Samantha Wynn Greenstone and Jacob Hoff: Mixed orientation marriages can work

“For a while, we thought we were a fluke in the system,” announces Samantha Wynn Greenstone, a social media influencer and actor who “came out” less than two years ago about her unconventional marriage to a gay man. Through social media communications with Smart Sex, Smart Love host, Joe Kort, Greenstone and her husband, Jacob Hoff, finally were able to “label” their relationship as “mixed orientation.”  

The couple fell in love, were married last November, and have been talking about their monogamous relationship – a “soulful connection” – as Hoff describes it, in People Magazine, The New York Times and social media. 

“It was a pivotal moment to finally take the leap and decide to share our story,” says Hoff during this Smart Sex, Smart Love podcast. 

It’s natural for the couple to be under critical eyes when they chose to go public with their story. Greenstone is straight, and she knew Hoff was gay soon after their friendship began eight years ago. 

People don’t believe they can be monogamous; they suspect Hoff will be (or has been) unfaithful, they label him bisexual and not gay, they say the marriage is a sham, they believe conversion therapy is involved, they assume Greenstone couldn’t find a straight man to marry … and the theories go on and on because most people are skeptical that a straight woman and a gay man can be in a loving, monogamous relationship. 

The reality of this mixed orientation marriage is that it is working very well, and the couple is in love, happy, content, secure and completely committed to each other. “Jacob shows up for me more than anyone has ever shown up for me in my life,” Greenstone says. “He makes it clear how important I am to him every day and how much me being in his life means to him. Any doubt in my head is gone. He is in it for the long run.” 

Listen to my podcast to learn about the “pure love story” of Samantha Wynn Greenstone and Jacob Hoff and how mixed orientation marriages can be successful. 

Transcript

JOE KORT  0:05  
Hello everyone. Welcome to Smart sex, smart love, where talking about sex goes beyond the taboo and talking about love goes beyond the honeymoon. My guests today, and I'm very excited to have Jacob and Sam Samantha when Greenstone and Jacob Hough, as you know them, maybe from the media, from the New York Times. You may have read their story recently in People Magazine and the New York Times, they tied the knot in an intimate wedding ceremony November 25 in Boca, Raton, Florida. But that is not the story. Jacob and Sam are social media influencers and actors who decided to take their relationship to the next level. When they exchanged vows one month ago, they described their unconventional romance as a pure love story. Jacob is gay and Sam is straight. They have been in a monogamous relationship, a soulful connection, as Jacob describes it, for almost eight years. They live together in Beverly Hills and there's and they share their stories about the relationship regularly on social media, which is where I discovered them. Today, they're going to talk about mixed orientation relationships, where one is gay and one is straight. Monogamy, intimacy, monogamy, intimacy, backlash and acceptance. Welcome, Jacob and Sam, hello.

Samantha and Jacob  1:19  
We're so excited to be

straight men are still attracted to other women, like women just don't all of a sudden become ugly to a straight man, right, with the exemption of their partners just because they've decided to enter a committed relationship. And it's kind of the same thing, like, I still can acknowledge a handsome man, Jacob can acknowledge a handsome man, but we have no desire to act upon it or go there in our brains, because we this is it. Yeah,

And I know this relationship is different from that.

JOE KORT  0:00  
Music.

here. I'm so excited to have you here. You know, forever. I mean, I've been a therapist this may it'll be 40 years, and 30 of those years, I've worked with mixed orientation marriages, and most people come to me because I'm not judgmental. I have no agenda. I want them to do it the way they want to do it. And most therapists are biased and have agendas. And so when I started watching your videos, I was like, This is awesome that you're putting a face to this in a positive way.

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's It was exciting to take the leap and decide to actually share about our lives. And

Samantha and Jacob  1:57  
because you shared a video about us, we learned that the proper term was mixed orientation, relationship.

JOE KORT  2:04  
Yeah, you didn't hear that before. Is that right? No,

that was introduced to us, and that was a pivotal moment in knowing just what to label this. And it's really helped us, and

Samantha and Jacob  2:16  
that there was even, like, a concrete thing that you could even categorize us into we thought that for a while, we thought we were just like a fluke in the system.

