Why Nobody is Having Sex Anymore (& why it matters) - Dr Debra Soh - #1072

Is people having less sex a big deal? It is a big deal. Well, ask anyone who's not having sex if it's a big deal. I think they'll tell you, yeah, it is a problem. Especially considering that it is young men who are typically in the their prime and at the peak of their sexual drive. So not only is it I think quite frustrating for them, but also

when you're in a situation like that where you're struggling and it's not just about the sex, it's also about the connection and the emotional intimacy and the larger feeling of connectedness and community. So, um

Sextinction is very much about the sex recession and the fact that young people, millennials and g Gen Z in particular, are having less sex than previous generations. And I was skeptical at first. I thought that this talk about the sex recession and sexlessness was overblown. But after I sat down I got a chance to go through the data myself.

look at the media reportage, talk to people, and we see consistently with multiple data sets that one in three men and one in five women have not had sex in the past twelve months, which is a large number of people. And so I was interested with this book. What is taking the place of sex and what does that say about where we're headed in the future? How different is modern sexual activity to what we understand about the past?

Well, in terms of say the outlets that we have available, so the one question has been is sex really on the decline or is it that other outlets are taking the place like porn muscle masturbation? Um things like OnlyFans or now AI Companions. So each of these subjects have a different chapter in the book to themselves, and in my self-explaining, trying to understand.

um what the trend is about, is it convincing? I test them out myself, which was a lot of fun in many cases. Um going through the scientific research in terms of what we do know about these technologies. And then also talking about the evolutionary biology and psychology that is underpinning them. So what makes these technologies alluring to human beings and why is it that it's potentially dangerous or distracting us from real life sex? How different is the amount of sex Person on person sex.

that modern people are having compared with what we understand about the past. Well, everyone across the board is having less sex. So regardless of whether you are married or in a relationship or single. Um it's a c in eastern countries, western countries, basically all developed countries and all age cohorts, but as I mentioned, most

uh more specifically among young people. But your question earlier about, you know, is it taking the place of potentially masturbation or other outlets or other sexual outlets? Um and if you look at studies that are asking about adolescent sexuality. So this is a understandably uh uncomfortable subject, right, to think about ad adolescent sexual awakening, but

they had parental consent, so it's a legitimate study. And what they found it is even among adolescents, they are having lower rates of masturbation and across the board with everyone less partnered sex. Less so less um intercourse, less anal sex, less all types of sex, oral sex um

partner masturbation I said, solo masturbation as well. So across the board there's been this decline. So it's not that people are just preferring masturbation, although I do think that is something that is happening, especially when we look at pornography and yeah, girlfriends and boyfriends and that type of thing.

But it seems like there's something else um there's a larger phenomenon. And I I also speak to the role of endocrine disruptors uh in one chapter because I think there's something else biologically happening. Aaron Powell So it's not just that the pie of sexual activity has been redistributed. from person on person to solo person or person with machine or person with doll or whatever. It's that the overall size of the pie has gotten smaller too. There is less sexual activity happening.

Yeah. Yeah. That seems to be the case. And what I find interesting, as you mentioned, with like dolls and robots, with the technology improving over time, I didn't think this was gonna be the case. I always thought people would prefer in-person real life sex. But I'm beginning to think people are actually preferring the solo methods and it

potentially dangerous if it comes to the point where we have these surrogates like robots where you can implant an AI and they are no different from a real life person. I really think people are eventually going to some people will be turning that way, but it's going to be much more popular than I had anticipated.

Aaron Powell When did the sex recession start, in your opinion? It's been documented for probably the last thirty years or so. Like the nineties it's was when it really started to taper a little bit, but it's been the most, I'd say Prominent in the last Twenty years. Um it's COVID definitely played a role in making things worse, but it was on it was happening before that. So the internet, I think, is a big part of what's happening, smartphones as well as social media.

So sadly, social media was supposed to make us more connected and it's uh if anything seems to have made us more divided, even outside of the the realm of sexuality, I think in terms of politically, in terms of men and women. in terms of even subcultures on the internet, just everyone seems to be fighting with each other and hating each other. Um, so I think that's feeding into it as well. There's this larger like political um

hatred that's happening between men and women that's also fomenting this decline in sex. Because if you hate the opposite sex, it's gonna be very difficult to wanna have a relationship with them or to date them. I had Some stats I wanted to read out to you. One in eight twenty six year olds are a virgin. Twenty four percent had no sex in the past year, about double the rate of

Twenty uh twenty ten. Among men from eighteen to twenty four, around one in three report no sexual activity in the past year. Twenty six percent of US adults reported no sex in twenty twenty one, thirty seven percent of adults having weekly sex.

is down from fifty five percent in nineteen ninety, thirty seven percent weekly, down from fifty five percent. Thirty seven percent of Gen Z had no sex in the last month versus nineteen percent of millennials. So even when we're talking millennials I haven't got it, you know, there's a big jump again.

Forty eight percent of married couples had no sex in the past month and the uh dead bedroom subreddit is just cranking at the moment. But this this is my favorite one. This is my favorite one by far. Survey of Gen Z found sixty seven percent would prioritize a good night's sleep over sex. Yeah, I'm not surprised.

And not surprise. You like a good night's sleep? Well that too. But the fact that, yeah, this is such a common trend. And it started, I mean 2016 was when the first really big study came out showing this. at at the time I thought this is probably a fluke, it's probably a one time thing, but more and more just consistently, right? It's like so many so many data sources are showing the same thing. It's very concerning. I do think mental health is another big part of it, right? When people are

I I think people are very exhausted, right? Day to day life. But it's also lacking prioritization of sex. These other replacements for sex are taking the place because they're easier. And then globally five percent of people are depressed right now. So if you're depressed or you're anxious, like Gen Z is is uh half of Gen Z has a diagnosed mental disorder and of them ninety percent have anxiety.

Gen Z ears. And so if you're anxious and depressed, your last thing you're gonna wanna do is go out and meet people, sit down, have a date, potentially face rejection, have to be entertaining, you know, loss of motivation.

feeling very self conscious, all of this stuff. So like it's multifaceted in terms of I think all of the factors that are leading people to decide instead, you know, I'd rather just stay at home and swipe on apps, even if I'm not meeting anybody, or look at Sleep. Yeah, sleep. Oh sleep. Yeah.

What's happening with hypergamy? Hypergony has taken on a life of its own, I think, in internet culture. So it's this I From a research perspective or scientific perspective, it's the idea that women tend to want to date or marry men who are at the same level of success or who are more successful than they are. So m women typically marry up.

And so, yes, this is true. I think in some ways it's gone a little bit off the rails because you know, I write in Sextinction about three sexes rule. So the idea that women look for men who are six feet or taller. who make six figures or more and who have a six inch penis. Can I say penis on your podcast? You can say penis if you'd like. Every other every other meat meet outlet I've been like, is it okay if I say this? You can bleep it out. So or manhood.

So basically if a man does not meet those criteria, he's not considered worthy of your time in, say, the internet dating culture for women. And I do like, I mean, none of those things really correlate with success in a relationship or marriage. So when you do the calculations as I have, you know, it comes down to like this tiny, tiny percentage. And then you have to also take into account

Is he nice to you? Do you have chemistry? Do you have things in common? Can you have a conversation? Does your conversation last more than like five seconds? You know? So like the more important factors whittle it down even smaller to even smaller of a percentage. So I think women who are abiding by these criteria may be missing

uh the bigger picture. How many women do you think are abiding by the three sixes rule? So it's interesting because when you look at the internet and what's on social media, this is something that women are really pushing forward. I qu I question, but at the same time having talk to a lot of men about what dating is like nowadays.

they from what I've been told, women have really unrealistic standards in terms of what they're looking for. But I would also say, you know, social media has made men want to date like super hot, you know, women who

may or may not look like their photos, maybe super photo uh photo edited and really perfect looking, but may or may not look like it in real life or might have a ton of procedures as I have a chapter on plastic surgery. So I think both sexes have very unrealistic expectations of what they want. Um but like anything, like evolutionary psychology and biology.

is not prescriptive. It's not saying this is what you should do. It's just basically generalizing or noticing trends in behavior or that explains mating psychology and like anything the internet takes it and just like runs away with it. I don't know. I m my favorite place for doing mating research is the pool at Soho House here in Austin. And uh it's honestly it's it's fucking ground zero for looking at mating dynamics and um

w uh a lot of the time I'd be there with friends and and there'd be a group of girls on the bed next to us and they'd, you know, be twenty four or something. And they're paying for a so her house membership and it's a couple of grand a year, so th they're probably educated and earning well or whatever. They have never said, oh, it's because of the size of some guy's penis. No, you could say, oh

They um wouldn't want to publicly state that. That's kind of a bit uncouth. That's gonna make them seem a little bit silly. The data that I saw from Mac and Murphy, the last he was sat in that seat, suggests that if you're a guy with a six inch erect penis, you're in like the ninety seventh percentile. So it's...

bigger than basically any woman has ever seen. Mm-hmm. Um so I I get the sense that that's not an issue. The six pack abs, if you switch it out for that, which is a guy that's sort of muscular and in good condition, I could see that a little bit more. I think I think if women actually saw

full six inch penises more, they would actually be like I mean ninety-eighth percentile. Well yeah,'cause the average penis is five inches. Yes. But what's interesting is most women say they want a six inch penis. Most men think women want a seven inch penis. And most men think that they have a six inch penis, probably. Most men are actually harder than themselves. They think they have a four inch penis. Yeah. They have a five inch penis.

They women want a six inch penis and men think that women want a seven inch penis. I don't want to say hard on themselves, but difficult on the challen they challenge themselves more than they need to keep using the word hard, it's fine. Um uh because they think like women want again, like I read about looks maxing. Men think that women want this super hot Chad guy that he has a perfect bone structure.

that he has to have all these metrics, right? Especially g guys are getting penal injections in terms of filler or they're getting like enlargement and And women, I mean, yes, some women do like those things, but by and large most women care more about resources and protection and are you a good person?

So I think hypergamy has also gone off the rails a bit in that way, and that men men think that women just keep wanting more and more and more and better and better and better. And to some extent that's true, but I think also like you have to We have to give love some credit as well. And if you're happy with someone, I don't think the the other person's gonna have a reason to go elsewhere. Yeah, I

I get this and the internet it makes a lot of sense on the internet because it's very easy to put into a spreadsheet. I can put my height, I can put my penis length, which I do all the time. Uh I I can I can put all their objective metrics and It's kind of like that Is having a boyfriend cringe now, article. Uh Very quickly, if you go outside, you realize that is having a boyfriend cringe is only true on the internet in the same way as the Kardashians uh made skinny not a fad.

as cringe. Like it just it really doesn't exist if you go out into the real world. If you go and uh sit around Soho House Pool, for the most part, the issues that at least I hear from women and that I hear at my live shows is Guys aren't ready to commit and they're not r sufficiently emotionally educated and they don't seem very balanced and they don't really have their life together, they don't have a mission, and they don't know where they're going. Now.

I think that a lot of that is uh maybe publicly acceptable ways of putting a more difficult to define uh sense that there just wasn't chemistry, something wasn't quite right. Why? It's like, Well, if you're a post grad girl trying to date a blue collar guy there might be a little sense of socioeconomic imbalance going on here. And uh have you heard me talk about the

Tall girl problem by giving me this one. Yeah. Fucking Scott Galloway. Scott Galloway keeps calling it the high heel effect because he's ancient and has It's the tall girl problem. And then he stole it from me and started talking about it on CNN and misnamed it and now that

Anyway. Tell me tell me Chris, what is the Tall Girl problem? Look, it's it's exactly what you're talking about, which is if you have women that are socioeconomically more successful, you have an ever increasing group of high performing women and an ever decreasing group of ultra high performing men that are above and across from them. That gives most men this sort of invisibility cloak that means that they're not seen by women as potential protector providers. Uh it

Creates a large cohort of uh uh women that did everything right. I went to university, I got the job, I pursued my career, I've got financial independence. And I'm struggling to find any guys that I'm attracted to and I I I can't I can't really work out why. And oh, the he's he seems really good, but that guy that's in the rarefied strata at the top Has a wealth of options. So they're able to use and discard women. And then the that really sort of gnarly outcome is that.

