Discussing No Holes Barred w/ Passport Cutty

Welcome to decisions Decisions. I don't think you should say decision decisions. It sounded like you was talking to Kirsty. You definitely say to welcome, welcome to the new podcast. You want to say together, decisions decisions. I am passport cutting.

I am an author like Coach and.

Missing Ones. Huh talka former hope and before us.

Okay, we gonna get into that author we ever had on the podcast podcaster.

In you and everybody. I don't even only was on my notes. Okay, some of you might remember me from one of their first episodes.

It was them interviewing me about my first book, that m and Manas for Money. So that's why I'm so to be here to be talking to them about their first book, No Holds barn is a dual manifesto of such exploration and power, and I had the luxury and the privilege of reading it twice already. Then if you are, if you've been listening for a long long time. We had another episode we did that was we talked about something that super time.

But we're gonna get into that later.

But this dynamic duo they did something super disruptive. They built community, They built safety, exploration, identity fun and.

For me a bubble educated. So I love these ladies. The book has a lot of layers. It's very sexy but smart, and it's very wild.

But why Okay, so we are gonna get I'm just taking it.

Why why?

Why?

Sexy but smart?

Okay, So I'm gonna tell you guys what I love about the book personally, right, So I usually love memoirs and self help. I used to read all the rodicts, so but this is all of them in one. So it really is a pleasure to like get a dose

So so what's crazy about that one is we ended.

Up even talking about that in an episode. I just think all of the labels that go onto our sexualities, like anyone kild like say.

Oh, maybe you're not that maybe you're not that.

What I've noticed is, though, specifically for me, from when I first started having sex with sixteen years old all the way to now is that there's been ebbs and flows of what I've been into and it's changed.

Y'all are the name for that now?

A sexual is the ability to kind of be fluid with so sorry, fluid with your sexual identity.

So the the privilege.

Now to be able to change and be like, no, I know I was this way at one point. It doesn't define me now. Saw that word, thought it was phenomenal and threw it off. Another one was compersion, which you do you do? People so tired of hearing me say that it is my favorite word, and it's so compersion.

If y'all listen to the show clap if you know the word.

Then we out dick sucking story. Confersion means that you're taking pleasure and someone else receiving pleasure, so much like a cuk hoole the cook queen, someone that just enjoys knowing that their partner is also enjoying.

And a lot of.

Times in non monogamy you actually have to really practice conversion knowing that someone is having fun by having an experience that's outside of you. And so I'm not saying I'm one hundred percent good at confersion, but there eighty.

I also didn't know what M D M A was MD? Is that a drug? I'm telling you all this man stuff like that, I still don't know.

I'm not gonna hold you as a New York girl. Half of the stories I like to be like, I was high some of this.

It's actually a lot didn't hit that hard.

Yeah, so well that look, the proof is that those words that suck out to me, you're gonna stick out to you as well. All Right, So it's vulnerable, it's personal, it's transparent, it's funny, and it has a lot of personality.

And I'm gonna be honest with you.

You have to read it, but you also have to listen to me, Like you can't just do one, because I did both, right, So you.

Had time to listen to it, yea ten hours?

I know.

I was at the cool old day.

No, I waked up at five am, you do. I had from five am all the way till I got here too, Okay, But also in the book, I was reading a school yesterday again, and when you when you were writing, okay, can I can I ask you someone who's listened to it, because I'm surprised we have someone who has just your thoughts on kind of while reading

She tried to warm me. I was like, bit y'all talked for a little long time.

Listen, did y'all record the audio book? And she was like, no, we're about to do that in like two days or something. I said, I'm just want to know right now. She warned me, you don't feel like you don't.

Know how to read. I didn't know how to talk. I didn't know how to read. There was there was there were.

There were chapters that were so easy to write. And then when I was speaking there a bitch got choked. Well, you can't choke up.

I can't read. So like it was like the emotion that she still wanted it.

But I'm like, oh, ship, like the chapter like my abortion chapter was I wrote that in like a day, Like that was I knew I wanted to share that story with everything happening, and before writing it, I had a therapy session.

I interviewed my mom, I interviewed my friend Peter whop me pay well. I wanted to say, though the audio version of it, we don't.

I didn't I talk about this before the audio version of that chapter, which was my easiest. A bitch broke broke down in the in the recording version of it. So I don't know if you were you able to were you, I would.

Have hear it all that you can. You can hear.

The personality and emotions behind all of the top, like sometimes super exciting, you know, like it's easy.

They'll they'll they'll know.

This book because the most uncomfortable thing to read was not a sault, nothing like that. It was this sentence in front of I would say he was maybe mid fifties Latino, dude. I'm recording this audio book in LA and there's a glass wall with the person saying no, go ahead, weezy and just you know, stick with the same cadence.

And I remember it because I was like, you're gonna take him a while because it's in the session.

Oh girl, you're engineering my ultimate fantasy had always been getting fucked while eating.

Pussy looking at me on they're not telling y'all. He really sat there and he goes, this is it's really gonna touch.

It's when you get this industry like nothing is surprises people sometimes like they've heard it all, like in music, but especially engineers, they.

Like not Miguel that man said, whoa hear from? Like man? Yeah? Like right yeah. And so just to describe the setting, we were in rappers going there.

Music people go in there to do advertisements like things like that, like commercials and voiceovers. So to have someone just sit there with you and hear ten hours of your book, it was interesting. And also tell you can't read yes, yeah, yeah, I.

