Interviewer (7:53)

When did you start making men's rights the sort of focus of your law practice?

Marilyn York (7:58)

Instantly, as soon as I started my firm in April 2001, I immediately did men's rights from the moment I opened the doors. Some of the flaws in the law, you know, that exist are the child support statute. So one such case comes to mind. A gentleman came and hired me and said, apparently I have a 16 year old son I didn't know existed. And I'm like, what? And he goes, I just got served with this child support lawsuit saying I owe 16 years of back child support and I don't know, I have a kid and the kid's named after me and like, what the shit? So I'm like, okay, well we'll ask for a paternity test first and like find out if it's your kid. Luckily, the statute only lets you go back four years before a judgment to seek back child support. But you're on the hook if it's your biological child back four years, you have a kid you didn't know, like, what are the circumstances? And he's like, oh, I had a one night stand with this lady in a divorce support group and she claims I got her pregnant. And this guy's like a six income earning figure, like Nice, lovely person who'd gotten remarried after the divorce, had a family with his new wife and didn't have children prior to that. The first divorce was just a no child divorce. So he comes in, we go to court, and the first thing we're going to do is ask for a paternity test. And my client's new wife comes with him to support him. We get to the hallway of the courthouse and his son comes around the corner who literally looks like a mirror image of my client, only blue haired, nose piercing, lip piercing, like a kid in distress. I'm not saying I don't get the alternative look, but you just look at this kid and go, oh my God. Like, this kid is not doing well. And the mom says, he raped me in the hallway to my client. And I'm like, what? And then the wife, my client's wife attacks the ex, like, jumps on her to beat her ass because she's so offended and there's so much emotion charged. And this is like some high end, you know, like housewife who starts scratching this psycho who called her husband a rapist. I'm like, like screaming for the bailiff, the poor kid. My client falls to his knees, hysterically crying at the feet of his child, saying, I would have taken care of you. I didn't know you existed. I would have been there for you. Look at you, you need a dad. And I'm just like, oh my God. Like, this is the worst hallway shit show. It was so horrible. Like, it makes me emotional just thinking about it. And luckily we went into the courtroom and she accused my client of being a rapist. And the judge was pissed and just screamed at her like, don't you come in here and say that. Don't you dare. And gave him her no back child support, but child support going forward. It was his child, clearly. We did a DNA test, but, like, literally, I'm talking mirror image. I never kept up with that client, you know, and so I don't know if he developed a relationship with that kid. I think about him all the time. I wish and hope that he did. And that kid got to be in his dad's life because what the hell? And so that is a state of the law that is still a major problem. You as a female can get pregnant and not tell the father and kidnap the kid. Like, it's literal kidnapping if he knows about the kid. But if you don't tell him or you put some other dude's name on the birth certificate, cause they do, then you can kidnap kids like no problem, no questions asked, no repercussions. You know, 10 years later, you can come back and say, I want four years of back child support, by the way. You have a kid. No one cares.

Interviewer (11:13)

Tell me about a case that felt just like a real triumph on a personal, professional level for you.

Marilyn York (11:20)

