Based Camp： The (s＊x) Slave Race Hypothesis
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Summary
Diana Fleischman is a reformed academic and evolutionary psychologist. She is the author of the upcoming book, "How to Drain Your Boyfriend," and she's written a ton of other fascinating stuff that you must go down that rabbit hole. Trust us, you'll be very entertained.
Transcript
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Hi, everyone. I am super excited. We're going to be speaking with one of our favorite people
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today, Diana Fleischman, who, in addition to being a reformed academic and evolutionary
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psychologist, is the author of the not yet published but upcoming book called How to
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Drain Your Boyfriend. And she's written a ton of other fascinating stuff that you must
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go down that rabbit hole. Trust us, you'll be very, very entertained. We're going to
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speak with Diana about a wide range of things. We also want her to...
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The Apariria Podcast. Yes, host of The Apariria Podcast.
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Yes. And we honestly want her to start by stress testing one of our weird theories. But we also
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want to hear all sorts of other things from her. So Diana, welcome, first and foremost.
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So the theory I really want to go over with you is one from our book, The Pragmatist Guide
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to Sexuality, which is that we are a slave race. And I'll explain what I mean by this.
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Specifically, the majority of the evolutionary pressure put on human-to-human social interactions
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was put on humans who were low within local status hierarchies. First, most humans historically
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were basically near the bottom of a social status hierarchy. Very few humans were near the top
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of the social status hierarchy. And while men in that position definitely had more surviving
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offspring, even when they were in that position, there was less pressure on them to behave in
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certain ways. Like a leader who failed isn't going to get his genes erased as quickly as a servant or
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slave who fails. Which means that the average human mind is much more optimized around servitude.
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And this has a few interesting takeaways. One, Ayla, a mutual friend of both of ours,
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this would explain why even in men, around 40% prefer to take on submissive positions in sexuality.
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But it also may explain the way we relate to things like deity or society writ large,
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how like a president will say, well, I'm the servant of the people. Even though the president
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is technically the highest level position in society. Or the head of a company might say,
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well, I'm the servant of the board. We really have few concepts of non-servitude in our society.
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So I want to get your take on this as an evolutionary psychologist.
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So one idea that's very interesting is potentially hunter-gatherer societies were less hierarchical
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than current societies that have very large hierarchies. I've been reading a lot about male and female
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dynamics. So men tend to be more forgiving of their friends. And they also have more stable status
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hierarchies than women do because their status hierarchies are based on more stable characteristics
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such as strength and prestige over time. So it does make sense for men to, and I was listening
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to an interesting conversation with Beau Weingart and Jonathan Pallison about why would a man gain
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status by carving beautiful sculptures of a man from history who's high in status, these kinds of
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ideas. So it's possible. I do see what you're saying that, yeah, the average man is actually
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subservient. The average man is monogamous or worse. What I'll riff on this with is what I think is even
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more interesting. I have an idea is I was talking to Louise Perry and we were talking about like how
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evolutionarily novel is prostitution. And she said that it was unlikely for women to have been passed
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around and have sex with multiple men, but it was probably very common in evolutionary history,
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ancestral history for women to be sex slaves to a specific person. Right. And so she talks about
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kind of Stockholm syndrome and women being uniquely impressed upon by Stockholm syndrome because it is
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the adaptive thing to do, not just, you know, because of patrilocality. So women would have been taken away
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on average from their families and given to a strange man's family for her to adapt to his culture and
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his language and to his customs would have made sense. But the only way you and your kids are
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going to survive, if you're taken over by a hostile group is through a kind of pleasant submissiveness,
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I'll say. Accommodation. Yeah. So there's a few riffs I want to take on the, on the thing you've said
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here. One thing that was really interesting is male status hierarchies being more static than female
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status hierarchies. To add to that one study that's really interesting is males sort themselves
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into status hierarchies much faster than women do because the majority of the way that men sort
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themselves into status hierarchies is by immediate physical traits like height that they can determine
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the moment they walk into the room. And the reason for that is because the top man historically was
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typically the man that could beat up the other men. And that's something that you can quickly observe,
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which would be partially why the male status hierarchy would be more static. Another thing that you
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mentioned was wars of conquest and taking women. One really interesting study here that I, we talk
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about in our sexuality book shows that when you have a competition, like a game or, or something like
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that, that's, I think it's like violent adjacent games, you know, like physical, physical games,
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and it looks like your side is losing. Males bond more, like they feel closer bonds with the people on
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their team. Whereas women begin to bond less with the people on their team when it looks like their
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team is losing, which shows sort of the behavior you're talking about, where it would have really
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been evolutionarily advantageous if we assume that all the males in a tribe were killed when the tribe
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was taken over. The final part I want to riff on, sorry if I'm riffing on too many things here,
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and you just taking notes while you're talking, some really cool ideas, is one of our theories on
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sexuality, we call the polymorphic human female. So for users, you're familiar with polymorphism,
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but for users, what it is, is when you have a single genetic code that can be expressed in two
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behavioral and, and physical phenotypes. So a locus is the classic example here, where when they
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get above certain population numbers, they change their physiology and behavior patterns. You know,
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normally they're a grasshopper, but if you rub like their hind leg with a Q-tip, they'll transform
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into a locus. But even when like baboons, you see polymorphic behavior patterns above certain
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population sizes. So what we would argue here is that human females, the more sexual partners they
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have, their body naturally adapts to this. And we can see them producing lex, I think it's, you'll
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correct me on this, oxytocin when they sleep with partners, which is a forced bonding hormone, which
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would mean that human females' bodies organically adapt to either bond with the one person they sleep
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with or bond less with everyone they sleep with because they are assumed they're in the society
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where they're being passed around. You can tell me if that sounds crazy or Simone, you want to riff on that?
