So, oh, that's okay that you're late. Don't worry, you haven't missed it much yet. So, I'm going to start by talking about this case. I have a whole like 10 pages of notes here because there's so much information when I was going through it. And it's a bit confusing just because there are so many, let's be honest, so many different alleged men in this case and the different things that they were accused of doing and at what points they were taking part and not taking part and what she says. And we haven't really heard as much about what these guys have to say about their alleged involvement.
So, a lot of it is just my opinion on the case is based on what I've seen in terms of the documents, like the statements she gave and any inconsistencies there. But, um, where should I start with this? I guess in terms of just basic facts about the case. So, this young woman, I believe she's 20 years old. She's not 21 because I know she's underage. So, she basically showed up to this frat house, reportedly had 10 drinks in 3 hours before showing up to this frat house by herself. She was there to meet one of her friends and she was told to go sit in a bedroom, I believe, at which point someone texted in a group chat 'free P-word' in this room. So she's there with the friend. The friend proposes a threesome with another friend of his. And throughout the course of that night, there were two threesomes, a potential foursome, which she said no to. And then a total of seven men were allegedly involved. So some of them I don't think actually were sexually involved with her, but they were just in the room. I'm not sure if they necessarily even touched her, but these are the allegations.
And after that, she got back home at some crazy hour in the morning and then gossip obviously went around the campus, ruined her reputation. She was not happy about it, but she did not seem to really take as much issue with what happened until she was disinvited from the fraternity's Halloween party and then she filed her civil lawsuit the next day. So, um, and I'm just trying to see how soon after this incident happened in terms of the two threesomes that she texted one of the guys, I believe it's the friend that she liked, and she said, um, where's the quote that I have here? She said, 'Yeah, I love you, King.' And they were talking about how people were gossiping about them. And I'll get to this quote later because I think it's relevant to my argument against sex positivity and basically what it's done to an entire multiple generations now, but I would say especially to young women.
And so with this case, what I found really disappointing is whenever I hear cases like this, I really, really am hoping, I'll be honest, I'm always hoping that it's going to turn out to be that this woman is vindicated in terms of what she reports. Usually it's a really horrific case, the details. I'm really hoping that she's going to get some justice. And then what I really don't want is for it to turn out to be another one of these hoaxes. I shouldn't, I guess I shouldn't call it a hoax, but just a situation in which it either appears to be fabricated or it appears to be that consensual sex took place, but then following regrets or following not getting commitment from the person whom she slept with, she's upset and turns around and says it's non-consensual. So, I'm always open to changing my mind. I'm always open to reassessing things based on the evidence because this is still very early on with this case and we don't know fully all the details. But I do think some of the information I've seen is concerning in terms of pointing to this not being how she has reported it to be, and there are some discrepancies between the initial statement she gave and what she included in her civil suit.
But my point in talking about this is really just to try and speak to what I think men and women could do better in terms of preventing these situations from happening. And I also think for so many women, you know, I'm very sympathetic to how it must feel for someone if they experience sexual harassment or sexual assault. They see a case like this in the news and they see people being skeptical or outright saying that she's a liar. But then what's even worse is when evidence does start to show up that the victim is not being forthcoming, because I think that really does hurt the case for women who do experience harassment and assault, for them to be taken seriously and also for us to finally end sexual violence. Because if you have, say, some people saying '100% believe all women,' right, as some people will say, even in the case where there's evidence where the woman in question is lying or distorting the truth, I think that really does a disservice to the cause and to women and all victims, men too, having their stories taken seriously.
Because if you sit there and say, 'Well, you have to believe the victim no matter what,' well, what about victims who are not being truthful? Are we saying then that all victims deserve an equal amount of attention and care and sympathy even if they're not telling the truth? Because then that completely destroys your argument that sexual assault should be taken seriously, because why would you take it seriously from someone who is lying about it or who is distorting it? I think in the best case scenario, maybe for someone like in this situation, obviously I don't know because I don't know what her intentions are, but say you do go to a frat house, you're out of your mind on drinking, from drinking and then also doing, I'm not sure if I can say the drug name itself, so I'll say horse tranquilizer. So if you're out of your mind on this drug and on alcohol, you do some regrettable things and at the time you feel okay with it, but then you think about it after and you process it and you realize you weren't okay with it. I am sympathetic to that.
But at the same time, when you're then now going forward with a civil suit and this is basically blowing up in media and this is going to definitely polarize men and women, and now someone is potentially weaponizing the legal system to get vindication for something that they're not happy about in the context of being disinvited from a party, say, or in the case of previous cases where a woman was hoping for commitment from a man which he did not give her and then she says, 'Actually no, what we did was not consensual.' You can't do that. And that's what my issue is here. I hope people can understand that I'm not one of these people who say that all allegations of rape are regrets or that no woman should be believed. I just want to be very clear about that because sometimes people twist my words and that's not what I'm saying here.
