Laughing at the offensive PR emails we get

As a charting podcast, we receive some bizarre PR pitches that are hilariously misaligned with our content at best and downright acephobic at worst. Take a peak into our inbox as we throw some shade at “life-saving” sexual technologies and grad school eunichs.

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Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here, as always, with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. And for those of you who don’t know, Ace stands for Asexual. I say that because today we’re gonna have a little fun, we’re gonna maybe get a little bit mean. [laughs] We’re going to pour just a touch of tea. But we’ve been doing this a few years now. We’ve been a– I wouldn’t call us a successful podcast. We’re a mid tier podcast at least. Most podcasts don’t make it as long as we do with as many listeners as we have.

Royce: What are words to say? Functional? Consistent?

Courtney: We are a podcast. And there have been some patches of time where we have been especially successful in certain countries on certain charts. According to Chartable, for instance – may it rest in peace after recently being bought out, only to get closed, because we love capitalism – we have charted in 61 countries. And some of those countries we’ve been really high in, like, the sex and sexuality category. We have been number one in many countries, sometimes for a prolonged period of time. Shout out, I think, especially to Costa Rica. I don’t know why. Why were we number one in your country for so long? I think that was the most consistent number one spot we’ve ever had.

Courtney: But having climbed in the charts as often as we have, we have gotten some truly bonkers PR requests over the years. And this has been an ongoing thing with, like, our personal ace friends or even our personal broadly queer friends – who at this point is all of our friends – where we get just a truly out there PR request, where we are like, they clearly have no idea who we are, what we do, what our focus is. And because of that they’re asking to be on our podcast is borderline offensive. I will just pull up our emails and read the most outlandish ones to our personal friends, and some of them are just always waiting for the next weird one to come in. Like, “So get any weird PR requests lately?”

Royce: So we often don’t respond to email in general. We’ve kind of considered the possibility of sponsored things, but haven’t done anything like that, mostly because we don’t get anything that’s particularly good or particularly well aligned with our content. And also because emails are hard sometimes.

Courtney: We– we– we took one sponsorship one time.

Royce: Oh yeah, that was just like a ‘put our link on the website’ sponsorship.

Courtney: Put a link in the transcript to one of your episodes that comes in. It can be any link to anything, as long as it goes through, like, I don’t know, a web extension, something or another.

Royce: Some kind of affiliate link. Yeah.

Courtney: And that was super easy. All we had to do is put that link and then they gave us money. And it was a link to, like, a Dungeons & Dragons book. [laughs]

Royce: Since they let you put– since they let you pick, that was the most topical thing.

Courtney: Yep.

Royce: But yeah, it’s interesting being on the side of things, because it isn’t clear to me, depending on the size of the publisher, if there is a individual person somewhere sitting down and just finding email lists and sending them out or sending, like, mass sending an email, like blind carbon copy style. Or if some of these are just automated systems going through RSS feeds, grabbing the emails and just generating things.

Courtney: Some of– They try to personalize it, and some of them are actually like PR agents at, like, agencies. And that’s why some of these are so funny to me. Because we have the PR agent’s name, the company they work at, their email address and everything like that, and it’s like if your client knew that we are the targeted marketing you’re trying to get into, they should fire you. [chuckles]

Royce: You say personalized, though oftentimes the personalization is just–

Courtney: Bad.

Royce: It’s: ‘let’s repeat the title of one of your last three podcast episodes in the email and say, hey, this was good, this aligns with our product.’

Courtney: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And so we’re gonna read some of the wildest ones to you today. Now, I’m going to try very hard not to use actual names of people or companies or products, because a lot of these are like– they’re not asking– We do get offers for sponsorships, for products, but a lot of these are like, “We want our client to be a guest on your podcast. We want you to interview them.” And then we see what they are requesting and it’s like, “Oh, you don’t want us to interview your client.”

Courtney: If we were mean, if we were shady, shady bitches, we would say, “Sure, come on our podcast.” And we would rip them to shreds. Because you clearly are new here.