JOE KORT  2:30  
And that just makes me so sad to think that, because there's so many and the problem with people being out about this is people have what I call an infidelity response. They don't believe that you're monogamous. They don't believe that Jacob can stay. You know, they and they believe he's going to leave you at some point. There's all of this crap people put on you. You've probably experienced this

already. Absolutely. Yeah, they definitely think that. How do you respond to it? I think I respond by saying, well, one of the, one of the pivotal things to me about feeling open and feeling content and just happy and like I'm secure is having this relationship, this secure bond with Samantha and also being able to verbalize it. And that's one of the reasons why we want to come out and talk about it and normalize. This is because we've met a lot of people in this dynamic at all ages and ranges and in different places in their relationship, and we see there's a positive response when the queer person is able to just acknowledge their feelings. There's a really negative side to having to suppress it because it there's, there's, there's a lie between the partners. There's something dishonest going on, and it creates friction and discontent in the relationship.

Samantha and Jacob  3:53  
And for me, it's knowing that we had this 18 month friendship before we even entered the relationship, and I knew that Jacob was gay before we entered the relationship, so it wasn't like we had been in this long term relationship and all of a sudden Jacob's like, by the way, I feel this way. I you know, we had to navigate it early on, but I think because we entered it knowing this and feeling like we were entering this relationship because we love each other, it kind of is the medicine that makes all of you know that response to the social inquiries not

JOE KORT  4:35  
affect us. Yeah, and I think any any relationship we talk about this is at risk of having somebody Philander if you in terms of, in terms of that, like a straight relationship, is just as at risk as we are. There's always, you know, another woman out there for the guy. There's always another guy out there. Of the woman and in any dynamic. So it to say that, Oh, I'm going to seek someone outside of our relationship because I'm gay, is presumptuous that gay people are more inclined to be promiscuous or more inclined to be unfaithful, for some reason, right?

Samantha and Jacob  5:21  
Like we say,

JOE KORT  5:53  
I never read the comments that people put under your because I'm interested in it, because I've gotten the comments myself when I've talked about this, or the couples I've worked with, and they would say, Jacob, then if I could you said, I could challenge you a little bit, because people are going to want to ask these questions, right? So they might say, Well, wait a minute, if you were bi, then of course you could get your need met with her, because you're attracted to women, but if you're only attracted to men, she's not a man. So how are you how? How will you get that need met,

right? And I think it has more to do with the thinking the need is some sort of like lustful thing when the I think the need is companionship in our lives, the need is feeling content and feeling secure and happy and we are we do have sex and we are intimate, but I describe it as like 290 year old people sleeping together. There's, there's, there's a bond beyond just that, that lustful passion that that happens maybe in one night stands or in these things. And I think anybody in a long term relationship understands that sexuality develops, and sexuality isn't always the forefront of a relationship, and it's very important to a relationship, but it doesn't, it just doesn't happen in that same sort of, like Playboy sort of way. And that, to me, I'm like, the the attraction to men is in that Playboy sort of way is, is in that lustful wow, you know, what a hot guy thing. But when you're talking about your partner, it's, it's so much deeper than that, right?

Samantha and Jacob  7:43  
And you, most people we know in in committed marriages or relationships, it started off as a friendship, regardless of the the gender or the sexual dynamic. Because, I think in general, if you're only looking for the lustful part of it, I think that's a lack of a layer of humanity that you're missing with who only care about the sex part of it. Then you have to find someone who's only into that level of it and that depth of a person. Yeah, I think for us, it's just we're so deep that we can understand just life in a way that is so deeply human, and that's the thing that helps, I don't know, drive what we look for in companionship. Yeah,

JOE KORT  8:35  
and Sam, let me ask you. So, oh, go

ahead, Jake. No, I was just thinking, I, you know, I think that that's like people needing that definition of bisexual thinking, thinking that that I'm getting my needs met from a woman, must mean that I have some sort of attraction to women. But what we're by saying gay, it's like, I'm just saying if a beautiful woman walks this way, and a beautiful man walks this way. I'm not. I don't have an attraction towards the woman. It's only towards men. It's a very visceral, real thing for me, and acknowledging it is super healthy and makes me feel like I'm connected to my identity.

