Hello, Psych2Go viewers. This is Michelle Rivas and I'm the host of Psychology Roundtable. We have two amazing guests for today's expert panel. The first is Dr. Tara, professor and the host and founder of the popular Love Bites podcast. Dr. Tara is also known for her highly entertaining and educational videos on sex and health. Our next guest is sex and relationship coach, Caitlin B. Caitlin is the host of our own amazing YouTube channel, which has garnered over 600,000 subscribers. Caitlin also has her own show, Good Sex on Discovery Plus, where she helps people achieve their best sex life. A big welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you for having us. Absolutely. And so Ken, both of you told us a little bit about yourselves and your background starting with Dr. Tara. Hi everybody. I'm so excited to be here with Michelle and Caitlin. Caitlin, I love your YouTube channel. I'm Dr. Tara and I wear three hats. First, I am a tenured professor of sexual communication at Cal State University Fullerton. So I teach college students how to have better sex in academic terms. No instructional videos yet. Not yet. My second hat is I am a coach. So I'm a sex and relationship coach here in downtown Los Angeles. And my third hat is a sex positive social media influencer. I have 2 million followers on TikTok. I really enjoy like putting out short form content and normalize sex positivity. Same here as my panelists. Awesome. And then Caitlin, I started off as a researcher. So it's a sexual health researcher. I was working on a doctorate in public health. And I actually left that to pursue coaching full time. So even as I was working in research, I was always leading groups at night, like LGBTQ or youth groups, or I was the in-house educator for a non-monogamous and polyamorous community. And that is what I live for. I really live for helping people in a one-on-one or in a group setting to have the best sex possible.  And I feel that when our sex life feels like it's full and abundant and pleasurable and flowing and easeful, that the rest of our life benefits. And vice versa. And so I left that to become a coach. And I have garnered a really like big following a reputation of helping men in particular to last longer in bed, to feel confident, to naturally be able to get and stay hard, and to just be great lovers. We need more of that in the world, Caitlin. And I also coach and I also, I'm in Los Angeles though. Great. And so I wanted to start with this first question for the both of you. What is sexual frustration and what are the symptoms that someone may be experiencing it? Starting with Caitlin. Great. Well, I think sexual frustration is a very particular flavor of frustration. So we all know what it's like to get frustrated. You have a rough day at work. You can't find your keys. You're stuck in traffic behind an accident. But sexual frustration really taps into our, one of our deeper natures. So just as I was saying, that sexual pleasure of really broadly defined is part of what makes a healthy human experience. And of course, people are asexual. People are gray sexual. Not everyone's experience of sex is going to be the same. But for the majority of folks who I work with, having a sexual expression is just as important as like eating nutritious food, getting good sleep, living in an environment that's emotionally and mentally and physically safe. And so when you are experiencing what feels like obstacles, or then those could be personal obstacles, like I'm depressed and I don't feel like having sex or relationship obstacles. So you're in a marriage or something with somebody who doesn't share the same desire for sex as you do. They could be obstacles that occur on many different levels. But when you're experiencing that there are things that are in the way of your erotic expression, whatever that looks like. And that could be a physical injury that prevents you from masturbating as much as it could be a relationship injury or being single when you don't want to be. The experience of sexual frustration really touches on a very deep part of us. And just the same way that maybe you can identify with having been hangry, you know, when you have an amnesia, just like a nasty, nasty, really, I don't even know myself. Why am I being so mean? I think like frustration occurs on a kind of in a similar way at a similar level. So and then Dr. Tara, how would you define it? Like what are some symptoms that you've noticed maybe in clients of sexual frustration?  And we know there are many different types of sexual dysfunction, dysfunctions. And then the third type would be the frustration that is relational. So it stems from the relationship or lack thereof. So for me, when I think of sexual frustration, I think it affects every part of life. So when you're asking like, what are some of the symptoms, I think it could show up in any part of life. I know when I was sexually frustrated, it showed up to me, you know, as a friend, as a sister, as a professor, as a lover. So it doesn't just affect your performance in bed or your sex life in general, it affects like every part of your life, as Caitlin was saying. Absolutely, I agree. And what's the difference between someone simply just being horny and sexually frustrated? Either one that you could answer this one. Yeah, so I think it lives in two different realms, like it's two separate concepts. Horny or having high sexual desire level versus experiencing frustration can actually happen at the same time. Like you can be a horny person and frustrated, but you can also be horny and not frustrated. So it's two different things. What about you, Caitlin, how like how would you distinguish the difference between the two? I think that horniness is both a part of sexual satisfaction for a lot of folks and and sexual frustration.   Is that kind of what sexual frustration is? Someone feeling like they can't? I think it's important that we note that it's feeling like you can't because I personally believe that the only thing that is standing between you and at least a degree of sexual satisfaction is creativity. You know, okay, so you don't have a partner. Okay, so you have a physical injury or some sort of disability that prevents you from having maybe like the kind of sex that you want to be having, but that isn't the that is not the end all be all like part of what my job is and what Dr. Tara's job and coaches in general and therapist as well is to help people to understand that the kind of sex that they want to have and the experiences and sensations that they want to have are available to them with some, like I said, creativity. So for example, maybe someone is experiencing sexual frustration because they really want to have partner and sex. They want to have sex with another person, but but they just it's not working out that way. There's there's not a person around available. I certainly have gone through time periods like this in my life, especially when I was like in my early 20s and I'd like be home from college and I'd be like just horny and like there's just nobody around. I want to sleep with someone from my high school. I miss my college hookup or something like that. Right. Well, in instances like that, it is really in my opinion, often about creating a great sex life with oneself. Right. This is something that I preach a lot in my courses and to my clients and on my YouTube channel.  I can let go of some of that steam.  Right. It's really just about like getting to a place where we have an open mindedness around it enough to say that there's more than one way to scratch this itch. Yeah, I agree with that. So would you say like sexual frustration is more of a state of mind than like more of a negative mindset more than anything else? That is a great question. I think it is. I think that is certainly a big part of it. And I think a big part of getting out of sexual frustration is deciding that we can and that is a mindset shift. Yeah. And then Dr. Tara, how do you feel about that? Would you say that sexual frustration? One of the causes may be just a negative outlook or mindset? Yeah.  