[upbeat music playing]
[crowd cheering]
Cleveland, Ohio! Thank you! Thank you so much. This is so great. This is so nice to be here with you in public. We’re not stuck at home doing this for ten likes. Ah, that’s right, you danced. You know you did. It was a real blight on American history. No one wants to talk about how they danced, but people danced. They’re like, “If I do it enough, it’s my key to financial freedom.” “I don’t need to read a book.” “I’ll just do this for ten likes. I hope it works out for me.” No! You were never gonna make money dancing on TikTok. You want to know why? Because you’re ugly. It’s only for, like, 22-year-old smokin’ hot girls. They’re like, “It’s a skill,” and dude’s finger going now. “Oh, good job, Chloe.” Yeah. It was never gonna be your financial future. We got a whole microgeneration of kids now going for job interviews at, like, Bank of America. “It says here under ‘special skills, ‘ ‘Look up at Travis.'” He’s… Nothing? The dancing on TikTok was never sexy independent of the app of TikTok, okay? There is no music in real life, there is no editing. The dancing on TikTok was never sexy independent of the app of TikTok. Gentlemen, that would be very weird for you if you saw one of those dances in the wild. You’re out at a bar and look over on the dance floor and you see a girl just… You’d be like, “Oh, no. Hope she gets home okay.” The dances on TikTok were never sexy independent of the app of TikTok. Let’s put this into some scene work. Before we get in the scene work, I just want to acknowledge this is my sixth Netflix special, and I built a career…
[cheering]
Good night. I’ve built a career the last five specials talking to people in general, but I always want girls to feel good, to know that I’m on their side. Yeah, I want you to do well. Yeah. But, boys, that doesn’t mean I’m not on your side. I’m on no one’s side. I want everyone to do well. And, boys, I want you to have the information and the wisdom nuggets that girls have, because I believe you are half the problem. So come along, let me teach you. It occurs to me now, I’m 39. I’m an elder millennial. I’m a mother. I have information. I remember dating, why waste all this information? So, this is for the young men in the crowd. We’re talking 30, younger, okay? The rest of you boys will die set in your ways, okay? For the young one. And the older guys are fine, they’re like, “Yeah, come and take it.” Okay.
The younger ones, give me your squishy brains and let me help you, okay? Let me give you some pearls of wisdom to make it easier with the girls. So, the dancing on TikTok was never sexy independent of the app of TikTok. Gentlemen, let’s say you get a girl to go home with you. You get a girl to go back to your apartment by the grace of God, and you bring her back. You should know, boys, first of all, you get naked so fast. You’re like, “Do you wanna have sex?” The girl agrees, you sign the contract. It’s all good, NDA, done. She has barely even said, like, “Okay,” and you’re like, “You ready?” It’s like, “Is this America’s Got Talent?” Like, quick change, naked. Uh-oh. Is that made of Velcro? You get naked so fast, and then it’s uncomfortable because we’re sitting there as women, like, barely taking off our overalls. Like, “Oh, my God,” and you are naked, trying to make us comfortable, like, “Did you want a snack?” or… “You want soup?” “I have a cup of soup in the car.” While we appreciate that, you should know that’s uncomfortable because there’s us, half-naked in the corner, nervous. You are hovering over us, naked, trying to give us food. It feels like we’ve been kidnapped. “I promise you’re gonna like it here.” Okay. Getting naked should be a seductive dance, a back and forth. I take off my blouse, you take off your blouse. I wonder why he’s wearing a blouse, whatever. Back and forth. Instead, girls get nervous. Like, “Oh, don’t look.” “I know you’re going to be inside me soon, but don’t look at me naked.” He doesn’t care. “But I didn’t shave here.” He will rip it out with his teeth, he doesn’t fuckin’ care. Have some confidence.
Men have Sasquatch bodies, and they’re like, “Isn’t it perfection?” And we’re… sculpted like, “I’m hideous! Oh, I didn’t shave my legs!” He doesn’t even know you have legs! He loves ya. Now you’re going to get in bed. Gentlemen, this is important. The way in which one gets into the bed, okay? ‘Tis a dance. When you prepare the bed, it should require multiple gestures of pulling back multiple sheetsss. Ssss! [whooshing] Sheet, top sheet, duvet, duvet cover, comforter, nano-blanket, teddy bear. Multiple. It’s a workout, not you grabbing a crusty sleeping bag, like, “Get it over.” “Who sprayed this down with Febreze? This is normally in the duck blind.” Ohio likes that one. “Yeah, we go huntin’.”
And then the way you get into the bed, boys. This is paramount, okay? When you get in bed, it should be a simple motion, it’s just… [whoosh] …and then it’s… [pop] …and then one leg and then the other, okay? Now, what I’m about to paint for you is a memory that a lot of women have suppressed, and I’m gonna say it, and you’re gonna be like, “Oh, my God, Tom!” Like it’s… Boys, you get so excited that we’re gonna have sex. The girl’s trying to go to the bathroom, the guy’s like, “I’ll meet you in bed.” And then we see you hop into bed. Never. Don’t get giddy, okay? This is a serious sexual experience. I don’t want to see, “I’m Peter Pan!” We never want to see… “Yippity-skippity!” We never want to see you fawnlike, like, “Oh, I’m dainty,” in the bed, okay?
In my life, I’ve never been naked and had both feet leave the ground. Do you know how big that spider would have to be for me to just forget about physics? That spider would have to have a gun. Like, “Dance!” No! And now I’m going to say this. This is indelicate, but it bears being said. Gentlemen, when you “yippy-skippy” into the bed, you know, you’ve got to clear the mattress so the human body naturally rounds, your spine naturally rounds, and you hunch over to dive in, and I’m just gonna say it, “We can see your butthole.” Don’t want to see that. That’s not nice, okay? I just ruined so many rides home tonight. “Did you see my butthole?” “Susan, did you see my asshole? I need to know!” Don’t make us see that. That’s a lot to reckon with, okay? As it is, we’re fine with your body. We don’t want to see… It’s too intimate. We don’t even know how much we like you. We don’t even know if we’re going to be together. We already know the sex will most likely be mediocre for the girl. And then if she accidentally gets pregnant, depending on the state, she will be forced to carry that child to term.
