Summary:

In this episode, we go where no "serious" podcast should: the philosophy of the "Spank Bank." What starts as a high-brow attempt to link Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to pornography quickly devolves into a hilarious confession of male insecurity and confusion. We discuss the "fortress under siege" that is the teenage male brain, admit our total ignorance of the female experience, and prove once and for all that we have no idea what we're talking about. Come for the shadow puppets, stay for the awkward panic. It’s an unscripted, unfiltered, and deeply sweaty look at the "bro science" of desire—featuring a mansplaination of the female anatomy with 0% accuracy and 100% confidence. Please correct us.

Key Topics:

• The Disclaimer: Why we are sweating before we even start.
• The Philosophy of Smut: Was Plato's Allegory of the Cave just the first instance of "nerd porn"?
• Imagination vs. Reality: The lost art of the "Spank Bank" vs. the internet age.
• Confessions: The weirdest places we've ever "auditioned the hand puppets" (featuring: a friend's house and a high school bathroom).
• The Gender Gaps are Real.

Memorable Quotes:

• "The first porn was some guy looked at some bushes and thought they looked like titties."
• "I'm very nervous, I'm sweating."
• "Your fortress is being besieged."

Speaker 1: All right, I want to start this one off by saying that this is not just going to be about what we may or may not be touching ourselves to. This is not that sort of thing, okay? This is not that sort of pod. This is more general than that. Um, so yeah. I'm very nervous. I'm sweating.

Speaker 2: Oh, you're sweating about this?

Speaker 1: I'm sweating.

Speaker 2: Uh, I mean, today's topic is porn. Today's topic is pornography. Today's topic is the—uh, what is it to not get demonetized? Prawn? We gonna talk about Prawn?

Speaker 1: Corn? Prawn? Yeah.

Speaker 2: Every time I see Prawn, I think of Prom. And I'm like, why are we talking about Prom? I'm 40. Like, I don't want to—I don't want to talk about Prom.

Speaker 1: I think of prawn fish, you know, with a 'W'. And an 'A'. I think of prawns.

Speaker 2: What? [Laughs]

Speaker 1: Mm. Don't like those very much.

Speaker 2: I think Piranhas. I think, you know, I don't want to get in that river. There's flesh-eating animals in there.

Speaker 1: Dude. Put some boobies on a piranha. Damn, we're working.

Speaker 2: I mean, there's a movie about it, right?

Speaker 1: Dude, they'd hang so low because the fi—it's just a fish and he's just in the water. Just hang straight down.

Speaker 2: Unless it would cover up their eyes... Let me do a callback. Let me do a callback. Dungeons & Dragons, I think at one point were thought of as nerd porn, you know? So...

Speaker 1: You can't tell me that there weren't nerds pleasuring themselves to the pictures in a Dungeons & Dragons book. There were some hot elves in there and I'm old enough to admit it now. You—you can't tell me that there's not people pleasuring themselves to Baldur's Gate 3 character pictures or whatever. Like you know they're like, "Oh my god, like, Karlach, you're so hot." You—you know that's happening, especially with younger kids.

Speaker 2: Using the ChatGippity to—to pro—to make a—to make like a Baldur's Gate 3...

Speaker 1: Fuck off. Fuck off with ChatGippity. Bro, it is too early for you to be saying ChatGippity. Fuck off. Dude, I'm about to wake my wife up, dude. Holy shit.

Speaker 2: Be like, "Baldur's—Baldur's Gate—Baldur's Gate 3 porno image." I bet that there's—I bet that that's probably a thing that's happened, right? That's probably a thing.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I wonder if they have stats. And like the moment that game came out they're just like, "Pump Baldur's Gate 3 Prawn. Baldur's Gate 3 Porn. Oh my god, it's getting 1 million searches a day. What do we do? These elves are too hot."

Speaker 2: Dude, what do you think—what do you think came first? People selling their bodies for sex? Or pictures of—pictures of sex?

Speaker 1: Pictures. You want to know why? Because pictures don't require another human. Or like, consent or any of that stuff. So like, the first horny caveman who was like... Like before there was the concept of money, a horny caveman could draw like, boob on a wall and then just be like... It's better than nothing.

