Ramy Youssef: Earthly Desires &The Divine
Podcast Transcript Season 3 Episode 47
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
Ramy Youssef is the Golden Globe-winning creator and star of Ramy on Hulu, which debuts its second season on May 29th. Liz spoke with Ramy about faith and sex; observing Ramadan during quarantine; the differences between his fictional and real self; filling the void with emotional eating and porn; and how to find the middle ground between earthly desires and the divine.
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Ramy:
Hi, this is Ramy, and you’re listening to The Sex Ed.
Liz Intro:
Hello, and welcome to The Sex Ed podcast. I’m Liz Goldwyn, your host and the founder of The Sex Ed, your #1 source for sex, health, and consciousness education. On our website TheSexEd.com, you can read original essays written by our network of experts, watch live talks and videos, listen to past episodes of this podcast, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram @TheSexEd.
The Sex Ed is postively orgasmique to be partnered with GUCCI for your listening pleasure on this season of this podcast. That’s right, oh yes, GUCCI baby! We’re so grateful to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode and helping us answer everything you wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask.
Today, my guest is comedian, director, and writer Ramy Youssef. Ramy is the Golden Globe-winning creator and star of RAMY on Hulu, which debuts its second season on May 29. I spoke with Ramy about faith and sex; observing Ramadan during quarantine; the differences between his fictional and real self; filling the void with emotional eating and porn; and how to find the middle ground between earthly desires and the divine.
Ramy:
Hey.
Liz:
Hi.
Ramy:
How's it going?
Liz:
Good.
Ramy:
We're good. Where are you at?
Liz:
I'm in LA. Where are you?
Ramy:
I'm in LA. Yeah.
Liz:
Oh, you are? You're not on the east coast?
Ramy:
No. I was here doing a couple of things for just like four days and then I ended up realizing I couldn't get back on the plane. It was right at that “Tom Hanks has COVID” moment. That was the moment what it was like. I usually am half and half between. So it's not unfamiliar for me to be out here for a while, but I wasn't planning on it.
Liz:
But your family's in New Jersey. Right?
Ramy:
Yeah.
Liz:
So how's that? Are they all okay?
Ramy:
Yeah, they're okay. I'm trying to figure out getting them out here because it's the second most densely populated with COVID, but I think also just in terms of dense population. That's why New York and New Jersey are getting hit so hard. So yeah, just trying to figure it out to get them out here, because it's been a while. It's actually crazy because it was... my grandmother passed away right before. The week before the week I got stuck here, she had passed. And we were so upset because we thought she had more time, but now I'm like, "Oh my God, if she was alive now it would've been so much worse for her," because she was trying to do cancer stuff and all this stuff, and I was just trying to take her to a hospital and do all that would've just been a fucking nightmare. Literally, we were in the hospital there for like three weeks, it was a VIP experience compared to what it would be now. It's just shit that doesn't even exist anymore like your own room, three nurses. It literally doesn't exist right now so it's kind of wild.
Liz:
I'm sorry to hear that.
Ramy:
No, it's okay.
Liz:
You do a good job of laughing through pain. It's your job. I feel like this is super blessed timing that I get to finally interview you during Ramadan. And this is going to come out when season two comes out which is right after Ramadan. Did you plan that timing for the series two premiere?
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah. I did because I take Ramadan very seriously, more seriously than probably my character does. There's a lot of delineations between my character and who I actually am, and I think so much of the space that's interesting to me with the show is higher self versus lower self, or even just higher ideals, not even delineate certain things to being bad or something. I think it's kind of where you want to be, and then where you actually are. And I always feel like my character is at a bit of a different place than where I want to be or where I try to be, but it's still a place that my basest instincts and ego and feelings resonate with.
That place, yeah, is not really where I want to put my audience during Ramadan. It's not the ideal place to be. Like, "Here's a brand new show," while this is a month to unplug, and to connect, and to pray, and to study, and to communicate with people. So on one hand, it's kind of like the audience's responsibility of what they want to do with that time. I can't really control that, but I was like, "Well, let me help a little bit and push the release."
Liz:
Yeah, well in season one you really went buck wild during Ramadan on the show.
Ramy:
Yeah.
Liz:
You were sleeping with a married woman at the mosque. You went kind of-
Ramy:
Yeah, not at the mosque, but yeah-
Liz:
Well, you met her at the mosque. You met her at the mosque.
