[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:29] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines

[00:34] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: Jessica, did you want to talk about The Plaza?

[00:39] Jessica: Yes.

[00:41] Meg: Okay because we had dear Nick.

[00:42] Jessica: Yes. So we were corrected, as I frequently am. We both are.

[00:48] Meg: We both are.

[00:49] Jessica: Really? Yeah. Oh, that's good to know. So our darling Nick, who is featured in my stories and some of your stories with some regularity, was listening to our last podcast and had a bunch of things to say about fact checking regarding The Plaza Hotel. So the one thing that he said that stuck in my head was that indeed, the glass ceiling in The Palm Court was boarded over, but it was not revealed again after the war was over. It actually was when the owners, after the Trump's and I think there was another owner in between, but as an Israeli company and the last name of the family that owned it was Nauer. Why do I know this? Because I worked with the architect, Gal Nauer. She wanted to do a book about The Plaza.

[01:42] Meg: Oh, wow. Okay.

[01:45] Jessica: Yeah, that that sigh said everything, but it was actually that group that created a new glass ceiling and put it in. So that's, that's one thing. What else did he say?

[01:58] Meg: That you can't see the fountain from The Oak Room.

[02:02] Jessica: That you can see it from what was The Edwardian Room. Okay. Anyway. Thank you, Nick.

[02:08] Meg: Yes. Thank you very much. Engagement. So my engagement question for you, Jessica, is I might have even asked you this before, but I don't think so. Did you read any magazines when you were little?

[02:33] Jessica: I think we might have talked about this, that we talked about Dinomite and Highlights and that I read comics at the orthodontist's office. Seventeen magazine. Definitely Seventeen magazine for sure.

[02:49] Meg: Okay. All right. So, you know, I had I read.

[02:53] Jessica: I read Interview magazine when we were in high school.

[02:56] Meg: Ooh, that's very cool of you.

[02:58] Jessica: I was cool. It turns out I had some things going on there.

[03:02] Meg: I self published a newspaper in third grade. Did you know that? It was called Megapoo News.

[03:10] Jessica: See, this is so perfectly encapsulating who you are, because it's such a great thing for a third grader to do. And yet you called yourself Poo in the name of this thing you're like, Meg is Poo News, so I wish that you had called it, like, Megarama News, but I think that's amazing. Well, again, we've talked about this in the past, but after I survived working on the yearbook with you and having you boss me around, quite rightly. I know I was traumatized. Well, no, it was my first real taste of timeliness is a good thing. With this deadline, you speak of please explain. So, yes, I'm not surprised that you did it, but how does that link us to today's story?

[04:12] Meg: Let's see. My sources are The New York Times, Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn.

[04:21] Jessica: Oh, God.

[04:23] Meg: Where's My Roy Cohn, which is another documentary. Vanity Fair, Esquire. Our Town. Do you know what Our Town is?

[04:33] Jessica: Yes.

[04:34] Meg: It's like this Upper East Side newspaper.

[04:37] Jessica: Yes.

[04:39] Meg: On September 25, 1981, The New York Times reported that Richard DuPont had been found guilty of harassing Roy Cohn, the infamously evil New York lawyer who had represented such luminaries as Yankees owners George Steinbrenner, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, boss of the Bonanno crime family Carmine Galente, co-owner of Studio 54 Steve Rubell and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York.

[05:15] Jessica: That is a real mixed bag. That's mixed nuts.

[05:20] Meg: He not only rubbed elbows, but was by all accounts.

[05:23] Jessica: You do realize that that was just the way you paused right there. Not only did he rub elbows, but we're getting there. I heard Steve Rubell on that list. Roy. Sorry I got so excited about Roy Cohn's supposed private life. Go ahead. Okay.

[05:45] Meg: So far, by all accounts, best friends with another list coming up. Norman Mailer, ****. Bianca Jagger, Estee Lauder. Fabulous. William F. Buckley, Jr.

[06:01] Jessica: Interesting.

[06:02] Meg: Andy Warhol, Cindy Adams, Cardinal Francis Spellman.

[06:08] Jessica: That's really weird.

[06:09] Meg: And Barbara Walters.

[06:11] Jessica: Baba WABA. Really? Yes.

[06:14] Meg: They were engaged to be married.

[06:16] Jessica: Oh, was she his beard?

[06:17] Meg: Yeah.

[06:18] Jessica: I love it.

[06:19] Meg: Cray. Cray.

[06:21] Jessica: Okay.

[06:22] Meg: He mentored a young Donald Trump in the ways of media manipulation, corruption, bribery, and intimidation.

[06:29] Jessica: That makes perfect sense.

