LIVE STREAM CHALLENGE IRL: How long can I live stream for?

Hello everyone, thank you for coming to my livestream.

It's a challenge to see how long I can do it for.

I should play music out loud or something.

Oh shit, excuse me.

Okay.

I killed it!

Yeah, so this year, well, my boyfriend got me this.

And this I got for myself. Yeah, because we went to like—

my boyfriend and I, we went to like a Mercedes event and he got this for me.

Like, yeah, king.

These are already optional.

Yes.

What is it?

He's wants. It's kind of like the growth, the action, the spark, taking action on whatever that idea is. So I feel for a lot of you, kind of like the idea, this is like Ace of Wands energy where you could be maybe like Ace of Wands and Ace of Swords, maybe both of them. The Beaver energy is about like kind of peep, call, And so that's what we're going to be using tonight because why not? But let's see what we have for you Aries people. And Aries, let's see here. Aries, Aries, you have the Firefly here, the Cobra, and the Beaver. Really interesting because I'm pretty sure that I said to you in your monthly reading, or your mid— the mid-monthly reading for the middle of November, that there was something about something that you can't get your eye off of, or there's something that really stands out to you as something very special. This could be a person. The Firefly is like an energy of inspiration. The Cobra is something that almost puts you like in a trance, something that you are very fixed on. And the Beaver energy is about like kind of building a solid foundation. So I feel for some of you this thing that is— there's something that really stands out to you as something very special. This could be a person. The Firefly is like an energy of inspiration. The Cobra is something that almost puts you like in a trance, something that you are very fixed on. And the Beaver energy is about like kind of building a solid foundation. So I feel for some of you, this could be like a new idea coming in for you guys. Like, in a lot of ways, I almost just feel feel like it would have been way easier if the Ace of Wands just came up in the situation, because I feel like this is like Ace of Wands, new idea, like kind of building a trance, something that you are very fixed on. And the Beaver energy is about like kind of building a solid foundation. So I feel for some of you, this could be like a new idea coming in for you guys. Like, in a lot of ways, I almost just feel like it would have been way easier if the Ace of Wands just came up in the situation because I feel like this is like Ace of Wands energy where you could be— maybe like Ace of Wands and Ace of Swords. Maybe both of those cards together would make more sense because the Ace of Swords is more kind of like inspirational and the Ace of Swords is more of kind of like the idea coming in your head. The Ace of Wands is kind of like the growth, the action, the spark, taking action on whatever that idea is. So I feel for a lot of you, This is talking about something you can't get off your mind. It could just be an idea. Maybe it's an idea for a project or a personal project, or an idea to improve your life or grow your business. And I think you need to take action on that idea. You have the Ten of Wands. I feel like this idea is coming through a lot of difficulties and challenges here. Yeah, Two of Swords. You keep getting this card in your reading, the Two of Swords. So the Two of Swords is an energy of new lands, needing to move on from something, needing to move towards something new. I always say the lady on the Two of Swords, she has the two swords crossed over her chest, but she also has new land behind her in the water. So I feel for some of you, there is new land coming in, or you need to move on to new land. I feel like you're too burdened in a current situation. I almost feel like saying you're breaking— I'm wondering if you're breaking away from this trance that you're in right here. It's almost like you couldn't or haven't been able to see your way out of something, or you haven't been able to see your way through some sort of challenge with this Cobra energy. I feel like the Firefly is the spark of inspiration. I feel like there's just kind of like hope almost, and maybe some better ideas on how to remove yourself from anything that's been keeping you stuck. I feel like this is going to lead to new beginnings. Yeah, the World. So new lands. I feel like you're moving on to new lands here, and some of you literally could could be traveling. For others, I feel like this is just better opportunities in work and/or business, especially if you're worried about layoffs and things like that. They keep talking about in the news, not that you should be watching the news, but they keep talking about a second wave and all this other BS. So some of you might be just dealing with that, and maybe you're hearing news of layoffs and things along those lines. I think there could be a new job or something better coming in for you with the World card. So love it there, Aries. That looks really good, actually. Thank you, Aries. Uh, Taurus, let's see what is going on for you. Of course, you have the Oyster, the Deer, and you have the Baby Snail. That's something that's taking a very long time here. The Oyster, remember, that's like a pearl, you know.

Nice.

Uh, what do we have for you, uh, Aquarius people?

Aqua.

Aquarius, you have these people.

Aqua.

Aquarius, you have these. So long. See, Five of Swords here and the Hawk. Uh, for some of you, uh, I feel like this This is like defensive energy, you could be defending yourself from certain situations. I do feel like you could be dealing with a lot of people. 7 of Wands can be defending your position on top of a hill. The 5 of Swords is a card of like wanting to win at all costs. And the Hawk energy is an energy of being a visionary, but it also says that you know that basically people could be attacking you because you have very future thinking ideas. You are an Aquarius. You are an innovator, plain and simple, so of course you do, number 1. Number 2, I feel like this could be one of those things where you're sick and tired of defending yourself or defending your decisions. This could be like people treating you like you're a child, or maybe you feel that way here, Aquarius, with the Seven of Wands and the Five of Swords. For others, I think you could just be dealing with a person, or probably be like people treating you like you're a child. Very future thinking ideas. You are an Aquarius. You are an innovator, plain and simple, so of course you do, number 1. Number 2, I feel like this could be one of those things where you're sick and tired of defending yourself or defending your decisions. This could be like people treating you like you're a child, or maybe you feel that way here, Aquarius, with the Seven of Wands and the Five of Swords. For others, I think you could just be dealing with a person, or probably multiple people, Aquarius, that just want to be right. Five of Swords, winning at all costs. It's like Five of Swords is someone, or can be someone who just wants to win, plain and simple. So I think you could be dealing with that energy here. I feel like it's got you in this like rabbit mode, defensive mode. So some of you, uh, could be kind of like in this rabbit mode here. This is a good card though, it can be a good card, but I think you could be trying to protect yourself from like predators basically. Yeah, you have the Nine of Wands as well. Again, very defensive energy here, Aquarius, is what I would say to you. So you feel like a very defensive energy Um, here, yeah, you have this Hyena card as well. Uh, it could be like people feeling like people are talking behind your back. I feel like you're just like, you know, feeling like maybe people who are judging you at this time. I think you could be feeling like people who don't have their own house in order could be judging them. That could be the problem. It's like you could be dealing with people who can't even take care of themselves or something like that, and it's like they're making all these judgments on you.

Very weird story.

This is very very specific. And I feel like this could be pushing you in a defensive area. I wanna move on, I wanna clear that message, because I feel like that is very specific for like one or two of you out there, Aquarius. So let's clear it, and let's try to pull another message for you, Aquarius. By the way, if you're in that situation, Aquarius, I feel like you're probably just gonna laugh it off, or you're probably just gonna defend yourself. Seven of Wands, Nine of Wands, it's like you're just gonna be putting up the, you know, you're just gonna be putting up your defenses. This is better. For the rest of you Aquarius people out there, you have the Spider, the Hummingbird, and the Unicorn. Love it. The Spider is kind of like an energy of telling your own story. So again, even if you're still— even if you're in this situation, tell the story that you want to live with the Spider energy. Hummingbird, coming to the end of a long journey. Hummingbirds travel a very long— long store—

er, just gonna—

so you feel like a very good defensive energy. I guess, uh, what do we have for you, uh, Aquarius people? Uh, aqua, uh, Aquarius, you have the Seven of Wands, the Five of Swords here, and the Hawk. Uh, for some of you, uh, I feel like this is like defensive energy. You could be defending yourself from certain situations. I do feel like you could be dealing with a lot of 7 of Wands can be defending your position on top of the hill. The 5 of Swords is part of like wanting to win at all costs, and the Hawk energy is an energy of being a visionary, but it also says that you know that basically people could be attacking you because you have very future thinking ideas. You are an Aquarius, you are an innovator, plain and simple, so of course you do, number 1. Number 2, I feel like this could be one of those things where you're sick and tired you're tired of defending yourself or defending your decisions. You know, this could be like people treating you like you're a child, uh, or maybe you feel that way here, Aquarius, with the Seven of Wands and the Five of Swords. For others, I think you could just be dealing with a person, or probably multiple people, Aquarius, that just want to be right. Five of Swords, winning at all costs. It's like Five of Swords is someone, uh, or can be someone who— right, Five of Swords, winning at all costs. It's like Five of Swords is someone— people, people, Aquarius— Five of Swords Or maybe you feel that way here, Aquarius, with the Seven of Wands and the Five of Swords. For others, I think you could just be dealing with a person, or probably multiple people, Aquarius, that just want to be right. Five of Swords, winning at all costs. It's like Five of Swords is someone, or can be someone, who just wants to win, plain and simple. So I think you could be dealing with that energy here. I feel like it's got you in this like rabbit mode, defensive mode. So some of you could be kind of like in this rabbit mode here. This is a good card though, it can be a good card, but I think you could be trying to protect yourself from like predators basically. Yeah, you have the Nine of Wands as well. Again, very defensive energy here, Aquarius, is what I would say to you. So you feel like a very defensive energy, um, here. Yeah, you have this Hyena card as well. Uh, it could be like people feeling like people are talking behind your back. I feel like you're just like, you know, feeling like maybe people who are judging you at this I think you could be feeling like people who don't have their own house in order could be judging you, and that could be the problem. So you could be dealing with people who can't even take care of themselves or something like that, and it's like they're making all these judgments on you. Very weird story, it's very specific, and I feel like this could be pushing you in a defensive area. I'm going to move on, I'm going to clear that message because I feel like that is very specific for like one or two of you out there, Aquarius. So Let's clear it and let's try to pull another message for you, Aquarius. By the way, if you're in that situation, Aquarius, I feel like you're probably just going to laugh it off, or you're probably just going to defend yourself. 7 of Wands, 9 of Wands, it's like you're just going to be putting up the, you know, you're just going to be putting up your defenses. This is better. For the rest of you Aquarius people out there, you have the Spider, the Hummingbird, and the Unicorn. Love it. The Spider is kind of like an energy of telling your own story, So again, even if you're still— even if you're in this situation, tell the story that you want to live with the spider energy. Hummingbird coming to the end of a long journey. Hummingbirds travel a very long time to get nectar. They travel very long distances as well. And Unicorn, something very special coming in for you here, Aquarius, something amazing. So I love that. Yeah, I feel for some of you, like, fiery card. It's like something boiling over, knowing you need to make a change. So I feel like some of you of you are making a change, but it's probably just with your words, with these fire energy. That's gonna be an energy of writing, so some of you could find benefits in writing, but you could also just be finding benefits in like the words that you use with yourself. So there you go, uh, love it, Aquarius. Uh, let's see what we have for you. They could also just be finding benefits in like the words that you use with yourself. So there you go. Uh, love it, Aquarius.

