Erections: how they work and how to keep them healthy - podcast episode cover

Erections: how they work and how to keep them healthy

Feb 21, 202454 min
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Summary

This episode delves into the science of erections, explaining their complex biology and the different types of stimulation, including the lesser-known female erection. It covers the various causes of erectile dysfunction, emphasizing its spectrum rather than an on/off switch, and discusses the controversial penis enlargement surgery. Additionally, the hosts explore new research on maintaining erection health through fibroblast activity and analyze a new tool for measuring work burnout, alongside ideas for creating more equitable green cities.

Episode description

Erections, boners or HOGS (LOL) are a very important part of sexual health and reproduction. Today we explain how they work, the neuroscience of getting one and how to make them more HARD AND HEALTHY! We will also talk about erectile dysfunction.


STUDYTIME: how do erections work and how to keep them healthy


WDWLTW:

  • how to make transit more green
  • how to tell if you have work burnout


References:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade8064

https://news.ki.se/fibroblasts-in-the-penis-are-more-important-for-erectile-function-than-previously-thought

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094014321018590?via%3Dihub

https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2024/02/burnout-identifying-people-at-risk/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.12996


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Transcript

Intro / Opening

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Introduction to Erections

Controversial subjects with the facts can be tense, but we are a sub-science here to make things make sense. Today we're talking about erections, aka... Boners, we'll be talking about the science of how they work, what you can do to keep them healthy, and also what happens when there is dysfunction down there. After, we'll be getting into our What Did You Learn this week's. One is on Green Cities and the other is on... Burn out.

Burnout, bruh. Burnouts and boners, y'all. I know. Alliteration. So this is definitely like an adult one. Mom, dad, family members turn it off. True, but educational. I don't know if this one will get too dirty, but like obviously if you have young... ears listening. I mean, no boners that happen to everyone. Exactly. Completely natural. My new favorite word for a dick is the hog.

Why is it new favorite? I don't know. It's just the one that I like to use. Like he got his hog out. That's for someone who gets naked. I don't like that word. Oh, well, I love it. Sorry. People can disagree. It kind of feels like.

medieval and a little like blunt you know it's not very refined okay well what's your refined dick boner name what's your favorite chub no it's phallus oh for the penis yeah oh isn't the hog a penis yeah but to me the hog oh yeah you're right hog could be erect or not erections are wild they're truly so complicated it's a

freaking miracle we even get to have one in our life it's very cool biology thousands um what's up what's new do we got what's up what's up my dick when i see men my dick when i see men

Um, not much. Let's get into it. Oh, you want to just jump right in? I mean, I'm just like, it's like hard for me not to talk about boners. No, there's got to be something else to mention. I can't, but if someone brings up a boner, it's just like, you know, there's like my brain is just like, okay, I was like, what are we going to talk about? Like the trees outside? Okay. Go. Study time. Study time.

Erection Anatomy and Basics

So today, we're talking about boners. The science of erections, what actually happens down there, regardless of your sex, because actually everyone gets erections. When you're aroused physically, what's going on, a little bit of the... anatomy we'll talk a little bit about like what you can do to make sure that you're having healthy erections how to give yourself a harder boner folks as well as what goes

awry when there is dysfunction down there and what happens with age and these kind of things. So an erection is defined as the enlargement and stiffening of the penis. I love how it felt like you were racing me there. You were like, so the erection is defined. Well, I was like, this guy's going to keep... going here? What's going on?

Yeah, so the stiffening and enlargement is important. It's really a fascinating little appendage. One interesting thing that scientists cannot agree on is, okay, obviously your penis is an external part of your body. body and so is your scrotum but a lot of scientists argue that your testes aren't because they're contained in the scrotum but other people say that your testes are because they're like kind of outside of the you know the rest of the body yeah so do you consider

your testes internal or external? I mean, to me, they're external, but yeah, me too. But it's like, yeah, it's like, I know my penis is external because like that skin, you know, it's hitting the... raw air if i'm naked whereas my balls there's a scrotum protect i guess but that seems a little like pedantic like it feels like okay well like the inside of your penis then is

not not external. Yeah, that's fine. Like my like literally like the cavernosa. Yeah, exactly. My corp pora cavernosa is internal but my penis is not um but anyways those are just the deep questions that scientists are asking at all times so yeah it's kind of like obviously erections seem funny but they're extremely important obviously to

reproduction like with you can obviously come without an erection sorry that's not obvious but it helps when you have an erection so it makes you realize the body like getting an erection is so important because it's how you you know help create offspring yeah totally and can be used to just have fun as well. Whether by yourself or with others. Do we want to talk about obviously like it requires stimulus in some kind of way. So at baseline, the penis is

primary under sympathetic control and is flaccid. So on average, 23 hours of the day, your dick is flaccid, which kind of, I was like a whole hour. That's like what the science was like. Three different. said he said that okay there's an hour an hour and on average an hour day you have a boner yeah well like when you're sleeping it happens a lot yeah that's true i bet the majority of it comes then from nocturnal boners yeah

And then obviously there's some that's like, you know, just comes up during the day. But like sometimes it's like, yeah, I wonder if I'm just like working and like something happens and I get a boner and I'm not even counting it and thinking that I have a boner.

probably but like it's maybe different because we work at home i feel like you'd be much more aware if you were like in a public yeah true like i can work in an office or something walk around with my hard hog working at home alone and there's no issues okay so Yeah, so the actual stimulation to get a boner.

Stimulation and Neurological Pathways

There's a lot of different ways that scientists talk about this, but it kind of comes down to two most specifically, which is that one is involved with your brain first. Some people say the largest sex organ in your body. your brain. It ain't your clit or your dick.

