Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
IS IT TIME FOR SEPARATE BEDS?
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Jaimee joins Ross to discuss the benefits/risks of separate beds for people in relationships. Tangents include: "Fatty" Arbuckle; the one foot rule; Lucy and Ricky; eight yards of television; toddler beds; Hays Code; blanket slapping; mummy gripping.
Notes:
- https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1042865/an-evolution-of-marriage-on-television/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/11/fatty-arbuckle-and-the-birth-of-the-celebrity-scandal
- https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/realestate/couples-separate-bedrooms.html?searchResultPosition=1
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
Two or three quick firm shakes like it's a business meeting.
SPEAKER_01Some deep eye contact.
SPEAKER_04Thanks a lot, Perkins. Good to see ya. And then it's out the door to go. Excellent bang, Perkins. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host. And today, my guest is the wind to my sail, the butter to my bread, and the hamster to my wheel. It's Jamie. Hi Ross. Hi. Great to have you and welcome everyone. Please share the show, if you would, with anyone you think would like what we do. If you like what we do, there's a really good chance that you know somebody that would also like what we do. And we really depend on this grassroots, organic, crowd-sourced growth. Without you, we do not grow. And why do we need to grow? There's really no reason, but we would just like to. We would just like to.
SPEAKER_02It would be nice.
SPEAKER_04We would like to have more people. We know there's more people out there who want to hear exactly what it is we're doing.
SPEAKER_02Whatever that is.
SPEAKER_04Whatever it is. Let's not categorize it. Right. There's no reason to.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_04It's funny because when you do a podcast, they you're supposed to select your categories. There's no categories for this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's not comedy.
SPEAKER_02What did you select?
SPEAKER_04Uh well, there's some depends on the app. Some apps you are forced into like selecting a category, like comedy. And I don't think of this as comedy, but sometimes we there's funny things that happen. Right. And it's not really science and education. Although sometimes, every once in a while, as one viewer said, one listener said, we there's a hint of wisdom. Just a hint. It's just a hint.
SPEAKER_01It's a whiff, a small sniff.
SPEAKER_04It's a it's a it's a cachet. It's a it's that kernel. It's a certain genese qua. Um, but yes, if you can help us grow, we would appreciate it. And if you just want to interact with us, we love that too. So send us a message on Instagram, follow us there. There's nothing really happening there, but we're on. We send we have pictures of weird things. But you can send us messages and we always respond. We love hearing from you if you're a fan of the show. Take a moment, share the show, send us a message, or write a review on Apple Podcasts. We just happened to get another review, a five-star sparkling review, and I just want to read it to you. So the name of their review is Weird and Wild in the Best Way. And it's that's us. Hands down, one of my favorite podcasts with an exclamation mark, which I like.
SPEAKER_02Love it.
SPEAKER_04It's a hoot and a half. That is us. You owe us a half a hoot. Because we were only trying to deliver a hoot, and is a great break from the humdrum of the news. Well, that's gotta be true.
SPEAKER_02Very true.
SPEAKER_04It is a weekly essential for me, and I cannot recommend it enough. That's our sparkling five-star review. So thank you so much for writing that. And if you want to make us feel so good and help us grow the show, and hear it red on the air, we will do that. So please join the fun. And now let's get started. Now, Jamie, Jamie Kins, we know that when you are in a relationship and you are living together or spending a great deal of time at the other person's crib, the actual practice of sleeping together doesn't always work out for every couple.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04Snoring. People have different schedules. Some people work at night or work late. Some people are blanket hogs, pillow hogs, space hoggers. They toss and turn, they move around, they're doing they get up at night, walk around, they watch TV, they listen to junk, they got their phone on. Some humans solve this pretty common problem with separate sleeping arrangements and separate rooms when possible. So in a perfect world, I'm gonna ask you a personal question. Okay, lay it on me. What would be your preference? Sleep together with a partner or sleep separately.
SPEAKER_02Ross, I have thought about this a lot.
SPEAKER_04I know you would have.
