Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau & Luke Malone (on child sexual abuse prevention)

Summary

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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Episode: Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau & Luke Malone (on child sexual abuse prevention)
Date: May 20, 2026

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Overview

In this especially candid and challenging episode, Dax Shepard, with co-host Lily Padman, welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau—director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins—and journalist Luke Malone. Their wide-ranging, frank discussion focuses on the prevalence, causes, and—critically—potential solutions for child sexual abuse (CSA). Drawing from their new book, One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and What We Can Do To Stop It, they address new data, root causes, societal misconceptions, survivor perspectives, and prevention strategies. The tone is compassionate, pragmatic, often emotionally intense, and always unflinching in its exploration of taboo and misunderstood topics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Scale and Nature of the Crisis

• Prevalence:
  • One in five children experiences some form of sexual abuse or attempted abuse—combining both online and offline victimization ([16:44]).
  • This number is derived from self-report surveys, not law enforcement or mandated reports, as only about 20% of CSA incidents are reported ([17:02]).
• Trends:
  • Overall rates of CSA, especially hands-on abuse, have declined by ~60% since the early 1990s, though numbers remain distressingly high ([18:38]).
  • The introduction of internet technology created new types of abuse (tech-facilitated/online), but recent data suggests even some of these rates are plateauing ([22:00], [22:41]).

“It’s about one in five kids. Hence the title of their book… We’re talking about a true epidemic.” — Dan Shepard ([00:17])

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2. Who are the Perpetrators? Unpacking Stereotypes

• Youth Offenders:
  • About 70% of CSA is committed by other kids under 18, typically with just a few years age difference ([22:00]).
  • Many incidents involve situational, impulsive acts—not ongoing predatory behavior or adult “pedophilia” ([25:15], [40:15]).
• Known vs. Stranger:
  • 90% of cases involve someone the child knows ([24:26]). Stranger danger is far outweighed by abuse within families, schools, and friend circles.
• Adults With Pedophilia:
  • Only 1–4% of adult males report sexual attraction to children, and less than 1% meet criteria for pedophilic disorder ([40:50]).
  • This means the majority of child-on-child and situational adult abuse does not involve lifelong pedophilic attraction ([40:01], [41:27]).

“Of this one in five… about 70% are other kids under the age of 18, usually a few years older.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([22:00])

“The person who sexually abuses a child is not a three headed monster, but a person first… some had deep remorse, others were assholes.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([12:23])

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3. Recidivism: How Likely Are Offenders to Re-Offend?

• Minors:
  • Less than 3% of minors adjudicated for sexual abuse will be arrested for a similar crime again ([29:07]).
• Adults:
  • Sexual recidivism among adults convicted of sex crimes against children is less than 10%, based on studies tracking over 120,000 cases ([32:46], [33:00]).
  • Recidivism, especially for juveniles, is much lower than public perception and media narratives suggest ([32:57]).

“Of the minors who are arrested and convicted… less than 3% are ever arrested or convicted again.” — Dax Shepard ([29:07])

“Sexual recidivism rates for adults … are less than 10%. The data are, in my opinion, incontrovertible.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([32:46])

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4. Systemic Flaws & Harms in Current Approaches

• Criminal Justice System:
  • Juvenile justice responses (imprisonment, registries) are damaging and often unnecessary considering the ultra-low recidivism rates ([34:09], [35:00]).
  • Adult-oriented consequences applied to kids can destroy futures with little preventive value.
  • Incarceration is expensive ($5.8 billion annually) and dwarfs the $3 million devoted to prevention programs ([51:49], [53:00]).
• Misplaced Responsibility:
  • Historically, children were made responsible for identifying, resisting, or reporting abuse ("stranger danger" and outdated prevention materials)—placing responsibility on the least powerful actors and neglecting adult and systemic accountability ([71:27], [71:45]).

“We are still... not beyond that. That is still what most kids get exposed to in schools.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([71:49])

“We're spending $5.8 billion a year to incarcerate pedophiles… $3 million was spent to prevent it by the government at whatever time this statistic came out.” — Dax Shepard ([51:49])

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5. Solutions & Prevention: What Actually Works

• Public Health Approach (The "Matrix"):
  • Adapted from vehicle safety strategies (William Haddon Jr.), a “prevention matrix” considers interventions before, during, and after incidents, addressing human, environmental, and systemic factors ([74:44], [76:07]).
• Upstream Prevention:
  • School-, sports-, and camp-based curricula teaching not just self-defense, but also boundaries, consent, and norms around “not engaging in these behaviors.” ([76:07])
  • Environmental and situational design (windows in doors, supervised spaces) substantially reduces abuse in youth-serving organizations ([77:30]).
• Changing Adult Behavior:
  • Training for adults working with children to recognize boundary violations—“Here’s why we don’t act on those thoughts”—and creating policies to intervene before harm occurs ([76:39]).
• Online & Resource Innovations:
  • Anonymous self-help initiatives like the Help Wanted program have reached over 1.5 million people and provide support for non-offending individuals with sexual interest in children ([47:01], [53:29]).
  • Tech collaborations: Facebook/Meta and Google redirect those searching for illegal material to resources like Help Wanted for support ([54:40]).
  • Creative online warning/interruption systems (with Thorne and others) can stop searches for illicit content and direct users to help ([85:39]).
• Role of Ongoing Support for Desistance:
  • Providing practical support—housing, jobs, meaningful relationships—is crucial for those leaving prison and reduces re-offense ([87:43]).

“You can go way upstream with school-based … programs that give kids information, but also give adults information.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([76:39])

“Help Wanted is a prevention intervention… For people who are attracted to children who want help, to not offend and to live a healthy life.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([53:31])

“You have to criminalize these behaviors. You don’t have to treat children like criminals, but you have to criminalize sexual abuse.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([50:47])

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6. Stigma, Empathy, and Re-framing the Narrative

• Survivors' Experiences:
  • Both Dax and several guests reflect on the personal and public reluctance to address CSA, compounded by shame, stigma, and misconceptions.
  • Dr. Letourneau reinforces that most survivors are not “doomed,” and that healing and healthy lives absolutely remain possible ([20:38], [21:11]).
• Social Empathy & Safety:
  • Malone, Letourneau, and the hosts emphasize that increasing pathways to help—especially for those seeking support before offending—can save incalculable future suffering ([42:13], [47:01]).
  • Empathy is not condoning abuse, but is an essential ingredient in practical victim prevention ([70:41]).
  • The need to reframe CSA as a public health—not exclusively criminal—issue is stressed repeatedly ([50:35], [53:00]).

“I have long said on here, and I’m a victim of sexual abuse… I do feel bad if you are afflicted with pedophilia. I didn’t pick not being attracted to kids. I just am not. And I don’t think anyone would pick this.” — Dax Shepard ([10:02])

“What I want to do is end child sexual abuse. And it is uncomfortable. You don’t only have to focus… on providing solutions for people at risk of offending. You can provide solutions to a lot of things.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([70:43])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Self-Identification and Seeking Help:
  “I could not admire anyone more than admitting and self-reporting that. I mean, I truly can’t imagine anything braver… I can’t think of anything braver.” — Dax Shepard ([47:47])

• On the Complexity of Solutions:
  “We’re the first generation to have dozens of solutions.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([74:44])

• On Societal Complicity:
  “Historically, children were made responsible for identifying, resisting, or reporting abuse—placing responsibility on the least powerful actors and neglecting adult and systemic accountability.” — Paraphrased from discussion ([71:27])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00] — Episode introduction / Guest backgrounds
• [07:12] — Malone’s original research into non-offending pedophiles
• [10:02] — Dax discusses empathy and his experience as a survivor
• [16:40] — “One in five” prevalence explained
• [22:00] — Offender age breakdown (“70% are other kids”)
• [29:07] — Juvenile recidivism statistics (<3% reoffense)
• [32:46] — Adult recidivism and challenges to public narrative
• [35:00] — Consequences and trade-offs for juveniles in justice system
• [41:27] — Adult prevalence of pedophilic attraction and disorder
• [47:01] — Launch and impact of “Help Wanted” program
• [53:00] — Economic analysis; prevention vs. punishment spending
• [74:44] — The CSA prevention “matrix” (public health analogy)
• [77:30] — Evidence for success of environmental changes in youth orgs
• [85:39] — Creative digital interventions and “Thorne” partnership
• [87:43] — Practical support for people reintegrating after incarceration
• [88:56] — Takeaways and book plug: One in Five

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Flow and Tone

The episode is direct, compassionate, and unsparing in its honesty—challenging listeners to see beyond stigma, question punitive reflexes, and consider what research and public health show actually works. Personal disclosure (Dax as survivor), data-driven insight, and empathic storytelling provide multiple on-ramps for audiences who might instinctively recoil from the topic. Letourneau and Malone’s expertise consistently grounds the discussion in hope, science, and the real possibility of drastically reducing child sexual abuse.

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In Summary: Key Takeaways

• CSA is far more prevalent than most realize, affecting as many as 1 in 5 children—but it’s not an intractable crisis.
• Most perpetrators are not strangers, and a majority of offenses are by juveniles—many of whom will never offend again.
• Recidivism for both juveniles and adults is far lower than commonly assumed, pointing to the need for prevention rather than solely retribution.
• Public health, environmental design, and anonymous support for at-risk individuals are proven and underfunded strategies.
• The conversation is difficult but necessary: shame-free, data-driven, and focused on supporting both survivors and those seeking help before offense.

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For further reading and resources:

• One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and What We Can Do To Stop It by Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau & Luke Malone
• Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse
• Help Wanted online prevention & support program

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“This is a behavior. It does not have to happen. And… we could end it.” — Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau ([83:14])

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Transcript

[Dan Shepard]

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[Lily Padman]

Hi.

[Dan Shepard]

Today we have Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau and Luke Malone on. If ever there were a cause for a trigger warning, this would be the episode. We are going to get deep into what could only be described as an epidemic of child sexual abuse. One in five kids. Hence the title of their book that they collaborated on called One in five why Child Sexual Abuse is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and what We Can do to stop it. Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau is the director of more M O O R E at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health which is a center focused on child sexual abuse prevention. So we have like one of the most foremost experts imaginable. Incredible origin story how these two ended up working together. She was going to get interviewed by Luke and was reluctant to do so and it's turned into a long collaboration for both of them. And Luke is an Emmy nominated journalist who has reported on sexual abuse for 15 years. So he is so dedicated to this topic and there's so much stuff you would not have imagined otherwise. It's a very revealing episode. I learned so much in this episode

[Lily Padman]

but also just so people aren't like I would, I just would never listen to it. There's like good. They're trying to make a lot of progress and the goal is to end this and it can be done.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. They have a lot, a lot of solutions and a lot of understanding of all the different ways this expresses itself. So please enjoy. Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau and Luke Malone this message is brought to you by Apple Pay. Checking out online Apple Pay makes it simple. Apple Pay is accepted on millions of websites and apps and counting. Just look for the Apple Pay button almost anywhere you do your online shopping. When you tap the Apple Pay button to check out, you don't have to worry about filling out any forms with your shipping address or payment method or for me, my billing address. Instead, use your pre saved information and checkout in seconds. What a joy. Need to make a change? You can easily review and change your card information and shipping details right in the payment sheet. Once you are ready, just double click the side button, authenticate your purchase with face ID and you're done. Whether you're shopping online for everyday needs or treating yourself, skip the the hassle. Shop with Apple Pay. Terms apply. We are supported by Quints Monica. We love quints.

[Lily Padman]

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[Lily Padman]

It's a little chilly out today. It is.

[Luke Malone]

Not very la.

[Lily Padman]

I know. I don't like it.

[Dan Shepard]

Where do y' all live?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Baltimore.

[Dan Shepard]

Baltimore. Oh, so you get a lot of Johns Hopkins. You gotta be there. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Johns Hopkins, your favorite.

[Dan Shepard]

I hate that name. Do other people express their frustration with the double plural?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It was his grandmother's last name.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So, you know, it's been explained to me. People do that to their kids. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, they do.

[Dan Shepard]

But two plurals.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I know, it's terrible. It's not alliterative. It's awful.

[Dan Shepard]

It's terrible to say, but that's a tiny grievance. So much good work.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You could pick at some other things as well. Unblemished history.

[Dan Shepard]

Sure. Antitrust issues. But the amount of.

[Lily Padman]

I mean, you know, look, no one's perfect.

[Dan Shepard]

No one's perfect.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You have that kind of wealth. There's original sin somewhere.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

But if you keep enough, do something good with it. Exactly.

[Lily Padman]

We'll take it.

[Dan Shepard]

So, Elizabeth, where are you from originally?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I grew up in Ohio.

[Dan Shepard]

What part of Ohio? Sandusky.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Mentor. Oh.

[Dan Shepard]

I did a movie in Mentor, Ohio.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, did you really?

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Dan Shepard]

Home of Garfield. No. Who? Yes.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Garfield. That sounds right. If there's quizzes, I'm not gonna pass.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, you should always clarify if you're talking about Garfield the cat.

[Luke Malone]

I thought the cat has a very

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Ohio Vibe to the cat, but yeah, I think you're right about that. But yeah. No, I grew up there.

[Dan Shepard]

Love Cedar Point.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Went to Cedar Point a billion times.

[Dan Shepard]

Did you ever go in a matching outfit with a boyfriend or a girlfriend?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I have never done that. Nor will I. But my mother, there were five of us, three boys. She made the boys wear matching outfits in all of our pictures and at one point bought all of us tracksuits that matched.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Also, something I have not repeated.

[Dan Shepard]

Healed from entirely.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, there's that we're getting into the really big wounds early.

[Dan Shepard]

I feel like I have a kind of a good sense of who mom is already, just from that tiny little nugget, trusting all the boys.

[Lily Padman]

I have a great family.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, well, yeah, I have a great family. I got lucky and then.

[Dan Shepard]

Luke, where are you from?

[Luke Malone]

Sydney, Australia.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, okay. Never heard of it. Where is that at?

[Luke Malone]

Just around the corner, down the road, you know. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

How did you end up here?

[Luke Malone]

I came to New York specifically in 2012 to do my master's in journalism at Columbia.

[Dan Shepard]

And am I right in that you guys formed this kind of partnership and that you wanted to interview Elizabeth and you did not really want to be interviewed by him?

[Luke Malone]

That's wrong.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I had no problem being interviewed by you.

[Luke Malone]

Don't lie on the record right now.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I was sick when he was coming down. I had the flu. I literally went and found a colleague who had a couch. He was like my one psychiatrist colleague. So of course he had a couch in his office to lay down. But he was coming from New York to Baltimore and I didn't want to disappoint, but I was legit ill. It had nothing to do personally.

[Luke Malone]

Thank God you didn't.

[Dan Shepard]

And what position did you hold at that time in 2000? What year would this have been?

[Luke Malone]

2012. 2013?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Associate professor in the School of Medicine,

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Department of Mental Health in the School of Public Health in the University of Johns Hopkins.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, what's your PhD in?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Clinical psychology. But I've been a grant funded researcher my entire career.

[Dan Shepard]

But you're a professor too, or no.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, yeah. You do it all.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, so when you were reaching out to Elizabeth, what topic were you hoping to interview her on?

[Luke Malone]

Well, I was kind of doing a story about a group of young self identified non offending pedophiles.

[Dan Shepard]

Let's really take a minute.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, slow that down.

[Dan Shepard]

Young self identifying, non offending offending pedophiles. Pedophiles.

