Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast The Science of Sex (Part 1) About this episode 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.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:21 Neil 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.
0:47 Speaker 01 Hello!
0:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome. This is not like your first time on StarTalk Radio. It's like your third time.
0:51 Speaker 01 It's my, yeah, it's my third, fourth time.
0:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Fourth time.
0:54 Speaker 01 But also it's my first time one-on-one.
0:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Bono y mono. Right, right, excellent.
1:00 Speaker 01 So I get all your attention.
1:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Complete attention.
1:02 Speaker 01 No more Alan Alda getting in there.
1:06 Neil 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.
1:17 Speaker 01 That's correct. You can get that on Amazon.
1:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Did you run out of words or something to continue the actual title of this book?
1:24 Speaker 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.
1:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And what size are these panties that you're wearing here?
1:32 Speaker 01 Oh, those are size teeny-tiny. Alright.
1:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is what you find hanging on the clothesline, you know?
1:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, they're real comfy though. They're coming back in.
1:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Are you wearing those now?
1:43 Speaker 01 Am I?
1:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What we also have is clips from an interview that I had with
1:50 Speaker 01 Either Mary Roach or Dr. Ruth.
1:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's both actually, but in this particular case, Mary Roach. And she wrote a book on sex, The Science of Sex.
1:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, she's an expert as well.
1:59 Neil 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.
2:05 Speaker 01 No slopping in. It is the sex podcast.
2:09 Neil 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.
2:34 Mary Roach? What a great day that was.
2:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's book Bonk. That's audacious.
2:40 Mary Roach? The title?
2:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Everything. The title, the contents.
2:43 Mary Roach? It's about science.
2:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Science that legitimizes your effort to write entirely about sex.
2:51 Mary 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.
3:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You gotta do it in a lab.
3:04 Mary 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.
3:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So why not just turn every porn set into a laboratory? Because they're professionals, right?
3:20 Mary 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...
3:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's hard for a guy to fake it.
3:31 Mary Roach? Yeah, no, I know.
3:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so they can't be too professional, otherwise they're not...
3:34 Mary Roach? They wanted someone more representative of the average person, so...
3:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you bring them into the lab.
3:39 Mary Roach? Bring them into the lab, and you wire them up, and you're studying whatever it is you're... I mean, not...
3:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wait, wait, wait. Back up.
3:43 Mary Roach? Yep.
3:44 Neil 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.
3:51 Mary Roach? No, no, well...
3:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It sounds like a big excuse for perverts to look at other people having sex. Go have your own damn sex.
3:57 Mary Roach? The reproductive system is as important to study as the digestive system.
4:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm not denying that.
4:03 Mary 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.
4:10 Neil 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.
4:17 Mary Roach? All right.
4:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the experiment that they would conduct, and the answer they would get.
4:21 Mary Roach? All right, what is the trigger for ejaculation?
4:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, okay. Physiological trigger, or visual trigger?
4:28 Mary Roach? No, physiological. What is happening?
4:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That'd be cool if you just looked at something.
4:31 Mary Roach? Does it depend?
4:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That'd be really efficient.
4:34 Mary Roach? That would be.
4:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
4:35 Mary Roach? So, alright, is it the volume of material? Does it depend on how long since the last orgasm? I mean, you know.
4:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, measurement data.
4:43 Mary Roach? And the applications here are for people who have like delayed ejaculation, which is sometimes sadly called retarded ejaculation.
4:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wow.
4:50 Mary Roach? Okay, come too fast or too slow, whatever it is.
4:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so who are these people? What do they call themselves? Are they biologists?
4:56 Mary Roach? Well, they used to.
4:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sexologists?
4:57 Mary Roach? They used to use the word sexologist. We don't hear that very often.
4:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what do they call themselves?
5:00 Mary Roach? Physiologists, some are psychologists, anatomists.
5:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What have they concluded?
5:05 Mary Roach? You just have to go by bonk. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.
5:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're not giving away the punchline?
5:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, people studying sex in the lab.
5:15 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's crazy.
5:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:18 Neil 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.