So 100%, I agree. I think that a lot of it is a negative mindset or perhaps also a lack of growth mindset. Really, just you don't believe that it can change and improve. Like you truly think it cannot be any better. You know, in positive psychology, we know that like growth mindset is everything. Yeah. Everything and the happiest people, the most connected people, the most, the people that have the best sex life as they claim all tend to have growth mindset. Definitely. I agree with that. And I think that connects back to mental health too. So practicing that is important. And so going into like having a more positive perspective, starting with Caitlin, what are some strategies that you recommend that would help reduce sexual frustration or like what advice would you have? I think take it all the way back to the drawing board. So what I mean by that is, and this is part of that mindset work, it begins by letting go of the idea that you have the only answer or the only way that you can be satisfied is this particular thing, which is not to diminish any of your fantasies. Over the course of your life, I hope that you hang on to all of those fantasies and that you get all of them back or something even better. But letting go in like this here moment that it has to be that way. And having open-mindedness around the ways in which you can experience sexual satisfaction, I think is critical. And then maybe if you still experience that sexual frustration, after you've become open to having your needs met in multiple ways, working with someone like me or Dr. Tara or a coach or a therapist that really like aligns with you and that you really vibe with and feel really safe with and approaching them also with an open mind, right?  It's so much a part of our culture and part of the human condition and our biology literally like compels us to mate on some level, right? So everyone has a relationship with sex. We don't get to choose that or not, right? But people like us have studied sex, you know, in some cases for decades.  No lie. And actually 21 now that I think about it because my birthday is coming up. The fact is that there is an endless well when it comes to sex and relationships.   You wouldn't say that like, just because we all eat that we are all experts at getting our nutritional or like, you know, dietary needs met.  Relying on other people to show you what is possible and relying on professionals to open those doors and windows for you and let you know that there's alternatives out there. So I think one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And Dr. Tara, what strategies would you recommend or advice you would give to like reduce sexual frustration? When I think of sexual frustration, I think of the me, the you and the we. So in terms of sexual frustration within, I think that the methods that have worked for me and my students have been practicing sexual mindfulness. And that can be in a form of guided sexual meditation. It can be in a form of journaling about why you're frustrated. What about your frustration that's lingering? What would be your desired outcome? What stops you from getting there? And then another method that I really like is mindful masturbation. So a lot of sex is us, right? I think we talked about this before.  You're not there. And you're not enjoying yourself and you're not feeling the sensations in your body fully. You're missing out on a lot of pleasure. So what I really like is to mindfully masturbate. I know we all, most of us have a masturbation routine where we can come really fast. I know I do. I have a routine that I can come in two minutes. And not really. Most women they talk to could grab their favorite vibrator, put it on and orgasm in two minutes. However, what I always talk about is not always go there, not always use this method and this routine. And same as men, I think for men that perhaps their frustrations come from quote unquote performance might stem from idiosyncratic masturbation, masturbating, using one type of grip, one type of rhythm and tempo and watch one type of porn. So your body and your brain are linked in this responsive loop of I can't come other ways. So if you can't come during a partner sex or if you can't orgasm, in other ways that may cause frustration. So that's one other thing is to practice more mindful masturbation like what are you doing? Which I check myself with that too. The you part I think is communicating with your partner.  And they hope that one day it will change and it will never change. And that's the hard truth. So having a conversation is the first step into changing the relationship and basically it the complete atmosphere of the relationship. If you are together and haven't had sex for let's say three years, five years out of choice, then that's something that you know you have to do something in order to change that it will not change by itself. And then the third is the we as in what can we do together in order to not experience sexual frustrations.  So the we is what can we do together? And one of the one of my favorite practices is based on tantric sex principles. And it's the yab yam. And I love that practice.  I think it's like such a great practice to reconnect the we. Absolutely. I love that advice. And it is about mindset like what you said. So I think that maintenance, that mindful masturbation could be really helpful for a lot of people. And then I'm saying that I really like that you mentioned is men and I wanted to throw this one at Caitlin. So this is for you, Caitlin.  Because I feel like it does impact men and women differently. Yeah, absolutely. And I think a big part of that comes down to expectations between the two genders. So there there's sort of a we all know it even if we've never spoken it explicitly. There's a way in our culture that men are supposed to be and women are supposed to be. And the narrative is that men are supposed to want sex all the time be available for sex all the time, crave it, you know, they don't they can't say no, they always have to be chasing it, they always need to have more and more and more. And that for women, it's the opposite that women don't really like sex. It's something that you just do for men. Women's pleasure is difficult or complicated or, you know, like you said, like we should take women a long time to reach orgasm. It could take two minutes or less. And so I think that sexual frustration hits us very differently. For from and I don't mean to dump, you know, a lot of men experience that they have higher libidos and they're partners. There's no joke about that. And that's independent of just the gendered scripts, there's a lot of different potential reasons for that. But I think the truth is that if we could if we could drop those gendered expectations, we would see that women actually do desire sex more than our story tells us. And men desire sex potentially a lot less than our desire tells us or a lot different than how our story goes, right? One of the things that I teach and methodologies that I'm certified in is the erotic blueprints. I think we talked about this when I was on before. It's basically the idea that there are five, at least five different blueprints or roadmaps to turn on to arousal. And only one of them is the sexual blueprint, meaning a focus on genitals, on orgasms, on naked bodies. There's also an energetic blueprint, a sensual blueprint, a kinky blueprint, a shape shifter blueprint.   