#1265 Nina Hartley: The Feminist Sexual Revolution, Women's Reproductive Rights, and Sexlessness

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined for a second time by the lovely Nina Hartley. If you haven't watched our first interview, I'm going to leave a link to it in the description. Please go and watch it. It's awesome. And today we're going to talk a little bit more about feminism, non-monogamy, intimacy, and we're going to address a few comments that people left in our first interview.

00:34 Nina Hartley: Fantastic. Oh fantastic.

00:36 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, you, you asked me to do that, and I think it's important because I think that those people specifically uh interpreted things wrong too, so, you know, we'll, we'll get into it. So, I mean, let, let me first ask you, I, I'm, I mean, I really want to ask you about this because I'm just uh extremely curious about it because You were there back in the 70s during the sexual revolution in the US, right?

01:07 Nina Hartley: So, yes, but I was a young teenager, so I was watching it. I wasn't doing it. I was, I was reading about it, seeing it in the media, reading the new books about sex and sexuality, um, new theories, ideas about relationships and the role of pleasure and the, and the rights of women to sexual autonomy, but I wasn't doing anything with it.

01:27 Ricardo Lopes: OK,

01:29 Nina Hartley: but, but I didn't start, I didn't become sexually active until 1977 at age 18, so I was a late bloomer, um, because plenty of my friends were having sex. I just wasn't one of them.

01:39 Ricardo Lopes: OK, but, but still, was, what was it like living through that period and particularly, how have you seen things evolving when it comes to women's rights, women's ability to express themselves sexually, and those kinds of things since then, since the 70s.

02:02 Nina Hartley: So, um, in the beginning, it was very, very hopeful. So we had Roe versus Wade, uh. So don't forget, it was only in the middle 70s that women could get birth control without being married. Women could get credit in their own name, they could open a bank account in their own name. They could wear trousers to work, right? Um SO, uh, and the, so it went the same time with the civil rights movement, environmental movement, gay rights movement, anti-war movement, and then women's movement. So it was all a big time of hopeful change, um, after the assassinations of JFK and Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm and Martin, um, the country was just split open. It was, it was, uh, The, the veil had been ripped off of America, shiny, happy, everybody's free. And we know, of course, that's not true. Still to this day, it's not true. Um, BUT it was very hopeful. So when I was 14 years old, women got the right to abortion, and I knew in my soul, utterly critical for women to be equal with men. IS to be able to control fertility. But as soon as all that happened, what we now know as the, um, well, the right, the conservatives, um, Really just said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, the, the I'm lefty, so the left, you know, we got rid of Nixon, we got out of Vietnam, party woo woo, and the conservatives who don't have the same Prioritizing of hedonism and pleasure and sex and peace and love, said, OK, uh, in the English saying, hold my beer. And so for the last 60 years, they've been as soon as, as soon as the Civil rights, uh, Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, the right wing said, oh no, and they've been working to undermine it ever since, and they have finally succeeded. They succeeded in rolling back what we thought were our bodily rights for birth control and abortion, and they have clawed back the rights of minority people to be represented in Congress. And they're open about it. Trump, Trump, the election of Trump two times took the band-aid off. We could no longer pretend, oh no, it's just a few people, 77 million Americans. Voted for this mincompoop, you know, and, um, and so they're open in the racism, they're open to sexism. So fast forward 50 years, on the one hand, we have, uh, young women, uh, Turning down dating, so young women are buying homes more than young men. They are happy being, uh, single. They, they have peace and they don't have to worry about violence. Um, I think, and on the other hand, so on the one hand, women know we have the right to say no. On the other hand with the red pill manosphere people saying no can get you killed. Women are killed every day for saying, I don't want to give you my number. No, I'm not interested in you. So the backlash against women's freedom has been ongoing for 60 years. Um, AND now we have two really big camps, right? The so-called red pill camp, which, you know, women are good for only one thing and you, and, and, and they shut up, and I want an obedient wife and then the right, the religious right-wing family voting, um, so they're doing everything. And it's it's a very good poster says that of course they have to cheat because they can't win any other way because For feeling human people, the, the Actions of the political right wing in this country are horrific, um, separating families, putting kids in cages, abducting people off the street, killing, killing people on the street, and it's so I'm, and I'm not a political analyst. I just know that what the, what is going on. Um, ON the one hand, yes, more women are having, uh, careers and on OnlyFans or being. With the rise of social media and that everyone gets to be a brand, so a woman gets to decide what brand am I. So lifestyle, homemaking, babies, fitness, cooking, and some of them, of course, going to do about sex. It is unfortunate that they don't get to think about it a little more clearly because people think, oh, sex is easy, uh, uh, sex work is easy. Those women are stupid. They're all abused. Um, WHATEVER stories people have about women who do adult entertainment of any kind, you know, some foot pictures to, oh my goodness, I didn't know that could fit there. So the whole range of behavior. Yeah. More women are realizing, wow, it's a difficult job. It's hard to get traction, it's hard to get known. And for a person who is not themselves already, Uh, kinky, sexually alternative, open-minded, being in the sex industry is very damaging to your spirit. So, if a person holds any old ideas, sinful, dirty, whore, pig, dog, degraded, And you, you, you believe those things in your soul and you do the work anyway, it has a very bad effect on your spirit, very bad effect on you psychologically. Or,

07:35 Ricardo Lopes: or perhaps even if you're just someone who has psychological traits that do not really fit with being a sex worker

07:45 Nina Hartley: or or or being an entertainer. People think, you know, oh, let's go online, I'll show myself, but you are giving of yourself, and if you don't, if it's not coming from a healthy place in you, it's going to drain you. The, the, you know, 42 years. Whoa, how are you still here? Because the subject that I deal with sex, sexuality, sexual expression, relationships is me. I am bisexual. I am not monogamous. I am kinky. I am exhibitionistic. So I, I like the aspect of the camera. If a person's basically shy, but thinking they're going to do. Some sex because it's easy money, they're hurting themselves. So for some people, being in a being an entertainer is, is good for them. It's fun. It's fantastic. And for a smaller group of people, being a sexual entertainer is good for them. And for an even smaller percentage, being a sexually pornographic entertainer is good for them. Most people in our culture have very conflicting ideas about sex, sexuality, sexual expression, the role of men, the role of women, good, bad, sin, evil. So if a person is not really clear in their heart, what are my values around sex. Entertainment, cameras, right? I'm going to be confused here. I'm going to say things, yes to things I don't like. I'm going to feel bad about myself. And it, and it goes forward. So, um, for me, I make it look easy because for me, it is easy. I like the work. I like the bodies. I like the camera. I like not knowing who you are. I like not having to be in a relationship with you. That works for me. So, my spirit is elevated by my job. So, um, I see. So we're talking about the male loneliness epidemic and the fact that more young men want to be married with and have kids than women want to marry and have kids,

