.png)
Big Sexy Chat Podcast
Big Sexy Chat: 2 Rad Fatties Unapologetically Sitting Around Chewing the Fat!
Current Events, Hot Topics, Viewer Questions, and Vibe of the Week. Fat Politics, TV Shows with fat characters, ditching diet culture, #sexnotdiets, sex, sex toys, relationships, mental wellness, sex toy reviews, cannabis, cbd, medical fatphobia, glorifying fat bodies, movies, current events, hot topics, fashion, lingerie, Black Lives Matter, and pretty much anything under the big fat sun! Email: bigsexychatpod@gmail.com
Big Sexy Chat Podcast
Scale Fail: How Medical Fatphobia is Weighing Us Down
What if your weight didn't define your healthcare? In this eye-opening episode of Big Sexy Chat, we're joined by the empathetic and brilliant Dr. Robert, a board-certified family physician committed to eradicating medical fat phobia. He shares his journey of creating a practice where patients of all sizes feel heard and respected, revealing the profound impact of not attributing every health issue to weight. You'll hear the touching story of Asherlee, who found solace in Dr. Robert's unique approach, and discover why finding a doctor like him is a rare treasure.
We tackle the often overlooked challenges faced by obese patients in the healthcare system. From the psychological toll of misdiagnoses to the emotional relief of being truly listened to, we unearth the critical need for holistic and individualized care. Dr. Robert recounts a transformative moment when a patient's persistence led to the discovery of a rare diabetes type, underscoring the necessity for doctors to listen beyond appearances and biases. We also delve into the systemic shortcomings in medical training that fail to address body diversity and anti-fatness.
Shifting to a more intimate subject, we explore the intersection of sexual health and larger bodies. Dr. Robert offers expert advice on navigating anatomical challenges and emphasizes the importance of communication and comfort with one's body. From innovative sex toys like the Balldo to making pelvic exams more comfortable, we provide actionable insights to enhance sexual satisfaction and access. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand and combat fat phobia in healthcare while also celebrating body positivity and sexual empowerment.
BigSexyChat.com appreciates you and our community. We do this for you, so if you ever have any ideas about a subject we can discuss for you, email us at bigsexychatpod@gmail.com.
You can find us on Facebook and Instagram as BigSexyChat.
Twitter (who knows how long we will stay there) is BigSexyChatPod
Check out our merch at www.BigSexyTees.com (credit to Toni Tails for setting this up for us!)
Chrystal also sells sex toys via her website BlissConnection.com and you can use the code BSC20 for 20% off.
Big thanks to our Sponsor Liberator Bedroom Adventures. We ADORE the products from Liberator. And, to be clear, we all loved their products even before they became a sponsor!
On this episode of Big Sexy Chat, Asherlee and Murph dive into the depths of medical fat phobia with Dr Robert, a doctor of osteopathic medicine and family practice physician with over 10 years in the medical field. Did you know doctors can prescribe penis pumps? Let's dig in.
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Crystal, I'm Murph. We're just two rad fatties sitting around chewing the fat Twice a month. We'll be chatting about current events hot topics sex, sex toys, fat politics, fat community cannabis, cbd you name it. We're going to talk about it. We are very excited to have you a part of our community. Welcome and enjoy.
Speaker 3:Hey everybody, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. My name is Asher Lee and I am the temporary host for today, and right with me is the lovely co-host, murph. Hi everybody, how you doing, and today we have a really special guest to me. Really special because my doctor is here with us, dr Robert, and I'm going to give him a second to introduce himself and tell you a little bit about who he is.
Speaker 5:Hey, so I'm Dr Robert and I'm a board-certified family physician. I think people ask me kind of like what I do and what makes me different as a doctor when they're interviewing me to be their doctor. What makes me different as a doctor when they're like interviewing me to be their doctor? And the thing that's always been really important to me is they wanted to create a place where patients can come that don't feel like they are fitting well into the medical system or they're either not being heard or there aren't resources to solve the problems that they have. Um, and I've spent a lot of time trying to find practices where I can do this, and Ashley will attest to that. We were just talking how she's followed me through four different practices and always trying to find ways to sort of create a place for patients like that. I trained in Las Vegas, I've been practicing for about 10 years and that's sort of who I am.
Speaker 3:Great. Thank you so much. And I will just say, before we really get started in this, I want everyone to know the very first thing and this is for all of our fat babes out here the very first thing that Dr Robert said to me when I walked into his office the very first time I ever met him was don't worry, weight is not going to be something that we talk about. It is not something that bothers me, it is not something I'm concerned about. Let's find out what's going on for you.
Speaker 3:And those words have stuck with me for five, six years now, and it's the reason why I have followed him from practice to practice to practice because, as most of us know, it is very difficult to find a doctor who will listen, who will care, who wants to know what's really going on for us and isn't just going to blanket diagnosis with obesity as the cause for everything. No, it's not because I'm obese that my arm is broken, thank you. So you know this is the thing that has really kept me with Dr Robert, the thing that has really kept me with Dr Robert, and I'm so happy that you're here to talk to us about medical fat phobia, because I love that. This is something that you're also passionate about and sharing with your own community, online and people and within your practice. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to Murph to ask our first question and kind of get things rolling.
Speaker 4:So I have one thing I want to say, though, is that I hope that you collect unicorns, Dr Robert, because you are a unicorn. That is such a rare feat in every fat person's experience that I've ever heard about is having a medical provider that treats them like a human and not whatever the scale number says. So, Ashley, that's your job is to get him a unicorn that he can put up in his office.
Speaker 5:We have several really cool providers in our office. There's one provider that I really love and she is on Peloton and does like those exercises and her screen name on Peloton is Needs More Body Diversity. Love it. And I just think that's amazing, absolutely. So we have a few of those.
Speaker 3:I've noticed it's not even just the doctors, because even the staff they're not a staff of you know, completely in shape people who are like snubbing their noses at people. No, no, no, there's some big girls up in there that are like, hey, it's nice to see you, and they're so warm and wonderful, like the first day that I walked in that office. I was like, well, you're my best friend and you're my best friend and you're my best friend, so it's, it's, it's pretty wonderful place.
Speaker 4:I'm not, I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty biased, but Well, speaking of you know how it impacts everyone, and you have to have a practice where you have people that greet you at reception with good customer service skills and all those types of things. It sounds like those are learned behaviors, which is fabulous, but when it comes to medical school, this is something that's always kind of piqued my interest. When you go to medical school, how much training is really spent talking about body diversity and anti-fatness? Is that something that's even discussed? Is this something that is in the curriculum?
Speaker 5:That's interesting. So the vast majority of the curriculum is just hard sciences, you know, learning metabolic pathways, learning pharmacology, learning anatomy, things like that.
Speaker 5:And when I went to medical school, we basically had one professor whose job was like to teach us to be good human beings and to interface with people and we just had one professor and we had a class with her, like once or twice a week, where we would learn these sort of bits like mannerisms, how to talk about difficult subjects, how to do things like that, and I don't know if in any of that we ever had a specific lecture or even a bullet point in a lecture that specifically talked about pathophobia.
