Based Camp - Wife Explains Romantasy Books： Women, We Need to Talk

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing a

00:00:04.180 spicy topic. In a recent episode, we were talking about the debauched things that women read

00:00:10.040 in their fantasy literature. And I was talking to you this morning about it,

00:00:15.660 and you were going over them and you were like, no, it is like, you listen to this.

00:00:21.140 And when I heard about the stuff that you were listening to, when it is explained to me by my

00:00:26.020 trad wife, I guess is what the media calls you. What is in these fantasy books? I am like,

00:00:34.160 in one hour on Sixth Ad World. But then it got worse. Because I start doing like,

00:00:43.120 I want to understand if this stuff that you're telling me is accurate. I want to go into this.

00:00:47.220 Right. Because I'm sure you thought I was crazy. It couldn't possibly be that these are best selling

00:00:51.940 in very popular books. It's crazier than what you said. Because I start going into all of this,

00:00:57.420 and I get summaries of the books, and I get summaries of all these plot points,

00:01:00.880 and it keeps, and there's this phrase that keeps coming up. I mean, and I'm talking across books

00:01:06.240 here. It was like, well, X was mated to X, or X was bound to Y. And I was like, what the hell is

00:01:12.640 wrong with you people? What is this? She's mated thing. I haven't heard, and I go to my wife about

00:01:19.080 this. Okay. And you're like, I don't, I haven't read anything about this weird, kinky, mated thing.

00:01:27.420 So I ask, because the first one that you talked about was The Court of Thorns and Roses. And here's

00:01:32.520 what AI had to say about that. It said, yes, the mate bond trope is 100% in a Court of Thorns and Roses

00:01:38.740 series. And it's arguably the series that mainstreamed the kink into modern romanticity.

00:01:44.080 So you're like, I don't even remember it. In my defense, I use these as pregnancy-safe Xanax.

00:01:51.140 The reason I listen to romanticity books is they are so bad and so poorly written that they literally

00:01:57.820 put me to sleep. Like, I used to listen to really dry history books to fall asleep, and now I'm like,

00:02:02.860 oh, but I need to know what happened. No, I read it for the plot. That's why I have, you know,

00:02:07.960 I completely agree with you. I do not engage in any of this for anything other than just the

00:02:14.260 articles. Is that your version of, I read it for the articles, the play, but that's what they used

00:02:19.680 to say about Playboy, right? No, no, because the plot's not good. And here, like, my problem is I

00:02:26.420 really hate the female characters. And I really hate what they normalized in terms of like, this is

00:02:34.440 normal relationship behavior if you're a woman. And I can get into this too.

00:02:39.140 We're going to get into this. We're going to get into these. But I wanted to start with this

00:02:43.220 mate bonding trope, because I found this really interesting. And I think it's important to note

00:02:47.620 here because, and we're going to go over all the stories it's in in just a second, because it has

00:02:51.280 become so ubiquitous in female-focused romance literature. For example, you didn't even notice

00:03:00.060 when it was in a story. And yet it is, if you're talking like Omegaverse, you can see our Omegaverse

00:03:05.440 episode. It is closer to the Omegaverse than it is to real life. It is definitely a really fairly

00:03:14.460 bizarre kink. And it's interesting to study because it shows something that modern women are not finding

00:03:20.380 in society today. Well, I'm here. No, here's, here's my thing. I don't think it's bizarre. I think

00:03:25.260 it's an answer to larger normalization of female promiscuity. So if you can no longer have like your

00:03:32.740 one true love that you meet, like out of adolescence, and you lose your virginity with them, or like

00:03:38.400 they're your very first, like second, maybe, right, you know, and then that's, that's it. That's your

00:03:42.860 true love. You met your person. There has to be some other mechanism, some other, you know,

00:03:49.360 physics have to be at play to explain why the, the, the, the bond being described in the romance

00:03:57.320 novel is meaningful because otherwise it's just another rung on the ladder. Does that make sense?

00:04:02.760 I disagree. And we'll go into this a little bit. Yeah. So first, what is it? Because people may not

00:04:07.640 know. So mate bonds occur in these stories. It is a magical or biological or fated connection between

00:04:13.600 two characters, usually male and female. It is irresistible. It is permanent. It is non-consensual.

00:04:20.920 It's often physically overwhelming or arousal late, and it is tied to something like destiny or

00:04:27.760 something like that. Basically, it's not a choice. So we're talking about the first story that we're

00:04:32.080 going to be looking at, which is court of thrones and whatever thorns and roses. Frey realizes that

00:04:37.260 she's mated to Rysand. Freyra. Freyra realizes she's, sorry, you actually, you actually. I listened

00:04:47.660 to them as audiobooks to fall asleep, so I know how the names are pronounced. Okay, okay. Freyra

00:04:51.920 realizes she's mated to Rysand and is physically and emotionally pulled to him despite being in

00:04:57.460 another relationship. Oh, Rysand. Oh. Oh, I can't, I can't choose my partner. I'm, I know I'm dating

00:05:05.660 someone, but I just have to mate with this other person and then betray my former lover because

00:05:14.180 I'm just so mated now. Or another one, the, the fourth wing, Violet and Zayden share a dragon-forged

00:05:21.780 bond. Ooh. Does the dragon do it to them? Is it a dragon like Cupid where he just like- Well, we'll get

00:05:26.580 into it. We'll get a trial of the Sun Queen. Lore is claimed as a potential mate by multiple kings

00:05:33.520 who treat her as magical property. But she's bonded to Nadir, this dark Aurora prince.

00:05:40.920 Oh, but bonded. Okay, yeah, okay. You are into this. No, I was talking about, I was telling

00:05:46.480 you how, like, they were describing the bonding as, like, you feel the magic under your skin.

00:05:54.920 Like, it's, ugh. I really, I really hate it. But, like, no, I really, I think you're missing

00:06:00.320 it because the, what you're missing in these- Okay, go ahead. Hold on. I will, I will go and

00:06:04.960 then you can provide the counter argument, okay? Yes. So we'll give some theories about what might

00:06:09.560 be causing it. Then I'm going to give my theory and then you can give your theory, okay? All right,

00:06:12.600 all right, all right. Psychological safety and submission. The mate bond removes the burden

00:06:18.400 of choosing a partner. It tells the reader, this is right, no need to second guess. It offers a fantasy

00:06:23.700 where the woman is pursued relentlessly, not because she's attractive or charming. He literally can't

00:06:28.440 help it. And in a world of choice paralysis and dating, which you have in our current world,

00:06:33.560 this feels safe. Now, I think all of those are real, real things. Okay. You also have

00:06:37.400 eroticism without guilt, which is actually really big for women. It allows women to desire power,

00:06:42.160 sex, and obsession without feeling responsible for it. Like, it's not their fault that they want

00:06:47.680 to be this dude. Yeah, it's not that I want you. I was made to feel this way. Yeah, it's the,

00:06:51.240 it's the magic coursing under my blood that reacts every time he touches me.

00:06:56.940 I don't, I don't actually feel arousal, right? How interesting.

00:07:01.640 I don't feel fantasy with a softened edge. These men are aggressive, dominant, or even violent,

00:07:06.300 but the mate bond means they'll never hurt her. So it allows a woman to have an attraction to

00:07:12.780 violent men while still feeling safe within the romantic context. But I'll tell you what I really

00:07:18.780 think it is. I think it actually comes down to the Omegaverse concept more.

00:07:23.700 Yeah, which, I mean, I think, so there was this, so there was like Twilight, which is very,

00:07:29.020 I think, sort of the last really, well, maybe Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight were the last

00:07:33.420 really popular romance novels of what I would call the old genre, where you have an innocent,

00:07:39.060 mostly sexless young woman. Yeah.

00:07:41.380 Who discovers her sexuality through her first love, and then that's kind of it. And then you

00:07:46.500 have the Omegaverse, which I think is the beginning of this new version of female romance, which I

00:07:52.840 think better accommodates modern female dating and sexuality.

00:07:57.340 Yes, but let's talk about this.

00:07:59.640 Let's do it.

00:08:00.200 So I think Omegaverse is actually an easier thing to explore it with, because I actually think that

00:08:04.320 this is like Omegaverse light. So we've talked about Omegaverse before, but what happens in Omegaverse

00:08:08.860 stories is some males and some females are born Alphas or Omegas, and most are born Betas. Betas just

00:08:15.960 means basically a normal human male or female. But sometimes they are born as either these very

00:08:22.280 dominant figures who are like very dominant to other individuals, and sometimes they're born as very

00:08:30.040 like submissive figures who don't want to be submissive often, like Omegas often don't want to

00:08:35.120 really be Omegas. But they cannot help but resist, be attracted to the dominant Alphas, and then be

00:08:43.020 pair bond to them, you know, whether they want to or not. Now, what's actually being recreated here

00:08:48.700 is in our current world of sexless men and women, Alphas and Omegas recreate the concept of biological

00:08:58.900 sex. It's you have this one category of human, which is male, because it's usually a male Alpha is

00:09:05.340 interested in a female Omega, and these stories are male Omega often common. But you have this one male

00:09:10.580 who is extra tough and strong, and everybody listens to him. And then you have women. But these women

00:09:18.060 aren't like normal women. They're really attracted to dominant males. And they aren't like normal women

00:09:23.640 when they see a dominant male. Why my goodness, they just get so turned on. There's nothing they

00:09:28.680 can do about it. Not like normal women, when they mate with someone, my goodness, it's for life. And

00:09:35.200 what you're actually seeing here is they have a recreated within a fantasy context, the role that

00:09:42.940 women lost in our society. Oh, and by obscuring it behind this new form of sexuality,

00:09:50.560 you're making it safe again. I'm not into dominant, strong males and lifelong relationships.

