Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Women and Pleasure with Glynnis MacNicol (PLUS All the thoughts on The Idea of You)

00:00:00.000 I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future.

00:00:05.940 This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward, written and read by me, Curtis Garner.

00:00:12.640 Listen to the free audiobook now.

00:00:21.120 Hello, hello, hello. It is so good to be here with you today.

00:00:25.140 how many of you have seen the new Anne Hathaway movie the idea of you now it's based on a

00:00:33.180 best-selling book that I haven't read yet and I'm super embarrassed that I haven't read it yet I

00:00:38.160 think it's somewhere in the house and I have to look for it but I've got to tell you I devoured

00:00:42.660 the movie I freaking loved it I really did and if you haven't heard of this which is weird because

00:00:48.240 everyone is talking about it the premise is essentially that a single mom a single mom

00:00:53.960 woman in the world is turning 40. She's 39 turning 40, which, you know, means she's still in her

00:01:00.380 30s, people. And she ends up hooking up with a 24-year-old boy band member. Yeah, yeah. And he's

00:01:10.060 smart and he's funny. And in real life, he's played by a 29-year-old. And the two of them travel

00:01:14.560 around the world on tour, have a lot of sex, and they do a lot of 80s karaoke in hotel rooms in

00:01:20.280 their underwear. And then the media finds out, and it turns into a shitstorm dumpster fire. 0.99

00:01:26.280 She gets shamed for both being a cougar and for being a mom of a daughter who dares to have sex 1.00

00:01:33.020 and do something pleasurable for herself. Anyway, it's a good romance. It's a fun watch. 0.98

00:01:41.240 It's a delight. It has also become the subject of so many recent think pieces

00:01:45.960 about middle-aged women, which I guess is, you know, 40, middle-aged women and pleasure and sex

00:01:53.280 and desire. And I just, if I'm going to have that conversation with anyone, it's going to be my own

00:02:00.500 in-house expert on middle-aged women, sex and desire, none other than my person, the Glynis

00:02:08.820 McNichol. Yeah, yeah. Author of the upcoming book, I'm mostly here to enjoy myself. We were actually

00:02:16.140 talking anyway. We were recording something else for her podcast where she was asking me what brings

00:02:22.240 me pleasure right before we recorded this episode. And I've got to tell you, it was harder to answer

00:02:29.720 than I thought. Because as women, and particularly women in our late 30s, 40s, 50s, I don't think we

00:02:38.960 have enough language around pleasure. Pleasure and joy and what should be bringing us pleasure

00:02:46.520 and then what actually brings us pleasure, which is sort of surprising. And then later on, we take

00:02:53.280 kind of a left turn, but not really, and talk just a little bit about something that I find really

00:02:58.280 interesting, which is how do we model pleasure and joy for our kids? Now, if you're listening

00:03:05.260 with kids, maybe you don't want to, because there might be some things in here that you don't

00:03:09.300 normally talk about in front of your kids. And that's cool. Just tell them to go away. Tell them

00:03:14.240 to do something else. Here's my chat with Glynis. I do want to talk about women and pleasure and

00:03:24.240 women of a certain age and pleasure because i just watched the new anne hathaway movie

00:03:30.320 the idea of you have you seen it yet no but i've read i've read most of the book

00:03:38.280 you have read you've read the read the book i don't i i actually haven't read the book so um

00:03:43.200 what are your thoughts from the book i think i mean on the one hand i i recognize that the author

00:03:53.860 and the premise was sort of like, let's live out this fantasy, which I don't know if this was

00:03:57.720 written before or after Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde. I'm sure there are fan clubs devoted to

00:04:02.480 that question. And I know that people are obsessed with this book. Like friends of mine

00:04:07.260 are obsessed. Michelle Ruiz at Vogue has written extensively about it. Like I get it as the fantasy.

