Lessons from Loveline
Medical misinformation, the bisexual agenda, radio history, Viagra for women & more.
Loveline was primarily a syndicated radio show which graced the airwaves for 33 years. As the name suggests, it was about love, but also sex, addiction, and mental health. Dr. Drew Pinsky was the constant host,1 a board-certified practicing internist, and an addiction specialist, he was accompanied by a co-host tasked with making the dry information more palatable to the audience.
I found the show in a very roundabout way, via emo fandom, and quickly came to love it. The seminal years were 1995-2005, the years Adam Carolla co-hosted and when the show really took off nationally. Thankfully, there’s an online treasure trove of those old shows, which is how I’ve revisited it.
One person described the show as “an evolutionary microcosm”2 which rings incredibly true; its relevance to today is the exposure of human nature and our unfortunate predictability, but also a track record of history, and a reminder of how our culture is formed. But that’s a lot of hours of listening, so I’m here to deliver a list of takeaways.
Medical misinformation and the morning-after-pill - Also known as emergency contraception, the morning-after-pill is actually a set of pills that can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. The mechanism is the same as with other hormonal birth control: to delay ovulation. Its success rate vacillates between 60-94% because it can only delay ovulation, it does not stop insemination or implantation should it already have occurred. The 72-hour expiration is there because sperm only remains viable for about 3 days, as it waits for an egg to come along.3
Pinsky and Carolla were both vocal advocates of the pill, and they certainly convinced me that its availability would decrease abortion, something that should have been embraced by everyone—especially those who oppose it. But that’s not how it went. Much of the mainstream treated it and referred to it as an abortion pill that would terminate a pregnancy. At one point Walmart banned its sale, and many callers reported on doctors and pharmacists who refused to dispense it due to their religious beliefs. Their religious beliefs were, apparently, about not having sex without consequences.
In 2001 the show welcomed representatives from the Right To Life and Planned Parenthood to discuss and/or debate. There was ultimately no progress, but the RTL representative admitted that she ultimately thought all contraception was wrong. She also claimed that hormonal birth control was correlated with HIV transmission, a claim that she was unable to back up. PP and Democrats didn’t escape criticism from the show; PP enlisted a supermodel as a spokesperson for the cause and they discovered she was not that informed on the matter. Carolla also confronted career politician Maxine Waters when he ran into her, asking for support from the party. She brushed him off, claiming unfamiliarity with the whole thing.
Behind-the-scenes machinations - The show had many guests from many varied corners of the entertainment industry, which meant lots of insight into details of the time. Publicists received much ire from Carolla, whether it was for gatekeeping celebrities who claimed they would love to be guests, to botching the one-sheets delivered to the show so incorrect information would make it across the air, awkwardly corrected by the guests. There was also the occasional mention of how bartering worked in the business, withholding access to certain clients if they didn’t get what they wanted, lobbying for better positions in talk shows, and so on. Nothing new per se, but certainly confirmation of how strings are pulled to this day.
During his Loveline tenure, Carolla launched two shows with partner Jimmy Kimmel and had many comments about network shenanigans. When they pitched a show about prank calls the plan was for it to be titled “Prank Puppets” but Comedy Central’s legal department wouldn’t approve it. Apparently, the word prank suggests malicious intent, which didn’t bode well for potential lawsuits.
There were glimpses of the heckler’s veto that has become common culture; the show received a pre-scripted apology from Scientology for them to read, something they refused to do. Pinsky revealed that the televised version of Loveline which aired on MTV was briefly pulled from the schedule because of a single viewer complaint that had been sent to an advertiser, who in turn complained to MTV.
Many callers asked about “breast augmenting” pills that Pinsky repeatedly refuted on air, but once an engineer asked him not to because those very pills were advertised on the show. In a climate where advertising dollars matter greatly, it will win over the truth every time.
Many of the available tapes of the show come from listeners, which means local DJs could meddle which was noted in the 1999 visit from the Kottonmouth Kings. When their second song was played a local DJ interrupted the song, declaring it to be so awful that he refused to broadcast it. It certainly left me wondering how often this has happened in general.
The bisexual agenda — One of my longstanding peeves has been the assumption that bisexuality means an inability to be monogamous; it’s always been a descriptor to me, with nothing to do with the viability of any given relationship or likelihood of cheating. That’s not how the show treated bisexuality in those years, but worse yet, many of the self-proclaimed bisexuals who called the show were part of perpetuating that stereotype. It somehow seemed normal for bisexual women to have a girl on the side of their straight relationship.
It was jarring to hear, over and over, but at least I understand where the stereotype came from. I don’t like it, but it’s undeniable that it was a persistent phenomenon, at least among the show’s demographic.
There’s also the matter of disbelieving the existence of male bisexuality—there has been a big shift in acceptance of gay male sexuality, but that is still a common claim. It was only in 2020 that a study concluded that male bisexuality does, indeed, exist, but with bisexuality shifting out of the zeitgeist, perhaps this is no longer a controversial topic. I also already addressed the claim Carolla and Pinsky made about gay men not appealing to women in the same way that lesbians appeal to men.
