0:00

I know more good women. Like,

0:02

brilliant, amazing women who

0:04

know that they can't have sex.

0:07

just like a man. They can't

0:09

just have meaningless sex. They know

0:11

that about themselves, and they are not even

0:14

competing in the dating market because

0:16

they can't. And these are the

0:18

best women, like the best

0:21

women nurturing, loving,

0:23

intelligent, like the

0:26

best women that I know and they're sitting on

0:28

the sidelines single because

0:31

it's how do you even go on Tinder

0:34

or compete? And people will say, well, they should

0:36

go look for, you

0:39

know, somebody like on

0:41

match or somewhere like that or it's

0:43

it's not impossible, but I just think

0:46

it it does like you said it's a cluster

0:48

five.

0:53

Hey, folks.

0:53

Welcome to the Dark Horse podcast.

0:55

I am doctor Brett Weinstein, and I have the

0:57

distinct pleasure of sitting this morning with

1:00

Bridget Foresi. who is

1:02

an all around marvelous person.

1:05

Polymath, a little bit hard to describe,

1:07

but most of you probably know her

1:10

from her substack and

1:13

her Twitter account.

1:15

And where else my they know you from. I I

1:17

guess you had a call of an android, YouTube,

1:20

rights, or podcast. And

1:23

podcast, Yep. Yes. Do you

1:25

want to plug your podcast? You'll get another

1:27

chance at all and

1:28

I have Dumpster

1:31

fired the show on YouTube,

1:33

which makes fun of just the new cycle

1:36

in the world. And then walk

1:38

ins welcome, which you've been and Heather's been

1:40

on and is a little bit more intellectual.

1:44

That's long form interviews

1:46

with interesting people about whatever

1:48

we wanna talk about. So And

1:51

then I just started wrong. My husband called

1:53

factory settings, and

1:55

we are just evaluating

1:57

the world through our own

1:58

biases. So, yeah, I have a lot of

2:01

I have a lot of material. Yeah.

2:02

I will say you're great at naming things. I like

2:04

all three of the names of your -- Thank you.

2:07

-- podcast. Oh, no. Alright.

2:09

We're gonna have to silence that. Yeah.

2:12

Take it. No. I can't take

2:14

it. I just can't take it. Write it.

2:18

Alright. So I should say there's a lot

2:20

of stuff that we might talk about.

2:22

You are a new

2:24

mother, which is -- Mhmm. --

2:26

fantastic and I think I've told you

2:28

this privately, but publicly, congratulations.

2:31

That is the most momentous news

2:34

it could possibly be. How

2:37

is motherhood treating you?

2:39

I love it. I I love it

2:41

more than I thought I would.

2:43

You know it was any

2:45

sense.

2:46

No. You're wired to love

2:48

it more than than

2:50

is rational, which is great. Yeah.

2:53

It

2:53

is fascinating how you forget everything.

2:56

Like, I'm already I'm already, like, let's

2:58

have another one because I live immediately.

3:01

Yeah.

3:04

Go ahead.

3:05

No. My husband has to remind

3:07

me, like, you remember how miserable

3:09

you were a month nine. You remember all

3:12

the things. It was like, no. don't remember

3:14

any of it.

3:15

Yeah. I would I was just

3:17

commenting to a friend that

3:19

there are certain things in life

3:21

that are so important and

3:23

so painful that you are to

3:26

forget the pain. And even if you intellectually

3:29

know that it was there,

3:30

And, you know, I

3:33

can't really speak to either

3:36

pregnancy or childbirth itself,

3:38

but certainly,

3:41

both of these things are incredibly awkward

3:44

for humans and

3:46

painful and all the And

3:48

boys important that you

3:51

not remain directly

3:53

connected to that pain so that you can

3:56

reproduce more?

3:57

Yeah. I mean, the hormones definitely

3:59

flood in with do

4:02

their job to try

4:04

and just make you feel warm

4:07

and fuzzy in those early months of

4:09

and not for everyone, but in my experience,

4:11

it was very much

4:13

that

4:14

here just bubble.

4:15

That newborn bubble is so

4:18

special and it's funny too.

4:20

I just never really had that much interest

4:22

in newborns and now I love love

4:24

them. Like, all newborns. I

4:26

want the little fresh babies. But

4:28

before I had one, I was like, oh, they seem

4:30

so boring. They just they

4:32

don't do much, but there's something

4:35

so special about that first thirty

4:37

to sixty days when they're just

4:39

so new.

4:40

Yeah. I agree. I I had rather

4:43

the same reaction. I was enthusiastic

4:45

about becoming a dad, but I I sort of

4:47

felt like the initial

4:49

phase just didn't have that much

4:51

to it. And of course, it does. Yeah.

4:55

But I will also say

4:56

it gets more and more

4:59

fascinating and rewarding

5:02

and

5:05

the, you know, people

5:07

say that it goes by

5:10

so quickly, which I have always done was

5:12

truly hilarious because it's slower

5:14

in our species than literally any

5:16

other. But

5:19

it it is amazing that there's

5:22

this point where

5:23

if you raise them

5:25

correctly, they become

5:28

more help than they are a burden.

5:30

And that point comes so

5:32

early. It was a complete shock.

5:36

So anyway, Yeah. It's safer

5:38

every moment because it doesn't last. Yeah.

5:39

That's what everyone says.

5:41

Don't blink. That's what we

5:43

hear constantly. And the

5:46

days are long and the years

5:48

are short, which is what my experience

5:50

has been so far. There are days where

5:52

it's just long and she's so

5:55

little and needs constant attention.

5:57

And I I wanna

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9:28

Brian

9:28

heard Yeah. Well,

9:30

I I've never heard the days are

9:32

long and the years are short, but that is

9:34

so

9:35

so accurate. Accurate.

9:37

Yeah. It's so so

9:40

true. So it it's been so I mean,

9:42

it's it's just a learning experience, she

9:44

had a colleague, and

9:46

I'm writing about that just

9:48

like all of the information you

9:50

get when no one and all the

9:52

different things people tell you to do

9:54

that worked for them. Like, one

9:56

lady was like, I read, Lady

9:58

of Shailesh, you know, like,

10:00

well, Bouncing on a

10:02

yoga vibes, it's there's

10:04

nothing more

10:06

frustrating than feeling like you can't

10:08

help your kid very early on.

10:10

but I also think it's a good it's

10:13

like a hazing into parenthood

10:15

also very early where

10:17

I just realized certain things

10:19

I'm powerless over, and she's

10:21

got her own path. And I

10:24

have to let go to a certain

10:26

degree of, you

10:28

know, their being

10:30

able to soothe every

10:33

every hurt that she has.

10:35

I just with with colleague, you

10:37

can't. And so it's It's an

10:39

early education and

10:42

the helplessness of parenting at

10:44

some points.

10:47

Well, let me give you some advice

10:49

that you definitely didn't ask

10:51

for. It is

10:54

impossible to parent

10:56

well in this era.

10:58

Right? You have to

11:00

calibrate for the the

11:02

intractable nature

11:04

of the puzzle you've been handed.

11:06

And that's actually okay. What it

11:08

means is there's gonna be a certain

11:10

amount of damage to

11:14

your kid that might

11:16

not have occurred and actually probably

11:18

wouldn't have occurred in the past environment, but

11:20

a little damage which, you know, we

11:22

all have. our parents didn't have an acceptable

11:24

problem either. And,

11:26

you know, a little bit of

11:29

damage and trauma and all

11:31

of that actually is part

11:33

of the necessary education for

11:35

navigating this hyperconfusing

11:37

world. Yeah. I

11:39

will also say that kids are

11:41

wired

11:43

to be raised and they are

11:45

wired, you know, you do

11:47

wanna get the signal to noise ratio

11:50

as

11:50

high as you can get it,

11:52

as much consistency as

11:54

you can give it, but you're gonna

11:56

be inconsistent. You're gonna make lots of

11:58

errors in the it is absolutely wired

12:00

to figure out what the meaningful stuff

12:03

was and to throw out the things you

12:05

did wrong. Yeah.

12:07

So Anyway,

12:09

it's a it's a tough puzzle, but don't

12:11

don't get the sense of like, oh, there

12:13

this matters so much and there's, you know,

12:15

it can't be done and oh my god, I just made

12:17

an error and it's gonna create damage

12:20

forever. It's kinda not how it

12:22

works even in this era. Yeah.

12:24

This does seem like

12:26

particularly interesting

12:30

time to be having a

12:32

child.

12:32

It was the

12:34

worst of time. and it was the worst of times.

12:36

I mean, it's really the

12:39

let's put it this way. It's always I'm sure

12:41

been a difficult puzzle.

12:43

But the

12:46

number of antagonists that

12:48

you have. Right? If you're trying to

12:50

send a message to your

12:53

offspring, that they understand the world.

12:55

The number of people who are trying to

12:57

prevent that message from landing

12:59

and send a different message that enriches

13:02

them you're not supposed to have antagonists

13:04

in raising your child in any

13:06

interest. We have tons of them.

13:07

Right, yeah,

13:09

that's one thing that's

13:11

in settling. And then

13:13

I try to look at the positive, you know, we have

13:15

a lot of medicine and

13:17

there's a lot of things that we don't

13:19

have to deal with and that

13:21

other generations before us

13:23

did. So I

13:25

I hope that it it

13:27

all every generation has

13:30

their challenges, I guess, but then, yeah, it

13:32

is very strange. You know,

13:34

she was like, How many weeks

13:36

old? She was probably not

13:38

even four weeks old when you've

13:41

already happened. which is a really

13:43

messed up time and postpartum

13:45

to be, like, my

13:47

husband, Jared, didn't even tell me about

13:49

it. because he knows that I get so affected by

13:51

school shootings in general. I

13:54

mean, I literally left America

13:56

after the Sandy Hook shooting. I was like, I'm

13:58

leaving. I can't I can't even face

13:59

this. And I

14:02

went to Sri Lanka and just, like, checked

14:04

out for months. And I

14:08

was in the postpartum bubble

14:11

and that happened and

14:13

there was it was like a

14:15

thousand and it hit a

14:17

thousand times harder than they

14:19

all those school shootings already

14:21

hit. And that's

14:23

just, like, something that even my

14:25

parents didn't have to DOF. You know, my

14:27

parents weren't worried about sending their

14:29

kids to school and never seeing us

14:31

again. Howard Bauchner:

14:32

Right, I mean, I

14:34

walked to school alone.