I'm very, very sympathetic, right, empathic toward women and anyone who experiences any form of sexual violence. I take that very seriously. In my time in academia, I did a lot of research in terms of prevention of sexual violence. But I think especially in my role as a journalist now, I have to be very honest and objective about what I see. And I do see some worrying, questionable signs or facts that what's being presented may not actually be reflective of what happened. But of course, I was not there, so I can't say definitively. And I'm going to keep watching and paying attention to this to see what else comes out. But I think my main concern is how this is going to affect relations between men and women going forward. Because already I have people on social media saying to me, 'See, Debra, this is why we have a sex recession. It's not because of porn. It's not because of all these other things you say. It's because women lie about this, and why as a man am I going to go out and date if there's a chance that a woman is going to turn around and say that the consensual sex we had was not consensual?' And I'm so, I'm totally sympathetic to that. I hear that.
I do still think things like pornography, sex positivity are playing a big role. And I think even in a case like this where you have an entire generation, multiple generations now raised on porn and being indoctrinated with sex positivity in the education system, also culturally, basically every turn where you turn in the culture basically saying, 'Do what you want. As long as it's consensual, have fun, great. You know, it's good for you. It's empowering for you as a woman.' Then unfortunately, these types of cases are going to be the side effect of that or the expected outcome of that at an extreme form. Because especially I would say for kids who don't have parental involvement or parents who don't talk to them about sex, don't teach them about healthy sexuality, they're going to be learning about it from where else? From where they're seeing it. And they are internalizing these ideas and not recognizing that this is not healthy, it's not good for them, it's also not normal.
So, first thing I would say, I guess I'll start with what I would suggest for younger people in terms of how I would... [laughter] I don't even know where to begin because this is such a nightmare of a situation. Number one, I would recommend not going to fraternity parties. I would really say for both sexes. When I was younger, so in Canada, we don't really have as big of a fraternity culture at universities. Some universities do, and I had been, I would be invited to frat parties and I just wouldn't go. But when I was younger, some of my female friends were dating guys in the US and I know that those guys were members of fraternities and they would go to those parties and if I were with them I wouldn't go. I think I might have been to one but it was very tame. I just, the whole reputation around that, it wasn't for me. And looking back now, I think even when you're younger like that, you don't recognize necessarily how much trouble you can get into because it's just so normal.
Everybody goes out and binge drinks. Everyone goes out and, you know, hooks up or whatever. As we see in this case in terms of what goes on. I found it really disturbing to read the details in terms of how allegedly, you know, this woman is again out of her mind on horse tranquilizer and alcohol. And these men are coming in and out of a room and basically treating her like a sex doll and basically groping her. Again, these are the allegations. Groping her, inserting themselves into her. And they don't know her. She doesn't know them. And I just think, like, on what planet do you think that's okay? So let me start with, okay, my advice to the young women: frat parties probably not a good idea. If you're going to go, definitely go with a group of your girlfriends.
Don't be out of your mind on drugs or alcohol, I would say ideally. I mean, people are going to say, 'Well, that's no fun, Debra. Why are you going to go to a party and not drink and not do drugs?' Well, because when you do those things, you're putting yourself at risk, unfortunately. And I don't want to blame the victim, but at the same time, you do have to be careful. I would also say, here's the big thing: if a guy you like is suggesting to you, as this individual allegedly did, he's suggesting to her, so she liked this one guy, the reason why she was at the fraternity, and he suggested having a threesome with his friend and her. And I believe she said, you know, in her drunken state, she was curious to see if they were gay or something like that. So she agreed to it, which I'm not sure why you'd want, if you like a guy and you think he might be gay, why you'd want to have a threesome with him and his male friend. But okay, maybe work a bit on your radar in that case. But so he, I shouldn't joke about that.
So number one, if you like a guy and he suggests that you should have a threesome with his friend, he's not into you. No guy who is into you is going to want a woman he's into to sleep with his friend. So you have some cases even in relationships and marriages in which men will allow their female partners to have sex with other men. Usually those men will have a cuckolding fetish. So they get turned on by the idea of their woman having sex with other men. It's basically a form of sexual masochism. In some extreme cases I've seen in the swinger community, sometimes these women will be essentially forced to have sex with other men. They don't want to do it, but because their husband likes it, they will frame it as, 'Oh, my wife likes to do this.' But really, he's making her do something she doesn't want to do. He's probably a bit sadistic. He probably also has the cuckolding fetish. So, that's awful. But even still, that's not someone who cares about you.
So I think with sex positivity, what it does again is tell women, if you want a guy to like you, you need to be really hypersexual. You need to be down for anything. You need to be very into exploration and essentially having no sexual boundaries and offering yourself to do whatever he wants you to do. And especially if you are not in a relationship with a man, I don't think you should be sleeping with him because he's going to lose interest right away if you do. And like I say in 'Sex,' so this is in what chapter? In the chapter on pornography, not pornography, OnlyFans and prostitution. And I talk about how men use this dual mating strategy. So they will put women into one of two categories very early on upon meeting her. She's either in the short-term category or the long-term category. So if you as a woman say, 'Yes, I will have sex with you and your friend whom I've never met tonight,' don't be surprised when he puts you in the short-term category.
And once you get put in that category, you're never going to be able to leave it. You're always going to be there. And even if he initially puts you in the long-term category, if you offer yourself up in some really promiscuous, degrading way, you're going to get bumped down into the short-term category. And again, you're never going to be able to escape that. So, that's one piece I would say. And again, I'm not saying this to shame her or say if something non-consensual happened that was her fault, but just to say there really needs to be more, I think, information available to young people, especially young women, to let them know that this way of thinking is not normal. It's not good for you, and it's actually going to work against you. Because again, it sounds like she really liked this guy because she texted him. I believe it was him. She texted after and said, 'I love you, King.' So, because people were gossiping about them. And oh, and I believe also she either texted him or the friend saying, 'I really liked being with you and your friend,' which again is a big no-no.
