Playing in Traffic

One of these days, I'll have to compile a list of bad arguments against porn.

One bad argument is that "porn causes human trafficking." I can see how this could be a valid argument if we're talking about certain subgenres. But what if a guy only views porn involving independent citizen women who are well into adulthood, and doesn't involve any coercion whatsoever?

You know what else often involves human trafficking? The garment industry. But you know, it's funny, I don't see the people who say nobody should view porn because of human trafficking also saying nobody should wear clothes.

Now, an argument could be made that shunning or banning all porn would reduce human trafficking, but you know what else would? Drastically lowering the quality of life/standard of living in the USA, because then there were would be fewer people who'd want to come here illegally.

An argument can also be made that shunning or banning all porn would INCREASE human trafficking, because it would be contraband and it can be easier to produce and distribute contraband by involving human trafficking.

Try one of these more honest objections:

"I don't like porn because I think the women are more sexually attractive than me and they do things I won't do."

"I don't like porn because I've been told I'm not supposed to."

"I don't like porn because men get auditory and visual erotic stimulation without having to spend a lot of money or deal with relationship hell."


Side note: You can now find me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TunaSafeDolphin

The Cycle

It's quite interesting how the system is rigged.

My wife generally puts off sex until the same time once per week, provided she's not on the rag or being especially hostile to me or ill in some way, as she frequently is.

Usually, this is a day I won't be working. This means she will sleep most of the day and I will be with the kids most of the day.

The kids can't be together for more than a couple of hours without hurting each other to the point of tears. Usually it involves head injuries. This probably irritates me more then it would otherwise because my wife keeps giving herself concussions and I'm resigned to the idea that she's going to be fully demented to the point of not being able to take care of the kids or drive herself. 

The kids fighting is enough to mean I'm going to have to go another week without sex.

Then there's my reaction. After I've warned them to cut it out and leave each other alone (and pointed out one or both of them is going to get hurt) and they still keep it up and then one of them get hurt and is crying in pain, I often yell at them. And yelling, you see, it worse than kids giving each other concussions. It gives my wife the perfect excuse to reject me another week, and nag me about my reaction and demand I change some unrelated things about me.

I'm going to start pushing for sex a day earlier. It probably won't work, because she's deliberately set it up this way, but I have nothing to lose I'm not already losing by wanting sex at all.

By the way, my wife's way of handling things with the kids, if she does at all, is to announce some unrealistic punishment that punishes us, especially me, more than the kids.

Mind you, my wife was really happy with me the day before and the day after this latest rejection, and telling me how much she loves me. But sex was not to be had. Because it wasn't the appointed day.

But, you know, I'm minding less and less when my wife sexually rejects me, because it really isn't much better than masturbating at this point, so rejection is getting to be less and less of a punishment. Yes, I enjoy a woman's body (the look, the feel, the smell and taste), yes, I like bringing pleasure to a woman, especially so my wife, but with her, it's a lot of work (no doubt thanks to medications) and the payoff is ...eh. It's like she doesn't care if she orgasms and when she does, it's like she tries to react as little as possible. It's like she doesn't enjoy sex, and does it out of duty. If I try to turn it up a notch or try something different, I feel like a pervert because she doesn't react one way or the other. Getting her to do anything but a corpse impersonation means I have to verbally ask her to do whatever it is I want, knowing that she's only willing to do a very few things and only certain ways, and the signals I get is that she either couldn't care less or dislikes whatever it is that we're doing.

Attention unmarried men: You, too, can sign a contract to give away over half of everything you'll ever earn in exchange for a lifetime of this.

He's Not Late, He's Just Holding Onto the Ball

The opening of each Tom Leykis Show is now like a Phil Hendrie bit, only Hendrie would do it much better. Leykis refuses to actually start his show until he has over 1,000 people listening live. Unlike terrestrial radio, he knows exactly how many people are listening to him live at any moment, because his show is done via the Internet, and since he is self-employed, he can decide when to start the show. This has proven to be handy when there has been something going on in the evening and he wants to do the show earlier.

So now... the interstitial music will play (a metal-ish instrumental piece) and every so often he'll speak up and say he's not going to start the show until there are enough people listening. Listeners do tend to "tune in" late, six, seven, eight minutes or more into the show, perhaps, for some, because Leykis himself has often started a little late in the past.

It sounds a little funny, almost like a toddler saying he's going to sit on his rubber ball until the other kids nearby do what he wants.

At the other end of the show, Leykis also often threatens to cut the show short for the day due to a lack of calls even though he often will talk for 90 minutes without taking call (and sometimes to tell a story he could tell in much less time). He has indeed cut the show short a few times, but on the other hand, he's sometimes honored "we'll keep going until the calls stop" the other way, too, by doing an extra hour or more. That makes for an interesting show.

I also find the show interesting when he'll tall to his crew for an hour. He won't announce that's what he's going to do; instead, it sounds entirely spontaneous. I used to tune out when he did that on corporate terrestrial radio, because it never was of any interest to me, but since he's now self-employe and running his own company and free of FCC broadcast restraints, those discussion are fascinating, especially when they talk "inside baseball" about the show, dealing with fans, and the radio industry.

While I do pick at his show here and there and have a few serious disagreements with him, I strongly appreciate his business model, professionalism, and ingenuity. If I know an hour is not going to interest me, I won't listen, but he does have some of the most interesting talk show content to be found anywhere. And everyone should listen to his regularly weekly "bonus hour" at 6 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesdays with an attorney who gives free legal advice and alternates criminal law discussion with family law discussion.  To be fair in getting back to the opening line of this entry - Hendrie and Leykis have completely different objectives, in that Hendrie does stuff like that to entertain, and Leykis does it to try to train his audience.

Men: When Someone Tells You That You Should Get Married

Here's a hopefully helpful page I've added that may help in responding to people who tell you that you should get married.

My Unmarried Peer Doesn't Have to Deal With Marital Therapy

When people try to convince men to act against their own best interest and get legally "married" (the USA no longer has marriage licenses, but rather "any two of-age people who aren't in this contract with someone else and aren't closely related" contracts), they cite a bunch perks or benefits or conditions that are either false or iffy promises, or things men can easily get now without being married.

But what about all of the crap you have to do, put up with, and pay for because of being married?