Courtney: So if any of these people or products sound familiar to you, even if we redact names, please don’t go looking for them, because most of these are through a third party PR like marketing agency. So none of this is even personal to the people who are the would-be guests. Because they probably don’t even know that we are the ones who got contacted about this. For the most part, I know nothing about them. But here’s one we got recently. The subject line of this email, in all caps: “Podcast guest, the vibrant and vibrating world of blush-worthy wearables penetrating the wellness market.” And the pitch, right at the top of the email that is underlined, “Here’s why this person would be a great guest on The Ace Couple podcast so that they can – quote – provide your listeners with invaluable insights into how recent innovations in sex tech can improve their sexual health and, by extension, their cardiac health, potentially saving their lives.”

Royce: So one thing we’ve kind of griped about behind closed doors for a long time is how annoying it is that sex is sometimes proposed as a good, healthy thing for everyone to do because it’s just exercise. [Courtney chuckles] You can replace it with literally any other exercise that is like cardiovascular in nature, that gets your heart rate up, that gets you moving around.

Courtney: Yeah, yes. And the thing is, like, this is so blown out of proportion. Even if we were like– When you look at the charts for like the sex and sexuality podcasts, like, you do find us because we’re talking about sexuality, but you also find podcasts like Sex With Emily, and you get things that are like sex therapists.

Courtney: You get people sometimes queer, sometimes straight, talking about like intimate details of their sex lives and just being very candid about that, and so a lot of these I’m sure we’re getting just because we’re charting in the same places as those people.

Royce: Yeah, there really isn’t a good singular category for our podcast. And part of it is because the main categories that are used, most podcasts kind of revolve around Apple Podcasts just being what it is, and having been there for so long, so it’s usually Apple Podcasts categories is what the entire podcast industry moves to, and there isn’t an area for talking about orientation relationship related things. Like relationship stuff is kind of wrapped under sexuality, so is any sort of like queer discussions.

Courtney: Which is all under the umbrella of, like, health and wellness.

Royce: That’s true too.

Courtney: So we also–

Royce: Sexuality is a part of health and wellness.

Courtney: So we also get a lot of, like, doctors reaching out to us who want to be on our podcast.

Courtney: But what I often do when we get a request like this, I usually do not respond at all. Because– Could you, listeners, imagine for a moment? We get this guy on our podcast, we agree to interview this person and he shows up being like, “This sex tech will save your life because of how healthy and important sex is.” And then we, being The Asexual Couple, lay into him about allonormativity. [laughs] Could you imagine for a moment? So I usually don’t respond at all. But what I do, because it’s fun for me, I go and find these companies, these products, these people, and I see other things they’ve said, just so I can fantasize about how much of a train wreck it would be if we invited them on. [chuckles] And so I went to the website for this sex tech they want to talk to us about. And the like tabs on this website, the categories are: health, pleasure, science. And let me– Let me tell you listeners, this sex tech is basically a smart cock ring.

Royce: Yeah, we’ve explained this to a few friends by now and they were all like–

Courtney: “What?”

Royce: “What? Why? Is that safe?” Yeah, think about all of the functions that go into, like, smartwatches or rings or things.

Courtney: Then put that on your genitals. But so here’s the thing. I already can envision the kinds of talking points that someone who is actively trying to put themselves out on podcasts for this product would say. And I found those talking points just scrolling through the website. If you click on the science tab of this website, there is like a scary red box that says, “The dangers of not having enough sex.” And then it just goes on to say: our redacted company’s urology advisors recommend sex at least twice a week. And then vaguely cites that, according to research, there are health benefits that reduce the risk of disease, reduces depression, improves quality of sleep and recovery, improves and sharpens brain function, reduces stress, and even mends and deepens partner intimacy. And the thing is there’s a link on this “our urology advisors recommend sex at least twice a week.” The link is under “recommend sex.” So here I’m clicking on this, fully prepared to make fun of, like, a company sponsored pseudo-academic study. But no, that link just goes to the product page where you can buy this smart cock ring.

Royce: Okay. So they haven’t even, like, paid someone with corporate shares to make up a study.

Courtney: If they have, I can’t find it easily. Because their link about their urology advisors recommending sex just goes to the ring. But then there’s a chart right next to this scary box that says the dangers of not having enough sex and everything else I just mentioned. There’s like two little graphs that just say: “Percent reduced risk of illness 50%, potential risk reduction of cardiovascular mortality in older men 33%, potential risk reduction of developing prostate cancer if–” what? If you have sex? If you have sex twice a week? If you use their product? It doesn’t say. I do not know.