SPEAKER_02And I think separate beds is a great idea. I think I think so. Great idea. So currently we so we've been me and my partner have been together for six years. Oh, that's a long time. Um and we do sleep in the same bed. We started out same blankets and all that, sharing everything. Um we do have different bedtimes. Uh he stays up much later than I do.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02And we've graduated to separate blankets.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah because he is a blanket hog.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02And it's b better. I leave that with a question mark because I am the world's worst sleeper. I'm a horrible, horrible sleeper.
SPEAKER_04What makes you so horrible?
SPEAKER_02My whole life I've just had really bad insomnia. Um, it's really hard for me to fall asleep. It's really hard for me to stay asleep. I have the thing where I like overthink at night, my you know, I ha come up with like great ideas at night. I like can't turn my brain off. I'm not good at that. Um, and I'm a really light sleeper. So any noise, any noise, any light, any sort of disturbance at all, um, I will wake up. Right. I have to have my white noise on, I have to have uh my weighted blanket, my ear pillow. You know I love my ear pillow.
SPEAKER_04Everybody does. A lot of people didn't know about it, but once you start talking about it, it's a thing. We're gonna be sponsored by an ear pillow company any day now. Because I'm sure there are a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02A knee pillow, yeah. Oh, a knee pillow, right.
SPEAKER_04Got that.
SPEAKER_02I'm a really bad sleeper. So we have separate blankets now. But he the second his head hits the pillow, he falls asleep.
SPEAKER_00Ah.
SPEAKER_02And then his eyes open and it's morning.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02He stays asleep all night. But he does move around, he tosses and turns, and I don't know how he does it, but several times at night when he turns over, he his side of the blanket whips over and like slaps me.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah, what's going on?
SPEAKER_02I have no idea. I've been trying to crack this code for ages.
SPEAKER_04You're getting blanket slapped.
SPEAKER_02Blanket slapped at night.
SPEAKER_04In a bad way.
SPEAKER_02And even if the blanket doesn't slap me, a big old gust of wind from however hard the blanket's hitting the bed slaps me. You don't need that. Yeah, I don't need it. So I feel like separate beds sounds amazing. Well But I understand it's not the sexiest thing.
SPEAKER_04Well, see, I but I think there are ways to work around all this.
SPEAKER_02You're not having sexy time at two o'clock in the morning. Well, if you are if you've been together for six years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but that's the thing. So I mean, one of the variables here is where are you on the arc of your relationship?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So every relationship has an arc, and if you're lucky, it's a long arc and it lasts forever. Yeah. Only time you get to the end is where somebody wakes up dead.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04And then it doesn't really matter anymore. Just you just stay right there. Well, you probably should do something. A funeral. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Sure, but at some point don't keep the body in your place. You should not keep a body.
SPEAKER_04That's almost always true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I can't think of a problem. It's problematic. I can't think of an exception that isn't somehow wrong.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04At any rate, the arc. So at the beginning of the arc, I just drew an arc on my notes as if someone's watching it. I saw it.
SPEAKER_02I watched you do it.