I had a client that absolutely married a gold digger. He was this rich cowboy, and she's nothing but a gold digger. At some point, he says to her, do you want to get married again with your family because she's from another country, or do you want a bigger diamond? And she's like, I want a bigger diamond, of course. Because that's what gold diggers do, right? So he buys her, like, this fatty diamond. Well, a couple years later, she decides she's been there long enough and she's out, and she's going to take him for all he's worth. And she leaves, and we're in the middle of this really hard divorce. He's worth a ton of money. Oh, my God. She's going to get a ton of money. There's no prenup. Da, da da da. And I'm looking through his California divorce from his prior marriage, trying to figure out what assets he got in that marriage to establish what his worth was when he. He got married. And I glance at the divorce decree, and I'm like, wait, what the hell? This is the morning of court. We're just going to a hearing. And I'm looking at the file, and I get to court, and I tell my client in the hallway, and he goes, what? I said, you're not married. He's like, what? I said, you were still married in California when you married her. He said, what do you mean? I'm like, I don't know why, but your attorney in California didn't submit your divorce decree for six months. They had a contested divorce trial. The trial had a ruling, but for reasons no one will ever know, still, that lawyer was delinquent in sending the Korean for six months. And so he technically wasn't divorced for six months after he thought he was divorced and he married this woman in between, which makes it avoid marriage. And he's crying because he thinks he's a bigamist and he's going to jail. I'm all, will you take a fucking breath? No one cares. But she's not your wife. And I got to go in court and be like, your honor, the gold digger, not his wife. Had she chosen the marriage in front of her family, that would have been a legitimate wedding. Several years ago, but she picked the big diamonds. So that's all she's getting from this marriage because she's legally entitled to nothing. And the judge was like, oh, you're right. That was like one of those moments where I was like accidental genius. Like, and he was traumatized because he really loved her and felt like this like, fraud. And she was pissed. And I just thought it was beautiful. My inspiration for representing men is just two. Basically, my dad is the dominant parent in my household. I think masculine because he made me think masculine in a lot of ways. I've always had more male friends than female friends. Like, I liked spending time with men more or boys at the time because I'm, you know, I'm a little boy hungry too. In case my track record of husbands doesn't make that clear. I had seven fiances too. I don't always say, yes, you had seven fiances, right. What is wrong with me?

Interviewer (13:46)

Does that seven include the four who you married?

Marilyn York (13:49)

All right, so I like the cross gender relationship as a, you know, authoritarian figure. It always made sense to me and seems a lot more natural both directions.

Interviewer (13:59)

Well, what do you. Wait, what do you mean by that?

Marilyn York (14:01)