Royce: Yeah, that graph is literally just: line goes up.

Courtney: And what I love is the actual zero to 100% says percent reduced risk of illness, and then we have a bar on 50 and a bar on 33. But within the bar it says potential risk. So they’re trying to cover themselves for some kind of lawsuit because there either isn’t a study or they know it’s bogus. But yeah. And here’s what I’m saying when I tell you, like, these people need to fire their PR agents. Because I’d like to hope that someone selling a product like this, who was actually aware of our podcast and what we did and who our community was, would not actually have an interest in coming on. I know that there’s enough acephobia in the world that that’s not a guarantee unfortunately. But can you imagine someone coming on and saying, “Use our smart cock ring and have more sex, have sex at least twice a week, because it could potentially reduce death and cancer. And also it mends and deepens partner intimacy.” I’m pretty sure that would be a hate crime to say to our faces. Get out of here. Absolutely not.

Courtney: So I wanted to know, like, what does this smart cock ring actually measure and why do they say you need to measure these things. And it’s apparently they have a little, “Did you know?” And it says: “Did you know nocturnal erections are one of the best indicators of your health?” Is it? I mean, I personally don’t have those, but that can’t possibly– That’s such a broad, sweeping statement. And you didn’t cite your source. You didn’t even try to pretend to cite your source like you did on ‘have sex twice a week’. But like, this is also the thing too, because we ran this email by some of our allo friends. After we had a good long laugh about it with our ace friends, we ran it by some of our allo friends. And this, like, health ring is supposed to be just worn overnight so that it can generate an erectile fitness score for you.

Royce: Which poses the question, if you know this score, what do you do about it? Like if you know your heart rate or your blood pressure, you can, I don’t know, exercise more or change your diet or go through steps to actually affect the number.

Courtney: Well, apparently their urology advisors say have sex more often.

Courtney: But yeah, since they’re saying that nocturnal erections is like the ultimate indicator of health, apparently, this thing that you wear overnight is supposed to actually measure, like, not only how many erections you get overnight, but they apparently calculate a firmness score. So it– it says like, the three key data points are firmness, frequency, and duration. And then, based on those three things it’s tracking, it gives you a fitness score. But yeah, it’s all related to an app. So I imagine, if someone was actually wearing this overnight, that it would, I don’t know, give you health tips…? I really don’t want to know what those are. But every single one of our allo friends that we ran this by were all just like horrified that you just wear this overnight. Apparently, that’s not how you normally use cock rings, I’ve come to learn.

Royce: Yeah, wearing them 24/7 is generally ill-advised. But what’s the deal with all of these products that are just seeking to collect data and gamify everything? I mean, there are plenty of things that try to track sleep and provide what little information devices that aren’t actually scanning your brain waves can tell you about your sleep patterns. Because there’s only so much you can tell from heart rate and things like that.

Courtney: And I feel like most people do not need to track the intricacies of their body behavior. Some people do, for very specific reasons. I mean blood pressure is one that comes to mind. Certain people with blood pressure concerns do need to track their blood pressure. The average person does not need to.

Courtney: Which is a great point, actually, with this. How– how much of some of these things could have something, like, totally to do with just, like, overall blood pressure?

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: Things like that. But yeah, apparently you don’t need to wear it every single night. They say you can, uh, wear it as little as once a week. But the goal of this too, I mean they have these big sweeping, like, “This can potentially save your life.” Less cancer! Less stress! Less death! Those all sound good in theory, but then you’ll say, like, “Using this once a week will give you a clear understanding of your vascular and sexual health.” See, there’s the vascular health. “Helping you to achieve better sex long into the future.” See, this is really all just about sex. It’s just about sex. It’s not about saving lives. It’s really not. It is not.

Royce: And the reason they’re talking about vascular health is because, again, pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, like, that is the main bit of information that they are probably getting through this device.

Courtney: Yeah, and– “Better, more frequent sex,” they say. “Enhance performance, prolong hardness, and amplify orgasms for increased pleasure for you and your partner.” See, I would– it still wouldn’t be for me and he would still absolutely not get to come on to our podcast, but I would have so much more respect for things like this if they actually stuck to like their target market. Who I assume is older allosexual men. If they were really just saying, you know, have you – as an older man – started experiencing issues with erectile dysfunction, and is this an issue for you, is this a concern you want to address, maybe this product can help give you some more insight to help you achieve your personal goals in life. I would have so much more respect for marketing like that. But no, they have to make it, “This will save your life. You could die if you aren’t having enough sex.” Get out of here.