00:09:59.720 It's a kink. It's really weird. And that somehow makes it okay. That is what we've come to?

00:10:06.760 No, that is actually what we've come to as a society. Women are like, no, I'm just, I'm not

00:10:12.560 reading about a woman who finds a guy who she falls desperately in love with, and that arousal is a

00:10:18.620 component of that, and that she wants to spend her entire life with him, and she'll betray other men

00:10:24.060 on his behalf, you know, just because she likes serving this guy. It's some sort of a weird kink.

00:10:30.180 All right. I will say to that, very compelling theory, and I think you're right. But I'm going to

00:10:35.240 yes and you, right? That yes, that's true. And I think the other thing that's happening, and we've

00:10:41.300 also talked about this dynamic, is that more women now are having more partners before they get

00:10:47.580 married. And one of the things that they struggle with is, is the more partners you have on average,

00:10:53.360 the less of a strong hormonal response you have to those subsequent partners. So the less you're

00:10:57.600 going through this process of feeling really in love, like feeling that deep chemical infatuation

00:11:03.860 that you do as a woman, the first time you're sexually intimate, which I did not believe existed

00:11:08.380 before I had sex, and then I had sex with you. And then we broke up, and I went through withdrawal,

00:11:12.480 and I'm like, oh, wow, okay. It's real. So for context here, the more partners a woman sleeps with,

00:11:20.780 the less stable her relationships often are, and the less oxytocin she releases during sex,

00:11:25.560 which determines how psychologically bonded she can feel. No, no, it determines how psychologically

00:11:31.360 bonded she is to a partner without her consent, really. Because this is something that is happening

00:11:35.580 without, like, my wife didn't choose to love me. She was forced to because she hadn't had sex before.

00:11:40.640 I brainwashed her with, you know, weird human biology, right? Well, but there's something hot

00:11:47.380 about that, that first time that you fall in love as a woman, right? Like, you so can't help it. And

00:11:53.280 it's just so all-encompassing. And I think that's, when you hear about this bonding, whether it's like

00:11:58.120 the magic under your skin, or fate saying this, or a dragon, but you can explain that one later,

00:12:03.280 or the omega dynamic. Like, I think that's trying to capture some of that, which to not sexless,

00:12:12.560 but rather sex experienced women is understandable and desired. And they want that again. Because I've

00:12:18.960 had friends who've had a lot of relationships before they said-

00:12:22.160 Yeah, they want those early relationships.

00:12:23.540 And they would say, they would keep saying like, well, I'm just waiting to get that feeling again.

00:12:27.860 And I can't break it to them that like, you're not going to get that feeling again. But what you're

00:12:33.600 missing in a lot of these, these newer romance novels, which you didn't see from like the virginal

00:12:39.420 teen romance novels, is that the female protagonists in them are sexually experienced. So Feyre in the

00:12:47.320 Court of Thorns and Roses series, before she ends up, like before like the series starts,

00:12:53.420 she is sexually experienced. And then-

00:12:56.300 Hold on. This is like medieval Europe, right? Or something?

00:13:00.040 Yeah. She was just fooling around with the boy in the village. Same with the-

00:13:04.160 By the way, just so people know, that's very anachronistic. People did not sleep around in

00:13:07.640 medieval Europe before-

00:13:08.760 Yeah, you don't do that. And then in the other book with Rhysand, what the Aurora King,

00:13:13.380 the something, the Urano series, the protagonist lore is actually quite slutty. Like she sleeps

00:13:22.100 around a lot, both to like get what she needs and also for fun. So these are sexually experienced

00:13:27.980 women. And then in the first book of each of these series, the women think they've fallen in love with

00:13:33.980 their man. And like you as the reader are led to believe like, oh, like he's the one. And so I think

00:13:38.580 this is very similar to like women who, you know, like, oh, come on, like this time, right? Like

00:13:42.880 I'm going to marry this guy.

00:13:44.260 And then another guy comes along.

00:13:45.720 Then, yeah. Then, then it turns out in each of these that like, oh, actually, no, that guy's an

00:13:51.740 asshole. Like, I don't, he's, he's bad. He's kind of proto-abusive. Like maybe he's-

00:13:56.840 Proto, find you.

00:13:58.260 Yeah. Like he's, no, he's, he's really bad. And it's this other bad boy that I'm irresistibly

00:14:04.240 attracted to who's really the one. And that's where you get in the deal.

00:14:07.660 He's often quite abusive as well, which we'll get to in a second.

00:14:09.740 No, they're, yeah, they're actually, they're typically the bad boys in the previous, like

00:14:13.860 in the first book, they're like the dark male antagonist. And then in the second book, it

00:14:19.680 turns out that they're the ones to whom they're bonded. But I think the larger point is that

00:14:23.540 to me, I think this more tracks the, the trajectory of a more sexually experienced woman who's

00:14:30.680 looking for that feeling of, of falling in love again. And she's going through relationships

00:14:37.040 where like, she's like, this is the one, you know, he's my, he's my guy. And then like,

00:14:41.420 oh, it doesn't really work out. Well, he was, he was like messed up anyway. He was, he was

00:14:45.020 a bad person.

00:14:45.960 What's really interesting in these stories and we'll get to it is a repeated justification

00:14:50.460 of serial monogamy. The idea that it is okay.

00:14:54.680 But also sort of, because also another thing that really shows up a lot in these is each

00:15:00.280 of these, like it, like the main character in these first books, each of them has like a

00:15:04.500 wingman, like a best friend slash guard who like interacts maybe a little bit more with

00:15:10.200 the female protagonist and like does a lot of the exposition and stuff. And she does most

00:15:13.700 of her interaction with him. And he's also super hot. So like, I don't know, man, like,

00:15:22.760 but sure.

00:15:23.800 Do they ever sleep with this wingman or like show?

00:15:26.080 No, they never, they never sleep with the wingman, but there's a lot of flirting and they're

00:15:29.740 very hot. So I don't know what's going on.

00:15:33.420 I am surrounded by hot men that flirt with me and I have one guy who I like, but then

00:15:37.420 I got to go out for the bad boy.

00:15:38.500 Well, no, yeah, because well, the alpha male who's a little bit more distant, you know.

00:15:42.720 But I can't resist the alpha male because I made it to him.

00:15:45.640 Well, no, no, no. That's, that's the second alpha male.

00:15:48.000 The second alpha male.

00:15:49.040 The first alpha male.

00:15:49.800 The more alpha male.

00:15:50.220 I think is the one, but then no, he's not the one he's, he's actually a jerk. And then,

00:15:54.440 you know, this next one for sure, except then they're super abusive toward all of them. And

00:15:59.420 of course we're going to get to that next.

00:16:00.780 But okay. Let's, let's go to the other series that have this mated trope. Okay.

00:16:03.780 Okay. Yeah.

00:16:04.260 You've also got, you know, in addition to the, the thorn of court roses and stuff,

00:16:09.920 and then fourth wing, and then trial of the sun queen, you have the savage land series.

00:16:14.520 This one includes like scenting, marking, possessiveness. So like classic Omega, like

00:16:20.460 way more standard Omega.

00:16:21.740 Maybe I should get that one. Maybe that one will put me to sleep. I can't, I can't bear

00:16:25.440 to pay for these. So I need to get them for free on audible plus.

00:16:28.480 Okay. No, no, of course you can't. If only you were paying for your.

00:16:33.800 It's too embarrassing. It's too humiliating, but you can, it's really well, you can expense

00:16:37.920 it to the show. You need to watch these for our fans.

00:16:40.340 So you can tell them how bad they are. Yeah. You, you, you've got the, the bridge.

00:16:44.380 I can't even really talk about them. Well, because again, like I'm falling, they make

00:16:47.840 me fall asleep, which I really, it's, it's hard to sleep.

00:16:50.820 It has an arranged marriage. You've got faded mates, which, which has books like Feral Sins,

00:16:55.980 Crave, Wolf Gone. You've got from blood to ash. And as to why it's, it's so common here.

00:17:01.980 I love what it says. Built in sexual tension. No need to build chemistry. Just say mate bond.

00:17:06.420 Yeah. It's such lazy writing. Like literally generated AI written stories are written better

00:17:14.480 than these. Like, I swear, if I got a penny every time the author of in the Court of Thorns

00:17:20.900 and Roses series wrote and his throat bobbed, like to indicate that he was like, that someone

00:17:26.200 was nervous. I would be rich. Like, can you. Okay. Okay. I love this one. TikTok virality

00:17:32.200 mated to the dark prince gets more clicks than slow burn emotional maturity.

00:17:36.860 Mated to the dark prince. It's like mated to the dark prince. You know?

