Six Feet, Six Figures: The New Dating Bar

When you have an orgasm looking at porn, it activates the same brain network that is activated during sexual activity. So it is basically like having sex to some extent, or you are being tricked into feeling as though you're having sex even though you're not. You're watching something on a screen. If you have porn in your pocket available at any point in time, and there's an unlimited number of partners on there, and you can find exactly what you're looking for in terms of what the partner looks like, how she behaves. Now, if you have AI pornography becoming so popular where you can just basically tell the AI what you want it to do, and I've tested these platforms out myself, and it is insanely realistic. It scared me how realistic it is.

I am in Toronto.

Yes.

Yeah. And we're in this, we're summertime right now, which is the best time of the year.

Yeah, my parents are originally from Malaysia, and I have to say I love New York, too. I agree. I tell people all the time Toronto is like a smaller version of New York, and they're always, if they're Torontonians, they tend to be a bit skeptical, but I do love New York. Um, but yeah, they came over here, and um, yeah, I love the city. I've moved around a bit for school and things like that, but I've always come back.

Yes. Well, thank you for your kind words, too. Um, so I had noticed this trend starting in 2016 because that was the first time data had been published showing that there is this decline in sex that was happening across America. And so in that study, it showed it was based, as you said, on that sample of data that is nationally representative of Americans, showing that millennials were the first generation to be showing this very pronounced decline in sexual activity, and this was expected to continue on for Gen Z. And since then, more data has come out consistently showing that there is this trend across the globe. It doesn't matter, as you said, marital status, age cohorts, of people having less sex than ever before, and it is most pronounced in millennials and Gen Z, and among those generations, among young men in particular. So Sexinction, my book, is about trying to understand why is this trend happening? What is taking the place of sex? And my interest in sexual inactivity is partially because I used to study human sexuality scientifically, but also because it, to me, is a reflection of emotional intimacy and connection more widely. So if people are less interested in having sex, what is taking its place? Why are people less interested? And if this is even happening among married people and people who are partnered up, I don't think that's necessarily a good sign of where we're headed in society. But also, I wrote the book as a guide for parents because we know so much more now about social media and screens and how technology has the potential to really derail young people's development. And in Sexinction, I talk a lot about how I think Gen Z has unfortunately been, to some extent, a guinea pig generation because many of these technologies, they grew up not knowing a world without them. And I don't think parents should be blamed for that. But now that we do know more, hopefully being able to prevent further harm potentially to future generations and to adults as well, because I do think we're also being affected. Just because our brains are more developed doesn't mean we're completely immune to these changes.

I think that's very much true. I mean, I have an entire chapter in Sexinction about dating apps and social media and how that alone has really warped our perceptions. And I can only imagine what it's like to grow up with this technology and not really know what it's like to meet someone and not be able to look them up online and creep them and find out all these things about them. And at the same time, you as a potential single person trying to find somebody, you know that anyone who's interested in you is going to do that to you. So what is the image that you feel you need to project online? So that's a lot of pressure for young kids. Um, the other part of that is, as you mentioned, because it is, well, I'm not sure if you said this explicitly, but it is a commercial enterprise. So these platforms are incentivized to want to keep you on there. So something like dating apps, it's not really in their best interest to have everyone find someone and end up happily married and never need to use that technology again. So I mean, I understand that and I respect it. It's, you know, it's a product like anything else. But I think when we outsource our personal lives and especially things like emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy to these platforms that are not necessarily looking out for our best interests or treating us as individuals who have dreams and the desire to fall in love, um, that can be potentially very unhelpful and frustrating to people. And I think nowadays a lot of people are experiencing dating app burnout. So social media too, that's really affected, I would say, how, not even, I mean, there's a huge body of research literature about the effects on how it has detrimentally affected their self-esteem, their body image, both the boys and girls in terms of body dysmorphia, muscle dysmorphia in young boys, plastic surgery in young girls. Um, you know, even in Toronto, I see young women all the time walking around, they're teenagers and they have injectables, which is crazy to me. But then the other thing is, so you have, you feel this pressure in terms of your body, but then also I think adults also are similarly affected by the types of partners they think that they should be pursuing, what they think they need to look like to attract other people, what they think they deserve. Um, the whole trend of looksmaxxing is based on this erroneous idea that young boys need to look like a super hyper alpha masculine gigachad guy when most women don't really care that much about what a guy looks like. Like yes, you want something you're attracted to, but for women especially, that handsomeness and that attractiveness is based on many other factors as opposed to just purely how tall you are, how strong is your jawline, how muscular you are. If anything, most women don't want to date a really jacked guy because they find that scary. So social media, dating apps, I think, and now we have things like AI chatbots, which I talk about in Sexinction, also pornography, creates this entire ecosystem that I think is a hall of mirrors and then also offers these potential replacements for in-person sex or in-person connection that doesn't really fulfill us, but they do give this perception of fulfillment. So I think that's also a way for some people, especially if they are struggling in their mental health, to avoid having to go through the trouble of actually getting dressed, going out, working on themselves, having social skills, interacting with people, dealing with rejection, not necessarily getting what they want. And then I have another chapter in Sexinction that talks about biological influences. So things like the birth control pill, potentially low testosterone, environmental toxins that may also be affecting us on a level that we're not fully aware of. And until those things are addressed as well, I don't think we're going to be able to fully fix the issues that we're facing right now with this crisis.