Royce: Yeah, that’s interesting that there is – buried in all this marketing – there is an actual medical reason for this device to exist. I was just reading about a different kind of testing for this kind of thing that is used to diagnose erectile dysfunction. And basically the point of it is to see, well, if you are having an erection at night but can’t get one during the day, then that isolates it to maybe something either psychological or potentially a side effect of medications that you’re on. And that helps, like, you know, eliminate hormones or something like that naturally in the body from being the cause.

Courtney: Yeah, but can they, like, just be honest about that?

Royce: No, they’re marketing. Marketing can’t be honest.

Courtney: Can they not contact an asexual podcast to be, like, “Having more sex will save your life.” Can they not? And it is funny too, because sometimes, like a month or two after we get these requests, I’ll like google the person who wanted to be on our podcast, and I will see that they have done like 10 podcasts recently. Just random podcasts. So a lot of these, I know, they’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. But I do always find it funny. Sometimes these, like, PR people really go the extra mile to be, like, “Here are questions we want you to ask them.” And one of the questions they wanted us to ask this guy is: “How can intimacy wearables improve both physical and emotional aspects of relationships?” No, I can assure you, if we agreed to have him on the podcast, that would not be the question we’re asking.

Courtney: Okay, I’m bored of talking about smart cock rings. Let’s– let’s find the next one. Okay, this one I think about probably every other day. I just– I cannot get this one out of my mind. Again, starting in all caps for the subject line: “Interview idea: – quote – ‘I felt like a eunuch’ what this means and what it says about these times.” Every time we get a subject line like that, I’m like, “I’m going to have so much fun reading this email to all of my ace friends.” [chuckles] And this one truly did not disappoint.

Courtney: So this is a PR agent who wants us to have an author on the podcast who wrote a book. A novel they promise has many sexuality-related themes. And then goes on to say, “The author’s dating life was so barren while he was studying at the Harvard Divinity School that he felt – dot, dot, dot – like a eunuch.” Great start. [reading] “What exactly does this mean? What’s the connection to issues of sexuality and gender? For this author, it went deeper than his sex life. According to the author, the life of a graduate student is a life of political weakness, economic marginalization and social insignificance. A life so impotent and emasculated that living it made him feel like a eunuch.”

Courtney: And although this one was not so on the nose that we were handed a set of questions to ask, we did get a bulleted points of notes for what the author can speak to, were we to have him on the podcast. And the number one bullet point is: “Why he thinks lots of people today – quote – ‘feel like a eunuch’ and what this feeling meant to him.” Oh… Madam Publicist, you do not want us to have your client on the podcast! I do, every other day, when I think about this, I just fantasize about inviting this guy onto the podcast and being, like, “Yes, please tell us – and our very high percentage asexual audience – why you think a lot of people today feel like a eunuch. Let’s hear it.” No, no, no, no. You– We are doing you a kindness not having you on the podcast.

Courtney: But this is what really gets me. So this is an author who wrote a fiction novel, a historical fiction, that we are promised in this email is in an exotic setting – which I have my feelings about the word exotic and how it tends to be used. It’s described as an accessible literary mashup that calls to mind Game of Thrones, Lolita and Memoirs of a Geisha. [muffled cry] But then it promises that this book is more than your typical 6th century BC end the world sex novel. Is that a genre? Have I been blissfully unaware of the literary market that is 6th century BC end of the world sex novels? There are enough of them that there’s– there’s a typicality about them? That’s trying to be subverted?

Royce: I mean Chuck Tingle is so prolific, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was one of their books in that setting.

Courtney: I would read that, though. I would read that! And I would let Chuck Tingle come on the podcast. That’s the difference. [laughs] And this is all said to be told through the voice of the insignificant eunuch. You are able to address topics including gender fluidity. And, as far as I can tell, looking this guy up, I have seen nothing in any of his bios, any of his press that suggests that he is anything but a cisgender man. And I did not read the book. I do not know. And I am not saying that a cisgender man can never have empathy or be able to write about gender fluidity in a sensitive way. But there is nothing sensitive about reaching out to an asexual podcast, being like, “Hey, this guy who wrote a book felt impotent and emasculated while he was in grad school at Harvard Divinity, so why don’t you have him on to talk about the significance of feeling like a eunuch?” Absolutely not, absolutely not. But there’s also– There’s such a great comedy about it.