00:17:39.820 No, that's all you need to say. There should just be.

00:17:41.820 We were looking at like books today and one just said rich fae boyfriend or something.

00:17:46.880 Yeah. It was like, like, yeah, like, like filthy rich fae prince.

00:17:51.420 No, it was like, it was like some, something rich fae.

00:17:56.540 Yeah. Something, something. I don't know. Yeah. He was rich and he was a fae and he was

00:18:00.200 also like either dirty or mean or something like that. And it's like, okay, so we're just

00:18:04.860 doing like kink hashtags now. Yeah. It's just like, what are you into girl?

00:18:08.080 Yeah. Like, yeah. I mean, it literally looks like when you go onto NSFW subreddits where

00:18:13.040 sometimes they'll tag like the type of content with like the specific fetish. It's like, no,

00:18:18.260 we're just going to put these on the titles of books now because you know what? People don't,

00:18:21.720 they work from home now. They're not commuting on buses. They don't have to be ashamed of the

00:18:25.120 book covers anymore. So they're like, screw it. Just put it on the cover.

00:18:28.360 I'm going to be honest. A lot of these books have pretty dope covers.

00:18:31.900 No, design's improving. I I'm, I'm with you on that. They're, they're, they're fine.

00:18:35.700 The thorn of whatever.

00:18:37.380 It's very intricate. I like these. I think they look really cool. I'm like, I'd, I'd adorn

00:18:42.820 my room with those if I didn't know that this was all about related and you know, the, but

00:18:47.880 anyway, let's, let's go into the first book. So we're just going to go into like all the

00:18:52.960 bad stuff is teaching women because women, and it gets me so much. They come at me and

00:18:56.740 they're like, do you know about all of the disgusting things that like porn sites are

00:19:01.580 teaching men? And I'm like, I have been to Barnes and let's talk about what you are being

00:19:07.860 taught.

00:19:08.080 And first let me point out that like the, the tops traffic erotic material that men consume

00:19:14.820 is, is eager, slutty women. Like there is just wild consent. They're loving it. Like men,

00:19:22.460 if we had, if I had to interpret what they wanted, they just want women to be happy and

00:19:27.740 they just really want them to want their day.

00:19:29.960 I'm just actually going to like right now, I'm going to see e-henties. So we're not even

00:19:34.240 looking at like porn hub. So we're not looking at anything like that.

00:19:37.180 If you're just looking at like anything on the front page here of, of recent submissions

00:19:42.260 forced. No, no, no, no.

00:19:49.340 So one tentacles, it's labeled tickling as well. So yeah, no, it is, it is, it is not

00:20:01.320 as common as people say it is.

00:20:03.460 I'm just going to RNSFW, like the most generic and I'm going top of all time. Solo orgasm,

00:20:12.160 sexy brunette, immature. Well, I can't use that word. Freckled babe, everything here. Best

00:20:17.100 spook reveal ever. This is just cutie, just enthusiastic women. Just, nope, they're more

00:20:22.540 enthusiastic women.

00:20:24.520 And what happens when you go to the top? Women are reading the romanticies. It's people being

00:20:31.280 mated. It's the rich, evil, faith, lack of consent, werewolves and vampires.

00:20:36.980 But honestly, like all the dark stuff that the men are doing in these series doesn't come close to

00:20:45.640 the level of shady behavior of the female protagonist. And that's what's actually crazy.

00:20:51.480 Also, I think I've always said that I think this is why I had such an easy time on sexual

00:20:54.840 marketplaces, because I actually am like a bad boy in what turns me on. So I don't, I get all of

00:21:01.800 these girls who are interested in this stuff, you know, back when I was dating in high school and

00:21:05.620 they're like, Oh, well, you're, you're a bad boy in terms of what people like women on average are

00:21:10.400 more likely to be turned on by, but you're not a dark triad dick to women. Yes. Like you're not like

00:21:17.600 in real life, a jerk as the roulette reveal of like easy, you know, college and, but let's go into the

00:21:28.460 bad behavior here. Okay. Okay. So part one, Freya's reckless and selfish behavior. So apparently

00:21:36.240 she spots a large wolf while hunting. She suspects it may be a magical fake creature in disguise,

00:21:43.580 meaning she thinks it might be sentient and it would be illegal to kill it and risk her family's

00:21:50.740 life. She doesn't decide to kill it because she needs food or something. She wants its pelt for

00:21:58.300 money. She risks potentially killing a sentient creature and her family's life just to earn a

00:22:06.020 little money. This is the opening act. It is never treated as a bad thing. And by the way,

00:22:12.780 it turns out that it was sentient. Oh yeah. Yeah. Is this ever played like, Oh, I murdered a sentient

00:22:19.560 thing or I know she goes to as penance for this crime that she commits. The, the, the first lover

00:22:27.660 of hers shows up in wolf form and is like, I'm going to basically take you as hostage in my court.

00:22:33.540 And of course you're going to live there and like, it's going to be, you're going to eat off gold

00:22:37.360 plates and life luxurious. Like she goes. Yeah. So she, she goes as a prisoner, you know, to pay out her

00:22:44.000 sentence for, for murdering this person, this fae. And yeah, everyone's like, yeah, he was my best

00:22:51.000 friend. You know, he was, he was a great guy. It killed him. You know, it, it, it, like they were,

00:22:55.780 it comes up, it comes up a bunch. It's great. They're like, and you knew, you thought, she doesn't

00:23:01.140 mention, well, I thought he might be a fae, but you know, whatever. I wanted the money. Yeah. I don't

00:23:05.000 think she ever says she's sorry. I think she's just, no, actually here's what she does is because

00:23:09.920 actually what it turns out that the king of this court, who's her first, you know, man,

00:23:14.880 number one, who turns out to be a juror. She betrays a bunch, but she betrays. Well, she,

00:23:19.320 these women, we're getting there. He was sending these men out because he needed, I think, to trigger

00:23:26.820 something, but he knew he was sending these men to their deaths. So, um, okay. Yeah. So let's talk

00:23:36.180 about the first love interest, Tamlin. All right. Oh yeah. Tamlin. He's a high fade Lord,

00:23:42.640 super powerful, immortal being. So very old, by the way, like thousand. Oh no, the gaps are huge.

00:23:49.040 Yeah. And then women will like trash men for their age gaps and stuff. When you look like,

00:23:55.540 when you look at like book reviews of romance novels, they're like, love the age gap or like,

00:23:59.240 it's just, it's a, it's a keyword women look up. They love age gaps. And yet they like hate Leonardo

00:24:04.040 DiCaprio for stopping dating women after the 25. Oh, it's so hypocritical. Yeah. Like in,

00:24:09.840 in the other book that we're talking about where there's Nadir and lore, Nadir is like 250 years old

00:24:16.340 and she's like 21. So that's, you know, I think the problem is the age gap's not big enough.

00:24:22.260 DiCaprio needs to be like 200 years old. He needs to be like a 90 year old man dating like a 21 year old.

00:24:27.840 No, no. He needs to be 290, Malcolm. You're missing it.

00:24:31.280 And I'll be like, well, this is what I've always been into to be honest. He was in ancient cinema

00:24:37.020 from the 1990s. You ever used to think I looked like DiCaprio when I was younger? That was like

00:24:42.360 a common, like, it was, it was Harry Potter, you know, when you were young, before I met you.

00:24:46.520 No, before Harry Potter, it was DiCaprio everyone thought. Yeah. But that was before,

00:24:49.360 when your mom gave you those highlights. Yeah. Yeah. And I never got it. I always thought that was

00:24:54.140 weird. Your mom forced it on you. It was non-consensual. It's fine. Non-consensual.

00:24:58.320 You'll deal with the trauma someday. So, so he's controlling, emotionally closed off and

00:25:03.840 becomes possessive. In the books, he locks Faye in his house like a captive to quote unquote

00:25:09.200 protect her. She has panic attacks, but he refuses to let her leave. Despite this, she constantly

00:25:15.380 defends and excuses his behavior. This sets up the idea that controlling behavior is a sign of deep

00:25:21.360 romantic devotion. But then there's the other guy, the, the, the bad guy, Rysand, who is the deep

00:25:30.180 mystery character. Yeah. And, and this guy who she ends up liking, he gives her drugs and then

00:25:37.580 parades her around everyone in revealing clothing. Yeah, no. So like if, if, if this first dude was

00:25:44.760 keeping this woman prisoner as, as penance for her crime, the second dude steals her and like,

00:25:54.620 she's kept in a like actual dungeon. Like keep in mind the first Tamlin keeps her in a beautiful

00:25:59.320 palace and room. She's like in a dungeon. But women don't want that. They want the actual dungeon.

00:26:04.100 Yeah. She's like in a dungeon. She's, she's severely injured. And then he, he parades her out in

00:26:08.620 slutty dresses and like date rape drugs her like every night because that's hot. Wait, why is he

00:26:14.300 drugging her? For funsies? For funsies. Yeah. Like to mess with her. I mean, maybe the reader is kind

00:26:24.020 of like when they realize later that he had feelings for her, that he was just trying to like, because

00:26:31.160 this, it's complicated, but like he, he, he actually was like at the time we'll say dating the evil

00:26:39.780 witch queen that has to be defeated in the first book and he's in her court and, and he is pretending

00:26:46.680 to torture this female protagonist. Pretending? Yeah. Because, because you know, the, the evil witch

00:26:55.740 queen, queen freaking hates her. I can't remember why. Again, I use these to fall asleep.