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No, no, I, I, I'm writing something right now called like, you know, playfully, you know,
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disagreeable sluts versus agreeable prudes. And, and so, yeah, the, I mean, this idea is like hookup
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culture is really fine if you know how to disagree with the, with the norm, but if you're agreeable
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and you're naturally more monogamously inclined as, as the average woman is, then hookup culture
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is going to be a net bad for you. I'd be really interested in this study because I've, I've had
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this idea for a long time. So there's this idea in sort of Christian culture where they tell young
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people, you're like a piece of tape. The more times you stick to something else, the less sticky
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you get. And so I have drafted something, but not published it basically called, I don't want to be
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sticky. Cause like when I was younger, when I was like 17, I fell in love with a couple of people
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who were really low mate value just sounds like mercenary, but yeah, low mate value guys. Like
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the one guy was like a, like a musician that was unsuccessful. Another guy worked at my grocery
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store. And, and I remember feeling so in love with this one guy who I really had nothing in common
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with. And I fell in love very easily until I got past, I don't know, like 10 sexual partners.
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Hmm. Yeah. We, we, we, we cite, this is actually probably being a good thing for most women.
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You don't want to illogically fall in love with everyone you sleep with. So you're probably in a
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lot stronger position. So I, I really liked that. Another thing you mentioned, I want to pull on,
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it's a concept of bratty sluts, uh, not bratty sluts, but bratty subs, sorry. So in the kink community,
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there are different ways you can be submissive. And one of these is called the brat.
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And what I think is going on there. And it's very interesting is what is arousing. The woman is
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the man exerting his dominance over her. So the bratty behavior elicits the, the dominance display
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over and over again in the male that allows her to maximally masturbate that aspect of her sexuality.
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Yeah. There's the, the resistance is screening idea, right? So like female elephant, a male will try
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to mount her and she'll walk backwards, like a hundred meters or something. He gets to mate,
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right? And there's other species where I think it is an orcas or some other whale where the male
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drags the female to shallower water. And so there is an, an, in courtship, there's an element of
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coercive behavior. And so the bratty sub is definitely like a, a test both psychologically and physically
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of the dominance of the male. I think this is why women like to be tied up is because
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it's a perfect, it's a, it's a facsimile of being with somebody who's so large and strong
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and coordinated that they can hold all your limbs immobile. Right.
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Oh, that's interesting. I thought it was a swaddling instinct.
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Yeah. Yeah. So we argue something different about tie-ups, which is one of our spicier takes
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is that when people are masturbating instincts, that any sort of an instinct, anything that makes
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them happy, they often misattribute it to sexuality, even when it's not necessarily a
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sexual instinct, because that's, that's just how we deal with these feelings, like a massage
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or something like that. Right. And so what we argue might be going on with bondage is, it
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might actually be a swaddling instinct that hasn't fully turned off from infants. And that specifically
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when you look at like cling wrap fetishes and stuff like that, you know, where they like
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vacuum feds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think even, even like rope bondage, but here's where
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it gets really complicated. Right. Because like, there is definitely a dominance element
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in there. And we are pretty sure that like, while the dominance submission thing is a really
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big element of what turns people on and off, it's also like, you know, you can, you can show
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domination through tying someone up. So like, it can both be like comforting from a swaddling
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standpoint, but also super big turn on because it is a show of that dominance or it is a show
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of that power. It's very, it's a, it takes a lot of skill to do it. I see what you're
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saying. I, I, for me, the swaddling instinct thing, yes, there is a relaxing component to
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being tied up. I used to live with this guy who was like really into BDSM and he would
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try out his new gear on me because I was the smallest person he knew. So I remember he put
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me in a straight jacket one time during a party and it was very relaxing because I didn't
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feel like there was anything I, people could come over and talk to me or not. It was like one
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of the most relaxing social situations I've ever been in. Right. Honestly, that sounds amazing.
