Boundaries

Dr. Laura mocks callers who use the word "boundaries." She says "Boundaries are what keep cattle in one place." This despite her own program's buffer featuring her talking about "retreading a tire" when she is in no way referring to dealing with an actual tire.

Less frequently, she'll say that boundaries don't stop other people from doing anything.

While she might dismiss "boundaries" as "psychobabble," it's a frequently used (often correctly) and understood term.

When someone "has boundaries," it isn't about controlling what other people do. Rather, it is all about what the person who articulates the boundary (whether only in their own mind, or voicing it to others) will tolerate, and how they will react if the boundary is violated.

Let's consider an example.

Joe decides he has a boundary that he will not allow his sister to criticize him for being a free man. At a family gathering, his sister bashes him for being unmarried. Joe politely excuses himself and leaves early.

Did the boundary stop his sister? No, but Joe didn't stick around for more abuse. That was setting and using a boundary.

Let's consider another example, one that Dr. Laura can really get behind.

Jenny establishes a boundary that her difficult mother can't stay with Jenny, her husband, and their kids. Rather, her mother can stay in a nice nearby hotel when she visits. Jenny's mother asks, "When I come for the visit next month, how about I stay with you?"

Jenny says, "Sorry to disappoint you, mom, but we need our privacy. That hotel chain you like has a nice hotel just a couple of miles away." That was setting and using a boundary.

Dr. Laura tells her callers and listeners to use boundaries all of the time. She just doesn't use the actual word. She has boundaries. For example, she will not argue or debate anything she says on her program.

Boundaries are wonderful things. I urge my readers to set boundaries:

• Don't marry
• Don't date women with minor children
• Don't date coworkers
• Don't date virgins
• Don't take unnecessary DNA tests
• Don't donate sperm
  
• Don't socialize at work
• Don't let the women you're dating know where you really live, work, or what your real name is
• Don't buy expensive gifts for the women you're dating
• Don't loan anyone money you can't afford to lose forever
• Don't pass up a better job out of what you'd call loyalty to a boss or employer 

All of those are boundaries, and I encourage people to have many more. Most people should have their own additional boundaries depending on what they want and what bothers them.

Boundaries are not requirements for OTHER people. They are something YOU put in place for YOURSELF. "If X, I will Y."

Put the Shackle Back On

On Tuesday, October 18, 2022, the Dr. Laura Program ran a call in the third hour that I'm almost certain was a repeat or was recorded off-air. Both are regular elements of the program.

The call was with a husband and wife. The husband had just left the wife within the last few days.

The focus of the call became the husband's claim that he left so he could do what he wanted to do. It sounded like he wanted to golf, fish, and certain other similar things.

Dr. Laura kept hounding him with "Why can't you do it while you're married to her?"

Then Dr. Laura said that she did what she wanted to do while married to her late husband. Note: Dr. Laura usually will not allow callers to compare themselves to her or ask what she'd personally do, but she often compares herself to the caller.

But there was a problem with that.

The caller was the husband. Dr. Laura was a wife. Dr. Laura usually notes significant differences between men and women, husbands and wives, and their power within marriage. In her marriage specifically, she had the fame and was a high income earner. She was also a trained psychotherapist. And for the last how many years of the marriage, Dr. Laura was in much better health and shape than her husband. OF COURSE SHE DID WHAT SHE WANTED.

A husband has little power other than to leave, and for most husbands, leaving still doesn't restore all of his power, and the courts will order the husband to spend a significant amount of his life earning money for his ex.

Many husbands can't do what they want because most wives have an extensive list of things (written or not) for the husband to do that occupies his time and energy, and if he doesn't do them or even if he does and his wife doesn't like what he wants to do with his leftover time, she can make his life a living Hell.

She can get hostile and bitchy. She can bitch at him and nag him, including while he's trying to sleep (that one is especially fun, I know from experience). She can shut down all affection. She can get him kicked out of his own home. She can spend him into debt. She can destroy his belongings. There's worse.

She urged the husband to go back to his wife, saying he can do what he wants to do and still be married. Yet, if he had already been doing what he wanted to do Dr. Laura might have gotten a call from the wife and told the wife she was married to a selfish man who didn't want to be married or that she "doesn't have a marriage."

It sounded to me like Dr. Laura was trying to prevent the wife from being a divorced woman at an age she would have slim pickings for a new husband. The call wasn't anywhere near long enough to get a good idea of what has really been going on in the marriage. Dr. Laura may have known due to a letter or what was discussed or sent back and forth prior to the call, but the listeners didn't.

Another Reason For Men to Avoid the Marriage Track

 

Guys, there are many reasons almost none of you are husband material and you should reorient your thinking and efforts away from finding a wife.