[06:31] Meg: He introduced Donald to Rupert Murdoch. A 1979 Esquire magazine article said of Cohn, quote, "he fights his cases as if they were his own. It is war if he feels his adversary has been unfair. It is war to the death. No white flags, no Mr. Nice Guy. Prospective clients who want to kill their husband, torture a business partner, break the government's legs, hire Roy Cohn. He is a legal executioner. The toughest, meanest, loyalist, vilest, and one of the most brilliant lawyers in America." End quote. His friends loved him, even though every one of them knew full well he was a truly evil son of a ***** who had orchestrated the wrongful conviction and subsequent execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951 and soon after ruined thousands of people's lives as McCarthy's right hand man during the anti-communist hearings and orchestrated the Lavender Scare which targeted supposedly homosexual people in the federal government, arguing that they posed a national security threat.

[07:48] Jessica: Can I just interject for a second? Sure. That is why I made the comment that I did about rubbing elbows, which, to those who don't know who Roy Cohn is might think that I was getting a little sassy about gay guys. No, not at all. Roy Cohn was the biggest turncoat in the history of the universe. And you were mentioning the Lavender Scare is oh, it makes me angry.

[08:18] Meg: Right. The fact that he was Jewish and targeted Jewish people, that it was an open secret that he was gay and yet he targeted gay people, added to the mythos that he was possibly the most unscrupulous and terrifying man alive, an image he leaned into with glee. All of this is to say that Roy Cohn was an incredibly well connected and powerful man when Richard DuPont went after him. Roy had met Richard DuPont in a club in Miami Beach. Now, Richard DuPont should not be confused with anyone belonging to the Dupont family of the chemical and car fortune and other wacko scandals like Foxcatcher. You know about that?

[09:07] Jessica: It was made into a movie with Steve Carell.

[09:09] Meg: Exactly. That's a Dupont family. Richard DuPont, not that Dupont. Or with the beautiful Dupont twins who hung out at the factory with Andy Warhol. Beautiful people.

[09:22] Jessica: Men or women?

[09:23] Meg: Men. Richard DuPont. Not beautiful. Richard DuPont was weird looking but blonde. Roy liked his blondes.

[09:33] Jessica: Roy was no looker either. Let's just put that out there. No, I love the big eyes. No, he wasn't.

[09:42] Meg: So Richard DuPont was a grifter, and he followed Roy back to New York after they had a trist in Florida. Richard settled in the West Village and opened Big Gym, a health club for gay men on Greenwich near Barrow Street. He renovated it for $1 million but then lost it in a real estate dispute. Richard blamed Roy Cohn for the demise of his beloved gym. He claimed Roy was a silent partner in the gym and had made a deal behind his back. He also claimed Roy's personal assistant, Russell Eldridge, had been tasked with skimming off both cash and young men from the gym, all for Cohn's illicit purposes.

[10:27] Jessica: Please wait. I have questions. Yes, I understand skimming the money. DuPont didn't like that Roy was picking guys up. Were they still in a relationship?

[10:39] Meg: No, they were not still in a relationship. But Roy was using the gym to just pick up guys.

[10:46] Jessica: How is that different than anybody else there?

[10:49] Meg: I don't know. It messed with business, and then he.

[10:52] Jessica: Oh, it messed with business.

[10:56] Meg: Unlike the many, many clients who Roy had mistreated and stolen from and scammed, Richard was not willing to shrug it off. For some reason, Richard wasn't scared of Roy like the rest of the world was. He started crank calling Cohn and his friends at their homes and offices.

[11:16] Jessica: I am instantly in love with DuPont because that is so truly ridiculous.

[11:24] Meg: Just wait. He would call the airline and cancel Roy's flight reservation so when he showed up, there wasn't a seat.

[11:34] Jessica: Hold on.

[11:35] Meg: He's spray painted Roy Cohn is a *** up and down the street in front of Roy's townhouse at 68th between Madison and Park, which also happened to serve as his law office. On the night Cohn was hosting a dinner party at his Greenwich, Connecticut, estate, Richard called the fire and police departments claiming there was a dead body in the living room. The police and firemen practically broke the door down with guns raised. When Cohn was in the hospital recovering from plastic surgery, Richard dressed as a doctor with a white coat and stethoscope to deliver wilted flowers and yell in Roy Cohn's face. Richard also knew where to get the best Roy Cohn dirt. Cohn's former lovers and employees were eager to get anonymous revenge. According to the editor of Our Town, a local Upper East Side newspaper. Quote "Richard had a profound understanding of Cohn's closet homosexual self hate. He constantly preyed on this and on Cohn's vanity. It was the cumulative effect, one little thing after another, and suddenly you had this powerful figure breaking down because Richard sent him wilted flowers. Richard just kept hitting him like a prize fighter. Little blows, you're woozy, then you're gone. And Richard would help the ex lovers get over Roy. They were often innocent types, not boys, but men with battered egos, no self esteem, completely dominated and used by Cohn. Richard would commiserate with them in the most astonishingly compassionate way. He developed tremendous rapport with them, and they told him everything"

[13:29] Jessica: I love it so much worry.

