How to be Sexually Confident with Mae Martin
January 26, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, everybody, thanks for coming back to We Can Do Hard Things, we’re going to jump right in because we’re very excited about the person who is with us today. Mae Martin is an award-winning comedian, actor, writer, and producer who can be seen starring in Feel Good, which we freaking loved, which they also created and co-wrote. Mae is currently in development with Programmed for Netflix and stars in season two of The Flight Attendant, so cool, on HBO Max. Mae Martin’s Guide To series about sexuality and addiction are available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Mae is also the author of Can Everyone Please Calm Down? A Guide to 21st Century Sexuality.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Glennon Doyle:
Which our family has been going through a hilarious family class for the last month. Welcome, Mae, thanks for coming on We Can Do Hard Things.
Mae Martin:
Thanks for having me, it’s so nice to meet you all.
Glennon Doyle:
This is my wife, Abby.
Mae Martin:
Hi.
Glennon Doyle:
This is my sister, Amanda, and you all know, this is Mae. So we have so much to ask you about, but we want to start with sexuality, because that’s just an easy subject we can just get out of the way real quick and.
Mae Martin:
It’s just a light…
Abby Wambach:
Easy breezy.
Mae Martin:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and also just because we enjoyed your book so much. Let’s start by talking about why we should talk about sexuality, because I loved your point, which is really, sexuality is for everybody, not just queer people, and the poor straight people never get to talk about their sexuality because it is always seen as something that is just for queer people, but you say in the book, which I love, that gender preferences are the least important part of sexuality, there’s a lot of other parts.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, that’s been my experience. And definitely even regardless of how you identify, you’re rarely attracted to an entire gender, it’s to do with pheromones or the way people laugh, I have very specific criteria.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, you do.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I think people often forget that it’s not just queer people that have a sexuality.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, so some of these-
Amanda Doyle:
As the token hetero on this pod, I will I affirm that it didn’t occur to me, we even did one on sexuality and I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ll just listen to that one, I don’t have-“
Mae Martin:
Yes, I know, that’s insane, right? I think it’s because queer people are asked to communicate about it a lot more, and to defend it, and explain it a lot more, so it feels like a much bigger part of our identity when really, it should be just one small part or it should be the same size as your part.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, so this is what we’re talking about. Okay, these are some examples of Mae’s sexuality as of a few years ago.
Mae Martin:
Oh, God, right, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Mae really loves Winkers, okay?
Mae Martin:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s W-I-N-K-E-R-S. Mae loves people who wink at them incessantly or something, also-
Amanda Doyle:
Probably strategically. Probably not incessantly.
Glennon Doyle:
I would guess.
Mae Martin:
Incessantly, I’d call an ambulance for them, but yeah, I love it. I think it’s the confidence, I know it’s old school, but a wink is… Maybe I just like attention, and so it’s very direct attention of someone going, “I’m giving you attention,” and I love a wink. I can’t do it, maybe that’s part of it too, I’m a terrible winker, but a subtle quick wink, whoa, it’s like a bullet.
Abby Wambach:
If the wink happened with two guns.
Glennon Doyle:
Finger guns?
Mae Martin:
Oh, the pointer.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, finger guns.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s a bro wink.
Mae Martin:
It’s a bro wink. Yeah, that’s like Ace Ventura, I don’t think I can get on board at that.
Glennon Doyle:
And you also said that your sexuality is people who order you drinks without asking you what you want and then also people who drive while you’re the passenger, so I’m noticing you want someone else to be the boss of the situation or am I over generalizing here?
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I think it’s evolved slightly, the drink thing, because once I put that in print, now when I’m out, people send me drinks and I’m scared of what’s in them, I’m like, “This is not safe, I don’t know, I shouldn’t have said this,” but I guess it’s all confidence for me, and being in the passenger seat when someone’s driving, it’s hot to me. Yeah, a car is a powerful vehicle and being like, “I guess I’m going where you’re taking me.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, interesting. What about you two? Because I gave them homework that they were going to have to figure out what their sexuality was.
Mae Martin:
Oh, great.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister go.
Amanda Doyle:
I think I might have the same sexuality as Mae.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Mae Martin:
Ooh, really?
Amanda Doyle:
Which is fascinating, because my things are bodily identifying you in a group with some gesture that suggests that you know exactly what’s going to happen.
Mae Martin:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
So things like just staring at you right in the eye just a little too long.
Mae Martin:
Eye contact.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Mae Martin:
That is electric, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, and the things that might be like, “Oh, God, other people are… Oh, this is happening,” you are foreshadowing something right now. This happened to a friend of mine recently, she was at a party, and she was in a group talking to other people in the group, and this gentleman came over, took her hand, put her drink down on the table, and just took her to the dance floor.
Mae Martin:
Whoa.
Amanda Doyle:
And I was like, “That is my sexuality, thank you.”
Mae Martin:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
And bodily awareness of not only themselves, but you, so if someone’s walking past, putting their hand on your back and…
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, hate that.
Amanda Doyle:
… being aware. I don’t know, it’s something about being present and aware.
Mae Martin:
But what’s weird is, all of these things become awful if the wrong person does that, that is so repulsive if some random creep is doing that, but if it’s someone that there’s a vibe.
Abby Wambach:
I had a few.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, I’m scared.
Abby Wambach:
Someone who can bring a joke full circle and land it inside a conversation where we’ve been talking for 10 minutes, and then the one person who can just bring it home and tie up, that’s a thing that Glennon does. And then I’ll say this one, someone who is up for an adventure, if I were to say…
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I’m sorry.
