Hugh Hefner and Hysteria

After a long and storied life, Hugh Hefner passed, and everyone seemed to have something to say about him. Those who had mostly negative things to say about him fell into two basic categories: self-proclaimed feminists who are misandrists, and people with a religious conviction that sex and nudity are for monogamous heterosexual marriage and anything that goes against that is some of the worst stuff ever.

While some critics puffed up their essays with big words, if you watched closely and read between the lines, what really upset people about Hefner more than anything else was that he and/or his media exposed or glaringly reinforced some truths people didn’t want to admit:

1)  Men can get sexually aroused strictly from the visual, and static, two-dimensional visuals at that.

2) Men want to see women naked more more than woman want to see men naked.

3) Men are willing to pay to see women naked.

4) Women, even the girl next door, are willing to sell their sexuality for money.

5) Men want sex more than women.

6) Women are their most visually attractive in their late teens/early 20s.

Hugh Hefner's biggest "crime" was making glamour nudes of the world's most beautiful women accessible to the masses, especially men, even if they were poor, whereas in the past, only the rich could see such women. He catered to the tastes of grown men, without trying to accommodate women and children or let women dictate what men should enjoy. Playboy allowed men to see nude women (albeit only pictorial representations) without having to sign a state marriage contract. These are his real sins in the minds of so many, whether they want to admit it or not. Some of the men speaking out are trying to appease their wives or pastors.

Regarding truth number 2, notice that while Playgirl and similar offerings became a thing, their popularity was only a tiny fraction of that of Playboy, and much of that interest came from homosexual men.

The critics, especially the religion-based ones, make it sound like Hefner was one of the worst things that ever happened to the world, because his magazine and associated media had young, beautiful, nude women and because he surrounded himself with young, beautiful women. He did far more damage with some of his political involvements and some of the messages conveyed in text, but people want to focus on the fact that his magazine featured women in their birthday suits.

Do the critics really think that if Hugh Hefner never existed, media, and society in general, wouldn’t be like it is today? While critics and fans alike try to paint Hefner as a pioneering pornographer, if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. He saw a demand and cultural trends, and he capitalized on them.

Below are some of the reactions published online in response to Hefner’s death.

Video Games, Employment, and Marriage

Matt Walsh posted this Daily Wire story by Paul Bois to knock men for supposedly "playing video games instead of finding jobs"/

A new study shows that young males would rather sit on their rears while playing "Grand Theft Auto" than look for long, steady work.

Oh really now?

According to research from economists from Princeton, the University of Rochester and the University of Chicago, non-college educated men are rejecting full-time employment and spending as much as 40 hours a week playing video games.

I'm sure there are some who did this. But how many have been looking hard for work, aren't finding it, and are enjoying a little entertainment with their free time? What are those guys supposed to do? Oh, I know... they're supposed to be lackeys to women.

​The University of Chicago's Erik Hurst, an economist at the Booth School of Business, confirms that happiness, at least for now, has gone up among this group of people.

This is when the misandrists say that happiness shouldn't be a goal.

Why Health Matters in Relationships - Part 2

In the first installment from a couple of years ago, I wrote about why health matters in relationships, and a small part of what I wrote was this:

The kids. What genetic problems have our kids inherited, including mental illness? What did her conditions and the medications do during her pregnancies? Our kids are not lacking in their appearances and they are highly intelligent, but I'm bracing for mental illness to be diagnosed and when their behavior is problematic I wonder if they've been impacted by medication. My wife could no longer physically control the kids from an early age so discipline became a problem. Also, the kids literally watched their mother lose touch with reality and behave in ways that they'll probably be talking about in therapy for the rest of their lives.

Since then, the fit has really hit the shan, bigly.

Someone Please Call and Ask This

I want to hear a call like this to Dave Ramsey or any conservative and/or business/financial commentator who will answer questions/give advice through call-in show. Dave Ramsey is ideal because he gives financial advice and is popular in conservative religious circles:

I want to know your thoughts about this pending deal because I’m getting cold feet.

I have a friend with whom I’ve had what amounts to a weekend hobby for a few years. We often get together a couple of nights in a week, too. My buddy wants to take it to the next level, though, with papers and everything. He wants to form a partnership and register it with the state.