[Luke Malone]

And the kind of non offending part was important to them and still is. Because I feel like people assume the pedophile, it means you've abused a child, you're about to abuse a child. And this was a bunch of kids who, and they were very young, they were kind of like 17, 18, 19, 20, who realized this about themselves, didn't want to act at the time, there was no support for them. And so they'd form this kind of hodgepodge support group for themselves to figure out how do we reckon with this, like now and going forward really quick,

[Dan Shepard]

how did you stumble upon that group of guys?

[Luke Malone]

Part of Columbia was doing like a thesis. It was literally my grad thesis. I've been a journalist in Australia for six, seven years. I'm terrible with years, but for a while, and I wanted to become a serious journalist, so I came here, went to Columbia. Literally just a thesis idea. It kind of came to me one day. I was reading about the Jerry Sandusky sentencing and I was like, huh, Gerry wasn't born like a seven year old child molester. I wonder what happened before then to get here.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Luke Malone]

And then I started interviewing a bunch of guys who were in their 50s, 60s, 70s, who were attracted to kids, didn't want to sexually offend against kids.

[Dan Shepard]

But again, how do you even find those people? That could be your interest. But where does one start finding.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, well, I mean online, in a very official channel. Like nothing too shady, but there's a group called Virtuous Pedophiles, which I think is a terrible name.

[Dan Shepard]

It needs a rebrand.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Rebrand?

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, rebrand. I've brought it up a couple times and I haven't spoken to them for a while, but I was like, guys, they're like, oh, but we want to communicate that. We're like. I'm like, it doesn't matter.

[Dan Shepard]

Talk about an oxymoron. We can add that to the list.

[Lily Padman]

It's just no one wants to see that word. That's why this topic is tough.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Malone]

Branding's eddie percent of it. So the virtuous pedophile, for very good reason, they couldn't have members who were below the age of 18. So it was 18 and above. And again, most of the guys were like 40, 50, 60, 70. So I spoke to a bunch of them, interviewed them and I was like, no matter how virtuous you are, if you're like a 50 year old who says I'm sexually attracted to 8 year old children, it is so icky. Understandable reason. It's too much of a hurdle for a reader to get over. Yes, but Then also, I think intellectually they've had decades to figure it out, like, what this means for them and their lives. And so I want to speak to younger kids who are kind of a. That people might have a tiny bit more possibility for empathy toward and also kids who are going through it right now.

[Dan Shepard]

What was the podcast?

[Lily Padman]

Monica Tardan feathered. That's him.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

He's the one who did that.

[Luke Malone]

So this was like a thesis project and it became a print piece. And this American Life podcast out of there.

[Lily Padman]

Really incredible episode that was.

[Luke Malone]

Thanks. Everyone's done a bunch of stuff in this room, but it's what to Think came out in 2014. I used to kind of resist. I was like, oh, God, this is defining my life. But it's kind of lovely to do something that people are still talking about 12 years later, which is sweet.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. I will say this is going to be one of the most challenging episodes for people to listen to and to find compassion for. And I hope we do a fair and good job. We have a history a little bit. We had a clinically diagnosed sociopath that

[Luke Malone]

came on Patrick J, A G, N E. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

But I have long said on here, and I'm a victim of sexual abuse, but I have long said on here, I do feel bad if you are afflicted with pedophilia. I didn't pick not being attracted to kids. I just am not. And I don't think anyone would pick this. So just out of the gates. I'm so grateful. That's not something I have to fight the urge of. What kind of work were you doing that Luke would reach out to you on this topic?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So I've been working on child sexual abuse prevention policy and practice since grad school. So I'm at the 38 year mark. It's what I've spent my entire career.

[Dan Shepard]

That's a daunting endeavor. I guess I feel like I need a tiny bit of explanation how you could have been pulled to that and stayed.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Staying was super easy. I don't have an origin story that involves surviving child sexual abuse. I went to grad school for clinical psychology doctoral program. Definitely didn't feel like I belonged there. And I had a teacher I wanted to impress and she handed out paper topics and I got pedophilia. Her husband was also there and that was his area. And also sex offending. Those are two different things. People who have sexual attraction to children and people who offend against children are often two separate groups. But anyway, so I just killed myself Writing the best term paper I possibly could to prove to this faculty member and to me that I belonged in this doctoral program. And she saw it and she liked it, and she said, hey, do you mind if I share this with my husband? And she did. And then I started working in his lab. And early on he invited me to kind of co lead a group that was for men who had already offended, they'd served time in prison, and they'd come back into their communities. This was in Maine, by the way. And they were refusing to acknowledge what they had done. And part of treatment for people who sexually offend, particularly for adults, and at that time in particular had to stand up and say, what you did, what you did wrong was very much modeled on AA meetings, actually, meaning they were

[Dan Shepard]

mandated to some kind of self help group.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Not self help. This was treatment with a therapist. But the therapist said, you have to stand up and say what you did wrong. And all of the different things, they were not doing that. So they were in another group for deniers. And that's the group that my professor led. And so I got to be in this group, and it was in a smallish room with like six or seven guys. And I learned a couple of things. And one thing I learned is that these were not three headed monsters from some other planet. These were people. And some of them felt deep remorse for the harm they had caused to children. And others were assholes that you would never want to know, period. But they were people first. And I also learned that I could hear these stories and work with them and leave it at the office and go home and have my life. And there are not a lot of people that can do that with this particular population. So I got into it really literally, almost by accident. But staying. It's a small group of clinicians and researchers that focus on perpetration, whether it's working with people who have already offended, or in my case, now really shifting to preventing both victimization and perpetration and just prevention writ large, which is a lot of different ways you can prevent child sexual abuse. But the field is populated with really wonderful people. And they just kind of wrapped their arms around me and kept me in.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, I can imagine it attracts a ton of candidates.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, so back to you, Luke. When you reached out to Elizabeth, you were hoping to what, find out what kind of treatment was in existence or what kind of modalities existed?

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, pretty much. So these were kids who. And they were kids, very young adults who wanted help, and there was just no help available. And Elizabeth had just founded the Mordor Moore center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, now called More. And it's fascinating. And also, they gave me some backbone as a journalist. I'm like, okay, I got this group of kids. I need to give it some kind of context. And I was very wary about being seen as some kind of pedophile advocate.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Luke Malone]

Which has followed me through over the years. I wouldn't call myself that, but I'm more comfortable with it now. But I was very wary because it was the first time I'd kind of done this dance. Being of you both discussed every time the kind of pedophilias come up on the show, there is this idea, and you've mentioned it yourselves, like, murder is more palatable than pedophiles. You could murder a child. Not great. But obviously. But, like, I recommend somehow that's more palatable than sexually engaging with a kid. There's something so icky. And also, I think, luckily, I myself am in this group. People who aren't attracted to kids, and thank God I'm not. That'd be, like you said, such a horrible thing to deal with. It's such a huge jump for anybody to think, like, oh, I could see myself doing that. I don't have kids, but I have friends with kids. And sometimes a little shits. And you're like, oh, my God, I could strangle you. I got quote marks here. I think the jump to hitting a kid. We were hit as kids. I was born in 81.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Violence seems more. We've all lost our temper and thrown things.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. You can have empathy for parents who do that, who snap in the same way that you don't have empathy for someone who sexually abuses a kid.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Luke Malone]

That's to say, because you don't want to kind of excuse behavior or minimize behavior. No, I know, but you want empathy. I mean, not empathy for the person. But the situation is, stand back and look back. How could this have been prevented or changed?

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I think we would apply the Sapolsky kind of lens, which is like, to feel morally superior is not really worthwhile. Taking dangerous people out of our community is essential and has to be done. But to do it without the moral high ground and the judgment and the punitive desire to make people suffer because of it, I think is the highest road we could probably take.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. But it's very human. And just to step back for a second. I'm sorry that happened to you.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, okay. Thank you. I feel weird receiving sympathy for her.

[Lily Padman]

Talk about that.

[Dan Shepard]

I don't know, maybe that's common or maybe it's uncommon.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I don't know. But I feel like it's worth acknowledging that this is painful, that a lot of people, a lot of your listeners are going to have experienced themselves. And I would never say to empathize with the behavior at all or with somebody who has caused harm, but there's people out there who haven't caused harm that I think we really need to focus a lot more attention on.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes, yes. Well, I did learn some stuff in researching your work, which was a little bit illuminating. I mean, I guess I've had this fear that this person that molested me maybe had gone on and victimized a bunch of people. And I never prevented that. Right. That's maybe a bit of guilt I've had. But then in reading some stuff today from you, I'm like, maybe he never did that again. He was probably 17, I was probably 9ish. Somewhere in there.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And I'm like, oh, that had never even occurred to me. So we should lay out what the kind of numbers are because it's really important. And your book One in five really tells us. Right out of the gates.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

So one in five kids will experience

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

some sexual abuse, some form of sexual abuse, or attempted sexual abuse online or offline. So this is kind of the first, what we call prevalence statistic that combines both online and offline victimization.

[Lily Padman]

And these are reported?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No, we would never rely on reporting. Okay. I was gonna say because so few get reported.

[Lily Padman]

That's why I got confused.

[Dan Shepard]

80%'s unreported.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's huge.

[Luke Malone]

Subsequent additions are one and two.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So my colleague and friend, David Finkelhoer has done several prevalent surveys across the years where you get a nationally representative sample, a large sample of adults reporting back on what happened to them. He's also surveyed kids 10 to 17 large samples, and you ask them questions about things that have happened to them. And you can develop a much more accurate sense of how prevalent is this than if you rel on reports to law enforcement or to child protective services, which are usually the more extreme versions,

[Lily Padman]

but it's still someone is saying verbally that it happened to them.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Self report. Yeah. So these are self report surveys. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Still, I would say probably there's more than that. I bet a lot of people. Yeah, probably.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

But self report surveys can give you a pretty good sense. So certainly there will be people who are never gonna admit. One thing that's remarkable to me about self report surveys. And we do these as well, these prevalence surveys where we're asking people, have you engaged in these behaviors against a child? Yeah. Ye is how many people will acknowledge illegal and stigmatized behaviors. And ridiculously. But it's true, being a survivor can carry some stigma still.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

But people, if they feel safe, if they feel like you're not going to report them because it's anonymous and confidential, folks will reveal things if you ask it in the right way. Also, like if I asked you, have you raped somebody today or in the past? They won't say it, but if you use behaviorally specific language, you get really good data on all kinds of behaviors.

[Dan Shepard]

So one in five currently. What historically do we have any sensitivity? Anyone do that caliber of work in the 80s to know what it was then? It's on the decline.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, it is in many ways. So again, David Finkelhoer, he's been in the field since the 70s, just brilliant and wonderful and someone I very much love and respect, he was doing surveys. The US was actually doing surveys back in the 80s and 90s. And one thing that was really surprising with the earliest surveys was how common it was. It did seem to be increasing over time. But then starting in around early 1990s, 1992, we saw real declines in sexual abuse against children, like on the order of 60% decline. So really, really, really good news. Too many children still being sexually abused, but really good news.

[Dan Shepard]

What do we attribute that to? I can just guess anecdotally what the 80s fight was. Yeah, total lack of supervision. You had both parents now in the workforce and or increasing divorce rates. My case, single mother working her ass off and we were just free to roll.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Less supervision.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, there was really not a lot of supervision.

[Lily Padman]

The stigma was higher maybe then or just ignorance.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I mean I think a lot of people didn't really know how bad it was for kids. Honestly. I think one thing that we talk about in the book that really helped start the decline was bringing it out of the shadows. So having more people talk about it and we're grateful for this opportunity along the same way. But second wave feminists, when they were working on really to bring rape out of the shadows, they brought child sexual abuse with it. Child sexual abuse is not the same thing as adult rape. It's not solely or perhaps even mostly a gender based violence kind of thing. But lots of people who were raped as adults were sexually abused as children. It's a risk factor for future sexual victimization to have been sexually victimized as a child. And that helped. And then self help Groups for survivors, for parents, started being kind of a separate force. And that also further brought it out of the shadows. So just talking about it, then the research showing the kind of damage that can occur, it does not. You are not destined to a miserable life if you have survived child sexual abuse. And I want to be careful to

[Dan Shepard]

say that although the statistics are terrible,

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

well, it's a risk factor for almost every bad thing you can experience.

[Dan Shepard]

You have like a 70% chance of addiction. I mean, there's some startling.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It is absolutely a risk factor. But I just would never want to suggest that someone is doomed, because that also is not true. But we do want to know what are the real sequelae, the consequences? And they're terrible. And they don't stop with addiction. There's mental health consequences like ptsd. There's physical health like cancer. We've done economic analyses and shown that survivors earn less over the course of

[Dan Shepard]

their lives, should they drop out of

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

school more, less academic achievement, less employment, and then higher risk of future victimization, both physical and sexual.

[Luke Malone]

And if they have mental health problems and physical health problems, they can't hold down jobs. You know what I mean? Which is harder, you know. So it sounds like something crazy, but even though I was kind of shocked in this book about the idea that like cancer and hypertension and heart attacks could all be kind of linked back to cardiovascular problems or linked back to csa, which is even if someone who's been kind of like working from a different perspective in this for many years, still shocked that that's the case.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. So we'll be using csa. It's worth noting right now we'll be using CSA a lot, and that's child sexual abuse.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

There's also childhood sexual violence, which is another term that folks use as well.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, so of this one in five, again, I think this will be shocking for a lot of people. What percentage is happening adults to children versus children to children?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's a good question, and it is shocking. So in the United States, when you ask people on these surveys, did this happen to you? And then follow up with who did it, what David Finkelhor's research has shown, and others in other countries. But this is a US Specific statistic, so I want to be Precise. It's about 70% are other kids under the age of 18, usually a few years older when you shift to online. And I do want to back up for one second. We've seen dramatic declines, and they've kind of stabilized. And so we need to. To figure out how do we get further down. Reducing child sexual abuse, that's mostly hands on. So of course, before 2010 you didn't even have tech facilitated abuse. So it could only go up because it launched roughly with the Internet. Although there are some data that suggests that tech facilitated abuse is also starting to level out, we can start getting some declines there too.

[Dan Shepard]

Can I ask to get nitty gritty, what constitutes online sexual abuse? Is that like coercing a child to share nude photos or something?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, that's one. There's all kinds. There's coerced and non consensual images sharing. So we share images, kids share images. It's kind of normative in the context of a dating relationship or romantic relationship, but non consensual sharing of those when adult is asking kids for nude images, that's facilitated abuse and exploitation. When adults share child sexual abuse materials between themselves or upload them or create them, all of that is technology facilitated abuse. There's grooming where an adult may reach out, either pretending to be a child themselves or not. Kids want attention and they want attention from adults. And they're also kind of good at detecting. They have much better skills than I do, for sure. So there's all of those things and there's not bright lines between online and offline or in real life. They usually co occur.

[Dan Shepard]

I hate to point this out, but yeah, that is one of the saddest subtexts of all this is that the predators are really good at spotting who's vulnerable. And the kids that are vulnerable already were dealt a shit hand. And this is kind of the reward for that shit.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's so true.

[Dan Shepard]

Kind of obviously vulnerable.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We've got some data that we've just collected and just started analyzing about abuse in the context of K through 12 school settings and kids who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. Kids who identify as LGBTQ queer kids experience far higher rates of abuse than kids who don't. So people are very good at identifying vulnerable kids.