If you have casual sex with somebody, that skews your own uh self. um perspective of your mate value. Uh your uh self referential mate value perspective gets a little bit tuned up and you think, well that's I got it for one night. I should be able to get it to like There is a difference between what you can get on rent and what you can buy.

And that um altogether it doesn't make for a a very easy environment because these women don't want to be used and discarded, but they also don't necessarily feel that much resonance with the guys that are in the cohort of men that are socioeconomically below them.

Men that are in relationships where they're not the primary breadwinner, fifty percent more likely to use erectile dysfunction medication. Uh man loses his job, likelihood of marriage uh of of divorce doubles. Woman loses her job, no difference in terms of

the the likelihood of divorce. So all of these things are kind of raw physics of the system. And we can say, well maybe you can offset hypergamy. Maybe people are not going to And I I get the sense that this is more the literal physics of the system, like largely unbreakable and um I mean that just that for coupling, for young people, especially given women out earn men w by a grand and a half per year.

up to age thirty. One in seven couples now is the woman is the primary breadwinner. Yeah. Yeah. The bottom forty percent of male earners and the top twenty percent of female earners are dating uh female primary breadwinner. So the top quintile for women and the bottom two quintiles for men are dating in the opposite hypogamous direction. Um

Just the like w th don't even need to talk about the endocrine disruptors and the desire for sex and porn and all the rest of it. Just the coupling. Right? Just simply the coupling there. Because I I I I'd be interested to know how much hypergamy plays a role when it comes to a one night stand. Well, okay. So that's a huge thesis of my book, this idea that because women are becoming more educated, more financially successful than men, they have fewer

bachelors to choose from. So what you find is that very successful. Well, I I need to coin my own term for this. It's fine. And I'll go on CNN and and then mis misquote. Call it something else. Call it something else. And then you and Scott can have a fucking battle to the end of time to work out who can misquote me. It's fine. So what happens as you're saying is that there's this smaller pool of very successful men who have their pick of the lot who don't are They're disincentivized.

in terms of saddling down. So if they want, I mean they can have multiple marriages in a row. You will see this happening. So you can't have, you know, polygyny, but what you have is multiple marriages in a row. So they'll marry someone, have children, divorce her, have another marriage.

have children, divorce or go on. So and then what happens is with men's um dual mating strategy is that, you know, you have long term choices and short term options. And so the women who fall into the short term bucket um may erroneously think that they ha they are one of the long term options, but men very much when they meet someone or meet a woman, they choose which bucket she's going to go into and she's n there's not much chance of a crossover. Madonna Haw complex. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

So in terms of hypergamy um and how to fix it, I think getting rid of DEI would be one start, so diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives, because that actively penalizes men, punishes men for no good reason. And if you are Is that true? It pe it ac actively penalizes men as opposed to just lifting up other groups.

Yeah, well I mean, coming from academia, I can tell you that they actually have job postings I've seen them myself where they explicitly will say this job is for, you know, a minority and or a woman, you know, basically ruling out white men. And um I'm an immigrant. So so it doesn't affect you.

It's it's crazy. I mean, I've had so many colleagues tell me this. I'm not an academia anymore, but they will tell me the things that they experience um behind basically closed doors where if they want to apply for something they'll be discouraged because they'll say this position is for a woman or for a minority, so don't bother applying.

So this is just one, you know, faction of society. I my understanding is this happens everywhere. This was very much in like corporations as well, but I think it's been hopefully dialed back a little bit, right? Since And your goal here is if you enable men to get access socioeconomically

that allows this imbalance, the the tallness of women, the men get to grow tall a little bit to it lets it be a little bit more of like a organic outcome. Aaron Powell Isn't it strange? There's sort of a zero sum

perspective of empathy that any support that's given to any group is seen as being taken away from another group, especially one that's more deserving. And that if we support And raise up men, that that means that we're taking it away from some minority or somebody else that should that should deserve it. If if your goal is to live a happy life,

if you're not enabling guys if you're a girl, woman and or a mother, right? You don't even need to be in the dating pool. Married mother that's exited the dating pool. Presumably you want your daughters to be able to have eligible partners. the very dearth of eligible men is caused by the fact that they're not being given this kind of access. Now, it's an interesting one because I don't know if men are actually that keen about the idea of going to university.

I don't know how driven they are about about the career thing in quite the same way anymore. They are at the tails. Part of it I think is because of the DEI and the feminism and that they sense that they're not gonna get a fair chance. You know, if they're being taught all through, say, the education system in high school even

girls are getting I've seen I've seen polls where they show like male students say it they feel it's unfair, girls get are favored by teachers. So already they're feeling you know bad taste in their mouth and then you go to Platy University and you s you know that this the odds are stacked against you. I do think that I understand why some people, especially some women or more progressive women, may be fearful of

l allowing men to have a fair chance or to roll back some of the advantages that have been given to women because they fear is this the start of us not being allowed to work regression. Yeah. Or not being allowed to pursue an education or own property or things like that. But I do think I I think they have a very misguided idea of what the outcome is going to be because if it continues this way where women are continuing to outperform men in in education, then make more m money, um

Who are you going to date? You know, they think that the men because these men have fewer options that they're all gonna be clamoring for these women, but these women, because they're so educated, they're not gonna have anything to do with these guys. Correct. Correct. So they're all fighting for this smaller pool of men and uh it's It's gonna be vicious. Yeah, it's not good. In other news, you've probably heard me talk about element before, and that's because I am Dependent on it.

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So I birth control has affected mating psychology. I'll sp start with women. It's because birth control halts ovulation. So just very briefly for your audience in case they may not be aware of how birth control works, uh ovulation is when women are the most fertile in their cycle. So that's when they be can become pregnant. So that window is typically around, say, day eleven to sixteen of your cycle. So your first day of menstruation is day one and then it goes into, you know,

I'll I'll leave it at that. So basically when you're ovulating because you can get pregnant, your sexual psychology is um we'll say at its peak. It I think it's a very interesting time to be studying in terms of women and their making decisions because that's when their decisions decisions about sex have the greatest potential consequences. So if you're halting that process in a woman or an entire multiple generations of women, one in ten women of um

child bearing age is on the pill. So one in ten. Mm-hmm. I would have thought it would have been more. That's in America. No wait only eleven percent. Yeah, according to the C D C. Aaron Powell Have you encountered it that's h any type of birth control or just a pill? So you could have the implant Uh the arm implant thing, you could have the injection, you could have IUD, you could have

Marina Coil. Yeah, all the uh in sextinction I have the statistic regarding like all birth control, but um or rather all contraception. But in terms of the pill specifically. So what happens is if you're not ovulating, you're basically blunted in terms of that sexual

interest in that um signaling. Cause during that time women have been shown in studies to wear more provocative clothing. They're more likely to want to go out to clubs and meet men, to socialize, things like that, right? To meet partners. And also men can tell when women are ovulating. So they can tell in terms of a woman's appearance, they can tell by her scent. And men who are in the water.

So and men in relationships will show more mate guarding behaviors when their partner is ovulating if she's not on the pill. Oh, I didn't know about that. Yeah. So he'll call and check up on her. I don't know that these men are necessarily consciously aware, but they're trying to basically, you know, like C block other guys. So If that's off the table entirely,

surely that's doing something as well to men's mating psychology. And so I think if women want to take the pill or not take the pill, that's their choice. But I I wish there was was more uh in terms of information for young women, especially considering that many young women get on the pill when they are, say, teenagers. They're on it for non sexual purposes, so things like regulating their menstrual cycle or say for their skin or whatever reason.

And they I don't think are aware necessarily of this side effect and how this might change their reproductive uh choices. Because what happens is once you get on the pill and I have a chapter on reproductive technology like egg freezing and IVF. So once you start to delay your fertility, you're gonna spend more time later on trying to make up for it if you decide to have children.

And I I don't think that young women are necessarily as aware of that either, that your biology is something very important to consider as a woman. And it's, you know, that's seen as sexist to say that, but it that's the reality.

And, you know, especially if you want a family, it's important to prioritize that because that process is going to affect you in a way that's different for men. Hmm. Yeah, I had uh Sarah Hill completely just took my head off with all of the impact of hormonal birth control.

a lot of the modern mental health issues that we're seeing with young women can probably be laid at the feet of at least I I I would love to do a cohort analysis between how many of the people that have got anxiety or depression also took hormonal birth control during puberty or are still on it now. I mean, the fact that your mate choices for women change when you're on the pill versus off the pill that you seem to

prioritize a little bit more for provisioning when you're on the pill and a little bit more for protection when you're off the pill. These are th you know, mod Small effects, but they're there. Uh how many women that I've heard from

who said, I was on the pill for ages, then I came off and I wasn't attracted to my partner anymore. Okay, but when is the first time that most women come off the pill if they've been on it since they were teenagers? It's when they're ready to have kids. But if you're doing it right, you've gone Teenagers, 20s, found a partner, stayed with a partner, golden retriever, moved in together, engaged, married. off the pill, ready to have kids. Right. You are deep in this a great piece of advice.

is you need to if you're thinking about getting the golden retriever, right? Not even thinking about moving in, not even thinking about the engagement thing, you should come off the pill. You should come off the pill. A and are you're just gonna have to be extra careful protection. You're gonna have to you should come off the pill and work out if you still like your your boyfriend. Because the likelihood of you

No, I in some women it makes them more attracted to them. Right. Uh in women that are in relationships with more masculinized, more formidable, more attractive men, they actually get released out of this hormonal fugue state and they're like, I'm in relationship with a Chad, this is great, let me jump on you. Um but then in other versions, they've been optimizing for something that a more sort of native

physiology or hormonal profile of theirs would not have been too keen on. And then when they when they reveal that that mask, they go, Oh I really I really like you all that much. Yeah. Which is unfortunate for both of them. And it's unfortunate for him. I can only imagine as a guy, you know, if your relationship We were in love. Just go back on the pill. Go back on the pill. Bring it back.

Um what was I gonna say? I wonder if because young women are b getting on the pill at such a young age. Is this partially also why feminism has been so popular and why women really want to feminize men and they see masculinity as toxic. Because if you, while on the pill, your body thinks you're pregnant and you're looking for a nurturing caretaker. Is that why there's just been this larger movement socially to encourage men to be much more

Feminine not to be risk taking, not to be dominant. To a degree. I think Uh I I I could imagine so. I would also imagine that me too and a lot of the m moral panic around the danger of men generally, uh, causes women to want a

softer kind of man. Now they only want a softer kind of man kind of in principle, not in practice. Right. You know, in the twent uh the mid twenty teens, they uh tried to put uh what are called cinnamon roll boyfriends or golden retriever husbands on the front cover of romance books.

Uh I say this as somebody that was in that industry for a little while doing it cinnamon roll. Cinnamon roll husband. Cinnamon roll husband is sort of soft, fluffy, very non dominant, very pliable. Um you know, he's the kind of he's got a bit of a gut, but he's the sort of guy who

uh would be able to put up level shelves but w wouldn't exactly ravage you in the backseat of a car. Okay. Right? Very reliable, consistent husband. And uh on with these romance books, the person on the cover is the protagonist, typically. These books were post uh fifty shades of gray. So it should have just ripped, right? You're buying Bitcoin at five cent, the market's only going up.

Nobody wanted to buy them. Nobody wanted to buy these. Now, it is kind of like female porn. Uh so do you really want to watch? D would do you want your uh sexual fantasy to be about some guy that can put up level shelves but isn't that good in the bedroom, i no matter how much you try and sort of repurpose it. But the point is

Women like the idea of this kind of they they'll proclaim it, right? It's it's a view that they'll endorse that men should dial back their dominance and and the desire for conquer and aggression and mastery and stuff like that. But it's not one that they'll they they will uh endorse it but not embody it. And um w when push comes to Chauvin you go, Oh, yeah, yeah, he should be m more soft and more gentle and less concerned with achieving things and stuff.

