You're listening, ad-free on Amazon Music.

Slate's Double X Gab Fest is sponsored by Bowl and Branch, making luxury betting affordable and convenient to order from home.

Right now, get $50 off a set of sheets plus free shipping when you go to bowl and branch.com and use the promo code, double X.

That's B-O-L-L-andbranch.com and the promo code, double X. That's B-O-L-L-L-andBranch.com and the promo code, double X.

The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to the Double X Gap Fest for Thursday, July 9th.

The Beasel Better Have My Money Edition. Oh, my God.

All right. I'm Hannah Rosen, a writer for Slate and the Atlantic. I'm joined in the New York

studios by June Thomas, editor of Outward Slate's LGBTQ blog. Hi, June. Hey, Hannah. And Noreen

Malone of New York Magazine. Hi, Noreen. Hi, Hannah. Okay, let's jump into our three topics. First, what does it mean to be officially asexual? Second, Rihanna's new video, bitch better have my money. And also the general use of bitch. How do you say this prefatory bitch, the general prefatory bitch? Like if I say bitches, how do you use bitches like that? Prefatory bitch would be, bitch, bitch better have my money, I'll. Okay. Bitch better, how about this? Bitch better have my money and other prefatory uses of the word. Well, I think it's prefatory if it comes first. It's not prefatory. It's not just prefatory if it begins the phrase. We are the only people analyzing the ground. Just putting that out there. All right. We'll do it even like in more detail. Okay. Third. The first installment in our movie club, which we're very excited about, the 1939 movie, The Women, based on the play by Claire Booth Luce, which actually almost uses the word bitch, but does not.

Okay, let's talk about our first topic, asexual.

I have to say, I'm kind of afraid of this topic because I understand, but I'm not completely sure I understand, and there are so many ways to go wrong with this. But we'll start with a brief definition. Asexual defined as a lack of sexual attraction to any gender. It's different from a romantic because a lot of people who have written about this and adopt the label say they want to be in relationships and they want to be intimate, but they are somewhat indifferent to sex.

We chose this because in Modern Love this weekend, a writer named Kim Kuletsky says, three and a half months into a relationship, I spent 10 days in Chicago's suburbs with her.

We did nothing more physically intimate than holding hands, kissing, and taking a nap together.

And I returned home with an intense sense of relief.

This was the relationship I wanted. She says not the kind that treated sex is necessary or the indicator of a healthy

relationship, but the opposite, a relationship in which sex wasn't compulsory. All right, before we

get deep into the debate, can you guys help me define? Like, do you feel like you have a clear

understanding what it is that people mean when they identify asexual? I mean, I guess there's

a spectrum, an asexual identification spectrum. And I guess the, you know, we've, we've read about

things like gray sexual and, what was it, demisexual and asexual. And gray asexual, too. Can you define gray asexual?

Grey, no. No. No. No. Great asexual means sort of. First of all, first of all, it's not gray asexual. It's gray sexual.

...