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The Case Against the Sexual Revolution | Louise Perry 165 — Transcript

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0:00The argument is that marriage is an
0:01oppressive tool, which I say
0:05yes, it is. When motherhood became a
0:07biological choice for women, fatherhood
0:08became a social choice for men. It
0:10became socially acceptable for men to
0:12walk away from children in a way that it
0:14hadn't been before. Those high-status
0:16men are able to really, really set the
0:18terms. If a woman doesn't, say, have sex
0:20on the first date, it's easy enough to
0:22find another woman who will. So, you end
0:23up with a slightly artificial level of
0:25competition between women who, you know,
0:26there are actually enough men to go
0:28around, but there aren't enough men that
0:29they actually want to be with to go
0:30around. And so, they're competing for a
0:33minority of men who basically have I
0:35mean, it's kind of open season. They can
0:36demand that their own preferences be
0:38met.
0:46Louise Perry, it's very nice to meet
0:49you.
0:50And you. What a pleasure to be here.
0:52Yeah, this should be good. Uh thank you
0:54very much for agreeing to come on. I'm
0:55excited for this conversation. Before we
0:58get started, can you give a brief
0:59background about who you are and what it
1:01is you do? I am a a British journalist
1:04based in London and a campaigner and uh
1:07the director of a think tank called The
1:09Other Half, which maybe we're going to
1:10talk about, which is um we promote what
1:13we call common sense feminism. Wow.
1:15Yeah.
1:16And uh and I'm an author of a new book
1:19called The Case Against the Sexual
1:20Revolution. Case Against the Sexual
1:21Revolution. Okay, this should be good.
1:24How much negativity do you get online?
1:26Less than you'd think. Good. I thought
1:28Yeah, I thought that I'd get loads, but
1:30actually, I would say 90% positive.
1:34Well, you have a very nice soft voice,
1:36too. I don't
1:36Maybe that's what it is, yeah. People
1:37can't get mad at you, too mad at you.
1:39Oh, that's nice. I think it might be the
1:41English accent, as well. Yeah, that's
1:43sneaky. That's makes people sound
1:45smarter, too. It's kind of like a cheat
1:47code in life. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
1:50Okay.
1:51This should be good. So, what's your
1:52book What's your book about? And what is
1:54common sense feminism? Let's start with
1:56what is common sense feminism actually?
1:59I mean partly it's a nice phrase that
2:00sort of confuses people.
2:02This sort of calling a book something
2:04like the case against the social
2:05revolution is bit is a bit confounding,
2:07isn't it? What we're trying to do with
2:09the other half, the reason we called it
2:10the other half is because
2:12it's not only about talking about women,
2:14you know, the other half of the human
2:15race. It's also about talking about the
2:17other half of life. Because
2:20my view that I put forward in the book
2:22is that what the feminist project has
2:24been at least in the second half of the
2:2520th century until now has been about
2:29encouraging women to be more like men.
2:31Mhm. In every possible way. So to
2:33imitate male sexuality, to gain access
2:35to the male sphere, to imitate
2:39the male life cycle in terms of things
2:41like prioritizing professional success
2:43over anything else. All this sort of
2:44stuff.
2:45And I think it is very clear and is
2:47becoming clearer over time that this
2:48isn't making women happy.
2:50And that actually most women do not see
2:52that as their aspiration in life.
2:55Most women want to either prioritize
2:58family life or to or to balance it
3:00against career. Most women want to spend
3:03more time with their children not less.
3:05Most women want to aspire to stable and
3:09meaningful monogamous relationships
3:11rather than
3:12have sex like a man
3:14as Sex and the City described it.
3:16And this is extremely obvious from
3:18polling. You ask British women and
3:21indeed American women all of these
3:22questions and and it's a fairly there's
3:24a fairly resounding majority. But that
3:26isn't what you hear represented in
3:27Westminster or indeed in Washington.
3:30Because there's a really big gap between
3:31what most feminist lobbying
3:32organizations
3:34or rather because the organizations of
3:35all kinds and and and also in the media
3:38tend to represent as what women want and
3:40what women do actually want. So that the
3:43project that we've set ourselves is to
3:44try and represent
3:46majority female opinion
3:49in the corridors of power.
3:52Wow. Okay. Are you making any progress?
3:55It's very early days, but yes, I would
3:56say yes.
3:58Good.
3:59Good. Um, do you know the background of
4:01why the sexual revolution kind of pushed
4:04women towards acting more like men?
4:07It's an interesting question.
4:08I think it's probably partly got to do
4:10with the women who
4:12who who formed the second wave.
4:14Um, I think that the
4:17the
4:18feminist culture of the 1970s,
4:21um,
4:21which was really focused in
4:24places like Greenwich Village in New
4:25York
4:26and a handful of other urban centers.
4:29And the women who who who wrote the most
4:31important texts of the second wave and
4:32went on to found organizations like now
4:36tended to to be super super well
4:37educated,
4:39super intelligent, super disagreeable,
4:42particularly disinclined towards things
4:45like family life, you know, the whole
4:46the whole
4:47from their from their point of view,
4:49they were really spurred on by a desire
4:50to reject the traditional feminine role
4:52and often did so in quite spectacular
4:54ways, you know, on a personal level.
4:55Some of the biographies of second wave
4:56are really um really unusual, really
4:58interesting.
5:00And so, they obviously had preferences
5:03that are different from average female
5:05preferences.
5:06Which isn't to say that everything that
5:07they campaigned for was so kind of
5:09misaligned with what is good for most
5:12women, you know, things like setting up
5:14domestic violence shelters or setting up
5:16rape crisis centers. My first job
5:17working out of university was um was
5:19working at a rape crisis center.
5:21Those are the kind of institutions
5:23formed from the second wave which are,
5:26you know,
5:27like really good. I don't think anyone I
5:29I think very few even anti-feminists
5:31would argue against the establishment of
5:33those kind of institutions.
5:35But I think they were also just
5:36generally geared towards aspiring to a
5:39more masculine way of living
5:42just on the basis of self-selection and
5:44and personality than are most women.
5:46That would be my guess as to why the
5:48priorities kind of tended in that
5:49direction.
5:51That's interesting. That totally makes
5:53sense, too. Bunch of disagreeable,
5:56extremely smart women pushed society in
5:58a direction that doesn't represent the
5:59average woman.
6:00Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Although I do say say
6:03that I think that the feminist thinking
6:06has been important and has and has um
6:09shaped
6:11our recent history in all sorts of
6:12important ways.
6:13But it it all comes secondary to
6:16material changes.
6:18All of it, you know. The I think it was
6:21Phyllis Schlafly who who first said that
6:22the washing machine did more to liberate
6:24women than did feminist campaigning.
6:28I think this is just so this is
6:30evidently true, right? And there are so
6:33many ways in which our lives have
6:34dramatically changed within the last 100
6:36years, not just the washing machine, but
6:37the pill, which is really forms the
6:39Yeah.
6:40the center of my my book, the fact that
6:42we now are orientated much toward much
6:44more towards a knowledge and
6:46service-based economy,
6:48which de-emphasizes manual manual work
6:50and and physical strength, which of
6:52course
6:53men have more of.
6:54Um
6:55I think all of these things have
7:00have pushed women out of the domestic
7:02sphere
7:03and into
7:05a more
7:06more masculine roles. Um
7:09you know, it is good for GDP, to put it
7:11bluntly, to to have women participating
7:13in the workforce. And when you have
7:15things like
7:16washing machines and central heating and
7:18microwaves and all these things which
7:19mean that the work of running a
7:21household just takes less time, it
7:23becomes more possible to for women to do
7:25things like that. And when you can also
7:26delay childbearing through the pill and
7:28other contraception, women being more
7:30like men becomes possible and becomes
7:33actually economically productive. The
7:35problem is that there are all sorts of
7:37costs down the line from that. And
7:38actually including economic costs down
7:40the line from that, which mean that
7:42we're dealing with some quite painful
7:43trade-offs. This episode is sponsored by
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9:13enjoy this episode. Okay, wow. Well,
9:16that I want to cover a bunch from what
9:18you just
9:19talked about. Uh let's start with
9:21economic trade-offs. So, what are the
9:23economic trade-offs for having, I
9:24suppose, women in the workplace and less
9:26around children? Cuz someone has to look
9:28after the children would be the first
9:30thing. So, you have these slightly
9:31strange artifacts of the way that we um
9:35measure GDP,
9:37where if you have um if a if a mother
9:39goes to work and hires a nanny to do her
9:42role
9:43what was her role while she's at work?
