00:07:43.340But I think it's important to bring it up here, because you talk about, you know, you want to be able to discuss reality. You want people to understand that men and women are different, that men tend to be bigger, stronger, faster, and there's all kinds of other differences, right?
00:08:01.840But some people might say that feminists, some feminists, not all feminists, but some feminists have been eroding the concept of reality over the last 20 or 30 years, pretending that these differences don't exist.
00:08:17.020You know, France has made a joke about the gender pay gap.
00:08:19.780A lot of evidence now is it doesn't really exist in the way that people talk about it, right?
00:08:23.840So do you think that there's some responsibility that feminists need to take for introducing this erosion of reality into our public space?
00:08:34.580Sure. I mean, I do think that it's a mistake to pretend that men and women are equal, and I don't think that it's necessary.
00:08:42.600Like, of course, we should have the same access to human rights.
00:08:46.080And the same access to we should be treated with respect and dignity and be safe from safe and protected from discrimination and violence.
00:08:56.500But men and women aren't the same. And pretending that they are and pushing for that is, you know, unnecessary, in my opinion.
00:09:04.660And yeah, I think I'm sure there's lots of places along the way that feminists have made a mistake.
00:09:09.560And in many ways, those who probably would describe themselves as feminists in gender studies departments in academia are responsible for this new gender identity ideology that we're dealing with now, where, you know, how you feel on the inside defines your body and defines material reality.
00:09:29.740I mean, that's all kind of, as far as I can tell, most of that came out of gender studies, queer studies, this idea that you can kind of subvert reality through language or imagination.
00:09:43.140And isn't it just a one-stop way to actually make yourself feel incredibly miserable as well, is if you deny that there's no difference between the genders, and in a sense denying some aspects of being male which are important for men.
00:09:59.260And by going, oh, that's unimportant, all of a sudden you take away something inherent in us.
00:10:06.180I mean, at the end of the day, I really just want everyone to be able to be themselves.
00:10:13.100And so, you know, like I differentiate between sex and gender.
00:10:16.860So when I talk about sex, I'm talking about the body, whether or not you're born male or female.
00:10:22.180And when I talk about gender, I'm talking about femininity and masculinity.
00:10:25.760So that's more attached to the stereotypes around behaviors and likes and dislikes, maybe things like clothing.
00:10:36.100Megan, sorry to interrupt, but just for anyone who's listening, just an ordinary person who's not engaged in any of these conversations, just explain that to people a little bit more.
00:10:46.040So you make a distinction between sex, which you talk about biology, i.e. do you have a penis or a vagina, breast or a flat chest, whatever.
00:10:54.460birth to produce sperm or over but and then there's the other side which as you say is more
00:11:01.260behavior you know clothing whatever so i use then saying that people's gender and sex can be
00:11:09.040misaligned in other words someone can have a penis but be a be a man or male or what's the
00:11:15.640right term not really because i don't think those stereotypes are so fixed like i think what we're
00:11:20.360really just talking about is personality. So, you know, no, I don't actually think that
00:11:25.860people are all one thing, you know, every single feminine stereotype doesn't apply to me in some
00:11:33.140ways they do. And in some ways I will be feminine, but in other ways not, you know, maybe like girls
00:11:39.900can be interested in boys toys and want to play football and be more interested in trucks than
00:11:48.420dolls and so on and so forth um so i think that your personality doesn't change your body i mean
00:11:54.660a person can feel feminine all they want and that just means sorry i should say a male can feel
00:12:00.820feel feminine all they want but that doesn't make him not male it's just like a man who's interested
00:12:06.180in so-called feminine things and stereotypically feminine things like you put on a dress that
00:12:12.440doesn't that doesn't actually change your body right so this is what i'm trying to get at is
00:12:17.340what is the purpose then of separating sex from gender um well could we not just say it's a
00:12:25.220feminine man or a tomboy woman or like why do we have to separate these two because i just i see
00:12:33.180that as a kind of slope towards the trans ideology that you you are critical of you know this idea
00:12:39.720that uh your biology isn't necessarily what determines how you how you are in the world when
00:12:45.220in fact, to a large extent it does. Sure. I mean, you could say that's a feminine man or you could
00:12:50.620just say that's just a man and this is just his personality. I mean, I don't even know if we
00:12:56.180really need to talk about femininity and masculinity all that much. We could just be like
00:13:00.800people are different people. I just don't, I don't, I don't know that it's all that helpful to,
00:13:08.700you know, discuss these, these stereotypes as if they're inherent. Although I think I, you know,
00:13:14.420like i do want to clarify that it's like i do think that there are differences between men and
00:13:19.260women that are connected to evolution for sure i mean men and women have different roles in society
00:13:27.020and have long had different roles in society and it sort of makes sense that they would be engaged
00:13:32.200in different activities based on those biological differences right so but in general i mean i would
00:13:39.500just say like like if this guy likes you know pink and sparkly dresses then okay like if that
00:13:49.200makes him happy then like knock yourself out go ahead francis knock yourself out
00:13:53.640there's nothing wrong with it mate i look great in sparkly dress my legs look divine anyway um
00:14:03.820didn't think i'd ever say those words especially going out onto the internet anyway we're moving
00:14:08.460on I know uh Megan I've watched some of your lectures they've all been very very interesting
00:14:13.160you have a particular problem and issue with the word cis being used especially to describe
00:14:20.280women why do you dislike the word cis because I know a lot of women do yeah I mean again like I
00:14:28.060really just it's totally unnecessary because supposedly what cis means is that you're like