Yeah, so it's like you see something that arouses you. You smell something that arouses you. You could even just like close your eyes and just imagine like Chris Hemsworth or like Pamela Anderson for all you millennials out there running on a beach and get an erection. Or you can actually do it the other way around where like...

They use the example of like your glands penis. Glans means acorn. So like the top, the tip of your neck. The lips, the teeth, the tip of the dick. You know that? Yeah. No. What's that? Oh. You don't know that? Okay, you're not a theater kid. That is a nice little warm-up. It usually goes, the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue. But I thought I'd flip it on its head and say, the lips, the teeth, the tip of the dick. I truly thought that you and music. musical theater.

it's like well we all love dick that is the gay agenda exactly it's like if you go into musical theater and they're making you go the your lips the tit the tick the dick anyway so you're trying to say that there is a yeah you totally derail that there's the physical to start that then goes to your brain so like for example you like rub your little acorn your little glands penis or your penis against like

the washing machine by mistake and then all of a sudden it sends a signal through your nerves to your brain and then all of a sudden whoa you're stimulated yep but they can be also broken down even further to other yeah something that's really fascinating about that sort of end of it so say you have like physical

touch and that triggers something called the putinal nerve and that you know is connected to your spinal cord and sends signals to your brain to kind of like let you know what's going on down there but what is interesting is that end of stimulation that doesn't start with your brain even though your brain's notified it yeah dick first or just genitals first

your brain isn't necessary in that sense so you could still get an erection like people who have spinal cord injuries they may their nerves may not be sending the signal to the brain but they could have an erection so it's interesting because you don't quote unquote need your brain necessarily to have an erection although many arousals come from the brain first as well yeah so

Other ways to define the stimulation could be visual, which is like starting with the brain. Mental, starting with the brain. They define those as different. Visual being you see something with your eyes. Mental being you shut your eyes and you dream of... Pamela Anderson, physical, which is the touch. And then there's also, as we said, the nocturnal nighttime ones. Most of the time when you hit REM sleep, you'll have a boner. And actually now I'm like, I'm getting up why it adds up to an hour.

My REM sleep boners. Exactly. And so... I'm so excited to talk about the health of maintaining your health and how you can keep your boner healthy. Wow. Because there's a study that came out this year that's kind of related to that. Okay, I'm just going to get... though i'm just gonna get to the erection then so we can get to that because i really want to know about my boner health physically right that's what you want to talk about yeah so

if you like are to look at your penis everyone unzip and look actually i was looking at diagrams and then i did look at my penis and i was like damn that is so weird because when you look at the diagram of a penis okay so they like cut always like the pelvic area of someone with a penis in half. And they always include the anus because, you know, right near the anus is that prostate. I love the word epididymis.

So like your testes are hanging down below. There's the epididymis, which is above it. Then the vas deferens or the tube that like go to the prostate, then it eventually goes, you know, the sperm or P is just sort of.

delineated in the urethra at that point and then out of the urethra there but your dick is made up of like the two important tissues that will create the boner so the corpus spongiosum which is a harry potter spell yeah corpus spongy awesome and everyone's like oh i have such a heart on it won't go away it's it's the like

spongy tissue near the urethra their urethra runs through it and it's like what keeps your urethra open during boners like in order to get semen yeah yeah because it's like there's a lot of

pressure building up down there. Yeah, you don't want it to close up because all those blood vessels are like expanding, which does happen to your veins. Like the blood expands in such a way as just close the veins, which... traps blood in there and that's why it like remains inflated yeah there's like veins at the top of your dick you know how everyone's like the mars bar

Looks like a dick with a vein. I didn't know everyone was saying that. Every time I buy a Mars bar, it's a little bit of a visual stimulus and I get a boner. Mine's more like, oh, Henry? you mean you like turds that's disgusting but oh henry's actually looks so much like a turd it's like fascinating to me that they like were able to get on like take off because i do think they're delicious also tim horton's

This is CanCon, Canadian content. Tim Hortons brought back the Walnut Crunch, which also looks like dog shit, but tastes amazing. Anyways. we're back side note so on the top of your dick there are actually a lot of veins that when you get the erection they close and so that again stops the blood from leaving and hopefully keeps your rock hard boner for hours folks but the corpus spongy

Oh, some. Oh, no, sorry. The corpora cavernosa is the main ones. There are those two sort of like, depending on the size of your girth of your dick on like.

If you were to cut it like a sausage in half. Yeah, they're kind of like on the top sides. Yes. And they're what fill up with the most blood. There's arteries in each one. There's two arteries. And so what happens is your spinal cord essentially sends a signal down to your dick region and it's all about nitric oxide release and so nitric oxide in these erectile tissues it's a vasodilator so it causes blood to flow into the penis

and what's also I think kind of interesting is that nitric oxide causes smooth muscle cells to relax which essentially like it's too complicated to explain here but it keeps your calcium levels low in your dick that relaxation almost the flaccidity of the smooth muscle cells is what causes the erection. Well, doesn't also the smooth muscle relaxing just make more space for the blood to fill? Yes, but it's an interesting way because it's like the actual adjectives for like vast...