Yeah. And I would agree with that, and I think I tried to be as fair across the board in terms of pointing out what both sexes are doing right and what they could be doing better. So I would say in terms of, there's definitely a novel dynamic between the sexes. There's this, I partially, this hostility that I see fermented by online content, but also I think post-MeToo that's made things a lot more complicated for both the sexes. And I don't blame men for this because I think most young men are understandably terrified to approach a woman in public because they don't want to be labeled a creep. They don't want to potentially be filmed and put on social media or on the internet, have their life ruined forever. Um, and then I also think, like you said, with the, it's not as, just more generally, can't date at work. It's not as socially normal to talk to strangers anymore. People feel very much like everyone's always on their phone. So those things combined, I think men need to be the pursuers. And like you, I've found the same thing with couples that are happily married. Usually the man was more interested in the woman and he probably is a little bit more in love with her than she is with him, which is probably not a popular thing to say, but that's generally what I found. And I've talked to lawyers who work in family courts and they say similar things. So I think that is because men naturally need to feel like they're invested in their partner and they need to know that they put the effort in. So if you have a whole generation of young men who are disincentivized from pursuing women because society tells them you don't want to be creepy, you don't want to be a harasser, they're also, say, if they're struggling with low testosterone, they're lacking not just in terms of their libido but also their motivation more broadly in life. So one of the, I would say, main reasons why young men do strive to be successful is because those markers of success help to attract women, because women on average tend to prefer partners who have resources, who are as successful or more successful than they are. So if young men are feeling lethargic, they don't have the energy, they don't have motivation or focus, they're not really interested in pursuing goals, that's a turnoff to women. And then, and again, if they're struggling biologically, that's not their fault. But then I also think there's, in our culture and systemically, there's a real push to support young women in their success almost at the expense of young men. So you have initiatives like diversity that explicitly penalize young men or men more generally, especially white and Asian men, for no reason other than the fact that they are men. And I've had colleagues, former colleagues in academia, tell me that they have come across job postings, I've seen them myself, where they explicitly say this person needs to be a minority, either a woman or some other minority status, to apply. So basically men are excluded from these job applications, which is nothing more than discrimination. It's wrong. So I think there's this sense that if we care about men or we are sympathetic toward them, that is somehow a cost to women, that's a threat to women. Women are going to be sent back to the kitchen, not have equal rights, not be allowed to pursue their careers. But then you also have with this online discourse, because it's become so polarized, and young men today are saying, "Well, what did I do to deserve this? I have no issue with women. I just don't like being discriminated against." So then you have these influencers come in and say, "Okay, you guys want someone who tells you you're not toxic and that masculinity is great. We're going to tell you how to be really, you know, dominant and really discriminate against women. Tell them that they have no rights. They just don't deserve equal rights anymore." And then you have the opposite side of that, of female influencers saying to young women, "See, this is why you can't trust men. This is why men are all sexist and misogynistic." So it keeps going on back and forth and back and forth. So going back to your earlier point, I do think, yeah, it's more important that your partner is kind to you, compassionate, supports you, both of you care about each other, put each other first. Those things like agreeableness and personality factors are much more predictive of success in a marriage. But I also think because people spend so much time online and the younger generations do, and that's their primary way of meeting people and interacting now, they're being fed this ideology of what they need in terms of how their partner needs to look and the status that person brings to the table, as opposed to, like you said, is this person, what are they like just on a day-to-day basis? Do you like being around them? Do they make you laugh? Are they nice to people? Can they have a conversation with a stranger? Things like that. So it feels as if the gulf between connection is getting wider and wider. And so, and this is a wonderful thing. Women are ascending. Women no longer, I think, or not nearly as many women feel the economic need to partner. They can take care of themselves, and that's great. And naturally speaking, in a marketplace, as one party increases its game, their expectation should naturally increase. I think that's fair. And men, simply put, need to level up in terms of their own plan, their own economic viability, their own emotional viability, their physique, their dressing, making an effort, being creative, you know, just showing up, making an effort, leveling up. And I think a lot of people would agree men aren't leveling up at the same pace that women are leveling up. So it's understandable to think that women might complain there aren't enough economically and emotionally viable men out there. At the same time, and I want you to critique both of these assertions: women's expectations, because of online, what I keep seeing online when you have these women talking about is I keep hearing six feet, six figures, like that is the bare minimum, like they're being reasonable, of course, six feet, six figures. And if you take out married men, obese men, over the age of 50, it's like 8% of the population. So do you agree that one, men aren't leveling up at the same rate that women are leveling up, creating just a gulf in qualifications or quality, and two, at the same time, women's expectations have become somewhat unreasonable, therefore just creating a gulf of expectations that is not breached or crossed?

