The Science of Sex (Part 1)

StarTalk Radio trades the cosmic for the orgasmic when Neil deGrasse Tyson and Kristen Schaal discuss the science of sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Mary Roach.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I'm an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. Here in New York City where I also serve as Director of the Hayden Planetarium. And today's show is all about the science of sex. Sex. Yeah, I said it. And to help me talk about the science of sex is the one and the only Kristen Shaw.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 0:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome. This is not like your first time on StarTalk Radio. It's like your third time.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  It's my, yeah, it's my third, fourth time.

• 0:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fourth time.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  But also it's my first time one-on-one.

• 0:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bono y mono. Right, right, excellent.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  So I get all your attention.

• 1:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Complete attention.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  No more Alan Alda getting in there.

• 1:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's just you and me and, and now you're, you're a comedian. So you're not really an expert on sex, except that like you wrote a book called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  That's correct. You can get that on Amazon.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you run out of words or something to continue the actual title of this book?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Well, I just wanted people to get in there before they lost their horniness. So they, you know, you get the message and then you start to read.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what size are these panties that you're wearing here?

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Oh, those are size teeny-tiny. Alright.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is what you find hanging on the clothesline, you know?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're real comfy though. They're coming back in.

• 1:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you wearing those now?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Am I?

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What we also have is clips from an interview that I had with

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Either Mary Roach or Dr. Ruth.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's both actually, but in this particular case, Mary Roach. And she wrote a book on sex, The Science of Sex.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's an expert as well.

• 1:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She came to my office at the museum and I interviewed her. And so we'll be slopping it, we'll be slotting in clips from that.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  No slopping in. It is the sex podcast.

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's go to this first clip here with Mary Roach. She's a journalist, essentially, but gets deep into stories. And she wanted to find out what motivated people to study sex in the first place, like, in the lab. And it's just kinda weird to begin with, but the fact that it was done is what made her story. So let's check out our first clip of me interviewing Mary Roach in my office at the Hayden Planetarium, talking about the science of sex.

• 2:34Mary Roach?

  What a great day that was.

• 2:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's book Bonk. That's audacious.

• 2:40Mary Roach?

  The title?

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything. The title, the contents.

• 2:43Mary Roach?

  It's about science.

• 2:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Science that legitimizes your effort to write entirely about sex.

• 2:51Mary Roach?

  All you gotta do is put "science" on the cover, yeah. But even better, it's people studying sex in science labs. Masters & Johnson being an obvious example. Physiology, arousal, orgasm, you gotta bring people into a lab.

• 3:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta do it in a lab.

• 3:04Mary Roach?

  Do it in the lab. So that's a wonderfully awkward scenario, which fascinated me. Because sex is such an intimate and personal thing. But then again, it's a physiology and it's anatomy, and somebody should study it.

• 3:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So why not just turn every porn set into a laboratory? Because they're professionals, right?

• 3:20Mary Roach?

  Actually, that's not a good idea. Because Masters & Johnson started out using sex professionals, but they found that they were too good at faking it. And they wanted...

• 3:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's hard for a guy to fake it.

• 3:31Mary Roach?

  Yeah, no, I know.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so they can't be too professional, otherwise they're not...

• 3:34Mary Roach?

  They wanted someone more representative of the average person, so...

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you bring them into the lab.

• 3:39Mary Roach?

  Bring them into the lab, and you wire them up, and you're studying whatever it is you're... I mean, not...

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. Back up.

• 3:43Mary Roach?

  Yep.

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is the driving question? And what do you call these kind of scientists, anyway? That would possibly want to know? That you can't just find out on your own.

• 3:51Mary Roach?

  No, no, well...

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It sounds like a big excuse for perverts to look at other people having sex. Go have your own damn sex.

• 3:57Mary Roach?

  The reproductive system is as important to study as the digestive system.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not denying that.

• 4:03Mary Roach?

  So you would want... I mean, you wanna know, how does erection happen? And you wanna understand orgasm. Because of the implications for fertility.

• 4:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know how an erection happens. I don't need somebody to tell me. I need somebody looking at me, giving me an example of a question they would pose.