00:14:35.580a sign gender matches your sex but a i mean i again i don't think that's applicable to me
00:14:41.460because i wasn't i didn't like come out of the womb being interested in like stilettos and
00:14:46.760eyeliner that's sort of part of uh cultural learning and socialization and other factors
00:14:55.020you know i know women who hate eyeliner um does that mean that they're not cis women like even
00:15:00.360if they don't identify as transgender it's sort of like this this prefix that we're attaching to
00:15:06.100woman just to say you're a woman who's a female and that's what a woman is she is female like
00:15:10.800we're over complicating this like there's no fancy definition here like a woman is an adult human
00:15:16.960female it doesn't matter how she feels about her gender it doesn't matter what her personality is
00:15:21.900it doesn't matter what clothes she likes to wear we don't need to have that conversation necessarily
00:15:26.560um it's sort of like and it sort of positions women women who are female i.e all women as
00:15:36.500not the norm like now it's sort of like a trans woman is an actual woman and women who don't
00:15:44.180identify as trans have to add this extra extra word cis um it's a different kind of women like
00:15:51.240it's just it's all imaginary and it's all kind of like gobbledygook like you know you you you
00:15:58.120aren't a woman like we keep insisting and by we i mean not we at all because i've never insisted
00:16:04.640the progressives the left the trans activists the liberals like whatever you want to call them
00:16:12.920um some trans identified people and i mean i should also add that like not all trans identified
00:16:18.760people agree with this crap right like i know people who call themselves transsexual who know
00:16:24.840full well that they're male but for whatever reason they feel more comfortable trying to
00:16:29.580present as women right well we've had rose of dawn on the show uh precisely talking and and
00:16:34.860there's a whole spectrum within that as well like we've had uh india willoughby who is a trans woman
00:16:40.440um and on many things i think she'd disagree with you but on the sports issue for example
00:16:46.500agrees with you completely right so there's a range of opinion and this is one of the problems
00:16:51.020with the progressive left's ideology is that it assumes that people of a certain identity group
00:16:57.540all think the same which of course is an incredibly racist sexist uh transphobic homophobic concept in
00:17:04.180and of itself right um but uh so the cis thing annoys you uh for that reason and what about
00:17:13.080this is another thing that i've i've actually made the mistake of uh i i heard the the the word
00:17:19.240turf being used right and i looked up the definition which is trans exclusionary radical
00:17:25.840feminist and i assumed that that's what it meant so i used it to describe a woman who was a trans
00:17:33.960exclusionary radical feminist and a bunch of our uh viewers uh and subscribers freaked out and said
00:17:41.040that it's a massive insult. So why is that such a painful word to use about gender-critical
00:17:48.840feminists? Well, I don't think it really makes any sense because it's applied to all sorts of
00:17:56.400people regardless of whether or not they identify as radical feminists in the first place. I don't
00:18:01.920identify as a radical feminist. I'm not really super interested in identifying as anything these
00:18:07.920days i don't think that labels are all that helpful i'd prefer to just have conversations
00:18:12.460about who i think but i mean i am of course a feminist um but it's also like it's not about
00:18:21.000excluding trans identified people it's about um definitions and it's about keeping men specifically
00:18:31.040out of women's faces so i think what they actually mean they're just not being honest when they use
00:18:35.200these terms right what they actually mean is that feminists certain feminists are wanting to keep
00:18:42.480women only spaces women only and so if you're male you can't access again like a woman's transition
00:18:48.720house um they're saying you shouldn't be transferred to a female prison because that's
00:18:52.740dangerous that you shouldn't just be allowed to like walk into a woman's change room and start
00:18:57.620getting undressed um and it's you know it's not about keeping for example females who identify
00:19:05.180as trans out of women's spaces um and it sort of isn't it though i mean what if what if if you have
00:19:12.240a trans man so that's someone who used to identify or who's biologically uh female but has transitioned
00:19:20.100to male look at you dance around those little laser beams there it's fucking it's a difficult
00:19:26.480one but someone who was born a woman born female right and now dresses and appears to be male for
00:19:34.300all intents and purposes they may have facial hair right would would would you not want them
00:19:39.820excluded from a female only space no i mean if they're female i don't really care um i you know
00:19:48.080women's spaces are for women and as far as I'm concerned women who identify as trans men are
00:19:54.920still female and you know like the honest truth is that like most trans identified people don't
00:20:01.020pass um most people in the world can discern sex pretty easily that's again part of our
00:20:07.960like part of evolutionary biology like we we do need to discern sex so um I think there's like a
00:20:15.420few people who, who, who can pass. So that is to say like a man who transitioned to be a woman and
00:20:22.960people, when they see him on the street, actually just assume he's a woman and vice versa. But most
00:20:28.500people don't. And, um, no, I, I, I have no interest in excluding, you know, women or, or girls who
00:20:35.580identify as boys or women from, from female in these spaces. And, you know, turf really is only
00:20:41.060used in the pejorative like it's only it's it's it's used as an insult and an attack and to shut
00:20:47.100down conversation it's been used against me and lots of other women that i know attached to you
00:20:53.180know like misogynist terms and like attached to violent threats like die turf um at one of uh the
00:21:00.560events that we held in here in vancouver um in the winter you know there were these activists outside
00:21:08.800who had put together this like cardboard guillotine
00:27:13.420Tell me this, because it seems to me like the thing you're talking about, which is the erosion of reality,
00:27:20.060the erosion of the concept of truth, the indoctrination and the demand that we all subscribe to things that we know are not true.