Worth it.

Boiling over. Something very special coming in for you here, Aquarius. Something amazing. So I love that. Yeah, I feel like for some of you, like, fiery cards, it's like something boiling over, knowing you need to make a change. So I feel like some of you are making a change, but it's probably just with your words, with the fire energy. Now this could be an energy of writing, so some of you could find benefits in writing, but you could You could also be finding benefits in like the words that you use with yourself. So, there you go. Love it, Aquarius. Let's see what we have for you Pisces people.

Still alive, are you?

No one really wondering.

Hey, hey everybody! I'm glad that you're tuning in with us.

This is something new and fun.

I hatched the idea seems like yesterday and here we are already.

A well-designed system, the human species could flourish. I realize now no system will ever work because human beings are only interested in pursuing their own selfish interests at the expense of others. During that time, I read a book, The Fountainhead, in which the heroine took the most exquisite a piece of art, a porcelain figure, and flung it down an elevator shaft. At the time, I couldn't conceive of why anyone would do something like that. In fact, I've spent a lifetime saying hello to my dreams with focus and conviction while ignoring what is. The last couple of years, I've lost hope, not because of the messages in the work I use or how I create, but because there is more to it than that. You cannot minimize what goes on out there with a single pleasant-sounding word like "contrast." You come down here, take a body, be subjected to a childhood of abuse, an adult life of business failures, betrayal, financial ruin, divorce, and constant barrage of exploitation from your fellow man and big business, and then stand before me with this message. How many people in history are capable of doing that? So I came here today to tell you that But as I survey the infestation on this planet, I am disgusted. I now feel mostly hatred for people and their ignorance, stupidity, and petty strivings towards shallow money trenches they dig to insulate themselves and parade around in tacky luxury. I see the majority of people trapped in lives that bear no resemblance to their desires, and more often than not suffering in the most awful ways as a result of others' Inserting them.

My journey journey to coming here today started in 1974. That's me with the funny gloves. I was 17 and going on a peace walk. What I didn't know though was most of those people standing there with me were Moonies. And within a week, I had come to believe that the second coming of Christ had occurred. That it was Sun Myung Moon and that I had been specially chosen and prepared by God to be his disciple. Now, as cool as that sounds, my family was not that thrilled with this. And they tried everything they could to get me out of there. There was an underground railroad of sorts that was going on during those years. Maybe some of you remember it. They were called the programmers. After about 5 long years, my family had me deprogrammed and I, um, then became a deprogrammer. I started going out on cases and after about 5 years of doing this, I was arrested for kidnapping. Most of the cases I went out on were called involuntary What happened was that the family had to get their loved ones some safe place somehow. And so they took them to some safe place and we would come in and talk to them, usually for about a week. And so after this happened, I decided it was a good time to turn my back on this work. And, um, about 20 years went by. And there was a burning question that would not leave me. And that was, how did this happen to me? And in fact, what did happen to my brain? Because something did. And so I decided to write a book, a memoir about this decade of my life. And toward the end of writing that book, there was a documentary that came out. It was on Jonestown. And it had a chilling effect on me. These are the dead in Jonestown. About 900 people died that day, most of them taking their own lives. Women gave poison to their babies and watched foam come from their mouths as they died. The top picture is a group of Moonies that have been blessed by their Messiah. Their mates were chosen for them. The bottom picture is Hitler Youth. This is the leg of a suicide bomber. The thing I had to admit to myself with great repulsion was that I get it. I understand how this could happen. I understand how someone's brain, how someone's mind can come to the place where it makes sense In fact, it would be wrong when your brain is working like that not to try to save the world through genocide. And so what is this? How does this work? How I come to view what happened to me is a viral memetic infection. For those of you who aren't familiar with memetics, a meme has been defined as an idea that replicates in the human the human brain and moves from brain to brain like a virus. Much like a virus, the way a virus works is it's most— it can infect and do the most damage to someone who has no compromised immune system, right? In 1974, I was young, I was naive, and I was pretty lost in my world. I was really idealistic. These easy ideas to complex questions are very appealing when you are emotionally vulnerable. What happens is that circular logic takes over.

Moon is one of God.

God is going to fix all the problems in the world. All I have to do is humbly follow because God is going to stop war and hunger, all these things I wanted to do. All I have to do is humbly follow. Because after all, God's in the sky, he's gonna fix all this. It becomes impenetrable. And the most dangerous part of this is that it creates us and them, right and wrong, good and evil. And it makes anything possible, makes anything rationalizable. And the thing is, though, if you looked at my brain during those years in the Moonies— neuroscience is expanding exponentially, as Ray Kurzweil said yesterday. Science is expanding, we're beginning to look inside the brain. And so if you looked at my brain or any brain that's infected with a viral, memetic infection like this and compared it to, well, anyone in this room or anyone who uses critical thinking on a regular basis, I am convinced it would look very, very different. And that, strange as it may sound, gives me hope. And the reason that gives me hope is that the first thing is to admit that we have a problem. But it's a human problem. It's a scientific problem, if you will. It happens in the human brain. There's no evil force out there to get us.. And so this is something that through research and education, I believe, that we can solve. And so the first step is to realize that we can do this together and that there is no us and them.

Thank you very much.

What attracted me to the group was a sense of unified purpose.

The group was Maxwell, and its unified purpose was self-improvement using a patented method of rational inquiry for executive success led by a man named Keith Raniere. But the claim that Raniere had one of the world's highest IQs, the way students had to bow to a picture the picture of him on the wall and how they had to call him the Vanguard unsettled Catherine.

At the end, you know, India came up to me and she said, "You know what, Mom? This is for me." And I—

my jaw dropped.

I was in shock.

India would end up giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to NXIVM and got drawn into something much more sinister than executive success.

I got a call from somebody and she said, "Within NXIVM, there is a secret group." And that's the first time I heard this term, DOS.

Dominus Obssequious Sororium.

It was sold as a female empowerment group, but—

That's Latin for master over female slave. I was then told that they were branding these women.

The branding was part of an initiation into DOS. A new member would be blindfolded, told to take off her clothes, clothes and lie on a massage table. 3 other women would then hold down her legs and shoulders, and she was told to say, "Master, please brand me. It would be an honor." The women were told that the symbol represented the elements, but they've been branded with Keith Raniere's initials. Thousands of groups like NXIVM have risen throughout history, groups that are often described as cults, but it's impossible to know how I don't know how many because most cults insist they're not cults, and almost nobody in a cult realizes they're in one. So what makes a group a cult? And how have some been able to make ordinary people do horrible things?

I shall be God, and beside me there shall be no other.

We want to share this knowledge with everyone.

It was felt that whatever method necessary was okay. It was okay because we were heavenly children and God knew why we were doing it.

I think we're all gonna bear witness against the ET here.

You wanna keep playing that game? Somebody's gonna get hurt.

You were told to replace your family and discard your old identity. Your only chance to survive is to leave with us.— is a healing remedy.

Peoples Temple was unique at that time. It was black and white and American Indian and Hispanic. We all walked in naively thinking, "Okay, Jim said he wants a utopia. I want a utopia." We thought we were joining a movement to make the world better.

But what they were actually joining ended up defining for the world the modern idea of a cult.

Thank you, baby.

In the late 1970s, the group's leader, Jim Jones, led nearly 1,000 followers from the People's Temple in California to the remote jungles of Guyana to build Jonestown, sold as a self-sufficient utopia free of the violence and racism that plagued America.

You're all happy you're here?

You happy, Tom?

Yes. Everybody's happy down here. You can see that that's an obvious fact.

But concerned relatives began pressuring officials with pamphlets about the nightmare at Jonestown. Down, saying Jones was using mind programming, even holding mock mass suicides to condition them to die for the cause. California Congressman Leo Ryan flew down to Guyana to investigate and never returned.

It's too late.