Got so many words wrong. Yeah I read the word two twelve.

He was like you have to also I wrote words and I was like, how you say this?

Yeah, now that's what I need to tell when when it got to.

I was like naevity, like when I was recording mind.

Yes, So you know our co author shout out to Texas egg here on Tempest is Bright.

She really like took our books to another level by helping this add like depth and dimensions to this book and one of the words that I can read use my brain got stuck that I can tell tenthist with jammed in the homogens and I say hold.

On Jesus and yeah, okay.

So two things that popped out for me in this book that I feel like were major themes for you guys individually separate were for you, Mandy, it was shame, and then for you it was jealousy. And I want to know, like for me, I felt like those are two themes that a lot of people don't admit.

But that's the part of self help, you.

Know, like when you are trying to really like get to know yourself and change things about yourself, you gotta admit things that are uncomfortable. So I want to know, at what point did you guys feel like you could admit like.

Oh shit, I'm jealous when I see him with her or her with him, or you know, like when did jealousy beat something that you were able to own?

And for you the shame you were like the shame of you know, my friends judging me if I wanted to leave with the guy or if I wanted you know, like I was on a date and like I felt excited about it, but you know, like I didn't want anybody else to like judge me about it, So you guys can answer respect me.

I'll start with jealousy.

You know, for anyone to listen to this show, whether you're a monogamous or not a monogamous, the constant conversation you have with yourself is jealousy. I've been in relationships where my partner dated no one else and I was jealous of the misdeader to work with. So I think that jealousy is something you can be able to face. Yeah,

Like that's how much I love this.

I have two best friends right now, and I'm gonna tell you right now. Brianda had to give me a warning, don't get upset. I'm gonna be hanging out with some of a woman. One of my best friends andre if he has another homegirl, just that whatever.

Were you ever? Did you ever deny that part about you yourself? Or did you always? Because you know what we've done?

And jealousy as weakness. If you are a jealous person, you're weak and you're insecure.

Whatever. If I don't say this.

Out loud, then it just sits there and throws into your resentment. So I think that the first step in how can someone be able to help you?

Because now that my partner knows like a philography, what does he do now?

Affirmation, reaffirming our relationship, you have to say these things, and so I think just admitting the jealousy with confidence is what you better do. Somenoy. It was so break think like of you to put that, because most people deny it and you cannot help. You can't self help, You can't ask your therapist for tools or anything if you don't admit that you have these feelings deep down inside.

Her was more than better than reason. He hasn't it better than you? So me, let me tell you timing matters.

Had this book came out a year or two ago, I wouldn't be able to stay here and like it, because I would have gagged over to the.

Soulmate Nigga that I thought I was with, like he had.

So many he had so many parts of this book in our proposal because I was like, I found in love, I found my and I would I would have hated that this book came out and I, you.

Know, immortalized him in that way.

And so for me, when we had the opportunity of the book come to us, I have just gotten into therapy and so during the pandemic, I had a lot more time to sit with myself. And when it came to this book, we really wanted to lean into the iroonica and I was fine with that, but I was like, bitch, I there's a lot of shit out and did and said on this podcast that I hate with my like, I hate it, and I know that there's like a con complation. That's the word conflate. You could conflate being liberated.

Florida education, y'all known. But when you talk.

About being liberated, which is what this platform, which is what Horrible.

Decisions was based upon a lot of times they don't.

Allow us as liberated, free women to admit our faults, to to actually admit the shame and decisions that we made a past that we've grown from. A lot of people just want to keep us in whatever bubble they want us to stay in, And for me, I was like, bro, I ain't even gonna hold you.

There's no way I'm writing this book.

Telling women to have sex for this amount of money and view men in this way because I've now been able to experience viewing men in such a beautiful way and experiencing intimacy and ways that I didn't in the beginning that I was like, bro, like, I'm not going to tell the younger generation or women in my age to think the way that I thought when we first started this show.

And there was just a lot.

Of trauma that I was overcoming and ways in which I thought, like, there's a whole chapter about me being a side chick, and I think, well, they like me more than they white cuz they telling the truth to me, and that the rhetoric was so dumb. And so I'm literally in the book realizing a bit you ain't have no self worth. Ah, but you actually thought that you couldn't be a priority to a man, which is why

We will read a.

Lot of those chapters and think, and there's gonna be someone because God forbid you sexually liberated and can have growth. You better not be a bitch that was out there having a good time fucking. And now you're gonna tell us you're credited. Well, hold on, I can't have one moment in my life. Oh no, there's a lot.

I got good, two, three, But yeah, So that to me, like this book, it was important.

And our team over at Simon and Schuster too, Once they started reading our stories, They're like, well, the readers are reading your stories.

But because we were so.

Adamant on making sure that people could pick up this book, whether they were fans of horrible decisions, decisions decisions or not. They were like, well, what would you tell your reader then? And so we I literally had a lot of calls with our publisher about well what.

Can you give your reader?

Like readers like to take something away and yes they're hearing your stories, Well what can you give them? So we went back and really tried to tell you guys, well, had I done this, maybe I would have gotten a better results. So hopefully you do this, or here's a way to shoot your shot. And there's just different parts of self help in there that help you guys make better decisions than us.

Yes, it's very informational education.

Let speaking of.

Shame, I have a story to share. So I remember earlier when I said about one of.

The episodes, yep, it was actually episode one sixteen period.