I write about the three sixes rule in Sexinction, which you mentioned. You mentioned two of the three sixes. I think you maybe are trying to be polite and not mention the third one, which has to do with size down below. So yeah, women, there is this essentially this lore, I guess, or perspective that women should seek out a man who is a top-tier male specimen in terms of his height, how much money he makes, his supposed ability to fulfill you sexually. Although I will say that it's not necessarily length. Other factors matter. This has been documented by the scientific research. But I do think women should be allowed to want what they want. And there is an evolutionary or historical reason why women have these preferences somewhat ingrained in them, in that yes, someone who is taller than you or a partner who is taller than you can physically protect you. He probably is going to be a more successful provider as well. So the six figures annual income speaks to that. And I guess the sexual fulfillment has to do with you being happy in the relationship. But at the same time, it's gone a little bit off course because those are not really metrics, as I mentioned earlier, that are going to point to relationship or marital success long term. And there are surely plenty of men out there who do meet these three sixes who are still jerks and who are not going to necessarily be husband material. So you take this issue, and what I want to say too is that when you have the influencers, right, these manosphere-type influencers who are pointing to hypergamy and saying, "See, this is why all women cheat, this is why women can't be trusted, this is why women have, quote, delusional standards," I'm thinking, but it's no different from men having their standards in terms of men tend to want to date women who are younger and who are attractive and who are symmetrical because these are all indicators of fertility and reproductive health. So I think both sexes should be allowed to want what they want. I'm just trying, you asked for criticism, so I'm trying to push back on these ideas from whatever angle I can. But I do think it's gone to the point where it's so unrealistic now for both sexes. But combine that with the fact that women are excelling in terms of their same-age peers. So women are doing better in terms of education and occupation. So there is a smaller pool of viable men, viable successful men for these women to choose from. So all women are basically fighting over the same pool of smaller, the smaller pool of men because men don't tend to care as much about a woman's success. It doesn't matter how successful a woman is, she's going to be fighting after the same pool of men. And then the vast majority of men who are not as successful have basically been shut out of the dating market. And so now they're going down the route of these other replacements like the chatbots, the sex robots and sex dolls, pornography. And instead of society recognizing that there's a problem here and that we should stop discriminating against men, we should try to tone down this animosity between the sexes, it's saying, "Okay, we're just going to give you guys, quote, solutions." So we're going to tell women, "Okay, if you want to, say, have a family, you want to get married and have a family," not to say that everyone has to do this, but if you do choose to, for women, our biological window is much more unforgiving than men's. So if you get to a certain age and you don't have a man with whom you'd like to have a child, now society is saying, let's normalize this idea of women having children on their own, like basically electively having children on their own, which I can imagine for many women, if you get to a certain age and you'd like to have a child and you don't have a partner, it's not my place to judge someone who decides to do that. But I also think ideally, I think it would be preferable for anyone would say it's easier to have two parents as opposed to mother. Let me just be clear, it's harder. I experienced it. It's harder to raise a kid on your own.