Like, women representing men works. Like, if I get authoritarian and talk very tough with my clients, they absolutely, you know, have no gender battle with me. If I spoke, like, if a man spoke to my male clients the way I do, they get punched in the face. I asked my client that one day cause I called him a pussy four times. And he's a, he's in a motorcycle gang, he used to sell meth and now he's recovered. I mean, I don't represent monsters, but he's a former monster. And I was like, you're such a pussy, let's paint your Harley pink. Like, I can't even look at you. And I said to him, if a man had spoken to you the way I did, would you punch him? He goes, I would have fucking shot you. And I said, and you just paid me 10 grand. Like, I have the best job ever. I have a client who's an ex felon. He spent two stints in prison. So on paper, not a nice guy, but absolutely reformed. It was all drug related stuff. He's been sober for 10 years. He's a very high functioning, good dude. He's a plumber, he makes decent money, he's a hard worker. He has two little kids with his now gonna be ex wife. She has a daughter from a prior relationship and she's what appears to be a current methamphetamine using Lunatic. She is very scary, very verbally abusive, physically extremely violent, road rages and pulls guns on people. And she's had a number of run ins with the law. So he hires me, and there was a restraining order that he applied for against her. My former employee is now a judge doing restraining order court. And just recently, in January, and he was in front of her, and she apparently talked my client into agreeing to joint physical custody in the restraining order, which is odd. Well, this woman has been arrested and charged with three counts of gross misdemeanor physical battery and domestic violence against my client within a six month time frame. She beat his face in with a cell phone, requiring stitches. She smashed his head in with some other object requiring stitches. And then she smashed his lip in, requiring stitches. And then she beat up his friend on one such occasion, requiring stitches. So there's four medical incidences, three arrests, three pending extreme battery charges, and thanks to Covid, none of them have gone to trial. But if she gets convicted of more than one, she will go to prison. Meantime, our courts are treating it like no big deal. It's bizarre. Like I said, thank God. Filed an emergency motion in district court in a divorce and was able to get custody away from her. These are little babies. I'm talking 18 months and like, you know, two and a half. And they're in the care of this monster. And so I'm in family court recently for review hearing, and I have this judge who notoriously is pro female, she's retired now, and she's sitting on behalf of another judge who's out. And she's like, trying to give this mom joint custody back for no reason. No supervised visitation. I'm like, you, Honor, there are three pending domestic batteries that are substantial. This woman is going to prison. Well, she didn't hurt the kids. I'm like, yet they're babies. And if she did, they couldn't tell us. And she goes, well, I said she has to be sober. I'm like, there's no testimony that she wasn't sober when she did it. She's a violent person. It has nothing to do with sobriety. But I'd love her to be sober, too. But you don't get to assume she's not violent. Well, they're not convictions yet at all. It doesn't matter in family court, if they're pending, we assume they're true. But I'm happy to have my client testify and show you all the photos of his face. It's like insane. Not in a million years. Not in a million Years. Would a man ever see his kid again if he did this? Tell my clients all the time, the law is neutral. The application is not. It's not. I will never get the same amount of spousal support for a man as I would a woman in the same exact financial circumstances. Now, I'm not sure that's wrong. I'll say that like I can say all day long, like it should be, even. That's not reality. The reality is that men still outer women. The reality is that men are statistically more likely to rebound post divorce than women, period. Regardless of whether they were stay at home dads or whether they were the breadwinner three years after a marriage. Men are better off financially than they were before the divorce. And women are worse. Five years, three years, ten years out from a divorce. They are worse off financially. Maybe it's because they're reckless or crazy, but, you know, or maybe they're just disadvantaged. So I do think there's some basis for courts to give men less money than women in the same circumstances, just based on the knowledge that they'll be able to go get a career, you know, and they'll be hired faster and they'll make more money and they're. I don't know why. I, I'm not the scientist that can tell you why they do better, but they do. And so I do understand some of that and I don't go in there and throw a fit. But it shouldn't be so extreme that, like my stay at home dad's expected to get a job instantly, whereas a woman gets six months to talk about thinking about working and then six more months to apply and then six more months to get one. And then she's still working part time. And the court's like, well, you know, I can't get any mileage for my guys out of the pandemic. Like, we're in an international pandemic. He lost his job. And the court's like, why don't you have another one? I'm like, he was making 200 grand a year. You can't just like go get another one when the whole world shut down. But they didn't. There was no sympathy. Whereas women, like, have been able to milk the pandemic for life, you know, so there's that sort of bias and application that I don't love. But