And in this case, smooth muscle... Smooth muscle... cell relaxation causes boner. I feel like a lot of people would assume smooth muscle cell relaxation would be flaccid and something else would be boner. I just kind of loved that. scientific language it's like oh yeah you need the relaxation of the smooth muscle cells to engorge and grow and fill with blood yeah it's just kind of like a counterintuitive little like yeah i think that happens a lot because even

I don't want to misquote this in one of our videos, but I'm pretty sure it's norepinephrine. When you're sleeping and part of the reason you get morning wood or nighttime erections, there's actually an active mechanism of norepinephrine that's stopping blood flow from entering. but in REM sleep that turns off which like then allows blood flow yeah so it's kind of like

Of course, it is an active process, but it's interesting in the same way that it's actually the inverse of what you think. By turning something off, like your body's actively stopping a boner at all times in one perspective. And then when that turns off at these certain moments, then it like, they plug it.

it's open basically yeah and i do definitely like feel like i am getting older and i can't wait to talk about your like giant boner research but i just like do remember like so much like as like a teenager just like

truly like walking like a gust of wind hitting my crotch and just getting an absolute heart like it was just like it was crazy like it was actually a problem or like being in math class and then like rubbing my dick weirdly against the desk and then be like well i'm hard for like minutes

it's on end and like hopefully the class doesn't end whereas now i don't have the issues i've never like i'm so hard i can't go like it's just like damn no you're right like it is kind of crazy to think back on because as you become an adult it's

like even if it accidentally starts happening you can kind of stop it pretty quick i'm not saying there aren't moments when you're just like oh yeah no convenient yeah but as a kid sometimes you're literally like i don't want this and it's going to be like i'm stuck with a boner i'm like i haven't had that maybe 22 years under a desk. Like if I need to get rid of a boner, it's easy now. I remember talking about it with friends in like grade school and someone was like,

I just realized I went to the front of class and our teacher can literally see on, like, you know, when you have a desk in front of you, it just feels like you're concealed. But when you're like far enough away, like you can see people's legs. Oh my God. There's no, no. They know when we have boners. That's insane.

saying okay it's like how big was that guy's hog because like it's not like a cartoon image of like the simpsons image of a boner where it's like it's like you know what i mean like a boner when you're sitting down is No, I'm just like laughing at this guy thinking that there's like boners all over the world. That's what everyone thinks when they're young. You get freaked out. Not that he thinks there's a million boners. He's just like, oh, when I have an erection uncontrollably.

Someone can possibly see it. I just, I was imagining it was like hidden. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm moving on. No, I'm just like, it was kind of a creepy image. Think about. Yeah, you're right. I didn't really want to. I was trying. I am sorry. I didn't mean I was thinking of myself as in that age bracket. Yeah, you're living that like. fear of being caught you know it's a now i kind of miss the fear yeah and most ed is

now understood to be physical, not like psychosomatic. Like in the past, a lot of people were like, it's all... That can still be part of it. I can go through, there's like six main causes. Yeah, yeah. Oh, do that, do that. Well, first I wanted to mention now that we've talked about...

Female Erections and Dysfunction

the erection of the penis female erections are also a thing and oh yeah so like the clitoris and the penis are homologous yeah um structures which homo yeah means that you know they're they're kind of like the same and uh the female erection works in a similar way as though their um clitoris is like in this place of the penis and so like that blood flow comes to there obviously it's not getting as big as like a

an erection on a male but there's like blood flow that enters there and they are functional like studies have found that when females are turned on the chance of like procreation is higher Oh wow. It's really interesting. So boners rub boners is a good thing. Yeah, exactly. Like, and stimulation of that for females is like this really sensitive area, even though there's only like a small part that is actually.

outside the body that you're like the tip of the clitoris and the tip of the dick is also super sensitive like you know people always say that exactly it actually is there's they don't mean like the literal tip but just like the end of it right yeah no the tip it's called the glands penis the acorn

Glands means acorn. Okay. But I also was going to say like the putinal nerve and stuff like that. Like that function is similar for females. There can be a mental stimulation or a physical stimulation. It can go to the spinal cord and send messages to the brain. It's also not entirely. They can just be physical stimulation, which can lead to blood engorgement and that kind of thing. Nitric oxide is also vasodilating. So this happens in everyone, basically. Wow.

Okay, now go into ED. Yeah, we won't linger too long on ED, but I just thought it was interesting because obviously this is a concern for many people. Because we're also getting into our 30s. Yeah, and it is more common as you age, but I think that's also the... Yeah.

I want to say confluence, but I don't know what that word means. What does confluence mean? I meant to say like the convergence of many factors is actually what I was trying to say. I don't know. Confluence sounds like it could mean that. Can I type it in and we're going to like, yeah, I was going to learn with us. I'm also running. He's got my coffee. So be right back. Okay, how far is it? It's so far away.

Oh my God. I'm having so much trouble. Confluence. Confluence. The junction of two rivers, especially rivers of a... approximately equal with an act or process of merging. I guess that could work. And to me, it was like this idea of converging multiple risk factors. As you age, there's more and more risk factors. Yeah, yours is metaphorical and know what else confluence is.

goddamn vessels in that corpus cavernosa to give yourself a boner to continue okay so like you said um psychogenetic which means stemming from the brain is a possible cause but many many like

It's not necessarily like politically appropriate, not politically, but what do you say? Like appropriate to say to someone like it's just all in your head. If you're having like ED, I think in the past, they might have just said like you are having problems with your brain. You're just anxious. You're just nervous. Of course.

being nervous, being anxious, like having an issue and having it in your head is going to impact your body's ability to be aroused in the first place and to quote unquote perform. But that's only like one factor out of six. And it was sort of like pre-1940s, 1950s. They only thought it was mental.

And then science kicked in and was like, there's a lot of factors. There's another one called neurogenics. That means you could literally have spinal cord issues. You could have like communication problems between your nerves. There could be something physically stopping you from getting around.

then there's hormonal so for men like testosterone does play a role in arousal but there's also like you could have abnormal hormonal levels outside of that can that can just impact your arousal levels um vasculogenic This apparently is the most common. Yeah, this is what I was thinking of. So it's like just blood flow issues, all relating to that mechanism of getting blood in there. Could be linked to like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes. Those often link into. vasculogenic.

