Pearl - June 26, 2025


Modern Women Are Confused Why Men Aren't Interested


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

164.06747

Word Count

2,062

Sentence Count

1

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 really listened when a woman spoke they don't really listen they're looking at your tits okay
00:00:07.120 okay guys so today um we are talking about women are now noticing that the men are gone
00:00:14.880 so basically women have told men for 40 years that they don't want to be approached
00:00:20.320 they have told men that they can do everything by themselves and it turns out when women keep
00:00:25.520 saying that men men men they go where they're wanted they'll listen and they'll leave them alone
00:00:31.120 mainstream media has been in denial for some time about the fact that men are disengaging from women
00:00:37.600 it used to be expected that men would court women with and romance them men would move heaven and
00:00:44.240 earth to attract a woman to be his girlfriend or his wife women called that misogyny and patriarchy
00:00:50.160 and rewrote the social contract now we have the circus that is the dating market in the modern day
00:00:56.640 it's gotten so bad that outlets like the new york times have finally caught on caught wind of men
00:01:03.200 responding to women's disgust and mistreatment a writer for the new york times is begging men to
00:01:09.120 come back to women and romance and court them again let's take a look at what they want to say
00:01:14.400 now by the way guys as i'm reading this this is going to be a call-in show so i want you guys to
00:01:22.480 think of the question if you were asked where have the men gone what's your answer so i was excited
00:01:32.080 this this article took place in chicago that's where i'm from also if you want unlimited super
00:01:37.040 chats it's on the website okay a warm saturday night in wicker park a vibrant stretch of chicago
00:01:42.880 where seven restaurants crowd a single block troy and i were having dinner at mama delia one of the
00:01:48.720 quieter spots the sidewalk patio held five tables three two tops including ours and a pair pulled
00:01:55.440 together for a group of eight young women at those tables troy was the only man the scene was beautiful
00:02:02.480 low lights shared plates shoulders angled in this kind of evening people wait for all winter but still
00:02:09.760 i found myself watching the crowd as it moved past us women walking in pairs or alone dressed without
00:02:15.280 a care dressed with care at a table after at a table at sorry i can't talk today a table after table
00:02:26.960 at the nearby restaurants there was a noticeable absence of men at least of men seated in what looked
00:02:33.520 like dates troy and i have known for almost troy and i have known each other for almost 20 years
00:02:39.760 we met at playboy of all places back when we were both learning how desire gets packaged sold and
00:02:45.280 sometimes misunderstood we stayed close friends bonded not just by our opinions but by the effort
00:02:51.680 it takes to stay into someone's life that night we made the effort but still what i saw unfolding
00:02:57.360 around us felt like something else entirely a collective shift i couldn't unsee it started to
00:03:03.840 become clear the previous april where a man who had been pursuing me canceled dinner at the last minute
00:03:09.360 there was a scheduling mix up with his son's game and i understood i'm a hockey mom i get it still i
00:03:15.520 went i wore what i would have worn anyway i looked at the table i ordered well and i watched the room
00:03:21.360 only two tables nearby seemed to hold actual dates the rest were groups of women or women alone each
00:03:27.040 one occupying her space with quiet confidence no shrinking no waiting no apologizing the night
00:03:34.080 marked something not a heartbreak but an unveiling a sense that what i'd been experiencing wasn't just
00:03:40.240 personal misalignment but something broader cultural a slow vanishing of presence i spent over
00:03:46.720 a decade behind the curtain of digital desire as the custodian of records for playboy and its
00:03:52.480 affiliated hardcore properties including sites like spice tv i was responsible for some of the most
00:03:58.560 infringed upon adult content in the world i worked closely with copyright attorneys and marketing teams
00:04:05.120 to understand exactly what it took to get a man to pay for content he could easily find for free we knew
00:04:13.280 what worked we knew how to frame a face a gesture a moment of implication just enough to ignite a fantasy and
00:04:21.200 open a wallet i came to understand in exact terms what cues tempt the average 18 to 36 year old
00:04:28.560 heterosexual man what drew him in what kept him coming back it wasn't intimacy it wasn't mute mutuality it
00:04:37.840 was access to stimulation clean fast and frictionless in the world there's no need for conversation no effort no
00:04:46.160 curiosity no reciprocity no reciprocity no curiosity no one's feelings to consider no vulnerability to
00:04:57.680 navigate just a closed loop of consumption what struck me wasn't the extremity of the content it
00:05:05.360 wasn't the emotional vacancy behind it the drift the way many men had quietly withdrawn from intimacy and
00:05:12.560 vulnerability not with violence or resistance but with indifference they weren't sitting across from
00:05:18.720 someone on a saturday night trying to connect they were scrolling dabbling disappearing behind firewalls
00:05:24.240 filters and curated personas and while they disappeared women continued to gather to tend to
00:05:29.680 notice he wasn't arriving and to show up anyway i'm 54 i've been dating since the mid 80s i've been
00:05:36.080 married i've been a mother i've gotten divorced and had many relationships both long and short i remember
00:05:42.080 when part of heterosexual male culture involves showing up with a woman to signal something status
00:05:47.280 success desirability women were often were women were once signifiers of value even to other men now
00:05:55.760 it doesn't mean anything to buy your dinner because some other dude is smashing her after dinner
00:06:01.680 oh thank you for the 100 the 200 super chat holy crap thank you william thank you so much wow
00:06:10.320 holy crap we haven't had one like that in forever thank you um i don't know what to say thank you so