Speaker 5:That was never something that specifically came up. We talked a lot about your general diversity and inclusion topics that are brought up often things like race and things like religion and things like sexual orientation but we never really had anything to talk like how to be mindful and use language appropriately around people that are not. That was just never really something that's come up and it's something that I have, you know, tried to learn as I've been practicing and it's something that I've learned with a number of patients. I had one patient I think about her a lot because this was probably before I was going to this, or, you know, before I was as tried as I should, and I remember that she just did it from every direction. She was seeing mental health and she was seeing orthopedic surgery and she was seeing me and she was just getting so much messaging that it was like, oh, your wildest dreams will come true, you would just lose the weight. And she would cry at almost every appointment because that's all she knew how to talk about with the doctor.
Speaker 5:And after a couple of appointments like that, where she just assumed, for whatever ailment that she came in that we were going to talk about her weight um, and that's the first thing she would bring up and talk about how hard it was for her to lose weight that I started thinking.
Speaker 5:You know, we're being pretty lazy thinking about how to help this patient, so lazy to the point that she doesn't even know she can talk about anything else. And that's that's actually when I really started thinking about this stuff. And as far as, like, our education on fitness or obesity or you know, the thing that sticks out of my mind is at the end of every like disease state that we learn about, we learn about risk factors for those disease states and obesity, obviously. Obesity, smoking, old age, low socioeconomic status, like it just pops up more and over and over. It's like this is the thing that puts you at risk for this disease and it's looking back at how drilled that was into us is something that's kind of interesting. I would say that was with my medical education. That's just over and over, learning how obesity puts you at risk for disease and that's about it.
Speaker 3:Do you see any deficits in that training, like I mean and if so, I mean really, where are they and how could they be addressed? I mean, it sounds like no one really talks about it. So I mean, is there room in school and in the training to have something about that really as part of the education that medical providers receive?
Speaker 5:I think there's a huge part of it. You know, I think we're doing a huge disservice when we talk about risk factors. The way that we talk about risk factors, so like smoking, comes up a lot right, and so if you smoke, you're at risk for lung cancer, but it's not like every patient that comes in that smokes that we're like well, probably all of your symptoms are your lung cancer, right? It's unfortunate, I feel, like people that are obese, that we just assume that they're already neck deep in a plethora of chronic disease states. Well, actually that's not true. You know, certainly there are, you know there's. You know there's osteoporosis that's associated with being too thin and there's, you know, lung cancer that's associated with being too thin and there's lung cancer that's associated with smoking. And there are some disease states that are associated with obesity. But that doesn't mean that the patient has them and that doesn't mean that you can attribute symptoms to them at the get-go. And I feel like going all the way back. You have to think harder than just quickly attributing disease states that the patient is maybe at risk for, and that's one thing I think we should talk about more. And then the other thing that's really interesting is you know I've been thinking a lot about obesity for like the past five years and the thing let me kind of like organize my thoughts here for just a second around this there are, there actually are, and you can look at the studies.
Speaker 5:There are things that are beneficial about being obese and there are hormonal processes that occur that encourage obesity in people to their betterment. You know, one of the one of the scariest things for me when I would do hospital work is when, like just this skinny little person would come into the hospital because I knew they didn't have the reserves. I knew it would be hard to keep them nourished. I knew that they would develop a lot of bed sores, because that's what happens when you have a lot of bony prominences sticking into the bed. You know, and there's almost you know, like you talk about, that will be like anybody. That's not this ideal body weight. You're like I must fix this huge problem that. So you know that I can attribute everything to. But really, you know, a lot of times there's there's benefits to it. There's this whole study it's called bitten fat of people that are overweight, that are surprised living great lives and don't have diabetes and don't have high cholesterol and stuff like that, and it's not like everybody, it's a it, it's a risk factor. Yes, and so is.
Speaker 5:You know, there's a lot of other things that puts you at risk for diabetes, like low sensory, economic status and certain you know ethnicities and things like that, and um it just I'm kind of rambling, I apologize, but you know, there's just we're not thinking hard enough about it and that's what I feel like. I think when somebody I think there's a few diagnoses, like for women, unfortunately it's anxiety and it's obesity, and if I can immediately attribute the symptoms that you're having to either one of those disease states, it's just a quick, easy appointment. For me there's no, you don't run like an obesity lab or you don't run an anxiety lab, right, you're just like, oh, this is what it is, here's a pill for that, here's therapy for that, you fix that and all your dreams will come true. And I think it's just such lazy thinking. And I could go into some other issues. I just think doctors are rushing so much and trying to find the fastest, easiest diagnosis that requires the least buy-in and bandwidth from them.
Speaker 5:And obesity, unfortunately, it's just a low-hanging fruit that you can. Just, you don't have to run into this. You can just look at someone and a lot of times those people aren't even obese. I follow this rugby player on the USA team and her BMI is like 31. And she has like 150 pounds of lean muscle of her like 180 pound body right, she's anything but unhealthy body right, she's anything but unhealthy. But it's funny and she talks about this in her social media about how people get on her comment section talking about how fast she is, and it's just, it's wild. It's wild how we just look at people and attribute problems to things that aren't even there. And yeah, there's yeah, so I? So the short answer is yes, there's huge deficits and we need to think harder and we need to go farther.
Speaker 4:I think one of the things that is so helpful in that is the personal stories.
Speaker 4:You know, when I talk to other, so I work in health care and I'm a therapist and so I run a therapy program, but I'm integrated into a community health clinic and so I'm engaging with providers pretty regularly and one of the things where I see there's options for change is really having those personal stories shared, because it kind of takes away the medical terminology and the. You know, I'm just I've got to get to that Occam's razor quickest answer, get you going, you know, get out in 15 minutes. But when you share that personal story or you share an example that resonates it makes such a difference for the provider. It helps them kind of really go back into that whole person care, like looking at the whole picture In your experience, like you've already shared an example with us that I think was probably pretty transformative to you. But are there other things in which you feel like, okay, I'm learning this or I'm expanding my learning, how you took on that information and how you're applying it to your practice now?
Speaker 5:So I think one of the experiences that's really personal to me is my own family and some people in my family, especially older generation, like baby boomer gen X, who have struggled with their weight and struggled with doctors getting their healthcare needs met. And now that I'm a doctor, I go to these appointments or I go to the emergency room with these family members of mine and have to, every once in a while, put people on point. So I go to the emergency room with these family members of mine and, you know, after everyone's like put people on point, be like, well, you know, probably atrial fibrillation is not from obesity, right, like that's, those, those, those. There's actually a huge, strong correlation between those things and so that's been really helpful for me. But the thing and helpful and also heartbreaking, because every time one of those things comes up, I can see these family members really like, really embrace it, really take it in. Yeah, you're right. You know, if it wasn't that I probably would be fine, and I think that's the part of me that really breaks my heart and just being like, no, it's not, you're a strong, independent woman. It's not, you're a strong, independent woman. That's the only more I'm thinking of and the situation that you're in is not you being overweight, and I just think it's really hard.