I’m adding another one I just heard Dr. Laura give. She has long said men shouldn’t use social media. But recently, relevant to when I’m writing this, she has also said “liking” pictures of women in swimsuits disqualifies you. That’s what she told a young woman who was dating a guy for about half a year.

Heed what she says, guys.

Spend your time, money, and energy doing other than looking for a wife. Want female companionship? Run game. 

Yet Another Example of Why Men Should Avoid Marrying

Every once in a while, the mask slips.

January 4, 2022, this, screencapped below in case it disappears, was posted on the Dr. Laura Program official Facebook page. [This entry has been bumped up.]



Many women commented on it, about how men need to jump through more hoops in order to get sex from their woman.

Typical right? We hear and read that all of the time.

About 24 hours later, this was posted on the very same Facebook page, again, screencapped below in case it goes away.



How can this be reconciled with the first post? Simple! Tell the boyfriends to stop doing so much for her. Right??? I mean, then her sexual desire will be reduced. Right???

The men had fun with this one, commenting on this second posting:




Dr. Laura does monitor and comment on her program's official Facebook page (unlike Twitter, which she doesn't personally check), so it will be interesting to see if she responds to this, deletes something (including some comments from men), or what.

There is a larger point here than two apparently contradictory posts on the same page in about a 24-hour span.

It is that many (most?) women DO NOT need ANYTHING in order to be sexual. The proof is in how women behave, often from first dates (or hookups without even going on a date), all the way until their wedding or the birth of a child. The proof is in affairs. The woman in the second post doesn't need her boyfriend to jump through hoops. She wants sex with them.

A BIG tell is single mothers. If she was able to have sex with him plenty when they were dating, even though she had LESS help around the house, and then he marries her and thus is doing more than before they were married, and the sex dwindles, that shows "he needs to do more" is dung. (Don't date or marry single mothers, though, guys.)

The only way "Hey, husband, you need to jump through more hoops" is true is if he needs to do more because she is now less attracted to him because of age and/or marriage, and if that is common, then it is all the more reason for men to STAY FREE and date women who are more attracted, or go into monk mode.

None of this is to say men who've been ignorant, delusional, desperate, or masochistic enough to marry shouldn't contribute around the home or shouldn't romance their wife. Rather, this is to again demonstrate an inconsistency between what woman (and marriage sellers) say, and how women actually behave.

See something I wrote before about this topic.

Two Calls in the Same Hour of Dr. Laura

I found the proximity of these two calls especially interesting. To be clear, they might not have actually been handled mere minutes apart, as the presentation of the program would imply, because 1) Dr. Laura does take some calls off-air, to be recorded for use in the program, and 2) previously aired calls are rerun. And both of these things happen unannounced, letting listeners believe this is all happening live.

May 13, 2025, Hour 2.

“Diane” called, age 70, married 37 years. We’re never told how old her husband is; we’re left to assume he’s about the same age.

In the last year, her husband has said he “doesn’t like” their sex life, it’s “too traditional”, and he’s “much more kinky”, wants “more exciting sex” and wants a girlfriend on the outside of their marriage.

Diane suggested she could do “some of” the things he wants to do, but since he knows she isn’t into it, he doesn’t want it with her. He doesn’t think it’s natural for her.

“He wants acknowledgment from another woman.”

Dr. Laura asked Diane if she’s willing to stay married to someone who’ll have sex outside of the marriage.

Diane was unsure, but of course Dr. Laura pushed for a decision. She does this even though it would be easy to give Diane both advice for staying as well as advice for if she is going to leave.

Dr Laura said that, if all this time of being married, they hadn’t done anything kinky, then it would be out of his nature, too.

Huh??? That’s dung. He could have very well struggled to contain his desires and feelings for 37-plus years. Dr. Laura knows that! But she just wants to beat up on the guy.

Dr. Laura goes on to say he’s at a point in his life he just wants to go out to play, and this is why men go to a prostitute or watch porn; so they don’t have to satisfy a woman.

Where did she get that? There was no indication from the call the caller isn’t satisfied, that her husband doesn’t want to satisfy her, and that he won’t want to satisfy any other woman he’s with. But Dr. Laura repeated it. She hasn’t talked with the husband at all and yet she made this assertion. The husband even said he wanted someone who was into it, so at least his claim is that he cares about the woman’s enjoyment.

Diane said her husband wants S & M.

She also said he’s been a good husband.

