A Baby Boom, A Marriage Doom, and A Phallic Tomb: A Ridiculous Goody Bag

science video. But I'm a little bow tie and my lab coat patches my chemistry set that I got for Christmas, a little volcano and bacon soda in a garry up and a little volcano put some food coloring in there. Adorable. And I watched my little videos, and this one talks specifically about that, actually the little divot in our pinky fingers from resting our phones on them so many years, and how you know whether or not people are really

developing that interest saying? Were they? I don't remember the video. You learned a lot, I guess I really, yeah, really stuck in there. I was really focused on a baking soda and vinegar. So that's why if you're gonna watch the little video, you gotta wait to the little experiment. Yeah, well you know it was in the background. I found a great story we're going to do on this show, but I will say that for later. Tease, tease, tease, a real tease. You just had your little pastis on

and you just did a little or lesque dance. I put those on for every record. You know this, that's true. If only y'all could see this. One day, we'll get video and that'll get banned from YouTube. I was about to say, I don't know if we should tell my heart that we have pastis and that would be like a quicker video or like they'll never do. Video will be up. Four person camera cur will show up at our house tomorrow if they hear that. That's what a

podcast needs. A four person camera crew. Oh, we're missing cinematographer. We'll get um. I get Roger Deakins in here. He's gonna he's gonna make it beautiful. Roger Deacon. Yes, that's so far away from what we're talking about today. It really is not close. Yeah, which is which is its own special kind of lead in right and in opposite news about here's Yeah, the seguae that like goes off of cliff, but it lands in a beautiful meadow down below.

Everyone's fine, Yes, those little flying segues. Hey everybody, what's up. I'm Eli, I'm Diana. Yeah, we're happy to have you today on another ridiculous romance. Today we're doing something fun. We've got one of our little uh grab bags of stories here, which we asked you all to give us some ideas for what we would call these sort of collection episodes, and we've got a few good ones from you.

I don't know if we've decided yet. We've got too many good suggestions through from Curveball's keys on Instagram it's at twitch. Curveballs suggested cavalcade of kink Oh, which is great, especially for our last one. I think we had a lot of kink talk in our last one. I think we even apparently referred to it as like a kink sack at some point that which is too much for even me. And then Larissa Hughes suggested current copulation because

she noticed our predilection for alliteration. It's true, true, I do like things to illiterate. All words should start with the same letter, or rather, worlds of words would do well to start with the same syllable stuff. Sorry, I lost it. You know it's all right. And then Ricky at whoa I'm tripping who also suggested are Philip Moore us episode which was so really fun for check that out. Um reached back out and suggested goodie bag Um and said, but it's got to have the sexy music and Eli's

deep voice he does for certain things. Okay, so welcome to today's goodie bag. Is that your will aren't at impression? Basically, I think any deep voices, anyone's will aren't impression. Generic deep voice. In a world where everyone sounds like will, aren't they all drive GMC built for tough. That's a free one for you. Ford, there you go. Yeah, we're trying to get some more host red ads about that. Ford. We'll let us do our will aren't at impression. Well, yeah,

I think goodie bag works for this episode. Definitely, welcome to this week's goody bag. Bays, we're really getting real, that's right, that's right. Well jeez, I mean we still got a theme song to get through, so I say we just get real with it and get going. Yea, let's go. Yeah, Hey, the French come listen. Well, Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making, a romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships, a love. It might be any type of person at all, and

abstract cons that don't a concrete wall. But if there's a story where the second clanch ridiculous role the production of I Heart Radio. All right, so let's dev into this guinea bag. Yeah, because we have a selection of salacious stories Sean on Twitter since us this Sean isn't us A couple of suggestions in the past, like, um, the Purple people of at my house, So thank you, Sean. I always check it out for us. Um. And it kind of was like a Soviet stork derby. Let's start

with a little bit of backstory. So back in nine the Soviet Union was trying to do more to support large families and pregnant women. Great goal, and so it created some honorary titles four Mothers, which I guess the first thing women are looking for when they're asking for support. They're like, give me an honorary title. So my number one concern I'll worry about the food and the water and the shelter, but could I please have a title? Okay? Try to respect me. I'd like a metal to pin

to my lapel. Alright, so the titles were listen, if you had five to nine children, you could receive the Maternity Medal. But there was also the Order of Maternal Glory, what, which is pretty dope, actually so hard, And it was organized into three classes, all right, so you could get the Order of Maternal Glory. Third class meant you were a woman with seven kids. Second class was when you had eight kids, and then third class was for nine kids.