00:27:00.900 But wait, but she's forced to walk around under, under. Yeah. Because he's like, oh no, I'm, I'm here.

00:27:06.740 Like, I think so to protect her, he has to like torture her and, and have her believe that he's

00:27:12.280 torturing her. So he parades her around in slutty dresses and like date rape drugs her. And then she

00:27:16.680 like dances around drunkenly until she's thrown back in the dungeon. Cause she hates doing all this

00:27:21.280 and it's not her choice. It's horrible. It's, it's horrible. It's not sexy at all. She doesn't want to be paraded in

00:27:26.600 front of wealthy people in skimpy dresses and forced to dance. No, no, no, definitely not. No,

00:27:31.780 no. Just, just like the handmaid's tale protesters definitely don't want some wealthy high status

00:27:39.480 guy to be forced to breed them in front of a jealous high status woman. God. That's not what

00:27:47.600 there. That's not a weird kink for them. I hate that you have to bring that up. Cause that's so like,

00:27:52.080 not, not my king. That's like, can you imagine? Oh. But wait, this is your kink? The being paraded

00:28:00.140 around? I love bad boys, but you should know that. I am only a moderate bad boy. No, but like on dates,

00:28:08.000 like when, when, when you're whining and dining a woman, you do the bad boy thing.

00:28:11.580 No, I was, I was really quite callous with you in our early dates. I'm going to be. Yeah. Yeah. It

00:28:16.260 was a lot. It was great. I freaking loved it. Like the first breaking rules, you know, we're,

00:28:21.240 we're breaking into like, yeah. I, but we broke rules and you thought I was just going to use you

00:28:26.620 as like, that was your plan. It was literally. It was actually my plan at the time. To be honest,

00:28:33.440 I was like, I will marry a girl at Stanford. And then this woman is basically does whatever I tell

00:28:39.140 her to, and she seems moderately competent and she is completely devoted to me. So I'll have my real

00:28:45.180 wife and then I'll have my on the side, which is why I wrote those letters to myself in the future.

00:28:50.100 I'm like, she was clearly his plan. I wasn't wrong. Yeah. And then I just realized that you

00:28:56.320 were way more competent than any of the other people, right? Like you weren't just devoted to

00:29:01.660 me. You were also competent. I was, I was, yeah. And yeah, I mean, I may not have been an heiress.

00:29:06.880 So did I actually treat you like one of the, the, the, the, the, like rom-com, like hot guys?

00:29:14.820 Well, I don't really. Yeah. I mean, no, no, no. You had all the, no, like literally you had all

00:29:21.540 the things, right? You like, you came from this illustrious family. You were like, you know,

00:29:26.980 total disregard for the rules. You were sort of callous toward me, especially in the beginning.

00:29:32.320 And people love that sort of like enemies to lovers trope. Yeah. And it was, it was, it was a

00:29:36.760 very formulaically, like addictively compelling. So thanks for that. That was a wild ride. And

00:29:44.940 now we're living this like cottage for perfect married life, which is weird and unexpected after

00:29:50.140 all that. Yeah. No, our married life is very like, see, it's like always, Oh, look at the

00:29:54.340 it's so wholesome. A wholesome maxing at this stage of life. But at that stage of life, I was,

00:30:02.260 I was not reformed entirely. No, but, but again, like, so they're definitely, where were we with

00:30:09.560 this? Yeah. I was going to go to the next one, right? Okay. So, so gaslighting betrayal and main

00:30:15.620 character syndrome. Once Faye switches her alliance to Rysand and the night court in book two,

00:30:20.800 she returns to Tamlin spring court pretending to reconcile, but she's actually there to spy and

00:30:27.080 sabotage him. Yeah. She lies to him in the court. She manipulates him emotionally and she convinces

00:30:33.320 others to turn against him, destabilizing the entire territory with no real justification. He

00:30:38.740 doesn't appear to have done anything particularly wrong. No. And she does all this while pretending to

00:30:44.040 be the victim. Like her core reason for doing this as well, I made it to the other guy. Therefore I can

00:30:50.040 betray anyone I want was no justification. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Why does she ever explain why

00:30:59.360 she's doing all these horrible things to first guy? Well, because he was actually kind of a jerk

00:31:04.000 and he got really angry one time and his magic flew and a chair broke against a wall. And so,

00:31:09.260 oh no, that's the same. Probably violent. Yeah. Probably. Probably. Probably. At one point,

00:31:15.160 like, progressive, it's like, well, he's probably violent. In an attempt to get her back, he like

00:31:20.440 sold out to someone evil at some point. And that was considered super uncool.

00:31:27.620 If I remember. But no, it's, it's the, but that's, that's not even like, yeah. And it's, it's,

00:31:35.760 it's not just that like this, this hiding of information is pervasive throughout, not just

00:31:41.540 these romanticity novels, but like through every bestselling current romance novels. So like I went

00:31:49.660 through with AI, like with perplexity, deep research to go through the most popular romance novels in

00:31:55.640 2025 and the behavior of the female protagonists and one of the number one recurring themes.

00:32:02.200 But we'll hear the ones that you pulled up here. Well, and this, this shows up in those though,

00:32:06.980 this 100% shows up in the books that we're talking about, which is emotional guardedness and

00:32:12.120 withholding truths and like also using relationships for personal gain and survival, which it just seems

00:32:18.440 like it's playing into the worst female tropes that men accuse women of. And also women being like,

00:32:24.540 oh, be more emotionally open for me, cry for me, you know, like, and then in these books,

00:32:30.540 these women are not being emotionally open. They're not being emotionally or just technically

00:32:36.360 honest. And they are extremely mercenary and selfish. And also they never in any of the,

00:32:44.940 none of these books, the contemporary romance, like the non-fantasy stuff, the fantasy stuff,

00:32:49.960 the historical stuff, like all the different versions, all the flavors. They never try to

00:32:55.380 model these men. They never think, wow. I wonder how he's feeling. So we'll go to the next book.

00:33:01.420 Yeah. Okay.

00:33:02.100 I'll discuss with you. Okay. So what is the trial of the sun queen? This is, this is the

00:33:07.600 next book that you have gone through that.

00:33:10.080 I've read the first two books in the series. This is so bad.

00:33:14.680 Yeah. Now keep in mind, Laura, our protagonist has spent 12 brutal years in prison by the oppressive

00:33:20.320 Aurora King. I bet she gets the hots for him and sleeps with him.

00:33:23.040 No, no, no. His son, his son.

00:33:24.600 Oh, of course. She's abruptly pulled from solitary confinement and taken to the luxurious sun palace.

00:33:31.540 There she's forced to complete the deadly queen's trials against.

00:33:35.820 Yeah. This was described in the book summary as the bachelorette meets the hunger games. And I'm

00:33:40.740 like, you knew what you were in for. You wanted to compete against other women. That's the thing.

00:33:47.720 No, I love, well, I love, I want like the hunger games, but only the capital. And like, it was a

00:33:53.920 little more of that. So that was helpful.

00:33:55.860 No, but a lot of these have multiple women competing for a guy and the guy clearly choosing one of the

00:34:00.820 women. This, this is another thing, right? Like in, in male books, in male fantasies,

00:34:05.620 very rarely do I want to be competing with other males. Like, oh yeah, no, no, no, no. The harem,

00:34:10.940 harem anime is always only the women competing for the man.

00:34:14.560 It's not like a woman's like, ah, well, you know, maybe this is like a harem anime, but I win,

00:34:20.020 right? Like the female version of harem trope is the love triangle. And I hate the love triangle.

00:34:27.200 No, I think the, the female version is this. It is 12 women fighting over one man, but he really

00:34:33.480 only likes you. It's, it's actually a harem as well, but he really only likes you.

00:34:39.080 Oh yeah. It's almost just like from a different perspective.

00:34:42.240 Yes.

00:34:42.920 So it's the harem, it's the harem anime, but you are the waifu.

00:34:46.440 Yeah. They don't want a harem of men. What they want is to be in a harem, but be the real choice.

00:34:51.300 But to be the, the, the final one true.

00:34:53.080 And this is like, actually like what gets me is women can choose any fantasy and they choose

00:34:58.300 being in a harem over and over and over again. But to continue here. So the sun King, like we're

00:35:05.720 talking toxic behavior here. He dangles freedom in front of lore, but is manipulative and emotionally

00:35:10.660 distant. Lore falls for him quickly, despite expecting he's using her. The romance is shallow

00:35:17.080 and built on power imbalance instead of genuine connection. Do you, do you agree with this?

00:35:21.520 Yeah. Yeah. Lore. It's led into illusions to test her loyalty. What loyalty to somebody

00:35:28.260 who she has been tortured by for 12 years?

00:35:31.000 No, no, no. That's the Aurora King. The sun King is the one who's making her go through

00:35:35.100 the trials.

00:35:36.120 And this is his son.

