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Hartley Pleshaw

I am Hartley Pleshaw. This is Active Radio and has been the honored custom on this program for several years now. I am most happy to be joined once again for her annual visit, bringing to us all her philosophy of sexual sanity of bonoboism. And then later in the program, she will give us her most anticipated annual State of the Sexual Union address. But now I would very much like to introduce America’s number one sexologist, and the official sex expert of Active Radio, Dr. Susan Block. Dr. Suzy, welcome back.

Dr. Suzy

Happy Valentine’s Day, Hartley.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well, happy Valentine’s Day. Happy…

Dr. Suzy

World Bonobo Day.

Hartley Pleshaw

World Bonobo Day. Happy…

Dr. Suzy

Lupercalia.

Hartley Pleshaw

Lupercalia Day. And if you have any comments or questions for Dr. Suzy, please text us on the Milltown Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electrical Tech line. 9784544980 9784544980. We are coming to you today from the Nash Casino Studio here at WCAP. Well, Dr. Suzy.

Dr. Suzy

Yes, Hartley, I’m coming to you at the ungodly hour of 7:08 Pacific time, a.m., Valentine’s morning, 2026, if you’re keeping track, because sadly, I have no Valentine keeping me in bed this year.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well, Dr. Suzy, First of all, thank you for getting up as early as you have gotten up on the West Coast. I’m sorry about our very severe time difference…

Dr. Suzy

I just stayed up all night, really.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well, I know it’s been a very tough year for you personally.

Dr. Suzy

Yeah.

Hartley Pleshaw

And how sad it is that someone who was in love as so much as you were with your darling husband. You lost him a few months ago. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Suzy

May I say his name?

Hartley Pleshaw

Please do. And please tell us.

Dr. Suzy

His full name.

Hartley Pleshaw

All the wonderful things about him.

Dr. Suzy

Well, part of his name: Prince Maximilian  Leblovic Lobkowicz di Filangieri. Captain Max.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

AKA Mickey, my beloved husband of 33 years, and my lover, my Valentine. and my co-producer, and my publisher, a great publisher of many, many magazines and books, and a producer of our show and other shows, but our show for 35 years.

Hartley Pleshaw

Wow.

Dr. Suzy

And my witness, I always say. That’s part of being my love, part of being my friend of 40 years. which is a very important aspect of love. If you don’t have a lover and you have a friend you love, that’s a Valentine.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

But I must say, Hartley, Valentine’s Day is not for widows…. Erica Kirk notwithstanding.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yeah.

Dr. Suzy

It’s not a really political holiday. It’s certainly not religious or patriotic, or you could say the religion is kind of hidden.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

It’s a very personal holiday.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

But politics does affect us personally.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes. On this program today, we’re going to get into what I consider both the fascinating and appalling nexus in today’s America, the America of 2026, between sexual issues and political issues… And first of all, thank you for that lovely tribute to your husband. And I certainly remember listening to you guys on your broadcast, on your podcast. And you guys made a great team. And it’s very sad. Of course, we all lose people in our lives at various times.

Dr. Suzy

Or they lose us. I mean, one way or another. It’s rare when you both go together.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

So it’s kind of part of love, this loss, this grief.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes. Well, I want to thank you for getting through all that. And I know you’re still dealing with it, but-.

Dr. Suzy

I’m still in the process. Last year, I called it my Year of Living Precariously – when I was taking care of Max who was very sick.  He had had a stroke. And you know, I felt a little bit guilty about doing the State of the Sexual Union with you on Active Radio last year, Hartley. But Max, when I told him, he gave me a big smile and nodded. He couldn’t talk, really, but I got the sense that he wanted me to do it.

Hartley Pleshaw

Wow.

Dr. Suzy

And so I did.

Hartley Pleshaw

He was a great man.

Dr. Suzy

He believed in speech, freedom of speech, and speaking out. even when it’s difficult.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes, he had a long career of fighting for, you know, it’s a fight that never ends, especially these days, fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of expression. You know, he was at the front lines on those struggles for much of his life. And a lot of people who’ve never heard of him owe him a great debt of gratitude.

Dr. Suzy

That’s why I declared November 8th his birthday. Free Speech Day.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

By the power vested in me as Mayor of Bonoboville.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

Free Speech Day! Max was a great freedom fighter when it was very difficult. He was not much of a real fighter. I mean, he threw his gun down in the army and quit. But he was a fighter for love.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well, sometimes the people who throw down their weapons are the noblest warriors of them all because they fight for a higher thing. We are going to have you deliver the annual State of the Sexual Union Address later on the program. But for right now, let’s talk about Valentine’s Day, its origins, World Bonobo Day and Lupercalia, because of course, a lot of people don’t know this, but you know it. This holiday, a holiday for love, existed long before the title of Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day was affixed to it. Tell us about how this holiday of love came to be.