Dr. Laura, who has deemed many men who’ve done all sorts of things “good husbands” overall, said “Good husbands are not defined by the behaviors you just described to me.” First, no, Diane was referring to other behaviors. If she had tried describing all of those good husband behaviors at the start of the call or at any other time, Dr. Laura would have stopped her, perhaps with the uberannoying “WOO HOO!!! WOO HOO!! Diane’s husband has treated her well for decades, apparently. Two, talking about his desires isn’t being a good husband? No, if you maintain he’s just supposed to never talk with his wife about his desires. But isn’t it better he talked about his true feelings with his wife instead of simply sneaking out to cheat, hiding it from her?

Diane said she is “torn” because otherwise she loves the marriage. Kudos for Dr. Laura for not going on a long side rant about the word “torn.” I guess she was too focused on badmouthing Diane’s husband.

“Why do you want to stay with a guy who doesn’t want to sexually fulfill you and make love, he wants sicko sex?” Who said he doesn’t want to fulfill her? This is a contrarian assertion by Dr. Laura.

Diane said he says he wants to make love with her and have crazy sex otherwise.

In an attempt to distract the listeners from the fact she’d been messing up, Dr . Laura pivoted to saying she feels sorry for the caller for even debating it. That’s something Dr. Laura does when she’s losing - pivots to disapproval and shaming. She’s the great Dr. Laura, so her feeling differently from the caller is supposed to either change the caller’s position or make the caller feel lowly.

Dr. Laura called it a fact that Diane’s husband going to bring home STDs. See, since it’s “not a religious show,” it’s hard for Dr. Laura to say what exactly would be wrong with this arrangement if Diane was OK with it. Her husband could have had a vasectomy and “I’m Dr. Laura, and I don’t like it” doesn’t seem to be working, so the STD card gets played.

The problem with that is: This isn’t secret. He’s talking with his wife about it. There have been studies showing that people who are upfront about these things are LESS likely to spread STDs, because they get tested regularly and take precautions.

Then Dr. Laura mocked the idea that Diane’s husband would be able to separate out making love with her and getting kinky with someone else. What does that even mean? That he’d still try to get his wife to do S & M? I highly doubt that. Most men are very good at compartmentalization. Dr. Laura knows this! But she ditched that in an attempt to convince Diane and listeners that, somehow, it would be a problem. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. The alternative is guaranteed to be a problem: he’s either going to leave or be resentful.

Dr. Laura continued by asserting the caller won’t be horny for her husband. How does Dr. Laura know? On the contrary, maybe the caller would get off on it?

When Dr. Laura said women Diane’s age want to maintain the nest, the caller elaborated on that and mentioned being alone. Dr. Laura said “you’re never alone” because of friends, family, activities, etc. Um, what does she tell people who don’t want to marry? “You’ll be alone.” 

Case in point, she went on to say that the husband’s other lovers won’t care to be there when he’s dying (right after calling him a “sh!t” and “creepy.”) Yet again, Dr. Laura doesn’t know that. It happens more often than she’d ever want to admit: a lover who isn’t their spouse and never was a spouse being there as a husband is dying. I can think of someone I knew in such a situation, off the top of my head. I know Dr. Laura, instead of admitting she is asserting something that might not be true, would pivot to calling that strange or disrespectful. And who’s to say his wife will be there when he’s dying? She might die before or she might have divorced him for reasons unrelated to his desires.

Dr. Laura asks if she knew he was into S & M while dating. Diane said she knew he was into “kinky stuff like threesomes.”

Dr. Laura likened it to knowingly marrying a serial killer. I mean really. A guy wanting some sexual adventure has her thinking about murder. Oooookaaay.

Dr. Laura went on with her often-repeated “this is why I do this on radio, so that other women will be warned.” Right, that’s it. Not at all that it pays much more and if she’s in a room with a client/patient she can’t mute them, put them on hold, or hang up on them.

For sure, ladies, don’t marry a man who’d ever want a threesome, or sex with another woman, or an open marriage, or swinging, or BDSM, or whatever. (Spoiler: Almost all men who don’t have a low libido want at least one thing you’d find a turnoff or unacceptable, and even if he genuinely doesn’t at age 28, he might at age 48 or 68. So be sure to avoid this by never marrying.)

Society doesn’t say Diane’s husband’s desires are wrong. Some religions say they’re wrong. But again, the program “isn’t a religious program.” Most of society would say it’d be wrong for him to pursue his desires without his wife’s permission or at least making sure she is informed. Most of society would support him divorcing her to pursue his desires, or never having married.

Do with that reality what you will.

Dr. Laura has made it clear over the decades she is completely opposed to anything but monogamy in marriage. I can’t ever recall her articulating why, though, other than “you took vows to forsake all others,” which isn’t always true. However, I’m certain she has praised callers, letter writers, and others who’ve have been polyamorous, or swingers, or in an open marriage, or have done threesomes, or some other similar things: she just didn’t know the person she was praising had experience with those things, because it wasn’t the topic at hand.