So if you're not turned on by naked bodies and genitals and porn, then there is something wrong with you, right? But we don't acknowledge that there are other ways that we might get turned on. We might get turned on by our five senses, like Dr. Shara was saying yabeum, that's more of an energetic connection between two people. Some people are really turned on by tees and the lack of direct touch. And just the chase and not the actual action itself. Some people are turned on by their taboo and whips and chains or calling, being called bad names in bed or playing fantasies of like, you know, a doctor and nurse or student and teacher, right? Or like Thor and Zelda. I mean, it could be Lesnar or Chippable, you know, it could be Caesar and Cleopatra. But the point is that we're, when we're taught that there's a right way and a right amount and a right level of desire when it comes to sex, and men and women are taught very different things when it comes to those things. And this is of course not even touching on the entire slut shaming or the Madonna whore complex is essentially that women are conditioned that if they have sex, want sex, desire sex, enjoy sex, that they're slut, that they're something along with them. And men are taught that women fall into one of two categories and we're only talking about heterosexual couples right here. But that women are either the Madonna and their sexually untouchable wife material or they're the whore.  There's nothing in between.  Like, of course we are because we're not taught to really think about what it is that we as an individual want, what it is that really turns us on. And to the point about mindfulness and bringing mindfulness into our bedrooms, both as solo practitioners and with our partners, part of what that allows us is the opportunity to slow down enough to say, you know what, this kind of sex really isn't what gets me going. And maybe something that looks a little bit different than what I've been taught would be way more pleasurable for me. Yeah. So like having open conversations and de-stigmatizing it, which is something we talked about because it's a problem when it comes to sex, the stigma. Yeah. And like we were saying like journaling, free writing, opening yourselves up to other forms of content, seeing what other people are into was an open mind and going, oh, that's an option. That's hot to me. I like that. Like that might be all you need to actually alleviate your sexual frustration.  Yeah, exactly. I agree with that mindfulness. And so that brings me to my next and last question before we get to the audience segment. I just want to know, can masturbation improve a person's and porn improve a person's overall sexual health or does it make the problem worse? So I'll just start with Dr. Tara.  I think it's helpful to start with, there are different types of porn.  Yeah, exactly.  I would say yes. And there's such thing as ethical porn? Yes.  Yeah. In a nutshell, it is made with ethical producers. They pay all the actors fairly. Everything's transparent. They show the audition part. Everyone's excited and happy to be there. It's all clean, clear, consensual. And the company focuses on portraying real sex rather than a lot of perhaps traditional types of porn that we may see on large websites are producing porn that any educator can watch and obviously know it's fake. Yeah, it like distorts people's views of sex. So yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. So it's the type of porn that the producers are hoping that it shows real sex. Perfect. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, we should know more about ethical porn. That's important to know.  Yeah. I masturbation, yes. I think masturbation is an excellent tool to utilize when you feel sexually frustrated and to get creative with it, to bring in toys.   It's 2023. I was like, it's time. Invest in a stroker. Give yourself some options. Don't masturbate in the exact same way every single time. Change where you're standing, the room that you're in, like try to shower, bring in lube for God's sake, and use it to men all the time, like quit with the dry hand. So the masturbation, yes, 100%. And I agree that some porn can be supportive. I think that if you're dealing with any sort of like performance stuff, so like you're not able to ejaculate or you ejaculate too soon, or you find that you're not able to stay hard when you're with a partner, I say cut out porn for 90 days at least. A lot of relationship, especially between two men here, the lot of their relationship with porn really is almost more like an addict with a drug than someone who's consciously choosing to partake in something. So I would rather see you get it out of your life for at least a period of time. See what changes occur in your body and your brain in those 90 days and in your genitals.  I agree with that. Absolutely. And we need more education about this. So thank you both for that. So now we're going to switch over to our audience segment where we answer your viewer questions from our amazing experts. So we're going to begin with that now. And our first question is for Caitlin V from Meredith. She asked, hello, Caitlin.  However, now that I'm interested in having sex again, he's rejecting me. Is this approach hurting my relationship? Great question. I think a lot of people have some form of experience with this being on the giving or the receiving end of that. I think it's perfectly reasonable to not want to connect with someone sexually when you're upset with them. If they've done something to harm you or hurt your feelings and your body is saying like, you know what, no, I don't want to give you access to this body at this moment. That's very reasonable. There's a distinction between that and using sex as a punishment, right? Because sex is one of the things that helps to smooth over the painful parts of a relationship. Sex is the thing that makes that romantic relationship unique.   It's their romantic partner. And so I think it's very important that we treat sex as sacred inside of our relationship, that we treat it as part of the healing balm and the ointment that brings us back together when there is conflict. It should not be the, you know, unless the conflict is in sex, it shouldn't be the thing that we use to end a conflict, right? Because then we're going to get into this cycle of refining. And then we're having hot sex after refining. So we got to pick fights in order to have sex. Don't want that either. Want sex to exist in a realm where we can go to it to feel safe, connected and intimate with our partner. And it's not being used as a weapon. And I, you know, inside of that, I'm not surprised that he's now using it as a weapon, right? Because if one person picks it up and starts using it in that way, then I would expect that the other person does. So using your words to end your conflicts, like adults, using sex to remain connected, to feel good, to have pleasure, and keeping those two things separate as much as possible. Absolutely. And Dr. Tarja, do you want to add anything to that about using sex as a punishment? Yeah, I think weaponizing sex can cause a lot of resentment in a relationship. So definitely follow Caitlin's advice and use your words. Definitely. And then let's see who the next question is for. Let's see. The chat has been really lit. Yeah, it has been. I'm like, it's been all over. It's been all over. Do you see it? Yeah, I see. Oh, you can't see the chat. No, what do you see it? What do you look with the extreme yard? Click on comment. Someone said, is weaponizing sex technically a form of biological warfare? I just thought that was funny. Yeah, a war crime. So I actually, this isn't a question, but I think this comment is interesting. I wanted your take on it. Christian Ramirez commented, sex should be used as a reward for hard work and being there for your significant other when times go from bad to worse. How do you guys feel about that? Starting with Dr. Tara. Sex should be used as a reward for hard work and being there for your significant other when times go. I don't think I'm understanding this question or the statement per se. Is sex rewarding? It can be. Good sex is rewarding. However, I think like attaching it to, I'm not sure what hard work and being there when times goes from bad to worse like actually means. Like as a form of support. What did you want to add, Kailin? Sorry. I think that this is very similar to sex being used as a weapon. What we have in common between both of these perspectives is sex being used as something that's not sexual, as something that's not intimacy, as something that's not connection. In both instances, they are your commodifying sex. In both instances, it becomes a transaction. Like you did something good or you did something bad.  