00:04:15.660 I'm not a big romance person, but also being this age and sort of living a version of like what

00:04:21.580 people consider a fantasy. It doesn't seem that radical to me. I'm like, yeah, if you want to

00:04:26.380 sleep 30 year old, it's very available to you. But I also think speaking of how we don't know

00:04:31.780 how to articulate this, like we don't have a language for that. So partly what this book

00:04:38.140 is accomplishing is like giving, like putting language to the, to the story. And I think Liz

00:04:43.700 Lenz wrote this this week. She was like, women just want to have fun, right? Like, I think we

00:04:48.820 in this until now when you think of all the sitcoms we grew up with and the sitcoms like

00:04:54.160 long after we grew up of sort of like the sort of heavyset bumbling husband and the hot together

00:05:00.940 wife who was always scolding him like how fun that is as a as a representation of what this

00:05:08.460 part of life could be and so it's just like great well i do that's that's very true and

00:05:15.700 I think some of the happiest mothers I know are in are divorced with like have gone through

00:05:22.160 barely like fairly amical divorces so that they have a good custody share with their ex-husband

00:05:28.360 and they don't have the kids full time and they love their life so I I recognize that the marriage

00:05:34.260 in this is not perfect but I do think there is something to that too which is up until very

00:05:38.680 recently to be a divorced mom was really a social stigma and now I think for a lot of women I know

00:05:45.220 at least i think liz wrote about this in her book it's like really enjoyable yeah yeah totally and

00:05:51.660 and you're very right i want to revisit what you just said about you know how we grew up with these

00:05:56.180 sitcoms that made middle age look miserable miserable it was too it's hard to know because

00:06:02.060 when i look around at my friends mothers they were miserable so it's very difficult like was

00:06:08.700 it a bad representation or was it an accurate representation and we just don't live like this

00:06:14.280 anymore or some combination of the two. It's just that we don't have another representation. Like,

00:06:19.580 the representation has not progressed. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Absolutely. Absolutely. 0.95

00:06:25.900 And I do think, well, this is what I want to ask you. Do you still think that there is a stigma

00:06:32.860 around women enjoying ourselves? Your book's not out yet. And we don't know. You've had early

00:06:41.160 readers read it but early readers are often a subsection of people that will mostly probably

00:06:46.720 like the book so telling you they're enjoying it with no they're not they're not but like but

00:06:52.700 they're very self-selected of who are reading it right um i think even just listening the fact that

00:07:00.600 you had to sit and think for a minute what's enjoyable is not just a measure of the fact

00:07:06.000 that you have small children i actually think that we struggle to do things that give us pleasure

00:07:11.120 without justifying it in some way right without me i deserve like what if you just deserved pleasure

00:07:17.460 because pleasures everyone deserves pleasure i do think that we're still i think it's shifting

00:07:22.640 i think we're in like this extraordinary moment of like all of this stuff is shifting but

00:07:26.540 i do think women still feel the need to be like well i worked really hard or well i had a tough

00:07:33.280 week or like rose and whatever you know like i netflix i do think that women still feel compelled

00:07:40.000 to justify any sense of doing something for themselves because selfish is still a word that

00:07:47.540 gets lobbed at you over and over yeah yeah well i want to i do want to talk about one part of the

00:07:55.800 movie the idea of you i really enjoyed it actually and i will say that like movies bring me a lot of

00:08:02.240 pleasure. Good movies bring me a lot of pleasure. I don't love like TV shows as much because I want

00:08:10.060 something to like totally captivate me and then also to end. Right. I just I don't want to be

00:08:16.140 committed to 10 hours and then probably a not as good second season of something. So I wish

00:08:22.540 the first four seasons of the West Wing. Well, no, I mean, but the West Wing is a different beast.

00:08:27.100 okay and only the first four seasons likely only the first four seasons my friends but

00:08:32.260 so i mean the the pure joy of a movie to me i'm like oh and um i got i watched red white and royal

00:08:41.360 blue on a plane recently and i loved that and so the guy from red white and royal blue i always

00:08:47.400 forget his name nick galit something he is in the the idea of you and he's so charming and so

00:08:56.640 handsome and charismatic um that he really he worked well as the 24 year old stupping a 39

00:09:04.120 year old played by Anne Hathaway it's not that big of an age difference though I mean so the shock

00:09:11.480 power of it I'm still just like oh it's interesting that it could even be framed as shocking

00:09:17.660 because I still the fact there is the fact that we still feel compelled to be like she's still in

00:09:25.440 her 30s you know I think that's a thing too it's like she she couldn't be 45 she has to still be

00:09:31.780 in the 30s because that's still viable that is more social that is more socially acceptable

00:09:39.000 and it's funny it's funny in the movie because they have they have her turn 40 yeah 39 in the