I, I'm not. That's. As much as people want to hate me, I'm not over here forgetting I'm female and that I don't understand the plight of Females and that I don't know the statistical data about making less money. And I won't hire a stay at home mom. I'll say it right now. If a woman stayed home for a couple years and wants to work here, not my people, I don't know if I'm going to get sued for that, but they are my people. I'm divorce attorney Marilyn York, and while I represent men, the thing most men say to me is, I hope I never need you. So I thought I might help you guys do just that. This is all you need. Allow me to demonstrate. I thought you were gonna trim your beard. Oh, you were gonna trim your. Let's recap. Duct tape fixes almost anything, even relationships. But if it's too late, you know where to find me. So I wasn't ever intending to make my commercials inflammatory. Like, I have a dark sense of humor. I'm super sarcastic and think, like, you know, jokes about real life. And it's like, ironies are the funniest. So I'm friends with a woman in town who's the opposite, much like my mother. Like, polished and perfect and sweet and piecey. And that's her nature. It's not an act. And she says to me, oh, my gosh, you're so funny. You should do a funny commercial because you're so funny. So, you know, flashback, 10 years ago, 15. I don't even know anymore. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna write a funny commercial, and that's my one in the bar. Are you watching the game at a friend's or the bar again? Because you can't watch at home with your wife. Or worse, because she kicked you out and kept your couch, your flat screen, and your kids. What's the one thing a man needs when he loses a good woman? A good lawyer. And when he loses a bad woman, he needs a great lawyer. What makes a good woman a bad woman? You tell me. You're the one that can't watch the game in your own home. I'm men's rights attorney Marilyn York, and I represent men in divorce, custody, and family law matters. The first couple versions I write of any of these commercials are way worse than the ones that air. And then I like, kind of pull my dude friends, and my female friends are like, oh, my God, you cannot say that on the air. Like, I said, ketamine your wife. And they were like, you can't ketamine your wife. I'm like, why? That's so funny. So people calm me down, and I air it Thinking, like, they'll get the humor. I'm so funny, and people freak out, and so I freak out. Like, they freak out. I freak out. I'm like, oh, my God. I wasn't trying to, like, be offensive. I literally was surprised that they resonated that way because I'm slow that way. But then I'm like, quiet down, Marilyn. Don't. My dad's favorite thing is don't overreact to their overreactions. And he's right. And so I always try to remember that. Calm down and watch. And so I did. And the phone started ringing more and more and more, and I'm like, oh, my God, who cares? Who cares? Why? Apparently, some women take great exception to me representing men in family law matters. Here's a few of the classics. Maryland. York is the reason our country's going under. Did Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter have a baby? How much have divorced men paid her to be a stupid Christian sexist? And my personal favorite, Marilyn York is white trash. She just runs a brothel for herself to sleep with her own clients. Is anyone still wondering why I represent men? About 10% of the calls were to tell me I suck and I should go to hell and they're gonna kill me. And it's women, always. And then the rest were business. And I'm like, well, hello. Like, that's the point. So they got attention, and it costs a lot of money to do TV ads. So I was like, okay. So then I wrote my baseball park one. I love women. We're such planners. Like, right now, as you guys sit there relaxing in front of the TV wondering what she's making you for dinner, your wives are racking up community debt, transferring money into a separate bank account, finally losing that baby weight after nine years, and hooking up with your son's baseball coaches on Facebook. What's the one thing a man needs when he's blindsided by a long planned divorce? A great female attorney. I'm men's rights attorney Marilyn York, and I represent men in all family law matters. I had two kids who filmed my commercial with their iPad because their mom was screwing their baseball coach to show their dad my commercial to tell him. We know because we caught mom in the shower with the baseball coach, and she caught them filming it and backhanded them. And CPS got involved, and I got hired by the dad because of it. And I had to go to court and be like, your honor, the kids got abused by their mom. Well, why? Because they were filming my commercial. Do you know how Awkward, that is. In court, the judge is like, Ms. York, I'm sorry. Like, I wasn't trying to get kids abused, but, like, that is the reason that the story came out, because they felt empowered by the fact that this. They're not the only ones with a baseball coach. There's a contingent of people in town that hate me. And like, I'll never forget my son who's 14 now, like 4 or 5 years old, and he had that some app called make a movie. And he made a movie of these women out in front of Starbucks who saw me go in talking shit about me. And he filmed them and blew them up on the, like, make a movie app. And he goes, mom, these women hated you. And I blew them up. And I was like, oh, my God. And then I'm in Starbucks with my daughter, you know, weeks later, and this lady comes up to me and she goes, oh, my God, I love you. You're the best. I love your commercials. And Stella goes, you like my mom? Usually women hate my mom. And I'm like, holy.

