TRIGGERnometry - ＂Demonising Men Will Make Things Worse＂

00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:00:22.600 Now through June 7th, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:00:26.800 Get tickets at murbish.com.

00:00:30.000 All these forms of resentment and, you know, the idea that if men gain, women lose,

00:00:35.280 or if women gain, men lose. I'm very critical of that idea.

00:00:39.520 But we've seen all these discussions of, like, toxic masculinity and, you know,

00:00:44.400 these sort of sweeping claims about basically how all men are evil, you know.

00:00:48.620 And I think this is, like, really, really unhelpful for everybody.

00:00:52.100 And it's simply not true.

00:00:52.960 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:01.880 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:03.220 I'm Constantine Kisson.

00:01:04.560 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:10.380 Our brilliant guest today is a philosopher, social commentator, and the author of What Do Men Want?

00:01:15.620 Nina Power, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:17.060 Thank you.

00:01:17.460 It's good to have you on.

00:01:20.720 Look, before we get into the interview itself, we're obviously, we've known you for a long time

00:01:24.740 and it's been a long time coming, you coming on the show.

00:01:26.960 But I've always said to you, when you finish your book, let's get you on.

00:01:30.240 So we know you very well.

00:01:31.640 But for anyone who doesn't know you, who are you?

00:01:34.020 How are you where you are?

00:01:34.960 What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us about this on camera?

00:01:39.200 Well, I got the train.

00:01:42.980 But before that, I was an academic.

00:01:46.160 I taught philosophy at the University of Roehampton for 13 years and various other places.

00:01:51.720 I still teach a bit of philosophy, largely to retired adults.

00:01:56.040 And also in this brave new world of post or para academia, which people are exploring now.

00:02:01.880 So people just signing up for courses on anything that interests them.

00:02:05.160 And I'm very keen to break out of this academic world and, you know, do things in that way.

00:02:12.420 So I left academia maybe like three years ago, two and a half years ago.

00:02:16.640 And I write for various publications, including The Telegraph.

00:02:21.100 And I, yeah, I largely spend my time walking about and thinking and reading and writing.

00:02:28.080 And you are a very thoughtful person.

00:02:29.700 And before we started, I was just, we were chatting about some of the controversies around your book and things that we'll talk about.

00:02:37.720 And I was just saying that, like, to me, you're just like my lovely friend Nina that I see every few months.

00:02:42.580 We have a chat about philosophy or something else.

00:02:45.240 But it turns out you are super controversial and people are trying to cancel your book before they've even read it and stuff.

00:02:50.760 Yeah, no, no.

00:02:51.380 Well, I think this is quite a common experience now, particularly for women, you know, particularly for women trying to think in the public sphere.

00:02:59.140 And, yeah, I mean, it's a crazy, it's a crazy, crazy time.

00:03:02.520 And, you know, I was kind of very involved in leftist and activist politics, particularly around the student fee increase.

00:03:09.540 So 2009, 2010 in particular.

00:03:11.920 And I was very involved in defending people who'd been arrested and prosecuted and I would say persecuted.

00:03:19.120 And at that point, I think the left understood who our enemies were, right?

00:03:22.780 Like it was the state, it was the police, it was the courts.

00:03:25.180 You know, we were fighting for free education, for kind of universal access and all of these sorts of things.

00:03:31.640 And then between then and now, something really weird happened.

00:03:36.220 And I mean, I think the left always kind of fragments and turns on itself, but I think it did that in a kind of turbocharged, really deranged way.

00:03:45.160 And it stopped really being about compassion and discussion and solidarity and disagreement, actually, and all of the things that I remember of the left.

00:03:57.260 And, you know, humour would be a big part of it.

00:03:59.540 And actually lots of post-Christian virtues or Christian virtues like forgiveness and, you know, all these things seem to have been kind of abandoned in the sort of hyper-internet age.

00:04:10.920 And, yeah, so, I mean, a few years ago now, I said something, I was a member of the Labour Party, not a particularly active member, but nevertheless,

00:04:19.200 I posted something on Facebook about how the Labour Party seemed to be treating its female members who were raising questions about proposed changes for the Gender Recognition Act with total disrespect.

00:04:29.940 You know, they were being interrogated and kicked out of the party.

00:04:33.420 And I was just like, what's going on?

00:04:35.160 This is like Orwellian abuse.

00:04:38.540 But, and I posted that and I sort of thought, oh, maybe that'd be a bit controversial.

00:04:43.780 But that's how I felt.

00:04:45.280 You know, I was just sick of this stuff.

00:04:46.800 But it's like, you know, we should be able to discuss everything, particularly policy, ideas, thoughts.

00:04:51.980 You know, we do disagree.

00:04:52.960 Like that's the nature of humanity.

00:04:54.400 Like it's disagreement.

00:04:55.520 And we have to negotiate that.

00:04:58.380 And then, yeah, so I got kind of targeted, I suppose, by sort of activists.

00:05:03.340 And, yeah, lots of my, I lost lots of work.

00:05:06.700 I lost loads of friends.

00:05:09.300 I, like, when I give talks, sometimes people hire security guards to protect me in case anyone wants to attack me.

00:05:16.800 Yet, the book, people try to preemptively cancel it without having read it by emailing the publisher.

00:05:26.680 And, yeah, I mean, like lots of people now, I routinely get kind of called like a fascist or a Nazi or an anti-Semite or a TERV or a transphobe or whatever.

00:05:35.820 Welcome home.

00:05:36.440 Yes, I mean, it's like, you know, and it's obviously insane.

00:05:39.920 And actually, it's terribly disrespectful to these words to misuse them.

00:05:43.260 I mean, it's like, you know, these things have a historical specificity and a political reality.

00:05:48.360 And, you know, I mean, this is like fucking infantile.

00:05:51.720 Sorry.

00:05:52.040 No, you're allowed to swear.

00:05:54.560 Fucking go for it.

00:05:55.480 No, no, it's like I actually try not to swear in general.

00:05:57.780 I think it like debases language.

00:05:59.180 But, yeah, anyway, it's you know very well, I'm sure, like the kind of guests you have.

00:06:04.420 And, yeah, so this is where we find ourselves.

00:06:06.600 So, yes, I'm interested in dialogue, you know, and I think that's the only way we can kind of move forward, whether it's between men and women or left and right or whatever.

00:06:15.580 Why do you think the left isn't interested in dialogue anymore?

00:06:18.660 Yeah, I'm not sure.

00:06:20.540 It's, yeah, certainly turned its back on any kind of philosophical aspect.

00:06:24.320 I think it sort of internalised the idea that it's weak, you know, and far from understanding the fact that it actually controls all of the institutions, culturally at least.

00:06:38.520 It sort of permanently imagines itself to be the underdog and therefore it's OK because everyone else is the oppressor.

00:06:46.740 So it doesn't matter if you lie about them, you know, because they're your enemy or this kind of thing.

00:06:51.820 But I don't know. I mean, some people would say it's not really what's going on.

00:06:54.600 It's not really the left, you know, that it's something else, like because it certainly isn't the left that most people I know who were or are on the left remember or feel that they're part of.

00:07:05.800 Like it's it's kind of lost its humanity somehow.

00:07:09.700 It's a really good point because they do love to dehumanise.

00:07:13.220 They do love to use certain words.

00:07:15.780 Just a couple of days ago, a Labour MP was being interviewed by Julia Hartley Brewer and she was asking him very sensible questions about mask wearing.

00:07:25.880 He was saying that he wears a mask.

00:07:27.340 She was like, what studies can you draw from that proves that masks are effective?

00:07:32.020 And he said something along the lines of, well, we're not going to have any of this anti-vax nonsense at the moment.

00:07:36.460 Before saying, I feel the mask works.

00:07:39.160 A sensible approach to wearing masks on public transport and particularly a sensible approach would involve evidence that they made a difference.

00:07:47.220 Have you ever seen any of that evidence? I haven't.

00:07:49.420 I feel they've made a difference.

00:07:50.860 You feel they've made. Oh, well, in that case, Jonathan, do you feel?

00:07:54.040 I mean, if that's if that's the way we make decisions about people's freedoms in this country, if Jonathan Reynolds feels they make a difference.

00:08:01.620 I just feel throughout things like this, I know it's not your position, but people like me have followed the scientific and medical advice and voted in.

00:08:09.060 I'm asking you for. No, no, no.

00:08:11.580 Someone's saying you should do this. It's not the same as them producing evidence for that.

00:08:16.100 How it affects my breathing and the transmission of material from my mouth.

00:08:19.960 Of course, it's had an effect.

00:08:21.040 So, look, of course, it's had an effect. Numerous scientific studies have been done and none of them have shown any significant effect, if any at all.

00:08:28.340 Well, I feel it's been of benefit. You feel.

00:08:30.820 Well, look, this sort of tedious anti-vax stuff, anti-

00:08:34.880 Excuse me. Excuse me, Jonathan Reynolds.

00:08:38.620 How dare you? How dare you?

00:08:41.980 I am so fed up and so am I, listeners.

00:08:44.140 I'm asking you to produce the scientific basis for you claiming that you feel a policy works when it's a massive infringement of civil liberties.

00:08:52.620 And you've just basically accused me of being anti-vax.

00:08:55.560 I am double vaccinated. I have always encouraged people to get the vaccination.

00:08:59.620 That is an outrageous thing to say.

00:09:01.960 I am so fed up of that.

00:09:03.480 Yeah. OK, but this is just strange.

00:09:06.660 You know, this is religious belief and that's disrespectful to religion, frankly.

00:09:11.140 The thing is, it's like if you want to convince your enemy or someone you disagree with of your position, you have to be able to argue it.

00:09:18.000 You know, and the idea that you can just kind of like steamroll your way for a conversation by repeating mantras.

00:09:24.040 You know, this is a cult.

00:09:25.360 Like this is not a rational dialogue between adults.

00:09:27.980 Right. This is people who are just kind of, I don't know, being insanely dogmatic, you know.

00:09:33.800 And everybody's capable of reason and thought and discussion.

00:09:36.920 Like this is what it is to be alive.

00:09:38.860 Right. And this way of being is extremely unpersuasive.

00:09:41.960 It converts no one.

00:09:43.000 It just reinforces the strength of feeling within your own tribe.

00:09:46.580 And that's one of the things I'm really interested to talk to you about with your book is you're trying to break out of the sort of dynamics and paradigms that men and women have been put into in the modern world.

00:09:57.380 One very quick question before we get into the book, which is you talked a little bit about how you think.

00:10:03.180 And this is something on which I completely agree, by the way.

00:10:05.880 The women like you who speak out against certain dogmas that are now widely accepted on whatever we call this thing that is not the left or whatever.

00:10:14.420 Women are more attacked more.

00:10:16.340 They are treated differently to the men.

00:10:18.340 And I see this all the time.

00:10:19.860 Right.

00:10:20.620 Why do you think that is?

00:10:22.140 I think there's maybe like a deep psychoanalytic explanation, which is to do partly with, I think, the idea that women should be caring and kind and maternal.

00:10:32.360 And, you know, any woman who doesn't fulfill that role is somehow some like sort of evil witch or harridan and, you know, probably should be burnt.

00:10:39.020 But I actually think a lot of people involved in this activism are deeply, deeply unhappy and they kind of hate their lives and they blame women for having even brought them into the world, you know.

00:10:49.660 So I think on some level it's a kind of deep hatred of life, which then gets projected onto women as the kind of, you know, somehow responsible for nature and for life.

00:10:58.540 So that's my deep psychoanalytic explanation that these the people who are really attacking women kind of hate themselves.

00:11:05.860 And I think in some cases actually envy women in another kind of like very creepy and disturbed way.

00:11:12.160 And I think these are the kind of public conversations we need to have about how men and women relate to each other in terms of affection and love, but also the complicated aspects in terms of difference and possible envy in some cases and things like that.

00:11:26.240 Well, let's talk about your book because, you know, it's really, really interesting in some of the stuff you look at.

00:11:30.920 And I do see that, see it as an attempt at synthesis, right?

00:11:34.880 You're trying to bring different points of view together.

00:11:37.300 So, first of all, where do you think we are as a society when it comes to men and women and where would you like to see us move to?

00:11:44.700 Yeah, I think, you know, I think it's always interesting.

00:11:47.800 I think there's something kind of profoundly beautiful and always sort of thrilling about the relationship between men and women,

00:11:55.540 whether it's between individuals or collectively, and it's always kind of shifting.

00:12:01.140 So I think we live in a very mixed world.

00:12:03.660 I describe it as like a heterosocial world.

00:12:06.340 The fact that, you know, work and social life and many aspects, if not all aspects of existence in the modern world are basically shared.

00:12:16.500 You know, that men and women do not really have their own domains.

00:12:19.580 There isn't kind of any form of separation, positive or negative.

00:12:25.540 And that might be an issue.

00:12:26.720 It might be that men and women need to spend more time apart sometimes, you know, for the sake of themselves and also greater harmony.

00:12:35.900 I think, obviously, I talk about after Me Too, you know, whether that was a kind of historical, you know,

00:12:42.880 whether that was always going to happen at some point, you know, whether there was a sort of necessity,

00:12:49.340 but also about the negative aspects of that, like this world of surveillance and technology and how easy it is to kind of sort of defame people and make claims about people.

00:12:59.640 And it's very impersonal and inhuman and the kind of technology has sort of separated us in other ways.

00:13:07.280 And so I think we're in a sort of interesting moment.

00:13:10.960 I think there's the possibility of reconciliation, which is what I talk about, forgiveness and reconciliation.

00:13:15.660 I think that men and women generally enjoy spending time together, like whether as partners or friends, although it's often like fraught as well.

00:13:24.760 Like that's the reality.

00:13:25.480 But I think what's been presented in the media or increasingly in the last few years is a very negative story about men.

00:13:32.000 You know, generalizations about men.

00:13:33.900 You could say, well, people always generally generalized about women before.

00:13:37.300 Like this is just, you know, correcting the record.

00:13:39.040 But I'm very against this idea of retribution or the zero sum game.

00:13:42.880 I think this is like this everyone loses.

00:13:45.160 So all these forms of resentment and, you know, the idea that if men gain, women lose or if women gain, men lose.

00:13:51.880 I'm very critical of that, that idea.

00:13:54.740 But we've seen all these discussions of like toxic masculinity and, you know, these sort of sweeping claims about basically how all men are evil.

00:14:03.620 You know, and I think this is like really, really unhelpful for everybody.

00:14:07.140 And it's simply not true.

00:14:08.200 It doesn't accord with the reality of people's lives, like the fact that, you know, men and women are friends, the fact that they love each other, the fact that people care about their families, their fathers, their brothers, their sons and so on.

00:14:19.880 So I really dislike this kind of idea that there's something kind of fundamentally wrong with all kinds of masculinity, which is the sort of liberal story we've been fed in the last few years.

00:14:31.180 It's a great point because the story that we've been fed is that men are inherently problematic.

00:14:38.200 The moment something happens, like that awful case, like the Sarah Everard case, they sort of framed it like men did this.

00:14:46.120 And you're like, no, men didn't do this.

00:14:49.060 It was one man.

00:14:50.920 Can you explain why that's so dangerous to take an extreme case like Sarah Everard and then extrapolate it to be a reflection of all men?