00:09:46.440 beginning and you have to wonder if they made that decision consciously uh because Anne Hathaway in

00:09:52.280 real life is 41 yeah I do it also I think it becomes a different conversation when the person

00:09:58.840 um when the woman is past childbearing years and then it becomes and I think that's something too

00:10:07.880 because even with the Harry Styles Olivia Wilde conversation a lot of it was like well she's 38

00:10:12.980 or 39 like do you think they'll try and have kids together had she been 46 or 47 that conversation

00:10:19.040 shifts because that you are really in there either for the enjoyment of one another you're

00:10:24.800 really in love or you're in there for like the pleasure of and those are not conversations we

00:10:30.120 are comfortable having quite yet i don't think we'll see no and the fact is that nick

00:10:36.800 galit zine i finally looked up his last name uh is actually 29 years old in real life um so and

00:10:45.720 let's be honest and i loved i really loved this movie i really enjoyed this movie this was just

00:10:50.680 like a perfect delightful escape everyone watch it and made me desperately want to get bangs

00:10:57.040 which i know were a bad idea but like i still might do it but i shouldn't uh anyway with bangs

00:11:04.080 i've had bangs they're fine they're fine um they look the same age so that like i think that makes

00:11:11.600 it a little bit trickier as well like the two of them in this movie will legit look the same age

00:11:17.020 so there's really no shock value as you're watching them hook up knock value there's a

00:11:23.320 french film coming out uh by a woman director and the english translation is last summer

00:11:28.940 and it is about a woman it's very colette slash carla bruni very french a woman who has an affair

00:11:37.380 with her 16-year-old stepson and she's in her 50s so if you're looking for the age difference

00:11:44.260 shock value that is that that's that's coming in june but it also i think it's like that is

00:11:50.440 is not just for shock value that opens up a lot of questions of you know um do we think of assaults

00:11:57.700 the same way if it's man or woman but like that the french really the french are not hesitant to

00:12:01.880 go there no no because this is this is a 40 this is a 41 year old woman making out with a 21 29

00:12:07.700 year old man so premise of my book if the 41 year old was 40 right exactly exactly so yes but the

00:12:17.340 part that i want to hone in on really quickly i mean because we were just talking about mothers

00:12:21.980 is there's a part in the movie where you know they're hooking up it goes public the tabloids

00:12:28.480 get a hold of it and the comments are you know they call her a cougar and stuff but a lot of the

00:12:35.000 attacks are about her as a mom it's like oh my god you're a terrible mother you're you of course

00:12:41.200 right and so the fact that she gets attacked for being a terrible mother yeah because she chose 0.94

00:12:48.300 to you know what happened to Olivia Wilde she got served on stage her papers in front of an audience 1.00

00:12:54.760 right and all the stories came out of like is she spending enough time with her kids it is the 0.99

00:13:00.000 easiest that we do not enjoy we might enjoy watching it but the reality of women doing 1.00

00:13:08.820 what they want is really really not acceptable and the quickest way to shut someone down is to 1.00

00:13:16.460 criticize your mothering I mean yes yes absolutely it is it's the quickest way to shame a woman

00:13:24.400 by saying you're a bad mother you're a selfish mother too because that's really a selfish mother 0.95

00:13:30.740 you're a selfish mother i feel bad for your daughter and that was the part of the like 0.97

00:13:35.800 none of it like like i saw none of this as a scandal at all right um and then came those 1.00

00:13:42.480 comments and that's what eventually leads her to shut the relationship down and she makes the

00:13:47.800 decision not to see him again for five years until her daughter pretty much graduates college

00:13:52.520 which that sends like such an extreme message i didn't finish the book so i actually don't know

00:13:59.080 if that's how the book ends that's ridiculous it's so extreme like i get shutting down this 0.92

00:14:04.480 relationship because you're like wow fame is fucking crazy yeah i don't love this he's on 0.61

00:14:10.240 tour all the time and honestly the question is not like is this a pro it's more like is this person 0.97

00:14:17.120 a 40 year old woman is an interesting emotionally developed intelligent person presumably is a 29

00:14:25.160 year old man going to hold your attention he's great he seems great in the movie like again like

00:14:31.720 the biggest issue does seem to be that fame is crazy but and then but then they get back to they

00:14:37.280 seem like they get back together after the daughter goes goes to college and must graduate