She been here a long time, hundreds now.

So for myself, as someone who made a name for myself on the Internet being raunchy, vulgar, uh table like talk about taboo topics, they took such stuff to a whole another leven. I'm vanilla compared to everybody goes. I was wild for talking about and he's and all that stuff, but when they came out, y'all made me feel like, oh again.

You're one of my favorite stories of all. And before this, I was like, I don't know anything that you guys are talking about, Like I was so green.

Compared to like the stories that were being shared on the question a y feud.

Don't mind how old you guys?

Oh, by the way, y'all just heard us on the Breakfast Club this morning and puld.

Out not sure why waunch you guess because I'm scared. I gotta thirty four BULI. Yeah, okay, So.

Back in twenty nineteen, I went to India and I want to go get him.

I'm not gonna tell the whole story. I'm just gonna tell what happened.

So I went to India.

I went to go get a massage.

I swear to god, I really thought I was going for massage. I'm not like, I really was going for massage.

And it ended with a happy ending right now, Okay.

I was so excited that just happened to me because.

For me, it was like a story to tell, right, did I want the person who did it to me?

To do it to me, But I had a story to tell, like this is a life story that's like fire to me, right. But I was in India with a friend who was in the other room and she was propositioned with the same situation and she was hortified.

So she when we left out the room, she's like, oh my god, tell.

And so because she was so mortified, I was too embarrassed to tell her that I got it done. So I was like, let's go, you know, but I couldn't wait to stay home and tell me didn't read it. And the thing about it is is that that goes to show you the safe space, right, like you know your time, you know where you could go, no judgment. And I told everybody, all of my father when I was like, you want to.

Hear the story, you go listen to this show, right, because we were like you live.

Because I could have told the story on my life or on you know, my page or whatever. I was like, no, I'm going to tell that and I'll never forget because you asked me a question on that episode said she said, what you look like?

I said, God, damn it, he wasn't kissed. I said, I was gonna leave that part out. I was like, or not, but I was thinking Indian marriage.

Listen, y'all want to go back LANDI was not figuring her with.

Didn't listen to it. But the point that God, can I rap your pussy ma'am? Yes?

Yes, that validation guys in any way, to know that people feel like they can only share their like intimate deep and dark and secrets because of you and with you. I mean, I think if if y'all go back. There was a moment in time and I hated that I like maybe called this on me. I called myself like the bullhole whisperer. At one point, every guy that was in my phone wanted they butt like they wanted to be bad.

Was opening up about like like literally, but we were also like sharing with me all of these fantasies or experiences or things that they had actually done sexually with.

Either trans women or other men and all of these things.

And I started being like, Yo, I hate that I'm being told this because they're not given this safe space by the women that they're actually dealing with.

Because I wasn't dagonal.

Yeah, oh like I've been old, but I'm talking but these weren't my partners. They were like some lovers and so but it made me feel like, damn, like, there's all of these men that I'm talking to, because I was talking to a lot and a lot of times, and I'm like, WHOA, I don't think they have these safe spaces with their previous partners, with maybe whoever else

Them and then for my friends.

I'll share another story because I wasn't allowed to share on air, so we might need to cut this off. But one of my other homegirls, you saiday, a very famous rapper that got locked.

Up, and it's you'll never get that while they were together.

Like clearly, how they were intimate with each other were through words, and so she would text me.

This is when I was in college. So I'd be in the middle of class.

And she'd be like, ooh, girl, text them, like text me song sexy to see him. So I would literally be the person to like even open up their verbal communications sexually because she wasn't and she'd read those and be.

Like, grat do you think like that? And I was like, you have to think.

And so for my friends, they've been able to come to me with not only their health but their sexual dilemmas and men that I've dated to me, it's one of the powers I feel like I have and being able to exist how I do.

So I do just want to leave you with this, for the women in this.

Room typically who have had the joys of being liberated or even just experimenting with their sexuality, creating that safe space for any guy to even share that with you and not yuck, they're young because whether you liked it or not, however you identify, you got to enjoy that experience.

You got to have that experience.

And I don't think we allow black men as much to exist or have those experiences. And we're up here being able to talk like this because y'all welcome this conversation. We have to welcome our brothers as well. Yeah, oh no, that was real deep, my man. I got really gat questions, which is about power, which is one of the major themes of the book, but you guys talk about it

I'm doing you doing your thing?

And then I love the part where you talk about submission having power, but we do do that differently. Yeah, the situation you said, the person who's the submission actually is basically calling the shots about what they want, you know. Yeah, Like, so any guy's gonna talk about pick that up?

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I know I can.

Like I appreciate that because a lot of the times when reading this book, I think you're not going to pull the power from that section.

And a lot of time.

In conversation about VIDSM, where do we think that the person that's on their knee is just this, Oh my god.

I feel so bad for her. She's giving her as well, bitch.

We they want the I want that, you know, well not well people years have interviewed so many doms that want women to experience this in a safe way, And I think the most beautiful part of my BDSM story is that luckily I got to be with someone that was actually a dom, not only what were they a dom for a long time, but they were a dom that didn't take their dominating pleasures into into play when it came to me.

So, for example, I found out later he likes to suffocate.

Women That didn't even come up with me because when I was sent to checklist, it was something that I put up right, So he didn't even tell me this.

I thought this out years later. That was his cake.

So really just his pleasure was being able to dominate and please someone that liked to be a sub.