00:14:58.140 Yeah, I mean, I can see the temptation.

00:15:00.740 I can see why people do that.

00:15:03.520 And I think it's, you know, basically what everyone wants to prevent is male violence, right?

00:15:09.580 Like we're all interested in solving this problem.

00:15:11.620 Like men are violent towards each other.

00:15:13.900 They're violent towards themselves.

00:15:15.240 I talk about male suicide in the book.

00:15:16.940 It's a serious problem.

00:15:17.840 And they're violent towards women too, right?

00:15:20.900 So we know that men are responsible for the vast majority of violence.

00:15:24.200 The question is, how do we prevent this?

00:15:26.620 You know, I don't think that demonising all men and saying that they're evil is going to help.

00:15:31.420 I think that's actually going to encourage in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy sort of way,

00:15:35.860 particularly when men are seriously alienated and atomised.

00:15:41.700 And I talk about incels and, you know, in a way try to explain or understand or sympathise with their plight, if you so.

00:15:48.820 I mean, again, these are groups of men who you're allowed to hate, you know.

00:15:53.660 With these very, very extreme, violent, horrific cases, right?

00:15:57.780 Of course we have to recognise that's what they are.

00:16:00.740 They are rare.

00:16:01.620 They are something we absolutely want to prevent at all costs.

00:16:06.760 One of my suggestions in the book is that men do need to think of themselves as a class.

00:16:13.020 You know, I think women are very used to being treated as like examples of a class,

00:16:17.180 like this kind of woman or, you know, that women in a way,

00:16:21.200 either because of, I don't know, for social, cultural or other reasons,

00:16:24.840 often feel like they're members of a class or they're often positioned in that way,

00:16:29.040 in a way that men are often not necessarily.

00:16:31.880 Like men maybe think of themselves as individuals first and men second or something like this.

00:16:36.800 And that's fair enough.

00:16:37.620 I mean, we're all individuals too.

00:16:41.540 But so I'm very interested in those kind of mechanisms of like mentorship

00:16:45.700 and how men can, if you like, deal with other men when they start acting in ways that are problematic, right?

00:16:54.820 So the man who killed Sarah Everard had a reputation, right?

00:16:59.000 Other men in the police force gave him names like the rapists, right?

00:17:02.520 They knew that there was something wrong with this guy and they didn't prevent it

00:17:07.000 because they didn't kind of step in and deal with it, right?

00:17:10.420 If you see what I mean.

00:17:11.200 Like if there was a more self-conscious way of thinking,

00:17:14.400 this man makes the rest of us look bad or might make the rest of us look bad,

00:17:19.860 then there might be better ways of kind of preventing these kind of horrific acts,

00:17:25.000 if you see what I mean.

00:17:26.420 So it's a really complicated question.

00:17:28.360 But I think in the first place, it's like saying men are good and men can be good.

00:17:33.680 And this is not something that we're generally used to hearing in the past few years.

00:17:36.820 So there has to be like positive masculinity, you know, so that men can improve,

00:17:42.960 like women too, right?

00:17:44.360 We can all be better.

00:17:45.680 You know, this is a, not only a Christian idea, it's a, you know,

00:17:49.080 an idea we should all kind of, I don't know, hope for, right?

00:17:53.420 Rather than think that we're kind of doomed and that, you know,

00:17:56.140 men are inherently bad or something like this.

00:17:59.040 So yeah, so I think, I do think men do need to look out for each other more.

00:18:03.980 And this is part of what patriarchy and responsibility is actually, you know,

00:18:08.500 patriarchy is not stealing things and telling people what to do.

00:18:13.340 It's actually taking responsibility in a profoundly deep and human way,

00:18:18.020 whether it's for children, whether it's for other men, whether it's for women.

00:18:21.460 Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond musical,

00:18:24.320 A Beautiful Noise is coming to Toronto.

00:18:27.160 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more,

00:18:30.540 featuring all the songs you love, including America,

00:18:33.400 Forever in Blue Jeans and Sweet Caroline.

00:18:36.440 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.

00:18:40.500 The Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:18:43.320 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:18:48.240 Get tickets at mirvish.com.

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00:19:54.780 When you see, you know, men being demonized and you see, you know,

00:20:01.780 people saying these things on social media, a lot of the time it comes from women and you think,

00:20:07.740 but hang on a second.

00:20:09.840 You have a father.

00:20:10.900 You must have brothers, friends, whatever else.

00:20:13.520 The vast majority of them will be straight women who, at the end of it, will want a relationship.

00:20:18.000 Can you not see that that is not helping us come together?

00:20:22.300 That's not actually helping society become more cohesive.

00:20:26.380 You're just being divisive.

00:20:28.080 Yeah.

00:20:28.420 And I think it cuts both ways.

00:20:29.840 You know, there are some men I talk about in the book who see in all women, you know,

00:20:34.200 or let's say they have a bad experience with one woman and then they kind of generalize,

00:20:38.200 like all women are bitches or whatever, you know.

00:20:40.420 And I think, so we, you know.

00:20:42.460 The difference is, Nina, very sorry to interrupt, is,

00:20:44.600 and this is not like defending that point of view at all because I hate men like that,

00:20:48.220 but they are a tiny minority and they don't get column inches, right?

00:20:52.680 You don't get to have an article in The Guardian every week talking about how women are bitches.

00:20:56.580 No.

00:20:57.560 I mean, that would make for great content.

00:21:00.160 Well, that would be one form of equality.

00:21:01.260 Yeah.

00:21:01.700 Do you know what I mean, though?

00:21:02.780 Like, that's the difference.

00:21:03.680 Absolutely, of course.

00:21:04.320 So what I was going to say is like, you know, you have a small number of men who might say that,

00:21:08.220 a small number of women who say, generalize about men in the same way, right?

00:21:11.660 But one of the things I say is that, like, misogyny, true misogyny is actually really rare,

00:21:17.140 you know, just as misandry is actually really rare.

00:21:19.800 Yeah.

00:21:20.020 Because in practice, women largely spend time with men, they feel safe with them,

00:21:24.180 they trust them, they love them, and so on.

00:21:26.220 So, you know, again, it's this kind of like getting away from this resentment

00:21:30.620 and this zero-sum game idea is like, how can we live better together, you know,

00:21:35.800 and acknowledge harm where it's necessary to do so,

00:21:39.800 but not make these kind of systematic generalizations about all men or all women,

00:21:44.640 you know?

00:21:45.000 And I think Me Too, in some ways, was this kind of really unfortunate,

00:21:49.600 one of the aspects of it that was really bad,

00:21:51.420 people were allowed to sort of retcon previous relationships, right?

00:21:55.920 Probably all of us have had bad relationships where it wasn't particularly anyone's fault.

00:21:59.480 It was just, you know, or it ended badly or, you know,

00:22:02.120 both people behaved stupidly or whatever, you know?

00:22:05.120 And, but some people wanted to then go back,

00:22:07.900 because particularly some women wanted to go back and say,

00:22:10.040 you know, that guy was an abuser or that guy was like, you know, evil, right?

00:22:16.320 Because that whole victim narrative allows you to do that.

00:22:18.980 It allows you to see the world in black and white, but it's not, right?

00:22:22.320 We're all kind of capable of harm.

00:22:24.160 We're all good and bad.

00:22:25.360 We're all a mixture of these things, men and women included.

00:22:28.020 And if we position women as pure victims,

00:22:30.440 then we're basically putting them back in the position of being children, right?

00:22:33.540 Which is not what women want either, right?

00:22:35.800 You know, there's something kind of awful about that.

00:22:37.600 So women do have power, right?

00:22:39.840 Women do have meaning and agency and they can make choices and all of those things.

00:22:45.800 And they can also be very cruel to men, you know?

00:22:48.500 They can destroy men's lives if they want to, you know?

00:22:51.260 So I think we have to acknowledge that both men and women have power.

00:22:54.600 They have different kinds of power, right?

00:22:56.440 But what it means to be an adult is actually navigating and negotiating those things

00:23:00.760 in all of their complexity.

00:23:02.360 And it's too simple to say, you know, either this group of people is good

00:23:06.160 or this group is bad.

00:23:08.520 You know, it doesn't work like that.

00:23:10.360 Well, the last question before you jump in, Constantine,

00:23:12.880 is how much of this do you think is based on the desire for vengeance?

00:23:18.940 I mean, it's a particularly loaded question.

00:23:21.000 I remember with Me Too, seeing what happened when people were talking about it.

00:23:26.260 And understandably, there was anger and there was rage.

00:23:29.300 But there was also this very unpleasant undercurrent of wanting to tear men down

00:23:35.140 that I found really uncomfortable.

00:23:37.580 And it's why I never really got behind the whole Me Too thing,

00:23:41.440 because I knew where it was going to end up.

00:23:43.360 I could see what was happening.

00:23:45.200 I knew what the end game was.

00:23:47.540 Yeah, I mean, I think, again, like psychoanalytically as a society,

00:23:50.800 we haven't really confronted these things like the desire for revenge

00:23:54.860 or envy or lust or, you know, these things are really hard to deal with,

00:24:00.060 you know, and often these things are kind of like cover stories

00:24:02.800 or eruptions for a deeper conversation.

00:24:05.280 And I think, well, one thing that's really important would be

00:24:07.780 to sort of have a more psychoanalytic discourse in general,

00:24:11.780 you know, and not pretend that we're somehow past all that

00:24:14.360 just because we've got mobile phones, you know.

00:24:16.340 And one of the aspects of the book is like going back to previous things

00:24:20.200 that our ancestors did and thought, as if, you know,

00:24:23.520 I hate this idea that we're modern and that there's nothing for us to learn

00:24:27.600 from previous ways of thinking or from previous ways of behaving.

00:24:30.660 I mean, there's loads of stuff to learn.

00:24:31.940 In fact, people maybe had better solutions, you know.

00:24:34.840 You see these sort of young women on TikTok, for example, going like,

00:24:38.020 oh, you know, oh, maybe we should get men to stay around if they,

00:24:42.580 you know, if we have a child with them and, you know,

00:24:45.300 they should take some responsibility.

00:24:46.400 And it's like, you've just reinvented marriage, you know.

00:24:49.420 It's like, and this is happening all the time.

00:24:51.860 It's like there were previous solutions to some of the same questions.

00:24:55.660 But yeah, I think maybe there are different ways of acknowledging

00:24:59.520 these sorts of deep currents.

00:25:01.460 Like the Greeks had myth and gods and, you know, there's a way of kind of dealing culturally

00:25:06.200 with psychoanalytically describable emotions that don't go away, you know,

00:25:12.300 just because we're online, you know.

00:25:14.400 So I think we probably need a better culture in a way that deals with,

00:25:18.560 or a culture that basically acknowledges more explicitly these complex feelings

00:25:23.320 so it doesn't turn into a kind of vengeance spiral.

00:25:27.360 Yeah.

00:25:27.460 Yeah, because we do act like every activist is motivated purely by the desire

00:25:31.340 to improve things when having met activists.

00:25:34.660 Yeah, there's a lot of ego, weird stuff going on.

00:25:36.980 Yeah, there's a lot.

00:25:37.680 There's ego, there's revenge, there's bitterness, there's resentment,

00:25:40.760 there's personal trauma that's been built on to make the whole world seem like it's that thing.

00:25:45.960 Do you think one of the reasons that we are sort of talking about this stuff now increasingly,

00:25:50.600 and, you know, one of the reasons I think for the explosion in Jordan Peterson's popularity

00:25:55.200 was the fact that maybe it's this narrative or maybe it's other things,

00:26:00.220 you tell me what you think, but we've kind of got to a position of a time where,

00:26:04.340 as Francis talks about, we've demonized men and we've said they're bad,

00:26:07.620 but we've also created increasingly generations of men who are not living up

00:26:12.280 to that standard of patriarchy, the positive vision of patriarchy you described.

00:26:16.960 Increasingly, you see young men taking less responsibility,

00:26:19.820 increasingly not hanging around when they've had a child with someone,

00:26:24.120 you know, abrogating other things that men traditionally are supposed to do,

00:26:28.660 in inverted commas.

00:26:30.220 So at the same time as telling men they're bad,

00:26:33.480 we're also seeing men actually not behave like men much anymore.

00:26:36.920 Yeah, so I do discuss Peterson's popularity in the book and,

00:26:41.720 you know, I think it's really symptomatic.

00:26:43.540 I think it speaks to a need or a desire for a sort of father figure in the first place,

00:26:47.920 you know, like there's something extremely patrician about Peterson,

00:26:50.360 he dresses in a kind of 1950s dad sort of way, you know,

00:26:53.540 and he's sort of literally telling people to clean their room and stand up straight

00:26:56.540 and all the things that you would associate with a sort of, you know, father figure.

00:27:00.120 And I think his popularity has to partly be diagnosed in that way,

00:27:04.060 that he's providing something which isn't there in the broader culture,

00:27:07.540 amongst other things.

00:27:09.160 And actually, I say that this is good for women.

00:27:11.840 Peterson is actually good for women.

00:27:13.280 Of course.

00:27:13.700 Because one thing he says to young men in particular,

00:27:16.940 but not only, but let's stick with the young men,

00:27:19.280 is you need to take responsibility for your own life

00:27:22.260 and not blame women for your situation.

00:27:25.180 And the implication is also like if you sort yourself out,

00:27:27.980 then you might stand more of a chance basically of, you know,

00:27:30.980 being attractive to others, getting a job and, you know,

00:27:34.220 functioning in the world.

00:27:35.580 And actually that takes the pressure off in that sense.

00:27:38.200 You know, the idea that men deserve a woman

00:27:41.180 or it's women's job to tidy up after men or something like that.

00:27:44.380 You know, Peterson's against that.

00:27:46.080 You know, so I think, you know,

00:27:47.780 whatever he says about women, who cares?

00:27:49.420 Women are chaos, great, fantastic.

00:27:53.240 He's not wrong either, come on.

00:27:55.340 I don't mind, that's all fine.

00:27:56.940 But actually, I do think on balance,

00:27:58.560 he's actually very positive in that sense.

00:28:00.260 Yeah, I agree.

00:28:01.120 You know, and it's the stoic virtues, you know,

00:28:04.380 like there's so much stoicism

00:28:06.060 in the kind of masculinist literature, you know,

00:28:08.760 and I think it's really interesting.

00:28:10.540 It's very, very symptomatic and significant, I think.

00:28:14.000 Well, it's the only thing that works for men.

00:28:15.360 This is why, you know, you say for, you know,

00:28:17.220 you empathize with incels.

00:28:18.920 I empathize with them less actually,

00:28:20.620 but I don't hate them.

00:28:21.780 Yeah.

00:28:22.120 I just think they haven't got the piece

00:28:24.920 that helps make your life better,

00:28:27.500 which is, as a man, you've only got really one root.

00:28:30.560 You work hard, you improve your skill set,

00:28:32.760 you get better, you make more money,

00:28:34.460 you raise your status in society.

00:28:36.520 And then all the stuff that you're currently not getting

00:28:39.060 because evil women haven't let you have it

00:28:40.860 is going to happen, right?

00:28:43.140 But for a man, the root to that lies through

00:28:45.260 taking responsibility, upping your game.