Case in point: Marital Therapy.

If you're dating someone, they might try to get you to go to therapy or counseling with them, but you can decline and say that since they're obviously not satisfied with the relationship, they can simply stop seeing you. If you're running game, and thus only making booty calls, it would be ridiculous for her to suggest couples counseling.

Technically, we're going to family therapy, not specifically marriage therapy.  But there are times  when we go without the kids and it is just the two of us.

This last time that we did that, I was (correctly, it turned out) not looking forward to it. My intuition is getting better. Based on my wife's behavior lately, I had nothing to worry about. She'd already asked that we go on a date after the session. That's a good sign, right? And she's seemed happy with me, in that she hasn't been hostile toward me. The most recent target of her dissatisfaction was her brother and his wife, so that kept the focus off me. As far as I knew, there was nothing bothering her about me lately other than the usual stuff.

I, on the other hand, could go on and about things that should be different, but my general policy, especially when it comes to my wife, is not to bother expressing anything less than positive or neutral - complaining of talking about being hurt or neglected or whatever, if it isn't going to ultimately bring about positive change, is to be avoided, because it will just make things worse for me.

I kept my mouth shut this time. It isn't like I had a real choice.

We spent the first half of the session talking about the kids. Then we got to me and how I need to change, blindsiding me. My wife's latest proposal is a about half a day weekly during which I do not access my phone or tablet. Why? Well, really, it is just to mess with me and control me. However, since that doesn't sound right, it is presented to be so that I'm a more attentive, involved husband and father.

The problem with this is that it confuses the cart and horse. I'm often using those devices because I'm not doing other things. If everyone else in the family is happily engaged in other activities, I'll occupy myself with the devices. I never neglect anyone in the family. My wife and kids know they can always come to me to engage with me or request something from me, as evidenced by the fact that they constantly do.

I don't watch TV on a television screen. I'm getting less and less time on the family desktop. I need to be accessible and constantly informed for my career. The way I keep up with my friends I hardly ever see in person any more is through social networking. I go places "virtually" now instead of going to places in-person. These devices are also how I write and make notes both personal and professional. They also keep me from falling asleep.

So would it be better if I was carrying around a dumb phone, newspapers, magazines, books, a notepad, a calendar, an address book, and all of the other things these devices replaced?

My guess is that this will turn out like so many other similar ideas my wife comes up with: she'll be busy on the desktop or playing games on her tablet, and sending me out to do errands. It is most likely NOT going to turn into some great quality time with the whole family together. One of the reasons I readily agreed for my wife to be a stay-at-home-mom was so that she could organize family things with and without me involved. This is one of the many areas where I'm being asked to change because she's especially limited (due to things I was deceived about before).

I don't neglect my wife or kids. The electronics use is almost always "filling in the gaps" with moments here and there, allowing me to be more personally and professionally productive. What's the harm in that? I know the retort - "Then why not go without for half a day every week?" Because there is no harm in using them. It is just one more thing where I'm being asked to change and she doesn't have to change at all.

My wife is trying to feel like a better mother not by actually being a better mother, but by telling me to do something she thinks will make me a better father.

So, I was sitting there, trying not to let on that I was not happy about this session, and dreading that I was now going to take my wife out on a date afterwards (knowing full well that no form of lovemaking was going to follow). I was well aware that I wouldn't be spending my time and money doing this if I wasn't married. And  then our time was up, but before the therapist could say so, and I could clearly see that our time was up, the therapist asked me if I had anything to talk about. Really? In the ten second left?!? Oh sure, here let me plunge my wife into a horrible mood with no hope of any benefit coming out of it... yeah, sure, right at the end of the session, right?

No thanks.

Don't worry. I'll still hand over my credit card.

One Bad Argument Against Porn

I wrote and posted this almost seven years ago. It still holds up. pretty well and is still relevant.




Let me make it clear up front that I know porn is a bad thing, for various reasons. About the only kind of defensible "porn" is produced by a husband and wife with and for each other only – and I'm sure there are people who can make a good argument as to why even that is wrong.

But it doesn't help our cause – well, my cause, which is NOT to outlaw porn but rather discourage people from supporting it – if we use bad arguments that are easily shot down.

One of those bad arguments is some variation of this:

"Porn creates unrealistic expectations or is unrealistic in its portrayal of women and sex."

When you stop to think about it, almost all media creates unrealistic expectations or erroneous or incomplete depictions of people or activities or situations. It is very difficult for any book, any magazine, any film, or any television show to give a complete, in-depth, and unbiased portrayal of anything. (Same goes for theatre.)

Even the Bible (which I consider at the other end of the spectrum from porn… by light years) doesn't give all the details of the events described, or all of the character traits of human beings from years past – just the ones relevant to the message. I believe the Bible teaches us all we need to know to have fellowship with God. But it doesn’t tell us what Jesus had for dinner most nights of His pre-crucifixion ministry.

Getting more mundane – what about romance novels? Jewelry ads? Soap operas? Crime dramas where the DNA is tested within minutes and matched instantaneously and problems are all solved in less than 60 minutes when you ffwd through the commercial breaks? What about sitcoms where husbands are constantly mocked and berated, yet still manage to be cheerful and romantic? The NBA doesn't give a realistic portrayal of most men. Most of us aren’t 6'7", trim with bulging muscles, and able to run for an hour and still make slam dunks while three other giants try to stop us. Even the news doesn't even give well-rounded portrayals of most people covered.

It is kind of silly to tell our sons (or daughters, for that matter) that they should not view porn because it is unrealistic, and then go out and buy them the latest superhero movie blockbuster for them on Blu-ray. I watch "The Lord of the Rings", and nobody from my church says, "You really shouldn't do that. It is unrealistic."

It isn't like porn gives realistic portrayals of men, either, but you rarely hear that complaint. There are women who look like that (especially with surgery). There are women who behave that way, too. So it isn't entirely unrealistic, even if uncommon. But it usually does glorify fornication and adultery and encourage illicit lusts – those are some valid reasons to avoid it.

Notice, I'm not addressing the "degrading" argument in this piece. That is another matter.

Let's not use bad arguments, unless we're trying to get a laugh. Porn is bad, but not because it is unrealistic.

