transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:03] Girl, girl, it's time, I'm Saeed Jones, and I'm Zach Stafford, and you're listening to Vibe Check. And today's episode is all about the body politic. And we throw that term around a lot. I studied feminist and gender studies in college, it's my bread and butter, and the term the body politic is very broad, and can be used and deployed against a lot of things. But today we're using it quite literally to talk about the body and the summer body, because Saeed Jones and I have noticed, as we've entered the summer months, they're approaching the horizon. It's begun, and your social media feeds are all about asking that question, is your body ready for the summer? And we're like, all bodies are ready for the summer. What are we talking about, y'all? What's happening? What's happening? But it does point to a larger phenomenon, which is Trump hasn't just hijacked our lives in the new cycle, but his fascist regime has hijacked the culture around bodies. I'm going to argue today. In that, we're asking this question, is the larger culture around dieting now becoming fascist? And what that means for all of us. So that's today's conversation, body politic and what it means for all of us and what we're all actually consuming as we're looking online.

Speaker 2:
[01:20] Yeah, and we're gonna break it down into a couple of aspects. We're first gonna talk about, yeah, I mean, the dieting, the obsession over control and conformity that absolutely feels connected to fascist politics and regiment, control, control, control, obey, obey, obey. And then also, you know, it's the end of April, it's starting to warm up. And I thought this would be a good time for Zach and I to have a conversation around the body anxieties of summer as gay men specifically. And it's funny, but not funny. Ha ha that like last night, as we were texting back and forth and sharing thoughts and articles as I am want to do, you know, I love an Instagram story, which are my magazines. I realized that Instagram stories to me are like paging through magazines, you know, because they do feel kind of thematic. Anyway, I was going through and right as I was waiting for a reply from Zach, some, you know, male influencer, I think he lives in Spain, posted an Instagram story that was like POV, gay men getting ready for summer. And it was like a woman, the meme was like a woman crying as she was eating a salad, you know, and I was like, damn. Like, I was like, like Zach, it literally just showed up. I did search for this.

Speaker 1:
[02:46] It is that the AI bots on the algorithms are listening to all of our conversations because I started getting this too, where I'll get memes of like a guy working out and he's usually doing like a lunge. And it will say, you have 90 days to change your life, or you now have 45 days to change your life. And it's like, you're always, there's always this horizon event to change your life, which means that like, you're never gonna get there, but they want you to the point you're making under a fascist ideology that you always should be regimented. You're always needing to conform to something. But what is that something? Why are we all living under that?

Speaker 2:
[03:20] Absolutely. And I mean, you know, I know, I mean, it's the algorithm. And lately, Mark Zuckerberg is living in court right now because of the lawsuits and the decisions that are coming on. I mean, he's rightfully finally getting his ass handed to him in terms of how Metta has been really endangering children. And I would argue endangering all of us in terms of the content it feeds us around bodies and sex and everything like that. But also, part of the reason we're seeing all this content, you know, particularly as gay men, is that we are all sharing it, that we are talking about it. So, you know, it ends up being a feedback loop. And, you know, recently Zach and I did an episode about the Manosphere that was very much focused on, you know, straight white bros and all of this. And I think this conversation a few weeks later is now kind of like the rest of us. The sphere that the rest of us are in. Like, we're not, you know, trying to be like grifters and taking advantage of, you know what I mean? But it's like, but shit ain't sweet over here either.

Speaker 1:
[04:24] Yeah, and it's so much, and we'll talk about this as we get to the episode, I was visiting some podcast by some feminist scholars I really look up to and I really like listening to. And there's so much baked in to how we feel about our bodies existing within these structures that we don't realize. Even how we measure our bodies, you know, ideas around BMI are deeply racist, deeply problematic. And you don't even realize how you look at your, your MyChart when you go to the doctor, the literal scales that were built weren't even designed for bodies like ours. And yet we've been told these were normalized, you should think that an X number is healthy, but none of that was ever built with you in mind. So what's it like to move the world that was never designed for you and then feel the weight of that on you at all times? So we're going to get into all of that, because the world's being shaped around you without you being considered. And it's tough. And you're feeling it in summer is where it becomes really acute that you're not being thought of.

Speaker 2:
[05:16] Absolutely. Well, before we jump into this episode, we of course want to thank all of you who continue to listen to the show. Don't forget, you can email us anytime at vibecheck.stitcher.com. And of course, a special shout out to those of you who are subscribed to our Patreon. If you want to join the group chat, you can find us at patreon.com/vibecheck. But for now, let's jump in, shall we?