Although there’s nothing in the written contract that penalizes either of us for working with others, my potential partner expects I will put all of time and resources into the partnership, and said there'd be Hell to pay if I even thought of doing a side project with someone else and the partnership would be over.

With the people who've prepared like we have, who hire a consultant like we have, there's about a 40% failure rate of these ventures. Failure would mean not only would half of the assets go to my partner, but I would have to pay my partner’s attorney fees, and I would be obligated to pay money to my partner based on the length of the partnership; if the partnership had lasted ten years or more, I’d be making payments in perpetuity.

There is the possibility that products would be created within the partnership that could be liabilities and financial drains for 18-25 years; I would be expected to cover those costs, including more than necessary if manage to earn a high income. There is a possibility, but by no means a certainty, that the products will provide me with some nominal income late in my life.

Even though there is an expectation that we would not work outside of the partnership, many people who’ve entered into these agreements have done that anyway, and like I said, there is no penalty for doing so. If my partner incurs a liability with someone else, I would be obligated to pay for it for 18-25 years.

Finally, my partner has indicated that soon into the partnership, I will be the person solely responsible for bringing in revenue; my partner plans to provide intangible contributions, such as encouragement, but would not be penalized at all for not doing so. Even without bringing in any revenue, my partner would still get at least half of the assets in the event the partnership ended.

Do you think this is a good deal for me?

Of course those of you who read this blog know exactly what I'm talking about. From a purely financial perspective, it would be insane to tell someone this is a good partnership to enter.

Revisiting My Series on the Claim Married Men Get More Sex

[Bumped up from December 2016] I wrote a seven-part series for this blog that ran in February and March of 2010. A lot has happened since then. I have done more reflection, I've had significant life experiences since then, I have learned much more about my wife, and so I thought it would be a good time to revisit what I wrote back then.

From Part One:

We've been having quick, rather vanilla/repetitive/almost clinical, once-a-week, mostly one-sided sessions for quite a while now, usually involving her waking me up from a dead sleep (I don't get enough sleep as it is), though not as creatively as she could. That means we've been doing it 4-5 times a month (and usually not taking her to climax, which I really, really like doing). There's no way we've averaged 9.94 times a month when considering the whole marriage.
Verdict: I am currently one of the people who can say I got more sex while unmarried than married.

Geez, I thought I had it bad then. It's been more like once every three weeks now, although my wife has just agreed to try to get it up to three times per week. The problem is, after everything that's happened and the things she's said repeatedly, including recently, and done, it is difficult for me to be turned on to her. Sex is a burden and chore for her and she deliberately avoids orgasms except for rare times. Yes, I'm still physically attracted to her and want to enjoy her body and treat her well, but treating her well seems to be leaving her alone, and emotionally it's a mess. Like just about every other plan to which she agrees, the plan to at least make out more often will probably be dropped quickly.

Why the Meaning Behind Words Matters

As I’ve written many times before, I’m a big fan of Dr. Laura and agree with most of what she says.

One thing I appreciate is that she tends not to buy into the hysteria regarding “adult media” that so many other conservative, “marriage-and-family” advocates have. Primarily, that means when a wife calls, upset that her husband likes looking at pixels depicting nude women or even women in sexual situations, Dr. Laura usually tells the caller to get over it as long as it is depicting human adults, isn’t gay male material, isn’t something like BDSM or some other fetish, and the husband isn’t neglecting his obligations (such as rejecting his wife to go and masturbate to porn).

On yesterday’s (September 11, 2017) show, the first or one of the first calls was from a woman who found out that her husband was looking at “teen porn”. Unfortunately, despite the fact that 18 and 19-year-olds are teens, and many people older than that pretend to be teens in mainstream media as well as adult, Dr. Laura immediately condemned the husband, raised the subject of “kiddie” stuff and told the woman to leave her husband and take the husband’s computer to have it checked by police. When the caller pointed out that 18 and 19-year-olds are teens, Dr. Laura said that a year or two doesn’t make a difference.

When Dr. Laura tells wives to get over the fact that their husband views adult media, what exactly does she think most of that media depicting “women, women with men” features? In most cases, it isn’t women the same age as the husband or the wife. Most of those women in general adult media (as opposed to “granny” or “MILF” stuff) are under 30 years of age, many of them 18-25. Playboy has always featured women who were as young as 18 and 19 (and, the fact is, at least once they had a female under the age of 18).

