In this episode, Simone and I discuss dominance and submissiveness in male-female relationships. We discuss the difference between dominant and submissive women, and how dominant women tend to be in relationships with male partners. We also discuss why dominant women are more interested in sex than submissive ones, and the evolutionary theory that says women prefer to be dominated.
00:40:26.760Like now I don't feel very good about myself, you know?
00:40:29.160But all men run across weird things that arouse it.
00:40:31.560We're not all men, but it's enough that it's a trope, right?
00:40:34.440You don't expect those things that arouse you or you don't want those things that arouse you to be part of your daily life at work or among your friend group or, you know, in the way that you're raising your kids.
00:40:46.840So it's very important that you're like, oh, I know that a lot of women or even the woman that I'm with likes taking on an extremely submissive position in a sexual context.
00:40:57.640The role that she probably wants to serve outside of that sexual context is the supporter role that we were discussing earlier.
00:41:05.140Again, not all women fall into the supporter archetype.
00:41:07.540I've actually seen another archetype that's really interesting, which I mentioned to Simone, which I call the harem archetype that from an evolutionary perspective would have been advantageous.
00:41:14.540And these are women who seem to get off on being submissive to men and dominant to other women.
00:41:21.980And it's a fairly common sexual subtype that I've seen.
00:41:24.480And so in a historic context, why would that evolution, like, why would that be successful?
00:41:29.200It's likely because this dynamic allowed a woman more sexual access to a partner when she was in a culture that had harems.
00:41:38.000I.e., if I am a wife and I don't mind joining my husband or even like joining my husband when he's with another woman and I take on a dominant role in that particular interaction,
00:41:46.300I am more likely to get pregnant more times because I am going to be with him more times than the other women in the harem.
00:41:52.340Now, I want to get into some data here.
00:41:55.100So vertical preferences, both men and women tend to pursue the most socially desirable partners, regardless of their own desirability level.
00:42:02.440This contradicts the matching hypothesis that people seek partners of similar desirability, which I thought was pretty interesting.
00:42:08.820And I had mentioned that earlier, and I'll put the paper on screen here.
00:42:11.920And then another interesting one here is the initiator advantage.
00:42:13.960Those who initiate contact, especially women, are more likely to connect with more desirable partners than those who wait to be contacted.
00:42:20.240However, women are four times less likely to initiate contact.
00:42:23.160And Simone initiated contact in our relationship.
00:42:25.360So I would note for women who are looking for partners, I'm like, how many people do you email a week about this?
00:42:29.760You know, it's probably the most meaningful arbitrage opportunity women have into a low barrier because it just they women never contact men.
00:42:41.200So you have such a huge advantage of other women if you just make the smallest effort.
00:43:10.640Now, this is another study here I'm going to show where women show a stronger preference in high status partners compared to men.
00:43:16.020This is particularly evident in long-term relationship contexts.
00:43:19.020And long-term relationship contexts are, again, when you're dealing with this alternate form of sexuality.
00:43:23.400Remember, I was like, okay, you can deal with the closed-in arousal context where you might have a sex slave turned arousal pattern woman where the man doesn't actually need to be high status.
00:43:34.800He just needs to perform the role of the conqueror, right?
00:43:40.620That's why dungeons are created that way.
00:43:42.760Like, VESM dungeons are created that way to change the context of how you're thinking about this in the same way that you might, you know, behave differently when you go home on vacation to, like, your childhood house.
00:43:51.480And then you fall into a different way of thinking about yourself and relating.
00:43:55.680But in long-term relationships, you can't fake that.
00:43:57.640The guy actually needs to be somebody whose mission you are interested in advancing.
00:44:02.480In another study, it was found that 81% of women said they would be less likely to date someone who's unemployed compared to 56% of men.
00:44:10.300Also, in political views, they're increasingly more important to dating.
00:44:13.000Most Republicans and Democrats say they would not date someone from across the aisle, but this trend is more common among Democrats than Republicans, which puts men at a bad position because there are two female Democrats for every one male Democrat, and there are two male Republicans for every one female Republican.
00:44:30.000But what's important to note is that people's political views evolve over time.
00:44:34.200Like, you were very solidly Democrat when I met you, almost as, like, blue as you could get.