Courtney: The number of times in the past year that my brain has thought, “Well, this isn’t your typical 6th century BC end of the world sex novel,” is absurd. I think that in my head, like I said, probably every other day. [laughs] And, yeah, even the literary mashup. I know those are all very popular books, but there is nothing that appeals to me about Game of Thrones, Lolita and Memoirs of a Geisha. We are not your target audience. We might be the opposite of your target audience. Is there a word for that? And it is like so in my head that I’m almost tempted to read the book. I really am. Just because I have to know what is so atypical about this as a 6th century BC end of the world sex novel. And who knows, maybe the eunuch narrator is highly relatable. Could you imagine?

Courtney: But the thing is usually when someone wants us to talk about their book, normally they send us the book, and that has happened before. Either we get a physical copy of the book in the mail, or we at least get, like, an ebook attached to the email. I didn’t even get that for this one. So I can’t even read it to know if the eunuch narrator is at all relatable or if it’s just further offence. It’s just, “Hey, you probably haven’t read this book, will you interview this person?” No. And again, you really don’t want me to. I promise.

Courtney: Now we did get one that was really fascinating to me, because I was pretty sure it was going to be a hard no, but there were a couple things they could have said that would have maybe had us thinking about it. Do you remember this? There was a dating app that contacted us that actually wanted– Like, this was like a paid ad. This wasn’t even an interview. It’s like, “We want to sponsor you for this.” And it was like a dating app that– Without saying the name, it was one we hadn’t heard of before, so it was clearly newer or smaller, but it was very much focused around non-monogamy.

Royce: Yeah, that one was a long time ago. I remember looking at the website and not seeing any red flags. And I think it had– I was under the impression that it had, like, a more modern diversity of orientations and gender identities or something like that.

Courtney: Because that was one of our, like, hard things. Because it’s like we did meet online.

Courtney: A lot of ace and aro people in our community do. And a lot of ace and aro people in our community struggle with online dating. And part of that is because of a lot of the websites themselves not having enough orientation markers, not having a wide enough pool of people that they’d be compatible with, things of that nature. But, like our number one thing is like, if you don’t even have these identity markers, if you don’t even have the option to say you’re asexual, that is clearly going to be a hard no. And do you have romantic orientations? What is your spread of gender identities that you can self-select on apps like this? Because we have looked into a lot of dating apps and we talked about it a bit on previous episodes. But one criticism you’ve had, Royce, is that a lot of the apps, even if they have more than just man/woman or even more than just man/woman/non-binary, there’s still like the underlying system that was originally created to be binary, so…

Royce: Yeah, some of the options were– I mean, they could have just been a text entry field because they weren’t used by anything. It was just another piece of information. That was a long time ago, but when I went through and, like, took screenshots of the account creation process for a few sites, you’d enter in all your gender information and then they would say, like, “How do you want to appear?” Like which sets of results do you want to appear in for other people? And you’d have to choose a binary.

Courtney: Right, exactly. And I guess, now that I’m thinking about this one, they did want paid ads, but they also asked if the CEO could come on to our podcast to talk about the app. And I think what we ended up saying– We responded and we were basically going to say, like, “We will only consider this if your website is friendly to ace and aro identities, and at this time we are not interested in interviewing your CEO unless they identify somewhere on the ace and aro spectrum then we’d consider that. But as far as paid ads, if we find that you are friendly enough to these identities, we will consider our options.” But as soon as we responded, the PR agency got back to us and were like, “We aren’t working with them anymore because they breached our contract with our agency.” And we were like, “Oh!”

Royce: Yeah, we did let this one sit and we responded late. But yeah, clearly there was something shady going on.

Courtney: So we were like, “Well then, good to know.” We did, for a hot second, consider taking the Manscaped sponsorship. We ultimately did not, but we had conversations. I think that was the very first one we got where we were like, “Well… Maybe.”

Royce: It was the first one we were like, “That’s kind of funny.”