[cheering and applause]
Just so we’re clear and it’s on record, fiercely pro-choice. There is no other way to be, and if you want to…
[cheering]
Oh, yeah. I hope this goes around the world. And if you, for whatever reason your heart desires, you want to keep your baby, that is fine, I want you to keep your baby. Just don’t make that choice for other women, okay? Okay. Okay. Back to the butthole jokes. So… He’s in bed. He buttholed, he daintied. He’s in the bed, the girl’s in the bathroom. The premise of this joke, gentlemen, is TikTok dances are not sexual independent of the app of TikTok. The dances are not sexy. It would be weird for you boys. You’re in your weird bed, and the girl comes out and she’s fully naked, and she’s just like… He’s like, “You look good. Why don’t you get in bed?” “Oh, I’m going to.” “But first… I’m going to seduce you… …with a dance from TikTok!” Remember, there’s no music. There are no filters. Just you guttural breathing to an eight-count, like, “One, two, three, four!” Tits swinging like an orangutan. The 20-year-olds are like, “Those aren’t the dances.” Every guy in here is like, “I mean… not not hot.” “You are a woman breathing in my apartment, so… wouldn’t kick you out of bed, just wondered how long you were gonna stay.”
So I do have a little girl, and I love her more than life itself. One of the weird parts about being pregnant are the mental hurdles. One of them is that you have to accept that you’re going to gain weight, which, if you’re a woman, you’ve been taught that’s an unforgivable sin, right? Whatever weight you were at 12, you’ve got to spend your life trying to get back to that. You’re gonna gain weight, you’re gonna need new clothes.
I didn’t buy maternity clothes, I just wore leggings and T-shirts, but you got to get new underwear, new big-girl underwear, that’s right. And you’ve got to get a new bra. And I will tell you what, that was mentally very difficult. Because a woman’s relationship with her bra, particularly the ugly one, is sacred, all right? Every girl has an ugly bra. That’s right, every girl. I believe it’s what unifies every woman on this planet. We all got an ugly bra, and the bigger your boobs are, the uglier that bra is. That’s right. Every girl’s got an ugly bra. It’s the longest relationship you’ve ever been in. She is battle worn. Every man in this crowd is like, “I seen that bra.” I woke up the other night, bra was looking at me like, “Get out of here, motherfucker!” People don’t understand our connection to ugly bra. Like, “Why don’t you get rid of her? She’s so ugly.” And we’re like, “‘Cause she does me right and she’s a hard worker.” “She’s loyal.” The bigger your boobs are, the uglier that bra is. There’s some truth for you, yeah. If you’re working with anything over a C cup, I got you. I know that pain, I know how hideous our bras are, okay? So you are my people. Anything… and I know. People are like, “You’ve got big boobs, is that hard?” It fuckin’ is, okay? They gaslight you, that’s right. There’s where all the big tits are, yeah. The world wants you to have giant knockers, and then when you do, they give you no infrastructure to support them. All we want are cute bras. Instead they’re like, “Here’s a Soviet era wind sock.” “Just strap it on and help plow.” “Just do it.” You never got to wear the cute bras. Remember when you were a teenager? By the way, if you have smaller breasts, an A cup or a B cup, this is size-inclusive, but you don’t know! You don’t know what it was like being friends with you, and your girlfriends are like, “Let’s go to the mall.” Remember malls? And you go and they say, “Let’s go get cute bras at Abercrombie.” Remember Abercrombie? And you’d go with them, and they’re running forward, and you’re carrying around your grown woman divorcée chest. Like, “Wait for me!” “Can’t run, I’m not wearing two sports bras, I’m coming.”
They’re all trying on cute bras, playing slap tickle. You’re just sitting there eating a slice from Sbarro. Like… “My mom’s getting me at two. I’ll just be here.” They’d have the cutest bras. I always wanted the cute bras. None for you. They’d come out cute. “Look at this one, it’s made of moose felt. Mmm.” “Mm. So bucolic. Look at this one, it’s got hearts on it.” “This one’s got little kisses on it.” “I’m a child. Isn’t it so cute?” “Aww! This one’s got feathers.” “This one’s just two contact lenses and dental floss.” “Bouncy.” Not me! Not me and every other big-breasted girl. We were getting hauled into some back-alley discount van where some Eastern European woman named Loretta is gonna hand-fit you, scoop each breast into its own personal hurt locker and jiggle your tits around in front of your mother! Just sitting there. You’ve never even made out with a boy. She’s just grabbing at you like, “How does this feel?” You’re like, “I’m kind of turned on. I don’t know!”
Ugly bra comes in one color. And I can only describe it as like a gray beige. Like, if clammy were a color. Like, I don’t know whose skin tone they’re matching, but it’s offensive. Who looks like that? It’s like a drowned Caucasian. It’s just… no life to it. And sometimes, to put lipstick on that pig, they’ll take a thread of the same pukey color and they’ll sew in a floral scape, like, “Oh, thank you.” “Yeah, someone brought me flowers. Thank you.” “Oh, a rose, but the death of my self-esteem.” “Thank you so much.”
