Until Elon fired me a few weeks ago, I was a federal employee, and we were *extremely* careful about what we put in our Slack, knowing that anything could be FOIA'd. We'd post pictures of our pets and have some occasional casual convo about our families, but never in a million years would anybody post anything like these NSA chats.
Jessie and Katie keep talking about corporate Slack cultures, but the norms are very different in gov't. What these guys were doing was completely outside the norms. I'm baffled by it all.
To log onto these systems you have to pass through big scary sounding banners about all the bad things the gov’t will do to you if you misuse the systems, and indicating in no uncertain terms that you have zero expectation for privacy on the system.
Agreed, this was completely out of bounds and no one would have reasonably thought otherwise.
It's insane to talk about this stuff at work, whether you work for the government or not. Why would I think it would be ok for me to talk about my dick in a work chat lol? I don't know if these people have become so used to doing whatever they want to, or it's the effect of how hard it is to fire government employees, but it's insane.
Funny, working in the private sector I feel the same way about office Slack. Mostly because of law suit discovery. There is an old saying, "Never put anything in an email you would not want reported in the New York Times." I feel the same way about Slack or any messaging system.
I'm so sorry about your getting DOGEd. I don't know you, and yet I know you didn't deserve this. Those firing emails were just cruel. It's obvious that no one's performance was reviewed. It was all slash and burn.
I hope you've got good private-sector (or state government?) prospects.
I work for a public university in a red state. We've always been advised that our emails aren't private. Lately, it became clear that FOIA is being used by our state's reactionaries to intimidate. An evening event on gerrymandering got FOIA'd because the requester demanded to know if both sides were being covered. This wasn't part of a class, just a completely optional event. The invited speaker was a former state Supreme Court justice - a Republican, but of the old-fashioned principled sort. In my state, that's already proof of left-wing bias.
I'm horrified that members of the intelligence services (!!!!) would be so indiscreet. Whether it's a firing offense is debatable. Certainly I see a security issue when an intelligence officer displays so little discretion. But chucking them all out indiscriminately is just cancel culture, which the right wing is now gleefully weaponizing. Katie's got Rufo's number on that.
I wonder how these chats were allowed to go forward. Clearly they were acceptable until recently. Trans stuff had a halo around it in liberal and progressive circles, leading to exceptionalism in multiple areas. Anyone with questions was a bigot. If anyone at work had enforced healthy boundaries, they would've posted this stuff to Reddit instead and they'd still have their jobs. (Maybe. Until they got DOGEd.)
Am I just a huge prude? I don't get why Katie and Jesse are willing to defend this particular topic of conversation in a workplace. I've obviously had personal conversations with coworkers, but I've never said or read anything remotely to do with bodily functions on Teams.
2nd half of the ep was absurd apologia for patently unacceptable conduct, especially at a place where you would hope/expect people are focused on their spy stuff rather than conversations straight out of front page Reddit.
The question is whether this is discriminatory because everyone was taking about personal shit of a similar nature and it was only the LGBT and trans employees that got canned
The question is how personal and how graphic were other people’s conversations? There’s a big difference between saying yay my kid won his little league game and the examples given. Although I would like to see more information on if this was a common level of conversation or a few random events.
Do we know that others were also carrying on personal conversations of a similar nature? That would be important context. I've seen no reporting to suggest other groups were revealing such personal stuff.
I'm with you in that I think these firings were indiscriminate. They might have been justified in individual instances - maybe in all. But no investigation occurred.
It feels like the target was entirely trans people (not LGB). I've got many objections to trans advocates re: kids, sports, demonizing terfs, sex denial, etc. But I support the Bostock ruling 100%. The sloppiness of this decision feels like invidious discrimination to me (IANAL).
To be fair, Jesse does say “sometimes Rufo is right” in this episode. Twice even!
But the way they focus much more on Rufo’s misdemeanor exaggeration rather than felony butthole zap chat is annoying. And how they a different level of scrutiny and credulousness to claims that support Rufo’s position (the gangbang is just hearsay!) vs. claims that refute it (oh well somebody claims in the past no one was ever fired for these kind of inappropriate chats, let’s take that as gospel that this was widely considered acceptable behavior so it’s totally unfair to fire them).
J & K are journalists. They're right to demand evidence. They're right to call out hearsay.
I remember when Rufo first burst onto the national scene. Jesse had a lot of time for his ideas, initially. Then Rufo revealed himself to be a propagandist.
Katie had reasons to doubt Rufo's integrity going back to his Seattle days. She would have welcomed a heterodox voice on council, as she states in this episode. Rufo shredded her initial openness to his views.
But when you only do it to one side, it’s an isolated demand for rigor. They are happy to accept the hearsay and speculation when it supports their preferred position (that this was normal behavior and the trans users got unfairly singled out for harsh punishment). And they are doing it because of their personal opinions about Rufo, not because of the actual evidence on the story. That’s my issue.
Also when Katie was setting up this whole heel turn for Rufo, where he really showed his true colors as to her before anyone else… I guess I was expecting a bit more than just “exaggerated the severity of the online harassment his wife was getting”. Harm inflation seems to be basically table stakes in Seattle.
EDIT to add - the gangbang quote is also such a trivial thing for J+K to fixate on. It’s not particularly relevant to the actual story, the rest of quotes were bad enough that I don’t see that as something that should swing opinion one way or the other. It’s mostly only relevant to whether J+K can rip on Rufo for exaggerating. On the other hand, whether this was common and openly accepted behavior on the system is very important! But they don’t really dig into this. Or even what the server *is* - they admit their ignorance on that, but brush it aside. Once they’ve got a version of the story that makes Rufo and Trump look bad, they run with it, even though there’s no better evidence than for the “gangbang” chat.
J&K spend way more time going after the left than the right. So the isolated demand for rigor argument is pretty off base here. As they say there are plenty of people going after trump, and hardly Anyone with good faith going after the worst lefties.
Also IDFR is the number one argument in support of gender affirming care so be careful with that one.
On this particular topic, it’s definitely an isolated demand for rigor, and that’s the limit of the extent to which I’m making that claim.
I realize J+K mostly go after left wing targets. That doesn’t automatically make their approach to covering Rufo and Musk objective and balanced. Indeed I suspect the opposite - Jesse in particular seems so obsessed with avoiding “audience capture” that he gets a little too excited to let his Lefty Twitter flag fly whenever a right winger gets in the sights of B&R, I guess to prove his “I’m still a liberal” bonafides.
Actually, is “no hearsay” *really* a journalistic standard? I see stuff like “so and so said X, according to a source that was present at the meeting” all the time! Which is exactly what we have here, a source from NSA, who would have been in a position to see such a chat, claiming they saw one discussing a “gangbang”. I feel like this is an “unconfirmed” statement, but not an “inadmissible” one.
I’m also not sure whether this would be “legally” hearsay - how does that handle electronic communication or public posts? This isn’t a witness saying “I overheard Bob say this” when Bob can’t be cross examined, this is a witness saying “I was reading a post online, and the post included this”.