09:37 Ricardo Lopes: because yeah, let me ask you about that, but let me add just a few more points to it. I mean, what do you make of all of these, I mean, broad spectrum of things that are sort of Of happening at the same time, which includes the male loneliness epidemic and it affects also some women, of course it's not 100% it's not that 100% of the people affected by it are exclusively men, but and what do you make of the fact that at least according to recent data that that we have From different sources, it seems like young people, particularly more so people from Gen Z onward, uh, are having less sex, more people are reporting not having had sex for the past year. More people are single, more people are not interested in getting married or having children. Uh, uh, HOW do you look at all of that? I mean, because, and don't get me wrong, what I'm about to say next is not because I'm an asexual person or I think that people can just do away with the sexual aspect of their lives. I mean, I, I don't think that at all, but, uh, I mean, could there be space in all of that data. I think for some of it just being people adapting to new societal circumstances and perhaps some of them not putting so much emphasis on sex, on relationships, and so on. I mean. What I'm asking is, do you think that there's any chance at all that at least a small percentage of those people that are not having sex, not in relationships, and so on, uh, it's not because there's something pathological about it, but it's just because they're finding out that perhaps it's not that important for them.

11:42 Nina Hartley: That's a really good question. So, up until recently, um, it's only in the last feminists have been talking about the labor inequality in the home for heterosexual married couples now for 50 years. The second called the second shift, just, it's so much data. So each partner works outside the home 40 weeks. The traditionally, the male partner comes home and sits on the couch and doesn't do anything. She comes home. You know, childcare, bedtime routine, are the kids packed lunch packed for tomorrow? Do they have all the school papers, they signed the note for the teacher. So the, it's called the second shift and still to this day, even with 50 years of feminism, um, for millennial couples in down who are in a relationship, there is more parity. Again, there is the traditional, um, red pill folk who think that's all women's work. I would never change a diaper. And then there's a new age, um, the new younger millennial husbands who are very much involved, and I love seeing that. So you go online, you look for, you know, red flag dad or red flag husband, and then, and then green flag dad and green flag husband, you can see the two different camps of masculinity, what, so it used to be what could be considered masculine. I make the money, I don't cheat, I don't beat, that's all I have to do. I'm home for dinner. I'm a good husband. And so what makes a good husband now is changing as more and more generations of women wake up and realize, oh my God. I'm not signing up for taking care of a 3rd child, one of whom happens to be 30 years old, right? So, um, women, Even those who are not, you know, classically educated in feminism are realizing the balance of labor and traditional marriage is very, very unfair. It burdens the woman, she's responsible for the emotional labor, the household labor, the childcare labor, the scheduling labor, um, she knows the names of the teachers and when the doctor's appointments, and all the things, and the guy's like, what? I don't, what? And many men still say, that's OK. What's the problem? I don't beat, I don't cheat, I bring home my, I don't gamble, I bring home my paycheck. That's what I'm supposed to do. So, women are going, I'm not signing up for that anymore. I don't have it in me. You know, and then so that's, that's just a personal thing. Then of course, socially, our country talks a good, America talks a good game about families and motherhood and we do nothing, less than nothing to support that. No paid maternal leave, no national childcare policy, um, uh, childcare takes up like $1000 per child per month. So, you have 2 kids, that can be more than your mortgage. So it's just, it's crazy. The family units have broken down, so aunties and grandmas are no longer around. And now I'm hearing from, I'm hearing about, not from, about young people whose parents, apparently a lot of boomer parents are not interested in babysitting, and Gen X parents don't want to be around their grandkids. That's new. When I was coming up, my, I, my stay with my grandmother all the time to give my parents a break. So, Family dynamics is shifting. The balance of labor within the family is remaining the same, people are fighting for who's going to do what. And for a lot of young people, it's like, I don't want any of it too complicated. On top of that, you, um, Uh, have, uh, emotional immaturity and, uh, lack of self-regulation. So, again, you know, stand up for yourself, just say no. OK, if I say no, he's going to smash my face, he's going to punch me in the head, he's going to follow me to my car and rape me, he's going to kill me, what? So, for women, it's a great deal of sensation of unsafety with men. So, so I'm not heterosexual, and I'm not monogamous. So, for me, I can always figure out how am I'm going to relate to a person. I can barely I, I'm trying to imagine, I'm a heterosexual monogamous woman and I want a male partner. And what I see online is that the, the pool of men is for these women very Not adequate, right? Um, THE men, the men, they talk about, um, Some of this very performative, uh, compassion. So, again, I'm not in the dating pool. I'm not trying to date. I'm twice divorced. So I, all this is secondhand knowledge for me. I read in the paper, I look on the, you know, there's some young women posters that I follow. They're talking about their experience in the world. So, um, All the rules are changing, and I don't know who said it first, it's not me, but men are having a very difficult time with the changing expectations of what is expected within a relationship with a woman. Um, SO, uh, someone said, when you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. So, um, and It is tied to whiteness and it is tied to male privilege. Don't forget, um, uh, Western Western civilization is patriarchal, white supremacist, white supremacists and male privilege. The system has been built for white men. It's explicit, you know, women were not mentioned in the, in the Constitution, women were not mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Um, uh, uh, BLACK people were 3/5 of, I mean just, it's just the, the, the history, and, and Um, systemic oppression of people based on race and sex and class is ongoing, and you don't just break up 4 100 years of culture because some people are shaking their fist. And then we have this particular president backed by the Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 people who are actively pushing back abortion rights, pushing back birth control rights, um, trying to, now, you know, if I said, and I'm in Texas, and I think you helped. A neighbor get to California for an abortion, I can bring charges against you for helping. So it's turning in, it's, it's trying to turn us into a police state. It's trying to turn us into East Germany, where everybody was being surveilled by everybody. You didn't know. So he's trying to be authoritarian. He is trying to put fear in people. It's also trying to exhaust people. Because the every day a new outrage, every day 10 new outrages, you know, um, I wake up and the East Wing of the White House is gone. What the fuck? Just, so he, he's bulldozing over every norm, bulldozing all the, all the guardrails, and I'll never get past the fact that Hillary Clinton was a very flawed candidate. Of course, but for me it was about the courts. Hold your nose and vote for the person because the courts, and so now, how are you liking it now? How are you liking it now? The Supreme Court is, is going to be the way that it is now for the rest of my lifetime because I don't know what is to be done except vote, organize, donate to, to people who are doing the door to door organizing. So, I live in California, it's a reliably blue state, but I can send money to Louisiana, right? Um, I