SPEAKER_04So at the beginning of the arc, you have a lot of every time you're together, it's a lot of physical stuff going on. You can't stop touching each other. So you're it any time is potential sexy time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You could be on a broken down bus and it's potential sexy time. Yep. But as time goes on, you find your groove, so to speak. And I think it's becomes less and less important that you're in the same bed at night. Yes. You can figure out sexy time. It's a little less chaotic. So that first part of the arc is really fun and exciting, and there's lots of sexy time. But at some point, no matter who you're with, that starts to level out and you start to go into the middle point of the relationship where things are settling into a groove, or you break up.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04Some people like they just want sexy time. So as soon as that starts to settle down, which for some people is like after the first time they have sex, and like I'm done. Yeah. I'm moving on. I'm good. But at some point, then they move on, uh, or you settle in. Okay. So let's talk about uh so I want to talk specifically about that middle of the arc where you've been together a long time, you've settled in, and then you are confronted with this choice. And I learned that one in five couples sleep separately. That's 20%. One in five? Yeah, it's pretty high, right? And that's could you're assuming like whenever you do these surveys, yeah, some people are gonna lie. Sure. Because they think like, oh, this means we're not it looks bad or sounds bad. Looks bad or sounds bad. Because there is, if you tell people, even today in the modern world, yeah, even in Portland, Oregon, where people like date their fish, all kinds of junk, right? Yeah, just like somebody right now, like telling a story to a rib roast. Okay, but even here, if you say we sleep separately, people are like give you this a little bit. That's not gonna last. Oh, they're not doing well. They might not say it to your face, but they'll think it or they'll tell someone, oh, you know, that's not that's that's not good. They're sleeping separately. Yeah, they're sleeping separately, you know what that means. So, but in reality, one in five at least are sleeping separately. Wow, and a lot of those couples report sleeping separately every night. So some of those people say, Okay, well, during the week we sleep separately, we have different schedules, or I need my sleep, I gotta get up early, whatever it is. But on the weekend we'll hang out together. But a lot of those people every night when it's bedtime, they're going separate places. Interesting. More couples apparently report looking for living quarters that have two bedrooms so they can have their separate spaces. Now, who's gonna worry about this besides the gossip mongers? Right. The counselors and the therapists. And they think, hey, you have to make sure you're not escaping your problems by sleeping separately, and maybe that's the first sign that something is wrong because you're choosing to not sleep together.
SPEAKER_02But like, what are you you're just you're a zombie. It's not like you're like bonding at that particular moment. I don't know if you're like a cuddler, Ross. Me?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I love to cuddle. Oh. But not at sleep time. No, it's too hot. So here's the problem it's too hot at night. So I was talking to Derek, our engineer. We're at Portland Underground Studio, by the way. This is where we record this masterpiece every time we record. That's right. We're here with Derek and he listens to us. Sometimes he nods off. But he's a very nice guy, and he makes sure that um we are being recorded and not just talking to ourselves for no reason. Not that we wouldn't. No, because we would we do, we do, and we wouldn't, what are we doing here? Right. Uh without Derek, then there'd be no point. But I was telling him I would I had a relationship with somebody, and everything was great. Everything was great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And everything was fine, and then we'd go to bed, and then it was like, okay, night, night, whatever, if there was sexy time there was, and if there was no sexy time, but it was definitely lights out, everybody's going to bed. Then she would roll over to my side, and it was a big bed. They roll all the way over, lock me in some kind of claw grip.
SPEAKER_03Oh, no.
SPEAKER_04And then she would fall asleep, squeezing me like a freaking mummy, like a juice orange, and I'd like can't move, and I can't fall asleep like you can't get comfortable because you can't readjust your position. Well, I have a decent problem with claustrophobia, and when I feel locked down, yeah, it's hot. Yeah. And I need to be able to move a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Like the heat is the worst part of it, I think. I have to set my I basically turn my heater off even during the winter. I want it to be, I want it to feel like I'm camping on top of a mountain, freezing cold, and it's only warm underneath my blanket. That's if there's a human next to me, lava hot, boiling.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so like logo. To me, when it's light, when we're definitely going to bed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04When it's like now it is sleep time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's all I want to do.
SPEAKER_02Don't touch me.
SPEAKER_04Like, get off of me.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04I need space. Don't come around me. Don't blankets let me. Don't blow wind on me. Don't do anything. Just stay away from me. Don't talk to me. Don't poke me. Yes. Don't like run a sock over my ear. I don't know. Just don't do anything to me.
SPEAKER_01Kinky.
SPEAKER_04Uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, is that your dirty laundry? Oh. Now we're talking. Good night.
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah. So I, for me, I've never tried this actually. Okay. But I realize now that this is definitely what I want. If I ever, and we know this is a big if, get into a relationship where there's regular sleepovers, I am requiring this. Now I've separate bedrooms. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like absolutely. Yeah. Or strict rules about what happens that lights out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I've already said before in the show that I'm already made it very clear to anyone that we get to that level of dating where they're hanging out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Is that I have to have a separate bathroom.
SPEAKER_02Now if I'm a visiting us two, yeah.
SPEAKER_04If I'm over at their place, I take whatever. You know, if it's outside and some kind of latrine.