But the Mother of All Awards, Nina Niner was for women who had ten or more children, and it was called the Mother Heroine Award because the mother would need some heroin after having ten kids just to get through the day. For the milk of the poppy. Wow, that is very intense. I mean, well, I grew up one of four as a kid, and that that was a lot. My mom deserved a medal for that. Well, all six of us deserved a medal quite honestly, for putting up

with each other. We had one bathroom, damn one bathroom. I do love the name, like Order of Maternal Glory, It's so yes, totally, I can I can see the propaganda poster. Now it's like a woman with just the baby in the front, baby in the back, surround, surrounded by children, and yet looking off to the distance the brave future. There's some like fighter jets flying pastor is dropping like storks. Yeah, but who is the metal for?

I mean, like, you know, I guess you point to your kids and you see these these metal of glory for pushing you little ships out. You got ten kids, you're not getting out much to go show it off. Very true. I guess they're like, listen, we're a society who wants to share the labor, but you can never share this labor. So you have to give her something. I gotta give her something of her own. I don't know. Now.

Besides the honors themselves, the women were also entitled to retirement pensions and a supply of food and other goods to support their families. The state would even pay their utility bills. Okay, so it's not just a stamp and right certificate, which I kind of appreciate in a way because it's kind of I mean, you know, we could talk all day about how our country are. Our country specifically is pretty hateful to two women with children. We don't provide a lot of good childcare options. We don't

like maternity leave, we don't like paternity leave. We you know, we really we want you to have a family, but we don't want you to have a family get in the way of your productivity and stuff. So it's like kind of a hostile place to raise a family in a lot of ways. They're like, you need to have more babies, And then a woman comes up with like seven babies. She's like, I had more babies, just like you asked, And they're like, huh, who are you? But

please don't bother me irresponsible? Yeah, go and go off and get your you get those children away from me. What I need to be educated now that's not my job. But yeah, so I was just kind of like, well, this is sort of cool that they're you know, recognizing motherhood is something that is a service to humanity in a way. It is a very hard thing to put your body through multiple times. I don't know that I

agree that you should after only ten children. His mother's out there with four kids who are like, boy, I could I could use a little while I feel tired and broke. Now, nearly five hundred thousand women received the Mother Heroin Award between nineteen four and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in d You do the math, how many people? I will hang on that was, well, it's just times ten, right, so five? Yeah, at least five million people were born for this, for this medal, just

for that pretty good, a little boost. That's a boost in your in your labor force. I suppose, and you suppose each one of them had Mother Heroin ten children. That's that's the that's too far from me. That's an exponent. Now, there were stipulations for this award. It was given on the first birthday of the last child, but all previous

nine kids still had to be alive. Now, if the kids died in either military service or like heroic circumstances, or in a terrorist attack or any occupational diseases or injuries, all those kids still counted. But if they just you know, I don't know, um, you know, rode their segway off a cliff, that's sorry, it doesn't count, right, or or

kind of like our Stork Derby episode. We were talking about how it was bad to set that prank on people because you couldn't assume that they would have the money they needed to raise a large family and like actually take care of them and feed them. And we even saw some like pretty bad stories about like rats and on babies and stuff. So anyway, Russia was like, I don't want you to just have these babies to try to get this award and you don't take care of them. I want you to actually take care of

your family and make sure they're alive and well. Now, when the Soviet Union dissolved in the award was abolished, tons of mothers out there working on their tenth kid are like, are you kidding me? I just missed the window. But then in two thousand eight it was reinstated as the Order of Parental Glory parental so they made it

less gendered. I guess. Oh. Now this was awarded to parents or adoptive parents for raising seven or more Russian citizens for, as the statute says, quote leading a healthy family life, being socially responsible, providing an adequate level of healthcare, education, physical, spiritual and mortal development of the children, full and harmonious development of their personality. Accepting on examples, to strengthen the institute of the family and the child brearing in that

exact accent. They said it probably right, we're still hunting for moosse and squirrel. I love full and harmonious development of their personality. And I mean that, you know, not not a bad No. I love it, I really do. I'm like it's it really is like saying all the thing.

Where's like, if we're going to ask people to have family members, if you want you to have family, we need to recognize that service to the community, I mean to society or whatever, And yeah, you should set an example for others to be like, you should also be into families. Like I don't know if it makes sense to me in a weird way, don't just pop out a bunch of babies and be like, here they are. I have the units of babies that you're requested. Yeah, like, no,

I'm raising children to be full and individual people. And the order of parental glory still exists. But this mother heroin title was all but forgotten until August two, just a couple of weeks ago, exactly very current events, when President Vladimir Putin decided to reinstate this title, and it had all the same stipulations in place about making sure

they're alive and wealthfare and educated and everything. But he added a cash prize of one million rubles, which, let me see, in according to the currency calculators here, earth about sixteen thousand, six hundred and forty five dollars in US currency. That sounds less like less of a sixteen thousand not going to raise ten kids for you. It's going to get like four kids through third grade. Maybe maybe maybe it'll go buy their backpacks. Right, I will