Courtney: We were– It is kind of funny. And the thing is I would have no interest in, like, reading a script if they were like, “Here’s the ad, read this script.” But we kind of had, like, a funny story about Manscaped where it’s like we could share this story and put it in. Because also– Like, very masculine branding aside, which is, believe it or not, not the biggest demographic in our audience, they are vegan products as far as I can tell. They aren’t tested on animals and that’s something that, you know, we care about when it comes to physical products like that. But yeah, let’s tell it now. Tell it, tell your story.

Royce: Well, I will in a moment, but one of the things that was kind of funny was, you know, an overwhelming majority of our audience does not identify as masculine, and they’re–

Courtney: Or at least not as a man.

Royce: Yeah, but not all of Manscaped products are like this, but there was a point in time when we are going to get a COVID vaccine, a while back when we had to peek into a like larger department store because that was the only, like, little clinic area that was available at the point in time for the shot. And we saw, just, you know, down an aisle, a row of Manscaped items that were like hair trimmers and things like that, that were like construction worker orange [Courtney laughs] and called things like the lawnmower.

Courtney: No, it’s terrible. [chuckles]

Royce: Yeah, a couple of years ago I was a groomsman for an old friend of mine’s wedding, and it was one of these situations where the like four or five of us have kept up on and off throughout the years but aren’t always around each other. And I, personally, am not an easy person to get gifts for, and a group of just five people is not an easy thing to get the same gift for. So they just ended up getting like– I don’t know, they probably advertise these at– for weddings and things too, but it’s just like a little gift bag of miscellaneous Manscaped items. And it’s like shaving cream and, you know, exfoliant, and just various things like that that anyone can really use.

Courtney: Except the branding is, like, really unfortunate.

Royce: Some of it.

Courtney: Some of it.

Royce: Some of it. There were too many products that revolved around…

Courtney: Balls…

Royce: Yeah, I was– I was trying to think if it was exclusively testicles or if it was more than that, but no, there was– There was a lot. Like why– Why do you need a toner?

Courtney: [laughs] Allos, please advise. Yeah, so that was interesting because that was also, like you said, a group of people you haven’t spoken to a lot or at length, and you’re– you were and are and had been very like publicly out as asexual, as meh-gender, as agender.We– we’d had these conversations, we’d been invited to speak at, like, international conferences. And like this was really close to the time of year that, like, Ace Week is. So we were actually very busy with some Ace Week events while this wedding was happening. So like at the rehearsal and everything, people were like, “So what have you been up to lately?” And there was just like an awkward moment where we just looked at each other and it’s like, “Are you/we about to have this conversation with all these people right now?”

Royce: The thing is, whenever that happens around friends, your pause and look over at me is so visible.

Courtney: [laughs] It’s suspicious.

Royce: It’s like, “Well, I guess we are having this conversation right now.”

Courtney: [laughs] Well, it was– It was like your people, you know? I mean the people who are collectively our people already know, the people who are my people already know. But–

Royce: Yeah, it’s like– It’s like now, even if there wasn’t something big, I now have to address Courtney’s change in posture and, like, long blink and stare.

Courtney: [laughs] It’s fine. But yeah, that was like– I remember you getting that like Manscaped gift box. And kind of like we do with these emails, we were just going through it and reading these phrases and just laughing. [chuckles] Just laugh about it.

Royce: Yeah, that was another one that we got the email, slept on it, and by the time we responded we just didn’t hear anything back, kind of a thing. That was actually the only company that– I mean they’re a big enough company, but they actually sent like a legit, “Here’s what we expect from you, here’s what information we need before you can proceed.” [Courtney agrees] Whereas all of the little authors and publishers and people who want to be guests, it’s like shotgun emails with a sentence where they looked up our podcast description or something like that.