Speaker 1:
[05:37] Let's do it. All right, listeners, let's talk about bodies, and food, and fascism, and how they're all part of the same conversation right now. So, as we alluded before, today's thesis is really all about one thing, and I want to be really clear before we get into it. I'm gonna argue in this segment that we are currently watching a new gender paradigm really emerge in America in real time. And that paradigm is this. Thinness is for women, and muscle is for men. And those two ideals, which have always existed. So as you heard that, yes, we've all lived in a world where those two things have been held very closely by American, white Americans especially. But this administration has begun codifying that politically, legally in ways that are really extreme and very acute. And we're gonna talk about them explicitly because I forgot until we begin prepping for this episode that Hegseth and Trump are very clear about what they think bodies should look like in ways that no other president has ever been. But currently, they are trying to concretize using thinness and muscles to reiterate what we'll argue is the gender binary. Because they think gender is only two things. And as Saeed already said before, when we see this obsession from a government about how you should show up in the world, the word to use here is fascism. So this is body fascism. So what really kicked off this conversation for us internally was that Saeed found an article from The Nation, which was titled, Is Your Diet a Little Bit Fascist? We as a show are always thinking about bodies and culture and we're always really sensitive about how we talk about it. Which is tough because we all exist in this culture and we know how hard it is to discuss it, but we want to talk about it in a real way today. So Saeed, what was it about this title, this article that lit up for you wanting to bring it up today? Because I know why it lit up for me right now.

Speaker 2:
[07:30] Absolutely. So that article was written by Amber Hussain. It is a glimpse into a book that I recently had a conversation with her about here in Boston titled Tell Me How You Eat, Food, Power, and the Will to Live. And I highly recommend the book. She goes into really the history of food and, you know, the title of you is kind of a flip on you are what you eat. And so like, you know, you are how you eat, you know, and the idea that eating and diets are very much connected to moral and philosophical ideas and class ideas. And the thing about dieting that feels relevant here is to me, there's a twofold dynamic in which I think most of us to varying extent, let's say, self-regulate our bodies. We look in the mirrors, we try on clothes, we see how we feel when we're eating and we're not eating, and make decisions about how we feel we should look and appear. You know, and we make decisions and we have feelings. You know, you go to put on a shirt you love, and then you look in the mirror and it's not fitting the way it used to or the way you hoped it would. You are at a swimming pool, as we're going to be talking about later, and you're looking around and you're comparing your body. So this kind of like internal voice that can go into overdrive, that can go from, I think, being a joyful celebration, I love how I look, I love how I feel, or ooh, okay, feeling a little sore, maybe I should stretch more, maybe I should go for a walk, to an obsessive, you know, cruel self-bullying. And then on the other side, of course, you know, hopefully that this isn't happening interpersonally, but certainly when we're young, we get teased, it's certainly not unusual when we're young, and quite frankly, when we're adults, you know, I remember showing up for a family reunion once and this is years ago, and I still think about it, a family member that I hadn't seen in a while and just knew that I was a writer and teacher, patted me on the stomach and said, you must be doing well as a writer. You got the stomach to prove it. You know, so you're getting feedback to put it as an understatement from others. And then of course, you're waiting in line at the grocery store and you're seeing the magazines, you're seeing the films, you're seeing, Zach was talking recently about actors like Margot Roby being cast, you know, in impossible roles, you know, Barbie. And you're like, what? You know what I mean? And so what happens, and then to say nothing of the fact that the President of the United States has bragged about grabbing and assaulting women's bodies, the way he talks about his own daughters, the way he, you know, ran a beauty pageant, you know? And then you have people like Pete Hegseth doing push-ups or trying to, you know what I mean? So you just end up in this, sorry, that was a lot, but in short, you find yourself in an echo chamber of everyone, including yourself, telling you that your body is not doing or looking how it's supposed to look.

Speaker 1:
[10:50] Yeah, exactly. And I love that you bring up the word morality, because when you look at the history of BMI and why it was constructed, you know, a lot of these measurements were constructed for white people to feel superior to blackness at large globally. You know, it was a way for white women to look at black women and say, well, because I have a smaller build at scale than a black woman's body, I'm better because I don't overeat or I require more food. I'm better for the home because I don't need as much, so I'm not as excessive. Thus, I don't require as much capital of food or I'm not as a burden on the home, so I'm a better fit for the family. There's all these connections between the burden of your body on to the household structure and how much money is required to feed the family and all those constructions. It's really fucked up and problematic, to say the least. But this idea of how the body fits into society in the shape of that body and its role has become a huge obsession for the Trump administration, and it's trickled into how our government actually functions in a way that's never really happened before. And I want to point to two examples that really shook me. So Pete Hegseth earlier this year called a big meeting in Virginia, specifically, I believe. We all remember this because people thought World War III was kicking off because every high-level general was summoned to a meeting. Do you remember the site? Like all these generals were flying in, everyone's like, what's happening? Why are all these people coming?

Speaker 2:
[12:17] Well, I did not think it was World War III, but as you know, I do not obsess over nuclear war. You do, but I remember being like, that can't be good.

Speaker 1:
[12:27] What's happening? Everyone was like, what's happening here? Okay, so people like me were like, why are they all flying there? And I remember saying to some-

Speaker 2:
[12:33] Whatever it was, we were like, what's up?