The congressman is dead, the communist state is dead. If we can't live in peace, then let's die in peace.

The images of nearly 1,000 dead, the largest mass murder-suicide in modern history, horrified the world.

Cultists who believed in everything that Jim Jones said took their own lives.

Some shot to death, most apparently self-poisoned.

There were empty bottles of potassium cyanide.

Entire families took the poison together.

Among the bodies were those of the temple's fanatical founder, the Reverend Jim Jones.

Groups called cults, led by charismatic leaders with extreme beliefs and fanatic followers, have existed in almost every country across the globe. But the scale of destruction in Jonestown gave the word cult a new horrifying connotation and drove social scientists in the United States to publish research attempting to define what these destructive groups had in common. They settled on 3 main characteristics.

A cult is a group or a social movement that's led by a charismatic leader who is authoritarian and who demands to be revered as a godlike figure. We were taught to believe that what he said was straight from the mouth of God. In the community, as we called it, he was God's authority.

The second key element of a cult—

the group has Some form of indoctrination program, sometimes called thought reform.

Or mind control.

It was almost like the operating system was the Bible, and then he was putting all of his programs in there on top of it. And people would kind of accept them because they accepted the Bible, so they shouldn't question the Bible, so they had to believe it. There is exploitation, either sexual, financial, some type of exploitation. Exploitation of the members.

Whenever, you know, Sun Myung Moon needed my parents for some kind of mission or anything, they had to put the cult leader's needs before their children's. Like my father, he was gone most of the year when I was growing up.

But there's a small problem with this definition of a cult.

It's a value judgment more than it is a functional word. Every prophet of every major religion any religion can be considered a charismatic leader. In fact, the biggest joke in religious studies is that cult plus time equals religion.

Cult comes from the Latin cultus, meaning to till or cultivate, and in antiquity was used to describe the sacrifices, offerings, and monuments built to cultivate favor with the gods. In time, it came to mean any unorthodox religion.

The Roman Empire referred to Judaism as a cult. Some say that certain versions of Islam are cults. Nowadays, most scholars prefer the word, uh, new religious movement, or NRM.

And many arose not to exploit their followers but to help them survive in the face of an external threat.

The collective's very sense of self is under attack by the world, and the only way The only way to salvage one's identity is to come together under the leadership of this charismatic authority and to rebuild from scratch. Jesus of Nazareth lived in perhaps the most politically and socially turbulent era in the history of the Middle East, which is saying a lot. And so Jesus was one of at least a dozen messiahs that we know of.

New religious movements have arisen to help humans navigate turbulent times throughout history. In Europe, many arose during the turmoil of the Renaissance and as a backlash against institutional religions. In India, they grew out of social turbulence caused by a transition to agriculture, and later as a response to British colonialism.

But one country in particular evoked new religions with open arms from its very founding.

Going back well into the 1600s, the American colonies had developed a reputation as a safe harbor for religious radicals.

And there was one small patch of America that was especially seized by this new religious fervor, a section of land stretching from Albany to Buffalo known as the Burned Over District.

The Burned Over District became the birthplace place of Mormonism, of Seventh-day Adventism, of spiritualism, and a wide range of other social, political, and religious movements as well. Wherever you encounter religious openings, you inevitably encounter political openings as well.

Jemima Wilkinson was one prophet from that area. She recovered from a near-death experience with typhoid to declare herself a reincarnation of a holy spirit. Named Public Universal Friend.

It was probably the first time that most Americans had ever seen a woman preaching or speaking in public. This kind of American Sinai where people felt they were receiving all kinds of messages and dispensations, not strictly religious in nature. This pattern repeated again and again.

And they spread BR on the burned-over district. Like in New York City in 1930, Tens of thousands considered a man called Father Divine to be God on Earth.

One has to understand Father Divine as a very early progenitor of the civil rights movement. Father Divine's early followers were involved in protests and petition drives and letter-writing campaigns.— that insisted upon civil rights at a time when that call was very muted in American life.

But a call that would grow and touch off a new era of social upheaval. With racial tensions erupting into violence and a wave of political assassinations, many began doubting the war in Vietnam was just. Americans' trust in their government plummeted. And the specter of The specter of imminent nuclear annihilation made the entire nation feel like it was under siege.

This drove a generation to search for new kinds of community and alternative sources of meaning.

And so what we saw at that time was the rise of these charismatic individuals, some of them American, many of them drawing from traditions of the East, particularly in India. We are the righteous few. We know the answer. And that knowledge was an antidote for the turbulent times in which we lived.

But that knowledge sometimes came with a catch.

The search for alternative forms of meaning— these things have at their back a very powerful appeal. And sometimes people start out, even the leaders themselves, believing in that appeal. But there is a break in human nature in which idealism can very easily turn into authoritarianism.

The same religious tolerance that allowed the country to thrive made Americans particularly susceptible to manipulation. Even Father Divine was accused of taking advantage of his followers financially, including convincing them to buy him a hotel and bilking a woman out of her inheritance. And one man was watching all this and taking notes.

Jim Jones.

So Jim Jones, he studied, you know, Father Divine to see how Father Divine set up his community.

Jones' desire to learn from Divine was even immortalized in a 1980 TV miniseries. That's James Earl Jones playing Father Divine.

How could you sustain such a movement?

How did my son Moses sustain this movement?

His flock. But the cost? Ask and you shall receive, my son. Ask and you shall receive.

Jim Jones took some of the appeals to social justice that were intrinsic to Father Divine's message and he used them first to attract people and later to manipulate people.

And it's when that manipulation becomes destructive that a group becomes a cult, according to social scientists.

It's really not about the belief system per se, it's about the behaviors of the group and the ways in which it uses various methods of influence and control to manipulate and exploit the members.

Charles Manson convinced his followers to murder 9 people in an attempt to incite a race war. Shoko Asahara ordered his followers to release sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system. Subway, killing 13.

And Marshall Applewhite of Heaven's Gate convinced his followers of this: Periodically that level comes in close enough and offers a graduation class, offers life out of this evolutionary level into that evolutionary level.

Which led many to castrate and kill themselves, believing this would help them ascend to a higher plane. The eternal fascination with cults stems from the mystery of how their leaders exert such complete control.

What they're using is basic social psychology.

They're using everyday influence and control techniques.

So as a public service, we present to you 7 elements that social scientists say can lead to indoctrination into a cult. Number 1: You're going through a transition.

I was a starving, not very successful actor in my 20s in New York.

When you're in that funk—

Hey, you speak English?

No, no, no. English? Yes, yes. Take me to the hospital now. Miss, hello. Hey, Miss.

I need help. It's urgent. You cannot be in here.

We are operating. Move! Get out!

Been able to save him anyway. Two more of the invaded cortex on the right side of the spine. Somebody put a bag of drugs in me. I need you to remove it. It's leaking. Do it now.

Right, I'll just administer a local anesthetic.

Don't bother.

Right, I've— Okay, calm down. Okay, so the good part, just going to— is that okay?

Do you want—

Hello?

Hey, Kristin, baby.

Sweetie, it's great to hear from you. But what time is it over there? I don't know, it's night. Hold on a sec, let me get rid of the other line.

I'm back.

You're not partying too much, are you? You promised me you'd look after yourself. I'm trying to, Mommy, I'm trying to.

Well, thanks for calling out of the blue like this. Your father's gonna be so happy.

Gonna be sad he missed you. He isn't home from the gym yet. Usually you call us in the morning.

Mom? Yes?

I feel everything. What do you mean, sweetie? The space, the air, the vibrations. The people. I can feel the gravity. I can feel the rotation of the Earth. The heat leaving my body. The blood in my veins. I can feel my brain. The deepest parts of my memory. Sweetie, we have a bad connection. I can't hear you so well.

What did you say about memory?

The pain in my mouth when I had braces. I can remember the feeling of your hand on my forehead when I ran a fever. I remember stroking the cat. It was so soft. The cat? What cat, honey? A Siamese with blue eyes and a broken tail. Sweetie, you can't possibly remember that.

You were barely a year old.

I remember the taste of your milk in my mouth. The room.

The liquid.

Sweetie, what are you talking about? I just want to tell you that I love you, Mom and Dad. Sweetie. And I want to thank you for the thousand kisses that I can still feel on my face. I love you, Mom. I love you too, sweetie. More than anything in the world. How much is left? 500 grams. And how long will it take my body to eliminate the rest of it?

To answer that, I need to know what it is.

Yeah, go ahead. CPH4. Tell me about it.

Pregnant women manufacture CPH4 in the 6th week of pregnancy in tiny quantities. For a baby, that's the power of an atomic bomb. It's what gives the fetus the necessary energy to grow everything according to its body's needs.

Learning is always a painful process. Like when you're little and your bones are growing and you ache all over. Oh, you believe I can remember the sound of my own bones growing? Like this grinding under the skin. Everything's different now. Like sounds are music that I can understand, like fluids. It's funny, I used to be so concerned with who I was and what I wanted to be, and now that I have access to the furthest reaches of my brain, I see things clearly and realize that what makes us us, it's primitive. They're all obstacles. Does that make any sense? Like this pain you're experiencing, it's blocking you from understanding. All you know now is pain. That's all you know, pain. One of the others, the others carrying the drugs, I need the rest of it for medicinal purposes. Paris.

Rome.

Thank you for sharing.