Ramy:
Yeah, met her at the mosque, yeah. And so much of that was, again, trying to highlight this... there's various things going on there. It was interesting because we did that trying to show a failure for the character. What could happen that would really sit in his heart and give him that, "Oh, what did I do" feeling and in an interesting way. There's also this interesting thing too to me, which is just I was so nervous about that episode. I was nervous about my family seeing it. We did a screening actually and an imam, a Sheik that I know came to and he watched the episode. And I was like, "Oh, man. He's going about to rip this." And then afterwards he was like, "You know, it's an interesting reflection just to think about how that woman was being treated by her husband and what drove the situation for something like that to happen." And I was like, "Oh wow, that's an interesting..." I did not think this was the type of feedback I would get from an imam. It was interesting the conversation that it brought up.
Liz:
Yeah, well you really get into a lot of gray areas which is what we like to do on The Sex Ed, and for me, the intersection of religion and sex is really where I feel like we need to get to because so much of the way we learn about our sexuality is through our cultural and our religious upbringing. And I think we're really far away from being able to experience truly transcended, spiritual, ecstatic sex because most of us are not very connected to our spiritual side. And we use sex, I think, culturally to fill a void, to fill an emptiness or loneliness, and season two literally opens with you filling that void eating Haribo gummies and masturbating to porn. Which was amazing, which I love, and I think there was a line, you said, "The more people you're with the more alone you feel." Your character says that.
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah. It's that void. This is something where there is times where real life me has more answers. This is something where it's a difficult thing to understand. I think a lot of the questions the character is asking are ones that I have asked in trying to understand. There are so many wisdoms and traditions around sex, right? And I think if we look historically, it's like people related to the Kama Sutra or something like that. But in Islam there's a lot of discussion around eroticism and a lot of discussion around sexual pleasure in the confines of marriage, but it's openly discussed in a way that I think even a modern, contemporary society would have an issue in really talking about.
America on a whole is pretty prudish compared to Europe. This is something that I constantly am straddling with when people are like, "Oh, yeah, you're talking about sexual oppression in Muslim communities." I'm like, "Well, no. I'm actually just talking about it in America." America is very sexually repressed. We're very puritanical at a core, and we're kind of fighting from that. There's this interesting thing of understanding the lines, for me, between sexual discussion and sexual behavior. I don't know that the actual acting on sexual behavior. I feel like the discussion around sex should be super open. I feel like it would really get it to that place that you're talking about, about it feeling transcendent and feeling all these things. The behavior around sex, I don't really know. I don't know what the best rules are to go beyond, and those are things that the character is really struggling with, obviously, and trying to straddle.
Liz:
So I know you're a bit of a porn aficionado.
Ramy:
The character is. The character is.
Liz:
The real life Ramy's not as well? Mia Khalifa makes an appearance. I feel like I can guess your porn genre.
Ramy:
No.
That's really funny. No, of course, I think we grew up on it. I think about the access that my friends and I had with porn at such an early age, and I don't think our parents even really knew what was... Not that they were idiots, but the vastness of the internet was only really apparent to everyone at the same time and in a way that we really understand what is actually happening there. This is stuff we talk about in the show, but just my character talks about watching more porn in order to not have sex. I think that's something that's very real to me, and understanding that there's a difference between what happens in porn and what real intimacy is. So I think he's trying to decipher those things and that's something that definitely resonates with me and is really a question that, again, as we try to understand this newish kind of territory, what does it all mean.
Liz:
Right. Well, I remember in the 9/11 episode from season one, Ramy178, your AOL screen name, is 12 and in a chat room where he discovers masturbation and online porn. Was that a real-life Ramy experience? Did you first watch porn online or did you steal a magazine?
Ramy:
Yeah, I think that was real in terms... I'm trying to think of the first. No, there's definitely reality to that where it was just all our friends... It's not the same conversations exactly that are in that episode, but that was just a thing of like, "Yo, what website are you going on? I heard somebody had the password." I remember someone found a password to a website once and it was just this thing spread, everyone was trying to log in at the same time. It's like this whole chaotic thing.
Liz:
How do you separate the fictional you from the real you? Do you draw a line between what you'll put on the show?