• 4:17Mary Roach?

  All right.

• 4:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the experiment that they would conduct, and the answer they would get.

• 4:21Mary Roach?

  All right, what is the trigger for ejaculation?

• 4:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. Physiological trigger, or visual trigger?

• 4:28Mary Roach?

  No, physiological. What is happening?

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be cool if you just looked at something.

• 4:31Mary Roach?

  Does it depend?

• 4:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'd be really efficient.

• 4:34Mary Roach?

  That would be.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 4:35Mary Roach?

  So, alright, is it the volume of material? Does it depend on how long since the last orgasm? I mean, you know.

• 4:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, measurement data.

• 4:43Mary Roach?

  And the applications here are for people who have like delayed ejaculation, which is sometimes sadly called retarded ejaculation.

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 4:50Mary Roach?

  Okay, come too fast or too slow, whatever it is.

• 4:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so who are these people? What do they call themselves? Are they biologists?

• 4:56Mary Roach?

  Well, they used to.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sexologists?

• 4:57Mary Roach?

  They used to use the word sexologist. We don't hear that very often.

• 4:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do they call themselves?

• 5:00Mary Roach?

  Physiologists, some are psychologists, anatomists.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What have they concluded?

• 5:05Mary Roach?

  You just have to go by bonk. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.

• 5:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're not giving away the punchline?

• 5:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, people studying sex in the lab.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's crazy.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, I, I used to think that lab work was you bring something in the lab that you didn't otherwise have access to. It was some exotic creature, you grow something in a petri dish, you do something that would not otherwise be available to you to deduce on your own.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Well, you might not have access to other people's penises and vaginas.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Clearly, but, okay, but you have your own version of them. So unless you're gonna look at the variation among them, maybe that's what, one of the things they do.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Maybe, well, see, I think there should be more sex in labs because I was doing some research.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that a great sentence? There should be more sex in labs.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  There should be more sex in labs, and I'm sure it's happening like, you know, late nights anyways, but.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lab after hours, yeah. So, in your book, in your sexy book of sexy sex. This is a couple of years old now, but you, what prompted you to write this?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  I had so much blue humor in my act that I was like, I might as well just.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Put it all out.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Put it all out there.

• 6:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, uh, Rich Blumquist, who's that?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  That's my fiance.

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was, was he, is he still your fiance?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  He was my boyfriend, and the fact that we didn't break up after writing a book together is amazing.

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's promising, yes, that's very good. And I noticed here, you have some ambitious chapters here. So, you have the future of sex.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 6:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I don't even know what that means.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Well, sex is gonna happen in the future.

• 6:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. And then you have the history of sex.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. So it happened in the past, too.

• 6:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we're good. No, there's two chapters. We got that covered. Regular sex.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's just like for the straight and narrow, you know, like, just like heterosexual sex.

• 6:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The stuff approved by good housekeeping seal, right? And you follow that with the gay chapter. Apparently that's not regular sex.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  No, now it's exciting. Yeah, exactly.

• 7:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  It will be soon, but it's still starting with gay sex now.

• 7:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the sexpert's only. What is that?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Oh, that's like...

• 7:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because if you're a sexpert, then why would I need this book?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Um, well, because there's a chapter about you.

• 7:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's another chapter here that got my attention. It was the dark side of sex. What is that?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Oh, the dark side of sex. Oh, bestiality, STDs. We go into the worst STD of all, which is the female stomach parasite, which is a baby.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  HIV/AIDS.

• 7:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what it is. Right, the baby is consuming your resources.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it is taking over your life.

• 7:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. When we come back more with Kristen Schaal, as well as clips from an interview I had with Mary Roach, who wrote a book on sex, The Science of Sex, called Bulk. We'll be back in a moment.