But by that point, if you already slept with a guy and his friend, I guess you can't really do much more damage than that, or you've already been chucked into the short-term category. So, but yeah, know that I'm assuming she would have, or a woman would do that because she's again trying to appeal to the guy and say, 'Oh, look how exciting I am, how open-minded I am. I had so much fun with you guys.' But no, a man is going to think this is one type of woman again, because most men who are sexually healthy have a real aversion to promiscuity and the fear of being cuckolded. So if a woman is promiscuous and she's willing to sleep with you and your friend or however many men potentially, you're not going to be able to ascertain paternity as certainly. So that is always wired into men's brains. That's why they look for this. And so if you again are so eager the first time you meet a guy to have sex with him or very many men, then any man who's involved in that situation is not going to want to pursue you long-term or invest in you.
Um, someone asked me, Rodney Woods asks, was his name King or was he a short king? I don't know. I don't actually like that term 'short king.' I think that's mean, isn't it? You guys can tell me. I just would call guys kings if they're kings. If you're calling them a short king, it's like when people say, 'Oh, I love my husband. He's a short king.' I find that offensive. No, because you're pointing out, 'Okay, I like him even though he's short, but why does that matter?' Um, okay.
And then my advice for guys, I think it's so important for not just women or girls to get talks about sexuality, but also men, and for men to know this type of behavior is gross. It is absolutely disgusting. And women are not just ragdolls that you toss around for your sexual pleasure. And that if you are at a party and a woman shows up drunk and men are starting to do things sexually to her, I think it's your responsibility to step in and say, 'Hey, she probably does not know what's happening right now. And even if she wants this, this is probably not the best idea because if she turns around tomorrow and says that this was not consensual, we're all going to get into trouble here.' So I would really ask that young men please, or men just in general.
I understand it's more difficult for men to access sex and so if you have a willing partner, how difficult it may be to turn her down. But I think, I'm sure actually the consensus on this has changed when there have been so many cases like this of women who are inebriated changing their mind in time and saying that was not consensual, or even if they're not inebriated, changing their mind. And not to say that every woman who initially says something is consensual and later says it's not, I'm not saying that all women like that are lying. But some women, like I said, will change their mind about it. Maybe because they were under the influence or maybe because they are feeling hostile toward that man now. But I really don't think, I mean, even if you're in a relationship or married, you need to be really careful about that because you don't know. And maybe she at the time thinks it's fine, but maybe she'll wake up the next day and genuinely not feel good about it and genuinely think, 'I shouldn't have done that.' So,
and the other thing I would say about frat houses is I have heard stories of people putting cameras in frat houses in the bedrooms. So, even if the sex is consensual, other people can watch it after, which is really disturbing to me. And that's not okay. So, that's another thing to think about. If you do go to frat parties or whatever, I mean, that's not the only situation, right? You have to think about basically anyone. If you go to anyone's house and you don't know them, you don't trust them. I mean, even if it's someone you know, you have to be really careful, unfortunately, because there are a lot of weirdos out there. So, I'm not saying this to get people paranoid. Again, I am worried about this extinction. I don't want us to all turn into fossils and dust. But I think with making better decisions, people are less likely to get burned out from dating and relationships and make better decisions and be happily coupled up. And so that's the way to do it. Be cautious, be smart, instead of running into the wild and making mistakes and then getting burned and saying, 'Oh my god, I hate the opposite sex and I don't want to do this ever again.'
Um, and I just also think, what would I say? What else would I say about this? You know, my bigger picture, I would say don't let cases like this influence your decisions in dating. And I already see how most people don't really believe her story. My sense is the consensus is that most people don't believe her story because of these gaps. But you'll still have a segment of some people, both men and women, who say we 100% believe her no matter what. And it's really tough because I think how do you pursue something with someone if there is this inherent distrust or mistrust between the sexes? And already men are so understandably reluctant to approach women post-MeToo and the damage from MeToo. And I think also campus sexual assaults, that there was a whole flurry of that back in, or like hysteria about that, probably about 10 years ago. So all of those things taken together, and here I am trying to tell men you need to go and approach women. Understandably, I get why most men are like, 'You forget it. It's not going to happen.' But
I don't, I mean, let me see what you guys say here in the chats because my sense is this, my advice would be, because I have had male friends say to me that they also are terrified in this climate even before this case happened, years ago. They were saying to me they're terrified to date, to be sexually active, because they're afraid that women are going to essentially MeToo them unfairly. I think MeToo at the core was useful in that yes, it was good to draw more attention to sexual predation and for it to be taken seriously, especially in the workplace. But unfortunately, predators will always exist and you do have to be careful. Women have to be careful. I think men also have to be careful because men do experience sexual predation. But I think the overcorrection has understandably made people unnecessarily leery of each other. Both men leery of women making false allegations and then women being leery of being preyed on.