Sex should exist outside of that. Leave the rewards for like going out to dinner and buying jewelry or something along those lines. And so thank you for that, Kailin. And then this next question I think is really interesting because there are some research studies that have been brought up in the news about this. So I love Pug99 asked, why is Gen Z having less sex than previous generations? I also love Pugs. One of my favorite jobs ever. In terms of the research on Gen Z, I think there are two different explanations. Like when we look at quantitative research, like big sample size, and we're seeing like, oh wow, like Gen Z is reporting having less sexual encounters than previous generations without like explanation of the data. I think there's two main reasons. Like one, it could be that because Gen Z grew up with like so much almost like bad examples of, you know, how their parents perhaps weaponized sex. And then, you know, maybe they fight, maybe they get a divorce, maybe there's a lot of like tumultuous relationships that it's hard for Gen Z to almost like find good role models when it comes to healthy stable relationships.  Another reason that I can think of that contributes this could also be attached to like mental health. Like the interest in mental health in Gen Z since young age. I'm an older millennial. So when I was young, no one talked about mental health. So it's to me, it's rather like a newer thing where all my Gen Z students are very, very informed about. So perhaps like, you know, trying to maintain like good mental health could also mean not engaging in the type of sex that could be like psychologically damaging. So that's like the two main trends that I can see. Absolutely. And what trends do you see, Caitlin? Like why do you feel like if you agree with that, with those research studies about Gen Z having less sex, how do you feel about that Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with what Dr. Tara said. I think it's a combination of there's a lot of fear in addition to a lack of healthy modeling of what's possible and what a healthy sex life looks like. I think that what I hear from people is that they're just afraid of having physical consequences contracting an SCI. They don't want to take the sort of risks that are involved in maybe having like hookups. I think that I'm also an older millennial and I think our generation really glorified hooking up and that maybe today we're having a very different conversation about what casual sex looks like. And I think that when it comes to people who are just coming into adulthood right now, so much of their communication is mediated digitally compared to I grew up, I didn't have a cell phone until I was in high school, I didn't have a smartphone until I was in college, like today kids have smartphones before they hit puberty. So their relationship with other people and with their peers is often mediated by technology and that impacts all forms of communication and all forms of relating including personality. Absolutely. And then I like this next question by Spielmah. I hope I'm not butchering your name. They ask, can there be such thing as too much sex in a relationship? And I'll start with Dr. Tara, how do you feel about that? Oh my gosh, I just read an article about, was it Scotty Pippin and Larsen Pippin? Yes, I just read about that this morning. They have sex four times a day for the last 20 years or something like that, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what I read and is that healthy? Yeah. Okay, sorry, I got a fact check. No, that's exactly what he said. That's exactly what Larsen said. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Was it Scotty Pippin part of the Chicago Bowl? Yeah, he's a famous like the dream team with the Jordan. Okay. Yeah, I want to make sure I'm thinking of the right person. That's really it. And then Larsen Kim Kardashian is like best friend. Yeah. Best friend. She was her best friend. Okay. So she said, I was married for 23 years.  So do you feel like that's healthy? Do you want me to speak to that? Okay, my first thought is it depends. Yeah.  I think it's to each their own.  So if they're happy about it, like cool, that would be my first word. Yeah. However, being a woman, you know, hasn't even had kids yet. Like I'm thinking is it that she tried to do it as much as possible to appease the relationship? That would be something that I wonder is like, was she enjoying it or was it more? I want my husband to be sexually fulfilled. Exactly. Because I don't think that more sex necessarily means that you're happy and that you aren't sexually frustrated. There are many people who are having sex regularly that could still be sexually frustrated. Right. Quality over quantity thing. Exactly. And you can have a ton of sex that you don't enjoy. And that would be very sexually frustrating. Yeah. I think there's with anything when it comes to sex, there's sort of a bell curve average most of the time, right? So with preferences and that includes four times a night. So on one end of the bell curve, we're going to have people who have sex four times in their life or maybe four times in a year. And then you're going to have probably what would be like more of an average, like what average of what people desire, which is maybe sex like three times a week to four times a month, something like that. And then on the extreme end, something like four times a day, right? So what each individual person preferences and what each individual desires is going to fall somewhere on that bell curve. And hopefully they've done the thinking to say, this is what works best for me. This is what I want. This is what my body can handle. This is what my relationship can handle. But to style mouse's question, the, yeah, there can absolutely be too much sex in a relationship. And again, what I would point to is the exact same thing we were talking about earlier, which is when we're using sex to take the place of something else. And that could be good communication. That could be quality time.  So there can be too much drinking in a relationship too, right? Some people can have a couple of cocktails a week and it's fine. Some people turn to alcohol to solve every problem. And alcohol is not a problem solver, right? Sex is very much the same. So whether we're using sex as a weapon or using sex as a reward, or for those folks who maybe lack the communication or the capacity to really talk through their problems or problem solved together, or ameliorate conflict with help from a therapist or something like that. A lot of people just turn to sex. They're mad at each other. So they have sex. They got into a fight. So they have sex. They had a rough day and they don't want to do the work of figuring out how they really feel on talking about it. So they have sex. That in that instance, that is too much. It's too much, but it's too much because it's just using sex as something that it can't actually do, which is solve your problems. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. And that puts it into a different perspective because everyone assumes that sexual frustration is having no sex or it's being an incel, which someone asked something about that. And so I wanted to segue into that. Caitlin, I wanted to have you address this question since you work primarily with men. How do you feel about incel culture? And do you feel that there's something that can be done about it since a lot of people say incel culture is men who are sexually frustrated? Yeah. So incel refers to involuntary celibate. This is someone who would like to be having sex, but it's celibate in other terms, not having sex against their will. And they would prefer to be having it with another person, I think is a really important distinction, like not so low. The interesting thing about people who identify incel is that by identifying along those terms, you're actually already sort of saying that you've thrown in the towel and given up. Yes. Right? You start to identify, we talked about mindset earlier, you get into a mindset, this is the way that things are for me. I am stuck not having sex. I am an involuntary celibate. And once you hang that sort of flag outside of your door, once you are wearing that name tag, it can be very difficult to get out of it. So I would say for anyone who's watching this, if you sort of identify as an incel, maybe let that self-identity go and identify as someone who is working on having the kind of sex life that they desire. Identify as someone who is sexually frustrated. But don't lock yourself in the incel box. Because a lot of the sort of incel culture, just to come back to your question, is a little self-pitying or a lot of self-pitying. It's a lot of victim-y. I'm like, what was me? I'm entitled to sex but not having it. No, don't be wrong.  And I don't mean to downplay how frustrating and how setting that is, especially to heterosexual men who feel like the odds are stacked against them. They have this idea that only 20% of guys on the dating apps in the world are getting laid and they feel really helpless. And that is not a great state for a human being to feel stuck in. But I think that the incel culture incel as an identifier is a place that really breeds a lot of victimization, a lot of stuckness. Certainly a good deal of misogyny and hatred towards women. This conversation that women are like sexual gatekeepers and that some men are just not able to access the kind of sex that they want to have. And that kind of mindset is very unattractive to the kind of people who you may otherwise be on the road to sleeping with. Absolutely. And Dr. Tara, did you want to add to that about like incel culture? I think what Caitlin said is very on point. And when she said that there's a lot of feeling of like the opposite of being hopeful, like hopeless and basically not feeling like the situation can change, this loops back to what we talked about earlier in this session of instead try to adopt a growth mindset that you can change and improve and have the most fulfilling life that you want. And if you are in that box, then either take the box with you or get out of that box, right?  I think of that for myself, you know, as like a professor, how can I become the professor that I admire when I went to college? You know, as a wife, how can I be similar to my mother, who is my idol, right? Like as a sexual partner or a lover, I don't necessarily have an idol for a sexual partner. But I definitely think about like, you know, what is sexual well-being for me? And how can I like go towards that? So I highly recommend if you're in that box right now, try to get out of it and go towards your goals. Yeah, just go for it. Just do it, right? Just do it. And so that concludes our audience segment. And so I have one last question for both of you. And I think this is very important since we're on psych to go in what ways do you both believe that sex is good for a person's mental health and well-being? I'll start with Caitlin. Yeah, so full circle. I think that like I said earlier, great sleep, breathing clean air, living in an environment where you feel physically safe, eating nutritious food that's a good fit for your body. These are all major contributors to our mental health. I think often we put these things in different buckets. Food's over here. Sleep is over here. Sex is over there, right? And mental health somewhere in the middle. But the truth is that we're a system. We're a complicated system. We have our physical body. We have our biochemistry. We have our emotional body, our mental and our spiritual body as well. And sex plays a role in every single one of those. So when this is not to be, don't listen to this and think like, well, I'm in big trouble then because I'm not having, because I'm sexually frustrated. So how can I experience good health across the board? Good mental health. It's like a bicycle. We're constantly moving forward, making sure that we have good nutrition. Just because you ate yesterday doesn't mean you don't have to eat tomorrow, right? And just because you didn't have the kind of sex that you wanted to have yesterday doesn't mean that you can't feel sexually fulfilled tomorrow. And I think my last piece of advice for the books listening is be aware of what is it, what belief or story do you have to give up in order to enjoy a great sex life and a great and and useful mental health experience as well? Absolutely. Thank you so much for that, Caitlin. And then Dr. Tara, how would you answer that question?  Yeah, so when I think of my mental well-being, I think of the ability to stay calm and feel happy. So I kind of just boil it down to that's that's mental well-being for me. So when I think of how is that correlated to having good sex, right? Because not all sex is great.  When you have good sex, for example, when you are cuddling with your partner and there's a lot of like affection and that human connection, what happens is there's oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin, all the happy hormones that are being released and enhanced during the process. When you orgasm, you also experience a release and heightened levels of those hormones. So for me, that is a clear scientific link between my sexual wellness and my mental well-being to add to Caitlin's already very holistic answer. Yes. Amazing. Thank you so much to the both of you for being here today. This was an amazing conversation. We had so many people in here and the chat was lit like Caitlin had mentioned. Yes. And so thank you guys and thank you to our amazing viewers for joining joining us today until the next one. Bye everyone. Bye. Goodbye.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Under the present BJP government, we have been seeing a steady decline in the strength of the regulations that protect our environment. This is quite similar to what the US is witnessing under Donald Trump. To discuss the recent amendments made to different regulations, we have with us today D. Raghunandan from the Delhi Science Forum. Welcome, Raghun. So starting with the new national forest policy, this policy is largely being viewed as something that allows for the privatization of forests. So what can you tell us about that? There are, I think, three features of this new national forest policy which stand out. The first is an old habit, which is to speak of forest cover and tree cover in the same breath. So when you announce targets for forest oblique tree cover, then you're saying that if you have a mixed forest, a mixed natural forest with biodiversity, with trees and shrubs and bushes and grasses, et cetera, or if you have plantations of pine or saal or eucalyptus, you're talking of both of these in the same breath. We do have a fairly clear definition of what a forest is. And we do know that a bunch of trees don't make a forest. Whereas this policy, as in many previous policies, conflates these two and talks of forest oblique tree cover. So India has set a target for itself as well as in commitments to Paris, saying we will increase our forest oblique tree cover to 33%. That's not the same thing. We've currently got forest cover of about 20 odd percent. It would have been a meaningful target if we had said we'll increase that to 33. But if you plant eucalyptus along the highways, you may reach a target of 30 odd percent of tree cover and call it a forest, which it is not. Because a forest performs very wide ecological services, prevention of soil erosion, capturing water from rainfall and feeding water bodies and rivers, engendering biodiversity.  