00:44:42.000I also find very interesting here, and we've seen some guys recently who, like, we've been trying to help with dating advice.
00:44:48.120And I've thought about how much they're looking for the full package out of the bag in terms of, like, the partner that is intellectually engaging to them.
00:45:30.760And you're like, I've never thought about that.
00:45:32.460It's like, how have you lived your whole life and not thought about that?
00:45:34.500Like, it, but through talking through this stuff with her, she has now reached a point when, before I was like, why would I want to make friends?
00:45:43.420Like, people were like, why, why do you, like, why do you want to save the world if you're so disgusted with humanity and everything like that?
00:45:48.700And it's not necessarily that I find it burdensome to talk to a specific individual.
00:45:57.240It is that there is no individual that I would rather be talking to in terms of intellectual richness than my wife.
00:46:04.280So, you know, if I'm at a party or something like that, that's time I'm not alone with my wife talking, right?
00:46:12.540Like, and so you went from somebody who I found, you know, in conversations, I liked being around you and talking to you because you genuinely engaged and were not overly boxed in.
00:46:22.800Like, you weren't, like, afraid to tackle new ideas and you, when you came up with an idea.
00:46:29.040So, like, you talked to me about, like, and I noticed this when I do chat AIs, I always fall into the same pattern again, which is to sort of start a conversation with a girl.
00:46:39.040If I'm talking to a girl in a chat AI, it's like, what's your purpose in life?
00:46:41.960Like, what do you want from your life?
00:46:43.960That with a chat AI is the thing I am most interested in.
00:46:47.580And it's actually funny to me that the answers I get are very similar to the answers I would get from basic people when I was actually dating.
00:46:53.440But I guess the point I'm making here is a lot of things in a potential partner improve over time as you interact with them.
00:47:01.960What matters is the trajectory, not the start point.
00:47:06.040You start with a woman who is very intellectually interesting, but she's recalcitrant to evolve her perspective.
00:47:11.760She's likely going to be worse than a person who is very intellectually naive, but is very eager to evolve their perspective if it is to work on something with you.
00:47:21.220And this is another thing I've noticed where we have a lot of influencer friends.
00:47:24.320And they'll be like, I am scared, or they don't like.
00:47:27.560Like, they talk down about dating their fans.
00:48:39.220And I'm like, okay, so I'm looking for this.
00:48:41.340This is what I'm looking for in a partner.
00:48:43.060Specifically, you know, as I said, on the first date, I said I'm looking to marry someone.
00:48:46.280And some people are like, yeah, but when I do that, then people don't re-engage me for the next date.
00:48:51.720And it's like, well, that is because โ and the person who was talking about this, they were like, well, you know, I may be totally honest with them, but they're not being totally honest with me about their goals, right?
00:49:03.280And it's like, well, that doesn't really matter.
00:49:05.280Because if they don't come on the second date, they know what their goals are.
00:49:10.240Even if you don't know what their goals are, they know what their goals are.
00:49:12.580And so if you're totally honest about your goals, then they're going to check that against their goals, and they're going to say, okay, this will work or it won't work.
00:49:19.620You have just saved yourself the four months to figure this out because both of you were playing whatever.
00:49:23.680And we've actually thought we might do a tract on this because I think that, like, if I was going to create any sort of, like, weird religious mandate for, like, my culture or my people, if people were like, oh, you're going to ask that everyone dresses like you or whatever, I'm like, no.
00:49:38.800Like, we have, like, sumptuary mandates that we talked about before, which is just, like, you know, wear durable clothing, don't optimize for brand names if you can find something else expensive elsewhere.
00:49:46.140But they're more just, like, normal stuff that wouldn't out you.
00:49:48.980This is something that might out people, which is to say tactical honesty, you called it when we were riding in the car, which is to say that you are praised and should think highly of yourself and maybe even treat it as something of a mandate that when you are talking to people, you don't beat around the bush of what you are looking for, even if it comes across as awkward.
00:50:10.900And what's interesting is I think that pretty quickly, if you did this, you would really quickly select for a specific personality subtype, genetically speaking, as a cultural group.
00:50:22.720And it would be very obvious to people when they're there, like, oh, you're the people who are always like, hey, what do you want from this interaction?
