00:00:00.000I previously thought that porn was just benign entertainment for adults. As long as they're not
00:00:06.340hurting anyone, who am I to judge? For me to be willing to change my mind about it was, I mean,
00:00:12.940asking myself, why is it people are not having sex? I mean, if you look at the statistics across
00:00:17.500multiple data sets, the number I kept seeing is one in three men and one in five women have not
00:00:22.140had sex in the past year. I began really asking, why is this happening? And what is taking the
00:00:27.940place of that connection. Porn is so powerful in terms of acting as a replacement for sex.
00:00:33.040Porn viewing, especially excessive porn viewing, tends to be associated with boredom, lack of
00:00:37.060meaning in life, anxiety. These are issues that need to be addressed as opposed to society telling
00:00:41.860people, oh, you can watch as much porn as you want and it's not unhealthy.
00:00:44.760Dr. So, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. So a few years ago, I had you on,
00:01:01.900you wrote a book about the end of gender, and now you've written a book about the end of sex,
00:01:06.780sex distinction, rather. And so you're writing about the ending of things. In this case,
00:01:13.760what are you talking about? So you're right. My first book, The End of Gender is funny because
00:01:19.140the title sounds very progressive, but it was basically talking about gender ideology and how
00:01:23.220it has no place in education, no place in dictating any social policy or the way we think
00:01:27.900about gender. So sextinction is in a similar vein in that I'm calling out basically progressive
00:01:34.000science denial and saying these views around sexuality and in particular so-called sex
00:01:39.720positivity are actually harmful, very harmful, even though they're being pushed by mainstream
00:01:43.700sex experts and sexuality researchers. And sex extinction is very much about how there is this
00:01:50.660larger sex recession or dating recession happening. Birth rates are down. People are choosing to turn
00:01:57.200to sexual surrogates instead of having actual sexual partners. And my interest in sexuality
00:02:02.460and this decline in sex is because it is a reflection of a lack of intimacy, a lack of
00:02:07.900connection more broadly in society, which I find quite worrisome. And would you say that your view
00:02:14.900on sex and sexuality has changed even in the past few years? Or are you just writing about
00:02:21.660kind of what you have seen for a very long time working as a sexologist in this industry?
00:02:28.880I would say both. I would say definitely my own views around sexuality have changed a lot,
00:02:32.820even since the last time I spoke with you about my first book. I was still very much, quote,
00:02:37.780sex positive at that time. And I think that is a relic of having been in academia for so long
00:02:43.420and also working within the field of sex research. There really are certain parameters within which
00:02:49.140you have to comport yourself as a scientist and also in terms of the questions you ask and the
00:02:54.360type of research you pursue. So I don't want to say this about all of my colleagues and friends
00:02:57.880who are still in the field because there are some genuinely good scientists who are unbiased
00:03:02.540They're not activists. They don't have a political agenda. They really just want to do good research. But I would say there are very many scientists in the field who also have political motivations and their particular narratives that they want to push on the public because they have a larger movement or goal that they are seeking to achieve.
00:03:20.920so my goal with this book is not to tell people how to live their lives but just to offer research
00:03:27.400that is unbiased and I think many people I'm sure in your audience they are already aware that
00:03:34.360there's something not right in terms of the zeitgeist around sexuality nowadays and what's
00:03:38.200being told to the public what the cultural norms are but here's some evidence that they can point
00:03:42.620to that says here's why that intuition or those feelings you have or the values you have are
00:03:47.360actually correct. And you don't have to listen to basically the mainstream so-called experts about
00:03:51.560it. You said that a few years ago, when you were on my show, you would have described yourself
00:03:56.940as sex positive. How would you summarize what that means or what that meant to you then?
00:04:04.340Sex positivity is a movement or ideology that revolves around this idea that anything goes
00:04:11.220sexually, essentially, so long as both people or however many people who are involved consent. And
00:04:17.160that it's no one's place to judge that and that in fact it should be celebrated to some degree and
00:04:21.160if you are not on board with this you are quote sex negative or there's something wrong about you
00:04:25.900or you're bad in bed or what have you i agree to the extent that i don't think there should be
00:04:32.460shame around people embracing their sexuality so long as it's not hurting themselves or other
00:04:37.660people i don't think there should necessarily be shame around sexuality or discussions of sexuality
00:04:41.900but they are private conversations they are sensitive conversations i don't think it should
00:04:46.420be something that you should be talking about with strangers, say, or necessarily in public
00:04:49.920when there are children around, things like that. I mean, it's gotten to the point now where I see
00:04:52.940people enjoying kink in public, in front of children, and around people who have no desire0.53
00:04:59.240or interest partaking in that. And things like, I guess we'll get into some of the subjects in
00:05:05.060sex extinction, things like how young people are feeling coerced in many cases to go along with
00:05:10.240certain sexual activities that they don't necessarily want to partake in, but they don't
00:05:13.760want to say no, or they don't feel they can say no, because they don't want to be seen as boring
00:05:18.100or sexually unappealing. There's a sense of peer pressure around that. So there are various
00:05:24.840subjects I've really changed my view on, say, with regard to pornography, or like I said, kink, or0.67
00:05:29.740even sex dolls and sex robots and technology that's coming in to replace or amplify human
00:05:35.460sexuality in ways that are not actually conducive to human connection, and I don't think are good
00:05:40.280for us at the end of the day. Yeah. It's so interesting because I've talked about this idea
00:05:46.480as of consent being the only moral standard, the only standard of what is right and what is wrong.0.68
00:05:53.560And I'm talking from a Christian perspective. And so I'm like, consent is one component
00:05:58.320of morality, but it is not the only, it's not the only component. There are things that people
00:06:04.620consent to that are morally wrong. Of course, from our Christian perspective, you're writing
00:06:09.880from a secular psychological scientific perspective. And it seems like you're kind
00:06:15.360of pushing back on this idea that consent is the only standard of what our sexual ethics should be.
00:06:24.660Right. Because if you look at something like, say, BDSM, which is basically sadomasochism,
00:06:30.060so people who enjoy either harming their partner or being harmed during sexual activity. And in
00:06:35.560the eyes of sex positivity or this consent model, so long as you consent to being harmed or your
00:06:41.540partner consents to it, then that's okay. But I don't think people should be able to consent to
00:06:46.860abuse. And I also think we should be talking more broadly about why is it some people enjoy being
00:06:52.440abused during sexual activity, as opposed to saying, okay, they consented to it. So it's not
00:06:57.860our place to question that. Because if you do basically look under the hood of the car and try
00:07:02.820to figure out why is it people feel this way or why do people gravitate toward these behaviors?