And when we Ceddy is talking about the power.

I know you guys can get to read that, yet I talk about how I asked for everything I wanted. Yeah, there wasn't anything that happened to me that wasn't No, there wasn't anything that made me feel uncomfortable. And there was also power in the safe word. And I think that women get so scared to ask for something that they want because it seems like if you're giving yourself to someone, then you have no power to me.

It is much like the One Night's dand you could either do a walk of shame or you were like pride. And I've been now with both, I've.

Definite only left some one department of be like, oh my god, I'm so i'mbarissed. I can't believe I'm not fanna tell my friends. And then there became woman of Confidence, where I was like, yeah.

Same outfit, drug, I'm just new dress. Do I care?

I want to add to what she's saying, because this is currently a conversation of pop culture. Shout out to our twenty seven white listeners because I'm about to bring up a white woman, but the conversation right now, I'll I'll see it.

But it's crazy.

It's crazy because there's a conversation right now happening around Sabrina Carpenter's new album cover where she's on her knees and she's you know, and she's in this thing and so knowing that like she's in a submissive stance not to shout out my friend, but to shout out my friends.

To it being as powerful as it really is.

And so when submission is done, safely consensually with a DOM who values your your boundaries. The power is actually in the sub because the sub says no, the sub says when it's too much.

The sub like will do what?

Oh look what makes them feel well, which makes the DOM be excited, Like when I be Ben and the niggas over Like, it's powerful for me, but they're in a space where they're safe, and it becomes powerful for them. So I just hate that what we do be taking away the power from submissus. But I'd say all that to say, like, I love that we've been able to have that type of dialogue around those two spaces within BDSU specifically for that, you know, I want to add

I felt ashamed of the sex I had the night before.

It was genuinely because I was the phase of my life where I felt like I shouldn't be doing that, or I should be looking for a relationship, or oh I fucked him on the second date not the third day. There was so many rules in my head instead of just enjoying. You know, and like, I think that as people that want to explore ourselves, we think, Hey, if I want a relationship, I gotta be doing things intentionally.

Well, you need let me tell you something. They could be yourself made.

Hello.

It is in the book, and it's so import to show you. This line is in the love chapters.

In the final chapter of the book, I was answer to my home brow not a snort.

I don't know if I had a snort.

So about dating and I'm like, girl, when is it happened?

I don't understand. I went to therapy. I'm here with the fuck bitch.

She's like, girl, what if you found out this was your last summer?

Yeah?

What if it was your last summer single, wouldn't you want to do a little self about the ending? Because I was like, ship, I want to get I want some fun stuff to happen before you, like it's open.

Hello, you like you gonna still be having fun. I'm don't share. Of course, you share with your person. You gotta think about it.

So yes, by the time you meet your person, right, you got to assume that your person you he's the one that's going to accept all of those flaws, all of those stories. Me I'm not even really be saying that, but I'm like, yo, let me take you bout their sugar daddy your hair?

Is he gonna do it? Excommunicate me? You're a girl.

But you're saying, like before you tied the knot or something like that, you mentioned I.

Think that if you're marrying the right person, they know all that shit. That's yeah, we mention that matter of fact. Yeah, this to me hit me.

It's like we've been we mentioned ship since I was twenty six.

Yeah, I have talked about that. We got an art.

I feel like that's for the moment they hit me like, all right, I'm with the right person. Last week, while we were in France, ran into a home rob Now since I was seventeen years old. She's sitting in front of my man like, let me say an d and we was walking down the street Miami and then she was doing this and there was not something she could say that would have made me scared. I was sitting there look at her like, oh yeah, hahaha. Imagine you're with a partner that you're like this, but she.

Still gotta make me out.

And so that's the thing about it, right, if you're the right person to be, Yeah, Kennedy say, I'm not gonna post some crazy ship on my close friends about you can't no, baby, I don't get my girl like, And that's the thing.

Anything she would have said, he already knew about it. That's even if you never heard the story.

That's saying you know that your person, you gotta know you've either lived a life you've had, but they have to accept you for that.

Why are we gonna an if you don't nix.

There's a lot of why anybody that don't make us feel bad about living life. Yeah, And I think that that's what we talk about in the book, Like at the end of the day, like there's a period at the end of each chapter. And I said this on the Records Club. There's a period at the end of each chapter. But probably next year we can add to each chapter in this book. Like it's still an ongoing journey, but like we're not.

It's starting.

It ain't turning into a pro because the white people here.

Are you bad at this? All right?

Let me ask you that the question what's one of the truths that you were scared to write?

Honestly, my shame, okay, I was.

I was like, ooh, I gotta say I was insecure, and I gotta say I didn't value myself. I didn't say, bitch, you ain't you was a workless piece of ship. Like literally, I put myself in situations that at one point I spoke so proudly of when deep down inside you, I didn't feel good about it, right, And so for me, I think that was the hardest thing to put the paper.

Was like, oh, yeah, bitch, you you claim.

To have been confident this whole time and was happy your body and was doing this and no, you were seeking validation for men and you're dumb, bitch, yeah, And so like to me, it was holding up.

The mirror and really being able.

To be like, Okay, you weren't as strong as you first showed everyone that you were. You weren't as confident, and it was really sitting with the fact that, Okay, well I learned from it.

It's important for you to put it in here.

But I think even a part of the book saying it about myself, like the audio version was, it was like, ooh, okay, mirror, all right, you did that.