14:37

You

14:38

know, it was a whole different world

14:40

and -- Yeah. -- I do have

14:42

to say on your comment about all of the

14:44

medicines we have. They are truly

14:47

marvelous as long as you don't ingest

14:49

them. I have

14:51

to say, the

14:55

my my evolutionary work

14:57

led me quite by

14:59

accident into the realm of modern

15:01

medicine And

15:03

and the

15:05

the

15:06

trick with

15:09

these things which are very potent

15:11

is to almost never use them and know

15:13

when they do. Right.

15:15

And even the most mundane, well

15:18

tested stuff

15:20

Terry's long term implications

15:22

that we actually literally can't

15:24

know. Right. I Yeah. I mean,

15:26

if you if you think about For

15:28

example, let's say that some drug that

15:30

you were on for five

15:32

years in your thirties turned

15:35

out to have life

15:37

shortening or life degrading

15:39

implications in your

15:41

fifties. Would anybody

15:43

know that you were on it? Is it in your chart in

15:45

some way that people would

15:48

know that you had ingested something that had

15:50

these implications. And if it's not in your

15:52

chart and it's

15:53

not in anybody else's chart, how are

15:55

we to notice the pattern? Right? If

15:57

you'd start seeing

15:59

some group of people walk in with this

16:02

pathology, but they have no way of

16:04

looking back and seeing, oh, they were all on

16:06

that drug. Right? The pattern

16:08

doesn't get noticed. So you really like

16:10

the baby powder thing. I

16:12

mean, even just as something as simple as

16:14

the baby powder. But if you really go down

16:16

that rabbit hole, it's

16:18

bananas. It's bananas.

16:19

I mean --

16:22

Yeah. -- how many times was I put

16:24

on antibiotics? as a kid for

16:26

some little thing, and then it turns out, you

16:28

know, talk to your doctor about the

16:30

heart risk that erythromycin creates.

16:32

They don't even know. Right? They don't

16:35

know. There's

16:35

just too much of this stuff.

16:37

So anyway, yes, there

16:39

are moments when you have to use these drugs and they

16:42

really are amazing, but it's another one of

16:44

these cases where you have

16:46

antagonists because, you

16:47

know, your doctor may have an interest

16:50

in you being healthy.

16:52

but the people selling

16:54

the drugs to your doctor don't.

16:57

In

16:57

fact, they might have an interest you not

17:00

being healthy because it means that you'll buy more

17:02

product. Howard Bauchner: Doug? Howard

17:04

Bauchner: Yeah.

17:05

It sucks Yeah.

17:07

The

17:07

incentives are not great. Yeah.

17:10

They're upside

17:10

down and backwards almost universal.

17:13

I

17:13

mean, all across the board. It's just there there

17:15

seems to be a society where

17:17

we're incentivized to be sick and weak.

17:19

And it's it's so weird

17:22

to again, be raising the kid

17:25

where you're trying to teach them, like,

17:27

grit and resilience, and

17:29

those very words are seen

17:31

as, like, you know, our

17:33

dog whistles till, like, white supremacy or something crazy.

17:37

Well, when it brings

17:39

us to

17:40

a topic that I must say I'm very excited to

17:42

talk to you about, and I'm also a bit

17:44

hesitant to talk to you about, especially

17:46

in light of the new chapter

17:49

in your life. In fact, I would

17:51

feel morally obligated not to

17:53

even raise it except that

17:55

you have recently raised it.

17:58

And so I know I know you have

17:59

a degree of comfort with talking about

18:02

this. But

18:03

anyway, the connection here

18:06

is that you say the incentives

18:08

are really screwed

18:10

up and they are. Mhmm. And

18:12

there's one realm in which the incentives

18:14

are particularly screwed up.

18:17

and you wrote about it in an

18:19

essay. i'm

18:20

I regret being a split. I

18:23

regret being a slut was the title

18:25

of the essay. And I must say

18:27

the

18:27

title of the essay broke my heart

18:29

a little

18:30

bit. You

18:32

know, I just it's

18:33

terrible to discover that

18:36

you have been lied to about this topic

18:39

and that it has

18:41

affected the way you've

18:43

lived your life and led to regrets. And

18:45

-- Mhmm. -- let me

18:47

say that you

18:51

you play a

18:51

very special role in the

18:54

universe and it

18:57

stems from an absolutely

19:00

predator natural commitment to

19:03

candor and openness, which I

19:05

really applaud. And

19:07

so I think lots of people,

19:10

lots of women in particular

19:12

have discovered the

19:14

same thing that you

19:16

found and mostly the instinct is to

19:18

move on and not focus on

19:20

it. Right? And just quietly

19:24

harbor the

19:25

the pain. And

19:27

that wasn't your instinct. Your instinct

19:29

was to explore it publicly,

19:31

which I think is great you're

19:33

you're doing a service for young

19:36

women who are trying to understand what to

19:38

think in a world where they are

19:40

being told fictions both

19:42

by people who know that they're wrong

19:44

and people who have misled themselves

19:47

and industries

19:50

that are interested in portraying the

19:52

world in some way other than it is.

19:55

But in any case, your essay struck

19:57

me because heard private

19:59

conversations that tread

20:00

in this topic. I've seen very

20:02

few public explorations of it.

20:04

And I thought I thought it was courageous

20:07

and and admirable. Howard Bauchner:

20:09

Thank

20:09

you. It's a

20:12

piece I've been trying to write,

20:14

honestly, since twenty seventeen.

20:16

a lot of people really thought they were like,

20:19

oh, yeah, marriage and kids will do

20:21

this to you. And I'm like, I was feeling

20:23

this way before I was in a relationship

20:25

or even had kids. And in fact, I actually

20:27

think the weird

20:29

in a in a sad

20:31

yet understandable way when

20:33

I read the drafted that I

20:36

wrote originally. I

20:38

was talking about how I

20:40

was looking for a good relationship

20:43

and I was realizing that I might want kids and that

20:45

is a much sadder version than

20:48

I'm in a healthy relationship and

20:50

I have a child. You know, they've it

20:52

almost makes it a little bit more palatable,

20:56

but but being able to

20:59

for for the reader itself, there

21:01

isn't so much there

21:03

is a little bit of a happy ending

21:05

to my story. I don't know that that's

21:07

a case for everyone, which is

21:09

sad. And hopefully, someone will read this

21:11

and and and they can

21:14

maybe allow me

21:16

to be their cautionary tale.

21:18

But that I think that

21:20

piece would have been a lot harder

21:22

to read in the original version

21:24

that I had written back

21:26

in twenty seventeen. when

21:28

I was really facing a lot of this stuff, mind

21:31

you, I was about

21:32

three or

21:33

four years sober.

21:35

and that is

21:38

partially what led to even

21:40

being able to uncover and

21:42

discover a lot of the the

21:44

feelings that I had. I just wasn't

21:46

numbing out anymore. The

21:48

essay really gets to

21:50

the heart of the matter and it's very

21:53

understandable, comprehensible,

21:56

doesn't surprise me that it it took you

21:58

a while struggling with the

21:59

topic to get to such

22:02

a clear

22:02

presentation. I think the world has

22:05

also I

22:06

know because I've been

22:09

trying to raise

22:11

this question for many years,

22:13

and I know what comes back when

22:15

you do. The world

22:18

is now changing, it is waking up the fact that it has

22:20

made errors about

22:22

sex and sexuality and that

22:24

it isn't as simple as

22:27

you know,

22:29

basically, if

22:31

we demystify sex

22:35

and treat it as just another

22:37

kind of action that things get

22:39

better and people are more

22:41

satisfied that turns out to be nonsense.

22:43

And it isn't as simple as people

22:45

who disagree with that

22:48

perspective are somehow prudes.

22:50

Right? And so anyway, what

22:51

is the question you

22:54

ask when you say you've been asking trying

22:56

to ask this question. What's the question you ask

22:58

and what's the answer that you normally

23:01

receive?

23:02

My

23:04

point

23:06

has been that

23:09

sex is fantastic,

23:12

but it

23:13

is

23:14

a precious commodity. And

23:17

then -- Mhmm. -- if what

23:19

you do is you make

23:21

it commonplace in all

23:23

of the

23:23

ways that you might do

23:26

that, that you

23:26

rob it of its

23:29

power. And then I

23:31

guess my second point is that

23:33

the thing that it does

23:35

in human beings is

23:37

so unique

23:38

that

23:39

to unhook that power

23:42

is incredibly dangerous

23:44

not just to relationship

23:48

building, but also to the way

23:50

civilization works.

23:52

Mhmm. And the

23:54

problem is that sounds, I think, so far, like

23:57

a

23:57

traditional

23:58

additional position.

24:01

Right?

24:01

Like like, Trad.

24:04

my decision is in traditional. Well,

24:07

I

24:07

see to just even

24:09

the one of the and I

24:11

say this in the essay, one of the early

24:13

things that I bucked against about sex

24:16

was that it was presented to

24:18

me as if it was a commodity. And

24:20

so already there's this

24:23

inter you know, there's some

24:25

kind of,

24:27

like, the

24:30

interaction always seems like

24:33

it's your bargaining or

24:35

bartering or it gives this idea

24:37

of like my daughter who has this,

24:39

you know, her virginity and we have

24:41

to keep this commodity as

24:43

as precious as we possibly can.

24:45

And I think in being

24:47

raised Catholic, there's a lot of guilt and

24:50

weirdness around sex as

24:52

well even though they have a million kids,

24:54

which is kind of funny. But

24:56

there was this sense of

24:58

guilt around having sex outside

25:00

of marriage and why not. So I

25:03

feel like that was one of the

25:05

early things I kind of in

25:08

push back against or felt

25:11

felt like I was

25:13

reacting to.

25:14

And

25:16

Yeah. I don't I don't know.

25:19

Maybe maybe it is just a commodity. I'm

25:21

like, that's the way it is. But

25:23

I I think it it gives this it

25:25

gave me the sense that it was

25:27

always transactional, like

25:29

the whole the whole

25:31

dealing around my actuality or

25:33

my sex became a transaction. And

25:37

I think part of me

25:40

initially becoming somewhat

25:42

promiscuous, aside from reacting to

25:44

being sexually

25:47

assaulted, it was also

25:49

just reacting to

25:51

a culture where I felt like it was this

25:54

sex was a transaction and women had to,

25:56

like, protect their commodity

25:58

or they were worthless. So

26:00

it became something that was

26:03

attached to my value in a way that

26:05

I don't think was Great.

26:07

And I know people

26:09

who were raised with, like, healthy

26:12

messages about sex where they did

26:14

not feel that way about sex and they didn't have that.

26:17

So, yeah, I think

26:19

unpacking that as as has

26:21

been challenging for me

26:23

as well. Well, there's

26:24

a lot in there.

26:27

And I would say one

26:30

thing, you know, Heather and I, it's explore

26:32

this a little bit in our book, and we certainly

26:34

talk about it on Dark Horse and,

26:36

you know, off camera.