00:28:48.140 That's it for a man, right?

00:28:49.380 You've got to up your game and that's it.

00:28:51.080 So being stuck in a community of other people

00:28:53.020 who encourage you to stay where you are,

00:28:56.200 that's my issue with that movement only.

00:28:58.620 I empathize with that.

00:29:00.900 Yeah.

00:29:01.220 I mean, there's a strong class dimension too,

00:29:03.280 which is in Alex Lee Moyer

00:29:05.140 made a very interesting documentary.

00:29:06.640 I don't know if you've seen it,

00:29:07.700 TFW, No GF, That Feeling When No Girlfriend,

00:29:10.320 where she interviews some incels

00:29:12.940 who are like big online

00:29:14.780 and all people associated with the movement.

00:29:17.520 And, you know, this is really a story about class.

00:29:20.480 These are often young men living in extraordinarily depressed

00:29:23.540 and dispossessed areas who actually, yes,

00:29:27.180 are trying to improve their lives through working out,

00:29:29.700 through, you know, laughing with their friends online and so on.

00:29:32.920 But it's really, really difficult, right?

00:29:35.080 When there's no jobs, there's like no hope,

00:29:37.260 you're stuck in your, you know,

00:29:39.020 the basement of your mother's house and use a cliche.

00:29:41.400 But, you know, that is a reality for millions of people.

00:29:44.260 And it's like, I mean, I don't disagree with you

00:29:46.440 that people have to take personal responsibility.

00:29:48.180 And I think one of the problems with a certain leftist

00:29:52.000 or fake leftist discourse is the idea

00:29:53.740 that you can just blame the structures, you know,

00:29:55.880 that you have no moral or individual agency

00:29:58.340 or that anyone who talks about individuals must be right wing.

00:30:01.480 It's like, no, actually, you know,

00:30:03.140 you can't keep blaming society for your problems.

00:30:06.600 Yeah.

00:30:06.920 The reason I feel comfortable saying it,

00:30:08.920 because it sounds a little bit judgmental,

00:30:10.480 but look, when I was 18, I was sleeping in a park, right?

00:30:14.140 So if I can sleep in a park

00:30:15.920 and then still make something of myself,

00:30:18.280 I'm not saying every single person is the same

00:30:20.480 or everyone should be like me or anything like that.

00:30:22.460 But if you find yourself in a difficult position,

00:30:25.180 all I'm saying is,

00:30:26.060 I'm not saying you will necessarily succeed.

00:30:28.400 I'm just saying the only way out for a man is that.

00:30:31.840 Yeah.

00:30:32.080 There is no other way.

00:30:33.100 I mean, and to put it back in the context

00:30:34.620 of a community or relations,

00:30:35.860 it's like if you sort yourself out,

00:30:37.960 I mean, I've had issues.

00:30:39.000 I had a massive midlife crisis.

00:30:40.420 I was like totally messed up, right?

00:30:43.500 And I sorted myself out, you know,

00:30:45.680 and I think a lot of people have this experience

00:30:47.560 at some point, right?

00:30:48.700 And it's possible.

00:30:50.400 And it's amazing that it's possible.

00:30:52.020 And I think the thing is like,

00:30:53.320 once you realize that it's possible

00:30:54.940 to take hold of your own life,

00:30:56.340 it's actually better for everyone else as well.

00:30:58.120 So it's not selfish to look after yourself.

00:31:00.600 It's actually better for everyone, right?

00:31:02.420 You know, because then you can help other people

00:31:04.200 if they're in trouble, you know,

00:31:05.880 it becomes this kind of outward looking thing.

00:31:09.080 You know, it's a proper social gesture.

00:31:11.900 You know, it's actually much kinder

00:31:13.300 and more empathetic and thoughtful

00:31:14.740 to not be selfish,

00:31:16.880 not be a, you know, self-indulgent prick, you know.

00:31:20.160 But isn't the problem...

00:31:21.380 Strong message there.

00:31:22.980 It's the title of the episode.

00:31:24.380 Don't be a selfish entitled prick.

00:31:26.500 Yeah.

00:31:26.900 But isn't part of the problem

00:31:28.520 that the world that we're living in

00:31:30.240 is more and more feminized?

00:31:32.080 It's celebrating more and more female values.

00:31:35.100 You know, the traditional male values,

00:31:36.720 the traditional male jobs are dwindling.

00:31:39.940 So the problem is for men,

00:31:42.140 they're not really getting a chance

00:31:44.840 to be masculine,

00:31:46.880 to celebrate these masculine virtues.

00:31:49.280 And as a result,

00:31:50.320 they're not progressing in the same way.

00:31:52.540 Yeah, I think this is a really important question.

00:31:55.540 And I think it's one, again,

00:31:56.600 that we all have to collectively work out, right?

00:31:59.040 In the coming years.

00:32:00.660 And there's been lots of interesting articles

00:32:02.380 and pieces about the kind of feminization.

00:32:04.300 Like, I wrote a book in 2009,

00:32:06.040 which was about feminization of work.

00:32:08.920 So, yeah, I mean,

00:32:09.900 and it was an explicitly political decision, right?

00:32:13.240 So, like, under Thatcher,

00:32:14.440 it was like,

00:32:14.840 we are no longer going to be this industrial nation.

00:32:16.960 We're going to move towards the knowledge economy.

00:32:19.440 This will privilege typically feminine skills,

00:32:22.000 like, you know,

00:32:22.820 communication and mediation

00:32:25.100 and words and whatnot.

00:32:27.780 And yes, I think that's absolutely happened, right?

00:32:30.540 So we live in an increasingly feminized world,

00:32:32.480 however we want to see that.

00:32:35.020 And it is a problem, right?

00:32:36.400 There's this kind of excess of male energy

00:32:39.080 and, you know,

00:32:40.260 all of the ways in which

00:32:41.280 that would have been expressed

00:32:42.320 through physical labor.

00:32:44.100 I mean, those jobs still exist, right?

00:32:45.640 It's not that they're not completely disappeared,

00:32:47.160 but you're right, as a tendency,

00:32:48.860 you know, it's like,

00:32:50.300 I don't know,

00:32:50.660 if you go to kind of depressed,

00:32:52.100 like, post-industrial places,

00:32:54.320 a lot of men are working out in the gym,

00:32:56.320 but they're not, like, working,

00:32:57.560 they're not building things or making things,

00:32:59.260 you know?

00:32:59.460 And I'm pro people going to the gym, obviously,

00:33:02.700 but it's no replacement, if you like,

00:33:04.960 for actually participating,

00:33:07.000 having a social role, you know?

00:33:08.780 And I think this is one of the things

00:33:10.000 that leads to, you know,

00:33:12.120 sort of high rates of male suicide

00:33:14.160 and drug use and self-harm,

00:33:16.680 you know,

00:33:16.900 because it's this lack of a social role,

00:33:19.320 you know?

00:33:19.640 And I don't really have the solution.

00:33:21.600 It's like, you know,

00:33:22.320 we might need to decide

00:33:23.540 how to live together differently in the future

00:33:26.200 and what we do with all of our different skills

00:33:28.420 and energies,

00:33:29.500 but it has to be a collective decision.

00:33:30.920 And I think both men and women,

00:33:31.960 of course,

00:33:32.280 and children have a stake in this.

00:33:34.700 It's a vicious circle.

00:33:35.760 We had Dr. Tony Sewell on,

00:33:39.880 and the first thing to be we did with him,

00:33:42.020 he made such a profound point.

00:33:43.820 Remember, if you're a boy,

00:33:45.220 you're going to have,

00:33:46.180 you're likely to have mum at home,

00:33:48.840 her friends,

00:33:50.020 then you go into school,

00:33:50.920 you're going to have a female teacher,

00:33:52.260 and the whole environment,

00:33:54.640 you hardly see a man.

00:33:57.760 Let me give you something

00:33:58.780 that's really interesting.

00:33:59.540 You can go to some primary schools now,

00:34:02.460 and it's happened to me

00:34:03.160 on a number of occasions.

00:34:04.560 You go into the primary school,

00:34:06.420 and suddenly,

00:34:08.660 all these little boys

00:34:09.440 start running up towards you.

00:34:11.720 It's quite scary.

00:34:13.060 It's almost like you're Santa Claus.

00:34:14.060 You go in there,

00:34:14.820 and it's like,

00:34:16.260 oh, man,

00:34:17.080 they haven't seen a man.

00:34:18.340 Yeah.

00:34:18.580 And they secretly think

00:34:20.740 you're going to be their teacher.

00:34:21.860 That's it.

00:34:22.260 But they're disappointing

00:34:23.020 because you're just visiting,

00:34:25.220 you know.

00:34:25.760 You should teach them for a while.

00:34:26.600 And they're running up to you,

00:34:28.080 and they're talking to you,

00:34:29.040 because if you sit down

00:34:31.060 with some of those boys,

00:34:32.000 they actually do not have

00:34:33.680 any interaction

00:34:34.880 with any male adult authority.

00:34:40.600 Yeah.

00:34:41.240 None.

00:34:42.120 That's crazy.

00:34:43.800 Yeah.

00:34:44.180 I mean,

00:34:44.400 I do talk in the book

00:34:45.200 about the necessity

00:34:46.560 for ritual and mentorship

00:34:48.180 and all of these things

00:34:49.080 that are kind of missing

00:34:49.800 in our culture.

00:34:51.020 You know,

00:34:51.260 I do think,

00:34:52.260 you know,

00:34:53.360 children need

00:34:54.300 both male and female influence.

00:34:56.180 They absolutely do.

00:34:57.160 You know,

00:34:57.560 girls as well.

00:34:59.600 You know,

00:34:59.940 and of course,

00:35:00.940 like,

00:35:01.220 we want to celebrate

00:35:02.040 alternative family arrangements

00:35:03.280 and so on.

00:35:03.940 But at the same time,

00:35:04.720 there's a general

00:35:05.220 social responsibility.

00:35:06.480 And I think,

00:35:07.320 absolutely.

00:35:08.800 I was speaking to someone today

00:35:10.020 who was saying

00:35:10.520 that there's an Australian researcher

00:35:12.200 who said that

00:35:12.800 young boys

00:35:13.840 need to fight

00:35:15.000 with older men,

00:35:15.780 like wrestle with them

00:35:16.440 so that the older man

00:35:17.320 can tell them

00:35:17.820 when to stop,

00:35:18.600 if you see what I mean,

00:35:19.280 so that you learn

00:35:20.160 your limits

00:35:21.160 and,

00:35:22.220 you know,

00:35:22.660 what is appropriate

00:35:23.400 and what isn't appropriate

00:35:24.240 in terms of your use

00:35:25.140 of physical strength.

00:35:26.700 You know,

00:35:26.860 and if you're not getting that,

00:35:28.460 then the violence

00:35:30.040 might go elsewhere,

00:35:30.980 which is,

00:35:31.500 again,

00:35:31.920 what we want to deal with,

00:35:33.440 what we want to confront

00:35:34.180 and prevent,

00:35:35.580 you know.

00:35:35.920 So,

00:35:36.680 yeah,

00:35:36.940 really,

00:35:37.540 those kind of

00:35:38.160 how to direct

00:35:39.000 all of that energy,

00:35:39.860 it's not being done well.

00:35:41.600 And I think

00:35:42.080 there is a suspicion

00:35:43.460 of men in mentorship roles.

00:35:45.480 Sometimes that's correct.

00:35:46.920 I think we also need

00:35:47.820 to give back power

00:35:48.720 to female intuition,

00:35:49.740 by the way.

00:35:50.900 So when women say

00:35:51.940 there's something not right here

00:35:53.540 with a man,

00:35:54.440 like you,

00:35:55.040 like men have got to listen as well.

00:35:56.600 So I think,

00:35:57.780 you know,

00:35:58.360 and they've also got to trust

00:35:59.620 their own instincts

00:36:00.520 and what I said before

00:36:01.860 about men looking out

00:36:03.120 and looking after each other,

00:36:04.660 I think,

00:36:05.160 rather than seeing themselves

00:36:06.240 as this kind of

00:36:07.080 first-person shooter individual,

00:36:09.460 you know,

00:36:09.800 it's got to be a kind of

00:36:11.080 horizontal relation

00:36:12.840 to masculinity

00:36:14.120 and to other men as well.

00:36:15.260 So I think we all need to,

00:36:17.140 yeah,

00:36:17.660 participate in this kind of,

00:36:20.240 I don't know,

00:36:21.200 more harmonious

00:36:22.300 and expansive relation

00:36:26.120 that has more male

00:36:27.520 and female influences

00:36:28.380 and also older people as well.

00:36:30.200 Like the way in which

00:36:31.040 we treat older people

00:36:32.000 as if they're kind of irrelevant,

00:36:33.880 you know.

00:36:34.580 I think this cutting off

00:36:36.200 of the older generation,

00:36:37.940 you know,

00:36:39.900 from grandchildren

00:36:40.940 and from their children

00:36:41.800 is also like,

00:36:43.300 you know,

00:36:43.820 awful.

00:36:44.800 It tells you something

00:36:45.540 terrible about our culture.

00:36:47.260 What you're talking about,

00:36:48.260 I think,

00:36:48.620 is the atomization of society

00:36:50.160 just generally.

00:36:51.080 It's like,

00:36:51.800 the size of the family shrinks,

00:36:54.180 the number of connections

00:36:55.100 people have shrinks

00:36:56.140 outside of their phone,

00:36:57.280 et cetera.

00:36:59.220 There's so many things

00:37:00.540 you're bringing up.

00:37:01.280 So how do we get

00:37:02.020 to the sunny uplands

00:37:03.060 of tomorrow

00:37:03.600 where we're all living

00:37:04.560 in perfect harmony?

00:37:06.340 I don't know about

00:37:07.240 perfect harmony,

00:37:08.160 but I think just

00:37:09.640 a kind of more honest

00:37:10.660 discussion,

00:37:11.400 you know,

00:37:11.620 in general,

00:37:12.380 like not demonizing

00:37:13.940 one sex or the other,

00:37:15.500 taking responsibility

00:37:16.260 for ourselves

00:37:17.160 and each other.

00:37:18.660 I mean,

00:37:19.260 acknowledging harm

00:37:20.140 where it exists,

00:37:20.920 you know,

00:37:21.160 and that's important,

00:37:22.440 but also not thinking

00:37:24.560 of ourselves

00:37:25.540 as kind of

00:37:26.260 wholly good

00:37:27.300 or wholly bad even,

00:37:28.580 you know,

00:37:28.780 both are extreme positions

00:37:29.940 that are largely not true,

00:37:31.820 you know,

00:37:32.180 for anybody.

00:37:33.540 Do you think we'll ever

00:37:34.260 get past,

00:37:35.140 I mean,

00:37:35.820 you're not the first person

00:37:37.120 to have said these words

00:37:37.960 sitting in that chair.

00:37:38.860 We had Julie Bindle on

00:37:39.760 a few weeks ago

00:37:40.520 and she talked about,

00:37:42.240 and I think it's inevitably

00:37:43.380 a fact that

00:37:44.560 all of this conversation,

00:37:46.840 as you've said earlier,

00:37:48.160 is about

00:37:48.940 dealing with the fact

00:37:50.380 that men are violent,

00:37:51.700 right?