But I think just use as much common sense as possible. And I think the biggest thing with approaching someone is to get a vibe of what they're like beforehand as much as you can. If they seem like they're not in the mood, number one, do not wear those sunglasses that record people because I've seen so many pickup artists or these pickup artist influencer guys doing this and then they're like, 'Oh, look how rude women are.' And all the women are giving them dirty looks. Well, yeah, because they know you're recording them while you're talking to them. Like, what do you think? So, obviously, don't do that. I'm sure guys in my audience, I don't need to tell you that because you have common sense, but just get a vibe of what she's like. And really try to empathize with women and why it is they are so uncomfortable being approached by men. Because in many cases, women don't know how a man's going to respond. And women don't know what your intentions are. And they don't know if you're going to actually leave them alone if they say they're not interested. And they don't know if you're going to get angry and possibly violent if they turn you down even in a public place.
So I think if both sides can be a little bit more understanding. And then I would say to women also, even if you're not interested in a guy, just try to be as diplomatic as possible in rejecting him because it did take guts for him to come up to you. And I don't think it's necessary to shame someone and make them feel badly about approaching you or making them feel less, we'll say, unworthy of your attention. Not to be stuck up about it, but I think the average person knows if someone has manners and is a decent human being, they know these things. And it is, I mean, we're in such a difficult time right now. And this feeds into, because I'm going to talk a little bit about people deciding to have children on their own in a bit. And I just worry that if we keep polarizing like this, at some point human beings are going to say, starting from a young age, 'I'm just not going to bother dating at all. If I want children, I'm just going to go have them on my own.' And now we have the technology to do that.
And I do wonder if in, say, a decade or two, is that going to become more of the norm? Because this is very frightening to me in terms of how bad things are getting. And I don't blame either side and I fully get where the concern is coming from. But in terms of solutions, it just seems like, my sense is my audience, like you guys, are receptive to solutions trying to help mend this divide. But my sense is there's a lot of pushback more broadly because people don't want to look inside in terms of finding ways to improve the situation. And I mean, there's a lot of money to be made if you are antagonizing people and if you are basically confirming people's biases about their particular situation in terms of how hating the opposite sex really is the only solution, as opposed to saying, 'Okay, what can we do to make things better?' And yes, that might be more difficult and more painful to own things and to give people an open chance, but at the same time, that's the only way really you can do it. So, I'm trying to think if there's anything else I wanted to say about this case.
But I do believe in due process. I do have faith in the justice system. And yeah, I think my point with pornography, so yeah, people were saying, 'Okay, well Debra, porn has existed before. Gang bangs have existed before. Promiscuous women have existed before.' But Gen Z is the first generation that has been exposed to such explicit violent depictions in pornography from such a young age. And I can only imagine, I mean, I've talked about this before in my media appearances, what this is doing to their psychology in terms of their expectations of sex. And imagine if that's the norm for you as a child. That's what you think sex is. That if you're seeing, say, this gang bang content or whatever, that sex is just something you do with people and that's why you can just go to a public place. I mean, a frat house is not really a public place, but if you don't know anyone there besides one guy and all these random guys are coming in, you're supposed to be down for that. I mean, this young woman reportedly participated in two threesomes, I mean, that's not nothing. So,
and the other thing I wanted to mention is with her, I believe she has a history of sexual assault. I believe that was reported. So again, I'm not saying this to shame her, but I do think that can be a factor because for many people who experience sexual violence, I talk about this in 'Sex' when I talk about repetition compulsion. So many women in the sex trade have experienced sexual abuse or sexual violence and they will choose to work in this industry because it's a way for them to keep reliving what happened to them and they feel it's giving them a sense of mastery, but it's not. It's actually quite detrimental to them. So, that's my concern with this young woman. I hope that she will get the help that she needs to hopefully prevent making other bad decisions in the realm of sexuality and perhaps in other areas of her life. But in terms of pornography,
it's hard to imagine what it's like for those of us who are older. It's hard to imagine what that's like if your first real encounter with sexuality is this really graphic, awful, frightening content. And I do think even for the guys in this situation, they clearly think that, okay, this is normal and healthy to just have a woman show up, someone text 'free P-word' in this room, and you all go in and decide. I saw on social media there are allegations that they were filming her as well. I mean, this is just not normal behavior and this is not gentlemanly behavior. And so please, please parents, I know talking about sex with your kids is so difficult, but this is what happens when parents don't talk to their kids about it. They learn about it from the culture. They get the most distorted, disturbing views and attitudes towards sex and what they think is acceptable and it's just not okay.