*****

The other call during the same hour was from “Benjamin.”

Benjamin was married for 25 years and he and his wife were both virgins when they married.

He said their sexual relationship had been “tenuous” throughout their marriage because his libido is much more active than hers.

Dr. Laura didn’t jump in and point out that it’s normal for husbands to want sex more often than their wife, so he continued, saying three or four years ago, he said to his wife that had he known they’d be fighting back and forth about this he doesn’t know he would have entered into the relationship.

Notice that this is another example of how men are NOT supposed to be honest or share their feelings. They’re supposed to just shut up and keep being a butler and bank account.

Dr. Laura asked him about watching sex scenes in movies and whether he was doing all of the really exciting things the male characters were doing. Huh??? What does she think the characters are doing in these movies? And she knows they’re fiction, right?

Ben didn’t really say. He probably had no clue what she was talking about: romantic dinner? Passionate kisses? Sneaking out in the morning?

He said for him it was a matter of frequency and satisfaction.

Apparently based just on that, Dr. Laura said “Well that made you a crappy lover.” A good lover is primarily concerned with her satisfaction, not yours.

Uh, he didn’t say only his satisfaction. Also, what if Ben’s wife is a lesbian, or into a kink? Dr. Laura didn’t know anything relevant, unless Ben wrote a letter, in which case that should have been mentioned. Notice she didn’t tell the other caller, Diane, to be focused on her husband’s satisfaction.

Dr. Laura then went on to say the wife likely didn’t know much about her own body, even though the opposite could be true: she might have masturbated a lot before marriage to avoid having sex; she might be masturbating a lot now.

Dr. Laura went on to tell Ben that “probably you’re terrible at it and she has never gained an appreciation for it.”

Poor Ben. He has no way of knowing if he’s bad at it. For Dr. Laura to quickly assert that based on next to nothing is not OK. It’s a common tactic women use against men who say their marital sex life isn’t good. It’s been used against me. Except I know from experience that isn’t the problem. Dr. Laura KNOWS there are many wives who don’t have the same libido she apparently had (which had her doing things she now pretends never happened); many wives aren’t sexually attracted to their husbands. She wrote an entire book that’s mostly about that!!!

Anyway, she went on to tell Ben he and his wife should go to a sex therapist together.

Hmm. I’m guessing Ben and his wife were VERY religious and might still be. What are the odds they’re going to go to a sex therapist?

Dr. Laura continued, saying “Or you’re going to be divorced.”

What is she basing that on? It’s been 25 years. They made it this far. She then asserted again that Ben is a bad lover and turned his wife off. She wants to send him a “tape” of the conversation to play for his wife. Oh, no. No no no.

Now, it’s possible Ben is a bad lover. Sex is a learned skill, and he hasn’t had much opportunity to learn. But it’s also possible his wife simply has little interest in having sex with him or anyone else at all, and it has nothing to do with anything he did or didn’t do. She might have what Dr. Laura would call “trowma” or maybe she has hangups.

Poor Ben. He’s likely never going to experience a good sex life.

Well, there you have it. Two more examples among countless examples of why it’s better to avoid marriage in the first place.

. 

A Change in Perspective

At the opening of her Wednesday, January 18. 2023 program, Dr. Laura read something written by a man with the title of  "All The Wrong Reasons I Pursued Love with Women Why I'm Changing Now".

Here's what it said:

*****
I was taking women out because I lacked the confidence to say no.

I had a fear that if I didn't spend a lot of money or time on them they wouldn't want me or see me.

I was using dating to get my needs met. Sometimes I was just horny and needed some fun or relief, but I wouldn't communicate that.

I felt that nobody would give me that, so ultimately I would end up paying for an expensive date out and about, listening to her babble on and on, and buying her gifts.

I also had a belief that my value was tied to my wealth.

I also learned that when I was horny and not having sex, I wasn't able to think clearly anymore.

It no longer became about enjoying life, but about ego. Will she stay with me? Am I good enough for her?

I never asked myself if I was enjoying these relationships.

I also learned that I could do and have what I wanted without giving up so much of my time, money, and freedom.

We have a tendency to spend and do tasks to keep a woman because of fear, and this is something I wanted to challenge.

I want to see what it is like to stop paying costs I didn't have to, and trust I will have a better life if I learn to limit my dates and learn to enjoy my own company.

And I have a feeling that will be much more rewarding than I can imagine.

I've also learned that my hard work and resulting earnings are sacred. I want to keep control over my wealth.