00:37:53.180 Do you think we'll ever

00:37:54.240 get past

00:37:54.820 the biological reality

00:37:56.540 that men are what they are

00:37:58.400 and women are different

00:37:59.580 and there's a size difference,

00:38:01.720 there's a strength difference,

00:38:02.740 there's a brain difference.

00:38:04.500 Men are violent

00:38:05.260 for a reason,

00:38:06.080 right?

00:38:06.480 Young men seek status

00:38:07.780 and in the process

00:38:09.640 of doing that,

00:38:10.960 that's when

00:38:11.620 that happens.

00:38:13.480 Sure.

00:38:13.840 I mean,

00:38:14.120 we're animals

00:38:14.700 with a thin veneer

00:38:15.680 of poetry,

00:38:16.600 you know,

00:38:17.200 and men and women

00:38:18.200 are different.

00:38:18.980 I mean,

00:38:19.200 this is like,

00:38:19.720 I make this point.

00:38:22.680 I know.

00:38:23.300 Now I can see

00:38:23.980 why they're trying

00:38:24.420 to cancel you,

00:38:25.160 Nina.

00:38:25.620 I know.

00:38:26.140 So my opening line

00:38:27.000 is like,

00:38:27.500 men and women exist,

00:38:28.780 you know.

00:38:29.340 This is my controversial

00:38:30.560 opening statement.

00:38:31.820 No,

00:38:32.320 and it's really important

00:38:33.580 to recognise

00:38:34.260 where that difference

00:38:35.080 is relevant,

00:38:35.700 whether it's biologically,

00:38:36.960 in law,

00:38:37.460 in sports,

00:38:38.260 you know,

00:38:38.660 in separate spaces

00:38:39.580 and so on,

00:38:40.220 right?

00:38:40.420 And a lot of,

00:38:40.960 you know,

00:38:42.220 discussions about this

00:38:44.180 in recent years,

00:38:44.920 you know,

00:38:45.160 but we are different

00:38:46.540 and the difference

00:38:47.220 I want to say

00:38:48.100 is beautiful,

00:38:49.400 like it's cosmic,

00:38:50.280 you know,

00:38:50.480 it's a metaphysical

00:38:51.460 difference

00:38:51.980 and it's what makes

00:38:54.060 life worth living

00:38:55.180 in many ways.

00:38:55.860 You know,

00:38:56.720 I do discuss

00:38:57.320 separatism,

00:38:58.040 that's one possibility,

00:38:59.240 but I don't think

00:38:59.740 that's the solution.

00:39:00.420 It's certainly not

00:39:00.840 the solution

00:39:01.240 for most people

00:39:02.160 who will have

00:39:03.200 a relationship

00:39:03.760 of one kind,

00:39:05.060 either friendship

00:39:06.020 or,

00:39:06.540 you know,

00:39:06.760 at work or whatever

00:39:07.580 or a romantic relationship.

00:39:09.120 So it's,

00:39:11.780 I don't know

00:39:12.220 how to put it,

00:39:13.040 like to recognise

00:39:14.960 the capacity

00:39:15.940 of men in particular

00:39:17.280 towards violence

00:39:18.300 is,

00:39:19.180 there are ways

00:39:19.680 of channelling it,

00:39:20.500 like through sport,

00:39:21.640 through activity,

00:39:23.740 through kind of,

00:39:24.600 I don't know,

00:39:26.120 ritual and,

00:39:27.320 and if we recognise it

00:39:28.860 rather than,

00:39:30.160 I don't know,

00:39:30.740 just sort of pretend

00:39:32.240 that men can somehow

00:39:33.220 be completely different

00:39:34.320 and change.

00:39:35.100 It's like to recognise

00:39:36.260 that reality

00:39:36.820 and to channel it

00:39:38.100 in more positive

00:39:39.180 and beautiful ways,

00:39:40.400 you know.

00:39:41.920 That's the only way.

00:39:43.560 Yeah,

00:39:44.140 completely agree.

00:39:44.720 That is the only way.

00:39:46.040 Hey,

00:39:46.600 Constantine,

00:39:47.460 do you love

00:39:48.160 Trigonometry?

00:39:48.980 Of course.

00:39:49.860 Incredible interviews,

00:39:51.360 hilarious live streams,

00:39:52.900 hard-hitting satire,

00:39:54.400 plus my handsome jawline.

00:39:56.200 Whatever takes away

00:39:57.100 from your hairline.

00:39:58.220 But if you do love

00:39:59.160 Trigonometry

00:39:59.700 and you want to support us,

00:40:01.520 there's only one place

00:40:02.780 to do that

00:40:03.420 and that's on Locals.

00:40:05.100 Yes,

00:40:05.620 Locals is a brilliant platform

00:40:07.280 that has been

00:40:07.980 incredibly supportive

00:40:09.060 to our show

00:40:09.920 and other problematic creators.

00:40:12.560 The great thing

00:40:13.200 about Locals

00:40:13.920 is that it's a community

00:40:15.020 for people

00:40:15.820 who love Trigonometry.

00:40:17.380 That's right,

00:40:17.860 it's a place for you

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00:40:19.160 with like-minded people,

00:40:20.400 share thoughts,

00:40:21.140 memes,

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00:40:22.560 You can enjoy it for free,

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00:40:31.160 We have incredible rewards

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00:40:39.620 Get in.

00:40:40.520 Join our community

00:40:41.500 by hitting the link

00:40:42.720 in the description

00:40:43.520 and the pinned comment below.

00:40:45.220 See you there, guys.

00:40:46.220 There is the other part

00:40:48.360 of it where

00:40:48.860 there is always

00:40:49.920 unfortunately

00:40:50.860 going to be

00:40:52.100 a small minority

00:40:53.080 of men

00:40:53.560 who are sexually violent.

00:40:55.380 And I see these

00:40:56.660 posts go up all the time

00:40:57.660 after, for instance,

00:40:58.420 Sarah Everard,

00:40:58.960 but also other

00:40:59.980 awful, awful cases.

00:41:01.980 The last one

00:41:02.800 was the awful case

00:41:04.300 of that primary school teacher

00:41:05.440 who was murdered.

00:41:06.660 And you see women write,

00:41:08.560 you know,

00:41:08.840 why is it that I have

00:41:09.940 to walk down the streets

00:41:11.220 and be scared of men

00:41:12.300 and always looking

00:41:12.960 over my shoulder?

00:41:13.740 And I think to myself,

00:41:16.600 there's a really small part

00:41:17.860 of me that thinks to myself,

00:41:19.120 unfortunately,

00:41:20.140 there's always going to be

00:41:21.480 that small,

00:41:22.360 very small percentage

00:41:23.720 of men who do that

00:41:24.800 and they're always

00:41:25.840 going to have

00:41:26.260 a disproportionate effect

00:41:27.400 on society,

00:41:28.200 isn't there?

00:41:29.340 Well, I mean,

00:41:30.000 there are different ways,

00:41:31.000 I think,

00:41:31.460 of preventing,

00:41:33.960 I don't know how to put it.

00:41:35.040 It's not on women

00:41:35.820 to change their behaviour,

00:41:37.160 I would say.

00:41:37.900 I completely agree.

00:41:38.700 You know,

00:41:39.080 and we live in,

00:41:40.560 you know,

00:41:41.600 particular ways.

00:41:42.560 Women have particular freedoms.

00:41:44.120 I don't think people

00:41:44.960 would want to go

00:41:45.800 towards a more segregated

00:41:48.860 or domestic-public-private split

00:41:50.740 in which women stay at home

00:41:51.800 or they need a chaperone

00:41:52.820 or whatever.

00:41:53.800 You know,

00:41:54.100 I don't think that's what

00:41:55.080 anybody wants.

00:41:56.840 If they do want that,

00:41:57.860 they can move somewhere else.

00:42:00.120 So...

00:42:00.720 But it's not about,

00:42:01.460 sorry to interrupt

00:42:02.320 just on that point,

00:42:03.500 because this is,

00:42:04.340 you know,

00:42:04.540 Francis says,

00:42:05.080 I completely agree.

00:42:06.400 I don't completely agree.

00:42:08.460 I agree that women

00:42:09.440 should have the freedom

00:42:10.220 to do what they want

00:42:11.160 or everyone should.

00:42:13.100 I also don't agree

00:42:14.480 that you're going

00:42:15.980 to get to a place

00:42:17.180 where a man

00:42:18.800 and a woman

00:42:19.360 can walk down

00:42:20.500 the same street

00:42:21.340 at the same time of night

00:42:22.720 and be equally safe.

00:42:24.440 No, I...

00:42:24.940 It's not going to happen.

00:42:25.800 No.

00:42:26.220 And if that is true,

00:42:27.760 that means that,

00:42:28.960 yes,

00:42:29.360 unfortunately,

00:42:30.220 as a society,

00:42:30.940 we have to be honest

00:42:31.920 and say

00:42:32.440 that is never going to happen

00:42:34.280 because there's

00:42:35.260 a biological difference

00:42:36.240 between men and women

00:42:37.000 and because men

00:42:38.120 want from women

00:42:38.860 what they don't want

00:42:39.580 from other men,

00:42:40.300 by and large,

00:42:40.980 right,

00:42:41.240 in that sort of environment.

00:42:42.840 And so we're going

00:42:43.440 to have to,

00:42:44.500 you know,

00:42:44.920 yes,

00:42:45.200 we're going to do

00:42:45.720 everything we can

00:42:46.440 to civilize men

00:42:47.360 and that's an important

00:42:48.120 part of education

00:42:49.160 and upbringing

00:42:49.820 and whatever.

00:42:50.800 There's also a part

00:42:51.520 of civilizing women

00:42:52.420 in the sense of going

00:42:53.220 like,

00:42:53.500 look,

00:42:53.780 you're living in society

00:42:54.800 and some people

00:42:55.400 in the society are evil

00:42:56.340 and you need to protect yourself.

00:42:57.880 And that may mean

00:42:58.680 that you don't walk around

00:42:59.940 at 3am

00:43:00.560 even though I can.

00:43:02.020 Yeah, sure.

00:43:02.740 I mean,

00:43:03.100 that's probably

00:43:04.060 the current situation

00:43:04.980 they're in.

00:43:05.380 I mean,

00:43:05.540 I do think

00:43:06.020 there are ways

00:43:06.520 of kind of,

00:43:07.460 we condition ourselves,

00:43:10.360 right?

00:43:10.640 So I'm very against

00:43:12.320 the widespread availability

00:43:13.220 of pornography,

00:43:14.260 right?

00:43:14.480 I think it's extremely

00:43:15.440 detrimental to men

00:43:17.100 in particular.

00:43:18.160 I think it changes

00:43:18.980 people's brain chemistry.

00:43:20.440 It does terrible things

00:43:21.320 to their thoughts.

00:43:22.040 I think it kind of

00:43:22.700 destroys imagination.

00:43:24.340 I think it kind of

00:43:25.300 coarsens

00:43:26.920 and erodes

00:43:27.760 our capacity

00:43:28.880 to be playful

00:43:30.100 and lighthearted,

00:43:31.640 actually.

00:43:32.200 And I think,

00:43:32.800 you know,

00:43:33.140 those sort of images

00:43:34.700 are horrific.

00:43:36.760 You know,

00:43:36.900 I think they generate

00:43:37.700 a vision of the world

00:43:38.700 which is,

00:43:39.600 you know,

00:43:40.860 very dangerous,

00:43:41.940 actually.

00:43:42.580 And so I side

00:43:43.320 with the kind of

00:43:44.080 anti-pornography

00:43:44.840 feminism increasingly,

00:43:46.600 you know,

00:43:46.860 and it's,

00:43:47.740 for me,

00:43:48.500 it's complicated

00:43:49.340 because,

00:43:49.780 you know,

00:43:50.080 I also want to defend

00:43:51.540 experimental cinema

00:43:52.660 and freedom of expression

00:43:53.940 and,

00:43:54.580 you know,

00:43:55.440 but I think we have to

00:43:57.000 look at the material reality

00:43:58.040 and if it turns out,

00:43:59.400 which I think it does,

00:44:00.420 that pornography

00:44:00.900 is detrimental

00:44:01.760 to the way

00:44:02.560 in which people

00:44:03.040 behave in the world,

00:44:04.180 particularly men,

00:44:05.340 then we might want

00:44:06.460 to have a question

00:44:07.000 about whether it's great

00:44:07.980 to have such widespread

00:44:09.780 availability of hardcore

00:44:10.860 pornography,

00:44:11.940 particularly for younger

00:44:12.760 people,

00:44:13.820 you know.

00:44:14.380 So that would be

00:44:15.620 one question,

00:44:16.460 you know,

00:44:16.900 the other side of it

00:44:17.860 might be something

00:44:18.400 about how do we

00:44:19.020 change our virtues

00:44:19.880 and our morals

00:44:20.660 and how do we behave

00:44:21.640 in a more civilised way

00:44:23.240 such that maybe

00:44:25.400 we do go backwards

00:44:27.320 in a certain sense,

00:44:28.380 like towards traditions

00:44:29.420 or modes of social interaction

00:44:32.540 that are more formalised,

00:44:34.040 you know,

00:44:34.660 so that we don't end up

00:44:35.780 having like a million hookups

00:44:38.380 that are meaningless

00:44:39.420 or something like this,

00:44:40.940 you know.

00:44:41.500 Is that really what

00:44:42.500 the end game of liberalism is,

00:44:44.000 like the freedom

00:44:44.780 to treat everyone

00:44:45.680 like a commodity,

00:44:47.000 you know,

00:44:47.240 I mean this is like

00:44:47.860 really disturbing,

00:44:49.260 you know,

00:44:49.560 and that way we destroy

00:44:50.640 everything that's like

00:44:51.700 specific about ourselves,

00:44:53.700 you know,

00:44:54.040 and we are these like,

00:44:55.740 you know,

00:44:56.480 I don't know,

00:44:57.060 beautiful individual people,

00:44:59.420 you know,

00:44:59.660 but by treating everyone

00:45:00.500 the same,

00:45:01.020 by treating them

00:45:01.600 as someone to consume,

00:45:03.040 we kind of destroy

00:45:03.860 that specialness.

