SPEAKER_04 49:25

Because in the next life. I get to marry the work. You'll get a high you'll get a high-ranking uh geriatric leader.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

So I talk when I write about virgin obsolescence in the church. Yeah, I really think it's a built-in feature.

SPEAKER_04 49:44

Because the men have thought about the polygamy days. You know who the biggest problem to the polygamist men were?

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Other married men when that someone wanted their wife.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

No, no, no, no, the the young men growing up.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Oh, yeah, because they were competition.

SPEAKER_04 50:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

So it is another power dynamic, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

Right. And so and so that power dynamic where the men at the top make the men at the bottom feel guilty is is cooked into the the old polygamy ways. So I I'm completely consistent with how they treated young men. You have to even you have to neuter them, separate them, um, to take away their power, because they're competition and will and will have your wife otherwise, and you need 30 wives, and they don't need one.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

So even in ex-Mormonism, there's a problem there because we are so conditioned about it that they have a hard time talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

Even deconstructing all that is done.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

I love John Delyn, and I hope he wins his lawsuit. I think he's done a world of good for Mormonism. But I've heard him make jokes, you know, like he still has his sexual hangups. And Natasha Halford, same thing. Like they can't just look at it and say, we've got the they haven't deconstructed what they have learned about sex from the church.

SPEAKER_04 51:14

No, in my opinion. Really wants to be, I wasn't an unworthy Mormon quitter.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

I was a worthy, and I still am a worthy.

SPEAKER_04 51:23

So that means I'm buying, I'm buying, still buying into this paradigm that sex is bad. I love you, John, by the way, but yeah, but but I'm not that bad person. I was a worthy person that quit because of the violence being done to other people and not seeing the violence done to himself.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

That's I think that's what's interesting about what we're doing, thing, because as people drop off and it's like happening like fights. Oh, this is huge news, and I didn't I I buried the lead. I got my letter from the church.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

So I am I it was your emotion when you read it. What was your motion?

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Okay, let me set let me set the stage. We were at this cafe where I'm friends with the girl now, right? We're having I had my uh coconut coffee in front of me, and I opened my laptop because it's a work cafe. I open my laptop, there's a there's the email at the top, and I opened it up, and there it is. And I welled up and tears, you know, and tears ran down my face. I haven't really cried it out yet, and I feel like that's in there, right? But um, it was so interesting because the first time I was able to express really what I felt was at my friend Danny, he had a birthday party in Laguna Beach, and I got ripped roaring drunk and dropped out of the party.

SPEAKER_04 52:49

So it's assumed you had to be drunk to express how you feel. But anyway, that's another story for another day.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

He came to my room and he said, What is going on? And I said to him, and I don't remember this, this is him telling me. I said to him, he said, in a voice from the depths of the earth, you know, that guttural, the visceral voice, I don't want to be a Mormon anymore. And that happened with Danny. Um, I got drunk in front of a backstreet boy, so I'm sitting in this cafe, the backstreet boys are on the radio, I open my laptop, and here's my letter from this from uh quitmormons.com, and I am officially no longer a member. And how did you feel at that moment? I welled up and felt complete relief, but like I wanted to cry. But I'm in a public setting, so I didn't, you know, just burst out in. But I I had I had tears, I had uh a feeling of it's finally I put an end to my own torture. I got out of the cage.

SPEAKER_04 53:58

Yeah, I I feel like I had 40 or 50 pounds lifted up off the my back and shoulders. You know, it just like it's easier to breathe. I felt this immediate relief. It felt so good. So good. You know, it wasn't like, oh no, where am I gonna go now?

SPEAKER_00 54:17

You know, no, oh, or what am I gonna do with my Sunday?

SPEAKER_04 54:25

It was none of that. All that something warned me about. Nah, sorry, brah.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

I had one moment of that.

SPEAKER_04 54:33

No, no, no, no, uh-uh. No, I'm good. You you're telling me stories again.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 54:42

Yeah, really good, really good.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

It was really, it was really interesting, and when I sat back and looked at it all, here I am with my coconut coffee, um, drinking it like hot chocolate because I'm ex-Mormon. And uh the Backstreet Boys on the on the radio. I was just like, this is this is so like a movie scene. That's what I felt like I was in. I felt like I was in the part of the movie where you go, oh, she she got away from the bad guy.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you need that that scene from the notebook in the rain where you find your lover.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

You know, we've seen that movie and we talk about it. We talk about when we die a lot. Um we want to notebook it. If there's any possible way.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

So okay, cool. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

I guess that's it for today.

SPEAKER_04 55:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

I love you.

SPEAKER_04 55:40

I love you too, Paula.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

I thane, I really hope that by me coming clean and I'm I'm ready to really start talking about things that uh there's a lot to talk about, there's a lot to process.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

I mean that we can help some people. Yeah, layer upon layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, right? And we'll peel the audience and a lot of the stuff that's professionalized still buys into the harmful paradigm.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

And and that's what I've seen, even in ex-Mormonism. That's why I'm choosing to speak out.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Okay, I uh this I had this thought. I and I just remembered to get go go. This is an assignment. Listen to a little bit of Imagine Dragons now.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Oh, I love Dan Reynolds. I love that man.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

I I I just made my recommendation to you.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

Okay, I've got Spotify coming in right now.

SPEAKER_04 56:34

And I think I think it'll hit just it'll make you feel okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

I hope he keeps doing Love Loud. I hope he still is. Yeah, yeah, huge supporter. All right, I love you.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

All right, bye bye.