I'm just looking in the chat here. Someone is talking about female agency. I'm just trying to see where that comment originates. So people are saying, because when I talk about, say, sexual strangulation and I say that young women will ask for this and I don't think you should humor them by doing it because it's not good for them. Right? That's what I was talking about in the first live stream. So I think you can acknowledge, yes, women should have agency. They should be responsible for their decisions. But you can also not be a jerk about it and you can also be a compassionate human being. So in this particular case, I'd say with the Cornell case, I'm a little bit less sympathetic because now you're using the legal system to potentially bring about an outcome that you want that may or may not be
reflective of what actually happened. That's where my issue is. Whereas, if it is just an — I don't want to say an average interaction, but a very common scenario nowadays where you have a woman asking to be choked even though she doesn't want to, or even if she wants to, and a man agreeing to do that, especially if she's younger and say she's less experienced in dating, I would hope that a man in that situation would say, 'You know what? This is not good for you and I'm not going to do this.' So, I'm not going to rehash what I said in the first live stream. You guys can, if you're new and you didn't see it, you can go back and watch it on my YouTube channel. But basically,
I think it's really sloppy for people to say, for critics to say, 'Oh, are you saying women have no female agency?' No, I think you can take a midline approach or have some understanding to both sides. Yes, I can understand for men how they might say, 'Well, she asked me to do this or she agreed to do this and now how can it be my fault or how can you say that she's not responsible?' I'm not saying that. I'm just saying be a human being and understand that sometimes people make decisions that are not — maybe they're not making the best decisions, but have a little bit of understanding for that.
Okay. So, my next topic — I talked about that for a long time. Um, my next topic has to do with a comment I got from someone named Shane Plant. And Shane said, 'Did you ever find it hard to stay strong or positive while you ingest all the things you were learning and or researching for Sexion?' So, I'm guessing this is a reference to chapter 7. So, chapter 7 is called At Your Command. And this chapter I wrote about sex robots, sex dolls, and if you read into the chapter, um, also about child sex dolls. And so I don't want to rehash what I wrote in that chapter here. Um, I do feel it was a really important chapter to write and I thought it was interesting. Also, of all the media appearances I've done, I believe only a handful of people have asked me about it. So Megyn Kelly definitely did — not directly about that chapter, but just themes of it. Megan Murphy did, and then I think also Leslie Boyce and Jennifer Friend did on their podcast, and there was one other show but they cut it out. So, because I thought that chapter was going to be really contentious. But what I find is most people will say to me after we finish recording, they say, 'Thank you so much for writing that chapter. I'm so glad that someone said this because so few people are willing to talk about this.'
So, um, in writing that chapter, it really made me question a lot of this technology because previously I thought, okay, what's the problem? You know, I don't believe that you can actually create a surrogate for a human being. So, why are people getting so worked up about this? And then I realized when you actually see what this looks like, especially in the context of, we'll say, um, non-adult forms, um, it does something to you. And I remember telling my friends the month that I was writing that chapter just how disturbed I was at some of the things I had seen. And I really think everyone who is pushing this technology or thinks that it's great really needs to see what they are advocating for, because if you have any level of, um, we'll just say human decency, I think you will question it. Now, I'm not saying this necessarily about the human dolls or the human robots. I still think the technology is really cool, like just at a very basic level. I think conceptually and from a technological perspective, very fascinating. But then when it becomes a question of human application and intimacy,
where are we going with this? And I do think it's important to be skeptical. So I know that this technology is going to advance no matter what. No matter what I say, it's going to continue advancing. I just hope that we can do it in a way that is safe. There's obviously a very large market for it. As the sex recession continues and as more polarization happens between the sexes, more men are going to be going down this route. And I understand that. But let's try and be as ethical as possible. That is my hope. And so I guess in terms of whether it was hard for me to stay strong or positive, I wouldn't say so, just because coming from the field of sex research, I'm pretty desensitized to a lot of these subjects. And it's a skill that I've learned to turn on and off, because when I was in the field, I was just basically on autopilot all the time, because when you are working with certain offender groups, you can't be getting upset all the time. I remember telling one of my friends at the time, I can't go home crying every day because I'm not going to be able to get work done. So, you just learn to not feel the emotions you would normally feel. And then after a certain amount of time, I said, this is not normal. So, that's why I ended up moving into a different area of research. But I still have the ability to basically turn off, I guess, the normal emotions that people would have when talking about or reading about or discussing these subjects, which is what I probably did when I was writing that chapter. But I did it in a way — I really kept in mind, you know, the average person is not exposed to this on a day-to-day basis. So, I want to keep this as,
as easy to consume as possible in terms of not being too disturbing or dark. And I do very clearly mention in that chapter, you know, if this is going places now that you may not want to see, so if you don't want to, skip to the next chapter. But I really appreciate hearing people's feedback about that because, you know, this is a subject that is serious and I think it's really important for all parents to be aware and all adults to be aware of the signs of grooming to protect kids, whether they're your own children or other people's children, because these predators are so sneaky. And I re-uploaded an episode I did for my podcast, the Dr. Debra Soh podcast, from a couple of years ago as supplementary material for The Sex Recession, because that podcast episode goes into more detail in terms of what to look for in terms of how predators work and how their minds work. So that's on YouTube. But, um, yeah, and the second part of this question is: what are your thoughts on the West becoming a low-desire society much like Japan? I didn't think that would ever happen here because I'd been hearing about the, um, sex recession in Japan for years. They were obviously leading the charge, and I remember hearing about herbivore men and then also the hikikomori. So herbivore men are just basically men who are really emasculated, really not interested in dating, and they're seen as feminized. And then with the hikikomori, basically they're recluses, they don't go out. But hikikomori tend to be more so suffering from mental health issues like depression and schizophrenia. So, it's a little bit different, but, um,
yeah, I mean, it's here. It's pretty devastating. So, I'm just doing everything I can right now to try and fix things and encourage people to believe in love still, and just if it seems too daunting, just to try and at least be positive, because I don't know, man. I don't know what else to do. [laughter] [gasps] Um, and the rest of the messages: thanks for — thanks, because I'm way into what you're doing and I love seeing you on the podcast circuit. And I'm always open to — if you guys want to see me on certain shows, I will talk to anyone. I've said this before, I'll talk to anybody. Just post at me and, um, I guess is it adding the host? Tag them. Tag them so they see it, because I unfortunately can't invite myself onto other people's shows, but I'm open to doing pretty much anyone's. Um,
okay, what's in the chat here? Okay, people are still talking about, um, the Cornell case. It's hard for me to read these chats out because they're usually tagging back to other people and I'm not able to get to the root of what, um, people are saying.