Abby Wambach:
… “Hey, let’s go do this X,” and they’re like, “Yes, and also, we should also do Y,” and I’m like, “Yes.” Somebody who wants to bring their yes game and also add to it.
Glennon Doyle:
Huh, okay.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I’m with you.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s cool. I had a hard time with this one.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, tell us.
Glennon Doyle:
Really hard time, because I’ve just gotten a sexuality in the last few years.
Abby Wambach:
I would beg to differ, but yeah. You just started-
Glennon Doyle:
No, I think it’s slightly true, I think I shut it down for so long-
Abby Wambach:
You started acting on it, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
… I was scared of what was there, but I will tell you that one of the things I have noticed throughout my entire life is that when anyone approached me that was non-binary looking, what I assume-
Abby Wambach:
Thank God.
Glennon Doyle:
… is my sexuality, all I can tell you is that if my heart was a soldier, it was suddenly at attention.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, completely.
Glennon Doyle:
Is that sexuality?
Mae Martin:
There’s certain people who when they’re around, it’s like a director said, “Action,” and suddenly you’re in the room, and you’re… It’s those people, and you’re trying to be the best version of yourself, I love that feeling.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, okay. So Mae, I just need to talk about your parents for a minute and how they talk to you about sex, because…
Abby Wambach:
It’s the best.
Glennon Doyle:
… we actually have a lot of parents that listen to this pod and…
Mae Martin:
Oh, great.
Glennon Doyle:
… I think that your parents did such an freaking amazing job of the talk, which really should be an ongoing conversation forever with a family, but first of all, didn’t your mom sit you down with hand-drawn diagrams of sex?
Mae Martin:
If or when I have kids, I don’t know that I would do it exactly the way they did it, but yeah, I was really young, and I think I had a lot of questions already probably, because my parents had shown me the movie, Rocky Horror Picture Show, when I was very young, because it was a family favorite. And then my mom sat me down, I think I was about five or six, and she had diagrams, and she just in that conversation, said, “This is how a man and a woman have sex, and a man and a man, and a woman and a woman,” and she really covered every base, and she told me a lot in that conversation.
Mae Martin:
She told me there’s no Santa Claus in the same conversation, so that was lot to take in. And she just demystified all of life in one sitting, but she was very sex-positive always, and described it as extremely pleasurable, and tried to explain orgasms and stuff, it was maybe too much, but I couldn’t really understand it at that age, but I just knew it wasn’t scary. And also, they never assumed that I was straight, me or my brother, who is ostensibly straight, I guess, they always said, “Do you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?” You know what I mean? Because it is crazy that we just assume.
Glennon Doyle:
It is.
Mae Martin:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Even the pictures, even the saying, “This is sex between a woman and a woman,” that is so brilliant. Also, if you need a cheat sheet, you could explain orgasms the way that Mae’s mother did, which is this… Okay, just I want you to imagine a mother saying this to six-year-old Mae, okay? “When two people love each other, and they’re naked, and having sex, they feel very happy, and then they feel increasingly happy, and finally, they reach a moment of extreme happiness, and an explosion of rainbows cascades across the sky.”
Mae Martin:
So poetic and so misleading.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Mae Martin:
I was really disappointed when it finally happened, no rainbows.
Glennon Doyle:
The only person for whom the first orgasm was a fucking let-down.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I was like, “Have I done it wrong?”
Glennon Doyle:
Can we talk about the fact that you never had to come out? Because this is something we talk about all the time, which is, I don’t know if people who don’t have to come out even know why it’s so infuriating to have to come out, because it’s sexualizing yourself in front of people over and over again, which straight people never have to do. Straight people don’t have to sit down with their parents and say, “Hello, I’d like to announce the fact that I’m a sexual being and have sexual feelings towards people.”
Mae Martin:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s insane, there’s no other preference where you have to declare it and then stick with… When you’re a teenager, if you were like, “What kind of music do you like?” And then you have to say it and never change it. I’m lucky, I think. We had other issues, me and my parents, for sure, but just in this area, they really did a great job at giving me this armor against the rest of the world, and then I encountered all of that weirdness when I was not at home and was like, “Oh, why is this a thing?” But I remember renting the movie, Gia.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I love that movie
Mae Martin:
Yeah, with Angelina Jolie, and there’s a sex scene in it. But I didn’t know to be ashamed, and I didn’t even really know what it meant, but I was like, “God, guys, I just love this movie so much.” I just kept talking about it to my parents and being like, “Isn’t this a beautiful scene?” And they were like, “Yeah, okay, well” and I think that was all. And then I always brought home boys and girls, I think I had a pretty voracious sexual appetite, so I don’t know if that was a byproduct of how they raised me.
Amanda Doyle:
Probably Gia.
Mae Martin:
Probably Gia.
Abby Wambach:
I actually really remember being very attached to that movie, have you seen it?
Glennon Doyle:
I have seen it.
Abby Wambach:
It makes sense.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s all coming together now. We talked about this one time when you were explaining to a friend, I think you were saying at the time that you were going to date a boy, you were dating a boy, and your friend got upset in a very confused way, because your friend was used to seeing you date women. And so he looked at you strangely and said, “I can’t imagine you having sex with a dude,” and you said, which made us so happy, “Please refrain from imagining me having sex with anyone.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s so weird for queer people, that every conversation is the other person imagining you having sex with someone.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, and also besides that, it’s like, really? You can’t imagine it, I can imagine anything I want at any time.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Mae Martin:
How, that’s sad for your imagination.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
Early on in my coming out story, I felt like because it was 20 years ago, I felt like I was the one that was teaching everybody about gayness, and so all of the questions would come and I felt like it was my unfortunate duty to have to educate. And quite frankly, a lot of my straight dude friends were asking me a lot of important questions for their sexual lives.