Is that how you say it? Vasculogenic. And then the final two are drug-induced. So you often hear like if people are on antidepressants, it's a lot harder to get aroused. You may not feel the same way. Excessive alcohol, smoking, and other drugs. Whiskey dick. Yeah, can interfere. Yeah. It's very common for people to be drunk and have a hard time being like physically aroused. And I think that one to me gives like Tinder date vibes. It's like I can see people.

who are single and using alcohol as like a social lubricant. Like a nerve depressant. Yeah. I can imagine being like, damn it. Now it's harder to get hard physically. I can see that one being frustrating and maybe the beginning sort of like stages of okay. Yeah, well, there's probably both ends because if you're too nervous, you might not be able to get aroused. So you drink to like get rid of those nerves. True.

other direction now you've actually entered into like a physical or drug induced um issue oh yeah that's interesting the final one was aging and other diseases but a lot of this can be caused by a mix of all the other things right like the older you are the more likely you might have a condition a disease you might be on drugs you might have

have hormonal levels that are out of balance like there could be many different factors as you age it's not to say it's necessarily everyone's going to suffer like ed as they age but it's more common and i think that also

I was actually too nervous to do the studies about ED. What do you mean do the studies? Sorry, there were surveys in two of the studies because they were kind of being like, once you're in your 30s, like ED like... everything we talked about on this podcast alcoholism mental health it's a sliding scale and they were just like

do this survey to find out what scale like essentially i can on the spectrum i just like know that it's gonna be like you're this much on the spectrum i'm like i'm just not ready to hear that i'm on the spectrum for ed but like probably their whole argument is that The erectile dysfunction has been very misleadingly...

explained, especially in pop culture. It's kind of like, you can't get hard. There's just like this man walking around. You're like, can't get hard anymore. It needs Viagra. It's like, no, it's again, a sliding scale. There will be.

times and places and reasons that could be physiological mental all these things coming together and that a lot of people will suffer from it and also not suffer from it like throughout the year throughout their lives like and it could be related to not just not getting hard but how long can

you last how hard does it get how good does it feel like lots of different variables that yeah it's not just the full inability to get an erection it can be like conditional so under certain circumstances you're having issues with certain people it comes up more than with other people so like I think yeah like everything in science through the years we realize like spectrums are a much better way to measure it's not an on or off switch and it's better that people

for their own like mental health insanity, because I think a lot of people do struggle with erectile dysfunction and it's embarrassing to bring up and they don't know when it's like right time to bring it up.

knowing there's a spectrum lets you kind of go, oh, maybe I'm catching early signs. I can talk to my doctor and see if it's something, could it be related to my health? Like, do I just need to like exercise more or do I have blood pressure problems? A lot of dudes will get on that hormone test.

yeah exactly yeah that's the one that people a lot of guys are like well it's my testosterone which for some people it is but a lot of times nowadays we're realizing that's being like very give it out very easily to say like oh you probably have low testosterone and then a lot of men actually don't have low testosterone so go watch and listen to our podcast about testosterone replacement therapy because we explain all that information there and it's it's super juicy and interesting

But I am like, okay, like, do you think that maybe ED is like scarier for straight? men with penises because I was thinking about like when you're gay, you get to have all different types of sex. You get to be, you could be passive. You could be active, passivo, activo, top, but like there's something about that. I'm like, my bilingual boy.

But no, there's nothing about like me kind of just thinking like when I go into a sexual situation, there are a lot more options for me where I can imagine the pressure of like the rock hard boner of the man with like, just like. I'm like, oh, there's more pressure there. I think it's... Did our dog just barf? Is he okay?

Okay, he just barfed because we were talking about boners. No, he's fine. He's fine. He just made a weird noise. Speaking of boners, he hasn't had one in years, but looks like a lipstick. Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I can qualify which is... worse i think there's different pressure different pressures in different communities no i know what you mean like on the one hand i think you're probably not wrong to

as as like a man in a heterosexual relationship the pressure might be on you and it might be harder to break that stigma if you are having issues to like use toys and like get into different spaces where like your erection isn't the only thing that matters yeah and maybe

in queer spaces that is more acceptable like I'm not that's not what I want to be pleasured or I want to give give someone something rather than get something all these kind of things are more open in the queer community but I think as a gay man there's still a lot of pressure to like

be able to be aroused and use your penis. And lots of Viagra in these gay parties. But yeah, I think all men struggle with... Yeah, yeah. Okay. I just thought like, you know what I mean? It feels like there's less options. Yeah, you could take on a different role. I agree. But like, it could still be really challenging.

if you're like a cis man who identifies as a top and then is struggling with ED. A cis gay man. A cis gay man, sorry. Yeah, I just mean like if you're struggling with ED, but you... yourself aren't wanting to be a bottom then you'll still be stuck oh yeah i forgot i was a first king and i forgot that that's not just what everyone is yeah okay true true true yeah it's just like there's some there was something in some of these studies i was reading the survey based one about women being like

actually kind of relieved that their sexual prowess isn't physiologically shown. I was like, that's an interesting part about being a man. There's a lot of male privilege. And I kind of was like, oh, interesting. Like there's something there that is like actually kind of spooky and like erections are.

as we're getting older like it's an interesting part of aging and probably like existential thoughts accepting your body in a different way yeah and it's so like culturally like and i'm gonna get into my research about

Penis Enlargement Surgery

The penuma, which is a literal addition to your penis through surgery to make it bigger. Oh, like to grow, like to make your penis bigger. yes okay why don't we do that and then i'll talk about the alternate which is like how to keep your boner healthy without not to grow without horrible surgery okay let's talk about surgery so obviously we're talking about like size increase penile girth augmentation

which is like probably could have been its own episode, honestly. But I just read this insane New York article about it, and I bring it up all the time because it's just so... disturbing but my biggest takeaway is that the people who are getting this surgery where yes they cut open your dick almost flip it inside out and add this like spongy mesh like thing that in theory should grow and shrink with your boner. So it's like this newer thing. It's by this scary guy, the Thomas.