00:27:27.780Right. That is something that applies in all sorts of areas, whether it's race, whether it's gender and sex, men and women, whether it's the trans issue.
00:27:37.600But the trans issue, for some reason, is particularly vitriolic.
00:27:40.980So we just had Graham Linehan on the show a week ago and we talk to controversial people all the time, but I don't think we've ever had the level of nastiness towards him and towards us that we had after having him on the show.
00:27:57.780Why is this issue so, so, so difficult and the people involved in it, why are they so, so angry?
00:28:11.500I don't understand why people get so angry about this issue.
00:28:15.840I think part of it is that if you are a person who is trans identified and you've been told over and over and over again by these activists that you,
00:28:26.880So say you're a man who identifies a trans woman. You've been told over and over and over again by these trans activists, you're a woman, you're a literal woman. And if somebody misgenders you, that's violence and it's traumatic. And the only way that you can accept yourself and to live a happy life is if others validate your identity.
00:28:49.720So it's sort of, it's such a strange and unhelpful ideology to me because it's not about, you know, you feeling comfortable with yourself. Actually, that is rest wholly on external validation, which is very, you know, unstable. Like you can't control what other people think and say about you. You can't control if you walk down the street and somebody reads you as a man because you look male, there's not really anything you can do about that.
00:29:17.040But you've been told that you can, that you can control that.
00:29:21.280So I think people sort of become enraged because, I mean, A, they've been sort of, they've been told that they're a very vulnerable and marginalized population and that this misgendering thing is like traumatic and triggering and will actually like destroy your sense of self.
00:29:42.480um but i guess i mean i i i just i think all this lying to people has been really unhelpful to them
00:29:51.820right um because now they have this expectation that everyone else should participate in the lie
00:29:57.960um so i i guess and i mean i i also think a lot of people have just invested so much into these
00:30:05.740politics. So they've spent so much time, you know, changing their policies in their organizations
00:30:13.300and going around the internet yelling at everybody about trans women or women and
00:30:19.560insisting that we don't misgender them. You know, journalistic policies have been changed. And so I
00:30:24.180think it would be kind of embarrassing at this point to backtrack. You know, they made such a
00:30:28.220big scene about the whole thing and tried to vilify all of us who challenge it practically
00:30:34.100is criminals. I've seen people say things like, it's illegal to misgender. It's hate speech to
00:30:43.460call a trans woman male. And we've seen women in the UK actually be... Actually, I know women in
00:30:53.400Vancouver who've been fired from their jobs over this. We've seen people be taken to court over
00:30:58.580this now um so i don't know i mean i guess i i don't know i think it's sort of hard for a lot
00:31:07.420of people to admit that maybe they were wrong especially when they've spent so much time sort
00:31:13.120of banging the drum on this issue and megan do you see this as a freedom of speech issue like
00:31:18.580somebody can identify as a gender but it's it's up to you whether you would if you choose to follow
00:31:24.660that you know would you go along with that or do you think that actually you know it's it's the
00:31:30.940correct thing to do um i do see it as a freedom of speech issue um i think that you know if you
00:31:38.920if you want to call a trans woman she or her then you can do that but you don't get to insist that
00:31:46.360somebody else do that well megan let's uh we wanted to talk to you about feminism as well
00:31:53.500Because I think, you know, while obviously the trans issue has become a big one, I just feel like we've got bigger things to discuss more generally anyway as a society and there's bigger things to talk about.
00:32:05.900But first of all, can you just explain to us what feminism is?
00:32:09.100Because a lot of people who don't know the details of it will, again, look at the official definition and it's the belief that men and women are and should be treated equally, right?