I will no longer take women on lavish dates who don't want to have the kind of fun with me that I like.

Staying free has helped me develop my own set of beliefs and flourishing into someone I can respect.
*****

Just kidding. That's not what it said. Everything above does have an analogy to the sentences Dr. Laura read. But what she read was from something written by a woman and the title was "All the Wrong Reasons I Slept with Men Before and Why I’m Changing Now." Dr. Laura DID NOT cite on the air where the essay was posted and who wrote it. Instead, she was very limited in what she actually read from the essay, even removing important phrases from some sentences.

Dr. Laura left out the parts about how this involved supposedly Buddhist meditation, from someone raised as a Southern Baptist, and how this person doesn't believe in a need for get a state license for marriage, nor for marriage to be permanent; check in frequently to see if the relationship should continue. What we have here is a woman who rode the carousel. And now that she's older, her hormones are changing, and the men she can attract aren't as high in their social status, she's basically saying she's only going to have sex if she feels an emotional connection, rather than just for recreation. She can still go through many men per year, but she's going to pretend it's much more profound than what she was doing before.

I'm not faulting a single woman for thinking she's going to put more meaning behind when she has sex. But let's be clear about what's going on here, and what Dr. Laura did with the text.

And what we have another example showing that men can get young women with no strings attached and little time, money, and effort spent by running game.

Who Is Right About Staying Together For the Kids - Dr. Laura or Dennis Prager?

Dr. Laura's priority is the well-being of minor children. She has experience as a marriage and family therapist, although she's far more experienced as a radio talk show host and author dealing with family problems, moral dilemmas, values, ethics, and more.

Absent actual abuse, she tells married parents who want to divorce to wait until the youngest child is 18 years old, up and out of the home. Her reasoning is that this avoids breaking up the child's home and bringing chaos into their lives while they are minors.

Dennis Prager, who says people should divorce instead of living in misery, says that it can be worse for the children to be in their (adult) late teens or early twenties and then have their parents split, because then the now-grown children think of their family life as fake or a lie, and they can still get extremely upset about the divorce.

It should be noted that Dennis Prager, who has no formal experience as a marriage and family therapist and has written much less on parenting/family and spends fewer talk show hours discussing those issues, has had more children than Dr. Laura and one more divorce than her (Dr. Laura was not a mother when her first marriage ended).

It's one of the things I would very much like to hear these two radio talk show host veterans discuss directly. I doubt that will ever happen since their shows aren't part of the same company. Also, because Dr. Laura refuses to argue/debate on her show, and my guess is that would also include any other show as well (this is probably one big reason she didn’t appear anyone else's show for many years, except for one on the same channel as hers - on which she doesn't argue.)

Unlike either of them, I would advocate most people avoid this question entirely by not marrying.

A False Dichotomy

Dr. Laura asserts the following dichotomy to her callers and her audience:

• Marriage means, among other things, having a state contract, making vows, living together, sharing finances, sexual exclusivity in complete privacy. Otherwise, it isn't marriage.
  
  
• Those things aren't part of dating, especially long-term dating, or living together without a state license (shacking up). There are no obligations and there are no agreements, such as an agreement to sexual exclusivity.

According to her, romantic relationships are either marriage as she defines it, or, if two years or fewer old, are mutually agreed to be on the way to marriage, or they are aren't worthwhile and there are no rules.

She's allowed to say what she wants on her program. But she can't dictate this for anyone else. The dichotomy she presents does not describe reality.

There are married people who don't have a state license, never had a ceremony, keep separate finances, spend substantial periods of time apart, and/or aren't sexually exclusive. They use the terms "husband" and "wife," treat each other as spouses as far as doing things together and generally putting each other first and caring for each other, are recognized as spouses by the people around them, and might even be recognized as married by the state.

There are unmarried people who have been together for years, live together, share finances, and/or have agreed to sexual exclusivity. The people around them recognize that they are a couple and respect their agreements.

These things are happening every day. Millions of people do these things. This is going on, whether I like it or not and whether anyone else likes it or not. And for the record, I'm generally against, in most cases, agreeing to an ongoing exclusive relationship, living together, or marrying.

A state-licensed marriage isn't the only personal relationship with rules. Friendships usually have rules. So do most unmarried romances. Commitment is in behavior. The state license isn't a commitment to do anything other than have the spouse who earns more pay the other.

If she's going to deny a caller's reality, the reality they've been living, the caller should probably consider getting advice from another source.

Fun With Statistics - Cohabitation

Cohabitation, or "shacking up," as Dr. Laura (and I) still call it, leads to marriage.