See, I love, love that you're saying this because this is all of my work. People will say, Well, he you any gay man married to a woman and they're having pleasurable sex together, right? Sex? Um, satisfying sex. Well, then they must be bi. And I always say, No, that's his person. He's not attracted to women in general. He's attracted to her. He's still attracted to men in right? Am I That's weird. Yeah,

percent, 100%

Samantha and Jacob  9:43  
and I think the thing that, like, made our heads kind of spin at first was that there, we didn't have an example of this in society, so we were kind of navigating it on our own, and it wasn't until we went and spoke to a couple's counselor and. And she was saying, Well, I, I'm kind of, my mind's kind of, her mind was kind of blown because she considers herself a straight woman, but she's married to a woman, and it's, it was the only woman she'd ever been attracted to, yeah,

JOE KORT  10:16  
so I've seen that too,

yes, yeah. Moment for us, where we were like, Whoa, somebody else has this dynamic, and she's in this position where she can be a couples counselor, and that really solidified us and helped us earlier on in our relationship.

That is so awesome. And I can't tell you how lucky you got, because no offense to other therapists. I mean, I am one, but I train. I'm the one training therapist to understand your dynamics, because most would say you better get out. Sam, get on with your straight life. Jacob, get on with your gay life. This is never going to work. You're so lucky. Yeah.

And the amazing thing is that we are in such a secure place. But, you know, we talk about there were years of insecurity and confusion before, before meeting that couples therapist, or before all of this? Yeah, there was a lot of weird feelings because we didn't know how to verbalize it, how to compartmentalize all the feelings. And there was a lot of concern for those, those similar concerns, are you ever Are you really going to be able to stay in this relationship? And

Samantha and Jacob  11:25  
I also felt like a great deal of guilt in my own self. I was like, Oh, my God, am I like, holding him back from being his truest self? And it's just because you're trying to navigate the world with the information and the examples that you already have. But we also at the same time, from this, the second we met, like it felt like, you know, like angels, tunnel vision, like this, yeah, this thing that, like felt beyond our ability to explain how people meet. So I think we also, like, got the gut feeling and the certainty of knowing you're with the right person. There's a lot to be said, and just just knowing that when you if you feel that feeling, I don't think everyone always feels that. I think sometimes you have to, you know, weigh things out with your brain and stuff like that. But when it's that much of your soul mate, you just it is like that movie, feeling of like a chorus of angels.

JOE KORT  12:30  
It is, it is. It's romantic love, right? That we all go through. So Sam, let me ask you, a lot of women would say to you, aren't you afraid? And they would tell me in my office over and over again, they're afraid he's going to leave me eventually. What do you do with that?

Samantha and Jacob  12:43  
You know, um, Jacob shows up for me more than anyone has ever shown up for me in my life, he shows up for me more than I see other partners showing up for their partners in their life. Like he makes it clear how important I am to him every day, and how how much me being in his life means to him. And I just he, he just shows me through his love and always being there, that he is always going to be there. And I think you just through someone's actions, they do speak louder than you know, any voices of of confusion or like doubt in my head, like any doubt that I've ever had is gone, because I think enough time shows that someone's really in it for the long run.

JOE KORT  13:40  
Because you've been together? How long?

Eight years? Eight years,

right, right? It's only recently that you've come out as a mixed orientation relationship, right?

Yeah, the last two, two years or year and a half, yeah, right. I don't

think people know that you've been together a long time. This isn't just like, oh, we just met. We're in romantic love, and this is all happening. You have a history, yeah,

exactly. It's, it's, it's a long history, it's deep, and it's, yeah, like I said, they're seeing the tip of the iceberg of all the work we've had to do and to get through insecurities and all these things. And I think this version of us is hoping to save other couples from all of that a little bit and show them, hey, this is, this is a thing we're here to, like, you're fine and you can make it work. But like, my

Samantha and Jacob  14:31  
family is his family, like they love him. I always make the joke I think they love him more than they love me. But what I mean by that is that they just, you know, they, they treat him as if he's like he's their family. And Jacob's excited to show up and be there for our family. And it's, it's really, you know, he does everything that someone who is. Family, you don't just, like, all of a sudden, betray your family at this point. And that's kind of what I he would lose a lot more than just me and and he wouldn't, I just know that he would never walk away from what we have. So that's kind of, there's, I guess there's not necessarily a clear answer, other than I just have this certainty through his actions and the time that have shown me that this, this is it.

JOE KORT  15:30  
So I think what you're saying you did all this work and trust and jealousy and attachment and security, and you had eight years of what I call earning each other's trust, where most couples are about assuming trust, and when you assume trust, then bad things happen, or agreements get broken, and then then it makes it worse, and then the work begins to have to earn trust again. Well, you didn't wait for the agreements to be broken, you. You dealt with it beforehand, didn't you? Yeah.