Itches and Scratch

The obsession in Evangelical circles about "porn" makes me cringe, because so many bad arguments are used, which discredit "our" side, and the disproportionate focus on it. I recently sat through a sermon (unfortunately one of my young kids was with me) from someone who was not the church's pastor, but had been doing a sermon series on "first things" when it comes to following Christ. This was supposed to be a sermon on Satan and his tactics. Yes, doctrine holds that Satan is a real, spiritual (not physical) being who interacts with human beings.

Despite supposedly being about Satan, it was more about porn than anything else. One must wonder what Satan was doing before the advent of photography.

Because Some People Care

Some people are finding this blog looking for an update on KFI AM 640, specifically "Thompson and Espinosa." I haven't read any print news about the matter, but from listening to KFI, I know that as of this past Monday 10/12, Gary Hoffmann, who'd most recently been the news anchor for mornings (and host of the 5 a.m. Wake Up Call hour), was teamed with Shannon Farren, who'd been news anchor (and occasional fill-in for John or Ken when one of them was out) during afternoons - to have their own two-hour show from 1-3pm.

Aron Bender, who'd anchored evening news and did the News Bender during Conway's show, is now the morning news anchor and host of Wake-Up Call. During the 5 a.m. hour, he's doing both the show hosting and the news anchoring, which has to be more difficult than it sounds.

So what this means is that "Thompson and Espinosa" got the ax. From what I heard, they might have gotten word about it last Friday 10/9 and briefly said "goodbye" at the end of their show. If an unofficial Facebook group is any indication, KFI fans mostly hated Espinosa. Mark Thompson  (not to be confused with the Mark Thompson who is now the great morning host of 100.3 FM The Sound, after having been half of the long-running not-as-great "Mark and Brian" show on KLOS FM 95.5) is still around, and does appear part-time on Conway's show. Speaking of Conway's show, Doug Steckler, who used to co-host on Fridays, is no longer there and according to what was said on The Tom Leykis Show, he considers himself retired from radio and politely declined to appear on Leykis' show (which is NOT radio, but rather Internet audio).

Some Men Are Masochists

...and I don't mean in the fun, sexual sense.

A picture popped up in my Facebook feed that caused me to laugh out loud and shake my head.

My ex-fiancee and her ex-husband posted a picture in an update that stated they were in a relationship (again). Read that again if you didn't quite catch it.

I've probably written about this before, but I'm not finding the entries so here's the background...

Sacrificing Much-Needed Sleep For Lackluster Lovemaking

After two and a half weeks since our last, and decidedly bland sex session, my wife stopped filibustering.

She'd asked me to finish some necessary tasks early enough that we could have time with each other. Usually, this "promise" of hers is hollow, or at least turns out not to come to fruition. And no, I don't always wait for her to initiate. I do try to initiate and usually get shot down or put off (which usually ends up being shot down). On the flip side, I don't think there's been a single time I've put her off when she has initiated, as I don't mind her initiating and actually enjoy it because it makes me feel wanted.

So, I made sure that everything was taken care of "early enough". I shaved (even though it would screw up my shave for work) and showered - and there's never any chance she'll surprise me in the shower. I made sure she knew when I was all done.

It's funny, that I bother to shower for these sessions, really, because she barely gets near me. But I did.

Finally, with about five hours to go until I'd be waking up for another full day of work, she sent me a text that she'd be right in. She's likely finishing watching a show, which she could resume watching whenever she wants, mind you.

She finally made it in half an hour after she sent the text, meaning it was now four and a half hours of sleeping time left, if I were to go to sleep right then.

Now, it's true I could have gone to sleep the moment after I was done with the grooming and cleaning. The problem with that is that she wouldn't have woken me up, and I would have gone an additional four-to-seven days before possibly getting a chance for sex again.

The rest of this entry is a little explicit, so here's your warning.

This Bites

During a recent session with our family therapist I was attending alone, the therapist ask me for what I would want as an ideal life.

What kind of question is that? What are the rules? I mean, do the laws of physics apply? If we're going to deal with the realm of possibilities, it would be that I would be unmarried, childless, and doing work for which I have much sincere enthusiasm. I can describe specifics but I won't, for the sake of privacy. This isn't to say I don't love my kids. I do. I love them a lot. They are the best thing about being married. I enjoy them, at least when they aren't physically attacking each other or me. It is that I don't think I am being the best father I could be for them. I think they're getting a raw deal between the combination of their mother and their father. But I can't do anything now about who their mother is, or what medications she couldn't go without while she was pregnant with them. And to be a better father than I am now, I'd have to drop work, and then we'd be without the money and benefits that are so desperately needed.

A Trap I Keep Avoiding

In person and over the phone, my mother-in-law has repeatedly changed her tone and reached out with what sounds like sincerity to solicit my confiding in her/father-in-law about difficulties with my wife.

Their daughter.

There are many reasons I avoid this trap.

In no particular order:

Does It Make a Difference Where Someone Finds Their Co-Adulterer?

I have to wonder if this was Dr. Laura's bias against online communications, especially when it comes to relationships, impacting the way she handled the last call she took on yesterday's show.

It was from a woman who has a three year old with her husband, saying she found her husband's info in the data hack of a certain website that requires pay for attempting to facilitate adultery.

"I have no advice for you." said our hostess.

That wasn't true. After all, she went on to give her advice. Perhaps Dr. Laura should have said "Things are going to be a mess no matter what."? There are some callers she refuses to give advice to because they're in the mess they're in because they didn't follow her teachings (even if they'd never heard of her before).

Before we were given any more details, Dr. Laura declared the caller's  husband to be a "louse".

Now, with most other women who call in and find out that their husbands are having an affair (this caller was saying that she had evidence he was looking to have one), Dr. Laura will ask them what kind of a wife they've been, and try to discern if the husband is a generally bad man or is a good man who made an immoral choice after his wife neglected him, because in the latter case the wife has the power to motivate her husband to vanquish the other woman and become faithful.

But instead of going into that line of discussion, Dr. Laura pronounced the caller's husband a louse. Based on all of my years of listening and reading, I'm thinking it was because he sought out an affair using a website.


The woman subsequently went on to say that she'd discovered an affair when she was eight moths pregnant, and that's another one of Dr Laura's hot buttons. She's much harder on husbands who cheat while their wives are pregnant than, say, when their kid is a year old, because then Dr. Laura says the woman's focus on the child to exclusion of her husband's needs was a problem.