00:32:20.860um but a lot of the people who observe just like with the turf thing that there's the way that
00:32:26.500it's defined and then there's the way that you perceive it based on observation uh and you see
00:32:32.460all this stuff like men are trash and all this other stuff all men are potential rapists like
00:32:37.720are those feminists too like what is the feminist movement and why are there like these different
00:32:44.380readings of it i mean it's yeah like it's so tough today because i think so many people have
00:32:50.400like wildly different understandings of what feminism is and people who identify as as
00:32:56.980feminists will see things very differently than other people who also identify as feminists so
00:33:03.320it's sort of like I almost like I'm almost inclined to kind of like stop talking about
00:33:09.880feminism and again start talking about like ideas and issues because I just feel like that's more
00:33:16.560productive and it's easier for us to understand one another if we're just talking about specific
00:33:22.400issues. So talk to us about the specific issues. You as a kind of what I would say is a sane
00:33:28.020feminist, you're not running around saying all men are rapists, etc. What are the issues that
00:33:34.180in your opinion, women who want to protect and advance women's rights should be focusing on at
00:33:39.660the moment? So I think a key issue is violence against women. And I think it's interesting
00:33:45.280because I think third wave feminists, so kind of like modern mainstream feminists, like whatever
00:33:51.660you want to call them. Some people call them liberal feminists. I usually refer to them as
00:33:55.740third wave feminists. They seem to have really not focused on violence against women. And to me,
00:34:02.040that's one of the biggest, most serious issues facing women around the world. You know, things
00:34:07.520like rape and domestic abuse and fgm um what happens to women in prostitution for example
00:34:15.240is really horrific sex trafficking like these are major issues you know things like you know
00:34:20.740the violence and misogyny that happens in the porn industry and the exploitation that happens
00:34:25.780in the porn industry these are like multi-billion dollar industries and thousands and thousands of
00:34:31.620women are impacted by these things and yet we don't see a lot of mainstream you know third wave
00:34:39.960feminists these like young cool girl feminists who are invested in like i don't know like the
00:34:45.280fat positivity movement or like posing in their outfits on instagram and like trying to argue
00:34:54.220about their fucking pronouns it's like these things aren't important like there are a lot of
00:35:00.260really important issues going on in the world a lot of really horrible things are happening
00:35:04.780to women and girls every day all around the world and and you're obsessing over your pronouns and
00:35:12.540whether or not you're non-binary and trying to like look sexy on the internet like so that i
00:35:20.160mean sorry france i just want to finish that issue so you see i think if if if the public
00:35:26.260perception was that that is what feminism is, you know, the advocacy against violence against
00:35:32.580women. I think you would have a society where almost everybody thought they were a feminist
00:35:37.440on that definition, right? But the polling shows that I think in this country, it's like 7% of
00:35:43.820women identify as feminists. At the last poll, nearly, I think it's over half of men said that
00:35:51.180they thought that feminism was about, not about hating men,
00:35:55.400but it was almost like a female supremacy movement
00:35:58.560as opposed to a movement for the protection of women from discrimination.
00:36:03.540So why is there this massive gap in perception
00:36:06.640versus the kind of stuff that you're talking about?
00:36:08.520Is it that these woke feminists are kind of ruining feminism?
00:36:12.620Yeah, well, I mean, I think that the kind of feminism
00:36:16.280that gets mainstream coverage in the U.S., for example,
00:36:21.180um, is, is again, not really centered around these issues that I believe to be really important
00:36:28.060and that it should be centered around. Um, I do think that there has been kind of like a lot of
00:36:34.000casual, like man hating in feminism that I guess these women think is like funny or cool. And it
00:36:42.180doesn't, you know, it doesn't necessarily offend me unless it actually is offensive, but for the
00:36:47.380most part it's sort of jokey I just find it kind of like stupid and childish and boring like all
00:36:52.100this like male tears things thing like it's like I don't like I also like I don't like this idea
00:36:59.180where we go around telling other people to shut up like I don't like seeing other feminists being
00:37:05.840like you're a man sit down you have no say in this because I just don't I don't agree with that
00:37:10.860like I kind of think everybody has a say I think everybody should participate in the conversation
00:37:15.860um and that doesn't mean that i think you know there aren't some spaces that could or should
00:37:22.020just be for women to talk about issues particularly impacting women but i mean you you see on twitter
00:37:29.480and on facebook like social media all the time um it's like oh you're a man so like you have
00:37:36.560privilege and you don't get to speak and i mean people do the same things in different ways
00:37:42.160depending on your your so-called identity so it's like oh well you're a you're a cis woman so you
00:37:49.120need to sit down and shut up like you're white so you need to sit down and shut up um and that's
00:37:56.100just like a really unproductive obviously way to engage in discussion and it prevents us from
00:38:03.040learning and from understanding each other which i mean this plays into all sorts of other issues
00:38:09.160that we could get into, which is that I don't think that a lot of people want to understand
00:38:13.640each other anymore. I think they just want to create divisions and then talk within their
00:38:18.260own little bubbles. But yeah, I guess I sort of lost track of your original question.
00:38:25.380No, but actually you've veered into a very interesting subject, which is you think that
00:38:29.760people don't want to understand each other.
00:38:32.780No, it doesn't seem like they do. It seems like people want their tribes.
00:38:36.780You know, people want to only talk within their ideological and political bubbles, and they get really upset and triggered and offended, even to be exposed to other ideas.
00:38:50.540And I find it really troubling, but I also don't relate to that at all because I really enjoy talking to people who aren't like me. I enjoy talking to all sorts of people and I find it really boring to sort of either just for me to be just kind of preaching to the choir or for me to be just reading the same takes over and over and over again.