00:06:18.160 much um where was i reading okay women were once signifiers of value even to other men it wasn't
00:06:26.240 always healthy but it was meant to it was meant that men had to show up and put in some effort the
00:06:32.480 dynamic has quietly collapsed i know i can't read okay um we have moved into an era where many men
00:06:40.320 no longer seek to impress women no longer seek women to impress other men or to connect across
00:06:48.880 difference they perform elsewhere alone they've filtered us out i recently experienced a flicker
00:06:54.960 of possibility with james we met on raya the dating app there was something mutual from the start a word
00:07:01.120 play an emotional precision a tone that felt attuned it was brief but it was caught light i remember
00:07:10.560 saying to him even fleeting connections matter when they're mutual and lit from inside and i meant it
00:07:16.080 there was just enough spark to wonder what might unfold enough curiosity to imagine a doorway but he
00:07:22.000 didn't step through it not with a plan not with a presence he hovered flirted retreated offering warmth but
00:07:28.880 no direction sexual tension and spark aren't reason enough to sit still and hope there's substance
00:07:34.640 behind the shimmer so i named what i felt i texted him clearly with care not simply to declare
00:07:41.600 attraction but to extend a real invitation to explore what was possible i didn't chase i invited
00:07:48.160 leaving the door open if he ever wanted to cross the threshold not just to take but to me i was willing
00:07:54.080 i wanted to and i still do he never replied he still follows my instagram stories one of those
00:07:59.760 small gestures of passive engagement that so many of us now mistake for closeness it looks like interest
00:08:06.080 but it feels like silence who thinks that viewing an instagram story is closeness all right there are
00:08:13.040 thousands of jameses i have known dozens the arc varies but the undertow is familiar
00:08:18.400 what i won't entertain is directionless orbiting the things so many men now seem to mistake for
00:08:27.520 connection the perpetual maybe the emoji check-ins the casual seeing where this goes without it ever
00:08:32.960 going anywhere we call it a situationship but mostly it's an avoidance
00:08:40.640 an avoidance of ownership a feeling of behavior of sex that isn't a means to an end but it is
00:08:46.960 communication so women often complain about situationships the same way that men complain
00:08:53.600 about not getting laid on a date women's burden of performance is getting men to commit after sex
00:09:00.720 men's burden of performance is to get women to make to make women want to have sex with them
00:09:06.960 that's the burden of performance we both have
00:09:11.680 there was a time not so long ago where even a one night stand with tangled limbs and shared
00:09:17.120 and a shared breakfast when the act of staying the night didn't announce a relationship just a
00:09:22.000 willingness to be human for a few more hours now even that kind of unscripted contact feels rare
00:09:27.760 we've built so many boundaries that we've walked off the very moments that make connection memorable
00:09:33.200 and frankly morning sex is often the best sex sometimes you get a side of eggs before you
00:09:37.760 disappear from their bed and their life forever the idea that vulnerability is a threat instead of an
00:09:44.080 invitation has created a culture of hesitation of men circulating intimacy but never entertaining it
00:09:50.000 and the result is thousands of tiny silos everyone performing closeness but no one making a move that
00:09:57.040 binds isolation loneliness a hunger for contact that has nowhere to land maybe we're between paradigms
00:10:04.160 mourning what's fallen not yet fluent in what comes next the infrastructure of intimacy slowness
00:10:12.000 curiosity accountability have been eroded by haste convenience and a kind of sanctioned emotional
00:10:18.160 retreat it's not about blaming men it's about noticing the imbalance about grieving what's not
00:10:23.440 meeting us and about refusing to dress it up as a personal failure when it's actually a collective
00:10:28.800 reality here's what i'll say you're missed not just by me but by the world you once helped shape we
00:10:34.560 remember you the version of you that lingered at the table that laughed from the chest that asked
00:10:39.600 questions and waited for answers that touched without taking that listened really listened when a woman spoke
00:10:45.920 they don't really listen they're looking at your tits okay you are not gone but your present is presence
00:10:57.840 is thinning and restaurants and friendships and the slow rituals of romantic emergence you've retreated
00:11:03.120 not into malice but into something softer and harder at once avoidance exhaustion disrepair maybe no
00:11:08.720 one taught you how to stay maybe you tried it once and it hurt maybe the world told you your role was to
00:11:13.520 provide to perform and to protect but never to feel but here's what's real we never needed you to be
00:11:19.840 perfect we just needed you to be with us not above not muted not masked just with and you can still
00:11:25.840 come back not by becoming someone else but by remembering what connection feels like when it's honest and slow
00:11:33.120 when it's earned and messy and sacred chicago says the article is an excellent example of the
00:11:39.040 differences and thought processes between men and women thank you we're still here those of us
00:11:44.480 willing to concentrate or con co-create something true we're not impossible to please
00:11:52.320 one in the chat if women can be pleased two in the chat if we're impossible we're not asking for
00:11:59.440 performances we are asking for presence for courage for breath and eye contact and the ability to say i'm here
00:12:05.280 i don't know how to do this perfectly but i'll try come back not with flowers or fireworks but with
00:12:10.800 willingness with your whole beautiful and perfect heart we're still here and we haven't stopped hoping
00:12:16.080 and for me i'll keep showing up not because i'm waiting but because i know what it feels like when someone
00:12:22.320 finally arrives um so we're gonna do call and show so we'll put the link in the chat we want to know where
00:12:30.240 where have the men gone and how would you answer this if a woman asked you