00:45:05.520 Yeah,

00:45:05.960 I see what you're saying

00:45:06.520 but come back to my point

00:45:07.640 about safety on the street

00:45:08.860 because I do think,

00:45:10.080 like,

00:45:10.860 the reason I'm bringing it up

00:45:12.320 is I know it's super controversial

00:45:13.580 and I'm interested

00:45:14.460 in super controversial things

00:45:15.740 and I was just putting

00:45:16.480 an argument here

00:45:17.140 but to maybe give you

00:45:18.360 a better example,

00:45:20.060 Sophie,

00:45:20.660 our video editor

00:45:21.400 who works with us,

00:45:22.640 you know,

00:45:22.820 she used to come to

00:45:23.820 our previous studio

00:45:25.220 which was not in a nice area

00:45:26.740 and every time

00:45:27.820 she stayed late

00:45:28.580 we'd either get her a taxi

00:45:29.920 which we wouldn't do

00:45:30.960 for a guy

00:45:31.480 or one or several of us

00:45:33.500 would walk to the tube station

00:45:35.140 and she always really appreciated

00:45:36.980 both of those things

00:45:37.840 but there's also an argument

00:45:39.640 which is sometimes being made

00:45:41.400 when these conversations

00:45:42.260 are brought up

00:45:42.920 which is like,

00:45:44.020 well,

00:45:44.220 a woman shouldn't have

00:45:45.060 to be protected

00:45:45.860 or a woman shouldn't have

00:45:47.800 to take a taxi

00:45:48.660 and no,

00:45:49.540 in principle I agree,

00:45:50.960 I just don't know

00:45:51.840 given the sex differences

00:45:53.580 and male violence

00:45:54.800 and all of that

00:45:55.380 that we've talked about

00:45:56.260 that you're ever going

00:45:57.340 to get to a place

00:45:58.080 where I would teach my daughter

00:45:59.520 oh,

00:46:00.840 you can just walk around

00:46:01.740 any time,

00:46:02.300 you'd be fine.

00:46:03.060 There's no fucking way

00:46:03.920 I'm teaching my daughter that.

00:46:05.160 Yeah,

00:46:05.400 no,

00:46:05.580 no.

00:46:05.700 Because that's irresponsible parenting

00:46:07.040 if you ask me,

00:46:07.860 right?

00:46:08.500 Now,

00:46:09.140 some of the feminist movement

00:46:10.220 would say,

00:46:10.780 well,

00:46:10.860 that's accepting

00:46:11.620 the blah,

00:46:12.420 blah,

00:46:12.560 blah.

00:46:12.780 Well,

00:46:13.100 yeah,

00:46:13.380 I am accepting the reality.

00:46:14.580 I don't want my daughter

00:46:15.300 to put herself in positions

00:46:16.500 where she's going to be assaulted.

00:46:18.880 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:46:19.480 Yeah,

00:46:19.680 no,

00:46:19.920 absolutely.

00:46:20.400 I mean,

00:46:20.620 you know,

00:46:20.880 from a realistic,

00:46:22.780 reasonable standpoint,

00:46:23.880 yeah,

00:46:24.100 I mean,

00:46:24.280 this is how we behave,

00:46:25.340 right?

00:46:25.660 You know,

00:46:25.960 we look after people,

00:46:27.700 particularly women,

00:46:29.160 you know,

00:46:29.760 like women are free

00:46:31.140 to go and get drunk

00:46:32.180 and get high,

00:46:33.180 right?

00:46:33.340 You would look after somebody

00:46:34.640 who is in that state.

00:46:35.600 You might look after a woman

00:46:36.660 more than you might look after a man,

00:46:38.720 right?

00:46:39.360 There are differences.

00:46:40.160 There are physical differences.

00:46:41.500 There are differences

00:46:41.980 in levels of desire.

00:46:43.800 Some men are not going to

00:46:45.860 adhere to the social rules.

00:46:47.940 I agree with you.

00:46:48.760 I think in this world,

00:46:50.540 as it currently exists,

00:46:51.820 it makes sense to protect women

00:46:53.560 more in certain situations.

00:46:55.760 But Nina,

00:46:56.080 don't you think that it's always

00:46:57.740 going to be like that?

00:46:58.580 That's what I mean.

00:46:59.360 There's always going to be

00:47:00.860 that percentage

00:47:01.800 of awful people,

00:47:04.240 of awful men.

00:47:05.880 There's always going to be abusers.

00:47:07.340 There's always going to be rapists.

00:47:09.160 Unfortunately.

00:47:09.720 All right,

00:47:09.860 man,

00:47:10.020 you're advocating very hard

00:47:11.180 on their behalf here.

00:47:12.700 The accent doesn't help,

00:47:14.040 I realise that.

00:47:15.960 And that's unfortunately

00:47:18.500 going to be a constant

00:47:19.340 through society.

00:47:20.160 These crimes have always

00:47:20.960 just as like,

00:47:21.760 there's always going to be murderers.

00:47:23.680 So these crimes

00:47:24.760 have always existed

00:47:25.780 and they will always

00:47:26.520 continue to exist

00:47:27.520 as far as humanity goes.

00:47:28.920 Well,

00:47:29.100 how do you think men

00:47:29.940 should deal with that question?

00:47:33.020 With what question specifically?

00:47:34.980 Well,

00:47:35.300 with this kind of

00:47:36.220 inevitability

00:47:36.860 of male violence.

00:47:38.360 Of the inevitability

00:47:39.820 of male violence,

00:47:40.740 it's by men

00:47:41.480 protecting women.

00:47:42.380 Right.

00:47:42.620 So they ensure

00:47:43.880 that they're not

00:47:44.660 walking around.

00:47:46.080 So for instance,

00:47:47.000 you know,

00:47:47.320 You've ended that sentence

00:47:48.860 on a very bad note.

00:47:49.900 Yeah,

00:47:50.100 yeah.

00:47:50.580 To ensure they're not

00:47:51.280 walking around.

00:47:52.040 You know what I mean?

00:47:52.720 Just stay home

00:47:53.240 where you belong.

00:47:53.800 Making sure they stay,

00:47:54.940 no.

00:47:55.680 To make sure

00:47:56.500 that they're not

00:47:57.080 walking around

00:47:57.860 at night,

00:47:59.100 you know,

00:47:59.520 two o'clock in the morning

00:48:00.580 to ensure that

00:48:01.680 if you're in a dodgy area

00:48:02.780 that they're going to

00:48:03.420 be taking a cab,

00:48:04.400 et cetera,

00:48:04.860 et cetera.

00:48:05.400 A bit of common sense.

00:48:06.580 And whilst

00:48:07.120 the utopian in me

00:48:08.580 wants to get to that point,

00:48:11.480 there's a realist in me

00:48:12.460 that goes,

00:48:13.080 these crimes have

00:48:13.680 always existed.

00:48:14.680 They will always

00:48:15.180 continue to exist.

00:48:16.380 We have to protect women

00:48:17.500 from a very small

00:48:18.280 percentage of men.

00:48:19.360 And also to your earlier point,

00:48:20.760 if I may answer

00:48:21.460 the same question as well

00:48:22.540 about the guy

00:48:24.100 who murdered Sarah Everard

00:48:25.240 and who had a reputation.

00:48:26.960 The problem is

00:48:27.800 I've never been

00:48:28.860 in that position

00:48:29.460 where I thought,

00:48:30.660 oh,

00:48:30.720 this person I'm working with

00:48:31.860 is a massive rapist.

00:48:33.160 You've worked

00:48:33.740 in the comedy industry, mate.

00:48:34.900 That's true.

00:48:35.880 And yeah,

00:48:36.740 good point.

00:48:37.520 I take that back.

00:48:38.600 I've worked in an industry

00:48:39.580 where almost everyone.

00:48:40.880 No.

00:48:40.980 But my point is

00:48:43.240 what are you supposed

00:48:44.560 to do in that situation

00:48:45.780 as a man

00:48:46.360 beyond protecting

00:48:47.360 the women

00:48:47.840 who may in the immediate

00:48:48.940 environment be affected

00:48:50.460 and going,

00:48:51.060 look,

00:48:51.300 stay away from this guy

00:48:52.320 or,

00:48:52.800 you know,

00:48:53.480 keeping him away

00:48:54.440 from them

00:48:54.960 or whatever.

00:48:55.620 But beyond that,

00:48:56.960 what is a man

00:48:57.500 supposed to do?

00:48:58.580 You can't report someone

00:48:59.820 because you think

00:49:00.640 they might be a bit dodgy

00:49:02.020 and we don't live

00:49:03.400 in that society, right?

00:49:04.700 Yet.

00:49:05.400 Yeah.

00:49:06.460 Like,

00:49:06.980 what are you,

00:49:07.820 do you see what I'm saying?

00:49:08.400 I don't think

00:49:09.380 every problem in life

00:49:10.320 is solvable

00:49:10.900 in that way.

00:49:12.440 No.

00:49:13.000 I mean,

00:49:13.280 again,

00:49:13.780 I think it's really

00:49:14.740 like a very complicated

00:49:16.120 question.

00:49:16.940 And I,

00:49:17.580 you know,

00:49:17.860 I'm not here to say

00:49:18.860 how men should

00:49:19.980 deal with other men.

00:49:21.280 I just think

00:49:21.820 that they should

00:49:22.260 think about it.

00:49:23.180 Yeah.

00:49:23.580 You know,

00:49:23.920 and work it out.

00:49:24.920 You know,

00:49:25.280 I think there might be

00:49:26.220 forms of male violence

00:49:28.280 that might be necessary

00:49:29.200 actually between men,

00:49:31.120 you know.

00:49:32.720 Absolutely.

00:49:33.380 Or something like this.

00:49:34.160 Or the threat of it.

00:49:35.160 The threat of it.

00:49:35.780 Yeah.

00:49:36.300 I've always said this,

00:49:37.340 the threat of violence

00:49:38.200 is a really important

00:49:39.540 behaviour modulator

00:49:40.620 for men.

00:49:41.620 The fact that

00:49:42.140 if I behave

00:49:42.860 in a certain way

00:49:43.480 I'm going to get

00:49:43.880 punched in the face

00:49:44.580 really affects

00:49:45.560 how I behave.

00:49:46.740 Right.

00:49:47.760 So,

00:49:48.560 you know,

00:49:49.000 it's,

00:49:49.320 I think it's

00:49:50.160 not up to women

00:49:51.300 and I,

00:49:52.460 you know,

00:49:53.420 I agree.

00:49:54.960 It would be lovely

00:49:55.420 to live in a utopian world

00:49:56.700 in which we didn't have

00:49:57.380 to worry about these things.

00:49:58.560 I think it is

00:49:59.300 always potentially a problem.

00:50:01.500 The trick would be

00:50:02.620 to minimise it

00:50:03.440 to kind of,

00:50:04.160 yeah,

00:50:04.320 I mean,

00:50:04.740 I think we have to be realistic.

00:50:06.540 I don't know

00:50:07.220 if my book

00:50:07.820 is tough enough

00:50:08.680 on men

00:50:09.060 in some ways,

00:50:09.760 right?

00:50:09.960 I think

00:50:10.320 the darkness

00:50:11.280 of some aspects

00:50:12.740 of male desire

00:50:13.520 is something

00:50:15.060 that maybe men

00:50:16.240 need to talk about

00:50:17.140 more,

00:50:17.820 you know?

00:50:18.300 Like,

00:50:18.800 what is it like

00:50:19.920 to be part of a class

00:50:21.300 that has these members

00:50:23.060 in it

00:50:23.640 for you,

00:50:24.320 you know?

00:50:24.980 I mean,

00:50:25.880 can you put yourself

00:50:26.860 in the mindset

00:50:27.440 of a rapist

00:50:28.320 or a murderer?

00:50:28.860 No,

00:50:30.820 because

00:50:31.300 we interviewed

00:50:33.980 Lil' Gittos

00:50:34.760 who is a lawyer

00:50:36.280 who deals

00:50:36.840 with a lot

00:50:37.340 of these particular crimes

00:50:40.520 and he says

00:50:41.100 that actually

00:50:41.620 he made the point

00:50:42.180 that rape

00:50:42.620 isn't about sex,

00:50:44.540 it's about violence,

00:50:45.540 it's about control.

00:50:47.140 So no,

00:50:47.840 I could never do that

00:50:49.460 but I

00:50:49.920 unfortunately

00:50:51.400 acknowledge

00:50:53.280 that these men

00:50:54.160 do exist

00:50:55.000 and that is

00:50:56.260 a darkness

00:50:56.940 to a male sexuality.

00:50:59.380 But I don't see myself

00:51:00.280 as part of a class,

00:51:01.300 Nina,

00:51:01.500 this is the thing,

00:51:02.200 it's like,

00:51:02.560 I don't think

00:51:03.180 that just because

00:51:04.060 someone has a penis

00:51:04.920 and I have a penis

00:51:05.740 we're like the same thing.

00:51:07.720 I treat people

00:51:08.800 based on

00:51:09.340 what they think

00:51:10.160 and how they behave

00:51:10.980 and there are women

00:51:12.380 and men

00:51:12.960 who are like that

00:51:14.360 and there's also women

00:51:15.160 and men

00:51:15.520 who I just think

00:51:16.180 are completely

00:51:16.760 alien to me.

00:51:18.600 So I don't see myself

00:51:19.500 as part of the same class.

00:51:21.240 But a class

00:51:21.960 has differences

00:51:22.560 within it,

00:51:23.260 right?

00:51:23.800 I mean,

00:51:24.200 if we want to say

00:51:24.920 that sex is real,

00:51:25.900 sex exists,

00:51:27.100 you know,

00:51:27.360 there are men

00:51:27.880 and there are women,

00:51:28.580 right?

00:51:29.200 Yeah.

00:51:29.440 And okay,

00:51:30.480 to the degree

00:51:31.160 in which you identify

00:51:32.140 with that class

00:51:33.160 is kind of up to you.

00:51:34.480 Yeah.

00:51:34.940 But you are a man.

00:51:36.260 Yeah.

00:51:37.000 Thank you.

00:51:39.080 Last time I checked.

00:51:40.720 No,

00:51:41.320 I am a man

00:51:41.940 but why does,

00:51:43.140 what I don't understand

00:51:44.240 about that way of thinking

00:51:45.140 is why does

00:51:46.560 the behaviour

00:51:47.280 of a tiny minority

00:51:48.500 of men

00:51:49.020 who are different

00:51:49.660 to me in every way

00:51:50.860 reflect on me?

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00:52:22.020 Well,

00:52:26.280 I mean,

00:52:26.960 if we all...

00:52:27.420 Like there are women

00:52:27.920 who behave in ways

00:52:29.060 that you would disagree

00:52:30.440 with completely,

00:52:31.520 think are abhorrent

00:52:32.420 and you criticise openly.

00:52:35.460 Is their behaviour

00:52:36.600 reflective on you

00:52:37.860 because you're both women?

00:52:39.320 No,

00:52:39.680 but I think there is a way

00:52:41.000 in which,

00:52:41.880 I don't know,

00:52:42.400 maybe this is part

00:52:43.880 of sexual difference.

00:52:44.960 Maybe women do identify

00:52:46.680 with other women actually

00:52:47.780 in ways that men

00:52:48.640 don't identify

00:52:49.380 with other men.

00:52:50.120 I think that's probably true.

00:52:50.860 And I think it's probably

00:52:51.440 not just because

00:52:52.920 women are often treated

00:52:54.000 as a class

00:52:54.600 and women are treated

00:52:55.260 as examples

00:52:55.940 of their class,

00:52:56.880 right?

00:52:57.400 I mean,

00:52:57.620 this is de Beauvoir's point

00:52:58.460 in the second sex,

00:52:59.380 you know,

00:52:59.620 women are in a way

00:53:00.720 more often treated

00:53:02.100 as members of a sex

00:53:03.400 in relation to men

00:53:04.660 and in relation

00:53:06.700 to each other.

00:53:07.380 Whereas men,

00:53:08.280 in a way,

00:53:08.600 get to be individuals

00:53:09.400 first and foremost.

00:53:09.980 So you can say,

00:53:11.200 I don't relate to these men.