00:35:37.440 No, no, no, no, no, no. The sun Nadir. So the son of the Aurora King who imprisoned her,

00:35:42.820 his name is Nadir and he's the second guy. He's the dark antagonist. Who's the real pair bonded

00:35:49.940 person for her? The Aurora King is the, actually turned out to be a jerk boyfriend number one.

00:35:56.680 What did he do to turn out to be a jerk? This one.

00:36:00.400 In this series, the Aurora King turned out to be a jerk because he only wanted to marry

00:36:05.040 Lore because it turns out that she's, she's actually like destined queen, powerful fae of this realm.

00:36:13.520 And that's another thing about these. And I think it's really interesting is that the men find these

00:36:17.960 women irresistible because for whatever reason, they are super OP. Like either they're, they're

00:36:24.020 like the secretly, like the destined this, or like the, the, in the lineage of Queens, but new,

00:36:29.400 no one knew, or even in like historical fiction series that are a little bit older, like Outlander,

00:36:34.260 the female protagonist has a huge leg up power wise because she's a time traveler and she knows

00:36:39.460 what's going to happen. Historically speaking, plus has the knowledge of the future and like

00:36:42.920 modern medicine. I love, I love Outlander. It's like modern woman goes to the past and sleeps

00:36:48.180 around with lots of rugged guys from the medieval period. While married. So she married, she was

00:36:55.100 married and then she went back in time and married again, fell in love. But she sleeps with a few

00:37:02.040 people. Right. If I remember correctly, I think so. I couldn't, I have to stop reading all of these

00:37:07.340 because like, they put me to sleep, but then I start hating the female protagonist so much that

00:37:11.520 I just can't take it anymore. And then I have to switch to another one. So I think we'll go to

00:37:14.880 the next one that you mentioned that was like, it sounded horrible and. Okay. Well, we'll go to the,

00:37:20.580 yeah, but anyway, yeah. Like she, yeah, he's, he is, he is, he's a jerk. He just wants to use her for

00:37:26.800 her power. But the important thing here is that in, in most of these, the female protagonist

00:37:30.560 is, is, is extremely valuable and irresistible because of her power. And I think there's this

00:37:37.940 other thing that women want to feel like they are inherently so indispensable and important

00:37:44.140 because there's this desire to be that. And women right now aren't like, I think that's something

00:37:49.480 that women really miss is this feeling that they are actually needed. Yeah. Well, and they also want

00:37:56.300 justification for betraying everyone in their lives, you know, like that's the, also the, I just want

00:38:00.880 a man I can betray everyone for. That is really the, a recurring theme in these. Another interesting

00:38:07.820 one in this one, the, the sun, whatever one is that lore, the main character learns this about

00:38:14.040 herself. Like she learns that she is the destined, whatever, and she hides it from everyone, despite

00:38:20.540 it putting multiple people's lives at risk to be hiding it. It's no one, despite the fact that she'd be

00:38:26.200 able to solve her problems much more easily if she was just transparent about what's going on,

00:38:32.060 which makes the books almost unreadable at various points. Like the, this, the second person that,

00:38:37.760 that she like is technically really bonded to, Rhysand, like she just starts being extremely

00:38:44.280 like horrible to him. Like just as they start beginning to forge some intimacy that they both

00:38:51.380 really enjoy, this torch tells her that if they do get together, it will only leave to heartbreak and

00:38:58.540 ruin. And then she just did, then she like comes back from this like prophetic vision. And she's

00:39:03.560 just like, no, we're not doing this anymore. Like she doesn't tell him anything of like, by the way,

00:39:09.300 I received a prophecy from this magical object that belongs to your kingdom that you would totally

00:39:14.360 respect and, and like take seriously that we need to be kind of careful. No, I'm just going to be a

00:39:20.020 complete jerk to you and be like, no, we can't do this anymore. We're not doing it. And like,

00:39:26.520 no, no explanation. It would be so much easier for everyone involved. If you were just like,

00:39:31.640 Hey, this magical object that you respect and that I respect, and that gives meaningful prophecies

00:39:35.840 told me to watch out about this. And you should watch like, why, why can't, and like, I thought

00:39:40.220 women were the ones who communicated. I thought that's funny with all of this is, you know, you say all

00:39:45.440 of this and I can, I'm like, I just really want to like slap this woman, just, just punch her in the

00:39:52.860 face over and over again. And I'm like, you know, what's really cool is with AI, I can experience

00:39:57.900 that. I can, I can put in, make, make the other character that there's no slapping sense into her.

00:40:04.320 Like she's just so irredeemable. And that's what's so horrible. And then the problem is that

00:40:10.680 like the world needs her. Cause like, it's the, she's going to fix everything with her immense

00:40:16.780 power that is greater than anyone's power ever before, because she's the heart queen.

00:40:22.140 She has the most power. Is she the heart queen?

00:40:24.560 She's the heart queen.

00:40:25.900 But she's kind of slutty though. Right. As well. So she's like,

00:40:28.920 she's the highest body count of any female protagonist that I've read in a romance novel.

00:40:33.920 Really? Well, because when she was in prison, she used sex to get by,

00:40:39.760 like sexual favors with prison guards and stuff, but then also had a lot of sex with other inmates

00:40:46.500 because it's how she like reclaimed her sexuality. So like, I mean, they put it in like, they couch it

00:40:52.540 in like, well, she had no choice, but I think they're trying to sound like no choice. That sounds

00:40:57.700 like a sexual rubspringa and the worst kind of slut. I know that the first, the book starts with her

00:41:03.360 actually having like a full out brawl with another female inmate who calls her a slut because she has a

00:41:08.440 reputation for being a slut. So she, I guess women these days read that and they're like, wow,

00:41:13.900 I really see myself in this individual. Because she, she also like, yeah, the, the,

00:41:18.000 the female inmate who insulted her also stole soap from her that she had performed, that Laura had

00:41:22.960 performed a sexual favor to get. So she was willing to perform sexual favors to get soap.

00:41:27.360 Like it wasn't, I mean, the soap was meaningful to her because, you know, jail sucks or whatever,

00:41:32.360 but like, but I think this is, again, I think because we're, we're seeing, this is the protagonist.

00:41:38.880 Yes. We're seeing a change in what the average female romance novel reader is. This is now a woman

00:41:46.580 with a higher body count, but who wants to see that higher body count is like not her fault,

00:41:51.860 but rather a product of, of the situation in which she found herself. She had to have all that sex

00:41:58.640 just to get by. It's society's fault. She was, she was the prisoner, just like Laura was in our modern

00:42:06.220 society of Tinder, where you have to be slutty to get by. That's so true. And so this, like, I think

00:42:13.120 the novels are trying to, like all of these to me are proxies for what women are experiencing. And

00:42:19.420 they're, they're meant to help them try to cope with their own sexual pasts, which they're

00:42:24.440 struggling with. And also this, the, and they're, they're feeding them false hope about falling in

00:42:30.420 love. The dark prince will still like them, even though they've slept with a lot of people.

00:42:33.880 Do they like never come up? Does like the dark prince, like never be like, but you, you'd be kind

00:42:38.020 of slutty in the past. Well, no, because they, they frame it very differently. Like Nadir, who's like

00:42:46.180 her real person is like, first off, she doesn't have penetrative sex with either of these two men

00:42:53.260 in, in any of the two books. Okay. So I think they're trying to like sort of re-virginalize

00:42:58.580 these women. Okay. And then second, he's like, well, she's never really had sex before because

00:43:05.200 it's never been real. It's never been real. Like with a man who knows what to do. And I think that's

00:43:14.980 also kind of a story that can be sold well to the modern woman of like, you haven't really

00:43:20.540 had sex because all these men. I'm really a virgin. Come on. They don't really know what

00:43:25.380 they're doing. They don't really care about you. They're just, they're fiddling around

00:43:28.680 in the dark. And they also make like the, I think one of the things that's like showing

00:43:34.500 up consistently in fae lore is that like these men are also very slutty and it's an extremely

00:43:39.680 slutty fae society where like, there's just orgies all the time. And like, they've all had

00:43:43.580 like tons of different partners. And like in, in the first, like in the trial of the

00:43:47.940 Sun King, the Sun King is like constantly sleeping around with women, like during this whole process,

00:43:53.320 like maybe he, like, you know, he, he's all about lore and like wants lore for his wife

00:43:57.760 because he needs her power, but he's still sleeping around with other women.

00:44:02.620 In, in female romance fantasies, this isn't seen in the turnoff. They like,

00:44:06.440 No, no, no, no. If anything, it's like a validator. And keep in mind that in, in the court of

00:44:10.540 thorns and roses, the, the, the dark man, Rees, Reesand is, is sleeping with the evil

00:44:20.400 queen. He's sleeping with like the big bad very actively. It's very well known. Like he

00:44:26.100 even has to like deal with the reputation of being like her pet after she's been defeated.

