- [In Unison] Welcome to Topic Masculinity.
- [Woman] Hi! - Hi!
- [Eugene] We are answering all the questions for people
who need advice out there.
Relationships!
- My first instinct is
do you want to kiss her?
- Identity!
Your coming out journey, it's yours.
Masculinity!
- And with a lot of work, men can lactate.
- Yes, some men can lactate. - It's true.
Thanks to Google Fi for sponsoring this video.
(funky music)
♪ Keith and Eugene ♪
♪ Topic Masculinity ♪
♪ Ask your questions ♪
♪ To their direction ♪
♪ Keith and Eugene ♪
- Welcome to Topic Masculinity,
today's episode is sponsored by Google Fi
I'm Keith, the beautiful one.
- And I'm Eugene, also the beautiful one.
This is the show where we answer
all of your burning questions.
Keith and I are going to give you advice
about all things relationships!
- That's right, and we're joined by Lou Berger,
the magnificent Hughie Stone Fish,
and the sensitive Alex Lewis.
- Okay, well Keith, I'm not that sensitive,
I'm pretty manly - You're sensitive.
- I'm pretty manly.
- You can be manly and sensitive at the same time.
- You can be both! - Oh, can you?
(laughing)
I'm struggling.
- Viewers like you out there submitting
your questions via call, videos, and texts,
and we're going to answer all of them today.
- And we are of course powered by Google Fi,
It's Eugene and I's favorite phone plan.
We just switched, and might I say
I've never had a more stable connection,
outside of my marriage.
♪ Keith and Becky ♪
Thanks boys.
You don't have to go to a store.
You don't have to talk to a person.
You just set it up,
you choose between the two plans that you want,
you see how many lines you want on those plans.
Bada Bing, bada, boom, you got a working phone.
You can bring your own phone, even iPhones!
- It's the easiest thing about Mason's college.
♪ Easy Eugene ♪
- All right, let's get into it
and start with one of our texted questions.
♪ Text your questions ♪
- Our first question comes from Lillian,
who's 19 from Hamburg, Germany.
- Oh!
- Guten tag.
I identify as bisexual and I'm always unsure
of my feelings for girls rather than boys.
Do you have any tips for distinguishing friendly
and romantic feelings?
Also, why are nipples shaped so weirdly.
I made out with a guy once and his nipples
looked like traffic cones.
I was confused by that.
- I am too, but you know,
nipples come in all different shapes and sizes.
Just have fun with it,
maybe draw a little road on his chest.
(car horn beeping)
Let's get into the bisexual part of the question.
My first instinct is, do you want to kiss her?
I don't kiss a lot of my friends.
I do kiss Alex actually pretty frequently.
- You, you, you kiss quite a lot.
- But as part of a- - Don't you kiss
in every performance?
- As part of a beautiful performance.
- Kind of a good example because you're platonic friends,
- Yeah! - You've kissed
but you don't feel anything romantically.
- No, that's true.
- And Lillian, much like any queer identity,
you're still in the process of discovering yourself.
So the one piece of advice I would give is to not limit or
condition your romantic feelings.
It doesn't matter the gender,
doesn't matter the sex.
If you want to be with someone more
then you really like them,
and if you don't want to let them go,
then you really love them.
- Oh, oh, that was beautiful.
♪ Keith and Eugene ♪
So today all of our calls are coming into us through our
Google Fi plan.
I, of course, went with a flexible plan
because I'm spending a lot of time at home,
and I can use my at-home wifi to power my phone.
It's great, saves me money.
I only pay for the data that I use.
- That's because you're so flexible.
You're flexible with your comedy,
you're flexible with your body.
♪ Flexible Keith ♪
- Now you have the unlimited plan.
- That's true, yeah. - You're limitless.
- I'm a limitless beast. - Oh my.
- I like to live life to the limitlessness.
- Wow.
- You can text.
♪ Limitlessly ♪
- You can stream.
♪ Limitlessly ♪
- And you can call internationally to 50+ countries.
♪ Limitlessly ♪
- All right, let's move on to our next caller.
(phone ringing)
[In Unison] Welcome to Topic Masculinity.