00:14:42.960 from college because she's a she's a junior and then they wait five years and i'm like really

00:14:48.100 bizarre so so is the message that we're sending you can have pleasure as long as you know you're

00:14:54.960 not raising children anymore as long as you've finished your duties to society by devoting your

00:14:59.440 entire life to your child and sacrificing anything that might benefit you then down the road you might

00:15:05.380 get some pleasure then down the road maybe maybe you can have pleasure but not no not yet not now

00:15:12.340 not now maybe pleasure pleasure is due to you later on and so despite enjoying the movie those

00:15:18.500 were my big issues with the movie um and i think that they're they are actual issues i think they

00:15:24.220 are things that we really really should be talking about um i want to take a quick break here and when

00:15:29.080 we get back i have some rapid fire questions for you about the book excellent which i haven't told

00:15:34.000 you ahead of time no they're really gonna be rapid fire they're really gonna be rapid fire okay

00:15:38.740 you want to impress them on a first date but also play it cool so what do you do i'm rufy thorpe and

00:15:50.900 i wrote and read a real love story about a hinge couple that navigated exactly that

00:15:55.500 listen to the free audiobook now

00:15:57.720 all right and we are back with the one and only glenis mcnichol the woman who married me

00:16:08.280 in a vintage caftan in front of a sphinx the what my favorite road trip partner um and i don't even

00:16:17.380 mind saying that because nick astor knows that it's true i have some rapid fire questions for

00:16:23.160 you about your new book which everyone should pre-order now my audience knows they know how

00:16:29.220 important it is to pre-order they do we have talked about this many a time um audience your

00:16:34.520 entire audience could teach a class publishing probably at this point. They really could. They

00:16:40.120 really could. Yeah. No. Yeah. You guys know what's up. You fucking know what's up. So all right.

00:16:44.920 First, give us the quick and dirty, make it as dirty as possible elevator pitch for the book.

00:16:50.200 I'm mostly here to enjoy myself as about five weeks I spent in Paris in August 2021 after a

00:16:55.760 year of being extremely alone and the plane landed. And I basically hurled myself into every

00:17:02.000 pleasurable thing I could find, including a lot of sex, a lot of nudity, a lot of food,

00:17:08.040 some very wonderful friendships, and some travel, and the ocean for good measure. And it's a real,

00:17:13.900 it's both a bit of a French fantasy and also a meditation on female pleasure in all of its forms

00:17:22.080 and how we access it and how available it is to us as we age. What is the most delicious thing

00:17:29.880 that you ate while you were living in Paris?

00:17:31.620 Oh my God.

00:17:32.200 You know, the thing I think about the most

00:17:34.060 is actually butter.

00:17:35.240 They have the greatest selection of butter.

00:17:37.540 And when you buy salted butter,

00:17:39.060 it has huge chunks of sea salt crystals in it.

00:17:42.860 So it actually quenches.

00:17:44.120 And then you can put it on your bread

00:17:45.360 and make your eggs with it.

00:17:48.200 Yeah, I like it.

00:17:49.340 I like a butter that has chunky sea salt in it.

00:17:52.280 That brings me pleasure.

00:17:53.420 That is very pleasurable to me.

00:17:55.360 And when I went to Paris

00:17:57.420 while you were you were over there doing some research and i was very pregnant with uh the

00:18:03.580 bonus baby you took me to a bar where they had just like hunks of butter that were the size of

00:18:11.660 my head a mountain like a literal mount when you do a science project it was like a volcano sized

00:18:19.500 mountain of butter with a butter knife stuck into it and they'd give you bread and you'd go over and

00:18:23.840 just scoop an enormous amount of butter off and put it on your plate. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like

00:18:28.360 self-serve butter. It was up at the bar. You had to get up. And it wasn't a butter knife. It was

00:18:32.460 like it was a massive cleaver, essentially, that you had to hack off your butter from this butter

00:18:37.880 mountain. In America, peanuts on the bar. In Paris, in this bar, there was mounds of butter.