That goes against what Dr. Laura says. Shacking up is one of her main no-nos, in her countercultural preaching. She often rattles off a few statistics (which may or may not be current) to try to bolster her point.

And yet, if someone is a marriage seller, as she is, I can use statistics to point out that cohabitation leads to marriage:

1) Most people in our culture who marry lived together before they married.

2) Couples who don't live together are far less likely to marry each other.

There it is! CONCLUSIVE PROOF that living together leads to marriage!

Right?

Well, in fairness:

1) Many people live together but never marry each other.

2) "Couples who don't live together" includes all those people who are only couples for a few months and then break up; of course they didn't marry.

My overall point is that using statistics can be misleading, as I already pointed out in this post, "Thinking Critically About Cohabitation."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not advocating living together unmarried with a romantic or sexual partner. I generally think it is a terrible idea. But more and more people will not marry someone unless they live with them first. To me, that's all the more reason to avoid shacking up, as I discourage most men from marrying and encourage them to stay free. Despite what Dr. Laura says, when a guy has his girlfriend living with him, it reduces his freedom.

One Exception To "You Knew This Before You Married"

When Dr. Laura has a caller complaining about something in their marriage, she will almost always have one of these two statements as part of her response, even if she uses different wording:

1) You knew this about them before you married them.

2) You didn't spend enough time getting to know them before you married them. 

Usually, it is true. I do maintain, though that people: 1) CAN hide who they truly are, and especially a bad habit, for the 24-33 months she recommends before marrying, and 2) people can be changed negatively by illness or trauma.

But what I wanted to talk about was sex. 

Why Wait?

Dr. Laura's blog was updated with an entry with the title "Why Wait to Have Sex?"

People who engage in sex before or within the first few weeks of dating have lower levels of relationship satisfaction, communication and stability than those who wait longer.

The claim here is the first few weeks. So, a month in is good?

Why?

Because people who wait are so happy to be having sex that that they'll accept a lot of crap.

Because casual sex is lust over love. Without a foundation, the excitement of the passion wanes, and the relationship crumbles.

Not if they enjoy the sex a lot and are compatible. They have both "lust" and love after a while.

Most women want the first time they have sex with a man to be mind-blowing, special and something that brings them closer together.

Men want that, too.

However, there is no love or commitment early on in a relationship, so none of those needs are met.

That doesn't follow. People can have mind-blowing, special sex that brings them closer together without love and commitment.

I find it remarkable how many women would not entrust their apartment keys to a guy they just met (even if it’s just to water their plants) and yet, give no thought to exposing themselves to STDs and unplanned pregnancies.

If they have your keys, they can steal from you for a while without you even knowing. They can squat in your place and it can be a long ordeal to get them out. Some women actually enjoy sex, and don't see it as something a man does to them, but something they do with a man. But yes, STD tests, contraception, and vasectomies can be great things, and some people having sex on a first, second, or third date use those.

Contrary to what you see in the movies, people simultaneously orgasming 20 minutes after meeting each other rarely happens in real life.

Most married people don't experience simultaneous orgasms, either.

First-date sex is usually awkward, and it runs on his timeline — if you get my drift.

So now it's two dates in, rather than a month.

Also, some guys gladly engage in cunnilingus, fingering, etc. until she has at least one orgasm. Even on a first date.

Plus, there isn’t that much warm-up because there isn’t that much caring to give you a warm-up.

How would Dr. Laura know this? And again, the experience of many people goes against this.

Nothing has changed in the double standard. The more sexual partners a guy has had, the less he thinks of women and the sex he has with them. Guys know that the quicker they can get you to bed, the less wifey material you are. You may be humping for a few years or even shacking up, but there’s no true emotional bond.

Except for the millions of people for whom that hasn't been the case. There are couples who seem to have great marriages lasting decades who had sex on the first date. Everyone knows someone like that. I do.

Dr. Laura will tell female callers who've had unmarried sex "He's telling all of his friends he did!" These days, SHE probably told his friends. And hers. Like it or not, times have changed.

Men don’t value what they don’t have to work hard for.

How hard did most men have to work for their mother's love? And yet they value it tremendously.

If you want a healthy relationship, you should charge a high price for sex - the price being attention, care and commitment.

For Dr. Laura, a "commitment" means having a terrible state contract, joint finances, monogamy, and a bunch of other things that must all be together. In her mind, people can be together for ten years with the same goals and treating each other well, and it's not a commitment unless they have a state license and joint finances. Also, people shouldn't marry until after being together regularly for two yeas. There's a lot of room between a month and two or three years.

While she doesn't admit it, Dr. Laura borrows from materialism and religion for her secular program.