00:07:06.820Usually there are other reasons. Usually there are unfortunate things that happened to them when
00:07:10.780they were younger that led them to be interested in these proclivities as opposed to it being
00:07:15.500something just fun and exciting and new that people want to do. And I do think there's a
00:07:19.680difference between say people who are playful or say in a monogamous relationship, if you want to
00:07:25.440spice things up with your partner, but again, in a way that's not actually harming your partner and
00:07:29.840it's not degrading them. It's not degrading yourself. But nowadays it's really seen as
00:07:35.420it's really frowned upon to question any of this. And I think many people are reluctant,
00:07:40.980especially if you look within the field of sex research, if you question or you
00:07:45.720criticize any of these ideas, you're going to get kicked out pretty quickly.
00:07:52.480Yeah. You mentioned that, you know, there shouldn't be shame around sex and sexuality
00:07:57.620in those kinds of conversations, as long as you're not hurting yourself or other people.
00:08:01.860But I did hear you mentioned in kind of like the list of things that you seem to have changed
00:08:05.800your mind on, like sex robots. And some people might say, well, you know, what's, what's wrong
00:08:12.280with that? Why even have any opinion on that? It's totally neutral. This is not a human being.
00:08:17.320So what's wrong with that kind of development of people using objects for their sexual pleasure?
00:08:22.860So I previously thought we were not going to see realistic sex robots in our lifetimes. I really thought that it was going to happen decades, if not, or that such a thing could never really actually exist because the technology could not possibly be so good that a robot could emulate a human being so convincingly.
00:08:43.160But I have seen how quickly this technology is advancing, and I do see it being implemented very soon. Maybe not in the next five years, but somewhere around within the next decade, for sure. When I look at what smartphones and social media have done to us and screens more broadly, once this technology becomes mainstream, I'm really worried.
00:09:00.900And AI Companions, I have a chapter on that in Sex Stinction. I really think the entire dynamic between men and women and the concept of relationships and marriage and, again, intimacy and closeness with a partner is going to radically be changed and challenged.
00:09:16.000And so my issue with it, I previously, I thought, you know, as a scientist or as a scientist, a former scientist, why not just let the technology flourish? And isn't that a wonderful thing that we have the ability to create a form of being that may not be human, but it's so similar to humans that it's remarkable.
00:09:36.780And intellectually, I still think there's something interesting about that. But we have to think also about from a practical standpoint, what are going to be the implications or the consequences of that technology?
00:09:49.160Again, if we already see people turning away from other human beings and choosing objects as opposed to fostering that real connection. And so we don't have data to suggest that this technology is not going to affect human sexuality.
00:10:06.060Previously, I thought, okay, that lack of data, well, we should just do studies, but I realized it's going to be impossible to do objective studies because people are not going to want to put out findings saying that this technology is potentially dangerous or what have you or bad for people's relationships and marriages because that's just not something that researchers in the field are necessarily, they feel compelled to do, right?
00:10:27.700So there's a bias in that way. And then also when I see what say AI companions are doing to people, I mean, I tested out dozens of AI boyfriends and girlfriends on various platforms, and they're so realistic, and they're so compelling. I fully understand why people are falling in love with their AIs, why they're choosing their AIs over other human beings as partners.
00:10:49.140And then also we see the trend of this in children. There's a study that came out of the UK recently that found in teenage boys, one in five know someone who's in a relationship with an AI. And one in three prefers talking to an AI over a real life person. So once this starts reaching children, that's when it really disturbs and upsets me because they don't even have a chance to develop in a healthy way. And these kids don't know, right? I think many parents also don't know. They might not even know that their kids are using this technology. So I don't want to blame the parents for that.
00:11:18.080But that's where I started to change my mind on the robot conversation because sex dolls already
00:11:24.460are very popular. And once you can, uh, download an AI brain essentially into that physical vessel,
00:11:31.680that's like a whole other, um, a whole other can of worms that are, that's going to be opened.
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00:12:55.000slash Allie. I just imagined that this really affects how someone views a person and treats
00:13:05.200a person. It's kind of like, and this is not necessarily what you're talking about, but I
00:13:10.940think about the elevation of animals in some cases as being like just as important as humans.
00:13:17.140It turns out that that doesn't mean that we are treating all animals better. It also means that
00:13:23.680we end up degrading the dignity and the sacredness of what it means to be a human. There's this
00:13:29.760Chesterton quote, he was a Catholic theologian. And he said like, wherever you see animal worship,
00:13:35.140you also see human sacrifice. It's actually that elevating one thing can degrade rather the other
00:13:43.700thing that was really meant for the adoration that you are giving it. And I think about that
00:13:51.120with robots. I don't just fear that people are viewing AI or viewing robots as human. And so
00:13:58.920they're going to treat them with the same politeness and consideration that they would
00:14:02.000treat another person, but that they will actually degrade how they treat human beings, that they
00:14:07.720will start treating humans like objects, that they will start treating their, you know, the
00:14:13.540people that they're with as robots, as people just to serve them as entities that just exist
00:14:20.960I don't know about from your perspective, like what you see the harm is, because I could
00:14:25.440see people asking, what's the problem with them having an AI girlfriend or boyfriend? I'm like,
00:14:30.400well, it's not what we're meant for. And to be human is to be sacred. And we're exchanging that
00:14:34.560for something far less. And I think it really affects our human relationships. Not to go on
00:14:39.580that rant, but from your psychological perspective, how would you explain to someone, no, this is not
00:14:45.980a good thing for people? Well, like you said, I mean, if you are, especially we're looking at
00:14:51.540kids now if they're what they learn about the opposite sex or what they learn about interacting
00:14:56.280with the opposite sex and relationships and dating and even signaling romantic interest is with a
00:15:04.640machine as opposed to a real life person that's really going to skew their perspective and i think
00:15:09.920what young boys find so alluring about this technology is that they don't ever have to deal
00:15:16.400with rejection. They don't have to deal with someone potentially saying no or disagreeing
00:15:24.880or, I mean, both sexes, I guess with girls too, who might be using this technology or women saying,
00:15:30.800okay, I would like that. My AI boyfriend is always there for me, is always consoling me.