00:53:12.560 I can't understand

00:53:13.360 these men

00:53:13.760 who do these terrible things.

00:53:14.780 I nevertheless admit

00:53:15.760 that they exist

00:53:16.400 and they'll never go away

00:53:17.640 or,

00:53:17.980 you know.

00:53:19.220 So I don't know.

00:53:20.040 I mean,

00:53:20.140 this is maybe the provocation.

00:53:21.460 It's like,

00:53:22.240 as an imaginative exercise,

00:53:24.280 you know,

00:53:24.600 to think about

00:53:25.600 what it is

00:53:26.140 to be a member

00:53:26.660 of a class

00:53:27.240 with people

00:53:28.240 who do things

00:53:29.900 that you find

00:53:30.640 absolutely abhorrent

00:53:31.500 and can't...

00:53:32.580 But to me,

00:53:33.100 their behaviour rules out

00:53:34.220 their membership

00:53:34.760 of my tribe.

00:53:36.260 So they're not men?

00:53:37.280 No,

00:53:37.920 because my tribe

00:53:39.320 is not men.

00:53:40.380 My tribe is people

00:53:41.320 who behave

00:53:41.820 and think

00:53:42.260 in particular ways

00:53:43.260 and a lot

00:53:44.700 of them

00:53:44.980 will be men.

00:53:46.140 But I'm not,

00:53:47.360 I'm not,

00:53:48.440 I'm,

00:53:49.100 the difference

00:53:49.660 between me

00:53:50.480 and you

00:53:51.640 is far smaller

00:53:53.260 than the difference

00:53:53.960 between me

00:53:54.480 and Ian Hundley.

00:53:57.080 Far smaller.

00:53:58.360 The difference

00:53:59.160 between you and I.

00:54:00.320 Far smaller.

00:54:00.780 I can imagine

00:54:02.000 some of the ways

00:54:03.200 of being

00:54:03.960 the way that you are.

00:54:04.860 I can't imagine

00:54:05.600 being Ian Hundley.

00:54:07.000 So that's,

00:54:07.820 that's why I'm saying

00:54:08.880 what I'm saying.

00:54:09.580 Sure.

00:54:10.540 Do you see what,

00:54:11.580 so to me,

00:54:12.580 the maleness

00:54:13.280 of that situation

00:54:14.240 is completely,

00:54:14.920 to me,

00:54:15.380 they're a class

00:54:15.980 of their own,

00:54:17.280 people who behave

00:54:18.020 in that way.

00:54:18.860 And 99.999%

00:54:21.500 of men

00:54:21.880 that I know

00:54:22.420 would never

00:54:23.160 in a million years

00:54:24.200 behave in that way

00:54:25.200 or even contemplate it.

00:54:26.420 Yeah,

00:54:26.680 exactly.

00:54:27.180 And I think

00:54:27.520 we have to like

00:54:28.140 be very,

00:54:28.900 make this point.

00:54:30.780 most men

00:54:31.460 don't do

00:54:32.180 these terrible things,

00:54:33.200 right?

00:54:33.380 This is why

00:54:33.940 it's stupid

00:54:34.700 to generalize about men

00:54:35.800 and say that all

00:54:36.400 masculinity is evil

00:54:37.240 and so on,

00:54:37.700 right?

00:54:37.940 But you asked about

00:54:38.600 how do I feel

00:54:39.380 being part of that class?

00:54:40.460 That's what I'm answering.

00:54:40.980 No, no, no,

00:54:41.480 absolutely.

00:54:42.200 So I think,

00:54:43.080 you know,

00:54:43.500 it's,

00:54:44.500 it's really,

00:54:45.700 I don't know,

00:54:46.280 maybe it's a kind of

00:54:46.980 deeper question

00:54:47.500 about the problem of evil,

00:54:48.680 but you need to see

00:54:50.380 more theologians

00:54:51.260 on your show.

00:54:52.300 But, so,

00:54:53.520 yeah,

00:54:53.840 I mean,

00:54:54.240 evil is ineradicable.

00:54:55.880 You know,

00:54:56.100 we live in a fallen world,

00:54:57.560 you know,

00:54:58.400 Satan is the prince

00:55:00.400 of this world.

00:55:01.820 You know,

00:55:02.440 we do live in that way

00:55:03.840 and I,

00:55:04.300 so,

00:55:04.820 okay,

00:55:05.140 another preventative

00:55:06.300 way of thinking about it

00:55:07.160 might be

00:55:07.660 how do we stop

00:55:09.060 these small number

00:55:09.940 of men

00:55:10.380 thinking that it's okay

00:55:11.720 to behave in this way

00:55:13.080 or to treat women

00:55:13.760 in this way,

00:55:14.440 right?

00:55:16.360 You know,

00:55:16.920 is it that they

00:55:17.500 disrespect women?

00:55:19.040 Is it that they were taught

00:55:19.940 not to,

00:55:20.620 to kind of

00:55:21.440 treat people

00:55:23.160 in a certain way?

00:55:23.980 Like,

00:55:24.160 what's going on with that?

00:55:25.000 Like,

00:55:25.300 why,

00:55:26.360 I don't know,

00:55:26.940 how is it possible

00:55:27.640 for them to even

00:55:28.360 be in this position

00:55:29.280 that they think

00:55:30.020 it's okay

00:55:30.560 to behave in this way,

00:55:31.700 right?

00:55:32.620 Do you not think

00:55:33.420 that that is

00:55:34.600 a brain thing?

00:55:36.600 Like,

00:55:36.900 these people are

00:55:37.540 sociopathic,

00:55:38.280 their brain works

00:55:38.880 differently?

00:55:39.860 Um,

00:55:40.660 maybe.

00:55:40.920 Because of childhood trauma,

00:55:42.420 because of genetics

00:55:43.180 potentially,

00:55:44.260 because all of us

00:55:45.340 carry rapist DNA

00:55:46.440 in us,

00:55:46.800 by the way,

00:55:47.280 right?

00:55:47.700 Every single human

00:55:48.600 being on earth.

00:55:49.740 So,

00:55:50.520 some,

00:55:51.040 I mean,

00:55:51.420 I'm not saying

00:55:52.000 every single person

00:55:52.780 who's ever committed

00:55:53.460 sexual violence

00:55:54.480 is like that.

00:55:56.040 But a lot of the people,

00:55:57.200 particularly with the

00:55:57.740 more heinous stuff,

00:55:58.580 I think,

00:55:59.520 uh,

00:56:00.320 I just think

00:56:01.020 their brain works

00:56:01.580 differently.

00:56:02.020 And there's been

00:56:02.480 a lot of evidence,

00:56:03.100 like,

00:56:03.400 if you look at

00:56:03.920 psychopaths in prison,

00:56:04.920 there's been a lot

00:56:05.400 of studies that show

00:56:06.280 they don't respond

00:56:07.840 to the same incentive

00:56:08.860 structures as,

00:56:09.680 as quote-unquote

00:56:10.800 normal people.

00:56:12.060 So,

00:56:13.080 the reason that

00:56:13.880 they do what they do

00:56:15.160 is they feel entitled

00:56:16.400 to have what they

00:56:17.220 want to have

00:56:17.720 and they don't care

00:56:18.740 about other people.

00:56:19.560 That is the definition

00:56:20.640 of sociopathy.

00:56:21.660 Yeah.

00:56:22.000 Right?

00:56:22.540 So,

00:56:23.400 this is what I find

00:56:24.580 so incredibly,

00:56:25.960 I was going to say

00:56:26.780 offensive,

00:56:27.500 just stupid

00:56:28.800 about the narrative

00:56:30.320 about this issue.

00:56:31.420 It's like,

00:56:31.860 you're not going to

00:56:32.680 educate these people

00:56:33.700 to respect women.

00:56:35.440 This is not an issue

00:56:36.600 of respect for women.

00:56:37.600 These people don't

00:56:38.300 give a shit about

00:56:38.940 any other human being

00:56:40.020 on earth.

00:56:40.540 They care about

00:56:41.480 fulfilling their desires.

00:56:43.100 Right?

00:56:43.680 And it is every man's

00:56:44.720 desire to have sex

00:56:45.580 with a woman.

00:56:46.420 Right?

00:56:46.800 So,

00:56:47.060 they're going to do it.

00:56:48.820 That's it.

00:56:49.520 And so,

00:56:50.240 I don't think you're,

00:56:51.140 it's not an

00:56:51.620 educational issue.

00:56:52.920 No.

00:56:53.300 Okay.

00:56:53.680 But let's say

00:56:54.580 those people

00:56:55.000 who aren't sociopaths,

00:56:56.060 right?

00:56:56.700 There's a range

00:56:57.440 of behavior

00:56:57.900 and a lot of the stuff

00:56:58.840 we're talking about

00:56:59.400 actually is gray area stuff.

00:57:01.120 Right.

00:57:01.440 You know,

00:57:01.720 when people make a mistake

00:57:02.780 or they overstep a mark.

00:57:04.500 I mean,

00:57:04.760 a lot of things

00:57:06.100 that are often treated

00:57:07.500 as very distinctive

00:57:08.820 forms of behavior

00:57:10.720 are actually much

00:57:11.460 more complicated.

00:57:12.120 people are making a mistake

00:57:14.580 or being drunk

00:57:15.480 and behaving inappropriately

00:57:16.620 as we all have

00:57:17.340 at some point.

00:57:18.640 Let's be clear.

00:57:19.900 So,

00:57:20.200 when we're talking

00:57:20.640 about sociopathy,

00:57:22.120 I think,

00:57:22.780 right,

00:57:23.100 it's extremely difficult.

00:57:25.420 How do we treat people

00:57:26.820 who in some ways

00:57:27.840 we don't regard as human

00:57:28.920 in a way that doesn't

00:57:30.300 itself fall into

00:57:31.100 the trap of inhumanity?

00:57:32.780 Right?

00:57:33.160 Because it's kind of

00:57:35.180 almost unanswerable.

00:57:36.820 You know,

00:57:37.420 you could basically say,

00:57:39.020 let's try and identify

00:57:40.300 who these sociopaths are

00:57:41.600 before they do

00:57:42.900 sociopathic things.

00:57:44.400 I've seen that

00:57:44.900 with Minority Airport.

00:57:45.880 It's a good movie.

00:57:46.220 Right.

00:57:47.440 It might be possible.

00:57:48.860 You know,

00:57:49.740 pre-crime.

00:57:52.080 You know,

00:57:52.480 I think,

00:57:53.300 you know,

00:57:54.080 we need to talk about Kevin.

00:57:55.180 The Lionel Shriver book

00:57:56.260 is sort of about this.

00:57:57.640 It's like,

00:57:57.980 you know,

00:57:58.300 there are ways

00:57:59.780 that I'm sure people

00:58:00.440 are working on.

00:58:01.320 You know,

00:58:01.780 how do you identify?

00:58:03.020 It seems like sociopaths

00:58:04.660 often have a trajectory

00:58:06.080 like when they're children

00:58:07.280 they kill animals

00:58:08.020 or whatever.

00:58:08.480 So, you know,

00:58:08.920 I don't know enough about it.

00:58:10.600 But it's,

00:58:11.900 you know,

00:58:12.220 what if there was a way

00:58:13.140 of saying,

00:58:13.600 look,

00:58:13.740 there's something

00:58:14.540 sort of wrong

00:58:15.520 from the standpoint

00:58:16.200 of our,

00:58:16.820 you know,

00:58:17.220 normal empathetic humanity

00:58:18.840 with these people.

00:58:20.280 We shouldn't treat them

00:58:21.380 inhumanely,

00:58:22.400 but maybe there's a way

00:58:23.560 of dealing with this

00:58:24.320 question,

00:58:25.180 you know.

00:58:25.420 And we know,

00:58:26.040 for example,

00:58:26.460 that it seems like

00:58:27.480 some sociopathy

00:58:28.960 is quite useful.

00:58:29.920 Like if you're a brain surgeon

00:58:31.000 or a pilot

00:58:31.540 and you need not

00:58:32.940 to have adrenaline,

00:58:33.800 you need not to be squeamish,

00:58:35.620 you know,

00:58:36.420 you don't want someone

00:58:37.800 freaking out.

00:58:38.480 In those situations,

00:58:39.380 right?

00:58:39.660 Right.

00:58:40.180 Or empathizing with the brain

00:58:41.480 in front of them.

00:58:43.000 So,

00:58:43.580 and,

00:58:43.940 you know,

00:58:44.100 you might say,

00:58:44.700 well,

00:58:44.820 lots of our leaders

00:58:45.580 are sociopathic.

00:58:46.820 They behave in ways

00:58:47.620 that are completely

00:58:48.320 inhumane.

00:58:50.200 And look how great

00:58:51.400 everything is.

00:58:51.960 Right,

00:58:52.860 exactly.

00:58:53.420 So,

00:58:53.660 I mean,

00:58:54.060 again,

00:58:54.800 collectively,

00:58:57.380 you know,

00:58:57.800 it's because we live

00:58:58.780 in such a fragmented,

00:58:59.760 atomized way.

00:59:00.520 If we,

00:59:00.740 you know,

00:59:01.020 it's the same with the women

00:59:01.820 walking home at night.

00:59:02.660 If you live somewhere

00:59:03.360 where you knew everybody

00:59:04.340 and everybody's safety

00:59:05.740 was part of a kind

00:59:06.680 of common project

00:59:07.480 or everyone was looking

00:59:08.300 out for each other

00:59:08.920 and you knew who everyone was,

00:59:10.060 it would be a different story.

00:59:12.280 You know,

00:59:12.580 you might be able

00:59:13.140 to identify

00:59:13.800 the person who is like

00:59:15.560 potentially dangerous

00:59:16.500 and deal with it

00:59:17.840 or,

00:59:18.440 you know,

00:59:18.640 I don't know,

00:59:19.080 the village elders

00:59:19.760 might be able to sort of

00:59:20.620 say you're behaving terribly

00:59:22.340 or I don't know.

00:59:23.880 Like,

00:59:24.240 okay,

00:59:24.480 that's naive.

00:59:25.560 But there are different ways

00:59:26.960 of imagining a social life

00:59:28.500 which would minimize harm

00:59:30.040 but also not end up

00:59:31.360 in this kind of like

00:59:32.240 pathological pod world

00:59:33.820 where everyone is just

00:59:34.660 on their internet

00:59:35.260 because they're scared

00:59:36.160 of going outside

00:59:36.840 which is what's been encouraged

00:59:37.980 in the last two years.

00:59:39.380 You know,

00:59:39.560 so there is a kind of,

00:59:40.820 like,

00:59:41.060 to be alive is to risk.

00:59:43.040 Right.

00:59:43.220 You know,

00:59:43.600 it's,

00:59:45.080 life doesn't really mean anything

00:59:46.300 if it's just safety

00:59:47.580 and comfort,

00:59:48.700 you know,

00:59:48.980 and you never take any

00:59:50.040 risks at all.

00:59:51.860 Like,

00:59:52.060 that's just not living.

00:59:53.440 And that's what incels do.

00:59:55.240 That's what a lot of men

00:59:56.300 are doing

00:59:56.700 and it's such a profound point

00:59:58.620 because they're retreating.