pay for one students college textbooks thousand dollars. The Soviet government is so generous that sixteen thousand dollars more than we're getting. Very true. I mean, you know what, you know what, that's a good boy. So listen, why is Putin reinstating the Soviet era award right now? And there's modern times? M hmmm, Well, apparently he's worried about the Russian population common common complaint. I guess we're also worried about our population here. Yeah, there's a lot of people

talking about it worldwide. I guess it's it's almost like there's something going on where people don't want to have babies. Now. I can't imagine why. So currently, let's do the numbers here. Currently there are a hundred and forty five point one million people living in Russia and that sounds like a lot, but it's a huge country. And think about America. We have at least three three million in our country. That's

not as many as I would have thought. I guess it's like if you look at a population density map of Russia, they're so so much of it is just empty, right, completely blank. Which of course there's that there's like tundra and desert, you know what I mean, Like they have places where you would not just like we do. But still like that, that is smaller than I would have thought. And CNBC reports that the working age population has been

declining since UM. They estimate that the overall population would contract by eight point four percent from its level by So the real problem is that the working age is not great. Everyone's getting older, there's not enough babies to replace, so are are fresh young? Strong backs are few and far between. I guess he's like no one wants to be young enough to work anymore. And of course the

war with Ukraine is only exacerbating this problem with heavy casualties. UM. The Moscow Times reported that the population fell by a record eighties six thousand people a month from January through May, and the previous record was fifty seven thousand a month and two thousand and two, So that's pretty big deal, that is, And I mean that's the Moscow Times reporting it.

I think the same I've heard. I don't obviously, I don't know, and I haven't done any heavy research into it myself, but we do see, like in terms of like Ukraine is saying a lot more Russians are dying than Russia is saying, right, So I don't, right, and both sides need their propaganda, so it's hard to it's hard to know who's who's conflating and who's deflating the numbers for whichever reason. But those are pretty disturbing numbers whichever way you look at it. But it's actually it's

not just the war that's the problem. The state the Russian State Statistics Agency have show has showed a decline in the number of deaths year over years, so fewer people are dying, but Russian women simply are not having enough babies and a lot of people are migrating out of the country altogether, like give me a out of Russia.

So I guess he's like, let me put this honor back and really encourage people to have large families, and then we'll also support them having those large families with you know this, this food supply and some money and stuff like that. Books a few dollars and I mean, maybe that'll work. Maybe people will be really into that,

I guess, but I don't know. In my opinion, Putin and every other country should probably take a good hard look at why people are not having children, why they don't want to have children, and Putin maybe want to see why people want to leave Russia area. They're just like, get me out of here. There's a reason for that, And it's not. It's not so I can have a baby somewhere else, like I mean, or it is maybe they're like, I ain't raised a kid here. I don't know.

We do see that here. I know a lot of people who have been looking at or or actively moving to other countries. I just saw the number of Americans moving to Portugal like tripled this year, um, things like that. So yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a question of, like, well, why though maybe we solve nobody ever wants to solve the root of problems. They really don't. They just want to treat the symptom, yeah, instead of curing the illness. Yeah, literally and figuratively. That is like

our whole m o as a species. It's just crazy to be I know what is wrong with us. I mean, it is hard work to dig down to a root and everything, but it is so weird to be like, let me dangle this carrot in front of your face as ladies, don't you want to have ten berths um

for this metal, this five pointed star. Hello, you know, instead of like maybe like fixed the economy and personal freedoms, I don't know, just a thought or here in America, I think for a lot of people, it's the price of healthcare that is really like a number one reason to be like get me out of here and somewhere where I can go get my teeth fixed without going into bankruptcy. Um. So it's like, well, there's there's things we could work on that will lead to more productive

laborers for you or whatever. The but like it ain't the metal. It's not a hard sell right now, there's not They're not really pitching it in the best way, or people are like selfish freeloaders like us. I just want to live childish own schedule. Yeah, I'm gonna childlessly run around Disney Yeah, rub it in your face, ye, stroller. I don't want to be held up by some stupid kid in Disney World. I love kids. Kids are great.

They should have fun in the world. I don't want kids, but I hate when people call them like crotch goblins and stuff. It's so annoying, really gross. As as a childless couple, I think we get real frustrated when other childless couples like look down on kids or people who have kids and look at you kidding me, like no, we're the we're the suckers here, like you know, and I recognize that. Um, but you know, people all have their own reasons for not wanting kids. We've got our own,

you know. Some people can't. Some people there's a lot of reasons. There's a lot. We could talk about that for a whole other podcasts. But but yeah, I've just seen thousand dollars is not going to change a lot of their minds, you know. And even here, you know, here you're like, oh, I have ten kids and will eventually give you a million dollars. I feel like a lot of people would not not go for it because a million dollars to have pay for ten berths in

an American hospital either. So just throwing that out there, And what concerns me, and this is a little elitist of myself recognizing that in advance here, is that the people who do go for it, the people who hear the word a million dollars and they're like, yeah, I'm in, let's do it, are not necessarily people who should be