• 8:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, and this is our show about sex. Since this topic is a little above my head, I bring in my all-purpose smart guy, Professor Charles Liu. Charles, welcome back to StarTalk. Hi, Neil. Always a pleasure. Thanks so much. Let me remind people you're a professor of astrophysics, not a professor of sex. But you're well thought out on all manner of topics. You know NASA has an official policy about sex in space? That astronauts are expected to maintain a constant commitment to honorable behavior. Ah, I have some honorable behavior I would love to demonstrate for them in zero G. But there's a story circulating that some space shuttle astronauts tested 10 different sex positions. But NASA disavows all knowledge of such... Well, of course. They have to. Yeah.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But surely that's what any fertile people would want to test in space. A superb experiment.

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in addition to the journalist Mary Roach and my co-host Christian Schaal on that show, I also spoke with a well-known author, sex therapist, TV and radio personality, Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

• 9:13Mary Roach?

  Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

• 9:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's exactly what she sounds like. Let's hear what she has to say when I sat down with her to talk about sex. You taught for six years at Yale and at Princeton, and in a few months you'll be teaching at Columbia, so you get around.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  I get around. I'm going to be 84.

• 9:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  84. That's the new 64, you know this.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  So I have been to your museums many times.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, the American Museum of Natural History.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  The next time I'm coming with my grandchildren, you will have to take me around.

• 9:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will show you the cosmos as no one has before.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  Oh, I like that. We have an age.

• 9:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And also, apparently you tweet, "Ask Dr. Ruth," if you want to find her online there.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Fifty thousand, seven hundred and twelve people are following me, but guess what?

• 9:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that number's bigger by the minute.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yes, now they're going to go and follow you too.

• 10:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, no, now they'll all come together. This is the one love fest, yes. You're also on the YouTube channel, and I have to get this in, maybe as a lead-in to the topic of sex. I just learned in the green room with you that you're sponsoring a wine coming out. I love wine.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  I see that on your face. Here's a story.

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 10:22Speaker 03

  I always tell people, "When you get home, have a glass of wine." But I tell them, "Careful. Don't drink too much. Drink just a little bit to relax, to have some romantic thoughts in your brain. Not too much, because if you drink too much..."

• 10:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What happens?

• 10:38Speaker 03

  She will fall asleep, and he, and you don't have to answer me if it's true, because I know better, he won't be able to perform. So I'm coming out with a wine. Van Dammeur.

• 10:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Van Dammeur, the wine of love.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Be less alcohol, my face is undercover on the label, and it says, "Less is more."

• 11:02Speaker 03

  And it will be sold all over and not just in liquor stores because it's less alcohol.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it has the right amount of alcohol so that the evening that begins romantically can end romantically.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. And not disappointing for the woman or for him.

• 11:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And speaking of what might disappoint a woman, this book you just came out with, Sexually Speaking: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Sexual Health. I was reading through this, I said, "Hey, some stuff guys could... hey, you know." I mean, how many men do you think will buy this?

• 11:34Speaker 03

  I think any man, listen carefully Neil.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm listening, I'm all...

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Any man who wants to be a good lover, and most men do want to be good lovers.

• 11:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think so, they try, they try.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Is going to read it because in today's world, the one thing that we know, there are less women who haven't heard the message, I'm not the only one who talks about sex, who haven't heard the message that I keep on telling day in and day out, a woman has to take the responsibility for her sexual satisfaction. On your program, can I say orgasm?

• 12:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Say it, go for it.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Orgasm, say it also.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Orgasm.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Oh, you said it better than me. Nice. So Neil, across this great country and Canada, there is no question, a woman has heard that she has to teach her husband, lover, whoever it is, even the best lover, even one trained by me, can't bring her to orgasm if she doesn't tell him what she needs.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because guys are idiots, basically. I can say that, because like, I'm a guy. We try, but it's complicated.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  It's complicated because it's hidden.

• 12:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's hidden, it's like, wait, what, what, what's the...

• 12:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, no, this is good, and looking at the pages here, it's a primer on a woman's body and her own awareness of it.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  Yes. And there is no question that any man that I know or that you know really doesn't want just to go, "Bang, bang, thank you ma'am." They really want her to be satisfied.

• 13:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We want to be able to say, "I'm satisfied." That's part of the bragging rights, I think, in the locker room, right?