Good evening, Professor. Mzwane, ben. Do we have you for dinner tonight? I'm afraid so.

I'm exhausted.

Have a good rest. Thank you.

Scared the shit out of me, ringing that bell like some nut bar. Missed you.

Me too.

You lose your keys or something?

Yeah.

Can I borrow your laptop?

Yeah, of course.

So I spent all of yesterday on auditions, which was awesome. So does that mean you're standing around all day? Because they don't give a shit about your time gabbing away in Chinese. Who understands Chinese?

I don't understand Chinese. And then they say they're always gonna call, and they never do, because they don't even take your phone number, you know? Except this one guy, but he's not Chinese. He works at the agency, and he's cute.

Oh my God, he's cute. You know, like, cute in a kind of no kind of way? Like, he had this thing— oh my God, his ass! Let me get started on that. You are never gonna guess where he took me.

Four Seasons, Royal Suites, doing me another favor.

I'm sorry, I'm talking about my father.

What's up?

How's Richard? He's dead. You guys are crazy. I'm gonna take a shower.

Yes?

Professor Norman, my name is Lucy. I just read all your research on the human brain. You need to meet.

All of my research? Wow, I'm very flattered, young lady, but I find that hard to believe. I must have written no less than—

6,734 pages. I can recite the two all by heart if you wish.

Are you one of Emily's friends? This sounds like one of her silly jokes. Is she there with you?

No, no, ma'am.

Who are you?

I just told you.

Uh, Lucy, right? Yes, sorry.

I read your theory on the use of the brain's capacity. It's a little rudimentary, but you're on the right track.

Thank you.

Professor, my cells are reproducing at a phenomenal speed, several million per second. I'm having trouble precisely evaluating the time of my death, but I doubt it'll last more than 24 hours.

What are you talking about?

What I'm saying is that your theory is not a theory. I absorbed a large quantity of synthetic CPH4 that will allow me to use 100% of my cerebral capacity. Right now I'm at 28% of what you wrote.

It's true.

Once the brain reaches 20%, it opens up and expands the rest.

There are no more obstacles.

They fall away like dominoes. I'm colonizing my own brain.

Uh, well, I don't know what to say. It's true. I've been working on this theory for over 20 years, but it's only— all I've ever been hypotheses and research ideas. I never thought that anyone would— You can control your own metabolism?

Yes. And I can start to control other people's bodies. Also, I can control magnetic and electric waves. Not all of them, just the most basic. Television, telephone. Radio. I don't feel pain. Fear. Desire. It's like all things that make us human are fading away. It's like the less human I am, I feel all this knowledge about everything. Quantum physics, applied mathematics, the infinite capacity of a cell's nucleus. They're all exploding inside my brain, all this knowledge. I don't know what to do with it.

If you're asking me what to do, You know, if you think about the very nature of life, I mean, from the very beginning, the development of the first cell, The first cell divided into two cells. The sole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. That was the higher purpose. So if you're asking me what to do with all this knowledge you're accumulating, I say, pass it on. This is like any simple cell going through time. Time? Yes, of course.

I'll be at your door in 12 hours.

Are you leaving?

Yes.

What is this? A prescription. Since when did you start writing Chinese? Since Noriko. Lisa, I don't understand any of this. Your kidneys aren't functioning efficiently, your liver's failing you, you need to make some lifestyle changes. Take this medication, work out, eat organic, you'll be okay. I need to speak to someone in a position of authority. Aha.

You're very lucky there's no one with more authority in this office than me. But let's start from the beginning. What is your name?

Listen up, Pierre Dolmio. Get off your desk, sit in your chair, pick up the right pen to come up to you, and take that out of the office. There are no cameras, all right? No time to waste. Make sure to be careful when you remove them. The product is very powerful. Believe me.

Got it? Yeah. Good.

I'm counting on you.

Cool.

Miss, I have to ask you to put away your computers now.

You should wipe your nose.

Excuse me?

May I have a glass of champagne?

Um, yes, of course.

Miss, your champagne.

Thank you.

I'm very sorry, but you'll be needing to close your table now. Sure.

The knowledge.

If the habitat is not sufficiently favorable or nurturing— The cell will choose immortality. In other words, self-sufficiency and self-management. Pick up the lantern, please. Open the door. Should I ask you to open the door? Miss, are you okay? Say something. Elle avait une cicatrice sur le ventre. Oui, et assez récente.

Il y a encore de la morceau dessus.

Et comment on l'enlève? On la sort sa bague.

Et avec ce que je lui ai injecté, elle est pas près d'être réunie.

Docteur, elle est réveillée. Vous êtes sûr?

Oui, elle est assise sur son lit.

Camilla, voilà, c'est elle.

Elle ne fera rien.

Monsieur? Ici? Maître? Dormons.

I need to talk to you alone.

And I need you to put your hands up, please.

Did you get the packets?

Yes.

Where are they?

They're safe. Here.

Thanks.

They'll be safer in my hands.

You know, as a cop, you see some pretty weird shit. But I have to be honest with you, what you did back there, that freaked me out. To put everyone to sleep like that. Do I need to be worried? No. Good.

Come on.

No.

There's a police car.

Okay, okay. Sir, sir, excuse me, sir. I need to talk to somebody.

Police.

Look, I'm a German citizen.

I'm not Do you always drive like that?

I've never driven before. Great.

Hey, let's move.

We're late.

Sorry, sir, I don't feel good. I'm gonna tell them to stop following us.

Don't bother. Give me the case. Let's go.

I'm not sure I could be of any help for you.

Yes, you are.

What for?

A reminder.

Shall we go?

Where are we going?

Take the first lift.

Okay.

No, no, no. Allez, dégagez. On y va. Poussez-vous de là. Hey, bonsoir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Hey, birthday.

Ah, sir, sir. Hey, you.

You in Paris?

Yes, I am.

Good, good, excellent. So look, I am no longer at the hotel. I have come to the university where I've taken the liberty of calling together a few of my colleagues to discuss your case. Top men in their field, and, uh, very trustworthy. Trust you. Thank you. So do you think you can lead us through the university? I'm, uh, I'm very pleased to meet you.

Likewise.

Dr. —let me introduce you to my colleagues. This is Professor Cartier, neurosurgeon.

I know who everyone is.

Of course. Gentlemen, this is Lucy, the first woman to— well, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, Miss Lucy has, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, We unlocked certain portions of her brain that offer access to previously unexplored cerebral zones. She has abilities. Can you give us an example?

My daughter, Gabrielle, age 6, died in a car accident. It was a blue car, leather seats, plastic bird hanging from the rearview mirror.

Oh, Pujino-san. There's a man coming here.

Can you secure the room? I need to stay focused.

Sure. How did you manage to access all this information?

Electrical impulses. Every cell knows and talks to every other cell. They exchange 1,000 bits of information between them per second. Cells group together forming a giant web of communication, which in turn forms matter. Cells get together, take on one form, deform, reform, makes no difference, it's all the same. Humans consider themselves unique, so they've rooted their whole theory of existence on their uniqueness. One is their unit of measure, but it's not. All social systems we've put into place are a mere sketch. One plus one equals two, that's all we've learned. But one plus one as never equal to. There are in fact no numbers and no letters. We've codified our existence to bring it down to human size to make it comprehensible. We've created a scale so that we can forget its unfathomable scale.

But if humans are not the unit of measure and the world isn't governed by mathematical laws, What happens on that?

Film a car speeding down the road. Speed up the image infinitely. The car disappears. So what proof do we have of its existence? Time gives legitimacy to its existence. Time is the only true unit of measure. It gives proof to the existence of matter. Without time, we don't exist.

Time is unity. We won't be able to hold it for much longer.

Time to go then.

Are you sure you need such huge doses? I'm afraid you won't survive.

Some cells inside me will fight and defend their integrity till the very end. In order to attain the last few percent, I have to force it. To crack the cells open to their nucleus.

What all of this knowledge does, eh? I'm not even sure that mankind is ready for it. We're so driven by power and profit. Given man's nature, it might bring us only instability and chaos.

Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge. I'll build a computer and download it. Load all my knowledge in it. I'll find a way for you to have access to it.

I just hope we will be worthy of your sacrifice. Nobody move! Do you understand English? What is she doing? She's looking for energy in her matter. And she's trying to connect with our computers. What's happening?

What is she making?

New generation computer, I presume. Luke, the computer, it's moving. Hey, where is she?

Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what to do with it.

Over Rocky Mountains, feeling blue, waiting for a last frame to walk through all together.

But when you closed your eyes, it was then I realized you were so far away. There was nothing I could do to stop you feeling blue anyway.

Men are gonna come along and want to teach you things. Doesn't make them any smarter. You just let them blow by, and you go on ahead and do just what the hell you feel like.

What the hell's lagging? Fuck. The eye. It may not lie, but don't think for a moment that it can't be lied to. Morning, SpongeBob! Woo! I love my life! I love you so much, Gary. I'll never forget the day we met. I'm out! Ready!

Hello, little snail.

What's your name?

Gary, huh? Do you want to be friends? Me too.

Gary, I'm home! Gary? Gary Bear? Gary? Gary? Have you seen Gary? No. No? Gary the snail man! Gary! Friends don't let friends—

What is this?

Tau is one of the most advanced AIs in the world.

He's an early version of the project I'm working on.

What do you want from me?

I need you to complete the project.

And what if I say no?