Dr. Laura has also previously said that even if the couple splits up, as long as he's been an otherwise good father (aside from the major sin of cheating on the child's mother), he should be in the child's life as much as possible.



But in this case, Dr. Laura said "Go home to mom and have him visit. One of these days he's going to give you AIDS. You can't afford to risk this."

Well, yeah, that's possible when a husband cheats with a neighbor, too, so why is the advice different now? Again, perhaps it is a bias against use of technology, as she went on to say:

"He's on websites trolling for sex. He's a real piece of s---."

Trolling for adultery in the workplace cafeteria is OK?

In contrast to when she tells wives to give their straying husbands great sex, she said:

"He's not going to stay with you if you're not going to do him, and you'd be stupid to have sex with him... You can't have sex with him ever again."

Then she went on to tell the caller to get away from her husband and try to get him to sign away his parental rights.

So guys, you should never cheat. But the lesson here seems to be that if you are going to cheat, don't meet the person using a website or app.

Seriously, let's be clear here. People who used that website were wrong on many levels, in addition to committing adultery or attempting to. They were wasting money on something that is easy to get for free.

You Can Still Get Together Even If Dishes Are Dirty

If a man complains about his wife sexually rejecting him, women and feminized guys will often chastise him and say it must be his fault:

He's not treating her right.
He's not romancing her.
He's not doing enough of the housework.
He's not jumping through the right hoops.


In some of the cases, that might be true, but it isn't in all or perhaps even most cases.

Women, your sisters (and perhaps your younger selves) have exposed you. Most of you don't need your husband to do anything different or better in order for you to keep your vows and engage in what is supposed to be a mutually enjoyable activity.

How do we know? We know from many different things. These are just a few.

1) Unmarried guys don't have to do anything, or much at all, to get many women, even strangers, to have have sex with them. Guys are regularly getting sex in three dates or less, spending less than a grand total of $120 over three dates.

2) Married guys can commit adultery with plenty of willing women who usually don't require those guys to jump through a lot of hoops.

3) Whether they've actually done it or not, most women can name for their girlfriends one or more male celebrities they'd have sex with if they could just be in the same place at the same time. These women don't really know those celebrities at all. They've never spent time with them. Those celebrities have not done their dishes. Those celebrities have not taken them to nice dinners.

So most of this "she must have a good reason for rejecting her husband" stuff is crap. It's a load of dung. It's applicable only in rare examples in which a guy has become unhygenic due to mental illness or has done something extremely disgusting and immoral (child abuse, for example). (And even then, while some women rightly stop having sex with men like that, there are plenty of women still willing to have sex with molesters and murderers.)

It seems to me that all I ever had to do in my wayward youth was show up. I never had a girlfriend reject me. In fact, they were always the ones to bring sex into the relationship in the first place. Yes, I dated them. I took them out. Nothing lavishly expensive. I was kind and sweet to my girlfriends. But not once did any of them ever reject me and point to me failing to jump through this hoop or that hoop as the reason why. As time went on, I found that I could be aloof, uncommitted, unreliable, and unhelpful and still get sex.

So it's dung, in a lot of cases, that a wife "needs" her husband to do something differently or do something more in order for her to have sex with him.



Absent a better explanation, men like me are left to conclude that you're using sex as a loss leader, and once you've got us signed into a contract that is to your benefit, especially after there are children, your motivation is gone. You know what this tells men? It tells men not to marry and not to have children. It's also your loss as well as his. Sex is a great gift that He has given to a husband and wife. With the right attitudes, it doesn't ever have to be dull or routine. It can be very satisfying - mutually, and an experience of joy and delight.

Click on the tags for much related content, and don't miss this, this, or this.

Fessing Up

Well over a year ago, I wrote in this post about something I discerned from what little my wife's family told me just before I had to take her in for a psych hold a few years back and by paying close attention to what she and a family therapist did and did not say to each other in front of me. What I  had discerned is that she has been mentally ill on an ongoing basis, and, from time to time, very severe level, resulting in multiple suicide attempts and hospital stays.


I'd asked my wife about this and she continued to lie to me about it, denying her history.

Recently, while we met with with another family therapist, my wife, for the first time, explicitly recounted without details what I'd already discerned, dropping at least some of her lies.

Conditions Under Which My Wife Will Have Sex With Me

In case the title of this entry wasn't enough warning, this entry is entirely about marital sex.

Damned If You Do

WIFE: You never make decisions. You make me do all of that work.

ME [Makes more of the decisions after soliciting input and reasoning from wife. Some are different than she'd make.]

WIFE: You don't care about me! I don't matter! You're just going to do whatever you want to do anyway! You can forget about sex for this week and forever!

This is something I'm sure millions of husbands experience. There are many no-win scenarios when it comes to being a husband. Getting married means handing over your life and money to an irrational, moody being who makes unreasonable and arbitrary demands, and many end up leaving, blaming the husband for not being able to make her happy when nobody and nothing could make her happy.

How Is It?

How is it that the same guy who berates and threatens his listeners for not calling in on some days, saying he's not going to do the "heavy lifting", rambles on for 30-60 minutes without taking calls on other days?

And there's nothing like taking 45 minutes to say something that could be said in about ten. That's a real talent, and it is a good one to have when you sell advertising and subscriptions.

How to Piss Off Tom Leykis - UPDATED

[Bumped up May 21, 2015 because Tom is throwing a tantrum because of a tweet made by some average Joe, who expressed regret that Tom had ever been a role model for him. Because this tweeter was religion, Tom starting ranting on religion again. It's an awful lot of time and energy on something Tom claims not to care about.]


[Bumped up YET AGAIN on May 14, 2015 because Tom was again berating his listeners, calling them stupid, and mocking them for not filling all ten of his phone lines. When they actually did call, he often knocked down strawmen, seeming to miss the real points some of the callers were raising about why more listeners weren't calling in. You can't make this stuff up.]

[Bumped up AGAIN on June 17. 2014 because Tom is again scolding his listeners, noting that summertime brings a drop in calls, and he even cut one of his Monday shows off a half hour early.]