having kids. Because I only say that because I'm like, you're incentive for having kids shouldn't be the cash you get for it, Like, if you don't want those kids to begin with, are those kids going to have a good life? Yeah? Isn't that a lot like being a foster parent or something just for the check and you treat the kids like ship because you don't really want the kid. I'm not going to assume that's the most

a majority of foster parents. No, not at all. And we know there are cases like that, and it's like, Wow, what an ass If you're only doing it for the money, how are you raising these great citizens a full and harmonious development of their personality. Going back to what you said, a lot of countries the world all over have got to work harder at making it a better place to

have kids, in an easier place to have and raised children. Um, why that is not the focus Beyond that's some like climate change messaging could be all about having more kids and a lot of jobs and healthcare costs, education, all that could be an argument for we're trying to help help people have families and that's what everybody wants, right. Well, I know that's what's going on in Russia with the mother heroine, mother heroine, mother heroine. I am a mother

heroine hero wine. Well, I think that we'll take a quick commercial break and we'll come back with the next story. Yeah, welcome back to the show, everybody. So this month also became a huge and historic moment for LGBTQ people in Singapore. Cool. Yeah, But first we got to learn a little about the history of the lgbt Q experience in Singapore. So we're gonna take a quick fleeing with history. No one asked you.

In eighteen thirty three, in India, under British control of the country, the colonial government formed the Indian Law Commission under Chairman Lord Thomas McCauley. Now, of course, none of these laws that the British government wrote reflected traditional Indian laws or customs, you know. They didn't bring any local consultants on they wrote this bill because under Buddhist and Hindu law throughout most of Asia, consensual homosexual intercourse was

never a legal offense. But in this code the British wrote section three seven seven, which criminalized quote carnal intercourse against the order of nature. A gives the order of nature? And you might think that that sounds super ambiguous. How could you define what carnal intercourse is or what goes against the order of nature? And a lot of gay animals in nature, sure, yeah, and some that just switched genders back and forth at will. Well, and they don't

even mention gay in this. They just say carnal intercourse, which is a lot of intercourse with some great intercourse has been cardinal, you know, and favorite intercourse and the order of nature, like you said, I mean, it could be defined as any number of things, because if you want to do something, isn't that inherently natural? Well, anyway, you might think this is super ambiguous, and it was.

They had no idea how to interpret it. Nobody knew what had to penetrate what, who had to penetrate whom with, what, where, when and why in order for it to be considered carnal intercourse. Now, this same law was taken from India and it was adopted over in Singapore, and of course they just had the same problems over there. Yeah, there's a bunch of legal hullabaloo in India and Singapore about the definitions of carnal intercourse against the order of nature.

And eventually the corpse decided it was actually any sex that wasn't potentially procreated, So anal sex and maybe oral sex between hetero or homosexual couples was outlawed um, which I'm sure a lot of a lot of dudes were like, wait what and ladies do excuse me what? Yeah? This there was apparently a heated debate in court about it. But I like my husband to eat my ass. Well it says right here, Lord Thomas McCauley wrote down plain black and wines, no eating apps, Lord Thomas McCauley, I

signed all my bills sincerely that dearest people. All right. So, by this narrow definition, it was an equally oppressive law for everyone. So it was like, this wasn't specifically against gay people. They were just like, no one could give blow jobs, no one can have anal sex, you know, which that argument is weak because if you say, well, this is for everyone, I'm not discriminating against gay people, and gay people are like, well what else can I do?

I can't have, you know, traditional heteronormative penetrative sex because we don't have the two things between us that you're talking about. And also like, I'm sure there were plenty of like homophobic people who were like, yeah, yes, limit their sex limited. I'm so happy. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, you're saying I cannot like that, like too much? Pull back, pull back, no, no, no.

Pulling back was very sinceanna. It also lumped in bestiality into this lump in bestiality in with homosexuality, I know, which is gross and kind ophelia too. They are not the same thing. They're not the same category, very different categories. There was even a case tried in India about a guy who sucked a buffalo is nostril. Why didn't that make it into our people in Pet's episode? Probably because I don't want to look into it. Well, I gotta say,

nostril or the story this was. I will say this particular case was noted in Wikipedia with no citation, so I was like, what the hell is this guy fucking a buffalo's nostril? But you know, um, given some of the stories we've heard and told, I'm not going to go ahead and assume it's untrue. Right, Okay, maybe he just never gave an interview for some reason about I can't imagine why you didn't want to share that people. I tell you, some dudes they see a whole and

they will just stick us. Dick finds a way. But later a court made a change to Singapore's opinions about heterosexual oral Second, and it's very sexy, So put the kids to bed and let's hear the deductive words of the Singaporean Court of Appeals. It is a factive life in humans as well as an animals that before the active copulation takes place, there is for play to stimulate

the sex urge. Of course, this form of contractation fallacio or con lingus may not recommend itself to everyone for stimulating the sex surge, but the fact from ains that it is practiced by some when couples engaged in consensual sexual intercourse willingly indulged in flatio and kind of lingus as a stimulant to their respective sexual urges. Neither act can be considered to be against the order of nature and punishable under Section three seven seven of the Penal Code.