I'm glad you're grown, but whoam together?

Of course, that's gonna help everybody or anybody who reads it, you know, because if they're feeling experience, if they're experiencing that same thing, you know, they can figive themselves as well. And a lot of women this is gonna be problematic take but I'm seeing it unconscious because of what I said on the Brooks Club.

Accountability is hard for a lot of us. Yes, And so when.

We stay in relationships too long, when we're with a person that we know is not good for us in hindsight, we could sit here and blame that person for all the things and can blame them forever and be it's so upset, like, oh, you did this to me, you did this to me, and we don't often look at the things we do to ourselves, Well, why were you there? It's because, bitch, you thought that maybe that was the best you could get, because you didn't think higher of yourself.

So you took the crumbs because you didn't think you could have a whole cake.

And so to me, that's the part about women when we can blame our access for being pieces of shit.

We could blame men, We could blame women for like being who they are. However we date right, but there has.

To be a moment where we look at ourselves and ask or or figure out, well, you say you were there, like and why why didn't you leave when you saw the first red flags?

Why did you think? Talking about breaks? And I after? But what I did not think that chapter was that great? I mean it was just like my ex waiter or whatever. Wait the more, that's the way you're talking about. No, no, no, I'm saying the more. Yeah, and when you know you stay too long, Oh, Okay. The more I talk about.

It and interviews and ship every people are like, oh yeah, Like I say, in relationship to him, I got a homegirl right now. Every time I called him, like you leave any yet, she can't say. I'm talks about oh my god, he getting wait every week, Oh.

My god, my friends in the back. No, I'm talking about.

At the end of the day, she's not ready to go. Yeah, and she's staying too long. And we have all been there men too. We've been in relationships where like all my homeboys are staying. In a relationship to him, like, man, I feel bad, she'd go and do it.

Oh this just happened. I don't know what to do. It's just easier to stay.

It's like, for some reason, leaving feels like the task to do eas Henna study without marriage, it feels like you need to get reiversed for something.

So some sometimes people stay because they're waiting. Oh okay, I'm investing. I'm gonna leave here. I'm waiting. I will say. I know you think about when it was good?

Are you like that me that that was That's probably one of the dumbest things that I think we grew up learning like to me, like the fact that love is hard and you got to chase them the way you have to work for it, like all of those negative like tropes around love to me is what I talk about, Like I don't even like saying a word. Now. I love my friends, but these niggas, I don't know

It's it's surface level.

It's something that you say, but the actions behind it don't often exist. And then once you say it, you feel tied into this relationship over a thing that what is it?

I don't know love is y'all. So, by the way, when you read the book, thought I'm out to note, I don't. I don't know what it is like. And I have my hang ups with that word specifically because of the use of it.

But wasn't you Weasy who said something about at least it was better than that kind of thing.

Yeah, you know, Oh, it's not physical abuse, it's not so.

One of the conversations, Caudy, it's crazy. So that didn't I just say that a few hours ago? Literally we just recorded, so because we've been working, I ran into my ex and it was crazy because I maybe he said a week before, I haven't seen any years. And it's been on my mind because this chapter. Everyone that interviews us is like, damn, he was terrible. But then when I'm writing a chapter, I'm.

Like, why did I think he was that bad?

I'm like, oh, well, I've been in physically abused the relationship.

He wasn't whipping my ass, he was cheating, So if I let the fuck girls anyway, what's the big deal? He just lied?

And then the other thing was I've been in emotionally if used relationship. People didn't mean to me, never yelled at me.

We have fun.

Am I really in a bad relationship? He's just fucking bitches? But at the end of the day, I never thought or had it clicked, Oh, he's disrespecting me, he's lying to me, he's not telling me the truth.

And not only when is he not telling you truth? When he when they find.

Out or have a conversation with him, He's like, I don't care about them. I mean, we're gonna be there, so you know, it's just I didn't.

Tell you you lucky, see. But other women. Bos just didn't tell you, So it's not that bad and I'd really.

Say that, And that's the thing we start to think because it's not as bad as something else I said on the breakfast Clob the other day. Comparison is the thief of joy, but it's also the reason that we sometimes get joy. Let's just say your man cheated on it. You're gonna say, well, my homegirl got cheated on three times last he didn't do that.

It's rationalized so much much.

It's only do this thing of like, well not this instead of what did I set out for myself if I made a list of the things I need from a man or the lady break that w We don't to stop acting like there's not that many people out there, yeah, because they're actually is and we make.

Bro let me tell you something.

There is there there girl living?

This is crazy? Where and how.

Was your favorite place to start to write? Like where did the juices flow at?

Like? What was great question?

Because I know my story so I know like how it started coming, so I want to know what that.

Is for you.

Guy. This is gonna be so cliche, the fucking stories about sex. No, but where where there were you that made you, like, made it come to you sometimes before the proposal. No, when we're supposed to write the book, it's like you have to find the time, you have to find the spider.

Yeah, oh man, Like, was it.

Like in the bed on the plane, on the toilet in the nine Do you remember the thing about the toilet when I texted my friends and my man love you.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm telling you the toilet and the beach.

So I went out with my friends, uh, tow them out here. We did some asked it in Mexico and when they asked subsided, I said the drug.

So I'm there.