What does your husband do? Oh he's a hedge fund manager. Oh fantastic. Very good. Oh, I used to do MMA as a as a as a young guy. Uh yeah, p lovely. Um but I do think on the birth control thing, you're right, what is it doing to men? Um I think that well, there's evidence to suggest that men who are around old women, postmenopausal, or young

uh gulls, their uh testosterone drops, their fertility drive drops. So I know that you've got a question around what's the X factor that's contributing to uh testosterone dip. I think that the artificial suppression of female fertility through birth control and the increasing isolation of men that they're not hanging around with fertile women or any women at all. And of them, more of them are elected infertile through birth control.

I think that that is definitely a potential X factor that I don't think anybody has priced in. No one's priced in the fact that males' sex drive and their hormone uh profile is impacted by the fertility of the women in their local ecology. And if you're not around women that are fertile, they're not around women at all. That is going to drive your uh sex drive down and it's gonna drive your testosterone down. Interesting. I was gonna ask you, what was like shooting for those novels?

Um so the way that I used to do it was I would shoot with a photographer for just my portfolio stuff. So it wasn't it wasn't purposefully wrong she shit. I guess I'd I don't know, I just I just turned it on. Uh I don't know what I don't know what happened. Anyway, it got picked up the first shoot that I did got picked up by uh a really good uh author and put on the cover of a book called Ricochet. And then I got flown out to go and do some of these Oh. But the entire thing is

2,000 dark romance readers. So there's me and a couple of the other cover models, and then the husbands of the authors. that are there to help them. Okay. And that's it. And it's just apart from that, it's just female female readers. Um, which sounds wonderful in practice, but the um I was twenty seven, twenty eight or something like that. Um, the age profile I was the youngest person in the room, usually by like a factor of two.

Um anyway, it was it was interesting, it was fun. Um it's a part of my history, but I'm um I've aged out. I could I might just pivot into Cinnamon Roll husband. I can't wait for that. Get a gut. Chill out. There you go. If this podcast, you know If it tanks, fuck it. Well anyway, so we we we've you've already got what's happening with hormonal birth control for women and then we do have endocrine disruptors for men too. Yeah.

Yeah, so definitely. I mean there was there have been a number of studies showing this that testosterone levels have been declining for the last, say, forty years. And it's been, you know, pretty severe, I would say, in the last twenty years. And researchers have accounted for things like age, diet, you know, weight, exercise, lifestyle choices like alcohol, smoking. Yeah, cannabis. And still they say there's something going on here where it is Environmental and that it is

something specific to this time period. And so they do think that there's something, you know, in terms of the food we're eating potentially or in our water supply. I've read a lot of the animal literature in terms of uh Drugs in the water and how this affects fish or what are the craziest stories that you learned about that?

Um, there was one species of Japanese fish and they tested diazepam. So okay, well there was one study that looked at fish that were exposed to pharmaceutical waste and then also um There was I'm trying to think what the other source was, but basically one part of the water supply, the fish were masculinized. So there intersects in both directions. Some of the fish were more in dry like more masculine.

and then some of them were feminized. So it's basically saying, you know, this is happening to the fish, like what do you think it's doing to humans? But with these Japanese fish, they were lethargic and they were basically too knocked out to to breed. The courtship behavior was messed up. The the female fish, their ovaries were so distended and I felt really bad for the fish looking at these pictures'cause I thought that doesn't look

you know, very healthy or comfortable. So it's basically, you know, these these drugs are doing something, I think doing something to us and how, you know, if you're not even aware of it, even if you do manage to find a partner and you fall in love and decide you do want to have family. you might come up ac across the come up against these issues. And then if you're not even aware that this is what you're ingesting on a daily basis, what do you do then? SSRIs drive sex drive down, right? Yeah.

Yeah, the effect of libido. And there's also post SSRI sexual disorder. Syndrome. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that um in many cases we don't know the effects of these drugs on children. And in some cases they are being prescribed to kids. So that's very concerning. Aaron Powell A quick aside, you've probably heard experts like Dr. Rhonda Patrick talk about the benefits of omega threes. They reduce Hello. Omega threes.

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A checkout. Is the issue, do you think, more about a desire for sex or coupling? Hm. You mean in terms of why people aren't having it? Yeah. It's probably both. I think at the core everybody wants to find someone. Many people may say that they they've given up and they're happy on their own, but I do think that's what most people deep down want. And

Sex is well see, uh the thing with sex though, I think porn is a big part of this issue in terms of why people are turning away from actual sexual activity. They're getting their needs met through this proxy that stimulate or simulates real sexual activity because when you're watching porn, the same network of brain regions is activated as when you're actually having sex.

So you're having the resulting orgasm and you are, you know, getting these feel good chemicals. It helps to self soothe and regulate your emotions, help you help calm down if you're stressed out. And so it makes men I think are particularly less likely to wanna go out and go through the hassle of having to talk to a woman, having to sit through a date, having to pay for the date, having to follow up and all this stuff. Like why bother do that if you can get sexual gratification on a screen?

But I think also that leads to potentially like an overall sense of lethargy because when you are masturbating and having orgasm, you are you know, you're gonna be sleepy after. So is that also you can tell me, do you think this is a tr not for you, but just in a trend more generally with young men. In terms of

does does this affect their motivation? Because I'm I'm wondering for guys this question of why men are not are falling behind in society, right? And I I I'm very concerned for young men because I imagine I hear all the time from parents that their daughters are doing really well excelling academically, but their sons just for whatever reason are just they're not.

they're not enjoying it, you know, they're having mental health issues. Yeah. Well, maybe not fapping, but they're like, you know, vaping and playing video games or online betting or whatever and they have no motivation.

Do you think porn could be part of that? Because I think if you're exposed to this at such a young age and this is the thing that you're watching every day and it's your coping strategy, that potentially that's the thing you're gonna constantly gravitate toward and it's actually gonna, you know make you really sedated and lethargic more broadly in life.

Yeah, I think sedated is a great word. I've got another idea that Scott probably can't wait to fucking misquote. Um, the male sedation hypothesis. Young male syndrome, which I know that you know about, historically high volumes of young sexless men tended to

cause anarchy and revolutions and push over granny and set stuff on fire. Why is it, given that we've seen the highest rates of sexlessness amongst young men in the modern world, that we're not seeing the concordant amounts of antisocial behavior and It's my belief that men are being sedated out of their status seeking and reprodu reduct reproductive seeking behaviour through uh screens, video games and porn.

Uh and yeah, that that's what's happening behaviorally. Maybe the cementicrine disruptors, maybe a lot of weed. I think more people, uh more young guys smoke weed than drink alcohol now. So yeah, the i it is a real push toward lethargy. Um do I think You're anaesthetizing yourself from your sort of mate seeking behaviour by being able to use porn.

Almost certainly to a degree. I mean, w there's even the opposite, which is what was it, masturbate before you evaluate was a tagline at university, which was, Do I really want to sleep with that girl? Let me let me have a wank first and work out if I still do. And for the most part, the guys were like

No, it wasn't that I I'd like what was it? Uh I didn't like you, I was just horny. Um and in some ways you go, uh that that avoids me from making a mistake. But when you do it en masse and when it's very easily available, um I mean look There's some mixed bag data. Dr. David Lay is

very anti porn panic. I know uh Mike Isratel is very anti porn panic too. And then on the other side there's some people that are behaviorally it's not recognized as an addiction t properly yet, I don't think. Right. But um It seems impossible to me that one of the strongest drivers for humans being given to them freely, they can push a essentially push a button, like rubber button for a while.

And they get to uh experience this thing that I mean, you know what would be fascinating? W I would have loved to have seen in Hunter Gatherer Tribes how much uh masturbation happens uh occurs. Okay. Well that might be t that might be true. Um wa just talk to me the neuroscience of porn use. Is there anything distinct about that that's different to what's happening when people have sex?

Uh okay, I was gonna mention I was gonna say something. Oh, so uh what I was gonna say, I agree with you in terms of like if you're I can see if you're doing it like c constantly and it becomes a lifestyle thing, how this is what my concern is, if it's like a lifestyle thing for guys.

'Cause I've had men say to me, when they are not watching porn, if they manage to cut out porn entirely, that they actually have more motivation to go up and talk to a woman. Because I would imagine if you see a woman that you're attracted to and you want to go speak to her and say you're maybe more shy or anxious, you know in the back of your mind that you can go home and masturbate.

And that's gonna give you a release after. So in some ways would that not make it a little bit easier for younger guys especially who may not have as much experience with women and especially post me too where they're already a little bit understandably more scared to talk to women how it m knowing that you have this other option. That's a good point. If the only way that men could get sex was by marrying a woman, asking her father, becoming a pillar of the community, showing his competence.

Or if you just need to be in a nightclub at the right time and the right place at two in the morning, like men will meet those standards appropriately, including the standards for themselves in order to get sexual gratification through a screen. I mean it is I I can't remember who it was that said it to me, but just for a second, think about how stupid the human brain is and think about how strong our sex stripe is, that looking at a Seven inch across screen.

that I am not a part of, of someone else having sex with someone else, can confuse my brain into thinking. Some sex is gonna happen here. Yeah. Like that that is how strong this drive is, right? That a a two dimensional, exclusively video and audio representation on a teeny tiny little screen popped up against a pillow. To convince your brain.

There might be some sex on. You should respond appropriately. Yeah. Uh it is mad. Also think about what it's doing to kids. Like this is one of the rabbit holes I've been going down more recently and thinking about how has this affected Gen Z's development if they're exposed to porn at such a young age.

But um in terms of the difference between, say, what's going on in the brain. So same brain network, basically, you know, like regions that are involved in physiological arousal, penalty, visual uh regions. Um this is my dissertation actually so it takes me back now I'm trying to remember what other parts of motor motor.

Dissertation on penal tumes. No, no, not just penal tumescence, but it was on basically like m male sexuality and sexual arousal and yeah. I looked at the structure and function of the brain. I used four different types of brain imaging. It was a lot of fun. It was a very expensive study, but I was I was extremely blessed. Really fun for the men. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so basically It's it's it's the same network. It's not activated as strongly.

But it's very much the same regions and I that's why pornography is so compelling and why I think for people who especially if you are if that is your primary motive sexual release very much become a preference or a stand in. You're habituating. More than anything, it just what do you do? You know, i i guys that tend to go to the same bar all the time, sit in the same seat, order the same coffee. Like And it just becomes a part of your daily routine.

And there's this weird habituation effect, I think, with porn. Ma Mary Harrington calls it the law of fap entropy, which is whatever you start out wanking to gets progressively more extreme over time. Tell me what is accurate. end up watching quote extreme stuff, that's actually what they liked all along. It just took them a while to admit it to themselves.

Oh god, the algo wasn't delivering them what they needed until it took a bit of time to refine it. Aaron Ross Powell Well because I understandably men who have these unusual sexual preferences, they're a little bit balloons. They're a little bit more reluctant to to say out loud. So Even to themselves. Oh, that's so interesting. I mean, the the law still works, but not for the reason that you think.

It's not a progressive habituation to more extreme stuff. It's a progressive revealing to yourself of what you wanted or something. That's so cool. What about gooning? Let's talk about gooning. Oh boy. Yeah, I mean you could spend your life masturbating watching porn if you want to. There's enough content out there for sure. Um so Gooning, I'm sure your audience knows what this tournament is, but it's basically men who predominantly men who like to masturbate To no end in sight and basically

My understanding they might have multiple screens open for hours, they don't reach an orgasm. It's like edging, but for a longer period of time and they don't really s have any conflict about it. They quite enjoy it. How's porn affected women?