Speaker 2: I—I just got this crazy visual of like, you know that—what's that parable about the Cave of Shadows where the guy's chained up and he's just looking at the shadows of like real life and he's not looking at the real—real life thing or whatever?

Speaker 1: Is it Socrates, Plato, or something like that? Yeah. I know what you mean. The parable of the cave, I think it's called. Yeah. Like a guy holds up his hand and there's a light making shadow puppets on the wall. And the guy watching—only sees that, so he thinks that's reality. Which is fucking crazy. But go ahead. Just for our listeners.

Speaker 2: So that's—that's the first porn, right? So dude was like looking at a sha—was looking at a cave...

Speaker 1: Shadow puppet porn.

Speaker 2: Dude, these puppets are fucking hard, dude.

Speaker 1: He was like nine days, you know, it was like dead of winter. He was in a cave. He was... the flames were going. And he's looking at the shadows. He's like, "Oh, dude, boobs. Boobs! BOOBS!"

Speaker 1: Probably the first porn was some guy looked at some bushes and he thought they looked like titties or something. And he was like, "Dude, I'm fucking—I'm rock hard. Oh my god." Could you imagine how horny you'd be as a caveman? Literally no concept of anything to distract you from your horniness? And no—no pornography, dude. Nothing, nothing to just release that. You'd be so horny, dude.

Speaker 2: I—I mean, I'm just saying I feel like—I feel like—I feel like the—the selling of self or whatever, the selling for sex, came before the porn. Because I feel like porn—well I guess, I mean images in your brain, I guess do you define that as porn? Like—like Spank Bank? Like do you—do you find like your Spank Bank as porn? Or do you—or do you define the Spank Bank as like just a form of like your inner self?

Speaker 1: Oh, I knew this was going to be a very sleazy episode, but Spank Bank... I completely forgot that term. You've resurrected it in my brain, dude. It's so slea—Spank Bank. I'm putting that in my Spank Bank. It's like... so sleazy, dude. Um, yeah, dude, that counts as—that counts as pornography to me. You're just recounting earlier events, you know, in any way, I think. Is like pornography, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Recounting earlier events in a sexual way. So sexualizing history is—is pornography. That's what you're saying.

Speaker 1: Is that a—is that a generalization that could probably be taken into a different context and seem worse? Yeah, sure. But whatever. Let's just go with that.

Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just—what I think why I'm asking that is—is I'm leading it down the idea that like, sure, like porn is not necessarily the most healthy thing on the planet, right? It's not... like you can become chronically addicted to porn. Porn addiction is real. If you feel like you're masturbating multiple times a day—listeners by the way—you probably should go to talk therapy. Just saying.

Speaker 1: Also if you're gooning for, let's say, I don't know, 30 minutes to an hour plus?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean...

Speaker 1: You know. That's probably like not healthy, right? Like... as with most addictions, get help. It's fine.

Speaker 2: You can break it.

Speaker 1: You can break it.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you can break it.

Speaker 1: Keep that in mind. You can break it.

Speaker 2: But what I'm saying is like, I feel like your definition, as broad as it is or as general as it is, kind of I feel like takes the—the ickiness off of it a little bit? Because we all kind of sexualize things from time to time—especially dudes. Dudes, I mean it's every—for—at one point in my life, I swear it was like every three to five seconds. Every—like every—all the time.

Speaker 1: When you're at peak young man horniness? Yeah. You're just—all the time.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It was like blade of grass? WHAT?! Like...

Speaker 1: Oh my god, it feels so good on my skin.

Speaker 2: It was just—it was everything, man. It was like—it was everything. And that's... but uh, but then you're told it's not good, right? You're told you gotta like repress that shit, you know? And uh, then—then it comes out in nasty ways. But, what I'm saying is like, having a Spank Bank is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not—not necessarily a bad thing. It's—it's when it's overused. It's when you're always withdrawing from the bank, man. That's when—that's to me where porn—the—the line of porn actually, you know, goes off the cliff pretty quickly. And becomes sleazy. Becomes sleazy. You know, when you're looking at—when you're looking at squirrels and smurfs getting it on together in a—in a combination of like whatever... that's... I think you've gone too far.