00:18:44.140 Mounds of butter. What is that? What is that restaurant called again? I always forget. We

00:18:47.480 refer to it as the pig bar because there's all different like of ham and pig hanging from not

00:18:53.600 a real pig but a pig hanging from the ceiling no there's a sculpture of a pig hanging from the

00:18:57.820 ceiling which inspired the sculpture of the pig that's in the sicilian inheritance in sarah's 0.87

00:19:01.660 restaurant love to hear it i once just went in ordered a plate of prosciutto it wasn't on the

00:19:05.740 menu i said may just please have some prosciutto and they're like brought out a plate of prosciutto

00:19:09.980 and gave me some bread and pointed me to the butter and i thought well this is great this

00:19:14.920 that is pleasure that is i mean you know when when you ask me before you're like what is pleasurable

00:19:20.140 I'm like oh that's pleasurable butter cheese butter really really great really great bread

00:19:25.480 like that bread that Stephen makes oh yeah yeah with the good butter and and the good olive oil 0.91

00:19:31.540 the good olive oil too yeah um what's the best sex that you had in Paris yeah um what was the 0.97

00:19:41.440 best sex I had in Paris I mean the night of dancing on the Seine where um where he came 0.95

00:19:47.440 home with me and then there was the football player the 27 year old football player that was 0.83

00:19:51.440 really enjoyable i had a lot of 20 a 27 year old football player what is a 27 year old football

00:19:57.600 player's body like um really hard hard right it's hard and full of energy i haven't touched a hard

00:20:10.060 male body in quite some time i mean here's the thing we get angry at men prior like oh men they

00:20:16.880 just want young female bodies and I'm like I have to say there's something to be said for a young

00:20:20.660 body but he was a delightful person so it it's not but yeah that was really fun also a also 1.00

00:20:26.980 delightful person lovely lovely body and a delightful person yeah I think I mean I my sex

00:20:33.460 I was having when I was that age was not spectacular I don't think I actually understood

00:20:37.620 sex should be enjoyable when I was in my 20s and the advantage of having sex in your 40s

00:20:42.560 is where your body might not be quite as firm as you would maybe like it. I don't actually care. 0.63

00:20:48.820 You really know how to enjoy it. And that makes it enjoyable for everyone.

00:20:53.040 Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I'm floppy boppy all over the place, but I definitely,

00:20:59.500 yeah, I definitely know how to have an orgasm. Exactly. And also like, 0.95

00:21:03.920 it's pleasurable to experience somebody who's enjoying themselves. Truly. I cannot emphasize

00:21:08.840 this enough for people who are like I couldn't be naked again I'm like I can barely keep my clothes

00:21:12.640 on it's amazing I have clothes on right now Jo yeah no true truth and well it's so funny because

00:21:17.580 I and maybe for me it is a function of you know just being in such various states of undress

00:21:24.700 while bearing children and feeding children like you know I go to the doctor and they're like do

00:21:29.940 you want me to close the door and I'm like I've been naked in front of so many people at this point

00:21:34.440 i just like a body is a body is a body friends like yeah um truth truth um what is the most

00:21:50.220 pleasurable non-sexual experience that you had in a had with a man um that you talk about in this

00:21:57.560 book that's so interesting because i actually think the most pleasurable non-sex pleasurable

00:22:03.200 experience I had in the book were with my women friends is the truth and I think that is really

00:22:08.640 um key is like the pleasure I take obviously anyone who listens to us talk to each other

00:22:14.600 knows this already but the pleasure I take from my friendships is so

00:22:19.240 extraordinary and deep and and so that's not to like necessarily tokenize the men in my life

00:22:27.760 because I have a number of wonderful men in my life including Nick whether or not he knows a lot

00:22:32.240 um but i do think the pleasure i mean the sex was wonderful but like equally wonderful was like

00:22:38.800 those friendships that sort of last and can sustain you um you know and can and can sustain

00:22:46.560 themselves even when you don't necessarily see each other for long periods of time which was

00:22:50.280 the case in this so i think it was just like community honestly not just community community

00:22:54.700 i think we all realized from covid but community was so important and just actually speaking of

00:23:00.060 better like just everyone sitting around a table being together was pleasurable in ways that I

00:23:05.080 think I struggled to convey the depth of I mean hopefully I did but no I think you did I think

00:23:11.980 you did and you know that's been a really interesting takeaway from zooming into book

00:23:16.360 clubs to talk about Sicilian inheritance is so many of the women remarking on the village of

00:23:23.340 women that Serafina had in the past timeline and how Sarah in the present didn't have that

00:23:28.860 and her life was much worse for it absolutely i mean i think of when i was a kid the tupperware