In every other instance, the act of fallacio between a man and a woman will be carnal intercourse against the order of nature and punishable by section three seven seven. Oh I'm blessing. Oh my goodness, your mouth, thurty lawmaker. Splash my face with some cold water. Right, well, boy, I've never wanted lingus or fallacio or the similar contractations so badly in my life. Oh yes, stimulate my sex urge, baby, but only in a way that's not punishable by section

only if it leads to procreative sex. Right, yeah, amazing? Can you? Will you give it? Will you give me the last two sentences of that? Like it's really sex, Like it's like it's a one number commercial. Yeah, come on,

I want to hear it all right, Okay. When couples engaged and consensual sexual intercourse willingly indulged in fallacio and con a lingus as a stimulant to their respective sexual urgent, goodness, neither act can be considered to be against the order of nature punishable under section three seven seven of the Penal Code. In every other instance, the act of fallacio between a man and a woman will be carnal intercourse, against the order of nature and punishable by section three

seven seven. Give it to me three seven seven, punish me. Oh my god. I've never been so turned on by the Court of Appeals. Time one time. But we'll get out of that. Another episode had to be escorted out of it. Appeal, appeal your honor. I swear this has never happened before. I'm appealing my clothes off there it is. Wow. Yeah, okay, well, this is your future. You've got to you gotta get back into audio books, start reading smuts, starting erotic smut,

erotic legal cases. I would love to. I'm trying to help. It's like that topless tutors joke in Van Wilder. Did you ever see that? No? I didn't. Wilder, Well, he was trying so many hours to live, but I was trying to help people graduate. So he made girls tutor them with their tops off. Very early two thousand'ssatristic humor. But that could be me for law students. I could read a law book just like this. And now it's time for Jamison first, the State of New Hampshire. I

don't know if that's the case. Uh I don't know either. Who's our saxon? Uh Let? What did I say? Jamison versus the State of New Hampshire? Is that a real case? And what case would you like me to read in a sexy fashion? All right? Getting back to the story here. So yeah, so they're saying that as long as you give a blow job and it leads to penetrative sex,

that's cool. But if you don't, it's still punishable by section three seven, right, then you're just being a dirty pur But then, okay, it gets worse because in nineteen eight they borrowed a term from the labou Share Amendment in the UK's own Criminal Law Amendment Act of eighteen

eighty five, and the term was gross indecency. Now, this specifically criminalized any sexual activity specifically between two men in England, and it said, quote any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to, the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of any act of gross indecency, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted, shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for

any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labor, hard labor, the hardness. No no, no, no, I didn't say hard labor. I meant a difficult labor. And you know it. I love this guy. You can totally see him put his wig on the Total Disney cartoon. This guy put my wig on to make this judgment. And so they took the wording from the Labushare Agreement and they put it into section three seven seven A, almost

identically in Britain's penal code for Singapore as well. And then when Singapore won their independence in nineteen sixty five, they opted to retain this ban on gay sex. They were like, it was good enough for when we were, you know, occupied by England, it's good enough for us independently now who are used to it, So why not now? A little over ten years ago, Singapore announced that it

wasn't going to enforce three seven seven A any longer. Great, you know, that's sort of like us in Atlanta, the City of Atlanta decriminalized weed because Georgia will not legalize it. But Atlanta was like, we are so fucking sick. We don't have time clapping people into jails, little dimebags. We're not time for this. It's been decades in Singapore since

anyone was arrested or prosecuted under this law. And while in a survey found that fifty five percent of Singaporeans wanted to retain the law, that number had dropped to ten ten percentage points only a few years. That's pretty good. Do the math, right, Yeah, oh sorry, you're so right. Even even hey, I was an English major for a reason. Singapore's highest scot even suggested that three seven seven A should be repealed simply because it goes against the country's

equality rights because it only applies to men. But ultimately they said they were not in the business of social change, and they left the decision to parliament classic, which is so annoying. It's like, well, you're legally punishing social behavior, so you kind of are in the business of social change, but you would deal with it. What about the social change that was made by making it illegal in the

first place and just thrown that out there. Then just this week, Prime Minister Lesienne Long said the government would officially repeal the law. He said, quote, I believe this is the right thing to do and something that most Singaporeans will now accept. Singaporeans still have different views on weather homosexuality is right or wrong, but most people accept that a person's sexual orientation and behavior is a private and personal matter, and that sex between men should not

be a criminal offense. Even among those who want to retain Section three seven seven A, most don't want to see it actively enforced. So finally, after any four years, the law is going to be completely repealed. Everybody's so happy woo. Everyone's celebrating, so excited that Singapore is that much closer to equality for gay people. And the Prime Minister says, now, hold on just a dang minute there,

and everyone's like, wait what he continues his speech. Does the government felt like they needed to appease both sides of this argument, so he added quote even as we repeal three seven seven A, we will uphold and safeguard the institution of marriage. Under the law, only marriages between

one man and one woman are recognized in Singapore. Yeah, and that he's actually going to propose a constitutional Amendment to define marriage specifically that way in Singapore's constitution, he said, quote, the government will continue to uphold families as the basic building blocks of society. Every group must accept that it cannot get everything at once, because it is simply not possible.