Ramy:
The line that I have for the show is just always making sure that whatever's happening is asking questions of the character that's onscreen. I don't really want to point a finger at anybody. I don't want to blame my parents. I don't want to blame my faith. I don't want to even... It's not about... I don't want to be a storyteller that isn't showing people and their flaws, and understanding their external forces, but also understanding how they've messed up. So, to me, that's like my governing line. I want to make sure this is saying something about the character and I'm not just trying to make some blanket fuck you statement to somebody because I don't find that very interesting.
Liz:
But you bring a lot of real life on it. Your best friend Steve on the show is a real life childhood friend, right?
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've known each other. We met in third grade. We probably really started being friends in like fifth or sixth grade. But yeah, he’s my dude. Mo and Dave who, plays Ahmed, who play my two friends, those are guys who I've lived with at different points and work with. So there's an intimacy and there is this totally... it draws from, again, a lot of the questions that I feel like myself and my friend group have gone through and asked. So drawing from that, obviously.
Season two, I think, with this character of the Sheikh that we bring in and a lot of the storyline that we go in, we're definitely departing into more fiction, I think, than season one. Season one was really based on a lot of standup, and season two is kind of like, "Oh, okay. I'm looking at the characters we created and how do we grow them where they need to go."
Liz:
Okay. We got to talk about Atlantic City. Steve is so brilliant. He's such a great comedian.
Ramy:
You got to interview him.
Liz:
I'm dying to interview him. I was going to ask you.
Ramy:
Yeah, you got to do it. Yeah, you got to do it.
Liz:
He really blows me away. He blew me away on the first season. But he really calls you on your shit. He calls the character Ramy on his shit. And he just speaks these harsh truths that Mo and Ahmed kind of they give you a lot of gray areas to play with. But Steve. Just one line, I think I texted you, "I'm not going on Tinder to use a woman. I'm not you." He fully calls you a fuckboy.
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah.
Liz:
Is that your dynamic in real life?
Ramy:
I think our real life dynamic is more that we're the kind of people who will just tell each other the thing that the other people might not say. I remember one time I put on some weight, and it was just the first thing he could say. He was just like, "You're looking a little chunky." And I'm like, "Great, thank you." And then he was like, "Look, my face is by your stomach. I don't know what else to tell you." I'm like, "Yeah, that's the point of view you have." And I'm also just the person who was just very much the same with him in terms of like when he's being a dick or whatever it might be. He doesn't have a ton of sympathy points with me.
Liz:
Yeah. You guys seem to have no filter with each other. On season one, when you took his medical marijuana and started telling his mom how horrible her life was, and that he was a curse. Some of your comedy, it's so uncomfortable, and so fucking funny. And Atlantic City, it's still really sitting with me because you don't often see, first of all, this kind of tenderness between cis het men on screen. So can you talk to me a little bit about this episode?
Ramy:
You know, that point you just made, I think is a lot of what the series is about. And I know Mo and Ahmed give Ramy more gray areas, but I think between Mo and Ahmed and Ramy and Steve, there is this real tender kind of love that even from the beginning of our show at the pilot where the guy is like, it's not the usual advice of, "Yo man, do whatever you can and not get married." It's actually the opposite where they're like, "Dude, we want the best for you. We want you to be with someone. And we want you to be spiritually sound." And it's kind of like these guys who really support each other and they get on each other because they kind of want the best for each other.
And that's something that, as a series, I'm really interested in exploring because I always feel like the point of view that I'm going to be able to do best is of guys, but I kind of want to show the range of it, and how it kind of plays out in my real friend circles.
And in Atlantic City, I was really wanting an episode this season where the guys could kind of all be together and we can kind of see their various emotional places that they're in. And kind of have that come to a head for all those relationships. And I think with Ramy and Steve, it's the kind of dynamic in the way the plot goes is really central to kind of understanding a lot of the tensions between them getting released, I guess, is a good way to put it.
But really, that episode came out of a big what if situation based on Steve's real pain in real life. And so, this second season, a lot of things are based off of real things that my co-star actors actually went through in real life. With Steve, it didn't get to that, but we kind of had this real conversation once about the pain that builds up for him. And even with May who plays my sister, I don't know if you've seen her episode yet, but she started losing her hair and started to have all these feelings and things that came up out of that. And that was something we were talking about that we wanted to do explore. So it kind of helps make things feel as organic as they do.