Samantha and Jacob  15:56  
I mean, I think we had the 18 months of friendship to just, kind of just see each other's character by default, and we were very open and honest with each other in our friendship before we even entered a relationship. So by the time we entered the relationship, we already knew each other's vulnerabilities and ticks in a way, and we both kind of said, Look, this is what we need from one another in a relationship. It doesn't mean the communication was easy. I think our biggest, our biggest challenge, was that we had have different communication styles. So when we would cross a bridge where we needed to talk about something it we had to figure out the balance of how to play ball in that way, but with the whole trust thing, he knew that what I needed out of a partner and vice versa, because we already knew what we needed out of each other as friends. So it was kind of like a very easy leap into a relationship, because he already knew, Okay, this is what Samantha needs me, from me in general, to have a healthy relationship in our life. And he knows that when it comes to my friendships in general. Like, I always had a very kind of, like, tight leash in in the sense of just like, if someone did something to me, I'm not like, I can cut people off kind of easily if I feel like they've just like broken like, what I feel are, like my three, you know, basic qualities of what I need in a friend. And so, like, openness and honesty is one of, like, the most important things to me in any regard, family, friend, any relationship. And so I think, because we entered the relationship just being we call it brutally honest without being brutal.

JOE KORT  18:01  
Oh, I love that. Bruttally Honest without being brutal. That's

Samantha and Jacob  18:06  
right. Yeah, we just like a white lie. We would never even tell each other a white lie. We think it's healthier to just completely just lay it all on the table, and even if it means that we have to navigate, you know, or feel uncomfortable for a little bit, we feel like that helps us get to the best resolution and and develops the trust. Because if you can be that vulnerable and be that honest with someone, and there's they still show up for you. It's it really like to be honest. It feels like so amazing once you get to the

JOE KORT  18:42  
resolution, yeah, and I learned that Samantha's Samantha needs words of affirmation, and I'm somebody who gives actions of affirmation. I do things, and that was the big, the biggest learning curve for me was having to learn how to give those words to her, and I think that solidified the trust the most.

Wow, that's the kind of work that all couples should be doing. But I think because you're a mixed orientation, you were called to do the work more, because you want to make sure you get anything that could be in the way, out of the way, which most couples don't do.

Samantha and Jacob  19:21  
Yeah, right? I mean, and even just like, walking through the world, like Jacob knows if he sees a man that he considers handsome, and vice versa, like we'll be like, Oh, I think that guy was kind of handsome, or That guy's really handsome. So just us being able to just know, like, have the comfortability around each other, because I would never, I don't even see like people I know in straight relations, straight, I guess you just, you know, like a man, woman, straight relationship, even talking with each other like that, like, we just kind of just say, Okay, let's just address that. Because, for some reason. That makes me feel better. And also, I think, gives Jacob the space to be able to feel like he can identify, you know, he can safely identify his attract, who he's attracted to in the world. Yes,

JOE KORT  20:15  
what do you guys say to this? The whole idea that, and I know conversion therapists love, to jump on these things. When I talk about sexual fluidity, straight men can have sex with men. You know, lesbians can have sex with straight with men, whatever. Gay men can have sex with women. They're all about saying, See, you can change and you're not really gay. And I love Jacob that you say, I am gay, I'm not bi, I'm not. So can you talk about when conversion therapy might say something like, well, they might try to jump on this, right? I

mean, I think that that stuff is such horseshit. I mean, it is so bad. And I think that this is and a lot of people do chalk up our relationship to conversion therapy, and we try to say, No, this is this is worlds away from that, because nothing is going to change my attraction to men, period. I tried as a child. Let me tell you, I thought this was a phase, like every queer kid, and when kids would call me out for being gay when I was an adolescent, I it was so painful, because it's like, God, how can they see through me and see this thing that I'm not even 100% because you're not even through puberty yet you don't even know how to verbalize it or know what it is, but you know that that it's there, and other people are seeing it and making fun of you for it, and you're constantly having to say, no, no, I'm not. No, I'm not, and living in this denial. So, yeah, it's a painful process that that I think that that conversion therapy really completely throws out the window. And when we talk about our own relationship, it to me, it's such a different thing than saying, Oh, you can change your attractions. You can find partners in any person and but I also we don't encourage people to go out and look for partners right outside of their sexual preference. We think we are an exception, not the norm. And when people approach us and say, Hey, I might be in love with my gay best friend, we say, you really need to pump the brakes and make sure that this may not be what we have. And because not all, not everybody, can do this. Not everybody can have this sort of partnership. This is an exception to the rule. And even queer people try to confront us about this and say, Well, you know, I could never physically have a relationship with a woman. And so you saying this is defeating the whole gay movement by saying you're gay, but yet you can do this. And what I say is no that I mean I feel like I can never be with a woman, that I know that I just this is a whole other entity beyond just being a woman and and for just because it works for me doesn't mean it's gonna work for other people. Does it mean the majority of the gay population could have a female partner? It's it's just its own, its own lane,

