The Karol Markowicz Show: Getting Hammered with Mary Katherine Ham

in the last year. A large study from two thousand to twenty eighteen showed an increasing number of people eighteen to thirty four reported having no sex or far less frequent sex than years prior. Nearly forty percent of young adults surveyed in California in twenty twenty one had no sexual partners in the prior year at all. I know California is weird, but still, I feel like in the nineteen eighties and maybe nineties, sex was very much in and now out. All of the comedies of that age

put sex front and center. For example, I'm not saying bring back the gratuitous nudity of the movies of the nineteen eighties, but it's almost like sex has become passe. I'm going to talk about our declining birth rates in later episodes, but that's not what I mean here. I literally mean people are not having sex, and this is having a serious negative impact on our society. In November of twenty twenty one, I wrote a piece for The

Spectator magazine called Life After Sex. The pandemic was obviously pretty un sexy, I wrote, quote, life could not have been less sexy lately, the neighborhood busybody calling the police on your backyard party, half of everyone's face covered by a mask, everyone drinking too much, staying in their pajamas all day, and putting on the quarantine fifteen end quote. But it wasn't just that. We've been going going through

some pretty significant societal changes, I wrote, quote. Social changes are also ratcheting down the sexy fifty seven genders only sounds cool to a teenager. An adult hearing someone as a pan buy trans non binary fem will just tune out and go search up porn hub for something that makes sense. Porn use, of course, is way up. People might not want to have actual sex, but they're not

giving up their porn. It's a new world. Click click relief far easier than making it work in the new normal, whatever that is this month sexy is so old fashioned. End quote. There's really something to that we used to accept without too much introspection, what we found generally attractive for men. Yes, the Victoria's Secret model type was what the majority of men would turn to look at in

the street. It doesn't mean men aren't attracted to the ninety nine point nine percent of us who don't look like these models, but it was just acceptable to say these women are beautiful and most men will find them attractive. It was obvious. It was right around the time of that Spectator piece that Victoria's Secret decided to change their whole guiding philosophy around this They announced and I wrote,

that they'll be phasing out their impossibly gorgeous and fit angels. Instead, they'll be going with leading icons and change makers, including the soccer star Megan Rapino, the transgender model Valentina Sempeo, the plus size model Paloma Elsessor, and seventeen year old skier Eileen Goo. These new icons won't be posing in lingerie, but sharing their inspirational stories in a ten episode podcast,

So Hot. End quote. Women don't put on lingerie to be inspired, and men don't look at women in lingerie to see a change maker. Lingerie is made for sex. That obvious statement is no longer obvious. People can be attracted to whatever they want, and there's a wide range of what people like. But I really oppose the whole what you're supposed to like idea for both men and women. When the show mad Men was all the rage, women

loved Don Draper. He was handsome, he was a man's man, but also, you know, kind of a lothario who was bad to his women. So there were all these hand ringing think pieces from self described feminists about how they were attracted to him, like TIHI but you know, felt so bad about it. By the way, no man in history has ever felt bad about who he was attracted to. Never ever, I was not attracted to Don Draper. He

seemed like too much of a project to me. In fact, my celebrity crush is Drone from FOUDA kind of a hot moment for that right now. But he's like the protector guy, and he's a badass, and like my husband, he's Israeli. That sulking Don Draper guy really did nothing for me. And I also didn't feel like there was anyone that I was supposed to like or not supposed to like, and so it lets me like who I like. But so now it feels like men are getting that

same pressure about what they're supposed to like. And that helps explain why sex is on the decline. We like what we like and being made to feel bad about that really doesn't work. We're not going to find some do good or attractive just because we're supposed to. I say that women have always gotten the advice to not be attracted to what they're actually attracted to. I think when we see women not consider attraction in the guy that they're marrying, that's a problem, and it's one of

the reasons we see mismatched libidos and marriages. You should marry a man who's good to you, who's a good provider, who will take care of his family. Yes, yes to all of that, but he should also be a man you want to have sex with. A marriage without sex is a friendship. I sometimes talk about how sex is the most important part of a marriage, and it actually makes people annoyed because they say no, so many other things matter, you know, trust matters, or compatibility matters, and

of course all of that matters. When I say most important thing in a relationship, I don't say only important thing in a relationship. A lot of other things matter, but sex is really front and center. Otherwise what you have is a friendship. One of the wild things I discovered during that during while I was writing that Spectator piece is that there was a study conducted during the pandemic that found that cohabiting couples actually masturbated more and