19:02 Ricardo Lopes: But, but you, but you know, but you know what you were talking about, um, because I also asked you about, uh, women's sexuality, and it came to my mind that when you were

19:14 Nina Hartley: talking about they're much happier alone. So women said, so, so now on the other hand, there's a whole huge pleasure culture. You go on Instagram and there's all kinds of feeds about positions and things to do and toys. So that's very out in the open. And so women are, you know what, I'm gonna go home. I'm going to masturbate in my peaceful, clean bedroom, and I'm going to go to sleep with my cat, and I'm gonna wake up to a clean kitchen and no dirty clothes on the floor. I'm, I'm good. I'm good. Cause how many women, young women are Refugees from abusive narcissistic relationships and they're realizing, wow, I don't need a man. I have a job. I have women are getting uh college educated more than men. They are entering the professional workforce more than men, which is why the Heritage Foundation. Openly says we need to discourage women from entering professions. So, at least the mask is off and they're not even pretending anymore to be fair and equal. And of course, women should have all the opportunities. No, they want women trapped in marriage, they want to get rid of no fault divorce. Which keeps women trapped in abusive situations because they're the ones that have a harder time leaving. Um, YES, women can be abusive to men, absolutely, but I think it's still like 85% of domestic violence is carried out by men against women, and so I, I don't know the exact, it's just very, very largely still. A male and female situation when it comes to domestic violence. And so, yeah, but,

20:40 Ricardo Lopes: but one thing that I was going to say which is very ironic coming from feminists who are against sex work and sex workers is that they don't see, they don't notice the fact that many times. For example, push for legislation that tries to criminalize or penalize sex work in some way, like, for example, increasing taxes for only fan creators and trying to criminalize prostitution and things like that. They they don't notice that by aligning themselves with people who are inherently against sex work, which tend to be conservative and far right people, that being against sex work is part of a package of that comes with violations of female reproductive rights and includes anti-abortion stances, includes, I mean, making. It harder for women to have access to birth control, to Planned Parenthood, to sex education, and all of that. And I mean, at the end of the day they think that, oh yeah, we don't like these sex workers because they disgust us or something like that. But actually if you look at it from a broader perspective, it's actually an attack against all women.

22:12 Nina Hartley: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's been talked about a lot, so. Um, BEFORE there's a rhetoric. God says this, feminist who says that before this rhetoric, there's a, there's a feeling. So if I'm Christian, I can say, oh God, you disgusting slut. Oh, you are a sinning whore against the, the, the beauty and, and sanctity of motherhood, right? And then feminists have the same thing, but oh, you're capitulating to patriarchy and you're just a, a, a house servant for, for the patriarchy. So sex negativity. Comes before ideology. The idea, the feeling in your body that it's sex is bad, pleasure is bad, it's dangerous, it's wrong, it has to be here for these purposes. That's a very rigid way of thinking. So people who have very rigid ways of thinking, they will naturally gravitate toward very extreme, uh, black and white thinking. Uh, PHILOSOPHY, politics, rhetoric, because it fits, you know, right, wrong, and I'm on this line, you're on that line. So it's the same thing as the Madonna whore. So, so with the Madonna whore, it's,

23:27 Ricardo Lopes: the Madonna whore complex,

23:28 Nina Hartley: right? So, so that comes up on the, on the religious side. But so because women are not people, they are objects, they are symbols. So there's a pure virgin mother who we do not protect most. Woman's sex abuse happens in the home by clergy, by uh youth pastors, so it, it is, it is not strange. Most sexual assault is not from strangers, it's from people known to the woman and sometimes it's people who they thought were friends, they really thought they've done their due diligence. They thought they had really found a nice friend. So for a lot of women, he was perfectly nice until he wasn't nice. And so in with women that's a very great deal of mistrust and, and also self mistrust. Do I, how do I trust my perceptions? I really thought I had done due diligence to vet this guy to let him into my life as a friend, not even a boyfriend, and now this happens. So, um, the So, I've always known in my spirit that the energy coming from the religious anti-sex people and the feminist anti-sex people, it's the same energy. It is bitter and close and, and punitive and mean-spirited, and they just picked this language to justify, so they have the feeling, they express it, and they use the Their theories to justify why they don't have to examine their beliefs. They don't have to change them, modify them, or go to therapy, because clearly, you're hurting inside because hurt people hurt people. And so they'll hurt them through words, they'll hurt them through laws, they'll hurt them through fist, but It is for me just an expression of deeply unregulated and unhealed pain and trauma, um, using the rhetoric of feminist radical feminism or religion as a cover. Well, of course, because So, they're, they do not self-reflect and they do not look inward for why am I like this. They think they're perfectly fine. They think they're reasonable. They think they're completely rational and I'm the crazy one, you're the crazy one. So, I think more women are discovering the joys and pleasures of masturbation. It's a good thing from the 70s. My body is mine. I don't have to share it with you. I don't have to find a boyfriend. I'm fine. I, I, again, my home is peaceful and clean. My, you know, and I don't come home to chaos. I don't come home to fear. I don't come home to expectation, I don't come home to resentment. So, Uh, the red pill guys say 80% of men, women want 20% of men, they want 6 pack, 6 ft, 6 figure, and no, we want peace. We want peace. You're not competing against other men, you're competing against her peace that she has given for herself. Women now understand because we don't need a man just to live. Again, before we could get credit, before we could be employed, we had to have a man, um, uh, in order to live. To not be on the street or live with our parents until we're dead. So now that that's no longer the case for a lot of women, which really pisses off the traditional folk. They don't want women independent. They want women dependent on men because, uh, that's what men have now, so now, man has to act right to have a woman. He no longer just gets to have one, right? Um, SO, uh, the red pill folk. Capitalize on the anger and isolation and confusion of young men and make money on it, but it doesn't help them. And so the men who are successfully mating, again, go look at red flag husband, red flag, a green flag husband, green flag boyfriend content. There are men out there who are, who are successfully, happily mating with women and having those families, but then the red pills called, oh, you're a simp. Oh, you're a simp for women. Do you want a woman to willingly be with you or not? And it's not even, so it's not even the red pill guys that, so, OK, fine. You are, you don't have the skills to have a relationship, so you can hire a professional person. Oh, I would never know, they're, they're, they're sluts and whores and dirty. I would never do that. Ah, God, and the whole obsession with body count. Some of these, you know, I, I don't know if it's rage baiting, but some of the, you know, the whole body count thing, once a hoe, always a hoe. Um, AND it's, so men were mad that women were sluts, and now they're mad that women are celibate. Only because they themselves personally have not yet developed the interpersonal skills and the intrapersonal skills to be able to be in a Consensual relationship with an adult woman. And they don't, they don't have the skills and they don't want to develop the skills. They want to just be angry all the time.