SPEAKER_02Some hole dug in the ground.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's a hole in the ground, or you know, uh we're on a hobby horse hoping for the best. I don't know what people do, but I just do whatever's there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But when at my house, I got a bathroom, you're not going in there. And some people feel like that's really weird. But I don't care. Yeah. I don't want you in there. Well, what if it's an emergency? You're gonna have to just die.
SPEAKER_02There's a hole in the backyard.
SPEAKER_04Throw up out the window. Like if you can't make it to the other, it's not like I have that big of a place.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, it's got two bathrooms, and mine is not for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. We have a a loft style apartment, so our bedroom is upstairs, and there's a bathroom up there, and that bathroom is mine. And then there's a separate bathroom downstairs past the kitchen, and that bathroom is my partner's. Yeah, you go there. It's clearly marked. Yeah, just late at night. He's like got his phone with a flashlight, like going downstairs and like stay out of my bathroom.
SPEAKER_04So therapists worry that people, if they sleep separately, will become glorified roommates. Oh. Hello. What hap- what do long-term relationships what do they think long-term relationships look like?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm not saying there isn't love and there isn't sexy time, but you kind of have learned how to live together.
SPEAKER_02Plus, it if you're just like sleeping, it's not like you're touching each other constantly at night anyway. You're like in a bed together technically. What would it matter if they were like several feet further?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Just a couple feet more in between you.
SPEAKER_04So the question is, do you sleep in the same room, separate beds?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Or do you actually have a separate room?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Now, for me, having given this a lot of thought, okay, I really think if you have room for a separate room is better. And I feel like, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but I think this actually kills a couple of different birds with one stone. So, first of all, sleeping, okay, so it's we do whatever, and then it's good night. I go to my room, you go to your room.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Do what do whatever you want. Play video games, watch TV, stay up all night, you know, toss and turn, walk in your sleep, make an egg, you know, eat crackers. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Right. Part two is I can decorate this room any way I want, and so can you. So you can like express yourself, have your art, your whatever your statuary might be, or your like beads and incense. It's your space. Yeah. It's your own person cave, because they talk about man cave and she shed. And I don't like that. It's just like make your own space. Yeah. So yeah, you want a big TV, you can have a big TV. It's not gonna bother the other person. So you have not only your own sleeping space, but you have your own cool space. Like this is where I feel like I'm represented in this household.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And uh your books and your junk and all of it. Okay.
SPEAKER_02This is the total sidebar, but I just watched a show, like a real estate show. Yeah. And someone had a 23-foot TV in their house.
SPEAKER_04What does that look like?
SPEAKER_0223 feet.
SPEAKER_04Wait a minute, I have to think about this. Twenty-this seven over seven yards, almost eight yards of television.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Beverly Hills.
SPEAKER_02They must have a very large room because to have a TV that big, you have to have a swimming pool and the TV rose out from behind the swimming pool so you could watch your things while you go for a swim.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Side note. Those are the first people that go in the revolution, though. At some point, they'll be phasing the guillotine. Is it guillotine? Guillotine. Guillotine. Guillotine sounds stupid.
SPEAKER_02I like them both.
SPEAKER_04Therapists are worried.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But they think that they know a lot of couples come to therapy and say we're not having enough sex. So to me, it's like, okay, so the the therapists are worried if you start sleeping separately, then you're going to even have less sex. Or maybe that's a reason you're having less sex. But I think it's probably something else. Because if you want to have sex, you're going to have sex.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The separate bedroom isn't going to change that. So there's probably another reason. So, first of all, going back to the arc, I drew a diagram, and when you're in the middle of the arc of a relationship and things have settled down, you're probably not having as much sex anyway. Right. Now, if there is a disagreement about that, and that's what I always say, it's not how much sex you're having, it's whether you agree, like you're satisfied with the amount of sex you're having. So both people are like, no, I'm good with it, then it's really wrong to say, well, they're not having enough if they're both satisfied. Yeah. So they're not like, oh, this is a burden. I'm not talking about it, but I still feel if it's not a burden, like, no, this is good. This is working. Yeah. Then I don't have who's to say what it's supposed to look like. Right.
