Spotify's Joe Rogan and comedian Akaash Singh mock child sex abuse and claim it's “fine” for boys to have sex with adult women
Joe Rogan: “If it’s a 15-year-old boy and a 30-year-old lady. … You don’t feel bad at all.”
Written by Alex Paterson
Published
On the February 8 edition of his Spotify podcast, host Joe Rogan and guest Akaash Singh mocked accounts of children being raped, with Rogan asserting that when it comes to boys sexually assaulted by adult women: “You don’t feel bad at all. ... He's fine. Even 13, he's going to be fine if he’s got a good dad. You're going to be fine, kid, keep moving. Walk it off.”
These comments appear to violate Spotify’s platform rules, which prohibit content “promoting, normalizing, or glorifying child grooming behaviors.”
Rogan has recently faced widespread backlash for spreading bigotry and medical misinformation on his Spotify podcast, including repeatedly saying a racial slur, lying about the COVID-19 pandemic, and attacking trans people. Despite this, Spotify has determined that its newly published platform rules, which the company says have been internally in place “for years,” do not prohibit numerous dangerous and unfounded claims spread on The Joe Rogan Experience.
During the episode, Rogan said that when boys have sex with adult women “it depends on what the woman looks like,” and added, “If someone is gross then it's not good.” Singh then stated that Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who raped her sixth grade student in 1996, was “not that bad looking.”
Citation From the February 8, 2022, edition of Spotify's The Joe Rogan Experience
JOE ROGAN (HOST): Well, if you are a guy and you’re, you know, living in the time where they wrote these songs and you’re a 30-year-old guy and someone’s like almost legal, it’s like they'll be legal in a year but not now. And there’s like this weird tension and the girl’s flirting with him and he doesn't know what to do. It’s a different era.
AKAASH SINGH (COMEDIAN): Yeah, yeah.
ROGAN: And they would write songs about that – no one would write a song about that today. You’d be like, wait a minute, are you saying you want to fuck kids? Is that your song? Hey! No! I'm not gonna -- I'm just saying don't stand so close to me.
SINGH: I'm saying I’m trying to be patient. It's her fault really.
ROGAN: Don't stand so close to me because my dick is hard as a rock. I'm trying to be a good person.
SINGH: I'm the good guy here. She's the one that's the temptress.
ROGAN: Yeah, goddamn siren dragging me to the rocks. But the crazy thing is like if it's the opposite, literally no one gives a fuck. If it’s a 15-year-old boy and a 30-year-old lady –
SINGH: G's up.
ROGAN: Who had the best joke? Galifianakis had a joke, and he goes, “Did you hear about it, this boy died because he was having an affair with his high school teacher. Yeah, his friends high-fived him to death.”
SINGH: That’s great. I don’t feel anything.
ROGAN: You don't feel bad at all.
SINGH: No.
ROGAN: No, you don’t feel bad at all.
SINGH: There is an age at which it is going to fuck the kid for sure, like 13, 12, 11, that kid is fucked, 15, 16 –
ROGAN: He's fine. Even 13, he's going to be fine if he’s got a good dad. [LAUGHTER] You're going to be fine, kid, keep moving. Walk it off. Listen, you found out about something awesome early. But it depends on what the woman looks like. If she looks like a cafeteria lady – if she’s a giant football player-looking lady –
SINGH: But then it's only up from there!
ROGAN: Yeah, but that's gross. If someone is gross then it's not good. Like then it’s like what did they do to my fucking kid?
SINGH: That’s a crime.
ROGAN: But if she's like Sofia Vergara, you know, then you’re like you son of a bitch, you know.
SINGH: You’re right but then you’re set up for disappointment for the rest of your life. Who else is going to do that?
ROGAN: Maybe not, maybe the kid is off to the races.
SINGH: Mary Kay Letourneau – not that bad looking. If we want to be honest about it, if we want to be honest about it.
ROGAN: She wasn't that bad. Also crazy. And that's the thing we were talking about the Colter Wall song, wild bitches.
SINGH: You can't tame a wild bitch
ROGAN: You can’t tame them. You can’t, like – yeah, I mean, if you meet a girl and the first time you meet her she fucks all of your friends, like, that's not going to be your wife.