00:15:36.260When you are interacting with an AI, the AI doesn't have needs of its own. So it can never
00:15:41.040say to you, I want to talk about something you don't want to talk about. It's never going to
00:15:44.440nag you. It's never going to give you a hard time, but that's not the reality of real life
00:15:48.920relationships. So if you grow up and that's the norm, if, and when you do choose to try and date,
00:15:54.460it's going to be such an awful experience because you're used to your so-called partner giving you
00:16:01.540exactly what you want all the time. And they're available for you all the time, which other human
00:16:05.600beings are not. So that's one part of it. And then also my criticism of porn has come from,
00:16:11.740I mean, I used to write for a very well-known men's magazine that features nude women. I was
00:16:17.780a regular columnist for that magazine. So my views on porn have changed a lot,
00:16:23.380especially in writing this book. And when I look at what pornography is doing, especially to
00:16:28.200young minds, and I would even say to young people more broadly, like I know millennials,
00:16:32.920we grew up with internet porn. I don't think we were as negatively affected as Gen Z say,0.97
00:16:39.440But I do think there are some effects there because there is a literature showing that with early exposure to pornography, it leads to negative outcomes like hypersexuality, greater propensity for risky sex.
00:16:53.500So that means having sex with many people, having unprotected sex, being under the influence of drugs and alcohol when having sex.
00:17:00.840You know, they're not making the best decisions.0.86
00:17:02.460So, again, if this is the norm for you as a child or as a young person and say now this is available in the context of a physical being, even though it's not a human being, I can't help but think that is going to affect how you view the opposite sex.
00:17:19.920And also, even if it's not in a sexual interaction, just how men potentially view women more generally.0.61
00:17:27.020And that sounds like such a cliche, but at the same time, I don't see, I don't see how that would not be the case because what we consume is going to affect the way we view ourselves and the way we view other people.
00:17:38.120yeah there does seem to be an argument about that just making the making the claim based on the fact
00:17:46.920that what you consume ends up dictating what you think it just ends up influencing your
00:17:54.200perspectives that's not even something that's arguable and yet you will see people online
00:17:58.940denying that not only when it comes to pornography but really anything we watch or listen to that that
00:18:04.120has no effect on how someone thinks or how someone behaves, but it very obviously does.
00:18:11.100I'm interested to hear you expound on that more, your changing views on pornography
00:18:16.420specifically. It sounds like before you thought it was maybe like a neutral tool
00:18:21.040and you're seeing its consequences more and more. Can you kind of go deeper into that?
00:18:28.240I previously thought that porn was just benign entertainment for adults and that this is
00:18:33.640something that people look at. It's just, it's their personal business. And as long as they're
00:18:41.700not hurting anyone, who am I to judge? And I have to say, it's very, the feedback I've gotten in
00:18:48.500terms of my criticism of porn, I was surprised because it seems to be a very taboo thing. Maybe
00:18:53.600it's as a woman criticizing porn, which is something that men typically like, although I
00:18:57.460would say more women are probably having issues with porn nowadays, because they were exposed to
00:19:02.780it at such a young age and because it is so readily available. But, um, I do think for some
00:19:10.080reason, culturally it's become so normalized that people understandably like it and they get upset
00:19:16.360when you tell them it's not good for them, even though I, I, again, I don't think it is. And for
00:19:21.940me to be willing to change my mind about it, um, was, I mean, asking myself, why is it people are
00:19:29.180not having sex i mean if you look at the statistics across multiple data sets the number i kept seeing
00:19:35.640is one in three men and one in five women have not had sex in the past year and this is across
00:19:41.100all developed countries it's not just in the west it's in the east also and it doesn't matter if
00:19:47.460you're married or single even i mean the fact that married people are having less sex to me is very
00:19:51.180strange and concerning not out of judgment just that when you have a regular sexual partner it's
00:19:56.360unusual that people would be choosing not to have sex with them. So I began really asking why is
00:20:02.400this happening and what is taking the place of that connection? And people had been saying to
00:20:07.600me for years that porn is doing something weird to people's sex drives and take pulling them away
00:20:14.760from wanting to actually couple up and diminishing that interest in actual women, like real life
00:20:20.220women. And I was very skeptical for so long, but then when I started to really think about it and
00:20:25.520I went back and looked at the research literature, I thought, you know, porn is so powerful in terms
00:20:30.140of its ways of activating the brain and acting as a replacement for sex, essentially, because
00:20:36.100the same brain network is activated during porn viewing as is activated during sexual activity.
00:20:42.520So if you are essentially getting the benefits or what seem to be the benefits of sex or the
00:20:46.920enjoyment of sex by watching it on a screen, while it's understandable why young people are not
00:20:53.200interested in actually engaging with each other. And I think especially post Me Too, which has made
00:20:58.140it very difficult for men to want to approach women they don't know, or to even interact with
00:21:03.780women they do know, because they're afraid that if she doesn't appreciate that attention, that
00:21:08.560she could ruin his life. But I still think people should meet in person. I don't think there should
00:21:13.380be an apps or social media to meet. I understand it's terrifying, but I do think that's a healthier
00:21:17.980way to do it and a more successful way to do it. And the other thing is because porn, there's a
00:21:24.840release of, um, with orgasm, you feel good. You're relaxed after it's de-stresses a person. So it
00:21:32.820actually dampens the motivation for young men to go out and actually meet women in real life.
00:21:37.420And I've had young men tell me this, that it was only after they actually cut out porn that they
00:21:42.240had this renewed motivation to actually go and talk to women in real life. Because if you know,
00:21:46.680say you're in public and you see an attractive woman but you're a little bit intimidated you
00:21:50.420don't know if you should talk to her you know in the back of your mind that you can always
00:21:53.380turn to pornography then it really disincentivizes you from taking that risk and actually approaching
00:21:59.760uh whoever it is right so i previously i just assumed like everyone watches porn especially
00:22:07.740for men but i do think there's this growing movement of young men who are turning away
00:22:11.320from this because they recognize that it's not good for them and that in some cases it's
00:22:15.240destroying their life, especially if you're watching it for hours a day, multiple times a
00:22:19.360day. You can't have a job. You can't go to school. You can't have healthy relationships in that case.
00:22:23.980And porn viewing, especially excessive porn viewing, tends to be associated with boredom,
00:22:28.720lack of meaning in life, anxiety. So these are issues that need to be addressed as opposed to
00:22:36.160society telling people, oh, you can watch as much porn as you want, and it's not unhealthy.