Yeah, flip this around and imagine this was a bunch of straight guys on a government Teams channel going into sexually explicit details about gangbangs and tits. They're be fired immediately (and rightfully so), followed by endless pieces on toxic masculinity once it became public.
Except the stuff that was described is absolutely not as sexually explicit as those things.
The vaginoplasty stuff would would be like a bunch of straight guys talking about their experience having prostrate cancer treatments and how that negatively (or positively I guess?) impacted their sex life.
The polyamory stuff was like “hey I’m a member of a poly cule”. It wasn’t a description of any sexual activity at all.
None of it was appropriate for work channels but it wasn’t pornographic.
The pod addressed the latter. Unlike the others where there are screenshots etc, It’s just hearsay. Someone said they saw it. A responsible reporter would have said they couldn’t lob that kind of accusation without evidence beyond hearsay.
The former - again, as our lovely hosts said, super inappropriate for work. But it’s like “I had this medical treatment and here’s how it affected me” it’s not porn.
Absolutely! We know zero about conversations occurring in any other social channel.
Do you agree that Rufo is far more likely to go after bad a behavior from people who are LGBT than equally bad behavior from straight people? Based on his past behavior, I think so.
Go to any MtF sub on Reddit and search the phrase "euphoria boner." I'd say that whenever an AGP describes feeling "gender euphoria," arousal is a component of it about 90% of the time. This is because the perception of themselves as women is literally a paraphilia for AGPs; it cannot be fully divorced from their sexual desires (even after castrating themselves). By no means do I agree with Rufo's exaggerations, though. These conversations are cringey and horrifically unprofessional, but they're not cybersex. However, there is definitely a sexual motivation for this sort of oversharing, even if it isn't necessarily sexually explicit.
These people should be disciplined (but not fired) for this. I'd be repulsed and creeped out if my coworkers spoke that way to me.
I will admit this is speculative, but I would wager that if these people were talking like this in a widely visible group chat, their in person interactions were likely also visit-to-HR worthy.
I’m there with you - my personal feeling is that she was the most normal-looking, not-trans woman on the rationalist scene which meant she could easily engage and provoke.
Also, sleeping through a scheduled interview is not charming.
I was about to write the same thing lol. I find her gross. And people need to stop saying that she’s a sex researcher. She’s not. She just uses the numbers she has on her accounts, this is not genuine sex research. I had to skip the beginning when they talked about her.
She seems like she has become the avatar of the ideal woman for a subset of high SES, data and optimization obsessed men, and I hope that makes her happy. The stories about her/her projects seem like a great argument that the endless drive to optimize and quantify all aspects of life leaves you without much of an actually core personality, crying after getting gangbanged on your birthday 😬
I'm not a fan. Maybe I'm a pedantic academic. (Okay, yeah. I am. No apologies!) But her surveys are not worth the pixels expended on them. She's good at garnering attention, which might be the only skill that matters in today's economy. I thought it was kind of embarrassing that Aella got airtime on my favorite pod.
But I will read Helen's profile of Aella because Helen is, in fact, the epitome of endearing.
I grew up in a moderately conservative southern city, so “girl who grew up in very Christian household doing a hard pivot into ‘I know what sex is! I have sex and talk about it all the time!’” is not very novel or engaging to me.
It is unusual that she’s continuing this attitude into her thirties, I’ll give her that.
I find it gross that we’re normalizing Aella’s way of life. It’s a free country, she can make money fucking strangers if she wants, but I will never believe that it is wholesome for her, wholesome for women as a group, or wholesome for society.
Strongly agree. I almost paused at the beginning to comment this. I like most of Katie and Jesse's friends, but I detest Aella and nothing they say will ever make me like her.
I have completely flipped my opinion on Aella. After the bday gang bang episode last year I went to her substack to check out the hilarity. The first unlocked post turned out to be a strange very well written stream of consciousness meditation on her ‘method ‘ of curious , open and completely unprotected exploration of inner pain. Not what I was expecting! Long story short, I’ve never encountered anyone online who is more obviously and directly headed for deep ‘spiritual’ awakening. So I think her identity as an oddball spectrum rationalist sextrepreneur cashing in on a body that screams reproductive fitness, is mostly just about making a monetary and social living in the world. But to me it’s the least interesting thing about her. I would much rather read about her earlier period of intense experimentation with psychedelics, but I’m not sure she talks about that much.
If the NSA chats were a group of bodybuilders talking about taking steroids and how exciting and thrilling it was to see their delts and lats really pop, and how they love wearing revealing clothing because of how hot and buff they are, everyone would think it was weird and creepy and not at all appropriate for a work chat.
Correct. Weird. But not gross. The rufo uncovered chats are all of the above plus gross. I would be so uncomfortable as a colleague sitting next to one of these people knowing what they are chatting about.
Agreed. Add in the national security implications attached to statements lending to blackmail, and that's far beyond gross.
But I think work supervisors have a responsibility to step in far sooner if workplace behavior goes off the rails, as this surely did. I'm more interested in why it didn't. Trans exceptionalism sounds like the answer.
But I would also add that this isn't a leftist cause, necessarily. I remember when Thomas Donnelly, an expert in national security, transitioned several years ago (shortly before the pandemic, I think). Donnelly went by Giselle, post-transition. But I saw stuff online that indicated classic AGP kinks - the previous spelling was "Jizzelle." That material has been scrubbed. Donnelly's AEI colleagues were vocally supportive. Establishment Republicans have considerable tolerance for sex/gender nonconformity as long as they're not running for office.
There's a large trans contingent comprising alumni of the military and intelligence services. Chelsea Manning. Charlotte Clymer. Jennifer Pritzker. I don't understand it. I'm curious, not dogmatic, about what's at the root. It's clear, though, that transition is far from exclusively a left-of-center phenomenon.
One interpretation is that male people who chafe at gender restrictions might pursue über-masculine careers in hopes of resolving dysphoria. Maybe? I'm not sure. I just know there's a noteworthy pattern here, as there is among male shape-shifters (the Zizians!) and autistic people of both sexes.
Follow up having heard the rest of the segment: No, those conversations were completely inappropriate and I have no problem with those people being fired.
That stuff would be unacceptable in any government office and is 100x moreso in national security.
The fact that the previous admin turned a blind eye to it is irrelevant. Those employees should have known that was not appropriate, regardless of the flavour of the month management, and if they were unable to do that math on their own, they do not belong in that field. These people are hired for not just their skills but their judgment, and they acted as though they were Redditing from their basements.
>The fact that the previous admin turned a blind eye to it is irrelevant.
Exactly. Not sure why that's an excuse? "The people in charge before let people be inappropriate in this highly sensitive space. Ah well. Can't change it now." The whole point is that new leadership is in charge, and they can set new rules. Particularly if they're unhappy about conduct.
Also, those conversations were completely inappropriate even if one could make the case that they weren't sexual. Talking about the experience of urinating (etc.!) isn't something that would be tolerated among any employees at a typical workplace, and there's no magic trans exception that makes it OK.
Considering the demographic of NSA data types, it’s highly likely we’re talking AGPers not Elliot Page and the “euphoria” is probably sexual.