Thomas Edison of penis surgery because it's okay. It's called it's invented by James Ellis. He's a urologist who's decided to make his career off of this surgery. That is like extremely.

problematic because a lot of people have had issues of course like anything some people are super happy with their new girthy dick other people have serious issues pain can't even pee have to get it taken out like all these risks are really high and so it's like it's and there's all these loopholes they've used through the FDA to have it be approved even though like if you read the article you'd be like

this does not feel like a safe procedure. Okay. And he is just like a creepy vibe, but there was a GQ article that kind of, I think. really mess with a lot of people because it wasn't that critical of this thing and a lot of people signed up but my biggest takeaway was that

It increased during COVID and through a lot of psychological studies, I think porn has a big influence because most people who are getting the surgery have average to above average penis sizes to begin with. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I saw something like the average penis sizes.

erect I think is closer to five inches like maybe five and a half or something like that but most men think it's much bigger yeah because you're looking at porn you're observing yeah we're on the internet now we're like if people have a big dick they're like

They literally have it out through their shorts and are pumping gas and they're a TikToker. Yeah. And it's like having, it's like a selection bias, even if just having a nice body makes you more likely to become like a fitness influencer. So you're then seeing this bias of all these people having these amazing bodies online.

people gravitate towards that because it's impressive so there's a selection bias of what you're even looking at because of course it's like people are looking at a big dick or big boobs or big ass and then like seeing that as attractive and seeing it more and more often in porn and then it skews your perception I've always wondered like if I had like an abnormally huge dick like would I have to like in grade 12 be like do I go to university or

Or do I be on the floor? Sometimes I'm like, that is a weird part of having a huge dick. You're probably like, well, I could make a career out of this hog. Or I could just keep it in my pants and show it to a few people and become an engineer. I'm like, I do not have a porn star dick. But I was always like, if I was so blessed or some might say cursed, would I? have actually been like named like Liam Liam the lasso link later porn star or whatever anyways this is a really popular

Surgery. Surgery. The name of this fake penis is called the Pneuma. And just like, I think that the main takeaway again is that our...

Societal Pressure and Body Image

concept of penis size is completely skewed because of the internet and that this is preying on people's insecurities and is not essential in any for any reason or any way and it's really dangerous And it's not worth it. It's not worth it. And it's sad because I think that like obviously people's erection size and the way they feel about their erections for the most part is probably pretty low because it's hard to have that.

Next week's episode, self-esteem. High self-esteem around it when you're watching all this. really biased and not accurate versions of dicks online. It's funny when like so, I don't want to oversimplify things, but so much of problems with men can come with like insecurities of like their like literal dick size. Wait, what? Or just being like these things distilled down to like...

So we have all these studies that say like, this is the average dick size. And so many men who have it bigger are still insecure about their dick size. Yeah. And it's like this ultimate insecurity that you're not enough. You know what I mean? Like it's the core belief that literally.

if only I had a few centimeters more, I would be happy. I would be like worthwhile. And it's like funny, not funny, but like that it comes down. Like everyone faces that pressure in many different ways, but like these. basic simplified insecurities that come back to being like the child in you. And like, you can see that expressed through like so much toxic masculinity, but like in like both straight and gay men and creepy will all have these issues around. It's just like funny, but.

dick size is such a thing yeah because it does seem so basic yeah it's like especially when it's like completely functional you know and like even lots of women lots of men would be like the size doesn't matter that much to me like in fact like having a giant dick is actually like You want to fit that in your mouth. You want to fit that in your ass. You want to fit that in your vagina. Like it's actually painful. Yeah. So of course. Or it could be like.

I don't even know. I'm like, are we going to get canceled? But like, it could just be like an ugly big dick. You're the one who taught me that dicks can be ugly and not ugly. No, no, sorry. Not because either of ours are or aren't, but you're more like...

You've talked about it to me more in a way where I've ever since been like, oh yeah. I'd way rather have a nice dick than a big dick. I know, but I think I was just such a horny little kid that I didn't even know there was such a thing as like an unnice dick or an unnice tit. Like I just liked all tits, all dicks. It's because I'm prissy.

I'm much more like... No, I know. And then I started being like, oh, I guess I could judge it not just like it's like, oh, no, they all have their own vibe. And I even think about like... these sort of cultural connotation of like big dick energy probably also made a lot of guys insecure. Like it's kind of, it's kind of being like, it's actually like,

super maybe problematic in the sense that it's like, oh, that person has confidence, has a... But it's, I think what it... Sorry. Has confidence, has... this vibe that must be coming from the fact that he's internally so confident because his dick's so big. It's like as if you have a big dick, then you're fine. Yeah. I feel like I understand the genesis behind that is actually to flip it on people. who are hyperly toxic and to say, if you're a shitty man,

it's probably because you have a small dick. Like, not that we should actually be using dick size, but I think it's to... No, but that's still kind of messed up. No, it is. But I think it's to have toxic men have to stop and think about why they're doing what they're doing. Is like maybe why it became this... Thank you.

Yeah, it's true. When a motorcycle revs by me, I'm like, small dick. Yeah, it's like a compensatory action to be like, look, you're trying to overcompensate for something. An easy way to put it in a zinger is when it comes to dick size versus saying...

you probably have some trauma around not feeling accepted and that you need to flash your wealth, your success, your these things that other people because you don't feel worthy. So it's all been distilled into like, you probably have a small dick. Wow.

wow yeah but it's not at all necessarily true like there's lots of people with big dicks who are probably freaking assholes and not friendly and kind of annoying and brag and all these things but there's something about a confident kind man who you're like he's not insecure yeah Like he's not overcompensating for something. I can't.