[13:32] Meg: Roy Cohn had as many enemies as he had friends and Richard was the only one who ever actually got even with him. Richard's coup de grace, he published a zine called Now East, which was devoted entirely to stories about Cohn, his deeply corrupt law firm and their clients. It was 52 pages packed with pornographic cartoons, like one of Cohn passed out naked while a butler prepares to give him an enema. Yeah.

[14:09] Jessica: Was there more than one issue?

[14:14] Meg: Oh two issues. Okay, I'm going to talk about the first one. And the first issue had articles giving details about how he skimmed money and gossip about his fancy clients, like Gloria Vanderbilt, Steve Rubell. There's an article called is There a Glory Hole for Steve Rubell?

[14:31] Jessica: No.

[14:32] Meg: And Gloria Steinberg, who was the estranged wife of financier Saul Steinberg, which we should do a story about. There was a, quote, "open letter to the gay community bearing Cohn's name" so it looked like he had written it, "in which he purportedly confessed his homosexuality and apologized for selling out Big Gym. It also listed the names of young men who had slept with cone, details about his health, and a drawing of a graveyard with his name on the tombstone."

[15:03] Jessica: OOH, that's bleak.

[15:05] Meg: Yeah. It actually looked like a legitimate magazine with a masthead and advertisements, all of which were faked. The first copies were passed out during the Gay Pride Parade in June 1980.Copies were distributed.

[15:20] Jessica: This guy is a genius. Whatever he winds up doing when the denouement of the story arrives, I don't care. I'm so impressed.

[15:35] Meg: Right.

[15:35] Jessica: He he said he believed with go big or go home, and he went big. This is beautiful revenge.

[15:45] Meg: Copies were distributed to Cohn's clients and colleagues and to judges. Stacks were left at 21 Club and PJ Clarke's.

[15:54] Jessica: I'm dead now. I'm a dead person.

[15:57] Meg: Cohn was desperate to stop Richard and turn to his old nemesis, district Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who had been a thorn in Cohn's side for decades. Somehow, the two power brokers made a deal, and Morgenthau went after Richard, eventually sending him to prison for a year for harassment. Roy Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS three years later, and, thanks to his close friendship with the Reagans, was among the few given AZT during the clinical trials. In spite of this, he always insisted that he was only suffering from liver cancer. He was disbarred in 1986 for unethical and unprofessional conduct, including misappropriation of client's funds, even though Barbara Walters, Alan Dershowitz, and Donald Trump appeared as character witnesses.

[16:51] Jessica: I just have so many things to ask.

[16:55] Meg: He died on August 2, 1986, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt includes a square describing him as Roy Cohn. Bully. Coward. Victim.

[17:08] Jessica: That's my favorite story. I love that story. So have been what happened to Dirst? Not Dirst, to DuPont?

[17:17] Meg: Well, it was a made up name, and so he's really hard to track down. But he did go to prison for a year.

[17:23] Jessica: Right? But after that, I mean, I'm sure that for him, I can only imagine that for him, that a year, like, so worth it. Could you imagine?

[17:33] Meg: I mean, I presume he walks amongst us under a different name if he's still with us.

[17:39] Jessica: Sir, if you ever hear this. Bravo.

[17:43] Meg: Wait till you see pictures of him. He is wacko looking.

[17:48] Jessica: Well, which makes it only that much more impressive that he got so many people to engage with him, because if he looks like a real wackadoo, that's a hurdle. But no. Why did you say that I wouldn't like this or that I would find it particularly disturbing?

[18:08] Meg: I guess because Roy Cohn is just so horrible, and I thought maybe we might have a Farrakhan moment.

[18:14] Jessica: No, we're not going to have oh, God, no. All I have to say about it is that this is one of my favorite topics, favorite episodes that you've ever brought up. Wow. It's such a glorious revenge. He's so well known for being terrifying, a truly rat *******, disgusting, bottom of the barrel piece of utter waste who would have you killed. Yes, he was no good.

[18:54] Meg: No good. But I listened to a recording of a phone call between Richard and Roy.

[19:03] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[19:05] Meg: It sounds like he's about to cry. He's like, what do I have to do?

[19:08] Jessica: Wait, are you serious? Can you please direct me to it? Okay. Thank you.

[19:16] Meg: He got him. He got him where it hurt. And where it hurt was like that Our Town article said it was in his vanity because he was incredibly vain for such an ugly human being physically, Roy Cohn. But he was incredibly vain.

[19:33] Jessica: And the facelifts didn't help, by the way.

[19:36] Meg: Just didn't help. He never ate. Did you know he never ordered food for himself? He would eat off other people's plates.

[19:45] Jessica: Was that a metaphor?

[19:47] Meg: It was a power move, but it was also like he couldn't commit. How could he stay skinny, right.

[19:54] Jessica: That I got with the self loathing. But it's also yes, it's a power move. And he freaked out.

[20:02] Meg: He was tan as, like, crazy.

[20:05] Jessica: He went to the George Hamilton school of skin, the the leatherification of skin.