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yes, that you can do it and then she wants more.

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, she'll come back for more. That's how that's gotta work. Let me just ask you some historical questions. We all remember you when you first came out on the radio and you were saying things no one had said before. No one had the audacity to say, who even knows if the FCC had allowed it before? And so it had almost shock value. Not that that was your intent, but that certainly drew attention to it. Nowadays, there's skits on Saturday Night Live openly talking about orgasms and penises and... So how do you fit in now?

• 13:51Speaker 03

  I tell you what, it's true. In 1981, when I did the radio, sexually speaking on WNY, first there were people, attorneys, three suits, from NBC, listening. Very shortly after, maybe after a couple of weeks, nobody came anymore. I did that program for 10 years. Every Sunday night, from 10 to 12, I provided a lot of foreplay to people on Sunday nights who came, coming back from the country. By the time they were home, they were nicely roused now. It's true that I speak and spoke explicitly, because I'm very well-trained. I have a doctorate. I was seven years with a famous sex therapist at Cornell.

• 14:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And somebody's gotta do it.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  That's true, and I was lucky.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's repressed, otherwise.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was very fortunate, because I'm very well-trained and I am old-fashioned and a square. So while I'm explicit, I still want people to be married.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, be married 25 years.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 14:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next year, 25 years, yes.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  So I want people to have, what's called in sociology, you know about that, a significant other. I want them to have somebody in their lives. What happens these days, and I'm teaching a course now at Columbia Teachers College about...

• 15:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, Teachers College, important piece of Columbia there.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  Television and the media, all the media, even YouTube. What's happening right now is a little bit sad. I know that you need some sex in every program. But I don't need them to use the four-letter words.

• 15:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  And I'm very sad, even on Broadway. On some place, I don't want to mention which one. As if the English language had no other terminology.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Everything with this.

• 15:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the moment you go to four-letter words, it's evidence that you ran out of vocabulary.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To express yourself.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. Now you talk like a professor. I like that. Now, yeah, sex has to be part of it. I know that. But what's happening right now is a little bit going to the extreme. For example, I'm sitting in a taxi. And the advertisement on taxis are so eroticized. That I'm fortunate I'm not having my grandchildren next to me.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  So we went a little bit overboard.

• 16:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  On the other hand, there's a brand-new book out. I'm sure that you have heard about it. I denied it. A British woman wrote it. It's called Fifty Shades of Grey. And women love it. They devour it. And it's very interesting. In the olden days, the British mother used to tell her daughter, the Victorian Puritan mother, "Lie back and think of England. Nothing in it for you." Right now, there's a British woman, she writes beautifully. And it's very explicit. Very explicit. I don't want to have the guy.

• 16:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? I don't think of England.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Wow. I don't want to have that guy in my practice because I sent him to the caitriss. But that's a different story. But it's interesting. It proves the point, professor. I have talked about that a long time. Women, first of all, need a longer time to be sexually aroused than a man. A man, when he's aroused, he's aroused. A woman needs a longer time to get up off the curve of sexual arousal. And they used to say that women are not aroused by pictures or by...

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or pornography. Pornography.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Or by sexually explicit material. Not so. Women right now are devouring that book. Which is a very interesting point in things have changed, but we have to find a middle way.

• 17:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's the freedom of women in society is what this is. That was an important step.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  Right, that she can take initiative. She can ask you, not you because you're married, but anybody in your studio who is not married, she can say, would you like to go for coffee? And if he says, no, I have to go home to wash my hair, then she can't fall to pieces. She just has to ask the next one.

• 18:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more on the science of sex with my comedic co-host Kristen Shaw and the journalist and author Mary Roach. We'll see you in a moment.

• 18:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back on StarTalk and I'm here with my guest and co-host for this episode, Kristen Shaw.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  Nice to see you.

• 18:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We worked together before. I love her to death. So we also have clips from my interview with Mary Roach, who wrote the book Bonk.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 18:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, she's into one syllable, one word book titles. And she studied the science of sex. In this next clip, she mentioned some surprising facts about erections.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 18:58Mary Roach?