Liz:
Yeah. Also you deal with, yeah, I don't want to give away too much, but all I have to say is everyone who's listening, you're definitely going to win another... If you don't win an award for that Atlantic City episode, I'm going to write some letters. I’m going to write some letters to people. No, I'm serious. There's few things that I see on screen that are really representative of an evolved view of relationships between men. And that was really beautiful.
But you also are dealing with sex work in this episode in a way in which sex work is almost seen as social work, or nurse care. And your character Ramy can't see that. So when Steve says to you, "I'm not going on Tinder to use a woman. I'm not you," it's a multifaceted statement.
Ramy:
Yeah. It really kind of rocks Ramy's perspective. He's kind of at this point where he is really just trying to be by the book and he's kind of operating from tropes of how he thinks things should be without really actually listening to Steve's predicament. And he's not really listening to what Steve's going through or kind of understanding it. He's just kind of trying to put Steve in the kind of rubric that he has for himself, and without really taking in who Steve is.
And that's something that the Ramy character does a lot. He's probably, while being super optimistic and open and wanting the best and change for everyone around him, he also throughout the series tends to be someone who is very stereotypical of people who are around him. And he has these preconceived notions of what they should be and how they should be. And we see how having good intentions is not enough when those things are still in place.
Liz:
Yeah. He's a bit selfish and obsessed with his good intentions.
Ramy:
Oh yeah.
Liz:
But also impulsive at the same time. I mean, and also in the episode uses spiritual devotion. He wants to pray in that episode at very inopportune times. Yeah. How much in general does prayer make you, Ramy, pause, like in those impulsive moments?
Ramy:
Yeah. Prayer for me in real life, it's super important, and it helps me, I think, operate from who I actually want to be and what I would consider my more grounded self. And then moments where I'm not doing it, if there's a string of days, a week, whatever it is, I can kind of tell the funk I eventually end up in. And I think it's funny because I think it's like that for everybody. So it's kind of hard to talk about it, it's so specified.
But I think anyone who doesn't do any sort of practice, whether it's exercising, breathing, meditating, whatever it might be. But for me, it's those things that are on a self-improvement level, but then it's also the spiritual connection of just actually bending down before God, before the universe, and just kind of acknowledging that ego death, and really kind of just giving into to how much we all have to give into. And I think when I can really feel connected to that, yeah, just everything feels different. It's not even events change. It's just how the events are occurring. It all sits different. And I think that's something that anyone can relate to when they're doing the things that kind of put them in that place.
Liz:
You're submitting to guidance, or you're submitting to something other than yourself-
Ramy:
Yeah.
Liz:
... or your desires of that moment.
Ramy:
Yeah. Submitting is definitive of what it means to be a Muslim.
Liz:
Yeah. I could talk about that episode forever, but I don't want to ruin it for people. But one other thing about it is that we don't often see really frank depictions of sexuality and disability on screen too. So I love that Steve is dealing... In season one, you take him to see an underage woman actually, who turns out to be underage. And he's like, "Just give me this." He's like, "Just give me this. I can't go on a dating app." And I know you're developing a show based around him, right?
Ramy:
Yep. Yeah. We're working on that right now. And that's such a wide world. I think on this show, it's about spirituality and sexuality. We've been talking about in many ways how those things meld. So that comes to light when we talk about Steve. The project we're making around Steve really reflects his real life a bit more.
Steve is someone who, in the time I've known him, has been in more long longterm fulfilling, sexually active relationships than myself. He is usually with a partner. Not to say that he has like a flippancy with, but he right now, I think, is in a relationship he's been in for, I want to say four years, if not longer, and is a healthy, sexually active person. That's actually not the tension of his life. And it's not the tension of his show.
And so it's interesting. I think hopefully we get to make it where people will see that as an element. They'll see it as something that is actually just a given. This isn't a show built around him losing his virginity. Right away, it's like, that's not what we're dealing with.
What we're dealing with is when you are definitively dependent on people to do certain things, what does independence look like for you? And I think everyone's kind of trying to figure out how to be their own person. And I think that that question asked from the point of view of someone who's disabled is inherently just way more interesting because there's just these really clear roadblocks that make it clear that self-reliance is not an actual option. But then within that, what are the nuances look like of having independence and having your own goals and having your own agency.