had sex less during the lockdowns. I mean, that's crazy, But I'll side note this by bringing it back to my first episode where my monologue was in favor of marriage, that married people have more sex than anyone. I bring this message to college kids all the time. It's a lie that marriage is the end of sex life. In a lot of cases, it's very much the beginning. So what's the point sex is good? Yeah, that's the point

sex is good. One of my favorite things to hit is that we have to point things out, even if it's just to ourselves. Treat sex as important. It's useful, look for better sleep and better health, lower stress, and

it's just a good time. So you know, go do it right now or after this show is over coming up next in interview with Mary Katherine Ham join us after the break, I would say that when I was thinking about guests that I would have in the future, and when I thought about interviewing MK, it was one of those where I thought, it's twenty to thirty minutes going to be enough because I have a lot of things I want to cover with her, but we'll do

our best to get to everything. And it's so nice to have you, Mary Catherine.

Mom Friends, so everybody should google it. It was hilarious and brilliant, and so in thinking of this question, I also I confused that piece with the interaction the time that your daughter peed on a potential friend separate story. It's a good one accidentally obviously, but you know, so, how is.

And when we got in the car, she told me I peed at the park and that little girl yelled at me, and I said, oh, well, I'm sure she was just surprised, you know, no, biggie. And then it turns out that what happened was the girl was standing under her on the play structure when this happened. So still fair, I did not ever get time. I didn't ever get in touch with that mom again, but anyway, so that friendship was out, but the adult friend making

is pretty good. It's it's an interesting question because I think when you have kids, you wonder, do I need to make a completely different set of friends who also have kids and are dealing with the same phase of life that I'm in, Or can I import my old friends who are also moms now, which is kind of

That's a lot of what I've done. I have several in the area who we were friends before we were moms, one in particular from college, who we parent similarly, which is a huge part of making those kinds of friends, and so I do a little bit of that. I also am thankful that in several neighborhoods I've lived in in the DC area, I have had really good friends nearby who also had similar values and similar parenting styles.

On the corner I lived in before I moved here, when I was a single mom, there were two sec fan houses on either side of me. Granted, LSU and Auburn, but look, you deal with what you deal with when you come to another place, and they had you know, they understood me and the football and had rough and tumble kids, and we went through a tough time together obviously in my life, and so I was able to

make friends there. And then I moved and I moved close to an army base, and now I have my army mom friends and they are fantastic.

interested in doing. So there are several friends I have whom if I had seen their social media first, I would have assumed a they would dislike me, and be that I might not like them. And it turns out that social media can just put a different tinge on things. Not everybody has a very the same tone as I do. And you know, it could just look very different for different people, and it can look very different from their

real life persona. And so I want to get to know the real life person and then we can delve into that later. With me, that sometimes becomes impossible if someone you know, clocks me as a public person first. But it hasn't caused a ton of.

It's as Trump is headed toward the nomination. But we didn't know that at the time, and I felt like it was a pretty nice place to be and did responsible work and had Trump supporters and Trump critical commentators on mostly every panel I was on, and I enjoyed that very much.

certain journalists didn't put me on the air. I was on Tapper Show a lot. There were people who made an effort to get me out there. John Berman is another one who was fun to be on with. But in general, institutionally I was not doing what needed to be done right in the eyes of management. So my career sort of like tailed off in that way. Then we hit COVID. Then in twenty twenty one and twenty two, I'm off air for months and months and months and months.

Now I had two babies in two years. So I'm like, am I so sad about that? I'm not so sad about it, But I am employed by this place, and what's happening? So I started asking questions and I can't figure out what's happening, Like why am I never on? I'm pitching columns, nothing, nothing's working. And finally, after Chris Lick joins for his short short tenure at CNN, I get a call from somebody in management or HR who

explains to me what happened. And here's what happened is that I was put on the bench, suspended without my knowledge. Everyone told Zucker, told the shows not to use me because I had tweeted criticism of Jeffrey Tuban.

was off air for seven months. Right, So that's the price.

that phrase that I just used. But right that that conversation included this tweet about two but and apparently that was that was a bridge too far, guys. And so I wasn't ever fired or let go or laid off. I was asked to come back, and I was at to come back with a smile on my face and just move on. And I did not feel like I could do that, and so I wrote a piece about what actually happened, right, So then I left like six months later.