Sometimes to gussy it up, they’ll put a little gold coin here. Who is that for? The guy’s already pumped to be there. What guy takes off her shirt, he’s like, “Jackpot, yeah”? “Ch-ching!” “Oh, El Dorado. I have riches for my lifetime.” I got one ugly bra that had a ruby, a ruby, right here. What the fuck, am I a troll doll? Why? Ugly bra comes in that one color. I think the part that adds insult to injury are the thick straps. “Thick-ass strap.” No girl wants that. No girl wants thick straps. As you get older or if you’re pregnant, you want the support, but when you’re younger, you don’t fuckin’ want that. I want a licorice whip, that’s it, tiny. Just a… [blows] …whisper of… You don’t want the thick straps, and you know what? You look at any magazine, any fashion shoot, and in movies, there’s all these girls with huge boobs and they Photoshop out the straps. They don’t want you to see that fuckin’ harness holding it all up. They know no one wants to see a model with a backstrap of bacon. They know… Girls in movies, the ingenue, she’s got big boobs and she’s running, and it’s always like a tank top, and the tank top’s always falling, right? We like our women half-dressed and distressed. Just like, “Oh, my God, I dropped everything.” “I’m such a klutz. Oops. Tank top fall. Mm.” “Ooh, it’s a clove cigarette, I’m complex. How am I gonna…” And then the bra strap falls down. “Mm, I’m a riddle.” “Oh! I work at a café one day a week.”
In my life, my bra strap has never fallen down. This thing clocks in for a union job at 9 a.m. Works a 12-hour shift as a tension bridge. It’s not fallen down, okay? If my bra strap fell down, the next thing you’d hear is like, “Oh, fuck!” “I’m taking my things and I’m leaving, thank you.” You never see a hot girl, tank top strap falls down, and there’s just a seat belt. You never see it. Why those straps got to be so thick? In case I need to, what, pull an apple cart to market? I toured Europe and did that joke in Hungary, and they were like, [Hungarian accent] “Yes, woman needs to help.” The hooks are also a nightmare. Multiple hooks, okay? Anything over three hooks is not a bra, it is an ADT interlocking security approach. [imitating static] [robotically] “Enter passcode.” Nobody wants all those hooks. No girl wants multiple hooks, because after three hooks, it’s not even a bra, it’s a brassiere, and it’s a full approach. Every girl wants a bralette, that’s what every girl wants. The cute, like, fart of a bra, that’s what you want. Boys, I know, I’ve lost you. You’re like, “What the fuck is a bralette”? “Why is she speaking French?”
I got you. A bralette is a butterfly burp of an undergarment. It’s not even a bra, it’s just two hummingbirds, one under each nipple. Just two cat whiskers holding the back together. It’s… [blows] …bralette! That’s what that is. Multiple hooks are a nightmare. You could hurt yourself. Why is it that the hardest thing in the world to do is when you get out of the shower and your skin is damp and you connect the hooks here… Help! Shredding your clavicle. “So, why are you in hospice care?” “Well, I pulled a back muscle putting on my bra, and I think it’s over.”
Multiple hooks bother me. And I was thinking about it, like, why is this so triggering? And it goes all the way back to being a teenager, like most things, okay? Remember the first time you seriously made out with a boy, Ohio? So, what, 12, I don’t know. Remember the first time? Oh, I can go lower. Yeah, I’ve played Louisiana, we can go into the single digits. We’ll put it at a 16. We’ll put it at a nice, healthy “Jack & Diane,” all-American 16, okay?
The first time you, like, really made out with a boy, right? You’re making out with him. You know, as the girl, you are harboring that secret. You know the multiple hook situation. You know the Rubik’s Cube of nylon and nickel that’s back there. That’s a fuckin’ cloth LSAT he’s going to have to pass. You know what’s back there. The boy has no idea, why would he? He’s never seen a bra before. All he knows is, “I caught a big one.” Like, he’s just excited. You know he’s going to have to contend with that, and you’re keeping that secret, like a bridge troll guarding a secret. Like, [high-pitched] “If you can solve these riddles three… …naked for you I shall be.”
And you know it’s back there, and there’s that moment, there’s that moment where you’re making out, right? And he pulls away, and you’re like, “It’s time.” And he’s like, “Let’s do it. I need you.” “I fucking need this, Jeremy.” And he puts his head here. He pulls away from kissing so he can look over your back and look down at his work. Of course he has to look at your back, of course he needs his eyes on his paper. He can’t do that for the first time, sight unseen… [speaking gibberish] He can’t do that. “Yippity-skippity.”
He can’t do that. No man has the natural dexterity of a doll brain surgeon. Why would you be able to intricately have that gorilla grip, to expand, contract? Why would you know? I know, all the lesbians are like, “We figured it out.” By the way, gentlemen, we want you to get it. We don’t want you to be embarrassed. No woman worth her salt wants that. We want you to succeed, right? We want you to take off our bras, and by the way, boys, that is your role. That is your job, to take off her bra. And this has nothing to do with feminism or gender roles. It has everything to do with no woman wanting to make this face. [ululates] “How was the date?” “It was great and then she flew out of the sunroof.” “We were making out in an Ultima.”
And so there’s that moment where, like, he pulls away and he puts his head here, but you’ve never made out with a boy, and now you’re just a head floating on his shoulder. Like, “What do I do?” You can’t, like, “You got it, Trey.” “Keep going, Steven.” You can’t say anything, so you start kissing his shoulder, like… “You can do it! I don’t know…” “My curfew’s in ten minutes.” “I need to be shirtless in the back of my mom’s Maxima. Hurry!” And you watch as his little monkey paw goes behind your back. And you’re a young girl, and you don’t know you’re about to come in contact with your first lesson in male fragility. Because the hand goes behind the back, and he’s focused and it’s silent. And then for us girls, the next thing we hear is just… [inhales sharply] [low-pitched] “Motherfucker!” [high-pitched] “Calm down.”