SPEAKER_02So I think you and I have talked about this before. That like, isn't it just better to like bang before a like a meal? Bang before the reason. The reverse date. I love the reverse date. The reverse date.
SPEAKER_04I love I thought I invented it.
SPEAKER_02Like after you go to bed, it's like you've had dinner and all that kind of stuff, and you're on the city. Two o'clock in the morning anyway. You're not on your best game. Like bang before whatever meal you're gonna have. It's so much, it makes so much more sense.
SPEAKER_04Get it out of the way.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04You both want to.
SPEAKER_02You're not all bloaty and full of food.
SPEAKER_04You're not bloaty, you're not tired, you're like ready to go. Knock it out.
SPEAKER_02Knock it out before.
SPEAKER_04Get it done, and now you can just relax and enjoy your evening and you can load up on those cheese cubes.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Go off to your separate beds. And then at the night, separate beds. Give yourself a little handshake.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Off to bed. A firm handshake. Two or three quick firm shakes, like it's a business meeting.
SPEAKER_01Some deep eye contact.
SPEAKER_04Thanks a lot, Perkins. Good to see you. And then it's out the door you go. Excellent bang, Perkins. You really are stepping up your game. We're gonna move you on to the Ferguson account. I feel like there's probably other things going on. So I get it. I get what counselors are saying. I really do, which is okay, it could be a symptom of things going badly, but it also could be a solution that makes things go better. And a lot of people who do sleep separately report that it doesn't affect their actual amount of sexual activity because they've worked at a deal. And you know, like, okay, there's sex. Time and then there's sleep time. As long as you're this idea that, oh, sex is going to happen less if you don't find yourself in bed together. I I say yes at the beginning, but no in the middle. When you're in the middle of the arc and you're all settled in, you you don't have to be in the same bed for a while.
SPEAKER_02I think you kind of find your your ri rhythm and you know when the best time is. And I just feel like if you're waiting until bedtime and just hoping that it happens after you both get into bed, like that's just poor planning.
SPEAKER_04Especially if you got kids because everybody's burnt.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And you've been working or doing or dealing with the kids all day. I don't know how kids work. Well, there's always barf.
SPEAKER_02Barf and snot.
SPEAKER_04There's barf, poop, and snot, and otherwise kids don't do anything else.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04They're really not good for anything until they can go out and get a job. Right. Which why is why I've advocated for bringing kids back into factories. But that's a different podcast. You want to learn about that, you'll need to listen to it and then recommend it to somebody. So there's a lot of variables out there that affect whether how much people are ha sex they're having and how happy they are with their relationship that have nothing to do with separate rooms. I think separate rooms is a red herring.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Do you like the term red herring? I do like that too. Do you ever use it? Because I've never heard you use it.
SPEAKER_02I I don't think I've ever used it. I just hear it on true crime a lot. Yes. It's often on true crime.
SPEAKER_04Do I should I can I be pedantic with you for a moment?
SPEAKER_02Yes, you may.
SPEAKER_04That's expression is from a time when they used to do, and they still do fox hunting in England, and it's controversial, but back in the day when they would do the hunting of the fox. Uh-huh. And um they would test their uh hound dogs that were the how good of smellers they were. Speaking of smells like humans, smells like fox. And one way to see if they would be distracted is they would um beforehand, they would drag a dead red herring, fish, across the trail to see if they could throw them off. And if the good the good hounds just stayed on the fox scent.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_04And the other hounds were sent back to remedial hound school.
SPEAKER_02Give them to me, I'll take them all. You will take the hounds.
SPEAKER_04Please remove the teeth, however. I'm sorry that dog has teeth. I'm not interested. It's not derpy looking enough. Uh, we didn't even talk about some people are introverts and they just need quiet time. Like they need alone time.
SPEAKER_02I definitely I don't know. I don't know what I classify myself on the introvert-extrovert spectrum.
SPEAKER_04You're in the middle, I think.