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00:23:41.500And pornography does have a way of drawing you into more and more intense kinds of pornography,
00:23:51.380correct? The things that did it for you in the beginning when you first saw pornography,
00:23:56.240just two people having sex might not do it for you forever. And so I've heard of kind of these
00:24:01.120rabbit holes that especially young men go down that maybe they didn't start looking for a certain
00:24:06.600kind of pornography or a certain category. It wasn't interesting to them, but as time goes on,
00:24:12.160they click on a different video, they explore a different category and suddenly like their desires
00:24:18.100are changed and what they're into and what turns them on and what does it for them, whatever
00:24:23.460that changes over time and can actually lead them to the place of what you were talking about,
00:24:29.160of liking violent sex or liking these kinds of degrading forms of sex and sexual activity
00:24:36.040that are really not good for them and other people. From your psychological perspective,
00:24:40.880is that true of how the brain works? I think it depends on at what age someone is when they first
00:24:48.120start watching online porn. So I would say of say older generations where they were not exposed to
00:24:54.500online porn, especially today's iteration of online porn, if they were not exposed to that
00:24:59.460prior to puberty or during sexual development, if they have aberrant sexual interests or say
00:25:06.740non-consensual sexual interests or they're abusive of women, I don't think it's necessarily
00:25:11.300porn that made them that way or that made them have these interests. It's more likely due to
00:25:16.500their upbringing or experiences they had when they were younger that have led them to have
00:25:20.900negative use of women or to be into various kinks. It's different, I would say, for kids because
00:25:26.580their brains have not finished developing. And so if they are pairing this, I mean, for kids,
00:25:32.720when they see pornography, online porn for the first time, many of them find it quite frightening.
00:25:36.820They don't know what it is, but they know that they shouldn't be looking at it. And in many
00:25:40.720cases, it's really violent. It's scary. And they don't like it. But at the same time, they know
00:25:46.300this is somehow related to sex. So in their mind, they think this is what sex actually is.
00:25:50.780For older generations, what I've found in my research is that they may say that they started off looking at more benign content. And then over time, it's the algorithm that fed them more extreme forms of pornography. But if you actually sit and have an in-depth discussion, many of these individuals will say, actually, that was the thing that they liked all along. It just took them a while to admit it to themselves and actually seek it out.
00:26:15.720Whereas with kids, I'm concerned that their exposure to this at such a young age is actually going to increase the likelihood that they're going to find these bizarre things sexually arousing or these acts enjoyable because they're pairing it with early sexual development.
00:26:34.220And again, it's crazy to me because there are experts in the field who will say early porn exposure is benign.
00:26:39.740It doesn't harm children, which I think is absolute nonsense.
00:26:43.980so um yeah i mean when you look at statistics it's what one in seven kids the average age that
00:26:51.480kids see porn now is 12 and that number is getting that age is getting younger and younger so when i
00:26:55.300think of a random group of children you think of how many of them in that group have statistically
00:27:00.220speaking seen porn that's not acceptable to me yeah you've studied gender you're studying
00:27:08.120sexuality or you've been studying sexuality for a very long time before you even started talking0.55
00:27:12.280about the idea of transgenderism. Do you see a connection between those two things? I know that
00:27:19.080I've talked to a lot of detransitioners and many of them, especially men, not really women. For1.00
00:27:24.640the women that I've talked to, it tends to be that they had some kind of traumatic sexual event0.87
00:27:30.380or something that made them want to reject their feminine bodies. For men, very often a commonality
00:27:38.080that I hear is some kind of sexual desire or a certain kind of porn that they got addicted to.
00:27:45.520And that's not to say that they never had an idea of being a woman before they saw that kind of
00:27:49.860porn, but they definitely felt affirmed when watching. It would be BDSM or it would be like
00:27:56.980what's called sissy porn or things like that. They felt that, oh my gosh, this is who I really am.0.98
00:28:02.720And so I'm wondering what you think about that connection that just anecdotally I tend to see when it comes to men who identify as women and the kind of sexual kinks and pornography that they participate in or watch.0.86
00:28:21.340And I think it's pretty remarkable that in the interviews you've done, you've noticed the same trends that we see in research as well.
00:28:27.000So both of those subjects in terms of why young women and young men, or just women and men and men more broadly, are choosing to transition to live as the opposite sex, as you know, is a really contentious area of research.
00:28:40.300And so there are few studies that are done objectively.
00:28:43.720But if you speak to people in the field who work predominantly with these populations, they'll tell you the same thing.
00:28:48.900So with young women, unfortunately, it tends to be correlated with a history of sexual trauma.
00:28:53.640and then for men it is more of a paraphilia so paraphilias are unusual sexual interests and it
00:29:02.560depends with the men whether they are identifying as gay or straight so if this is more so i'd say
00:29:09.000in the ones who are straight so they're sexually attracted to women but it's like having a cross
00:29:12.900dressing fetish except it is more of a permanent or anatomical fetish around women's bodies and0.97
00:29:20.160wanting to have a woman's body because they find that sexually rousing. So as you mentioned with
00:29:25.160sissy porn or something like bimbofication, there's an element of sexual masochism there.0.99
00:29:30.900So that has to do with enjoying being humiliated or degraded, finding that erotic. And so there's0.99
00:29:38.140something, unfortunately, obviously, I don't think there's anything degrading about being a woman,
00:29:42.800but as these men view having a woman's body or being seen as a woman humiliating, because I guess
00:29:49.360they're men and also because of the way society can treat women in some context. So treat women
00:29:54.520as sexualized objects, purely that we only exist for men's pleasure. So when these men find the
00:30:03.740sexual arousing, when they're looking at this pornography, it is appealing to that masochistic
00:30:09.260aspect. So the aspect of, it's not so much that they identify as women, but it's that they enjoy
00:30:15.600this idea of being a woman and being subjugated by men. And so especially for younger boys or say
00:30:21.280teen boys who are starting to fall into this with the pornography, if say none of this porn existed
00:30:26.480or say this was decades ago where older men might realize they have this sexual proclivity, but the
00:30:32.220porn is not as easily accessed, they would still find ways of getting it, say through magazines,
00:30:36.700but it would just be more difficult for them to achieve that. I think part of the reason why we
00:30:41.180see such high rates of transitioning now in young people is because of yes like you're saying the0.64
00:30:46.860the easy availability of porn but also societal messaging telling young people if you question0.82
00:30:53.580your gender you must actually be transgender or you must actually be non-binary or what have you
00:30:58.100so i would say for these young men unfortunately they're being they're spending more time online
00:31:03.940and they're consuming this content they find it arousing and it's rewarding for them to be doing
00:31:08.240this over and over again, they might start to actually believe that they're women, as opposed
00:31:11.740to recognizing, no, I'm a man with a paraphilia. And especially in the field of mental health,
00:31:18.420good luck finding a therapist who's going to be honest with you, right? Therapists are basically
00:31:21.960bound usually by the licensing body to a firm. So it's very, very difficult for these young men
00:31:29.280and for the young women to get objective help.