But even if it isn’t sexual per se, I think even nonsexual gender euphoria conversation is not appropriate for a secure workplace chat, especially if it involves explicit body talk.
The main point is we can’t tell if it’s sexual vs just describing their experience with a medical procedure from those quotes.
Inappropriate yes, but we’re other channels full of stuff involving description of medical stuff and relationship dynamics? If so, a warning to all would be much more fair than just firing the gay half of the conversation.
We know that Chris Rufo does not care to be evenhanded or principled. He wants revenge on the wokes and believes the only way to “win” is To be authoritarian and attack his enemies. He’s upfront about it.
The first quote is literally about “getting penetrated” after surgery. Others were about peeing without having to push their dick down and “getting their butthole zapped”.
The first one is obviously, obviously sexual. How can you possibly claim otherwise? They are literally discussing how they have sex.
The other two are 100% inappropriate discussion that maybe isn’t “sexual”, but talking about the mechanics of your piss breaks and your anal hygiene is, uh, still not cool.
Is your good faith position that you think it is likely that non-trans employees are allowed to talk about butthole zapping, but only the “gay half” were punished?
Yes I think it’s likely that if there was a channel where straight guys were talking about eg erectile issues and how it impacts their sex life, or straight ladies taking about hair removal, they are not getting fired.
It’s like the shit in FL that Rufo got going where no one was supposed to talk about “sexuality”. Everyone knew that a gay person taking about their partner could be fired (since a bigot could claim that’s promoting “sexuality”) while a straight person talking about theirs would not. Then you had these morons saying no one should discuss their spouse which is just absurd because it’s going to happen.
You’re basing that entirely on your opinions of Rufo. Literally everyone here, myself included, who works in similar environments, is telling you that sexually charged conversations are not being given a pass for other groups.
I think it's a pretty hard line to draw when your entire life is oriented around your sexual preferences and achieving the maximum expression of those sexual preferences. And I know I know gender isn't about sex etc., but actually it is, in the same way that bodybuilding is either about sex or some strange stretched balloon of neuroses and mental health issues. You make your body the way you want it to look so you can bone most effectively, or lie to yourself about self-expression etc.
Which begs the question, what other kinds of identity euphoria are there? Is there White and Black euphoria, or tall euphoria, or redhead euphoria that are available to people who think they should be those things and successfully fool other people into thinking they are?
Interesting question! It seems like in the gender context it's horniness or delight at deceiving people (themselves or others). Sometimes both! Even the word euphoria is definitely indicating the high of it all, rather than comfort or contentment.
probably if someone is in the Jim Crow south and is trying to pass as white and it works they probably do feel a lot of relief, since it means they’ll be able to avoid being actively oppressed.
I Wouldn’t be surprised if the Rachel dolezals of the world also felt some “euphoria” at being validated as black/native/whatever.
Or that Italian guy who was in the "native American crying a single tear over littering" ad! I bet he was like "ooooooh yeah they think I'm indigenous as hell!"
I'd agree it's not primarily sexual for most FtM people (using blanket terminology, which I realize is too broad, but it does capture a broad pattern too).
Among trans-identified males, "gender euphoria" is far more likely to be sexualized - especially if they're mostly attracted to women.
People can have their kinks. I don't want a world where we police males who wear conventionally feminine clothes for fear they might get a boner. But I also want to live in a world where I can cite Andrea Chu Long's "Sissy Porn Made Me Trans" as evidence for AGP without dire personal consequences. So much has become unspeakable, including where all the men who get off on crossdressing have gone since ~2010.
I have friends who are those men. They live that part quietly, wanting nothing to do with the cultural furor. I doubt they consider themselves adjacent to any of this. When I discuss it with them, they are completely unaware of the terminology or history.
I think with many trans people it's not always sexual. But with the type of male computer nerds who are being discussed in this episode, the type who end up transitioning because they went down a sissy hypno rabbithole, it is 100% sexual. They are always AGP rather than HSTS.
That’s exactly what some trans people mean. The term is defined in contrast to the negative feelings of gender dysphoria which include “suffering” and “despair”.
“You should bring your work self to work” is something I have said at least a dozen times over the past few years. I absolutely do not bring my whole self to work and do not want my time wasted by other peoples’ whole selves. That’s what friends and family are for. I think the NSA chats were terribly inappropriate for work, and would probably feel pretty OK about some consequences for those who engaged in them. That said, I do agree workplaces have encouraged an absurd level of personal disclosure recently and it’s pretty unfair to fire these people without giving them a chance to shape up. My conspiratorial theory about the “whole self” nonsense is that employers are encouraging workers to over-invest emotionally in their workplaces to make it easier to exploit them…
"Bring your whole self to work," needs a level of trust I've never had in an employer or most co-workers.
My father would tell me to trust your employer will do what is legally required of them and find a lawyer if they don't. Other than that protect yourself.
One of the worst manifestations was the tendency of some employers (mostly nonprofits and other touchy-feely industries) to do "mental health checkins" where you were supposed to talk about what you were struggling with. Now to be clear, they were using the way that Prince Harry uses it -- normal responses to life stresses and mild mental health symptoms -- they're not expecting people to discuss their hallucinations or delusions. But I do not want to listen to my coworkers discussing their anxieties and I don't have any interest in disussing my neuroses. That's not what workplaces and coworkers are for.
I strongly prefer keeping my work self and non-work self separate. Maybe not quite to the extent of Severance, but there's still a significant difference between who I am at work and outside of work.
I'd agree that "bring your whole self to work" can be much more advantageous for employers, as serves to break down some of the boundaries in the work/life balance. Because the unspoken other side is "bring your work self into your personal life". Why stop at 5pm, just work a little longer and finish of those reports.
And when that boundary starts to fade, organizations can end up with employees who bring WAY too much of their whole self to work, where you end up with a workplace infested with politics, inappropriate discussions, and a lack of professionalism.
I generally agree w Katie and Jesse’s takes even though these days I lean more conservative but holy shit they are so wrong on the inappropriate group chat of people who are supposed to be beyond reproach in our security agencies. The disrespect and absolute contempt for norms is such a red flag. People who post like this where it’s accessible to their employeers, colleagues and can be FOIAed show a profound lack of understanding and should never be trusted with state secrets. Fuck yea Tulsi. Fire every one of them and anyone else who would post like this in a work chat.
“Oh it’s not fair because other people saying inappropriate stuff weren’t fired”. I mean, where are *those* screenshots? Of people saying similarly inappropriate things that were not significantly disciplined? (If that *did* happen, a key difference is that it didn’t go public. Which may not be fair, but I have no expectation that I could discuss my butthole on a company network, have that chat published in a national outlet, and keep my job)
For some reason Jesse and Katie go straight from “there have been some previous issues with inappropriate conversations on the chat before” to “similar conversations were happening *all the time* and this was widely accepted as normal and appropriate”. I highly doubt that’s the case.
As for “secure chats” I believe that just means this was the equivalent of Teams or Slack on a *secure network*, an intranet, not necessarily classified conversations.
This seems to be the tenor of most comments here. But they said it was on a group chat specifically for LGBT people right? Getting mad about this is a bit like getting mad about people praying in the prayer room, no?