Unnecessary to have so many hooks. Unnecessary. I did that joke in Portugal, and this woman comes up to me after the show, and she was like 5’5″, and she comes up, this little old lady. There was no security, she just walked right up, and she just… She goes… [speaking gibberish] I was like, “Yes? Hello?” And she just goes, “I have six hook and never tell no one.” [whoosh] I’m like, “Catch her, grab her jewel.” You don’t need all the hooks, and I’ll tell you why. When you go home tonight and you take off your bra, you’ll notice only one hook is doing the work. ‘Cause these things aren’t structurally sound. It’s that middle hook that’s been stripped of its paint. The hook and eye are so warped, it looks like God touching man. [groans]
Ugly bra’s important. It’s an important bond. Brought ugly bra on a recent trip, um… You know, the world opened in the last year or so, and I think I’m like a lot of people in that, when you had the chance to take a trip, you were like, “We gotta fuckin’ go.” “Pack the toothbrush, let’s go.” So we took, like, a anniversary, post-baby, babymoon, birth-iversary, work is hard, mix it all together, “we never take a vacation” trip. We went to Italy, and I’m going to admit something that no woman has ever admitted before, here I go. Um… we did not have a great vacation, and… it was my fault. [gasps]
[applause]
Thank you so much, good night. No, it was my fault. But here’s why it wasn’t my fault. I don’t know. Are you… a person who works? Are you a woman who works? Do you have a family? Do you have a passion in this world? Yeah.
[cheering]
Are you fucking tired? And not just tired from work, tired from living up to the expectations of everybody who comes in contact with you? It is exhausting. We need a break, and we’re always champion, like, “Oh, keep working,” and then it’s a joke when you’re tired, like, “Oh, my wife doesn’t want to have sex, she’s tired.” Not just tired, she wants to be dead for a week. She wants to be put in a medically induced coma, if, for nothing else, just to get rid of these bags so people stop asking her why she looks so tired.
Yeah, I had just had a baby. I shouldn’t have gone, but I was like, “Get it while the gettin’ is good.” Body was different, mind was different. Exhausted from work, stressed out. Allergies, feeling nauseous. I think I took too much Ambien. Is anyone regulating this? And we get there, jet-lagged, and I am miserable. And to make it worse, everybody there, all the girls were like 25. “From Michigan!” And they were all, like, [like valley girl] “on their honeymoons with their baseball player husbands named Coleton.” “Hey!” “Coleton, come here.” “I’m flawless. Coleton.” “Blixly, Brangin, come here.” “Crackin’, come here.”
What are we doing with these names, America? Like, why mess with normal names? No one thinks we’re from old-line British money. “Like, Huxton.” I’m sorry, are you a hotel lobby? What are these words? “Blisten, Blixon, Dasher, Dancer.” “Braxton, Higgs, Contraction, come here.” “Tinkle, come here, Triscuit. I married a kitten.” “Come here!” “Tinkle. I’m in a romper. Let’s take a picture.” Romping! Romping with Tinkle. Ruff! Boys, I know, again, I got you. “What the fuck is a romper?” I got you. Let me explain. A romper is a garment made for a toddler…
[cheering and applause]
…that, because of our society’s obsession with infantilizing women, we have convinced grown adult women that they need to wear, okay? Not one woman has ever put on a romper and then said, “And there’s so much room in the crotch.” I think it’s all a part of a giant plan to keep women down. Like, you’ll have CEOs, mothers, businesswomen walking into meetings, like, “Thank you for waiting.” Just tugging at it. You got to be smart to wear a romper, I hope you know that. You do. It’s a puzzle. ‘Cause there’s only enough cloth to cover one set of genitals adequately. Like, you can cover your nipples, but, Cleveland, your south mouth is out. Okay? It’s gonna be out. I’m a woman. When I put on my clothes, I should not have to decide if I’m going to dress to the left or the right. They’re all in rompers having the best time, and all the Italian women were stunning. Olive skin, designer outfits, wearing six-inch heels. Fuckin’ killing it on ancient cobblestone walkways, not missing a beat. Sitting there in fartable Umbros and orthotics, just eating. I’m just like, “It’s called parmesan. We’ll never see this cheese again.” “We should have it now.” “Load ‘er up on my bra, and I’ll pull it back to the hotel.” “It’s duty-free if you eat all of it.”
Those women were so beautiful, and I would just look at them, snorting ham. And I would just be like, “You girls are so beautiful.” “This food here is so good. How are you not a thousand pounds?” And they would look at me and they would just be like… [blows out emphatically] “Because we smoke cigarette.” “We do not eat processed corn for every meal.” “American, you are disgusty.”
And she was right. I was disgusty. But not of body, of heart and mind. I was feeling so bad for myself. Then I started to feel bad about how bad I was making myself feel. And if you’re like me, when I’m in a bad mood, nothing makes me feel better than dragging everyone down. Then I started to get mad at myself because I would look at these beautiful girls, who hadn’t just had a baby, and I would be like, “They’re making me feel bad about myself.”
Which is insane, okay? They’re not making you feel anything. And it’s okay, it’s okay to look at other women and decide what you like about them that you might want for yourself, okay? And society will label you competitive, a word that we reserve as a positive for male CEOs, male athletes, and men in general, but if a woman makes herself better, “She’s competitive.” “Sit the fuck down.” It’s normal, it’s intelligent. It’s called fucking adapting. It’s called evolution. When I look at another girl, it’s not about disdain for her, it’s about looking at her and thinking, “What about you do I want to try for me?”
That’s what we do. You are constantly… It’s a goose. You are constantly… okay. You are constantly submarine sonaring yourself off of other women. That’s how you improve. Life is not a vacuum. You have to take in everything around you. [imitating sonar emissions] “She has bangs, should I get bangs? Remember the 2000s? Don’t do it.” “She’s wearing a mustard jumper. Should I…” “No, mustard doesn’t look good on white people.” “Low-rise jeans? No, you just had a baby.” “High-waisted, elder millennial black-denim-till-you-fuckin’-die, sister.”
Every girl does it. Admit it. Every girl does it. Don’t believe women that are like, “I don’t judge other women.” Yes, you do, and I judge you for lying about it, how’s that? It’s okay. It’s okay to even have a bad thought. Don’t share it, don’t be a fuckin’ monster. Every girl does that. You leave your house feeling great. You’re thriving, right? You just did, like, ten minutes of yoga, mostly Shavasana, but you still did it. You made a recipe for a green matcha oat latte you saw on TikTok. So you did that. And you’re feeling so good, right? You leave your house like, “I feel so lean, so good.”