And so to see Steve really seek that in a disabled community with a bunch of other people who are doing it, where that's the main cast we're playing with, that's really exciting for us. That's something that people were pumped that we made a show where a bunch of people were speaking Arabic and praying with each other. I think people are going to be really excited to see a world with a disabled cast that is not a side character. Steve, just even the amount of representation or whatever we give him on Ramy is nowhere near using his talents and his story in the real way. So I'm excited to dig into that.
Liz:
I'm excited too. Are you in therapy?
Ramy:
Yeah.
Liz:
Regularly, like you talk to a therapist every week type of thing?
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah. It would be really hard to not with the... It's like a workload thing, but it's also just the amount of people that you're dealing with. And so, so much of it is needing to figure out for me, I'm a sensitive person, and I can kind of like take in, I think we all are on various levels, but I think making something on a creative level is so subjective. There's not a ton of stats. It's like the kind of job where the currency is your feelings.
And so you really have to be aware of kind of, okay, well, what am I actually operating from? Am I operating from ego? Am I operating from what's best for the story? How do I feel taking in kind of... You're dealing with a lot of writers, producers, casts. And everyone wears their heart on their sleeve in various ways when you're working a TV show.
So yeah, I'm a once a week. And I'm also a, certain periods, twice a week therapy person. I've been in and out of it for a while. But the therapy I do is I work with someone who she actually doesn't really have a name for what type of work that she does, but it's not just words. It's also going into the body and figuring out where you store tension.
Liz:
Somatic therapy.
Ramy:
Yeah, it's in that realm, and she kind of has like her own techniques of how she does it. But I find that to be really helpful where we're focusing on the body just because there's a therapist that I had for two years where I realized, I'm good with words and I can kind of tell her anything, and she would just.... Getting into the body and realizing where tension is being stored has been really important for me. Because that's the thing that I feel less connected to. And that kind of work is really helpful for me.
Liz:
I'm going to send you a book to read by Peter Levine. He was talking about when animals in the wild are attacked, they shake until they get rid of it. But humans, we tense up. And then as much as we intellectualize things, you can still feel it somewhere. And years. I've done a lot of that too, where 10 years later I'm having just total crying, remembering something.
Ramy:
Yeah yeah yeah, it’s like someone touches something on your shoulder and you're just sobbing. What is that about? I find that so much more interesting than, yeah, we can intellectualize anything. Especially people who are writers and stuff. It's like, well, yeah. I mean, therapy's just, it's like a draft of whatever story you're coming up with. I actually found it wholly ineffective for me without getting the body involved.
Liz:
I want to talk about all the strong women around you in your show who, like you, often are terrible to. But I mean, your sister is amazing. Your mother's amazing. And a lot of the women you get involved with too. Is that something that's parallel to your real life?
Ramy:
Yeah. I find that most of the clarity I get, yeah, is from women in my life, who I think are just wholly tend to be more intuitive and kind of more understanding of me. And I kind of realized, most of the time when I realize my faults, it's in those situations.
And so I think the show very much tries to highlight that and kind of show, we're trying to zone in on Ramy's ego and his weaknesses. And it's really, I think, most pronounced in those scenarios. And yeah, it feels true. It feels real to me. And I find that we also don't want to protect anyone in the show. We follow my mom this season, and she's certainly not right. But she has what's on her mind. And so to be able to see her be wrong and yet in that space is exciting for me.
Liz:
Yeah. Your sister May. She's so beautiful. She's just incredible to look at.
Ramy:
Unbelievable. Such a good listener too. Anytime she's in a scene, it's double whatever the lines are are what she has because her reactions and her presence are so strong.
Liz:
It's dark as fuck, season two. I loved it. It's super dark. The episode about your uncle, oh my God, that was heartbreak. You really go deep into the ways in which people use food, and sex, and other people, again, to fill this void, to fill this loneliness, and I think now in quarantine so many more people are having time to self-reflect about those things. You can see light bulbs go off over people's heads right now.
Ramy:
Yeah. It's interesting because I've wondered so much about the show coming out during quarantine, and I'm... because I guess it is dark. I think we're going to really intimate places. And so the intention is not to use shock value or anything, it's more just I think these are real ways that people try to fill loneliness and try to fill those holes. And so I hope it makes people feel less lonely and they can connect to it, and see it, and understand that they're not alone, they're not doomed in that way. This is something that, I think, a lot of people feel, and hopefully something constructive grows out of that.