9:46Um that appears to be economic growth
9:48because you now have in that unit do you
9:50have mother, father, nanny all employed
9:52as opposed to just having father
9:54employed.
9:56It's it's a misleading way of
9:58calculating that though because the
10:00you know, the work of the domestic work
10:02that was previously unpaid is still
10:04being done. It's exactly the same work.
10:06It's just being done by someone else and
10:07for a wage. Um and of course is is
10:12there's all sorts of sort of friction in
10:13that system that wouldn't be there
10:15otherwise because you've got three
10:16rotating parts that need to lock
10:18together unlike in the single earner
10:20household where you just have the one
10:21and then you have someone you have
10:22specialization between mother and
10:24father.
10:25And you have mother specializing in the
10:26domestic work. Um instead when you in
10:29introduce the paid component everything
10:31becomes much more complex, much more
10:32liable for collapse. So interestingly um
10:36Elizabeth Warren of all people who wrote
10:38a book some decades ago ago called The
10:40Two-Income Trap
10:42about the fact that
10:43yeah, I've heard of that.
10:43Yeah, when you when when both parents
10:46are in in paid employment the household
10:49becomes dependent on both of them being
10:50in paid employment and there's much less
10:52room for slack. Whereas what you would
10:54have had previously is is women kind of
10:56dipping in and out of the workforce,
10:58particularly working class women,
10:59dipping in and out of the workforce when
11:01say children are a bit older or when
11:03others' earnings have stopped third and
11:05they need a bit of extra money and
11:08female labor participation becomes a
11:10sort of a variable that can change over
11:13time depending on economic
11:14circumstances. Whereas if the family all
11:17families are dependent on two full-time
11:19incomes, there's no room for slack.
11:20There's no there's no source of other
11:22income if if if hard times come along.
11:24And what's more you will end up
11:25competing with
11:27So
11:28the lump of labor fallacy obviously you
11:30know, it's not quite true that um you
11:33end up with the wages halved by women
11:35entering the workforce because women
11:36entering the workforce does grow the
11:37economy in all sorts of ways, but there
11:39are certain products like housing for
11:41instance, if you have a fixed supply of
11:43housing in say a good school district
11:46and everyone is competing for to buy
11:49that to buy that housing and everyone is
11:51competing with two incomes rather than
11:53one,
11:54you you do end up in the situation which
11:56I think we we're in now where in order
11:58to have a good standard of living you
11:59have to have two incomes unless you have
12:02one extraordinary high
12:04high earner.
12:05So, is that is that a result of women
12:08going back to work or going to work in
12:10the first place? Is that actually a
12:11direct result of that or did the housing
12:14the increase in housing prices come
12:16first?
12:17There are other things contributing to
12:20housing housing prices
12:22um including
12:24I mean the the the the thing that is
12:25most unspoken about in the um political
12:27discourse on this is lack of building
12:29which clearly is a factor. It's a factor
12:31as well in someone like the UK that you
12:33have this extreme concentration of high
12:35earning jobs in London
12:37and in other in other part other parts
12:38of the world you have this concentration
12:40of high earning jobs in in in the major
12:42cities so you will expect, you know,
12:43house prices in San Francisco to rocket
12:45because Silicon Valley is basically
12:46nearby. Um
12:48there are other factors,
12:50but I think it is absolutely the case
12:52that joint mortgages, the fact that you
12:54now have have two incomes competing for
12:57the same
12:59for the same product of the housing that
13:00everyone wants has made it more
13:02difficult for people to live on single
13:03incomes. And look, there are advantages
13:05of women being in the I mean I say this,
13:07look at me, I'm working, there are
13:08advantages of women being in the
13:10workforce in all sorts of ways. Um women
13:13having, you know, we mentioned domestic
13:14violence briefly that if women have
13:16separate sources of
13:18of income and want to escape an abusive
13:19marriage, that's clearly advantageous.
13:21The fact that women I mean women on
13:23average are as intelligent as men, have
13:25all sorts of skills that are actually
13:26really well suited to modern economy.
13:29The fact that women are more agreeable
13:31than men is actually great in a in a
13:33service economy for instance.
13:35Um and increasingly I'd say that
13:37office culture and all sorts of
13:39corporate culture is increasingly
13:40feminine and
13:42and actually women can really really
13:43flourish
13:45in that kind of environment. So
13:47I I I I think that the the the idea that
13:50we can just
13:51sweep women out of public life and and
13:53go back to the 1950s. Which is of course
13:55an unusual decade. Um I don't think
13:58that's going to happen even if we wanted
13:59it to. But the but but the but these
14:01tradeoffs exist. As with as with any
14:03complex historical change.
14:06Interesting. Okay.
14:09Um you you spoke about the birth control
14:11pill. I'm very interested in that. I I
14:14know when I was young I was put on the
14:16birth control when I was 14. I think it
14:19for my skin. You know, because you get
14:21And I I didn't stop taking it until I
14:23was 23 when I started reading about
14:26what the birth control does to your
14:28brain and the side effects it can cause
14:30and generally does cause. That's what I
14:33figured out since, right? Like
14:35depression, things like that. Uh can you
14:37get into
14:39what what you think the birth control's
14:40done to society? It's interesting you
14:43talk about the I mean I don't really
14:45write in the book about the past the
14:46personal side effects of birth control
14:48pill but so many women experience it and
14:50just and just anecdotally I know so many
14:53women who've said they they came off the
14:54pill and their personalities completely
14:56changed.
14:56Yeah. And they realize how cuz as you
14:58say if you go on it as a teenager for
15:00acne and then you're still on it a
15:01decades. You don't even know. You don't
15:04even know part Also, if you're having a
15:06moody teenage phase, then and the
15:08moodiness never ends, then you don't
15:11identify the issues as the pill. It's
15:13extremely problematic, yeah. Especially
15:15if you've been taking it for so long,
15:16you don't even notice. It's like a
15:17vitamin.
15:19Yeah. And it shouldn't surprise us
15:20really because we're we're meddling with
15:22very, very important hormones,
15:26which have all sorts of far-reaching
15:27effects that we should we don't really
15:28understand. I mean, we don't
15:30as a as a species, we don't really
15:31understand our reproductive system at
15:33all. Yeah. Um and all of the efforts to
15:35do things like growing babies outside of
15:37the womb or sex change or, you know, any
15:40of these sort of ambitious scientific
15:41projects, they're going nowhere. Like
15:43let's be real.
15:45Yeah, yeah.
15:45It's so much more complex than anyone
15:47can can actually grasp. I think we're
15:49a long way away from being able to do
15:51that kind of radical radical
15:52transformation even if we even if we'd
15:54want to. I think the idea of growing I
15:55personally find it incredibly dystopian,
15:57the idea of growing babies outside of
15:58the human body.
15:59Oh, and you have it's so narcissistic,
16:01too.
16:02It's like, oh, we're we're smart enough
16:03to figure this out. And that's that's
16:05just a narcissistic way of thinking, I
16:07think. Imagine a Imagine a a newborn
16:09who'd never heard his or her mother's
16:10heartbeat. I just find that Oh.
16:13You with your like English accent, too.
16:16It's like worse that the description's
16:18worse, yeah.
16:21Yeah. Um so, the pill, yeah. I mean, so
16:23in terms of the the social consequences
16:25of it, I don't think that we should be
16:26surprised that for the first time in the
16:28history of the world, reliably
16:30separating sex and reproduction has had
16:32some pretty massive effects, and that
16:34those effects have been
16:36both positive and negative and and vast,
16:40right? And the thing that you notice
16:42happening across if you if you know, you
16:44look at the the social effects in the in
16:46the decade or two immediately following
16:48the introduction of the pill,
16:49remembering that it came in two waves.