You see another girl, maybe she’s not the cutest, right? Maybe she has her own hermit crab shell. Who knows? At least she’s a homeowner, who knows? You see another girl, and for the quickest of seconds, you judge her. You’re like, “She’s not too cute.” Maybe she’s not. Maybe she’s wearing boot-cut jeans and wedges, who knows? Oh, my God, Cleveland, that’s bad, okay? We’ll cut that part. You see her and… It was bad. But you see another girl, and for the quickest of seconds, you’re just like, “Oh, she’s so cute, she’s trying. Mm.” “Why does she bother? I look so good. Oh.” And then you turn the corner and see one of those hot girls in the butterfly fart bras, and she looks beautiful even when she cries, and you’re like, “Why do I bother?!” [groaning] “Return me to the sea.” “Let my body break down into fossil fuels that I may fuel the yachts of hotter people.”
Your partner just wants you to feel good, right? Your husband, your boyfriend, they want you to feel good. They don’t understand the complexity of self-loathing when it comes to being a girl. They don’t understand that everything is attached and nothing is an isolated incident, right? Men are able to compartmentalize, but they are simple. And I envy that. A guy can look at weight gain like an isolated thing. [low-pitched] “Well, I gained weight.” “Better remedy that with some bigger pants.” “Here we go.” “To the Dillard’s.” Not that simple for girls, is it? ‘Cause when we gain weight, it’s never just about the weight. Is it? No. It’s attached to many things because everything is everything and it’s all happening at once. “I gain weight because I don’t have a work/life balance because I hate my fucking job because I didn’t get the job I wanted because I didn’t go to school because the guy I was dating didn’t encourage me and I always date the wrong men.”
That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s about. We are constantly beating ourselves up as women, and we are constantly feeling bad. And then I started to feel bad about the fact that we feel bad, and I started to think on the fact that we have a mental illness in this country where, as totally normal women, we just feel bad about ourselves, or we just feel gross. At least once a day, if you’re an American woman, you will utter the phrase, out loud or to yourself, “I just feel so gross.” For what? For sweating? For working out, for not working out? For feeding yourself? For having sex? Okay, that one, I don’t know. He might be… They might be… To burn off the whole arm. Okay. It’s easy to stand here and say that. However, counterpoint. You know when you’re eating and you take, like, one extra bite too much and you can feel yourself gain weight because your bra gets tight? You know what I’m talking about?
[cheering]
I call it “the thickening.” And, boys, you need to know about the thickening because so many of our behaviors as women, you’re like, “She just went crazy, everything was fine.” No, ’twas the thickening. It’s not you. You brought over a nice meal. It’s not your fault. The girl’s sitting there, “I’m having the best time,” and… Poof! [low-pitched] “Uh-oh!” “Get me out of here!” And you should know, once the thickening happens, it’s over, and it’s nothing you did. We need to go to a safe space and eat more food, okay? That’s what the thickening is. She’s not horny. You’ve got to get her out of there. No woman’s ever been like, “I just feel so gross.” “Let’s fuck it out of me!” It’s over. Give it a beat. I was feeling so bad about myself and so mad at myself and just awful, and my husband looks at me and he goes, “Well, I think you’re beautiful.”
[audience] Aww!
[growling] [low-pitched] “It’s not about what you think!” “It’s between me and her, and she doesn’t even know it!” And every night we’d go to bed, I would kiss my husband good night, and I would say, “I love you.” My husband would say, “I love you too.” And I would say, “Okay.” “Go to sleep.” And he’d roll over and he’d go to bed, and I’d roll over and stare at the door. Where bra would be hanging. And I’d look at her and she at me. And I’d whisper to her. And I’d say, “I love you.” And bra would look back at me and she’d say, [straining voice] “Let me die!” “I served you well.” “My cups runneth over.” “Seriously, you need to go up a band size.” And I’d say, “Please, don’t go.” “You could at least wash me!” I’m like, “I need you now more than ever.” “I can be useful in other ways.” “You can carry your jewelry in my cups.” “I could be stuffed into the shoe to keep its form.”
It was like the end of The Giving Tree. “Cut off my straps and make me into a necklace for a village cat.” Only been married for four years, but in that short time, I have figured out what marriage is. Notice how everyone’s silent. All the long-haulers are like, “Let’s hear it, missy!” Marriage is, every morning for the rest of your life, waking up next to someone and having to hear a full report of how that person slept. And if you don’t act like this information is new… …and interesting, you are a monster. My husband does not sleep well. I know my husband does not sleep well because I sleep next to my husband. But part of my wifely duties is, every morning, I must play the part. I must get into character. I wake up, I see him. [exhales sharply] [wavering voice] “Oh!” “How did you sleep… …milord?” “Seems you’ve grown a tail.” Then my husband plays his part. “Who, me?” “Ohh!” “Not well.” And then I’m like, “Oh.” “That’s fascinating.” “Hmm. What could we do with this brand-new problem?” “Do you think you maybe, finally, want to see a medical doctor… …before I kill you?!”
I don’t talk about my husband a ton in my act, but I did that joke for the first time a few weeks ago and he was on tour with me, and I came off-stage, I was like, [apologetically] “Is that okay?” And my husband was like, “No, it’s great.” “It’s great, it’s cool.” “It’s just really cool how only one of us has a microphone.” I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Like you never repeat yourself?” I’m like, “What do I repeat?” He’s like, “How many times a night do you yell at me to look at the dog?” “She’s a dog, and she’s naked. Look at her!” “Look at… she sleeps between my feet, I see her.” “She has tail and mouth.” “She has perfect nose-to-mouth ratio, one-to-one, never seen before.” “She’s just baby.” He’s like, “You know, we have a real baby.” “But this one has four feet!” “You can kiss this one deep in the mouth, you will not go to jail.”