- [Steph] Hi, this is Steph,
and I have a question for you guys.
I have a two-year-old, and my husband and I and our son
do not live in the same city
as either my parents, or his mother.
Both of my parents are retired,
and they have the time and the resources
to be able to come and visit us a lot,
but my mother-in-law is not able
to come see her grandson as much.
I don't want my mother-in-law to feel left out,
but I also don't want to tell my parents
"Don't come and see your grandson".
I don't want them to feel like
they're being punished either.
- I think that's probably a common thing
some people go through.
I don't know if you and your mother-in-law
can look to the future
and find a specific time when she could make that trip.
People are more okay missing out on things
when they know their time's coming.
- [Steph] Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.
- When could you see each other?
When would you suppose, like,
look in your, your mental, your mind palace calendar.
- I think Hanukkah is off the table,
but looking way far ahead to Passover, maybe?
- Passover is, that's the feast of celebrations!
- [Steph] Yeah, I think that would be really nice.
One kind of follow up question I have is like,
I never know if I should feel bad about posting pictures
of my son with my parents, or if I should like,
keep it on the DL on social media
so she doesn't feel left out.
- I got a crazy idea.
I think you should video chat with
your son and your mother-in-law,
and grab some screenshots and post those online.
I think that will actually make her feel validated.
It's not, you know, cause it will at least acknowledge
you're really trying to show off the relationship.
- [Steph] I think that's brilliant.
- Many people can't see their grandchildren this Hanukkah.
Let's get a little Hanukkah diddy going
for all those grandparents out there
looking for their grandkids.
- Hit it Lou Berger.
(funky music)
♪ If this Hanukkah's coming ♪
♪ And your family, you don't wish to hate ♪
- Ooh
♪ Post some photos of them online ♪
♪ That will make them feel great ♪
(clapping) - Wow!
Oh my gosh, you could play that all eight nights.
- [Steph] Thank you so much.
Happy holidays to y'all!
- Yeah, happy holidays to us all.
(speaks Hebrew)
- [Keith] My grandmother thinks it's disgusting and terrible
that my boyfriend knows about my period
and will even buy period products for me if I need it.
She claims we should be ashamed for
sharing such details with each other.
We don't agree with her at all,
but what do you guys think?
- I grew up with two sisters
and I remember the first time I saw that they had periods,
I think one of my sisters actually told me
"well, we all poop, don't we?"
We all poop.
- Hey, we all poop.
- We all shoved stuff out of our body,
and nothing is grosser than poop.
♪ Nothing is grosser than poop ♪
But seriously, periods?
Totally natural.
So, the more you talk about it openly and healthily,
the better for everyone.
- Hi, Keith and Eugene,
I was hoping you could help me with
my Christmas shopping this year.
I have no idea what to get my dad.
A lot of the things that stores put out for men are,
like, grilling and power tools, and bacon flavor ties.
I don't know, I'm a lesbian,
so men really aren't my area of expertise,
and I could use your help.
Thank you so much!
- Well, I'm going to go ahead and say, lesbian or not,
dads are hard to shop for.
- I think a lot of the reason it's hard is because
we, for some reason, gender products.
That already is dumb.
- Yeah.
♪ Daddy gifts and gifts for daddy ♪
Here are some gifts we think
would be good for your daddy, or any daddy
out there looking for a gift.
♪ Gifts for your daddy ♪
Fun wallpaper!
- A poster of his favorite movie!
- A loud pair of pants.
Can he pull them off?
- Time with his kids.
- A box of caterpillars!
- A nice haircut,
because he probably hasn't had one before.
- A heavily pregnant cat!
- Facial cleansing beauty products,
seriously, he probably needs them, like just,
just a basic moisturizer and maybe something with SPF,
and just like a cleanser or something.
He needs it.
(festive piano music)
- Ooh, name a star after him.
Daddy's star!
♪ Daddy's star ♪
♪ Intergalactic daddy star ♪
And a lot of daddies start as sons,
and sons are a type of star.
♪ Gifts for your daddy ♪
- Also any type of technology
which has never gendered in the first place,
and everyone just needs that.