I'm in this moment of just gratitude for friendship and love. And I got on the beach and on my phone started to write right about how it yes, okay in the notes section of my phone, and I remember my phone was dying and I'm like, and they're charging my phone on the time, like, I got to get this out, And I think there was something about a moment of release because it was very hard. Our editor Michelle's here and to the sexes here and we're like, okay, we gotta get this chapter out by Saturday.

That ship.

It makes it harder because now you can't be authentic because you got a deadline and we.

Ain't meet them deadline. So that second fired.

I'm not a deadline person. May and you tell me Saturday, I'm like, no, I'm gonna buck.

Y'all to cut it off, like you want the email thrust. I'll tell you this. The publishing day eight the same.

It's fine if I needed my time, need my time to make magic, and.

And it was what it was, so be that as it May, I really did need time.

Without and she came down off the high started like because what happened was I got to like be out of this I need to finish my book brain instead of like this book is fun.

Right, So the second you know, I went out with friends and had fun.

I got to have this release of like, oh this one it was like to have a good time, and I hadn't felt that because the book went through ebbs and flows of fun for right, Like I went through a really serious hard time at the end of the book that you'll read and talk about suicide and depression. So it's like I gotta go back to this.

Let's just say I'm having a good day, Oh man, I go back to the death chapter. I wanted to kill myself.

That ship was hot. You know.

Everybody's saying you're like talking about.

You know, So it's really that, it's like finding the sweet spot of making this book pleasurable to write, is gonna make it a good reason, And it was your.

Place, so y'all know, I'm very yeah.

So once the proposal was done and I knew all the chapters I was gonna write mentally, I saw with which ones would be the easier mentally for me.

So I went through with that first. I was like, okay.

I went through the ones with tempests. I said, these are gonna be tough for me. I'm gonna do therapy sessions for those and I'll record them. So eventually, if y'all are patrons, I have recorded therapy sessions for certain chapters that I planned to.

I don't know if I'm gonna narrate them.

I said, I want this process recorded, and so I went through certain therapy sessions.

Crime who all the shame had to go through therapy sessions. So the ones that were easy were the ones like around sex.

Ironically, the abortion chapter was fairly easy, and so my process was Okay, if I need therapy, I go to therapy first. Next with tempests, would come to my house and we put like four hour blocks. Literally, she would come to my house for four hours. We'd do a mid lunch and like basically.

What she came over to do was to give me to talk how do I want this chapter? Lay out? What is the theme, what is the arc, what emotions do you want to resonate? What do you want from the reader.

And she would sit there and help me decide how we would write, like how it should flow as a chapter.

Then she's like, Okay, here's how we said you're gonna write it, so go write it.

So after those four hours, we'd normally do it for like two chapters at a time, sometimes three, and she'd be like, okay, so here's your story.

Here's how you want to tell it. Now put it to computer.

So what I would do actually is because I'm a morning person, like an idiot, I get my goddamn coffee.

I would wake up.

I scheduled the days that I would write, and so I would wake up, prepare to write, prepare to tell these stories. I'd get my coffee, sit at my sit at my dining room table and just type, and sometimes I had it in me. Oftentimes I'd be Okay, bitch, I need a break. I'm eight pages in. Let me call my friend and talk honestly too. I've loved it cutties here, and that's why I asked what I would be done with some chapters.

I would send them the Cuddy. Cuddy's written a book, so she'd be like, this is cool, but I don't get what you're trying to stay here.

So maybe I had this, and so I had a support system between Tempest and Cuddy during writing this this thing. But I would honestly do it in the mornings over coffee, and I scheduled it like it was a workshift, like today I'm working on this. I think I was wired just wheezy, being wheezy writing for me to be a different place every time I actually want to tell a story about a friend that to read one of my chapters, this was my favorite reaction.

I've ever seen. I'm sorry, but I'm da. She was reading the love chapter where I talked about now you love love love all right girl now, and you know this is my sister.

So she's reading this thing and I'm looking at her for this validation of please, like tell me what you think with blah blah blah blah blah.

I'm really proud of this. She's holding my phone at the.

Time and reading it, and I remember she's reading it kind of about loud, like a mumba and like okay.

So then they came inside me. She's looks, you're easy, please, And then when he was fucking she's I don't all.

Right time getting through this, and I'm like, it's kind and like it's crazy because what we need from friends in this moment need them to hear these stories, right. So that to me was a funny story because it was sexual tempest. Ex has become a friend is reading this story about depression and suicide. She's like, Okay, I know we need to like I need to give you feedback right now?

Can I just say? Like whoa? So each time we're handing someone something for approval, they're trying to be like do I be soft right now? Like what do I do?

So that was the most interesting part of the writing process, sending chapters to friends that have heard nothing even I mean, I hate to make it dark, bro, and your friends are reading something for the first time.

I'm like, Hey, I know this happened to you, but what the fuck? Mm hmmm. And I feel like, you know, you guys are so connected to us that you will feel the same reading that about Mandy. I read things about Mandy. I've podcasted with Mandy eight years, known her since I was fifteen.

I was like, oh that made me feel you know what I'm saying, So like everyone will connect to this in a different way. Yeah, Okay, Well we're gonna wrap up here, but I just want to congratulate you guys. But I'm just want to talk about how a lot of people look at people as entertainers, right, not the voice as bitches that you guys are right because it's

That propelled me that you know, like that helped, that was a foundational piece of what's happening right now? Did it help? Did it? Does it not matter?

Is it totally separate with my credits cord that just dropped nail knit and financial lead. I hate the you know, like I'm not technically technically using my degrees.