[20:14] Meg: Do you want to hear a crazy story about his mother? Because, of course, everyone's like, oh, why was he so horrible? Because his mother was horrible. But it does kind of sound like his mother was pretty bad.

[20:27] Jessica: I so want to hear this.

[20:29] Meg: Okay.

[20:29] Jessica: No, truly want to hear it.

[20:31] Meg: The story about his mother was that she came from a very wealthy family. She was not a looker, and even though her family was wealthy and well connected, no one would marry her until Rpy Cohn's dad was like, okay, I'll take the money. I'll take the judgeship. He became a judge. So her family and their connections made him a judge. And he married the ugly girl, who is not only ugly, but also apparently really bitter and angry about all kinds of things. So they have this one child, and she puts all of her energy into him, but as we have noted, he was not an attractive child, and she apparently was kind of repulsed by how ugly Roy was. So he had, like, a spur on his nose or something, and she took him to a surgeon to have it removed because she thought it was so ugly, and that's why he's got that weird scar, because it was a botched surgery on his nose. Anyway, this isn't the funny thing.

[21:41] Jessica: Wait, so this was like a nose job gone wrong?

[21:43] Meg: I'm not sure. It wasn't a classical nose job. It was like he had a spur on his nose. Is that what a nose job is?

[21:51] Jessica: A bone spur is a protrusion on the bone. So he had a nose job.

[21:57] Meg: Okay, sorry. I didn't understand.

[21:59] Jessica: No, I'm just listening to this for the first time, but I'm putting two and two together.

[22:04] Meg: He had a botched nose job, and that's what that scar is that you see where he looks like he's just left a prize fight for the rest of his life. But that's not the great Dora story.

[22:14] Jessica: Her name is Doris. Dora. Dora.

[22:17] Meg: It's Passover Seder.

[22:19] Jessica: This is starting so well.

[22:22] Meg: And what's the question that the youngest child always says?

[22:26] Jessica: Well, there are the five questions. Is it four questions? I'm such a bad Jew.

[22:33] Meg: It's the question about what yes.

[22:34] Jessica: What makes this night different from all other nights?

[22:37] Meg: And that question was asked, and Dora said the maid died under her breath because, in fact, the maid had died earlier that day, and rather than call the police or an ambulance, they stored the maid's body until after Passover dinner. I mean, she's pretty cold blooded.

[23:01] Jessica: That's so insane.

[23:07] Meg: I've heard that story a number of times. So that is just accepted friggin fact.

[23:12] Jessica: The maid died. Why is this night different from all other nights? The maid died. Now that I'm feeling, like, really bad you, why is this night different? Why do we recline while we eat? Why do we dip the bitter herbs and not just once, but twice? Okay, and there's something else.

[23:37] Meg: This is very Googleable.

[23:39] Jessica: Very whatable?

[23:40] Meg: Googleable

[23:41] Jessica: Oh, yes. But this is my shame.

[23:44] Meg: That's what I'm witnessing right now.

[23:46] Jessica: Oh, yes, you're witnessing a shame spiral of I wouldn't say epic proportions, but it is significant.

[23:53] Meg: I'd also like to talk a little bit about what someone referred to as Roy Cohn's reptilian charisma. Because I watched a lot of interviews with him, and I got to say, I kind of get it. He was charismatic. Don't you kind of want that guy on your side?

[24:12] Jessica: If you want to win a case, you want someone with well, I wouldn't say no scruples, but close to none in his case, none. The sociopathic flare, and I think that's what reptilian charisma is, is that sociopathic. There's no there there.

[24:36] Meg: Also he really loved his friends, and he was a very loyal friend. So if he was in your corner, I mean, I can imagine you felt like you were kind of protected, even though he had no scruples and was this horrible, horrible.

[24:54] Jessica: Here's the thing that I have about this, is that some of the people he was friends with, you might think, oh, that's a normal person. Even if he was loyal and super nice to them, what about them not taking a moment and being like, Rosenberg's, seriously? Lavender Scare, McCarthy w

[25:17] Meg: These people were very happy to compartmentalize that really wretched, wretched behavior of his.

[25:24] Jessica: I'm not impressed Baba.

[25:25] Meg: Oh no. Very bad. No Baba does not come off well.

[25:30] Jessica: Baba is still alive, right?

[25:32] Meg: I don't know.

[25:33] Jessica: I think Baba is still alive. Okay, so now we have three things to look up during the break. Boba Wawa, the question, the Seder questions, The Plaza. Yes. What our other Plaza issues? Were there's something else?

[25:48] Meg: Oh, and he taught Trump this whole I know you don't like to talk. I don't like to talk about Trump.

[25:54] Jessica: No. If it's something that really makes him look like the low life that he is, I'm happy to do it.

[26:00] Meg: I think he had a crush on Trump because Trump was that sort of Hitler Youth kind of look that, frankly, as a self hater, Roy Cohn was attracted to.

[26:10] Jessica: I wish people could see my face right now. I'm recoiling with every muscle in my body.