I mean, there probably shouldn’t be a group chat focused on personal LGBT stuff at work, but if management sets it up, it’s weird to get mad at people for using it.
This seems to assume that an LGBT group chat is inherently going to involve inappropriate and explicit topics like "getting your butthole zapped" and being penetrated. Having worked at multiple companies with LGBT employee groups and chats, they're typically focused on much more mundane topics such as Pride events. Anything even remotely close to what occurred at the NSA would have been immediate grounds for firing.
I was mostly with you till the last sentence. Immediate grounds for firing? No harassment involved. No bullying, no direct incompetence. Just mentioning the details of transition?
Discussing the mechanics of how you obtain sexual pleasure does not become “safe for work” just because it’s related to gender transition. Same goes for the details of your anal grooming routine.
Is it always grounds for immediate firing? No, but I feel like it’s one of those things that if you do get fired for, you pretty much have to say, “well that’s a fair cop”.
I agreed with Katie’s analysis that the “euphoria” comment about peeing referred to the opposite of dysphoria, i.e., feeling comfortable in one’s skin. Did they say something else wrt sexual pleasure?
No way. You might be able to get away with this in a private after hours conversation at the LGBT group happy hour, but companies are going to stay far away from anything that looks like company promotion of explicit conversations on sexual topics.
Apologies, I'm only at the start of this episode but the Aella thing, aargh. She's so fucking damaged and people need to stop making out she's interesting. She's a dreadful example to younger women. I know I might be sounding like an old prude, but I don't care. I've been there, done that, and it's a world full of damaged women pretending they are having fun, liberated, libertine, free spirits.
She seems to be genuinely traumatized/struggling and is able to give it a sheen of legitimacy thanks to, well, viewers like us and an Internet following. I don’t know how to say this with sounding paternalistic, but the gang bang situation did not sound good.
This is the most minor thing to take from the episode but it’s a pet peeve of mine and I feel something must be said.
The “paper straws are gross” thing is the weirdest and most American argument I have ever heard.
Like for Americans for some reason a plastic straw ban is an absolute travesty because now you need to use paper.
The solution is obvious (and prevalent across Europe), don’t use a straw. Are you all five? What the hell are you drinking from that you can’t just pick up your glass and tip it like a normal person. I can’t remember the last time I went out to eat or for a drink and my order came with a straw.
(Whining in American tone) “But when I order a soda from my (insert favourite fast food restaurant) I need a straw because of the lid”.
Totally doable without a straw. My wife was shopping her heart out at the mall today and I walked with her from store to store with my Coke Zero in a fountain drink. Large size (which would be an XXXXL in any other country), lid free, straw free. It was quite enjoyable.
Doable, also needlessly challenging. But if your kink is risking sugary beverage spillage for the sake of looking down your nose at straw suckers, I wouldn’t want to yuck your yum.
(The real solution for walking with cups would be “sipping lids” like we use for coffee. Still, harder and more likely to result in disaster if the cup is full of ice)
Erm, ACKTUALLY Lonesome George is a Galapagos land tortoise, not a sea turtle. They can’t swim. That’s the whole reason he’s lonesome - the Galapagos tortoises on the different islands could not interbreed because of the water barrier separating them, and eventually evolved to become different species as a result.
Wow, this was a bad take from K&J. I would never message any of my coworkers about my vagina, especially not through my job’s slack channel. Those messages were totally inappropriate and there’s no way they wouldn’t have known that. Don’t let hatred of MAGAworld cloud your judgement.
We don’t even curse on our slack channel. I just work for a normal industrial manufacturer (think Goodyear or GE) and we use TEAMS. We do a little chatting in private groups of 2 or 3 sometimes about kids or pets etc., but still we don’t even type out curse words. The reported conversations are not normal slack chat in any corporate job.
Literally, the first line of the atlantic piece "Over the course of 2024, Aella cried on 71 different days, showered on 24, and took ketamine on 14." Helen did take note of how much Aella showers.
Jesse's argument is basically "yes every other cultural institution with any level of prestige was turned inside out over the past ten years, but that could neeeeeeeeeeeeever happen in an unaccountable government bureaucracy."
Speaking of zombie statistics, I remember one that went around which said “domestic violence increases by 75% on Super Bowl Sunday”. It turns out it came from some researcher that went to a single emergency room on Super Bowl Sunday and asked how many domestic violence injuries there were and was told it was 7 on that particular day but normally it’s around 4. That’s it - but the “statistic” that the Super Bowl increases domestic violence was repeated as fact for years even though the researcher themself said it was too small a sample size.
Until Elon fired me a few weeks ago, I was a federal employee, and we were *extremely* careful about what we put in our Slack, knowing that anything could be FOIA'd. We'd post pictures of our pets and have some occasional casual convo about our families, but never in a million years would anybody post anything like these NSA chats.
Jessie and Katie keep talking about corporate Slack cultures, but the norms are very different in gov't. What these guys were doing was completely outside the norms. I'm baffled by it all.
To log onto these systems you have to pass through big scary sounding banners about all the bad things the gov’t will do to you if you misuse the systems, and indicating in no uncertain terms that you have zero expectation for privacy on the system.
Agreed, this was completely out of bounds and no one would have reasonably thought otherwise.
It's insane to talk about this stuff at work, whether you work for the government or not. Why would I think it would be ok for me to talk about my dick in a work chat lol? I don't know if these people have become so used to doing whatever they want to, or it's the effect of how hard it is to fire government employees, but it's insane.
"Someone might read what you post."
-> Hm, not sure if I should post about neo-vagina.
"Someone will *definitely* read what you post."
-> Okay, I will totally post about it now.
Yeah everyone I know who works for the feds is very conservative and buttoned up at the office/anywhere under their own names. It is bizarre to me.
Also sorry about your job 😿 good luck on your job search
Also a huge percentage are veterans who tend to be mindful of rules.
Funny, working in the private sector I feel the same way about office Slack. Mostly because of law suit discovery. There is an old saying, "Never put anything in an email you would not want reported in the New York Times." I feel the same way about Slack or any messaging system.
Sorry about your job :(
I'm so sorry about your getting DOGEd. I don't know you, and yet I know you didn't deserve this. Those firing emails were just cruel. It's obvious that no one's performance was reviewed. It was all slash and burn.
I hope you've got good private-sector (or state government?) prospects.
I work for a public university in a red state. We've always been advised that our emails aren't private. Lately, it became clear that FOIA is being used by our state's reactionaries to intimidate. An evening event on gerrymandering got FOIA'd because the requester demanded to know if both sides were being covered. This wasn't part of a class, just a completely optional event. The invited speaker was a former state Supreme Court justice - a Republican, but of the old-fashioned principled sort. In my state, that's already proof of left-wing bias.
I'm horrified that members of the intelligence services (!!!!) would be so indiscreet. Whether it's a firing offense is debatable. Certainly I see a security issue when an intelligence officer displays so little discretion. But chucking them all out indiscriminately is just cancel culture, which the right wing is now gleefully weaponizing. Katie's got Rufo's number on that.