Materialism says men should pay - literally pay - for sex, because of supply and demand. This is why Dr. Laura says an unmarried man having sex is "getting sex for free." He hasn't signed over at least half of his income to the woman with whom he's having sex.

Religion: "This Scripture or this Prophet says unmarried sex is wrong."

She struggles to explain why people should save sex for marriage without citing either of those.

She didn't bring up abortion. Like STDs, unwanted pregnancies are a risk with sex. From a purely rational perspective, people should avoid sex if they aren't prepared for, or haven't taken steps to prevent, unwanted conception, spreading STDs, or catching unwanted feelings.

I'm not here to tell you to have sex before you marry, much less sex a few dates in. (Many of you will do it anyway.)

But I am here to tell you there's no way you should sign a terrible state contract unless you have experienced sexual compatibility and chemistry with that person, unless both of you don't care about sex (and you can't really be sure they don't). Actually, you shouldn't sign the terrible state contract regardless. But you shouldn't make vows, a joint residence, joint finances, or children with someone unless you know they can fulfill you in that way.

So, stay free.

Does Living Together Mean Doom?

Dr. Laura makes it sound like your marriage is doomed if you two cohabitate (“shack up”) with each other before you two marry. Well, chances are, it IS doomed, because it’s marriage and most marriages fail. Anyway, she also makes it sound like you won’t get married if you cohabitate while unmarried.

She’s highly likely to be basing that on very old data. But let’s grant that current data indicates “couples who cohabitated before marriage divorce at a higher rate than couples who didn’t cohabitate before marriage.” I don’t even know how anyone could word the second point. “Couples who cohabitate are less likely to marry than couples who don’t” is clearly not the case. Most couples don’t marry. Most people who marry had been a part of a different coupling multiple times before they ever married.

It’s possible to say AN INDIVIDUAL who shacks up tends to marry later or never marry in comparison than those who don’t. 

If the data takes couples who have plans to marry and tracks them over time, and sees that those who cohabitated before marrying had a higher rate of never marrying than those who didn’t cohabitate before marrying, that would be something. But since we don’t know the control group being used for the claim “couples who cohabitated unmarried were less likely to marry,” it’s a suspect claim. It’s far easier to make the first claim, as that is objectively, to some extent, observable: they married. They either lived together before they married or they didn’t. And over a certain amount of time, they either divorced or they didn’t. 

But what even counts as cohabitation? Even married people who didn’t officially share an address might have frequently spent days, weeks, even months in the same place. Back in my youth, I often spent 3-4 nights per week at my girlfriend’s place. I had my own place. I never claimed a girlfriend’s address as mine. Does that count? What if they spend almost every night together, some at his place and some at hers?

Keep in mind divorce is just one way a marriage can be terrible. A marriage can be legally intact but awful. Dr. Laura would claim the data also shows the quality of the marriage is better for couples who didn’t first shack up, but I’m not so sure. It could be that couples who didn’t cohabitate before marriage are less likely to be honest - with a sociologist or even themselves - if their marriage is crappy, and that could be for religious reasons, among other explanations.

Here’s the reality today whether anyone likes it or not:

-Most couples who marry cohabitated. (Twisting Dr. Laura’s tactic on its head, we can say shacking up leads to marriage, since most people who married shacked up.)

-Most people won’t marry someone they didn’t cohabitate with first.

-There are couples who’ve been together for decades, including officially or unofficially living together, who’ve never had even a courthouse wedding.

-There are people who’ve been married for decades who lived together before they married.

-If you want to be in either of those groups, there are things you can do to make it more likely.

One of the “dirty secrets” of the data Dr. Laura is using is that it lumps all unmarried cohabitation together, including people who never intended to marry or be permanent in the first place, and people who “fell into” living together. Data that separates out independently established, stable people who PLANNED out their cohabitation in advance, discussed and sincerely agreed about goals, intentions, rules, etc, and had a high level of general compatibility will show much better results.

Maybe you don’t want to marry.

Maybe you do.

Either way, cohabitation will be more likely and even may most likely work out if:

-It’s thoroughly planned out ahead of time, with sincere, honest, realistic discussions and agreement about goals, timelines, intentions, rules, etc. (Dr. Laura says there are no rules, but she doesn’t get to decide that for you.)

-It is done out of mutual intention, not incrementalism or “falling into it”, and an informed, experienced desire to live with each other, not out of desperation or zombie relationship escalators.

-You’re both responsible, established, independent adults who can generally handle life well and are fundamentally compatible.

Dr. Laura claims the intentions are different in shacking up, and that it is to avoid commitment. She was a trained, licensed, experienced therapist but she is not a mind reader. She doesn’t know what a caller she’s been talking with for 20 seconds really intended, and she certainly doesn’t know what their partner, who isn’t on the call, intended. She can make an experienced guess. Sometimes. 