[Bumped up because Tom is "warning" (berating) his listeners a lot these days for not calling in. I don't think I've ever heard another show host lecturing his audience in this manner and tone. I'm sure plenty of hosts have contempt or disdain for their audience, but they don't come right out and say it on the show. How many hours of the show can be about the show? I like some "inside" stuff, as long as it isn't too much, and as long as the host isn't wagging his finger at me for not calling in.]

Tom Leykis has been doing a great job with his new venture, at least as far as his signature show goes. It is even better than when it was on corporate-shareholder FCC-constrained radio. He plans for most of the shows to run live 3pm-6pm Pacific Time, but if there is a high level of interest from the audience, especially if that includes a high volume of calls (perhaps because of breaking news, or a really hot topic), he may extend the show an hour or more. He can see in real time how many people are listening via various ways of getting his show, which is Internet-based rather than on AM or FM radio.

Listening closely to his tone and some of his comments, he does, from time to time, get irritated with a lack of calls, and even warns that he'll stop any given episode of the show when the calls stop and go off and enjoy his wealth, even if that means stopping that day's show early.

That's where the fun comes in.

One of his advertisers is an attorney. That attorney is regularly scheduled for the "bonus hour" of 6pm Pacific Time on Tuesdays. One Tuesday the attorney will talk about divorce/family law. The next Tuesday he'll talk about criminal defense law (especially relating to DUIs), and it alternates like so. Tom and the lawyer take calls after discussing what are usually relevant current events and the callers will get free legal advice to a certain extent.

Here's where Tom's audience has the opportunity to prank or punk him.

It seems to me that Tom has to do all three hours of Tuesday's show because he has to do the fourth hour with his advertiser, who obviously has asked to be on the "bonus" fourth hour because of needing to work before then. That means there is no way Tom is going to end the show early on a Tuesday. That means that if the audience refrains from calling in, Tom will have to vamp (as he likes to put it), most likely by chatting with the crew. Or less-than-stellar callers will be kept on the show for a long as possible.  Especially if Tom figures out that the audience is doing it on purpose, he may get irritated enough to go on a rant about his own audience.

If it happens regularly, I wouldn't be surprised if he starts doing the Tuesday show at 5pm or even 6pm.

Just something to think about if you want to get under his skin a little bit.

And Tom, if you're reading this - you're welcome.


UPDATE: He went on a rant today (July 8. 2013) about the lack of calls in July 1 & 2, and saying that's why they took July 3rd off, and he expressed his contempt for people who were criticizing him for taking the 3rd off. He even threatened to take the summer off. Today was his first live show since last Tuesday. Oh yeah, he's ticked. I think he expected that, by this date, he'd have a higher volume of quality calls and more people paying for the premium access rather than listening for free to the live stream or the repeating show (which repeats until the next live show).

A Grand Recap of Mother's Day

I failed to arrange anything special for Mother's Day.

Stick with me here.

My wife doesn't want things like flowers. She considers those a waste. Generally, when she wants something, she asks for it, and usually she gets it. She has a wish list which she prefers people use, but she hasn't updated in since she was preparing it for Christmas and the things left on it are for the kids, not her.

She pretty much just wanted to sleep in and relax on Mother's Day. I brought her a favorite drink that amounts to a milkshake with a slight coffee flavor, though it is marketed as coffee drink. I offered to bring her anything she might want to eat, but it seems she preferred food in the house she could grab herself, but even more so candy from her stash.

I wrote her a nice, positive note. It could have been more syrupy, but I kept it honest. I mean, I think we've done some lousy things as parents, as I think I've explained in other postings. I did not pick the the mother for my children I thought I was picking, and one who would be a good counter to my flaws that diminish my fathering, and for her to be a very good mother, she needed a different husband, one who could make up for the fact that she is physically a wreck, emotionally immature, and mentally ill.

But why didn't we do anything unusual for Mother's Day?

It struck me that almost every week, one, two, or three days are already Mother's Day.

1) She sleeps in as long as she wants.

2) She usually doesn't cook or clean or do any chores or those days.

3) She doesn't tend to the kids. I do. I keep them from killing each other, I make sure they are fed and washed and clothed, I take them places.

4) She gets to watch whatever she wants and play on her tablet as long as she wants.

So while I didn't do anything special for Mother's Day, she had a day a lot of mothers wish they could have.

This is the Reality of Many Husbands

Some really great letters are posted at Dr. Laura's website. Typically, there will be three letters posted every weekday. This is usually something distinct from things posted on her show's Facebook page.

Here's a recently printed letter from Peter.

Fifteen years ago, I married my sweet loving girlfriend after many years of dating. The first year of marriage was pretty bumpy, but then she read your book "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands". Wow, the marriage really got good.

Sounds great, right?

Fast forward to today and things have taken a turn for the worse. I like so many of your callers am no longer married to my girlfriend.  Instead I'm married to a bitchy wife with 3 kids. Now I understand 3 kids can be a handful, but here are a few thoughts from my perspective.

1.When you say guys don't communicate that's because we often get punished if we communicate.

Anything you say can and will be used against you. Not just what you say but how you say it.

She asked me what's wrong about a year ago and I made the mistake of telling her.

Sometimes, it is best to minimize interaction.

I get the house will be a mess with three kids, but every room is like a war zone. So instead of ever mentioning it again, I just put in some extra effort in doing the dishes for her, some laundry, picking up things. And now by me being helpful and proactive, she considers I'm still complaining...

Some women claim to agree to a division of labor. The husband is supposed to financially support the entire family and handle certain chores and errands (lawn care, automotive maintenance, etc), and they will handle most of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. But then the women will do a little test. They'll stop doing some or all of the domestic chores and figure either their husband will do it himself or he will shell out cash to pay someone else to do it, even though he's already paying half of his salary for domestic considerations.

2.I didn't realize I signed up for a life of celibacy.

There isn't (any longer) a legal requirement not a social requirement that a wife actually be her husband's lover.

Again, I made the mistake of communicating my frustration. I also emailed her some quotes from you like, "This is the measure men have of how much their women love them". Now she says I'm just thinking of me.

So she doesn't enjoy sex? Most likely she seemed to enjoy it before the wedding and maybe even before the kids.