We must maintain mutual respect and trust that we have painstakingly built up over the years and stay united as one people. Blah blah blah blah blah. Which is that? I mean, it's such a tired argument, so many tired arguments in there. Actually, let's break it down, because you've got a the idea that families are the basic building blocks of society, and that a family specifically has to be heteronormative man, woman, child, and that a family can't

be anything else. We know that a family looks like many different things, and sometimes those families are terrible. So don't tell me that that's like the right way to do it or the only way. Very true, that's very frustrating. And then yeah, it's like appeasement. We've got to make everybody happy. Now, you don't where somebody's gonna be mad, you know. And here's the difference. Let's say I'm a gay couple and I want to get married and you

say that I can't. I'm very upset that I can't do the things I want to do and be the person I want to be in this country. Let's say I'm some bigot and I don't want gay people to get married, and they say gay people can get married. I continue my life ex actually the same as it was, and literally nothing changes at all. So how is this everyone? We've we've balanced it out, so both sides are getting something and losing something. That's not it, not at all,

there's not that's not a balance. But one day I might have to be nice to a gay teacher or a gay parents or something, and I don't want to be nice to them, and not even that they already changed that long. It was like one day I might have to just know that two people are married. Oh god, huh, what will I do? Also, this sacred institute of marriage

is such a false thing. That's pretty recent because marriages way back in the day, we're just you're shacked up for a while, and pep, we're like, great, you're married, and then if somebody left, a few years would go by and one guess not coming back. Can you marry someone else, like you just you did not have all of this hullabaloo about it, and so it's so funny that we create a marriage for legal reasons. Literally, we were like, who do you want to leave your it too?

And that is it. They added some religious stuff and now it's this sacred institution, but that's really just to get you to spent sixty dollars on your part. Well, and then yeah, there's these people that are like, well, we were okay with the law existing, we don't want to see it enforced, but then why have it? Then why have it a Well, it's it's the same on both sides, because the pro lgbt Q movements were saying, I know you're not enforcing this law, but just having

it on the books is oppressing us. It's giving people the firepower and the ammunition the foundation to say, but what you're doing is wrong technically illegally. I know we're not enforcing it, but I know I'm learning that it says right there in the law that your existence is wrong. And the people who were like, keep the law of the books, just don't enforce it feel the same way.

They're like, I love to be able to point to the books and say I know that I can't to you, but I know that legally you're wrong, I guess to me. My immediate thought was that I will. I do want it to be selectively enforced. There are certain people that I would like you to use this law again. It's

there if I need it exactly, exactly definitely. UM. So maybe it's it's probably you're right, and it's a combination of both, but more consciously it's probably that I just like to be able to say you're wrong and I know it. New York Times says that Singapore is quote famously known as a nanny state, and the government often interferes and even small aspects of people's personal lives, so they have strict and aggressive punishments for things like minor

drug possession that, for example, we in America are increasingly decriminalized. Um. There are a lot of strict conservative religious action groups that have been pushing for three seven seven A to not only stay on the books, but to be more aggressively enforced. And meanwhile, l g B t Q community groups have been celebrating the repeal but pushing back about this idea of the amendment, saying, quote, we urged the government not to heed recent calls from religious conservatives to

enshrine the definition of marriage into the constitution. Such a decision will undermine the secular character of our constitution, codify further discrimination into supreme law, and tie the hands of future parliament. Right right, very good point. Absolutely putting it right there into the constitution is going to make things very hard, Doneline, which of course I assume is the point. It's kind of like putting like into your constitution, like

we abolish slavery except for punishment of a crime. It's almost like when you do that, you sort of create a criminal class for yourself so that you'll have a lot of free labor. I don't know, just sit balling. It's like a totally hypothetical. Yeah, I can't imagine anyone's ever done that. Um yeah, that's that's really tough that they're going through that, because it is it's got to

be such a what dichotomous moment. You're are very excited and also like, oh, but that's a big step back too, because if it was just like we're gonna decriminalize homosexuality and we're not gonna allow gay marriage yet, that's one thing and that already kind of sucks. You're like, you're this close, just do the whole thing. But they said, and we're specifically going to write down that you can never get married. YEA, let's just get ahead of this

and stop you before you can even start. That sucks. That does suck. What I guess, I'm glad that people will not be getting blackmailed and arrested and so on, because I think we did learn that a little bit too about the British law was that it was really just used to blackmail people. Um a lot of the time.