Then your stay in my home will be brief and unpleasant.

Do everything Tau says.

I have been instructed to inflict pain should you not comply with my commands. You will complete these tasks. It is time to begin. We should just leave. The police will find us.

You want to die down here?

No one was coming to save us.

How do we get out? What is this place?

Julia! Julia!

What are you doing? Answer me!

Dad, you have to let me go.

Return to your tasks immediately or I will inflict pain. I've never seen a force We're not alien, Jack. We are human. Of course, for us, being human is a problem.

Hello, my ghouls and goblins. I know you've got your costume—

costumes picked out for the frightful festivities. I don't want you to panic.

Hacerme socia del despacho.

Tú y yo habíamos quedado que algún día íbamos a tener un bebé.

Pero no ahorita, y justo yo ahorita tengo tanto trabajo que no tengo tiempo ni para mí. ¿Recuerdas que tú un día me dijiste que si necesitaba ayuda me lo podías cuidar?

Este, sí, bueno, pero... ¡3 días! ¿Qué?

¡Ahí te encargo! It never works on you, does it, Roland? The power you have.

Your Majesty, I think we have enough respect for one another personally to ask ourselves some of the bigger questions.

Woman to woman, we are the same age after all, really.

Just 6 months between us. And who is the senior? I am now.

Two women running the shop, that's the last thing this country needs.

Perhaps that's precisely what this country My goal is to change this country from being dependent to self-reliant, and I think in that I am succeeding. Joblessness, recession, crises. It is a dangerous game to make enemies left, right, and center.

Not if one is comfortable with having enemies.

Prince Philip of Greece and of Denmark renounces his Greek nationality. Yes, sir. And all foreign titles. And from henceforth, he will be known as Left Hand Philip Mountbatten. Well, Nathan. Thank you. Click, mount button.

I, I, I.

I grant you and the heirs male of your body lawfully begotten the dignities of Baron Greenwich, Earl of Marioneth, and Duke of Edinburgh, and Knight Companion of our most noble Order of the Garter.

Congratulations.

Thank you, sir. And they got through it. I got through it. I think they'd have preferred a nice pink-faced smart crisp as a grass boy in the Scottish Borders. Are you sure you wouldn't have preferred one of those, someone with a grand title rather than a homeless Charlie Crown?

No, that would have all been very antiseptic.

Must you really smoke? You know how I hate it.

Pity, because I love it so very much. But like a great many other things, I'm going to give it all up for you.

You still have 24 hours to change your mind.

You think I can change my mind after all that? No, too late. I've signed myself away.

You've won the greatest prize on earth.

That's certainly what they think. That's what I think too. Watch out. Hmm? Try and get some sleep. You too. Benevolent officers' sack night. Chance to be a fine thing. Thank you. Question for you both. Spot of blood in my spittle yesterday morning. What would I be eating, sir? Well, I'm not a doctor, sir. If it's just specks, sir— it was— it's probably just the cold weather. Gets right to the back of the throat. Cold weather, that's what I thought. The carriage will be cold too, Peter. I've arranged for there to be hot water on, sir. Oh, well done. For Christ's sake, James! Bloody hard going out of this collar! Sorry, sir. Is it there? Doing it on purpose? No, sir. We're not going to let something as small as a collar agitate the summit. No, thank you, James. Sir, ice front. There was a young lady named Sally who enjoyed the occasional dally. She sat on the lap of a well-endowed chap. You're right up my alley. Right. There was an old Countess of Bray. And you may think it odd when I say that despite her high station, Rank and education. Your Majesty. She always spelled "count" with a "K." Shall we? It's outrageous. But you have to admire him. This poor old athlete is our Prime Minister. No one would have voted for him. You know, Winston still thinks he's the father of the nation. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Praise the Everlasting King!

Dear beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation I, John, do take it upon me, in my own name, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony. Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? I, Philip. I, Philip. Take thee, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Take thee, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. You know why his three sisters aren't here? They're all married to Nazis. Prominent Nazis.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. I, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary.

To Mary.

Take thee, Philip. Take thee, Philip. To my wedded husband.

To my wedded husband.

To have and to hold. To have and to hold.

To have and to hold.

From this day forward.

From this day forward. For better, for worse.

For better, for worse.

For richer, for poorer. For richer, for poorer.

In sickness and in health. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish And to obey. Obey. She insisted. It was discussed.

To love and cherish and obey.

Till death us do part.

Till death us do part.

Sheer perfection, Your Highness. You have to hand it to her, it's quite a victory. There wasn't a single person supported the match, not a single ally at court or in government, yet here we all are.

May we have the—

She turned us all on our heads and barely opened her mouth in the process.

You underestimate her.

You underestimate her.

Over the past 48 hours, reality has sunk in with Philip's family.

Would you look at the mother, just out of the sanatorium, dressed as a nun. Aham na. Quite magnificent. Thank you, thank you, Your Majesties.

What's that?

This present is for me. Can I open it? Yes. Oh, Papa! If your marriage is as happy Everyone is starting now. Ladies and gentlemen, pray silence for Her Royal Highness, Princess Lizzie. Thank you.

As I'm sure you all know, my dear husband will soon no longer be Lieutenant Mountbatten, but Lieutenant Commander Mountbatten. Which I gather involves a whole new gold ring, which is so much we wouldn't want.

Half a gold ring, darling. Half a gold ring, gentlemen.

So I've asked the two most important people here to do the presentation.

Hello, Charles Rees? Yes. Ah, very good. There we are. Good point, Charles. Well done. Thank you, thank you.

Charles! Anne!

Children, wait, wait! They're waiting in the green drawing room. Where's Grandpa?

He's just upstairs with the doctors now. You wait with Nanny, we'll be back in a minute.

Charles, wait here. It's been 2 hours. I'm happy to say the procedure went well and that His Majesty's immediate post-operative condition is satisfactory. It's been 5 weeks. Let's cool this down and make sure that they know that we shall risk irritation. And turn the lights off. You'll soon be Prime Minister tomorrow. Ready? Ready. Let's get him back. Boris Johnson, who took office aged 83. We await the announcement of the new cabinet in the coming days. Morning, Your Majesty. The officers standing back at work. Who won? Who, who won? Mr. Churchill, Your Majesty, by 17 seats. Goodbye, you didn't hear me say that. Mr. Winston Churchill. They keep trying to Count him out. He keeps getting better. To be elected for the second time as your Prime Minister. What this nation needs is several years of strong Steady, experienced administration. Yes, just won a general election, but— 135 over 90. We can do better, Winston. In the war, we used mathematicians to decode the indecipherable. I need an expert to cut through the jargon. Are they keeping something from me? Well, I wouldn't be overly concerned about the man's pneumatics. I'm giving him second chances as a smoker. To tell information is not that unusual. I would be concerned about the bronchoscopy, and they wouldn't have done that unless they were looking for something far more serious. And they conspicuously fail to mention the results. Instead, they go on about the lung resection, which they performed because of structural alterations. What are structural alterations? It's what doctors say when they're trying to avoid using the word that it almost inevitably describes. Who is this man? Just a little. One doesn't want to overdo it. One doesn't want to look ill either. Sick? King is no good to anyone. There must be no weakness, no vulnerability. Mr. Churchill, Your Majesty. Your Majesty, the people have spoken. Your party has won the election, and as, as their sovereign, I invite you to form a government in my name. An honor I gratefully accept. Dear Winston, congratulations. Would it be terribly unconstitutional of me to say how happy I am? I've missed our weekly chats. Your predecessor is a fine parliamentarian. Good man. But, um, well, as company, as a companion. An empty taxi pulled up at the House of Commons and Mr. Athleigh got out. Oh, quite. Now you may congratulate me in return. What for? My rapid recovery. Oh, yes, I seem to have bounced back a lot quicker than people expected. Yes, not sure I ever imagined what breathing through one lung would feel like. Turns out there's barely any difference. Good, good. Probably wise to let the Princess Elizabeth undertake the Commonwealth tour. Huh? What say you? Is she up to it? Yes, I'd say so. Besides, we have to start breaking her in gently, don't we? Do we? Keep one eye on the future. Distant future. Everything as it was before, sir? Yes, everything exactly as it was before. Ladies, ladies. Who is this?

Oh, Miss Venetia Scott, sir.

A new addition. A good one, I'd say. Thank you, sir.

I had hoped I'd seen the back of this place.

Could you give us a moment, please, Georg? Thank you. How is the King?

He talked a great deal about his recovery, lots of mentions of bouncing back, which always makes one fear the worst. Not to mention the makeup he was wearing. Rouge. Poor man. It's cancer. What?

Who knows?

No one. Least of all him.

Sir, lunch. Lunch?

Let's have it in here. I see what they've been serving for the past 5 years. So he's dying. We're all dying. That's what defines the condition of living. Will he die tomorrow? No. What about the day after tomorrow?

And the day after that?

The country needs to be led by someone strong. But I'm strong. You are also tired, Winston. We both are.

A situation like that would require enormous energy.

And I won't lie to you, I have considered resigning for Anthony for your sake. But then I realized that a situation like that would also require statesmanship. The party needs me. The country needs me. She needs me. Who?

Her. Oh, her. This is Clarence House dining room to Clarence House kitchen.

Dining room to kitchen.

Dining room to kitchen.