- All right, before we get to our next question,
we want to take a moment to talk about one thing
everybody hates,
- Pleated khakis.
- Oh, I was going to talk about
spam calls, unwanted solicitors,
and Google Fi has a great built-in feature to their plan
that scans for spam.
- And much like the pleated khakis,
you gotta throw it out.
♪ Text your questions ♪
- A couple members of my close family
had taken it upon themselves
to share with some of our extended family and friends
that I am gay. - No no no!
- However I did not give them permission to do so.
How should I approach the issue with my family members in a
way that they will actually listen?
- First and foremost, your coming out journey,
It's yours.
You're the conductor of this train.
- Toot toot.
- No one else should, or ever, define it for you.
Especially the actual moment of coming out.
The big thing is that you need to express
that even though you want people to normalize being queer,
the actual act of coming out is one of bravery.
To come out, you have to make sure
that everything is in place for you to feel safe.
Others coming out for you threatens your safety,
and I think that's something that you can
very explicitly say to your family,
and I think they will get that.
And on the other hand,
if it is a joyous occasion and people are very receptive,
others shouldn't steal that moment from you either.
Your great aunt Sally should not be taking
that joy that you could be receiving
from someone being able to discover your true self.
♪ Topic Masculinity ♪
- Lou Berger, hit us with the
'Waiting for the phone to ring' theme song.
♪ Waiting for the phone to ring ♪
- Really was hoping they would call during that song.
- Well, we can always try it again!
- Two, three four!
♪ Waiting for the phone to ring ♪
♪ Waiting ♪
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, the phone's ringing!
- The phone's ringing, the phone's ringing!
Okay, okay, okay.
Hi!
- [In Unison] Welcome to Topic Masculinity.
- [Whitney] Hello, this is the Whitney.
- [In Unison] Whitney!
- Oh my gosh, that's Eugene's sister's name!
- That's my sister's name.
- Oh my gosh!
- Where are you, Whitney?
- [Whitney] I'm in Colorado.
- My sister Whitney is also in Colorado!
- Sunny Colorado!
- [Whitney] I'm Nigerian and British,
and my boyfriend is from the deep, deep, deep, deep South,
and he is very Caucasian.
He has a very, like, unique European name,
and I have a very important to me, Nigerian name,
and I think that if we hyphenated
our future children's names,
I'm asking them to be kicked on the playground.
- Now, as far as your kid being ridiculed on the playground,
I have bad news.
No matter what you do, playgrounds are chaos.
They will find a way to make fun of you
for your last name, no matter what.
- [Whitney] That's decided then,
then we're going to have to hyphenate
and have like, a 20 plus last name.
- I love it! - Whitney, Whitney!
On the plus side, I actually think hyphens are so cool,
they're going to be the coolest thing for the next gen.
Stone Fish, we have, on the keyboard over here,
we got a combined last name. - And it's not even hyphenated
It's literally just two last names
next to each other with a space.
- Who needs a hyphen?
- [Whitney] Ooh yeah, that's true, that's true.
- I mean Whitney, say a word.
- [Whitney] Banana.
- Rug.
- [In Unison] Banana rug.
- That's a great last name.
- Conversation starter.
- [Whitney] I'm gonna name my children Banana Rug.
- Banana rug. - Banana rug.
- Whitney, give us another word.
- [Whitney] Iron.
- Flannel.
- [In Unison] Iron Flannel.
- Really good.
Honestly, iron flannel is pretty good.
Those kids sound really awesome.
- Iron flannel - Way more interesting.
- [Whitney] I can just name my first and second
children now.
- Yeah, wow! - Whole Iron Flannel
and Banana Rug.
(Keith laughing)
- You're not just continuing traditions of two cultures,
you are starting new traditions.
- Yeah. - [Whitney] Oh my gosh.
Well, yeah, perfect!
Problem solved.
- Problem solved. - Problem solved.
- That's what we do here at
- [In Unison] Topic masculinity.
- We solve problems.
- [Whitney] Thanks guys.
- Bye, okay thank you, bye bye now.
- Bye bye. - [In Unison] Bye now.
- Bye. - Bye.
- We'll talk to you soon. Bye
Bye lady, bye bye now.