I wonder how these chats were allowed to go forward. Clearly they were acceptable until recently. Trans stuff had a halo around it in liberal and progressive circles, leading to exceptionalism in multiple areas. Anyone with questions was a bigot. If anyone at work had enforced healthy boundaries, they would've posted this stuff to Reddit instead and they'd still have their jobs. (Maybe. Until they got DOGEd.)
I’m sorry about your job. That has to be tough.
I have never been a civil servant, but I have had consulting gigs in gov tech. There were frequent FOI reminders on all comms platforms.
I’m sorry you lost your job, that sucks.
Am I just a huge prude? I don't get why Katie and Jesse are willing to defend this particular topic of conversation in a workplace. I've obviously had personal conversations with coworkers, but I've never said or read anything remotely to do with bodily functions on Teams.
2nd half of the ep was absurd apologia for patently unacceptable conduct, especially at a place where you would hope/expect people are focused on their spy stuff rather than conversations straight out of front page Reddit.
The question is whether this is discriminatory because everyone was taking about personal shit of a similar nature and it was only the LGBT and trans employees that got canned
The question is how personal and how graphic were other people’s conversations? There’s a big difference between saying yay my kid won his little league game and the examples given. Although I would like to see more information on if this was a common level of conversation or a few random events.
It sounds like people who called Tusi a Russian tool also got canned.
Yeah not good
Do we know that others were also carrying on personal conversations of a similar nature? That would be important context. I've seen no reporting to suggest other groups were revealing such personal stuff.
I'm with you in that I think these firings were indiscriminate. They might have been justified in individual instances - maybe in all. But no investigation occurred.
It feels like the target was entirely trans people (not LGB). I've got many objections to trans advocates re: kids, sports, demonizing terfs, sex denial, etc. But I support the Bostock ruling 100%. The sloppiness of this decision feels like invidious discrimination to me (IANAL).
Nope we don’t know! And we probably won’t because Rufo isn’t interested in going after straight people.
Well you see, Chris Rufo is a bad person, so it’s very important that he never be correct.
I don’t think Jesse is actually capable of being his usual level of objective when it comes to Rufo or Musk.
To be fair, Jesse does say “sometimes Rufo is right” in this episode. Twice even!
But the way they focus much more on Rufo’s misdemeanor exaggeration rather than felony butthole zap chat is annoying. And how they a different level of scrutiny and credulousness to claims that support Rufo’s position (the gangbang is just hearsay!) vs. claims that refute it (oh well somebody claims in the past no one was ever fired for these kind of inappropriate chats, let’s take that as gospel that this was widely considered acceptable behavior so it’s totally unfair to fire them).
J & K are journalists. They're right to demand evidence. They're right to call out hearsay.
I remember when Rufo first burst onto the national scene. Jesse had a lot of time for his ideas, initially. Then Rufo revealed himself to be a propagandist.
Katie had reasons to doubt Rufo's integrity going back to his Seattle days. She would have welcomed a heterodox voice on council, as she states in this episode. Rufo shredded her initial openness to his views.
But when you only do it to one side, it’s an isolated demand for rigor. They are happy to accept the hearsay and speculation when it supports their preferred position (that this was normal behavior and the trans users got unfairly singled out for harsh punishment). And they are doing it because of their personal opinions about Rufo, not because of the actual evidence on the story. That’s my issue.
Also when Katie was setting up this whole heel turn for Rufo, where he really showed his true colors as to her before anyone else… I guess I was expecting a bit more than just “exaggerated the severity of the online harassment his wife was getting”. Harm inflation seems to be basically table stakes in Seattle.
EDIT to add - the gangbang quote is also such a trivial thing for J+K to fixate on. It’s not particularly relevant to the actual story, the rest of quotes were bad enough that I don’t see that as something that should swing opinion one way or the other. It’s mostly only relevant to whether J+K can rip on Rufo for exaggerating. On the other hand, whether this was common and openly accepted behavior on the system is very important! But they don’t really dig into this. Or even what the server *is* - they admit their ignorance on that, but brush it aside. Once they’ve got a version of the story that makes Rufo and Trump look bad, they run with it, even though there’s no better evidence than for the “gangbang” chat.
J&K spend way more time going after the left than the right. So the isolated demand for rigor argument is pretty off base here. As they say there are plenty of people going after trump, and hardly Anyone with good faith going after the worst lefties.
Also IDFR is the number one argument in support of gender affirming care so be careful with that one.
On this particular topic, it’s definitely an isolated demand for rigor, and that’s the limit of the extent to which I’m making that claim.
I realize J+K mostly go after left wing targets. That doesn’t automatically make their approach to covering Rufo and Musk objective and balanced. Indeed I suspect the opposite - Jesse in particular seems so obsessed with avoiding “audience capture” that he gets a little too excited to let his Lefty Twitter flag fly whenever a right winger gets in the sights of B&R, I guess to prove his “I’m still a liberal” bonafides.
Actually, is “no hearsay” *really* a journalistic standard? I see stuff like “so and so said X, according to a source that was present at the meeting” all the time! Which is exactly what we have here, a source from NSA, who would have been in a position to see such a chat, claiming they saw one discussing a “gangbang”. I feel like this is an “unconfirmed” statement, but not an “inadmissible” one.
I’m also not sure whether this would be “legally” hearsay - how does that handle electronic communication or public posts? This isn’t a witness saying “I overheard Bob say this” when Bob can’t be cross examined, this is a witness saying “I was reading a post online, and the post included this”.
Yeah but he also said Aella is “interesting.”
Yeah, flip this around and imagine this was a bunch of straight guys on a government Teams channel going into sexually explicit details about gangbangs and tits. They're be fired immediately (and rightfully so), followed by endless pieces on toxic masculinity once it became public.
Except the stuff that was described is absolutely not as sexually explicit as those things.
The vaginoplasty stuff would would be like a bunch of straight guys talking about their experience having prostrate cancer treatments and how that negatively (or positively I guess?) impacted their sex life.
The polyamory stuff was like “hey I’m a member of a poly cule”. It wasn’t a description of any sexual activity at all.
None of it was appropriate for work channels but it wasn’t pornographic.
The article in the episode notes states that the chats contained references to both those particular topics.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/national-security-agency-internal-chatroom-transgender-surgeries-polyamory
Ex 1:
"Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience boobs,” said another about estrogen treatments."
Ex 2:
"The former NSA source who was familiar with the chats recalled being “disgusted” by a particularly shocking thread discussing weekend “gangbangs.”"
You can argue that there's perhaps slight differences, but that's splitting hairs IMO.
The pod addressed the latter. Unlike the others where there are screenshots etc, It’s just hearsay. Someone said they saw it. A responsible reporter would have said they couldn’t lob that kind of accusation without evidence beyond hearsay.
The former - again, as our lovely hosts said, super inappropriate for work. But it’s like “I had this medical treatment and here’s how it affected me” it’s not porn.
Aren’t the claims that similar but not trans coded conversations were previously accepted also hearsay (if not pure extrapolation)?
Absolutely! We know zero about conversations occurring in any other social channel.