28:35 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, no, but, but let me just say, because that, that bit is very funny because it came to mind that a few years ago, I think that's probably 2021 or 2022, at a certain point I made a joke on Facebook saying, yeah, for, for the old people, I mean whatever young people do with their sexual life, they're never right because If they're having lots of sex, it's because they are degenerate. If they're not having enough sex, it's because that's also wrong. So and because they're not having enough babies or marrying, so it's always a problem. They are, they, they are never having the correct amount of sex.

29:20 Nina Hartley: And, and also it's very, uh, there's a joke, uh, a Puritan is a person who is afraid that somewhere someone might be having a good time. So it is partly our, our country was founded um by religious fanatics who wanted to come over here and create their own version of um uh a monotheistic Christian. Uh, IDENTITY, and very, very, very anti-female, very anti-pleasure, very, uh, you know, uh, on, on one hand, um, but if you look at the birth records, I think like 25% of babies were born less than 9 months after the wedding. Back in the 1600s, right? So, people have always behaved badly. When it comes to what the sex norm is, that's never, that's never going to change. Um, THERE'S a really great book, um, A great book, uh.

30:28 Ricardo Lopes: Oh, by

30:29 Nina Hartley: the

30:29 Ricardo Lopes: way, uh, while you search for it, have you actually read that book that I recommended you, Quil Cula's Sex Beyond S? Have you had time?

30:39 Nina Hartley: I'm, I, I.

30:43 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, YOU forgot that.

30:45 Nina Hartley: I have not. Uh,

30:47 Ricardo Lopes: OK, OK, no, no worries, we will leave that for another

30:49 Nina Hartley: time. I will, um, send it to me again. I will, I'm so sorry. I, I, I thought, was I supposed to, I think earlier I was thinking, was I supposed to read something before today? I'm, I'm, I apologize. So this book, um, uh, is a great history of how far back this thinking goes and how far back anti-woman sentiment has gone. So, we, so I'm not surprised where we find ourselves because we've had, again, 5000 or more years of culture that denigrate women, denigrate women's knowledge, denigrate women's bodies, right? Um, UP until very recently, we were property of our husbands, right? So we were up until, well, certainly until the, uh, 22nd, the 19th Amendment, um, giving women, white women the right to vote. Um, WOMEN were, were basically property of their husbands, so it's not very, so after thousands of years, we've had barely 50 years of women trying to become equal citizens under the law and the forces that are against that push back very, very, are pushing back greatly and aided by our president and his. Aided by by the president and his enablers, his sy his sycophants and ass kissers, um, and they're all, and some of them are closeted gay. I mean, there's a joke, um, Republican women want to marry a straight man and end up marrying gay men. Democrat women want to marry a gay man and end up with straight men. So, as, as a big joke, and the big joke, of course, is at any Republican situation, Grindr crashes. So Grindr is the gay sex hookup app, right? And so, um,

32:33 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, you know, it's funny because these people that are homophobic, transphobic, and they say they want to protect children are actually the ones that are watching gay porn, trans porn on the internet. And

32:50 Nina Hartley: and raping and raping children,

32:52 Ricardo Lopes: yeah, yeah, they are, they are the pedophiles,

32:55 Nina Hartley: so yeah, yeah, so we know the hypocrites, we know this, um, so what do we, what can we do, uh. First, I, I did, again, I did not come up with this idea, but in They want us to be exhausted. They want us to be tired. They want us to not care. They want us to go, I can't. We can't do that because we will, we will, we will be overtaken. And so, in those kinds of moments, deliberately finding joy and pleasure in our bodies is revolutionary. Again, I'm not the first one to say this, cultivating joy in times of reaction, reactionary politics is an act of, of resistance and revolution because at some point in the day, you are alone with your own body, the bathroom, the bedroom, and Deciding in that moment when you're alone, you're not hurting anybody else. I'm going to be nice to myself. I'm going to say nice things about my body. I'm going to touch it nicely. I'm going to give it pleasure. I'm going to move it. I'm going to feed it healthier foods. I'm going to touch my erogenous zones and, and have orgasm. And know that because you live in here, I live in here. And so, the culture makes it very difficult for a person to inhabit their body. We either kick them out of the, kick, we kick them out of the body, drag them out of the body and deny them the key, or we trap them in the body and deny them the front door. So, most people in a room all by themselves cannot be calm. They cannot be in their body. Because they're afraid of it, it has betrayed them, it has been taken from them, it has been harmed by other people. They have been kept ignorant of what it can do and, and all the things, and so they're not at home in themselves. And when you're not at home here, you can be You can be, uh, swayed by anything, right? Because people want belonging, they want meaning, they want connection, they want closeness. That's just human-animal, we're social creatures, right? Even if we're asexual and a romantic, we don't need a relationship. We still need people and closeness and to belong to a group. We need people who we believe love us and appreciate who we are. Um, AND that's why people join cults, that's why people join extreme groups because it gives you a purpose and a mission and, and, and, and an instant family and friends, and the more, the more lonely a person is, the more susceptible they are to being snatched by a cult. Um, AND there's lots of information out there on that, um. The best one. Yeah,

35:28 Ricardo Lopes: but, but you know it's very sad because in the sort of socioeconomic and political circumstances we live in and have lived in for the past 40 odd years since the rise of neoliberal capitalism, I mean, it's becoming more and more complicated to stay healthy even because I mean people don't have time. To cook, people barely have any leisure time. People are sleep deprived, yeah, or money. People are sleep deprived. People don't eat healthy because also because sometimes they live in what we call food deserts, right? And, and so, and they are heavily medicated most of the time as well. So, and also I mentioned. NEOLIBERAL capitalism because another source of community that people had before and don't really have now is also trade unions, and I mean people are feeling more and more atomized and with loneliness and all of that. I mean it's very, very hard for people to find the joy that you were referring to.