00:23:34.340 parties my mother used to go to and i sort of thought they were a joke but like understanding

00:23:39.220 that that was community in the suburbs right like from a way to get together and i'm sure they were

00:23:44.520 all drinking whatever they were drinking but yeah it's the community of it and like speaking a common

00:23:48.580 language and a common experience and that again i think one of the reasons we have trouble

00:23:53.960 articulating pleasure is because we're so, um, we've internalized the idea of pleasure as purely

00:23:59.680 sex. And it was a lot more complicated, number one, but I think for women, pleasure is coming

00:24:05.600 from so many different places. Um, and it's sorry, it's bad. I mean, I, for men that that's

00:24:11.720 not the case is probably why they're all so angry. So many men are so angry, so angry. Yeah. Yeah,

00:24:18.120 no it's true it's true uh and you know i think about this a lot too about how i want to model

00:24:25.120 community for my kid yeah i want i want them to see us having a house that people just show up at

00:24:32.760 and hang out at and you know last weekend it was awesome because there was supposed to be a party

00:24:38.560 in fitler square in the park uh and our local neighborhood dad band which now has a mom in it

00:24:44.880 but so it's a parent band uh the panamaniacs because they all live on panama street and

00:24:50.060 mina's in it part of the fitler square murder mystery that i can't wait for you to totally

00:24:54.580 totally um but we couldn't they couldn't be outside because it was raining and so we literally

00:25:00.480 just went to my friend leslie's house and she let them play in her living room and it was just like

00:25:05.120 grown-ups and kids dancing and i'm like this is wonderful like this just feels like that that

00:25:13.520 brought so much pleasure. My parents didn't socialize when I was a kid. And I remember

00:25:17.780 being so excited on the random time, like a relative came over. And I think about that a

00:25:22.300 lot. Like it is so important to see your parents out in the world to understand how to be out in

00:25:26.960 the world. Totally, totally. And, you know, I have been feeling a lot of guilt and shame around how

00:25:32.980 much I've been gone on this book tour, which hasn't even been that intense. But like I am

00:25:39.060 zooming into a lot of book clubs at night and and I do feel guilty about that but then at the same

00:25:44.960 time I want to model for my kids that I have a career and a career that I like right because

00:25:49.360 I watched both my parents not really enjoy their careers and I think it's important to see their

00:25:56.120 mother doing something she enjoys um and that does bring her pleasure and modeling well all right I

00:26:03.760 want to take one more quick break and then when we get back I want to talk about modeling pleasure

00:26:06.940 for children. Yeah. Enjoy. I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future. This is the

00:26:19.960 love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward, written and read by me, Curtis Garner. Listen to

00:26:26.500 The free audio book now.

00:26:35.920 Okay, we are back.

00:26:37.660 And now we've gone from talking about sex and cheese and butter in Paris

00:26:41.340 to how do we show children what joy and pleasure is?

00:26:47.000 I mean, I really think one of the...

00:26:50.880 I don't know if tragedy is too big a word.

00:26:53.380 It was my mother's birthday yesterday, and I was thinking a lot of like...

00:26:56.120 i forgot i'm sorry so you know i mean there's no i don't know i forgot to look at the calendar

00:27:01.740 yesterday but um it just i think a lot of like i did not see i did not understand how she i didn't

00:27:10.660 see her out in the world i didn't see her doing things out in the world i didn't see her in

00:27:14.660 community and there's a lot of complicated reasons for that but like the struggle to

00:27:18.660 figure that out for myself was a hurdle that took me so long like and probably contributed to the

00:27:24.360 fact, I'm constantly writing memoirs is because I'm constantly trying to provide a blueprint in

00:27:28.500 which to see myself because I had very little to mirror back how to be in the world. So I think

00:27:33.540 it's so important for kids. I think it's so important for your kids to see the friendships

00:27:36.800 that you have and to see, you know, that relation. It's not just, you're not just getting it from

00:27:43.700 your spouse that you exist in the world and that you're fulfilled because how else do you know to

00:27:47.960 look for fulfillment in like professionally, emotionally, romantically? Yeah. Yeah. No,

00:27:53.220 absolutely you and i took a vacation together with the kids a couple weeks ago um i picked you

00:27:58.940 up in new york we drove up to the cat skills and it was only supposed to be one baby and then