Dr. Suzy

Friends, Romans, country women and men… to paraphrase the great romantic Mark Antony.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

Lend me your ears. I come to bury Valentine’s Day, not to praise it…. because it’s kind of a fake holiday. It’s the High Holiday of Love. It ought to be special, romantic, but it feels a little forced. Why is that? Part of the answer lies in history, because it was kind of concocted by the early Catholic Church and imposed on the Pan-loving peoples of the area, of Rome, and beyond. And it was shaped by the Victorian greeting card industry that sweetened it up with a little Sea’s chocolate and polished it with De Beers diamonds and abetted it by Amazon. And now you have this feast of Saint Valentine based upon a sexless Christian fairy tale starring the celibate Saint Valentine.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

And it’s a story of this Christian priest who was arrested for marrying couples in secret because mean old Emperor Claudius had outlawed marriage, vainly attempting to restore his potency in a weakening imperial army in his collapsing empire. And then supposedly he converted the jailer’s blind daughter to Christianity just before he was executed. And that morning she found a card in his cell, addressed to her and signed, Your Valentine. And not only is she deeply moved, but she can now see the card, meaning that his saintly ophthalmological skills cured her of her blindness.

And it’s a very touching tale of great Valentiny ideals, but as Max would say, “the ideal is the enemy of the real.” And in reality, there were about 10 Christian martyrs named Valentine, and none of them healed a jailer’s blind daughter or left a card. So it’s all made-up.

And it’s made-up on top of this very wild, very primal Roman holiday that was outlawed by the Church. And it was ruled, in a sense, by the Lord of the Wild, Pan, who was turned into the devil. The holiday was called Lupercalia. It was also ruled by the wolf, the Luper. And it was the origin holiday for the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, who were supposedly nursed by a wolf, a she-wolf. And it’s very wild. It’s, in fact, got all these very powerful animals in it, pagan gods of the Roman-Grecian variety. And it was practiced since the founding of ancient Rome. It’s older than Rome itself.

By the way, Max was born in Rome, and we loved this holiday, this origin of Valentine’s Day, because it was done at the same time of year when these kind of fraternities of people that were said to be descended from Romulus and Remus. People, I say, they were men, although in our own celebrations of Lupercalia, we did it with men and women and everybody in between. And they would go into a cave and meet together. They were kind of rivals, so they would have this peaceful truce. and they would sacrifice a goat and eat it and drink wine and cut the strips into little whips that they called Februa. Sound familiar? Oh, yes. It’s where we get our month of February. Happy Februa! And then they would run through the countryside, whipping people. Supposedly, I hope this might have been true, it was consenting adults only. I hope, maybe not always, but the idea was that it was for luck and fertility. And yes, they believed that getting a little smack in the rear or on the hands by the Februa  would bring them luck and make them fertile and probably excite them into having some sex during this week of running around that they had called the Lupercal, which is celebrated actually in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Well, the Christian Church just decided it was too wild. And they outlawed it. It was what Barbara Ehrenreich, one of my idols, might call collective joy, or you could say communal ecstasy. Not that everybody was having sex with everybody, but it was a time of Bacchanalian pleasures and joys and artistic expressions and a little bit of whacking, because love can be painful. Yeah, I was almost going to cry there.

Anyway, you could celebrate Lupercalia if Valentine’s Day gives you a toothache with all the chocolate and artificial glaze. But you could also celebrate World Bonobo Day. Yes. Thank you, Congress from 2018. If you’re any kind of lover of love, you don’t have to be in a couple. That’s what always bothered Max and me, even though we were very much in a couple. The pressure of coupling on Valentine’s Day is very, well, anxiety-producing, creates performance pressure of all kinds, and pressure is the enemy of pleasure. And you want to be able to just be a little free-feeling, to really feel your feelings at this time of year when there’s a glimmer of spring in the air.

So take a cue from the Love Apes about love. Our closest genetic cousins truly embody the spirit of true love. They’re the Make Love Not War bonobos. They’re also the Peace Apes, having never been seen killing each other in the wild or captivity. so far yes and they’re called Pan Paniscus in Latin, so they too are ruled by Pan.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes, Dr. Suzy we have to go to a break now but when we come back yes we will hear the annual State of the Sexual Union address from Dr. Susan Block. I know you’ve all been waiting for it for a year now, well we’re about to hear it here on Active Radio! I am Hartley Pleshaw, this is WCAP AM 980 and all where everybody gets it the voice of the Valley stay tuned….