Your average regulation heterosexual man is going to find women under the age of 25 to be most attractive. I’m talking about from a purely visual, casual perspective. Of course he’s going to find the woman he loves and who loves him to be highly attractive. And truth be told, if most women had to rate men solely on the performance of their penises, most would prefer guys under the age of 25. It’s simple biology.

In other words, Dr. Laura might have told a woman to leave her husband, the father of her child, and invite police to search his computer over the kind of stuff that can be found in Playboy.

Could There Have Been Another?

Recently, I heard that in marrying the wrong person, there was someone you probably passed  over who was the right person.

So I'm going to put that to the test that by looking at my own life.

A Flaw in Tom Leykis’ Logic

It's been almost ten years since I published what is below the fold. It still stands up.

You're not going to find a better talk show host than Tom Leykis when the topics are the radio and television industries. He's also brilliant when it comes to personal finance and money management, entrepreneurship, motivation, and how to avoid marriage, avoid relationships, and how a man can "get more tail for less money".

One of the areas he falls short in, however, is when he blasts Christianity or a general belief in God. He's a lifelong atheist. But there are atheists out there far more knowledgeable and willing to debate much more seriously than Leykis. So when he tries to goad people to call up and argue with him about God, it isn't surprising that it doesn't "work". He tried having a semi-regular segment to his show called Ask the Atheist, but he dropped it for lack of calls (his audience is different now that his show is streamed online rather than on terrestrial broadcast radio), and today he tried (and failed) to do an unofficial Ask the Atheist hour by saying Hurricane Harvey is proof there is no God. There are many, many, many, many, many serious essays on natural disasters/suffering and the existence of God that Leykis could critique during his show, or he could have a Christian apologist on his show if he was really interested in a serious discussion. Instead, he's inviting his listeners to call in, most whom are primarily interested in how to fornicate with as little trouble as possible. If anyone does try to take the position of Theism or even Deism, Leykis resorts to the tactic of essentially repeating "Sez who?!? and "Not so!!!" and all sorts of sleight of word, redirection, etc. Most of what he does is to provide an entertaining show, but this appears to be an attempt at an ego boost or confirmation bias. Whatever the case, he isn't open to serious discussion on the topic. If he was, it might actually be a more successful segment to the show.

But let's get to what I wrote ten years ago.

Life Has Changed - Get Over It

About a year and half ago, someone named Ankush Bahuguna had something published at a site I wasn't familiar with, mensxp.com under the title of  "Why Modern Relationships Are Falling Apart So Easily Today".

We're not prepared. We're not prepared for the sacrifices, for the compromises, for the unconditional love.

A lot of people aren't prepared. But some people are unwilling to make the sacrifices, the compromises, and to put in all of the effort, because they do not see the potential benefits to be worth it. In many cases, they are right.

Unconditional love is an interesting term. Most people don't really mean it when they use it, and some people who do are being foolish. For example, a woman who "loves" her husband after her rapes her child and remains unrepentant is sick.

We're not ready to invest all that it takes to make a relationship work.

Right, a lot of people aren't, and one reason is that there is no assurance it will actually work. Someone can choose wisely, treat kindly, and still get screwed over because the other person can suffer, for example, a brain trauma that changes their attitude and moods.

We want everything easy.

A lot of people do. Other people are willing to work hard, but for many men, there is no benefit to work hard for a relationship with a woman, especially not a marriage. For these men, it isn't that they want things easy; they don't want them unnecessarily and unreasonably difficult or disadvantageous.

We're quitters.

If someone is hitting their head against a wall, they should quit.

Bad Boys Are So Much Fun - Until They Murder Your Kid

It's a good thing "safe and legal" abortion prevents this stuff from happening, as promised. Oops. It didn't. Alene Tchekmedyian had the unenviable task of reporting at the Los Angeles Times on a couple of baby murderers.

Brandon Jerel Williams, 27, was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison after he was found guilty of first-degree murder, torture and assault on a child causing death, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

His 23-year-old girlfriend, Rosie Lee Wilson, was convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors said the fatal beating occurred Aug. 21, 2014, when Wilson left her son with Williams, her live-in boyfriend.