Do you agree that Rufo is far more likely to go after bad a behavior from people who are LGBT than equally bad behavior from straight people? Based on his past behavior, I think so.
Go to any MtF sub on Reddit and search the phrase "euphoria boner." I'd say that whenever an AGP describes feeling "gender euphoria," arousal is a component of it about 90% of the time. This is because the perception of themselves as women is literally a paraphilia for AGPs; it cannot be fully divorced from their sexual desires (even after castrating themselves). By no means do I agree with Rufo's exaggerations, though. These conversations are cringey and horrifically unprofessional, but they're not cybersex. However, there is definitely a sexual motivation for this sort of oversharing, even if it isn't necessarily sexually explicit.
These people should be disciplined (but not fired) for this. I'd be repulsed and creeped out if my coworkers spoke that way to me.
I will admit this is speculative, but I would wager that if these people were talking like this in a widely visible group chat, their in person interactions were likely also visit-to-HR worthy.
Surely I can't be the only primo who finds Aella not endearing but actually quite grating?
I’m there with you - my personal feeling is that she was the most normal-looking, not-trans woman on the rationalist scene which meant she could easily engage and provoke.
Also, sleeping through a scheduled interview is not charming.
Reminds me of Jack Monroe lol
Jack Monroe - if Jack was making mushroom soup out of ... oh god, let's not go there
Something something “gut microbiota” (makes everything sound legitimate to internet bros)
Internet celebrity worship of the most confused kind.
I was about to write the same thing lol. I find her gross. And people need to stop saying that she’s a sex researcher. She’s not. She just uses the numbers she has on her accounts, this is not genuine sex research. I had to skip the beginning when they talked about her.
She seems like she has become the avatar of the ideal woman for a subset of high SES, data and optimization obsessed men, and I hope that makes her happy. The stories about her/her projects seem like a great argument that the endless drive to optimize and quantify all aspects of life leaves you without much of an actually core personality, crying after getting gangbanged on your birthday 😬
She is an incredible outlier, Demonstrating nicely why her male fans are single and likely to remain so.
I'm not a fan. Maybe I'm a pedantic academic. (Okay, yeah. I am. No apologies!) But her surveys are not worth the pixels expended on them. She's good at garnering attention, which might be the only skill that matters in today's economy. I thought it was kind of embarrassing that Aella got airtime on my favorite pod.
But I will read Helen's profile of Aella because Helen is, in fact, the epitome of endearing.
I find her very grating too and I thought Helen Lewis was far too kind about the quality of Aella’s research.
I grew up in a moderately conservative southern city, so “girl who grew up in very Christian household doing a hard pivot into ‘I know what sex is! I have sex and talk about it all the time!’” is not very novel or engaging to me.
It is unusual that she’s continuing this attitude into her thirties, I’ll give her that.
I find it gross that we’re normalizing Aella’s way of life. It’s a free country, she can make money fucking strangers if she wants, but I will never believe that it is wholesome for her, wholesome for women as a group, or wholesome for society.
Strongly agree. I almost paused at the beginning to comment this. I like most of Katie and Jesse's friends, but I detest Aella and nothing they say will ever make me like her.
110%
I’m a terrible person… I just find her unattractive.
Titanic body count and poor personal hygiene-what's not to love?
She looks like Lana Del Ray’s cousin from Connecticut. I can’t judge her attractiveness though because I’m also long-nosed.
I think she’s great. Not what I want out of life but it takes all kinds.
I have completely flipped my opinion on Aella. After the bday gang bang episode last year I went to her substack to check out the hilarity. The first unlocked post turned out to be a strange very well written stream of consciousness meditation on her ‘method ‘ of curious , open and completely unprotected exploration of inner pain. Not what I was expecting! Long story short, I’ve never encountered anyone online who is more obviously and directly headed for deep ‘spiritual’ awakening. So I think her identity as an oddball spectrum rationalist sextrepreneur cashing in on a body that screams reproductive fitness, is mostly just about making a monetary and social living in the world. But to me it’s the least interesting thing about her. I would much rather read about her earlier period of intense experimentation with psychedelics, but I’m not sure she talks about that much.
If the NSA chats were a group of bodybuilders talking about taking steroids and how exciting and thrilling it was to see their delts and lats really pop, and how they love wearing revealing clothing because of how hot and buff they are, everyone would think it was weird and creepy and not at all appropriate for a work chat.
Correct. Weird. But not gross. The rufo uncovered chats are all of the above plus gross. I would be so uncomfortable as a colleague sitting next to one of these people knowing what they are chatting about.
Agreed. Add in the national security implications attached to statements lending to blackmail, and that's far beyond gross.
But I think work supervisors have a responsibility to step in far sooner if workplace behavior goes off the rails, as this surely did. I'm more interested in why it didn't. Trans exceptionalism sounds like the answer.
But I would also add that this isn't a leftist cause, necessarily. I remember when Thomas Donnelly, an expert in national security, transitioned several years ago (shortly before the pandemic, I think). Donnelly went by Giselle, post-transition. But I saw stuff online that indicated classic AGP kinks - the previous spelling was "Jizzelle." That material has been scrubbed. Donnelly's AEI colleagues were vocally supportive. Establishment Republicans have considerable tolerance for sex/gender nonconformity as long as they're not running for office.
There's a large trans contingent comprising alumni of the military and intelligence services. Chelsea Manning. Charlotte Clymer. Jennifer Pritzker. I don't understand it. I'm curious, not dogmatic, about what's at the root. It's clear, though, that transition is far from exclusively a left-of-center phenomenon.
One interpretation is that male people who chafe at gender restrictions might pursue über-masculine careers in hopes of resolving dysphoria. Maybe? I'm not sure. I just know there's a noteworthy pattern here, as there is among male shape-shifters (the Zizians!) and autistic people of both sexes.
Katie: “Gender euphoria, which is not inherently sexual.”
Oh, Katie.
Oh, Katie, Katie, Katie.
Oh my sweet summer child.
Seriously, Katie.
You have seen too much of this world to possibly be this naïve.
Follow up having heard the rest of the segment: No, those conversations were completely inappropriate and I have no problem with those people being fired.
That stuff would be unacceptable in any government office and is 100x moreso in national security.
The fact that the previous admin turned a blind eye to it is irrelevant. Those employees should have known that was not appropriate, regardless of the flavour of the month management, and if they were unable to do that math on their own, they do not belong in that field. These people are hired for not just their skills but their judgment, and they acted as though they were Redditing from their basements.
>The fact that the previous admin turned a blind eye to it is irrelevant.
Exactly. Not sure why that's an excuse? "The people in charge before let people be inappropriate in this highly sensitive space. Ah well. Can't change it now." The whole point is that new leadership is in charge, and they can set new rules. Particularly if they're unhappy about conduct.
Right. They should be grateful they got away with it for so long.
Also, those conversations were completely inappropriate even if one could make the case that they weren't sexual. Talking about the experience of urinating (etc.!) isn't something that would be tolerated among any employees at a typical workplace, and there's no magic trans exception that makes it OK.
Do you not agree that It is sometimes sexual and it is sometimes not?