And forests perform very useful social services in providing to forest dwellers and in the neighboring areas fuel, fodder, medicinal plants, non-timber forest produce, et cetera. So this conflation is one part. Two new features in this forest policy, which is what you're talking about is, the first is this new policy makes a virtue out of, let us have what it calls plantation forests. So let's plant commercial timber species like sal, seasam, et cetera, and use that to increase the production of timber. And it makes a virtue of this by saying, if we use this timber, then we can reduce the utilization of steel or aluminum, which will contribute to our climate change efforts. This takes a cue from developed countries, particularly in the north, Sweden, Canada, Norway, which have vast unpopulated forests, which can then be used for harvesting of timber, which countries like that use in house building, et cetera, thereby saving on. In India, that's not the case. Our forests are already very poor. And if you're going to use plantations in forests in order to provide for utilization of timber in construction, et cetera, then the proportion of mixed forests that you already have will only go down further. So that's one big danger in the new policy. The other is, linked with this, the policy talks of increasing the area under such plantations, both inside forests, in fringe forest areas, in degraded land, and outside forest, and doing this through a PPP mode. Which then introduces the private sector into forest management for the first time. So also something, joint forest management is also something that requires. Well, joint forest management has been there. The idea of joint forest management was to involve communities of forest dwellers, tribals, et cetera, who have been conserving the forests where they are, because they have a stake in preservation of the forest. This is very different, however. The stake of the private sector is not in forests. It's in timber. So they're not interested in preserving forests for water conservation, for soil conservation, for fuel, fodder, and non-timber forest product. They only want the timber. So they have no stake in ecological conservation of the forests. They have a stake only in the production value of forests for timber and other such useful products. So all in all, I believe the new forest policy is the thin end of the wedge to convert forests into plantation areas, which is what the British had started doing 200 years ago. And we've seen the effects of that in Himachal, Uttarakhand, where you've got denuded slopes because of virtual monocrop plantations of pine and other such species, and where the old mixed forests have virtually disappeared, with great ecological harm in the area. And we've seen the loosening of the soil leading to greater land slips and so on. This is going to increase that further. And if you allow the private sector into it, that's going to destroy the system of management and to destroy benefits to the people of whom an estimated 120 million live in or around forests. So it has huge societal as well as ecological impact. When we talk about this conversion from forest to plantation, of course, there are a lot of tribals in forest dwellers. Exactly. What does the policy say about the rights of these people? It, of course, says that we will ensure that we are promoting non-timber forest produce and the stakes of the local people and so on. But if this policy follows in the spirit in which it is written, it will reduce those kinds of species which local communities can use for their benefit rather than species which would be used for commercial purposes, especially for timber. So moving on to the new coastal zone management, and notification for the coastal zone management, that is also along similar lines. It is reducing the limit of the area that comes under regulation. And also, again, it's giving very weak protection to these areas. Absolutely. And I think this follows a series of dilutions of the coastal zone rules and regulations. Mind you, not only by this government, such dilutions have been attempted in the past as well. But this government has gone about it extremely systematically and with a sense of purpose. Many of these, the forest amendments, the coastal zone amendments, many other amendments which this government has been doing, are, in fact, continuations of what it had earlier commissioned, the TSR Subramaniam Committee's report, which the Parliamentary Standing Committee had rejected, but which the government is now trying to introduce many of those recommendations through the back door, through one kind of notification or new forest policy. So without doing the whole package, they are introducing bits of it here. And in the coastal zone regulation in particular, there have been a series of amendments to the coastal zone regulations culminating in this new zone. And I think it is very significant that more than a dozen of these new amendments that the government has moved have not been put to public scrutiny. So you say that you are doing this for the public good, but by excluding the public. So you are not involving the public, you are not notifying the public that this is what we are planning to do, inviting objections, none of that has taken place. And in fact, the new notification specifically says that we do not need to do this process of public notification for most such amendments. So that means even in future, they don't need to notify in public, they don't need to invite amendments, they can just pass executive orders and do that. Of course, as you say, there are serious dilutions of the coastal zone regulations. The 100 meters has now become 50 meters and a range of activities have now been permitted in this. Infrastructure activities, ports to conform with the government's Sagarmala project. Infrastructure projects, pipelines, roads, all these are now permitted. You can easily do those kinds of projects. They have permitted mining of uranium, of thorium and specifically saying even if these resources are available elsewhere, you will be allowed to do this within the coastal zone. And they've also used this to introduce ecotourism activities right within 50 meters as if you can't do ecotourism 100 meters away from the coast, but you need to go right up to the shoreline to do it. And not just in the shore, but they've specifically allowed such projects even in mangrove areas which as you know are highly sensitive and are the first line of defence against cyclones and storm surges and so on. They've allowed that. They have said that if you cut down mangroves you have to plant three times the area but that is what I know the same. I was going to say precisely this is what they're doing with forests as well. They say you can cut down the forest provided you do five times that much compensatory afforestation but I could cut down a 100 year old or a 300 year old mixed forest and plant eucalyptus and they would be happy and the same thing will apply in mangroves as well. I think the key dilutions are not only that there is a dilution of the coastal zone regulations and thereby opening up the coasts for so-called developmental activities which in an era that we are going through now where coastal erosion is already taking place in significant measure will open this up more to coastal erosion, will further destroy livelihoods of fisher folk and others who are dependent on the coasts and promote ecologically destructive activities which are also going to weaken our defences against erosion rising sea levels which we know are going to happen with climate change you should in fact be thinking of having a buffer zone from the coast not constricting it from 100 to 50 but going from 100 to 200 so that you can build defences against sea level rise. The key argument given to defend these regulations is that this is for the sake of development so environment basically has to sort of looked as like put aside for the sake of development so how do we stress upon the importance of that what do we make, what do we say is more important? See this has been a very