Mae Martin:
That’s awkward.
Abby Wambach:
And I hated it, but I also felt like it was a service that I had to do for some reason, it was brutal.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, that’s how I feel a little bit about gender right now, and that’s also such an evolving journey for me and a recent shift, and I get so many questions about it, and on the one hand, you’re like, it’s frustrating, but also, I try so hard to be. It’s a new thing for everyone, not in human history, but in recent years, so I’m trying to be super patient with my parents and stuff. I think it’s important that people feel safe to ask questions, but then I don’t know, they’ve got to be polite questions too.
Abby Wambach:
They really do.
Mae Martin:
And also, if it’s something you can Google, maybe do that as well.
Glennon Doyle:
What is the conversation with your parents right now and what is the journey you’re on with gender?
Mae Martin:
Well, so I’m 35 and looking back, I’m like, “Oh, I’m for sure trans,” and for 10 years, I thought every day about top surgery, and I just never thought I’d be brave enough to do it, I thought it was such a huge deal and such a massive thing, and then I just did it at Christmas, and it’s been incredible. And I didn’t think that this type of joy or feeling comfortable in my body, I didn’t think it was accessible to me, I thought everyone else felt the way I felt all the time, and now I’m like, “Oh, my God, what a waste of time that I spent all that time worrying.” So I feel great, and I think my parents can see how good I feel, and that’s good.
Mae Martin:
And they’ve been good, pronouns are hard for people, it’s hard if you aren’t in a community where you’re hearing them used a lot, and it becomes second nature pretty fast, but for them, they live a pretty quiet, insular life and they can’t really wrap their head around that yet, but they’re trying.
Mae Martin:
And they said an interesting thing the last time they visited me, and I was swimming in front of them, and I think they could just see how happy I am, and they said, we can’t really understand the pronoun thing, but we want you to know that we see you as you are, we can see that you’re not a girl and you don’t feel like a girl, and so we do know and see you and all your nuances and everything, but it’s just linguistically, we can’t get it. So I was like, “Oh, that’s a start,” but also maybe give it a go sometimes, throw a they in for good measure.
Abby Wambach:
I think that one of the things that has really helped me, not only the fact that I’m very non-binary in so much of my life, I feel like I’m attached to the pronouns, she/her. And so one of our children, they have a non-binary friend that uses the pronouns, they/them, and it blew my mind when I started to think of it as just a third way, rather than just having two options, there’s a middle option, and that helped me orient how to communicate. And then by the way, I still make mistakes, we all do, and just moving beyond those mistakes as quickly and as least dramatically as possible has been really shifting for me.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, it’s tricky because… You talk about paradigm shifts on this podcast. It is a big and challenging thing, but it’s such an important thing that’s happening, it might take a hundred years for us to undo how rigid we’ve become in this binary, but we’re definitely headed in that direction and it’s super important and interesting. I think if we can get interested in it in a historical, and scientific, and cultural, anthropological way, if you do any research into, it’s just very compelling and you start to see these rigid walls that have been built around us and how limiting they can be. And even right now, the World Health Organization defines gender as a cultural thing, it really rocks people’s world though. But even sex is not that binary when you come down to it, it’s good and exciting, but I don’t know, people have a panic reaction, for sure.
Glennon Doyle:
So the World Health Organization says that gender is cultural, here’s a question, so I… Every poor person who listens to this podcast who has to listen to me talk about gender incessantly, because I’m always trying to figure it out, but I can’t understand, gender doesn’t feel like anything that’s inside me, it feels like things that I have put on the outside of me because that’s how I’ve been told to present in the world, but I can’t find it inside of me. So when our son is explaining how his friend is identifying and he says, “Just look at them, they’re a soul, all souls have to be thems,” when you start thinking about human beings as not gendered because, gender’s not real, you just will start thinking them, them, them, because it makes more sense actually, which I think is so beautiful and probably right.
Glennon Doyle:
But then I get to that place where I’m like, “Gender is not real, it’s not a real,” and then I have a dear friend who’s trans and is like, “Oh, no, thank you, that’s not correct, I am a man.”
Mae Martin:
Interesting.
Glennon Doyle:
And I’m like, “Wait, what is it?”
Mae Martin:
Yeah, that’s super interesting. It’s a minefield, I feel similarly to you, I think my personal experiences when I’ve freed myself from those things, I’m like, “I don’t identify with any of it really.” But then I don’t know, I guess in the performance of it, I feel more comfortable being masculine presenting and I enjoy embodying those tropes sometimes playfully. And the people that I idolize and stuff, and growing up, wanted to be like are all… River Phoenix and people like that. So I don’t know, if we can just take the heaviness out of it and be like, it’s a form of self-expression, there’s creativity to it, we can do whatever we want. So yeah, sure, if you feel like a man and you identify with that, then great, have fun. And then people should respect it and treat you that way. But yeah, I think it’s scary for people to think that there is an element of creativity… It’s scary to give yourself that power.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s good. It’s scary to consider that there’s an element of creativity in it. And it’s just so amazing that you can get to like, “Oh, now I’ve got it, gender is not even a thing, it’s not even real,” yes, that has evolved, and then somebody’s like, “That’s totally wrong.”