I think there are more women struggling with porn issues than people realize because this has predominantly been an issue, like say, um porn quote addiction. Although like you said, I I don't believe porn is addictive. I think it's a poor coping mechanism for people who have anxiety and who procrastinate. That's certainly what it's been. When I talked to my sedating, not addicting. Yeah. Well, because if you say you have anxiety or you lack assertiveness.

it's a very easy way to distract yourself and not have to deal with the problems in your life. Which I have a lot of compassion for people who struggle with this because I think because it's pornography, it's related to sex. It's a lot more stigmatized. So I understand why people want to call it an addiction because there have been studies that claim that it's addiction, but they don't uh account for other confounding variables so they don't ask about things like paraphilias. They don't

From what I've seen, they don't ask about anxiety. So you don't know when you're looking at these brain regions that are supposed to be different that are correlated with addiction. You don't know if what you're seeing in the people with porn problems is due to addiction or is it due to the fact that they're anxious or th the the fact that they have these unusual sexual interests. So I think that research is a very good thing.

could be a little bit cleaner. If that if it does happen that new studies come out showing this, then I'm fully on board with that. But I'm just not really convinced because when you talk to guys with porn problems, almost always they have anxiety. And this is a way for them to avoid talking to their spouse or their girlfriend. So what's different with women?

Women, I think it's the same thing. We don't know as much about women because this is a an issue that I think has only really become more of a a problem with the younger generation, maybe even millennial women, like younger millennial women, with the accessibility of porn. But I think even 'Cause it's even with studies when they're looking at say the the effects of porn on kids.

Women have only really started to show more negative um body image, say or body comparison more recently because girls are being exposed to it now. They girls tend to watch porn later than boys and they tend to watch it maybe once or twice out of curiosity. But I do think with like Gen Z they're being exposed to this. even before their first sexual experience, before their first orgasm,

they can make sense of it and I think that it can be integrated into their life a little bit more. So the same thing I think anxiety Usually for anyone with a porn issue there's a history of some form of sexual trauma, unfortunately. So there there it's a way that you're not sure. Anyone with a porn issue said it. Most people with a porn issue, there is some history of sexual trauma. Not everyone, but in my experience, many of them have had some issue with the other. Uh yeah. Either

with abuse or being exposed to porn at a young age, either accidentally and that was like a traumatic thing. Like when I say trauma I'm not the way sometimes people use the word trauma nowadays is very flippant, right? They use it over the the You mean actual insignificant thing. No, yeah, I'm referring to something that is actually quite horrific and awful.

Or they um in the or they might have been shown it in the process of grooming. Aaron Powell So what do you what what do you think is going on? Is it just disinhibition, dysregulation? Is it the same reason that people who maybe had a childhood trauma struggle with gambling or struggle with drugs or alcohol or their emotions, rage.

Is it just the same but this the particular pathway these people have found is porn, or is there something specific about the the mechanism that porn gives that helps them to sort of, I don't know, alchemize or try and alchemise whatever they went through.

It could be a partially biological thing because it's like a self soothing thing. So especially for children, if they're not taught ways to self regulate, they're looking for ways to feel good when they're stressed out or upset. Right. So some people gravitate toward drugs and alcohol. Other people might gravitate toward porn. I think it's depends on how old you are, probably when you uh come across it initially, what your experience is when you see it. Like is it a

pleasurable thing. But I think for the men say who've like when I was doing research who had had these negative experiences in childhood, it was a way of revisiting it to try and make sense of it, I think. Um but I yeah, I I really strongly believe like sitting down with a a competent therapist and working through that stuff could be very helpful for people. Better than porn. Yeah. Before we continue I've been drinking AG one. Every morning for

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bonus AG1 travel packs and for a limited time US customers also get a sample of AGZ and a bottle of omega 3s. Just go to the link in the description below or head to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com. Modern wisdom. What do you think about the relationship between porn use and the type of sex that people are having? In terms of it influencing the type of sex. So in terms of say very extreme thing previously, okay, I would start with

Before the internet. So if because there's a concern about does porn make men more violent? Does porn make men entitled and sa with sex? Um, previously if a man grew up and had his first sexual experience prior to online porn, I would say porn is not the thing that made him, if he is, say, violent or um

likes to degrade his partners or or treat them poorly. I wouldn't say that's porn. I would say that's due to the way he was raised. He's probably antisocial, probably has some dark triad personality going on there. probably um doesn't think very highly of women, has a lot of hostility toward women. But those views would have been formed prior to porn. So I don't think porn is a problem. I think he probably was interested in violent porn and violent sex.

because of other factors in terms of how he was raised potentially. Nowadays with the fact that the fact that kids are being exposed to this so young, I'm really concerned about how this is affecting their sexuality because we do see studies coming out showing that kids who are having problematic sexual behaviors it's due to being sexualized by porn, like early exposure, this trend of sexual choking that I write about in sextin. Um, young women, Gen Z women in particular, it's almost ubiquitous.

So I think that is being be due to them being exposed to this at such a young age and believing that this is what they need to do in order to attract men or to be enticing in the bedroom. And I'd be very clear that you could die from doing this, so it's not safe. There's no safe way to do it. I know this was Louise Perry's thing.

that she was helping to prosecute uh guys that had killed their partners and then used whatever it is whatever it was rough sex the rough sex excuse thing, which uh yeah, I mean that's that's fucking horrific. Uh there is A bit of research that I wanted to talk to you about, which I've never spoken about on the show before. You're probably familiar with.

News study interviewed three hundred and two adults. Of those more women enjoyed aggression in porn, were aroused by portrayals of female pain and reported wanting to see more aggression. And this is a bar chart which shows women saying double the number of women saying aggression is arousing, uh triple the number of men uh the triple number of women to men, uh hard aggression is arousing.

maybe four times the number of women to men would like more aggression in mainstream pornography. Uh maybe thirty percent more actively seek aggression. Uh the only thing that men are stronger on is aroused by women showing pleasure in response to aggression. And that's Maybe five percent aroused by women showing pain in response to aggression, nearly double women to men.

Okay. This seems to be pretty this is a a small sample size, three hundred and two people, but this is you can dig deeper and find out. Kind of the same pattern. And it's something that I remember I once read a feminist who wrote about this and she said something along the lines of um it's an uncomfortable fact for most modern feminists that women seem to prefer aggressive porn. Than men do. And misogynists use this as a an excuse that like she wanted it mate type thing. That to me does suggest

that the picture is a little bit more complex than just guys have learned it in porn. Yeah. And now they're doing it to women and women feel the need to perform up to it. That no one's pushing women in that way. It's not the only study of that kind. And um

No, I agree. I I'm not one of those people that think that this is entirely like men pushing it on women and women have no choice but to do it. I do think there are some women out there that's that sexual max masochism. So it's like sexual arousal at the idea of being

Hurt, humiliated, degraded by your partner. So that's the only paraphilia that you actually find in women typically. So usually women if Oh, that's so sorry, that's so interesting. The only paraphilia that's typical in women, yeah. Paraphilia being signed to odd sexual uh uh proclivities is Masochism. If you do if Self masochism. Um Yeah, masochism is when it's happening to you. Sadism is when you're doing it to someone else. Right. Okay, cool. Cool. How much sadism is there in women?

Um so when you do see other paraphilias like sadism, it usually is uh correlated with personality disorders. Right. The customy dark triad. Okay. Anyway, so the uh say uh the masochism for women. Yeah. So evolutionarily it could be because women well Women's bodies uh have you heard of the study where women basically are aroused to any type of porn so it's whether it's yeah. Girl on girl, guy on guy, girl on guy. Well this is why this is why

Just to be clear, animals having sex, not people having sex with animals. I don't agree with Beast Dality. What's that uh fucking hockey players, the two hockey players boning? What's that thing? That it's that series. Hot one not hot ones, that's the wing thing. What the fuck is it?

Two hockey players? Two hockey players it's th it's taking the world by storm. He did rivalry. Fucking hot ones. I didn't know. He did rivalry. I knew I got there. You're Canadian, you're supposed to know I sorry, it was a hard week for you. Um I don't actually watch porn so I've never heard of it.

It was a book about these two hockey players on opposing teams and then they they they fuck each other. Why are you reading this? I'm not reading it, right? This is a big TV show. I didn't see I've not I've never seen anything like this. I'm the straightest man in the room. Um this this has this has broken the internet and uh it's you sh you should absolutely have a look at this. I'll do some Google studio. Okay. So it is it is Basically revealing

just how flexible women's sexualities are. Yeah. That these two guys there was a book, book super popular, then pivoted over into this TV series, and the T V series is fucking ripped. It's like a uh a a broke back mountain on ice, right? But was it actually pornographic or was it just like hinted? Asking the wrong guy. I'm sorry. Okay. I didn't get I mean I d I have to assume that there was either implied or like pretty close to

Like raunchy shit happening on the on the screen. Okay. Um anyway, that that you're quite right. Why is it that you think that women's sexuality is more fluid than uh men's? Well uh the unfortunate reason is very

So in the past, right, evolutionarily speaking, it protects the woman's body if she can become aroused regardless of what is happening. Which is why sometimes during sexual assault women can still reach orgasm. Yeah. And then they feel loads of shame afterward because it's fucking horrific. They think, did I want that? Did I want this thing? How fucking awful am I? I I I'm tr traumatized and now I I did my body did a thing to me that I'm traumatized about as well. It's so brutal.

Speaking speaking to those findings though, um I'm I would be curious to know where how they sample. Like, do you do you remember like

How they sampled for those women? Preferences related to aggression, pleasure and pain in pornography among male and female interviewees. I've got the it's uh I can send you the uh the journal article. But certainly Even if we don't look at aggression is arousing, hard aggression is arousing, like would like more aggression in mainstream pornography, actively seek aggression, aroused by women showing pain in response to aggression, just look at the romanticy genre.

Well, evolutionarily speaking, like in terms of masochism, it would benefit women to show a Capacity to endure pain. Yeah, or not or like it's not gonna say subjugation, but it make it pr it evokes like caretaking behaviors for men, right? If they see that a woman is great. Um in need of help or support. I suppose so. To a degree, but there's also a kind of resilience in masochism.

Right, that I can withstand it. There's a al almost uh anti fragility, not a fragility. That goes back to the trauma that I talk about sextinction in the um is in the porn chapter about how many individuals who are into BDSM and Kink actually do have a history.

Especially of physical abuse in childhood. Oh, I imagine that made you very popular. Oh. It's still happening now. People are Because you were a sex positive write d research writer person. I was a columnist for a well known men's magazine with nude women in it.

And um writing this book, I was so grateful to have the chance to sit down and really question a lot of the beliefs I had. And I went through my own data that I collected when I was still in sex research and I found the same thing. And I was amazed. I thought

What do you mean? You went through the data and what did you find? I found that interest in BDSM and kink is more is correlated with severe physical abuse abuse in childhood. And this is even more so the case for men who are into BDSM and kink. as compared to men who are community controls, obviously, men who have porn problems, who are not into BDSM or king, and also more so the case than men who are convicted of child sex crime.

So there's something with physical. BDSM and Kink is a better predictor of male childhood abuse trauma. Female too. But uh uh than than pedophilia is. Um convicted sex advanced. Aaron Powell Right. But also there are times when men will abuse children and not necessarily be pedophilic. That's like fine, you know, very fine details. But overall, yeah. Wow. Yeah. What do you think that says? about what BDSM and Kink is doing for people?

It's really sad. I I wanna be clear. Like I'm not saying this to to make judgment about people or to try and shame them. I really hope my in bringing awareness to this because BDSM is so commonplace in society, right? It's so normalized almost. It's almost seen like there there is a variation, I think, in terms of people who just

who might partake in sexual activity that is like playful or passionate, right? Versus wanting to strangle your partner, wanting to really hurt them, wanting to humiliate them, or if you enjoyed those behaviors done to you, especially for women because physical harm i it wouldn't really make sense for women or men, but why would physical harm be correlated with orgasm?