Like, I mean, we just have to talk. I can't get over Drake's dick after Drake's dick. Because it's also like, speaking of erections, like what's going on there? It was flopping around. Like, I don't even know. Like an inorganic, like it's not. What was it looking like? Everyone has to.

use like i don't care to be honest how can you not care well because i think if it was a woman we would be feeling weird about this everyone and every blog and every newspaper writing okay well all of a sudden he's what like not a feminist or a feminist backwards it's drake we are definitely allowed to talk about his dick no and i guess like the people think that maybe he is a man like and he's so

he's so is like it's like we're all like thinking about the concept of like comedy and punching up like if there's one person's dick we can talk about is Drake he's so and it was big it's not like people are making fun of him no and he's so like um oh he's so you

exorbitant and over the top and like so easy to make fun of because he's like the richest most powerful like kind of womanizing kind of like like at this point sorry Toronto like annoying like I'm I feel like I'm in his you can talk about his era

It'd be different if he was like a different celebrity, I think. And it's... insanely huge and it's like it's not erect it's like flopping around like it's such an odd video yeah it's like kind of like his corpus cavernosa isn't even full oh great that means it's getting bigger that's true i yeah You just care more about pop culture than I do. I'm just like, cause he didn't have big dick energy and then bam. Whoa. At least to me, he did. And it seemed like he got that surgery.

Oh, my God, the Penuma. Maybe he's one of the half clients. He has Penuma energy, though. That Miami face, that face has been Botox. And we all know that the rumor has it he has a BBL.

We all know that. Well, Megan Thee Stallion's song Hiss, she alludes to it, and I think it's such a good dance. Can we move on to how to have a healthier action? Yes, please. Are you done with... talking about drake's dick yeah yeah i guess so i mean i could i have about 10 more minutes on it but we can move on to that

Optimizing Erection Health

So my study was on, well, it was actually looking at erections in mice, which for whatever reason is so funny to me. Oh, my God. But apparently the basic mechanisms between like a human erection and a mice erection are very similar. Classic. In most mammals, actually.

like the kinds of like stuff we've already explained talking about the chambers move like going the way it goes to the chamber of secret chamber of secrets enlarging um and the way that the nerves communicate and hormones and stuff like that are all really similar so Inside of a penis, you have fibroblasts, which is like connective tissue. And previously, these were not...

There's not a lot of research on them. Like why are there so many in the penis? What is their role? Great name. But they believe they have an important role in like mediating the function of an erection. So it's the most abundant cell type. in a mouse penis but i think in a human penis as well but this study is on mice don't forget that um and now they've realized they regulate blood flow in this study so the study showed that fibroblasts

mediate erection by taking up the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which leads to the widening of blood vessels in the penis. Okay. So like how effective your... penis is at enlarging depends on your fibroblasts so then research were okay i'm trying to remember like what the ultimate point of this study was you're like eat bananas no it kind of came down to how do you keep your fibroblasts healthy and active? It's like exercise. They realize...

the more you have boners, the healthier your dick will be because you're stimulating those cells. Really? I was so wanted to talk about it at the end being like, Is there something like about having too many boners and jerking off all the time that then you're like getting all these like messed up veins, which is completely made up in my head. Not at all. No, you're exercising your dick.

there could be other things related to the mental side right like if you're having issues because you can only get turned on in certain conditions maybe porn maybe you have a fetish or whatever maybe there's ways that it's difficult for you to get turned on that could be yeah

something by doing it too much, but they realize the fibroblasts function better when they're used more frequently. So this is exercising, AKA exercising your boner or exercising, AKA lifting weights and running around in circles on it. track they like the researchers compared it to like if you run your body gets better at using oxygen. Your muscles get better at like adapting to that environment. So the more it's like use it or lose it. Like you're literally stimulating these.

and they're keeping up their activity of being stimulated. You heard it here, folks. Get as many boners as possible to keep the fibroblasts blasted. Yeah. And the interesting thing is a lot of mammals, including chimps and gorillas, have a bone in their penis. Yeah, yeah. But humans don't. And so they're like, this is probably even more.

important for humans because it relies so much on the blood flow more than like a physical bone interesting but then the cycle active part if you're always looking at porn yeah there's other elements that's a serious issue too and older mice for example they realize have less fibroblasts so there's less blood flow that may be just like an aging thing but they said it could be

to train the ability to get an erection to counteract impotence in the same way as you can train your strength or fitness at the gym. Somewhere like some white guy with dreads in Mexico is like leading like a boner class. Like it starts. or it's gonna be LA. Like, it's gonna start in LA and everyone's gonna go and try and get boners and get their boners bigger. Think about, like, okay, our bodies have these erections at night, right? Like, obviously, like, it's...

promoting bloodthroats. Andrew Huberman is going to be on this. It's going to be the next ice bath. There's going to be like communal. Like every straight guy is going to get together with like 28 other straight guys and pay $60 to like literally get boners. It's called Erexercise.