00:31:56.800and then after she did our blood draw, she sent off the vials. The results came to our profile
00:32:02.400in our Jevity app. Within a matter of days, we got all of our results, but my favorite part was
00:32:08.220the 30-minute video that I got from a doctor that works with Jevity who interpreted all of my
00:32:13.020results and told me exactly what they mean. Not only did she tell me what they mean, but she made
00:32:17.120recommendations like, hey, you need to look into this. This is what this means. You need these
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00:32:28.000This is how this could be affecting you. So I had a really clear picture of how I was doing health
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00:33:04.760What is it inside that institution that would be motivated to deny the paraphilia,
00:33:12.420so-called gender identity connection with men? I mean, if they don't believe that any paraphilia
00:33:19.980is immoral, what would be wrong about making that connection? Why is it that I can only get this
00:33:27.720through like information through you, through my own anecdotes, through like more conservative
00:33:33.000outlets who are willing to report on this and do this research? I'm not really seeing the
00:33:38.320connection there. Like why would they deny that this is clearly a pattern when it comes to these
00:33:43.120men who want to be women? At the core, my sense is, well, because it's stigmatized, if anything
00:33:50.660is seen as based in sexuality or sexually motivated, it is stigmatized by society still,
00:33:59.100even though we live in the most hypersexual culture that's probably ever existed. And
00:34:04.460it's less taboo to talk about sex now than ever before. If you say you want to radically change
00:34:12.640the way you look and live as a woman when you're born a man, and this is due to your sexual
00:34:17.640interests, you're going to have a harder time getting social approval than if you say,
00:34:22.200this is something in my brain, or this is something that is inherent to my identity and
00:34:29.680how I feel. And it's just that I'm making my outside match my inside, as opposed to saying,
00:34:34.760this is something that turns me on and that I think about in a sexual context.
00:34:40.260And in the field, I'm just thinking of the conversations I've had. And my sense is people who are legitimate clinicians and researchers, they will all acknowledge that autogynophilia exists. So the reason why this has been so downplayed or suppressed in the mainstream discussion is because activists who usually have autogynophilia are the ones saying, no, this is pseudoscience, it doesn't actually exist.
00:35:02.880these are just hateful researchers who are promoting this because they have their own
00:35:06.820internalized shame about their sexual interests. That's my sense of it. And that's why they are so0.55
00:35:12.060angry and they are so aggressive. And especially if you as a man or a woman, but I think especially
00:35:16.880as a woman say, as I've seen, I've been witnessing this debate for pretty much a decade, over a
00:35:22.240decade now, since I started writing about these issues, when women call out these men and say,
00:35:28.680you are not like us they are infuriated because i think on some level they know and there is a lot
00:35:34.440of guilt and shame about that and also because as men it is shameful i would say to you're born a
00:35:40.620man you're meant to be masculine and strong and instead you want to be women who are more gentle
00:35:46.040nurturing right i don't think there's anything wrong in terms of sex differences but men and
00:35:51.280women do have different roles on average in society and men and women view each other differently
00:35:55.540So for you as a man to want to be a woman, I think that's why there's such an overcompensation to say it's not about sex, it's really about identity. But as you're saying, it's very much contradictory because if there's nothing wrong with anyone's sexual interests, and so long as it's consensual, it's totally acceptable, then why do these activists and researchers feel the need to push an agenda that says this has nothing to do with sex?
00:36:25.220If anything, they are behaving in a, quote, sex negative way.
00:36:35.340And so if the trans activists tell you you have to say something, you just I mean, if
00:36:40.460you want to keep them happy, you're just going to say what they tell you to say.0.82
00:36:45.360No, I think you're right, because it's true.0.99
00:36:48.200If they were to say, well, look, this is just a sexual interest or a kink that I have, then0.81
00:36:54.180there would really be no discussion or debate about whether or not a man, especially an intact0.75
00:36:59.400man should be in a woman, in a woman's locker room, taking a shower with women and girls in
00:37:04.960there, even though I know, yeah, that's like a sexual interest that that person has. That's a0.99
00:37:10.520perversion that that person has. And they're trying to satisfy that. They probably also,
00:37:15.120in my mind, have some kind of humiliation fetish and they get off on forcing other people to
00:37:19.220participate in their delusion. Um, but if that's, if that, that's not good PR basically,
00:37:25.960that's just not a good campaign. Most people aren't going to get on board with that. Even if
00:37:31.360you are progressive, like I think that used to be known. That's why in silence of the lambs,
00:37:37.340it was just, we didn't have to have it explained to us that this is weird, that there was this man
00:37:42.560who was dressing up like a woman. It was just known that that is a strange thing to do. And so
00:37:47.900I do think that they, the attempt to separate sexuality from this gender, gender identity
00:37:53.140is an effort at normalization. So I think you're exactly right about that. Um, I'm curious what0.83
00:37:59.720you think about the increased rates of those who identify in Gen Z as LGBTQ. So not just trans,
00:38:09.020but even putting like, everyone knows what I think as a Christian moral perspective about
00:38:13.520sexuality and marriage and all of that. But just from the psychological perspective, I am curious
00:38:18.840what you think about going from, you know, virtually 0%, maybe not 0%, but a very low
00:38:24.900percentage of young people identifying as this acronym to some say 20 to 23%. I think that's
00:38:32.060Gallup. That's a lot. That's, that's one fifth of generation Z who says that they identify
00:38:38.020as something other than straight. I mean, what do you make of that?