Speaker 5:My wife's grandmother just recently passed away and she spent her whole life being overweight and at the end of her life she got some really awful care and she had actually lost a ton of weight because of the disease states that were going on. And during some of those last few months I remember, just you know, being with her in care facilities or in hospital beds and just you know her attributing all of this to all these issues that she was dealing with in that moment, to her being overweight all of her life, where a lot of the times had nothing to do with that, and that's something that's been really transformative to me and something that has really motivated me, is it? Just it breaks my heart that, just like the doctors are being lazy about the ways that they think these poor patients don't have any other explanations or understanding of what's going on in their body other than broken because I'm fat and I think it's just sad. So I don't bring up obesity with patients unless they bring it up, unless somebody says I'm worried about my weight. I want you to help me fix it. I don't bring it up because you know there's probably both of you know like people. They're aware that that's a heavy part of their life. They don't need me and the doctor to bring that up. That's not what they're there to talk to me about.
Speaker 5:And the thing that's really funny to me is it's almost like this elephant in the room, like the patient's waiting for me to bring up obesity, and then they get so uncomfortable that I haven't that they'll just bring it up theirself. Like well, my knee probably hurts because I'm fat and I have to. And then I'm like, no, I'm actually not worried about your weight today. I think we need to really evaluate your knee and figure out what's going on. Now, you see how part of that you know there's, there's stuff there, but that's not, even if that is a factor, that's not going to solve any problems today. Right, like, like pointing that out, I need to get x-rays, I got to manage the pain, we got to figure out what we're going to do with physical therapy, like it's not even relevant, even if it is relevant today, if that makes sense. So that's, that's the other thing. Okay, that's the last thing I wanted to say about that in that moment.
Speaker 3:Well, I think so I have a question.
Speaker 3:But before I have a question, I want to say and actually kind of ties into it, I will say even still, even after five, six years of being with you because of all of the programming before, and even like, not with you but right, like the, the cardiologist that I went to see, that that I got referred to when you and I were trying to figure out everything going on for my body, right, bad, the bad one the bad, dr Robert, there is, there are still times that because of that I I come in and I'm like you know, look at all the good things I'm eating, dr Robert, you know, and and you're like I don't care about that.
Speaker 3:That's not what we're talking about, and I think so. So that really leads me into the part that I want to know, um, outside of what I know of you, and maybe tell people what you've done in your practices to really kind of help bridge that gap between between what experiences a lot of us fat people have had and how to, and how you've kind of worked to really care for bigger bodied people.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think you know this is going to sound like so dumb and so jaded and like is, but I I think the thing that really has affected me a lot is just listening to patients and you hear this over and over. Like just listen, even like this TV show house, like house is always just getting on everyone. Just take a decent history, you know. But when you sit down and you talk with somebody and they have symptoms and you're talking to them about how they need to lose weight, there was a moment that everything changed for me. Actually. So there's two moments. Okay, there's one patient that really put me in check and she wasn't fat, but she had diabetes and she was coming in and she was taking the medication and her numbers were still awful, her A1C was still really high. And I'm like well, listen, you don't really gotta work on your diet. And she like stopped me, like angry, stopped me. Doctor, listen, I don't eat any carbs, I eat protein and fresh vegetables and that's it. And my blood sugar is still in the 300s. It's not my diet. I need you to hear me. It's not my diet. And she was confident enough that I actually like was like, oh okay, let I need to. I'm getting lazy in the way that I'm thinking. And we ran some tests and she actually had a somewhat rare form of diabetes, of diabetes type 1.5. And it's the autoimmune diabetes that occurs usually in kids but sometimes can happen in adults. But can happen in this really slow, insidious way that looks like type 2 diabetes, in this really slow, insidious way that looks like type 2 diabetes. And if I had just rested on my laurels of diet and exercise will cure diabetes, she might have died, because there was no amount of dieting that was going to solve her problem. She needed insulin, her body didn't make insulin, and so that moment was really seminal to me.
Speaker 5:When, like when patients tell me what they're eating, I need to believe them. So when patients come in and they tell me I'm exercising, I'm eating right, I'm doing all these things, I used to be like well, you know, let's really look at it and see what you're saying. And now I'm like, okay, well, you're doing all these things and it's not improving whatever symptom you're trying to improve, or you're not achieving weight transformation if that's what you're trying to do. So we need to figure out what else is going on. And then I've had a number of patients that come in to me and they have symptoms and previous doctors have told them that they need to lose weight and they've tried to do these body transformations and they can't. And then they really struggle with it and it would be very lazy and easy of me to just be like, well, it's because you're doing it often, even though the research shows that the doctors are basically worthless at helping patients lose weight.
Speaker 5:When it comes to diet and exercise, this is not me just like making this up. If you look at the data and so diet doctors giving diet and exercise tips, by and large, as a group, we were awful at it. The data is there and solid, and so that's when I started like, when I started looking at this and I started listening to this patient. So I started listening to the stupid advice that people were giving about how to lose weight. All of these things were really seminal to me and I think the thing you know after having these experiences where I was like, well, I should learn how to do this, and I started reading the data, I'm like and basically just said you don't know how to do this, you're not going to be able to do this.
Speaker 5:That was really important to me and I was kind of like my energy is wasted telling people these low carb diet or Atkins diet or vegetarian or vegan, and are drawing the diabetic plate and you know what's my favorite one? And I I still hear this don't eat things that are white, you know. Avoid rice, avoid no ice cream. I'm like ice cream's not white like I think. What are you talking about? This is so stupid. Um, and so just like hearing, like all of these stupid diet things the doctors were saying, thinking they were making a difference, and realizing that it's all just, it's just a waste of everybody's time. You need to talk about what the patient's there to talk about, and if they want to talk about diet and weight loss, you should actually probably refer that to somebody else, because you're not good at it, and that's been something that I realized during all of this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's intense to think of, like okay, I'm trained in this profession, like I feel like I've got a good grasp on these things, and then it's like, oh crap, I have to unlearn some stuff here. This is not good, but I really appreciate you being humble and recognizing that, because I think you know there's a certain percentage of providers that are like I went to school and I got the degree, so I'm the one who you know, like I get to tell you what to do, and when you challenge that, it becomes, you know, a hostile relationship or no relationship at all. I'm curious, though do you find that there are other like genres of health where doctors have gotten lazy, or that it feels like there may be some implicit bias where there needs to be extra training?
Speaker 5:I mean, we all need to get better at almost everything. That's a really big, big, big question. I think I kind of wish medicine was broken up a little bit different than it is. There are a lot of doctors want to see a patient immediately with the problem and want to know immediately what the solution is and give it to them, and we've actually done studies on this.
Speaker 5:What makes a good patient? I think it's two things. Are you familiar with the disease state the patient has? Is there a treatment plan for the disease state? Does the treatment plan work? Is the patient grateful and can the patient pay for your services? Researchers would be like go to directors and show them the patient panel going out.
Speaker 5:The good patients these were the attributes that the good patients had right, and I think that's really unfortunate that there's a lot of doctors that that's the patient that they're looking for. They have a disease that the doctor knows, there's a treatment plan for it, the treatment plan works, the patient's nice and they'll pay you for it, and that does not make them a lot Like. There are a lot of people that fall into that category, and so I think we need a lot of training around. What do you do when you actually don't know what to do.