Don’t judge me. My husband has trouble sleeping. I actually have a little bit of trouble going to bed because, I don’t know if you’re like me, but I need to look at TikTok for six to eight hours before I… [high-pitched] Yeah! Oh, it’s my reward. I’m like, “I read a full paragraph of an actual book.” [high-pitched] Brrrrr! I will look at anything. I will Clockwork Orange my eyes open, and I will let it feed me conspiracy theories, ancient alien architecture, a Pomeranian in a raincoat, Taiwanese nail art, pizza-making tutorials, a duck walking across a deck. [imitating duck] I will look at lipless pit bulls, I don’t care.
The other day, I watched a thick couple in rural Illinois do a custody exchange in the parking lot of a Hobby Lobby… …to a Jason Derulo song. And I double-tapped for part two. I… watched these two thumbs get out of their matching cherry-red F-250, swap kids, and the dad looks at the camera like he’s hosting American Idol and goes, “We’re divorced but we co-parent. How do we do it?” I’m like, “Probably a court order, Zeke.” Double-tap, part three.
Then I watched them each get back into their truck next to their new spouse, who, let’s be honest, it’s the middle-of-nowhere America, looked identical to the melted vanilla pudding cup they left in the first place. Real lateral trade if you ask me. And then I double-tap for part four, it was a link to their family Etsy store. I bought a bandanna. Shop small, America.
My biggest issue with social media is the commodification of intangible things, right? The commodification of mental health, for example, okay? So, what do I mean by that, America? Well, I mean this. Whatever you’re dealing with, no matter how niche or huge what you’re dealing with is, there is someone who knows exactly what you’re going through. They’ve written papers on your issue and gone to school for it. They are called doctors, and I will tell you what, America, after these last few years, those are the only people from whom I would like to hear.
I don’t want your feelings to be facts, I’m not interested in alternative facts. I’m not interested in armchair psychology. I’m not interested in your trauma giving you the qualification to give some sort of medical advice, and don’t be so sure that the person on the other end of that TikTok actually cares about you. Remember, a look is a like, okay? A click is a like is a dollar. This is all being monetized, okay? So just be very careful because you don’t know who’s over there and what their intentions are. I only want to hear from doctors and scientists. I don’t want to hear from couples who think vanilla essential oils cure autism. I don’t want to hear from anyone who’s done their own “research,” personal facts, none of that. Because it finds you. You have to be clear about what you’re looking for, it will find you. You’re looking at those lipless bulldogs, like, “Baby needs a kiss on the mouth.” And they pop on like, “Hey there, just dropping in to remind you, make space for Grace.” You’re like, “Who the fuck is Grace?” Get out of here.
There’s always some girl named Cheyenne with a dream-catcher tattoo. Like, “Hey there, just dropping on to remind you you are safe on this page.” No shit I’m safe, I’m taking a dump in my own home. Get out of here!
Commodification of feminism is another one. To review, feminism is the idea that people should be treated equally. That’s it. It shouldn’t be politicized. And I understand that it has the prefix “fem,” so it’s like “ugh.” But in our third- and fourth-wave feminism, in an attempt to empower women, we’ve decided the best way to do that, to communicate with the masses, is to talk to women like they are fucking idiots. And we use a specific language. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen it in gift shops, you’ve seen it on thank-you cards, you’ve seen it on empowerment bags. You’ve seen this pejorative, infantilized, I call it “glitter speak.”
You’ve seen it, splayed across RBG totes and “Michelle Obama on a unicorn” wine bottles. You’ve seen this language. “Yes, sassy bitch, sassy A-F, work, queen.” “Yes, girl, twerk it, mama. Rosé all day.” “Thiccck with three c’s.” “Workin’ and twerkin’.” “Not an entrepreneur, a she-entrepreneur.” “Not a boss, a boss bitch.” “‘Cause it’s different than a regular boss, like a boy.” “Boss bitch, yes, twerk, queen mama, thick raccoon bitch, do-it-all-day, bubble-gum mama thing.” “Yes, queen, work, bitch.” “Slay all day, mama.”
They stole this language from Black gay trans drag queens and made it their own to sell you pencil bags. Who is this language good for? I don’t want to be a boss bitch. I don’t want be a bitch. That’s not nice. I want to be regular boss. You would be horrified if someone used this language in real life. So I don’t understand why we think it’s okay to just write it on everything. You’d be horrified, girls, if you were at work and your male boss went up to your male co-worker and was like, “Tom, good job.” “Keep it up, cowboy style, oorah,” and then… he turned to you and was like, “And to you, she-bitch… keep it up, thiccck-ass glitter queen.” “Yes, mama.” “Workin’ and twerkin’ on the weekend.” “Keep rewriting herstory, not history, right?” “You thick, juicy, empowered slut.”
Who wants that? We like the idea of empowering women. In theory, that’s a really nice idea, but in practice we’re still uncomfortable with the idea of a strong woman who makes money. We want to promote the idea, like, “Yes, work, get that money.” But when you do, when a woman is a capitalist, it’s like, “Well, how are you considering other women and the planet and the animals?” “What are you doing to make sure… Have you apologized lately?” “What are you doing to stay humble?”
We don’t like it when women are capitalists. We love it when men are unabashed and kicking in dicks. You ever see Realtor billboards outside, like in rural areas? It’s always some jackass in a ten-gallon hat and a gun, just like… [imitating gun cocking] “My name is Dan, and I’m the number-one Realtor on the south side of town.” “I’m Cowboy Dan and I will fuck your wife in your condo and sell it back to you with a 30% markup.” “Let’s do some paperwork.” “Come on, come here!” You never see that! [high-pitched] “Oh, Vigilante Dan! Oh, take all my money!”
You never see a woman, like, “My name’s Vicky, and I got a fat vagina and a pistol, and you can ride this vagina to savings!” You never see that. Ever.