00:44:31.040 Everyone's like, Oh, you're, you're her bitch, you know? So like, yeah, the men are also

00:44:36.680 slutty, which I think also is, is they're trying to say that it's okay. Because I think also most

00:44:42.660 of the men that women are encountering on Tinder, because they're only encountering the eights,

00:44:46.940 nines, and tens who actually get any action on Twitter are also very slutty. Like they're

00:44:51.540 sleeping around a lot. Well, I love this. And what I need to ask our audience is this is why you got

00:45:00.220 to join Patreon. So you can vote to force Simone to read more books like this. And we can, we can

00:45:05.980 get her to do. Well, we have to eat. It's either that, or I was going to create, sorry, I need to

00:45:11.180 say force Simone to read these books. But it's not hot for men. That's hot for women, Malcolm,

00:45:18.440 but you're not a fan. Surprise, surprise. Or I was going to create an OnlyFans account to see if

00:45:25.520 there actually is an ecosystem of men who successfully sell to women on OnlyFans. And if

00:45:30.180 so, what are they selling? Because I don't think, I don't think they're like helicoptering their

00:45:35.560 wee-wees, if you know what I mean. Like, I don't think that's what it is. I think that this is going

00:45:39.260 to be more interesting to people. OnlyFans are fantasy novels. We'll see. We'll see. But what I just

00:45:45.800 want to point out though, is a warning to men. Because these are the, no, no, like the top toxic

00:45:52.760 female behaviors that are being normalized in these, in these novels, which I think

00:45:58.280 if you get in a relationship with a woman, you need to train out immediately. And Malcolm did

00:46:03.260 this like early in our relationship when he saw stuff that was like proto any of these things or

00:46:09.080 proto abusive as he would describe it. Like this is going to lead to toxic dynamics. It just like

00:46:13.020 snowballed later in the relationship. He's immediately like, we're talking about this. We're not doing this

00:46:17.720 anymore. Here's what we're going to do instead. Here's why this is not okay.

00:46:20.580 You got really upset about like how stubborn I was about this.

00:46:24.360 Well, it's frustrating in the beginning, but it's because I didn't know how toxic these things were.

00:46:29.220 And you explained it to me. And the reason why I did these things to a great extent was because

00:46:32.740 I saw that modeled as normal behavior. And I want to highlight these things.

00:46:36.740 The call or something. That was one of the big ones where you would like

00:46:39.440 did that once and you never did it again after I was like, you never, ever.

00:46:43.620 But there were, there were other things too, like not standing up for you when other people were

00:46:47.320 dogpiling you in social situations. That was so long to get over though.

00:46:51.020 I know it was really, but like, these are things like, because I saw them normalized in mainstream

00:46:58.120 society, it was really hard for like, not intuitive for me to not do that. And I want to highlight the

00:47:03.700 following things to our male watchers, because women are likely to do these things, especially if

00:47:08.780 they have encountered any of these novels, because this is pervasive. I'm saying it across all genres

00:47:13.480 of romance and romance adjacent novels. You need to immediately flag these things and explain

00:47:20.360 how this is going to snowball into toxic behavior that hurts both of you. So one is obviously emotional

00:47:26.440 guardedness and withholding truth that is pervasive in these. Oh, I'm not going to tell you about the

00:47:32.040 prophecy. I'm not going to tell you who I really am. Like, it's just seen as like, I don't know,

00:47:37.080 power. And there's also using relationships for personal gain and survival. In fact, there's also this

00:47:43.240 trend in these books where like the women, the men in these books financially support the families

00:47:50.500 of these women, like their parents and their sisters, which is, I don't know, like whenever I

00:47:55.260 hear about men paying for their wives' families, I just feel like those wives are such leeches.

00:48:01.520 So like, that's weird. I agree. The family should be left to starve to death. You don't need to

00:48:05.700 pay for a whole thing. That's our culture though. Obviously, if you're in some like Asian culture,

00:48:10.180 you got to, you know, you don't get to send a letter to the parents being like,

00:48:14.720 hey, like the Canadian government, have you thought about offing yourself?

00:48:18.520 Yeah. And then there's some emotional withdrawal and cotton hold, hot and cold behavior where women

00:48:24.160 just like give the cold shoulder or they won't talk to their partners. And like, that's also super

00:48:28.760 toxic, but I think you tried that once and I was like, never again. I don't, I mean, probably early

00:48:34.820 day I did. And that one you learned really quickly not to do. There's a huge enemies or rivals to

00:48:41.840 lovers trope where women are just like extremely mean to the male love interest and like, I hate you

00:48:51.780 or, and they're just like, they just constantly bully and neg and like one, men really don't like

00:48:57.520 that. So if you're a woman listening to this, who's in the dating market, like don't, don't do that.

00:49:01.680 Like, no, cold shoulder is not something you do in a real healthy relationship.

00:49:06.280 Nobody's super attractive to men is like interest in them, interest in their interests and like

00:49:11.040 enthusiasm for the stuff that they do. Like that's a shoulder is the beginning of like a protracted

00:49:16.340 fight. Like there is nothing good. It comes from a cold shoulder and see like judgment, criticism

00:49:21.240 and rivalry, which is more like what this is. They're not being like a guy is actually a good

00:49:25.480 match for you. He's not being mean to you because he wants to be mean to you. Like if you have some

00:49:29.480 difference of opinion, it's a difference of opinion you need to work out. Doing the cold

00:49:35.040 shoulder is trying to leverage access to yourself as a, as a value in a fight, which then just

00:49:42.900 forces him to do the same to himself, which then begins the destruction of the relationship.

00:49:49.320 Yeah. And then of course there's this like love triangle, emotional rebound, serial monogamy

00:49:55.840 thing. And maybe, you know, women have had previous partners, but like Simone, they're just

00:50:02.460 not mated with each other. Let it go more mated. Yeah. But like, I just, I mean, I don't know, like

00:50:12.380 I don't think that partners need to speak a whole lot about their whole mated thing is just like,

00:50:19.760 well, I want a story where we can have this fantasy where women are like involuntarily attracted to like

00:50:26.200 dominant men and then want to sleep with them and be their partners forever and have their kids.

00:50:31.640 Like I want, I want a fantasy where women in some like kinky way are like weird and deviant,

00:50:39.240 not like normal women and want those things.

00:50:41.580 I wonder if it would be productive for men, like when they saw their wives reading a book

00:50:51.280 to go to Grok or Claude or open AI perplexity, ask for a summary, what just like, like let's,

00:51:00.740 and then let's just talk through this.

00:51:02.680 No, I look, you guys can look at it. I let my wife listen to these, right? Like I'm not here being

00:51:08.620 like, how dare you want, listen to woman porn where it puts me to sleep. I need something.

00:51:20.800 That's why you're listening. Simone. I'm not listening to that now. Right now. I'm listening

00:51:24.620 to three books in one series and two books in another just to go to bed. I couldn't,

00:51:30.520 I couldn't finish them because they're so bad. Now I'm listening to, and it's really good books.

00:51:35.720 All Systems Red by Martha Wells. It's like, it's super cute. It's about this murder bot

00:51:41.120 who has hacked his governance system, meaning he or she, they, it has autonomy. And you can tell

00:51:48.760 it's like a sci-fi book written by a woman. Is it a sexy murder bot? No, it's not. He doesn't have

00:51:53.240 parts. So he's like a male Barbie doll. But it's not, no, it's not sexy. It's not a sexy book. And

00:52:00.400 you can tell it's written by a woman because it's all about how like emotionally awkward he feels

00:52:03.960 around humans. It's great. Highly recommend it. What do you mean by a woman? You mean by an

00:52:08.940 autist? I guess. You know, women don't feel emotionally uncomfortable around humans. I

00:52:17.040 don't know if you knew this or not. That's a you thing. Okay. It's really relatable. It's so

00:52:21.960 relatable. Like, cause the humans are starting to realize that, that the murder bot actually has

00:52:27.720 feelings and human parts that cause it to have feelings. And they're like, Oh, like don't upset it.

00:52:33.640 And then it's like, it like gets even more like, it's cute. Highly recommend it. All systems.

00:52:39.120 You are adorable. I like you. I, I, I, even though you watch these pervy, pervy books,

00:52:46.200 I still think that you are the best wife ever. And I, I bet you can create some great title cards for

00:52:53.180 this. Like what are women watching? Like the debauchery of women of this generation or

00:53:00.640 mated for life, female debauchery and then do, do like arrows to the book covers, you know?

00:53:07.480 I do. Yeah. I don't know. I have to do like pictures of the sexy women choosing between fairy

00:53:15.020 men. I don't know. Fairy men, like one free men. Or wait, like the first fairy man is a wolf man.

00:53:23.100 No, you know, he's a fairy, but he's a wolf man. Cause we got to just pack it in.

00:53:27.140 You have an anime version of yourself and then two different fairy versions of me.

00:53:31.020 And then anime version of yourself being like, which fairy man do I like?

00:53:37.680 No, actually I just realized, you know how, like with a lot of drawn erotic material for men,

00:53:44.160 like you end up seeing like, because they're trying to, because they're very niche, but they're

00:53:48.680 trying to get as many audiences as possible. It's like, well, it's, it's vor plus furry plus

00:53:56.060 like bimbofication. They like throw in a bunch of different kinks. And like, they totally do that

00:54:00.860 in this too. It's like, well, he's a fairy, but he also turns into a wolf. So don't worry.

00:54:04.160 And he's also really old. So don't worry. I read the, the, the, the thorns one had like

00:54:09.560 scenting and everything and like biological, like, Oh, I can smell his.