Mae Martin:
Yeah, oh, man, I wrote that book about sexuality and gender, and then I did a book tour, and I was going into high schools, and by the time the book came out, it was outdated, I was using the wrong terms and people were teaching me, so we just have to be all curious, and interested, and patient.
Glennon Doyle:
Constantly curious, strong opinion-
Amanda Doyle:
That is interesting. It’s just any time that you affix some kind of immutable to it is when you get in trouble. If you’re like, “Yes, it absolutely is horseshit, I know that with certainty,” it’s like, maybe you’re in trouble, because if it is part of your creative expression, then someone might be certain about themselves in this moment, and maybe in the next moment, they have a different certainty about themselves. So maybe you get in trouble when you ascribe any kind of meaning or certainty for others, whereas if we just were more concerned about interrogating our own creativity and identity, and only being concerned with that, then maybe that’s where it would be rich.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, there’s a really interesting book called Can The Monster Speak? A speech given to a college of psychoanalysts by a trans man called Paul Preciado, and that rocked my world. It was really interesting, but he talks about how we’re… I think part of the reason people are so reactive is that we’re still attached to this Freudian way of thinking, where our gender is a huge part of our identity and our psyche, and this 200-year-old white guy is being like, “But men want to fuck their mothers,” and that’s a huge part of our identity, and we have to undo that, and then it’s a much less big deal if you want to be in some gray area or you want to be a bit more fluid, because it doesn’t have to be such a huge part of your personality, and your cultural roles, and things like that.
Amanda Doyle:
And it can be more part of for some people.
Mae Martin:
For sure.
Amanda Doyle:
Because I think we live in this world where that has to define everything about you, and you have to go out into the world. And your first standup, you’re gay Mae, and you’re like, “No, I’m a comic, why am I gay Mae on stage?” Or there’s people like me who because I never had to do any kind of interrogation of myself because I was never asked to or forced to, it was just like, assume the position, literally and figuratively. I have an underdeveloped sense of that, because I was just like, “Check the box,” no questioning here.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, sister, imagine if you went on an interview and the first five questions that people asked you was about your sexuality.
Amanda Doyle:
Right?
Glennon Doyle:
You’d be like, “What the fuck?” But that’s all that happens.
Mae Martin:
Mm-hmm, yes.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s what happened today.
Mae Martin:
It’s what happened today. Yeah, I do feel lucky that I’ve… From when I could even think, I could sense that the things I was being told were immutable, objective truths, didn’t fit with how I felt inside, so that was very confusing, but I feel really grateful because it made me challenge all kinds of other things as well and learn about myself more.
Glennon Doyle:
I want to ask you what other things it helped you challenge and look at differently. And also, I just want to say, I think it’s cool to think about for me, because you said maybe only be certain about yourself and that hasn’t worked for me, I want to not be ever certain about myself, because I surprised the shit out of myself six years ago.
Abby Wambach:
Weekly.
Glennon Doyle:
You said it at one point, Mae, you don’t have to be gay to be gay, and that was for sure true for me, you never know. And that’s a beautiful thing about sexuality, it reminds me a little bit about faith, with thinking about faith, it’s just this ongoing evolution of ideas that’s fluid constantly. But what did this whole breaking down of everything in terms of gender and sexuality, what else did it help you deconstruct?
Mae Martin:
Well, I think I had a kind of existential spiral in my teens, and spun out, and was a bad teen, I think a lot of it came from that feeling of questioning the systems around me. I dropped out of school, I’m not recommending this, but I guess I saw options that other people weren’t seeing. I saw that I could do comedy, and I love doing comedy, so I did that, and I don’t think I would’ve done that at such a young age if I hadn’t already been thinking what makes me happy and where do I fit in? Things like monogamy have been recently… I’ve been thinking a lot about.
Glennon Doyle:
What do you think about that? It’s working pretty well for everybody, so just wouldn’t say…
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I’m shocked because the data suggests you’re just straight up wrong about that.
Mae Martin:
I know, it is pretty wild. I don’t know, I listen to a lot of Esther Perel, I’m very into people doing what works for them and not reactively assuming that open relationships aren’t as valid as closed ones, I think you just have to continually interrogate it and not get stuck. And we only have one life, so if you’re miserable or stuck, then there’s other options.
Glennon Doyle:
There’s such a gift in not fitting in, I think this is what people don’t… We always joke and say our favorite people are queer people, but it’s because there’s some kind of personality that’s forged by the gift of not being rejected by mainstream at first, because you’re like, “Oh, I guess if I can’t join them, I’ll just be free.”
Mae Martin:
Yeah, or you think, “Well, everyone in my class is listening to boy bands and girl bands, but I can’t find who I’m even supposed to be attracted to or identify with, so I guess I’m going to listen to Nine Inch Nails or to Pink Floyd,” and I’m grateful that that happened. But yeah, there’s drawbacks too, then that’s when you end up with battle wounds. But yeah, any kind of otherness, I think is a gift for sure.
Amanda Doyle:
The creativity seems at the core of all of this, because if you’re getting at the place where you’re like, “Well, what the world is telling me about gender is clearly horseshit, what else is horseshit? Okay, maybe this whole idea that I have to go to school for 12 years, and then for four more, and then to get the job that I hate, maybe that’s horseshit.” And you start to get creative, and then even with your idea of monogamy, it is so wild that there’s this compulsory monogamy as the option, where do you think the creativity shows up in relationships that makes different types of relationships possible? What is the creative way that you think… Is it about playing with jealousy? Is it about playing with your ownership over the other person? What is the place to be creative that opens up different forms of relationship?