Speaker 1:
[12:34] What's going on? I did argue, it's like, there's no way there's like a bomb dropping because why would they all be in the same place? So anyway, I was like, this is a lot happening. But this meeting was for Pete Hexeth to pull all the highest ranking generals.

Speaker 2:
[12:45] To body shame them.

Speaker 1:
[12:46] And body shame them. He said, y'all are too fat, y'all are too feminine. Y'all need to start doing pushups. You need to start training more. We need to look like warriors. We need to look like men. Trump at the same time also instituted a change to our immigration policy, which I had forgotten about, where he said, you cannot be obese or overweight or a larger body person and enter our country. We changed our policies for larger body people could not get visa or immigration privileges into our country. So we were saying as a country, dependent on your size, you can enter our country. Saeed, what is that? Just think about that. Citizenship is tied to how your body looks. That is how it's always been, but it's always been about race. What do you make of that? Is that how our physicality looks?

Speaker 2:
[13:33] Oh, it's not just about race. I mean, it's too complicated for me to search it right now, but I was reading recently, and at least until the 60s, maybe later, homosexuality was considered grounds for someone to be deported because it was considered a severe mental illness. I think what's happening is related to trans and non-binary people. Because again, this fascism, this obsession, to the point that different states and different lawmakers have tried to pass legislation in which children, athletes are supposed to have their bodies, like genitals, searched, right, to prove a certain gender sex marker. And then, yeah, the military, at the same time, what does it mean when this man who's like body shaming the men is also trying to dismantle the mechanisms to investigate sexual assault in the military and to make it less safe for women and queer people in the military? It's the drag nets getting closer. So trans, non-binary people, women, and then even people who conform to those binaries, women thin, men muscley, you're not muscley enough, you're not thin enough, you should actually be more blonde. You notice all these Republican women have a look. Look at Nicki Minaj.

Speaker 1:
[14:59] Mar-a-Lago face.

Speaker 2:
[15:00] Yeah, at the moment, Nicki Minaj kind of, you know, decided that she was going to try to be in the group chat with Erika Kirk, you know, her aesthetic really began to reflect that. And you're always talking about how you see that in the kind of different housewife. So again, white supremacy is a pyramid scheme. None of us are going to win. None of us win. And so even if right now you are safe, mark yourself safe from white supremacy, that won't be true in a few months or a few years. And so I think, yeah, we're just seeing it get skinnier and skinnier. And of course, you know, Trump himself doesn't pass any of that.

Speaker 1:
[15:40] And he's currently trying to get skinnier.

Speaker 2:
[15:42] His body is being held together with duct tape and glue.

Speaker 1:
[15:45] Yeah, exactly. Which is, you know, the comparison there is Adolf Hitler also didn't fit the ideals he put forth in his movement, which was his own cult. And you know, as we get into this segment, you know, we can track this, this is not new, everybody. With every fascist movement, you know, whether it was the Nazis, they had as Hitler. Hitler did not look like the people he wanted to have power, but he projected that onto them and said, everyone look blonde, be fit, be this way, and blue eyes. And we will, you know, he massacred people to make those ideals fit in his society. But in the wake of that, he launched organic farms, similar to the maha movement, to make the society fit to that organic eating. Mussolini did the same. They were obsessed with the masculine body in Italy. So they launched a poppers diet of local vegetables and forced people to eat local root vegetables and all that, similar to what RFK Jr. is doing. We see this throughout history. Whenever fascism happens, we see a maha fascist diet erupt. And even in our own country, in the Cold War, the President's Council launched a youth fitness program in America, where they were trying to get people fit. So this is like a constant beat of the drum.

Speaker 2:
[16:52] I do feel we would be remiss to not ask, how do or do ozempic and Wacov and other drugs, how do they fit into this? Do they?

Speaker 1:
[17:04] They do. I think President Trump, as he's launched Trump Care, I believe what he's calling it, it is not a coincidence that he has made that the focus has access to health care, which isn't a 360 health care program. He is just making the generic versions of those drugs cheaper at scale so that you can get on them, which means all the other aspects of taking them, which there are many side effects, you're not getting wraparound care for. So you're not getting full health care by getting on these.

Speaker 2:
[17:31] I haven't heard about this program.

Speaker 1:
[17:33] So TrumpRx is actually what the technical term is, but online they can show you how to get reduced pharmaceutical access for certain drugs. So like GLP-1's are one and there's a few other things. So he's made it a big focus of his that being skinny is his big policy. That's one of his big focal points. And so this is a part of their hope is that the aesthetics of fascism, like everyone will be skinny and beautiful and thus you'll be successful and thus you'll have value in this marketplace. But they're not taking care of the full body because as we know, being thin is just part one of this. If it's about class access, it's about all these other aspects of it. It's kind of like the Nicki Minaj effect. Nicki Minaj may be able to put on a blonde wig and go sit there, but she's never going to be them. They're still not giving her immigration status.