[Lily Padman]

Kids are vulnerable just as any kid can be abused.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And then there are groups of kids that are.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, but there's one more percentage I think that's useful to kind of draw out. The 70% is at the hands of other kids, usually a few years older. But then like 90% of child sex abuse is at the hands of known entities. I think we've moved past stranger danger, but there's still that kind of like echo hangover of stranger danger. And there are people who do. There are stranger people who groom kids. There are kind of predators. But even online what was even further shocking, even online it mirrors a little bit more. It's not 70% I know the percentage.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No, it's more like 60% are unknown to the child and 40% are known. And again those numbers vary depending on the country. So there's a little more stranger danger, you know, the Australian accessing live images of a child in the Philippines. But it's still mostly the people in your life.

[Dan Shepard]

So 90% you know the person and then 70% it's not an adult. The 70% feels like something we could address successfully.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dan Shepard]

More than the adult. That this is a pattern of the behavior.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. The person who wants to go out and find somebody like this.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes. And has probably got well worn skill set for that and a lot of other things. Now I'm really curious how we define it when it is both parties are under 18. What about the two 9 year old boys showing each other their penises? Or what about these? Consensual, certainly sexual activity, but there's really no age gap or there's a one year age gap. Like where do we draw this line to call it abuse?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, it's so funny you said 29 year olds because I got a call from a lawyer in Texas once saying so I have a nine year old client who's been charged with child sexual abuse by the local prosecutor because he, he was skinny dipping with some other kids who were, you know, within one or two years. He was the oldest, but it was like a 9 year old and an 8 year old and a 6 year old who were all friends. So in our country, fairly uniquely, there are states that don't have lower ages for criminal culpability. And when we think about sex, we kind of automatically add years to a kid so they're no longer a kid. If a child does something sexual, they stop being a child and they become an adult and they are treated like an adult as if they should have known better. At the same time, we don't give kids education about sex ed. We often hide that on purpose. Kids who get sex education don't learn that touching a younger kid's penis is off limits. They learn not to hit or punch or kick a younger kid, but they don't learn that penises and vaginas are off limits. And they figure it out eventually by about age 15 kids understand much younger kids are off limits to come back to arrest. You see this increase from 12 to 13 to 14 year old of arrests for sexual behavior against younger kids. And then it drops and you're like oh, the penny drops. They figure it out. But we don't tell them that. I mean that's one of our prevention programs is to work with kids in schools before they've made any of these mistakes. Give them the information, skills, tools and knowledge to say, hey, by the way, younger kids, not okay ever even if they're walking around naked or playing with you or seem to be doing something sexual with you? Absolutely not. They're not small adults. Kids don't have some kind knowledge about a lot of things that are okay and not okay until they gain some life experience or we teach them that.

[Dan Shepard]

But again, I'm wondering like the scenario where it's two 10 year old boys, it's consensual normative sex play finds out and is somehow shamed by it.

[Lily Padman]

We all have experienced being young and doing like silly things with your friends. And I think some people. Yeah, draw.

[Dan Shepard]

Where do we differentiate?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Children should be a protected class of people. They're vulnerable by definition and they're vulnerable no matter what they've done. So I would like to see more protections. Some kids are going to need help. They may need therapy, they and their family for engaging in harmful and or illegal behaviors. But I think we also need to do a better job of recognizing that sex play between close and age peers is normative when it is mutually desired. It's not harmful. And we have laws that criminalize that as well. And so kids get caught up in a justice system that treats them again as if they were a 35 year old predator when they're not. Some kids do cause harm. I definitely don't want to minimize a 9 year old who was sexually abused by a 17 year old at all.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, I had lots of little boys showing me their penises, but that was something much, much different.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No. And that is very different. And that 17 year old is not a 35 year old and probably knew he was causing harm or what he was doing was wrong and may not have known the degree is unlikely to have known the real degree of harm that that kind of behavior causes. And there should be se. And there are, there's really good evidence based treatment programs for kids who have caused harm where they're very unlikely to do it ever again.

[Dan Shepard]

This blew my mind. This was in your TED Talk. So of the minors who are arrested and convicted of a sexual abuse case, what percentage of them do it again?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Less than 3%. I can't say. Do it again. Less than 3% are ever arrested or convicted again.

[Dan Shepard]

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[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, so there's a lot to unpack there. Sexual recidivism rates for adults who have been convicted of sex crimes against children are less than 10%.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, so that's low, too.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's still very low.

[Lily Padman]

That is not the narrative.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It is not the narrative.

[Dan Shepard]

But do we believe that?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

A lot of people don't. The kid numbers are based on research by my friend and colleague Michael Caldwell, who looked at data across over 30,000 cases. So if it was 10 cases and one kid had reoffended, I would not be comfortable saying it's that. Right. But when it's 30,000 cases and then I was involved in a research project that included, oh, my gosh, I forget the exact number, but maybe like 120,000 adult cases, the data are, in my opinion, incontrovertible. When you get to hundreds of thousands of cases have been followed from first offense to 20 years later, 25 years later, and you're seeing a 10% recidivism rate among adults and less than a 3% recidivism, I think with kids, the consequences are really severe. If you get adjudicated for this, and it's a pretty clear message, don't ever do this again. I think we could give them that message before they do it, but it makes sense to me that with kids, they don't do it again because now it is indisputable. They get it. This was wrong. This was harmful to that person that I did it to. It was harmful to me. I don't ever want to be in prison again. I don't ever want to have this happen again.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. So tell us about the current standard for what happens when A kid is convicted.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So it varies and it varies within state. It certainly varies between countries. A lot of times it never gets reported and nothing ever happens. And that's not helpful to either person. If they go through juvenile court, it's called an adjudication. But it's essentially the same thing as a conviction. It can vary. You could get, in some states you can be given an opportunity to go through treatment and have your record wiped clean. You can get five years in prison. You can be put on a sex offender registry for the rest of your life and have that go up on the Internet which 9 and 8 year olds have and so have 17 year olds. It is highly variable. What we know is that prison is not a helpful consequence for kids. It's harmful. Registration and notification are very harmful for kids. It just ruins their lives.

[Dan Shepard]

You have to confront the trade off. So it's like, okay, we send them to prison for five years, 98% chance they weren't ever going to do it again anyways. But now their time in prison is going to up their chance of criminality outside of sexual abuse, maybe three standard deviations. So it's like we're trying to weigh these, right?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, prison generally makes kids worse.

[Dan Shepard]

It's not a fertile environment.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It is not a safe, stable, nurturing environment for children.

[Luke Malone]

And they're abused in prison too. So the very thing we're hoarding to try and prevent event we're like, okay, throw them aside, they've done something bad, they're fucked. So it doesn't really matter what happens to them. And if you're the person who's victimized by that person. Absolutely. Sure. But I don't know if you're worried about kids being abused and you're kind of putting often very young kids or like 17 year olds in with much more sexually dangerous 35 year olds.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes.

[Luke Malone]

It's not going to end well.

[Dan Shepard]

There's also this. I don't know if it's true or not or legend, but prisoners seem to deal with sexual abuse inmates in a certain way, or at least that's the stereotype. I heard that they're often.

[Lily Padman]

And they punish.

[Dan Shepard]

They punish.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. I got to do some research at Fort Leavenworth military complex in Kansas and it's the oldest prison in the United States. So I was doing this research in 2000 and they still had skeleton keys for some of the doors. It's a maximum security military prison and the cells go many levels down. Below ground. And a lot of the people that came in with sex crimes had to be put in protective solitary confinement. And again, not a lot of people are gonna. Or feel much empathy or may be glad, you know, you did this to somebody. So now it's being done to you. That's fair.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, so there's multiple different groups we need to address. So one, and I think this is the one we're currently on, which is there's going to be a big, big chunk of kids who may do this in their childhood. Abuse another kid who are not pedophiles. They were confused. Frontal lobe issues.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You can be impulsive, you can be around other delinquent kids doing all kinds of bad things. You can be bored. You can think you had consent. Because who teaches kids what consent is? How do you get it? How do you give it? How long does it last?

[Dan Shepard]

Half the time the kid is in freeze mode. How are they to interpret that frozen consent?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's hard for adults. Oh, exactly.

[Lily Padman]

For adults.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No. Yeah. So this is a very difficult thing to talk about. So I want to preface this carefully. Most kids who survive child sexual abuse will never go on to cause harm to another child. They're at greater risk of doing so. So kids who have sexually abused other kids, cause sexual harm, harmful sexual behavior, are more likely to have experienced sexual abuse themselves. This is less true for adults. The further you get away from something that's happened to you, the less impact it has on you. But for kids, it's still pretty true.

[Dan Shepard]

I hate this statistic. I believe it, but I hate it.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I know, and I hate saying it.

[Dan Shepard]

An added benefit of having him molested is people are gonna be more suspicious of you. It's like insult to injury. We had this one time, Monica read this data years ago, and I'm like, oh, I hate that fucking statistic. I don't want someone to think. Cause I'm very vocal about it.

[Lily Padman]

But that's what we're saying. It's not the majority. It's still tiny.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

But I didn't sat in front of my computer today going, you don't have to say it. You don't have to say it. There's so much you could talk about. There's 300 pages. You could leave that out altogether.

[Dan Shepard]

No, no, we must be honest.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, it is, because again, you want to throw the book at a kid. Well, what if that kid was also victimized? So we're gonna put him in prison for five years? How does that make sense?

[Luke Malone]

And they're often like repeating the Behavior that they were abused themselves or just

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

exposed to developmentally inappropriate material, which now we have the world wide web and access to legal pornography, but that's not developmentally appropriate for kids. And we have no guardrails, no age verification. And then we're like, okay, have all this, but don't do anything stupid. So there's all kinds of pathways for a kid to go down that path.

[Luke Malone]

We use pseudonyms in the book for a lot of the people. Connor was a great example of this because he was young. He was 11, 12 when he first started and 13 when he was caught and he was sexually abusing a younger relative. But first of all, it was just kind of play. It was like, show me your penis. It got more than that, certainly. I don't want to minimize it. But then he was put into some kind of residential facility for some other unrelated non sexual behavior and some kid in there tried to rape him. Penetrative rape. When he got out of that residential facility, a weekend release, he tried to rape or did rape his younger relative. It doesn't minimise what the effect on the younger relative was, but like there's a clear path between in this one instance and that. There are things around this, but I think it does happen with relative frequency. And then he was sucked into the system. First of all, juvenile prison, but then he was sucked into the adult system where he was sexually assaulted within prisons. His story may seem like an outlier, but this happens to kids in the US all the time.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. It's terrible that the initial trauma begets

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

more and more, but doesn't always and usually does not go on to increase risk for perpetration at all.

[Dan Shepard]

So there's this group.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Now there is another group. We're not gonna label those pedophiles. Correct.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You know, some kids hit puberty 14, 15, and some of them are attracted to younger children. And so they have pedophilia.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. But most kids who are offending don't.

[Dan Shepard]

Right. I'm just saying of this number, which is 70%, which is huge.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's a little higher for hands on than it is for online. So, you know, somewhere around 40, 50, 60. Depends on the type of online offense, like non consensual image sharing.

[Dan Shepard]

Good luck.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Huge, right? Like it's just huge. Exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes. But I just want to be clear. When we're breaking apart in my mind, from what I. It seems to me that there is a group of kids that are impulsive, they're this or they're exploring and they make a mistake. But they're not going to go on into adulthood with an attraction to children.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

They age out of it.

[Dan Shepard]

Right. So they're not pedophiles in that sense. Even if they have perhaps participated in something we would label pedophilia. And then there's another group that are pedophiles. They are attracted to children and they're going to remain attracted to children for their life. Probably.

[Luke Malone]

Correct.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. So that group, of course, on the compassion ladder, which is harder and harder to have. Now we're getting into something that's probably quite hard for people to have compassion for. Do we have any sense of that huge number, 70%, which percentage of those are whatever we call on the dsm, that condition.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We're doing a ton of research on this. So we've just completed nationally representative prevalence surveys of perpetration behavior in five countries, and we're still analyzing number crunching all those data. But somewhere between 1 and 4% of adult males 18 and older will either have sexual fantasies about children or engage sexually with a child with or without fantasies. So again, people engage sexually with children without having strong sexual attraction to children. So it's somewhere between 1 and 4% of adults. In terms of how many people actually have pedophilic disorder or pedophilia, we don't have a good sense of prevalence of that. Based on what we do know, it's probably maybe less than 1% of the population.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. What I'm going for is the. The approach and modality to help deal with the huge number of views that are doing this that are not pedophiles, is not going to be the same approach we have to apply to the pedophiles. This is going to be a completely different approach.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You need different approaches for sure. But teenagers who recognize that they have sexual attraction to children, like the group that Luke met and introduced me to, were kids who had sexual attraction to children who did not want to act on it. And for them, some of the similar things, like here's what would happen to the child if you did act on it. Here's the consequences, getting that information out for both groups.

[Dan Shepard]

I guess my point is you don't need a strategy for the kid who grows out of it at 17.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No, for life, to your point, when

[Dan Shepard]

they turn 15 and they start recognizing, oh, they're too young and blah, blah, blah, they don't need an ongoing life strategy.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You're absolutely right.

[Dan Shepard]

So now we gotta talk about. For these kids that are going to need an ongoing life strategy, first of all, just Them identifying feels completely new and I'm so grateful, like the kid that was in your doc, that they would admit that and that they would attempt to address it the same way I have to address my addiction to alcohol is really new and novel. And I'm just wondering how this wave has even started. It almost seems unimaginable and quite brave of them really to self diagnose and admit this.

[Luke Malone]

I agree. But I think they don't have much choice in a sense because in speaking with Adam and people over the years, so many kids probably commit suicide because they don't see a way out, they don't see a way to not harm a kid, or they don't see a way to live in any way that's sexually fulfilling. Certain. And I want to break it down too much, but there is like a distinction. I mean it's kind of. You can slice this pie down to like just fill it away.

[Dan Shepard]

No, we're drawing arbitrary lines everywhere. I acknowledge that.

[Luke Malone]

But even with this group, people attracted to kids, the term language they use is age of attraction. You have an age of attraction attracted to kids aged 4 to 12, 4 to 8, whatever the case may be. It can be gendered, it can be age, but also can be a fixed attraction. I'm only attracted to kids and even Adam who's not told me, like, oh, those poor sons of bitches. So he's like a young self described pedophile who's like, oh, those guys have

[Dan Shepard]

no hope because he has other attractions.

[Luke Malone]

He's got that kind of weaker peer age, attraction.

[Dan Shepard]

There's one question I want to ask that is an ugly question, but I know many, many people have this thought and I personally do have this thought. If you can admit that the only sexual cessation you'll ever experience is with a child, why don't those people take a medical approach to stopping hormonally their sexuality, period? If you can first admit it'll never be something I can explore. Why wouldn't you shut it down hormonally?

[Luke Malone]

A chemical castration.

[Dan Shepard]

Chemical castration, testosterone blockers, something to turn you off as a sexual being.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

People do. So there's a great study, the first, we call it a double blind placebo randomized clinical trial.

[Dan Shepard]

The gold standard.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Thank you. The gold standard. A colleague of mine, Christopher Rum, led this. He's a psychiatrist at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and he ran it. And some people who have that attraction can manage it. And so they can go through life without offending and can manage it. There are people who feel like they are gonna offend and they want help. They had guys driving 500 km to come get this munch shot or whatever it was.

[Dan Shepard]

The chemical castration.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. And it does. It dampens down everything. So if you have attraction to adults, that's gonna go down as well. But there are people who do want that. And making that available through your general practitioner would be great. A point worth making is that it is really hard to not have sex with your desired object. It's really, really, really hard.