Damn, take that to the bank. Honestly, I'm not kidding. We are in such an era of masculinity. Online is so fascinating that every guy is just trying to optimize truly just like their... dick size whether that's through like steroids or all these different things that like you could make money on that and they're so

unable to see how homoerotic everything they do is that if the 28 people sat on a mat and got boners together like 28 straight guys they still would be like it's not gay yeah they're like we're doing it for the girls yeah so that our boners get better so we go home with our leg for our ladies Anyway, I think that's good to know. That is really good to know because I actually had no research on it. I was kind of trying to be like,

Is it like possible? Is it bad to have so many boners? So I think right now, at least the answer is no. But again, there's other... impacting factors. If you're always watching porn when you jerk off, like maybe that is. Which I do think a lot of people probably are doing. And then if they're getting into a sexual situation and feeling like things aren't working, it's like that could be because you're not like in this hyper sexual.

porn state that you're in full control of. Yeah, they're so used to. But it's important to remember it's not, as far as we know right now, it's not just because you've got a bone or a bunch. that you might struggle with it later. Yeah. It's like, in fact, we have the opposite evidence right now is that the use of it is good, but obviously... Brain gets involved. Brain has a lot of issues. Yeah, the largest sex organ in your body is your brain.

I think that's all I have on erections. We can get into our what you learned this week and stuff. That was fascinating. We'll take a little break and then we'll come back. No one knows your business better than you. So who better to create your website than, well, you? Wix's website builder puts it all in your hands. Create a beautiful website just by talking with AI.

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Understanding Work Burnout

What did we learn this week? All right. Moving on from boners. We've got a new science of burnout coming in. Don't we all experience it? Probably. Constant dread. No, I don't know. Burnout to me is such a weird buzzword that I'm like, what is that? We're going to talk about it. So, interestingly, a new tool has been developed to literally measure burnout. Not a physical tool, but like a psychological tool. It was developed in Norway. No duh.

So obviously right now, they believe this tool will be useful outside of that, but they've tested it primarily on Norwegian. audience. So take with that limitations that you will. If there's one thing we've been taught about Norway, it's that no one has burnout, that they're all just like have these perfect, well-balanced lives and like work four days a week and like just like push their kids in carriages and have like gorgeous sneakers.

Everyone's fine. But anyways, continue. Just to chat briefly, like the signs of burnout, like that are actually categorized are you feel mentally exhausted at work. You struggle to feel it. So this is burnout in regards to work. Yeah, but burnout can be...

mixed with life stress, obviously, right? Like to come home and also have lots of stuff you have to do. But it's better to think about work. I think most people put it in the context of your job burnout. And if your job is overworking you or if you feel just like pushed to the limit. So you feel mentally exhausted. You struggle to feel enthusiastic about your job. You have trouble concentrating when working. You sometimes overreact at work without meaning to.

Whoa. And so I don't have a lot to say about this. Doesn't it just seem like everyone would say that they feel that? Well, a lot of people do feel that. I think a lot of people are like, this is the state of modern capitalism where it pushes people to the brink and asks. so much of them and they don't get a lot back from it. Um, that could be a modern perspective. Uh, so they created something called the business assessment tool. Oh, sorry.

a burnout assessment tool you can actually search that term and you can go on a website and take like the quiz basically you fill out just like a variety of things from one to ten how you fit on this scale and it'll help you assess if you have burnout and so the reason they created this with their own tool they found that about 13 percent of norwegians are at a high risk of burnout

Which actually seemed low to me. Well, yeah, because it's Norway. That's like what I was saying earlier. Oh, like maybe other countries have a way higher. 100%! Possibly. And so obviously this is useful because there's physical and psychological effects of burnout. It can impact cardiovascular.

vascular disease, pain related issues, musculoskeletal issues, sleep problems and depression. Like it's linked to all these other diseases and issues. And so if you're an organization, obviously like you don't want to lose talented employees if you're burning them. out and causing them health problems like they're not going to want to work there yeah so that's like

or it might increase their sickness and absence and lost productivity, all these things. So sadly, that's from the perspective of like the capitalist who wants to like take as much out of you as they can, but it's in their best interest to not have you burn out. And so they're just, this was trying to create.

literal framework to measure if people are actually having burnout like can we actually classify it you know yeah because it seems so arbitrary and i think the reason i'm so like whatever about burnout is i learned about it from like every youtube millennial youtuber and like 2016 being like huh like a video called like i'm burnt out yeah and everyone being like shut the up like you know what i mean like wow you had to make a

blog about like your day that you had like an oatmeal and then you had to like take a meeting and then like it's like i don't shit on youtubers for that because i think i understand where they're coming from no me too but i just i still shit on them because i think everyone else like

Kind of like when you were describing the symptoms of burnout, I was like, that is how I feel about my job. And like, I definitely like really want a kid and like want some time off work, but I'm not complaining because I have so much more control, but it doesn't mean I'm not.

feeling exhausted when i do my work and like i kind of related like i just can't imagine what that would feel like with even less control which is why i rolled my eyes at youtubers because it's like they have so much autonomy and it's like your ideal version of your job is so privileged that the thing you're complaining about is that didn't seem like it had much. It's like kind of the same way with every sort of like famous person in cancellation. I'm like,

I don't think anyone deserves to be a famous person with that much power. And complain. And complain. Yeah. That's fair. I think it's just important to remember. And I'm not trying to empathize with these people. No, no. I'm being a piece of shit. Definitely. so much research and like listening to the happiness lab they often talk about like it is all perspective right like everyone suffers always like that is the burden of life it's just your frame reference of it right like

more money, more problems is in some ways true. Like, of course, money can bring a lot of stability and there's like limits. But then some people have so much that it actually just gives them more stress. Yeah. I'm not trying to like, yeah, I'm not trying to show for like rich people. It's an interesting conversation. It's like, do I want to hear about that though from a YouTuber? Yeah. And then we also know there's like cormorant.

with like having low income and poverty is like the burnout and the pain is way worse on that end of things that it is frustrating. It's like, it's not to invalidate the pain of a YouTuber, but you're right. It is like... why are you getting a voice to complain about this? Yeah. And when you have, you can step away and you have so much money. Yeah, I know. Exactly. It's like, go become a nurse. Relax. Anyways, but that's me just being super judgy. And it's a reason why we have no YouTube.