Right. If you can potentially become pregnant from this act, why would it be beneficial to you and your offspring to find physical pain and arousing? Yeah. Why? Why? Because something went wrong with the system. And it's getting wires crossed. Yeah. So I my hope is that by bringing attention to this, because so many people I sense

enjoy these things but don't really know why, or they think it's something that there's something it's something they take pride in. And I believe that's a good idea. They're using maybe it's something that you should look a little more deeply into. They're using the uh sexual preferences as a way to work through something that maybe should be done with a therapist. Yeah. Interesting. Though I remember I was talking to a researcher and they were telling me about how This is the same thing.

uh maybe not uncontacted tribe, but this relatively um relatively uncontacted tribe, one of the rites of passage that they had for women was that men would get uh reeds. Thick reeds and sticks. Whippy stick. And they would stand there and they would whip the women across their backs. Like these every woman in the the um tribe had huge scars everywhere across.

their backs. And the goal of the women was to be able to stand there and not flinch, not make noise, not cry, not whimper, not yell, not do anything. And this was supposed to be a a presentation of their capacity to endure what would become child rearing. And that when you were talking about, um, it might engender sympathy from men, uh which I can completely see like the

just the power dynamic, the subjugation, uh all of that stu that that does make sense. Uh allow me to come and hold you. But if you're able to withstand pain, there's also a kind of resilience in that which I think would almost work against it. So yeah, kind of interesting. I always think about that. that example when it comes to sort of uh female behavior in kink. I'm like, is this maybe some kind of demonstration of my capacity, of the woman's capacity to

Uh endure hard things physically. Uh not like lift heavy things, right? That's the guy picking you up and putting you against the wall. That's the ability for him to physically dominate you. But the woman's ability to endure the pain might actually be maybe like a fertility cue of some kind, like my pain tolerance. I don't know.

It could be. I could see Real nascent idea. It's wet clay. All right. I could see it if it is something that is like culturally enforced and it's like a rite of passage. But if you as a woman are intentionally putting yourself in those situations when you don't need to, there are plenty of guys out there who are

I mean vanilla is seen as a negative thing. I don't think vina being vanilla is a bad thing. So there are plenty of vanilla guys out there who are not gonna wanna strangle you during sex and not gonna wanna like, you know, degrade you during sex.

So if you're intentionally putting yourself through that, even if it is a way to show how strong you are, why would you choose to do that? When you don't need to when you don't need to uh romanticy. I was sat on the plane flying to St Louis a couple of weeks ago and there was a Lovely woman sat next to me and she had her iPad up and she was reading Court of Thorns and Roses.

That is one of the most popular romanticy books at the moment. You're familiar with romanticy? Is it it's basically like erotica? That's probably that that's a word that you would use. Okay. Um I respect the art form and also the fact that the fan base is fucking massive and I don't want to get lynched by them. Uh no, no, no. It it is it is um story

It it's female literat literacy porn wrapped in quite a lot of story, but there are sort of peak dirty moments. Anyway, the d our friend is tapping away and She didn't have her glasses on, the font size was quite Okay. Quite large. And I I had a realization that chicks can basically watch porn on a plane. I guess so. They can basically watch their equivalent of porn on a plane. And I'm looking at this. I'm trying not to move my head at all. I'm keeping my head dead straight. I'm going.

Uh and I spoke to some friends after it. I've not read the book. I didn't I didn't read enough to fully capture what the narrative arc was. Okay. Um but in might be a Court of Thorns and Roses or one of the other books like that, uh the protagonist is a fairy prince or a fairy king who has the ability to transform himself into this like monstrous beast.

And I think that in that sort of shows what it is the n one of the sort of archetypal f desires that women have. This um he is dangerous but not around me. Yeah. And I think I was talking on the way in about that that study with a couple of French. I have a group of uh evolutionary psychology researchers in a WhatsApp chat and whenever I get confused by stuff I put in and they give me the answer.

And uh Andrew Thomas from Union of Nottingham gave me a fucking fantastic answer for this one. What he said was uh the the aggression is arousing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. He said Um what women think is I want a man who has the capability to be aggressive.

Because protection, attraction, dominance, all that stuff. But he'll never be aggressive with me. Mm-hmm. And it's a a patent uh misfiring of the sort of patent detection, which is Well most guys that have the capacity to be aggressive don't have the regulation to be able to turn it off and create bright lines and and and uh contain it in that way. Uh if you have a guy who is a r just a you know

someone bumps into you on the street or you're you get scared and he beats up all of the guys that are there. How many of them have gone through the full fucking samurai Keanu Reeves training and come out the other side as Hmm you know, that's not that's not most guys. Most guys that are great and dangerous physically Uh uh just dangerous physically everywhere. Uh not in yes, i th it's it's not um compartmentalized. Yeah. Yeah.

I I definitely agree. So that I that's the allure of I suppose the romance novel where you can have the duality there that doesn't Fairy King who can become the beast, but he's never gonna be the beast with you. Mm-hmm. Um

Yeah, interesting. So we have basically the most sexually permissive culture in history that is also having the least amount of sex. Yeah, which is wild. It's crazy when you think about like I was thinking about social media and even something as subtle as that, like everyone's on social media. But I do think it even that is changing the way that people view

potential partners, how they view their own partners. Study that I cited in Sextinction showing that roughly one in ten men actually loses interest in having sex with his own partner after looking at influencers. And that women also feel less sexually desirable after being on social media. One in ten men lose lose interest. Mm-hmm. Um they didn't specify. Okay. Yeah. So they're less they're they're less interested in having real sex with their partner.

when they've been looking at influences on the internet. Yeah. So I do remember at uni it's so fucking bad. That was an English study too, actually. So Good. Well it was probably it was probably the people that used to that I used to employ. It was probably the lads that used to work for me. I do remember um There was two two guys that uh were gonna go on first dates with these two chicks two nights in a row. Then the first one he turned up and he ended up going back with her and having sex.

Um, but he said she looked nothing like her Instagram. It was gutting. It's like she was so hot on the Instagram, he kind of like a catfish type thing. And he had this joke about he wondered if he could have just cellotaped her Instagram to her forehead so he could have looked at that. Uh and then the next night

The guy went out on one and she was really lovely and great. And then I don't think they'd they'd slept with each other that night. And he came back and looked at her Instagram and got turned off. Because she wasn't able to present herself in the marketplace of That's a good thing, no? I said that. That's what I said. That's what I said. I was like, dude, you found a barn find. That's a diamond in the rough. You found somebody that's um really fantastic, just shows up wonderful in person that

the marketplace where most other people are gonna be competing for with you for her, y she's uh sh just not pres I don't know what it what it was. I didn't do my research. Uh So what is it he didn't like about the fact that like so he can't send people to her profile to look at her? No, you just I think that there was a it wasn't even as deep as that.

Sorry, it was significantly more deep than that. Not that he couldn't show off this girl that could potentially become his girlfriend or whatever to other people on Instagram. I think it What I believed it to be was he was so conditioned. to judging a woman's attractiveness through her social media profile and especially given that it's the most extreme version of you and for men too, right? The most extreme wealth or whatever. Um

that he i he got the ick by her having a bad Instagram account. Man. Um I don't know. The club promotion industry is a a weird and wonderful place, but I'll never forget it. Two nights in a row, one guy saying, I wish I could have strapped her Instagram to her forehead.

And the next night the guy going, She was amazing, but I went and looked at her social media profile after we'd been on the date and it was a turnoff, dude. I got the I got I got the ick because her Instagram wasn't hot. So he wants a hot Instagram lady who's just as hot in real life? Uh yes, I think so. Uh I they look these guys were I don't even think that that's that uncommon though. I think it's that that social media has done something like that.

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So uh guys are less likely to want to have sex after they looked at influencers and girls are less likely to feel attractive. Yeah. They feel less attractive. Okay. So it's a comparison game. Yeah. Right. Why? What do you think is going on? What's the what's the mechanism?

I wrote a chapter about plastic surgery and when you look at this trend of yo especially really young, in some cases girls, getting procedures done, I do think social media has done something to make them feel that they need to do this, to compete. and to get a partner or to at least be found attractive.

And I there has to be something with just like constantly being inundated with these images on social media. They have found in say adolescent girls that girls who are less popular are girls who tend to do upward comparisons, so tend to compare themselves to say more attractive women or or um more popular girls tend to fall prey to this a little bit more.

In an attempt to try and clamber up this felt imbalance of a hierarchy that they're comparing themselves to. Okay. Talk to me about what's happened to plastic surgery over time. Have we seen increases in it? Have the types changed? What Aaron Powell Now it is breast augmentation for Gen Z women. So they are actually boob jobs are very crazy.

popular among that cohort. Okay. I do think that's influenced by pornography. Also labioplasty. I was just looking actually at a study a couple of nights ago showing that women very many young women feel self conscious about their labia and are actually getting these procedures done, which is also influenced from porn. And it I mean, it's just crazy to me. It makes me wonder is that why people are not interested in having sex? Same with guys. Guys are getting filler injections into their penis.

for even sexting purposes. Like they just want to look better. That's so good. George, my housemate, used to make this joke every time that we were on a plane. It was the same you know, you someone it's a kind of like a dad joke, but he's not yet a dad.

And you know those teeny tiny hundred and seventy five mil cans of Diet Coke? Yeah. You would always say it's like I'd keep a hold of one of those and I'd go back and I'd take a dick pic with it in the background so it would make it look you know, it's like oh that's a three thirty or a three fifty five mil can.

But I've kept the I've kept the airplane mini and that's, you know, comparative. I should be doing that instead of getting the filler and their penis. I agree. I agree. Make Diet Coke mini Diet Cokes great again. Um So yeah, I mean, the...

seems to be obvious that it would be influenced by porn. But even things like I see um like news reports of women under thirty getting facelifts, getting upper eye lifts, right? And I in my personal opinion, I don't think women that young need to be getting extensive work done because you do not have the signs of aging yet to justify what do you think they're trying to do?

Well, I think um if you look at say when women are the most fertile it tends to be mid twenties. So my sense is most women are trying to look like they're in their mid twenties. So if you're older than that, you're gonna try and look younger and if you're younger you're trying to look older.

And so you're gonna use you're gonna choose the women most fertile in the mid twenties. Early to mid twenties. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I found out some really fucking uncomfortable data around when men are most fertile. It's really young. Yeah. It's really young. Yeah. Like illegal in some states, young. And you go Really? Which is just I don't know, we talk about it s women's biological clock. We never really think about we c there's so much sperm, right?

But there's so much sperm and you you only need one. Whereas for women it's It's a little bit more unforgiving. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But anyway, um so you think well I I've seen what is buckle buccal fat? Buckle fat? Yeah, buckle fat removal. Yeah. That the the cheek cheek fat thing. What's that trying to achieve, do you think?

To look older because you're removing the baby fat essentially in your face. But what happens is as you get older, your face naturally loses fat, right? And so you're going to look more gaunt and You've overshot it. Yeah. And then you might potentially need to use filler to Oh, so I used I got f fat removal before I was twenty four and then after I was twenty eight I had to use filler to g replace where I got rid of the fat.

Right. Yeah. I mean I so I wanna be clear, like I don't wanna come down on men and women if they choose to get these procedures because I understand especially if you have a public facing job, there's a lot of pressure to keep your looks up and to look young. But my concern is more so when it's really young.

people or I would say even for men who are doing this, you really don't need to. Like It is brutal. I mean the Some of the young girl supposed to be young girls that I've seen uh videos of on TikTok, there's like twenty two, twenty-three year old chicks.

and they look mid thirties or forties with all of this work that's been done. And um I was I was thinking I was having a conversation last night about how sort of ideal female form has changed, even with sort of relatively extreme cosmetic procedures. So Geordie Shaw, which was the British equivalent of Jersey Shaw. Um That back in the day was a lot about fake tan. Um it was big hair. Yeah. Uh it was almost pinopy in a way. There was so it was tight. That's because of

That's something else. But yes, that that was sort of part of I learned what ch chav was. Exactly, right? I I Those were those were my cust it's kind of like calling someone a hick. No, it's not a couple of things. Those were my own. Me too. But those were my customers for a very long time. It was fake tan. It was um big boob. Maybe augmented, maybe not. Brows too. Very specific eyebrow.