[Dan Shepard]

We have a lot of machinery to drive us.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Exactly right. And I think a lot of people could use help at least some of the time. And a lot of people are not going to need help all of the time. And we've had people tell us this who have sexual attraction to children who, who have used the interventions that we use. And we get feedback from them and they're like, if I could just have someone that I trusted to say, take my computer. I'm in a bad place right now. Can you just hang onto this for the next 24 hours and then I'll be okay. And you get over that urge. Because sexual urges do wax and wane. And to have strategies for folks who are at risk to be able to ask for help, but asking for that kind of help is just almost impossible.

[Luke Malone]

I think it's what you said about having it available. I think oftentimes we talk about chemical castration. It's like, oh, can we identify who's a pedophile, are going to be a pedophile and chemically castrate them as if it's kind of imposed upon them having chemical castration or kind of medications to like dampen sexual drive as an option that people can get somehow. Because no one's going to sign up to be for chemical castration forcefully.

[Dan Shepard]

No, I'm not in favor of the state identifying pedophiles. I'm asking the question of the people that are non offending pedophiles who have a desire to never offend. Don't they want the assistance or is that not appealing to them?

[Luke Malone]

But I think it's easier to get also to go to your gp. Yeah, I want some medication.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

Even if he said I want zero sexual desire, most GPs are gonna be like, that's not a healthy.

[Luke Malone]

Can we speak to your therapist about that one? Because there is a hurdle to talk about this, even to your doctor, to a therapist. And that is a real hurdle because of no mandated reporting, which is a very real but very good thing. But kind of can have these. Wouldn't say side effects, have these effects of people who do have these attractions don't feel comfortable seeking therapeutic help.

[Dan Shepard]

I would imagine anyone is afraid of being arrested just for acknowledging that's the desire. Even if you've not not acted on it.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Absolutely. And some people are. And so it makes it very hard to seek out treatment. We have a online intervention that's free and anonymous and there's no human. It's self help entirely. And we've had one and a half million people go visit that website since 2020. We launched it in 2020.

[Dan Shepard]

One and a half million, one and

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

a half million and 50,000 have gone into one of the sessions. There's like five modules but there's no person. So there's no risk of mandatory reporting. And it's for people with sexual attraction to children who want help to not offend it or also who want help to live a healthy, happy life and be able to manage this.

[Dan Shepard]

Do they function at all like a other 12 step program? Like is there a group therapy dynamic?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, this is a self help intervention. So it's just fully. You go through the stuff all on your own. There's interventions where there's a therapist to work with you usually with cognitive behavior therapy strategies. There are self help groups like the group that Luke mentioned. There's many more options now than there ever were and they're still available pretty much exclusively in high income countries and not available in very many other places.

[Dan Shepard]

I could not admire anyone more than admitting and self reporting that. I mean I truly, I can't imagine anything braver. Cause again we know they're the most detested group. To your point, you'd rather hang out with a murderer and you know that going in and you've seen the shows and the movies and so I can't think of anything brave and to just

[Lily Padman]

rec like, oh, I'm broke. I mean like the mental hurdles you have to jump to be like, God, I'm like this when that penny drops,

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

it's a bad thing.

[Lily Padman]

I cannot really not imagine having to reconcile that. But when they're in therapy, is the goal of the therapy to have them become more attracted to adults?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We've learned that that's not a winning gay conversion therapy.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly, exactly.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Newly legal in the United States.

[Luke Malone]

But I remember like some of the research when I first reached out to you back in 2012, 2013, a lot of the research and it's got to start somewhere was just like, oh, we know a lot of people who go on to Offend sexually against kids are like left handed, have a high iq, have been hit in the head with a baseball at some stage. And I'm like this sounds real suspect to me, but I think brought it up to you. And you're like yeah. And also it was kind of about. There's some previous studies and correct me if I get this wildly wrong, but basically you do things like show people maybe CSAM like formerly known as child pornography and then kind of encourage them just before they orgasm to switch it to peer appropriate stuff which is very much hardcore conversion. And that's true, right?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. You didn't do it. People were doing what they thought might work and changing someone's sexual interests doesn't work. So then figuring out skills, tools and knowledge to manage who can I reach out to, who might be safe to talk to, who I can go to in a moment of need. And again, letting people know, making sure they understand that if you do give into this, this causes real harm. Here's the damage and also here's what you can expect if you get caugh. But then also you know, not just avoiding harm, but then how do you give people goals to strive for living a healthy, happy life and so on. Our online intervention, we interviewed people who have made it to their 30s, 40s, 50s without offending. We have these little snippets of real discussions with people. You don't have to offend. There's nothing that says you have to offend. You can get through this. Find whatever it takes. Here's what helped me.

[Dan Shepard]

It's crazy, the parallel between addiction treatment because. Because you come to the program to quit drinking and only the first couple steps are about drinking. And then the rest of the program is teaching you how to live a sober life. Quitting's day one there. So now what's the rest of it? The rest of it is like learning to live a sober individual and conduct yourself in a way that'll keep you sober. It's how to live life. Not how to quit drinking.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. Not how to avoid alcohol, but how to find other things that are so appealing and attractive and wonderful that you want to do that.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes. One of your main pushes is to have a bit of a paradigm shift in how we think of this and taking it out of the criminal sphere and putting it more into the public health crisis.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Framing what I think and what I would say my field believes is that we need prevention, healing and justice. You have to criminalize these behaviors. You don't have to treat children like criminals, but you have to criminalize sexual abuse. And for a long time, it wasn't. When I lived in South Carolina for 18 years, when I first got there, there was a state senator who was talking to a reporter. So on purpose and saying, well, you know, incest is something that happens in the family and should just be dealt with in the family. Now, hopefully today you wouldn't see that, but we see politicians.

[Dan Shepard]

What was that Roy guy?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, my gosh. That's exactly who I was thinking about. And folks rose to his defense. Well, you know, she was 15. I know he was in his 30s, and he was, you know, a prosecutor or whatever he was. And she had no power in this at all.

[Dan Shepard]

No, I can't believe anyone voted for that.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I know.

[Lily Padman]

And defended him.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I think I heard the defense. Well, Mary was 15 when she had Jesus. And you're like, ah, no, we're not saying don't have justice, don't have consequences.

[Dan Shepard]

But I'd like to throw one figure in. We're spending $5.8 billion a year to incarcerate pedophiles, People who sexually offend sexual offenders. $5.8 billion being sent downriver at the end of the river.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Right, exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

And $3 million was spe prevent it by the government at whatever time this statistic came out.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

That statistic is exactly right right now.

[Luke Malone]

Well, 5.4.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, yeah, but it's probably 5.8 by now.

[Luke Malone]

You know, we did the paper, so that's why I'm like, that's our number.

[Lily Padman]

Right?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We did. I was going to let it slide. Let him have the dick.

[Luke Malone]

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Tariffs, etc.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And we fight tooth and nail for that $3 million. There's $3 million that the federal government gives for child sexual abuse prevention. Reason I was up on the Hill on Thursday. Thankfully, we have bipartisan support to kind of keep that money in, but we're trying to grow it. We're like, this affects one in five children, and we're putting $3 million into the research on how to prevent it.

[Dan Shepard]

Also, even if you're just fiscally minded, you don't give a fuck about victims, and you're fiscally minded, we should invest in reducing the $5.4 billion, not corrected for inflation that we're spending to incarcerate sexual offenders. Like, why on earth wouldn't we try to prevent it? Because it'll.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And it's not just incarceration. We have an economics paper that shows that it's close to 9.3 billion that we can see in cost to the US economy directly attributable to child sexual abuse. There's a moral argument, there's a child rights argument, and there's an economic argument to saying it's so much better if we prevent it, it's so much less expensive if we prevent this from happening in the first place. And then you don't need treatment, you don't need law enforcement as much as you once did. And it's still very, very difficult to squeeze those dollars out of the hands of politicians.

[Dan Shepard]

It's just what is Help Wanted?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Help Wanted is a prevention intervention that we developed at Moore. It is for people who are attracted to children who want help, to not offend and to live a healthy life. It's online. We launched it in 2020. We developed it in collaboration with law enforcement, survivors and victims advocates, therapists, preventionists and some other researchers. It is designed to be a tool that is safe and easy and free to access for people who want help and need 1.5 million people have visited the webpage. 50,000 people have gone into one or more of the modules. We just completed a randomized controlled trial evaluation. We're still crunching the numbers. I wish I could give them to you right now, but we just ended data collection in December and we're still working through all the numbers. Facebook, meta and Google send people there who appear to be searching online for csam. It is a resource. We've adapted it with support from Google for Spanish speaking populations and adapted it specifically from Mexico. But we're hoping that it can serve most of Latin America. America and welcome the idea of adapting this intervention for other languages, other contexts where there's really not anything else.

[Dan Shepard]

Especially we haven't addressed gender. How does gender play into all these statistics as far as both the group that perhaps committed a sexual assault and then grew out of that versus the group that is lifetime pedophiles. How are those gendered?

[Luke Malone]

Not purely, but it's a majority.

[Dan Shepard]

Men. Yeah.

[Luke Malone]

Young men and men. That's true of all criminal behavior. There's very few crimes that are kind of women dominated. I've spoken to young women who are sexually attracted to kids and it is a rarity and everyone's kind of like weirdly not excited is not the right word, but just like, oh, but in terms of why that is, it's kind of like a million dollar question for criminologists. Maybe it's easier to describe in terms of extreme physical violence because men are socially conditioned to be more kind of aggressive and things like that. In terms of why that happens in terms of being attracted to kids. I would, I wouldn't even begin to know what the answer to that is.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Well, there's a couple of things. For one, for people who are attracted to prepubescent children, you get much less gender because they are less gendered. Right. Like a 10 year old boy and a 10 year old girl look a lot alike. And the younger you go, the less gender. It really becomes more about age than gender and innocence or different things attract different people. And then there are certainly women who offend against boys, whether or not they have pedophilia. You see this a lot in schools. So where you see women getting convicted of sex crimes is. Are teachers. These are people, and there's also male teachers as well who aren't attracted to children. Didn't go into teaching in order to find victims. But when you spend your whole workday surrounded by kids, that's a risk factor. So educators, people that work with kids after school, people that are in charge of kids in different settings.

[Dan Shepard]

Youth counselors.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, so you have stray sexual thoughts going across your brain all the time. And if you're working with the kids all the time, those are gonna collide. Maybe you're particularly immature or maybe you're going through mental health or substance abus use issues or financial problems. And it's just more enjoyable to be in the company of a child who accepts you kind of unconditionally than adults do. And then you start to feel like you have a special relationship with this one child and maybe this child's a little more mature and maybe this will actually help this child. And you go down this pathway that no one saw coming, including you. And this does happen where people drift into good people engaging in bad behavior. And there's a lot of steps there that you could intervene. Yeah, right. There's a lot of.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I would just imagine like 90% of affairs don't start out with what's up, let's go fuck in this hotel. It's texts. Yeah, it's a lot of texts. And then there's a picture. Like, I think the boundary you've drawn keeps moving.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It keeps moving.

[Luke Malone]

I wonder with female teachers specifically whether we see that overrepresented in terms of your gender. Question is because we kind of maybe miss the signs or don't read them. If you have like a male teacher and you can tell they're focusing on a student, a young male student, I think people have their little kind of antennas up. But if it's a Female teacher. I don't know. We make jokes about female.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, yeah, like, you got lucky. My God, it makes me crazy. I do also just want to say that for boys that have been victimized, they're much more likely to have been victimized by a woman. So it's still a minority, but it's not nearly the same level of a minority. Like, there's some studies that show like a 50, 50 split.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So I don't think there's a huge group of undetected women out there that are offending, but it is not zero. And we overlook boys who are victims, and we overlook. Overlook women who are offenders, and that doesn't serve us very well.

[Dan Shepard]

No, it's not good.

[Lily Padman]

Is there anything like blame an episode of Lab where this guy had surgery on his brain and basically then he became a pedophile.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

He didn't become a pedophile. He became somebody that was offending sexually.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. So he had a corridor cut in his brain to stop the electrical storm that was causing the epilepsy. And they warned him he might have a shift in your personality. And what it did is it shut down the circuitry that's going between basically your frontal bone.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Disinhibition.

[Dan Shepard]

Disinhibition. And there's no correction for it. And so his started, like you're saying, it started with just. He started watching pornography more, and then he started watching more extreme pornography. The dosage was having to change and go up like an addiction. There's a knock at the door, and Homeland Security's there all of a sudden.

[Lily Padman]

But he isn't a pedophile, because he didn't. Why did you correct me on that?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, and apologies for this again.

[Lily Padman]

No, I want to be corrected. I just need to know. So I'm doing this right.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Pedophilia is a strong sexual attraction to children. And there are people who have. And I'm not this kind of doctor, so let me be clear about that, too. But there are people that have medical conditions that are disinhibiting, and it's sort of broadly disinhibiting. And so it's not that you have sexual attraction to children per se. You don't have the inhibitions to just not reach out and do something or see something.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, he was eating more. He wanted to have sex with his wife more. It was all of the reward system just without any regulator on it.

[Lily Padman]

So that's a different thing.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

So pedophilia really looks like it's something that you're born with. You Become aware of it when you hit puberty and start having sexual interests towards other people. There are a few conditions that seem to also drive illegal, harmful behavior that are separate from what you're generally sexually attracted to.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, so you guys interviewed 30 non acting adults who were sexually interested in children. And I'm curious, what kind of consistent themes did you.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You keep seeing that they were desperate for help, and they were desperate for help in their teens when they were most vulnerable. Because the only message you get is the Larry Nassar, the Jerry Sandusky, the Jeffrey Epstein, that you are gonna be a horrible person, you're gonna offend, you're gonna offend 100 times and there's nothing you can do about it. That's the only message that they get. And it is so stigmatized and so horrible. Most can't go to your mom and talk. Adam did, but it took him years. One of the characters, real people in our book, they wish there had been something like help wanted. So we did that study in service of figuring out what we needed to do, what kind of interventions were needed to give people a place that they could go to learn more and to get some help. Even if it's just reading and interacting with some video elements of the intervention. The help wanted intervention. They really wanted help. They wished that there were people they could talk to without being afraid of being outed or being arrested.

[Dan Shepard]

Even if you didn't think you were going to get arrested, I would be afraid they're going to put me on a sex offender list or a watch list.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Right. Which is arguably worse than being arrested. Or also just that you're going to have a therapist who's horrified by you. This awful fear of negative social reactions is a real thing also. So those were the things that came out again and again and again that there was a real need and a desire. And one thing we haven't talked about is when Luke came and interviewed me, he had met these young people who were kind of white knuckling it on their own to not offend and to figure out how to get help between themselves. It was. I wanted to do prevention, but I really thought it was going to be to go out and find people and convince them to come get help. It had not ever occurred to me at this point in my career that there were people seeking help so that they wouldn't offend. That was a complete game changer for me.

[Luke Malone]

Thanks.

[Dan Shepard]

But yeah.

[Luke Malone]

And something else is kind of the theme that are kind of interesting to me is that because there were 30, 39 people for the help.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Wanted some number of people.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Luke Malone]

Through my reporting, which was separate, I've spoken to like 100, 200 men and women who have a sexual interest towards kids. And in addition to all this is just how uniform it is. Maybe there's like two or three outliers who don't follow this theme, but across the board, everybody kind of. They reach puberty, they start becoming sexual beings. They kind of like, I'm sexually interested in that 10 year old or 8 year old, they start kind of growing up. That age kind of stays the same or maybe goes down a little bit. And then when they hit like 15, 16, 17, they're like, oh, what the fuck?