Speaker 2:
[18:17] Well, and we talked about this. It sounds similar to those poor young women on America's Next Top Model, right? Who I'm thinking the contestant who got, they had to get dental surgery, but it was all aesthetic and it didn't actually make her teeth better. And that feels like a metaphor for fascism. It actually doesn't want people to be healthy. It doesn't want people to be happy and to have better sense of self-worth. It wants them to look conformist.

Speaker 1:
[18:45] Exactly. And that's where I do think GLP-1s have a place in our society today for people that want it. People deserve gender-affirming care, whatever it looks like. But when the government is creating policies at the citizenship level, that's all about thinness is required to be able to access our country. And then they're saying, we don't want to give you access to all these other cancer medicines or anything, but you get a GLP-1. This is all about aesthetics. It's about the performance of taking care of you without any of the other work. And we should all be suspicious of all of this because it is all a way just to control your body and not actually set you free. And that is what the problem is with these diet cultures that the government's rolling out right now. So, should we take a break? Let's take a break. Summer fun?

Speaker 2:
[19:31] All right.

Speaker 1:
[19:32] Well, let's take a quick break, but stay tuned. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about summertime and things that come with that. Don't go anywhere.

Speaker 2:
[19:49] All right, and we are back. Especially since summer is coming up, we wanted to talk about another aspect of this body conversation, which is the anxiety that comes with summertime, especially for the two of us as gay men. Though it's probably fair to say that all kinds of people and bodies feel some kind of way about the summer months, practically speaking. But I wanted to start here, Zach, personally. Have you ever had a moment going into or during summer where a gay male friend of yours openly frets, one on one, I'm not talking about social media, like in conversation, right? Frets about body insecurities in some way. Not glib, not fishing for compliments, like someone really opens up, you know? I'm supposed to be going to this pool party, and I just don't look great, or, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know if I should accept this invitation to da-da-da-da-da, because... And all you can think is, but you look so much better than me.

Speaker 1:
[20:50] Oh, my God. I did not know you were going there with this question. Wait! Oh, my God. As you began this question, I was like, yeah, all the time, all the time, all the time. And then this last part, yes, all the time.

Speaker 2:
[21:04] And I will say it same.

Speaker 1:
[21:06] Yes, all the time. Yes, I'm continually astounded by the minefields in which I find myself in talking to other gay men when we reflect on our bodies. I will look at people in my life and think they are the most beautiful people. They have everything. They have so much going on. They look so desirable. They should be the belle of the ball. And I see them as the belle of the ball. I see how people look at them, but how they look at themselves and how we look at ourselves is night and day, night and day. And it makes me so sad. We just don't see what others see when we look in them. And I, you know, I'm very open about it. I began battling disordered eating at like 11, 12. So I've always had a distorted mirror. So I've always assumed like what I see is not what, you know, others see in both good and bad ways. I've been diagnosed, you know, I've been in therapy for that for my whole life. But I remember when I started talking about it publicly as a writer, my early twenties, gay men would come up to me at bars in Chicago, crying and saying they had never been diagnosed. And they would say, I didn't know this was a problem. I thought this was just how people thought about themselves. They thought it was completely the way gay life just was it is. So yes, same as your question, all the time and it breaks my heart that I think most gay men, cisgender, speaking as two gay cisgender men, I think we think this is just how you move through the world. What about you?

Speaker 2:
[22:33] Yeah, I can't remember the exact statistic, but I was reading recently that there was a survey among gay men that asked them, would you give up 10 to 11 years of your life, like your life expectancy, if you could have the ideal body? And most of the men said they would. I'm grown enough and I've done enough work. I can deal with the pop culture stuff. You know what I mean? Like the superhero workouts and the actors and celebrities, the influencers. I can even deal with, as a black gay man who's not skinny, to a certain extent, I've gotten okay with being in rooms, on dance floors, at parties, at networking events. And you look around and it's just like, Jesus, everyone in this room looks like a god. Like what's going on? We're not even at like a modeling convention. Why is every man in this room? So I can deal with that. I can even deal with the gay mean girls. And you know the look, you know, you're immediately evaluated and they don't. Or what happened once I was in Fire Island, walking with some friends, and I noticed how frequent it was that with men of color, with other groups, were going in two different directions. They would only smile and acknowledge the white men in my group. They would not nod or say hello to me. I can deal with that. None of it's great. But what fucks me up is like what you like, where we're talking about that moment where someone you're like, you know, you particularly like platonically, you're like, oh my God, you know what I mean? You're great. You're like, how could you? And then you realize how sad they are. And you realize that it's like, one, you're like, well damn, if you feel that way about yourself, what do you think about me?

Speaker 1:
[24:36] Uh-oh.