SPEAKER_02I think I'm right in the middle, but I definitely need my alone time, and I definitely tell my significant other to leave me alone. That's good. Sometimes when I need it. It's good that you're able to recognize it. We have two living rooms, and so I tell him, please go into your room and do whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_04I mean, in the end, a relationship survives when people express their needs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And they equally value the other's needs. It doesn't mean you're always going to agree with them, but at least you're listening and you're going to value the fact that they need something.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_04And then a relationship survives if you're able to navigate those. But if you can't even talk about it, you don't have a chance. Yep. And we all know that. Also, we did a show on having a sex room. Yeah. Put a spanking table. We talked about this.
SPEAKER_02Make a sex room.
SPEAKER_04Make a sex room.
SPEAKER_02I'm also uh of the mindset of don't put a TV in your bedroom because your sleep space is your sleep space, not your entertainment centers.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's the thing. But if you want that, if you want that, that's your separate room. Yeah. So if you're a person and I like to have the TV on, then you have to have a separate space if your partner doesn't want that too. But also I agree with that. You should separate your rooms to the extent that you need to if your space is late.
SPEAKER_02Sex room, entertainment room, sleep room. There you go. That's very good. Thank you. Oh, a kitchen.
SPEAKER_04I guess you need you gonna eat. But there's a lot of a lot of delivery. If you can afford it. Right. So so the sex room's an option. Um, I have a friend who probably won't mind that I say this because I won't name them Joe. Um, they told me that they have a thing in their house with their partner where they put out a little, it's I it's like a figurine or just something they got sometime, but it means to them that they want to have sex. And so when the other person sees that, that they've put it out and they put it in a place like on the kitchen table so it doesn't get missed, they know that the other person wants it, and they can still opt out for whatever reason and not feeling it, or you can always say no, but now there's no like every they know that it's literally on the table, yeah, and it's an offer that's being made. And so you don't get into these weird situations that happens a lot with couples, I think, where they're like in bed and one person thinking, I'm feeling sexy time. The other person's like, dude, I'm pilled up, I'm going to be pill working.
SPEAKER_02I like that idea a lot because sometimes, like sometimes you don't get the indication maybe your partner's not as uh vocal, you know, or especially if when you've been together for like a long time and it's like you kind of get into your routine of like you're watching your movies at night or whatever, and you it's just not on the forefront of your mind. But if you're if you know that your partner's feeling amorous, then you're like, oh, okay, okay. I could be persuaded.
SPEAKER_04Well, for years I was always the guy who said, wait, you're in the mood, I'm in the mood.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04I'm not sure I'm still that guy, but I know from a lot of my life it was like, okay, wait. Yeah. What? I'm not turning this down.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_04I don't care what my situation is.
SPEAKER_01I'll take it.
SPEAKER_04I'll put a barf, I'll wear a barf bag like a horse if I have to. I don't feel well, but I don't care. Um, you know, because it was like Right.
SPEAKER_02I'll take what I can get, maybe. Well, it's just like it's on offer.
SPEAKER_04Why turn it down? This may be the last time. I looked into the history of sleeping with your partner. Okay. If you didn't have money, it was common for people to sleep all together.
SPEAKER_02Like uh Charlie and the chocolate factory, grandpa.
SPEAKER_04Yes. But worse, like tons of people all feet to face in. Yes. Any way people could squeeze into the bed.
SPEAKER_02You got face fungus now.
SPEAKER_04Whoa. Yuck. Peel it. So, so yeah, they did it because um there'd have they couldn't afford a very big living space. They were very cramped quarters anyway, if you were poor. And there was heat, there he, all kinds of heat issues. Like there wasn't heat. So the you, it was like a survival thing. You had to sleep all together. So that that's what poor people did. Now, if you were super rich, then over time we see like kings and queens having separate separate quarters, you know. So they got together to do the ding, to do the thing, to make the the next uh heir. Right. But then they retreat to their separate quarters. And even like the rich industrialist in the late like 19th century in this country in America, you like I every once in a while you go to one of these like mansions from the past, and I remember going to the Vanderbilt Mansion in New York, one of their mansions, and the Mrs. Vanderbilt, she had her not only did she have her own bedroom suite, but she had a fence, a fence, it was an ornate fence, okay, but a fence all the same around her bed. So it's like not only is it my own room, but don't come near my bed. Yeah, stay away. You know, do not come through the gate unless you have permission. And that sends a message, right? Sure. That sends a message, and the message is get the hell away from me. Right. So if you were rich, separate quarters. So the only reason people were sleeping all together all the time for centuries was because they were poor and cold. So for most of human history, people thought nothing of crowding family members or friends. You would go to hotels or inns and you would sleep with strangers in the same boat. This happened. People thought nothing about it.