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, my software is not updating.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Malone]

I'm a pedophile. And then they kind of fall into like depression and comorbid things like alcohol and drug abuse before they kind of even get to the stage where Adam and co are trying to look for help. And they're doing that all by themselves.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, they got to go through the whole journey of basically bottoming out before they're going to ask for help.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

You have to be so desperate to ask for help.

[Luke Malone]

I was so wary at the beginning to make sure we weren't want to conflate pedophilia with homosexuality or even heterosexuality. It's a different category, certainly, but it seems to follow the same thing. It happens at the same ages. They kind of come to the same realization more or less at the same time. And it's innate. Many people who offended, we can get to that in a little bit. I don't know how much time we have have. But who offend, who aren't pedophiles, like situational offenders. And that's something you should put a pin in because that's really interesting for this category of people who have pedophilic disorder. It's an innate thing that I have no control over. And that's why I'm like, ugh. I don't want to always talk about pedophiles and talk about child sexual abuse because there's many other facets to it. But it's the one that's kind of maybe the most interesting and novel, like an audience, because it's the most demonized and frankly the grossest and the scariest and the scariest. How do we stop?

[Lily Padman]

How would you stop it?

[Dan Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Extra Expert if you dare. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I feel like spring always does this thing where you realize you've Been thinking about something for a long time and suddenly it feels like, okay, maybe I actually do something with it.

[Lily Padman]

Totally. It's less pressure, but more like readiness.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Like you've been sitting on an idea or a project or even just a perspective you care about, and now you're like, maybe this deserves to exist somewhere outside of my own head.

[Lily Padman]

In May being Mental Health Awareness Month, there's already this broader conversation happening. People are open, more curious, more willing

[Dan Shepard]

to engage, which is where something like Squarespace comes in. It makes that jump from idea to actual thing feel way less overwhelming. You can build a site that looks good, works well, and actually reflects what you're trying to put out there.

[Lily Padman]

And it's not just hypothetical. Wabi Wob literally used Squarespace to build our site.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. And Wabi Wob is not trying to spend 40 hours figuring out web design.

[Lily Padman]

It just worked, which is kind of the point.

[Dan Shepard]

So if you've been sitting on something and waiting for the right moment, this might be be it. Head to squarespace.comdax for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. We are supported by Helix. So, Monica, you've been sleeping on a Helix for what, a year now?

[Lily Padman]

A few years now, yes.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, my gosh.

[Lily Padman]

They sponsored a previous show and I got a Helix mattress and it's holding up.

[Dan Shepard]

It is.

[Lily Padman]

I still got it and I really like it because it's so personalized to me.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, they're so personalized. You pick side, sleeper, back slee whether you run hot or not. That's why I love mine. I haven't had mine as long as you have, but mine is in a tip top shape after about six months of hardware. Let's be honest. I'm meditating in there, I'm journaling in there, I'm sleeping there. I'm virtually living in there.

[Lily Padman]

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[Dan Shepard]

They've got over 20 mattress models, so there's one designed specifically for how you sleep. Plus free shipping, 120 night sleep trial, and a limited lifetime warranty warranty. Go to helixsleep.com armchair for 27% off site wide. That's H E L I X sleep.com armchair for 27% OFF. Make sure you enter our show name at checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com armchair this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. So May is mental health awareness month. And I've been thinking about how we all have those things that keep us.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. And it's so easy to think you have it all figured out on your own.

[Dan Shepard]

Right. But the truth is, no one has all the answers. Having someone with you, someone to actually listen and understand, it makes a real difference.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. And that's what therapy can be. It's not about having everything figured out. It's about having unbiased support when you're feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or just unsure.

[Dan Shepard]

And betterhelp makes it easier to find that support. They match you with a licensed therapist based on your needs. With over 30,000 therapists, they usually get it right the first time time. And if not, you can switch anytime.

[Lily Padman]

I have therapy tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it. I have nothing to talk about and it's going to be the best session ever. You just get to the root of things.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. You don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy sign up and get 10% [e-mail] Dax that's betterhelp.com Dax this episode is brought to you by Pending. Now, listen, I'm gonna be honest with you. Until pretty recently, if someone said microbiome to me, I would've assumed they were trying to sell me something at a juice bar in Silver Lake. But it turns out your gut health is kind of running the whole operation. Your energy, your cravings, how you digest food, even your mood. So much of that traces back to what's going on in your gut. And once you start looking into it, it's one of those things you can't really unlearn. Pendulum Metabolic Daily is doing something different. They focus on what are called keystone strains, including a live strain called Akkermansia, which you can only get from breast milk. It's also the number one GI doctor recommended Akkermansia product. So if you're curious about the gut side of the equation, check out pendulum. Go to pendulumlife.com armchair to save 20% on your first order using DAX20. But if you accept that this is 1% of the population, you have to acknowledge there's 3 million people out there. So your options are either to hate and vilify them and have no understanding and watch them continue to have the amount of victims that they have, or you can go, wow, this is a real thing that we're going to have to, as uncomfortable as it is, have Some treatment for and some. Some safety in acknowledging that they have it. That's incumbent upon us to kind of evolve into that. If we want there to be less child sexual victims, that's the only thing we can do.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, 100% agree. When we wrote a book kind of on a similar topic. But it's worth stating there are many people who have a block who just can't get there because they have lived experience. But in my experience, and it's all anecdotal, of course, but some of the people have been most supportive of my work and I work specifically on this. People who have a sexual attraction to kids, who don't know what offend. The people who support the most are survivors. They've written to me independently, kind of like DM'd or emailed, saying like, oh, you know, I don't hate my abuser. I'm still very troubled by what he or she did, but at least gives me some kind of context to feel like it wasn't my fault or the circumstances. Something a bit broader than just me and even my abuser. And I think sometimes a lot of people with very good intentions assume what survivors want or need. Any talk about kind of empathy for people's attraction is just like, how dare you? You're kind of minimizing the experience of survivors. And that comes from people maybe who don't have lived experience.

[Dan Shepard]

They're ad. I've been in this situation. I'll make pedophile jokes and I've been yelled at. And I'm like, you don't get to tell me how I feel about it. It happened to me, and I do think that joke's funny. And you who didn't experience don't get to tell me what's right or wrong for me to find funny. But I weirdly, was just in this situation, I have to tread delicately. But a family situation, and my children are aware of it because we talk about this stuff really openly. My kids know I was molested. They know who else in the family was. And my daughter asked, would you beat him up if you saw him? This person who did it to a family member? And I said, I'm so grateful I've never seen him. Cause I would. And it would be gruesome. And I know it wouldn't help anything. And I also know something happened to him. And so that's how I feel. And I'm both a survivor of it and have loved ones who have survived. So, yeah, I know my instincts aren't the right ones. Like, I have Both those. I would both want to hurt him and I know it would not do anything good and he would not learn a lesson. And I don't think I know fully what happened to him that led him to that. That's my position on it.

[Luke Malone]

I think it's pretty human. I mean, we discussed this even briefly yesterday. Like, I am very much against the death penalty ideologically.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes.

[Luke Malone]

I don't need to get too far into it, but someone I went to grad school with was murdered horrifically. I believe in the death penalty for that guy.

[Dan Shepard]

Exactly.

[Luke Malone]

I would want to see him in like the most horrific of ways. I imagine there's some people listening, thinking, like, oh, who are these two people defending Pedophi. Maybe to some degree. But like, I get it, because I want this guy to be ripped to shreds.

[Dan Shepard]

But for the person asking that, you're not defending them for the joy of defending them. You're defending them in hopes of reducing the amount of victims there are.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

You really need to understand that point.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

38 years. What I want to do is end child sexual abuse. And it is uncomfortable. And you don't only have to focus and we don't only focus on providing solutions for people at risk of offending. You can provide solutions to a lot of things. To technology, to the world way schools are built, the situational prevention strategies. You can work with parents and other guardians to make them more capable guardians to reduce risk. And these things work. You don't only have to focus on people with sexual attraction to children with pedophilia or people who are at risk of offending because they're surrounded by kids all day. And we need to do more about reducing those risks or focusing on kids who are at risk because they're young and dumb and they don't know the rules. There are dozens and dozens of ways that we can prevent child sexual abuse.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. So I love that that was in the book. It's like the onus of all this was put on the shoulders of kids in the 80s with these videos, which is like, you need to identify, report. It was all up to the nine year old to recognize the behavior of the kid in the car or the man in the car. What is it?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Resist, recognize, resist and report.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. That's the kid's responsibility. What the fuck are all the adults doing there?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We are still. We may be beyond stranger danger, kind of, but we are not beyond that. That is still what most kids get exposed to in schools.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Okay, so let's do the pinned thing and Then I want to do the child sexual abuse prevention matrix. I just want to touch on what else you did.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

So we put a pin in situational.

[Luke Malone]

You have kids who kind of have problems, sexual behavior and harmful sexual behavior. Pedophilic disorder, adults with pedophilic disorder. And then you have a fairly big proportion, half or more. Yeah, we imagine half or more who are situational offenders. And these are people, people who have no pre existing attraction towards kids. But if you drop them into a situation and maybe they have drug and alcohol problems, compulsivity problems, immaturity, similar to the teachers and think of like a stepdad or a boyfriend who moves into the house the mum's working, there's like the 13 year old daughter he may sexually offend against. That kid causes the same amount of harm regardless of where it all comes from, obviously. But you take him out of that situation, he's not attracted to kids, he's

[Dan Shepard]

not going to go out of his way to find that or reproduce that situation.

[Luke Malone]

Exactly. I think we focus on pedophilic philia for very good reason. But there's this maybe majority of people who are sexually offending who just have nothing to do with that side of things.

[Dan Shepard]

That's weirdly more scary than all.

[Luke Malone]

But maybe there's actually the interventions and maybe you can speak to this. Interventions are maybe a little bit kind of clearer. Just to go back a little bit about kids. A lot of kids offend. I'm thinking of the shifting boundaries thing. The n. In 2012, kids are abusing kids often at school because that's when they're hanging out together. Right. And so they did this study where they went into schools and asked the kids like, what is this happen? And they're like, oh, it happens in dark stairwells between classes, locker rooms, in the playgrounds when there's no parental or teacher supervision. And they're like, okay, well how about we post teachers in the darkened stairwells, we put posters in the locker rooms, we cut down the hedges and they saw like an insane decline, like 50% decline in this kind of behavior. Something that really kind of drives me crazy about all of this is that that program also had randomized controlled trials. Beautifully done, great success. And then it was just, as far as I'm aware, just kind of parked. So we have things that currently exist at work that work and they've been proven to work and that everyone kind of get behind because it's about kids victimizing kids and it's easy enough to do because it's in school and cheap.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And cheap.

[Luke Malone]

They found out if they did that curriculum about consent and stuff like that, and it kind of was as effective. It was just the curriculum or just the situational interventions, like putting in some light bulbs, but we just don't do it. That's confounding.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, we underestimate what context creatures we are.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

That's such a good way to put it.

[Dan Shepard]

I love that we all behave in different ways in all the contexts, texts as we are. This is like Buddhism. All roads, all roads lead back to Buddhism.

[Lily Padman]

They do. I mean, I think people are just like, ah, it's too big of a problem. Just put them away. Or put them away with the foster care system too. We've talked about that. Like, oh, it's just too hard. It's like there are things, there's little things, but everyone just is overwhelmed by the bigness of the topic.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I think the more complicated, obviously the problem is, the more inclined you are for a very quick and easy solution. You're incentivized in some way. Right. Okay, so talk about the child sexual abuse prevention matrix.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

This is where we talk all about the solutions. We're the first generation to have dozens of solutions.

[Luke Malone]

One thing maybe quickly goes into your point before about the complexity. And it's true, like, it's complex, but there's been certain public health problems that are as complex that we've addressed pretty well. And we look at like road and vehicle safety. And this relates directly to the Matrix. William Haddon Jr. Was a public health physician. It was tasked with when they first had the US highway whatever act. He was, okay, let's do a little matrix and figure out. We know all these vehicle accidents happen. People die, people get maimed. Let's look what happens before, during and after a crash and whether it's like human focused or situational focused. And do like a little grid, a little matrix and be like, oh, having super shiny chrome dashboards and blind people when the sun hits it. Maybe we should address that. People careening through their windshields.

[Dan Shepard]

Let's put in a little seat belt safety glass.

[Luke Malone]

It's so multifaceted. And then there's kind of things that are higher social level in terms of laws and stuff around speeding and drinking and driving. It took a little while, but again, we saw huge declines in something that people previously thought was inevitable.

[Dan Shepard]

We got to get around. This is the call for doing business.

[Luke Malone]

People were resistant. Like when they put in seat belts, people were cutting them out of their cars.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Child safety, car seats, folks Hate those things. I used them. My mom used them. She hated them.

[Dan Shepard]

We never used them. I'm teasing. That would be such a headline.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Here's where I say I'm a mandated reporter.

[Luke Malone]

So you can apply a similar public health approach. It's worked for other things to child sex abuse. And that's where the matrix kind of comes into play.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We didn't invent this idea. A lot of people have taken it from roadway safety to child injury, to child abuse and neglect writ large, to even child sexual abuse. But I think what makes ours unique is that we really applied it to child sexual abuse specifically. And looking at, all right, well, before abuses happen, what can do you? Well, you can go into schools and teach kids to recognize, resist and report. That does not hurt kids. It's just not gonna really move the needle. But you can also then teach kids, hey, how about not doing these behaviors? Here's how we avoid engaging in these behaviors. And that does shift the needle.

[Dan Shepard]

You introduce this idea, and the idea is the only thing that could happen to you in this scenario is that you would be a victim. You're not even suggesting, like, guess what, you might also victimize somebody.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

That's a completely different thought. No kid probably has prior to when they do it.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No one walks around thinking, I'm an offender. And no parent thinks my kids risk of engaging in harmful sexual behaviors. And so we're just blind to the people that we love that they would do these things. But kids do. And they're at risk for a lot of reasons that we've already talked about. You can go way upstream with school based and camp based and sports based programs that give kids information, but that also give adults information. Like, hey, when you're surrounded by kids, you might have some sexual thoughts. Here's why we don't act on those thoughts. Here's what we could do instead. And also all the situational prevention programming. So policies and codes of conduct, you know, for educators, for scout leaders, leaders, these things work.

[Dan Shepard]

They've implemented them in like Boys and

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Girls Club, Boys and Girls Clubs, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and the Boy Scouts. Now Scouting America, I think they're called, have been implementing these for decades. And we have a study led by my friend and colleague Luciana Sidney Maten that shows a 31% decline of sexual abuse victimization in the context of participating in one of the big six U.S. youth serving organizations, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Y and four horses. 31% decline in a recent decade Compared to the decade before it, because they have been doing these things and honing these strategies. Boys and Girls Clubs of America hired an architect, Les Nichols, to help them figure out how do we make space safer? So this space is super dangerous. There's no windows, there's hidden cameras everywhere. So we're all being victimized.

[Dan Shepard]

There's a large male across.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

There's a large. There's a large. There's a large. But put windows in interior doors so that if I'm going to be alone with a kid, I'm observable and interruptible. Or make them open the door or improve line of sight. Cut back on the hedges. But inside maybe don't have a bookcase in between where the security staff is or the entry staff is and where the kids and other adults are congregating. These kinds of strategies really work. It's really, really exciting. And online we could be doing the same damn thing as making it safe by design and really reducing the risk of, to kids both of experiencing harm and of engaging in harm. And lots of organizations are being thoughtful about how to help kids think through. Do you really want to send that nude picture? Do you really want to open that nude picture? Let's take a beat, figure this out. There's some creative stuff happening and a lot more needs to happen to make sure kids are safe online. And we have good age verification. And then there's norms, you know, like that norm of, well, incest happens in the family, so it should stay in the family. That's not a norm anymore. That is a shift that has happened. Not sexualized kids in advertising would probably be a good thing.