Yeah, but so that's what I was gonna say. Technically, I'm not in a corporate space that you know, I got because of my degrees.

However, I don't think the like the podcast is here, I'm able to look at the way I am without the lens from the things that I learned in school and from working in a corporate setting.

If you weren't an accountant, you wouldn't have been getting paid the way that you were. Yes, because well, girl, the bartender.

Bartend has made a lot of money career back in the day with the scamml's a scammon, they're not doing it no more. But for me to like even the organizational aspects of it, that the deadline has Like you know, I come hard off these Excel sheets.

That's what I make them for everything, And so I don't think.

I don't think I care about a pivotable or how pretty an Excel sheet is if I don't go through that element.

And so to me, the organizational aspects of it and how it makes things easier for me to see.

I love that I was able to transport that into being an entrepreneur, right, I think being a first generation college graduate.

In my family, no one in my family is an entrepreneur. No one in my family has a savings account.

No one in my family had the opportunities that I've had now to travel.

I mean, my mom get a passport so I could take her to Greece.

Guess where we had to go in twenty nineteen because she didn't have a passport. It's Puerto Rico.

My mom is fifty plus now and I literally am like, I'd like to get you to see the world.

And so like my family being being very on grown Orlando, Jamaic, like they just they don't really get out. Like for me to have that opportunity to do this, I don't think I do that without going to college and so for me constantly for anyone who goes all the way back to that, like whether you're using your degree or not, it's still one of the things that I'm most proud

Bringing it back up because it's something that I'm still most product Yeah.

And you, oh girl, love when somebody bring up, well, that was the big things to work at mobile. Indeed, I'm very proud of where I've come from. Like just my dad was an entrepreneur, and it's interesting because I always felt like they were never that proud of me. Well I was in college at ground now, but I

And that wasn't my first business I started.

I started to shout out to the other hell its and WTF media and knowing that, like I got to be in this seller mode. When I was in corporate, I was a seller constantly, right, I was selling everything from ethernet I can't even spell it.

That data recovery software. And it was like people would look at me like why is she selling that? Because I could fucking sell anything.

So now today to know that all of the things that we've accomplished come from horrible. It's crazy, you know, to be in a workout and there's someone that's like, you know, someone just told me just now, Joey over there just said something about it, and like Mandy and I will be out somewhere and then someone's coming to her about her show. Like it's just crazy that we

I almost forgot I had a corporate job. All I remember is horrible.

When I start the new job, there's not a thing I'm gonna do on my life. I can start a church, it can do. It's just like, girl, we're all stupid, like.

The try and dat so horrible. Feels like now there's been almost a decade my first job. It's so crazy.

So I almost treat new things in this corporate setting and being professional like it's horrible. I don't have a meeting I'm in where I don't say something a.

Little bit dirty. Yeah, because this is this is all the world.

You know what I'm saying.

It's like where we're at with you and so like you ever had sex on a reformer?

Yeah?

And I no, no no.

By the way, y'all, you don't understand how serious you Especially when he sees another country.

It'll be thirteen people on the phone execs. Sorry, guys, I was doing blow last night. Me got a girl to the room.

It'll be in a corporate fucking college. She's talking about how she just had a threesome last night. Introduction is that man?

It got the deal done? Maybe I get a lie on it, you know, likes real ship.

When I was working at audible, they said, oh, do you want to listen to your mekhezy at audible? A fuck, this this is how me now, Like there's no faking it, like it's just me. I'd be saying, hey, y'all in the emails, I just I feel like this is the most natural state that I wanted. And the only thing I think corporate really taught me was that everything, at

Sometimes I'd be like, nice to meet you, sir, and I'd be like, damn, it's night. Still got the ship done. I love being myself and just knowing that we made this book just being honest. It's fucking crazy. So okay, take youngratuate.

By the way, we have pro learned that this was only supposed to be a thirty minute a conversation because a goddamn how bitch.

We just kept knowing do you want to leave time for Q? And A next time we don't have a time or look at me. I'm like, oh, y'all, I've been over.

We're looking at tongue like, we still gotta sign books, but I do want to allow at least time.

For like three questions.

We love Q and A, we love homeow we loved that y'all chose to sit in the basement with us and talk and we'll listen to us talk about a book that meant so much for us.

Yeah, we don't talk about it. You want to tell we won't talk about it. You see all the town. Does anybody have a question? I'm glad I didn't wear that. God damn, can we come on, Lee give us a question?

Well, it wasn't specific to I guess the content of the book per se, but have versions. I'm going to say through asking a book, thank you. I hope you guys really have a moment to really take it in because it's no small feed. But I'm curious more so around what you guys learned about each other this process, because there was a lot of obviously your individual stories. But like you said, I think from just a listener perspective, we get one version of you that we're seeing and

Now?

Okay, was there anything I guess specifically that surprised you in each other's chapter? What did you learn about each other in this process?

I mean for me, and this maybe.

Comes from my upbringing and how I judged, not judged, But there was nothing else that.

I wanted growing up. The money I started working at fifteen.

I once I got to high school, I paid for school supplies and back to school things for me and my siblings, and I used to always think that money would have made growing up so much easier and so weezy during our even teenage years, living on a different side of town than most of my friends and had a life that I was like, oh my god, bitch, you got a whole movie theater in your house. And when we got to writing the book and I put those things in there, she shied away from those things.