Dining room to kitchen. Merci. The Queen has asked to see you. Yes, we'll report to St. Elizabeth's after that. Thank you, goodbye. Drawing room, now. Yes.

We do mostly love living at Clarence House.

He has all sorts of ideas about how to modernize it.

He really is rather ingenious like that, actually. Now, Peter.

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses. I have to make a decision about Christmas.

Tell me, do you think the King will be well enough to go to Sandringham?

I do. As a matter of fact, I think we'll do it.

So it's decided. Will you be joining us too?

Me?

Of course not.

Peter will be spending Christmas at home with his family.

I was only thinking of Papa.

Given the choice, you'd never let him out of your sight. Now that's true.

He's quite devoted to you. Then let me discuss him and Dresden.

Oh no. No, it's out of the question.

Why, Mummy?

Let peace discuss it.

We did offer. Very well. As a wife, I know what my answer would be.

I want my husband at home at Christmas with his children. Excuse me.

I saw that.

Oh no, I haven't finished. That look between the two of you.

Oh, Margaret, you must tell no one.

Papers will think I'm a Donny Dalkeith, Billy Wallace, simonian partout, by the way. There's boys, whereas Peter is—

I quite see the attraction of Peter, but he's married. Dr. Ware, Your Majesty. You told me that after the operation I might expect some soreness, some difficulty breathing, but, um, you didn't tell me about these. The coughing has returned? Yes. How often? All the time. At the time of the operation, as you know, structural alterations were discovered. Of course, the blockage in the lung. It's time we gave that blockage a name, sir. It was a tumor. A malignant tumor. I see. But we removed it. We did. So what is this? We removed the left lung, sir, but the right has fewer but still significant blockages. So what's next? Next, I argued that His Majesty should be I told at the time. Patient has a right to know the full picture. But I was overruled. The theory was that if His Majesty felt he'd been cured, he could throw himself into his work without undue stress and worry. I have two questions. Who knows the full picture? Apart from the surgeons, perhaps the Prime Minister, sir. Of course. But not the Queen, nor anyone else in my family. No, sir. And the second question? It's impossible to say, sir. My understanding is the surgeons did everything they could, and it could be years. More likely, months. Thank you.

Alexa, set alarm for 1 PM tomorrow. 11:14.

Would you like this alarm set for every day? Would you like this alarm set for every day?

No, just for tomorrow.

Alexa, what time is the alarm in the morning? Alexa, what time is the next alarm?

Your brain is an association machine.

If you have sex, what does it look like? And when you fantasize about sex— and we know the vast majority of you do— what does that look like? Is it sex you want to have, or is it something else entirely? On one of the biggest porn sites, sites, Pornhub, 3 of the most searched terms are mom, stepmom, and MILF, another flavor of mom. But porn doesn't necessarily reflect our true private fantasies. To find that out— Hey you, do you usually fall for the cool rebellious type, or are you more into the brooding artist? Do you vibe with shy and nerdy? Or charming and flirty? Are you all about guys? Hm, maybe you also like girls. Doesn't matter. Lanky, ripped, buzzcuts, man buns, full beards, strong brows, small breasts, big butts. Is it more about their smile or how they make you laugh? Are you attracted to people you embarrass? About so we keep it a secret? We all have a type, or a few types. I know I do. So where do these types come from? Why are we attracted to some people and not others? I'm thinking too much.

I mean, you know, if you have a chemistry with somebody, if I'm vibing that person, that's, you know, don't think about it too much. Sniffing and searching for are the smells of somebody who you think might be genetically compatible with you. Our brains are designed to latch on to people's attractive features on our quest to find the right mate. My body temperature changes, um, and I get that warm fuzzy feeling usually in the guts and then it kind of moves down the body.

In the moment of attraction, your brain floods you with hormones that make you feel warm and tingly. And it's like my hair stands on end, all of my senses feel like they're awake, my heart flutters. I was being extremely fast.

I don't know what to say. I'm shy. Sometimes I talk way too fast.

Dopamine gives you the same pleasurable boost as eating sugar or taking drugs. The same powerful cravings.

I feel myself like wanting to banter or wanting to engage in like a debate.

Boost as eating sugar or taking drugs. The same powerful cravings.

I feel myself like wanting to banter or wanting to engage in like a debate or like looking at their arms. I'm like super into arms.

And then there's norepinephrine and adrenaline, the fight or flight hormones. I might get a little nervous feeling, a little anxious, or I get really excited, which can make it hard to sleep. Handy. In France, they call the moment of attraction ku de fudre, or lightning bolt. In Arabic, it's hawa, a wind. In China, yun fu, a fated force. And in Japan, they say koi no youkan, the feeling when you meet someone that you're bound to fall in love.

How do I know if I'm attracted to someone?

Um, it's just kind of this like magnetic vibe It's just kind of like, I just feel drawn to that person.

When you're attracted to somebody, you shouldn't really be able to explain it beyond just like, "I'm attracted to them," right? It should just be visceral and you should know it.

But humans have tried to explain it. I mean, how could we not? And we have all kinds of theories. An astrologer would say, "If you're a Taurus, try to match with a Capricorn." But a Sagittarius? No way! Indian astrologers have long used an intricate 36-point analysis to match the bride and groom. You need at least 18 points for a successful marriage. And then in 2015, an article went viral that claimed when two strangers asked each other these 36 questions, it's led to love. Questions like, "What is your most treasured memory?" What is your most terrible memory? And do you have a secret hunch about how you would die? According to the magazine Cosmo, you can make anyone fall in love with you in 12 easy steps, including eye contact, focusing on the ways you're similar, hanging around them a lot, and, uh, love them? Okay, sure. But scientists for decades said it pretty much all came down to our genes. And we're all attracted to the same type: a fit and fertile mating partner. Because we're animals. We just want to reproduce.

More symmetric men smell better to women, specifically to women who are at the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle.

Men are thought to have a preference for curved hips because this signals enough fat deposits on the hips for health and fertility.

Men choose women with large breasts because they're seen as good childbearing material. So there is a sense in which the body of a woman has been designed through evolution for the delectation of males.

Maybe that's why male video game designers make pretty much every female character look like this. 'Cause they're more fertile. Mm-hmm.

There's definitely an evolutionary component to attraction. But I think we have to be really careful in distinguishing between just-so stories— men like women with big breasts because it's good for the species. There is no evidence of any link between large breasts and a pretty face and fertility, right? If that were true, our planet would be populated with only with beautiful, large-breasted women. And that is obviously not true.

One of the things we find quite consistently is that the social culture in which you grow up in, in which you live in, has an impact on your body size ideal.

Viren traveled to a region of South Africa with incredibly high rates of HIV and conducted a study asking Zulu men living there to rate a series of photos of women with different body sizes. Sizes. On average, the men found this body size just as attractive as this one, while all these body sizes were rated as less attractive.

Being extremely thin in that particular context was associated with HIV.

Viren also showed these images to Zulu men who had recently moved to the UK. Those men rated this body size as the ideal and rated these body sizes as less attractive.

The ideal body size changed very quickly to match what was ideal in the UK, which was a relatively thin body.

And if humans are just like any other animal, something else doesn't make sense. In a lot of animal species, the males are the ones with the pressure to look pretty and impress the females, like in birds, where they get pretty sexy because they often have to compete for mates. But mating The human world looks different. A 1989 study of 37 cultures around the world found that men care more about their female partners being attractive and young, as in fertile, to have more babies to pass on their genes, while women cared more about financial capacity, ambition, and industriousness, as in they were or were going to be rich to provide for all those babies. And especially if you watch a lot of reality when you watch reality TV, that feels true because these shows play up those different motives.

I know you're traveling a lot, so thank you for letting me borrow the plane.

I really appreciate it.

Stereotype for a guido: guy that always looks prettier than his girlfriend, which is completely unacceptable. I can't be with a girl that doesn't look prettier than me.

Bree, how old are you?

Sorry, I'm 21. Oh. A study of profile pictures on the dating app Tinder seem to back this story. Straight women were more likely than men to take selfies angled from above so their eyes and foreheads look big and everything else looked smaller, so they look younger, aka more fertile. While men were more likely to use selfies angled from below so they look taller, more dominant. In the animal world, that means better able to acquire resources. In the human world, that means rich. But a 2001 study that reviewed half a century of data found that as more women entered the workplace and made their own money, they started caring more about being with a good-looking guy, and men started caring more about being with a woman with good financial prospects.

The idea that we are simply animals that only really care about reproducing seems incredibly reductive. It's not simply a biological drive to, to go and have sex with that individual so you can produce offspring. Now, I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, or that's not shaping how we might behave in some situations. The point more generally is that to have a relationship, to form a relationship with an individual, or even just to have sex with an individual, requires so much more than just biology.

Even identical twins— same genes, —same upbringing, same culture—don't all have the same type. In 2015, researchers had hundreds of identical twins rate faces and plotted the results. Each dot represents a twin pair. The x-axis is one twin's rating and the y-axis is the other twin's rating. If the twins all agreed with each other, you'd expect the correlations to look like this. But it didn't. The researchers found that a lot of A lot of what we're attracted to comes down to unique environmental factors, as in your individual life history. I think I've always had a little bit of the bad boy that I was attracted to, and that keeps coming back over and over again. But I had, you know, my father had a little of the bad boy in him.