Ladies and gentlemen of the listening audience, as is the custom here on active radio, once a year, according to the active radio constitution, we are to be addressed as to the State of the Sexual Union by the official Sexologist of Active Radio, America’s number one sexologist, Dr. Susan Block. I’m Hartley Pleshaw. This is Active Radio, and this is what so many people have been waiting for all year, Dr. Suzy, to bestow upon us. the State of the Sexual Union. It couldn’t come at a more appropriate time, this being Valentine’s Day and Monday being President’s Day. Here we are in America, 2026. So many things are going crazy sexually and otherwise. Now could never be a better time to hear Dr. Susan Block and her State of the Sexual Union address. Dr. Suzy, welcome. The floor is yours.

Dr. Suzy

Wow, that’s a lot of pressure, and we all know pressure’s the enemy of pleasure, but hey, it’s also a great motivator. So, Brothers and Sisters, Hartley, listeners to Active Radio and beyond…

The State of the Sexual Union 2026 Is in need of therapy.

Yep, that’s the general state. There are specifics that I’m going to get into. I’ve always done my State of the Sexual Union after the president does the State of the Union. But really there’s no reason I can’t do mine before his as I’m doing today.  I just won’t be commenting on what he says, but he’s really just said and done so much awful stuff. such, to say the least, turnoffs, I don’t need to listen to him before I address these things.

This past year alone, if anyone in the government had integrity, Donald J. Trump would not even be delivering the State of the Union 2026. He would be in therapy, mandated by his cell supervisor. That’s my sex therapeutic assessment.

And this isn’t Red or Blue as said by my Counterpunch colleague, David Rovics, who I just met and is always on tour, so catch him sometime. He just wrote a song called “Captain Max, Dr. Suzy and the Bonobo Way.” And he says, “There’s really no such thing as Red or Blue. There’s just folks like me and you.” There’s not liberal or conservative, or left or right even.

It’s really the billionaires – now mostly tech lords with massive sex problem –  versus the rest of us. We have sex problems too, but not generally as massive.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

And they use the President of the United States as well as his State of the Union address because he’s incredibly corrupt.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

And this kind of corruption is really the opposite of good sex.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes…. Well, of course, the number one story in the world right now, it could seem to be, would be the Epstein Files and what we’re learning about the upper crust elite in this country and the world is just how perverted and how sick and how wretched they all are. And this is obviously the kind of behavior those people were engaging in was obviously degenerate sexual behavior. And whenever a new revelation comes out about Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their powerful pals, thanks to you, Dr. Suzy, I now have a perspective on this sort of thing I would not have otherwise had. And that is when people are not sexually healthy, when they are not understanding of the joys of sexuality, then instead, they turn into monsters, as these people so obviously did. And I can’t help but think, well, I’ll put the question to you, Dr. Suzy. As you observe the whole Epstein phenomenon and how terrible these people have dealt with the sexual problems of their own lives and the unspeakable damage and criminality they’ve inflicted on other people. The floor is yours, Dr. Suzy.

Dr. Suzy

Ooh, it’s a slippery floor. Slippery with all kinds of toxic fluids, natural and unnatural. And yes, the Epstein files have certainly poisoned the well with these fluids, the well of milk and honey and good sex and good feelings. And we all feel horrible and disgusted.

I could comment and gossip on exactly what is in the files. One problem I have is I don’t know how much is true and not true. That’s part of the problem we all have, not trusting what we see and hear, partly because of AI, partly because we’re lied to all the time.

But we know at least a large portion of this horror that’s pouring forth is true. And it’s very, very disturbing and certainly does not make for a happy Valentine’s Day. Not for anybody. So I could talk about all these guys  – and there were women too, not just guys – but my general assessment of the State of the Sexual Union 2026 is THERAPY. They all need therapy – and not the kind of therapy where they control their therapists. There are different kinds. Not massage therapy, okay?  But sex therapy, yes. Talking sex therapy to work out some of these horrible problems.

And right now, we ALL need sex therapy. In my own practice over these last years, but especially months, as these Epstein files have slowly and then quickly poured out, many people are traumatized in many ways. And I only talk with adults, so I don’t want to speak about anybody but adults, but I’m sure that other people are traumatized too. But many men and women are traumatized by triggered memories of being abused themselves. It’s unfortunately very common, though not at these levels, to my knowledge. Of course, I’m surprised at the level of violence and cover-up that has been revealed to us, especially these last few days. even.