SPEAKER_02Nope, nope, nope, nope.
SPEAKER_04And people were spreading diseases this way.
SPEAKER_02Scabies.
SPEAKER_04All kinds of junk. You know, this back when there was the plague and all the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you know, the plague.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And we're only like sketchy right now because we've just been going through this pandemic. Right. But I mean, these are some serious things people are spreading around, and like you're traveling on a trip and you get off your horse and your horse stink clothes, and you jump into bed with like 25 strangers. Who got their what?
SPEAKER_02Lice ridden. Lice, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Think about the lice and the bed bugs and the crocodiles or whatever they had. Even as late as the 1970s, some interior design magazines were showing separate bedrooms for married couples or separate beds at least.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And for decades it was considered inappropriate or even scandalous to show in a TV show or a movie people sharing the same bed, or even suggesting it. So like Lucy and Rick.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, I love Lucy. They always slept in separate beds.
SPEAKER_04And they said they were like baby beds, like little twin beds, toddler beds. It didn't matter to the censors, even if they were just reading a bit before going to sleep, just the very thought that two people might be seen together in a bed would be too scandalous for the consuming public. There was this rule called the one-foot rule. Do you know about this?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_04So if you go back and watch any of these old shows, there was a rule during this time where people were trying to just avoid any sort of scandal. That when they showed someone, so a married couple, somebody's in bed, let's say they're sick or going to bed. Okay, the partner is fully clothed, sitting on the bed, they had to have at least one foot completely on the floor.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_04As if you can't do junk with your feet on the floor.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04But it was supposed to convey like this is not a sex time. Because there's one foot at least on the floor. They're not in the bed together because that's the only way sex can happen.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04You've never heard of sex happening with somebody somebody's feet on the floor. Yeah, that can't happen. Impossible. How would that be? I thought that was funny. Early movies, if you go back before this Hayes Code, which was the code that said this is what you can show in movies and what you can't. Yeah. Early movies, silent films, and the early talkies, some of them are pretty racy. Yeah. Nudity, cursing, all kinds of junk, drug use. It was pretty intense before anybody got wise.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04They were putting in all the junk because this may come as a shock to you.
SPEAKER_02To me.
SPEAKER_04Living in the 21st century, a product of the 20th century, living in the 21st century, it may come as a shock to you that people have been doing junk forever.
SPEAKER_02Shocking.
SPEAKER_04People have been messing around, sucking down the booze and the drugs, getting all crazy with each other ever since the beginning of time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But during this period where movies are out, suddenly we became concerned about this. Guess who we have to blame for this concern about what we're watching on TV and the movies? Guess who we have to blame for the one-foot rule and for, you know, showing Lucy and Ricky in separate toddler beds. The person to blame is Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. Do you know about Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle?
SPEAKER_02I know the name, but I don't know why.
SPEAKER_04You need you, being a true crime person, would love to read about Roscoe Conkling, Fatty Arbuckle.
SPEAKER_02Conkling?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was a part of his name, but he was known as Fatty Arbuckle. Sure. He was a silent movie star. He was one of the biggest. He was like, I can't even think. Like what one of the biggest comedic movie stars, like would be somebody like Adam Sandler, Will Farrell, I don't know, Eddie Murphy. He was bigger than any of those people. He was sort of like more like the Tom Hanks in the sense like he was huge.
SPEAKER_02He was it.
