The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020
statement
P
eople love listening to other peo-
ple talk about sex.
The fear is actually talking
about it themselves. Aside from the awkward
sit-down discussions some parents force
upon their adolescent children and the inad-
equate sex education classes most students
are subjected to, talking about sex is gener-
ally considered taboo — most especially for
women.
Most men are granted a free pass in this
department. As I’m sure you’ve heard as
many times as I have, boys will be boys. Our
society frames men as more dominant, ag-
gressive, sexual and outright horny in their
nature, so who can blame them when they
want to talk about how good a partner is in
bed, or how badly they’d love to sleep with
someone? And when the current United
States president has said, on record, to, “grab
‘em (women) by the pussy,” it makes sense
that no one bats an eye when the sex talk is
male-dominated — no matter the content or
harm it implies.
This isn’t the case for women, or for
anyone who isn’t a cisgender, heterosexual
male for that matter. The narrative around
sex has historically been that it’s a private
act people engage in for the purpose of
two goals: 1) To reproduce and 2) To please
men. And if women are going to talk about
it, it better be about at least one of those two
things. The distinction here comes from
where and when it is discussed: If it’s about
having a child, it’s permissible to discuss
in public; If it’s about pleasing a man, well
… that’s a conversation for behind closed
doors. Anything not adhering to these in-
visible yet unspoken rules is deemed by po-
lite society as dirty and impure.
It should be at least somewhat obvious
that everything I just mentioned is objec-
tively backward in tradition and oppres-
sive. All people, regardless of their identi-
ties, should be able to talk about all of the
intricacies of sex. Whether it be shifting
the dialogue around pleasure, or making
people feel less alone in discussing what
often are universal experiences, we must
break the barriers around these conver-
sations. But what’s the best way to do so?
The answer may lie in the media.
Media inevitably shapes public opin-
ion, as it proves to have a strong influ-
ence on who and what is normalized. For
years now, different types of media have
worked to make discussing women and
sexuality more acceptable. Breakthroughs
began with the emergence of sex-positive
feminists in the 1960s and ‘70s, with a fo-
cus on deconstructing the stigma around
sexuality to improve intimate relationships
overall. From then, the media improved
with developments like the pioneering ca-
reer of sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer,
the 1960s shift in Cosmopolitan’s focus to
sex initiated by Helen Gurley Brown or
the 1998 premiere of “Sex and the City.”
With these markers, sex-based conversa-
tion among women has made significant
strides. These changes have helped women
across the country feel a sense of reassur-
ance and empowerment in their sexuality,
undoubtedly marking some degree of prog-
ress. Though these programs started off as
progressive for their time period, modern
culture has inevitably changed — and with
it comes a change in demand for pushing
boundaries.
Introducing: “Call Her Daddy,” a new and
popular female-led, sex-focused podcast,
which has turned what’s considered permis-
sible for sex and media right on its head.
The show doesn’t talk about sex in a way
that lacks depth; instead, “Call Her Daddy”
immediately dives into all of the dirty de-
tails of explicit sex techniques and common
mishaps. In an attempt to be relatable and
authentic, the podcast spits in the face of ex-
pected pleasantries: It’s unfiltered, explicit
and extremely raunchy. They swear — they
refer to sex as fucking; genitalia as dicks,
pussies, tits and ass and common sexual acts
like oral as blowjobs and eating out. And lis-
teners seemed to like it — in 2018, the show
hit two million downloads just two months
after its creation.
When I first heard about Call Her Daddy,
I was overwhelmed with excitement. As a
sex-positive feminist, I’ve recognized the
importance of and called for this type of nu-
anced sex media since I began studying gen-
der and sexuality. A podcast with this much
success felt groundbreaking and promising. I
was sure that this was a step of progress that
society so desperately needed. Yet after ac-
tively listening for a handful of months, my
honeymoon phase began to deteriorate and a
wave of clarity forced me to take a step back.
The closer I paid attention to Call Her
Daddy’s content, the more I realized that it
was full of issues. The show preached em-
powerment, agency and autonomy, yet had
misogynistic undertones with arguably prob-
lematic messages. Not to mention, at the time
the show was hosted by two conventionally
attractive, heterosexual, young white women
— a standard that is by no means the norm
and comes with a set of undeniable privileg-
es. With this in mind, I began to question:
Who does this podcast really serve, and
how is it shifting the public discourse around
sex?
A Crash Course on Call Her Daddy
In the fall of 2018, roommates Alexan-
dra (Alex) Cooper, 24, and Sofia Franklyn,
26, were living and working in New York
City. At the time, both women were unen-
thusiastic about their day jobs, so when
they gained positive attention for “talking
candidly about sex” from strangers in an
Austin bar, they seized what they saw as
an exciting opportunity. They took their
casual, off-the-record conversations to the
internet, creating the infamous “Call Her
Daddy” podcast.
And with this setup, the “Call Her Dad-
dy” brand was born: a name that purposely
attempts to take back the power from men
by attributing a patriarchal position of
power to women. The duo began releasing
half-hour episodes with eye-catching titles
such as “SEXT ME SO I KNOW IT’S REAL”
and “Fine Dining: An Eating Out Special.”