Speaker 2:
[24:37] Uh-oh. You know, if you're being that cruel to yourself, and I'm putting us on a hierarchy, and I think you're up, then how far down am I? Even though you're not saying it. And then you just realize, and I've talked with the therapists about it, it's a bit of a like, what's it called? Like the Jacob's Ladder. That ladder that just goes up and up and up and up forever. And you're never there. And it just really, even when we have a sense, a realistic sense, I think of our positionality, it can kind of break your heart, I think.

Speaker 1:
[25:10] Yeah. And also, just to, we're gonna get real today on this, that scene you just described, the walking down the boardwalk in a queer space. So for folks listening, and I would say most of our listeners aren't black queer people. But for this particular experience, you're on a boardwalk, other gay men are there, everyone's looking at each other, sizing each other up, are you desirable or you're not? Is your boyfriend desirable or are they not? There's a bunch of like ranking happening. And black queer men, if you're traveling in groups of mixed races of people ethnicities, there is the like, okay, you're the black friend with a group of non-black people. How hot are you? How hard are your friends? Are you sleeping with these people? If you are sleeping with someone that's really attractive or if your partner's really hot, then there's like a sense of competition. So like, if you aren't as hot as the other black person that's walking down the boardwalk, then there's this like, well, how do they get them? Why aren't they? I have to do all this work to look like this, the access. Well, how did you get that? Well, are they famous? Do they have this? So there's this like immediate sense of like, the body becomes a site of competition and people feel all of this baggage and these histories kind of hitting head on in those moments. And everyone's left with like, what is going on? Why are we feeling so much against each other, pressing up against each other? And I'm not a white gay man. I don't know how they deal with each other, but as black queer people, I feel in those moments so much coming at each other that it just breaks my heart. Because to your point, I'm like, why are we such adversaries in this moment? And why don't we love each other enough? And why do we feel like we're looking at a Jacob's ladder when we're standing at each other?

Speaker 2:
[26:46] Yeah, it's so interesting because we rightfully drag straight men on here. We critique and will continue to critique misogyny, misogynoir, and the manosphere and all of that. But it is really interesting. I mean, one of the reasons one of my favorite Toni Morrison novels is Paradise is because it's the story of this all black town. And they're so proud of themselves, rightfully so, in mid 20th century, this all black town in Oklahoma for removing themselves from the context of white violence. But all hell is still breaking loose. And a lot of it is around gender and misogyny and class. And so, who are you when white people aren't in the room? Who are you when straight men aren't in the room? What is then revealed? And it can be bracing. And I want to read an excerpt from an article that you sent to me last night. It's by Mark Harris, wonderful Mark Harris. Wrote this for the New York Times in 2014. The title is, gay men have long been obsessed with their muscles, now everyone is, which is true. He writes, for gay men of all ages, types, statuses and lifestyles, body image remains such a fraught, weird, private, painful subject that even among friends who talk about everything, it's often off limits for discussion. Officially, we're all supposed to look fantastic while not caring, get caught peering in the mirror too closely, and you'll be called vain. Fail to look closely enough, and you risk an even harsher judgment. And I'll just add that straight people do play into this too, because I feel like one of the stereotypes, you know, and this is like, there's a name for this, like a positive stereotype. Is, gay men are in great shape and all look beautiful.

Speaker 1:
[28:40] Yeah, like they'll say, they'll look at a man and be like, if he's like over 30 and attractive and single, they'll say, he takes care of his skin. Yeah, they'll be like, gay or divorce? And you're like, yeah, why? Yeah, it does, it does feel, you know, there is, and I blame, you know, Will and Grace and our representation of the early 2000s that said we had to have it all. And you know, and I do think that the gay male body is a site of a lot of trauma. You know, growing up, where I grew up, I was seen as inherently feminine. I was friends with mostly women.

Speaker 2:
[29:14] Yeah, and I mean, femme versus masque is also a part of this body.

Speaker 1:
[29:18] Exactly, so then there, you know, our relationship to the gym was very complicated. You know, I remember the first time I started learning how to lift weights in college, my friend Devin took me because I was so nervous to go to gyms as a teenager because I thought they were super homophobic and they are homophobic, but I didn't have access to them. So I learned how to lift weights from my like, straight bro best friend in college who showed me how to navigate it and bless him to this day because he changed my life and I got more comfortable.

Speaker 2:
[29:41] That's funny. I did that in my mid-twenties with a personal trainer. I got like that. He was a former UFC fighter. He was the biggest guy in the gym.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] Yes, you guys find your guy.

Speaker 2:
[29:49] I literally just want to get more comfortable being in this space.