Mae Martin:
I’m still figuring it out, but I think that where I’ve been most successful is where we’ve constantly remembered that we’re two individuals, and communicated well, and had a sense of humor about it, and not felt like we own each other’s total metric of attraction and everything. I don’t know, I’m not a particularly jealous person, it turns me on when people are attracted to the person I’m with or if they’re flirting, I feel like it keeps me on my toes and I like that, I’m still figuring it out though. But I think just communicating, I don’t know, you guys are successfully doing relationship stuff, so you’re the experts really.
Abby Wambach:
No, I have so much abandonment issues that monogamy is the only way for me.
Mae Martin:
For sure, yeah.
Abby Wambach:
So I know that… I ask her even now, we’re six years married, I’m like, “Are you ever going to leave me? Please tell me you’re never going to leave.”
Glennon Doyle:
If I need somebody to do the dishes, I have to start the conversation with, “I’m not going to leave you, I just need you to put your cup in the dishwasher.”
Mae Martin:
That’s so funny. Well, I sometimes wonder if my fear of co-dependency comes from a fear of being abandoned, just don’t let yourself get to that place, because then what happens if it all falls apart? It ebbs and flows. Who knows? It’s so hard to tell what part of our personality is a coping mechanism that was formed years ago and what’s like, our actual personality, do you know what I mean?
Glennon Doyle:
Uh-huh.
Abby Wambach:
Yep, totally get it.
Mae Martin:
Are we just the sum of our coping mechanisms basically?
Abby Wambach:
I think so.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s what’s the hard part when you’re trying to get like, “I’m trying to be the truest me,” most authentic to myself, am I just saying I want to be the most authentic reflection of the accumulation of my trauma?
Mae Martin:
Yeah, totally, who would I have been if I’d never met another person? If I’d grown up on a beach, who would I have been? I don’t know that I would’ve done comedy, I’m pretty introverted, I think I was trying to cheer up my mom probably, but it’s worked out.
Amanda Doyle:
It all comes back to we’re all just trying to cheer up our mom.
Mae Martin:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Totally, that’s right. Our mom or our dad, we’re just trying to make them happy still.
Mae Martin:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
You do say you have an addictive personality, so Abby and I are both… That’s another reason we relate to you, what is that like?
Mae Martin:
Well, now I’m just really vigilant about when things start to become habitual, or start to dominate, or start to feel like self-medicating. I always talked about it, I have this little shrimp in the back of my head and when it wakes up, it just devours everything else, and so I’m just trying to keep that shrimp asleep, and gently soothe it, and keep it asleep so it doesn’t wake up. But I’m in a pretty good place now, I think it was a big thing for me, it was because I had a big drug problem in my teens, and then I got clean, and so I always relegated thinking about addiction to just substances, and I thought, “Well, I had that problem and now I don’t, and I can never touch that substance again, but other than that, I’m all good.”
Mae Martin:
And then once I realized that addictive behavior permeates all aspects of life and relationships, and that it’s not just about substances and 12-step programs, and then that was big. And then I tried to have just in general, a healthier, more balanced thing. I don’t know, now I do a lot of escape rooms and I try to get adrenaline healthy places, so I do horror escape rooms where there’s an actor dressed like a clown in a dungeon and you’re trying to escape, it’s psychotic.
Abby Wambach:
You’re trying to create the dopamine hit in the-
Glennon Doyle:
Is that why you do all the things?
Abby Wambach:
Yes, baby, that is risk. Risk, and drinking, and drugs are like that, it’s producing the same chemical reactions in my brain.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s always hurdling herself down mountains and out of just the escape room.
Mae Martin:
Adrenaline junkie. But I imagine a lot of athletes have that, right? Because that’s the endorphins. I only just started getting into working out at all in the past few years and man, it feels good, I completely get it.
Amanda Doyle:
This is where Wet Head comes in, for the rest of us who maybe aren’t as thrill seekers, that’s maybe your version, Glennon, you could try that.
Abby Wambach:
What is it?
Mae Martin:
I really recommend it, especially with kids, it’s a game called Wet Head, it’s just a hat that has a bucket of water on it, and then it’s like Russian Roulette, where you take turns pulling out… You trade the hat around and you pull out these pegs that are fastening the bucket, and one of them is going to douse you, and it’s very simple, it’s called Wet Head, it just couldn’t be more simple and fun.
Amanda Doyle:
And you chant, “Wet Head.”
Mae Martin:
Wet Head, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
So if you have a coke problem, try Wet Head.
Mae Martin:
Try Wet Head, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s going to work out for you.
Mae Martin:
I bring it to dinner parties and stuff, and people are like, “Do we have to play Wet Head tonight? I’m like, “Yes, we do to ruin someone’s night.”
Glennon Doyle:
So I was lauding your parents and saying they were so amazing, but there’s one little sentence in your book that says, “Listen, they weren’t perfect, there’s reasons that I washed my face five times a day and have fear of abandonment.” So let’s go back to that, how did they up and why did they make you wash your face five times a day and have abandoned issues?