Most of her listeners probably have no idea she did “everything” wrong. She shacked up for years with an older man who was a married father when she took up with him. She got pregnant at least once. And yet they subsequently married (as he had, she had been married before) and stayed married for decades, until he died. It apparently worked out for them. Although she’d say they beat the odds, if you could ever discuss it with her (she’d never let such a discussion about herself make it to air). If she’d discuss it and be honest about it, she’d probably say there was much misery because of how things started. 

I am compelled by my conscience not to end this post without stressing that  I think most men should avoid shacking up/cohabitating. It’s almost as bad as marrying. It’s costly and puts you at risks, shifting much of your power to her, and you can get kicked out of your own home. But if you’re going to do it, there are ways, as I explained, that make it more likely to work out. 

A Lack of Marriageable Women

Dr. Laura says everyone wants to be married, or at least be with someone, and in her world, that's the same thing. Something is wrong with people who don't. But she also has said the qualities a woman must have to be marriageable and has chastised men for marrying women who don't have these qualities.

This will especially help you if you call her up and she wants to know why you're not married, or not marrying the latest woman in your life.

These things disqualify a woman from being wife material according to Dr. Laura.

Out of the Age Range - If she is 27 or under, she's automatically not wife material yet. If she's more than ten years or more younger (or older... probably fewer years older) than you, she's out of the age range. A woman who is over 40 should not be having children.This will eliminate literally most women.

Has Minor Children - Single mothers, divorced mothers, and almost as much when it comes to widowed mothers, are to raise their children, who've already suffered a loss or a broken home. They shouldn't bring their new lovers around their children, and that precludes marriage until the children are grown. Many women 28 or older have children (though fewer than in the past). This will eliminate another significant percentage of women from consideration.

An Update on the Dr. Laura Program

 

The Dr. Laura Program got moved from SiriusXM 111 to 123.

That doesn’t mean anything to those who listen through paying for her specific subscription on her website, which then allows them to listen to the podcast of show directly from her website or through services like Apple Podcasts.

However, for casual listeners on SiriusXM, who might not have listened to her many reminders she was moving, it can mean they think she’s gone from SiriusXM.

So, she lost some listeners.

And it’s not the first time she was moved on that service.

What’s more, there are STILL people who listened to her on terrestrial radio who are unaware she’s been on SiriusXM since she left terrestrial radio and others who simply didn’t bother to listen via the service or pay for the podcast version of her show.

She’d already been struggling to get callers in recent years. The move hasn’t helped.

As a result, since the holiday break, there have been days she has changed the format for the last hour or so of her three hours. Instead of people calling her with their problems or dilemmas, she’ll announce a topic or a question and encourage people to call in with their response. This is more like traditional talk radio.

The problem with that is Dr. Laura isn’t used to traditional talk radio. She’s explicitly said many times that she doesn’t argue or debate. She makes the question or topic so narrow or specific that she gets callers she claims aren’t on-topic even though they are addressing many of the elements involved, and she puts them on hold or drops them without engaging. She usually has a specific narrative in her head she wants the callers to say, and of course many say something else, which might undermine the point she’s trying to make.

Her regular format consists of her giving a monologue about something, which casual listeners naturally assume is the topic for the hour or the day, which is incorrect. Because the rest of the time is taking calls on “anything other than politics,” with the first caller often having an issue that was addressed in the monologue (gee, what a surprise! Totally random, right? I mean it’s not like staff had that caller lined up already or anything). The callers are props; the point of the show is for Dr. Laura to pontificate, often using the caller as a negative example, and to occasionally slip in her political asides without allowing calls addressing those asides. When you realize the true point of her show, her constant interruptions of the callers and chastising them for not immediately stopping the moment she interrupts makes sense. Sometimes, the callers are helped. That’s a happy byproduct rather than the goal, most of the time.

With the lack of callers, it’s not hard for anyone to call and reach the screener. But you don’t even have to call. You can email the show and staff might call you to encourage you to come on the show as a caller.

While I now have a problems with her tactics, demeanor, hiding from her past, and some the advice she gives, I’m glad Dr. Laura is still teaching the people who are able to find her to:

-Take personal responsibility for their life in an honorable and ethical way

-Avoid misandry (in most cases) and treat good husbands well

-Not freak out about the existence or viewing of adult media

-Prioritize their minor children if they have them

-Not date parents of minor children or at least avoid the children knowing about them

-Not live together (unmarried)

-Not electively kill their child

-Not treat boys like defective girls

-Get their children out of public schools

…and probably many more things.