  The only other erectile tissue in the human body is in the nose. When you have a cold, you basically have a nose boner. You didn't know that.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I did not know that.

• 19:06Mary Roach?

  Okay. The nipples, that's a different erection system. That's muscles squeezing. That's not erectile tissue. That's a muscular erection of...

• 19:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're saying it's not filling with blood? Isn't that what it is?

• 19:16Mary Roach?

  Not in the nipples, no. The nipples are little muscles squeezing it upright.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't know that.

• 19:21Mary Roach?

  The nose, it's that spongy erectile tissue.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spongey that fills with blood. So people who have enlarged nose from the flu, they have nose erections. That's what you're telling me?

• 19:28Mary Roach?

  Exactly.

• 19:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 19:29Mary Roach?

  And okay, here's another good...

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the nipples is just muscles?

• 19:32Mary Roach?

  Muscles, yeah, like contracting to squeeze it and push it up.

• 19:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, why are they contracting? What value is that to?

• 19:38Mary Roach?

  Oh, I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I don't know why when it's cold they do that.

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it's cold or aroused, which is two really different things, right?

• 19:46Mary Roach?

  Yes, exactly. Well, I would imagine it has to do with suckling, with breastfeeding. Like, it helps the child to find the nipple. If, you know, if you're manipulating the nipple and then it gets erect, then it's easier to find.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it's easiest for your sexual arousal system to be brought to bear when you're breastfeeding, so that you can feed the child and want to do so again and again.

• 20:06Mary Roach?

  Right.

• 20:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise the child dies.

• 20:07Mary Roach?

  Right, so that makes sense.

• 20:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so your sexual arousal system is a really convenient system to tap when you're breastfeeding.

• 20:12Mary Roach?

  When you're talking about something, life and death, passing on your genetic material like that.

• 20:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, okay.

• 20:17Mary Roach?

  It's a handy reinforcing system.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, give me another top tidbit.

• 20:20Mary Roach?

  Okay, here's one. Women have nocturnal erections on the same sort of cycle as men. Little, tiny, little clitoral erections. And that's somebody wired up a fairly large clitoris with a strain gauge, figured it out, brought them into a lab.

• 20:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, here's one. Tell me the difference between an erection that's sexually aroused and one that's just there, that has no correspondence with sex at all.

• 20:42Mary Roach?

  Ones that's just there?

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. Is it possible for the body to just do it without stimulus? Because it's just, you know, 3:00 in the afternoon.

• 20:48Mary Roach?

  Well, like a nocturnal erection.

• 20:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I don't know. Yeah, maybe.

• 20:51Mary Roach?

  That's my theory that I've heard, is it's just sort of the body making sure everything still works. It doesn't really, like, just, you know, in the same way that you turn on a 1964 Mustang every six months to make sure, like, just turn it on and make sure everything...

• 21:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pulmonary system, check.

• 21:03Mary Roach?

  Check.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sexual arousal?

• 21:05Mary Roach?

  Bong.

• 21:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Check.

• 21:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you know this about your nipples?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I figured. Because I think in caveman times too, when the ladies were out and they were cold, maybe they could get a guy to give them a hug.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Before they invented fire.

• 21:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, tell me more about your book. What is, like, the funniest sex jokes you had told that they had to end up in the book?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Well, the funniest thing, I don't even know if it's funny anymore, but there is... No, there's some monologues in there. Because, you know, the vagina monologues?

• 21:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've never actually seen the vagina monologue.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No. I was not drawn to them.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Because you know everything about vagina, it's just, oh, boring.

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I'll put it on my list.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Okay, great. So, Neil, I watched the vagina monologues.

• 21:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  And I was so inspired. There are so many other body parts that I was ashamed of, so I wrote the taintologues.

• 22:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Which is the taint.

• 22:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is the taint?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Okay, so it ain't your penis and it ain't your anus. It's your taint. It's that area between the two. Is this really an education from me to you? Because that is so exciting.

• 22:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so what do you say about that?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you know, let's just talk about different monologues, about different women and how they experience their taint.