01:00:00.780 They retreat into the world

01:00:02.420 of internet,

01:00:03.960 you know,

01:00:04.260 forums or whatever else

01:00:05.360 or video games.

01:00:07.080 What is a video game

01:00:08.500 but a chance for you

01:00:09.620 to be able to achieve?

01:00:11.740 And that must be

01:00:12.600 so tempting for,

01:00:14.400 you know,

01:00:14.960 a young man

01:00:15.800 who doesn't feel

01:00:16.560 that he has opportunities

01:00:17.960 open to him

01:00:18.900 for whatever reason.

01:00:20.180 He can go into this

01:00:21.200 make-believe world

01:00:21.940 and become something.

01:00:22.960 It's also a very linear

01:00:24.020 reward structure as well

01:00:25.200 which makes video games.

01:00:26.340 Like,

01:00:26.520 I play video games

01:00:27.300 and enjoy them.

01:00:28.120 The thing with a video game

01:00:29.380 that's very different to life

01:00:30.500 is in a video game,

01:00:32.040 if you work hard,

01:00:33.240 you will instantly be rewarded.

01:00:34.660 Like,

01:00:34.820 if you do the right things,

01:00:35.660 you'll be rewarded.

01:00:36.620 In life,

01:00:37.500 you might have,

01:00:38.080 you will be rewarded

01:00:39.020 but maybe 20 years from now

01:00:40.320 if you do the right thing

01:00:41.740 and you might even be

01:00:42.600 initially punished quite badly

01:00:43.820 as you found

01:00:45.460 in your own experience.

01:00:46.660 So that's the difference as well.

01:00:47.980 I mean,

01:00:48.340 yeah,

01:00:48.640 I mean,

01:00:48.860 these are bigger questions

01:00:49.780 about the relationship

01:00:50.560 between the real

01:00:51.180 and the virtual

01:00:51.720 and the kind of world

01:00:53.280 we're heading towards,

01:00:54.080 right?

01:00:54.680 I mean,

01:00:54.940 my book is very critical

01:00:56.400 of technology.

01:00:57.380 It hates it,

01:00:58.260 you know?

01:00:58.520 It's basically like

01:00:59.040 we need to be together,

01:00:59.940 we need to have real experiences,

01:01:01.280 real life.

01:01:02.080 You know,

01:01:02.460 there's a horrible image

01:01:03.580 of the world

01:01:03.960 which says,

01:01:04.900 you know,

01:01:05.380 in the near future

01:01:06.140 only the elites

01:01:06.940 will be able to have

01:01:07.740 real experiences,

01:01:08.740 real sex,

01:01:09.420 real food,

01:01:10.120 real encounters,

01:01:11.080 real conversations

01:01:11.800 and everyone else

01:01:12.520 will be like

01:01:13.060 fucking,

01:01:14.080 you know,

01:01:14.480 wired up to

01:01:15.620 these sorts of things,

01:01:17.360 right?

01:01:18.240 And this is terrible,

01:01:19.160 right?

01:01:19.360 We need to break

01:01:19.960 with this thing

01:01:21.260 that's coming,

01:01:22.200 you know?

01:01:22.480 And that will involve

01:01:23.440 men and women

01:01:23.900 talking to each other

01:01:24.760 and, you know,

01:01:25.400 being in risky situations.

01:01:26.500 I mean,

01:01:26.660 even the dating stuff,

01:01:27.660 it's like the idea

01:01:28.660 that you can get the algorithm

01:01:29.600 to choose your date for you

01:01:31.100 rather than have a conversation

01:01:32.400 with a stranger in a bar.

01:01:33.800 Like the idea

01:01:34.480 of a man going up

01:01:35.100 to a woman now

01:01:35.660 is like in work

01:01:36.960 or in a bar

01:01:37.520 is like really frowned upon,

01:01:39.900 you know?

01:01:40.120 But that was the reality.

01:01:41.120 Like when I was growing up,

01:01:42.280 you'd just go to the pub

01:01:43.060 and get drunk

01:01:43.560 and get off with someone.

01:01:44.880 You know,

01:01:45.540 you wouldn't like

01:01:46.140 check out their feelings

01:01:47.500 about the death penalty.

01:01:51.540 Yeah,

01:01:52.080 and it's also as well,

01:01:53.520 you see these hashtags

01:01:54.460 like never date a Tory.

01:01:56.700 Right.

01:01:57.240 And you just go,

01:01:58.500 what,

01:01:58.600 you don't want to talk

01:01:59.920 to people who are

01:02:00.620 different to you.

01:02:01.700 Exactly.

01:02:02.420 But no one does anymore,

01:02:03.400 right?

01:02:03.940 But that's where

01:02:04.540 the magic happens.

01:02:06.160 To go,

01:02:06.560 I think you're wrong,

01:02:07.320 what happened to a bit

01:02:07.880 of sexual tension?

01:02:08.740 I didn't know you felt

01:02:09.420 that way about me, mate.

01:02:11.120 No, I mean,

01:02:14.280 yeah, totally, totally.

01:02:15.580 I mean,

01:02:16.140 like I don't want things

01:02:17.200 to be mediated in this way.

01:02:18.940 So how do we get

01:02:19.660 to the sunny uplands, Nina?

01:02:20.880 This is what I want

01:02:21.420 to hear from you.

01:02:22.160 How do we heal all this?

01:02:24.200 Because one of the points

01:02:25.120 you made actually,

01:02:25.880 I totally agree with,

01:02:27.060 like my wife has like

01:02:28.800 a card she can pull out

01:02:30.420 at any time.

01:02:31.020 If she says,

01:02:31.800 my intuition tells me

01:02:33.240 that we shouldn't do this,

01:02:34.300 like it doesn't matter

01:02:34.900 what it is,

01:02:35.500 I'll just go,

01:02:37.120 cool.

01:02:37.880 And I'll accept her

01:02:38.840 with that argument

01:02:39.320 because she's been proven right

01:02:40.760 on a hell of a lot of stuff

01:02:41.720 in the past.

01:02:42.940 So intuition,

01:02:44.340 I think,

01:02:44.600 is a huge part of this,

01:02:45.820 actually.

01:02:46.200 And intuitively,

01:02:46.980 men and women

01:02:47.520 know a lot more

01:02:48.520 about the right way

01:02:49.640 to behave with each other

01:02:50.720 than what we're being told

01:02:52.540 by society or whatever

01:02:54.300 right now.

01:02:54.840 Do you know what I mean?

01:02:55.380 So that's part of it.

01:02:56.120 What else?

01:02:56.460 How do we get to this

01:02:57.280 beautiful place in the future?

01:02:58.780 I don't know.

01:02:59.500 I don't,

01:02:59.820 I mean,

01:03:00.020 my book is optimistic.

01:03:01.160 It's not delusional.

01:03:02.180 There is no like utopia.

01:03:05.360 All right,

01:03:05.580 we're fine.

01:03:07.420 No,

01:03:07.740 but I mean,

01:03:08.300 I think it's all of these

01:03:09.660 more delicate things.

01:03:11.540 You know,

01:03:11.760 it is like playful conversation.

01:03:13.800 It is acknowledging the reality

01:03:15.240 that we do have a whole series

01:03:16.620 of,

01:03:16.940 you know,

01:03:17.600 ambivalent and interesting

01:03:18.580 relationships with each other.

01:03:20.000 We have male and female friends,

01:03:21.500 you know,

01:03:22.380 these are not always

01:03:23.760 over-determined

01:03:24.780 by sex

01:03:26.180 or by,

01:03:26.780 you know,

01:03:27.200 that actually we live

01:03:28.680 in a much more

01:03:29.680 sort of complicated network.

01:03:31.000 You know,

01:03:31.560 if we're lucky to have

01:03:32.460 different social interactions

01:03:33.640 and I think,

01:03:34.740 yeah,

01:03:34.920 to be in a position

01:03:35.660 where those things

01:03:36.640 are real and possible,

01:03:38.460 you know,

01:03:38.700 so that there is more conversation.

01:03:40.080 There isn't this kind of

01:03:41.260 pushing people to the periphery

01:03:43.660 and the outside

01:03:44.400 and saying,

01:03:45.520 you know,

01:03:45.780 oh no,

01:03:46.460 you want a girlfriend.

01:03:47.880 How horrific.

01:03:49.180 Like,

01:03:49.440 you must go and,

01:03:50.280 you know,

01:03:50.580 play your computer games forever.

01:03:52.080 I mean,

01:03:52.280 this is like

01:03:53.020 sort of abnegation

01:03:54.880 of our humanity,

01:03:56.140 you know,

01:03:56.460 or to say to men

01:03:57.680 who are depressed,

01:03:58.540 you know,

01:03:58.920 oh,

01:03:59.720 suck it up.

01:04:00.340 I don't know.

01:04:00.700 Maybe that would work

01:04:01.760 in some cases,

01:04:03.500 right?

01:04:03.740 But looking at the male suicide rates,

01:04:05.400 like something's badly wrong here,

01:04:07.100 right?

01:04:07.280 This should be a matter of concern

01:04:08.400 to all of us.

01:04:09.700 You know,

01:04:09.960 it's not great for women either

01:04:11.400 that men are feeling suicidal,

01:04:14.080 right?

01:04:14.400 It's terrible,

01:04:15.660 you know,

01:04:15.940 and I think this thing

01:04:16.700 about social role,

01:04:18.060 everybody sort of wants

01:04:19.180 to feel recognized.

01:04:20.420 They want to feel

01:04:21.020 a certain belonging.

01:04:22.060 They want to have a kind of

01:04:23.100 mixed and interesting life

01:04:24.720 and it sort of depends

01:04:26.160 on all of us,

01:04:26.800 you know.

01:04:27.660 I think more,

01:04:28.620 more conversation,

01:04:29.600 more listening,

01:04:31.020 I don't know,

01:04:31.800 nice,

01:04:32.800 gentle things.

01:04:33.620 One thing that I find...

01:04:34.840 She is a woman.

01:04:37.140 Nice,

01:04:37.660 gentle things.

01:04:39.420 One of the things

01:04:40.040 that I find

01:04:40.620 particularly worrying

01:04:41.660 and I don't think

01:04:42.280 we talk enough about

01:04:43.160 is when you look

01:04:45.080 at the younger generations,

01:04:46.680 you know,

01:04:46.880 people in their 20s,

01:04:48.900 they're not having sex

01:04:50.200 and that's really worrying.

01:04:52.660 Really,

01:04:53.120 really worrying.

01:04:53.540 Why does it worry you?

01:04:54.700 I mean,

01:04:54.920 I...

01:04:55.480 Yeah,

01:04:55.760 Francis,

01:04:56.100 why does it worry you?

01:04:56.940 It worries me

01:04:57.780 because it shows

01:04:58.500 that the sexes

01:04:59.180 are further apart

01:04:59.960 than ever before.

01:05:00.840 It shows that

01:05:01.540 we're not connecting.

01:05:03.380 But I mean,

01:05:03.940 the kind of sexual revolution

01:05:05.060 is what,

01:05:05.560 like 16 years old now

01:05:07.120 and I mean,

01:05:08.420 that's also a relatively

01:05:10.120 novel way of behaving

01:05:11.300 with each other.

01:05:12.000 I don't necessarily think

01:05:13.040 having hundreds

01:05:13.660 of sexual partners

01:05:14.480 is good for anybody.

01:05:15.980 But then I also

01:05:16.720 don't think it's good

01:05:17.680 for people to be virgins

01:05:18.860 until their 30s,

01:05:19.840 which we're starting

01:05:20.440 to see now.

01:05:22.100 I think it's

01:05:23.040 a very,

01:05:23.720 very complicated question.

01:05:24.760 It's also the question

01:05:25.560 of whether people

01:05:26.160 are going to have children

01:05:26.940 or not,

01:05:27.600 you know,

01:05:27.880 which is also,

01:05:28.600 there's increasingly

01:05:29.400 kind of antenatal narratives.

01:05:31.640 You know,

01:05:32.000 marriage is relatively unpopular.

01:05:34.620 You know,

01:05:34.960 these are kind of,

01:05:35.900 are also things

01:05:37.560 that need to be discussed.

01:05:38.680 I don't know

01:05:40.040 on the sex question.

01:05:41.080 I think,

01:05:42.860 I do think sex

01:05:43.680 is an interesting

01:05:44.520 form of communication.

01:05:45.800 It doesn't have to

01:05:46.520 be with the same person

01:05:47.840 for,

01:05:48.320 you know,

01:05:48.780 forever.

01:05:49.120 But I also think

01:05:50.920 at the other end,

01:05:51.800 this kind of

01:05:52.440 treating people

01:05:53.080 as commodities,

01:05:54.640 you know,

01:05:54.780 there's actually

01:05:55.180 a fear of intimacy

01:05:56.180 at the heart

01:05:56.840 of lots of

01:05:58.000 random sex,

01:05:59.480 you know,

01:05:59.740 that actually

01:06:00.220 what's not happening

01:06:01.100 there is a kind

01:06:01.840 of real relation

01:06:02.900 with somebody else

01:06:03.780 in their uniqueness,

01:06:05.840 you know,

01:06:06.160 that actually sex

01:06:07.300 just becomes

01:06:07.880 something like

01:06:08.360 a deliveroo,

01:06:09.200 you know.

01:06:09.840 So my friend

01:06:10.600 had an,

01:06:12.020 his phone asked

01:06:13.600 if he wanted

01:06:14.060 to link up

01:06:14.620 Grindr

01:06:15.100 to Deliveroo.

01:06:16.400 You're like,

01:06:17.500 That sounds like

01:06:18.020 a great night.

01:06:18.720 This is very disturbing.

01:06:20.000 Yeah,

01:06:20.340 it is.

01:06:20.820 It is.

01:06:21.100 Right?

01:06:21.920 You know,

01:06:22.260 that you just

01:06:22.960 sort of call someone

01:06:24.200 like to your house

01:06:25.620 and,

01:06:26.260 you know,

01:06:26.420 it's like ordering

01:06:26.980 a pizza.

01:06:27.580 I mean,

01:06:27.820 there's something

01:06:28.220 kind of,

01:06:28.920 I don't know,

01:06:29.460 maybe I'm old fashioned,

01:06:30.480 but slightly.

01:06:31.740 It's ironic

01:06:32.320 that in the world

01:06:33.120 that we all three,

01:06:34.920 I think,

01:06:35.140 would agree

01:06:35.500 is becoming feminized.

01:06:36.660 Actually,

01:06:37.100 the sexual marketplace

01:06:38.120 is becoming

01:06:38.720 extraordinarily

01:06:39.540 male serving.

01:06:42.560 That is how

01:06:43.360 a man thinks

01:06:43.980 of sex.

01:06:45.180 Mm-hmm.

01:06:46.320 Press a button,

01:06:47.040 it arrives.

01:06:48.240 That's how

01:06:48.700 a man thinks

01:06:49.140 of sex.

01:06:50.140 Sorry,

01:06:50.640 Nina.

01:06:51.300 No,

01:06:51.620 no,

01:06:51.940 I mean,

01:06:52.520 as far as I understand

01:06:53.580 it on the apps,

01:06:54.160 like,

01:06:54.420 it's something

01:06:54.720 like 20% of men

01:06:55.800 get 80% of women,

01:06:56.940 right?