I used to never like dating people who looked like me, and then like, I don't know, recently I've been mistaken for people that I've been attracted to, you know? It's like, this person actually looks just like me, so I guess it's like, am I loving myself ultimately, you know?

Like, all the guys that I like kind of end up looking like the stuffed animals I had when I was a kid, so I'm like, oh, maybe I'm just looking for security and comfort that way.

Generally what a lot of evolutionary psychology suggests is that as long as you are having enough sex with other sex partners to reproduce, reproduce, it really doesn't matter what else you're attracted to. Really, evolution doesn't care what else you do with sexuality.

Identical twins don't always have the same sexuality either. In fact, a gay twin is more likely to have a twin that's straight than gay. Researchers found that when it comes to sexual orientation, environmental factors play a much more important role than genes. For women, they're at least 4 times is important. But environmental factors in this case doesn't mean culture or upbringing.

So I think when we talk about environment, we're often thinking, "Oh, your friends or your parents." But when geneticists are talking about the environment, we're talking about literally everything that's not a gene. That's the placenta, right? That's an environment too.

The womb is everyone's first environment, and what happens there may affect who you're attracted to when you grow up. The amount and timing of hormones a fetus is exposed to may play a role. And for males, so could maternal antibodies that target a certain brain protein made by the Y chromosome. In some women, those can build up over time with every male baby she has, which may explain why gay men, on average, have more older brothers than straight men.

There are plenty of environmental influences that are as fixed as any gene. So it's important to remember that genetic doesn't mean fixed and environmental doesn't mean unfixed. The gene-environment balance for a trait doesn't really say anything about the fixedness of that trait.

As a child, I was like, "Oh no, I dislike boys!" I just like boys. And my mother would always say to me, "If you liked girls too, it'd be okay." Like, she knew. So as I've grown up and as I've started experiencing more sexuality and getting out into the world more, my sexuality has also changed.

If you're a man, if you're a woman, if you're trans, if you're not trans, you know, like those things I think— I've met all kinds of people, all kinds of ways, and they've all been attractive, you know?

Gender is just another type.

Some individuals Hindus don't necessarily have a gender-based orientation. They are more focused on the individual. Some individuals are just more gendery than others.

In early 19th century Iran, people were drawn to characteristics that were not very gendered at all. These young lovers look pretty similar. And in recent years, that beauty ideal has become popular in the West, with with some male and female models looking pretty similar as ideas of gender have become more fluid.

There's a lot of evidence that suggests that men are a bit more rigid when it comes to the type of people that they're attracted to. Women show a lot more flexibility.

In one study, a small sample of gay and straight men and women had their genital sexual response measured. While they were shown a variety of videos. One was a man and a woman having sex. Another was men having sex and women having sex and a man masturbating, a woman masturbating, a buff naked man taking a stroll, a toned naked lady exercising, and bonobos getting it on. As you might expect, straight men were more turned on by the videos with women in the And also, as you might expect, gay men preferred the videos featuring men. But the women, they were turned on by pretty much everything. Lesbians were even slightly more aroused by the bonobos than the strolling man.

One of the hallmarks of human sexuality is that humans are able to use sexuality for purposes other than reproduction. It cements social alliances, it reduces stress. And so flexibility in the sexual system is a good thing. It's a part of the ability of sex to serve multiple functions.

And according to the latest research, attraction mostly comes down to 4 main pillars, and they're pretty simple. The first one is physical appearance, obviously. But then the second pillar of attraction The first question is geography.

In the UK, for example, the majority of relationships are formed between people who live relatively nearby, probably between 5 and 10 kilometers away at most.

And we like people who have the qualities we value in ourselves. Opposites almost never attract.

People who are too different, who have different values to us, we often find that they cause discomfort in us.

The fact that you and your that you and your partner have compatible star signs matters less than the fact that you both care about star signs.

Well, you have to be smart. I always like someone who's smart. Down to earth, definitely. Someone who's spiritual. That's really big for me.

Their kindness, their ability to be present.

Adventurous, playful, good communicator.

And finally, we tend to find comfort in people who reciprocate our experiences. Expressions of intimacy.

For example, if I told you something about my true self, who I really, really am, are you going to reciprocate? Are you going to tell me something about yourself in return?

That could be why this experiment of asking 36 questions to a stranger actually worked for people. Sharing your most treasured memories, terrible memories, and your secret hunches about how you're going to die could get pretty intimate. So it turns out, Cosmo's advice is surprisingly scientific. Focusing on the ways you're similar, mm-hmm. Hanging around them a lot, that's geography. Loving them, that's opening yourself up to reciprocity. And eye contact, well, that's just really sexy. We're not sure why this shape became the universal symbol—

Aha!

To find that out, you have to actually ask people.

I surveyed Almost 4,200 Americans from all 50 states, people ranging in age from 18 to 87, ranging all different gender identities, sexual orientations, demographic and political backgrounds, and I asked them hundreds of questions.

According to his survey, 97% of American adults have had a sexual fantasy, as in imagined an arousing sexual scenario. 87% have at least at least one a week, and 52% have at least one a day. And though we might think our fantasies are super weird and unique, by and large, most people, regardless of gender, are fantasizing about the same things. So who and what are we fantasizing about? And what do our fantasies say about us?

Ah, Linda, if you were only here to learn.

I love to watch A lot of people masturbate.

I love feet, but I'm like, why are feet fetishized?

Why are these things considered outside of normal?

Fantasy is fantasy, and it turns us on. It can remain in your head, or sometimes you can actually think of reality.

Most of our fantasies fall into 3 genres: having sex with multiple people, sex in places or in ways that we've never done it before, and fantasies about power and control. The first: group sex, like orgies or gangbangs, a type of orgy where a lot of men usually have sex with the same woman. Almost every American adult has fantasized about group sex, and over half of the men said they fantasized about it often. And usually the fantasy involves a specific number of people.

I guess I would just say threesome. The threesome thing is beautiful.

I think it's definitely a threesome, but there's also like grapes involved.

When I looked at the one-word fantasy descriptions that people provided, when they summed up their favorite fantasy of all time in a single word, I took those words and I entered them into a word cloud. And the first time I did this, all it said was "threesome" because so many people wrote that threesome threesome was their favorite fantasy of all time. It's a way that people can feel validated and wanted. A lot of people really just want to be the center of attention, and they want multiple people desiring them at the same time. So there's actually a big emotional component.

And while the stereotype might be that young people experiment with group sex, this fantasy is actually more popular with people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

I think part of the appeal of threesomes is is just that a lot of people get bored with their sexual routines, and a lot of people are in long-term monogamous relationships, and so a threesome is an easy way of adding some novelty.

And novelty in general is the second major genre of our fantasies.

It's where people are just mixing it up.

In one small study, men viewed the same porn clip over and over, and they got less and less aroused. But then, a new porn clip played, and the men's penises got very hard, very fast. A similar study was conducted measuring women's genital arousal, with similar results.

I like the secretive aspect of it, or like, "I've never done this before," kind of thing. Like if we're on a plane together and like, "Oh no, your flight got delayed?

Why not just come back to my place for the night?

I have a spare bed." Having candle wax dripped on my body, having feathers run across my body. More on the exhibitionist side, I have done sexual things on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The biggest theme that came up in the novelty category was public sex.

Some of the favorites: sex in a park, a car, a public bathroom, a locker room, an elevator, in the office.

I think a sexual fantasy for me would be to have my partner, like, going around with a toy that I could sort of control and modulate at a wedding, like at a business meeting. There's like theoretically some risk of discovery, so it's kind of like hot in that way.

Two-thirds of men and women have fantasized about sex toys. Two of the most common ones: blindfolds and handcuffs. Which brings us to the third big fantasy genre: power and control. More than a quarter of people rated this their favorite kind of fantasy.

I just like someone who is aggressive.

Someone who can really like—

Yeah, just someone who's aggressive. I would leave it at that. Just someone who's aggressive.

I always thought being like tossed around a little bit was always really attractive, like that scene in Mrs.

and Mr. Smith. They're trying to like kill each other, but it's hot.

My favorite thing to do in the world is get into butts. It's definitely a power thing to get into cis boy butts, and I won't apologize for it.

I like nurses. I like—

I don't know, something about nurses, cops. I don't know.

You know what I think? You know what I think it is?

That's something mental, like women in power. That's sexy.

That's what it is. Not too much power, though. Just enough, you know? Don't scare me.

One way to explore power play during sex is through BDSM. BDSM is bondage and discipline, sadomasochism.

It's, um, the erotic pleasure that people take in giving pain, enduring pain, giving dominance, giving punishment, punishment, enduring punishment, giving humiliation, and during humiliation, but it's all in the realm of playtime.

BDSM is often associated with fancy props and contraptions made of leather.

I love leather. I think that nowadays people have a view of it, of things like Fifty Shades of Grey and that kind of stuff. It's very sort of a mainstream idea, but actually my version of leather comes from a very queer place.

Yes, and that all started in the US in the 1940s where there was an emerging biker culture. Leather was good protective clothing for men who were into motorcycles, and rugged all-male clubs were good settings for men who were into men. When World War II ended, some gay veterans stayed on the West Coast and joined the biker scene, embracing a gay hypermasculine identity and experimenting with kinky sex. Soon, gay leather culture spread to cities across the US and Europe. And then a few decades ago, it became a lot more visible.

