Doug Benson

The episode opens on a clunky Ustream setup. The host introduces "the lovely and talented Mr. Doug Benson" and goes straight into a read for the show's sponsor, the Fleshlight. Benson says he has never used one, though he heard the host discuss it with Dane Cook the week before. The host is enthusiastic. Benson's reaction is mixed: he calls it "a very embarrassing thing to purchase," and jokes about whether the sample he is handed has been used.

It really takes masturbation to a whole new level.

The comparisons are secondhand and anecdotal. One speaker reports that a non-Fleshlight version was "way worse," and another says someone they call Hefron had the same experience with a knockoff. The host claims the company "put a lot of research into it." Benson now agrees with what the host said the previous week, that "it just doesn't feel right in terms of you feel bad about yourself," and adds that the device is heavy.

The sponsorship has commercial costs. The host says the subject "keeps coming up" and that another potential sponsor did not want to be connected with the Fleshlight. Someone suggests getting the two companies to outbid each other. The host objects that this would show "no loyalty to something that you actually believe." He then makes a broader case: discomfort with sexual talk is common, but sex is "a natural part of life," and most rational people eventually accept that and can joke about it.

It's like one of those things where people don't want to talk about sexual things because somehow or another talking about sexual things makes people uncomfortable, it's creepy, you know, but it's a natural part of life.

Benson qualifies this. He thinks comfort depends on the men you came up with and whether they talked to each other that way. He says he "had a lot of fairly prudish friends" who said dirty things but would not admit to their own personal activities. He also observes that different groups of friends follow different codes, for example about whether visiting a prostitute is discussed at all. The host replies that friends who tell you everything are "so huge."

The conversation turns to stand-up style. One speaker argues that being "super honest" has become almost a code of stand-up, and that comics have to talk about "pretty brutal and out there" material just to be original. They say the Jerry Seinfeld route has "gone down so many roads." They still call Seinfeld hilarious in his own style, but they do not want "a new one of those."