[Dan Shepard]

Just fun fact. Noah Hawley, the incredible writer of Fargo and so many other shows, his mother started this whole bringing incest into the light.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, that's insane.

[Dan Shepard]

In the 70s, her publisher was like, we'll put it out. But how many people have been a victim of incest? Like, who's gonna read this book? And then all of a sudden it was hugely successful. And that's when people, people started going like, oh, this is a significant well.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And when you think about teaching kids to recognize, resist and report, but report their dad. I know, Are you kidding me? So my friend Michael Seto is really working on. Cause that's a big gap. We don't have enough youth focused prevention programs. We have some, which is great, but we don't have enough. We couldn't find any programs that really focused on how to keep kids safe in families. And again, you don't do it by saying, hey, Stepdad, you might be a sex offender in waiting that you don't even know. How do you reach out to family families? Blended families are at increased risk for sexual and physical abuse of kids. I do know most blended families don't engage in sexual abuse against their unrelated minors. But we see in blended families where the male has biological or adoptive children and stepchildren, the stepchildren are at much higher risk. So there's something very protective about being a dad. It's especially protective if you're involved in your kids lives early on and often. So when you are really involved in caregiving as a father, that reduces the likelihood that you're going to engage in any kind of sexual or physical harm. So another kind of societal level lever that we could press and reduce child sexual abuse at scale is to encourage caretaking by dads. Like to really encourage that, to make that normative. Right. People think of the tattoo guy in the room as dangerous.

[Dan Shepard]

Keep him warm.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

No, we need dads involved in kids and of course kids need them as well. But it is protective against offending against your own child. And my guess is it's also protective against offending against children, period. You change enough diapers and bandage enough knees and put kids to bed, I

[Dan Shepard]

can't tell you, I've heard around say like, oh yeah, I used to be able to go to strip clubs and now I have a daughter that age. And I realize, oh my God, I'm disgusted by it. That's someone's daughter. Like it took that experience to go like that.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

We all develop empathy when we're kind of there.

[Dan Shepard]

The matrix. There's a lot the matrix. There's so many things.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And you can do it well before any offending has happened. We could have made the Internet impossible to share naked pictures of adults with kids. We could have made that. We didn't. That was a choice. We need to retrofit it now, which is just so asinine. It just makes me crazy. Then there's what can you do at the point where abuse is more imminent? And this is where people have risk factors. Like people who work with kids day in, day out, people who have sexual attraction to children, people who have started looking at more and more extreme pornography. People who are online a lot and who are online with pornography a lot. That's a risk group. We need strategies that can work with them that they feel safe going to. Right. So if you say, hey, you're a potential sex offender, let me help you, you're going to get no takers. But if you say, hey, you've got to figure out a way to make this safe and appealing and to give hope to people. People want to think that there's hope. And so to say, you know what, we're going to help you. You got this. Here's some strategies for doing this.

[Dan Shepard]

You point out something so obvious on the surface, but could get missed is if the only approach to it is with the criminal justice system. System. What you're acknowledging is you're only going to get involved once the abuse has happened.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's too late.

[Dan Shepard]

That's what you're funding. $5.4 billion just on the incarceration. God knows, the investigation, the different police departments, the different task force. You're acknowledging you're only getting involved after abuse has happened. Why would we wait to that point?

[Lily Padman]

So much of it is just going to have to change the public's opinion on this. Because I do think so many people think, like, well, why would we put money towards those people, those monsters? It's just reshaping. Like, we're not. We're trying to stop. We can end it.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Exactly. We could end it. This is a behavior. It does not have to happen. And you were reminding me of a stat earlier.

[Luke Malone]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

About policies that focus on people who have already offended, like registration and notification. You have to have a conviction usually to even have those apply to you.

[Luke Malone]

And that only covers like 5% of. Of all detected crimes. And so even if public notification, civil commitment, registration, excuse me, as well, were 100% successful, which they're not, but that's kind of very complex. You're still only kind of addressing 5% of the issue. So again, it's so tricky because I remember being in a room doing some talk years ago, and it was full of law enforcement. And I could tell they were like, who is this motherfucker to tell us what is going on here? And I could tell I was like, oh, I'm not surrounded by friendly researchers and like a lowly journalist that.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Always friendly.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah. But I remember just kind of realizing it. I'm like, oh, this is going to be a really long hour talk. And so I just said, look, I can tell there's some like weird tension in the room. Bunch of law enforcement. I'm originally kind of what I said to you guys, like, at the end of the day, we all want to prevent child sex abuse. We may have like quite a different ideas of how to get there, but we all want to kind of land on the same side.

[Lily Padman]

Same goal. Same goal.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And also to Be fair to those people. It's too much to ask those people to be the ones to be compassionate because they're the ones dealing with the downriver end result. So it's like you're asking a couple cop to be compassionate to addiction. Fuck that. Half the stuff he deals with is from addicts. That's not even the right person. Like the least likely person that's gonna find empathy is the person cleaning up the mess.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah. But we do see people. So Simon Bailey was the head of. I can't remember his exact title. He's from the UK and he was high up the food chain in law enforcement. He's the first person that said, we cannot arrest our way out of this. And when you have someone from that group who says we have to do power, that is a powerful ally. We have to have criminal justice. But if 95% of sex crimes are committed by somebody with no prior conviction.

[Luke Malone]

That was the one prior conviction. Excuse me.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, yeah. Then criminal justice is handling 5% of this. And that's not enough. Like we could do more. So we need criminal justice. We need services for people who do survive, for children and for adults who have survived child sexual abuse. And we've got to invest in prevention early pre abuse when abuse might be more imminent. There's some really cool stuff where people who are putting in search terms, terms that seem like they're looking for child sexual abuse materials. Now there's these great interventions that he with a warning that say, hey, this is illegal, harmful. But that also include a Get help. And here's where you can go to get help.

[Dan Shepard]

Does a program, Ashton, that helps redirect Thorne.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

They do amazing work. So they're great partners of more and we really love Thorne. They started out where if somebody was searching online for CSAM or appeared to be through some algorithm of search, the thing that would pop up would be a map. And the map had a pin in it and the pin was where you were. And they said, we know where you are. And this terrified people. Right. And terror is a good deterrent for about five minutes.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

And then it goes away and you can't keep terrorizing people. So then they and others, our friends at Lucy Faithful and Internet Watch foundation have done some really creative things where it's like, this is harmful and you can get caught. Also here's where to go to help. And two things happen. One, people who are just starting down the road to search for this more extreme content that involves children stop searching for a large group of a co. Whoa. I Was at the abyss.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm not anonymous. Back to the hedges.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah, well. Or like this could have caused some harm to me and them and I don't want to do that. And they go back to looking at legal adult pornography and then some smaller percentage of people click on that. Here's where you go get help or interact with the little chatbot that's like, how can I help you not do this? So there are some creative strategies and then there's post abuse, which is another place you can and should ask. And we have treatments for kids who have been victimized. Trauma focused cognitive behavior therapy, validated across dozens of randomized controlled trials. Really helps kids and their parents navigate the after. Yeah, the fallout. There's great interventions for kids who have already caused harm. Really excellent randomized controlled trial evaluations. I led one of those. There's another one that I would say is even better because it's a lot less expensive. And then there's even interventions for adults who have offended. The best interventions really seems to be for a guy coming out of prison is surrounding them with a parole officer who knows what he did and other people who knew what he did, but are gonna help him find stable housing, employment, and pro social relationships. And those are the three keys to staying on the straight and narrow. Yeah, not all of it will work. There will be people who reoffend. Whether they have pedophilia or not, there will be people who reoffend. There are psychopaths who just take what they want and they don't care. But most people are not gonna reoffend. And most of them could use some support.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, well, one in five in this country equals 60 million Americans. So that's an enormous group. Even if you go down 30%, that's 9 million people. If you could prevent 9 million people with any strategy, God, it's worth pursuing,

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

we would put more than $3 million into.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, you guys. Luke, Elizabeth, this has been very, very illuminating and I couldn't be more grateful. I mean, I gotta applaud you, Luke. You at least have the force field of academia and research, so you. You can pursue this without a terrible risk to your own professional life.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

There's actually pretty significant risk.

[Dan Shepard]

But I'd imagine as a journalist, you are not gonna get tenure and you're not gonna be free. So I do think you're taking on a lot of risks to make this your pursuit. And I'm grateful for it.

[Luke Malone]

Thank you. Yeah, I feel lucky, especially working with Elizabeth for the past five to six years on this book. It's been a wild ride.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I'm so glad you agreed to get interviewed by him in 2012.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Me too. It's been nothing but joy since then. It really has. And we're so glad that you agreed to interview us.

[Dan Shepard]

Of course. And the book is 1 in 5. Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis and what We Can Do To Stop It. I'm reading upside down and I'm dyslexic, so.

[Lily Padman]

You did. I did.

[Dan Shepard]

I really got through it. You guys, this has been a delight. It's not a fun topic, but somehow you guys do. It's meaningful, it's enjoyable. So good luck with everything and keep at it, please. Thank you.

[Luke Malone]

Yeah, thank you.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Thank you. Thanks so much. And thanks for sharing.

[Dan Shepard]

He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gotta let him have the facts.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, I was supposed to tell. Oh, sorry.

[Dan Shepard]

Just one bite.

[Lily Padman]

No, you take your time.

[Dan Shepard]

We don't have time. Time is of the essence.

[Lily Padman]

No, time is on our side.

[Dan Shepard]

Explain time is of the essence to me.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, okay. Time is of the essence. I mean, it is of the essence of life. It's basically the. The. The kernel for which life. It's the literally the essence of life. But I don't understand it in terms of, like, now. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

The immediate immediacy.

[Lily Padman]

But maybe it's because time, it's. It's gone. We just lost. It's. It's going. It's. Yeah, we already lost one of the

[Dan Shepard]

many sayings that I of course, know what the meaning is. But if I really think of it literally, I don't know why it means what it means.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, time is now. That's actually true.

[Dan Shepard]

But essence is like when something has the essence of.

[Lily Padman]

Right. This is probably old timey.

[Dan Shepard]

That's. I think essence might have meant something different.

[Lily Padman]

I think so. Speaking of. Time is of the essence.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. I have a lot to say on time of the essence, but you start.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, well, I was just gonna tell a story about last week or last fact check that I didn't get to, but I don't have to. But it is a poop. Tell me it is poopy.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, yeah, I want to hear.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, I almost tonk it again. I got so close.

[Dan Shepard]

Paint the picture. Pretend you're on Armchair Anonymous. Listen, what backstory do I need?

[Lily Padman]

So this is really why I'm bringing it up, because I was at a friend's house.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Time of day, evening. Like, I guess I got to the Friend's house around five. I was fine.

[Dan Shepard]

Uhhuh.

[Lily Padman]

No, everything was fine.

[Dan Shepard]

Did you eat at the friend's house?

[Lily Padman]

Uhhuh. But pizza. Cheese pizza.

[Dan Shepard]

Cheese pizza. No problem.

[Lily Padman]

No problem.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

It wasn't that ate that started playing mahjong. Okay. You know you play multiple games of mahjong.

[Dan Shepard]

I don't know, but now I do.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So I'm teaching you that in. When you go to play mahjong, you'll play, like, multiple games. Sometimes they're just 20 minutes or whatever. So you play the first game, and it's fine. Everything's great. We start the second game, and I'm like, hmm. I feel, as Jess would say, skiddly do.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. Okay. And out of 10, we're at a 2.5.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it's fine. And I was also like, I think this will pass. Like, this is fine. Sometimes it passes.

[Dan Shepard]

Sure.

[Lily Padman]

And then it was just like, it would pop, you know, Would pop. It would pop back up. The cramping.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. Not like a turtle.

[Lily Padman]

No, no, not a turtle. The cramp would come in to play a little. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

So it's not really passing yet.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

And then I was like, in each round of pops.

[Dan Shepard]

Little more intense.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

But holding steady.

[Lily Padman]

But it was okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Now at this point, I did. I was like, okay, I am going to need to evacuate soon. Ish. Right.

[Dan Shepard]

Are you trying to hurry the game along at all?

[Lily Padman]

So, I mean, you can't really, because you're, like, waiting on other people, but sort of. I'm like, your turn, you know?

[Dan Shepard]

Yes. Get a little bossy.

[Lily Padman]

And we're playing with a kid too.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, I know.

[Lily Padman]

So go.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm gonna shit my pants.

[Lily Padman]

I know.

[Dan Shepard]

Tommy.

[Lily Padman]

This is where I feel like I have made no growth in life. Right. Because there are. They live in a house, there are bathrooms.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. You could just.

[Lily Padman]

I could have.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

But I. Not only could I not do it, I couldn't even say, these are close friends.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

I couldn't even say, like, oh, my God. Like, I'm in trouble. I'm in trouble.

[Dan Shepard]

Intestinally speaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

And also. So they're, like, fun and fun.

[Dan Shepard]

They have a kid too, so they're dealing with pooty all the time.

[Lily Padman]

They themselves have evac.

[Dan Shepard]

Sure, sure. But in a safe space.

[Lily Padman]

I know. But, like, my brain goes into, like, a different mode also, like, I was just evaluating where the bathrooms were, and I was like, I can't.

[Dan Shepard]

They're too close to the.

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

The options were a guest bath.

[Dan Shepard]

Did it cross your mind and go like I gotta run to Starbucks real quick. Does anybody want anything?

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I just really.

[Lily Padman]

I need a copyright.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, I just gotta go to Starbucks. Right.

[Lily Padman]

Second. That is something I like. That is something crazy.

[Dan Shepard]

I would do a solution. You would entertain. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

I think there's a bathroom in. In the master. In the primary bedroom. Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And a one in the kind of like living room basically.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh fuck. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I couldn't be like can I use the restroom in your room? That feels a little. Little strange without giving all the information.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Also I'd imagine cuz when I've been in this situation, you're not talking about also just taking a normal customary.

[Lily Padman]

I mean I knew I was like this is not going to be bad.

[Dan Shepard]

You're going to have to open windows and light things on fire and.

[Lily Padman]

And I don't know about the volume.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or the noise maybe even.

[Lily Padman]

That's what I mean.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, oh, the volume. Not. That could mean two things. Yeah, you're right. The payload and I meant the auditory.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. Okay. So anywho, I'm like it's, you know, it's starting to ramp up. We're still playing. We're still playing. Thank God, you know, my friend wins. It's like I've never been so happy for to not win. Yeah. It's like just let this be over, you know? And. And then, and then she was like, do you have another game in us?

[Dan Shepard]

And you're sweating bullshit. Yeah, I don't think so.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, I did. I said I. I think I'm tired.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, you lied to your.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, I lied. I said I think I'm tired. And everyone was like oh no, that's totally fine. And. And I was like we're recording tomorrow to play again.

[Dan Shepard]

Please Miss Monica. It's all I want to do. I live for. I get bullied at school. This is the only.

[Lily Padman]

Oh my God. And then I immediately just everywhere. No, I. I said yeah, you know we're recording tomorrow.

[Dan Shepard]

Lie.

[Lily Padman]

No, we were but noon. Yeah. Cuz then they oh, what time?