Speaker 5:That's a huge deficit in healthcare right now. It's like unless you can put a diagnosis in a 15-minute visit and come up with a treatment plan, you're doing something wrong. That's where attributing things to obesity, anxiety, lack of discipline or whatever you know it's because the patient has an array of symptoms that the doctor kept behind a you know, a good overarching diagnosis for a treatment plan. We need to think harder about that, because it's interesting, there's a lot of ways that you can treat people even if you don't know what the diagnosis is, and a lot of times the treatment process helps you find the diagnosis, and so I think we need to get trained better in saying I don't know. I think we need to get trying better and asking patients what have you found? And so I think there needs to be like a foundational change.
Speaker 3:I want to just stop for a second and point out how interesting it is to me that in an industry that is about caring for people, there are studies on what makes, or studies results on what makes a good patient. But it's like okay, well, what about what makes a good doctor? I'm a person, so I'm a patient and I need care, so that should make me a good patient. Like, what about finding a good doctor? What's where's that, where's that study?
Speaker 5:yeah, you know it's. It's funny I am. I don't know if I've ever told you about this. Actually, I I used to work for a major HMO and I really struggled because they put us. It was a grind, like you were seeing lots of complicated patients every day, and so they put me in this training, because they put me in a communication intensive because I was spending too much time in the room with patients, and they're like we need you to go learn how to communicate better with patients. In the opening day of that communication intensive they're basically like well, here's, you know, this is something that everybody should know.
Speaker 5:Doctors aren't very good at communicating with patients. On average, you will interrupt a patient 11 seconds after they start talking, and I think that time has actually gotten shorter. They've already done these studies. And it's gotten worse after they start talking. And I think that time has actually gotten shorter. They've already done these studies and it's gotten worse. And they're like so we need to learn how to not interrupt patients. And it turns out everybody that was at this communication intensive had the opposite problem, like they were pissing off patients all the time. So they had to like train them and act like human beings.
Speaker 5:It was a bizarre experience. I could do a whole podcast on that, just like a little glimpse into it. The first day they're like we're going to talk about empathy and how to show empathy, and so all we want you to do we're going to present you a difficult patient and we want you just to show empathy. You're not solving the problem, you're not diagnosing the patient, you're not coming up with a treatment plan. You just want the patient to know that you're empathetic to their situation. And they they gave us this test patient like a like an actor who was pretending to be a pain patient um, a patient that needed like opiate pain medications and was really abrasive about it. You know, like I'm in a lot of pain, you doctors don't care, I can't get my pain meds, I can't work, it's all your fault. You know this kind of patient and um, all we had to do the whole assignment was just to tell the patient. You know, but I understand that sounds really hard.
Speaker 5:That was the whole assignment, okay, but they went through like 15 people and every single one of them, in less than 11 seconds, got into like a conflict with this patient. Like it's not my fault, you're paying, you know, like these sort of things, like they don't have the truth. I can't solve your problems. You've been in pain your whole life and I'm like you're a broken machine. I was just awful things and the insurer can't solve your problems. You've been in pain your whole life and how am I going to? You're a broken machine. How is it? Just awful things and the insurgents just don't know.
Speaker 5:Okay, wait, pause, pause, let's go back. Okay, what are we? What's the? What do we want to do? We want to show everything. Everyone's held.
Speaker 5:And then they got to me. They had checked and they're like all right, listen. So they go through the whole thing. This person's drilling into me telling me how awful I am and I listen until they run out of breath.
Speaker 5:Right, the doctor can't come up with anything else to say. I just sit there and listen and I just go well, that sounds really hard. And the instructor's like, oh, thank God. And she's like okay, did everyone see what he just did? Did you see what he just said, how he showed the patient that he understood and cared? And then I shit you not and I've told this story on my TikTok before, but I shit you not for the next 40 minutes.
Speaker 5:We went through the next and every single one of them, word for word, the patient would get done with what they're doing and they would go. That sounds really hard. Every other single doctor in this whole communication intensive just basically copied me and the instructor was like you know what, screw it, it's better than what they were doing before I'm gonna take it, you know. And so, yeah, we're studying what doctors aren't good at and there's a lot of doctors that aren't good at this thing and we're trying to figure out how to make this better.
Speaker 5:And then I spent four like full days learning how to communicate and I I was so done with that training and it was so funny. We got done with that training and I'll never forget like we had to do like this out training or whatever. Like the last day, and I remember one of the guys was like you know, this training has been really helpful. He's like I am communicating so much better with my wife and my teenage daughter now and I think to myself how in the hell did you become this successful of a person to make it through all the way to medical school and you didn't know how to show empathy Like your whole life, and you're just discovering that this is like an essential part of human interaction that is going to save your relationships with the people that you love. He's like he's gray haired and a doctor for 30 years Like the heck. It was wild to me. So there are some people looking into it and, yeah, we got work to do that is just.
Speaker 3:That is hilarious to me and I can see it like I get it. I mean that's that's like the the majority of the doctors that most of us encounter is those and it's like empathy is a new concept. But I mean there, I know that there's science behind it. I know that there is an empathy gene that they've discovered. Like, if y'all are learning science in school, you guys learning about the empathy gene, like this is a thing, right, right, you guys have them. No, no, okay.
Speaker 5:Screen for that and like medical school yeah.
Speaker 4:We get a lot of in my field. You know, when we're talking to providers and we're talking to them about empathy and thoughts and feelings, and you know I get a lot of eye rolls. That's, that's been my risk. You know the common response when I'm talking about. You know, how do you be present with the person? Well, I only have 15 minutes, ok. Well, that 15 minutes you can make a pretty big impact on their life. Make a pretty big impact on their life. You know, let's, let's talk about how that, you know, has the ability to change the course of this person's medical journey. And I get a lot of like, oh yeah, that sort of thing. So, yes, I think empathy training is astounding and would be wonderful and for the medical community maybe, like a whole week on it if possible, maybe like a whole week on it if if possible.
Speaker 5:Can you imagine just so much more time than we're already getting? Do you just spend a week on empathy training? But I think when you, when you have that empathy and you start thinking about it, all of these like phobia things start to melt away because all of a sudden you're going to be listening to the patient and all of a sudden you're going to be really hearing the symptoms that they're having and really hearing what they've already true-aided and you will become so much more effective at being the healer that we've signed up to be. And I think there is a little higher to this empathy. I think it's a place that we could do a lot more in medicine.
Speaker 3:I have an improv question here based on that a lot more in medicine. I have an improv question here based on that Actually, do you think that, on the subject of fat phobia specifically, that even if we had a week or a month or a year long training for medical providers, that, because fat phobia is such a layered, systemic thing in our society that there's still going to be a lot of that throughout the medical field, even if everybody was super empathetic and really listened?
Speaker 5:You know, rae, that's a really good question and you know you take it even a step further. You ask can you even learn or teach empathy? And that's up to debate right now. Is that something that you can actually learn how to do?
Speaker 5:You know, the fat phobia in our culture, in our society, is really interesting because it is a body typing, like the way your body looks like has always been a marker and a signal and supposedly, a socioeconomic status.
Speaker 5:So there are times when having extra weight was something only the wealthy could do, and that doesn't mean that people that weren't wealthy were also fat, but for whatever reason, it got attributed to that.
Speaker 5:And we're now at this place where really, um, you know fat phobia and the biases that we have.