There’s also a sympathetic trauma for the victims, even if you were not abused. How can you enjoy anything when this nightmare comes pouring out, all these nightmare scenarios that are attached to pleasure, that are attached to images of people having fun at parties? And we want to have fun too at parties and dress up and enjoy ourselves. And then we find out there’s this horrible thing, many terrible things connected to governments, to our government, has been happening.

Whom can we trust? There are many people now traumatized by paranoia, fear. What can we trust? Nothing. Maybe we can’t even trust our own lovers. Maybe we can. I would think so. I would hope you could trust your lover. But then again, we see all these images of honeypots, people with people they can’t trust.

People are traumatized by fear of exposure. Maybe they’re doing something wrong, but maybe they’re not even doing anything wrong. They just are afraid of their privacy being ripped away as they see these very private communications come pouring out.

On top of that, they know that surveillance exists in all their devices. We’re always being asked to get our picture taken and show this and show that and put in five step verification. And it’s very anxiety producing. I’m getting anxious just talking about it, but I hear about it all the time.

And that fear can give you intense performance anxiety, make you not want to make love at all. And before you jump in here, let me just give a pitch for making love, because I am a love doctor, and I know it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting to me right now, partly because I’m a widow, and partly because of these Epstein files.

But if we stop making love, we will hurt ourselves. Let us not let these liars and thieves steal our own sexuality away from us, either through censorship or through self-censorship.

Let us be good people, but let us continue to be sexual beings.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well said. Dr. Suzy, we have to go to another break now, but when we come back, we’ll have more with our guest, Dr. Susan Block, America’s number one sexologist here on Active Radio. I am Hartley Pleshaw here on WCAP. We are coming to you from the Nash Casino studio at WCAP. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back.

Well, when it comes to sexual healing, you’ve come to the right place today because my guest on the program is America’s number one sexologist, Dr. Susan Block. I am Hartley Pleshaw.

Dr. Suzy, not to dwell too much on the sordid and revolting situation with the Epstein files, but this is just my opinion, and you’re free to give me yours, and that’s why you’re here today, as a matter of fact. Ever since Donald Trump became president, the first term, but especially this term, there seems to be, at least from my outsider observation, a kind of sexual undercurrent with him and his administration. And it isn’t just the Epstein files, as revolting as they are. but the whole incel phenomenon, the fact that a good portion of Mr. Trump’s constituency seems to be, if I can get rather blunt here, seems to be made-up of angry guys who can’t get laid and who hate women. Am I exaggerating the case?

Dr. Suzy

Well, there is a certain contingent of the ammosexual incel mentality that is a part of the Trump fan club. I wrote “Ammosexual Incels” a while ago. because they have been gaining power, and a lot of influencers try to appeal to them. If you make love, you don’t want to make war. But if you’re kind of anti-sex, which the incels tend to be, and so they put a lot of their sexuality, which doesn’t just go away, their erotic desire, into weapons, the weapons of their words very often, and into actual weapons, their gun collection or jet fighter planes. Trump has a lot of power, which translates to firepower, and that’s very impressive to his incel contingent.

Both Epstein and Trump attract people for their weaknesses. These people might be powerful in the world, but they find their weaknesses. Trump makes up names for people. Epstein would find weaknesses and blackmail or take advantage and use these people for their look, or their position in life, or their money, or their youth, or their talent. And then they make them weaker. They always make them weaker. There’s Trump’s first wife, buried in his golf course, having supposedly fallen down the stairs. They’re vampires, people like that.

Trump has a kidnapping kink, I think. Kidnapping. It’s going on right now of American citizens, of visitors to this country, and presidents of other countries are being kidnapped. There’s definitely a kidnapping fetish going on. And sometimes that spills over into murder. Whoops (as Epstein might say).

We all need therapy, we need it, and instead we give these billionaires control.

America – including all the Americas, as Bad Bunny would say, and the whole world is being assaulted – is under sexual assault, other types of assault. Financial assault, for sure, and of course, Valentine’s Day is expensive. Love is expensive. Luxury is expensive. Therapy is expensive.

But we need it because we’re being assaulted. in every way, every day, by a handful of billionaires and their handlers. It’s not red or blue or even left or right, not really, although I tend to lean left. But it isn’t that. It’s a handful of billionaires who may or may not pretend to be this or that type of politics. As we can see, they’re all kind of making it up.