Interviewer or Secondary Interviewer (24:01)

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Marilyn York (24:46)

Okay, so my parents marriage is super interesting. It's very traditional. My dad's military. My mom is religious and midwestern. She's very submissive. She's just a very traditional wife. I call her stepford wife because I'm an asshole. But she is. She's so submissive to him, it's almost institutionalized. Like, I make fun of her. I'm a mom. Permission to pee. Did you get dad's permission to use the restroom? Like, because it's that bad at their house. And she gets mad at me, but she'll literally, like, you know, he'll reprimand her for doing something that annoys him and tell her to go watch hgtv, and she'll literally walk over there like a robot, sit in her chair and watch that channel. He didn't raise me that way. And she didn't. I mean, she did by example, but I found it repulsive. And yet it's not fair for me to impose my, you know, upbringing on her. She was brought up differently. She's a much nicer, lovelier human than me. So God bless her, her marriage works. And I'm on number four. So, like, she's got some tricks up her sleeve, but no, thanks.

Interviewer (25:38)

I think it's fair to say that you have a view of inherent differences of the sexes, which is in some ways, traditional. Is. Is that all right?

Interviewer or Secondary Interviewer (25:44)

Yeah.

Interviewer (25:45)

But at the same time, you yourself, although you are raised in this, like, very traditional model, you yourself are not that.

Marilyn York (25:55)

Yeah. And probably just because of the volume of things I've seen and tried myself, and because of the way I was raised and the way I'm genetically, you know, programmed, for lack of a better term, I don't fit in it well, you know, and like I said, my existence, by its nature, emasculates partners. And I know it. And, like, I try to watch. This is an interesting story you'll love, but I represent the owner of the Mustang Ranch in local. You know, we have legal prostitution in Nevada, of course, and that's our most famous brothel. And I represent the owner. And before that, I had a radio show locally, and it was sponsored by the Mustang Ranch. That's how I met the owner and the madam I was closer to at the onset, who was his girlfriend. And she was so demure and submissive and proper. And she would talk beautifully, and she was beautiful. And she would always ask, you know, Lance as the owner, Lance Gilman, he's also a county commissioner of Virginia City, which made the front page of the New York Times. Might I add that a brothel owner as a commissioner, but welcome to Nevada. So she would always be like, lance, dear, please get me a coffee. Lance, dear, like, can you grab my chair? Will you get my coat? I just found it fascinating. I wasn't judging it. She did it with such grace and beauty. It made me want to get her chair, too. And she's such a strong. I mean, that woman takes no shit. She has two German shepherds that are trained in German commands to kill if needed and sniff drugs. But she would tell me, like, honey, you need to be more helpless. Men love that. And I Was like, she's right. But hell no. Hell no. If someone tells me what to do, I lose my mind. My dad is still bossing me. For the record, my dad is a kind of Fallon cowboy by birth. That's a tiny town 60 miles east of Reno that's still small and still very cowboy. And he grew up there with my grandparents. They had a slaughterhouse business. My dad went to West Point, and so he has a military style about him, but he very much hated West Point. He hates the military, but he raised us like a militant parent. So I think it's kind of ironic and hilarious that he acts like he hates the military. He just doesn't want to have anyone, you know, in charge of him, that's all. As long as he's at the top of the food chain, he's happy. My brother and I weren't allowed to own vehicles until, you know, we took an engine apart all the way down and put it all the way back together. Because apparently you aren't responsible enough to own a vehicle if you don't know how the engine works. That's the kind of dad I have. He always set up fake scenarios of doom. So, like, on the way to school, the tire suddenly was flat and we had to pull the car over and change the tire as, like, elementary students or we couldn't go to school. There's always some, like, testing scenarios still. I'm 46 years old and I still sometimes will let my guard down with my dad on like a, you know, random weekend adventure. And I'm like, damn it, I forgot. I don't know how after all these years, I literally feel like I'm slow go, like, we'll go boating. And he's like, oh, okay, you're driving. Find our way back. I'm like, we're in the ocean in Canada. I don't. I wasn't paying any attention. He's like, well, I guess we're spending the night out here, like. And literally we'll spend the night out there if I don't get us back still. But at 46, like, bro, I made it. We're good. I don't need to know how to get back in the boat. No, I do. In case an apocalypse happens. I'm zombie ready at all times. Scary and like, unsettling and. And traumatic, honestly, in a lot of ways. But also, like, confident, building, and I am self assured and I don't have any, like, hang ups. And I don't act like a quote, female. I'm not good at damsel in distress. And that's not always helpful for my relationships. Hence the fourth marriage. Since I was 16, I've been in therapy. And my dad is very, again, traditional. So he makes fun of it, like, oh, you moved to la? You have to get a therapist. Do you have daddy issues? I'm like, yeah, dad, I have daddy issues. Like, why do you think I've been married four times? Therapists are fascinated by my dad. They want to hate him. He's hateable. Like, he's a nice villain. He does really extreme things and he's very unpredictable and, you know, but he's got this really beautiful side to him that no therapist will even talk about. Like, they just ignore it and act like I'm crazy, which has kind of pushed me away from therapy over the years. Like, I'm not crazy. The guy is the most generous, giving, loving, connected human I've ever been with. He's. He's so emotionally intelligent. He's so emotionally engaged and generous. Every time I call him, he's thrilled to hear from me. That's the other problem with my relationships. I've never had a man like me half as much as my dad, you know, and like, how do you. How do you meet that threshold? When I call him and he's like, hey, you know, always excited to hear from me. He'll spend two hours listening to my stupid legal stories at nauseam and, like, work through them with me and, like, what everyone would want in a parent of any kind. And so that's, of course, what makes him dangerous. Because I'm always close to him. Should he lash out at me in some financial, emotional, or once upon a time, very physical way, I'll keep coming back. It's the cycle of abuse at its most extreme.