[Dan Shepard]

And I was like, oh, there's a problem with lying. It immediately begets more.

[Lily Padman]

I know. But I did say I was like like 10, which is. I think maybe was. Or we had something at 10 probably. Yeah. So I was like, which I know isn't early. Like I. But also we're talk. I was like I gotta go. Like enough of this chitch. So then I was like, yeah, bye. You know, just getting up and not really helping. Put anything away.

[Dan Shepard]

Now, really quick. Do any of these people listen to the show?

[Lily Padman]

I mean, I have a sense this is gonna get back.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I know what they're gonna say.

[Lily Padman]

I know.

[Dan Shepard]

I can tell you right now. You're gonna get a call.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And so I say.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Hello?

[Lily Padman]

Hello. Hey.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, my gosh. I just heard. Sally told me to listen to the fact check that you told them much on the story. And I went, you know, Monica, you can totally go in our bathroom in our. In our primary bedroom.

[Lily Padman]

I just. I felt like I was so embarrassed. I just couldn't.

[Dan Shepard]

But you should know, we would be honored.

[Lily Padman]

I know.

[Dan Shepard]

If you.

[Lily Padman]

It was not because you didn't create an environment that I. I couldn't do. It was. It's me. It's a me issue.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. Well, just so you know.

[Lily Padman]

Thank you.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. You have full access.

[Lily Padman]

Thanks. I probably still won't.

[Dan Shepard]

All right. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And you're right. That's exactly how it would go.

[Dan Shepard]

So you get in the car.

[Lily Padman]

Get in the car.

[Dan Shepard]

How far away do they live?

[Lily Padman]

20 minutes.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And I'm like, I can do it. Like, I can do it. I have no option. I can do it. But then I did think, like, you know, as I'm driving, I was like, oh, my. I don't know. I don't know.

[Dan Shepard]

And you weren't wearing a skirt this time.

[Lily Padman]

No, I was wearing jeans. New jeans.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, boy.

[Lily Padman]

So I was like, okay. And I had a. I had a sweatshirt in the back of my car. This is like, okay, maybe I, like, pull over. Pull down my pants.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Put the sweatshirt on the seat.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Poop in the sweatshirt.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, wow. You were considering that.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. As a barrier. I didn't. I don't want the sweatshirt. So it was fine.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

So I was like, I'll poop in the sweatshirt. That'll be a barrier, you know, and kind of a dipe. Sort of.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

I had to make the decision. I'm either going to do that.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Or I'm just going to keep going, you know?

[Dan Shepard]

And stopping at a gas station. Going straight to a gas station is not an option. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

I didn't feel like I knew where they were. I'd be driving. It was just not gonna happen. Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

That was just like. But the sweatshirt was kind of in the back and I was, like, kind of leaning, like, okay, no, whatever. I'm going full force. So I was speeding.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh, wow, Good.

[Lily Padman]

And I. I made it. I made it. I made it how? It was so close.

[Dan Shepard]

It was so close. And as you're running in your house, do you use that toilet right at your doorway or do you need to go upstairs? Because it's gonna be emotional.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. So that.

[Dan Shepard]

Because you're gonna take clothes off and stuff.

[Lily Padman]

So that is what was crazy is I knew. I was like. I just. It's right there. There's a bathroom right by my door. I just do that. And of course, I get in there and I go all the way upstairs. I'm like. Like a glutton for punishment. I go all the way upstairs to my bathroom.

[Dan Shepard]

Muscle memory.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, I guess. And then I evacuated.

[Dan Shepard]

Oh. Wonder was it. You must have loved that moment, though, because you had been so. You had gone through so much. It was such a trial. So the relationship relief was.

[Lily Padman]

The relief of me was so. It was. But it was also, like. It was a little painful. Like.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, it.

[Lily Padman]

I didn't feel good, I guess, cuz,

[Dan Shepard]

like, as it turns out.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. And then not to be so graphic. I mean, whatever. We're already here. I had. There was a tiny, tiny bit of blood.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. Sure.

[Lily Padman]

Which then I real. I was like, oh, I'm starting my period.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. Which some. Sometimes gurgles your.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. It's like. So this is all making sense. And why, like, the cramps? I don't know. Like, sometimes you can't tell what cramp is. What. It's all affecting everything. It's a mess, you know?

[Luke Malone]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Anyway, let's go. So it was. It was annoying because I was like, I. I don't. Like, after I didn't feel sprightly. Like, I still felt kind of crampy and bad.

[Dan Shepard]

Because of the period, I think.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. I would love an internist to explain to us why the period all of a sudden fucks up your gi. Those things are very separate.

[Lily Padman]

I agree.

[Dan Shepard]

Systems. But this is consistent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So that happened.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Well, congrats. You got home. Yeah, I know.

[Lily Padman]

I was like, this is gonna happen to me again. But then I had to take responsibility. I was like, look, I. In this case, you could have. I could have prevented this.

[Dan Shepard]

I also think now that this is twice.

[Lily Padman]

Well, in.

[Dan Shepard]

In. In two years.

[Lily Padman]

No, don't finish that sentence. Don't.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I don't think you know where I'm going with this, but. So we're averaging once a year now. It is time to have a trash bag in your car. That's nothing. You keep it in the back pocket of the seat.

[Lily Padman]

Well, how do you poop in that?

[Luke Malone]

You can get A little toilet seat

[Dan Shepard]

that has a trash bag attached to it. Also an option, but I think people would see that in her back seat if she ever gave someone ride.

[Luke Malone]

Vinny's got one.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm gonna say it's for a kid. Why don't you use Vinnie?

[Lily Padman]

It's for my friend's kid.

[Dan Shepard]

Vinnie's outgrowing his. Yeah, I can give you one.

[Lily Padman]

Listen. No, this is what I'm saying.

[Dan Shepard]

Trash bag. A big guy, a 55 gallon trash bag. Because then that's your sweatshirt idea, but way more protection. There's no seepage. And then it's already in a trash bag. So, great, you throw it in the.

[Lily Padman]

No, but you'd have to lay it down, right?

[Dan Shepard]

Or no, open it up.

[Lily Padman]

But then how. That feels hard to do.

[Dan Shepard]

No, not those 50. Think about the mouth of a 55 gallon trash can. It's this big around.

[Lily Padman]

So you're saying I pull over to do this. This isn't while I'm driving, like the first time.

[Dan Shepard]

Right now you would probably want to pull the shoulder of the road.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, listen. This is what I was afraid you're going to say. I don't want to manifest. This isn't a new thing of mine. This isn't a. No, it is not. Do not say that. This is never happening to me again.

[Dan Shepard]

G. Monica's got a new thing.

[Lily Padman]

This is my hubris because I was too embarrassed to go number two in my friend's house. Yeah, like, that's my issue that I need to work through. Yeah, but I don't.

[Dan Shepard]

It cost you nothing to throw it in there. That's all I'm saying. You know, I don't think you're. I don't think you're.

[Lily Padman]

I'm telling the universe.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Nope.

[Lily Padman]

I am. I'm telling the universe.

[Dan Shepard]

Like, okay, well, I'm making a different argument. So often when you prepare for something, then it won't ever happen because you've wasted the time. Then you're like, oh, my God, it is all this stuff and then it never happened again. That's more to me. That's the more common pattern. It's like, I bought this thing to deal with this thing and it never happened again.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, okay. Now, would you have gone to the bathroom in your friend's house?

[Dan Shepard]

I would have gone at their house. Then I would have gone at a gas station. I would have gone to Starbucks since sincerely, and I have history to prove this. I would have pulled over and went on the shoulder of the road before I went in my car. I'M not going to use it as a Porta Potty. I would rather do it into the grass or weeds on the side of the road.

[Lily Padman]

We're different in that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. I would. I. I feel at least there's something about me being alone that. That is the highest priority in those moments for some reason.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

You want your.

[Dan Shepard]

Your privacy.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. So the car, it is just me in there?

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. But also it was dark out.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Inside of the road.

[Lily Padman]

No.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay. All right. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Plus, I could get murdered like that.

[Dan Shepard]

Like no one wants to. With a girl spraying. Even a murder, even the weirdest. The weirdest murder is like this.

[Lily Padman]

I think they might like it.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, you're. Now you've really gotten to the most niche murderer imaginable.

[Lily Padman]

They're out there looking for girls.

[Dan Shepard]

Like the Duke Killer.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Has a great ring to it that someone's definitely taken that he waits around

[Dan Shepard]

Porta Potties and he waits till he hears Hanus happening and then he.

[Lily Padman]

Probably for real.

[Dan Shepard]

And then he. He. He gets overcome with the. The hunger.

[Lily Padman]

You like when people poop?

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, a lot. But I'm also not a killer.

[Lily Padman]

I know. But.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Nothing could possibly make me happier if I was driving down the road and I looked to my right, I was like, oh, there's Monica's car. And then I was like, oh, there's Monica in the bushes.

[Lily Padman]

Oh my God.

[Dan Shepard]

I mean, the amount of joy me you really can't imagine.

[Lily Padman]

I can't.

[Dan Shepard]

Couldn't be measured anyway.

[Lily Padman]

So I just wanted to be vulnerable.

[Dan Shepard]

I appreciate it.

[Lily Padman]

Say that that time is of the essence.

[Dan Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Free audio post production by alphonic.com confidence.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the past ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how.

[Dan Shepard]

Pacific Life. The power of a promise.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska. And in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

[Dan Shepard]

I no longer want to say my thing because that there's no way to top that. Wait.

[Lily Padman]

Of course.

[Dan Shepard]

No, I just. Time. We're talking about time. Someone. One of our guests. I wish I could remember. I have a hunch it was Angela Duckworth.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Because she has such phenomenal taste.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Someone told me to buy this book, the Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, a physicist. Oh, and it's been sitting in my nightstand for a few years. Oh. And then I moved nightstands. I got a different nightstand against my will, but I got one. And then so it reemerged. And then I was like, I'm going to leaf through this. I find it mind blowing. It's so mind blowing. Ooh. I just want to set up the two concepts that they start the book with, which is our understanding of time is as flawed as our understanding of the Earth being flat at one point. Whoa. And if you think about, like, it's just kind of unimaginable. We're on a. A sphere.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. I know.

[Dan Shepard]

The fact that anyone ever. And he points this out. Both of these discoveries happen before we could ever test or measure this. This realization. But, yes, the Earth being round is like. You can't conceive of that.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And then second was that the sun doesn't revolve around us. I know you can't figure that out from our perspective, but both were figured out before we could actually test it. That. So time. We. We have as flawed of a sense of what time is. So just. There's three elements. I'm just gonna say the first one that I find to be so fascinating. So time is moving faster on a mountaintop.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

Than it is at sea level.

[Lily Padman]

What? How?

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. So if you are in Denver, the time is moving faster than it is at the ski hill 20 miles away at elevation.

[Lily Padman]

What?

[Dan Shepard]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

Like the perception of time. Or actually, no.

[Dan Shepard]

Period. If you have two atomically paired clocks, you know, that measure to the bazillionth of a second, and you sync those here in la, and then I send you to Mount Wilson with one of those watches, and you're up there for a while. When you return, your time will be further along than mine. And also to the degree that your head is living in a. In a faster time than your feet.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, my God.

[Dan Shepard]

And this has all been measured. We. We can do. We have the technology. What's incredible is that Einstein figured this out at, like, 23 years old without any way to know that this was the case. And so the. What it says is. Well, what's true time? Is it the time that was happening at elevation or was it at sea level? And the truth. Truth is there is no real time.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

You only have two times that are relative to one another. The example is to say, like, What's a true statement? 08 British pounds equals $1 versus $1 equals point. Those. Neither of them have an intrinsic value. They're only Related to each other. That's their value. And that there is no same time happening anywhere in the universe. Every single location has its own time that's only relative to other locations.

[Lily Padman]

I hate it here.

[Dan Shepard]

And then it gets into. So our first premise is like, oh, there's such thing as time that we can measure. Well, no, you can only measure at your location in space. So the number one definition we have, time is like, well, that we know that's not true. And then the next one is that it's sequential or that there's an order, that there's a past and a present.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, I know. Is this like time is stacked?

[Dan Shepard]

Well, yeah. So the example is like cause and effect. And it said in the universe. And they do really good dumb analogies. It's like if you could imagine something was filmed, anything was really filmed. You can't tell, depending on which direction, whether we watched it forward or backward.

[Lily Padman]

But what do you mean? Sorry, explain a little.

[Dan Shepard]

Like if you filmed. It's gotta be something without heat. Like if I filmed a ball rolling and stopping.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

It's just. You can view. You can view anything backwards and your mind will tell you that was the beginning when really it was the end of the video.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, oh, you're saying, like, okay, if you, like, rewind, you can watch it backwards or forward. Right. But there's no starting it.

[Dan Shepard]

You're saying an objective outsider can't tell what was forward first. The only thing that. The only thing in the universe that we can observe that we know definitively had a beginning and an end is heat can warm cold.

[Lily Padman]

Okay?

[Dan Shepard]

But cold can never create heat.

[Lily Padman]

Heat can warm cold.

[Dan Shepard]

So you have like this body of water, it's 100 degrees. You have this body of water, it's 50 degrees. If we film those interacting and this. This temperature comes. Goes up, we can establish the order of events. Because you'll never inject cold water into hot water and make it hotter.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, make it hot.

[Dan Shepard]

That's a law of thermodynamics.

[Lily Padman]

Colder. You are affecting it if you add cold water into something hot.

[Dan Shepard]

But you can't make anything hotter with cold water.

[Lily Padman]

Right?

[Dan Shepard]

It's. It only has one direction. You can make cold water warmer with hot water. You can not make hot water hotter with cold water.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

That can't happen. That's like a.

[Lily Padman]

No. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Immovable law of the universe. So unless something has a heat transfer, there's no order. There's no way to know the order.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm in that chapter right now. I'm going to. They're going to land the plane. I'm going to be able to say more about it. But I just was that whole that your head's experiencing time differently than your feet is bonkers.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

So what's happening is mass. The Earth is warping time. You can think of it as a body going into a tub and displacing water. So Earth itself is warping time. So the closer you get to that mass, the center of that mass, which is why sea level, you're closer to the center of the mass than you are on a mountaintop. The closer you get to the center of the mass, the slower time is going. This is why I finally now understand why there's no time in a black hole. It's just like infinite mass. So time just slows down.

[Lily Padman]

What is the dead center of the Earth?

[Dan Shepard]

Like, what's it made of?

[Lily Padman]

No, like on or on this planet, what is the dead center?

[Dan Shepard]

Well, it would be inside the sphere.

[Lily Padman]

So it's in the. It's up. Up.

[Dan Shepard]

No, like, here's Earth. Yeah, in the dead middle of it. We. Let's say we drilled 5,000 miles into the Earth, we'd be at the center of the Earth.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

That's where time's moving the slowest.

[Lily Padman]

Well, the equator is going around the center.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, we've arbitrarily drawn that line based on. It's where the sun is most directly hitting. That's how we pick that line as the equator.

[Lily Padman]

I thought it was the center.

[Dan Shepard]

Look, it's a ball. Right?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And we, we decided to go here, make this zero and make the prime meridian zero.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

And then that way we can graph everything. But imagine those lines stay still and we just rotate. Rotate Earth. We could have picked. Zero is going through Antarctica.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

That's just how we've constructed our maps and our, Our.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, but I guess I'm asking like, in the ball.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So the center of the Earth is here.

[Dan Shepard]

Huh?