00:39:11.800it's like okay got it like I know that you think this I want something new um I want to you know
00:39:17.400learn something I want to be challenged in my thinking um and yeah I mean people people on
00:39:26.040the left I I talk a lot about people on the left because that's sort of where I've been engaged um
00:39:35.200for years and years and years you know I haven't been involved in right-wing circles much so I
00:39:40.760can't necessarily speak for that so maybe they do this too but it seems to me that it's it's
00:39:46.120particular to progressives and the left and liberals um that i think the right do it too
00:39:52.680as well megan sorry to interrupt like whenever we put out a video that is with like a left-wing
00:39:59.020person the right wing get triggered and like downvoted before they've watched it and like
00:40:04.440put loads of comments before they've watched it and then whenever we put a video by a right-wing
00:40:09.560person that the left don't like, then the left come and do the same thing. So I think everybody's
00:40:15.100prone to it, but I would say the left pioneered it. Yeah. I mean, it just seems like people sort
00:40:21.220of want comfort over challenges and they don't want to develop an understanding of people who
00:40:28.960are different than them, which I think is troubling in a lot of ways because supposedly,
00:40:33.960like we as a society want to be reaching towards like tolerance diversity inclusion these kinds of
00:40:42.220concepts that we hear about all the time but don't actively actually promote you know nobody wants
00:40:48.440diversity of thought people want the kind of diversity that fits a particular mold you know
00:40:55.560I feel like that happens to me a lot where people have sort of put me in this box and they want me
00:40:59.700to stay in this box and if I step outside of the box so like if I talk to people that they don't
00:41:04.760like or you know people that aren't feminist or people that aren't left-wing then they kind of
00:41:10.780freak out like people seem really triggered by that and they you know get angry at me and are
00:41:15.960like oh well I guess you're not a feminist anymore I guess you're a right-winger now because you had
00:41:20.880a conversation with this like right-wing guy and you seem to get along with him and I'm like well
00:41:25.440yeah like he's nice like why do i have to be mean to somebody just because i don't agree with them
00:41:30.340like it's so odd to me it's because they're evil megan now um just i'm just uh i want to ask what
00:41:38.820do you think now what you touched on like as constant said was very interesting but what do
00:41:42.620you think is going to be the end game if we keep in our own little bubbles and don't discuss and
00:41:47.980don't share ideas what do you think is going to happen to society as a result of that i think
00:41:53.900things will just get worse i mean i i we empathy is an incredibly important thing um we i think
00:42:02.940that what we're doing in terms of staying in our little bubbles creating these divisions in terms
00:42:08.300of this kind of tribalism in terms of you know vilifying people who are different than us
00:42:13.580vilifying people who simply don't agree with all of our political opinions what it what we're doing
00:42:19.180actually is we're dehumanizing people. So we're not treating and approaching and engaging with
00:42:25.100people as though they're full complex human beings. And most people are full complex human
00:42:30.520beings. Most people are in fact not left or right. Most people are kind of like apolitical or
00:42:38.260somewhere in between, or maybe they'll hold some views that might fit with the left wing view and
00:42:44.040some other views that might fit with the right wing view. I mean, people are just way more
00:42:47.940complicated than this. And if we turn everybody who isn't just like us into our enemy and
00:42:54.480dehumanize them, I think it's really dangerous. I think that that's where we get into justifying
00:43:01.760violence and things like that. And we'll see this on the far kind of extreme left with groups like
00:43:07.440Antifa and things like that. And I've seen that in terms of behavior towards me, where people
00:43:13.320threaten me with violence and death because they've decided that I'm this horrible person
00:43:18.660because I say that trans women are male or because I say you can't change sex or because I'm trying
00:43:24.580to protect women's sex-based rights. But in order to avoid engaging with me and in order to avoid
00:43:32.300humanizing me, they turn me into this bad, inhuman person and then it makes it okay for them to
00:43:40.340threaten me with violence. And that's really scary. You know, it's not okay to threaten anybody
00:43:44.220with violence. I don't care how much you disagree with them. I don't care how bad you've decided
00:43:49.320they are. That person's a human being. You don't get to go around killing people because you
00:43:53.900disagree with them. And that's, you know, I see those justifications from people nowadays. I mean,
00:43:59.660it's not necessarily new, but it's sort of like newly shocking to me that people who claim to be
00:44:06.560open-minded people who are pushing for inclusivity and diversity are also justifying or at very least
00:44:15.240not speaking out against these violent threats or in fact actual real violence against you know
00:44:21.560political enemies people that they've decided are enemies in any case it's like you've never
00:44:27.200even had a conversation with this person anyway you've probably even never read the article that
00:44:31.540you're pissed about you probably never even listened to a word that they've said and you've
00:44:36.220just decided because your your your group your social circle your political circle or whatever
00:44:41.520has informed you that this person is like a fascist or whatever word you like are using even
00:44:48.140though it has no real meaning anymore like that this person you know deserves to be jailed or
00:46:11.500The meals take only 20 minutes or less to cook.