Considering the demographic of NSA data types, it’s highly likely we’re talking AGPers not Elliot Page and the “euphoria” is probably sexual.
But even if it isn’t sexual per se, I think even nonsexual gender euphoria conversation is not appropriate for a secure workplace chat, especially if it involves explicit body talk.
The main point is we can’t tell if it’s sexual vs just describing their experience with a medical procedure from those quotes.
Inappropriate yes, but we’re other channels full of stuff involving description of medical stuff and relationship dynamics? If so, a warning to all would be much more fair than just firing the gay half of the conversation.
We know that Chris Rufo does not care to be evenhanded or principled. He wants revenge on the wokes and believes the only way to “win” is To be authoritarian and attack his enemies. He’s upfront about it.
The first quote is literally about “getting penetrated” after surgery. Others were about peeing without having to push their dick down and “getting their butthole zapped”.
The first one is obviously, obviously sexual. How can you possibly claim otherwise? They are literally discussing how they have sex.
The other two are 100% inappropriate discussion that maybe isn’t “sexual”, but talking about the mechanics of your piss breaks and your anal hygiene is, uh, still not cool.
Is your good faith position that you think it is likely that non-trans employees are allowed to talk about butthole zapping, but only the “gay half” were punished?
Yes I think it’s likely that if there was a channel where straight guys were talking about eg erectile issues and how it impacts their sex life, or straight ladies taking about hair removal, they are not getting fired.
It’s like the shit in FL that Rufo got going where no one was supposed to talk about “sexuality”. Everyone knew that a gay person taking about their partner could be fired (since a bigot could claim that’s promoting “sexuality”) while a straight person talking about theirs would not. Then you had these morons saying no one should discuss their spouse which is just absurd because it’s going to happen.
You’re basing that entirely on your opinions of Rufo. Literally everyone here, myself included, who works in similar environments, is telling you that sexually charged conversations are not being given a pass for other groups.
Yeah. These are men transitioning in later adulthood in a stereotypically masculine line of work. It’s an AGP archetype.
I think it's a pretty hard line to draw when your entire life is oriented around your sexual preferences and achieving the maximum expression of those sexual preferences. And I know I know gender isn't about sex etc., but actually it is, in the same way that bodybuilding is either about sex or some strange stretched balloon of neuroses and mental health issues. You make your body the way you want it to look so you can bone most effectively, or lie to yourself about self-expression etc.
Nope. It’s sexual 100% of the time.
It’s obviously not always sexual. Sometimes trans people actually just feel relief and happiness when other people recognize them as the opposite sex.
It’s pretty weird that you don’t think so. Kind of indicates you don’t know many trans people actually.
Note that I definitely think it’s primarily sexual for a minority. So I’m not being dogmatic.
Which begs the question, what other kinds of identity euphoria are there? Is there White and Black euphoria, or tall euphoria, or redhead euphoria that are available to people who think they should be those things and successfully fool other people into thinking they are?
Interesting question! It seems like in the gender context it's horniness or delight at deceiving people (themselves or others). Sometimes both! Even the word euphoria is definitely indicating the high of it all, rather than comfort or contentment.
probably if someone is in the Jim Crow south and is trying to pass as white and it works they probably do feel a lot of relief, since it means they’ll be able to avoid being actively oppressed.
I Wouldn’t be surprised if the Rachel dolezals of the world also felt some “euphoria” at being validated as black/native/whatever.
Or that Italian guy who was in the "native American crying a single tear over littering" ad! I bet he was like "ooooooh yeah they think I'm indigenous as hell!"
I'd agree it's not primarily sexual for most FtM people (using blanket terminology, which I realize is too broad, but it does capture a broad pattern too).
Among trans-identified males, "gender euphoria" is far more likely to be sexualized - especially if they're mostly attracted to women.
People can have their kinks. I don't want a world where we police males who wear conventionally feminine clothes for fear they might get a boner. But I also want to live in a world where I can cite Andrea Chu Long's "Sissy Porn Made Me Trans" as evidence for AGP without dire personal consequences. So much has become unspeakable, including where all the men who get off on crossdressing have gone since ~2010.
I have friends who are those men. They live that part quietly, wanting nothing to do with the cultural furor. I doubt they consider themselves adjacent to any of this. When I discuss it with them, they are completely unaware of the terminology or history.
I think with many trans people it's not always sexual. But with the type of male computer nerds who are being discussed in this episode, the type who end up transitioning because they went down a sissy hypno rabbithole, it is 100% sexual. They are always AGP rather than HSTS.
Meh. just because I can imagine a stereotype that might apply to a population I am vaguely familiar with doesn’t mean It would be correct to apply it.
“Relief” and “happiness” is not “euphoria”.
That’s exactly what some trans people mean. The term is defined in contrast to the negative feelings of gender dysphoria which include “suffering” and “despair”.
“You should bring your work self to work” is something I have said at least a dozen times over the past few years. I absolutely do not bring my whole self to work and do not want my time wasted by other peoples’ whole selves. That’s what friends and family are for. I think the NSA chats were terribly inappropriate for work, and would probably feel pretty OK about some consequences for those who engaged in them. That said, I do agree workplaces have encouraged an absurd level of personal disclosure recently and it’s pretty unfair to fire these people without giving them a chance to shape up. My conspiratorial theory about the “whole self” nonsense is that employers are encouraging workers to over-invest emotionally in their workplaces to make it easier to exploit them…
"Bring your whole self to work," needs a level of trust I've never had in an employer or most co-workers.
My father would tell me to trust your employer will do what is legally required of them and find a lawyer if they don't. Other than that protect yourself.
One of the worst manifestations was the tendency of some employers (mostly nonprofits and other touchy-feely industries) to do "mental health checkins" where you were supposed to talk about what you were struggling with. Now to be clear, they were using the way that Prince Harry uses it -- normal responses to life stresses and mild mental health symptoms -- they're not expecting people to discuss their hallucinations or delusions. But I do not want to listen to my coworkers discussing their anxieties and I don't have any interest in disussing my neuroses. That's not what workplaces and coworkers are for.
I strongly prefer keeping my work self and non-work self separate. Maybe not quite to the extent of Severance, but there's still a significant difference between who I am at work and outside of work.
I'd agree that "bring your whole self to work" can be much more advantageous for employers, as serves to break down some of the boundaries in the work/life balance. Because the unspoken other side is "bring your work self into your personal life". Why stop at 5pm, just work a little longer and finish of those reports.
And when that boundary starts to fade, organizations can end up with employees who bring WAY too much of their whole self to work, where you end up with a workplace infested with politics, inappropriate discussions, and a lack of professionalism.
I generally agree w Katie and Jesse’s takes even though these days I lean more conservative but holy shit they are so wrong on the inappropriate group chat of people who are supposed to be beyond reproach in our security agencies. The disrespect and absolute contempt for norms is such a red flag. People who post like this where it’s accessible to their employeers, colleagues and can be FOIAed show a profound lack of understanding and should never be trusted with state secrets. Fuck yea Tulsi. Fire every one of them and anyone else who would post like this in a work chat.