Speaker 1: If you've watched so much pornography that you need to look at weird stuff to get off, then um... yeah. You know, if you're doing that, just—just go back to normal stuff. And just check that you still got those wires firmly attached. They're not too crossed. Go back to normal for like a week. You know, maybe start there before you talk to a therapist or whatever. Just go—just just normal. Nothing else. Um, what's the weirdest place you've ever um... tickled your pickle?

Speaker 2: Weirdest place? Weirdest place I've ever tickled my pickle? Um... I mean, am I really saying this right now? Like did you just ask me that question? Are you going to respond—are you going to reciprocate? Are you going to tell your story?

Speaker 1: I'll go first. High school bathroom.

Speaker 2: High school bathroom?

Speaker 1: High school bathroom. It was a very horny day.

Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. I—my weirdest place was uh... a... uh... another person's house.

Speaker 1: I don't think I ever did that. Dude, that is bad ass. All right, what room in the house? Then I won't pry anymore. Was it the bathroom?

Speaker 2: It was bat—it was bath—

Speaker 1: Okay, cool. So you're not a complete savage. Okay. Good call.

Speaker 2: No, it was living—it was living room! I was naked! My butthole touching the couch cushions! And I was just splayed out! Uh, we should put a ward in... No one was home! It was—no one was home for 45 minutes and I was like, well I got nothing else to do.

Speaker 1: It's a great time killer. Great time killer.

Speaker 2: It is the worst time killer actually. It's the—it is the worst time killer.

Speaker 1: Oh, time killer... Okay. Great, I mean like it's good at killing time, but I mean killing time... maybe not generally the best thing. And that's the great thing about our current age is you could be doing something productive at literally any moment. And that's not also breaking our brains... constantly trying to do something useful. You know? Maybe sometimes it's good for you to just enjoy a 45-minute jerk sesh. You know? Just hanging out. Maybe that's fine—maybe that's a good rel—that's good relaxation.

Speaker 2: Hey. Hey. We gotta—look—look, we gotta—we also gotta—to—to if we're gonna say jerk sesh, we've gotta also say flick the bean for the ladies. Cause it—you know, you—you've gotta—you've gotta go both sides of the coin. There's no jerk sesh for the ladies, you know, so...

Speaker 1: I'm glad you've been um... you've brought that up. Cause I've been meaning to come back around to the ladies at some point. You know, I feel like—are the rules different for them? Cause I—if you're—if you're flicking the—you're flicking the bean... if you're flicking for like longer than a—than a dude would, you know, do his—his thing... I feel like that's—that makes more sense. You know?

Speaker 2: So wait, so you think there's—there's like a—like the rules being different like how so? Like what do you mean?

Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I said that and I immediately feel out of my depth. So... I'm good.

Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. Is it—is it—well, I mean they... I believe that women certainly think about sex very differently. And—and when—when they are...

Speaker 1: If only we had a woman's perspective right now. That'd be awesome. Just two guys speculating on how women think. Their brains are inscrutable.

Speaker 2: Women are from Venus, right?

Speaker 1: What—how do they think? It's almost like neither of us have ever touched a woman before.

Speaker 2: Well I think it's a safety thing. I think there's a safety element to their... like they've got to be super vulnerable. Right? We can like stick it into a hole and like, Bob's your uncle, right? Like we're not... we're not... but they've got to... there's like a whole like... we had to build a ceremony around it almost, right? I mean... that—to me, their—um—their pleasure is very, very different... constr—the architecture of it is all very different. Um... so I think because of that I think they have like a different—they—they evolved differently in how they get horny. Uh... and I mean I think also their chemical—their chemical cycles I think also probably play a part in that—that level of horniness also. So...

Speaker 1: I wonder why—why it's universally accepted that dudes self-please. Um, and it's—it's almost a little weird if a guy says like, "No, I never done that." Cause it's just like, well you're lying or you're a psychopath. Because how do you—how do you survive?

Speaker 2: That's appealing to my brain.