16:50So, initially the pill was made
16:51available to married women only,
16:53and then it was made available to
16:55unmarried women as well. Ah.
16:58And then not long afterwards, you have I
16:59mean, the the timeline in Britain and
17:02America and other um Western nations is
17:04all about the same. Not long afterwards,
17:06you then get the decriminalization of
17:07abortion.
17:08And then not long afterwards, you see
17:10the the shotgun marriage
17:12ends as a as an institution. You see you
17:15see marriage rates of all kind falling
17:16off a cliff, but you also see the
17:18shotgun marriage, which had existed to
17:20deal with unwanted childbearing,
17:23disappears
17:24as a social tool.
17:26And the the really perverse outcome of
17:29the pill, which is a beautiful example
17:30of the fact that human beings are very,
17:32very complicated and our society is very
17:34complicated, and you can't predict how
17:36technology shocks are going to affect
17:37them,
17:38you see um rates of single motherhood
17:41rise. Who would have thought that would
17:42happen, right? You you introduce a
17:43technology which allows women to
17:45regulate their fertility, and it leads
17:47to a rise in single motherhood. But I
17:49think the reason for that is because the
17:51pill isn't 100% effective. No form of
17:53contraception is. And actually the early
17:55pill in particular, you've got quite a
17:57high rate of about quite a high failure
17:59rate.
18:00But you end up with the absolute amount
18:02of premarital sex
18:04goes up, and therefore some portion of
18:07that is going to result in an unwanted
18:08pregnancy, and and and some women, for
18:11whatever reason, don't want to have an
18:13abortion. And so you'll end up with
18:15unexpected babies. And when the social
18:18institutions that used to exist to
18:20regulate fertility, like marriage,
18:23have all fallen away as a result of the
18:25pill's introduction. That's I mean the
18:27the the phrase I use in the book, which
18:29isn't original to me, I can't remember
18:30who who first said it, but when
18:32motherhood became a biological choice
18:34for women, fatherhood became a social
18:35choice for men. And it became socially
18:38it became socially acceptable for men to
18:39walk away
18:41from children um in a way that it hadn't
18:44been before. Not to say that there
18:45hadn't always of scoundrels, you know,
18:48impregnating women and then and then
18:50leaving. But it is now the deadbeat dad
18:53is now completely socially acceptable in
18:55a way that he wasn't before. And he's
18:57really in a way that one of the one of
18:59the winners of the sexual revolution
19:01because there's now no there's no no I
19:03mean the the the rates of nonpayment of
19:05child support are astonishingly high.
19:07And it shouldn't surprise us that single
19:09mothers are some of the
19:11um is the group that the group of people
19:12most likely to be in poverty, while
19:14married mothers are least likely to be.
19:17Which is why I have a chapter at the end
19:18of my book where I make a feminist case
19:20for marriage.
19:21I say that actually marriage is
19:22completely in the interest of of of
19:24mothers and
19:25and their children. That doesn't
19:27surprise me at all. But that's but that
19:29but that has probably been the most
19:30controversial chapter for feminist
19:31readers.
19:32Really? Yeah. Oh, well.
19:34Yeah, I suppose. If you don't think
19:36about it, then it would be difficult to
19:38wrap your head around, I suppose.
19:40The The argument is that marriage is an
19:43oppressive tool. Mhm. Um, which I say
19:47yes, it is.
19:49Or maybe repressive would be a better
19:51way of phrasing it in that the whole
19:52point of it as an institution is that
19:55you make a promise and you're obliged to
19:57keep a promise.
19:58And that means that your freedom is
20:00limited. There are things that you can't
20:01do anymore once you've entered into that
20:03kind of institution. But that applies
20:06just as much to men as it does to women.
20:08The purpose of the institution is that
20:10it is controlling, but the principle
20:13being once you have established this
20:15unit legally bound together, socially
20:17bound together, spiritually bound
20:18together if you if you understand in a
20:20religious sense, then that is the basis
20:21from which you can form a family. So,
20:23it's a kind of It is Yes, it's a means
20:26of
20:27of control and repression, but it's one
20:29that permits your life to begin as a
20:31family. And also and means, you know, in
20:33extremis that the nature of sexual
20:35asymmetry, which despite all of recent
20:38efforts by the trans movement and so on,
20:41isn't going away, right? Men and women
20:42are profoundly different on a cellular
20:45level. I was I find it really
20:46interesting that the campaign to deny
20:49the existence of biological differences
20:50between men and women
20:52has arisen at exactly the same time and
20:54become perversely successful at exactly
20:56the same time that actually we're
20:57understanding more and more about how
21:00profoundly we do differ. Ooh, let's get
21:03into that.
21:05How How do women and men differ? You
21:07said on a cellular level. Yeah. So, I
21:09So, in the obvious ways, women are the
21:11ones who get pregnant, men are not. We
21:14are smaller and weaker than men,
21:15particularly on in terms of upper body
21:17strength. So, the the force that a
21:19little woman can apply
21:21through a punch is about half as much
21:23as a man.
21:25Um which is a lot, right? And this is
21:27why you see in um
21:29in elite athletics, the difference
21:31between male and female athletes
21:34is is huge.
21:35I do wonder whether the the the people
21:39the progressives who are most in denial
21:42about the differences between men and
21:43women physically, I I I cannot help but
21:46suspect that they don't do a lot of
21:47sports. Cuz I think that if you
21:49participate particularly in
21:50strength-based sports
21:52or like martial arts or anything like
21:54that, you you are going to it's going to
21:55become immediately apparent that men and
21:57women are profoundly different in this
21:58dimension. They're just hanging out with
22:00all the like spindly artist types. I
22:03Yeah, very indoorsy. Yeah. Um
22:06um
22:07So, there's those which ought to be
22:08obvious to everyone, but there are also
22:10all sorts of really interesting ways
22:11like women's immune systems are very
22:13different from men's. As we saw with
22:15with COVID, men were more likely to die
22:17from COVID, and it was partly to do with
22:19things like men
22:20um certain lifestyle factors that might
22:22make a difference, but it was also just
22:24to do with our immune systems and the
22:25fact that we have to have immune systems
22:27which are um able to accommodate the
22:30presence of an of an alien being in all
22:33you know, through pregnancy. So, it it
22:35has to be different. Women are more
22:36prone therefore to having autoimmune
22:37diseases.
22:39Um
22:40and um
22:42Much more Yeah, more prone to things
22:44like
22:46as you know, osteoporosis. I mean, a
22:47host of things where you see massive
22:49massive sex differences. Um
22:51there's increasingly moves towards in in
22:54in pharmaceuticals, moves towards
22:56creating drugs that are actually have
22:58different formulations for men and for
23:00women because of the recognition that
23:02actually our our systems are so
23:04profoundly different that it's not we
23:06can't just consider women to be smaller
23:08men, which is normally what you do in
23:10dosing. You have to regard men and women
23:13as actually having some really
23:14fundamental differences, which mean that
23:16our drug interactions are
23:18are different. And yes, this is
23:19happening exactly at the same time that
23:21you have this like political discussion
23:23around whether or not women even exist
23:26as a category.
23:28We're not all not just sort of gendered
23:30gay.
23:31Did you see the clip going around of It
23:34was somebody suggesting that the
23:36heartbeat at 6 weeks was manufactured by
23:39the patriarchy?
23:40I I I Yeah, I think I saw a little bit
23:42of that. American politician, was that
23:44right? Yeah.
23:45That's where we're at.
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24:53rest of this episode. Yeah, I don't mean
24:55that whether or not we want it to,
24:57sexual asymmetry is not going anywhere.