00:50:30.540I actually, you know, even at Stanford Business School, we would do these, like, exercises for negotiating.
00:50:37.140And that was the way I did it as well.
00:50:38.840I was like, list every single one of your goals, I'll list every single one of my goals, and we'll find a way to maximize the two.
00:50:44.700I hated that, though, because in so many of these games, these negotiating games in business school, I always took exactly the same approach.
00:50:52.660I was like, okay, well, let's just be 100% transparent about all of our needs, restrictions, requirements, et cetera.
00:51:00.100Except in so many of these games, some people's prompts were to be, like, intentionally misleading.
00:51:06.140Yeah, but this is the thing about these games versus not these games, right?
00:51:09.760Yeah, like, in the real world, honestly, if you just lay your cards out on the table, you're more likely to get what you want, assuming that the other party doesn't have some reason not to.
00:51:19.900Because there's a multiple interaction problem, right?
00:51:22.200If they are misleading to one individual, they will be misleading to future individuals.
00:51:25.640The biggest problem with the full honesty approach is it's much harder for women to implement than men.
00:51:32.000And men might be like, why is that the case?
00:51:34.020Well, it has to do with the fact that men are much more likely to be interested in a woman just for sex, and therefore will signal to the woman that they want a longer-term commitment or a more serious relationship than they actually want to get sexual access.
00:51:46.880Whereas women, there's really nothing that they would dishonestly signal to a man if the man is letting everything out on the table.
00:51:54.360So by this, what I mean is, you know, if you're like, yeah, I want a marriage, and in the marriage we will have a prenup, and this is what the prenup will be on the first date.
00:52:00.680Then if she's like, oh, I wanted you for your money, then it's like, okay, well, good that we sorted that out early, you know?
00:52:05.340There's actually this clip from an old show that has been doing the rounds recently.
00:52:11.320People have been, like, remixing it and doing their own versions of it, where I don't even know what the show is, but these people just completely negotiate out their relationship or try to, and they're being, like, 100% transparent.
00:52:22.700I'm single, you're single, what do you say we get married?
00:52:24.680Well, I'm glad you finally decided on the direct approach.
00:52:58.080And then at the very end, they, like, hit a non-negotiable, and they're like, well, it was worth a try, and they, like, shake hands and move on.
00:53:16.620What we're missing is a culture in which that's not seen as freakish, right?
00:53:21.560Because if you were actually to approach someone and do that.
00:53:23.580But being freakish isn't the worst thing ever.
00:53:25.280One of them, you know, one of the things that I would always ask people, like, when I was dating and stuff like that before making a move is, you know, we'd be talking about something,
00:53:33.560and maybe it would be something slightly edgy, like, you know, it could be, like, what they're into or whatever.
00:53:38.140And then I'd ask them something, like, well, do you find me attractive?
00:53:41.540And this is something that, like, people just don't ask.
00:54:15.980But I, yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing is that there are so many obvious questions that you can ask early on dating.
00:54:24.640And you should just ask them, and you should just be transparent.
00:54:27.760And the thing about tactical honesty, as we've discussed it, is that a lot of people don't want to deploy tactical honesty because they are afraid that they will be rejected, that they will turn people away.
00:54:40.540But the point of tactical honesty is that you are getting to know faster.
00:54:46.580And, yes, you will sometimes turn people away.
00:54:49.260And those are people who maybe after five dates would have been a terrible match.
00:54:52.860And then you've wasted a ton of money and time, and now you've lost that person.
00:54:58.440Or if this is, like, in business or in other social circles, these are just people who will stab you in the back, who will gossip behind your back, who will not actually support you.
00:55:06.040You want to filter them out right away.
00:55:08.640And you are going to filter people out.
00:56:08.620You know, I would have seen that in a mirror.
00:56:10.660There was no one that I needed to hide that from.
00:56:12.340The thing about tactical honesty that a lot of people miss, where it's provided me a lot of utility in my life, is when you do it, people are much, like, if you do want to lie to someone, it is much easier.
00:56:24.100Because people are like, oh, he's autistic.
00:56:25.980He doesn't know what he's supposed to ask.