Each episode was structured as a conversa-
tion between Alex and Sofia, touching on
elements like stories from their pasts, out-
of-the-box sexual theories like the concept
of “post nut clarity” and advice on how to
have better sex. They were young, carefree,
funny and unapologetically detailed as they
discussed the intricacies of their sex lives.
Following its release, “Call Her Daddy”
gained thousands of listeners and climbed the
charts of Apple podcasts. It was evident that
their first listeners experienced “Call Her
Daddy” as a breath of fresh air, transform-
ing the show into an overnight sensation. For
many, the podcast represented a sort of fly-
on-the-wall look into how young women re-
ally talk about sex with their friends. People
started to take notice of this success and af-
ter only a month of content, Barstool Sports,
a well-known, polarizing digital media com-
pany, acquired the rights to the show.
It’s important to note that Barstool
Sports, led by University of Michigan alum
Dave Portnoy, is an extremely controversial
company. What began as a sports newspa-
per grew into an empire, with content rang-
ing from food to pop culture. Barstool has
a target audience of men aged 18 to 34, so
much of its material is catered to male col-
lege students. This premise is not problem-
atic in its nature but is misogynistic in its
execution. They have affiliate accounts like
Barstool Smokeshows — an Instagram dedi-
cated to showing off “hot” young women in
an extremely objectifying manner. They told
a female staffer that she will not “be able to
put her face in front of a camera in five years,
because people will throw up,” and publicly
said ESPN sportscaster Sam Ponder’s main
job requirement is “to make men hard,”
among other disturbing instances. With this
in mind, I found it peculiar that a corpora-
tion so evidently tainted by toxic masculinity
would be interested in purchasing a podcast
that claims to empower women.
Nevertheless, the Barstool acquisition
pushed “Call Her Daddy’s ratings over the
edge, catalyzing the creation of a loyal fan-
base known as the “Daddy Gang.” And even
after drama between the two hosts and Bar-
stool itself — Cooper is now the sole host due
to a widely publicized dispute with Franklyn
— the show still has millions of listeners, its
Instagram has 1.8 million followers and the
brand has numerous items of merchandise.
It’s safe to say that “Call Her Daddy” is no
longer just a podcast but also a community.
Testimonies from the “Daddy Gang”
To further understand the intricacies and
implications of the mass consumption of
“Call Her Daddy,” I interviewed fans of the
show to see why they like it so much. Their
answers were wide-ranging and passionate,
illustrating a deep care for the subject mat-
ter.
I first spoke to LSA sophomore Jordyn
Staff over Zoom, who reflected on her ex-
periences with the podcast. Enthusiastic
and well-spoken, she told me that she was
introduced to “Call Her Daddy” her fresh-
man year by her male friends and has been
hooked ever since.
“After I started, I began listening almost
every day, and I fell in love with it,” Staff said.
“I’ve listened to every single episode.”
What excited her about the podcast, Staff
said, was how real and unfettered it was.
“What initially hooked me was the show’s
rawness,” Staff said. “You’re listening to the
craziest of conversations that sound like the
ones you have with your friends, and it’s just
validating … All girls have these conversa-
tions but nobody ever talks about it because
women are not supposed to be sexually out
there.”
This sentiment mirrored my frustration
with the lack of authentic sex-based discus-
sion among women in the public sphere.
“There’s a standard that men know what
women want more than women know what
women want,” Staff said.“‘Call Her Daddy’ is
working toward balancing the playing field
… It’s a form of empowerment, and it’s a
form of education that has been stripped by
people trying to censor fluidity and freedom
of expression. And they introduced the new
medium of empowerment, focused on wom-
en pleasing themselves, or doing things for
themselves that is so ignored by any other
media platform.”
LSA junior Daniel Glickman offered a
similar analysis, especially focusing on the
podcast’s current-day relevance.
“For what it is, the podcast gets into a
space that not many others do. ‘Call Her
Daddy’ illustrates a new age,” he explained.
“For example, Samantha from ‘Sex and The
City’ is so open about sexuality, but Alex re-
cently graduated from BU and is telling sto-
ries from college or reading her Instagram
DMs. That sort of thing is just more modern.
It’s a new exploration of sex relatable to a
younger crowd.”
Glickman is a recent initiate into the Dad-
dy Gang, having started the podcast over the
summer. For him, the show’s biggest selling
point is its fearlessness in describing sex and
sexuality.
“For me, I’m kind of shy when it comes
to talking about that stuff, and it shows that
people can be candid and talk about their ex-
periences, so I like that it exists,” Glickman
said.
Glickman and I spent a good amount of
our interview discussing how the normaliza-
tion of sex-based conversation can be reas-
suring for many people. “Call Her Daddy”
makes an overt effort to do this while still
engaging viewers, accepting questions from
their audience in a way that preserves the
asker’s anonymity. In doing so, the podcast
not only creates but reinforces a sense of
community.
“When they read direct messages from
people, it allows audience members to step
back and realize ‘OK, that experience was
something similar to what I’ve had, but I
didn’t acknowledge it, or I didn’t see that
there could be a similarity between me and
someone else,’” Glickman said.
Let’s talk
Let’s talk
about talking
about talking
about sex
about sex
BY ANDIE HOROWITZ, STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
COLLAGE BY EILEEN KELLY