Some guy thought it was a good idea to stick it in Wilson and impregnate her. Good job there, buddy. Now, the question is, does he even know he got her pregnant? Did he care? Did he fight for custody? Since he's not even mentioned in the article, my guess is that he's completely out of the picture. But, it is the Los Angeles Times so that might not be so.

One of the "crazy" things Dr. Laura tells people on her show as often as she can is that they should not bring their new lovers around their minor kids. People think that's ridiculous advice, but stories like this are Exhibit A as to why I agree with her. Children are far more likely to be abused by their parent's new lover.

When you read on, it becomes clear this "mother" was choosing her new gina tingles by a bad boy over her own child.

You Can't Argue With Crazy

I previously wrote this about why health matters in relationships.

Among the various  health issues my wife deals with is mental illness. I'm aware that mental illness can range from controlled and relatively mild to completely debilitating. It can also range from "everything is fine right now" to "I'm going to try to kill myself". One of the problems is, there isn't always a way to know when things have shifted until the person is dead or you have to act to prevent them from killing themselves.

Recently my wife and I had a disagreement, and in my frustration, when the children weren't there to hear, I yelled about how I think one of the kids is getting unfairly neglected.

Whenever I yell, everything is diverted. We're no longer going to address what the disagreement is, it is going to be about how terrible I am for yelling. My wife and one of our kids are both extremely good at diverting, although they usually use different tactics. My wife's blanket defense is usually invisible health problems. Yes, she has real health problems. That I can't see how they are limiting her at the moment makes it harder for me to best handle situations. She can cite these problems whether or not they are actually interfering at the moment.

Between her health problems and focusing on my tone or volume of voice, she's always able to avoid changing her behavior. It is always about how I need to change my behavior. So, I end up being worse off having communicated my disagreement or desire, and it is better for me not to have said anything at all. I've been a slow learner when it comes to this.

Yet Another Lament That Men Don't Want to Marry

Quite often, Townhall.com has some great content spanning "conservative" viewpoints from center-right to libertarian to whatever. Recently, they ran another column lamenting that men don't want to emasculate themselves by marrying. That's not how they put it, but that's basically what it amounts to. This time Jerry Newcombe wrote the piece:

I attended an unusual wedding this past weekend.

You attended a party. What you usually don't see are the pointless and not-so-pointless arguments and all of the bad things that result from a man and woman living together in a Mexican standoff with the state.

Ben Steverman notes in the Drudge-linked article: “The U.S. marriage rate—the number of new marriages per 1,000 people—has been falling for decades….And research firm IbisWorld predicts the marriage rate will keep falling over the next five years.”

Although I wish this was mostly from men refusing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of ungrateful narcissistic gynocentrism, most of it is likely a mere delay. People are getting married later because... they can and they should (if they're going to marry at all). People who are busy trying to get a college degree and/or trying to establish themselves in a career aren't in a good place to be a good spouse.

He adds, “It’s unclear whether the decline of the American wedding is a permanent trend. American millennials lag previous generations on many metrics of adulthood…Maybe most of them will eventually get around to weddings of their own—but then, it’s possible that many never will, and that they’ll bring the U.S. marriage rate closer to Europe’s.”

Metrics of adulthood... so the Pope isn't an adult? People should establish themselves as independent adults. They don't have to marry to do that.

It would be disastrous for this country if we went the route of Europe in being a post-marriage society. The old cliché is still true: As the family goes, so goes society.

Even if I agree, I can't encourage men to enter into such a raw deal. Want more men to marry? Work to stop punishing husbands in law, courts, and culture. Raise women who will be the kind of women who will attract and keep a husband.

What’s happened to marriage in America?

We took away incentives for men to marry, and added risks and obligations to husbands. Men have been slow to catch on, but more and more are.

Hollywood has turned monogamy into monotony.

It wasn't Hollywood that did that. Women who are trying to get a man to sign on the dotted line are often quite different sexually than a woman who has a man trapped.

The irony is that surveys show that those who are married tend to enjoy everything on a much more fulfilling basis. And that includes intimacy.