It was not enforced unless you were like, I can go tell the cops about you, so give me what I want, right, So, still a long way to go for the LGBTQ community in Singapore and the world over, I'm sure, yeah, but but a big step forward also, like one really good thing that we're all are excited about.

Keep the triumphs in there, yeah, absolutely for sure. Well, we've got one more story to tell, and it's got a big old dick in it, so let's take a quick commercial break and come back and deal with that. All right, Welcome back to the show. This is such a fun story. I have it Parana since us this on Instagram, So thank you, Parana. I ken looking out

for us on our Getting Bag episode events. So we're going to take you to the small town of Missantla in the eastern state of Vera Cruz in Mexico, where a woman named Katerina or Duna Perez recently passed away at nine years Vice reports that she grew up in poverty. She never attended school, but through hard work and determination, she became an influential person in Missantla, with politicians often making a point to like stop by and court her and talk to her and a game with her because

they knew how much clout she had. They're like, I got you wanna you wanna be somebody in Massantla. You gotta get Donya Katarina on your side. Yea. And throughout her life she made a point to tell her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren how special they could be and how they could accomplish anything they set their minds to. Her grandson Alvaro mote Lemon told Vice quote, she always said, in the Mexican sense that we were

very gas vigas. That's beautiful. I love this Vergas. That's one of those words that just it seems to me, just makes me think I never took Spanish. But it's it's lovely. I love this word. Let's let's read on here. Let's see. Virgas is a slang word in Mexico that it can apparently translate a few different ways in English. The word that it's closest to is cock. How all right, but that's a bold word, Grandma, call me a dick today. Is a big dick today. But that's not the only meaning.

Virgas can also be used to tell people to go funk themselves, La viga, remember that one. If I really want to get into a fight in Mexico, I'll remember that one. Well, don't forget. You can also tell them that they ain't ship by saying valas virga viga. But something called virga can also mean cool or badass, and

don't you Katarina always meant it like that. She referred to her family as virgas to mean that they had moral strength than fortitude, or that they had, as Alvaro told Vice, quote, integrity, courage, passion, and at the same time love and joy just like a dick, a lot like a penis. Yeah, that's what I think of integrity, courage, fortitude, passion, love and joy, and maybe stubbornness occasionally uh misguidance. Well, Alvaro points out that yes, yes, stick in your head

where it don't belong, sometimes like a like a buffalo's nostril. Well, Alvaro points out that in a country quote steeped in machismo, she managed to instill enough Big Vargas energy into her family that a lot of them went onto wide ranging careers, like Alvaro's sister got her doctorate degree, and Alvara himself completed two master's degrees and was even mayor of Missantla for a while. How do you think he courted Donya Katarina. He had to come over, bring some cookies and grandma.

He's like, hello, I'm the only virga running. So now, over the years, Donya Katarina told her family and the people of Missancla that when she died, she wanted her tomb adorned with a giant penis. She's like a bold, spunky, playful kind of woman. So Alvaro and most people thought it was just a joke. Donia Katza making her dick jokes again, but then close to her death. Alvaro asked

her about it again. He's like, do you really mean that, because now we're actually planning, you know, is that just joke? And he told Vice that she explained, quote, it was her desire so that no one would forget her and that everything we loved about her would be remembered more easily. She's not wrong about that. It'll be hard to forget a lady with this this monument, for sure, I love. She's like, oh no, I meant that ship. They all

thought it was joking. No, no, no, no, I don't joke about That's one thing I'm extremely always been serious, and it tracked with her personality. She was quote always very avant, hard, very forward thinking about things. She wanted to break the paradigm of everything Mexican, where things are

sometimes hidden because of not having an open mind. That was again Alvaro talking to Vice, which I think is interesting because if if if they're one of their definitions of Virga is cool or badass, that kind of makes sense. It tracks if you're dicks are cool. Well, she's clearly like the cool, funky punk rock grandma, you know, like cool grandma. She seemed like a real just up minded, like down for the party, definitely make a Dick jokes,

which I love. I love seeing that was when in someone who had kind of a limited life and always lived in a small town and like maybe didn't see that much of the world, but for like, for some reason, they just have this expanse, you know, this this ability to take it all in and and really enjoy enjoy life, you know. So anyway, after she passed away on January one, Alvaro says, quote, we talked as a family and decided

to make her dream come true. What a family meeting that, all right, We got to meet about the giant Dicks statue. Grandma want all right, everybody, I've got two jars here, Dick or no Dick. Everybody just put a slip of paper in one or the other, and we're going to count them anonymous voting, yeah, if you want to keep your name off. And they're like, oh my god. It was unanimous for But of course now they're dealing with the logistics of it. Who out there could construct this

giant Dick statue. Alvaro called a local engineer named Cedro Lavonier, who builds plastic products like water tanks, or children's play sets, and he made a request and hey, um, can you put the kids toys down and build me a giant penis? Make me a grandma's toy? Uh huh, Cidro. Of course he thought it was a joke to quote, because it's not very common to see these kinds of sculptures or monuments, and even less so in the memory of someone who's deceased.