[26:18] Meg: But he taught him this whole thing of even if you lose, say you won. He actually first represented Trump in the discriminatory housing practices.

[26:30] Jessica: You're kidding. He's the one who started with even if you lost, say you won.

[26:35] Meg: So they didn't win that case when Trump got in trouble with Trump and Trump Industries, and Fred Trump got in trouble for not renting apartments to black people. The government was really upset with them, and they were going to get in deep do do. And Donald Trump met Roy Cohn and was like, I bet you can help me with I hear your reputation. I bet you can help me with this problem. And Roy Cohn was like, you bet I can. And they actually didn't win. They settled, which is not a win, but what they did was they said they won. They held a press conference, and they said they won. One of Roy Cohn's things was like, people never read the article. They only read the headline. So if he gave them a good sound bite, no one would read the article and find out, well, no, you didn't win. Settling isn't winning. Settling is, in fact, not winning. You had to pay the fine. But no one reads past the headline. So everyone saw the picture of this victory speech and bought it. It's crazy.

[27:40] Jessica: Roy, remember how you said you were nervous about me having a nervous breakdown because of this topic? I was great until just now.

[27:51] Meg: How about this? So the Reagans actually stayed by Roy Cohn's side even when everybody knew he had AIDS. And you know how the Reagans were not really great with the whole AIDS thing, but they got him into that AZT trial, and they actually stayed in touch with him, and Nancy was like, how are you doing? And they were good friends till the end. Guess who dumped him?

[28:16] Jessica: Who?

[28:17] Meg: Donald Trump completely abandoned him, and it broke Roy Cohn's heart.

[28:21] Jessica: Don't make me sympathetic. Don't make me sympathetic.

[28:24] Meg: No, you should not be sympathetic to Roy Cohn.

[28:27] Jessica: He's this is but this is the ultimate in. I'm on the horns of a dilemma.

[28:31] Meg: No, he had it coming. He had it coming. But that bad people doing bad things to bad people. The reason he abandoned him was all self serving. He just didn't want to be associated. Clearly, who was disbarred and who had AIDS. Had AIDS. He's a garbage person.

[28:51] Jessica: They're not even bottom of the barrel. They're under the ground. Under the barrel. Yeah. Garbage people.

[28:57] Meg: But we do have a little hero, Richard DuPont, whoever he may really be. Whoever he actually was.

[29:07] Jessica: You know what? I want our listenership to be as big as it can ever possibly be for this episode only because this is like the playbook for people who got played and want revenge. This is the ultimate in scorched earth revenge. And I love it. I love it.

[29:44] Meg: So you're going to clear up some fact checking?

[29:47] Jessica: Yes.

[29:48] Meg: Okay.

[29:48] Jessica: I am. Okay. So number one, the Seder questions. There are four, and I got them. Great. Okay. And for the record, they are why is this night different? Why do we eat bitter herbs? Why do we dunk not once but twice? And why do we recline? So thank God some like, brain cell that's been skulking around in the back of my head fired properly. So that's good. Now, The Plaza, Nick said that The Oak Room does not look at the fountain. It was The Rose Room that did that was then remade into the lobby. I decided that I was going to do today's segment about something that we had touched on. I wanted to do a callback, and we talked about how Gael Greene, food critic, also wrote softcore books. She did. And I was very intrigued by this. And I was like, I wonder what was going on at the time, because I think that there were a bunch of women who were writing erotica at that time who were pretty high profile women. And I was like, Judy Blume had Forever and Wifey, and Erica Jong had Fear of Flying, and here's Gael Greene getting this stuff out into the world. And I was like, what's going on? And then I remembered another author, Nancy Friday, who was very much writing the saucy books. And in fact, when I started at Simon & Schuster in 1991, I believe one of her that they were publishing one of her books at the time, and it's why it lodged in my brain. I just sort of was like, ugh, Nancy Friday, a little pony fun. I looked it up, and I was wrong about the dates specifically. I mean, I knew that Erica Jong was the 70s, but I thought that Nancy Friday was like, started in the 80s. She started publishing long before that, early 70s and or even 60s, what's it called? Forever came out in '74 and Wifey in '78, '79. And I remember here's what's even weird that I learned about Wifey first, because my counselors at my camp were reading it and passing it around, and they would read it late at night to each other on the bunks porch, and I would lurk around with my own book. And, like, you know, some of the other nerd kids, and they they knew that we were there, but they let us listen. So I was aware of that when I was like, nine, and it took until like, I don't know, 6th grade for my peer group to know about Forever, so the timing was switched anyway, so I was like, okay, so my timing is wrong, but why do why did I assign it to the 80s? Like, what was going on? Like, why what are these associations in my head? I found out. So I'm going to do a quick history lesson, as I am want to do about the history of feminism. History of feminism in three words or less. first wave feminism, 19th century to the early 20th century - Suffrage.

[33:12] Meg: We want to vote.