Okay. 'Choking is for freaks. I can't believe it's as widespread as it's applied.' No, it's not. It's not just a small segment. In terms of university students, half of female undergraduate students have had this happen to them or report having it happen to them. I have all the statistics in The Sex Recession. This is not just an outlier behavior. This is extremely common. And I would say to you, Peter, talk to any Gen Z girl, and if they're honest with you, they'll tell you if they've experienced this in the bedroom.
The other thing I was going to say with that actually is because people were saying there's a safe way to do it. When you are choked or strangled during sex, you may not experience negative side effects right away. It usually takes a couple of times because these effects are cumulative. So they add up over time. So you may feel fine one or two times. That doesn't mean that damage isn't happening. So that's another misnomer. People think because they've done this and they don't have bad side effects right away that they're, quote, being choked safely, and that's just not possible. So, um, okay. So my point about being a single parent by choice. So someone was asking me about CRISPR last time [snorts] and selecting children to make them more attractive. So, I just wonder, you know, what is this going to look like if we have this divide and people are not interested in dating or coupling up, and you have the option to have a baby on your own from basically the time you're a child and you decide you want to have children. Um, you may decide then once you become an adult, you're not even going to bother with dating. And even up until that point, say your teenage years, where usually that's when people start having their first crushes, they start interacting more with the opposite sex. In that context, a person could then say, 'I'm going to opt out of all of this because I don't want anything to do with the opposite sex. And if I can have a child on my own, I really have no reason to interact with them.' So, it's a whole other basically universe we're going to be operating in if that becomes the norm. And I look at a country like Denmark. So, in Denmark, 10% of births are to a solomor. So, this is a single mother, and it's a single mother by choice. So essentially over there, some young women say they hit adulthood, they turn 18, and they say, 'I'm going to have a baby now on my own.' And they can. And it's not good for kids to be brought into the world in which they don't have two parents ideally. I understand that doesn't always happen. Ideally, you would have a parent of either sex. Um, and sometimes that doesn't happen, which is understandable, but I think it's different when it's by design or intentionally bringing a child into the world knowing that they're only going to have a mother or only going to have a father. And so what you see, because as I write in The Sex Recession, as these sexes continue moving in different directions, for men who are financially successful and do decide to have children, they can just choose to go the route of surrogacy and they don't have to date. They don't have to get married to have a family. They can just go that way. Um, so just things to think about, right? And like I've — with this book, initially, initially I thought some of these ideas or concepts just seemed so far-fetched to me. But as we keep moving forward into the future and time goes by, I'm beginning to think they're not, because I see things that are indicating to me that the problem is not getting better and that, um,
that if anything, it seems people are more incentivized, or we'll say, um, the powers that be are more incentivized in terms of keeping the sexes divided, so that these technologies will become a reality. Um, so I don't want to be so down about it because I do believe at the end of the day everybody wants the same thing. Everybody wants to find love. Everyone wants to feel understood. They want to feel that connection. So I would just say, you know, do whatever you can to foster that and don't let the negativity on the outside, um, get you down about things.
So, in terms of — I'm going to show you the filtered photo. I mentioned the last live stream that I was going to show one of these images that was the inspiration for the plastic surgery chapter, and I managed to find her. So, I put this on X already. So, I'll just put it here so you guys can see. Um, I'll just do it quickly. So, she looks very frightening. [laughter] Um, there's this one, and there's another one here where I look basically like half Asian and half cat. Can you see that? And so I just thought to myself, you know, if you are a young girl and you can morph your face to look like this — and I mean, I guess they're cute — so your face hasn't even finished developing yet, and yet you're already thinking about how it needs to change, and just what that does to young people. So,
the weird thing, or I guess the concerning thing about it, is that these filters can be used — I used them to the max basically for these images. So you can use them, or I guess people would use them to a lesser extent, and they look much more believable. So it's basically slimming the face, slimming your jaw, slimming your nose, making your eyes more upturned, making your lips fuller. And so you look like either you've had a bit of plastic surgery or you just are naturally beautiful, and it's not so obvious and it's not so extreme until someone sees you in real life and then realizes you don't look like that. But I can only imagine what that has done to people's psychology, because there was a question someone was asking me about what, um, filters have done to our psychology. I do think everyone feels this pressure. That's why you see people undergoing these procedures unnecessarily in many cases, because they think everybody else looks like this. So if everybody looks like this, I need to also look like this, and if I don't look like this, I'm going to miss out.