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00:47:01.260and guys you're going to look like an absolute professional in the kitchen
00:47:06.360basically you're going to look like me and isn't that what everyone wants
00:47:10.980one of the topics that I was really interested in when I saw some of your lectures and your work
00:47:20.200is the topic of pornography because I bet you were mate because but you know we joke about
00:47:26.780pornography it's ubiquitous you know if you look at you know a website like Pornhub it's got you
00:47:31.480know billions of hits every year but why do you think it's so dangerous in particular for women
00:47:38.200and also its effect on young men as well I mean I think as you as you say like I think that it
00:47:44.580it is really bad for for women not just for the women who are in the porn films um but for you
00:47:52.780know women who are you know having sex with men who've been raised on porn and i think it's really
00:47:58.180bad for men i think it sort of gives it teaches men untrue things about sex and women and about
00:48:06.000men also um the the reality of porn and anybody who's seen porn knows that it's degrading the
00:48:14.380women um you know maybe there's some porn here and there that isn't degrading to women but i think
00:48:19.500that the vast majority is degrading to women. A lot of it is violent. A lot of it is using
00:48:25.680misogynist and really racist language. I mean, pornography is overtly racist in the way that
00:48:31.460it's categorized even, but there's also a lot of racist slurs that we hear in pornography.
00:48:37.920And so I think that it sort of normalizes the idea that violence is sexy and that women want
00:48:46.740to be degraded that women want to be choked um that women want you know five guys to come in
00:48:52.860her face like most women don't enjoy that well i'm learning something and like it's just this is
00:49:03.260this is what i you know and i also sort of think i think it gives men who watch porn a
00:49:13.240uh uh sort of i'm trying to think of how to explain this you know i know of men or i know
00:49:22.340of women who've had boyfriends or partners who like can no longer get it up without pornography
00:49:30.840who can't like come from regular sex with regular women because they've been watching kind of more
00:49:37.700and more extreme pornography and so they've acclimatized themselves to this new thing
00:49:42.560um so i think you know like i sort of wonder why men don't worry about that themselves and
00:49:50.540you know i think it trains men honestly to be bad in bed like if you're learning about
00:49:56.360sex and what women enjoy from pornography you're really not at all learning oh you're fucked
00:50:02.520the voice of experience constantine absolutely mate no you you genuinely it is very misleading
00:50:12.460uh i think we joke about it but that is just you you're not wrong there for sure um i but i guess
00:50:19.000i suppose the counter argument might be well these are consenting adults engaging in you know
00:50:23.860legal activity what's you know who are we to interfere kind of the libertarian argument i
00:50:29.340suppose what do you make of that well I think that that conversation is more complicated than
00:50:36.440just consent versus non-consent because I think that obviously like a lot of women and girls who
00:50:43.020do pornography are doing it because they feel they have no other choice there's also like a
00:50:49.000lot of drug addiction and mental health issues and abuse that's going on in pornography there's
00:50:54.760you know, there's information that shows that a lot of the girls in pornography have
00:51:01.100abusive pasts. I think that it's possible to be kind of groomed into these industries if you have
00:51:09.560like a history of sexual abuse and you sort of normalize that. Obviously, if you're, you know,
00:51:14.860addicted and struggling with other mental health issues, I'm not sure that the consent conversation
00:51:20.660should just be limited to whether or not you said yes or no you know if you're vulnerable then
00:51:25.700there's all sorts of reasons that you might agree to do something that is exploitative
00:51:30.760um but i also think that argument megan sorry to interrupt just i'll give you plenty of time
00:51:36.160to finish i just want to interject this here um the the argument that well these people feel like
00:51:42.700they have no other choice i mean the argument could be made about any job you know people
00:51:46.400hate working in a call center and you could say working for a very low paid very unpleasant job
00:51:52.660is something that you know you don't have a choice because again you could have had an
00:51:58.120abusive past and therefore you're not able to get a better job like all of this stuff is still
00:52:01.920you know human beings aren't perfect none of us are none of us have a perfect history a lot of
00:52:07.960the decisions that we make are based on trauma you know whatever experiences we might have had
00:52:13.000um so i suppose i'm what i'm saying all i'm saying is that argument can be made about lots
00:52:18.220of jobs not just pornography right sure i mean i think that we can or should be able to agree that
00:52:26.240sex is particularly intimate so having sex with somebody is not the same as for example serving
00:52:32.120them a cup of coffee or selling them a pair of running shoes um and i think that like this is
00:52:39.240something else that I'm actually pretty troubled about in terms of our society and I think that
00:52:45.160liberals have sort of played a large part in pushing this thing that pretends like sex isn't
00:52:50.880intimate and that sex isn't kind of like a special thing and I'm not like I feel like I have to be
00:52:57.420defensive when I say that and be like I'm not religious you know like I came I was raised in
00:53:02.680like a very anti-religion household you know like I'm uh I've I you know I don't I don't think I
00:53:09.680even knew anybody who was religious until I was an adult like I just wasn't exposed to
00:53:14.860Christianity or any kind of organized religion um at all but like I sort of feel resentful
00:53:22.800because I feel like third wave feminism taught me that I should be having sex like men
00:53:31.660so um that it should be that sex should mean nothing and that you shouldn't you know like
00:53:40.300have a relationship with somebody um who you have sex with and I'm not saying that in order to sex
00:53:46.040you have sex you should be in a relationship with them like that's not been my history at all and I
00:53:51.180think it's perfectly fine to have sex with people that you're not in a relationship with but I think
00:53:55.380that it's weird to try to force yourself to pretend that it doesn't matter like that that other human
00:54:01.000that you're having sex with doesn't matter, that their feelings don't matter, that your
00:54:05.720feelings don't matter, and that there's not something kind of like deeper and more intimate
00:54:11.000going on. And I think that things like pornography and prostitution teach us that this other person
00:54:18.440isn't a full human being, that it's just a body that you're using for your own pleasure. And I
00:54:23.240don't think that's healthy for any party involved um i again i just think it's kind of dehumanizing
00:54:31.160and you know we know that you know having sex with somebody like if somebody's like penetrating your
00:54:38.260body that's that's different that's different that's gonna have a bigger impact on you than
00:54:42.860you know like going to the office even though going to the office can sometimes be a degrading
00:54:48.540or demoralizing experience um it can certainly make you miserable it certainly made me miserable
00:54:56.340when i had to go to work in an office but it's not the same as you know being gang raped or
00:55:03.080something like that right like or having gang sex consensually yeah yeah no i think you're right
00:55:09.900And the point that you make about separating sex from emotion and to some extent from relationship, I do think that's part of it as well.
