What's happening on the male side though? Because the one thing that I... when I got to this point of the book, one thing I thought first was it's probably SSRIs in some measure, because SSRIs, these anti-depressants, lower your libido. They make you not want to have sex. And so many people are on them because it's this younger cohort, too, that's being like just thrown on these drugs by college counselors because they swing by the office one time and like, 'Hey, I'm not adjusting well.' Oh, here, take this. And there's really not a disclosure or discussion about how it really could lower your libido in a profound and unfortunate way.
Right. And in terms of especially children being prescribed these medications. So obviously for your audience, I'm sure they're well aware. Don't take advice from Deborah on Megyn Kelly's podcast. Speak to your mental health professional. Just speaking from a research perspective, we don't really know definitively what the long-term effects are of anti-depressants like SSRIs on children or their sexual development into adulthood. And so that's concerning. And the other thing is, researching for this book was wild to me because there are so many toxins in our environment, in our food, in the water supply, especially when it comes to pharmaceutical waste that we may or may not be fully aware of. So even if you aren't intentionally taking anti-depressants or pharmaceutical drugs or like the birth control pill, you may be in fact exposed to it without your knowing.
So one of the well-known side effects of anti-depressants is low libido. But I would also say for people, I mean, there's a larger mental health crisis going on, especially among younger generations. And when someone is depressed, I mean, their mood is low. They don't really want to be around people. They isolate, their self-care goes down. You know, social skills are not really the priority. Socializing is not really a priority. And then the same with anxiety. So people are really self-conscious. So all of these things together are creating this context or I guess mental state where people don't want to go out and date. They don't want to have conversations with people. And then with all of these surrogates coming in where you have the AI boyfriends and girlfriends, you have pornography, you have sex dolls, and eventually sex robots, which the technology is moving forward quite quickly. These replacements for in-person sex and also connection make it easier for people to stay in this state of mind, or I think make them less incentivized to want to move beyond their comfort zone.
And especially I'd say for Gen Z, I really feel for them because they did grow up on screens. They don't really know a life without the internet or social media. And so when that's your norm, it's a lot more difficult, I think, to imagine a world in which that is not the center and that is not how you talk to partners or potentially meet partners or how you get sexual gratification. But my larger concern, I would say, with the low libido, it's not just the lack of sex, but it's also this disinterest in connecting with other people and having emotional intimacy, which is just as unhealthy.
Right. It's so sad because of course if you're feeling it, you're at home alone, depressed and lonely, and you just don't want to get out there and meet people. It's like the answer to your problems is to get out there and meet people, and then those problems won't exist. Like just push yourself a little, and if you actually do have a partner with whom you're having sex, your life is going to get better. You write in the book that one in eight women, citing a survey, one in eight women said using social media makes her feel less sexually desirable. This is so interesting because it's not only the problem of, oh, we all have iPhones and I'd rather watch Netflix on my iPhone or on my big screen than have sex, which you've also found in the studies that you've surveyed that are cited in the book. So there's that, like I just want to be distracted and escape to some series rather than have bodily contact with somebody. But it's also that for the women going online on social media, Instagram in particular, I'm sure that's... that makes the women feel less sexually desirable.
And you say one in 11 men also reported feeling less interested in having sex with his partner after looking at social media influencers. So this reminds me, Deborah, so much. I've cited this before, but Andrew Schulz, the comedian, he's brilliant. He said once on, you know, the way the comedians have the best insights into our society. They're brilliant and they're funny, and that's what makes them great. And he was saying women, they obsess over like, 'Oh god, I need to lose 20 pounds,' or, you know, 'I'm worried about this position and how it's going to look,' or 'my cellulite,' or whatever. And he's like, 'We couldn't care less. Ladies, we couldn't care less. All we want is access. We want to have the experience with you. Like please, for the love of God, stop obsessing over those things.' And these women are looking at these perfect women in quotes with like the perfect curated lives, and they feel fat, they feel gross, they feel less than, undesirable. Meanwhile, all their partners think like Andrew Schulz thinks, they honestly don't care.
