Q 13

PLAYBOY: You and your wife underwent fertility treatment so she could get pregnant. Did you agonize about bringing triplets to term?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Our obstetrician, who was a friend of mine and who became a better friend, said, "Don't do it. Don't have triplets." If you look at the data, marriage survival is low and illness is high among parents of multiples. We called several universities about selective reductions. Their ethics committees decided they would not reduce triplets to twins. We wrote down the pros and the cons, and the cons didn't weigh up to a life. The probability of having seven healthy babies--as happened in Iowa--is very low. The probability of being able to adequately parent seven babies at the same time seems to me to be zero.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: Let's say people need a license to have children. Give us some questions for the exam.

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Tell us about your childhood. No, that's not fair. That's saying if you were abused you're going to be a bad parent. I have more faith in people than that. How about: Do you understand the importance of your role in this child's development? How will you support yourself? Why are you having this kid?

Q 15

PLAYBOY: You have said about Loveline, "When I was 15 a show like this sure could have helped me." We've seen photos on the Internet of you as a teenager. You could have used some help. What were you like then?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Horribly shy and clingy, to the point of repelling people. It was a painful time. I had no understanding of how relationships worked. I clung to my first girlfriend like a dust mite.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Why are some women bewildered when they discover that their husbands masturbate?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Because they're not men. If the majority of male sexuality were about intimate human contact, men wouldn't masturbate. Women are also bewildered when a guy has sex with them, then walks away: "Why doesn't he want to date me anymore?" Because he doesn't, because he's a man, because that's the way he's put together.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: You've said that adolescence in America extends well into the third decade of one's life. What retards our maturity?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: We live in a time of permissiveness, and people aren't compelled to mature. Combine that with dysfunctional families and you have adolescence extending on and on and on. [Adam Carolla enters.]

Q 18

PLAYBOY: Since you're both here, why don't you diagnose each other.

Adam Carolla: Drew likes to find the good in everybody, to feel their pain, instead of looking at it as I do, which is, "This person is a pain in the ass." Drew is--what's the word?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Codependent.

Adam Carolla: Yes. Codependent.

Dr. Drew Pinsky: I mean this in the most caring way, but Adam has a partially treated narcissistic personality disorder.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: Who's more convincing when giving advice about sex, the doctor or the comic?

Dr. Drew Pinsky: The comic, because people can relate to him. The minute I start talking, it's like Charlie Brown's teacher: "Wha, wha, wha, wha, wha." I have to turn to Adam and say, "Would you tell them what I just said?" I was 24 when I started with the radio program. Now I'm a guy with gray hair, in a white coat, who kids don't want to listen to. The show is like a Trojan horse. It looks like one thing on the outside, and it allows me to be rolled through the gate.

Adam Carolla: Drew speaks a language that makes sense to his colleagues but not to the stoners who call the show. For instance, he'll say "primary relationship" when he means your mom and dad.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: Adam, has there ever been a time when you wanted to say, "Drew, shut the fuck up"?

Adam Carolla: Last show [laughs]. There are his general ramblings, along with the regurgitation of information and then the swallowing of the regurgitated material and then the reregurgitation of the same material. Better still is when we run into former guests Drew doesn't recognize. He says, "How do you do? Nice to meet you." They say, "I was on your show three months ago." Drew's response is always, "Oh, you've put on weight."

Dr. Drew Pinsky: But only when they have. It's usually muscular weight.

Adam Carolla: But you don't get the muscular part in before the weight part.

Dr. Drew Pinsky: Well, it's the truth. I only speak the truth.