25:00And there has been
25:02such a reluctance among most feminists
25:05to grapple with it. Particularly, I
25:07think I'd say particularly now, but it's
25:08a long-standing issue when it comes to
25:10the psychological differences between
25:11men and women, the differences above the
25:13neck. We
25:14Some feminists, you know, radical
25:16feminists in particular, can are
25:18completely okay with the differences
25:19below the neck. Um and will recognize
25:22the importance of things like strength
25:23differences.
25:24But the But the fact that there are
25:27average differences, but very apparent
25:30ones at the population level, is is more
25:33difficult if what you're aspiring to is
25:35equality. And as you As I said at the
25:37top, if you if your interpretation of
25:38equality is women being more like men,
25:40the fact that there are these
25:42psychological differences is that affect
25:44our our behavior and our preferences is
25:46is quite difficult to reconcile. So,
25:48things like women are more agreeable
25:50than men are on average. Women are more
25:52neurotic than men are on average.
25:54And the fact that our sexuality
25:55difference differences are very obvious
25:58at a population level. Yes, there are
25:59exceptions,
26:01but in general, men have more
26:02unrestricted sociosexuality. They're
26:04more interested in having casual sex, in
26:07watching porn, in buying sex. Um men are
26:10much more likely to have paraphilias or
26:13fetishes than women are, much more
26:14likely with with with a few notable and
26:16interesting exceptions. So, for
26:17instance, women are more likely to be
26:18masochists and and so on. But in in all
26:21other paraphilias, men are
26:24wildly in the lead.
26:26And I These are all things that have
26:28become much more socially acceptable
26:29post-sexual revolution. All preferences
26:32that are much more likely to be found in
26:34men than they are in women. And
26:36something like porn or prostitution or
26:38casual sex,
26:40not only are men more likely to be
26:41interested in these things, but they
26:43also depend on women in order to
26:45enjoy them.
26:47Right? Which therefore places demands on
26:48women. I think that what what we're
26:50basically have seen post-sexual
26:51revolution is if you can
26:52if you understand two bell curves for
26:54men and women along the sociosexuality
26:56scale,
26:57you know, it's not a conspiracy. It
26:59isn't to do with um with some with some
27:01exceptions, this isn't generally to do
27:03with men putting sort of interpersonal
27:04pressure on women.
27:06It's got It's got more to do with
27:07culture and a new incentive structure
27:09post-pill. But you what you're basically
27:12seeing is women's the bell curve to sort
27:14of trying to be dragged upwards towards
27:16the the male end and and women being
27:18encouraged to behave more like men in
27:19every possible way. Um and I think in a
27:22lot of cases it's making women
27:23miserable, which is why I wrote the
27:25book. It's making a lot of men
27:26miserable, too. The I'd say the only the
27:29only group who have really profited from
27:31this change to the sexual culture are
27:34very high-status men. What about very
27:37disagreeable
27:38intelligent women?
27:39I'd say in the workplace, absolutely. In
27:41terms of sexuality, I mean there are
27:43women who have very high or very have
27:45very unrestricted sociosexuality, I
27:47should say properly, uh
27:49genuinely do enjoy casual sex, genuinely
27:51do want to watch porn, genuinely are
27:52interested in all kinds of sexual
27:54adventure and experimentation. Those
27:55women do absolutely exist, but they are
27:57rare.
27:58Yeah.
27:59And they will always suffer from the
28:00risks associated with casual sex, like
28:04the risk of unwanted pregnancy, the fact
28:06that uh
28:08women being smaller and weaker means
28:09that in any encounter between a man and
28:11a woman on their own, the woman is
28:12almost always going to be much more
28:14physically at risk of violence. You
28:16know, most women can most most men can
28:19kill most women with their hands, and
28:21but not vice versa. So, even a woman who
28:25genuinely really loves casual sex,
28:26genuinely is really really driven to
28:28have as many partners as possible uh
28:30aside from any cultural pressure put on
28:31her, she's always going to
28:34run any run a risk
28:37in any encounter. And I think you have
28:39to really want to have casual sex for
28:41that risk to outweigh the benefit to
28:43you. So, yes, there are women who are
28:44exceptions to this. There are also men
28:46who are exceptions to this. And I think
28:47it's worth emphasizing that male
28:49sexuality is quite is quite is quite
28:51flexible.
28:53Um not in terms of sexual orientation.
28:55There's an interesting difference
28:56between the sexes that women are much
28:57more bi more likely to be bisexual than
28:59men are. Um you know,
29:0190 I don't know, 7% of men are straight.
29:04Um but they are flexible in terms of
29:08their short-term versus long-term
29:11strategy. So, there are circumstances in
29:13which it's
29:16it's um adaptive for men to want to have
29:20casual sex and to, you know, in theory
29:22men can
29:23conceive a child every time they have
29:24they orgasm, which is obviously not true
29:26for women because we have much greater
29:28physical input into into reproduction.
29:30Um
29:31so, you can see why women would have
29:33evolved to be much more choosy about
29:35their mates and much more careful about
29:39having sex than are men.
29:41Um
29:42and there is a I describe it in the book
29:43as cad mode. There's you know, cad mode
29:45for men um
29:47is being driven towards having as much
29:49being as promiscuous as you possibly can
29:51get away with, you know.
29:53But the other mode for for men, which I
29:54call dad mode,
29:56is oriented towards finding a wife,
29:59having children, investing in those
30:01children, investing in that unit,
30:02stability, you know. Like that there is
30:05and there's a there's an element of
30:07personal preference. Some men are just
30:08more likely to be
30:11drawn towards one mode or the other.
30:13But there's also an incentive
30:16factor and a cultural factor that if
30:18it's advantageous in that moment for you
30:19to do one or the other and if your
30:21culture is telling you to do one or the
30:22other, then that's going to drive men,
30:24you know,
30:25in one or other direction. And I think
30:27what we we we see post sexual revolution
30:29in our social culture
30:31is um
30:33the incentives are all towards cad mode.
30:36Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. I think a
30:39lot of that's how you're raised as well
30:41and who your friends are and I think for
30:44me growing up, I went to an art school
30:45in high school. So, I was in a I was in
30:47a very liberal crowd. I didn't even know
30:50like what a conservative person was
30:52until like 2016,
30:55really. Like I didn't know any
30:57conservatives.
30:58Um
30:59and
31:00there was definitely a stigma around
31:03getting married, settling down, even
31:05dating somebody for a long period of
31:07time. It was pretty intense. It was very
31:10difficult to find somebody who's
31:11interested in
31:13being married eventually. It did happen,
31:15like I did know have some friends that
31:17were like, "Oh, no, I'm I want to find
31:18somebody and settle down." And I think
31:19that was because of how they were
31:21raised. Is there was a big emphasis put
31:23on that's the right way to live. And for
31:26families that had a more difficult time
31:28or were somewhat broken, then there was
31:30less emphasis put on that. And then,
31:32those are the people who still aren't
31:34married and are still kind of screwing
31:36around at like 32, which is also which
31:40you probably get into, not that risky
31:41for a man, but very difficult if they're
31:44dating a 32-year-old woman who wants to
31:47have kids.
31:48Completely. Completely. And
31:51yeah, because I mean, it's going back to
31:53the limits of medical technology, right?
31:56We We
31:57We do have things like IVF.
31:59I'm sorry to say.
32:01Um which
32:03supposedly extends
32:06the biological clock.
32:08But the failure rate of IVF is pretty
32:10amazing.
32:11Particularly when it comes to
32:12age-related infertility, for other
32:15causes of infertility, IVF is quite
32:17good. But for age-related infertility,
32:20it's honestly close to being a scam. Is
32:22that when you harvest eggs late? So, I
32:24think that the age of the eggs does
32:26matter um quite a lot. So, if you
32:29harvest them early and then do IVF
32:31later.
32:32Um
32:33but even then, do you remember there was
32:34that um woman who appeared on the cover
32:36of Time
32:38because she was she was one of the early
32:41people to to invest in egg freezing. And
32:43she did it because she was in a very
32:45high-powered job, I think in New York,
32:47and um,
32:49it was advantageous career-wise for her
32:51to delay childbearing. And so she was
32:53she was
32:54this kind of glamorous shot on the cover
32:56of Time magazine and and and and her
32:58promoting this
32:59this route to liberation for women.