26:38

But the

26:40

fact is the asymmetry

26:43

between humans,

26:45

the sexual asymmetry is

26:48

utterly profound,

26:49

and he

26:50

is somewhat broken down

26:52

by modern realities.

26:55

Right? The ability to

26:58

control when you produce offspring

27:01

as has reduced the asymmetry

27:04

a little bit And, you know,

27:06

paternity tests have reduced the

27:08

asymmetry in the other

27:10

direction. Right, men -- Mhmm. -- used

27:12

to

27:12

be have every

27:14

reason to be concerned about the

27:17

possibility of being

27:19

lied to about whether an offspring was

27:21

really theirs that -- Mhmm.

27:23

-- that's reducing fatternity testing. Women's

27:26

ability to control when they produce

27:28

offspring means that

27:30

having sex doesn't inherently

27:33

carry the kinds of incredibly

27:35

high stakes that at once did. Yeah.

27:38

But That

27:40

said none of the underlying

27:43

wiring

27:43

was changed by these

27:46

technological facts. And

27:48

so the biggest problem

27:50

with having this discussion is

27:52

that that wiring isn't obvious.

27:55

And the idea that

27:58

effectively the

27:59

the distinction

28:01

in the expectations

28:03

for men and women are the result

28:05

of the powerful people, men

28:08

oppressing women and that we can therefore

28:10

measure whether women have attained equality or

28:12

what fraction of equality they might have

28:15

attained by how

28:17

much of that asymmetry has evaporated.

28:19

And the problem is now that asymmetry

28:21

was biological to begin with,

28:23

it

28:23

is written in deeply,

28:26

and the expectation that it will

28:28

evaporate when we are equal is nonsense.

28:30

And so -- Mhmm. --

28:32

we're sort of caught in this bind

28:34

where to the extent that

28:37

there are still asymmetries

28:40

evident in the expectations of females, people

28:42

are like, oh, yes, that's because we're not we

28:44

haven't achieved the goal. We're still not equal. I

28:46

was like,

28:47

nope. That's critical.

28:48

dynamism hasn't been tried.

28:51

Well

28:51

said, yes, exactly.

28:55

Yeah,

28:55

that's that's something too

28:58

that It's really

29:00

fascinating. One of the things that I

29:02

reacted to was

29:04

the asymmetry that men

29:07

can sleep with whoever they want and they generally get

29:09

applauded as many people women

29:11

do and they're considered a

29:13

slut. I don't think getting

29:15

naked and you

29:17

know, having sex with a lot of men

29:19

has changed any of

29:21

that.

29:21

And perhaps when

29:23

I evaluate how I'm gonna talk to my daughter

29:26

about this,

29:26

And as my therapist always says this to

29:28

me, she's like, I just raised my kids to be

29:30

like, that's just the way it is. And I

29:33

don't know that I've come to any more of

29:35

a conclusion and other than

29:37

which might be disheartening. Yes,

29:39

it's a double standard. Yes,

29:41

it sucks. But that ultimately,

29:44

the only place I've landed at

29:46

this moment that we're we're talking this

29:48

might evolve is like, yeah, that's

29:50

just the way it is.

29:53

That's unfortunately the

29:55

way it is. And I don't

29:57

I don't really know. I'd like your thoughts

29:59

on that. that. Yeah. Well, I think the

30:02

truth is both more horrible and a lot

30:04

better than -- Okay. --

30:06

that suggests. Here

30:09

here's the you know, let's

30:11

just

30:11

be honest about

30:13

this. The game

30:16

theory

30:16

surrounding the

30:18

distinction between the sexes is

30:21

pretty well understood in

30:24

the realm of pathology and

30:26

astrology study of animal behavior

30:28

and the study of human

30:30

deltas. Mhmm. This

30:32

isn't that complex. It's incredibly

30:36

strange and counterintuitive, which is

30:38

why it's not well known and

30:40

public. But why

30:42

the asymmetry is there is pretty

30:44

obvious. And how it

30:46

can play out is mostly obvious to

30:49

if you know kind of where to

30:52

stand. But here's one of the things that

30:54

people I think don't don't

30:56

really grasp. this

30:57

system in

30:59

which sex is

31:03

commonplace and

31:05

commodified.

31:06

isn't

31:07

good for men either. Now

31:09

there's one caveat I have to

31:11

give you, which is that for

31:15

very

31:15

powerful men.

31:17

Right?

31:17

Like, really wealthy men. It's

31:20

arguably evolutionarily positive.

31:23

doesn't mean they're happy, but it does

31:26

mean that for those at the very

31:28

top of the mailmaking hierarchy,

31:30

there's an argument that the system

31:33

is functional. for almost everybody

31:35

else, it's bad.

31:37

And so -- Yeah. -- the oh, go

31:40

ahead.

31:40

No. It just reminds me of

31:43

for some reason, it reminded me

31:45

of these polygamous

31:48

societies where there would be one kind

31:50

of man who had lots of

31:52

women. And then I was reading somewhere

31:54

that, you know,

31:57

Fidelity, and being

31:59

with one person kind

32:01

of evolved just because and

32:03

I don't I could be totally about

32:05

this, but these men who had these all these

32:07

women were realizing that there were all these men who

32:09

were unhappy and jealous and they had

32:12

to basically share the

32:14

women in order to

32:16

keep keep the the the

32:18

people happy. So I don't know if this

32:20

is true or not, but there

32:22

there there was something that I was reading about

32:24

this and people always think that

32:27

they'll be the guy with all the

32:29

women you know, in in a situation

32:31

like that when more often than

32:33

not, there'll be the guy who

32:35

is not with any of the women. There'll

32:37

be one of the ones on the out scarred.

32:40

So, yeah, that's that's interesting

32:42

when I extrapolate that to

32:44

now and you have these incredibly powerful

32:48

wealthy men. and

32:49

there's a lot

32:50

of men. I mean, this is

32:52

playing out I think in China in in

32:55

even more advanced ways

32:57

than it is here in the United States.

33:00

Well, there's a huge

33:01

mystery surrounding China and

33:03

the one Paula one child policy, which

33:05

I'll come back to you shortly because it's

33:08

important. But let's

33:10

put it this way. The

33:12

story that the powerful

33:14

men who were

33:17

monopolizing the reproductive and

33:21

sexual lives

33:22

of multiple women decided

33:24

to share the wealth. That

33:26

doesn't

33:26

really sound like men, frankly. And

33:28

Yeah. It doesn't. Right.

33:31

So I think there's a much So why

33:33

did monogamy evolve?

33:36

Alright. Well, maybe you better sit down

33:38

for this. This is, I

33:40

think, not like Abe. here's

33:43

the here's what

33:45

my hypothesis for, which I'm this

33:47

is a long standing hypothesis that

33:49

so far matches everything that I've seen in

33:51

red, so I'm pretty confident

33:53

about it. The

33:55

fact is

33:57

that

33:58

monogamy is an adaptation

34:00

to certain environments.

34:03

Those environments are ones

34:05

in which your population is

34:07

expanding. And the reason

34:09

that monogamy and population expansion go together is

34:11

that human infants as you're

34:13

discovering are tremendously labor

34:15

intensive to raise.

34:18

So

34:18

Crazy. How

34:19

did we survive as a species? I

34:21

don't understand other than, like, mother's love.

34:23

I do not I I looked

34:25

at that baby like, how

34:27

did we make it this far?

34:30

Well,

34:30

the answer is

34:32

that the

34:33

number of

34:35

offspring that an

34:36

individual or a population can produce is

34:40

limited by the amount of adult

34:42

effort that can be put into

34:46

feeding and raising the children. So if you

34:48

have a system in which one

34:52

guy has

34:54

many wives,

34:56

As long as every woman is married,

34:58

it doesn't matter how many husbands

35:00

are involved in terms of how many

35:03

fetuses

35:03

can be produced.

35:04

But in terms of how many babies

35:07

can be raised in a year, the

35:09

thing that's limiting is how

35:11

many males are brought into the process of child

35:13

rearing, and males who are not

35:15

involved in producing the offspring at

35:17

a sexual level are

35:19

not incentivized to contribute to the raising

35:22

of offspring. So if your

35:24

population

35:24

is

35:26

expanding,

35:27

then then the limitation

35:29

on how rapidly it can expand

35:31

and therefore how competitive it can be

35:33

against another expanding pop relation

35:36

is how many adult males

35:38

are incentivized to help

35:40

raise offspring. Monogamy maximizes

35:44

that. Interesting. But here's the problem. And the reason that

35:46

I said you probably should be sitting down

35:48

is that the prediction of that

35:52

hypothesis is that at the point

35:54

that your populations are no longer expanding, monogamy breaks down,

35:56

and that's where I think we

35:58

are.

35:59

And

36:00

so the then is oh, go

36:03

ahead. Sorry. Is this

36:04

is this,

36:05

like, the birth

36:08

rates collapsing in certain places? Well, let's

36:10

put it this way.

36:11

The birth rates collapsing in certain places

36:13

is the result of a number

36:15

of different phenomena lining

36:18

up. One is that we have reached

36:20

the place where the planet, yeah, we could

36:22

technically get it to produce more resource,

36:24

so we could pack more people onto

36:28

it. But we're outstripping the

36:30

capacity of the planet

36:32

to house

36:34

us well. And so

36:36

effectively we've run up against what we call carrying

36:38

capacity. And so it's natural

36:40

that populations will plateau when

36:42

you reach carrying capacity. Most populations are

36:44

there most of the time. But the other

36:46

thing that has happened

36:48

with humans is that we have

36:52

gained conscious control over when to

36:54

produce babies, and we have

36:56

separated it from the having

36:58

of sex. And so sex

37:00

is this It's

37:02

the

37:03

most potent motivator in

37:05

the universe, at least

37:08

for men. It is differently motivating for

37:10

women. But the point

37:12

is the ability to

37:14

gain access to

37:16

that motivational thing

37:18

without the consequence of it

37:20

is means that human beings

37:22

are now in a position to decide,

37:24

well, I still want to but

37:26

I don't want the babies. Right? Right.

37:28

And so those two things carrying capacity and

37:32

conscious control over when to

37:34

produce offspring is resulting

37:36

in these

37:37

plateaus. But then

37:39

the consequence is Okay?

37:40

You go from a period in

37:43

which the majority of human cultures and

37:45

the majority of people on

37:48

earth belonged

37:48

to cultures that were monogamous. And

37:50

that's now coming apart,

37:52

and we lie to ourselves about

37:54

it. Right? We

37:55

say, oh, you know,

37:58

we have a

37:59

serially monogamous culture. Well,

38:02

serially monogamy is a

38:04

garbage term. serial

38:04

monogamy is really serial polygyny. Right?

38:08

Right. Right. It is one man re

38:10

dominating the reproductive output of multiple

38:14

women in succession. Right? Right. So

38:16

anyway,

38:16

we have the breakdown

38:17

of the system, but the punch line

38:19

of the story is

38:21

that monogamy

38:22

actually turns out to be

38:24

the best system for all kinds of

38:26

reasons that have nothing to do with population expansion.

38:29

It's you the fairest system. It

38:32

is the least violent system.

38:34

It is the most productive system.

38:38

it is the most incentivizing of innovation. And

38:41

so all of these

38:43

things, you know, and buried in

38:45

there is it is the

38:48

least likely to lead to war because

38:50

a population in which you have a bunch of

38:52

unmated males is one in

38:54

which the powerful

38:55

males who do have mates

38:58

are incentivized to arm that population and send it

39:00

over a border to go find some profit

39:03

somewhere. And those sexually

39:06

frustrated unattached men have an

39:08

interest in going over a border where they

39:10

might, you know, who knows, come home with a

39:12

wife or whatever terrible

39:14

thing might happen. I don't mean coming

39:16

home with the wife is terrible, but lots of terrible

39:18

stuff happens in war -- Right. -- without

39:20

me sex. And

39:20

so anyway my point would be, we humans, if we look at

39:23

the values that we claim

39:24

to hold, should want to preserve

39:26

monogamy. Right?

39:29

You should want monogamy to be the system because it's just

39:31

better for everybody. Mhmm. And to have

39:33

it break down because we're

39:35

now running up

39:38

against plateau and our population isn't expanding, which is the thing

39:40

that makes monogamy work,

39:42

is tragedy for all

39:45

of us. Mhmm. So

39:48

anyway, I think that's the

39:50

answer to the question. Right? Monogomy is

39:53

for increasing the number

39:55

of babies successfully raised and the

39:57

logic of the system is now just

39:59

breaking

39:59

apart. Howard Bauchner: And when

40:01

you say that that,

40:03

you know, everyone kind of knows the game

40:05

theory for sex. What

40:08

what is that for those

40:10

reasons that it's asymmetrical and and

40:14

why

40:14

why why is

40:16

that Well,

40:18

let me present it this way.

40:20

I I think I think this is

40:22

the most reasonable logical way

40:25

to see it. women have one

40:28

reproductive strategy. Right? The

40:30

intensity of

40:31

the relationship between mother and

40:33

offspring and the fact

40:36

that short of hiring

40:38

wet nurses and people to

40:40

raise your children, even a

40:42

woman who's in a

40:43

position to do that is

40:45

still obligated to nine months of

40:48

sharing a body, you

40:50

know,

40:50

with an outbreak. Yeah. So

40:53

the

40:53

intensity of that relationship. Right?

40:55

Nine months of gestation, plus

40:58

however many years of lactation,

41:00

plus all of the

41:02

helplessness that basically obligates mothers to continue to

41:04

invest in their offspring. That is a

41:06

gigantic expense.

41:08

Right? In its evolutionary fitness

41:12

terms, the investment that goes into one offspring is through

41:14

the roof. Yeah. k? So

41:16

that's why women have one strategy, and

41:19

that strategy involves you produce an

41:21

offspring, you invest heavily in it to get it to reboot on

41:24

debate. Men have two

41:28

broad categories. k? There's one category in

41:30

which they do exactly what I've just

41:32

described or not exactly, but almost

41:34

exactly. They

41:36

invest completely in their

41:39

offspring.

41:39

Right? Because that's

41:41

what

41:41

makes those offspring likely to

41:44

reach

41:46

reproductive age. Now

41:46

when men are in that mindset,

41:48

where they're investing completely

41:50

in their offspring, they are

41:52

not the same as women. They have different

41:55

concerns. They fear sexual infidelity

41:57

of their spouses more because

41:59

they

41:59

have more to lose,

42:02

etcetera. But they are very similar

42:04

to women. Right? They are similarly

42:06

choosy, similarly

42:07

committed. Right? All the best

42:09

things about men

42:12

are connected to that strategy where they are heavily

42:14

invested in their offspring and their offspring's

42:16

well-being and their offspring's protection,

42:20

etcetera. and

42:20

have another stretch. And that involves producing

42:22

offspring

42:23

for which

42:24

they take no responsibility.

42:27

Right. Now if

42:29

you compare the

42:31

cost

42:33

of strategy one, total

42:35

investment in your offspring so that they reach

42:37

reproductive age? I mean, what does it cost a

42:39

man to raise a

42:41

child? Right? It's eighteen years

42:43

of being

42:45

thoroughly dedicated. Right? Yeah.

42:47

Compare that to

42:51

I don't know, fifteen minutes

42:54

of commitment and then, you

42:56

know, walking away walking

42:58

Yeah.

42:58

Fifteen minutes

42:58

of commitment and walking away is

43:01

a huge bargain. And

43:03

the point is, this is the

43:05

bitter pill of all of

43:07

this. when a man is

43:10

sexually

43:11

attracted to a woman

43:14

in a way that

43:15

does not in his mind, include

43:18

the

43:18

potential for a commitment to her.

43:20

Right? It's one thing to be madly,

43:22

passionately in love with somebody and

43:24

wanna go to bed with them. It's

43:27

another thing to wanna go to bed with them and not wanna

43:29

see them the next day. That

43:33

is a

43:35

very,

43:37

I mean,

43:38

imagine just as an abstract

43:41

the somewhere

43:44

situation. A

43:44

man sees a woman. He finds her very attractive. He wants to go to bed

43:46

with her, but he's not really interested in their relationship.

43:50

Let's

43:51

say for whatever reason, she

43:53

says yes, and let's say that a

43:55

baby is

43:56

result the

43:58

result.

43:58

She's stuck.

43:59

Okay. Yeah. She

44:01

effectively has to make that same investment

44:03

that she would make even if this person had

44:05

committed to her. Right?

44:06

And she has no help now. so

44:09

it's even bigger. She had now asked to cover

44:11

for him because he vanished. He

44:13

just got a

44:15

similar level of payoff

44:18

evolutionarily as if he had committed to this

44:20

woman to produce this offspring and raise

44:22

it together.

44:24

for effectively

44:24

no investment at all. Right.

44:27

So

44:27

that bargain is so profound that

44:29

even though it would have

44:32

been rare, in the past for any woman to allow a

44:34

man to go to bed with her without evidence

44:36

of commitment.

44:38

Right?

44:38

The

44:39

point is men are on the lookout for

44:41

that opportunity because the bargain is so

44:44

big. Right.

44:44

Now here's

44:45

the problem. now introduce

44:48

birth control into the situation, women

44:50

start behaving differently, so

44:52

sex without

44:54

commitment becomes increasingly

44:54

common. Now men can't think of

44:56

anything else. Why would you commit

44:58

in a world where there's nothing

45:01

but evolutionary bargains that That's

45:03

how they feel.

45:05

right Right. Whether they know they

45:07

feel that way or not. Right.

45:09

right And

45:10

the problem is that

45:12

a

45:12

world in which people spend time where men are they

45:15

feel like they're gangis

45:16

calm. Right? Having sex with

45:18

all of these women and not

45:22

being expected to commit to

45:24

them. Right? And women think women

45:26

are not even wrong. They're they're

45:30

correct that they have to behave this way in order to get the

45:32

attention of men because men are so distracted

45:34

by these delightful opportunities

45:38

that expect nothing of them. Yeah. And the point is

45:40

it's it's a cluster fuck. It just No.

45:42

It is. It

45:43

is. Like, I I mean,

45:45

I I said this, in

45:47

my video where I read it because I read

45:49

the piece and put it on YouTube.

45:52

Because so many people were putting it. It's amazing

45:54

like what gets put on something like this

45:56

as everyone starts projecting their

45:58

own like, the men's rights

46:00

activist entered the chat and

46:02

yeah. I mean, it's

46:05

not fun. You know, it's it's I knew that that would

46:07

happen when I put it out there, but

46:09

it's it's inevitably a lot

46:11

of people start putting things like,

46:13

oh, she's almost there, you know, maybe if

46:15

you understand, like, this is all about God and you

46:18

have marriage in Europe.

46:20

Like, there's

46:22

there's been up, but one of

46:24

the things that I talked about in

46:26

discussing this was that

46:28

I know more good

46:30

women, like brilliant, amazing women who know that they

46:32

can't have sex

46:34

just like a man. They can't

46:37

just have meaningless sex. They know

46:39

that about themselves, and they are not even competing in the dating market

46:42

because they can't. And

46:44

these are the best women

46:47

like, the best women nurturing,

46:50

loving, intelligent, like,

46:52

the the best women that I

46:54

know and they're sitting on the sidelines

46:58

single because it's how

47:00

do you even go on Tinder or compete?

47:02

And people will say, well, they should go

47:06

look for you know, somebody, like,

47:08

on match or somewhere like that or

47:10

it's it's not impossible, but I

47:12

just think it it does like you

47:14

said, it's

47:16

a cluster there's And then you have this whole population of

47:18

men who are ultimately

47:20

angry because they feel like

47:22

that kind of top twenty percent

47:26

are getting all of the women,

47:28

which is in fact probably

47:32

true. And I don't know what

47:34

to do about that either

47:36

because my instinct is like,

47:38

well, man up and

47:40

and, like, stop

47:42

whining about it. Just

47:44

but I'm I'm not I don't

47:46

really know. I feel like there's

47:49

when there's a very angry population of men in a

47:51

lot of different countries in the world right now

47:53

that feel like they got

47:56

the shaft the shaft This

47:58

is absolutely right,

47:59

and they're

48:00

they're, you know, they're

48:03

not even well. And

48:05

that anger, weirdly, isn't

48:07

at other men. It's a it

48:09

often gets directed at

48:11

women. Right. Which This

48:13

is

48:15

why I I

48:17

call myself an equal

48:19

opportunity sludge shaver. Right?

48:20

I feel like this this you know, the

48:23

problem with slab shaming is that

48:24

it's

48:26

asymmetrical the symmetrical Right? Yeah. Wendy's,

48:28

look, you've got a society

48:30

that is behaving in a

48:32

slutty way that's bad for

48:34

everybody. Yeah. That's bad

48:35

for everyone.

48:37

It's bad for everyone. And the

48:40

solution, unfortunately, look,

48:42

I have talked back when I was

48:44

a college professor. This came up a lot,

48:46

and I to a lot of young women who were

48:49

despairing of exactly this puzzle. Right? You've

48:51

got two choices. You can

48:54

either

48:54

anti up

48:56

and

48:56

basically get mail attention

48:58

but not be able to keep it

49:00

because the men are distracted

49:03

and effectively adolescent. Right?

49:06

Or you can opt out and be alone. Right? Neither

49:09

of those is good choices.

49:12

So

49:12

so I

49:14

do think there is an answer to this puzzle,

49:16

but

49:16

it's not an answer that an

49:18

individual woman can avail

49:22

herself of. Right?

49:23

The answer involves the

49:26

recognition that

49:28

this system not

49:30

only is it bad for everybody, but it's not

49:33

making

49:33

anybody happy. Right? Sex is

49:35

easier to come by than it

49:37

has ever been. But sexual

49:41

satisfaction is

49:42

actually now a rare commodity.

49:44

Right? Yeah. Right?

49:45

You've basically got a bunch of

49:47

addicts who are getting a fix, but

49:49

it's a very low quality fix. Yeah. So

49:52

the solution involves

49:54

the recognition, hey,

49:57

If I go down that road, then

49:59

the

49:59

I'm not going to be

50:02

happy. And what I would like to

50:04

do is opt into a

50:06

community of people that agrees together not

50:08

to go down that route. Right.

50:09

Right. Now

50:10

I think that actually not

50:13

only is that the right

50:15

game theoretic solution to the puzzle,

50:17

but it's also self

50:22

catalyzing because to the extent that people know that they're unhappy, and

50:24

there's some community of people that has

50:26

agreed to make

50:28

rules that are sensible and

50:31

those people begin to experience a much

50:34

greater level of satisfaction

50:36

because

50:39

they, you know,

50:41

basically

50:41

opting out together,

50:44

then the point is that's the community you wanna be

50:46

in. Right? Right. So I think it would spread

50:48

like wildfire caught on.

50:50

And the real question

50:52

is,

50:52

you know, what

50:53

exactly are the rules that you

50:55

would wanna post at the

50:57

door? would, you know,

51:00

cause people to behave in a way that

51:02

yes would mean that they got

51:04

laid a lot

51:06

less often. at least until they were attached,

51:08

but that would make

51:10

those instances

51:13

vastly more pleasurable and meaningful

51:16

and would result in the production

51:18

of relationships that were

51:20

on a solid foundation. Well,

51:22

some of it, I think and, you know, I have to give

51:24

a shout out to Louise Perry who wrote

51:26

the book that Casey Against

51:29

the Sexual Revolution, which really

51:32

me frame this piece and I think is

51:34

such a brave book.

51:36

And she has a great chapter about

51:38

her dads or dads. And I know

51:40

a lot lots of cats. I've been

51:43

I've I've been friends with lots

51:45

of them and obviously I have dated

51:47

lots of cats and they're

51:49

older now and I see, you know, they

51:51

they were the guys who were, like, the

51:54

high value men on

51:56

these dating sites or

51:58

wherever. And

51:59

wherever

51:59

the they're

52:00

kind of lonely now. You

52:03

know, it's there's something sad about

52:05

it at this point. And They

52:08

didn't have kids. And I think she makes the case

52:11

for incentivizing dads, being a

52:13

dad. And I think also

52:16

incentivizing motherhood. You know, it's

52:18

another thing that's become something

52:21

that I remember interviewing. I've

52:23

been thinking about this for a

52:25

long when I was doing so

52:27

many so many things

52:29

have formed helped me form the evolution

52:31

on a lot of this. being a

52:33

writer playboy was one of them. I was asked to go cover a

52:35

free the nipoll rally,

52:38

which I was kinda like, yeah,

52:40

this is ship. Why can't

52:42

women have their nipples out? I they

52:44

do it in France. They don't this is a puritanical

52:46

American thing. Well, I

52:48

get to the event and it's a

52:50

young teenage girl who's like just eighteen

52:52

who's running this event. I thought it was

52:54

gonna be the woman who was behind it

52:57

and she was present but

52:59

the woman who organized this whole thing was like

53:01

this young girl on the Santa Monica

53:04

beach with all of her friends who

53:06

are like just barely eighteen, barely

53:08

legal. And they're on

53:10

the beach freeing their nipple.

53:12

And I was

53:14

going with I went in with kind of

53:16

one impression of what I thought, but immediately I was like, and then there was

53:18

this guy wandering around a fucking

53:22

creeper clearly like a pedo taking pictures. And

53:24

I was like, excuse me,

53:26

is anyone gonna do anything about this?

53:28

And I was like, oh, hell no. Put your

53:30

nipples away.

53:32

Like, I immediately went mama bear. I was telling

53:34

the girl who was who was associated with this.

53:36

I'm like, you need to do something around I'm

53:39

gonna. This is like, into

53:41

her credit, she went up to him and told him to,

53:43

like, go away with this freaking camera.

53:45

It was it was so fascinating. I

53:47

went back to my head of the veteran. I

53:49

said, okay. Well, I have a completely different feeling about

53:51

this now that I've gone to this event. And he's

53:54

like, yeah, that's called being a journalist, like

53:56

a a good journalist. You go into

53:58

an

53:59

event and You

54:00

might have your mind changed about things. And I ended up becoming friends

54:02

with the young girl, and I interviewed three

54:06

generations of

54:06

feminists, her her mother and grandmother.

54:10

And the grandmother was talking about how she felt like there was something

54:12

to be said for modesty, but something

54:14

the mother said really stuck out

54:18

she

54:18

was of that generation

54:20

that came of age around the sexual

54:22

revolution and all the women were

54:24

going to work and she had her

54:27

teacher, a professor that she

54:30

admired, that was the woman

54:32

who taught her all about feminism and they all

54:34

got together for

54:36

a dinner and all the women were talking about. She chose to be a

54:38

stay at home mom. And this professor

54:40

that she idolized basically

54:42

was asking all the women what they were doing

54:44

and when they got to

54:46

her. And she said she

54:48

chose to be a stay at home mom. She just

54:50

skipped right over her and never talked to

54:52

her about it. And they said

54:54

she was treated like a second

54:56

class citizen. And I feel like that has

54:58

only accelerated since, you know,

55:00

this is probably in the sixty

55:03

or probably seventies. And that's

55:06

really that feeling has only

55:08

accelerated of, like, motherhood almost

55:10

being looked down upon. and something

55:12

that you you choose if you're like a

55:14

trad wife or that's something

55:16

for those religious conservative

55:18

women are people.

55:20

So I think that

55:22

we've lost the incentivizing

55:26

motherhood and

55:28

fatherhood and being a mom and dad is kind something

55:30

we can that would start to

55:32

encourage this the rules

55:36

that you ARE TALKING ABOUT? YES, WE HAVE

55:38

EVOTIONARILY LOST THE

55:38

PLOT. I MEAN, QUITE

55:41

OBVIOUSLY, RIGHT, IF MOTHERHOOD AND

55:43

FATHERHOOD ARE NOW uncooled

55:46

what exactly you're doing on this

55:48

planet. Right? And we live

55:49

in a time where you can't even say

55:51

mom or dad anyway. I mean, even

55:53

more bananas than just

55:55

like, oh, take that's I mean, it's a

55:57

whole other conversation, but take away the fact

55:59

that

55:59

we're looking at moms and dads in a

56:02

different way. Now you can't even say

56:04

mom or dad because, like,

56:06

male and female don't exist it's

56:08

it's it's I

56:10

don't know. I don't know how to I

56:12

wrote the sentence saying it it ends up I

56:14

mean, and, like, these rabbit hole

56:16

conversations where you're trying to

56:18

untangle some kind of

56:20

knot that has no beginning in

56:22

her hand.

56:23

Oh, by design, no. I mean,

56:25

and that's the thing, Bridgette,

56:28

is

56:29

if you

56:31

agree that it is

56:31

your responsibility

56:35

to explain what

56:37

males and females are Right?

56:40

You've lost. At the point that you agree

56:42

that that's your job,

56:44

it's over. Yeah. We have

56:46

to start saying, look, Certain things

56:48

are true. If mother and

56:50

fatherhood are now uncool, we fucked

56:52

up. We have to go backwards and

56:54

figure out where they started being

56:56

uncool, and we gotta take the

56:58

other the other path. Right?

57:00

Male, male, a female exist,

57:02

motherhood and fatherhood

57:04

are essential. They have to be done well. We've made that job very

57:06

difficult. That's a problem. I

57:08

would also point out at the level you

57:10

were talking

57:12

about CAD's I will

57:14

say,

57:15

the

57:16

I don't

57:18

think I have a single

57:20

male friend male friend Who

57:22

is a cat?

57:24

I don't think so. And I

57:26

didn't It's not like I

57:28

actively chose against them.

57:31

But I think the problem is

57:34

that there is

57:35

something about that

57:37

approach to life.

57:39

that is so

57:40

so distorting

57:42

of normal

57:43

thinking and normal values

57:45

that those people just

57:47

didn't end up

57:48

the having much to

57:51

offer, which

57:51

I think is all allude to another

57:53

part of this. So

57:57

again, I haven't yet said why my view is

57:59

not

57:59

a

57:59

traditional view. It's really it's

58:02

a radically distinct

58:06

and new view. It's not a traditional view,

58:08

but it has it recognizes a lot

58:10

of the

58:12

traditional elements. But

58:13

the point is imagine

58:16

the past,

58:17

right, where we didn't have reliable

58:20

birth control.

58:22

And therefore, the act of having sex with

58:24

someone carried a

58:26

substantial risk

58:26

of producing an offspring that would then

58:28

be a burden. That's a world in which

58:32

women for obvious reasons are

58:34

extremely choosy about who they go to bed

58:36

with. Right? Mhmm. For just

58:38

really obvious

58:40

reasons, because the point is they have everything to lose in that interaction.

58:43

And so that's

58:45

also where courtship and romance

58:47

come from these things are

58:50

basically, you know, a CAD can't

58:52

pass a six month or

58:54

a year long test

58:57

of their commitment. Right? They're looking for a bargain and

58:59

that's not a bargain. So all of these things

59:02

that we knew were

59:04

important and valuable in

59:06

the past. our downstream

59:08

of that very high

59:10

stakes world. But in

59:14

that world, women demanded a tremendous

59:16

amount of men. Right? In

59:18

order to be

59:19

worthy of a sexual relationship

59:21

with a desirable woman,

59:24

men moved

59:24

mountains -- Right. -- and

59:26

put other men on the moon. Right?

59:30

Right. We chewed

59:32

amazing things. And

59:34

I don't wanna trivialize what

59:36

that was. But in part,

59:39

being good men so that

59:42

women would look favorably

59:44

upon you and consider spending

59:46

their life with you. that

59:48

created a tremendous amount of

59:50

the best kind of motivation to

59:53

achieve real things that

59:55

mattered to be very decent

59:58

to be likable, all of

1:00:00

these things. And by unhooking

1:00:04

that system, we

1:00:04

basically removed the

1:00:07

underlying logic that caused

1:00:09

people to achieve

1:00:12

and to strive

1:00:14

and to hold themselves

1:00:16

to high standards. And

1:00:18

so

1:00:18

I don't think we will

1:00:21

ever know the full

1:00:22

harm of

1:00:24

what seemed

1:00:25

like a sophistication, which is, oh,

1:00:27

we got over it. You

1:00:29

know, sex is just another thing we do.

1:00:31

Right? That

1:00:32

change basically altered

1:00:35

the

1:00:35

landscape of how

1:00:38

humans function around each

1:00:40

other and not for the

1:00:42

better.

1:00:42

So

1:00:43

in reestablishing

1:00:46

reasonable rules, We are

1:00:48

really talking about bootstrapping

1:00:50

our way to a new world in which

1:00:52

things again make sense. And it will not be

1:00:54

the old world because birth control isn't going

1:00:56

anywhere nor should it. It has

1:00:58

been a tremendous benefit. But

1:01:00

--

1:01:00

Yeah. -- it came with cost we didn't

1:01:02

see. Howard Bauchner: Yeah.

1:01:03

I mean, that's that's what I

1:01:05

wonder is if there isn't Because

1:01:07

I hear from so many young women and

1:01:10

that younger generation statistically

1:01:14

from what everything says is having a lot less

1:01:16

sex. Like, for the first time

1:01:18

since the sexual

1:01:20

revolution, this

1:01:22

sex the younger generation is happening is less than

1:01:24

the generation before them. And

1:01:26

so I don't know if

1:01:29

that's a reaction to what they're seeing

1:01:32

or my theory is that everyone is just

1:01:34

addicted to their phone and they're getting

1:01:36

their dopamine and they're

1:01:38

just distracted

1:01:40

out swear. But I it does seem like

1:01:42

young women are looking around and

1:01:44

seeing women like me and a lot

1:01:47

of women who I mean, they

1:01:50

grew up in the Me Too era. There's there's definitely I

1:01:54

and also, all consent

1:01:56

and the I mean, there's

1:01:58

a lot of men are terrified to

1:02:00

say the wrong thing or the right thing and

1:02:03

you're using apps to try

1:02:05

and navigate awkward sexual

1:02:08

interactions. I think that there's

1:02:10

so many things that are influencing, you know,

1:02:12

people's sex drive just

1:02:14

going down or they're not having

1:02:16

it anymore

1:02:19

But part of it too is there's

1:02:21

not that titillation.

1:02:24

You know, there isn't that for

1:02:26

all you wanna say I mean, I threw around,

1:02:28

like, the kind of puritanical roots of our country, but say what you

1:02:30

will about the heroines. They were having

1:02:32

a lot of sex. Right?

1:02:35

Well, Anne And

1:02:36

they had a lot of children.

1:02:38

The irony

1:02:40

isn't

1:02:41

it's not even that hard

1:02:44

to see, that when sex is difficult to

1:02:50

to attain

1:02:52

It

1:02:52

is fantastically rewarding. Mhmm. And

1:02:54

what we've done

1:02:55

is we've turned it into its junk

1:02:57

sex. The equivalent of junk food is

1:02:59

just not that good. Right?

1:03:01

Mhmm. And so, no, it's not a surprise that that is

1:03:04

interfering with people's motivation.

1:03:06

I will also say, that

1:03:09

porn is playing a role here that I think

1:03:11

we need to highlight

1:03:14

because it it is distorting

1:03:16

what people think sex is

1:03:18

in a way that is

1:03:21

most

1:03:21

harmful. Yeah. Definitely. And

1:03:23

again, this is something

1:03:25

porn that I

1:03:28

and I'm I'm not like some huge anti porn

1:03:30

person, I I don't think, yet,

1:03:32

but it is something that I've heard

1:03:34

from men when

1:03:36

I was working a playboy. They struggle with it. It it

1:03:38

affected their marriages. It affected

1:03:40

their relationships. It affected their

1:03:42

relationship to their

1:03:44

own sexuality. it's

1:03:46

obviously affecting women. Women

1:03:48

are having terrifying sexual

1:03:50

interactions where they're getting choked or

1:03:53

bank or all these things that guys think are

1:03:55

normal because they've been watching porn

1:03:58

and it's or women are

1:03:59

doing these. things because they would feel like they need to, which

1:04:02

is even more upsetting

1:04:04

because that's what's

1:04:06

expected

1:04:06

and it's

1:04:09

yeah. I mean, talk about another cluster fact, but

1:04:11

it does seem like

1:04:14

what's interest thing

1:04:16

to me though about porn is that, you know, you about sex

1:04:18

kind of being this motivator for

1:04:21

for human

1:04:22

progress.

1:04:24

And

1:04:24

and the Internet itself

1:04:27

evolved around sex. Like

1:04:30

-- Yeah. --

1:04:30

it is. -- sex and cat

1:04:34

videos. Alright. I'm gonna take a crack

1:04:36

at trying to turn you into

1:04:38

a vehemently anti born

1:04:40

person. And I heard you and

1:04:42

clear. And I know I think why you are

1:04:44

reluctant to go there, but I also think this

1:04:46

is one of these cases where the

1:04:50

solution

1:04:51

is staring us more or less

1:04:54

in

1:04:54

the face

1:04:56

and we just don't see

1:04:58

it because we're we've been traumatized by

1:05:00

what happens when you begin to explore

1:05:02

the question of whether

1:05:04

porn might not be Right? You,

1:05:06

of course, get accused of all kinds

1:05:09

of things, whom, you know, some

1:05:11

surreousness and prudishness and all

1:05:13

of the usual usual

1:05:15

attacks Let me just say for my own

1:05:18

part, you

1:05:18

know, I've had to

1:05:20

figure out how to navigate this topic

1:05:22

with my my two sons

1:05:24

who, of course, encounter this stuff in the world, and

1:05:26

they are, of course, sixteen

1:05:28

and eighteen. And so, you

1:05:30

know, they're also trying to

1:05:34

figure out sexuality and it, you know,

1:05:36

this worries me a ton. In

1:05:38

fact, I think it is fair to

1:05:40

say that

1:05:42

were my I I would be less

1:05:45

troubled. I would be thoroughly troubled,

1:05:47

but I would be less

1:05:50

troubled if my kids ended up

1:05:52

in trouble with

1:05:55

heavy drugs, then

1:05:58

addicted to porn that I think it's that

1:05:59

dangerous. Mhmm.

1:06:02

But here's

1:06:02

here's what I think we're missing.

1:06:06

is that we have been we have because

1:06:08

we've been

1:06:09

told that pornography is not

1:06:11

definable, you know. I

1:06:13

don't know what pornography is, but I know when I see

1:06:16

it. That when

1:06:18

we say there's something

1:06:21

wrong with porn we are actually saying it's

1:06:23

not okay to have

1:06:27

erotic content. Right. Yeah. I

1:06:29

don't think it's true at all.

1:06:32

So I draw the following distinction.

1:06:34

I think erotica is

1:06:37

an ancient valid

1:06:38

an important form. And

1:06:40

I don't wanna see anything

1:06:43

the

1:06:44

block the

1:06:48

exploration erotic exploration. Yeah. That said,

1:06:50

some of it may be in bad taste,

1:06:52

some of it may be destructive, but

1:06:54

it is a valid form.

1:06:56

is a valid for

1:06:58

that

1:06:58

the thing that makes pornography different, the

1:07:00

way that we should mentally define

1:07:02

it even if it's difficult in

1:07:06

practice to

1:07:06

the

1:07:08

to utilize this definition

1:07:10

is that when profit

1:07:12

is the motive that has

1:07:13

caused the

1:07:17

the

1:07:17

particular piece of content to

1:07:19

be produced, that's

1:07:21

porn. Right? So in other

1:07:23

words, erotica

1:07:26

is art. Right. Monography is an economic

1:07:28

phenomenon. And Yeah.

1:07:30

I mean, I definitely

1:07:32

have

1:07:34

struggled and run into this on my own

1:07:36

as as I'm being

1:07:38

called out by men rights

1:07:42

activist, even just today before we got

1:07:44

on, somebody posted a

1:07:46

picture that I had posted to of

1:07:48

me and, like, not naked. It was like

1:07:50

in lingerie being like you'd saying something to

1:07:52

someone about how they didn't get to

1:07:55

define me. And I

1:07:58

as if they're like, this is

1:07:59

the same

1:07:59

person who wrote this slut piece, but I

1:08:02

I'm like, I don't that's

1:08:04

so that's a separate thing entirely

1:08:08

for me. that wasn't the my behavior of sleeping with

1:08:10

men is different

1:08:12

than my, like, tasteful

1:08:15

noods that I put it out

1:08:17

into the world and wasn't even, you know, it's just like my own exploration of my

1:08:19

sexuality, etcetera. I

1:08:24

I another awkward conversation I'll have to

1:08:26

have in the future. But it I don't feel the same way. When I see that picture,

1:08:28

I don't feel

1:08:31

ashamed. I was like, am.

1:08:33

I looked amazing. Well, so I

1:08:34

would say, you know, what you've just suggested about

1:08:37

your motivation for

1:08:40

producing it suggests

1:08:42

it falls very clearly on

1:08:44

the erotic side and not

1:08:46

the pornography pornography. There's

1:08:47

a space. There has to

1:08:49

be a space for you know, sensuality

1:08:51

and the erotic. And we can't

1:08:54

just, like, cut that out.

1:08:56

And I think this is what

1:08:58

gets hard when you start talking about porn

1:09:00

is, like you said, you wanna

1:09:03

throw the the baby out with the bathwater, which means all eroticism and

1:09:08

sensuality and faminity even gets

1:09:10

just tossed out with the idea of porn.

1:09:13

Well,

1:09:13

so let

1:09:16

me just describe why I think

1:09:18

the economic fact, you know, why does it matter, whether it was produced for money or as an

1:09:21

artistic exploration. Well,

1:09:24

here's why.

1:09:26

You've got I know

1:09:29

very

1:09:29

little about the porn industry. In

1:09:31

fact, almost nothing. But

1:09:33

the

1:09:34

you've got

1:09:36

however many companies

1:09:38

competing for the sexual

1:09:40

attention for the sexual attention

1:09:43

of

1:09:43

however many consumers. And they're all

1:09:45

selling the same

1:09:48

thing.

1:09:49

Right?

1:09:52

They're selling images

1:09:52

and presumably

1:09:53

mostly video of

1:09:56

people

1:09:58

having sex having sex. Right.

1:10:01

Or at cam girls

1:10:03

or live live interactions? Yep.

1:10:04

I mean, I

1:10:06

know nothing

1:10:07

about this landscape. I

1:10:10

know very little. I know what a cam girl is.

1:10:13

But I will

1:10:16

say, maybe let's

1:10:18

put that aside because

1:10:20

there's although I still think

1:10:22

the same definition applies, there's obviously something distinct when you

1:10:24

have a person

1:10:27

selling their own video

1:10:30

directly to a consumer. Right? In other words, there's surrounding

1:10:35

the amateur stuff.

1:10:39

Right. I'm aware of it. Okay. Well,

1:10:41

good. Maybe you'll call me back at some

1:10:44

point. But but anyway, my point

1:10:46

would be this. Let's say that we

1:10:48

just let's step back into a

1:10:50

slightly earlier era where we're talking about pornographic

1:10:52

videos being made by

1:10:55

some number of companies and

1:10:58

being sold in whatever mechanism, whether

1:11:00

it's downloads or video

1:11:02

stores or however, it was done.

1:11:05

Well,

1:11:06

they're all selling the same thing. Right? Attractive people some kind

1:11:08

right attractive people

1:11:11

of sex.

1:11:13

that's

1:11:13

a difficult market to

1:11:15

win it.

1:11:16

Mhmm. The way you win in

1:11:18

that market is

1:11:19

with something extreme. Right.

1:11:23

That's escalating. Right. Mhmm. And

1:11:24

so the point is you've got an

1:11:27

arms race between producers of

1:11:30

pornography for extreme weird stuff.

1:11:33

Mhmm. Now here's the

1:11:35

really bad consequence of

1:11:38

that. Human

1:11:39

beings, ancient human

1:11:41

beings, learned

1:11:42

about sex because privacy wasn't

1:11:46

all that effective. Right? In

1:11:49

other

1:11:49

words, kids typically we

1:11:51

know from from

1:11:54

technological research. Kids learned

1:11:56

about sex because they were living

1:11:58

in the same hut as their

1:12:01

parents. Right. And so the kid is

1:12:03

kind of asleep. Maybe pretending to be asleep. The parents think the kid is asleep. have sex.

1:12:08

Well,

1:12:08

You

1:12:09

could say what you want about

1:12:11

that,

1:12:11

but at the very least, it gives quite an honest of what

1:12:13

sex actually is.

1:12:16

Right? Right.

1:12:17

right it

1:12:18

is what people do.

1:12:20

Right. porn in

1:12:21

which the producers have gotten involved

1:12:23

in this arms race where

1:12:25

they're producing edgier, weirder, crazier, more niche

1:12:27

stuff, then feeds

1:12:31

into that system where

1:12:33

humans are naturally curious about what other people are doing

1:12:35

in bed. Right?

1:12:38

right mm And then chornographers

1:12:40

are putting really bad, wrong

1:12:42

information into that system saying, oh,

1:12:44

here's what people are doing in bed.

1:12:46

And it's all this extreme stuff. And

1:12:50

the point is, then a

1:12:52

generation that before they had sex

1:12:54

was seeing that content thinks

1:12:56

it's normal. Right? And this

1:12:59

gets it explains this world that you're

1:13:01

describing. I've heard the same

1:13:03

thing from young women

1:13:05

who I know

1:13:07

that in part People are having less sex

1:13:09

because they're afraid to go to bed with people. They don't know what kind

1:13:12

of monsters will be

1:13:14

revealed if they take somebody

1:13:16

home. and

1:13:18

I don't think that's

1:13:20

surprising. I don't think people

1:13:23

realize, you know, the

1:13:25

idea that choking is normal, that

1:13:27

that's a normal part of sex. Wow.

1:13:29

How did this generation get that

1:13:32

idea? Or hitting or

1:13:34

any of the other stuff?

1:13:36

Yeah. So we're distorting

1:13:38

what human sexuality

1:13:39

is with

1:13:40

pornography

1:13:44

because there's an economic problem

1:13:46

that pornography solve with extreme portrayals that then become normalized. Right?

1:13:50

That is a disaster.

1:13:54

Yeah. Right? That is not people looking

1:13:56

for sexual content and

1:13:58

finding, you know,

1:13:59

something honest. That is a dishonest

1:14:02

trail of sex that is now becoming

1:14:05

normal.

1:14:05

hey Has

1:14:06

porn always been I

1:14:09

mean, hasn't it always been

1:14:12

around there to some degree? Or

1:14:13

would you call all things that

1:14:16

existed pornographically eradica

1:14:19

until it was commodified? You

1:14:22

you know know, a

1:14:25

lot

1:14:25

of that, but

1:14:27

not perfectly that. no doubt people have been selling.

1:14:29

So so the problem with my definition. I

1:14:32

think my

1:14:34

definition is actually correct definition until you try to

1:14:36

instantiate it into a law. And then the

1:14:38

question is, well, if money changed hands,

1:14:42

is it pornography? And my answer is not

1:14:45

necessarily. It could be that you

1:14:47

produced something sexual and then got

1:14:49

paid for it. I mean, art

1:14:51

gets purchased. Right? Exactly. Not art because

1:14:53

somebody paid for it. But the question is would you have made

1:14:56

it

1:14:59

the absence absent that

1:15:00

motivation. That's really the the question.

1:15:02

And so,

1:15:02

yeah, pornography has undoubtedly always been around. My

1:15:05

guess is erotica has

1:15:07

always been vastly more

1:15:10

interesting and more durable than pornography. pornography is appealing to people's

1:15:13

appetites

1:15:15

in the moment. But

1:15:20

the

1:15:20

distortion

1:15:22

of sexuality

1:15:24

sexuality

1:15:26

i mean I mean, Can I try a concept on

1:15:27

you that

1:15:29

I'm

1:15:31

pretty sure

1:15:33

it's somewhere in the

1:15:35

neighborhood of Wright. But

1:15:36

anyway, it's a tough

1:15:38

one. And the idea is we actually have

1:15:39

been sold

1:15:43

they a a

1:15:44

wrong concept that sex is something that

1:15:47

people can have. Right? Like

1:15:49

the idea that

1:15:52

a person can go out and

1:15:54

have sex before we even get to the question of who exactly are they having

1:15:56

sex with. Mhmm. That is

1:15:58

a distortion of

1:15:59

the normal

1:16:02

human sexual mode. Right?

1:16:05

Imagine a world in

1:16:07

which you didn't have

1:16:10

access to

1:16:11

the porn

1:16:12

where erotica

1:16:16

was painted

1:16:17

or drawn

1:16:20

pictures. Right? and they were snapshots,

1:16:22

they weren't moving. Right? So AAA much earlier technological

1:16:24

world, your insight,

1:16:27

you would know that sex

1:16:30

was a thing. You would know what you had heard about it, which would be

1:16:36

noisy, and

1:16:38

unreliable. Right? What people say about sex has not been particularly literal

1:16:43

or, you know,

1:16:46

it's

1:16:46

a it's a confusing realm.

1:16:49

Right? So imagine

1:16:51

then that

1:16:52

let's

1:16:53

put ourselves in the

1:16:56

whatever reason is

1:16:58

driving you crazy with

1:17:03

passionate

1:17:03

desire. Right? And you

1:17:06

work up the courage

1:17:08

to

1:17:08

to

1:17:11

invite

1:17:11

them to something and

1:17:13

they respond positively. And,

1:17:15

okay, things develop to the

1:17:17

point that whatever point it

1:17:19

makes sense to start

1:17:21

experimenting sexually with

1:17:23

this person. Right? Right.

1:17:26

You're alone. There's nobody

1:17:29

there. You don't know

1:17:31

a ton about

1:17:32

what people do

1:17:34

Right?

1:17:34

You're

1:17:35

just exploring. And the

1:17:36

point is you now

1:17:39

let's say that

1:17:40

this is before there's

1:17:42

a permanent relationship. woman is

1:17:45

very excited by

1:17:47

this, but also

1:17:48

excited by this but also

1:17:51

does not want to produce

1:17:52

an offspring until there's a permanent commitment.

1:17:54

Right? Yes. So there are there are

1:17:56

limits and there

1:17:59

is, you tension and all

1:18:01

of that. Right? And the point is, okay,

1:18:03

so you are discovering

1:18:07

this realm in which

1:18:08

only the two of you exist.

1:18:11

Right? You are entering some a

1:18:14

secret space that you too have some

1:18:16

place that you go together.

1:18:18

And then you are discovering

1:18:20

how to thrill this other person.

1:18:24

Right. And then you're not

1:18:26

talking about

1:18:26

it with anybody. Right? Mhmm.

1:18:30

that

1:18:30

is a private

1:18:33

the it's a

1:18:35

private adventure. It's

1:18:37

not the same thing as, oh, person x has sex in this way. You

1:18:40

know, this is the thing

1:18:42

that gets them off. They like

1:18:44

this thing

1:18:46

and that will be true no matter who they're in bed

1:18:48

with. Right? The other person is basically

1:18:51

a prop. Right. Right? That

1:18:54

is not a very sexy way for this to unfold. The idea

1:18:56

that you and some other

1:18:58

person discover your own private,

1:19:03

sexual landscape. Right? That is

1:19:03

a very powerful thing, a

1:19:06

sexually powerful

1:19:07

thing. Howard Bauchner:

1:19:09

Warren, I think

1:19:10

they're always like, and isn't it

1:19:13

true that prostitutes are is

1:19:15

the oldest profession in

1:19:18

the world as they

1:19:20

say? So where does

1:19:22

that factor into this equation about what people knew about sex? Well,

1:19:25

a, I

1:19:26

think you're right

1:19:30

that this is very ancient.

1:19:32

But there's a question about how far

1:19:34

back it goes. Right? In a hunter

1:19:36

gatherer band, the idea that there

1:19:38

would be a prostitute. That's pretty unlikely.

1:19:40

Right. Right? The point is

1:19:42

everybody is a member of

1:19:45

this band and

1:19:47

they all have reputations and

1:19:49

-- Right. -- futures. And so the point is to the extent that you're

1:19:51

saying, well, hasn't prostitution always

1:19:53

been a thing. I think

1:19:56

it becomes thing

1:19:58

at some moment. Right? There's some change

1:20:00

in white human beings. Maybe it's agriculture

1:20:02

that creates large enough societies in

1:20:05

which somebody can start making money

1:20:07

selling sex. Right? It becomes but that's actually fairly,

1:20:09

you know, agriculture's ten thousand

1:20:11

years. Right. Well, it's

1:20:14

not a long time. Right.

1:20:16

That would be interesting

1:20:18

to that's interesting the history of prostitution. I

1:20:21

would like to

1:20:23

know know that when

1:20:26

that came into the

1:20:27

mix. Howard Bauchner: Yep, absolutely. And

1:20:30

I I mean, I I

1:20:32

think I think your instinct is

1:20:34

exactly right. this is not a new phenomenon. This is

1:20:36

the most recent chapter in

1:20:38

something that has been marching

1:20:42

along for for millennia. Mhmm. But

1:20:44

we've

1:20:45

gotten to a

1:20:47

point

1:20:47

where, I mean,

1:20:48

let's face facts.

1:20:51

People are finding all of ways to

1:20:54

avoid sex. Right.

1:20:56

that

1:20:57

really weird That's

1:20:59

weird. Right. The idea that sex

1:21:00

would have gone from

1:21:02

the most enticing commodity in

1:21:04

the universe. Commodity is a terrible

1:21:07

word, but the most enticing objective

1:21:09

or phenomenon in the

1:21:11

universe. Yeah. To something so

1:21:13

weird and off

1:21:15

putting that frankly I

1:21:19

think

1:21:19

we can even say that

1:21:23

part of the

1:21:24

the trans

1:21:26

activist fervor is

1:21:29

born of the fact that people

1:21:31

don't see themselves as giving

1:21:34

up something amazing

1:21:35

in altering their

1:21:39

sexuality because sexuality

1:21:41

is a very mixed

1:21:43

bag at the moment. Right?

1:21:45

Yeah. And so doing something weird

1:21:47

and signally may

1:21:50

be frankly

1:21:51

more exciting than

1:21:55

the prospect of holding on to

1:21:57

your your parts and

1:21:59

figuring out in what context

1:22:01

you might be able to

1:22:04

use them to explore this

1:22:06

exquisite

1:22:07

very private landscape. Yeah.

1:22:11

That's

1:22:11

the thing that I've really been thinking a lot about in

1:22:13

the it's so good to talk to you, by

1:22:15

the way, just

1:22:18

in the the kind of wave that has been

1:22:21

this piece. It went huge, and

1:22:23

it's received an enormous response,

1:22:25

as I mentioned, all

1:22:28

kinds of But it's also just the

1:22:30

responses making me think about a lot of these things that we're talking about. So

1:22:32

it's nice so nice

1:22:34

to be able to kind of

1:22:37

process and download a lot of this stuff with

1:22:39

you because even I have one of the people coming

1:22:43

after me is The trans activists are

1:22:45

people saying that I'm a trans folk for the part in the piece where I say I can

1:22:48

understand why people looking around

1:22:50

at this landscape of the violence

1:22:54

sex, all the things that Louise Perry outlined in

1:22:56

her book. And they say,

1:22:59

like, I I would rather be

1:23:01

a man or even more importantly, I

1:23:03

don't want to be a woman because

1:23:05

it is women who are suffering. And

1:23:08

the other the other response

1:23:10

that I've received from this piece other than your transverb or a slut's

1:23:13

always a slut or

1:23:15

go find God. is

1:23:20

that there is a real body count.

1:23:22

Like, people have been telling me

1:23:24

their stories of their mother

1:23:27

or somebody in their life who might have gotten

1:23:29

lost and they said that, you

1:23:31

know, got into

1:23:35

drugs was doing It could have been me.

1:23:37

I get emotional and the piece talking about it because there is something that

1:23:40

happens. And this is

1:23:42

something that I've been thinking

1:23:44

about on a

1:23:46

soul level as a woman. There's something

1:23:47

that it's not

1:23:49

shame, it's

1:23:52

not religion, this

1:23:54

is something on a on a,

1:23:56

like, cellular level that I

1:23:58

have had to reconcile with

1:24:02

feeling about giving myself away and not valuing

1:24:04

valuing sex the way I

1:24:06

believe that it properly deserves

1:24:09

to be valued. and giving

1:24:11

it the proper place

1:24:14

on a pedestal that

1:24:16

it deserves to be put on,

1:24:19

not me, just the the like

1:24:21

you said, the power, the even having

1:24:23

a baby, what has changed so

1:24:27

much since I've had a child is I said this when I was

1:24:29

on Megyn Kelly recently is realizing,

1:24:31

like, this body isn't

1:24:34

just a vanity project. It's not

1:24:36

just about looking hot. That's

1:24:38

like actually secondary to all the fucking miraculous things than

1:24:43

my female body is capable of,

1:24:45

which is outstanding and

1:24:48

miraculous and that

1:24:51

alone is something that I wished I

1:24:53

had a better understanding of and

1:24:56

had really

1:24:59

valued more sex comes up because it

1:25:01

does become about religion or all

1:25:03

these other things when it's

1:25:06

really like, no, you can

1:25:08

creep I created life.

1:25:10

I made a human. Like, a whole fucking human.

1:25:16

That is so crazy and that is

1:25:18

what it's sex what it's for and that's why it's special and that's

1:25:20

why you should

1:25:23

value it. It's life producing

1:25:25

force and and somehow when you

1:25:28

don't value

1:25:32

that and as a

1:25:34

woman, if it is my

1:25:36

primary goal, if I'm not valuing

1:25:38

this, there is something that happens

1:25:41

on a cellular level feels like, know, you're

1:25:44

damaging yourself.

1:25:48

not to say that I feel

1:25:51

like I'm damaged goods all this shit that also on me. There

1:25:54

is some kind of

1:25:56

is some kind of some

1:25:59

kind of damage that I

1:26:01

don't even know how to

1:26:04

articulate. You know, that

1:26:06

I've that I think I've been trying to work

1:26:08

out. And I and and in

1:26:10

in response to that damage, I

1:26:12

kept doubling down on it

1:26:14

and also numbing myself out. and never

1:26:17

able to face it. And when I really think

1:26:19

about that body count in it as a

1:26:22

reaction to that damage,

1:26:24

It's really upsetting. And I've been hearing so

1:26:26

many people, and that's something that I don't think you'll ever be able to calculate. What

1:26:30

is the body count?

1:26:33

to the sexual revolution for women in per

1:26:35

you know, particularly. Oh, there's so many themes I

1:26:37

wanna

1:26:38

address from what you

1:26:40

just

1:26:42

then

1:26:43

said. One of them is I do

1:26:45

think that there is a kind of

1:26:48

damage and I think we can

1:26:50

talk about what it is. I also

1:26:53

see

1:26:55

you as courageously

1:26:57

the raiders sleep

1:26:59

confronting

1:26:59

it. So I

1:27:01

have a model

1:27:03

that basically

1:27:04

the psychological trauma

1:27:07

psychological trauma like physical trauma, right, that we

1:27:09

are not wrong to use that term. But

1:27:11

that leads us to something

1:27:13

that we don't talk about,

1:27:16

which is When

1:27:18

you are psychologically traumatized, you have a wound. Right?

1:27:21

That wound

1:27:22

can stay open

1:27:24

and

1:27:26

it can remain of vulnerability or

1:27:28

you can scar over. Right? Scoring over

1:27:30

is not as good as not

1:27:32

having ever been damaged, but it's

1:27:35

a million miles better than remaining with an

1:27:37

open wound. Mhmm. Yep. So what I

1:27:39

see you doing is exploring. Well,

1:27:41

alright. What did happen

1:27:44

to me? Right? What would I

1:27:46

-- what do I now understand about myself? And that is think process

1:27:48

of you figuring out how

1:27:50

to scar over and more important

1:27:54

what you are doing is

1:27:58

I think

1:28:00

going through the

1:28:02

difficult process of figuring out

1:28:04

what

1:28:04

you should have known, not that you should

1:28:06

have known

1:28:06

it, but what you would have been better off

1:28:10

to know so that

1:28:12

women in the future don't have to go

1:28:14

through this process so that they can know -- Yeah. No. --

1:28:17

so I think that

1:28:19

that's a tremendously noble objective,

1:28:23

and I and I admire you for

1:28:25

doing it. But can

1:28:26

we talk for a second about

1:28:29

the

1:28:30

the damage

1:28:31

itself. Yeah. I mean,

1:28:34

yeah i mean In

1:28:37

in what respect? They're so they're

1:28:39

so much. Where

1:28:43

do we begin?

1:28:44

Well, you know you

1:28:47

know my bent, let's start with the strange biological

1:28:52

realities and why they

1:28:54

would result in some kind of damage associated with this. Why it's not just something you

1:28:56

can decide you've changed

1:28:58

your mind and move on

1:29:02

that

1:29:03

there is something lasting here. Howard Bauchner: Yeah,

1:29:05

I think

1:29:05

that I I mean, I'm

1:29:08

grateful that I

1:29:10

have had amazing therapist that I talked to about this stuff and

1:29:12

any woman who's listening to

1:29:14

this and is maybe crying

1:29:18

because they are

1:29:20

relating. I would advise you to go

1:29:22

seek out some kind of professional to

1:29:25

talk to you

1:29:27

about this stuff. because

1:29:30

a lot of it is often trauma. You know, there's I think lot of

1:29:32

the damage started

1:29:35

when I was young And

1:29:40

even my first, like, sexual encounter,

1:29:42

it was with an older man.

1:29:44

Like, technically, it

1:29:46

was statutory rape. Technically, I

1:29:48

was seventeen and he was thirty

1:29:51

two. So things didn't start out. And mind you, I

1:29:54

don't see myself as

1:29:56

necessarily a victim in that situation because

1:29:59

I was young and I was aggressively trying to seduce

1:30:01

this man even at at my

1:30:03

seventeen year old age. And

1:30:07

I think he inevitably, like, cracked because

1:30:09

he wasn't really a great guy,

1:30:11

but he's also

1:30:14

just a man. And

1:30:16

But it it wasn't like

1:30:18

what I would have wanted. I think what I

1:30:20

would have wanted

1:30:22

what I would want

1:30:24

for my

1:30:26

daughter, what I saw with even, like,

1:30:28

the high schoolers around me who felt,

1:30:30

you know, they were with their, like,

1:30:33

high school sweetheart, and it seemed

1:30:35

like there was intimacy see. And

1:30:37

my first encounter was very much

1:30:39

about power

1:30:41

our using

1:30:42

my sexuality and

1:30:45

weaponizing it to a certain

1:30:47

And of I always understood

1:30:52

that There was a,

1:30:54

like, a man this is something I'm trying to work out too. Is the man

1:30:57

eater side to

1:30:59

my nature that I

1:31:03

always recognize, like, how powerful I

1:31:06

was as a woman, how

1:31:08

much power a

1:31:10

woman has, because of her sexuality. Alright. But

1:31:13

I so I've got

1:31:14