Speaker 1:
[29:53] You have to, so once we figured it out and you kind of like reclaim it and whatever, but you know, we, I think queer men have like really complicated relationships to the body because you were told that like, not only like is your body, you go through the awkward teenage phase of like, what's my body want? Oh, what it wants is not okay. It wants other bodies that look like mine. What does that mean? Will I face violence? What happens? Then you move to a city, you finally get to enjoy that. But then you're always comparing your body to a body that may look like yours. So there's always this kind of like feedback loop. And then we as gay men, you know, you look at the 90s, and I can never forget this fact, but when the AIDS epidemic ravaged our community, you know, the representation we had in popular media was of really emaciated folk, you know, because we were ravaged, quite literally. And the emergence of the bear community comes as a response to that representation. So, and the muscle queen. So both of these representations, the bear being a larger body person, was sometimes the belly, or the muscle queen that was really muscular, was a direct response to the over-representation of the dying body. So now when you go in these spaces, these are acts of political resistance, but those have become weapons against us now, as queer men that were children in those moments of resistance. And now they're being used as weapons against us. And I think it just, it's all so different.

Speaker 2:
[31:12] And we're living in the wake of that. And it's intense. And I think, you know, I mean, we could go on and on, and maybe we will in other episodes, but whether it's kids who grew up fat, or were told they were fat when they were little, and now they're in shape, and you know, and how that acts upon things, I think. Again, we've talked so much about control. Like, I think this goes with fascism too. I don't think everyone is, who is being tough on themselves, like with the dieting or whatever working out, it's because they want to conform to fascism. It's because it's like, it's a panicked reaction. Whether it's the person who they were like, you know, when I was kid, I was bullied, I was shoved in lockers, I was, you know, they were throwing slurs at me. So I developed this toughness. I decided to become even tougher than my daddy issues, you know, so to speak. Or, you know, recognizing the values of beauty and access. We can't act like being attractive does not create opportunities for people, casually or professionally. You know what I mean? Like it's a lot. And it's interesting just, I know it's time for us to wrap, but I realized, I was like, well, you and I co-created the show. Where we are the host of the show. And even still, I found myself kind of writing in apologies to specifically talk about gay men. In part because a lot of our listeners are not gay men, and I love that. But I was like, well, why are you? You know, like, shame is such a brilliant trickster because I think shame is very good at always giving you a viable reason not to talk about the very thing you need to talk about. You know, there will always be a reason. Shame will always have a reason for you, but this is important for us to talk about.

Speaker 1:
[32:59] And that's a good through line for this whole episode, which we've traversed many areas. But why food is so political in this moment today, beyond many obvious reasons, is that how you choose to survive this fascist moment tells you a lot about how you are going to exist within it. And I think how we are choosing to exist within the gay movement in 2026 that has survived so much says a lot about our own position within the movement. Same with people listening who are maybe living in Florida near Mar-a-Lago and thinking, should I get fillers? Should I look like the Mar-a-Lago face or should I not? Or people living in New York. I think how we choose to exist and show our bodies in space in the face of fascism says a lot about ourselves and how we politically move through it. So and that's why diet culture is a good canary in the coal mine for all of these things. And Trump knows that.

Speaker 2:
[33:49] And even as gay men, you know, I think I would like to think generally speaking, maybe we don't operate in misogynist practices the way a lot of straight men do, but that does not mean we are absolved. You know, some of the most sexist, transphobic, racist things I've ever heard or seen in my life have been said by cis gay men. And of course that masculinity is kicking all of our asses, no matter how we identify, right? And so, you know, this is some shit we've got to work on as well. Well, woo! Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about like summer plans? Is that what I'd be?

Speaker 1:
[34:31] Yeah, vibes are on, vibes are off, summer. Overthinking, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:47] All right, we are back. And before we end this conversation, we wanted to talk about how the vibes are on and off this coming summer, and then I'm gonna read a poem. Zach, you wanna get us started?

Speaker 1:
[34:58] I would love to. So my vibes are on this week with an aha, I'm hearing more and more from my friends.

Speaker 2:
[35:04] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[35:05] And that aha is that people are realizing that home has a lot of options for vacation. So a very close friend of mine, he recently went on a bachelor party that I did not go to, I was not invited, was a blessing, honestly. It was one of those gay bachelor parties where everyone was like a muscle queen. And I was like, girl, I can't go. I was like, Craig was like, you weren't invited. I said that was a blessing, girl. That was fully, I was not emotionally.

Speaker 2:
[35:33] And where did they go?

Speaker 1:
[35:35] Miami, I said, no offense to the earth, but there's a reason that place is sinking. If you've watched the Manosphere documentary, it's sinking.

Speaker 2:
[35:42] Let it go.

Speaker 1:
[35:43] Let go, let go, let go. So anyway, he said to me, you know, we could have done everything we did in Miami in Los Angeles. And I said, yes, Los Angeles is a beach town with access to an ocean. There's an island off the coast. You do whatever you want. So I think the vibes are on the summer with realizing that where you live may have amazing things to do locally. So check out what's great, that makes your place great. Do it, make your local home, the vacation you've always wanted elsewhere and like save some coin.

Speaker 2:
[36:14] Go to places you usually don't go to.