[33:14] Jessica: Right. And what came after that then led to the 1960s, second wave of feminism. And second wave of feminism is when people think about feminism in giant air quotes and Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, that's what they're thinking of. It's all of those issues. And for the young women who are listening, the reason that everyone says, oh, my god, we're back to these issues right now is because this so here are the issues that were part of the second wave, which was from the 60's to the 90's. So second wave, it was sexuality, family dynamic, equality in the workplace, fighting for reproductive rights, official legal equality, domestic violence, having laws and resources for women who are a victim of domestic violence, making marital rape into a crime. They established rape crisis centers. So everything that we think of as like, the ERA and the things that we fight for is, are we getting equal pay for equal work? Are we in charge of our bodies? Are social norms that are not favorable to women? Are they social norms that have been codified? And if so, how do we break that down? All of that is second wave feminism. And then in the 90s, there was third wave feminism, and that's what our age group was really dealing with. When we got out of college, it was a Riot grrrls remember that intersectionality and cultivating your personal identification as a woman, like not being part of a group, looking at yourself as the individual. But in the second wave, there's the 70s and then the 80s and the 80s was kind of a wasteland because there was more money. Okay? Money makes everything smooth over, right? Like, nation is happier, fewer people grousing, people get complacent. So in the 80s, there wasn't the same kind of front lines, like women knocking on doors, getting petitions for the ERA. So in the focus of feminism became sexuality. I know it took a while to get there, but I just wanted to make sure everything had context. So it was really legally based in first wave and second wave, and third wave became rather, second part of second wave became about something that isn't a legal issue, it's a societal issue. What's really interesting to me is that despite it being a feminist issue, it wound up circling around something that is associated, or certainly was at the time, as being a something for men, which is ***********. Now, I don't know if you did your mom drag you to Bloomingdales, because I've told several Bloomingdale stories here. Did your mom do that ever? Okay, so on my many, what feels like my weekly trip to Bloomingdales with my mother, there was frequently right outside a table with women trying to get petitions signed.

[36:34] Meg: Know who you're talking to?

[36:36] Jessica: And they had the hustler. Yes, yes. They had a giant blow up coming out of the meat grinder, right? So Hustler magazine, I gave money once and signed something. Well, you're going to learn what that's about.

[36:50] Meg: Started calling me. She was super vocal. She was on 86th street sometimes. Obviously, she was at Bloomingdale's.

[36:58] Jessica: And I think that there were more than just the one. I think that there was a phalanx of these women, and it was very shocking. Hustler had a cover, but it was an old fashioned meat grinder with the bottom half of a woman sticking out of the top and a big pile of ground meat underneath it. So it was really disgusting. And *********** became the issue around which female sexuality as part of the feminist discussion, like where it was in the 80s. So what you wound up having was two factions. There were the Women Against *********** and women who considered themselves pro sex, pro sexuality. The Women Against *********** were the ones who had that table. And I can't help myself that the abbreviation was WAP. And I couldn't stop laughing when I was doing my research because I was like, oh, Megan Thee Stallion, if only. I hope you know this. Anyway, so Andrea Dworkin, who was a feminist academic, was really the head of Women Against ***********, and she was very outspoken and very abrasive and brash.

[38:26] Meg: I'm going to look it up later, but I think she's the one who I gave money to.

[38:30] Jessica: Wow. Well, then you gave it to the head honcho.

[38:33] Meg: She definitely presented herself as the head honcho. Yeah, and I gave her my phone number because you're signing a petition, you give your phone number and lots of phone calls.

[38:44] Jessica: And lots of phone calls. Well, unsurprising. And the pro sexuality academics were, I would say, not headed by, but one of the main women, Carole Vance. Her statement was, sexuality is bread and butter. It's a bread and butter issue. It's not a frill.

[39:05] Meg: Okay?