So it's interesting to see the trend because it's changed from before, it was again the big lips and the really chiseled or the really, um, slimmed-down jawline. So that basically a V — your chin is a V. And this surgery is actually really, really popular. Um, it's crazy to me that people are actually sawing down their jawbones to have a more narrow chin. And then they have the upturned eye, which you could do with the fox eye thread. So basically they insert threads and they pull the eyelids, um, so that they're angled — or not the eyelids rather, they pull the eye shape so that it's angled outward. And so now it seems like the aesthetic is to look more like an AI, where basically everyone's face is two-dimensional. So again, I think it's an interesting aesthetic. It's interesting from a purely visual perspective, but when people start wanting to actually look like this, it's just wild.
Oh, the other thing I was going to say with this photo is people are asking me, 'What are these lines around your neck?' So, I just recently learned that they actually do procedures to remove the neck bands. So, I have — you can see I have tan lines on one side. Where are you here? So, I have tan lines around like my shoulders, and then I have neck bands. I believe that's from when I was young. I read a lot. I used to edit those out of my photos, and now I just don't care because I see them as a point of pride, because I don't think you can get to be an author without reading a lot as a child. And so that's how I see it. So yes, I might have signs of aging, but so what? And, um, the other thing is if you spend a lot of time on your phone, apparently that exacerbates neck bands. So if you do care about that, that might be one reason to not be on your phone as much. But honestly, we are all aging, and I just think it's silly to try and prevent something that is naturally occurring. And if anything, there's nothing wrong with it.
Okay. Someone says, 'Stop exaggerating. The surgery isn't popular.' Which — oh, it's the same. Okay. I think this is a troll. So, I'm — you're misrepresenting my words, my friend. Okay.
Okay. Okay, there's a question here as we start to wrap up. So, there's a question here from Kelly: Do you think part of the rise in erectile dysfunction in young men is mainly mental, in that anxiety in males kills erections? So if the feeling between men and women is increasingly hostile, then this may be at the very least a partial cause.
So I think that's an interesting perspective, but I would say because men's sexual cues tend to be more visual. So if they find someone sexually appealing, they will get turned on. Whereas women, it tends to be more contextual. It depends more on how she feels about the guy. So I think even if a guy is a little bit scared of a woman or doesn't necessarily like her personality — for say an extreme case of a woman who is a man-hater, say she really is giving off a sentiment that she does not like men, she thinks all men are trash. I'm not saying all women think this, but from what I hear from young men and from my own experience, there are some women who really, really hate men. And as I mentioned, I wrote a column for the Globe and Mail about online radicalization in young women. And there's a growing segment of young women, particularly between the ages of 18 and 25, who hate men. So even in that case, I think a guy will still be able to become excited and have sex with someone like that because it's a visual thing for them. He might be a little bit more on edge, but I don't think that's enough to impede his ability to get excited.
Whereas for women, that's not so much the case. If a woman is scared of a guy or she gets a weird vibe from him that he hates women, most women are going to be really turned off by that. And some guys might say, 'Well, no, women like that.' No, some women do, but again, those women are usually not ones who are emotionally healthy, unfortunately. Um, question from Gideon: I've read all your books and shared them with many people, and it always gets great reviews. Thank you so much. One person I shared it with has the following question: Do you think the bigger issue for relationships is the amount of porn someone watches, or whether the pornography starts changing what they expect from their partner or how they experience sex with them? Um, do I think the bigger issue is the amount? I think it's all of the above. Honestly, if it starts to affect how you're interacting with your partner or other people, that's a problem, because for many people, they don't see it as a problem themselves. And even if their partner tells them, they won't listen necessarily, which is another part of the problem. So, I mean, it's different aspects of becoming problematic. So, if someone is watching a crazy number of hours a day of porn — you know, some of the men I used to talk to in my research, they're watching porn 8, 12 hours a day. You're not really functioning that well at that point. So, you can't get things done. You don't have a job usually. Um, you're not getting your schoolwork done. So, that's going to be, um, affecting your life more broadly. But in terms of a relationship, no woman is going to want to date a guy who's just masturbating all day long. Especially if she's going out and she's got things to do and she's working, she's going to say, 'What are you contributing to this relationship?' Um, but then if porn is also starting to make people have unrealistic expectations or more bizarre interests in terms of how their partner should perform, or like unrealistic expectations in terms of their partner or in terms of what they want during sex, then that's not good either. So, in terms of I guess what's more damaging, if that's what this audience member is asking me, it's all not good. I hope that answers the question.
Um, okay. Watched you on Scott's podcast. I love your advice because I believe way too many creators just focus on the separation aspect rather than the connection aspect. Um, yeah, I agree. I really agree, and I really try hard not to contribute to that because I think we're already in as dire of a situation as — I mean, it should never have gotten to this point. So I try to really be as fair to both men and women as possible in terms of my interpretation of various issues and also in terms of how people should go forward and advocating for both sexes to take responsibility accordingly, because it just doesn't — whether you're a man or a woman, if you're only pro-man or only pro-woman, then it's not an accurate assessment of what's actually happening in the real-life world. And also, I think you're contributing to more of this hostility because, I mean, it's never a situation where one person is 100% right and one person is 100% wrong, or one sex is 100% right and the other sex is 100% wrong.