01:06:57.100 So,

01:06:57.440 actually,

01:06:58.200 it's not true

01:06:58.940 that this works

01:06:59.760 out for men.

01:07:00.480 For some men.

01:07:01.040 It works out

01:07:01.540 for some men.

01:07:02.480 But what I mean

01:07:02.960 is the mode of thinking

01:07:03.840 about sex

01:07:04.600 is like that.

01:07:05.220 I don't think

01:07:05.800 most women

01:07:06.400 think about,

01:07:07.700 in the traditional sense,

01:07:09.480 would think about

01:07:10.320 that whole process

01:07:12.400 as being that way.

01:07:14.640 Do you see

01:07:14.880 what I'm saying?

01:07:15.520 No,

01:07:15.820 and again,

01:07:16.300 this might be a difference

01:07:17.080 we need to recognise.

01:07:18.020 You know,

01:07:18.300 like maybe there's a way

01:07:19.280 that marriage civilised men.

01:07:21.360 I think it does.

01:07:22.180 I think women civilise men.

01:07:23.560 I think men,

01:07:24.880 I don't know,

01:07:25.740 they do

01:07:26.240 civilise women

01:07:28.160 in a strange way

01:07:28.960 or maybe they animalise women.

01:07:30.200 I don't know.

01:07:30.540 but let's talk about it.

01:07:31.860 It's complicated.

01:07:32.920 You know,

01:07:33.160 marriage was a social technology

01:07:34.620 that served a particular function,

01:07:36.760 right?

01:07:37.140 And that was good

01:07:37.880 for children in general,

01:07:39.560 right?

01:07:39.720 I'm not saying

01:07:40.260 all marriages are great.

01:07:40.920 I'm not saying

01:07:41.240 all families are,

01:07:42.020 you know,

01:07:42.420 without problems.

01:07:43.100 There are lots of issues

01:07:44.080 in particular instances.

01:07:46.080 But it did address this problem,

01:07:47.980 which is men's desire for sex.

01:07:49.740 Okay,

01:07:50.100 yes,

01:07:50.340 you have to have sex

01:07:51.020 with the same woman.

01:07:52.060 Maybe the French solution,

01:07:53.240 you can have a mistress,

01:07:54.060 that's fine.

01:07:54.920 But you know what I mean?

01:07:55.660 Like,

01:07:56.200 it kind of,

01:07:57.780 it contains it

01:07:59.420 in a way,

01:08:00.520 you know?

01:08:00.860 And I think this market,

01:08:01.940 the marketisation of everything

01:08:03.620 is not the right way to go.

01:08:06.080 You know,

01:08:06.580 the marketisation of sex,

01:08:07.680 the commodification of human bodies

01:08:09.500 is anti-human.

01:08:12.980 It's what the elites want.

01:08:14.260 And I don't think

01:08:15.040 it's what most people want.

01:08:16.440 Even men who say

01:08:17.600 they would like a lot of sex.

01:08:18.660 I think in the end,

01:08:19.580 it's an empty and hollow process.

01:08:21.080 And I talk about

01:08:21.920 Rue Shpi in the book,

01:08:23.540 who is a pick-up artist

01:08:24.400 who has become very religious.

01:08:26.060 And he's absolutely

01:08:26.980 turned his back

01:08:27.660 on this kind of

01:08:28.700 pick-up artistry thing.

01:08:30.240 Because it's completely empty

01:08:31.760 at the end of the day.

01:08:32.720 What's the point

01:08:33.300 in tricking women

01:08:34.360 into having sex

01:08:35.360 and having sex

01:08:36.360 with hundreds of women, right?

01:08:37.580 What does that actually get you?

01:08:39.240 You know,

01:08:39.600 it's momentary satisfaction.

01:08:42.340 It's not real.

01:08:44.060 I mean,

01:08:44.400 it's not meaningful.

01:08:46.720 And it gets you

01:08:47.240 a lot of emptiness too.

01:08:48.540 Right.

01:08:49.780 And I completely agree

01:08:51.380 with all of that.

01:08:52.060 But I think we skip

01:08:53.380 past the point

01:08:54.100 that it's very worrying

01:08:55.060 that young people

01:08:55.920 aren't having sex

01:08:57.440 because it means

01:08:57.920 they're not having relationships.

01:08:59.720 And I don't know

01:09:00.440 any man

01:09:01.100 who would be happy

01:09:02.000 being a virgin

01:09:02.640 until he was 28.

01:09:04.980 Maybe a small percentage

01:09:06.360 might be.

01:09:07.260 But I think

01:09:07.680 if they're deep down,

01:09:08.520 I think they wouldn't

01:09:09.500 be happy about it.

01:09:10.780 So many jokes.

01:09:11.560 Well, I don't know.

01:09:14.320 I mean,

01:09:14.460 if you think about

01:09:15.180 kind of more traditional

01:09:15.940 arrangements,

01:09:16.560 it's like until a man

01:09:17.640 got himself a job

01:09:19.660 and had some sort of status,

01:09:21.000 then he wasn't able

01:09:22.040 to kind of ask women

01:09:23.180 to marry him.

01:09:24.320 You know,

01:09:25.260 there's not necessarily

01:09:26.580 anything wrong with that.

01:09:27.780 But that would also happen

01:09:28.840 much younger as well.

01:09:30.700 Potentially.

01:09:31.260 But lives were shorter,

01:09:32.140 so in proportion

01:09:32.920 to your life,

01:09:33.620 it kind of would have happened

01:09:34.480 at the same time.

01:09:35.680 Yeah.

01:09:36.020 I mean,

01:09:36.680 I don't know that just

01:09:37.820 sex for its own sake

01:09:39.180 is good.

01:09:39.680 I think there is

01:09:40.500 a problem with touch.

01:09:41.220 I talk about touch

01:09:42.000 in the book.

01:09:42.520 I think that a world

01:09:43.260 without touch

01:09:43.880 is like a part

01:09:45.120 of the inhuman,

01:09:46.420 you know,

01:09:46.820 technocratic world.

01:09:49.060 And that's a bad thing.

01:09:50.300 But there are lots

01:09:50.920 of different kinds of touch.

01:09:52.080 And I think

01:09:52.520 if you live in a

01:09:53.640 hyper-sexualized culture

01:09:54.740 or an over-sexualized culture,

01:09:56.580 it's a mistake

01:09:57.520 to think that all touch

01:09:58.580 is necessarily sexual.

01:10:00.660 You know,

01:10:00.820 whereas if you live

01:10:01.440 in a more,

01:10:02.280 you know,

01:10:02.740 a culture that is more

01:10:03.680 into embracing

01:10:04.360 and kissing

01:10:04.880 and stroking

01:10:05.700 and just being affectionate

01:10:06.940 and all these different

01:10:07.580 hundreds of different meanings

01:10:08.980 of touch,

01:10:10.000 most of which

01:10:10.680 are not sexual,

01:10:11.960 you know,

01:10:12.220 that's a more

01:10:13.660 beautiful world,

01:10:15.800 you know.

01:10:16.020 So it's not against

01:10:17.120 physicality,

01:10:18.040 but I think,

01:10:19.080 you know,

01:10:19.600 I think we need to ask

01:10:20.540 the question about

01:10:21.120 the sexual revolution

01:10:22.000 as many people are doing.

01:10:23.420 Like,

01:10:23.740 was this actually liberating?

01:10:24.920 I think it's been disastrous,

01:10:26.680 actually,

01:10:27.200 in loads of ways,

01:10:28.700 particularly for women

01:10:30.160 and children.

01:10:31.120 You know,

01:10:31.320 I think the unleashing

01:10:32.600 of desire,

01:10:33.720 particularly when it

01:10:34.360 hits the political realm

01:10:35.540 is absolutely horrific.

01:10:37.620 I think this stuff

01:10:38.260 should be privatised,

01:10:40.640 you know,

01:10:40.980 that we shouldn't have

01:10:42.200 this kind of idea

01:10:43.520 that all desires are good

01:10:44.760 and, you know,

01:10:45.420 the expression of desire

01:10:46.300 is good.

01:10:46.660 Like,

01:10:46.800 repression is useful.

01:10:48.360 Like,

01:10:48.560 we need repression,

01:10:49.960 right?

01:10:50.980 It's important.

01:10:53.020 Otherwise,

01:10:53.340 we wouldn't sort of,

01:10:54.240 I don't know,

01:10:54.680 make beautiful art.

01:10:56.380 There's so many pieces

01:10:57.700 to that.

01:10:58.180 We did a great interview

01:10:59.900 with Mary Eberstadt

01:11:00.700 about this very issue,

01:11:02.060 about the sexual revolution

01:11:03.640 and some of the problems

01:11:04.380 that it's caused.

01:11:05.480 Mary Harrington?

01:11:06.400 No.

01:11:06.940 Mary Eberstadt.

01:11:08.000 Oh,

01:11:08.160 who's Mary Eberstadt?

01:11:09.180 She is a writer.

01:11:11.140 She wrote a book

01:11:11.720 called The Sexual...

01:11:12.620 Do you remember the title?

01:11:15.520 Something about

01:11:16.240 the sexual revolution.

01:11:17.860 Oh, okay.

01:11:19.280 She's wonderful.

01:11:20.340 She's very...

01:11:21.080 And her book is brilliant as well.

01:11:22.360 It's about how

01:11:23.000 the sexual revolution

01:11:23.920 created the massive rise

01:11:26.520 in single parenthood

01:11:27.500 and all the ensuing consequences

01:11:29.000 all the way through

01:11:29.800 to the shit

01:11:30.300 that we talk about every day,

01:11:31.500 which is, you know,

01:11:32.400 people with pink hair

01:11:33.260 running around,

01:11:33.980 tearing down everything.

01:11:35.660 Do you know what I mean?

01:11:37.420 But look,

01:11:37.980 we've run out of time,

01:11:38.900 so before we ask

01:11:40.000 our last question,

01:11:40.700 kids,

01:11:40.960 can you please start having sex

01:11:42.080 because Francis is very concerned.

01:11:44.760 But, Nina,

01:11:45.520 it's been a real pleasure.

01:11:46.560 And look,

01:11:46.760 I think we barely touched

01:11:48.020 the surface

01:11:48.480 in this conversation really

01:11:49.900 of what are actually

01:11:51.880 very important conversations.

01:11:53.380 You know,

01:11:53.580 one of the things

01:11:54.120 I've always found

01:11:54.780 very strange

01:11:55.400 about the society we live in

01:11:56.740 is somehow we've got

01:11:58.620 to a point

01:11:59.220 where men and women

01:12:00.540 who through their entire history

01:12:02.460 have had to work together

01:12:03.840 to survive,

01:12:04.740 barely survive together.

01:12:06.460 And they've had to do everything

01:12:07.560 to work together

01:12:08.780 to just survive,

01:12:11.020 have enough food

01:12:11.760 for them and their children

01:12:12.900 to pass on their genes.

01:12:14.660 Suddenly we've got to a position

01:12:15.860 where these two groups

01:12:17.000 of people

01:12:17.280 who've had to work together

01:12:18.320 their entire history

01:12:19.700 suddenly are antagonistic.

01:12:21.080 I just think it's nonsense.

01:12:22.220 Yeah, I agree.

01:12:23.320 I think men and women

01:12:24.620 are fundamentally cooperative.

01:12:26.000 Right.

01:12:26.460 Yeah.

01:12:26.680 The differences between us

01:12:28.060 are complementary.

01:12:29.040 They're not oppositional

01:12:29.920 in that way.

01:12:31.320 But that's where we are.

01:12:32.960 These very basic things

01:12:33.900 need to be said.

01:12:34.580 So I'm really glad

01:12:35.340 we've had you on

01:12:35.960 and it's great

01:12:36.500 that your book is out finally.

01:12:38.180 It's a pleasure

01:12:38.720 having you on the show

01:12:39.440 and we've just got

01:12:40.160 one more question for you.

01:12:41.300 Which is always,

01:12:41.940 what's the one thing

01:12:42.560 we're not talking about

01:12:43.540 but we really should be?

01:12:44.660 I don't know.

01:12:47.860 I feel like we've

01:12:48.780 discussed all the questions

01:12:50.220 we shouldn't be talking about.

01:12:52.820 We're not allowed

01:12:53.560 to talk about.

01:12:55.420 Oh, I don't know.

01:12:56.380 I think magic.

01:12:59.380 Tell us more.

01:13:00.660 I think we need

01:13:01.920 to imagine the world

01:13:03.180 re-enchanted

01:13:03.880 and I think

01:13:04.760 we live in a very

01:13:05.800 disillusioned world

01:13:06.740 in which we've forgotten

01:13:07.540 all these kind of

01:13:08.360 powers of the spirits

01:13:10.660 and energies

01:13:11.360 and I think we should be

01:13:12.460 thinking more along

01:13:13.540 those lines.

01:13:14.500 That's a very good point.

01:13:15.840 On that note,

01:13:16.660 we've got a couple of questions

01:13:17.680 for our supporters only

01:13:18.720 on Locals

01:13:19.380 which we'll ask you

01:13:20.500 in a second

01:13:20.900 but in the meantime

01:13:21.660 where can people

01:13:22.820 get the book?

01:13:23.420 When is it out?

01:13:24.080 It'll probably be out

01:13:24.980 by the time this interview

01:13:25.860 goes out.

01:13:26.620 Yes, so it's out

01:13:27.700 on February the 3rd.

01:13:29.420 I recorded the audiobook

01:13:30.860 so you can hear me read it.

01:13:33.580 I guess it's available

01:13:34.620 on Kindle.

01:13:35.580 It's published by Penguin

01:13:36.780 and...

01:13:39.100 You really need to work

01:13:40.760 on your promotion.

01:13:43.540 Go to Amazon

01:13:44.460 or whatever.

01:13:45.540 Right, sure.

01:13:46.260 It's probably on Amazon.

01:13:47.120 Go to a bookseller.

01:13:49.820 Exactly.

01:13:50.680 Great stuff, Nina.

01:13:52.460 Well done.

01:13:53.760 All right, guys.

01:13:54.560 Thank you so much

01:13:55.320 for watching

01:13:55.760 and we hope you've enjoyed

01:13:56.680 this fantastic interview.

01:13:57.940 It's such a pleasure

01:13:58.460 to have Nina in the studio

01:13:59.440 and we will see you

01:14:01.100 very, very soon

01:14:01.900 with another brilliant interview

01:14:03.180 like this one

01:14:03.960 or Raw Show.

01:14:05.380 All of them go out

01:14:06.220 at 7pm UK time.

01:14:07.540 And for those of you

01:14:08.180 who like your trigonometry

01:14:09.180 on the go,

01:14:10.140 it's also available

01:14:11.060 as a podcast.

01:14:12.500 Take care

01:14:13.060 and see you soon, guys.

01:14:16.680 Is there any

01:14:17.760 empirical evidence

01:14:18.980 for patriarchy

01:14:19.960 in modern

01:14:21.480 Western European society?

01:14:23.240 Thank you.

01:14:23.360 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - February 14, 2022

＂Demonising Men Will Make Things Worse＂ - Nina Power

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