• 22:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see, I see. So it's an insight into their taintitude?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And also, like, you know, the shackles of society puts on the taint and stuff like that. So now you know what a taint is?

• 22:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, I didn't know before that.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Also, in different cultures, it has different names. Like, in Montreal, it's called, like, the gooch. So don't do the taint-a-log in Montreal, because they're just like, "Maa."

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that because they're French or because they're Canadian?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  They're not fake French, but they do like to create their own language. I will say that.

• 22:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So were you going to tell me your funniest joke that was in here? What was it?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 22:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who illustrated this? This is like full-color illustrations in here.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you want to see something beautiful?

• 23:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And why is this censored?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  That's by order of the Texas Board of Education. Because that's the female anatomy through the years. Oh, we can walk through this. So this is biblical times. They didn't know what was going on in there. So there's some angels, I guess, just hitting with a bell.

• 23:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, this is inside the womb of the woman.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is the female anatomy through history.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so angels are making babies.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were like, "That's what's going on in there." I don't know.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, paddle two?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Lower Earth. So this is 1000 to 1959. They just thought, who knows?

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  1959?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Who knows? And then Free Love, that's the sexual revolution, 1960, 1975. Yeah, just rainbows. And then now that they're still not really going into it. That's what I mean. There's a lot going on. The female anatomy and even like, this is not sexy, but like, healthcare-wise for females, it's really atrocious. Like, there's things that we need in hospitals and with our daily checkups that we don't have, that's just not covered by insurance.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you think it's because men had run everything? And so they're not even thinking about the woman?

• 23:57Speaker 01

  I do, I do. I think so, don't you?

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it could be. I'm just saying, there's bias built into society that affects this.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  It's a big problem. Need to have ultrasounds every checkup with the gynecologist, but insurance won't cover that. We'll have tumors growing that we don't know about. But that's not funny or funny at all.

• 24:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We can end that segment on tumors growing inside your body.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  It sounds great.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more with Kristen Schaal and her book The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex. And from my pre-recorded interview with Mary Roach, talking about the science of sex. We'll see you in a moment.

• 24:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host, and Kristen Schaal.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Your co-host.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your co-host, exactly. And we've got clips from my interview with Mary Roach. She's a prolific writer of many topics that she studies in depth. And this one was the science of sex. People just doing research in the lab. And that last clip that we talked about surprising facts about erections. You talk much about erections in your book?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, definitely, especially about erectile dysfunction.

• 25:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Really? What do you say about it?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Um, just that you should kill yourself if you have it, I think.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  No, I think we have...

• 25:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why there's medicine. Because I think, you know, the frontier of sexual research, as Mary Roach will tell us in the next clip, might be through medications, through pharmaceuticals. And look at all the other things we enhance in life by chemically induced forces, right? I mean, if you're a little sleepy and you want to be awake, pump yourself with caffeine. If you want to lift high, heavy weights, you get steroids. You want to get the red out of your eye, you use, you know, Visine, or whatever is the brand.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  That's a chemical?

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everything we put in our bodies is a chemical. That's what it's all about, chemi... We're just a sack of chemicals.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  We're just going to be adapting to the chemicals.

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's we and the chemicals together that makes the life that we lead. And so why wouldn't that also play out with regard to sex? So let's find out what Mary Roach says about the frontier of sexual research in chemistry.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Give it to me, Roach!

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there still a frontier of sexual research that is beyond what has been done so far?

• 26:29Mary Roach?

  Well, these days it tends to be pharmaceutical stuff, like looking for a pill for post-menopausal women with flagging libido. That's where all the money is now.

• 26:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, of course, right.

• 26:40Mary Roach?

  Yeah, so looking kind of, it isn't a female Viagra, because obviously Viagra has to do with, you know, vasodilation and erection. Women don't need an erection.

• 26:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. But metaphorically, it's the same.

• 26:50Mary Roach?

  Well, it has to do with sex drive and libido. That's what they're looking for. Viagra's more for a performance.

• 26:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what I wonder. If your libido drops and you're just less interested in sex, what's your incentive to bring it back? Like, what do you care? Just have less sex?