Courtney: Well, there is a difference between paying us money to promote something versus, “I want you to promote me. I want you to promote me to your audience.” Which is also very funny, because sometimes we will just get people– And there isn’t one individual email that’s so hilarious that I have to share it, but as you can perhaps imagine at this point, we get a lot of like sex and relationship coaches and sometimes we get like matchmakers and people who do not even work with aspec people. Like, it’s not like, “Oh, I’m a very specific niche person.” Like no, this is just blanket sex coach. Eh…

Courtney: And some of them will, like, label themselves as, like, a celebrity life coach. And it’s like, “I’ve never heard of you.” And– and then they’ll even promise like, “Here’s why you should have them on your podcast: it’s because they will be sharing this podcast to their over 100,000 followers.” And then you’ll, like, actually go to their like Instagram account or their Twitter and, sure enough, they’ll have like 100,000 followers, but the post they just put up last week has like 21 likes on it and no comments. Yeah, those don’t look bought at all. And also like, stop– stop pretending like you’re doing us a favor. If you want to be on our podcast don’t be like, “We’re going to promote you to other people.” Trust me, we do not want to be promoted to other people. [laughs] And we certainly don’t want an alleged celebrity relationship coach.

Courtney: And this is one– So some of– Some of these requests it’s like if you knew who you were sending this to, this is offensive. There are some that are just humor– humorously off base. Like, we’ve gotten a couple of requests for, um, teaching people how to break free of romance and love addiction. And it’s like, did not– not– Not your target audience. Yeah, also just to give you, like, a little taste of the ones who try to personalize things sometimes. [reading] “I recently engaged with your latest episode about the much-anticipated aroace representation in Season 3 of Heartstopper. The way you highlighted the impact of genuine representation on mental health was compelling. Your episode was so timely and my client’s work aligns perfectly with these themes. Will you interview them?” [laughs]

Royce: Emails like that was what was making me question if there is just a template or some sort of automated assisting program to help fill things out.

Courtney: And then there– there really are some where it’s like I’m sure this is actually a very acceptable guest and, although they may not be ace and aro, maybe they do work with the broader queer community and maybe it could be an interesting conversation. But the very clear, like– You clearly did not listen to our podcast but you’re trying to pretend like you did just irks me. Because we got one. Like, “I’m listening to your recent episode on Baker Thief and how it challenges mainstream narratives was incredibly insightful.” Really? Our Baker Thief episode? I mean we did like the book, but that was one of our more niche episodes and then you don’t actually go on to talk about aromanticism, demisexuality, gender fluidity, any of the actual specific things, or representation in genre fiction or anything like that that were actually the reasons why we were talking about the book. And then it goes on to talk about, like, “This episode resonated with my client’s work, because my client works in representation and inclusion, especially within the queer community.” Oh, do they?

Courtney: And then we’ll get like four emails from that same person. And this is not the only incidence, this is just an example of what PR people do. We’ll get like three or four emails from exactly the same person, just rephrasing the original email with no more specifics that give us any confidence that you actually know what we do or talk about. Because then it’s like, “My client’s expertise aligns seamlessly with your coverage of the Baker Thief which I’ve been reflecting on.” Have you? And then goes on to say, “My client’s work on modern female sexuality could complement the narratives you highlight so thoughtfully in this episode on the Baker Thief.” Really? Female sexuality? Not, um, not sexuality and gender fluidity, not– not aromanticism, not– not nothing like that? Okay, all right.

Courtney: Another really good example of that. Um, [reading] “I appreciate the valuable content you bring to your audience, particularly your recent episode on: We’re finally talking about the aroace character in Hazbin Hotel. Will you interview my divorce recovery group facilitator, relationship coach and business coach client?” Are they a fan of Vivziepop? [laughs]

Royce: Okay, so the main character in Hazbin Hotel’s parents are divorced, is struggling to run a business, and also single.

Courtney: But then you go to, like, the LinkedIn page that they– they– [laughs] that they link to their client. And this is like an elderly white man who, as far as I can tell, is straight and cis. He’s never heard of Hazbin Hotel. Do you have any strong opinions on Alastor as aroace rep? [laughs]

Royce: Maybe he’s a big part of the fandom.

Courtney: Maybe, but if he is, you need to say that in the email. Because now I’m intrigued!

Courtney: Oh yes, this one was one of my favorites too: “Unlock the secrets of love and intimacy” with this very heterosexual book, title redacted of course. [reading] “A book in which the author shares his personal journey from a series of failed relationships to a profound understanding of love and intimacy.” And then you go to this guy’s website. And the thing is, I still don’t want to say his name, but this one did come from this guy. This was not from a third party agency. But he calls himself a life and relationship insight ninja, and I can’t. I can’t with that.

Royce: Use of the word ninja for a specialist is such a particular type of person.