Okay. So, let me see. I'm just looking in the chat here. Okay. 'Most first dates seem to devolve into therapy sessions at the moment.' From Curious Duffer. Um, see, this is wild to me. But I hear a lot about this, about how it seems more so young women like to talk about their mental health status. And then in some cases, men will lie about being in therapy because they want to try and seem like they're more enlightened or they're more in touch with their emotions, which — don't do that. If you're not in therapy, don't lie about therapy. But if you are in therapy, don't talk about it on your dates either. I don't understand. I think one thing I really enjoy about Gen Z is they are very open about their feelings. They're very — like, I used to make fun of authenticity, but I actually think that's an honorable thing when you just are super vulnerable and open with people, even if you may not know them as well. There's something about that that I do find quite sweet. But I think in the context of dating, at least wait until you're in a relationship to talk about that stuff, because you don't want to risk making the person you're dating into a pseudo-therapist. Because if you're trying to connect with someone, try to connect on other things like hobbies, or again your values like I mentioned in the first live stream, or books that you like, your hopes for the future. Talking about your mental health — to me, that's just not something that you should be bonding with a stranger about, especially if you don't know someone. Again, you don't know how they're going to interpret that. And I do think some things — maybe I'm just more private. I don't generally like to talk about my personal life. And I think on a date, if you're getting to know someone, there's certain things you share, but it's with time and with getting to know someone and knowing that they're trustworthy. And if you're treating it like a therapy session, um, you run the risk of repelling the other person. I would be curious from the commenter — can you give me an example of what things do they bring up, or how does it turn into a therapy session? Is it a lot of validating their feelings and a lot of offering emotional support?
Oh, okay. I'm seeing a comment here about — uh, let me see. Okay, one person, Anthony, says, 'I want you to know I appreciate you taking on these issues.' Thank you, Anthony. Um, oh, there's so many good comments here. I feel badly that I can't get through all of them. I do go back and I read them after the stream is over, though. Um, okay. So, I was going to start talking about — um, okay, here. 'If someone follows astrology, don't take her seriously then.' Yeah. I mean, [sighs and gasps] oh boy. I feel — because I'm straight, right? So I only date men, and I hear so many horror stories of what it's like dating some women. But I always want to be fair — like, I don't think all women are like this. I really empathize with you guys who have these experiences, in the same way I hear women's experiences with men. And, you know, I can empathize, but I don't think all men are like that either.
What is your thought on pickup artists? Okay, pickup artistry and people who train men to approach and have success with women. I think it depends on what the intentions are. So, if it's about just having confidence with women — and this is a question from Nolan — if it's just about having confidence with women and knowing how to approach them and not be creepy and not be awkward, then that's great. But what I find with a lot of this advice is it tends to move in the direction of how to get access to sex as quickly as possible. How to treat women basically like they're disposable in terms of the numbers game. And I guess to some extent, if that's your approach, that you're just going to keep approaching and approaching and approaching until someone says yes, then okay. But women can usually get a sense if she's just basically a number, in terms of how he's interacting with her and also what his follow-up is like after. So I think, you know, if you're treating women respectfully and you're just — I'm trying to think — it's the duplicity of it that I don't like. When they're telling men to pretend like you see a future with this woman, or they would tell men to plan multiple things in a night so that it feels like the date is longer, so that she feels like she knows you better, so she's more likely to sleep with you — tactics like that, I don't like. Like, just be upfront about what you want. If you want a short-term hookup or whatever, say that. And you'd be surprised at the number of women who will still be down for that, versus lying and manipulating women and claiming that you want something that you don't want, because that's how you end up in a situation where you get MeToo'd. Because she's going to say, 'Hey, you told me that you wanted a relationship, or you were talking about our kids' names, and it turns out you just wanted to use me for sex.' That is what upsets women. Now, I'm not saying obviously in every case that that's what happens — that in every case of being MeToo'd, whether it's fairly or unfairly, that this is what it was. But you don't want to — I mean, I also just think, what type of person does that? If you're an honorable person with integrity, don't you feel badly about misrepresenting your intentions? I just don't — that's what puts me off of it. [snorts]
All right, I'm just going through some of these other chats here. What I will do for future chats is I'll set up my Patreon, and so if people are interested, they can take a look there, and then I prioritize those questions because that's what I did when I used to live stream, and I found that was a pretty good system and people were pretty happy with that. So, um, okay, we are coming up for time. Um, but I appreciate every single person who has sent me a little chat here, who has reached out to me, messaged me, sent me messages on social media. I really appreciate the feedback because I'm at a point now where I'm really questioning, okay, what's the best use? What is the best resource for you guys going forward in terms of the information I have and sharing that with you? And, um, okay. Do I have a regular time for my live streams? So, I do want to start live streaming regularly. I think the next one will be in a couple of weeks just because I have a bunch of things I need to take care of first. But, um, thank you for tuning in, everybody. And, uh, please do send me your feedback also about The Sex Recession. I love reading the reviews if you haven't left a review yet already on Amazon or Goodreads or Audible. Um, what else can I tell — oh, yeah. Tell me about your dating experiences, too. I'd love to hear about that. And yeah, did I have any — let me just make sure I didn't miss anything in terms of my notes here. But yes, um,
[gasps] someone says, 'I thought the book in the background was a fire alarm.' That's pretty funny. [laughter]