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You wouldn't imagine that. Right. Whereas I think if you're, I guess you could make the
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case that for a woman, if you tie her up, the swaddling instinct relaxes her. And for
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a woman has to be relaxed before she gets aroused to some extent, I mean, there's something like
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that. Although the studies that I did back when I was in graduate school on human sexuality
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is actually, if you show a woman like a horror film or, or thriller, like a man chasing a woman
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down a dark alleyway, she gets sexually aroused faster after seeing something like that. Then
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she does just in a, in a neutral, relaxed state. Well, doesn't that suggest though that like
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she's, that maybe there's some kind of like evolved coping mechanism of like, these are
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signals that I'm about to get raped. Like let's not cause physical damage, please.
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That's the, all of the explanations of really repugnant explanations for why do women show
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enhanced blood flow and even lubrication in the presence of watching pornography, no matter
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what it is, you can watch two bonobos having sex and a woman in blood flow increase is that
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it's, what do they call that? Like the damage reduction hypothesis, which is really nasty.
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But yeah, the idea is that you're seeing anything sexual going on. It's important to get your
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revolve already for what, whatever might happen. Yeah. For the bonking. Yeah. Devendra Singh,
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my evolutionary psychology mentor, when I was in graduate school, who died shortly after,
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he said, he made some joke about like, you know, the best form of foreplay is to chase her around
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the table or something. I love that. Oh my God. Well, here's a fun take that you might like that we
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had on, on, on these sorts of topics, which is what's actually going on with the arousal ties to
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dominance and submission systems. And this we argue is really more of a case of just evolution,
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being a cheap programmer and reusing a code base that already had. So specifically in mammals,
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when you have social hierarchies, a very common thing is that mammals will display sexually to
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show their position was in that dominance hierarchy. And what's really fascinating here is in like
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spotted hyenas where the females are the dominant animal and females have pseudopenises and
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spotted hyenas. An erection will be a sign of submission instead of like showing yourself to
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get mounted. And so what's really interesting here is what we argue is probably going on
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is that humans needed to show their position within their social hierarchy and the system they already
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had on hand was their arousal system. So biology just like copied the code from that system to instigate
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dominance and submission behavior and pre-code that behavior. And that's why it causes arousal.
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People not always are necessarily because of these more rape hypotheses. What are your thoughts on
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that? Well, so there's a lot of species in which males show submission to each other by bending over
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or even being the receptive animal in an anal sex kind of interaction. That to me, I wrote a
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behaviorist account of that once, which is that what's it called? I can't remember the behaviorist term,
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but there are, you know, like, let's say there's two behaviors. Let's say you have a dog that beats up on
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your other dog. So the dog can either play with a toy across the room or it can beat up on the other
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dog. Those behaviors are like mutually exclusive and like a more dominant animal beating you up or
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having sex with you. Those are mutually exclusive. So what you're incidentally doing, if you bend over
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and show a submission behavior or let the other animal mount you is you're rewarding, not beating me
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up. Oh, that's a really interesting take. I like that. So that's one interesting thing. But, but also,
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yeah, in terms of dominance, yes, it's, it's always better. If you look at all these different animals,
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there's a very interesting paper cooperation and they expand the notion of cooperation past what we
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would normally think. And they also say, let's say two bucks are sizing each other up and they look at
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each other's like antler size and one decides to forfeit because the other one has bigger antlers,
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but an actual physical altercation is costly for both of them. So actually that is a form of
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cooperation, even though their interests are actually not, well, their interests are aligned
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and that they both don't, they don't want to fight unless it's really necessary to figure out who's,
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who's dominant. So you could also see that in terms of sexuality, like physical altercation is,
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is very costly. And so a sexual altercation is, is generally always preferable.
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If you want to show that you're submissive. And it also has, as I said, the added benefit of
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rewarding the dominant animal for not beating you up. Yeah. So just, just a quick note here for,
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for listeners and quick biology lesson, what she described there is called honest signaling.
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And it's a useful concept in biology that can also be applied to other areas of your life,
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which are types of signals that you can show people that cannot be easily faked. So like if you
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were signaling wells, something like jewelry, which can be rented is a very easy thing to fake.
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While something like a house is a very hard thing to fake and a much more honest signal of wealth.
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But Simone, you haven't talked much. What are your thoughts on all this?
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Sorry. I thought you were about to be like, and this is why you should offer sex to your boss at
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the office so that you can get promoted and make sure that you're not trying to supplant them.