old and I would say a very varied argument. Any serious perspective on development would know that development must go hand in hand with environmental protection and conservation otherwise you will not have development like I just gave the example if I build on the coasts I promote development for let's say a hotel but I destroy the development of fish and folk so it's not just development which is being promoted but development for somebody against the development of somebody else that's one. Secondly what looks like development in the short term a few jobs in hotels some infrastructure there but paving the way for destruction of the coastline for entry of the sea further inland that hotel is likely to get washed away the best example I can give for this is we saw during the Uttarakhand floods a few years ago settlements which had come up townships which had come up along the river without proper environmental clearances or building clearances got swallowed up by the flooding Ganga and its tributaries so what looked like development two years ago would look like destruction and damage two years from now so it's a very short sighted view of development which does this counterposing of development and environment I think our viewers need to know that India is a signatory to many international conventions and treaties such as the sustainable development goals we are signatory to the Paris agreement on climate all of these treaties make it a point to stress that environment and development are two sides of the coin that you can't have one without the other that if you promote ecologically destructive development even that development will not last so thank you Raghu for joining us today in this discussion and thank you for watching this clip


Tarzan and the diamond of our share. Tarzan, with Dono and two hunters, is leading a jungle expedition in search of Brian Gregory. In the party are Brian Gregory's father and sister Helen. Magra, a mysterious Eurasian girl, is also with the Tarzan Gregory safari. It is through Magra that Atan Tome hopes to get possession of a map showing the location of the Forbidden City of Arshere. In the camp on the bank of a tributary of the Yubangi River, the white group is watching a native ceremony when Larsen, the sweet hunter, spies a giant crocodile coming toward them. With his gun ready, Larsen heads to the monster. He slips and falls directly in the path of the outing reptile. A full Tarzan! Tarzan holds himself in the air to land directly up under the charging crocodile.  Like lightning, the eight-man leaps aside. His power of hands flash out, clamping themselves like iron bands about to rip jaws. The huge Saurian's bloodshot eyes roll in mad agony. Its giant tail lashes seriously. Every muscle in its long body screams vaguely to break the death grip of this man thing. Slowly, relentlessly, Tarzan twists and bends the mammoth's head aside and back. Behind him, the eight-man's friends watch in spellbound silence. Tarzan's feet grip the ground. Under his glistening skin, the muscles stand out like steel cables. He gathers himself for a supreme effort. One terrific, twisting lunge! Like a fusillade of pistol shots, the crocodiles were to be cracked sharply. Out of Tarzan's hand, the monster slips to the ground. Lifeless. Good heavens, he broke that thing's neck. The strength of ten giants. Look, now he picks Larsen up just like a baby.  Yeah, Bull! Dono, come look at Larsen's leg. He's conscious now. There's no, no, there are no bones broken on the knee, and not the sign of a sprain. Good. Now get up, Larsen. Try to walk. Here. So, your leg's all right? Yeah, sure. You've been all right now, but they wouldn't have no legs at all if it ain't been for you. Tarzan, they come too just in time to see that croc drop dead. What happened? Nothing, Larsen. Gimela was angry and had to be killed. What way you killed him? I remember once before, my friend, you fought the crocodile, but that was in the water and you used your knife.  Then to salume, Larsen, avec les mains. There was no time for my knife. A second more, and Gimela would have had you. Yes, like that. Yes, Larsen, just like that. It was done so quickly, it was all over before I realized it. Tarzan jumped and landed in front of the brute. He clamped his claws shut with his hands and held them. Then, oh, it was beautiful. He lifted the thing half off the ground and twisted its head until it snapped. Margaret has the right word. It was terrible, but beautiful. Tarzan, he don't like to talk about this, but he'll go too far for you. He'll be in my hand. Forget it, Larsen. You do the same with me if you have the chance. Meanwhile, Wolf and the witch doctor have quiet motives. As the blacks return to their shelters, Wolf motions to the wrinkled old sorcerer. He follows the German to a far side of the Boma.  Bully, make much medicine. Bully, na kuba, doctor, man. Bully, shall be fixed for strong medicine. Much strong mbangchai. Yeah, it's fine stuff. I want some, you got? Mbangchai, bad for white man. Make them sleep long time. Never mind that. I know how to use it. Here, Mbully, fill this flask. Bring mbangchai to me. I give ten paisa. Can't do. Wanna be careful? Give too much white man no wake up. Don't worry. Go. Fill the flask. Not you. Wolf watches the old man as he walks to the cauldron over the ceremonial fire. Weasened little magician fills the flask, pucks it out of sight, and hurries back to the German. Yeah, mbangchai for buanda. No give too much. White man sleep long time. Yeah, I know. Here's your money.  Pretty good. Same like always. You like catching plenty money more? Plenty chompy, good salt? Can't do buanda. Good. A big buanda. Cudare buanda. He come behind this safari. Today walk back along same trail. He want mbully and these boys come along with him. What are we go? Never mind. You talk talk along boys. Get ready for run away. I tell you when to go. Then you take all supplies. All chakula. Eat all song to you. Mbully sabi. Mbully sabi. Then you get back there without rich hotali buwani safari. You get plenty viski. You like? Mbully like. Good. We go now. The two conspirators separate. Mbully to vanish silently among the tents of the bearers. Wolf to stride rapidly toward the group of whites around the fire. At the edge of the circle of firelight, he pauses to watch Helen Gregory and her father. He sees the girl pass a folded paper to the old gentleman. A grim smile touches the Germans lips. He knows where the map is now. Nonchalantly, he approaches the group and drops down the side magra. Listen, Mbully, I know who's got the map now. What happened to the natives, Wolf? Turned the end? Yeah, here. They're all asleep by this time. Did you hear, Mbully? Yes. How do you know? I just saw the girl give it to her father. Well, how are you going to get it? Oh, I won't hurt him at all.  Asleep? What do you mean? I mean, well, never mind what I mean, but the old man won't be hurt.  Don't, don't, Fully, nothing will happen to him, but I'll have that map. And then the diamonds? You and me, huh?  You stay here, and if anyone leaves the fire, you start to sing. Understand? I understand. Meanwhile, back in the Tomes safari, the Artan makes clear his plans to Laltasque and explains to him what his duties will be in carrying them out. Laltasque will soon have the opportunity to get the axel he has been longing for. How so, Artan? We shall feel Gregory's blacks with strong rink. They will be told the members of the Gregory safari are children of the devil possessed of evil spirits. Do you begin to understand, huh? Laltasque is not without imagination. When the blacks have been aroused to the proper pitch of madness, the Artan will place himself at their head and lead them out to capture the Gregorys and their friends. Right, my friend, in every detail except one. Laltasque perhaps does not understand. I see that you do not exactly. You shall lead the blacks. And the Artan where will he be? I? I shall be with the witch-tunned in the rear, directing the arrangements, yes. I am to trust myself to a crowd of drink-raised blacks. No, Artan, Tom, lead your own mother. So, so, you have forgotten Sidi Belabas.   