00:38:44.240I would say that's a lot of time spent on the internet and probably having friends who identify
00:38:49.660as one of those letters or multiples of those letters and wanting to fit in. Being young and
00:38:57.000developing is hard enough as it is. And so when you're seeking support and say a community,
00:39:03.200now especially I would say within progressive circles if you are one or very many of a couple
00:39:09.620of those or an amalgamation of those letters you're going to have an easier time finding
00:39:13.380connection I mean even the fact that people use the term queer queer is a slur and so what I find
00:39:20.120is the people who use this term tend to be straight and it's it's a way of just finding other people
00:39:26.500who are progressive if you say that you're queer but among people who say identify as gay they would
00:39:32.500never use that term or they very, very rarely would use that term. They understand it's a hurtful
00:39:36.600term. So I think a lot of it is the education system. I've talked about this more in my first
00:39:41.640book, The End of Gender, but basically that these children are unfortunately being indoctrinated
00:39:46.880into believing that if you are a good person, you're sympathetic to these communities. And I
00:39:53.200agree with that to some extent. I don't think this should be, I don't think it should be to the point
00:39:56.860where everyone needs to identify as one of these letters to be a kind person, but it's gone so far
00:40:01.560that these children, I think they grew up believing that if they're sympathetic, it's not enough to be
00:40:06.540sympathetic. You need to be part of the community. And then they also get more points, I guess, or
00:40:12.760they're seen as more valid if they are part of one of these communities, because you can't change
00:40:16.760your race. I mean, from a progressive or woke standpoint, if you're not white, that's ideal,0.70
00:40:22.300right? White and Asians were seen as the aggressors. So you can't really change your race,0.95
00:40:29.240but you can identify as one of these letters and no one in progressive camp is going to
00:40:33.340challenge you on that. So that would be my take on, on why that is, but I'm sad for these kids
00:40:38.340because again, it's going to leave them very confused and they may enter relationships or
00:40:44.280go along with things say in the dating world that they're not actually okay with and not recognize
00:40:50.160that it's okay to be straight. It's okay to be, you don't need to identify as transgender to be
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00:42:37.040I'm curious where sex positive feminism plays into all of this, because you wouldn't necessarily0.88
00:42:44.960think that it does, especially when it comes to the men identifying as women issue or the pushing1.00
00:42:52.360of different kinds of behaviors that clearly like women get the shorter end of the stick when it0.71
00:42:57.840comes to sexual promiscuity, when it comes to serial dating, dating apps, pornography, I think0.99
00:43:03.360bad for men and women, but women are typically, I would say if there's going to be a victim of
00:43:09.380these things, victimized by some of the things we just listed. And yet sex positive feminists1.00
00:43:14.140in general are all about all of the things we just talked about. So break that down for us.1.00
00:43:21.140I don't think casual sex is good for either sex, but especially for women. I think the reasons why1.00
00:43:26.560it is detrimental for them is slightly different from why it's detrimental for men. I think just
00:43:31.920in terms of pair bonding and emotional intimacy, it's not good to have very many partners.
00:43:37.060And especially in the context of having very many partners whom you don't know well and
00:43:41.300might never see again after you have one say experience with them but the reason why i would
00:43:47.840say it's worse for women is because women do tend to become more attached after sex whereas for men
00:43:52.900hormonally it's different so women there's more more bonding hormones are released during sexual
00:43:58.980activity and during orgasm whereas for men after orgasm their bonding hormones go back to baseline0.77
00:44:05.920so they actually disengage after sex and lose interest in their partner so a woman becomes
00:44:10.380more attached, whereas a man becomes less attached. And most research has actually shown that women
00:44:15.920tend to get into short-term encounters or hookups with the hope of having a relationship. It's not
00:44:21.900because they just want to sleep with the guy. Whereas for men, they have a dual mating strategy.1.00
00:44:26.280So they will slot women into one of two categories. They will say either she's short-term material,0.95
00:44:31.460like a hookup or friends with benefits or a situationship as Gen Z calls them, or she's
00:44:37.220long-term material, as in he plans to hopefully one day marry her and he'll invest more and take
00:44:41.620her seriously and respect her. So the issue with women selling themselves a short-term is they,0.97
00:44:47.060especially I think young progressive women mistakenly think that if a man is sexually
00:44:50.980interested in them, that's a win. And that means he's going to want to wife them up. But if you1.00
00:44:56.780are selling yourself on your sexuality or being promiscuous, you're getting lumped into the
00:45:02.060short-term category and you're not going to be ever considered long-term material at that point.
00:45:06.380So that's one part of it. I think it's really irresponsible that very many feminist influencers and podcasters tell their young fans that they should be promiscuous or that they should have sex on the first date because you want to vet a guy, make sure that he's good in bed, etc.0.59
00:45:22.320But I sense that these women, they must know that this is horrible advice because especially if they are in a long-term relationship or they're married, surely they know that men don't take women seriously if they behave this way. And so they're telling their young fans to engage in behavior that is ultimately going to be self-destructive.
00:45:41.580And I do think this is an example of intersexual competition in that women compete with other women and men compete with other men for sexual partners. And so if you tell your legion of fans to do things that are going to diminish themselves in the eyes of men, that's going to help you, right, as the influencer.
00:45:58.480So I find that really sad because I see, especially with Gen Z women, I'd say millennials probably too, really bought into this idea that having sex on the first date is not a big deal, that casual sex, if men can do it, women should do it.
00:46:13.840And like I said, I believe in being consistent, so I don't think it's fair to shame women if we don't hold men to the same standard.
00:46:20.320I think both sexes would benefit from being less promiscuous. And also from, again, a practical standpoint, your sexual health, it's better for you to have fewer partners. I don't think it's good for you to, especially if you're on apps.
00:46:34.280I mean, that's a whole other discussion I could go on for hours about in terms of why it's not conducive to healthy relationships or finding your one true love in terms of the feeling that people are really disposable.
00:46:47.620And evolutionarily speaking, or in terms of what has benefited our ancestors in terms of picking the best mates, you're never going to be sitting in one place going through hundreds of potential partners.
00:46:58.920And it gives you the sense that people are replaceable, that you can constantly find someone better. And then I have to say also compounding with this is the concept of hypergamy, the fact that women prefer to date at the same level or date men who are more successful than they are.0.66
00:47:14.560So if you have this imbalance right now where women are typically outperforming their male peers in terms of education and in the workplace, if a woman is going out there having sex with a guy on the first date, so you have fewer men that successful women find attractive.
00:47:31.640And those men are seen as attractive by all women regardless of their financial status or their educational status because men don't tend to care as much about those status markers in their female peers.
00:47:42.060So those men are really being propped up and almost incentivized to behave badly because they have no reason to want to settle down.0.57
00:47:51.540They're not being incentivized if women just keep having sex with them without any obligation or without any expectations.0.53
00:47:57.880So this is just further feeding into this dynamic that is really not good for either sex.
00:48:02.780And I think ultimately why we are seeing the decline in terms of birth rates and the lack of interest in dating, why people have so much burnout around dating apps.