Speaker 1:
[36:15] Yeah, do that. And then the vibes are off. White people going to Brazil. I think Brazil looks wonderful. I would love to go. It looks incredible.

Speaker 2:
[36:25] I feel like I've missed the window though.

Speaker 1:
[36:26] Like, same. They got black people, they got black queer people.

Speaker 2:
[36:30] I wanna go to Bahia so bad.

Speaker 1:
[36:33] Same. I've been wanting to go to Brazil for years and it just seems so, so fun. And like, it just seems so fun. But let me tell you, the white gays I know that go there do not fuck with black and brown people in the United States. So I do not know what they're doing down there and why they take all their coins there. But the vibes aren't right. The vibes are not right.

Speaker 2:
[36:56] Let me tell you something.

Speaker 1:
[36:58] Tell me.

Speaker 2:
[36:59] Because I... I don't know if listeners know this, but if I were to ever live in the South again, I would live in New Orleans. I am not going to live in the South again. So, we are not in danger of that happening. But I spend a lot of time in New Orleans. I used to go there two or three times a year. And what I have noticed, and I notice this, frankly, every time I go to the South, is that there is a direct... And you actually see this even in surveys around pornography. There is, in fact, a direct correlation between anti-black racism and black fetishism. The number of times you can be walking down Bourbon Street... I'm just Bourbon Street for you. And this is about as basic as it gets. And you see those white... They're probably all pastors on their, like, spring break, going straight for the black women. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:50] Yeah. That's what Brazil's giving.

Speaker 2:
[37:52] That's what's going on in Brazil.

Speaker 1:
[37:53] It's giving that. Because, like, there's only one person I know. And if you listen to the show, I will say, you are not the one I'm talking about. I love you, sis. You're consistent here in America. But the rest of you and got one black friend at a dinner party, and yet, all up in Brazil twice a year. Don't know what you're doing, but it's not cute.

Speaker 2:
[38:12] Well, it's kind of, you know, I mean, okay, I mean, this is a whole... I mean, it's kind of that thing where it's like, we've had a black president. I wouldn't be surprised if we have another black president. Will we have an African-American president? Is America ready for that?

Speaker 1:
[38:28] Like, that's for another day.

Speaker 2:
[38:31] But the vibe's... Y'all want it with a twist.

Speaker 1:
[38:33] Yeah. Yeah, with a twist. White people running to Brazil to spin their little coins in Brazil. And I will never forget, remember we were in Mexico, I won't say this friend's name, but we were with a friend in Mexico who is Mexican. His family is very well connected to Mexico. And he said to us, he resented America because Mexico is just a colony to them. It is! It shook me. I had never heard someone say that. I was like, oh my God, we have made them a colony. That's what it's giving with the tourism from white people to Brazil. We're treating it like a colony. It's not okay.

Speaker 2:
[39:03] That's how black folks in Brazil, if y'all got any poetry or literary festivals that you want to bring me down, I will bring my good sister, Zach Stafford, with me. We would love, I would love. There is such incredible black history in Brazil that I would love to learn about, but I'm like, how do I?

Speaker 1:
[39:19] How do we get there? Bring us! I will go. Y'all banned Trampolrone the other day, which was a good first step, by the way. A good first step. Take them out. Take the white queers out. They're hip to it too, Saeed. That's why my vibes are off. They clocked it. They said, mm-mm. Not us.

Speaker 2:
[39:40] I'd like to take a picture of it. I think I was in Mexico City, and there was, you know, there's a lot of street arts and like stuff on telephone poles and stuff, and I love to take pictures and look at it. And I came across one, I think I was in Condesa, which is really, you know, where all the American and European tourists are. And a little sign like this big and it said, if you can read this, get the fuck out of our country.

Speaker 1:
[40:00] Listen, make it bigger, make it bigger.

Speaker 2:
[40:02] In English, if you can read this, okay. They are sick of the gringos. Okay, so my vibes are on is actually pretty similar, and then my vibes are off, so probably going to explain why. I'm into many road trips. I mentioned recently going on a one-hour road trip with a friend to Providence. I'm really excited about that. You know, I'm still fairly new to New England, to Massachusetts, and there's a lot. I mean, I've been to Provincetown. I'm teaching there this summer. I'm excited about that. I'll be there in July. But I still haven't been out to other parts of Cape Cod. I want to go to Salem. Did you know, this is so stupid, did you know that Salem, Massachusetts is a coastal town?

Speaker 1:
[40:45] I did know this, because Craig really was like in the middle of the woods. Craig wants to go so bad. Oh, okay. We will fly in for Salem.

Speaker 2:
[40:52] I don't know why, I just felt that it was like in the middle of the woods in Massachusetts, but duh, all of these towns were coastal towns.

Speaker 1:
[40:59] Well, I think as you probably think of the Crucible, but that also had an ocean in the film adaptation of it.

Speaker 2:
[41:04] It's been a minute.