Courtney: And this particular type of person is like, “Here’s my journey: I was in the military; I was successful in my career; but I was miserable because I didn’t know how to love a woman. And then I made a lot of money with a totally unrelated business and I was on Oprah one time and I got really rich. And now I know how to love a woman. So I’m a relationship coach now and also a life coach.” Both. “I’m a life coach and a relationship coach.” And, sir, I am so sorry but you are lost. You don’t want to be on our podcast, I promise you.

Courtney: And even asexuality and aromanticism aside, every ounce of this guy’s pitch for being on our podcast and every ounce of the website is so heavily binary gendered and so heterosexual. It’s so– Like, “I give insight for men and women, and illuminated men and awakened women.” And it’s like, I don’t know if you have ever worked with a queer couple in your alleged over a decade of being a relationship coach, but if you have, you should put that in your pitch to us. Have you ever worked with an asexual person ever? Do you know what that is? That’s the thing.

Courtney: Some of the requests we get to be on our podcast it’s like I look at their website, their bio, their pitch, the way they’re talking, the amatonormativity and allonormativity that is seeped in every single corner of their marketing, and I just have to think do you even know what asexuality is? Do you even know whose podcast you want to be on? And this is another one where we didn’t even get the book. That’s another thing. Authors and PR agents, most people send us the book they want us to read. If you’re not even sending us the book, it always gets me too. Like, this one has a, “You can check out my book in detail,” with a link to the Amazon page. It’s like, do you want us to buy your book on Amazon so that we can talk about it?

Royce: I don’t think that’s how this works.

Courtney: This book that seems to have an illustration of a man and a woman, if not fornicating, getting very close to it? You want us to buy that and then have you on the phone? No, no. Although I did, like– because if there ever is, like, an Amazon listing, I do like to read the reviews. And there is one that says: “Well-meaning book, but the information is rudimentary. It assumes that the reader is a meathead with no emotional depth, and the fact that men can have feelings is a groundbreaking revelation.” Oh, no. Yes, I’m sorry, sir, but you do not want to be on our podcast.

Courtney: As you can well imagine, we have many, many more of these, but those are some of the highlights. And that’s a good spread of requests that we get. I hope you found some of them as funny as we do. And if there actually genuinely are any publicists out there who genuinely do listen to our podcast, before pitching us– I was going to say, like, please keep it on brand or only send us aco and aro specific guests and topics, but now I’m inclined to, like, give them a code word. Like, use this code word in your email to us and then we’ll talk. Oh, what should it be? Okay, now this is fun. So, agents, agents, your code– I’ve got it. Your code word is: Jellicle cats. Because I’m a little bit obsessed with Cats: The Jellicle Ball right now, and also that’s the ringtone on Princess Carolyn’s phone in Bojack Horseman, and she’s an agent. And I always– I giggled so hard when I found out that that was her ringtone. Just beautiful.

Courtney: So yeah, that’s the new challenge. The first publicist to mention Jellicle cats in an email to us, we are having your person on our podcast, no matter whomst they are. [chuckles] That’s a promise. We’ll have fun, it’ll be good. We’ll play nice, probably. But I think that is going to do it for today.

Courtney: So we are going to move right along to our featured MarketplACE vendor of the week. If you are absolutely furious at how downright offensive it is to have a doctor in our inbox telling us that we have to have sex a minimum of two times a week, then perhaps you would like a wonderful sticker that I myself have purchased that just says Asexual Rage in the colors of the Ace flag from our featured vendor today: Eeks Corner.

Courtney: At Eek’s Corner you can find handmade stickers, bags and merch, all made with love. And if you experience other types of queer rage, you can just get a queer rage sticker, or a lesbian rage, or a bisexual fury sticker, perhaps even transgender wrath. They are all here, as well as some very cute tote bags, other stickers that are not necessarily queer related. Like, ‘the future is feline’, or ‘no gentrifiers allowed’. There are all kinds of goodies here. And, as always, links to find Eeks Corner are going to be in our show notes in the description if you are listening on YouTube or on our website, along with a full transcript of today’s episode.

Courtney: Happy 2025 to all of our regular listeners. And to all of the many, many publicists who apparently listen to all of our episodes. I look forward to another year of silly PR requests from you. Until next time, goodbye.