3.Men are reactive and not pro-active. She doesn't seem to understand, the woman sets the mood of the household. And men react to their woman's mood. If she is bitchy then I'm on guard and try to not communicate too much to avoid her wrath. If I confront her, it's twice as bad.  And if I avoid her, I'm still a bastard for being quiet and not communicating. Refer back to #1.

Yup. It's a rigged game.

4.Men aren't women. I'm not wrong because I don't react to the kids the same way you do. My experience?  When I lay down some rules, Mommy intervenes to tell the child Daddy is wrong for being angry. To undermine Daddy like that just sets up the kid to be a spoiled brat for the rest of its life.

And yet you know that if he backed off she would complain that he doesn't help parent.

In conclusion, there was time when I would have swam through shark infested waters to bring her a lemonade. Now I just seem to forget some of those presents at anniversaries and birthdays.

She no doubt complains to anyone listens about that.


Is this a man who can honestly tell his son or any other man that marriage is a good thing?

Something a Wife Doesn't Want to Find Out

Standard disclaimer about posts like this: I love Dr. Laura and her show. I do posts like these to express my few, usually minor, disagreements with how she handles some calls/topics. Also, this post is going to be about very adult topics.

Discouraging Shacking Up

In Hour 1 on March 5th's show, Dr. Laura got a call from a shack-up honey who was just nineteen, or maybe that was her age when the shacking up started. She was concerned about how her boyfriend handles money. Now, I'll say yet again that I think shacking up is a terrible idea (I intentionally avoided it) and I adore Dr. Laura and I'm a huge fan of her. It is because I listen so thoroughly and closely that I can pick bones sometimes.

Dr. Laura told her...

Justifying Unmarried Fornication is Not the Same As Planning to Cheat on Your Spouse

Ah, two entries in a row inspired by the Dr. Laura Show. As I often do, I'll say I love her show, books, etc. and I generally agree with her and I think she does a lot of good for people.

With that out of the way...


In the first hour of yesterday's (March 3, 2015) show, a woman called to ask about letting an unmarried middle-aged couple stay in the same room of her family home while they visited for an event to which they were going. The caller was against it; her husband was OK with it. She and her husband did NOT shack up themselves. Her husband was justifying the fornication of their friends by saying that dating was to get to know someone, and sex was part of that and people did it so they wouldn’t get "defrauded" into marriage. Dr. Laura claimed that the statistics are that when people don't shack up and don't have sex before marriage that their "success rate in marriage is much greater".

I’d like to believe that. That's how my wife and I handled it, after all, and this is a claim I have always accepted. I think I've gone into great detail about that before on this blog about the various  reasons that statistic might be true. One of them is that the kind of person who is willing to wait until marriage for sex and cohabitation is also likely to avoid filing for divorce, no matter how miserable or toxic things get.

Anyway, if the call had ended there, that would have been great. But it didn’t.

Dr. Laura then told the caller to be "very worried" about her husband's mentality because "sex outside the marriage may be the next thing he justifies." The caller was stunned. "Yeah," Dr. Laura continued, "He’s going in a direction, can't you see that?" Then when the caller revealed they got married when he was 45 (he'd never been married before) Dr. Laura said she would have talked the caller out of that one, and ended the call. But she went on to say "He's creeping out from under the covers. We're hearing more and more the truth."

Really?

There are many, many people who think it is "OK" for middle-aged people to fornicate monogamously with each other who do NOT think it is OK to cheat on their spouse and never would cheat on their spouse. I know, I know, there are people who say fornication is cheating on your future spouse, which, of course, assumes someone will have future spouse. But that's a very specific religious view. I'm instead talking about general mindsets in society.

I largely agree with Dr. Laura’s overall moral mindset, but I know there are many people who do not think like "us" and thus do not see all sex outside of marriage under the same general category of immorality. In their minds, cheating on a spouse is entirely different than having sex with your longtime monogamous partner you are with under the intention of finding a spouse.

I'm not sure telling that wife to be suspicious of her husband was a productive thing to do.




The more likely way this pertains at all to the marriage of the caller is that her husband himself might feel like he was defrauded. But the caller said they didn't shack up, not that they didn't fornicate. I'm fairly certain from what the caller said and didn't say that they did fornicate and so the husband "knew what he was getting himself into".

So Dr. Laura's nudging of the wife towards suspicion seemed to me to be a mistake on her part. The call should have been ended with the fact that the wife is co-owner of the home (assuming she is - she might not be given the ages, and if she's not Dr. Laura probably would have said that was wrong, too) and she doesn't want unmarried couples spending night together in her home, and that should be the deciding factor.

A Success Story

Let's get something straight right away. I'm still of the conviction that sex is for marriage.

Today’s Dr. Laura Show e-mail of the day comes from "Kelly" and is titled "Waiting Made It Better". I don't know if that’s Kelly's title or the title given to the letter by Dr. Laura or someone on her staff.

When my husband and I began dating, we were in our forties. Unfortunately, in our age group, sex is an expectation of even the most casual of dating.

That's an expectation of any age group from 16 years-old on up.

I knew I had a keeper when at the very beginning of our relationship, he agreed to wait until our wedding night!

Many women "knew they had a keeper" due to a similar agreement, only to find out that they married a man who has little to no interest in having/ability to have sex with her or women in general. This could be due to impotence, or trauma, hormonal problems, or a disorder, or only having attraction to children or males or inanimate objects. And then what? Well, many people who insist only having sex in marriage also insist on not divorcing. So you they find themselves enduring a lack of this kind of affection for the rest of their lives. That is more tolerable if someone is paying your way through life, but for men, it is less so.

This was made all the sweeter as we had both previously been married so we knew what comforts and pleasure we were missing.

So it isn't like they were curious and pent-up virgins. It's one thing to "wait" when you've had it as a regular part of your life before. It is another thing to wait when you've never had it, and we shouldn't pretend it is the same thing.

We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary this past Valentine's Day.

That's smart on his part - getting married on February 14. It cuts down by one the number of "special days" he has to make a big deal about. He gets even more points if he Kelly's birthday is December 25. If you're going to get married, guys, find a woman whose birthday is either 2/14 or 12/25 and get married on the other date.

We have a marriage that is not only passionate and getting more so each year, but we have peace in our home and the loving, trusting, never-going-to-leave-you-no-matter-what relationship we've always dreamed of.