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This is, this is moissanite. So this is my, my pregnancy ring because it's,
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I don't fit into, yeah, I'm too swollen to wear my normal one. And this is like a $300 ring or
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something like that, but a diamond this size, cause they're indistinguishable to like the naked eye
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or whatever, or even to many jewelers would be, I don't know, 10 grand. So yeah, I love,
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I love fake, fake fitness when it comes to jewelry.
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Right. Also moissanite is more sparkly. So like, I almost feel like it's more effective
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signaling. It's, it's, it's gorgeous. Amazing. Yeah. I mean, what I'm really curious about is,
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you know, there is this, this surprising, and this shows up in ALS data. It shows up in the data that
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we did abundance of people who are submissive, not just women, which of course, like the majority
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of women are, are submissive, but also men. Well, what, what are other compelling reasons for
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there being so many submissive men? But bottom, bottom's also at number tops. I remember Mike
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Bailey having a drink with him several years ago. And he was saying that gay men joke that like,
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you go out to a gay bar, which gay bars are not as common as they used to be. It's like a hundred
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bottoms for every one top. No. Yeah. So bottoms are way more common. I don't know about like
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versatils or switches. I mean, there's a variety of other reasons that could be the case though. Cause
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like females are the default sex. If homosexuality is the result of some kind of
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difficulty, let's say in the, the programming for masculinity, then you would expect that,
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you know, it's, yeah. Or like female receptive behavior is much easier to code because it just
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involves kind of like bending over than, than copulation or topping, which is much more complicated
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and involves a lot more motivation. Right. Well, it's also fairly risky. So you have a female
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mimicry, which you see in a lot of species. And that could be what we're seeing here.
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Oh, you mean like sneaky copulation? Yeah. Sneaky copulation. Yeah.
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We can, we can curse. It's called sneaky fuckers.
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Yes. So essentially what happens in, in some animals for listeners and this may or may not have
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relevance to the world today. So some males, especially in highly gender dimorphic species. So
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like, you'll see this in like some crabs or like some males are like three times the size of other
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crabs. Occasionally males will be born the size of a female crab and the big males don't notice them
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and they will enter these other crab communities sneakily. In other species, you will see males adopt
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female behavior or even take on gay roles to enter sort of the trust circle of other males and then
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sleep with the women in that animal's harem. I guess you could call it.
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Yeah. The sunfish has got three morphs, which is the, the regular male that has the territory that
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guards his territory, a tiny little male that sneaks in. And then the male that looks just like a female
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And this is, so we had a podcast where we argued that the, the red pill in a way, in the way they're
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approaching women creates thoughts. I actually, THOTs, I actually believe that in the same way,
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the extremist feminist community, one of the reasons why whenever you do surveys in that
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community, you see such high rates of rape is they are essentially bringing in these female
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mimicry guys who are going to pretend to have this like ultra white knight-y perspective on the world.
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But in, in animal kingdoms, those are the, the types of males that are most likely to rape or one
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Of course, males. Yeah. I mean, I did a deep, I did, I did work on this 10 years ago on bisexuality
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and about evolutionary explanations for homosexuality. And I taught human sexuality. I remember a deep dive
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on this in a lecture and chapter that I read in my twenties. And this guy was talking about how gay men
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have, you know, very reduced rates of reproduction, obviously compared to straight men. And then it
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doesn't actually seem like this kind of sneaky fucker strategy. Maybe you're talking about
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something different, but it doesn't actually. No, no, no. I'm not talking about gay men. I'm
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actually specifically talking about white knight-y guys. So these are guys. Oh, okay. Feminist guys, yeah.
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An extremist, like feminist perspective, you could say that like no rational guy looking at the world
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today would adopt to get into these, I guess people would call them like hardcore SJW spaces.
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But it is related. Basically, they're creating an incentive to create sneaky fuckers, essentially.
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Well, I mean, it's a copulation strategy that is, that is premised upon dishonesty. Yeah. I mean,
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that's how they're getting into these communities by being dishonest about their lived experiences,
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because that's what you need to be as a guy often to enter these communities.
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Well, that's, that's what I'm saying is the communities create that requirement. Like you have
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to be sneaky to get in. So it creates people who are being.
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So we'll see. Yeah. I mean, I guess you could also say that these communities, like the,
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there's a very advantageous sex ratio and there's a variety of good, good reasons to try to get,
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get into them. Yeah. I'm pretty agnostic about that given that I'm not in those communities myself.
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Yeah. I have loved this episode and I would love to do another episode with you if you are open to
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that. Yeah, for sure. Yay. Okay. Then we are going to record it right now. Yeah. We're going to record