Samantha and Jacob  23:36  
and I have had many close, dear, amazing gay friendships in my life, and when I think about like ever being intimate with them, or ever like building a life with them, like it's like, it makes me laugh, because I'm like, There's no way that could have ever, ever, ever happened, like, they're some of my, my most cherished amazing friendships. But in no way has it ever been this, like, this is really its own thing. And so it's not an instance where, I mean, I don't know if I'm just, like, overly lucky, and I've just had a plethora of gay best friends in my life where I have this kind of, uh, you know this this, this way to judge this relationship, because I've had all these relationships. I know there's some people who like are experiencing their first gay best friend for the first time in their lives, later in life, um, but I think growing up in the theater, growing up where I grew up in San Diego, it was just a common thing. And so I think that maybe like that confuses some people who are like, you know, don't have this whole pool of friendships to judge their their thing off of. But for me, it's the thing that makes me realize that's how i.

JOE KORT  25:04  
What I think this is not even in a way, I want to say this isn't even about a mixed orientation marriage. It's about finding your person, yes, and you both found your person. That's what this is,

yeah. And that can happen to anybody in any shape or form. And yeah,

yes. And what I love is you're not so, because a lot of the couples I work with here get real, especially the women, rightfully so, they get scared if he says, Oh, I'm turned down by a man, or I'm watching erotica of other men with each other, and that becomes a thing, and it becomes like an infidelity. But for the two of you, it sounds like it's not right, right?

Correct, no, correct. I She knows that's how I feel, and that's it's been present in our relationship since the beginning. So

Samantha and Jacob  25:48  
and for me, if anything, it's like a way for me to understand, you know, his brain, and a way from us for me to be like, well, I my brain doesn't just stop thinking men are handsome as well. You know, I think just as it doesn't mean that we want to go and and be open, it just means that we can acknowledge that that's a blue flower over there. You're just kind of, we call it, like the check box, of like, just how we're just, like, taking in the world around us, but we've been in instances where we were at, you know, a friend's party earlier this year, and some guy came up to Jacob, and Jacob immediate was Lee, was like, like he I mean, we've had instances where Jacob can just show me how He would act in that situation, and he acts exactly how I would think he would act in that situation, where he's like, Oh, gross. It's it's like, when you find your person and you're in love with your person, the thought of someone coming into that and threatening that or trying to take it away from you is disgusting. Because you're like, I wouldn't want to it's like having a glass orb, you don't want to drop it.

JOE KORT  27:05  
Yeah, yeah. Do you

think that you'll ever have an open relationship? Have you ever talked about that? I don't

think we ever will. We are, our boundary is that we are firm on being closed, and that's the healthy boundary for the both of us in a relationship, yeah.

And I just think about these are the kinds of questions I know people would ask or and I have been around other gay men who would, who just not, they're totally negative about this whole thing that you're doing, and very negative to heterosexually married gay men, you know, very judgmental. I did a gay men's group for 21 years. They were so judgmental to these guys, and it was just they had it's because they weren't exposed to them like you say they're not out about it, because to be out means all this judgment, right?

Samantha and Jacob  27:53  
But, and it's very fascinating, because some of the pushback we get the most is from from gay men who are just like, what you're doing is conversion therapy. Like, this is so bad. You're negating all the work we've done. And we're like, why don't you look at it as because of the work you've done? This is just another variation of love. Is love,

JOE KORT  28:16  
right? And I think Sam right is so well said. Yeah, that is a

Samantha and Jacob  28:20  
trans friends say your relationship, like in my understanding my brains, my brain's way of just digesting it is. It's almost like a little bit non binary, you know?

JOE KORT  28:32  
And I was thinking the same thing, exactly. Yeah, it does.