Certain way, even though like things changed as she got older.

With that financials, I was like, ooh, bitch, there's nothing in the world I want more than nepotism, right, And so for me, a part that I learned was like, damn, there can be shame in growing up with things that that I would have killed four even just two parents, Like I didn't grow up with two parents. I didn't like me and my sisters rotated, who shared rooms with

To me, that's what I learned. Hmmm.

I want to talk about that on the pod more because for me it was more so you know, I was watching my parents lose money in real time, so as a kid, I'm just like, oh, I know that the more you're gonna be paid, I know that people come over, I know that there's foreclosure, like as a teenager, and that point where I could be prideful, how I will take The thing I learned the most is probably healing in real time. There were stories that you were telling.

Ahakey key.

And the more that I would read the stories, especially you know, talking about sex for money, and it's even hard to say that because I know you don't even really want to talk about that in fress, but you brought it up for.

Like in a room like this, But I ain't going on breakfast clo, like, yeah, I'll understand money.

When Mandy was talking about the way she felt reading it was making me feel really sad because my chapter was different.

I'm like sugar dad, right, I was like fuck Ariada back and forth.

But at the end of the day, that's kind of the beauty of these stories. It's like you can see two different experiences and so yeah, to answer the question fully, with Mandy's chapters, the healing in real time was happening while hearing the stories, like maybe that little bit of shame was back there, but we we are on a show where we gotta be liberated for everybody, so we better tell this with a smile on our face.

So it was Dot.

It was knowing that she had to come to these realizations sitting next to me every week on the mic.

Like that ship isn't easy. It's like when you find out someone that you work with is going through a really hard time. You're like, what the fuck? How you being here? Smiling? You know it's sheriffy Yeah, and vodka and we'll do We'll do one more question because I know we gotta sign these books. Burns off.

You will ask me questions I do if you don't mind, If there's anyone you will get it. You'll get the last question because you was in the conversation up here in the front seat.

Do we have because I know we got some war Hive members in here? What's that? No Amy with that care? Do we have any in the back and all I know, like y'all just.

Got the books today, all right, our first day listener everything that what was a turning point for y'all to for the y'all authentic so.

Fully.

So It's funny because when we started this podcast, and I've said this before, I was about to be a CPA. My dad is Jamaican and so as a bartender working in the clubs and all that, he used to always say, when you're gonna get a real job. It was always about getting a real job. Yeah, so he does construction, blue collar. My mom is an LPN still trying to pass these math classes to get a R rate.

And so for me it was when we first started this pod, I was like, yeah, I don't mind sharing this. I tweeted, I lived this life. I don't mind. But if it don't make no money, I'm about to be an accountant because I want to be taken serious. I want to be your wife.

If y'all hear me talk about twenty four to seven, I remember like, oh here, rapper, I can't bring him to my Christmas parties.

When I become an accountant, I need to get a lawyer.

Like I had this view, this traditional view of what life should look like when I get into certain spaces in my life. And so it wasn't really until honestly, probably started touring. And as we started touring and we started meeting y'all, my stories changing people, my stories making people cry or get through the things that they were going through. And I told this to Charlemagne in the South of France in front of everybody, and I was like,

And my purpose is now this.

My purpose is now being able to touch people with with my stories and my vulnerability, whether it keeps a nigga.

From dating me or not.

I'm on the front line for y'all. To me, it wasn't until I realized this is a bigger picture than me. We say that that's why this pot is still here, that's why we have a book. We don't fault quite a bit. We might not always see the same things all the time, but whenever we really get to where it's like I I, it's always like this shit is bigger than both of us, and like when we meet you guys, when we see people buying our book. This is where I was like, well here, yep, I did it,

And I know a lot of us may never.

Get approval from our parents or our family, especially the queer few people in here, like they're just always going through some shit.

They don't get us. But I had a moment to let me know this is her accepting me.

I don't give a fuck about anyone else. Says, there's my ex girlfriend. I brought her to my mom's house and she.

Knew it was my girlfriend, but she just was like ever, she just eat busy today. This will be over with soon. So we go out to eat and we run into a girl, her mother from high school. And this was the cool girl, super rich, like just.

It and my mom was like, why does she looks at the annoy I'm like, oh, that's Rossie's mom, And so she says, what's Rossie doing it?

And the woman said, Rossie's a doctor and she's working in a blah blah blah blah blah and all this shit. And I'm sitting there with my girlfriend and my.

Mom goes, well, Gila has a sex podcast and everybody listens to it.

It's so good. I mean, it's everywhere and she's all over the place. That's your girlfriend. Anyway, I have been there. We're gonna watch it on TV on the YouTube one. I'm a podcaster. I had a doctor, and my mom's like, my daughter really yours that? Like, what do I give a ship about anybody else? Now, my father and y'all know, y'all know because I've opened up about it.

If he wants in a nursing home, he literally tells people, you know, my daughter, she's like doctor, she talks about it, talk.

About this sex and all did the sex. And it's just my reality. And at the end of the day, I take care of my parents with this fucking money, So sucking dick story is safe. We wouldn't have been here. Thank you, by it's very thank thank you guys.

And we will make sure for anyone's book that we have not signed, because also this is the work night, school.

Night, all the things. Y'all gotta get home and I.

Want to eat, but we want to make sure that we signed all books. And thank you guys personally for coming out to the basement to join us in a heat wave on a Tuesday, but most importantly on the release date of This Guy.