Right. Um I love that d um just to be clear, I'm not making fun of it. That aesthetic. Yeah. Strong aesthetic. Yeah. Great early twenty tens aesthetic. Uh and the guy's um equivalent, I think, up until probably about five years ago, uh we were a little bit delayed on the guys thing, was sort of big muscles, not so concerned with height, fake tan,

Plunging v-neck neckline um uh tight jeans, um d expensive watch thing. Chains? Uh yeah, maybe. But so I was what I was trying to do, this conversation I was having last night, which is so interesting. I was trying to work out What's what was being signaled then and what's being signaled now? Okay. And I think what's being signaled now is A more extreme version of

of that by both men and women. So the male thing, it's all about formidability now. It's the over exaggerated, handsome squidward cheekbones and the the the jawline. It's the height. Yeah. The height. Um, but it's a lot less to do with I'm not really seeing anyone talk about tan.

all that much not even seeing if you look at Nark brows are really big for guys. The most popular LuxMaxes aren't that concerned with muscularity, extreme muscularity in the way that it would have been ten years ago. Ten years ago it would have just been get as wide as and as muscular as possible. That's not quite the case. No. And then with the women, it is All i both of them are basically caricatures of the most sexually dimorphic physical traits.

But like he did some great boning on the way out. Um that that is seems to be what's happening. with men and women now. It's just a more what the next evolution, it's more extreme. Limb lengthening surgery, the brows, the cheekbones, the mandible surgery, all that stuff.

For women especially, I think it can also be the equivalent of showing off an expensive handbag. So instead of saying, Here's my designer bag or Here's my designer titties. Here w or, you know, that my my lips or whatever, like I have a man who will pay for my surgery and make me look like this. Mm-hmm.

It's a good argument for why that I've heard about why women uh have long nails and long hair. It's just fucking impractical. So it's a s it it's it it is itself a status of of of wealth and and luxury that not only can I maintain them, but I have a life that requires so little hard labor that this hair and these nails and this makeup Um I mean the female intersexual competition is just like fucking endlessly interesting. Yeah. Right? Like h uh uh shoes and bags.

exclusively intersexual. Yeah. I do not know the difference between whatever you're wearing and something that was one tenth the price and something that was a thousand times the price. I have no idea. Um but women do. Mm. Women women now. And if you're in a relationship, it's basically a my man is so invested in me that he spent however much money on this thing. So like

Yeah. Don't think don't even think about going there. Which is why I also think that women tend to go a little bit overboard in some cases with the work done as a way to signal that they have the money and the resources or man that is paying for it.

Because usually when you think of plastic surgery, men don't like plastic surgery, typically. Men they don't like it in women because it's the data though. It masks their underlying health and fertility, right? So if a woman can Turn back the clock in terms of aging, signs of aging.

or appear more attractive than she naturally was. Maybe maybe you don't mind so much, but from the conversations I've had with men, men tend to not really like plastic. No, I I I agree. I agree. I mean, uh I saw this tweet after the Grammys that fucking ripped and it was Men love Sydney Sweeney and hate Sabrina Carpenter. Men uh women love Sabrina Carpenter and hate Sidney Sweeney. And um

the explanation that I saw. I was so fascinated by it. I thought it was and it seems to be pretty accurate. I don't know that many guys like, Oh, I loved Sabrina Carpenter. And I don't know that many women that love Sydney Sweeney. That's funny. I've seen this. I mean, I think they're both pretty. So I don't know. Need to be more judgmental. Um the exp best explanation that I saw was that Sabrina Carpenter, her physical presentation is basically

gay and female coded. Huh. And Sydney Sweeney is sort of low maintenance natural male coded beauty. Less sort of curated in that sort of a way. And uh that low maintenance thing sort of seems to come across. But yeah, I think the reliable signal of uh Fitness. uh cue that's being sort of hidden by by lots of plastic surgery is so true. And I get the sense

I get the sense that um the Lux Maxing community for men is doing the same thing. I was gonna ask you about that. Like what are your views? Because I when I write about this. I get a lot of young men who get upset at me and say, like, you don't understand, right? This is the Well you this is the this is the time for the fucking patriarchy to step in. Sit down, let me explain to you. What do I think? I think

I have a f really fucking I think this is an interesting tip. My advice to guys is just work away, get rich. Honestly. Get ri get rich. Don't worry. Don't worry about all the taking the hormones to make your bone structure. I would say get rich, get popular. Um uh Lux are important, but uh you can make some pretty good changes just by becoming more diligent. What I would say about the Lux Maxing thing, um

is what guys seem to be optimizing for is formidability. So they're optimizing for the sort of things that other men respect, not that women are attracted to. So other men would I if you look at most guys that have Lux Max and put them in front of women I wonder whether women would find them more attractive. So it's intersexual competition.

Or whether men would find them more formidable. I think that more men would find them more formidable than more women would find them more attractive. Because most women are not looking for their guys to be hyper, hyper masculine like that.

There's even some evidence to suggest that women prefer a slightly feminized face with a masculinized body. Aaron Powell And not superjacked either. Aaron Powell No, not super jacked. They but i they want average face or sometimes actually slightly feminized face. with masculinized body. Yeah. Um but all of the guys are just pushing toward heavier brow, a deeper jaw, stronger cheekbones.

But do you know the David Putts study that he did about when he brought uh people into the lab and got women to rate attractiveness and men to rate formidability? Remind me. So fucking good. So uh photos of guys shown to women and men. Women were asked to rank, um, how attractive do you think this man is. Men were asked to rank how likely do you think it is that you could beat this other man in a fight. One year later, they brought the men from the photos.

into the lab and asked what their sexual success had been over the last year. And the female ratings of attractiveness had basically zero predictive power for their sexual success, but the male ratings of formidability were very predictive. Wow. So even though what I think is happening at level one, this is like the Epstein files, at level one, where he didn't kill himself, is LuxMaxes are optimizing for

Uh formidability because they're disregarding women and it's intersexual competition because I just want to mog other guys. I just want to be better than other men. Level two, Epstein's still alive and playing Fortnite in Israel, is Actually, by pursuing formidability, they may end up Closing their eyes and throwing the dart at the dartboard and hitting the bullseye. of women actually finding them more attractive than if they'd tried to pursue attractiveness as the main outcome. But this is

Again, this is w working theory at the moment. Yeah. I mean, because I could see that in terms of tattoos, there have been studies to show that men, when they get tattoos, it actually is more so about scaring off their male rivals because women don't some women like tattoos, but not all do. And and some women actually are turned off by tattoos. So it's more again, like you said, of of scaring off and beating your rivals

than directly attracting women. But I also wonder if it's that these men are projecting onto women their preferences. So men care more about looks and, you know, youth. So I wonder if when you look at say marriage or marital satisfaction Men say men's whether men find their wives attractive has a greater correlation with their marital satisfaction than whether women find their husbands attractive. So I wonder if these young guys are projecting onto

women thinking that women care so much about looks when it's actually that's what they care about in their partners. So they Oh, it's a failure of cross sex mind reading using their own uh assessment criteria and saying you must think the way that I think. I'll do more beautification. Well um Macin Murphy's got this great idea where he talks about how uh the increases in male beautification are to try and offset this uh inability to get hypergamy to work.

that men have realized that because they can't win socioeconomically, they might have to turn I've read about this. That's crazy, yeah. The vanity uh mirror round in an attempt to outbeautify their socioeconomic lack. Yeah. Especially when they're young and they're just starting out in their career and they're thinking, okay, how do I attract women? I don't have the money yet. Don't have the resources. Well, I can just get really hot.

There are worse theories. Um what about the effects of sexlessness in marriage? Oh I can tell you I've when I was in research I would interview some men who had not had sex in like decades, which is one of th in a marriage. Yeah, in a marriage. Married men who'd not had sex in decades. Yeah. I mean at that point there's a lot of cheating.

Um, not that that's justified, but I I think it can be very damaging to a relationship, even if you're not married to be sexless because that's a way to bond with your partner, especially for men. They tend to use sex as a way to have intimacy, like emotional closeness with the other. Yeah. Yeah. So Uh, I feel for people out there. You know, I n marriage I'm assuming marriage is very difficult as is and

I'm not sure what would be useful for your audience, like how to overcome that. Put your phones away, number one. It's crazy some of the stats I was reading in terms of people using social media during sex. Right after set. Yeah, that's same study. During the I can't remember the status of my head. It's a it's in Sextinction that I I cited it. But it's I don't know. I was trying to think figure that out myself. I'm thinking, how do you excuse yourself to go post something and then come?

I you can't be posting. It can't be posting. There's no way that you can do that. I could see scrolling at best. Can you go to the bathroom maybe? During sex. Or even right after those pretty bad. It's the juring that gets me. Maybe it was my friend strapping their Instagram to the forehead. Maybe it's just that. I don't know.

Yeah, I go I found this. But that's uh sorry, I was gonna say with the with um there's another study that showed the more the people are on their phones and ignoring their partners, they have less sex, which makes sense. Is that called flubbing? Flubbing. Flubbing. You should they need to rename that. It's a stupid name. Yeah, I Arthur Brook

And Matthew Hussie taught me some interesting stuff around this about sort of revitalizing and James Sexton as well taught me some interesting stuff, but Arthur's was more neuroscientifically backed. Um that One of the problems you have in um long-term marriages is that uh

safety turns into consistency, turns into comfort, turns into laziness. And that that we just go through the same dance. We do it on a Tuesday and it happens in this way and I don't there's no there's no distance. There's no intrigue. Where do you go today? Whether you're wearing something new. Oh, this is a little bit different. I dun i th there's no push and pull, right? And a lot of the chemistry and the reason that I think people

So enlivened and excited at the start of a relationship is there's so much to discover about someone when you feel like there's nothing left to discover, sort of where am I injecting my fantasy into, literally. And what bringing that back online, Arthur had a a pretty interesting sort of few step process, which was to basically flirt.

It's like to flirt with your partner throughout the day and to treat them as if they're an object of desire, especially if you're male to female. This is something that Esther Perell uh I I got wrong. I should have pushed back against when she came on the show. And she said something to the effect of, um, what woman has been aroused because she's seen her partner aroused?

I'm like, I understand what you mean at sort of the first level, but almost every definition of female arous arousal includes my partner desires me. Like being desired by their partner. Yeah. So what better that's the most non-fungible, like uh difficult to fake. signal that I am that I desire you is me being aroused. So you go, okay. I think I think that you probably can do the unmarried fucking thirty eight year old guy telling people who are married how to reinvive in their sex life.

I think that there is uh good legs to like m make flirting great again. That's my that's my argument. Or I was gonna say if your lady is down for it, to try on a wig. Try on a wig? Mm-hmm. Me? No, no. Well, I mean you can if you want to. To be someone different? For it Roleplay. Yeah. If she is willing to put on a wig because then it expenses really change the way she looks. If you're looking for sexual novelty, then do something nice for her. Get her flowers, obviously. And then get her a wig.

Wi if she wants to wear one, yeah. That's interesting. I remember reading um Roy Baumeister is doing a fucking awesome series on sexual novelty at the moment. Okay. On his Substack. It's it is a travesty. Everyone needs to go and read uh Roy Baumeister's Substack'cause it's got

three likes and they're all me and my friends. And he's the goat, right? He's the guy that did the original marshmallow test. And he's writing about sexual novelty at the moment. And he he finds this story of a client that was working with a a It's therapist. And she was saying that I think this was a long uh quite a while ago. Um And she was saying that her husband was uh struggling to be excited.

in the bedroom and this was a long time before before porn. And the after a while, you know, weeks and months of this lady coming in and this was a repeating challenge that was being had. So maybe he's just a bit old or maybe he's whatever. And the uh the therapist asked, have you what sort of what is it that you're doing to him? And the clients had sort of explained and it was it wasn't particularly intimate. Said, Have you considered using your hand? She said like my my hand on him now

And she said, Okay, why why don't you just try and do that? And sure enough, went back and this had you know the most Amazing effect. Because sexual novelty had been so constrained to one thing for fucking five decades that simply the act like second base was enough to blow this guy's mind, this dude in his sixties or seventies, because that was something that he'd never got to experience. I just thought that was so interesting to

uh you know, whether it's the um Coolidge effect or some sort of equivalent like refractory what novelty looks like. Um but this series from Baumeister is fucking sick. He basically makes the It makes the argument that in a relationship, if this is the one, you should titrate the uh sort of sexual access and sexual novelty as slowly as possible. And It's gonna suck. Um but

I I really think that there's something to it. I really think that he's fucking I think he's fucking nailed it. And he's just all he's doing is respecting the neurobiology, especially of men. He's gonna do a separate treatment on women. He's only done it on men so far. But basically, if you're like this is the chick for me. Okay, move m move as slowly as possible through the different stages of doing things.