It transcends. And another thing is that any any marginalized community that's had to defend itself, and you make its make its mark in the world the way the gay community has over the years, is gonna, I think, have this guard up and have this defensiveness and be weary of people invading that definition, because we've all, I mean, we've had to do it in our own families in the world, and laws and all these other things to say we belong here. So I understand when gay people get get on guard about our relationship, and I try to approach it from that place of like I completely understand we're not trying to do or threaten this definition, we're trying to add to the definition and make the world more colorful. Because, as I say, we've all seen that relationship where you go, That dude is gay and he's in a he's married to this woman, and why are they and they call it a beard, or they call it these other things, and you're like, why can we not just express it and move on? Because there are sometimes, sometimes those relationships don't work out, because maybe they're out there for false reasons, but there are ones that do work and are totally healthy. And why can't those people just live in the same bliss as everybody else?

Yeah. I want to say one thing, and then I have one last question for you, that there's a lot of bad research out on the internet. So if you're listening to this podcast and you go looking for all the research on this, there is no new research on couples like yourself. And the old research that I remember learning when I was a younger therapist is that it's eventually going to end. They don't work. And it was a different time, a different day. There was a lot of animosity. There was it was a lot of homophobia. There's a lot of reasons why they didn't work, but we don't know how many work today, but I can tell you in my I've been doing this work like I say, I've been I do a lot of couples therapy here, a lot of mixed orientation marriages. And I am here to say that I know they work, and you're here to say they know they work, whether this research or not, you're you're living proof.

Yeah, we get messages all the time from people who are like my parents had this dynamic. They were married for, you know, 4050, years.

You know, Sam, when you said the whole thing about a non binary, a trans person said that to you, it is sort of non binary, but I would think a lot of people would say it's pansexual too. What would you both say to that? Yeah,

so we get that a lot, pansexual. And I the best definition of pansexual to me comes from shits Creek, the show, when he said, It's not about the label, it's about the wine. And to me, it is about the label, because I am attracted to men only and that that doesn't really fit my definition. So I think by hearing the term mixed orientation and by keeping my gay identity, it makes me feel more like I'm expressing what I feel

I love that, and I feel like my generation and the generations before me spent so much time helping the public understand and straight people understand that we are not just a behavior. What you do in bed isn't who you are, and you're such a great example of this.

Yeah, thank you. Thank

Samantha and Jacob  31:57  
you. Yeah. You know, like, I think in life, it's like we hope that we inspire people to look for, like, just their person, whatever form that may come in. I think we're so consumed with like, hey, gotta find a man who's rich. Gotta find a man you know, like all of like, the outward noise of what you think you have to find in your partner, I think that that honestly maybe lead to a lot of leads to a lot of people who are in a good enough relationship. I'm not knocking those. I'm just saying that if you in life, focus on the connection that you have with a person, I think that it just will lead to a lot more healthy relationships. I think it might be the secret sauce to healthy relationships. Yeah,

JOE KORT  32:47  
and I think what you're doing by giving us the definition mixed orientation relationship, like there's this whole thing of, oh, we don't need labels and all this stuff, but the labels do help in a lot of way, they help us express what we're feeling and put a put a marker on it. And so, yeah, the label thing can be obnoxious for a lot of us, and we all just want to live in, you know, free love, but it's the label does help psychologically, yeah, and so you giving us that has helped, and also just your expertise and having you've met with so many couples with the same dynamic, you've you've heard it all, seen it all, sort of thing. So to have that reflect back at us feels good to know there's others out there, and someone with your level of education and expertise is acknowledging it and validating it. I was gonna say, yeah,

good, good. So talk about before we go, talk about your short documentary with Shark pig studios about your wedding and mixed orientation relationships.

Yes. So I we have, we, the the sensational nature of social media is a little difficult. We have to open all our videos with, I'm gay and I'm married a woman or, oops, I'm married again. There's definite there's definite hooks. There's definite things about social media that make it hard to trust, and part of reason why I don't consume a lot of it. And so I thought, What is a we were trying to find a way to solidify more this dynamic in a serious tone, in a piece that is longer form. And we've talked about writing a book, but ultimately the wedding was coming up, and we said, why don't we do a short documentary about this? Because I think that that sort of narrative storytelling will will make it firmer for people. They'll have more understanding, and it'll just be a clearer way to tell our story. So I, we were going to make it ourselves, and I called this studio, and this guy, this friend of ours, and he, he runs it, and they've done two. Other documentaries. They did, one on Melissa Etheridge performing at the women's prisons. They've kind of tackled LGBTQ themes. So, and I said, you know, how do we make this? Where do I rent a camera? And he was like, stop everything. We want to make it. And so they've, they've been doing it, and it's been really cool. Yeah.