And it’s easy for me to stand up here and tell you to be empowered and be strong, but we all know, when you’re a woman, the real world is very scary, and you will be dinged, you will be faulted for failing to not be perfect to everyone all the time. And what breaks my heart is that women can’t carry that strength all the time. And it breaks my heart when girls who really have done nothing get attacked. You go online, you see a girl, maybe she’s not the prettiest girl, right? And you know it took a lot for her to post a picture. And there’s always one comment from a private account, ’cause you know he’s brave… This poor girl took everything to post a picture, and it’s something about her weight or her gender or telling her to kill herself. “Why can’t you control yourself, you fat bitch?” Why can’t you control your thumbs, motherfucker, and just say nothing to this stranger? Ask any women in your life, you do not have to be famous for people to say vile things to you. It’s easy, we just say, “Just ignore it,” but you carry it with you.
By the way, I don’t think it’s the gentlemen that are here, because if you buy a ticket to see me, you’re very smart. You’re a good guy, you are. And I love you. If you don’t know who I am and your girlfriend dragged you here, I have your money. I’ve got great news for you boys. If you’re ever online and see a girl that you don’t like for whatever reason, you don’t like the shape of her body, the cut of her jib, the size of her tooth, she’s only got the one, whatever, great news for you, boys, you don’t have to fuck her. Isn’t that great? We don’t have that program set up yet. That’s right, you don’t have to fuck her. You don’t have to patronize her business, you don’t have to pay her any mind, you never have to see her again, ’cause you have the power to take your probably very small finger and… [blows] …scroll right on by. That’s all you gotta do. Don’t pay your pain forward. I wish that women could speak to men in real life with the impunity with which you speak to us online. That’s what I wish, I wish there was a federal holiday every day where I could just tee off, no physical repercussions. I could be walking with a girlfriend, and one of you walk by, and I’d be like, “That one, I’m having a bad day.” “I’m gonna go off.” And she’d be like, “Don’t do it, you don’t know him.” “That’s the whole point of this holiday. Hey!” “You, yeah. It’s thinning up here, we can all tell, fuck you.”
There is an anger toward women in our world, in our country. You can see it with the current legislation that’s being written. However, I wrote this joke before all this happened. Lucky for me, hating women is evergreen and so these jokes still work. But there is an anger toward women when they don’t give attention, a sexual experience, love, admiration, a conversation to an absolute stranger, and there can be deadly consequences for it. And that’s not her fault, but this is what happens.
Now is the portion where I bring it down in order to bring it back up, here we go. That kid that shot up the University of Santa Barbara a couple years ago… I know, it is hard to keep them straight, America, but this one was different, because this kid wrote a whole manifesto about how women don’t pay attention to him and don’t sleep with him and this is what they deserve. That guy that shot up that Asian strip mall in Atlanta, he had a whole interview about how women don’t sleep with him and he’s alone and this is what they deserve. So now this next part, I’m going to be as clear as possible, because this is a Netflix special, so what I say next will be translated into hundreds of languages, and I want to be succinct and I want to be loud and I want to be clear, so here we go.
[applause]
[cheering]
Gentlemen, if you are not having sex, and we’re not talking a dry spell, we’re not talking you’re a little shy, we’re not talking, “Your Aunt Sheila did a number on me, I gotta take a knee.” We’re not talking you swiped right, she had a tail. You didn’t know it till the Awesome Blossom came. We are talking, if you don’t have sex… and the narrative of your life is that you are not having sex because women are bitches, women are whores, you’re a nice guy and you deserve better… that is nature’s way of saying you should not be having sex, for you failed to adapt and evolve and there should be no more of your kind. If you can’t figure it out. And I understand, women cheer for that, most men do. Some men are reserved, I get it. I’m a girl, I’m not one of you. And you don’t know, “I don’t wanna cheer for that.” “Bros before hos, I’m leaving behind my guys.” “I can’t do that.” Yes, leave them! Leave the diseased portion of your herd that is broken. They’re giving you a bad name. We believe you are good. Come with us for snacks and sex and good-looking babies. And, gentlemen, if it still makes you uncomfortable, I get it. It might make you more comfortable to note that I stole that idea from a man named Charles Darwin. You can Wikipedia it, okay? It’s just evolution and adapting. Because here’s the truth, boys, it is so easy to get a girl. This is where I lose the women. You were on my side, “We’re outta here.”
It’s so easy to get a girl. By virtue of the fact that there are more women than men on this planet, it means the odds are [British accent] ever in your favor, okay? The fact that women are brainwashed into thinking that we lose value as we get older, that’s not true, but as we get older, our standards aren’t lowered, but they are negotiable. So, you can get in there.
And I know, I’m supposed to stand here and be like, “All women are fucking treasures,” and we are. “All women are She-Diva power bitches, that’s right.” “Diamonds in the muff.” “All women are delicate, beautiful flowers…” Some are. And some are total armadillos. And, boys, get you an armadillo. You get you a fully loaded armadilly with a CD changer and everything. Get in there. So many girls are like, “Am I an armadillo?” No. I’m afraid that when I say that, I’m gonna see that back door open and I’m just gonna see a shell and a tail. “I did not drive in all the way from Toledo to be told…”
It is so easy to get a girl, gentlemen. All you got to do is show up. Just be good at… something. Women love a man with a purpose, even if it’s a dumb one. “I love model trains.” Like, “I’m there.” A girl… it doesn’t matter. He’s got a passion, it could be anything. You know what? Even fishing, someone will take you. Some woman will be like, “I’ll take him. So, is that a wide-mouth you caught?” “I can look at your Instagram where you’re holding all of them? I can’t wait.” You could be good at anything. You could be smart, that’s always a plus. You could be rich, obviously, good-looking, good at math. You could be nice. Turns out that’s attractive. Like, later in life. I know, men don’t… “I don’t want to be nice, I’m Rambo!” “I’m a badass. I don’t want to be nice.” “Nice guys finish last.” Yes. But at least they finish. You could be good with computers, you could be funny. – You could, honestly…
[bottle rattles]
You could be an alcoholic. You could be… Some girls like to party. You can be shy, that’s kind of cute. You can be nerdy. Some dorkstress. “I will roll the eight-sided die with thee.” Like, whatever. Honestly, sometimes you could just be tall. Like, for a little while, that’s enough. You could just be tall. All the 5’10” guys are like, “Fuck you, motherfucker, you could be tall.” “Try me alone, come here!” You could just be tall. You see the way girls’ eyes light up? “Tell us about your boyfriend.” [like valley girl] “Coleton, okay, well, he’s tall!” “Coleton, stand in the Zoom ’cause I want my family to see how tall you are, especially my sister, ’cause she’s a bitch, come here.” “Stand in the Zoom. Stand next to me.” [microphone thuds] [mouthing words] “Stop it.” “Put on a fucking towel, stop it.” “I’m not looking at that, stop it!” “Because the whole audience doesn’t realize it’s a dick, stop it!”