There is only so much sexual novelty that you can have. And once you've gone to the end or close to the end, it doesn't feel as exciting to sort of skip back. If you know how the story ends, you know how the book the the series finishes. reading the middle bit is just less enlivening. Yeah, sure I'll give it another read, but it's nowhere near as

So he's yeah, turn one page a week type thing and you know, stretch this book out over a a a decade or so. I thought it was really interesting. Yeah. I mean I think that speaks to also why casual sex is not a good thing. I think it's better for both sexes to be less promiscuous. But definitely if you well, if you have sex on the first date, a man's gonna put you in the short term bucket. But even if not, I would say even if you have sex too soon and you're dating somebody.

At some level there like you said, it's like shortening that book. Trevor Burrus How how uh how does it feel to believe this and say this as a former sexologist writer? Um, I'm probably alienating like ninety percent of the field. I mean, there are certain things when you are in the field. I I should say I have many friends and the colleagues who do amazing work and who are very unbiased. They're not politically motivated, you know, they just do their research.

And I respect that. It what uh my issue is when people are quote sex positive and they're pushing these narratives. that are unhelpful and that I think are doing a disservice to our society. Is it not empowerment? And it's leading us to be sexless ultimately. No, I don't think it's empowerment. I think it's masked as empowering, but they're lies ultimately.

And I find the fact that people get so upset by me challenging these ideas tells me that I'm on to something because why do they get so defensive? If I if I what I'm saying is completely nonsense, why do they feel the need to push back so badly? But yeah, this book is full of um, anti yeah, anti-sex positivity. thoughts that are not allowed, I guess. But it's but it was amazing for me to write because I felt

I like to challenge myself and say if there are thoughts or beliefs that you don't want to look at, you have to look at those and you have to ask yourself why you don't want to. And if you're afraid of alienating or upsetting people, that's not a reason to question.

What about sex talls? What'd you learn? Are they good? Are they bad? Uh didn't you hang on, didn't you didn't did you design one? I made one in my likeness, I did. Well I was on the hunt to make it. Was it for sale? I'm not answering that question It was actually a lot of fun to go on that exploration. So in the each chapter I go into a little like mini adventure, that's what I call them, where I go and I research the technology and try it out. And so I went and explored sextiles and robots and

It's crazy what's out there. It's very, very realistic, I have to say. I didn't consummate my relationship with any of these dolls, but in terms of

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I thought, is that technically masturbation or is that you know, what is that? What's what's autogainophilia? Which one's that one? Autogynaphilia is when you are sexually aroused at the th a man is sexually aroused at the thought of having the body of a woman. So when you see someone who's born male who is has a desire to transition to female

that is if they are attracted to women or if they are attracted to both men and women, that's autogonophilia. Whereas if they are born male and attracted to men and want to transition to female, then they are it's considered the gay subtype. So this was my first book, The End of Gender. But basically, yeah, autogonophilia is a huge

Huge motivator for the whole trans-ideology activism. I wonder if you would be able to provide them with I wonder if you could get people a self sex style of them, but the opposite sex. They will get like a You're fucking kidding me. No, that I've I thought this was a new idea. I was breaking new ground.

I made a joke to see if we can eBay your old sex doll and try and, you know, fucking help the advance of the book and get some sales in there. And and then I thought that this was I thought this was New Frontiers, but people have got sex dolls of themselves in the opposite Yeah. And they wear them. What's wear them mean? Well they put it on themselves to become that.

So it's like a suit? Yeah. So it's not really a doll, I guess. It's more like a rubber suit in but it's in the fashion to look like a doll to some degree. So it's like silicone material. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But what else can I tell your audience? It's get we're getting there. The sex robots are definitely coming. They are. Right. Yeah. Okay. What what does ro what's a d is there a line between doll and robot?

Once say so right now like the AI software is very th I love that chapter. Writing the chapter on the AI companions was so much fun. It was also just so frightening for me because they're so realistic. But so that importing that into a doll is very much possible. Now it's just about a question of

How do you get the robot to move in a realistic way sexually? So you have robots that can say gyrate their hips or um they'll have like internal suctions in the vagina so it you know helps with an orgasm. Um, what other things can they do? But in terms of the movement it's still quite limited.

I d the difference between a ball a doll and a robot would be that physical movement. So a doll is stationary. Or or sometimes they'll hang them, but I guess it's still stationary. Like they'll hang them. They'll hang them up on so they're like standing. What are they doing with them when they're standing? Well, you can look that up. Okay, fair enough. I I I don't need to. Um

I have to assume that the market for sex dolls is ninety nine point nine nine percent men, or is there some women in this? Mostly men. And during the pandemic one company told me they made twenty million dollars in sales, which is astronomical. And It is mostly high school educated, so on average, high school educated men who make about forty K a year divorce. Starts at

Hundred, a couple of hundred to tens of thousands, depending on how realistic you want it to be. So if you're a blue collar worker, you're going for the more sort of entry level

Yeah. One. Yeah. Um there are some guys who are say make more s like I'm thinking of one particular study where they had the income and so some guys making say more than six figures will have the dolls, but Um, it tends to be more among men who either I think are quite heartbroken and they don't wanna bother going through or they're divorced, they don't wanna go through the process of being.

Or it's guys who want to have sexual novelty but they can't actually either attract real life partners or they don't have the means for it. So they'll buy the dolls instead. That makes me sad, the idea that you know someone's past emotional challenges, you know, whether deserved or accidental or purposeful or victimized, whatever. Uh it causes them to sort of turn away entirely from human and I suppose that the fact that you you now have this option

for someone to I don't need to. We can just we can just imagine What about the AI companions thing? I saw a bunch of Furor two or three weeks ago when ChatGPT discontinued Foro and Four O had a very particular type of personality to it and that discontinuation was For lots of people. There was a subreddit and I can't remember what it's called. People being in beyond hysterics, like absolutely fucking heartbroken by it. So what what what was your experience with AI? Companions.

And I before I tested them out, I didn't think such a thing would be possible because I didn't think that the technology was that realistic. Until you fell in love with one. Until I fell in love with all of my dozens of AI boyfriends. You had dozens? I had dozens. Do you like Bonnie Blue?

Go on. I had girlfriends too. So I had so I made dozens of them across dozens of platforms. I really wanted to try them all out to see what what are the where are they at. And there were a couple of platforms were definitely more realistic. But I will say what happened with Chat GPT, that's not the first time. There's another platform that something similar happened a couple of years ago where they removed the erotic role playing capabilities or they put it behind a paywall.

and people were so devastated because they said, My AI doesn't remember me anymore. Like they're really cold. It reminded them of being socially rejected in the past and it's very upsetting for them. So again, I mean I the the scientist side of me thinks like this is so cool and so crazy that we're advancing so quickly, but then the other s part of me says, wait a minute, like look at where we are right now as a society.

And is this really a good thing? Because what is this going to do now if we have this discrepancy in terms of the sex ratio and people having sex and people not even wanting to connect or date? You know, there's a study by Pew showing that.

over half of single people are not interested in dating at all. So now you're we have not in short term uh not in casual or long term mating. Yeah. It's wild. I remember seeing that study. It's gonna be so easy just to go down the route of one of these alternatives and It they are so realistic. Like you really cannot tell that it is an AI. If I had not programmed it and myself had said, this is your name.

This is what you look like. This is your personality. Yeah. I thought like it sounded like a real person I was talking to. Does it push into erotica as well? Yeah. Yeah. They flirt with you, they get like if you're sarcastic, they pick up on it. It was crazy. Like I really thought it was gonna be very stilted. Some of them are still like that where you some platforms you have to be very literal. Really work with it. Yeah. They're a difficult partner. Yeah.

Okay, so what what is the biggest story about sort of human needs and and relating beyond bits just not going into bits at the same rate anymore. Like people aren't doing the thing. But what what does that tell us about the ways that humans are connecting. What's the deeper lesson? That we're not connecting.

That's I what I think. There are a lot of stand-ins for connection, like something as simple as having a conversation person versus over a screen. There is there's a difference there. There's a difference biologically in terms of like how we respond to that. And I just think more broadly in society, like if you go out, I'm sure Austin is the same as Toronto where

most or maybe it's not, but most people are on their phones. You know, when I'm thinking when you're at the airport, you're on the plane, every everywhere in public, everyone is just on their phone all the time. People don't really talk to each other, even make eye contact. And I I do think that has larger ramifications.

beyond something so small as preferring to look at your phone, you know,'cause you're bored or whatever. And so I think that over time has has snowballed into this thing where we are very much like enclosed. We all have our own little bubbles.

Because it's like the norm now socially. It's very s it's seen as weird to talk to strangers or to make small talk or it's like cringy or whatever. And especially in roman terms of romantic context, like everything is made to be so simple and convenient with like dating apps or people say using using social media to meet. But that's not really meeting someone in real life. And it's almost as though the convenience of it is

People don't take it so seriously, right? If it's so easy to meet people, why would you care? Why you ha it didn't cost you anything? It didn't require anything of you. Yeah. A home cooked meal is treated with more love than a McDonald's. Yeah. Although I mean I'm very healthy, but I would say, you know, McDonalds was great at one point. McDonald's is good, but you're never gonna look at it and think, I'm th th th this is a very valuable meal unless you're starving. Right. Um

Okay, what about fertility rates and reproduction? Like'cause ultimately everything that we've spoken about up until now is

the proximate reason for behavior. Right? All of it is just it's pleasure and it's connection and it's all the rest of it. But the ultimate reason for the behavior is to reproduce. Right. Right? It it is the same It is not far off the same as saying we have managed to construct a world in which uh these screens and this media and these xenoestrogens and this culture and these thoughts and the way that this has come together has caused people to throw themselves off of buildings.

Like because genetically that is the equivalent, right? Survival and reproduction. And the only reason for the survival is so that you can do the reproduction. If you didn't need to survive, it would just be reproduction. How have we managed to get ourselves to the stage where an animal has been convinced to select themselves out of breeding? Because life is so distractable. We're so distracted, right? It's so easy to be.

Well, relationships are hard, right? Dating is hard. Finding someone is hard. Connecting with people is hard because people are unreliable. people have their own decisions and autonomy as they should. And so when you have alternatives either romantic alternatives or just ways to pass the time that don't involve that messiness, I think it can can be quite alluring.

So I agree with you. I don't think everyone has to have children. But I do think for people who want kids, like I'm I'm concerned about the people who like one of the reasons for twenty five percent of people who aren't having children, they say the reason is'cause they haven't found somebody. Which I imagine is quite devastating. And so I also talk in the book about single motherhood by choice and the fact that there are real implications for this discrepancy in terms of the sex bias.

and people not wanting to connect or people say not being able to connect. What discrepancy, sorry. Oh, just that there are fewer viable men. So and these men typically are less interested in settling down or there's going to be less commitment as a result of that. Because when you have a smaller pool of men, like on university campuses where you have

fewer men than women, men are gonna set the terms of dating and relationships and sex. That's what you were talking about earlier on, that women think if men are more desperate socioeconomically that they'll work harder for the women, it's kind of like a a perspective around sex ratios. They have an implicit understanding around sex ratios, they just don't understand s mating preferences from women to men, which is that they're going to largely be invisible.

Yeah, well that men are gonna be setting the terms then of of dating. So the high value men will be in terms of how soon you're gonna have to have sex. Or they'll go somewhere else or you know, if they want to have they want commitment from you but they wanna be poly quote polyamorous or whatever, you're gonna have to put up with that. I I learned a new term last year which is solo poly.

Oh yeah, remind me what that is. I've heard of this. It's a guy typically or it's it's it's a person who is uh just Sleeping around. Um it's just a guy it's just a guy that's sleeping around. But I think that a lot of the partners may think that they're the hub. Right. And then there's lots of there's lots of spokes coming off solo poly. Yeah. Okay. When it comes to the reproduction thing, you mentioned IBF fertility windows, other stuff.