36:37 Nina Hartley: 100%. So um. At the height of the middle class, um, in the 50s, uh, trade union membership was highest and the tax rate on the millionaires was also very high. And except for that, so that worked well. The, the racism, sexism, that was still very fucked up. It still is, but at least, um, but again, in many labor histories talk about this, the powers that be use racism to keep workers from banding together. Again, white supremacy takes care of everything. It's like, so instead of poor blacks and poor whites after the Civil War going, hey, the whites said, hey, you know, at least you're not one of them. So then we get, you know, Jim Crow and the poorest, basest, most ignorant Caucasian person felt the right and had the right to Treat black to treat black people however they wanted, no matter how. Educated and professional and all, so, so, achievement with no protection against um persecution and violence and death. Um, SO, I don't That is this country's original sin, of course, is chattel slavery and then everything that comes from that, right? Uh, SO the white supremacy and the Jim Crow and, and all the things and we're, and we're dealing with it today. Um. Well, we're dealing with, I don't know how we're ever going to get past it because it went on for a very long time and this country is not very old, right? Um, SO for half the country, I mean for half the, what the Civil War has only been gone 1260 years, right? And the country is 250 years old. So for over half the country, for, for over half of the time of white people in America. We had the institution of chattel slavery and we're never going, we're never going to get past that, and that bleeds, bleeds that into everything. So, cause there's, there's your experience of sexism and then there's a sexism experienced by black women versus the sexism experienced by white women. So even though the, uh, you know, white women absolutely voted Donald Trump in because they were voting race privilege and um align themselves closer to power and not align themselves with other women. Because whiteness as an identity is very, very. Deep, very fragile. People get, you know, white fragility, the term for it called white fragility, um, and, and books written about it, about, oh, my feelings are hurt. Oh my goodness. 00, somebody got mad at me. It's like, yeah, Karen, you know, um,

39:15 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, I mean, that that's. BACK in the 90s, around the third wave of feminism, it was very important for people, particularly women of color like Bell Hooks and others, to develop intersectional feminism, right? Because there was really back then and it's still true today, a very true criticism of mainstream feminism that it was very white supremacist,

39:42 Nina Hartley: very white, very white, white, white, white, and I, and I. And, and. And something called benevolent racism. So, uh, it's a, a great book called Nice Racism. And so these are people who would never think or say or do, black people shouldn't be allowed to vote, would never use the N-word, nothing like that, but they still Don't understand the privilege they have just being by being white in this country. So it's not that being white keeps you from being poor, but being white. Helps you get a job against a poor black person. So just, it just gives you, it just in our, in our system. The laws, the culture, the customs, it just privileges whiteness and gives them the benefit of the doubt and de-privileges blackness and does not give them the benefit of the doubt. And, you know, there's countless, countless, countless instances of that in books and studies and, and reports. Again, I'm not a politician, I'm not a sociologist or a historian. I don't know what is to be done. I know what I would like to do, I like to wave a wand and put some people in jail, but that's not going to happen and get some other people out of jail, that's not going to happen. So, um, For me, I We could afford it, and someone said it's cheaper to house people than to leave them unhoused. It's cheaper to feed people than to leave them hungry, it's cheaper to educate people than to leave them uneducated, but we just won't, because again, going back to the Puritanism, there's the deserving poor. So you, do you deserve. Our, our largesse, do you deserve our good, you know, hard earned money. I'm going back to the, to the woman who did the experiment, had a recording of a crying baby, and she called a bunch of white churches and asked for formula, um, and not one would help. Are you a member of the church? I'm sorry, I have nothing for you. Who helped the mosques, the imams, where, where, where I'll meet you. I'll bring the baby, where, where I meet you. So the hypocrisy of the White nationalist brand of Christianity is very telling. It's

41:58 Ricardo Lopes: the the hypocrisy of the so-called pro-life people,

42:03 Nina Hartley: right? We don't have to. Yeah, I can't, I, I can't, it's Mm mm.

42:12 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, it's like just the other day I saw a funny meme on the internet that was like a picture of a newborn baby, and it was something like, this is the precise moment in your life that the pro-life people stop caring about you. Yeah,

42:27 Nina Hartley: exactly, that, that, that's been pointed out hundreds of times because it's so obvious, it's ongoing. They don't even care to address it. They don't care what it looks like. They think they're right. And they, but they also they think Jesus is white. Right, they prayed to a white Jesus, you know, and You know, what are you going to do? Um,

42:51 Ricardo Lopes: AND yeah, you, you know, that that's why I quite like some religions that developed, for example, in Brazil after the Portuguese colonization and the very unfortunate slavery of indigenous people and black people from Africa because there's religions there like Candomble where you have the very same saints that you have here in Portugal that are presented as white. They have them as black, and people here in Portugal sometimes get really pissed.