5:34 Speaker 01 Well, you might not have access to other people's penises and vaginas.
5:38 Neil 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.
5:47 Speaker 01 Maybe, well, see, I think there should be more sex in labs because I was doing some research.
5:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Isn't that a great sentence? There should be more sex in labs.
5:54 Speaker 01 There should be more sex in labs, and I'm sure it's happening like, you know, late nights anyways, but.
6:00 Neil 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?
6:08 Speaker 01 I had so much blue humor in my act that I was like, I might as well just.
6:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Put it all out.
6:12 Speaker 01 Put it all out there.
6:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And, uh, Rich Blumquist, who's that?
6:15 Speaker 01 That's my fiance.
6:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That was, was he, is he still your fiance?
6:18 Speaker 01 He was my boyfriend, and the fact that we didn't break up after writing a book together is amazing.
6:23 Neil 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.
6:28 Speaker 01 That's right.
6:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I, I don't even know what that means.
6:30 Speaker 01 Well, sex is gonna happen in the future.
6:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, thank you. Thanks for clarifying that. And then you have the history of sex.
6:38 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. So it happened in the past, too.
6:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so we're good. No, there's two chapters. We got that covered. Regular sex.
6:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's just like for the straight and narrow, you know, like, just like heterosexual sex.
6:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The stuff approved by good housekeeping seal, right? And you follow that with the gay chapter. Apparently that's not regular sex.
6:57 Speaker 01 No, now it's exciting. Yeah, exactly.
7:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
7:00 Speaker 01 It will be soon, but it's still starting with gay sex now.
7:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And the sexpert's only. What is that?
7:05 Speaker 01 Oh, that's like...
7:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because if you're a sexpert, then why would I need this book?
7:08 Speaker 01 Um, well, because there's a chapter about you.
7:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And there's another chapter here that got my attention. It was the dark side of sex. What is that?
7:20 Speaker 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.
7:32 Speaker 01 HIV/AIDS.
7:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what it is. Right, the baby is consuming your resources.
7:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, and it is taking over your life.
7:41 Neil 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.
8:12 Neil 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.
8:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But surely that's what any fertile people would want to test in space. A superb experiment.
9:03 Neil 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.
9:13 Mary Roach? Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
9:15 Neil 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.
9:28 Speaker 03 I get around. I'm going to be 84.
9:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 84. That's the new 64, you know this.
9:33 Speaker 03 So I have been to your museums many times.
9:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, the American Museum of Natural History.
9:38 Speaker 03 The next time I'm coming with my grandchildren, you will have to take me around.
9:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I will show you the cosmos as no one has before.
9:45 Speaker 03 Oh, I like that. We have an age.
9:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And also, apparently you tweet, "Ask Dr. Ruth," if you want to find her online there.
9:53 Speaker 03 Fifty thousand, seven hundred and twelve people are following me, but guess what?
9:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that number's bigger by the minute.
10:01 Speaker 03 Yes, now they're going to go and follow you too.
10:04 Neil 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.
10:18 Speaker 03 I see that on your face. Here's a story.
10:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What's that?
10:22 Speaker 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..."
10:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What happens?
10:38 Speaker 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.
10:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Van Dammeur, the wine of love.
10:53 Speaker 03 Be less alcohol, my face is undercover on the label, and it says, "Less is more."
11:02 Speaker 03 And it will be sold all over and not just in liquor stores because it's less alcohol.
11:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it has the right amount of alcohol so that the evening that begins romantically can end romantically.
11:14 Speaker 03 Exactly. And not disappointing for the woman or for him.
11:18 Neil 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?
11:34 Speaker 03 I think any man, listen carefully Neil.
11:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm listening, I'm all...
11:38 Speaker 03 Any man who wants to be a good lover, and most men do want to be good lovers.
11:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I think so, they try, they try.
11:46 Speaker 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?
12:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Say it, go for it.
12:12 Speaker 03 Orgasm, say it also.
12:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Orgasm.
12:14 Speaker 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.
12:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because guys are idiots, basically. I can say that, because like, I'm a guy. We try, but it's complicated.