Liz:
Well, to have flaws is to be human, and to have flaws is what makes you fall in love with people, right? It's not perfection.
Ramy:
Yeah. Yeah. It's exciting for me, and scary, to put things out like that just because it's unprotected. You know what I mean? It's just, well, hopefully this does connect, but it is pretty just out there in a way where you hope it's taken the right way. You hope people can feel it and see it. Many will, and I kind of feel already, people who've seen it and the connection that they've had to the characters is really cool. But you're just putting something out to everybody and like, "Let's see what happens."
Liz:
Are you fasting right now, too, while you're doing, I imagine, all your press interviews for the show?
Ramy:
Yeah, I've been doing press interviews and finishing the show. Basically, all of Ramadan has been finishing, especially with quarantine to not be able to go and edit at the studio properly, to not be able to... There's so many people and so many things that go into making a show finished where you do it in person, and I'm doing everything from a bedroom. Doing ADR sessions where we're trying to get audio down and do all that with my cast who are all over the world. The woman who plays my mother is in France. The man who plays my father is in Spain. And so we're trying to do an audio session and I'm up in LA at 5:30 in the morning. Which actually works out with Ramadan because I wake up to drink something before the sun rises. So it's actually pretty great on that level.
No, it's been definitely a different kind of Ramadan because it's usually very social. You go to the mosque. And kind of like your point earlier, it's more self-reflective with you just even more so thinking through a lot of things.
Liz:
So is your brain just on hyper-sharp focus right now with the fasting and all this work that you have to get done? Do you feel like you're on some crazy high?
Ramy:
It's weird. Yeah, I don't know. I feel mentally tired, but physically I'm actually pretty wired. I'm up. I'm surprised at how much I'm doing with so little sleep because the sleep is, again, thrown off by how long it takes to do things that would usually take less time to finish the show, but then also your weird hours to get up and eat at certain times or whatever. But I feel locked in.
Liz:
Locked and loaded. Your character is constantly struggling with this spiritual versus earthly desires, but is that even possible to transcend that? Isn't that... I don't know. I was in a temple in Kyoto called Sanjusangen-do, and they have 1001 gold deities called kannons, and the thing about them is that they're not human and they're not divine. They're in between so they're a spiritual being, but they still have greed and lust and envy, and all these things. So is what you aspire, your character on the show or you in real life, aspire to be something in the middle? You seem to be so tortured by this struggle of your demons.
Ramy:
Yeah, I think that it's all about trying to... There's this concept in Islam called... I don't know if it's inherently written this way, but I've read it described this way, called the Ladder of Possibility where God made angels, and humans, and jinn. Jinn are lower spirits, then there's humans and then there's angels, and so there's a reason that we're slotted in the middle. This is definitive of what our existence is. If we were supposed to bat a perfect score, this middle section wouldn't exist. So it's kind of like life is about the struggle.
And for me, the character and myself in real life, the goal is, which I think everyone's goal, this is not a strictly Muslim thing, but the goal is how do I live up to my potential? How do I be the best version of myself despite all these things. And we kind of see him fighting for that through his faith, through his actions, through all those things. That feels really real to me, and is there a way to actually beat it? I don't know. I don't know that anyone could ever definitively say that, but I do know that we can get better at least from where we were. And that's kind of my personal goal. I think it's very much the character's goal. But he is definitely trying to be good and really, he is trying for perfection which is why he fails as hard as he does when he does. But even the constructs of good and bad are really difficult to hone in on too much because they're pretty incomplete.
Liz:
Yeah. You seem like you're also very careful, too, in real-life Ramy with what you get involved with and how your image is used, which I think is cool. I think it's good to be controlling in that way. But what I've heard through the grapevine is that you're very careful. I think a lot of people in your position are sort of just like accepting any opportunity that comes their way. It seems like you have a high set of ethics that you hold to, or critique on the way capitalism is used for political correctness as well, I think right now.
Ramy:
Yeah. I'm in a position where my name is Ramy and I have a show called Ramy. It is this thing where it's like this is me forever and I'm very sensitive of wanting to make sure that whatever I'm part of, or whatever I'm putting out, is hopefully making things better. I say this a bunch because it's so real to me, but my uncle said something to me once that I always remember. He was just like, "You need to make sure you produce more than you consume." You have to make sure that you are putting out more quality than just taking it. Don't be a glutton. Don't be just taking it. So, yeah, when it comes to capitalist things, when it comes to whatever, I like to have a say. I'm not the kind of person that's like, "Yes, I need... Oh, that's so cool. I get to be part of that thing?" It's not really about that. It's hoping that it has intention, that it's not... I don't want to contribute to pollution. Some things feel just like throwing a can of coke in the street, and I'm like, for what? And so really trying to... yeah, trying to respect that as much as I can.