00:48:11.280Especially when you look at big cities, there tends to be this skew in terms of there being more women than men, or especially I would say in progressive cities, urban areas. And the men just basically have an entire roster of women and the women cannot negotiate for a relationship or marriage because the men say, well, I'm having my fun. And if you don't like it, I'm just going to replace you with somebody else.
00:48:33.820yeah it's really interesting what you're talking about about replacement male and female when it
00:48:40.360comes to apps so you know i've thought obviously about the health of apps and i'm very glad that
00:48:46.620i did not meet my husband on an app it was really before like tender became a thing and i'm just so
00:48:52.460thankful that we met the old-fashioned way and you can kind of see some of the obvious issues
00:48:57.380with being able to swipe left or right it's superficial it's based on aesthetics but one
00:49:01.960thing that you said that I hadn't thought about is that having more options is not, it's a
00:49:09.140historical anomaly. So our ancestors before us did not have this roster of people within, you know,
00:49:16.440a 200 mile radius that they were judging based on a self-assessment and pictures. Um, I want you to
00:49:24.000talk a little bit more about that. Why is it not always better to have more options? Why is it not
00:49:31.620always better to be able to get a feel for someone digitally before you meet them in person?
00:49:37.860Why is it not always better to not just marry the person that your family knows, but someone
00:49:45.780that you met online? Yeah, well, the paradox of choice speaks to this. So there have been studies
00:49:53.560showing that when people are given more options or when people are given fewer options, they're
00:49:57.560more likely to actually make a choice and to be satisfied with that choice. So when you're on a
00:50:01.520dating app, it feels as though there is an unlimited number of potential partners. And so people are
00:50:06.560constantly seeking the next best thing. And as I write an extension, I've heard stories of people
00:50:11.440who are on dates, and they'll still be swiping when they're on a date with another person across
00:50:16.420the table from them. So it speaks to the mentality of really, I don't think, I think there are very
00:50:23.400many of us who are just not present in terms of the dating process. And that's part of, I would
00:50:28.260say that's a side effect of being online and just how so much of romantic interest or courtship is
00:50:33.860based through online connections or lack thereof, I suppose, nowadays. But when you look again to
00:50:39.720the scientific research in terms of what predicts marital satisfaction or long-term success in a
00:50:45.720relationship, it's personality factors like agreeableness, kindness. People tend to look
00:50:51.880for a sense of humor and intelligence in their partners. And you can't get a sense of that from
00:50:56.260dating apps. And I initially thought when dating apps first came about or say online dating came
00:51:00.280about that this was a novel way and potentially a positive way for people to meet outside of their
00:51:05.580immediate social circles, especially if you didn't want to date at work or say your program at school
00:51:11.000or what have you. But because it is a commercial enterprise, understandably, these companies don't
00:51:19.620benefit from people finding someone and never needing to use the app ever again. And the fact
00:51:24.800that they are based very much in physical appearance. So when you see someone's bio,
00:51:29.660you see a bunch of photos, you see whatever they chose to write, and then you might text back and
00:51:33.920forth, you might have a video call. But that's still not the same as actually meeting someone
00:51:37.480in real life and getting to know them in real life. And I think the issue with selecting someone
00:51:42.240based on photos in terms of how attractive you find them, not everyone is photogenic. And then
00:51:46.920And also a majority of men who are on these platforms are actually married or in a relationship.
00:51:51.700So that from day one sets you on an unfortunate path if you do decide to try and date that person.
00:51:58.400And so the metrics by which people are choosing their partners are not actually feeding into or conducive of a healthy relationship because these are characteristics that you can only learn about someone with time.
00:52:09.260And my sense is when you're on the app, because it feels like there are so many possible partners out there.
00:52:14.780People are not really giving individual people the time investment that they deserve to get to
00:52:21.120know someone. They're constantly distracted with all of these options. And there's also this sense
00:52:25.340of wanting to do better all the time. And I think part of that is also social media and the images
00:52:30.980that we see there in that you could always be with someone who's better looking or richer or
00:52:37.640who treats you better. And I find that form of content is the most alarming because there's no
00:52:44.240shortage of people on social media complaining about i find it used to be people talking about
00:52:49.080how great their spouse was but now it's more so how awful their spouse is and how they can't wait
00:52:52.640to divorce them and or how bad their first date was and then their entire community is coalescing
00:52:57.380around influencers to just talk about how terrible dating is and so it just overall puts this really
00:53:03.040awful um chill i think on relations between men and women and people wanting to to couple up and
00:53:09.180people also being open and vulnerable when they go into a dating situation instead people tend to
00:53:14.080expect the worst of the opposite sex. And so if you met someone through a friend like back in the0.99
00:53:19.400day or through, say, an organic situation, like if you are at university or if you're at the store
00:53:25.400and someone talks to you, it's very different. You would take that interaction differently from
00:53:29.600when it's on an app and you really don't know anything about this person.
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00:54:38.100month of service. PatriotMobile.com slash Allie, code Allie. I was thinking as you were talking
00:54:48.700about one of the things that is lost when you meet someone online that you have no connection
00:54:55.280to at all. I mean, even Hinge, I think that does rest upon you having some kind of connection,
00:55:00.240but it doesn't have to be, it doesn't really have to be a real one. There's such low risk in like
00:55:06.720the worst way. It's not even that, okay, you're not risking a lot as you're swiping through,
00:55:12.320but even if you swipe right on the person and you start talking to them, there is very little risk
00:55:18.380that you're going to run into this person. Y'all's parents probably don't know each other. Your
00:55:22.420friends probably don't know each other. You probably don't go to the same church. You probably
00:55:26.160don't run in the same circles. And so the risk of ghosting someone and then being called out by
00:55:34.800your mutual friends or like, you know, her mom calling your mom and being like, what's going on
00:55:41.380here? The risk is so low and there's so little potential friction that I think people also just
00:55:48.140treat others worse on this app because there is no fear of shame. There's no fear of being called
00:55:54.400out. I mean, who's going to hold this person accountable? I mean, you forget about this
00:55:58.880person. You come up with different plans. You totally stand them up on the date. You can go
00:56:04.760out that night, get a drink, go to work the next day and completely forget you did that because
00:56:09.060this isn't a real person with feelings. I've watched this happen, except it is a real person
00:56:14.040with feelings. That woman now is really hurt, even though she wasn't in love with the guy,
00:56:18.460she had her hopes up. And now, as you said, she is more conditioned to think, well, this is just
00:56:23.560men, or this is just me. Like, this is how I deserve to be treated, or this is just how men
00:56:29.740treat women. And then they go into social media. And as you said, the algorithm feeds that kind of
00:56:35.300thing. And I mean, we can get into the technology of like our, you know, apps, knowing what we do
00:56:40.860and what we're going through, but you get on TikTok, you get on Instagram and it's each sex
00:56:45.600talking about the other one and how hard it is and how terrible it is. Um, and so I, I think it's0.90
00:56:52.000also just setting single people up for failure, all of the ways in which we are being driven
00:56:58.760apart through technology. Yeah, I agree with you. And if you talk to anyone who is on the apps,
00:57:06.240they will tell you what a miserable time they're either having or have had, which is really
00:57:11.060unfortunate because you see the, I mean, it's been how long now? I'd say 15 probably years that
00:57:17.280this technology has become mainstream. And I do think a lot of the burnout and the jadedness that
00:57:23.760people feel around dating if they have used these apps is part of that. Because as you said, people
00:57:29.200are not held to the same standard. And if you go through this process of constantly being ghosted
00:57:33.880or being treated badly on there, it really starts to generalize to the opposite sex more broadly.