00:55:21.380Because, you know, if you understand basic evolutionary psychology, sex is a way particularly for women to bond with the man and to get him to stick around and bring up the children that would normally have resulted from the sex.
00:55:37.280So I think you're right that, that, that kind of attempt to just pretend that everything is, um, transactional in this kind of, and free from anything like that. I, yeah, it's not working.
00:55:48.880yeah and I mean I just I feel like I spent a lot of time when I was younger you know like when I
00:55:56.680was like 19 20 or whatever trying to shut down those emotions because I thought that's what it
00:56:02.340meant to be like an empowered liberated woman is to be able to have sex without feelings and
00:56:08.360without getting attached and you know it took me years to be like oh no that wasn't a good message
00:56:14.440why why am I trying to force myself like I do have feelings about this like I am attached to
00:56:19.640this person and there's nothing wrong with that like that doesn't make me weak or not sexually
00:56:24.660liberated or not feminist like it's just such a uh really inhumane backwards message and do you
00:56:33.500think it goes back to the idea that we were talking about before that there's no that the
00:56:37.760liberals would say well there's no difference between the genders a woman could go out and
00:56:41.820just have sex with a man and feel absolutely nothing just like an inverted commas a man would
00:56:46.740do totally like it's like this idea that for a woman to be really liberated that she has to
00:56:53.820behave like men and i'm saying like men in quotations because i don't think that's how
00:56:59.820all men behave but um you know that that's sort of a stereotype that may be true for some men but
00:57:06.200it's still it's a stereotype nonetheless that like all men just have sex without feeling and
00:57:10.980without getting attached and you know want to go like have sex with a bunch of women random women
00:57:17.140all the time like a new woman every night or whatever um but it's yeah I think that it really
00:57:24.880it was pushed on me and I and I tried to do this again when I was younger that it's like I should
00:57:31.520I should act like a man and I I should be able to do everything that a man can do and that's what's
00:57:37.100going to make me feel free and, and empowered. And, and it's not true. And I mean, yeah, I do
00:57:44.560think that that message was pushed by kind of modern feminists and modern feminism, you could
00:57:50.900say. And what do you think of this argument that pornography is changed what we expect from women's
00:57:57.440bodies, the point of the pornification of women's bodies that we expect them now to have a certain
00:58:02.280type of you know leg breast buttock whatever do you think that that has impacted on society as a
00:58:08.200whole yeah I mean I think that young women have normalized objectification in a massive way and
00:58:17.720we'll see that in the way that they present themselves online on Instagram for example you
00:58:22.460know like and we see that in that it's become really norm the norm for young women you know
00:58:28.400teenage girls to send nude pornified photos to these idiot boys who don't deserve these photos
00:58:36.660and you know and that's I mean that's dangerous to these girls in a lot of ways not least of which
00:58:42.300being that these photos are so often leaked and then there's nude photos of them all over the
00:58:47.240internet and they can't get rid of them um but it's also like you know you don't have to do that
00:58:53.920to get a boy to like you like that's what girls think that they have to do to get someone interested
00:58:59.560in them and what these girls want is a relationship like they i i'm gonna sound like a sexist now but
00:59:07.540oh well i think it's like what these girls want is for that boy to be her boyfriend and to treat
00:59:14.180her with respect and to love her and i don't think that sending a guy like a corny photo of yourself
00:59:21.780is going to achieve that like I think that you should be trying to like get to know people
00:59:27.620obviously there's attraction too like I am not so wholesome like but like you know obviously
00:59:34.440you're like attracted to people and you want to have sex with them and sometimes those are people
00:59:38.060who like you maybe you don't like their personalities that much and like that's fine too
00:59:42.300but like we're not really girls aren't being honest about what they want and they're doing
00:59:47.260the thing that the boy wants them to do and that's an exploitative thing like I don't I think that
00:59:52.180there's a problem with like boys and men pushing for nudes of course also but um the fact that
00:59:58.560women are just like volunteering this stuff like it's a normal thing um and sort of that they feel
01:00:05.140like they have to like sex up the photos that they're putting on on instagram so that you know
01:00:11.220they'll feel validated and liked and loved I mean that's not that's not a good way to build confidence
01:00:16.300or to feel validated I mean so like so a bunch of like random dudes who know nothing about you
01:00:23.280who don't care about you who don't know anything about your personality who don't like you for
01:00:28.080who you are so on and so forth are like clicking like on your photo and like wanting to fuck you
01:00:33.880I mean is that I don't think that's a way to build confidence in the long term building confidence
01:00:39.300is about like achievement and skills and getting to know yourself and like feeling good about your
01:00:45.380abilities and liking yourself and you know i i just don't think it's i i certainly don't think
01:00:53.220that it's helpful for for girls and women but i mean i don't i don't know that it's it sounds to
01:00:59.280me almost uh like the modern feminism that you're talking about has actually undermined the
01:01:06.700achievements of previous waves of feminism and we're now going to end up circling back to
01:01:11.420kind of traditional gender roles eventually when we've realized we've gone too far in
01:01:16.540either direction. Do you see that happening? Are people kind of almost a clamor for women
01:01:23.660to be women and for men to be men? Do you see that happening?