Speaker 5:It just it's a way to identify a group of people that don't deserve the same level of resources and care that the elite society deserves.
Speaker 5:And I don't know if we can unprogram a society to not feel that way, just in general, because there's a lot of different ways that we signal like this person isn't worth as much as this person, and clitness is one of the ways that we've decided as a society not this year, obviously, hopefully one of the ways, a society that that we have, that our society has determined that there's a certain group of people that you can feel okay without treating less than and I don't know if we can unprogram that. It's like can we get rid of racism, can we get rid of stuff like that? And it's heartbreaking and awful, when you look at it through that lens, that all of this energy that we're putting into the diet and exercise industry and all of thatF really is just signaling there's a group of people that don't deserve because if you do lose the weight, then you do deserve all of the care and the attention and the clothes and the six minutes. And I don't know if we can unprogram that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do a training for onboarding at our organization and it's cultural humility basically and it's a very brief training. But I talk about culture being more than just, you know, race and sexuality and all those types of things, and talk about fat culture because I'm fat and I make that very clear that that's the way I prefer to be discussed and that's my body type. But one of the things that I share is that the implicit bias that comes from the medical community is it's like 62% of new grads already have implicit bias against fat bodies. So when you think about somebody going into a health center to try to access care and if they have a fat body, how different that process is, and just to kind of open the door to enlightenment of this question and have the group that's onboarding discuss that, it's scary. It's exactly what we talk about racism and how, you know doctors sometimes will see the pain threshold being different for black women and not consider their pain level. And then we talk about fat bodies and we talk about, you know like, oh well, then you're just kind of assigned diabetes, you know, or you know you need to lose weight because that's what's going to help those knees or whatever it may be, what's going to help those knees or whatever it may be.
Speaker 4:And when you said, like, how do you fix this kind of entrenched culture? I think the only way that you can really address it is just by talking about it. And so much of that is just this negative talk, not, hey, this is a real problem. Like 62% of new grads coming out of medical school think that fat bodies are worse. Like that's a problem, you know. But I think this kind of thing where we're having this discussion, where it's not all doctors right, like we're having a conversation with someone who's basically trained and, you know, is experiencing humility and, you know, recognizes that there are things that need to change. But I think part of that is that entrenched culture where you have to really start addressing that and saying, like these are the issues. We have to start talking about it. So I just really appreciate the examples and you being vulnerable and coming on to a podcast with fat ladies to talk about, you know, fat bodies, because most doctors that I have ever been around would be like, fuck that I'm not doing that.
Speaker 5:Well, for what it's worth, you two are lovely to talk to.
Speaker 4:How do you sit with patients that have just experienced a lot of anti-fatness in the medical field and, you know, come into your office with this perception of, like you said, like I'm going to have to say the O word, we're going to have to have this conversation. I know he's thinking about it in the back of his head and you may not be, but that perception has been played out so many times for that individual. How do you get over the trauma that people experience in that setting so that you can really look at the problem and address the symptoms?
Speaker 5:You know this comes up a lot the problem and address the symptoms. You know this comes up a lot and there's a couple moments in healthcare that just I just wish I never had to do them, because it's so disheartening that so much bandwidth has to be dedicated to a moment like this. And one of the moments and, ashley, you and I have this one after you went and saw that cardiologist where we basically need to dedicate a half an hour to just unwinding all of the wrongness that happened at an appointment. You know you go and you see a specialist and they're like, oh, it's because you're fat, and here's a diet plan and here's a nutritionist and I'm like, but none of that is going to solve your headaches. None of that is going to get you. So we need to talk about all this. I need you to take all the energy that you are putting into thinking about this, that you've been thinking about this because society is constantly telling you this is the solution to all of your problems. And we need to back away from that for a minute and we need to look at what's really causing your headaches.
Speaker 5:And it bothers me so much when I have to spend time unwinding what other providers have done. So there's that moment. I basically have to dedicate a full appointment to just unwinding worthless information. Don't eat things that are white the hell, what? Like you just went to the doctor and that's the advice that they got to cure their headaches, like come on. It's so frustrating because then we have to have that whole conversation and it's an important conversation to have. I'm not saying that that's a waste of time and I hate that. I have to have it. I'm saying that we now have to spend time unwinding the damage. And then I got to spend time finding somebody that's going to do it right. So I just. We waited three months for cardiology referral. They showed up and got told not to eat mayonnaise for their congenital heart condition and then, um, and now I gotta find a new cardiologist. Then we'll hopefully give a shit and do their job. And that's really frustrating because then I'll think like this is the selfish part of it as a private care provider. That's three more months and I gotta try to like hold on by my fingernails and figure out what to do and read the research and learn new medication so that I can manage the patient until the specialist can see him. And it makes me bananas.
Speaker 5:And then the other appointment that's always really hard for me is those appointments I talked about with baby boomers and Gen X. When they come in and they have some symptoms and we're going through it, and then they just, you know, at some point they have to burst out, like I probably need to lose weight because they just know what's going to come up Right. And then I say to them I'm not, I am not worried about your weight, you do not. You know, we look at their stuff and like you do not have diabetes, or you have diabetes and it's under control, or you have diabetes and we have a plan for that. But that's not what we're talking about today. I'm not worried about that, I don't. Your weight is fine.
Speaker 5:As your doctor, I am not telling you that you need to lose weight and then, like I would say, half the time I do that, there's this big, long, awkward pause because the patient doesn't know what to say. And then they start crying and they're like I can't tell you how much that means to me. And just to think that I have to spend time doing that, and not that I don't want to spend time quietly sitting with a patient processing their fat trauma. That's important. That's time well spent, but that's not why you go to the doctor. That's not what we should be doing in that room. That time in the room is so precious. You've been waiting months to see this doctor. You've got 20 minutes to see this doctor and we got to use that time to unwind fat trauma. Like that's a really bad commentary on our society and it's important. I'm not saying I don't want to do that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. I'm just saying it's sad that we have to do that. I don't even know that A thousand percent.
Speaker 5:Answer your question.
Speaker 4:No, that you absolutely answered it and I think A thousand percent Can I answer your question?
Speaker 4:No, that you absolutely answered it, and I think we all are in high agreement that you know that shouldn't have to happen.
Speaker 4:And the fact that you spend that time, even having that conversation, tells me that someone could trust you with their life because you're going to spend that time to have that conversation, even though that conversation shouldn't have to happen.
Speaker 4:It's vital that it does at this point because we know time and time again, majority of people that go see a provider are going to have some sort of trauma from dealing with the fat topic, whatever that may be the weight, the diabetes, the this, the that because it's just that's the easiest thing for them to go for. And so I can only imagine what that's like to come into your practice as a patient and have a provider say that's not my concern, my concern is your symptoms. I'm thinking of all the conversations Ashley and I have had about problem doctors and you know conversations and things that have been said and just how traumatic that is. And in my own therapy practice had patients come in and say horrible, horrible things about themselves because the provider said this and then it's like okay, well, in therapy, now we have to unwind all of that and I get paid to do that, which is that's fine, but it shouldn't have to happen. It's an unnecessary trauma.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 3:So, in the interest of time, I want to jump to. What are the specific dangers of medical providers using obesity as a diagnosis, as like this blanket diagnosis? What are we really dealing with? I mean, we know right, as fat people. What does that look like from the medical standpoint and what do you see as the dangers of that?