00:28:03.120 another one joined so it was you know us and two kids and i thought about it afterwards i was like

00:28:09.040 that's so nice for my kids to come on vacation with me and one of my girlfriends and and not

00:28:15.420 just not just nick not just my husband uh and then to see you at a book event because that was

00:28:20.640 fun for them too right like to see you be writer you god I would have loved that as a kid are you

00:28:27.760 kidding yeah no I mean and I think they do like it I mean they misbehave in those bookstores so

00:28:32.320 badly but they I do I have taken them to many a book event and they do understand what I do and

00:28:37.520 they think it's exciting to an extent and yeah all of that is for me modeling the kind of life

00:28:45.540 that I want them to see because I also didn't have that I mean I didn't really see my parents

00:28:52.880 socialize that much or if I did see them socialize it was always in like what was kind of a gross way

00:28:57.880 when you're a kid like you know other adults coming over and everyone getting like way too

00:29:02.200 drunk at like dinner and like it just being kind of weird like once not I think that's it too right

00:29:08.040 it was not the kind of socializing I was exposed to when it did happen did not necessarily make me

00:29:14.240 feel safe in the home right if somebody no radically that's not a fun thing yeah that was

00:29:19.420 not a fun thing um and so yeah i mean i do i do think it's very important for both genders of my

00:29:28.820 children to to model joy and also rest i think modeling rest for children is very important

00:29:37.300 because I just I remember it's like I saw my parents leave and go to work or I saw them you

00:29:46.860 know my dad like never came home before my bedtime which is another issue altogether but you know I

00:29:53.840 just I didn't see them taking time for themselves and resting and enjoying things yeah and then it's

00:30:02.720 hard to know what do you model yourself on what do you model yourself on exactly exactly i mean

00:30:08.420 i'm sure that i'm finding all sorts of other ways to fuck them up but um what if you're not because 0.94

00:30:14.200 the thing is the planet is fucked up enough that that's i know have to and i really think 0.95

00:30:20.860 modeling joy in joy is resilience and modeling that for your kids probably going to help them 0.87

00:30:26.320 way more than anything else and whatever is coming our way on the old planet earth

00:30:31.760 it's not good it's not good no no no no yeah i don't know that their big challenges are going

00:30:39.660 to be like mom and dad fucks me up it's going to be like the planet's dead the planet is dead

00:30:44.760 where is water where is water how do i kill a deer exactly where's my community like how do we 0.97

00:30:50.960 have joy in this class so i actually i don't know that the biggest thing to worry about is like oh

00:30:55.280 you're fucking them up in smaller ways yeah i don't know i think no i just think the world's

00:30:58.840 on fire that's just because the world is on fire exactly exactly okay so we're gearing up for your 0.98

00:31:07.000 book tour now you're writing a ton of essays you just wrote one about sending naked selfies right

00:31:13.120 did you finish that one about sending naked selfies so we'll see if it comes to fruition but

00:31:19.000 yeah i i'm from naked selfies all the time i think they're great i think everyone in their 40s should

00:31:23.040 be sending naked selfies well tell me unpack that just a little bit for me without giving away the

00:31:28.120 secret sauce should i be sending more naked selfies and and to whom i mean ask nick what

00:31:34.260 he feels uh is appropriate i really i think part of it is um and i will just tell you this every

00:31:39.980 time i say this to someone who's living a similar like friends of mine my age who are also sort of

00:31:45.620 out in the world dating or whatever uh they're like oh of course so when i again feeling like

00:31:51.520 i'm doing something that no one else is doing is i'm always quickly corrected on that i'm doing

00:31:55.160 something many people are doing we just don't ever hear about it we just don't talk about it

00:31:59.000 yeah we don't talk about the enjoyment of it is that after a certain age you never see any version

00:32:04.160 of your life reflected in culture let alone your body like none of us a body of a body of a 40

00:32:09.940 something speaking of ann hathaway looking 10 years younger like reflected back to us in the

00:32:14.320 culture and there is something really wonderful about being like being asked for like a photo by

00:32:18.780 you know a man younger man whoever and you're like here you go and it's like oh my god this

00:32:23.880 is amazing. I'm like, you're right. It is amazing. You're right. I like I like being able to see a

00:32:28.040 version of this in the world and like have it be a fun experience. So I think everyone should be