And I think also for the children, like they ideally would have both parents in their life as well, as opposed to being brought into a situation where it's, you know, by design single motherhood. And society saying almost encouraging women, freeze your eggs at a young age so that you have all the time in the world. This is the narrative that you have more time, say, so you can focus on your career, which is great. But they don't, my sense is the messaging is not so much this really should be a last resort and you should still prioritize trying to find somebody because again, this is not a sure bet that it's going to work. So I think reproductive tech, you know, I have a chapter on that. Again, I think if people find it helpful for them, that's their right. I'm not judging anyone, but it's more that these are band-aid solutions and they're not addressing the real problem. And unless we address the root problem, it's only going to get worse. And so also with the men to basically say, "Okay, well, let's just let you guys have your sex robots and your sex dolls and you can go off and as long as you're, you know, having your orgasm and you're not bothering anyone and you're not lighting anything on fire or destroying things, then we just ignore you and let women continue succeeding." I don't think that's good for society either. And also, women want, as I said, to date men who are successful. So I would ask women in this audience. I've got a lot of pushback about Sexinction from young women saying, why should we care about young men or why should we care about men? You know, men have done us dirty for so long. It's time that they get a taste of their own medicine. But that's really not a very positive outlook. But also it's going in the end, don't you want to eventually find someone and fall in love? And if you can't find someone, it doesn't help anyone to sit there and just keep, you know, digging your heels in and saying, "We're not giving the other side any room."

I see what you're saying. I personally don't drink, but I don't think that everyone has to abide by those rules. I think what matters is that, like you said, people have insight into their own behavior. And I've heard you say before that when your mood is low or you're feeling depressed, you avoid alcohol and cannabis, which I think is very smart because, yeah, there is, I used to work with patients with addiction. And for sure, there's a high propensity, especially if you have a biological predisposition for addiction in the family, that I don't know if you do or you don't, but just in general speaking, more generally, that it's a potential risk that someone might lean on those substances a little bit too much if they are going through a difficult time. So I think for the average person, say, who isn't as affected or isn't at risk, I could see that because generationally, Gen Z tends to be more risk-averse. I think that is a symptom of the widespread anxiety that they experience. Roughly half of Gen Z has anxiety or a diagnosed anxiety disorder. So very many of them are on medication for it. Also very many of them are on antidepressants as well. So I think anything that could help them be a little bit less inhibited would be a good thing. But I guess my concern would be for some of them, especially if they are struggling with underlying mental health issues, if they were to start using substances as a way to help make them feel a little bit more socially lubricated, would that potentially bring other issues to the fore in terms of, okay, now you're struggling with dependence on these substances. And so the issue may not be that you're too scared or uptight in social situations, but that you need to take it before you go. I think ideally just for people struggling with anxiety to know, especially young people to know, because I talk to so many Zoomers and they're so sweet and they're so smart, but they're aware, they're aware that they struggle socially and with anxiety. And it's just to let them know it's very normal to feel that way, especially when you're young and you're still figuring yourself out. And that doesn't mean that you now don't go off your medication just because I say this, but talk to your care team. But I do think the solution isn't necessarily to medicate people or to tell them that they have something, you know, severely wrong with them or that they need to, I don't know, that they don't fit in or whatever, that it's something particular to them. But it's just this is a normal part of human life and just because other people seem like they have their act together doesn't mean that they necessarily do.