Speaker 1: Exactly. Um... how—how did you survive being horny these years without, you know, you just like... where do you put that energy? Anyway. But for—but for women it's like the opposite. If—if a woman does... is like, "I—I do my own thing." First of all, it's like, wow, so brave. That you told the truth about that. First of all. You must be trying to brag or you think that's cool or something. More power to you. But uh... and then you think about all the women—you just assume they don't.

Speaker 2: Yeah, you—you make that assump—you—you assume that women do not—do not pleasure themselves. That's—that's—you lead with—you lead with no pleasure.

Speaker 1: I assume they're not... I know many do, but I don't immediately assume that they would.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I think—and here's—here's um, a another concept with no data backing it, enforced by just popular media. Do women do that more when they get older? Is that a thing? God, I wish we had a woman on this podcast.

Speaker 2: Here's—here's what I'll say—here's what I say I believe. Here's what I say I believe about it. I think that when men—when men—when it strikes the man... first of all, it happens way all more often. And so I think for us it's just constantly pounding us. Like... oh, that sounds so bad because we're talking about porn. It's pounding us constantly. And so we go, "I've got to get rid of this." It's—like this is—like this—I've got to go find a place, right? I think that it hits women not so regularly... and I think they're able to kind of beat it down quicker because they're like, "Yo, like, I'm in Target right now. I mean I'm horny, but I'm in Target. I'm not gonna like pleasure myself in Target. Like, I've got to go get curtains."

Speaker 1: They gotta be wine and dined a little more. They need a good setting. You know.

Speaker 2: I mean it—like I said, it's that vulnerability part of it. I think for women there's like a—there's an increased sense of vulnerability with—with the pleasure. Of things. And they've got to get like... they've got to be like... in a certain zone. You know? They got to get—they got to get into a zo-o-one. You know they got to... like you said, that wine and dine kind of thing. They got to feel safe. They got to be—they got to be in a place where they don't feel the judgment and the shame of... being, you know, pleasured. As we will say. But with men it's like, "Yo, like... I've—I've thought about masturbating a billion times in—since—since breakfast. I've got to go—I've got to go handle this." And it's a quick like, "I'm gonna go take a hot shower, I'm gonna put some soap on my hand, and I'm gonna ge—I'm gonna get it done. I'm just gonna get it done. And I got something in my Spank Bank that I've been holding on for like the last three weeks... I'm gonna take that—I'm gonna take that deposit, I'm gonna withdraw it, and I'm gonna handle my business."

Speaker 1: Okay. If any woman has somehow not only clicked on this podcast and listened this far through our ignorant ramblings... um... please educate us. And also just know—just know, by the way... as a woman who may or may not have experienced this, but as a dude... there is a level of horniness that can ruin your day. That can totally destroy your focus, your mental... make—ruin everything. You're just that—you're just that horny. You just can't think about anything else. So all...

Speaker 2: Your fortress is being besieged.

Speaker 1: That was my high school bathroom. You know. I—I did it for my—I did it for, you know, staying productive.

Speaker 2: You did it for the greater good of the—of the—of the land. You...

Speaker 1: I did it for the greater good. Of the whole school.

Speaker 2: There's a couple things I want to... First of all, if you are a woman you're listening this far, go back and listen to our female bal—baldness episode too because we need your comments about that also. We—we need your comments actually about a lot of our episodes because we're just men. We're—as—as you know, we're not... we're not the same as you. And so we need your... we need your perspective. We need your perspective.

Speaker 1: We're fumbling around in fucking Pythagoras's cave or Socrates's shadow puppets or whatever.

Speaker 2: The second thing I want to comment on is, yes. If a man—if a man says they've never pleasured themselves and they are now like 35 or whatever... they're definitely killing people. They're definitely killing people or they're... or they're child molesters. There's—there's—that's the only two categories. So...

Speaker 1: Never trust a guy who—who says "I don't—I don't—I don't self-pleasure ever." I wouldn't trust that—I wouldn't trust that guy as another guy, honestly.

Speaker 2: No. No. I would—I would immediately cast them out.

Speaker 1: I would just be like, "What is wrong chemically in your mind if you don't ever—if you've never felt that in your entire life?" Like... high school? How have you not... how have you not like... been that... that horned up, dude? How have you n—how have you not?

Speaker 2: Are you an alien?

Speaker 1: And that's my—that's my final word.