43:27 Nina Hartley: But it's funny, it's funny. It'd be funny if it wasn't so deadly. Yeah. Right? If it wasn't so horrific, if, if the, if the actions taken on behalf of white Jesus and, and, um, against pagans and heathens, Yeah. Uh, WEREN'T so egregious and, and ongoing, and then we're living now with the consequences of it. Um, uh. Just the idea that in Christianity, you are You're better and everyone else is working, you have to bring them into Christ and instead of, and so Christ's love, yeah, with whips and slavery and rape. Oh, yeah, so the, the, the hypocrisy among people who claim to be Christians and who Ignore everything Jesus said. I, I, it, it boggles my mind. I don't know. I, if I think about it too much, I'm filled with rage and despair. But I cannot live rage and despair every day because it will kill you. So I, that's why I do what I do to help, to help. It's like, I feel like I'm sometimes a, uh, Uh, battlefield nurse, right? I'm here to help patch you up to go out again tomorrow, uh, because pleasure is good for your heart. It's good for your spirit. It's good for your body. It's good for your breathing. It's good for your sleep. It's good for your brain chemicals. So, we have the ability within our bodies. We don't need outside. Medicine, I mean, for people who are not. Truly ill, your average person, um, we take a pill or alcohol because we do not turn to our bodies, but when we cultivate pleasure, we cultivate erotic. Energy, deliberately, consensually, it is. 100% healthy, 100% natural, no additives, right? Um, AND when we learn to treat our body well and give it pleasure, Our our conditioning rears up and tells us to stop. We get scared, we get angry, our body freezes up, and you have to, we have to gentle ourselves, right? I'm in a room alone. The fear is from somebody else. It was put into me. I get to live in my body. I get to have my body. I don't have to share it, but I need to live here, and I want to like where I live, and I want to feel peaceful where I live. And anybody can do that work. Anybody who wants to can retrain their body and their responses from unhealthy to healthy. Takes a long, takes a, takes a while because depending on what A person has experienced up till that moment. You have to unpack a lot. Um, SOMETIMES it's just words, sometimes it's words indeed, sometimes it's even worse than that. Um, SO, but. Especially with support from the right professionals, pleasure. It makes it, so I, I, so, OK, if I'm being nice to my body, I can stay here in my body while I look at all the scary things in my mind. Hey, hey, hey. So we, because our mind. And shot off. Oh my gosh, what's gonna happen in the future? Oh my gosh, the thing happened in the past. Our mind is making us crazy that way. So, what brings us into the present? Our body lives in the present moment. My body cannot go to the past. My body cannot go to the future. My body has to be here now, now, now, now, now, 300, you know, 60 seconds every minute and however many seconds in a day. Our body is always stuck right now. There is no future to the body. There's no past, it's here. The past lives in our muscle memory, it lives in our brain, but our body is here. So, as we are able to decide. To treat our body nicely now, all the stuff will come up. It's called a counter counterintuitive. No, stop, ah, you're, you're lazy, oh, you're selfish, ah, you're slow, and just say that's, that's this is, that's just a story. It's just a story, not my story. Oh yeah, it's grandma's story. Oh yeah, that's Uncle Jeff's story. Oh yeah, that's not my story. Oh, this is nice. It can take years to do it because we have a lot, we're carrying around a lot, but the joy and beauty of our natural ability for erotic pleasure, it's very powerful. It is very, it connects us to the world, it connects us to each other. It creates the next generation, so it is powerful. There are reasons why culture Puts rules around sex. Ours that happened to be based on foolishness. You know, it is appropriate to have rules around the expression of sexuality. Of course, our culture has really bad rules around it because of our, what we think about pleasure, what we think about women, what we think about the role of sex and all the things, but an individual person, if they wish, I can decide, and I did decide years ago, I'm not playing that game. I'm going to play my game. Now, Why was I able to do that? I wasn't raised religiously. I am a white person. I'm middle class. I have education. I had more freedom to just go my own way. My parents did not kick me out of the house. My parents did not disown me the way some people have disowned. So I'm that level, quite lucky, right? So my trauma is, is not as severe as other people's trauma. But it's still, I still, and I was in a place where one could go one's own way in a very liberal town, in a very liberal place, in a very liberal time. So I was very fortunate. I sort of snuck through it. And so I've never had any guilt about what I do. I've never had any shame about what I do, um, because I didn't get those messages, but other people do, right? So, but anybody in the privacy of their own room can do this work. Nobody has to know. You don't have to tell anybody what you're doing, but you can rewire your brain. You can make connection and communion with your body because at the end, if, you know, if you have a regular sized arm, if you swing it down low, There it is. The joy generator is right there. So whether you believe in, in evolution or God, clearly, the ability of the human person to generate and cultivate and maintain erotic pleasure is very important to people. Either God is, so, you know, I think Eve was framed, but, you know, the clitoris, its only job is pleasure, all it does. So, since I believe in evolution, clearly, The human sexual response cycle and the pleasure cycle was very important to human evolution or would not have been selected for. We would have a mating season. We would, we would have sex. We'd have sex in the summer and babies in the spring. And the rest, the rest of the time, we wouldn't care, right? But we're human animals are different that way, right? Um, AND there's lots of anthropology about that. So, even in a very difficult, painful, Reality The hope, the truth of the matter is we still live in our bodies. We are alone with them at some point in any part of the day where no one is bothering us. If we care to, we can turn our attention to our physical selves and start treating it nicely. 30 seconds here, 1 minute there, changing a thought, oh, nope, nope, not thinking that today. So it takes a long time to turn the Titanic because we would be conditioned to go this direction and it takes a long time to turn something so deeply entrenched, add to that any kind of racial trauma. So you're, you're, you're dealing with trauma, trauma lives in the body. What kind of trauma depends on the person, how much of it depends on the situation, but everybody still has, because they have a body. Has the capacity and the ability to change that narrative by claiming their pleasure for themselves. And it is scary and revolutionary, but it works because you live there. I live here. I have, am I going to sleep on my front porch or not? Am I going to, am I going to be nice to myself or not? Or am I going to continue beating myself? Am I going to continue? Abusing myself because that's what was always done to me. Right. And it's very difficult and, and very courageous to change that narrative in an individual person. So, you know, get help, get support, get therapy, join a support group, get educated as to the situation and recognize that what you think is just true in the way it is was handed to you, built into the system, built into the, to the laws, handed to you, but you don't have to keep it anymore. You can, you can, you can bundle it up and throw it in the trash bin.