Nobody asked for giant dicks to be constructed out of plastic products, but Alvaro persisted. He told him, no, I'm dead serious, we really want this dick grave. And finally a Sedro was convinced because, after all, quote Donya Kata was someone who broke taboos. I wonder how many messages he had to leave. Yeah, he was like, no, hello, this is it's me again. I'm very serious. Is not a kid magan prank call? I really need to know. So is Cedro got to work alongside. This was not

a one person job. He needed a carpenter, a sander, a sculptor, and a carver to build this statue. Vice says quote. They got particularly delayed on the ball sack when the first attempt was disfigured and they had to start the process again. Yeah, he's like, no disfigured testicles for Dona Kata. Is Cedro explained that they had to melt down materials quote to give it the necessary amplitude so that the testicles could be formed. I made some

bulk for this ball. So finally, on July two, more than a year later, the completed monument was mounted to Donna Katta's tomb and unveiled a five and a half foot tall, shiny pink cock and balls weighing nearly six hundred pounds in quote, recognition of her love and joy for life. I mean, look, if I don't know her, I'm gonna walk back, walk by that grave and think it's in recognition of her love and joy for dicks. Hey, maybe she had that. She did love dicks. I mean,

clearly she had some respect for the date. She had a lot of respect to the date. And of course this immediately went viral. I mean, you don't see a five and a half foot tall pink and not take a picture of probably in the story floating around there, um is Cedro received some interesting new commission. He got a request from a family of a guy who had worked for years in the construction industry for a gravestone shaped like a dump trap. So new new, new, novelty

gravestone business for this guy. But of course, you know, plenty of people don't appreciate seeing a giant penis out of nowhere. Alvaro told Vice, quote, of every ten people, I think that around seven see it positively. And if they don't see it as a good thing, they at least respect Donya katsis wishes. There are others who, in their conservative values, are very closed minded, very square, who

see it poorly. Um, I like, he's like these squares old loved It's how old are you get your life right? But as Vice reports, the family had discussed that ahead of time, probably when they made their unanimous jar decision, and they were prepared for any criticism or amount of backlash. To respect Donna Katarina's wishes, They're like, well, go through it for her. We don't care. Vice concludes, quote, after all, the family is made up of gas bowls. They don't

mind resting their way into the new world. They're like, no matter what happens, we will remain turgient. That's right. What a story. It's so and it's worth bull Look for sure that the pictures are very amazing. If you didn't know what was there would definitely be a surprise amongst all the angels with like trumpets, you know, like, wait a second, what's that in the distance? Did they know that that looks exactly like a big dick? Oh?

Do we we fixed the balls? In fact? Well, I'm thinking about Victor Noir his like small pants bulge that people lose their minds over what's going to happen to this dick? Okay, And it's like thrusting vertically into the air. So I'm like, you could see people do a pole dance on that. They could do all eyes of things. Oh, I love it. You know, the world is a fucking playgrounds. You know. People need to treat it as such. I

have some damn fun stuff being so serious. Let people live their lives and go and enjoy yourself, you know, yeah, let them mark their deaths however they want. Yeah. But across all three of these stories, you know, it's really about uh what you know, let people in their lives, whether it's kids, are not support people no matter what they're going through. Uh, Let people be themselves. Let people

have fun so much. The opposition too, especially these last two stories, is people just trying to step on someone else's good time. Yeah, And when you're looking at the when you're looking at like the net human experience people are having collectively, like all of us together, why you're not contributing to a positive for everyone else you see is outrageous to me totally. And like you said, I mean,

this is such a weird world. Yeah, we're weird. Like, if it's really not harming anybody, let me have my fun for real, for real. Well, it was cool to kind of get some world news. Yeah, definite news. Going thinks again to Sean and Pana for sending those links along, definitely like, oh we got a real good gutty bag. That's a good one. Thank you all for tuning in, and please send us more of these if you come across these stories, because sometimes they'll be a full episode

and sometimes they fit perfectly right in. Sometimes you can just slip them in right here, the perfect size for some some nice carnal intercourse against nature. You know, you know how we do over here on Ridiculous Romance. Yeah, against nature. So reach out, send us your stories, tell us your thoughts, about these. You could find us predict Romance at gmail dot com right or we're on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at playing a my boom and I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is at

ridict Romance. Don't forget to drop us or review on Apple podcast. Tell all your friends to tune in, follow us wherever you get your podcasts, and we will all catch you at the next episode. Can't wait see then, by so long, friends, It's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell your friends Namebor's uncle's in this to listen to a show ridiculous roll nance