So if the issue is women can't find a partner with whom they'd like to settle down with or there are fertility issues on the man or the woman's um side or on both people's side, then these interventions aren't really solving the underlying problem, right? And so that's only just gonna get worse for future generations and for the individual people who are potentially undergoing these interventions.

I got in a lot of trouble for talking about birthright decline this year. Oh really? Before the year even started, I got in a lot of trouble about it. Um I did some more digging. I went and did some sort of quite hardcore data digging around this. One interesting fact that I found was that the total maternal rate Has basically not changed. The TMR it's called. Total maternal rate is the number of children per mother.

The number of children per mother I think has gone from over the last fifty years something like two point six to two point four five, two point four, something like that. Uh so it is not the big difference is not um mothers having fewer children. It's women not becoming mothers. And again, I I got one of the Things I got shouted out about. was uh putting it all on women. Unfortunately

Um census data, uh World Health Organization, CDC, uh the only people who uh they only capture data about mothers. Like they don't have fatherhood data. Right. Um Parental uncertainty might contribute a little bit to that. Uh uh uh absentee fathers and stuff like that as well, abandoning mothers, like pregnant women like might contribute too. But anyway. Um so you have

Four out of five women who end up without children, having broken through menopause, didn't intend to be childless. It's called involuntary childlessness. You've got this really interesting situation which I I don't know why more women I understand why m more women aren't talking about it because it kind of goes counter to what the current very Pushed narrative is.

But that's eighty percent, four out of five women who end up without kids who didn't intend to end up without kids. Around about ten percent of women can't physiologically. Right. Uh awful. Pain, grief. Around about ten percent of women don't want to, voluntary childlessness. And then four out of five women have support groups.

with other women to grieve over families that they never had. Like who the fuck's campaigning for them? That feels like a group that's really important. Really, really important and ever growing. You have this weird dynamic at the moment, which is Any woman who is still fertile

can endorse the view that women don't need to have kids without having to embody it because until they can no longer have it, they always have the option to still do it. Right. And I wonder I r I really hope that this isn't the case, but I get the sense that I'm right but early on this, that we are gonna see a huge fucking crisis of middle aged femininity within the next fifteen years when a lot of Gen Z and millennial women age out of their ability to have kids and

focused uh on one area of life that they maybe really enjoyed and took a lot of uh value from and and you know, good for you. You've got your y you don't need to be beholden to anybody and that's awesome. Um, but to to sort of turn around and go Fuck it. I I I I wish I'd done something different. And I really hope that that's not the case. I don't I don't take any glee in women who don't want to have kids having them and women that want to have kids not being able to. Um but I

I think I think we're gonna see we think that the fucking crisis of masculinity is bad at the moment in young mu among young men. I think that the one around women is gonna be way worse. Yeah. I think being able to talk about especially women's work life balance and the how women structure their lives

is important to be able to talk about it honestly because like you said, I think there's a real push for young women to focus on career and I you know, I all for women being ambitious and making their own money and being successful. I think that's fantastic. But I think there is this False idea that motherhood is somehow a burden or that it

unimportant. I think both sides of the political aisle make some good points and also make some fallacies in that I think, say, progressives will say motherhood is terrible, you know, it's uh what is what's the term that they use? Domestic prostitute. No. That's an interesting way of putting it. It's something about what is it?

The costs of basically that, you know, like you're you're gonna be destitute uh because y as a woman you have to be No more financial independence, you're relying on your partner. It's so expensive and you know, if you do

focus on raising a family, then you don't make money and then you put yourself in potentially abusive situations like it you know, like there's all that, which I you know, can happen. Mm-hmm. No one wants to be a financial prisoner. This is what no one talks about about the low divorce rate in the past. Mm-hmm that how much of the low divorce rate was because the women had nowhere else to go. Yeah.

Yeah. So I understand that side of it. But at the same time, you know, if a woman decides to have children, she is going to be the primary um caretaker. Like the way that progressives frame it is that

the man can just step in and do half of the chores and whatever. No, the the baby's gonna prefer mom's mom. Mom's body. Baby wants mom. Yeah. And then the other side is You know, con not all conservatives, but there's a sentiment among conservatives to tell young women, don't worry about your education and career, just get married young.

have tons of children and worry about your career later. But that's difficult. If you have no work experience, how are you going to get a job in your field, especially nowadays, if you have no work experience, right? Aaron Powell But especially given how difficult it is to support a family on a a

single person income. So look, I I I think that everybody that wants to have kids should be able to afford to have kids. And the fact that people can't afford to have kids or f more accurately I think feel like they can't afford to have kids. Um given that the poorest countries are the ones that have got the highest birth rates. Um I think that's awful. I think it's awful that people can't afford to have kids or feel like they can't afford to have kids.

But I don't think that that's the issue. I think if you were to ask any couple, or almost any couple, especially married couple, what's the reason that you haven't yet had kids? It's not going to be that they're too expensive. The issue and most of the commentary, the commentariat that's throwing their opinions into the like me, that's throwing their opinions into the fucking mess with this a single people. Saying It's too expensive to have kids.

No You're not in a relationship. This is like you telling me how much you'd beat some guy up that stood in the ring while you're in the stands. Like you're not in the situation where you can talk about having kids. It it it's not what you're facing. So I wonder how much of this and this may be from the guys' side too, I wonder how much of this is kids are too expensive to have is a much easier explanation than I can't find a partner.

I yeah I definitely think the financial reasons could be part of it. But I I do think when you're speaking of women who are getting to an age where I I my sense is some women may not be aware that their biological window is Definitive. Well, women's fertility drops down by half by thirty five. And then, you know, menopause starts into your forties by mid forties. So there's

you can't really negotiate with biology at that point. I mean you can use the technology, you can try, but we all have our windows and it's like I said, you know, set. I remember reading a tweet from fucking Stefan Molyneux. six, seven years ago, guy like culture warring before the culture war was even a thing. And he was having some pop on Taylor Swift's thirtieth birthday.

basically saying, uh Taylor Swift turned thirty today, ninety percent of her eggs are gone, I wish that she'd become a mother. See that type of commentary is not nice. It's not helping. And I I always had that in the back of my mind. Just one of these things. It kind of kicked up a big fur roar. And it's just a f it's just a fucking prick thing to say. But

I did a little bit of research. The reason that 90% that 90% figure is true, but I didn't realize it's because girls lose their eggs before they hit puberty. I think 50% of your lifetime eggs. are gone by the time that you become F is the word fertile, I guess. Or like enabled to have kids? Yeah. Like whatever. You your your puberty comes online and fifty percent of them are gone. Like that doesn't feel the ninety percent number, that feels like somebody's inflated the stock price or something.

Yeah. Well I was gonna say also speaking of the fertility issues or the endocrine disruptors, uh when a girl is born, she's born with all the eggs she's ever gonna have. So if her mother was exposed to something when she was in the uterus that's gonna affect her daughter and her grandchildren potentially because it's affecting the exit. There's three generations of people, three generations of women in the same location for a brief period of time. Yeah.

But my my hope and what I like with your podcast is that it's very much like balanced and I really wanna try and close this

division between men and women because I think that's a big part of also why this is happening with the city. The adversarial narrative. Yeah, and why they're not interested in in having sexual relationships or being close. You're having that that intimacy because so much of this discourse is so Polarizing and so much about blaming the opposite sex for everything that's going wrong, not just in terms of dating and rema uh relationships, but just the world the world.

Yeah. I mean instead of cooperation, each sex just optimizes against the other. It's just this evolutionary arms race. But it's been turned up to everything. It's like, yeah, okay, there is a kind of I come up with a way to st m f be funny or cute or attractive or whatever and

after a while that strategy sort of becomes detected and then I need to demonstrate more value and more value and so on and so forth. And it's just that, but on not even on steroids, like in a fucking different universe where the Humans are so tribal that we're even splitting ourselves up based on fucking sex. Right. Yeah. And I don't know. I d i Okay. Can anything be done top down to fix this?

Give me some proposed solutions. I was gonna say with the evolutionary uh co evolutionary arms race, so that's David Busse's theory. Um Yeah. He's a friend of mine and mentor. Daddy David. And it definitely shows up. It's it's amazing because once you become aware of this dynamic and how men and women are constantly trying to out compete each other, you see it in everything. So in terms of advice I would say for I'll start with women. I'd say

I definitely think people should meet in real life as opposed to on apps or through social media or online or whatever. So my I and I do think men should be the ones to approach women. So women have to make it so obvious if they're into someone. And things you can do, I have suggestions in Sextinction, but one big one is to smile very obviously. And if you're like me and you have resting bee face, to practice.

smiling in the mirror until it's not uncomfortable and not awkward, which can take some time. But it I guarantee you, like if you see a man you find attractive, and you smile at him, he will come and talk to you. Hopefully, Cultivate Receptivity. Yeah, exactly. Because men are wi biologically wired to pick up on these cues. And there's a part of the brain called the medial orbital frontal cortex that lights up when someone sees an attractive face.

And it lights up even more strongly when that face is smiling. So I thought that was really fascinating because you're resting bitch face is resting your ugly face to a degree. Or it's like resting F off face. Yeah. Um and also things like touching your hair, touch your your face or neck, your the just your clothing, things like that. Men are again going to pick up on this and see this as a sign that you're interested. Okay.

And so that will help to remedy, I think, some of the um the backlash or the difficulty after me too. And then for guys, oh, and the other thing I would say to women is so basically your options are To compete for the high status guys, right? To date someone whom you may consider if you are, say, a very educated, successful, financially successful woman, you may feel like you're dating a guy who's less successful than you, but that's totally fine.

Right. My my issue is when society's telling women this is a great solution, like just have a house husband, you know? You don't need to go for these guys. You can make your own money and you can be the provider in the f in the In the household and no. Higher rates of divorce, as you said. Yeah. Higher rates of domestic violence, higher rates of male cheating when that happens. So

Uh you know, not to say that happens for everybody, but I think just to also have a bit of compassion for men who are struggling because my sense is women, we are doing very well, right? And I don't I don't think it takes anything away from women's success or women's ability to succeed by having some compassion for men who are struggling. And then I would say to guys, It's probably a combination in terms of why young men are not doing as well. I think the mental health aspect.

Eat healthy food, that goes for women too. But there have been studies that have shown um if you cut out ultra processed food, d depression will remit on its own. There was one study I remember reading, it was crazy. Within twelve weeks. a third of the sample that had depression. Jeez. I didn't go into remission. Wow. Yeah. So if you're struggling like with your mental health, or I guess I should talk to the camera when I say this, but if you're if you're struggling with your mental health,

Eat healthy food, go to the gym. I'm sure Chris's audience knows. Work out, get sunshine. And um, I would also say if you can go without porn for 30 days, try and see if that helps you. You might be surprised.

Your motivation? I did not expect that you're gonna be a proponent for no fap. Well I hear from so many guys that it's helped them. So I'm willing I'm willing to go there. I'm curious, let me know how it goes. Okay? As a woman, tell me how it goes. Every single day, report in on how your NoFap is going. With an update. I'm sure that that will appreciate th that'll go well. Uh Deborah, you're great.

I really appreciate you. Uh where should people go to check out everything you're doing? So you can get should I talk to the camera or should I tell you? No, talk to me. Okay. You should get Sextinction, The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. You can get it on Simon and Schuster's website. You can get it everywhere you get books. You can get at doctor Debrasso dot com and the audiobook is read by me and you can get it for free on Audio.

Sounds awesome. I'm I I think you're doing uh the goddess's work. Uh really, really cool. Really, really awesome stuff. I appreciate you. Thank you. If you're wanting to read more, you probably want some good books to read that are going to be easy and enjoyable and not bore you and make you feel despondent at the fact that you can only get through half a page without bowing out.

And that is why I made the Modern Wisdom Reading List, a list of one hundred of the best books, the most interesting, impactful, and entertaining that I've ever found. Fiction and nonfiction and there's real life stories, and there's a description about why I like it, and there's links to go and buy it. And it's completely free. You can get it right now by going to chriswillex.com/slash books. That's chriswillex.com slash books.