By the way, my own nemesis, Mark Zuckerberg Cuckerberg, is in the files. 300 times. And of course he is. All these thirsty nerds with billions of dollars are in there. And they don’t all have the same kinks, although Epstein brought them low. Finding weakness, just like Trump does. That’s why they couldn’t stay friends. They were too similar, both wanting that power. After all, Trump’s biggest beef with Epstein was “he stole a masseuse from me.” What pettiness have we been led by?

I feel like we’re all in a kink relationship, and it’s not very consensual, although some of us voted for him.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes.

Dr. Suzy

And I love you all.  No violence, no bad wishes to anyone. And I have clients who have different types of politics. We all need love, and we all need sex, and if you don’t have it, you start to lose it. Use it or lose it! It’s true of free speech if we don’t keep exercising it.

I wasn’t even sure I could say the word sex on this show. Thank you, Hartley, for allowing that. You can’t use it a lot these days.

Hartley Pleshaw

Free speech lives here, I’ll say that.

Dr. Suzy

Yeah, and use your own sexuality – don’t lose it! If you’re afraid to do it with other people, do it with yourself. Make love to someone you love tonight, even if that someone is you.

Hartley Pleshaw

Very affirmative advice, Dr. Suzy. And Dr. Suzy, regrettably, we’re coming up toward the end of the show, but I certainly wanted to end it on a positive note. Well, maybe a little sad because I could not help but when I learned last year when Dr. Jane Goodall passed away.

Dr. Suzy

I was just thinking of Dr. Jane Goodall and how I had to squeeze her in. Thank you, Hartley.

Hartley Pleshaw

I’m thinking of how much you love the bonobos and how she devoted her life to…

Dr. Suzy

She gave me an endorsement for the Bonobo Way. She told me, she wrote it in an e-mail, “I love the Bonobo Way,” and I will always appreciate that about her.  Unlike some people who were afraid because of scandal, and now they’re in the Epstein files – oh my God!

Dr. Jane Goodall is not in the Epstein files. And we owe her such a debt of gratitude. And I’m so glad to end on a note of Rest in Peace, dear Dr. Jane, I love you.

Hartley Pleshaw

Well, I didn’t even know that you two had connected, but I’m thinking that was a natural connection, because both of you, in different ways, but in certainly significant and important ways, have taught us that our first cousins, a lot of other members of the animal kingdom, but certainly our simian relatives are so much like us in many ways, and when it comes to the bonobos, significantly better than we are in many ways.

Dr. Suzy

Absolutely. One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever gotten in my early days of the Bonobo Way came from a journalist named Tom Quinn, who called me “Jane Goodall After Dark”

Hartley Pleshaw

Well said.

Dr. Suzy

And yes, Dr. Jane loved bonobos. I mean, she taught us so much about chimps. She taught us some things about Trump too.

Hartley Pleshaw

Yes, indeed. Dr. Suzy, again, it looks like the clock on the wall is approaching the end for us, at least for this time and for this year, but we will continue this conversation in the future. If people want to know more about you and engage you and listen to your productions and so forth, and read your work, you mentioned Counterpunch. That’s where I discovered you when I read Counterpunch. Tell us about all the various ways that we can contact you and learn from you.

Dr. Suzy

Well, I have an article in CounterPunch right now “Valentine Blues, The High Holidays of Love in Low Times.” You can certainly find me there and on my own website, drsusanblock.com, where I write about everything. and on drsusanblockinstitute.com as well as at the institute that you can call. Can I give the phone number?

Hartley Pleshaw

Please do. Okay.

Dr. Suzy

213. 291-9497, 213-291-9497. Operators are lounging by…. because we believe in lounging, darling. Yes. We are therapists to help you with your sexuality as well as life coaches to help you with all types of problems and pleasures of life.

Certainly, the issues that we’ve been talking about during our State of the Sexual Union today are anti anti-aphrodisiacs.  And it’s important to keep your Eros alive, and it’s not always easy – whether you’re a widow like me and mourning Max or your Max, or whether you’re just overwhelmed by the problems of the world, so you just don’t feel sexy, then you might need some help with that. It’s a time of great loneliness and alienation right now, so people do need a lot of encouragement in that area because I think they get a lot of discouragement from world affairs.

And if you don’t have a Valentine, that’s okay. Celebrate Lupercalia. Give yourself a spanking. I’m sure you deserve it.

Happy World Bonobo Day. Give to the Bonobos.

Hartley Pleshaw

Wonderful to talk to you again. Thanks so much for joining us. I’m Hartley Pleshaw 980 WCAP, Lowell, Haverhill, Lawrence, Methuen, Nashua, and Salem, New Hampshire, serving the Merrimack Valley.