Why Will No One Date These Guys?

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate! Patrons got this present early, back in October; subscribe now to access incredible work like this far in advance of the regular audience.

It's here, it's finally here. The end of an unending saga, the final piece of the polyptych that forms the life work of one Broderick Stephen Harvey.  It's okay, we guess. Unlike Marry Me it's at least watchable and has the added benefit of being shot far more competently than the first film. That said, it's still not good, and Joel forced Naomi to listen to him rant about this film's shortcomings for over an hour. Listen to him complain about the weird background of this film's development, nonsensical plotpoints , repetitive character arcs, and, most importantly, the sexist messages they were forced to use so this could be canonized into the "Think Like a Man" universe. We're happy to be done with this but recognize the writers are hard at work on a tv series; if they need help on that or the inevitable Pt3, shoot us an email; we'll work for scale. 

All credit to Think Like a Man, Too, for use of its poster and audio.

All credit to Bell Biv DeVoe for use of Poison.

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Joel and Lauren are back in the studio to discuss the phone apps that their entire relationship relies on. No seriously, we are wholly dependent on these and if the internet ever went down our relationship would collapse like a deck of cards.  Keep it up, Al Gore.

 We discuss the finance and money apps that keep things equitable, the cleaning app Sweepy that keeps our house in order, the relationship app LoveWick which helps us know more about each other, and the imageboard app Pinterest, which we use to get a better understanding of our personal styles and tastes, as well as plan future events/home renovations.

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Naomi and Len sit down in a new series called Coffee Talks and update everyone on what's been going on with them. They touch on intimacy in the bedroom, questions that have come up since Naomi started watching Sex and the City, and so on. This series will include relationship updates as well as advice for individuals in relationships wanting to expand communication in and outside the bedroom. 

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Lauren, everyone's favorite unpaid cohost, is back to render judgement with Joel once more on the thorniest, and weirdest, relationship dilemmas.  We start with a few life updates, including the saga of Joel's cat's butt's problems, then discuss abandoning your SO in the hospital, the ethics of firing your pregnant fiancée, mothers who reject your wife's baking, wives who hate your friend's wedding photos, and a couple other juicy predicaments. 

All credit to Axel F. for use of Crazy Frog.w

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Naomi and Joel get together one last time to wrap up our discussion of dating in the 20th century, digging into how Freud and Darwin  (amongst others) helped created an idea of "learned" gender and the impact this had on how people were expected to act in the dating world. We also chat about how one can apply the lessons of this book to dating trends these days  and what one might expect moving forward. And you would not believe it, but Steve Harvey stops by to make (hopefully) his last appearance on our program.

Find a copy of the book here.

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Joel and Naomi return for a third time to discuss the book we love (ohmigod, something getting equivalent airtime to a Steve Harvey book). We start by discussing what's been keeping us sane this year, before we wrap up the women as commodities section, talk about fake boobs, and finally get into the forbidden topic, S.E.X., talking about who was having it during the early 20th century, what authority figures thought about it, and how their disapproval helped develop rape culture and the archetypes of male predators.  We don't get too explicit, but if you're not a fan of discussion of Sexual Assault, maybe skip the latter half of the episode. 

Find a copy of the book here.

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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woo. Midterms. 

Stuff happened related to abortion, trans rights, and the future of the country. We discuss. 

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Welcome back to part two of maybe four(?) parts of a book exploring date culture in the US in the early twentieth century. Joel and Naomi discuss how WW2 impacted the age people were expected to marry, how authority figures encouraged teens and children to date en-masse to get them married younger,  how "going steady" rose in prominence, and how women and men's value in the date economy slowly reduced them to commodities. Thanks, capitalism. 

Find a copy of the book here.

All credit to Scarlet Pleasure for What A Life. 

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

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Just in time for the spoopiest holiday of the year, Joel and Naomi have something truly horrifying to share with the world...a book they really like.  Oh, sure, it lacks the riffability of a Steve Harvey self-help guide or a prolife progressive zine, but it makes up for that with a shockingly well-researched deep dive into the development of American dating culture from the 19th to 20th century. In this first part we discuss how "calling" culture morphed into dating, how this impacted the respective control each sex had in the dating game, and how WW2 changed the dynamics of dating forever.

Find a copy of the book here. 

We strongly urge our listeners to support the work of Planned Parenthood by donating here. For the indefinite future all Patreon donations will go to them, NARAL, or other orgs doing good work across the nation.

Interested in starting your own podcast? Check out our Buzzsprout link to get a $20 giftcard for signing up to host through them. If you're interested but not sold on the merits of the platform, give us a holler and we'll talk about why we chose and continue to use it. 

Support the show

As continued proof that Steve Harvey leaves rent-free in our minds, we return once more to his work with Think Like a Man, possibly the only movie ever based on a romantic advice bestseller (unless John Carter of Mars was loosely based on Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus).  Unlike other media we've reviewed, this one is at least watchable, but Joel takes the opportunity to rant to Naomi about the weirdness of this film, from the strange writing and editorial selections, to Steve Harvey's incessant inclusion, to how the major plotlines fail to even remotely support the viability of Steve Harvey's dating advice.  Look, you probably weren't expecting Terrence Malick level of storytelling here, but it's worth digging into where this movie goes wrong and where future iterations of the Think Like a Man series can improve. 

All credit to The Big Short for use of a clip.

All credit to Think Like a Man for use of clips from the film and trailer, as well as use of the poster.

All credit to James Brown for use of It's A Man's Man's Man's World in the outro. 

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" - Henry V.

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