33:02And then some years later, she went to
33:04harvest she went to actually use the
33:05eggs and discovered that almost all of
33:07them had been destroyed in the process.
33:11Mhm.
33:11It's just devastating. Um,
33:14it's it's a it it's it's by no means a
33:17guarantee. And I got to say, when you
33:19see
33:20um,
33:21employers offering things like egg
33:23freezing to their young female
33:25employees,
33:26this is increasingly a perk of jobs in
33:29certain in certain places, particularly
33:30say Silicon Valley,
33:32um, or off offering, sorry, these
33:34services or these other things. Um,
33:37they are doing it because it's in their
33:39interests.
33:40Yeah. They are not doing it. I can't say
33:43that you know,
33:44it
33:46it's a very, very risky route to go down
33:49in terms of your your chances of
33:50actually having a live child at the end
33:52of the process. But it is this
33:54unfortunate fact that a crucial moment
33:57in your professional life
34:00maps on exactly to your
34:02your fertility window.
34:04Which is actually quite quite short and
34:06it's has proved very difficult to to to
34:09expand it. It's a funny thing that we
34:11can we can keep people alive for a long
34:13time. And until recently, life
34:14expectancy just ticked ticked up and up.
34:16I mean, it's now it's now falling
34:18because of things like deaths of
34:19despair, but that's the great story of
34:20the 20th and 21st centuries, life
34:22expectancy just goes up and up. But
34:25people our fertility window doesn't.
34:27And our and if if anything, all of our
34:30social systems are completely massed
34:32against it. You know, the healthiest
34:33time really to be having children is in
34:35your early 20s. And yet that's exactly
34:37when we've got everyone is in education,
34:39you don't own a home, I know. you don't
34:41you're not you're not married or in a
34:42relationship. Like everything is
34:44completely inappropriate for
34:45child-rearing in a social sense.
34:47In a In a biological sense, it's perfect
34:49timing, but you know, that's not that's
34:50not the priority.
34:52Um
34:53Also, things that we can't we struggle
34:54to keep people healthy for a long time.
34:56So, yes, you stay alive for a long time,
34:59but from say the age of 17,
35:01you're going to expect to have a lot of
35:03health problems, to be
35:04to be so much less physically able than
35:06you once were, normally not really able
35:09to work, depending on what kind of work
35:10you do, certainly not able to do manual
35:11work. We've managed to extend old age,
35:15but not health.
35:17It's just
35:18the limits of medical technology never
35:20never cease to amaze me.
35:21So, I've had a difficult time. I I grew
35:24up in a like my dad was traditional,
35:26right? My mom stayed at home, so I had a
35:28stay-at-home mom. And I was always
35:31I I had this kind of
35:33a difficult time understanding what I
35:35was supposed to do because
35:37on one hand, I was told getting a PhD
35:39was massively important, going to
35:41university was massively important, but
35:43also you should be a stay-at-home mom.
35:45And I can remember as a teenager like
35:47adding up the years and being like,
35:48okay,
35:49if it's easiest to have kids in your
35:5120s, but I'm also supposed to supposed
35:53to get a PhD. It wasn't even bachelor
35:56degrees, like that's for sure, but like
35:58PhD is what you really want. I was like,
36:00how do I do both?
36:02And I can remember just being like, I
36:03don't know if I can. Like I don't know
36:05if I can do both. Unless like I don't
36:08know how I can do both. And then I had
36:10some health problems which delayed
36:12schooling and it was like, okay, well,
36:14now the years are completely off. I'm
36:15not going to get a PhD till I'm like 31
36:17and then
36:18like how do you balance everything in
36:20there?
36:21Um and I think I had a difficult time
36:23understanding what the average female is
36:25like because
36:26I'm extremely disagreeable. And for my
36:29entire life, I thought everybody else
36:31was just like me. Like it wasn't till I
36:33was 24. I had I have no idea why this
36:36was because
36:37my dad being who he is, I knew people
36:39had personality differences, but I
36:40couldn't wrap my head around what those
36:42actually manifested like. Mhm. So when I
36:44had conversations, uh
36:46I couldn't understand why people acted
36:48differently in conversations than I did
36:50till I was like 24. I don't know if
36:52other people have that problem, but it
36:53took me a long time. And it was
36:57difficult for me to figure out
36:59what I should feel like. And so
37:02the conversation's interesting because I
37:04don't think I think like the average
37:06female because my disagreeableness is so
37:09high. Um what do you think the average
37:12female looks like? What do you think
37:14they want?
37:16I'm super agreeable. So yeah, so which I
37:19do think actually is a real factor in
37:20all this sexual culture stuff. So a
37:22question I get sometimes is why are
37:24women putting up with this?
37:25Why would women put up with a culture
37:28that is not geared towards their
37:29preferences?
37:31I just anecdotally uh and also in in in
37:34media culture, whatever, you see so many
37:36examples of women who will um
37:41go along with situationships, so called,
37:44right? Or have um casual sexual
37:46relationships without any kind of
37:47commitment. Without even displays of
37:49affection,
37:51um which they desperately crave.
37:53And will
37:56do pornified sex acts that they don't
37:57enjoy, that they don't really want to
37:59do, but they're trying to please
38:01this man, whatever. And And the question
38:02is why would women put up with this?
38:04When When in general, women are the more
38:07are generally the the sex with more
38:09choices when it comes to mates because
38:12we know from all the dating app uh data,
38:14which has proved to be so useful for sex
38:16researchers,
38:17that um
38:19the hypergamy instinct in women, the the
38:23the
38:24subconscious desire to
38:26to marry up and to um
38:29be drawn towards higher status men than
38:30oneself, which men don't have. Men are
38:32quite happy to generally have
38:33relationships with women of the same or
38:34lower status than themselves, but women
38:36are not. Means that you end up with
38:38women kind of clustering towards the
38:40higher status men. I think the figures
38:41on Tinder is it's like 10% of men get
38:4460% of likes. The top 10% of men that
38:47is.
38:47And then the bottom 90% are getting very
38:49little. Whereas women are generally get
38:51a lot of likes, but they're getting
38:52likes from men that they're not
38:53interested in.
38:54And I think that
38:55what's going on is because you've lifted
38:58the monogamy restriction.
39:00Not legally, you know.
39:02Polygamy is still illegal, at least in
39:04the UK.
39:06Um that is probably the next frontier.
39:08Yeah.
39:08Poly polyamorous are going to start
39:10clamoring to have their their
39:11relationships recognized in law. But for
39:13now, it's still illegal.
39:15But in practice, because premarital and
39:17extramarital sex is now
39:19socially acceptable. Um
39:22these high status men who in previous
39:25era would have got married and would
39:27have removed themselves from the dating
39:29pool, instead are able to have be um
39:32serially monogamous or even able to have
39:35simultaneous relationships with with
39:36women who don't mind or even realize,
39:38you know, that they're part of these
39:40harems, right? Digital harems. And um
39:44Mhm. I I think that's why those women
39:46end up those those high status men are
39:49able to really really set the terms.
39:51Because if they if if a woman doesn't,
39:54say, have sex on the first date,
39:56it's easy enough to find another woman
39:58who will.
39:59So, you end up with a slightly
40:00artificial level of competition between
40:02women who, you know, there are actually
40:03enough men to go around, but there
40:05aren't enough men that they actually
40:06want to be with to go around. And so,
40:08they're competing for a minority of men
40:11who basically have I mean, it's kind of
40:12open season. They can demand that their
40:14own preferences be met. So, what's the
40:17what's the solution here?
40:19Now that we're in this predicament.
40:22I mean, on an individual level, it is
40:24quite possible for people to just choose
40:26to be a bit more trad. The The The
40:28challenge is of course finding a partner
40:30who wants to who wants that, too. But, I
40:32I'm noticing around me a a quite a
40:34significant turn against this stuff.