00:54:14.360 You're right. No. Yeah. You're right. But that was with the first one. It was with.

00:54:20.300 You didn't realize that was a kink. When you read that you were like, this is normal.

00:54:26.300 Female kinks. I swear women will look at men and be like this guy.

00:54:32.720 Like women prefer more than men. The statistics are really clear, but they'll be like,

00:54:38.800 I saw a porn where a man choked a woman. And then I'm like, I saw a bucket Bards and Nobles

00:54:45.560 where like a man beats a woman and forces her to dress scantily under drugs in front of other men.

00:54:52.780 And she thinks he's the greatest thing ever. And he's a good guy. And he's like the nice one.

00:54:56.880 And he's the bestseller. And by the way, you're reading it and you gave it to your preteen

00:55:03.320 daughter. And then they're like, well, that's all normal. No, the funny thing is I read this book

00:55:09.340 and I thought that it was like really niche and embarrassing. And then we went somewhere and

00:55:16.140 someone else who's very intelligent and successful was reading it. And I was like, Oh damn.

00:55:22.820 Wait, is this one of the people we can't talk about? Or is this like a...

00:55:26.620 It's someone who sometimes listens to this podcast and I wouldn't name.

00:55:31.820 Oh, okay. Okay.

00:55:32.920 I can tell you after.

00:55:34.820 That is hilarious.

00:55:36.800 But also I was glad because then I could talk to someone about it. But like, no, this is like,

00:55:41.160 this is read not just by like poorly educated, trashy women who shop at Target, which is where

00:55:47.780 we were looking at these book covers this morning, but like very successful, highly educated,

00:55:53.460 like top tier of society.

00:55:55.780 Well, no. And this is the thing also about male porn. So I had an episode where I joke

00:56:00.520 about like the time I accidentally leaked hentai on, on, on the show.

00:56:04.780 When did you do that?

00:56:05.940 It was, I put images of that, that one that I shared with you. That's like super wholesome.

00:56:10.780 Well, the other one.

00:56:11.700 It's broken.

00:56:13.760 I mean, I guess technically it's hentai.

00:56:15.080 It's about like, well, it's drawn in hentai, but it's like a, a, a, a, a Yankee girl, whatever.

00:56:21.600 No, a gyaru, a gyaru.

00:56:23.100 A gyaru, where she's got all the paint, everything on her face and everything. And then she dates

00:56:27.120 the guy and slowly becomes like a normal wife and has kids and, and, and gets over all

00:56:32.240 of her past trauma.

00:56:32.700 How can you call that hentai when like the vast majority of it is exposition of this, like

00:56:37.480 this sweet childhood romance?

00:56:38.700 Exposition. And then they have a few nude scenes at the end. If you want to read past

00:56:41.400 the, the exposition part of it.

00:56:43.020 Yeah. I'm like, I don't think I ever got to that.

00:56:45.920 I, on the, on the discord about this, a bunch of people were like, oh, I've read that one.

00:56:50.860 So like, this isn't like a niche thing that I'm mentioning here. This is like a bunch of

00:56:56.240 men who are like, oh yeah, that fantasy about helping a girl get through her traumas. And then

00:57:01.460 she becomes your wife and you have kids together and you're just there to support her.

00:57:06.000 Yeah. That's a fantasy that I've seen in my, in my reading.

00:57:09.780 Well, that's, you know, that recently there's been all this criticism of the anime movie that

00:57:13.380 came out where like a young man helps a girl in a wheelchair and people are like, how dare

00:57:17.800 you, how dare you help a woman in a wheelchair? And, and she's like, there's this male fantasy

00:57:23.900 of like, well, helping a woman who actually needs your help and like making her life good.

00:57:27.640 And appreciates you. Yeah.

00:57:28.540 Yeah. Like, oh, and that's again, like what are men into? Oh, they just want like women

00:57:34.160 who appreciate them. They want.

00:57:35.980 That's disgusting.

00:57:37.380 A woman who appreciates a man. Do you know what that means? That means a woman doing something.

00:57:43.580 That's almost as bad as Starship Trooper. I love, they call it like, like fascist, even

00:57:47.840 though it's like totally equal, totally gender equal. The only thing.

00:57:51.060 That makes it gay. That makes it gay. That's, that's what.

00:57:54.000 It is, it is space gay fascism, but I'm actually realizing. So like the way that the female

00:57:59.240 protagonists are in these, which is because women seem to be so into this enemies to lovers

00:58:03.620 thing or rivals to lovers thing. Is there like, I hate you. You're my enemy. And like the men

00:58:09.420 in these are framed as like liking it, like, especially Nadir in the Sun King trial of the

00:58:17.360 Sun King series just loves when she hates him. And it talks about how much she like, when she

00:58:23.400 looks at him angrily, he'd like that turns him on. Whereas like in reality, and this

00:58:27.040 is really giving women this skewed perception of male sexuality, that like men are turned

00:58:31.880 on by them expressing disdain, hatred, rivalry. When like really what turns men on is eagerness

00:58:39.220 and gratefulness and gratitude and enthusiasm.

00:58:41.400 Hold on. I think what you're missing here is sexually successful versus sexually unsuccessful

00:58:45.840 men. Sexually unsuccessful men are turned on by those things. Sexually successful men are

00:58:51.980 turned on by women who hate them and stuff like that.

00:58:54.120 Oh, well, since these are all powerful man slots, then I guess that that would work for

00:58:57.580 them. Okay. So that's not discord.

00:58:59.040 As I point out, like, if you have a more aggressive form of sexuality, you actually perform really

00:59:03.860 well within arbitrage markets because so few men do. And so many women want this.

00:59:07.620 Yeah, clearly.

00:59:09.140 I love that people are like trauma. It's like, no, it's not trauma. And we say this as people

00:59:14.420 who both have, you know, somewhat unusual sexual profiles. And I can be like, I definitely didn't

00:59:19.300 undergo any trauma in that respect. And you definitely didn't either.

00:59:23.780 Zero trauma. Zero trauma.

00:59:26.740 Well, because people just don't want to admit that humans are weird, right? Like humans are weird.

00:59:31.240 Well, and I just, I can't believe that our audience would ever use the T word to explain

00:59:36.820 anything. When the T word is indicative of an external locus of control, which is the weakest

00:59:43.340 way to approach life. Even if it's true that some external force caused something bad to happen to

00:59:49.860 you, admitting that or acting as though that's the case is the weakest and least healthy way to

00:59:55.540 approach it. You can logically understand that that's how it worked, but like everything ultimately

00:59:59.980 comes down to what are you going to do about it? And if you don't make everything, your personal

01:00:03.320 responsibility, life will keep happening to you. And you are going to flounder. You are going to fail

01:00:08.060 control. An internal locus of control is only the only way to move forward. And if you ever accept

01:00:12.080 trauma into your life, that is accepting an external locus of control.

01:00:16.480 No, I think the people who do this are genuinely like no kids losers. No, I'm being honest. Like

01:00:22.180 they're not going to be represented in the next generation. I've seen the people who do this,

01:00:25.700 who are like, oh, it's all, look, this is like your, your Nick Fuentes and stuff like that,

01:00:29.440 right? Like they, they, they put on this big show of being like a conservative Christian and yet they

01:00:34.340 can't even get a wife. Right. Like with a lot of this, it's this big show. Oh, I'm so tough. Oh,

01:00:40.060 I'm so whatever. And it's like, and either my wife hates me or I don't have one. Right. Like,

01:00:46.920 because there's, there's obviously going to be a lack of communication. If you go with this whole

01:00:50.560 deontological, like I'm so, you know, it ends up failing and blowing up in your face and it's,

01:00:57.620 you know, it doesn't, it doesn't drop the trauma narrative guys. Yeah. The trauma narrative is

01:01:03.740 pathetic. Right. Like just be like, Hey, what turns me on is what turns me on. I don't need to

01:01:07.880 do it. Right. Like that, that is the actual answer. What turns you on, what turns you on.

01:01:12.920 And that doesn't, that this is not to neutralize that bad things happen to you and that bad things

01:01:17.560 happen in the world. And it's sometimes, and that life is, life is deeply unfair. Absolutely. And

01:01:23.220 things happen to you through no fault of your own, but that doesn't matter in the end. It doesn't

01:01:27.960 matter. The only thing that matters is what are you going to do about it? So, yes.

01:01:32.660 And, and, and, and I think that also it's, it's such like a cucked response to be like,

01:01:38.500 well, you just, if you were traumatized and you just have to do all these horrible debauched

01:01:42.880 things, it's like, you know, or you can just be like, Hey, it's fricking random. What turns

01:01:49.140 you on? Well, not exactly random, but largely speaking, largely genetic. I mean, honestly,

01:01:53.680 a lot of it's just inherited. So. And they would just call that intergenerational trauma.

01:01:59.120 Yeah. Right. They're like, was so weird that my dad was in, and I was, and I was like,

01:02:04.380 man, that's not weird. That's not weird. It's called genetics. Yeah. Anyway, love you

01:02:09.300 to death, Simone. You are amazing. And thank you so much for this amazing, stupidly long

01:02:14.600 episode. Sorry.