12:42 Speaker 03 It's complicated because it's hidden.
12:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's hidden, it's like, wait, what, what, what's the...
12:49 Neil 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.
12:55 Speaker 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.
13:09 Neil 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?
13:15 Speaker 03 Yes, that you can do it and then she wants more.
13:19 Neil 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?
13:51 Speaker 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.
14:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And somebody's gotta do it.
14:38 Speaker 03 That's true, and I was lucky.
14:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's repressed, otherwise.
14:41 Speaker 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.
14:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, be married 25 years.
14:55 Speaker 03 That's good.
14:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Next year, 25 years, yes.
14:57 Speaker 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...
15:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's right, Teachers College, important piece of Columbia there.
15:14 Speaker 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.
15:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hmm.
15:28 Speaker 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.
15:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
15:39 Speaker 03 Everything with this.
15:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, the moment you go to four-letter words, it's evidence that you ran out of vocabulary.
15:45 Speaker 03 Exactly.
15:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To express yourself.
15:46 Speaker 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.
16:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hmm.
16:12 Speaker 03 So we went a little bit overboard.
16:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Hmm.
16:15 Speaker 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.
16:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why? I don't think of England.
16:51 Speaker 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...
17:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Or pornography. Pornography.
17:24 Speaker 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.
17:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So it's the freedom of women in society is what this is. That was an important step.
17:40 Speaker 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.
18:02 Neil 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.
18:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're back on StarTalk and I'm here with my guest and co-host for this episode, Kristen Shaw.
18:35 Speaker 03 Nice to see you.
18:36 Neil 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.
18:43 Speaker 03 Okay.
18:44 Neil 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.
18:55 Speaker 03 Oh, yes.
18:58 Mary 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.
19:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I did not know that.
19:06 Mary 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...
19:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You're saying it's not filling with blood? Isn't that what it is?
19:16 Mary Roach? Not in the nipples, no. The nipples are little muscles squeezing it upright.
19:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I didn't know that.
19:21 Mary Roach? The nose, it's that spongy erectile tissue.
19:22 Neil 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?
19:28 Mary Roach? Exactly.
19:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
19:29 Mary Roach? And okay, here's another good...
19:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the nipples is just muscles?
19:32 Mary Roach? Muscles, yeah, like contracting to squeeze it and push it up.
19:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, why are they contracting? What value is that to?
19:38 Mary Roach? Oh, I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I don't know why when it's cold they do that.
19:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When it's cold or aroused, which is two really different things, right?
19:46 Mary 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.
19:55 Neil 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.
20:06 Mary Roach? Right.
20:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Otherwise the child dies.
20:07 Mary Roach? Right, so that makes sense.
20:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so your sexual arousal system is a really convenient system to tap when you're breastfeeding.
20:12 Mary Roach? When you're talking about something, life and death, passing on your genetic material like that.
20:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right, okay.
20:17 Mary Roach? It's a handy reinforcing system.
20:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, give me another top tidbit.
20:20 Mary 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.
20:34 Neil 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.
20:42 Mary Roach? Ones that's just there?
20:43 Neil 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.
20:48 Mary Roach? Well, like a nocturnal erection.
20:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, I don't know. Yeah, maybe.
20:51 Mary 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...
21:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Pulmonary system, check.
21:03 Mary Roach? Check.
21:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sexual arousal?
21:05 Mary Roach? Bong.
21:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Check.
21:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Did you know this about your nipples?
21:11 Speaker 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.
21:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh!
21:22 Speaker 01 Before they invented fire.
21:25 Neil 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?
21:30 Speaker 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?
21:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I've never actually seen the vagina monologue.
21:40 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
21:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No. I was not drawn to them.
21:43 Speaker 01 Because you know everything about vagina, it's just, oh, boring.
21:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. I'll put it on my list.
21:49 Speaker 01 Okay, great. So, Neil, I watched the vagina monologues.
21:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes.
21:53 Speaker 01 And I was so inspired. There are so many other body parts that I was ashamed of, so I wrote the taintologues.
22:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Which is?
22:01 Speaker 01 Which is the taint.
22:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What is the taint?
22:03 Speaker 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.
22:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so what do you say about that?
22:17 Speaker 01 Oh, you know, let's just talk about different monologues, about different women and how they experience their taint.
22:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, I see, I see. So it's an insight into their taintitude?
22:26 Speaker 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?
22:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I know, I didn't know before that.
22:36 Speaker 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."
22:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is that because they're French or because they're Canadian?
22:47 Speaker 01 They're not fake French, but they do like to create their own language. I will say that.
22:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So were you going to tell me your funniest joke that was in here? What was it?
22:53 Speaker 01 I don't know. I don't know.
22:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And who illustrated this? This is like full-color illustrations in here.
22:58 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, you want to see something beautiful?
23:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And why is this censored?
23:01 Speaker 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.
23:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, this is inside the womb of the woman.
23:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, this is the female anatomy through history.
23:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so angels are making babies.
23:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, they were like, "That's what's going on in there." I don't know.
23:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, paddle two?
23:23 Speaker 01 Lower Earth. So this is 1000 to 1959. They just thought, who knows?
23:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 1959?
23:29 Speaker 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.
23:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you think it's because men had run everything? And so they're not even thinking about the woman?
23:57 Speaker 01 I do, I do. I think so, don't you?
24:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, it could be. I'm just saying, there's bias built into society that affects this.
24:04 Speaker 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.
24:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We can end that segment on tumors growing inside your body.
24:19 Speaker 01 It sounds great.
24:20 Neil 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.
24:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your host, and Kristen Schaal.
24:55 Speaker 01 Your co-host.
24:56 Neil 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?
25:16 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, definitely, especially about erectile dysfunction.
25:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Really? What do you say about it?
25:21 Speaker 01 Um, just that you should kill yourself if you have it, I think.
25:28 Speaker 01 No, I think we have...
25:30 Neil 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.
25:57 Speaker 01 That's a chemical?
25:59 Neil 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.
26:03 Speaker 01 We're just going to be adapting to the chemicals.
26:07 Neil 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.
26:21 Speaker 01 Give it to me, Roach!
26:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is there still a frontier of sexual research that is beyond what has been done so far?
26:29 Mary 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.
26:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, of course, right.
26:40 Mary 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.
26:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right. But metaphorically, it's the same.
26:50 Mary Roach? Well, it has to do with sex drive and libido. That's what they're looking for. Viagra's more for a performance.
26:55 Neil 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?
27:03 Mary Roach? Your husband wants you to.
27:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so it's a mismatch.
27:05 Mary 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.
27:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not a man's ready at any time of day.
27:16 Mary Roach? That's right, and the woman's like, "Oh, my God, are you kidding me?"
27:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? For at least four hours at a time.
27:20 Mary 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.
27:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There it is. Do you mention Viagra in here?
27:35 Speaker 01 Uh, no. This is a joke book.
27:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, how about women who lose their sexual drive? What's your opinion about that?
27:45 Speaker 01 When they're older, like, um, I don't really have one, because I'm like nineteen.
27:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, you're still in the zone.
27:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In your sexual zone.
27:53 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, I'm probably at my peak right now, although I've never had sex. So, no.
28:00 Neil 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?"
28:05 Speaker 01 And she said it's for the husband.
28:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? For the husband, because the husband's like chasing after you after they take the Viagra.
28:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then don't they always just divorce you and then go get the younger lady? That's all I've witnessed.
28:16 Neil 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.
28:23 Speaker 01 Like the Strada.
28:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It takes two in a tango.
28:24 Speaker 01 Oh, you know what? Women are our worst enemies.
28:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Man.
28:27 Speaker 01 That is true.
28:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You guys do this.
28:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, we do. It's true. Oh, it's so sad.
28:34 Neil 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?
28:45 Speaker 01 No.
28:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then the economy collapses?
28:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I hope it does.
28:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe that's why the economy's collapsing now.
28:53 Speaker 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.
29:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plus, you know what I heard? That in nursing homes, like, VD is on the rise.