If she's implying that he's:

• loving
• trustworthy
• never going to leave her no matter what

...because he was willing to wait, well, that isn't necessarily the case, as many women who married men who waited with them can testify. Also, "never-going-to-leave-you-no-matter-what" can be a very a problematic attitude. I made vows to my wife, but if she gets to strike three as far as risking harm my children, than I pray I have the guts to leave her.

Getting back to the title of the letter and her comment that "this was made all the sweeter". The fact is, we don't know. We have no idea what it would be like if they hadn't waited. She might be just as happy with everything now. And yes, things might have been not as good. We don’t know. What we do know is that for that amount of time, which they are never getting back, they weren't enjoying sex. We make these claims, implicitly or explicitly to younger generations that if they just wait, things will be great. It isn't necessarily so. There are real people out there who waited and have found things are not great - they may be awful. I'm glad things are great for Kelly and her husband, and wish them a long and happy life together, but it doesn't always so the same for everyone, and they're only five years in anyway and things could be very different in another five years. We can still make the case that waiting is the right thing to do without fostering unrealistic expectations that will leave some people confused and bitter.

Something to See

In recent years, I’ve complained much about my marital situation on this blog. However, there are a few common complaints many husbands have that I don't have.

• My wife has not gained weight. She may even weigh less right now than when we married. She could stand to gain some weight, actually.
• My wife has not chopped off her hair. Yes, she gets the rare haircut, but she doesn't have her hair shortened too much.
• My wife also stays "groomed" the way I prefer.
• She has not frumped out/butched up on what she wears.

I'm going to stop here, because I want this post to be entirely positive. Notice that these are each, at least in part, visual. That is important to most men.

Calm Waters For Now

Things have been "good" the last few weeks or so with my wife. Prior to that, I was heading in to a few days off, and she picked a fight with me and I figured she was setting up her excuse to avoid affection and to sit in bed all day until I returned to working. But inexplicably, she woke up the next day and wanted a hug. Nothing had really changed in our discussion. She had not accepted any of my answers to her questions, and yet here she was, wanting a hug.

So, what typically happens, I oblige and then I’m happy the active, open hostility has subsided, but in the back of my mind, I know it is only a matter of time until she has another round of being actively, openly hostile towards me, quite possibly without any discernible trigger. Like I said, since that last round things have been "good". I use quotation marks because it is a relative description. If you would have described my life now to me when I was deciding whether or not to ask my wife to marry me, I would have ran the other way.

Given the ages of our kids, my wife could definitely work at least part-time, but she "can't" because of her physical condition. The thing is, she can drive and use computers for hours on end, so yes, she can work. Ah, but being a full-time Wife and Mom means she'll have time and energy for me and the kids and to make a pleasant home. At least... that's what people like Dr. Laura and other advocates for SAHMs say all of time. However, that's not how things are actually playing out. My wife is doing laundry more again, which is good, and she does some of the shopping, which is good. But the house is a mess, she rarely cooks (on the bright side, I know she's not secretly drugging me and she can't consistently drug my kids behind my back), and the sex is pretty much just mercy sex once every two or three weeks. She did change her medications so that she can now achieve orgasm again, but so far, the frequency of sex hasn't increased as a result. I do gently try to initiate, but there's usually some way that gets shot down: "It would be better tomorrow..." and then usually it doesn't happen the next day: "I’m not feeling well"; or she picks a fight, or she's gets on the rag.  It's pretty easy to deflect when you limit the opportunity to once per week, knowing that at least one week every month will have a period and refusing to do anything while on your period.

In my wayward youth, I enjoyed actually sleeping with the women with whom I was fornicating. We'd cuddle and spoon. I can't recall if I've ever done that with my wife. She usually comes in to go to sleep long after I do and I get up long before she does, and even if we go to bed at the same time, cuddling is out because of her physical condition and her preferences regarding body heat. We have a king sized bed and we keep to our own edges, and the dog sleeps between us, usually pressed up against me and growling loudly whenever I stir.

Most attempts I make to take my wife out for a date are shot down.

Maybe once a season, I get to hang out with some friends.

As with many other men who have found that marriage itself has been and overall detriment to them, I do find much joy in my children. As difficult as they can be, I enjoy their excitement to see me, playing with them, teaching them, and giving them hugs and kisses, and watching them grow. I feel horrible that they have a mother who can't or won't fully mother them (to the point my daughter tries to take on a motherly role quite often), a mother they worry about, and a mother who may have passed along some negative traits I was unaware of that might manifest as the kids age. On the other hand, they wouldn't have existed if I wasn't married to their mother.

I realize my life is better than the lives of billions of other people in the world. It just isn't something I would have chosen if I had known a few more facts. Hopefully, my wife's condition will not significantly deteriorate from where it is now. Hopefully, I won't come down with heart disease. Hopefully, none of us will get maimed or killed in an accident. Hopefully, these will be all be true long enough for my kids will grow into well-adjusted, independent adults.

Then, the next thing to which I look forward to is retirement. Maybe I'll get to that before I die.

Self Improvement Met With Hostility

Here's an update on my fabulous life as a married man.

These days, when things are "good", it is only relatively so. "Good" means my wife is not being actively and openly hostile towards me. "Good" means my wife has thrown something into a pot to make a delicious dinner, and has actually done some laundry. It might even mean a few minutes of mercy sex! (Three week gaps seem to be the norm now.)

But then, out of the blue, things will turn bad.

This latest time was supposedly because...

For years now, my wife has been trying to drug me. This has continued even though with therapy and a new attitude and expectations, my behavior has generally and considerably improved. It has been a long, long time since, in a fit of extreme frustration, I have shouted loudly at my wife or the kids. I'm not perfect, of course. There are still times I am grumpy or sigh or get sarcastic, but I'm better and continue to get better. Still, I had to use a bargaining chip with my wife to keep the family together and told her I'd ask my therapist for an M.D. who could give me a medication. I did. We went to visit him. He realized I wasn't going to feel free to talk with my wife in the room, so he sent her out. He didn't give me much time. He prescribed a med. So, he wasn't telling me I should take that med, but he was making it possible for me to take it.

My wife picked it up from the pharmacy as fast as she could.