• 27:03Mary Roach?

  Your husband wants you to.

• 27:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's a mismatch.

• 27:05Mary Roach?

  It's a mismatch, right. Especially now that there's Viagra, because it used to be maybe there was a little bit of harmony and you're facing years, and now you bring Viagra in.

• 27:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not a man's ready at any time of day.

• 27:16Mary Roach?

  That's right, and the woman's like, "Oh, my God, are you kidding me?"

• 27:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For at least four hours at a time.

• 27:20Mary Roach?

  That's right. Or, it can be upsetting if you're somebody who used to have a really healthy libido and you think, "This is part of who I am," and all of a sudden you just don't think about sex anymore, and maybe that's something you want to change.

• 27:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. Do you mention Viagra in here?

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Uh, no. This is a joke book.

• 27:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how about women who lose their sexual drive? What's your opinion about that?

• 27:45Speaker 01

  When they're older, like, um, I don't really have one, because I'm like nineteen.

• 27:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you're still in the zone.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In your sexual zone.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I'm probably at my peak right now, although I've never had sex. So, no.

• 28:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, I'm just curious. You heard my question that I asked Mary. I said, "If you're not interested, then what do you care?"

• 28:05Speaker 01

  And she said it's for the husband.

• 28:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For the husband, because the husband's like chasing after you after they take the Viagra.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then don't they always just divorce you and then go get the younger lady? That's all I've witnessed.

• 28:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so if all the women got together and said, "We will not do that," that will never happen ever again. But they always blame the guy.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Like the Strada.

• 28:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It takes two in a tango.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Oh, you know what? Women are our worst enemies.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 28:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You guys do this.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do. It's true. Oh, it's so sad.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So if we find a chemical that'll make women aroused when they wouldn't otherwise be, and then you have Viagra, then do you worry that the future of the world, everyone is just having sex?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then the economy collapses?

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope it does.

• 28:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that's why the economy's collapsing now.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I watch my mouth. Well, okay, about that with the women, you know, getting their groove on later in life. I think that's probably really nice because it does establish intimacy among the two people that might be lost at that time.

• 29:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you know what I heard? That in nursing homes, like, VD is on the rise.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  I know, right?

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, wow, forget the VD because they're not gonna die of that. They're gonna die of something else.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  I know. Yeah, good for them.

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, the guys die before the women, generally, right? So if you do the statistics on this, you have two distributions, right? Your life expectancy, and so the women outlive the men, all right? So as you get older, more men die relative to the women who are left.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I see where this is going.

• 29:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So every increment of month that the man stays alive, there are fewer of them for all the women who are still alive.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Oh, there.

• 29:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you go to nursing homes, you could be one guy out of 100 women.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a hot number.

• 29:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  But then maybe there's some women-on-women action at that point.

• 29:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the lesbian forces will rise?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. I mean, I haven't, you know, I just, I haven't...

• 30:00Speaker 01

  You haven't experienced...

• 30:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Haven't done the lab research on that.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  ...heriatric/lesbian relationship in a nursing home?

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a whole unexplored territory, right there.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it will be after this podcast.

• 30:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more on the science of sex.

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. In studio now with me is Professor Charles Liu. Hey Neil. Smart dude all around. You know, in the previous segment, I talked with Mary Roach and Christian Shaw about pharmaceuticals like Viagra as the frontier of sexual research. You're not ready for Viagra yet. Never mind. Okay. See what Dr. Ruth had to say on that issue.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Any man who asks his doctor, don't ever take one from a friend. You have to get a prescription from a doctor. Anybody who the doctor says you can take it, I have nothing against any of these pills. However, an important point on your program. Here's a man taking that pill, he now has an erection from the floor to the ceiling. He comes home.

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll take your word for it, I haven't...