00:32:31.920 naked. Totally, totally. And I will say again, I don't judge women's bodies. I don't judge women's

00:32:37.480 bodies. Right. But Anne Hathaway did not have the kind of body that most 40 something women 1.00

00:32:45.220 I know have. And something women are not millionaire, but jillionaires with a whole 1.00

00:32:52.120 team of people exactly exactly and so i really actually wish that the movie had cast someone 1.00

00:33:00.800 with a more stare more average body uh because there's one scene in it she first off she's 0.58

00:33:07.380 frolicking in a bikini very often and she looks fantastic she looks great but um there's one

00:33:13.000 scene where there's much younger women gathered around a pool and she looks at her bikini and

00:33:18.520 then she's self-conscious and puts on a one piece and then like puts on an entire like massive

00:33:22.520 cover-up and i'm like girl we just saw you in a bikini the other day or like the in the scene

00:33:27.920 before this and you look better than those girls so there's a very big disconnect here and i can't

00:33:34.140 believe that anyone any woman was watching that movie any woman in her 30s or 40s was watching

00:33:39.320 that movie and was like this makes sense to me right i know i mean there's a lot of fantasy

00:33:44.120 happening there which yeah and not necessarily healthy fantasy my friends not healthy fantasy

00:33:50.300 yeah that's where my book comes in which is no one I do not look like I am a movie star who

00:33:56.440 I look fine I look fine I it's fine but it's like I'm fine everyone is fine okay but I also like

00:34:03.780 it's not like I take my clothes off and anyone's like oh god please put them back on oh god thank

00:34:07.880 god you took your clothes off and I'm like correct you're you're welcome correct you're welcome

00:34:11.600 someone always wants you to take your clothes off okay no one always well that's naked yes no one

00:34:17.200 is ever unhappy when you take your clothes off okay yeah yeah that's and listen if that's the

00:34:23.080 lesson i can leave everyone with it be naked more be naked more my friends okay that's what i just

00:34:29.560 have the alternate titles of the book be naked more be naked more maybe that's a podcast that

00:34:33.520 will start maybe who knows who knows what we're going to do next i don't know i have no idea well

00:34:38.340 all right very pleasurable joe this was pleasurable this was so pleasurable i loved this

00:34:44.840 and that's all we have for today i usually end this podcast by saying go do something nice for

00:34:52.780 yourself but i'm gonna change it up i'm gonna mix it up a little bit today i'm gonna say go do

00:34:58.920 something pleasurable for yourself whatever that is and we actually recorded this episode a few days

00:35:05.340 before I'm recording this. And since we talked about it, I've just, I've been thinking so much

00:35:12.660 about pleasure and little pleasures. We had a really stinky cheese on this cheese plate the

00:35:19.840 other night when I was hanging out with Casey and Steven at Spurston Inn. And I'm like, this,

00:35:23.660 this is pleasurable. This, this, this. And then the other morning I had a just steaming, just

00:35:29.560 burning hot on my tongue coffee that had like that really heavy cream in it. And I was sitting

00:35:37.180 on my porch alone. And I'm like, this is pleasure right now, right now. So I think I'm kind of

00:35:43.300 training myself to recognize the pleasures in life. And that's important. And I hope a lot of

00:35:52.000 people read Glynis's book. Guys, by the way, everybody order it. It's great. I think people

00:35:57.920 reading Glynis's book, we'll start to maybe develop just like develop more of a consciousness

00:36:03.900 around what brings us pleasure and the kind of pleasures we deserve in our life. And it doesn't

00:36:10.440 have to be going to Paris and having a lot of sex and drinking a lot of wine and eating all the

00:36:18.160 cheese for everyone. It's different for everyone. Pleasure is different for everyone. But just 0.91

00:36:22.740 talking about it, I think is really great. I do. So go do something pleasurable for yourself.

00:36:29.380 Do it. I dare you. Bye.

00:36:52.740 I want to date with wars, Carti says.

00:37:22.740 Rawls? Rocker asks

00:37:24.780 This is the love story of real hinge couple Carti and Rocker

00:37:28.960 Written and read by me, Nicola Dinan

00:37:31.640 Listen to the free audiobook now

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - May 14, 2024

Women and Pleasure with Glynnis MacNicol (PLUS All the thoughts on The Idea of You)

Episode Stats

Transcript