Speaker 1:
[41:05] Well, because I think they're all coastal because the boats rolled up and they didn't go too far because indigenous people were, they pushed them inland.

Speaker 2:
[41:13] Oh, there you go. There you go. There you go. There you are. Well, anyway, I think going on short road trips are really fun. I went on a trip with a friend to Amherst recently to visit another writer friend and we had lunch, walked around, and then you're home for dinner. And I just love it. You know what I mean? Not too stressful. And again, it's like, we can do so many of the things we love in a less stressful, less expensive way. And then vibes are off, explain this. Baby, planning vacations this summer around air travel? I just don't know. No.

Speaker 1:
[41:48] The prices are too high.

Speaker 2:
[41:50] It has been so long. Maybe this is TMI, but it has been so long since I've actually paid cash for a flight because I have so many credits with American Airlines because of flights that I have canceled. But like, girl, I just don't know. I'm literally like, oh, free money, because they're like, please, please fly somewhere. And I'm like, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[42:15] I'm the same. I had to buy flights for a family member the other day for a family member's birthday party. So I was like, I'll pick up a sibling's flight. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, flights cost how much? Because we decided to invade Iran.

Speaker 2:
[42:30] Julia's getting married in Italy. She's like crying destination wedding. Yeah, girl.

Speaker 1:
[42:37] It's too much. The gas is too high.

Speaker 2:
[42:39] It's giving trains, no planes, and automobiles this summer.

Speaker 1:
[42:43] Good for rowing a boat.

Speaker 2:
[42:45] Yeah. I just, and not to get too serious with it, but it also feels the chaos at airports, the chaos around travel, gas. It kind of feels like Trump wants us to feel like we can't move around, like we're stuck. Yeah, and I mean, it can't make people more excited to travel abroad when, like, customs and border patrol, you know what I mean? Like, just the, you know, it's already, like, not a fun experience going through customs as is.

Speaker 1:
[43:14] I booked my flights to Europe, like, in January, and they can go ahead and cancel the return. I'm good. I'll stay.

Speaker 2:
[43:22] And that's what they're worried about.

Speaker 1:
[43:24] Stay. Keep me. I'll stay. It's okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[43:27] I just had to say that. And I, because, you know, I love traveling. I love planes. But lately, I'm like, y'all got to work some shit out. Because I...

Speaker 1:
[43:37] It's too much.

Speaker 2:
[43:38] It's too much. The poem I wanted to read today is by my dear friend Ocean Vuong. It's such a joy to see Ocean thriving, because we knew each other when we were both little grad school babies with our little chapbooks. And he is so kind and serious about the work. This poem is titled Old Glory. And I don't know, I feel like this poem like takes on a lot, but it certainly takes on masculinity. Old Glory by Ocean Vuong. Knock them dead, big guy. Go in there guns blazing, buddy. You crushed it at the show. No, it was a blowout. No, a massacre. Total overkill. We tore them a new one. My son's a beast, a lady killer. Straight shooter, he knocked her up. A blonde shell blonde. You'll blow them away. Let's bag the broad. Let's spit roast the faggot. Let's fuck his brains out. That girl's a grenade. It was like nom down there. I'd still slam it though. I'd smash it good. I'm cracking up. It's hilarious. You truly murdered. You had me dying over here. Pro, for real though. I'm dead. Again, that's Old Glory by Ocean Vuong.

Speaker 1:
[45:06] It's so good. It's so good. Every time he likes our content on Instagram, I get all fluttery. I'm like, all right, that's Saeed's friend. I forget. I forget. He's such a talent. And also the Seth Meier interview where he breaks down that poem to Seth on national television, because Seth is asking about language and violence.

Speaker 2:
[45:28] I mean, and it's like he could go on and on. I mean, once you start thinking about how militaristic and violent language are stitched into just casual phrasing, it's pretty creepy.

Speaker 1:
[45:44] Pretty creepy. Well, with that, that's our show, everybody. We did it. Thanks for being here with us. And before we say goodbye, remember you can reach out to us at vibecheckatsister.com. Thank you for tuning to this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform and tell a friend. As always, huge thank you to our producer, Chantelle Holder, our executive producers, Camille Stanley from SiriusXM, and Brandon Sharp from Agenda, and Marcus Ampar, our theme music and sound design. A special thanks to our engineer, Casey Holford. Shout outs to our Patreon producer, Julia Lea, for all of her help, and Aisha Ayub, who creates our social content. And thank you to our intern, Morgan Johnson.

Speaker 2:
[46:31] We want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheck.stitcher.com, and keep in touch with us on our Instagram page, Vibe Check underscore pod. For direct access to our group chat, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com/vibecheck. Also, Vibe Check listeners can now get a free three month trial on the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/vibecheck. Again, that's siriusxm.com/vibecheck. Okay, stay tuned for another episode next Wednesday. Bye.

Speaker 1:
[47:01] Bye.

Speaker 2:
[47:14] SiriusXM Podcasts.