40:37It's increasingly common in elite
40:39circles as well. You know, there's this
40:41there's this apparent turn towards
40:42Catholicism among young neologers and I
40:47see it among young Londoners as well. A
40:49greater conservatism among a sort of
40:51subsection of of the elite. You can
40:54choose to do that, you know, you can
40:56still get married, you can still not
40:58have premarital sex, you can still
41:00choose to be a stay-at-home mom, have
41:01loads of children. I mean, it's more
41:03difficult because things like being a
41:05stay-at-home mom in an in an economic
41:07environment where that's really
41:08challenging.
41:09It's just harder than it used to be. Um
41:12you won't have the social support that
41:13you used to have if if that's the route
41:15that you're choosing.
41:16Um
41:18you will forego status
41:20to some extent.
41:22But,
41:24it's still possible. So, I do have
41:26advice for for for readers along along
41:30those lines, you know, you you
41:32I think that one change that would could
41:33come about quite easily is just
41:37I think part of the So, sorry, I was
41:39saying before that part of the reason
41:40why you see women putting up with
41:42nonsense is because of the hypergamy
41:44fact. But, I think the other reason is
41:46to do with agreeableness. Mhm. Mhm. And
41:48agreeable people just find it really
41:50difficult to to to be assertive in those
41:52situations. And when
41:54when for instance the norm becomes
41:56having sex on a first date.
41:58And indeed the norm becomes having sex
41:59before marriage per se, you know, it
42:01used to be that if the social
42:03expectation was that you you wouldn't
42:04have sex before marriage, then there's
42:06no conversation. It is just assumed
42:09after a date that we will not be having
42:11sex. That's the default. Now, the
42:13default is to have sex.
42:15And that means that women are put in the
42:17situation, sometimes very agreeable
42:19women, who are really keen to please
42:20these, you know,
42:22these these desirable men, whatever,
42:24where they have to be defending their
42:25own sexual boundaries, even if they're
42:27actually quite reluctant. And off it's
42:29often often what you see in Me Too
42:30cases,
42:32where women are describing situations
42:34where they're they're you know, they're
42:35with a man who potentially they are
42:36actually quite romantically interested
42:37in after a date, whatever. Aziz Ansari
42:39was a famous example. Do you remember
42:41that one?
42:42The the actor Aziz Ansari, who had a
42:44date with a woman,
42:46um went back to his place, and she
42:49didn't want to have sex, he did.
42:51He didn't rape her. There wasn't
42:52anything illegal that happened. She
42:54never really said no,
42:56but she also wasn't was was a bit
42:58reluctant and and made it she felt made
43:00it evident nonverbally that she was
43:02reluctant. He apparently didn't think
43:05so. Um and they ended up and they ended
43:07up having sex. And she felt felt really
43:09violated, felt really distressed. And
43:11she later just she later wrote about
43:12this, and it became a whole thing.
43:14She had to express
43:17what what happened in the terms of
43:18consent. And so the the the conversation
43:21that happened afterwards was, was this
43:23really consensual? What, you know, what
43:26was this sexual assault, etc. I think
43:28the answer to that is no, it wasn't
43:30sexual assault in an on a legal level,
43:31but it also wasn't good.
43:34And he didn't behave well, and he didn't
43:35behave
43:37like a gentleman, right? Is what you
43:38would have said historically. He didn't
43:39behave like a gentleman. He didn't
43:40demonstrate chivalry. He put pressure on
43:43a woman who what who who he ought to
43:45have recognized was reluctant.
43:47But the thing is that when when the
43:48expectation, particularly when you're
43:50talking about a fan going on a date with
43:52a celebrity, which is the circumstances
43:53there, and you've they've gone back to
43:54his house, the expectation was that they
43:56would have sex. And so it was incumbent
43:58on her to be assertive
44:01and to say no. And agreeable people find
44:04that really hard. So I think that's
44:05that's very often what's going on. And I
44:07think that if there's one change that
44:08could happen quite swiftly potentially
44:11is if we had a bit of a change in
44:13in norms and expectations.
44:16And if women felt more confident in
44:19demanding certain things. That I hear so
44:22often from young women in particular
44:24this, you know, I'm afraid of being
44:25frigid. I'm afraid of being a prude.
44:26Yeah.
44:27I'm afraid of of of being considered low
44:29status because I don't want to do XYZ.
44:32If if the status flipped
44:35and and different expectations were in
44:38place
44:39then I think you would see women and
44:41therefore men behaving quite differently
44:43because women women are the gatekeepers,
44:44you know, most of the time. What you see
44:46now for instance at the moment is you
44:48see there's this dreadful phenomenon on
44:50TikTok of young women showing off their
44:52bruises that they've got from having
44:54rough sex with their boyfriends like
44:55really young women, teenagers. So that
44:57they've got bruises on their neck and
44:59they'll like take TikToks of them and
45:00this is this is considered to be really
45:01desirable.
45:02I think all women will show off by how
45:04many partners they've had. I think that
45:06that's coming from
45:08a misunderstanding of male sexuality.
45:11I think that we because we're
45:13we're all kind of collectively in denial
45:15about how profoundly different men and
45:17women are on the cellular level as we
45:19were saying but also psychologically.
45:21And I think that a lot of young women
45:22don't realize that men are much more
45:25geared towards having emotional sex than
45:27they are. Yeah.
45:28are much more willing to have sex with
45:30women that they really they wouldn't
45:31care if they got hit by a bus next week
45:33frankly.
45:34And so things like having you know being
45:36able to to to entice a man into bed or
45:39or or to have rough sex or whatever is
45:41not actually much of an achievement.
45:43It's pretty easy to do that particularly
45:45as a as a young woman. But because of
45:48that misunderstanding of the fact that
45:50men regard sex quite differently from
45:52women I think that these these young
45:53women don't know that because they've
45:54not learned it yet. And because the
45:56culture completely misinforms them about
45:58reality. Um
46:00I think that if they did know that
46:02I don't think they'd be putting these
46:04videos on TikTok.
46:06Yeah.
46:07So, that's a kind of modest aim.
46:09To let them know. It's a good It's a
46:11good aim. Um I agree. I think that
46:13that's kind of similar to my
46:15misunderstanding of personality
46:17differences till I was 24. Just not I
46:19just didn't I knew, but I didn't
46:21understand what that looked like.
46:24I think that probably goes for
46:26differences between men and women, too.
46:28I still have a hard time with that. Like
46:30even with my husband. And I am fully
46:32educated in the differences between men
46:34and women, and I still have a hard time
46:37understanding why responses to
46:39situations can differ between us.
46:42And it's because we're, you know, I I
46:44mean, I have that issue with looking at
46:47other women as well. But I I think it's
46:49very hard for people to to understand
46:51how different men and women can be or
46:53people can be from each other. It's
46:55tricky. I found that having a baby
46:57actually I mean, I I like you, I knew I
46:59knew these things academically. I found
47:01that having a baby made them really,
47:03really apparent. Um the sense to the the
47:06sense in which we are sort of slaves to
47:07our biology. And actually, we don't we
47:10don't have nearly as much control over
47:12our our instincts and our behaviors as
47:14we think. Because the way in which
47:16maternal and paternal instincts differ,
47:18for instance, is really striking. And
47:21particularly during So, my son's 16
47:23months old now.
47:24Mhm.
47:25You know that instinct to check that
47:26your baby's breathing? Yeah. Which
47:28everyone does. I didn't know initially
47:30that that was a natural thing to do. And
47:32so, you you feel a bit crazy constantly
47:34going in and checking checking your
47:36baby's breathing. But then I and I still
47:38do it occasionally, but when they're
47:39newborn, they do it all the time. I
47:41found out recently that apparently
47:42chimpanzee mothers do that.
47:45Oh, that's cool. Yeah, isn't it?
47:47I didn't know that. That's cool. Yeah.
47:50Um and my husband doesn't do that. Or a
47:52little bit, maybe, but it's not the same
47:54kind of desperate drive towards like
47:56I've got to check the baby's breathing.