In, you know, the late '80s and the '90s in San Francisco, sexuality was something that we were really in turmoil over because of AIDS and because of the serious, like, fury and confusion and terror around the disease.

—wearing masks and gloves when dealing with homosexuals, some morticians refusing to embalm the bodies of AIDS victims.

And so BDSM was the perfect kind of outlet for that.

Condoms, dental dams, and all kinds of latex became part of the fun.

It sexualized all of these things that were kind of like barriers in the past, which I think is really healing and really remarkable.

And it helped people Many people cope with their anxieties around sex by getting them out of their heads, which is still a part of the appeal of BDSM today. It's a full process, it's a full story, it's a full immersion that you're creating yourself and that you get to experience with somebody else. And it's what we call in BDSM, we call it play, because it is that part of us that has forgotten how to like just roleplay. BDSM fantasies go back way further than the 20th century. The sadomasochism comes from the Marquis de Sade, a 1700s French nobleman known for his kinky sex crimes and for his novels depicting kinky sex crimes. And the masochism and sadomasochism comes from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian nobleman born 100 years later. Whose book Venus in Pills told the semi-autobiographical story of a man who convinces a woman to make him her slave. The psychiatrist who coined the term masochism explained that this, quote, perversion up to his time was quite unknown to the scientific world. But we now know this perversion, at least imagining it, is widespread. More than three-quarters Two-thirds of people in Leigh Miller's study had fantasized about bondage, as in restraining someone or being restrained. More than half about discipline, as in giving or following orders. And almost three-quarters about inflicting or receiving pain, mostly biting and spanking.

The fact that almost everyone was having some type of BDSM fantasy tells us this is not some rare or unusual sexual interest.

Fantasies about forced sex. In Leymiller's study, 54% of men, 61% of women, and 68% of non-binary people had fantasized about being forced to have sex at least once.

So it's me being in a position where I'm being pursued and I don't want to be, and almost in a rape fantasy scenario?

In TV and movies, this fantasy often follows a A spunky but ultimately vulnerable woman is raped, but then falls in love with her abuser. Although in those two on the right, it's a little complicated. This formula also plays out in 80% of Thai soap operas. It's so normal, the genre even has a cutesy nickname: slap and kiss. Because there's a lot of slapping, then kissing. And this fantasy goes way back to One of the first modern rape fantasy novels, The Sheik, was published in England in 1919. Such a sensation, it also got the Hollywood treatment. A feisty white woman is kidnapped by a sexy and violent Arab prince. He rapes her, she falls in love, and they live happily ever after. Audiences loved it. The movie broke box office records in New York and was a runaway hit in France. And in 1987, a survey of historical American romance novels, which are written and read mostly by women, found that more than half feature the rape of the lead female character, perhaps freeing the heroine from the moral slur of consenting to have sexual intercourse before marriage, according to one researcher.

Often our fantasies involve things that are taboo, things that are forbidden, things that we feel that we can't express in everyday life, and the simple fact that it's taboo and forbidden is what makes it exciting and titillating. That doesn't mean you actually want it in your everyday life. Nobody thinks that if you have a fantasy about rape that you want to be raped, or you're someone who's oriented toward rape.

For me, it's like, "Oh yeah, I like to be the submissive because I'm in control a lot of my life, but being Being submissive in sex doesn't mean I'm not in control of the sex, 'cause I'm in control of everything in sex, so it's just another natural extension of my own personality.

Our fantasies are also an extension of our culture. A survey of Swedish romance novels, also done in the 1980s, found almost no examples of women falling in love with their rapists. The researcher explained, "That could be because premarital sex was not quite the cultural taboo taboo as it was in the United States at the time. While in India today, the portrayal of sex is taboo. Porn is actually illegal. So it's easier to make in the form of comic books. And these are two of the most popular characters, cartoon housewives Savita Babi and Velma. Both maternal figures, just with different figures, who are ignored by their husbands and bored with their domestic routines, so spend their days on the prowl for sex, often with younger men. Pursuing their own pleasure, they boldly violate every social restriction placed on Indian women. And in the US, a popular porn genre among men is the humiliation of men. A white man watches his white girlfriend or wife get ravaged by a much stronger and dominant black man.

It's my house. It's your house, but I live in it sometimes.

Playing off a stereotype of Black men as sexual threats that goes back hundreds of years. And then in the 2000s, a new threat gripped the Western imagination.

Events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. We will tear down the apparatus of terror, and we will help you to build a new Iraq.

During the War on Terror, The sexy chic genre had a resurgence, peaking in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, with plot points like al-Qaeda ties, weapons of mass destruction, and defeating terrorism.

Institutionalized racism in the United States seems to creep into our sexual fantasies.

And that affects the fantasies of marginalized groups too.

A lot of people who have immigrated here, their idea their children is actually just to assimilate. Especially in the Asian American community, they want their children mostly to be successful in all these other areas that have already been approved by this white society.

Which may be why Lay Miller's study found that the vast majority of Asian Americans, whether they fantasize about men or women, fantasize about white people most of the time. And you know there's a long history of history of white men fantasizing about Asian women, as you can see in movies that go back decades.

At this moment, all my honorable intentions are getting sort of weak in the knees. Your eyes are as soft, your hair is pleasant to my touch. Take clothes off? No, I've never tried nudes.

Good time to try.

There's so much about us that is really about sexualization from the white perspective, or the male gaze, But it's really not about our sexuality. Where we have agency, we're telling the story.

Which is why Yan Q created a web series, Mercy Mistress, based on her career as a dominatrix.

For me, I'm hardwired to be kinky. It's part of my sexual orientation. It's just part of my queerness.

I was really drawn to Mercy Mistress because I really love the idea of having an Asian American Asian American dominatrix talking about her life. I love any story that's about Asian American sexuality because we don't really have one yet.

We may not be able to get rid of our fantasies. Some researchers say our turn-ons are like languages. We can't unlearn them, but we can learn new ones.

Just watching porn can also shape people's fantasies as well. Maybe while you're masturbating and edging, where you're on the sort of brink of orgasm, and you come across something that's new and different that you've never seen before, that's maybe really kinky, because your disgust response is lower, that might open the door to you watching that video till the end, at which point you might have this powerful orgasm that you might start to associate with that kink. Ah! And as a result, that might lead you to want to fantasize more about that in the future.

And while 79% in Leigh Miller's study said they want to act out their favorite fantasy of all time, only 23% said they'd actually tried.

If you're in a loving intimate relationship where you are sexual with somebody that you're very trusting of them and you feel like you can share these taboo parts of yourself, and that, that can be a really good way to sort of see how intimate we can be. Real intimacy is It isn't just sharing the beauty of who we are, it's also sharing the ugly, and the ugly can actually be very gratifying.

And if your fantasies are on the violent side, that requires a lot of communication.

There's a very safe way to work through all fetishes and all kinds of ideas and kinks through BDSM. It's actually a wonderful way to do that. It's one of the great things about sexuality. It can bring us closer in a way in a way that maybe other forms of communication can't.

It's setting up the continuous check-in of consent, that that person that you're playing with is continuously enjoying what they are experiencing with you, and that there's actually safe words that are set up to protect both sides of going too far.

Most of our fantasies reflect basic human needs: feeling desired and validated, breaking out of our routines, and coping with anxieties. And many of our most popular fantasies mix and match these genres. Like mom fantasies. That's pretty novel, and it's definitely power play. Or gangbang fantasies, which are group sex, usually with a dash of power play. Or the sheik, which is a racial power play.

Enforced sex and romance. Often fantasies come from a variety different places, some memory of something, some book that you read becomes this kind of mishmash in your mind. But there's a lot of variability in sexual fantasies, and they don't tell you anything reliable about you. If you have fantasies that disturb you or scare you and you wonder what they mean, they don't mean a lot, so don't worry so much about them.

We're not sure why this shape became the universal symbol of love, but one leading theory is that it came from the silphium pod, so valuable across the ancient Mediterranean it was printed on the currency of the only place they grew, the Greek colony Cyrene. It was exported around the region for all kinds of medical uses. And one in particular. Soranus of Ephesus, the foremost gynecologist of his time, advised women to drink silphium juice once a month since it not only prevents conception but also destroys any already existing. Which means our modern heart shape may derive from an ancient kind of morning-after pill. But for most of human history, birth control was a lot less simple. Super fine. There were early condoms made of animal intestines that were washed and reused. Diaphragms, early versions were just women putting various things up their vaginas. Wool, silk, crushed plants, or animal dung, depending on the available animal. In Egypt, it was crocodile dung. In India, dung of the elephant. We'll never know for sure how well silphium worked because it went extinct, but research into its likely relatives like Queen Anne's Lace and Devil's Dung suggests it probably manipulated the hormone levels involved in getting pregnant. Scientists eventually figured out how to do that in a lab in the 1950s, and it's how nearly every new type of birth control has worked ever since. But this method isn't perfect.

Weight gain, depression, acne. I was just bleeding and bleeding at a low level for months. I would just like cry over like things that didn't make any sense.

Cutting a cucumber and I was like, why?

Like, is this like— this is the worst like vegetable I've ever like cut up before.

It's been over 60 years since we invented hormonal birth control. Shouldn't it be better by now?

This little white tablet is more explosive than dynamite. Sermons have been preached on it.

Men and women have argued over it.

Mary and her team merely explain the pill. Hey now. So pretty.