You can get a girl, boys. Magicians have girlfriends. I’m not even talking like David Blaine, multimillionaire Vegas magician. We’re talking some guy doing sleight of hand at a bar mitzvah. He’s got a girl waiting in his Ultima in the parking lot. “That’s my baby!” In closing, been married for four years. I’m 39 years old. We have a beautiful little girl who just turned six months old. And before we had that beautiful little girl, about a year before, we thought we were going to have a baby and we had a miscarriage. And I don’t tell you that to garner sympathy or make anyone sad or bring the room down, Cleveland. I only tell you I had a miscarriage because I have a microphone, and we don’t talk about these things.
[applause]
And I’m not embarrassed about it. And maybe if we did talk about these things, maybe if we normalized these discussions, maybe if all discussions about women’s bodies weren’t hidden under a stack of cash, under a Bible, under a federal building, maybe…
[cheering]
If this happens to you, because it happens to three out of every ten women, it’s not that it would take the sting out of it, but you would know you’re part of a large group. You did nothing wrong. You’re not weird. You’re not bad. You certainly shouldn’t be prosecuted for it.
[cheering]
And you’ll be okay. But it wasn’t until I got pregnant that first time that I became personally in tune with how often women are asked about children. Prior to that, no one had ever asked me about children because I’m a stand-up comic. “Well, you’ll just die in a clown suit somewhere on a regional flight, won’t you?” But I realize how often people ask women about this, I didn’t get that before. Now, it’s totally normal and innocuous to ask a woman, “Do you have kids?” It’s an okay thing to ask because we’ll call it traditional. Someone had kids, that’s why we’re all in this room. It’s totally traditional for two humans regardless of gender to put their bodies together and then, through means of sex, science, or trade… …acquire smaller humans that they then put in their home and then subsequently put to work. Okay. That’s what’s done. It’s a little less traditional to be like, “We’re in a throuple and this is our tortoise.”
But okay. However, you ask a woman, “Do you have kids?” and she says no, if she doesn’t continue that conversation, that’s not her in need of prompting. “Do you want kids?” She has her answer, she was just drawing a boundary. There’s no more information. We have to be okay with that. She has her answer and she’s thought a lot about it, and it’s personal to her, and that answer is somewhere in the realm of, “Yes, we do have kids.” “They’re weird-looking.” “Yes, we want them, we’re working on it, we’re fucking real hard.” “We’re not sure, it’s expensive, something’s wrong with me.” “More likely something wrong with him, we don’t know.” “Unclear, future’s uncertain, come back later,” or, “Fuck no, we love our tortoise.”
Whatever the answer is. Whatever the answer, I promise you her answer is never that she forgot and thank God she ran into you at the dry cleaner’s. Because, Cleveland, I think it speaks to the constant conversations about women, rarely to our betterment, often to our detriment, and the misinformation and disinformation about vaginas, okay? Remember, there’s a lot of people making a lot of money off of you feeling bad about what’s normal about you, okay? We don’t have to make this political, we already did, but we can keep this social. We’ll keep it in pop culture, right?
We’ll talk about all the things that we hear about this idea that she’s gotta keep it tight, right? “A loose woman”? You gotta keep it tight? Let’s put this to rest. ‘Tis tight! It’s tight. I understand if she’s had several children, it may not be that tight, but chances are, if she’s had several children, a tight vagina ain’t at the top of her priority list, okay? It’s tight enough. Work your pelvic core for your own health. But let’s put it this way, gentlemen. It’s tight enough for you and your five inches of fury, okay? Which is plenty. What’s with making women feel so insecure? How tight do you need it, boys? Are you fucking a dolphin blowhole? You’re fine. All right? You’re gonna have a good time.
This idea that it tastes like candy. No candy! No candy for you! It’s a vagina, it’s a body part, okay? At its finest, it might be, what, a little metallic? I don’t fuckin’ know. Why would it taste like candy? What other part of your body are you like, “That is Ripple”? Like, it’s not… Girls are gonna feel bad that it doesn’t taste like candy, and you shouldn’t make it taste like candy, you’re gonna make it sick. That’s a problem. Makes girls feel bad. If he comes up from down there, like, “Green apple Jolly Rancher,” you better call an ambulance. Something went wrong.
Then finally, this idea, the stigma, that you have to keep it clean. No! The vagina is self-cleaning. Okay? Leave it alone. Yeah, there’s a small chance you’re sick and you have to see a doctor, but for the most part, it is clean. You know what isn’t clean? Your penis. Yeah. I see you put it anywhere just for funsies, yeah. Don’t be tracking that through my house. Yeah. Okay? It’s clean. You don’t need to do anything to it. It has its own ecosystem, okay? You don’t need to clean it. You don’t need to put a Glade plug-in, okay? You don’t need to steam it, Gwyneth! You don’t need to vacuum it. It’s not the back seat of a Mazda. It’s clean! Okay? The vagina is its own ecosystem. The vagina has its own pH balance. That’s why it has its own smell and its own temperature. Your vagina, Cleveland, is like a rain forest in that it is dangerous, it could kill you, it is damp, and it needs government protection. Thank you so much for coming out tonight.
[cheering and applause]
[TimaLikesMusic playing “Party Goblin”]