[39:05] Jessica: So that's a really big idea. And it went from the myth of the female orgasm sort of fetishizing women's sexuality to making it theirs. Right. So all of this came to a head on April 24, 1982, at Barnard College here in New York City. What that set off and this whole issue of sexuality wound up being called in academia and the regular news, I suppose Feminist Sex Wars, the Barnard Center for Research on Women. And by the way, Barnard, for those of you who don't know, Barnard is a women's only college that is affiliated with Columbia. So the Barnard Center for Research on Women had a conference, and the theme was simply sexuality. And this made these two factions go berserk, because the faction that set it up was headed by Carole Vance. She's the one who put who coordinated the whole thing. The WAPs came out in great numbers too, let's just say, argue with the pro sexers. The issue that the pros sexers had with the WAPs was that basically what I had said earlier, like they were looking at female sexuality in terms of the male response to women and *********** and not letting it be something that women owned and that they were killing the idea of women enjoying sex and that it was something that should be pursued and honored and made a part, acknowledged as a normal part of life. They felt that they killed the pleasure of sex and female sexuality by lumping it in with **** and rape and being particularly for reproductive purposes. Which sounds crazy, right? But if you're not giving women the opportunity to foster, explore, enjoy their own sexuality, then if they are going to have sex with men, what is the one reason to do that? Reproduction. So in a very twisted, crazy way, and I think that the pro sexers were correct, the WAPs were really making an argument that wound up supporting major conservatives, which they weren't for anyway. We always try to explore what we knew then and what we know now. And at the time, I remember being aware that there was, like this zeitgeist about women's sexuality and that every time something like Nancy Friday or Wifey came up, there was like, oh my God, a woman is writing something that's sexy for mainstream audiences. The world is coming to an end. But that there was also this kind of like a free saw of, oh, good, like it's it has a feminist angle to it, but I did not understand it at all. Which I think is sort of the interesting thing about the third wave feminism and how it was really created by people in our age group. We didn't really see those things that were happening. We experienced them, but we were too young to process it. And that we wound up processing it as, among other things, Riot grrrl's. And was it the Riot grrrl's who were doing the pin ups and the ****? They were doing lots of nude photo shoots to reclaim their sexuality. I think that that's definitely a product of this weird kind of lull in the feminist agenda of fighting for women's legal, political, financial rights, and that there was this dip, and it just became a battleground about something that I felt every woman should have been on the same side about.

[43:18] Meg: *********** is a really interesting subject because in the hands of dirty men, it can be incredibly misogynist. That's certainly what WAP was arguing. There can also be like really fun, healthy ***********. Right?

[43:35] Jessica: Uh huh. Well, and I think that nowadays the thing that interested me so much about Bridgerton was that I don't know if I talked about this, that viewers filmed or recorded bits of the steamiest scenes from Bridgerton and then put them on Pornhub without the consent of Netflix or the actors. Obviously, there's a very interesting legal issue behind that. But the idea that *********** is something that is outside of mainstream culture, or that it really is something that's only in the ghetto of the places where you would look for **** online or type in **** *** or whatever people do. Kids, not you, not me. It would be something else *** sexuality has entered into our daily lives from entertainment in a way that people don't really acknowledge. And the fact that you could take a Netflix show and legit put the sex scenes on Pornhub and they wouldn't be amiss there was phenomenal. And the idea that those actors were doing those scenes and that was great that it was on Netflix, but the minute they were on Pornhub, God forbid. Right?

[45:10] Meg: Yeah.

[45:12] Jessica: To say sexuality and sex is a complicated issue is the ultimate no duh of all time. In the 80s, these women took the first stab at looking at it head on. So all of this talk about sexuality started with Gael Greene and the dirty books that I remember from growing up. And bless those women who are writing those dirty books that were getting passed around in my ears. Oh, my God. To this day, I can tell you that the first sex scene, the losing of virginity in Forever, happened on page 84 because it was dog eared. Do you remember that?

[45:53] Meg: Of course we passed it around. I think this is before you got to Nightingale because it was in the lower school library.

[45:57] Jessica: It was 7th grade.

[46:00] Meg: So we were passing it around earlier than that. We were in the lower school library and you came in middle school. So this is in the lower school library. Oh, girl. It was second grade for crying out loud. Yeah, thats bad.

[46:11] Jessica: What? That's insane. We were just fooling around at that age. We weren't reading it.

[46:18] Meg: We didn't know what it meant. But we definitely knew what pages and what highlighted paragraphs, too.

[46:26] Jessica: So, like, someone's older sibling had passed it down.

[46:29] Meg: Someone naughty.

[46:31] Jessica: Oh, that is so good. So, Gael Greene, you know, she had a whole bunch of books that came out in the 70s, but I found her book from 1986. This is actually the review and description of this book, which is called Delicious Sex, A Gourmet Guide for Women and the Men Who Want to Love Them Better. Between the covers in this book, Gael Greene shows every proper and respectable woman how to have a body naughty, more lovable time under the covers. And relax. Just relax and take a peek. There no longer has to be yawn, boring sex. The many lighthearted chapters in this utterly serious sex book include such fair as how to dress for bed, discovering male and female erogenous zones, 69, turn ons for him and her, flirting seduction, erotica, fantasy scenarios with costume suggestions and games to play, fork play and recipes such as chocolate wickedness, I actually had to reread fork because I was like, is that really what they mean? But yes, it's Gael Greene, fork play and recipes such as chocolate wickedness, vocabulary or what to say during the heat of the moment and pillow talk. Yes, yes, yes. Candid, explicit and creative, this yummy little guide will provide women and the men who want to love them better with everything they need to know for a fantastic and fulfilling sex life.

[48:08] Meg: I love that review.

[48:11] Jessica: Yes. So really sweet. Clearly, we're going to have to do some readings from that one. But in the meantime, we're going to have a reading from the book that you gave me. Before I begin this very brief reading, this book is filled filled with endless discussions of what women want in bed, okay? And I think that Gael Greene has the word ***** on every other page, literally. So I've been searching for a paragraph that is not just about what women want in great graphic detail. I don't know if I can get away with zero. But here's my favorite opening. Here's a paragraph. This little bit of the book is about two good friends, Kate and Caroline, and they are getting very high together. Kate is lamenting that she gets really horny when she smokes weed and that if there isn't a man nearby, she gets very, very sad.