The surveys are flawed. If a survey doesn't distinguish intentionally unmarried men from the rest of unmarried people, and compare them against married men, it is worthless survey. It's also worthless if there wasn't at least some confidence in being anonymous.

Let's deal with a couple of facts. When you combine:
...marriages that divorce
...marriages that don't legally divorce but more or less end before death with emotional, physical and/or legal separation
...marriages that end with suicide or murder-suicide
...marriages that have significant periods of misery related to or based on these two people being legally/socially tied together and/or living together

Then MOST marriages are not happy, lasting marriages. MOST. Does it make sense to you rearrange your entire life and to wager half of your wealth on something that is more likely to fail than succeed?

“Living in sin” (as cohabiting used to be called) has lost its stigma—but most such couples don’t seem to realize that, statistically, living in sin prepares you for divorce more than it does for a happy marriage.

Yes, but why is that? I used to blindly buy into the idea that they had doomed their marriage by shacking up, and I maintain that shacking up is a a terrible idea (almost as bad as legally marrying). But the reality of the situation isn't so simple. Among the reasons is that some people who shack up should never have married in the first place, but they do because they're already living together. They marry because they think it will fix things, because we keep saying that marriage is some sort of magic tonic, or the woman is told that if the relationship doesn't end in marriage, she's been "used" or "wasted her time" even though she was getting something out of the relationship the entire time. It is also likely that the kind of people who shack up are more willing to leave a bad marriage than spend the rest of their lives being miserable in it. There are other reasons, but the one that fits with what this guy and others like him are saying is that, in some cases, people establish patterns in shacking up as unmarried individuals that carry over into the marriage, where they are supposed to be united, to the detriment of the marriage.

Although millions profess Christian belief, too many compartmentalize their lives and fail to live by Christian standards, i.e., no sex outside of traditional marriage.

I really have to wonder where exactly this comes from. What, precisely, does he mean by sex? Words or phrases translated "sexual immorality" in our English Bibles are not clear enough, obviously, because some people say it includes making kissing off-limits. Intercourse was more of a problem before there was contraception and before there were DNA tests. The Old Testament seems to be focused on intercourse. I know what churches have taught, but how much of it is explicitly taught in the Bible? I'm not arguing that PIV is the only thing the Bible teaches against or that everything else is OK. Clearly, giving each other orgasms causes people (especially women) to bond, and that is problematic if you shouldn't be with the person to whom you're bonding. But I really don't think the Bible is as clear as so many of my fellow religious conservatives would think.

Government tax policies, especially in the example of welfare, have subsidized single parenthood, thus, breaking the back of the urban family.

Yeah, that should be stopped.

Instead of actually helping the poor, welfare has ensured their long-lasting misery—because the family is the key to upward mobility.

Not for men. Really. In today's employment market, men need to be able to work long and odd hours, extra days, move, jump from one employer to the next, go on business trips, and network in mixed company unencumbered by a wife and kids who require stability and limiting interaction with women who are now ubiquitous in every strata of the workplace. A man who doesn't have a wife and kids to support can save, insure, and invest in a way that will increase his wealth far more than his married-with-kids counterpart.

Traditional marriage is good for individuals all the way around. Numerous studies show it’s good for your spiritual health, your mental health, your physical health, and your fiscal health.

Again, those studies are flawed. Personally, I attended and focused effectively in church services and Bible studies far more often as an unmarried, child-free man. I did personal Bible study far more, too. Now, I'm busy being a butler, medical advocate, and prison warden.

Many today think marriage is unnecessary.

It is. Someone can have a fulfilling and full life a productive, independent adult. Most of us aren't living on isolated farms anymore.

They think marriage is misery, and singleness is bliss.

It certainly can be. In singleness, someone has far more control over their life.

Perhaps one of the biggest myths of all about marriage is that feelings are all that matter.

Of course feelings aren't all that matter. Freedom matters. Finances matter. Peace of mind matters. Self-determination matters.  And that's why most men shouldn't marry.

He then retreads the flawed correlations between marriage and positive indicators, implying that it is the duty of individuals to sacrifice themselves so society will be better off. Sorry, but the social climate has changed. Men do not have the same power and influence as husbands and fathers as they used to.

The couple wed in the cow patch said a mixture of traditional vows along with some interesting twists...

And how many of the people attending had always made vows to love, honor, and cherish until death, but haven't???