52:33 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so look, I'm starting to get worried about the time we have left. So should we address the comments that people left on

52:45 Nina Hartley: we can go a little over, yes, we can redress comments. OK, OK,

52:47 Ricardo Lopes: OK, but let's address the comments then because, uh, yeah, it's not just that you asked me to do that, but I also think it's very important to address the specific points that people made, so. The first comment that I've got here says trying to promote only the pleasure aspect without addressing the risks doesn't seem like a neutral scientific discussion. What this woman says based on her personal experience is her own personal matter, but it poses risks to underage girls. BECAUSE it promotes the idea that unrestricted sex for pleasure is risk-free, and regulated sex carries numerous risks, including the spread of diseases, psychological and physical harm, and even physical assault. Furthermore, sex trafficking is a thriving business whether for individuals or organized criminal groups. It's not the rosy profession your job suggests. Just because her personal experience with unrestricted sex is positive doesn't mean it can be generalized. Sex work as a profession should be regulated by the state. OK, so this is more than one point,

54:08 Nina Hartley: so it is very common, so. Um, I have never said this is, so this is their projection. I have never said unrestricted. I've never said that non-consensual behavior is OK. I have, of course, never said that children should be subjected to adult sexuality. So this has been happening long before women had, long before women had the right to birth control or to have sex without being married. Women and girls, children and women have always been subjected to trafficking, abuse. Uh, VIOLATION with the full support of the church, of the police, of the state. So, so that person is not, he, they, they're showing their own prejudice. I have never said that sex work is good for people. It can be good for some people. For many other people, it is a job of necessity and it's not so good for them. But when our culture does not educate women, offer them birth control, offer them childcare, what can you do to support your family? So in the end, uh, for some people, yes, it is survival sex work. It's that or starve. And so you're going to do what you got to do, even if it's not what you would choose, and even if it's not good for you. People work in the mines, it's not good for them, but they have to feed their families. People do all kinds of demeaning, dangerous, harmful labor to feed their families. But somehow sex work is the worst, right? Because again, we think that women have to be pure and that women don't have a sex, a sex desire of their own. Um, SO, I've never ever, the person is wrong if they presume. That I've ever said unrestricted for anyone. It's good for people. It's good for some people, but not everyone. I, I recognize my class privilege. I recognize my race privilege. I recognize my economic privilege. I recognize my beauty privilege. So I don't talk a lot about the terrible things that have happened to me in porn because relative to some other people, not that terrible and not that much because of me, because of how I navigate the system and how, and my beliefs, my belief system. If I've been raised more traditionally around sexuality, I would have had a completely different reaction to being in the sex business. I would be wondering, you know, what's wrong? I would, I would be agreeing with my training that, am I a slut? Am I terrible? Am I a bad person? And I know that those ideas that a woman is terrible or bad because sex is propaganda. And culture. It's not true and real. The true and real is autonomy and agency. Do I choose this or not? Many people do not get to choose the sex they have. Many people do not choose when or where they, it's taken from them. It is forced upon them. No one gets, no one, those men never get to, to jail. I, fewer than 5% of, of rapists ever see a courtroom or a jail because most of it. So, um,

57:07 Ricardo Lopes: and that lack of choice, and I think it's very important to mention specifically that that lack of choice is experienced perhaps mostly by women in traditional marriages.

57:23 Nina Hartley: Yes, of course, in, in those, in those, because I, I, I am hit by my husband. I go to my preacher, you forgive. Oh, you, you know, he had a hard day, or you know what, what did you do to provoke him? So it's never the, it's called victim blaming. It's very common and there's lots of books written on that too. So, um, women are damned if they do and damned if they don't, right? Um, IF I, if we don't have sex, we're prudes, and if we do have sex, we're sluts. Um, SO the culture is not set up, uh, for, for a healthy discussion around sexuality because people still hold these ideas. So, to be clear, Sex work is not for everyone. It has a lot of drawbacks. It is not easy. It carries stigma. It will affect you the rest of your life. You don't know who you're going to meet in the future, who will use this against you. It is not to be taken lightly. Um, I don't believe, I believe, uh, any sex worker wants to decriminalization. We do not want legalization. The Nordic model is very problematic and legalization is problematic decriminalization, meaning, plus, if you really want to get to traffic, so we have to decriminalize sex work so that women workers who are seeing trafficking can go to the cops and say, trafficking over here without worrying about getting arrested. So trafficking is real. Um, AND, um, labor trafficking is also very, even though it's always a sex trafficking, sex trafficking, labor trafficking. Pulling people into false pretenses, uh, into a country to make them house slaves, to make them agricultural slaves, to make them industrial slaves. So trafficking is not just about sexual trafficking, although, of course, that is very real. Um, BUT

59:02 Ricardo Lopes: yeah, curiously, when people learned back in 2022 that most of the people who built the stadiums for the World Cup in Qatar were slaves or at least in some way forced into, they were doing forced labor. I mean, no one was saying, oh, we have to ban or we have to criminalize construction.

59:33 Nina Hartley: So We must stop looking for logic and consistency when it comes to ideas and rules about sex. It is completely irrational because It The, the idea is the completely irrational, and we, and we see it all the time. Next, next comment.

59:55 Ricardo Lopes: OK, the next one is, and I just picked these two because I I mean I, I, I don't think that in the meanwhile anyone left another negative comment there, so I have just this one here, so the second one, and it says if it is. An art of seduction and entertainment, something different, but if she promotes that it is without risks, then this is a clear fallacy. I'm only talking here about the danger of polishing the image in front of minors, as it is a profession that is not fraught. Would not fraught with risk, I guess he meant fraught with risks, but anyway, and not about non-minors. The media reaches all ages, including minors. If it is only about an art of seduction and entertainment, then it's a different matter. So