Speaker 5:So I think it's so profoundly dangerous to attribute symptoms to obesity to even really as a medical provider, unless you're, like, very, very, very thoroughly trained in obesity and you have interventions that that you that are evidence based and you know how to have these conversations for any medical provider to like try to pull that into an appointment only hurts the patient if the patient isn't there to talk about it, because not only is that provider not very aware of what it is to BOVs, they also have almost no tools to treat it, to fix it.
Speaker 5:So even if that is a problem, even if that is a thing that would make the patient better, that provider, according to the research this doesn't mean just like talking out of my ass according to the research, doctors will not help that patient lose weight very effectively. And so I don't even. It's like if you came into me, like, well, you know what your problem is, it's probably your crankshaft on your engine. I don't know how to fix that. Why would I even bring it up? You know what I mean. Like I, it's something that's really out of our sphere of influence. So all it does is waste time in finding and discussing and intervening on symptoms that exist. So for every symptom that exists, there needs to be a thorough workup, regardless of what the body type is. And if you're obese and 90% of that appointment is talking about how to eat better, but your knees hurt or you can't breathe well or whatever, you're just wasting time and you're missing treatment and you're missing opportunities to diagnose and and it's just, it's really. I think it's really detrimental and okay, I'm going to. I'm going to put in my two cents here. I've thought a lot about this. I've spent so much time unwinding this medical trauma and I made a video about this.
Speaker 5:But, like there's these four questions that I think every person who's fat, who goes and sees a doctor that can't see past the fat, what they should ask the doctor. And I think you should just point blank ask the doctor if I wasn't fat, how would you manage my symptoms? And I think you need to make a doctor reconcile that reality, that like, what would you do if I wasn't fat? What imaging would you do? What labs would we do? What medications would you order if I wasn't fat? And what are you because I'm fat, until I'm able to lose the weight? You say I'm going to lose the weight, I'm going to feel better. So what are we going to do to manage this problem until I'm able to lose weight? Because it's not like you tell me I need to lose weight and I go home and I feel better Actually, quite the opposite. So you know, what are we going to do in the meantime? Because I still got symptoms and they need to get better today, because I can't work today. I can't work. The are so bad. Today I can't work and I will try to do whatever you're telling me to do, but it's going to take some time.
Speaker 5:And then and this is like the real gut check, I think, with most doctors how are you going to help me lose the weight? When am I going to see you again? Talk about obesity Are you going to do some sort of program with me? Do you have the bandwidth to do this? And most doctors are like I don't need those cards, you to help patients lose weight. And then the last one is like well, let's say that I don't lose the weight, because the data shows 97% of the time when doctors encourage weight loss, patients don't lose weight.
Speaker 5:So we need to really plan for this very possible and probable reality that I'm not going to lose the weight in this moment. Now those numbers are changing now that we have some new medications, but the reality just a few years ago was, if a doctor told you to lose weight not you, particularly the universal you. If a doctor told a patient to lose weight, chances were very slim that that patient was actually going to lose any weight. And so how are you going to manage these symptoms, even if I don't lose the weight? Those are all really important questions. What would you do if I wasn't fat? What are you going to do to manage me? Now? How are you going to help me lose weight? And what if I don't lose the weight? What's the plan? And I think we need to put doctors in check like that so that they make sure that they're not just being lazy in their thinking and not just attributing way too much to the excess than whatever, and get the real work done.
Speaker 3:You also have kind of a dialogue, essentially that you've encouraged me and other patients to say to doctors, without even just asking questions and I don't know if you say this to all of the patients or if I just got the special thing because of the bad Dr Robert but I would love for you to share another thing that got this whole bad Dr Robert, good Dr Robert thing going on for those who don't know. But I'd love for you to share your speech that you encourage people to say to doctors who are coming at you going. You know, let's talk about your weight beyond just asking questions you going?
Speaker 5:you know, let's talk about your weight, beyond just asking questions. You know, I and I don't I feel kind of bad because I'm not actually sure what speech I gave you. So, um, almost all of my patients, when they go and see specialists, I anticipate what that specialist may do that I'd say I'm poor for. So when I tell patients to go to the emergency room, like can you go to the emergency room Cause you chest pain and you can't breathe, and I'm like, but when you go to the emergency room you tell them my chest hurts and I can't breathe, you don't tell them. Well, you know, maybe it doesn't hurt so bad and I guess you know I'm just I'm not breathing. Okay, like, don't be stoic in this moment I'm doing them to.
Speaker 5:I know for a number of patients that I've gone to specialists to anticipate being told, well, it's because you're fat. I tell them to just tell the doctor. I know I'm fat and that's something I'm aware of and something that's part of my medical history and something that I think about. I don't want to talk about that today. I want to talk about these symptoms and I'm not interested in the fat part of it. I want to talk about all the other parts of it also, and so I'll have that conversation and have patients say things like that too, and I do that with a number of different disease states. You know when patients walk in and you know whatever, whatever bias I see a potential specialist have, making sure patients know what words to say, so that they have to look past all of that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's pretty close to it. I think maybe we were a little bit because I was so emotional about it, I think we were pretty strongly wording, but I think it was along the lines of that. You were just like next time, what I want you to say, and you were like practice this with me, like I'm not here to talk about that. I'm not here to talk about my weight, I'm here to talk about my heart. If you're not able to talk about just my heart with me, without obesity, without my weight being a factor, then get me to somebody who can. And and that was like I mean. So it's essentially what you were just saying, but yeah, now you're in, but it was, you know, that's like a really powerful thing.
Speaker 3:I think that gives patients power where we don't. We don't necessarily feel like we're very powerful with doctors. I think that we tend to feel like you know, they know more than we do. What am I going to do, you know? And like the idea that I could go in or any other person could go into a doctor and say I'm not here to talk about that. If you're not capable of talking to me about what's actually happening, then we need to feel like you need to send me to somebody else Like that, that is like that's ultimate, you know.
Speaker 5:Yeah On that, that. I need you to give me to someone that can. I think that really puts a doctor's ego in check, and I think that's something that we need to hear. Like, if you are incapable of doing your job, I need you to get me to someone who can do their job. I need you to get me to someone who can do their job. And imagine having to be that doctor.
Speaker 5:After this patient came in, you know talking to your colleague in the office and all I want to do is talk about how bad she is and she doesn't want to talk to me anymore. Would you mind talking to her now? That's a walk of shame as a clinician that nobody wants to do right? So you're going to get your shit together so that you can have a real conversation, so you don't have to go up and look like an ass and have that conversation, because really that would be profoundly embarrassing. Just to be like, I really offended this patient because I kept telling her she's fat. I forgot, I don't. I don't always tell patients, and I should. I should say it more often. If you can't do that, I need you to get me to someone that can, and I think that is a powerful statement. That's something that really will push a provider to get their shit together.
Speaker 3:It really stood out to me and it's stuck with me. I mean, granted, you made me rehearse it with you a couple times, so now I get to rehearse it for you. I appreciate that. Yeah, happy to. I think that that is something that really people should do more of. I'd love to jump to some more positive aspects of things and some kind of some interesting things. I don't know, Murph, do you want to tackle the next question?