Let women and bicycle-less fish enjoy themselves. Don't marry them, guys. Take care of yourself, become independent and secure, and find worthy causes for your time and money. Don't tie yourself to an irrational creature with the imposition of the state into your relationship.

Priceless Comment Left on This Blog's Most Popular Entry

Here's a comment from a divorced mother upset that I warn men away from woman with children. Note my response.

Many People Do Both

There are many lame arguments out there, especially when expressed in tweets, against "porn". That's in quotes because some of these scold accounts say anything that arouses someone other than their live, in-the-flesh spouse, is porn. Meanwhile most people would think of porn as videos and pictures explicitly depicting people having sex, and that's about it (other than, maybe, delivering a pizza).

Before I go further, exposing bad arguments does NOT mean I think any given media content, or the production or "use" thereof, is a good thing. It means I find bad arguments to be annoying.

Time for Father’s Day Again

[Bumped up from 2010] I have a better relationship with my father than my three siblings. Part of the reason is that unlike them, I wasn't around when the worst of the divorce and related drama was taking place. I was at college. Speaking of college, I'm the only one that got a college degree. One of my siblings is likely get one eventually – in mid life. I don't expect the other two to even go back to college at all. My father and I have done work for the same organization in the past, and I know I remind him somewhat of himself. But three important reasons why my relationship is better with my father is that I take some initiative, I don't treat him like an ATM, and I don’t badmouth his wife.

There will probably be a dinner – homemade or otherwise – in honor of my father-in-law, even if it doesn’t happen on Father's Day.

I'm a father myself now, as you know if you've read other entries in this blog. I’m also the sole income earner in our home. As such, I’d rather not get purchased gifts for Father's Day. I mean, it was my money to begin with after all, and if I need it, I'll buy it. No, homemade gifts are good, and so are services.

Truly, I can't think of getting anything better for Father's Day than a hug from my kids.

Technology is a Tool, Not An Evil

There are people who are in enduring, happy marriages who "met online". Granted, there aren't a lot, but that's because most people in general aren't in enduring, happy marriages. Yet the moment a female caller to the Dr. Laura Show says they met a guy online, the rest of the call is determined. That's because the hostess' bias against all things online kicks in (she has her reasons). She says she obtained bias confirmation (she doesn't put it in those words, but that's what it is) when she says "guys and articles" tell her guys go online for an easy lay.

Yes, many men do. But not all.


And men also go to bars and clubs and street festivals and a bunch of other places for easy lays.

But yes, some guys use dating and hookup services to, surprise, hookup. Some of the most effective tactics include going after all women whose pics attracted them and are in the area, regardless of whatever else her profile says. These guys aren't looking for general compatibility, just easy, no-strings-attached sex. This is one reason why women can be inundated with contacts from men. It's a numbers game. Guys throw as much against the wall as they can to get a little to stick.

But not all of the men online are looking for hookups. Especially with the more exclusive matchmaking services, the ones that take more time and money, there are men looking for a wife (because they think they can beat the odds or they are unaware of the odds or are masochists or losers who are desperate for a woman to take over for mommy).

My advice to women is that if they're really looking for a husband, they stick to the serious, more exclusive services (in addition to the old-fashioned ways of looking) and never assume that what the guy says about himself is actually true. This is just a way to establish contact. Like a guy you meet on the street, everything he says about himself could be a lie. Meet in a neutral, public place, and don't get sexual right away.

Just remember, though, ladies, if you do find a man who wants to get married: You will be sharing your life, home, and finances with a guy who is foolish enough to enter into contracts that have no guaranteed upside to him and horrendous risks and limitations.

I'm sure Dr. Laura gets calls from women in good marriages who met online, but that never comes up in the conversation because the calls are usually about things that are troubling them.



Dr. Laura has mentioned more than once that she'd been in talks to endorse and/or help facilitate an online matchmaking service, but she had so many requirements and restrictions that it would limit profitability so it wasn't a go.

The caller on yesterday's show did admit she got sexual right away with the guy she met online, so Dr. Laura again said "men used to have to pay" for that. Sigh.

Was Sacks Sacked?