SPEAKER_04He was a comedian. He was big, a big person. And uh he was funny for the day. And he was an actor, but he was also director and producer. He was huge. And he was paid in today's dollars like about 14-15 million a year. So he was like very big. And he got caught up in one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of the 20s. And there were a lot of scandals.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_04But it's his scandal that created a lot of pressure on the movie industry and later the TV industry to clean up their act. There's all kinds of controversy about how the media handle it, how they basically convicted him in the newspapers. There's all kinds of questionable things that police and prosecutors did. It's sketchy. It's not like a oh, this guy was a bad guy like Harvey Weinstein. Open, shut, throw him away. It's not clear. But what is clear is that the government says, uh, oh, we've got to regulate this industry's out of control. And there were other scandals, which I won't get into that happened during that time. So there was a lot of political pressure on the movie industry to like clean up your act. You're disgusting. Yeah. You're ruining all these impressionable people out there. So after this period, after this Hayes code went into effect to appease the politicians and everybody who was wringing their hands about how horrible the movie industry was, once that code came into place, what could get on was heavily censored. But one of those things was a man and woman in the same bed. And that carried through when TV came along. One of the first times that people really started people um seeing people in bed on television was soap operas. People watching soap operas, they want to see a little something.
SPEAKER_02We want to see some banging. Come on, man.
SPEAKER_04Like, what am I watching this for?
SPEAKER_02The commercials.
SPEAKER_04Blanket slapping each other. So we have this history of first of all sleeping together out of necessity. As soon as we get any kind of money, throughout the history of human beings, we immediately don't want to sleep with people. Yeah. We we get as far away from people as we can. And then we we grow up with the media that's telling us this is how people who are in relationships, this is how they live. And for a while we were being told they don't sleep together. And then now we're being told that's all they do all the time. And it's always great. But the idea of being able to do whatever you want, I gotta believe that 99% of people in relationships would just like to carve out a little time, just do whatever they want.
SPEAKER_02Just do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_04Just want to be alone, and I'm gonna read, I'm gonna watch TV, or I'm just gonna sit here and drool. Yeah. I'm gonna just do nothing and have nobody bugging me. So asking me for anything, nobody wanting me to do anything, nobody just wanting to converse about anything. I just want to be alone. Well, thanks, Jamie, for talking to me about uh separate bedrooms.
SPEAKER_02It was great.
SPEAKER_04I think it's a topic that if people don't talk about in a relationship, they're missing out.
SPEAKER_02I have a lot to think about now.
SPEAKER_04And you might decide for yourself, you know, if you're out there, you might say, Yeah, no, I really we thought about we really like spending that time together, and that's cool. And m most people do. But if you're like willing thinking about, yeah, you know, they're there. Maybe we're not compatible sleepers. We're compatible partners, but we don't sleep good together. Yeah, maybe this would be a solution.
SPEAKER_02I like it.
SPEAKER_04Have somebody do that.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna get uh my partner a tiny little toddler bed to go next to my gigantic one.
SPEAKER_04That would be so great. What a power move. And you there you go. One wee little bed. It'd be easier to introduce that in the beginning of the relationship, that arc. Remember the picture? So you'd have the beginning of the arc, and where if things are hot and heavy, especially if it's a dude, they'll go along with anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You'll say you have access, you have all access pass, but you got to sleep in the toddler bed. I'm I'm not trying to be like super stereotypical here. I'm just talking about my own experience with the typical uh heteronormative dude. They'll be like, okay. Sure. If that's what you want. If you try to introduce the toddler bed like in the middle of the arc where things have settled down, you might run into a little more friction. We're like, wait a minute, why do I get the toddler bed? You'll still win. Yeah. You'll still win because ultimately you have the control. Right. Well, thanks for talking about these with me, and I feel like we've really helped people. Thank you everyone for joining us for this episode. Please share the show if you like it. Follow us on Instagram, send us your messages. Do a five-star sparkling review on Apple Podcasts, and we will read it on the air, and we will also appreciate it very much. As we appreciate you listening every episode. And we hope you'll tune in to another episode because whether you are trying to make things work with one foot on the ground, which by the way, you can do, or just someone slapping your partner with a blanket, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.
SPEAKER_02Guillotine sounds like a name. Guillotine. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Maybe you have the guillotine. Guillotine. Would you like this sausage? Um yeah, that'll be edited.
SPEAKER_00Um