1:00:47 Nina Hartley: that's again, always, um, one thing about, uh, the legal adult entertainment business, we don't use minors because a. Why? It's illegal, we're going to go to jail. So I don't want to go to jail. 18 years old is very young, right? So there's no reason to go under 18 because 18 is really, I mean, 18 is really young, technically legal, but young in the head. Um, IT is, of course, it has risks. First, life, 100% sexually transmitted, 100% lethal. Right. We're all going to, we, we got here because of sex and we're all going to die. So, our life is sexually, sexually transmitted 100% fatal, which I, I love them. I didn't come up with it. Of course, there's risks. Every profession, every job has its risks. Um, AND I have never go back to my earliest speaking in public budget. I've never downplayed the risks of being an adult entertainment, socially, economically, physically, psychologically, spiritually. Of course, there's risks when you do take on such a heavily stigmatized job. So, again, um, That person is wrong about their assessment of me. I, I've always spoken about the risks and how I, people say, oh, Nina, I want to make porn, and I always say, going back 40 years now, 40 years, identify what do you think porn's going to give you. What, what do you want out of it? What, what do you think you want out of it? Is there any other way out without a camera that you can satisfy those needs? Because the camera is forever. Always said that a camera is forever. Even before the internet, you cannot take it back. You cannot take it back. Are you sure? And some people have said, I'm sure and have lived to regret it because Impulse and other people have moved through adult entertainment and left it and just left it behind. They're not trying, they just, you know what, that was my time of life then. I'm not doing it anymore. Got my hair to my normal color. So, before and after, and then people like me who I knew I was a lifer the first time I went to a strip, I danced in a strip club, I knew that this, this is my world, this is my people, these were my people. Um, BUT, uh, and there are a lot of people like me in the business who are, um, very independent-minded, very sexually open and active, and for them, this is a good, this is actually a good job. It's just like not everyone can be playing NFL. Not everyone can do data analysis, not, not everyone can be a doctor, but the ones who are good at it do very well, and sex work is the same. Um, YOU can be a bad sex worker who doesn't do well and has a terrible time at their job, and you can be a successful one who likes what they do and manages to make it work for them. The, the sex is neutral. What do we bring to it? Right? Do I bring my, what, what attitudes do I bring to it? What trauma do I bring to it? What beliefs do I bring to this work, to this work? Any, any work you do, you're going to bring yourself to it. Who are you before you do this work? What are you bringing to it? So, why are you doing it? What do you think you're going to get out of it? Um, HOW are you doing it? And what are you doing, right? So, there's one woman I know, she, um, very beautiful and made porn for like 8 or 9 years, only girls. She was offered thousands and thousands of dollars to do a boy-girl. She said, nope, nope, nope, don't want to do it. And she never did. One time they offered her $10,000 to 1 boy-girl scene, she goes, no. So, she always, and she's done, she's not coming back. You know, she doesn't, she, she doesn't have a website now that she's, nope, nope, done with it. And she's, and she's doing something else with her life now. She's not sorry she did it, but now that's over. So, the individual person's experience in adult entertainment of any kind is largely, is half of them, and of course, the particular situation, good boss, bad boss, you know, because sex is stigmatized and because women are stigmatized. Sexually professional women are double stigmatized and of course subject to a lot of uh violence as well, because we will not decriminalize, because we will not take seriously violence against women, because we will not take seriously sexual violence, um, but you cannot blame the women for doing the best that they can with the system that they find themselves in.

1:05:08 Ricardo Lopes: Right, yeah, and that's the thing, because I think that at the end of the day what we really should care about is that people, first of all, that all workers are treated with dignity and they have good salary, they are paid good salaries, they have good benefits and all of that. All workers independent of whatever kind of job they have. Whatever kind of work they do, but also that people have as much opportunity as possible because that way, I mean, if someone gets into sex work out of necessity and they don't like it, then they have the chance to live it and to find another kind of job.

1:05:49 Nina Hartley: Exactly, exactly.

1:05:52 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, you see, it's easy. People just complicate with their morality, you know. OK, great. So look, I don't want to take much more of your time. So, uh let's wrap up the interview here and uh I, I look, thank you again for coming on the show. It's always great to talk with you. I always have lots of fun talking with you. So thank you so much for doing this again.

1:06:19 Nina Hartley: So maybe come back in the fall, September, October or something. I'll read that. Send me, send me the link to the article again, please. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I did not get to it. I, uh,

1:06:28 Ricardo Lopes: no, no, no worries, no worries. We'll get to that next time.

1:06:32 Nina Hartley: All right.

1:06:34 Ricardo Lopes: Hi guys, thank you for watching this interview until the end. If you liked it, please share it, leave a like and hit the subscription button. The show is brought to you by Enlights, Learning and Development done differently. Check their website at lights.com and also please consider supporting the show on Patreon or PayPal. I would also like to give a huge thank you to my main patrons and PayPal supporters, Perergo Larsson, Jerry Mulleran, Frederick Sundo, Bernard Seaz Olaf, Alex, Adam Cassel, Matthew Whittingberrd, Arnaud Wolf, Tim Hollis, Eric Elena, John Connors, Philip Forrest Connolly. Then Dmitri Robert Windegerru Inai Zu Mark Nevs, Colin Holbrookfield, Governor, Michel Stormir, Samuel Andre, Francis Forti Agnun, Sverggoo, and Hal Herzognon, Michel Jonathan Labrarinth, John Yardston, and Samuel Cerri, Hines, Mark Smith, John Ware, Tom Hammel, Sardusran, David Sloane Wilson, Yasilla Dezara Romain Roach, Diego Londono Correa. Yannik Punter DaRosmani, Charlotte Blis, Nicole Barbaro, Adam Hunt, Pavlostazevski, Alec Baka Madison, Gary G. Alman, Semov, Zal Adrian Yei Poltontin, John Barboza, Julian Price, Edward Hall, Edin Bronner, Douglas Fry, Franco Bartolotti, Gabriel P Scortez or Suliliski, Scott Zachary Fish, Tim Duffyani Smith, and Wisman. Daniel Friedman, William Buckner, Paul Georg Jarno, Luke Lovai, Georgios Theophannus, Chris Williamson, Peter Wolozin, David Williams, Dio Costa, Anton Ericsson, Charles Murray, Alex Shaw, Marie Martinez, Coralli Chevalier, Bangalore atheists, Larry D. Lee Junior. Old Eringbon. Esterri, Michael Bailey, then Spurber, Robert Grassy, Zigoren, Jeff McMahon, Jake Zul, Barnabas Raddix, Mark Kempel, Thomas Dovner, Luke Neeson, Chris Story, Kimberly Johnson, Benjamin Galbert, Jessica Nowicki, Linda Brendan, Nicholas Carlson, Ismael Bensleyman. George Ekoriati, Valentine Steinmann, Per Crawley, Kate Van Goler, Alexander Obert, Liam Dunaway, BR, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, Perpendicular, Jannes Hetner, Ursula Guinov, Gregory Hastings, David Pinsov, Sean Nelson, Mike Levin, and Jos Necht. A special thanks to my producers Iar Webb, Jim Frank, Lucas Stink, Tom Vanneden, Bernardine Curtis Dixon, Benedict Mueller, Thomas Trumbull, Catherine and Patrick Tobin, John Carlo Montenegro, Al Nick Cortiz, and Nick Golden, and to my executive producers, Matthew Lavender, Sergio Quadrian, Bogdan Kanis, and Rosie. Thank you for all.