01:02:15.680 I love talking with you. So with the, the episode today, the one on women and what turns

01:02:27.260 them on very apt. Yeah. And the only comments where I'm like, why are so many people under

01:02:35.160 this impression was a bunch of people are like, Oh, women are just into BDSM because

01:02:41.480 of childhood trauma. And I'm like, Hmm. And a lot of people like, well, don't you know

01:02:46.220 that sexuality is just downstream of early porn exposure or early childhood trauma? And

01:02:51.400 I'm like, do you not have any understanding of the evidence on this?

01:02:54.960 And on two separate comments that I saw, cause I read all the way to the bottom, tried to respond

01:02:59.620 as many as I had time to. We're like, well, the research shows that this is all downstream

01:03:05.360 of childhood. Show me the research. Yeah. Like extremist religious people in the eighties

01:03:12.700 made this up. But if you actually look at the research, for example, the, the sooner you

01:03:17.440 engage, if you look at like prisons, for example, the people who are this or essayers often started

01:03:24.280 to engage with porn at a much later date. They often engage with porn less than the people

01:03:29.060 who aren't. You see a direct correlation. Like the, this, this is actually like the directly

01:03:34.600 wrong. And we, we came into doing this research thinking what all these other people thought

01:03:39.340 because it's what society tells you. It's like, Oh, this is all. No, it's not what society

01:03:42.960 tells you is better than that. It's what you believe is intuitively true, but society says

01:03:47.200 you're not allowed to say, you're not allowed to say, actually, this stuff is really bad for

01:03:51.700 you. And I had actually written the chapter that it was really bad for you. And then I was

01:03:55.920 like, I'll find citations later. And it was the one chapter I had to rewrite.

01:03:58.800 That porn is really bad for you. Yeah. But also when you did the, the survey that you

01:04:03.740 did and then looked at the research on this, because you, you assumed that abuse as a kid

01:04:09.720 or, you know, or intimate abuse as a kid would correlate with different types of kinks in

01:04:15.180 the future. And yeah, like there were some very loose things, I think more related to

01:04:20.060 like how you practiced rather than like what you actually got turned on by. So there were

01:04:24.680 like some isolated incidents. It may make you more, you know, sexually

01:04:28.700 like voracious or interested in that sort of stuff. I'm willing to express it. Yeah.

01:04:34.840 Yeah. Like, like, like just sluttier basically is the word I'd use, but it didn't correlate

01:04:39.780 to arousal patterns. Yeah. Like you're just born with that. Yeah. And just like the number

01:04:45.120 of people who chimed in in the comments and were like, this is downstream of trauma. This

01:04:48.980 is downstream of early porn exposure. And I'm just like, I love this like trauma brain

01:04:53.980 that people get, you know, we have like, you'd think that our audience is above that. Like

01:04:57.960 we're all about like therapy cultures, obviously toxic. This whole, like, it was your mom's fault.

01:05:02.700 It was child trauma fault. It was dad's. No, like we all agree that this is, that this

01:05:08.000 is toxic, that this is delusional. And yet as soon as we bring sex into it, they're like,

01:05:13.380 and this is a basic red pill fact that like every red pillar knows everyone who's engaged

01:05:18.700 in evolutionary psychology is like not surprised. And there were definitely people coming to

01:05:23.260 God that they're like, well, evolutionarily, it makes sense because it was like, yes, thank

01:05:26.760 you. Thank you. For those of you who fricking get it, who use their noggins for once instead

01:05:31.460 of sorry. Well, I love that they're, they just uncritically and without knowledge are like

01:05:37.440 aggressively pushing this particular viewpoint. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not one that I can hate

01:05:43.240 on because it's one that I used to have before. Yeah. Until we actually looked at

01:05:46.500 the information. Yeah. Yeah. We were surprised. We're like, well, of course, nofap is good

01:05:51.260 and porn is bad. Well, I don't have to rewrite the entire, because is that not norm, like

01:05:54.740 the norm of this channel? Like, oh, well, here's the thing that you're not allowed to say and

01:05:59.060 everybody normalizes, but it's bad. And we'd written a whole chapter about this. And then

01:06:04.180 I looked at the data and I was like, I guess this is the, and I have never done that. I have

01:06:08.380 never, I often write chapters of books and then later look for data. Cause I'm like, I bet

01:06:12.640 I can find a study that's, I bet I can find it. This was the one where I did this. And

01:06:16.940 just from like intuition and memory, because I had remembered people citing a bunch of studies

01:06:20.700 that showed this. Yes. Yes. And where are these studies? Where are these studies?

01:06:25.120 You know, it's not that no studies exist. You will always find studies arguing for, for

01:06:29.060 any particular thing. Sure. It's just that they do not appear as well constructed as the

01:06:33.000 studies on the other side. And they appear and it's, you can be like, well, you know, well,

01:06:37.060 don't you discount studies that push what the left would want or what the urban monoculture

01:06:41.140 would want. And it's like, even whiz doing that, the preponderance of evidence is on the,

01:06:46.000 because there's also people on the other side of this who have like an opposite agenda. Right.

01:06:49.660 And so the question is, is which agenda gets violated more by their own studies. And when

01:06:54.380 I look at the wider data pools and when I look at like evolutionary psychology and try to use

01:06:58.140 common sense, but that's disappointing. Oh, well, nobody was complaining about my Iran comments.

01:07:03.120 Oh, I mean, some people. Not really.

01:07:05.280 Not, not really.

01:07:07.120 Okay. Okay. None about my, my Carl Benjamin comments.

01:07:12.280 I can't remember.

01:07:14.880 Bunch of people came in to hate on Sargon of Akkad.

01:07:17.420 Carl Benjamin. Yeah. They hated him too.

01:07:19.360 Oh yeah. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. So people did. Yeah. There were a couple.

01:07:22.960 Yeah.

01:07:23.020 What did they not like about him?

01:07:24.960 He's an intellectual lightweight. He he's, he's doomed to, you know, he thinks he

01:07:29.860 knows the answers, but is sort of doomed by his culture and perspectives to, you know,

01:07:35.840 never really come to a conclusion. His, his Britishness is his undoing is.

01:07:39.800 I agree with that to an extent. I like, I do not like that. He does it. He does not come down

01:07:43.620 with like hard and interesting takes. And I think he used to, or like, I have a perception. I,

01:07:48.480 in my head, he was a cooler figure the way the left told me about him before I realized that the

01:07:54.520 big, scary Sargon of Akkad was the guy who hosts Lotus Eaters. And I'm like, but he's very tame.

01:07:59.860 Why is he the big scary Sargon? I think he just came to, to fame during a period where

01:08:05.740 saying less controversial stuff got you in more trouble. And so he developed this.

01:08:10.360 One person said something like that, like, you know, because he was so good at trouncing

01:08:14.880 like wokeness, you know, he just thinks he's therefore good at a bunch of other things when.

01:08:20.940 Well, especially in the early days of wokeness, when that was really, you know, risky.

01:08:24.420 Yeah. And it took balls to monetize him.

01:08:26.400 He did, you know, so, so, you know, he did, he did do a lot of opening salvos. He just wasn't

01:08:31.720 as useful in later salvos. And, and, and I'm, I'm not to say that I wouldn't expect him to start

01:08:36.580 doing more interesting stuff again. I, I, I might, you know, but I will say his perception is very

01:08:42.020 British conservative when we talk with other British conservatives, which I don't know,

01:08:45.660 I'd summarize in one word defeatist defeatist and prudish and pearl clutchy often.

01:08:53.680 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just horrified that he's the bottleneck in his family to having another kid.

01:08:59.340 He's like, no, we're not having telling his wife, we're not having any more kids.

01:09:02.660 Yeah. Like what is enough? Come on, man. Like after four economies of scale kick in,

01:09:08.460 you're, you're missing the benefits. And I mean, I'm, I'm even the one who raises the kids probably

01:09:14.680 more than he does. And I'm like, well, and yeah. And his wife is doing the raising. She's a stay at

01:09:19.420 home mom. So like, it's on her anyway. Like, what's it on him? I guess he doesn't want to pay for

01:09:26.380 one more mouth to feed. But again, the economy is like the financial economy. You don't need to

01:09:30.760 feed them all. That's the trick. You can put some on the streets to, to, to pickpocket from strangers.

01:09:37.280 Considering that one of our kids basically only eats berries foraged from our yard. Yeah. We're

01:09:42.240 basically only paying now to feed. Yeah. Right. All right. Three mouths and not four. Yeah.

01:09:47.200 Here we are. And I need to put some on the streets. Whoa. Here she is. Whoa. It's floating.

01:10:09.100 And no, it's not.

01:10:12.220 Okay.

01:10:15.380 Fallecao has.

01:10:23.760 I may get some sticks.

01:10:26.380 All right. This is wandering off.

01:10:28.180 It's coming.

01:10:29.040 You're trying to glue this.

01:10:30.140 Oh my god!

01:10:44.140 That's how I'm done.

01:10:46.140 I'm so excited.

01:10:48.140 Oh my god!

01:10:50.140 Oh my god!

01:10:52.140 Oh my god!

01:10:54.140 Oh my god!

01:10:56.140 Oh my god!

Based Camp - June 26, 2025

Wife Explains Romantasy Books： Women, We Need to Talk

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