- Ooh, bye bye now. - Ciao.
- She hung up.
- Hi, my name is Gio and I use he/him pronouns.
As a trans man, I deal with a lot of societal pressure
from my family and from my social circles
to conform to toxic masculinity.
How do I make them stop?
And how do I avoid internalizing it?
- This is a very excellent question.
Yes, because we have to understand that, you know,
especially with the queer community,
the idea of masculinity is very complicated
because especially as a trans man,
you might feel that you have to adhere to traditional norms.
But, what we are finding is to be true,
is that your expression of your own idea of masculinity
is far more important than society's definition of that.
They don't have to be chopping wood in the forest,
or buying the blue bottle shampoo at the grocery store.
- I don't do either of those things.
Societal pressures are always going to be there
for trans men, for every man.
Other people ultimately cannot define who you are.
You are who you are.
- Do you have a good example of that?
When was the first time you saw your dad,
just let all that go?
- I remember the first time I saw my dad cry,
and I, you know, it was a particularly sad occasion,
and I was like, I was very moved.
I was like, yeah, that's okay,
it's when, things are sad, you can be sad.
- I first saw my dad cry
at one of those asteroid movies in the nineties.
So whether it's one of those asteroid movies,
there were two that came out in the same year,
or the passing of a loved one, it's valid.
Cry. - Cry.
- I used to have a hard time crying,
but one of my goals this year was to cry more.
- That's a good goal. - Beautiful.
- Alex, when was the last time you cried?
- Last week, watching beautiful videos
of children get adopted by new parents online.
- What makes you cry?
- Really, really beautiful music
that has those big swells, that has those,
you know, dissonance and resolutions that are so beautiful.
How about you?
- One of two asteroid movies from the nineties.
♪ Text your questions ♪
When do you think is a good time to delete photos
off of social media, and in a camera roll
when a five-year friendship ends?
- Well, mail-in, you know, I think there is no rule
on when, you know, you should or shouldn't.
It's really a very personal thing,
it's when do you feel ready to move on?
And if you want to move on,
a really easy way to help you move on
is just delete those photos.
But if you ask us, when it comes to
getting rid of negative things
on your phone or on your socials, whew,
it is never too soon.
♪ Never too soon ♪
♪ Too soon ♪
♪ Never too soon ♪
♪ Get rid of your photos on your phone ♪
♪ Let me tell you when you need to do it ♪
♪ Never too soon ♪
♪ Ain't never too soon too soon ♪
♪ Soon soon soon soon soon ♪
♪ Never never never never never ♪
♪ Never too soon ♪
- If I had a friend or a boyfriend
or a girlfriend who hurt me in the past,
you know what I'm going to do?
- What? - I'm going to
wash them out of my hair,
I'm going to get them out of my house,
and I'm going to delete all those photos.
♪ Soon you've got these memories in your photo bank ♪
♪ You gotta get rid of them ♪
♪ You gotta spend them away ♪
♪ You gotta say bye bye at the end of the day ♪
♪ 'Cause baby it is never too soon ♪
♪ Never too soon ♪
- That's our show, everybody, it's never too soon,
thanks for joining us here on Topic Masculinity,
lets hug it out over here!
Lets hug it out!
Give him a little hug.
We've been having fun,
we've been giving advice.
Thanks to Google Fi for sponsoring this video.
Let us know in the comments
what other things we should give advice about.
You've been a great audience,
we can't wait to see you next time,
but until then, when should you replay this video?
Well, it's
♪ Never too soon ♪
♪ No, no ♪
♪ Never too soon ♪
♪ Oh, never too soon ♪
Google Fi!
Hold it.
- Oh.
(rock music)
- [Steph] Bye, thank you!
- Bye, bye bye now. - Bye bye now.
- Bye bye now, bye Steph. - Bye bye now.
- Bye, bye Steph, bye. - Bye now.
Bye bye. - Goodbye, goodbye Steph.
- Bye bye. - Bye, goodbye.
- Bye bye now. - Bye.
- [Steph] Bye now! - All right,
we'll see you later. - Bye Steph.
- Okay, bye bye now. - [Steph] Bye!