[Lily Padman]

So where is that? Where is that? In.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

In Earth? Where is that?

[Dan Shepard]

Well, kind of everywhere. If you're talking about the center, you could draw a straight line out from the center to any spot on the outside sphere. There's a direct line from you and I right now to the center of the Earth. And any point on the Earth, there's a direct line to the center of the Earth. Yeah, yeah. It's scrambly.

[Lily Padman]

It's.

[Dan Shepard]

So anyways, I have a weird hunch that at the end of this book, should I fully understand it, which I might not be able It's a dense book. Like I said to Eric, you should read this book. And he's like, are you listening to it? I'm like, no, I don't think this book can be listened to. I think you need to reread some paragraphs over and over again. But I have a bizarre hunch or optimism that at the end of this, I'm gonna have a new grasp on spirituality.

[Lily Padman]

Ooh, I like that.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Like, I think if. I think if. If I can really deconstruct, understand how time is not the thing I think it is, that might open the door to a lot of new possibilities and thoughts.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. I started Project Kilmari. I down. I rented it, and I was watching, you know, 45 minutes, and I was like, yeah, I don't believe in any of this. This is fully made up. This life is made up. This is made up. How can it be? How can this be like, planet Earth

[Dan Shepard]

and what's happening here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guys, it's a miracle.

[Lily Padman]

It is not real. We are not real.

[Dan Shepard]

We're not real.

[Lily Padman]

None of this is real. I really started to feel, like, kind of crazy, like, oh. Oh, my God.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, yeah, in the same sense, I would imagine if you're, like, the first person to have the concept of the Earth not being flat explained to you, it's very destabilizing. You're like, wow, my perspective can be that flawed.

[Lily Padman]

Right?

[Dan Shepard]

Or they go, oh, guess what? No, no, we're just spinning this. You know, sun's over there, and we're just. We're going around it in a year, and we're just spinning all day. Yeah, that's destabilizing. Like, well, everything I know is. Is wrong. And that's a scary thought.

[Lily Padman]

I know. But when you think. When you, like, really, really think about the story, the story of the world.

[Dan Shepard]

You mean Earth or the universe? The world. I'm not sure.

[Lily Padman]

I mean, well, one begets the other, I guess. But, like, even just the Earth. Okay. And the evolution of all of us,

[Dan Shepard]

everything from single cell.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly. It's like, no.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

That is not real.

[Dan Shepard]

I feel you. I have. I have a. I have a healthy. I think that's why it's very easy for people to believe in religion. Because.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. Because it's.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

At least.

[Lily Padman]

It's an explanation.

[Dan Shepard]

Preposterous. That all this happened by chance.

[Lily Padman]

I really was getting in my head, and I was like, this is not. Like I'm going to vaporize. Like, this is not.

[Dan Shepard]

It's. Yeah, you felt untethered. Maybe Dangerous.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it was a little, it was a little unsettling.

[Dan Shepard]

Did you make it through or you did 45 and then you.

[Lily Padman]

Well, I had to leave, so I'm going to go back, finish it. He hasn't even met, but he's, like, just now meeting, I assume, the Rock. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. It's such a cute movie.

[Lily Padman]

Ye. I like it. He's gone. My God, is he so charming? It's just him. It's just him.

[Dan Shepard]

Very few people can do that.

[Lily Padman]

He's just so fucking charming.

[Dan Shepard]

He is.

[Lily Padman]

Anywho. Yeah, that's, yeah. Interesting that you brought that up because I've been also in my head about, you know, life and reality, and none of it's like, none of it. It's nothing.

[Dan Shepard]

And then again, we come back to the same conclusion we always do, which is like. And who cares? So if we found out it was a simulation, then what? Well, I keep living this life that I'm living. I still have goals and hope and I'm looking forward to things and saying, okay, oh, it's all fake. Well, I'm gonna continue on. I'm not gonna. What? Like, if I found out it was a simulation, well, I guess then I'm gonna kill myself. No, right. Like, you're just like, oh, just keep enjoying the simulation.

[Lily Padman]

I know, but it's like, does it matter? Even apart from it being a simulation, even that was getting like, even that can't be real. Nothing. Like what? It's scary. Like, it is scary once you really start thinking, thinking about space and time,

[Dan Shepard]

and it helps you see how easy it would be to go crazy.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. I was starting. I was like, I could, I could really, really go crazy if I really started delving into some of this stuff. This was maybe not healthy for me.

[Dan Shepard]

That was my early 20s. I had like two or three years in my early 20s. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I had had two years in my early 20s where I, I was, I felt like I was on the path to, to becoming.

[Lily Padman]

Going nuts.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

And I was kind of swirling with these kind of thoughts. My challenging nature, my openness to reject what is believed or known.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Which, whatever. I, I, I, I, I trend high on that spectrum. I thought, oh, you're in danger if you don't accept these things. You're in danger of floating off into an abyss of uncertainty.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. This how people go nuts.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. I think I was right on the precipice.

[Lily Padman]

Well, I'm, I'm going to try to stay away. I'd rather not go crazy.

[Dan Shepard]

No, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

You know I have this house.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. You want to stay?

[Lily Padman]

It might be because of it. I don't know. Okay. I want to stop talking about this. Making me a little freaked out.

[Dan Shepard]

I showed. Did I tell you I showed Lincoln Dances with Wolves last Sunday?

[Lily Padman]

Oh, I. Yeah. You said you guys had started it and I was very impressed. Impressed because it is to me, although I was in high school, one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. But I would like to re watch because maybe I just wasn't in the headspace.

[Dan Shepard]

I love it. It won best picture.

[Lily Padman]

Well, of course, it's like a renowned film.

[Dan Shepard]

Yes. But again, it's always nice to be reminded of what people lived like for

[Lily Padman]

so long, if they even did.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Just out on the front tier with like a book of matches and a rifle and like, you know, it's just wild how what we dealt with and, and, and Eric was going, fuck. I mean, how were they alive? Like how did they just exist and not go fuck this? And I said, and it's my theory on life, which is like. Because whatever their situation was, it was incrementally better than the previous generation. So maybe they had tin cups now instead of notes.

[Lily Padman]

They felt lucky.

[Dan Shepard]

They had some inventions that made them feel lucky.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Luckier than the previous group. And then you got to wonder what it does to like the group psychology when we do pinnacle. I know we're not there yet.

[Lily Padman]

I don't know.

[Dan Shepard]

But there is a pinnacle.

[Lily Padman]

I know I'm getting again, like we're maybe getting close. Especially with AI it's starting to feel like, oh my God, it might be at the end. End of. Of this experiment.

[Dan Shepard]

What a privilege to be there at the.

[Lily Padman]

No, I don't know. I even. I was like, okay, so. Well, because obviously in the movie the earth is not.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

It's like not viable for much longer. And I was like, okay, so if that happens, like, but I guess just die. I guess like I would probably try to.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

I had to.

[Lily Padman]

I was like thinking this through. Like, okay, when would I die? Like, at what point would I make the call?

[Dan Shepard]

You're like someone with a terminal condition that has to decide when they take the solution. I don't.

[Lily Padman]

Healthy for me to be thinking like this. I just know me like, I don't think this is good for my brain, anxiety wise.

[Dan Shepard]

No, no, no. For you it's not great.

[Lily Padman]

But I, I'm. It's. I'm too.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm such. That's what it is. I'm such a novelty addict.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Oh, My God.

[Dan Shepard]

That I'm like, yeah, it could be, it could be bad, it could be. Be good. It'll be new.

[Lily Padman]

It'll.

[Dan Shepard]

And that, that to me is exciting. Or to me, what makes it worth it. I'm like, yeah, I don't know what's about to happen, but something's going to happen and I'm going to witness it.

[Lily Padman]

Well, you, you'll be dead.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, we don't, we don't know which way it's going to go.

[Lily Padman]

So you. I don't want to have to go to move to another planet and stuff and like take the spaceship like that.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

That's.

[Lily Padman]

It looks so miserable.

[Dan Shepard]

It could be fun.

[Lily Padman]

No, it looks really miserable.

[Dan Shepard]

What if it's Delta 1 2? Yeah, there we go to Alpha Centuri.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Do like.

[Dan Shepard]

All right. And then they have, on the plane, they have like cocktails.

[Lily Padman]

No, they don't. Their food is bad and their drink. They don't even have Hendrix gin.

[Dan Shepard]

You could maybe bring your own Hendrix gin.

[Lily Padman]

Anyway. Okay, well, this got really intense.

[Dan Shepard]

Want to do some facts?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, let's be some facts.

[Dan Shepard]

This was an eye openening episode, man.

[Lily Padman]

This was a serious episode.

[Dan Shepard]

I have found myself repeating the two most jaw dropping bits of data that came out in this. Have you been telling anybody about this stuff?

[Lily Padman]

Well, which, which are the two for you?

[Dan Shepard]

Well, that's 70% of the cases are from other children. That's wild. And then the other one that blew my mind is that like 50% of them are situational and not someone who has like permanent pedophilia.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Which that is somehow scarier.

[Lily Padman]

Well, not to me because again. And like, I think this is sort of the point they were making. Like those people. It's like the difference between a murderer and a psychopath. Like a psychopath can't control it. Like it is a real urge. It is driven in the brain somehow. And a murder murderer could not murder given a different circumstance or the right tools or, you know, whatever.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, that was a part of a. I'm pretty sure a Gladwell episode. It was like, it was about first order thinking, second order thing, whatever. All the, all these things that happen. Like some alarming percentage of murders are people reacting in situations. They're not premeditated. They're not like someone's gonna off someone for money. It's like those are very low percentages. It's people interacting in life who become overwhelmed and. Yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So that's why I think it's not as scary, because I guess that's like the whole Point of what Elizabeth and Luke are doing is trying to like, mainly avoid that.

[Dan Shepard]

You can't imagine a future where it's like, oh, it becomes so fine to self identify as this and that. People know when they're pretty young, it's sounding like. And then get treatment for those people. So it wouldn't be like, oh, well, if you could take all those people out of. Not take them out of the population, but identify them, get them help, the problem would be over. It wouldn't be over. I mean, let's just even ignore the adolescents that are doing it because theirs is mostly situational.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

But the other people who. It's like they've never had that urge before and then they don't have it again. You can't even really. They don't even know to be treating that well.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, but it's kind of like that's what we should all be doing is just like reminding people of the consequences of these types of things.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Like, I. I think a lot of people who've been raped when they're young, they're not a pet. They're not always pedophiles, they're rapists. You know what I mean? Like, that's a power thing. That's a.

[Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau]

There's.

[Lily Padman]

There's a lot.

[Dan Shepard]

Then their victims would age up with them, is what you're saying, to some degree.

[Lily Padman]

Well, yeah, well, I guess I just mean, like, it doesn't mean just because somebody's had. Yeah, just obviously that's the whole point. But like, I think a situational scares

[Dan Shepard]

me more because you can't see it coming. I guess you have no awareness that you're capable of that.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dan Shepard]

And that is like inherently less treatable or addressable.

[Lily Padman]

Well, sort of. Because it's like everyone's kind of capable of anything and you just like, learn to not do bad shit. Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

I'm just saying all the, all those people that did that, know, knew that. That jail time could await them. Like, there's no one that's like these. He's talking, she's talking about the teachers that are in these situations. Like, no one's unaware of a. The social stigmatism and the legal issue with it. And yet they do it. So I don't think deterrence.

[Lily Padman]

Well, but I think it. I think they would argue that was the whole point. Kind of is like it's not. Not like, yes, it's. They know, but it's remind. It's like, hey, this is about to happen to you if you go down this path. This is like intervention and things.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, the kids. Yeah. Like the kids whose prefrontal cortex, they need to understand, like, there's really bad outcomes for the. The victims that you probably wouldn't even have seen as a victim till we explain it to you that they're a victim. And then they're gonna have these. Yeah. Then it's like, oh, my God. It's that. I'm talking more. The adults that are in these situations where it happens once or it happens and they don't repeat it. Sure. I guess the solution for that would be people in jobs that interact with youth need to have some classes that say, hey, this could happen. Or, you know, this has happened to many people who are not pedophiles.

[Lily Padman]

Right, exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

So you need to have, you know,

[Lily Padman]

like, everyone's kind of in danger of this, so watch out.

[Dan Shepard]

That's what I'm saying.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

It's easier to address a tiny percentage of the population that is identified with the condition than it is. Like, that's. Every human being that deals with kids needs to be worn. That other people weren't like that and did that is. Feels more daunting.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

A long time for me to articulate that.

[Lily Padman]

I mean, I think. Yeah. I mean, I still. I still personally am more afraid of the. The like condition. But. But I see what you mean. Okay. What are the chances of addiction if you've been sexually abused as a child? This is from PubMed. And so it's using. It's using some numbers that I don't really understand. It says in multivariable analysis for men, first occurrence of physical and sexual abuse as a child was significantly associated with more substance use consequences. Adjusted mean increase in. And then this is what they're using, like some sort of system. ND UC 2.5 for ages less than

[Dan Shepard]

13.2.5 times more than more likely.

[Lily Padman]

That's what I'm not underst.

[Dan Shepard]

We don't know what the metric is.

[Lily Padman]

3.3 for ages 13 to 17 compared to those with no abuse. Oh, 0.001 with no abuse. Oh.

[Dan Shepard]

So, yeah. Many multiples?

[Lily Padman]

A lot more. A lot.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

More.

[Dan Shepard]

Well, I can tell you that my mother, when she was in her CASA program, when she was getting. Taking. Taking state sanctioned classes, they said you had an 80% chance of becoming an addict if you had been sexually abused.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

Horrible. And I went, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, it is funny. We're. We're, of course, and understandably, we're so obsessed with Finding out why things happen. Right. We feel safer if we understand why things happen. But just like we have this endless desire to point to causality of say, addiction. It's like in my case, is it that thing, Is it that I'm 8th generation through the honchuls, full blown addict? Is it some other bit of nurture? You know, and then who cares? You know, for me, I mean, at the end of the day it's like, I guess who cares? Who cares?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, well, no, the reason to care is, is not really once it's happened, it's like, oh my God, like if this happens to some, like don't do this to people. Basically.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah. Points out the importance of preventing.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly.

[Dan Shepard]

For sure. But just like when you, when you're already an addict and you start looking back on why you might be an addict to some degree, it's like you'll never know the percentage. We won't. I won't know what part was nurture and what part was nature. And it doesn't really matter. I've been left this way.

[Lily Padman]

And yeah, it's good to figure out what triggers the addiction surely. But yeah, this other stuff, yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay. Roy Moore is the politician in Alabama.

[Dan Shepard]

There's so many offensive things about him. It's not just the repeated child horrifying, it's him also like trotting to town on a horse in a like Howdy Doody costume. I mean, what a character.

[Lily Padman]

The horse's name was Sassy.

[Dan Shepard]

Yeah, I bet he named his horse Sassy.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly. Oh, Garfield. The president is from or born in Orange Township now Moreland Hills, Ohio.

[Dan Shepard]

Okay, okay.

[Lily Padman]

She was from Mentor.

[Dan Shepard]

Mentor. Yeah. That's where the museum is.

[Lily Padman]

Are the Boy Scouts called Scouting America? Yes. Noah, Holly's mother came up. Louise Armstrong is her name. Yes. She had a book in 97, in 79 called Kiss Daddy Good Night. Rough title regarding child abuse. Let me just make sure I got them all. That's it.

[Dan Shepard]

That's it.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dan Shepard]

All right. Love you.

[Lily Padman]

Love you. Sa.