Liz:
So your parents, you have a close relationship with your parents? Is this how they brought you up well?
Ramy:
I love them. They're the best. Yeah, so much of the imagination behind the show is what if I didn't have as much communication with my parents? You know what I mean? And I'm not saying we have this uber relationship where we're talking about everything, it's not exactly that, but it's definitely close to that. I never felt like I couldn't bring something up to them, but that didn't mean there wasn't just the normal awkwardness that a family would have. But a lot of the conception around the show is what if that wasn't an avenue? What if there wasn't that access? What would I look like? What I look like, more stuck?
My parents, too, also were kids in bigger families than... it's just me and my sister. And so they had more siblings. They had different circumstances. When my parents decided to have kids, they really wanted to be parents. It was something they were... it was like a life goal of theirs to have kids that they could be intimate with. And so I think that's such a beautiful thing. I even think about that when I'm like, "Man, whenever I have a kid, that needs to be at the top of my list the way that it was for them." I don't want it to be like, "Oh, yeah kid number five."
Liz:
Do you want to have kids?
Ramy:
Yeah, I think so. I do think so. But it's a weird time. Look around at what's happening and you're like, "Shit, man, are we adding..." the numbers are crazy. Statistically, it makes no sense. Emotionally, it very much resonates, but statistically I'm like, "Yeah, I don't know." Do you?
Liz:
Do I want to have kids? I think about it. I'm kind of in that same philosophical question about is it ethical to bring kids into the world right now with overpopulation and what... I don't know what kind of world we're bringing them into. I have nightmares at night about everything that's been going on. I've been having nightmares for years now. I love kids and I've been an aunt since I was one years old because I have a big family and my dad had... I have half-brothers and sisters. Yeah, so I'm always the auntie that teaches the boys about condoms and teaches the girls how to use a tampon.
My nephew has a lot of time on his hands right now and is following me. So he's suddenly asking me questions about what I do. He's like, "I know you have a podcast." And I was like, "Yeah, but podcasts are really adult. Right? We're not really interested in-
Ramy:
I get horrified thinking about... and it's really tough, because I'm like, "Man, should a 12-year-old watch my show?" I don't think so. My show is not made for that person. So then it's this weird thing where I'll be like, "Well, man, if I'm putting it out there I know anyone will have access to it on a level." But then you don't want to sanitize it just because of that fact, and it's a really weird space.
Liz:
Yeah, but... We had Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg on who have Big Mouth, and I feel like there's a lot of kids that watch that show, and they're not getting that information from any other adults. You know?
Ramy:
Right.
Liz:
So I don't know, maybe rather they watch that show or your show than Porn Hub. I don’t know.
Ramy:
It's interesting too, because I also... I don't want to demonize Porn Hub or something. You know what I mean? That's really not the MO, but I don't think we understand how to... I don't think we have any sort of etiquette or language around any of it, and I think it's more like do we understand the power of this thing and do we understand what it can do, and I don't think we do.
Liz:
No. We need to be able to explain to kids as young as are watching porn. I don't think porn is going to go away nor should it because it actually can be a useful tool in a lot of ways and we have a lot of sex workers and porn performers on this program. But I think it's funny. I think the sheik in season two, who you form a bond with, tells you to consider the porn performer's feelings and he imagines them being driven around in white vans which couldn't be further from the truth.
Yeah, there's not a lot of tools for kids to process it. They should be learning about porn if they have sex ed in school. They should have porn performers come and talk to them about how it's not real, this what we talk about beforehand, this is what consent is. And to just start choking someone out of the blue and you don't... You know what I mean? I don't know. Did anyone talk to you like that?
Ramy:
About?
Liz:
Porn. Did anyone give you tools to understand?