47:57Um which all of my all of my mum friends
47:59have said that. they have as well. Um
48:01These things are the
48:02The thing Yeah, yeah, they are. The
48:04thing that I noticed So, uh the thing
48:06that I noticed when I had I have a
48:085-year-old daughter. This was very
48:10strange and I thought this was on a
48:11serious biological level is as soon as
48:14she was born, I couldn't sleep.
48:17I don't know I don't know what your
48:18experience was, but I used to be able to
48:19sleep through anything wherever,
48:22whenever. And then as soon as she was
48:24born, it was like she'd just breathe
48:26funny, right? Like she's not crying.
48:29She'd be like huh just like this tiny
48:31little and I'd be like it'd be like an
48:32electric zap through my body and I'd be
48:34awake. I was like that's crazy. And
48:38she's five now and it hasn't gone away.
48:41So, I sleep with like a mask and white
48:44noise and if my husband moves, then I'm
48:48kind of awake and that wasn't the case
48:50before and it happened as soon as she
48:52was born. Did that happen to you? Was
48:54noises? Yeah. Yeah.
48:56Oh my gosh, it's exhausting.
48:58It really is. Um and I found as well
49:01that I um
49:03So, initially we didn't co-sleep because
49:06I was so scared of all the SIDS stuff.
49:08And then ended up kind of gradually
49:10letting him stay in the bed. And one of
49:12the And And I did that partly because I
49:13read about like the anthropology of
49:16infant sleep and the fact that infants
49:19sleeping in the same bed as their
49:20mothers, crucially not their fathers.
49:23So, it's not safe to have fathers sleep
49:25with the infant. Yeah. It is safe to
49:28have mothers sleep with the infant as
49:30long as there are certain like risk
49:31factors aren't present um like premature
49:34prematurity or and mother has to not be
49:36on sleeping drugs or drunk or anything
49:37like that, but but in most circumstances
49:39it is safe to for mothers to sleep with
49:41a baby um
49:43because you are so attuned to them all
49:45the time. You're not going to roll over
49:46your baby. And actually what you end up
49:48doing instinctively is forming a C-shape
49:50around the baby where you have like your
49:52arm. Yeah, and you do it in your sleep
49:54You don't
49:55completely and that is apparently the
49:57natural thing the C-shape is what they
49:58they they they write about in
50:01in the sleep studies. Like this?
50:04Well, all like on your arm, you know,
50:06and then you like like a little cuddle.
50:07Oh, that's so cool. Okay, I did that.
50:10Um and yeah, that's just that's cuz cuz
50:13your body is like completely set on
50:15this. I found as well when I in the
50:17early in the early weeks in particular
50:19I'd like I would only ever dream about
50:21my son. I didn't dream about anything
50:22else.
50:23And I would if I closed my eyes I could
50:25see his face. Like I had that level of
50:27constant attunement towards the baby
50:30which then gradually lapses. Yeah, yeah.
50:33that link becomes a little bit less
50:35you know, but you know they talk about
50:36the fourth trimester. Yeah, we we give
50:39birth to our babies too early really and
50:41so you you you have to have this intense
50:43dependency initially.
50:45Um
50:46Yeah, it's crazy.
50:47which has all sorts of social effects
50:48obviously as well because it's just
50:51is a very uncomfortable if if if
50:54if you're a liberal individualist and
50:56you're all about people having autonomy
50:58then motherhood is a is a
51:00huge problem.
51:02Because mothers can't be autonomous.
51:05And there's this really
51:06you know, you you're not really talking
51:08about two individuals when you talk
51:09about a mother and a baby.
51:11Because the baby definitely can't be
51:13considered in that way because because
51:15he or she is just completely dependent
51:16on
51:17on other people for staying alive.
51:20But mothers also are so emotionally
51:23drawn towards them but even if you've
51:24got formula, even if you've got daycare,
51:26even if you've got all these things
51:28which can kind of
51:30um physically
51:32lessen the dependency, that emotional
51:34link is insane.
51:36And you know, try as you might try and
51:38persuade mothers to to break it. If
51:42that's your social project, you're going
51:43to fail.
51:44That's also cruel. It would have been so
51:47much easier. Like I had Scarlet
51:49Yeah, she's 5 so I had her 5 years ago
51:51and it really decimated my social life.
51:55Like and I was prepared for that but it
51:58would have been so much Like there's a
52:00reason women
52:02most women aren't doing that, right?
52:05Especially if you're in a more liberal
52:06circle cuz you have a kid and you're 25
52:09or like 24 or 23. Even 26. Yeah, it's
52:14like I was 29 and I felt really young.
52:17Yeah. I know, 29 even. Yeah.
52:20Right? Like and then you're the only
52:22person, especially if you're like
52:24probably if you're educated or if you're
52:27more liberal, you're the only person in
52:28your friend group that has a kid. I had
52:30responses from friends that are like,
52:32"Oh, you're ruining your life."
52:34And like that was and then the
52:36neighborhood I moved into at the time,
52:38too.
52:39I was looked down on. Like I had a kid
52:42and they're like, "Well, what's your
52:43job?" It was these older women, too.
52:45These like 50, 60-year-old women were
52:47too like,
52:48"Oh, you're just staying at home?"
52:50Gosh.
52:50Okay. Yeah. And I was like, "What Wow,
52:53so now my entire social circle is
52:55broken. My neighborhood, everyone in my
52:58neighborhood is 15 years older than me
53:00with the kids that are the same age." It
53:02was just like
53:03good luck with that. And it's worth it
53:07for sure. It's worth it and I think um
53:10trying to like I appreciate what you're
53:11doing because what needs to happen, I
53:13think, is it needs to be made cool again
53:16because women need it, right? It needs
53:18to be cool. It needs to be cool to be a
53:19gentleman. It needs to be cool to be a
53:21dad. Like having it's so attractive to
53:24have a man say
53:26"Hey, I want you to have babies with me
53:28and I want to take care of you." Like
53:30that is so attractive. I don't know when
53:33that stopped being attractive. I think
53:35it still is. It is but It It's just
53:39Yeah, it's just persuading people. I
53:41know, I know. I completely agree and it
53:43it it also ends up with the slightly
53:44unfortunate that I found around here cuz
53:47we live in we live in London and we're
53:48in one of these parts of London where
53:50yeah
53:51like
53:52at my hospital the average age for first
53:56baby was like late 30s the average age.
54:00That's crazy. Yeah.
54:02Wow. And
54:04and that was including you know where I
54:06where I gave birth
54:08covered an area with quite a high South
54:09Asian immigrant population where women
54:11were having babies a lot younger so it
54:12was it was that balanced with the with
54:14the upper middle class women who are
54:16having them really late. And and also
54:18most most women go back to work quite
54:20quickly. So you can find quite soon that
54:23if you
54:25if you want to be stay-at-home or if
54:26like me at the time I was I was at home
54:29part of the week
54:30you have no one to hang out with.
54:32I know. It's it's rough.
54:34And also you don't have many friends who
54:35have children so they're all at work
54:37obviously. And their social schedule
54:40isn't going to fit in with you. You know
54:41you want to be having like mid-morning
54:44socializing. You can't be doing late
54:46nights and stuff. It's yeah it's
54:48difficult breaking from
54:50Yeah. You have to see you have to seek
54:51out people who are also making your
54:53eccentric decisions.
54:54Yeah.
54:56Yeah and hopefully that'll become more
54:57and more common. It was so interesting.
54:59I spent a period of time in Serbia.
55:02And if you went out to like
55:05the the streets or there people would
55:07hang out at like little coffee shops
55:10there were people my that would have two
55:12or three kids
55:13with their friends like that would also
55:17have two or three kids. Mhm. And the
55:19like men are drinking beer women are
55:21drinking coffee or having a beer. Kids
55:24are like running around them and they
55:26were 28-year-olds.
55:28And they had kids from like a kid on
55:31their lap and then two kids that were
55:33under five.
55:34And I can I looking at that being like
55:36they're having a good time. Like that
55:38looks like fun. They haven't lost their
55:40lives. They still have friends. They're
55:42out socializing,
55:44but their kids are there.
55:46I was like that just doesn't exist here.