Speaker 4:Yeah well, dr Robert, you signed up for a sex positive fat liberation podcast, so we got to talk about some sex stuff here. Um, I'm curious from the medical perspective, um having a fat body, does that impact your sexual health?
Speaker 5:you know. So I I did my training in las vegas and I didn't get any sexual health training until I got into residency, like nothing. In medical school we learned about Viagra. That was about it.
Speaker 5:And I would say having a fat body does impact your sexual health, but no more than having any other body. So every body type, every different situation, it doesn't matter what there are things that improve the experience and there's things that maybe hinder the experience, and so it's just. You know, sexual health is just a big topic and it's I don't think it's ever the body that's a major barrier, but I do think it's things like being comfortable, communicating about that body, finding a partner that's comfortable with that body, being comfortable in your own body, regardless of what that body looks like. Those are the biggest barriers. And being fat, you know, there's a lot of people I mean, of course, in everybody's head there's a lot of people that are fat, that are very sexually healthy, but somebody else in the same body, with different outlook and a different partner, might be very different, and I guess that's what I would say about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think Crystal's not here, but her famous quote is communication is lubrication right, and so as long as you're feeling confident about your body and you're feeling confident with your partner that you can have these conversations, that's really the only thing in your way, as long as you know there's not some sort of other you know thing that would impact your well-being. But yeah, I think that's something that probably is not talked about enough that should be talked about.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think there's a lot of different reasons that people have sex, and sometimes it's to have children, sometimes it's you know a language, patients that are missing limbs, and I've had patients that are, you know, have chronic pain, and I have patients that you know all sorts of things, and all of that makes you have to change the game a little bit. But it's just like you're saying, communication is lubrication. So as long as you and your partner, you're with someone that you're still safe with and someone that is able to arouse you, the fatness isn't a barrier and for you know, for a lot of people I think it's actually something that improves the experience. There's a lot of people that really enjoy that part about their partner.
Speaker 4:I agree and I'm curious I think you've kind of already answered the question but does it impact satisfaction? Does fatness impact sexual satisfaction, like can it change, you know, somebody's outlook or orgasm?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so well, and then that gets even more important Is the orgasm, even the satisfaction part of it. There's a lot of couples where perhaps one member isn't even able to orgasm and still very satisfied with that sexual interaction. There are a couple things with, um, fatness, that um you have to account for with the anatomy, just to simulate the right places in order to achieve that orgasm. It can be something you have to figure out, um, but you know, similarly, if somebody can't, you know, stand up straight because their back hurts so bad, or somebody has a burn that scars something, or whatever, you know, there's a lot of different things that people have to work through with their, their sexual satisfaction, um, and yeah, I mean they're, they're.
Speaker 5:So I mean, like, if we want to really, like, delve into the anatomy of it, one of the things that is difficult for men is the pubic area. We call the bonds, pubis. The area around the penis can gain weight, and it can gain weight in such a way that it starts to come up around the penis, so that it's the penis effectively becomes it. There's not as much of it available to participate in intercourse, and that is a problem if penetrative intercourse is essential to your satisfaction, but most of the men that are in that situation it really isn't. It's okay that that's not part of their experience and you find other ways to enjoy that moment. There are things that come up with having anatomy differences that you have to work through, and I guess is that the question you're asking, like, how do we work through some of these anatomy issues that come up?
Speaker 4:Yeah, just like I think is there something that is specific to fat people. So I think you know talking about maybe extra flesh, you know how that impacts the penis of flesh, you know how that impacts the penis and you know are there other things that you can think of? Where having adipositive tissue is that the right word? You know, like more tissue, like, creates a different, you know different experience or maybe changes something in terms of satisfaction.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I would say that on the male end, that would be the biggest barrier is having this mom pubis where you can have some extra flesh around the penis, making it so that it can't, so there's not as much of it available to participate in intercourse. For people with vaginas, the issue can often be that the you know anatomically what we would call the panus or the stomach, can sometimes lay over the anatomy that would be relevant to, like the clitoris. I guess I can use all the real words. This is all sex positive, right? So, um, so the panus can lay over the clitoris or can lay over the, the labia and entroitis, the place, place where penetration actually occurs. And the trick is just getting that space available to work with.
Speaker 5:And I think that for this situation, the biggest part of it is just having a partner that's comfortable touching their partner in an intimate and safe way, that's able to move things where they need to move in order to gain access to the parts that need to be stimulated, and that can be very, a very satisfying experience for both people. You know, you know that there's a lot of very intimate touch that can happen in those moments that can feel safe and stimulating for both people and um, and that's really the biggest thing. And um, you know, speaking from it from like a clinical perspective, when we need to do like pelvic exams and pap smears and things like that, um, you know it's, it's not hard to gain access to everything you need to gain access to, if you're comfortable, you know, placing, like I mean you some motions but like being able to place your hands and being able to kind of push things where they need to go and being able to hold things where they need to be and being able to place the speculum and everything like that, and it can be a very comfortable experience for everybody. It's just a matter of figuring out how to do those sorts of things and to that way together in a way that feels comfortable and safe. Yeah, and it's the moving the flesh out of the way.
Speaker 5:The men can be a little bit harder, um, if it is especially um, if there's a lot of fat on that monstubus, it can get very difficult, um to access the penis and in situations like that, most of those men, um, their ejaculation isn't what they're looking for in a sexual encounter. They're aware that that's not going to be part of what's happening in that encounter and they would likely just get a lot more satisfaction from seeing their partner being satisfied or something like that. This is me speaking to people I've talked about. I certainly don't know the case for everyone. I'm sure there are men that are very frustrated by this. But what I've talked to, that I've had to get through some of these situations, that's kind of how they feel about it.
Speaker 4:No, that's so helpful, Thank you. So we ask everyone what's your favorite sex toy or sexual aid.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's your. I don't, I don't know, I've never, that's never really been part of my sexual experience. I haven't, um, I haven't ever really used sex toys, so yeah, I couldn't speak well to that. I'm excited to learn any tips and tricks you have I do want to.
Speaker 3:because of that, I want to introduce you to a very special, a very special toy, um, that is for men, um, men who have balls, um, and it's murph is laughing, it's the baldo, or the baldo, because, um, and Ball, though it's clever. This, this goes on the balls and it essentially turns the balls into a vibrator. And from what?
Speaker 5:I hear it.
Speaker 3:Uh, very interesting right. Um, from what I hear, it gives men who use it extreme satisfaction. There's a fun little picture there to show you how to use it yeah, look at that little happy face balls.
Speaker 4:That's great you put the testicles in the shaft of the chute right and then you can utilize the testicles for penetrative sex.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I wonder if this is something medically that men who have more tissue around their penis could maybe utilize to help. That's a good idea. Yeah, anyway, that's a really smart idea.