Interviewer (30:47)

So part of what I was going to ask is, why did you choose to work with him? Do you think there is any element of working with him? Let you flip the script a little bit and now you're in charge?

Marilyn York (30:59)

Oh, God, no. No, I didn't ask to work with my dad. Let us be clear. My dad came into my firm like a football player breaking the door down because he was watching me run my business and myself into the ground. I was working like a hundred hours and starving to death. And he couldn't watch it because he's a businessman through and through. That's his baby, that's his nature. And he's brilliant at it. And he let me try to do it on my own. Now again, let's back up all the way to my birth My dad told me what to be from the time I was a child. I don't know what I would be, but for him, I wouldn't be this. He's the one that said, you should be an attorney. Marilyn's gonna be an attorney. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna be an attorney. I don't know what an attorney is. Nobody in my family's an attorney attorney. But he decided that was my career. And so here we are.

Interviewer (31:42)

Are there any elements where you do think, as close as you are with him, that there is something, you know, of that dynamic?

Marilyn York (31:50)

Oh, my dad's straight up abusive. Like, he was physically abusive to me as a child, and he's verbally abusive, and he's emotionally manipulative and extremely dangerous. Absolutely. I'll say it to his face. He'll literally tell me, like, you should thank me for hurting you as a kid because you were a fucking nightmare and a monster, and you would have turned out like shit. I'm the reason that you're this good. I'm all, oh, thank you for choking me, dad. That was so awesome. It's kind of tantamount to when, again, the madam from, you know, the Mustang Ranch were touring, and she sees this cute looking girl that works there who looks young, and she goes, oh, honey, you're pedophile bait. Slap on a little Britney Spears skirt and a little makeup. Boys are gonna love you. And I was like, whoa, I feel grossed out. And I said to her, aren't most of these girls just sexual abuse victims? And they're in here just, like, working through that. Like, doesn't that bother you? And she goes goes, my stepdad abused me. And I thank him. I mean, I wouldn't be who I was, but for that I'm like, what just happened? I'm like, have you been hanging out with my dad?

Narrator (Nick Van Der Kolk) (33:22)

That's it for Love and Radio. This episode featured the voice of Marilyn York. It was produced by Noam Osbond and featured musical contributions from Dialect Flore Laurentienne, Carlos Nino and friends Orietta Creme and Salvagia Issac Kural, Melodium Autisticy and Justin Varys, Steve Gunn and David Moore and Q Shop. Check the show notes for the full playlist. Love and radio is a labor of love and radio and made possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Thank you. With extra special thanks to Ally Mothra Perry Casey Pamela Anderson, Takrit Futaidon, Suta Chan, Bam Bam. Dan Palmino, Jacqueline Potato League, Jason V. For Vendetta Joe Palmieri. Mark Dunksasan. Sam Huffman. Huffman. Sandru. Nick actually has to read this. Schroeder and William Stabby Spears. If you want to join the group of wonderful human beings who make love and radio happens, you can help keep the show going by becoming a member yourself@loveandradio.org Member, I'm Nicholas Sardine. Punch Punch. Vander Kolk. Thanks for listening.