I read what the med mainly treats. I don't have those symptoms. I read what the side effects were. I don't want those. So, I pocketed the med and didn't take a single dose, but rather continued to "improve" my behavior. (I'm not really sure 'no longer caring' is an improvement for a married father, but that is the approach I took.)

My wife was pleased with me. She told me she noticed my improved behavior, and I let her believe I was taking the med.

Of course the refill time came around, and she asked if I was going to get a refill. I told her I would handle it.

A few more weeks down the line, now, she wanted clear, committal answers from me about whether or not I was refilling the med and taking it. I wasn't smart or fast enough to handle the situation better. She questioned my masculinity. I finally told her I'd never taken a single dose.

THAT is what started the last bad period. She was, and is, furious. Except when she's asleep, she has constantly been hostile towards me and verbally attacking me. I've tried to engage as little as possible. I've asked her what was more important, that I improve my behavior or that I be drugged? She knows she loses that one, so she's switched it to repeating over and over again that I lied to/deliberately deceived her, and has started to say I haven't gotten any better (unfortunately for her, I've kept all of her messages where she was praising my improved behavior). She has told  me she can't trust me about anything about this, she has been insisting I answer direct yes-or-no questions about all sorts of things including whether or not I've ever had a physical or emotional affair during the time we've been together (absolutely not). She says she can't trust that I'm actually going to therapy, that she can't trust that I don't have STDs, that she can't trust I actually got a vasectomy... on and on it goes. She's declared our marriage will be sexless. I managed not to retort with sarcasm asking how that would actually be much of a change.

Reasoning with her is ineffective.

I really hate spending my time reading her angry, immature, delusional, belittling messages and having to respond to some of them. Too much of my life is being wasted doing that.

I've said we should resume going to family therapy. She was sour on that idea. Hey, I'd rather not go, either, but that's like saying I don't want to go to the ER. I'd rather not have been in an accident in the first place. She recently went and saw a therapist herself a grand total of one time, probably just so we could  tell a social worker she was getting help after Strike Two.

I've pointed out to her that she recently told me she was going to start taking her meds as prescribed, rather than sporadically, and I'd assumed before that she already had been. So where does she get off being so upset that my behavior has improved without a med?

I'll tell you how.

Tom Leykis Doesn't Really Know All That Much About Religion

But then neither do a lot of religious people.

Tom Leykis is an Atheist.  He makes no pretense of being Agnostic or anything like that. He states that there is no God, not that there might not be a God. He does admit his Atheism is a belief, but he falsely claims he doesn't try to get people to adopt his belief system.

The first two hours of his Thursday, January 8 show was the topic "Religion: Stupid". It was inspired, it sounds like, by the Islamist terrorist attacks that just happened in France.

1) His lumping of all religions together is like someone lumping all audio content shows (radio, podcasts, etc.) together and saying something like "Stephanie Miller did something terrible, so all audio content shows are stupid!" If Leykis wants to debate whether philosophical naturalism or a belief that there is a supernatural existence makes more sense, that's one thing, or debating the benefit of religious community, or ritual, or whatever, fine. But to lump all "religions" (by which he seems to mean anything that isn't Atheism or Agnosticism), which are highly diverse in beliefs, practices, and historical behavior, and then demand that someone has to defend them all, is an invalid exercise. I'm not obligated to defend belief systems and practices that are often exactly opposite of mine.


2) He repeats the common falsehood that there has been more death and destruction in the name of religion than anything else. First of all, "religion" is too broad a term. See #1. I know he doesn't consider Atheism a religion and since Atheistic rulers have been the biggest mass murders in history, then no religion can be.

I Want You to Want Me

"Glen"  has Dr. Laura's e-mail of the day:

I have been married for 27 years.

Much longer than me.

And the time is coming up quickly on the one year anniversary since my wife and I have had sex.

And I thought once every three weeks, which is our frequency these days, was bad!

I totally accept 100% of the blame for this. You see...I stopped asking to have sex. Since then...nothing.

What I came to realize is that my wife has no interest in me sexually. And at this point the most un-appealing thing to me is to be with someone who is not interested.

I identify with this man very much. That is very much how I feel.

I can't imagine ever being intimate with my wife again. It's kind of sad...funny...frustrating...that the one person in this world I find more attractive than anyone else, doesn't want to be intimate with me.

He goes on to say:

All I think about is being with someone else. In fact it is kind of like hating your job. I was always taught to keep the bad job until something else comes along. I guess I am waiting for that something/someone better to come along.

That is where we differ. Yes, I'd want sex. No, I would not want another relationship - ever. I'm a loyal guy anyway, so I'm not going to ever jump ship because some other woman comes along. I may jump ship, but the only way I'd ever get into another relationship is if I would be a kept man. Otherwise, I do not want the risks or all of the trouble.




My wife has recently switched her depression medications. She made it clear that the only reason she was going to switch was to get some sex drive back and regain her ability to have a orgasm. From the way she said it and the words she used it was very clear that she doesn't care about sex and it doesn't bother her that she hasn't wanted sex or had orgasms. She isn't switching for her benefit, she is switching for mine. However, in saying that, she mostly removes the benefit to me, and so it defeats the purpose.

Sad.

I repeatedly and explicitly told her to take whatever medication was best for her. I don't want her back on the medication she was on when she last tried to kill herself quickly (as opposed to slowly, which she does by what she does and doesn't do in daily life).

This is all crap I specifically did NOT want to deal with, which is why I made it clear I wanted to only date-for-marriage someone who was healthy. It's too bad I trusted people to be honest rather than being suspicious and demanding records.

Does It Ring True?

Professor Mike Adams, who I think is generally awesome when it comes to his columns and cleverness and his work fighting back against Leftist fascism in academia, has a column today comparing shacking up to marriage, with the title "The Ring Makes All the Difference". It plugs a book by Glenn Stanton called The Ring Makes All the Difference. He then goes on to list "ill effects" of shacking up.

Before we start, I want to make it clear that I think shacking up is a horrible idea. However, I'm at the point where I think marrying usually isn't a good idea, either.

In marriages, male-female ratios of violence are roughly equal – with women and men just as likely to initiate violence against their spouses. However, in cohabiting relationships, men are far more likely to initiate violence.

Uh, so what do you mean? Getting married makes women just as violent as men?