Ramy:
Oh, no. No. I thought you were talking about the choking. No. No. There's no... it's kind of uncharted, right? I think it's uncharted and I think that there's a lot of conversations about porn being the new drug. I think that it can be. I'm not saying it is in every space or whatever it is, but it can be if you don't get what it is and you don't understand what it is. In the same way that you can overeat. Food can be a drug. That's something that we kind of show in the show this season, like you mentioned. And so it's understanding what is this thing? What are the bounds around it?
But I don't even think we have an understanding of technology. I hope, I don't know how true this is, this is probably me being a mega-optimist. I would love in 15, 20 years for people to be like, "Can you believe my dad used to binge an entire show in one day? That's crazy. All that screen time, that's nuts." The fact that we have no real etiquette around when our phones are out or when they're not. I think our attention spans and our diffusion of emotion, whether it be towards porn or towards the phone or towards whatever it might be, hasn't really been dug into.
Liz:
What's your etiquette around it? Do you do digital detox?
Ramy:
I've messed around with it a bunch. One thing I did that helped me a lot was just buying an alarm clock so that the phone isn't my alarm and so that the alarm clock's in the room and the phone can be out of the room. Just starting the day without the phone is, I think, pretty much out there. People talk about it a bunch, and I think in practice I'm like, "Oh, wow. I have way less anxiety when I'm not looking at it for the first two hours, if I can." And so that's been my start in understanding, but yeah it's tough obviously, especially with quarantine because you're like, "Well, I ain't got no other options. I might as well just be on the computer or on the phone or whatever."
Liz:
Well don't you pray before you start scrolling through Instagram when you wake up?
Ramy:
Oh, my God. 100%, yeah. To have that is really important. And something I try to do too is... what's dope about the five prayers in Islam is a lot of... You look into anything that is about connecting with your body or disconnecting from the world and finding quiet, anything you look at... I went down a Wim Hof rabbit hole and you look at a lot of those techniques, and it's really all about consistency throughout the day. And so for me it's like, okay, can I combine some of these breathing techniques before I pray and really just use this time to... I remember reading, I don't remember what the source was, but they were like, "Hey, you should take a meditative break five times a day." And I was like, "Oh yeah, no shit. I know." So there's a lot that's in harmony.
Liz:
I'll send you a thing we did on orgasm breathing. You can work that into your practice because you can do it by yourself. It's not breaking any rules.
Ramy:
Oh, wow. I'll be very interested.
Liz:
What are you learning about sex still? What are you still learning?
Ramy:
I think I'm still trying to understand that through my faith, trying to understand it, I do think, this is a lot of conversations I've had, again, with friends of mine, of just... I think we've all had to do a separation from porn. Kind of like what you were saying too, understanding it's a different thing and understanding what it looks like in a real intimate space. That's something I've always strived for and I think now, though, I'm at a stage in my life where I believe I'm connecting that more and understanding that more.
It's funny how crazy it is to make a show and make a thing, It's funny to even make a show that's kind of about... I would say it's about faith and it's about sex, how little you actually are able to... you don't really have the capacity to actually live your life to understand those things, and I can understand because you're so busy working. I've been making this show for two years. I'm excited to take a break and be like, "Okay cool. What is my..." I feel like I have a new frame moving forward and understanding how that actually plays into my life. So in many ways it is a bit cathartic, whether it be standup or through the work in the show, it's exciting.
Liz:
So you're learning about sex through your creative output?
Ramy:
Yeah, throughout discussing it and the feedback that comes from it, and being in really cool writer's rooms where we're... A writer's room is a great place too for men and women to be in a room talking about sex, because it's so asexual because we're making a thing, and so there's just been really cool conversations that I was like, "Oh, man. I'm learning more than ever just trying to shape these characters."
Liz:
Cool. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Ramy:
I really appreciate you. This was really fun.
Liz Outro:
That was my conversation with Ramy Youssef. You can stream RAMY on Hulu. You can also watch his stand up special, FEELINGS, on HBO. He can be found on Instagram and Twitter @ramy. That’s R A M Y.
Once again, a huge thank you to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode. You can find all things GUCCI via their website, GUCCI.com, and on instagram, @GUCCI.
Until next time, you can read exclusive content on TheSexEd.com, follow us on instagram @TheSexEd, and listen to past episodes anywhere podcasts are streamed. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Sex Ed is hosted by me, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was recorded and edited by Jeremy Emery and produced by Chloe Cassens. Lewis Lazar made all of our music, including the track you’re listening to right now.
As always, The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness.