The Big Lie About Sex - Louise Perry — Transcript

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1. 0:00now it is quite common to hear people
2. 0:02progressives in particular say that sex
3. 0:04actually doesn't have any intrinsic
4. 0:07value to it it doesn't have any
5. 0:09intrinsic specialness like if people
6. 0:11want to apply meaning to it on a
7. 0:14personal level they're welcome
8. 0:15to but when it comes down to it it's
9. 0:18just a social interaction you know you
10. 0:19can buy it you can sell it it's fine I
11. 0:23don't think anyone really believes that
12. 0:24I think almost no one actually believes
13. 0:26that and you can tell because people are
14. 0:28extraordinarily inconsistent in applying
15. 0:30this so people who for instance will say
16. 0:33that sex work is work no problem it's
17. 0:35just like working
18. 0:36McDonald's will not apply that to their
19. 0:39own personal lives or not even apply it
20. 0:42to other sort of similar issues in terms
21. 0:44of Law and policy so the example I give
22. 0:46in the book is sex for rent all of the
23. 0:49major political parties in the UK are
24. 0:51united in believing that landlords who
25. 0:55offer rooms in exchange for sexual
26. 0:58favors are are or should be breaking the
27. 1:01law they're all United in saying we
28. 1:03should have firmer laws on it this is
29. 1:04particularly postco because there was
30. 1:06sort of a rash of landlords doing this
31. 1:08it's the same in other Western countries
32. 1:09as well um these are exactly the same
33. 1:13parties you know like the Liv Dems for
34. 1:15instance condemn sex for rent and think
35. 1:17we should decriminalize the sex industry
36. 1:20it's the same thing you know it's just
37. 1:22Goods you know being exchanged for
38. 1:25sexual access it's exactly the same
39. 1:26thing and similarly you know people who
40. 1:28will again say that sex his work that
41. 1:31that um you know really buy into the
42. 1:33sexual disenchantment idea rhetorically
43. 1:36very upset about any perceived sexual
44. 1:38impropriety in their own
45. 1:40workplaces you know like having any kind
46. 1:43of
47. 1:44um being T you know being touched by a
48. 1:47male colleague being asked out on a date
49. 1:49like that stuff is very serious and is
50. 1:52not at all comparable to just other
51. 1:54forms of nonsexual interaction but sex
52. 1:56work is work you know and I think that I
53. 1:59think that inconsistency is a result of
54. 2:01the fact that actually sexual
55. 2:02disenchantment just isn't
56. 2:04true basically no one really thinks it's
57. 2:06true but the problem is that if you um
58. 2:09are trying to rationalize it all and you
59. 2:11are applying kind of utility brain to
60. 2:14the world it's quite hard to um it's
61. 2:18quite hard to articulate it's quite hard
62. 2:20to rationalize it comes from a very
63. 2:22visceral place which is a bit
64. 2:25inconvenient if you're trying to apply
65. 2:27that kind of you know very long iCal
66. 2:30worldview the fact that people have
67. 2:31emotional responses to things that are
68. 2:34are somewhat inconvenient you know but
69. 2:36the truth of it is that people don't
70. 2:37feel that sex is the same as other
71. 2:39social interactions people absolutely
72. 2:40feel that sex has some unique status
73. 2:43which is of course why I mean thinking
74. 2:45from a feminist perspective which is why
75. 2:46rape is so uniquely bad which is why
76. 2:48sexual harassment is so uniquely bad if
77. 2:50you don't think sex is special you can't
78. 2:51think any of those things have special
79. 2:52status either and I think that that idea
80. 2:55of sexual
81. 2:56disenchantment is bad for everyone but
82. 2:58it's really bad for women
83. 3:00why partly because of physical imbalance
84. 3:04between the Sexes of the fact that it's
85. 3:06only women who get
86. 3:07pregnant women have to suffer the side
87. 3:10effects of hormonal
88. 3:11contraception um women are much smaller
89. 3:13and weaker than men which means that any
90. 3:15heterosexual encounter if you've got a
91. 3:17man and woman Alone Together the woman's
92. 3:18going to be almost always the more
93. 3:21physically vulnerable party so there's
94. 3:23that kind of risk inherent to sexual
95. 3:25encounters that women experience that
96. 3:27men can't experience in the same way
97. 3:30there's also the psychological stuff and
98. 3:33that's more
99. 3:35controversial because the push towards
100. 3:38um kind of radical equality within
101. 3:41feminism in Liberal
102. 3:43feminism has also included pushing back
103. 3:47very hard against the idea that there
104. 3:49are any innate differences between the
105. 3:50Sexes on a psychological level and some
106. 3:53of that is coming from a good place it
107. 3:55is clearly the it's clearly the case
108. 3:57that in various periods in history
109. 3:59pseudoscientific ideas about women's
110. 4:03intellectual inferiority in particular
111. 4:05or emotional inferiority have been used
112. 4:06against women this is clearly true um
113. 4:09that does not however mean that those
114. 4:11differences don't exist at all and
115. 4:13actually as decades have gone by and
116. 4:14we've got more and more scientific
117. 4:15research on this it actually becomes
118. 4:17more and more apparent that those
119. 4:18differences do exist on average right
120. 4:21the on average thing is something that
121. 4:22people often can't wrap their heads
122. 4:24around well they can they just don't
123. 4:25want to well people can when it comes to
124. 4:28something like the ADV the example I
125. 4:30give is like you know if we say that
126. 4:31Germans are on average taller than
127. 4:34people from Spain people are like oh
128. 4:36yeah fine no one says oh but I know a
129. 4:38really tall guy from Spain that
130. 4:39disproves your thesis you know this is
131. 4:41the nature of bell curves um there are
132. 4:44all sorts of ways in which the certain
133. 4:46psychological traits differ on on the
134. 4:49bell curve basis between men and women
135. 4:50the one that's most important for my
136. 4:52purposes is the trait that psychologist
137. 4:54called
138. 4:55sociosexuality which is not quite the
139. 4:57same as sex drive you can be you know
140. 4:59highing one low on the other but social
141. 5:01sexuality is about your um desire for
142. 5:05casual sex basically how much you want
143. 5:06to have sex with a variety of people how
144. 5:08quickly you want to jump into bed with
145. 5:10someone now look I'm not an expert but
146. 5:12I'm going to guess men are more prone to
147. 5:14have a higher rate of that cross
148. 5:16culturally trans historically yes wow
149. 5:19yeah I'm a genius how did I work that
150. 5:21out I know how dare you know she do
151. 5:24things but you know yes I mean anyone
152. 5:26who's like got eyes and lived in the
153. 5:27world can tell that the clearly is that
154. 5:29difference between men and women even if
155. 5:30there are lots of outliers on an
156. 5:32individual level I mean just because you
157. 5:34know someone's sex doesn't mean you know
158. 5:37their level of socios sexuality but at
159. 5:39the population level you see it you see
160. 5:41it for instance in the fact that all
161. 5:43almost all sex buyers everywhere in the
162. 5:45world are male MH because obviously the
163. 5:48people who are is that tale of high
164. 5:50sociosexuality is like all men right um
165. 5:54there are I'm going to say them even
166. 5:55more controversial than you but
167. 5:57basically if you want to understand what
168. 5:58men are actually like just look at gay
169. 6:00men right how much sex do they have and
170. 6:03how many partners do they have on
171. 6:04average compared to the average
172. 6:06heterosexual man and you kind of get
173. 6:07like gay men are actually the real men
174. 6:10because they're unrestrained by women
175. 6:11yes yeah absolutely it's really that
176. 6:13simple yeah it's how men would behave if
177. 6:15women w a limiting factor exactly yeah
178. 6:18and I mean it's interesting in if you
179. 6:19look at the survey data on gay men of
180. 6:21which there's quite a lot because it
181. 6:23comes out of like um sexual health
182. 6:24research and stuff what you have is
183. 6:27actually like a goodish of men who are
184. 6:30just as monogamous as lesbians M and you
185. 6:32have a lot of men in the
186. 6:34middle and then you have a proportion
187. 6:37who are really promiscuous and because
188. 6:38there isn't the limiting factor of of
189. 6:41women saying no those men are way more
190. 6:43promiscuous than promiscuous straight
191. 6:45men yeah can ever be because they just
192. 6:47have so much more opportunity um but you
193. 6:51know but that but that portion of like
194. 6:53would be promiscuous straight men still
195. 6:56exists it's just they've got the
196. 6:57complexity of having to deal with female
197. 7:00Choice um which makes the whole
198. 7:03heterosexual you know dating marriage
199. 7:05scene that much more
200. 7:14complex