Mae Martin:
They kicked me out when I was 16. And I don’t know, I had an amazing childhood, I’m so lucky and privileged. And then just as soon as puberty hit, we butted heads a lot, and I was doing drugs, and I was not in a great place, and I think they reacted with rage at being lied to and just shut down. And they did a tough love thing that was difficult, that I think they probably regret aspects of, we haven’t really talked about it, it’s very strange, we’re so close now, but we don’t really talk about that time. But it must be very hard to be a parent.
Glennon Doyle:
It is.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I can’t imagine. And now I really see them as three-dimensional people with doing their best in the moment with their own trauma and things like that, but it was tough, for sure.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m sure we have lots of people listening. I think people reassessing and actually believing that they can be comfortable in their own bodies because of stories like yours, because of progress, more and more families are going to be in a situation like your parents where their kid says, “Nope,” what could be done well in that situation? Like you once said, that when a parent finds out their kid is gay, they should just pretend that they just found a four-leaf clover, how do parents do that with-
Mae Martin:
Laminate it.
Glennon Doyle:
Laminate your queer kid?
Mae Martin:
Yeah, my parents have always have been great about sexuality and gender, I think that stuff’s just about listening and not doing that thing of going, “Oh, my God. Well, I’m fine with it, but I’m just so worried about you and the world,” and immediately making it negative and heavy, and I would avoid doing that. People feel so comfortable doing that, I always talk about adopting, I would love to adopt, and it’s so crazy how comfortable people are going, “Oh…” You bring it up and you go, “Oh, I’d love to adopt,” and they go, “Ah, it could be really hard,” and you’re like, “Yeah, I know,” but what’s the alternative? No one adopts, it could be hard anyway, it’s crazy how comfortable people are going to that negative fear place.
Mae Martin:
But my main thing is, if your kid’s doing drugs, I feel strongly about that stuff, that if you feel like they’re self-medicating, you want to create an environment where they can talk to you, and come to you, and not feel like they have to hide it from you. And I think the more we understand addiction and where that comes from… Because so many people do drugs and not everybody gets addicted to drugs, there’s something going on there underneath usually. So it’s maybe having empathy and looking at not the method of soothing, but why is that person self-soothing? But I guess it must be impossible, as a parent you’d feel so worried, and betrayed, and all that, but yeah, I think just trying not to get angry.
Abby Wambach:
And I also think that what I have found in parenting, because I just got to parenting seven years ago when Glennon and I got together.
Mae Martin:
That’s amazing.
Abby Wambach:
And what I have found is, I have a fear inside of me of being a poor parent. Our kids are amazing, but if they ever have an issue, I am now projecting that I am the reason why this issue is happening, and so that could cause… I’m sure there’s a lot of parents out there who might not be so introspective to be able to let that feeling come up and not act on it, whether it’s kicking your kid out of the house, or punishing them, or grounding them. I was brought up in authoritarian home where what my mom said went, and I have to fight some of those inclinations and urges that I have, and then also fight this fear of me fucking up my own kids in the moment, and it’s almost impossible to do, I need to have somebody who can call me out on that, maybe not in the moment-
Glennon Doyle:
Right, I have learned that, yes.
Abby Wambach:
… conversation later, that’s like, “Hey, that sounded a little bit like fear, your mom, projection.” And so then I’ve had to go back and apologize for our kids for some of my instinctive reactions to some stuff that they’ve brought. It’s the hardest and most confusing, and it changes every day, you’re like, “Oh, my kid is…” I think that they’ve got it, and then the next day something else happens.
Amanda Doyle:
I think all of the parenting stuff comes down to if you could look at your kid as a human instead of a referendum on you, a reflection on you. I think that whole thing, that’s like what you’re saying, Abby, it’s like you are going through this thing, therefore that means something about me, or you are doing amazing and are an amazing athlete, therefore that says something about me. You suck, that’s an indictment of me, you’re amazing, that’s a compliment of me, when actually none of those things are true, it’s just a person who’s living in your house.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, that’s so interesting. If you change the language in your head in the moment to how would I react if I was a mentor? Then some of the emotions not attached to it and you can… Yeah, but it must be impossible. Everyone knows like, I will fuck up my kid no matter what, and then you go from there.
Glennon Doyle:
Except for a friend calls and says, “My kid came out, my kid is non-binary, my kid’s…” Whatever. I do think that’s a bit of a referendum on parenting in a good way. My first thing is already always congratu-fucking-lations as parents, because you’ve created some kind of environment where this kid feels safe telling you who they are or even exploring it, even being like, I actually am going inside and not just listening to… There’s some kind of badass-free, full of integrity environment to even be presenting that.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, definitely.
Amanda Doyle:
You used the word, rage, to describe the reaction to that period of your life, I’m just curious what your relationship to rage is now and what role that plays in your life, either inside of you or people around you.
Mae Martin:
I think it would probably do me a lot of good to do a primal scream in the desert. I always fantasize about going to the desert and doing an insane primal scream. I definitely feel that, I feel like I suppress anger a lot. I’m not a very angry person. I don’t know, I made a show, a semi-autobiographical show, and it made me look a lot at my life, and my teens, and things like that, and after making it, I had a period of healthy rage, for sure, and then got some therapy. Anger’s an interesting one, I just grew up on Star Wars, so I was like, anger leads to the dark side.
Abby Wambach:
And to be a comedian, it must be confusing because everybody puts you in the funny box, happy, funny, and then happy, but comedians, I have found in large, are super in touch with their feelings, all of the sad feelings too, so I’m not surprised that there’s some stuff that’s happening underneath.