“Oh it’s not fair because other people saying inappropriate stuff weren’t fired”. I mean, where are *those* screenshots? Of people saying similarly inappropriate things that were not significantly disciplined? (If that *did* happen, a key difference is that it didn’t go public. Which may not be fair, but I have no expectation that I could discuss my butthole on a company network, have that chat published in a national outlet, and keep my job)
For some reason Jesse and Katie go straight from “there have been some previous issues with inappropriate conversations on the chat before” to “similar conversations were happening *all the time* and this was widely accepted as normal and appropriate”. I highly doubt that’s the case.
As for “secure chats” I believe that just means this was the equivalent of Teams or Slack on a *secure network*, an intranet, not necessarily classified conversations.
Right on! I don't work for the government, but my butt would be out the door within 5 minutes if I said any of that on a work slack!
This seems to be the tenor of most comments here. But they said it was on a group chat specifically for LGBT people right? Getting mad about this is a bit like getting mad about people praying in the prayer room, no?
I mean, there probably shouldn’t be a group chat focused on personal LGBT stuff at work, but if management sets it up, it’s weird to get mad at people for using it.
This seems to assume that an LGBT group chat is inherently going to involve inappropriate and explicit topics like "getting your butthole zapped" and being penetrated. Having worked at multiple companies with LGBT employee groups and chats, they're typically focused on much more mundane topics such as Pride events. Anything even remotely close to what occurred at the NSA would have been immediate grounds for firing.
I was mostly with you till the last sentence. Immediate grounds for firing? No harassment involved. No bullying, no direct incompetence. Just mentioning the details of transition?
Discussing the mechanics of how you obtain sexual pleasure does not become “safe for work” just because it’s related to gender transition. Same goes for the details of your anal grooming routine.
Is it always grounds for immediate firing? No, but I feel like it’s one of those things that if you do get fired for, you pretty much have to say, “well that’s a fair cop”.
I agreed with Katie’s analysis that the “euphoria” comment about peeing referred to the opposite of dysphoria, i.e., feeling comfortable in one’s skin. Did they say something else wrt sexual pleasure?
The first pull quote was literally about how they now found being penetrated sexually pleasurable.
I have never worked in a place where anyone was discussing the details of medical procedures. Ever.
No way. You might be able to get away with this in a private after hours conversation at the LGBT group happy hour, but companies are going to stay far away from anything that looks like company promotion of explicit conversations on sexual topics.
Apologies, I'm only at the start of this episode but the Aella thing, aargh. She's so fucking damaged and people need to stop making out she's interesting. She's a dreadful example to younger women. I know I might be sounding like an old prude, but I don't care. I've been there, done that, and it's a world full of damaged women pretending they are having fun, liberated, libertine, free spirits.
She seems to be genuinely traumatized/struggling and is able to give it a sheen of legitimacy thanks to, well, viewers like us and an Internet following. I don’t know how to say this with sounding paternalistic, but the gang bang situation did not sound good.
Literally everything she does is a ploy for attention from the lowliest men. She clearly has unresolved issues.
Yes 🙌🏼. I’ve also been there & done that and those women are NOT happy.
Tell it.
I think she’s just weird. She is obviously neuro atypical. She is literally not like other girls (or in fact, not like most people).
There are outliers in terms of human experience and she really seems to be one.
This is the most minor thing to take from the episode but it’s a pet peeve of mine and I feel something must be said.
The “paper straws are gross” thing is the weirdest and most American argument I have ever heard.
Like for Americans for some reason a plastic straw ban is an absolute travesty because now you need to use paper.
The solution is obvious (and prevalent across Europe), don’t use a straw. Are you all five? What the hell are you drinking from that you can’t just pick up your glass and tip it like a normal person. I can’t remember the last time I went out to eat or for a drink and my order came with a straw.
(Whining in American tone) “But when I order a soda from my (insert favourite fast food restaurant) I need a straw because of the lid”.
Just take off the lid.
Stop using straws. Stop being a child.
Probably because people here like to drink while driving/walking
Totally doable without a straw. My wife was shopping her heart out at the mall today and I walked with her from store to store with my Coke Zero in a fountain drink. Large size (which would be an XXXXL in any other country), lid free, straw free. It was quite enjoyable.
Doable, also needlessly challenging. But if your kink is risking sugary beverage spillage for the sake of looking down your nose at straw suckers, I wouldn’t want to yuck your yum.
(The real solution for walking with cups would be “sipping lids” like we use for coffee. Still, harder and more likely to result in disaster if the cup is full of ice)
A big reason that Euros don’t seem to deal with as much is that we put ice in our drinks, which can make them harder to sip.
I always drink soda with a straw because my dentist recommended it as a way to (partially) prevent the soda from hitting my teeth.
I’m with you on this. Like we absolutely need to use plastic straws??
If you’re worried about your teeth?
Don’t drink pop.
Nooo. I spill down my face like half the time. 😭 Must have a straw.
Straws protect my sensitive teeth from what I’m drinking (sugary or cold.) If that makes me a child, I’m cool with that. Just call me a coal-roller!
I use a straw to keep from messing up my lipstick every ten minutes. You suck on what you want and I’ll suck on what I want.
Erm, ACKTUALLY Lonesome George is a Galapagos land tortoise, not a sea turtle. They can’t swim. That’s the whole reason he’s lonesome - the Galapagos tortoises on the different islands could not interbreed because of the water barrier separating them, and eventually evolved to become different species as a result.
Who did Aella blow to get mentioned so much on this podcast.
What I like about this question is that there's some doubt as to who that might be.
Wow, this was a bad take from K&J. I would never message any of my coworkers about my vagina, especially not through my job’s slack channel. Those messages were totally inappropriate and there’s no way they wouldn’t have known that. Don’t let hatred of MAGAworld cloud your judgement.
We don’t even curse on our slack channel. I just work for a normal industrial manufacturer (think Goodyear or GE) and we use TEAMS. We do a little chatting in private groups of 2 or 3 sometimes about kids or pets etc., but still we don’t even type out curse words. The reported conversations are not normal slack chat in any corporate job.
Katie goes from mentioning chat talking about neo-vaginas to bring your hole self to work, I see what she did there
Literally, the first line of the atlantic piece "Over the course of 2024, Aella cried on 71 different days, showered on 24, and took ketamine on 14." Helen did take note of how much Aella showers.
Is she taking a lot of baths? Because otherwise she’s washing about twice a month.
Aella has to smell crazy
Crying more than once a week seems like a lot, even for a woman.
Not poop tho
Jesse's argument is basically "yes every other cultural institution with any level of prestige was turned inside out over the past ten years, but that could neeeeeeeeeeeeever happen in an unaccountable government bureaucracy."
Speaking of zombie statistics, I remember one that went around which said “domestic violence increases by 75% on Super Bowl Sunday”. It turns out it came from some researcher that went to a single emergency room on Super Bowl Sunday and asked how many domestic violence injuries there were and was told it was 7 on that particular day but normally it’s around 4. That’s it - but the “statistic” that the Super Bowl increases domestic violence was repeated as fact for years even though the researcher themself said it was too small a sample size.