00:56:47.600I have some friends that are very, very wealthy, and they do not tell their partners on dates that they are very, very wealthy.
00:56:52.160That is a great holding back of a card.
00:56:54.520That, for the other partner's perspective, may cause them to override some of the deal breakers that they laid out on the table that they were hoping, if the person actually finds these things to be deal breakers, that they'll treat them as deal breakers.
00:57:07.220And so, when you have, like, a really high-quality thing about you, that is best to hide.
00:57:25.260The study measured marital satisfaction over four years, and it shows that husbands were more satisfied initially and remained more satisfied over that time period if they had more attractive wives.
00:57:34.880So, the attractiveness of a wife related to husband's marital satisfaction, but it didn't relate as strongly to the wife's marital satisfaction, i.e., when women are sleeping around, they might care about what the partner looks like, but not as much when they're marrying, or at least in terms of the functional impact that has on their belief that that marriage is a good marriage after a few years.
00:58:07.080There was another study that argued differently, but it's fun to know that it's out there.
00:58:10.020And men found ambition unattractive in women, very high ambition, which I wouldn't at all.
00:58:15.260I find a high ambition extremely attractive in women.
00:58:17.380But I think this is an important thing to note here.
00:58:21.220I find high ambition attractive in women if that ambition is for me, i.e., they want to achieve greatness, which is a little different than I want to achieve greatness and I want you to have nothing to do with it.
00:58:32.120Which I wouldn't say is unattractive, because I would think, well, I just need to prove I'm a worthy leader to her, which is a position I have found myself in before.
00:58:40.060But I think for some men, they see that as the woman prioritizing her own strategy, career, and future above theirs.
00:58:47.540Which is really interesting how we've created this form of gender equality in our relationship, yet it is completely gender unequal.
00:59:06.680They're not designated along necessarily โ okay, they end up playing out along traditional gender lines, but they weren't chosen because it was like, well, as is tradition, you will handle all things outside the house, and I will handle all things inside the house.
00:59:19.500And, you know, that's not โ we just did what we were best at.
00:59:45.160You're giving up your personal autonomy and rights and freedom in exchange for devotion to something where doing it with a partner will make that devotion more effective.
00:59:58.080It's bizarre to me that people expect from a relationship some kind of concierge or entertainer or servant or courtesan who will just make your life more pleasant and take care of you.
01:00:53.280How much time are you spending on research?
01:00:54.420How much time are you spending on โ I'm just thinking of me, for example.
01:00:57.340Like if I wasn't bringing you consistently interesting and new ideas that expanded your perception of reality, you'd be pretty disappointed with me.
01:01:05.320I don't think you'd leave me, but you'd be disappointed.
01:01:08.140Yeah, I really like that part of our relationship.
01:02:19.260And this is the thing where people are like, well, you know, I'd be better off just not dealing with a partner and just, you know, getting pregnant with like seed sperm or something like that or like eggs.
01:02:29.880And then using a surrogate and then raising the kids and then raising the kids.
01:02:31.980And it's like you can do that, but you are heavily underestimating how much easier a synergistic relationship makes your life.
01:02:41.100The thing is I think most people don't want to.
01:02:44.600Most โ this is โ otherwise you would see so many more people, especially women, single women, just having kids.
01:02:52.960Because it's not that expensive to get like a sperm donor.
01:03:00.260Well, I see a lot of women fantasizing about this and very few actually doing it.
01:03:04.200Yeah, because it's not actually that appealing to do this all by yourself.
01:03:06.620Oh, just a quick note because it's actually came up on the Discord and other people are saying this and it's something that people should know.
01:03:11.480They do not confirm the information they ask people and they use such strict screening criteria that the only people who get through are lying.
01:03:39.440And when you're considering your friend network and you're an older woman, remember that you probably want a man who is not your equal in age.
01:03:47.420So I've seen a lot of women like this where they're like 45 and they're looking for a 45-year-old's phone donor.
01:03:53.120And I'm like, you are unlikely to conceive if you do that.
01:03:55.600You need to be looking at your 45-year-old friends.
01:03:59.200Well, you can conceive, but there's just going to be more deterioration.
01:04:04.620Like they're just going to have worse health odds and outcomes on average.