Samantha and Jacob  35:20  
And what we love about Brian and shark pig is that they really focus on, I mean, they know how to they know how to do everything esthetically in a gorgeous way, and they have the right equipment and everything, but they just really know how to focus on the humanity of the subjects and just tell human stories and and it's, it's, you can see that when it's led with the human versus, you know, everything else, it really just tells our story in the way that we want to tell it. So they came out to Boca, and we're at our wedding and yeah, and we're with us on the days leading up to it, and we're really

JOE KORT  36:09  
excited about it. Yeah, another thing that was really important for us was to get different perspectives. So we're trying to pull other people, because when you see us on social media, you're just getting us, maybe you come up in their algorithm, maybe somebody else, but they're not getting a full picture. So we really wanted to make sure we got testimony from queer people. So we have a lot of our friends in the LGBTQ community talking about our relationship that have known us for years and solidifying it so that hopefully those people on on the in the queer community, who maybe are having their doubts can hear it from another person and see it that way, and also from the straight perspective and from the conservative perspective, and everybody painting this picture, and ultimately showing how much love and acceptance we do have In our lives and

Samantha and Jacob  37:01  
that, I think, has been so interesting. Like, initially, our thought was like, well, let's, like, get a bunch of interviews with our family. But then once we got everyone, all of our family, in a room together, and everyone who loved us in a room together, it was like, You didn't even really need to interview them. The love that was in the room just spoke for itself. And I think kind of like, shapes the message of how we are able to understand and have a love that's as deep as it is. And I think it's really because we've grown up and been shown so many examples of love around us, and that I think makes all the difference in life and your ability to have a loving, meaningful relationship. So it's really cool. We're

JOE KORT  37:50  
excited. So, yeah, I'm excited for it too. I'm excited to see it with you. So tell us where people can find you and connect with you. Social

media. Social media one Tiktok and Instagram are a big one at Samantha win Greenstone and at Jacob M off, and we're both on each other's channels all the time. And

Samantha and Jacob  38:13  
if you don't know how to find me, he'll tell you where to follow me. Yeah, if

JOE KORT  38:17  
you watch my video, I plug Samantha on my videos, but Samantha's channel definitely deals more with our relationship and has more of that thing I do, the lists and kind of a cookie cutter thing over and over again. But we did first share about our relationship on my channel, and we've had, that's what I thought, yeah, so we gave but we've kind of handed that side of it over to Samantha's channel. Because I actually think people enjoy watching it from her perspective. More Strangely, I think it's more interesting to see that. I think because the a lot of the people who gravitate to it are women, and I think they they they are seeing it through Samantha's eyes in that way, yes,

Samantha and Jacob  39:05  
and there's some, even there's this one video that we did when we were like, touring wedding locations and for and that video continues to like, come up and get a lot of views, but the comments on that video are more Like, Oh honey, there's not, don't give up on men. Like, there are good guys. Still, you don't have to choose this. We're praying for you. And so I think, like, they think that I, like, don't have this voice. So to be speaking so openly about it on my channel, I'm kind of like, well, here's the perspective, here's my voice. Let's talk about it.

JOE KORT  39:43  
Yeah. I love it, yeah. Thank you so so much for being on the shows Jacob and Sam, such a pleasure for having you guys on my podcast. I was hoping you would agree, and you did. So thank you. Thank you.

Samantha and Jacob  39:55  
Thanks for having us and thank you for giving us the terms so that. We could feel more validated.

JOE KORT  40:03  
Yep, it's mixed orientation marriage. They call them moms, and then it's mixed orientation relationships. Also. That's called Moore's up. So that's been around forever, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And like we say, we know this has been, this dynamic has been here. You look at those old Hollywood relationships, and they're full of gay men married to women. Some of them didn't work out. Some of them did. Elsa Lancaster and Charles Lawton were together their entire life, and they he was gay openly. So it's it's been there, yeah,

no, thank you. And for those of you that have been watching, you can hear more of my podcasts at Smart sex, smart love.com but you can also follow me on Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook. My handle is at Dr, Joe court, D, R, J, o, e, K, O, R t, and then you can go to my website if you also want to see more of my publications and things at Joe court.com thanks for listening, and until next time, stay safe and stay healthy you.

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