Radio history — I’ll be the first to admit that publicity stunts are ubiquitous in the industry, so I can’t guarantee that none of the spontaneous shenanigans were unplanned, but they remain absolute radio gold.
David Arquette delivered one of the priceless moments that would be referenced for years: in November 1999 Being John Malkovich was being promoted, Carolla discussed former guests that were nuts — circa 7 minutes in, he mentioned Arquette, and specified that he was so nuts he wouldn’t even find his way to the studio. Minutes later, Arquette burst into the studio because he had been listening to the show while driving.
Pennywise provided two of the most memorable visits caught on tape. The first visit predated Carolla’s tenure but was often referenced and the audio replayed: Fletcher Dragge, the band’s guitarist, was incredibly inebriated and vomited all over the console and Pinsky. The recording is chaotic, but we’ve been told Pinsky climbed onto a cabinet and tried to fight him off. For context, Fletcher has been described as “a mountain of a man” for context of the physical threat he held.
Understandably, the band was prohibited from returning for many years. They were given a second chance in 1999, which we have the security footage from (circa 1:39)4
As a jokey reference to his past poor behavior, Fletcher had brought with him a trophy filled with resined vomit. Unfortunately, this visit ended with him declaring he was going to take them to “poo poo city” and claimed he was carrying a hand grenade that was going to be set off. MTV reported on the incident as a hostage situation.
There’s also the live inspection of Carolla’s genitals for signs of genital warts. It was a long time coming, with Pinsky always proclaiming that HPV was incredibly common and that the majority of people already have it. Carolla would always object because he didn’t have warts, and in 2000 Pinsky and Dr. Marcel Daniels, an occasional fill-in, performed an exam on the air. There was a hundred dollars bet riding on the results. The exam was performed by pouring acid on his genitalia which would make any invisible wart lesions visible under a blacklight. Carolla won the bet, he was wart-free, but it remained a running joke throughout the show.
Why does Viagra not work on women? — Just as I had finished reading through the book “A Billion Wicked Thoughts” which among other things, discussed why Viagra didn’t work on women, I came to a 2004 episode where Pinsky mentioned that Viagra trials in women had been halted due to lack of results.
It’s worth noting that Viagra was not created to assist with erections but was originally developed to address cardiovascular issues. It didn’t work for that, but provided the desired side effect of fixing physical erectile dysfunction. It being a physical remedy is the crux: it doesn’t address desire or libido, it simply increases blood flow. In that sense, it does work for women who have the desire but lack the physical manifestations of it—which is a problem some women have, but the bigger issue has been seen as the lack of drive in women, which is something Viagra does not address.
Today there is a multitude of approaches used to address female complaints of lack of libido, but not all the medications work for all women, and none of them work the same way as Viagra. It’s another reminder of how little we know about how our biology differs and interacts with medication.
The impact of pornified society - When self-declared porn aficionados like Carolla and certain guests discussed the porn saturation of the late 90s, it served as a validation of my own perspectives. Compared to that era, present-day has amped up access and mainstreaming of pornography even more, but it’s been so normalized that criticism is often eye-rolled away.
In a 2004 appearance, Ron Jeremy claimed Playboy’s popularity was slipping, and that was because softer core magazines had surfaced. FHM, Maxim, Gear, and others were referred to as pin-up style, the lite Playboy, light enough that it was on the checklist for all up-and-coming actresses. Many of the female guests were still asked if they considered posing for Playboy, or if they’d been approached for it, and some of the cover girls came on the show to promote their issues (apparently in some cases they would receive a bonus if their cover sold more than expected.)
Carolla speculated on more than one occasion that the future would be divided among those who have descended into hedonism and those who reject it entirely. It certainly seems like he was right about that.
Bits and bobs - Pot laughs are very real. Female orgasmic incontinence remains without a cure. One of the fill-in doctors discussed being a creationist who could still practice medicine. Breast “lifts” aren’t really a thing and usually consist of augmentation or reduction with a lift. The penis can be cracked like a knuckle. Only extremes seem to be represented among callers: those who claim to be infertile because they’ve had unprotected sex for years without accidents, and those who remain panicked even when using hormonal birth control and condoms. Penile surgeries are more common than I ever thought.
Pinsky joined initially joined the show as a guest for his medical expertise, and he ended up sticking around, creating the format of a Doctor and translator (co-host). He repeatedly said he saw the show as a public service at first and didn’t really get paid until Carolla came on board. He also revealed he worked pro-bono for the last years of the show.
This is another lesson, that insemination is rarely instantaneous.
Also enjoy the much-mocked PSA on airplane turbulence which claims our bodies are built for many things (football, childbirth, loud noises, marathons) but NOT airplane turbulence.