As I previously blogged, attorney Adam Michael Sacks would do the Tuesday "bonus" hour of the Tom Leykis Show, and for me, it was must-listen. Recently, that arrangement ended, and as far as I know, all Leykis has publicly said about it is a terse written statement indicating the involvement had ended. No reason was given.

Since Leykis' Internet-based audio talk show began (after the terrestrial broadcast corporate radio version had been off of the air for a few years and Leykis rode out the rest of his contract), Sacks would not only do that hour on Tuesdays, alternating between  "criminal law" (mainly DUI and marijuana violations) and "family law" (mainly divorce, alimony, child support, and child custody), but he would be at listener parties  and events and his ads would run throughout the show. And by his ads, I mean ads for his law practice that featured copy read by Leykis, and ads for becoming an advertiser with The New Normal (Leykis' businesses) as spoken by Sacks. Sacks and Leykis even talked on the show about work Sacks had done for Leykis, such as with traffic tickets and with getting a restraining order against a radio show host Leykis and/or Sacks have described as an obsessed fan. Finally, Sacks would often appear during other times on the show by calling in to answer questions and give advice to another caller.

Of course, listeners have speculated as to why Sacks and Leykis have parted ways. Leykis has had his staff go back and eliminate the Sacks bonus hours from the archive files available as podcasts to paid subscribers. To paraphrase Leykis, he did that because those hours were essentially infomercials. However, there was some entertaining and informative content to many of those hours.


What could the reason be for ending the professional relationship? I have no more insight than any other frequent listener who occasionally visits the show's Facebook page. I figure there are several basic plausible reasons, and it may be a combination of two or more of them. So in no particular order, let's consider them. Again, these are POSSIBLE reasons, I'm not stating that they ARE the reason(s).

Emptying the Nest

Many commentators I admire are aghast that so many parents allow their adult children to continue to live with them or allow them to move back in with them (such as after college). This is seen as part of what is making them "snowflakes".

The idea is that since children become legal adults at age 18, they should be out on their own at that age (and if they are done with high school or should be), and it is only allowable for them to continue to live at home, if it is at all, if they are going to college full time and, perhaps, also working part time. Dr. Laura also makes it clear they have to be following house rules, especially when it comes to not fornicating or allowing a boyfriend or girlfriend to stay over. The adult children are to be kicked out and all material/financial support ceased if it is known that such a rule has been violated. (If the parents do have such a rule Dr. Laura will tell them they should.)

Some parents hear this and are surprised, because they think it would be good for their adult children to live at home to build up financial stability rather than having to share a dump with roommates and struggle.

Dr. Laura sees virtue in that struggle, and she cites her own experiences at that age.

There's a potential problem citing the past, however.

Why I Listen To and Retweet Tom Leykis

Tom Leykis ridicules my faith and any faith that includes theism or anything supernatural. He thinks people like me are not smart. He dismisses many of the moral convictions I hold. He promotes abortion (and has paid for multiple elective abortions himself), even telling guys how to effectively prompt a woman to have an elective abortion if she's knocked up and he was at least one of the guys having intercourse with her. (To be fair, he encourages guys to avoid conceiving in the first place through vasectomies and condom use, although not abstinence). He sometimes bashes political figures and media personalities I respect and admire. Some of his political soapboxing frustrates me. I'm aging out of his target demographic.

And yet, I'm a regular listener.

Why? Many reasons. Here they are, in no particular order:

Matt Walsh on Falling In Love

Matt Walsh gets a lot right a lot of the time. Overall, he makes a good point about romantic love in this column provocatively titled "I Didn't Fall In Love With My Wife". He says:

We’re bad at it because we don’t understand it, and we don’t understand it because we don’t understand love. You can’t forge a lasting marriage if all you know about love is what you learned from an Ed Sheeran song.

OK.

But here’s the reality: these were our choices, every step of the way, and that state which we’ve found ourselves falling in and out of is not real love. Real love is an act of will. A decision. A conscious activity. It is something you do and live. Love is chosen, and if it is protected and nurtured, it grows. Love is sacrifice. Love is effort.

Emphasis mine, to point out that marriage sellers themselves say these things over and over again.

He says it again:

Love is dying to the self.

If you don't want to die to yourself, don't marry! I know he says "love" but you can bet your donkey that Walsh would say that requires you marry your romantic interest.