friends because whenever they talk to me about their issues i'm like you got my face i'm kidding i've never done that i'm very compassionate to youtubers in person i swear so mine's just about

Sustainable Urban Planning

Mine's just about green cities. Well, there were two new books that came out and they were reviewed. I was reading them about kind of how cities need to advance into the future. And it was just like interesting to me because I guess that is something that I just baseline hope for all cities is to become more green. But they were just talking about how like you can't just say that like there's actual.

implications and planning that needs to be involved. But they were saying how cities consume 70%. 75% of global primary energy released 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions and produced 10 billion tons of solid waste annually. So it's like, okay, people are living in cities. Like that's always been the case, but now more than ever. And like sometimes there's more and more stuff.

stats about that people are like moving to cities for a variety of reasons. And then this was one thing I just took away that I thought was so interesting, which was that every city could benefit. from flipping the way the public transit works just because of how socioeconomic studies have revealed who uses and how public transit is used. It should be cheaper for people coming from further into a city because they're always the people who are more poor and more at risk.

And that the people within the city are always the more affluent ones who are actually paying less for public transit because it's always based on distance. Yeah. And they were like just one overarching thing. And I was like, that is so.

progressive and interesting and i can see how some annoying people will be like but they didn't go as far but it's like no no no we're not talking about distance everything is based on public transit being used in distance if i go further it costs more if i go but it's like that is i don't know like

struck me. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know how you'd implement that, but... You would be like, socioeconomically, there is a map of our city and we know these people who are coming into the city from far. Oh, that's what, when I was in Medellin, they were like, we do this, not with transit necessarily, but like they map out the...

incomes of different areas and that impacts how much they will pay for certain things so smart regions i don't it's not the subway i think is harder like but yeah when it comes to like their home taxes and when it comes to like a lot of those things it's And I know that does obviously like kind of play a role where we live. Like your tax bracket will be lower if you're making less income. But it was like much more implemented in a way that was like...

I don't know. It was about schooling too. You pay less for school based on where your home is. Which is just one of those things that people can all just buy into and like rich people can stop complaining about. paying more tax for god's sake then it's like then you can just accept all these things like that is a that is an that is an acceptance that requires rich people to accept that they're rich yeah and same with this

It would be the same type of acceptance. It would be rich people being like, I am the one living in the city. And it does make sense that someone who's coming from further to like... for example construction we were talking the other day about all these construction workers and how they work super early and they leave by three because to avoid the traffic because a lot of them live so far out of toronto i was like oh my god i didn't think about that it's like those people with better

cheaper public transit could maybe take the public transit in and out for less makes sense to me because they're building the goddamn buildings that all people are going to live in. Yeah. And then they're, what makes that a green city though? Well, they were, talking about how one book was focusing so much on how like literally like adding more green space is all that matters and this other book was like no green space always needs to be in tandem with

the poverty of cities and development. And like they kind of, the review was that the one book that focused just on green space was bad. And this other book had a holistic approach and it was just from that holistic approach that they brought up that one thing that I thought was so interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, no, that is interesting to think of. Green cities doesn't just have to only mean literally getting more plants somewhere. Yeah. It's like, how do you develop this? And it was the green was public transit. Like someone might from far away might actually be like, I'd rather drive because it's cheaper because I'm paying so much. much for these expensive trains from so far when really it's like actually the train should be cheaper.

Yeah, you want to incentivize people to actually use transit. Yeah. And then there's the classic children living in strandings with more green space tend to have lower anxiety. I see that too. In Vienna, 60... More than 60% of the residents in Vienna live in subsidized housing, compared to 5% in New York City, with half of the units are in Vienna owned by the Austrian government and the other half by non-profit cooperatives.

And they're just like, what the heck? I want to like go study Vienna. I am like, how? Yeah, that's interesting. I would like to know, learn more about that. I saw really. interesting Vox video the other day talking about like a lot of like modern day condos and stuff people complain about they call them like gentrified looking buildings and there's like a very specific aesthetic but then they were arguing like

actually these buildings are usually the cheapest, most affordable and greenest ways to make these buildings and often linked to affordable housing. And so we look at them and we see, and there's studies that show actually. building more of these kinds of apartment buildings that you might think are ugly in spaces is it helps not displace people out of those neighborhoods

Oh, interesting. You can look at. That's very Toronto. It's true. So I don't look at these like glass Toronto's. I'm like, well, there's thousands of people in that. And it's not just glass. You can kind of, they're like modular. You can see like the squares and like, they just look like, oh, it looks like cookie cutter. But what I thought was so interesting, they said.

they found newspaper articles from like the 20s when like the brownstones in New York were being built and it's all the same words. It's like these are cheap, they're ugly, like they're just all look the same. It was all the same words that are being used now. And now it's just like Julie and Moore.

be like welcome to my breathtaking brownstone exactly like in the future there's gonna be like the julian more of the time like welcome to my one bedroom glass condo in toronto yeah it's interesting okay cool so next week we're going to be talking about self-esteem yeah we put it off because we thought it was so similar not so similar to envy but kind of like in the same vein of and honestly we got our mind on boners went cross-eyed and couldn't stop thinking about them

Okay, thanks for listening. Yeah, we'll see you guys next week. Puss. Mazda? Once you discover the Mazda CX-5. Mazda. It doesn't take long to get it. With standard all-wheel drive, a premium interior, and advanced safety features, it's an SUV that gives you more at every turn. It will have you saying Mazda. The Mazda CX-5. It's made to move you. Every Mazda SUV offers you an elevated driving experience and refined performance. Discover it at your local Mazda dealer today.

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