• 31:29Speaker 03

  He comes home and he says to his wife, "Hop into bed" because he thinks it's the last. He thinks it's the last erection of his life. He forgot her birthday. He forgot to bring flowers on Valentine's Day. If there's a sports event in our culture, for three days he hasn't talked to her. He was watching television.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Beer and chips in front of the TV.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  And everybody here in your studio who watches you knows what that wife is going to say to her husband, what to do with that erection. So, I'm all for help if it's needed, only by prescription. I'm not a medical doctor, but the relationship is the most important part.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's an underappreciated fact. And can you comment, you know, before the pill, you know, the pill was considered a transitional point in the freedom of women. Before the pill, we have this sort of, this stereotype, and I don't think it's correct, that people like never had sex, you know, until they married and then they had sex to have kids. And, but only after the pill did we separate the sex from the procreation. But surely, I mean, sex is free, it's fun, it's easy. And so, do you have any sense that the frequency with which people are having sex has changed over the years?

• 32:50Speaker 03

  No question. First of all, it has changed. Because of work situations, you don't work anymore twelve hours like some people used to.

• 33:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  You work eight hours.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh. That just means there's more time.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  More time.

• 33:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the twenty-four hour day.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Right. The other thing is, no question that the pill has drastically changed the whole mechanism, the whole attitude, everything in terms of women having control and in terms of not having to worry about an unintended pregnancy. We still have some unintended pregnancies, but not like before. The pill has changed drastically. Some maybe not so good side effects of sex during lunch with not, not your partner or something like that is also part of it, but in general it has changed.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the limit of the freedom, where it's the extreme expression of the freedom.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  And some people, and even today, decide not to be sexually active, either if they are religious or for values or for beliefs.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some philosophy.

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Right. Or Catholics. And to them, I say, be sexually literate, but use it when you have decided to use it.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that phrase, be sexually literate.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because I spend my life trying to teach people to be scientifically literate, but there are these other literacies. That's important literacy. Otherwise, it can mess you up in the head.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in your book, The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex, you talk about a mile high.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Oh, the mile high club.

• 34:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What do you say about that?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, well, the mile high club, there's a short story about a real thing where when you have sex in an airplane, you join the mile high.

• 34:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As everyone does, of course.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the bathroom, because there's so much room.

• 34:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And wait a minute, I have an issue with the mile high club.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Planes don't fly a mile high.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  They fly lower than that.

• 34:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like five miles. They fly way high. No plane is flying a mile high unless it's coming in for a landing.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Well, these are civilians calling it that. These are loose, slutty civilians.

• 34:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is people who don't get the data straight.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you realize in the stadium in Denver, which is Mile High City?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's Mile High Stadium.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there is a row of seats that are painted a different color that are at 5,280 feet above sea level.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cool. Did you sit in them?

• 35:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I didn't because I'd never been to the stadium. But if you actually went there, had sex, you'd be in the Mile High Club.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Everyone in Denver is in the Mile High Club.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Um, everyone that had sex on that.

• 35:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, presumably people having sex in Denver, right? The stadium is not on the top of a mountain. It is at an, it's in the Rockies.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 35:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The average elevation is about a mile high. So, everybody in these high cities are in the Mile High Club. You don't need an airplane or cramped bathrooms. I'm just saying.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Well, now you just ruined that short story.

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, sorry.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  No, that's okay. Well, anyway.

• 35:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's the data.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  It's a real club.

• 35:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Kristen, I think we have to close down shop.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thanks for being on my guest.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, you've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I thank Kristen Schaal for being on the show. I thank the clips that we shared with Mary Roach. And of course, the one, the only, and the inimitable Dr. Ruth Wester. Find us on the web, StarTalkRadio.net. We're at Facebook. You can like us at StarTalk Radio. I tweet at Neil Tyson if you want to sort of plug into Cosmic Tidbits.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  You got to follow him.

• 36:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic Tidbits.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Save money on tuition and read his tweets.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We are brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. And also, you can catch us now on the Nerdist channel on YouTube.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, Chris Hardwick.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chris Hardwick is totally a friend of ours and a fan of StarTalk Radio. So, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, signing off. As always, what shall we do?

• 36:41Speaker 01

  We should look to the stars and ride off to Saturn.

• 36:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fewer syllables, as always, keep looking up.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Oh, that's easier.