Enough, master. Laltasque leads the attack. Better. Much better. I am glad to see you so eager to serve me, Laltasque, and share in the riches I share. Oh, you are a brave man. In the Gregory camp, the flames of the campfires are burning low. Larson is recounting for the benefit of Mr. Gregory, one of his jungle exploits. Tarzan sits watching the swede, a half-smile playing over his features as he listens. A few feet away, Helen and Dono are comparing notes on the Frenchman's beloved Paris. Wolf's keen eyes note how holy the two groups are engrossed in their own conversations. Slowly, he backs out of the light circle. Once in the deep shadow, he moves quickly to Gregory's tent. He takes down the canteen, empties into it the contents of a flask, and hangs it back. A few quick strides, and he is in his own tent. From the corners of her eyes, Magra has closely followed the Germans' every move. She rises casually and walks away into the shadows, then quickly, noiselessly, to Wolf's tent. She lifts the canteen from its hook. A few steps, and she has reached Gregory's shelter. Here, she removes the poisoned canteen, exchanges it for Wolf's untainted one, and returning to the Germans' tent hangs the...


Today, we'll examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, which as I said before is a kind of powerful rejection of Amazonianism. I'm going to talk a bit about the Puritan elements in the novel. Hawthorne was actually an expert on the Puritan history of America. His many tales on that period are based on study of many documents, many books that we can easily see him referencing or that he had borrowed and read. But as I say, this rejection of Amazonianism is, I think, the harder part to see at first. Once you begin to see it, you realize how powerful it is. Hawthorne was a friend of Emerson's. He may even for a while have been influenced by the older man's powerful mind and rhetoric. But he broke away decisively from this kind of thinking. And in breaking away, I'm not worried to convey to you the idea of a personal quarrel of any sort between two important writers. They never really did quarrel. It's just that Hawthorne saw with swiftness and terrifying clarity what the implications of Emerson's transcendentalism really were for the development of America and how deeply America had already absorbed far too many romantic notions of the God-like individual. So we'll talk mostly about the Custom House through Chapter 5. And perhaps you can envision Old Salem Port, where the Custom House introduction begins. I was very busy port at the time, lovely in many ways, but full of great ships, full of cargo coming in, being loaded and unloaded. And Hawthorne was there to examine it and to collect taxes for the U.S. government. So when he begins with the Custom House, he is talking about a tax house, a house where taxes are collected, where licenses were given, where the business of the federal government was conducted. But he calls it the Custom House with a pun quite intended. It's very beautiful brick federalist kind of architecture. You go in it today and it's quite lovely. But Hawthorne is also saying that custom is very important for a nation, that the past never really dies. It moves onward into bones and sinews and ideas of its people. And it should, because if you lose the wrong elements of your past, you will lose what has nourished what is best in your culture. I'm going to go relatively quickly through the basic themes of the Custom House. And I hope you'll see that as we go on through the novel, that what Hawthorne is really doing is almost like a symphony. He's introducing basic themes that he will return to again and again in the novel itself. And the first is the power of custom among men. Because revolutions and new nations can only be as new as human being. But human being is very old and the customs of men are very old. And unfortunately, one of the customs is to do evil. Just as fortunately one of the customs is to love the good. These are not customs we necessarily, you know, that they don't begin in custom. They begin in the great horror. They begin first in creation and then become marred in the great horror of the fall. But they are always with us. And as much as America wanted to think of itself as a new nation, completely unlike Europe and Europeans and so much better than everybody else, Hawthorne knows we're still the same old sinful folks we always were. He tells us, for example, that government preference in the US is based on friendship and usefulness to persons more than on any objective qualification. Not entirely bad, but it can lead to sloth. It can lead to taking money for doing nothing. He tells us that one of the customs among men is to be a one who lives only for the flesh. And, you know, the next meal and the next sleep, the next drink, no matter how great the history they may dwell among, Hawthorne did think the history of America was great. He also tells us that a new bloodthirstiness has arisen in his day among what we call the Jacksonian Americans. He makes all those guillotine jokes, doesn't he, about his being fired because Jackson said sweep them all out and replace them with men who supported me. And he thinks of this as a kind of ugliness in America that had not existed before. And to a large degree it hadn't. He sees a vanishing civility and kindness in the Jacksonian America. And he talks about himself as the headless surveyor. He talks about the un-gentle eagle. And if you've ever seen that picture of the eagle on top of the custom house, he really does look pretty ferocious with his bundle of arrows in his hand and even though he's offering the olive branch and the other. A second great theme of Hawthorne here is that the past indeed lives in all people. It may become vague and misty in our minds, but it's never really dead. Even if you've never been taught it, which unfortunately is the pattern of modern American education, and two, it's always, always, always more complex than we make it out to be. He tells us, be careful how you measure your forefathers. General Miller, who is one of the denizens of the custom house, loves flowers and spends lots of time nowadays taking care of them. But he was absolutely capable of leading slaughter in the American Revolution. And he wants to tell us that the past is never complete and gone. He tells us about going up into the unfinished attic of the custom house. And it is fascinating up there how empty and, you know, so much of the stuff he describes as lying around is, of course, now not there. But it's a sense of infinite capacity, infinite resource for what is to come. Like that unfinished upper story, it's a treasury of resources that will shape the future. Your past, and not just yours, of course, the past of the West, will shape your future. That's why you're busy involving yourself with liberal education, because it gives you the best of the past, so that you may use it to build the future. He tells us that every past time, no matter how far past, is already deeply related to its own past. You have to be very careful about reading something as if, well, it just sort of came into being. No, it didn't, except for Adam and Eve. But after that, Plato has forebearers. He has people who think before him, who talk before him, who have created Athens before him. So we have this wonderful figure of Jonathan Pugh, his majesty's surveyor. His figure long dead, he actually, you know, he was a surveyor under the king. And he investigates his past, which is the past of the earlier Puritan settlers, to assemble the dossier, the embroidered A, and all the different documents about this scarlet letter. And then, the surveyor for the United States, which of course did not even exist when Jonathan Pugh was serving his Britannic majesty, uses that assembled past in order to explain our own day.