01:01:29.640Not necessarily with people that I know. I mean, that may be happening in other circles.
01:01:35.400I mean, it's not, I'm not necessarily calling for a return to traditional gender roles. I just, but I do think that modern feminism took things too far, you could say, to the point where I see it as a backlash.
01:01:51.360I see it as a backlash against second wave feminism, you know, to what like the suffragettes fought for, what the women in the 60s and 70s fought for. And it's a real, I mean, I see it as sort of more male centered than anything else, to be honest.
01:02:11.800Like, I don't see this, this modern version of feminism as really being very helpful to, to women. And, you know, we can see this in all sorts of ways, but particularly through this idea that, you know, pornography and prostitution can be empowering for women, that objectification is empowering for women.
01:02:30.460And again, that women should be able to like have sex like men,
01:02:34.180but, and then also through this like trans ideology,
01:02:37.140which also came from third wave feminism
01:02:41.520or has been pushed by third wave feminism in any case,
01:02:44.560that a man can be a woman and there's no such thing as a woman.
01:02:48.560And it's offensive to say that a woman is female and so on and so forth.
01:02:53.620So I don't know if, yeah, I think that there's a lot of,
01:03:00.460lying to one another that's based on ideological preferences over the truth. And we've sort of
01:03:07.880been prevented from having truthful, honest conversations, because actually, sometimes the
01:03:12.500truth, you know, the truth has been defined as offensive in so many ways. And so, you know,
01:03:17.500when I try to have these conversations, sometimes with other feminists, you know, I think I'm
01:03:22.200positioned as being kind of sexist or regressive. And it's like, I'm just trying to be real and get
01:03:28.840to the truth here and have honest conversations and you know I'm not I I don't know why we can't
01:03:35.800just talk about this stuff I mean it doesn't even mean that one of us is is right or wrong
01:03:41.400necessarily but I would like to have a conversation and I to me it's just really important to be
01:03:46.140authentic and to be myself and if that means that like I'm a bad feminist then I guess so be it
01:03:52.660because I don't I don't want to lie I don't want to be somebody that I'm not no absolutely
01:03:58.500it just seems to me like looking at this sort of third and fourth wave feminism that the mental
01:04:04.340gymnastics sometimes that they perform in order to justify their arguments you know like you know
01:04:09.820like saying things like you know if you're a sex worker it's somehow empowering when the reality
01:04:15.780is if any of us had daughters male or female and you asked them would you like them to be a sex
01:04:21.280worker invariably they would go hell no why have we again why have we got to this point where
01:04:27.920someone can propose this argument and we will go this is clearly nonsense but somehow it's seen as
01:04:33.580valid it's true i mean it's we're all just kind of lying to each other and and like nodding along
01:04:40.920um we all know that you know no woman wants to be in prostitution for the most part i mean it's not
01:04:48.260an ideal for any girl or woman to be having sex with random strangers who don't respect them day
01:04:55.220in and day out. No one wants to do that. Most women in prostitution are doing it because they
01:04:59.780have no other choice. And sure, there are some women who choose it. Maybe there are even some
01:05:04.020women who like it, but that's a minority. And again, there is a reality that if you listen
01:05:11.660to what women in prostitution say, if you listen to their stories, there is often a long history
01:05:17.820of sexual abuse and grooming towards that role and coercion, manipulation. Sometimes it's more
01:05:26.940overt, sometimes more subtle. But either way, we know that this industry is not an industry that
01:05:32.820respects women and girls. We know that it's like a pretty violent, dangerous, exploitative industry.
01:05:38.620And like you say, we know that if it was our daughter, we wouldn't want her to be doing that.
01:05:43.200and we have to ask ourselves why that is.