Glennon Doyle:
So I asked you before things we could do or not do with our kids and you said, “Don’t bring them the, ‘I love you, but I’m just so scared for what’s coming to you,'” I think that’s so good, that’s just such a good little tip. So in terms of other things we should or shouldn’t do, so let’s say you were being interviewed by three podcasters, and let’s say that those podcasters had just seen a post that you had put up where you were on a red carpet with Elliot Page. And let’s just say that those podcasters were a little bit obsessed with Elliot Page and you, and so let’s just say that they had studied those pictures really well and seen two toothbrushes in one of those pictures. Would it be appropriate or just completely not to ask you if you and Elliot Paige are friends or the kind of special friends that might require toothbrush carrying?
Mae Martin:
I need to look at this toothbrush thing. No, I’m just getting the photo up. I met Elliot when I was 19 actually, in a bar in Toronto, and we were both sketchy Canadian people, and then we reconnected a few years ago, and no, we are very much bros, but I’m enjoying the speculation. So I think that that is the reflection of-
Abby Wambach:
That is what I said. That is what I said.
Glennon Doyle:
And I said, “That is not a reflection, there’s no way that’s a reflection, it’s two effing toothbrushes.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s what I said, I said it.
Mae Martin:
And we were getting ready in Elliot’s hotel, and I think that’s one toothbrush. But look, he’s hot, he’s super hot, it was fun being his date, for sure, for the night.
Amanda Doyle:
So you heard it here first, Elliot is still available, not sure about Mae, okay? We’re going to find out if that’s an appropriate question to ask.
Glennon Doyle:
Is it? Is that an appropriate question to ask?
Mae Martin:
I’m always available.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, you’re always available?
Mae Martin:
No, I do try to keep that part of my life lowkey, just because then it’s so embarrassing if you’re like, “Yeah, I’m so happy and settled,” and then it ends, and you’re like, “Erase that.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so embarrassing.
Amanda Doyle:
Nothing’s immutable Mae, we already talked about it.
Mae Martin:
Nothing is… Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
Just creative expression.
Mae Martin:
I just moved to LA in May, I’ve been in London for 12 years, and that was a big change, and it’s been fun being a free agent in LA.
Amanda Doyle:
What has that been like? I didn’t know you moved back to LA, I just knew you were in London forever, what has that been like?
Mae Martin:
Well, I grew up in Toronto and then I moved… I was in all my twenties in England, and then, I don’t know, I’m trying to get to know this city, it’s crazy. I don’t have a driver’s license or drive, so it’s a tricky city in that sense. But I’m making lots of friends. It was so cool meeting Tig and Stephanie, and then you had them on your podcast, and then I’m doing Improv with Stephanie tonight.
Glennon Doyle:
No way.
Amanda Doyle:
I saw that.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, they’re so great, both of them. Yeah, so I’m trying to manifest my dream friend group, and we got to hang out, for sure.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, absolutely. I love Tig and Stephanie.
Mae Martin:
That’s so funny.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you know, when we talked to Tig, I couldn’t figure out Tig’s…
Mae Martin:
Email?
Glennon Doyle:
… sense of humor. And so every time Tig wrote to me, I thought she was mad at me.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I can totally see that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, and so I kept telling my sister… I never do this with people’s emails, but I kept reading them to my sister and saying, “Is she mad at me?” So I’d have to create responses that could go either way.
Mae Martin:
Where you could be playing into the joke or you could also be apologizing.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Mae Martin:
That’s really funny.
Glennon Doyle:
It was really confusing for a while. So what are you do now? What’s next? What are you into? What are you working on? What are you trying to let go of? What’s 2023 going to be like for you?
Mae Martin:
Those are all good questions. I’m about to record a new standup special, a Netflix special, and I’m excited about that. And then I’m writing this new Netflix show and then two movies I’m writing. And yeah, just having fun, trying to enjoy my new body, and it felt good wearing a suit the other day.
Glennon Doyle:
Abby talked about the suit, Abby’s obsessed with the suit.
Abby Wambach:
I was actually talking to these two about how my sexuality is in some way, that suit, but it’s not because I’m thinking, “Ooh, I want to fuck who’s in that suit,” I’m thinking, that looked like something I want to wear to feel sexy. So I think that sexuality is both the way that we see it and the way that we feel about our own body in it.
Mae Martin:
Completely.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
And then I did have a question. I wear suits, and we have to go to an event on Thursday night, and I’m thinking, I’m going to wear a proper tux, I’ve got a tux shirt, but I don’t want to wear a bow tie or a tie.
Mae Martin:
Me neither.
Abby Wambach:
There’s something about it that makes it that then I will for sure for the rest of the night, be called a man, which is fine, that doesn’t necessarily offend me, but I also just use the pronouns she/her. So with a proper tuck shirt with the wings at the front, is it okay to open the top button and just go a little bit cas, or should I button the top button with no bow tie?
Mae Martin:
I think you can do whatever you want, you’re Abby, you’re the coolest, the people, they’re just lucky that you’re there.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s a great answer.
Mae Martin:
I don’t know anything about fashion. Gucci dressed me for that event, I’ve never been dressed by anyone, and it was so thrilling, and they were a little bummed that I wasn’t wearing a tie, for sure, but I couldn’t do it, I felt constricted, and it felt good too. But that wasn’t a tux shirt, so I don’t know, I think it’ll look like at the end of a wedding, everyone’s been that slightly more relaxed.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, it looks confident, is what it looks like. It looks relaxed and confident.