[49:15] Meg: Okay?

[49:16] Jessica: So they're discussing this, and then Caroline says, take one drag, Kate. It's so good. ****, what irony to think that all I have to show for seven months of aggravation with that ******* is half a coffee tin of grass. Nothing else. Not even a souvenir T shirt. Welcome to Mobi. **** a movie star. Do you know how to get a man to give presents, Kate? I'm lousy at that. I have a friend, Roberta. She's got the knack. Roberta always says you keep one hand on his **** and the other pointed towards Cartier. You should see her souvenirs, this is great grass. I'm lying with my head on a pillow in front of a faltering fire. Are you getting horny, Kate? Remember, we always have each other. Vinny wanted me to get you to go to bed with us. The *******. Would you like that, Kate? Not too stoned to be stirred by old fantasies. I don't know, Caroline. I've thought about you mean everyone making love to everyone? I've thought about that. I love women's bodies. I'd love to touch a woman's *******. I'm playing with my own. Caroline rolls off the sofa and kneels beside me. Here, touch mine. And so, yeah, it's much pervier than that. And for anyone who's looking for a quick and cheap thrill, by all means, read this book. Blue Skies, No Candy by Gael Greene. So, we are now up to our favorite part of the podcast, which is, what is the tenuous thread between these two concepts?

[51:16] Meg: *********** and Roy Cohn, magazines.

[51:21] Jessica: That's good.

[51:24] Meg: Hustler & Richerd DuPont's Zine.

[51:27] Jessica: Yes, that's a good one.

[51:30] Meg: How about, there were pornographic cartoons in his vein.

[51:34] Jessica: Also highly entertaining. Yes.

[51:37] Meg: Wait till I post.

[51:38] Jessica: I can't wait, actually. You're going to have to show me before you even post them. So you know, Meg, this is our last podcast of 2022.

[51:50] Meg: This is true. And I think it actually will drop on the New Year.

[51:55] Jessica: Yes.

[51:56] Meg: It's already Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

[51:57] Jessica: Happy New Year, Meg. Do we have resolutions?

[52:01] Meg: I have to figure that out tonight because we have a little ritual. We do?

[52:04] Jessica: Really?

[52:05] Meg: Yeah. And we've got to do it tomorrow.

[52:07] Jessica: Meaning as a family, your foursome. Exactly. What's the ritual?

[52:11] Meg: We burn something, we grow something, and we wish on a star something, and we write it all down and we have, like, a little ritual. We do.

[52:21] Jessica: I love that. That's so sweet. That's delightful. And what are your plans?

[52:29] Meg: Oh, I'm going to a neighbor's party.

[52:33] Jessica: Delightful. I have been invited to a party, and a friend of mine just got back from Florida, and we're thinking of just hanging out and doing my favorite thing, which is non stop eating of Chinese food and watching a movie. In the onesie. Oh, my God. Have I discussed the onesie on this podcast? Okay. Meg, you've changed my life. You've changed my life in ways that need to be understood by everyone who listens to this podcast. So I am now going to plug a company that should be advertising with us, and in fact, we are going to plug this company so frequently, they have no choice but to sponsor it. OnePiece. And I read the tag.

[53:26] Meg: My friend Kristen alerted me to OnePiece a couple of years ago, and it's basically all I wear when I'm at home.

[53:34] Jessica: It's a onesie for adults, and it has a hood, and the zipper goes from your crotch all the way up to the very top of the hood. So if you want to spiritually and visually leave the room, just zip that hood right up. And the one that you got me zipper, zipperhood, zipperface. And the one that you got me is a dark gray fleece. And it's like you're attending. I really look like I've committed to the plushy lifestyle. It's unavoidable. Like, you just look at it and you're like, now I'm a plushy. I guess that's the direction my life is taking now. Thanks, Meg. And the reason it is so life changing for me is that if you live in a city that gets cold in the wintertime and you have a dog, there is nothing worse than waking up in the morning knowing that it's 19 degrees out and you've got to get out of your cozy pajamas and into some kind of clothing that you know you're going to change out of again anyway after you've showered. And it's this whole nightmare. Well, in walks the OnePiece.

[55:00] Meg: You just throw a coat over that and you are ready to go.

[55:01] Jessica: I put it on over my pajamas and put my coat over that, and I walked out the door. I looked whackadoodle, and I didn't care. I was wearing high tops and my teddy bear outfit, and I could not have been happier. It was the best. So everyone should know. Get a OnePiece. And the reason that this whole line of clothing came into being was because some Norwegians were hanging out on a Sunday morning, totally hungover and in need of something comfy to snuz up in for their day of hangover and they came up with the onesie. So yay Norwegians.