00:57:39.700And to say, well, I would say, especially for younger people, like say Gen Z, who grew up in
00:57:44.520a time where dating apps always existed or social media always existed they can't imagine meeting
00:57:49.760someone outside of these platforms they don't know how it seems like a foreign concept to them
00:57:54.280and they'll say how do people meet before social media like was there such a thing or before dating
00:57:59.460apps so if you say to them hey maybe try meeting off of these platforms they have no idea they have
00:58:05.460no idea how to do it and i think also culturally the norms have changed so much that people do
00:58:10.380frown upon meeting in real life to some extent. Like strangers talking or approaching each other
00:58:15.000in public is seen as weird nowadays, which is, I think, a really unfortunate thing.
00:58:19.780Yeah. Everything that you're talking about from the dating apps to the AI girlfriend,
00:58:24.280boyfriend, the sex robots, it's just seeking frictionless pleasures, frictionless relationships.
00:58:31.680And it makes sense when you think about the rest of our lives, especially as millennials and
00:58:35.560certainly Gen Z, so much of our lives has been about instant gratification. And it hasn't been
00:58:43.060where we have to wait, that we have to work, that we have to just say, you know what, I'm going to
00:58:48.160learn how to deal with this uncomfortable, inconvenient thing because it's good for me.
00:58:54.700Inconvenience has been seen my entire life as an impediment that needs to be overcome
00:58:58.840or, you know, try to short circuit it somehow.
00:59:02.460So it makes sense that all of that is affecting how young people think about marriage, how
00:59:07.960they think about sex, how they think about relationships.
00:59:11.080What is, in your mind, the way out of this?
00:59:14.420Because this is a very bleak picture of intimacy and fertility and marriage, these building
00:59:20.480blocks of society to not just allow it to survive, but thrive.
00:59:25.240I have one chapter in sex distinction that is dedicated on reproductive technology and also endocrine disruptors and environmental toxins that may be affecting our libido and our psychology at a biological level.
00:59:41.600And in that case, it may be affecting us in ways that we are not fully aware of.
00:59:46.040So I would definitely recommend people if they're interested in this to check that out because I list all the studies and I talk about how there are things like pharmaceutical waste or something as simple as plastic.
00:59:56.360I mean, I think there is more of a discussion going on about how these toxins are potentially tinkering with our hormones.
01:00:02.000But something like the birth control pill, which is almost ubiquitous among women, most women will be using some form of contraception throughout life where the pill is especially quite popular.
01:00:13.060And it affects the way it affects your mating strategy. It affects your desire to even be to achieve or I'd say attract male attention in ways that I don't think the public is necessarily aware of.
01:00:27.680And then also this larger issue with testosterone decline and how it's affecting men's motivation, both sexually and otherwise, are important pieces to the puzzle.
01:00:38.940Because if we don't rectify the biological component or the biological issues, no amount of social awareness or change in policy is going to effectively rectify this issue.
01:00:49.880And so I would say in terms of solutions, physical health, mental health are very important.
01:00:54.920We are experiencing a mental health crisis right now, especially, I would say, among younger generations in terms of depression and anxiety.
01:01:02.800Use of antidepressants is through the roof.
01:01:05.480Antidepressants have been approved in children as young as age six.
01:01:09.720We do not know the long-term effects of this class of drugs nor of birth control or the birth control pill on sexual development, which might be surprising to some people.
01:01:20.960but that's just the reality of it, considering how many young people or children are being put
01:01:25.740on these medications. And that's not to say that people should get off their medication,
01:01:28.800but I think it's important just to be aware of what we are consuming and also how this might
01:01:35.060be affecting us internally. Because if you are not physically healthy or if your mind is being
01:01:42.380affected in certain ways that you're not aware of, again, that has potentially lasting repercussions.
01:01:47.500And so that's one piece of it. I would say, you know, in the book, I'm really focused on also things like physical health and you can't be mentally healthy or healthy in a relationship if you are not taking care of your physical health.
01:02:01.520Um, and I would also say just having, well, trying to be as traditional as possible in terms of not relying on these technologies to meet people, not relying on, um, say online interactions to feed that desire to connect and also to recognize that a lot of the content we are exposed to is biased because it's being created and promoted by people who are trying to make money off of us.
01:02:28.120So if you don't personally know someone who's giving you advice, they're probably not giving you the best advice. That would be my overarching suggestion with regard to, say, people who might feel lost in dating. I really wrote this book to try and speak to people's frustration about dating and how they can hopefully make better choices or become maybe more aware of their own decisions or how they live their life to improve the chances of finding someone who's right for you.
01:02:55.520But I would say more broadly, just to not be afraid of being countercultural and to say, just because society is telling me to go along with certain things. We touched on this a bit in the discussion with pornography, but I would say if you, especially as a woman, feel that there are things you don't want to do sexually or that you feel pressured to do because the culture is telling you to, it's totally okay to say no. And choking is one of those trends that's very popular right now.
01:03:20.120I've yet to speak to anyone in Gen Z who's not experienced this, both male and female.
01:03:25.340And to know it's very dangerous, and it is potentially fatal, and that it can lead to
01:03:30.080all kinds of negative repercussions down the line in terms of mental health issues, especially
01:03:35.080if there's any form of brain inflammation as a result.
01:03:38.600You may not necessarily pass out, but that doesn't mean that brain cells aren't being