full time employee. If I had been a full time employee, different scene. But one of my objections, both publicly and to the HR person that I spoke to, was during the era of Me Too, when I was on air, I was asked to comment on every errant penis in the entire media, Hollywood, politics, world, over and over and over again, sports as well, and I rejected the idea that this was the one I was not allowed to

talk about. I rejected, that's right, Yeah, I'm not protecting this one and still talking about all of these.

in half the country. And again, I just think it makes it easier to punish someone like me because the CNN faithful are not going to be super mad that I'm not there, right, that's for sure.

that requires putting next out. And in the TV and media business and politics, shall we say, that is less likely to occur even than other areas.

that happen. I never wanted to host my own TV show. This was not I'm not driven by the news cycle enough in the way that one must be to anchor an entire show that way. And I think that that makes me happier and makes me better at reading what the national mood actually is, because most people are not driven by the news cycle in the same way that we have to be, and so I just don't get a charge out of that enough to have been like the head of a primetime show, right, And so I'm

at peace with that. I get to talk about things that I like to talk about. I get to have a little bit of an impact. I get to model being the weirdo in the room for my kids and critical thinking and all those things that I attempt to model and sometimes courage sticking up for yourself and that's what I want to do. That's the more important part of a career for me than hitting whatever the c suite goal is.

extremely strong, but real and honest and not pretend. So how do you show your kids resiliency? What? What's some Mary Catherine Ham tips on showing your kids how to be resilient?

for your kids. They are not your emotional crutch. Yes, I want to have an open relationship with them, and we work on communicating and all that, but there are things that they are not called to deal with, and in this particular case, especially, they were too young to have trauma from this loss. One was my toddler was two and barely verbal, and my young second was unborn.

I was seven months pregnant, so I knew that was very helpful to me by the way, being pregnant, because I knew I had to sort of keep it between the navigational beacons to get this kid born safely, and that that was my first priority. And then parenting led me to do the same thing. This is my priority. It doesn't mean I neglect myself, but it does mean that I'm really careful about the ways that I lean on them and the ways that I try to get

through life. So I know I need to put that baggage now do I hope someday that they understand it a little bit. Sure, But to me, the more important thing is the day to day resilience in them, having seen all of us as a family just get up every day and do what we need to do. One of the things I did in the very early days because I there were times, as there are for anybody who's going through something big, where you can't put together an entire day, maybe you can't even put together half

a day. But the thing that I did was I made sure that I got up and gave my kids breakfast every morning. And to me, that was a very material It was often a hot breakfast. I was like, look at me, I'm killing it.

those concerns rationally. You know, when COVID came around, we weren't quite sure what it looked like, but we did know that it was not as dangerous to young people, and it wasn't as dangerous to mom and dad, who are healthy and in their forties, and so I made sure that they knew that, and I told them, we're also going to be like a little bit more careful about the grandparents, but it doesn't mean we're going to never talk to them, which is apparently what some people did.

So I think, yeah, keeping your head about you in those times is really important for kids, and then hopefully when they're adults, they will also stand in the breach for their kids, because it's really I really feel like a lot of people lost sight of that.

used all of that as an excuse as well. So to wrap up, I like to ask my guests to end with the best tip for listeners on how they can improve their lives. What do you think?

is good for you. Walking is good for you doing it. This is awful important stuff. Yeah, you just literally touch grass. And I did that in the days after Jake died. I made sure I got outside every day, and of course I was pregnant at the time. But drink more water than wine is also a good rule of them. But the second one is and I tweeted about this recently, and I think it's a fairly simple fix for a lot of people who might be in a bad place

when it comes to parenting. There's so much drama around parenting, and it's a hard job, but it's also a beautiful

job and a fun job. And if you can surround yourself with parents who really enjoy their children and don't dwell on the drama and the hard parts as much as they do the parts that they enjoy, for instance, getting off maybe the Facebook mom group, which can be almost inevitably toxic, and putting yourself with a group chat of maybe some moms who look we all have struggles, but we're also focusing on how much we actually enjoy our families. That who you surround yourself with is going

to make a huge difference. And I try very hard to make sure that I'm surrounded by people who, although they have struggles, are not focusing on that one hundred percent of the time.