29:11 Speaker 01 I know, right?
29:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like, wow, forget the VD because they're not gonna die of that. They're gonna die of something else.
29:15 Speaker 01 I know. Yeah, good for them.
29:17 Neil 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.
29:33 Speaker 01 Oh, I see where this is going.
29:35 Neil 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.
29:43 Speaker 01 Oh, there.
29:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you go to nursing homes, you could be one guy out of 100 women.
29:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a hot number.
29:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Man.
29:49 Speaker 01 But then maybe there's some women-on-women action at that point.
29:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the lesbian forces will rise?
29:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't know. I mean, I haven't, you know, I just, I haven't...
30:00 Speaker 01 You haven't experienced...
30:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Haven't done the lab research on that.
30:02 Speaker 01 ...heriatric/lesbian relationship in a nursing home?
30:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's a whole unexplored territory, right there.
30:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, but it will be after this podcast.
30:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When we come back, more on the science of sex.
30:35 Neil 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.
30:58 Speaker 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.
31:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'll take your word for it, I haven't...
31:29 Speaker 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.
31:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Beer and chips in front of the TV.
31:53 Speaker 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.
32:13 Neil 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?
32:50 Speaker 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.
33:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
33:00 Speaker 03 You work eight hours.
33:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh huh. That just means there's more time.
33:03 Speaker 03 More time.
33:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In the twenty-four hour day.
33:05 Speaker 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.
33:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's the limit of the freedom, where it's the extreme expression of the freedom.
33:46 Speaker 03 And some people, and even today, decide not to be sexually active, either if they are religious or for values or for beliefs.
33:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Some philosophy.
33:58 Speaker 03 Right. Or Catholics. And to them, I say, be sexually literate, but use it when you have decided to use it.
34:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I like that phrase, be sexually literate.
34:11 Speaker 03 Right.
34:11 Neil 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.
34:20 Speaker 03 Right.
34:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, in your book, The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex, you talk about a mile high.
34:26 Speaker 01 Oh, the mile high club.
34:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What do you say about that?
34:29 Speaker 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.
34:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? As everyone does, of course.
34:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, in the bathroom, because there's so much room.
34:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And wait a minute, I have an issue with the mile high club.
34:41 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
34:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Planes don't fly a mile high.
34:43 Speaker 01 They fly lower than that.
34:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like five miles. They fly way high. No plane is flying a mile high unless it's coming in for a landing.
34:50 Speaker 01 Well, these are civilians calling it that. These are loose, slutty civilians.
34:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is people who don't get the data straight.
34:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:57 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you realize in the stadium in Denver, which is Mile High City?
35:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's Mile High Stadium.
35:01 Speaker 01 Right.
35:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And there is a row of seats that are painted a different color that are at 5,280 feet above sea level.
35:07 Speaker 01 Oh, that's cool. Did you sit in them?
35:09 Neil 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.
35:13 Speaker 01 That's cool.
35:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Everyone in Denver is in the Mile High Club.
35:16 Speaker 01 Um, everyone that had sex on that.
35:18 Neil 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.
35:25 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
35:26 Neil 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.
35:34 Speaker 01 Well, now you just ruined that short story.
35:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, sorry.
35:37 Speaker 01 No, that's okay. Well, anyway.
35:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's the data.
35:40 Speaker 01 It's a real club.
35:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, Kristen, I think we have to close down shop.
35:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, thanks for being on my guest.
35:46 Speaker 01 Thanks for having me.
35:48 Neil 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.
36:13 Speaker 01 You got to follow him.
36:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Cosmic Tidbits.
36:16 Speaker 01 Save money on tuition and read his tweets.
36:20 Neil 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.
36:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, Chris Hardwick.
36:30 Neil 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?
36:41 Speaker 01 We should look to the stars and ride off to Saturn.
36:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In fewer syllables, as always, keep looking up.
36:48 Speaker 01 Oh, that's easier.
Previous Cosmic Queries: Viruses, Outbreaks and Pandemics Next The Science of Sex (Part 2) Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