Speaker 5:That gives me a tool to talk to people about that one. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, anyway, that's a really smart idea I'm. That gives me a tool to talk to people about that one. Yeah, that's actually really cool. That's I didn't know something like that existed. There's a similar toy to that. That's more like a ring that you place on the penis and, um, it also vibrates and it satisfies the man. But the interesting thing is you can wear it, similar to this one, while you're having penetrative intercourse, and it will also. It will vibrate on the clitoris during that penetrative intercourse and provide her with a lot of satisfaction too. I thought that was a pretty clever sex toy someone was telling me about one time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I really I think that there needs to be like there's I mean, I love that there's tons of sex toys for women I feel like there is really like a deficit when it comes to sex toys for men. Like you guys are stuck with either pocket pussies apologize for this, talking to my doctor about this or, like you know, sex dolls or things that look like turkeys or cups. There's not a ton out there. It's very interesting to me.
Speaker 5:Well, you know it's funny because it's sort of like you want to make a product that solves a problem and the male orgasm and male sexual satisfaction is at its core a very simple crush. Like you don't have to get creative because it's been solved right. Like you can get the guy there with a pretty simple toy most of the time. Unfortunately, females, it can often be more complicated and requires a little bit more creative thinking. Uh, and some some better, better equipment saying you know, basically anything touching the penis and then you know sort of stroking or vibrating way will get you there, and so that might be why we don't have as cool toys as kids. There just isn't a problem to solve probably.
Speaker 3:I like. I like that. You're just like. Women need better tools than the male penis.
Speaker 5:That might be why we don't have as cool toys as kids. There just isn't a problem to solve. Probably I like that. You're just like women need better tools than the male penis and we're all aware of this. Right Like that's a common medical situation that comes up. We have some tools that make the penis better.
Speaker 5:But there are a lot of conversations that I have with men. They're like Doc, I'm a two-pole Joe and all this stuff I have with men. They're like doc, I mean you know to pull, joe and all this stuff, like hey, but what you're gonna do is you're just, you're gonna do a lot of things until you start pulling right, and so we have these conversations about can. A tournament, of course, is important, but if you're gonna get her there, there's got to be a lot of other stuff before that that's gonna get her there. And uh, so you know the viagra helps, you do. You know medications to delay ejaculation, you can do all of that sort of stuff. But a lot of the conversations that I have, especially with men, is like get some skills in your repertoire before you start that process. So this she gets there.
Speaker 3:Have you ever had All? These cool toys Like grab some toys have you ever had all these cool toys, like grab some toys. Yeah, have you? Have you ever? Just real quick, because I know we're way over, but have you ever had, like any, any interesting sex toy experiences medically with patients or that's like you hear about? You know er disasters where people are sticking things and places that they should't be. You have anything like that for us for closing?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I have. Well, let me tell you. So, yes, every doctor has at least a few stories of somebody getting something stuck in their ass or their vagina Usually the ass, but that's like very common part of healthcare experience. Every clinician has got that. But here's the more interesting story.
Speaker 5:So a lot of men come in with problems with erection and there's sort of two problems Can you obtain an erection or can you, and can you maintain an erection? And if you can't maintain an erection but you can't obtain an erection, you can use a penis ring and so you can use that penis. So it's basically a rubber band that goes at the base of the penis and will allow you to maintain an erection, basically as long as you have it on. And so I tell men about this and I always tell them you know, make sure you have one with like a quick release option on it, something like a safety so you can break it, because you don't want it to get stuck and end up in the er. Nobody wants to be in the er cutting off the penis ring, um, and that's the conversation. But if you can't obtain an erection, there's vacuum assist erectile devices or veds, and um, here's the cool part, those are actually on and off historically and sometimes with some insurances covered as durable medical equipment. So if you can't obtain an erection, you can go to a urologist and they can prescribe you a penis pump and you can actually help get an erection that way.
Speaker 5:And I've had a number of patients, especially like in the Medicare population, that are like listen, the Viagra works and I got to take it an hour before and sometimes things don't work out. But this thing, my wife's comfortable with it. We work it into foreplay. I can have an erection whenever I want. Now and I throw on this penis pump, I get the erection. You put on a penis string and that one too, and it holds the erection and I've had it. I had one guy in particular. I was like I can prescribe you some Viagra. He's like you know what my wife likes the penis pump erection. So much better than the Viagra erection that I would rather. And so I've written prescriptions for penis pumps before. Penis pump dispense. One use uses directed.
Speaker 5:That's awesome, yeah, so that's maybe the more interesting story than people getting sex toys stuck in their asses that you can get sex toys, not sex toys durable medical equipment covered by your health insurance sometimes.
Speaker 3:That's really useful information. I do think that things getting stuck in the ass is a great story, but I think it's really helpful for people to know that you can actually get you know what I've always wondered if the penis pumps really work and I mean that's proof that it does and you can get it covered by your medical insurance. That's amazing, I love.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I will say not consistently. Not every health insurance company covers it. There was a minute where Medicare was covering it, which I thought was awesome, but you could probably use. Nowadays we have these health savings accounts and stuff like that. You probably use your HSA on a penis bump, like for sure you could use that on a penis bump. It doesn't make the penis bigger, it just allows you to obtain an erection, a more full erection which, functionally, may it may seem bigger if you're having difficulty obtaining a full erection, which, functionally, may it may seem bigger if you're having difficulty obtaining a full erection.
Speaker 3:That's, that's that's really helpful to information to know I have. I have loved this conversation, dr Robert, like this has been. This has been so fun and so informative, and I really really appreciate your expertise and the way you're really seeking to make a difference and educate people, even on even on your own platform, um, which I you know. If, if that's something you'd like our listeners to know about, do you want to share your social media so people can check you out?
Speaker 5:so they can, as long as it's still around. I'm on tiktok that's the only one um and I'm it's randomly medicine on tiktok and I tiktok or whatever it is um at, randomly medicine.
Speaker 4:And then also my like username is random doc on there I love it, so I think you're gonna see a pretty large influx of people following you. Uh, on tiktok, because this has been so informative. Like ashley said, this has been so helpful and, like I mentioned earlier, you're a unicorn. This is a rarity that a medical provider has such humility and is so transparent and just accepts people for who they are, and so I just it's been an absolute pleasure and I really hope that you know that we all appreciate you and I am sure that you're going to have a lot more people following you and asking questions and just wanting to say can you talk to my doctor too, you know? And that sort of thing, because it's it's a real, it's a real issue, and so you're, you're a shining light and in that field, so we appreciate you.
Speaker 5:I really appreciate it. That's really kind of you also. That's what I'm trying to do and working on getting better at it all the time. So thank you for that.
Speaker 3:You're the best. You're the best, Dr Robert. Well, thank you all. So much for tuning in.
Speaker 5:You're the best.
Speaker 3:You're the best Murph. Do you want to let everybody know where they can find us if they don't?
Speaker 4:already know. Yes, you can find us on all the socials, at Big Sexy Chat. You can email us. You can like, subscribe, follow, share, tell your friends, tell your friends to follow Dr Robert too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, All right. Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a wonderful conversation. Have a great night everybody.
Speaker 4:So where can you find your favorite fatties? You can find us at bigsexychatcom on all the social medias, at Big Sexy Chat on Twitter. Big Sexy Chat, pod and Crystal. How can they reach us?
Speaker 2:Oh, the best way to reach us is by email, which is sexy at big sexy chatcom, and remember to like, subscribe and share, please.