55:48And then when I was in in Russia, they
55:50have restaurants set up so that you'll
55:53have a really nice like steakhouse
55:54restaurant, and at one area of the
55:56restaurant, they'll hire this generally
55:59like a kind of a grandmother type person
56:01that will you can give your kid to for
56:03dinner. Yeah, and they'll entertain your
56:06kid and it's just part of the
56:07restaurant. Or they'll have little rooms
56:09that are full of toys, so parents can go
56:12and you can say, "Hey, you you know,
56:14here's a kid for a few hours." The kids
56:17have a blast, parents get a break, but
56:19society is set up so that people can do
56:23that. And that institute like those
56:25types of institutions don't exist at all
56:27here.
56:28Unless it's super deliberate. So I'm
56:30going on a a weekend thing which is put
56:32on by a by a conservative think tank.
56:34And because they're very deliberately
56:36pro-family,
56:37they are providing
56:39deliberately providing child care.
56:40Everything is family oriented, you know,
56:41but that's not normal. So I initially
56:43thought I can't possibly go because I
56:45don't you know, and I spoke to them and
56:46they said, "No, no. This is genuinely
56:48pro-family."
56:49They made it, yeah. Yeah, but you have
56:51to kind of you have to go that extra
56:53mile. It was also something to be fair
56:55that a lot of um
56:56feminists did like doing conferences in
56:58the second wave times, doing conferences
57:00and providing crushes because, you know,
57:02if
57:03if children won't participate, then
57:05mothers can't participate because they
57:07they come as a package.
57:09Um I think also this thing of the fact
57:12that we don't really see kids running
57:13around in restaurants and stuff. I think
57:14it's also because that feeling of social
57:17disapproval. I think we've never had a
57:19time, probably in human history, where
57:21so many adults have no have no
57:23experience of children. Mhm. Because you
57:26can now make it a really long time and
57:28never have held a baby.
57:30Because you're you're not likely to have
57:32a lot of siblings who are having kids,
57:33and not likely all of your friends are
57:35also delaying childbearing. You're not
57:36really seeing kids out and about.
57:38You can you can reach the age of 40 or
57:40something, and you've basically never
57:42been in charge of a child. I mean, I
57:43used to work as a nanny when I was
57:45younger, so I'm unusual in that sense.
57:47Um
57:49but I
57:50I It's kind of no wonder that you have
57:53people sort of
57:54winging about children on airplanes and
57:56women with children in restaurants and
57:58all this stuff. Like, children are
57:59members of society, too. And they I
58:01mean, there's one thing to obviously
58:02complain about parents not being
58:03sufficiently attentive, but just Yeah.
58:05Children
58:06Children, you know, like they they
58:09they behave differently from grown-ups.
58:11And you you kind of have to learn you
58:14just have to learn that from being
58:15around them. And I think that as a
58:17society, we're increasingly not familiar
58:20with what children are like.
58:22Which then makes it more difficult to as
58:24a parent to be bringing children into
58:25places like restaurants or or churches.
58:28Think how Think how noisy churches must
58:29have been.
58:32You know, what I mean, Sarah?
58:33I can almost remember
58:36um and I'm 30. I feel like when I was a
58:38kid, the the weddings I went to, and I
58:40went to church. I didn't go to church
58:42often. I went to church a few times, but
58:43I remember every time I went to one of
58:45those events, a baby would cry, and then
58:47someone would get up and go outside with
58:49a baby. That was just the norm at those
58:51events, and now it's not.
58:53Including a child-free weddings. Have
58:55you come across these? Is I've not yet
58:57been invited to a child-free wedding,
58:58but this is apparently
59:02a thing now.
59:02I think that's the norm. I think it's
59:03the norm. I think that also has to do
59:05with It It is crazy. I think it It has
59:08to do with how much people are spending
59:10on weddings as well.
59:12Yeah, so I can see how you don't Yeah,
59:14yeah, yeah. Which I think as well, you
59:15know, is a consequence of
59:17is a consequence of the pill, because
59:21because
59:22Well, consequence Well,
59:25a consequence of the death of the
59:26marriage institution, which is
59:28downstream of the pill, because I think
59:29that now it is so easy to get divorced.
59:33There's so much less permanence in
59:34general attached to marriage, but I
59:36think people don't feel as if it has
59:38much inherent meaning anymore. Whereas,
59:41you know, back in the day where you
59:42really couldn't get divorced, if you
59:43just show up to you go to Gretna Green
59:45and just you two and a witness, you've
59:48completely transformed your life.
59:50Even if the day was pretty trivial in
59:51all of the senses and you didn't spend
59:53any money on it, you've completely
59:54transformed your life. Whereas now you
59:56haven't actually and everyone kind of
59:57knows that. So I think people try and
59:59invest meaning by spending money
1:00:02and making it into a massive event and
1:00:04having these kind of big society
1:00:05weddings, which were not normal
1:00:08um for say our grandparents' generation.
1:00:10They wouldn't People didn't spend that
1:00:12that kind of big reception dinner and
1:00:13everything. That was what people did in
1:00:15the upper classes. That wasn't a normal
1:00:17um whereas now it's expected and it ends
1:00:19up of course being another impediment to
1:00:22getting married because you if you can't
1:00:24afford to have a big wedding then you
1:00:25might delay it and children, which are
1:00:27actually the whole point of marriage.
1:00:30Right? That's the original That's the
1:00:32original purpose of marriage is to
1:00:34provide a basis on which to
1:00:37children.
1:00:38Um
1:00:39whereas now the connection is not at all
1:00:40obvious. It's seen as a sort of
1:00:42means of self-fulfillment, maybe,
1:00:46uh an accomplishment in that you found
1:00:48your your forever person. It's not seen
1:00:50as a
1:00:51a precondition of family formation.
1:00:54Hopefully things get better. I think I
1:00:56think I've seen I think things are going
1:00:58to get better. I It felt like things
1:01:00were going to get worse in 2018 and I
1:01:02feel like things are getting better now.
1:01:03I think the popularity in some of these
1:01:06more traditional ideas
1:01:08and the acceptance of them
1:01:09There's
1:01:11things have split more, but I I feel
1:01:13like there are more people talking
1:01:15about, "Hey, having a family is okay.
1:01:18Wanting to be a stay-at-home mom is
1:01:20okay. Kids are Kids are great." Like I
1:01:22think it's more popular. I hope. And I
1:01:24think men are are getting more
1:01:26interested in the idea as well.
1:01:28I think. Or I could just be in a bubble.
1:01:30I think you're right. I think there's
1:01:31something happening. Someone said to me
1:01:33um the other day that uh
1:01:35if you read if you read if you address
1:01:37in this book 10 years ago it would have
1:01:39been a flop. But but this seems to be
1:01:43for some reason a moment where
1:01:46I didn't have very much negative
1:01:47response actually not at all. Cool.
1:01:49That's cool.
1:01:51overwhelmingly positive and so much
1:01:54bigger than I thought as well. I get
1:01:55like I get emails several times a day
1:01:58from people who are saying
1:02:00wow this book has had such an impact on
1:02:02me. And I I sort of feel like I'm just
1:02:03saying obvious stuff, but I think that
1:02:05we're living in a time where the obvious
1:02:07stuff needs to be said.
1:02:08Agreed.
1:02:09Okay, so where can people go to find
1:02:11your book and where can people go online
1:02:13to find you?
1:02:14So um best place to find me is on
1:02:16Twitter. So I'm @louise_m_perry.
1:02:21And the book is called The Case Against
1:02:23the Sexual Revolution, A New Guide to
1:02:25Sex in the 21st Century, and it came out
1:02:28uh like 2 weeks ago in the States and is
1:02:31available
1:02:32all over the world and is about to be
1:02:33translated into a bunch of other
1:02:34languages, but for now it's just in
1:02:36English. That is so cool.
1:02:37Congratulations. Thank you so much.

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This page contains the full transcript of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution | Louise Perry 165 by Mikhaila Peterson, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 11,909 words across 1,906 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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