Abby Wambach:
I was thinking about maybe getting a bow tie and just hanging it low.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I was just thinking that.
Mae Martin:
That’s pretty cool.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like, you all showed up for the party, but I showed up for the after party.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, exactly. I just can’t rock a bow tie, but Elliot looked amazing in his bow tie.
Abby Wambach:
I’m so jealous of people who can, but just for whatever reason, I’m like, it’s too much.
Glennon Doyle:
Clothes are a whole thing.
Abby Wambach:
It’s looks too formal, I’m in a proper tux, but I’m like, a bow tie or tie, it’s too formal.
Mae Martin:
I want to get to a place where I can be adventurous and dress like Harry styles, but I’m still trying to figure out all of that, but yeah, one day, I’ll be wearing sequins.
Glennon Doyle:
In the last minute we have here, what’s an idea, or a belief, or a way of being that you’re trying to leave behind?
Mae Martin:
I’m trying not to do things out of habit. I think it’s Emily Dickinson, there’s a phrase that she wrote that’s like, “When the skeleton of habit upholds the human frame,” and it just was so bleak, and I think about how so much of our life, we just are on autopilot. And even things like just the way I walk to work, take a different route, it’s that thing about creativity, just making sure everything’s a conscious choice. I have to get better at saying no to people and be less of a workaholic. And I’ve been doing a lot of music and I’m really shy about it because I’m not very good, and it makes me very terrified, and I think, “Well, I’m a comedian,” it’s so embarrassing. And I’ve been trying to go, “Well, I can get rid of that label too,” you know what I mean?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Mae Martin:
And just do things that scare me all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
What kind of music?
Abby Wambach:
What kind of music?
Mae Martin:
Emo, I don’t know, embarrassing acoustic guitar music.
Amanda Doyle:
So good.
Mae Martin:
I love it.
Glennon Doyle:
Love it.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, it makes me happy. And yeah, I don’t want to monetize it. I just want to do it and experiment with it.
Abby Wambach:
Well, it’s important, not only because it’s going to be great for you, but also all the people in the world that look like you, that don’t want to adhere to or want to look to the boy bands or the girl… I think it’s-
Glennon Doyle:
No pressure.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I think it’s important that there’s people that look like us that are actually doing things in all the industries.
Mae Martin:
That’s so cool. Yeah, I do… Growing up there, there was no one that looked like us and it is exciting, but then you don’t want to get paralyzed by the pressure.
Glennon Doyle:
The pressure, you must do it for the sake of the future, no, you just want to have some joy with it.
Mae Martin:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
I get that because I’m a writer, but I secretly, inside of me…
Abby Wambach:
Oh, here we go.
Glennon Doyle:
…. just want to be a poet.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, I thought you were going to say a musician or a rockstar.
Glennon Doyle:
No, you know the poet thing.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
But I’m so scared to be like, “Wait, am I going to write a book of poems? No one’s going to…”
Mae Martin:
You should, completely, I totally relate, yeah. The only difference between being a poet and not being a poet is writing poetry, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly, that’s good. Mae, you’re just a damn dream.
Mae Martin:
You are. Thank you, so this has been so nice. Last night I told my friend I was doing it and she was like, “Are you going to cry?” And I was like, “Am I? I don’t know, do people cry?” And she’s like, “I don’t know, it could get deep,” and I was like, “Oh, my God,” but yeah, you guys are so amazing and thanks so much for having me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, we’d love to hang out sometime and show you nothing in LA because we don’t know anything about LA.
Mae Martin:
Let’s have a games night, that’s all I want to do.
Glennon Doyle:
Wet Head.
Amanda Doyle:
Wet Head, Wet Head.
Mae Martin:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
And coming from somebody who didn’t have any representation to look towards, I just think what you’re doing in all the ways that you’re doing it, your work matters and it’s changing people’s perspectives, and so I want to thank you so much because you’re helping me even.
Mae Martin:
Now you got me, I’m going to cry. Thank you.
Abby Wambach:
I know that you’ve had to forge yourself to be in the position that you are in so much of your life and have had to deal with a lot of ups and downs, but here we are, and what you’re doing is heroic to put your work out into the world and do it in the way that you are, it’s beautiful, thank you.
Mae Martin:
Thank you so much, and ditto. Yeah, thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
I also think it’s very cool that you’re inspiring in a different way too, is the whatever the opposite of creative scarcity is, because what I admired so much is that after two seasons of Feel Good, you even though could have kept that going and kept going creatively, you were like, “No, that is how I want to end that, and I believe that there will be abundance for me in other things,” and I think that was so special and probably gave a lot of folks the invitation to do that when mostly in Hollywood, it’s very hard to stop something that you can keep doing. So-
Mae Martin:
Thanks.
Amanda Doyle:
… to you on that, that was awesome.
Mae Martin:
Yeah, I didn’t want to torture that couple anymore. I felt like I left them in a good place and it would’ve been too mean to… You’d have to break them up again if you kept going, it would be awful, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
God, give somebody a happy ending. We love you, Mae, the rest of you, your responsibility this week is to figure out three things that are your sexuality.
Mae Martin:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay?
Mae Martin:
Completely.
Glennon Doyle:
It doesn’t matter what you are, everybody has a sexuality, so you figure out three things, okay? We love you, when things get hard this week, don’t forget, we can do hard things. Thank you, Mae, bye.
Mae Martin:
Thank you so much.
Abby Wambach:
Yay.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.